| abstract
| - In a nutshell: the world of a fictional universe isn't fixed beyond what the author has revealed to the reader. So, when faced with an impending Off the Rails event, the author can subtly tweak the facts the reader hasn't discovered yet to suit the changed plot. Improvisation masquerading as planning, if you will. For obvious reasons, this kind of plot event is pretty much impossible unless the work in question is either interactive or is written at such a scale that the author can change plot events based on what (s)he hears in the fandom. In the former case, the advantage to this trope is obvious- a Game Master in a Tabletop Game could be badly hamstrung by a sufficiently Genre Savvy player anticipating the general direction of the campaign and being prepared for anything. The subtle Retcon this trope provides is essential to keeping things interesting. Likewise, if it's necessary for the plot in a Video Game to have the Player Character meet The Rival early on but they're technically free to go anywhere they want, this trope is essential to keeping the plot together. The trope has also become increasingly important in more traditional fiction as of late because the Internet's technological revolution is such that an author's "twists" could easily be predicted ahead of time if enough clever fans put their heads together and talk things over. (And over.) Catching wind of this, an author might then avoid being predicted by "coalescing" Schrodinger's Gun into a sniper rifle, uzi, or rocket launcher as the situation requires. Since these cases involve more conscious improvisation, readers are more likely to consider the possibility that the writer doesn't actually know what they're doing and is just jerking them around, if not making it up entirely as they go along. In interactive media such as video games, this trope can take the form of setting details retroactively warping themselves around the player's choices in ways that cannot be logically caused by the player character's in-universe choice -- for example, when the real location of an artifact you seek throughout the campaign is dependent on the order in which you visit its possible locations. A helpful way to look at this is how sometimes Mystery Fiction authors will constantly feed the audience "clues" supposedly narrowing down the possible suspects, only to select the "right" clue as a Chekhov's Gunman by the denouement and fit the facts around it. Similarly, in movies it is common practice to write most of the story - and only then pick the ending that resonates the best with the test audience. Also known as "Railshroding" (forgive the pun) because it can easily be used for Railroading purposes. The larger principle behind Schrodinger's guns is Chandler's Law. Not unlike the Ascended Fanon as applied to world-building. This can be a form of Cutting Off the Branches. It May Help You on Your Quest is related, but use of this trope doesn't necessarily imply the writers themselves don't know yet what's going to happen. A fictional character taking a similar approach to their master plan is playing Xanatos Speed Chess. Contrast Retcon. See also Multiple Choice Past, where this happens when something gets different origins over a period of time and different writers. Compare Writing by the Seat of Your Pants, Schrodinger's Suggestion Box. A subtrope is Schrodinger's Question. See also the Useful Notes regarding Schrodingers Cat. Examples of Schrodinger's Gun include:
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