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== [[Anime]] ==
* [[Kobato.]] seems to constantly run into the same person until she fixes their emotional problems, and then promptly never sees them again.
* [[Elfen Lied]] in ''spades''. It goes beyond [[Contrived Coincidence]] and into some kind of [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Improbability Field.]]
* [[Kanon]]. Although this may be due in some small part by [[It Makes Sense in Context|miracles,]] it's still damn unlikely for Yuuichi to run into people whenever he steps outside.
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== Comics ==
* Inverted in ''[[Flash Gordon (
== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Star Wars]]'', of course. In ''The Empire Strikes Back'', [[The Hero|Luke]] is told to look for Yoda in the Dagobah System. That's all he's told about where to find Yoda. And not only does he get the right planet, but he even lands within a mile or so of Yoda's hut.
* [[Lampshaded]] in the above quote from ''[[Casablanca]]''.
** It's actually not that much of a coincidence in this case, since everybody involved has [[Run for
* Constantly, ''constantly'', in ''[[Doctor Zhivago]]''.
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' films:
** In ''[[Star Trek V:
** In ''[[Star Trek (
* In ''[[Enemy Mine (
* In ''[[Honey
== [[Literature]] ==
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* In [[Dan Simmons]]' ''[[Ilium]]'' and ''Olympos'' this is justified and deconstructed. Everyone lives close to the teleporters all across the planet because there is no need to go very far from them. The unfortunate result is that they've managed to forget about the entire rest of the planet.
* [[Older Than Radio]]: In Fielding's ''Tom Jones'', characters who are travelling separately are forever running into each other at [[You All Meet in An Inn|inns]] along the road. Critics have tried to [[Justified Trope|justify]] these remarkably convenient coincidences by making learned references to the average speed of a stagecoach and the density of coaching inns along the major roads in Georgian England.
* ''[[The
** Zaphod is ''also related to Ford'' just for a gag about [[Bizarre Alien Biology]].
* Some critics have pointed out that a good number of plot points in ''[[A Clockwork Orange (
* In ''[[Vorkosigan Saga|The Vor Game]]'', Miles Vorkosigan is on a space station several wormhole jumps from home, and just happens to get tossed into a holding cell that contains his old friend {{spoiler|Emperor Gregor}}. And later, on an entirely different station, he runs into {{spoiler|General Metzov, the man whose career he had ended in the opening chapters of the book.}}
** In ''The Warrior's Apprentice'', one of the first people Miles meets after arriving on Beta Colony is the freighter captain that his mother had conned into giving her a lift off the planet eighteen years earlier. And then, several planets away from both their home worlds, he runs into {{spoiler|Elena's mother}}.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s "[[
* Les Misérables; characters we thought we left behind have a way of popping up again as the plot demands it. Not that this is a bad thing.
* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] novels take this to absolutely ridiculous extremes. Just a couple of examples:
** [[Death Troopers|The prison ship that just so happens to find a Star Destroyer infected with a]] [[Zombie Apocalypse]] ( {{spoiler|A.k.a [[Playing
** Jaden Korr (of [[Jedi Academy]] fame) happens to be in precisely correct spot in all of space to intercept an Old Republican jedi master who was flung into the future due to a hyperdrive malfunction.
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* Very obvious in ''Doctor Who'', where the TARDIS never seems to land on the opposite side of the planet from wherever the local intrigue is going on. The episode ''The Doctor's Wife'' tells us that the TARDIS is doing it on purpose, even in the early seasons when the ship's flights were entirely random.
** For example, despite having an entire planet to argue over, the Thals and the Kaleds apparently live within walking (or gliding) distance of each other in ''Genesis of the Daleks''.
* In one episode of ''[[
** A Pa'u Did It?
* The first season of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' suffered badly from this. Characters just seemed to run into each other all the time, even when they came from distant places like Tokyo. Perhaps the most blatant example was {{spoiler|when Hiro met Nathan at a roadside diner, and shortly afterwards, Sylar also happens to show up on it (in time to kill Hiro's new love interest.)}}
** Actually two different diners. {{spoiler|Nathan and Hiro were outside Las Vegas. Hiro, Charlie, and Sylar were outside Odessa, Texas. Hiro just loves waffles.}}
*** [[Word of God]] is that [[Because Destiny Says So|evolved humans are subconsciously drawn to each other]].
**** Translation: "[[Follow the Leader|We wanted to be like]] ''[[Lost]]''."
* Cleverly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the original ''[[Land of the Lost (TV series)|Land of the Lost]],'' where the artificial pocket dimension the Marshalls are trapped in is not only small, but warps over on itself, so that if you walk far enough in one direction, you will return to your starting point. The local "mountain range" is, in fact, just the endlessly repeated image of the ''same mountain,'' and if you stand on its peak and look at the neighboring beak with binoculars, you can see your own back.
* Averted and then played straight in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]''. Starbuck crash lands on a barren moon and a big deal is made of how difficult it is to find one person on a planet when all you've got is "visual scanning". At one point they even show a map of the moon with the comparatively small area they've managed to search drawn on. They then throw this out the window by having Starbuck find a crashed Cylon Raider that apparently came down not far from where she crashed. [[Contrived Coincidence]] maybe, maybe not, as she personally shot it down before she crashed from damage it inflicted.
** Later in the series, Starbuck makes various similar leaps with predictability especially during the final episode where she {{spoiler|manages to make an FTL co-ordinate out of the song she and the Final Five kept hearing, just in time to avoid the collapse of the Cylon colony ship under nuclear attack, only for this to turn out to be a new habitable planet, precisely what the fleet had been looking for since the planet formerly known as Earth had turned out to have been nuked by humans attacking earlier Cylons}}. Not only do all of those ducks get lined in a row, but {{spoiler|it turns out there are indigenous humans genetically compatible with the humans on the fleet, despite total biological isolation of the two populations prior to this episode.}} Lucky coincidence indeed.
*** The answer to all of the above is, of course: {{spoiler|[[A Wizard Did It|the entity which does not like to be called God did it.]]}}
* Present in ''[[
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Somewhat averted in ''[[
* Both Averted and Justified in ''[[Traveller]]''. From the point of view of your usual [[Big Damn Heroes|intrepid intersteller adventurer]] a [[Space Is an Ocean|starport]] is the only part worth thinking about on a given planet. However most planets are quite large and whole campaigns can be featured on just one of them.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Painfully obvious in ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'', where one "world" consists of only a single thoroughfare and one block to either side in Agrabah, and one spot in the desert with the Cave of Wonders, and another consists of just Captain Hook's pirate ship and the top end of Big Ben. Other worlds are similarly diminutive.
** It's still bad, but gets better in ''[[
** But wait! Arguably, ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' actually ''averts'' this. After all, being a giant [[Crossover]] game, the worlds it contains are ''already'' fictional worlds mostly suffering from this [[Trope]], and therefore their meta-representations in KH are actual size!
* In the ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' series, a great many worlds can be visited, and each one consists of a single action adventure zone, no larger than the levels in ''[[Sly Cooper]]'', (which are all set in various parts of one single world). If it weren't for [[Big Bad|Chairman Drek]]'s [[Evil Plan]] and its importance to the plot, there would be no reason for space travel at all.
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**** ...an address belonging to a ''terrorist organization wanted in all of Citadel space''. Then again, given their penchant for [[Sigil Spam|plastering their logo on everything]], it wouldn't be surprising if it were something like "cmdshepard@cerberus.org"
** Played straight with searching for Liara. The smallest to which your superiors can narrow down her location is a sector ''with four navigable star systems''. Although they do recommend starting the search on "the planet with the Prothean ruins", without even specifying its name. Likewise, Liara can only narrow down the Conduit's location to "somewhere on Ilos", and you only find it by locating [[Big Bad|Saren]] and airdropping right behind him.
* The ''[[Knights of the Old Republic (
** In the case of Tatooine(desert planet) and Manaan(water planet), there were only one setlement on each planet, so there really wasn't anywhere else to go. Also on Tatooine, when finding the Star Map there is really no way to know how far it was before you find the cave containing the map, especially given that you are unable to travel there without a map. Also on Taris(city planet), you and Bastila both ejected from the same ship at roughly the same time, meaning it would be highly unlikely for you to end up in different locations. Everything else that you encounter is largely related to Bastila's capture. Although the fact that you travel to Tatooine of all places is really an example of this.
* [[The King of Fighters]] meta-series has several of the oldest fighters (Takuma, Saisyu, Chin, etc.) having either known each other superficially or being old friends. Specially, [[Art of Fighting|Takuma Sakazaki]] knew [[Fatal Fury|Jeff Bogard]] rather well, and he also was an acquintance of Kyo Kusanagi's father Saisyu; also, Chin Gentsai was an old friend of [[Fatal Fury|Tung Fu Rue]]. ** Noticeable in that the "Takuma knew Saisyu" angle was pure [[Fanon]] at first, then became canon.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[
{{quote| '''Grace''': (thinks) I don't believe this! How can ''he'' be Tedd's father?!<br />
'''Mr.Verres''': (thinks) Is that -- Shade Tail?! }}
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