Wrong Genre Savvy/Playing With

Basic Trope: A character realizes they're in a story, but guess wrong as to the genre, or their role in the story.

• Straight: Bob thinks he's a Dogged Nice Guy in a Romantic Comedy, but he's actually a Stalker with a Crush in a Police Procedural, and his antics get him arrested.
• Exaggerated: Bob thinks he's a Dogged Nice Guy in a Romantic Comedy, but he's actually about to suffer Death by Sex in a Horror film.
  • Bob thinks he's The Hero or a least a member of a Five-Man Band in a Shonen, but he's actually a Noble Demon that is member of a Quirky Miniboss Squad, a Five-Bad Band or even a Big Bad Duumvirate.
• Downplayed: Bob thinks he's a Dogged Nice Guy in a Romantic Comedy, but he's actually the Dogged Nice Guy's best friend being used to show the nice guy in a better light.
  • Bob thinks he's The Hero, but he's actually The Lancer.
• Justified: Bob spends too much time watching movies about relationships and not enough time having real relationships.
• Inverted: Regular Genre Savvy, or Genre Blindness.
• Subverted: Bob thinks he's a Dogged Nice Guy in a Romantic Comedy, but the audience knows this is a horror movie, so they're surprised when he manages to hook up with a nice woman, they have sex, and nothing bad happens.
• Double Subverted: Until half an hour later, when the monster's plotline suddenly crosses over into Bob's life and he and the woman both suffer Death by Sex after all.
• Parodied: Bob continues to act as though he's in a romantic comedy even as the bodies pile up, the city is put under martial law and a Zombie Apocalypse rages in the streets.
• Deconstructed: Bob's belief that he's in a romantic comedy is caused by his obsession with the genre and his own inability to separate reality from fantasy... or, for that matter, the fantasy that's coming true around him from the one he wants.
• Reconstructed: The tropes Bob lives by are Truth in Television, but only in his own culture; he then finds himself in a culture where the Dogged Nice Guy is more likely to get arrested for stalking than get the girl.
• Zig Zagged: While Bob is wrong about being in a romantic comedy, some but not all of his actions based on that premise actually work out well for him in bizarre ways.
• Averted: Even though Bob is a big fan of romantic comedies, he doesn't try to apply their tropes to his current situation.
• Enforced: Writer X hated the "vampire romance" novel she read recently, so she's using Bob as a Take That at the subgenre.
• Lampshaded: "Now, I know this sort of thing doesn't normally happen in romantic comedies, but I'm sure it's just a temporary setback."
• Invoked: The vampire planning to snack on Bob feeds him lines similar to a romantic comedy's dialogue, hoping to fool him about her intentions.
• Defied: "Something doesn't feel right here. I'm probably not in a romantic comedy after all, so I need to rethink my assumptions."
• Discussed: "Bob, get it through your head! This can't be a romantic comedy, there are ninjas!"
  • "Wait, before I invite you in... are you a vampire who can't hurt me without an invitation across the threshold, or an angel in disguise who'll judge me for my bad hospitality if I don't help you?"
• Conversed: "Bob thinking he was in a romcom was hilarious, up until he got eaten."

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