Rage Against the Author: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"Your light is spent! Your light is spent!" I cried

 

{{color|red| Describe Rage Against the Author Here. }}

 

{{examples}}

* In the [[Two-Act Structure|second season]] of ''[[Princess Tutu]]'', Ahiru and (particularly) Fakir start to struggle against the writer of the fairytale Mytho originally comes from—because {{spoiler|he's been manipulating everyone in their town using his power to [[Reality Warper|change reality with his writing]].}} Interestingly, neither were supposed to survive the climatic showdown in Season 1.

* In the ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]'' anime:

* In ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]'''s older sister, ''Shishunki Miman Okotowari'', the heroine Asuka causes a distraction by pointing in the reader's direction and proclaiming [[Yuu Watase]]'s presence. The others turn around ''menacingly''.

* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has several [[Paratext]]ual examples:

** There's also a gag sound track in which all the characters and Hideko Anno parody themselves as well as anime genres including mecha, and rage against each other and Anno who in turn [[Take That|spreads the rage back to the characters, the producers, and fans]].

* An episode of ''[[Dr. Slump]]'' involves author Akira Toriyama getting disgusted with the regulars and attempting to reboot the anime as "Toriyama in Babeland". He enlists the help of the lecherous Senbei Norimaki (Dr Slump), promising that the new show will be "Dr Slump in Babeland". Dr Slump rebels when he realises Toriyama plans for wholesale destruction of Penguin Village, hence foiling the author's scheme.

 

 

* The ''[[Animal Man]]'' story arc "Deus Ex Machina" is notable in that it plays this scenario for drama.

* The one and only [[Deadpool]] (yeah, who else?) has been known to do this occasionally, especially in his in-character but non-canonical letter columns.

* ''Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness'' by Claudio Sanchez features this as a major plot point. There is a character known as The Writer, who takes out his frustrations with his girlfriend leaving him on the characters in his story, culminating with a fight between him and the main character. This also counts as a music example, as the album of the same name by Coheed and Cambria follows the same structure.

* [[Squirrel Girl]] after [[Non-Human Sidekick|Monkey Joe]] died.

* ''[[Cerebus]]'' devotes a goodly part of an entire trade paperback to the titular Aardvark having an extended argument with creator Dave Sim. It goes badly, as Dave ends up exiling Cerebus to Pluto due to his obstinate refusal to stop being an utter [[Jerkass]].

* In the [[Disney Ducks Comic Universe]], after Scrooge McDuck loses ownership of an entire island made of gold in ''Island at the Edge of Time'', he yells at the narrator to shut up and finish the story.

* In ''Adventure Comics'' #4 and #5, this becomes Superboy-Prime's gimmick. He's moved on from hating the other characters, to hating the people at [[DC Comics]]. {{spoiler|When he's convinced that he's about to die, he tries to take revenge by [[Crowning Moment of Funny|crashing through Dan Didio's window and trying to kill everyone in the building]] [[What the Hell, Hero?|while lecturing them on the fact that the things they write about really happen and to stop screwing with his life.]]}}

 

 

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' "[[This Time Round|Look Who's Talking: Storytime!]]" fic (which is already as [[Meta Fic]] as it can get) "[http://www.ttrarchive.com/stjackbeanstalk.html Jack and the Beanstalk]" ends with the babies, horrified by the nonsense they've had to listen to, hunting down [[Tropers/Daibhid C|the fanfic writer in question]].

* In one ''[[Baldur's Gate]]'' fanfic, the NPCs, sick of replaying the same scenes over and over when the human player reloads saved games on her computer, team up and kill the PC. At which point, the human player decides never to play the game again.

* In many of Phoenix Reece's fics, his characters tend to break the fourth wall to physically assault him for what he makes them do. For example, in ''Happy Tree Camp'', there is a strange dumb human character, {{spoiler|who later turns out to be the author who has sacrificed most of his powers in order to be a part of his story and make sure it goes well. The villain finds out about this and ends up kidnapping him, hypnotizing him and trying to use him to get godlike power and ultimately to become an author himself. Obviously, part of his plan involves killing the author in revenge for what he did to him, along with nearly every other main character.}} Also, once the characters find out about Phoenix, they keep asking him to change the story to make the ending good for them. {{spoiler|His "daughter" Pippy complains about how awful the story gets afterwards, since she reads all of his stories after he writes them.}}

* In "VOCALOID Forever", Rin and Len Kagamine plan to take revenge on all the fans and MMD users that have written about the Kagamines experiencing twincest, pairing them up with other people, or just downright raping or abusing them. It's not exactly rage against the author of the story, but against authors of other stories.

* Owen Pallett's album ''Spectrum, 14th Century'' is about a fantasy world where he is its god. ''Heartland,'' the next album, is about a hero from Spectrum [[Rage Against the Heavens|riding out to defeat him]] [[God Is Dead|and succeeding.]]

* In the story behind the ''[[Coheed and Cambria]]'' lyrics, the main character of the story within a story [[Rage Against the Heavens|Rages Against The God]], which in that case is the writer of the story-within-a-story, who then writes himself into that story for a confrontation with the main character.

 

 

* Bob does this occasionally in ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', mainly in [[Breather Episode]] strips between story arcs (tough it's usually more annoyance than rage). Especially when he knows that the [[Halloween Episode|Halloween Monster]] will try to eat him in the last panel.

* Happens a few times in ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'', generally as an excuse on the part of the author for not drawing the part of story he thinks would be too hard.

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'':

** In the stick figure [[Filler Strips]], Torg eventually gets fed up with Pete doing them to take a vacation and does his best to force him to make an effort to draw them anyway. It doesn't work.

** The Foglios flee the station at the end of the [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070928 Radio Theatre] interlude, because Agatha, Zeetha and Krosp are hot on their heels and intending to hurt them.

* David (the author of ''[[Shortpacked]]'') showed up at one point and fought Ethan. They then pudding wrestled (that was Robin's idea). Eventually the fight was broken up by Maggie (the writer's girlfriend), who demanded they exchange info and deal with it like adults (read: Maggie and David broke into Ethan's house and smashed up the place). Why were they fighting? David kept editing Ethan's [http://tfwiki.net/wiki/David_Willis Transformers Wiki] page.

* ''[[Books Don't Work Here]]'' lives and breathes this trope, with it starting out as the main character's defining feature in chapter one. She has yet to play nice with the narrator.

* In one ''[[Concession]]'' comic, the [[Author Avatar]] gets into a fight with one of the characters over a particularly awful [[Pun]].

* The longest story arc of ''[[Chopping Block]]'' features Butch's victims rising up from the grave to kill him, as part of a plot by the author to kill off Butch and start a much more popular [[Two Gamers on a Couch]] comic. Butch cuts the author into little bits, and then things get [[Mind Screw|confusing]].

* ''[[L's Empire|Ls Empire]]'' has several examples of this trope. One character kidnaps an author, two characters want to destroy the main characters to ruin the comic for the authors, and {{spoiler|the main characters take on a god that turned himself into an author.}}

 

== Web Original ==

* Joe the Announcer does this several times in the second season of ''[[Freakazoid!]]''. He interrupts the story to expedite the plot, bursts into scenes to practice [[Shakespeare]] monologues, and spoils plot points—mostly to vent about his lack of importance.

* In the ''[[Clerks (animation)|Clerks]]'' Animated Series, Dante and Randal get stuck in a ''[[Duck Amuck]]'' spoof led by Jay.

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{{color|red| The database is now pleased. [[All The Tropes Made of Win|The redirects will end.]]}}

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Comedy Tropes]]

[[Category:Metafiction Demanded This Index]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]