Coincidence Magnet: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
{{quote|''Wherever dat little white woman goes, people '''die!'''|Stand-up comedian, about [[Murder, She Wrote|Jessica Fletcher]]}}
For most people, a unique once-in-a-lifetime occurrence is a rare event that may have long-lasting consequences. For others, it's almost routine. When extraordinary things happen to otherwise normal people with alarming frequency, they're [[Coincidence Magnet|Coincidence Magnets]]. Separate from [[Weirdness Magnet]] in that the unlikely things that keep happening aren't supernatural or paranormal in origin; they're perfectly reasonable things that could easily be coincidences, except for the fact that they're staggeringly unlikely and they just keep happening to otherwise normal people. If you discover your neighbor is actually a [[Our Werewolves Are Different|werewolf]], at which point you're both [[Alien Abduction|abducted by aliens]], and you escape only to stumble into the war against [[The Legions of Hell]], you might be a [[Weirdness Magnet]]. If your girlfriend comes down with a disease afflicting only a handful of people on the planet, but you're able to afford the cure by winning the lottery, and then secret agents start trying to kill you because of the classified information hidden in the used car you just bought, which is eventually destroyed by a meteorite striking it with just enough force to reduce it to cinders while leaving everything around it completely untouched, you're probably a [[Coincidence Magnet]].▼
▲For most people, a unique once-in-a-lifetime occurrence is a rare event that may have long-lasting consequences. For others, it's almost routine. When extraordinary things happen to otherwise normal people with alarming frequency, they're
If you would have said it was literally impossible until it happened to you (because it involves magic, aliens, time travel, demons, or something similar), you're a [[Weirdness Magnet]]. If the events in your life were always possible, but just had a trillion-to-one chance for any of them to happen (much less all of them), then you're a [[Coincidence Magnet]]. If you're encountering a lot of murders or other crimes by pure coincidence, but nothing else unlikely, you're a [[Mystery Magnet]].▼
▲If you would have said it was literally impossible until it happened to you (because it involves magic, aliens, time travel, demons, or something similar), you're a [[Weirdness Magnet]]. If the events in your life were always possible, but just had a trillion-to-one chance for any of them to happen (much less all of them), then you're a
Related to [[Busman's Holiday]]; [[Miss Marple]], [[Hercule Poirot]] and the like were unable to visit friends, go to a party or take a holiday without someone being murdered nearby.
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
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* The [[X Wing Series]] novels have [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|Wraith Squadron]], who have not one but ''two'' members who are the only example of their species in the New Republic military (and have to pretend to have a third later on), and [[The Mole]] who does a [[Heel Face Turn]] by [[Becoming the Mask]] until [[The Reveal]] forces her to flee at which point she becomes a vigilante [[Reverse Mole]]. They also mastermind a half dozen counter-intelligence operations, ultimately leading to the defeat of the [[Big Bad]], through a combination of being [[Crazy Awesome|completely insane]] and dumb luck at being in the right place at the right time. All this despite being just one of dozens, if not hundreds, of fighter squadrons assigned to the task force fighting the enemy (not to mention all the capital ships, intelligence agents, ground troops, etc). As said by one of the characters in the series: "Foolish of us to bring along Rogue Squadron, all those A-wings, ''Home One'', and a pair of frigates when all it takes is Wraith Squadron and a battered corvette to deal with the enemy."
** In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]] 2: Kreia'' notes that there is [[A Wizard Did It|no such thing as coincidences to the force]].
* The protagonist of [[Robert Heinlein]]'s ''Citizen of the Galaxy'' is a slave boy in a despotic alien empire whose new owner turns out to be an anti-slavery secret agent.
* Grant and Christina from Carole Marsh's mystery books. They're not even teenagers, but they've already visited almost every state in the Union and several foreign countries, met the President of the United States at least twice (Once after sneaking into the Oval Office and nearly spraying him with a fire extinguisher), run the Boston Marathon, and recovered the Statue of Liberty's torch, a functioning model of the Wright Flyer and a T-Rex skeleton after these things were stolen (By separate people!).
* The concept of ''ta'veren'' in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]''
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* The [[The Hardy Boys|Hardy Boys]], in most of their novels, couldn't go anywhere without being involved in hijinks or mayhem. Occasionally they were dragged into it by their incompetent friend or their girlfriends.
* One of the recurring themes of the [[Liaden Universe]] series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller is that [[There Are No Coincidences]]. The Korval clan comes in for special attention from fate (or "the Luck" as the characters themselves have it), perhaps due in part to Cantra's role in leading humanity to that universe. It is demonstrated repeatedly that members of Korval's families are magnets (or "nexuses" as the characters have it) for strangely unlikely chance. This tends to result in members of the family ending up in impossibly coincidental situations that can leave other characters shaking their heads (and often, quite reasonably from their perspective, seeing conspiracies where only coincidence exists).
** It is actually hard to decide whether
* Bink in the ''[[Xanth]]'' series starts off as this, but then he finds out that this is actually a magical effect.
* The Lucky Duck in [[Callahan's Crosstime Saloon]] is explicitly this, and not a [[Weirdness Magnet]]. The iron laws of probability tend to turn into extremely silly putty around him, but he doesn't do miracles. For instance, getting a working username and password by randomly mashing keys is a normal day for him, but he denies all responsibility for the computer running when not plugged in.
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