History Main / ItsaWonderfulPlot

* Frasier had one, in I'm Not Listening '' [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14140729/1/I-m-Not-Listening]]'', in which Frasier is disgusted after his bad day, and wishes he never came to Seattle, leaving Bulldog as his angel show him how his relatives and friends's lives turned : It turned out that without him, Martin was in a nursing home, Cam bought his apartment to make a duplex, both Eddie and Niles died, Daphne and Roz are unhappy with their marital lives, Gil works at Nervosa and Bebe is jobless because Kate still is KACL's boss. Notice that in this world, neither Frasier or Bulldog have it, due to the latter being a child DJ and the former still teaches psychiatry to Boston where he and Lilly became a libertinate couple, while Freddie's mental health declined. Oh, and don't forget all lives Frasier did not improve without his show.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' unfinished fanfic called “Life Without A Sponge”, SpongeBob accidentally ruins a party for the Krusty Krab and blames himself even though his friends tell him it’s OK. But SpongeBob thinks that his Friends would be better off if he haven’t been there at all. Soon, God show is up and show SpongeBob what life would be like if he wasn’t born. Patrick has no friends, Mr. Krabs is homeless, Gary is a cannibal, Sandy’s trapped, Plankton finally got his hands on the krabby patty secret formula, and Squidward is dead.

* In ''WebAnimation/TheAnnoyingOrange''episode called Wishful Thinking, when Orange feels like everyone is not paying attention to him and after see Passion kiss Pear, Orange wishes he wasn’t born. Then, a magic mistletoe comes and shows Orange what the kitchen would be like without him. Everything looked normal but however some of the fruits are having a bad time. Pear struggles at making friends, Little Apple is dating Passion, and worse yet, without Orange to warn everyone, Marshmallow gets put into a cup of hot chocolate and gets killed. This is when Orange begins to realize he’s important, but the mistletoe was actually Liam the Leprechaun, who was upset that he didn’t get invited to Orange’s Christmas party. In the end, Orange returns to his own world, and it turns out that Passion didn’t kiss Pear. It was actually her sister.

* ''Series/SesameStreet'' has a direct-to-video ChristmasSpecial, ''Film/ElmoSavesChristmas'' (1996), which plays with this trope. After Elmo saves SantaClaus while staying up late, the former is presented with a snow globe that grants wishes. Elmo uses the snow globe to wish that it could be Christmas every day, and SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs: it starts innocently enough, as Christmas mixes with other holidays such as Easter and the 4th of July, but a year later, all the stores are boarded up, Big Bird can't see Snuffy, the carolers strain their voices from singing too much, Christmas trees are an endangered species, and everyone in general is utterly sick of the holiday and can't afford to give real presents anymore (even the Count, who should logically be overjoyed because now he has an infinite number of Christmases to count). Bonus points for including lots of direct references to the TropeNamer, culminating with Bert and Ernie in shock watching the scene from the movie where George comes across, well, [[NamesTheSame Bert and Ernie.]] ("What's the matter with you two guys? You sang to me here on my wedding night!") This doubles as a FandomNod to the people who think that the Muppets are named after the characters from the movie, which the creators deny.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* It's a good technique when your self-esteem is rather low to think about what Clarence would show you if you were never born, and think of all those whose lives would be different or even worse for you not being there. Unfortunately, this technique suffers greatly when used by those diagnosed with depressive mental disorders; it is all too easy to think of everyone who would be ''better'' off had you not been born, hence the common trope subversion.
[[/folder]]

* In the ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' fic, ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191460 Blassing in Disguise]]'', Red and Purple, sick and tired of Zim's constant screw-ups, decide to use a time machine to go back in time and kill Zim as a smeet before he could do any damage. When they return to the present, they find themselve no longer the Tallest. They quickly realise that without Zim to invent the blob monster that ate Miyuki and Spork, they never got promote to fill in the gap. This resulted in a political incident that resulted in a war between the Meekrob and the Irkens. And without Zim constantly forcing them to upgrade their tech, the Irkens are losing.

** There was [[https://inducks.org/story.php?c=D+2002-001 another Donald story]] with a similar premise, but only in the loosest of terms. For one thing, the story takes the GoodAngelBadAngel trope and turns it UpToEleven, with the two actually being depicted as (magical?) creatures living in Donald's brain. The bad angel, fed up with how the good angel seems to always influence Donald, beats him up and ties him into a closet, then disguises himself as the good angel. What does this have to do with this trope? Well, the angels' recent conflicts inside Donald's brain have resulted in Donald demonstrating bipolar disorder-like behavior, so all his friends and family (plus Gladstone) hold a meeting which Donald eavesdrops on and thinks is about how much he sucks as a person. Furious, he wishes that he was never born, and the bad angel (disguised as the good angel) shows him what life would be like without him... and everybody's happier (i.e. Daisy is HappilyMarried to Gladstone, Huey, Dewey and Louie are in Scrooge's custody). Just as this little tour ends, the good angel breaks free, beats up the bad angel in return, and shows Donald what would ''really'' result ([[HappyMarriageCharade Daisy leads an empty life married to Gladstone]]; Gladstone thinks that Daisy is way too controlling; Scrooge is contemplating putting Huey, Dewey, and Louie in juvenile hall, etc.). And before you ask, no, this was not a fanfiction.

* ''Literature/JaineAustenMysteries'': Jaine has one of these in a dream in "Nightmare on Elf Street", in which she never adopted Prozac. Apparently, she's no longer friends with Lance, she's so lonely she starts naming her ''socks'', Jaine's dry cleaner and Fancy Feast shut down because she didn't go to them to fulfill Prozac's needs, and Prozac now lives in a Bel-Air mansion where she is named Tinkerbelle and has her own room... and her own maid. Once Jaine wakes up to appreciate her kitty, [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment it's never brought up again]].

* ''Anime/SerialExperimentsLain'': The final episode shows a world in which Lain does not exist (in contrast to scenes from the first episode, before all the weirdness)... and then the viewer realizes that [[spoiler:this is not a mere possibility, but a reality Lain created by erasing herself from existence. Although she did leave her BFF Alice with a tiny figment of memory of her, only large enough to make her wonder for a second if she has seen Lain before]].

* ''Manga/KimagureOrangeRoad'': Played straight for a sequence in the final episode, where Kyousuke steps into a world where he never existed: [[spoiler: Madoka would've ''really'' been an [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer ostracized]] delinquent, Manami and Kurumi would've been total {{bratty half pint}}s, Yuusaku would've been a delinquent too [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and Hikaru would be his girlfriend]]...]]

* ''Manga/CardCaptorSakura'' has an odd variation: during the climax of the first half, [[spoiler:Yue shows Sakura a future where she'd still exist, but it'd be as though she had never existed, not even to her closest family, just to show her what's at stake for the final judgment.]]

* In ComicBook/GrantMorrisonsBatman story "Last Rites", set between ''ComicBook/BatmanRIP'' and ''ComicBook/FinalCrisis'', Bruce is given false memories of a life in which his parents weren't killed. Jim Gordon and Dick Grayson are dead. Bruce is a dilettante doctor, coddled by Martha and a disappointment to Thomas, especially when he falls for a patient who turns out to be Selina Kyle, distracting him while she robs the surgery.

* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10024916/1/Superior-Spider-Man-Take-2 Superior Spider-Man: Take Two]]'' is a ''Comicbook/SpiderMan'' fanfic that essentially answers the question, "Comicbook/WhatIf Peter Parker was able to get his body back from Doctor Octopus at the end of 'Dying Wish'?" Before dying, Otto begs Peter, "Don't throw your life away the way I did mine," prompting Peter to start making changes in his life. The following story follows the plot beats of ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'', only with Peter as Spider-Man instead of Otto. At one point, after accidentally causing the death of the criminal Massacre and later being goaded into brutally attacking Jester and Screwball, Peter chose to take a leave of absence from being Spider-Man in order to get his head on straight. At one point, a small portion of Otto that was still inside Peter's mind visited him in a dream, giving him a vision of what would have happened if Peter was never bitten by the radioactive spider; he wound up working for Oscorp, until being callously fired by [[BadBoss Norman Osborn]]. In his quest for retaliation against Osborn he would end up becoming an alternate version of the Green Goblin. After this dream, Peter resumed his life as Spider-Man, his sense of purpose restored.
* ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5566684/1/Your-Life-is-Wonderful-Charlie-Brown Your Life is Wonderful, Charlie Brown]]'' is a ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'' fanfic where resident {{Butt Monkey}} Charlie Brown, feeling more distraught than ever during the holidays, is shown what great impact he has made on his friends' lives. [[spoiler:Some of the things shown without his intervention are Linus being a {{Shrinking Violet}}, Pigpen being an overdressed JerkAss, among many other alterations]].

* Taking place in the ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' fanfic chapter [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13376298/6/Steven-Universe-Adventures-of-the-Gems-3 It's a Wonderful Universe]], Connie becomes bitter towards Steven after an argument with him about leaving his twin sister behind, even saying that she wished she'd never met him. At first she's still becomes angry, but slowly, she regrets calling yelling at him after a rough week at school. After hurting a mean girl at school, she completely loses it and runs away with her childhood friend chasing her with worry. Eventually, Connie wished thought that everyone would be better without her, but after becoming unconscious, she meets her Guardian Angel, Raya, who shows her what the world would have been like without her there to help Steven.

* ''WebComic/BrawlInTheFamily'' featured a rhyming take on the story for Christmas 2013, in which King Dedede wonders if the world would have been better if he had never existed; Pit appears to show him an alternate universe in which Midknight (actually [[spoiler:Waddle Dee]]) rules as a dictator. [[spoiler:While Dedede's ending is played straight, the arc itself ends with the BetterIfNotBornPlot: Pit is showing [[EnsembleDarkhorse Waluigi]] how much better the world would be without him.]]

* Played with in ''WebComic/{{xkcd}}'' [[http://xkcd.com/1108 here]]. A ghost comes to show someone what would happen if he gave up fighting about the word "literally". Literally nothing changes.

* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|2003}}'' fanfic [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4926714/1/The-Turtle-Who-Never-Was "The Turtle Who Never Was"]] puts Michelangelo through the Wonderful Life plot, courtesy of two spirits (taking on the forms of Splinter and Shredder) who argue whether Mike's made a positive difference on the lives of everyone around him or not, and consequently take him on a trip to an alternate reality where he'd never been born, in order to find out. Although Michaelangelo initially feels like he really just made his brothers' lives harder, such as Donatello being even more brilliant and Raphael more focused now that Splinter could spend more time helping him work on his temper issues, Mikey learns that a hero he saved during his time as 'Turtle Titan' now retired after the brainwashing was broken because he was ashamed of the innocent people he killed, and Mikey also witnesses the death of his pet cat Klunk as Mikey wasn't there to adopt him. When Michaelangelo returns to 'reality', Splinter also notes that, while his brothers were more successful without him, they were more successful ''as individuals'', encouraging his son to consider whether the turtles would be happier as individual successes or as one family.

* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2159471/1/It-s-A-Mondler-Life It's a Mondler Life]]'', Monica, feeling depressed and unappreciated, is visited by a spirit who shows her a world where she was never born. As a result, Ross is still his excessively geeky self and living with his parents without Monica to inspire his personal development so that he could marry Carol in the first place, as well as Rachel and Chandler never learning to appreciate his better qualities; Rachel is on the verge of divorcing Barry after an unhappy marriage; Chandler is stuck in a miserable marriage to Janice, with his friendship with Joey the only reason he hasn't killed himself; and Phoebe fell into a career as a prostitute and drug-addicted porn star without Monica's help, which culminates in Phoebe committing suicide.

* The ''[[Literature/TheWorstWitch Worst Witch]]'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12873600/6/The-Worst-Witch-2017-Actions-have-Consequences Actions have Consequences]]'' has a variation of this for Ethel; feeling that Mildred is replacing her in Esmerelda's affections, she wishes that Mildred had never come to Cackle's, and finds herself in a world where she, Sybil, and Maud are attending a different school, but Esmerelda and the teachers at Cackle's are dead, Enid only attended Cackle's briefly, and nobody has heard of Mildred. After spending a few weeks in this world, Ethel learns from the spirit that granted her wish that, in this timeline, [[spoiler:she was briefly Head of Year upon arrival only to be 'demoted' when her actions led to Enid's expulsion a few weeks into her time at Cackle's, and Esmerelda, Miss Cackle, the Great Wizard, and most of the teachers died when the academy was destroyed by Agatha when Ethel helped Agatha to attack the school. Ethel is [[EvenEvilHasStandards horrified when she learns that the divergent moment is when Julie Hubble was struck by a car while pregnant with Mildred]], killing Julie and her unborn daughter before Mildred could even visit the school, thus erasing her impact on Ethel's life]].

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/36957265/chapters/92206114 Be Careful What You Wish For]]'', while in Khura'in, [[Franchise/AceAttorney Apollo Justice]] unknowingly makes contact with a powerful artifact while wishing that his father Jove Justice never died. He ends up in another world where not only is his father never killed, but his mother is also with them [[spoiler:and never lost her memories]], he has two full-sisters, and even his best friend Clay Terran is alive as well. However, he already realizes that things aren't as perfect as it seems when he finds out he is still working for [[AmoralAttorney Kristoph Gavin]].

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': The BigBad of part 6 uses this as the basis for his plan; he plans to create a world where the Joestar family never existed and Dio reigns supreme.

* Author Susan Beth Pfieffer once wrote a series called ''Portraits of Little Women'', which featured Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy in their own books at age ten. The original books spawned Special Editions, including a Christmas book wherein each girl had a Christmas dream. Beth's dream was ItsAWonderfulPlot because she had come to think her shy nature meant she was neither noticed nor needed. Possibly HarsherInHindsight, considering [[spoiler: Beth's eventual death in canon.]] Pfeiffer stays true to that.

Usually the character learns that everyone they know would be worse off without them. The most common subversion, the BetterIfNotBornPlot, is that everybody's life is ''better''. The world is usually governed by the ButterflyOfDoom; regardless of how minor the change, there is rarely a middle ground or a world which is only slightly different, to the extent that the character's absence, no matter how seemingly insignificant or small, will result in a complete CrapsackWorld in which there is little hope whatsoever. Also closely related to NecessaryFail.

* In ''Anime/YoKaiWatch'', this is the modus operandi of the sinister Yo-Kai duo Kin and Gin. They invoke this by sending Nate's closest Yo-Kai friends back in time before he met them.
** In "Jibanyan's Secret", when Nate gets annoyed with Whisper and Jibanyan exercising, he and Jibanyan have an argument which ends with Nate kicking him out. After some convincing from Whisper, they go search for Jibanyan. Little do they know, Kin and Gin send Jibanyan back to the last day of his life as an ordinary house cat, reuniting him with Amy. In the past, Amy's mother becomes verbally abusive due to Dismerelda's presence, and Jibanyan, as Rudy, realizes that Amy did care deeply about him. [[spoiler:But it turns out that a race of grim reapers planned to kill Amy for whatever reason, with the very truck that took Rudy's life. In the end, Jibanyan chooses his fate and realizes that Amy actually called ''herself'' lame.]]
** They return in "Whisper's Secret Past", sending Whisper and Jibanyan back to medieval Japan. In that time, Jibanyan is a normal cat, while Whisper relives his days as Nonuttin, a Yo-Kai who constantly inspirits Naoto (who is very likely to be an ancestor of Nate) to blabber about something that may or may not be true. Several time warps later, Nonuttin finds himself as an advisor to a powerful shogun as a war is about to begin, and he later becomes his tactician Whispocrates. [[spoiler:But some of the shogun's allies turn on him, which could lead to his inevitable death. In the end, Whisper confesses to the shogun of him being full of hot air, and the shogun is touched by this as he asks Whisper to help him one last time.]]

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': The BigBad part 6 uses this as the basis for his plan; he plans to create a world where the Joestar family never existed and Dio reigns supreme.