I'll take a swing at a "breach of unspoken promise" example, albeit via TV rather than prose fiction:
A number of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans -- myself included -- were severely annoyed by the sixth-season episode "Hell's Bells", in which the wedding and relationship between Xander and Anya is forcibly and permanently derailed. By that point in the series, many of us believed, Xander had matured to a degree that he'd earned his (relatively) happy ending...but in the episode we were shown, Xander showed little sign of the character growth he'd achieved over the life of the series, and was instead written as a weak caricature of his earlier self. (In light of the climax of that season's final episode, in which Xander does totally transcend his original schmuck-ness, this was especially frustrating.)
Thus many Buffy-fen will argue, with not-inconsiderable justification, that "Hell's Bells" violates the implicit contract with series viewers to portray its characters as they've been drawn for the prior five-and-a-half seasons. The Buffyverse being what it was, we weren't expecting a fairytale Happily Ever After...but we, and Xander (and Anya), arguably deserved not to have the wedding derailed by what many of us regarded as authorial fiat.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-10-12 07:50 am (UTC)A number of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans -- myself included -- were severely annoyed by the sixth-season episode "Hell's Bells", in which the wedding and relationship between Xander and Anya is forcibly and permanently derailed. By that point in the series, many of us believed, Xander had matured to a degree that he'd earned his (relatively) happy ending...but in the episode we were shown, Xander showed little sign of the character growth he'd achieved over the life of the series, and was instead written as a weak caricature of his earlier self. (In light of the climax of that season's final episode, in which Xander does totally transcend his original schmuck-ness, this was especially frustrating.)
Thus many Buffy-fen will argue, with not-inconsiderable justification, that "Hell's Bells" violates the implicit contract with series viewers to portray its characters as they've been drawn for the prior five-and-a-half seasons. The Buffyverse being what it was, we weren't expecting a fairytale Happily Ever After...but we, and Xander (and Anya), arguably deserved not to have the wedding derailed by what many of us regarded as authorial fiat.