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Genre Deconstruction: Difference between revisions
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* [[Brandon Sanderson]] has said that he intended the background of the ''[[Mistborn]]'' trilogy as a deconstruction of [[High Fantasy]], in which [[The Hero]] fails his quest, and a thousand years later, the immortal [[Dark Lord]] rules the crumbling, devastated world as a god. After the first book, it also becomes a deconstruction of {{spoiler|what happens after the unlikely heroes defeat the [[Dark Lord]], and the difficulty of introducing freedom and establishing peace}}.
** As part of that, Sanderson also has a disturbing deconstruction of the use of prophecy in fantasy, which is almost always represented as being either good, or at least neutral. One of the characters fulfills an ancient prophecy, {{spoiler|only to find out that the prophecy was a lie propagated by a nihilistic god of destruction to enable its release. }}
* ''[[The Acts of Caine]]'' books deconstruct [[Role Playing Games]] featuring [[Player Characters]] in a larger world (including [[Tabletop Games]] and [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s). Pays particular attention to the relentlessly influential (and often devastating) effects such characters tend to have on the world they're visiting. The trappings of a [[High Fantasy]] are there, but it's one hell of a [[Crapsack World]].
* Sleeping Helena is a deconstruction of Sleeping Beauty. She is granted the gifts of music and dance and grace and beauty and so on and so forth, but these instead turn into obligations rather than gifts, each gift requiring her attention a bit each day. She also becomes a monster, torturing animals and willing to hurt and manipulate other people. "Why did no one think to grant her kindness?"
** {{spoiler|In addition, the curse of death was deconstructed as well, since the gift was not actually intended to kill her.}}
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* ''[[Haunting Ground]]'' could be considered as a deconstruction of the more typical [[Survival Horror]] games where the main character is given all sorts of weapons and ammunition to cut down a near endless stream of monsters. The most Fiona can do herself is kick the enemy, and she relies on her pet dog to keep the enemy at bay as long as she can. The game also has a feature where the main character panics and gets harder to control the more she's hurt, like most real people would do if they were being chased around by psychopaths.
** ''[[Haunting Ground]]'' uses very similar gameplay—and was originally intended as a sequel—to the ''[[Clock Tower (series)|Clock Tower]]'' series, the first part of which was [[Older Than They Think|published for SNES in 1995]], before survival horror had [[Unbuilt Trope|established itself as the genre it is today]]. Perhaps a better example of a survival horror deconstruction would be the original ''[[Siren (video game)|Siren]]'', which takes what at first glance seems to be a fairly typical zombie scenario, but instead of handing you lots and lots of guns and a character with a visible health bar, you get a cast of very average people who are clumsy in combat, have a very limited access to weapons (and no access to healing items whatsoever), and die very easily. Instead of fighting everything with wild abandon, you need to be stealthy and avoid close encounters, much like the average joe would have to do in such a situation. The sequels have been gradually slipping into a more conventional, combat-oriented style of gameplay.
* The [[Expanded Universe]] of ''[[EVE Online]]'' tends to do this to [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s. It thoroughly explores the consequences of [[A God Am I|law-unto-themselves immortal demigods]] waging perpetual war both between themselves and with the [[NPC|other, less gifted denizens of the universe]]. The mere existence of the player capsuleers ups the average daily death rate in New Eden by many thousands, and contributes in large part to the [[Crapsack World]] New Eden now is.
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' is a deconstruction of literally the whole [[Mystery Fiction|Murder Mystery]] genre. {{spoiler|Despite that, it's supposed to be [[Fair Play Whodunnit]], though one could argue about the amount of fair.}}
** {{spoiler|The OPENING SEQUENCE of the second game states quite clearly "No Dine, no Knox, [[Clueless Mystery|no Fair]]. In other words it is not mystery. But it happens, all it happens, let it happens." The author actually goes out of the way to inform us that he's not following Van Dine or Knox's rules of "fair" detective fiction and that... well, it's not a mystery that can be solved by us.}}
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