History RealityIsUnrealistic / Literature

* Another ''Literature/GoodOmens'' reference: The names Nutter and Device. They sound too appropriate and funny to be real, but both names are not only authentic Lancashire family names, but the names of women burned as witches in the 17th century. For reference, "Nutter" is an Old English word for "cowherd", and "Device" is pronounced DEH-viss and is just an alternative spelling of "Davis".

* [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by ArthurCClarke in ''A Fall of Moondust''; the news company covering the events in the book knows that its audience expects to see stars in space, but because they are too faint to be visible during the lunar day it has a special "stargate" circuit to add them to the picture.

* ''The Adventures of Blue Avenger'' by Norma Howe argues that this is in play with ContrivedCoincidence. Unlikely coincidences happen all the time, and MillionToOneChance events are pretty common in a world with nearly seven billion people. So why is it "contrived"?

* This is referenced in Creator/TerryPratchett's Literature/{{Discworld}} novel ''Discworld/WyrdSisters''. The witches hide the crown of Lancre (a simple gold coronet) among the prop crowns used by a group of traveling players, and the youngest one, Magrat, comments that the real crown looks out of place among the elaborate and ostentatious fake crowns. As Granny Weatherwax tells her, "Things that try to look like things often look more like things than things. Well known fact."

* [[DichterUndDenker German philosopher Oswald Spengler]] commented in his non-fiction book ''Literature/TheDeclineOfTheWest'' that some historical events, like the death of Alexander the Great, seem like they were written by a bad author.

* Another ''GoodOmens'' reference: The names Nutter and Device. They sound too appropriate and funny to be real, but both names are not only authentic Lancashire family names, but the names of women burned as witches in the 17th century. For reference, "Nutter" is an Old English word for "cowherd", and "Device" is pronounced DEH-viss and is just an alternative spelling of "Davis".

* Subverted in StephenFry's novel ''The Liar'', in which the main character finds a body with the throat cut. His first thought is that it doesn't quite look realistic, but then he reasons that he's never seen a real dead body before, and maybe real-life gore actually looks less real than the movie stuff, just like how [[BangBangBANG real-life gunshots don't sound as real as movie ones]]. [[spoiler: Turns out it actually ''was'' fake.]]

* In the afterword to the Black Widowers short story "Where is He?", Creator/IsaacAsimov states that the story received the most reader complaints, objections, and cries of improbabilty, but reveals that the events really happened to him as he depicted in the tale.

* OlderThanFeudalism: In one of Literature/AesopsFables, a talented clown does impressions for a town, including an "incredibly realistic" pig's squeal. Finally, a farmer in the back shouts that it sounds nothing like a pig. The next day the two have a face-off. The clown gives his squeals, and then the farmer puts his head in his cloak and there is a horrible sound. The crowd jeers and says it's fake...and then the farmer pulls a piglet out of his coat, as he'd been pinching its ear to make it squeal.

* In the novel ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' by Michael Crichton, lead scientist Henry Wu explicitly states he wants to modify the carnivorous dinosaurs to make them more docile. He also says they're too much trouble to feed and keep contained, and people are just expecting the big herbivores anyway (remember, this was before the big 90s dinosaur craze). The owner, John Hammond declares it's the real thing or nothing. Wu calmly explains that with all the genetic tampering they've already done, the dinosaurs they've made have as much in common with real dinosaurs as they do with dragons.

* The ''Dragonology''-Books by [[PenName Dr. Ernest Drake]] describe several species of dragons as if they where real animals, but doubt the existence of Komodo-Dragons.

* The book for the German movie ''Sonnenallee'', literally ''At the Shorter End of Sonnenallee'', provides an in-universe example that played the trope straight. When protagonist Micha finds out how his extreme-sporting relative Lutz gets to Mongolia when visa (or rather "invitations") are hard to get, faking the seal by penciling the relief of a five Tukrig coin, Micha succeeds by this method as well. Unfortunately, when they get a real invitation to Mongolia, the officers reject approval as the seal doesn't look as it's supposed to be.

* In ''Timeline'' by Michael Crichton, a time-traveler sent back to the HundredYearsWar-era France observes knights dueling in full armor to be much faster and agile than he'd imagined. Another character is watching live footage of historical events, which he finds too mundane. UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln "sounds like BettyBoop" when delivering the Gettysburg Address and GeorgeWashington crossing the Delaware "looks like a drowned rat" huddled up in the back of a boat, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware not "heroic".]]

* The ''Dragonology''-Books by [[Pen Name|Dr. Ernest Drake]] describe several species of dragons as if they where real animals, but doubt the existence of Komodo-Dragons.

* In the novel ''Franchise/JurassicPark'' by Michael Crichton, the lead scientist explicitly states he wants to modify the carnivorous dinosaurs to make them more docile. He also says they're too much trouble to feed and keep contained, and people are just expecting the big herbivores anyway (remember, this was before the big 90s dinosaur craze). The owner declares it's the real thing or nothing. Wu calmly explains that with all the genetic tampering they've already done, the dinosaurs they've made have as much in common with real dinosaurs as they do with dragons.

* In ''Timeline'' by Michael Crichton, a time-traveler sent back to the HundredYearsWar-era France observes knights dueling in full armor to be much faster and agile than he'd imagined. Another character is watching live footage of historical events, which he finds too mundane. AbrahamLincoln "sounds like BettyBoop" when delivering the Gettysburg Address and GeorgeWashington crossing the Delaware "looks like a drowned rat" huddled up in the back of a boat, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware not "heroic".]]

** Possibly [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in ''Discworld/GuardsGuards!'', during a discussion about Carrot's sword, an astoundingly non-magical and weathered (but still very functional) specimen. Sgt. Colon very briefly wonders if old kings' swords weren't really marked by their glinting light or [[AudibleSharpness impressive sounds]], because the kings that were around in the old days wouldn't need something showy, but something that needed to be bloody good at cutting things. In the next City Watch book, ''Discworld/MenAtArms'', the sword proves so sharp and durable that Carrot nails a bad guy through his midsection to a stone pillar.

* Played with at the end of Joan Hess's ''O Little Town of Maggody'', when Hammett swipes a bunch of Christmas ornaments to set up a spindly, ragged runt of a holiday tree for Arly. He ''could'' have swiped the perfectly-symmetrical, flawless spruce that the ornaments had been hung on, but because Hammett grew up in a shack on Cotter's Ridge -- a trackless backwoods covered in ''real'' coniferous forests -- he didn't think the farm-raised tree looked like a "real" one at all.

* The "swish and flick" maneuver Hermione encourages Ron to use for the levitation spell seems very Hollywood, but it's actually the correct movements needed for the spell.

* In Creator/StephenKing's ''DumaKey'', [[spoiler:Wireman tried to kill himself, blacked out, woke up, and assumed the blood he was lying in was from him falling asleep and injuring himself falling off the chair while he was merely thinking of suicide. He had a headache. He kept on thinking that until he got to the bathroom and saw the hole in his head. He applies a Band-Aid and takes some asprin, and proceeds to spend three days straight at work until he's kicked out.]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} author Dennis Lehane, of ''Literature/ShutterIsland'', ''MysticRiver'' and ''Literature/GoneBabyGone'' fame, has run into this a couple times.

* UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} author Dennis Lehane, of ''ShutterIsland'', ''MysticRiver'' and ''Literature/GoneBabyGone'' fame, has run into this a couple times.

* UsefulNotes/{{Boston}} author Dennis Lehane, of ''ShutterIsland'', ''MysticRiver'' and ''GoneBabyGone'' fame, has run into this a couple times.

** Critics of ''GoneBabyGone'' focused on the fact that in the story SocialServicesDoesNotExist and criticized him for using it as a plot device... but the thing is that Lehane used to work with ''real'' abused children, so he knows all too well that trope is TruthInTelevision, and several of the stories told in the book by the police assigned to such cases are based on real cases Lehane handled.
** Similarly, after the movie version of ''GoneBabyGone'' came out some Bostonians complained that some of the background characters were [[StopBeingStereotypical too stereotypical]], but said characters were actual residents of the area and were largely allowed to [[ThrowItIn improvise their own dialog]] (to the point that Lehane and Creator/BenAffleck, the director, were unsure if they would take direction or tell them to shove it).