Cosmic Deadline: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|''As you approach the final confrontation with the villain, events will become increasingly awkward, contrived and disconnected from one another -- almost as if some cosmic Author was running up against a deadline and had to slap together the ending at the last minute.''
|'''[[The Grand List of Console RPG Cliches]]''', item [[Console RPG Cliches 169 to 192|#182]] ("Compression of Time")}}
A phenomenon where the rate of character death and stray plotline resolution is exponentially and inversely proportional to the number of pages left in the book.
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Do not confuse with [[Celestial Deadline]]. Contrast [[Exponential Plot Delay]] (though it's not unheard of for a series to have both at different times.)
{{endingtrope}}
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Code Geass]]'' - after getting a whole extra season to play with, the plot suddenly races off around the 20th episode of the [[Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo]]. It probably didn't help that [[Executive Meddling]] changed the staff's original plans and forced the first several episodes to basically recycle the plot for the new audience though.
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* In many of his early novels (particularly the "juveniles"), [[Robert A. Heinlein]] would wrap up the plot in a page or two, often leaving the story unresolved. As noted in the description, this was probably due to word count/length limitations.
* Some of the books in Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' become veritable blood baths near the end as the story comes full circle and doomed characters are killed off. ''Midnight Tides'' and ''Reaper's Gale'' are the most bloody examples.
* The whole ''[[Harry Potter]]'' series. We only learn what Horcruxes are in Book 6 (out of 7). As a result, while only two Horcruxes have been found and destroyed by the end of book 6, the heroes must find and destroy four of them over the course of
* This occurred often in the early ''[[Discworld]]'' books, with a plot being set up in the first 200 pages, and then resolved in five.
* [[Science Fiction]] author Mack Reynolds seem to have this problem in a lot of his books.
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* ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]''/''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)]]''. Well written and immersive until about two thirds through the game, at which point it goes ''absolutely batshit '''crazy'''''. [[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)|Check out the image on its page]].
* ''[[Star Ocean 1|Star Ocean]]'' is well paced at first, but when you expect you're halfway done, you get sent to an [[Ass Pull]] final dungeon and introduced to a new (final) villain who monologues, explaining what would have been the second half of the game.
* ''[[Dark Void]]'' is perhaps worse than Fahrenheit. The first third of the game preps you on [[Take Cover|cover-based shooting]] and eases you into the eccentricities - hovering, vertical cover, etc... before giving you the promised [[Jet Pack]]. The second third is your cannonball playground, though it feels sparse at times, as if there's story you're missing - There's a level that was obviously supposed to be a [[Hub Level]], but you just move from there to the next stages via [[Time Skip]]s. The final third has two awesome stages - one where you blow the s#!+ out of a monster the size of Manhattan ''while inside its stomach'', and the final boss battle is an [[Old School Dogfighting|Old School Dogfight]] against a '''freaking three-headed dragon'''. Except... ''[[
{{quote|'''[[Zero Punctuation|Yahtzee]]''': ''The developers planned out a HUGE EPIC GAME, the various components of their studio started working on all the little bits of the HUGE EPIC GAME, and then they ran out of laundry powder or whatever it was and had to string together all the little unfinished bits into something vaguely sellable. They wrote a script for Lord of the Rings and ended up having to perform it with finger puppets.''}}
* ''[[Super Robot Wars L]]'', where the last 10 chapters (Out of 43) are basically "One chapter setting up a show's finale, another chapter doing said finale, repeat three more times, do the same for the [[Original Generation]] baddies", with little [[crossover]]ing going on other than [[Dancougar Nova|Moon WILL]] and [[Iczer One|Big Gold]]'s [[Villain Team-Up]] meaning they fight you [[Dual Boss]] style.
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