Xenocrypt
@xenocryptsite.bsky.social
Politics, math, culture, whatever.
Reposted by Xenocrypt
It’s intuitive to me that stories about achieving status and recognition within a system while also having misgivings or desiring to change or destroy that system are currently popular.
December 7, 2025 at 6:02 PM
It’s intuitive to me that stories about achieving status and recognition within a system while also having misgivings or desiring to change or destroy that system are currently popular.
(To be clear this probably all but exhausts all the contemporary SF/F I've ever read lol.)
December 7, 2025 at 6:02 PM
(To be clear this probably all but exhausts all the contemporary SF/F I've ever read lol.)
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Moses being adopted into the pharaoh's family
December 7, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Moses being adopted into the pharaoh's family
It's a perfectly good trope, I mean. I'll probably read all the other examples in the replies. But I liked "The Goblin Emperor" even more than any of those, and not unrelatedly, it was a bit different.
December 7, 2025 at 6:01 PM
It's a perfectly good trope, I mean. I'll probably read all the other examples in the replies. But I liked "The Goblin Emperor" even more than any of those, and not unrelatedly, it was a bit different.
I am only 1/3 through "The Traitor Baru Cormorant" but even looking at the table of contents I was like, right one of these. (That might not be fair, did it come first of those?)
December 7, 2025 at 5:58 PM
I am only 1/3 through "The Traitor Baru Cormorant" but even looking at the table of contents I was like, right one of these. (That might not be fair, did it come first of those?)
To really fit, I think you'd have needed Jesus Christ to go to like the Roman Imperial Senate Academy for a while. (Or for Luke to actually have gone to the Academy like he wanted. You need an institutional phase.)
December 7, 2025 at 5:56 PM
To really fit, I think you'd have needed Jesus Christ to go to like the Roman Imperial Senate Academy for a while. (Or for Luke to actually have gone to the Academy like he wanted. You need an institutional phase.)
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This is oddly enough much more positive on the Empire at least; it just be refreshed by its core principles (elites taking responsibility) rather than demolished
December 7, 2025 at 5:53 PM
This is oddly enough much more positive on the Empire at least; it just be refreshed by its core principles (elites taking responsibility) rather than demolished
Or you know. Jesus Christ.
December 7, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Or you know. Jesus Christ.
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Tbf that series does a tremendous job of combining that trope with the “very special boy gets discovered and goes to special school” trope.
Though in that book the prodigy from the hinterlands was [redacted redacted] but it still counts.
Though in that book the prodigy from the hinterlands was [redacted redacted] but it still counts.
December 7, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Tbf that series does a tremendous job of combining that trope with the “very special boy gets discovered and goes to special school” trope.
Though in that book the prodigy from the hinterlands was [redacted redacted] but it still counts.
Though in that book the prodigy from the hinterlands was [redacted redacted] but it still counts.
I guess it literally goes back to "Dune" and "Star Wars" in the broad strokes but something feels more particular.
December 7, 2025 at 5:52 PM
I guess it literally goes back to "Dune" and "Star Wars" in the broad strokes but something feels more particular.
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Cahokia Jazz kind of subverts this dynamic.
December 7, 2025 at 5:50 PM
Cahokia Jazz kind of subverts this dynamic.
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A Memory Called Empire gestures at this.
December 7, 2025 at 5:48 PM
A Memory Called Empire gestures at this.
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It's something in the air I guess.
December 7, 2025 at 5:47 PM
It's something in the air I guess.
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Not conventional mysteries per se, but De Palma plays all kinds of games with “invisible” dissonance between the dialogue and the visuals in Dressed to Kill, Raising Cain, and heck even Mission: Impossible
November 30, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Not conventional mysteries per se, but De Palma plays all kinds of games with “invisible” dissonance between the dialogue and the visuals in Dressed to Kill, Raising Cain, and heck even Mission: Impossible
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I remember Wetherby (1985) doing a bit of this, with flashbacks showing how a particular detail was explained by something going on in a previous flashback. Not primarily exactly a mystery though (and I saw it forty years ago).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetherb...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetherb...
Wetherby (film) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 30, 2025 at 2:35 AM
I remember Wetherby (1985) doing a bit of this, with flashbacks showing how a particular detail was explained by something going on in a previous flashback. Not primarily exactly a mystery though (and I saw it forty years ago).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetherb...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetherb...
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more obvious to him bc he was trying to follow the plot based on nonverbal cues and reading the emotional vibes
November 30, 2025 at 2:12 AM
more obvious to him bc he was trying to follow the plot based on nonverbal cues and reading the emotional vibes
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my dad was living in belgium when this came out, didn't really speak french and accidentally went to see a dubbed version of this rather than subtitled and decided to stick around. he said he figured out that bruce willis was dead very early on bc it was obvious nobody else was interacting w/him
November 30, 2025 at 2:12 AM
my dad was living in belgium when this came out, didn't really speak french and accidentally went to see a dubbed version of this rather than subtitled and decided to stick around. he said he figured out that bruce willis was dead very early on bc it was obvious nobody else was interacting w/him
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Midsomer Murders (the good seasons, 1-8) did this from time to time. I won't give any spoilers.
November 29, 2025 at 2:21 AM
Midsomer Murders (the good seasons, 1-8) did this from time to time. I won't give any spoilers.
Yes I call this general approach "hide the twist in what initially seems like bad writing/acting" and it's very effective.
November 29, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Yes I call this general approach "hide the twist in what initially seems like bad writing/acting" and it's very effective.
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This is a second category of TV trick I like where the writers play off common TV show conventions to set up twists or mysteries like when Dawn showed up on Buffy or everyone lists their memories on TNG and it wasn't automatically self evident that the new guy was an alien because new crew 1/2
November 29, 2025 at 12:46 AM
This is a second category of TV trick I like where the writers play off common TV show conventions to set up twists or mysteries like when Dawn showed up on Buffy or everyone lists their memories on TNG and it wasn't automatically self evident that the new guy was an alien because new crew 1/2
Reposted by Xenocrypt