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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I agree, they look nothing alike.
low-poly Shinri
I wanted to cleanup the Lollipop Chainsaw and found these in it's YMMV page:
- Harsher in Hindsight: The exchange between Juliet and Josey with Juliet claiming that he’s making fun of Stephen Hawking may now be a case of "too soon" after his death. Unsure
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- Glitter and sparkles coming out of baddies killed with a chainsaw, you say? Maybe Suda reads Penny Arcade. Fan Myopia
- And now Doom Eternal also has rainbows coming out of monsters killed with a chainsaw. Also Fan Myopia
- The Big Bad, Swan, enacted all of this because apparently he was bullied in life (with the straw apparently being because Juliet "betrayed" him by dating Nick when he never bothered to talk with her). Flash forward four years later and the Ghostbusters (2016) villain, Rowen... enacts the exact same plot for similar reasons (save the "girlfriend" angle) albeit with ghosts rather then zombies. Right down to summoning a towering behemoth monster at the end of the movie. The only difference where Swan killed himself to summon Killabilly, Rowen is the giant monster. Unsure, but feels like Fan Myopia
- Glitter and sparkles coming out of baddies killed with a chainsaw, you say? Maybe Suda reads Penny Arcade.
Definitely cut them all.
"Someone made fun of Stephen Hawking while he was alive, and now he's dead so that's horrible"...is not how Hi H works.
The Hindsight entry on this page is rather iffy, considering it equates a character's actions in a TV-7 rated show to inceldom and mass shootings:
- Harsher in Hindsight: Patrick's rampage over his supposed lack of being loved has a rather foreboding semblance to the later killing sprees of several members of the incel subculture like Elliot Rodger, Alek Minassian, and Jake Davison. His rampage especially becomes an example of this in light of the 2018 Parkland shooting, which took place on February 14th of that year, a day the shooter claimed to have specifically chose because he had no one to love him.
Any pronouns
Not only is that a huge stretch, but it seems very insensitive to the victims. Cut.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
That wasn't even why Patrick was upset. As far as I remember he just thought Sponge didn't like him or something. He felt left out due to not getting a gift.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I found this in Imagine Dragons' YMMV page:
I feel like this is reaching.
Edited by ScarletNebula on Aug 26th 2023 at 9:10:09 AM
"whatever it takes" is such a common stock phrase, this is definitely a reach. easy cut. (also, Cap says whatever it takes as well, Clint and Nat are quoting him, and even then they each only say it once each. Hardly Arc Words)
Welcome, traveller, welcome to Omsk
... oookay, that's taking shoehorning to a new level. Scrub it.
From The Simpsons S2 E7 "Bart vs. Thanksgiving"
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- One of the women featured on Lisa's centerpiece is environmentalist and novelist Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Her name would soon become known internationally after a 2018 mass shooting at a Florida high school named after her.
There is absolutely zero similarity between the two. It's just a namedrop of a public figure.
Cut it, this is misuse. There is absolutely no relation besides the name of this specific woman.
And no disrespect to the victims, but this troper seems to be giving too much importance to this event to say it became "internationallyl known".
Plus, going through the edit history shows that it actually was cut in the past, but then it was added back. I've cut it.
- Harsher in Hindsight: There's a lot of drinking, which leads to the deaths of two characters (Captain Bones dies of adverse health effects and Mr. Arrow is washed overboard while drunk). This is all true to the novel, but make for extremely unpleasant viewing when you know that stars Robert Newton and Bobby Driscoll themselves died prematurely from substance abuse.
Actor mortality, and specifies characters not played by those actors.
No longer active.
It would count if Newton and Driscoll's characters died as a result of heavy drinking (since actor mortality examples are allowed if the circumstances of the actors' deaths sufficiently parallel that of the characters they play), but since that's not the case, the point can be cut.
Edited by bowserbros on Aug 31st 2023 at 11:51:54 AM
Be kind.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country:
- Hilarious in Hindsight: Lora is voiced in Japanese by Saori Hayami, whose most famous character has a similar-sounding name, is the same age, and has a similar propensity for hand-to-hand combat.
I'm not sure this is actually specific enough to avert Actor Bullshit. I can concede to the age thing, but their names don't actually sound that similar, and Yor is primarily a Blade Enthusiast who uses hand-to-hand as part of her civilian disguise because of her Charles Atlas Superpower super-strength, while Lora is a pragmatist who fights with a mixture of martial arts and Japanese charms because she's too poor to afford a proper weapon.
Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 1st 2023 at 8:48:37 AM
This is on Elmo Saves Christmas:
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- Maria and Luis closing up the Fix-It-Shop becomes this with how their actors eventually left the show (Sonia Manzano retired after Season 45, and Emilio Delgado was laid off by Season 46, the first season since the HBO acquisition), though this is a bit less harsh as both of them have still been involved with Sesame Workshop and have made other live appearances outside of the show, especially in Delgado's case until his death in March 2022.
- What’s even more sad is that the Fix-It-Shop actually did close down in Season 39 after they were rendered obsolete. At least they got a new Bike Shop and laundromat to replace it.
- Also, the scene where Sesame Street itself is in ruins, also foreshadows this with the Around The Corner area being discontinued after Season 29 (since this special was released in 1996, two years before the set was removed).
- Bob and the carolers losing their voices from singing so much has also become this with the death of Bob Mc Grath.
The last one is certainly not an example (last time I checked, losing your voice from singing too much is not equivalent to death) and the first one can probably go as well, but the other two I'm not so sure about (although even then, the second example seems to have more grounds to stay than the third one).
Edited by fragglelover on Sep 1st 2023 at 1:18:07 PM
Any pronouns
- Harsher in Hindsight: As the years have gone on, many contestants have spoken out about how they were treated on the show and manipulated by producers - especially the season 1 cast.
- The infamous kiss between Lindsay and Cameron was something Erik White pressured her to do and she regretted immediately, outright calling it manipulation in later interviews.
- Cameron himself was often mocked for "auditioning for a show where teens kiss and not wanting to kiss anyone". While there is something to say about not being familiar with the show, it still doesn't excuse production for surprising him with the Lindsay kiss and then, after he stressed his discomfort because he was already in a relationship, still trying to goad him into kissing Hannah in a later shoot.
The way the bolded example is written, it's not clear if new information came up that caused people to change their minds about Cameron, or if over time people began to go "hey, he shouldn't have been pressured to kiss someone if he was uncomfortable about it".
Edited by SharkToast on Sep 4th 2023 at 10:15:09 AM
Doesn't look like there's any new information, just questionable writing/directing from a later standpoint. Cut both for lack of actual Hindsight.
Cut all. People inevitably leave a show over time (and of course the mortality shoehorn is a mortality shoehorn.)
Cut. Actor garbage.
- The massive criticism levied against NBC for firing Harmon before Season 4 is a very uncomfortable subject after it was revealed that Harmon sexually harassing a member of the series' writing staff was the actual reason he was fired. He had the fandom fawning over him & defending him for years over his firing when it could easily have been the end of the show, and the end of his career had his actions come to light before Yahoo rescued the show or before he'd had the chance to get Rick and Morty started.
The thing is, this example isn't about the show itself, but the fan reaction to it. Can we apply Hindsight tropes to audience reactions?
Edited by SharkToast on Sep 7th 2023 at 8:01:09 AM
#6915: Trying to argue that Yor Forger is Saori Hayami's most popular role when she's such a prolific VA is Fan Myopia at its worst, so that kind of entry should always be burned with extreme prejudice.
Edited by AnoBakaDesu on Sep 8th 2023 at 8:42:40 AM
"They played us like a DAMN FIDDLE!" — Kazuhira Miller, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Angry babby
That's a meta example and not really concrete enough to even be a Real Life example.
Angry babby
I feel like HilariousInHindsight.Futurama has a lot of Fan Myopia examples, but this one feels the most obvious since these are already just common sci-fi tropes.
- On the subject of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, the Planet Express Crew have dealt with phenomenons similar to a JoJo antagonist's Stand Ability:
- "Meanwhile": The World.
- "Bender's Big Score": The time travel plot is the closest to being Bites the Dust, with a bit of D4C with the Never the Selves Shall Meet rule.
- "Time Keeps On Slipping": King Crimson.
- "The Late Philip J. Fry": Made in Heaven.
- "The Farnsworth Parabox": Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
- "Anthology of Interest II" ("I, Meatbag"): Gold Experience.
- In "Brannigan, Begin Again', Fry, Bender and Zapp get pelted by high-gravity rain on Stumbos 4. In Jojos Bizarre Adventure The Jojolands, we're introduced to Jodio Joestar and his Stand, November Rain, which essentially operates the same way.
Those look like shoehorns. The plots are either not specific to either show or not actually similar. Cut.
Edited by maxwellsilver on Sep 10th 2023 at 10:58:19 AM
low-poly Shinri
Found these on YMMV.The Legend Of Zelda Skyward Sword:
- Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The War Sequence became this when Hyrule Warriors was revealed, as that game consists of fighting entire armies in every level. One level even takes place in the same location. Unsure
- The game's Fandom Rivalry with Skyrim became this in light of both Skyrim and Breath of the Wild not only both being released on the Nintendo Switch, but Skyrim even having new Zelda-themed content made specifically for that version. Seems valid
- Fi is an artificially intelligent Living Weapon who was developed by Advanced Ancient Humans long before humanity made their homes above the clouds. Her capabilities in combat are determined by her wielder, and she, for lack of better phrasing, possesses a crystal at her core. In a game whose development was assisted by Monolith Soft. It seems long before Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was even in Tetsuya Takahashi's development plans, Fi was an Aegis. Unsure but reads as Fan Myopia to me
