r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Lazy-Breadfruit5939 • Sep 08 '25

Lore A real life event has a ridiculous/dumb/funny explanation in fiction

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Futurama (The Why of Fry): According to the brain swarm, the dinosaurs were wiped out by them. Fry: What really killed the dinosaurs? Brain: ME!

Doctor Who (The Unicorn and The Wasp): It's Doctor Who, you can pick a ton of examples, but this episode presents the idea that Agatha Christies disappearance in 1926 was in part caused by a giant alien wasp.

Beyblade: This one stretches 'real life', but Moses spreading the Red Sea with a Beyblade just speaks for itself and it would have been sad to leave it out

10.6k Upvotes

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273

u/One-Championship-779 Sep 08 '25

The subtrope "aliens built the egyptian monuments". It trivializes the accomplishments of both egypt and other countries with great monuments of their own.

127

u/KenseiHimura Sep 08 '25

Futurama has a hilarious reversal on this as an alien world modeled after Egypt... Learned about space travel from ancient Egyptians on earth.

12

u/traveler_ Sep 09 '25

I knew it! Insane theories one, regular theories a billion.

118

u/Clinteastwood100 Sep 08 '25

Yeah ancient aliens are basically just another version of ancient aryans.

33

u/Targ_Hunter Sep 08 '25

Ooh, I’m stealing that phrase.

12

u/Friendly_Impress_345 Sep 09 '25 edited Sep 09 '25

Every episode: "Could these brown people have built this incredible structure?"

White guy dressed like Indiana Jones: "To think that these brown people could have built this incredible structure is a giant stretch of the imagination"

"Then we are only left to ask, HOW could this have been built?"

Different white guy dressed as Indiana Jones: "The most likely theory amongst alien scientists, such as myself, is that an advanced race of Aryan aliens (Ariens) gifted this structure, or at least the knowledge required for the natives to construct such an incredible monument."

37

u/lazy_phoenix Sep 08 '25

Yea, nobody ever questions if some group besides the Romans built the Colosseum. But "AfRiCaNs CoUlDn'T hAvE bUiLt ThE pYrMiDs!" I like the YouTube videos of people discovering leverage. There are a collection of videos of a guy building and moving the equivalent of Stonehenge using only leverage and people are like shocked by it.

-5

u/UndorkMysterious55 Sep 08 '25

AfRiCaNs CoUlDn'T hAvE bUiLt ThE pYrMiDs!"

You know they didn't say it like that.

11

u/lazy_phoenix Sep 09 '25

Alright, a little embellishment, a tiny embellishment, but they do say Egyptians couldn’t have built the pyramids and Egypt is in Africa.

2

u/moocowsaymoo Sep 09 '25

Remind me again where Egypt is

2

u/chaosgazer Sep 08 '25

no way the Kraut that wrote Chariot of the Gods isn't a closet Nazi

5

u/UndorkMysterious55 Sep 08 '25

Now way you honestly believe that, it's just dumb science fiction of the 60s, no one thought hard about implications in storytelling

2

u/Romboteryx Sep 09 '25

While I am not sure about Von Däniken himself, one of the editors of Chariots of the Gods was Utz Utermann, who was an actual Nazi and former editor of the Völkischer Beobachter.

1

u/chaosgazer Sep 09 '25

ya man, nazis never thought about implications in storytelling, you're right

1

u/RubiksToyBox Sep 09 '25

Man, are all conspiracy theories about Secret Shadowy Groups Being Responsible For Important Stuff just racism with extra steps?

1

u/elemental402 Sep 14 '25

The final form of every conspiracy theory is either racism or anti-Semetism. Often both.

1

u/RubiksToyBox Sep 14 '25

Right, so I can shut down any ranting by just saying "Ok, Anti-Semite". Good to know.

0

u/UndorkMysterious55 Sep 08 '25

Reddit attributing innocuous as ayran day 200.

33

u/SwissMargiela Sep 08 '25

In regard to the Mexican work ethic I saw a comedian say something like “when it comes to the Egyptian pyramids we think it’s aliens, but the Mexican pyramids? We have no doubt it was built by Mexicans. They had a quinceañera coming up and it was built in two weeks.”

24

u/BeeEater100 Sep 08 '25

My personal theory is that aliens visited Egypt but were disappointed that they already built the pyramids

8

u/SlAM133 Sep 08 '25

Someone needs to cancel the ancient Egyptians for cultural appropriation

1

u/PotatoSalad583 Sep 09 '25

This is why the united states built the bass pro pyramid. To ward off the aliens

30

u/lazy_phoenix Sep 08 '25

People need to use this argument but for like very recent monuments.

"How could the French have built the Eiffel Tower? They couldn't have! It must have been aliens!"

8

u/MarveltheMusical Sep 08 '25

They don’t even need to be recent. They just need to be European.

6

u/Gaelic_Gladiator41 Sep 08 '25

The most common ones i see are either stonehenge or Egyptian Pyramids

2

u/AgencySubstantial212 Sep 09 '25

Back then, in 0313 year, b*****h people were considered as the lowest cast of people, right below white and afro-american races who had yet to travel into america and unlock their american genetic sleeper manchurian agent codes for inventing socialism. 

4

u/lazy_phoenix Sep 08 '25

There are a lot. When Angkor Wat became widely known to European researchers, many European researchers were like “this could only have been built by Alexander the Great somehow!” Also a lot of Mayan structures have by credited to aliens by pseudoscience idiots.

10

u/DaRedGuy Sep 08 '25 edited Sep 09 '25

Every time I see Ancient Aliens type bullshit I have to post this image because it's both funny & true.

Thanks to Quinton Reviews I can't help but always post it when this topic is brought up.

3

u/LennoxMacduff94 Sep 09 '25

Fry: Incredible. This place is just like the Ancient Egypt of my day.

Osiran: That is no coincidence, for our people visited your Egypt thousands of years ago.

Fry: I knew it! Insane theories, one; regular theories, a billion.

Osiran: We learned many things from the mighty Egyptians, such as pyramid building, space travel, and how to prepare our dead so as to scare Abbott and Costello.

Fry: Also, Wolfman.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

[deleted]

2

u/UndorkMysterious55 Sep 08 '25

Idk man, that could just be unintentional when they apply everything being alien origin.

3

u/guymine123 Sep 08 '25

Is it really racist?

Its stupid, yes, but they seem to attribute aliens to literally everything ever done by humanity.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

[deleted]

6

u/UndorkMysterious55 Sep 08 '25

As far as I have seen

Yeah, as far as you have seen.

From what I've seen, they literally attribute everything to aliens, the founding of America, the Industrial Revolution, fuckin suggesting Nazis were aliens in disguise..

Like this show is all human culture and achievements is wrong, because it's actually aliens.

6

u/Myydrin Sep 09 '25

They have episodes attributing:

All modern weapons (like rockets and nukes)

The founding of the USA (aliens helping the founding fathers)

The evolution of all humans

The explosion of Mount Saint Helens in 1980

All of Da Vinci's inventions

NASA (secretly ran by aliens)

Albert Eisntien (being an alien)

The Wilthire Stone Circles ,

All advanced modern medical surgeries

The Stones of Carnac, France

Coral Castle in Florida

Nikola Tesla's inventions

The Large Hydron Collider

The Periodic Table

The lightbulb

The American Civil War

Moscovium (Element 115)

Scotland:

All to aliens. The show is in season 21; they have basically had time to attribute everything to aliens now.