Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

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Katy133
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Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#1 Post by Katy133 »

It can be from a book, from a film, from a video game, whatever. Preferably twists mysteries but it doesn't have to be. You can list several, or just one. It just needs to be a twist that you liked.

If it's spoiler-heavy (such as an ending), please spoiler-hide the title of the work (and possibly character names), but not the twist.

For example:
Star Wars
The villain is the protagonist's father.


I'll start off:
Dirk Gently, episode 3.
The detective's guesses of who the murderer was, was incorrect because of a handwritten clue he found (which he thought was written by his client). Turns out, it wasn't written by the client... it was written by her maid. This was foreshadowed by the client saying early-on that she recently had a car crash (which would've injured her writing-arm).
Last edited by Katy133 on Sun Jan 31, 2016 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#2 Post by Kumiho »

The Music of Marie
I'm not /super/ sure how to explain the twist, but I'll try. Basically, the male lead is an illusion espoused by the female lead -- then the community -- into existence as a 'specter' of sorts that only the FMC can see but that everyone else in the community can sense.

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#3 Post by YossarianIII »

Ex Machina
I realize that disco dance breaks are becoming so common in sci-fi that it's almost a cliché (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Martian, multiple Star Wars video games), but there was one in a more serious movie recently that really surprised me. It was funny, but also weirdly sinister and made enough sense in the context of the characters that it didn't feel out of place.

IDK about anyone else, but 118 minutes of questioning what it means to be human + 2 minutes of disco is pretty much my ideal formula for a movie.

The lesson I took away from it is that you can use abrupt changes in tone and soundtrack, but as long as you keep the characters fairly consistent, it won't throw the story off track.

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#4 Post by SundownKid »

Fight Club... 'nuff said.

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#5 Post by jumnai »

Usual Suspects!

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#6 Post by Iylae »

Steins; Gate
When the main protagonist realises that his "time travelling" has doomed another protagonist to die, and then does a complete goal-reversal trying to undo his previous "jumps" to prevent their predetermined death.

You can't get much more twisty than a complete U-turn.
Last edited by Iylae on Wed Feb 03, 2016 7:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#7 Post by Ghost #9 »

Personally, I think it'd be less spoilery to tag the actual twist than the name of the work.
If someone is familiar with the work, they will undoubtedly be able to recognize it from the twist. Additionally, being able to see the title of the work would allow people to easily bypass games they haven't yet played.

On the other hand, it could be argued that they knew what they were getting themselves into by coming to a plot twist thread. But still. : P

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#8 Post by Katy133 »

Ghost #9 wrote:Personally, I think it'd be less spoilery to tag the actual twist than the name of the work.
If someone is familiar with the work, they will undoubtedly be able to recognize it from the twist. Additionally, being able to see the title of the work would allow people to easily bypass games they haven't yet played.

On the other hand, it could be argued that they knew what they were getting themselves into by coming to a plot twist thread. But still. : P
That's sorta why; sometimes the fact that a work has a twist is a spoiler in and of itself (Dreaming Mary is a well-known example).

It's also to prevent people from feeling left out if they don't know any of the mentioned titles. Tagging the title allows everyone to read every twist, without being spoiled.
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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#9 Post by Rinima »

Fault Milestone 2: side above
Nuclear explosion happenings. Took me off guard.
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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#10 Post by LateWhiteRabbit »

Knights of the Old Republic

Changes everything, forces every relationship into a re-evaluation, and acts as a major driving force in the rest of the game. Probably one of the few major twists in media that does NOT come in the 3rd Act of the story.

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#11 Post by Keryee »

Puella Magi Madoka Magica
It started off as a cute little anime, possibly aimed at seven-year-olds, with cakes and moe girls and school uniforms and all that.

And then a fifteen-year-old girl loses her head. Literally. And it turns out that the whole anime revolved around selling your soul to aliens in order to combat entropy.

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#12 Post by Kkoro »

I think of my favorites twist is one by Stephen King because it was so well written.

*Spoilers*I don't know how to censor on mobile

Basically the whole book is about a writer and his stalker who is a really messed up guy. It get really intense and in the end the stalker gets the better of him. But the twist for the reader at the end is: the stalker was merely a creation of the writer's schizofrenic mind.
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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#13 Post by Fuseblower »

"I see dead people."
"Really?".
"Yeah, I'm looking at one right now...".

Nuff' said ;)

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#14 Post by neowired »

When the protagonist gets so pissed of at a villain that she kills her, on purpose, and doesn't feel bad about it afterwards.

When a feminine looking and acting character of undefined gender actually turns out to be a boy, not a girl badly pretending to be boy, and not because he is in hiding, but rather because he just is that way and likes to dress like that, and then falls in love with another boy, and they have a happy gay ever after.

When the protagonist at the end of the story decides that the villain was right all along, and changes sides.

When the world actually ends destroyed despite everything, including everyone.

When the hero decides to not sacrifice himself, and tells others they have to deal with their own problems, because fuck it, and then goes on his way, and doesn't get shamed for it by the author.

When a boy who is constantly punched, slapped, and degraded by his bitchy female abuser, punches her right back, and is applauded for it, and she is called out on being abusive and horrible, and the boy finds better friends.

When the chaotic anti-hero isn't given a tragic ending and doesn't die, instead everything ends up perfectly for him.

When the friend/little sister/little brother/child of the protagonist who was stolen for cheap angst to make the protagonist watch as he is killed, and to make the protagonist angst, actually doesn't die and is rescued, and the protagonist doesn't angst but instead acts in an extremely efficient way and wins.
Alternatively:
When the villain uses the loved one of the protagonist as a shield, and the protagonist completely disregards the threat and goes for the kill, and wins.

When in the end the main character chooses as his romantic partner his childchood friend, rather than the girl next door who he just meet a week ago.

In case these weren't sufficiently mystery-centered, here's something more mystery-centered:

When it turns out that there actually is some kind of magic/alien/monster behind the great mystery.

When in the end of the story we find out that everything that happened is, in fact not an allegory/metaphor about the internal psychological struggles of the character, neither is it her delusions, but all the weird, mysterious, monstrous, magical things really did happened, monsters are real, and magic is real, and there are other realities.


Mostly it's a list of plot twists which I would love to see, but which usually (and some almost always) go the opposite way round to my big dissatisfaction.
And I kept it non-specific so there's no titles or character names for you, only plot twists and plot devices.

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Re: Your Favourite Twist in a Story?

#15 Post by Chancellorchile »

Sacharine
You think the male love interest is being creepy cause its a romance VN, but he actually is a creep that commisioned a necromancer to create you...gosh im gonna replay it!
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