Examples of Ass Pull found in Literature. All spoilers are unmarked.
- In Animorphs #19: The Departure, Cassie makes a deal with a Controller: it will leave its host and go back to life as a helpless Yeerk slug if Cassie traps herself in morph as a helpless caterpillar. Cassie does so, and it seems she's now stuck as an insect for life. But wait! It turns out the caterpillar's metamorphosis into a butterfly reset the morphing clock, allowing Cassie to become human again. Hooray for sudden non-foreshadowed loopholes.
- "The Cold Equations" is about a young girl Marilyn who stows away on an Emergency Dispatch Ship (EDS) dropped from a hyperspace cruiser, and has to be thrown into space because her added weight will make it impossible for the craft to land safely. The story had gone through multiple rewrites because the magazine editor wanted to avoid the sort of science-based Ass Pulls common to Science Hero stories of the era, but the author kept finding solutions to let Marilyn live. Yet the final product is notorious for going to such great lengths to avoid a happy ending that it feels like an even greater Ass Pull:
- EDS pilots carry guns to take down stowaways, but this pilot doesn't bother to check for stowaways before launch. Plus the cruiser evidently has no meaningful security to stop people from stowing away in the first place. There is only a sign on the (unlocked) EDS bay door stating "UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL KEEP OUT!" — the crew can't even be bothered to properly warn passengers of the consequences of stowing away (Marilyn thought she'd only be subject to a modest fine).
- The EDS carries the bare minimum amount of fuel for its mission, with just a tiny bit extra for emergency maneuvers. Not only is it kind of implausible to have a futuristic spacecraft operating with no real safety margins, but the story describes the ship as large enough (having both a walk-in closet and a walk-in airlock) that Marilyn would probably amount to a fraction of a percent of the total mass that's landing. The story attempts to justify that by stating that the cruiser has limited space for fuel, and it must be carefully rationed to leave enough for other deliveries, but that just raises the question of why the cruiser couldn't have been built slightly larger to have room for a reasonable supply of fuel.
- Turning the EDS around or sending another to retrieve her is also not an option; it's carrying desperately-needed vaccines for a survey team, and the cruiser is on a very tight schedule with many other lives depending on other deliveries. Which also pushes the limits of Willing Suspension of Disbelief; such an arrangement would mean that people would die if the cruiser were to experience technical difficulties.
- Removing parts of the ship to lighten the load wouldn't work because the EDS is already designed to be as light as possible. Again, this conflicts with how it is described; it feels like it should be large enough that they could more likely than not find something in it they could live without.
- A Court of Thorns and Roses:
- Lucien being revealed as Helion's son in A Court of Wings and Ruin. It's a pretty obvious retcon given that in the first book Lucien is described as sharing facial features with Beron, his supposed father; Lucien is also now described as slightly darker-skinned due to Helion being black, whereas initially Lucien was described as fair-skinned (sun-tanned at most). Some readers felt it came off as a clumsy attempt to retroactively add ethnic diversity to the otherwise white main cast (given Sarah J. Maas has previously received criticism for this).
- Amren coming Back from the Dead, memories completely intact, at the end of A Court of Wings and Ruin. Not only does it directly go against what she'd repeatedly stated—that if she regained her true form, her memories would be gone forever—there's absolutely no foreshadowing, and the explanation that "a piece of her was stuck in the Cauldron" is pretty unconvincing.
- In A Court of Silver Flames a lot of drama is generated from Feyre's pregnancy, as her body is ill-equipped to safely give birth to a part-Illyrian child. However, some readers had a hard time buying that a civilization that's technologically advanced enough to have indoor plumbing plus healing magic couldn't handle a C-section (e.g. healers were previously able to save Cassian's life after he was borderline disembowelled). You also would've thought that Rhysand – who is himself half-Illyrian – would've mentioned the potential risks to Feyre when they started trying for a baby, especially as according to the fifth book hybrid births are known to be dangerous.
- Several readers have found Nesta, Emerie and Gwyn winning the Blood Rite to be contrived. While they're not unskilled fighters, the Blood Rite is previously described as being so brutal and taxing that even Illyrian warriors trained practically from birth - including Rhysand (one of the most powerful beings in Prythian), Cassian and Azriel - find it challenging. Readers therefore find it a stretch to believe that three young women who had only started training as warriors a few months ago would realistically be able to beat far more experienced competitors (from a narrative perspective, they didn't even need to win to prove themselves true warriors, as merely surviving and making it to the mountain is considered good enough for the Illyrians).
- Even Stephen King admits that Patrick Danville erasing the Crimson King in The Dark Tower was a bit of an ass pull. To put that in perspective, Patrick was a character who was only abruptly introduced in the final volume, was only vaguely alluded to twice in the book before he appeared, wasn't given a backstory or any explanation as to how he ended up where he was, and he joined the party almost right before the end, solely to serve as a plot device for two occasions. Patrick is a bit of a special case, however. Previously, the main characters had entered "reality" and saved Stephen King's life, and he thanked them by giving their story a convenient ending.
- Ronald Knox's Decalogue was a reaction to the ass pulls pervading the mystery genre. The commandments address the most prevalent of the time, i.e. presenting last-minute characters as culprits, inventing Phlebotinum weapons, adding hidden doors that wouldn't plausibly be designed and serve no function other than to obfuscate closed rooms.
- At one point in The Divine Comedy, Dante uses a cord around his waist, never described before, to lower himself and Virgil into a section of Hell. Scholarly opinion is still divided as to whether this cord was badly established or was a result of Dante wearing a Franciscan habit.
- Dragonrider is a big offender. One example of the author's lazy style features a character meeting a fellow magical ("fabulous") creature far away from home and well beyond the book's halfway point. Any potential language barrier is then sidestepped as she addresses this creature "in the magical language that all fabulous creatures understand".
- The Dresden Files: In the the third Novel Grave Peril Harry makes the choice to save Susan, break the rules of hospitality, causing a war between The White Council and The Red Court Of Vampires. Fast forward to Death Mask and when Harry talks to Shiro, who only in this one book and dies, he reveals that he knows The Red Court were always planning a war and Harry in fact kicking things off with them early is in fact a good thing. This fact was never alluded to before this, completely escapes The White Council notice, doesn't change how anyone else treats Harry about the fact, and no other faction ever brings this up. The discussion seems mostly to let Harry off the hook for starting a war for his own selfish reasons, but most importantly to make Susan, along with the fact she becomes a half-vampire secret agent in interim years, a more likable character and to acquit her of burden for not heeding Harry warning to not crash the party in the first place and needing it spelled out why she shouldn't go. And for many fan's that still not enough, as without that line from Shiro you can draw a lot of the problems in the Dresdenverse, in one way or another, back to her not listening to Harry along with many of Harry personal problems back to his refusal to not abandon her to the consequences of her own actions.
- Fifty Shades Freed had Jack Hyde in jail and Christian reveals that the mastermind behind Jack's actions, including the one who paid bail for him several times, is Linc. Who is Linc? Elena Lincoln's ex-husband, who was mentioned once or twice over the entire course of the series, but never played a big role. Linc supposedly did this as punishment towards Christian, who had been having an affair with Elena between the age of 15 and 22. Yet this comes across as insane and stupid, because their affair ended six years ago, Linc was never mentioned to actually have a grudge against Christian before and there was simply no reason for him to wait all these years, just to try to give some payback to Christian. A poor attempt by EL James to tie up a loose end, when other, previously established characters could have been the mastermind.
- In Handle with Care, Willow's death is completely unexpected, has no build-up, and seems to have been included just to make everything more tragic than it already was. It turned an already very Pyrrhic Victory into a sucker-punching Shoot the Shaggy Dog story.
- High School D×D often has characters get powerups with no explanation. For two examples, Kiba is revealed to have a second Sacred Gear in Volume 10 (a person can only be born with one Sacred Gear, and while it's possible to implant artificial Sacred Gears, this isn't used as the explanation) and Issei gets an ability to ignore all defences to allow him to hit Risevim (which is hand-waved as being a power once possessed by Draig).
- Parodied in Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Trilogy:
- In the first book alone, the characters often escape danger in wildly improbable ways such as being unintentionally picked up by the Heart of Gold and avoiding death by missile due to the missiles being transformed into a sperm whale and a bowl of petunias by the Improbability Drive. Many of the other books also contain plot elements that come from out of what can only be described as left field perceived by Hunter S. Thompson, oftentimes accompanied by the book pointing out just how improbable they are. This is much more blatant by Mostly Harmless: Arthur Dent's daughter is named Random, and her behavior, which plays heavily into the conclusion is random.
- Douglas Adams talked about his need to manage this sort of thing in the books carefully — that even within a comedic work with absurdist and parodic elements, he couldn't get away with random ass-pulls if he wanted people to be at all invested in the drama. He described it as not being able to pull the 'in a single bound he was free' card — if something incredibly unlikely or unexpected happens to resolve a situation, it must itself have enough weight and consequence within the story to justify it.
- The Inheritance Cycle features a big 'un in the shape of magical elf twins, never previously mentioned, who cure Eragon's achey back scar, allowing him to fight properly again. They turn up once more in the fourth book and make it so Dwarfs and Urgals can become Riders as well, thus solving all racism forever.
- Several in Lonely Werewolf Girl, due to having a Random Events Plot. Two especially egregious ones show up during the final battle: Thrix being able to Mind Meld, thus also being able to re-activate Beauty and Delicious' lycanthropic abilities, and Kalix being immune to the mind-affecting power of the Begraver Knife because she's "too crazy".
- Kitty Takes a Holiday drops a plot twist that makes perfect sense within its own storyline, but is a huge change in direction for the series as a whole. After two books of Kitty/Cormac Ship Tease Kitty hooks up with her lawyer Ben instead, and Cormac goes to prison in an unrelated incident. Tropes Are Not Bad, though. Kitty and Cormac never really made a convincing couple, largely because Kitty isn't the type to fall for a bad boy. She has much better chemistry with her new Love Interest, despite the somewhat contrived nature of the Relationship Upgrade.
- The Lightlark Saga: Lightlark has numerous examples wherein plot twists do get a bit of foreshadowing, but it's so obscure or vague - and often buried in mountains of other information - that by the time the payoff arrives the reader has likely forgotten about it or it went over their head completely. In some cases the twists also outright contradict previously-established information. Consequently, many twists feel like they come out-of-nowhere or make little logical sense. Alternatively, solutions to problems are only introduced as and when they're needed, which can feel contrived. The author has stated that few readers were able to guess the novel's biggest twists, but some readers have argued this is because the twists are set-up in a convoluted and confusing way. Some stand-out examples include:
- Celeste is immobilised by a rare poison that Moonling healing powers cannot treat. Grim is able to find a super-rare, never-before-mentioned Wildling healing elixir that just so happened to be in an abandoned Moonling shop, which cures her. He also finds it completely off-page and tells Isla about it after-the-fact. To make matters more frustrating, Isla already has a powerful healing elixir she brought with her from the Wildling newlands which had been introduced earlier (Isla had demonstrated it to the other rules as evidence of what her realm could contribute), but this never gets brought up as a treatment option.
- The Heart of Lightlark being a bird's egg that hatches at dawn and the way Isla figures it out. It was previously emphasised that the Heart always manifested as a plant (the term "blooming" is used repeatedly) and the only real foreshadowing it gets is Isla comparing the sun to an egg yolk a grand total of twice, which a lot of readers thought was just an odd choice of descriptive metaphor than a genuine narrative clue. Isla claims in her narration that she'd also thought the moon resembled an egg many times, but in actuality she never once makes this comparison until this moment. It's also unclear how she figured out that the giant blue bird following her would lead her to the Heart, as there's nothing clearly connecting the two.
- Isla's powers not working because she's both Wildling and Nightshade; Celeste and Grim explain she has the abilities of both her Wildling mother and Nightshade father and they're cancelling each other out... but Oro previously explained to Isla that a child born of two realms would only receive one parent's magic. It's never explained why Isla is different or why this would block her magic, nor does it affect the plot much beyond adding another twist given there was already an explanation for the no-magic thing, namely that Isla's mother defied the Wildling curse and spared the man she loved long enough to give birth. It's also left unclear how her heritage caused her to be immune to the curses.
- The reveal that Celeste is actually Aurora, is responsible for the curses and why she did it. Although it does all get explained, lots of readers mentioned feeling very confused at first because they couldn't remember who Aurora even was, which isn't too surprising considering that until this moment Aurora is a narrative footnote who had only been mentioned about twice, with no real detail provided for her character. The love triangle involving Aurora, Egan and Violet - which is Aurora's motive for cursing everyone - wasn't mentioned at all until the climax, nor was the fact Celeste/Aurora could shapeshift remotely hinted at. It also raises the question of why Oro couldn't sense she was lying given he has the power to detect when he's being lied to.
- In Mastiff, the third book of Beka Cooper, the group traitor in the pay of the treasonists is revealed to be Mattes Tunstall. Although defenders of the twist point out that there was foreshadowing for the character's motivation within the book, detractors say that itself involved derailing their personality in the previous two books, using Took a Level in Jerkass without it being sufficiently explained.
- Virtually every twist in the Maximum Ride series applies, but the one that really takes the cake is Mr. Chu being some sort of... alien... thing wearing a Scooby-Doo-style mask. This was never explained, or even mentioned for the rest of the series.
- When the kids develop all kinds of new powers in The Final Warning, there's no proper explanation for why they've got those kinds of powers in particular, or for why they all got the new powers at roughly the same time even though they're of different ages.
- MYTH Conceptions suffers from this. Skeeve and his small band have declared war on the largest army in the dimension. The army's general, after suffering from some hit-and-run attacks from Skeeve n Co., erects a large tent in a neutral location to discuss the cessation of hostilities. After a bit of a chat, the sides of the tent are dropped, revealing that the entire army is outside, poised to strike the protagonists. They are rescued by a little blue gremlin (a creature Aahz had been insisting does not exist) for no reason whatsoever.
- In Simon R. Green's Something from the Nightside, Joanna is an Artificial Human sent to trick the main character into entering an evil house. We find this out while the main character is in the house. Joanna fades into the wall and is never seen again. More or less everything in the sixth book comes out of one posterior or another.
- David Weber's Out of the Dark ends a fairly typical alien invasion story, with VAMPIRES coming out of the woodwork to save humanity. This is why some stories work in some formats but not others: the original short story version didn't have most of the book where humans were gaining the upper hand, and instead started much closer to the point at the end where the aliens decide to simply wipe out the humans via a bioengineered plague instead of continuing the costly conquest.
- The ending of John Grisham's The Partner comes right out of the blue. After the main character's conspirator goes through all the effort to find and rescue him, she steals the money and disappears. She could have done that any time.
- The Pendragon Adventure:
- Solara. Even though Halla is supposed to be everything that was and everything that will ever be, no, apparently some cosmic soul energy repository thing also exists apart from it and yet also a part of it, and another piece of that can become dark and evil. None of this was foreshadowed anywhere, and directly contradicts the whole everything that was and will ever be shtick.
- The Travelers being bodiless spirits from Solara is similarly an Ass Pull, as they were more than capable of being maimed or even dying before, with Gunny losing a hand, Kasha being crushed to death, and Aja being murdered offscreen. While Loor was resurrected inexplicably and both her and Bobby were unsettled by the experience, it had been heavily implied that Loor was sent back by the souls of the other Travelers because she was still needed rather than because of some inherent ability of the Travelers to dodge death as long as they knew they could. Hell, when Saint Dane said the Travelers weren't "real", Bobby immediately dismissed it as Saint Dane trolling him because of how out of left field it was and how little it made sense.
- The Reveal that Alexander Naymeer was meant to be Bobby's mentor rather than Press. Not only does this make no sense, as Naymeer died of tuberculosis as a child long before Bobby was even born before Nevva Winter altered the timeline so he'd survive, Nevva had to take Mark's acolyte ring to give him his powers, something the Travelers have never been dependent on for any power besides communicating with each other across Halla before now.
- The ending immediately manages to Ass Pull and contradict what was said in the last five minutes. Press explains that Solara is so heavily weakened from the battle with Saint Dane that everyone displaced to a different Territory will have to stay there permanently, and that the Travelers must return to Solara. Bobby laments not having been able to live a normal life, when suddenly it seems like the Reset Button was pushed and the series' events never happened, with Bobby marrying Courtney and living a fully mundane life on Second Earth. When he's dying of old age after living said long life, Press appears (not having aged a day) and gives Bobby his journals. End book. This ending was so jarring many readers believe it took place by having Bobby plugged into Lifelight to live out his perfect fantasy life.
- A Song of Ice and Fire:
- The fifth novel, A Dance with Dragons, has an apparent one with The Reveal of a second surviving Targaryen, Aegon, whose only prior foreshadowing was a very difficult-to-understand prophecy
from the second book about a cloth dragon. Fan forums are usually alive with theories about secret Targaryens, and a few correctly predicted the development based on the aforesaid prophecy, but even to some dedicated fans this one came from that place where the sun don't shine. However, considering the inspiration for the series, the prospect of legit dark-horse claimants, spurious pretenders, royal bastards, or others coming out of the woodwork to claim the throne is not an ass pull so much as Reality Is Unrealistic since this used to happen all the time in destabilized countries. Heck, it still happens, albeit with a decided lack of royalty in most cases. Lambert Simnel appeared right after the War of the Roses, was educated so well by a priest-turned-kingmaker that everybody said he would've been one of the wisest rulers ever, was paraded around by Yorkists as one of the lost "princes in the tower", and landed on the shores of England at the head of a mercenary army. So, this ass pull is firmly Truth in Television. There's also still a debate even in-universe about whether "Aegon" actually is who people claim or whether he's actually an imposter descended from the Blackfyre cadet branch, perhaps through Illyrio and his late wife given Illyrio's abiding affection for both characters, Illyrio's pointed remarks about the extinction of the "male line" of Blackfyres, and the support of the Golden Company despite generations spent fighting against the Targaryens on behalf of the Blackfyres. So the real ass pull could be an in-universe one trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes. - There are many in the fandom who view the reveal that Joffrey was behind the assassination attempt on Bran as one of these. Word of God has stated that he was the planned culprit from the beginning but unfortunately most of the clues are coupled with the reveal itself in the third book, long after the mystery had ceased being relevant. It would certainly have helped if the clue where King Robert had called Bran's potential death a mercy had occurred on-stage instead of just reported two books later, and virtually all depictions of Joffrey in the text prior to the third book suggest that he identifies with his mother rather than his father (he even comes across as callously apathetic about his "father's" death when Tyrion extends condolences in the second book). In the same book, Lysa's reveal that she's allied with Littlefinger and was behind Jon Arryn's death has a much better seeded plot-line that evokes "Aha, now it all makes sense!", whereas the Joffrey hiring the assassin reveal typically has a more "Eh, I guess that works" response. The problem is the most popular alternative culprit is Littlefinger (which even becomes canon in the T.V. adaptation), which would require one of the realm's best Chessmasters to have been stupid enough to arm an assassin with his own dagger.note
- The fifth novel, A Dance with Dragons, has an apparent one with The Reveal of a second surviving Targaryen, Aegon, whose only prior foreshadowing was a very difficult-to-understand prophecy
- A lampshaded ass pull is the premise of There Was No Secret Evil Fighting Organization. There is absolutely no origin, purpose or worldbuilding that explains Sago spontaneously developing telekinesis, and Sago's realization of this almost drives him insane.
- The Twilight Saga:
- The Big Bad vamps Victoria, James, and Laurent were not mentioned at all until the very end of Twilight, thanks to 90% of the book being about how perfect Edward supposedly is. The movie rectifies this mistake and has them shown earlier.
- The role of the Volturi in enforcing the rules of vampire society was similarly introduced out of the blue in New Moon.
- In Breaking Dawn, Bella immediately jumps to the conclusion that she is pregnant after her period is late by mentioning that she never had a late period in her entire life. This comes out of nowhere as her period was never mentioned and this being a YA Novel, and about vampires who mention that Bella's blood smells especially appetizing, it usually would be something mentioned, even off-hand. As it is, it's a detail about her that comes out of nowhere with no actual evidence backing it up and dropped to put focus back on the human-vampire baby growing inside of her.
- Also in Breaking Dawn, just when it seems the Cullens will have to face the consequences of allying with werewolves, mortal enemies of vampires, Jake and his tribe are suddenly revealed to be a group of shapeshifters whose powers are completely unrelated to those of real werewolves (or "Children of the Moon" as the book calls them). This comes despite them being regarded as werewolves by the narrative for the whole of the series.
- In Ugly Love, Miles has spent six years and just about the entirety of the book refusing to open up emotionally and even consider the possibility of a long-term relationship with Tate, much of which is rooted in severe trauma (namely, his high school girlfriend left him after their baby died, not long after his mother died of cancer and his father quickly moved on). However, after a single 10-15 minute visit with his ex, he suddenly finds closure, gets over all his hang-ups about relationships and announces he's in love with Tate, even proposing marriage a few months later. While talking things out with Rachel and seeing that she was able to move on probably did help him a bit, the kind of issues Miles is dealing with are not something you can just 'get over' in a matter of days and there's not much to indicate he's remotely ready to commit to a full relationship with Tate.
- About halfway through The Wise Man's Fear, the protagonist and his team have finally finished a difficult mission fraught with setbacks. On their way back to town... they stumble onto the indescribably beautiful Felurian, who then seduces the protagonist and carries him off to Fae. His time there takes a full sixty pages.
- In the fourth series of Warrior Cats, it turns out that not only does the setting have a hell (the existence of which was never even hinted at before), but that its inhabitants can invade the dreams of living cats to corrupt them. The question of why they never did this before it was required by the plot is not answered. Nor is the question of why StarClan didn't tell their descendants about the Dark Forest beforehand.
