Fauxlosophic Narration: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Philosophical narration, dialogue, or exposition that has little to do with the plot, usually of the same vague nature as what a first-year philosophy student uses [[Padding|to pad out, lengthen, expand]] [[Purple Prose|and/or decorate]] his term paper.

 

Also compare [[Blah Blah Blah]] and [[Wall of Text]].

 

== Anime & Manga ==

** Not entirely, as existentialism plays a pretty big part in many episodes.

** And don't forget Rei's monologue.

* Done ''[[Fridge Brilliance|ingeniously]]'' in the [[Post Episode Trailer|Post Episode Trailers]] for ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni]]'' in it's first season. The text that flies across the screen appears to be far more relevant to the next episode, and the deeper voice that talks stuff sounds like [[Fauxlosophic Narration]] -- until you watch the second season when you realize exactly ''whose'' voice it is and ''how'' relevant it actually is to the ''real'' central plot.

** Also subverted in the second season, when the real protagonists do some narration that would normally be fauxlosophic... but not in their situation.

* On very rare occasions, the narration at the beginning of each episode of ''[[Gun X Sword]]'' refers to previous plot events in a helpful way, but it frequently falls into this sort of pseudo-philosophy. The over-the-top voice doing the narrating on the English dub makes matters worse.

** What makes this especially fun is that these musings are entirely in-character for {{spoiler|Father}}.

* ''[[Paranoia Agent]]'' has the Mysterious Old Man rambling on about seemingly completely random things during each preview. Not helping is that it includes puns that only work in Japanese.

* In [[David Eddings]]' ''[[Belgariad]]'', Belgarath poses the question "Why does two plus two equal four?", saying that he's been pondering it for ''millennia'' and hasn't been able to come up with an answer. He also asks a series of questions regarding basic natural phenomena, all of which stump Garion, though that's justified by the lack of universal education in a world of [[Medieval Stasis]].

* R.A. Salvatore used to fall into this. Especially in [[The Dark Elf Trilogy|Drizzt series]] that contain pages of his journal with musings of the protagonist on matters like morality, faith, and emotion. However, Drizzt ''was'' very young (by elven standards), grew up in a rather isolated city and had education focused less on what local high priestesses or even wizards learn and more on swinging a pair of oversized razors and not dying while trying to wage war in caverns full of ridiculously deadly critters... through which he later wandered alone until gone half feral. It's not like he could do much better when trying to make sense of the suddenly complex world.

 

 

* This was basically the entire point of Augustus Hill on the show ''[[Oz (TV)|Oz]]''. Some of the narration matched, but mostly it didn't.

* Tends to pop up in the opening video packages for [[WWE]] pay-per-view events.

* The beginning and end narrations on ''[[Desperate Housewives]]'' are full of musings on love, loss etc with only the barest of connections to the actual show.

* Arguably this applies to ''[[The X-Files (TV)|The X-Files]]'', where it was common either for Mulder to go on at length about how there are more things in heaven and earth etc., or Scully to lecture about how science is the only reliable guide to the truth without which nothing makes sense yada yada.

** This was spoofed on an episode of ''[[The Simpsons (Animation)|The Simpsons]]'' when Mulder starts one of these in the day and by the time he finishes it has become night and everyone else including Scully has left the area.

{{quote| '''Mulder:''' "Voodoo priests of Haiti! Tibetan numerologists of Appalachia! The unsolved mysteries of... ''[[Unsolved Mysteries]]''!"}}

** Ruthlessly mocked in one episode of ''[[Scrubs (TV)|Scrubs]]'' as part of that show's series of [[Take That]] insults aimed at other medical series.

* ''[[VR Troopers]]''. Every one of the episodes (save one) over two seasons opened up with Ryan Steele musing about Life, The Universe, and the Monster of the Day, always tying it into some memory of his father. The guy had issues.

* ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' often has it, and often reiterates the same message that death is random, seems unfair, but is inevitable.

* ''[[Due South]]'' often opened or closed with Fraser Sr.'s voiceover reading extracts from his diary. But the man wrote beautifully, and the text always offered an interesting commentary on the main action.

* [[Are You Afraid of the Dark|The Midnight Society]] had a variant on this: The kids ''knew'' they were spewing nonsense in the prefaces to their stories; it was all just to build atmosphere, and sometimes to mislead the audience on what their story was actually about.

* Bit of a subversion, ''[[Criminal Minds (TV)|Criminal Minds]]'' begins and/or ends each episode with one of the characters narrating a quotation, usually philosophical. And surprisingly, they usually DO have something to do with the episode, typically the nature of the killer.

* ''[[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]]'' has a generally good-quality narrative, but there are more than a few wince-worthy moments in ~120 hours of series gameplay.

* In the [[Game Mod]] ''[[Batman Doom]]'', the text screens that pop up a few times throughout the game are filled with Batman's [[Narm|Narmful]] musings about how he's "the chosen one" to fight evil. In fact, the text screens are probably only there because there's no way to remove them from the game, so the modding team decided they might as well fill them with something vaguely relevant.

* ''[[Max Payne (Video Game)|Max Payne]]'''s [[Private Eye Monologue]] musings often stray into this when he takes time off from capping mafiosos in order to muse about the nature of choice, the true meaning of fairy tales, and the end of the world.