Basic Trope: Something is supposedly revealed as a hoax, but then we get a shot of the real thing.
- Straight: Alice hears of a lake monster in her area, so she goes to the lake to investigate. It turns out to be a hoax cooked up by Bob, but then as she walks off, a real lake monster pops its head out of the water.
- Exaggerated: Alice hears rumours of a lake monster, ghosts, and aliens. It turns out that all three of them were Bob's doing, but then right when Alice's back is turned, the lake monster pops up, ghosts start rising from the cemetery, and a Flying Saucer lands near the lake.
- Downplayed: Alice investigates a rumour that Bob is a vampire. It turns out that he's not, in fact, a vampire but he did use magic to trick people into believing he was.
- Inverted: Alice investigates the supposed lake monster and concludes that it exists, but at the end, we get a shot of Bob taking down the fake monster.
- Subverted: Alice goes to investigate the supposed lake monster. It turns out that it was a hoax cooked up by Bob, but then we get a shot of another lake monster... which is another scam cooked up by Charlie.
- Parodied: The monster turns out to be real, but much smaller than it's usually imagined.
- Zigzagged: Bob faked the lake monster, but then another monster comes out... that turned out to be another fake Charlie made. Then, a flying saucer goes down, implying that the aliens mentioned a few episodes ago seemingly as a throwaway joke were real... until Diane steps out and reveals she invented it... then a man appears who appears to be the vampire that supposedly lives in the old haunted house, but he could just be some weirdo.
- Averted:
- Alice finds out that the monster is real without discovering a fake first.
- Alice finds out that the lake monster was fake, and that's the end of that.
- Enforced: "I can't decide if I want the lake monster to exist or not. Let's do both!"
- Lampshaded: "This is the part where it turns out to be real, isn't it?"
- Invoked:
- Bob knows the monster exists, so makes a pretend one to throw Alice off the scent.
- and/or to protect the wonderful being from those that would hurt it through either intent or ignorance.
- Exploited:
- Defied: Before setting up his scam, Bob makes sure there are no real monsters nearby.
- Discussed: "I've got sufficient evidence that the monster is a fake, but I can't help but worry that the powers that be are gonna pull a fast one on me and have it turn out to be real."
- Conversed: "Do the writers ever stop to think about the implications of the 'it existed all along' ending?!"
- Implied: Little Alice finds out that her parents are the ones buying her Christmas presents, but then she gets one they didn't buy and we hear, "Ho ho ho!" in the background.
- Deconstructed:
- Reconstructed:
- Played for Laughs: The lake monster says, "Hahaha! Missed me!"
- Played for Drama:
- Played for Horror: The lake monster was rumoured to have eaten people, so if it exists, that's really bad.
Back to Real After All.
