Contrived Coincidence: Difference between revisions
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[[File:calvin contrived coincidence 8699.png|link=Calvin and Hobbes|frame|[[No Kill Like Overkill|There's a gas leak, too.]]]]
{{quote|''"Now let's explore the improbable chain of events that led to this amusing yet tragic farce."''
In order to keep a story moving, things need to happen a certain way. Sometimes everything is carefully set up and orchestrated, so that events unfold in an organic, natural fashion. More often than not, though, things happen the way they do simply [[Because Destiny Says So]].
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Make note that this is one of the most pervasive tropes out there. Just about any work of fiction, no matter how excruciatingly well-written, is sure to use this as much as they are allowed.
For a more grandiose or plot-wrapping version, see [[Deus Ex Machina]], as well as its [[Evil Twin]] [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]. See also [[Fridge Logic]] for the moment it sinks in, and [[Not My Driver]] for the vehicular version.
[[It's a Small World After All]] is a subtrope of this. So is the variant of [[Framing the Guilty Party]] where the one doing the framing didn't know that party was guilty. Too many contrived coincidences may result in [[One Degree of Separation]]. Often, these can disguise a [[Gambit Roulette]] as a [[Xanatos Gambit]].
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Done especially so in
** Skip a little bit to where this story [[It Got Worse|takes those conveniences]]. In order for Sherry to rescue Koko, she conveniently has her jump off a cliff and then black out, only to be rescued in the very same manner as a callback occurring in their childhood. Which allows Sherry to interrogate the kidnapper and have him [[Unfortunate Implications|brainwash her back to normal]]. It's so contrived to the very point that if Koko hadn't randomly decided [[Plot Induced Stupidity|to do that at that]], '''Sherry's entire rescue mission would have been rendered a failure at that instant.''' ''Discussed and ridiculed [http://www.narutoforums.com/archive/index.php/t-753545.html here].
* The Straw Hats in ''[[One Piece]]'' seem to be particularly lucky to {{spoiler|show up at Fishman Island at the ''exact same day'' that Hody stages his coup d'état after years of planning, allowing them to prevent the whole island from falling to his elite soldiers and 100,000 strong slave army.}}
** This happens to the Straw Hats a lot. Luffy arrives at Shell Town to save Zoro and the villagers from Captain Morgan, they end up in Orange Town to save Nami from Buggy's thugs, arrives at Ussop's village the day Captain Kuro plans come to fruition, stops at the Baratie when Don Krieg floats by...it seems like most of the time they gets into trouble just from being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn't help that Luffy's an active thrill-seeker who enjoys throwing himself into danger.
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** Force:
*** Thoma happens to be found by Subaru on that fated day when he's the sole survivor of a massacre. Years later he goes on a Journey of Self Discovery, and runs across Lily and Isis.
* In ''[[Haou Airen]]'', {{spoiler|the Triad hitman Hakuron is sent to Tokyo twice to deal with the [[Yakuza]]. ''Both'' times, he saw the female lead Kurumi. The first time, he took a glimpse of her grieving self during her father's funeral; the second, she was the person who saved his life when he was badly injured after he finished the mission but was injured.}}
* ''[[Ranma ½]]''. Carelessly thrown/dumped water (often with a [[Lampshade Hanging]] of "of course nobody will be there"). Koi pond. [[Thunder Equals Downpour]]. Convenient trajectories from [[Megaton Punch|propulsive attacks]]. Oh yeah, did I mention his curse is triggered by cold water?
* ''[[5 Centimeters per Second]]'':
** The likelihood of Takaki and maybe-Akari just happening to pass each other in the same place and at the same time in a metropolis as massive as Tokyo, and specifically to do so in a neighbourhood with childhood significance to the two of them at that, is tiny to say the least.
** The ending to the manga adaptation, where {{spoiler|Takaki is implied to just happen to pass by Kanae while the latter is resolving to give up the search for him and go home}}, is equally implausible.
* ''[[Your Name]]'':
** Taki, Miki and Tsukasa have lunch at a ramen shop that just happens to be owned by a former resident of Itomori and who thus can tell them about it. The manga makes this a double whammy in that {{spoiler|he was absent for the Tiamat strike}} only because traffic just happened to be bad that night.
** Mitsuha {{spoiler|spends a day in fruitless search for Taki in Tokyo. As she's waiting to take a train home, a train with Taki on board just happens to arrive at the station she's at.}}
** In the [[Distant Finale]], {{spoiler|Taki and Mitsuha see each other as their trains pass. At no point in the leadup to this was it shown that they were doing anything other than their daily commute. For them to just happen to be in the right time and place to see each other at this point who knows how long after establishing this routine}} has to be some kind of miracle.
* ''[[Weathering with You]]'':
** Hodaka just happens to meet Keisuke, the only person willing to offer him a job, on the ferry to Tokyo.
** Hodaka just happens to knock over a bin that was used to hide a gun.
** Hodaka just happens to try taking refuge at the McDonald's Hina is working at, and later be at the right time and place to save her from the shady nightclub owner.
** {{spoiler|The ring Hodaka gave Hina}} just happens to fall in front of him {{spoiler|as the police are taking him away, startling him out of his despair at her disappearance.}}
** Natsumi just happens to be in the vicinity when Hodaka {{spoiler|escapes the Ikebukuro Police Station.}}
* ''[[Spy × Family]]'': A spy needs to construct a fake family in order to get close to his target. The daughter he adopts just happens to be a telepath. The woman he chooses as the wife just happens to be an assassin. What are the odds?
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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** This exact point made in the original point was used in ''[[Zot]]''!. There's an issue called "Looking for Crime" in which Zot looks all over New York for a crime. The closest he gets to finding one is finding a homeless person stabbed, and even then he didn't witness it.
* If you are a superhero, then someone you know will [[Stuffed Into the Fridge|be murdered horribly]], or [[Contagious Powers|develop superpowers]], or at least have some slightly odd seemingly innocuous problem that will be intimately connected with a supervillain's latest [[Evil Plan]]. If you're lucky, this will be because your enemies know who you are and are targeting them because of the connection. Probably not though.
* A recent{{when}} ''[[Superman]]/[[Batman]]'' story featured Jor-El using a probe to take the mind of a human to Krypton, so he could ask what kind of planet Earth was. The human he selected went on to use the advanced technology of the probe as the basis of a great company called Wayne Enterprises.
** In the very first ''Batman/Superman'' crossover, Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne happen to take a cruise at the same time and are coincidentally assigned to be roommates. [[Fridge Logic|Why Wayne can't afford a single occupancy cabin or, for that matter, his own cruise liner]], is unexplained. They are both in the cabin at the same time, changing into costume, when a bright ray of light beams through a port hole, lighting up the room and revealing the two superheroes' identities to each other.
*** And [[Lois Lane]] wound up on the same cruise, because [[Unfortunate Implications|a female passenger chickened out at the beginning]]. Apparently only one person disappeared from the cruise, so Clark couldn't be given his own room.
*** A later comic [[retcon]]s this story, saying that due to an overbooking error, there are only two rooms to share between Clark, Bruce, and Lois, and obviously Lois isn't going to share a bed with either of them.
**** You'd still think that out of all the passengers on board, the absolute ''last'' one the ship's purser would choose to bump or stick with an unwanted roommate is the single richest person on his passenger list. Bruce Wayne could probably buy out any of the cruise line's shareholders out of petty cash -- this should have gotten him a free upgrade to the VIP suite
** In [[The Silver Age of Comic Books]] continuity, as well as in the current one, both Superman and his archenemy [[Lex Luthor]] spent most of their life in Smallville before moving to Metropolis.
*** That actually does have an in-setting justification: Clark wants to work for one of the most famous newspapers in the world, and Lex wants to dominate one of the greatest business and economic hubs in the world, and both of those are in Metropolis. It's about as much of a coincidence as someone wanting to become a huge success on Wall Street and someone wanting to be ace reporter of the New York Times both ending up in New York.
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* ''[[Cry for Justice]]'' opens with heroes all across the world, all completely independently of each other, deciding to [[Rage Against the Heavens]] with "I want justice!" at the exact same time.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* In ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'', there was a need for a Dimensional Anchor. The item found in Tsuruya's backyard during the events of the seventh light novel? Guess what it is.
* The story of [[Mary Sue|Caitlin]] in ''[[Hogwarts Exposed]]'' is built on Contrived Coincidence. The girl with a [[Sympathetic Sue|ridiculously tragic backstory]]
* The ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fic ''[[Make a Wish (fanfic)|Make a Wish]]'' seems to run on them at first, but then it's revealed to the reader that a benevolent conspiracy of precognitive shopkeepers descended from the seeress Cassandra has been behind the scenes contriving most of the coincidences until Harry reaches a point where he becomes proactive instead of reactive.
== [[Film]] ==
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*** YMMV—it seems highly unlikely Stark's original design entailed [[Body Horror|miniaturizing the arc reactor and implanting it in his son's chest]]
* ''[[Independence Day]]'' has loads of this, being a massive [[Homage]] to old [[Disaster Movie]] and sci-fi movies, which were also loaded with this. To take just one of the many examples, [[Will Smith]], an astronaut wannabe and the only fighter jock to survive an attack on his base, who has shot down an alien fighter and captured its pilot, just happens to crash nearly in front of a convoy of refugees who happen to be driving in the general vicinity of Area 51, which Will just happened to notice in the middle of a dogfight. Of course, the most contrived coincidence is Jeff Goldblum's [[Eureka Moment]] on how to beat the aliens...triggered by his father's admonishment to bundle up to avoid catching a cold...
** Some of that isn't quite so contrived. Remember that they were dogfighting over a featureless salt flat. The refugee column would be ''blatantly'' visible from the air, and Will's character is only exercising common sense in taking the most direct route from the crash site towards the nearest group of people he knows about.
* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in ''[[The Great Muppet Caper]]'': When Miss Piggy is stranded and needs to get across town in time to foil a museum heist, a motorcycle just happens to drop off a passing box van, to which she remarks, "What an ''unbelievable'' coincidence!"
* In ''[[Star Wars]] Episode IV'', the odds of Luke meeting up with childhood friend Biggs at the Rebel base (as shown in the Special Edition) is next to nothing—as the two characters themselves acknowledge earlier in the film (this part of the footage was not restored). All six films are riddled with bizarre [[It's a Small World After All]] (or rather galaxy) moments, starting with the two droids just happening to be brought to the Lars homestead. There's some justification, since "There's no such thing as luck," and ''[[Knights of the Old Republic|KOTOR]]'' lampshades the matter by having most Jedi characters interpret the ''massive'' coincidences and unlikely happenings coming their way as [[Because Destiny Says So|part of the Will of the Force]].
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'''Canderous:''' Remember, we're talking about the Force here. At this point, Malak himself could drop out of the sky, and I wouldn't bat an eyelash.
'''Mission:''' Good point. }}
** [[Fridge Brilliance|It becomes less contrived]] that the droids wound up with the
*** Which the Radio Drama fixes by having R2 sabotage the other R2 unit while standing in line waiting for Owen and Luke to notice him.
**** In a non-canon Star Wars tale, the other droid is in fact Force-sentient, the one and only droid ever to be attuned to the Force. This lets him see that for destiny to work its course, Luke has to get R2-D2, and so he uses his newly found Force power to sacrifice himself for the good of the galaxy!
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*** The only coincidence is Spock picking the same planet that Scotty happens to be on. Picking the same ''part'' of the same planet that Scotty was on is not any coincidence at all -- it's said in-dialogue that Spock deliberately aimed to put Kirk within walking distance of a Federation outpost so that he'd get rescued eventually. He wasn't trying to ''murder'' Kirk, after all, just get him out of the way.
** Also {{spoiler|1=the Enterprise's Chief Medical Officer and Chief Engineer are killed leaving those posts vacant for McCoy and Scotty respectively, Uhura has the specific linguistic knowledge to bump her up to the Communications station and Kirk gets an implausibly rapid promotion from cadet (on probation!) to ''Starship Captain'', all so we can get the classic crew together in their correct places by the end of the film.}}
* ''[[Legally Blonde (
** You could make that argument of any alibi that falls apart in a suitably dramatic fashion. It seems like it should be its own trope.
* ''[[Run Lola Run]]'' is {{spoiler|one long [[Lampshade Hanging]], hung on variations on a [[For Want of a Nail|theme]]}}.
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{{quote|'''Nick:''' I'm not the first guy who fell in love with a woman that he met at a restaurant who turned out to be the daughter of a kidnapped scientist only to lose her to her childhood lover whom she last saw on a deserted island who then turned out fifteen years later to be the leader of the French underground.
'''Hillary:''' I know. It all sounds like some bad movie. ([[Aside Glance]]) }}
* Lampshaded in ''[[The Emperor's
** ''The Emperor's New Groove'' is full of this trope. Before that, there was Yzma's miraculous survival when she fell off of the top of the palace. For no reason at all, at that very moment, a trampoline had been accidentally delivered to the palace and set up where she was falling.
* In ''[[An American Tail]]'', Fievel gets washed overboard in a raging storm in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of drowning, he somehow ends up inside a floating glass bottle, which ''somehow'' ends up washing ashore right onto Ellis Island, which coincidentally is of course near New York, where Fievel's family was headed. Luck and the ocean currents were definitely on little Fievel's side, apparently.
** More coincidences occurred where Fievel and his family [[Missed Him by That Much|kept missing each other when they were in the same place]].
* The film ''[[Tokyo Godfathers]]'' has quite a bit of this, to the point of being a plot point. One of the main characters repeatedly mentions that the baby they've found is a gift from God, and we see many times that she might be what's making everything fall into place so perfectly.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Wayne's
{{quote|'''Garth:''' Aren't we lucky we were there to get all that information?
'''Wayne:''' Yes. It seemed extraneous at the time. }}
* The plot of ''The Perfect Host'' kicks off when an escaping bank robber goes into a convenience store to treat his injury. It ''just happens'' to get robbed by a completely unrelated criminal, which delays him and gets him noticed by the store clerk. So he talks his way into a nearby house to hide out, the occupant of which ''just happens'' to be {{spoiler|a lunatic who likes drugging strangers and having all night "dinner parties" with them.}} And it [[Tropes Are Not Bad|gets]] [[Up to 11|more ridiculous from there.]] {{color|white|Oh, and the lunatic ''just happens'' to be the LAPD Lieutenant assigned to his case. Told ya this film was nutty.}}
* ''[[The Road to El Dorado]]'': The guy the duo gambles against happens to have a map to El Dorado just as the Spanish Fleet is leaving for South America, the duo happen to wash up right on its shores after days adrift at sea, and a volcanic eruption happens (and cancels itself) just as the duo are asked for proof of their divinity.
* ''[[Bloody Hell (film)|Bloody Hell]]'': The hero kills the final bank robber, whose gun discharges into a nearby wall, which someone just happens to be hiding behind and dies from. Everything proceeds from there.
== [[Literature]] ==
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** The aliens attacking the school in the third book use "Zombie Nerd Juice" to turn all the students into zombie nerds. All it takes to change them back is a dose of the conveniently available, [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded generously]], "Anti-Evil Zombie Nerd Juice".
** A dandelion happens to grow right outside the window where George pours the "Ultra-Evil Growth Juice" out of. [[Gone Horribly Wrong|It goes horribly wrong]].
** Subverted for laughs in the
* Pick a [[Charlotte Bronte]] novel. Any novel.
** ''[[Jane Eyre]]'': When Jane, penniless and homeless, passes out in the middle of a field, it just so happens to be on the property of her long lost cousins. Also, right before she's planning on leaving for India with St. John, she just happens to hallucinate someone calling her name, making her go back to Mr. Rochester and his burnt down house. And we cannot forget the mysterious rich uncle who bequeathed her the money necessary for her to marry Rochester "as an equal".
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** Let's not forget ''Shirley,'' in which Shirley Keeldar's governess also turns out to be Caroline Helstone's {{spoiler|mother.}}
* [[Charles Dickens]] was the Grand Champion of [[Luke, I Am Your Father|coincidentally plunking long lost relatives together in convoluted plots.]] In fact, it would probably be easier to list the books of his that ''don't'' employ this type of plot twist.
** ''[[David Copperfield (novel)|David Copperfield]]'': At one point the ''entire denouement'' hinges on Mr Micawber a) just happening to be in Canterbury, and b) just happening to walk past the Heeps' door (which is of course c) wide open due to nice weather) on d) the one day - and hour - that David has been invited to tea within. This, in a book that already depends pretty heavily on characters just happening to run into one another, frequently on the streets of London, then as now one of the biggest and busiest urban metropolises in the world.
** In Martin Chuzzlewit, to wrap things up during the happy ending, Mark Tapley happens to randomly bump into the couple that they left behind as their nextdoor neighbours in the "town" of Eden. This despite the fact that the couple were last seen in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in central USA, and the ending happens in London. (The fact that the woman in the couple is the same woman that Mark befriended on the boat to America was already a coincidence in itself.) With Dickens it's easier just to think of it as a form of [[Terry Pratchett|Narrative Causality]] by which his universe ensures that anybody necessary for the plot happens to be exactly where they need to be, even if they're on the ''wrong continent''.
** ''[[Oliver Twist]]'': Oliver is an orphan in a town 75 miles from London who runs away to the big city and falls in with a gang of thieves. ''Obviously'', the mark in the first pickpocketing caper he's involved with turns out to be an old friend of his father's. After getting kidnapped by the crooks, he's forced to get involved in a burglary. This time the victim turns out to be his mother's sister.
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* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', this goes hand-in-hand with being a [[Knight in Shining Armor|Knight of]] [[Warrior Monk|the Cross]]. When Michael needs to go out in the evening to help Harry save the day, Father Forthill shows up at his doorstep asking to use the phone because his car has broken down - and, [[Genre Savvy|having some previous experience with this sort of thing]], immediately guesses that Michael needs a babysitter. When an old women in a desperate situation prays "Dear God in Heaven, help us!" the very next ''instant'' [[Flat Earth Atheist|Sanya]] [[Big Damn Heroes|shows up]].
** The [[The Dresden Files (game)|RPG]] (which uses the [[Fudge]] spinoff FATE) explicitly has this as a mechanic. Players can spend a Fate Point to make a Declaration, which the book describes as letting one create a convenient coincidence. The examples given are a character having a cigarette lighter right when he needs one despite never smoking, or showing up during a dramatic scene just in time to help out. One of the Faith powers (Guide My Hand) lets a character do this without spending the fate point.
* ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]''. Dracula's first victim upon his arrival in England happens to be the best friend of the
* In [[Mark Twain]]'s ''[[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court]]'' the eponymous Yankee's time of execution happens to coincide with a solar eclipse. (Not to even mention that he knew the exact date and time said eclipse would occur despite its status as obscure fourteen-hundred-year-old history.)
** The real coincidence being that he was the kind of person who would calculate all the solar eclipse dates in the past few millenia for fun... ''just'' before getting time warped into the past.
* The narrator of Betty Miles' ''The Real Me'' writes an essay in which she describes such coincidences in the "[[Pony Tale|horse books]]" girls her age are supposed to love, in which a poor girl who wants a horse conveniently wins one. When the family wonders where they're going to put it, a nice man offers her father a job in the country, and their new house has a big barn out back. You'd expect someone to say "If you expect this whole family to pack up and move [[American Customary Measurements|fifty miles]] just because of some damn horse, you're crazy," she says, but "nobody ever says that in horse books".
* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' actually averts this. Not by there not being coincidences, those happen ''all the time''. Chance events interact across entire books, as well as generations in-story. The main character's birth is shown to depend on a small act of charity around three thousand years beforehand, among other causes. However none of these coincidences are contrived as we see just as many coincidences that are completely insignificant to the plot. All this is explained as the Pattern explicitly [[You Can't Fight Fate|making these sorts of things]] happen taking every life into account for a grander design.
*
* ''[[Les Misérables (novel)|Les Misérables]]'' has some of the more spectacular Contrived Coincidences in literature. One example: Marius's grandfather is (apparently) the father of two little bastards by his housemaid; he fires her, but pays her a substantial allowance to support them. When they die, to keep from losing her income, she takes in two children about their ages—who just happen to be the two youngest Thenardier kids. And when these two are thrown out onto the streets, who do they take up with? Why, Gavroche... who never uses the name "Thenardier", and who's forgotten that he ever had two younger brothers.
** Also, Valjean is being pursued by the police through the alleyways of Paris. He climbs over a wall into a convent. And who's that working as the gardener? Why, it's that guy whose life he saved a few chapters ago! (Parisian population at the time: over 600,000...)
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** Also, there's the two incidents Valjean using his great strength to save two separate men, who are trapped in similar accidents. Both incidents are witnessed by Javert, decades apart.
* ''[[The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy (novel)|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]'' pokes fun at this a lot. Most famously, when [[Douglas Adams]] had his main characters thrown out an airlock into space, he realised ''anything'' that saved their lives at this point would be a Contrived Coincidence. Rather than [[Hand Wave]] this, he gave it the biggest [[Lampshade Hanging]] he could think of, by inventing a space drive that creates Contrived Coincidences as a side-effect of its [[It Runs on Nonsensoleum|nonsensoleum]].
** And let's not forget that the space ship in question just ''happens'' to contain not only Arthur's old almost-lover, who by coincidence was originally introduced to him at a party in an Islington flat that had the same phone number as the probability of them being saved, but it ''is also'' piloted by Prefect's long-lost cousin, who
*** Eddie calculated the odds of the above actually happening to be one in two to the power of infinity minus one. When DNA contrives coincidences he takes the cake... and makes the Total Perspective Vortex out of it.
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In
*** And then {{spoiler|totally accidentally, when it's a million-to-one chance that they ''won't'' die in the ensuing chaos. Naturally, they're fine}}.
** Rincewind's ''entire life'' is one Contrived Coincidence after another. Of course this is explained as the interference of <s>Luck</s> The Lady herself.
** In fact, the entire plot of ''[[
** In ''[[
** In ''[[
* In the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series this is both [[Lampshaded]] and [[Justified Trope|justified]] by the phrase "There's no such thing as coincidence", meaning that the [[Powers That Be]] and/or [[God]] set things up so they'd happen that way. One example is the fact that whenever Nita and Kit go on anything resembling a vacation, whatever their destination is just happens to be the exact place they need to be in order to fight the [[Big Bad|Lone Power]].
** In the books, this is known as a "[[Busman's Holiday|Wizard's Holiday]]". Sounds like it happens pretty often, for it to get a name.
* [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]] (who created ''[[Tarzan]]'', among other things) is another classic example; he was particularly fond of having separated characters be unexpectedly reunited while lost in the middle of thousands of square kilometers of jungle, ocean, and/or trackless wasteland.
** A non-Tarzan example is Burroughs' ''[[At the Earth's Core]]''. The [[Marty Stu]] main character, after coming to the inner world of [[Pellucidar]] immediately meets a [[Damsel in Distress|beautiful]] [[The Chick|girl]] who happens to be a [[Everything's Better with Princesses|princess]], an old man who happens to be a king, and soon after a young man who happens to be [[Authority Equals Asskicking|yet another king]]. Needless to say, he will need the help of all these royals and their kingdoms later in the story.
** In ''[[John Carter of Mars|Gods of Mars]]'', John Carter is talking to a fellow prisoner, who speaks of his father. When John Carter asks who is his father is, he gets to "My father is -- " before they are interrupted. So they get to escape before a third companion calls Carter by name, to get the reaction, "I am his son."
** A [[Tarzan]] example is Tarzan's cousin of all people being marooned on the African coast.
* The heroes of SM Stirling's ''[[Emberverse]]'' novels at first appear to be the beneficiaries of a whole honking string of these, but it gradually becomes clear they are getting very powerful behind-the-scenes help from somewhere.
* A particularly [[Egregious]] case of this trope occurs towards the end of ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' in which the brainwashed and rehabilitated ex-hoodlum Alex just so happens to bump into every single person he ever wronged throughout the course of the book, all within in the same evening. The consequences were dire.
* Margaret Atwood's ''[[Oryx and Crake|The Year of the Flood]]'' features an end-of-the-world scenario where {{spoiler|Blanco, the mafioso who raped Toby, just happens to survive multiple rounds of prison gladiatorial combat, kills everyone in Ren's workplace, and ends up surviving an apocalypse which happens to kill 99.99 percent of humanity, only to be finally found and poisoned by Toby}}.
* Lampshaded in several [[Dorothy L. Sayers]]'s ''[[Lord Peter Wimsey]]'' stories, in which Peter discusses with an author the annoying fact that coincidences look contrived in stories, even though they happen all the time in real life.
* In [[Lois McMaster Bujold]]'s ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|The Vor Game]]'' Miles just happens to get tossed into a jail cell several light years from home with his runaway emperor, later runs into a former Barrayaran general, that he had caused to be cashiered from the service. She then lampshades all the coincidences when Miles runs into yet another old friend, and responds to their surprised "What are you doing here?" with "Somehow, I figured that might be your first question."
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* Quite a lot of straight romance novels may be use this as well. After all, what are the chances of any two random people meeting and falling in love with each other at first sight?
* In [[George Eliot]]'s ''[[Middlemarch]]'', Bulstrode turns out to be Will Ladislaw's step-grandfather. This, together with the way in which Raffles tracks down Bulstrode in the first place, is quite a large coincidence. Raffles's surprise on his discovery acknowledges that it's a coincidence, but Bulstrode's relationship to Ladislaw is glossed over. How did Bulstrode come to be living in the same area as Will, when one would have thought he'd want to avoid any association? A relatively subtle example by 19th-century standards, though, and nothing on [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]].
* [[Tom Clancy]]'s novels enjoy this. Pretty much any Jack Ryan novel features some coincidental happening that forces Ryan to play some greater role than his job actual requires, often leading to him saving the day. It started small in ''[[The Hunt for Red October (novel)|The Hunt for Red October]]'', with a helicopter carrying a pair of CIA operatives being lost in a storm, resulting in Ryan being flown out to supervise the "rescue" of a Soviet submarine despite his not speaking a word of Russian,
* A few in ''[[Remote Man]]'' but only one is all that implausible: The protagonist Ned runs into an American tourist while staying with his aunt and uncle in the Northern Territory. After joining his mother in Concord, Massachusetts on her long service leave, he stumbles onto a wildlife smuggling operation being run by the same tourist, whose son is incarcerated in Concord Prison.
* ''Millennium Falcon'' by James Luceno has way too many to preserve willing suspension of disbelief. The heroes decide to figure out the ship's history just as one of its previous pilots regains conscience after a
* In the [[Jack Reacher]] novel ''The Killing Floor'', Reacher just happens to wander into the same town that his brother, who he hasn't spoken to in years, is murdered in just before his arrival.
* In ''[[
** The plot of ''[[
** In ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (novel)|Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows]]'', Harry, Ron, and Hermione save a group of people kidnapped by Snatchers. There just happens to be a goblin in that group (the same goblin Harry met on his first day at Gringotts, no less), which makes it very convenient when they need to figure out how to break into Gringotts.
** ''[[Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (novel)|Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets]]''; Hermione is turned to stone by the basilisk, a condition that can only be reversed using mandrake-based potion. Really lucky for her that Professor Sprout added a course on cultivating them to the curriculum that year, right?
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[The Phoenix on the Sword]]", Thoth-amon was [[Made a Slave|enslaved]] because of the loss of his [[Ring of Power]], which just ''happens'' to turn up in the hand of a noble he is guarding.
* Lampshaded in ''The Avenging Chance'' by Anthony Berkeley Cox: At the beginning, Sheringham mentions how many mysteries are solved by such a coincidence, as if chance itself were avenging the victim. The case is ultimately solved by such an event.
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene|The Golden Age]]'', Phaethon ponders whether a meeting is coincidence or arranged by the Earthmind, an AI with a trillion times the brain power of a human such as himself.
** Subverted, in that later events show that it was anything but a coincidence. Earthmind did indeed set the whole thing up. Also, the concept of 'meeting' a distributed AI intelligence who is essentially your planet's entire data network is a tad hard to work with, given that its literally ''everywhere''.
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** For a more prosaic cause, Gurney will still be on Arrakis years later because the people wants vengeance against are there, he will be with the smugglers because there is nowhere else he could practicably hide, he will still be alive fifteen years later because he's one of the toughest badasses in known space and as one of Duke Leto's seniormost special forces officers he has training and experience vastly superior to any normal smuggler's, and it will be ''his'' group of smugglers that gets caught by the Fremen first because Paul first went after the ones who'd penetrated deepest into Fremen territory (logically enough). And the smugglers doing that are of course going to be the band captained by the smuggler chieftain who is simultaneously one of the boldest and most competent -- i.e., Gurney Halleck -- but who is not an Arrakeen native because the ones who grew up here never screw with the Fremen regardless of how bold they are, because they ''know'' those guys -- IOW, Gurney Halleck.
* After several days of fruitless searching in the ''[[Knight and Rogue Series]]'' Fisk points to a stable boy and says they may as well ask him for all the good it would do, and the boy just happens to be the only person in town with information they can use.
* ''[[Flashman
* Subverted in ''[[The Robots of Dawn]]''. Baley states that it is an amazing coincidence that Daneel was ready in time to be critical for ''[[The Caves of Steel]]'' case. Dr. Fastolfe remarks there must have been many occasions where he would have been useful, but without him, other means have been found.
* In ''[[Time Scout]]'', paradox doesn't happen. Period. Don't even try. Because something will happen to make it not happen.
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* In ''[[Rule of Four]]'', the four leads try to relax a little before graduation at Princeton by playing laser tag in the underground steam tunnels. When they are cornered by campus cops, they escape by joining a public naked party celebrating the first snowstorm of the year. Graduation is in May, and it would be one hell of a dry winter if the first [[New Jersey]] snow fell in May.
* [[Gene Wolfe]]'s ''Soldier of Sidon'' is the sequel to ''[[Soldier of the Mist]]'' and ''Soldier of Arete''. The first two novels are supposedly translated into English by Wolfe from ancient Greek scrolls found in the British Museum. The third volume is said to be a translation of another scroll, found hundreds of miles away in Egypt, which coincidentally turned out to have the same author.
* ''[[A Little Princess]]'': well, it is by a Victorian novelist: {{spoiler|the old gent who moves in next door turns out to be looking for a particular young lady who is due to inherit a great deal of money. Since the 'Indian Gentleman' is not even sure which
* In [[Gene Stratton Porter]]'s ''[[Freckles]]'', Angel goes to the orphanage to track down the [[Orphan's Plot Trinket|clothing]] left with Freckles, to find she's ''just'' in time to have missed it; his aunt and uncle have ''just'' taken them in their despair, and are ''just'' about to leave America for Ireland, being unable to find their nephew.
* In ''[[Beastly]]'', Kyle just happens to meet Lindsy, the girl who would break his curse, on the same night he was cursed. He also just happened to give her a rose corsage, which was the only thing that convinced Kendra to give him a chance to break the curse at all. At the end of the book, there's one that's also a [[Shout-Out]] to [[Jane Eyre]], when {{spoiler|Kyle hears Lindsy screaming for help through the magic mirror, giving him enough warning to find and rescue her from a kidnapper.}} This happens the last night in his time period to break the curse {{spoiler|and happens to be the event that leads to the curse being broken.}}
* Actually used in-universe in the second book of ''[[The Hunger Games]]''. [[The Empire|The Capitol]] claims that the rules for the special edition of the titular games were written seventy-five years ago. And gosh, wouldn't you know it, this years rules make it so the person who's been giving them so much trouble has to go into the arena. What. Are. The. Odds.
== [[Live
* Many episodes of ''[[Monk]]'' rely on a Contrived Coincidence to help Monk solve a case, which sometimes results in a [[Eureka Moment]]. For example, in the episode "Mr. Monk Goes to the Ballgame," Monk discovers the killer's identity only because a TV playing a commercial that featured the killer happened to be on while Monk was questioning a suspect.
* Almost every episode of ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' involves an unlikely occurrence at just the right moment for House to realise the solution to his case. For example, in "Here Kitty" he diagnoses his patient with Cushing's. Just before she is about to undergo surgery, the cat she claims predicted her death enters the room and jumps onto House's laptop. This causes him to realise how the cat 'predicted' deaths. She was just trying to keep warm by lying on patients that were feverish or had a heating blanket, making it seem as if she 'knew' they were going to die. {{spoiler|In turn, this causes him to figure out that his patient does not have Cushing's, but cancer of the appendix.}} Another such occurrence is in "Clueless" when he reveals to a clinic patient's wife that her husband is cheating on her and she throws her gold wedding ring down onto the floor. This prompts House to realise that his main patient {{spoiler|was being poisoned by his wife with gold sodium thiamilate.}}
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**** That was ''really'' unexpected coincidence, but the other three's colors could be decided specifically in the belt in the same time they possessed Ryoutaro.
**** [[Fan Wank|Ryou's predecessor was merely a yellow belt and wanted to be a champion.]]
* On ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', mainly during the first season, the main characters -who mostly lived in different parts of the USA- ran into each other several times, mostly by sheer coincidence. The worst example was when {{spoiler|Hiro, Nathan and Sylar
** Two different diners: Hiro meets Nathan in one after seeing him land outside. Then Hiro and Ando stop at the one in Texas, where Sylar kills Charlie.
** In Season 2, this trope is brought into contrast, as a guy asks the girl he's dating if he is meant to believe that the fact that her father once abducted him as a boy and now she's going out with him is just a coincidence. Also probably the only time the word "coincidence" is used in the show.
** In Season 3, Sylar is ambushed by a paramilitary group in his father's home. He takes a member of the paramilitary group that tried to capture him to a nearby house, to do the whole torture others the guy cracks routine. This house, which Sylar picked at random, just happened to house a local boy who had superpowers of his own AND who knows where Sylar's father is AND who wants to go on a
** Mohinder's cab in Season 1. Seriously, it must be the only taxi in New York or something, because whenever a character hails a cab, there he is.
* In the first episode of
{{quote|'''The Tick:''' {{spoiler|Jimmy Carter}} is in town? Heavens to Betsy, what are the ''odds''?!}}
* On ''[[Lost]]'', pretty much all of the passengers of flight 815 have unknowingly crossed paths before meeting on the plane, to the extent that the series also falls into the [[One Degree of Separation]] trope. For instance, only in season 3 we find out that {{spoiler|Claire and Jack are half siblings; this remains unbeknownst to Claire until her supposed death, while Jack finds out only in S4.}} These past connections eventually end up looking slightly less contrived now that it's clearly stated that one of the main themes of the show is "destiny".
** The trope in this case would be subverted. At first it seemed like the writers were just throwing in little connections to please fans, but as of season six it is pretty obvious the fact they have all crossed paths is an important aspect of the show, and it may not be fate that brought them to the island in the first place.
* Lampshaded in a fourth-season episode of ''[[The OC]]'', where Ryan and Taylor are trapped in an alternate reality. When the two have to split up, Taylor assures Ryan that since it's an alternate reality, they'll "just find each other". Sure enough, they do.
* In the first season of ''[[24]]'', Jack Bauer and his [[Damsel Scrappy|annoying
** In season 6, Morris O'Brien (CTU analyst Chloe O'Brien's ex-husband, and a major character) is identified as one of the handful of people in Los Angeles who are capable of assembling and arming a nuclear bomb, which is a perfect justification for the [[Big Bad]] Fayed to kidnap and coerce him into doing the same thing for a terrorist device.
* On ''[[Doctor Who]]'', the Doctor and Donna investigating in the same building simultaneously, questioning workers in the same office at the same time, using the same printer, running down parallel streets and parking their transports in the same street without [[Hilarity Ensues|ever]] [[Missed Him by That Much|seeing the other]] is portrayed as pure coincidence.
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* ''[[Prison Break]]'' is full of this, with things only getting more contrived as the show goes on. For instance, the premise of the show is that Lincoln Burrows has been framed for the murder of the Vice President's brother. Fortunately for him, his brother Michael happens to be a structural engineer, and happens to work for the company that designed the prison he is sentenced to. Furthermore, the firm designed the prison in a shady under the table deal, ''and'' due to family circumstances Lincoln and Michael have different surnames, thus ensuring that few other people know these things. Thus allowing Michael to put in place a complicated plan to free Lincoln that involves getting himself thrown in the same prison (which itself borders on this trope, though there are [[Hand Wave]]s). And that's just the start...
* The "Chicago Holiday" two-parter from the first season of ''[[Due South]]''. Detective Ray Vecchio is trying to track down the contact list of a murdered mobster - which is written inside a book of matches. The matchbook is passed from a mob enforcer (who subsequently loses it) to several random bystanders who either throw it away or give it to someone else, and eventually winds up in the hands of the mobster's girlfriend, who then gives it to a high-ranking Canadian diplomat's daughter - who just so happens to be under protection from Fraser (Ray's partner and the main character of the show).
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
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* [http://images.ucomics.com/comics/ga/1997/ga971130.gif This] [[Garfield (Comic Strip)|Garfield]] strip.
* [http://www.gocomics.com/theargylesweater/2011/09/14 This] ''The Argyle Sweater'' strip.
== [[Radio]] ==
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** In another episode, somewhere in the vastness of interstellar space they just happen to accidentally run into one of the only two other ships in the fleet, just so they can have an adventure on board.
== [[Theatre]] ==▼
▲== Theatre ==
* [[Older Than Steam]]: ''[[William Shakespeare|The Bard]]'' is not immune to this.
** There's no reason at all that Romeo didn't get the message about Juliet's sleeping potion, except to make the story a "tragedy" in the loosest sense of the word. (There's an ''explanation'', involving a plague outbreak and a quarantine, but it's still a contrived coincidence that the quarantine happens at that particular time.) Arthur Laurents, librettist of ''[[West Side Story]]'', was very proud of inventing a more compelling reason the message was lost, as Tony's gang very nearly rapes the messenger.
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** In ''[[The Taming of the Shrew]]'', Bianca's many suitors need someone brave enough to marry the shrewish Katherine so that Bianca will be eligible for marriage. Just about when they decide that, in rides Petruchio, who thinks that a beautiful, rich wife sounds fantastic, and finds the idea of "taming" her to be thrilling.
** In ''Othello'', Iago's wife doesn't see fit to tell Othello what a scoundrel her husband is {{spoiler|until ''after'' he murders Desdemona.}}
== [[Video Games]] ==
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** Or it could be the Fates are throwing people into his path to stop him.
*** It was actively stated that The Fates freed the Barbarian King from Hades to stop Kratos, Perseus had been trapped in that small room for an indefinite amount of time, and the last Spartan would have set off roughly the same time as Kratos. The only real coincidence is Icarus, and even he looks like he spent so long on that ledge he went mad.
*** So you could say.. They were [[Incredibly Lame Pun|
* Regal from ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' manages to keep his true identity secret for almost half of an entire disc. Yes, he emphasizes his role as a criminal to hide it, but the secret would have been revealed if anyone ever mentioned him (and he's well known) using both his first and last name.
** It helps that he never actually ''says'' his full name (before [[The Reveal]])... and that the one person who figured it out (Zelos) decided not to call attention to it.
* ''[[Phoenix Wright:
** Still, here's a particularly [[Egregious]] one: {{spoiler|a ringmaster goes to meet with someone, instead of his daughter. He just so happens to borrow your defendant's cloak. The murder drops what just so happens to be a golden bust of your client on the ringmaster, killing him. The bust just so happens to snag on the cloak when he pulls it up, and to a witness from exactly the right spot, it looks like your client is flying away from the corpse.}}
*** Note that everyone realizes just how much of a Contrived Coincidence each act is, and even when the evidence supports the ''theory'', actively rebel against anyone accepting it as the truth. In the case of the above spoiler, ''Phoenix himself'' acknowledges that it's incredibly unlikely and damn near impossible, and, in his words, "But that's exactly what happened." ''This happens all the time.''
** The plot arcs of each game have a few coincidences, but are usually explained as the long-term plans of people involved with the cases. Not so with the events of ''Investigations''. It seems that when Edgeworth was first starting out as a prosecutor several years ago, he got involved in an incident involving {{spoiler|a smuggling ring}}. Cut to the present day, where he ends up investigating three crimes that are all in some way related to the group. None of them are directly related to each other. His presence for all three is pure coincidence. And this happens over a period of two days.
* ''[[
* The scene early in ''[[Kirakira
* The ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half-Life]]'' series is brimming with this trope, from fortuitous weapons acquired immediately before they would be most useful to people and indeed entire organisations functioning almost entirely to benefit the player. This is even used as a pervasive story element, as the almost omnipresent GMan is shown to manipulate things both important and seemingly inconsequential for his own purposes, blurring the line between coincidence and intent and further emphasising Gordon's complete lack of control. Need to get somewhere but rubble just fell and is blocking your way? It's all good, because nearby there will happen to be a hole in the wall/an underground tunnel/junk usable as stairs/broken prison bars that lets you get to exactly where you need to go. In fact, it's more likely that what was behind the rubble that fell wasn't where you needed to go.
** ''[[Portal 2]]'', a non-plot critical example: {{spoiler|In the finale, Chell is knocked flat on her back and dazed by an explosion which exposes the moon through the ceiling. Chell fires a random portal at it, which happens to hit within yards of an Apollo Program landing site.}}
* Done especially badly in ''[[Homeworld]] 2''. In order to acquire the [[MacGuffin]] you need a Precursor Dreadnought - very powerful, very well hidden and ostensibly unique spaceship. It takes aid and {{spoiler|and self-sacrifice}} of the last remnant of an ancient alien race to liberate the thing from the [[Goddamn Bats]] and put it back into shape. Just as you wipe you forehead and proceed to get you prise you receive an out-of-the-blue message in casual, nonchalant tone: "There is another Dreadnought...and [[Big Bad|Makaan]] has it." Well, isn't that a surprise, I ask you?!
* The Nasuverse is full of this. Take ''[[Fate/stay night
** Or ''[[Tsukihime]]''. {{spoiler|Shiki has amnesia, and doesn't remember he's a from a line of people specializing in killing the supernatural. He was adopted by people who are, go figure, supernatural. He happens to run into (and kill) a True Ancestor. His classmate (who loves him) is turned into a vampire by his forgotten brother, SHIKI}}. Possibly a [[Justified Trope]]; in that in one [[All There in the Manual|side-story]], [[Those Two Guys|That One Guy]] comments on how Shiki gives off this "vibe" that repels normal people who are afraid of death.
** Though some of Contrived Coincidences in ''[[Fate/stay night
* Subverted in ''[[Canvas 2]]''; it's implied that Kiri started working at Nadesico precisely ''because'' Hiroki worked there and she wanted to see him again.
* A lot of ''[[Heavy Rain]]'': {{spoiler|Scott Shelby just happens to be across the street to witness Ethan and Jason's car accident. The contrived part is that Ethan develops blackouts as a result of this crash that coincide with Shelby's kidnappings. Since the blackouts begin before media coverage of the kidnappings, this is unbelievable coincidence. What's worse, he always comes to at a specific intersection which '''just happens''' to be emotionally significant to Shelby, even though nobody knows this at the time so he couldn't have picked it up from the news. Later, Shelby goes to Manfred's Clock Shop to get his typewriter repair invoices, but Lauren insists on coming along. While there, Manfred steps into the back file room and Lauren gets entranced by a music box '''exactly''' at the top of the hour, allowing the cacophony of all the chiming clocks to cover the sound of Manfred's murder.}}
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* ''[[Skies of Arcadia]]'' has a point where our trio of heroes get separated in an attack. Two happen to be found by a kind sky pirate while the other gets stranded on and island before being rescued by another sky pirate who just happened to be the love interest for the latter. Then they all head to a secret island to find a hidden treasure at the same time. This island just so happened to have [[Two-Keyed Lock|mechanisms that was set up so that only two groups of people could get the treasure]].
* ''[[Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh]]'': Hoo, boy, does the game have a number of these! Arguably the biggest instance is when Curtis has to break into a small locked room in his workplace, where he finds a toolbox. Inside it he finds a girl's dress his mother made him wear as a child, as well as a letter from his boss Paul Allen Warner to Curtis's father. He ends up finding a letter to him from his father, saying a number of things, like hoping that WynTech is treating him well. It's weird that his father puts this letter in such a spot and hopes that Curtis will one day work at that place, get some wild hair to break into this room and find this letter and the other contents of the toolbox, while his boss is starting up his illegal and immoral science project! If that's not this trope, then we're all the rulers of Siam!
* How Thorny Towers goes down in the climactic cutscene of ''[[Psychonauts]]''. Let's see here. Gloria turns on the gas pipes for the asylum, having confused the crank for a sprinkler in a garden. Edgar pulls his chain out of the floor, pulling a gaping hole in a pipe just below the surface, releasing gas into the asylum grounds. Then he [[Crowning Moment of Funny|spills all of his turpentine and acetone.]] Then, Boyd, just outside the asylum, ready with a molotov-cocktail milk bottle, is coaxed by Fred to [[Tempting Fate|"blow this popsicle stand."]] He throws the bottle into the courtyard, igniting it, and finally the tower itself, thanks to the previously mentioned gas leak. [[Overly Long Gag|Then,]] at the top of the tower, in the psychic showdown, [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Ford enters and uses Oleander's weaponized sneezing powder on him]] [[Hoist by His Own Petard|to make him sneeze up his own brain.]] This causes the top of the tower to explode, and the rest of the already weakened tower to collapse ([[Moment Killer|upon Raz and Lili]], who have to hurriedly navigate to escape). Damn.
* ''[[Secret Files]]'' does this. In the first game, [[Adventure Archaeologist|Max Gruber]] works at the same museum as [[Green Eyed Red Head|Nina's]] father. In the second game, the two are on two completely unrelated missions: Nina [[Busman's Holiday|is taking a vacation]] and Max is visiting a classmate in Indonesia photographing her archaeological find. [[Card-Carrying Villain|Puritas Cordis]] happens to be in both locations.
** In ''Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis'' in one place you need to gather several small blue stones to solve a puzzle. Those stones were removed from the cemetery to be used in constructions. For some reason, all of them were used in visible places and not buried under other stones.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* Cale lampshades the concept in [http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/236 this] ''[[Looking for Group]]'' comic.
* ''[[Trying Human]]'' relies heavily on this for parts of its story. The main character, Rose Marie, has been being abducted by aliens, and her boyfriend, Roger, ends up working for Majestic 12, a [[The Men in Black|Men in Black]] organization that interacts with those same aliens. There's also the matter of Phillis, a woman from the 1950s who was shot and killed after interacting with the aliens' leader and how she ties in, which at the moment is unclear but implied to be significant.
* ''[[Bob and George]]'' [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/010502c just happened to be misplaced here]
* In ''[[Nip and Tuck]]'', lampshaded [https://web.archive.org/web/20120524220435/http://www.rhjunior.com/NT/00634.html here] for the [[Show Within the Show]].
* In ''[[Doodze]]'', [http://seguemediagroup.com/doodze/?p=645 the monster is stopped by one of their quick growing bamboo shoots in just the right place.]{{Dead link}}
* ''[[Nedroid]]''{{'}}s [http://nedroid.com/2009/10/celebrate-harrison-stories-monday-with-harrison-stories/ Harrison Story Arc] is full of this: Harrison runs into what look like Beartato and Reginald underground. Surprised to see them, "Beartato" replies he is actually an [[Identical Stranger]] called Buttfranklin. Harrison asks "Reginald" his name...and he turns out to be the actual Reginald, who had fallen down a hole shortly before.
* ''[[Evil Inc.]]'' has invention of Dr. Haynus - [http://evil-inc.com/comic/thanks-for-the-memo-4/ coincidence inducer].
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* Simon Wood in ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' version three managing to navigate his way across an entire island and find his girlfriend just in time to rescue her from an attacker.
** To some extent, this also occurs when groups of friends manage to meet up with one another very quickly: the [[Deserted Island]]s upon which the games take place are rather large, and the odds of meeting your friends that fast are rather slim, to say the least.
* In a [[Running Gag]] in ''[[Final Fantasy Trilogy]]'', {{spoiler|Sabin, Setzer and Terra}} survive their falls off Narshe's cliffs by landing on {{spoiler|Relm, Relm's corpse and Strago}} respectively.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* It's a good thing
** It was also good that they never bought a new van/fixed the old one, since it would stop breaking down in front of creepy old haunted buildings.
* There was a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on an episode of ''[[Futurama]]'', where Bender, after having spent quite some time hurtling through space at the speed of light and encountering all sorts of circumstances along the way, gets thrown back to his worried friends, Leela and Fry, while they just happened to have started giving up on ever actually finding him. When he lands in front of them with a parachute to somehow slow his descent, Leela in incredible disbelief states, "This is, by a ''wide'' margin the least likely thing that has ever happened." Justified, because actual literal [[God]] was involved.
** Or possibly just the remains of a satellite that collided with God.
** Further lampshaded on the commentary when one of the writers notes "And that's how we wrote our way out of that one".
** ''[[Futurama]]''{{'}}s first
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'': Even though it is unquestionably a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], Azula's conquest of Ba Sing Se [[Gambit Roulette|has elements of this.]] It's an amazing coincidence that everyone who knows who she is just so happens to be conveniently absent the moment she sets foot in Ba Sing Se. Sokka especially could have waited a mere hour before leaving to greet the [[Dressing as the Enemy|Kyoshi Warriors]] when they arrived, which would have derailed everything. Of course, it all makes sense in context, and [[Tropes Are Not Bad]].
** Katara was pretty lucky Pakku was sweet on her Gran-Gran and he just happened to see the necklace.
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* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]] ''
** The entire episode "Trilogy of Error". Everything that happens to each character is a direct result of something (usually stupid) that another character has done, always with no idea that their actions are influencing the rest of the family. Eventually everyone's paths have crossed and re-crossed until, at the end of the episode, everyone's in the same situation.
** In the episode "Don't Fear the Roofer", where Homer befriend a man named Ray Magini and ends up in therapy because his friends and family are convinced Ray is an imaginary friend (note the [[Significant Anagram]]) Homer made because he was feeling unappreciated. In the end it turns out Ray is real, and everyone just happened to miss seeing him for one reason or another. Turns into outright parody with Bart, who saw Homer talking to thin air because there was some kind of odd
*** That's not even how micro black holes (odd
* Parodied in ''[[Road Rovers]]'' where the character of Hunter had the catchphrase "yet another unexpected twist", even if the twist is completely expected or just a wild coincidence.
* In every episode of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', the eponymous young boys build a spectacular creation and Heinz Doofenshmirtz builds an invention of evil. Whenever Doofenshmirtz loses control of his invention, no matter how far away it is, it will inevitably destroy, directly or indirectly, any evidence of what Phineas and Ferb built that day before their mother can see it (much to the bafflement of their sister Candace). Less often, Phineas and Ferb will do something that seems inconsequential at the time but actually helps their pet platypus Perry (who's a secret agent) defeat Doofenshmirtz later on. One or the other (or both) happens [[Once an Episode]]. Perry the Platypus is the only one who's aware how much the characters affect each other's lives on a daily basis.
** In addition, the two subplots are always near each other. Phineas and Ferb are on a trip to see Mr. Rushmore? Doofenshmirtz's base [[Landmarking the Hidden Base|is
** When they build a super computer it takes advantage of the coincidences to let them do the nicest thing possible for their mother, {{spoiler|fixing her hair after a horrible hair day}}. The computer even gets a [[Literal Genie]] moment but it is [[Made of Explodium]], all things it anticipated.
** Then there are the even less likely moments where Perry's two dual lives meet, such as when Dr. Doofenshmirtz takes his girlfriend to the restaurant Phineas and Ferb built in their backyard, or when Candace delivered girl scout cookies to Doof's apartment, ''while Perry was still there.'' Jeremy once went to Doof's home to teach him how to play the guitar. Doof once dated Linda. He once went to a garage sale at the Flynn-Fletcher household. (It's not known if he knows Linda lives there) It goes to the point where pretty much every character has interacted with the doctor at some point, bar, of course, Phineas and Ferb themselves, and even they have gotten close at points.
*** [[Averted Trope]] in ''[[Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension]]'', where the boys ''land'' in Doof's building, destroy the machine (an "Other-Dimension-Inator"), and then cheerfully help him fix it. And then Perry busts in, freezes when he sees them, and attempts to stop the doctor in 'mindless pet mode'. {{spoiler|He fails. They travel to another dimension, and then gets outed as a secret agent,}} but then [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] allows the characters to press the [[Reset Button]] and forget all about it.
*** The same ''[[Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension]]'' has both Perry ''and Candace'' invoke the coincidence to save the day. {{spoiler|Perry knows the boys can build incredible things, and has been saving all of their disappeared inventions for use by the boys, their friends and allies to defeat Alternate-Doof's invasion. While it's still not going well, Candace forces their mom out so see what's happening, reasoning the "Mysterious Force" preventing her from busting her brothers, now that they are involved due to their saved inventions, will clean up ''the entire city''. She was right.}}
** In "A Real Boy", Candace finally gets Mom to see Phineas and Ferb in the middle of their big project for the day. As luck would have it, Doofenshmirtz accidentally hits himself with his "Forget-about-it-inator" (it makes you [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|forget about whatever you're thinking about at that moment]]), then pulls a "[[What Does This Button Do?]]
** In the episode "Don't Even Blink", the characters decide to watch the boys' latest invention to see where it goes. On the day where Doofenshmirtz has built an ''invisibility'' ray. Every time Linda comes to look it goes invisible, and it turns visible again when she leaves... and when Candace realises you can still feel it, her attempt to cover it in paint is thwarted by Doof deciding to screw the whole thing, and convert the machine to a disintegrator ray.
** Many of the patches that the Fireside Girls earn are conveniently linked to Phineas and Ferb's project of the day.
* Lampshaded at least once in ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''.{{context}}
* ''[[Jonny Quest]]'' episode "Mystery of the Lizard Men". Out of all of the wrecked ships in the Sargasso Sea, the one that Jonny wants to explore is the one the [[Big Bad]] is using as his base.
* There was an episode of ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' in the eighties in which the Joes repeatedly received menacing telephone calls throughout the episode warning them that "the viper is coming," which they naturally assumed referred to their archenemy Cobra. They were able to interpret apparent clues in the calls to upcoming Cobra attacks, and so anticipate and thwart the attacks, and so throughout the episode enjoyed great success against Cobra, but the calls keep coming. Then, at the end of the episode, an old man shows up with cleaning equipment and announces that he is "the viper," and that he was there [[Alter Kocker|"to vipe the vindows."]] [["Everybody Laughs" Ending|Cue laughter]]. So there just happened to be critical clues to upcoming Cobra attacks in a series of totally unrelated phone calls. Sure, why not?
* Lampshaded with a heavy dose of
* ''[[Star Trek: The
* The episode "The Best Night Ever" of [[My Little Pony:
** Actually, Fluttershy's the least unlikely one in that you can trace the root cause of her failure back to something that both makes sense and has an explained cause -- notably, Fluttershy is approaching strange animals in exactly the wrong way to approach strange animals (i.e., rapidly and as if you are already familiar to them). Which is an uncharacteristic mistake for a professional animal handler like Fluttershy, but justifiable in that the theme of the episode is that ''everyone'' has been building up their expectations for the Gala for so long that they're completely overexcited and have lost most of their self-restraint and good sense
* In ''[[Street Sharks]]'', Melvin just happens to stay at the same hotel that {{spoiler|the Sharks' father}} is hiding in, leading to him accidentally eating mutagen popcorn and turning into a shark hybrid himself.
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[[Category:This Index Is Highly Improbable]]
[[Category:Older Than Steam]]
[[Category:Suspiciously Convenient Index]]
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