Tomato Surprise: Difference between revisions

Note that withholding important details from the audience is not, in itself, anything special: think of all the murder mysteries that don't immediately reveal the very important detail of who did the murder. The true '''Tomato Surprise''' is only a surprise due to the withholding of information that the reader might reasonably have expected to have been told up-front, like "the story is not, as you probably assumed, set on Earth" or "the protagonist is not, as you probably assumed, a human being". A story that ends with a character learning the unexpected truth about his strange illness is not necessarily a Tomato Surprise -- butSurprise—but if the unexpected truth is "he's turning into a butterfly -- and, by the way, he's been a caterpillar all along"...

While this trope is often used for dramatic effect, it can also be used -- especiallyused—especially in [[Science Fiction]] -- to—to illustrate a moral or ethical situation in such a way as to invoke a different set of prejudices. Once the viewer has fully understood the dilemma as it applies in their assumed environment, the author reveals that the assumption is false and that the circumstances are different, leaving the viewer to reconcile new conclusions with old prejudices. For example, a story might describe the difficulties faced by society before finally revealing that the character is a visible minority, thus hopefully forcing a bigot who sympathized with the character to reconsider their position.

The trope name comes from a set of writer's guidelines distributed circa 1980 by ''AnalogIsaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine'' magazine, written by its then-editor, [[w:George H. Scithers|George Scithers]]. The guidelines named the trope and gave as one of the examples hiding the fact that the hero is, in fact, a tomato.

Contrast with [[Tomato in the Mirror]], in which the protagonist (rather than just the audience) learns a surprising fact that causes everything that came before to be reevaluated. If the twist comes as a surprise to one or more protagonists, it is probably a [[Tomato in the Mirror]] rather than a [[Tomato Surprise]].

* Pulled not once, but ''three times'' in ''[[Durarara!!]]'', each time proving our [[Ordinary High School Student]] protagonists to be [[Beware the Nice Ones|not quite so ordinary]]: {{spoiler|first, shy, naive Mikado turns out to be the founder and leader of the Dollars, then [[Shrinking Violet]] Anri is not only in possession of the original Saika, but she's been keeping it under control for the past ''five years'', and ''then'' easy-going, bad-joke-cracking Masaomi is the ex-general of the Yellow Scarves.}} Whew!

* The ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' comic ''Damnation Crusade'' tells the story of three different Black Templar Space Marines: A neophyte, a battle brother, and a Dreadnought. In the very end, it is revealed that {{spoiler|all three were in fact the same person, during different stages of his life.}}

* A ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' fanfic, [https://web.archive.org/web/20120428175055/http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5353458/1/Blast_to_the_Past Blast to the Past] makes this interesting. Taken as a reference from the comics, Sonic and Eggman were once friends. But then a terrible accident happens to one of then-benevolent Eggman's machines. Sonic tried to stop it but clumsily pulled out the plug by tripping, and [[It Got Worse]]. The good doctor tried to see if his young ward was alright, but trips on his foot and crashes into the machine, causing a devastating explosion. When the flames subsided, the now evil [[Mad Scientist]] we all love to hate was born and immediately blamed Sonic for his transformation. Sonic also blames himself for his friend's [[Face Heel Turn]], say that it was [[My God, What Have I Done?|his fault]] that Eggman is trying to rule the world. {{spoiler|But as story progressed, it turns out that the real culprit was [[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)|Princess Elise,]] along with Silver and Blaze, who had gone back in time to turn Eggman evil on purpose. [[Not What It Looks Like|It's not what it looks like, though...]]}}

* The [[Danny Phantom]] fanfiction [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4332642/1/Smokescreen "Smokescreen] begins with Danny waking up after a fight. He's pretty disoriented afterwards, and as time passes, he has more and more trouble with memory gaps and his powers going berserk. Eventually it is revealed that {{spoiler|he isn't Danny at all; he's D-17 -- one of Vlad's many experimental Danny-clones! [[Paranoia Fuel]] indeed; as the fanfic recommendation page says, "Who's to say that you aren't you, but somebody else? "}}

* ''[[Identity (film)|Identity]]'', starring John Cusack. {{spoiler|The main characters are all the selves of a man with multiple personalities, one of whom is a [[Serial Killer]] and most of the movie takes place within his mind/a hallucination.}}

** In ''Welcome To Camp Nightmare'', which inspired the first episode of the TV series, the weird conspiracy at the summer camp was actually {{spoiler|a test to see how the main character handled such things: after all, if he's selected, he's going to the highly dangerous planet Earth, and as [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters]], he must be ready for anything}}.

* [[Diana Wynne Jones]]' book ''[[Power of Three (novel)|Power of Three]]'' has a [[Tomato Surprise]] revealed halfway in the book - {{spoiler|the main characters are small people who live in our world, and the giants they see are ordinary humans.}}

** In a more minor case, ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]'' reveals on its very final page that "Johnny" Rico is actually ''Juan'' Rico, a Filipino. Nowadays, this is no big deal, but at the time the novel was written nearly all heroes in American SF and war fiction were stereotypical square-jawed white men. (Cf. pretty much any movie from the 50s.) And then the movie went and [[WTH?What the Hell, Casting Agency?|cast Casper Van Dien]] to play him.

* Judith Merril's infinitely creepy short story ''That Only A Mother''. The first half is a series of letters from a young woman to her husband, describing the later stages of her pregnancy and how relieved she is that she's given birth to a normal healthy baby, not deformed by radiation like so many are since the war. But, she realizes/reveals, the baby's ''better'' than normal: she's a supergenius, able to speak in sentences before she's six months old! The second part is in narrative: the baby's father comes home and realizes that there's something strange about his daughter -- strangerdaughter—stranger even than his wife has mentioned. Not until the last paragraphs does he realize that {{spoiler|his wife is delusional: their daughter is indeed a supergenius, but she's also a deformed mutant with no arms or legs.}}

* There's a pretty good short novel for young teens, ''El Mundo Septiembre Adentro Y Varias Formas de Evitarlo'' (The World Beyond September and Some Ways to Avoid It), which is sadly in Spanish only, but it's a damn good book with a ''DOUBLE'' [[Tomato Surprise]]: The story revolves around a girl who just entered an all-girl junior high, but finds there's something strange at her new school: from teachers who are unable to laugh to a strange monster hidden in the pool that eats boredom and a weird substance disguised as vitamins that erases people's free will and turns girls into reptile-human mutants. With the guide of Fuente, a freaky girl that no one seems to notice, and the help of a boy from the other school and a nerdy girl from her class, the main character sets on a stomach-curling adventure to unveil the secrets of the school and set her classmates free. But she finds out she can't fight against the system, which leads to the first [[Tomato Surprise]]: she was actually {{spoiler|crazy; she imagined most of the weird stuff and pushed it into the only one of her friends that was actually real until she believed it too. Fuente wasn't real, but a projection of her double personality and the boy from the other school was a product of her imagination}}. Then, as the science teacher--whoteacher—who seemed to believe her but betrayed her last-minute-- dragsminute—drags her kicking and screaming to the nurse wing, it is revealed that, in fact {{spoiler|All was real. But it was too dangerous for her to know the truth. So the teacher gives her a sleeping pill and a shot of Invisibility Formula}} murmuring her [[Catch Phrase]], "Jr. High school ''does'' have an end..." and then adding, "but in the meantime..."

* ''[[The Sword of Truth|Stone of Tears]]'' has a villain appearing throughout the book, and it is always mentioned that she has an unusual eye color. {{spoiler|Then, a chance remark by another person leads to the protagonist thinking about these eyes, belonging to his teacher.}} [[Alone with the Psycho|Who just invited him to a secret meeting so she can help him]].

* In a short story in a children's book{{verify}}, the protagonist is a young prodigy living in a high-tech city. For his next project, he decides to build an artificial human that mimics real humans as close as possible. He spends weeks designing and building it, and finally takes the artificial human to show the city's leader. The leader looks at him and admits the android shows some potential, but points out flaws such as the lack of tannable skin, or realistic emotions, or aging. When the protagonist fails to see how this is important, the leader has him strapped into a chair and shows him an old video of a group of old men watching a young boy eat. He reveals that these men are the last living humans. The boy is their first robot designed to replace them and is able to do all the things real humans can do. The leader is that boy. The protagonist realizes that all of the city's inhabitants are robots, including him. As he is being led away to have the last hour wiped from his memory (ignorance is bliss), he takes a look at his creation and, for the first time, sees just how ''fake'' it looks.

* In ''[[Chess With Aa Dragon]]'' by David Gerrold, the revelation that {{spoiler|the Ki! host-grubs are human children}} is this trope. Particularly deft in that, even when their physiology is discussed at some length by the insectoids, it sounds like the writer is just confirming what a human character said in the previous chapter (i.e. that mammals are considered disgusting by other races) rather than dropping hints.

* [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s short story titled "The Outsider" describes the protagonist's escape from a bizarre prison and his subsequent encounter with a monster. {{spoiler|The monster turns out to be a mirror showing him his own reflection.}}

** The second-season episode "The Invaders" uses a [[Tomato Surprise]] to put a trademark [[Twist Ending]] on the story. In a script containing practically no dialogue, Agnes Moorehead plays an old crone in an isolated cabin beset by spacemen less than a foot tall. Alas, it wasn't [[Earth All Along]].

** [[The Twilight Zone]] was also prone to the [[Turkey City Lexicon|"Jar of Tang"]] variety of [[Tomato Surprise]]: {{spoiler|"For you see, we are all dolls in the bottom of a donation barrel!" "For you see, we are living in a child's miniature village!"}}

* In the ''[[Scrubs]]'' episode "My Screwup" we find out at the end of the episode that {{spoiler|Ben is actually the patient that died and Dr. Cox has just been seeing Ben in his head.}} Throughout the episode, there are three subtle hints which [[Foreshadowing|foreshadow]] the twist:

**:: AndDr. Cox notices at the end of course,the Ben'sepisode linethat {{spoiler|thatBen heisn'llt carrycarrying his camera "until the day I die"}}, andbut thatin fact {{spoiler|he doesnwasn't havecarrying his camerait}} for the latter parthalf of the episode.}}

* Also done in a country music video called "I Miss My Friend" by Darryl Worley. The video leads you to thinking that you're looking in on the girl that the singer misses, {{spoiler|but in actuality, the woman is the singer's WIDOW''widow'', watching a video of her dead husband.}}

* Christian song "Hammer" from the 1989 album "''The Altar"'' by Ray Boltz is an excellent example of storytelling in a song. The narrator is an eyewitness to the crucifixion of Jesus; he vocally expresses his outrage over cruel treatment of Jesus and calls out his executorsexecutioners. The crowd mocks him; confused, he {{spoiler|sees a hammer in his hand. The narrator turns out to be a regular joe -- romana Roman soldier.}}

* A well-known Spanish pop song by La Oreja de Van Gogh, ''"Jueves''" (Thursday), tells a cute story of a girl who takes the subway everyday just to see a boy whom she's silently in love with, until she finally gathers the courage to talk to him and finds out he likes her too. Pretty romantic. Then, on the second-to-last verse she mentions that "this special day, March 11th" was when they declared their love to each other. On that particular day, {{spoiler|a terrorist group set several bombs aboard four commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people}}. Then, the last verse states: " the lights of the tunnel go out. I find your face with my hands, gather courage and kiss you. You say you love me and I give to you {{spoiler|the very last beat of my heart}}", implying that they were riding one of ''those'' trains.

* "Escape (The PinaPiña Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes could be considered a benign example, with the [[Tomato Surprise]] being that the singer's lady is secretly just as bored with him as vice versa ... at least, until they discover new common interests through the personal ads they took out behind each others' backs.

** "Stan" as well. Although the listener knows it already, Eminem ([[As Himself|the character in the song]]) experiences a [[Tomato Surprise]] when he figures out that Stan was the lunatic he saw on the news a few days ago.

* Queensryche's ''"Gonna Get Close To You''" is all about the joys of being a stalker. The end of the clip, however, reveals that the woman he's stalking {{spoiler|is a vampire}}. For no apparent reason.

* [[New Order]]'s song '"Fine Time'" plays like a conventional love song praising the sexual qualities of the narrator's love-interest, until the song ends and fades out, where if the listener is paying attention... {{spoiler|the sounds of a sheep can be heard.}}

* In 1976, Bob Vernon read one of his "Stranger than True" stories thusly: "5 years ago today, working girl Lois Goldman of Orange, New Jersey was arrested for taking a large record player out of the WNBC studios. That large record player was BIGGIE WILSON!" (This referred to another WNBC DJ of the time, who was celebrating his fifth wedding anniversary.) [http://airchexx.org/ram/wnbcvernon.ram Here's the aircheck with that story.]{{Dead link}}

* The ''[[Torchwood: theThe Lost Files]]'' radio play "The House of the Dead" begins with Ianto in a haunted pub, waiting for Jack and Gwen to arrive, so they can interrupt a seance which will bring an evil creature through the Rift. Thus, the audience assumes that {{spoiler|this takes place before the [[Torchwood|TV serial]] ''Children of Earth'' - but it doesn't. Ianto is a ghost himself, Gwen's voice in his headset is actually the creature, and Jack came to the pub alone both to stop the creature and to see Ianto one last time.}}

* A lot of the best [[Interactive Fiction]] games include a [[Tomato Surprise]] somewhere, often (but not limited to) the [[Tomato in the Mirror]] variety. It seems to have a particularly powerful impact in a medium where the player solves puzzles to propel the plot. Listing all examples would ruin the fun.

* The major mystery of ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' is Sissel's quest to find out [[Ghost Amnesia|who he was in life.]] All he knows is what he looks like, since the first thing he sees is his own corpse, and he finds out his name through other people referring to the 'man in the red suit' as Sissel. {{spoiler|Sissel isn't the man in the red suit. The man in the red suit is actually named Yomiel and is another ghost who's been possessing his own undying body. Sissel is actually the ghost of Yomiel's pet cat, whose name Yomiel was using as a pseudonym.}}

* ''[[Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al -Revis]]'' has [[The Hero]] Vayne and his [[Familiar|Mana]] Sulpher. {{spoiler|As it turns out, ''Vayne'' is the actual Mana, and Sulpher is his contract master}}.

* ''[[Killer 7Killer7]]''. Somewhat alluded to shortly before the big reveal, {{spoiler|Garcian Smith finds out his real name is Emir Parkreiner, an ace assassin that killed the Smiths and adopted their personalities out of a mixture of guilt and supernatural forces.}}

* After finishing up Natsumi's route in ''[[Sharin no Kuni]]'', there's a brief kinda-actiony sequence followed by Isono finally admitting he knew who Kenichi was the whole time. What was much more subtly built up was {{spoiler|when he started talking to Kenichi's sister Ririko, who has been standing right behind him the ''whole time'', forbidden from interacting with anyone else or being recognized.}} Apparently specifically so it doesn't look like an asspull, the story immediately starts a flashback sequence where this reveal had been hinted at. It's a lot more obvious in hind sight, especially when considering {{spoiler|the Maximum Penalty badge that had shown up on the title page since the beginning, yet no one in the story bore it.}}

* In ''[[Silent Hill: Shattered Memories]]'', the plot is as basic as it gets, Harry Mason was in a car crash and is now looking for his 7-year old Cheryl. The last scene of the game? {{spoiler|You find out that Harry's been dead for 18 years, and the entire game was all in Cheryl's head, who isn't 7, but 25. The character you've been playing as learns the harsh truth that he doesn't even exist outside of Cheryl's own delusions.}}

** A lot of the Silent Hill games have this, like ''[[Silent Hill 2]]''{{'}}s revelation that {{spoiler|Mary didn't die of natural causes, James killed her,}} when Henry realizes that {{spoiler|he's going to be the next person to die}} in ''[[Silent Hill 4]]'', and when we learn that Alex from ''[[Silent Hill Homecoming]]'' {{spoiler|wasn't in the army, he was in an insane asylum.}} Was M. Night Shyamalan a writer for this game!?

* Don't forget ''[[BioShock (series)|Bioshock]]'', where the main character is NOT in fact {{spoiler|some guy trying to survive in a hellish collapsed society, but is actually a test tube baby sent out to kill his own father. His memories of his previous life? ALL FAKE.}}

** In the ''Minerva's Den'' DLC of the sequel you play as Subject Sigma, a prototype Big Daddy from the same line as the protagonist of the main game, Subject Delta. {{spoiler|Unlike Delta,whose previous identity is never revealed; Sigma is revealed to be Charles Milton Porter, the man who has apparently been acting as your [[Mission Control]]. The latter was actually a computer simulation of the former.}}

* In ''[[The 3rd Birthday]]'', {{spoiler|you have been playing as Eve Brea all along, not Aya.}}.

* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'': It turns out that the majority of the events were {{spoiler|written fiction revolving around the actual tragedy of Rokkenjima. Whose actual events we will never know because one of the only two survivors died carrying the secret to her tomb, and the other became amnesiac because of the trauma and has spent the last decade trying in vain to make sense of what little he remembers.}}

** {{spoiler|At the same time, [[Dramatic Irony|the]] ''[[Dramatic Irony|viewer]]'' [[Dramatic Irony|knows that the villain's name is Doctor Octogonapus, but]] ''[[Dramatic Irony|Randall]]'' [[Dramatic Irony|doesn't.]]}}

== Webcomics[[Western Animation]] ==

{{quote|''There once was a rapping tomato

''That's right, I said "rapping tomato"

''He rapped all day, from April to May

''And also, guess what, ''[[Narrator All Along|it was me]].'' }}

* After many episodes of suspense, cliffhangers, confusion, and even a [[BLAMNon Sequitur Episode]], the second season of [[The Secret Saturdays]] finally ends with the ultimate evil (the being that can be used to take over the world) being Zak Saturday...the main character.

* ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy|Ed, Edd n Eddy]]'' had a mundane, but ''very'' horrifying one at the end of [[The Movie]] with [[The Reveal]] that {{spoiler|Eddy's Brother, who had been presented, by Eddy, as [[The Ace]], is in fact a sadistic [[Big Brother Bully]] and [[Complete Monster]] who made Eddy's life a living hell while they lived together. Eddy lied about him to make people respect and like him.}}

== [[Other Media]] ==

* All the above in the Folder "Other Media" section are known as Lateral Thinking Puzzles. These are not meant to be solved until a person has exhausted enough questions to figure out the ending of the puzzle which is proctored by one person that knows the answer and can only answer "yes" or "no" to questions. While the endings/conclusions are in fact tomato surprises to people that read the answers first, they do not qualify as examples of tomato surprises as defined by the troper page. In fact, these may be more an example of Fridge Logic than Tomato Surprise due to their nature.