Twist that cliche!

[Tharkun]

Right, so here's how this works:

The person above you will think of a cliche in fiction, and you will have to think up a twist on it which is funny, interesting, or serves the idiots right. Then you post a cliche of your own.

Two ground rules: the twist can't itself be a cliche. If you get "knight rescues damsel", you can't say "damsel rescues self before knight arrives". Secondly, the cliche you post must actually be a cliche. "Half-vampire baby delivered by vampire-gnawing C-section", as mentally scarring as that is, doesn't show up terribly often.

Example:
Cliche: Immortal humanoid gives up immortality for the love of a mortal.
Twist: The mortal doesn't love her in return, and this was his goal all along.

So, I'll start...

Cliche: Dwarves swill ale, brandish axes and bluster in Scottish accents.

[Shoyru_Lover]

Can you provide a couple more examples Tharkun? I'd love to play but I'm not getting the idea yet.

[Tharkun]

All right, here's an example of a "funny" response to the above:
Twist: Dwarves swill Manischewitz, pack heat, and waffle in Israeli accents. In keeping with Tolkien's linguistic roots for Dwarvish, of course.

And here's an example of a "serves the idiots right" call-and-response:
Cliche: Telepathic animal companion will do whatever the hero asks.
Twist: When injured, the telepath starts demanding scouting favors from his human, out of petty revenge for that last time he didn't get to hunt any mice for a good three days. The hero sucks at stealth and is summarily captured.

As you can see, the form isn't so rigid as all that.

Let's start for real with...
Cliche: Hero's mentor dies before the hero is fully equipped to take on the Big Bad.

[Siniri]

Cliche: Hero's mentor dies before the hero is fully equipped to take on the Big Bad.
Twist: Hero swiftly goes to avenge mentor and loses badly -- but instead of escaping by the skin of his teeth to really learn mentor's final lesson, hero dies.

Cliche: Orphan raised by abusive relatives is suddenly rescued and taken to a school where he learns to use his supernatural powers, discovering that he has a natural talent far exceeding his peers'.

[Tharkun]

Twist: Abused orphan's natural talent exceeds his peers' because pent-up resentment turns out to be excellent fuel for this world's magic system. A less savory teacher sits up and takes notice, then gets to work creating a proxy and molding an army of child super-soldiers, starting with the original orphan.

Cliche: Heroine confronts bad guy from a position of weakness. Bad guy gleefully confesses everything, little knowing that his confession is being broadcast to the police station/his loyal but misguided servant/the whole town.

[Shoyru_Lover]

Ahh I get it now. This is fun. OK let's go.

Twist: Unbeknownst to the heroine, the confession evokes the sympathy of the general populace and the bad guy is elevated to cult status and celebrated once a year festively.

Cliche: Sassy Momma chides Jimmy for not eating all his carrots. "Carrots improve eyesight!" Sassy Momma exclaims to a bewildered Jimmy.

[Tharkun]

Twist: As a turn in a South Park-esque idiot plot, Jimmy is, in fact, blind. He sets about getting his gratuitously gruesome revenge for Sassy Momma's all-steamrollering obliviousness.

Cliche: As of the end of the tale, the hero has thus far managed to avoid actually killing anyone. She agonizes over the necessity of killing the Big Bad, but in the end, she doesn't have to get her hands dirty anyway.

[Siniri]

Twist: As the hero drives herself home after her days of grueling saving-the-world, she falls asleep at the wheel, crashing into a pylon and causing a bridge to collapse, one highway onto another during morning rush hour. It's the deadliest car crash in the history of the world. After a week of sorting through the wreckage, a final survivor is pulled out -- yep, the hero, dehydrated, but unscathed save for the mental trauma of having killed 1000 innocent civilians.

Cliche: A woman struggles to do something mechanical, and then a man walks in and fixes the problem by flipping a switch (or some other equally easy and lame action).

[Blue]

Twist: As the man flips the switch, the switch shorts out sending 120V (or 220V) through his finger, up his arm, through his heart on its way down to the floor through his foot killing him instantly.

Cliche: A horrible accident occurs at the start of the movie. Two hours pass only to discover that everything that happened since was just a dream.

[Shoyru_Lover]

I can't resist... Twist: You then realize that you have been watching Vanilla Sky.

Cliche: You pop the popcorn in your mouth as you pull the yawn, stretch and arm around the-person-you're-sitting-next-to manevour hoping that it could lead to something more... like holding hands on the way home.

[Siniri]

Twist: Your date's dad had followed her to the movies, and when he realizes his daughter had sneaked in to meet a boy, he wordlessly makes her change seats with him. Since you were trying to be smooth, you don't realize your mistake until he's got you by the arm that's twisted painfully behind your back, and by the waistband of your underwear, the remainder of which is pulled painfully in an atomic wedgie.

Cliche: Just when the manga seems neatly wrapped up with the two main characters finally happy in their newly realized mutual love, one of them gets in an accident and forgets that they ever knew the other.

[Shoyru_Lover]

Twist: Unfortunately for the one who forgets, the other character, highly offended at said character's inconsiderate behaviour drops him like a bad habit and lives happily ever after with their once-declared arch nemesis. (Bwahahaha.)

Cliche: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy marries girl.

[Tharkun]

Twist: Boy meets girl. Boy murders girl. Boy marries girl.

Cliche: A special young boy tames the horse no one else can handle.

[Siniri]

Twist: The boy tames the horse, only to have to kill it after it saves him from a rabid dog.
The boy tries to tame the horse, but as others try to exploit it, he realizes it will only be truly happy if it's free, so he tearfully releases it back to the wild.
A girl... (Man, has this cliche been done to death or what?)
A boy tames the horse no one can handle, and yet the more time he spends with the horse, the more he realizes others are out to get him; it turns out the horse was a manifestation of his schizophrenia. (I don't think this one has been done with an animal... yet.)

Cliche: Girl goes to new school, chooses popular kids over her true friends, gets mean, then realizes mistake and gets nice again.

[Shoyru_Lover]

Twist: Except now she has herpes.

Cliche: Girl, bored with life, starts a blog about cooking 1 meal every day out of a recipe book she found by chance in an old book store.