Surprises, in exptectedly curious places you don't see coming

I'll bet we all like surprises, especially in stories. There's many places these can happen, though being a "surprise," it generally isn't something you were ready for. However, there are those marvelous times when a surprise comes out and says, "Okay, here I come. Get ready." You get all set to receive the promised surprise and whammo, get stunned by the surprise anyway.

Take Star Wars for example. In the actual first one (Episode 4, "A New Hope"), I doubt anyone didn't expect Ben Kenobi to die in that lightsaber fight with Vader. When he closed his eyes, lifted his sword, and calmly waited, I knew what was coming. Seeing his body vanish and only his clothes hit the floor was a neat touch--very mystical and satisfying. But, then we get his disembodied voice speaking to Luke not 30 seconds later. Whammo! Surprised ya! I love those moments. Perhaps I could have expected it, and probably some did, but I never saw it coming after the expected death. I figured it was just like every other apprentice-to-the-great-master story segments, where the master dies and the apprentice must now step up and carry on anyway. That one part of storytelling remains a highlight for me because my emotions whirl around it.

A corollary to this is when someone surprises and then uses that surprise to do something evil. Like when the wicked witch in Sleeping Beauty gives the innocent Snow White the wonderfully tasty apple and doesn't demand money for it. The gift is a known surprise for the audience, but not necessarily that it is poisoned (yet even that poison isn't fatal, but is rather a sleeping potion--so, really, this is a three part surprise). Done well, these surprises can provide solid framework for very imaginative stories.

- M