One of my favorite tropes
Jul. 24th, 2013 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI love it when terrifying things happen (or you do them) and then they aren't that scary, or when the Big Bad Problem turns out to not be the real issue:
This happens all the time in real life, but not so often in fiction. (Theory: it may happen more often in Japanese fiction... I'm thinking of Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto here).
Anyway, the best example I have of this in long-form fiction is in Spirited Away, when the No-Face is a huge monster for a while and then, dreamily, turns into something smaller and rather friendly.
The thing beneath the bed in, uh, The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss.
And there's something at the end of the Darwath Trilogy by Barbara Hambly that seems very related if not quite the same thing.
The opposite twist (Big Glorious Climax turns out not to be a big deal) happens at the end of Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.
Any more examples? There just have to be.
This happens all the time in real life, but not so often in fiction. (Theory: it may happen more often in Japanese fiction... I'm thinking of Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto here).
Anyway, the best example I have of this in long-form fiction is in Spirited Away, when the No-Face is a huge monster for a while and then, dreamily, turns into something smaller and rather friendly.
The thing beneath the bed in, uh, The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Thing Beneath the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss.
And there's something at the end of the Darwath Trilogy by Barbara Hambly that seems very related if not quite the same thing.
The opposite twist (Big Glorious Climax turns out not to be a big deal) happens at the end of Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin.
Any more examples? There just have to be.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 10:27 pm (UTC)I think it's hard to do in fiction in general though because it feels like, well, an anticlimax. I've got a hunch that it happens more in short stories than novels, because when you've got less pages invested the switcheroo seems like less of a ripoff -- I went on a Tanya Huff kick recently so her story "Swan's Braid" is the first thing that pops to mind.
If you haven't listened to Jonathan Coulton's song "The Princess Who Saved Herself", I think it's got a certain amount of the vibe you're talking about too.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-25 12:10 am (UTC)