Reality Ensues/Surprisingly Realistic Outcome cleanup

I'd say it's an attempt at SRO by the author, but they ended up being wrong, therefor, it ends up not being as realistic as intended, so I think it can be removed.

Edited by jOSEFdelaville on Feb 24th 2023 at 11:45:57 AM

Done. Also, some more Video Game examples:

Any opinions on the Grinch examples I posted?

• Example 1: This is just the Grinch preparing to make sure nothing goes wrong with his plan, so it's him avoiding a "realistic" outcome. Delete.
• Example 2: Maybe valid? It's a Zig-Zagged example, but there's no rule that SRO can only allow straight examples. Someone might expect Toon Physics to apply here and let Max pull the sleigh, which is what ultimately happens, but him struggling reminds viewers that this wouldn't work in real life.
• Example 3: Not an outcome. Delete.
• Example 4: Not really sure. Maybe keep, since example 2 above already led the audience to assume that the sleigh's weight doesn't really matter.
• Example 5: Character reactions can't be SRO, since there's no universal way you're realistically supposed to feel in a given situation.

A few examples I found on Zack Snyder's Justice League that I figured should be looked at:

Honestly, I feel most of these can probably be cut. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Edited by chasemaddigan on Feb 24th 2023 at 6:57:15 AM

The Justice League examples are all either unsurprising, or have an unrealistic element that disqualifies them. Cut it all.

Also, more video game examples. First part of the M folder.

• A BFG's World Tour: The show isn't aired live, needing the film to be edited to add in the confessionals and edit out any unneeded footage. When DJ encounters Kitty during "Planes, Trains, and Hot Air Mobiles", only up to the third Aftermath has aired, requiring him to explain to her everything that's happened since then. Valid
• A Return to the Falls: During the entire saga, the Pines family and Pacifica play loose with the law, and at one point erase Mayor Cutebiker's memory for his own good. During the final chapter, the consequences of their actions catch up with them, as the Mayor starts recovering his memory, and they're arrested on his orders. Actions have consequences
• Fever Dreams: L and Light get sick from staying outside in the rain for an extended period of time. Valid
• Fighting Crime, Spinning Webs: Gwen Stacey's death, though it's played differently from the comics. While Spider-Man uses his webs to catch her by the joints to prevent whiplash, the webbing that caught her by the neck was slowly suffocating her that by the time he came back from his battle with the Green Goblin, she was already dead. Too implausible. We can't know for sure if spider-man's webbing would suffocate a person in that situation
• Five Petals (Naruto): Sasuke defies his doctors' orders in order to participate in his preliminary match. Not only does this not work out the way he hopes, but he's swiftly informed that he just ensured that his leg won't heal properly. Not surprising, given how it was set up.
• Fractured Infinity: Mostly in regards to the crossover approach.
  • The main characters do NOT become friends immediately, instead clashing with each other due to their abrasive personalities. Character reaction
  • Fractured Infinity does not possess Infinite Supplies. And due to being Trapped in Another World, they cannot find the gainful employment necessary for income. Kaito gets around this problem by advertising their monster fighting as a business, so they can collect payment. Too implausible
  • As the experiment logs notes, a Big Bad Ensemble made up of egomaniacs will end up tearing itself apart and being easily defeated by the more teamwork-oriented heroes, as Team 3 demonstrate with their enemies. Plot happens
• Girls und Panzer: Hope Dies: Miho's death and the arresting of Student Council force Ooarai to appoint a new captain. Not having Miho's tactical experience greatly demoralizes the team, and Ooarai loses the final match, which means the school is getting closed down. Plot happens
• God Help the Outcasts: The implications of becoming a fifty-foot-tall giantess are explored, such as how things like basic hygiene, entertainment, and human contact would be much harder (namely the latter, as she could easily kill someone if she didn't watch her step). Too implausible
• Gold Poisons: While Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao are close to full reconciliation by the end, they aren't quite there yet, as it's only been a few days. Mingjue is still incensed when he finds out Guangyao was ordered to kill him, even if he'd not gone through with it yet. Character reaction
• Green Tea Rescue: Related to this, while Ochako is described as "chubby" in the manga (chubby by Japanese standards, at least), thanks to undergoing the same training as Izuku, she develops a more fit figure with noticeable muscles. Plot happens
• Hard Enough:
  • Not all Pokemon trainers, or humans involving the matter of Pokemon, are going to be benevolent or would care for their Pokemon's wellbeing if they don't meet their expectations, which is something that was prevalent in the Original series. Too implausible. Pokemon trainers aren't real.
  • Unlike the games and as shown in the anime, Pokemon are living creatures that need constant care and regular schedule training in order to get stronger or keep up their current ideal level of strength and skill. Otherwise, much like Real Life athletes, their strength and skill will degrade. Too implausible
  • Unlike the games and as shown in the anime, Pokemon moves that would be considered a detriment can be used in an unconventional way that would result in a beneficial outcome. Too implausible
• Heroes and Villains (Horrible's Igor): A very dark example at the beginning of the story: Elsa's extended stay in her Yosemite Palace without going down for food and water (similar to what happened in Frozen) leads to us finding her dying of hunger three weeks later. Her thirst is Hand Waved as being taken care of by her powers. Deconstruction
• Hope of the Shield Hero: The Knights loyal to The Three Heroes Church should have known better than to go out into battle against Queen Mirellias' Royal Knights: who were armed with both weapons and shields. The Author made it a point in Chapter 53 that the Church Knights were Too Dumb to Live because of their faith. Curbstomp Battle shoehorn

Edited by CelestialDraco on Feb 26th 2023 at 6:47:09 AM

I found these on Back to the Future Part III. Thoughts?:

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • As Doc reminds Marty, while Mr. Fusion powers the flux capacitor, the DeLorean itself is still a car that needs gasoline to work. And no, alcohol is not a viable substitute in a non-flex fuel vehicle: Doc and Marty's attempt to use high-proof liquor just wrecks the fuel injection manifold that would take a month to be rebuilt.
  • Doc originally dies six days after he sent the letter, so Marty sets the DeLorean to travel back to the next day from the letter. He thinks they have until the exact day Doc is stated to die. What never occurs to Marty (or Doc) is that someone can get shot and take days to die, while nothing can be done with the medical technology of the time.
  • Just like in the first two films, Marty gets in trouble with a Tannen while in a dining establishment, leading to a chase sequence, but unlike the previous two incidents, when Marty was simply up against a teenage bully, this time he's angered a hardened murderous outlaw. Instead of a whimsical and comedic chase, Marty gets easily run down by the outlaw and almost hanged.

The first and third ones aren't really surprising, and the second one isn't an outcome. Doc does not get wounded and linger on for several days before dying. The film briefly raises this as a possibility, but it doesn't actually happen.

Cut.

Any opinions of the Valid ones for mine or potential other keepers?

The first Valid looks more like This Is Reality since the surprising and outcome are missing, and the second is not surprisingly realistic. Characters so commonly catch colds from bad weather that there's a trope for it.

The God Help the Outcasts one reads more like a Deconstructed Character Archetype for Giant Woman.

The second bullet point for Hard Enough doesn't seem like an outcome if Pokémon care is a consistent plot point. The first one isn't so surprising, as neglect or Pokémon not living up to expectations has been explored in several series.

Edited by nanakiro on Feb 26th 2023 at 9:09:59 AM

This examples for Back to the Future Part II have similar issues to the third film’s examples:

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In 2015, Marty is terminated after Needles goads him into an illegal transaction. That action would get you fired in real life.
  • Doc reminds Marty of this when he suggests landing on Biff's car:
    Doc: Marty, he's in a '46 Ford, we're in a DeLorean. He'd rip through us like we were tin foil.

Edited by costanton11 on Feb 27th 2023 at 10:13:23 AM

First example is just 'plot happens'.
I think the second example might be valid. I think a bit of dialogue that reminds viewers that the DeLorean is made of aluminium and is extremely fragile even compared to cars from 40 years earlier is a valid use of Surprisingly Realistic Outcome.

The second one is not valid, since it's just someone pointing out that an action would result in a realistic outcome. The outcome has to actually be shown to count.

EDIT: Wrong thread. Nothing to see here

Edited by SoyValdo7 on Feb 27th 2023 at 1:59:18 PM

• Squid Game:
  • Gi-hun's mother is disappointed that he won't fight for custody of his daughter when she drops the bombshell that Ga-yeong will be moving to the USA with her mother and stepfather since her stepfather got a better job offer there. She suggests if he proves that he could financially support a child then the courts could grant him custody and Ga-yeong could stay in South Korea. This becomes Gi-hun's motivation to enter the games initially before he learns the actual stakes. Episode 2 and the Season 1 finale reveal that this is a pipe dream: Gi-hun's ex and her husband make it clear that they can financially support Ga-yeong better and are willing to fight for her, even if it means separating her from her dad forever for her own good. Moreover, while Gi-hun doeswin the games with more than enough money to get custody of Ga-yeong, he also vanished for a few days to play them, long enough for his mother to die from her untreated diabetes and for him to develop PTSD from seeing more than 400 other people, including the small circle of friends he made, die senselessly. As a result, he loses the will to fight for Ga-yeong in the courts, and his odd behavior would at least spark interest from a family lawyer. On top of that, he spends a year not even touching the cash prize, except to maybe pay off whatever preexisting debts he had, and by then, Ga-yeong is long settled in the United States. The most he can do is rebuild his life with the money and pay for a trip to see her, but when he sees that the games are still going on and the people running it are keeping tabs on him still, to the point of threatening his daughter, he has to turn his back on that to protect her. Plot happens
  • There is also the moment in the episode "Hell" when Gi-hun tries to tell the police about the games and the mass kidnapping and killing of hundreds of people. While they do take down a report and dial the number on the business card (which simply directs them to a number that's not in service), most of the officers don't believe him, writing him off as crazy because he has no proof. Detective Jun-ho Hwang is the only Reasonable Authority Figure who notes that someone close to him (his brother) disappeared in a similar fashion, but he knows that pursuing the case would mean acquiring evidence from a potentially deadly situation given that Gi-hun saw several hundred people mowed down, and whoever organized this is clearly good at covering their tracks. He tries to ask Gi-hun for help in gathering the proof to avenge his brother and those innocent people who were killed, but Gi-hun understandably turns him down because he feels like he has no choice but to reenter the games. While Jun-ho comes close to cracking the case and taking down the operation, one single police officer on a Cowboy Cop mission with no backup cannot overcome a well-oiled system. Character reaction and plot happens
  • During the confrontation that leads to the Front Man and his guards cornering Jun-ho next to a cliff, the Front Man invokes this trope. Jun-ho with his dying phone sends a distress call to his boss, saying that he needs backup on a deserted island and asks the chief to triangulate his location on his cellphone, while trying to send files of the confessions and photos that he took. He even tries to put them under arrest, saying that if the Front Man surrenders to the Coast Guard that he's confident are coming any minute, he can get a plea bargain for his crimes. The Front Man points out that service on the island is terrible, and even if Jun-ho's location and files were sent to the police, Instant Emergency Response doesn't exist in real life. The South Korean police is slow and corrupt, so no one is coming to rescue Jun-ho and help him arrest the Front Man. Jun-ho goes for plan B: Do Not Go Gentle and stall. That also goes poorly when he aims for the Front Man's shoulder rather than his head to stop him, and he stands in shock on seeing the Front Man is his brother, the man who went missing. Plot happens
• A short commercial parody (of Snuggle brand fabric softener) on MTV's The State features a woman discussing how her fabric softener has improved the quality of her laundry. Then when she sees a plush bear extolling the virtues of the product, she promptly begins screaming and beats the unnatural thing to death. Character reaction
• Step by Step: J.T., the family dumbass, is eventually diagnosed with dyslexia. He thinks now he has an excuse for slacking off, but his older cousin, Cody, tells him this means he's now going to have to work harder to keep up with his peers. Plot happens
• Romeo and Juliet ends with the Montagues and Capulets so moved by the tragedy that they make peace. Still Star-Crossed shows how a feud that has gone on for decades doesn't vanish overnight and, if anything, each family blames the other for the deaths to make tensions even worse. Character reaction
• Stranger Things
  • The show takes awhile for the boys to get into the main plot because the boys, particularly Lucas, are initially reluctant to look for Will or keep Eleven's secret. They need to be talked into the former by Mike. Later, Eleven's telekinesis stops Lucas from exposing her to Mike's mom. Plot happens and too fantastical
  • Relatedly, the boys angrily insisting that the government agents will have to get through them first to reclaim Eleven in "The Upside Down" has the agents just easily pick them up and move them away since they are only kids. Not surprising
  • Discussed and then exploited by Murray Baumann when Jonathan and Nancy come to him to expose the laboratory in Hawkins. If he gives newspapers the completely unedited version of what happened in Season 1, it will be too unbelievable, the government will barely have to do any work to destroy it, and nothing will happen. As such, he comes to the conclusion that the most logical option is to fight fire with fire, exploiting the nature of this trope by giving a realistic version of what happened. As such, his official story is that Barb died in a gas leak of some sort. Not an outcome
  • Despite the Ship Tease that's been developing between Jonathan and Nancy over Season 1, she chooses to stay with Steve in the Season 1 finale. Though the wish-fulfillment conventions of the genre would have her go with Jonathan, from her standpoint it makes sense: she already has a sexy boyfriend who dumped his friends and then risked his life for her, so why give that up for a rather emotionally uncommunicative guy whose only close relationship has been with his little brother? This becomes Subverted in Season 2 when they do get together, but after Character Development. Plot happens
  • Nancy's attempts at Drowning My Sorrows in "Trick Or Treat, Freak" only result in her becoming a moody Jerkass and in no way help her feel better over her part in the death of her best friend Barb and subsequent cover-up of same. In fact, it actually serves as part of the impetus for her break-up with Steve later on in the season. Drowning My Sorrows deconstruction
  • Downplayed with d'Artagan, Dustin's "pet pollywog" (which turns out to be a juvenile Demogorgon). While it's still a wild animal and Dustin quickly realizes that it's very dangerous for him to be around it (what with it eating his mom's favorite pet cat and all), the creature still never directly attacks him and even lets him pass due to him having taken care of it. As it turns out, wild animals do not make good pets. Character reaction
  • Then there's season 3, where season 2's implications come home to roost. Getting rid of the government presence allows Russia to set up a hostile presence in the area to conduct their own experiments. Joyce suffers from wicked PTSD and mourning from losing Bob. Mike and Eleven's relationship goes through teen drama. The Upside Down ups its game, becoming more virus-like and aggressive. Plot happens
  • Also in Season 3, Nancy's Intrepid Reporter shenanigans get her and Jonathan fired from their internships at the paper. Even if Nancy was ultimately proven correct and there was some supernatural stuff going down, it doesn't change the fact that, in her pursuit of the story, she did a lot of very illegal things and opened the paper up to a potential lawsuit. Intrepid Reporter Deconstruction
  • Zig-Zagged in Season 4: In “Vecna's Curse” Angela and her friends target Eleven with a cruel prank, embarrassing her in front of Mike and everyone; she retaliates by smashing Angela's face with a rollerskate, and is arrested by the police for this in “The Monster and the Superhero”. However, Dr. Owens later tells Eleven he can make the charges "go away." In “The Nina Project”, Murray and Joyce are held captive by Russian smuggler Yuri on a plane, allowing them to knock over a crate of peanut butter jars (since he can't hear them over the engine) and use some of the broken glass to cut themselves free. However, cutting ropes with broken glass takes a long time and he simply looks behind him and catches them in the act. The zigzag part comes when Murray, a karate black belt who admits he has only ever sparred with teenagers, overpowers the gun-toting Yuri with relative ease. Plot happens
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody:
  • In the episode "First Day of High School", London makes an attempt to pay other female students to follow her around as if they are her friends. When London gets in trouble for breaking down a few lockers to make her own, however, those "friends" she paid for ditch her. London even lampshades the consequences of this at the end: Character reaction
  London: (Gasps) I just realized if you buy your friends, they're not going to really like you for who you are.
  • In the same episode, Nia stands up for Zack and beats up the bully who was trying to attack him for liking his girlfriend. Afterward, she and the bully both get detention for fighting on school grounds. As justified as Nia was, Zero Tolerance policies has made fighting immediate grounds for punishment. Valid
  • For a couple of episodes, London attends a prep school that Maddie also attends. She (somehow) becomes the Teacher's Pet (with her usual antics getting blamed on Maddie). Despite this, London is eventually expelled due to constantly skipping out on class. Even if you're the Teacher's Pet, that doesn't mean you can break school rules without consequences. Not surprising

Any input?

A bit Meh on that valid one but maybe it's common in media to beat up bullies and live happily ever after. Still light on context because the entry tries to school the reader instead of explaining the "surprising".

I don't think it'd be surprising enough even with an explanation, really. Getting detention for unjust stuff makes up a good portion of Detention Episodes.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Feb 28th 2023 at 10:01:51 AM

• Adastra (2018):
  • When Marco first meets Amicus, he ends up getting freaked out by the sight of a giant alien wolf that somehow speaks English in front of him. And his first reaction is to promptly kick him in the chest to get him away. Character reaction
  • Likewise, Cassius also has a major freak out when he first sees Marco unexpectedly, as he'd never seen a human in his life up to that point and naturally assumed he could be dangerous. The reason why Virginia and Neferu reacted calmer to their first encounter with Marco is because they heard about him in advance before seeing him, giving them time to prepare for the surprise of seeing a new species. Character reaction
  • One of the risks to a human being on a planet full of sentient aliens is that they're vulnerable of catching viruses and diseases that their bodies are not used to. At one point, Marco ends up catching something called avia pox, and while the average Adastran can easily deal with any symptoms, the human ends up suffering more severely (ranging from having violent hallucinations to slipping into a near coma-like state) as his body has no idea how to fight off the alien illness. Too implausible
  • After Marco is brought back to his Italian apartment room on Earth after spending about a year on Adastra, he notes that all his stuff is gone (presumably taken during a police investigation) and that his mysterious disappearance probably got a lot of media coverage akin to other strange disappearances in the area. Plot happens

The rest of the M examples. That finally takes care of Video Games A To M.

By the way, I never got any consensus with this one: A Plague Tale: Innocence.

The "Unsure" example sounds like it's just "weak point exists", which isn't enough to count as SRO unless there's a reason why players will assume the cart can make Rodric completely invincible.

Thoughts on these examples from Ferris Bueller's Day Off? They seem like misuse to me:

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • Because Rooney parked his car illegally near the Buller's home, his car gets a ton of unpaid parking tickets and eventually gets towed, despite Rooney's protests.
  • Because the intruder (Rooney) wasn't inside the house when Jeannie phoned the police, the police automatically assume Jeannie is a prankster and bring her in to the police station for questioning.
  • When Jeannie thinks she's found Ferris at home but it's really Rooney, rather than share an awkward humorous moment, she immediately freaks out, thinking it's an intruder and runs upstairs to call the police.