Didnt See That Coming / Webcomics

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• A chain of these in Alanna. Tristan has forcibly bonded OB, the god of lightning and dissection, to himself, and EB, the god of Frost and Destruction, to the protagonist. All he needs to do is capture the protagonist, and he pretty much wins. He knows that the protagonist has a lightning sprite that can absorb his electrical attacks to become stronger, but considers it to be a non-factor because sprites are easily banished. He also knows that EB's creations will obey her, but isn't worried because he has a small army of Amalgams, and also knows that OB's creations can only function under OB's orders. However, he was completely unaware of several important facts: firstly, OB's creations had a small degree of autonomy, and had built a clone of OB to guide them; Tristan didn't know about this because Fake!OB was non-functional, but the protagonist managed to get it operational. In return, Fake!OB sent OB's creations against Tristan for the final battle, and also gave the protagonist's lightning sprite a warding that made it impossible for Tristan to banish. lastly, it gave her a means to communicate with the imprisoned Real!OB. Tristan's reaction to this is absolutely priceless. More importantly however, Tristan is unaware that there was a complication during EB's bonding. At the start of the story, "Spirit Guides" (Actually the readers, who give the protagonist suggestions on what to do) were bonded to the protagonist, occupying the place where EB was supposed to go, meaning that EB is actually bound to the readers, instead of the protagonist. Since we can sever our connection with the protagonist at any time, the readers are essentially provided with a big red button labeled "Screw Tristan's plans six ways to Sunday." And Tristan certainly couldn't have predicted the readers using this information to prove to the original OB that Tristan's plan couldn't work, and that this would cause OB to take advantage of Tristan's unstable mental state when he tried to go One-Winged Angel to leave his body.
• Bob and George:
  • Our Idiot Hero is on the edge of a cliff with The Yellow Demon jumping at him — so he runs back and the cliff falls. Bet you the demon didn't see it coming.
  • And the sickly Met Demon actually has an attack. X uses the trope name
• This Darths & Droids strip neatly showcases how PC's can become incredibly paranoid of these dangers (make sure to read the comments at the bottom).
• At DeviantArt, even something as simple as going to do some lower body workout can have Unknown Unknowns, as seen in "Refreshments" where two women get a drink of water on the way and transform into mermaids. ("You think they'll let us use the pool then?")
• In El Goonish Shive, when Abe disarmed the elf. Anybody who forgets he's fighting a wizard after having to overcome his spells just to get there deserves to be spammed by exploding crows on the spot.
• The defunct webcomic Filthy Lies had one character daydream a Self-Insert fic where he was a Jerkass Stu (using Felix Felicis, for example, to have a threesome with Hermione and Ginny) in the events of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...who, during the climax, ended up screwing everything up so that all the good guys died. He even took the big moment away from Snape by accidentally bumping Dumbledore off the top of the tower with poor broom handling before Snape could perform Avada Kedavra.
  Snape: I did not see that coming.
• Furry Fight Chronicles: Cookie after Kalita borrows Black Orchid's Finishing Move to One-Hit Kill Muko. She even points out how unexpected it was for Kalita to flash her breasts, noting how she thought the vixen to be more reserved.
• Kale Williams utters those exact words in the Quetza Drake's Furthia High comic, when Campy shows up to the school dance with a male date.
  • Ashley averts it when she calmly replies, "I did."
• Girl Genius:
  • No character ever gets to have everything go according to plan. Something always happens just when you least expect it. They can only be better or worse at being on top of the chaos.
  • This strip sums everything up perfectly. While the rest of the gang sees the events as this trope, Moloch von Zinzer knows otherwise.
    Moloch: How is it possible that this could surprise any of you people?
• In Homestuck, sprites are privy to all of the information needed for a successful Sburb run, and seers are designed to help win the game with intense knowledge of a specific subject. So, the seer-turned-sprite known as Rosesprite has absolutely no idea why their creation is even remotely useful, and none of the other sprites nor seers have a clue either.
  • Really, two major unexpected factors completely derail the plans of the main villains close to the end:
    • Firstly, it's an accepted fact in paradox space that events are essentially predestined when it comes to anyone involved in any SBURB session, and any 'offshoot' timelines are 'doomed' since everyone is destined to die somehow. Until John acquires the power to 'retcon' the "Alpha Timeline" through contact with Lord English's juju, and with Terezi's planning, ensures that he acquires the Ring of Life before Aranea has the chance to steal it (taking her out of the picture entirely), and ensuring that Vriska survives, allowing her to put both Jade and Jane to sleep while they're under mind control. The Condense's carefully-engineered plans proceed to completely collapse as a result.
    • Lord English is desperately searching through Paradox Space and smashing the hell out of it in order to try and find the ghost of his sister, Calliope, and kill her. Unfortunately for him, he's too distracted by this and the massive force assembled to try and take him down to be aware of the other version of his sister who killed her version of Caliborn, and performs a Heroic Sacrifice to destroy the Green Sun, shutting down English's main source of power.
• The Order of the Stick: "You know, the first two, I probably should've seen coming. The leprechaun costume? Not so much."
  • The identity of the champion.
    Thog: thog is the Champion, thog's friends! And thog will keep fighting to the end!
  • And of course, the true secret the Gods have been hiding all along: this iteration of the world-prison is currently in the millions. Not hundreds, not thousands, millions of worlds and trillions dead.
• Schlock Mercenary: Colonel DeHaans gloats to Schlock's face that, once he edits his memories, it will be as if they were the best of friends, making Schlock's promise to kill and eat him moot. Three days later, Schlock works around this by eating a bit of himself containing his original memories that he shoved in one of his eyes, allowing him to remember his promise and deliver on it while DeHaans is taking a shower. Amorph physiology is convenient like that.
• Happens all the time in Sluggy Freelance. Often followed by Riff's Catchphrase, "Let me check my notes."
  • One particularly memorable moment is an inversion.
    Riff: Torg, why are there pants on the floor?
    Torg: They're my emergency pants.
    Riff: ...why do you have emergency pants?
    Torg: I don't know, but in every situation I could think up, I was glad to have them.
  • Followed about twenty strips later by magical moths that eat all clothing. "This looks like a job for emergency pants!" He did see it coming, even though he couldn't have.
• S.S.D.D.: the Oracle is usually successful in his Gambit Roulettes due to the fact that he was designed to make accurate predictions, but apparently Time Travel throws him off.
• In an xkcd comic, some nerds figure out how to end all relationship drama (via a mathematical equation, naturally), but upon testing their theory in the real world, all the relationship drama, in fact, SPIKES, leading one to say "Holy shit... people are complicated!

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