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
From YMMV.Schaffrillas Productions:
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- From his Blue Sky ranking video, Schaff ranking Spies in Disguise as his #1 Blue Sky movie (where he highly praised Will Smith's performance as Lance Sterling) can be seen as this in light of Will Smith infamously slapping Chris Rock at the 94th Academy Award ceremony not long after the video was uploaded.
This seems like a stretch, since liking Smith's performance in a role is different from condoning his action in real life.
"can be seen as this" is wording people use when deep in their hearts they know it isn't an example.
But unless something in that role has Will Smith's character running around slapping people, it doesn't count.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
She / Her
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah, that feels like a stretch to me because they're unrelated.
That came off as more of a violation of Administrivia.Examples Are Not Arguable.
Friends forevermore
99% of the time, hindsight related to the Will Smith/Chris Rock incident is shoehorned.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
Angry babby
I've seen many jokes about several Try Guys moments being Harsher in Hindsight, and the incident is confirmed to have happened, so I'd say it's a safe call on most examples relating to his wife and such, but the high dive one is a massive shoehorn.
And yeah cut the Schaff one. Did Schaff even condemn Will Smith himself? Because opinions do vary on that and this feels like projecting.
Edited by mightymewtron on Oct 4th 2022 at 10:58:23 AM
I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.
It's either real or it's a dream
I think the one example that could work is Will Smith's "Mr. Niceguy" off of his Lost and Found album, which has gotten a lot of "oh he was warning us all along"-type reactions since it's about people assuming Will just being "nice" makes him "soft".
EDIT: I also concur on most of the Try Guy examples about Ned and his wife, since it was such a part of his "brand" before all this happened.
Edited by harryhenry on Oct 4th 2022 at 8:57:28 AM
YMMV.Last Week Tonight With John Oliver has an swollen, bloated mess of a hindsight section that needs combing over.
This is on "Weird Al" Yankovic:
- Harsher in Hindsight: "The Night Santa Went Crazy" might not get as many laughs given the recent epidemic of active shooter incidents.
Someone took care of that.
Just gonna re-up my previous post and ask if my edit markup looks good before I move on.
Friends forevermore
I've made my best effort at Last Week Tonight cleanup.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
I was browsing in relation to an ATT query and noticed that on YMMV.The Try Guys there's a Harsher in Hindsight entry surrounding the September 2022 departure of a cast member due to an alleged cheating/affair scandal. In the ATT it was stated that the drama surrounding this is still ongoing, so it feels too soon to have that on the page, but I wanted to double check before removal.
She / Her
(x3) I don't feel that Heartwarming in Hindsight counts and I think the third Harsher in Hindsight doesn't count either. However, I think the other Harsher in Hindsight examples count.
In my opinion, it should at least be hidden for now.
If it doesn't fit, for whatever reason, cut the example. We don't hide them until someday it might fit. The reason for the wait is to see if it really will be harsher or hilarious, or if it will just be forgotten.
Also, there is discussion of whether the work is even tropable to begin with.
She / Her
That's why I said "at least" because it is still ongoing. I obviously know to cut examples if they flat-out don't fit.
I've removed the example.
Alright, removed the Yakuza examples, here's Kiwami:
- Heartwarming in Hindsight: One of Kiryu and Haruka's Premium Adventure chats that were added in the remake is him telling her to judge people by their actions rather than their appearance and to keep that mind when she's dating, to which she says she will remember. Yakuza 6 reveals Haruka had a child with Yuta Usami, who helped keep her safe from the paparazzi during her time in Onomichi. He may not be the best-looking, but he was willing to die if it meant keeping his lover and son safe from harm, even though he needed a bit of "persuasion" after a Heroic BSoD. Seems a stretch. Yuta isn't unattractive by any means and the concept of Haruka dating isn't that farfetched, especially considering the games' development cycles.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The Tojo Clan's missing ten billion yen might have sounded like a big deal back when the original game came out in 2005, but in Yakuza 0 and Like a Dragon, most completionists of those games would dismiss the amount as nothing more than pocket change. However...
- This is given appropriate attention and explanation in both games however; Zero sees Majima effectively destroy the Japanese economy with his recommendations to a government employee; prior to the bubble economy's bursting, ten billion yen is still a fairly significant amount (and equivalent to how much Dojima has put into the redevelopment project prior to the Empty Lot snag) but not huge in an era where people are waving big bills to flag cabs; post-bubble, ten billion yen is a very significant amount again, and it's notable that you will probably never come close to that kind of cash in Kiwami as you did in Zero.
- Even more hilariously in Like a Dragon, when Eri and Tome buy a new building for their business empire to grow in, Ichiban finds the bill lying around in their new office. How much did the building cost them? Ten billion yen! All these seem poorly formatted and in general these seem like deliberate references to the Ten Billion Yen incident. This would apply to the original anyway.
- During the first Goromi event, Majima asks whether Kiryu would like to be a Cabaret manager, guess what he does in Kiwami 2? Does this count?
- The Tojo Clan's missing ten billion yen might have sounded like a big deal back when the original game came out in 2005, but in Yakuza 0 and Like a Dragon, most completionists of those games would dismiss the amount as nothing more than pocket change. However...
Some from the RebelTaxi page. I think most of the Harsher examples are valid.
- His joke about John Kricfalusi liking little girls and preying on women turned out to be far more accurate than one would like to believe when it was revealed he had sexually abused teenage girls all the way back in the 90s. Leaning towards keeping. Only thing is that John K's pedophilia was apparently an open secret in the animation industry, so it's not exactly surprising that someone involved in that industry would make jokes about it pre-public revelation.
- Similarly, exactly six years after Pan posted this joke tweet about ProJared, many female fans of Jared revealed that he sent them unsolicited nude pics, some of the fans being underage at the time. This is either slightly mitigated or even worsened when Jared revealed that those fans lied to him about their ages in the first place. Think this counts, since it was exactly 6 years to the date of Pan's tweet.
- Pan calls Butch Hartman "History's Greatest Monster!" in his Phantom Planet review. Hartman has since become extremely controversial for his questionable remarks on social media due to his conservative socio-political views and the negative rumors surrounding his Oaxis Entertainment Kickstarter. Possibly violates the ROCEJ.
- In the video explaining the Boston Bomb Scare, Pan insults Boston for taking the event so seriously by saying "Who cares about the Boston incident anymore? I mean, who even cares about Boston in general?". Four months later, an actual bombing happened. Keep. Specific form of violence in a specific city.
- Pan praising Cartoon Network for trying new things (even if they bomb) instead of relying on 24/7 reruns of a certain show can seem a lot less positive after Teen Titans Go! became very Adored by the Network, which ended up causing other rebooted CN shows to become more like it. This was later lampshaded by Pan in "5 BEST / WORST Modern Current CARTOONS". However, despite its fan backlash, Pan finds TTG to be rather average at best. It does become a lot more uncomfortable with Cartoon Network's treatment of other shows such as giving the boot to Regular Show and promoting TTG to an uncomfortable degree. There may be a point here about the network favoritism, but it feels more like this entry was added to complain about modern day Cartoon Network. It even acknowledges that Pan doesn't mind TTG and isn't part of the backlash. And CN still does experimental and edgy cartoons. Thinking of cutting or heavily editing.
- In Pan's "Top 5 Current Cartoons 3" (January 2016), Pan jokes about how the next Ben 10 reboot will be a comedy. The next Ben 10 reboot was a comedy, and was derided by many for being another Teen Titans Go clone. Pan also lampshades this in "5 BEST / WORST Modern Current CARTOONS". Maybe another complaining shoehorn, thoughts?
- In his review of Doogal, he comments that it was brought over by The Weinstein Company, including a clip of Jon Stewart saying he agreed to do the movie because he fears Harvey. Cut ahead several months and the deluge of Harvey Weinstein accusations have come out making Jon's comment a lot less funny. Pan addressed this in the 89th episode of the podcast, and even edited the title of the Doogal review to refer to it as "Harvey Weinstein's Doogal". Keep. Almost everything said about Harvey in the review and the clips shown was negative, even though the sexual abuse isn't mentioned by name. Pan changing the video to reflect this adds to the validity of this example.
The Hilarious examples, on the other hand, are much more iffy.
- In his Wander over Yonder review, he mentions that it's actually on Disney Channel and not a sub-channel like Disney XD. By the show's second season, Wander moved to XD. Might be valid?
- In his Johnny Test review, he said that Adventure Time and Regular Show will die, while Johnny Test will still be there. Guess which show ended first? Maybe keep this one
- In his thrashing of Jem and the Holograms (2015), he notes how the film includes an (out-of-context) clip of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in low-quality, when the show broadcasts in HD, and that the film's studio was probably too lazy to request HD footage from NBC. The studio in question is Universal Pictures, whose parent company also owns NBC. This is not a Hindsight example, this is Pan failing to do research and probably falls under Critical Research Failure.
- In the very first Pizza Party Podcast, Pan challenges Ken and Nolan to try and do a podcast without him. A couple of years later, Nolan and Ken starred in the Mommy's Boys podcast. Not sure
- Pan frequently mentions that he is Mexican and resembles Dib from Invader Zim. A little while after he started making videos, Zim creator Jhonen Vasquez revealed that Dib and his family, while they appear Caucasian, are actually fair-skinned Mexicans. Seems like a stretch. "Guy jokes about how he looks like a cartoon character, turns out their cartoon lookalike is the same race as him."
- In his "Top 5 Best/Worst Cartoons Vol 7" video, he mentions that Pop Team Epic should be on [adult swim], but not the Toonami Anime Block. Take a wild guess which of those two blocks later ended up picking up the block. Might be valid
- When Pan Pizza first talked about Final Space he rather liked it but by the time it actually became a show his opinion went on a complete 180. Might be valid
- In his 2017 video regarding flash games from CN and Nick he included two that were made for Garfield despite mentioning how the character wasn't affiliated with either studio. Two years later, Cartoon Brew announced that Garfield had been purchased by Nickelodeon. Maybe? Not sure if I'd call it "hilarious" though, just kinda interesting.
- In his "Top 7 Y2K Scare APOCALYPTIC Cartoon Episodes" Pan makes a Black Mirror reference when talking about The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment. Later that same year the show made a full on parody of Black Mirror during the "Thanksgiving of Horror" episode. Shoehorn, barely a connection
- In his video on 2018's Comic Con, Pan's response to the Adventure Time/Minecraft crossover episode is to jokingly propose a crossover between Phineas and Ferb and Line Rider. In September 2020, Disney would announce a series of videos crossing over their shows with Line Rider, called "Disney x Line Rider", starting with one for Gravity Falls. Pan would acknowledge this on his Twitter. Not sure. On the one hand, he acknowledged how this is HIH, and the specific video game mentioned is involved. On the other hand, the specific show he mentioned isn't.
- In his Free Birds review, he points out how Chuck E. Cheese Pizza doesn't do delivery. In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down sit-down restaurants, Chuck E. Cheese was forced to resort to delivery under the name Pasquale's Pizza. This is valid. Specific pizza chain does specific thing they previously didn't.
- Pan was very open about stating that Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank looked and felt like a cheap imitation of classic parody movies in his video talking about its infamous development hell. When the film actually came out, Pan enjoyed the movie tweeting "Paws of Fury was surprisingly solid" Not sure, maybe?
The one Heartwarming example feels like a shoehorn, too:
- Heartwarming in Hindsight: In his "Top 10 WORST Animated CARTOON Moments of 2016", he went on a rant on how Kubo and the Two Strings was unfairly treated at the box office. Two weeks later, it would get not 1, but 2 nominations at the Academy Awards.
This feels like a shoehorn too. Kubo didn't even win either one.
Regarding the first one, since John K's predilections were an open secret, any form of hindsight doesn't count if people were in actuality referencing it.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
That guy who stays for the closing credits.
I found this on The Simpsons, subpage, after finding a differently-worded version on the episode’s YMMV subpage which claims that the scene is more difficult to watch:
- In "Ice Cream of Margie (with the Light Blue Hair)", Homer forces a lactose-intolerant boy to eat an ice-cream bar, causing him to collapse as he tells Homer to call the number on his bracelet (Homer then mocks him for the bracelet before finding out it's the number for a doctor). In 2017, an allergic toddler died when his preschool allegedly forced him to eat a grilled cheese sandwich.
She / Her
While I agree that that event is horrible, I feel the two scenarios the entry brings up are kinda unrelated.
Friends forevermore
They're related in the sense of "school forces a child to eat something they're allergic to, and the child dies as a result", but the "allegedly" in the real life example probably disqualifies it.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
She / Her
I agree they're related in that sense, I just feel that it's still kinda stretching it. I also agree that the "allegedly" likely means it's not an example.
Found these at Final Fantasy X
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- In one of the most light-hearted scenes of the game, Rikku pokes fun at Auron, saying he always charges into things without a plan. As it turns out, that's exactly how he got himself killed.
- Wakka's tasteless joke about The Destruction of Rikku's Doomed Hometown looking like "Happy Festival Fireworks" seems rather prophetic considering that John Dimaggio would go on to voice Heidegger in Final Fantasy VII Remake. In that game, Heidegger actually causes two different highly explosive Doomed Hometown scenarios.
- Heartwarming in Hindsight: Dissidia Final Fantasy's re-enacts the conflict between Tidus and his dad, but in a situation where they're actually given time to talk through their issues. The result is that Jecht departs the world on amicable terms with his son, even sharing a few last friendly jabs at each other. In that context, it makes more sense that Tidus would greet him in the afterlife with a high-five.
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The cutscene with Tidus grinding down the ropes in Bevelle can be seen as hilarious, if you remember that James Arnold Taylor (Tidus' American VA) took over as the voice of Ratchet from Going Commando onwards.
- You can have two-thirds of your party composed of John DiMaggio, and fight one of three varieties of GIANT WORM!
- After the infamous laughing scene, Yuna says that she wants her journey to be full of laughter. Years later, the Tidus Fantasy X mod has his iconic laugh echo across the entire soundtrack, so now players can fulfill her wish (albeit not in the way she probably intended).
- The infamous laughing scene only got funnier when compared to Usada Pekora's infamous arrow laugh. And yes, she HAS played FFX and laughed along with Tidus during that scene.
"After a video that frames his conquering his fear of the high dive as triumphant, it ends up becoming an accidental depiction of his public image taking a steep dive". That's a shoehorn if I've ever seen one.