Ass Pull cleanup

So should I move the Royd entry back to Fan-Disliked Explanation?

There’s this entry on YMMV.Fantastic Four Rise Of The Silver Surfer:

• Ass Pull:
  • The Thing not believing Johnny about the Silver Surfer. An alien from outer space who can fly and has super powers? Pfft, nonsense! That'd be as ridiculous as, say, a woman who can bend light with her thoughts, a man who can stretch his limbs indefinitely and another man having the ability to engulf his entire body in flames! Oh, wait.

This seems more like Arbitrary Skepticism. It’s also written in a somewhat complainy tone.

You can cut that.

Yeah that's misuse and complaining, so I feel it should be cut.

Hya, been a while since i posted this, your thoughts?

My thought would be yes. But it depends on what other people think, too.

I believe the first one counts and I agree that the third one does too. I feel the second might be just be Evil All Along and Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, especially if there actually is Foreshadowing.

Found this on DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp:

• Just where does one get a magic amulet that grants infinite wishes from a genie and allows Voluntary Shapeshifting anyway?

Feels like a misuse. This was established as the fact from the point it was introduced and drives the overall plot. Likewise do we need an explanation for where he got it from? Merlock is an ancient Evil Sorcerer after all.

Cut it. Villain being introduced with magical artifact with no explanation how they got it basides “they are old and know lot about magic” is pretty common.

I agree with cutting it; it's not a Plot Twist.

From Ymmv.Game Theory

• Ass Pull: The theories on Mario, Undertale and FNAF have been accused of having rather contrived explanations that focus too much on speculation instead of hard evidence or confirmation by the creators. In particular, the "Mario is Communist" video has been criticized for focusing too much on red coloration as added to represent communism when most programmers view the red coloration more for color contrast (and also for its connection to heroism), though in that case even Mat himself pointed out how ridiculous that theory was at the end of the video covering it.

Nothing to do with a plot twist, I say cut.

Edited by randomtroper89 on Jun 24th 2023 at 8:01:13 AM

I can imagine it maybe fitting under another trope, though I agree it's not Ass Pull.

This was recently added to the Hitman 2 page:

• Ass Pull: Haven Islands' Twist Ending. 47 returns from killing the HAVEN Trio, the get the information they need, but all the Partners' assets are going to "Arthur Edwards", A.K.A The Constant, who miraculously escapes off of their boat while Diana and Olivia were distracted. Immediately following this, Grey gets a call from Olivia on the whole situation, and Grey outright lies to 47 about everything going to plan — the implication being that him and Edwards were working together somehow, and Grey may have had some nefarious ulterior motive, maybe even helping Edwards to escape. First off, this is seriously out of character for Grey; he had shown nothing but Undying Loyalty to 47 in the comics and in this games' cinematics, not to mention his own cause up until that point. Second, these actions do not make sense, as there wasn't any suggestion prior to this that he was double-crossing 47 and co., and Grey had even warned Diana after the events of Sgàil to not take his eyes off of Edwards. This ending caused a lot of confusion within the fanbase, as it came off as the writers attempting to do a Twist Ending for the sakes of doing one; continuity and sense be damned. This caused such a bad reaction that IOI retooled this entire ending in Hitman 3, instead implying that Grey was just focused on getting to the Partners and lied to 47 to keep him focused, rather than secretly manipulating him, while Edwards' escape was merely him using his well-established Awesomeness by Analysis skills to convince a sailor to set him free.

While I see the troper's point, and the moment being discussed does come off as a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment come Hitman 3, there is, as far I can find, no evidence that IOI retooled the ending because of a negative response. Not to mention, given that Grey didn't actually betray 47 in the final product, and this edit even gives a potential explanation for why Grey chose not to tell 47 about the Constant escaping (or perhaps it was Olivia informing him that the Partners' assets had all gone to the Constant and Edwards escaping came up later), this whole edit seems a bit redundant.

If the focus of this edit is not in fact redundant, could this edit potentially be condensed and rewritten into a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment edit?

Edited by WiryAiluropodine on Jun 25th 2023 at 8:52:24 PM

IDK if it's BLAM material, as being an ending (from what I can gather) means that there's no way for it to pass or fail the "never discussed again" part.

Understood. Does it fit the criteria for Ass Pull, or should it be removed?

Edited by WiryAiluropodine on Jun 26th 2023 at 6:05:57 PM

IDK, maybe, but it's less focused on a lack of foreshadowing and more on it just being a confusing ending.

My main issue is that the implication that Grey was working with Edwards was never brought up again in Hitman III and that there's no actual evidence that the devs changed the story from what that they had originally planned due to fan backlash (as this troper states they did). As it stands, either the plot of the third game was meant to be different (and the troper who wrote this edit just failed to provide a source that confirms the devs changed the plot at some point) or nothing major actually changed plot-wise in the writing process, and the ending of the Haven Island mission was either just something that players misinterpreted or, as this trope kind of argues, done in such a way to provoke a sense of suspense (whether what was being implied made sense or not).

Edited by WiryAiluropodine on Jun 27th 2023 at 6:54:48 PM

A potential entry for Kingdom Hearts coded:

• Ass Pull: The Stinger of the game reveals that when somebody's Heartless and Nobody are both destroyed their original self is reformed. There was at best one hint towards this plot point back in the first game and even that instance is debatable.^note  During Sora's first visit to Traverse Town he witnesses a man getting turned into a Soldier Heartless, with an identical-looking man taking over Cid's shop later in the game. However, given the game's penchant for reusing NPC models, it's debatable if they're intended to be the same person. With that piece of evidence getting outweighed by the numerous times it was said throughout the series that a Nobody's death would result in them undergoing Cessation of Existence.

Found this YMMV.The Legend Of Heroes Trails From Zero And Trails To Azure which I’m unsure of:

• Ass Pull: At the end of the final dungeon, Mariabell pulls a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Ian Grimwood. Then, after the final boss battle, this character reveals they "put him into suspended animation" instead of killing him, and that he'll live with medical attention. It's never explained how they're able to do this, or why they held back from killing him, and the "suspended animation" involved them being impaled with Blood from the Mouth. All it can be chalked up to is Trails avoiding having major characters die.

sounds more like What An Idiot or Writer Cop Out than something that breaks established rules.

Bumping this https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16780257960A56815300&page=3#comment-68

Sounds like an Ass Pull to me. The NPC model thing doesn't sound like it was supposed to be the same person if NPC model reuse is as common as that entry suggests.

Sounds like it doesn't count. Ass Pull does not assess the quality of foreshadowing, only whether it exists. The entry admits it does exist, and then stealth complains about the quality of it.

I’ve seen a few examples of stuff being considered Ass Pull even though there was (accidental) forshadowing in prior installments such as with Vader being Luke’s father in The Empire Strikes Back. But should I just not mention the NPC in KH 1?

I mean, that's not supposed to count, then. That's misuse.