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
Upon further inspection, the numbers on that tweet aren't even so high (not even 800 likes) that I'd even consider the reaction to be that widespread so I withdraw even that justification. But yeah. Happy to cut.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.From the Hilarious in Hindsight section of YMMV.Happily Ever After Fairy Tales For Every Child:
- In Pinocchio, Chris Rock plays along side Will Smith. Fast forward to 2005 where Rock would later costar with Will's wife in the Madagascar films... But in 2022, Will Smith slapped Chris Rock for joking about his wife's hair loss.
To me, it feels more harsh than hilarious (especially if we remove the stretch regarding Madagascar), but if it falls under "Creator appears in work then becomes more controversial later on," I'll just delete it.
The YMMV.Project Wingman entry discussed in #6757
was not deleted, despite agreement that it is a stretch.
So, today, a Troper added Harsher in Hindsight to the YMMV page for The Legend of Zelda cartoon that discusses Link and Zelda's relationship being heavily inspired by the relationship between David and Maddie from Moonlighting and cites behind-the-scenes drama between Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd and, before I removed it from the entry as I personally don't see how it's relevant to the example and what it discusses, seemingly the proximity between when the Zelda cartoon aired and Moonlighting was cancelled as the reason for its inclusion. This is what it looked like originally before I edited it to remove some biased language:
And after for reference and transparency:
In spite of my attempts to fix it up, I'm still not sure if behind-the-scenes drama between actors on a show that inspired aspects of another show would exactly count as a valid example for Harsher in Hindsight. Any opinions on this?
Off-screen hostility between Willis and Shepherd was public knowledge way back when. Almost everyone on the set of Moonlighting disliked Shepherd. If you dig around on Google, you can find interviews going back to 2002 where she speaks openly of people constantly making her angry on set, her fighting with Willis before every scene, and burying hatchetts after the show had ended once everyone had moved on from each other. Some of the earliest interviews may gloss over the scale of it a bit, but it is openly discussed.
So, my question is this: Exactly how much hindsight does this entry need — or thinks is involved? Because I'm wondering if the entry thinks the knowledge about the off-screen drama is recent when it's not.
Edited: I should clarify that's in addition to the question of whether it's even relevant. The makers of Zelda may or may not have known about any of this at the time they made the show, but would it have even mattered when the point was how to portray an on-screen, fictional relationship? Like you, I'm not sure if the off-screen drama is relevant in this case. The only relevance I can really see is if people watching either show are invested in shipping the actors as much as their characters... which unfortunately is a thing.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Jul 29th 2023 at 1:26:14 PM
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.- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The film was shot in 2019, two years before Armie Hammer's abuse and cannibalistic fantasies allegations blew up in early 2021. This makes his reveal as one of the killers that much more unsettling (especially considering how the film depicts different unhealthy relationships and twisted forms of love).
- Dr. Windlesham talks about his desire to provide people in poorer countries with access to modern medicine, which becomes ironic considering that Russell Brand drew controversy for his stance regarding the pandemic, such as suggesting
ways for people to avoid COVID safety measures in order to see his stand-up shows.
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Linnet fancies herself as Cleopatra just before the cruise on the Nile starts, including putting a headdress and a long mantle on. Gal Gadot had since been cast by Paramount in a biopic about the queen herself, in the main role (the announcement came over a year after filming of Death on the Nile was completed), though that has since gone into Development Hell.
The film was released in Spring 2022, so all three entries are invalid because they're about events from before its release, but the Russel Brand entry seems especially irrelevant to the film.
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
Right, you can cut those.
From YMMV.Protest The Hero:
- Harsher in Hindsight: "Sex Tapes" was written about the selfishness and sociopathic nature of online voyeurism and how fast and far one person's nudes or (often ostensibly private) amateur porn video can spread. The song was written roughly around 2009 or 2010, back when things like revenge porn, hacked webcams, and stolen nudes and videos were starting to become a problem, but well before events like The Fappening would demonstrate just how serious a problem it had become.
This feels more like a Values Resonance example, and that has a 20-year waiting time so it would not be accepted.
Wyldchyld here
: Also, the whole "witty banter between the male and female leads" thing is an old Screwball Comedy trope, which predates both Moonlighting and Zelda by several decades.
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Just cut it.
Found these... by random. Don't ask:
- Harsher in Hindsight: All of the slapstick abuse Lionel Spaulding is put through - particularly in the very last shot of the film - is a lot less amusing in light of Glenn Shadix's death in 2010 from a head injury.
YMMV.The Nightmare Before Christmas
- Harsher in Hindsight: The Mayor ends up falling down the stairs of Jack's house trying to get Jack. This is hilarious until you realize that the Mayor's voice actor Glenn Shadix died because of blunt trauma to the head following a fall at his Birmingham condo.
- Sylvia Sidney plays a smoking ghost with a hole in her throat which emits smoke. Sidney died from throat cancer in New York City - at the age of 88.
- Glenn Shadix is sent flying down a set of stairs at one point. Not as funny since he died of blunt force trauma to the head due to a fall at the age of 58.
- Lydia's depression and desire to die hits harder after Winona Ryder's battle with clinical depression in the early 2000s.
Not familiar with the Glenn Shadix actor, but Wikipedia tells me he died in... 2010. All three movies above came out in the 1990s. Shoehorn?
The Sylvia Sidney entry is somewhat on the iffy side, as her death is at a ripe old age and happens over a decade after Beetlejuice. (?)
Maybe the Winona Ryder one can be kept, not sure
Edited by RobertTYL on Jul 31st 2023 at 11:23:22 PM
I'm not as familiar with these tropes as others but looking at those I honestly think they're all valid - they're largely based on actor deaths but the deaths are tied to moments from the works that preceded their deaths and the specific manner in which they died (not just "the actor eventually died"), which if I understand the tropes right is still okay
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Jul 31st 2023 at 11:25:31 AM
The Winona Ryder example is inaccurate. She started struggling with depression in the early 1990s, just a couple of years after Beetlejuice, and opened up about it in an interview in the 1990s. So, her battles did not begin in the 2000s. IIRC, the interview was just after Girl, Interrupted, which she said directly exacerbated her depression... which went on to spiral in a very public way during the 2000s (which is probably what the entry is thinking of — it didn't start then, but her role in GI made things worse for her).
To be honest, Shadix looks like he counts. He did die in a manner that is directly relatable to the falls he takes in Beetlejuice and TNBC, so people re-watching those two films after his death may well find the scenes less funny. I'm not sure about the Dunston one, partially because I'm not familiar with the work. I at least know the other two works.
Sylvia Sidney may be an example, given that she was such a heavy smoker she carried on smoking while undergoing chemo for her throat cancer. That's what that scene reminds me of when I see it — not that she died from throat cancer but that she kept on smoking during her chemo instead of quitting.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Aug 1st 2023 at 10:08:52 AM
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.Alright, so I added this to Sound of Freedom, but I feel it would be fair to bring it here for some tweaking or if it even deserves a spot.
- Harsher in Hindsight: When the movie came out, several major news publications panned it, saying it was conspiratorial with most even bringing up QAnon and suggesting that what Sound of Freedom was suggesting is merely conjecture.a fabrication of QAnon. Weeks later, the FBI managed to bust a similar sex trafficking operation
, exactly to the tune of what the movie was talking about.
Edited by Psyga315 on Aug 2nd 2023 at 8:34:15 AM
I'm not gonna lie, the entry as written severely downplays QAnon's influence on the film (its star and the guy he plays are genuine believers in the conspiracy, the film is primarily targeted for right-wingers, the film's main trafficking operation is based on Pizzagate, and while I would have to look it up again, I'm also pretty sure that the person the film is based on was confirmed to be lying about it or at least parts of it), but also, in general sex trafficking is just a thing that exists, and the FBI breaking up a sex trafficking operation after a movie about a sex trafficking operation comes out doesn't really fit a Hindsight trope to me. If you've already added it, then I'm gonna wait for a second opinion but I'd much rather delete it.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Aug 2nd 2023 at 12:15:13 PM
Suggested addition to the Harsher in Hindsight section of YMMV.The Mandalorian:
- Lizzo portraying the benevolent ruler of a planet dependent on droid labor became even more questionable after some of her backup dancers sued her for creating a hostile work environment.
This is on The Muppet Show under Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Swedish Chef was saying "What the hay" decades before My Little Pony in a Nutshell made it cool.
I'm almost certain that the phrase "what the hay" predates My Little Pony in a Nutshell, My Little Pony in general, and The Muppet Show.

From YMMV.Artemis:
This is one where there's definitely a connection, and given the tweet, it's a legitimate reaction... it's just, you know, too obvious a connection? They're two things named Artemis that have a woman note because that's the name of the goddess of the moon.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.