Hasn't stopped some of the examples from having a somewhat negative tone
I've heard it said that coincidences are more accepted earlier in the story as opposed to later. This is sort of brought up down-page. There's also one of Pixar's "rules of storytelling": "Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating."
One thing that comes to mind is our entry on The Force Awakens. Most of the coincidences there happen in the first act.
The examples are getting really long; I move that we split them into subpages.
Have you seen my comic yet?
I've sometimes read that movies are "allowed" one coincidence to set up the plot. Stuff like "John Mc Clane visits Nakatomi Plaza at exactly the day it gets attacked by terrorists" - because otherwise there would be no movie. Does this necessarily fall under Contrived Coincidence or does the trope only apply when there's more than that?
Edited by Cifer
How come Detective Conan isn't mentioned under "Anime & Manga" seriously ?
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I know I've seen an entry for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in an article in these lines, and I suppose it must have been this one. So I suppose it has been here and was removed. Can someone give a reason why? (It was about no-one being killed by the basilisk because everyone just happened to see it only in a reflection or something.)
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What you're talking about falls under Theory of Narrative Causality (i.e. it happened that way because the author says it did). It only falls under "contrived coincidence" if it's ridiculously improbable (the article's example is "you just happen to meet one particular guy again on a battlefield involving over a million combatants"), and there's no in-universe explanation. Chamber of Secrets would only apply if say, the basilisk had been turned loose in the banquet hall at dinner with hundreds of people there, failed to kill anyone, and no one comments on it or provides an explanation for it. But the book sets up plausible reasons why the characters in each case were petrified instead of killed, so it's mere coincidence, not Contrived Coincidence, and that falls under Theory of Narrative Causality.
I had no idea this had already been raised before me so, less someone removes it again, I'd like to reinforce our point. The chances that three people (and one cat) all just happened to have some random interference occuring in the exact moment it would save their lives, and they all inadvertently happened to take advantage of that interferance, are infinitesmal. Thus Contrived Coincedences.
What do we call a coincidence contrived by the characters? (You know, a plot that's meant to resemble a coincidence.)
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Removed a couple examples from the Contrived Coincidence page that I felt were faulty. Remember that this concept is being defined as "...a highly improbable occurrence in a story which is required by the plot, but which has absolutely no outward justification". With that in mind, the removed Back to the Future example and the Dresden Files example, and probably a lot of others I didn't address, do not fit.
The cited part from Back to the Future complained that it was too big of a coincidence that Biff went back to the same point that Marty went back to in the first movie. How justifiable this is could be debated all day, but the important fact is that what date, specifically, he chose was not terribly important to the plot.
The cited part from the Dresden Files involved the divine intervention that follows the Knights of the Cross; this divine intervention represents a concrete force at work within the novel, and so does not fall under the definition of having "no outward justification".
Many of these other examples should probably be looked at as well.
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Actually, I'd say the date Biff chose is quite important to the plot, since one of the complications is that Marty has to get the book back without affecting the events of the first film. If Old Biff decided to visit the fifth of May 1964 and give himself the almanac, that aspect of the plot wouldn't be there.
These are general comments. The example section is for specific example works. Please see How To Write An Example, particularly the Keep It An Example: subsection.
- Is there an anime or manga without a scene where two characters don't just happen to bump into each other? Tokyo isn't that small, is it?
- Most gay romance novels (especially those with teenagers) are practically built on this trope, where the couples meet in contexts not necessarily related to gay people or finding a lover. This means they're beating a 90% chance that the other person is straight.
Is it worth having one for the Crisis Core part of Final Fantasy VII?
SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY
He only meets Yuffie, Aerith and Tifa. He also works, in a sense, under Reeve (Controller of Caith Sith #Whatever). Now, the editor suggested that they didn't remember, but I wish to suggest that Yuffie was so hyper, she didn't think anything of it. Secondly, Aerith DID, in FFVII, make many references (though not in name) to Zack, even going out in tears when visiting his parents. Lastly, Tifa does seem to remember him, but, as we find out through the course of the story, she hides a lot of the knowledge of the past in order to keep Cloud happy.
Definitely one of those Trope Names that sounds insulting and critical but the trope name itself is neutral.
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