The Hindsight tropes, Hilarious in Hindsight, Harsher in Hindsight, and Heartwarming in Hindsight, are among the most misused Audience Reaction tropes on this site. Many people don't understand that the tropes require more than just "This happened, so that happened", and end up adding examples which either lack connection or the substance that makes them funny/serious/not-so-funny/heartwarming. Some of them may be suited better for other tropes (ex: Life Imitates Art), while some may not belong on TV Tropes at all (such as ones involving politicians, due to Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment).
Please report any Hindsight example that you feel are questionable, and we'll analyze them to see if they are actually examples or not.
Remember that the Hindsight tropes are Audience Reactions. That means if an example under review discusses significant fan response pointing out the hindsight, the example can't be cut solely for being too tenuous for this thread.
- Creator's character/portrayal dies in work and then creator dies in real life, unless their fictional death is closely similar to their real one (such as Billy Bob Joe portraying a character who dies from pancreatic cancer, then Billy Bob dies from pancreatic cancer himself)
- Mundane word related to something terrible (such as "corona" or "Epstein") unless there's more to the connection (such as someone named "Corona" having the flu)
- Creator appears in work then becomes more controversial later on.
- A common event (such as a typical natural disaster) happens in work, then happens in real life (unless they are closely similar, such as the event happening to the same area in both reality and fiction around the same time) For once, not everything related to disease has to do with COVID-19, not everything related to racism and Police Brutality has to do with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter, and not everything related to sexual abuse has to do with #MeToo.
- A common/generic concept was used in this work and then later reused in that work (too loose for a connection, unless the concept is so unique it's identified with the work)
- Two actors appear together then do so in another work
- Hindsight examples involving recent events, due to them often being shoehorns. Specifically:
- COVID-19 examples, before 75% of the population has returned to normal
- George Floyd/2020 Black Lives Matter examples, before protests have declined
- Examples which fall guilty of Older Than They Think, such as "Make X Great Again" slogans. Aside from violating the ROCEJ, this slogan has been in use since the 1940s.
- Characters using slurs which are treated as annoying at worst in the work, but is now harsher due to how severe the slur is made now. Discrimination has always existed with that slur. (May qualify for Values Dissonance if work is at least 20 years old.)
Note: As of January 2022, "Funny Aneurysm" Moment is no longer separate from Harsher in Hindsight.
- The former redirects to the latter and all wicks to the former (with the exception of ones on archive pages and the YMMV Redirects index) must either be moved to the latter (if they're valid) or removed (if they're invalid).
- The subpages for the former are still accessible from this page
. After a subpage for "Funny Aneurysm" Moment has been completely cleaned up, turn it into a redirect to the Harsher in Hindsight subpage for the same medium to preserve inbounds.
Edited by Tabs on Jun 21st 2023 at 11:51:25 AM
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Respectively:
- Local news event that nobody remembers, and one from 2020, no less. Cut it.
- Fits better under Fridge Horror
- Fan Myopia, unicorns with wings had to have existed long before either show came out
- Probably also myopia. I don't even think these shows have much in common and I don't remember hearing any comparisons before
- Hard maybe, there's a lot of things that I don't understand here, but I can confirm Splendid fighting Flippy is a common idea in the fanbase
Yeah, it does sound kind of aggressive, but I can't think of a quicker way of saying "an actor portraying a character and then portraying a similar character/Two actors appearing in one work later appearing in another work is not a valid example of Hilarious in Hindsight".
I do think this thread is a bit too cut-happy at times. We shouldn't be cutting widespread audience reactions because we, personally, disagree with them. That's antithetical to the point of YMMV.
Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 28th 2021 at 7:51:29 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.On a related note:
Can I propose to add an additional line on the list of rules on top of the page? A rule that says "Actors playing characters with the same common name in movies does not count under Hilarious in Hindsight."
I just removed this bit from the 2004 flick, Closer that says "Natalie Portman would play two other characters named Jane in Thor and Jane's Got A Gun."
And then there's this bit from Risky Business about how "Tom would play two more Jacks later in his career in Jack Harper and Oblivion..."
But the crowning example of stupidity comes from this entry on some 90s' dramedy-series (forgot what's the show, I scrubbed the entry weeks ago) that says "The main character's Black Best Friend is called Monique"... with Disney's Kim Possible potholed under "Monique".
What the actual Fork? Let's do something about this, alright?
Edited by RobertTYL on Apr 28th 2021 at 8:47:04 PM
I've defended the inclusion of some otherwise specious or Actor Garbage-y examples on the basis of "a lot of people have made such jokes so it's not just me or this one editor", so if people can in good faith cite a particular comparison as having circulation on social media or the like, I think that's enough to keep it. That makes it a legitimate Audience Reaction, after all.
Yeah. I'm cool to keep whatever's an actual, common reaction. It's just not always possible to know how common something is if you've never seen the work before or don't know any fans.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallErm, does this entry from Death Wish sounds a bit, ROCEJ-ey? The movie came out in the 70s btw...
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The killers in the first film targeting Kersey' s wife and daughter after spotting them in the grocery store and following them home. Thirty-three years later, this is exactly how the horrific rape and murder of Dr. William Petit's wife and daughters
began.
- About ten years after the movie came out, Bernie Goetz
would gun down four muggers in the New York subway in a similar manner to what Paul Kersey does.
- The killers in the first film targeting Kersey' s wife and daughter after spotting them in the grocery store and following them home. Thirty-three years later, this is exactly how the horrific rape and murder of Dr. William Petit's wife and daughters
A "Funny Aneurysm" Moment on Spitting Image
- In the revival, Prince Charles usurps the throne temporarily and accidentally decapitates a man implied to be Captain Tom Moore while trying to knight him. Moore would die of Covid-19 a few months later.
This sounds like a shoehorn; for one thing, being decapitated is far too different from dying from COVID 19.
From YMMV.The Loud House
- Harsher in Hindsight: In the episode "Ties that Bind", Lynn Sr mentions that they will never kick any of their children out after a misunderstanding involving his ties. Guess what the Loud family do to Lincoln in "No Such Luck"? (Not helping matters was that both episodes were written by the same person).
This seems like complaints about a disliked episodes.
From the first two Shrek films...
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In Mulan, Eddie Murphy's character was a dragon. In Shrek, Eddie Murphy's character marries a dragon. — Maybe legit, could keep that.
- By sheer coincidence, Farquaad's emblem has an uncanny resemblence to the Facebook logo. — YMMV, but sure.
- One of the first things Shrek said to Fiona was "You were expecting Prince Charming?" And then... — Not sure...
- One of the jokes MAD made about the first movie was Donkey and Dragon having half-donkey, half-dragon babies...which is exactly what happened in the second movie. — Sounds like a keep.
- Game of Thrones fans can't help but chuckle at how Jaime Lannister is a dead ringer for Prince Charming. The fun doesn't end there - Tyrion is an eccentric, red-clad Deadpan Snarker dwarf lord just like Farquaad and has a similar voice, Sansa is a redheaded princess like Fiona and even has a similar green dress and hair braid in Season 7, Syrio is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture Spaniardnote who's proficient with a sword like Puss and compares his style to a cat... — Any GOT fans want to share their opinions?
- In the Japanese dub of the films, Kōichi Yamadera voiced Donkey. The hilarity came with the fact in the very first film, the villain Lord Farquaad was voiced by Masato Ibu, who voiced the original Dessler and Shrek and Donkey has to defeat him. A few years later, Yamadera himself ends voicing Dessler as well. — Actor Garbage, leaning on cut.
- Vincent Cassel voiced Monsieur Hood (in English) in the first movie. He had previously had a role in the French dub of another DreamWorks movie. — Another Actor Garbage.
- Some Chinese bootleggers used Dragon as a Charizard stand-in
in a pirated Pokémon game. That series started a meme that applies perfectly to her relationship with Donkey. — ???
- Lord Farquaad, who was designed after Michael Eisner, came four years after Hades in Hercules, who was designed off of Jeffrey Katzenberg. Bonus points for John Lithgow nearly becoming the voice of Hades, even recording a few lines, before James Woods took the role. — Kind of a stretch?
- Conrad Vernon voices the Gingerbread Man. 15 years later, Vernon would develop another animated comedy that involves sentient food. — Another stretch...
- Shrek, a character with a Scottish accent, ends up with a woman named Fiona. Three years after this movie, Dreamworks would produce a live-action movie who's plot is kicked off by a woman named Fiona dumping a guy named Scott.note — Stretch...
- Dreamworks's rival, Pixar, makes its own movie similar to the Shrek universe, but it takes place in the modern day instead of medieval times. — Oh really. Isn't the "modern-day fairytale" a super-common cliche by 2020?
- Donkey briefly sings "On the Road Again", and funnily enough, these following two Buddy movies use this song. — Stretch.
- Both the series and DreamWorks Animation were later brought by Universal in 2016. This comes full circle as Walt Disney started his career at Universal by creating Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for them. — Stretch.
- Lord Farquaad rather resembles a reconstruction of Richard III, made years after the film came out; for those who think Richard killed his nephews, it's a rather appropriate resemblence. — Stretch.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- It stands to reason that Shrek would be understandably pissed about King Harold suggesting ogres eat their own young, as it's revealed in Shrek the Third that Shrek's father actually did attempt to eat him many times as he grew up. — OK, we can keep this one.
- The part where Donkey (voiced by African-American Eddie Murphy) protests "Police Brutality!" as he's being pinned down by knights can be seen as this with the many high-profile incidents of such before and since the film's release, particularly against African-Americans (especially the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and Elijah McClain). Of particular note is one of the officers slamming his knee down on Donkey's neck immediately afterwards, eerily mirroring the real life death of George Floyd. The fact that the show that the scene is parodying was cancelled in June 2020 after many instances of extreme aggression amongst police around the United States became filmed makes it even harder to watch. — ROCEJ violation, not EVERYTHING is a reference to Police Brutality.
- Gingy wants to flip over to Wheel of Torture upon being bored by the Far Far Away Ball. In 2014, some police officers in Laguna, Philippines used a wheel similar to Wheel of Fortune (of which Wheel of Torture in the movie is a parody) to select torture methods upon suspected drug traffickers. They later got fired in response to the uproar. — Yeah, another ROCEJ, only in Philippines instead of the US.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In the DVD menu, Shrek responds to Donkey's suggestions for subtitles for the movie by sarcastically suggesting it be called Shrek 2: Dude, Where's My Donkey?! (and more) but it doesn't go anywhere. Then along came the third Nativity! movie, which unironically used that as its subtitle. — Maybe a keep.
- Shrek is disgusted by a poster of "Sir Justin" (who looks like Justin Timberlake) on Fiona's ceiling. Come The Third, where a teenage King Arthur is played by... Justin Timberlake. For bonus hilarity points, they bond. — Maybe a keep.
- Even more hilarious: Justin and Cameron Diaz were dating at the time of Shrek 2; by the time Justin became her cousin, they had broken up. — Yes, a break-up is hilarious.
- One of the jokes MAD made about the first movie was Donkey and Dragon having half-donkey, half-dragon babies... which is exactly what happened. — Maybe a keep
- Another strip that parodies Shrek and Fiona's walk through the forest shows Shrek inflating and folding a snake like a balloon animal, while Fiona grabs a frog and when she tries to inflate it it turns into a prince. In this film, it turns out her father was a frog prince. — ???
- Speaking of frog princes, Disney, whom the franchise lampoons, made a movie centered around a frog prince five years later. — Kind of a stretch, the Frog Princess is a Public Domain story
- Prince Charming is the spitting image of Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones, only with Joffrey's personality and motivation. Not to mention the first movie dealt with a short maniacal nobleman in a red suit... — Is he though? Again, any GOT fans want to chip in?
- One of the jokes in the intro montage has Shrek getting caught in a trap where he hangs upside down and gets mud on his face, which Fiona wipes off and kisses him while he hangs upside down, in a parody of Spider-Man 1. Due to the fact that Marvel is owned by Disney as of 2009, which Shrek is notorious for swinging at, this becomes very amusing. — Another pointless Disney shoe-horn
- Doubly so with Puss invoking the Chestbursters from the Alien series by coming out of Shrek's shirt, in light of Disney's acquisition of 20th Century. — Ditto to above
- A little minor one, but the entrance to Far Far Away is reminiscent to the entrance of Paramount Studios. Through 2006 to 2012, Paramount Pictures distributed 14 films for DWA, including the following Shrek sequels Shrek the Third and Shrek Forever After. — Yeah, shoe-horn
- There's a scene where a Giant Figure sticks his head menacingly over the mighty walls surrounding a city. On that day, Far Far Away received a grim reminder... — Not sure
- A mermaid gets presumably eaten by sharks. DreamWorks would release Shark Tale later the same year. — Bad shoe-horn is bad
- And who could forget the iconic "Livin' La Vida Loca" scene? This pops up 16 years later in another animated movie about a team that travels far from their home and their friends come to rescue them near the end. — Oh come on, it's a famous pop song being used in an animated film, isn't that a super-common cliché?
Thankfully, the third film and spinoffs doesn't have all these mess, but make that of what you will
- I'd keep the Prince Charming bit since Fiona really was expecting Prince Charming, which is the conflict of the next movie.
- The MAD example belongs on the page for MAD as that's the moment made hilarious in hindsight.
- The Pokemon one is applying the hindsight more to Pokemon, but Hot Skitty-on-Wailord Action has been a thing since before then. In fact, Shrek predates both Skitty and Wailord by a couple of years!
- Onward is very different in tone from Shrek. I'd cut that.
- I could've sworn we cut that Police Brutality example...though it is obviously a reference to police brutality, since Donkey literally accuses the police of police brutality in that very scene. Though personally, I'm inclined to keep it specifically because of the connection to COPS getting cancelled over police brutality controversy.
- The one about Fiona and the frog prince might be valid for adding new layers to the original joke (the accidental implication of Surprise Incest). But again, it belongs on the MAD page, and actually is already there, written in a more comprehensible manner.
Edited by mightymewtron on Apr 30th 2021 at 11:07:42 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.- Harsher in Hindsight:
- After the Charlottesville riots in 2017, where people waving Nazi flags clashed with counter protestors and a woman was killed in the crossfire, every scene involving the Neo-Nazis becomes even more sinister than they already were. Even the scene with Jack, Todd, and Kenny talking about the train heist manages to be unnerving when watched after this event. In 2020, it only has gotten worse. The idea of Neo-Nazis as not only a legitimate threat but the Final Boss seemed a little backwards after everything Walt dealt with already at the time. Not so much now.
Does this seem like a ROCEJ violation? Also, what does it mean by "In 2020, it only has gotten worse"? Even then, it just seems like "Nazis exist". It also feels like a way to bypass the 20 year requirement of Values Resonance.
Edited by PlasmaPower on Apr 30th 2021 at 3:22:39 PM
Thomas fans needed! Come join me in the the show's cleanup thread!On the subject of Dreamworks, here's another pointless wall of text full of shoehorns, this time for Shark Tale.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Lenny, the Ambiguously Gay shark that wants to be a dolphin halfway through the film. Brittany S. Pearce said it best: "Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?" — Pretty sure Shark Tale predates Glee by a few years, and both media doesn't share any actors whatsoever...
- Oscar's infamous design wouldn't be the last time audiences complained about a CGI character with Will Smith's face. — Apparently the troper who added this line never heard of the trope, Ink-Suit Actor before.
- Lenny isn't the only black and white animal played by Jack Black co-starring with Angelina Jolie in a DreamWorks movie. — Apparently great white sharks and pandas are copyrighted by Dreamworks, right?
- Lenny calls himself the Invisible Shark in one scene. In an episode of The Office (US), Jack Black and the Invisible Woman's actress Jessica Alba were guests inside a film-within-an-episode. — Actor Garbage
- At the very end, one of the sharks is dressed up as a clown. Robert De Niro (voice of Don Lino) would play Murray Franklin in Joker (2019). — I... I can't even... what...
- What made it even funnier is that Martin Scorsese was initially attached to the film but had to drop out and do The Irishman. — Oh great, now the shoehorn spreads to Scorsese.
- What kicked the hilariousness Up To Eleven is that Shark Tale and Joker are two of Robert De Niro's highest grossing films and have gotten an Oscar nomination. — Yes, we get it, a fan of Joker is Entry Pimping this film everywhere. Including Dreamwork's shark movie that nobody remembers.
- Speaking of DC, Will Smith got to play an unlikable protagonist/Batslayer in Suicide Squad (2016). — ...
- Viacom (the owner of SpongeBob SquarePants) would own Shark Tale's production company from 2006 to 2012. — ???
- Renee Zellweger would voice the love interest of another yellow colored animal from the same company in Bee Movie. — Shoe-horn
- In one scene when Lenny accidentally swallows Oscar, he asks Oscar if it's him, to which Oscar replies, "No, it's Pinocchio". Funnily, Will Smith actually voiced Pinocchio in an episode of Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child — Even worse shoe-horn
99% of these are wet garbage, and the 1% that isn't wet garbage is sh1t. I'm sending the whole thing to the incinerator if nobody objects.
Putting in my two cents on the "Police brutality" line in Shrek 2 being FAM / Harsher in Hindsight, I'm inclining to Keep, for the following reasons:
- Donkey is voiced by an African-American actor, leading to a subtext of racially motivated police brutality.
- The knight is actually standing on Donkey's neck when Donkey calls him out.
- At least one source (Honest Trailers' Shrek 2 trailer) has made the connection, pointing out how unfortunate the scene feels after George Floyd's death.
EDIT: What the hell, the Shrek films are in the Western Animation namespace, not the Film one?
Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on May 1st 2021 at 11:30:41 AM
Yeah, the neck thing and the fact Donkey is voiced by a black man is more significant than standard "Police Brutality = George Floyd," plus the fact the show parodied was later cancelled due to the BLM protests.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.- Hilarious in Hindsight: Darnell's pyromania and love for explosives makes him resemble a younger Demoman in all but nationality and alcohol consumption.

From YMMV.Happy Tree Friends.