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# Characters.TolkiensLegendariumPeoples: The prologue of the Lord of the Rings establishes that Hobbits are scarily accurate marksmen, not only with bows, but with stones. Bilbo is also shown to be incredibly skilled at hitting targets with stones in The Hobbit.Logically, as the smallest race in Middle-earth, they couldn't rely on melee combat, but ranged weapons give them a chance. They similarly developed great natural skill at hiding and moving quietly, to avoid larger threats. The Ruffians occupying the Shire at the end of the book find out the hard way that these combined skills make hobbits excellent guerrilla fighters: hobbit archers hiding in the forests are natural snipers, picking them off unseen. The films showcase this ability on occasion with Hobbits consistently making difficult shots by throwing rocks. Fans often criticize these scenes for being unrealistic.
# YMMV.TheHills: OvershadowedByControversy: While the show's RealityIsUnrealistic tendencies were not entirely hidden even beforehand, the Les Deux "club fight" between Lauren and Heidi in Season 2 — treated as a momentary spat in the show, and a serious altercation in real-life that necessitated a police presence — was the first clue many fans got that the show was deliberately manipulated to play up certain storylines. Allegations of cast member Lauren Conrad having a sextape (ultimately untrue) rocked public perception of the show, casting a damper on certain storylines in Season 2 and 3 that portrayed Lauren as a virtuous intern.
# Characters.SniperEliteIII: BunnyEarsLawyer: Several Afrika Korps and Schutzvollstrecker soldiers note that he is a very eccentric individual, such as wearing medieval style armor over his uniform (though see RealityIsUnrealistic for reasons). This doesn't make him any less dangerous as a soldier, as his plan almost succeeds and gives Karl a very difficult challenge.
# Film.HereComesTheBoom: Upon release, the film was criticized for the ending of Scott's UFC fight, where he fights his way out of an armbar by hoisting his opponent and slamming him into the ground, winning by knockout. As this video clearly demonstrates, not only is slamming/power-bombing an opponent a valid defense against a variety of submission holds, but it is perfectly capable of knocking you out cold. As Joe Rogan points out in his commentary, getting slammed on your head and shoulders hurts. He likens it to a linebacker tackling a quarterback... but without a helmet for protection.
# Trivia.TheLegoMovie: While the entire role is obviously based on voice acting, Liam Neeson gets to showcase his talent for doing cartoon character voices - most of the scenes where he argues back and forth in both voices are actually done in a single take with no editing, rather than doing both voices separately and splicing them together. The cheery, cartoony Good Cop voice is all him too, no editing on the pitch at all. (Interestingly enough, Neeson has mentioned before that the voice of Good Cop is actually much closer to his natural voice.)
# YMMV.XComEnemyUnknown: XCOM rookie troopers actually have pretty good accuracy ratings if you compare them to real-life soldiers, but they're mainly remembered for all those times where they missed when firing a shotgun point blank at an alien the size of a bus. "XCOM Rookies" is sort of a byword in many communities for "supposedly elite trooper that can't hit the broad side of a barn." This is due to them supposedly being the “best of the best” from the world’s militaries, despite having trouble hitting large targets like Mutons in zero cover that (from our point of view) are standing completely still.
# Film.ThirtyDaysOfNight: "Barrow" is a kind of tomb. And an actual town.
# ContrivedCoincidence.{{Literature}}: The Adventures of Blue Avenger by Norma Howe argues that this trope falls under RealityIsUnrealistic. Unlikely coincidences happen all the time, and Million to One Chance events are pretty common in a world with nearly seven billion people. So here comes one...
# Creator.HammerheadProduction: In the site's entry of Titanic, there's a comment in that one scene of the miniature ship (by Digital Domain) looked faker than the CG Dolphins that were also present.
# Creator.ChristopherHitchens: He claimed to hate clichés in writing, so when he visited Communist-era Czechoslovakia, he promised himself that he wouldn't make references to Franz Kafka in his reports. When he was arrested while visiting a group of political activists and told by the police that he didn't need to know the charge, he realized that reality is sometimes indistinguishable from parody. Similarly, he didn't want to mention Nineteen Eighty-Four before he visited North Korea, but found it to be such a perfect rendition of the dystopian state in the novel that he almost suspected it to be the regime's unofficial source of inspiration.
# WesternAnimation.TheProudFamily: There was actually some debate because Papi looked "too white" to be Hispanic. It's no secret LaCienega counts as Hispanic (she and Sunset are darker skinned than Felix, who's tan) but some assumed that Felix was half Hispanic, and that his mom was. However, it's fully possible for Papi to be white but still be Hispanic, there are plenty of Hispanics who can be considered white. Heck, just look at Guillermo del Toro.
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because blanks are still quite dangerous, despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and carelessness with a blank has killed at least one person.
# Characters.TheFaultInOurStars: Hazel is terminally ill and her boyfriend is in remission. Nonetheless, Hazel lives while Augustus dies. In reality, this is very much possible.
# Series.{{Reign}}: Many critics have complained that the show does this with Mary, but, because RealityIsUnrealistic, she actually averts this trope. The historical Mary was known for her beauty. However, she was also six feet tall and auburn-haired, unlike Adelaide Kane, the medium-height brunette who plays her on the show. Lampshaded in season 2, when Princess Claude says of their childhood, "You seemed so tall in those days."
# Headscratchers.MetroidFusion: The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually SR388's asteroid moon. An impact event in real life is always devastating, even if the impactor is smaller and of lesser mass, mainly due to the sheer velocity of said object. Orbit rapidly degrading, Samus and Adam rammed it straight into SR388, and detonating the core would have finished the job.
# Series.SeaPatrol: Characters leaving the show at the end of most seasons unexplainedly, which happens on real boats all the time.
# Pantheon.NicknamesAndRenames: Hired as the getaway driver, has an absurd interest in sex and porn, played by Quentin Tarantino and dies, somehow survived being shot in the head before bleeding out, barely known in the story
# Literature.TheTechnicolorTimeMachine: Extensively lampshaded by the whole novel.
# Film.TheBigChill: In a roundabout way. Kevin Kline was reluctant to do the scene in which Harold and Meg have sex so she can conceive a child, feeling it was unrealistic. But he later said that after the movie's release several people told him they had been in the same situation.
# Recap.MightyMagiswordsS1E50QuestForKnowledge: Neddy refers to Gateaux as Townsend, which the latter claims isn't a real name. Neddy is played by Townsend Coleman.
# Film.IndependenceDay: Reality Is Unrealistic When Steve first meets the President, they only shake hands. This is correct, as he's uncovered (not wearing headgear) and thus he's not required to salute. They play it straight at the end, though. The President salutes Steve, who is still without headgear. Steve has to hurriedly hand Jasmine his cigar to appropriately salute back. Marine One is able to travel from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base within the nine minutes left before the aliens' attack. Assuming the helicopter went close to its maximum speed, given how short on time they were, it can take about four minutes to fly the roughly ten miles as the crow flies between the two locations.
# YMMV.{{Bleach}}: Japanese culture tends to view child abuse as a private problem that should be dealt with inside the family first and foremost, while Western attitudes are much more interventionist. From a Western perspective, Chad and Orihime both living without guardians by age 15—Orihime has been living alone since middle school, specifically because of parental abuse, and having limited economic support from her only living relative instead of living with her—can be difficult to suspend disbelief for. RealityIsUnrealistic, in many Western countries, even America, there are many officially and de facto independent minors in situations ranging from parental abandonment to walking out themselves to separation agreements that provide support but not control.
# Webcomic.MarryMeBobbyCrosby: One of the News Commentators thinks the entire thing is a publicity stunt. Though, to give him credit, he does bring up some good points for it, despite them all just being coincidences. Really, REALLY, convenient coincidences. Also, Guy is too realistic of a pirate for audiences to connect with. Don't ask.
# Literature.ShinganNoYuusha: Combined with RealityIsUnrealistic. The womb does indeed have powerful defenses that protect the fetus from diseases that affect the mother. Children delivered by C-section have been found free of disease, even when the mother has dangerous co-genital S.T.D.s like herpes and Aids.
# YMMV.TheHunchbackOfNotreDame: Would you believe us if we told you that it actually wasn't Quasimodo's deformities that the peasants ostracized him for, but his red hair? Such were the prejudices of actual Medieval Parisians.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationIVenonatToCloyster: Cloyster's Ice-typing might not seem to make sense at first, given that bivalves are normally associated with tropical waters. It's actually based on polar bivalves, which are "the most numerous group of mollusks in the Arctic deep-sea". As for that Overly-Long Tongue on Shellder? Real life bivalves have these "tongues" as well, which are actually their equivalent to feet.
# Headscratchers.{{Animorphs}}: NameOne: Name One? Sharks 400 million years. Crocodiles 200 million years. Grasshoppers 115 million years. RealityIsUnrealistic
# VideoGame.TheSunkenCityCollection: The Warrior was a literal case of this. Her backstory reveals that she was a serial killer who handpicked male victims for their Mr. Fanservice qualities, and can even be seen groping herself as she murders them. This is actually a common motive for real life serial killers.
# YMMV.{{Interstellar}}: Gargantua is stunning. It being an entirely accurate representation of a black hole (to the point of actually showing an effect that physicists didn't know about before simply because they hadn't put the black hole equations into a computer program as high-quality as the one the movie used) seals it.
# Film.TheHunted2003: Zig-Zagging Trope.To quote Roger Ebert's review: We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides. They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting. On the other hand Tom Brown, Jr., the primary consultant on the film is a bit ashamed of it despite this. ...the bloody knife fight at the end — no way it would last 4 minutes, any of those wounds are lethal.
# VideoGame.SimCity: Criminals caught by the police will go to prison even if you have no Courthouse in town, or even in the region, to give them a trial, which is a big no-no in most justice systems around the world. Possible subversion: That said, in real life it's not uncommon for the courthouse to be combined with something else, like the City Hallnote Prominent example: Up until the completion of the Criminal Justice Center in 1994, most criminal trials in Philadelphia—one of the 5 largest cities in the United States at the time—were held in the Philadelphia City Hall. Please note that even after criminal functions were moved to the CJC, City Hall is still primarily a courthouse—it's just that the relevant trials are civil rather than criminal. (City government functions are mostly located in two nearby municipal office buildings or in rented space.) (pretty easy to get in this game) or even the police station. Perhaps the assumption is that this is what's going on.
# Trivia.TaylorSwift: With the rerecordings coming out, Taylor's accent from her earlier albums has been frequently referred to as a "fake country" accent that she's just dropped now. (Mostly due to the differences between her accent and a traditional Southern accent.) Her accent on those albums is actually very much real and is standard for central Pennsylvania (where she's from). It's faded for the most part, including from her speaking voice, as she no longer lives there. (A notable exception to this is "I'll Bet You Think About Me" from Red (Taylor's Version), which uses her native accent.)
# Series.TheArtfulDodger: Lady Belle Fox wants to become a woman surgeon. In the 1850s. Which isn't quite as far-fetched as it might sound given that the first female surgeon Mary Edwards Walker became a qualified surgeon around this time in real life.
# Fanfic.{{Turtles}}: Koume finds it rather odd that Anzu, Momo and Yuzu's parents all named them after fruit(apricot, peach and citrus, respectively). Koume's name means "little plum" in Japanese, and she never acknowledges that her own parents also named her after a fruit. As listed here, it's actually pretty common in Japan for girls to have some sort of a fruit-themed name, just like the Student Council members and Koume do.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationVMinccinoToVolcarona: Look up "derpfish" on Google Images and there's a good chance you'll see this guy's mug. Its appearance is actually toned down compared to its inspiration.
# Headscratchers.GreenLantern: Also, from an actual Real Life perspective? I am delighted to expand your knowledge by informing you that not all sapphire aka corundum stones are even blue! (Yeah, I was surprised too) It's just that blue is the most famous and iconic color of "sapphire" stones. Notice the ones on that page though include some that could easily double as "Star" Sapphires, whether we're going for Magenta shades or the more purple violets! (And in before somebody mentions "about that magenta thing, pink is not violet!!" - yes, it is, at least in Fuschia/Magenta hues it can be. Specifically, the hues they tend to color the Star Sapphires in in classic color schemes from Silver Age onward are classifiable not just as "pink" but also as a variant of "red-violet", which I discovered when I actually Googled the latter. Fridge Brilliance since it keeps it separate from blue-violet...which is what actual "indigo" is in Real Life!)
# Trivia.{{Gladiator}}: David Franzoni's original script had Maximus named Narcissus and surviving along with his family, Commodus being strangled in the baths (as he was by the real Narcissus), the fight at the Colosseum against a rhinoceros instead of tigers and Lucilla not making it to the end of the movie but being executed (as she was in reality) along with some senators inside a Sicilian Bull. The rhinos became tigers because it was impossible to train real rhinos and CGI replacements didn't look convincing. The other things were changed because of RealityIsUnrealistic.
# Recap.XenaS06E20SoulPossession: The fangirls are unimpressed with Ares fireballs once they get to see them in real life. Hey! What’s wrong with the special effects? Yeah, they’re really cheesy.
# Creator.HarryTurtledove: He originally wrote under the pseudonyms "Eric Iverson" and "H.N. Turteltaub" because his editor thought "Turtledove" sounded too much like a made-up name.
# NotAlwaysWorking.TropesAToE: The beginning of this story made quite a number of posts think it was actually another story (never mind the fact that the odds of someone else witnessing the same circumstances and submitting them to this website are astronomical). To elaborate, the older story involved a Designated Hero standing in line at a supermarket and holding everyone up because she was observing Remembrance Day, whereas the later story also had a woman holding up a supermarket line, but that was because she was having a seizure. In the latter story's case, the cashier refused to help the customer even when the submitter, who happened to be a doctor, said that she was having a seizure, because "if she was having a seizure she'd be writhing on the floor, wouldn't she?". The cashier also voided both the sick customer and the doctor's purchases because they stepped out of line, saying that "they must be joking if they thought she would give them their shopping back."
# SpecialEffectFailure.LiveActionTV: Moonbase 3, a BBC sci-fi series, was criticized for its cheap-looking props and sets. Ironically, this was caused by efforts to be as realistic as possible; it is much more difficult to create a realistic-looking rocket, spacesuit, and whatnot than to simply use a salt shaker as a futuristic device.
# Film.ARoyalNightOut: The girls did go out, but they were both younger than the film seems to depict. They also went out with about sixteen other people - including friends their own age and their nanny. They actually did get back to Buckingham Palace at the 1 am curfew. Of course at the end, the King tells Elizabeth to say she spent the entire night at The Ritz - which is what happened in real life.
# Recap.DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice: Some people have lambasted the appearance of Isabella and her father as tokenism and Politically Correct History. Venice was a port and trade city in Real Life, and it wasn't unheard of for African traders to move and set up shop there in the 16th century. See also a moderately well-known play called The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Also, an earlier episode points out the fact that even England in 1599 wasn't just fair youths by this point; there were a lot of dark ladies around as well. Rory fending off a sword with a broom is not impossible either, provided he managed to hit the flat of Francesco's blade and not the edge.
# OneThousandWaysToDie.TropesLToS: One of these gets himself killed in "Flame Retard-Ant". When he accidentally sets himself on fire, he jumps into the water to put it out but goes into shock due to the water's cold temperature and drowns. Unusually, the episode points out that in real life, arsonists are rarely motivated by pyromania.
# Trivia.{{Vikings}}: Freydis' actress asked to be actually strangled in the scene where Ivar kills her. There was a medic standing by on-set to ensure she didn't receive any permanent damage, but what you see on-screen is her actual reaction, which accounts for why it also takes much longer then most scenes where someone is trying to strangle someone else to death in TV shows.
# Headscratchers.MassEffect2Archive2: I sorry, but this CG artist must contradict you. Motion capture animation can be redone by hand with only a few minor hassles, in fact very rarely will any production house use the raw motion capture data. They always tweek it by hand to smooth out errors and because good animation should be more exaggerated. The reprogramming of the different weapons is a valid point, though. But mostly its just time constraints.
# VideoGame.AssassinsCreedSyndicate: There's been some hubbub over Evie openly participating in boxing matches during the extremely sexist Victorian age, under the assumption that female participation in combat sports is a recent development. However, women's boxing was actually a thing in Victorian England. One example is Elizabeth Wilkinson, who fought even earlier during the early 18th century. She also went up against men in mixed-gender boxing matches. Things only start to become less grounded in reality because Evie doesn't appear to have much muscle, but still packs as much a punch as Jacob, using the same moves. See Rule of Fun.
# Recap.TheForbiddenLoveOfYukariYakumo: Discussed in chapter seven's Author's Notes by Tokage, subverted in that her 'reality' is still fictional.
# Fanfic.WhipAndWing: Twilight advises rainbow Dash and Lyra to do this when they write about the Nazis. She says, "Nopony would believe that any creatures would support an organization that's so pointless cruel and murderous."
# Characters.{{Myst}}: His double life must have been extremely taxing. Such stress can easily take a toll on one's health.
# Fridge.TheHungerGames: There are real-life squirrel-hunting competitions in places like southern Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia — Hillbilly coal-mining country, even. Bonus points are awarded for a shot through the eye. The competitions are conducted with muzzle-loading black-powder rifles even less accurate than a good hunting bow. Winners routinely turn in nothing but eye-shot squirrels.
# AvengersEndgame.TropesPToZ: As Hulk testily explains to Scott and Rhodey, the popular portrayal of time travel in films like Back to the Future isn't how time travel works at all.
# Recap.FilmRerollMemento: invoked Invoked: When Teddy tells Leonard that there's a guy in Chinatown that gave Leonard all of his tattoos and notes, he points out that it isn't actually that impossible to imitate his handwriting. "You think that's fuckin' sci-fi technology?!"
# Fanfic.{{Shorn}}: Yes, shaming/torturing (psychologically) someone by haircut did happen in reality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a Real Life section in Traumatic Haircut.
# Characters.DeltaruneNoelle: Noelle is sometimes thought to be a case of Animal Gender-Bender due to having antlers. However, both male and female reindeer have antlers (differing only in when they shed their antlers), as opposed to most species of deer where only the males have them.
# Series.{{Vikings}}: Some viewers complained about Danila Kozlovsky's accent playing Oleg the Prophet, calling it "fake-sounding" and like an American trying too hard to sound Russian. Apparently, they were unaware that Danila actually is Russian and his English is a product of learning his lines phonetically since he's not a fluent speaker.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E14StrangerThanFanFiction: DoubleMeaningTitle: Based on the common idiom for RealityIsUnrealistic and Rainbow's first-hoof knowledge that the Daring Do books are actually memoirs published as fiction and written under a Pen Name.
# YMMV.TheLionGuard: Fuli's "inaccurate" design is also not as off-base as the critics seem to believe; "king" cheetahs are an an unusual color morph, but they're hardly vanishingly rare either. Fuli's splotchy coloring and vaguely square patterns are actually a fairly spot-on representation.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Funny.{{Recess}}: The plan to get Spinelli out of the Ashleys is to have everyone on the playground change their name to Ashley and force their way into the group. When the Ashleys protest that half of them aren't even girls, Gus replies "Hey, it's the '90s!"Made even funnier by the fact that Ashley is also a male given name.
# Film.DungeonsAndDragons2000: Profion's evil lair is so covered in human bones it comes across as extremely heavy-handed and over the top. While it certainly fits Profion's personality, it's a real place, and more or less unaltered.
# Trivia.YoureNext: Barbara Crampton (Aubrey) was 53 years old when she shot the film, but as she looks very good for her age, makeup effects were used to make her look more her age as Aubrey and thus more acceptable as the mother to three adult children.
# Film.{{Ali}}: TheDreaded: George Foreman, after he is introduced pulverizing Joe Frazier in the famous "Down goes Frazier!" fight. This may be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic for younger viewers more familiar with Foreman as the avuncular figure who sells grills on TV.
# VideoGame.{{Arknights}}: Some female operators are very obviously based on male specimens of their Animal Motifs.Conviction is very obviously based on a peacock, complete with colorful trains and blue feathers. Female peafowl, or peahens, are much less colorful and don't have tail trains. Coupled with Conviction's Ambiguous Gender in the provided bio, fans have theorized that the operator is a Dude Looks Like a Lady. Siege's impressively poofy hair takes cues from the mane of a male lion. It's worth noting that while lionesses usually don't have manes, there have been instances of a few that do, however these are very rare, and their manes are much smaller and less prominent than a male's natural one. Basically the case for all female Forte operators (e.g. Sideroca, Vulcan, etc...), who have big and prominent horns characteristic of bulls. Female bovids, or cows, have much smaller and shorter horns.
# Film.{{Elysium}}: GravityIsAHarshMistress: Of the "varying gravity" type. The hijacked spacecraft at the beginning seem to ignore it; and the military craft flying up to Elysium seems to have some sort Artificial Gravity, but when said craft carrying the main characters lurches to the side near the Elysium torus everyone falls sideways "down" to Elysium. Your head can spin trying to figure out what is going on here - did the gravity switch off? Elysium can't pull the characters down - is the craft flying along the curve of Elysium? If so... why? A lot of Fridge Logic in that scene for physics nerds to sort out, but this happens this way because RealityIsUnrealistic and Rule of Cool.
# Headscratchers.{{Continuum}}: Ep. 8?), Hoyt somehow manages to die from a clearly nonlethal shoulder shot.There's no such thing as a "nonlethal" place to be shot. The bullet, or fragments (if it hit a bone), could have could have hit a major blood vessel. Combine that with shock from heavy tissue damage and pain amd you've got one dead guy. Oh, dear. You've fallen victim to thinking the Only a Flesh Wound trope is realistic. Television Is Trying to Kill Us.But what about those fancy suits Kiera et al have? Then bullets really do only cause flesh wounds!
# Headscratchers.HonorHarrington: U.S. submarines do get excellent food, or at least, that's what the military is officially telling the press. See here.
# Series.TheGoldbergs: Some plots points are occasionally criticized as being too outlandish or goofy even for a sitcom. Adam F. Goldberg counters such criticism by saying that not only did such things happen to him in his childhood, he has video evidence to back it up.In one episode, Pops gives a hilarious, rambling wedding toast on video that seems almost too outlandish to be anything other than fiction; The Stinger shows the video of the real Pops saying it verbatim. Real and fictional Pops: My appendix burst inside without causing me any pain. I have one large scar across my abdomen and one scar all the way down my right side. And I had one of my kidneys removed. [beat] Can I erase that part about the kidney? That's all I have to say.
# ComicStrip.PrinceValiant: ArtisticLicenseHistory: Hal Foster wasn't afraid to change things to suit the story. Contemporary historical figures make appearances, archaic place names (like Gaul for France for example) are used, the Western Roman Empire is still hanging on, paganism is still widely practiced in Europe and the clothing worn throughout the series is more-or-less grounded in the Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, popular anachronistic trappings common to Arthurian literature (such as stone castles, chivalry, jousting and the title of knight) are heavily featured. Justifiable, as these elements have become so ubiquitous to Arthurian mythology that their absence would invoke a sense of RealityIsUnrealistic and most of the castles are implied, if not outright stated, to be Roman strongholds. The depiction of continental Europe as a post-apocalyptic wasteland after the fall of the Western Roman Empire has been increasingly disproved by historians since the nineteenth century.
# Series.ScrapheapChallenge: While the scrapyards are all real locations, the piles of parts and metal were ‘carefully’ laid out by the program’s staff, as in reality, breaker’s yards are typically much better organised.
# Literature.ChildrenOfTheLastDays: Invoked in the foreword of Strangers and Sojourners.
# Characters.{{Maleficent}}: AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted, somewhat. This film's Aurora looks a good deal more childlike than the original 1959 character. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic; Aurora's original design was modeled after actresses in their twenties, despite still being sixteen in canon. If anything, this film's incarnation actually does look like an actual teenager, by virtue of being portrayed by one.
# Recap.ThomasAndFriendsS2E16BreakVan: FailedASpotCheck: Nobody In-Universe realises anything wrong with a signal box being built at the end of a train track without any buffersnote A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, as in these No OSHA Compliance days, many yards did have short stub-sidings running up to the buildings.
# WebVideo.TwoBestFriendsPlay: In the full playthrough of Man Vs. Wild, Matt and Pat are very critical of the glacier cave in the Patagonia level, claiming that it looks "unfinished" because the interior is completely blue. Real glacier caves actually are that blue. Similarly, while playing Resident Evil during the Shitstorm of Scariness, they both laugh at the absurdity of the Smith & Wesson 500, which Pat claims doesn't exist. It actually does. While making fun of Tekken's characters talking to each other in their own language despite some being billingual, Woolie concedes that he did speak only English to his French bosses who only replied in French, living in a country with two official languages.
# Film.HiddenInSilence: While the film has some Dramatization or Pragmatic Adaptation moments, several moments which some viewers initially thought were storytelling inventions were taken directly from the real people's accounts of the story.Fusia's prayers are answered at key moments in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, and she considered this to be a miracle in real life. Helena was really accosted and beaten while doing a job that Fusia couldn't risk being recognized while doing. The protagonists Living with the Villain for several months and the Germans hearing a noise and checking the attic is real. Fusia really did sneak into the ghetto multiple times to meet with people before they came to her house. Fusia did have a boyfriend who was tricked thinking she's dating a German officer because the group couldn't risk letting him find out about her secret houseguests. The first Russian soldier the group encounters after liberation really was another Jew.
# Characters.GoldenKamuySugimotosGroup: His aftermath for brain damage qualifies: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like decreased mobility or speech impediments), he's shown to recover without any apparent effects of it. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And in the next chapter, he's shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, being all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's tracks, and acting much easier to anger, even for his usual standards.
# Characters.AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily: Sozin decreed the practice of hunting dragons for glory which led to the almost complete extinction of the species. This in spite of the fact that Sozin owned a dragon himself. Turf Wars reveals he outlawed same-sex relationships. While this attitude actually fits the real-life setting and era the Fire Nation was based on, it's said to have been tolerant beforehand. No reason why he did this other than to establish "That guy was the worst!" is given.
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning: The Doctor's "English Accent" is almost good enough, but doesn't quite cut the mustard! Paul McGann doesn't use his real accent to play the Doctor.
# YMMV.TheHills: OvershadowedByControversy: While the show's RealityIsUnrealistic tendencies were not entirely hidden even beforehand, the Les Deux "club fight" between Lauren and Heidi in Season 2 — treated as a momentary spat in the show, and a serious altercation in real-life that necessitated a police presence — was the first clue many fans got that the show was deliberately manipulated to play up certain storylines. Allegations of cast member Lauren Conrad having a sextape (ultimately untrue) rocked public perception of the show, casting a damper on certain storylines in Season 2 and 3 that portrayed Lauren as a virtuous intern.
# Characters.SniperEliteIII: BunnyEarsLawyer: Several Afrika Korps and Schutzvollstrecker soldiers note that he is a very eccentric individual, such as wearing medieval style armor over his uniform (though see RealityIsUnrealistic for reasons). This doesn't make him any less dangerous as a soldier, as his plan almost succeeds and gives Karl a very difficult challenge.
# Film.HereComesTheBoom: Upon release, the film was criticized for the ending of Scott's UFC fight, where he fights his way out of an armbar by hoisting his opponent and slamming him into the ground, winning by knockout. As this video clearly demonstrates, not only is slamming/power-bombing an opponent a valid defense against a variety of submission holds, but it is perfectly capable of knocking you out cold. As Joe Rogan points out in his commentary, getting slammed on your head and shoulders hurts. He likens it to a linebacker tackling a quarterback... but without a helmet for protection.
# Trivia.TheLegoMovie: While the entire role is obviously based on voice acting, Liam Neeson gets to showcase his talent for doing cartoon character voices - most of the scenes where he argues back and forth in both voices are actually done in a single take with no editing, rather than doing both voices separately and splicing them together. The cheery, cartoony Good Cop voice is all him too, no editing on the pitch at all. (Interestingly enough, Neeson has mentioned before that the voice of Good Cop is actually much closer to his natural voice.)
# YMMV.XComEnemyUnknown: XCOM rookie troopers actually have pretty good accuracy ratings if you compare them to real-life soldiers, but they're mainly remembered for all those times where they missed when firing a shotgun point blank at an alien the size of a bus. "XCOM Rookies" is sort of a byword in many communities for "supposedly elite trooper that can't hit the broad side of a barn." This is due to them supposedly being the “best of the best” from the world’s militaries, despite having trouble hitting large targets like Mutons in zero cover that (from our point of view) are standing completely still.
# Film.ThirtyDaysOfNight: "Barrow" is a kind of tomb. And an actual town.
# ContrivedCoincidence.{{Literature}}: The Adventures of Blue Avenger by Norma Howe argues that this trope falls under RealityIsUnrealistic. Unlikely coincidences happen all the time, and Million to One Chance events are pretty common in a world with nearly seven billion people. So here comes one...
# Creator.HammerheadProduction: In the site's entry of Titanic, there's a comment in that one scene of the miniature ship (by Digital Domain) looked faker than the CG Dolphins that were also present.
# Creator.ChristopherHitchens: He claimed to hate clichés in writing, so when he visited Communist-era Czechoslovakia, he promised himself that he wouldn't make references to Franz Kafka in his reports. When he was arrested while visiting a group of political activists and told by the police that he didn't need to know the charge, he realized that reality is sometimes indistinguishable from parody. Similarly, he didn't want to mention Nineteen Eighty-Four before he visited North Korea, but found it to be such a perfect rendition of the dystopian state in the novel that he almost suspected it to be the regime's unofficial source of inspiration.
# WesternAnimation.TheProudFamily: There was actually some debate because Papi looked "too white" to be Hispanic. It's no secret LaCienega counts as Hispanic (she and Sunset are darker skinned than Felix, who's tan) but some assumed that Felix was half Hispanic, and that his mom was. However, it's fully possible for Papi to be white but still be Hispanic, there are plenty of Hispanics who can be considered white. Heck, just look at Guillermo del Toro.
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because blanks are still quite dangerous, despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and carelessness with a blank has killed at least one person.
# Characters.TheFaultInOurStars: Hazel is terminally ill and her boyfriend is in remission. Nonetheless, Hazel lives while Augustus dies. In reality, this is very much possible.
# Series.{{Reign}}: Many critics have complained that the show does this with Mary, but, because RealityIsUnrealistic, she actually averts this trope. The historical Mary was known for her beauty. However, she was also six feet tall and auburn-haired, unlike Adelaide Kane, the medium-height brunette who plays her on the show. Lampshaded in season 2, when Princess Claude says of their childhood, "You seemed so tall in those days."
# Headscratchers.MetroidFusion: The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually SR388's asteroid moon. An impact event in real life is always devastating, even if the impactor is smaller and of lesser mass, mainly due to the sheer velocity of said object. Orbit rapidly degrading, Samus and Adam rammed it straight into SR388, and detonating the core would have finished the job.
# Series.SeaPatrol: Characters leaving the show at the end of most seasons unexplainedly, which happens on real boats all the time.
# Pantheon.NicknamesAndRenames: Hired as the getaway driver, has an absurd interest in sex and porn, played by Quentin Tarantino and dies, somehow survived being shot in the head before bleeding out, barely known in the story
# Literature.TheTechnicolorTimeMachine: Extensively lampshaded by the whole novel.
# Film.TheBigChill: In a roundabout way. Kevin Kline was reluctant to do the scene in which Harold and Meg have sex so she can conceive a child, feeling it was unrealistic. But he later said that after the movie's release several people told him they had been in the same situation.
# Recap.MightyMagiswordsS1E50QuestForKnowledge: Neddy refers to Gateaux as Townsend, which the latter claims isn't a real name. Neddy is played by Townsend Coleman.
# Film.IndependenceDay: Reality Is Unrealistic When Steve first meets the President, they only shake hands. This is correct, as he's uncovered (not wearing headgear) and thus he's not required to salute. They play it straight at the end, though. The President salutes Steve, who is still without headgear. Steve has to hurriedly hand Jasmine his cigar to appropriately salute back. Marine One is able to travel from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base within the nine minutes left before the aliens' attack. Assuming the helicopter went close to its maximum speed, given how short on time they were, it can take about four minutes to fly the roughly ten miles as the crow flies between the two locations.
# YMMV.{{Bleach}}: Japanese culture tends to view child abuse as a private problem that should be dealt with inside the family first and foremost, while Western attitudes are much more interventionist. From a Western perspective, Chad and Orihime both living without guardians by age 15—Orihime has been living alone since middle school, specifically because of parental abuse, and having limited economic support from her only living relative instead of living with her—can be difficult to suspend disbelief for. RealityIsUnrealistic, in many Western countries, even America, there are many officially and de facto independent minors in situations ranging from parental abandonment to walking out themselves to separation agreements that provide support but not control.
# Webcomic.MarryMeBobbyCrosby: One of the News Commentators thinks the entire thing is a publicity stunt. Though, to give him credit, he does bring up some good points for it, despite them all just being coincidences. Really, REALLY, convenient coincidences. Also, Guy is too realistic of a pirate for audiences to connect with. Don't ask.
# Literature.ShinganNoYuusha: Combined with RealityIsUnrealistic. The womb does indeed have powerful defenses that protect the fetus from diseases that affect the mother. Children delivered by C-section have been found free of disease, even when the mother has dangerous co-genital S.T.D.s like herpes and Aids.
# YMMV.TheHunchbackOfNotreDame: Would you believe us if we told you that it actually wasn't Quasimodo's deformities that the peasants ostracized him for, but his red hair? Such were the prejudices of actual Medieval Parisians.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationIVenonatToCloyster: Cloyster's Ice-typing might not seem to make sense at first, given that bivalves are normally associated with tropical waters. It's actually based on polar bivalves, which are "the most numerous group of mollusks in the Arctic deep-sea". As for that Overly-Long Tongue on Shellder? Real life bivalves have these "tongues" as well, which are actually their equivalent to feet.
# Headscratchers.{{Animorphs}}: NameOne: Name One? Sharks 400 million years. Crocodiles 200 million years. Grasshoppers 115 million years. RealityIsUnrealistic
# VideoGame.TheSunkenCityCollection: The Warrior was a literal case of this. Her backstory reveals that she was a serial killer who handpicked male victims for their Mr. Fanservice qualities, and can even be seen groping herself as she murders them. This is actually a common motive for real life serial killers.
# YMMV.{{Interstellar}}: Gargantua is stunning. It being an entirely accurate representation of a black hole (to the point of actually showing an effect that physicists didn't know about before simply because they hadn't put the black hole equations into a computer program as high-quality as the one the movie used) seals it.
# Film.TheHunted2003: Zig-Zagging Trope.To quote Roger Ebert's review: We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides. They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting. On the other hand Tom Brown, Jr., the primary consultant on the film is a bit ashamed of it despite this. ...the bloody knife fight at the end — no way it would last 4 minutes, any of those wounds are lethal.
# VideoGame.SimCity: Criminals caught by the police will go to prison even if you have no Courthouse in town, or even in the region, to give them a trial, which is a big no-no in most justice systems around the world. Possible subversion: That said, in real life it's not uncommon for the courthouse to be combined with something else, like the City Hallnote Prominent example: Up until the completion of the Criminal Justice Center in 1994, most criminal trials in Philadelphia—one of the 5 largest cities in the United States at the time—were held in the Philadelphia City Hall. Please note that even after criminal functions were moved to the CJC, City Hall is still primarily a courthouse—it's just that the relevant trials are civil rather than criminal. (City government functions are mostly located in two nearby municipal office buildings or in rented space.) (pretty easy to get in this game) or even the police station. Perhaps the assumption is that this is what's going on.
# Trivia.TaylorSwift: With the rerecordings coming out, Taylor's accent from her earlier albums has been frequently referred to as a "fake country" accent that she's just dropped now. (Mostly due to the differences between her accent and a traditional Southern accent.) Her accent on those albums is actually very much real and is standard for central Pennsylvania (where she's from). It's faded for the most part, including from her speaking voice, as she no longer lives there. (A notable exception to this is "I'll Bet You Think About Me" from Red (Taylor's Version), which uses her native accent.)
# Series.TheArtfulDodger: Lady Belle Fox wants to become a woman surgeon. In the 1850s. Which isn't quite as far-fetched as it might sound given that the first female surgeon Mary Edwards Walker became a qualified surgeon around this time in real life.
# Fanfic.{{Turtles}}: Koume finds it rather odd that Anzu, Momo and Yuzu's parents all named them after fruit(apricot, peach and citrus, respectively). Koume's name means "little plum" in Japanese, and she never acknowledges that her own parents also named her after a fruit. As listed here, it's actually pretty common in Japan for girls to have some sort of a fruit-themed name, just like the Student Council members and Koume do.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationVMinccinoToVolcarona: Look up "derpfish" on Google Images and there's a good chance you'll see this guy's mug. Its appearance is actually toned down compared to its inspiration.
# Headscratchers.GreenLantern: Also, from an actual Real Life perspective? I am delighted to expand your knowledge by informing you that not all sapphire aka corundum stones are even blue! (Yeah, I was surprised too) It's just that blue is the most famous and iconic color of "sapphire" stones. Notice the ones on that page though include some that could easily double as "Star" Sapphires, whether we're going for Magenta shades or the more purple violets! (And in before somebody mentions "about that magenta thing, pink is not violet!!" - yes, it is, at least in Fuschia/Magenta hues it can be. Specifically, the hues they tend to color the Star Sapphires in in classic color schemes from Silver Age onward are classifiable not just as "pink" but also as a variant of "red-violet", which I discovered when I actually Googled the latter. Fridge Brilliance since it keeps it separate from blue-violet...which is what actual "indigo" is in Real Life!)
# Trivia.{{Gladiator}}: David Franzoni's original script had Maximus named Narcissus and surviving along with his family, Commodus being strangled in the baths (as he was by the real Narcissus), the fight at the Colosseum against a rhinoceros instead of tigers and Lucilla not making it to the end of the movie but being executed (as she was in reality) along with some senators inside a Sicilian Bull. The rhinos became tigers because it was impossible to train real rhinos and CGI replacements didn't look convincing. The other things were changed because of RealityIsUnrealistic.
# Recap.XenaS06E20SoulPossession: The fangirls are unimpressed with Ares fireballs once they get to see them in real life. Hey! What’s wrong with the special effects? Yeah, they’re really cheesy.
# Creator.HarryTurtledove: He originally wrote under the pseudonyms "Eric Iverson" and "H.N. Turteltaub" because his editor thought "Turtledove" sounded too much like a made-up name.
# NotAlwaysWorking.TropesAToE: The beginning of this story made quite a number of posts think it was actually another story (never mind the fact that the odds of someone else witnessing the same circumstances and submitting them to this website are astronomical). To elaborate, the older story involved a Designated Hero standing in line at a supermarket and holding everyone up because she was observing Remembrance Day, whereas the later story also had a woman holding up a supermarket line, but that was because she was having a seizure. In the latter story's case, the cashier refused to help the customer even when the submitter, who happened to be a doctor, said that she was having a seizure, because "if she was having a seizure she'd be writhing on the floor, wouldn't she?". The cashier also voided both the sick customer and the doctor's purchases because they stepped out of line, saying that "they must be joking if they thought she would give them their shopping back."
# SpecialEffectFailure.LiveActionTV: Moonbase 3, a BBC sci-fi series, was criticized for its cheap-looking props and sets. Ironically, this was caused by efforts to be as realistic as possible; it is much more difficult to create a realistic-looking rocket, spacesuit, and whatnot than to simply use a salt shaker as a futuristic device.
# Film.ARoyalNightOut: The girls did go out, but they were both younger than the film seems to depict. They also went out with about sixteen other people - including friends their own age and their nanny. They actually did get back to Buckingham Palace at the 1 am curfew. Of course at the end, the King tells Elizabeth to say she spent the entire night at The Ritz - which is what happened in real life.
# Recap.DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice: Some people have lambasted the appearance of Isabella and her father as tokenism and Politically Correct History. Venice was a port and trade city in Real Life, and it wasn't unheard of for African traders to move and set up shop there in the 16th century. See also a moderately well-known play called The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Also, an earlier episode points out the fact that even England in 1599 wasn't just fair youths by this point; there were a lot of dark ladies around as well. Rory fending off a sword with a broom is not impossible either, provided he managed to hit the flat of Francesco's blade and not the edge.
# OneThousandWaysToDie.TropesLToS: One of these gets himself killed in "Flame Retard-Ant". When he accidentally sets himself on fire, he jumps into the water to put it out but goes into shock due to the water's cold temperature and drowns. Unusually, the episode points out that in real life, arsonists are rarely motivated by pyromania.
# Trivia.{{Vikings}}: Freydis' actress asked to be actually strangled in the scene where Ivar kills her. There was a medic standing by on-set to ensure she didn't receive any permanent damage, but what you see on-screen is her actual reaction, which accounts for why it also takes much longer then most scenes where someone is trying to strangle someone else to death in TV shows.
# Headscratchers.MassEffect2Archive2: I sorry, but this CG artist must contradict you. Motion capture animation can be redone by hand with only a few minor hassles, in fact very rarely will any production house use the raw motion capture data. They always tweek it by hand to smooth out errors and because good animation should be more exaggerated. The reprogramming of the different weapons is a valid point, though. But mostly its just time constraints.
# VideoGame.AssassinsCreedSyndicate: There's been some hubbub over Evie openly participating in boxing matches during the extremely sexist Victorian age, under the assumption that female participation in combat sports is a recent development. However, women's boxing was actually a thing in Victorian England. One example is Elizabeth Wilkinson, who fought even earlier during the early 18th century. She also went up against men in mixed-gender boxing matches. Things only start to become less grounded in reality because Evie doesn't appear to have much muscle, but still packs as much a punch as Jacob, using the same moves. See Rule of Fun.
# Recap.TheForbiddenLoveOfYukariYakumo: Discussed in chapter seven's Author's Notes by Tokage, subverted in that her 'reality' is still fictional.
# Fanfic.WhipAndWing: Twilight advises rainbow Dash and Lyra to do this when they write about the Nazis. She says, "Nopony would believe that any creatures would support an organization that's so pointless cruel and murderous."
# Characters.{{Myst}}: His double life must have been extremely taxing. Such stress can easily take a toll on one's health.
# Fridge.TheHungerGames: There are real-life squirrel-hunting competitions in places like southern Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia — Hillbilly coal-mining country, even. Bonus points are awarded for a shot through the eye. The competitions are conducted with muzzle-loading black-powder rifles even less accurate than a good hunting bow. Winners routinely turn in nothing but eye-shot squirrels.
# AvengersEndgame.TropesPToZ: As Hulk testily explains to Scott and Rhodey, the popular portrayal of time travel in films like Back to the Future isn't how time travel works at all.
# Recap.FilmRerollMemento: invoked Invoked: When Teddy tells Leonard that there's a guy in Chinatown that gave Leonard all of his tattoos and notes, he points out that it isn't actually that impossible to imitate his handwriting. "You think that's fuckin' sci-fi technology?!"
# Fanfic.{{Shorn}}: Yes, shaming/torturing (psychologically) someone by haircut did happen in reality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a Real Life section in Traumatic Haircut.
# Characters.DeltaruneNoelle: Noelle is sometimes thought to be a case of Animal Gender-Bender due to having antlers. However, both male and female reindeer have antlers (differing only in when they shed their antlers), as opposed to most species of deer where only the males have them.
# Series.{{Vikings}}: Some viewers complained about Danila Kozlovsky's accent playing Oleg the Prophet, calling it "fake-sounding" and like an American trying too hard to sound Russian. Apparently, they were unaware that Danila actually is Russian and his English is a product of learning his lines phonetically since he's not a fluent speaker.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E14StrangerThanFanFiction: DoubleMeaningTitle: Based on the common idiom for RealityIsUnrealistic and Rainbow's first-hoof knowledge that the Daring Do books are actually memoirs published as fiction and written under a Pen Name.
# YMMV.TheLionGuard: Fuli's "inaccurate" design is also not as off-base as the critics seem to believe; "king" cheetahs are an an unusual color morph, but they're hardly vanishingly rare either. Fuli's splotchy coloring and vaguely square patterns are actually a fairly spot-on representation.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Funny.{{Recess}}: The plan to get Spinelli out of the Ashleys is to have everyone on the playground change their name to Ashley and force their way into the group. When the Ashleys protest that half of them aren't even girls, Gus replies "Hey, it's the '90s!"Made even funnier by the fact that Ashley is also a male given name.
# Film.DungeonsAndDragons2000: Profion's evil lair is so covered in human bones it comes across as extremely heavy-handed and over the top. While it certainly fits Profion's personality, it's a real place, and more or less unaltered.
# Trivia.YoureNext: Barbara Crampton (Aubrey) was 53 years old when she shot the film, but as she looks very good for her age, makeup effects were used to make her look more her age as Aubrey and thus more acceptable as the mother to three adult children.
# Film.{{Ali}}: TheDreaded: George Foreman, after he is introduced pulverizing Joe Frazier in the famous "Down goes Frazier!" fight. This may be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic for younger viewers more familiar with Foreman as the avuncular figure who sells grills on TV.
# VideoGame.{{Arknights}}: Some female operators are very obviously based on male specimens of their Animal Motifs.Conviction is very obviously based on a peacock, complete with colorful trains and blue feathers. Female peafowl, or peahens, are much less colorful and don't have tail trains. Coupled with Conviction's Ambiguous Gender in the provided bio, fans have theorized that the operator is a Dude Looks Like a Lady. Siege's impressively poofy hair takes cues from the mane of a male lion. It's worth noting that while lionesses usually don't have manes, there have been instances of a few that do, however these are very rare, and their manes are much smaller and less prominent than a male's natural one. Basically the case for all female Forte operators (e.g. Sideroca, Vulcan, etc...), who have big and prominent horns characteristic of bulls. Female bovids, or cows, have much smaller and shorter horns.
# Film.{{Elysium}}: GravityIsAHarshMistress: Of the "varying gravity" type. The hijacked spacecraft at the beginning seem to ignore it; and the military craft flying up to Elysium seems to have some sort Artificial Gravity, but when said craft carrying the main characters lurches to the side near the Elysium torus everyone falls sideways "down" to Elysium. Your head can spin trying to figure out what is going on here - did the gravity switch off? Elysium can't pull the characters down - is the craft flying along the curve of Elysium? If so... why? A lot of Fridge Logic in that scene for physics nerds to sort out, but this happens this way because RealityIsUnrealistic and Rule of Cool.
# Headscratchers.{{Continuum}}: Ep. 8?), Hoyt somehow manages to die from a clearly nonlethal shoulder shot.There's no such thing as a "nonlethal" place to be shot. The bullet, or fragments (if it hit a bone), could have could have hit a major blood vessel. Combine that with shock from heavy tissue damage and pain amd you've got one dead guy. Oh, dear. You've fallen victim to thinking the Only a Flesh Wound trope is realistic. Television Is Trying to Kill Us.But what about those fancy suits Kiera et al have? Then bullets really do only cause flesh wounds!
# Headscratchers.HonorHarrington: U.S. submarines do get excellent food, or at least, that's what the military is officially telling the press. See here.
# Series.TheGoldbergs: Some plots points are occasionally criticized as being too outlandish or goofy even for a sitcom. Adam F. Goldberg counters such criticism by saying that not only did such things happen to him in his childhood, he has video evidence to back it up.In one episode, Pops gives a hilarious, rambling wedding toast on video that seems almost too outlandish to be anything other than fiction; The Stinger shows the video of the real Pops saying it verbatim. Real and fictional Pops: My appendix burst inside without causing me any pain. I have one large scar across my abdomen and one scar all the way down my right side. And I had one of my kidneys removed. [beat] Can I erase that part about the kidney? That's all I have to say.
# ComicStrip.PrinceValiant: ArtisticLicenseHistory: Hal Foster wasn't afraid to change things to suit the story. Contemporary historical figures make appearances, archaic place names (like Gaul for France for example) are used, the Western Roman Empire is still hanging on, paganism is still widely practiced in Europe and the clothing worn throughout the series is more-or-less grounded in the Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, popular anachronistic trappings common to Arthurian literature (such as stone castles, chivalry, jousting and the title of knight) are heavily featured. Justifiable, as these elements have become so ubiquitous to Arthurian mythology that their absence would invoke a sense of RealityIsUnrealistic and most of the castles are implied, if not outright stated, to be Roman strongholds. The depiction of continental Europe as a post-apocalyptic wasteland after the fall of the Western Roman Empire has been increasingly disproved by historians since the nineteenth century.
# Series.ScrapheapChallenge: While the scrapyards are all real locations, the piles of parts and metal were ‘carefully’ laid out by the program’s staff, as in reality, breaker’s yards are typically much better organised.
# Literature.ChildrenOfTheLastDays: Invoked in the foreword of Strangers and Sojourners.
# Characters.{{Maleficent}}: AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted, somewhat. This film's Aurora looks a good deal more childlike than the original 1959 character. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic; Aurora's original design was modeled after actresses in their twenties, despite still being sixteen in canon. If anything, this film's incarnation actually does look like an actual teenager, by virtue of being portrayed by one.
# Recap.ThomasAndFriendsS2E16BreakVan: FailedASpotCheck: Nobody In-Universe realises anything wrong with a signal box being built at the end of a train track without any buffersnote A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, as in these No OSHA Compliance days, many yards did have short stub-sidings running up to the buildings.
# WebVideo.TwoBestFriendsPlay: In the full playthrough of Man Vs. Wild, Matt and Pat are very critical of the glacier cave in the Patagonia level, claiming that it looks "unfinished" because the interior is completely blue. Real glacier caves actually are that blue. Similarly, while playing Resident Evil during the Shitstorm of Scariness, they both laugh at the absurdity of the Smith & Wesson 500, which Pat claims doesn't exist. It actually does. While making fun of Tekken's characters talking to each other in their own language despite some being billingual, Woolie concedes that he did speak only English to his French bosses who only replied in French, living in a country with two official languages.
# Film.HiddenInSilence: While the film has some Dramatization or Pragmatic Adaptation moments, several moments which some viewers initially thought were storytelling inventions were taken directly from the real people's accounts of the story.Fusia's prayers are answered at key moments in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, and she considered this to be a miracle in real life. Helena was really accosted and beaten while doing a job that Fusia couldn't risk being recognized while doing. The protagonists Living with the Villain for several months and the Germans hearing a noise and checking the attic is real. Fusia really did sneak into the ghetto multiple times to meet with people before they came to her house. Fusia did have a boyfriend who was tricked thinking she's dating a German officer because the group couldn't risk letting him find out about her secret houseguests. The first Russian soldier the group encounters after liberation really was another Jew.
# Characters.GoldenKamuySugimotosGroup: His aftermath for brain damage qualifies: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like decreased mobility or speech impediments), he's shown to recover without any apparent effects of it. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And in the next chapter, he's shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, being all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's tracks, and acting much easier to anger, even for his usual standards.
# Characters.AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily: Sozin decreed the practice of hunting dragons for glory which led to the almost complete extinction of the species. This in spite of the fact that Sozin owned a dragon himself. Turf Wars reveals he outlawed same-sex relationships. While this attitude actually fits the real-life setting and era the Fire Nation was based on, it's said to have been tolerant beforehand. No reason why he did this other than to establish "That guy was the worst!" is given.
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning: The Doctor's "English Accent" is almost good enough, but doesn't quite cut the mustard! Paul McGann doesn't use his real accent to play the Doctor.
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# YMMV.TheHills: OvershadowedByControversy: While the show's RealityIsUnrealistic tendencies were not entirely hidden even beforehand, the Les Deux "club fight" between Lauren and Heidi in Season 2 — treated as a momentary spat in the show, and a serious altercation in real-life that necessitated a police presence — was the first clue many fans got that the show was deliberately manipulated to play up certain storylines. Allegations of cast member Lauren Conrad having a sextape (ultimately untrue) rocked public perception of the show, casting a damper on certain storylines in Season 2 and 3 that portrayed Lauren as a virtuous intern.
# Characters.SniperEliteIII: BunnyEarsLawyer: Several Afrika Korps and Schutzvollstrecker soldiers note that he is a very eccentric individual, such as wearing medieval style armor over his uniform (though see RealityIsUnrealistic for reasons). This doesn't make him any less dangerous as a soldier, as his plan almost succeeds and gives Karl a very difficult challenge.
# Trivia.TheLegoMovie: While the entire role is obviously based on voice acting, Liam Neeson gets to showcase his talent for doing cartoon character voices - most of the scenes where he argues back and forth in both voices are actually done in a single take with no editing, rather than doing both voices separately and splicing them together.
# YMMV.XComEnemyUnknown: XCOM rookie troopers actually have pretty good accuracy ratings if you compare them to real-life soldiers, but they're mainly remembered for all those times where they missed when firing a shotgun point blank at an alien the size of a bus. "XCOM Rookies" is sort of a byword in many communities for "supposedly elite trooper that can't hit the broad side of a barn." This is due to them supposedly being the “best of the best” from the world’s militaries, despite having trouble hitting large targets like Mutons in zero cover that (from our point of view) are standing completely still.
# Film.ThirtyDaysOfNight: "Barrow" is a kind of tomb. And an actual town.
# ContrivedCoincidence.{{Literature}}: The Adventures of Blue Avenger by Norma Howe argues that this trope falls under RealityIsUnrealistic. Unlikely coincidences happen all the time, and Million to One Chance events are pretty common in a world with nearly seven billion people. So here comes one...
# Creator.HammerheadProduction: In the site's entry of Titanic, there's a comment in that one scene of the miniature ship (by Digital Domain) looked faker than the CG Dolphins that were also present.
# Creator.ChristopherHitchens: He claimed to hate clichés in writing, so when he visited Communist-era Czechoslovakia, he promised himself that he wouldn't make references to Franz Kafka in his reports. When he was arrested while visiting a group of political activists and told by the police that he didn't need to know the charge, he realized that reality is sometimes indistinguishable from parody. Similarly, he didn't want to mention Nineteen Eighty-Four before he visited North Korea, but found it to be such a perfect rendition of the dystopian state in the novel that he almost suspected it to be the regime's unofficial source of inspiration.
# WesternAnimation.TheProudFamily: There was actually some debate because Papi looked "too white" to be Hispanic. It's no secret LaCienega counts as Hispanic (she and Sunset are darker skinned than Felix, who's tan) but some assumed that Felix was half Hispanic, and that his mom was. However, it's fully possible for Papi to be white but still be Hispanic, there are plenty of Hispanics who can be considered white. Heck, just look at Guillermo del Toro.
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because blanks are still quite dangerous, despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and carelessness with a blank has killed at least one person.
# Characters.TheFaultInOurStars: Hazel is terminally ill and her boyfriend is in remission. Nonetheless, Hazel lives while Augustus dies. In reality, this is very much possible.
# Series.{{Reign}}: Many critics have complained that the show does this with Mary, but, because RealityIsUnrealistic, she actually averts this trope. The historical
# Headscratchers.MetroidFusion: The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually SR388's asteroid moon. An impact event in real life is always devastating,
# Series.SeaPatrol: Characters leaving the show at the end of most seasons unexplainedly, which happens on real boats all the time.
# Pantheon.NicknamesAndRenames: Hired as the getaway driver, has an absurd interest in sex and porn, played by Quentin Tarantino and dies, somehow survived being shot in the head before bleeding out, barely known in the story
# Literature.TheTechnicolorTimeMachine: Extensively lampshaded by the whole novel.
# Film.TheBigChill: In a roundabout way. Kevin Kline was reluctant to do the scene in which Harold and Meg have sex so she can conceive a child, feeling it was unrealistic. But he later said that after the movie's release several people told him they had been in the same situation.
# Recap.MightyMagiswordsS1E50QuestForKnowledge: Neddy refers to Gateaux as Townsend, which the latter claims isn't a real name. Neddy is played by Townsend Coleman.
# Film.IndependenceDay: Reality Is Unrealistic When Steve first meets the President, they only shake hands. This is correct, as he's uncovered (not wearing headgear) and thus he's not required to salute. They play it straight at the end, though. The President salutes Steve, who is still without headgear. Steve has to hurriedly hand Jasmine his cigar to appropriately salute back. Marine One is able to travel from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base within the nine minutes left before the aliens' attack. Assuming the helicopter went close to its maximum speed, given how short on time they were, it can take about four minutes to fly the roughly ten miles as the crow flies between the two locations.
# YMMV.{{Bleach}}: Japanese culture tends to view child abuse as a private problem that should be dealt with inside the family first and foremost, while Western attitudes are much more interventionist. From a Western perspective, Chad and Orihime both living without guardians by age 15—Orihime has been living alone since middle school, specifically because of parental abuse, and having limited economic support from her only living relative instead of living with her—can be difficult to suspend disbelief for. RealityIsUnrealistic, in many Western countries, even America, there are many officially and de facto independent minors in situations ranging from parental abandonment to walking out themselves to separation agreements that provide support but not control.
# Webcomic.MarryMeBobbyCrosby: One of the News Commentators thinks the entire thing is a publicity stunt. Though, to give him credit, he does bring up some good points for it, despite them all just being coincidences. Really, REALLY, convenient coincidences. Also, Guy is too realistic of a pirate for audiences to connect with. Don't ask.
# Literature.ShinganNoYuusha: Combined with RealityIsUnrealistic. The womb does indeed have powerful defenses that protect the fetus from diseases that affect the mother. Children delivered by C-section have been found free of disease, even when the mother has dangerous co-genital S.T.D.s like herpes and Aids.
# YMMV.TheHunchbackOfNotreDame: Would you believe us if we told you that it actually wasn't Quasimodo's deformities that the peasants ostracized him for, but his red hair? Such were the prejudices of actual Medieval Parisians.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationIVenonatToCloyster: Cloyster's Ice-typing might not seem to make sense at first, given that bivalves are normally associated with tropical waters. It's actually based on polar bivalves, which are "the most numerous group of mollusks in the Arctic deep-sea". As for that Overly-Long Tongue on Shellder? Real life bivalves have these "tongues" as well, which are actually their equivalent to feet.
# Headscratchers.{{Animorphs}}: NameOne: Name One? Sharks 400 million years. Crocodiles 200 million years. Grasshoppers 115 million years. RealityIsUnrealistic
# VideoGame.TheSunkenCityCollection: The Warrior was a literal case of this. Her backstory reveals that she was a serial killer who handpicked male victims for their Mr. Fanservice qualities, and can even be seen groping herself as she murders them. This is actually a common motive for real life serial killers.
# YMMV.{{Interstellar}}: Gargantua is stunning. It being an entirely accurate representation of a black hole (to the point of actually showing an effect that physicists didn't know about before simply because they hadn't put the black hole equations into a computer program as high-quality as the one the movie used) seals it.
# Film.TheHunted2003: Zig-Zagging Trope.To quote Roger Ebert's review: We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides. They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting. On the other hand Tom Brown, Jr., the primary consultant on the film is a bit ashamed of it despite this. ...the bloody knife fight at the end — no way it would last 4 minutes, any of those wounds are lethal.
# VideoGame.SimCity: Criminals caught by the police will go to prison even if you have no Courthouse in town, or even in the region, to give them a trial, which is a big no-no in most justice systems around the world. Possible subversion: That said, in real life it's not uncommon for the courthouse to be combined with something else, like the City Hallnote Prominent example: Up until the completion of the Criminal Justice Center in 1994, most criminal trials in Philadelphia—one of the 5 largest cities in the United States at the time—were held in the Philadelphia City Hall. Please note that even after criminal functions were moved to the CJC, City Hall is still primarily a courthouse—it's just that the relevant trials are civil rather than criminal. (City government functions are mostly located in two nearby municipal office buildings or in rented space.) (pretty easy to get in this game) or even the police station. Perhaps the assumption is that this is what's going on.
# Trivia.TaylorSwift: With the rerecordings coming out, Taylor's accent from her earlier albums has been frequently referred to as a "fake country" accent that she's just dropped now. (Mostly due to the differences between her accent and a traditional Southern accent.) Her accent on those albums is actually very much real and is standard for central Pennsylvania (where she's from). It's faded for the most part, including from her speaking voice, as she no longer lives there. (A notable exception to this is "I'll Bet You Think About Me" from Red (Taylor's Version), which uses her native accent.)
# Series.TheArtfulDodger: Lady Belle Fox wants to become a woman surgeon. In the 1850s. Which isn't quite as far-fetched as it might sound given that the first female surgeon Mary Edwards Walker became a qualified surgeon around this time in real life.
# Fanfic.{{Turtles}}: Koume finds it rather odd that Anzu, Momo and Yuzu's parents all named them after fruit(apricot, peach and citrus, respectively). Koume's name means "little plum" in Japanese, and she never acknowledges that her own parents also named her after a fruit. As listed here, it's actually pretty common in Japan for girls to have some sort of a fruit-themed name, just like the Student Council members and Koume do.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationVMinccinoToVolcarona: Look up "derpfish" on Google Images and there's a good chance you'll see this guy's mug. Its appearance is actually toned down compared to its inspiration.
# Headscratchers.GreenLantern: Also, from an actual Real Life perspective? I am delighted to expand your knowledge by informing you that not all sapphire aka corundum stones are even blue! (Yeah, I was surprised too) It's just that blue is the most famous and iconic color of "sapphire" stones. Notice the ones on that page though include some that could easily double as "Star" Sapphires, whether we're going for Magenta shades or the more purple violets! (And in before somebody mentions "about that magenta thing, pink is not violet!!" - yes, it is, at least in Fuschia/Magenta hues it can be. Specifically, the hues they tend to color the Star Sapphires in in classic color schemes from Silver Age onward are classifiable not just as "pink" but also as a variant of "red-violet", which I discovered when I actually Googled the latter. Fridge Brilliance since it keeps it separate from blue-violet...which is what actual "indigo" is in Real Life!)
# Trivia.{{Gladiator}}: David Franzoni's original script had Maximus named Narcissus and surviving along with his family, Commodus being strangled in the baths (as he was by the real Narcissus), the fight at the Colosseum against a rhinoceros instead of tigers and Lucilla not making it to the end of the movie but being executed (as she was in reality) along with some senators inside a Sicilian Bull. The rhinos became tigers because it was impossible to train real rhinos and CGI replacements didn't look convincing. The other things were changed because of RealityIsUnrealistic.
# Recap.XenaS06E20SoulPossession: The fangirls are unimpressed with Ares fireballs once they get to see them in real life. Hey! What’s wrong with the special effects? Yeah, they’re really cheesy.
# Creator.HarryTurtledove: He originally wrote under the pseudonyms "Eric Iverson" and "H.N. Turteltaub" because his editor thought "Turtledove" sounded too much like a made-up name.
# NotAlwaysWorking.TropesAToE: The beginning of this story made quite a number of posts think it was actually another story (never mind the fact that the odds of someone else witnessing the same circumstances and submitting them to this website are astronomical). To elaborate, the older story involved a Designated Hero standing in line at a supermarket and holding everyone up because she was observing Remembrance Day, whereas the later story also had a woman holding up a supermarket line, but that was because she was having a seizure. In the latter story's case, the cashier refused to help the customer even when the submitter, who happened to be a doctor, said that she was having a seizure, because "if she was having a seizure she'd be writhing on the floor, wouldn't she?". The cashier also voided both the sick customer and the doctor's purchases because they stepped out of line, saying that "they must be joking if they thought she would give them their shopping back."
# SpecialEffectFailure.LiveActionTV: Moonbase 3, a BBC sci-fi series, was criticized for its cheap-looking props and sets.
# Film.ARoyalNightOut: The girls did go out, but they were both younger than
# Recap.DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice: Some people have lambasted the appearance of Isabella
# OneThousandWaysToDie.TropesLToS: One of these gets himself killed in "Flame Retard-Ant". When he accidentally sets himself on fire, he jumps into the water to put it out but goes into shock due to the water's cold temperature and drowns. Unusually, the episode points out that in real life, arsonists are rarely motivated by pyromania.
# Trivia.{{Vikings}}: Freydis' actress asked to be actually strangled in the scene where Ivar kills her. There was a medic standing by on-set to ensure she didn't receive any permanent damage, but what you see on-screen is her actual reaction, which accounts for why it also takes much longer then most scenes where someone is trying to strangle someone else to death in TV shows.
# Headscratchers.MassEffect2Archive2: I sorry, but this CG artist must contradict you. Motion capture animation can be redone by hand with only a few minor hassles, in fact very rarely will any production house use the raw motion capture data. They always tweek it by hand to smooth out errors and because good animation should be more exaggerated. The reprogramming of the different weapons is a valid point, though. But mostly its just time constraints.
# VideoGame.AssassinsCreedSyndicate: There's been some hubbub over Evie openly participating in boxing matches during the extremely sexist Victorian age, under the assumption that female participation in combat sports is a recent development. However, women's boxing was actually a thing in Victorian England. One example is Elizabeth Wilkinson, who fought even earlier during the early 18th century. She also went up against men in mixed-gender boxing matches. Things only start to become less grounded in reality because Evie doesn't appear to have much muscle, but still packs as much a punch as Jacob, using the same moves. See Rule of Fun.
# Recap.TheForbiddenLoveOfYukariYakumo: Discussed in chapter seven's Author's Notes by Tokage, subverted in that her 'reality' is still fictional.
# Fanfic.WhipAndWing: Twilight advises rainbow Dash and Lyra to do this when they write about the Nazis. She says, "Nopony would believe that any creatures would support an organization that's so pointless cruel and murderous."
# Characters.{{Myst}}: His double life must have been extremely taxing. Such stress can easily take a toll on one's health.
# Fridge.TheHungerGames: There are real-life squirrel-hunting competitions in places like southern Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia — Hillbilly coal-mining country, even. Bonus points are awarded for a shot through the eye. The competitions are conducted with muzzle-loading black-powder rifles even less accurate than a good hunting bow. Winners routinely turn in nothing but eye-shot squirrels.
# AvengersEndgame.TropesPToZ: As Hulk testily explains to Scott and Rhodey, the popular portrayal of time travel in films like Back to the Future isn't how time travel works at all.
# Recap.FilmRerollMemento: invoked Invoked: When Teddy tells Leonard that there's a guy in Chinatown that gave Leonard all of his tattoos and notes, he points out that it isn't actually that impossible to imitate his handwriting. "You think that's fuckin' sci-fi technology?!"
# Fanfic.{{Shorn}}: Yes, shaming/torturing (psychologically) someone by haircut did happen in reality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a Real Life section in Traumatic Haircut.
# Characters.DeltaruneNoelle: Noelle is sometimes thought to be a case of Animal Gender-Bender due to having antlers. However, both male and female reindeer have antlers (differing only in when they shed their antlers), as opposed to most species of deer where only the males have them.
# Series.{{Vikings}}: Some viewers complained about Danila Kozlovsky's accent playing Oleg the Prophet, calling it "fake-sounding" and like an American trying too hard to sound Russian. Apparently, they were unaware that Danila actually is Russian and his English is a product of learning his lines phonetically since he's not a fluent speaker.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E14StrangerThanFanFiction: DoubleMeaningTitle: Based on the common idiom for RealityIsUnrealistic and Rainbow's first-hoof knowledge that the Daring Do books are actually memoirs published as fiction and written under a Pen Name.
# YMMV.TheLionGuard: Fuli's "inaccurate" design is also not as off-base as the critics seem to believe; "king" cheetahs are an an unusual color morph, but they're hardly vanishingly rare either. Fuli's splotchy coloring and vaguely square patterns are actually a fairly spot-on representation.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Funny.{{Recess}}: The plan to get Spinelli out of the Ashleys is to have everyone on the playground change their name to Ashley and force their way into the group. When the Ashleys protest that half of them aren't even girls, Gus replies "Hey, it's the '90s!"Made even funnier by the fact that Ashley is also a male given name.
# Film.DungeonsAndDragons2000: Profion's evil lair is so covered in human bones it comes across as extremely heavy-handed and over the top. While it certainly fits Profion's personality, it's a real place, and more or less unaltered.
# Trivia.YoureNext: Barbara Crampton (Aubrey) was 53 years old when she shot the film, but as she looks very good for her age, makeup effects were used to make her look more her age as Aubrey and thus more acceptable as the mother to three adult children.
# Film.{{Ali}}: TheDreaded: George Foreman, after he is introduced pulverizing Joe Frazier in the famous "Down goes Frazier!" fight. This may be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic for younger viewers more familiar with Foreman as the avuncular figure who sells grills on TV.
# VideoGame.{{Arknights}}: Some female operators are very obviously based on male specimens of their Animal Motifs.Conviction is very obviously based on a peacock, complete with colorful trains and blue feathers. Female peafowl, or peahens, are much less colorful and don't have tail trains. Coupled with Conviction's Ambiguous Gender in the provided bio, fans have theorized that the operator is a Dude Looks Like a Lady. Siege's impressively poofy hair takes cues from the mane of a male lion. It's worth noting that while lionesses usually don't have manes, there have been instances of a few that do, however these are very rare, and their manes are much smaller and less prominent than a male's natural one. Basically the case for all female Forte operators (e.g. Sideroca, Vulcan, etc...), who have big and prominent horns characteristic of bulls. Female bovids, or cows, have much smaller and shorter horns.
# Film.{{Elysium}}: GravityIsAHarshMistress: Of the "varying gravity" type. The hijacked spacecraft at the beginning seem to ignore it; and the military craft flying up to Elysium seems to have some sort Artificial Gravity, but when said craft carrying the main characters lurches to the side near the Elysium torus everyone falls sideways "down" to Elysium. Your head can spin trying to figure out what is going on here - did the gravity switch off? Elysium can't pull the characters down - is the craft flying along the curve of Elysium? If so... why? A lot of Fridge Logic in that scene for physics nerds to sort out, but this happens this way because RealityIsUnrealistic and Rule of Cool.
# Headscratchers.{{Continuum}}: Ep. 8?), Hoyt somehow manages to die from a clearly nonlethal shoulder shot.There's no such thing as a "nonlethal" place to be shot. The bullet, or fragments (if it hit a bone), could have could have hit a major blood vessel. Combine that with shock from heavy tissue damage and pain amd you've got one dead guy. Oh, dear. You've fallen
# Headscratchers.HonorHarrington: U.S. submarines do get excellent food, or at least, that's what the military is officially telling the press. See here.
# Series.TheGoldbergs: Some plots points are occasionally criticized as being too outlandish or goofy even for a sitcom. Adam F. Goldberg counters such criticism by saying that not only did such things happen to him in his childhood, he has video evidence to back it up.In one episode, Pops gives a hilarious, rambling wedding toast on video that seems almost too outlandish to be anything other than fiction; The Stinger shows the video of the real Pops saying it verbatim. Real and fictional Pops: My appendix burst inside without causing me any pain. I have one large scar across my abdomen and one scar all the way down my right side. And I had one of my kidneys removed. [beat] Can I erase that part about the kidney? That's all I have to say.
# ComicStrip.PrinceValiant: ArtisticLicenseHistory: Hal Foster wasn't afraid to change things to suit the story. Contemporary historical figures make appearances, archaic place names (like Gaul for France for example) are used, the Western Roman Empire is still hanging on, paganism is still widely practiced in Europe and the clothing worn throughout the series is more-or-less grounded in the Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, popular anachronistic trappings common to Arthurian literature (such as stone castles, chivalry, jousting and the title of knight) are heavily featured. Justifiable, as these elements have become so ubiquitous to Arthurian mythology that their absence would invoke a sense of RealityIsUnrealistic and most of the castles are implied, if not outright stated, to be Roman strongholds. The depiction of continental Europe as a post-apocalyptic wasteland
# Series.ScrapheapChallenge: While the scrapyards are all real locations, the piles of parts and metal were ‘carefully’ laid out by the program’s staff, as in reality, breaker’s yards are typically much better organised.
# Literature.ChildrenOfTheLastDays: Invoked in the foreword of Strangers and Sojourners.
# Characters.{{Maleficent}}: AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted, somewhat. This film's Aurora looks a good deal more childlike than the original 1959 character. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic; Aurora's original design was modeled after actresses in their twenties, despite still being sixteen in canon. If anything, this film's incarnation actually does look like an actual teenager, by virtue of being portrayed by one.
# Recap.ThomasAndFriendsS2E16BreakVan: FailedASpotCheck: Nobody In-Universe realises anything wrong with a signal box being built at the end of a train track without any buffersnote A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, as in these No OSHA Compliance days, many yards did have short stub-sidings running up to the buildings.
# WebVideo.TwoBestFriendsPlay: In the full playthrough of Man Vs. Wild, Matt and Pat are very critical of the glacier cave in the Patagonia level, claiming that it looks "unfinished" because the interior is completely blue. Real glacier caves actually are that blue. Similarly, while playing Resident Evil during the Shitstorm of Scariness, they both laugh at the absurdity of the Smith & Wesson 500, which Pat claims doesn't exist. It actually does. While making fun of Tekken's characters talking to each other in their own language despite some being billingual, Woolie concedes that he did speak only English to his French bosses who only replied in French, living in a country with two official languages.
# Film.HiddenInSilence: While the film has some Dramatization or Pragmatic Adaptation moments, several moments which some viewers initially thought were storytelling inventions were taken directly
# Characters.GoldenKamuySugimotosGroup: His aftermath for brain damage qualifies: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like decreased mobility or speech impediments), he's shown to recover without any apparent effects of it. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And in the next chapter, he's shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, being all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's tracks, and acting much easier to anger, even for his usual standards.
# Characters.AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily: Sozin decreed the practice of hunting dragons for glory which led to the almost complete extinction of the species. This in spite of the fact that Sozin owned a dragon himself. Turf Wars reveals he outlawed same-sex relationships. While this attitude actually fits the real-life setting and era the Fire Nation was based on, it's said to have been tolerant beforehand. No reason why he did this other than to establish "That guy was the worst!" is given.
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning: The Doctor's "English Accent" is almost good enough, but doesn't quite cut the mustard! Paul McGann doesn't use his real accent to play the Doctor.
Changed line(s) 82,92 (click to see context) from:
# Blog.GuardianAcorn: In her review of Magical Girl Site she references common criticism of bullies in anime, and points out that people in real life actually act this way.
# Recap.TheLegendOfKorraS1E10TurningTheTides: The baby's eyes are open, he has a full head of hair instead of fuzz (though this is merely rare, not impossible), and he's already cooing.
# Film.AndStarringPanchoVillaAsHimself: The initial footage of Villa's ragtag army is treated with derision by potential investors. So the moviemakers provide uniforms, hire an actor to play Pancho Villa, and start inventing scenes for Rule of Drama. A scene is filmed of the gallant rebels returning home to the enthusiastic greeting of their womenfolk. Only the women are shy and awkward on camera, so prostitutes are used instead.
# Film.AfterEarth: Would all evidence of human civilization disappear in only a thousand years? You bet it would. Ironically the neolithic cave paintings Kitai finds would survive just as depicted as well, for the same reason they survived until the modern era - they were in a sheltered place.Also the animals... most people seem to assume they are "newly evolved" animals rather than just fancifully rendered regular earth animals that are currently confined to nature programs about the few remaining scraps of wilderness on our planet.
# Film.TheVirginSpring: The movie goes a long way reproducing the mentality of the medieval Swedish countryside, a lot of which will appear strange to a modern audience. At the same time it averts this trope, exposing the rather liberal and cheerful relationship between Karin and her parents, standing in a striking contrast to the sheep-like obedience expected of every child that, according to most people, was prevalent in that time period.
# Film.UnitedPassions: Downplayed; Sir Stanley Rous actually did lose the role of FIFA president to Havelange primarily because of his blatant racism and open support for Apartheid. However, the fact that the film for some reason chooses to give a Historical Villain Upgrade to someone whose views would already be considered morally repugnant by modern standards, while also lionising a successor who was himself a very flawed man, ends up making Rous' faults look comically overblown by comparison.
# WesternAnimation.MyLittlePonyTales: The only way to tell a background pony's gender is by its single clothing accessory or by the length of its mane. And sometimes, not even then. Half of Teddy's farming cousins, who wear pink coats and have long, curly rainbow-colored manes, are male. And the father looks identical to the mother, but that's a different trope entirely.... This is actually more realistic than it seems, as horses really don't have much in the way of obvious sexual dimorphism, so clothing or mane style being the only differing feature is logical.
# Film.RoboCop2: Cain snapping Angie's neck on the close-up shot was done with the actual actress, Galyn Görg, and not a dummy. According to Robert Tippet, she was incredibly flexible and had a very strong neck. Even when her head was almost at a 90-degree angle, she was completely fine and kept cranking her neck more when necessary.
# Awesome.TheAngryVideoGameNerd: The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
# Characters.Godzilla1998: Doug Walker said that lizards don't eat fish, but in reality, there are lizards that do. That said, iguanas are not among those lizards (they're herbivores), although you could interpret the change in diet to part of its mutation.
# Headscratchers.MirrorsEdge: There are those of us in real life that have that kind of frame. 5' 9"-10" and 130 lbs, with a so-called slender athletic build, right here. Not to be cliche, but people do come in plenty of shapes and sizes.This trope is male, taller, and lighter. Can't exactly run on walls, but I'm not super nonathletic. So yeah it happens.
# Recap.TheLegendOfKorraS1E10TurningTheTides: The baby's eyes are open, he has a full head of hair instead of fuzz (though this is merely rare, not impossible), and he's already cooing.
# Film.AndStarringPanchoVillaAsHimself: The initial footage of Villa's ragtag army is treated with derision by potential investors. So the moviemakers provide uniforms, hire an actor to play Pancho Villa, and start inventing scenes for Rule of Drama. A scene is filmed of the gallant rebels returning home to the enthusiastic greeting of their womenfolk. Only the women are shy and awkward on camera, so prostitutes are used instead.
# Film.AfterEarth: Would all evidence of human civilization disappear in only a thousand years? You bet it would. Ironically the neolithic cave paintings Kitai finds would survive just as depicted as well, for the same reason they survived until the modern era - they were in a sheltered place.Also the animals... most people seem to assume they are "newly evolved" animals rather than just fancifully rendered regular earth animals that are currently confined to nature programs about the few remaining scraps of wilderness on our planet.
# Film.TheVirginSpring: The movie goes a long way reproducing the mentality of the medieval Swedish countryside, a lot of which will appear strange to a modern audience. At the same time it averts this trope, exposing the rather liberal and cheerful relationship between Karin and her parents, standing in a striking contrast to the sheep-like obedience expected of every child that, according to most people, was prevalent in that time period.
# Film.UnitedPassions: Downplayed; Sir Stanley Rous actually did lose the role of FIFA president to Havelange primarily because of his blatant racism and open support for Apartheid. However, the fact that the film for some reason chooses to give a Historical Villain Upgrade to someone whose views would already be considered morally repugnant by modern standards, while also lionising a successor who was himself a very flawed man, ends up making Rous' faults look comically overblown by comparison.
# WesternAnimation.MyLittlePonyTales: The only way to tell a background pony's gender is by its single clothing accessory or by the length of its mane. And sometimes, not even then. Half of Teddy's farming cousins, who wear pink coats and have long, curly rainbow-colored manes, are male. And the father looks identical to the mother, but that's a different trope entirely.... This is actually more realistic than it seems, as horses really don't have much in the way of obvious sexual dimorphism, so clothing or mane style being the only differing feature is logical.
# Film.RoboCop2: Cain snapping Angie's neck on the close-up shot was done with the actual actress, Galyn Görg, and not a dummy. According to Robert Tippet, she was incredibly flexible and had a very strong neck. Even when her head was almost at a 90-degree angle, she was completely fine and kept cranking her neck more when necessary.
# Awesome.TheAngryVideoGameNerd: The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
# Characters.Godzilla1998: Doug Walker said that lizards don't eat fish, but in reality, there are lizards that do. That said, iguanas are not among those lizards (they're herbivores), although you could interpret the change in diet to part of its mutation.
# Headscratchers.MirrorsEdge: There are those of us in real life that have that kind of frame. 5' 9"-10" and 130 lbs, with a so-called slender athletic build, right here. Not to be cliche, but people do come in plenty of shapes and sizes.This trope is male, taller, and lighter. Can't exactly run on walls, but I'm not super nonathletic. So yeah it happens.
to:
# Blog.GuardianAcorn: In her review of Magical Girl Site she references common criticism of bullies in anime, and points out Theatre.TheMiracleWorker: Some viewers consider it unrealistic that people Helen is portrayed saying "wah-wah" to mean “water” when she was too young to learn to speak before her illness. However, according to her autobiography, Helen was 19 months old and had begun to speak when she became sick. She did indeed say "wah-wah" and claimed that she retained that word for a long time after most memory of speech had faded.
# Literature.TheBerenstainBears: AnAesop: Some of the Big Chapter ones are particularly hamfisted inreal life actually act this way.
doing so (such as No Guns Allowed, where Too-Tall gets busted for using a squirt gun and the police confiscate it). RealityIsUnrealistic: Under super-strict zero-tolerance (read zero-thinking) rules, kids can and have been suspended or even expelled simply for bringing squirt guns to schools, even if it was only by mistake. In certain cases, kids have even faced prosecution for this.
#Recap.TheLegendOfKorraS1E10TurningTheTides: Literature.ThursdayNext: After The baby's eyes are open, he has a full head of hair instead of fuzz (though this is merely rare, Eyre Affair, Thursday's look becomes the in thing, and she learns that she doesn't quite have the Thursday Next look right. "How can I not impossible), and he's already cooing.
have the Thursday Next look? I am Thursday Next!"
# Film.AndStarringPanchoVillaAsHimself: HudsonHawk: The initial footage "Da Vinci Codex" is a misnomer, as there are at least 5 codices of Villa's ragtag army is treated with derision by potential investors. So Da Vinci's. The one in the moviemakers provide uniforms, hire an actor to play Pancho Villa, film is neither; it is a composite of two recognizable Da Vinci works: the Vitruvian Man on one side, which was never in a codex, and start inventing scenes for Rule of Drama. A scene is filmed of the gallant rebels returning home to Study on Muscles on the enthusiastic greeting of their womenfolk. Only other, which are among the women are shy and awkward on camera, Windsor Folios. No such codex exists. Nor is there a Da Vinci codex in the Vatican Museum.
# Fanfic.AnomalySeries: John A. Pence winning the presidential election. Apparently this was all calculated in full by the author.
# Trivia.BridgeToTerabithia: Leslie's death was inspired by how the aforementioned Lisa Hill was killed at age 8 by being struck by lightning. Paterson thought that would be [[RealityIsUnrealistic too unbelievable]], soprostitutes are used she changed it to drowning instead.
# VideoGame.MaxPayne: The third game comes as close to the serious (and [[RealityIsUnrealistic nigh-unimpressive]]) end as the Max Payne formula allows it; the Favela thugs look like straight out of any Real Life favela, and the private contractors and police are closely modeled on actual organisations - there are no fancy exaggerations (apart from Bald!Max' (much-mocked) Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist get-up, and Hoboken's "spray-tan Guido douche" stereotype).
# Series.PrivateSchulz: SS officer Bernhard Naujocks, on whom the Neuheim character is based, had a heavily-scarred face and wore a black-eyepatch — but that would have seemed too cliched even for a comedy.
# Theatre.ABronxTale: A few reviewers criticized the romance plot, feeling that it was a rip-off of previous musicals like West Side Story and Memphis. Apparently they didn't realize the show is based off of Chazz Palminteri's life and he actually did date a black girl during the racial unrest of the late 1960s.
# Headscratchers.PulpFiction: The scene only takes a few minutes, and gunshots [[RealityIsUnrealistic aren't necessarily recognized as such]], especially by people with little experience with guns. The first shots may have been dismissed by neighbours as a car backfiring, or a TV on too loud (remember, it's 7 am when this happens; the neighbours may still be asleep). When they finally gun Brett down, and Jules is being all contemplative about the "divine intervention," then people might've started making calls. You'll note that while Jules is pondering the meaning of life, Vincent is getting increasingly agitated and saying they should get out of there before the cops come.
# Headscratchers.CanadasWorstDriver: Turns out, [[RealityIsUnrealistic depth perception doesn't have much effect on driving. Or a lot of things]].
# Manga.GoldenKamuy: An example particularly noteworthy because of RealityIsUnrealistic reasons would be Sugimoto's aftermath for brain damage: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like losing mobility or speech), he's shown without any apparent effect. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And next chapter, he's actually shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, getting all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's track, and being much quicker to anger, even for his usual standards. Do the math.
# Film.AfterEarth: Would all evidence of human civilization disappear in TheAddamsFamily: About the only a thousand years? You bet it would. Ironically thing that you can't actually do in the neolithic cave paintings Kitai finds would survive just as depicted as well, for Mamushka from the same reason they survived until first film is the modern era - thrown sword-swallow. Everything else is actually something you can do if you can juggle.
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Alex Rider: Some fans say that Alex died at the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they werein bad, but because some fans think surviving a sheltered place.Also bullet to the animals... most people seem to assume they are "newly evolved" animals rather than just fancifully rendered regular earth animals that are currently confined to nature programs about the few remaining scraps of wilderness on our planet.
chest is [[RealityIsUnrealistic unrealistic]].
# Film.TheVirginSpring: The movie goes a long way reproducing BlackHawkDown: People have pointed out that the mentality soldiers never use the downed helicopters' mounted miniguns to defend the crash sites. Miniguns do not work without electricitynote Most weapons in the military, other than some bolt-action rifles most typically used for sniping, use the "explosion" of the medieval Swedish countryside, a lot of which will appear strange bullet's gunpowder to a modern audience. At cycle the same time it averts this trope, exposing weapon and bring the rather liberal next bullet up and cheerful relationship between Karin ready to be fired. Miniguns fire too quickly for this, so they use electricity to cycle the barrels and her parents, standing in a striking contrast to feed the sheep-like obedience expected of every child that, according ammo belt, making them functionally useless (although Shughart did use their ammunition to most people, was prevalent in that time period.
reload his M14).
# Film.UnitedPassions: Downplayed; Sir Stanley Rous HydeParkOnHudson: Some people were creeped out by the pairing of Bill Murray and Laura Linney and Murray's much older character putting the moves on Linney's. Except this film is based on a true story and Roosevelt was a ladies' man.
# Film.ReclaimingTheBlade: Inevitable, given general attitudes and misconceptions concerning European swordsmanship.
# Fridge.{{Megamind}}: Bernard actuallydid lose the role of FIFA president has a good reason to Havelange primarily because of his blatant racism and open support for Apartheid. However, the fact think that Megamind's costume needs work. If you look at the Megamind masks and dummy in the film the heads are way smaller than his as it just wouldn't be practical for some a mask or dummy's head to be that size. So it's a case of in-universe RealityIsUnrealistic.He also has good reason chooses to give a Historical Villain Upgrade to someone whose views would already be considered morally repugnant by modern standards, while also lionising a successor who was himself a very flawed man, ends up making Rous' faults look comically overblown by comparison.
think that Megamind's costume needs work because Megamind isn't wearing one of his usual supervillain outfits — he's wearing his pajamas.
# WesternAnimation.MyLittlePonyTales: TertiarySexualCharacteristics: The only way to tell a background pony's gender is by its single clothing accessory or by the length of its mane. And sometimes, not even then. Half of Teddy's farming cousins, who wear pink coats and have long, curly rainbow-colored manes, are male. And the father looks identical to the mother, but that's a different trope entirely.... This is actually [[RealityIsUnrealistic more realistic than itseems, seems]], as horses really don't have much in the way of obvious sexual dimorphism, so clothing or mane style being the only differing feature is logical.
# Creator.DougWalker: Pointed out in Balto about Steel being more realistic than he seems because Republicans can often act like that, destroying another party's goals purely out of spite.
# Film.RoboCop2: Cain snapping Angie's neck on the close-up shot was done with the ThirtyDaysOfNight: IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace: "Barrow" is a kind of tomb. [[RealityIsUnrealistic And an actual actress, Galyn Görg, and not a dummy. According to Robert Tippet, she was incredibly flexible and had a very strong neck. Even when her head was almost at a 90-degree angle, she was completely fine and kept cranking her neck more when necessary.
# Awesome.TheAngryVideoGameNerd: The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
town]].
# Characters.Godzilla1998: Doug Walker said that lizards don't eat fish, but PrehistoricKingdom: A very accurate depiction of the animal, though it looks slightly different from most in reality, there popular media. This is because most popular depictions of Brachiosaurus are lizards that do. That said, iguanas based off Giraffatitan, an African sauropod once thought to be a member of the genus.
# Literature.TheEmigrants: For some international audiences, the scenes taking place during Swedish summer nights, such as Arvid and Robert wrestling over the axe, seem like a case of Special Effect Failure due the lighting seeming like its dusk. However, summer nights in Sweden arenot among those lizards (they're herbivores), although very bright, and even though Småland is far south of the midnight sun there's only a few short hours of actual darkness. The rest of the night is more a prolonged dusk/dawn.
# Film.EasyA: A clique of Christian Fundamentalists and a homophobic school principal in California? It's more likely than youcould interpret think. Not all of California is as liberal as people think.
# WMG.TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance: Actually, it takes very little time for even large settlements in heavily forested areas to be overgrown when abandoned. [[RealityIsUnrealistic It's completely possible]] for Stone-in-the-Wood (which seems to be thechange most likely candidate for the ruin) to have disappeared within a generation.
# Characters.NerfNow: MeaningfulName: Aleksandrina translates to "Sasha" her Spear Counterpart, The Heavy's favorite minigun.Gratuitous Russian: Proper Russian name is Aleksandra. [[RealityIsUnrealistic Although it may sound less Russian to non-speakers than Aleksandrina.]]
# Trivia.TheDarkKnightRises: TranslationCorrection: A variant. As having Two First Names is an extremely rare phenomenon for Russian names, Dr. Leonid Pavel was given the more realistic surname "Pavlov" indiet the Russian dub (although, [[RealityIsUnrealistic as it turns out]], Russian people with the surname "Pavel" actually exist). Due to part the existence of its mutation.
a certain Dr. Pavlov in Real Life, this might have made it sound like Hollywood resorted to the Famous-Named Foreigner trope once again.
# Headscratchers.MirrorsEdge: {{Othello}}: Why on earth does Desdemona die? She's kind of half-dead, then comes back to life to make her final comments, then dies again. The major problem? She was killed by being smothered! If she didn't die when she was being smothered, it makes absolutely no sense that she should die again after the murder weapon was removed!Rule of Drama. It's a play, main characters who die get final speeches even if it makes no sense. Also a case of Reality is Unrealistic. Without getting too deep into it, a lack of air flow can cause anoxic brain damage, where the brain cells can die and cannot recover, even if the person is able to talk afterwards.
# Podcast.TheFinalPodblem: NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: Jeez, a guy starts one measly little pilot episode of a podcast with a fake advert for Ol' Triple Granddad's Patented Soothing Crabwax and he has to promise he isn't doing it again every time things discovered in the Research segment get improbable, [[RealityIsUnrealistic which is a lot]].
# Literature.MommieDearest: ChewingTheScenery: Dunaway mowing down the sets, props and co-stars in every scene she's in. To quote Variety's famous review: "Dunaway does not chew scenery. Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene and swallows it whole, costars and all." According to The Cinema Snob, this is largely because Joan [[RealityIsUnrealistic actually behaved this way]], citing one quote in particular. "I need sex for a clear complexion, but I'd rather do it for love."
# Series.{{Bottom}}: An Englishman named Hitler, and related to the infamous German Chancellor? Not just a piece of tasteless comedy. Adolf's older half-brother Alois Hitler Jr. actually emigrated to Liverpool, where he married a local woman named Bridget Dowling and had one child, William Patrick Hitler. William emigrated to the US (he and his mother were doing a lecture tour and were stranded when the war broke out), changed his last name and had no children, but the idea of a Hitler running around the UK is not outside the realm of probability.
# Toys.{{Bionicle}}: BeyondTheImpossible: At one point, Jaller sets Mantax ablaze on the ocean floor. It's Handwaved with the Wizard Did It rule; he has power over fire, and if he wants fire underwater, he can do that (not easily, but still...). Further justified by Greg on an online Q&A when he pointed out that it's [[RealityIsUnrealistic possible to have fire underwater]]. It just takes either certain chemicals or a lot of energy.
# Film.HeavensGate: The scene where Nate Champion writes his Final Speech in a burning cabin, which was unsurprisingly criticized for being melodramatic and an unnecessary addition? That actually happened. One of the few scenes true to historical events, actually.
# YMMV.MyChemicalRomance: NarmCharm: The "Na Na Na" video and "Art is the Weapon" trailer. Let's face it; MCR is made of Narm Charm. And it's fucking awesome. Gerard constantly Chewing the Scenery during video performances often gets some laughs as a break from the headbanging. He's often actually singing the lyrics, and at the intensity/volume of MCR's punk music, his face inevitably gets contorted. People have noticed with a lot of singers that [[RealityIsUnrealistic they can make some weird faces when singing live.]]
# Characters.KingKong2005: He claims that real heroes don't look like him. Turns out to be quite the truth in his case.
# Trivia.{{Tangled}}: The Bloodless Carnage when Mother Gothel stabs Eugene is actually to be expected, since Eugene is wearing a silk shirt. Silk is hard to actually pierce so when Mother Gothel stabbed him, he is actually cut by the silk wrapped around the blade, so the blood never reaches the metal.
# Creator.{{Mako}}: Yes, that was his real accent and not an exaggerated put on. There's a reason he kept it through all of his roles regardless of character.
# Funny.JonTronSeasonFive: When the host asks each of the debaters what convinced them of their theories, Jontron interrupts each contestant with a skit of himself dressed as one of them, saying "What started to happen was they just started saying it publicly in front of cameras", and picking up a tv that shows [[RealityIsUnrealistic an actual excerpt of financial and tech elites openly admitting to doing morally dubious actions]] (Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum for Sharmaine, and Mark Zuckerburg for Derek). Doubles as Fridge Horror.
# StylisticSuck.{{Film}}: According the DVD commentary of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, they actually went out of their way to make their scenes shot in Southern California [[RealityIsUnrealistic look like they were shot from Southern California]] when they were supposed to be in England, so Austin's joke about England looking nothing like Southern California would be funny. In the same scene, the characters pass a sign that just says "English Countryside."
# Trivia.PartyMonster: Casual reviewers of the film have derided it's schtick as a "lurid display of camp [that] soon turns tedious," and deride the characters as being played too over the top. The filmmakers insist that they actually toned those things down.
# Funny.OSWReview: After 123 Kid and Bob Holly win the tag match, V1 admits that he didn't believe Jay when he mentioned a few episodes prior that they held the tag belts for a good [=while. V1:=] "No way they put the World Tag Team Championships on these goofs." I was shocked watching this. OOC was equally in disbelief, fully expecting the Quebecers to come back afterwardnote They were in WCW at this time, and wouldn't return until 1997,, given how they had held the belts "for fucking ten years of the 90s".
# Music.JohnnyCash: In reviewing "Walk the Line," Roger Ebert was surprised to learn that Cash really had proposed to June Carter onstage during a concert. "It feels like the sort of scene screenwriters invent, but no."
# WesternAnimation.ScroogeAChristmasCarol: PoliticallyCorrectHistory: The film doesn't draw much attention to the fact that Harry has an Indian wife and several ethnically diverse friends at his party, despite still being set in Victorian London. The same is true for Fezziwig, who threw a Christmas party with some of the guests being people of colour. [[RealityIsUnrealistic That being said]], during the Victorian era, India had been part of the commonwealth for almost four hundred years, and London was by far the most populated trade city in the world.
# Characters.TheLegendOfKorraAllies: VocalDissonance: In his first appearance he has the exact same voice used for the teenage Zuko from the previous series, despite looking like he's in his thirties or so. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, since Dante Basco himself is in his thirties and naturally sounds like that. In the finale itself, when he has more lines, he does use some different inflections from Zuko, but it's still very close.
# Literature.BeauGeste: Comparing Beau Geste with Simon Murray's Legionnaire, a real-life account of the French Foreign Legion, it is apparent that the point where Lejaune draws the line on his Drill Sergeant Nasty treatment of the legionnaires is about the point where the real-life sergeants start.
# VideoGame.ProjectGothamRacing: Almost every game in this series warned players that the depictions of the game is unrealistic despite the fact that each game showed semi-realism such as breaking for turns instead of speed-turns, etc.
# ICarly.TropesAToE: AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle: =] Carly (and everyone else) repeatedly say "Yaki-MUH," as in "I'm not moving to Yaki-MUH." It's actually pronounced "Yakih-MAH." Apparently this was done deliberately. Also an odd case of RealityIsUnrealistic, since it's not an uncommon mispronunciation, though it's more common to southeastern Washington than metropolitan Seattle.
# Film.HappyGilmore: Happy's golf swing is mocked by several people (and secretly attempted by Shooter), but the ESPN show Sports Science showed that a running start gave Padraig Harrington an extra 30 yards distance. Unfortunately, the same show also showed that a running start destroys any chance at an accurate swing, so it's a trade-off of a little extra power for abysmal accuracy.
# Characters.HololiveJapanGenerationFive: Some female lions, in fact do have manes; theirs isn't as thick and bushy as their male counterparts, which Botan has.
# Series.{{Graceland}}: InvokedTrope: Used regularly on the show. The undercovers use many standard tropes and stereotypes to make their targets think that they can be trusted. Briggs invokes RealityIsUnrealistic to convince some drug dealers that his badge is fake and he is just an actor who played a cop in a movie. Johnny invokes Tattooed Crook to make people believe that he really is a hardcore Latino gang banger.
# Characters.HowIMetYourMotherOtherCharacters: EpicFail: In Chicago, Druthers designed a crystal tower. The problem? It reflected so much light that melted near buildings and boiled the aquarium, killing thousands of fish. [[RealityIsUnrealistic This actually happened in real life]]: The architect Rafael Vinloy designed not one but two buildings that focused sunlight to a point it melts plastic check The Other Wiki
# Literature.TheBoyInTheStripedPyjamas: Some children were retained in the concentration camp (see RealityIsUnrealistic below), but Shmuel would have been shot if he approached the fence.
# Film.DaysOfThunder: "Cole Trickle" was derided by some critics as too much of a stereotype NASCAR-sounding name. Except that the name is a Shout-Out to Dick Trickle.
# WesternAnimation.AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog: It's ridiculous to think that kids climbing into tumble dryers would be pervasive enough to devote a Sonic Says to, which is why Sonic lampshades this with a "Believe it or not..."
# DarthWiki.{{Headscratchers}}: I found some MAJOR Butt Pulls that show up EVERYWHERE Bombs explode! People bleed when they're hurt Isn't doing research against the law? You can say ass. Ass ass assity ass. See? My, how assinine.
# Film.RoadToPerdition: AdaptationNameChange: A very slight example. In The Movie, "John Looney" becomes "John Rooney" and "Michael O'Sullivan" becomes "Michael Sullivan". Interestingly, though Looney likely had his name changed so that the piece's villain wouldn't have a comical-sounding name, [[RealityIsUnrealistic "John Looney" is only a lightly-fictionalized version of the real Irish gangster in 1930s Rock Island]].
# Headscratchers.Passengers2016: To be fair, RealityIsUnrealistic. Space is quite empty, even asteroid belts, aside from the very thin and tenuous interstellar medium. An Asteroid Thicket in interstellar space would also be essentially devoid of illumination and impossible to spot from a planetary system. Sure, contingency plans should have been implemented, but it's easy to see why the designers would think they would be unlikely to need any.
# Theatre.DoneToDeath: The Authors are consistently surprised by things turning out realistically rather than how they would write it.
# Recap.AgentsOfSHIELDS3E2PurposeInTheMachine: Norwegian prisons are much nicer than US prisons. They're so much nicer, in fact, that the prison depicted is actually a lot worse than Norwegian prisons. They're more like dorms you're not allowed to leave. No barred doors or bare concrete blocks.
# Headscratchers.DoctorWhoSeries12: We live in an age where the net and PR can spin anything and make a solid fact into a debatable question. [[RealityIsUnrealistic If Qanon and the anti-vaccination movement are any indication.]] Within just a few decades, people were already saying that the Holocaust was a myth. With enough money, enough spin, and any narrative can be spun to fool enough people as the past decade has shown.
# WebVideo.CasualGeographic: One of the most common ways he discusses Artistic License – Biology. While there are some animals depicted in media as savage monsters and some such as lions as noble creatures, he points out this tends to be the case, such as great white sharks being hunted due to paranoia surrounding then because of Jaws even though they're docile and don't hunt humans.
# Literature.GrandmasterOfDemonicCultivationMoDaoZuShi: Downplayed in regards to the romance between the main duo and other characters' reactions to it. While homosexuality is a huge no-no in Real Life China both then and today, it was still more accepted in the country centuries prior — and the setting of the novel is inspired from ancient rather than modern China. However, there are several characters in the story — be they named or background characters — who express homophobic behavior.
# Characters.JurassicParkNonDinosaurs: AnimalGenderBender: All of them have huge crests on their heads, even though [[RealityIsUnrealistic in real life]] only male Pteranodons had large crests. Yet again, it could just be a manipulation of their DNA on [=InGen's=] part to make the female Pteranodons appear more formidable and eye-catching to potential park-goers.
# Film.TheIronClaw: AdaptedOut: Thereare those was, in fact, another Von Erich brother — Chris — who was completely omitted from the movie. This is partially to keep the screenplay to a manageable length, and partially because [[RealityIsUnrealistic the sheer scale of us in the real life tragedy might be hard for audiences to believe]]. Save for Kevin's, the brothers' families are likewise omitted, most notably Kerry's — while Kevin's sons Ross and Marshall (who are depicted in the film) grew up to become wrestlers, so did Kerry's younger daughter Lacey, who briefly competed in TNA in the late 2000s.
# JustForFun.TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples: "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction." (Twelfth Night)
# Film.NationalTreasure: ContrivedCoincidence: In the 2nd film, what are the odds the President would be having a birthday party, giving Ben an opportune moment to speak to him about The President's Book?Depending on whether the party was held on his birthday or merely at some point within a week of his birthday, 1/365 or 1/52, or in layman's terms [[RealityIsUnrealistic slightly worse than the odds of getting a straight or three-of-a-kind respectively in poker]].
# Film.{{Frostbite}}: Some Swedish critics complained that the accent of many of the cast members sounded like typical Swedish northern. Many of the cast members where actually born and raised in Norrland. The actor playing John is from Pajala, a Swedish town famous for being a small town located in far north in the middle of nowhere who of any one should have a heavy accent, talks with such a hardly noticeable accent it's hard to tell if he just added a few streaks for realism.
# ChildrenVoicingChildren.LiveActionFilms: In Disney's Maleficent. As with Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora as a teen is meant to be fifteen/sixteen (the latter age being a plot point). While the animated film modeled Aurora's design after an actress in her twenties, the filmmakers for this live-action adaptation cast Elle Fanning, who at the time of filming was fourteen/fifteen. Cue RealityIsUnrealistic coming into play, with some viewers arguing Elle looked too young to play Aurora, while others defended the casting, pointing out thatkind of frame. 5' 9"-10" she actually is a teenager. Funnily enough, by the time the film was released, Elle had indeed turned sixteen.
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Also subverted: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because [[RealityIsUnrealistic blanks are still quite dangerous]], despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and130 lbs, carelessness with a so-called slender athletic build, right here. Not to blank has killed at least one person.
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWhoShortTripsS5E8Foreshadowing: The Doctor seems confident that this won't becliche, but people do come in plenty of shapes and sizes.This trope is male, taller, and lighter. Can't exactly run on walls, but an issue, despite their outlandish story. "Doctor, I'm not super nonathletic. sure if you've considered this, but there is the slightest chance that he might not believe us. It's a slim chance, I know, but it's one that we ought to consider." "Nonsense," said the Doctor, smiling at the lieutenant.
# Heartwarming.ThePriceIsRight: November 10, 2004: Michael proposes to his girlfriend, Rosie, after spinning the Big Wheel in the Showcase Showdown. And while everyone's still in shock, he hits a dollar! Even Bob can't believe it. Bob: [[RealityIsUnrealistic If this were in a movie, people would]] scoff, you know? "Unbelievable!" And just to cap off the heartwarming/awesome, Michael won his Showcase ($23,750 all told), slipping the ring on Rosie's finger while the Wedding March played to end the show.
# Characters.MCURunaways: Allegra Acosta can pass for older, but she was fourteen years old at the time of the series' release; Molly's Age Lift is actually rather slight.
# Headscratchers.StarTrekInsurrection: Rejecting advanced technology doesn't mean they also rejected everything that technically counted as machines. [[RealityIsUnrealistic And people in the past often had nice/clean clothing as well]]. One can only imagine how good someone could get with a loom if they had 300 years of practice.
# Blog.HamstersParadise: The bipedal trunked walkabies may look silly, but they are quite similar to the Paleogene mammal Leptictidium. Large marine arthropods several meters in size may seem like something that violates what we know of animal biology but before fish became the ocean's dominant lifeforms large arthropods known as eurypterids swam the seas, with the largest being the Jaekelopterus which reached 2.5 meters in length.
# Headscratchers.LANoire: The premise that you are Cole Phelps and supposed to be playing entirely from his perspective is wrong. You're the audience watching a Noir film and just so happen to be interacting with the plot. If we were just Phelps, we wouldn't ever play as Kelso, since most of the details of his adventures probably wouldn't have been told to Phelps. We also wouldn't see any of the cutsceens that don't include Phelps, such as most of the newspaper scenes. But we do, since the game would be much more realistic: [[RealityIsUnrealistic confusing and spontaneous.]]
# UsefulNotes.HistoricalEuropeanMartialArts: Due to movies and the long portrayal of European swordfighting as either Flynning or two idiots just whacking away at each other without any finesse, people are often disbelieving of the very concept of European Martial Arts even though, logically, with several thousand years of sword use you'd think something more sophisticated than simply swinging wildly at each other would develop. Some people, seeing reconstructed combat techniques, accuse practitioners of just making something that looks cool instead of the primitive techniques they think were really used.
# JustForFun.DaringDo: Sparkleworks from Razor of Dreams had a third set of cones in her eyes, and some said that wasn't plausible. Well, some ponies do, most notably Element of Harmony bearers Pinkie Pie and Rarity Belle.
# Headscratchers.JohnnyMnemonic: By potholing this to RealityIsUnrealistic, do you mean to suggest that this movie carries any basis in reality?
# Series.HawaiiFiveO: Five-O is supposed to be an elite unit of the Hawaii State Police. The closest thing Hawaii has to a state police is the Sheriffs Division within the State Department of Public Safety, and they're limited to specific duties such as acting as process servers and providing security at state facilities.
# YMMV.{{Twister}}: Even with RealityIsUnrealistic in effect, tornadoes literally 'roaring' like a tiger will never not be funny.
# Film.SchindlersList: ForTheEvulz: Goeth does not have any reason to do the horrible things that he does, other than the fact that he can. Goeth's truly inhuman nature was actually underplayed, because Spielberg thought [[RealityIsUnrealistic people would have a hard time believing someone could actually be that pointlessly sadistic]].
# Trivia.ScoobyDooMonstersUnleashed: CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: In the Nostalgia Critic's review of this film, he calls the Miner 49er a Ghost Pirate and mistakes the Tar Monster for an Oil Monster (although Tar is derived from Oil). He also thinks freezing the Tar is [[RealityIsUnrealistic unrealistic]], calling it a Jump the Shark moment, even though it is possible.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Headscratchers.DragonAgeOriginsPartIII: Yes, the City Elves have their own accent. They're their own distinct subculture who tend to restrict themselves to a particular area of a city and therefore develop and maintain their own culture. It's actually a quirk of linquistics that when you have multiple ethnic groups in close proximity, each with develop their own distinctive accent. Have you never watched a movie set in New York City? Soyeah it happens.yes; the City Elves having their own accent [[RealityIsUnrealistic is actually]] Truth in Television. The American -> Welsh accent change was a deliberate design decision/Retcon to make the Elves more distinctive.
# Film.IndependenceDay: ''Index entry or ZCE''
# Literature.TheBerenstainBears: AnAesop: Some of the Big Chapter ones are particularly hamfisted in
#
# Film.
# Fanfic.AnomalySeries: John A. Pence winning the presidential election. Apparently this was all calculated in full by the author.
# Trivia.BridgeToTerabithia: Leslie's death was inspired by how the aforementioned Lisa Hill was killed at age 8 by being struck by lightning. Paterson thought that would be [[RealityIsUnrealistic too unbelievable]], so
# VideoGame.MaxPayne: The third game comes as close to the serious (and [[RealityIsUnrealistic nigh-unimpressive]]) end as the Max Payne formula allows it; the Favela thugs look like straight out of any Real Life favela, and the private contractors and police are closely modeled on actual organisations - there are no fancy exaggerations (apart from Bald!Max' (much-mocked) Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist get-up, and Hoboken's "spray-tan Guido douche" stereotype).
# Series.PrivateSchulz: SS officer Bernhard Naujocks, on whom the Neuheim character is based, had a heavily-scarred face and wore a black-eyepatch — but that would have seemed too cliched even for a comedy.
# Theatre.ABronxTale: A few reviewers criticized the romance plot, feeling that it was a rip-off of previous musicals like West Side Story and Memphis. Apparently they didn't realize the show is based off of Chazz Palminteri's life and he actually did date a black girl during the racial unrest of the late 1960s.
# Headscratchers.PulpFiction: The scene only takes a few minutes, and gunshots [[RealityIsUnrealistic aren't necessarily recognized as such]], especially by people with little experience with guns. The first shots may have been dismissed by neighbours as a car backfiring, or a TV on too loud (remember, it's 7 am when this happens; the neighbours may still be asleep). When they finally gun Brett down, and Jules is being all contemplative about the "divine intervention," then people might've started making calls. You'll note that while Jules is pondering the meaning of life, Vincent is getting increasingly agitated and saying they should get out of there before the cops come.
# Headscratchers.CanadasWorstDriver: Turns out, [[RealityIsUnrealistic depth perception doesn't have much effect on driving. Or a lot of things]].
# Manga.GoldenKamuy: An example particularly noteworthy because of RealityIsUnrealistic reasons would be Sugimoto's aftermath for brain damage: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like losing mobility or speech), he's shown without any apparent effect. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And next chapter, he's actually shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, getting all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's track, and being much quicker to anger, even for his usual standards. Do the math.
# Film.
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Alex Rider: Some fans say that Alex died at the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they were
# Film.
# Film.
# Film.ReclaimingTheBlade: Inevitable, given general attitudes and misconceptions concerning European swordsmanship.
# Fridge.{{Megamind}}: Bernard actually
# WesternAnimation.MyLittlePonyTales: TertiarySexualCharacteristics: The only way to tell a background pony's gender is by its single clothing accessory or by the length of its mane. And sometimes, not even then. Half of Teddy's farming cousins, who wear pink coats and have long, curly rainbow-colored manes, are male. And the father looks identical to the mother, but that's a different trope entirely.... This is actually [[RealityIsUnrealistic more realistic than it
# Creator.DougWalker: Pointed out in Balto about Steel being more realistic than he seems because Republicans can often act like that, destroying another party's goals purely out of spite.
# Film.
# Awesome.TheAngryVideoGameNerd: The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
# Characters.
# Literature.TheEmigrants: For some international audiences, the scenes taking place during Swedish summer nights, such as Arvid and Robert wrestling over the axe, seem like a case of Special Effect Failure due the lighting seeming like its dusk. However, summer nights in Sweden are
# Film.EasyA: A clique of Christian Fundamentalists and a homophobic school principal in California? It's more likely than you
# WMG.TheDarkCrystalAgeOfResistance: Actually, it takes very little time for even large settlements in heavily forested areas to be overgrown when abandoned. [[RealityIsUnrealistic It's completely possible]] for Stone-in-the-Wood (which seems to be the
# Characters.NerfNow: MeaningfulName: Aleksandrina translates to "Sasha" her Spear Counterpart, The Heavy's favorite minigun.Gratuitous Russian: Proper Russian name is Aleksandra. [[RealityIsUnrealistic Although it may sound less Russian to non-speakers than Aleksandrina.]]
# Trivia.TheDarkKnightRises: TranslationCorrection: A variant. As having Two First Names is an extremely rare phenomenon for Russian names, Dr. Leonid Pavel was given the more realistic surname "Pavlov" in
# Headscratchers.
# Podcast.TheFinalPodblem: NotMakingThisUpDisclaimer: Jeez, a guy starts one measly little pilot episode of a podcast with a fake advert for Ol' Triple Granddad's Patented Soothing Crabwax and he has to promise he isn't doing it again every time things discovered in the Research segment get improbable, [[RealityIsUnrealistic which is a lot]].
# Literature.MommieDearest: ChewingTheScenery: Dunaway mowing down the sets, props and co-stars in every scene she's in. To quote Variety's famous review: "Dunaway does not chew scenery. Dunaway starts neatly at each corner of the set in every scene and swallows it whole, costars and all." According to The Cinema Snob, this is largely because Joan [[RealityIsUnrealistic actually behaved this way]], citing one quote in particular. "I need sex for a clear complexion, but I'd rather do it for love."
# Series.{{Bottom}}: An Englishman named Hitler, and related to the infamous German Chancellor? Not just a piece of tasteless comedy. Adolf's older half-brother Alois Hitler Jr. actually emigrated to Liverpool, where he married a local woman named Bridget Dowling and had one child, William Patrick Hitler. William emigrated to the US (he and his mother were doing a lecture tour and were stranded when the war broke out), changed his last name and had no children, but the idea of a Hitler running around the UK is not outside the realm of probability.
# Toys.{{Bionicle}}: BeyondTheImpossible: At one point, Jaller sets Mantax ablaze on the ocean floor. It's Handwaved with the Wizard Did It rule; he has power over fire, and if he wants fire underwater, he can do that (not easily, but still...). Further justified by Greg on an online Q&A when he pointed out that it's [[RealityIsUnrealistic possible to have fire underwater]]. It just takes either certain chemicals or a lot of energy.
# Film.HeavensGate: The scene where Nate Champion writes his Final Speech in a burning cabin, which was unsurprisingly criticized for being melodramatic and an unnecessary addition? That actually happened. One of the few scenes true to historical events, actually.
# YMMV.MyChemicalRomance: NarmCharm: The "Na Na Na" video and "Art is the Weapon" trailer. Let's face it; MCR is made of Narm Charm. And it's fucking awesome. Gerard constantly Chewing the Scenery during video performances often gets some laughs as a break from the headbanging. He's often actually singing the lyrics, and at the intensity/volume of MCR's punk music, his face inevitably gets contorted. People have noticed with a lot of singers that [[RealityIsUnrealistic they can make some weird faces when singing live.]]
# Characters.KingKong2005: He claims that real heroes don't look like him. Turns out to be quite the truth in his case.
# Trivia.{{Tangled}}: The Bloodless Carnage when Mother Gothel stabs Eugene is actually to be expected, since Eugene is wearing a silk shirt. Silk is hard to actually pierce so when Mother Gothel stabbed him, he is actually cut by the silk wrapped around the blade, so the blood never reaches the metal.
# Creator.{{Mako}}: Yes, that was his real accent and not an exaggerated put on. There's a reason he kept it through all of his roles regardless of character.
# Funny.JonTronSeasonFive: When the host asks each of the debaters what convinced them of their theories, Jontron interrupts each contestant with a skit of himself dressed as one of them, saying "What started to happen was they just started saying it publicly in front of cameras", and picking up a tv that shows [[RealityIsUnrealistic an actual excerpt of financial and tech elites openly admitting to doing morally dubious actions]] (Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum for Sharmaine, and Mark Zuckerburg for Derek). Doubles as Fridge Horror.
# StylisticSuck.{{Film}}: According the DVD commentary of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, they actually went out of their way to make their scenes shot in Southern California [[RealityIsUnrealistic look like they were shot from Southern California]] when they were supposed to be in England, so Austin's joke about England looking nothing like Southern California would be funny. In the same scene, the characters pass a sign that just says "English Countryside."
# Trivia.PartyMonster: Casual reviewers of the film have derided it's schtick as a "lurid display of camp [that] soon turns tedious," and deride the characters as being played too over the top. The filmmakers insist that they actually toned those things down.
# Funny.OSWReview: After 123 Kid and Bob Holly win the tag match, V1 admits that he didn't believe Jay when he mentioned a few episodes prior that they held the tag belts for a good [=while. V1:=] "No way they put the World Tag Team Championships on these goofs." I was shocked watching this. OOC was equally in disbelief, fully expecting the Quebecers to come back afterwardnote They were in WCW at this time, and wouldn't return until 1997,, given how they had held the belts "for fucking ten years of the 90s".
# Music.JohnnyCash: In reviewing "Walk the Line," Roger Ebert was surprised to learn that Cash really had proposed to June Carter onstage during a concert. "It feels like the sort of scene screenwriters invent, but no."
# WesternAnimation.ScroogeAChristmasCarol: PoliticallyCorrectHistory: The film doesn't draw much attention to the fact that Harry has an Indian wife and several ethnically diverse friends at his party, despite still being set in Victorian London. The same is true for Fezziwig, who threw a Christmas party with some of the guests being people of colour. [[RealityIsUnrealistic That being said]], during the Victorian era, India had been part of the commonwealth for almost four hundred years, and London was by far the most populated trade city in the world.
# Characters.TheLegendOfKorraAllies: VocalDissonance: In his first appearance he has the exact same voice used for the teenage Zuko from the previous series, despite looking like he's in his thirties or so. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, since Dante Basco himself is in his thirties and naturally sounds like that. In the finale itself, when he has more lines, he does use some different inflections from Zuko, but it's still very close.
# Literature.BeauGeste: Comparing Beau Geste with Simon Murray's Legionnaire, a real-life account of the French Foreign Legion, it is apparent that the point where Lejaune draws the line on his Drill Sergeant Nasty treatment of the legionnaires is about the point where the real-life sergeants start.
# VideoGame.ProjectGothamRacing: Almost every game in this series warned players that the depictions of the game is unrealistic despite the fact that each game showed semi-realism such as breaking for turns instead of speed-turns, etc.
# ICarly.TropesAToE: AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle: =] Carly (and everyone else) repeatedly say "Yaki-MUH," as in "I'm not moving to Yaki-MUH." It's actually pronounced "Yakih-MAH." Apparently this was done deliberately. Also an odd case of RealityIsUnrealistic, since it's not an uncommon mispronunciation, though it's more common to southeastern Washington than metropolitan Seattle.
# Film.HappyGilmore: Happy's golf swing is mocked by several people (and secretly attempted by Shooter), but the ESPN show Sports Science showed that a running start gave Padraig Harrington an extra 30 yards distance. Unfortunately, the same show also showed that a running start destroys any chance at an accurate swing, so it's a trade-off of a little extra power for abysmal accuracy.
# Characters.HololiveJapanGenerationFive: Some female lions, in fact do have manes; theirs isn't as thick and bushy as their male counterparts, which Botan has.
# Series.{{Graceland}}: InvokedTrope: Used regularly on the show. The undercovers use many standard tropes and stereotypes to make their targets think that they can be trusted. Briggs invokes RealityIsUnrealistic to convince some drug dealers that his badge is fake and he is just an actor who played a cop in a movie. Johnny invokes Tattooed Crook to make people believe that he really is a hardcore Latino gang banger.
# Characters.HowIMetYourMotherOtherCharacters: EpicFail: In Chicago, Druthers designed a crystal tower. The problem? It reflected so much light that melted near buildings and boiled the aquarium, killing thousands of fish. [[RealityIsUnrealistic This actually happened in real life]]: The architect Rafael Vinloy designed not one but two buildings that focused sunlight to a point it melts plastic check The Other Wiki
# Literature.TheBoyInTheStripedPyjamas: Some children were retained in the concentration camp (see RealityIsUnrealistic below), but Shmuel would have been shot if he approached the fence.
# Film.DaysOfThunder: "Cole Trickle" was derided by some critics as too much of a stereotype NASCAR-sounding name. Except that the name is a Shout-Out to Dick Trickle.
# WesternAnimation.AdventuresOfSonicTheHedgehog: It's ridiculous to think that kids climbing into tumble dryers would be pervasive enough to devote a Sonic Says to, which is why Sonic lampshades this with a "Believe it or not..."
# DarthWiki.{{Headscratchers}}: I found some MAJOR Butt Pulls that show up EVERYWHERE Bombs explode! People bleed when they're hurt Isn't doing research against the law? You can say ass. Ass ass assity ass. See? My, how assinine.
# Film.RoadToPerdition: AdaptationNameChange: A very slight example. In The Movie, "John Looney" becomes "John Rooney" and "Michael O'Sullivan" becomes "Michael Sullivan". Interestingly, though Looney likely had his name changed so that the piece's villain wouldn't have a comical-sounding name, [[RealityIsUnrealistic "John Looney" is only a lightly-fictionalized version of the real Irish gangster in 1930s Rock Island]].
# Headscratchers.Passengers2016: To be fair, RealityIsUnrealistic. Space is quite empty, even asteroid belts, aside from the very thin and tenuous interstellar medium. An Asteroid Thicket in interstellar space would also be essentially devoid of illumination and impossible to spot from a planetary system. Sure, contingency plans should have been implemented, but it's easy to see why the designers would think they would be unlikely to need any.
# Theatre.DoneToDeath: The Authors are consistently surprised by things turning out realistically rather than how they would write it.
# Recap.AgentsOfSHIELDS3E2PurposeInTheMachine: Norwegian prisons are much nicer than US prisons. They're so much nicer, in fact, that the prison depicted is actually a lot worse than Norwegian prisons. They're more like dorms you're not allowed to leave. No barred doors or bare concrete blocks.
# Headscratchers.DoctorWhoSeries12: We live in an age where the net and PR can spin anything and make a solid fact into a debatable question. [[RealityIsUnrealistic If Qanon and the anti-vaccination movement are any indication.]] Within just a few decades, people were already saying that the Holocaust was a myth. With enough money, enough spin, and any narrative can be spun to fool enough people as the past decade has shown.
# WebVideo.CasualGeographic: One of the most common ways he discusses Artistic License – Biology. While there are some animals depicted in media as savage monsters and some such as lions as noble creatures, he points out this tends to be the case, such as great white sharks being hunted due to paranoia surrounding then because of Jaws even though they're docile and don't hunt humans.
# Literature.GrandmasterOfDemonicCultivationMoDaoZuShi: Downplayed in regards to the romance between the main duo and other characters' reactions to it. While homosexuality is a huge no-no in Real Life China both then and today, it was still more accepted in the country centuries prior — and the setting of the novel is inspired from ancient rather than modern China. However, there are several characters in the story — be they named or background characters — who express homophobic behavior.
# Characters.JurassicParkNonDinosaurs: AnimalGenderBender: All of them have huge crests on their heads, even though [[RealityIsUnrealistic in real life]] only male Pteranodons had large crests. Yet again, it could just be a manipulation of their DNA on [=InGen's=] part to make the female Pteranodons appear more formidable and eye-catching to potential park-goers.
# Film.TheIronClaw: AdaptedOut: There
# JustForFun.TheZerothLawOfTropeExamples: "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as improbable fiction." (Twelfth Night)
# Film.NationalTreasure: ContrivedCoincidence: In the 2nd film, what are the odds the President would be having a birthday party, giving Ben an opportune moment to speak to him about The President's Book?Depending on whether the party was held on his birthday or merely at some point within a week of his birthday, 1/365 or 1/52, or in layman's terms [[RealityIsUnrealistic slightly worse than the odds of getting a straight or three-of-a-kind respectively in poker]].
# Film.{{Frostbite}}: Some Swedish critics complained that the accent of many of the cast members sounded like typical Swedish northern. Many of the cast members where actually born and raised in Norrland. The actor playing John is from Pajala, a Swedish town famous for being a small town located in far north in the middle of nowhere who of any one should have a heavy accent, talks with such a hardly noticeable accent it's hard to tell if he just added a few streaks for realism.
# ChildrenVoicingChildren.LiveActionFilms: In Disney's Maleficent. As with Sleeping Beauty, Princess Aurora as a teen is meant to be fifteen/sixteen (the latter age being a plot point). While the animated film modeled Aurora's design after an actress in her twenties, the filmmakers for this live-action adaptation cast Elle Fanning, who at the time of filming was fourteen/fifteen. Cue RealityIsUnrealistic coming into play, with some viewers arguing Elle looked too young to play Aurora, while others defended the casting, pointing out that
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Also subverted: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because [[RealityIsUnrealistic blanks are still quite dangerous]], despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWhoShortTripsS5E8Foreshadowing: The Doctor seems confident that this won't be
# Heartwarming.ThePriceIsRight: November 10, 2004: Michael proposes to his girlfriend, Rosie, after spinning the Big Wheel in the Showcase Showdown. And while everyone's still in shock, he hits a dollar! Even Bob can't believe it. Bob: [[RealityIsUnrealistic If this were in a movie, people would]] scoff, you know? "Unbelievable!" And just to cap off the heartwarming/awesome, Michael won his Showcase ($23,750 all told), slipping the ring on Rosie's finger while the Wedding March played to end the show.
# Characters.MCURunaways: Allegra Acosta can pass for older, but she was fourteen years old at the time of the series' release; Molly's Age Lift is actually rather slight.
# Headscratchers.StarTrekInsurrection: Rejecting advanced technology doesn't mean they also rejected everything that technically counted as machines. [[RealityIsUnrealistic And people in the past often had nice/clean clothing as well]]. One can only imagine how good someone could get with a loom if they had 300 years of practice.
# Blog.HamstersParadise: The bipedal trunked walkabies may look silly, but they are quite similar to the Paleogene mammal Leptictidium. Large marine arthropods several meters in size may seem like something that violates what we know of animal biology but before fish became the ocean's dominant lifeforms large arthropods known as eurypterids swam the seas, with the largest being the Jaekelopterus which reached 2.5 meters in length.
# Headscratchers.LANoire: The premise that you are Cole Phelps and supposed to be playing entirely from his perspective is wrong. You're the audience watching a Noir film and just so happen to be interacting with the plot. If we were just Phelps, we wouldn't ever play as Kelso, since most of the details of his adventures probably wouldn't have been told to Phelps. We also wouldn't see any of the cutsceens that don't include Phelps, such as most of the newspaper scenes. But we do, since the game would be much more realistic: [[RealityIsUnrealistic confusing and spontaneous.]]
# UsefulNotes.HistoricalEuropeanMartialArts: Due to movies and the long portrayal of European swordfighting as either Flynning or two idiots just whacking away at each other without any finesse, people are often disbelieving of the very concept of European Martial Arts even though, logically, with several thousand years of sword use you'd think something more sophisticated than simply swinging wildly at each other would develop. Some people, seeing reconstructed combat techniques, accuse practitioners of just making something that looks cool instead of the primitive techniques they think were really used.
# JustForFun.DaringDo: Sparkleworks from Razor of Dreams had a third set of cones in her eyes, and some said that wasn't plausible. Well, some ponies do, most notably Element of Harmony bearers Pinkie Pie and Rarity Belle.
# Headscratchers.JohnnyMnemonic: By potholing this to RealityIsUnrealistic, do you mean to suggest that this movie carries any basis in reality?
# Series.HawaiiFiveO: Five-O is supposed to be an elite unit of the Hawaii State Police. The closest thing Hawaii has to a state police is the Sheriffs Division within the State Department of Public Safety, and they're limited to specific duties such as acting as process servers and providing security at state facilities.
# YMMV.{{Twister}}: Even with RealityIsUnrealistic in effect, tornadoes literally 'roaring' like a tiger will never not be funny.
# Film.SchindlersList: ForTheEvulz: Goeth does not have any reason to do the horrible things that he does, other than the fact that he can. Goeth's truly inhuman nature was actually underplayed, because Spielberg thought [[RealityIsUnrealistic people would have a hard time believing someone could actually be that pointlessly sadistic]].
# Trivia.ScoobyDooMonstersUnleashed: CowboyBebopAtHisComputer: In the Nostalgia Critic's review of this film, he calls the Miner 49er a Ghost Pirate and mistakes the Tar Monster for an Oil Monster (although Tar is derived from Oil). He also thinks freezing the Tar is [[RealityIsUnrealistic unrealistic]], calling it a Jump the Shark moment, even though it is possible.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Headscratchers.DragonAgeOriginsPartIII: Yes, the City Elves have their own accent. They're their own distinct subculture who tend to restrict themselves to a particular area of a city and therefore develop and maintain their own culture. It's actually a quirk of linquistics that when you have multiple ethnic groups in close proximity, each with develop their own distinctive accent. Have you never watched a movie set in New York City? So
# Film.IndependenceDay: ''Index entry or ZCE''
Changed line(s) 94,102 (click to see context) from:
# Film.ReservoirDogs: The fact that Mr. Brown was able to drive a car some distance and get in some last words after being shot clear through his brain isn't as remarkable as it seems at first; though the bullet played a key part in his demise, any medical professional will tell you it was a lack of medical attention that did him in.
# Series.HotInCleveland: Victoria entered and LOST a look-a-like contest, as herself. She was supposed to be a drag queen look-a-like, but she still lost (to a Susan Lucci look-a-like.)
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Some fans say that Alex died at the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they were bad, but because some fans think surviving a bullet to the chest is unrealistic.
# Series.{{Veep}}: For all the cussing and wannabe-backstabbers in this show, Veep apparently resembles reality more than the idealistic The West Wing or the Machiavellian House of Cards (US) do according to cast members who have been told this by workers in D.C.
# Gush.LetsPlay: Similar to Kingdom Come, FlyingMacguffin is working on a Paradox mega-LP that starts with the Duchy of Brittany/Crusader Kingdom of Egypt in Crusader Kings. It's currently in Victoria II, and the goal is to end with Hearts of Iron in 1964. Despite being radically different from our timelinenote France got balkanized hard around 1500, most of the Near East (including Mecca) is thoroughly Breton/British and Catholic, Spain and Italy are (mostly) Protestant, Portugal is an ethnically English Archbishopric, Persia belongs to the Russian Khanate of Polotsk, Bohemia-Moravia's a great power, the Papacy colonized Brazil (from Algeria), a displaced Turkish Caliphate rules over much of Central and East Asia, and the Roman Empire has been reborn under the Byzantines. Really needs to be seen to be believed. the way it unfolds is no less insane than what actually happened. Very much worth a peek for anyone who likes history, but with over 60 hours of video thus far, beware the Archive Panic.
# Film.GangsOfNewYork: Hellcat Maggie not only sharpens wears sharpened claws but also files her teeth down to sharp points as well. This is not an invention of the film, by the way, though she is a composite character.
# ComicBook.{{Persepolis}}: Viewers may have been surprised to find that yes, Marjane actually does go skiing in Iran - Iran actually has quite a bit of ski resorts and snow-covered mountains.
# Fanfic.TranspositionOrShipHappens: Some of the readers were disbelieving that Tattletale was able to survive with her injuries for several hours. One reviewer (with actual medical training) pointed out that not only was it possible, she would have had high chances of recovery with proper medical care.
# Webcomic.OzyAndMillie: Millie wags her tail when happy. Just like real life foxes.
# Series.HotInCleveland: Victoria entered and LOST a look-a-like contest, as herself. She was supposed to be a drag queen look-a-like, but she still lost (to a Susan Lucci look-a-like.)
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Some fans say that Alex died at the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they were bad, but because some fans think surviving a bullet to the chest is unrealistic.
# Series.{{Veep}}: For all the cussing and wannabe-backstabbers in this show, Veep apparently resembles reality more than the idealistic The West Wing or the Machiavellian House of Cards (US) do according to cast members who have been told this by workers in D.C.
# Gush.LetsPlay: Similar to Kingdom Come, FlyingMacguffin is working on a Paradox mega-LP that starts with the Duchy of Brittany/Crusader Kingdom of Egypt in Crusader Kings. It's currently in Victoria II, and the goal is to end with Hearts of Iron in 1964. Despite being radically different from our timelinenote France got balkanized hard around 1500, most of the Near East (including Mecca) is thoroughly Breton/British and Catholic, Spain and Italy are (mostly) Protestant, Portugal is an ethnically English Archbishopric, Persia belongs to the Russian Khanate of Polotsk, Bohemia-Moravia's a great power, the Papacy colonized Brazil (from Algeria), a displaced Turkish Caliphate rules over much of Central and East Asia, and the Roman Empire has been reborn under the Byzantines. Really needs to be seen to be believed. the way it unfolds is no less insane than what actually happened. Very much worth a peek for anyone who likes history, but with over 60 hours of video thus far, beware the Archive Panic.
# Film.GangsOfNewYork: Hellcat Maggie not only sharpens wears sharpened claws but also files her teeth down to sharp points as well. This is not an invention of the film, by the way, though she is a composite character.
# ComicBook.{{Persepolis}}: Viewers may have been surprised to find that yes, Marjane actually does go skiing in Iran - Iran actually has quite a bit of ski resorts and snow-covered mountains.
# Fanfic.TranspositionOrShipHappens: Some of the readers were disbelieving that Tattletale was able to survive with her injuries for several hours. One reviewer (with actual medical training) pointed out that not only was it possible, she would have had high chances of recovery with proper medical care.
# Webcomic.OzyAndMillie: Millie wags her tail when happy. Just like real life foxes.
to:
# Film.ReservoirDogs: The fact that Mr. Brown was able to drive a car some distance and get in some last words after being shot clear through his brain isn't as remarkable as it seems at first; though Headscratchers.AndiMack: Shouldn't Andi look more white, considering she's only 25% Asian?[[RealityIsUnrealistic Genetics don't always work the bullet played a key part in his demise, any medical professional will tell way you it was a lack of medical attention that did him in.
may think...]]
# Series.HotInCleveland: Victoria entered and LOST a look-a-like contest, as herself. She was supposed to be a drag queen look-a-like, but she still lost (to a Susan Lucci look-a-like.)
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Some fans say that Alex died atWireInTheBlood: TruthInTelevision: All over the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they were bad, but because some fans think surviving a bullet place when it comes to the chest is unrealistic.
# Series.{{Veep}}: For allcrimes themselves, particularly the cussing psychology and wannabe-backstabbers in this show, Veep apparently resembles reality more than the idealistic The West Wing or the Machiavellian House of Cards (US) do according to cast members who have been told this by workers in D.C.
# Gush.LetsPlay: Similar to Kingdom Come, FlyingMacguffin is working on a Paradox mega-LP that starts with the Duchy of Brittany/Crusader Kingdom of Egypt in Crusader Kings. It's currently in Victoria II, and the goal is to end with Hearts of Iron in 1964. Despite being radically different from our timelinenote France got balkanized hard around 1500, mostprofiling of the Near East (including Mecca) serial killers, which is thoroughly Breton/British almost brutally accurate - sometimes even to RealityIsUnrealistic lengths.
# Headscratchers.{{Halloween}}: ''Index entry or ZCE''
# VideoGame.ZooTycoon: Black bears andCatholic, Spain and Italy are (mostly) Protestant, Portugal is an ethnically English Archbishopric, Persia belongs to grizzly bears can co-exist in the Russian Khanate of Polotsk, Bohemia-Moravia's a great power, same exhibit without attacking each other, despite the Papacy colonized Brazil (from Algeria), a displaced Turkish Caliphate rules over much of Central and East Asia, and two being enemies in the Roman Empire has been reborn under the Byzantines. Really needs to be seen to be believed. the way it unfolds is no less insane than what actually happened. Very much worth a peek for anyone who likes history, but with over 60 hours of video thus far, beware the Archive Panic.
wild. [[RealityIsUnrealistic The two species do get along in some real-life zoos, though.]]
# Headscratchers.SpiderMan2: ''Index entry or ZCE''
# Film.GangsOfNewYork: Hellcat Maggie not only sharpens wears sharpened claws but also files her teeth down to sharp points as well. This It2017: Pennywise's costume change got a lot of flak from some fans who felt he looked too gothic and scary. Ironically, his appearance is not an invention very on par with how a lot of clowns really did dress back in the film, by 50s and 60s. Comparing him to the way, though she is clowns he was said to look like in the book and you will find this Pennywise bears a composite character.
little more resemblance than the Tim Curry outfit. However, it still works in the "boomerang" sense as it makes Pennywise look like it's been doing this successfully for a very long time.
# ComicBook.{{Persepolis}}: Viewers may {{Watchmen}}: In-universe. Movie critic mistakes real footage of Silk Spectre I fighting crime for very bad stunt work.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E17HeartsAndHoovesDay: The Cutie Mark Crusaders expect Love at First Sight when Big Macintosh and Cheerilee first meet. Instead, they get a friendly and slightly awkward talk between two ponies who are just acquaintances at best. Given that situation, Cheerilee's question over whether Big Mac already has plans is quite straightforward, as is her idea to play along with the CMC's plans for a while.
# Literature.TheSupervillainySaga: ComicBooksAreReal: Gary Karkofsky talks about how "historical comics" exist. These are adaptations of the adventures of the Society of Superheroes and havebeen surprised to find that yes, Marjane more or less replaced fictional superheroes in their reality. Given reality is every bit as crazy as in comic books, it's implied the comics actually does go skiing have to tone the stories down. Gets worse (better?) as the series goes on. All of his books take place in Iran - Iran actually has quite a bit of ski resorts the same The Multiverse and snow-covered mountains.
# Fanfic.TranspositionOrShipHappens: Someoccasionally have crossovers with each other. However, all of the readers were disbelieving that Tattletale was able to survive characters are fictional in the realities they visit so Jane Doe is a popular urban fantasy series in Gary's world even when she drops by and vice versa.
# Creator.RocketJump: Raise your hand, how many of you thought Freddie faked having his hands on fire? Yup, the fire's real.
# Series.CakeBoss: A few times the crew partakes in challenges either amongst each other or withher injuries for several hours. One reviewer (with a client(s), occasionally the winner is not who you would expect. For example: A sixteen year old (Joey and Grace's son Rob) and a 36 year old (head baker Frankie), the latter of whom is very large, enter a wrestling ring. The winner of the match? The sixteen year old as he is an actual medical training) pointed out wrestler.
# TechnologyMarchesOn.{{Computers}}: This is a case of RealityIsUnrealistic as tape is still very much used in areas thatnot only was require storage for MASSIVE amounts of data. While it possible, she is much slower than more modern methods, it can hold much more, and for security reasons, if someone were to hack into the system, it would have had high chances of recovery with proper medical care.
# Webcomic.OzyAndMillie: Millie wags her tail when happy. Just like real life foxes.take them much longer to steal/destroy the data than it would on modern methods.
# Series.
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Some fans say that Alex died at
# Series.{{Veep}}: For all
# Gush.LetsPlay: Similar to Kingdom Come, FlyingMacguffin is working on a Paradox mega-LP that starts with the Duchy of Brittany/Crusader Kingdom of Egypt in Crusader Kings. It's currently in Victoria II, and the goal is to end with Hearts of Iron in 1964. Despite being radically different from our timelinenote France got balkanized hard around 1500, most
# Headscratchers.{{Halloween}}: ''Index entry or ZCE''
# VideoGame.ZooTycoon: Black bears and
# Headscratchers.SpiderMan2: ''Index entry or ZCE''
# Film.
# ComicBook.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E17HeartsAndHoovesDay: The Cutie Mark Crusaders expect Love at First Sight when Big Macintosh and Cheerilee first meet. Instead, they get a friendly and slightly awkward talk between two ponies who are just acquaintances at best. Given that situation, Cheerilee's question over whether Big Mac already has plans is quite straightforward, as is her idea to play along with the CMC's plans for a while.
# Literature.TheSupervillainySaga: ComicBooksAreReal: Gary Karkofsky talks about how "historical comics" exist. These are adaptations of the adventures of the Society of Superheroes and have
# Fanfic.TranspositionOrShipHappens: Some
# Creator.RocketJump: Raise your hand, how many of you thought Freddie faked having his hands on fire? Yup, the fire's real.
# Series.CakeBoss: A few times the crew partakes in challenges either amongst each other or with
# TechnologyMarchesOn.{{Computers}}: This is a case of RealityIsUnrealistic as tape is still very much used in areas that
# Webcomic.OzyAndMillie: Millie wags her tail when happy. Just like real life foxes.
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# Characters.TolkiensLegendariumPeoples: The prologue of the Lord of the Rings establishes that Hobbits are scarily accurate marksmen, not only with bows, but with stones. Bilbo is also shown to be incredibly skilled at hitting targets with stones in The Hobbit.Logically, as the smallest race in Middle-earth, they couldn't rely on melee combat, but ranged weapons give them a chance. They similarly developed great natural skill at hiding and moving quietly, to avoid larger threats. The Ruffians occupying the Shire at the end of the book find out the hard way that these combined skills make hobbits excellent guerrilla fighters: hobbit archers hiding in the forests are natural snipers, picking them off unseen. The films showcase this ability on occasion with Hobbits consistently making difficult shots by throwing rocks. Fans often criticize these scenes for being unrealistic.
# YMMV.TheHills: OvershadowedByControversy: While the show's RealityIsUnrealistic tendencies were not entirely hidden even beforehand, the Les Deux "club fight" between Lauren and Heidi in Season 2 — treated as a momentary spat in the show, and a serious altercation in real-life that necessitated a police presence — was the first clue many fans got that the show was deliberately manipulated to play up certain storylines. Allegations of cast member Lauren Conrad having a sextape (ultimately untrue) rocked public perception of the show, casting a damper on certain storylines in Season 2 and 3 that portrayed Lauren as a virtuous intern.
# Characters.SniperEliteIII: BunnyEarsLawyer: Several Afrika Korps and Schutzvollstrecker soldiers note that he is a very eccentric individual, such as wearing medieval style armor over his uniform (though see RealityIsUnrealistic for reasons). This doesn't make him any less dangerous as a soldier, as his plan almost succeeds and gives Karl a very difficult challenge.
# Film.HereComesTheBoom: Upon release, the film was criticized for the ending of Scott's UFC fight, where he fights his way out of an armbar by hoisting his opponent and slamming him into the ground, winning by knockout. As this video clearly demonstrates, not only is slamming/power-bombing an opponent a valid defense against a variety of submission holds, but it is perfectly capable of knocking you out cold. As Joe Rogan points out in his commentary, getting slammed on your head and shoulders hurts. He likens it to a linebacker tackling a quarterback... but without a helmet for protection.
# Trivia.TheLegoMovie: While the entire role is obviously based on voice acting, Liam Neeson gets to showcase his talent for doing cartoon character voices - most of the scenes where he argues back and forth in both voices are actually done in a single take with no editing, rather than doing both voices separately and splicing them together. The cheery, cartoony Good Cop voice is all him too, no editing on the pitch at all. (Interestingly enough, Neeson has mentioned before that the voice of Good Cop is actually much closer to his natural voice.)
# YMMV.XComEnemyUnknown: XCOM rookie troopers actually have pretty good accuracy ratings if you compare them to real-life soldiers, but they're mainly remembered for all those times where they missed when firing a shotgun point blank at an alien the size of a bus. "XCOM Rookies" is sort of a byword in many communities for "supposedly elite trooper that can't hit the broad side of a barn." This is due to them supposedly being the “best of the best” from the world’s militaries, despite having trouble hitting large targets like Mutons in zero cover that (from our point of view) are standing completely still.
# Film.ThirtyDaysOfNight: "Barrow" is a kind of tomb. And an actual town.
# ContrivedCoincidence.{{Literature}}: The Adventures of Blue Avenger by Norma Howe argues that this trope falls under RealityIsUnrealistic. Unlikely coincidences happen all the time, and Million to One Chance events are pretty common in a world with nearly seven billion people. So here comes one...
# Creator.HammerheadProduction: In the site's entry of Titanic, there's a comment in that one scene of the miniature ship (by Digital Domain) looked faker than the CG Dolphins that were also present.
# Creator.ChristopherHitchens: He claimed to hate clichés in writing, so when he visited Communist-era Czechoslovakia, he promised himself that he wouldn't make references to Franz Kafka in his reports. When he was arrested while visiting a group of political activists and told by the police that he didn't need to know the charge, he realized that reality is sometimes indistinguishable from parody. Similarly, he didn't want to mention Nineteen Eighty-Four before he visited North Korea, but found it to be such a perfect rendition of the dystopian state in the novel that he almost suspected it to be the regime's unofficial source of inspiration.
# WesternAnimation.TheProudFamily: There was actually some debate because Papi looked "too white" to be Hispanic. It's no secret LaCienega counts as Hispanic (she and Sunset are darker skinned than Felix, who's tan) but some assumed that Felix was half Hispanic, and that his mom was. However, it's fully possible for Papi to be white but still be Hispanic, there are plenty of Hispanics who can be considered white. Heck, just look at Guillermo del Toro.
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because blanks are still quite dangerous, despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and carelessness with a blank has killed at least one person.
# Characters.TheFaultInOurStars: Hazel is terminally ill and her boyfriend is in remission. Nonetheless, Hazel lives while Augustus dies. In reality, this is very much possible.
# Series.{{Reign}}: Many critics have complained that the show does this with Mary, but, because RealityIsUnrealistic, she actually averts this trope. The historical Mary was known for her beauty. However, she was also six feet tall and auburn-haired, unlike Adelaide Kane, the medium-height brunette who plays her on the show. Lampshaded in season 2, when Princess Claude says of their childhood, "You seemed so tall in those days."
# Headscratchers.MetroidFusion: The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually SR388's asteroid moon. An impact event in real life is always devastating, even if the impactor is smaller and of lesser mass, mainly due to the sheer velocity of said object. Orbit rapidly degrading, Samus and Adam rammed it straight into SR388, and detonating the core would have finished the job.
# Series.SeaPatrol: Characters leaving the show at the end of most seasons unexplainedly, which happens on real boats all the time.
# Pantheon.NicknamesAndRenames: Hired as the getaway driver, has an absurd interest in sex and porn, played by Quentin Tarantino and dies, somehow survived being shot in the head before bleeding out, barely known in the story
# Literature.TheTechnicolorTimeMachine: Extensively lampshaded by the whole novel.
# Film.TheBigChill: In a roundabout way. Kevin Kline was reluctant to do the scene in which Harold and Meg have sex so she can conceive a child, feeling it was unrealistic. But he later said that after the movie's release several people told him they had been in the same situation.
# Recap.MightyMagiswordsS1E50QuestForKnowledge: Neddy refers to Gateaux as Townsend, which the latter claims isn't a real name. Neddy is played by Townsend Coleman.
# Film.IndependenceDay: Reality Is Unrealistic When Steve first meets the President, they only shake hands. This is correct, as he's uncovered (not wearing headgear) and thus he's not required to salute. They play it straight at the end, though. The President salutes Steve, who is still without headgear. Steve has to hurriedly hand Jasmine his cigar to appropriately salute back. Marine One is able to travel from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base within the nine minutes left before the aliens' attack. Assuming the helicopter went close to its maximum speed, given how short on time they were, it can take about four minutes to fly the roughly ten miles as the crow flies between the two locations.
# YMMV.{{Bleach}}: Japanese culture tends to view child abuse as a private problem that should be dealt with inside the family first and foremost, while Western attitudes are much more interventionist. From a Western perspective, Chad and Orihime both living without guardians by age 15—Orihime has been living alone since middle school, specifically because of parental abuse, and having limited economic support from her only living relative instead of living with her—can be difficult to suspend disbelief for. RealityIsUnrealistic, in many Western countries, even America, there are many officially and de facto independent minors in situations ranging from parental abandonment to walking out themselves to separation agreements that provide support but not control.
# Webcomic.MarryMeBobbyCrosby: One of the News Commentators thinks the entire thing is a publicity stunt. Though, to give him credit, he does bring up some good points for it, despite them all just being coincidences. Really, REALLY, convenient coincidences. Also, Guy is too realistic of a pirate for audiences to connect with. Don't ask.
# Literature.ShinganNoYuusha: Combined with RealityIsUnrealistic. The womb does indeed have powerful defenses that protect the fetus from diseases that affect the mother. Children delivered by C-section have been found free of disease, even when the mother has dangerous co-genital S.T.D.s like herpes and Aids.
# YMMV.TheHunchbackOfNotreDame: Would you believe us if we told you that it actually wasn't Quasimodo's deformities that the peasants ostracized him for, but his red hair? Such were the prejudices of actual Medieval Parisians.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationIVenonatToCloyster: Cloyster's Ice-typing might not seem to make sense at first, given that bivalves are normally associated with tropical waters. It's actually based on polar bivalves, which are "the most numerous group of mollusks in the Arctic deep-sea". As for that Overly-Long Tongue on Shellder? Real life bivalves have these "tongues" as well, which are actually their equivalent to feet.
# Headscratchers.{{Animorphs}}: NameOne: Name One? Sharks 400 million years. Crocodiles 200 million years. Grasshoppers 115 million years. RealityIsUnrealistic
# VideoGame.TheSunkenCityCollection: The Warrior was a literal case of this. Her backstory reveals that she was a serial killer who handpicked male victims for their Mr. Fanservice qualities, and can even be seen groping herself as she murders them. This is actually a common motive for real life serial killers.
# YMMV.{{Interstellar}}: Gargantua is stunning. It being an entirely accurate representation of a black hole (to the point of actually showing an effect that physicists didn't know about before simply because they hadn't put the black hole equations into a computer program as high-quality as the one the movie used) seals it.
# Film.TheHunted2003: Zig-Zagging Trope.To quote Roger Ebert's review: We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides. They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting. On the other hand Tom Brown, Jr., the primary consultant on the film is a bit ashamed of it despite this. ...the bloody knife fight at the end — no way it would last 4 minutes, any of those wounds are lethal.
# VideoGame.SimCity: Criminals caught by the police will go to prison even if you have no Courthouse in town, or even in the region, to give them a trial, which is a big no-no in most justice systems around the world. Possible subversion: That said, in real life it's not uncommon for the courthouse to be combined with something else, like the City Hallnote Prominent example: Up until the completion of the Criminal Justice Center in 1994, most criminal trials in Philadelphia—one of the 5 largest cities in the United States at the time—were held in the Philadelphia City Hall. Please note that even after criminal functions were moved to the CJC, City Hall is still primarily a courthouse—it's just that the relevant trials are civil rather than criminal. (City government functions are mostly located in two nearby municipal office buildings or in rented space.) (pretty easy to get in this game) or even the police station. Perhaps the assumption is that this is what's going on.
# Trivia.TaylorSwift: With the rerecordings coming out, Taylor's accent from her earlier albums has been frequently referred to as a "fake country" accent that she's just dropped now. (Mostly due to the differences between her accent and a traditional Southern accent.) Her accent on those albums is actually very much real and is standard for central Pennsylvania (where she's from). It's faded for the most part, including from her speaking voice, as she no longer lives there. (A notable exception to this is "I'll Bet You Think About Me" from Red (Taylor's Version), which uses her native accent.)
# Series.TheArtfulDodger: Lady Belle Fox wants to become a woman surgeon. In the 1850s. Which isn't quite as far-fetched as it might sound given that the first female surgeon Mary Edwards Walker became a qualified surgeon around this time in real life.
# Fanfic.{{Turtles}}: Koume finds it rather odd that Anzu, Momo and Yuzu's parents all named them after fruit(apricot, peach and citrus, respectively). Koume's name means "little plum" in Japanese, and she never acknowledges that her own parents also named her after a fruit. As listed here, it's actually pretty common in Japan for girls to have some sort of a fruit-themed name, just like the Student Council members and Koume do.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationVMinccinoToVolcarona: Look up "derpfish" on Google Images and there's a good chance you'll see this guy's mug. Its appearance is actually toned down compared to its inspiration.
# Headscratchers.GreenLantern: Also, from an actual Real Life perspective? I am delighted to expand your knowledge by informing you that not all sapphire aka corundum stones are even blue! (Yeah, I was surprised too) It's just that blue is the most famous and iconic color of "sapphire" stones. Notice the ones on that page though include some that could easily double as "Star" Sapphires, whether we're going for Magenta shades or the more purple violets! (And in before somebody mentions "about that magenta thing, pink is not violet!!" - yes, it is, at least in Fuschia/Magenta hues it can be. Specifically, the hues they tend to color the Star Sapphires in in classic color schemes from Silver Age onward are classifiable not just as "pink" but also as a variant of "red-violet", which I discovered when I actually Googled the latter. Fridge Brilliance since it keeps it separate from blue-violet...which is what actual "indigo" is in Real Life!)
# Trivia.{{Gladiator}}: David Franzoni's original script had Maximus named Narcissus and surviving along with his family, Commodus being strangled in the baths (as he was by the real Narcissus), the fight at the Colosseum against a rhinoceros instead of tigers and Lucilla not making it to the end of the movie but being executed (as she was in reality) along with some senators inside a Sicilian Bull. The rhinos became tigers because it was impossible to train real rhinos and CGI replacements didn't look convincing. The other things were changed because of RealityIsUnrealistic.
# Recap.XenaS06E20SoulPossession: The fangirls are unimpressed with Ares fireballs once they get to see them in real life. Hey! What’s wrong with the special effects? Yeah, they’re really cheesy.
# Creator.HarryTurtledove: He originally wrote under the pseudonyms "Eric Iverson" and "H.N. Turteltaub" because his editor thought "Turtledove" sounded too much like a made-up name.
# NotAlwaysWorking.TropesAToE: The beginning of this story made quite a number of posts think it was actually another story (never mind the fact that the odds of someone else witnessing the same circumstances and submitting them to this website are astronomical). To elaborate, the older story involved a Designated Hero standing in line at a supermarket and holding everyone up because she was observing Remembrance Day, whereas the later story also had a woman holding up a supermarket line, but that was because she was having a seizure. In the latter story's case, the cashier refused to help the customer even when the submitter, who happened to be a doctor, said that she was having a seizure, because "if she was having a seizure she'd be writhing on the floor, wouldn't she?". The cashier also voided both the sick customer and the doctor's purchases because they stepped out of line, saying that "they must be joking if they thought she would give them their shopping back."
# SpecialEffectFailure.LiveActionTV: Moonbase 3, a BBC sci-fi series, was criticized for its cheap-looking props and sets. Ironically, this was caused by efforts to be as realistic as possible; it is much more difficult to create a realistic-looking rocket, spacesuit, and whatnot than to simply use a salt shaker as a futuristic device.
# Film.ARoyalNightOut: The girls did go out, but they were both younger than the film seems to depict. They also went out with about sixteen other people - including friends their own age and their nanny. They actually did get back to Buckingham Palace at the 1 am curfew. Of course at the end, the King tells Elizabeth to say she spent the entire night at The Ritz - which is what happened in real life.
# Recap.DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice: Some people have lambasted the appearance of Isabella and her father as tokenism and Politically Correct History. Venice was a port and trade city in Real Life, and it wasn't unheard of for African traders to move and set up shop there in the 16th century. See also a moderately well-known play called The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Also, an earlier episode points out the fact that even England in 1599 wasn't just fair youths by this point; there were a lot of dark ladies around as well. Rory fending off a sword with a broom is not impossible either, provided he managed to hit the flat of Francesco's blade and not the edge.
# OneThousandWaysToDie.TropesLToS: One of these gets himself killed in "Flame Retard-Ant". When he accidentally sets himself on fire, he jumps into the water to put it out but goes into shock due to the water's cold temperature and drowns. Unusually, the episode points out that in real life, arsonists are rarely motivated by pyromania.
# Trivia.{{Vikings}}: Freydis' actress asked to be actually strangled in the scene where Ivar kills her. There was a medic standing by on-set to ensure she didn't receive any permanent damage, but what you see on-screen is her actual reaction, which accounts for why it also takes much longer then most scenes where someone is trying to strangle someone else to death in TV shows.
# Headscratchers.MassEffect2Archive2: I sorry, but this CG artist must contradict you. Motion capture animation can be redone by hand with only a few minor hassles, in fact very rarely will any production house use the raw motion capture data. They always tweek it by hand to smooth out errors and because good animation should be more exaggerated. The reprogramming of the different weapons is a valid point, though. But mostly its just time constraints.
# VideoGame.AssassinsCreedSyndicate: There's been some hubbub over Evie openly participating in boxing matches during the extremely sexist Victorian age, under the assumption that female participation in combat sports is a recent development. However, women's boxing was actually a thing in Victorian England. One example is Elizabeth Wilkinson, who fought even earlier during the early 18th century. She also went up against men in mixed-gender boxing matches. Things only start to become less grounded in reality because Evie doesn't appear to have much muscle, but still packs as much a punch as Jacob, using the same moves. See Rule of Fun.
# Recap.TheForbiddenLoveOfYukariYakumo: Discussed in chapter seven's Author's Notes by Tokage, subverted in that her 'reality' is still fictional.
# Fanfic.WhipAndWing: Twilight advises rainbow Dash and Lyra to do this when they write about the Nazis. She says, "Nopony would believe that any creatures would support an organization that's so pointless cruel and murderous."
# Characters.{{Myst}}: His double life must have been extremely taxing. Such stress can easily take a toll on one's health.
# Fridge.TheHungerGames: There are real-life squirrel-hunting competitions in places like southern Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia — Hillbilly coal-mining country, even. Bonus points are awarded for a shot through the eye. The competitions are conducted with muzzle-loading black-powder rifles even less accurate than a good hunting bow. Winners routinely turn in nothing but eye-shot squirrels.
# AvengersEndgame.TropesPToZ: As Hulk testily explains to Scott and Rhodey, the popular portrayal of time travel in films like Back to the Future isn't how time travel works at all.
# Recap.FilmRerollMemento: invoked Invoked: When Teddy tells Leonard that there's a guy in Chinatown that gave Leonard all of his tattoos and notes, he points out that it isn't actually that impossible to imitate his handwriting. "You think that's fuckin' sci-fi technology?!"
# Fanfic.{{Shorn}}: Yes, shaming/torturing (psychologically) someone by haircut did happen in reality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a Real Life section in Traumatic Haircut.
# Characters.DeltaruneNoelle: Noelle is sometimes thought to be a case of Animal Gender-Bender due to having antlers. However, both male and female reindeer have antlers (differing only in when they shed their antlers), as opposed to most species of deer where only the males have them.
# Series.{{Vikings}}: Some viewers complained about Danila Kozlovsky's accent playing Oleg the Prophet, calling it "fake-sounding" and like an American trying too hard to sound Russian. Apparently, they were unaware that Danila actually is Russian and his English is a product of learning his lines phonetically since he's not a fluent speaker.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E14StrangerThanFanFiction: DoubleMeaningTitle: Based on the common idiom for RealityIsUnrealistic and Rainbow's first-hoof knowledge that the Daring Do books are actually memoirs published as fiction and written under a Pen Name.
# YMMV.TheLionGuard: Fuli's "inaccurate" design is also not as off-base as the critics seem to believe; "king" cheetahs are an an unusual color morph, but they're hardly vanishingly rare either. Fuli's splotchy coloring and vaguely square patterns are actually a fairly spot-on representation.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Funny.{{Recess}}: The plan to get Spinelli out of the Ashleys is to have everyone on the playground change their name to Ashley and force their way into the group. When the Ashleys protest that half of them aren't even girls, Gus replies "Hey, it's the '90s!"Made even funnier by the fact that Ashley is also a male given name.
# Film.DungeonsAndDragons2000: Profion's evil lair is so covered in human bones it comes across as extremely heavy-handed and over the top. While it certainly fits Profion's personality, it's a real place, and more or less unaltered.
# Trivia.YoureNext: Barbara Crampton (Aubrey) was 53 years old when she shot the film, but as she looks very good for her age, makeup effects were used to make her look more her age as Aubrey and thus more acceptable as the mother to three adult children.
# Film.{{Ali}}: TheDreaded: George Foreman, after he is introduced pulverizing Joe Frazier in the famous "Down goes Frazier!" fight. This may be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic for younger viewers more familiar with Foreman as the avuncular figure who sells grills on TV.
# VideoGame.{{Arknights}}: Some female operators are very obviously based on male specimens of their Animal Motifs.Conviction is very obviously based on a peacock, complete with colorful trains and blue feathers. Female peafowl, or peahens, are much less colorful and don't have tail trains. Coupled with Conviction's Ambiguous Gender in the provided bio, fans have theorized that the operator is a Dude Looks Like a Lady. Siege's impressively poofy hair takes cues from the mane of a male lion. It's worth noting that while lionesses usually don't have manes, there have been instances of a few that do, however these are very rare, and their manes are much smaller and less prominent than a male's natural one. Basically the case for all female Forte operators (e.g. Sideroca, Vulcan, etc...), who have big and prominent horns characteristic of bulls. Female bovids, or cows, have much smaller and shorter horns.
# Film.{{Elysium}}: GravityIsAHarshMistress: Of the "varying gravity" type. The hijacked spacecraft at the beginning seem to ignore it; and the military craft flying up to Elysium seems to have some sort Artificial Gravity, but when said craft carrying the main characters lurches to the side near the Elysium torus everyone falls sideways "down" to Elysium. Your head can spin trying to figure out what is going on here - did the gravity switch off? Elysium can't pull the characters down - is the craft flying along the curve of Elysium? If so... why? A lot of Fridge Logic in that scene for physics nerds to sort out, but this happens this way because RealityIsUnrealistic and Rule of Cool.
# Headscratchers.{{Continuum}}: Ep. 8?), Hoyt somehow manages to die from a clearly nonlethal shoulder shot.There's no such thing as a "nonlethal" place to be shot. The bullet, or fragments (if it hit a bone), could have could have hit a major blood vessel. Combine that with shock from heavy tissue damage and pain amd you've got one dead guy. Oh, dear. You've fallen victim to thinking the Only a Flesh Wound trope is realistic. Television Is Trying to Kill Us.But what about those fancy suits Kiera et al have? Then bullets really do only cause flesh wounds!
# Headscratchers.HonorHarrington: U.S. submarines do get excellent food, or at least, that's what the military is officially telling the press. See here.
# Series.TheGoldbergs: Some plots points are occasionally criticized as being too outlandish or goofy even for a sitcom. Adam F. Goldberg counters such criticism by saying that not only did such things happen to him in his childhood, he has video evidence to back it up.In one episode, Pops gives a hilarious, rambling wedding toast on video that seems almost too outlandish to be anything other than fiction; The Stinger shows the video of the real Pops saying it verbatim. Real and fictional Pops: My appendix burst inside without causing me any pain. I have one large scar across my abdomen and one scar all the way down my right side. And I had one of my kidneys removed. [beat] Can I erase that part about the kidney? That's all I have to say.
# ComicStrip.PrinceValiant: ArtisticLicenseHistory: Hal Foster wasn't afraid to change things to suit the story. Contemporary historical figures make appearances, archaic place names (like Gaul for France for example) are used, the Western Roman Empire is still hanging on, paganism is still widely practiced in Europe and the clothing worn throughout the series is more-or-less grounded in the Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, popular anachronistic trappings common to Arthurian literature (such as stone castles, chivalry, jousting and the title of knight) are heavily featured. Justifiable, as these elements have become so ubiquitous to Arthurian mythology that their absence would invoke a sense of RealityIsUnrealistic and most of the castles are implied, if not outright stated, to be Roman strongholds. The depiction of continental Europe as a post-apocalyptic wasteland after the fall of the Western Roman Empire has been increasingly disproved by historians since the nineteenth century.
# Series.ScrapheapChallenge: While the scrapyards are all real locations, the piles of parts and metal were ‘carefully’ laid out by the program’s staff, as in reality, breaker’s yards are typically much better organised.
# Literature.ChildrenOfTheLastDays: Invoked in the foreword of Strangers and Sojourners.
# Characters.{{Maleficent}}: AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted, somewhat. This film's Aurora looks a good deal more childlike than the original 1959 character. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic; Aurora's original design was modeled after actresses in their twenties, despite still being sixteen in canon. If anything, this film's incarnation actually does look like an actual teenager, by virtue of being portrayed by one.
# Recap.ThomasAndFriendsS2E16BreakVan: FailedASpotCheck: Nobody In-Universe realises anything wrong with a signal box being built at the end of a train track without any buffersnote A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, as in these No OSHA Compliance days, many yards did have short stub-sidings running up to the buildings.
# WebVideo.TwoBestFriendsPlay: In the full playthrough of Man Vs. Wild, Matt and Pat are very critical of the glacier cave in the Patagonia level, claiming that it looks "unfinished" because the interior is completely blue. Real glacier caves actually are that blue. Similarly, while playing Resident Evil during the Shitstorm of Scariness, they both laugh at the absurdity of the Smith & Wesson 500, which Pat claims doesn't exist. It actually does. While making fun of Tekken's characters talking to each other in their own language despite some being billingual, Woolie concedes that he did speak only English to his French bosses who only replied in French, living in a country with two official languages.
# Film.HiddenInSilence: While the film has some Dramatization or Pragmatic Adaptation moments, several moments which some viewers initially thought were storytelling inventions were taken directly from the real people's accounts of the story.Fusia's prayers are answered at key moments in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, and she considered this to be a miracle in real life. Helena was really accosted and beaten while doing a job that Fusia couldn't risk being recognized while doing. The protagonists Living with the Villain for several months and the Germans hearing a noise and checking the attic is real. Fusia really did sneak into the ghetto multiple times to meet with people before they came to her house. Fusia did have a boyfriend who was tricked thinking she's dating a German officer because the group couldn't risk letting him find out about her secret houseguests. The first Russian soldier the group encounters after liberation really was another Jew.
# Characters.GoldenKamuySugimotosGroup: His aftermath for brain damage qualifies: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like decreased mobility or speech impediments), he's shown to recover without any apparent effects of it. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And in the next chapter, he's shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, being all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's tracks, and acting much easier to anger, even for his usual standards.
# Characters.AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily: Sozin decreed the practice of hunting dragons for glory which led to the almost complete extinction of the species. This in spite of the fact that Sozin owned a dragon himself. Turf Wars reveals he outlawed same-sex relationships. While this attitude actually fits the real-life setting and era the Fire Nation was based on, it's said to have been tolerant beforehand. No reason why he did this other than to establish "That guy was the worst!" is given.
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning: The Doctor's "English Accent" is almost good enough, but doesn't quite cut the mustard! Paul McGann doesn't use his real accent to play the Doctor.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E1MareInTheMoon: At first glance, one might wonder over the bird that looked like a cardinal but was red on top and brown on the bottom; males are red above and below and females are brown above and below. The closely related pyrrhuloxia, also called the desert cardinal, is pied but is gray below, and the two species can hybridize.
# Blog.GuardianAcorn: In her review of Magical Girl Site she references common criticism of bullies in anime, and points out that people in real life actually act this way.
# Recap.TheLegendOfKorraS1E10TurningTheTides: The baby's eyes are open, he has a full head of hair instead of fuzz (though this is merely rare, not impossible), and he's already cooing.
# Film.AndStarringPanchoVillaAsHimself: The initial footage of Villa's ragtag army is treated with derision by potential investors. So the moviemakers provide uniforms, hire an actor to play Pancho Villa, and start inventing scenes for Rule of Drama. A scene is filmed of the gallant rebels returning home to the enthusiastic greeting of their womenfolk. Only the women are shy and awkward on camera, so prostitutes are used instead.
# Film.AfterEarth: Would all evidence of human civilization disappear in only a thousand years? You bet it would. Ironically the neolithic cave paintings Kitai finds would survive just as depicted as well, for the same reason they survived until the modern era - they were in a sheltered place.Also the animals... most people seem to assume they are "newly evolved" animals rather than just fancifully rendered regular earth animals that are currently confined to nature programs about the few remaining scraps of wilderness on our planet.
# Film.TheVirginSpring: The movie goes a long way reproducing the mentality of the medieval Swedish countryside, a lot of which will appear strange to a modern audience. At the same time it averts this trope, exposing the rather liberal and cheerful relationship between Karin and her parents, standing in a striking contrast to the sheep-like obedience expected of every child that, according to most people, was prevalent in that time period.
# Film.UnitedPassions: Downplayed; Sir Stanley Rous actually did lose the role of FIFA president to Havelange primarily because of his blatant racism and open support for Apartheid. However, the fact that the film for some reason chooses to give a Historical Villain Upgrade to someone whose views would already be considered morally repugnant by modern standards, while also lionising a successor who was himself a very flawed man, ends up making Rous' faults look comically overblown by comparison.
# WesternAnimation.MyLittlePonyTales: The only way to tell a background pony's gender is by its single clothing accessory or by the length of its mane. And sometimes, not even then. Half of Teddy's farming cousins, who wear pink coats and have long, curly rainbow-colored manes, are male. And the father looks identical to the mother, but that's a different trope entirely.... This is actually more realistic than it seems, as horses really don't have much in the way of obvious sexual dimorphism, so clothing or mane style being the only differing feature is logical.
# Film.RoboCop2: Cain snapping Angie's neck on the close-up shot was done with the actual actress, Galyn Görg, and not a dummy. According to Robert Tippet, she was incredibly flexible and had a very strong neck. Even when her head was almost at a 90-degree angle, she was completely fine and kept cranking her neck more when necessary.
# Awesome.TheAngryVideoGameNerd: The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
# Characters.Godzilla1998: Doug Walker said that lizards don't eat fish, but in reality, there are lizards that do. That said, iguanas are not among those lizards (they're herbivores), although you could interpret the change in diet to part of its mutation.
# Headscratchers.MirrorsEdge: There are those of us in real life that have that kind of frame. 5' 9"-10" and 130 lbs, with a so-called slender athletic build, right here. Not to be cliche, but people do come in plenty of shapes and sizes.This trope is male, taller, and lighter. Can't exactly run on walls, but I'm not super nonathletic. So yeah it happens.
# Series.JohnAdams: Yes. Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams really did die on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This would be seen as too on-the-nose if it wasn't for the fact that it actually happened.
# Film.ReservoirDogs: The fact that Mr. Brown was able to drive a car some distance and get in some last words after being shot clear through his brain isn't as remarkable as it seems at first; though the bullet played a key part in his demise, any medical professional will tell you it was a lack of medical attention that did him in.
# Series.HotInCleveland: Victoria entered and LOST a look-a-like contest, as herself. She was supposed to be a drag queen look-a-like, but she still lost (to a Susan Lucci look-a-like.)
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Some fans say that Alex died at the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they were bad, but because some fans think surviving a bullet to the chest is unrealistic.
# Series.{{Veep}}: For all the cussing and wannabe-backstabbers in this show, Veep apparently resembles reality more than the idealistic The West Wing or the Machiavellian House of Cards (US) do according to cast members who have been told this by workers in D.C.
# Gush.LetsPlay: Similar to Kingdom Come, FlyingMacguffin is working on a Paradox mega-LP that starts with the Duchy of Brittany/Crusader Kingdom of Egypt in Crusader Kings. It's currently in Victoria II, and the goal is to end with Hearts of Iron in 1964. Despite being radically different from our timelinenote France got balkanized hard around 1500, most of the Near East (including Mecca) is thoroughly Breton/British and Catholic, Spain and Italy are (mostly) Protestant, Portugal is an ethnically English Archbishopric, Persia belongs to the Russian Khanate of Polotsk, Bohemia-Moravia's a great power, the Papacy colonized Brazil (from Algeria), a displaced Turkish Caliphate rules over much of Central and East Asia, and the Roman Empire has been reborn under the Byzantines. Really needs to be seen to be believed. the way it unfolds is no less insane than what actually happened. Very much worth a peek for anyone who likes history, but with over 60 hours of video thus far, beware the Archive Panic.
# Film.GangsOfNewYork: Hellcat Maggie not only sharpens wears sharpened claws but also files her teeth down to sharp points as well. This is not an invention of the film, by the way, though she is a composite character.
# ComicBook.{{Persepolis}}: Viewers may have been surprised to find that yes, Marjane actually does go skiing in Iran - Iran actually has quite a bit of ski resorts and snow-covered mountains.
# Fanfic.TranspositionOrShipHappens: Some of the readers were disbelieving that Tattletale was able to survive with her injuries for several hours. One reviewer (with actual medical training) pointed out that not only was it possible, she would have had high chances of recovery with proper medical care.
# Webcomic.OzyAndMillie: Millie wags her tail when happy. Just like real life foxes.
# Characters.TolkiensLegendariumPeoples: The prologue of the Lord of the Rings establishes that Hobbits are scarily accurate marksmen, not only with bows, but with stones. Bilbo is also shown to be incredibly skilled at hitting targets with stones in The Hobbit.Logically, as the smallest race in Middle-earth, they couldn't rely on melee combat, but ranged weapons give them a chance. They similarly developed great natural skill at hiding and moving quietly, to avoid larger threats. The Ruffians occupying the Shire at the end of the book find out the hard way that these combined skills make hobbits excellent guerrilla fighters: hobbit archers hiding in the forests are natural snipers, picking them off unseen. The films showcase this ability on occasion with Hobbits consistently making difficult shots by throwing rocks. Fans often criticize these scenes for being unrealistic.
# YMMV.TheHills: OvershadowedByControversy: While the show's RealityIsUnrealistic tendencies were not entirely hidden even beforehand, the Les Deux "club fight" between Lauren and Heidi in Season 2 — treated as a momentary spat in the show, and a serious altercation in real-life that necessitated a police presence — was the first clue many fans got that the show was deliberately manipulated to play up certain storylines. Allegations of cast member Lauren Conrad having a sextape (ultimately untrue) rocked public perception of the show, casting a damper on certain storylines in Season 2 and 3 that portrayed Lauren as a virtuous intern.
# Characters.SniperEliteIII: BunnyEarsLawyer: Several Afrika Korps and Schutzvollstrecker soldiers note that he is a very eccentric individual, such as wearing medieval style armor over his uniform (though see RealityIsUnrealistic for reasons). This doesn't make him any less dangerous as a soldier, as his plan almost succeeds and gives Karl a very difficult challenge.
# Film.HereComesTheBoom: Upon release, the film was criticized for the ending of Scott's UFC fight, where he fights his way out of an armbar by hoisting his opponent and slamming him into the ground, winning by knockout. As this video clearly demonstrates, not only is slamming/power-bombing an opponent a valid defense against a variety of submission holds, but it is perfectly capable of knocking you out cold. As Joe Rogan points out in his commentary, getting slammed on your head and shoulders hurts. He likens it to a linebacker tackling a quarterback... but without a helmet for protection.
# Trivia.TheLegoMovie: While the entire role is obviously based on voice acting, Liam Neeson gets to showcase his talent for doing cartoon character voices - most of the scenes where he argues back and forth in both voices are actually done in a single take with no editing, rather than doing both voices separately and splicing them together. The cheery, cartoony Good Cop voice is all him too, no editing on the pitch at all. (Interestingly enough, Neeson has mentioned before that the voice of Good Cop is actually much closer to his natural voice.)
# YMMV.XComEnemyUnknown: XCOM rookie troopers actually have pretty good accuracy ratings if you compare them to real-life soldiers, but they're mainly remembered for all those times where they missed when firing a shotgun point blank at an alien the size of a bus. "XCOM Rookies" is sort of a byword in many communities for "supposedly elite trooper that can't hit the broad side of a barn." This is due to them supposedly being the “best of the best” from the world’s militaries, despite having trouble hitting large targets like Mutons in zero cover that (from our point of view) are standing completely still.
# Film.ThirtyDaysOfNight: "Barrow" is a kind of tomb. And an actual town.
# ContrivedCoincidence.{{Literature}}: The Adventures of Blue Avenger by Norma Howe argues that this trope falls under RealityIsUnrealistic. Unlikely coincidences happen all the time, and Million to One Chance events are pretty common in a world with nearly seven billion people. So here comes one...
# Creator.HammerheadProduction: In the site's entry of Titanic, there's a comment in that one scene of the miniature ship (by Digital Domain) looked faker than the CG Dolphins that were also present.
# Creator.ChristopherHitchens: He claimed to hate clichés in writing, so when he visited Communist-era Czechoslovakia, he promised himself that he wouldn't make references to Franz Kafka in his reports. When he was arrested while visiting a group of political activists and told by the police that he didn't need to know the charge, he realized that reality is sometimes indistinguishable from parody. Similarly, he didn't want to mention Nineteen Eighty-Four before he visited North Korea, but found it to be such a perfect rendition of the dystopian state in the novel that he almost suspected it to be the regime's unofficial source of inspiration.
# WesternAnimation.TheProudFamily: There was actually some debate because Papi looked "too white" to be Hispanic. It's no secret LaCienega counts as Hispanic (she and Sunset are darker skinned than Felix, who's tan) but some assumed that Felix was half Hispanic, and that his mom was. However, it's fully possible for Papi to be white but still be Hispanic, there are plenty of Hispanics who can be considered white. Heck, just look at Guillermo del Toro.
# Trivia.TheDeerHunter: Per De Niro's suggestion, a real charge was placed in the gun during the Russian Roulette scenes to heighten the tension. The crew made sure, however, that the actors wouldn't get the bullet for real.Just as well, because blanks are still quite dangerous, despite the common misconception that they are "safe", and carelessness with a blank has killed at least one person.
# Characters.TheFaultInOurStars: Hazel is terminally ill and her boyfriend is in remission. Nonetheless, Hazel lives while Augustus dies. In reality, this is very much possible.
# Series.{{Reign}}: Many critics have complained that the show does this with Mary, but, because RealityIsUnrealistic, she actually averts this trope. The historical Mary was known for her beauty. However, she was also six feet tall and auburn-haired, unlike Adelaide Kane, the medium-height brunette who plays her on the show. Lampshaded in season 2, when Princess Claude says of their childhood, "You seemed so tall in those days."
# Headscratchers.MetroidFusion: The self-destruct sequence is a given, but its size would be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic. The station is actually SR388's asteroid moon. An impact event in real life is always devastating, even if the impactor is smaller and of lesser mass, mainly due to the sheer velocity of said object. Orbit rapidly degrading, Samus and Adam rammed it straight into SR388, and detonating the core would have finished the job.
# Series.SeaPatrol: Characters leaving the show at the end of most seasons unexplainedly, which happens on real boats all the time.
# Pantheon.NicknamesAndRenames: Hired as the getaway driver, has an absurd interest in sex and porn, played by Quentin Tarantino and dies, somehow survived being shot in the head before bleeding out, barely known in the story
# Literature.TheTechnicolorTimeMachine: Extensively lampshaded by the whole novel.
# Film.TheBigChill: In a roundabout way. Kevin Kline was reluctant to do the scene in which Harold and Meg have sex so she can conceive a child, feeling it was unrealistic. But he later said that after the movie's release several people told him they had been in the same situation.
# Recap.MightyMagiswordsS1E50QuestForKnowledge: Neddy refers to Gateaux as Townsend, which the latter claims isn't a real name. Neddy is played by Townsend Coleman.
# Film.IndependenceDay: Reality Is Unrealistic When Steve first meets the President, they only shake hands. This is correct, as he's uncovered (not wearing headgear) and thus he's not required to salute. They play it straight at the end, though. The President salutes Steve, who is still without headgear. Steve has to hurriedly hand Jasmine his cigar to appropriately salute back. Marine One is able to travel from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base within the nine minutes left before the aliens' attack. Assuming the helicopter went close to its maximum speed, given how short on time they were, it can take about four minutes to fly the roughly ten miles as the crow flies between the two locations.
# YMMV.{{Bleach}}: Japanese culture tends to view child abuse as a private problem that should be dealt with inside the family first and foremost, while Western attitudes are much more interventionist. From a Western perspective, Chad and Orihime both living without guardians by age 15—Orihime has been living alone since middle school, specifically because of parental abuse, and having limited economic support from her only living relative instead of living with her—can be difficult to suspend disbelief for. RealityIsUnrealistic, in many Western countries, even America, there are many officially and de facto independent minors in situations ranging from parental abandonment to walking out themselves to separation agreements that provide support but not control.
# Webcomic.MarryMeBobbyCrosby: One of the News Commentators thinks the entire thing is a publicity stunt. Though, to give him credit, he does bring up some good points for it, despite them all just being coincidences. Really, REALLY, convenient coincidences. Also, Guy is too realistic of a pirate for audiences to connect with. Don't ask.
# Literature.ShinganNoYuusha: Combined with RealityIsUnrealistic. The womb does indeed have powerful defenses that protect the fetus from diseases that affect the mother. Children delivered by C-section have been found free of disease, even when the mother has dangerous co-genital S.T.D.s like herpes and Aids.
# YMMV.TheHunchbackOfNotreDame: Would you believe us if we told you that it actually wasn't Quasimodo's deformities that the peasants ostracized him for, but his red hair? Such were the prejudices of actual Medieval Parisians.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationIVenonatToCloyster: Cloyster's Ice-typing might not seem to make sense at first, given that bivalves are normally associated with tropical waters. It's actually based on polar bivalves, which are "the most numerous group of mollusks in the Arctic deep-sea". As for that Overly-Long Tongue on Shellder? Real life bivalves have these "tongues" as well, which are actually their equivalent to feet.
# Headscratchers.{{Animorphs}}: NameOne: Name One? Sharks 400 million years. Crocodiles 200 million years. Grasshoppers 115 million years. RealityIsUnrealistic
# VideoGame.TheSunkenCityCollection: The Warrior was a literal case of this. Her backstory reveals that she was a serial killer who handpicked male victims for their Mr. Fanservice qualities, and can even be seen groping herself as she murders them. This is actually a common motive for real life serial killers.
# YMMV.{{Interstellar}}: Gargantua is stunning. It being an entirely accurate representation of a black hole (to the point of actually showing an effect that physicists didn't know about before simply because they hadn't put the black hole equations into a computer program as high-quality as the one the movie used) seals it.
# Film.TheHunted2003: Zig-Zagging Trope.To quote Roger Ebert's review: We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly. They live in a world of gravity-free speed-up. Not so Friedkin's characters. Their fight is gravity-based. Their arms and legs are heavy. Their blows land solidly, with pain on both sides. They gasp and grunt with effort. They can be awkward and desperate. They both know the techniques of hand-to-hand combat, but in real life, it isn't scripted, and you know what? It isn't so easy. We are involved in the immediate, exhausting, draining physical work of fighting. On the other hand Tom Brown, Jr., the primary consultant on the film is a bit ashamed of it despite this. ...the bloody knife fight at the end — no way it would last 4 minutes, any of those wounds are lethal.
# VideoGame.SimCity: Criminals caught by the police will go to prison even if you have no Courthouse in town, or even in the region, to give them a trial, which is a big no-no in most justice systems around the world. Possible subversion: That said, in real life it's not uncommon for the courthouse to be combined with something else, like the City Hallnote Prominent example: Up until the completion of the Criminal Justice Center in 1994, most criminal trials in Philadelphia—one of the 5 largest cities in the United States at the time—were held in the Philadelphia City Hall. Please note that even after criminal functions were moved to the CJC, City Hall is still primarily a courthouse—it's just that the relevant trials are civil rather than criminal. (City government functions are mostly located in two nearby municipal office buildings or in rented space.) (pretty easy to get in this game) or even the police station. Perhaps the assumption is that this is what's going on.
# Trivia.TaylorSwift: With the rerecordings coming out, Taylor's accent from her earlier albums has been frequently referred to as a "fake country" accent that she's just dropped now. (Mostly due to the differences between her accent and a traditional Southern accent.) Her accent on those albums is actually very much real and is standard for central Pennsylvania (where she's from). It's faded for the most part, including from her speaking voice, as she no longer lives there. (A notable exception to this is "I'll Bet You Think About Me" from Red (Taylor's Version), which uses her native accent.)
# Series.TheArtfulDodger: Lady Belle Fox wants to become a woman surgeon. In the 1850s. Which isn't quite as far-fetched as it might sound given that the first female surgeon Mary Edwards Walker became a qualified surgeon around this time in real life.
# Fanfic.{{Turtles}}: Koume finds it rather odd that Anzu, Momo and Yuzu's parents all named them after fruit(apricot, peach and citrus, respectively). Koume's name means "little plum" in Japanese, and she never acknowledges that her own parents also named her after a fruit. As listed here, it's actually pretty common in Japan for girls to have some sort of a fruit-themed name, just like the Student Council members and Koume do.
# Characters.PokemonGenerationVMinccinoToVolcarona: Look up "derpfish" on Google Images and there's a good chance you'll see this guy's mug. Its appearance is actually toned down compared to its inspiration.
# Headscratchers.GreenLantern: Also, from an actual Real Life perspective? I am delighted to expand your knowledge by informing you that not all sapphire aka corundum stones are even blue! (Yeah, I was surprised too) It's just that blue is the most famous and iconic color of "sapphire" stones. Notice the ones on that page though include some that could easily double as "Star" Sapphires, whether we're going for Magenta shades or the more purple violets! (And in before somebody mentions "about that magenta thing, pink is not violet!!" - yes, it is, at least in Fuschia/Magenta hues it can be. Specifically, the hues they tend to color the Star Sapphires in in classic color schemes from Silver Age onward are classifiable not just as "pink" but also as a variant of "red-violet", which I discovered when I actually Googled the latter. Fridge Brilliance since it keeps it separate from blue-violet...which is what actual "indigo" is in Real Life!)
# Trivia.{{Gladiator}}: David Franzoni's original script had Maximus named Narcissus and surviving along with his family, Commodus being strangled in the baths (as he was by the real Narcissus), the fight at the Colosseum against a rhinoceros instead of tigers and Lucilla not making it to the end of the movie but being executed (as she was in reality) along with some senators inside a Sicilian Bull. The rhinos became tigers because it was impossible to train real rhinos and CGI replacements didn't look convincing. The other things were changed because of RealityIsUnrealistic.
# Recap.XenaS06E20SoulPossession: The fangirls are unimpressed with Ares fireballs once they get to see them in real life. Hey! What’s wrong with the special effects? Yeah, they’re really cheesy.
# Creator.HarryTurtledove: He originally wrote under the pseudonyms "Eric Iverson" and "H.N. Turteltaub" because his editor thought "Turtledove" sounded too much like a made-up name.
# NotAlwaysWorking.TropesAToE: The beginning of this story made quite a number of posts think it was actually another story (never mind the fact that the odds of someone else witnessing the same circumstances and submitting them to this website are astronomical). To elaborate, the older story involved a Designated Hero standing in line at a supermarket and holding everyone up because she was observing Remembrance Day, whereas the later story also had a woman holding up a supermarket line, but that was because she was having a seizure. In the latter story's case, the cashier refused to help the customer even when the submitter, who happened to be a doctor, said that she was having a seizure, because "if she was having a seizure she'd be writhing on the floor, wouldn't she?". The cashier also voided both the sick customer and the doctor's purchases because they stepped out of line, saying that "they must be joking if they thought she would give them their shopping back."
# SpecialEffectFailure.LiveActionTV: Moonbase 3, a BBC sci-fi series, was criticized for its cheap-looking props and sets. Ironically, this was caused by efforts to be as realistic as possible; it is much more difficult to create a realistic-looking rocket, spacesuit, and whatnot than to simply use a salt shaker as a futuristic device.
# Film.ARoyalNightOut: The girls did go out, but they were both younger than the film seems to depict. They also went out with about sixteen other people - including friends their own age and their nanny. They actually did get back to Buckingham Palace at the 1 am curfew. Of course at the end, the King tells Elizabeth to say she spent the entire night at The Ritz - which is what happened in real life.
# Recap.DoctorWhoS31E6TheVampiresOfVenice: Some people have lambasted the appearance of Isabella and her father as tokenism and Politically Correct History. Venice was a port and trade city in Real Life, and it wasn't unheard of for African traders to move and set up shop there in the 16th century. See also a moderately well-known play called The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Also, an earlier episode points out the fact that even England in 1599 wasn't just fair youths by this point; there were a lot of dark ladies around as well. Rory fending off a sword with a broom is not impossible either, provided he managed to hit the flat of Francesco's blade and not the edge.
# OneThousandWaysToDie.TropesLToS: One of these gets himself killed in "Flame Retard-Ant". When he accidentally sets himself on fire, he jumps into the water to put it out but goes into shock due to the water's cold temperature and drowns. Unusually, the episode points out that in real life, arsonists are rarely motivated by pyromania.
# Trivia.{{Vikings}}: Freydis' actress asked to be actually strangled in the scene where Ivar kills her. There was a medic standing by on-set to ensure she didn't receive any permanent damage, but what you see on-screen is her actual reaction, which accounts for why it also takes much longer then most scenes where someone is trying to strangle someone else to death in TV shows.
# Headscratchers.MassEffect2Archive2: I sorry, but this CG artist must contradict you. Motion capture animation can be redone by hand with only a few minor hassles, in fact very rarely will any production house use the raw motion capture data. They always tweek it by hand to smooth out errors and because good animation should be more exaggerated. The reprogramming of the different weapons is a valid point, though. But mostly its just time constraints.
# VideoGame.AssassinsCreedSyndicate: There's been some hubbub over Evie openly participating in boxing matches during the extremely sexist Victorian age, under the assumption that female participation in combat sports is a recent development. However, women's boxing was actually a thing in Victorian England. One example is Elizabeth Wilkinson, who fought even earlier during the early 18th century. She also went up against men in mixed-gender boxing matches. Things only start to become less grounded in reality because Evie doesn't appear to have much muscle, but still packs as much a punch as Jacob, using the same moves. See Rule of Fun.
# Recap.TheForbiddenLoveOfYukariYakumo: Discussed in chapter seven's Author's Notes by Tokage, subverted in that her 'reality' is still fictional.
# Fanfic.WhipAndWing: Twilight advises rainbow Dash and Lyra to do this when they write about the Nazis. She says, "Nopony would believe that any creatures would support an organization that's so pointless cruel and murderous."
# Characters.{{Myst}}: His double life must have been extremely taxing. Such stress can easily take a toll on one's health.
# Fridge.TheHungerGames: There are real-life squirrel-hunting competitions in places like southern Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia — Hillbilly coal-mining country, even. Bonus points are awarded for a shot through the eye. The competitions are conducted with muzzle-loading black-powder rifles even less accurate than a good hunting bow. Winners routinely turn in nothing but eye-shot squirrels.
# AvengersEndgame.TropesPToZ: As Hulk testily explains to Scott and Rhodey, the popular portrayal of time travel in films like Back to the Future isn't how time travel works at all.
# Recap.FilmRerollMemento: invoked Invoked: When Teddy tells Leonard that there's a guy in Chinatown that gave Leonard all of his tattoos and notes, he points out that it isn't actually that impossible to imitate his handwriting. "You think that's fuckin' sci-fi technology?!"
# Fanfic.{{Shorn}}: Yes, shaming/torturing (psychologically) someone by haircut did happen in reality. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a Real Life section in Traumatic Haircut.
# Characters.DeltaruneNoelle: Noelle is sometimes thought to be a case of Animal Gender-Bender due to having antlers. However, both male and female reindeer have antlers (differing only in when they shed their antlers), as opposed to most species of deer where only the males have them.
# Series.{{Vikings}}: Some viewers complained about Danila Kozlovsky's accent playing Oleg the Prophet, calling it "fake-sounding" and like an American trying too hard to sound Russian. Apparently, they were unaware that Danila actually is Russian and his English is a product of learning his lines phonetically since he's not a fluent speaker.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E14StrangerThanFanFiction: DoubleMeaningTitle: Based on the common idiom for RealityIsUnrealistic and Rainbow's first-hoof knowledge that the Daring Do books are actually memoirs published as fiction and written under a Pen Name.
# YMMV.TheLionGuard: Fuli's "inaccurate" design is also not as off-base as the critics seem to believe; "king" cheetahs are an an unusual color morph, but they're hardly vanishingly rare either. Fuli's splotchy coloring and vaguely square patterns are actually a fairly spot-on representation.
# AgentsOfSHIELD.TropesNToR: Some fans have questioned the authenticity of Fitz and/or Simmons's accents, despite their accents (Scottish and English respectively) being the actors' own natural accents. Skye got a lot of criticism in the first few episodes for the fact she was recruited off the street after trying to cyber attack S.H.I.E.L.D.; in real life, it's not uncommon for intelligence and/or law enforcement agencies to recruit rogue assets to their own side if they prove to be useful, particularly computer hackers.
# Funny.{{Recess}}: The plan to get Spinelli out of the Ashleys is to have everyone on the playground change their name to Ashley and force their way into the group. When the Ashleys protest that half of them aren't even girls, Gus replies "Hey, it's the '90s!"Made even funnier by the fact that Ashley is also a male given name.
# Film.DungeonsAndDragons2000: Profion's evil lair is so covered in human bones it comes across as extremely heavy-handed and over the top. While it certainly fits Profion's personality, it's a real place, and more or less unaltered.
# Trivia.YoureNext: Barbara Crampton (Aubrey) was 53 years old when she shot the film, but as she looks very good for her age, makeup effects were used to make her look more her age as Aubrey and thus more acceptable as the mother to three adult children.
# Film.{{Ali}}: TheDreaded: George Foreman, after he is introduced pulverizing Joe Frazier in the famous "Down goes Frazier!" fight. This may be a case of RealityIsUnrealistic for younger viewers more familiar with Foreman as the avuncular figure who sells grills on TV.
# VideoGame.{{Arknights}}: Some female operators are very obviously based on male specimens of their Animal Motifs.Conviction is very obviously based on a peacock, complete with colorful trains and blue feathers. Female peafowl, or peahens, are much less colorful and don't have tail trains. Coupled with Conviction's Ambiguous Gender in the provided bio, fans have theorized that the operator is a Dude Looks Like a Lady. Siege's impressively poofy hair takes cues from the mane of a male lion. It's worth noting that while lionesses usually don't have manes, there have been instances of a few that do, however these are very rare, and their manes are much smaller and less prominent than a male's natural one. Basically the case for all female Forte operators (e.g. Sideroca, Vulcan, etc...), who have big and prominent horns characteristic of bulls. Female bovids, or cows, have much smaller and shorter horns.
# Film.{{Elysium}}: GravityIsAHarshMistress: Of the "varying gravity" type. The hijacked spacecraft at the beginning seem to ignore it; and the military craft flying up to Elysium seems to have some sort Artificial Gravity, but when said craft carrying the main characters lurches to the side near the Elysium torus everyone falls sideways "down" to Elysium. Your head can spin trying to figure out what is going on here - did the gravity switch off? Elysium can't pull the characters down - is the craft flying along the curve of Elysium? If so... why? A lot of Fridge Logic in that scene for physics nerds to sort out, but this happens this way because RealityIsUnrealistic and Rule of Cool.
# Headscratchers.{{Continuum}}: Ep. 8?), Hoyt somehow manages to die from a clearly nonlethal shoulder shot.There's no such thing as a "nonlethal" place to be shot. The bullet, or fragments (if it hit a bone), could have could have hit a major blood vessel. Combine that with shock from heavy tissue damage and pain amd you've got one dead guy. Oh, dear. You've fallen victim to thinking the Only a Flesh Wound trope is realistic. Television Is Trying to Kill Us.But what about those fancy suits Kiera et al have? Then bullets really do only cause flesh wounds!
# Headscratchers.HonorHarrington: U.S. submarines do get excellent food, or at least, that's what the military is officially telling the press. See here.
# Series.TheGoldbergs: Some plots points are occasionally criticized as being too outlandish or goofy even for a sitcom. Adam F. Goldberg counters such criticism by saying that not only did such things happen to him in his childhood, he has video evidence to back it up.In one episode, Pops gives a hilarious, rambling wedding toast on video that seems almost too outlandish to be anything other than fiction; The Stinger shows the video of the real Pops saying it verbatim. Real and fictional Pops: My appendix burst inside without causing me any pain. I have one large scar across my abdomen and one scar all the way down my right side. And I had one of my kidneys removed. [beat] Can I erase that part about the kidney? That's all I have to say.
# ComicStrip.PrinceValiant: ArtisticLicenseHistory: Hal Foster wasn't afraid to change things to suit the story. Contemporary historical figures make appearances, archaic place names (like Gaul for France for example) are used, the Western Roman Empire is still hanging on, paganism is still widely practiced in Europe and the clothing worn throughout the series is more-or-less grounded in the Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. However, popular anachronistic trappings common to Arthurian literature (such as stone castles, chivalry, jousting and the title of knight) are heavily featured. Justifiable, as these elements have become so ubiquitous to Arthurian mythology that their absence would invoke a sense of RealityIsUnrealistic and most of the castles are implied, if not outright stated, to be Roman strongholds. The depiction of continental Europe as a post-apocalyptic wasteland after the fall of the Western Roman Empire has been increasingly disproved by historians since the nineteenth century.
# Series.ScrapheapChallenge: While the scrapyards are all real locations, the piles of parts and metal were ‘carefully’ laid out by the program’s staff, as in reality, breaker’s yards are typically much better organised.
# Literature.ChildrenOfTheLastDays: Invoked in the foreword of Strangers and Sojourners.
# Characters.{{Maleficent}}: AdaptationalAttractiveness: Inverted, somewhat. This film's Aurora looks a good deal more childlike than the original 1959 character. A case of RealityIsUnrealistic; Aurora's original design was modeled after actresses in their twenties, despite still being sixteen in canon. If anything, this film's incarnation actually does look like an actual teenager, by virtue of being portrayed by one.
# Recap.ThomasAndFriendsS2E16BreakVan: FailedASpotCheck: Nobody In-Universe realises anything wrong with a signal box being built at the end of a train track without any buffersnote A case of RealityIsUnrealistic, as in these No OSHA Compliance days, many yards did have short stub-sidings running up to the buildings.
# WebVideo.TwoBestFriendsPlay: In the full playthrough of Man Vs. Wild, Matt and Pat are very critical of the glacier cave in the Patagonia level, claiming that it looks "unfinished" because the interior is completely blue. Real glacier caves actually are that blue. Similarly, while playing Resident Evil during the Shitstorm of Scariness, they both laugh at the absurdity of the Smith & Wesson 500, which Pat claims doesn't exist. It actually does. While making fun of Tekken's characters talking to each other in their own language despite some being billingual, Woolie concedes that he did speak only English to his French bosses who only replied in French, living in a country with two official languages.
# Film.HiddenInSilence: While the film has some Dramatization or Pragmatic Adaptation moments, several moments which some viewers initially thought were storytelling inventions were taken directly from the real people's accounts of the story.Fusia's prayers are answered at key moments in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, and she considered this to be a miracle in real life. Helena was really accosted and beaten while doing a job that Fusia couldn't risk being recognized while doing. The protagonists Living with the Villain for several months and the Germans hearing a noise and checking the attic is real. Fusia really did sneak into the ghetto multiple times to meet with people before they came to her house. Fusia did have a boyfriend who was tricked thinking she's dating a German officer because the group couldn't risk letting him find out about her secret houseguests. The first Russian soldier the group encounters after liberation really was another Jew.
# Characters.GoldenKamuySugimotosGroup: His aftermath for brain damage qualifies: instead of commonly depicted highly visible results (like decreased mobility or speech impediments), he's shown to recover without any apparent effects of it. However, one of the many possible results of brain damage in the area he was shot is mild dyslexia, and an exaggerated emotional answer. And in the next chapter, he's shown consistently taking out the wrong photo, being all teary-eyed at having found Asirpa's tracks, and acting much easier to anger, even for his usual standards.
# Characters.AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFireNationRoyalFamily: Sozin decreed the practice of hunting dragons for glory which led to the almost complete extinction of the species. This in spite of the fact that Sozin owned a dragon himself. Turf Wars reveals he outlawed same-sex relationships. While this attitude actually fits the real-life setting and era the Fire Nation was based on, it's said to have been tolerant beforehand. No reason why he did this other than to establish "That guy was the worst!" is given.
# Recap.BigFinishDoctorWho016StormWarning: The Doctor's "English Accent" is almost good enough, but doesn't quite cut the mustard! Paul McGann doesn't use his real accent to play the Doctor.
# Recap.MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E1MareInTheMoon: At first glance, one might wonder over the bird that looked like a cardinal but was red on top and brown on the bottom; males are red above and below and females are brown above and below. The closely related pyrrhuloxia, also called the desert cardinal, is pied but is gray below, and the two species can hybridize.
# Blog.GuardianAcorn: In her review of Magical Girl Site she references common criticism of bullies in anime, and points out that people in real life actually act this way.
# Recap.TheLegendOfKorraS1E10TurningTheTides: The baby's eyes are open, he has a full head of hair instead of fuzz (though this is merely rare, not impossible), and he's already cooing.
# Film.AndStarringPanchoVillaAsHimself: The initial footage of Villa's ragtag army is treated with derision by potential investors. So the moviemakers provide uniforms, hire an actor to play Pancho Villa, and start inventing scenes for Rule of Drama. A scene is filmed of the gallant rebels returning home to the enthusiastic greeting of their womenfolk. Only the women are shy and awkward on camera, so prostitutes are used instead.
# Film.AfterEarth: Would all evidence of human civilization disappear in only a thousand years? You bet it would. Ironically the neolithic cave paintings Kitai finds would survive just as depicted as well, for the same reason they survived until the modern era - they were in a sheltered place.Also the animals... most people seem to assume they are "newly evolved" animals rather than just fancifully rendered regular earth animals that are currently confined to nature programs about the few remaining scraps of wilderness on our planet.
# Film.TheVirginSpring: The movie goes a long way reproducing the mentality of the medieval Swedish countryside, a lot of which will appear strange to a modern audience. At the same time it averts this trope, exposing the rather liberal and cheerful relationship between Karin and her parents, standing in a striking contrast to the sheep-like obedience expected of every child that, according to most people, was prevalent in that time period.
# Film.UnitedPassions: Downplayed; Sir Stanley Rous actually did lose the role of FIFA president to Havelange primarily because of his blatant racism and open support for Apartheid. However, the fact that the film for some reason chooses to give a Historical Villain Upgrade to someone whose views would already be considered morally repugnant by modern standards, while also lionising a successor who was himself a very flawed man, ends up making Rous' faults look comically overblown by comparison.
# WesternAnimation.MyLittlePonyTales: The only way to tell a background pony's gender is by its single clothing accessory or by the length of its mane. And sometimes, not even then. Half of Teddy's farming cousins, who wear pink coats and have long, curly rainbow-colored manes, are male. And the father looks identical to the mother, but that's a different trope entirely.... This is actually more realistic than it seems, as horses really don't have much in the way of obvious sexual dimorphism, so clothing or mane style being the only differing feature is logical.
# Film.RoboCop2: Cain snapping Angie's neck on the close-up shot was done with the actual actress, Galyn Görg, and not a dummy. According to Robert Tippet, she was incredibly flexible and had a very strong neck. Even when her head was almost at a 90-degree angle, she was completely fine and kept cranking her neck more when necessary.
# Awesome.TheAngryVideoGameNerd: The Nerd testing if it's possible to break a window with nothing but a newspaper as shown in Paperboy and succeeding!
# Characters.Godzilla1998: Doug Walker said that lizards don't eat fish, but in reality, there are lizards that do. That said, iguanas are not among those lizards (they're herbivores), although you could interpret the change in diet to part of its mutation.
# Headscratchers.MirrorsEdge: There are those of us in real life that have that kind of frame. 5' 9"-10" and 130 lbs, with a so-called slender athletic build, right here. Not to be cliche, but people do come in plenty of shapes and sizes.This trope is male, taller, and lighter. Can't exactly run on walls, but I'm not super nonathletic. So yeah it happens.
# Series.JohnAdams: Yes. Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams really did die on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This would be seen as too on-the-nose if it wasn't for the fact that it actually happened.
# Film.ReservoirDogs: The fact that Mr. Brown was able to drive a car some distance and get in some last words after being shot clear through his brain isn't as remarkable as it seems at first; though the bullet played a key part in his demise, any medical professional will tell you it was a lack of medical attention that did him in.
# Series.HotInCleveland: Victoria entered and LOST a look-a-like contest, as herself. She was supposed to be a drag queen look-a-like, but she still lost (to a Susan Lucci look-a-like.)
# FanonDiscontinuity.{{Literature}}: Some fans say that Alex died at the end of Scorpia and the other four did not happen, not because they were bad, but because some fans think surviving a bullet to the chest is unrealistic.
# Series.{{Veep}}: For all the cussing and wannabe-backstabbers in this show, Veep apparently resembles reality more than the idealistic The West Wing or the Machiavellian House of Cards (US) do according to cast members who have been told this by workers in D.C.
# Gush.LetsPlay: Similar to Kingdom Come, FlyingMacguffin is working on a Paradox mega-LP that starts with the Duchy of Brittany/Crusader Kingdom of Egypt in Crusader Kings. It's currently in Victoria II, and the goal is to end with Hearts of Iron in 1964. Despite being radically different from our timelinenote France got balkanized hard around 1500, most of the Near East (including Mecca) is thoroughly Breton/British and Catholic, Spain and Italy are (mostly) Protestant, Portugal is an ethnically English Archbishopric, Persia belongs to the Russian Khanate of Polotsk, Bohemia-Moravia's a great power, the Papacy colonized Brazil (from Algeria), a displaced Turkish Caliphate rules over much of Central and East Asia, and the Roman Empire has been reborn under the Byzantines. Really needs to be seen to be believed. the way it unfolds is no less insane than what actually happened. Very much worth a peek for anyone who likes history, but with over 60 hours of video thus far, beware the Archive Panic.
# Film.GangsOfNewYork: Hellcat Maggie not only sharpens wears sharpened claws but also files her teeth down to sharp points as well. This is not an invention of the film, by the way, though she is a composite character.
# ComicBook.{{Persepolis}}: Viewers may have been surprised to find that yes, Marjane actually does go skiing in Iran - Iran actually has quite a bit of ski resorts and snow-covered mountains.
# Fanfic.TranspositionOrShipHappens: Some of the readers were disbelieving that Tattletale was able to survive with her injuries for several hours. One reviewer (with actual medical training) pointed out that not only was it possible, she would have had high chances of recovery with proper medical care.
# Webcomic.OzyAndMillie: Millie wags her tail when happy. Just like real life foxes.
