The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: The antagonist(s) break the fourth wall to threaten or attack the audiene.

  • Straight: The main villain Crimson disembowels his victim before whipping his head towards the camera with an accompanying Scare Chord and exclaims that the viewer will be his next victim.
  • Exaggerated: Not only does the above happen, but if you are a registered member of the show's website, you get email and voice messages from "Crimson" in which he threatens to murder you.
  • Justified: Crimson is a Humanoid Abomination of immense power and extreme cruelty. As such, he is not limited by the walls between different planes of reality.
  • Inverted: Crimson verbalizes his concern that the viewer is "spying" on him and that he could be ambushed at any moment.
    • The fourth wall does not protect Crimson from the actions of the viewers.
  • Subverted: The way Crimson faces the camera when he talks, we think he's referring to us, but he's actually talking to another one of his victims in the show...
  • Double Subverted:....Before he explicitly refers to the viewer and says he'll be paying him/her a visit very soon..
  • Parodied: Crimson tries to stab through the screen, only to have his knife stopped by the glass:

Crimson: DIE! *KLINK* Heh. That's new. Oh yes, where was I? DIE!!! *KLINK* *KLINK* *KLINK* Gah! Dammit! This is really killing the mood!. YOU. Don't you dare change the channel! We're not done here! No, wait! Not the Oprah netwo- *STATIC*.

  • Deconstructed: A lot of viewers find the whole "breaking the fourth wall" scene gimmicky and trite, and think that it actually took the drama out of the episode.
  • Reconstructed: But actually, the entire point of the scene is to deconstruct the premise of slasher flicks. If we think it's fun to see innocents butchered from the comfort of our bedrooms, would we enjoy it as much if the roles were reversed?
  • Zig Zagged: Crimson sometimes breaks the fourth wall, but other times he acts as if it doesn't even exist.
  • Averted: Crimson never breaks the fourth wall.
  • Enforced:
  • Lampshaded: "You really didn't think I noticed you? You really thought you were safe behind that screen!?"
  • Invoked: Crimson was a real life criminal who was sealed within a work of fiction. He is now trying to get out and murder you for enjoying this fiction.
  • Defied: Crimson attempts to break the fourth wall and assault the viewer- only for the viewer to remind him that he's in a television show.
  • Discussed: "Wouldn't it be funny if Crimson broke out of the show and attacked us?" Bob says, shortly before the above actually happens.
  • Conversed: ???

Get back to The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You, before the Big Bad crashes through your computer monitor.

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