Fridge Brilliance Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

David: Why was this moved from the Sugar Wiki? it seems way too biased for the Main Wiki.

brokenwit : It seems like, exception of Theatre, most subjects on the main page have grown too long. Further, the nature of this "trope" is more or less similar to the Crowning Moments. Finally, I (and some other troper, and maybe countless others) have made the mistake of starting up new folders for stuff that has their own subpage. I call that we make this page simply a description of the trope, and move ALL subjects into separate subpage, for simplicity's sake. Any complaints? (and, apologies to everyone for putting this on top...the importance of this subject seems relevant, and the bottom write-up (as this was typed) is a massive Wall Of Text which would make it hard to get by...of course, deleting it would make me even more obnoxious than that troper)

Kobal2 : just wanted to comment on :

I used to have this with Jane Austen. I just couldn't get my head around the way she constructs her sentences, and thought it was all unnecessarily wordy and complicated. And it's just about groups of people who go about their daily lives and fancy each other and there's no real plot. But then somehow it just clicked in my mind and I think her writing style is really sophisticated and interesting and now I think she's terrific. —ilikejawbreaker

without naffing the main page. After majoring in English and having had to slog through not one, not two, but THREE of her borefests, I still haven't had that click. She DOES take two hundred pages to get to the Amazing Extraordinaire Reveal or Shocking Swerve you've seen coming since the first paragraph, she IS palpably obnoxious with her subtexty "haw haw, look how silly this is !" which is about as subtle and low-key as a point-blank shotgun wound, and there IS no plot, which is evident when you realize you can sum up Emma in one A4 page, without ommiting a single detail or plotline. Aaaaah, I feel better.

Solandra: THANK YOU! I was beginning to think that I was too dense or used to reading shorter works because I just couldn't get into Pride and Prejudice even after two re-readings. My best friend loves it to death, but my eyes just kept on glazing over every time I tried to get through the tepid prose. Ah well, Your Mileage May Vary and all that.

Working Title: Fridge Brilliance: From YKTTW

Fast Eddie: To use this good title and this excellent write-up for something about Tropers ... no lurve. Sorry, no lurve for this one.

KJMackley: ~~(...Lurve? I am still a little new here.)~~ (Oh, I'm guessing it means "Love.") I suppose I could reorganize this into the standard format, but like I said in the article, this trope is about an individuals reaction. I felt that making every example anonymous would take away some of the personality of this trope.

On a different note, when I suggested this trope, I was almost certain it would be shot down as being a Subjective Trope, but it was only mentioned once and everyone seemed to love it.
I realized there was a way to organize it traditionally and give it the contributor signature, and I think I like it better this way.

Haven: Ironically enough, I didn't feel too great about this trope until the actual execution, with the signatures. That makes it really really cute ^^ That's not really an example of this trope though. But also, "One night, as you get up for a midnight snack, you open the refrigerator door and the light dawns on you, "This is the real purpose behind this plot!"" that is Made Of Win :p

Janitor: Pulling unsigned stuff

The season 8 episode of Stargate SG-1, "Citizen Joe", seemed absolutely pointless, annoying and full of plot holes (this troper remembers ranting "Why didn't they cut this episode and make 'Threads' a two-parter instead?!") Then, the following year, the two mind-reading stone thingies introduced in "Citizen Joe" became an integral part of setting up the whole Ori story arc.
The episode "Signs and Portents" in the first season of Babylon 5. On first viewing it's confusing, rather nonsensical and a little dull. But, of course, the episode is full to the brim with - yes - "signs and portents": rewatching it, "Signs and Portents" is a masterpiece of foreshadowing.
The Douglas Adams novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The first time I read it I hated it: I could barely follow what was going on, and found the whole thing infuriatingly confusing. Then I read it again the next day, and on that second reading it suddenly made perfect sense: the many many foreshadowings and ChekhovsGuns woven throughout the novel became clear, and I could understand the story in its multilayered brilliance.
When I first saw Dougls Adams The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, I found it to be very boring and uninteresting at the start and, after I skipped to the middle, quite shocking that they actually destroyed Earth without any real consequences. However, after giving it some thought and rereading it I found the book to be nothing else but made of pure awsome.
This editor finds this is the absolute key to the brilliance of The Book Of The New Sun. The description seems weird and convoluted, until you realise that when Severian is talking about the mountain's shoulders, he isn't using a metaphor.
- Not to mention the fact that in Kingdom Hearts II, we learn that she's really part of Kairi anyway.
At first, I thought the Reverse Whodunit openings to the first two cases of Phoenix Wright were kinda stupid, but then I realised that we're supposed to believe in the clients with all our hearts, and explicitly showing that they are innocent would be the quickest way to do that. I think that's pretty clever!
Majora's Mask when I first got the game just seemed an average foe, who sent me on a rather bizarre quest to save the world within seventy-two real-time minutes (give or take time travel). It was only rather a while later did I realise that Majora has so much hidden background and is such an interesting character that, if any of the Zelda secondary villains were to take over from Ganondorf, it and the Happy Mask Man would be an excellent candidate for reappearance. And, its theme song was awesome.
"Another Brick in the Wall, part II" by Pink Floyd. I didn't like it at first, as it just seemed a stupid anti-learning song. "We don't need no education". Then I saw the movie and understood that it is really about British boarding schools or, more broadly, about teachers who tyrannize their students.
- Thank you. This troper has gotten so sick of people misunderstanding the meaning of that song, and thinking that somehow, it applies to them.
- Just listen to the previous track, Happiest Days of Our Lives: "When we grew up and went to school there were certain teachers who would hurt the children in any way they could. By pouring their derision upon anything we did, exposing every weakness, however carefully hidden by the kid."
The first time I heard "You Know My Name" (the Title Theme Tune from Casino Royale), I thought to myself, "what is this Top Gun-sounding nonsense? It doesn't even sound like James Bond.''" Then I heard it in the context of the movie and realized how perfectly it fit as a harder-sounding song for a harder Bond. The sheer awesome of the Opening Title Sequence didn't hurt, either.

(DomaDoma: In what context does the line "the merciless eyes I've deceived" have anything to do with James Bond, anyway? Actually, I can think of precious few contexts in which it does fit.)

Propagandhi. Sick Of It All. A lot of hardcore really does seem like "they're just shouting!" until about the hundredth listen.
- Or the first lyrics search.
This troper once reviled the new Synchro monsters from the Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game, citing them as little more than a rehash of the Fusion and Ritual monsters we've been playing with for years. Then came the initial rulings for how summoning them worked, and I instantly saw the brilliance in it. Too bad the final revision of said rulings destroyed that clarity (to summon, you need to "release" a Tuner monster and enough non-Tuner monsters you control on the field for their combined level to equal the level of the Synchro monster being summoned. Initial reports made it seem that that means all monsters you have on the field need to be used, which would mean more micromanaging of resources and less slapping down of cards willy-nilly. Now that it's been confirmed that only the monsters you needed to fulfill the summoning requirement, the Synchros practically thrive on random card-playing, meaning the initial brilliant strategizing the set-up originally brought to the table isn't there).

J Random User: I'd be very interested to hear the clues that Sam Finn was framing Spike in that episode. Spike as 'The Doctor' never sat well with me...nor did most of that episode, really.

Whatever: Yes! I am so curious to hear about the little clues, as that would improve the episode enormously.

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Cut and placed here because, first, I have heard radio stations play "Another Brick in the Wall II" without that song before it, and second, it's not just the radio playing "Another Brick in the Wall II." You'd be surprised by how much Isnt It Ironic ads that song gets into.

"The Happiest Days of our lives" is about a minute long and is usually just attached to the begin of the latter song whenever it's played on radio. 'When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children any way they could..."

KJMackley: I cut this in regards to the Indiana Jones "Refuge In Audacity" comment.

Or they did, but even loving something for it's over-the-topness has its limits. When you go nuking-the-fridge far, you've gotten into parody territory.

Simply because it doesn't agree with the original post or add an alternative/additional insight, it is saying that their Fridge Brilliance is wrong. Fridge Brilliance is about the revelation, not whether it is actually correct or not. Arguing with a Fridge Brilliance comment defies the purpose of this trope, which is why everything is signed by contributor.

Fast Eddie: Cut a bunch of unsigned stuff.

Arrow: I see more than a few examples that can basically be summarized as "I thought this show/book/movie/game sucked at first, but then I watched/read/played farther, and when the plot kicked in, I loved it". My own opinion is obviously subjective on the matter, but that doesn't really strike me as what this trope is actually supposed to be indicative of.

KJMackley: Yeah, I've been a little reluctant to just slice and dice various examples because of that. It is all about how it's worded; also I'm allowing some growing pains because nearly all trope pages change a little due to the community effort, I don't want the definition to be too broad or too restrictive.

Dentaku: I never got the idea at the end of Madlax that Vanessa had been brought back to life. Even then, it's pretty egregious of Madlax to team up with the woman who shot her friend since that is, you know, a pretty nasty thing to do regardless.

Off Side 7: With regards to Batman's voice in Dark Knight... Sorry, but it's still Narmy for me. In the earlier cartoons, Batman's fake voice sounds dangerous, serious, and sexy. Christian Bale sounds like a little kid attempting to be scary. (Granted, Kevin Conroy is a professional voice actor.) Besides, why would Batman need people to know he's faking his voice? Batman's pretty big on intimidation as a tactic, but that voice would give me the giggles.

Syckls: Regarding KJMackley's recent edit, although the layout of the pics in this trope is probably more correct style, I still believe that it would be better to have the second pic at the very bottom. That gives it a bit of a Self Demonstrating Article feel. My original intent was so when you saw the first pic, it would seem to be misplaced or meaningless until you read the whole page and saw the second pic.

Clendy82: Deleted a "The Usual Suspects" example, as it was less of an instance of Fridge Brilliance than it was pretty obvious once you got to the end of the movie.

Buttbutt: THANK YOU so much! God I hated that entry. It's not brilliance! It's the damn plot!

Goliathus: Right, so how is this different from a delayed Gushing About Shows You Like?

WonSab: Thought.

UT: I'm with Goliathus. This is not functionally different from Gushing About Shows You Like, thought or not, and certainly not in execution. The so-called "justification" is not an absolute thing, but rather someone thinks something was clever... Returning again to liking it or not. It just operates through a different lens. If you want to gush about how much of a genius a work is - that's fine - it should be on Sugar Wiki. Think about it: transpose any example on this page to GASYL. They do not seem out of place except in length (sometimes). Yes, it's Just For Fun, but it's also a very Subjective Trope, and should be on Sugar Wiki rather than here

Peteman: I support the move. The difference between this and GASYL is the fact that you didn't like it at first until something happened that made you realize that it was not so bad or even brilliant.

Arrow: There seems to be a very definitive difference in execution between this and GASYL from what I understand: an initial lack of context to prevent a person from suspending disbelief past the Plot Holes. I actually do agree that this should be moved to Sugar Wiki, but if it's just flat out combined with GASYL, it'll lose a distinctive reason for remaining alone, and probably just make GASYL even more incredibly massive than it is. I think it should be moved there wholesale, with its name unchanged, and listed as a GAYSL subtrope.

KJMackley: Saying this trope is the same as Gushing is like saying Fridge Logic and Just Bugs Me is the same as Complaining. There are much different sets of criteria for the two. Granted Fridge Brilliance can lead into Gushing just like Fridge Logic can lead to Complaining. But to explain my point, I don't read Gushing because almost every entry is "You know Batman... yeah, I like him." or "Avatar is GREAT!!!" There is no explanation, no real thoughtful dissection of the material, just open praise. And there are examples in Fridge Brilliance that have been taken out because they exist only to Entry Pimp.

I'm not going to fight a move to the Sugar Wiki, but my opinion is that I don't think it really belongs there or as a subtrope of Gushing. The Sugar Wiki and Darth Wiki exist entirely to curb troper inclinations to bash or praise whatever they want. Not every subjective trope necessarily belong in either of those. Crowning Moment Of Awesome is an open ended concept that exists for people to just put in whatever they like. This trope at least has some requirements for an example.

Slatz Grobnik: Glibly, I think the problem is that all the instances are brilliant, but some are more brilliant than others. It's more of a subtrope of Swiss Moment than Gushing About Shows You Like, but where Swiss Moment is more of a neutral to a positive move, this is where a negative switches to positive. It's the Fridge at Damascus. It's when you second guess what at first looked like Fridge Logic and realize that it's not. It's liking something you used to hate when some element of the greater context hits you. Unfortunately, not all the turnarounds are that massive, ("I thought X was annoying, then I realized the pun!") and the sort of thing you probably should have understood in the first place.

Chuckg: Removed the Planetary entry. The complaints about the Curb Stomp Battle of issue 26 are not based in that Elijah solved the problem by using 'mystery archaeology' instead of unleashing cathartic ultraviolence on Randall Dowling. The complaints were that Dowling would never have been caught in that trap in the first place if he hadn't suddenly morphed into a complete idiot. Relying on remote sensor scans to certify Elijah free of weapons or communications devices, when Elijah was standing right next to the Drummer? Who Dowling knows is the world's most perfect anti-surveillance device and ECM generator? Dowling and Suskind dying simply by falling into a giant hole in the ground, because Suskind apparently forgot that she has the Invisible Woman's force-field powers and could have saved herself (and Dowling too, if she felt like it) from the impact in any one of half a dozen ways? Dowling, who is a megalomaniacal chessmaster supergenius who wants to live forever and canonically owns a flying saucer with a teleporter beam capable of snatching people up off the ground, not having that someone or some AI on that saucer's teleporter beam standing by to pull him out of sudden danger if necessary? (Especially since Dowling showed up for the meeting in that saucer.) Dowling showing up for a meeting with his most dangerous enemy carrying exactly zero weapons, defensive devices, or communications devices for summoning help with? Seriously. We're supposed to believe that an evil version of Reed Richards, who had canonically been stalemating every hostile faction in the Wildstorm Universe for nigh-on fifty years, to the point where they were all terrified of even trying to kill him, and who knew he was showing up for a meet with his most dangerous nemesis and had a day of prep time, could be beaten by simply opening up a giant hole at his feet and watching him fall in it like Wile E. Coyote. Hell, Dowling didn't even check the meeting site out ahead of time — if he had, he'd have found the shiftship buried underneath it.

KJMackley: I continued to sub-divide the main page into groups. For the Comic Books page, a made two seperate categories for Watchmen and Alan Moore, even though Moore wrote Watchmen there was enough comments to divide the two.

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