Writing
Related: About this forum[Trope Discussion help] First Girl After All
I have been debating to people on this particular trope, and could use some perspective.
From the TV Trope page description:
After much of the story, we approach The Reveal, the Final Battle, the Grand Finale, or some other tense moment, and it seems like the "Second Girl" in the Love Triangle (or Last Girl in the Love Dodecahedron) is going to win. But something suddenly "clicks", and the story reveals that they first met when they were children! But wait! This could only have possibly happened BEFORE he met the First Girl. This can only mean that the girl everyone thought was the Second Girl is the First Girl After All.
With a long running show, how can this be implemented well? Make it so the girl is introduced, discussed or implied early into the series? Or could said girl be introduced any time into the series, and the trope would STILL work well?
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Permanut
(6,227 posts)Not so much when the first girl is introduced as how. Does she keep fidgeting with a locket? Is the high school yearbook still on the coffee table after 20 years?
Anyway, my two cents. What a great question.
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)Only a shown memory from the girl's past.
Tetrachloride
(8,264 posts)To me, this comes before the trope
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)We have a long running animated show, with well known characters with rotating cast that changes every so often. We have the main character (let's call him Aaron), and two rotating characters. In a VERY late season, one of the new cast is Amy. Amy turns out to be Aaron's childhood friend, who has a crush on Aaron.
Aaron doesn't remember Amy whatsoever. Amy has also never been mentioned in passing in previous seasons, nor has ever been referenced to, nor even been implied to be a childhood friend of Aaron. Not even as a possibility.
In dialogue, Aaron could have said, Ive had lots of friends when I was younger, but many have moved away.
This would give Amy the possibility of being Aarons childhood friend. We don't get any kind of line like that in the show.
Tetrachloride
(8,264 posts)as for the trope, feels out of left field
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)I kept asking, "Who is this girl? If she's from the MC's past, how come now character in the past seasons including the MC's family, has never mentioned said girl before?"
Permanut
(6,227 posts)If,say, long ago Aaron made a little sketch of something, Amy acquired it - out of the trash, some trivial way, kept it and framed it, and still has it. If we contrive a way for Aaron to see it, maybe an aha moment could be written in.
Okay, that's another two cents, I'm up to four cents now.
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)But, you're right, a Chekhov's Gun would work, or at least help.
LuvLoogie
(7,388 posts)Show his increasing disillusionment.
Girl crosses his path (at work related seminar. They are in different fields) She realizes she knows who he is from grade school but it's been years, and they never hung out. But they're contemporaries a couple grades apart and share much of the same experiences, teachers, events...
It turns out she's more genuine than him. There's some attraction, but she's more advanced emotionally. He tries but fails with her, but in the process finds himself again.
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)Not as something that'd happen VERY late into the series.
LuvLoogie
(7,388 posts)Tearing them down with his own slow moral decline based on choices he thinks will improve his life.
You'd have to write the new character so that she becomes the favorite. She's smarter, more mature, more at peace, kinder, and fiercer. When she leaves never to return, the audience wants her back.
But she doesn't. They're stuck with the MC. He has to rebuild himself anew in order to get them to stick around. But it will be hard because the audience agrees with the girl.
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)Maybe I should've added more detail.
This comes from a TV show. In the 17th season, the new girl becomes part of his new group for said season.
"She's smarter, more mature, more at peace, kinder, and fiercer. When she leaves never to return, the audience wants her back."
Kind of. Within the show, she's kind of new to the scene, trying to figure out what exactly she wants to do. She knows all the basics, of course, but she's unsure which niche she wants to enter.
The MC has changed over the course of the show, getting smarter, wiser, but with each season or two, there's a new challenge he needs to learn.
sakabatou
(42,694 posts)Person 1: Did you have any friends when you were younger?
MC: Yeah, of course I did, but my hometown's small. A lot of people have moved away for "better pastures". Thing is, it's been so long since I've seen them that I don't think I'd recognize them at all.
Person 2: Well, I hope you meet one of them some day.
MC: Me too.
That's how I'd set it up.