History Main / PlotTumor

* Played for laughs in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': partway through, the movie cuts into a modern-day documentary where an historian is outdoors talking about the myth of King Arthur, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6c74p6cdPM a medieval knight rides through on horseback, killing the lecturer with his sword.]] Several cuts are made over the course of the rest of the movie to the police investigating the crime scene and questioning his wife ([[AnachronismStew despite this supposedly being]] set around Myth/ArthurianLegend), until eventually, the obvious climactic final battle is interrupted less than a minute in by a massive police force moving in and arresting everyone, at which the movie abruptly cuts to black. There's not even any closing credits, as the people responsible for them [[BrickJoke had been sacked over the opening credits]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} comics, Kryptonite went from a simple AchillesHeel to a rainbow of radioactive rocks that could do anything, and was present in ludicrous quantities. This was toned down in the 80's but was brought back in 00's storylines ''ComicBook/PublicEnemies'' and ''ComicBook/TheSupergirlFromKrypton2004''. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an issue of ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman'' where Superman is almost accidentally killed because it was cheaper for a film company to use real kryptonite than to make a prop.

*** ''Jedi Academy'' includes a plot point where the villains are targeting planets with strong Force auras to resurrect an ancient Sith Lord, so Luke sends various students to check several such planets. PlayerCharacter Jaden goes to Hoth, where Luke had that ten-second vision of Obi-Wan back in ''Empire'' and which is as such assumed to have a strong aura and will definitely be targeted, while TheRival Rosh investigates Byss, the remains a planet described in other works as having been totally corrupted by the Emperor's dark side energy, which is nevertheless assumed to be too remote for the cult to bother with. This does seem to get a LampshadeHanging, however - when Jaden gets to Hoth and doesn't sense any aura, his first assumption is that Luke was wrong about it having one in the first place, and the cult's visible success from the excursion instead comes from salvaging the old Echo Base flight logs that lead them to other planets which ''do'' have strong Force auras - namely, Dagobah, which was established as having one even in the original movies (being able to mask his presence by it being the whole reason Yoda went in hiding there). Conversely, when Jaden later accompanies Kyle to Byss so they can finish Rosh's mission, they realize right away there's no aura there because it has been drained already.

*** ''VideoGame/JediKnightJediAcademy'' includes a plot point where the villains are targeting planets with strong Force auras to resurrect an ancient Sith Lord, so Luke sends various students to check several such planets. Hoth, where Luke had that ten-second vision of Obi-Wan back in ''Empire'', is assumed to have a strong aura and will definitely be targeted, while he suggests that Byss, the remains a planet described in other works as having been totally corrupted by the Emperor's dark side energy, will probably be left alone because it's "pretty remote". This does seem to get a LampshadeHanging, however - when Jaden goes to Hoth and doesn't sense any aura, his first assumption is that Luke was wrong about it having one in the first place, and the cult's visible success from the excursion instead comes from salvaging the old Echo Base flight logs that lead them to other planets which ''do'' have strong Force auras - namely, Dagobah, which was established as having one even in the original movies (being able to mask his presence by it being the whole reason Yoda went in hiding there). Conversely, when Jaden later accompanies Kyle to Byss so they can finish Rosh's mission, they realize right away there's no aura there because it has been drained already.
*** Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', where during the Hoth mission, the player states they have never heard of the planet. The Republic, apparently, is only there to salvage wreckage from a battle which happened to occur nearby, and the Empire's agenda is tying up Republic forces by forcing them to fight over a meaningless iceball.

** Force Lightning is used six times in the six movies -- three times by Palpatine (''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', twice in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'') and three times by Dooku/Darth Tyrannus (all in ''Film/AttackOfTheClones''), both major league Sith Lords. In the games, anyone who has a smidge of Dark Side can throw lightning around with impunity, [[https://web.archive.org/web/20080211172857/http://jediknight3.filefront.com/potd/40774 and on a vastly greater scale, too]]. This at least does get touched on in one of the novels starring Jaden Korr, the protagonist of the ''Jedi Academy'' game that screenshot comes from, where it's noted that the ease with which he is able to call upon powerful Force Lightning, particularly when he's stressed, is a major source of worry for him even a couple decades after his introduction because in canon such abilities still tend to be the trademark of major-league Sith.

*** It gets to the point that, in ''VideoGame/JediKnightJediAcademy'', when Luke is sending characters out to investigate whether the bad guys (a cult trying to resurrect an ancient Sith Lord) have absorbed strong Force auras from various planets, he's more certain that the player character, Jaden, will find them on Hoth because of that ten-second vision of Obi-Wan from ''Empire'' than he is of Rosh finding them at the remains of Byss, a planet that had actually been described in other works as being totally corrupted by the Emperor's dark side energy. That said, this case seems to get some LampshadeHanging - when Jaden goes to Hoth and doesn't sense any aura, his first assumption is that Luke was wrong about it having one in the first place, and the cult's visible success from the excursion instead comes from salvaging the old Echo Base flight logs that lead them to other planets which ''do'' have strong Force auras - namely, Dagobah, which was established as having one even in the original movies (being able to mask his presence by it being the whole reason Yoda went in hiding there). Conversely, when Jaden later accompanies Kyle to Byss so they can finish Rosh's mission, they realize right away there's no aura there because it has been drained already.

** Hoth is an utterly unremarkable, nigh-uninhabitable snowball of a planet whose sole significance was a major Rebel base built there specifically ''because'' it's the last place anyone would look. And yet almost every ''Star Wars'' game since ''Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire'' features a Hoth level. Which would be excusable if the game, like ''[=SotE=]'', were set during Episode 5 or between it and 6 -- most are not ''and shoehorn in a Hoth level anyway! VideoGame/StarWarsRebelAssault'' and a trading card game tie-in to ''VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies'' even ended up retconning in ''another '''two''''' battles on the planet in as many years before ''Empire'', the Rebels apparently thinking the Empire [[RefugeInAudacity wouldn't expect to find them on a planet where they had already found them two times before]].

* ''ComicStrip/{{Blondie}}'' was originally about a flapper girl from the twenties of the same name. After the Great Depression hit, the focus of the comic [[GenreShift turned to domestic comedy]] involving her marriage to her inept, comically-oversized-sandwich-eating husband, Dagwood Bumstead. Dagwood himself originally came from wealthy roots -- to mark the shift in focus, he was disowned by his family and his wealth for marrying below his social class and thus had to enter the blue-collar working world that he was unprepared for while Blondie shifted from gold-digging flapper to responsible and caring matriarch.

* The Freelancer program of ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' began simply as independent soldiers who worked for the paying side and to introduce the AI programs. The mini-series Out of Mind expanded this to being a special program to combine [=AIs=] with soldiers and the [[AIIsACrapshoot AI revolt]]. The Recovery One and Recollection trilogy further expanded it to be not only a program designed to win the great war with unscrupulous methods, but the cause of the Red vs. Blue war and all the events of the first five seasons as an extended Freelancer training scenario. Finally, the ninth and tenth seasons had the plot equal parts silly comedy and the darker Freelancer backstory. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools This of course is not a bad thing]], since it added a number of layers of depth to the Red vs Blue story and fleshed out a number of characters in surprising ways that might not have happened in the original Blood Gulch Chronicles.

* The Freelancer program of ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' began simply as independent soldiers who worked for the paying side and to introduce the AI programs. The mini-series Out of Mind expanded this to being a special program to combine [=AIs=] with soldiers and the [[AIIsACrapshoot AI revolt]]. The Recovery One and Recollection trilogy further expanded it to be not only a program designed to win the great war with unscrupulous methods, but the cause of the Red vs. Blue war and all the events of the first five seasons as an extended Freelancer training scenario. Finally, the ninth and tenth seasons had the plot equal parts silly comedy and the darker Freelancer backstory.

** The Insult Swordfighting in [[VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland the first game]] was meant to be a parody of the [[YouFightLikeACow witty banter]] found in high adventure movies, but by the time ''VideoGame/EscapeFromMonkeyIsland'' came around, there's apparently an Insult version of nearly ''every'' sport available floating around the Tri-Island Area. May have something to do with [[spoiler:the legendary Ultimate Insult, an insult in primordial (read: monkey) tongue that burrows into the heart of a person's psyche and completely obliterates it. It turned ''Lechuck'' into a cringing, primal ape! Basically the true secret of Monkey Island]].

** The Uchiha clan, and Sasuke in particular, only became more prominent in the story as time passed, to the point where the Uchiha clan is responsible for the entire plot of the manga. Sasuke started out as merely TheRival to Naruto (though he clearly had greater story importance than other such rivals due to also being Naruto's teammate) who wanted to avenge his clan, but as the Uchiha presence expanded, so did his. He arguably had more face time in the manga than the actual protagonist, and in the series' climactic arc, it's mainly Uchihas who accomplish anything of importance [[spoiler:since two of them are the main villains, and a third single-handedly negates the mass revival technique that nobody else could stop]]. [[BrokenBase It's a sore spot between fans whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between.]]

* Newtypes in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''. About two thirds of the way through it somewhat abruptly moves from a sci-fi war story to a sci-fi war story about ''psychics''. Many major characters turn out to be Newtypes, they turn out to figure into the backstory, some fairly important characters have motivations involving them... [[AllThereInTheManual Later background material]] revealed that the idea of Newtypes was a big thing Zeon Deikun (the founder of what became the Principality) talked up to convince people to move into space, by suggesting that if people did so then more "enlightened" Newtypes would arrive to lead humanity to a golden age of peace through their heightened understanding of other people. It [[LampshadeHanging also reveals]] that Deikun was completely full of it and didn't believe a word of what he proposed about Newtypes, simply saying whatever he thought would make moving to space sound good; that people with psychic powers actually started showing up a couple decades later was a massive coincidence.

*** Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'', where during the Hoth mission, the player states s/he has never heard of the planet. The Republic, apparently, is only there to salvage wreckage from a battle which happened to occur nearby... and the Empire's agenda is tying up Republic forces by forcing them to fight over a meaningless iceball.

* Pretty much every single ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' series since about 1992 where Takara (the Japanese toy company that shares the rights to the ''Transformers'' brand with their American partner Creator/{{Hasbro}}) had a major say in the direction of the toyline/story development has over-emphasized the role of Convoy/Optimus Prime and his derivatives. This is particularly glaring in short-lived toy-only lines with no television show to back them up, which will often start with a new Convoy toy... then ''maybe'' a different character as the second toy if they're really lucky, or ''another'' Convoy-related toy of they're not so lucky... and then the line ends and gets replaced by a new line that starts with the next Convoy all over again. The most noteworthy example would be the "Robot Masters" line from 2004, which, during its 25-toy-run, had no less than ''seven'' toys with the word "Convoy" in their names (including redecos). One of these "Convoy" toys was even a retool of a ''Megatron'' toy and was intended to actually ''be'' a form of Megatron.

* ''Webcomic/{{Concession}}'' started off as a comic strip about a bunch of anthropomorphic characters who worked at a concession stand at a movie theater (The author actually based it around the stupidity he experienced, working in customer service is a good way to get material for comic strips). But in the later comics...you'll not really see that much about an actual concession stand. For awhile, the actual concession stand was more or less put to the side, and until it got wrapped up in the massive Plot Tumor, it didn't even play a role beyond the occasional appearance of a main character who was still employed there. Immelmann has actually ''admitted'' that it's only about concession stands InNameOnly and centers around the character Joel and his plot. It even says so right in the "About" section.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': partway through, the movie cuts into a modern-day documentary where an historian is outdoors talking about the myth of King Arthur, and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6c74p6cdPM a medieval knight rides through horseback, killing the lecturer with his sword.]] Several cuts are made over the course of the rest of the movie to the police investigating the crime scene and questioning his wife ([[AnachronismStew despite this supposedly being]] set around Myth/ArthurianLegend), until eventually, the obvious climactic final battle is interrupted less than a minute in by a massive police force moving in and arresting everyone, at which the movie abruptly cuts to black. There's not even any closing credits, as the people responsible for them [[BrickJoke had been sacked over the opening credits]].

* In the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}}, Servants, and the Holy Grail War as a whole. In the original visual novel, ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Servants were pretty clearly supposed to be a one-and-done concept in an already-vibrant UrbanFantasy world, an oddball ritual carried out by declining mage families. There were only five Holy Grail Wars, all of which were separated by anywhere between decades and centuries, and all were failures. And the one featured in ''FSN'' is the last one, with the characters going out of their way to make a sixth War impossible. But, as it turned out, Servants ended up being a very adaptable concept, and ''FSN'' ended up being very popular, which led to [[LightNovel/FateZero a prequel focusing on the Fourth War]]. Then [[VideoGame/FateExtra an alternate universe]] involving the local equivalent, the Moon Cell War. And [[LightNovel/FateApocrypha another alternate universe]] with its own War. And [[VideoGame/FateGrandOrder another]]. At this point, the ''Fate'' side of the Nasuverse has gone from being its own small, rather limited corner to being the central axis upon which the world revolves.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': partway through, the movie cuts into a modern-day documentary where a lecturer is outdoors talking about the myth of King Arthur, and a medieval knight rides through horseback, killing the lecturer with his lance. Several cuts are made over the course of the rest of the movie to the police investigating the crime scene and questioning his wife ([[AnachronismStew despite this supposedly being]] set around Myth/ArthurianLegend), until eventually, the obvious climactic final battle is interrupted less than a minute in by a massive police force moving in and arresting everyone, at which the movie abruptly cuts to black. There's not even any closing credits, as the people responsible for them [[BrickJoke had been sacked over the opening credits]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': In UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age|OfComicBooks}} comics, Kryptonite went from a simple AchillesHeel to a rainbow of radioactive rocks that could do anything, and was present in ludicrous quantities. This was toned down in the 80's but was brought back in 00's storylines ''ComicBook/PublicEnemies'' and ''ComicBook/TheSupergirlFromKrypton2004''. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in an issue of ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman'' where Superman is almost accidentally killed because it was cheaper for a film company to use real kryptonite than to make a prop.
* ''ComicBook/XMen'' has dined out for years on the idea of [[FantasticRacism prejudice against mutants]] - to the point where it is the major thread of nearly every adaptation and any attempts to even ''tone down'' "Mutant Hysteria" (much less eliminate it) have been swiftly written out. When it was first conceived, anti-mutant prejudice was based on fears of mutant supremacy: that mutants like Magneto would eradicate/replace normal humans as the next stage in evolution, especially since anyone's child could be a mutant.

* Many heroes with power sources that can be even remotely anthropomorphized, with the power source becoming used in more and more story elements instead of just being left in the background. For example, a lot of later [[Comicbook/{{Shazam}} Marvel Family]] stories are more about the Wizard[[note]]especially after The Big Red Cheese ''became'' The Wizard and passed the powers on to Freddy aka Captain Marvel Junior aka Shazam, which oddly enough was the ''original'' Wizard's name (Cap-as-Wizard uses the name Marvel)[[/note]] and/or the gods who empower Captain Marvel and less about the Captain himself, ComicBook/GreenLantern comics are frequently dominated by the Guardians and Lantern politics rather than heroics, and Comicbook/AnimalMan eventually started drowning in "the Red" (which eventually led to Animal Man ditching superheroics completely in favor of animal activism).
* In one issue of ''ComicBook/TheAuthority'' Swift has a one night stand with Grunge from ''Comicbook/{{Gen 13}}''. Later this become a source of drama between Grunge and his girlfriend in ''Gen 13''.
* In the ''Comicbook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'', this happened when Knuckles' own series was cancelled and all of its characters and plots got reincorporated into the main book. As a result, for a time the comic was more about Knuckles than it was about its title character. Eventually, however, the excess characters were written out ([[PutOnABus one way]] [[KilledOffForReal or another]]) and the plot lines either tied off or more evenly merged with the main series. Now, Knuckles only gets central focus when it helps contribute to the main plot.

** The Uchiha clan, and Sasuke in particular, have done nothing but become more prominent in the story as time passes. It's gotten to the point where the Uchiha clan is responsible for the entire plot of the manga. Sasuke started out as merely TheRival to Naruto (though he clearly had greater story importance than other such rivals due to also being Naruto's teammate) who wanted to avenge his clan, but as the Uchiha presence expanded, so has his. He's arguably had more face time in the manga than the actual protagonist (he hasn't, though he's had more than every other character despite being largely absent for the first three arcs of Part 2), and in the series' climactic arc, it's mainly Uchihas who accomplish anything of importance [[spoiler:since two of them are the main villains, and a third single-handedly negates the mass revival technique that nobody else could stop]]. [[BrokenBase It's a sore spot between fans whether this is a good thing, a bad thing, or something in between.]]

* Newtypes in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''. About two thirds of the way through it somewhat abruptly moves from a sci-fi war story to a sci-fi war story about ''psychics''. Many major characters turn out to be newtypes, they turn out to figure into the backstory, some fairly important characters have motivations involving them... [[AllThereInTheManual Later background material]] revealed that the idea of Newtypes was a big thing Zeon Deikun (the founder of what became the Principality) talked up to convince people to move into space, by suggesting that if people did so then more "enlightened" Newtypes would arrive to lead humanity to a golden age of peace through their heightened understanding of other people. It [[LampshadeHanging also reveals]] that Deikun was completely full of it and didn't believe a word of what he proposed about Newtypes, simply saying whatever he thought would make moving to space sound good; that people with psychic powers actually started showing up a couple decades later was a massive coincidence.

* ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' is possibly one of the finest examples in fiction. The [[Manga/YuGiOh manga]] focused on many types of games at first, and Duel Monsters (Magic & Wizards) was only meant to appear in one chapter. Fans kept asking if there were real versions of those cards available and if the game would be revisited, which it was--without it the series would have been canceled very early on. The author realized that focusing on a single game allowed him to have more story focus, and so it became the focus of long story arcs in the manga, became the ''central'' focus of [[Anime/YuGiOh the anime]], and snowballed until the entire franchise centers around it to the point where non-card games are very rare. Spin-offs have gotten to the point where Duel Monsters ''created the universe'', and even in series without magic, the Solid Vision systems and VR might as well be magic in how monsters are "alive" and interact with opponents.

* Yukito Kishiro derailed ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita: Last Order'' for a two-volume gothic vampire story which acted as last-minute background for "Fata Morgana" (a nanotech super-program). It would appear the Fata Morgana became such a Plot Tumor due to Kishiro's understandable reluctance to pull a DeusExMachina on his readers, but it's still not the most elegant arc of the series.
* Newtypes in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam''. About two thirds of the way through it somewhat abruptly moves from a sci-fi war story to a sci-fi war story about ''psychics''. Many major characters turn out to be newtypes, they turn out to figure into the backstory, some fairly important characters have motivations involving them... [[AllThereInTheManual Later background material]] revealed that the idea of Newtypes was a big thing Zeon Deikun (the founder of what became the Principality) talked up to convince people to move into space, by suggesting that if people did so then more "enlightened" Newtypes would arrive to lead humanity to a golden age of peace through their heightened understanding of other people. It [[LampshadeHanging also reveals]] that Deikun was completely full of it and didn't believe a word of what he proposed about Newtypes, simply saying whatever he thought would make moving to space sound good; that people with psychic powers actually started showing up a couple decades later was a massive coincidence.
* In ''Manga/FoodWars'', the introduction of Erina's estranged father propels a two-year long arc that gradually focuses more and more on the Nakiri family's drama, at the expense of actually progressing Soma's journey in the cooking world. It gets to the point where Erina's character development is more plot-relevant than Soma, that by the epilogue [[spoiler:the author is more concerned with adding more details to the Nakiri family lore than actually have Soma achieve any of his initial goals]].

* That whole deal with shopping for Kagami's goldfish in Fanfic/{{Starbound}} stems entirely from a technicality that the author's beta-reader commented on in episode 15 of [[Anime/LuckyStar the source anime]]. To begin with, there initially weren't any real plans to involve Gyopi; the fish was only mentioned by virtue of canon.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail'': partway through, a man on horseback kills a random, out-of-place modern citizen with his lance. Several cuts are made over the course of the rest of the movie to the police investigating the crime scene and questioning his wife ([[AnachronismStew despite this supposedly being]] set around Myth/ArthurianLegend), until eventually, the obvious climactic final battle is interrupted less than a minute in by a massive police force moving in and arresting everyone, at which the movie abruptly cuts to black. There's not even any closing credits, as the people responsible for them [[BrickJoke had been sacked over the opening credits]].

** In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'', carbon-freezing a person seemed to be an improvised and experimental procedure; nobody was sure it was survivable, which is why it was being ''tested'' on the less-valuable prisoner, Han. In the expanded universe, it's a common imprisonment/preservation technique, even more common in media set before the original trilogy than after.