History Main / ConvenientEclipse

* Occurs in the book ''Literature/KingSolomonsMines'' (though not most of the movie versions) to con themselves out of death at the hands of African natives. Changed to a convenient ''lunar'' eclipse in later editions when Haggard realised that solar eclipses aren't followed by full moons. Is slightly subverted when one of the villains tries explaining that the eclipse is a natural occurrence that will pass soon, but no one bothers to listen to her.

* ''[[{{Persona2}} Persona 2]]: Innocent Sin'' has the Grand Cross and the Leonids, which factor into the villains' plans. From this, you can tell exactly when the game took place in real life.

[[folder: Film ]]

* EnidBlyton adventure story ''The Secret Mountain'' (1941). The main characters need to escape from the titular mountain. They find out that there's to be a solar eclipse the next day, so at the appropriate moment their father throws his hunting knife off the mountain. The lights go out and the tribe [[GodGuise think he's killed the sun]], at which point the "big white bird" turns up to carry the heroes to safety before the tribe realise they've been had.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck''. Darkwing was to be executed by a group of medieval peasants for witchcraft, but was informed that the time of the execution coincided exactly with a solar eclipse and decided to threaten the peasants that he would block the sun if they didn't release him. Unfortunately, Launchpad misread the date of the eclipse, which was actually happening ''tomorrow''; he ended up standing on the gallows stalling for 24 hours, pretending to put out the sun, before it actually went dark. Peasants = amazed.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck''. Darkwing was to be executed by a group of medieval peasants for witchcraft, but noticed that the time of the execution coincided exactly with a solar eclipse and decided to threaten the peasants that he would block the sun if they didn't release him. Unfortunately, the newspaper dates were wrong and he ended up standing on the gallows for 24 hours, pretending to put out the sun, before it actually went dark. Peasants = amazed.

** Did anyone else wonder how on Earth a factory foreman from 19th-century Connecticut could have predicted that? Honestly, how many people here who aren't astronomers can name the date of ANY eclipse, ever, let alone one over 1,000 years ago? They weren't even using the Gregorian calendar in King Arthur's time!
*** RuleOfCool?

*** Still a remarkable fortune that an eclipse happened right at the same night they were to be executed.

* The [[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle1951/SE1963Jul20Tgoogle.html real-life solar eclipse]] visible in Maine on July 20, 1963 is a plot point of the Creator/StephenKing novels, ''Gerald's Game'' and ''Literature/DoloresClaiborne''. King admitted he fudged the times in both books so that the eclipse path passed over Maine in early afternoon, when in reality it was near evening.

* In the Creator/GeneWolfe novel ''[[BookOfTheNewSun Urth of the New Sun]]'' a convenient eclipse saves the protagonist Severian's life from attack by Aztecs, but this is a subversion because [[spoiler:it was probably caused deliberately by time-traveling aliens who are looking out for him.]]

* Subverted in ''[[AmeliaPeabody The Last Camel Died At Noon]]'', an AffectionateParody of ''Literature/KingSolomonsMines''. A family of [[AdventureArchaeologist adventure archaeologists]] are in a lost civilization and looking to impress the natives. The wife asks her husband if a Convenient Eclipse coming up by any chance, and his response is essentially, "How the Hell would I know? I'm an archaeologist, not an astronomer."

* Parodied again in ''FanboyAndChumchum'': When Fanboy is told he is going to die after naptime, he tries everything he can to keep everyone awake while he devises a plan. One of these efforts is him opening the curtains and saying they should go outside, but as soon as he does an eclipse comes, causing Fanboy to scream, "Curse you semi-elliptical orbit!!"

* In Lawrence Miles's [[Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures Interference]], IM Foreman prevents a town from being destroyed by convincing the attackers that he can blot out the sun. Cue an eclipse. [[SubvertedTrope However the attackers know it was an eclipse]]. Then, Foreman pretends he actually has technology allowing him to rearrange a solar system, and tells the attackers they should check his species. Turns out he's a Gallifreyan - who do own such technology and are dangerous enough to not take lightly. The attackers retreat. It was just a regular natural eclipse though.

* Subverted in the InteractiveFiction game ''{{Bureaucracy}}'': At one point, the player is captured by natives. If he tries to run the eclipse predicting program, it will predict the eclipse as being "Yesterday", and the natives will mention having seen it.

* In ''TreasureOfTheRudras'' this is how the story progresses [[spoiler: At Avdol; after defeating a member of the Rudra Cult, the party is temporarily separated: Legin takes the kidnapped children back to their families, Sork takes Lolo to see the Prophet Solon to find a way of getting Lolo's Memories back. Surlent decides to see the Eclipse, several seconds after it happens, a loud noise is heard from below and Surlent checks it out, The Rudra on the stone was awakened by the Eclipse and kills Surlent embedding a CosmicKeystone inside him]].

A convenient way to set up a GodGuise. Compare/contrast with DeusExMachina, ContrivedCoincidence. For literal eclipses, see TotalEclipseOfThePlot.

* In ''Film/RobinHood1991'' (the Patrick Bergin version), the heroes need to gain access to the BigBad's castle. They use the fact that it is All Fool's Day, and no group observing the festival can be denied admission, to get in and execute their plan. On any other day of the year, presumably, the castle guards would simply reply by riddling the merry men with crossbow bolts.

* In ''Film/TheFugitive'', Creator/HarrisonFord leaves the federal lockup with Creator/TommyLeeJones in hot pursuit. However, a conveniently passing St. Patrick's Day parade provides the perfect cover for the hero to escape. On most other days of the year, the streets would be relatively empty and Harrison Ford would be captured within moments. (It should be noted that this sequence was a late addition to the script. As filmed, Jones' exit from the lockup is delayed briefly by a security door closed in an attempt to halt Ford; as originally scripted, the delay would have been long enough for Ford to get away.)

* Occurs in the book ''Literature/KingSolomonsMines'' (though not the movie versions). The heroes use a convenient ''lunar'' eclipse to con themselves out of death at the hands of African natives. Is slightly subverted when one of the villains tries explaining that the eclipse is a natural occurrence that will pass soon, but no one bothers to listen to her.

* Sort-of inverted in ''Film/FromDuskTillDawn 2'': the hero escapes the vampires into the sunlight... Then guess what happens. Note that the moon must have wanted the vampires to win; it literally comes racing across the sky then screeches to a halt when it reaches the proper position.

* In ''RobinHood'' (the Patrick Bergin version), the heroes need to gain access to the BigBad's castle. They use the fact that it is All Fool's Day, and no group observing the festival can be denied admission, to get in and execute their plan. On any other day of the year, presumably, the castle guards would simply reply by riddling the merry men with crossbow bolts.

* Parodied in the DonRosa comic story "The Once and Future Duck", where DonaldDuck is about to be executed by (the historical) King Arthur, and he orders his nephews to wow Arthur by predicting an eclipse. After protesting [[ThisIsReality "That only works in old movies and comic books, Unca Donald!"]], they reply "You have two options: get them to pack up camp and move to Madagascar, or stay here and convince them to delay the execution for 237 years!" Don is instead saved from execution when Gyro beeps the horn on his truck and scares the whole camp silly.

* Parodied, along with several related tropes, by Creator/DavidLangford in "[[http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/jungle.html A Tale of the Jungle]]":

* ''{{Franchise/Tintin}}'' used a Convenient Eclipse in "Prisoners of the Sun": when held prisoner by a surviving group of Incas and pending execution by sun-lit pyre, Tintin claims the date of the eclipse is Captain Haddock's birthday, causing the Inca priest to schedule their execution for that day. During the day itself, Tintin fakes being able to command the sun and the Incas let them go. It's a ''little'' more believable than many examples of this trope, as the Inca leader tells Tintin that he must die within a month, but can choose which time for the execution (being a full month, the chance that an eclipse actually ''would'' occur in that time period is a little higher) On the other hand, this ends up creating a factual error: the Incas were skilled astronomers and knew what eclipses were and how to predict them.

** Another factual error, it was the Aztecs who practiced human sacrifice, [[{{Mayincatec}} not the Incas]].

* In ''TreasureOfTheRudras'' this is how the story progresses [[spoiler: At Avdol; after defeating a member of the Rudra Cult, the party is temporarily separated: Legin takes the kidnapped children back to their families, Sork takes Lolo to see the Prophet Solon to find a way of getting Lolo's Memories back. Surlent decides to see the Eclipse, several seconds after it happens, a [[HellIsThatNoise loud noise]] is heard from below and Surlent checks it out, The Rudra on the stone was awakened by the Eclipse and kills Surlent embedding a CosmicKeystone inside him]].

* Sort-of inverted in ''FromDuskTillDawn 2'': the hero escapes the vampires into the sunlight... Then guess what happens. Note that the moon must have wanted the vampires to win; it literally comes racing across the sky then screeches to a halt when it reaches the proper position.

* In the GeneWolfe novel ''[[BookOfTheNewSun Urth of the New Sun]]'' a convenient eclipse saves the protagonist Severian's life from attack by Aztecs, but this is a subversion because [[spoiler:it was probably caused deliberately by time-traveling aliens who are looking out for him.]]

* Very conveniently for science, there was a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_May_29,_1919 total solar eclipse over Principe in 1919]], just a few years after Einstein had written his general theory of relativity. British scientist Arthur Eddington organised an expedition to take photographs of the eclipse (more specifically, of the stars close to the sun that would only be visible during the eclipse) and used them to prove that Einstein's theory was correct, catapulting him to fame. Recently made into a rather good film "Einstein and Eddington" by the BBC, starring Andy Serkis and DavidTennant respectively.

* In Lawrence Miles's [[EighthDoctorAdventures Interference]], IM Foreman prevents a town from being destroyed by convincing the attackers that he can blot out the sun. Cue an eclipse. [[SubvertedTrope However the attackers know it was an eclipse]]. Then, Foreman pretends he actually has technology allowing him to rearrange a solar system, and tells the attackers they should check his species. Turns out he's a Gallifreyan - who do own such technology and are dangerous enough to not take lightly. The attackers retreat. It was just a regular natural eclipse though.

* ''{{Franchise/Tintin}}'' used a ConvenientEclipse in "Prisoners of the Sun": when held prisoner by a surviving group of Incas and pending execution by sun-lit pyre, Tintin claims the date of the eclipse is Captain Haddock's birthday, causing the Inca priest to schedule their execution for that day. During the day itself, Tintin fakes being able to command the sun and the Incas let them go. It's a ''little'' more believable than many examples of this trope, as the Inca leader tells Tintin that he must die within a month, but can choose which time for the execution (being a full month, the chance that an eclipse actually ''would'' occur in that time period is a little higher) On the other hand, this ends up creating a factual error: the Incas were skilled astronomers and knew what eclipses were and how to predict them.

* Subverted in ''[[AmeliaPeabody The Last Camel Died At Noon]]'', an AffectionateParody of ''Literature/KingSolomonsMines''. A family of [[AdventureArchaeologist adventure archaeologists]] are in a lost civilization and looking to impress the natives. The wife asks her husband if a ConvenientEclipse coming up by any chance, and his response is essentially, "How the Hell would I know? I'm an archaeologist, not an astronomer."

** And it was probably parodied there because it had already been played straight on that show's predecessor, ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales''. Scrooge [=McDuck=] went into a South American country on the deadline day to resign a lease on the company he owned there, but, like Darkwing, he found himself scheduled to be executed by the local dictator instead. His nephews, who had inadvertently caused this predicament by tricking Scrooge -- and through him, the entire world! -- into thinking it was the next day, consulted their [[GreatBigBookOfEverything super-exhaustive Junior Woodchucks Guidebook]] to try to fix things. And what do you know, a ConvenientEclipse was supposed to happen today! The boys showed the dictator the eclipse, thus correcting the date, and "Unca Scrooge" was not only free to go, but free to resign that lease.

* ''Film/DieHard2'' has the bad guys heavily relying on a bad storm on the exact day they need to hold the airport to ransom. On a day with good visibility, it would have been nearly impossible to trick pilots into crashing by messing with the landing systems.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', Harry is searching Hogwarts for the long-lost Diadem of Ravenclaw. Fortunately, he remembers having casually seen a gem-set tiara in the previous book, and, when he finds it again, the tiara is in fact the artifact he's looking for.

* The [[http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle1951/SE1963Jul20Tgoogle.html real-life solar eclipse]] visible in Maine on July 20, 1963 is a plot point of the Creator/StephenKing novels, ''Gerald's Game'' and ''Dolores Claiborne''. King admitted he fudged the times in both books so that the eclipse path passed over Maine in early afternoon, when in reality it was near evening.

*** Although the comet itself is a case of YouFailScienceForever, since comets are composed of rock and ''ice'', not fire. Could be [[JustifiedTrope justified]] though in the sense that Avatar takes place in another world quite different from ours.