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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It was stretched so much that the trope couldn’t get back to its original shape.
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
On a related note, something was brought up in the "Funny Aneurysm" Moment cleanup thread. I don't know if it's particularly likely, but I thought it could be worth bringing up to at least be sure the idea was out there.
Basically the idea was concerns about likely misuse of the "hindsight" tropes in the event the pandemic caused issues such as the Tokyo Olympics being cancelled (i.e. the 2020 Olympics were cancelled and now all works with the Olympics are sadder/funnier).
Nothing's come up yet, far as the poster suggesting the idea knew, so it may end up being nothing.
Come to think of it, do we need a separate Funny Aneurysm cleanup thread anymore at all?
Regarding YMMV.The Last Podcast On The Left, since they're simply mentioning a real life fact, I say it's not an example.
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
For reference:
- Harsher in Hindsight: Towards the end of the episode on Howard Unruh, who perpetreated one of the earliest known mass shootings in 1949 New Jersey, the hosts mention that one of the attack's survivors went on to have a grandchild that also survived a mass shooting, this one the Parkland, Florida school shooting of February 2018.
For what it's worth, I made a point of vetting that example here before posting it.
While it is a real life event, it's a real life event brought up within the show and directly related to the topic they were discussing.
Edited by sgamer82 on Mar 18th 2020 at 7:47:12 AM
Corona means "crown", in every meaning of the word. Really, the hysteria when the word "corona" is uttered is getting ridiculous.
Goku Black
It's also a pretty famous beer....
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Yeah, if there were, say, an episode of the TV series with an outbreak of a disease eerily similar to the Wuhan coronavirus, that would be one thing, but this is a reach.
Like I said, they're discussing a real life fact well after it occurred, as opposed to depicting something that resembles a later real life event. As such, I say it's not an example.
Edited by maxwellsilver on Mar 18th 2020 at 5:56:12 AM
It may not be, that's one reason I asked here before I posted it. If it helps, my chain of logic is as follows.
- The show's main topic is the mass shooting perpetrated by Howard Unruh (original/serious event)
- At the end of the show they mention the Parkland shooting (a later event)
- The hosts directly link the two events by the fact that the survivor of the latter was a grandchild of a survivor of the former.
That's how I've usually operated with regards of the "in hindsight" tropes. Event A is made such-and-such by event B, but it only counts for a trope if they're directly linked in some specific way. While neither event is a fictional rendering of the other, they're brought up within the same episode of a show to highlight them.
That isn't really what the trope is about. It's "Work depicts something and later real life events resemble it or story progression makes things worse." The real life event (or story progression) has to come after the work, or it isn't "in hindsight".
Two real life events being connected without the depiction in a work (being discussed well after the fact in a podcast doesn't feel like it would count) doesn't meet that, and it may also be troping real life.
Came across these on YMMV.Watch Mojo
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The channel aired the "Top 10 Infamous Mass Shootings in the U.S." on December 5, 2012, on YouTube, a week prior to the Sandy Hook Shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. It becomes even harsher than that given the sheer number of mass shootings since then, to the point that if the list was made today it would consist predominantly post-Newtown shootings (most notably the shootings in Charleston, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, and Pittsburgh). The company recognized this and left a notice explaining about the video and reminded viewers how unpredictable such actions can be. WatchMojo's top 10 stories of 2012 video was released on December 13, 2012, the day before the shooting.
- The "Top 10 Cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe" video featured Stan Lee on the thumbnail and listed him as #1. However, the video was released shortly after Lee passed away. Many commenters expressed their disdain for the video's bad timing, and some like That Creepy Reading even believed that WatchMojo knew about Lee's death and purposely released it on that day.
- The channel aired the "Top 10 Infamous Mass Shootings in the U.S."
The first is a coincidence and feels like troping real life (it also feels like all it's saying is "this list of mass shooting is even worse because of other mass shootings"), the second is celebrity mortality.
Aside, I am appalled they made a "top 10 mass shootings" video. That would always be in terrible taste and feels like it's making light of tragedies.
I found this under YMMV.New Game, and not quite sure whether they're the correct trope...
- "Funny Aneurysm" Moment:
- Early on in the series, Hajime ponders what she'd do if she got promoted and became Kou's boss, resulting in Kou and Yun saying they'd quit if that happened, and Aoba sheepishly being unable to say anything in Hajime's defense. Hajime eventually does become the director, after Kou leaves for Blue Rose(Yun, however, stays on), and the arc following that was somewhat poorly received by viewers.
- A good amount of the series' idealism towards the games industry is this; while the field was still something of an enigma to laypeople when the manga began in 2013, by the end of the decade the industry's darker side would become increasingly better-known outside of its own members, with stories of staff abuse and crunch culture among both AAA and indie development teams in both the United States and Japan making their way to the public and radically changing the public image of video game development as a whole. These new revelations also contributed heavily to the Broken Base regarding the manga's treatment of the games industry, and nowadays the series comes off as a product from a more naïve time.
This may not be representative, but I'm pretty sure I knew in 2013 that the video game development industry was just as prone to horror stories as any other industry, and I've never been anything remotely like a close follower of it.
Edited by nrjxll on Mar 19th 2020 at 7:04:48 AM
I found this on YMMV.The Expanse:
- Harsher in Hindsight: The series' version of interplanetary propulsion being called the Epstein Drive, when that name now unavoidably brings to mind the notorious sex ring operator and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
Lots of people are named Epstein. The Beatles' manager was named Epstein. I seriously doubt there are many surnames that haven't been attached to someone awful at some point.
#BoomSilverTheVampire4Lyfe
"Oh yeah, shouldn't we change the name of the Epstein-Barr virus because it reminds me of a child sex abuser?"
Yeah, any example involving a common word whose only connection to something horrible is the same word should be removed, like "Corona".
Edited by PrincessPandaTrope on Mar 19th 2020 at 10:30:50 AM
Content Warning: My posts may involve my actions dealing with R-rated or Not Safe for Work content. Same for my edit history.
On Tiny Toon Adventures S 1 E 30 Fields Of Honey:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Babs complains about all the old Warner Brothers stars being male years before anyone started talking about media representation. Additionally, several years after Tiny Toons ended Space Jam introduced Lola Bunny.
I'm wondering if the first part counts...
Give it the ol' heave-ho.
The first part, or the whole thing?
Short-Term Projects herald
I'd say the whole thing myself. Certainly the first part.
You could probably change it to:
- Babs complains about all the old Warner Brothers stars being male. A few years later Space Jam introduced Lola Bunny.
- Harsher in Hindsight: A subtle example regarding the release of this game. It has been noted that Mega Man X6's quality issues were partially because it was rushed out near the end of the PlayStation's life cycle, as the PlayStation 2 was on its way. It may strike some fans as this trope, as that exact thing happened to Mega Man 6 for the NES.
Note the Weasel Words at the end. Mega Man 6 isn’t nearly as rushed a game as X6 was, not to mention that 4 and 5 had come out for the NES after its successor came out. Also, are meta examples even allowed?
Edited by PlasmaPower on Mar 21st 2020 at 6:30:01 AM
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!
That's close to how the YMMV page words the same point.
Edited by sgamer82 on Mar 17th 2020 at 8:09:42 AM