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
A hindsight shoehorn on Film.Memories Of Murder, since Downer Ending only concerns an ending in the context within the work:
- Downer Ending: Cho's leg is amputated after a fight. Seo completely loses it after the case wears down on him. Park is shown to be haunted by the murders even years after they happened. The police's reputation with the public is completely destroyed and the culprit is never found. Made worse by the fact that it's Truth in Television.
- In September 2019 however, the identification of prime suspect Lee Choon-jae turns it into a Bittersweet Ending, although it still leans heavily towards the bitter. Assuming it followed the same arc of the investigation while keeping the fates of the characters, the case still remained unsolved for over 30 years, all the police detectives involved ended up physically and/or emotionally broken, and the failures of the investigation enabled the murderer to rape and kill more women, including his sister-in-law.
- In September 2019 however, the identification
I was thinking of rewriting the sub-bullet into Harsher in Hindsight:
- Harsher in Hindsight: The irony of the detectives failing to find the killer intensified in September 2019, when the prime suspect was identified by DNA analysis as Lee Choon-jae, who had already been jailed since 1994 for committing a similar crime against one of his in-laws.
Edited by Albert3105 on May 29th 2020 at 4:42:28 AM
You can't escape this monster
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I thought the name of Swine Flu was made up by the show (At least that's what I understood from the KND wiki), so thanks for clarifying. With this in mind, it's more clear this is not an example.
This is on FunnyAneurysmMoment.Live Action TV:
- On the premiere of Holey Moley, contestant Jared Gustavsen said he was "like the Kobe Bryant of miniature golf." A short time after this episode aired, Kobe Bryant and his daughter, and several others were killed in a helicopter crash.
I feel like timing can be a factor when it comes to hindsight tropes.
Unless Gustavsen gets himself killed in a helicopter crash, definitely not an example.
Edited by Albert3105 on May 29th 2020 at 8:07:41 AM
Discarded and Feeling Blue
Found, and already cut, this example on YMMV.Seinfeld; bringing it here mostly for the sake of sharing the frustration:
- Jerry has a handful of germophobic moments meant to demonstrate how neurotic he is. The coronavirus outbreak of 2019-2020 makes him look perfectly reasonable.
Just to turn away a bit from all these awful covid-19 shoehorns, I have to say that I do wonder a bit about the Bill Cosby parody example from the last page. Transparently basing a (presumably) likeable/funny character on a celebrity who IRL was later exposed as a heinous criminal does sound closer to the definition of "Funny Aneurysm" Moment than a lot of the "his character died in work X, and then decades later he died" nonsense.
Thoughts?
Edited by nrjxll on May 29th 2020 at 10:43:11 AM
Yeah, it sounds like it could have some legitimacy. Although I'd also like to know if there's something about the execution in particular to make it that way, lest every instance of a Bill Cosby impression in a work get slapped with this trope.
Bringing up these examples from Sega:
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- All of Sega's mudslinging against Nintendo in the '90s, after Sega left the hardware business entirely. Its games are now available for the current systems made by it's former rival in the Console Wars.
- From 1969 to 1984, Sega was owned by Gulf and Western, a conglomerate with its' mitts in many different things, but was mostly notable for owning Paramount Pictures. Sega was sold off as part of G+W's plan to transition from a bloated conglomerate into a more focused pure media company (which it did succesfully, becoming known as Paramount Communications in 1989, before merging with the original Viacom in 1994). Cut to 2018, where Sega's co-producing the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog film with Paramount!
You can't escape this monster
For Bill Cosby, I found these on Western Animation:
- Drawn Together:
- The episode "Unrestrainable Trainable" has Captain Hero investigate the city under attack from a giant midget (which later turns out to be his inbred son), with one of the evidence of destruction being a giant reservoir of banana pudding being drained. Bill Cosby is seen standing over it, saying that he's just another unemployed sexual predator without it. Then there’s the episode “Foxxy and the Gang Bang/Toot Goes Bollywood”, where Toot challenges Foxxy to stop having sex and viceversa. In Foxxy’s plot, she tries to find out the reason for her heavy sexual appetite, and tracks it back to memories of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids expiessexually assaulting her when she was young, later turning out that the memories were fake and implemented by Wooldoor. The accusations of sexual assault against Cosby make these jokes not so funny.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
- Season 3's "Just for Sidekicks" has Spike emulating Bill Cosby's "Chocolate Cake for Breakfast Routine". This is now harder to stomach after Cosby's rape allegations.
You can't escape this monster
Also, this was recently added to thd page. Surprise, Covid strikes again!
- In the 101 Dalmatian Street Episode, "Flea-Mageddon", The Dalmatians become infected with Fleas, with Dante pointing out that they need to stay inside the House cause, if they go outside, they run the risk of infecting others and starting a World Wide Pandemic. Less than a year, after the Episode premiered, COVID-19 became a World Wide Pandemic, with one of the main pieces of medical advice, to helpprevent the spread of the Pandemic, being to stay inside.
Best Ogre
I say cut. I also sent the troper a grammar notifier.
You can't escape this monster
Did it. Thoughts on the Bill Cosby entries mentioned earlier?
Now a lurker. See you at the forums.
I wrote this, as I was reading Batman comics.
Harsher in Hindsight
"In Batman in Belen (Batman #666, released in 2008), a storyline that takes place in an alternate future, there is a brief mention of an epidemic that took away the life of 80 million individuals will soon be under control according to the Chinese health authorities. While the Covid-19 crisis of 2020 hasn't taken that many people, the similarities will ring uncomfortable to some."
Is it valid, or not?
To win, you need to adapt, and to adapt, you need to be able to laugh away all the restraints. Everything holding you back.
I'm helping!
No.
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
This is on YMMV.Atlantis The Lost Empire
- Harsher in Hindsight: King Nedakh's death and final monologue became more sorrowful with the passing of Leonard Nimoy in 2015. Furthermore, both of them suffered from complications of their aged body with Nedakh's internal bleeding from Rourke's punch striking his frail body and Nimoy's suffering from end-stage COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) at the age of 83
Very Spooky
The deaths are too distant (the film released in 2001, and Nimoy passed away in 2015), and the causes of death are too different (King Nedakh died from an attack by another person, while Nimoy died from a disease he developed himself). Cut.
Edited by jandn2014 on May 30th 2020 at 11:12:26 AM
back lol
I've removed it, along with this (under Hilarious in Hindsight):
- This is also not the first time Cree Summer voices a character from an ancient civilisation in a Disney production.
But...Ducktales came 16 years after Atlantis...what?
I'm not sure about the Drawn Together Cosby entries, because it seems to be a case of deliberate Black Comedy getting even darker when real life takes action with something people already suspected.
Goku Black
Funny anyersum moment ?
Also it need to be tweaked since he's actually been convicted.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Harsher in Hindsight more likely, as the very premise of the joke runs on the idea that he was guilty but uncharged.
Found this thing in YMMV.A Nightmare On Elm Street.
- The nursery rhyme about Freddy becomes more amusing when one realises how well it fits with Freddy Fazbear from Five Nights At Freddys.
Do these people think that there are only two Freddies in existence?
Edited by GeneralGigan817 on May 30th 2020 at 11:00:53 AM
While I'd say the Swine Flu connection is a bit more specific than many of the Coronavirus examples I've seen brought up, a quick look shows that the virus at least dates back to the 1918 flu epidemic. There was even an outbreak of the virus dating back to 1976
. I'd say it can probably be cut.
Edited by chasemaddigan on May 29th 2020 at 12:42:56 PM