Non Sequitur
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"I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hara-kiri Rock. I need scissors! 61!"
—Colonel Campbell's AI, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
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A Non Sequitur (Latin for "it does not follow") in fiction is an event or line of dialogue which comes out of nowhere, bearing no relevance to the subject at hand. It is a staple of surrealism and humor, and often establishes a character as The Ditz or a Cloudcuckoolander. I like bananas.
Can also refer to a type of logical fallacy; see Non Sequitur Fallacy.
A newspaper daily strip of the same name is here.
Compare Red Herring, when a distraction is used to divert attention.
Subtropes include:
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?
- Non Sequitur Scene, a non-sequitur event
- Non Sequitur Thud, which is when this is brought on by a concussive injury
- Notable Non Sequitur, a non-comedic variation in which the seeming randomness of a line of dialogue in a detective story marks it as important
- Step Three: Profit
- The Last of These Is Not Like the Others
Anime and Manga
- Cromartie High School outright lampshades it.
- Hatenkou Yuugi has quite a few of these, including:
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Alzeid: What's with the mademoiselle and monsieur? Why are you guys still kidding around? Who cares?! Esto un lápiz! |
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- In one episode of Lucky Star, Konata is awakened in class and says "Potemkin!" Considering the class was World History, it might not be a non-sequitur, but her teacher said she didn't want to know what she was dreaming about.
Film
- There are several in The Room. The most infamous being:
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Mark: "How was work today?" |
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Live Action TV
- Subverted and Lampshaded in Scrubs. J.D. always appears to the other characters to be saying these, because he constantly imagines something related to the issue at hand and then makes a comment about his fantasy that winds up sounding totally nonsensical to the other characters. Generally, the longer and more elaborate the fantasy, the more removed his comment will be from the situation that triggered the fantasy in the first place.
Music
- In the song "Artichokes" by Andrew Huang, each word is a non sequitor, even though there never had been a real point to rabbit-trail away from other than the statistics at the beginning. This how many of his other songs tend to be.
- In "Jack Sparrow" by The Lonely Island, the guys have a recording session with Michael Bolton, who mentions at the beginning of the video that he had just finished watching a marathon of Pirates of the Caribbean. They all proceed to sing about being gangsters at a club... until Bolton goes off and starts singing about Jack. It eventually descends into completely-unrelated mentions of Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovich, and Scarface, one after the other.
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Andy Samberg:(annoyed)...Turns out Michael Bolton's a major cinephile... |
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Video Games
- GTA San Andreas: CJ's girlfriends repeat the same non-sequitors ad nauseum during car trips. CJ feigns interest.
- Scarface the World Is Yours is stuffed with lines of dialogue. That sometimes doesn't flow together quite well. Tony would ask a girl to clean his pool and she demands they go shopping. Then he asks why she hangs around all the time, even though he invited her to live there. Then Tony starts talking about murdering his enemies, sometimes even after they are dead.
Web Original
- The viral video in which a news reporter interviews a boy, asking him about his zombie face paint. His response: "I like turtles."
- EPICMEALTIME
- "WE 'BOUT TO GET DRUNK OFF PANCAKES!!!"
- "We're about to die for this. What'you know about dyin'?"
- "What up, meat sauce?"
- "Sushi! Fast food! Sex!"
- Homsar from Homestar Runner says NOTHING but these.
- As does Senor Cardgage, though he lost The Championship to Homsar
- This is a large part of why the Lets Player Raocow is as popular as he is.
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raocow: You are not the unicorn of my love, football Charlie! You are merely a pawn in the great game that we like to call... Mario World. Although you are one of the important pawns. You are like, that one pawn in the middle that you start in the begining of the game in order to, like, capture the whole world and stuff. |
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Western Animation
- In Phineas and Ferb, when you're shot with the Dull-And-Boring-Inator not only do you become...well, dull and boring, you also gain the tendency to talk like this. Examples include:
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"I always liked pointing." |
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- Pretty much like fifty-percent of what comes out of Pinkie Pie's mouth.
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Pinkie Pie: (after explaining how she got her cutie mark) And that's how Equestria was made! |
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Lisa: Hey Ralph, want to come with me and Alison to play "Anagrams"? |
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- South Park, "Mr Hankey's Christmas Classics":
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Gerald: (singing, after everyone else has stopped) Courteney Cox, I love you; you're so hot on that show... |
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- Veggie Tales: The verses in "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything" by Larry the Cucumber, who follows two pirate-themed verses with lines about never having kissed a chipmunk or painted daisies on a big red rubber ball. The other two go on to lampshade the hell out of it.
- Gir is full of these.
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Gir: I saw a squirrel! It was doin' like this! (imitates squirrel movement) |
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- About 50 percent of everything Ed says from Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy says is a non sequitur. Often, when he's asked a question, his response is "buttered toast" or "gravy" and he randomly shouts "I love chickens" even when there aren't any chickens present.
- SpongeBob SquarePants has some as well. One of them involves SpongeBob trying to get Mermaidman and Barnacle Boy out of the retirement home. He attempts to reason with them, then Mermaidman gets fed up with it and says the following:
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Mermaidman: "If you don't get out of here, then by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife!" |
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- A Running Gag in The Sifl and Olly Show has Precious Roy speak in nothing but non sequitors.
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Precious Roy: This is Pecious Roy, and you kids better pay for that lapdance! |
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