Nobody can agree on what makes something a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome.

Redirects can be discussed here. I'd change the wick but I'm also wary if something (even something this minor) might be considered meatpuppetry, so I'll hold off until...

Oh, wait two seconds and Macron shows up to confirm that issue.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

OK, I'm sorry about that.

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Am I the only one interested in carrying on this discussion nowadays? The problems with SRO remain unsolved, so this thread logically should still be going. I've already stated we should stop discussing examples until we get the definition firmly down; to that end, I suggest implementing a detailed definition like Complete Monster and a fixed format like What An Idiot Also, am I allowed to go holler the cleanup thread for a temporary lock?

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I dislike the fixed WAI format because it uses unnecessary space and vetting examples feels a bit drastic. I'd rather we bang out whether specific recurring situations count and if they could be moved to an alternate trope or something.

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

We definitely don't need a fixed definition like Complete Monster has, anyway. See, that one only works because it has a thread of dozens of dedicated tropers who vet everything, do all the research and work, and can only do that because the cleanup is already done. Other tropes with strict definitions don't thrive, they flounder because oftentimes the stricter something is, the less likely it is to actually exist or be used correctly- see the whole issue with the old Five-Man Band definition, for instance.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Okay, agreed. Since that's how it is, what specific recurring definitions do people have in mind? This subject needs a lot of discussion before we can even get a legitimate definition, let alone start cleaning up the mess of misuse this massively overdosed trope has accumulated. I will ask again, am I allowed to go holler for a lock on the cleanup thead?

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I don't see the need to lock the cleanup thread when it's currently stalled and no one is using it.

Macron's notes

Understood, Macron.

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I nuked most of the DEATH BATTLE! examples since they were either unrealistic (superpowers have a Logical Weakness) or just about someone having an advantage over someone else, which is the entire premise of the show and therefore not surprising. The Scrooge McDuck vs. Shovel Knight example is the only one that sounded possibly reasonable to me.

For a fixed definition, I think SRO should be when a work deliberately avoids the Artistic License or Rule of X necessary for a genre, medium, or work-specific convention to play out straight, and instead has things happen as they would in reality, excluding character emotional/psychological reactions (since in real life, these things are too complex to accurately predict.) That way, we can easily delete or comment out any example that doesn't specify which convention is being subverted and why the audience would expect unrealism.

The issue is, it could lead to a situation like Shout-Out where some misuse becomes tricky to clean up because it's not perfectly clear (at least according to the example's context) what the author's intention was. But it'd still make a huge chunk of misuse easy to remove.

Edited by Someoneman on Apr 10th 2022 at 9:41:18 AM

In general it's better to just do the work of a cleanup instead of just fretting about how other tropers aren't working on a clean-up.

Okay, Wow... It's been a year since Reality Ensues was TR Sd into SRO. Coming back to it with fresh eyes, I can see that we weren't quite as clear as we intended. Sorry about that.

I'd agree with ~Someoneman and ~Tonwen re: definition of "surprising". The audience are the ones that are supposed to be surprised. I'm not sure why we didn't make the connection to a variety of Bait-and-Switch, but SRO might well be a subtrope, or at least a close cousin.

We assumed a deliberate setup, even if subtle. I can see how this would be a point of contention, as gauging deliberateness of creators can be chancy.

My favorite example of (what I believe to be) a valid (and very unsubtle) example is:

• Up: Dug attempts to stop the other dogs from chasing after Carl by heroically jumping in their way as the music swells. They knock him around and run right past him as the music abruptly ends.

Re Realistic, and how it relates to superpowers, Applied Phlebotinum etc: This we didn't pin down so well.

• I like the observation that, if you can duplicate the effect with mundane technology, you know what the realistic outcome would be. Lifting a bus or plane without knowing/using the designed jack-points is going to end with a (at least partially) mangled vehicle.
• I do feel like this could be extended a bit by analogy (this is what was meant by the No Ontological Inertia comment. Probably more obtuse than we intended), but that would be more contentious:
  • If you destroy a Photocopier, do you expect all of the existing copies to disappear? Then destroying the machine that zapped every cell in your body and turned you into a Cat Girl is not going to turn you back.
  • And a stretch further: unless a magic user has to exert continuous force to, say, maintain their Baleful Polymorph, killing the Wizard will probably not undo his works. (And that is a narrative pattern that crops up.)

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Apr 23rd 2022 at 2:18:13 PM

The issue with events involving magic and Applied Phlebotinum is that you don't always have a direct "mundane" equivalent to judge what the "realistic" outcome would be. And if a particular fantastic phenomenon has multiple mundane applicability, then what the most "realistic" outcome would depend on what the individual viewer thinks it represents.

For example, I don't think the photocopier analogy you mention is a valid comparison to No Ontological Inertia. The transformation of matter is chemistry, not physics, and a lot of chemical reactions are reversible, meaning that if you don't continuously apply a force to maintain the equilibrium towards the changed "product" (e.g. heat, pressure), it will revert back to its original state. Therefore, if one compares the transformation magic to such reactions, it would be perfectly logical for a transformation to be undone if whatever the source that's pushing for that transformation is gone.

So just because something subverts a common fictional convention, doesn't mean it's necessarily the most realistic outcome.

Edited by Adept on Apr 23rd 2022 at 11:16:38 PM

To be honest, now that I have had some more chances to work in the TRS and get used to how tropemaking works, I feel like my problem with this trope is more conceptual than anything.

I get what it wants to be, but the description is so vague and meaning so muddied that it can used incredibly broadly.

I'd blame Trope Decay, but this one has always had problems.

"Grandmaster Combat, son!"

I came across what looks like misuse in a fanfic. Is anyone familiar with the work?

Characters.War Of Remnant ARWBY Anthology

Blake Belladonna

• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: She is standoffish towards Sun because the first time she saw him he was stealing food from cops and in the same arc doesn’t immediately forgive Weiss for her Fantastic Racism.

The same page states that Weiss is is an Adaptational Jerkass who is hated by everyone until she goes through a Break the Haughty arc to start her on the road to becoming a better person. So, the idea of Blake not immediately forgiving her when she's supposed to be this toxic character who has to learn how to be better seems to be a reinforcement of the narrative. The entry also doesn't explain what's so surprising about a shy character not immediately warming up to a person she first meets while he's committing a crime.

Qrow Branwen

• Drunken Master: Played with. While not quite averted, his opening fight with Winter shows a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome with him getting his ass kicked rather than matching her toe to toe.

This just seems to be Drunken Master misuse. Drunken Master is supposed to be a character who fighters better when drunk than they normally do (when you'd expect them to fight worse). In the official show (with which I am familiar), Qrow is a Functional Addict (at the time of this fight) so easily goes toe-to-toe with Winter. However, he's still not an example of Drunken Master because there's absolutely no claim that he fights better drunk than sober. Later in the show he goes through an Addled Addict phase before quitting alcohol completely, and the show still doesn't claim he fights better in one state than in the other.

The rest of the character's entry on the page makes it clear that he can't fight when drunk. So, all it's really saying is that the fanfic is averting the original show's use of the Functional Addict trope — which isn't SRO and definitely isn't Drunken Master.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Apr 23rd 2022 at 4:41:14 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.

About that… despite what people have said about replicating the effects, I would strongly advise prohibiting examples involving any Applied Phlebotinum whatsoever. If someone with Super-Strength mangles a truck mid-lift, that's just an aversion of Required Secondary Powers with no need for a separate trope. Besides, there's the problem of making sure tropers follow the rules. Steven Universe's SRO page came back within three months of cutting it with much the same examples as before, showing how severe the Pothole Magnet problems are here. Foe Yay got cut because people couldn't stop adding it to pages despite being a disambiguation; it was getting out of hand. I worry something similar will happen to SRO if we don't preemptively patch up potential misuse. I vote for a blanket ban on all outcomes involving even the slightest bit of superpowers, magic, or sci-fi if only to make our lives easier in the future.

My problem with SRO is how it's essentially the Ur-Example of a trope with a definition subject to Mainstream Obscurity in our community. It's a trope everyone knows about, yet no one truly knows at heart because it's one of the vaguest tropes here. With the page giving next to no clues about how to add examples, everyone eventually forms a headcanon of what they think it means, which inevitably draws from reading equally Word of Dante examples from other tropers. With all the misery it's caused everyone, expunging every example and rewriting SRO from scratch legitimately appeals to me. Notwithstanding, I understand we should try gentler methods first. TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life, indeed. This thread is tackling one of the biggest offenders in site history, right up there with the long-expunged Darth Wiki page letting you complain about shows you don't like.

Nuke those two examples with prejudice. #1 is a reaction, which this thread has ruled to be excluded from SRO because human emotions are too subjective to trope. #2 is total Drunken Master misuse for your reasons.

Edited by Idiosyncratic on Sep 17th 2022 at 7:06:19 AM

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I am also disappointed by the outcome of the previous TRS. A good 10,000 pages were checked and renamed/cleaned up but tropers continue to use the trope the same way as before. I would put most of the blame on the new trope name which apparently is just as vague to not make users think about the scope.

An example: Here is the list of non-spoilery entries added for the first three episodes of the recent Moon Knight (2022) series and my summary for each:

• Because no one was around to feed poor Gus during the days Steven was in Harrow's village, he ended up starving to death.
  • A goldfish dies because it wasn't fed because the hero was busy saving the world
• When Steven transforms into Mr. Knight after another jackal monster throws him out a window while he hits some pipes, it allows him to do a Three-Point Landing to save himself. Being unskilled in the realm of heroics, he still collapses to the side in pain after the fall.
  • A deconstructed Three-Point Landing
• Steven also tries to fight the jackal monster as Mr. Knight, but gets completely manhandled by the creature as he lacks Marc's fighting skills. Once Marc takes over, the fight goes much differently.
  • The hero is surprised to lose a fight because they lack superpowers
• Layla is a total Action Girl, but when up against a trained opponent that's bigger than her she finds herself outmatched and has to rely on some inventive pragmatism to beat him, such as throwing glass in his face and stabbing him after he had initially turned his back.
  • The heroine loses a fight because the opponent is stronger/more skilled
• Steven successfully assembles a star map that would lead him and Layla to Ammit's tomb... but then points out that the night sky doesn't look the same as it did thousands of years ago. If they didn't have a moon god on their side, the map would've been useless.
  • The characters don't fall for a common mistake in laymen astrology

Are there expectations being subverted? Probably. But doesn't this happen like a dozen times in a work and it doesn't feel noteworthy? I feel the same way about Didn't Think This Through which attracts lots of "character action leads to an undesired outcome" entries.

Edited by eroock on Apr 24th 2022 at 4:35:44 AM

x5 Yeah, anything that doesn't have at the very least a very clear analogy just can't be SRO.

I'd argue against the chemical reaction analogy because modifying functional cells and biological constructs are a lot more than a chemical reaction. But getting pedantic about that probably isn't going to help this thread or the trope.

x4 Tonwen has a good point here. A part of me is starting to wonder if this isn't a trope at all. I think it's an eminently tropable concept in theory, but is it a thing that actually shows up in media often enough to be a pattern? Without good examples, we're mostly left playing with hypotheticals. In turn, this leads to weasel-wording and soft descriptions.

I'd quibble that a lot of the cleaning never got done. Within a couple of weeks of the original TRS, it became apparent that some tropers were mass-migrating wicks without considering whether they were valid. This probably adds to the Word of Dante issues. My personal estimate at that time, based on the state of the wick check and examples that had already come up in the cleanup thread, was that <10% of the ~17k wicks for Reality Ensues would survive a measured cleanup.

For positive action, I'd support the following:

• Tighten up the description language.
  • I like Someoneman's Point-by-point. I'd argue that the third sub-bullet of "Surprising" really is the core. Put it front and center, with the discussion about differing expectations, etc. being an elaboration.
  • Trim down the introductory paragraphs. If the meat is in the bullet points, the intro as written is natter.
  • Likewise, try to trim the related tropes discussion.
• Strengthen the opposition to applying this trope to characters' emotional reactions. Given the wide variety of emotional responses to a given situation, we simply can't judge the realism of these. (I think the only reason that this was not part of the original formulation is that it never came up)
• I'd be okay with bluntly excluding any situation that requires Applied Phlebotinum or A Wizard Did It for the setup. If cleanup finds any that really feel like they should be valid, they can be sandboxed and reviewed later.

Edited by underCoverSailsman on Apr 24th 2022 at 1:08:53 PM

My biggest personal issues with the trope right now are these.

1. Who is being surprised? Presumably the audience but the trope description is very murky about that.

2. Is this a drama trope, a comedy trope, or both? Most of the really clear cut examples are comedic and any attempts to find dramatic examples struggle with standing out from just being straight up Deconstructions.

3. I think a second trope is lost in here, that being the type of gag where a character suddenly starts acting by real world rules and physics in a cartoony physics world, for the purpose of a gag.

4. And of course the endless back and forth on what qualifies as "realistic", as in, do magical/superpowers count, or not.

I know that the cleanup was troubled, but I blame a lot of that on the fact that the TRS didn't help find a clear definition so much as it gave it a new name that solved basically nothing beyond making is less stock-phrasey. It's ridiculously hard to clean anything because everyone has their own take on what the trope means, which is never a good thing. The reason the notorious "Actions have consequences" justification came about was because people got tired of arguing over examples and just wanted to axe what they at least felt was flagrant misuse (it often was, but that's neither here nor there).

I don't mean to sound demanding or like I'm directing the thread, but I think these 4 issues need to be addressed before this trope can start being healthy.

Edited by Tonwen on Apr 25th 2022 at 8:33:06 AM

"Grandmaster Combat, son!"

Based on feedback, I decided to rewrite the sandbox for conciseness. What's everyone's opinion on my new version?

---

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=m7qwrvkm0ki8dvax5viu5ktm. Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.

Wait! What? Did that just happen? I mean… that is how it would happen in Real Life, but…

A Surprisingly Realistic Outcome happens when a work subverts narrative expectations by deriving an outcome from real-life principles, temporarily removing its otherwise fictional logic. We are vulnerable to this because works of fiction generally have a narrative pattern, and we can often anticipate the outcome of action based on the story.

Distinguishing between this trope and casual plot twists can be tricky. A plot twist is always surprising, will mostly make sense, and are all arguably realistic. Anyone could declare almost any event a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, and it'd be hard to prove it isn't. To minimize the stress on editors, before adding any example, make sure it's Surprising, Realistic, and an Outcome:

• Surprising:
  • Not everyone will have identical expectations when watching a work. However, this is an objective trope, so a moment needs to be objectively surprising to qualify. There needs to be a deliberate subversion of conventions. In other words, a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome requires an Expected Unrealistic Outcome. Extrapolating from that, what counts as surprisingly realistic depends on the genre. For example, superhero movies would have a much lower bar to qualify for this trope than historical dramas, as we expect more unrealistic things from the former.
  • Unexpected and Surprising aren't the same thing. As paradoxical as it sounds, we expect unexpected events in fiction, to some extent. Even if the exact nature of the twist is unknown in advance, the audience knows something will happen to make things more exciting/funny/dramatic. Stories would be boring if everything always happened according to plan, heroes always defeated villains with no hiccups, and protagonists always lived Happily Ever After.
  • To summarize, a surprisingly realistic and not merely unexpected moment deliberately guides audience expectations in one direction, only to suddenly avert the Artistic License or Rule of X necessary for that outcome. In doing so, it highlights how unrealistic it was for the viewer to have those expectations in the first place.
• Realistic:
  • The outcome must be possible in Real Life. An example with even the slightest bit of Applied Phlebotinum isn't this trope. Real people can't shoot fire from their hands, fly, or lift an airplane on their own, and we don't have Time Machines, Humongous Mecha, or Faster-Than-Light Travel. As such, it's impossible to tell how things would really turn out when such elements are in play. Powers possessing a Logical Weakness or a subversion of Required Secondary Powers should go under those respective tropes.
  • Character reactions are very iffy. Sure, you might think it is realistic for Alice to not forgive Bob by the end of the episode because grudges don't just disappear. You might think it's realistic for Claire to be traumatized after escaping from terrorists because civilians can't handle life-threatening stress. However, emotional and psychological responses vary wildly between people. Determining the way someone would react to a specific situation is impossible, especially when not even the character's author is trusted to know such things. As such, character reactions don't count for this trope.
• Outcome: This convention-defying realistic consequence has to actually happen. Simply pointing out that something wouldn't work the way it does in fiction doesn't count.

A Surprisingly Realistic Outcome differs from Deconstruction in several ways:

• Expectations: Once we've identified a work as a deconstruction, we should be able to anticipate how it handles certain tropes, which differs from how this trope must be surprising. While a deconstruction will sometimes lead with a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome, the consequences down the line won't surprise us anymore.
• Timing: Because a Surprisingly Realistic Outcome is a subversion and is often jarring, it's supposed to be a momentary trope. Deconstructions typically weave themselves into the fabric of a story, creating something lasting for at least a significant portion of the work.
• Realism: A Surprisingly Realistic Outcome subverts expectations by refusing to have things work how one would expect from fiction, meaning it excludes all Applied Phlebotinum. A deconstruction discusses or plays with assumptions underpinning a trope or theme. Deconstructions don't necessarily involve objective realism, as they can include examining a Logical Weakness or a subversion of Required Secondary Powers. While we can deconstruct the workings of Applied Phlebotinum, we can't make it realistic.

If the characters are surprised right along with us, the situation overlaps with Wrong Genre Savvy. Conversely, a Genre Savvy character might have been counting on the results that shocked us so much!

When a Video Game does this to you, it's Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay. If Magic A Is Magic A or Applied Phlebotinum kicks back in and subverts the realistic outcome, we have Fantasy All Along. When a work applies this trope to something that happened in a story written by someone else, it's a Deconstructive Parody or Deconstruction Fic.

See also Anti-Climax, which might derive from this trope but doesn't require realism, and Fridge Logic, which is when the realistic outcome exists only in the audience's head. Extraordinary World, Ordinary Problems involves recognizing how mundane problems still exist in fiction, which may or may not count here depending on the above criteria. An Unbuilt Trope might sometimes seem like this, except the Expected Unrealistic Outcome didn't exist at the time.

To avoid redundancy since this trope is entirely about outcomes based on Real Life, No Real Life Examples, Please!^note While media might have trained you to expect something different, we don't want to deal with that. For a long, detailed list of tropes that end in disaster when applied to real life, see Television Is Trying to Kill Us.

As this trope frequently occurs at the climax, spoilers are likely unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

---

Edited by Idiosyncratic on Apr 25th 2022 at 7:09:13 AM

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This addresses most of my concerns, although I think we should crowner some the aspects of it to see where people are.

"Grandmaster Combat, son!"

If that's the case, I would like everyone to request and finish the crowner fast for my proposal. SRO has gained over 1,000 wicks since the last time I mentioned its wick count, so the sooner we finalize the definition, the less work we'll have ahead of us.

To lighten our workload, I propose we lock SRO and its subpages and slap a banner on the page warning everyone not to use it until the cleanup finishes:

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I'd like to see some mod opinions or more input, I do want to fix this trope but we can take our time and not overreact.

"Grandmaster Combat, son!"

x5:

1. Definitely the audience. Sorry, we thought that we'd made that clear last time around. It is core to the definition that was worked out in that TRS.
2. I think it can be played either way, at least in theory. Remember that this is a moment trope. Deconstruction should have wider spread and deeper underpinnings. (If there are Deconstruction entries that focus on a single incident/moment, that is a misuse of that trope.)
3. Quite possibly a trope. Not this trope, I think.
4. I'm now leaning "not" - within reason. I don't care if you've used futuretech to get into space; If you're in Zero-G, you're in Zero-G and we "know" how that works.

x4 I do like the precise ways that this differs from Deconstruction. Overall, I think that the description could be trimmed by about a third.

What part of the description do you want to trim?

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