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Basic Trope: Characters make mistakes that mark them as having never seen an even vaguely similar situation in fiction.
- Straight: They split up into gangs of two, when they know that one of them is a murderer.
- Exaggerated:
- Justified:
- The character is literally unaware of the genre in question.
- The genre in question may not actually exist in the world of the story; the audience knows what's going on but the characters in the story have no frame of reference.
- It may be harder to spot the actual genre you are in when it is you. The trails of blood might make it seem like a horror movie, rather than a sign that an Eldritch Abomination is looming just behind the door that the heroes are on their way to beat with the needed macguffin.
- Inverted: Character is Genre Savvy and provides the audience with all the right hints. But then, he acts the opposite because he is a lunatic, too.
- Subverted: See Genre Savvy
- Double Subverted: See Wrong Genre Savvy
- Parodied: "Hey, gang, let's make the same mistake all those idiots in horror movies do and split up since one of us is a murderer!" "Sounds good!"
- Deconstructed: The characters' inability to understand the genre they're in is indicative of their more general lack of imagination and experience of fiction.
- Reconstructed: The characters are genre blind because to them, it's real and therefore shouldn't be expected to work out per genre rules and conventions.
- Zig Zagged: The characters make mistakes, but the genre itself sometimes doesn't play out to form, meaning that a Genre Savvy character would sometimes be Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Averted: Some characters are Genre Savvy, some are not. Choices are made, without bringing out the cultural background of them.
- Enforced:
- "The Scobbies have to make some mistake sooner or later, or the show will be boring" (actually not: it's just harder to write)
- The Genre Blindness element is an important part of how the story or genre functions, and if the characters didn't display this the story would be unable to function. As such, the writers hope that Willing Suspension of Disbelief will help the audience accept it as an Acceptable Break From Reality.
- Lampshaded: "I can't see how this could go wrong!"
- Invoked: See Contractual Genre Blindness
- Defied: "Splitting up into pairs would make exploring easier, sure, but there's no way I'm going to get killed like a horror movie character if I can help it. We're sticking together."
- Discussed: "In hindsight, the Terminator franchise should have taught us to avoid this error."
- Conversed: "How come the idiots in these movies never seem to think of the obvious idea of sticking together?"
Back to Genre Blindness It's to die for.