Flashback Twist: Difference between revisions

 

May include an [[Unreliable Voiceover]]. Related to [[Self-Serving Memory]].

 

* In [[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'s Atonement Chapter, Tsumihoroboshi-hen, this happens {{spoiler|to Keiichi. It is revealed that in the Abducted by Demons Arc (Onikakushi-hen) that Rena was just trying to help Keiichi, and that Mion was just playing with him the whole time (the needle in the ohagi was ''Tabasco sauce''). The syringe is also revealed to be a '''marker'''; They were going to marker his shirt like they did to Tomitake before he left, due to fact he was going to Irie for treatment for his level of Hinamizawa Syndrome. However, this ended in a [[Batter Up|tragic end]] for all three teenagers}}. [[Tear Jerker|Not played for laughs]].

** Higurashi is full of this, another example is the Eye opening Arc (Meakashi-hen) that in the Cotton Drifting arc (Watanagashi-hen) {{spoiler|the culprit wasn't Mion who had gone insane. Instead it was Shion, her twin sister. The cause of the madness was the same (Keiichi giving the doll to Rena) but the reason was totally different. The end is also one of these as Keiichi, as sees one of them suddenly going up at his bed even if both of the twins are supposed to be dead. It is later revealed that he hallucinated all of this and died by a heart attack.}}

* In episode 9 of ''[[Baccano!]]'', a flashback to the [[Sacrificial Lamb]]'s murder reveals that {{spoiler|he wasn't killed at all. Instead, he kicked the gun out of his assailant's hand and shot him. The corpse left behind was actually that of another [[The Mole|mole]] that the [[Sacrificial Lamb]] tortured and killed shortly afterwards. Also, said not-so-[[Sacrificial Lamb]] is actually an assassin -- the same one [[Chekhov's Gunman|Luck called for in the first episode]] -- ''and'' the [[Urban Legend|Rail Tracer]] that's been picking off various mooks since episode 3}}.

 

* Tucker (''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]],'' "The Prom") claiming he has a good reason to want to ruin the prom, which the flashback reveals to be the most innocuous rejection ever.

** Also in the episode "Fool for Love", when Spike says that he's always been "bad"... and then immediately flashes back to showing him {{spoiler|as a prissy Victorian-era wannabie poet.}}

* The Grenada ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' series pulled this off between ''The Final Problem'' and ''The Empty House''. In the former, Watson reads Holmes' note, and on screen we see Holmes and Moriarty battle, and then ''both'' fall off Reichenbach Falls to their deaths. Naturally, it's all in Watson's imagination, and when Holmes recaps the fight in the latter episode we see that Holmes baristu'd Moriarty off the cliff. Of course, this isn't a surprise of any sort to those who have read the original stories.

 

* In Amy Kim Ganter's short comic ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120101071619/http://www.felaxx.com/watching1.htm I'm Watching You],'' the story begins with the protagonist burying two bodies. [[How We Got Here|She then flashes back to the weeks before]], while she was in school and she realized that one of her classmates was stalking her. Terrified and wanting him to leave her alone, she confronts him one day... {{spoiler|and the twist is that he was ''never'' stalking her. Our protagonist herself is the stalker, obsessed with a random classmate and has deluded herself into thinking he's stalking her back. She kills him and his girlfriend, burying the bodies in the woods and later [[Nightmare Fuel|seeing them staring at her through her window at night.]]}} Needless to say, not played for laughs.

 

== Western Animation ==

'''Carl:''' No, I... You know, I remember eatin' carpet. Not so much the lasers and the robots, though. }}

* In an episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Lucky tells the story of how his grandfather found a walnut tree stump in the 1920s. While he says about the grandfather was on a church picnic, the [[Flashback Cut]] shows that he was actually trying to escape from prison (what Lucky calls "going to meet his maker" is also shown to be his execution by electric chair). Unlike most instances of this trope, however, it's implied that Lucky isn't deliberately lying but rather telling the story as he heard it.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Flashbacks and Chronology]]