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ZorbaTHut  1yr ago (text post)   5184 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Yes, it’s an Ontological Mystery, although TV Tropes describes the subcategory as Escape From The Crazy Place. You’ll find examples you’re looking for there.

obligatory warning: TV Tropes will ruin your life.

Ontological Mysteries:

The characters are locked in a strange room, have no idea how they got there, why they're there, or how to get out, nor do they know exactly who is behind their predicament, if anyone.

The simpler versions are You Wake Up in a Room. Often spawns an Escape from the Crazy Place. Some are examples of Beautiful Void. Some fans may want the various mysteries to be Left Hanging. See also Send in the Search Team, when the characters do know how they got there, and now they need to find out what happened. May have an Amnesiac Hero.

ABC’s Lost, and later ABC’s Once Upon A Time, are examples of not waking up in a hospital, but Lost does start with a man waking up in a daze in possibly the greatest single-shot TV open of all time.

Man, TV tropes is hell for Simpsons Did It syndrome... They have a page for that too, don't they.

But somehow they don't have anything specific for "guy wakes up and everyone tries to convince him he was crazy"

Should be called The Truman Asylum.

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