Subverting Expectations

About

Subverting Expectations refers to a mocking criticism of various pop culture franchises, such as Star Wars and Game of Thrones, in their attempts at surprising the audience. The criticism is largely used for cultural artifacts that some believe make story choices that are unjustified, confusing or illogical for the sake of shock. This phrase has also been used as a positive criticism of these franchises and has since been used as a sarcastic response to the praise.

Origin

While the art of story subversion has long been used in narrative works, it likely became a meme following the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a film that was praised by some critics for eschewing the tropes of many Star Wars films, on December 15th, 2017. However, fans who did not appreciate the plot turns responded by sarcastically using the phrase "subverting expectations," using it to mock people that they saw as excusing the plot mechanics they disliked.

This could have begun from a number of sources, but the most vocal community using the term was the fandom of RedLetterMedia, a pop culture criticism YouTube channel. They published their review of the film on December 19th, 2017, receiving more than 3.3 million views in two years (shown below, left).

Less than two weeks later, on December 29th, the group published an annual Best of the Worst video, where they discuss the problems with "subverting expectations" as a narrative trick that could hurt the overall product (shown below, right).

Spread

The following day, a Redditor ^[1] published the thread "I don’t understand the 'subverting expectations' meme" in the /r/RedLetterMedia subreddit. In it, they wrote:

I feel like I’ve seen this used ten times more ironically by RLM/posters here to mock people who like The Last Jedi for being subversive in and of itself than I’ve seen anyone actually praising the movie solely for being subversive.

[…]

This reminds me of that Starbucks Christmas thing where a dozen crazy Christians complained about the cups losing the Christmas imagery, but then five million people kept talking about how everyone was freaking out about the cups and they thought they were totally owning them by buying them and drawing the devil on it or some shit.

Several weeks later, on January 18th, 2018, YouTuber ThatAnimeSnob made a video that uses footage of the Red Letter Media discussion about "subverting expectations" from Best of the Worst. The post received more than 4,400 views in a year and a half (shown below).

On September 4th, 2018, Redditor^[2] everadvancing asked the /r/RedLetterMedia subreddit if the group created the meme. They wrote, "Was curious if they started it or if they got it from BTS of Rian Johnson or someone saying they wanted Last Jedi to subvert expectations."

Game of Thrones

The meme found new life with the release of Game of Thrones season eight, which many believe also attempted to subvert expectation but unsuccessful in doing so. The mocking criticism, like Star Wars, uses the phrase ironically as it would normally be considered a positive for a work to surprise the audience, especially in the case of Game of Thrones, which had long been praised for upending tropes, such as killing main characters, a staple of the show.

However, many believed that the twists of season eight were unjustified. On May 7th, 2019, Redditor^[3] colormefiery asked the /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit, "Why are people talking about “subverted expectations” in the context of Game of Thrones?" Redditor Megaashinx1 responded:

Answer: After S8E03, there were a large number of people upset at the Night-Kings death happening so early in the season, feeling that it was rushed or otherwise poorly executed. Several fans of the episode defended it, claiming that Game of Thrones had a history of subverting fan's expectations with how plotlines end (for example, the killing off of main characters.) This argument, while holding some weight, was repeated a great number of times across the internet, causing the community, mainly those who didn't like the episode in the first place, to begin using it to mock what they viewed as lazy storytelling covered up by the idea that "anything can happen."

On May 9th, 2019, for example, YouTuber Yah_way published the video Game of Thrones S8 Sucks: 'Subverting Expectations.'" The post received more than 26,000 views in one week (shown below).

Throughout the airing of season eight, fans or former fans of the series continued to use the phrase as a marker of their disdain for what they saw as poor plotting, using the phrase as the heading for memes about the series (examples below).

Search Interest

External References