Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: Difference between revisions

** Watch Commander Sam Vimes gets this from Lord Vetinari at the end of ''[[Feet of Clay (novel)|Feet of Clay]]''.

** Inverted in ''[[Monstrous Regiment]]''; in spite of all the things they've personally done to end the war with a reasonably victory-flavored outcome for Borogravia, the country's political leaders are a hair's breadth away from giving the protagonists what amounts to a consolation prize and quietly forgetting anything of the sort happened, just because said protagonists are ''women'' (in a country where [[Straw Misogynist|Straw Misogyny]] is part of the religious doctrine). It takes the intervention of Sergeant Jackrum, who is well-known, well-respected, and above all knows things about half the ruling council that would get them hanged ({{spoiler|Namely, they're women too}}), to turn this around.

** Harry goes through this all the time; when the adults and faculty of the school refuse to listen to him, he invariably winds up needing to save the day himself, often breaking a ton of rules in the process. He might get punished along the way, but never suffers at the end of the book. The earliest example is probably when he, Ron, and Hermione defeated a giant Troll loose in the school halfway through Book 1. As Harry stopped listening to the teachers so much in the later books (and the teachers likewise realized it's a good idea to pay attention when Harry says someone wants him dead), the series started to move away from this.

*** Pretty heavily lampshaded, too, especially by Snape. Verges on [[Jerkass Has a Point]].