History ContrivedCoincidence / Literature

* ''Treasure'' has a plane whose passengers include diplomat Hala Kamali crashing in Greenland just as Pitt has saved an attractive scientist from a snowstorm and later helps Hala and a flight attendant. As friend Al laughs "only Dirk Pitt could find three gorgeous women in the Arctic." Later in the book, Pitt is driving with friends in Colorado when they literally run into Hala on the run from assassins with Al muttering "I believe in deja vu."

*** Everything that relays to the Malfoy Manor incident and the Cup of Hufflepuff is one ''massive'' ball of coincidences. The heroes are captured because Harry randomly [[SpeakOfTheDevil blurts out Voldemort's name]]. Their captors decide against taking them to the Ministry as they were supposed to do, and they cannot summon Voldemort directly, so they take them to the Malfoy Manor instead. While there, the Malfoys drag their feet with calling Voldemort long enough for Bellatrix Lestrange, who just happens to also be there at the time, to come in, see that the kids have the Sword of Gryffindor, which they have only recently acquired, and freak out, because the sword was supposed to be in her bank vault, and she's also the one Death Eater that Voldemort entrusted his SoulJar, which she also placed inside the vault. This causes her to delay summoning Voldemort and put the kids in a dungeon cell (and she's also a psychotic sadist, so she opts for prolonged torture to find out about the sword instead of a quick mind probe). They escape because the guard duty was given to the only Death Eater who was in Harry's debt and would hesitate to kill him. While they're at it, they save a group of people kidnapped by the villains, which includes two of their friends, a goblin (the same goblin Harry met on his first day at Gringotts, no less), who can help them sneak into the bank vault, and someone who can serve as MrExposition to tell them about the Elder Wand.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''/''Franchise/XMen'' crossover novel ''Planet X'', the X-Men end up in the Federation's universe and go to the ''Enterprise'' for help in getting home. The ''Enterprise'' is the closest Starfleet ship to the planet Xhaldia, where several people have developed dangerous mutations, a topic on which the X-Men have relevant expertise. The ship's crew also includes the first Xhaldian to join Starfleet, and his brother is one of the transformed.

** "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption": It just so happens that Tommy Williams shared a cell at Thomaston with Elwood Blatch, the man who ''really'' killed Andy Dufresne's wife (a fact Tommy happens to be privy to because Blatch bragged about the crime). It just so happens that Tommy ends up at Shawshank, where Andy is incarcerated.

* Halfway through ''Literature/LookingForAlaska'', a fatal car accident takes place. The accident is prompted by a very long-winded ForWantOfANail scenario involving two [[ForgottenAnniversary forgotten anniversaries]] just happening to fall on the same day in that particular year, a random phone call from the absolute worst possible person at the absolute worst possible time, the deceased character absentmindedly drawing something that reminds them of something else, and several other factors as well.

** In a straight usage of the trope, the Capitol was only able to target Katniss through the Quarter Quell because she happened to compete (and consequently incite uprisings) in a year immediately prior to a Quarter Quell. This occurred as a result of a random drawing. To make it even less likely, Katniss' name was ''not'' the one drawn, despite her name being in the drawing multiple times. Instead, she volunteered as replacement when her sister's name was drawn--her sister had only one entry in the drawing and was thus among those with the ''lowest'' odds of being chosen.

** In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', The party arrive at Rivendell and get Elrond to read their map on Midsummer's Eve -- which ''just happens'' to be the right day (the first in several years, '''''and''''' the last for who-knows-how-many more years) in which some secret Moon Runes hidden on the map can be seen and read; they are only visible on a Midsummer's Eve on which a moon of the ''exact'' same phase as the one on the date they were written, shines through them. In both the film and the book, the immense good fortune involved is seen as a sign that the trip is in some way destined.
** ''Literature/UnfinishedTales'' takes this a step further. It turns out that Gandalf bumped into Thorin while heading to the Shire on a whim, at just the time when Thorin was planning a doomed assault to reclaim the Lonely Mountain. Gandalf tries to talk Thorin into doing a stealthy approach, but Thorin is unconvinced... until Gandalf remembers that, decades ago, when he was poking around in a dungeon, he met a ragged dwarf who handed him a key and a map before succumbing. He realizes that the dwarf was Thorin's father, and the key is to a hidden passage leading into the Lonely Mountain. He'd held on to those two items for years, assuming they'd come in handy someday--and he was right.

** To top everything, one of the fragments that Christopher Tolkien incorporates into a collection of his father's writings deals with a very brief flirtation his father had with incorporating a "science-fiction" element into his writings. That particular fragment speculates that the walls between the worlds wears thin on a night of extremely bad weather, and that this allows an Anglo-Saxon sailor who has passed into other seas and other worlds to return Home to England, a thousand years after his proper time and place. This sailor's boat would wreck on the south coast of England during the bitterest, worst and most destructive storms and hurricane-force winds ever to ravage the land, with much destruction to the trees.[[note]]These would be pre-empted by human meddling with the fundamental forces of the world and "misplaced science" [[/note]] Tolkien jotted this concept down in the late 1940's. What is of interest here is that he chose a date in our timeline in what to him would be the far future. He set the action as happening in the autumn of 1987. Tolkien died in 1973 and didn't live to see the great storm that battered southern Britain in late 1987, and caused perhaps a billion pounds worth of damage and destruction. His son notes this as a magnificent and inexplicable coincidence.

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfDorsa'': Although they don't actually have sex, using artificial insemination, even so Tasia gets pregnant after her wedding night with Mace (their very first try).

** To top everything, one of the fragments that Christopher Tolkien incorporates into a collection of his father's writings deals with a very brief flirtation his father had with incorporating a "science-fiction" element into his writings. That particular fragment speculates that the walls between the worlds wears thin on a night of extremely bad weather, and that this allows an Anglo-Saxon sailor who has passed into other seas and other worlds to return Home to England, a thousand years after his proper time and place. This sailor's boat would wreck on the south coast of England during the bitterest, worst and most destructive storms and hurricane-force winds ever to ravage the land, with much destruction to the trees. Tolkien jotted this concept down in the late 1940's. What is of interest here is that he chose a date in our timeline in what to him would be the far future. He set the action as happening in the autumn of 1987. Tolkien died in 1973 and didn't live to see the great storm that battered southern Britain in late 1987 and caused perhaps a billion pounds worth of damage and destruction. His son notes this as a magnificent and inexplicable coincidence.

* ''Literature/TheHobbit'':
** The party arrive at Rivendell and get Elrond to read their map on Midsummer's Eve -- which ''just happens'' to be the right day (the first in several years, '''''and''''' the last for who-knows-how-many more years) in which some secret Moon Runes hidden on the map can be seen and read; they are only visible on a Midsummer's Eve on which a moon of the ''exact'' same phase as the one on the date they were written, shines through them.
** The movie lampshades this. "Fate is with you, Thorin Oakenshield..."
** A real life example comes from ''Literature/TheSilmarillion''. Númenor is meant to be an analogue to Atlantis, an advanced and powerful island nation that sinks below the sea eventually. Strangely, when Tolkien was working out what the Quenya name for Númenor would be, he realized that the word Downfall would be translated into Quenya as ''Atalantë'', going off the pre-established root ''lant'' meaning "fall"

* In ''LightNovel/TheIrregularAtMagicHighSchool'', the only benevolent Parasite in the world was made so throughout a series of coincidences. You see, after being defeated it fled into the body of a nearby robot (which are admittedly common in the setting), and went dormant. Next morning, an [[TheChampion Elemental]] magician happened to have a romantic conversation with someone nearby, and the combination of emotions/magical signals/thoughts released drastically influences the Parasite and overwhelms its connection to the HiveMind. (Mind that Elementals only exist because of completely unrelated genetic engineering that happened decades ago.) And this all happened before the Parasite could get back to her mission of killing people!

** Actually used in-universe in ''Catching Fire''. [[TheEmpire The Capitol]] hosts a special Hunger Games every 25 years called the Quarter Quell have a twist on the rules to further intimidate the Districts. (e.g. Year 25, an election is held to choose the tributes, rather than names being drawn. 50th year, twice the amount of tributes are reaped, so 47 kids die.) They ''claim'' that the twist for each Quell was predetermined at the very beginning, for centuries and centuries of Hunger Games, but for Year 75, [[spoiler: they proclaim that the tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors, meaning they'll have to go back into the Arena]]. ''Just'' when the main character Katniss — the only female victor in her District — had accidentally incited uprisings in the Districts. None of the main characters believe that it's "coincidence".

** The first Literature/{{Pellucidar}} novel, ''At the Earth's Core''. The main character, after coming to the inner world of Pellucidar, immediately meets a [[DamselInDistress beautiful]] girl who happens to be a princess, an old man who happens to be a king, and soon after a young man who happens to be [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking yet another king]]. Needless to say, he will need the help of all these royals and their kingdoms later in the story.