A Wizard Did It: Difference between revisions

[[File:MAGIC!2.jpg|link=Penny Arcade (Webcomic)|rightframe]]

{{quote|'''Frink''': "Yes, over here, [...] in [[Xena: Warrior Princess|Episode BF12]], you were battling barbarians while riding a winged Appaloosa, yet in the very next scene, my dear, [[Headscratchers|you're clearly atop a winged Arabian! Please do explain it!]]<br />

'''[[Xena: Warrior Princess|Lucy Lawless]]:''' Uh, yeah, well, whenever you notice something like that... [[Trope Namer|a wizard did it]].<br />

'''Frink:''' Yes, alright, yes, in episode AG04-"<br />

'''Lucy Lawless:''' Wizard!|''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'', "[[Treehouse of Horror]] X"}}

The standard all-encompassing explanation for any continuity errors noticed by hardcore fans of any given fantasy show. If it doesn't make sense, [[A Wizard Did It]]. [[Bellisario's Maxim|Move on, nothing to see here]].

Can be used to [[Hand Wave]] away minor nitpicks and [[Contrived Coincidence|Contrived Coincidences]]s that should really be covered by [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]]. However, using it to excuse major [[Plot Hole|Plot Holes]]s that the creators really should've caught beforehand ''will'' make people rightly angry.

This explanation can also often bring some extra [[Fridge Logic]] into a story, when [['''A Wizard Did It]]''' is given as an explanation and the wizard later fails in a situation in some way that could have easily been solved by [[Forgotten Phlebotinum|the wizard just doing what he apparently did before.]] This can also lead to [[Reed Richards Is Useless]] when you realize the possible, fantastic uses of that random magic trick nobody seems to care about.

Contrast [[Bellisario's Maxim]], [[MST3K Mantra]], [[Doing inIn the Wizard]], [[All Just a Dream]]. See also [[Plot-Sensitive Items]].

Not to be confused with [[The Butler Did It]]. Unless [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|the butler was a wizard]].

* Similar to the ''Haruhi'' example above, ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' can [[Hand Wave]] anything just by claiming {{spoiler|[[Reality Warper|Drosselmeyer]] did it}}.

* All of ''[[Strike Witches|Strike Witches']]''{{'}} oddities can be amply explained by the presence of magic.

* ''[[Yotsubato|Yotsuba&!]]'': Yotsuba invokes this trope in chapter 68 to try to squirm out of trouble when she breaks some dishes, to patch up holes in her story. Her father doesn't buy it for a second.

* [[The DCU|DC Comics]] used an in-character plot device in the ''Infinite Crisis'' miniseries to justify various [[Retcon|RetCons]]s and mistakes. "Superboy punch!" is now the standard response among fandom to questions about inconsistencies; this replaces the refrain of "[[Hypertime]]!", contributed by a previous miniseries, ''The Kingdom''.

** People acting [[Out of Character]] these days is blamed on Deathstroke's mind -altering drugs, primarily because this was the canon (via [[Retcon]]) explanation for Cassandra Cain /Batgirl's poorly executed [[Face Heel Turn]] after ''Infinite Crisis''.

*** "Deathstroke's drugs" are the DC equivalent of MarvelsMarvel's "Skrull imposter".

** The epically awesome ''[[Booster Gold]]'' series [[Lampshading|made fun]] of the "Superboy-Prime punching reality" thing.

* With the "''[[One More Day]]"'' storyline in ''[[Spider-Man]]'', Marvel's official explanation for how Peter Parker's "marriage for Aunt May's life" [[Deal with the Devil]] brought back both his webslingerswebshooters and Harry Osborn was "It's magic. We don't have to explain it."

** "[[Actually a Doombot]]" is often used to explain any Doctor Doom story a writer does not like. Someone even had the theory that we have NEVER''never'' seen the real Doom. It's been ALL''all'' [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Doombots]] all along!

* The ''[[Mad Magazine]]'' parody of ''[[The Guns of Navarone]]'' had a [[Running Gag]] in which every [[Contrived Coincidence]] in the storyline was the result of gnomes secretly employed by the Allies to set things up. Which worked great until the ending, when a [[Trigger Happy]] member of the team kills the gnomes before they can complete the escape plan...

* ''[[Travels Through Azeroth and Outland|Travels through Azeroth and Outland]]'' uses this trope, and then explains why the wizard went through all the trouble.

* Quite a bit of ''[[The Emiya Clan]]'' revolves around one of the rather annoying magicians that hang around the family doing something silly to mess things up (and occasionally fix them, but only occasionally). Lampshaded at one point.

{{quote|'''Shiki:''' "And how are we alive?"

'''Shirou:''' "[[A Wizard Did It]]."

'''Shiki:''' "It’s sad that we can reasonably use that excuse these days…" }}

* The standard explanation for any continuity errors in the new ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' moviemovies is, "A particularly troubled time-traveling Romulan did it."

* In a meta example from ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' films, during an interview director Peter Jackson praised the humility and amiability of Sir [[Ian McKellen]]. He recalled an example regarding the siege of Gondor, which is paraphrased:

'''Jackson:''' ''The staff is out of [[Mana Meter|batteries]], and because of the war the alchemist's shop is closed and he can't get new ones.''<br />

* In the ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld/Thief of Time|Thief of Time]]'', most of the inconsistencies and ambiguities in the Discworld timeline (as well as some of the [[Schizo-Tech]]) are implied to be the result of the first Glass Clock [[Time Crash|shattering history]], or side effects of the History Monks cleaning up afterwards. They describe how they moved "excess time" to where it wouldn't be noticed (such as deep in the ocean) and likewise moved time from such places when required. The fact that most characters fail to notice the inconsistencies (like, for example, Ankh-Morpork having a 16th century Shakespearean theater across the river from a 19th century opera house, and the same characters appearing in two books set nearly a century apart) is explained by the fact that [[Weirdness Censor|most people only notice what they expect to notice]].

** [[Terry Pratchett]] has declared that all timelines are correct, but some went down different legs of the "Trousers of Time." He's also phrased it as, "There are no continuity errors in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novels. There are, however, alternate pasts."

* ''[[John Dies at the End]]'' has an example of this, in a similar vein to Discworld, outside the books. Back before it was published, the author, David Wong had a couple of possible inconsistencies pointed out. His response? "There are no plot-holes: just more layers of mystery".

* ''[[Xanth]]'' [[Retcon|retconnedretcon]]ned its considerable continuity errors in one book, where it's revealed that the expanding "Region of Madness" has caused odd fluctuations in people's magical talents. For example, at one time the Gorgon could only turn men into stone with her gaze; later her powers worked on women as well.

* ''[[Glory Road (novel)|Glory Road]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] contains a reflections about the "It's Magic" form of [[Hand Wave]]. In his [[Inner Monologue]] characterOscar Gordon noted that "It's Television" is exactly as much counter-productive.

** "It could be witches! Some evil witches! Which is ridiculous 'cause witches, they were persecuted, wiccaWicca good, and love the earth, and women power, and I'll be over here..."

* ''[[Doctor Who]]''. In "[[Doctor Who/Recap/S31 /E12 The Pandorica Opens|"The Pandorica Opens"]]" The following dialogue occurs between The Doctor and Amy Pond:

{{quote|'''Doctor''': "There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos.. and nothing could stop it or hold it or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world."

'''Doctor''': You know fairy tales- a good wizard tricked it." }}

{{quote|'''River Song''' I hate it when a wizard did it; {{spoiler|It always turns out to be him.}}}}

* How is that all five of the Final Five managed to survive the Cylon destruction of the Twelve Colonies in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 TV series)|the 2004 reboot of ''Battlestar Galactica]]'']]? Along with an admiral whose family had history with the creator of the Cylons? And the Colonials and Cylons converge on the Algae Planet and in the Ionian Nebula despite the size of the universe?<ref>[[One True Sequence]], of course.</ref> No doubt the higher power that doesn't like to be called "God" is responsible. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in the Final Five and Algae Planet cases.

* ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' uses several variations on the theme. For instance, the electric [[Stun Gun|Stun Guns]]s Warehouse Agents carry were invented by Nikola Tesla (a ''very'' standard way of explaining late-era [[Steampunk]] tech) and the [[Diesel PunkDieselpunk]]-looking iPhones they carry were invented by Philo Farnsworth (one of several people credited with inventing the television).

* In ''[[Community]]'' episode "[[Community/Recap/S2 /E08 Cooperative Calligraphy|"Cooperative Calligraphy"]]", the study group concludes a ghost must have stolen Annie's pen.

* In ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' if something is off, it can easily be explained in-universe as being because the Warp did it. If not the Warp, then the C'Tan did it. If not the C'Tan, then the Eldar did it. (Being the wizards who did it is their [[Planet of Hats|hat]].) If not the Eldar, then the God-Emperor of Man did it. If none of the above did it, it was certainly [[Memetic Badass|Commissar Sebastian Yarrick]]'s fault. And even if any, all, or ''none'' of the above did it, [[The Chessmaster|Tzeentch]] either [[Xanatos Gambit|did it, arranged it, opposed it, or helped it]], and in most cases, he did ''[[Gambit Pileup|all of that at the same time.]]''

** Tzeentch did it in normal ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'', too. He's been working carefully for ~40,000 years and it still doesn't make any damn sense. [[Go Mad Fromfrom the Revelation|Making no damn sense]] is Tzeentch's [[Planet of Hats|hat]]. Everything Tzeentch does is part of some master plan of his. However, it's impossible to tell what this plan is actually ''for'', because its elements seem nonsensical, self-contradictory and -- asand—as befitting a Chaos God -- utterlyGod—utterly chaotic. It's possible it ''doesn't'' actually have an end goal -- planninggoal—planning is part of his nature, but no-one said his plans have to make sense or actually accomplish anything.

* Many bizarre, inexplicable, or just plain silly monsters from the early days of ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'' were said to be the product of wizards playing [[Evilutionary Biologist]] in their spare time. Even ''gnolls'' were initially reputed to be the result of [[A Wizard Did It]]. The classic example is the owlbear.

* In ''[[Magic: The Gathering|Magic the Gathering]]'', YOU''you'' are the wizard that did it.

** Lampshaded in the [https://web.archive.org/web/20081231105914/http://www.wizards.com/magicMagic/magazineMagazine/articleArticle.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/jc20%2Fdaily%2Fjc20 original rulebook]:

{{quote|'''Q:''' Can my opponent do something that doesn't make sense, such as casting both Holy Strength and Unholy Strength on his Air Elemental?

* [[White Wolf]] eventually took the position that everything written in the ''Warcraft'' RPGs were actually in-universe documents, and any errors was the result of bad information. Some portions of the books do look like they could've been in-universe (several books are almost entirely written by one guy) other parts, not so much.

* In the new edition of ''[[Gamma World]]'', one of the suggestions they give for how to reconcile the Plant and Android character origins boils down to A Wizard Did It when you strip out the setting jargon and [[Techno Babble]] -- it—it suggests that you hail from a remote worldline (Somesome exotic place the players will probably never see), where Psionic masters (Wizards) create golem-like servants out of plant matter. (Your character, which exists because A Wizard Did It.)

* The French have a phrase to express it : "Ta gueule, c'est magique" (Shut up, that's magical). It often pops up when a [[Game Master]] is asked questions about something in his campaign. It's often shortened to TGCM or TGM. In English it's "SUIM" (shut up--itup—it's magic).

** ''Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles'' actually explains HOW he did some of the more wizardy things. And for those things the wizard did to HIM''him'', well, Birkin did it.

* A mutantmutation of this has become a meme among the players of the MMORPG ''[[City of Heroes]]'': "If it doesn't make sense, it's a Nemesis Plot." Nemesis himself is a supervillain who is infamous for making [[Gambit Roulette|plots within plots within plots]] and is revealed to be a driving force, or at least the root cause, of many of the conflicts going on in the game.

** It also helps that the two [[Universe Compendium|Universe Compendiums]]s are (in universe) written by Akyuu or Aya, both of whom are something of an [[Unreliable Narrator]].

*** In the Shivering Isles expansion for ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: Oblivion'', one quest has the player dealing with a town full of duplicates. When asked how the duplicates came about, the quest-giving NPC only tells you [[A Wizard Did It]].

** If you press, they will demonstrate HOW''how'' they did it, too!

** This makes certain scenes extra humorous. For instance, when the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] II'' explains her hatred of the Force, it translates to a burning desire to kill the writers a la ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]''.

* In the ''[[Castlevania]]'' series, its revealed in the chronological first entry that Dracula became a vampire and started all his shenanigans because he obtained (or created?) [[Plot Device|the Crimson stone.]] This is all fine and dandy, however while the [[Word of God|director]] covered a few unexplained aspects of the series there have been no attempts made to officially explain why human malcontent and evil revives him whenever he is off'ed (or why this evidently happens like clockwork every 100 years, though he is "prematurely" revived about every 15 minutes), why he is in command of the angel of Death (The Grim reaper [[Face Heel Turn|betrayed one vampire lord guy]] and gave his soul to Drac, evidently because he has the Crimson Stone. Nothing has ever stated why the stone- if that's the reason at all- makes Death Drac's [[Ho Yay|"confident"]]), why the titular Castle of the series vanishes and reappears whenever Drac is out of his coffin, why he has apparent command over all the demons of hell and mythological creates from every corner of the world, why he can enter what one game introduced as [[Plot Device|"The Chaos Realm"]] and exactly what this has to do with him(fan speculation is its the source of his powahs), or how he exactly went from being just a really powerful, pissed off vampire to becoming the [[The Antichrist|"Dark Lord"]]. We are left to assume that the Crimson Stone did all of it; while crafted through alchemy it may as well be [[A Wizard Did It|wizardry]].

* In ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', Medieval Mode is an alternate game mode in which players are restricted to using "medieval" weapons and speak in [[Ye Olde ButcheredButcherede EnglishEnglishe]]. Why? Because the Soldier angered a wizard. This doesn't explain the fact that the castle in which the game takes place is actually a high-tech spy base in disguise.

** Later, that same wizard--whowizard—who turns out to be the Soldier's roommate--isroommate—is angered again and summons [[Faceless Eye|MONOCULUS]], a demon possessing Demoman's other eyeball. This same Halloween 2012 update revealed they're both pretty sucky roommates.

* Some of the more bizarre and impossible capabilities of the Bydo in ''[[R-Type|Bydo]] -- like''—like their ability to infect and mutate machinery as if it were biological material -- canmaterial—can be literally chalked up to this, as official sources state they were created with a combination of science and black magic.

* In ''[[Gear HeadGearHead]]'', a [[Roguelike]] with [[Humongous Mecha]], the [[Noob Cave]] is an abandoned mine. The dungeon is character-scale (meaning, you go in on foot rather than take a mech, and the monsters are at your size), but in the character-scale mining elevator at the bottom of the mine, there's a Wolfram mining mech with the keys in the ignition, which you get upon returning to the surface. Quoth [[Word of God]] when questioned on the subject: "[The Wolfram] can fit in a subsurface mine because it's an enormous sci-fi megaproject and a wizard did it. ^_^"

* In the webcomic ''[[8-Bit Theater|Eight Bit Theater]]'', [[Trickster Mentor]] Sarda the Sage ''refers to himself'' as "The Wizard Who Did It."

** Essentially, once Black Mage stops being a [[Cosmic Plaything]] and Red Mage grows some sort of logical intelligence, these two will mostly likely become the new [[A Wizard Did It|Wizards That Did It]] for this universe. The Universe is probably very unhappy with this arrangement.

** And again [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2027.html here].

** And [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0643.html this comic] is actually ''titled'' "[[A Wizard Did It]]".

** [http://pokemonx.comicgenesis.com/d/20050502.html This one too.] Probably plenty of examples, but this one is good because it points out the stuff that needs to be [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]]d in the actual Pokémon game.

* [http://www.ansemretort.org\] ''[[Ansem Retort]]'' explains most everything with "It's supposed to be insane, stop thinking about it, it doesn't make sense, don't even try to reason it out." This seems to be working somehow.

* Used in [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/080308 this] ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' (out of continuity) parody of harry''[[Harry potter stripPotter]]'' to explain why [[Time Machine|Time-Turners]] can no longer be used for a quick solution to everything.

* In ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20090204102633/http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=32&issue=9 Gordito asks Dan McNinja] how the latter was able to take a bite of a bagel without removing his ninja mask. After giving a [[Cerebus Retcon|dead serious explanation]] for why he must never reveal his face, Dan blithely states that he uses "some ninja tricks" to eat while masked. In the [[Alt Text]], Chris Hastings comments, "Any further questions regarding the McNinja's masks can be filed under 'ninja tricks.'"

* In the AD&D-based ''Monster Manual Comics'' by Lore Sjoburg, [https://web.archive.org/web/20100101202147/http://badgods.com/owlbear.html\] the strip on owlbears] has the crew meet the actual "insane wizard" most of the peculiar early D&D monsters were blamed on -- pluson—plus a guess as to his motives for doing so.

* Used in ''[[Bob and George]]'' to explain George's [[Contractual Immortality]] [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20180222083942/http://bobandgeorge.com/archives/030824c\]

* The ''[[Platypus Comix]]'' story "True Believers" has [[Spider-Man|Peter Parker]] express disbelief that {{spoiler|the comic industry would instantaneously start booming again}} just because {{spoiler|Mary Jane eliminated [[Joe Quesada|Joe Quesadilla]] with a stamp labeled, "[[Retcon]]"}}. Mary Jane reminds him, "It's magic, Tiger," so Peter exclaims, "[[Ironic Echo|Yeah, it's magic! We don't have to explain it!]]"

* In addition to [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]]'s magic gun ([https://web.archive.org/web/20130908101341/http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/linkara/at4w/4114-star-trek-1 "Explain it? It's magic. I don't have to ''explain'' it."]), [[The Spoony Experiment|Dr. Insano]] can explain everything [[The Professor|by virtue of being a scientist.]]

** Also, there's this exchange between [[The Nostalgia Critic]] and [[The Nostalgia Chick]] during their shared review of [[Fern Gully]]. The film had just essentially said that [[A Wizard Did It|magic causes the growth of trees.]]

* [[Uncyclopedia]] [https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/A_wizard_did_it likes to have fun with this: [http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/A_wizard_did_it\]

* The Wizard is responsible for all the events of ''[[Comic Fury Werewolf]]''. This started as a joke, and eventually became the main plot.

* Toyed with in ''[[Harry Potty]]''. Hermione is skeptical of this "physics" and believes magic is the force that throws you forewardforward when your vehicle comes to a sudden stop. [[Running Gag|There are many more examples]].

* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]''{{'}}s version of the ''Bonds Beyond Time'' movie name drops this trope.

* The ''[[Binder of Shame]]''; the aptly-named [[Killer DM]] Psycho Dave just had a player character hit by a random magical effect in his sleep just to mess with the player, and said character woke up to find his head had been turned into a giant piece of broccoli. When challenged to explain how and why, Dave replied "It's magic, I don't have to explain it."

* [[Trope Namer|The trope name]] comes from Lucy Lawless (''"[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]"'') Lawless's guest appearance on ''[[The Simpsons]]'' in 1999. Flanders also invokes this once, when one of his kids asks something

* Very literally played in ''[[Shrek]]''. Fiona's situation is explained only as {{spoiler|"It's a spell. When I was a little girl, a witch cast a spell on me."}} That's all they bothered to explain her premise with, and it's the primary foundation of the plot.

* In ''[[Futurama]]'' the Professor was ready to give Fry a lengthy explanation of why Omicronians receive 1,000 -year -old TV broadcasts. Fry interrupts with:

* When the title character of ''[[Kevin Spencer|Kevin]]'' dies, his parents ask the wizard living in their back yard to bring him back. Percy repays the wizard by telling him to get off his property.

* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', this is basically played straight by creator Lauren Faust in the form of "A Unicorn Pony Did It." Can be seen in [http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/09/exclusive-season-1-retrospective.html this] interview with her. When questioned by either new fans or people who are unfamiliar with the show how vehicles move or tortoises are given the ability to fly with a propeller harness, well versed Bronies will simply respond with "Magic."

* In [[Real Life]], this trope is also known as [[wikipedia:God of the gaps|God of the gaps]], only replacing the wizard with [[God]]. (It's the habit some people have of handwaving everything, especially mysterious and unexplained phenomena not yet explained by science, by invoking God and leaving it at that without further reasoning or explanation). <ref> But because of [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement]], it's better to go with the Wizard.</ref> If you want to argue about it, go to the discussion page. Some people replace "God" with "[[Ancient Astronauts|aliens]]"

* In [http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_a_new_way_to_explain_explanation.html this lectureTED talk], the speaker makes note of this kind of phenomenon whenever scientific findings are not given a proper theoretical explanation. The phrase "a wizard did it" is actually uttered multiple times to portray this.

* Spoofed by ''[[The Onion]]'': [https://web.archive.org/web/20091223025942/http://www.theonion.com/content/news/sci_fi_writer_attributes?utm_source=a-section "Sci-Fi Writer Attributes Everything Mysterious To 'Quantum Flux'"].

** ArchmedesArchimedes, Heron (of Alexandria), Copernicus, Roger Bacon etc., or you could even just say it was developed by an unnamed Babylonian/Hellenic/Arab/Chinese genius who's name is lost in the mists of time.

* On an old [[Adult Swim]] bump, a fanmail sent in asked [[Title Confusion|what had happened to]] [[Eureka Seven|Eurekas 1 through 6]]. AS replied that they were destroyed by a wizard.

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