"Subversive affirmation" This time I will present you a storytelling concept I called "subversive affirmation"
"Subversive affirmation" are storytelling tools that helps the author lead the reader's mindset where they wants them to be while preparing and helping the diligent readers with little hints, to predict what is really to come in the future.
In short. You can see "Subversive affirmation" as diversion tools.
A subversive affirmation is something that is "stated", "affirmed" about the future by a character about something.
Example
On chapter 216, Luffy says this:
This line from Luffy is giving us the expectation that Vivi is gonna join and that we just have to go search for her in order for this to happen. Luffy is affirming that Vivi is coming.
Sadly, we know that Vivi will not join. In fact what Oda did here is trying to subvert our expectations. His goal was to surprise us. So he made Luffy give us some hope only to take them back later on.
On this other example on chapter 837, Luffy is angry at Crackers while speaking about Sanji:
With this line, Luffy is giving us the expectation that Sanji would never speak to Luffy with an insult even if Sanji is too happy to stay with Pudding. Luffy is affirming that Sanji will never speak like that.
Sadly, we now know that Sanji will indeed speak to Luffy with an insult. For the simple reason that he is lost and this is the only way for him to make Luffy go away.
As you can see, those moment are the "I have a bad feeling about this" moments. The reason is simple : those are both "subversive affirmations". They are affirmations meant to divert us from the truth of the story in order to surprise us later.
Two type of subversion
There are two type of "subversive affirmation":
A "subversive affirmation" can come from a positive statement to arrive at a negative situation but a "subversive affirmation" can also come from a negative statement to arrive at a positive situation.
The two previous "subversive affirmations" (Luffy speaking about Vivi and Luffy speaking about Sanji) were positive statement meant to arrive at a nevative situation in other word those were :
Positive > to > negative subversive affirmation
Here are some example of the opposite: Negative >.to > Positive subversive affirmation
In this first example, Oda is leading us to believe the Mink will kill the samourai. So we are worried.
But this is not what will happen, in fact the Samourai will get well welcomed.
This is an example of a subversive affirmation coming from a negative statement to arrive at a positive situation.
In this other example Nami (and Oda) are leading us to believe that there is no way out of this situation. They will all get crush by this tsunami wave and die.
Of course now we know that this is not what happened. Jinbe used the ship to enter the green room.
Those type of "diversion" (Negative > to > positive) are mostly used in moment when there is a life or death situation. Those are the "oh sh*t!" moments. But they can be countered by the most careful readers. I will show you how.
How to detect the subversive affirmations
There is a simple way to detect subversive affirmation. We must look at the premisse. If the premisse is corrupted, then this is most likely because the affirmation is subversive. To understand, let's look back at all of our examples:
- In the first one, Luffy say that Vivi is coming. But this premisse is corrupted by the fact that Vivi is a princess. She can't just go with pirates this easy, she has a duty. That's why Vivi can't come back to the crew.
- In the second example Luffy states that Sanji - even if happy about his situation- would never speaks to him that way. But this premisse is corrupted by a fact we already know in the story: Sanji is not happy at all, and he is taken hostage by his own family, he will have therefore no choice but to speak to Luffy in a bad way to make him go away.
- In the third example, we have the opposite Franky and Cie told us that if the Samourai were found by the mink, they would be transformed into dead meat. But this premisse is corrupted also. Indeed, the Minks never told the crew that they hated the samourai. (Oda was sneaky enough to even meke Kinemon and Kanjurou state that the mink would welcome them)
- In the last example, Nami is saying that there are done for. But there is one thing Nami doesn't know and that the best readers might have noticed: A wayve can be surfed on and Jinbe is a Helmsman and a fishman, there is surely no wayve too big for him.
As you can see, once a premisse is corrupted, it is most likely because of the presence of a subversive affirmation.
Of course, most of the subversive affirmation are not easy to notice, that why authors can play with our minds so easily. Most often, they are noticable after the action. But sometime, it's possible.
Until next time.