History Main / AnalogyBackfire

'''Hobbes:''' Oh, it just occurred to me that it's the eighties and I'm watching [[Film/BackToTheFuture an eccentric old man convert a car into a time machine – all that's missing is for you to shout 'Great Scott!']]\\

* The intro to ''WesternAnimation/Thumbelina1994'' features Jacquimo giving a monologue on ThePowerOfLove and its power to overcome adversity... citing ''Literature/SamsonAndDelilah'' and ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' as examples, seemingly unaware of the ''problems'' love causes in those stories, as well as [[DownerEnding how they end]]. While no one directly calls him out on it, Ms. Fieldmouse later in the film correctly points out that Romeo and Juliet's loved led to them ''dying'', so Jacquimo's bad analogy ''is'' [[InUniverseFactoidFailure meant to be a show of his ditziness]].

* ''Franchise/AceAttorney''

** ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll''

* In the very first case of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'', Larry Butz insists he and his late ex-girlfriend were like "Romeo and Juliet, Cleopatra and Marc Anthony!", and Phoenix thinks, ''"Didn't they all die?"''
** In the third case of the second game, Moe the Clown insists that he saw clearly the defendant that night as he has eyes like a hawk, and Phoenix thinks ''"Umm... Don't birds have terrible night vision?"''.
** And in the fifth case of the third game, Godot says that "[[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid a cornered fox]] [[ShoutOut is more dangerous than a jackal]]". Phoenix counters that a cornered fox is "scared and petrified", which catches the prosecutor off guard for a moment before he can recover.
** In the bonus case of the first game, Angel Starr compares a certain detective to a fresh white cheese ([[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext just go with it]]), and the judge says that then he himself must be "hard, yellowed, and sharp as a tack". Ema cheerfully pipes up, "I bet you stink, too."
** The final case of the second game includes a defendant with an image "refreshing as a spring breeze". When Edgeworth gets, er, [[{{Pun}} wind]] of this, he wonders aloud "What's so refreshing about a spring breeze?!", leading Phoenix to [[FirstPersonSmartass think to himself]] that perhaps the spring allergies weren't kind to Edgeworth. [[spoiler:The defendant in question turns out to be an ''extraordinarily'' evil person, so perhaps the analogy wasn't so poor after all.]]

** Parodied in [[http://www.xkcd.com/299/ "Aeris Dies"]], where a guy is sad that his girl is "gone", and another guy tries to say he has to move on like in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', where the player has to move on after Aerith dies, only for his friend to say he downloaded a mod that let him replace other characters with Aerith to let her stay in the party. The analogy further backfires when the guy decides he can just use his friend as a ReplacementGoldfish and act like she never left.

** Pictured above, [[http://xkcd.com/667/ "SkiFree"]]: A girl using the Abominable Snow Monster's SeperPersistentPredator behavior as a metaphor for death falls appart by a single key.

** Parodied in [[http://www.xkcd.com/299/ this]] strip, where a guy is sad that his girl is "gone", and another guy tries to say he has to move on like in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', where the player has to move on after Aerith dies, only for his friend to say he downloaded a mod that let him replace other characters with Aerith to let her stay in the party. The analogy further backfires when the guy decides he can just use his friend as a ReplacementGoldfish and act like she never left.
** Pictured above, [[http://xkcd.com/667/ this one]] falls appart by a single key.
** [[http://xkcd.com/1170/ This one]] illustrates the problem with asking [[JumpOffABridgeRebuttal "if all your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you do it?"]] (If all your friends are jumping off a bridge at the same time, there's probably a good reason for it).

** Parodied in [[http://www.xkcd.com/299/ this]] strip, where a guy is sad that his girl is "gone", and another guy tries to say he has to move on like in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', where the player has to move on after Aerith dies, only for his friend to say he downloaded a mod that let him replace other characters with Aerith to let her stay in the party.

---> '''Worn-out employee''': "You ever just feel like a hamster on a wheel in this office?"\\
'''Enthusiastic employee''': "Performing the same behavior over and over, thus growing happier and healthier with each passing day?"

--> '''Worn-out employee''': "You ever just feel like a hamster on a wheel in this office?"
--> '''Enthusiastic employee''': "Performing the same behavior over and over, thus growing happier and healthier with each passing day?"
** Subverted in "[[https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/blind Blind]]", as paraphrased below, this time by the analogy working after all[[note]]For those that don't get it, it means that the analogy holds true when people take things out on others who had nothing to do with wronging them[[/note]]:
--> "'An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'"
--> "No it doesn't. Two people taking revenge on each other would just stab all of each others' eyes out and stop there. The only way you could blind the whole world would be if A stabs B, so B responds by stabbing C, so C responds by (etc.) In what context would you ''ever'' meet that condition?"
--> "Foreign policy."
--> "I stand corrected."

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'':

* There was a CutSong in ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen 2013}}'' called "More Than Just a Spare" where Anna compared herself to an extra button on a coat. She sang about how the button wants to fly until she realized buttons can't fly and it doesn't make any sense.

* In "Fanfic/TheUniverseDoesntCheat", Captain Sivuk (the man responsible for handling the heroes' "[[UnwinnableTrainingSimulation Kobayashi Maru]]" test) throws the old "it's a no-win scenario and the universe is not fair" argument regarding the "Kobayashi Maru" when he defends the heroes' bad grading. T'Var [[LogicalFallacies calls that logic fallacious]] and Eleya says that [[TitleDrop the universe doesn't cheat]]. To explain further, the computer went so far in playing KillerGameMaster and adjust to Eleya's tactics that it manufactured perils that are utterly impossible in reality InUniverse (Klingon vessels that behave way beyond their known spec limits, for example) and demolished the tested students' WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief, which they say puts the effectiveness of the test in question.

* There was a ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' fanfic wherein it is maintained that Angel is in no way responsible for Angelus' Season 2 actions, just as [[Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde Dr. Jekyll is not responsible for the actions of Mr. Hyde.]]

* In ''WebAnimation/{{Lackadaisy}},'' TheDragAlong Freckle grouses about the presumed sacrilege of a graveyard run digging up CoffinContraband whiskey, his cousin Rocky tries to reassure him by comparing their antics to the murders committed by William Burke and William Hare a century past. Freckle points out a flaw in this example.

-->'''Fiona:''' But this isn't right! You're meant to charge in, sword drawn, banner flying! That's what all the other knights did!\\

** Later in the film, when Shrek is rescuing [[DamselInDistress Fiona]], she learns that he didn't slay the dragon yet. She starts [[WhatTheHellHero chastising hime for it]] and stated that the previous knights had attempted to do it, in which [[JerkassHasAPoint Shrek points out that they all got killed]], and even pass by their charred remains.

* ''WebVideo/SMBCTheater'' has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFCOapq3uYY video]] parodying the end of ''Film/WarGames''. The film used TabletopGame/TicTacToe as an analogy for nuclear war: Tic-Tac-Toe is a solved game where, if neither player makes a mistake, the game always results in a draw, showing WOPR that some games don't have a winning solution and nuclear war is futile. However, in the ''SMBC'' version, WOPR realizes that you ''can'' win in Tic-Tac-Toe if your opponent makes a mistake, and furthermore, the game also favors whoever goes first. It then concludes that the way to win a nuclear war is to hit your opponent first and hope they don't make a mistake.

* In an episode of ''Machinima/FreemansMind'', Gordon is concerned about being convicted for the murder of several soldiers and ponders if there's a "Franchise/{{Rambo}} clause" that might exonerate him. He then remembers that Rambo went to prison at the end of the [[Film/FirstBlood first movie]], so he's out of luck.

* Downplayed example in ''Fanfic/AmbitionOfTheRedPrincess'', where Naofumi is giving a YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre speech to [[spoiler:Motoyasu]] and says that even fictional heroes like Superman can't be everywhere at once and save people. This initially confuses [[spoiler:Motoyasu]] because in his universe Superman is the evil MirrorUniverse counterpart of Ultraman. Thankfully, this only distracted two briefly and they were able to get back to the main subject of Naofumi's speech immediately.

* Downplayed example in ''Fanfic/AmbitionOfTheRedPrincess'', where Naofumi is giving a YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre speech to [[spoiler:Motoyasu]] and says that even fictional heroes like Superman can be everywhere at once and save people. This initially confuses [[spoiler:Motoyasu]] because in his universe Superman is the evil MirrorUniverse counterpart of Ultraman. Thankfully, this only distracted two briefly and they were able to get back to the main subject of Naofumi's speech immediately.

* While at an island's flea market in ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10909485/1/ And Nothing But The Truth]]'', [[Manga/OnePiece Usopp]] takes interest in a gold ball which the woman selling it, Martel, tells him that there's a legend of it making people speak the truth while testifying in court. She describes it as a mere fable to get children to be honest like the Liar Noland story in the North Blue. Unlike Martel, the Straw Hats not only know that Noland was a real person, but that he did find a city of gold only for the part of Jaya with the city to be shot up into the White Sea up in the sky, leading the greedy king to execute Noland [[MaliciousSlander and frame him as a liar for generations to come]]. Luffy wants to correct her, but Usopp stops him, figuring it's best not to get started on that crazy and long story of [[Recap/OnePieceSkypieaArc Skypiea]]. Much later, it turns out that while Noland was real but actually honest, the stories of the gold sphere are as real as they were told.