Close your eyes and imagine Canada or Russia. Are snow and ice the first things that comes to mind? And now imagine Australia. Did you immediately connect that name with warm and sunny weather?
If so, you're not the only one. Even though these countries have seasons just like most other parts of the world, it seems that in fictionland these countries are permanently stuck in a single season. Even if a show otherwise averts It's Always Spring, it still tends to play this one straight.
There are some elements of truth to this. Certain places around the equator experience only two real seasons: hot and rainy, and hot and dry. Unless they're at high altitudes, in which case substitute "hot" with "cool". However, Canada, Russia, and Australia are all far enough from the equator to have more seasons. (The poles, by contrast, have wide temperature differences between winter and summer; it's just that even the summer temperatures don't get above freezing.) Subtrope of Artistic License – Geography. May make use of Warm Place, Warm Lighting. Compare Forest of Perpetual Autumn, Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain, and It's Always Sunny in Miami.
Examples
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Anime & Manga
- Hetalia: Axis Powers: The personification of Russia leans heavily into the country's reputation as a wintery war zone. He is one of few characters always wearing a scarf and is specifically tormented by the Anthropomorphic Personification of winter (other northern countries are seemingly spared this fate). It is also mentioned that General Winter is his greatest ally in times of Winter Warfare.
- One Piece: Due to how messed up the weather is in the Grand Line, some islands are known for having a single season all year round. For example, Alabasta is a Summer Island, and the Drum Kingdom is located on a Winter Island.
Comic Books
- Lucky Luke: In "Les Daltons dans le blizzard", the Dalton brothers flee to Canada. Naturally, it's winter over there.
Film — Animated
- The Rescuers Down Under: The majority of the movie is set in Australia, and naturally, during the summer. The movie correctly depicts it to be winter in New York City at the same time.
Film — Live-Action
- "Crocodile" Dundee and all its sequels, it is always warm, sunny weather in Australia.
- The Hunt for Red October opens with Red October sitting on the surface, and Capt. Ramius remarks on how cold it is before they leave the snow-covered port and put out to sea.
- GoldenEye: All the scenes set in Russia feature a snowy landscape.
- Quantum of Solace: Bond tracks down Quantum member Yusuf Kabira to Kazan and has him arrested before he seduces another agent. It's shown to be dead winter in Kazan as he drops Vesper Lynd's necklace in the fresh snow.
- A minor plot point in The Saint (1997): Ivan Tretiak, the Corrupt Corporate Executive Big Bad, wishes to start a revolution to Make the Bear Angry Again and steals all of the heating oil in Moscow to make the people angry (and thus more susceptible to follow his lead) with the fact they are struggling to survive the winter.
Live-Action TV
- Subverted in Friends. The gang agrees to attend a Palaeontology conference Ross is speaking at in Barbados on the assumption that it will be sunny, only for it to rain the entire time they're there.
Literature
- Discworld:
- In The Fifth Elephant, Sam Vimes is on a diplomatic mission to Uberwald, the Discworld's equivalent to Eastern Europe. He ends up running for his life in deep snow in a deadly game of wits against werewolves. Just to establish where he is, and for Rule of Funny, he seeks refuge in a lonely isolated house with a cherry orchard populated by three gloomy sisters, who offer him the mysterious trousers of Uncle Vanya.
- In Wintersmith, the elemental spirit of snow, ice, and deep winter is seen flying over a landscape of snow-covered trees in a blizzard, singing in Russian about the glories of snow.
- In The Last Continent, XXXX has been hot and dry for so long, the only purpose of houses is to provide shade. (This changes by the end of the book, when it very definitively becomes hot and wet, with a suggestion that normal seasons will return after that.
- A Hole in the Fence: Because of the high atmospheric pollution, the city of Metropolis is locked in an endless Autumn. The weather is always mild, tress are usually leafless...
Video Games
- Call of Duty 2: All of the Soviet campaign missions take place in the midst of the freezing Russian winter, with Moscow and Stalingrad both being depicted as frozen ruins being fought over by Soviet and German forces.
- Fate/Grand Order: In the Russia Lostbelt, it's explained that around 400 years ago during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, a meteor fell on Earth causing a new Ice Age that is much, much worse than the previous ones. Humans cannot survive in those temperatures and need magical equipment to handle them, and the locals reveal that despite the insane conditions, it's not winter yet.
- Played straight in the indie-art game Its Winter, a sandbox-type game set in a literally endless Russian winter.
- Genshin Impact: Invoked. According to miHoYo, they designed each nation in Teyvat to revolve around specific seasons. Mondstadt has a spring theme, Liyue has an autumn theme, and Flavor Text mentions that Snezhnaya is winter all year round.
- Henry Stickmin Series: The Wall from Fleeing the Complex is located in a snowy landscape. All the guards talk with Russian accents, and Word of God confirmed the Wall is located in...Canada.
- Syberia II takes place almost entirely within Russia and has snow lying everywhere, which is particularly jarring because the original Syberia, set mostly in Europe, had late-summer-to-early-autumn weather going on. Either the train trip through Eastern Europe took Kate literal months, or it just magically started snowing the moment they crossed the Russian border.
Web Original
- Lampshaded in this
Cracked article, where the fourth entry (It's Always Winter in Moscow, and It's Always Sunny in Australia) details how often Hollywood likes to depict Russia and Australia with the same season, while also pointing out that this is not the case in real life.
- The connection between Canada and cold weather is referred to in What If? in a situation that would involve someone freezing to death.
"The scholarly authorities on freezing to death seem to be, unsurprisingly, Canadians."
Western Animation
- All Grown Up!: In "Rachel, Rachel", when Tommy's grandfather Boris has a flashback about his life in Russia (the old country), it shows him and his friend in a snowy landscape wearing winter clothes....complaining about how warm it is this summer.
- Dora the Explorer: In "Dora's World Adventure", Russia is snowy while it's warm everywhere else.
- Family Guy: When Stewie crashes Brian's Prius, he worries about Brian shipping him off to Russia. In a cutaway gag, Stewie is shown freezing while a Russian woman tells him to drink wolf milk and watch Russian cartoons.
- Harley Quinn: In the Cold Open for "So, You Need A Crew?" Harley attempts to steal a nuclear warhead on a Siberian-bound train in a raging snowstorm. Joker hijacks her operation and has his goons throw her out in the snow.
- Let's Go Luna!: Zig-zagged. "Lullaby for Baby Vlad", "What a Matryoshka", and "Space is the Place" show Russia having normal weather, but "You Froze My Shorts" takes place in winter and shows the kind of clothes that Russians wear to keep warm.
- The Loud House: In the season 5 episode "Schooled", when Lincoln gets transferred to a middle school in Canada, the country is covered in snow and he has to wear winter clothes, even though it's the start of the school year (late summer/early fall) and the school is in South Canada, just across the river from Royal Woods.
- TaleSpin has the nation of Thembria, a rough expy of the Soviet Union, with an ongoing winter and a military bent. Most of Thembria's landscape is snow and ice, and one of their national holidays is the Slush Festival. Happy slush, comrade.
- Teenage Euthanasia: While not explicitly stated to be Russia, Baba comes from a Russia-like country referred to as "Old Country". In a flashback to her youth when her father abandoned her family for his wife's infidelity (which she misattributes to her bangs haircut), it's shown to be snowing outside.
- South Park:
- Set in the title Colorado city, South Park itself is nearly always depicted as covered in wintry snow. The four main characters are almost always shown wearing winter gear: parkas, winter coats, ski hats, winter ear-flap caps, etc.
- In "Franchise Prequel", Stephen Stotch drags Butters to Moscow to read him and President Vladimir Putin the riot act after Butters admits he used Facebook to sow chaos through false information. It's shown to be snowing when this happens.
