History Main / WorldLimitedToThePlot

* In ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'', the entire conflict between Humans and Demons is actually very small in scale, limited entirely to Japan, and mostly a complete secret to the general public to booth, despite the progenitor of all demons being over a thousand years old Muzan never really looked out to expand his demon servants beyond his immediate reach, nor the Demon Slayers have any international reach; unsurprisingly, once [[spoiler:Muzan dies all demons have died by that point, without humanity ever truly finding demons ever existed, with Zenitsu’s memoirs been seen as a book lies by his own descendants, save one who is a big fan]].

** Averted in ''Film/CubeZero'', where it's shown to basically be a last-chance experimentation chamber for death-row prisoners. [[spoiler:At least until one of the operators helps someone escape and ends up with a forged "confession" and a lobotomy before getting thrown in himself, with heavy hints throughout that that's basically how ''everyone'' ended up in there. Then we find out that what we see in the prequel is basically a first generation prototype compared to the later Cubes, which seem to have less and less of a plausible reason to exist.]]

* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In the audio spin-off ''[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho014TheHolyTerror The Holy Terror]]'', the Doctor arrives in what at first appears to be a castle with the 'quirk' that the current reigning emperor is considered to be a literal god, but as the story unfolds he realises that the entire castle is actually part of an elaborate prison created for one man, who weaves this elaborate world to hide from his guilt until he is forced to face his crime and [[GroundhogDayLoop commit it all over again]].

* Moral dilemmas in academic philosophy usually rely ''heavily'' on this trope: You are supposed to accept, or even take for granted, the premise that the characters and situations involved have no social context whatsoever (some are set on {{deserted island}}s, or in rafts adrift on the ocean). This tends to make it unreasonably impossible to TakeAThirdOption.
** One instance is in a class on torture where students debate on the permissibility of torturing a person if that person holds information on a bomb's location, then the bomb cannot be a city-destroying level of power or greater.

* Creator/SamuelBeckett loved this one: ''Endgame'', ''Theatre/WaitingForGodot'' (Estragon's character as opposed to Vladimir's) , probably others.
** Beckett's one-act play, ''Play'', can be an extreme version, with the world limited to a ''spotlight''. To explain, the entirety of the dialogue is spoken by three heads sticking out of large, unmoving funeral urns which can only speak if the spotlight is on them. There is often nothing else on stage and no other lighting. (The RTÉ "Beckett on Film" version, however, averts this trope by replacing the spotlight with the [[BehindTheBlack camera's gaze]] and including a set—a barren landscape filled with similar heads-sticking-out-of-urns.)

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' has several, although Hyrule itself counts in most games, as we're not given any indication that other lands exist, with a few rare exceptions such as the ''Oracle'' duology, which take place in Holodrum and Labrynna. FridgeHorror sets in with Hyrule's case when you examine the state of the kingdom in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker The Wind Waker]]'', where Hyrule is under water after a Noah-style flooding: If Hyrule isn't the only kingdom in the world, then that means Hyrule's troubles wound up taking ''every other nation on earth'' with it.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': the world outside of the main characters' lives appears almost desolate. None of them seem to have any other friends apart from themselves and characters on the periphery of their interpersonal interactions (their guardians) appear almost vacant and robotic. And they're not really [[AngstWhatAngst very affected]] by [[spoiler:Earth's imminent and unavoidable destruction]] either.
** On the other hand, there are cases where we do have a glimpse outside the plot, with current events like how UsefulNotes/BarackObama is the president, and other people completely irrelevant to the plot, like the [[Website/{{Twitter}} Serious Business]] and Website/GameFAQs users, are still shown to actually exist, even if they are never shown. We also see maps of the entire planet, and the plot does, in fact, make an [[StealthPun impact]] in places irrelevant to the main characters.
** At one point Jade is shown browsing a real artist's gallery on [[UsefulNotes/FurryFandom Fur Affinity]].
* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' lived by this trope until the foreshadowing at the end of book one. ([[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0120.html Strip 120]] in the online version.) Only then, when the dungeon in which the entire plot has taken place is destroyed, do the plot and the dungeon turn out to have some relevance outside of itself. Even before that, half the team didn't even realize they had a specific ''quest'' beyond stand-alone gags until several pages in.
** Later, it turns out that characters who aren't relevant enough to the plot to be named actually don't even ''[[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0703.html have]]'' names... at least not until they [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0472.html become relevant]] to the plot.

* One criticism of the ''Franchise/StarWars'' sequel trilogy is that (divorced from supplementary material) they're uninterested in commenting on the state of the galaxy beyond the worlds the main characters personally visit, in comparison to the CrypticBackgroundReference-rife original and prequel trilogies. In the [[Film/TheForceAwakens first movie]], for example, the New Republic is introduced exclusively to be devastated by the First Order's superweapon without further context, as if it's a ThrowAwayCountry and not a superpower established to replace the Galactic Empire. Alderaan may have gotten the same treatment, but it also had a representative in Princess Leia, from whom much could be inferred about the planet.

* This trope is near-omnipresent in various [[Ecchi]]-orianted series, given its main premasis.

* This is often the case in pure ''Ecchi''-series, given its premise.

* This is often the chase in pure ''Ecchi''-series, given its premise.

* ''Anime/TheBigO'', there does seem to be [[CrypticBackgroundReference some reason for this]] but it's never adequately explained.

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', much like ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'', takes place in a small suburb and pretty much ''never'' shows anyone apart from the central group of kids (least of all adults; simply having the kids in school in the last season was considered a massive status quo shake-up). Taken UpToEleven in one episode, where the neighborhood ''itself'' is limited to the plot, as Ed and Eddy constantly try to fight [[BrattyHalfPint Sarah]] for access to Ed's TV - despite [[OnlySaneMan Double D's]] reminders that they could just watch the one at ''his'' house.

Usually a result of limited storytelling, but can also be actively invoked as some kind of absurdity or postmodern deconstruction. In either case, when a show or webcomic or other work starts this way, it usually melts away at the same pace as CerebusSyndrome takes a hold on the plotline. In shorter storylines, it can instead be a existential twist to some OntologicalMystery.

* {{Moral dilemma}}s in academic philosophy usually rely ''heavily'' on this trope: You are supposed to accept, or even take for granted, the premise that the characters and situations involved have no social context whatsoever (some are set on {{deserted island}}s, or in rafts adrift on the ocean). This tends to make it unreasonably impossible to TakeAThirdOption.

* Season 6 of ''[[Series/{{Charmed1998}} Charmed]]'' is a multiple offender whenever the plot demands an alternate reality or parallel world, which is just tossed in without giving much thought to the implications.
** It's [[JustifiedTrope justified]] the first time it happens in ''My Three Witches'': a reality-warping Demon traps each Charmed one in a pocket dimension tailored around their wishes [[spoiler:or, in Phoebe's case, her boyfriend's wish, which she was magically channelling]]. Each world only consists of a warped version of whatever daily-life situation each sister was in, without much context outside of that. Unsurprisingly, given each wish-world is designed to bring its victim to self-destruction and then disappear.
** The bad writing variety happens twice in the [[MultiPartEpisode double finale]] alone. First with the introduction of the Bad World, a MirrorUniverse where moralities are reversed, which exists to mantain an overall cosmic balance. All the glimpses we have of this parallel world and its inhabitants are strictly functional to the plot: the evil versions of the main cast, a few associates and a couple of characters of the week, set in four or five locations. There's no further elaboration on how such a world has sustainable societies, governments and economies, how history seems pretty much the same, how the people from the two worlds can live similar lives, doing roughly the same action, in such radically different contexts[[note]]Two counterparts doing different things at a given time is shown to only happen due to Gideon's manipulations, otherwise the two Pipers even go into labour at the same time[[/note]], or how the life expectancy of people in the violent, polluted, corrupted Bad World can be the same as their good counterpart[[note]]One person dying in one universe should result in their counterpart dying in the other not to upset the cosmic balance[[/note]].
** Second, both worlds get [[{{Flanderization}} Flanderized]] due to a magical mishap, with any act of evil or kindness, however small, being severely punished in the Good and Bad World respectively. Also, the Good World is perpetually bathed in sunlight, while the Bad World is in eternal darkness. We only see a panoramic shot of San Francisco and the places the Sisters visit of these new, unbalanced worlds, and meet only the same characters as before, without any clue of how either world is socially sustainable – or physically possible in the case of the perpetual sunlight (or lack thereof). Thankfully, it's all undone pretty soon.
** The worst offender is perhaps the BadFuture Chris has come from, due to being the primary driving force of the season arc and yet remaining incredibly nebulous, underdeveloped and even contradictory in nature. All we are told is that [[spoiler: Piper's eldest, incredibly powerful son, Wyatt]] turns evil and takes over the world with magic, which is presented as a bona-fide apocalyptic scenario. When we actually get to see this bad future for about half an episode, all we're shown are scenes of [[spoiler:Wyatt]] surrounded by Demon lackeys like any other bad guy, a few shots of a semi-ravaged San Francisco, and... perfectly unharmed {{Muggle}} civillians well off enough to enjoy a visit to the [[spoiler:Halliwell]] Memorial Museum? The audience sees nothing outside what's immediately necessary for the action taking place, which leaves us to wonder just how bad the ''county'' outside San Francisco proper is doing, let alone the country at large or the rest of the world, if the biggest difference is a breech in the {{Masquerade}} and just Witches being forbidden from entering one museum. Unsurprisingly, the fandom agrees that TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.

* ''Manga/The100GirlfriendsWhoReallyReallyReallyReallyReallyLoveYou'': Almost all of the girlfriends are introduced to the manga only right before (or at the exact moment) they fall in love with Rentarou. The most notable exceptions are [[spoiler:Hahari, who was visible in a flashback and was introduced as an antagonist]], [[spoiler:Mei, who had her EyesAlwaysShut until Rentarou figured out how to get her to open them]], and [[spoiler:Yaku, who was mentioned by Kusuri several chapters before she made her first appearance]].

* Used for a joke in TheSimpsons. At one point Homer leaves Moe's, and Moe says that that means he and everyone else will stop moving until he comes back.

* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' has several, although Hyrule itself counts in most games, as we're not given any indication that other lands exist, with a few rare exceptions such as the ''Oracle'' duology, which take place in Holodrum and Labrynna. FridgeHorror sets in with Hyrule's case when you examine the state of the kingdom in [[VideoGame/TheLegenOfZeldaTheWindWaker ''The Wind Waker'']], where Hyrule is under water after a Noah-style flooding: If Hyrule isn't the only kingdom in the world, then that means Hyrule's troubles wound up taking ''every other nation on earth'' with it.

** The worst offender is perhaps the BadFuture Chris has come from, due to being the primary driving force of the season arc and yet remaining incredibly nebulous, underdeveloped and even contradictory in nature. All we are told is that [[spoiler: Piper's eldest, incredibly powerful son, Wyatt]] turns evil and takes over the world with magic, which is presented as a bona-fide apocalyptic scenario. When we actually get to see this bad future for about half an episode, all we're shown are scenes of [[spoiler:Wyatt]] surrounded by Demon lackeys like any other bad guy, a few shots of a semi-ravaged San Francisco, and... perfectly unharmed {{Muggle}} civillians well off enough to enjoy a visit to the [[spoiler:Halliwell]] Memorial Museum? The audience sees nothing outside what's immediately necessary for the action taking place, which leaves us to wonder just how bad the ''county'' outside San Francisco proper is doing, let alone the country at large or the rest of the world, if the biggest difference is a breech in the {{Masquarade}} and just Witches being forbidden from entering one museum. Unsurprisingly, the fandom agrees that TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot.

* Tends to happen in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold'' for various reasons. For example, Superman and Wonder Woman were totally absent during Starro's invasion of Earth; they were ExiledFromContinuity at the time, but there's no indication of where they were and if Starro was controlling them or not.
* Used for a joke in TheSimpsons. At one point Homer leaves Moe's and Moe says that that means he and everyone else will stop moving until he comes back.

* ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy'', much like ''ComicStrip/Peanuts'', takes place in a small suburb and pretty much ''never'' shows anyone apart from the central group of kids (least of all adults; simply having the kids in school in the last season was considered a massive status quo shake-up). Taken UpToEleven in one episode, where the neighborhood ''itself'' is limited to the plot, as Ed and Eddy constantly try to fight [[BrattyHalfPint Sarah]] for access to Ed's TV - despite [[OnlySaneMan Double D's]] reminders that ''his'' house has a perfectly good TV.

* ''Series/WandaVision'' centers around an illusion created by Wanda Maximoff that turned an entire city into a sitcom recreation. And when Vision strays far enough, he discovers whoever is outside of Wanda's immediate field of vision seems to be left standing there, waiting for their "cue", still very conscious, reduced to repetitive actions or downright being frozen.