Anti-Advice: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Advice from certain classes of teammates -- like [[The Ditz]], or the [[Token Evil Teammate]] afflicted with [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]] -- can usually be safely ignored. But, if a person (let's call him Bob) is wrong consistently enough, then Bob's teammates will eventually find his advice useful -- by reversing it first. If Bob says to turn left at the fork, Alice will turn right. If Bob says, "Gee, Dave sure seems trustworthy to me!", Alice takes this as a sign that Dave is not to be trusted. And if Bob says, "Don't touch that, you fools!", Alice knows that it's critically important that they touch the object in question as soon as possible.

In [[Real Life]], this logic is fallacious; in fiction, Alice opens herself up to getting burned if [[Reverse Psychology]] or [[Dumbass Has a Point]] is in effect. Of course, the [[Rule of Funny]] governs all, so it's just as likely that this logic works out perfectly for Alice.

 

 

{{examples}}

 

== Comicbooks ==

* In a [[Donald Duck]] story, Donald tried it on ''himself''--he figured that since every single of his plans ends with disaster, he should do the exact opposite of whatever seems most reasonable at the moment. For starters, in hopes of getting himself and his nephew to a tropical vacation, he went to Siberia.

 

* At the end of [[Harry Harrison]]'s ''Deathworld 2'', Jason tells former barbarian Ijale that her life in civilization will go reasonably well as long as she sticks with Mikah <ref>who is [[Too Dumb to Live]], [[The Fundamentalist]] and [[Knight Templar]] rolled into one</ref>, listens carefully to what he tells her and then does the exact opposite.

* ''[[The Screwtape Letters]]'' is this on a meta level. The reader is supposed to recognize that Hell's goals are completely at odds with humanity's well-being, therefore anything Screwtape praises is actually something that could damn the reader, and anything he criticizes is something that could save the reader.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] (probably via the notebooks of Lazarus Long) suggested that, when not certain who to vote for, one should find a well-meaning fool (of which there are many), and vote against whatever he advises.

 

== Live Action TV ==

* ''[[Hogan's Heroes]]''. A bomb lands in Stalag 13. Hogan asks Col. Klink [[Red Wire Blue Wire|what wire to cut]], then cuts the other one.

* Xavier does this on ''[[Home and Away]]'' at one point, after Ruby kisses him and he debates with himself over whether to mention it to April. After John advises him to say nothing, Xavier rejects the advice specifically because it came from him. He tells April and the outcome is fine.

 

 

== Manga & Anime ==

 

 

== Radio Shows ==

{{quote| '''Pip:''' What do you think of the new name Mr Parsimonious?<br />

'''Parsimonious:''' I love it, it'll be a great success!<br />

 

== Webcomics ==

{{quote| '''Dustin:''' Don't do it! They'll suck your brains out and-<br />

'''Pierrot:''' Dusty thinks it's a bad idea, it must be sensible. }}

 

== Western Animation ==

* In an episode of ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'', Garfield is wondering how to attract a girl cat. He decides to watch Jon in action. "Then I'll know what not to do."

* On ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle]]'' there was a tribe of island natives who got their weather predictions from the egg of the Oogle bird. When the bird was no longer available, they substitute it with [[Lord Error-Prone|Captain Wrongway Peachfuzz]] and simply expect the opposite from his predictions.

 

 

== Real Life ==

* [[Looney Tunes]] director [[Chuck Jones]] claims that this was the inspiration for the short ''[[Bully for Bugs]]''. Supervisor Eddie Selzer, the [[Executive Meddling|studio-appointed]] successor to Leon Schlessenger, was well-known among the Termite Terrace animators for being wrong about everything. So when Selzer walked into Chuck Jones' office one day and declared, out of the blue, "Bullfights aren't funny!", Jones knew they ''needed'' to make a cartoon about a bullfight.