Rogue Juror/Playing With
Basic Trope: One of the members of a jury deliberating a criminal case is the holdout to the consensus decision, and must convince the other members to agree with their point of view.
- Straight: Alice is the only member of the jury to believe that the defendant in a murder case is innocent, and must persuade the other members of the jury to acquit him through her arguments.
- Exaggerated: Alice is so convinced of the defendant's innocence that she conducts her own secret investigation into the crime.
- Alice is so convinced of the defendant's innocence that she makes the other jurors change their decision at gunpoint.
- Justified: Alice is a vigilante who has been conducting her own investigation into the murder and has discovered evidence that the defendant has been framed by the true murderer.
- Alternatively: Alice is secretly having an affair with the defendant and was with him at the time of the murder, thus knowing that he didn't do it.
- Alternatively: Alice has been bribed or threatened by the defendant to ensure a not-guilty verdict.
- Alternatively: The other members of the jury are voting 'guilty' without fully considering the evidence, either due to prejudice, being easily swayed or bullied, or some trivial, flippant reason. Alice, a believer in the system, and the only one to actually take things seriously, is holding out to get them to actually consider the evidence and do their job.
- Inverted: The other members of the jury must persuade Alice to agree with their point of view.
- Alternatively: Alice is the lone juror who believes the defendant is guilty, and must persuade the others to convict.
- Subverted: It turns out the defendant really is guilty.
- Doubly Subverted: But not of that particular crime.
- Parodied: Alice's reasons for holding out are either ridiculously trivial or purely out of her own naked self-interest.
- Deconstructed: The conflict between the jurors represents an inherent flaw in the system; it is reliant on clashing and contradictory personalities trying to reach a consensus, several of whom may either be biased or have no interest in or understanding of the matter at hand, thus leading them to make their decisions for flawed, trivial or wrong reasons and risking incorrect judgements being made.
- Which to some extent describes the Trope Maker "12 Angry Men.
- Reconstructed: However, despite this sometimes the system really does work the way it should; and conflict is not automatically a bad thing, as it forces people to consider other perspectives that they might not otherwise adopt without prompting.
- Zig Zagged: Alice manages to convince the other members of the jury that he's innocent, but they manage to convince her that he's guilty, meaning they must keeping going through the whole argument.
- Averted: Alice agrees with the consensus from the start.
- Enforced: "Wasn't 12 Angry Men a great movie? We should do an episode like that!"
- Lampshaded: "There's always one holdout, isn't there?"
- Invoked: "I'm voting against the consensus because if nothing else, we should play Devil's Advocate and discuss this matter seriously before we make our final decision -- a man's life is at stake."
- Which also somewhat describes the Trope Codifier "12 Angry Men. Unbuilt Tropes are fun.
- Defied: "I'm not going to be the one voice fighting the majority; I'm voting with everyone else."
- Discussed: "Being the holdout in these kind of situations is never a great way to make friends."
- Conversed: "That character has some pretty good arguing skills, considering how he completely demolished eleven other people."
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