fridge logic

Coined by TV Tropes in 2007. Based on the earlier icebox scene, a term coined by director Alfred Hitchcock for an illogical scene which, in his words, "hits you after you've gone home and start pulling cold chicken out of the icebox".[1]

fridge logic (uncountable)

1. (fandom slang) An initially overlooked detail in a story, which, upon further contemplation, is more nonsensical or unrealistic than originally assumed, often to the point of creating a plot hole.
   • 2010 October 7, David Johnston, “What Did You Watch? 2010-10-06 (Wednesday)”, in rec.arts.tv‎ (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

     Obviously the CIA wouldn't put their NOC lists on a system that could be remotely accessed that way no matter what kind of encryption they were using for them. So that's fridge logic for ya.

   • 2010 December 26, The Face of Po, “Baaaa... Humbug!”, in rec.arts.drwho‎ (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

     > These are pretty big plot points that are brushed aside.
     
     They were things I didn't think about too hard while watching, but occurred to me while on the road today. I think the term for this is, quite appropriately, fridge logic :-)

   • 2011 July 16, Freezer, “For the Official RACS Gocomics.com Page: E”, in rec.arts.comics.strips‎ (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

     I've been reading Endtown since it was strictly a webcomic. It's a must-read for me. Though some might get thrown by the fridge logic (the aforementioned street lamps and such) and the deep archive (where most of the backstory is).

   • 2012 March 9, Reader in Invisible Writings, “If you know "Fridge Logic" welcome to "Brandy Logic" Courtesy of Sherlock and Holmes”, in rec.arts.drwho‎ (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

     Fridge Logic can be defined* as the bit in a plot that you except when you watch it, but later (and thus named) when you go to the fridge and then think "What the... that's impossible"

   • 2014 March 23, D.F. Manno, “Fridge logic on "Air Raid"/"Millennium"”, in rec.arts.sf.written‎ (Usenet), retrieved 2022-08-24:

     I just reread the story, and Fridge Logic (<http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic>) struck. At the end, the protagonist is thinking about the future of the rescued passengers/crew:
     
     > When you get there, sixty to seventy percent will die in the first three years. You will die in childbirth, be eaten by animals, bury two out of three of your babies, starve slowly when the rains don't come. If you live, it will be to break your back behind a plow, sunup to dusk. New Earth is Heaven, folks!
     
     Now wait just a minute. They have the technology to travel through time, and spacecraft that are, if not superluminal, at least capable of a significant fraction of c. They can't export the technology the colonists would need to build a new world? They can't even prevent death in childbirth?

• fridge brilliance
• fridge horror

• plot hole