Rear Window Investigation/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Basic Trope: A character erroneously believes another has committed a crime, and goes on a reconnaissance mission to gather evidence before calling the police or confronting the other character.
  • Played Straight: Alice sees Bob and Christine having an argument next door through the window, and evidence suggests that Christine really did kill Bob.
  • Exaggerated: Alice finds human blood in the house, and a distinct smell of bleach.
  • Downplayed: Alice saw a stain of blood, took a photo of it and called the police to investigate on it further.
  • Justified: Alice needs evidence before she goes off and accuses people of serious crimes like murder.
  • Subverted: Alice quickly realizes the neighbors were just watching TV, rehearsing a play, etc.
  • Double Subverted: But later, she sees Christine dragging a large garbage bag outside.
  • Deconstructed: Alice could get into trouble for breaking and entering during her investigation. Furthermore, these are usually cases where Alice has let her imagination get the best of her; it's really Not What It Looks Like.
  • Reconstructed: Alice lets the police deal with it. If it turns out she was mistaken, they are (hopefully) understanding about the mistake.
    • But had Alice not do so, Christine would have easily get away with killing Bob. Or we will get to see what really happened and what make Chritine hide facts from the police in the first place, which is then important in the investigation.
  • Parodied: The sleuthing is over something small and silly, like who drank the last grape soda.
  • Lampshaded:
  • Averted: Alice doesn't go check things out next door.
  • Enforced: Idiot Plot or Rule of Drama, depending on the storyline.
  • Invoked: Alice sees and hears the neighbors arguing and gets really worried.
  • Defied: Alice calls the police instead to report suspicious activity, a domestic disturbance, etc. and lets them deal with it.
  • Played For Laughs: Alice left her panties over at Bob's house when they hooked up and must retrieve them before Christine gets back home.
  • Played For Drama: Something really did go down at Bob and Christine's house.
  • Discussed:
  • Conversed: Haven't these people heard of calling the police?
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