Basic Trope: In a twist, one of the main characters turns out to be the killer.
This page is split between the two Internal Subtropes:
- Secretive Killer (the killer was aware of this from the start)
- Amnesiac Killer (the reveal is a shock to the killer)
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Secretive Killer
- Straight: Officer Alice and her partner Detective Bob are pursuing the killer, but at the end Bob reveals that he is the real killer and had misled Alice.
- Exaggerated: The entire police precinct was in on the murders.
- Downplayed: Officer Bob is only partly responsible for the murders, while the actual kills were committed by someone else.
- Justified: Bob was trying to allay suspicion by leading the investigation himself.
- Inverted: Charlie, whom the police believed to be the killer, actually didn't commit the murders and is really the hero.
- Subverted: Officer Bob is revealed to have been hiding the fact that he was the killer, but then is exonerated.
- Double Subverted: The exonerating evidence was planted by Bob.
- Parodied: It is painfully obvious that Bob is the killer, yet nobody realizes this until he tells them.
- Zig Zagged: Bob is revealed to be the killer, but then it turns out he was framed, and later is cleared thanks to exonerating evidence- which was planted by him. But it turns out he was only partially responsible for the murders, and wasn’t the actual killer. Because he hired a hitman to do it.
- Averted: It's clear right from the start of the story that Officer Bob couldn't possibly have committed the murders.
- Enforced: Not having pinned down the identity of the killer in advance, the writer thinks it would be a great twist to have him turn out to have been the main character's partner, or even the protagonist all along- despite there being no foreshadowing and contradictions with the earlier text.
- Lampshaded: "So Bob is the real killer! ...I didn't see that one coming."
- Invoked: Officer Bob decides to commit murder because nobody would suspect him, being the lead murder investigator.
- Exploited: See above.
- Defied: Because Everyone Is a Suspect, Officer Bob's first priority is to prove his innocence in the recent string of murders.
- Discussed: "It's always the one you least suspect... least of all the one leading the investigation."
- Conversed: "In this new mystery novel it turns out that Bob is the killer, and was hiding it."
- Implied: When the narrator, who happens to be Bob, tries to memorize the details, he fails to do so. It shows that he might not be as reliable as it seems.
- Played For Laughs: Two of the leading inspectors make a bet on whether Bob is the killer.
- Played For Drama: Alice is traumatized at the revelation that her best friend was the murderer.
Amnesiac Killer
- Straight: After pursuing the killer throughout the entire story, Officer Bob finds out that he is in fact the killer, and was suffering amnesia.
- Exaggerated: The entire police precinct was in on the murders, and somehow they were all unaware of it.
- Downplayed: Officer Bob knows that he committed a single murder, but when he finds out that he committed all of them he is shocked.
- Justified:
- Bob is psychologically disturbed and blacked out everything.
- Bob is a Manchurian Agent.
- Bob received brain damage at some point between the murder(s) and the story's current moment (whether the brain damage happened during the murders or was a completely unconnected peril depends on what the writer finds most ironic).
- Inverted: Charlie believed that he was a serial killer, but all his murders were hallucinations.
- Subverted: Officer Bob finds out that he was the killer all along... but when he turns himself in, it's revealed that all the people he killed are still alive, and that he was merely hallucinating that they were dead.
- Double Subverted: The cops revealing to Officer Bob that all his victims are still alive was itself a hallucination that Bob created to cope with finding out that he is a murderer.
- Parodied:
- A petite young woman finds out that she is in fact the hulking 6' 9'' killer, who looks nothing like her.
- "Ohh, you're right, I DID kill them! Totally forgot, geez. So that night, you see, I was really bored, it was late, and... yeah, you know. Bang bang. Then I binged some reality TV, must've been like 3AM when I got to sleep. Look, a lot of stuff happened that day."
- Zig Zagged: Bob learns he was the killer, but finds out that his killings were hallucinations when he sees his victims still alive, then it turns out those were hallucinations and he possibly really is a killer, so Bob goes insane and actually kills people in the process just to give himself a definitive answer.
- Averted: The killer isn't amnesic.
- Enforced: Not having pinned down the identity of the killer in advance, the writer thinks it would be a great twist to have him turn out to have been the amnesic main character's all along- despite there being no foreshadowing and contradictions with the earlier text.
- Lampshaded: "Wait, I killed who? I must be crazy."
- Invoked: Bob tries to convince himself to be amnesic in order to shrug off the trauma of killing.
- Exploited: Bob pretends to be an amnesic killer in order to manipulate the investigation team.
- Defied: Bob protects himself against amnesia so this will never happen to him.
- Discussed: "If someone can't remember anything in a murder scene, he's likely to be the murderer himself."
- Conversed: "In this new mystery novel it turns out that Bob is the killer, and he doesn't remember."
- Implied: When the narrator, who happens to be Bob, tries to memorize the details, he fails to do so. It shows that he might not be as reliable as it seems.
- Played For Laughs: Bob fails to remember that he's the one who killed his friends... in a video game.
- Played For Drama: Having blacked out everything, Bob is in despair at the revelation.
Back to The Killer in Me, because I'm the killer all along.
