History Main / FourthWallMyopia

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wish}}'': The audience is supposed to see [[spoiler: Simon's]] betrayal of Asha and Star to King Magnifico as a horrible thing that disgusts their friends in-universe as well - but at the point in the narrative when Magnifico promises to grant the wish of whomever reveals where the unknown magic has come from, he has not gone JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope and as far as all the characters aside from Asha and her nonhuman friends know, he ''is'' a trustworthy man who is trying to keep peace in the kingdom. On the other hand, Asha is demanding her friends keep secret both Star's existence ''and'' that she's stealing from Magnifico, rather than being upfront with everyone about what's happened. Combined with Star not being totally predictable in how they use their magic, their friends making them feel self-conscious about [[spoiler: being "less" ever since he gave up his wish]], and the later reveal that [[spoiler: said wish was to serve the king as a knight]] it's more than understandable that they would decide to betray Asha not just for their own good but for that of the kingdom, but only their "selfish" motivation is cited (though at least they are EasilyForgiven at the end, pointing out that their trust in Magnifico was shared by virtually everyone else).

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'': Dana gets a lot of flack from some fans for not always forgiving Terry when he misses dates because of Batman duties and making his life difficult, even though as far as she knows, he's just an old man's part-time assistant who's doing a ''very'' bad job of balancing his new responsibilities with his prior relationships.

* ''VideoGame/Persona3'': The audience is shown that Shinjiro is a cool guy with a genuine heart of gold that deeply regrets [[spoiler:accidentally killing Ken's mom]]; however, from Ken's perspective, he's just [[spoiler:the guy that killed his mom and ran away from the consequences for years]]. Shinjiro is also a decent party member to use while Ken is a major case of OvershadowedByAwesome. Unsurprisingly, a good chunk of the fanbase sees Ken as unsympathetic and doesn't consider his point of view.

** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E25ACanterlotWeddingPart1 A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1]]": The cause of the backlash over everyone refusing to believe and walking out on Twilight. Twilight made the same poor decisions as them[[labelnote:examples]]Their AesopAmnesia about taking your friends' worries seriously, with Twilight also forgetting the far more recent (as in the episode immediately prior) lesson of not jumping to conclusions without proof that she herself preached; being [[EasilyCondemned quick to condemn]] Twilight, while she was just as quick to condemn Cadance, never considering that might [[NotHerself not be herself]]; everyone ignoring the threat to Canterlot, yet Twilight also doesn't consider that it might be connected[[/labelnote]] and discredited herself with her behavior throughout the episode[[labelnote:examples]]acting grouchy and unpleasant both before and during the wedding plans while being unhealthily possessive of her brother, nitpicking every instance of poor behavior from the bride and reducing her to tears via aggressive accusations, and repeatedly blowing off her friends' concerns and counterarguments[[/labelnote]], hence Twilight immediately accepting their apologies and spending as much time admitting she was wrong as well. However, as the episode takes place almost entirely from Twilight's perspective, it disproportionally shows why her actions seem justifiable while the justification for everyone else's[[labelnote:examples]]Their mentioning [[{{Bridezilla}} Cadance's alibis]], and "Cadance" giving them positions as bridesmaids showing she feigned niceness as needed to gain trust[[/labelnote]] receive little emphasis. It also overlooks the obvious proof to audiences that Cadance was an imposter ([[OutOfCharacterAlert not remembering "ladybugs awake"]], their different magic color) is something nopony but Twilight knows and that magic color is never confirmed as diegetic respectively, as well as Twilight failing to mention either thing when making her case.

** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E25ACanterlotWeddingPart1 A Canterlot Wedding, Part 1]]": The cause of the backlash over everyone refusing to believe and walking out on Twilight. Twilight made the same poor decisions as them[[labelnote:examples]]Their AesopAmnesia about taking your friends worries seriously, with Twilight also forgetting the far more recent (as in the episode immediately prior) lesson of not jumping to conclusions without proof that she herself preached; being [[EasilyCondemned quick to condemn]] Twilight, while she was just as quick to condemn Cadance, never considering that might [[NotHerself not be herself]]; everyone ignoring the threat to Canterlot, yet Twilight also doesn't consider that it might be connected[[/labelnote]] and discredited herself with her behavior throughout the episode[[labelnote:examples]]acting grouchy and unpleasant both before and during the wedding plans while being unhealthily possessive of her brother, nitpicking every instance of poor behavior from the bride and reducing her to tears via aggressive accusations, and repeatedly blowing off her friends' concerns and counterarguments[[/labelnote]], hence Twilight immediately accepting their apologies and spending as much time admitting she was wrong as well. However, as the episode takes place almost entirely from Twilight's perspective, it disproportionally shows why her actions seem justifiable while the justification for everyone else's[[labelnote:examples]]Their mentioning [[{{Bridezilla}} Cadance's alibis]], and "Cadance" giving them positions as bridesmaids showing she feigned niceness as needed to gain trust[[/labelnote]] receive little emphasis. It also overlooks the obvious proof to audiences that Cadance was an imposter ([[OutOfCharacterAlert not remembering "ladybugs awake"]], their different magic color) is something nopony but Twilight knows and that magic color is never confirmed as diegetic respectively, as well as Twilight failing to mention either thing when making her case.

** First, [[spoiler:we've played as Joel in the first game and are thus aware of the complexities of his character, and the understandable (albeit selfish) reasons why he killed the Fireflies to save Ellie. From Abby's perspective, however, he'd just be someone who massacred several Fireflies who who were trying to create a cure for the zombie virus, including her father (who she doesn't see attacking or threatening Joel with a scalpel). Joel would just be one of countless enemies to her and the Fireflies that exist in the CrapsackWorld, because she wouldn't know about Joel's more positive traits, or that he only killed the people in the hospital because he saw Ellie, who they were going to kill, as his surrogate daughter. Also, while she was gleefully going to kill the pregnant Dina to avenge the equally pregnant Mel, she had no way to realize nor would have believed that Ellie didn't know that Mel was pregnant]].

* ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'': Part of the reason Boruto was seen as UnintentionallyUnsympathetic for a while by some viewers can be traced back to this. He's supposed to have a valid point about Naruto being a bit of a distant father due to work, and that Naruto needs to spend more time with his family. However, given that pretty much everyone who watches ''Boruto'' has either seen the original ''Naruto'', or at least knows the basics of it, its hard to find Boruto likeable at first because of how good his life is compared to Naruto's, and the fact that said viewers are more likely to look past Naruto's mistakes as a father due to understanding the difficulties Naruto experienced due to lacking parents. So while Boruto is completely justified in being upset at Naruto, from a viewer's perspective, Boruto looks like a spoiled child who is complaining about something he shouldn't take for granted.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': Deanna Troi is often mocked by fans for supposedly using her telepathic and empathic abilities to discover and [[CaptainObvious state the obvious]]. However, the things she often states tend to only be obvious to the audience who gets to hear the soundtrack and easily see outside the bridge of the ship; its her job to bring the other characters up to speed.

* ''Manga/{{Boruto}}'': Part of the reason Boruto was seen as UnintentionallyUnsympathetic for a while by some viewers can be traced back to this. He's supposed to have a valid point about Naruto being a bit of a distant father due to work, and that Naruto needs to spend more time with his family. However, given that pretty much everyone who watches ''Boruto'' has either seen the original ''Naruto'', or at least knows the basics of it, its hard to find Boruto likeable at first because of how good his life is compared to Naruto's, and the fact that said viewers are more likely to look past Naruto's mistakes as a father due to understanding the difficulties Naruto experienced due to lacking parents. So while Boruto is completely justified in being upset at Naruto, from a viewers perspective, Boruto looks like a spoiled child who is complaining about something he shouldn't take for granted.

When viewers forget about this fact, strange things will happen. A reasonable helmsman on a starship, who objects to going on a SuicideMission, will be seen as a whiny DirtyCoward, and when TheCaptain is CourtMartialed for his decision, viewers won't understand why. For GenreSavvy viewers the captain's plan had a 100% success chance, but for characters it was more like a [[MillionToOneChance 99% chance]] to get their entire crew killed and their ship destroyed. Viewers won't approve the SuperRegistrationAct, but for comic book world bystanders, superheroes are masked armed men with unknown agendas. They don't know what to expect from them, and have all the reasons to be paranoid, especially considering that {{Face Heel Turn}}s are not uncommon for supers. A CowboyCop finally arrests John The Ripper and [[JackBauerInterrogationTechnique beats him until]] he confesses his crimes, but an AmoralAttorney gets him released. Viewers are infuriated, but nobody in-universe can be sure that the cop caught the right man (unlike us, they didn't [[ReverseWhodunnit see him do it]]), and they can no longer trust any evidence brought in by the arresting officer. Viewers are calling the king of Arcadia stupid because he [[CassandraTruth refuses to believe]] that Sir Gabriel actually saw the [[EldritchAbomination Beast From Beyond]], but the king is more concerned that one hundred men came to his palace this month and claimed that they saw the Beast with no proof beyond "Take my word for it!", which means the treasury has to pay for another mental asylum because the existing ones are overcrowded. We can go on forever.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'': Silver the Hedgehog gets no end of grief from fans who see him as astronomically stupid for taking Mephiles the Dark's claim that Sonic must be killed to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save the future]]. It doesn't help that Mephiles is such a blatant case of ObviouslyEvil, being a LivingShadow with HellishPupils and a CreepyMonotone who is also named after {{Mephistopheles}}. However, this mitigated by the fact that the Sonic universe has at least one case of DarkIsNotEvil in the form of Shadow the Hedgehog and that Silver only accepts Mephiles's lies because he is so desperate to permanently destroy the monster that has been terrorizing his timeline for so long. Silver also does eventually start questioning Mephiles's words and eventually learns the truth after seeing Sonic's heroism and how people like Shadow and Amy come to his defense.

* Anime/YuGiOhArcV: This is common, since the series runs a lot on its JigsawPuzzlePlot and {{driving question}}s of why things are happening in the first place, which means that there are naturally things that are revealed to the audience but not InUniverse or alternatively that a GenreSavvy audience can figure out before the characters do. This causes some sections of the fandom to get impatient with the characters for not figuring things out themselves, often forgetting that they don't know all of what's going on, or to be irritated at some decisions that are taken with the information the characters have available, not realizing that there's no way they can know something that just got revealed to the audience through another source. Some fans also don't take into account the personality or motivations of certain characters who will do what they think it's best, based on what they know rather than doing the "logical" answer that only the audience could possibly realize.

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts'' games in general have somewhat of a meme of the characters just saying "Okay I believe you" for believing characters' (often antagonists) word at face value. This is of course ignoring that not they're not present for the scenes where the villains spell out their EvilPlan, and ignoring scenes when the characters question whether or not they ''should'' genuinely believe the character or are flat out confused.

* While there are many legitimate criticisms of how the Jedi in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' prequel trilogy dropped the ball in their investigation (or lack thereof) into the true identity of the Sith Lord, in universe, [[BigBad Chancellor Palpatine]] isn't as blatantly obviously the culprit as fans sometimes claim. First and foremost, the characters have no idea that they are in ''prequel'' films, or [[Creator/IanMcdiarmid what actor]] plays the man who runs the later Galactic Empire. And while they have their suspicions that there's a broader conspiracy afoot, the war with the powerful, dangerous political faction, led by someone they know is a Sith Lord, is obviously going to be their priority. Count Dooku did tell Obi-Wan that he was the apprentice and that another Sith Lord was controlling the Republic's Senate, but at the time, Obi-Wan had every reason to doubt Dooku's words, since Dooku has apparently embraced both the Dark Side, which corrupts its users, and the Sith ideology, which teaches manipulation and betrayal. It should also be acknowledged that the Jedi do start getting suspicious of Palpatine in the third prequel, which is why they ask Anakin to spy on him.

This is closely related to LikeYouWouldReallyDoIt; viewers know something is unlikely because it would disrupt the {{Status Quo|IsGod}}, but for characters in the setting, [[ThisIsReality there's no reason to think this way]]. See also NotBadassEnoughForFans, DracoInLeatherPants[=/=]RonTheDeathEater, RootingForTheEmpire, where the audience and characters have completely different values (the audience values [[EvilIsCool coolness]] and badassery, the characters would prefer someone who wouldn't try to kill them). See also DramaticIrony, where this applies to plot rather than values. Viewers suffering from this may also consider certain plot developments to be potential {{Headscratchers}} when they are, in fact, simply a result of the characters not being aware that they're in a story nor possessing GenreSavvy or omnipotence; this often takes the form of complaints that the characters "should have just" taken a different course of action in order to resolve the plot easier or even not doing anything at all, not stopping to realise that the characters don't know things such as what other characters in different locations may be doing or how the narrative they're in ends.

* ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'': Lanolin has received derision from fans for not seeing through [[spoiler:Mimic's disguise as Duo]], and refusing to take Silver and Whisper's accusations that [[spoiler:Duo is a disguise seriously]]. However, Whisper and Silver by their own admission had no evidence to support their claims and the way they attempted to obtain it (spying on [[spoiler:Duo]] and then attacking him in front of witnesses to make him drop his disguise]]) only made them look foolish and untrustworthy. Furthermore, they didn't come to Lanolin with their suspicions first, even though she is the team leader, giving her even more reason to dismiss them.

* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'': Cobra Bubbles is often judged unfavourably as a villain simply because he had to evaluate whether or not Nani was truly capable of caring for Lilo. This ignores that in-universe, Nani has shown ''multiple times'' she truly cannot take care o Lilo (at least not without a very strong support system) and Bubbles's job as a social worker is to evaluate based off of what ''he'' sees.

* ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'': Mr. Bubbles was often judged unfavourably as a villain simply because he had to evaluate whether or not Nani was truly capable of caring for Lilo. This ignores that in-universe, Nani has showcased ''multiple times'' she truly isn't ready and Mr. Bubbles's job as a social worker is to evaluate based off of what ''he'' sees.

* While there are many legitimate criticisms of how the Jedi in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' prequel trilogy dropped the ball in their investigation (or lack thereof) into the true identity of the Sith Lord, in universe, [[BigBad Chancellor Palpatine]] isn't as blatantly obviously the culprit as fans sometimes claim. First and foremost, the characters have no idea that they are in ''prequel'' films, or [[Creator/IanMcdiarmid what actor]] plays the man who runs the later Galactic Empire. And while they have their suspicions that there's a broader conspiracy afoot, the war with the powerful, dangerous political faction, led by someone they know is a Sith Lord, is obviously going to be their priority. Count Dooku did tell Obi-Wan that he was the apprentice and that another Sith Lord was controlling the Republic's Senate, but at the time, Obi-Wan had every reason to doubt Dooku's words, since Dooku has apparently embraced both the Dark Side, which corrupts its users, and the Sith ideology, which teaches manipulation and betrayal.

* In ''Literature/AmericanPsycho'' [[AxCrazy Patrick Bateman's]] friends and colleagues brush him off when he confesses to his atrocities, usually thinking he's joking. While the ease with which they do so is part of the novel's satire of self-absorbed yuppie culture (realistically, you'd think Patrick would at least earn a reputation for being tasteless or having a bad sense of humor once he does this enough), the audience can only think they're outright stupid or evil for doing so because the audience knows Bateman is telling the truth ([[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness at least as far as Bateman knows.]]) From their point of view, they haven't heard any media coverage of a new serial killer in town, and even if they had, Patrick doesn't live or act like most real or even fictional serial killers (at least at the time. He did become a TropeCodifier for many modern serial killer tropes). And if he was a killer, why confess so freely? That he's joking, vying for attention, or just acting weird for no or some harmless reason when he casually claims he's killed his friends and dozens of others is the far more obvious conclusion, and so the one people go with.
* [[Literature/DifferentSeasons ''Shawshank Redemption'']]: While Andy does get abused by the American prison system, the event that puts him at the mercy of it - his wrongful conviction - was the obvious right choice for any jury that doesn't know he is truly innocent and an all-around NiceGuy. He admitted to driving to the place where his wife was having an affair, with a gun of the same caliber used to ultimately kill them and with the intention of doing so himself. While he decided not to go through with it and tossed the gun away, to the outside it just looks like he killed them for the oldest motive in the book, got caught all but red-handed, and is now either too stupid or just doesn't care enough to come up with a believable cover story.

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'': Silver the Hedgehog gets no end of grief from fans who see him as astronomically stupid for taking Mephiles the Dark's claim that Sonic must be killed to [[SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong save the future]]. It doesn't help that Mephiles is such a blatant case of ObviouslyEvil, being a LivingShadow with HellishPupils and a CreepyMonotone who is also named after {{Mephistopheles}}. However, this ignores the fact that the Sonic world has at least one case of DarkIsNotEvil in the form of Shadow the Hedgehog and that Silver only accepts Mephiles's lies because he is so desperate to permanently destroy the monster that has been terrorizing his timeline for so long. Silver also does eventually starts questioning Mephiles's words and eventually learns the truth after seeing Sonic's heroism and how people like Shadow and Amy come to his defense.

* ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'': Quite a few fans are angry at [[spoiler:Ootomo for her blaming Ishigami for ruining her relationship with Ogino despite all he did to protect her, even though he ''deliberately'' kept her in the dark. From her perspective a boy she barely knew attacked her boyfriend, was accused of being a stalker, never refuted the claim or explained himself, and her boyfriend broke up with her several days later. What other conclusion was she supposed to come to based on the available information? The phenomenon happened again when Tsubame finally told Ootomo the truth; while it is sad that their friendship ultimately cracked because of this, from Ootomo's perspective she's been suddenly thrust with information she should have gotten a long time ago if true, while she's face value supposed to forgive somebody who didn't even exonerate himself on her friend's word.]]
* ''Manga/TokyoGhoul'': While the audience is meant to sympathize with the plight of Ghouls, there is a certain in-universe logic to the laws concerning them and CCG's Zero Tolerance policy concerning their existence. Though the audience knows there are gentle Ghouls that attempt to live without killing, the fact remains that the entire species are super-powered beings that can pass themselves off as human right up until they start to tear people apart and eat them, while even the supposedly "good" ghouls are still affected by a hellish hunger which they may give in to at any time. They are essentially a species of Serial Killers with superpowers.
* Anime/YuGiOhArcV: This is common, since the series runs a lot on its JigsawPuzzlePlot and {{driving question}}s of why things are happening in the first place, which means that there are naturally things that are revealed to the audience but not InUniverse or alternatively that a GenreSavvy audience can figure out before the characters do, which causes some sections of the fandom to get impatient with the characters for not figuring things out themselves, often forgetting that they don't know all of what's going on, or to be irritated at some decisions that are taken with the information the characters have available, not realizing that there's no way they can know something that just got revealed to the audience through another source or sometimes not taking into account the personality or motivations of certain characters who will do what they think it's best, based on what they know rather than doing the "logical" answer that only the audience could possibly realize.

* ''Fanfic/FriendlyForeignExchangeStudentSpiderMan'': Much of the reason for Peter and Bakugo's conflict being so divisive is due to this trope. Peter sees Bakugo as little more than a selfish jerk, but the audience knows that he's had HiddenDepths from day one; Bakugo sees Peter as little more than a showboating goof, but the audience knows that he's gone through -- and is still going through -- his own TraumaCongaLine, so the fact that the characters keep fighting because of their shared lack of fourth-wall knowledge results in fans going back and forth on who's in the right. The incident of Bakugo accidentally insulting the Avengers ends being a huge example of this; while many labeled it as Bakugo crossing the MoralEventHorizon, that only works because the readers are the only ones who would be aware that Bakugo said anything wrong.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'': Melody sometimes gets hit with this for believing Morgana's story that the trident belongs to her and was stolen from her, then subsequently handing said trident over to her. Detractors typically point out how ObviouslyEvil Morgana is, but Melody is a character ''in'' the story, and so has no reason to take this into consideration after how well [[ManipulativeBitch Morgana]] has treated her.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'': A lot of the criticisms leveled against Bogo's actions as discriminatory and unfair, both by the audience and by characters like Nick and Judy, rely on knowledge that Judy really is an animal with extraordinary skills and drive that could surpass that of several more experienced officers combined, something that Bogo doesn't have any first-hand knowledge of, as he had no direct hand in her hiring. He just had her word to go by about her skills, only had her on the force for a day and a half before she started being deliberately disobedient and causing problems, and he answered her only call for backup to find no evidence of her story. When Judy later proves what she's capable of, Bogo's opinion of her completely flip-flops and he actually shows her respect, now having seen what the audience already knew.

** One of the many criticisms of the ''Revelations'' route is the fact that Corrin and Azura's adoptive siblings all refuse to believe them when they try to convince the Hoshidan&Nohrian royal families that something else is wrong. This ignores that, from the perspective of the siblings? They have little to ''no'' reason to actually believe Corrin and Azura's rather outlandish claim. Even if they avoided the curse of Valla (meaning it cannot be spoken about outside of its borders), it's still quite hard to provide any evidence to support this claim.

** One of the many criticisms of the ''Revelations'' route is the fact that Corrin and Azura's adoptive siblings all refuse to believe them when they try to convince the Hoshidan&Nohrian royal families that something else is wrong. This ignores that, from the perspective of the siblings? They have little to ''no'' reason to actually believe Corrin&Azura's rather outlandish claim. Even if they avoided the curse of Valla (meaning it cannot be spoken about outside of its borders), it's still quite hard to provide any evidence to support this claim.

** In the ''Conquest'' route, the Nohrian siblings are often portrayed as foolish for not instantly believing Corrin&Azura's claims that Garon (Their father) has been DeadAllAlong and was replaced with a clone. They can't provide any actual proof - while the Nohrian siblings have presumably had regular contact with Garon throughout their lives unlike Corrin and Azura.
** One of the many criticisms of the ''Revelations'' route is the fact that Corrin&Azura's adoptive siblings all refuse to believe them when they try to convince the Hoshidan&Nohrian royal families that something else is wrong. This ignores that, from the perspective of the siblings? They have little to ''no'' reason to actually believe Corrin&Azura's rather outlandish claim. Even if they avoided the curse of Valla (meaning it cannot be spoken about outside of its borders), it's still quite hard to provide any evidence to support this claim.