#6th wall

Anonymous asked: Alright, I don't know if this is a appropriate question for this kind of blog. But I wanted to know what exactly is the "fourth wall" thing about. I mean where did it come from, and wow, yes I am also asking this, is/was there a "third" or "second" wall? Hell was there even a "first" wall to begin with?

Once upon a time, most shows were done in the theater. On that stage lives played out, and behind them the setting was typically three walls. Upon the advent of Television that wall became more pronounced, forming the screen. So the 4th wall is the wall between the characters and the audience. When a character breaks it, I'm lookin' at you Deadpool, they are interacting directly with the audience. The times the character slowly looks directly into the camera as if they know you are there? Yeah, that's breaking the 4th wall.

Now lo and behold there is actually a 5th wall. This is shared experiences between the audience and the actors. In simpler verse, it is as one TV Troper said, the back wall of the theater. This means theoretically in cases where the character and you work together to interact and solve an even bigger problem is breaking the 5th wall. A scene in Rift does this during the Summer Carnival. One of the fortune tellers seemingly jokes about how your character is played by someone else, big laugh, everyone goes home happy right? Nope. She ends it by saying "Oh I don't mean you, pawn, I mean the one behind you." She insinuates that you, the player, have someone else playing you. So you know, talking to your God type thing.