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Category:This Index Is Highly Improbable: Difference between revisions
Category:This Index Is Highly Improbable (view source)
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{{IndexTrope}}
{{quote|''"This is highly improbable."''|'''[[The Spock|Data]]''', ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]''}}
Tropes that defy possibility (or [[Probability Tropes|probability]]) in some glaringly [[Fridge Logic|unexplained]] ways that can at least momentarily disrupt [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]] ([[Rule of Funny|if you were even trying]]), but is occasionally also employed in [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]. Often [[Played for Laughs]] with some [[Lampshade Hanging]].
This is a subindex of [[Probability Tropes]], which deal with probability issues in general. This index specifically deals with the ''im''probable.
Note that this index is not for tropes that are intentionally magical, supernatural, rooted in common superstition, or have some other form of directly [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]] [[Applied Phlebotinum]] that would make them perfectly explainable in-universe in such a way that would preserve [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]] intact. In fact, these tropes are often funnier or more effective when they're ''[[Don't Explain the Joke|not]]'' [[Don't Explain the Joke|explained]].
[[Category:Index Index]]▼
This index is also not for occurrences that are merely ''rare'', but only due to wildly complex human factors that involve the net results of the unpredictable actions of multiple people (economics, elections, popularity, sports, strategy, etc.). In such circumstances, a certain minimum amount of unforeseeable uncertainty is a given, and [[Logic Bomb|unexpected results are not unexpected]]<ref>And if we're talking human behavior, then there are those who would claim that it's really not ''that'' unpredictable</ref>. Odds should have to be [[Million-to-One Chance|truly astronomical]] to be in this index.
Some entries in this index are also examples of bad writing if played straight. But not all Bad Writing is necessarily unrealistic. Some devices of Bad Writing can derail a story in that they are boring, annoying or frustrating, but that doesn't make them inherently unlikely.
The index namer is from an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'', "Cause and Effect", where Data deals cards at a poker game and everyone at the table correctly predicts which cards they'll receive. In-universe, the characters observed how impossibly unlikely their predictions were turning out. Ultimately, it had [[Applied Phlebotinum|a cause]], but they did not realize that for [[Stable Time Loop|most of the times]] they ended up getting blown up.
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{{reflist}}
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