Justified Title

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A strange title naming trope where a title that obviously refers to one thing—the general idea of a work, or something about its format—is contrived so as to refer to something specific in the story.

This means more than just that the title refers to something in the work—it means that the title so obviously refers to something else that the fact that it does mean something in the work comes across as pretty farfetched. It's as if Star Wars Episode IV had taken place on the fourth moon around a gas giant named "Episode", and the viewers were supposed to believe that that's what "Episode IV" really refers to.

Compare Title Drop and Epunymous Title. I Am Not Shazam is what happens when the title doesn't refer to an entity within the story, but fans assume otherwise. If the title refers to more than one concept within the work, it's a Double Meaning Title.

Examples of Justified Title include:


Anime and Manga

  • The voiceover for the Virtua Fighter anime doesn't claim it has anything to do with a video game; rather, it says that the main character Akira is named the Virtua Fighter. Needless to say, this is referenced nowhere else. The Latin American Dub tried to make up by translating "Virtua" as "Virtuous".
  • Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two.: Originally seems to be a generic Engrish love story title, until at the end it's revealed that There were two towns all along, also making it a Shout Out for A Tale of Two Cities.
  • The Wild ARMs TV series claims that the TV stands for "Twilight Venom", not "television".
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is something of a fake-out. "Tengen Toppa" means approximately "Heaven Breakthrough", and "Gurren Lagann" is the name of the main Humongous Mecha used throughout the series, so you might think it's a typical "descriptive-phrase main-vehicle-name" title such as Martian Successor Nadesico... but no. There's actually a machine used near the end called, in full, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. And it's even more impressive than the name implies.
  • Gundam Seed Destiny, rather than being simply an Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo refers to both the Designated Hero's Mid-Season Upgrade, the Destiny Gundam, but also to the main villain's sinister, Brave New World-esque "Destiny Plan".
  • The Japanese name of Zatch Bell, Konjiki no Gash Bell, means "Golden Gash Bell". You could think that "Golden" refers to his blond hair, but in the final storylines of the manga and anime, Gash's spellbook actually becomes golden after he unlocks its true powers.
  • Paradise Kiss doesn't refer to mindblowing smooching, it's the brand name the heroine's Love Interest uses on the clothes he designs.
  • SD has been known for some time to stand for Super-Deformed especially in the Gundam franchise; but SD Gundam Force has it stand for Superior Defender, referring to the heroic Gundam protectors.
  • The title of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle refers to two characters named Tsubasa and the reservoir in Acid Tokyo / Clow Country.
  • The title of the Natsume Ono manga Not Simple is not only fitting due to the complex method of Anachronic Order that the story is told in, but also references the title of an in-universe novel written by a freelance journalist which is used as a Framing Device for the story overall.

Comics

  • The DC Comics mini-series 52 was 52 issues long, one per week for a year; within the story, the title refers to the characters' discovery of 52 universes in The Multiverse. Additionally, the number "52" appeared whenever it was even remotely possible to do so- everything from numbers on football players to clocks set to "5:02". Plus, the final issue of the series came out on 5/2/2007 - but DC comics says this was a coincidence.
  • Final Crisis: Superman Beyond 3D is a 3D comic that involves Superman entering the "Bleed" between universes; going "beyond" three-dimensional space.
  • The X-Files comic book series X-Files: Year Zero not only takes place in the year of the first X-File, it features a major character named Mr. Zero.

Film

  • In Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, the title is obviously a reference to the retro-futuristic nature of the movie, but "Sky Captain" is the nickname of the main character, and the villain calls his little plan (intending to leaving the earth on a rocketship with two of every animal, destroying the Earth) the "World of Tomorrow".
  • The Martian Successor Nadesico movie introduced a new group of adversaries actually named the "Martian Successors".
  • The title of Spy Kids refers both to the fact that the Kid Heroes are spies and to the name given to the evil robotic children created by the villains. This is ignored in the sequels.
  • Quatermass II (at least the 1950's version) is obviously named that because it's a sequel to The Quatermass Experiment. But essential to the plot is a rocketship actually called the "Quatermass II". Similarly, RoboCop 2 actually involves an evil cyborg known as, you guessed it, RoboCop 2.
  • The masks in Halloween III: Season of the Witch come in exactly three styles, and are subsequently called the "Halloween three."
  • Inglourious Basterds makes a minor attempt to justify the misspelling of its title by having it appear misspelled on the butt of the group's under-educated leader.
  • Enemy Mine started out as a sci-fi flick about cooperation and brotherhood... then executives decided that the title was too confusing, so they decided to add an actual mine, run by enemies.
  • The movie Event Horizon may be about its namesake given fantastic elements, or at least the title may be referring to it as an analogy to what is going on in the movie. Whatever the case may be the story revolves around a spaceship named Event Horizon.
  • The film adaptation of Watchmen makes it into one. In the comic it refers to the nature of superheroes in general, and quotes from "Who watches the Watchmen?" (Lat. Quis custodiet ipso custodes?), but in the film the abortive team formed by Ozymandias is called the "Watchmen" instead of the "Crimebusters".
  • Misery refers to the misery that novelist Paul Sheldon experiences, but also to the "Misery" series of novels that he wrote... which in turn actually refer to their improbably-named protagonist Misery Chastain, making this a recursive example.

Literature

  • The title of the novel The Big Clock was just a metaphor—until the creators of The Film of the Book, apparently thinking the metaphor was too subtle, decided to throw an actual giant clock into the story.

Live Action TV

  • The 200th episode of Stargate SG-1 is titled 200. In an obvious bit of Leaning on the Fourth Wall, Mitchell makes a big deal about it being his 200th trip through the gate.
  • TV shows with the naming version of trope go back at least as far as The Wild Wild West (subverted in the hilarious derivative Brisco County, Jr.). There are numerous famous examples, such as Knight Rider.
  • On Bones, the main character works with bones, but her partner nicknames her "Bones," making the title important to both the subject of the story and also the main character.
  • The TV show One Tree Hill is named after a U2 song, which in turn is named after a hill in New Zealand. The fictional town the show is set in is called Tree Hill, and the season one finale has Karen remind Lucas that 'there is only one Tree Hill'.
  • Grey's Anatomy refers both to protagonist Meredith Grey and a well-known medical text. Although that is spelled "Gray`s Anatomy."


Music

  • Many assumed (and still do) that The Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds is about LSD, given the initials, the trippy lyrics and the fact that the Beatles openly admitted to experimenting with drugs, which would make it an instance of this trope. That notwithstanding, John Lennon (who wrote it) has made it quite plausible that it's a complete coincidence, and that it's about a character in a drawing his son made, which was really called Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
    • That really is true, her name was Lucy Richardson and she died in 2005 at 47, after having a brilliant career as an Art Director in film. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0724682/
    • The band's openness about drugs makes the alternate explanation more credible—after all, if it were a drug reference, they wouldn't be shy about saying so, at least, they wouldn't concoct a cover story.

Video Games

  • Many Nintendo DS games justify the usage of Super Title 64 Advance by making the DS mean something other than the name of the system:
  • Metroid Prime: 'Prime' is meant to denote it as a side series to the main Metroid games. The final boss is called the Metroid Prime even though its relationship with Metroids is rather vague.
  • The Dead or Alive series is ostensibly named after the Dead or Alive Tournament featured in the game, however this is a misconception. The game is called "Dead or Alive" due to the fact the game was expected to either sink or save the floundering company TECMO, thus the "Dead or Alive Tournament" is an attempt to justify the title. This makes sense when one considers that "Dead or Alive" is a rather strange name for a tournament in which nobody dies.
  • The original Marathon game was so named early on because the creators pictured the player running a "Marathon" of endless fighting throughout the game. The title is justified fairly well in-game by calling the colony ship The Marathon, which is ostensibly running a "marathon" from Earth to Tau Ceti, however the making-of book confirms that the project was named first, and the colony ship is therefore a justification.
  • Kingdom Hearts 358 Days Over 2 is named for the fact that, as a Gaiden Game, it takes place between the numbered games, and one week shy of a year (358 days) is the amount of time that elapses between them, and, hence, is the period in which Roxas was part of The Organization. The '2' symbolizes his relationship with Sora and also symbolizes the fact that the 358 days are shared by both Roxas and Xion both of whom are part of Sora

Web Comics

Western Animation

  • The titular character of Disney's Goliath II is actually an elephant. Goliath I is actually his father.
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