| rdfs:comment | - Alice sacrifices everything she cared for -- her home, her reputation, the love of her family and friends -- in order to save the world. In Alice 2: Back For More, the police clear her and her family forgives her. Bob spends months of agonizing time and effort to kick booze. He manages to become sober...and then, five episodes later, he's off the wagon again. Chris spends a whole season learning to trust his rival at the agency. Then it turns out the rival was The Mole all along, and every single thing Chris learned in this season was a chump's lesson. Not to be confused with All or Nothing.
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| abstract | - Alice sacrifices everything she cared for -- her home, her reputation, the love of her family and friends -- in order to save the world. In Alice 2: Back For More, the police clear her and her family forgives her. Bob spends months of agonizing time and effort to kick booze. He manages to become sober...and then, five episodes later, he's off the wagon again. Chris spends a whole season learning to trust his rival at the agency. Then it turns out the rival was The Mole all along, and every single thing Chris learned in this season was a chump's lesson. Why did we have the first half of each story again? It was All for Nothing. Sometimes, a Story Arc completely destroys the point of an earlier arc in the same story. It could contradict the early story's aesop, or it could reveal that the events we cared about never happened or weren't what they seemed. A hero's decisions don't seem so heroic if it turns out that they were perfectly manipulated every step of the way. And if a character goes through a Face Heel Turn or Heel Face Turn, their earlier stories might seem irrelevant when we know they'll disavow it all. When done badly, this trope can feel like outright cheating the audience -- their whole story had no meaning. When done well, it's used to set a story on the cynical end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism -- nothing lasts forever, and something that seems so important may be just a passing moment. Yes, the farm boy may have risen to become king and gotten the girl, but his life doesn't end there, and things can still go downhill. Another use for this is to deliberately shock the audience -- a Face Heel Turn hurts so much when the character we cheered for six seasons turns on us. In general, it's more forgivable when it's done as an event, rather than as a Retcon. If a hero's efforts are undone, that's not as frustrating as if it turns out that they never mattered in the first place. The audience is also more likely to forgive it if we're shown the change, rather than it being done with Second Hand Storytelling. A storyline that is All for Nothing is not always a happy thing ruined by bad events. A tragic scene of people losing everything can feel very cheapened if things get better too easily. Common forms include Battle Royale With Cheese, Shoot the Shaggy Dog, and Yank the Dog's Chain. If done too often, leads to the Broken Aesop, Lost Aesop, and Yo Yo Plot Point. Distinct from Status Quo Is God in that it doesn't always bring things back to where they started - it often leads to genuine change. The story of the first three Jewish kings in the Bible (Saul, David, Solomon) make this trope Older Than Feudalism Not to be confused with All or Nothing. Examples of All for Nothing include:
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