Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, previously called Reality Ensues, is one of the most heavily misused tropes this site has ever had, having gone to the Trope Repair Shop twice ([1]
[2]
) and Trope Talk once ([3]
) before settling into its current state of having to receive constant cleanup.
These issues finally came to a head in 2019 when Reality Ensues went to TRS after a wick check found misuse to outnumber valid examples 30-40 to 1. After discussion, tropers agreed to drop the "broken convention" aspect of the trope and rename it Surprisingly Realistic Outcome to improve clarity. However, after the cleanup began, it soon became apparent that instead of properly reviewing examples, tropers were mass-moving them to the new name with no regard for whether they even fit the new definition, and the cleanup soon became regarded
as the textbook example of botched TRS work. Despite removing nearly half of the examples, SRO was still in Overdosed Tropes with over 10,000 examples by the time Reality Ensues wick migration finished. This cleanup thread, which predates the TRS efforts by nearly two years, noticed the problem and took it to TRS a second time, which eventually turned into a Trope Talk discussion that finally fleshed out SRO with an actual description and established clear, concise criteria for judging examples. After that, cleanup began intermittently, eventually deleting nearly all the subpages and getting SRO below the Overdosed Tropes threshold; active cleanup continues.
Many Stock Phrases used in this thread describe particular types of misuse encountered frequently:
- Not surprising. — The outcome described isn't a Bait-and-Switch and merely follows expected genre conventions.
- Note that SRO can't be common in any fiction, as realistic events being surprising requires that they be rare. They might be unexpected at first if they keep happening, but they would eventually become expected; SRO being "common" in media is an oxymoron.
- Plot happens. — The example merely describes an event or series of events but not why people typically expect something different.
- Deconstruction / Genre Deconstruction / Deconstructed Trope / Deconstructed Character Archetype shoehorn. — The example is a deconstruction of some type misplaced under SRO.
- Too fantastical. — The causes/outcome includes stuff Impossible in Real Life such as Applied Phlebotinum, Functional Magic, Science Fiction, etc., meaning they're too unrealistic by default.
- Character reaction. — The outcome involves a character reacting in a certain way or having certain emotions, which we can't gauge the realism of because people's emotional reactions vary far too much.
- Not realistic. — The supposed "realistic" outcome isn't legitimately realistic; using this phrase requires you to describe why it isn't realistic.
- Too implausible. — The outcome describes an outcome that happened because of things too unlikely to count as relatively realistic compared to what they were subverting.
- Cuttable ZCE. — The example is a Zero-Context Example, which can be cut unilaterally in a cleanup.
- Not an outcome. — The example is a Discussed Trope, Lampshade Hanging, Conversational Troping, something that happens over too much time to be momentary, a general feature of the setting, or is otherwise not a singular event.
- Too unclear. — The example is too convoluted or obtuse to judge.
- Irrelevant. — The example describes stuff utterly irrelevant to the definition of SRO.
A big thing I've noticed is that it's often used for anything remotely realistic, or something that's realistic but doesn't necessarily affect the story. Another problem is that the trope seems to be cherry-picked, where any instance of reality ensuing is put there, as well as when another trope could serve the example better.
Problematic examples from one sample page, Surprisingly Realistic Outcome.Disney Animated Series: "Despite his attempts Wander can't make friends with Dominator who constantly rebuffs his friendly gestures throughout season 2. Even at the end of everything, she still refuses. Sylvia even lampshades it, telling him some people are just like that."
"Spider-Man's fight against Sandman and Rhino, where Spidey uses Rhino's weight against him. rather than fighting him directly." "Beshte gets sunburns all over his body and is easily exhausted while he is lost in the Outlands. Justified due to the fact that hippos need water to survive to avoid sunburn and overheating."
"It's heavily implied that being the leader of the Lion Guard has taken a toll on Kion's social and private life."
"Milo Murphy's Law is about a boy named Milo Murphy whose entire life is centered around Murphy's Law. In another cartoon, being The Jinx would cause people to be afraid of them, resulting in an unsocial lifestyle. That does not apply here. While everyone does watch their step around Milo, they do not hate him for it. Being The Jinx does, however, give everyone Paranoia Fuel, given that Murphy's Law can happen at any time, so chances are you might need insurance, a phone in case of emergencies, among other things. Milo himself (as well as his friends Melissa and Zack) just learned to adapt to his condition, being prepared for anything. He has lived with Murphy's Law his entire life after all. That being said, that does not mean that they don't panic all the time. Examples include Milo panicking over his monthly doctor's note, and Melissa panicking over riding a rollercoaster with Milo."
" Hiro is initially not allowed to use Tadashi's former lab, as it can only be accessed by upperclassmen who earned the privilege. Subverted in the second half of the pilot when Professor Granville decides Hiro using the lab would benefit him. On a related note regarding Granville, she is tough, but fair when interacting with the students. She might be, as Wasabi describes "a hard case", but Granville being a complete sadist and picking on Hiro would be unrealistic. She is actually a decent person."
Edited by lalalei2001 on Oct 18th 2024 at 2:06:25 PM
These were added to the main page:
- Storks: The wolves can form several things together. But when they become a submarine, they need to periodically surface for air. And when they try to become an airplane, they instantly fall out of the sky.
- Building funny extensions onto your house to guide the stork in his delivery is cute and all, but it will break various building safety codes in the process.
- After Junior, Tulip and the baby settle in for the night, the camera pans up to imply a heartwarming scene transition... only for the baby to start crying, at which point it zips back to show the two of them trying tiredly to get her back to sleep.
Unsure about the latter two, but the wolf vehicles run on Rule of Funny with no concern for realism, so that can be safely cut.
The first example doesn't sound realistic. The second one doesn't explain why it's surprising. The third one might be surprising, but more due to Mood Whiplash than this trope.
On the Western Animation page of We Bare Bears:
In "Bear Cleanse", the bears discover their health is off. They reveal they've been eating all the ideal foods humans do, which is the actual cause of said health problems. While they can talk like humans and walk upright, this doesn't mean they have the same biology as humans. As such, they have to eat what their natural foods are. Grizz is okay with berries and fish at first, but he's become too used to human food to keep it up, Panda is miserable eating bamboo, while Ice Bear is unable to buy seal meat and finds himself unwilling to kill the one he kidnaps.
Definitely cutting that last bit, it's mostly a character reaction, but.... this seems a little too fantastical in general. Like the third sentence says, they're bears that can speak human language and can walk on their hind legs. The revelation that they can't eat human food feels too fantastical.
What do you guys say?
Yeah, I agree. In real life a bear wouldn't be unable to enjoy eating their natural prey.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall"Bear Cleanse" sounds more like Furry Reminder. The bears getting sick from eating human food is a surprising outcome, since the show often portrays the bears as just weird humans, but it's only "realistic" by the standards of a world where bears can participate in human society.
Castlevania 2017 S 1 E 3 Labyrinth
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The victims affected by the Cyclops aren't made whole when the curse lifts. If you are beheaded, or reduced to pieces, You Are Already Dead.
Castlevania (2017) S4E8 "Death Magic"
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Any human-sized vampire like Varney can just jump over a stream of holy water.
Both are too fantastical
- If Wishes Were Ponies...:
- Harry Potter was mentally and physically abused for a decade, and the adults around him did nothing to stop it. The first adults to treat him with any kindness and earn his trust were the ponies of Equestria. Thus, for the first half of the book he has an Adults Are Useless attitude towards any human adult who hasn't earned his trust (meaning only Lin Yueshi, the Weasely parents, the Granger parents, and a select few teachers at Hogwarts). He gets better, but he possesses an inherent sense of self-preservation and separation anxiety that is often seen in abused children. Character reaction
- Thanks to Twilight Sparkle, Sirius gets out of Azkaban much sooner. However, he's spent ten years there with bad food, poor light, and the constant stress of being in a place filled with happiness-eating abominations. When he gets out, he's immediately take to St. Mungo's so that healers can work on his physical and mental health. Even after he's declared healthy, he still has mood swings and several health/mental health issues. Character reaction and too fantastical
I noticed that some new videos were added that use SRO as a secondary trope. Any other opinions before I take this to the Video Moderation thread?
- CN City: Not realistic, since the outcome was caused by a blatantly unrealistic device. Even if you ignore that (since dropping jellybeans from a high place is technically possible in real life), Dexter's inventions backfiring is a common thing in Dexter's Laboratory, so it's not that surprising.
- Koala Man: Definitely not realistic, since a real person wouldn't be able to fan a huge fire enough to make it as big as in the video.
- Animaniacs: Also not realistic, since in real life, mice wouldn't even want to steal gold.
I believe this example from WesternAnimation.The Looney Tunes Show counts but what do you guys think:
In "Off Duty Cop", Daffy pretends to be the titular cop from his favorite TV show, only handcuffing people throughout the city even if they're not actively engaging in criminal activities. The montage plays this for laughs initially like how most classic Looney Tunes shorts worked, but when he mentions this to a real cop, he immediately calls for Daffy's arrest for just that.
Plays a trope for laughs (one that's common in the shorts) before subverting it realistically.
From the Western Animation page:
- In The Loud House, there's lots of moments where Lincoln, and from time to time, his sisters, come up with some sort of scheme, but fail to think of the consequnces from them: Didn't Think This Through is potholed in this line, so why not list the examples there? That trope is often confused with this one since it's about "reality ensuing".
- In "The Sweet Spot", Lincoln's plan to snag the best seat in Vanzilla, the titular seat, blows up in his face when his sisters sneak into his room and find out about his seating chart, at which point they beat him, and themselves, up over it. This results in them destroying the van, and because it was the only vehicle in the house and was needed for the road trip, said trip is cancelled. In addition, the kids are all punished by being forced to sit on the sofa for the entire weekend until they can learn to get along. Lincoln then tries going for another Sweet Spot on the sofa. Doesn't explain why it's surprising.
- In "Sister Act", where Lola and Lana switch places to get out of doing things one twin dislikes, but the other enjoys, they try pulling this stunt once more so the latter could avoid a dentist appointment and the former could avoid a doctor's appointment, which backfires the next day: Lola comes down with a nasty case of the flu, preventing her from participating in a pageant and Lana gets an abscessed tooth, preventing her from enjoying a massive sundae she won in a recycling contest. Having your twin pretending to be you so you can get out of something like eating a dinner you don't like or taking a bath is one thing, but doing it to get out of a medical appointment is definitely another, because had the twins just went to their respective appointments as themselves in the first place, their medical professionals would've caught and treated the early warning signs of their respective ailments right away before they got any worse as they did. The twins receive a big scolding after fessing up to what they did to their parents so their doctor and dentist don't lose their licenses for negligence and then have to go to the appointments they avoided so they can get healthy again. Probably not surprising. "Character does something unethical, benefits from it a few times, but then it backfires" is a common cartoon plot.
- In "Lock 'n' Loud", to stop an impending burglar, Lincoln and Lynn prepare a vat of sizzling hot bacon grease, intending to scald the burglar. By the time the burglar arrives, the bacon grease has already cooled, because it was stored at room temperature. Maybe this one is valid.
I'm not even sure that last one counts. The Loud House was a generally grounded and relatively realistic show back then, so it might not really be surprising. I also want to say that episode has several other anti-burglar tactics fail, which would make it even less surprising, but I don't remember it well enough to say for sure.
Edited by badtothebaritone on May 1st 2023 at 9:45:42 AM
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody:
- In the episode when Zack and Cody gain super powers, there is a scene showing the town being in constant danger. This showed that being superhero would require a lot of responsibility. This convinces the boys to give up being superheroes. With great power comes great responsibility, indeed. Too fantastical
- One episode has the boys (mostly Cody) trying to get their parents back together again. Instead, Carey and Kurt have to gently break it to them that no, they're not going to reignite their old flame, even if it sounds like the ideallic ending. Plot happens
- One episode has Cody, fed up with Zack constantly making their room a mess, decide to move into the suite's front closet. At the end, when Zack has become more organized and Cody says he wants to come back, Zack asks if it's because he changed his habits. Cody admits it's part of the reason, but it's mainly because the fire department found out what he was doing and ordered him to move out of the closet as a person living in such a confined space is a fire hazard. Unsure
- In one episode, London and Maddie try to lose weight. After Mr. Moseby tries to get the two to accept their bodies by giving them a heartwarming speech, the girls end up being unphased by the speech and hilariously continue to exercise moments later. Just goes to show that although you can give well-meaning advice to people, it won’t always help someone instantly. Character reaction
- In "To Catch a Thief", when there are jewel thieves at the Tipton and the police suspect Esteban of being the thief, Zack and Cody try to help clear his name but fail and crash Bar Mitzvah, which leads to no one, not even Esteban, believing them when they find the real thieves. After they succeed at catching the thieves, rather praise them for succeeding, Carey is upset that her sons put themselves in danger and scolds them for doing so. Zack says that she or anyone else wouldn't believe them, she tells if they didn't let imaginations run wild they would have believe them when it mattered the most. No parent is going to be happy with their children putting themselves in harm's way to catch criminals. Even if the boys meant well, Carey's reaction to this quite rational. Character reaction
- The episode where Cody and Bailey have their messy break-up. It starts with the usual Poor Communication Kills plot - Bailey sees Cody and London rehearsing the extravagant date he had planned for her and assumes he's cheating, and he in turn sees her being comforted by another man (a local who had flirted with her earlier). What makes it this trope is that even after the miscommunication is cleared up, they don't automatically forgive each other. Cody is still upset that his girlfriend doesn't trust him and immediately ran off to another man, and Bailey points out how ridiculous rehearsing a date with another girl, Bailey's room-mate nonetheless, is. The ensuing arguments ends their relationship, and it takes most of the following season for them to get over their hurt feelings enough to give their relationship a second try. Character reaction
- When London and Bailey volunteer to watch some of the passenger's children in the play room, at first the children enjoy London more than Bailey due her childish personality, which ends with Bailey tied to a chair and covered macaroni and glitter. Bailey then decides not do it the next day, so London ends up taking care of the kids alone. Unfortunately for London, due her being a Womanchild and her stupidity, the kids turn against her since can't do simple tasks like open a juice box or get their snacks, forcing her to call Bailey to come back and help. Plot happens
Edited by CelestialDraco on May 3rd 2023 at 11:10:34 AM
From various Total Drama pages:
Total Drama: "A Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste":
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: During the recap, Chris is threatened by the Department of Environmental Protection for his illegal waste dumping. The entire plot of the episode is the contestants journeying into the mines, showing the feds that the toxic waste is sealed, and therefore no longer a threat. It makes up the plot of the episode, so not a moment
Total Drama: "Brains Vs Brawn: The Ultimate Showdown":
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Chris dumps toxic waste all over Wawanakwa on live television, where the authorities can see it. The second the contestants are safe, Chris is arrested for creating an environmental disaster and spends a whole year in jail. Similarly, Chris's attempt to appease the government by burying the toxic waste in the mine a few episodes ago similarly doesn't work out too well, as the waste was not even remotely disposed correctly. Not sure if really surprising
Total Drama: "Greece's Pieces":
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The second Tyler reveals Gwen and Duncan kissed, Gwen and Duncan become absolutely hated on their teams. Gwen is explicitly threatened with elimination by Courtney within seconds of learning about it, while Duncan only escapes elimination thanks to Chris wanting to keep him for ratings. Character reaction
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Thanks to their runs with Bowie being quite villainous whole Priya seems more heretic and friendlier, it's not surprising more people were rooting for Priya with only three people rooting for Bowie. Character reaction
Total Drama: "Niagara Brawls":
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite the show frequently having the contestants engage in illegal and ridiculous activities, Chris doesn't make them legitimately gamble because they're all underage. Unsure
I think the Zack and Cody ones, and the Total Drama ones, are all misuse.
For the two "unsure" cases:
- Yes, it's realistic that Cody would get kicked out of the closet, however it's not necessarily surprising. The show is mostly grounded in reality. If it's that Cody didn't move back because of Zack's cleanliness, that's not really necessarily "realistic", that's a subjective reaction and reasoning.
- Because Chris makes them do dangerous things all the time, it's not actually realistic that he'd draw the line at gambling. He's been very willing to kill the kids. I feel like it's just sort of a one-off gag, because given who Chris is it doesn't necessarily make sense for his character that he'd care if they break the law in that specific way. But also it's a reaction because it relies on Chris deciding to care about something.
Edited by WarJay77 on May 4th 2023 at 12:02:33 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

Yeah, cut. None of those are that realistic or even surprisingly, honestly.