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 lot of the ones you mentioned are Fan Myopia.
Industrious Incisors
I found this on YMMV.Loki 2021:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: In episode 2, one of Loki's Variants is shown at the Tour de France. Twelve days later, there was a massive bike crash at the actual Tour de France caused by a single spectator with a sign, prompting fans to speculate on the Variant's involvement.
There may be hindsight here, but Hilarious?
SoundCloud
Move it, and PM the troper who added it. That's just cruel.
The "prompting fans to speculate on the Variant's involvement" does make me wonder if this should get an entry on Memetic Mutation given that it's apparently not down to just one or two fans having this observation.
Industrious Incisors
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Move it as in make it FAM? If so, I'll also remove the last bit, as it seems to be playing up "humor." Also, it looks like it was a ways into the page history, so if they made other edits since then, it might be confusing as to the "your recent edit" in the subject line of the notifier.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Jul 23rd 2021 at 6:54:56 AM
SoundCloud
Or Harsher. Just not Hilarious, for the love of all that is holy.
Just send them a custom PM.
Edited by Theatre_Maven_3695 on Jul 23rd 2021 at 7:04:01 AM
Industrious Incisors
Well, I moved it. That said, I'm no good at the custom PM thing.
SoundCloud
Friends forevermore
HilariousInHindsight.Super Smash Bros has a host of wrong-way examples and other misuse.
I'm planning on taking a chainsaw to the misuse on August 1; anyone who wants to salvage the examples before then should do so.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
No problem, who was it? I'll do it myself.
Edited by Theatre_Maven_3695 on Jul 23rd 2021 at 9:34:13 AM
Now a lurker. Thanks for everything. | he/him
Did my own check, it was Urth Wyrm.
'Kay, on it.
Edit: Done.
Edited by Theatre_Maven_3695 on Jul 23rd 2021 at 10:09:02 AM
I'm helping!
On YMMV.Magical Metamorphosis:
- Harsher in Hindsight: This fic was written prior to J.K. Rowling's infamous transphobic statements.
Our sense of time is awful, but we are almost sure that JKR was known to be sus since longer than 2017 (when this fic was published). Though maybe not as widely...?
Would this even be an example even if the timing was as it claims?
Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.
Angry babby
From osmosis, I recall that JKR was known to at least associate with terfs and had some trans stereotypes in her non-HP works which was discussed in the mid-2010s on Tumblr, but only semi-recently did she come out and explicitly say that she's anti-trans, especially with that whole essay she did and how even people affiliated with HP were like "Wow that sucks."
I think it could be a valid example with that in mind, but the fic was written seemingly around May 2017 — was JKR known to outright be a TERF by then?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Professor Gigachad
Though the example needs to be rewritten even if valid as it doesn't explain what in the fic makes that harsher, we are left to assume what.
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Jul 23rd 2021 at 10:55:15 AM
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Need an opinion on this for Robot Chicken:
One He-Man skit has the villains kill He-Man. While this happens in Masters of the Universe: Revelation without the laughs, He-Man gets better.
I've seen people make this comparison in comments, but does it fit?
Angry babby
The "I've seen people make this comparison in comments" convinces me that it could stay.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
A snippet from YMMV.Drawfee (the first line is referencing the mass layoffs at College Humor):
- In Drawing Our Cyberpunk Future Selves — the last episode recorded before the news broke — they described the new decade as exciting but also intimidating, picturing 2020 as a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Later, they would compare the mass firing at CollegeHumor to an actual "apocalypse." To make matters worse, they later suggested that the technical issues in that video played a part in College Humor dropping the entire show.
- The "post-apocalyptic 2020" setting of this episode also comes off as this on a global scale, given that the COVID-19 pandemic hit less than a month after it aired. The social consequences of the pandemic — complete economic collapse, mass quarantines/lockdowns, tens of thousands of deaths, civil unrest, and an unprecedented uptick in mass surveillance/contact tracing in places like South Korea — might as well be ripped directly from the backstory a cyberpunk film like AKIRA.
The top one is fine and I added it for context, but the bottom one I'm iffy on. On one hand, it's a joke about 2020 being an apocalypse made in December of 2019. On the other hand, it's extrapolating a lot from a pretty obvious joke given the subject matter.
My gut reaction was it being a COVID shoehorn, but it's not a complete stretch.
EDIT: They're under "Funny Aneurysm" Moment.
Edited by MurlocAggroB on Jul 24th 2021 at 3:47:47 AM
Angry babby
I'm always a little more lenient on COVID example if the disaster is specified to be in 2020. That's not really a shoehorn. It may be a recency issue but 2020 itself is over.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Found these in Total Recall (1990):
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- A man is offered a red pill because it'll help him enter the real world. That sounds familiar... Keep but add a little more to it to further the connection.
- An advertisement for Fuji Film is seen in the background of one scene. The film's creators couldn't have predicted that analog photography would be all but killed off by digital photography long before 2084 (the year in which the movie is set). Technology Marches On. Cut (and move to the proper trope).
- Compare Robert Picardo's mindless robot here to his snippy, sarcastic Doctor from Star Trek: Voyager. Actor garbage. Cut.
- Quaid decides to have a memory implant of a vacation on Mars as a secret agent instead of as tourist, only to discover he is a secret agent. In True Lies, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a secret agent whose wife and daughter thinks he is a computer salesman. "Secret agent" is a common trope. Cut.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger versus an evil Governor, you say? Adding to the fun, Arnold won his real-life office because the previous Governor was, yep, totally recalled. Plays too much with a pun. Unsure.
- When Quaid realises that Lori is attempting to seduce him to buy herself some time while Richter and his goons come for him, he says "Clever girl". How is this hindsight? Cut.
- It won't be the last time Michael Ironside deals with mutants. ZCE. Cut.
- Arnold bringing about an ice age? Hmmm... ZCE. Cut.
- This movie sure does feature a whole lot of chrome. ZCE. Cut.
Any questions or further comments?
Nintendo Fanatic Extraordinaire
Back when Ahnold was Governator, his Ontario counterpart, Premier Dalton McGuinty, invited him over to the MaRS complex in Toronto.
McGuinty: This is your second time on Mars, eh?
Would that be hindsight?
Edited by Nen_desharu on Jul 24th 2021 at 10:19:18 AM
Kirby is awesome.
Friends forevermore
On HarsherInHindsight.Real Life:
- In medieval times, the Catholic church believed there was a certain female saint protecting people against plagues and diseases. Her Name: Corona.
Angry babby
Wasn't that discussed and cut already?
Though at least here, it can be argued that this predates any virus that was named coronavirus, not just COVID 19.
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Professor Gigachad
That is a ZCE anyway since it doesn't explain what makes it harsher we just have to know ahead.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Professor Gigachad
Also wanted to make sure this was valid.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: The reason the game is set inside a virtual Metropolis is due to concerns from Warner Bros. with Superman acting as a bad person. Years later, the Injustice video game franchise is created where Superman is a fascist tyrant who murders millions of people, which includes innocents.
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Jul 24th 2021 at 10:35:08 AM
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Found these on YMMV.Nu Pogodi, a Soviet Russian cartoon series. Few are shoehorns, but I am unsure about the others:
Edited by callmeamuffin on Jul 23rd 2021 at 6:46:07 PM
Come play Character Uplift Game!