Tomato Surprise: Difference between revisions

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While this trope is often used for dramatic effect, it can also be used -- especially in [[Science Fiction]] -- 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 ''Analog'' magazine, written by its then-editor, 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.

See [[Earth All Along]], [[The All-Concealing "I"]], [[I Am Who?]], [[The Ending Changes Everything]]. Related to [[Karmic Twist Ending]] and [[Cruel Twist Ending]]. The opposite of this trope is [[Dramatic Irony]], when the ''audience'' knows something that the ''characters'' don't know.

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** [[Veggie Tales|And I'm here to answer your questions!]]

* ''[[Ef a Tale of Memories]]'' - Pulled an awesome example, revealed in the second season of the anime (first episode_. Revealed at the very end of the game). {{spoiler|Hiro, Miyako, and Yuuko are not in the same city as Renji, Chihiro, and Yuu. The two cities are both named Otowa, both have churches and schools. But one is located in Japan, the other is located in Australia.}}

* ''[[Tokyo Magnitude 8.0]]'' does this. After Mirai and Yuki finally make it home, we find out that {{spoiler|Yuki died a few episodes earlier, and is actually a ghost/hallucination.}}

* ''[[Kanon]]'' - The true natures of both Makoto and the demons Mai is trying to kill are pretty big tomatoes by themselves, but the author pulls this ''twice'' in fairly-rapid succession with Ayu: {{spoiler|1) when Yuuichi first remembers her falling from the tree, and then 2) when Akiko tells him he's mistaken - she's not dead, just in a coma.}}

* ''[[Sola]]'' - The whole cast doesn't seem quite right from the beginning.

* 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!

* Ingeniously played with in the short novel from the anime ''[[Death Note|Death Note: The BB Murder case]]'' in which detective Misora Naomi is sent to do the field work to solve an intrincate case of a serial murderer, helped from behind by the famous detective L who she has never seen in person; and also by a strange character with "panda eyes" that pops out every now and then. Now if you've seen the anime before reading the novel, you'd be inclined to suspect that {{spoiler|the odd character is actually L himself}}. But near the end, the reader finds out that he was, in reality {{spoiler|Beyond Birthday, the killer}}, who helped her {{spoiler|because he wanted to prove he was better than L by coming up with a crime so well-planned not even the biggest detective in the world could solve}} and then {{spoiler|helping Naomi solve it, making it appear as if he had defeated L}}. And the reason why people may be confused at first is that {{spoiler|Beyond was so obsessed over L that he copied his appearance, becoming almost his identical twin}}. Of course, Death Note fans [[It Was His Sled|already knew that]].

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* A Len Deighton short story in the ''[[Declarations Of War]]'' anthology ends {{spoiler|with the revelation that it is not in fact set in the future, but during Roman times}}.

* An old science fiction story featured a group of aliens who intend to take over earth. They can take the form of any living thing, so they figure that infiltrating society will be easy. They land and take the form of the first humans they see. Then they walk into town, fully expecting to blend into the populace, but are instead immediately arrested. Turns out they landed next to a nudist colony.

* In ''My Best Friend Is Invisible'' from R. L. Stine's ''[[Goosebumps]]'' series, Sammy ends up with an invisible friend named Brent. The twist is that Brent turns out be a human, while Sammy turns out to be a member of an alien species. The story apparently occurs in a time where humans are considered to be an "endangered species". The Tv episode reveals that this is the future where aliens have taken over the world, and they gang up on Brent.

** This is a common twist in ''Goosebumps'', '''especially''' the "protagonists are really monsters/aliens" version. It often has little to nothing to do with the rest of the book

** A notable example in ''Attack Of The Jack-O'Lanterns.'' The main character notes in the beginning that a lot of extremely overweight people have gone missing. Then he and his friend join the school bullies to go trick or treating. They meet up with some friends wearing pumpkin heads who convince them to take a different route that will lead them to the biggest candy haul ever and they give them pillowcases to carry the candy in. The people at the houses on this street are all wearing pumpkin heads and giving out enough candy to fill the bags. The kids want to go home but the Pumpkin-headed friends start breathing fire and threatening the kids into eating all of the candy, telling them that they'll be sent back to eat more and more. Instead, on the second trip into the forest, the bullies run off, weaving through the trees. {{spoiler|The Pumpkin-head friends then reveal themselves to be alien kids who have befriended the main characters.}} But ''then'' {{spoiler|the Pumpkin-Heads reveal that they actually do eat people, but they only eat ''really'' fat humans, and the kids are nowhere near fat enough. ''Yet.''}}

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* In ''[[Lord Peter Wimsey|The Five Red Herrings]]'', [[Dorothy L. Sayers]] explicitly says she's omitting the identity of a crucial object from the crime scene, as "an intelligent reader ought to be able to figure it out".

* The great Robert Bloch's short story ''The Yougoslaves'' (sic) used this: the narrator has thus far seemed to be a perfectly normal, though insanely determined old man. Then he survives what should be lethal wounds, and it's ultimately revealed that he's {{spoiler|a vampire.}}

* In the 13th book of Erin Hunter's ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' series, The Sight, it took until the end of the 2nd chapter or so to find out that a new main character, Jaykit, {{spoiler|was blind.}}

** This was especially clever because those chapters are told from his point of view, {{spoiler|and the narration never actually makes mention of what anything ''looks'' like.}} Most readers don't notice this the first time.

* Thomas Ligotti's "Notes on the Writing of Horror" is a short story in essay format. It starts as a famous horror writer demonstrates his technique on a basic plot. Each retelling of the story-within-the-story goes a little more off the rails, perhaps revealing more than the writer means to. By the end, it's clear that the author is: {{spoiler|a) a demon; b) insane; c) fucking with the reader; or d) all of the above.}}

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* The short story ''Shards'' is very surreal, and starts with the protagonist awakening in a dark place. Slowly he discovers more about his surroundings, and increasingly weird things begin to happen. It's in first-person and it's clear he's [[Unreliable Narrator|not quite all there]], making it difficult for the reader to work out what's really going on around him. The truth is, {{spoiler|parts of a human brain - hence the title - have been implanted into a fish in a military experiment.}} This is why he perceives the world in a weird way and can't seem to interact with anything in the early part of the story - {{spoiler|he's in a fishtank, and his brain hasn't yet worked out that he doesn't have hands any more}}.

* Steven Erikson's ''Malazan'' series loves these. For example, at the beginning of the second book, Deadhouse Gates, it is revealed that {{spoiler|Cotillion and Ammannas were Dancer and Kellanved}}.

* Dean Koontz's novel ''Lightning''. Throughout the story, the reader is led to believe that the totalitarian nation using time travel as a weapon is in the modern day, possibly the Soviet Union. Near the end of the book it's revealed that the nation is actually {{spoiler|Nazi Germany just before the end of World War II. They're trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction that will allow them to win the war and change history}}.

* Iain M. Banks' ''[[The Culture|Use of Weapons]]'' conceals an amazing Tomato Surprise with its [[Anachronic Order]], as the plot thread going further into the past finally hits a crucial event in the hero's past. Meanwhile, the plot thread working into the future catches up with one of the few characters who knows the twist...

* ''[[Pale Fire]]'' by [[Vladimir Nabokov]] has its narrator, Charles Kinbote, pestering his friend, the famous poet John Shade, to write an epic poem about his home country of Zembla and the tragic fate of its king, who was forced into exile after a revolution. Shade ignores this and writes his final poem "Pale Fire" as an autobiography, causing Kinbote to hang onto the most minor details to tell the king's story anyway in his annotation after Shade's sudden death put the poem in his hands. {{spoiler|As it turns out, Kinbote IS the exiled king of Zembla and wants have his story immortalized through Shade, whose death was due to a would-be assassin who had come from Zembla to kill Kinbote accidentally shooting Shade instead. Kinbote's status is only revealed in the last hundred pages where he transitions from referring to the king as "he" to "I," but it turns out to be rather obvious when rereading the commentary as there would have been no other way for Kinbote to know such intimate details of the king's personal life.}}

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* [[H. Beam Piper]] used one of these in "The Return", when the nature of the society is explained with the final reveal of their patron deity: {{spoiler|[[Sherlock Holmes]]}}.

** Although really, there were plenty of clues for any {{spoiler|Holmes}} fan.

** Piper also ends up using this trope in "Crossroads of Destiny," where it turns out that {{spoiler|the strange man on the train was from our universe.}} [http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/18632 Available here.]

* Gautam Malkani's ''Londonstani'' is a witty and clever examination of British Asian youth culture told in London dialect with sprinklings of Hindi and Panjabi by main character Jas. Towards the end, {{spoiler|it turns out that Jas's full name (including the surname which he never says out loud during the main plot because "nobody can pronounce it") is "Jason Bartholomew-Cliveden": Jas is not himself Asian, but a white boy so thoroughly in love with Asian culture that there are almost no clues to his race in his behaviour.}}

* [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]] wrote an [[After the End]] short story in which a woman loves [[Chaste Hero|a man who gently but firmly rejects her advances]]. She feels it's because she's white and he's black. After he's murdered by a white man (whom she promptly kills in revenge), it's revealed that the black man was, more importantly, ''a Roman Catholic priest''.

* In the ''[[Dragaera]]'' novel ''Orca'', we have Kiera the Thief as the special guest narrator for a lot of the story. She and Vlad blunder through the complicated politicoeconomic mess that forms the basis of the book's plot, and it's only after it's pretty much been sorted out that we learn Kiera neglected to inform us (and Vlad) that {{spoiler|she's actually the vampire sorceress Sethra Lavode, a being so powerful she orders gods around}}.

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* The music video for [[Nickelback]]'s "Someday" seems to show a man running after his girlfriend. {{spoiler|He's actually been dead, which is the thing in the newspaper the girl was sad about. She then dies too, in a car crash, and they're together again.}}

* The 1954 hit [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGpR6R3a1D4 The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane] sounds like a song about a scandalous young woman, {{spoiler|until it's revealed she's only nine-days-old.}}

* 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.

* "Sally Cinnamon" by [[The Stone Roses]] seems like a typical love song, then in the last verse it's revealed that {{spoiler|the preceding lyrics are actually the contents of a letter that was left on a train and found by the narrator}}.

* The Vicki Lawrence song, The Night The Lights Went Out in Georgia (later covered by Reba) has the singer tell the story about how her brother got railroaded and eventually hung by small-town justice for a murder he didn't commit. How does she know this? {{spoiler|The last verse reveals that she is in fact the killer.}}

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* [[The Offspring]]'s "Hammerhead" seems like a song told by some kind of soldier... {{spoiler|and the last stanza reveals it's [[Axes At School|a school shooter.]]}}

* "Save Your Kisses for Me" by Brotherhood of Man seems like a lovesong by a man leaving his loved one at home when he goes to work {{spoiler|but it ends on "Won't you save them for me...even though you're only three?" revealing the fact he's singing to his child.}}

** "My Sweet Rosalie" has a similar twist. The man sings about his love for his fun-loving, free-spirited companion who always manages to cheer him up whenever he's down. Turns out that {{spoiler|Rosalie is his dog.}}

* Modest Mouse does this very cleverly in the music video for their song "Little Motel". The whole video is shown in reverse - we start with a woman with her child in a motel room as she tucks him into the bed. It then plays the preceding events leading up to this in reverse and the "ending" reveals that {{spoiler|the young boy was actually dead (the viewer assumes he's been asleep) the whole time, since we see him flat-lining in a hospital room before she grabs him up and runs out to head to the motel and spend a few final moments with her son}} {{spoiler|Saddest music video ever}}

* Garth Brooks' "Victim of the Game" describes someone who's been hurt emotionally, possibly by a failed relationship. Turns out, {{spoiler|the last lines reveal that he's "staring in the mirror / At a victim of the game".}}

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* Porter Wagoner's 1968 country hit "The Carroll County Accident". The narrator tells about a car accident that killed a prominent small-town man who was riding in a car driven by a female friend. She survives and says she found him on the side of the road feeling sick and was giving him a ride back into town. The narrator then says he learned what really happened: he went to look at the wrecked car and found {{spoiler|the man's wedding ring in a box, indicating that the man and the woman were having an affair.}} But that's not the final twist: {{spoiler|in the very last lines of the song, the narrator reveals that the man who died was his father.}}

* In [[Eminem]]'s "25 to Life", he raps things such as, I don't think she understands/the sacrifices that I made, I've done my best to give you/nothing less then perfectness, Go marry someone else/and make em famous/and take away their freedom/like you did to me/treat em like you don't need em/and they ain't worthy of you/feed em the same s*** that you made me eat, and my friends keep asking me/why I can't just walk away from/I'm addicted/to the pain, the stress,the drama. The whole song reads as something to a girl who doesn't appreciate him. Then one of the last lines, f*** you hip hop, changes the whole meaning of the song.

** "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.

* [[Led Zeppelin]]'s "A Fool in the Rain" is about a guy being stood up by a girl. For a while, he tries to convince himself that she's just late, even waiting out in the rain for her, until he finally gives up hope. He immediately realizes that {{spoiler|he has been waiting on the wrong block this whole time.}}

* [[The Kinks]]'s "Lola" is about a woman the narrator met in a bar and fell in love with, but in the final line it's revealed that Lola is actually {{spoiler|a transvestite.}}

** Though if you listen to the lyrics, it's pretty obvious right from the beginning of the song.

* [[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.}}

* [[Devo]]'s "Beautiful World", the verses of which are filled with positive lyrics about the world. It's only hinted at during the chorus "It's a beautiful world - for you" that not all is as it seems. Towards the end of the song the chorus becomes "It's a beautiful world - for you - but not for me", changing the entire meaning of the song to one of sarcasm.

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== [[Video Games]] ==

* The plot twist in the [[Utsuge]], ''[[Ribbon of Green]]''.

* Phantom Dust's entire environment is not what it seems.

* In ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'', TEC tells Peach about Grodus's plan for her. During this scene, it fades out and in again, so we cannot read what he said. We finally find out towards the end of the game.

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== Web Original ==

* The famous "Raptor Story" on [[~~Game FAQs~~]]'s Current Events forum. At the beginning of the story, the first-person narrator crashes his sister's lesbian spin the bottle party and is about to make out with her...until she is revealed to be a velociraptor, something that was somehow completely unknown to the narrator. The twist is actually in the first act of the story, not at the end.

* The famous "Raptor Story" on [[GameFAQs]]'s Current Events forum. At the beginning of the story, the first-person narrator crashes his sister's lesbian spin the bottle party and is about to make out with her...until she is revealed to be a velociraptor, something that was somehow completely unknown to the narrator. The twist is actually in the first act of the story, not at the end.

* The parody creepypasta "[http://www.creepypasta.com/day-of-all-the-blood/ DAY OF ALL THE BLOOD]" wherein it is revealed that the man that all the blood was coming from {{spoiler|WAS YOU!!! (OR HE WAS A LADY IF YOU ARE A LADY) AND YOU FORGOT THAT THIS HAPPENED}}

* The third [[The Lazer Collection|Lazer Collection]] uses this along with [[Dramatic Irony]]:

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{{quote|'''Batgirl''': She's beautiful!

'''Batman''': She doesn't know how to see that anymore. All she sees are the flaws. }}

*** Another episode had a new crimefighter known as The Judge, who was meting out deadly vigilante justice on Gotham's arch-criminals including Penguin, Killer Croc and Two-Face. At the end it turned out it was really Harvey Dent, who had become so distraught about becoming the villain Two-Face that his mind fragmented again and spawned the new identity of The Judge, a personality so distinct that it even went so far as to try to kill himself as Two-Face (Batman figured it out when he realized the two were never in the same place at the same time).

* Referenced on ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' when Homer submits this poem to a literary journal:

{{quote|There once was a rapping tomato

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** When the music stopped, the lady died. {{spoiler|The lady was a blind tightrope walker, the end of the song was her cue for when to step off the tightrope onto the platform, and--oops!--someone turned off the music too early!}}

** 'A man lies dead in a forest. How did he die?' {{spoiler|He was lifted by a helicopter getting water from a lake to put out a forest fire}} and 'A man lies dead next to a rock. How did he die?' {{spoiler|he's Superman, the rock is Kryptonite}} are two common examples.

** A boy and his father are in a car. It gets into a terrible accident. The father is killed outright. The boy is critically injured and rushed to the hospital. In the operating room, the doctor looks down and says "My God! This is my son!" How is this possible? {{spoiler|The doctor is the boy's mother, you sexist pig.}}

* All the above in the Folder Other 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.