Reverse Polarity: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|'''Harley Quinn:''' ''holding a raygun'' Don't come any closer, or I'll... (''reads label on her raygun'') reverse polarity!

'''Harley Quinn:''' I don't know... [[Take That|but it always works on]] ''[[Star Trek|Star Quest]]''.|''[[Gotham Girls]]'', "Cold Hands, Cold Heart"}}

 

* Subverted in one of the fiction-chapters of ''[[Discworld/The Science of Discworld|The Science of Discworld]]''. After the Roundworld is transformed into a snowball (Ice Age), the Dean proposes (after four glasses of sherry) to "get [[Magitek|Hex]] to reverse the [[Magi Babble|thaumic flow]] in the cthonic matrix of the optimized bi-direction [[Arc Number|octagonate]]" to fix it. The Archchancellor replies that he would prefer a non-gibberish opinion.

** Also in ''Discworld'', there's a spell called the "Rite of Ashk Ente" which summons Death to you, in order to partake in his wisdom. Alberto Malich thought that if the spell makes Death go to you, then performing it ''backwards'' would make Death go ''away''. However, he soon finds out that there is another way to consider the spell backwards: sending you directly to Death (which, oddly enough, worked out pretty well for him).

** Considering the amount of tropes invoked and subverted in the book and the fact that the above-mentioned machine simply ''didn't work'' due to the tampering, this can probably be considered deliberate.

* Kemren the "Purple Mage" in ''[[Thieves' World]]'' generated [[Mana]] by means of [[Magic From Technology|waterwheels]]. It gave him a lot of extra power, but running those waterwheels backwards was enough to beat him.

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[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]