Cosmic Close Call

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A character experiences or ends up in proximity to a disaster that can seriously injure or even kill them - and it would have if they hadn't been in the right place at the right (wrong?) time. Such disastrous events can be considered Cosmic Close Calls - the victim could only survive these through what amounts to a bizarre coincidence, a stroke of luck, or the intervention of a third party (if not literal Divine Intervention). These tend to result in tons of Collateral Damage around them, however.

Another variation is the (un?)lucky victim making a choice that would've likely put them in the path of someone else's misfortune that would've befallen them had they chosen differently, with the 'lucky' victim usually not realizing it up until that set of Disaster Dominoes finally topples proper.

Cosmic Close Calls are often the work of a Bad Luck Charm or a Butterfly of Doom, and likely the regular circumstances of a Walking Disaster Area, Doom Magnet, The Jinx, or someone who's just Born Unlucky in the extreme. Also tends to happen to the Cosmic Plaything. A sufficiently harsh one may cause the victim to declare "Screw Destiny!", and possibly even Rage Against the Heavens - Cosmic Close Calls can even result if destiny is screwed hard enough.

If the survivor's time was due to come anyway, expect the universe to finish the job - if it was a Karma Houdini that survived one of these previously, their warranty will suddenly expire. If the universe is especially out to get our victim, expect the resulting chaos to look like look like something out of a sadistically-designed Rube Goldberg Device.

Supertrope to Hitler's Time Travel Exemption Act, which all but requires this to occur. Not to be confused with Dodge the Bullet, which is literal rather than metaphorical (though it can occur in tandem).

Examples of Cosmic Close Call include:

Anime and Manga

• Puella Magi Madoka Magica has Homura try to create these to save close friends, only for something far worse to take its place, and ends up going mad in the process.

Film

• The main premise of the Final Destination film franchise mixes this with Balancing Death's Books - one or more people among a group of friends manages to survive such an unfortunate event that was supposed to claim their lives, and Death is out to correct that mistake as the survivors try their best to fight fate.

Live-Action TV

• Supernatural:
  • The third episode in season 3, "Bad Day At Black Rock", features an Artifact of Doom in the form of a lucky rabbit's foot that grants its owner phenomenal luck... until they lose it (and "EVERYONE LOSES IT!"), at which point they suffer more and more until they eventually meet their demise. Near the end of the episode, the Winchester brothers end up going through this trope in their attempts to destroy it: as they're about to burn the foot, the waitress they had stolen it from arrives to steal it back, and threatens Dean by nailing Sam (who had previously owned the foot) in the shoulder. They only get away when Dean tosses the foot to her, causing the curse to pass to her as well, and she resigns herself to handing it over to be destroyed.
  • Happens to the brothers again when dealing with the goddess Atropos. Introduced in the sixth season episode "My Heart Will Go On", Atropos is one of the Fates in charge of arranging how mortals die, and can do so by freezing time and manipulating her surroundings. After Castiel interferes in and alters the past to save several thousand lives, Atropos begins hunting the survivors' descendants; when this draws the brothers' attention, she starts going after them as well, and they only manage Cosmic Close Calls with the help of Castiel.
• One episode of The X-Files has the luckiest man on Earth targeted by several mobsters, and his luck creates this by killing his would-be assassins in increasingly complicated ways. The man had been using his luck to collect enough money to pay for a new liver for his dying neighbor - and the last mobster to die was an organ donor who just happened to be a match.

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

• An ancient Babylonian myth recorded in the Talmud and transcribed by W. Somerset Maugham tells of a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the marketplace for provisions, only for the servant to come home white and trembling. The servant was jostled by a woman whom he recognized as Death, and fled to Samarra to hide from her after she makes a threatening gesture. The merchant later finds Death at the market place to inquire about the threatening gesture, and she replies:

“That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

Web Original

• Spinnerette has Benjamin Franklin sent through time after lightning strikes his kite, and he accidentally stops a time traveler's assassination attempt, creating this for the "lucky" would-be victim. He ends up obtaining superpowers as a result - since one of his inventions was responsible for Time Travel existing to begin with, he becomes the luckiest man alive and cannot die.

Western Animation

• A short on the What a Cartoon Show, "Awfully Lucky", has a sleazy guy trying to get a rare gem to a museum offering a huge reward for it. The gem was cursed to give whoever owns it alternating extremely good and extremely bad luck, with the thief suffering all sorts of increasingly ludicrous calamities and just barely living through them, even as he tried to return the gem to the museum.
• The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror XI segment "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad" has Homer experience various Cosmic Close Calls before choking on a piece of broccoli and dying.