#Fridge Brilliance (trope)

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The Twelfth Inspector’s first appearance in ‘The Space of the Inspector’

was actually a brilliant moment, when the audience is clued in to the fact that the Eleventh Inspector isn’t his/her last incarnation.

[princesssarisa]

I once reblogged a post about Disney's Beauty and the Beast where the OP wrote that in a sequel, they'd like to see Prince Adam still struggling to control his temper at times. I think I agree: anger issues don't easily go away. But there's something else I'd like to see in a sequel even more:

I want Prince Adam to make peace with the Beast.

I also want him to know that Belle has made peace with the Beast.

I want Adam to accept the fact that he was once spoiled, selfish, and unkind, and not to excuse it in the least, but to understand that he was made that way by his royal upbringing, not born that way. I want him to see that he can choose to behave differently in the present without hating his past self.

I want him to accept his temper – to realize that just as long as he doesn't act on it in harmful ways, it's okay to feel overwhelming anger when he's attacked or threatened. I want him to know that despite the importance of controlling it, his anger doesn't make him a bad or unlovable person, and that it can be used for good too. Namely to fiercely protect the people he cares about, as when he fought off the wolves to save Belle.

I also want him to accept the fact that he lost interest in dignity and gave in to his feral, "beastly" instincts: wearing tattered clothes, eating like a messy animal, ripping and smashing everything in the West Wing in his rages, etc. I don't want him to remember it as a character flaw, but to know that it was partly the fault of the spell warping his mind and partly out of sheer despair.

I want him to remember that he was never all bad. Even at his most beastly, he was moved by Belle’s request to take her father’s place as his prisoner, which made him agree to the exchange even before he realized that she might break the spell. Then when he saw her crying, he felt compassion and remorse, and he gave her a comfortable room and free rein of the castle. While his ferocious rage when he caught her in the West Wing was inexcusable (his anger itself was justified, but not his reaction that made her afraid for her life), he was instantly racked with remorse, and when he realized she had run into the forest and was being threatened by wolves, he risked his life to save her, which inspired her to give him a second chance.

Then, after he comes to these conclusions, I want him to be assured that Belle has done the same. I want him to know that Belle truly loves him, not just a role he learned to play to please her.

There's a comment somewhere or other on TV Tropes (I think on the Fridge Brilliance page), which says that the Beast "had to learn to hate himself" to become a better person. That breaks my heart. I don't want him to go through life hating himself and pretending to be someone else, or, if he does, for it to be portrayed as a good thing. That's no way to live.

I've been thinking of more recent Disney/Pixar movies like Turning Red and Inside Out 2, which promote accepting the messy sides of yourself (without using that acceptance as an excuse to behave badly, though) and loving every part of yourself. Beauty and the Beast obviously isn't about that mindset, but arguably just the opposite – some of the creative team have said that the Beast's character arc is about the universal process of learning to control our "animal" instincts and become civilized human beings. But are these movies’ different messages mutually exclusive? I'd like to think the Beast/Prince Adam can choose to be a civilized human being, yet fully accept the "animal" part of himself too.

I know that part of the problem is that I see parallels between the Beast and a neurodivergent person. Lack of social skills, physical messiness, struggle to connect emotionally with others, overpowering anger under stress that he struggles to regulate, etc. I see my own AuDHD qualities in him – maybe I'm projecting them too much onto him – and I feel as if part of his character arc is about learning to "mask." I know this wasn't the creative team's intention, but it feels that way. I don't want Adam to spend his entirely life masking and hating what's under the mask, or to think Belle loves only the mask and not his true self.

Let him make peace with the Beast.

[dalishious]

Hello! Sorry in advance for this.

I was reading the TV tropes page for Dragon Age: Origins, and someone makes a case under Fridge Brilliance that the tranquil brand makes people autistic. Which is obviously monumentally offensive.

In lieu of that, I was wondering if you had any thoughts about neurodiversity in Dragon Age, particularly for mages? I think Sera and Cole in particular have strong neurodivergent traits, but Morrigan could also be read as autistic, which would be a great rebuttal to the above.

It’s not just monumentally offensive, it’s just plain fucking wrong. The Rite of Tranquility rids people of all their emotions. Autistic people are not without emotions—some of us just have trouble expressing and/or understanding emotions. (And hell, some of us are considered too emotional.)

I think that, based on the reactions to characters who can be easily read as neurodivergent, the wide population mostly misunderstands them and frequently labels them as just “weird”. But sometimes it gets dangerous, and people are literally imprisoned for it.

neurodivergent mages are probably at a huge risk of being accused of consorting with demons.

[courtneysmovieblog]

TV Tropes pointed out that there is a hidden fridge brilliance to Idina's cameo using the DG riff other than just a mere cheeky "passing the torch" easter egg:

Idina's riff comes in the Wizomania show specifically when she narrates about the prophecy that foretells someone that could read the Grimmerie. Everything thought that was the Wizard, but as Elphaba learns, that was a lie. He never could read the Grimmerie.

But SHE can.

THIS time period, where Morrible and the Wizard are victimizing the animals, is Oz's true darkest hour. SHE is the chosen one, not the Wizard. And now she knows it.

So when she locks eyes with the Wizard at the end and lets loose that same riff she heard in Wizomania, she's doing it on purpose. it's her own personal "fuck-you" to that asshole.

[rhys-ravenfeather]

Oh yeah, so I didn't mention this, but I ended up waking up early yesterday morning and scrolled through Inside Out 2's Fridge Brilliance page on TV Tropes, and found this little nugget:

I may get into my feelings on Envy as a whole at a later time, because I have a lot of feelings about the character, but for now, take this.

[sunnytoonsproductions]

Y'all I even forgot to show y'all these subpages from the class of 3000 TV tropes site, I'm now literally obssesed with how they added it into his site. 🎷🥁🎻🎸🎸🪈🪘🎹

[chewbokachoi]

What trope is your favorite to write?

What trope have you not written yet, but want to?

What headcanon do you always include in your stories?

What trope is your favorite to write?

I probably won't get the exact trope name right, but I enjoy writing trippy/weird dream sequences that do have actual meaning to the story. Fridge Horror (or brilliance) is one I always aim for/hope I pull off. I love the idea of reading something and then later going "WAIT HANG ON" so I try to do that in my writing. Doppelgangers are also tropes I very much enjoy messing with.

And I, uh, also very much enjoyed doomed lovers >.>

I'm sure Cassan and Smoke will be fiiiine

What trope have you not written yet, but want to?

Lovecraftian-related tropes! And I don't think I've properly delved into abandoned-anything tropes. There's so many more, but those are the ones that come to mind immediately.

What headcanon do you always include in your stories?

Ohh that's an interesting one! Regarding Mortal Kombat right now, and what I'm using to sort of help me navigate the way I write things for it (I've probably shared these before but now it's all in one place):

-Hanzo Hasashi is burdened with always making the wrong choice and/or giving into his emotions -The Scorpion mantle is for somebody who is going to live a life of tragedy and regret. Or they're somebody who is meant to be the sole survivor of something nobody should have to live through -Ashrah's older than Sareena -Sareena's not a high-ranking demon -Rain is "Go Big or Go Home" based off of what I've read of his Original Timeline endings (and could see for myself for once if only the GOG file could work) -Kuai Liang never wanted to be a leader

Thank you for asking! This was a lot of fun to answer :D

[localplaguenurse]

Jerkass is definitely more fitting for Mizuki, thanks!

And Cassandra Truth is named after the Oracle of Delphi who predicted doom and gloom but wasn’t believed. In Kei’s case he didn’t have a Vision but who would ever think that Chibana went and hooked up with an Adeptus and bore his child? Unless it was confirmed by someone who could see that kind of thing, it’s natural to assume Kei could do that because he possessed a Vision.

Also can’t wait until Zhongli learns his child was nearly arrested and traumatized. I’m sure he is going to be so pissed and demand answers

I looooove learning new tropes. My personal favourite is fridge horror, a variation of fridge logic. Fridge logic is when there's a weird little plot inconsistency or detail that you don't notice until you're thinking about it later. Alfred Hitchcock dubbed it as "icebox logic," meaning it's not until you get home after a show and start pulling food out of the icebox/fridge that you go "hey wait a minute." There's fridge brilliance where if you think about it, that weird detail is accidentally very smart, but fridge horror is when it makes the context accidentally more horrifying.

The go to example I can think of off the top of my head is Plants vs Zombies. In the game as you do your thing defending your home, the very last zombie you kill will drop a seed packet with a new plant. When you think about how this is a world with not just zombies, but also plants made to kill zombies, you wonder why would a zombie have this on them? Oh, because that zombie was someone trying to protect their home, like you, but they failed.

Probably not the direction you thought this would go but hey, it's something I get to talk about.

[the-acid-pear]

Back to hating on the TV Tropes page for The Human Centipede but it really is starting to sound like most of the people writing this didn't even watch the movie like, why is Heiter being a siames surgeon put under "fridge brilliance"? Like, a fridge trope is something you take a while to realize, something that has to sink in. This, is not that. The man outright says in his monologue that he used to separate life now he will join it and he's called a recognized doctor and he has HUGE PAINTINGS OF BABIES BEING SEPARATED like, like are these people even watching the movie i. I'm not even mad anymore im genuinely baffled rn.

[sothetherogue]

Have you ever noticed any Fridge Brilliance in DEH? I ask because TV Tropes has only three entries for it, one of which was the subject of a Kahrant.

I think one super minor one I had is when Evan says he is "Sending pictures of the most amazing trees" and how it all seems super positive because he loves nature - And looking back on the play and how he hurt himself "Amazing" might have had a totally different meaning in his mind.

I checked out the page and the part on Larry and the Baseball glove is blowing my mind. It isn't my fave song but it is an important one - And I feel like I just got another later added to it.

LOVE the rant tho. Lol Some people have like....Weird takes with good interpretations.

[miintsprigz]

Unrelated to anything I’ve been posting but…

May I ask why I’m hearing that people dislike TV Tropes? I’m not saying that’s a “wrong” opinion (theoretically that can’t even be a Thing), and it might because it’s somewhat of a special interest for me, but like.

I’d argue that my knowledge of it helped, with my own creation of fiction and my analysis of existing fiction.

The idea of “fridge brilliance” in particular. It allowed me to connect details together in a way that I didn’t consider before, and helped me to formulate theories about fiction in a way that I couldn’t do before. My aim got better, I started getting things right more. And that made me happy!

Because I’m very autistic and I love being able to figure things out.

I know tropes can be uh…

Not so good. Because they’re stereotypes in a way, and “critics” (a.k.a. people who just like to dunk on every piece of media they see and point out “everything wrong” with them without any actual constructive criticism…looking at you, Cinema Sins… and L. Orchard…) will use them to tear apart pieces of media.

But they’re building blocks. You can build the same thing as a million other people, but you can also make different and unique structures with them! It’s nice in that way.

Anyway, TL;DR, I enjoy TV Tropes and don’t fully understand the hate towards it.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

Since any of the Inspector’s enemies would tear the universe apart just to get their paws on a few of his/her cells,

how does *Peacemist* manage to keep his entire left foot *for three years* without anyone even trying to get into the Core to steal it?

[princesssarisa]

I've been thinking about The Swan Princess. I haven't seen the entire series, but the original movie was a childhood favorite of mine.

I've been thinking of some ways the movie could have been better.

First and foremost, the issue of "What else is there?" How to offend women in 5 syllables or less keep the plot point of Prince Derek saying those words when Odette asks him if he loves her for more than just her beauty, yet without making so many audience members permanently hate him for it.

I actually wrote two entries on the Fridge Brilliance page on TV Tropes about this plot point. (1) This is a fairy tale, and in most classic fairy tales, love is just a matter of beauty, so that's what Derek expects. (2) There are hints throughout the song "This Is My Idea" that young Derek and Odette like each other long before they admit it to themselves. Adult Derek thinks at first that he fell instantly in love with Odette when he saw she had grown beautiful, but by the end he realizes he loved her long beforehand, for who she is as a person.

But maybe those things should have been made more explicit.

I personally would have made the movie more explicitly a deconstruction of classic fairy tale romances with their beauty-based Love at First Sight, more in the vein of later movies like Frozen. I would add some dialogue either before or between the verses of "This Is My Idea" showing Queen Uberta (bubbly romantic that she is) reading a classic Love at First Sight fairy tale to young Derek, and telling him that someday, when they're grown up, Odette will be beautiful and a single glance will make him love her. I might also add some dialogue for adult Derek later in the song, where he complains about having to marry Odette and imagines his preferred scenario – riding through the woods one day, suddenly encountering a beautiful dancing maiden, and knowing instantly that she's the one (a la Disney's Sleeping Beauty, or the original Swan Lake). This would show that he believes in classic fairy tale romance. Thus when "What else is there?" eventually happens, the audience's impression won't be "Derek is a shallow jerk who only values women for their looks" but "Derek has been raised with a fairy tale concept of love as something you feel just because the other person is beautiful."

Later, the ball scenes and "Princesses On Parade" would make it clear that Uberta is again trying to force the fairy tale concept of love on her son, hoping for a Cinderella-style Love at First Sight at the ball. But of course it doesn't work, not only because he's faithful to Odette, but because Love at First Sight isn't real.

I would also add some scenes throughout the movie where Odette and Derek each reminisce about their shared childhood. Odette could tell her three animal sidekicks about it, while Derek could recall it with Bromley and Rogers. This would help to avert the problem some critics find with the movie as it is: that Odette and Derek seem like different people as adults than as children and are much blander than their feisty child selves. It would also show us explicitly that they did like each other long before they knew it. We would see flashbacks to their childhood fights and pranks, and their adult selves would laugh wistfully and make remarks like "I wouldn't admit it to myself, but I enjoyed all that" and "We were never really enemies, we were just too stubborn and foolish to admit that we were friends."

Around the same time, I would also have Odette say a word or two about "What else is there?" to her animal friends, to explain why she's fully committed to Derek again despite having broken off their betrothal earlier. (Of course the cynical view would be that she only forgives Derek because she wants him to break her spell, but this movie isn't supposed to be cynical.) She would say something like "I shouldn't have left him. I know in my heart that he truly loves me, he just couldn't put it into words."

Going back to the childhood scenes, I would also find some way during "This Is My Idea" for young Odette to show her kindness. If at the end of the movie, Derek is going to say that he loves Odette for her kindness, then we should see her display it in front of him. I might show her finding and caring for a small animal in need – e.g. a stray kitten, or an injured bird – and young Derek would act nauseated by the sappiness of it all. But later, when Odette wasn't around, we'd see him find another lost or injured animal and care for it just like she did, showing that her kindness has rubbed off on him.

In his ultimate love confession, I would also have Derek say that he loves Odette's "cleverness" as well as her kindness and courage. That would reinforce the point that he fell subconsciously in love with her during their battles of will and wits in their childhood.

I think these tweaks would bring more consistency and depth to the love story and ensure viewers' sympathy for both of the two leads.

[brightlotusmoon]

She didn’t always look like this.  Blame the British for occupying Malaysia in the late 18th century, when they encountered the ginger flower for the first time and came home calling all their redheads gingers.  As if the redheads of the British Empire didn’t have enough to worry about, what with the witch hunts and assorted forms of libel.  But then, the people of Malaysia also had better things to worry about at the time, what with being occupied by the British, who they hadn’t exactly invited to the neighborhood, and maybe we need to move on from the origins of terms, because this is a conversation that could go on all day…

Her image was beginning to shift again when the 20th century rolled around and a television show mirroring the seven deadly sins stranded on a desert island with the Devil Himself began to air, presenting a new redheaded girl to the world.  Her name, of course, was Ginger, and Ginger found herself locked into another century of looking like a pasty white girl, sparking discussions of cultural appropriation whenever she comes to one of the culinary god potlucks and recipe exchanges.  But she doesn’t complain.

She’s here to add a little zing to your life, a little flavor to your savor, and a little joy to your tastebuds.  She only wants you to enjoy what you’re eating.  And if that’s not enough, she has medicinal benefits, too; she’ll help your cold, ease your congestion, and hasten your recovery.  And she’ll do it all with a smile on her face and a red flower in her hair, glorious to the last, forever happy to be here.

The great small god Ginger.  Long may she blossom and grow.

[zorilleerrant]

people so often make comments about something being a very emotional scene, but some trope or genre element happening in the background making them laugh so they can't concentrate on the drama, and I wanted to say: that's often intentional. when something is lighthearted, fluffy, or comedic in overall tone, then even when you want drama, often you don't want too much drama, so you do little things to cut the tension a little. trying to keep the audience from bursting into tears, while still giving them something emotionally driven to care about and think about.

people do it the other way around, too. a scene can be mostly happy, cathartic, reassuring, downtime, etc. in a story that's largely driven by drama or intense emotion, and then to keep continuity the creators will sneak something in that leads to a moment of fridge horror (or maybe just slightly angsty fridge brilliance), so there can be that lighthearted moment but it still adds to the flow of the narrative.

sometimes things are just errors, and sometimes they're hard to read through the original lens because of unfamiliarity with the art form, genre, culture, dialogue, etc. often though creators are saying something with it, it's just not something everyone is used to looking for, because it's a subtractive rather than additive part of the themes and patterns of the story.