Mind Screw/Playing With

Basic Trope: A work makes no sense.

• Straight: Bob and Alice makes no rational sense.
• Exaggerated: Bob and Alice is two hours of unconnected symbolism and random imagery. No one in the movie is named Bob or Alice.
• Downplayed: Bob and Alice mostly makes sense, except for that one scene two-thirds of the way in.
  • Alice and Bob is somewhat confusing, but mostly makes sense.
• Justified: Bob and Alice is told from the perspective of an unmedicated schizophrenic with positive symptoms.
  • You have to use your imagination to create a plot.
• Inverted': Bob and Alices plot is as explained as clearly as possible. All plot threads are tied up and all phenomena are explained.
  • Bob and Alice cannot make heads or tails of the reader.
• Subverted: Bob and Alice is a story within a story, and the "outside" story does make sense.
  • Mind Screwdriver
  • The story looks like it makes no sense whatsoever, but near the ending someone explains it and it suddenly makes sense.
  • The story makes sense but you need to see the end first
• Double Subverted: Then the outside story breaks down.
  • The Mind Screwdriver is a Voodoo Shark.
  • The end explanation runs afoul of Fridge Logic
• Parodied: Bob, Alice, and their friend Henry Spencer move into a house.
• Deconstructed: Bob and Alice begin the story sane and fall into insanity as reality breaks down and nothing they do can stop it.
  • Alternatively, it's best to leave the work uncomprehended at all.
• Reconstructed: Bob and Alice, now insane, go on to narrate Bob and Alice II, a story about them trying to get Bob and Alice II published.
• Zig Zagged: Bob and Alice makes no sense up until The Reveal. It makes complete sense then. Until the ending when the crazy train comes into the station.
• Averted: The story makes sense.
• Enforced: "I'm the goddamn David Lynch".
• Lampshaded: "Don't bother with that. It's probably just symbolic of your feelings towards your father."
• Invoked: The Walrus Was Paul, in which confusing the audience is the only goal.
• Defied: Alice takes it upon herself to explain every plot development clearly.
• Discussed: "A giant phallic monster is going to burst out of the wall now, isn't it?"
  • "Considering what just happened, I don't think that any of this is going to start making any more sense any time soon."
• Conversed: "I didn't mind the characters or the acting, just the bucket of acid the screenwriter took before writing the third act."
• Played For Laughs: Surreal Humor
• Played For Drama: Bob's life make no sense and he kills himself, being unable to tolerate it anymore.
  • Surreal Horror

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