Theme: Conceptual Breakthrough

A Conceptual Breakthrough story is one in which a protagonist makes a discovery about the true nature of the world or their existence. These can be stories where people discover they are androids all along, where they are characters in a virtual simulation or a videogame, that the world around them has been constructed for some purpose.

An example might be where we see characters in a post-apocalyptic scenario piecing together the meaning of the detritus of civilisation around them, whose purpose is obvious to us. Or else a murder mystery where the detective pieces together the clues and reveals what happened in the concluding scene.

This is often the same as a Conceptual Reversal Twist where it is the audience who makes a discovery about the true nature of the protagonist or their world. The difference is all perspective – a conceptual breakthrough happens to a character on screen but may well be something we know about. By contrast, a Conceptual Reversal Twist will build the discovery up into a twist in the story, usually at the ending. Sometimes Conceptual Breakthroughs and Conceptual Reversal Twists can occur both at the same time as in the classic endings of Planet of the Apes (1968) and The Sixth Sense (1999).