Inverted Trope: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"To say, for instance, that education is beneficial, it's a commonplace; but to say that education is harmful, it's a contrary commonplace. It's ostensibly more foppish, but [[Not So Different|in essence it's one and the same]]."''|'''Bazarov''', ''Fathers and Children'' (a.k.a. ''Fathers and Sons'')}}
 
A particular form of creatively reusing an existing trope: The [[Trope]] is turned exactly on its head. For example, a trope that typically applies to heroes is applied to a villain, or a trope that typically applies to males is applied to a female character ([[Gender -Inverted Trope]]). Some good examples are also in [[Genre Blindness]], where rather than being blind to the conventions of the story-type they are in, the characters are presented as [[Genre Savvy|being hyper-aware of the conventions]]. A trope can often be inverted in more than one way. Indicative of [[Post Modernism]].
 
See [[Playing with a Trope]] for a comparison with many other ways that a trope can be used.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
 
== Anime ==
* The animated ''[[Hellsing]]'' reverses the "male predator = vampire" expectation in an early episode when a fat, lecherous man hires a prostitute and feels her up in while leering at her. The viewer is cringing for the inevitable [[Disposable Sex Worker]] scene when Alucard reveals himself and calls out the vampire... who is the prostitute. (Though [[The Vamp|dangerously sexy women]] are also a trope, so make of that what you will.)
* The [[Alternate Continuity|2009 TV Special]] of ''[[Kimba the White Lion]]'' inverts the [[Adaptational Badass]] trope; the title character went from being the poster-cub of [[Killer Rabbit]]s to a wimpy coward.
 
== Comics[[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[Birds of Prey]]'', [[Black Canary]] [[Invoked Trope|deliberately tries to reform]] [[Dark Action Girl|Lady Shiva]] [[Morality Pet|by giving her honest friendship and human contact]]. Shiva, however, is perfectly aware of Dinah's intentions, and lets Dinah get a good look at her real personality and history for one reason: she wants to make her ''stop''.
* ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' used to feature a recurring 'scenes we'd like to see', which often featured subverted or inverted tropes (for example, the (in)famous 'car races train' film ends up with train hitting car, car survives, train gets smashed to smithereens).
 
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* ''[[Hunting the Unicorn]]'' plays a lot with its [[Troperiffic|many, many tropes.]] But as a [[Deconstruction Fic]] of [[Glee|Blaine and Kurt's]] canonical [[But Not Too Gay]] status, it turns out that Blaine {{spoiler|lost his virginity at sixteen because he wanted to invoke [[Sex Equals Love]]}}. Being [[Reality Ensues|real life]] as opposed to a fairy tale, [[Break the Cutie|it didn't work at all]]—leading to a very painful inversion of ''[[You Need to Get Laid]].''
 
== [[Film]] ==
* In the beginning of ''[[Star Wars|The Phantom Menace]]'', the Jedi are trying to get into the control room where the Neimodians are. Lucas explained that this is an inversion of typical scene where a monster tries to get into the room where the protagonists are. And just like the monster may be scared away at the beginning of the film, so are the Jedi.
* ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]'' inverts the [[Artificial Limbs]] trope with the [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20160308012045/http://filmjunk.com/images/weblog/treknobabble12_firstcontact.jpg android Data] by {{spoiler|having living flesh grafted onto his body by the Borg queen.}} It doesn't last.
* ''[[A Kid Inin King Arthur's Court]]'' while having a lot of Chickification manages to invert a lot of tropes surrounding the two Princesses. Princess Katie is established as a capable swordswoman and horse rider - the tomboy of the pair. [[Faux Action Girl|She is then abruptly kidnapped and must be saved by the heroes]]. We are led to believe that Katie was the toughest of the two sisters while her older sister Princess Sarah was a typical medieval lady. {{spoiler|The end reveals that Sarah was the one who had been dressing as The Black Knight and stealing from the rich to give to the poor. That's right: the ladylike princess turned out to be the badass one afterall}}.
* Sweet Pea in [[Sucker Punch]] goes through most of the story being the stereotypical [[Sour Supporter]], reluctantly joining the team, reminding everyone of how dangerous and stupid the plan is, and eventually calling it quits when things get too dangerous. When it is revealed that the Sour Supporter - which is usually a left of center character at most - is actually the [[Decoy Protagonist|plot central character]] and the [[Heroic Sacrifice]] is made ''for'' her instead of ''by'' her, the trope inverts.
* ''The Caveman's Valentine'' inverts the generally parent-to-child [[So Proud of You]] by having Lulu say this to her [[Samuel L. Jackson|crazy father]].
 
== [[Literature]] ==
* [[Terry Jones]]'s ''[[Starship Titanic]]'' inverts the [[Aliens Speaking English]] trope. When one of the protagonists, aboard a Blerontinian spaceship, asks how can aliens speak English, he's told that actually, thanks to [[Applied Phlebotinum]], he's currently speaking and understanding Blerontinian.
* Marc in [[Chronicles of the Kencyrath]] is a classic [[Big Guy]], but he fakes [[The Berserker|berserker rages]] so he doesn't have to fight.
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* In the pilot of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', an apparently high-school-age couple is in the school at night; the girl is nervous about being out at night while the boy reassures her. Since it's clear from the title that this is a vampire show, the expectation is the boy will suddenly reveal himself as a vampire and bite the girl; instead the opposite happens, and the girl is the vampire.
** Buffy herself is an inverted trope. Blonde teen girl who hunts down monsters, when normally they would hunt her. [[Word of God]] states that this was the entire point of the story.
* Invoked by Gregorythe title character of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'': "[[Not What It Looks Like|It's not what you think!]] I know it looks like we're cleaning dishes, but actually we're having sex."
* In the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' episode "There all the honor lies," a gift shop opens in the space station that sells [[Rubber Forehead Aliens|human masks for space aliens to wear]].
** Similarly, Londo takes issue with the state of the genitalia present on the dolls made in his likeness; when it's assumed he's upset about a breach of decency, he clarifies that he's upset ''because'' there are none shown. It turns out that ALL''all'' Centauri depictions of a nude form are anatomically correct, and he feels he's being literally portrayed as dickless.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'' inverts [[Hopeless Boss Fight]]: {{spoiler|Galuf's [[Heroic Sacrifice]] against Exdeath is an automatic success, since Galuf [[Determinator|won't die at zero hit points]].}}
** Likewise, ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'' has {{spoiler|a [[Final Boss]] battle where your entire party automatically has auto-life cast on them, meaning you can't lose.}} <ref>Unless you're all petrified. In which case you probably did it on purpose.</ref>
* [[Easy Mode Mockery]] is inverted in ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]] 9'' and ''10''. You cannot earn Achievements in the harder difficulty modes, or when playing as Proto Man in ''9''.
* ''[[Baten Kaitos|Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean]]'' inverts the [[Vendor Trash]] trope. A certain item from a random drawer in [[Kleptomaniac Hero|someone's house]] (called the Small Debt) actually ''removes'' money from your wallet if you sell it. Holding on to it will cause it to evolve into [[It Got Worse|Large Debt]], which removes more money from your inventory if sold, and finally into the [[Oh Crap|Snowballing Debt]], which removes a tremendous amount of money. Fortunately, you don't have to sell it, and the game shows the price of selling it clearly.
* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] 2'' your morally ambiguous mentor Kreia routinely gives you ANTI-friendship speeches, and your relationship values go down for answering like a [[Love Freak]].
** Kreia is just as disdainful of [[Complete Monster]] actions, very unusually so as she is a {{spoiler|[[Poisonous Friend]], [[Big Bad]], [[Magnificent Bastard]], and [[Complete Monster]]}} herself.
* In ''[[Daikatana]]'', those who played this game consider Superfly's and Mikiko's deaths to be the best part of the game, inverting the [[Alas, Poor Scrappy]] trope. Mind you, this isn't ''really'' an example, since this was unintentional; players just hate the game so much they take cynical glee in the suffering of its characters.
* [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|Gameplaywise]] [[Redemption Demotion]] appears in ''[[Warcraft III]]'' in the Scourge campaign. [[Fallen Hero|Arthas]], the main character in the human campaign, by the end will have likely maxed out, acquired a number of really strong items, and as part of his [[Start of Darkness]], [[Sword of Plot Advancement|Frostmourn]], giving him a massive boost to melee damage Chaos-type damage for his attacks that allows him to deal full damage to all armor types. By the start of the Scourge campaign, he's just an ordinary Death Knight, and will never be as strong as he was before.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Cyanide and& Happiness]]'' shows [https://web.archive.org/web/20131023142241/http://www.explosm.net/comics/1850/ A cake bursting out of a stripper.]
* It's one thing to wake up in a tub of ice missing a kidney. It's another to... well, I'll let ''[[Xkcdxkcd]]'' [http://xkcd.com/914/ take it from here.]
* ''[[Grey Is...|Grey Is]]'' inverts the [[Hair Contrast Duo]] trope. While Black and White do have contrasting hair colors, it is short tempered Black who has the white hair and introspective White that has black hair
* ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' misadventures [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0328.html sometimes end up like this]:
{{quote|'''Elan''': So we thought our way past the test of the body--and fought our way past the test of the mind.}}
* ''[[Questionable Content]]'' has Pintsize's [[doujinshi]]. [//www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1524 With] [[Naughty Tentacles|tentacle monsters]] and schoolgirls, except in the roles opposite to the traditional ones.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Superman: The Animated Series]]'' played straight the [[Hide Your Lesbians]] trope throughout the series, giving only the tiniest of hints that Maggie Sawyer was gay, despite her status as an out-lesbian in the comics since 1988. However, the series not only subverted, but ''inverted'' the [[Bury Your Gays]] trope when it came to Maggie. The opening scene of ''Apokolips...Now!'' contained a perfect set up for [[Bury Your Gays|her death]], she is blown out of her car during an attack by Intergang and the next shot has her badly burned and motionless beneath a crushing pile of rubble, ''without'' [[Eye Awaken|moving her eyes]] or [[Finger-Twitching Revival|her fingers]], but she ultimately survives the encounter. That is a straight subversion of the [[Bury Your Gays]] trope. However, the show then went on to invert the trope as well, as the same scene that revealed that Maggie had survived (Subverting the trope) was also the first scene to hint at her sexuality, when she was visited in the hospital by a woman the DVD commentary and credits reveal to be Toby Raines, her partner from the comics. [[Bury Your Gays]] is often used as a way of getting rid of homosexual characters, of obscuring their nature before it could be brought into the story, but here it is used as a way to ''reveal'' a homosexual character. Also Inverted when {{spoiler|her straight beat partner Dan Terpin is [[Killed Off for Real]].}}
 
== Real[[Other LifeMedia]] ==
* The real-life phenomenon of [[wikipedia:Streaking|streaking]] was beautifully inverted in June 2009 when a [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jun/14/naked-rugby-new-zealand fully-clothed person] ran across the field at an annual naked rugby game in New Zealand.
* [[James Buchanan]] knew upon leaving office that he was unpopular, and that he was blamed by many for the [[American Civil War|national crisis]] that was starting. Buchanan said at the time [[Vindicated by History|"history will vindicate me"]]. No such luck, as he's still considered one of the worst American Presidents, 150 years after leaving office.
 
== Other ==
* Pictures by Gleb Androsov about [http://www.androsov.com/cartoons/vampires/vampire01.jpg vampire surgery], [http://www.androsov.com/cartoons/buratines/buratino01.JPG pinocchio pirate], [http://www.androsov.com/cartoons/dragons/dragon02.JPG a dragon] and [http://www.androsov.com/cartoons/ratcatchers/ratcatcher03.JPG Hameln chapel-master].
* ''[http://leelaforge.deviantart.com/art/Reversal-186587606 Reversal]'' by LeeLaForge on [[Deviant ART]] - the picture of nudes painting an artist (obviously, [[NSFW]])
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120516133547/http://concepts.glennz.com/concepts/abductee/ Abductee]'' by GlennZ - a classical [[Alien Abduction]] story, except about LEM purportedly abducting [[The Greys|an alien]]. With a [[Tractor Beam]].
 
== On this very WikiTroping ==
* [[Dude in Distress]] inverts [[Damsel in Distress]], especially in cases where the man in distress is otherwise shown to be able to defend himself.
* [[Xenafication]] and [[Chickification]].
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* [[Coming Out Story]] and [[Coming Straight Story]]
* [[No Guy Wants an Amazon]] and [[Hot Amazon]]
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
* The real-life phenomenon of [[wikipedia:Streaking|streaking]] was beautifully inverted in June 2009 when a [http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2009/jun/14/naked-rugby-new-zealand fully-clothed person] ran across the field at an annual naked rugby game in New Zealand.
* [[James Buchanan]] knew upon leaving office that he was unpopular, and that he was blamed by many for the [[American Civil War|national crisis]] that was starting. Buchanan said at the time [[Vindicated by History|"history will vindicate me"]]. No such luck, as he's still considered one of the worst American Presidents, 150more yearsthan a century and a half after leaving office.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Trope Tropes]]
[[Category:InvertedPlaying with a Trope]]