The Hindsight tropes, Hilarious in Hindsight, Harsher in Hindsight, and Heartwarming in Hindsight, are among the most misused Audience Reaction tropes on this site. Many people don't understand that the tropes require more than just "This happened, so that happened", and end up adding examples which either lack connection or the substance that makes them funny/serious/not-so-funny/heartwarming. Some of them may be suited better for other tropes (ex: Life Imitates Art), while some may not belong on TV Tropes at all (such as ones involving politicians, due to Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment).
Please report any Hindsight example that you feel are questionable, and we'll analyze them to see if they are actually examples or not.
Remember that the Hindsight tropes are Audience Reactions. That means if an example under review discusses significant fan response pointing out the hindsight, the example can't be cut solely for being too tenuous for this thread.
- Creator's character/portrayal dies in work and then creator dies in real life, unless their fictional death is closely similar to their real one (such as Billy Bob Joe portraying a character who dies from pancreatic cancer, then Billy Bob dies from pancreatic cancer himself)
- Mundane word related to something terrible (such as "corona" or "Epstein") unless there's more to the connection (such as someone named "Corona" having the flu)
- Creator appears in work then becomes more controversial later on.
- A common event (such as a typical natural disaster) happens in work, then happens in real life (unless they are closely similar, such as the event happening to the same area in both reality and fiction around the same time) For once, not everything related to disease has to do with COVID-19, not everything related to racism and Police Brutality has to do with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, and not everything related to sexual abuse has to do with #MeToo.
- A common/generic concept was used in this work and then later reused in that work (too loose for a connection, unless the concept is so unique it's identified with the work)
- Two actors appear together then do so in another work
- Hindsight examples involving recent events, due to them often being shoehorns. Specifically:
- COVID-19 examples, before 75% of the population has returned to normal
- George Floyd/2020 Black Lives Matter examples, before protests have declined
- Examples which fall guilty of Older Than They Think, such as "Make X Great Again" slogans. Aside from violating the ROCEJ, this slogan has been in use since the 1940s.
- Characters using slurs which are treated as annoying at worst in the work, but is now harsher due to how severe the slur is made now. Discrimination has always existed with that slur. (May qualify for Values Dissonance if work is at least 20 years old.)
Note: As of January 2022, "Funny Aneurysm" Moment is no longer separate from Harsher in Hindsight.
- The former redirects to the latter and all wicks to the former (with the exception of ones on archive pages and the YMMV Redirects index) must either be moved to the latter (if they're valid) or removed (if they're invalid).
- The subpages for the former are still accessible from this page
. After a subpage for "Funny Aneurysm" Moment has been completely cleaned up, turn it into a redirect to the Harsher in Hindsight subpage for the same medium to preserve inbounds.
Edited by Tabs on Jun 21st 2023 at 11:51:25 AM
Okay, I'll start the thread off with these from YMMV.Mighty No 9
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Some were dismissive of the game from the very start, and stated their opinions as such. At the time, most had simply dismissed these people as simply jaded. But the same issues mentioned above made more people think they should have listened, thinking they turned out to be right.
- Red Ash, the game which caused so much terrible flak with the fandom? Development Hell, verging on Vaporware. Comcept itself? Bought out by Level-5. The animation? After a long time of near-silence, it finally released to extremely little fanfare. Mighty No. 9 is the first time the franchise encountered a Franchise Killer... before it even became one.
- "Funny Aneurysm" Moment:
- Anything praising the game◊, calling it the next Mega Man◊, and encouraging people to back the Kickstarter when it was first announced◊ suddenly becomes extremely uncomfortable to look at after the backlash surrounding the finished product occurred.
- Likewise, fan art like this◊ (back when the game maintained a friendly relationship with other Kickstarted games) made near the start of the Mighty No. 9 saga, which gave way to art like this◊ as the backlash escalated.
- Anything praising the game
They just seem to be there for the sole purpose of bashing the game.
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Short-Term Projects herald
On YMMV.Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer:
- The villain of Misfit Toys is a teddy bear who turned evil after being abandoned by his owner.
- "What's the matter, haven't you ever seen a talking snowman before?". Well, there is Frosty the Snowman, of course, but later...
- The 1964 TV special enjoyed regular annual rotation on NBC before they lost the broadcast rights to CBS in 1972. 44 years later, NBC's parent company NBCUniversal bought special rights-holder DreamWorks Animation, not only making NBC the owner of the special, but also leading to a possibility of CBS losing the rights in the future.
- Hermey is scolded for altering some dolls to have working teeth as "we don't need any chewing dolls". Flash forward to present and we've seen several popular toys that were dolls that chew/otherwise eat and thus would need semi-realistic mouths.
- One of the Misfit Toys is a cowboy on an ostrich. In the Final Fantasy series, starting in Final Fantasy II, the main creature used for riding is the ostrich-like Chocobo.
A lot of this looks like fancruft to me.
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Industrious Incisors
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'd say 1 and 4 are specific enough to be meaningful. 5 is too big a stretch, 2 is too easy to find other cases, and 3 seems to be meta to the point of misuse.
Short-Term Projects herald
I'd say 2 could be pared down to just Frosty, as they're both by the same studio.
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Industrious Incisors
Good point. I first thought that one might have been Production Foreshadowing, but looking at the 3-year gap between the two, that's probably not the case.
Blapper of Water
I feel like the following should be added to the OP:
Short-Term Projects herald
Add Heartwarming in Hindsight to that list.
This was just added to Ed, Edd n Eddy under Harsher in Hindsight :
- From "This Won't Hurt an Ed": when Eddy and Ed have the whole school convinced they're getting huge, painful booster shots, Nazz calls her mom and tells her she loves her—"like, just in case". A darkly humourous overreaction when the episode first aired, it becomes a much harder bit to watch with the rise of school shootings in America, where students often text their loved ones similar messages if they think they may not get the chance later.
I may be overreacting, but the comparison seems to be a bit... off, maybe?
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Yeah, thats a reach.
A lot of these examples seem to forget that Examples Are Not General too.
I might also have to look over some of the Simpsons examples too, since I remember there being misuse last I left it.
EDIT: Here's the examples I was thinking of:
YMMV.The Simpsons S 12 E 16 Bye Bye Nerdie
- "Funny Aneurysm" Moment:
- According to the DVD commentary, the sight gag of the baby greeting card factory shutting down due to massive lay-offs isn't funny anymore due to actual businesses implementing lay-offs due to the shaky global economy.
- The flashback of Homer beating up Smithers (who is established to be a closeted homosexual) will leave a bad taste in your mouth these days due to news of gay teens getting assaulted and bullied becoming more public.
- Homer putting bubble wrap on the playground equipment is also this now that many safety-conscious people have gotten seesaws, roundabouts, and other "dangerous" equipment removed from playgrounds.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Similarly to the Smithers example above, seeing how increasingly problematic bullying is, the (usually ineffective) ways to stop and/or prevent it and the drastic, counterproductive ways that others have dealt with being bullied be it becoming a school shooter or killing themselves makes the episode all the more difficult to watch.
These are all general examples.
Edited by PlasmaPower on Feb 23rd 2020 at 5:52:59 AM
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From Dragon Ball Legends.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Shallot was the name of a Saiyan in Dragon Ball Zero by Toyotarō.
- A similar design◊ to Shallot was done by Karoine for her doujinshi Dragon Ball Centuries, a sequel to Dragon Ball GT: A Hero's Legacy.
- After her debuut in Dragon Ball Super, Caulifla received a lot of fan art that either paired her with other Saiyan women like Selypar/Fasha or shipped her with Goku to make Chichi angry. In the story mode, Caulifla ends up meeting both, and befriends the latter.
And from Dragon Ball Zero Toyble.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Let's just say Toyotaro was on something.
- a Saiyan named Shalloto.
- Bardock happily asking how's Raditz mother is doing, and been a decent father to him.
Seems alright? I feel that when I added these examples, I went too brief and didn't add enough context.
Edited by Tomodachi on Mar 4th 2020 at 7:20:38 AM
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
Musician/Composer
I'm thinking that the YMMV.Star Wars Hindsight entries should be looked at as well.
He/His/Him. No matter who you are, always Be Yourself.
From YMMV.Star Trek Picard:
- Harsher in Hindsight: The scene in "Nepenthe" between Picard and Deanna where they discuss her processing her grief over her son Thad’s death is a Tear Jerker all by itsef, but it becomes even more so with the knowledge that Marina Sirtis’ husband died suddenly in between the filming of that episode and its airing.
This strikes me as a stretch. Actors' families, like actors, are in fact mortal.
Yeah, that's a bit of a strecth
From Animorphs, under Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Crayak's "I play the game of genocide" becomes this after Undertale.
- When Applegate apologized to her readers about the series' ending, she said "There's very little chanting of 'we're number one' among people who've personally experienced war."
For the first one, is a villain viewing their crimes as a game really exclusive to Undertale? Not only that, but even barring the fact that genocide was a word before Undertale, the Kill Em All route of that game being called the genocide run is a Fan Nickname.
For the second one, LazyTown didn't invent the phrase "we're number one" or similar variants.
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That is the stupidest thing I've ever seen, at least until the next time someone posts in this thread.
Cut them both.
Short-Term Projects herald
Agreed.
For the villain one, there's no real connection other than both reference genocide. Likewise the other is just a common phrase used in two completely unrelated places.
The 2 Animorphs examples are huge stretches. Cut.
Edited by ADrago on Mar 6th 2020 at 10:23:15 AM
Was about to delete these two from Katy Keene then I saw this thread:
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Katy Keene kind of looks like Katy Perry.
- Her rival is a blonde woman named Gloria Gold. So her initials are G. G.
For those who don't know, Katy Perry and Gaga are something like rivals in the music industry and connecting that to THIS series is...yeah. Before I cut, weigh in.
- Harsher in Hindsight: The subject matter of the film concerns a famous girl thought to have died young but ends up alive - although in 2007 it was discovered that Anastasia did indeed perish in 1918. The song "Journey to the Past" was covered by the singer Aaliyah, who would die young herself only four years later.
Apples and oranges
Edited by Silverblade2 on Mar 10th 2020 at 8:14:39 PM
Goku Black
What is that even saying.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Short-Term Projects herald
That is so much of a stretch that I threw it out.
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I’m still wondering what I should do with the Simpsons examples I listed a while ago.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
I think the one with Smithers is alright, but I'm not so sure about the rest.
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
The Hindsight tropes, Hilarious in Hindsight, Harsher in Hindsight, and Heartwarming in Hindsight, are among the most misused Audience Reaction tropes on this site. Many people don't understand that the tropes require more than just "This happened, so that happened", and end up adding examples which either lack connection or the substance that makes them funny/serious/not-so-funny/heartwarming. Some of them may be suited better for other tropes (ex: Life Imitates Art), while some may not belong on TV Tropes at all (such as ones involving politicians, due to Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment).
Please report any Hindsight example that you feel are questionable, and we'll analyze them to see if they are actually examples or not.
Remember that the Hindsight tropes are Audience Reactions. That means if an example under review discusses significant fan response pointing out the hindsight, the example can't be cut solely for being too tenuous for this thread.
Note: As of January 2022, "Funny Aneurysm" Moment is no longer separate from Harsher in Hindsight.
Edited by Tabs on Jun 21st 2023 at 11:51:25 AM
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