History YMMV / UncommonTime

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation:

** Ending VI, which can come off as too contrived and over-the-top to be tragic. [[spoiler:After failing to save Saki, Meirin has another breakdown, blaming herself for his death. Alto decides that Meirin should be left alone, and the player must control her doing so. When Alto returns after speaking with Aubrey, Meirin has killed herself and is lying in a pool of blood that is twice as wide and three times as long as her sprite. In addition, this event takes place in a normally populated town but is mysteriously empty of any inhabitants for no apparent reason. Regardless of what was intended by this choice, it can just come off as a flimsy excuse for no one to interfere in Meirin's suicide.]] See WhatAnIdiot below.

* WhatAnIdiot:
** Alto and Teagan allow a 26-year-old man they just met to babysit a 16-year-old girl visiting a brothel, alone. They are very, very lucky he was trustworthy.
** After [[spoiler:the World Tuning fails]], Alto knows that [[spoiler:it wasn't because of the performance failures]], yet she bizarrely does not mention any of this while [[spoiler:Teagan is blaming the failure on the party's performance]].
** At the end of Movement 2, [[spoiler:the party encounters Teagan in Solfege, and she promptly runs away... to the dock at the end of the Forest of Preludes, which is a dead end. Naturally, this allows the party to corner her. Sure, it's narratively appropriate to have the journey come full circle, but unless Teagan ''wanted'' to confront the party, it doesn't make any sense for her to do this.]]
** In Ending 6, [[spoiler:Meirin]] is very obviously suicidal... but Alto chooses to leave her alone in her room instead of getting her real help, and of course she's killed herself by the time Alto returns. Alto really should have seen that coming and made a better attempt to stop it.

** Arietta calling Altair "my ♥ honey" in speech. It's implied in the developer's room that the name's supposed to be at least somewhat silly, but the NoPronunciationGuide for the heart symbol pushes it into this trope.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: [[FinalBoss The Distortion]] could have been a really poignant and meaningful confrontation if it was used to represent all the hatred and insecurities among the party that led to [[spoiler:the failure of the first World Tuning]] and forced them to overcome that, proving that they've experienced true CharacterDevelopment. Instead it's just a very boring, very generic blob monster.

* LoveItOrHateIt

** To be fair, we don't know the details of what Alto has told Teagan about the World Tuning over the years. She could have told her everything and Teagan was too convinced that the Cantabiles were insane to listen, or she just told her the basics, leading to this trope.

** Ending VI. [[spoiler:After failing to save Saki, Meirin has another breakdown, blaming herself for his death. Instead of asking Meirin what she needs or trying anything at all to make sure Meirin stays safe, Alto silently decides that Meirin needs to be left alone in her inn room and goes off to talk to Aubrey. When the two of them come back, Meirin has killed herself and is lying in an excessively large pool of blood (at least three times as long and twice as wide as her sprite). It should be noted that this scenario takes place in a normally populated town, but there are '''no''' {{NPC}}s around except for the party members, the apothecary, and Saki's corpse during this time. This may have been intended to give the feeling of isolation but, taken literally, it can come off as just an excuse for no one in the inn to stop Meirin.]] See WhatAnIdiot below.

** Teagan has the opposite problem, in that it's not unusual for her to be mistaken for a guy due to her masculine appearance and rougher way of speech. Like with Saki, this is apparently an in-universe problem for her as well.
** Aubrey's androgynous appearance and having a gender identity that's rarely portrayed in mainstream fiction sometimes has players tripping over their pronouns.

** Alto is a stupid bitch, Teagan literally did nothing wrong.

** Alto is straight up stupid bitch, portrayed as heroic for [[spoiler:overcoming her abuse and directing her hatred against her abusers]]... but does she really stop there? It's easy to see her behavior towards her ensemble members, especially Teagan, as controlling and cultish. She frequently uses her inarticulateness as an excuse to hoard information (such as ''the entire reason for coming to Harmonia in the first place'') and force others to accept her decisions when they don't have the knowledge to make better ones. When she recruits her ensemble members she assures them they can leave whenever they want, but [[spoiler:when they take that offer after things really get dire she wheedles them into coming back into the fold. This is particularly notable with Teagan: she hates Teagan, the rest of the ensemble hates Teagan, Teagan hates them and just wants to be left alone, she knows this enmity is what made the World Tuning fail... but when Teagan tries to run away, she beats her to bloody pulp and forces her to stick around while constantly dragging her through the mud, with no justification but her "intuition".]] It's very easy to see her as [[spoiler:continuing the cycle of abuse against her friends, and overcompensating for never getting anything her way by insisting that ''everything'' has to go her way, or else.]] Alto wasn't abused.
** Alto's relationship with Aubrey can also be seen as abusive: Alto routinely violates Aubrey's boundaries and privacy, but whenever Aubrey objects, [[YoureCuteWhenYoureAngry Alto just laughs about how cute they are when they're embarrassed]]. Given we later learn Aubrey suffers from crippling depression and an inability to assert themself, this is unlikely to change...
** Teagan is portrayed as totally in the wrong for her {{Jerkass}} behavior towards Alto and the others, but it's very easy to see this as a two-way street. Meirin and Alto give as good as they get, often behind Teagan's back, and the narrative is so committed to using Teagan as TheChewToy (even after [[spoiler:she repents and makes a genuine effort to be nicer]]) that it's hard not to feel sorry for her. How much of her behavior is inherent badness and how much of it is her being scraped raw by having her (actually quite reasonable) objections ignored and dismissed all the time? To most players, Teagan literally did nothing wrong.

** Alto is straight up stupid bitch, portrayed as heroic for [[spoiler:overcoming her abuse and directing her hatred against her abusers]]... but does she really stop there? It's easy to see her behavior towards her ensemble members, especially Teagan, as controlling and cultish. She frequently uses her inarticulateness as an excuse to hoard information (such as ''the entire reason for coming to Harmonia in the first place'') and force others to accept her decisions when they don't have the knowledge to make better ones. When she recruits her ensemble members she assures them they can leave whenever they want, but [[spoiler:when they take that offer after things really get dire she wheedles them into coming back into the fold. This is particularly notable with Teagan: she hates Teagan, the rest of the ensemble hates Teagan, Teagan hates them and just wants to be left alone, she knows this enmity is what made the World Tuning fail... but when Teagan tries to run away, she beats her to bloody pulp and forces her to stick around while constantly dragging her through the mud, with no justification but her "intuition".]] It's very easy to see her as [[spoiler:continuing the cycle of abuse against her friends, and overcompensating for never getting anything her way by insisting that ''everything'' has to go her way, or else.]]

** Alto is portrayed as heroic for [[spoiler:overcoming her abuse and directing her hatred against her abusers]]... but does she really stop there? It's easy to see her behavior towards her ensemble members, especially Teagan, as controlling and cultish. She frequently uses her inarticulateness as an excuse to hoard information (such as ''the entire reason for coming to Harmonia in the first place'') and force others to accept her decisions when they don't have the knowledge to make better ones. When she recruits her ensemble members she assures them they can leave whenever they want, but [[spoiler:when they take that offer after things really get dire she wheedles them into coming back into the fold. This is particularly notable with Teagan: she hates Teagan, the rest of the ensemble hates Teagan, Teagan hates them and just wants to be left alone, she knows this enmity is what made the World Tuning fail... but when Teagan tries to run away, she beats her to bloody pulp and forces her to stick around while constantly dragging her through the mud, with no justification but her "intuition".]] It's very easy to see her as [[spoiler:continuing the cycle of abuse against her friends, and overcompensating for never getting anything her way by insisting that ''everything'' has to go her way, or else.]]

** Teagan is portrayed as totally in the wrong for her {{Jerkass}} behavior towards Alto and the others, but it's very easy to see this as a two-way street. Meirin and Alto give as good as they get, often behind Teagan's back, and the narrative is so committed to using Teagan as TheChewToy (even after [[spoiler:she repents and makes a genuine effort to be nicer]]) that it's hard not to feel sorry for her. How much of her behavior is inherent badness and how much of it is her being scraped raw by having her (actually quite reasonable) objections ignored and dismissed all the time?

** That is exactly how the Distortion is used in-story, especially in the GoldenEnding. [[GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere Its existence, however, isn't foreshadowed at all]], causing it to lose its effectiveness.

** That is exactly how the Distortion is used in-story, especially in the GoldenEnding. {{GiantSpaceFleaFromNowhere Its existence, however, isn't foreshadowed at all}}, causing it to lose its effectiveness.

* FridgeLogic:
** During Movement 2, Alto tells Meirin that [[spoiler:the World Tuning couldn't have failed due to their performance mistakes alone]], and that Teagan knew this and was just being mean for no reason. Except... Teagan knows absolutely nothing about the World Tuning except what Alto told her, and in fact believed the whole thing was a myth until she saw the spirits. How could she have known that?
** During the construction of the Metronome Tower, a number of magical and natural disasters were triggered that killed tons of people, including Aubrey's parents. Aubrey resents Arietta for this, but is told that this is irrational and unreasonable because it was just a natural reaction to the construction and not directly Arietta's fault. Except that during Arietta's Uncommon Time, we learn that [[spoiler:the disasters were caused because Arietta hated the world and subconsciously wanted everyone to die... simply because her status as a half-breed made her personally unhappy. That's a pretty petty reason to destroy the world over, so Arietta kind of is responsible for all the deaths.]]
** Euphony Temple is completely empty and no one seems to have touched it in ages... So Altair never appointed a caretaker for Aubrey, despite knowing the spell was supposed to weaken over time. Did he just completely give up on Aubrey after failing to wake them up the first time?

* {{Narm}}: Ending VI. [[spoiler:After failing to save Saki, Meirin has another breakdown, blaming herself for his death. Instead of asking Meirin what she needs or finding some other way to try to ensure her safety, Alto silently decides that Meirin needs to be left alone in her inn room and goes off to talk to Aubrey. When the two of them come back, Meirin has obviously killed herself and is lying in a pool of blood at least three times as long and twice as wide as her sprite. In addition, there are '''no''' {{NPC}}s except for the party members, the apothecary, and Saki's corpse during this time, despite the fact that this is happening in a populated town. This may have been intended to give the feeling of isolation, but it can also come off as just an excuse for no one in the inn to stop Meirin.]] See WhatAnIdiot below.

* MisaimedRealism: The "[[YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe slightly archaic manner of speech]]" solely used by Bravura, a relatively young character, only highlights how bizarre it is that the characters who lived two thousand years ago speak in the exact same way that the characters from the present day do.

* MissedMomentOfAwesome: Possibly due to the game being low budget, no in-game song was composed for the World Tuning, meaning that the score that the player collects in Movement 1 is only represented by a few seconds of silence and the party reacting to how it sounds. At first, this might come off as FridgeBrilliance considering [[spoiler:that the party decides that the tone of the old score doesn't suit their own personal journey and decides to create one based off their own struggles and cautious growth]]...except that [[spoiler:the second score has no in-game song, either, so the player has to just [[TakeOurWordForIt take the party's word for it]] for how much better they sound playing together and how good the new song sounds]].

* FridgeHorror: During [[{{Backstory}} Grand Pause]], Arietta wants Chantal to be her vocalist for the World Tuning, but Chantal feels uncomfortable singing, because she's a trans woman who transitioned after her voice dropped, and she worries her singing will be seen as unfeminine. Arietta tells her to just sing one section of the Grand Score, and afterwards Arietta assures her she has a beautiful voice and she wouldn't want anyone else for her vocalist. Sounds sweet, right? Except... one of the first things we learn about the Grand Score is that it's enchanted to compel the reader to perform it. And Arietta must know this, because she wrote it. Arietta violated Chantal's free will by doing this.

** During Alto's VisionQuest, her subconscious says that Teagan "never lifted a finger to help [her]"... but just a few areas earlier, we saw a memory of Teagan beating up some kids who were harassing Alto over her scars, so the accusation seems untrue.

*** Alto's relationship with Aubrey can also be seen as abusive: Alto routinely violates Aubrey's boundaries and privacy, but whenever Aubrey objects, [[YoureCuteWhenYoureAngry Alto just laughs about how cute they are when they're embarrassed]]. Given we later learn Aubrey suffers from crippling depression and an inability to assert themself, this is unlikely to change...

* UnfortunateImplications:
** Teagan, Teagan, Teagan. Where to even begin? For starters, she hits basically every asexual stereotype in the book. Fun-hating killjoy? Check. Frigid emotionless robot? Check. Controlling prude who thinks no one should be allowed to have sex ever and who needs to learn a very special lesson that this is wrong? Check, check, and check! (To make matters worse, one of Alto's lines in Uncommon Time implies the developer thinks all asexuals are like this.) Alto forcing her to out herself to Meirin towards the end is also ''extremely'' uncomfortable.
*** Meirin also seems to immediately assume that this means Teagan has no interest in romantic relationships, which seems to indicate that the developer didn't know there was a difference between asexuality and aromanticism when she wrote that scene. (Fortunately, [[http://feralphoenix.tumblr.com/post/142525780314/i-had-fun-doing-these-for-my-grown-up-undertale this mistake has since been corrected.]])
** Teagan's sin being {{Pride}} and her arc being about her need to shut up and stop asserting herself takes on some very unfortunate connotations given her status as the only dark-skinned character in the game; it's distressingly easy to see this as "the uppity black woman needs to know her place".
** And we're still not done, because Teagan's status as a commoner opposing a noble family ''also'' carries some weird classist associations in regard to her "know your place" storyline.
** Saki is a gay man who somehow ends up with a girl as a LoveInterest anyway, which is seen as gay erasure by some.
** Aubrey's depression is handled... weirdly. Especially in their Uncommon Time, the focus is largely on how it hurts other poeple rather than how it hurts Aubrey, and they are portrayed as a selfish burden who's terrible for being such a downer.
** During Grand Pause, Chantal, a trans woman, is described as a "Maestro", which is a masculine term.
** Similarly, Scherzo, a trans man, is referred to as a "Succubus" in his first boss battle.

** At the end of Movement 2, [[spoiler:the party encounters Teagan in Solfege, and she promptly runs away... to the dock at the end of the Forest of Preludes, which is a dead end. Naturally, this allows the party to corner here. Sure, it's narratively appropriate to have the journey come full circle, but unless Teagan ''wanted'' to confront the party, it doesn't make any sense for her to do this.]]

** Teagan, Teagan, Teagan. Where to even begin? For starters, she hits basically every asexual stereotype in the book. Fun-hating misanthrope? Check. Frigid emotionless robot? Check. Controlling prude who thinks no one should be allowed to have sex ever and who needs to learn a very special lesson that this is wrong? Check, check, and check! (To make matters worse, one of Alto's lines in Uncommon Time implies the developer thinks all asexuals are like this.) Alto forcing her to out herself to Meirin towards the end is also ''extremely'' uncomfortable.

* FridgeHorror: During [[{{Backstory}} Grand Pause]], Arietta wants Chantal to be her vocalist for the World Tuning, but Chantal feels uncomfortable singing, because they're a trans woman who transitioned after their voice dropped, and they worry their singing will be seen as unfeminine. Arietta tells her to just sing one section of the Grand Score, and afterwards Arietta assures her she has a beautiful voice and she wouldn't want anyone else for her vocalist. Sounds sweet, right? Except... one of the first things we learn about the Grand Score is that it's enchanted to compel the reader to perform it. And Arietta must know this, because she wrote it. Arietta violated Chantal's free will by doing this.

*** Meirin also seems to immeidately assume that this means Teagan has no interest in romantic relationships, which seems to indicate that the developer didn't know there was a difference between asexuality and aromanticism when she wrote that scene. (Fortunately, [[http://feralphoenix.tumblr.com/post/142525780314/i-had-fun-doing-these-for-my-grown-up-undertale this mistake has since been corrected.]])

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: [[FinalBoss The Distortion]] could have been a really poignant and meaningful confrontation if it was used to represent all the hatred and insecurities among the party that led to [[spoiler:the failure of the first World Tuning]] and forced them to overcome that, proving that they've experienced true CharacterGrowth. Instead it's just a very boring, very generic blob monster.

** At the end of Movement 2, [[spoiler:the party encounters Teagan in Solfege, and she promptly runs away... to the dock at the end of the Forest of Preludes, which is a dead end. Naturally, this allows the party to corner here. Sure, it's narratively appopriate to have the journey come full circle, but unless Teagan ''wanted'' to confront the party, it doesn't make any sense for her to do this.]]