Mind Screw/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A work makes no sense.

  • Straight: Bob and Alice makes no rational sense.
  • Exaggerated: Bob and Alice is two hours of unconnected symbolism and random imagery. No one in the movie is named Bob or Alice.
  • Downplayed: Bob and Alice mostly makes sense, except for that one scene two-thirds of the way in.
    • Alice and Bob is somewhat confusing, but mostly makes sense.
  • Justified: Bob and Alice is told from the perspective of an unmedicated schizophrenic with positive symptoms.
  • Inverted': Bob and Alices plot is as explained as clearly as possible. All plot threads are tied up and all phenomena are explained.
    • Bob and Alice cannot make heads or tails of the reader.
  • Subverted: Bob and Alice is a story within a story, and the "outside" story does make sense.
    • Mind Screwdriver
    • The story looks like it makes no sense whatsoever, but near the ending someone explains it and it suddenly makes sense.
    • The story makes sense but you need to see the end first
  • Double Subverted: Then the outside story breaks down.
  • Parodied: Bob, Alice, and their friend Henry Spencer move into a house.
  • Deconstructed: Bob and Alice begin the story sane and fall into insanity as reality breaks down and nothing they do can stop it.
  • Reconstructed: Bob and Alice, now insane, go on to narrate Bob and Alice II, a story about them trying to get Bob and Alice II published.
  • Zig Zagged: Bob and Alice makes no sense up until The Reveal. It makes complete sense then. Until the ending when the crazy train comes into the station.
  • Averted: The story makes sense.
  • Enforced: "I'm the goddamn David Lynch".
  • Lampshaded: "Don't bother with that. It's probably just symbolic of your feelings towards your father."
  • Invoked: The Walrus Was Paul, in which confusing the audience is the only goal.
  • Defied: Alice takes it upon herself to explain every plot development clearly.
  • Discussed: "A giant phallic monster is going to burst out of the wall now, isn't it?"
    • "Considering what just happened, I don't think that any of this is going to start making any more sense any time soon."
  • Conversed: "I didn't mind the characters or the acting, just the bucket of acid the screenwriter took before writing the third act."
  • Played For Laughs: Surreal Humor
  • Played For Drama: Bob's life make no sense and he kills himself, being unable to tolerate it anymore.

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