Basic Trope: A character with many, often conflicting, backstories.
- Straight: Alice is a doctor, but it's unclear why she went to med school. In one episode, she claims her mother made her go, in another, she claims it was because she had a boyfriend who died of leukemia, and a third episode sees her playing with a toy med kit at age six, suggesting she just always wanted to be a doctor.
- Exaggerated:
- Everybody has inconsistent backstories.
- Alice's backstory is inconsistent on how she became a doctor, how she met her husband Bob, why she has a scar on her face, and even how she got her cat.
- Downplayed: It's known that Alice went to med school because her boyfriend died of a disease, but one episode says it was leukemia while another says it was AIDS.
- Justified:
- Alice's true reasons for going to med school are a deep, dark secret, and the different stories are meant to throw people off.
- Alice likes the chaos her conflicting answers cause.
- Alice is an ancient character, there are plenty of sources on her, but they don't seem to agree on hard facts.
- All of her reasonings as to why she became a doctor are all true.
- Inverted: In a show with a lot of Time Travel, there is a lot of inconsistency about Alice's future — in one future, she outlives Bob while in another they die together, in one future she's in the military ten years from the show's present but in another she's not, etc.
- Subverted:
- One episode has Alice claim her mother made her go to med school, while another has her claim it was because her boyfriend died of leukemia. Bob asks her about the inconsistency, and she reveals that her mother was the one who suggested she go to med school to research leukemia and prevent more deaths like her ex-boyfriend's.
- Each of the stated reasons was one of the straws on the proverbial camel.
- Double Subverted:
- However, she also claims that she met Bob as an intern, while a previous episode had stated they were neighbours.
- Alice claimed for each one that it was the one that broke the proverbial camel's back.
- Parodied:
- Zigzagged: Pretty much as is.
- Averted: Alice has a consistent backstory or none at all.
- Enforced:
- The writers wanted to make Alice mysterious.
- The writers are just plain incompetent and constantly conflict on Alice's past.
- Alice is the trolling avatar of Trolling Creators.
- Lampshaded: "Wait... did she become a doctor because of her mom, because of a dead boyfriend, or just because?"
- Invoked: Alice tells people different things about her backstory, some of which are lies.
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Alice gives a huge info-dump about her backstory.
- Alice decides that it's too much of a hassle to think of a bunch of different backstories and keep them consistent in her head. This she decides to keep quiet for as long as possible.
- Discussed: "We don't know why Alice went to med school. She changes the story every time."
- Conversed: "I don't know if the characters are liars or if it's just bad writing, but Alice's backstory is an inconsistent mess!"
- Implied: One scene of the story has five of Alice's friends arguing about something Alice told them, the word "scar" being the constant.
- Deconstructed: When people realize that Alice has repeatedly changed her story, they lose their trust in her.
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs:
- Played for Drama: Alice is lying about her past because she has PTSD or doesn't want her information to get into the wrong hands.
- Played for Horror: Alice has a scar, and she says it's for a different reason each time, but all of them involve the paranormal.
Back to Multiple-Choice Past.
