Wham! Shot

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

You're watching a show or reading a graphic novel. It all seems well. Then one image makes you stand up straight and pay attention. "What is happening?!" you may ask dramatically.

A Sister Trope to both the Wham! Episode and the Wham! Line, the Wham! Shot is when one shot or image changes the narrative drastically. You may get a plot twist that puts everything in context, or sends the plot in another direction. We also get another side of a character, Hidden Depths or reasons for their motivation.

By its nature, this trope is predominantly found in visual works. But while unlikely, it is not absolutely impossible for a sufficiently evocative description in a text medium to count as this trope. Works in audio-only media, though, should use Wham! Line instead.

Compare with The Ending Changes Everything.

WARNING! There are unmarked Spoilers ahead. Beware.

Examples of Wham! Shot include:

Advertising

  • Many cereal commercials use these when doing story arcs and encouraging people to follow along by following the cereal or going online. Case in point...
    • A literal shot is when Cap'n Crunch goes missing from the Crunch Cereal boxes. His image is missing, as newscasters order people to report any clues they find in their cereal.
    • One Pebbles ad featured Barney dressing up as a mermaid, as usual, and stealing Fred's Pebbles cereal. A sea monster then interrupts them. After Fred arrives at the surface, he then stops to think that "Mermaid - fish tail= Barney." Fred says, "I have to save him!" and dives back in to rescue his friend from the sea monster. This would lead to a maze game on the back of cereal boxes.

Anime and Manga

  • Pokémon showed Gary effortlessly getting his badges, and catching far more Pokémon then Ash does. Then he faces Giovanni at the Viridian City gym. At first he curb stomps the first few Pokémon. Then Giovanni reveals a mysterious masked Pokémon that curb stomps his battle monsters. Gary and his cheerleaders wake up in shock that he lost.
  • Sailor Moon
    • Manga only:
      • You think this is going to be a cutesy magical girls story where a teenager learns to fight monsters and protect her friends. Then Zoicite comes up with a near-foolproof plan to lure Sailor Moon into a trap, and successfully gets her in a chokehold. Tuxedo Kamen can't attack without hurting Sailor Moon, watching with helplessness. So do the Senshi. Just as it seems Zoicite will kill Sailor Moon, a crescent beam incinerates him. It's Sailor V!
      • The Chaos Galaxia arc starts with Usagi seeing off Mamoru at the airport, as he gives her an engagement ring and promises he will be back soon from studying abroad. Then someone shoots Mamoru in the back, and it's confirmed that this killed him. Usagi blocks out the memory because it was so traumatic.
    • Anime only:
      • When a youma attacks Ami in her debut episode, a symbol appears on her forehead, the kanji for Mercury. Luna realizes what this means, that Ami is a Sailor Guardian.
      • Zoicite's youma impaling Nephrite with thick plant barbs as he attempts to protect Naru. Amazingly, this was kept in the DiC dub, including Naru's futile attempts to remove the barbs.
      • A fake Sailor Moon is going around fighting crime, stealing the real Sailor Moon's thunder as the Guardians wonder if she could be the Princess. When Kunzite seems to capture the fake, Tuxedo Kamen launches a rescue. Then said Sailor Moon gives an Evil Laugh and stabs him with an icicle. "She" unzips a costume, revealed to be Zoicite in disguise. Turns out it was a Dark Kingdom plot to eliminate the Senshi and Tuxedo Kamen all at once. And they nearly succeed.
      • To show that the DD girls mean business, they pose as the girls' loved ones. It seems they're holding Tuxedo Kamen hostage, and Sailor Moon rushes to him. The girls dogpile her; as she protests, Tuxedo Kamen gives a Psychotic Smirk and shoots vines at them, just as Sailor Mercury shouts that it's a youma!
      • Sailor Jupiter attempts to stay behind and launch thunderbolts at the youma. They catch her off-guard by changing into Motoki, and all five start electrocuting her. Sailor Jupiter ends up using herself as a lightning rod and electrocutes herself to take out two of the five DD girls. When it's over, she lies prone on an ice floe. Slowly, the Senshi realize that Makoto is dying, and there's nothing they can do.

Art

  • La Guernica was Picasso's depiction of war. It shows the titular town being bombed, with folks in chaos.

Comic Books

  • The Death of Superman shows Lois holding a dying Superman in her arms after he faces Doomsday, and Matrix failed to provide backup support. She begs him to hold on until the paramedics come, as he murmurs if Doomsday is defeated. Jimmy Olsen stands in the background, hesitating on photographing this moment.

Film

  • Snow White has this when the Queen changes her appearance. She makes and drinks a potion that will turn her into a "peddler". You may get an inkling that this is not a nice spell when the Queen combines mummy dust, a hag's cackle, a scream of fright, thunder and wind. But then the transformation finishes, and we see her face. You can't blame the crow lurking in the dungeon for jumping in fright.
  • The broken Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet of the Apes, which gave rise to the Planet of the Apes Ending, is one of the best known and most iconic examples.
  • In Citizen Kane, this is how we learn that It Was His Sled at the end of the film.

Literature

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has this in the climactic chapter. Quirrell has revealed himself as the mole helping Voldemort. When Harry obtains the Sorcerer's Stone and tries to lie about it, a cold voice demands, "Let me speak to him." Quirrell unwraps his turban. It reveals a face on the other side, that can talk. It ends up being Lord Voldemort, parasitically sharing a body with Quirrell.

Live-Action TV

  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a few:
    • Season 2 has Buffy prepare to fight Angelus to the death. Then just as she's about to behead him, Willow completes the soul restoration from her hospital bed. Angel returns, confused, and asks what's going on, as the hell dimension opens behind him. Buffy asks Angel to close his eyes, stabs him, and pushes him through the portal. No wonder Buffy is traumatized for most of season three's beginning.
    • Faith has taken Xander's virginity in "The Zeppo". Xander assumes it means they have a special bond. Buffy informs him that Faith sleeps with men for casual sex, so it means nothing to her. Nevertheless, Xander goes to talk to Faith, to attempt to reason with her. Her response is to push him on her motel bed, start feeling him up; then she tries to strangle him with her Slayer strength. Angel has to save Xander.
  • The Good Place:
    • The season one finale already has one heck of a Wham! Line from Eleanor when she has her Eureka Moment as it seems that she and her friends have to choose who is going to the Bad Place: "They're never going to call a train to send us to the Bad Place. They can't. Because we're already here. This is the Bad Place!" In shock, everyone turns to Michael, as tense violin chords build. Cue him giving an Evil Laugh, confirming that Eleanor was right. The other humans and Janet react with shock and bewilderment. (Even better, Michael's laugh was added long after the script was drafted to deliver that dramatic impact.)
    • The season two finale ups the ante with another one: Michael convinces the Judge that the four humans don't need to be condemned. They can surely pass one final test and show they can grow without knowing about the Good or Bad Place or the points system. Eleanor asks what they're talking about as the Judge snaps her fingers. Cue a very familiar scene as pre-Character Development Eleanor argues with the Environmental Campaign guy outside the grocery store, and nearly gets hit by a row of carts. This time, however, someone pushes her out of the way and Eleanor narrowly avoids death. She stares in shock as a truck pummels the carts, realizing that was nearly her, and on her birthday to boot.
  • Squid Game
    • When Gi-hun decides to call the number on the business card, he's told to wait on a street corner for a pickup. As he enters the van, he notes how everyone must be tired as they're sleeping. Just then, gas gushes out, and he's knocked out after noticing the driver is wearing a mask.
    • A literal gunshot sets the tone for the rest of the series. All of the players are told they have to play a version of "Red Light, Green Light" with a doll either singing or giving the green light and cross a field within five minutes. Seems easy enough. Players 324 and 250 bet a million won on who will cross the finish line first, and set off running. 324 fails to stop in time, as 250 says, "Dumbass got caught." Then a gunshot runs out, and 324 collapses. A player next to Gi-hun goes, "What's that sound?" as 250 uses the doll's go-ahead to check on 324. 324 coughs out blood, revealing he got shot for real. When 250 runs for his life, he gets shot, and his blood spatters over a woman who screams when she realizes what's on her face and hands. Cue Mass "Oh Crap" as most of the players panic and run for the doors and are mowed down like fish in a barrel.

Music

New Media

  • Wham! City, a comedy group with no relation to this trope, loves incorporating these shots in their digital media:
    • Unedited Footage of a Bear starts as a parody of an allergy medicine commercial that interrupts YouTube footage of a bear. Then things start to get really weird when the protagonist, a mom with several kids, sees her doppelganger. The audience has to find supplemental material on a separate website to get the full story.
    • This House Has People In It, an interactive web series has this in the already-weird short film that features a girl falling through floors. It ends with an ominous figure decked in pink staring at the camera. Like with Unedited Footage, one can uncover supplemental videos and fake websites that provide a few answers-- and lots of questions.

Newspaper Comics

  • Curtis had an arc where Curtis's brother starts sneaking extra milk and is hiding in the basement. To Curtis's shock, he finds Barry with a baby in his arms, that he's named Missy. As Curtis put it, he thought Barry had adopted a cat! Barry explains that he found the baby in the trash, and someone needed to look after her.
  • For Better or For Worse
    • April wanders outside with Farley when her parents aren't paying attention. She finds a toy boat and thinks it's a good idea to test it on the nearby river. Only when April leans to put the boat in the water, she slips on the rocks. One comic strip ends with her submerged in the river currents. The rest of the arc becomes a race against time as Farley jumps in the river to save April, while his son Edgar runs home and barks at the adults.
    • Liz's coworker Howard has been weird with her. He's followed her to her parents' house, where her dad calls the non-emergency police line to report him for stalking. Liz thinks that if she ignores him and defuses Howard's creepy behavior, he will get bored of her. Nope; when they're alone in the gardening store, Howard corners her against a wall. The next comic shows Liz punching him in the face repeatedly and calling for help. That one ends with someone putting Howard in a necklock, and pulling him off Liz. Turns out to be Anthony.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • Every time Krishna reveals his true form, the other characters treat it as a Wham! Shot. Seeing it convinced Arjuna to enter battle in the Mahabharata.

Puppet Shows

Theatre

  • Hatchetfield has a few in its onstage musicals:
    • The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals
      • Act one already hints that something is wrong when a musical number starts on the streets, though Paul reasons after talking with Ted that it might have been a flash mob. Then Paul's boss summons him into his office and Paul assumes it's because of the reports he forgot to deliver the previous day. As Paul starts to explain himself, Mr. David lowers his newspaper to face him, with a Slasher Smile and starts to sing as well, asking "What do you want, Paul?" That's when Paul realizes that something really weird is going on in town.
      • "Cup of Poison Coffee" follows this up with all the Beanies' patrons sans Paul collapsing and choking after they drink their coffee. Emma goes to check on the pot, pulling out weird blue shit. Cue everyone standing up and singing in unison and pointing at Paul and Emma. They run for it before the song finishes.
    • Black Friday
      • The mall riot. It starts when a man panics and takes the Tickle-Me-Wiggly from Frank Pricely's front counter. Then everyone starts fighting for the toy, as Lex has the sense to run and Frank tries to steal it back and ban the customers.
      • The President of the United States bravely enters the Black and White to reason with Wiggly. He meets Uncle Wiley, who gives a Breaking Speech about how America's capitalism made it easy for Wiggly to spread his influence. It's then revealed the decorations on stage are actually tentacles for Wiggly and he's been watching us the whole time!

Video Games

  • Deltarune tends to end chapters with these:
    • In the Neutral run of Chapter One, Ralsei removes his hat. He's virtually identical to Asriel save pink cheeks. Susie reacts with appropriate shock, and later references that Ralsei looks like a distant Dremurr relative.
    • Chapter One ends with Kris ripping out their soul, locking it in a birdcage, and looking to the audience with a Slasher Smile.
  • Undertale has a few that set the stage for the rest of the game:
    • If you feel forced to fight Toriel, you may take it a little too far. She collapses, gives a speech that she is proud that you are strong, and fades away. On a a genocide route, or if you backstab her, she'll die Laughing Mad saying that you will fit in just fine in the Underground. You can only avoid either option if you refuse to fight her, and convince her to let you go into the Underground. Toriel's Final First Hug when she lets you go peacefully isn't as dramatic as her death, but it has made a few players cry.
    • As you walk into Waterfall, a spear nearly hits you in one area. You pause in alarm, as a knight emerges, Lady Undyne! Time to run for it before she grabs your soul.
    • Some optional areas show monsters with eyeless faces that disappear as soon as you talk to them. You may even unlock a secret room with a figure named Gaster.
    • The first Neutral run ends with you defeating Asgore. Yet...you can still spare him. He offers that if he reconciles with his wife, they can all live together and be a family. Cue very familiar pellets surrounding and killing him. Flowey appears, giving an Evil Laugh as the souls surround him; he reveals that he took the time to grab the souls while you were fighting Asgore. He glitches out the game, having written the world by wiping everyone out.

Visual Novels

  • Doki Doki Literature Club! ends Act One with Sayori's dead body hanging in her room, when the narrator goes to check on her. In-universe, this causes the game to glitch and restart with Sayori erased from the Literature Club. Slowly, the player realizes that this was a deliberate bug. But who erased Sayori? And why?.

Web Animation

  • A literal gunshot in Homestar Runner. When Strong Bad opens a virus email, it causes his world to glitch. He ends up trapped outside of his window as pop-ups of Homestar appear. It seems everyone is doomed to glitch forever, until the world resets. Strong Bad and the Cheat start to dance, but then Bubs appears. He's holding a shotgun. When Strong Bad asks what happened to his computer, Bubs reassures him it's in a better place. Bubs shot the infected computer to save the world.

Web Comics

  • Check, Please! has Bitty make a dangerous play on Jack's orders during the playoffs. As he receives a hip check, he sails through the air monologuing how much he hates this. Cue paramedics fussing over him, and Jack softly calling his name.

Web Original

  • Nostalgia Critic
    • Doug's A Simple Wish review ends with him trashing Mara Wilson as a child actor, saying that her movies were terrible. Then someone appears on the screen, with a very familiar face, a "modern-day" haircut and a stern expression. It's Mara Wilson, all grown up! Mara proceeds to chide Doug for judging kid actors on their performance and forgetting they were kids. To prove it, she rolls several embarrassing videos that he made as a kid and starts giving them the Nostalgia Critic treatment.
    • Doug once made a video of "Top 11 Worst Avatar Episodes" under the belief that everyone is an adult and since Avatar: The Last Airbender has no technically bad episodes. The show ends with a Gilligan Cut where Rob Walker delivers the news of the fandom being disgraced to a familiar face... Dante Basco, the voice actor for Prince Zuko.

Western Animation

  • Arthur
    • "D.W. Gets Lost" has D.W. interested in earrings, but her parents tell her that they'll turn her ears green. D.W. scoffs and says she doesn't care if that happens. Towards the end of the episode, Emily appears at the supermarket and her ears have turned completely green. Her parents are returning her earrings.
    • "Attack of the Turbo Tibbles" features the twins whacking D.W. in the face with a swing. She curls into a ball and starts crying. Emily realizes that something is wrong, checks on her, and runs off screaming for Mrs. Tibble because D.W.'s mouth is bleeding!
  • Gravity Falls has enough Wham! Shots to make a drinking game out of them. Just to start with:
    • Episode 1
      • Norman decides to reveal his secret to Mabel. She hopes that he will be a vampire, and thinks it repeatedly. He then opens his coat...revealing himself to be a bunch of gnomes, who pop the question to her. Mabel understandably collapses in shock and disappointment because she's not ready for nonconsensual polyamory. As Dipper puts it when he finds out, "I was way off" because he thought Norman was a zombie.
      • The episode ends with Stan punching a code into the Mystery Shack vending machine. It opens a secret door, and he goes inside.
    • Episode 4 reveals that Gideon Gleeful has Journal 2.
    • In "The Deep End," Mermando decides to reveal his secret: he is a mermaid! Mabel gives a sigh of relief; she thought he had a girlfriend.
    • "Dreamscaperers" has one, when Gideon opens Journal 2 to reveal the mysterious figure who appears at the end of the opening credits. It ends with Gideon revealing he dynamited the safe holding the Mystery Shack deed, and sets his bulldozer on the Pines just as they wake up from fighting Bill Cipher.
    • The season one finale "Gideon Rises" show what's behind the vending machine: it's an elevator to underground levels of the Mystery Shack. Stan reveals he has Journal 1 and uses it, as well as Journal 2 which he stole from Gideon and 3 which Dipper lent to him, to activate a giant machine. The episode ends with Stan saying, "Here we go.".
    • An in-universe one in "Scaryoke" as zombies trap the Pines in the attic. Dipper frantically says that the Journal pages are blank... then Mabel reveals that blacklight unlocks invisible ink. They quickly find a counterattack to dispel the zombies and cure Soos after he gets bitten.
  • Amphibia
    • "Best Fronds" has Anne hoping that Marcy and Sasha are okay. The episode ends with Commander Grime confronting someone in a dungeon, holding Anne's missing shoe. That person ends up being Sasha, chained up and leveling a Death Glare at him.
    • "Anne Vs. Wild" has Hop-Pop look up the music box in one of the old family books. He goes Oh Crap when a page reveals it's called a Calamity Box, surrounded with lots of handwritten warnings about how dangerous it is.
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