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]]). Thus, the Zig-Zagging Trope.

In other words, think of an example of this as any that is too screwy or complex to be one of the other [[Trope Tropes]].

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== Anime & Manga ==

* [[Mahou Sensei Negima]] does this with the concept of the [[Unwanted Harem]]. It starts out as one, but oh wait, he's [[Oblivious to Love]], then a bunch of the cast fall in love with him anyway, but it doesn't count because he [[Chaste Hero|never reciprocates]], unless [[I Didn't Mean to Turn You On|it's unintentional]], etc. It's still not entirely clear if the series is actually an [[Unwanted Harem]] or not.

** It does the same thing with [[First Girl Wins]], as there are about 5 girls who fit the criteria, and at least one of them could also qualify as [[Last Girl Wins|the last girl]]. And of course, Negi might not end up with any of them...

** The Negi/Rakan fight is essentially a long string of Subverted [[Anticlimax|Anti Climaxes]] combined with numerous instances of [[I Am Not Left-Handed]]. It's hard to tell whether the fight's conclusion is actually an [[Anticlimax]] or not.

* [[Giant Robo]] does this with a [[Broken Pedestal]]. The image of Vogler keeps getting added on with new information from new character left and right, from being a vengeful [[Mad Scientist]] to a benevolent scientist. Eventually, {{spoiler|it ends with subversion}}. Too bad [[Poor Communication Kills]].

* In ''[[Kitchen Princess]]'', Sora appears to be a [[Shallow Love Interest]] as he seems to fall for Najika off the bat. {{spoiler|A side story reveals that he had already run into her and was charmed by her, though she never finds out.}}Then it turns out he was just ordered to hang out with her so that she could be used in a publicity stunt. However, it was inevitable that he'd develop real feelings for her with all the time he spent with her. {{spoiler|Then Sora dies. Not to mention it's also insinuated another reason he wanted to have a relationship with her was so that there would be less chance of his younger brother remembering how their mother died}}.

== Fanfic ==

* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4876578/1/I_Want_a_Refund I Want A Refund], Kuno has forbidden anyone to date [[Ranma ½|Nabiki]] Tendo. Nabiki invokes an inverted "I'll do anything" offer to any boy that defeats Kuno- secure in the knowledge that he will successfully defeat all the other boys in school (since Ranma isn't fighting). Kuno {{spoiler|manages to defeat himself}}, and what follows is a Triple subversion of the "I'll do anything" trope- maybe even quadruple, or quintuple depending on your perspective.

* ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' does this with [[Recurring Dreams]]: Kanae's favorite dream is kissing her [[Sempai-Kohai|sempai]] at the beach and magically teleporting to a shadowy wooded glade surrounded by bunnies and flowers. The dream isn't psychic or precognitive but [[Contrived Coincidence|events happen]] so her sempai is in a very similar position to the start of her dream. With Kanae sightly dazed (enough to realize the differences on her usual dream but not enough to realize she's awake, [[It Makes Sense in Context]]) she kisses her sempai for the first time, everybody watching.

== Film ==

* [[Heroic Second Wind]] has a rather peculiar level of heavy subversion in ''[[The Matrix]] Revolutions'': After Smith delivers a truly exemplary [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] speech, he asks the beaten Neo why the hell he even bothers to keep fighting. Neo stands and says, "Because I choose to." Cue asskicking, trope subversion as Smith rejuvenates and beats Neo to a pulp again, double subversion as Neo gets up again, {{spoiler|triple subversion as Smith manages to infect Neo, and finally quadruple subversion as Neo uses his defeat to provide a link between Smith and the computer that created him, allowing it to simply delete him}}.

* ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'' in regard to [[Lampshade Hanging]].

* [[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.

* [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|Watching]] [[Lucy Liu|the]] [[Single Woman Seeks Good Man|Detectives]] zigzags quite frequently between [[Deconstruction]] and [[Reconstruction]] while [[Playing with a Trope|playing tropes like a drum]]. It's better to just give up trying to analyze it and enjoy the [[Cillian Murphy|dreamy]] blue [[Even the Guys Want Him|eyes]].

== Literature ==

* [[Asshole Victim]] is toyed with in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''The Naked Sun'', where the murder victim qualifies under reasons two (to allow the murderer to be [[Sympathetic Murderer|sympathetic]]) and three (it maximizes the number of possible suspects) . . . because he was the perfect embodiment of the planet's social code ("a good Solarian"), that is, an anti-social a-hole. Everyone had a motive to murder the man who reminded them all of their imperfections, and in the end Elijah Baley decides to sit on the knowledge of who murdered the victim.

* [[The Mole]] is played with in the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' books with Snape. As in, the main characters have thought (and therefore the reader thinks) that he was ''every single sub-trope of this'' at some point, until finally he just becomes ambiguous. It was played straight to begin with, then inverted to become the [[Reverse Mole]], then the main characters thought he was a [[Heel Face Mole]] who was just duping Dumbledore and can't be trusted, and then the inverse of ''that'', etc, etc. That is, up until [[The Reveal]], where [[Word of God|it's established]] that {{spoiler|he's just doing it for Lily Potter}}.

* 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]].

* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]] gets a lot of play in [[The Sirantha Jax Series]]. There's an alien species who change form... by extruding an extra skin around their insectoid bodies. They can manipulate the features on the outside layer, but they occasionally have to molt it and replace it.

* The [[Wheel of Time]] zigzags [[Kissing Cousins]] in ''one chapter'', when Rand is researching his family tree, trying to figure out if he is related to {{spoiler|Elayne Trakand, his lover}}, and receives a lot of confusing and slightly contradictory evidence resulted in the trope going from seemingly played straight, to subverted, to "sort of true." {{spoiler|Elayne is indeed Rand's cousin, but only a very distant one. They descend from the same bloodline, but are not close enough to be considered really related.}}

** {{spoiler|Except that he doesn't know his mother was actually much more closely related. We think anyway.}}

*** {{spoiler|They are very distant cousins... who share a half brother, by way of Rand's mom and Elayne's dad.}}

* ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' zigzags [[There Can Be Only One]]: {{spoiler|The premise is that the last survivor wins. With only a few competitors left, the Capitol makes an announcement that if the last two survivors are from the same district, they will be co-winners. Katniss and Peeta become the last two survivors, but the Capitol [[I Lied|lied]], and there will only be one winner after all. They decide to commit double suicide rather than attempt to kill each other, and the Capitol backs down, deciding that having two winners is better than not having any.}}

** In the second book, there's even more play on the trope- {{spoiler|Katniss is sure that there can only be one winner this time, but then five of the tributes are rescued from the arena.}}

* Lisanne Norman's [[Sholan Alliance]] series does this with [[Luke, I Am Your Father]]. It's ''mostly'' an inversion, but...

** To whit: Mara has a mate. She is also pregnant. Her mate is not the father. Half a chapter is devoted to finding daddy.

** [[Playing with a Trope|Played]] with for Kaid and his son, Dzaka.

* ''Candle'' by John Barnes does ''something'' to [[Shades of Conflict]], as one [[The Reveal|reveal]] after another changes the apparent shade of the conflict. In order: [[Black and White Morality]] ([[Hive Mind|One True]] is good, the last rebel [[Complete Monster|raped a little girl for the fun of it]]), {{spoiler|[[Black and Grey Morality]] or [[Evil Versus Evil]] (One True is [[You Will Be Assimilated|solely concerned with propagating itself]], but the representative of it who serves as the main character is only partially controlled and is a [[Lawful Good]] [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]), [[White and Grey Morality]] or a reversed [[Black and White Morality]] (One True lied about the rebel, and he's actually a good guy), [[Grey and Grey Morality]] or [[Evil Versus Evil]] ''again'' (the rebel is the last survivor of a benevolent [[Hive Mind]] founded to protect humanity from One True and its like, but it [[Jumping Off the Slippery Slope|jumped off the slippery slope]] and now what remains of it forces him to convert more people, [[And Then John Was a Zombie|just like One True]]), and finally [[Rousseau Was Right]] (the rebel himself is still an idealist, and One True is willing to learn from his example, voluntarily splitting itself into bits and becoming more of a [[Mental Fusion]].}} The sequel takes it another step: {{spoiler|One True is ''trying'' to be good, but is still driven to propagate itself, and may or may not have killed thousands of people so it could assimilate the rest into its "[[Well-Intentioned Extremist|benevolent]]" control.}}

* ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'' does that with the [[Modern Major-General]] Blouse's [[Ping-Pong Naivete]]. Is he really that stupid? No, he turns out to be a genius about certain things. Then he reverts right back to useless officer, and back to smart... and back.

** He's smart about certain things ... and ''only'' about those things. It's just that, unlike most characters of his type, he can find practical uses for them. But only some of the time - the rest of the time he's genuinely clueless.

** Wouldn't that make him a [[Genius Ditz]]?

== Newspaper Comics ==

* 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 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.}}

* Traveller: [[Planetville]]. A planet does not have to be a planet ville. Many planets are large and complex societies and some have mini-sourcebooks about them. On the other hand [[PCs]] when travelling through the stars often don't see more then the starport. On the other hand, a whole campaign can be set on a single planet. On the other hand some planets are almost virgin worlds with no more then a small outpost on them, whose population may be that of a small town or even a villiage.

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' somehow manages to do this with both [[You Can't Fight Fate]] and [[Screw Destiny]].

** As does the ''[[Terminator (franchise)|Terminator]]'' franchise, even when it ''probably'' shouldn't...

* ''[[Ace Combat]]'' zig zags around [[So Last Season]] with its starter planes; some games have better starter planes than later ones, but the current latest one, ''6: Fires of Liberation'' also has a better starter plane that some games before it. See the trope page for the full rundown.

* ''[[Fat Princess]]'' does this to [[Save the Princess]].

* [[Knight in Shining Armour]] trope in ''[[Braid]]''.

* ''[[Frontlines: Fuel of War]]'' zig zags with [[Bag of Spilling]]: Each mission comes in two halves, and you keep all of your gear if you die... But when the second half of the level loads you're suddenly stuck with a regular weapon set and ''none'' of the collected gear from the first section.

* [[Jeanne D'Arc]] actually managed to pull this off with the [[Doomed by Canon]] Trope. In real life, Joan was [[Downer Ending|burned at the stake]] but in the game, {{spoiler|she was previous [[Not Quite Dead]], so her best friend Liane was actually posing as her for a portion of the game. Liane instead was captured and burned at the stake since she had been masquerading as Joan and everyone believed her to be the true Joan. For extra irony, Joan herself appears on the scene moments after.}}

== Webcomics ==

* Look under "[[Fan-Preferred Couple]]" for ''[[El Goonish Shive]]''. The trope is [[Invoked Trope|set up]] when an alternate love interest for Elliott is introduced in the form of Nanase, [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] when they turn out to actually ''be'' a couple, [[Double Subverted Trope|double subverted]] when she breaks it off because there's no spark, and then ''triple'' subverted when [[Opposite Sex Clone|Ellen]]/Nanase becomes canon. Triple-subversions are ''extremely'' hard to do... but the trope isn't being subverted as much as being a straight playing of [[Will They or Won't They?]].

* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' do this with [[Not the Fall That Kills You]]. More complex than you thought.

* Sivo in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' is a triple subversion of the "Knight vs. Dragon" story.<ref>To wit: A [[Our Dragons Are Different|Rogat Orjak]] smashes in Antimony's dorm roof. He introduces himself as Reynardine, and asks that Annie stay with him [[Subverted Trope|so the cruel knight won't capture and imprison him.]] The next day, Annie sees Reynardine again, and he tries to [[Demonic Possession|possess]] and kill her. Sir Eglamore--the knight from the previous evening--saves Annie. [[Double Subversion|So he was the good guy and Rey the bad guy all along.]] The triple subversion comes when Eglamore explains that Reynardine is a "[[Our Demons Are Different|demon]]"--and that the Rogat Orjak whose body Rey had stolen was an old friend of Eglamore's, named Sivo.</ref>

** This comes close to ''quadruple''-subversion level, though only time will tell: {{spoiler|Reynardine is now under Annie's control, and as Annie learns more and more about him, he appears to be far more sympathetic and far less the demon that Eglamore believed.}}

*** Tom zigzagged the [[Ship Tease]] in chapter 34 where it looks like {{spoiler|Annie and Jack}} flirt with each other well, in contrast to their previous awkward interaction in chapter 31. They have an apparently sweet moment in a balcony, which leads to her saying she doesn't like him when it looks like they're about to kiss. Then he sighs in relief and declares a crush on {{spoiler|Zimmy}}. She gets pissed off, and he gives her [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]. He then cracks a joke, and she agrees with the joke and concedes to his calling her out. It finally ends in a relatively sweet moment which leads her to offering him an actual kiss. He turns her down gently and they're shown hugging at the end.

* Randomly point a finger, with eyes closed, somewhere on the [[Fate and Prophecy Tropes]] page, and you're likely to find something in ''[[Digger]]'' that's addressed in this manner.

* ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' does this with [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]]. Subverted, inverted, averted, double-subverted, and ultimately deconstructed. And just occasionally played straight. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|It works beautifully.]]

* ''[[The Whiteboard]]'' does this regularly with [[More Dakka]], substituting paintballs for real bullets. ''LOTS'' of paintballs.

* In ''[[Nedroid]]'', the initial comics had a lot of artistic experimentation, with some comics looking sketchy while others looked gorgeous. As time went on, the comic eventually focused on a simple, but polished art style. It's two cases of [[Art Evolution]] while simultaneously being two cases of Art Decay.

* [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=561 This] ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' panel is a textbook example of screwing with the reader's expectation so many times it makes you dizzy. The webcomic in question ''loves'' this trope.

* ''[[Jack (webcomic)|Jack]]'' zigzags [[Parental Abandonment]] with Fnar, an innocent unborn, who has two dead parents - both reside in Hell like he does. He is mainly kept away from them, since Mama's stuck in a dangerous place, and Papa is just dangerous. Later on the trope gets twisted further: Papa finds him {{spoiler|and to some degree abuses him as a means to get to his de facto guardian}}, after which Fnar is separated from both Mama and Papa {{spoiler|as he is given another chance at life}}. Except that not all so, because {{spoiler|Papa is a Sin and able to visit the world of the living}}...

== Web Original ==

* In part 1 of ''[[Kickassia]]'' [[Godwin's Law]] is both played straight and inverted ''in the very same sentence''.

** The second part of the event starts with an over-the-top dramatic scene where [[The Nostalgia Critic]] and [[The Spoony Experiment|Spoony]] discuss [[Enemy Within|Doctor Insano]]. The two simultaneously [[Large Ham|overact]] for drama, humour and [[Narm Charm|ironic humour]].

== Western Animation ==

* There are at least two episodes in the ''[[Men in Black (animation)|Men in Black]]'' animated series which play with the [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?]] to a somewhat confusing degree:

** In ''The Buzzard Syndrome'', an alien comes to Earth hunting another alien, so it's Space Policeman hunting Dangerous Killer. Then the lies are exposed, and it seems to be Heartless Bounty Hunter hunting Cute Alien. Then it turns out that the cute alien is a killer, so it's Heartless Bounty Hunter hunting Cute Dangerous Killer. Bit hard to keep track of the lies.

** In ''The Star System Syndrome'', something is doing in the alien actors of Hollywood. They believe it's the Space Demon, a washed-out actor who looks like the ''[[Alien (franchise)|Alien]]'', but he just wants to get another movie deal. It turns out to be the Astro Tots, the cute little hosts of a children's show. And then, it turns out the Astro Tots are ''exactly'' as harmless as they appear and that they only trapped the other actors for setting a bad example.

* 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.]]

* The TV series version of ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' has a female genie called Eden, who is also [[Benevolent Genie]]. Unlike Genie however, she's wise enough to become a [[Literal Genie]] when dealing with [[Jerkass]] Abis Mal. When the villain wishes Genie imprisoned in the bottom of the ocean, she give him an escape hatch because Mal didn't say forever. When Mal wished the biggest and strongest being in the world, she including a method of relieving him of his power; and when the little girl who finds her wishes for everything to be all right, she turns Abis Mal into a bug as a "freebie". She also went out of her way to encourage the little homeless girl to come up with better wishes; when the girl wished for a sandwich, she convinced her to wish for a lifetime supply of food instead.

== Real Life ==

* In the days of [[William Shakespeare]], ''all'' roles in a theater play were played by men or boys. This includes the female roles, so you had guys dressing up as girls, so you get [[Dude Looks Like a Lady]]. Which makes for a very interesting time when this guy is playing either Viola from ''[[Twelfth Night]]'' or Rosalind from ''[[As You Like It]]''. Both are female roles, but the females ''disguise themselves as males'' in their respective plays, producing the reverse trope, [[Bifauxnen]]. So you end up with a guy playing as a girl that's pretending to be a guy: a crossdressing double-cross, one could say.