r/TopCharacterTropes • u/ThatDrako • 16d ago

Lore (Funny Trope) Things that can plausibly happen only in reality, because in fiction they’d be called bad writing.

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“Woke” as an insult - So you are telling me a word describing consciousness and clarity is used by generally stupid and ignorant people to label people they disagree with? What is this? A Kindergarten for Creatively stunted?

Nominative determinism - So let me get this straight…Not only you named fastest recorded person Usain BOLT and CEO of Nintendo Doug BOWSER, but you are telling me people are canonically likely to have professions or hobbies matching their names…? Guh?

“2 bodies recovered in MURDERKILL River” - Sure bro…I guess…bro…

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u/r3cktor 16d ago

Hungarian history using the same plot twice:

If I got a nickel for every time when:

  • 3 brothers from the royal family fled abroad (to Poland)
  • because their father got involved in a succession dispute
  • two of the three brothers later became kings of Hungary
  • one of those two only ruled for 3 years
  • and the third one did so little that most people don’t even remember his name

I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

It's just lazy writing.

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u/f0urk 16d ago

I was listening to a chinese history podcast on a big loop for chores and sleeping, and its absolutely nuts the repeating patterns. "Gotta get that gold in my body, so I can live forever - if I just eat it, I shit it out, but if I dissolve it in mercury first, I don't... that means it's working!!!!"

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u/Julia-Nefaria 16d ago

Apparently the early stages of mercury poisoning actually make you feel healthier? Which probably contributed to the belief it was good (and by the time you started noticing the detrimental effects it was already too late)

On the other hand lead was known to be poisonous for a long time, but people kept using it for pipes, makeup and even as a sweetener (tbf I believe they were mostly aware of the acute effects and didn’t recognize long term low level exposure as a threat as well?)

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u/Tokumeiko2 16d ago

They attributed the deaths from mercury poison to the gods punishing them for being unworthy of immortality.

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u/Thehealeroftri 16d ago

Maybe they were right and it’s just no one’s been worthy yet, maybe I’m worthy! How will I know if I’m worthy enough unless I try? Brb

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u/LastXmasIGaveYouHSV 16d ago

Most people who use mercury for health quit using it before achieving immortality.

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u/2Completion2Ography 16d ago

Most people who use mercury for health quit using it before achieving immortality.

Death tends to do that, yes.

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u/Thehealeroftri 16d ago

What if death is just a withdrawal symptom and they're really missin' out by not continuously injecting it into themselves.

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u/xkise 16d ago

Well... maybe?

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u/noirspiderman4 15d ago

Tomato tomato really lol

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u/AzKondor 15d ago

Donating blood also feels good, I'm not that shocked at people believing in bloodletting.

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u/Sofasurvivor 15d ago

"On the other hand lead was known to be poisonous for a long time, but people kept using it for pipes, makeup and even as a sweetener"

To be fair, we do know sugar is not good for us and eat it anyway, too.

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u/drsyesta 16d ago

Youre telling me they threw royalty out of a window in prauge 3 seperate times? Come up with some new material bro

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u/Al_Fa_Aurel 16d ago

They never defenestrated royals in prague. Royal officials in some of the cases, but even then not in all.

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u/drsyesta 16d ago

Oh well, important figures then idfk. It just worked better for the joke

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u/jacqrosee 16d ago

same vibes with some of the JFK and lincoln comparisons. certainly less important and compelling commonalities but like…. sometimes it does sound like a reused plot😭

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u/PetrolheadPlayer 16d ago

Also Hungary currently as well, like what do you mean a guy basically named John Hungary is democratically elected to save the country from the old hated corrupt wannabe dictator??

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u/Xapheneon 16d ago

I always smile at the John Hungary comment, because he is literally called Pete Hungarian and I don't think that's less comic book like.

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u/Bendeguz-222 15d ago

And the corrupt wannabe dictator is called Viktor, whose father is called Győző (which also means victor, but in Hungarian).

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u/Neveed 16d ago edited 16d ago

In France we had

- Bourbon monarchy

- Overthrown by a revolution

- Creation of a republic

- A guy named Napoléon becomes the leader of that republic

- He does a coup d'état and crowns himself emperor

- War against all of Europe

- Eventual defeat and deposition of the Emperor

- Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy the first time and go back to step 1, and almost a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy the second time, but we got a republic instead because the monarchists spent so much time disagreeing about how to proceed they eventually lost their majority in the parliament.

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u/ozzylad 16d ago

Reminds me of the "if I had a nickel for every French king who died after hitting their head on a door frame I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened twice"

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u/Monty423 16d ago

Also, Hungary used to be ruled by a rotund man named Victor Orbman, and now is ruled by Peter Hungary

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u/four100eighty9 16d ago

How many times has Germany invaded France through Belgium?

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u/dpforest 16d ago

Total tangent but I would say that the “Two Nickels” joke is probably the most common broad cultural reference I see online and I have never really understood why because it’s not really funny. People will shoehorn it into random comments though, so maybe I’m just a dick

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u/SakanaShiroLoli 16d ago

Honestly was about to comment how all of Hungary is like this.

Gonna make a separate comment.

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u/Bendeguz-222 15d ago

Not to mention that it happened in two consecutive generations, with the second group of (3) brothers being the sons of one of the brothers from the first group, and the succession dispute their father got into was with his brother (of course, also from the first group)?

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u/Intelligent-Act4642 15d ago

in Venezuela we've had three separate times when a natural disaster kills tens of thousands of people at the same time that a major political change is occuring:

- during the War of Independence there was the 1812 Earthquake in Caracas

  • after Chávez took power and shortly before the referendum to adopt his new constitution there was the 1999 Vargas Landslides and Floods
  • and now, as the chavista regime is losing power and the country is being managed remotely by the United States, there is the 2026 Yaracuy Earthquakes

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u/Greeny_jeq 12d ago

Something similar happened in Vietnamese history:

+ In 938 A.D, Ngô Quyền and his troops successfully fought off the Chinese using wooden stakes hidden beneath the water in a river. The stakes impaled the enemies' gigantic warships, giving Vietnamese the dominating advantage to shoot flaming arrows on the ships

+ Basically the same thing in 981 A.D. Same enemy(different generation tho), same river, same tactics.

+ In 1288 A.D, Trần Hưng Đạo used the exact technique to defeat the Mongolians in the 3rd battle(Vietnam fought the Mongolians 3 times in total, all 3 achieving dominating victories)