Well, I sure as hell wasn't expecting that World War II would end with a giant bomb.
I was all like "NO FUCKING WAY!!!"
I was all like "NO FUCKING WAY!!!"
Most mindblowing plot twists ever
- Thread starter reg42
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I was pretty impressed bye the Redvs.Blue Redemption plot twist - that was very very well thought out with Director Dr. Leonard Ch-
But ya a better on is like the suicide bomb in season 3 of Battlestar Galactica I was shocked and appalled at the writers putting it in and how radical the New Caprica hesitance was.
But ya a better on is like the suicide bomb in season 3 of Battlestar Galactica I was shocked and appalled at the writers putting it in and how radical the New Caprica hesitance was.
I'm going to have to go with Myst, to which I devoted a significant portion of my childhood, and Fantastic Children, which completely blew me away just before the end. I would also like to mention 20th Century Boys (Monster and Pluto as well, but 20th Century Boys shocks me the most frequently) and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Also, Violence Hero Riki Oh may have some of the most unpredictable and shocking plot twists ever, but that stems less from masterful storytelling and more from complete insanity. If anyone can predict all the ridiculous stuff that happens in Riki Oh, then they must be clairvoyent.
Also, Violence Hero Riki Oh may have some of the most unpredictable and shocking plot twists ever, but that stems less from masterful storytelling and more from complete insanity. If anyone can predict all the ridiculous stuff that happens in Riki Oh, then they must be clairvoyent.
1984, Winston's redemption... it's built over the last chapter or two, but still the greatest twist I've ever read.
Close second would be Battlestar Galactica's end of season three, with 'all along the watchtower' and the meeting in the brig... don't think I've ever laughed so hard, sheer genius.
Close second would be Battlestar Galactica's end of season three, with 'all along the watchtower' and the meeting in the brig... don't think I've ever laughed so hard, sheer genius.
ben---neb said:
I don't think Star Wars borrowed much from it. Below is what I got out of it when I read them as part of school. I've re-read them since and still hold to the same opinions. I actually had to write reports. It includes a summary for anyone who is interested, but I am leaving out a lot of fine details so as not to spoil quite everything in case someone runs out and reads them (and honestly even if spoiled everyone should).
What makes Foundation differant from other science fiction stories is that it downplays individual heroism. Indeed the entire point is the fact that individuals no matter how talented are largely irrelevent to how things turn out. The stories revolve around a science called "Psycho History" created by a guy called Hari Seldon that allows him to predict what is going to happen in the future by observing trends and events within cultures over a long period of time, and the movements and attitudes of people on a wide scale. It's like sociology on a massive scale. There are also some tricks involved in it, but you don't find out about those until later.
The basic stories start with Hari predicting that the galactic empire is going to end, so he establishes a colony full of scientists on a remote planet under the guise of them starting an encyclopedia. To make a long story short when the rest of the galaxy collapses into barbarism due to warring factions and civil war a lot of technology is lost. Violence is seen as not being an option because The Foundation (the colony) is so heavily outgunned. What they eventually do however is take their technology which is now better than everyone else's and trade it while claiming it's magical and presenting themselves as priests. With a tech monopoly that they now control, they manage to start building an empire based on trade. Eventually some groups get all paranoid about "religious zealots" trading with them and taking over their independance through a tech monopoly, and The Foundation gradually turns corperate in a more traditional fashion and starts selling the stuff.
The format for the stories up through all of that is that a crisis will happen, it's unstoppable seemingly, and then eventually a timed recording of Hari Seldon goes off showing he predicted what was going to happen in a general sense (through trends) and presents a strategy in how to deal with it, that of course works perfectly based on psycho-history.
The next major occurance is that things start go go wrong in this massive empire they established (this takes place over centuries with differant groups of characters who aren't exactly blaster toting heroes, but usually academics and such working to do what Hari says) and being cocky they wait for Hari's recording to tell them what to do, but this time it's totally wrong and out of context to what is actually happening. A basic "Oh Sh@t" moment.
It basically turns out that Hari created this "Second Foundation" on the old galactic capitol of Trantor before it fell, using his students of psycho history. All of these guys are basically massive psionics (though they prefer to insist they simply have massive talent with psychology.. uh huh). Their job was to act as a group of secret police and basically make sure Hari's predictions come true and that what his recordings say are accurate. They run around and mind control and mindwipe people and all kinds of illuminati type things. The problem was that Hari had no respect for unusually talented aberrations like a Hitler or Napolean, or whomever and what they can do. He figured if someone like that ever DID somehow become a factor his little Illuminati group could handle them. Well sadly in this case it was one of their own number who was a MUTANT psionic of godlike power called "The Mule" who disagreed with them. We're talking a guy with the abillity to literally mind control planetary populations. The Second Foundation really can't stop him, and he's pretty much screwing everything up and working to make himself the new galactic emperor (or Galactic God more accuratly). He falls because he never had a true friend, and doesn't mind control one person who is nice to him, who takes him out when his identity is finally revealed.
The above events screw everything up because now the "Secret" leaders are outed and the original Foundation doesn't like being mind controlled (free will and all that). Being masters of technology they develop defenses that can dampen psionics, and your basic war breaks out.
This one guy in the later books has the psionic abillity to always make the right desician given all the facts. A sort of precognition type power but more limited. With these guys going at it, he's basically manipulated into a cosmic tour by a mysterious force behind the scenes to ultimatly decide who is best to rule the galaxy before everyone blows each other to cr@p with brain melting psionics, and super-science weapons. Among other things he is introduced to a living planet where free will and individuality is subverted to a sort of natural collective guided by a gaia type entity. A mind so powerful it could probably do this on a galactic level but morally will not do so unless asked. It is however not the guiding force of this tour, simply presented as an "option".
During this time you basically have things explained in simplistic political terms despite Issac Asimov writing these things over decades. On one hand you've got the Capitolists, with their high technology who are the First Foundation who pretty much wind up building galactic civilization as it currently exists. On the other hand you've got the Socialists who are a group of elitists who maintain Hari Seldon's "true" vision that humanity can only survive if a cycle of armageddon can be avoided, which will eventually happen without guidance, thus a group of leaders is nessicary to keep groups like The First Foundation operating smoothly. Basically them deciding what is right or wrong, who gets what, etc... which arguably they were doing for the first stories before they were revealed. Psycho-History and Hari's vision/plan being sort of like "The Party" in a socialist system. Then of course you have the sacrifice of true individuality into a community, with everyone acting as extensions of a meta organism. A way of achieving a communist ideal without the disadvantages of needing to make sure all of the jobs are done and eventually forcing an idealogy-breaking social order for the simple fact of keeping everyone alive. All of this and the general analogies are better explained in the books. Technically the planet-mind (and a girl hooked into it called "Bliss") claims that individuality isn't sacrificed but as you read it this becomes questionable right up there with the guys claiming "We're not psionic, we're psychologists" (as they mentally control people that don't even see them from miles away).
The puppet master of this final journey is eventually found on the moon of Humanity's initial birthplace: Earth, which had been forgotten. It just happens to be the home of Daneel Olivaw from Asimov's "Robot Novels". There were some problems between humans and robots, and robotics had been outlawed in the original Empire and not re-discovered. However the Robots had never had any ill will for humanity and had ALSO been protecting and guiding us from the shadows all this time. What's more they had (yes) developed massive psionics of their own. What's more it turns out they were in communication with the living planet and were the ones who could enhance it to absorb everyone, however they refused to do any such thing unless they KNEW it would be the right desician, and the only way to be positive would be of course to use the man who always guesses right.
The final ending is pretty much determined by paranoia and fear. Basically the conclusion is that so far humanity had never found Aliens (though some humans had modified themselves to the point where they might as well be aliens as you find out), BUT if they ever DID find Aliens that could work in an entirely focused fashion as one civilization humanity would be destroyed. The First Foundation with it's technology, The Second Foundation with it's *ahem* Psychology, neither of them could stop something like that. So a mass mind communism it is. You know... for our own protection, just in case there *MIGHT* be aliens. Thanks Daneel, we appreciate it. Psionic gift or not hypothetical unreinforced paranoia doesn't strike me as being quite the unbiased judgement you were looking for :/
Of course they go into so much stuff in these books, where any ending would have been "WTF" and that was the point. Arguably that was perhaps the worst possibile resolution, and when you consider Asimov left Russia to get away from Communism according to some of his bios (to which he was making a rather blatent analogy), I think that was the point. I would have preferred a better ending, but he kind of went for 'profound'... and people DO disagree with me about that being the wrong desician, which was also the point. I'm paranoid IRL too for example, but only when dealing with known, potential threats. Not the hypothetical possibility (or even in this case matematical probability) that a totally unknown alien threat might exist somewhere.
The basic stories start with Hari predicting that the galactic empire is going to end, so he establishes a colony full of scientists on a remote planet under the guise of them starting an encyclopedia. To make a long story short when the rest of the galaxy collapses into barbarism due to warring factions and civil war a lot of technology is lost. Violence is seen as not being an option because The Foundation (the colony) is so heavily outgunned. What they eventually do however is take their technology which is now better than everyone else's and trade it while claiming it's magical and presenting themselves as priests. With a tech monopoly that they now control, they manage to start building an empire based on trade. Eventually some groups get all paranoid about "religious zealots" trading with them and taking over their independance through a tech monopoly, and The Foundation gradually turns corperate in a more traditional fashion and starts selling the stuff.
The format for the stories up through all of that is that a crisis will happen, it's unstoppable seemingly, and then eventually a timed recording of Hari Seldon goes off showing he predicted what was going to happen in a general sense (through trends) and presents a strategy in how to deal with it, that of course works perfectly based on psycho-history.
The next major occurance is that things start go go wrong in this massive empire they established (this takes place over centuries with differant groups of characters who aren't exactly blaster toting heroes, but usually academics and such working to do what Hari says) and being cocky they wait for Hari's recording to tell them what to do, but this time it's totally wrong and out of context to what is actually happening. A basic "Oh Sh@t" moment.
It basically turns out that Hari created this "Second Foundation" on the old galactic capitol of Trantor before it fell, using his students of psycho history. All of these guys are basically massive psionics (though they prefer to insist they simply have massive talent with psychology.. uh huh). Their job was to act as a group of secret police and basically make sure Hari's predictions come true and that what his recordings say are accurate. They run around and mind control and mindwipe people and all kinds of illuminati type things. The problem was that Hari had no respect for unusually talented aberrations like a Hitler or Napolean, or whomever and what they can do. He figured if someone like that ever DID somehow become a factor his little Illuminati group could handle them. Well sadly in this case it was one of their own number who was a MUTANT psionic of godlike power called "The Mule" who disagreed with them. We're talking a guy with the abillity to literally mind control planetary populations. The Second Foundation really can't stop him, and he's pretty much screwing everything up and working to make himself the new galactic emperor (or Galactic God more accuratly). He falls because he never had a true friend, and doesn't mind control one person who is nice to him, who takes him out when his identity is finally revealed.
The above events screw everything up because now the "Secret" leaders are outed and the original Foundation doesn't like being mind controlled (free will and all that). Being masters of technology they develop defenses that can dampen psionics, and your basic war breaks out.
This one guy in the later books has the psionic abillity to always make the right desician given all the facts. A sort of precognition type power but more limited. With these guys going at it, he's basically manipulated into a cosmic tour by a mysterious force behind the scenes to ultimatly decide who is best to rule the galaxy before everyone blows each other to cr@p with brain melting psionics, and super-science weapons. Among other things he is introduced to a living planet where free will and individuality is subverted to a sort of natural collective guided by a gaia type entity. A mind so powerful it could probably do this on a galactic level but morally will not do so unless asked. It is however not the guiding force of this tour, simply presented as an "option".
During this time you basically have things explained in simplistic political terms despite Issac Asimov writing these things over decades. On one hand you've got the Capitolists, with their high technology who are the First Foundation who pretty much wind up building galactic civilization as it currently exists. On the other hand you've got the Socialists who are a group of elitists who maintain Hari Seldon's "true" vision that humanity can only survive if a cycle of armageddon can be avoided, which will eventually happen without guidance, thus a group of leaders is nessicary to keep groups like The First Foundation operating smoothly. Basically them deciding what is right or wrong, who gets what, etc... which arguably they were doing for the first stories before they were revealed. Psycho-History and Hari's vision/plan being sort of like "The Party" in a socialist system. Then of course you have the sacrifice of true individuality into a community, with everyone acting as extensions of a meta organism. A way of achieving a communist ideal without the disadvantages of needing to make sure all of the jobs are done and eventually forcing an idealogy-breaking social order for the simple fact of keeping everyone alive. All of this and the general analogies are better explained in the books. Technically the planet-mind (and a girl hooked into it called "Bliss") claims that individuality isn't sacrificed but as you read it this becomes questionable right up there with the guys claiming "We're not psionic, we're psychologists" (as they mentally control people that don't even see them from miles away).
The puppet master of this final journey is eventually found on the moon of Humanity's initial birthplace: Earth, which had been forgotten. It just happens to be the home of Daneel Olivaw from Asimov's "Robot Novels". There were some problems between humans and robots, and robotics had been outlawed in the original Empire and not re-discovered. However the Robots had never had any ill will for humanity and had ALSO been protecting and guiding us from the shadows all this time. What's more they had (yes) developed massive psionics of their own. What's more it turns out they were in communication with the living planet and were the ones who could enhance it to absorb everyone, however they refused to do any such thing unless they KNEW it would be the right desician, and the only way to be positive would be of course to use the man who always guesses right.
The final ending is pretty much determined by paranoia and fear. Basically the conclusion is that so far humanity had never found Aliens (though some humans had modified themselves to the point where they might as well be aliens as you find out), BUT if they ever DID find Aliens that could work in an entirely focused fashion as one civilization humanity would be destroyed. The First Foundation with it's technology, The Second Foundation with it's *ahem* Psychology, neither of them could stop something like that. So a mass mind communism it is. You know... for our own protection, just in case there *MIGHT* be aliens. Thanks Daneel, we appreciate it. Psionic gift or not hypothetical unreinforced paranoia doesn't strike me as being quite the unbiased judgement you were looking for :/
Of course they go into so much stuff in these books, where any ending would have been "WTF" and that was the point. Arguably that was perhaps the worst possibile resolution, and when you consider Asimov left Russia to get away from Communism according to some of his bios (to which he was making a rather blatent analogy), I think that was the point. I would have preferred a better ending, but he kind of went for 'profound'... and people DO disagree with me about that being the wrong desician, which was also the point. I'm paranoid IRL too for example, but only when dealing with known, potential threats. Not the hypothetical possibility (or even in this case matematical probability) that a totally unknown alien threat might exist somewhere.
So there you go, Foundation summarized with an academic/political analysis that got me an A+ at the time.
Baten Kaitos, the original.
To those who've played it, I'm talking about the event that happens in the cave.
To those who haven't played it, suffice it to say that it was rather...disconcerting for me to experience that, playing BK for the first time.
I'd recommend picking the game up if you have a Wii, since the Wii's backwards-compatible with Gamecube games. It's pretty fun, despite its age, and as long as you turn the voice acting off.
To those who've played it, I'm talking about the event that happens in the cave.
To those who haven't played it, suffice it to say that it was rather...disconcerting for me to experience that, playing BK for the first time.
I'd recommend picking the game up if you have a Wii, since the Wii's backwards-compatible with Gamecube games. It's pretty fun, despite its age, and as long as you turn the voice acting off.
The ending to Watchmen was pretty mindblowing, both the comic ending and the movie ending.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Star Ocean 3 yet, for it's truly mindfuck-inducing plot twist:
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Star Ocean 3 yet, for it's truly mindfuck-inducing plot twist:
Your party eventually goes into this thing called the Time Gate, that transports them to something called "4D Space", where you find out that your entire universe was simply a computer simulation created solely for the entertainment of all the people there. Basically that your entire universe is an MMO for people in a different dimention.
Truth. That was an awesome episode.reg42 said:
Also,
traceur_ said:
I so called Seymour being evil right from his first appearance. Literally everything about that scene said "bad guy", from the ominous music to his character design. Everything else came way out of left field, though. It could very easily be my favorite FF.
I've got to be honest, not enough people give the first 3 Saw movies enough credit in that department. Nothing will ever beat the "holy SHIT!" moment at the end of the first Saw, though. You know the one I'm talking about.Dorian6 said:
As for mine, I'll have to say...
Holy crap, the Overseer is a massive dick. I saved all your asses twice, and this is how you repay me?!
STOP FORGETTING THE SPOILER OPTION FOR KOTOR AND BIOSHOCK!!!!
(I'm still playing those, and haven't beaten them yet...)
(I'm still playing those, and haven't beaten them yet...)
You'll ruin it for yourself D:ohellynot said:
I hope you don't/didn't just wiki it, but actually watch them.
They are most enjoyable. I am watching through the seasons again.
I'm not going to spoil anything here but...
Pretty much ALL of Silent Hill 2 was the most mind-blowing collection of plot twists ever.
Pretty much ALL of Silent Hill 2 was the most mind-blowing collection of plot twists ever.