Voodoo Shark: Difference between revisions

'''Hermes:''' That's a very good question!

'''Bender''' ''(picking up his still-lit cigar from the underwater ruins)'': So that's where I left my cigar.

 

The writers catch a particularly bad [[Plot Hole]], but they leave it in because it is still critical to the story. The '''Voodoo Shark''' is the attempt to [[Hand Wave]] it rather than disrupt the story — except the [[Hand Wave]] ''itself'' is a [[Plot Hole]]. Bonus points if it makes the initial [[Plot Hole]] bigger.

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' attempts to [[Hand Wave]] the [[Virgin Power]] of Otome by explaining that a chemical in sperm destroys the nanomachines that are injected into an Otome's body to give her her powers. This raises a couple problems:

** Why does no one think to use this as a weapon against Otome? Aside from rape (which is an issue with any type of [[Virgin Power]]), this particular explanation makes it possible that someone could simply isolate this chemical, then poison the water supply, turn it into a spray, etc., and permanently depower the enemy's Otome.

* In ''[[Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai]]'' Maria and her older sister Kate are both nuns, however Maria is only 10 year old and Kate is only 15! For those who are unware it takes years of training before a person is considered a nun.so it's highly unlikely for a person to become one at age 15 let alone 10. so what is the the explanation we get for this? [[Did Not Do the Research|Apparently becoming a nun is just a part of a long-standing tradition in Maria's family.]] Needless to say,this explanation doesn't really answer the question. In fact it just makes the idea even more difficult to believe.

* In ''[[Gundam Seed]]'', protagonist Kira is caught in the [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]] of another [[Humongous Mecha|Mobile Suit]] and appears to be dead for several episodes (though they [[Never Found the Body]]). The spin-off manga ''[[Gundam SEED Astray]]'' explains that his Gundam had an automatic blast shutter that kept him from dying, at which point ''Astray'''s protagonist found him and got him medical attention. This would have been a good enough explanation<ref>though a bit [[Ass Pull]]-ish</ref>...had the anime not shown the Gundam's cockpit as a slagged ruin of molten metal, something that no human could have survived, blast shutter or not. Other than the [[Hand Wave]] of his [[Designer Baby]] genes supposedly making him heat-resistant enough to survive a [[Reentry Scare]] earlier, there's no explanation.

 

== Comic Books ==

** The part where Cap can club people with the shield and bounce it off walls is generally explained by the fact that the ''edge'' of the shield is apparently not vibranium (and of course, it's the edge that he's doing all the hitting and bouncing with, while it's the flat that he's doing all the blocking with). Lord only knows where the energy goes, though—then again, the list of superpowers and super-tech devices in comic books that routinely violate [[Conservation of Energy]] is basically "all of them", so...

 

* In ''[[Naruto Veangance Revelaitons]]'', Madara speaks in [[Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe]], and the author claims that this is because he traveled back in time to the 1800s. Not only is this not at all an accurate depiction of how people talked back then, but it also raises some questions of why he doesn't try to time travel at any other point.

 

* ''[[Star Wars]]'': The explanation of Han Solo's famous statement about "making the Kessel Run [[Unit Confusion|in less than 12 parsecs]]" left a bad taste in some fans' mouths. [[George Lucas]] eventually [[Word of God|announced]] that the Kessel Run involves navigating through The Maw, an area littered with black holes. The smart thing to do is zigzag around them, but the ''Millennium Falcon'''s superior navigational computer and engines allow her to fly a more direct route and thus arrive with less mileage on the odometer. Earlier drafts of the script indicated a much simpler explanation: Han was a blowhard trying to pull a fast one on a backwater yokel. (Note Obi-Wan's expression right after the line.)

** Given that Han was talking about how fast his ship was, it also seems odd that he would brag about how well it navigates...

*** Not that odd. Han's bragging about his ship's capacity as a blockade runner—that is a job that requires maneuverability as well as speed.

*** Surviving the gravitational riptides of the Maw on a course plotted that tightly also requires the ''Falcon'' to be fairly durable—and Han's remark is in direct response to Luke's comment that the Falcon looks like a flimsy hunk of junk.

** The prequels created one in the form of force ghosts. With the original trilogy, it was assumed that all Jedi (or at least sufficiently powerful ones) became "one with The Force" when they died. Then along comes ''[[Revenge of the Sith]]'' saying the Force Ghost thing was a technique Qui-Gon Jin discovered and taught to Yoda, who taught it to Obi-Wan. So then... How did Vader/Anakin learn it? (The obvious answer, that Obi-Wan taught it to him, runs into the problem that by the time ''he'd'' learned about it himself, Anakin was already his enemy.) And why didn't Qui-Gon or Yoda teach this technique to any other Master? For that matter why wouldn't Qui-Gon appear before his friend and Padawan, Obi-Wan?

* In the film serial ''[[Flash Gordon (film)|Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe]]'', the heroes befriend a tribe of rock creatures on the planet Mongo. Professor Zarkoff happens to know their language. How? Because the aliens colonized part of Earth, but died out there, while their counterparts who stayed on Mongo degenerated into superstitious primitives. But before the rock creatures died out on Earth, a tribe in Central America adopted their language. That tribe also died out, but Zarkoff happened to study their written records (we can only guess how the pronunciations are known, and how it could be translated at all). After the professor gives this explanation, no aspect of it is ever mentioned again.

* So the visions in ''[[Final Destination]]'', that mess with Death's plans, are caused by Death. So Death screws with his own plans and has to correct them, because of what he did. That's not [[You Can't Fight Fate]]. That's fate being an idiot, or a [[Jerkass]] that likes screwing with people [[For the Evulz|for no reason]]. Either way, it makes the plot of the movies seem kind of pointless.

* ''[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly]]'''s first couple of hours is an exercise in how even if you set up a [[Deus Ex Machina]], it's still a [[Deus Ex Machina]] - the best example being the "carriage of the spirits" that has plenty of set-up and plot dedicated to its presence, but still comes out of nowhere at a critical moment to save Blondie's life. (The movie's entertaining enough not to suffer from it, though - if anything, it adds to the stylized atmosphere.)

* ''[[The Room]]'' ends with a character "dramatically" shooting themselves. However, the film decides [[Chekhov's Gun|we need to know where the gun came from]], so to explain this, an earlier scene is added where an armed dealer known as Chris-R confronts young orphan Denny about some sort of drug deal, and gets tackled by Johnny and Mark. The problem? Apart from this [[What Happened to the Mouse?|never being mentioned again]], and the sheer convenience that the entire group decided to go to the roof at just the right time, Denny claims he needed the money. He has a millionaire banker paying for his every whim and still he needed to go to a petty thug for money? Then when asked about this man, Denny says "Calm down, he's going to jail!" So... the police arrested him but didn't take his gun for evidence?

* ''[[Die Hard 2]]'' attempts to explain "Why doesn't the plane reroute to one of the many other nearby airports" with bad weather. Even ignoring how the plane could have flown ''several states'' away with the fuel it is stated to have, this explanation means the bad guy's elaborate and high cost plan depends upon the weather cooperating in a highly specific way.

 

* ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' has quite a few, usually concerning [[Stephenie Meyer]]'s [[Word of God|explanations]] about how a vampire's body works. According to Meyer, when a human becomes a vampire all of their bodily fluids are replaced with a type of venom. To explain how a vampire can father a child, then, she says that the venom takes over "some of the functions" of the fluid it replaced.

** In fact, this one is especially terrible because it contradicts major points in the previous books. After all, weren't some of Edward's siblings jealous of Bella's ability to have children? What prevented them from having their own children if their fluids were never hindered?

** What is also unclear is how Renesmee is able to age, since Meyer stated that once a person becomes a vampire, they stop aging. Renesmee doesn't only age, but also [[Rapid Aging|ages very quickly]], and [[Immortality Begins At Twenty|then will stop aging]] once she looks about 17 or 18.

 

* In ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'s'' episode "The Cloud" one VS occurs. The ship is stranded far from any safe port, and thus the crew rations power. This gets to the point where replicated food is rationed out and they must set up a functioning galley with a live cook. Except for the Holodeck, which is kept running as much as anyone wants. The writers [[Hand Wave|explain this]] by saying that the Holodeck has its own power system that is incompatible with everything else on the ship. Why would a holodeck, or any system on the ship, be built to be incompatible with the rest of the ship it's installed on in the first place, while technology from alien races and factions can be integrated just fine?<ref>The issue with the Holodecks was actually first brought up in the second episode "Parallax", though it wasn't until "The Cloud" when they started running it as much as they wanted to.</ref>

** And when the holodeck is first introduced in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|TNG]]'', it's explained as being nearly identical to existing energy-to-matter conversion technology - ''transporters and replicators''. Wesley Crusher manages to leave the holodeck soaking wet in replicated water. It's only things that are manipulated force fields (like "people") that can't leave the holodeck, because everything else, or at least all small stuff, is replicated! People eat and drink on it just fine, and the holodeck doesn't go yanking the partially digested stuff out of people when they leave (though because we see people bringing in clothes and other tools for their holodeck escapades, maybe the food the real people eat is similarly imported, and the holofood is being eaten by the holopeople). So even if the 'incompatible power systems' make sense, that just means they should be using the holodeck as a mess hall.

* Fans of ''[[Smallville]]'' debate whether or not the explanation given for Lois Lane's employment at the ''Daily Planet'' is a Voodoo Shark. Because Lois was romantically involved with her supervisor (the guy who hired her) she briefly questions the reasons for her being hired. Her editor quells any fears she may have had by showing her the article she wrote for the ''Inquisitor'' the previous year. However, {{spoiler|given that the editor is an accelerated-aged clone with implanted memories who didn't exist at the time of her writing the article}}, it raises the question of how true his claim could be. Further, when he offered her the job, he didn't know who she was (she had just walked in off the street to see her cousin) so his claim that it was on the basis of her work is even more doubtful since he couldn't have possibly made the connection.

 

* ''[[Silent Hill 2]]'' has a [[Multiple Endings|possible ending]] which was intended as a parody of this trope. ''Silent Hill 2'' is a macabre [[Survival Horror]] title featuring a young man who receives a letter from his deceased wife, imploring him to meet her at "their special place", which turns out to be a weird ghost town where all his subconscious fears and guilt manifest. It's in general a [[Tear Jerker]] [[Mind Screw]] of a game. This ending's explanation of it all: {{spoiler|[[The Dog Was the Mastermind]].}}

* A rather complicated example occurs in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' regarding the [[Big Bad]] Lich King from ''Wrath of the Lich King''. Many fans complained about Arthas being stuck with the [[Villain Ball]] in the expansion after the Lich King (which he was now permanently half of) being played up as a [[Magnificent Bastard]] in the previous game. In what appears to be an attempt to justify it, Blizzard gave the explanation that Arthas's spirit was dominating over the spirit of Ner'zhul (the previously sole spirit of the Lich King, who most certainly qualified for [[Magnificent Bastard]] status, and Arthas supposedly not so much). However, that caused much more confusion considering previous interviews and scenes stating that Arthas and Ner'zhul were one being (flat out stating that neither persona existed anymore, only one Lich King), leading to many fans feeling annoyance.

*** Thus, the question is not so much (as some people have framed it) why Samus didn't activate her abilities when they'd first be useful—Adam made it painfully clear that he'd only play along with her tagging along as long as she followed orders, and the moment she refused she would be forced to leave—as why Adam was dragging his feet with regard to useful upgrades for no obvious reason.

* In ''[[Psychonauts]]'', Raz's multiple lives in mental realms are justified with Raz having multiple layers of astral projection that weaken his link to the mental world, and if he runs out of lives, he gets ejected. Health drops are also explained as Raz collecting mental health from the realm. However, this raises a lot of questions when Raz has the same mechanics for mental health and extra lives ''in reality''.

 

* Parodied in ''[[Dresden Codak]]'': "I bet it's like when you find out Santa isn't real, and it was really just Bigfoot giving you presents."

* Frequently parodied in ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' when the players point out some of the insane lapses in logic in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe, particularly the GM's explanations for how Coruscant can be a planet-wide city. ...jokes recycled from the same author's ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'', where it was eventually lampshaded with a cutaway to a pirate captain:

 

 

* [[Lampshaded]] in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series]],'' when the supposed ghost of Kaiba turns into a...[[Villainous Harlequin|gay clown]], [[Makes Just as Much Sense in Context|or something]]:

{{quote|'''Gay Clown:''' Actually, I'm not a clown. I'm [[The Rival|Seto Kaiba]]'s [[Super-Powered Evil Side|evil side]] brought back from the [[Eldritch Location|Shadow Realm]] by [[Big Bad|Pegasus]]--

* One of [[Image Boards|/tg/]] pearls had it happening [[In-Universe]] when PCs [[Crime After Crime|wanted to cover up their cover-up]]. And so "[http://8archive.moe/tg/thread/74530/#77286 The Vampire Walrus Mythos]" has begun.

 

* ''[[Ben 10: Alien Force]]''. Gwen's magical powers are explained as alien powers inherited from her alien grandmother. The episode in which this revelation is made clear goes on to say that there is no such thing as magic. This despite on a previous episode Gwen clearly used divination to locate their enemies and in the former series ''[[Ben 10]]'' there were spells read from incantations, a fountain of youth, and soul-swapping. Then [[Word of God]] claims that both Hex and Charmcaster are in fact magic users.

** They're back to calling it magic later on in ''[[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien]]''; it's starting to feel like they don't know what to call it, either that, or Mana and Magic can be the same thing, and Kevin's just a [[Flat Earth Atheist]].

*** ''Ultimate Alien'' gives the impression at least that Gwen has both alien superpowers ''and'' magical abilities and simply doesn't know where to draw the line between them since they're similar.

* ''[[Winx Club]]'' dub, "Magical Reality Check": It's already bad enough that the would-be [[Author's Saving Throw]] (where Knut comes in and says that he couldn't find the herb ingredients that the Trix wanted for a potion) is placed in the ''middle'' of the episode (and not brought up again at the end where it would be relevant; [http://www.dailymotion.com/SpiderBraids/video/x2nypd_winx-club-comparisons-bloom-tested_fun this comparison] includes the throw), but it also raises the question, "Why do the Trix perform their plan to steal Bloom's powers ''after'' they're told that they lack the necessary ingredients?" (as well as "Why don't they bring ''that'' up when the plan fails?")

* ''[[The Simpsons]]'' episode "Don't Fear the Roofer", near the end. In the story, Homer gets his new friend Ray Magini to fix his roof. However, it is soon postulated that Ray doesn't actually exist, since all the people that were with Homer when he spoke to Ray claimed not have actually seen him. Thinking that Homer is delusional, his family takes him to the doctor, and after several treatments of painful therapy, Homer thinks he's back to sanity again. But then they find out that Ray was real all along, and that there were logical explanations as to why no one else saw him - except for one case where Bart couldn't see Ray even though he was in plain sight and he should have been able to. Guest star [[Stephen Hawking]] then shows up and delivers the trope - a miniature black hole had appeared between Bart and Ray that absorbed the light from Ray so Bart couldn't see him. There is no way to even start explaining all the problems with that theory.

** Of course, the whole thing comes so far out of left field that the only reasonable explanation is that it's [[Played for Laughs]].

{{quote|'''Doofenschmirtz''' (talking for the wheel): I am a dry-cleaning wheel. Why do I exist?}}

 

* This is the standard operating procedure in science. If some phenomenon is found that cannot be explained by existing theories and principles, a new theory must be developed that explains the mysterious phenomenon but does not invalidate previous theories and principles that are known to work. Dark matter is a typical example.

** And often eventually it will be simplified with a new discovery. For example, the geocentric model of the universe began to become increasingly convoluted as improving telescope technology and star charting lead to increasingly convoluted models of how the orbiting bodies must be moving. Moving to a heliocentric model simplified this considerably.