when it comes to campaign plotting, what would you say differentiates a "twist" from a "subversion"?
when it comes to campaign plotting, what would you say differentiates a "twist" from a "subversion"?
when it comes to campaign plotting, what would you say differentiates a "twist" from a "subversion"?
I think that this thread is dumb
But anyway a subversion would be dependent on expectations they have from outside the game while a twist would be from expectations set up during the game
TWIST:
The Prime Minister, who has been helpful, solicitous, and kindly this entire time, betrays the king
SUBVERSION:
The Prime Minister does not do that thing, despite the players' expectations based on their consumption of other media, and has been a good and loyal public servant this entire time
so "subversion" is just a metagamer feeling betrayed in his (supposed) meta-knowledge?
Well yeah. People enter into games or engage with fiction with certain expectations based on what they've previously consumed. The good guys win. Ugly people are bad. So on. Not fulfilling those expectations is subversion.
it's not just "subversion", because that means nothing. it's "subversion *of expectations*"
so yes, it's an author using predictable tropes wrong, because they know you expect fire to be hot and water to be wet.
This. Another thing to note is that a twist usually needs some level of foreshadowing in order to be effective. There needs to be some sort of backwards revelation after the twist is revealed where the players say to themselves, "Oh so that's why they did x" or "That's why this was so strange." And so forth. Foreshadowing clues the players in that there is more than there appears and once the moment of revelation happens, it all makes sense.
Subversion does not do this. It is almost flippant in its disregard for the audience's expectations. Consider the word itself. To be "subversive" means to be underhanded and sneaky. Whereas a twist is foreshadowed and plays a crucial element in the plot, a subversion is something that just happens and is almost like a middle finger to the audience's expectations.
Needless to say, subversion works best when it's trying to be humorous (eg One Punch Man) or when it's trying to convey a larger point (as the so-called heroes of The Watchmen act anything but heroic). If you're being subversive just to be subversive, you're a hack.
Without jumping on the Ganker bandwagon of "subversion is bad:"
>Subversion is undermining a trope or a stereotype for dramatic or narrative impact and showing that in this case, it is wrong and the opposite is true.
>A twist is a radical change in direction away from a trope, stereotype or expected outcome.
So a subversion can be classified as a type of twist.
Here's an exercise for you guys. Identify which of these are generic plot twists and which are subversions:
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to find that the princess has already escaped.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to find that the princess overthrew the dark lord and now rules in his stead.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to find that the princess engineered her kidnapping in the first place and the dark lord was her pawn all along.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to find that the princess has fallen in love with the dark lord.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to be defeated and ultimately saved from the dark lord by the princess.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only for the princess to remain with the dark lord so that she may try and keep him under control.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, except that she is not the real princess but a spy keeping tabs on the dark lord on her father's behalf.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to discover that it's actually just a magical simulacrum of the princess as the dark lord was too infatuated to ever wrong her.
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only for the princess to say that she agreed to be taken by the dark lord because he was a wealthier, stronger provider than her father or any potential husband.
>Here's an exercise for you guys. Identify which of these are generic plot twists and which are subversions:
twists are not inherently separate from subversion
a subversion becoming apparent can easily be part of a twist - the twist is about presentation and surprise, the subversion about the story's relation to other media and common story threads
>the post clarifies that subversions can be considered a type of twist
>the post adds the prefix "generic" to differentiate between generic twists that are not subversions and subversive twists that are subversions
>people still feel need to nitpick when the nits that they're picking were picked in the original post
It's not a nitpick you smoothbrain, there's a huge semantical difference. You never use subversion to describe a generic kind of twist. For example, The Sixth Sense is well known for its twist ending. However, the twist ending is not at all subversive.
Similarly, there are subversions that require no twist whatsoever. In One Punch Man, Saitama consistently beats enemies with one punch. There is no twist, he just does what it says in the title. And yet its subversive to our expectations from other shounen media.
>Identify which of these are generic plot twists and which are subversions.
>You never use subversion to describe a generic kind of twist.
So in other words, we're of the same mind and your nitpicking is directed at some phantom of your own construction that you're projecting onto my post.
As long as we're of the understanding that subversion is NOT a kind of "twist" then yes. If you absolutely must, you can say that subversion is a "meta twist", but a plot twist it is not.
You're missing the point. Twists describe the shape of the plot itself (the plot twists and turns in ways that deviate from the norm) while subversion is a specific meta-commentary on the genre itself.
So something like this:
>A hero goes to rescue a princess from a tower ruled by a dark lord, only to find that the princess overthrew the dark lord and now rules in his stead.
Is both a twist and a subversion, a twist because it twists the normal story structure (there's no one to save) and a subversion because it's a commentary on muh patriarchy and whatever.
I'll go a step further than just pointing out the false dichotomy
arguably, nearly all of these are twists because the phrase "only to find" implies it was against the expectations set up by the story up to that point
twists are about expectations within the story, and frequently result from subversions
subversions are about genre expectations, and don't necessarily involve a plot twist
really, confusion comes from the fact that these words can be used very similarly and even describe each other
> a twist subverts your expectations
> a subversion twists the genre around
both accurate phrases but you can see how they would cause confusion
all of these are twist, 2 and 5 are also subversions
a twist is something unexpected
a subversion is "what if [thing] was actually [anti-thing]"
at this point, not trying to subvert expectations would be a twist
Wrong
no I'm not
Oh shit ok
No opinion on the topic but cute geck
TWIST: The dragon was only trying to save the princess from a human sacrifice
>SUBVERSION: The princess is a stronk whamin who needs to man
When something becomes so subverted sometimes playing it straight is the subversion so you just slay the dragon and rescue the princess.
A twist is just whenever something unexpected happens in the story, subversion is more like a specific type of twist aimed at deconstructing some kind of commonly accepted story convention, as a form of meta-commentary. Subversion belongs in propaganda and academe more than in entertainment like tabletop, in my personal opinion. I don't find it fun to use as a DM or to experience as a player, and since the overarching point of the game is to have fun that generally puts subversion on the sidelines for me.
Specifically, it would probably go something like "You arrive at in the dragon's lair to find the princess gone and the dragon dead." with the players left wondering "well shit why did we just fight our way through all these dungeons in the first place?" I mean that in-and-of itself could lead to an interesting story continuation hook, but unless handled with care all it will do is create a frustrating and unsatisfactory anticlimax.
If you're a moron from Ganker and you don't like how the plot is going you call it a subversion because you're still upset about star wars. If you're from /tg/ and you get surprised you call it a twist.
"Subversion" is short for "subversion of expectations", and whining about it is a modern marker of people who feel no longer entitled to an author/writer/thing-maker's best efforts to create a compelling story but to be coddled as though they are the special-brained master of it. Rather than finding your predictions of a potential story event be a satisfying moment you're pleased to have but able to do without, and being genuinely surprised by a retrospectively-obvious turn an equally valuable experience, a small group of people now throw fits if they fail to have their preconceptions validated. Tellingly, the rise of subversion tantrums has come with the rise of not just wikis for shows but the fans whose primary interaction is with the wiki, who sees shows as problems to be solved and not experiences to be had. Being surprised is only possible if you were prepared to be wrong, and these losers are absolutely not.
Subversion, the twist not just in the plot but in your expectations of the plot, is as old as storytelling itself. People getting mad not just at a poorly-done subversion but at the concept of subversion are violently outing themselves as children who view stories as games are make of themselves sore losers.
>a small group of people now throw fits if they fail to have their preconceptions validated
Yeah nah, that has nothing to do with it. People just hate bad storytelling combined with propaganda. Simple as.
Stop blaming others for not automatically loving your shitty storytelling.
Show me on the doll where the sequel spoiled your shitty wiki theory.
>Show me on the doll where the sequel spoiled your shitty wiki theory.
Sequel? We're well past that, stop living 5 years in the past boomer. Everything now is a shitty subversion. The upcoming Lord of the Rings by Amazon is a subversion. Even the recent Thor movie was a shitty subversion. People are tired of these Hollywood hacks in general.
>We're well past tha
Yet you quote Rian Johnson every day
You're like one of those morons who thinks everything is because of gamergate, aren't you?
Rent free
cute lizard
Twist still moves plot forward.
Subversion lets GM feel smart.
a twist is when the cute lizard bites you for trying to pet it, a subversion is when the cute lizard bites you out of maliciousness
It's part of two shifts; corporations increasingly training us to Consume Product, and social trends among the elite and want-to-be-elite that values credentials and ideology over quality. Either way, it means that you're no longer allowed to criticize media based on it's quality; the goalposts will always be moved so that it was subverting your expectations. The only way you're allowed to say something is bad is that it doesn't have enough Queer People of Color in it.
Meds
a twist builds on what's already been established, a subversion undermines it.
Seems pretty straightforward.