Needs Help: Ascended Fridge Horror

Right off the bat the trope is identified as an aspect that feels Fridge Horror gets acknowledged and becomes important in the series. YMMV aspect aside, it's a bit concrete. But there's a problem I feel. There lacks a range - what if said Horror was intentional to be considered "ascended"? What if the point of the title is Deconstruction? It doesn't really become "ascended" because it was intentional to be in the show/book to begin with. Like people make a big deal of an implication of an early episode as a horror, yet the show actually is all about it in a later episode, so it doesn't really become "ascended", confusing plotpoints and hints into this maligned trope. More often than not, the entries are just typical Deconstruction. Additionally I'm being consistent with the various "ascended" entries, like Ascended Meme being about memes being acknowledged in sequels or future entries.

So here's my suggestion - let's put something, like say, through a sequel, a spinoff, or an additional entry from the series. Like say an aspect of an entry, but then a future spinoff, sequel, etc. acknowledges that. That becomes an entry for the trope. Lemme do a quick check on the entries.

• Kanta, the main character of Desert Punk starts off very much a Nominal Hero. He's a bounty hunter with no true heroic characteristics. In fact, many of his deeds are down right heinous, but they're often played for Black Comedy. When the opportunity presents itself though, Kanta does end up pulling a Face–Heel Turn and both the viewers and the characters really aren't that surprised. Not only is the entry vague, but it points out traditional character development rather than ascending to anything.
• Ryan Matthews, a Dirty Pair fanfic writer back in the USEnet days, took some of the Unfortunate Implications of Adam Warren's version of the series (for Dark Horse Comics) to their logical, horrifying conclusions. A few years later, "Fatal, but Not Serious" officially confirmed several of those. This one can work but needs cleaning, particularly clarifying what those implications are to begin with.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: As mentioned above - that's not ascended fridge horror but rather what the show is about to begin with.
  • The series takes the idea of a child as the pilot of a Humongous Mecha and strips it down to spotlight the fact that these shows are about Child Soldiers. Alternatively, but still in keeping with this trope, it's about the whole concept of placing the responsibility for the future of the world on one person when that person is not at all cut out for that kind of responsibility, and what that kind of responsibility would do to a person, and what kind of person would put that kind of responsibility on them in the first place.
  • The deconstruction of Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You. What kinda guy ditches his elementary-school-aged son and doesn't write or call until he says "Hey, there's this Humongous Mecha we need you to use to go beat up monsters with city-wrecking power?" Not only someone who is a pretty crap dad, but one who is painfully aware of this and it was why he avoided his son in the first place.
• Popotan is about a trio of sisters who travel through time along with their maid. The catch is that when they are given the signal to leave, they have to, otherwise they will be unable to age normally; as such, they are forced to leave any friends they make behind over and over. It's understood quite early that Mai, one of the sisters, is not all that happy about their situation, but it takes episode 9 to show just how it can mess with the lives of both them and their friends: Konami, one such friend of Mai, died hoping she would eventually return to her, putting Mai into a serious depression. Again, a plot point, not really an ascended thing.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena similarly takes the Magical Girl, prince and princess tropes from the first half and deconstructs them in the second. This is especially the case with Anthy, who demonstrates exactly what someone treated as a prize to be won would actually be like. Just basic Deconstruction.
• Identity Crisis and Justice League: Cry for Justice both show just how horrifying shrinking powers can really be if in the hands of an Anti-Hero or a downright villain. For one? Entering the human body and wiping their shoes on the brain. Just basic Deconstruction.
• The Brave Little Toaster put a very cynical spin on the idea of anthropomorphic appliances and electronics: Like Toy Story 3, the plot kicked off with the main characters believing that they had been abandoned by their owner, introduces newer appliances which threaten their coveted favorite status, and delivers a truly horrific climax where, like Toy Story 3's incinerator scene, the appliances (and their master) are dumped into a junkyard, thrown onto a conveyor belt by a psychopathic magnet, and almost crushed to death. That was the whole point of the movie, again basic Deconstruction.
• Doggy Poo is a short film about sentient objects, including leaves, flowers, and the titular doggy poo. With the exception of being able to talk and see, they are completely immobile and at the mercy of their environment. This one doesn't even sound like a deconstruction but an intentional thing.
• Sausage Party shows with brutal honesty just how much it would suck to be Anthropomorphic Food (as in, said food learning that their "destiny" is to be eaten by humans). Again, an intentional thing.
• The Bean movie somehow manages to invert it. In the film Bean destroys a priceless historical artifact, but he covers it up by replacing it with a poster of the same painting, and cue the happy if hilarious ending. As it's really only a short-term solution however, the forgery would undoubtedly be uncovered sometime after the film's events. The original script had apparently already considered this, as it ends with someone noticing the change after the painting is slightly damaged, which didn't make it into the final film. This one just misses the trope entirely.
• Two central plot points of Primer are based on Fridge Horror implied by time travel in any other situation. First, the existence of an event that can truly never be understood because its cause is in the future and will be disrupted by any investigation; and second, the ability for a time traveller to override a person's free choice by varying the circumstances and going back over and over again until they make the choice the time traveller wants.
  • And the short film One Minute Time Machine addresses a similar issue with Mental Time Travel: after time travelling back several times he realizes that every time he time travels, his braindead body is left behind in the history he left. Both above and this are more about Deconstruction.
• The Charles Stross novel Saturn's Children describes the adventures of Freya Nakamichi-47, a gynoid sexbot in a solar system colonized by robots after the extinction of mankind. She was programmed to be overwhelmed by submission and subservience at the merest sight of Homo sapiens, and totally unable to go against their slightest whim - how, you may ask, do you condition a robot to behave in such a way? Later on in the novel, we find out that Freya's long-dead designers did so by inflicting traumatic sexual abuse on her during her "adolescence". Similarly, it's just a set up for a future event.'
• Nick Perumov shows the ramifications of And Now You Must Marry Me in The Joyless Land. Eltara, an Elven princess, is forced to marry the mage Gordzhelin the Uncaring in exchange for saving her father's kingdom. The oath she gives explicitly states that she will have sex with Gordzhelin any time he wants it, and this will go on until she bears a child for Gordzhelin. Ouch. Same here.
• In Dollhouse we're introduced to the technology to reprogram people's memories and personalities, and it's being used to provide rich people with high quality midwives and fantasy lovers. Why aren't the people with this technology using it for more ambitious and nefarious purposes? Halfway through the season we find out that they are. Rossum was fully aware that global domination was the end result. A plot point.
• Season 4 of Supernatural introduced a Prophet who had been seeing visions of the Winchester brothers' adventures and writing a book series about them, selling them as fiction because he didn't know they were real. It was humorously treated as a nice way of adding metafiction to the series, but this raised a lot of Fridge Horror issues about Sam and Dean's entire lives and thoughts, fully detailed, being openly available for everyone to see. In season 8 one of the villains finally gets his hands on the books. He uses them to track down and kill off the people they have saved in the past so he can destroy their life's work and deny them the only comfort they have in knowing that these people are still alive because of them, while deconstructing their heroic self-image to break them. Ditto.
• In Top of the Lake, fans retrospectively wondered if Robin's blackout at Al's house in one episode was him drugging and raping her, following the reveal at the end that he was the leader of the paedophile ring. The first episode of the second series included a line in which Robin herself says that she thinks he raped her at that point. Again a plot point.
• The first act of Into the Woods is a cheerful Fractured Fairy Tale. The second act is every single nasty consequence of every single person's actions coming back to haunt them (and everyone else around them). Sounds more like the point of the theatre.
• * RWBY, during the episode No Brakes, people noted that the White Fang mooks were being knocked off the train left and right, which even if they somehow survived that, they were still in a tunnel that was soon overrun by Grim. The next episode, Mercury flat out states "A lot of faunus didn't make it out of the tunnels." Again, plot point.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The series is built on the premise that about 1/10th of the population can telekinetically manipulate, or "bend", one of the four classical elements. It's also demonstrated several times that benders can affect things that are partially of their element (for example, waterbenders bending mud or plants, earthbenders bending metal, firebenders bending lightning). Well, the human body is 70% water, isn't it? So what would happen if a waterbender were to bend that? We find out in the episode The Puppetmaster that this is indeed a thing. Its inventor Hama calls it bloodbending, and uses it to create People Puppets. The entry outright states that it is foreshadowing.
  • Furry Confusion is somewhat addressed in an episode where Augie Doggie And Doggie Daddy appear. Turns out sentient anthropomorphic dogs have no more rights than regular ones; Doggie Daddy is arrested for not having a license, sentenced to obedience training, fixed (try not to think of the many people in Real Life who have been sterilized against their will), and winds up so brainwashed from his ordeal that he is basically lobotomized. All Played for Laughs of course. Deconstruction.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: all of the entries here are pretty much plot points
  • The episode "Secret of My Excess" applies ascended fridge horror to the implications of a dragon living in a pony community, even though most other episodes before it stepped around it. Later, though the issue isn't explicitly dwelt on for very long, "Dragon Quest" addresses the fact that Spike is an orphaned child and neither he nor Twilight knows where his egg came from or who/where his real parents even are. Ouch.
  • It's been suggested by some that Fluttershy's Shrinking Violet characteristics are at least partially the result of childhood trauma. "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" establishes that she was bullied, but Rainbow Dash seemed to get it about as badly as her (at the hooves of the same bullies, no less), and look how she turned out. But then "Hurricane Fluttershy" shows us just how pervasive the problem really was, and how it affected her to the point that its resurgence is enough to provoke graphic, demonic hallucinations well into her adulthood.
  • "Keep Calm and Flutter On" confirms the popular theory that Discord is still aware of everything while in his stone prison.
  • "Princess Twilight Sparkle" revolves around how Discord, a massively vindictive Reality Warping Manipulative Bastard, left a few nasty surprises around for his captors even after he was defeated the first time, an idea that fan-fiction writers used constantly ever since his debut.
  • Despite the show itself glossing over it, fans quite reasonably speculated that Celestia being forced to banish her sister to the moon for a thousand years, to save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, would have been devastating to her. Cue Twilight's vision of the past in "Princess Twilight Sparkle", which shows Celestia desperately pleading with Luna to stop, tried to stop her by herself, only using the Elements of Harmony when it was clear Nightmare Moon was too powerful, and when she makes that decision she starts crying, one of only two times in the series she does so (the other being when Luna returns to her old self in the pilot).
  • Similarly, the first part of the season opener addresses Celestia's feelings about the Summer Sun Celebration, with Celestia confirming to Twilight that to her, the Celebration was for a thousand years little more than a bitter reminder of the banishment mentioned above, with Celestia putting on a brave face for her subjects while hiding her inner pain, and that she's happy that it can now be a reminder of their reunion.
  • When "It's About Time" introduced the realm of Tartarus, where various monsters and villains were sealed away, many people feared that someone may have been able to escape it while Cerberus was away from his post in that episode. The Tartarus plot point was even used in the "Feelin' Pinkie Keen" arc of webcomic Friendship is Dragons, complete with escaped prisoner, though it was a non-canon creature. In season 4's finale, it turned out Tirek HAD.
  • The same episode also addresses the fan theory that Discord may not have been sincere in his Heel–Face Turn.
  • Season Five's premiere had an antagonist that ascends a Fridge Horror that people have addressed regarding Cutie Marks and the social standing between those that have them and those that don't, along with other things by having a Motive Rant that revolves around her saying how she created harmony through taking away the Cutie Marks and replacing them with the same one. By the finale, we're revealed the villain's backstory, in which her friend manages to get a Cutie Mark before she did.
• Adventure Time: Similarly.
  • The Ice King's Aesop Amnesia and rampant sociopathy led to the idea that he is physically incapable of learning his lesson or changing in any way, and that he will be forever doomed to repeat the same behavior no matter how many times it fails. Cue the reveal of his backstory, which among other things shows this is exactly what happens.
  • The post-apocalyptic setting of the entire show sort of counts. Originally it was just sort of vaguely implied, but as the series progressed it gradually became more explicit until it became fully explicit, with Whole Episode Flashbacks and other front-and-center undeniable things dealing with it.
• In the backstory of Adventures of the Gummi Bears, there used to be hundreds of Gummis living in Gummi Glen, whose numbers have dwindled to seven. There's always been the subtle implication that Cubbi might end up alone someday, and this was addressed in the episode, where we meet another Gummi by the name of Chummi. Chummi was the youngest of his clan, and now the last, and it's outright stated that if something isn't done, all Cubbi has to look forward to is eventually being alone. This one too.

Not gonna touch Fan Works because I don't really go there.

Oh neat, it's open.

I checked the related tab and it seems like most of the entries that refer to this are fanfics and laconics.

I think the key difference between Ascended Fridge Horror and Deconstruction is that fans are the first to notice a problem, then the writers take note of these fans' idea and incorporate it into the work. This means that a good period of time needs to pass between the introduction of the problematic element and its official acknowledgement, since if the script is already completed it's very rare for it to be changed just because of a fan theory. For example, at least one season if it's a TV show, or a sequel for movies, books, and games.

• Things like Neon Genesis Evangelion and "Sausage Party": definite misuse as it's not addressing any of it's own fridge.
• My Little Pony and Plot Point: How is this not an example? If it takes something that was potential Fridge Horror and confirms it, how is that misuse? Avatar I can see as it was intentional all along, but others...
• Fan Works: any Fridge raised from the original series is misuse as that's deconstruction. Only counts if it addresses its own Fridge. What about Recursive Fanfiction or works in a shared verse?

For MLP, I feel it's because it gets addressed as the series is running. Like maybe or maybe not it was intentional, but the series is still running.

Yeah, deconstruction has this intentional thing going on for it.

edited 3rd Jun '18 7:22:32 PM by Ookamikun

Some of the MLP ones could be valid, as the fridge horror was first noticed by fans, then turned canon in a later season. The delay between seasons means that the writers would have time to notice the fans' reactions and incorporate them into an episode.

But then again, I'm not 100% sure how the animation industry works. I've heard that some shows already have the next season's episodes written by the time one season starts airing, so if that's the case then it's not truly "ascended" since it was always intended. Non-animated shows and other types of works can also have future scripts planned out long in advance, so it can be tricky to figure out who thought of something first between the fans and the writers.

edited 3rd Jun '18 8:19:28 PM by Zuxtron

That's why I'm wary about shows, even if it's a long season. I can understand if it's another show based on the same setting jumped years later like Ducktales or something with clear different production staff like Power Rangers, but not an ongoing longrunner.

For MLP, some of them take place more than one season after the Fridge. For the Discord example, it may be Fridge since they didn't know there would be a Season 4 when 3 was made.

I agree there should be enough gaps between works so we can assume it's after the fact, between one seasons/installment minimum, maybe two (unless Word of God is that the Fridge was planned all along or was added mid production).

But we agree if it's within the span of the same season, let alone a single film, shouldn't count yes?

That is correct.

This seems like something that would be hard to impossible to prove for a lot of works. It would basically boil down to fan speculation to say whether or not something is truly ascended fridge horror.

it's easy though, if it's planned or intentional, then it is not an ascended frige horror

How would you establish that it's intentional? Interviews with the creators? Do we need to require a citation for every example of this trope?

edited 22nd Jun '18 9:58:27 AM by Fighteer

I think we only really need a good sized passage of time for this, like a season or more. Its just gotta have a gap for writing to catch up with the airing of the show.

Something happened in show which would be Fridge Horror if you think about it -> a season later (or Official Adaptation) that thing is now played or mentioned as the Horror it should be.

edited 22nd Jun '18 7:39:17 AM by Memers

Like Fighteer says, intentions would be really hard to prove here. Often, we simply won't be able to tell or find out whether or not something is ascended.

I dont think we need Word of God on this at all, just a passage of time. Even if the writer writes it then later thinks of the Fridge Horror themselves and writes it as that its still this trope.

"Writer realizes the implications of their previous work and writes them into the continuity" is not a trope. It's just writing. Writers do that. At the absolute maximum, it's trivia based exclusively on Word of God. Frankly, the way I'm hearing this talked about makes it sound like the ultimate form of fan masturbation. "Senpai noticed me! (wank wank)"

edited 22nd Jun '18 10:01:58 AM by Fighteer

Yeah there's also that.

So a move to Trivia, then? Or cut altogether?

I want to cut it. But if not, the only way it gets transplanted to Trivia is with a Word of God requirement.

edited 25th Jun '18 2:47:10 PM by Fighteer

So Redmess and Fighteer's arguments have me convinced, it's too difficult to prove that the author took inspiration from fans pointing out the Fridge Horror, and cases where direct proof is given are too rare to make this worth keeping.

When this started out, wasn't it all about taking "disturbing but not outright stated implications of stories" and using as them as fuel for drama and/or dark comedy, when such implications would otherwise either go to waste or be counted against the franchise?

Anyone have access to it in the archives to confirm or refute this?

If that is at all covered by other existing tropes, I'm on board with scrapping this one.

Edited by neoYTPism on Aug 25th 2018 at 5:52:14 AM

Where should the Fan Work examples be listed under? Deconstruction Fic?