Meta: The Genre Savvy Trope in Supernatural
tvrealm had a challenge where we were to explore TV Tropes either by show or by trope. They foolishly allowed meta, so I am doing that! Since Supernatural is tending to occupy my wheelhouse lately, I'm meta-ing about tropes found on the show.
Genre Savvy
A Genre Savvy character doesn't necessarily know they're in a story, but they do know of stories like their own and what worked in them and what didn't. More sophisicated versions will also know they can't tell which genre they are in (and are often in far more realistic or complicated genres that the stories they remember), or which characters they are.
Supernatural is a show that exists in a split universe: the world of the muggles who know nothing of the supernatural and then the world of the hunters who know the supernatural exist. Because of this, Dean and Sam (and other hunters) often exhibit a great deal of genre savviness - if only because they have seen proof of what genre they are in. In fact when Dean rescues a teenager from the spirits in an abandoned insane asylum, he asks her if she’s seen any horror movies, when she says yes, he replies “So next time you hear a place is haunted don't go in.” In “Family Remains”, when Dean is going down into the subbasement to find the crazy girl who’s been killing people, he chants “Please nobody grab my leg. Please nobody grab my leg.” because he’s well aware of the genre-based trope to do just that.
What’s interesting is that the show manages to play on that theme so that Sam and Dean, while having complete knowledge that they are in the “horror genre” and even that they are the “heroes” of the piece, still have problems. Part of that comes from the fact they often are working with incomplete information. John Winchester may have been an awesome hunter and he may even have passed on his “Hunter’s Journal” full of information that he collected, but he really failed to teach his boys a lot of the things that they needed to know. (There should be a trope that explains this particular miserliness with information but if there is, I can’t find it.) Even when they were working together fighting the vampires, John still didn’t tell the boys everything they really needed to know about doing so. Add to that the times that the boys are fighting creatures that have never been documented - such as old world gods or obscure monsters - and we end up with a lot of episodes where simply knowing the basic conventions of the genre doesn’t really help them win the fight.
Then there’s the flip side of the coin to consider: many of the things that the boys run into have been immortalized in popular culture or have been mythologized to fit the purpose of whatever story they are in. In this case, being genre savvy - as in being knowledgeable about the generally accepted tropes of the genre - may actually work against the boys. In “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” there is too much lore on how to kill a zombie, so it really doesn’t help them. Or because the people who compile the information aren’t aware that the supernatural exist, they exclude information that they don’t see as relevant even if it is “true”. In “The Slice Girls”, Sam points out that there was a “whole crazy side to Amazon lore that Professor Morrison didn't even mention”, to which Dean replies “That's 'cause he doesn't believe in it, which is a real handicap when you're trying to deal with it.” What I really like about that example is that it both supports and subverts the “genre savvy” trope in almost the same line. (I love the Supernatural writers.)
But the boys are “genre savvy” about more than just the “horror genre” they live in. They are also aware of their existence in a dark universe. They often expect things not to work out because it doesn’t end happily for them. They are aware of the tragedy of being a hunter - more so, they are aware of the tragedy of being a Winchester. In “Jump the Shark” Sam and Dean fight over what to tell (or not to tell) Adam about hunting and their family. Their arguments are not only based in their individual psychology (which this show gets in spades) but also in being “genre savvy” enough to know that bad things happen to the Winchesters. In “The Slice Girls” when Dean is promoting the idea that Bobby could still be around helping them, Sam says it couldn't be, and when Dean asks him why Sam says: “Because we want it to be.” There’s a man who very aware of the angsty world he lives in.
Of course, being “genre savvy” doesn’t guarantee that you can always make the right choice or that you can’t lie to yourself enough so that you can ignore all the warning signs. From the first time Dean and Sam encounter a demon they establish the fact that “demons lie”. All the characters agree to that: Demons lie. And yet there is no end to the times that people believe what the demons say. In fact, the more horrible the statement is, the more likely it is that the people who are listening are going to believe the demon is telling the truth. Dean is the best (worst?) example of this. Toss a demon at the man, slap him around, tell him he’s worthless and he’ll believe it - after all why would a demon lie about that? And even though Sam knows he can’t trust Ruby, what he wants (to save Dean, to save the world), he wants so badly that it’s understandable that he turns a blind eye to what he knows is true: demons can’t be trusted.
It’s a mark of excellence, both in the writing and in the acting, that this all works. Which brings me to another level to the “genre savvy’ trope that I need to acknowledge but that I’m not going to get into and that’s how “genre savvy” the writers are and how they manage to both acknowledge and subvert the trope. It’s what makes episodes like “The French Mistake” and “The Monster at the End of This Book” so very good. These episodes not only play with Sam and Dean’s knowledge of the genre, but also the writer’s and the viewer’s knowledge of the tropes of the genre… It’s a really hard line to keep and the Supernatural writers do an excellent job of keeping it.
Genre Savvy
A Genre Savvy character doesn't necessarily know they're in a story, but they do know of stories like their own and what worked in them and what didn't. More sophisicated versions will also know they can't tell which genre they are in (and are often in far more realistic or complicated genres that the stories they remember), or which characters they are.
Supernatural is a show that exists in a split universe: the world of the muggles who know nothing of the supernatural and then the world of the hunters who know the supernatural exist. Because of this, Dean and Sam (and other hunters) often exhibit a great deal of genre savviness - if only because they have seen proof of what genre they are in. In fact when Dean rescues a teenager from the spirits in an abandoned insane asylum, he asks her if she’s seen any horror movies, when she says yes, he replies “So next time you hear a place is haunted don't go in.” In “Family Remains”, when Dean is going down into the subbasement to find the crazy girl who’s been killing people, he chants “Please nobody grab my leg. Please nobody grab my leg.” because he’s well aware of the genre-based trope to do just that.
What’s interesting is that the show manages to play on that theme so that Sam and Dean, while having complete knowledge that they are in the “horror genre” and even that they are the “heroes” of the piece, still have problems. Part of that comes from the fact they often are working with incomplete information. John Winchester may have been an awesome hunter and he may even have passed on his “Hunter’s Journal” full of information that he collected, but he really failed to teach his boys a lot of the things that they needed to know. (There should be a trope that explains this particular miserliness with information but if there is, I can’t find it.) Even when they were working together fighting the vampires, John still didn’t tell the boys everything they really needed to know about doing so. Add to that the times that the boys are fighting creatures that have never been documented - such as old world gods or obscure monsters - and we end up with a lot of episodes where simply knowing the basic conventions of the genre doesn’t really help them win the fight.
Then there’s the flip side of the coin to consider: many of the things that the boys run into have been immortalized in popular culture or have been mythologized to fit the purpose of whatever story they are in. In this case, being genre savvy - as in being knowledgeable about the generally accepted tropes of the genre - may actually work against the boys. In “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” there is too much lore on how to kill a zombie, so it really doesn’t help them. Or because the people who compile the information aren’t aware that the supernatural exist, they exclude information that they don’t see as relevant even if it is “true”. In “The Slice Girls”, Sam points out that there was a “whole crazy side to Amazon lore that Professor Morrison didn't even mention”, to which Dean replies “That's 'cause he doesn't believe in it, which is a real handicap when you're trying to deal with it.” What I really like about that example is that it both supports and subverts the “genre savvy” trope in almost the same line. (I love the Supernatural writers.)
But the boys are “genre savvy” about more than just the “horror genre” they live in. They are also aware of their existence in a dark universe. They often expect things not to work out because it doesn’t end happily for them. They are aware of the tragedy of being a hunter - more so, they are aware of the tragedy of being a Winchester. In “Jump the Shark” Sam and Dean fight over what to tell (or not to tell) Adam about hunting and their family. Their arguments are not only based in their individual psychology (which this show gets in spades) but also in being “genre savvy” enough to know that bad things happen to the Winchesters. In “The Slice Girls” when Dean is promoting the idea that Bobby could still be around helping them, Sam says it couldn't be, and when Dean asks him why Sam says: “Because we want it to be.” There’s a man who very aware of the angsty world he lives in.
Of course, being “genre savvy” doesn’t guarantee that you can always make the right choice or that you can’t lie to yourself enough so that you can ignore all the warning signs. From the first time Dean and Sam encounter a demon they establish the fact that “demons lie”. All the characters agree to that: Demons lie. And yet there is no end to the times that people believe what the demons say. In fact, the more horrible the statement is, the more likely it is that the people who are listening are going to believe the demon is telling the truth. Dean is the best (worst?) example of this. Toss a demon at the man, slap him around, tell him he’s worthless and he’ll believe it - after all why would a demon lie about that? And even though Sam knows he can’t trust Ruby, what he wants (to save Dean, to save the world), he wants so badly that it’s understandable that he turns a blind eye to what he knows is true: demons can’t be trusted.
It’s a mark of excellence, both in the writing and in the acting, that this all works. Which brings me to another level to the “genre savvy’ trope that I need to acknowledge but that I’m not going to get into and that’s how “genre savvy” the writers are and how they manage to both acknowledge and subvert the trope. It’s what makes episodes like “The French Mistake” and “The Monster at the End of This Book” so very good. These episodes not only play with Sam and Dean’s knowledge of the genre, but also the writer’s and the viewer’s knowledge of the tropes of the genre… It’s a really hard line to keep and the Supernatural writers do an excellent job of keeping it.