It's a Wonderful Plot: Difference between revisions

* Mad Magazine is fond of this trope. They tend to favor people with political power, especially the current president of the time.

** Speaking of [[Mad Magazine]], the Monroe comic had a chapter with this plot. In it, everyone is happier and better off without Monroe; even the guardian angel admits absolutely everything is better for everybody. In the end, Monroe decides to continue living, because "misery loves company."

* A ''[[The Flintstones|Flintstones]]'' comic had Fred find that he hadn't received a Christmas bonus. Fred gets depressed about this, somehow gets even more depressed and starts going on a walk without knowing where he's headed - toward a tar pit. The Great Gazoo then yanks Fred out of time at the last minute and takes him to a world to show Fred what things would be like if he never existed (Fred protests along the way that he didn't wish that he was never born, Gazoo retorts saying Fred posed an interesting "what if" and didn't want to pass it up). They arrive in a world where Bedrock is a lot larger and is now known as Slaterock, Barney has an administrative position at Mr. Slate's business and Wilma is married to Mr. Slate. Gazoo then shows that all is not as it appears to be. Slaterock grew up "too big, too fast" and crime is now way up. Betty is single and homeless because she never met Barney (because Fred introduced her to him) and Barney is quite lonely and spends his nights in the office depressed. Pebbles is a spoilt brat and Wilma is unhappy with her marriage. Gazoo then takes Fred back to his own time, where he declares that he's alive...and in pain having fallen into the tar pit. He returns home now more appreciative of his family and Mr. Slate arrives with Fred's bonus, saying his secretary forgot to put it in his pigeonhole.

* In [[Grant Morrisons Batman]] story "Last Rites", set between ''[[Batman RIP]]'' and ''[[Final Crisis]]'', Bruce is given false memories of a life in which his parents weren't killed. Jim Gordon and Dick Grayson are dead. Bruce is a dilettante doctor, coddled by Martha and a disapointment to Thomas, especially when he falls for a patient who turns out to be Selina Kyle, distracting him while she robs the surgery.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* The ''[[Sweet Valley High|Sweet Valley Twins]]'' series played the trope entirely straight in a Christmas special book, in which Elizabeth wishes she'd never been born and promptly receives a visitation from a quirky guardian angel who shows her a vision of what life would be like. It's heavy on [[For Want of a Nail]] scenarios based on Elizabeth's actions in previous books, but also contains a couple of more nonsensical changes: the club of shallow, popular rich girls is transformed into a vicious girl gang, and Elizabeth's sister Jessica goes from bubbly, stylish, and popular to shy, geeky, and pathetic.

** Subverted in a ''[[Sweet Valley High]]'' Super Edition, "Winter Carnival" where Elizabeth becomes annoyed with Jessica's forgetfulness/selfishness when it causes a rift in her budding romance with Jeffrey French during a winter festival at a ski resort. Elizabeth is upset and leaves, angrily wishing that Jessica wasn't around to mess things up. When she arrives home, she finds out that Jessica is dead. With Jessica gone, everyone in Sweet Valley is depressed and spends a lot of time remembering Jessica's bubbly personality and forgetting about Elizabeth. She wakes up and realizes that it was [[All Just a Dream]] and makes up with Jessica and Jeffrey.

** Season 4's "It's a Terrible Life" showed that even if the boys weren't Winchesters, they'd still end up as hunters somehow, which is pretty awful when you think about it. {{spoiler|Zachariah}} serves as their Clarence-figure, {{spoiler|disguised as Dean's boss}}.

* ''The Facts of Life'' had an episode in which Beverly Ann wished that she had never come to town to become the girls' den mother (or whatever she was). In a dream, Santa appeared to show her what would have happened without her. Jo was killed in some kind of accident, and bad things happened to all the other girls as well.

** It's a [[Crapsack World]] by the standards of the show. Carly's dating a borderline sociopath (as opposed to merely being friends with/the [[Morality Chain]] of one like normal). Freddie's ''still'' an [[Acceptable Target]] of abuse, except that he now takes it from a girlfriend instead of Sam. Spencer has gone from being reckless but loving to being preppy, boring, and aloof; not only that, but he's dating a completely smothering psychopath. And Sam is an even worse person than she is in their regular lives and is in prison -- and considering how bad Sam can be in a regular episode, the possibility of what she might do without Carly's calming influence borders on [[Nightmare Fuel]]. The lack of web show is just [[Author Existence Failure]], because Carly never had the opportunity to do it.

* In a ''[[Popular]]'' episode at the end of the arc centered on Harrison's battle with leukemia, he is prevented from committing suicide by being taken on a Wonderful Life by the spirit of his deceased hospital roommate who returned as his guardian angel. Keeping with the somewhat parodic nature of the show, said roommate is even named "Clarence". Making it even funnier is the fact that [[Actor Allusion|his actor]] was previously the star of ''[[Teen Angel]]''.