There Are No Coincidences: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''"I believe in coincidences. Coincidences happen every day. But I don't'' trust ''coincidences."''|'''Garak''', ''[[Star Trek]]: [[Deep Space Nine]]'' }}

As any student of cause and effect can tell you, a coincidence is when two or more events happen either simultaneously or in sequence, without any sort of obvious (and in most cases, inobvious) causal connection. Generally coincidences surprise us because, naturally enough given their nature, we just weren't expecting them. Most people know that sometimes things just happen at the same time. But some people just refuse to believe it. There are, after all, reasons people say "where there's smoke there's fire." They also often say "[[There Are No Coincidences]]."

As any student of cause and effect can tell you, a coincidence is when two or more events happen either simultaneously or in sequence, without any sort of obvious (and in most cases, inobvious) causal connection. Generally coincidences surprise us because, naturally enough given their nature, we just weren't expecting them. Most people know that sometimes things just happen at the same time. But some people just refuse to believe it. There are, after all, reasons people say "where there's smoke there's fire." They also often say "There Are No Coincidences."

Interestingly, this line can be made by both the [[Agent Scully]] and the [[Agent Mulder]]. One believes that the improbable has a simpler explanation and one believes that is has a fantastic one. Both are [[Genre Savvy]] in that [[Contrived Coincidence]] is something that should usually be avoided in serious plots.

Usually used either to motivate investigation into possible reasons why an apparent coincidence actually sprung from a common ~~cause -- the~~ [[Conspiracy Theorist]] has an advanced case of it, and no willingness to stop the ~~investigation -- or~~ as a [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]] way to say [[Because Destiny Says So]].

Usually used either to motivate investigation into possible reasons why an apparent coincidence actually sprung from a common cause—the [[Conspiracy Theorist]] has an advanced case of it, and no willingness to stop the investigation—or as a [[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane]] way to say [[Because Destiny Says So]].

This belief is, of course, Rule One of [[Wild Mass Guessing]]. The [[Genre Savvy]] are particularly prone to it, because fictionally, the [[Law of Conservation of Detail]] militiates against its falsity.

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== Anime & Manga ==

* Yuuko from ''[[xxxHolic]]''. This idea is her whole entire shtick and a major plot point, if not ''the'' major point of the series; though she also comments that the ultimate cause of an event may be an incident so minor that it's next to impossible to recognize the connection, even ''with'' supernatural help. She has a ~~point -- for~~ example, the only reason that we, the readers, know that Doumeki's destroying one specific spiderweb while housecleaning is at all relevant to the story is that the manga devotes an entire page to depicting it, as opposed to the many other spiderwebs that have presumably been destroyed at some point or another without being shown. (Watanuki's ''job'' is being Yuuko's live-in slave, after all.) [[Law of Conservation of Detail|Unlike real life, fictional works have limited space, so only the significant events are depicted]].

* Yuuko from ''[[xxxHolic]]''. This idea is her whole entire shtick and a major plot point, if not ''the'' major point of the series; though she also comments that the ultimate cause of an event may be an incident so minor that it's next to impossible to recognize the connection, even ''with'' supernatural help. She has a point—for example, the only reason that we, the readers, know that Doumeki's destroying one specific spiderweb while housecleaning is at all relevant to the story is that the manga devotes an entire page to depicting it, as opposed to the many other spiderwebs that have presumably been destroyed at some point or another without being shown. (Watanuki's ''job'' is being Yuuko's live-in slave, after all.) [[Law of Conservation of Detail|Unlike real life, fictional works have limited space, so only the significant events are depicted]].

** The phrase came before in an older work, ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' and even before the idea of fate had come before in most of clamp works, since the begining.

** This was also prominent in ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]'' which was the sister series to ''[[xxxHolic]]'' and (sort of) tied in with the original ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'' series.

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* Robyn from ''[[The Tomorrow Series]]'' believes that "coincidences are God's way of telling you to wake up".

* This is repeated several times in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series.

* In [[David Brin]]'s ''The Uplift War'', an alien is annoyed with the human word "accident," which is muddy in meaning, and the humans even say, "There are no accidents." At the end, contemplating the events that led to their defeat and thinking that if some of them hadn't happened, victory might have been ~~possible -- but~~, the alien realizes, "There are no accidents."

* In [[David Brin]]'s ''The Uplift War'', an alien is annoyed with the human word "accident," which is muddy in meaning, and the humans even say, "There are no accidents." At the end, contemplating the events that led to their defeat and thinking that if some of them hadn't happened, victory might have been possible—but, the alien realizes, "There are no accidents."

* [[Tony Hillerman]]'s detective Joe Leaphorn explicitly gives "There are no coincidences" as his philosophy in solving mysteries, as stated in ''The First Eagle'' for instance.

* In ''[[Goldfinger]]'', [[James Bond]] tries to convince Goldfinger that their third meeting is a coincidence. He fails.

* In [[Graham McNeill]]'s ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' ''[[Ultramarines (novel)|Ultramarines]]'' novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', when Uriel meets Colonel Leonid, who can tell him what is in the [[Evil Tower of Ominousness|Chaos fortress]], Uriel tells him that it was not chance that brought him to meet Leonid.

* In C. S. Goto's ''[[Blood Ravens]]'' trilogy, "Coincidences are for the weak-minded and the ignorant."

* In Kate Seredy's ''The Singing Tree'', when arguing that they should take {{spoiler|Marton Nagy}} home despite {{spoiler|his lack of papers}}, one argument is that it was obviously Destiny that brought them there to recognize him and jog his memory ~~loose -- they~~ had only stopped there because a cat had stowed away in the cart and started to have ~~kittens -- and~~ who are they to argue with destiny?

* In Kate Seredy's ''The Singing Tree'', when arguing that they should take {{spoiler|Marton Nagy}} home despite {{spoiler|his lack of papers}}, one argument is that it was obviously Destiny that brought them there to recognize him and jog his memory loose—they had only stopped there because a cat had stowed away in the cart and started to have kittens—and who are they to argue with destiny?

* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[The Golden Oecumene|The Golden Age]]'', Phaethon ponders whether a meeting is coincidence or arranged by the Earthmind, an AI with a trillion times the brain power of a human such as himself.

* In [[Jasper Fforde]]'s ''[[Thursday Next|The Eyre Affair]]'', when Thursday meets the activists who want her to speak against the war, they declare it can't be a coincidence.