History Main / Understatement

--->'''Threepio:''' Master Luke, sir! Pardon me for asking... but, ah... what should Artoo and I do if we're discovered here?\\

'''Threepio:''' That isn't very reassuring.

* Occasionally played on ''Series/TopGearUK''. One example comes from the episode where they take a trio of Alfa Romeos to the track. Richard (in the pits) radios Jeremy to see how he's doing. Jeremy replies that he's doing "Not brilliantly." Cut to Jeremy's car flipped onto its side.

[[SelfDemonstratingArticle This article contains just a few words.]]

* The NFPA diamond is a label giving a brief representation of the hazards of a substance. It is divided into 4 sections, with numbers 0–4 in them or special symbols. The blue section represents health risk, the red one flammability, the yellow one reactivity, and the white one reserved for special hazards like acid or oxidation. A handy guide for the number scale for each section lists yellow 4 as "may detonate". This led to the following conversation with a supervisor: "'May detonate'? Under what conditions?" "[[AllOfThem All of them.]]" This rating is reserved for [[MadeOfExplodium nitrogylcerin, nitrogen triiodide, chlorine dioxide, and similarly temperamental chemicals.]]

** In August 1945, the Emperor made a radio broadcast, for the first time ever, to say that "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage". Some listeners were left unsure whether he was announcing Japan's surrender. To be clear, the "situation" was that Japan's militaries were practically nonexistent at this point, with their army having lost the majority of the territories they'd gained in Southeast Asia and their navy mostly sitting on the bottom of the Pacific (or in some cases sunk at their moorings by American bombers). What few islands in the Pacific they had managed to hold onto were so cut off by American submarines that they were more like self-governed P.O.W. camps ''for their own forces'' than fortifications, and the blockade of the Japanese mainland was hitting the civilian population just as hard as Japan itself was being encroached upon by the Americans from the east and the Russians to the west. Oh, and they had just been '''''[[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki nuked twice]]'''''. So, no, it really ''wasn't'' working out to Japan's advantage.
* Back in the early days of NASA, astronauts Alan Shepard and John Glenn witnessed the launch of an Atlas rocket (the machine that would be taking them into space). The rocket blew up a few seconds later. Shepard turned to Glenn and calmly said, "I sure hope they fix that."

[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/desertunderstatement.png]]
[[caption-width-right:300:You don't say.]]

%% Please don't stomp this opening line with a quote.

%% The version without the exclamation point is more understated.

%% Just leave the opening line alone, please.

* Evey's reaction to V blowing up the Houses of Parliament in ''Comicbook/VForVendetta'': "But that... that's against the law!"

*** Comicbook/CaptainAmerica, when he runs into Loki in Germany.

* Occasionally played on ''Series/TopGear''. One example comes from the episode where they take a trio of Alfa Romeos to the track. Richard (in the pits) radios Jeremy to see how he's doing. Jeremy replies that he's doing "Not brilliantly." Cut to Jeremy's car flipped onto its side.

* In ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', [[DeadpanSnarker Arthur Dent]] occasionally indulges.

%%* The commander of the Earth Defense Force in VideoGame/EarthDefenseForce2017 calls the player character, Storm 1, a "great soldier" later on in the game.

* ''Videogame/{{Portal}}''

** Wheatley's remark at the very start of [[Videogame/Portal2 the second game]].

* In ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII Assassin's Creed II]]'', Cristina Vespucci said of her cousin to a prospective employer of his: "Try Amerigo out. I bet in a decade you'll have named your shipping company after him." Biggest understatement of the century.

* ''WebComic/KillSixBillionDemons'': In ''Breaker of Infinities'', the DarkestHour arrives when [[spoiler:Jagganoth's OneWingedAngel form overpowers both the Demiurges and the protagonists and flings them from orbit to the planet below, causing Allison and Cio [[{{Synchronization}} to lose an arm and an eye]], White Chain to go missing, Solomon David and Mottom being taken out of commision, Incubus being FlayedAlive (and somehow surviving), and Mammon being killed instantly. Jagganoth then follows them to the planet's surface and rips Mammon's head apart, claiming his Key of Kings and becoming twice as powerful]]. Incubus recovers just in time to behold the aftermath.

--->'''Linkara:''' If there's a single story that has hung over this show since the first episode, it's ''Comicbook/OneMoreDay''.\\

* WesternAnimation/TangledTheSeries: [[BigBadWannabe Cassandra's]] favorite way to self-criticism:

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' episode "[[Recap/TeenTitansS1E6Nevermore Nevermore]]", Beast Boy and Cyborg get involved in a BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind between Raven and Trigon. Beast Boy wants to know exactly what they're up against.

* A vintage Whitney Darrow cartoon for ''Magazine/TheNewYorker'' magazine has a trio of robbers emerging from a bank with their loot, to face an encircling cordon of heavily-armed police, a swarm of press vehicles and about a thousand rubberneckers. One of the robbers: "There must have been a leak."

* Zelgadis, resident DeadpanSnarker of ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', is quite fond of understatement.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Eleutherophobia}}: Ghost in the Shell'', after Tom is bitten in half while in cobra morph ([[ShapeshiftingHealsWounds he gets better]]), he spends several paragraphs talking about how people used to believe snakes would grow back if you decapitated them, followed by: "Anyway, you can see why I was a little worried."

** In [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime version]], there's this exchange:

* In the hours leading up to the death of [[UsefulNotes/ElizabethII Queen Elizabeth II]] it was announced by the palace that Elizabeth was under medical supervisor after doctors became concerned for her health. While the British public and government understood it to mean the Queen was in critical condition and likely in the last hours of her life, foreign auidences were initially confused by the reaction of the British and the Royal Family since to such auidences it sounded more like something had happened with her health and that she was in stable condition.

* In their [[BlackComedy dark]] song ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2UpM8Ci_ao Protect and Survive]]'', Music/TheDubliners mock an official nuclear attack survival guide that was issued by the British government in the 70's and 80's. The second stanza serves as one huge understatement.

* In horror/survival RPG ''[[VideoGame/ShadowHearts Koudelka]]'', the text descriptions that you get when clicking on environments are often this. For example, in one room featuring a towering guillotine with a crimson-stained blade, blood-splattered walls and floor, and later a couple of corpses, both shot through the head and lying in pools of their own blood, you get this text: ''"You see dried blood spots here and there."''

** In ''Film/ThePhantomMenace'', Jar-Jar warns Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan to not expect a warm welcome from the Gungans. Little did he know that ''before'' they had to deal with Trade Federation droids in the swamps of Naboo, they also had to deal with, among other things, attempted murder by ship explosion, poison gas, and armies of battle droids and droidekas.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Pinocchio}}'': ** In response to Monstro's '''''gigantic''''' sneeze...

** After Donovan suffers one of the most [[NightmareFuel nightmarish]] [[CruelAndUnusualDeath deaths]] ever after drinking from the wrong Grail, the Grail Knight has only this to say: "He chose... poorly."

* ''Webcomic/Rain2010'': There is a brief {{Flashback}} that shows [[https://rain.thecomicseries.com/comics/42 Rudy coming out,]] with his dad calling the operator for a young priest and an old priest, and his mom crying badly. The page title? ''Slight'' Overreaction.

* ''VideoGame/{{Metal Gear Solid 3|Snake Eater}}'' has this wonderful number from EVA (Snake's love interest): "Not good." What makes this an understatement is that EVA says this after Ocelot (Snake's rival) had shot out the engine of the [=WiG=] with his revolver that she was piloting to get Snake and her out of Russia, Ocelot then jumps onto the plane and proceeds to engage Snake in a hand to hand brawl with Snake not having a gun to defend himself should Ocelot pull his out (which he does), all the while EVA is trying to keep the plane stable so it doesn't crash into the lake they happen to be over. Yeah, EVA, of course your current situation is not good.

* When [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert-Francois_Damiens Robert-François Damiens]], who had been arrested after an attempt on the life of King Louis XV of France, was taken from his prison cell on March 28, 1757, to be executed, he had only this to say: ''"La journée sera rude."'' ("The day will be hard.") The execution in question was a horrific one, involving torture by red-hot pincers, burning with sulfur, drenching with molten wax, lead, and boiling oil; drawing and quartering (the last such execution performed in France); and finally having his torso burned at the stake. To put it in perspective, His Majesty himself thought it a bit much ''even for a regicide''.

--> Well a nuclear strike could be recognized / It would stand out in a crowd /There's a flash, then a bang, then a blast of heat / And a bloody great mushroom cloud / So if you happen to see one at the end of your street / Would you please pick up the telephone and inform your local police

* At one point in ''LightNovel/EndoAndKobayashiLiveTheLatestOnTsundereVillainessLieselotte'', Endo suggested he just "cried a little bit" over Lieselotte's backstory. The narration then points out:

* ''Series/ObiWanKenobi'': After their rematch in "[[Recap/ObiWanKenobiPartVI Part VI]]", a very unhappy Darth Vader is ranting about how he plans to get Kenobi no matter what. After several minutes of listening to his apprentice going on like this, the Emperor's response is, "You seem agitated, my friend."