Can you think of examples of ineffective subversion that confirm my suggestions? What makes it ineffective?
The first thing I think of is the recent trend in film to break the fourth wall with self-aware humor. The MCU is probably the biggest offender at the moment, with Star Wars coming in second.
When it first became a trend (around 2017 or so if I had to guess), it was a great device for subversion because everything up until that point had been taking itself too seriously, and people were starting to feel the fatigue.
Recently, I think this trope (yes, I believe self-aware humor is a trope now) has been overdone, and now it seems like nothing takes itself seriously. It seems like everyone is trying to get one over on you now with self-aware jokes that feel like a slap in the face to fans who are truly invested in the story.
I could ramble on, but this is the most apparent example I can think of.
Thanks Brannley, yeah--at least in Deadpool I think it was a feature of his character to break the fourth wall, but I recently watched an MCU movie with a friend and it's clear the writers were self aware. I think that particular variety is flanderization, where they become caricatures of themselves. So Deadpool is an example of it being subversive and done correctly (because he was kind of the first to do it), but then everyone else started doing it badly by inserting it where it didn't make any sense.
Fourth wall breaks are hard to do right for exactly this reason. Once--it's shocking and funny. Too much--audience is doing too much work.
Trailing off this conversation about overdone subversion/subversion that's become so popular it's no longer, like, subverting expectations *at all* is misunderstood villain/anti-hero/"no one is actually that bad, they just had a rough childhood". Which sucks because I *want* nuanced characters, including villains, but the whole "no one is actually a villain, and if you look at it another way, this person is actually the HERO" is getting kind of old.
You should watch the bbc miniseries for war and peace. Its SO GOOD and the reason i mention it is because napoleon is the villain and his reasons for being villainous are treated as totally valid. It opened my eyes to a new dimension of villainy and i enjoyed it a lot.
A lot of my fiction is based around subversion. Nobody expects a frail looking young lady to be super-powerful, an underweight puppy to possess great intelligence and the power of speech, a jittery teenager to be an interstellar peace officer, a rabbit to take anthropomorphic form, or a flaxen-haired toddler to really be a foul-mouthed adult cyborg. But those ladies are all mine...
I'm writing a Beauty and the Beast inspired story atm and my subversion is that Beauty actually wants to slay the Beast.
On a non-me related note though I recently finished playing a voiced text adventure game, and there was a hedge maze with an old man in it. I figured he would be the hint for that area, but instead he was there to break the fourth wall and ask players to donate if they liked the game devs work. It was super charming and the funniest part of the game.
Not to brag or anything, but I did a spot of subversion with my vampire story. I'd originally thought of making the vampire/monster hunter woman a young, hip, big breasted dame, but then immediately realized that's what everyone does. So I made her an old woman and she was much funner to write that way. I think that's the first way I would think to include subversion: looking at what are the common choices, and then not doing those.
Second, I can't think of any ineffective ones (maybe I just ctrl+alt+deleted them out of my brain), but when I think of something subverting expectations, I think of Jane the Virgin, and American telenovela. It definitely leaned into the telenovela-ness, but by giving every character depth it made it unlike any other telenovela.
JTV is based off a Venezuelan-based telenovela, so I wonder if the original show did the same things..
Apparently Superman's also vulnerable to magic and also if the other guy is just flat-out stronger than he is, like Darkseid or Mongul, but yeah; this is why I'm more of a Batman fan when it comes to DC.
This is a great article; I admit for a while back when I was on Wordpress a lot of my stories were more about the jokes and subverting tropes and whatnot and less about character development. I like to think my Edison City stories are more character-based and using subversion to serve the story rather than not. The Malevolent Med-Student was a joke in the beginning, but honestly Mal-Med's grown on me ...
But anyway. One bit of subversion (don't @me) that I think worked at first anyway was what happened with Ned Stark in the first Game of Thrones book. That worked because GRRM wanted, as my understanding was, to write something more hard-edged and realistic whereas a lot of stories in that vein would've had the cavalry riding in at the last minute. I never finished the books (of course, neither has he) and I've only read recaps of the series, so I don't know if it worked beyond the first book. But the first one worked.
Yeah, Ned Stark is a great example of showing both sides of the subversion--the original idea and it's opposite, and using that to drive the story. I think subversion loses it's sting when it's repeated often, which GRRM ALSO did throughout the series such that it was kind of annoying--readers need someone to root for, you can't keep killing MC's just because it's edgy! Give us ONE PERSON we can follow and root for!
Anyway. That's maybe more a taste thing than anything else. I agree with you that I think your superheroes subvert the standard model but you also make it relevant and important, even with the jokes. And that's a key takeaway--it's not just for the sake of doing it differently, you explore the actual consequences of a different brand of superhero. And it works great!! I think about Pinball a lot, btw--i'd love to see more of him (unless you've written some and i've missed it!)
EXACTLY. The Incredibles is an even better example of subversion but done better; they deconstructed the superhero trope (because of COURSE there would be lawsuits) but then they reconstructed it, if you will. I'm still not sure how I think of the Incredibles 2, but that's neither here nor there; the first one, though, that was brilliant.
I haven't written the Pinball of late, and I need to; he was fun to write. *scribbles notes*
EXACTLY. The Incredibles is an even better example of subversion but done better; they deconstructed the superhero trope (because of COURSE there would be lawsuits) but then they reconstructed it, if you will. I'm still not sure how I think of the Incredibles 2, but that's neither here nor there; the first one, though, that was brilliant.
I haven't written the Pinball of late, and I need to; he was fun to write. *scribbles notes*
I think the worst form of subversion that doesn't serve the story I have ever seen is the entire Finn/Rose plot in Star Wars 8. It didn't do anything but spout a political message and be a convenient way of getting Finn in front of the Chrome Stormtrooper Lady. The only thing cutting that plot would have changed would have been the length of the movie.
Can you think of examples of ineffective subversion that confirm my suggestions? What makes it ineffective?
The first thing I think of is the recent trend in film to break the fourth wall with self-aware humor. The MCU is probably the biggest offender at the moment, with Star Wars coming in second.
When it first became a trend (around 2017 or so if I had to guess), it was a great device for subversion because everything up until that point had been taking itself too seriously, and people were starting to feel the fatigue.
Recently, I think this trope (yes, I believe self-aware humor is a trope now) has been overdone, and now it seems like nothing takes itself seriously. It seems like everyone is trying to get one over on you now with self-aware jokes that feel like a slap in the face to fans who are truly invested in the story.
I could ramble on, but this is the most apparent example I can think of.
Thanks Brannley, yeah--at least in Deadpool I think it was a feature of his character to break the fourth wall, but I recently watched an MCU movie with a friend and it's clear the writers were self aware. I think that particular variety is flanderization, where they become caricatures of themselves. So Deadpool is an example of it being subversive and done correctly (because he was kind of the first to do it), but then everyone else started doing it badly by inserting it where it didn't make any sense.
Fourth wall breaks are hard to do right for exactly this reason. Once--it's shocking and funny. Too much--audience is doing too much work.
Trailing off this conversation about overdone subversion/subversion that's become so popular it's no longer, like, subverting expectations *at all* is misunderstood villain/anti-hero/"no one is actually that bad, they just had a rough childhood". Which sucks because I *want* nuanced characters, including villains, but the whole "no one is actually a villain, and if you look at it another way, this person is actually the HERO" is getting kind of old.
You should watch the bbc miniseries for war and peace. Its SO GOOD and the reason i mention it is because napoleon is the villain and his reasons for being villainous are treated as totally valid. It opened my eyes to a new dimension of villainy and i enjoyed it a lot.
A lot of my fiction is based around subversion. Nobody expects a frail looking young lady to be super-powerful, an underweight puppy to possess great intelligence and the power of speech, a jittery teenager to be an interstellar peace officer, a rabbit to take anthropomorphic form, or a flaxen-haired toddler to really be a foul-mouthed adult cyborg. But those ladies are all mine...
I'm writing a Beauty and the Beast inspired story atm and my subversion is that Beauty actually wants to slay the Beast.
On a non-me related note though I recently finished playing a voiced text adventure game, and there was a hedge maze with an old man in it. I figured he would be the hint for that area, but instead he was there to break the fourth wall and ask players to donate if they liked the game devs work. It was super charming and the funniest part of the game.
Not to brag or anything, but I did a spot of subversion with my vampire story. I'd originally thought of making the vampire/monster hunter woman a young, hip, big breasted dame, but then immediately realized that's what everyone does. So I made her an old woman and she was much funner to write that way. I think that's the first way I would think to include subversion: looking at what are the common choices, and then not doing those.
Thanks for the shoutout!
First of all, your footnotes are delightful!
Second, I can't think of any ineffective ones (maybe I just ctrl+alt+deleted them out of my brain), but when I think of something subverting expectations, I think of Jane the Virgin, and American telenovela. It definitely leaned into the telenovela-ness, but by giving every character depth it made it unlike any other telenovela.
JTV is based off a Venezuelan-based telenovela, so I wonder if the original show did the same things..
Apparently Superman's also vulnerable to magic and also if the other guy is just flat-out stronger than he is, like Darkseid or Mongul, but yeah; this is why I'm more of a Batman fan when it comes to DC.
This is a great article; I admit for a while back when I was on Wordpress a lot of my stories were more about the jokes and subverting tropes and whatnot and less about character development. I like to think my Edison City stories are more character-based and using subversion to serve the story rather than not. The Malevolent Med-Student was a joke in the beginning, but honestly Mal-Med's grown on me ...
But anyway. One bit of subversion (don't @me) that I think worked at first anyway was what happened with Ned Stark in the first Game of Thrones book. That worked because GRRM wanted, as my understanding was, to write something more hard-edged and realistic whereas a lot of stories in that vein would've had the cavalry riding in at the last minute. I never finished the books (of course, neither has he) and I've only read recaps of the series, so I don't know if it worked beyond the first book. But the first one worked.
Yeah, Ned Stark is a great example of showing both sides of the subversion--the original idea and it's opposite, and using that to drive the story. I think subversion loses it's sting when it's repeated often, which GRRM ALSO did throughout the series such that it was kind of annoying--readers need someone to root for, you can't keep killing MC's just because it's edgy! Give us ONE PERSON we can follow and root for!
Anyway. That's maybe more a taste thing than anything else. I agree with you that I think your superheroes subvert the standard model but you also make it relevant and important, even with the jokes. And that's a key takeaway--it's not just for the sake of doing it differently, you explore the actual consequences of a different brand of superhero. And it works great!! I think about Pinball a lot, btw--i'd love to see more of him (unless you've written some and i've missed it!)
EXACTLY. The Incredibles is an even better example of subversion but done better; they deconstructed the superhero trope (because of COURSE there would be lawsuits) but then they reconstructed it, if you will. I'm still not sure how I think of the Incredibles 2, but that's neither here nor there; the first one, though, that was brilliant.
I haven't written the Pinball of late, and I need to; he was fun to write. *scribbles notes*
EXACTLY. The Incredibles is an even better example of subversion but done better; they deconstructed the superhero trope (because of COURSE there would be lawsuits) but then they reconstructed it, if you will. I'm still not sure how I think of the Incredibles 2, but that's neither here nor there; the first one, though, that was brilliant.
I haven't written the Pinball of late, and I need to; he was fun to write. *scribbles notes*
I think the worst form of subversion that doesn't serve the story I have ever seen is the entire Finn/Rose plot in Star Wars 8. It didn't do anything but spout a political message and be a convenient way of getting Finn in front of the Chrome Stormtrooper Lady. The only thing cutting that plot would have changed would have been the length of the movie.