For Want of a Nail: Difference between revisions
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[[File:2-200 1651.jpg|frame|[[Godwin's Law of Time Travel|If the Nazis just]] had [[The Bad Guy Wins|one more of these...]]]]
{{quote|"''What happens if Bobo causes one of those weird numbers where he goes back into the past and steps on a butterfly or something, and because of that mammals as we know them never evolve, and because of that mankind never invents slot machines, and my favorite hobby goes straight down the toity, huh?!''"
|'''Pearl''', ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]''}}
An [[Alternate Timeline]] or [[Elseworld]] (often in time travel stories) in which one small change has a ripple effect, resulting in massive changes. The technical term (from one of the seminal papers on chaos theory) is "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", but it's better known colloquially as "the butterfly effect". [[It's a Wonderful Plot]] is a subtrope where the protagonist is the nail. [[Butterfly of Doom]] is a subtrope where no good deed goes unpunished. The [[Unwitting Instigator of Doom]] is the character who steps on the butterfly/distracts the hero at the wrong moment/innocently reveals the [[Big Secret]] and [[The Scrappy|will be hated]] for it.
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A [[Deal with the Devil]] will often have the "nail" as a price, something of seemingly small consequence, that is in fact huge.
Compare [[
Compare [[All the Myriad Ways]]. If the originals meet their alternates, may result in [[Other Me Annoys Me]] or [[Future Me Scares Me]]. Also compare [[The "Unicorn In The Garden" Rule]]; in a well-crafted story the nail will be the "one unicorn" that precipitates all the changes.
Often overlaps with [[In Spite of a Nail]], because many stories wouldn't be that interesting if ''everything'' was different.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* A Staples Business Depot TV commercial from the 90s, directly references the trope with a different scenario.
{{quote|For want of a paperclip, a page was lost.
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* Toshiba Electronics commercials depict this inside the mind of the CEO, leading him to hold back on releasing the product to make sure it has all the features it needs, regardless of the cost. For example, adding shock-proof hard drives to their PC's. He imagines an electrician dropping his laptop, picking it up and plugging it into an outlet at a relay substation, which causes a spark that knocks out the power. This leads to a person's roommate opening the refrigerator, sniffing some milk, noticing it's spoiled but drinks it anyway, immediately turns into a zombie, and unleashes the [[Zombie Apocalypse]] on the world.
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' has a bad case of this; every arc it's something else in the initial factors—minor things like a man moving into the village or even Keiichi giving someone a ''doll''—that sets off a completely different scenario of bloody tragedy.
** The doll was important to the one receiving it. That's why it changes things.
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* In the ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' manga, Sergay is not Nina's father and Nagi, while not a very good person, is not the main antagonist. As a result, Nina stays on the heroes' side for the entire story.
** On a lesser scale, Sergay is not anonymously paying for Arika's education in the manga, forcing her to take on several side jobs and leaving her no time to study, at one point putting her in danger of failing and dropping out.
* In [[Dragonball Z]], the main timeline ends up being VERY different than the one Trunks comes from for reasons that aren't really well explained. For example, Androids #17 and #18 are much more powerful than their alternate universe counterparts in the main timeline but not really all that evil (they do initially intend to kill Goku out of boredom as their programming dictates but don't really go out of their way to hurt anyone else). Android #19 didn't exist in the Trunks' timeline nor did Android #20 (Dr. Gero had never turned himself into an Android). Goku also got sick MUCH later than he did in Trunks' timeline.
**
*** The difference in strength between the main and alternate timeline versions of #17 & #18 was explained differently in the manga. In the ‘Trunks: The Story’ chapter when Gohan was fighting #17 & #18, immediately before #17 kills Gohan, #17 tells him that he’d been using no more than half of his power. After a short timeskip we see Bulma & Trunks debating the need for a time machine. Trunks thinks he’s already gotten strong enough to defeat 17 & 18, while Bulma thinks he’s too naïve since he was only at about Gohan’s level and Gohan was still killed. After this we see Trunks leave to fight them and the next panel we see they’ve put him in the hospital. There is no actual proof that the full magnitude of 17’s power (and possibly also 18’s) was revealed to Trunks before he went back in time. Assuming that Trunks was unaware of 17 & 18’s full power in his timeline, it would explain his surprise at their power in the main timeline. This would also indicate that the androids from the main timeline were actually just as strong as those in the alternate timelines and that Trunks was simply unaware of that fact.
* In ''[[Blood+]]'', {{spoiler|[[The Hero|Saya]] and [[Big Bad|Diva]]}} are twin sisters. Joel raised {{spoiler|Saya}} like a daughter, whereas Amshel kept {{spoiler|Diva}} locked in a tower, treating her like an experiment. When {{spoiler|Saya}} receives this history lesson, she can't help but sympathize with her sister, knowing full well that they could just as easily wound up with their roles switched.
* In ''[[Pokémon]]'', Damien's Charmander might have returned to him (as Damien wished for him to do so, due to Charmander showing strength he hadn't previously) if he hadn't decided to leave him to die out in the rain. If this had happened, Ash wouldn't have gained a new Pokémon for his team, though this wouldn't necessarily stop Charmander from evolving into a Charmeleon and later a Charizard.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* The [[Elseworld]]s comic, "[[Justice League]]: [[The Nail]]", where Jonathan and Martha Kent's truck is incapacitated by, you guessed it, a nail (stuck in the tire). This prevents them from going into town, which prevents them from seeing Superman's rocketship crash land, which means they never adopt baby Kal El (he is instead {{spoiler|adopted by the Amish}}), which means Superman doesn't become the DC universe's iconic hero. Without the Big Blue Boyscout around to inspire confidence and good feelings about metahumans among the general populace, the American people (particularly those in Metropolis) become highly suspicious of all superbeings, even to the point of hunting them down and locking them up simply for existing. The story even begins with the above poem.
** It turns out that {{spoiler|much of the reason for the anti-metahuman paranoia is fueled by the Kryptonian Eradicator Jimmy Olsen, which in the absence of Superman is able to operate much more slowly and subtly as far as its attempted conquest of Earth.}}
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*** Note here that Osterman probably wouldn't acknowledge there was a "nail" at all. Since he sees all times in his life simultaneously, his worldview is that everything in his life is fated to happen - that is, there is no divergent timeline that the "lack of a nail" could create.
* [[Marvel Comics]] has the ''What If?'' series, a title based ''entirely'' on this trope. Issues that occur include what would have happened if [[Spider-Man]] had joined the Fantastic Four; what would have happened if Rick Jones had been turned into the Hulk instead of Bruce Banner; what would have happened if the Invisible Woman had stayed with Namor; what would have happened if Jane Foster had found Mjolnir instead of Dr. Donald Blake; what would have happened if Aunt May had been killed by the burglar instead of Uncle Ben, etc. What's especially noteworthy about these series is how much '''worse''' off many of the characters tend to be if things didn't turn out the way they did (interestingly, Spider-Man, usually Marvel's whipping boy, comes off better than before at least as often as he comes off worse, probably because the default state of his life is suuuuuck).
** One particularly noteworthy example is the story ''[[Bullet Points]]'', where one bullet kills Dr. Erskine and Ben Parker. Effect? {{spoiler|There's no [[Captain America (comics)]], Steve Rogers is [[Iron Man]], Peter Parker becomes [[
** While ''[[What If]]'' generally used this trope straight, stories occasionally [[Playing with a Trope|played with it]]. One story has the [[Fantastic Four]] never receiving their powers, but becoming entirely successful adventurers anyway.
*** The Fantastic Four ''were'' successful adventurers before the rocket flight, even in canon.
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** One slightly silly issue showed the team being the nail for a change, preventing an alien invasion by [[It Makes Sense in Context|buying the last bagel in a bakery store.]]
== [[Fan
* The ''[[Ace Attorney]]''
* A popular concept is to rewrite the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books with Harry "having common sense" but they change so much (and his common sense is really having unexplained knowledge of what's happening next) that the actual fic barely counts.
** One of the few that actually manages to succeed is called ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4347535/1/Run_that_by_me_again Run That by Me Again]'', and that's only because it doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's a drabble serious instead of an actual rewriting.
* There is an entire subset of people who like to write [[Alternate History]] stories about our own world.
* The ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' fan-fic
** Hell, ''Buffy'' and ''[[Angel]]'' have plenty of these. From Faith not trying to ignore the fact that she killed a person and therefore not becoming evil (it's a common thing if Fuffy stories) to a different relationship changing things (oddly enough, this tends to be Fuffy or Wuffy), the fandom like this.
* The "Horseshoe Nails" series by Dyce is named after this trope. These River/Jayne friendship fics gradually become romance, and the 'Verse is changed at least somewhat for the better. In this case, the "nail" would be the first fic in the series, ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3272960/1/Two_Gorram_Days Two Gorram Days]''.
* The Nail in the first chapter of ''[[Misfiled Dreams]]'' is Rumisiel putting Ash's and Emily's files back in place. {{spoiler|Ash is an alcoholic cripple and Emily is dead.}}
* ''[[Shinji and Warhammer40K
* ''[[All He Ever Wanted]]'' starts off with the UK maintaining the alliance with Japan in the 1920s. [[It Got Worse|Stuff happens.]] But given [[Darker and Edgier|its]] [[Dark Fic|nature]], the POD is just the only ''visible'' difference from history and ''Hetalia'' canon.
* [[Sturgeon's Law|There is actually a]] [[Shipping|GinRan]] [[Bleach]]fic [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|titled]] [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6128781/1/All_For_the_Want_of_a_Nail "All for the Want of a Nail"], [[Idiosyncratic Episode Naming|with each chapter referencing a line from the poem]]. While the chapters in question are ridiculously [[Brilliant but Lazy|short]], [[What If|the nail in question is]] [[Draco in Leather Pants|Gin wanting]] [[Papa Wolf|to stay back in Soul Society to raise]] [[But I Can't Be Pregnant|the kid he's suddenly having with Rangiku]].
* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6378285/1/Harry_Potter_and_the_Sages_Stone Harry Potter and the Sage's Stone]: The description of the fic ''is'' the For Want of a Nail poem. It starts off with one [[The Dresden Files|Ebenezar McCoy]] ending up in Godric's Hollow the night Voldemort {{spoiler|is turned into a horcrux-spirit-thing}}, and salvages young Harry from the place before Dumbledore arrives.
* The ''[[Star Wars]] Infinities'' above are just ''one'' set of possibilities. ''Star Wars'' fandom can go absolutely bonkers with these, as even the ''slightest'' thing being different could have huge, galactic-spanning consequences.
* ''[[Luminosity]]'' is entirely based around this. In a [[Romance Novel]] where the ''point'' is that the plot we see revolves around Bella, what happens if Bella is smart and introspective? Despite the plot being all-but unrecognizable, that is the only change until the story starts.
* ''[[Halo: the Art of War]]'': In the original ''[[Halo]]'' canon, a Covenant probe hitches a ride on a UNSC ship and finds the UNSC stronghold planet Reach, then uses a Slipspace jump to get back to its masters. Master Chief and some of the other SPARTANs were about to go on a classified mission when the Covvies attacked, and most of them were killed. The first game takes place right after the UNSC ''Pillar of Autumn'' has fled the battle and found Halo. This fic imagines what would have happened if the probe had never made it back and the mission was allowed to commence unmolested. All the cool guns, however, are just [[Author Appeal]] and [[Rule of Cool]].
* ''[[Team 8]]''. The indirect nail is Kurenai getting a [[Dark and Troubled Past]] that has (so far) only been alluded to. The more direct one is driven in during the first chapter: Kurenai personally asks for [[Naruto]] Uzumaki for her genin team (sending Kiba over to Team 7 with Sasuke and Sakura), resulting in, among other things, a much more mature, focused and introspective Naruto.
* A popular topic among fans of ''[[The Legend of Spyro]]'' is what if Cynder's egg had been saved by Ignitus instead of Spyro's. What ''isn't'' clear is whether this makes things better or worse off.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3639659/1/A_Bad_Week_at_the_Wizengamot A Bad Week at the Wizengamot]
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4162641/1/Rurouni_Kenshii Rurouni Kenshii]'' uses this concept with the nail being that the main character is [[Gender Flip|female instead of male]]. Instead of meeting [[Love Interest|Tomoe]], she meets [[Bratty Half-Pint|Enishi]]. This causes Enishi to go from a crazed [[Big Bad]] to Kenshii's partner. Had the fanfic gotten far enough, chances are the last manga arc either wouldn't have happened or it would have been on a far smaller scale (lacking a mastermind and a budget).
* ''[[Ultimate SpiderWoman
* The ''[[Back to The Future]]'' fanfic ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3993367/1/The_Almanac_Chronicles The Almanac Chronicles]'' has several, but one was very significant to the history of the [[Alternate Timeline]]. {{spoiler|President John F. Kennedy is ''not'' assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, instead being in Sacramento at the time. He is re-elected in 1964 in a landslide, and his supporters campaign to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Kennedy himself does not benefit, but his successor Richard M. Nixon does, serving as President as late as 1984.}}
* The ''[[Pony POV Series]]'' has two
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4101650/1/Backward_With_Purpose_Part_I_Always_and_Always Backward
** Also, the nail in question was never mentioned but happened sometime in the 7th year of the original timeline, in which for some reason the horcrux hunt took longer than it should have, resulting in a higher casualty rate.
* ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4026081/1/The_Wrath_of_the_Half_Blood_Prince The Wrath of the Half Blood Prince]'', a ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' fanfic where [[Mook|Death Eater]] wannabe Mulciber pressed Severus Snape's [[Berserk Button]] by targeting Lily Evans instead of Mary Macdonald for a prank [[Chekhov's Gun|which got a throwaway mention]] during Snape's
* In the ''[[Game of Thrones]]
* The ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' fic ''[https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/troop-of-beasts-dragon-ball.6675/ Troop of Beasts]''{{Dead link}} has Kakarot not hitting his head as the original nail. Things change dramatically as a result.
** Because Kakarot never hit his head, he stayed wicked and bloodthirsty, and was never renamed "Goku".
** Since Bulma didn't have help from Goku, she failed in her first quest for the Dragon Balls. The ones she was able to collect got stolen by the Pilaf Gang, and with no means of getting them back, she had to return home in defeat.
** Roshi never destroyed Fry-Pan Mountain, so the Dragon Ball there remained inaccessible for several more years.
** Krillin, Yamcha, and Roshi didn't compete in the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament. Tien, however, did, and won. News of his success inspired Tao to take him on as an apprentice. However, since he found Tien to be stronger than him, he trained like hell to become stronger and more skilled than Tien, in order to be worthy of being his teacher. He's still pushing himself to stay ahead of his apprentice.
** The Red Ribbon Army made greater headway in their quest for world domination. They also turned Suno and the Ox King into cyborgs.
** Grandpa Gohan died later than he did in canon, and the circumstances of his death (deliberately killed by Kakarot in their last fight) were very different. After he dies, Kakarot leaves his old home and becomes a raider, which leads to him discovering sex and going to war against the Red Ribbon Army.
** Kakarot is very interested in claiming many females and having children with them. He has sex with a lot of different women and girls (not always with their consent) and has a harem of wives and mates. Included in his harem are Colonel Violet, Hasky, Chi-Chi, Mai, Launch, and multiple [[Original Character]]s. Due to all this sleeping around, he has many more children than he did in canon, and not just with his harem.
** After the wish to revive everybody whose deaths were related to the Red Ribbon Army (excepting Red Ribbon Army members), Kakarot and his family settle in territory owned by the Ox King. Since he's not quite so bloodthirsty anymore, Kakarot makes the transition from raider to warlord. Within a year, he's essentially a ''de facto'' king.
** Trunks is born much earlier, and he was fathered by Kakarot, not Vegeta.
** A girl named Bra is still born to the Briefs family, but her parents were Kakarot and Panchy, not Vegeta and Bulma.
** Korin and Roshi form a group known as the Korin Warriors in order to counteract potential threats to the world, including Kakarot.
** Demon King Piccolo is released later, because the Pilaf Gang weren't as frustrated or desperate as they were in canon, so they keep his rice cooker around as a trump card. He ends up being released by accident during a fight between the Pilaf Gang and Kakarot.
** King Piccolo has more children than he did in canon, and more of them survive. However, he never gets his wish for eternal youth.
== [[Film]] ==
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* [[Rules Lawyer]] and borderline [[Jerkass Genie]] Rumpelstiltskin offers [[Shrek]] a [[Deal with the Devil]] in ''Shrek Forever After'': Shrek gets one day as a lawless ogre in exchange for one day from his past. Rumpelstiltskin takes the day Shrek was born, thus creating a world in which Shrek never existed. One of the biggest changes is the fate of Fiona, who without anyone to save her from the tower chose to [[Screw Destiny]] and simply escaped by herself.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
* [[The Draka]]: In the book ''Drakas!'' [[S.M. Stirling]] uses the poem in the introduction. [http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0671319469/0671319469___1.htm\], [http://www.baenebooks.com/chapters/0671319469/0671319469.htm?blurb\], [https://web.archive.org/web/20180821091153/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect], [https://web.archive.org/web/20180618083027/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camel%27s_nose], [https://web.archive.org/web/20180820070839/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory], [https://web.archive.org/web/20170304192334/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail_(proverb)], For Want of a Nail, [[Spell My Name with an "S"]]
▲== Literature ==
* [[
* [[The Zeroth Law of Trope Examples|Shakespeare Did It First]] (sort of): "[[Richard III|A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!]]" Although Shakespeare doesn't dwell on it ([[Alternate History]] not having been invented yet), it certainly indicates the thought that England would have been rather different had Richard won the day at [[Wars of the Roses|Bosworth Field]].
* In [[Incarnations of Immortality|Under A Velvet Cloak]], Jolie is attempting to [[Defied Trope|defy this trope.]]
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* In ''[[The End of Eternity]]'' by [[Isaac Asimov]], the time police exploit this professionally and with mathematical precision. The book begins with the main character changing the course of history by moving a small object onto a different shelf.
** Also by Asimov (he liked this trope) is ''[[Spell My Name with an "S"]]'', where two aliens bet as to whether they could avert a nuclear war on Earth with a minor stimulus. Sure enough, getting one person to change how they spell their name works.
*** Context on that last (as it sounds utterly crack fic-ish without some): a sudden desire by a scientist applying for a security-cleared job in nuclear weapons research to spell his name differently makes the US government wonder what he's trying to hide, so they start searching their records for people with the same name as their theory is that he's trying to hide his being related to someone iffy. Their name-search turns up no relatives, but does turn up a Soviet physicist with the same name who
* ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In
** Also spoofed in ''[[
*** In a different book, Rincewind remarks that killing your own grandfather is the only thing that really appeals to him in this whole time travel business.
*** Ridcully then goes on to point out to Ponder that stepping on insects is fine, since history-as-they-know-it either isn't affected by the deaths, or actively requires them.
** This trope is played with in ''[[
** [[Deconstructed]]/[[Averted Trope]] in ''[[
{{quote|'''Ridcully:''' I suppose we'd have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing ...
'''Granny:''' What about the fire?
'''Ridcully:''' What fire?
'''Granny:''' Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both. }}
** The [[Trope Namer]] is referenced in ''[[
*** He manages a reverse of this in ''[[
*** Might be a double subversion as the war was ''meant'' to happen, since that was how history of supposed to go. Lu Tze, however, [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong|decided differently]]...
** Subverted in ''[[
** In ''[[The Science of Discworld]] III'', the wizards have to time travel around our earth making very minor changes to prevent Darwin from being killed/never being born {{spoiler|by the human-hating Auditors, who ''really'' want us to believe in Intelligent Design, since it eventually results in our extinction...}}
* Two ''[[Nightside]]'' novels by [[Simon R. Green]] steadily establish that {{spoiler|the main character, John Taylor,}} is responsible for ''everything'' that has ever gone wrong in the [[Nightside]], dating back to its very creation.
* ''[[To Say Nothing of the Dog]]'' discusses the trope quite a bit. It has an interesting scenario involving the destruction of Coventry Cathedral. Because of cracking the Enigma Code, British intelligence officials knew in advance that it would be bombed. The novel imagines a scenario where the [[MacGuffin]], a piece of hideous Victorian architecture, disappears during the air raid and an old busybody {{spoiler|correctly}} deduces it was stolen just before the air raid by someone with prior knowledge of the raid, {{spoiler|though she is wrong about who and why}}, and sends a letter about this oddity to the newspaper. When Nazi intelligence officials come across this letter, they deduce {{spoiler|again correctly, albeit for the wrong reason}} that their code has been broken and adopt a new one which the Allies can't crack, and thus win [[World War II]]. The removal of the [[MacGuffin]] means that 'time' has to 'fix' things by eliminating the old busybody. The method? Send the heroes back in time to ensure she is happily married and nowhere near Coventry Cathedral.
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* In Stephen King's book ''[[Needful Things]]'', Leland Gaunt, the proprietor of the titular shop, exchanges small treasures for ridiculously low prices if the buyer agrees to do him a small, mostly inconsequential favor. The favors inevitably snowball into large-scale disasters, {{spoiler|culminating in the destruction of the entire town.}}
** King also does this with ''11/22/63", where {{spoiler|a man goes back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination and comes back to a very different 2011.}}
* Possibly subverted in Philip Roth's book ''The Plot Against America'', in which the Republican nomination of [http://en.wikipedia.org.uk/Charles_A._Lindbergh Charles A. Lingbergh]{{Dead link}} for President in the 1940 Election keeps the US out of the war a good while longer, and massively increases antisemitism. At the end of the day, however, the Allies only win a year later than they did in real life; it's the damage to the Jewish diaspora in America, and the solidarity of the American people as a whole, that's the major outcome.
* This concept is the driving force behind the events in the book 'A Crack In The Line'. The book is about a boy whose mother is dead and who lives with his father and his mother's older sister. He accidentally finds a way to travel to an alternate timeline, where a female version of himself exists; her mother is still alive and she has no aunt. They discover that their two universes exist because of an event in the past that wasn't suppose to happen, causing the timeline to split off in two. Initially, they believe the divergence happened when their mother got in the accident which in the boy's world, killed her. However, the actual divergence happened when {{spoiler|their [[Extreme Doormat|grandmother]], at the time unmarried to their grandfather, refused to abort the baby that would become their mother's older sister. The girl's timeline was the one created in response to this change, in which the grandmother got the abortion}}.
* In ''The Never War'', the third installment of ''[[The Pendragon Adventure]]'', Bobby goes to Third Earth (Earth in the early 51st Century AD) to find out what would happen if he saved the ''[[Hindenburg]]''. Turns out, if said Zeppelin was saved, London, DC, and New York would've been nuked by the Luftwaffe just before D Day, and things would've gone down ''mountain'' from there.
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* Mary Lavin's short story "The Story of the Widow's Son" is based around this, examining the different consequences of whether the titular boy did or did not accidentally run over an old hen with his bike.
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Frasier]]''. ''Sliding Frasiers'' is an episode based on ''[[Sliding Doors]]'', in which two paths of Frasier's life are examined on whether he chose to wear a suit or a sweater for a speed dating service. {{spoiler|After a week, Frasier's lives meet at the same point, showing no matter which choice he made, he ended up at the same destination.}}
** Another example is when we're shown Martin and Daphne's extraordinarily efficient morning routine on several occasions, but on the last one Daphne puts Martin's cereal in a red bowl instead of a yellow one. The whole routine goes to hell, culminating in Martin accidentally throwing his toast on the floor.
{{quote|'''Martin''': You know, I don't like this red bowl, it's throwing everything off!}}
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** Specifically, the event here is {{spoiler|a woman in the 40s not getting hit by a car and proceeding to lead a massive peace movement that keeps the US out of [[World War Two]] for several years. This giver the Nazis time to develop nuclear weapons and win the war}}.
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** Also "Tapestry": Q shows Picard that by correcting one mistake in his youth, a seemingly beneficial act, he never becomes captain of the ''Enterprise''. (He specified, however, just to assuage Picard's conscience, that he's "not that important" and that no one would die or otherwise be terribly affected by this choice except for himself.)
** The final season episode "Parallels" has Worf jumping from parallel universe to parallel universe, where this trope is in full effect. La Forge is dead in about half of them, Picard is dead in about a quarter of them, Wesley Crusher's a lieutenant in a few of them, and the last gasp effort to set things right is almost disrupted by an ''Enterprise'' where the Borg have pretty much conquered everything. Worf retains his memories of everything, however, which inspires him to try to romance Troi.
*** One of these universes appears to have the Bajorans throwing off the Cardassian occupation and proceeding to become as bad as the Cardassians.
* ''[[Star Trek:
* ''[[Star Trek:
** The ''Voyager'' novel ''Echoes'' occurs when a planet activates a revolutionary new transport system that happens to shift the residents over one universe. When the ''Voyager'' is inadvertently summoned by the energy pulse, it is immune to the shifts. Residents report small changes in the world around them as they're moved. This wouldn't be such a problem, except somewhere down the line, the planet was hit by a meteor. That universe's ''Voyager'' was tasked with trying to save a few billion people. And a few hours after that, a few billion more. And a few hours after that...
** The episode "Non Sequitur" shows what would have happened if Harry Kim was not chosen to be among those who would be in Voyager's crew, with the results also affecting the life of Tom Paris. Of course, the catch is that this is an alternate reality in which Harry Kim still remembers being a crew member of Voyager and has somehow wound up in this reality.
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* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'''s Wishverse is the result of this trope combined with a subversion of [[Wonderful Life]]. Because Buffy never came to Sunnydale, Giles is no longer a watcher, Willow (now a skanky [[Lesbian Vampire]]) and Xander were turned into vampires, Angel became a prisoner implied to be tortured and raped for the fun of the vamps, and The Master left his underground prison, wreaking merry havoc on the town. Buffy also got herself a scar and an unrefreshing new attitude. The Wishverse debuted in "The Wish", and our favorite [[Lesbian Vampire]] crossed over into the [[Buffy Verse]] in "Doppelgangland" for even more fun.
** Although this may seem a bit less dramatic as the trope would imply. Considering that Buffy was the one to kill the Master and keep the Hellmouth in check, it's not a dramatic leap in logic for her lack of presence having disastrous consequences, unlike a kingdom falling for want of a nail.
*** We actually ''see'' the nail in the course of the show. The Master would have escaped in the pilot episode if Buffy hadn't stopped the Harvest, and the original episode establishes quite firmly that Buffy's presence was key to stopping it. (The only other available white hat who'd have had a chance of taking out the Vessel in a fight would have been Angel, and he not only avoided the canon Harvest but wouldn't even have been in Sunnydale at that time if he hadn't followed Buffy there.)
** This happens again in the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Birthday", where Cordelia turning her head the other way at a party results in a world where Cordelia has become a famous TV star instead of joining up with Angel, but Wesley's lost his arm and Angel, having to take the visions in place of her, has lost his sanity without her presence.
*** Oddly enough, this alternate-Angelverse implies that Angel and Doyle kissed. No, really.
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'''Jones''': Hence the expression, "Keep your hair on." }}
== [[Music]] ==▼
▲== Music ==
* The verses to "It's All Who You Know" by the Newsboys are two scenarios of this trope.
** In the first verse, a slip-up in an actor's facelift leads to the failure of the show that would have saved a TV network.
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* The video for "Has It Come To This?" by The Streets features a split-screen of two possible [[A Day in The Life|day-in-the-life situations]] of Mike Skinner.
* "The Want of a Nail" by Todd Rundgren.
* The whole point of [[Jay
* [[Bowling for Soup]]'s "Almost"'s verses each have chain of events that might have happened, if not for the first event in the chain only "almost" happening:
** Verse 1: "I almost got drunk at school at 14 / and I almost made out with the Homecoming Queen / who almost went on to be Miss Texas / but lost to a slut with much bigger [[Painful Rhyme|breastes]] / who almost dropped out to move to L.A. / and was almost famous for almost a day"
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The current default setting for ''[[GURPS]]'' is based on mixing this idea with [[The Multiverse]] to produce an infinite number of worlds. There's at least one canon parody of the concept with the world "Enigma" in which the only difference is the band [[The Clash]] never formed (and then <s>the planet</s> [[Life After People|all humans on the planet disappeared without a trace in 1982]]).
* During [[Magic: The Gathering]]'s ''Time Spiral'' block, the middle set (representing the present) featured "alternate universe" versions of certain cards, primarily reprinting older cards into other colors that would best represent them if various mechanics hadn't been assigned as they were. Keeping in the spirit of "What if?", the flavor text on a good portion of the cards give quick looks at an entire subplot that revolved around what would've happened if [[Catgirl|Mirri]] had slain [[Our Angels Are Different|Selenia]] before Crovax had a chance to, thus fulfilling the terms of a family curse, [[Our Vampires Are Different|turning her into a vampire instead of him.]]
* In a nice scenario for a Dr Who style RPG the player's TARDIS comes to rest in the car park of a film studio. This causes John Wayne to have to find another spot so he is late and angry for his meeting to discuss playing Genghis Khan. Instead Ronald Reagan gets the role and cancer inducing radiation dose. President Wayne's foreign policy isn't a great success either.
** John Wayne was a very heavy smoker throughout his life (at one point up to ''six packs'' of cigarettes a day!) and in 1964 nearly died of lung cancer (one lung was removed and The Duke needed supplemental oxygen for the rest of his life). Any contamination he might have received from the set of ''The Conquerer'' was likely just a [[Wafer-Thin Mint]] given what he'd already done to himself.
*** True in John Wayne's case, but the lung cancer rate among the other cast members and crew on the set of the ''Conqueror'' was still significantly above average due to their own radiation exposure. Reagan's dying of lung cancer because he was on set is still an entirely plausible outcome, even if Wayne's survival is not.
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
▲== Video Games ==
* The ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' games deal with the attempts of the immortal vampire Kain to change his fate and that of the world of Nosgoth, which are tied. Frequent use of time travel is made by Kain, Raziel, and Mobius the Timestreamer to advance their own agendas. For example: Mobius traveled back in time in the first chapter of the series "[[Blood Omen]]" and corrupted the King William the Just, turning him into The Nemesis, who threatened to conquer all of Nosgoth in the future. Kain inadvertently travels back to this time period, where he kills William the Just before he manages to become The Nemesis. When he returns to the present, Kain realizes that by killing William the Just he has sparked a genocide against vampires that left him the last in all of Nosgoth.
* One of the drama CDs based on ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' revolves around an [[Alternate Universe]] in which the war lasted ten years longer because Ky Kiske was killed in the penultimate battle, and in which the Gears would have ''won'' if I-No hadn't [[Temporal Paradox|gone back in time]] to rescue him.
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* Metaphorically speaking, the [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Radiant Historia]]'' spends much of his time pulling out nails—there's only one possible timeline that doesn't contain [[The End of the World as We Know It]], and surprisingly small changes can prevent that timeline from coming to be. The main character, in turn, has the obligation to find the nails and hammer them back in.
* {{spoiler|The rope}} in ''[[Cave Story]]''. It's the single most important key to stop {{spoiler|the destruction of everything in the island, including a large percentage of the cast}} and get the happy ending. [[Guide Dang It|And it's incredibly easy to miss]]. If you don't get it, expect some rough times in the plot.
* In the NES game ''[[Body Harvest]]'', the protagonist's goal is to undo the extinction of humanity at the hands of alien bug monsters, and to do so, must travel to four different time periods (each a different level of the game) to destroy four different Nails, as avoiding each Nail creates another that must be dealt with.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Erfworld]]'' Book 1 starts with this trope. The narrated opening scene shows the world's creators dropping one extra gem into a [[You Require More Vespene Gas|resource spot]], which pays for an extra squad of units to go to field against Gobwin Knob's army, which is just enough to tip the balances in a heated battle, which means that Gobwin Knob's chief warlord gets an arrow between the eyes, which means that Gobwin Knob needs a new chief warlord before [[The Alliance]] shows up on their doorstep, which means that Wanda Firebaugh's bad day is about to get a lot worse. {{spoiler|And then [[A Protagonist Shall Lead Them|Parson]] blows up a volcano.}} Judging from the way the story is going, this was just the start.
* In a time-travel example: the ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' time-travel plotline in Book 6 invokes this trope, but isn't itself an example.
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* [http://www.viruscomix.com/page556.html This] [[Subnormality]] strip. If you look closely enough, the last panel nearly spells out this trope.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* ''[[Decades of Darkness]]'' has president [[Thomas Jefferson]] dying of a heart attack. His bumbling successor [[James Madison]] manages to anger the New England states enough so they leave the union and defend themselves successfully in a war, splitting the USA forever. The slave states get the majority and transform the rest into an expansionist slave-holding empire.
* ''[[Look to the West]]''`s very different world ([[Steampunk]] revolutionary France, a divided India, French Australia, loyalist America) all stems from George II tripping on the carpet at his coronation in 1727.
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* [[1983: Doomsday]] starts off with [[wikipedia:Stanislav Petrov|a certain Soviet Air Defense forces officer]] being assigned to a different bunker in September 1983. The officer who takes his place mistakes a false alarm for an American nuclear attack, leading to [[World War III]].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[Star Trek: The
* ''[[Futurama]]'''s "The Farnsworth Parabox," which features a universe "exactly like ours" except for the fact that the results of all coin tosses (or at least those in the recent past) are reversed. (According to the DVD commentary, it's a probability-
** In the same episode, other parallel universes are visited, including a universe where everyone lack eyes, where their heads are bobble-heads, where everybody is a robot, a Roman Empire themed universe (complete with Roman numerals calculus) and a Hippie universe... However there do seem to be universes without the main characters, such as an octopus universe, a universe filled only with women and a completely frozen universe.
** In "All The President's Heads", the gang travels back in time to [[The American Revolution]] to stop Prof. Farnsworth's ancestor David, who betrayed the Revolutionaries by counterfeiting money. After they stop David, Fry burns the counterfeit bills with a lantern he found in a church, which turned out to be one of the lamps used to signal the coming of the British (one if by land, two if by sea). Because of this, the British win the war and the gang come back to an America that's still under British rule.
* Most of Timmy's time traveling adventures in ''[[The Fairly
** Averted. Cosmo was the one who originally caused Crocker to become the way he was. Timmy just inadvertently caused it again except things also played out so Crocker now has better Fairy Hunting tech.
** Not to mention the episode where he wishes he was never born. Tuns out his gender is a nail as well - his parents had a girl instead, and the life of everyone Timmy knows is better for it.
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*** Though there is still the question of if BW Megs absorbs G1 Megs Spark meaning in the "restored" timeline G1!Megatron is a sparkless shell.
** He isn't. In a scene cut from the last episode, G1 Megatron is shown with his spark being restored to him. Presumably this was ''how'' he learned of the later technology that made the entire concept possible, resulting in a [[Stable Time Loop]].
* ''[[Freakazoid!]]!'' inverts this. The titular hero ends up at Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and stops the Japanese from invading. When he comes back to the present, the world seems to be a better place: Sharon Stone can act, [[Rush Limbaugh]]'s a "bleeding-heart liberal", EuroDisney is booming, cold fusion works, and there are no Chevy Chase movies. Just one catch: {{spoiler|[[Pinky and The Brain|the Brain]] is President.}}
** Considering he likely had a hand in a fair amount of it, how is that a catch?
* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' inverts it as well by having Homer's guardian angel [[Hogan's Heroes|Werner Klemperer]] show Homer what his life would have been like had he not married Marge. In the alternate timeline, Homer is rich and happily married to a beautiful woman, while Marge is the President, enjoying both success and popularity. Needless to say, this was not a successful trip for the guardian angel.
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* In ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'', as realized in the episode "The Cutie Mark Chronicles", [[Boisterous Bruiser|Rainbow Dash's]] first Sonic Rainboom actually indirectly caused all the rest of the Mane Six to get their own cutie marks.<ref>as well as [[Unreliable Narrator|helping Pinkie Pie "create Equestria"]]</ref>
* In the ''Rated A for Awesome'' episode "Thera's Date With Destiny" Noam's new future-predicting invention shows that Thera will be going to prom with [[The Bully|Chet]]. They try to change the outcome, but each attempt either has them start dating even sooner or she goes to prom with someone else she doesn't want to go with. That is until the last vision, which doesn't show her date's face, but it's hinted to be Noam. Each vision after the first also shows her with a different hairstyle.
* Happens in the ''[[Totally Spies!]]'' episode "Futureshock!". Mandy [[Literal Metaphor| breaks a nail]] during cheerleading practice, and believes this is too much of a flaw to be a cheerleader. She decides to take up broadcasting class (because a news anchor can be popular without having to show her hands) takes a liking to it, becomes good at it, and by discovering the power of the press, becomes [[Drunk with Power]], growing up to be a dictator in a [[Bad Future]].
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Despite having multiple redundant systems and some of the most stringent inspection and safety standards in the world, almost all airline crashes can be distilled down to this trope.
** United Flight 232 in 1989 crashed because of a microscopic, metal-fatigue induced, hair-line crack in the compressor fan of its #2 engine. This crack caused the compressor fan to fail catastrophically, causing shrapnel to sever ALL THREE hydraulic system lines, causing complete loss of flight controls, causing the plane to crash and 111 passengers to lose their lives.
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** And, the criticism of the press of the world notwithstanding, it was too small and too slow to have been of much good anyway. Its few lifeboats could have been used to pick up survivors struggling in the water...but then again, many of ''Titanic'''s boats were half-full and still did not pick up survivors.
* The Norman Conquest of England had the weather as one of its nails. William of Normandy's invasion fleet was assembled and ready to launch by August of 1066, but was delayed by unfavorable winds until late September. Between August and September the Saxon king Harold Godwinson faced two crises that depleted his forces: the term of his conscripted troops (who were mostly farmers and needed to tend to their harvests) came to an end, and Harald Hardrada of Norway invaded England from the North. By the time William's fleet reached England, Harold Godwinson's army had been reduced to a fraction of its former strength. Had the weather cooperated and William had been able to launch his fleet earlier, he would have faced Harold at full strength. Even with Harold's forces depleted, William faced stiff opposition and his troops were often outnumbered on the battlefield. Facing a full-strength Saxon army, William would likely have been defeated, and the Norman Conquest would never have taken place.
* Although it was just the catalyst, the murder of Franz Ferdinand (Archduke of Austria-Hungary) by a Bosnian Serb nationalist led to [[World War
** It's highly doubtful that the Archduke's life could have been saved even if his staffers and doctors had been able to get his tunic off immediately. The bullet had crashed through his neck, severing his jugular vein, damaging his trachea, and lodging in the spine. In point of fact, it wasn't removed during the autopsy because doing so could have damaged blood vessels that needed to be kept intact for the process of embalming the body (which suggests that even if surgery could have been performed, it wouldn't have been any use to remove the bullet). Duchess Sophie, the Archduke's wife, couldn't have been saved in any case; her fatal bullet severed the main artery and vein in her lower abdomen, causing death within several minutes from massive internal bleeding.
** It's almost as if [[Epileptic Trees|there were a bunch of time travelers trying to interfere with this event and prevent WWII]]...
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* In one of Lewis Lovhaug's videos, he explains because of paranoia over the Colombine school shootings, he was suspended from school over something he said. His parents blamed the school and allowed him to treat his suspension as a vacation rather than a punishment, so he got an opportunity to watch ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' (figuring that if he was going to heckle his brother over it, he should know if it was worth mocking). This led him to becoming a fan of anime and eventually creating ''[[Atop the Fourth Wall]]'' - without the suspension "Linkara" wouldn't exist!
* On September 26, 1983, a Soviet early warning station detected [[Oh Crap|5 inbound]] [[Nuke'Em|ICBMs]]. Colonel Stanislav Petrov, the man in charge of the station, decided it was a false alarm and did not report it to his superiors. Had someone else been in charge, and had they ''not'' realized it was a false alarm, [[World War III|well]]...
** Perhaps a little comfort can be found in the fact that anyone with even general knowledge of nuclear war (such as a person in charge of a station dedicated to detecting missile launches) would understand that no one would launch just five ICBM's as a first strike
***James Dunnigan in one book somewhere or other speculated that instead of doing that they might just do one or two at a time as [[Proof I Am Not Bluffing]] - kind of like a gigantic version of an Icelandic feud from the sagas that is. However such an event would only be likely at a time when there was already so much of a crises that someone might be tempted to rock the boat in that fashion. When America and Russia were doing no more than doing a normal [[Death Glare]] at each other it was in everyone's interest to be better safe then dead. Especially as once it does come there is really nothing more to be gained but revenge. So yeah.
* Similarly, in 1979, at the American NORAD aerospace warning control center, a technician stuck a training tape depicting a full nuclear exchange with the Soviets into the main computer ''without remembering to hit the training button''. As a result, NORAD interpreted [[World War III]] from ''within its own computers''. Within a few minutes, American aircraft were loaded with nuclear weapons and launched, and missiles were prepared for a full retaliatory strike. For want a switch, the world might have been lost?
* Also a [[Professional Wrestling]] example, but since it was a major part of real life, it belongs better here. At a live event at Madison Square Garden in May 1996, [[The Kliq]] ([[Triple H]], [[Shawn Michaels]], [[Kevin Nash]], and [[Scott Hall]]) all hugged each other in front of the audience in what became known as the "Curtain Call". While it was not a problem for Michaels and Hall to hug (as both were faces), when Triple H and Nash joined in the hug, this scandalized the WWF (because both were heels), and this was seen as breaking the suspension of disbelief. While Michaels was not reprimanded because he was the WWF Champion, and Nash and Hall were leaving to go to rival WCW, this left Triple H as the sole member to take the blame. He was demoted from being a championship contender to the mid-card, and while originally booked to be in the finals at that year's ''King of the Ring'', the MSG incident prevented that. Who took his place, and the push that went with it? Why, none other than [[Stone Cold Steve Austin]], then a former WCW midcarder and current{{when}} WWF midcarder, who went on to win the KOTR, jumpstart the [[Attitude Era]], and help the WWF win over WCW in the [[Monday Night Wars]]. If the MSG incident had never taken place, then who knows what the state of the professional wrestling business would be today?
* The butterfly effect works like this, except vastly more extreme, and with worse story-telling. If you move one atom a Planck length to the side, it will move the atom it hits slightly more, growing exponentially until the weather patterns change completely. In addition, brownian motion (the motion of atoms bouncing off of each other) will change very quickly, which will change which sperm gets to the egg in every conception, meaning that every person who is born from then on will be different.
** Except of course it ''doesn't'' work like that, because random thermal motion at the molecular level will tend to ''damp the subatomic variations out'', NOT amplify them. The system has a certain amount of negative feedback built in. Worse story-telling indeed!! ([[E. E. "Doc" Smith]]'s [[Lensmen]] series actually lampshades this in ''First Lensman'' - the Arisians have long been aware that random, statistical variations occur on the microscopic level and predictable mechanistic ones on the macro, and their ability to predict the future (largely successful in-universe) depends on their competence to know where the interface of these is and what's happening there. Even though they're almost Godlike, they admit they are not sufficiently competent to solve the problem fully.)
** Also, while a butterfly can easily change the weather, it can do little against the climate. A butterfly won't cause a hurricane in an area that doesn't get hurricanes.
* An urban legend tells of a young man out to make his fortune in the city. He applies for a job in a brothel as a bookkeeper, but is turned away when he reveals that he can't read or write. The madam takes pity on him though, and gives him a couple of apples for his lunch. But instead of eating then, he sells them. He then manages to get a good deal on some more apples, sell those at a profit, and repeats the process... until eventually he owns his own fruit stand, then his own grocery store, then finally his own produce company. In a few years he's the biggest produce magnate in the country and is voted Businessman of the Year. When interviewed on the national news, the interviewer is shocked to discover that the man is ''still'' illiterate. The interviewer asks him if he did all that without being able to read or write, what could he have accomplished if he was literate? The man considers the question for a moment, then cheerfully responds "Well, I guess I would've been a bookkeeper in a whorehouse!"
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Sociology Tropes]]
[[Category:Settings]]
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[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]
▲[[Category:For Want of a Nail]]
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