Zig-Zagging Trope: Difference between revisions

Sometimes, a trope is handled in a way that is, quite frankly, beyond our normal categorizations of [[Subverted Trope|subversion]], [[Averted Trope|aversion]], [[Double Subversion]], or [[Inverted Trope|inversion]]. Such tropes wind up as those rare complexities that can make the readers grin ([[Driven to Suicide|or shoot their brains out]] due to being [[Mind Screw|Mind Screwed]]ed). Thus, the '''Zig-Zagging Trope'''.

* [[The Bad Guy Wins]] becomes rather a [[Zig-Zagging Trope]] in [[Murder on the Orient Express]]. In the traditional way of viewing murder mysteries the "bad guy" is the committer or committers of the in-film murder, but the murder victim was himself a horrendous monster {{spoiler|and mafioso who was killed only because he escaped justice by due process of law for his crimes, and a large part of the story involves the central dilemma caused by Poirot being after the murderer/murderers of a man who so obviously had it coming to him and was clearly the worst guy amongst all the characters of the story ethically. When Poirot figures out whodunnit, he lets the guilty parties literally get away with murder, allowing them to win in the sense of escaping justice even though they've lost in the sense of failing to succeed at their plot of deceiving him -- although in a sense they won to begin with just by succeeding at their plot to murder Ratchett at all, which is what they were there for in the first place.}} If you go by defining the bad guy literally as the most morally degraded character in the story, then Ratchett alternately loses in the sense of ending up a murder victim himself, wins in the sense that his murderer(s) cannot murder him without getting caught, and he loses again in that the murderer(s) get(s) away with it anyhow. And had won long ago at escaping the law itself in the first place to begin with, at which his success technically remains permanent.

* The entire point of the [[Tom Holt]] novel ''Falling Sideways''. The description of the backstory of the major players is revised, revisited and completely contradicted every two or three chapters, and keeping track of all the lies (and trying to fit it into the events of the book) becomes a big brain-hurting exercise. It doesn't help that, at the end, there's still plenty of huge [[Plot Hole|Plot Holes]]s.

* The first time Lemont Brown is alone with Saxon Kenchu in ''[[Candorville]]'', the latter goes from a [[Flat Character]] to an apparently [[Axe Crazy]] [[Knife Nut]]. The story he tells, however, indicates that he's just [[Properly Paranoid]]--but—but the fact that he put a paralytic agent in Lemont's drink leads him to admit within two panels that maybe he's just plain paranoid. Meanwhile, Lemont thinks the whole story is [[Through the Eyes of Madness|Kenchu's hallucination]] and he really is [[Axe Crazy]]--{{spoiler|and then Kenchu shows his [[Game Face]], meaning he's not [[Axe Crazy]] but ''is'' a [[Dhampyr]] and quite probably a [[Knife Nut]]. Then it turns out that Kenchu is [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire|trying to protect Lemont]], subverting the [[Knife Nut]] trope.}}

** Subversion 2: Later, he convinces himself that he wished for the wrong things--thatthings—that he should have used them to bring back the artifacts he's looking for.

** Subversion 3: He's told that his wishes were the most damaging things he could possibly have asked a Fae Lord for {{spoiler|All debts and favors cancelled, everything stolen returned to the duchy, and barred from hunting the world again}}--and—and what he thought he ''should'' have wished for would not have worked as he thought.

* A Triple Subversion occurs in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' episode "Bart Gets An Elephant." Two men are carrying a [[Sheet of Glass|large pane of glass]] across a street. Out of nowhere, Stampy the elephant comes charging down the street, only for the men to [[Subverted Trope|move out of the way.]] Then Bart comes racing down the street on his skateboard in pursuit; [[Double Subversion|the men move out of the way again.]] This leaves them free to continue carrying the pane of glass across the street, [[Zig-Zagging Trope|where they promptly toss it into a garbage bin, shattering it.]]