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
Riptides were a danger back then too, and I don’t know what the second is implying. Cut.
Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on May 12th 2022 at 3:35:07 PM
Lots of coffee
The second one is pointing out Garfield wearing a military uniform in a comic posted on September 11. I guess I can see the connection as you'd think it was on purpose if not for it being 1994?
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
From YMMV.Chef:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: While the film depicts Carl staying apart from his old restaurant and going further into his indie career, Favreau ended up returning to Marvel and Disney, both acting and directing in many of their biggest features.note
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Cut. (If you can't tell if it's Hilarious or Harsher, it's neither.)
This argued for cutting examples that amount to Take Thats against the work/fanworks who's ideas don't hold up well to canon. With these I have the following hindsight examples for consideration.
YMMV.Frigid Winds And Burning Hearts (the work has a lot of complaining)
- Hilarious in Hindsight: The show has not been kind to the stories' ideals of how Luna and Celestia act.
- Chapter 4: Angel Bunny repeatedly slaps and pinches Fluttershy. Readers didn't react. When this happened in the show... I'd say misuse as about the fandom reaction being HIH as opposed to how the work is viewed.
- Season 2 shows that 95% of the things that really threaten the lands are things that can't be harmed/beaten by blunt force, making the recruiting Aesop about ponies like Braveheart being needed kinda silly. But there have been enough things, for more after S2, that theoretically out be that Militaries Are Useless is a recurring complaint, so I'd cut.
- Chapters 4 and 5: Twilight Sparkle repeatedly describes Lightning Strike as being the closest thing she's ever had to a big brother. Um, Twilight, Shining Armor might have something to say about that... Just Outdated by Canon used as a complaint.
- Speaking of Armor, Cadance would really like to hear how the nobles aren't related to the princesses. Side materials state she's adapted but it's never brought up if/how she's biologically related in work so I'd cut on that.
- In a meta way, the writer, back when it just started, would go on rants about how his version of Luna is better than others because she doesn't whine, act sorry for herself or beg Celestia for forgiveness. Minus the last part that sums up what his Luna becomes. "Meta" sounds like complaining/snarking about the writer so cut.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Fans who loathed Chapter Eight for the controversial Reveal that 'Celestia' was Tirek all along got the last laugh, as the canon Tirek appeared as the villain in the Season 4 finale as an old adversary of Celestia. It's safe to say this plot development was kicked from the realm of possibility at escape velocity. The same applied when Grogar also canonically appeared in the Season 9 premiere. Humorously, this did also lead to a canon team up between the two and three other villains. Said twist was so reviled/implausible that being refuted by canon changed nothing about it's reception so seems like just complaining. The Grogar team up part might be worth keeping.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Star Swirl got a Ron the Death Eater treatment for how he banished the Sirens, despite his acknowledging he regretted doing so. Come the "actual" events of their banishment, Star Swirl was even worse, displaying no guilt or empathy (not that the Sirens did anything to deserve it here) to the point it would become his Fatal Flaw. 'Seems about the fandom reaction being HIH as opposed to how the work is viewed. Cut or keep?
- The Sirens' issue being Canon Discontinuity after "Shadow Play" — which left few complaining, as it's the least-popular FIENDship. But come "The Beginning of the End"? Sombra's issue, the most-popular one, was next on the chopping-block; this time, the complaints were many. Definitely about the fandom reaction being HIH as opposed to how the work is viewed. And added by a troper who's practically every edit nowadays is compelling about the retcon to Sombra. Cut?
Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on May 15th 2022 at 12:36:47 PM
Lots of coffee
I think Harry wasn't arguing that any examples about the fandom reaction are misuse, just that the way the examples were phrased was snarky towards the fan work in question and/or erroneously assuming the canon was deliberately mocking the fan work.
Edited by mightymewtron on May 15th 2022 at 7:16:56 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
The Crow have a few bad ones that needs to be fed to crows. (see what I did there?)
The Crow -
- Harsher in Hindsight: It's really hard to watch behind-the-scenes interviews of Brandon Lee in which he's talking so reflexively about his character coming back from the dead, complete with lines like how "we should live life to the fullest, because it could end at any moment". - This one keeps.
- A repeat of the accident would go on to happen in 2021, when Alec Baldwin accidentally killed a woman and wounded a man with a prop gun during filming of a Western he was producing called Rust. - Is "Rust" part of The Crow movie series? Did some Googling, and nope. Sounds like stuff happens shoehorn.
- This wasn't the only time someone was accidentally killed in an adaptation of The Crow. In 1998, an explosion gone wrong during filming of The Crow: Stairway to Heaven killed actor and stuntman Marc Akerstream. - Not sure about this one.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The film famously quotes the line "Abashed the Devil stood and felt how awful goodness is" from John Milton's Paradise Lost. Director Alex Proyas is currently (As of 2012) working on a film adaption of the epic poem. - As of a decade ago, but the adaptation never happened, so...
- Michael Wincott plays Big Bad Top Dollar in this movie. 18 years later he would go on to play another raven-haired anti-hero with a crow companion. - Maybe? It sounds more like Actor Allusion for the game, not sure.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- This was Thuy Trang's final film before her death. It makes watching her death scene a little unnerving. - The arguement sounds legit, until you remember Thuy died in 2001, which is 5 years after the film came out. So, Mortality shoehorn?
- The nightmare drug killing half of the users, which Judah pushes specifically to spread misery, basically predicted the mid 2010s fentanyl epidemic, which got so bad some real life dealers stopped selling due to countless deaths. - Drugs Are Bad is a trope that exists. Cut.
No longer active.
Bringing up the following examples from X-Men: The Animated Series:
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The ending to the first season, where Xavier crashes the Blackbird into Master Mold and blows him up. It may still be pretty awesome, but seems too similar to a certain real life event to some. The hero saves the world by ramming a jet into a giant robot. I doubt this would remind most people of the War on Terror
- The Friends Of Humanity hate group seems uncomfortably like a secular Westboro Baptist Church, complete with Waving Signs Around. Too vague. If the only notable similarity is "waving signs around", it's definitely a shoehorn
- In "The Cure", Rogue is tempted to undergo a process removing her mutant powers and live as a normal human. The following episode reveals that it's a machine created by Apocalypse to brainwash and alter mutants into his Four Horsemen, which Rogue narrowly avoids by deciding against it. In Marvel: Avengers Alliance, Rogue's Leeroy Jenkins antics gets her abducted and brainwashed by Apocalypse to serve as his Horseman Famine for a short while. Separate continuities, and "Apocalypse brainwashes a hero" is pretty much the guy's modus operandi
- There's also the fact that Rogue ended up choosing not to take the cure, while Angel wanted to go through with it. In X-Men: The Last Stand, Angel rejects his father's attempts to cure him of his mutation, but Rogue does end up deciding to take it. Again, separate continuities, and this does not make the show's events harsher than they originally were
- Wolverine's threat to Cyclops after he marries Jean, warning him "If she's not happy, make sure I don't find out." Considering what Cyclops does with Emma Frost, with Jean finding out... Same as above. The Emma Frost plot was never adapted into the show.
Can I cut them all?
Edited by TantaMonty on May 16th 2022 at 10:22:13 AM
Lots of coffee
That doesn't make the first shooting harsher, though. It just means two similar tragedies happened. They were already harsh.
No longer active.
Hmm, fair point.
The connection is tenious at best.
Sounds like Actor Bullshit to me. It's very common for actors appear in the same productions all the time, especially if it's an All-Star Cast.
- Harsher in Hindsight: In one episode, a massive food poisoning epidemic hits the mall and the results get played for everyone's amusement. With several E. coli outbreaks in Canada in the decade that followed, it gets a lot less funny to look at.
This is on 6teen. Seems like typical "Diseases always existed" misuse, but I could be wrong.
I'm not sure how this is a hindsight situation. People went into the cinema already knowing that Brandon Lee had died on set. Behind-the-scenes interviews were released after his death, weren't they?
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
Lots of coffee
It does help that the show is Canadian, but I think it'd only really land if the type of food was the same or if it was really common in malls.
Doctor Who S33 E11 "The Crimson Horror"
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Matt Smith and Diana Rigg later appeared in Last Night in Soho, which also involved time travel.
Ok, there's at least one common element beyond "Two actors collaborate again" but I still find it flimsy. Soho's time travel is more the "helplessly observing the past" kind. What do you think.
Edited by Silverblade2 on May 17th 2022 at 12:23:39 PM
Friends forevermore
Seems cutworthy.
From This is Spın̈al Tap:
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The story about Spın̈al Tap's first drummer dying in a "bizarre gardening accident" has led this appellation to be used for any accident involving a rock musician that even vaguely could be described this way: All of these seem too general, except for the Abba drummer, which I am unsure of.
- In 1992, Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro died of a heart attack after spraying pesticide in his garden. It's disputed, though, exactly how he died; the coroner's report pinned it on cocaine use, but his friends and family disputed this, arguing that Porcaro almost never used drugs and pinning it on an allergic reaction to the pesticide, combined with a heart condition that ran in his family.
- Abba drummer Ola Brunkert died in 2008 in a "bizarre gardening accident" in Spain - he fell though a greenhouse glass pane and cut his neck artery.
- Ronnie James Dio severed his thumb while working in his backyard, in an incident he himself refers to as a "bizarre gardening accident".
- In 2020, Brian May was hospitalized for tearing his buttock muscle in "a moment of over-enthusiastic gardening".
- The song "Gimme Some Money", in light of the recent lawsuit spearheaded by Harry Shearer (which Guest, McKean and Reiner all joined later) against Vivendi over their Hollywood Accounting practices, which means the creators have seen hardly any royalties for the three-plus-decades of Spın̈al Tap projects. This seems accurate.
- The story about Spın̈al Tap's first drummer dying in a "bizarre gardening accident" has led this appellation to be used for any accident involving a rock musician that even vaguely could be described this way: All of these seem too general, except for the Abba drummer, which I am unsure of.
- Heartwarming in Hindsight:
- The experience making this film actually helped Tony Hendra, who played the manager, get over his suicidal depression. The Power of Rock indeed. This is great, but I'm not sure if this is the right trope.
- In the film:
Nigel: David? Have a good show.note Needs context.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Billy Joel retiring from rock to write classical piano pieces is bizarrely reminiscent of Nigel's own hidden talents. This seems too general.
- Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest worked together again in The Princess Bride, in which Guest's character has eleven fingers. This stretch goes up to 11!
Goku Black
Btw I uh found this. Power Rangers S.P.D.
- Harsher in Hindsight: Shift in general perception of police and their depiction in media in the late 2010s has lead to some viewing the show a bit more harshly for being Copagandanote . The fact that the criminals are all Aliens, and that the SPD was formed to police Alien immigrants has lead some to compare SPD to ICE
Doesn't this seem really ROCEDJ breaking. Also Media is misspelled. And I dunno what exactly is hindsight. Since it's really general.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Calendar enthusiast
It's a ROCEJ violation. And it's also Values Dissonance, not anything in Hindsight.
Ukrainian Red Cross
I wouldn't even call it Values Dissonance. It's just outright misuse.
Lots of coffee
The alien bit might be Unfortunate Implications but I doubt any reputable source has talked about it.
Also police brutality existed before 2020.
Edited by mightymewtron on May 20th 2022 at 5:08:45 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
Goku Black
It's removed.
i have never seen the ICE comparison even made in fandom. Its also weird since SPD is an alien organization (their leaders are aliens) so it doesn't even make sense????. The whole thing is just wildly weird. Especially since the majority of alien immigrants shown are perfectly nice people (99 percent ) which would be weird for anti immigrant work.
Edited by miraculous on May 20th 2022 at 3:22:15 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
For HarsherInHindsight.Comic Strips:
What's the deal with riptides becoming more common? And how does the second one apply at all?