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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46429
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/46429
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think the problem with the blue-pink subversion is that there is no clear reason why; other than the intent to surprise the reader. And secondly, it is not clear this trope subversion has any actual story consequences.

Normally, trope inversions have at least some rational reason for existing. e.g. Wonder Woman is one of the first female super-heroes (appearing 1941), but rationales are offered for subverting the 1941 tropes about women: She comes from an all-female society, so their military and defense are necessarily all female. Likewise she can be unafraid to fight, blunt and aggressive and take charge: In our society traits associated with males, but in an all-female society without gender-based roles, it would be necessary for some females to take on the roles of generals and soldiers, and there would be no stigma associated with it.

Trope inversions are generally justified in fiction, in some way. The character acts against type out of necessity, or out of upbringing or life experiences that taught them some non-typical lesson. The nerd can fight because his father made him learn to fight. The woman knows sports because her father was a coach and fanatic, and loved her, and naturally she bonded with him over the sports he watched all the time, and grew up liking them and understanding them.

One bad subversion of a trope is to declare an opposite and provide zero reasoning for it. That looks too obviously like a contrived surprise.

A second bad subversion of a trope is when it has no actual **_story consequences_** of any kind. We need our female protagonist to have a lot of sports knowledge for a story reason; perhaps this lets her solve a puzzle or understand a reference other people would miss.

Now of course, the reasons we give for a trope inversion are themselves contrived, but that second-level contrivance doesn't matter much. Or you could bury it in a third-level contrivance: Wonder Woman comes from an all-female society. But why is it all-female? If we get into reasons for that, we have a third-level contrivance, and by burying it this makes it all more plausible (since the "all-female society" sounds a little implausible).

But often just the 2nd level contrivance is sufficient, if it sounds plausible -- A father that is a sports fanatic is in keeping with a trope, with a daughter as his only child it is plausible she grows up loving sports herself, going to games, and understanding the games because in her world that is what fathers and daughters **_do._**

Added from comments: In fiction **any** extreme ability (for either gender) stands out and readers expect it to matter, somehow. Failing to meet this expectation disappoints them. **Fiction is not real life!** To readers extreme abilities mean something, that is the psychology of reading stories. If we read that a character has superpowers, but by the end of the book has never done anything with 'em, _Then why did the author give them superpowers?_

Trope inversions are very similar to this; if you subvert the trope you are creating an outlier, an abnormality, something the reader does not expect and does not regard as "normal". It generally needs to be justified, and then also needs to influence the story, and the more unusual the abnormality the more influence it should have in the story.

Original score: 29