History Main / RightPlaceRightTimeWrongReason

* In ''Comicbook/ElfQuest'', Rayek is able to guard the spirits of all the elves who die in the destruction of Blue Mountain. But he wasn't at Blue Mountain to preserve the elves' heritage, he happened to be there on a booty call with the villainess.

* The first ''VideoGame/MassEffect'' game opens with a [[MacGuffin Prothean beacon]] stolen by a rogue [[SpacePolice Spectre]], whom the PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard needs to prove guilty later. The only witness is a random dock worker. Why did he survive? He often sneaks naps behind the shipping crates during his shifts, so the villains didn't notice him as they decided to LeaveNoWitnesses. Companion Ashley Williams, and potentially [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]], chews him out over the injustice that so many good people died but only he survived because he was ''lazy'', and cowardly.

-> '''Vaarsuvius''': How will I achieve complete and total ultimate arcane power?
-> '''The Oracle''': By saying the right four words to the right being at the right time for all the wrong reasons.

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* ''Film/BackToTheFuture'': Marty was always told that his parents met when George was hit by a car[[note]]driven by his maternal grandfather[[/note]] and nursed back to health by Lorraine. When he time-travels back to 1955, he's distressed to discover that the ''reason'' it happened was because George [[ThePeepingTom climbed a tree to peep on Lorraine changing]], but slipped and fell, landing in the road. Even worse, he rushed in to save George from the car, got knocked out himself, and woke up being attended to by Lorraine -- and she'd apparently fallen for him, making it look like the FlorenceNightingaleEffect was the ''only'' reason they'd ever gotten married in the first place.

''WesternAnimation/Nimona2023'': A piece of evidence that can prove Ballister's innocence in the crime he's accused of only exists because of someone engaging in LoonyFan behavior.

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* ''Series/TwentyFour'', as per the parody.
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* In ''Film/AbsolutePower'', the American President having an affair with a married woman, the killing of his mistress by overzealous Secret Service agents, and the subsequent cover-up are uncovered by a burglar who was in the process of breaking into the house. He predictably ends up doing something about it. In the novel version [[TooDumbToLive he tries to blackmail the President]] which ends as badly as one would predict. The investigation is left to the real protagonist, a corporate lawyer with connections to the mistress' husband (who was deleted entirely from the movie).

* In ''Fanfic/Long Road to Friendship'', Sunset Shimmer is placed under Geas to answer truthfully, minus the curse itself, and comply with polite requests, especially "please". Later that day, she is walking home at night, and just happens to be passing by when the two would-be-rapists are chasing after human Twilight Sparkle. She arrives just in time to stop them, saving Twilight from a dark fate.... but only because her geas forced her to obey Twilght's shouts for help.

* In ''Fanfic / Long Road to Friendship'', Sunset Shimmer is placed under Geas to answer truthfully, minus the curse itself, and comply with polite requests, especially "please". Later that day, she is walking home at night, and just happens to be passing by when the two would-be-rapists are chasing after human Twilight Sparkle. She arrives just in time to stop them, saving Twilight from a dark fate.... but only because her geas forced her to obey Twilght's shouts for help.