History Main / ZigZaggingTrope

* ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' does that with the ModernMajorGeneral Blouse's PingPongNaivete. Is he really that stupid? No, he turns out to be a genius about certain things. Then he reverts right back to useless officer, and back to smart... and back.
** He's smart about certain things ... and ''only'' about those things. It's just that, unlike most characters of his type, he can find practical uses for them. But only some of the time - the rest of the time he's genuinely clueless.
** As well as this trope, ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' zigzags [[spoiler:SweetPollyOliver , when it starts applying to every single character. Except Blouse. Who, when they have to disguise as women, suggests that he be the one who does it, as the "boys" would clearly fail. He does get into the stronghold unhindered, while the SweetPollyOlivers are so used to manly mannerism at that point that one of them has to lift her skirt in order to prove that she indeed ''is'' a girl.]]

* ''LightNovel/Durarara'' zig-zags MyHorseIsAMotorbike. Celty's steed really ''is'' a (reanimated) horse, but to help fit in, she gives it the appearance of a motorcycle, though the illusion isn't complete, as in it still makes horse sounds and casts the shadow of a horse.

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'': Does that with the LackOfEmpathy trope. Rick Sanchez empathy is always questionable, but never abundant even at the best of times. If you aren't his family, Birdperson, Squanchy, Unity, Mr. Poopybutthole or a select few other characters, he likely doesn't regard you in any meaningful way. But even to those characters, mainly his family, Rick has been known to treat them poorly, or with indifference. While it is rarely outright stated, the implied reason for Rick's lack of empathy is the horrible things he has seen on his adventures and his realization that every decision they make is ultimately meaningless in the grand scheme of the multiverse (although, it's implied that he's simply using that as an excuse to justify his actions). Also, Rick doesn't see it as worth the effort to bond with any particular version of his family, since they can be interchanged with any other of the infinite versions of them that exist just one portal-gun trip away. Though he seems to love his family, he still views them as interchangeable.

* ''LightNovel/{{Shimoneta}}'' goes back and forth with the DidYouJustHaveSex trope during the locker-room scene in chapter 10. Tanukichi mistakes Oboro for a member of Gathered Fabric and wrestles her to the floor, causing his foot to be pressed against her pelvic region. It's at that moment that Tanukichi realizes Oboro is actually [[DudeLooksLikeALady a male]], but he uses his foot [[CrotchGrabSexCheck to make certain]]. Ayame walks in on them and sees Oboro pinned on the floor with Tanukichi holding "her" legs open. Made more incriminating since Oboro is seen blushing while his panties were soaked from having experienced his first orgasm. Ayame doesn't say a word, but clearly ''thinks'' she's interrupting, so she bolts back out of the room and slams the door behind her!

** The IBangedYourMom trope is initially averted, by having [[TheDragon the antagonist]] (Point Blank), hide it from Clara, rather than use it as an insult. But by the ''"Amazing Eighth Wonder Vol.1"'', he's revealed to be [[spoiler: her missing father]] when he reunites with Athena[[note]]Via time travel. Point Blank is 17, making him the same age as Clara. He then spends 20 years trapped outside of space-time. By the time he escapes, only two years have passed; making him 19 (physically) despite being 37 (chronologically).[[/note]] and spends every night [[CoitusEnsues making up for lost time.]] Despite their efforts to keep it down, Clara inhereted Athena's super senses, so [[RightThroughTheWall she can still hear them]] -- and [[GreenEyedMonster she doesn't take it well.]]
** Also done with VirginTension. For the majority of the series, Athena's concern was that Clara might have her virginity stolen by pervy male supervillains. It never occurred to her that Clara would choose to ''[[TheirFirstTime give]]'' her virginity to them, or that the lucky supervillain would be one of Clara's [[SchoolgirlLesbians classmates.]]

* ''Manga/UchiNoMusumeNiTeODasuNa'' initially [[AvertedTrope averts]] the IBangedYourMom trope, by having [[TheDragon the antagonist]], Point Blank, hide it from Clara, rather than use it as an insult. But by the ''"Amazing Eighth Wonder Vol.1"'', he's revealed to be [[spoiler: her missing father]] when he reunites with her mother, Athena.[[note]]Via time travel. Point Blank is 17, making him the same age as Clara. He then spends 20 years trapped outside of space-time. By the time he escapes, only two years have passed; making him 19 (physically) despite being 37 (chronologically).[[/note]] So they spend every night [[CoitusEnsues making up for lost time.]] Despite their efforts to keep it down, Clara inhereted Athena's super senses, so [[RightThroughTheWall she can stil hear them]] -- and [[GreenEyedMonster she doesn't take it well.]]

*** Probably already counts as a quadruple subversion, after [[spoiler:in #109 Eglamore requested to turn Reynardine over and Antimony [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome refused and offered a good rebuff]],]] so the situation essentially turned into [[spoiler: "the Fair Maiden saves the [ex-] Dragon from the Knight"]].

* HeroicSecondWind has a rather peculiar level of heavy subversion in ''Film/TheMatrixRevolutions'': After Smith delivers a truly exemplary NietzscheWannabe speech, he asks the beaten Neo why the hell he even bothers to keep fighting. Neo stands and says, "Because I choose to." Cue asskicking, trope subversion as Smith rejuvenates and beats Neo to a pulp again, double subversion as Neo gets up again, [[spoiler:triple subversion as Smith manages to infect Neo, and finally quadruple subversion as Neo uses his defeat to provide a link between Smith and the computer that created him, allowing it to simply delete him]].

* ''Manga/UchiNoMusumeNiTeODasuNa'' initially [[AvertedTrope averts]] the IBangedYourMom trope, by having [[TheDragon the antagonist]], Point Blank, hide it from Clara, rather than use it as an insult. But by the ''"Amazing Eighth Wonder Vol.1"'', he's revealed to be [[spoiler: her missing father]] when he reunites with her mother, Athena[[note]]via time travel. Point Blank is 17, making him the same age as Clara. He then spends 20 years trapped outside of space-time. By the time he escapes, only two years have passed; making him 19 (physically) despite being 37 (chronologically)[[/note]]. So they spend every night [[CoitusEnsues making up for lost time.]] Despite their efforts to keep it down, Clara inhereted Athena's super senses, so [[RightThroughTheWall she can stil hear them]] -- and [[GreenEyedMonster she doesn't take it well.]]

* ''Manga/HighschoolOfTheDead'' does it in episode 11, when Takashi pins Rei to the bed after she confesses her felings for him. When he doesn't go any further, [[ArentYouGoingToRavishMe she asks why he's hesitating.]] He tells her it's because he doesn't know how he should feel about it, since he couldn't tell whether she was being sincere or not. After being assured that she is, he accepts and leans down [[SexyDiscretionShot out of frame]], soon followed by [[CoitusEnsues the sounds of their lovemaking.]] But they're forced to stop moments later, because Rei hadn't fully recovered from her back injury.

* Lisanne Norman's SholanAlliance series does this with LukeIAmYourFather. It's ''mostly'' an inversion, but...

* The 2005 film ''[[{{Film/Bewitched}} Bewitched]]'' presents itself as an example of RecursiveCanon: Hollywood has decided to make a reboot of the original [[{{Series/Bewitched}} 1960's TV series]], and Isabel, the actress hired to play Samantha, just happens to be a witch in real life, with identical powers to Samantha. However, as the film continues, the boundaries between the original show, the rebooted show and reality begin to disappear: relatives of Isabel start popping in, [[{{Expy}} identical to their show-counterparts in appearance, personality]] and even their ''names''. The actress playing Endora in the Reboot turns out to ''also'' be a witch (again, with powers identical to her character's), and begins a romance with Isabel's father. The film even ends with Isabel and Jack (the actor playing Darrin) getting married and moving into a house with an actual Gladys and Abner living across the street.

* ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'' has a scene where the male protagonist disguises himself as female whore. Lipstick is used. ''However'': A normal man in this setting has long hair, usually worn in a braid, wears jewelery, and while trousers are not unheard of, men often wear robes or kilts. So, in order to resemble a female whore, he'd need to wear trousers and short hair? Wrong - the female prostitutes have exclusively female customers, who are heterosexual more often than not. Therefore, they try to resemble men as much as possible. ''However'', no ''real'' man would walk around in public, unchaperoned and unveiled like the prostitutes do. Or even put on lipstick to advertise how good he is with his mouth. (Not that Jerin is ''not'' good using his mouth to pleasure a woman, but it is improper to ''talk'' about that.) Oh, and then there is the additional problem that they have to make his shirt look like he ''tries'' to hide breasts under there.

* VoluntaryShapeshifting gets a lot of play in ''Literature/TheSiranthaJaxSeries''. There's an alien species who change form... by extruding an extra skin around their insectoid bodies. They can manipulate the features on the outside layer, but they occasionally have to molt it and replace it.

** DeathByChildbirth: Beatrice's mother did die from childbirth; Sofia is lucky enough though to survive despite getting ecclampsia.

* The first time Lemont Brown is alone with Saxon Kenchu in ''ComicStrip/{{Candorville}}'', the latter goes from a FlatCharacter to an apparently AxeCrazy KnifeNut. The story he tells, however, indicates that he's just ProperlyParanoid--but the fact that he put a paralytic agent in Lemont's drink leads him to admit within two panels that maybe he's just plain paranoid. Meanwhile, Lemont thinks the whole story is [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness Kenchu's hallucination]] and he really is AxeCrazy--[[spoiler:and then Kenchu shows his GameFace, meaning he's not AxeCrazy but ''is'' a {{Dhampyr}} and quite probably a KnifeNut. Then it turns out that Kenchu is [[FriendlyNeighborhoodVampire trying to protect Lemont]], subverting the KnifeNut trope.]]

[[folder:Other]]
* A variant on a popular joke is a triple or quadruple subversion:
-->''"My grandfather died at a Nazi concentration camp."''
-->''"How?"''
-->''"He fell out of a guard tower."''
-->''"Your grandfather was a Nazi?!"''
-->''"He was trying to escape." (beat) "The prisoners were rioting."''
[[/folder]]

* Traveller: PlanetVille. A planet does not have to be a planet ville. Many planets are large and complex societies and some have mini-sourcebooks about them. On the other hand [=PCs=] when travelling through the stars often don't see more than the starport. On the other hand, a whole campaign can be set on a single planet. On the other hand some planets are almost virgin worlds with no more than a small outpost on them, whose population may be that of a small town or even a villiage.

* There are at least two episodes in the ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlack'' animated series which play with the WhatMeasureIsANonCute to a somewhat confusing degree:
** In "The Buzzard Syndrome", an alien comes to Earth hunting another alien, so it's Space Policeman hunting Dangerous Killer. Then the lies are exposed, and it seems to be Heartless Bounty Hunter hunting Cute Alien. Then it turns out that the cute alien is a killer, so it's Heartless Bounty Hunter hunting Cute Dangerous Killer. Bit hard to keep track of the lies.
** In "The Star System Syndrome", something is doing in the alien actors of Hollywood. They believe it's the Space Demon, a washed-out actor who looks like the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'', but he just wants to get another movie deal. It turns out to be the Astro Tots, the cute little hosts of a children's show. And then, it turns out the Astro Tots are ''exactly'' as harmless as they appear and that they only trapped the other actors for setting a bad example.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' does this with the MagicalLand trope. On one hand, Ooo has all the problems endemic to human societies (child neglect, insanity, crime), and the [[MonsterOfTheWeek daily monster attacks]] don't help matters. The wise monarch is of [[MadScientist questionable]] [[CuteAndPsycho sanity]], the magic causes problems just as much as it solves them, and the fantastic creatures are often jerks. On the other hand, it really isn't much worse than any modern society, and, well, it ''is'' a pretty amazing place.

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty's'' treatment of RememberTheNewGuy falls into this territory. The season 2 episode [[Recap/RickAndMortyS2E4TotalRickall Total Rickall]] [[JustifiedTrope Justifies]] it with the introduction of telepathic parasites who implant false memories of new people into the host's brains, causing scores of new characters to pop up only for the family to treat them as old friends. Eventually, Morty figures out how to tell the real memories from the fake ones, and he and his family wipe out the parasites. Unfortunately for poor Mr Poopybutthole, he turned out to be a DoubleSubversion by playing the trope completely straight: he wasn't a parasite, but a new character whom the rest of the cast had apparently known the whole time.

* In the days of Creator/WilliamShakespeare, ''all'' roles in a theater play were played by men or boys. This includes the female roles, so you had guys dressing up as girls, so you get DudeLooksLikeALady. Which makes for a very interesting time when this guy is playing Rosalind from ''Theatre/AsYouLikeIt'', Portia from ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice'', Julia from ''Theatre/TwoGentlemenOfVerona'', or Viola from ''Theatre/TwelfthNight''. All are female roles, but the females ''disguise themselves as males'' in their respective plays, producing the reverse trope, {{Bifauxnen}}. So you end up with a guy playing as a girl that's pretending to be a guy: a crossdressing double-cross, one could say.
** Rosalind goes one better - a boy plays a woman, who disguises herself as a man, who pretends to be ''herself'' for her love interest to pretend to court her. The final speech of the play essentially lampshades the whole thing.

Sometimes, a trope is handled in a way that is, quite frankly, beyond our normal categorizations of [[SubvertedTrope subversion]], [[AvertedTrope aversion]], DoubleSubversion, or [[InvertedTrope inversion]]. Such tropes wind up as those rare complexities that can make the readers grin ([[DrivenToSuicide or shoot their brains out]] due to being {{Mind Screw}}ed), or those subverted more than twice. Thus, the Zig-Zagging Trope.

** Hell, it's not even clear whether the harem is unwanted! On one hand, he doesn't return any of the feelings at the moment, and probably won't for a while. One the other hand, he ''has'' become good friends with all the girls and a bunch more who aren't romantically interested in him, and does appreciate how much they are willing to help him. On the other hand, as Haruna and [[MetaGuy Chisame]] have pointed out, love triangles rarely work out well, and unless Negi goes for [[MarryThemAll everyone]] (and there are [[ChickMagnet a lot of them]]), a whole lot of them are going to be disappointed. On the ''other'' hand, this isn't just a straight romantic comedy but also an action/adventure fantasy as well, and Negi would not have gotten ''nearly'' as far as he had without all of these other characters backing him up. ZigZaggedTrope indeed...

* TheBadGuyWins becomes rather a ZigZaggingTrope in ''Film/MurderOnTheOrientExpress1974''. In the traditional way of viewing murder mysteries the "bad guy" is the committer or committers of the in-film murder, but the murder victim was himself a horrendous monster [[spoiler: and mafioso who was killed only because he escaped justice by due process of law for his crimes, and a large part of the story involves the central dilemma caused by Poirot being after the murderer/murderers of a man who so obviously had it coming to him and was clearly the worst guy amongst all the characters of the story ethically. When Poirot figures out whodunnit, he lets the guilty parties literally get away with murder, allowing them to win in the sense of escaping justice even though they've lost in the sense of failing to succeed at their plot of deceiving him -- although in a sense they won to begin with just by succeeding at their plot to murder Ratchett at all, which is what they were there for in the first place.]] If you go by defining the bad guy literally as the most morally degraded character in the story, then Ratchett alternately loses in the sense of ending up a murder victim himself, wins in the sense that his murderer(s) cannot murder him without getting caught, and he loses again in that the murderer(s) get(s) away with it anyhow. And had won long ago at escaping the law itself in the first place to begin with, at which his success technically remains permanent.

* The [[Literature/TheWheelOfTime Wheel of Time]] zigzags KissingCousins in ''one chapter'', when Rand is researching his family tree, trying to figure out if he is related to [[spoiler: Elayne Trakand, his lover]], and receives a lot of confusing and slightly contradictory evidence resulted in the trope going from seemingly played straight, to subverted, to "sort of true." [[spoiler: Elayne is indeed Rand's cousin, but only a very distant one. They descend from the same bloodline, but are not close enough to be considered really related.]]

* ''Literature/TheHungerGames'' zigzags ThereCanBeOnlyOne: [[spoiler: The premise is that the last survivor wins. With only a few competitors left, the Capitol makes an announcement that if the last two survivors are from the same district, they will be co-winners. Katniss and Peeta become the last two survivors, but the Capitol [[ILied lied]], and there will only be one winner after all. They decide to commit double suicide rather than attempt to kill each other, and the Capitol backs down, deciding that having two winners is better than not having any.]]

** As well as this trope, ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' zigzags [[spoiler: SweetPollyOliver , when it starts applying to every single character. Except Blouse. Who, when they have to disguise as women, suggests that he be the one who does it, as the "boys" would clearly fail. He does get into the stronghold unhindered, while the SweetPollyOlivers are so used to manly mannerism at that point that one of them has to lift her skirt in order to prove that she indeed ''is'' a girl.]]

* ''Series/ICarly'' with its lack of continuity and RuleOfFunny taking precedence does this with a few tropes, but one of the more obvious and repeated tropes ZigZagged is ShipperOnDeck:
** Mrs. Benson in the first and second seasons is clearly a Carly/Freddie shipper, going so far as to ask Carly ''"Why won't you love my son!"'' In Season 3 she ZigZagged into an anti-Carly/Freddie shipper, blaming Carly for Freddie getting hit by the truck in ''iSaved Your Life'', for Freddie deciding to move out during ''iMove Out'' and basically blaming him for Freddie hitting puberty:

** Sam's actions in ''iSaved Your Life'' and ''iStart A Fan War'' show that she doesn't seem to mind the idea of Carly and Freddie together as long as it's for the right reasons. Then she ZigZagged later, when she kisses Freddie in ''iOMG'' it's clear ''she'' wants Freddie for herself, and any previous acceptance of Carly/Freddie is replaced by her own feelings for Freddie.
** As a result of the above actions, Carly appears as a ShipperOnDeck in the first [[FanNickname iSeddie]] episode ''iLose My Mind'', cheerleading for Sam and Freddie to get together, asking the audience about it and generally acting extremely happy about the situation. Then in the next episode ''iDate Sam And Freddie'' she's ZigZagged by being caught in the middle of their fights, telling them that they shouldn't be together because they can't sort their own problems out.

** A Triple Subversion occurs in the episode "Bart Gets An Elephant." Two men are carrying a [[SheetOfGlass large pane of glass]] across a street. Out of nowhere, Stampy the elephant comes charging down the street, only for the men to [[SubvertedTrope move out of the way.]] Then Bart comes racing down the street on his skateboard in pursuit; [[DoubleSubversion the men move out of the way again.]] This leaves them free to continue carrying the pane of glass across the street, [[ZigZaggingTrope where they promptly toss it into a garbage bin, shattering it.]]

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' does this to many, many, many things ([[MindScrew it seems]]) such as [[HumongousMecha giant robots]], the [[AdultsAreUseless usefulness of anyone over 18]], the [[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman nature of man]], the [[AGodAmI nature of the divine]] and... [[RageQuit you know what? Just watch the show.]]

* ''Manga/UchiNoMusumeNiTeODasuNa'' initially [[AvertedTrope averts]] the IBangedYourMom trope, by having [[TheDragon Point Blank]] hide it from Clara, rather than use it as an insult. But by the ''"Amazing Eighth Wonder Vol.1"'', he's revealed to be [[spoiler: her missing father]] when he reunites with Athena, after years of separation[[note]]via time travel. Point Blank is 17, making him the same age as Clara. He then spends 20 years trapped outside of space-time. By the time he escapes, only two years have passed; making him 19 (physically) despite being 37 (chronologically)[[/note]]. So they spend every night [[CoitusEnsues making up for lost time.]] Despite their efforts to keep it down, Clara inhereted her mother's super senses, so [[RightThroughTheWall she can stil hear them]] -- and [[GreenEyedMonster she doesn't take it well.]]

* SoundHorizon's ''Chronicle 2nd Album'' has entirely too much fun with both YouCantFightFate and ScrewDestiny. For example, the story of Arbelge successfully [[ScrewDestiny giving Destiny the finger]] and subverting the Black Chronicle... which you are reading from the Black Chronicle.