History Main / OddlyCommonRarity

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', Bankai is said to be extremely complicated and difficult to attain, as well as being one of the main and most major requirements to be a captain. There ends up being five people so far with bankai that aren't captains: [[spoiler:Ichigo, Renji, Ikkaku, and Rukia. Lieutenant Sasakibe also has bankai, but his is a unique case, as he chose to stay as Yamamoto's NumberTwo rather than be promoted when offered a thousand years prior to the story. Rukia herself is promoted to Captain in the epilogue]].
* In ''Manga/BusoRenkin'', there are only 100 kakugane in the entire world. For some reason, 25 of them, one quarter, [[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse are in the hands of the Japanese]]. Considering that this is supposed to be an organization fighting baddies scattered throughout the world, it makes you wonder if either there are more or if the rest of the world is just understaffed. Although, there appears to be kakugane that the organization did not account for, so it may be bigger than they thought.
* In ''Manga/SoulEater'', we find out that Maka's soul appearing to have wings is because it's a kind only one out of millions of people have. Then, seemingly by [[ContrivedCoincidence complete chance]], we meet someone else with one ''by the end of the chapter this is mentioned.''

* In ''Manga/InterviewsWithMonsterGirls'' the protagonist is a young teacher who wants to write his doctorate thesis about demi-humans (or "demis", the titular "monsters"), but after having spent many years looking for them he doubts that he will ever find one in the flesh since they're extremely rare mutations of human people. Then in the new school, he's assigned to he finds no less than ''four'' of them, three students and a teacher, in the space of a few minutes! In the 2017 anime adaptation, he makes [[http://imgur.com/a/v5gAO this hilariously dejected face]] after the discovery.

* In ''Film/KungFuHustle'', the lead character is obsessed with mastering kung fu. Naturally, it turns out all his enemies, friends, and neighbors are secretly kung fu experts of varying ability.

** In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', it is strongly {{implied}} that turning away from the Dark Side is virtually impossible and Vader doing so in his dying moments short of a miracle. However, later novels, comics, and video games have characters falling to the dark side and coming back a very common occurrence that does not require a great deal of willpower or extraordinary circumstances but can be achieved merely by ThePowerOfFriendship.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Space 1889}}'' leftover technology from the Canal Builders is many millennia old and very very rare. Yet it seems to show up in more than half of the Martian adventures.
* The psychic-and-[[{{Hell}} Warp]]-power-nullifying Blanks from the TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} universe. They're held up to be vanishingly rare, yet they show up in almost any fiction not primarily starring the [[SuperSoldier Adeptus Astartes]]. [[Literature/CiaphasCain Jurgen]].
** In the 8th edition rules, the [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Blood Angels]] have a stratagem wherein a captain, lieutenant, or chaplain can fall victim to the [[EvilMeScaresMe Black Rage]] right before leading his troops in into battle. Lore wise, the odds of such an event not being noticed by the chaplains are very slim. Predictably, though, this rule has led to [[CommonplaceRare every single Blood Angels player now sending their captain into battle with the Black Rage.]]
* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', only one in a trillion people ever become a planeswalker, which means that most planes shouldn't have a native one, and planes with more than one should be almost unheard of. In practice, Dominaria has around a dozen native planeswalkers, and planes with at least three seem to be more common than planes that don't have any.
* The Foogle Bird in ''TabletopGame/{{Toon}}'' is the LastOfItsKind. It's later established that there are many, many ''subspecies'' of Foogle Bird. ''All'' of them are down to the last of their kind, but in practical terms there are ''loads'' of Foogle Birds around.

* ''Franchise/DragonAge'':
** Franchise-wide, dragons themselves could count. The current age is so named because at the end of the Blessed Age the first High Dragon was seen well over 200 years after they were thought hunted to extinction. Yet across the first three games (which take place over a 10-year period), the player can encounter and kill no less than ''15'' High Dragons (not counting Archdemons and Flemeth) as well as countless Dragonlings and Drakes. 12 of these are in the third game, which suggests they're making a rapid comeback.
** ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' prominently features The Joining, a ritual that gives Grey Wardens their powers, but also has a reasonable chance to kill them. In the main game, this trope is averted--fully half of those who take The Joining onscreen (including you) do not survive the ritual. In the expansion, however, almost every character in your party takes The Joining, and only one dies from it. [[spoiler: Of course, it's the one who actually ''wanted'' to be a Warden and had been training for it.]]
*** In the novel ''Literature/TheCalling'', both Genevieve and her brother underwent the Joining together and survived. This also includes Duncan and [[spoiler:Alistair's mother]].
* From ''VideoGame/MagicalStarsign'', the Celestial Swap spell, which lets the user [[spoiler:rearrange the planets to power up astrological magic]]. When it's first used by Master Chard, it's treated like an awe-inspiring display of power. Then your teacher Madeline (a mysterious and very powerful mage who also taught Chard) gives you a book from which you can learn the spell. But the spell starts to become increasingly common around the halfway point; by the end of the game, nearly every boss and several random monsters can use Celestial Swap.
* The remake of ''VideoGame/TheBardsTale'' uses this as a RunningGag [[spoiler:and a plot point.]]
--> ''Oh, it's bad luck to be you / [[TheChosenMany a chosen one of many isn't new...]]''
* The ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series has Keyblade wielders, who died out in a great war prior to the first game. There were only two people after that who could summon a keyblade, and even that only happened because the first guy succumbed to darkness before taking up the [[CallToAdventure Call]]. The last game involves ''eight'' Keyblade wielders with a potential ninth, only seven of which are on the heroes' side.
* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', [[{{Unobtanium}} adamantine]] is a virtually unbreakable, ultra-lightweight metal that is supposedly so rare that the king of your civilization will take an interest in your outpost should you uncover some - but it can be found on any map if you dig straight down far enough, which only takes a few real-life minutes after the game starts. Players are discouraged from mining it not by its rarity, but by the [[DugTooDeep dangers involved in doing so]].
* In ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'', there are empowered mortals known as Aspects of Targon. Representing a specific power of Targon, they are highly rare. Except in the games present, there are ''six'' of them running about Runeterra. The Aspect of War (Pantheon), the Aspect of the Sun (Leona), the Aspect of the Moon (Diana), the Aspect of the Protector (Taric), the Aspect of Twilight (Zoe), and the Aspect of Justice (Kayle). A beyond unusual occurrence, and believed by many in-game characters to be a warning of a great coming cataclysm.
* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' ultimately the only non-droid party member who doesn't turn out to be Force-sensitive is Mandalore (and Hanharr for dark-side players). Every other [[CallAHumanAMeatbag meatbag]] on your ship is either already a Force-user or can be trained as one with a high enough relationship score. This does have a level of justification, considering the rather weird way the Exile's powers work.
* ''VideoGame/BattleTech'' plays this trope straight on several levels. First, it's set in the Periphery, where mechs are generally rare to begin with and at a point in time where having an intact, fully-functional mech wasn't all that common in the Inner Sphere if you weren't a member of a prestigious military unit. Second, it has numerous mechs and variants that are used only by a single faction show up regularly. For example, the Jenner, Panther, Dragon, and CPLT-K2 variant of the Catapult are all used almost exclusively by the Draconis Combine, which is on the opposite side of the Inner Sphere from where the game is set, hundreds of light-years away. Finally, the game features SLDF Royal Battlemechs. While the Star League was known to have more advanced mechs than anyone else, the Royal variants of their Battlemechs were something that was so secret that nobody in the setting at that point in time aside from the Clans (who were descended from the SLDF and had their documents) even knew they existed. You can find them for sale on a regular basis in the black market.
* Similar to the Anime (see above) the in-game descriptions of many Franchise/{{Pokemon}} implies they are the products of some exceptionally unique set of circumstances ("born only during a full moon from the seed of a plant that only blooms once a millennia watered by the tears of a dying manticore" etc.), yet in practice, you may simply encounter them as common grunts during gameplay. So-called "Legendary" Pokémon, likewise, are starting to seem a bit less remarkable these days given how there are now at least several dozen different across the series. Not to mention how common battles between the ''exact same'' supposedly one-of-a-kind legendary Pokémon can be thanks to battles between two different owners of the same game.

* In a funny case of this happening in real life, ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing: amiibo Festival'' came bundled with a Digby amiibo, which was intended to be a special limited edition only available in the first wave. However, ''amiibo Festival'' was a bit of a flop, leading to stores putting the first wave on clearance and never bothering to get a second--and as a result, it's hard to find a copy of the game that ''isn't'' a special limited edition.
* A rather similar thing happened with the limited edition of ''VideoGame/Halo2'', which came with a special metal cover, though for different reasons: while the game was a hit, its status as a limited edition was, in the words of WebVideo/GuruLarryAndWez, only limited in the sense that there is a limited supply of metal in the universe. It was produced in such numbers that it's actually ''cheaper'' on some sites than the standard edition.
* In ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3WildHunt,'' silver swords could count. Story-wise, they're an uncommon enough sight that Geralt carrying one immediately marks him as a witcher to the general populace, and Ciri doesn't acquire her first one until Geralt has one custom-made for her after the main quest is finished. But in gameplay, you can find ''hundreds'' of them in loot chests, and dozens of diagrams. Given that they're level-locked items, you'll probably use many, many different silver swords throughout the game as you level up.

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', out of the roughly [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2018-02-05 thousand]] humans who are Seers, three end up eligible to advise the [[SentientCosmicForce Will of Magic]]. Tedd is one. The second lives in the same town as Tedd and knows of him and the third is directly related to him.
** Mind, being a Seer is genetic, so it's not ''that'' much of a surprise that a family that produced one will produce another.

** Gyro Gearloose, the Ducks' GadgeteerGenius, constantly meets other Gadgeteer Geniuses (or has to fight them, as they might turn out to be {{Evil Counterpart}}s of himself. He might seem like WorldsSmartestMan in some stories, in others he's just one of many geniuses walking around in Duckburg.

* In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', it is strongly {{implied}} that turning away from the Dark Side is virtually impossible and Vader doing so in his dying moments short of a miracle. However, later ''Franchise/StarWars'' novels, comics, and video games have characters falling to the dark side and coming back a very common occurrence that does not require a great deal of willpower or extraordinary circumstances but can be achieved merely by ThePowerOfFriendship.

*** Force sensitivity in general, considering how there were far fewer Jedi than there were planets. Yet you stumble upon potential trainees in every town.

* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Legendary Pokémon are usually the equivalent of gods in the Pokémon world, or Pokémon created under abnormal circumstances, such as Mewtwo being a genetic experiment. Most are rare if not actually SingleSpecimenSpecies, and most are unknown to the Pokémon world at large, but because of the Anime's need to feature every single Pokémon, Ash gets to encounter all of them, often more than one at a time, and the same ones more than once. The list includes an alien from space,[[note]]Deoxys[[/note]] the incarnations of time and space,[[note]]Dialga and Palkia[[/note]] the gods of lightning, fire, and ice,[[note]]Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno[[/note]] the only clone of Mew,[[note]]Mewtwo[[/note]] and Mew itself. It's ridiculous when you notice it, and makes a person wonder what exactly makes Ash so special in-universe. Not to mention all the various side characters who have at least one Legendary Pokémon, such as a Nurse Joy who has a Latios, Tobias who has both a Latios and a Darkrai, and an unnamed background trainer with a Heatran.

** 12-year-old Scotch can be purchased today in any liquor store for about $40 a liter. Obtaining it in Korea on the front lines during the war, however, would be harder to do. It may have been more a [[IncrediblyLamePun case]] of most combat zone "importers" getting the cheapest stuff they can get, but being open to obtaining higher-priced merchandise if the profit is there.

* ''Literature/WaxAndWayne'': "Twinborn" who have the power of both [[MagicAIsMagicA allomancy and feruchemy]] are supposed to be extremely rare due to the attenuation of magical genes since ''Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy'', but the protagonist, his sidekick, and the villain of the first book all have twinborn abilities. [[https://wob.coppermind.net/events/131-general-reddit-2016/#e3960 Acknowledged]] by WordOfGod:

See also ThereIsAnother... but keep an eye on it to ensure that it is just ''one'' other, or it can become an Oddly Common Rarity instead. Compare with TheChosenMany where there is an overt, organized, and often numerous band of Chosen Ones. Also compare to UniquenessDecay. Contrast CommonplaceRare. Compare and contrast ProbabilityPileup.

-->-- '''[[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Xander]]''' on finding out there's more than one Slayer.

* ''Manga/OnePiece''

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' mostly avoided this with hamon, but plays it straight with Stands and gives the standard HandWave.
** In Part 1, other hamon users didn't appear until the end, and they were simply his mentor's allies. In Part 2, the main characters were all users, but it was still a small group descended from the previous one, with no other users or knowledge of the art outside of their group.
** Stands were introduced in Part 3 as an extremely rare and powerful thing, that even the exceptional family from the previous Parts had only developed as a side effect of the machinations of the villain (who had to learn about them from a mysterious old woman). The fact that the heroes had to fight through an army of Stand Users to reach the villain was justified by the villain intentionally reaching out across the world to hunt down the ones that existed in order to put them in the way of the heroes. The FridgeLogic ended up being less about the rarity of the Stand Users, and more about how contrived it seemed that some of them managed to run into the heroes considering the unpredictable paths the heroes sometimes took.
** Part 4 attempts to resolve that issue, along with justifying the high concentration of Stand Users in its own story (which lacks a singular leader for the villains), by introducing the standard HandWave that [[WeirdnessMagnet Stand Users are drawn to other Stand Users]]. The last third goes further by having those Stand Users intentionally created by a villain using a rare artifact (which itself ''does'' remain one of only a handful).
* ''Manga/{{Dragonball}}''

** Parodied by Toriyama himself in ''Neko Makin Z'' where Z goes Super Neko Majin, after seeing Onio go Super Saiyan.

** In ''Dragon Ball Z'', the need for a spaceship was something really, really bad. Not even Capsule Corp could pull that off. But in ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', Capsule Corp can build spacecrafts within the week, complete with extras like a flatscreen TV. And that's when it takes off before it's even ready. Possibly justified as 10 years have passed since the end of the Buu Saga.
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}''
** The running joke is that any character with [[EyepatchOfPower a covered eye]] has [[MagicalEye Sharingan]] (or more rarely, a [[AuraVision Byak]][[TrueSight ugan]]), which manage to show up quite a lot despite the fact that most of the people who could have it are supposed to be dead.
** And the [[ComboPlatterPowers Rinnegan]], also. Black Friday sale off, probably, [[spoiler:during the Fourth Ninja War when Tobi/Madara implanted each of the zombified jinchuuriki with the Sharingan AND Rinnegan]].
*** [[spoiler: There's a reason for the zombie eyes thing. Tobi is using a technique that lets anyone 'connected' with him to share his vision. It's the same thing Pain used to attack Jiraiya and the Leaf. and Tobi got his Rinnegan from looting Nagato's corpse.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', Bankai is said to be extremely complicated and difficult to attain, as well as being one of the main and most major requirements to be a captain. There ends up being five people so far with bankai that aren't captains: [[spoiler:Ichigo, Renji, Ikkaku, and Rukia. Lieutenant Sasakibe also has bankai, but his is a unique case, as he chose to stay as Yamamoto's NumberTwo rather than be promoted when offered a thousand years prior to the story. Rukia herself is promoted to Captain in the epilogue.]]
* In ''Manga/BusoRenkin'', there are only 100 kakugane in the entire world. For some reason, 25 of them, one quarter, [[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse are in the hands of the Japanese.]] Considering this is supposed to be a worldwide organization fighting baddies scattered throughout the world, it makes you wonder if either there are more or if the rest of the world is just understaffed. Although, there appears to be kakugane that the organization did not account for, so it may be bigger than they thought.
* In the ''Manga/SoulEater'' manga, we find out Maka's soul appearing to have wings is because it's a kind only one out of millions of people have. Then, seemingly by [[ContrivedCoincidence complete chance]], we meet someone else with one ''by the end of the chapter this is mentioned.''

* ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'': Legendary Pokémon are usually the equivalent of gods in the Pokémon world, or Pokémon created under abnormal circumstances, such as Mewtwo being a genetic experiment. Most are rare if not actually SingleSpecimenSpecies, and most are unknown to the Pokémon world at large, but because of the Anime's need to feature every single Pokémon, Ash gets to encounter all of them, often more than one at a time, and the same ones more than once. The list includes an alien from space[[note]]Deoxys[[/note]], the incarnations of time and space[[note]]Dialga and Palkia[[/note]], the gods of lightning, fire, and ice[[note]]Zapdos, Moltres, and Articuno[[/note]], the only clone of Mew[[note]]Mewtwo[[/note]], and Mew itself. It's ridiculous when you notice it, and makes a person wonder what exactly makes Ash so special in-universe.
** Not to mention all the various side characters who have at least one Legendary Pokémon, such as a Nurse Joy who has a Latios, Tobias who has both a Latios and a Darkrai, and an unnamed background trainer with a Heatran.

See also ThereIsAnother...but keep an eye on it to ensure that it is just ''one'' other, or it can become an Oddly Common Rarity instead.

Compare with TheChosenMany where there is an overt, organized, and often numerous band of Chosen Ones. Also compare to UniquenessDecay.

Biologically, there is a specific reason for this to occur. It's called the Founder's Effect. When a population moves to a new area and is only capable of creating children with the members of its own population, traits common among the population will be passed down with higher frequency: even if the original trait is overall extremely rare. Contrast CommonplaceRare.

** More specifically, there are three forms of Haki. Two of them can be actively taught but the third, Conqueror's Haki, is inborn and is said to have only a one in a million chance of appearing. It should come as no surprise that Luffy is among these one in a million. What is surprising is that by the time we get a proper explanation on what Haki even is, Luffy is personally acquainted with four people with the same power. Much like Don Krieg's statement that Devil Fruit users become more common in the Grand Line, the Dressrosa arc has a character say that users of Conqueror's Haki become more common further into the New World, as they are naturally driven to aim for the very top.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', it is strongly {{implied}} that turning away from the Dark Side is virtually impossible and Vader doing so in his dying moments short of a miracle. However, later ''Franchise/StarWars'' novels, comics, and video games have characters falling to the dark side and coming back a very common occurrence that does not require a great deal of willpower or extraordinary circumstances, but can be achieved merely by ThePowerOfFriendship.

* In most Westerns, especially set during the Civil War era, we see improbably large quantities of the newest and shiniest guns everywhere. In that time most people still used muzzle-loaders, while repeating cartridge-based firearms were just appearing, and they were extremely expensive, not something common farmhands could purchase. Revolvers were pretty expensive too at the beginning. Yet in Westerns, every cowboy and drifter has the newest and shiniest revolver and lever-action rifle, instead of a musket or shotgun most of them used in real life.

** The Patronus Charm is supposed to be very difficult even for skilled adults; Harry learning it at 13 (with great difficulty) marks him as a prodigy. However two years later, he winds up teaching it to a bunch of other students including at least one twelve-year-old, and it seems like every non-evil adult ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and]] [[TyrantTakesTheHelm Umbridge]]) can do the spell too, not just the exceptionally gifted ones.

** A similar case with the ComicBook/MartianManhunter: Being the [[LastOfHisKind last surviving Green Martian]] as well as the loss of his family in the war against the White Martians are established as a big part of his backstory. However, later seasons not only reveal that other Green Martians did survive too, both of them turn out to be J'onn J'onzz direct relatives, his father and his brother.

-->--'''[[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Xander]]''' on finding out there's more than one Slayer.

** Most of the above also applies to ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim,'' and is ''even worse'' in some ways. At high enough levels bandits will eventually start dropping ''Dragonbone'' equipment, which in-story is even more rare than Daedric equipment. For context, it's been so long since anyone's seen a dragon that the craft of working with their bones and scales has been entirely lost, and is re-invented from scratch by the player character. The perk only becomes available once you fully max out your smithing skill, you're the ''only'' smith in the world who can make the stuff, and it's so expensive that selling even one item will completely bankrupt any merchant (until you wait long enough for their stock to replenish). Logically, that means the Dragonbone sword the random bandit is carrying was crafted by you. How he got a hold of it is as much a mystery as why he's living in a cave harassing travelers instead of selling it for a fortune and living like a Jarl. FridgeLogic kicks in if you haven't bothered to take the perk and you're still finding these things everywhere.

* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' takes this to ridiculous levels. Enemy levels are scaled to yours: this means that grunt bandits with cut-rate, bargain-basement weapons and armor will eventually be wielding the fabled Glass equipment, stated in-game to be incredibly rare. Even if you can accept that there is somehow enough Glass to go around, they nonetheless fight like ordinary bandits, so this leaves us another question: how the hell did they get this equipment in the first place, seeing how beating these guys up and selling their armor is one of the best ways of making money in the game?
** It gets worse by the time they start wearing Daedric armor, which can only be obtained by ''killing a powerful demon''.
** Actually subverted with the Unicorn, though. ''The'' Unicorn, because there's only one in the entire game. [[YouBastard Hircine has you kill it]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' prominently features The Joining, a ritual that gives Grey Wardens their powers, but also has a reasonable chance to kill them. In the main game, this trope is averted--fully half of those who take The Joining onscreen (including you) do not survive the ritual. In the expansion, however, almost every character in your party takes The Joining, and only one dies from it. [[spoiler: Of course, it's the one who actually ''wanted'' to be a Warden and had been training for it.]]
** In the novel ''Literature/TheCalling'', both Genevieve and her brother underwent the Joining together and survived. This also includes Duncan and [[spoiler:Alistair's mother]].

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': The Ultimate and Mega levels are supposed to be nigh-impossible to reach, with very few Digimon ever managing to get to these levels... and yet, between them there are over three hundred separate species that exist at these levels. To say nothing of all the villains who just happen to be at these levels themselves, or the organisations that consist entirely of Megas. Usually averted in the anime, where only the leader's mon tends to reach Mega.

* The Foogle Bird in ''TabletopGame/{{Toon}}'' is the LastOfItsKind. It's later established that there are many, many ''subspecies'' of Foogle Bird. ''All'' of then are down to the last of their kind, but in practical terms there are ''loads'' of Foogle Birds around.

* Everyone knows that {{Superman}} is the last Kryptonian ... unless you count his cousin, various clones, a number of prisoners in the Phantom Zone, an entire city shrunken down by Brainiac, and even a few household pets. And, Great Scott!, KryptoniteIsEverywhere, to the point it's been suggested Krypton must have been a neutron star to contain so much mass. Every now and then someone will try to work out some tortured rationale to allow him to still officially be "the last son of Krypton" - anything from pointing out that "last son" doesn't preclude other ''female'' Kryptonians to claiming that all other living Kryptonians were actually born off-planet to pointing out that, since the planet blew up shortly after his birth, he was the ''last born'' son of Krypton. Don't forget Daxamites, Daxam is a planet inhabited by Kryptonians who left Krypton. Most if not all have only conceived with other Daxamites making them full-blooded Kryptonians who happen to live under a red sun.