scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/8m7zyo.md

Plot requires it examples

• Author: u/MooseMoosington Orkz*

• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8m7zyo/plot_requires_it_examples/

• Score: 12

• Created: 2018-05-26T05:17:45

Post:

I'm trying to figure out "plot requires it" situations in novels/webnovels I've read, and I am wondering if it is something like '...it's the n^th eon since x has happened and our lucky MC has luckily arrived in time to luckily participate in this fortuitous event that may cause him to rise into infinity and not smell stinky like everyone else.' Is that an example?

Comments:

u/DaystarEld [+28] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)

People stumbling onto each other/plot relevant situations while traveling through wilderness or while lost. Sometimes it's okay at the start of a story, if it's the coincidence that sets the plot in motion, but often times it's just a way to move the story along despite the improbability reaching absurd heights.

u/MooseMoosington [+7] Orkz (an hour later)

improbability reaching absurd heights

Like the main character averting world ending crises on a rather regular basis?

u/Xtraordinaire [+20] Team Glimglam (14 hours later)

Unconnected crises, specifically. If averting one crisis incurs a cost that leads to another, that's permissible, even desirable.

u/DaystarEld [+11] Pokémon Professor (an hour later)

Yeah, if you save the world like every other month, you're probably in a simulation specifically designed for you to be the main character.

u/None [+5] (a day later)

Or a really nasty world.

For example, you could write something Cthulutech-ish where the main character(s) routinely stop numerous world ending events, like anti-matter munitions, daemon summoning, deep one land invasions, and chicken shortages at Popeyes. It's not that the world is set up for them to save it, but rather that it needs saving a lot and it makes more sense to hire experienced people who have done it one (or more then once) already.

u/DaystarEld [+8] Pokémon Professor (a day later)

Yeah, though in those cases my suspension of disbelief would still be maintained better if they showed that there are other teams that also save the world on occasion, whether from the same types of threats or others.

u/None [+6] (a day later)

A very good point. I actually do that when DMing - I have the party run across another similarly or higher level party out in the world or in a tavern or something, who are in the process of saving someplace from something or someone. It adds to the verisimilitude of the setting.

u/None [+3] (2 days later)

Yeah, cause if there weren't why does the world still exist?

u/pleasedothenerdful [+1] (a day later)

Sounds like The Laundry.

u/None [+4] (2 days later)

Yeah, t's fine for a story to start with an improbable situation/coincidence. It's part of the point of story telling: there has to be a noteworthy thing to tell a story about. TV Tropes has the Antropic Principle, which basically covers this.

Where it becomes an issue if coincidences keep happening. Funnily enough real life doesn't have to pretend to be realistic so coincidences/lucky breaks can keep on piling up.

u/CCC_037 [+3] (a day later)

I can think of at least one story in which a character could actively manipulate probability and was helping the heroes, which was why they kept 'coincidentally' stumbling into plot relevant situations all the time...

u/None [+3] (2 days later)

Hmm, the issue with that type of story would be that it could easily run afoul of Sanderson's First Law of Magic, because the reader can't reasonably understand what the character can and can't do. So any plot problems that get solved with the power come across as a Deus Ex Machina.

Though you can still tell stories about this type of character, but you just have to focus on different aspects. Like how the character handles the freedom of consequences his power likely grants him.

u/CCC_037 [+2] (2 days later)

In the series in question (David Eddings, The Diamond Throne and sequels) it was never used to solve the plot - it was more used to bring together the characters who would then solve the plot. And it looked like pretty much the power to nudge coincidences - that is, if Person A and Person B both planned on arriving at the same town, then this power could be used to ensure that they did so at the same time (and thus met on the docks). It couldn't manipulate things that were not coincidence (e.g. the antagonist's direct plans)...

u/thrawnca [+18] Carbon-based biped (4 hours later)

Was it really in character for Darth Vader to simply allow Luke and co. to pass through the shield around Endor, instead of, say, having them surrounded and seized by the many Imperial craft that were certainly in the vicinity?

How about Sauron having not a single orc guarding his private volcano where he forged the One Ring? Or the fact that, despite being literally a giant flaming eyeball, he never noticed intruders carrying that ring into his domain - for weeks - until it was too late?

Why did Lord Voldemort stage dramatic confrontations with Harry Potter, but never anyone else? Eg Quirrell allowing Harry enough freedom to fight back or run, Diary!Riddle sending the Basilisk after Harry while holding Harry's wand and not using it, resurrected Voldemort allowing Harry to be untied from the gravestone and get a fair fight? Sure, he started to get over that tendency as Harry made him more frustrated, but we never see or hear of him even offering it to anyone else. And why, when captured at Malfoy Manor, were Harry and Hermione simply disarmed and locked up, instead of, say, being literally disarmed? Broken bones are easy for a magical healer to treat, but very difficult for a prisoner to work around.

u/Iconochasm [+20] (7 hours later)

To be fair, no one does that in Harry Potter. The utter refusal to snap captured wands, snap fingers, or cut out tongues had me spitting with frustration in the latter books. These are murderous magic Nazi terrorists, for fuck's sake, surely that justifies property destruction on the order of breaking a car window!

u/thrawnca [+9] Carbon-based biped (7 hours later)

Leaving a prisoner their tongue I can actually understand, if you want to interrogate them. But yes, you would expect terrorists to violently disable captives, especially when magic makes it easy and relatively safe to do.

u/ZeroNihilist [+14] (9 hours later)

There's also an argument with Harry Potter that anything less than a desecration of the soul will be trivially fixable.

"Oh, you need to regrow your skeletal system? There's a potion for that. Tongue cut out? Sounds like a good opportunity for a potion, or maybe there's a spell we teach thirteen-year-olds that would suffice."

u/melmonella [+10] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (12 hours later)

Leaving a prisoner their tongue I can actually understand, if you want to interrogate them.

Just regrow it for the interrogation then.

u/GeeJo [+1] Custom Flair (2 days later)

You probably don't even need to cut it out. A Tongue-Tying Curse would prevent any communication between prisoners, and can be lifted by the captors as needed. Probably any number of school-level jinxes could do the same.

u/melmonella [+1] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (2 days later)

Less secure than a knife though.

u/Inocain [+5] (15 hours later)

Tongue removal is not even that debilitating under default canon. It's a problem not because people are unable to do it, but because there is little training in it. Using magic non-verbally and wandlessly is clearly possible (see "accidental magic"), but people don't make a conscious effort to learn how to control magic in that way. It could also be theoretically possible for the pain of being violently disabled to be enough to induce an outburst of accidental magic to the detriment of the captors, and so it is avoided unless absolutely necessary.

u/melmonella [+3] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (2 days later)

So sedate them beforehand then. Tranquilisers aren't that hard to buy.

u/Inocain [+1] (2 days later)

And keep them sedated indefinitely?

u/melmonella [+2] Tremble, o ye mighty, for a new age is upon you (2 days later)

You said violently disabled. Waking up from a sleep with your tongue surgically removed is not "violently disabled".

u/Nimelennar [+15] (11 hours later)

Let's take a wade through everyone's favourite redheaded stepchild, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I'll stick to Phase I.

Iron Man:

• Okay, they set up a good reason why Stark might have a spare Arc Reactor downstairs, but it just happens to be in a place that he has just barely enough energy to reach when the plot demands it.
• Pepper's appointment with Agent Coulson just happens to be scheduled at the exact moment where she's fleeing Stark Industries with the incriminating data.
• Tony's spare reactor has just enough power to escape Stane for just long enough to reach freezing altitude.

The Incredible Hulk:

• The window Banner drops down in front of while escaping in Brazil just happens to be the cute girl from work, not one of the thugs harassing her.
• Betty decides to go for pizza (implied to be a rare event) when Banner is in the pizza shop.

Iron Man 2:

• Hammer is at the race when Stark is attacked by Venko
• Not only does the new element Stark uses to power the Arc reactor not have the toxic effects of palladium, it instantly cures them.
• They get all the information they need to figure out that Venko is going to attack just in time for Tony to arrive at the very end of Hammer's presentation.
• The timed detonator on the Venkobots give Tony just enough time to rescue Pepper.

Thor:

• It kind of makes sense why Jane was in the perfect place to run Thor over the first time: she was investigating the Bifrost, even though she didn't know it. Running over him the second time, on the other hand, is much too contrived.
• Jane's notebook is in a place where it can be easily grabbed by Thor on his way out of the compound
• Heimdall thaws at exactly the right time to bring Thor back to Asgard to stop Loki

Captain America: The First Avenger:

• The regiment that Cap goes overseas to perform for is the same one Bucky, his childhood friend, is attached to, and Agent Carter, the Colonel, and Stark are all present there too.
• Bucky is both the one who is currently being experimented on when Cap arrives to free him, and the one for whom the experimentation worked.
• The Howling Commandos from the Captain America propaganda films look exactly like the Howling Commandos that he rescues along with Bucky.
• The one time Cap gets kissed by a girl, Agent Carter is there to get jealous.
• Somehow, all the world's known vibranium has been made into a prototype shield, that is lying nearby when Cap needs a new shield.
• The delays of blowing up all those factories work out so perfectly that they arrive just in time to intercept the plane being launched.

Marvel's The Avengers:

• The one character personally killed by Loki on the Helicarrier is the one with a personal connection to each of the Avengers.
• Tony has his next prototype armour (the Mark VII) in the final stages of development just as he goes to confront Loki in Stark tower wearing a barely-functional Mark VI.
• Loki's Sceptre, being actively used throughout the Battle of Manhattan, which is the only thing that can stop the Tesseract, is dropped atop Stark Tower, right next to the Tesseract.
• The Mark VII has just enough power to take the nuke through the Wormhole, and then fails immediately afterwards.

...That's just off the top of my head, and that's just Phase I.

I wouldn't describe your "rise into infinity" scenario as being a "plot requires it" so much as something similar to the anthropic principle: if your MC wasn't the one to participate in the fortuitous event and become awesome, then someone else would, and the story would be about them instead. If it happens multiple times to the same MC, then yeah (e.g. Harry Potter, who has already defeated Voldemort twice and cemented MC status, is in the right position to attend the Triwizard tournament and the Quidditch World Cup, both happening in Britain for the first time in ages).

"Plot requires it" events are generally more like the MCU examples. It's not that there's a Chekov's Gun for the MC to use, but that the MC gets thrown by a "random" explosion so that they're lying right next to the Gun.

u/MooseMoosington [+4] Orkz (11 hours later)

Well my point was it only happens sooo very rarely and the MC just happens to walk by at that time/place to participate. Your examples do bring to light how much of this phenomenon I've missed over the years though. Thanks

u/Nimelennar [+20] (12 hours later)

Again, though, if the MC "just happens" to walk by the event that makes them become awesome, that's less "the plot demands it" and "that's why this character is the MC." For instance, take Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie didn't win ownership of the factory because he was a paragon of virtue, he won because every other child was a the kind of horrible person who pestered their parents to buy enough chocolate so that they couldn't help but find a ticket. Any average child would probably have done well enough to outmatch the spoiled brats on the tour: Charlie was just the one who found the candy bar first, and thus became the MC. If he hadn't, someone else (probably equally poor, given the neighbourhood) would have, and the story would have been "Caroline and the Chocolate Factory."

u/MooseMoosington [+4] Orkz (12 hours later)

That's reasonable

u/Xtraordinaire [+12] Team Glimglam (15 hours later)

If it happens once, then it depends. A farm boy becoming a hero is not in itself an instance of "plot requires it", because stories are subject to survivorship bias. Think of it from an in-universe writer's perspective. Obviously, someone has to be successful. Once someone has risen from rags to riches, the writer traces history back to his humble origins, and it looks improbable until we remember that there were millions of other farm boys that died unknown and unsung.

But if your farm boy starts on a journey and at the end of it discovers that he is of noble origin then it's it. (One notable exception is the self-fulfilling prophecy thingie)

u/Nimelennar [+7] (16 hours later)

Yeah. Garion in the Belgariad wouldn't be an example, because this has always been his prophesied destiny, even if he spent time as a farm boy, and the people taking him off the farm and turning him into a hero know all about that destiny. None of it is coincidental.

Luke in Star Wars, on the other hand... of all the moisture farmers on Tattooine, what are the odds that a message from Princess Leia ends up in the hands of Luke Skywalker, son of a Jedi? Even taking into account that Obi-wan Kenobi, the message's intended recipient, is necessarily going to be near Luke, what are the odds that Owen and Beru Lars needed those two specific kinds of droids (interpreter and astromech) right then?

u/Throwitover9000 [+6] (2 hours later)

Often it's less about happenstance and more about characters making decisions for no good reason other than that the plot demands it. A common example from media would be splitting up when it is clearly the worst possible idea.

u/rabotat [+4] (3 days later)

One I've seen recently (and couldn't believe) was in Logan.

Spoilers below.

When they stop at the farm after being hunted and found twice. They just barely escaped that very day. What the fuck did they think would happen?! Logan obviously is aware of this as he insists they leave... and is promptly persuaded by Xavier to stay. Because... There was no pressing reason to stay and all the reasons to flee.

The deaths of that family were the most predictable and preventable event in the entire movie.

It made me mad at the writers of an otherwise perfectly fine film.

u/hoja_nasredin [+3] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)

Imho coincidences are ok if they serve the plot, they are not ok if they help the protagonist solve his problems.

u/MooseMoosington [+5] Orkz (16 hours later)

Like a meteor that falls from the sky smiting the big bad before he can be mean to our protagonist?

u/hoja_nasredin [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (17 hours later)

yes

u/ceegheim [+3] (13 hours later)

Crime and punishment: Why do Raskolnikov's sister and Razumikhin become rich and able to support him after he returns from Siberia? Because his redemption needs him to get into a good place, through no effort of his own.

I prefer the Brecht / Weill variant, or better in the original German from the three-penny opera.

u/jaghataikhan [+1] Primarch of the White Scars (a day later)

Yuge fan of crime and punishment here - what's the opera in the first link? video unavailable for me

u/ceegheim [+1] (a day later)

Threepenny opera by Brecht & Weill. I was referring to the scene when the mounted messenger arrives to pardon Mack the Knife, and he also gets ennobled, oh and also a castle, oh and also a yearly rent, by decree of the king (a pony was not explicitly included). The scene is so over the top that you get the sense that he really gets executed and you are watching a bad fix-fic. And the song of the messenger is quite funny at that.

In the original German version, there even is an announcer in the theatre who explains that Mack now needs to get saved because people pay more for happy endings, since they don't get them in real life. I don't know whether this got cut for the broadway version.

This is how I felt when reading the end of crime & punishment. The first arcs were brilliant, but the ending left me very dissatisfied; not over-the-top enough to fully break suspension of disbelief, instead stranded in the uncanny valley of "the plot/morale required it".

PS. If this fourth-wall breaking sounds cliche, it is because Brecht kinda pioneered its use in that way, see here for why Mack actually must get saved (Brecht was pretty transparent about his style). Maybe I read Dostojewsky too literally, and the "Entfremdungseffekt" was intended; but it somehow did not sit right with me.

u/ben_oni [+2] (15 hours later)

My goto example is Downton Abbey, which basically runs on what the plot demands.

u/aloofguy7 [+2] (a day later)

Hah.

If I recall, Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are also works that these trope applies too.

For all that ninjas are awesome, there are some things that don't even make sense. Particularly, the massive idiot ball that allowed Kaguya and 'The Ultimate Mastermind' Black Zetsu to be sealed again...

I mean. What in the world was Black Zetsu thinking not learning every single technique he could in all those years???!

...and his apparent genius was so overrated. Even moreso than the Fourth Hokage. Why didn't he advise Kaguya to BFR each and every remaining member of the last team or simply use whatever means to kill off Obito (or Kakashi, in case he really had adapted to use Kamui without Sharingan eyes just like Madara was skilled enough to use Susanoo without having special eyes...)

1. Kill Teleporters.
2. BFR Sasuke and Naruto into different dimensions and kill Kakashi and Sakura. (Or use them as bait for step 2.)
3. Let them starve.
4. ...
5. PROFIT???

Right...?

(On another note I wonder what would have happened if Madara had transplanted a Byakugan in himself...)

u/vallar57 [+2] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (a day later)

Naruto is filled with so many idiot balls its harder to find something that doesnt count as one. This isnt "the plot requires it" though, its just idiot balls, a related, but separate trope.

u/Oaden [+2] (2 days later)

Depends, a the plot demands can materialize in the plot demanding that a character does something stupid.

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