#third act misunderstanding

FAVORITES:

- Hetero Life Partners/Bromances

- Platonic Life Partners

- Karmic Trickster

- The Calvary

- Final Battle

LEAST FAVORITES:

- Plot Mandated Friendship Failure

- Third Act Misunderstanding

- Liar Revealed

- Love Triangles/Will They Won’t They

- Mind Control

Ooookay so this was asked a MILLION YEARS AGO and I’m just now getting around to answering it, ahahaha I’m so so sorry 🙃 adhd go brrrr

I’m also gonna apologize in advance for the wacky formatting, I’m doing this on mobile so please spare me 🥲

Anyway! I assume from this ask you mean: the Third-Act Misunderstanding Trope! I’ll link it here:

Now, this one is tricky, because it’s gotta be done well. When it isn’t done well, it feels frustrating, contrived, and sometimes even OOC for the characters involved. Elements of a poorly-executed 3AM often include:

• A misunderstanding that could be easily cleared up if the team would give the MC literally 30 seconds to explain themselves

• A misunderstanding that the MC could have cleared up LONG ago and they have no solid reason for not coming clean sooner.

• Jumping to conclusions that clearly do not line up with the MC’s character but choosing to believe said conclusion for…no real concrete reason

• Building up to a betrayal but the relationship doesn’t feel established enough to warrant such a negative/hurt reaction (looking at you, Raya and the Last Dragon.)

• Holding onto grudges longgg after it makes sense to hold onto them, thus giving the creators an excuse to drag out the ✨drama✨

And honestly, there’s lots more, but I can’t remember them all off the top of my head—y’all are welcome to reblog and add to the list if you want, haha.

Now, this doesn’t mean it’s impossible to pull off a good 3AM, but it can be tricky. The most important elements of making sure this trope is done well include:

• Making sure all the characters’ actions and reactions make sense based on who they are as individual people. Some might be quicker to forgive than others, some might want to hear the MC’s explanation while others might be angry and need some time and space to think things over.

• In the same vein, make sure the reason the MC is keeping a thing secret from the team is believable. There’s nothing more aggravating than reading about a character that genuinely has no good or solid reason to withhold things from their team/friends/family. Even if it’s illogical but is a choice steeped in trauma, that’s good enough. Just make me believe it, and above all, make it in-character for the MC.

• The MC’s reaction to being found out is also important. Do they get angry and defensive? Do they turn tail and run, convinced they won’t be forgiven? Do they desperately apologize and try to make things right? Whatever it is, make sure this is something you can see that specific character doing.

Basically, the main gist boils down to: does this whole situation make sense for the people involved? Is it in character for everyone? If you have a normally kind and understanding character that suddenly becomes rageful and bitter, you might want to step back and reconsider your direction.

Some examples from media that portray characters OOC are: (Spoilers ahead for Netflix’s Klaus and for Avatar: The Last Airbender)

• Aang in ATLA Season 1, episode 15, where Katara and Sokka get reunited with Bato. Aang starts to become jealous and resentful that he’s being ignored in favor of Bato—which is an understandable reaction for the average 12-year-old kid. However, he then starts to become distrustful of Sokka and Katara, thinking they’ll leave him in favor of searching for their dad.

But at this point in the series, the trio has been through several life-or-death situations, and Sokka and Katara have made it very clear that they’re committed to this mission. It’s odd that Aang suddenly becomes insecure here, and it’s wildly out of character for him to hide the information about their dad’s whereabouts when it arrives. Overall, the whole episode was rather jarring and didn’t line up with Aang’s character.

• The animated Christmas movie, Klaus. This is an excellent movie and well worth a watch, but boy do I wish they’d handled the 3AM a little better. For starters, nobody gives Jesper the time of day as soon as it’s revealed his initial plan was to gtfo. But Alva should have been at least somewhat understanding, considering she was very bitter and jaded at the beginning of the movie and had her own plans to leave as soon as she could.

Klaus, too, was very quick to turn on Jesper once the secret was out. What especially kills me is that the setup was created by the town’s leaders, who are very obviously antagonistic towards their whole gift-giving operation, so why is everyone so quick to believe them and shut Jesper out when they’ve been forging a close bond with the latter over the last year? It’s simply an easy way to add more screentime and to amp up the drama, but it’s unfortunate that it wasn’t executed a little better.

Today's topic: Just talk to each other.