No Endor Holocaust and Inferred Holocaust: No Endor Holocaust

Bumping due to discussion here. No Endor Holocaust seems like it should be expanded to include any time that people don't die (or at least it's assumed that there are no deaths) even when you'd expect there to be some casualties. Right now the description only talks about large objects exploding (as in the Trope Namer, Star Wars). It could probably use a rename, too, or at least some searchable redirects.

Figured I should bring it up here before I made changes based on a TRS thread for a different article.

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I've always found the No Endor Holocaust description to be really confusing.

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As it stands, it's basically "large objects exploding/crashing should cause catastrophic damage to things underneath/nearby, but tend not to in fiction". What I think we should do is expand it to include any instance of a situation where there really should have been casualties among bystanders, but it's apparently assumed that there weren't for some reason. eg, during the Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever, the Whatever is defeated, dramatically smashing a building as it topples over. If the reaction is "Hooray, we beat the monster before it could hurt anyone!" then that's an example of this (an aversion would be if the reaction was "Oh, Crap!, we just killed everyone in that building by dropping a monster on them").

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I don't know how this affects your proposal, but your specific example given is Conveniently Empty Building.

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That's probably a subtrope.

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Wait, you mean that No Endor Holocaust isn't as described in post 26 already?

Well, I've misused that trope, then - it's currently much more narrow than I thought. I'm all in favor of said redefinition.

edited 25th Aug '11 9:49:05 AM by 32_Footsteps

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

So, rereading through the thread, we actually still need to decide on the original topic of the thread: the difference between No Endor Holocaust and Inferred Holocaust. As it stands, the only difference seems to be that an Inferred Holocaust is assumed to have happened due to Fridge Logic, but a No Endor Holocaust is shown in the work to have not happened, despite Fridge Logic suggesting it should have. Not a very meaningful distinction.

I'd say they're lumpable — or softsplit at most. The trope is "things that, given some thought, should have negative consequences, but these are either ignored or explicitly shown to be untrue". That covers Inferred Holocaust, No Endor Holocaust, and the spun-off definition of Nobody Can Die quite nicely.

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I say they should remain distinct.

An Inferred Holocaust is what can be logically deduced, but not confirmed or denied either way. No Endor Holocaust would be when an Inferred Holocaust is Jossed - in other words, we do get the denial (despite it going against all lagic).

I think the "possibility versus definitely not" distinction is a good reason to keep both distinct.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

So No Endor Holocaust is "Inferred Holocaust, but Jossed"? That's pretty much a textbook example of The Same But More Specific...

edited 26th Aug '11 6:49:14 AM by NativeJovian

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Its more It Never Happened.

Ending spoilers To use Endor as an example EU novels go back to endor more than once and it's perfectly fine. (It's handwaved more than once in different conflicting ways like the explosion created a small black hole which sucked the debris in after the bang.)

Now the ending to Dragon Ball GT the dragon stated that he brought everyone killed back to life but could not repair the damage to the planet so those who got brought back to life would just die if starvation. Inferred Holocaust . It became a No Endor Holocaust when the later movie came out.

It can happen inside series too Star Trek Generations the enterprise goes though that brutal crash and "Captans Log: our casualties were light." at the end. No Endor Holocaust. Not Inferred Holocaust

Final Fantasy VI Inferred Holocaust not No Endor Holocaust.

edited 26th Aug '11 7:23:17 AM by Raso

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How is it The Same But More Specific? No Endor Holocaust explictly didn't happen. No ifs, ands, or buts. Arguing that's the same as Inferred Holocaust is effectively the same as arguing that a Gainax Ending is the same as Happily Ever After.

To break it down to brass tacks, Inferred Holocaust is a question (wait, did massive destruction happen from that?). No Endor Holocaust is the answer (no, it did not). The question is not the same as the answer, and thus tropes based on that premise are distinct.

EDIT: Final Fantasy VI most definitely is not either of these tropes. Screw "inferred," the game explicitly states and shows that it did happen, and you spend a good chunk of it wandering around in the aftermath.

Although this does show the distinction between "inferred" and "not inferred." Superman The Animated Series is a good example of Inferred Holocaust for the episode when Bizarro causes a nuclear weapon to detonate in the atmosphere of Metropolis (between the shockwave and the radiation spread, lots of people should have had huge issues). Return Of The Jedi is obviously an example of No Endor Holocaust - Endor was just fine at the end, we were explicitly told. When they answer in the other direction, as in Final Fantasy VI, you get some flavor of The End of the World as We Know It (in this game's case, a Class 1 Apocalypse How, with potential for a Class X).

edited 26th Aug '11 7:49:23 AM by 32_Footsteps

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

What is the trope where it did happen?

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Some flavor of Apocalypse How, depending.

They're both tropes about how a seemingly happy resolution actually has negative consequences if you think about it for a while. The only difference is that Inferred Holocaust doesn't revisit the situation (leaving the audience to believe what they want), while No Endor Holocaust does (showing that the negative consequence did not, in fact, happen). Both are treated as happy resolutions by the story, it's just Fridge Logic that makes them unhappy. By the Theory of Narrative Causality, you could assume that Inferred Holocaust "actually" had a happy ending too, we just never actually see it.

So, No Endor Holocaust is "Inferred Holocaust, but Jossed". The Same But More Specific.

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Wrong - it's explicit in No Endor Holocaust that a negative consequence didn't happen at all. It's right there in the trope name - specifically the "no" and "holocaust" parts. Fridge Logic can point out the unlikeliness of that being the case. But this isn't about whether or not suspension of belief is sustainable or not.

It can't be a negative consequence because said negative consequence, by definition, never happened.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

You realize that no part of your reply actually contradicts anything I said? You're not actually disagreeing with me. I'm not sure why you're not disagreeing with me so strenuously, but nothing you've said has refuted anything I've said.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Okay, let me boil this down to as simple as I can get, then:

"No" is not a subset of "maybe". A trope about "no," regardless of what it is a negative of, cannot be a subtrope or a "same but more specific" of a similar trope about "maybe." Similarly, a trope about "yes" is also not a subtrope of "maybe."

Therefore, since "yes", "no", and "maybe" are three distinct concepts, a merge of any combination of those two concepts, regardless of whether the trope is about hair colors or apocalypses, would be completely inappropriate. They are inherently distinct.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Inferred Holocaust is "we think this bad thing might have happened". No Endor Holocaust is "we thought this bad thing might have happened, but we're later shown that it didn't". The latter is definitely a subset of the former.

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They are both two different tropes that have some overlap...

• Inferred Holocaust: Unanswered Fridge Logic question at the end of a work that is pretty much along the lines "Everyone is going to die?".
• Apocalypse How: Can be used to answer if it did happen.
• No Endor Holocaust: Can be the answer to said question above in a later work or Word of God that it didnt happen.
  • However it can be used in other ways like Humongous crash that people should of died but miraculously everyone survived in the middle of a work.

Both are not exclusive to each other And if you put it in a threeway Venn diagram. Apocalypse How and No Endor Holocaust would be the sides and Inferred Holocaust would be the middle circle. None are the same just related.

edited 26th Aug '11 10:07:15 AM by Raso

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...so by that definition, No Endor Holocaust is just an Inferred Holocaust that was Jossed.

Which is what I've been saying.

edited 26th Aug '11 10:12:20 AM by NativeJovian

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It can be, it does not have to be that.

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What would be an example of No Endor Holocaust that isn't that?

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• Star Trek Generations: The Enterprise goes though that brutal crash (seriously look at the wreckage everyone in the lower half of the ship when it crashed should be dead.) and "Captans Log: our casualties were light." at the end. No Endor Holocaust.

Happens inside a work and is not a Leaving Things Hanging with Fridge Logic so its not Inferred Holocaust.

Any Conveniently Empty Building which is a subtrope of No Endor Holocaust.

edited 26th Aug '11 10:30:10 AM by Raso

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I think the problem is that you're not using the definition of No Endor Holocaust that's actually on the page. I don't know what else to say to that, because you're arguing based on a premise that is demonstrably false.

In short, No Endor Holocaust isn't "you thought disaster happened, but it turns out it didn't." It's "this disaster didn't cause devestation despite the ability to do so."

That said, we're still left with the fact that even if your trope definitions were correct, they would remain distinct. We have Will They or Won't They? completely distinct from They Do and Platonic Life-Partners because the first is the possibility, while the latter two are the definite answers either way. If your trope definitions were correct, the situation would be analogous.

edited 26th Aug '11 10:35:38 AM by 32_Footsteps

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

The description actually on the page is "large objects crashing into things without killing anyone". In post 26, I talked about expanding the definition to any time a spectacularly destructive event happens but the logical aftermath of it is ignored. That's the definition I've been using in this thread.

Here's the thing. Whether or not the holocaust is Jossed or not doesn't actually make a difference to the trope. The trope is, "story has a happy resolution, but application of Fridge Logic makes it unhappy". The author's intent was obviously to have a happy ending, so via the Theory of Narrative Causality, we can assume that, canonically, the ending is indeed happy, and none of the Fridge conclusions are actually what happened. Why didn't the destruction of the Death Star cause The End of the World as We Know It on Endor? Because the happy ending requires it not to. Whether or not it was later officially Jossed by a sequel or Word of God or whatever doesn't actually make a difference to the trope (which is about the Fridge Logic unhappy ending, not about the later consequences for the series). We don't need to make new tropes for every possible variant of "trope that was later Jossed, Retconed, or Canon Discontinuity'd".

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