http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

Death playing an electric guitar with a piece of his shattered scythe as the pick. Do you really need to question anything here?

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The limit of the Willing Suspension of Disbelief for a given element is directly proportional to its awesomeness.

Stated another way, all but the most pedantic of viewers will forgive liberties with reality as long as the result is wicked sweet or awesome. This applies to the audience in general; there will naturally be a different threshold for each individual. Also known in some circles as a "rad herring", in which something doesn't make sense within the guidelines of the story's reality, but it's too cool not to include it.

The Rule of Cool is another principle that seeks to dispel arguments among fans over implausibility in fiction. It has been cited by animation director Steve Loter (of Kim Possible, Clerks: The Animated Series, Tarzan, and American Dragon: Jake Long) in response to questions from fans attempting to justify temporary breaches in logical consistency. It is a complement to Bellisario's Maxim and the MST3K Mantra.

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Of scientific laws that this trope circumvents, the third law of motion is probably the most frequently revoked, with the Square-Cube Law probably a close second. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is third and a mention has to go to the laws of relativity, which prevent us from attaining Faster-Than-Light Travel and going to a distant planet in just a few hours.

Note that you only get to invoke the Rule of Cool if the end product is, in fact, cool. Note also that different opinions on what is "cool" create the most arguments over this. The Rule of Cool is very subjective. Failure to properly use this trope can cause collision damage with walls.

Since it's subjective, it doesn't have to be cool in the sense of "Grim reaper on a mountain playing an electric guitar". The protagonist might not use guns because it's cooler to have them fight vampires with knives and stakes. You might have Missing Parent Syndrome because it would be weird to have parents with you on a road trip across the country. Basically, Rule of Cool works differently for whichever genre you're writing for.

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There are no instances of this trope being justified, nor can there be — after all, the entire point is that it's about things that don't make sense but we still gladly accept just because they're cool.

You will need to refer to The Utterly and Completely Definitive Guide to Cool.

A Sub-Trope of Artistic License.

Sister Trope to Rule of Fun!

Compare The Power of Index, Cool of Rule, Rule of Funny, Rule of Scary, Rule of Drama, Rule of Romantic, Rule of Cute, Masculinity Tropes, Garnishing the Story, Dramatic Dangling.

Contrast Viewers Are Morons.

Series that exist because of this rule:

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Some of the items sold by such catalogues as Skymall and The Bradford Exchange would never exist were it not for this trope. Here are a few examples: The wall-sculpture ''Night Flight'' . Depending on your point of view, it's either awesome on top of awesome or actually kind of impressive in terms of sheer ridiculousness. They have some other Eagle-themed wall art. Even a Thomas Kinkade painting looks awesome when reproduced on the outstretched wings of a large Eagle sculpture . dragon on a motorcycle

There's an Orbitz commercial where a guy is watering his lawn, and a scientist-type from an earlier spot floats down in a hovercraft. Getting out, he strides over to the guy and removes an envelope from his coat. Scientist: Hi! You booked a flight and the price went down, so here's an Orbitz Price Assurance check for the difference.

Guy: Thanks! But why didn't you just mail it?

Scientist: [looks confused, points backward] Hi! You booked a flight and the price went down, so here's an Orbitz Price Assurance check for the difference.Thanks! But why didn't you just mail it?[looks confused, points backward] We have a hovercraft.

The Droid phone commercials are all about the visually impressive Technology Porn. It is relevant? No, but it makes a big statement.

This Hahn Super Dry advertisement : "Super goes in, Super Dry comes out."

Anime and Manga

Art

Comedy

This was also Denis Leary reacting to his new super-hi-tech stereo system on the Lock and Load album. "...and the other stuff where you don't even know what it does but it looks fuckin' great! It's reeeeally shinyyy."

Comic Books

Fan Works

Films  Animation

Films  Live-Action

Literature

Live-Action TV

Music

Mythology and Religion

Mythological gods and heroes in general are full of this. That's half the point of most of them. Hercules, Gilgamesh, the entire cast of Romance of the Three Kingdoms... all fuelled by Rule of Cool. Where else are you going to hear that an Eight-Headed Snake was defeated by Sake of all things note Besides Ōkami , which is based on this sort of thing

Professional Wrestling

Some wrestling moves (especially the more elaborate finishers) fall into this category. The effectiveness of every move used in pro wrestling is directly proportionate to how cool it looks. TNA's Petey Williams' "Canadian Destroyer ", a flip piledriver that would break the laws of physics if the opponent weren't helping — but it looks incredibly awesome, so it doesn't matter too much. The People's Elbow could finish anyone off, despite being done from a standing position, as well as The Rock bouncing off the ropes twice for no reason.

Surely, a wrestling grave-digger zombie biker would be a laughable gimmick, but surely enough, The Undertaker has been alive (undead?) and kicking for about 20 years now, and has become one of the most iconic figures in all of wrestling.

Boogeyman smacks himself over the head with a clock, setting off the pyro for his entrances and wrestles with the glass stuck in his head!

Tabletop Games

Toys

Dino-Riders: time traveling humans and alien monsters, some with sharks for heads fighting each other while riding on dinosaurs outfitted with space age armour missile launchers and laser cannons. Dinosaurs equipped with thumping great guns and laser cannons battling each other! How did that not catch on? These days, they're mostly remembered through pictures shared as "most-awesome-thing-ever" memes. Thankfully it was continued by Imaginext Dinosaurs.

BIONICLE qualifies with such things as giant-sized, biomechanical tigers that can extend their neck and have caterpillar tracks instead of back legs; robotic heroes surfing on lava or riding on rock slides with buzz saws attached to their feet; humongous insects with powerful blasters implanted onto their bodies; desert bandits riding on dinosaurs; and all kinds of warriors/villains/monsters you can build out of Lego sets with the most bizarre powers you can imagine. Even such mundane things as transportation were cool when the setting called for it. Nowadays, the story tends to focus less on these aspects and more on the actual plot — that is why the introduction of cybernetic dinosaurs with laser targeting-systems was so welcomed.

Video Games

Web Animation

Webcomics

Web Original

Web Videos

In The Nostalgia Chick class on how to spot evil, Nella says that black leather coats are bad, unless you're a post-apocalyptic Anti-Hero. Then it's cool.

Matthew Mercer talks about how to use this trope in an episode of his series about Game Master tips on the Geek & Sundry web channel. His main point is that you should allow the players to try interesting things, but also be careful to not do it too often, since that can mess up the structure and cohesiveness of the game.

Western Animation

Real Life