Basic Trope: There was a war in the past, but the specifics are left ambiguous.
- Straight: The characters frequently reference "The Great Clash", which is said to have been a war that took place several years ago, and Alice is said to have fought in it, but the details are unspecified.
- Exaggerated: The war isn't even given a name— Alice just tells people to never mention "what happened" when she was "serving overseas".
- Downplayed: We know which places were involved in the Great Clash, how many people died, etc., but we still get no flashbacks to the war, and it's never revealed why the war took place.
- Justified:
- Describing the war in detail is taboo.
- Not much is known about the war other than the fact that it happened (and even that fact is fading from the collective consciousness).
- Inverted:
- In an Alternate History where WWII never happened, it's never explained what prevented it from happening.
- The show is mostly flashbacks to the Great Clash and exposition regarding who was warring over what and why.
- Subverted: It's left ambiguous until one episode has Alice explain in detail what started the Great Clash and why people fought over it.
- Double Subverted:
- ... But it was All Just a Dream, and the dreamer wasn't Alice but Bob, who didn't live in the area during the Great Clash and thus does not know what happened, so his dreams are an unreliable source of information.
- ... But Alice was lying.
- Parodied: There's implied to have been a Food Fight that landed everyone in detention, but no one specifies what started it.
- Zigzagged:
- The specifics of the Great Clash are left unsaid, until Alice reveals the reason for it... while in a dream by Bob... which might have been a supernatural dream.
- Different characters make different, conflicting statements about the Great Clash, and it's unclear who's lying and who's telling the truth.
- Averted:
- There was no offscreen war.
- The Great Clash is described in detail and/or we're shown flashbacks of it.
- Enforced:
- The writers believe leaving it ambiguous would be scarier.
- The writers thought showing war onscreen would bump the rating up too high.
- Lampshaded: "What exactly started the Great Clash? And why?"
- Invoked: Everyone avoids mentioning the Great Clash other than in passing.
- Exploited:
- Defied: Alice tells everyone exactly why she and others were fighting.
- Discussed:
- Conversed: "What was the war that happened offscreen all about? I'm dying to know!"
- Implied: Alice has symptoms of being a Shell-Shocked Veteran and the main city is in a state of disrepair.
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama: Alice suffers from severe PTSD after serving in the Great Clash, and many people are still grieving their families.
- Played for Horror:
Back to Great Offscreen War.
