Shocking Swerve/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: A plot twist occurs with no foreshadowing or anything.

  • Straight: Alice discovers that Alex is her long lost brother despite any foreshadowing or that being informed that she even had a brother to begin with.
  • Exaggerated: Alice discovers that Alex is her long lost brother AND and a descended from royalty, AND an alien, AND a clone, AND the Big Bad AND that she was Dead All Along.
  • Justified: No one bothered to tell Alice because they thought that it would not be of use.
    • Alternatively, Alice never heard about a twin because she doesn't have one; Alex is mistaken.
  • Inverted: Incredible amounts of foreshadowing are displayed throughout the course of the story only to not be revealed at all.
  • Subverted:

Alice: "So are you really my brother?!"
Alex: "Naaah, Just shittin with ya. Ha ha.

  • Double Subverted: Alex: "But I am your father, no kidding."
  • Parodied: Every time a twist is revealed with no foreshadowing, a "BUM BUM BUM" is played with Alice's reaction.
  • Deconstructed: Without any evidence prior to the revelation to back his story, Alice rejects the idea out of hand and dismisses any new evidence as fabricated after the fact.
  • Reconstructed: Only for a long-lost letter from their parents to arrive and confirm the story, shocking her all over again.
  • Zig Zagged: Alice: "You're my father?"
    • Alex: "Nah, that's a lie. But actually, I'm your uncle!"
  • Averted: Alice was told by many people that she had a brother.
  • Enforced: "Hey, I have a good idea! Let's have Alex be Alice's brother!" "Aren't we a little far into the story?" "Who cares? They won't notice."
  • Lampshaded: Alice: Wow, I'm surprised nobody ever told me about you!"
  • Invoked: Bob withholds knowledge of Alice having a brother by any means to push her in a Heroic BSOD.
  • Exploited: Bob ensures Alice learns she has an unknown brother then sends Chuck to throw her further off-balance by claiming to be said brother.
  • Defied: Bob tells everyone that Alice has a brother and gives them hints to give Alice to push her in a Heroic BSOD
  • Discussed: "This is... impossible. Why didn't anybody mention anything? It's like some bad story where they just toss this crap in to keep the reader on their feet!"
  • Conversed: "The story was pretty good, but then in the last half hour they just pulled this major twist out of nowhere. Really ruined the story for me."

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