History Main / WhatIf

* Music/TheBeatles were of course from Liverpool, England, and were born during UsefulNotes/WorldWar2, with John and Ringo during the period of heaviest German bombing. Obviously they survived, but 2000 other Liverpudlians weren't so lucky. What direction would popular music have taken if they, or for that matter their original manager Brian Epstein, had been Blitz victims?

* TheBeatles were of course from Liverpool, England, and were born during UsefulNotes/WorldWar2, with John and Ringo during the period of heaviest bombing. Obviously they survived, but 2000 other Liverpudlians weren't so lucky. What direction would popular music have taken if they, or for that matter their original manager Brian Epstein, had been Blitz victims?
** In a similar vein, the group arguably truly found its footing not in Liverpool but in Hamburg, Germany, one of the most heavily bombed German cities in the war (including one raid, fittingly called Operation Gomorrah, in which more bombs were dropped ' 'than were dropped on the entirety of Britain during the entire war' '. One of the Beatles' main muses in Hamburg was a photographer named Astrid Kirchherr, who, as well as becoming the girlfriend of erstwhile member Stuart Sutcliffe, also inspired the group to change their look from '50s-style greasers to their early trademark black suites and "moptop" haircuts (that hairstyle was popular among French and German hipsters in the late '50s and early '60s). What form would the Beatles' career (and arguably, of anglophone pop music as a whole) have taken if Astrid had been among the dead of Hamburg's bombing (including the ' '37,000' ' victims of Operation Gomorrah)?

*** Related to the series' themes of BalanceBetweenGoodAndEvil, what will happen to the world, and humanity as a whole [[GoodNeedsEvil if there no is evil to maintain the equilibrium of everything that's good and if there is no good to balance everything that is evil]]?

* [[BigBad Another Decade]] from ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' has the power to invoke this by creating alternate realities based on past ''Franchise/KamenRider'' shows where, due to an alteration to the story, the villains succeeded in their goals. He can then summon these villains to his reality to do battle for him.

** Later ''What If?''s from Marvel have pretty much ditched the absurdist (or at least gag-inducing) settings for more plausible alternatives, for example "What if Captain America had won the Comicbook/CivilWar2006?" or "What if [[Comicbook/DarkReign the Siege of Asgard]] had been successful?"

** And then there was a tragic one after ''Comicbook/AvengersDisassembled'' containing a What If? within a What If? -- where Captain America and Wanda were insane but in love, and if the Avengers had not interfered they would have both regained their sanity and made a much better world. (As it actually happened, they killed themselves.)

*** An example of the latter is "[[Comicbook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse What if Punisher killed the Marvel Universe?]]", where not only do Frank Castle's family get killed in the crossfire of a superhero battle, but the roster of heroes involved include those who only became heroes long after the Punisher himself became active. Furthermore, the only reason Frank is able to kill everyone is because he has the backup of a Mysterious Organisation the covertly supplies him with access and weaponry... and yet somehow isn't on the radar of organisations like SHIELD or HYDRA nor characters who specialise on keeping informed like Doctor Doom or Nick Fury. Furthermore, many of the heroes and villains are [[AdaptationalWimp killed off fairly easily]] (like Juggernaut being killed by a nuke alongside the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, despite his powers allowing him to tank even that sort of damage).

** ''Comicbook/StarTrekIDW'': "What if First Contact had been with the Romulans, not the Vulcans?" [[spoiler: Will Riker leads a RagtagBunchOfMisfits to locate Jean-Luc Picard and, with his help, Kirk's ''Enterprise''.]]
** ''Comicbook/TheXFilesSeason10'': "What if Fox Mulder had been abducted instead of Samantha?" [[spoiler: Sam becomes Scully's conspiracy-theorist partner, while Fox becomes an agent of the Conspiracy working directly for the Cigarette Smoking Man.]]

* An interesting take on this was the early 90's video game ''Franchise/XMen II: The Fall of the Mutants'', based off the storyline of the same name. The story is introduced by Uatu the Watcher, who asks what if another team of X-Men battled the Adversary. Players then get to create their own X-Men team using member of the team at the time (Wolverine, Psylocke, Dazzler, Havok, Colossus, Longshot and Rogue), the X-Factor team at the time (Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Archangel and Iceman) and three members of Excalibur (Shadowcat, Nightcrawler and Phoenix) and go about dealing with the Adversary in a different way.

* On the NFL's website, there is Dave Damashek's video series, [[http://www.nfl.com/videos/n-if-l "N-if-L"]], which shows what happens if the NFL's most memorable/controversial moments didn't happen, whether if it's during the playoffs (e.g., Joe Montana's "The Catch", The Tuck Rule Game) or the UsefulNotes/SuperBowl (Scott Norwood's "Wide Right" miss in SBXXV, David Tyree's helmet grab in SBXLII).

* ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'': Used with the recurring gadget the "What if?" Box. It's a telephone booth. A character can ask the "What if?" Box a "what if" question and it will transport the occupants to the dimension that matches their question. (Do [[Series/DoctorWho the Doctor]] and Film/BillAndTed know about this?)

* The ''Series/{{Castle}}'' episode "[[Recap/CastleS7E6TheTimeOfOurLives The Times of Our Lives]]" pays tribute to ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'' showing what things would be like if Castle and Beckett never met one another: [[spoiler: Castle would've had the chance to write "Nikki Heat" and ended up a failed OneBookAuthor; Martha would've gotten a regular job and return to Broadway after Castle doesn't make enough money to support her lifestyle; Alexis would've moved to L.A. with Meredith and [[DyeHard dyed her hair black]]; Esposito would've gotten Lanie pregnant; Ryan would be a workaholic and wouldn't have marry Jenny; and Beckett, who has been promoted to captain, would've been a perpetually serious person unable to solve her Mom's murder]].

Not to be confused with ''Blog/WhatIf'', a blog by Webcomic/{{Xkcd}} creator Creator/RandallMunroe, or ''What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions'', a series of books by the same creator.

** What if [[Anime/CodeGeass Lelouch Lamperouge]]] piloted the [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamEndlessWaltz Wing Gundam Zero]]?

** One episode has Ben find himself back on the day he gained the Omnitrix. He remembers everything that happened, but Max and Gwen don't, and while trying to get the Omnitrix once again, ''Gwen'' gets the watch instead of him. Her natural learning abilities lead to her fully mastering the Omnitrix by the next day, but has the side effect of automatically attracting Vilgax to their location. By the end of the episode, Grandpa Max ends up with the Omnitrix, and the whole story is revealed to be a What If.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' season five finale, "The Cutie Re-Mark" is pretty much a canon take to "What If Rainbow Dash never did her Sonic Rainboom?". We the get the answer when Starlight Glimmer, vengeful over what happened at the start of the season, finds a spell to go back in time, finds out about the Mane 6's cutie mark connection stemming from that moment and prevents Dash from doing it. What follows is a myriad of Bad Futures where previous Big Bads turn Equestria into a CrapsackWorld. Because without the Rainboom, the Mane Six don't get their cutie marks at the same time, meet each other later as adults, and be around to stop them. To wit: [[spoiler: Sombra re-claims the Crystal Empire, makes slaves out of the inhabitants and wages a never-ending war on Equestria that constantly depletes the world's resources just to fight him. Queen Chrysalis and the Changlings force the ponies to flee into the Everfree where the survivors are under constant paranoia and ultimately she finds their last stronghold. Nightmare Moon banishes Celestia to the moon as she did to her and blankets the world in never-ending night (though at least rules somewhat fairly). Tirek goes about destroying Equestria, Discord turns the world into chaos torturing Celestia and Luna all the while, Film and Flam of all ponies turn Equestria into an industrial nightmare, and finally the last future sees Equestria as a barren wasteland devoid of any life ''at all''.]]

* When the first ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' anime was rereleased on Blu-Ray in 2014, it [[DVDBonusContent included]] a "picture drama" named "Magical Girl Lyrical IF". The premise is that Nanoha doesn't discover the [[WeaselMascot magic ferret]] and TransformationTrinket. Instead [[http://www.imagebam.com/image/63189a362597377 they're found by the character Hayate]] from the sequel, ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs''. The drama is very tongue-in-cheek; at the end Hayate deals with [[DarkMagicalGirl Fate]] by [[http://www.imagebam.com/image/f5c3cd362597108 giving her]] [[ThroughHisStomach food]]. The food is apparently so delicious that Fate loses her transformation and [[http://www.imagebam.com/image/dd48e7362597348 gets rescued by Nanoha]], which suggests the actual point of divergence is Nanoha getting the Book of Darkness instead of Hayate.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': In the episode "Oops I Did It Again!", the Professor has a dream about what it would have been like if he actually had created the perfect little girls he intended to make, without the accidental addition of Chemical X.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has a canon variation in the episodes "Finn the Human" and "Jake the Dog", in which we see how the world would have turned out if the bomb that resulted in the series' mystical post-apocalypse landscape didn't detonate

Compare ItsAWonderfulPlot, CrackFic, AlternateContinuity, AlternateHistory, MirrorUniverse, {{Elseworld}} and RoleSwapAU. SuperTrope to AlternateUniverse, AlternateRealityEpisode, DoubleBlindWhatIf (where an in-universe Alternate History postulates how things would have gone had the Point of Divergence done what had happened in real life). Contrast WhatCouldHaveBeen, when an alternate version of the story or the elements in it was actually considered by the creators in real-life, but did not make it to the finished version.

Compare ItsAWonderfulPlot, CrackFic, AlternateContinuity, AlternateHistory, MirrorUniverse, {{Elseworld}} and RoleSwapAU. SuperTrope to AlternateUniverse, AlternateRealityEpisode, ForWantOfANail, DoubleBlindWhatIf (where an in-universe Alternate History postulates how things would have gone had the Point of Divergence done what had happened in real life). Contrast WhatCouldHaveBeen, when an alternate version of the story or the elements in it was actually considered by the creators in real-life, but did not make it to the finished version.

* ''[[Franchise/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Puella Magi Madoka Magica: The Different Story]]'' begins as a manga adaptation of one of the Drama [=CDs=][[note]]''Farewell Story''[[/note]], focusing on the mentor-student relationship of Mami and Kyouko, before expanding into a completely different story, where [[ForWantOfANail Mami survives the events of Episode 3 because Sayaka contracted earlier]], Homura and Kyouko form an alliance and Madoka is still agonising over what her wish should be. [[spoiler:[[YouCantFightFate Inevitably, Sayaka eventually succumbs to her despair]] and becomes a Witch ''in front of Mami'', [[FromBadToWorse and things spiral to hell from there]]]].

* Creator/DCComics was doing these type of stories years before Marvel, but they called them "Imaginary Stories." In later years, the name "Imaginary Story" came to viewed as corny, so DC took to calling them "[[{{Elseworld}} Elseworlds]]" stories, instead. The Elseworlds tales more frequently focused on plunking the characters into a different setting, rather than changing a historical incident, but some like Alan Davis's ''ComicBook/TheNail'' do take the classic, well, ForWantOfANail approach.

** ''ComicBook/TalesFromTheDarkMultiverse'' fully embraces ForWantOfANail, imagining how key events from DC history like ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'', ''ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman'', ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'', ''ComicBook/TheJudasContract'', ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'', ''ComicBook/{{Flashpoint}}'', ''ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths'' (and in this case, ''ComicBook/LastDaysOfTheJusticeSociety'' by extension), ''ComuicBook/WarOfTheGods'', and ''ComicBook/DarkNightsMetal'' might have turned out. The Dark Multiverse being the manifestation of the fears and hopes of those in the main DC Multiverse, it offers a HandWave for how things change and how they turn out.

** The ''Literature/TrailOfGlory'' series, posits an AlternateHistory of the "ForWantOfANail" variety, with Ensign Sam Houston not taking an arrow [[GroinAttack between the goalposts]] in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Horseshoe_Bend Battle of Horseshoe Bend]], unlike what happened in RealLife. One of the changes annoyed Francis Scott Key to no end.

* [[BigBad Another Decade]] from ''Series/KamenRiderZiO'' has the power to invoke this by creating alternate realities based on past ''Franchise/KamenRider'' shows where, due to an [[ForWantOfANail alteration]] to the story, the villains succeeded in their goals. He can then summon these villains to his reality to do battle for him.

** ChristmasEpisode "Lexmas": What If Lex Luthor decides to drop out of the senator race and let Jonathan Kent become senator? He would be HappilyMarried to Lana, not rich but very happy with one boy and expecting one girl, [[FanPreferredCouple Clark would be married to Chloe instead]]([[AmbiguousSituation maybe]]), Lex receives the Kansas Humanitarian Award for work for the homeless, Jonathan says he is the finest man he ever met and would be proud to have him as a son. Lex is simply on perfect terms with every single person except Lionel, but who cares? [[spoiler: Only for imaginary-Lana to die for that...]]. And Clark does not appear to have become Superman. ForWantOfANail indeed.

ForWantOfANail is a what-if where the difference is a single, tiny change, usually with an effect all out of proportion to the cause. InSpiteOfANail is the opposite; a what-if where a change results in a world almost identical to the original, albeit with a hole in it where the missing or changed element should have been.

* The MarvelUniverse series [[TropeNamer called]] ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' told stories where the events shown in the comics happened differently.

** Later ''What If?''s from Marvel have pretty much ditched the absurdist (or at least gag-inducing) settings for more plausible alternatives, for example "What if Captain America had won the Comicbook/CivilWar?" or "What if [[Comicbook/DarkReign the Siege of Asgard]] had been successful?"

* ''Theatre/AndJuliet'': The entire plot follows Anne Hathaway's revisioning of William Shakespeares's ending too ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'', questioning her husband "What if Juliet didn't kill herself after finding Romeo dead?'"

* While it was already an InNameOnly spin-off anyways, the English version of ''VideoGame/StreetFighter2010'', in some desparate attempt to remain consistent with the franchise, decides to go with the route of "What if Ken won the [[VideoGame/StreetFighterI first Street Fighter tournament]] instead of Ryu?".

* The last level of the ''VideoGame/StarWarsEpisodeIIIRevengeOfTheSith'' game lets you kill Obi-Wan as Anakin on Mustafar rather than being horribly burned in lava. After Palpatine gives his apprentice a new red lightsaber, Anakin stabs him with it and declares that the galaxy belongs to himself.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Ben 10}}'':

* The ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "Meet the Quagmires" shows what would happen if Peter was married to Creator/MollyRingwald instead of Lois. Al Gore would be president and Chevy Chase would host the ''Series/TheTonightShow''. As soon as Brian finds out that this world is a paradise compared to ours, he insists that Peter leave things be. [[StatusQuoIsGod Of course]], Peter can't do that.
** The 100th episode two-parter "Stewie Kills Lois" and "Lois Kills Stewie" turns out to be a computer simulation of what would happen if [[AntagonisticOffspring Stewie actually succeeded in killing Lois]]. The result being that would nearly frame Peter for her murder, but Lois would turn out to be NotQuiteDead and oust Stewie as the [[EnfantTerrible evil, matricidal child]] he is. With his secret exposed, however, Stewie would have no trouble succeeding in his other goal of [[TakeOverTheWorld world domination]] by force, leading to a bloody death match between him and Lois that ends with [[BigDamnHeroes Peter shooting Stewie dead]]]].
* The ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' "Anthology of Interest" episodes had the characters view, via one of the Professor's inventions, various "What if" scenarios. In the first one, it reveals that the entire framing sequence is itself such a scenario (For those curious, it was "What If the Professor had invented the Finglonger[[note]]a glove with an extended index finger[[/note]]?").

* ''Franchise/StarWars: Infinities'' is a series of one-shot comic issues built around this concept. Two examples include Luke dying on Hoth and Leia having to take up his mantle as well as her own, and C-3PO getting blown to bits in Jabba's palace... which somehow results in Darth Vader getting returned to the Light Side of the Force without dying.