39,327
edits
Schrödinger's Butterfly: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (update links) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 11:
Much like the [[Schrodinger's Cast|other]] [[Schrodinger's Gun|Schrodinger]] [[Schrodinger's Suggestion Box|tropes]], this plot point can also serve as an [[Author's Saving Throw]] by retroactively making it [[All Just a Dream]]. Or if the author ''really'' wants to mess with us, end the movie or film on a [[Downer Ending]], with a fading shot of the character's [[Dying Dream|dying]] or still comatose body trapped in the illusion.
The trope name is a reference to a poem by the 4th century BC Chinese philosopher [[Zhuangzi]], a Taoist philosopher who influenced Chinese Buddhism. It refers also to [[
Compare: [[Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory]] and [[Dream Apocalypse]]. Compare also [[Opening a Can of Clones]], which has this effect regarding a character's 'originality'. Contrast [[Or Was It a Dream?]]. See also: [[Cuckoo Nest]], [[Dying Dream]], [[Through the Eyes of Madness]], [[Masquerade]], and [[Brainwashed]].
Line 17:
== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Paprika]]''. Where to begin?
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', brothers Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha practice ''genjutsu,'' techniques centering around illusions. Thus, during the Sasuke vs Itachi fight, the first major stage of the battle consists of Sasuke and Itachi standing perfectly still while both add layer upon layer of illusions. The readers, of course, are ignorant of what is an illusion and what isn't until after the illusion breaks. As a result, there are several points in which the fight seems over, only for the illusion to break and reveal that the brothers ''hadn't actually started fighting yet.''
** Practically lampshaded when Sasuke breaks Tsukuyomi (Itachi's strongest genjutsu), and [[Combat Commentator|Zetsu]] pretty much lets the reader know the rest of this ''isn't'' genjutsu.
Line 50:
* The Nexus from ''[[Star Trek]]: Generations''. In fact, see the [[Star Trek/WMG|Trek]] [[Wild Mass Guessing]] page for one interpretation of this.
* ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' shows our sociopathic "hero" getting great praise for his shoot out, right after being probably gunned down. Even if he really did live, you can bet he's still crazy.
** A large chunk of another [[Martin Scorsese|Scorsese]]-[[Robert De Niro|De Niro]] film, ''[[The King Of Comedy]]'', can be interpreted as a product of its protagonist's imagination.
* ''[[Total Recall]]'': Is it a memory implant gone awry, or all real?
** In the short story ''We Can Remember It for You Wholesale'' that inspired this (can't say based on, can't even say very, very loosely based on), it ''did'' really happen. As for the movie, [[Word of God]] and a pivotal, though seemingly throwaway, line from a Rekall technician early in the film suggest that it was indeed [[All Just a Dream]].
Line 56:
* ''The Thirteenth Floor'' has someone invent an artificial virtual reality world at the beginning, then {{spoiler|reveal that their world is also a virtual reality world.}}
* ''[[The Matrix]]''.
** Particularly at the end of the second movie when Neo was able to stop a machine with his mind in what was supposed to be the real world when nobody had shown powers in the real world before, fans speculated that the "real world" might just have been another layer of the matrix used to control rebellious minds.
** One of the comics also references the [[Trope Namer]] in a short comic where a monk or something beats up some agents.
* The deleted scenes of ''[[X-Men]] 2'' show that Jason didn't just make Xavier think he was back at the institute, he made him think that he succeeded in convincing Jason to let him escape from the [[Lotus Eater Machine]].
Line 72:
* This is a concern in ''[[Inception]]'', so those involved take precautions.
** {{spoiler|it's also the cliffhanger ending}}
* In ''[[Repo Men]]'', we are told throughout the Company has produced a device that can create a idyllic fantasy dream for someone on a life support machine. When the palm tree that is featured in its advert {{spoiler|appears for 'real'}}, we discover {{spoiler|the entire second half of the film had been a fabrication to placate the conscience of the lead's best friend}}.
* ''[[Waking Life]]'' is a series of psychedelic sequences which mostly feature the main character as an observer, and many of them segue with him waking up yet again.
* ''[[The Lovely Bones]]'', to a very small and brief degree, when Susie Salmon {{spoiler|Is attacked by George Harvey in the underground trap, she is seen running from the scene as though she has escaped and is running for her life.}} it is not until a little later we realise {{spoiler|that she is actually dead and this is her ghost's immediate projection of what she wanted to happen. She had actually been killed in the underground lair, but she has no recollection of the event happening.}}
** This is absent in the original book version, where Susie remembers everything exactly how it happened, and describes it in painful detail.
Line 90:
** In ''[[Sylvie and Bruno]]'', the narrator explicitly thinks it:
{{quote|''"So, either I've been dreaming about Sylvie," I said to myself, "and this is the reality. Or else I've really been with Sylvie, and this is a dream! Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?"''}}
* This is basically the plot of ''The Red King'', the second novel in the ''[[Star Trek: Titan]]'' series. The novel features an eponymous intelligence, which resides within a protouniverse overlapping with our own. As a result of this overlap, its expansion threatens several worlds with destruction. The legends of many local races' speak of the protouniverse, or at least the associated intelligence. They describe it as a sleeping dreamer, the surrounding region of space being the content of the dream. The expansion and its resultant destruction is therefore supposedly the [[Dream Apocalypse|dream coming to an end as the being begins to wake]]. Frane, a native of the Neyel (whose world is part of the threatened region), describes the myth to Titan's crew:
{{quote|"And when it wakes, it ceases to dream. But all the worlds that surround it are part of that dream. Like Newaerth, the first world to vanish as the Sleeper begins stirring from its long ages of slumber". }}
* ''[[Godel Escher Bach]]'' uses several of these, nesting several layers of drama. In one story, Achilles and the Tortoise are on an airship and start reading a book about themselves, and inside the book. The bad news is that the story doesn't "pop back" all the way to the last level, and the initial story is still left hanging. The good news is that the Tortoise and Achilles can move up to a previous level using popcorn.
Line 104:
* Several times during the course of ''[[The Circle Series]]'', Thomas Hunter actually asks himself whether he's dreaming or not. {{spoiler|He never does figure out which he's actually living in.}}
* [[Stephen King|Stephen King's]] ''[[Pet Sematary]]'' includes a heart-wrenching scene in which the protagonist has exactly this kind of dream.
* The second series of Hawkmoon novels by Michael Moorcock start with the hero trying to be happy with his wife and young family but being haunted by the ghosts of his friends who died at the climax of the first series. It then switches around to him being comforted by those friends having recovered from a delusion caused by the death of his new wife instead.
* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|The January Dancer]]'', the [[Compelling Voice]] can make you forgot things. As a consequence, you can't be sure that anything you know really is true. Perhaps the person with the Dancer has taken over the galazy and you just don't realize because you've been ordered not to.
Line 116:
*** The season 7 episode "Extreme Measures" does this exact thing with O'Brien and Bashir, when Sloan's mind tricks them into believing they've returned to reality (when in actuality they are still inside his mind, slowly dying with him).
** A similar concept would also be used in the 6th season episode "Far Beyond the Stars" in which Sisko hallucinates that he is Benny Russell, a pulp fiction writer, whose latest story stars none other than Sisko. It gets even more extreme in that Benny Russell has hallucinations about being Sisko. At the end of the episode Sisko is telling his father that for all he knows he is a figment of his own (alter-ego Benny Russell's) imagination.
** [[The Powers That Be]] apparently toyed with the idea of having the entire series (and therefore the entire [[Trek Verse]]?) being ''all'' Benny Russell's book.
*** This appears to describe an episode of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'' involving a species which spend their entire life dreaming. Only [[Magical Native American|Native American spirit magic]] can free the crew... or something.
** In another episode of Voyager, the crew falls prey to a gigantic space pitcher plant. It makes the crew see what they want to see (a worm hole to Earth) but they would actually be flying into it's stomach. Seven of Nine and Naomi Wildman are the only ones immune because Seven was a Borg since childhood and Naomi was born on the ship; [[You Can't Go Home Again|the whole "getting home" thing]] is not either's ultimate ambition. However, at one point Seven believes the ship has escaped. It turns out that it is just the creature showing her what she wants to see (that is Voyager outside the creature, because not getting eaten is ''very much'' something Seven and Naomi both desire.
Line 129:
*** It should be noticed that the book version was much darker. The show version was basically the Holodeck driven by whatever your surface wish was; no mistaking it for reality. The book lets us go a good while thinking the cast has fully made it home. Over much of the rest of the book they manage to escape, and find that things were still a ''little'' too good to be true. When they escape for ''real,'' a message left by the creator of the game appears to congratulate them, and they finally return to the real world. Hopefully. Apparently, they ''wanted'' to do it this way all along in the show but budget or something didn't allow - in "Future Echoes," elderly Lister has "U=BTL" etched into his arm. No attention is called to it at the time (or ever, in the show. In the book, we see this happen in book 1 and Lister notices. Better than Life is book 2.)
** And again at the end of series VI in "Out of Time." Just before the cataclysmic ending, Starbug hits a "reality mine" -- a pocket of alternate history space. Followed immediately by Rimmer deliberately triggering a strange sort of [[Grandfather Paradox]]. Followed immediately by the {{spoiler|future Dwarfers}} triggering ''another'' [[Grandfather Paradox]]. How many layers of unreality can two minutes of airtime possibly layer ... ?
** Another notable instance occurs in season 8, episode 3, when they {{spoiler|return to the reconstructed Red Dwarf, courtesy of the Nanites,}} and are placed in the brig after signing agreements to participate in a trial involving psychotropic drugs that will cause them to hallucinate.
*** They engineer a daring escape before the trial and make it out into space, at which point they realize that the entire escape attempt has been a hallucination.
*** They enlist the aid of the reconstructed Rimmer and break out again... and realize that, once again, they've all been duped.
*** When they finally make it out of their hallucinated trial, Rimmer asks, "Is this reality? But how can we be sure?" Cat poignantly states, "Why do we care? Nothing makes any sense no matter where we are!"
* A [[Cruel Twist Ending]] from the ''[[Outer Limits]]'' [[Revival]] episode "Tempests": did the hero escape early in the episode, or at the end? Neither--he's still hallucinating.
Line 146:
* ''[[Angel]]'' has a mini-version of this in a Season 4 episode. {{spoiler|1=Angel is seen to defeat the demon and (finally) go to bed with Cordelia. Then we realize it was a dream designed to make Angel lose his soul in a moment of perfect happiness (understandably, sleeping with Charisma Carpenter = perfect happiness).}} It intersects with [[Your Mind Makes It Real]]; it qualifies here because the audience doesn't realize it's a dream until it's over, and this event blurs the lines between (in-show) reality and dream.
* The basic premise of ''[[Awake (TV series)|Awake]]'', in which Detective Michael Britten has one life in which his son died and his wife is still alive, another where it's vice versa. Both are equally real to him.
* The simplest version of [[Life On Mars]] and [[Ashes to Ashes]] is that it is all in the mind of the main characters. Other interpretations are available.
Line 177:
* ''[[Silent Hill 1]]'s'' Bad Ending shows us the protagonist dying in his broken car; apparently all the game was just [[Dying Dream|a dream he had between the car crash and his death]]. Other endings are less unhappy, though... except for the one where he kills his daughter and he and an [[Innocent Bystander]] get roasted alive in a collapsing [[Dark World|hell-dimension]]. Oh, and there are four sequels; he's revealed to have survived in the third {{spoiler|[[Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome|only to be killed off-screen]]}}.
* Part of the ending of the Ciel route in ''[[Tsukihime]]'' involves Shiki in a mental dream world where there are no vampires, Ciel is just a normal girl and he doesn't have his [[Evil Eye|Eyes of Death Perception.]] He catches on pretty quick and has a little chat with his Nanaya side over whether he wants to leave or not, because leaving most likely means death.
* The whole point of ''[[Eternal Sonata]]'' is the question of whether Frédéric Chopin is [[Dying Dream|just having an extremely lucid fever dream]], or if he really is in another world.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening]]'' - The island is nothing but one big dream, and the point of gathering the 8 dungeon items this time around is to wake both you and the Wind Fish up. Link is oblivious to this since you aren't directly told that it's a dream until late in the game, but the owl and boss monsters don't really try to hide this fact from you.
** It should also be noted that at one point you end up in a dream sequence ''inside'' the dream world in order to get the Ocarina.
| |||