View source for Be Careful What You Wish For

{{trope}}
[[File:carefulwhatyouwishfor1 9344.jpg|link=Calvin and Hobbes|frame|"I DIDN'T ''MEAN'' IT!"]]

{{quote|''"So this is it; this is what I wished for; just isn't how I envisioned it..."''
|'''[[Eminem]]''', from [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v{{=}}Qzqn0ZOljEM "Careful What You Wish For."] <ref>(Referring to fame.)</ref>}}

...you just might get it.

If a character [[Make a Wish|expresses a wish that things were different]] and actually ''gets'' what they wished for, it is very possible that the results will not live up to their fantasies.

The circumstances can vary on how the wish is made, then consequently granted. The character making the wish may or may not have known that it was actually going to be granted, and the thing which grants it may be anything, depending on the genre—a wish-granting Genie [[Benevolent Genie|who wants to show the character the error of their ways]] or [[Jackass Genie|just plain wants them to suffer]]; a sudden appearance by [[Louis Cypher]] ready to offer a [[Deal with the Devil]]; a tour through an [[Alternate Timeline]]; or even just an ironic twist of fate. The "deal breaker" that makes the wish not worth it also comes in a lot of possible flavors: maybe the character finds out that to get what they wanted they must give up something even more important to them; maybe the element of their life they wanted gone is really essential to who they are; maybe their wish has consequences they haven't thought of—or maybe they find out that [[It's the Journey That Counts]] and that [[Wanting Is Better Than Having]].

This is an elementary form of [[Deconstruction]] - The character wants X, and then they find out X has unpleasant unanticipated consequences. Thus, X is deconstructed—the plot shows that X isn't as great as you think it is, and in fact may not be what you actually want at all. Nine times of ten this is an outright [[Aesop]], though strictly speaking it doesn't have to be. A crucial element of playing that angle well is making the "deal breaker" a meaningful, inherent flaw to the original wish rather than something tacked on or that could have easily turned out differently if the character had more common sense. Otherwise, a [[Broken Aesop]] is almost guaranteed.

Often a cause of [[Blessed with Suck]], though not the only one; wont to count as an [[Opinion-Changing Dream]]; contains the same type of irony as [[Ironic Hell]]. In some cases the experience may lead the wisher to discover an [[Awful Truth]].

[[Sub-Trope]] of [[Be Careful What You Say]].

[[Super-Trope]] of [[It's a Wonderful Plot]], [[I Wish It Was Real]], [[I Wished You Were Dead]] and [[Rhetorical Request Blunder]].

Compare [[Gone Horribly Right]], when science or logic is involved rather than wishes.

Contrast the [[Literal Genie]], which ignores the intent of the wish in favor of the exact words; ''this'' trope is about the complications that arise when you get exactly what you ''wanted'', rather than exactly what you ''said''. A [[Jerkass Genie]] is likely to cause this to happen, if he doesn't just twist your words entirely.

{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Arisa]]'' takes this trope and tweaks it. Rather than the wishes themselves that are messed up, it's the ''desire'' to have one's wishes granted. Most of the people are overlooking the obvious with rationalizations of "it could never happen to me" until it actually does, making selfish and arbitrary wishes without considering the side-effects. that is, rather than being about wish corruption, it's about the corruption by wishes (having your desires constantly fulfilled). Understandably, the entire class as a result is just a few shades short of psychopathy.
* Hohenheim of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' spends his entire long life (over 400 years) wishing his life would end. When the end finally comes, however, he wishes he would not die yet.
** {{spoiler|Father heartily lauds how Truth gives humans despair when they get conceited, to keep them in line. Then, following a long, action-packed sequence of events, he winds up in front of Truth himself, who reminds Father of his exact words, and points out how conceited Father was to think he could absorb a god. [[Fate Worse Than Death|He gets plenty of despair]].}}
** Al and Ed wanted to see Shou Tucker's talking Chimera. They find out just what goes into [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|making a talking chimera]]. [[Moral Event Horizon|They want to kill the bastard after seeing what goes into a talking chimera]].
** The King of Xerxes wanted to live forever. He got his wish [[And I Must Scream|as one of the tortured souls in Father's body]].
** Human transmutation is wrought with this. By the laws of alchemy, it is forbidden, since the value of human life is immeasurable, so attempting it will cause those involved to lose that which was most precious to them. When Izumi attempted it to revive her stillborn child, she lost her reproductive organs. When Ed and Al tried it to revive their mother, Ed lost his leg and his brother.
* In ''[[Bleach]]'', Aizen tries to help Ichigo get stronger because he wants a [[Worthy Opponent]]. Well, he got what he asked for...  {{spoiler|right through his stupid face.}}
** Ichigo tells Keigo after he loses his powers that he always wanted a normal life...then sees the folly of that when Ginjo and Xcution start messing up his life.
* The series ''[[Asatte no Houkou]]'' begins with a single (well, double) instance of this, with a dash of [[Swapped Roles]]. The rest of the series consists of the characters dealing with the results.
* Making wishes under the old sakura tree in ''[[Da Capo]]'' can have major consequences. For some it's even worse though when those wishes get reverted.
* The 'Suruga Monkey' arc of ''[[Bakemonogatari]]'' initially appears to be a minor twist on the traditional story of the Monkey's Paw (the twist being that the paw has grafted itself to its owner's arm) but turns out to be rather more of a twist than usual. The owner's first wish was to run faster than her classmates to stop them from laughing at her; everyone in the class faster than her was mysteriously beaten up the day before the athletics carnival. The real twist is that {{spoiler|the paw isn't a Monkey's Paw, it belongs to a malevolent spirit called a Rainy Devil that grants your true subconscious wish- even though Kanbaru wished to run faster than her classmates she really wanted revenge on them, so the Rainy Devil possessed her and beat them up}}. Things get ''worse'' when {{spoiler|[[Murder the Hypotenuse|the sempai she had a long-term crush on gets a boyfriend]]}}. The final twist is that {{spoiler|[[Deal with the Devil|after granting her third wish, the Rainy Devil will take her soul]]}}.
* The ''[[Magic Knight Rayearth|Rayearth]]'' [[OVA]] starts this way - the heroines fear their graduation, as they will be separated. So they wish something prevents this... then all the mayhem starts.
* The scientists in ''[[Utawarerumono]]'' wanted to live forever. Unfortunately {{spoiler|Iceman was basically a god and they just REALLY pissed him off, so he gave them all bodies that would be immortal [[And I Must Scream|by turning them all into red jelly.]]}}
* In ''[[D.Gray-man]]'', the unlucky Miranda Lotto loses her one hundredth job. She says: "Day after day, things always go wrong for me. I wish tomorrow would never come." What's the problem? Her Innocence-superpowered clock hears it, and it grants her wish. The whole town where she lives gets stuck in October 9 for more than a month.
* Quite a few ''[[Franken Fran]]'' stories end this way. One, for example, has a modern Elizabeth Bathory asking for eternal youth and eternal life. Fran gave her what she wants by turning all of her cells into the one type of cell that isn't programmed to die: {{spoiler|[[And I Must Scream|Cancer Cells]].}}
**  {{spoiler|Actually Fran just gave her what she wanted. The Women went way overboard with the treatment and Fran was trying to warn her when it was too late. Still an example but not Fran's fault.}}
* ''[[×××HOLiC]]'' features a chapter and episode involving a monkey's paw, which, as in the original W. W. Jacobs short story, grants wishes for its holder - five wishes in this case, one for each finger of the mummified paw, which break one at a time as wishes are granted. Also as in the original story, the young woman who gets hold of the paw finds her wishes backfiring on her, particularly when she thoughtlessly wishes that there would be a railway accident so that her lateness would be excused, causing a bystander to be suddenly pushed in front of the train. The paw and her own careless wishes end up killing her.
* Definitely the instance that most people think of in the ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' franchise is when [[Big Bad|Perfect Cell]], wanting to get a good fight before he destroys the Earth, hears from Gohan who, not wanting to fight, will let loose and kill him if Cell pushes him too hard. Cell, [[Blood Knight|being]] [[Complete Monster|Cell]], goes ahead with that anyways, pulling some heavy [[Kick the Dog]] moments by nearly killing the rest of the cast and [[Tear Jerker|killing Android 16]], and which pushes Gohan to go Super Saiyan 2 and [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|beat Cell half to death]] and drive him to [[Villainous Breakdown]]. Gohan even invokes the whole trope by pointing to Cell that him letting loose is what Cell wanted in the first place.
* General Wolf of ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' comes to regret asking Johan how he's feeling. Johan can't put it into words, so he demonstrates it by  {{spoiler|killing everyone close to the general. This lets the General feel Johan's own isolation.}}
** This trope happens to be the one that catalyzes the ''real'' story for Tenma, and thus the entire series. Tenma, after being demoted by the corrupt hospital director for saving a patient and dumped by the director's daughter, states that his superiors "would be better off dead" to that same supposedly comatose patient. {{spoiler|Should've thought that one out better; turns out his patient, Johan, is [[Complete Monster|a sociopathic mass murderer]] who would gladly oblige such a request.}}
** There were experiments done on children to create an emotionless and perfect killing machine. [[Gone Horribly Right|Then, Johan became one]] [[Complete Monster|of the experiment subjects.]]
* Mostly subverted in ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]''. Goddesses grant wishes to humans, and they don't try and cheat them out of anything. It does, however, apply when [[Deal with the Devil|a demon is granting a wish]], since A; they might [[Jerkass Genie|cheat you on it]], and B; they will ask for something in return proportionate to the wish, though according to [[Satan|Hild]] at least, that means a demon won't ever grant a wish to destroy the world, since no mortal could possibly have anything to offer of equal value to that wish.
** Well, you ''can'' wish for the end of the world if you really want, but the demons will then [[A Fate Worse Than Death|get their price from you by any means possible.]] [[You Don't Want to Know|Pay back all the suffering you caused by ending the world?]] Of course that tends to turn most people off.
** One other danger in wishes with demons is that even if they don't cheat you on the wish, you still can't back out of it if it being granted is something they want.
* Zelgadis of ''[[Slayers]]'' wishes to be strong. And then he gets his wish. And it [[Cursed with Awesome|sucks]]. He's strong, yes, but he's now an human-golem hybrid with stone skin and metal hair.
** Actually, it's a funny case with Zel. He mentions that he ''could've'' lived with the effects if {{spoiler|he wasn't being used as a guinea pig for his grandfather Rezo}}.
* ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]'' Especially in the manga, Miaka wishes to be rid of her problems with school and her [[Education Mama|mother]], and that there was a god she could pray to. Well, in a way, she gets her wish: she is in an alternate dimension where there ''is'' no school, and she gets to be the [[Chosen One|priestess]] to a god in this dimension. But, it's not all roses. She's in a [[Cast Full of Pretty Boys]], but she has [[Virgin Power]]. She is constantly getting the [[Distress Ball]], too. Oh, and then there's that whole thing about the Beast God [[Virgin Sacrifice|consuming his priestess' body and soul]] as she makes her wishes.
* In ''[[Nightmare Inspector]]'', Hiruko often lets the dreamer's wishes be fulfilled. Whether they were actually beneficial to the dreamer is an entirely different question ...
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'': Professor Cobra wanted to be reunited with his dead son. Yubel promised to do so. He thought that meant she would bring him back to life. She/He had other ideas, consisting of erasing the memory that his son died in the first place and dropping Cobra to his death. But, hey, if you believe in the afterlife... Yubel was like that about a lot of things.
* This is a very important theme in ''[[Tenshi ni Narumon]]'' {{spoiler|where the strength of one of the main characters' wish almost erases him and other two individuals from existence}}.
* Analyzed in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. [[Deal with the Devil|Kyubey]] grants wishes in exchange for the wishee becoming a [[Magical Girl]] and fighting monsters for him. The problems that arise from the granting of the wish aren't exactly because of the wish itself, or from Kyubey - while he's not exactly trustworthy, he has no incentive to screw with peoples' wishes. The problem is ''the person making the wish is almost never honest about what they really wanted''. Veteran Magical Girls repeatedly warn potential ones against the perils of a selfless wish, and that's part of what makes it so tragic: {{spoiler|there ''are no'' selfless wishes. Every selfless wish has a selfish motive behind it, and seeing the chance for that selfish desire slipping away with the rising happiness of someone else sends a Magical Girl deeper into despair... which is, of course, what Kyubey [[The Chessmaster|wants]].}}
** In the end {{spoiler|Madoka manages to make an actual selfless wish that remakes the world and destroy Kyubey's schemes. The catch is that it comes at the price of [[Ret-Gone|removing herself out of existence]]. Madoka doesn't care about that side-effect; unfortunately, Homura (whose every action in the plot was for Madoka's wellness) ''does'' - the plot of [[Grand Finale|the third film, ''Rebellion'']] is about her trying to reverse Madoka's wish, no matter the price.}}
* In ''[[Himitsu no Akko-chan]]'', (the original version from 1969), the titular heroine, Akko-chan, upon meeting a deaf-mute kid, asks her magic mirror to turn her into a deaf-mute version of herself, reasoning that, after her brush with disability, she'll be able to restore herself with a second wish. However, since the mirror works only by clearly enunciated utterances, and since it was [[Literal Genie|enough literal to strip Akko-chan of the ability to speak at all]], the unfortunate wishee finds herself deaf, voiceless and cut off of her power source. She gets better later, though, as the [[Reset Button]] simply presses itself after imparting a much needed [[Aesop]].
* ''[[Tokyo Magnitude 8.0]]'' begins with the narrator saying she hates Tokyo and wishes it would just break, the whole city. Cue the titular earthquake.
* In ''[[Pretty Cure All Stars]] DX 3'', [[Suite Precure|Hibiki]] wishes Hummy would disappear after she crashes a fashion show featuring [[Heartcatch Precure|Tsubomi, Erika, Itsuki and Yuri]]. {{spoiler|At the end of the movie, [[Downer Ending|she does - along with the rest of the Precure's mascots.]] They come back, though.}}
* Goku from ''[[Saiyuki]]'' thinks it would be okay if he died. WAIT HE DIDN'T MEAN THIS SECOND!
* In ''[[The Tale of the Princess Kaguya]]'', Princess Kaguya wishes that she would be taken away so she does not have to marry the Emperor of Japan. The wish is granted, and {{spoiler|Princess Kaguya is being taken to the moon, away from the [[Arcadia]] and joys of life on Earth}}. There is no way to prevent this, despite her constant pleas.

== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''Avril Lavigne's Make 5 Wishes'' since  {{spoiler|'''''there is no [[Reset Button]] at the end.''''' Protagonist Hana, having used up all five wishes and finding herself no better off, maybe even worse, than at the beginning of the story, decides to jump off a bridge so as to get rid of the demon Romeo and prevent his magic from harming anyone ever again. Romeo somehow escapes from the box before they reach the riverbed, claiming that he "can't die." The last page shows a news report saying that Hana's body has still not been found.}}
* "Wish You Were Here", a 1953 story from the [[EC Comics]] horror title ''The Haunt of Fear'', uses a variation of ''{{[[The Monkey's Paw|The Monkeys Paw]]'' story: A businessman's wife discovers an enchanted Chinese figurine and wishes for a fortune. Learning that her husband was killed while driving to his lawyer's office (after naming her the beneficiary of a generous life insurance policy) and remembering what happened in ''The Monkey's Paw'', she wishes for him to be brought back to the way he was "just before the accident"; unfortunately, he's still a corpse since his actual death was due to a heart attack. She uses the third and final wish to make him "alive ''now'', alive forever!"...which condemns him to eternal pain and agony, since his dead body had been embalmed. Even her [[Nightmare Fuel|hacking him to tiny bits]] can't put him out of his misery. (The comic was later adapted for the 1972 movie anthology: ''[[EC Comics (film)|Tales From The Crypt]]''.)
* Played with in ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]''. When given the opportunity for a Wish, resident [[Rules Lawyer]] Brian pulls out a 20-page legal document he's [[Crazy Prepared|been carrying around for just such an opportunity]]. It's so complex that the [[Dungeon Master]] has to call several other DMs to help him interpret it.
** Ultimately, B.A. is able to invoke this trope. While the wish was airtight the immortality granted to Brian leaves a vengeful deity he previously pissed off free to attack him with full force. Fortunately for Brian, a clause of the wish stated that if he died as a direct consequence of the wish, all effects of the wish would be undone and Brian would get a 25,000 gp consolation prize.
*** That DM needs to work on being more killer, if he's immortal he technically cannot die. "And I must scream" anyone?
*** Just rephrase it: "If I experience any loss of ability as a direct or indirect consequence of my wish, all effects of the wish should be undone and I should receive 25,000 gp as a consolation prize".
* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' comic "Artificiality", [[The Captain|Captain Picard]], at a crewmember's funeral, wishes that all of his crew were as durable as [[Ridiculously Human Robot|Data]]. Q obliges him by turning the whole crew into Soong-type androids.
* This tends to happen quite often in the ''[[Grimm Fairy Tales]]'' comic series.
* The 2011 "Heart of the Monster" arc in [[The Incredible Hulk]]s is built around this trope - Hulk and his team encounter a Wishing Well. Everyone involved is [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know what it will twist every wish it grants. What they don't know is the intentions of the Red She-Hulk, who used it to wish doom on her ex-husband.... if she meant it, his circumstances are going to improve, but if she ''liked'' him... {{spoiler|As it turns out, she hated him at the time, meaning all of his dreams briefly came true.}}
** It's almost become a [[Running Gag]] in ''The Incredible Hulk'' - the Hulk is beset by the army, villains, and even other heroes, and he bellows '''"LEAVE HULK ALONE!"''', something they never seem to do. In ''[[Hulk: The End]]'', which takes place in a [[Bad Future]] setting, the Hulk is the [[Sole Survivor]] of a nuclear war, his only company being Banner's side of his personality, one growing weaker and weaker. Finally, in one of Banner's increasingly waning periods of control, he has a heart attack and dies, leaving The Hulk ''truly'' alone now. His reaction to getting what he always wanted? 
{{quote|'''Hulk:''' Hulk, strongest one there is... Hulk ''only'' one there is... Hulk feels... cold.}}
* [[Doctor Strange]], in a moment of grief after losing Clea, wished he were dead. Enter [[Despair Event Horizon|D'Spayre]], who put him through a series of [[Mind Screw]]s so painful that Strange nearly [[Driven to Suicide|took his own life]].

== [[Fairy Tales]] ==
* King Midas. A notoriously greedy man, he once made a wish that everything he touched would turn to gold. When his wish was granted, he was ecstatic... [[Blessed with Suck|at least until the first time he tried to eat something]]. In another version of the story, he turns his daughter into gold. Thus this is [[Older Than Feudalism]].
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130718151144/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sixswans/stories/twelvewilducks.html The Twelve Wild Ducks]'', a queen says, "If I only had a daughter as white as snow and as red as blood, I shouldn't care what became of all my sons." A troll witch hears and takes her sons.
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131204105124/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sixswans/stories/sevenravens.html The Seven Ravens]'', the father wishes his sons were ravens for their being so forgetful. (To add to the irony, he was mistaken about why they hadn't done as he said.)
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20140704174306/http://surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/2myrtle1911.html The Myrtle]'', a woman [[Wonder Child|wishes for a child, even a sprig of myrtle]].
* In ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20120611224840/http://surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/108hanshedgehog.html Hans the Hedgehog]'', the father wishes for a son, even a hedgehog.
* Similar stories went around in seventeenth century England. In some cases a Catholic or Anglican parent would rather their unborn child to have no head than be a Roundhead, in others, a Puritan would wish for their child have no head than have a priest make the Sign of the Cross on it. Either way, they ended up with a headless baby.
* There is a fairy tale about a poor couple that rescues an elf and is granted three wishes in return. The wife, being hungry, wishes she had a nice, tasty sausage. Her husband scolds her for wasting a wish on such a mundane thing and blurts out in anger: "I wish that stupid sausage would stick to your nose!" which is, of course, exactly what happens next. In the end, they have to use the third wish to get the sausage off the poor woman's face and have thus wasted all three of them.
** …At least, they still have got the sausage.
* There's a story from somewhere in Africa about a tribe that doesn't exist any more, because when seeking a reward from some supernatural being, the men said that the best thing that could happen to them was for their wife to give them a son, and for their cattle to give them female calves. -- So be it, all your children shall be sons and all your calves shall be heifers. -- They rejoiced, until...
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20130528065453/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/russian/oldpetersrussiantales/princeivan.html Prince Ivan, the Witch Baby, and the Little Sister of the Sun]''. Your son does not talk. Wish for any child at all, because things can't be worse, and you get [[Witch Species|a witch child]] born with her iron teeth who eats you up.

== [[Fan Works]] ==
* ''[[Dragonball Z Abridged]]'' has Gohan pointing out this trope in his nerdish way after he and Krillin realize the recently-revived Picollo was brought back to Namek... just not with ''them''.
** On that note, Krillin wished for the perfect Christmas tree. [[Jackass Genie|Shenron delivered.]] Thanks for the special, you two!
{{quote|'''Reject Mall Santa''': Turles, sir! Our ship has mysteriously changed course for a new planet: Earth!
'''Turles''': Does it contain the sufficient amount of joy?
'''Reject Mall Santa''': According to our sensors... yes!
'''Turles''': Well, then... ''merry Christmas''! }}

== [[Film]] ==
* In the Frank Capra classic ''[[It's a Wonderful Life]]'', protagonist George Bailey falls apart so dramatically that he wishes he was never born. His guardian angel, Clarence, decides to show him exactly how much of a suckfest his hometown of Bedford Falls would have become without his influence. This, in turn, was [[It's a Wonderful Plot|parodied relentlessly.]]
* In the "Fiction" section of ''Storytelling'', white girl Vi wants to fuck her black literature professor Mr. Scott. The actual experience turns out to be traumatic; she realizes she is the latest young, impressionable white girl in a series of sexual conquests, and Mr. Scott has a proclivity for  {{spoiler|racial epithets}} that makes the scene memorably disturbing.
* This is, of course, how ''[[Labyrinth]]'' starts. Frustrated at her baby half-brother, Sarah carelessly wishes that the villain from her favorite book would take the brat away and is more than a bit shocked when he actually ''does''. Whoopsie.
* This is the main plot of the [[Tom Hanks]] film ''[[Big]]'', with the Aesop that "Growing up has its perks but they come gradually".
** Parodied by ''[[Family Guy]]''. Stewie wishes that he was big, the wish-granting machine wishes it could weigh people.
* Ditto for the [[Jennifer Garner]] movie ''[[13 Going on 30]]'', which is the same premise [[Recycled in Space|with a girl]].
* ''[[17 Again]]'' recycles the plot of the two above with the twist that an adult wants to [[I Coulda Been a Contender|come back to his youth days]] and instead is merely [[Fountain of Youth|given his young body again]], with all the trouble that this ensures.
* The short film "[http://www.archive.org/details/CaseofSp1940 A Case of Spring Fever]", as featured on ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' episode 1012, has an oddly specific example. A man, tired of trying to fix the sofa, wishes he never sees another spring in his life, only for it to be granted by the [[Evil Laugh|insanely cackling]] spirit "Coily, the spring sprite". [[Hilarity Ensues]] as his door locks, phone dial and car pedals stop working. ''Noooooooooo Springs!''
** Parodied in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]''; a 1950s educational film has a young man foolishly wish that ''zinc'' didn't exist (?!), which proceeded to ruin his life because he couldn't (a) drive his zinc-less car to pick up his girlfriend for a date; (b) call his girlfriend to postpone their date with his zinc-less telephone, and (c) shoot himself in despair (as even the hammer in the gun was made of zinc). The young man is quick to regret his desire for a world without zinc ("Zinc! Come back!"); fortunately, it turns out to be [[All Just a Dream]].
** ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' had parodied Coily before, in episode 317 (the famous "waffle episode"), with Willy the Waffle, the Wonderful Whimsical Wisecracking Waffle granting Tom's wish for a world without waffles ("Noooooooooo Waffles! * coil spring noise* "). Willy appeared again in 423 to show Tom a world without advertising ("It was all I had, I had to work fast"). After Willy's spiel, Joel and Tom agree that they prefer the world without advertising.
*** They also parodied Coily in the host segments for the episode in which they watched "A Case of Spring Fever". While discussing the skit, Tom wishes never to see Mike again, which prompts a visit by Mikey the Mike Sprite, who makes Nelson disappear. The Bots aren't too bothered, but Mikey eventually badges them into at least pretending they've learned their lesson and brings Mike back. Then Crow says he doesn't want to see Mike's socks again; cue Mikesocksy...
* ''[[Bedazzled]]'' (both versions) has this as its main premise.
* In the Disney Movie ''[[Blank Check]]'' the protagonist feels left out because he has no money while everyone else in his family does. While blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, he wishes to be rich. Shortly afterward, his bike gets run over and he is handed a blank check to cover for his bike, he cashes it for 1 million dollars. After buying a house and loads of fancy toys, he realizes that he is just as friendless as before.
** The final scene has him considering his wish for his next birthday [[Likes Older Women|while admiring the attractive female FBI agent]] that saved him from the villains.
* Disney's ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' uses this idea. In the first film, all that Aladdin wants is for Princess Jasmine to love him, a type of wish the Genie explicitly cannot grant, and ironically, Jasmine already loves him. So he wishes to become a prince so that he can woo Jasmine - a wish which makes her like him less because he's just another prince. She doesn't start loving him until he acts like normal - funny, charming, and adventurous.
** Jafar himself had this bite him in the ass. He didn't want to be the second fiddle to Genie, so he wished to become the most powerful genie. Unfortunately, [[Our Genies Are Different|genies are bound to lamps and have to grant wishes]], so he found himself stuck in servitude.
* The [[Disney Channel]] movie ''16 Wishes'' combined this trope with [[An Aesop]] about appreciating what you have.
* In ''[[Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull]]'', the [[Big Bad]] {{spoiler|asks the movie's extradimensional aliens for all of their knowledge. She gets it all of course, so much in fact that she literally explodes from the information overload.}}
** Played for laughs in the second movie ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom|Temple of Doom]]'', where Indy, after having stopped a mining cart with his foot and resulting in his boot smoking, cries out "Water! Water!". [[Oh Crap|Mere seconds later...]]
* The Russian film ''Adventures of Petrov and Vasechkin'' (two children) has a subplot about wishes. For example, Vasechkin states how great it would be to be invisible, only to collide with another person and shout: "What are you thinking, didn't you see me?!" When they really get wishes granted, things get even uglier.
* ''[[The Incredible Mr. Limpet]].''
** Ultimately averted because it turns out he really is happier as a fish.
* In ''[[Leatherheads]]'', "Dodge" Connelly (played by George Clooney) wants professional football to become a legitimate, respectable way to make a living. A variant in that there's nothing supernatural to grant his wish.  {{spoiler|The government steps in and appoints a Commissioner to clean things up. Once this happens, he discovers there's no longer a place for him or his style of play.}}
* In ''[[Bolt]]'', the director pulls one of these when Mindy-from-the-Network asks for a less than happy ending. He ends it abruptly and says to Mindy "How does your audience feel about... cliffhangers? You wanted unhappy 18-35-year-olds, I'll give you unhappy 18-35-year-olds. Small example but it works."
* A cover for the film version of ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]'' features the trope name, word for word, written on a wall.
** Interestingly, the film's wish is different from the book's:  {{spoiler|in the former Coraline wishes for caring parents, in the latter, for an adventure.}} Nevertheless, '''both''' wishes backfire badly.
* ''[[A Day Without a Mexican]]''. The film starts with several Californians expressing their contempt and animosity for Mexican immigrants (mostly the illegal ones), then suddenly all Mexican immigrants start vanishing all over the state forcing them to see how much they relied on them and then making them long for their return.
* In the Olsen twins' movie ''Double, Double, Toil and Trouble'', Agatha wishes that she and her identical twin Sophia were "completely different". Agatha grows up to be an evil witch who relatives avoid unless they need money, and Sophia grows up to be a kindly woman who everyone loves.
* In ''[[Freaky Friday]]'' and its remakes, the heroine and her mother both wish to be each other "just for one day". Since they make the wish at the same time, this being Hollywood, it happens. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
** The same plot was given a gender flip in ''Viceversa''
* In ''[[The Thief of Bagdad]]'', Abu accidentally wishes Ahmad away this way.
* In ''[[Bernard And The Genie]]'', the Genie warns Bernard "Use the words 'I wish' with the caution you used to reserve for the words 'Please castrate me.'"
* In ''[[Star Trek III: The Search For Spock]]'', the Lieutenant working with Uhura at the Transporter station asks for "a little excitement"...and he gets it, but not what he had in mind.
* It's somewhat overshadowed by the main "foiling the burglars" plot, but ''[[Home Alone]]'' plays this straight with the protagonist wishing his family didn't exist, and ultimately coming to regret their being gone.
{{quote|"I made my family disappear!"}}
* The horror movie ''Open Graves'' (as reviewed by [[Phelous]]) ends with the character being granted a wish and using it to rewind time to before the tragic events of the film occurred. Since he neglected to mention that he wanted some kind of [[Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory|foreknowledge of what was going to happen]] it proceeded to just [[Stable Time Loop|happen over again]]. To make it worse, the witch who created the cursed game that set this in motion showed up to tell him his wish was stupid and maybe he should make a different one, and he just insisted that was what he wanted.
* Basically the plot of the Grade-Z horror film ''[[Hobgoblins]]''.
* ''The Banker''. The titular character invokes this trope on a fellow who is blackmailing him. Let's just say that things don't go too well for the blackmailer after that.
* ''[[The Princess and the Frog]]'': [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate|Dr.]] Facilier promises to "make all [Lawrence and Naveen's] wildest dreams come true." To quote ''[[Discworld]]'', remember some of your dreams?
* In ''[[Dead Friend]]'' (aka ''The Ghost'') {{spoiler|Su-in, completely by accident, got what she wished for - She ''becomes'' Ji-won.}} Unfortunately for her, there were some [[Ghostly Goals|nasty consequences.]]
* Lenina Huxley, a huge fan of pre-Utopia history, wished for some real action in ''[[Demolition Man]]'' and then Simon Phoenix broke out of the cryo prison.
* In the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' compilation movie ''Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island'', Daffy, Speedy Gonzales, Yosemite Sam, and the Tasmanian Devil are stuck on a deserted island with only three wishes after the map that works a wishing well is destroyed. Speedy and Daffy play this trope straight when Speedy wishes for a burrito and Daffy, annoyed over the wish, wishes it was on his nose. When Daffy suggests using the last wish to get it off, he finds out that Sam and Taz have averted the trope by wishing for a new ship, leaving the other two behind.
* [[The Movie]] of ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' had it too. Alex yells at her mother when the latter grounds the former, ultimately wishing that her parents never met. At all. And because she is holding the wand, the wish that Alex unintentionally makes comes true. It's ironic that she'd wish that on vacation in the one place where her parents first met.
* In ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', Mike challenges Pearl Forrester to a game of chance and ends up winning. He asks for ''[[Hamlet]]''. Boy, ''does she'' give him ''Hamlet''!
* Essentially the plot of most ''[[Hellraiser]]'' films, especially the first two and the ninth where the cenobites are simply [[Sense Freak]]s. Hedonists who open the box looking for sensation the normal, dull, unfulfilling world can't provide learn this lesson ''very'' quickly, but far too late. In ''Deader,'' Pinhead delivers the trope name to Winter for trying to cheat death but messing up and delivering himself right into Pinhead's waiting chains. As the fiend himself says:
{{quote|'''Pinhead:''' It is not hands that call us, it is desire.}}
* ''Interstate 60'': "Now one young couple wished to be married and live happily ever after. So I blew up their car at the church on the way to the honeymoon. Another guy he wanted great, perfect sex every day with his choice of gorgeous women - no pregnancies. So every day he gets a Fed Ex delivery of a skin magazine and a box of tissues."
* In ''[[In Time]]''. Sylvia was bored of her sterile, rich life and wanted a life of adventure. Then, Will kidnaps her and she nearly dies a few times. After getting over the initial shock, she falls for him and joins him in his quest.
* In ''[[My Name Is Khan]]'', after the murder of her son (instigated by post 9/11 paranoia) and her husband Rizwan's inability to console her due to his Asperger making him unable to properly express his own grief, Mandira dumps him by angrily, sarcastically telling him that he should go and meet the American president to tell him that he is a Muslim and is not a terrorist, and not come back until he manages to do so. By the time Mandira get back to her senses and wants to reconcile with her only living loved one, she discovers to her horror that not only did [[Idiot Savant|he]] [[Sarcasm Blind|took her to her word]], he got wrongly detained as a terrorist for his attempts of approaching the POTUS to give him the message, and just after he was cleared from that he then got stabbed by an actual terrorist whose cell he helped to dismantle. Even worse, he rejects the chances of going back with her because he still hadn't delivered the message.

== [[Literature]] ==
* In the medieval [[Chivalric Romance]] of ''Robert the Devil'' and all its variants, the parents wish for a [[Wonder Child|child]]—whether from God or the Devil. The son is therefore born possessed by evil. (Fortunately for him, in due time, he repents and does penitence for his evil. This results in either [[Rags to Royalty|marrying]] [[Standard Hero Reward|the princess]] or becoming a saint.)
* In [[Hans Christian Andersen]]'s ''The Galoshes of Fortune'', the titular shoes grant the wishes of whoever is wearing them. This usually ends badly, as the characters are unaware of their power. For example, the Councilor of Justice held the view that in the time of King Hans, around 1500, everything was better; when the galoshes transport him to that age, he finds out that it was actually much worse.
* The [[Edgar Allan Poe]] story ''Never Bet the Devil Your Head'' is an odd case of this. A man tells a story of a friend who says he'd "bet the devil his head" that he could perform a particular trick; out of nowhere, [[Louis Cypher|a mystery man]] shows up eager to take him up on his bet, and sure enough, he manages to decapitate himself and the man runs off with his prize.
* In ''Wedding Shirts'', a ballad by [https://web.archive.org/web/20210306183751/https://english.radio.cz/karel-jaromir-erben-one-greatest-all-czech-poets-now-last-english-translation-8090894 Karel Jaromír Erben]{{Dead link}}, a woman makes the following wish in a prayer: "O Mary, full of power / Oh, help me at this hour / Bring my beloved home / Lord knows where he does roam / Bring him, I reck not how / Or finish my life now." You know what followed ... Yes, her beloved returned to her from the grave, almost leading to the second part of the wish coming true as well.
* Both subverted and not in the short story [http://books.google.com/books?id=H7BNAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA938 "The Wish Ring"]. A farmer is kind to an old woman, and gets a wish ring in return. He shows it to a jeweler to see how much it's worth, and the jeweler steals it from him and replaces it with an identical copy. The jeweler then wishes for a million gold pieces, which promptly begin raining from the sky and crush him to death. In the meantime, the farmer goes home still thinking he has the real ring. Every time his wife suggests something they could wish for, he says no, they can work for that and earn it instead. Eventually they become happy and rich because of their hard work, and die with the wish still unasked.
* In ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'', the titular character makes a [[Deal with the Devil]] to stay young and good looking forever; instead, a life sized portrait of him will age in his place. While he enjoys his life of consequence-free debauchery at first, eventually the picture begins to serve as his conscience, reminding him of things to prefer to forget. Comes complete with a heavy dose of symbolism, as after he commits murder blood appears on his portrait's hands. Eventually, trying to eliminate the portrait and the evidence of his sins causes his own death.
* Forms most of the plot of the Edwardian children's novel ''[[Five Children and It]]'' by [[E. Nesbit]] — the "it" of the title is a cantankerous sand-fairy, whose granted wishes always backfire on the children.
* W.W. Jacobs' classic short story ''[[The Monkey's Paw]]'' concerns a married couple who receive the title item as a gift from a friend who served in the British Army in India. The paw grants its owner [[Three Wishes]], and the husband uses the first of these to wish for 200 pounds; the couple subsequently learns that their grown son was killed after falling into the machinery at the factory where he worked, and they are offered £200 as compensation from the employers. The wife then begs the husband to wish for the son to be brought back to life; after he does so (with great reluctance), they hear a steady knocking on their door. As the overjoyed wife runs to unlock and open the door, the husband realizes to his horror that the son will have come back [[Came Back Wrong|in his mutilated state]], and quickly uses the third wish; when the wife finally gets the door open, there's nobody there, implying that the third wish was for the son to be returned to the grave.
** An interesting alternate interpretation is that the second wish actually came true exactly as the mother wanted and the son was back, completely unharmed. The curse's effect in this case was not to give the parents a mutilated zombie of a son, but to make the father so paranoid that after finally getting what he wanted he immediately wished it away because he was sure it would be bad. Not only did the father unwittingly destroy the one thing he wanted, he also wasted the last wish which could have been used to wish the paw away.
*** That alternate interpretation might work for some of the variations on this story that have appeared over the years, but the original is pretty clear that the paw twists every wish into its darkest meaning. If anything, one should wonder what the consequences of the THIRD wish might be...
*** I think some would consider the paranoia that the wish gives the father, which denies him a chance to see his son again, to be worse than the son [[Came Back Wrong|Coming Back Wrong]]. They both fit the Paw's stated ability, it just depends on which you consider worse.
** The short youtube film ''The Monkey's Paw'' is based off of the same story, except it's the son and the mother who find the paw and the son wishes his zombie father away. (The wish has no audio, so the wording of his wish is unknown.)
* Gelsomino, whose voice could shatter even stone, wished to come into a land "where everything is inversed, and people don't worry about my voice". He then arrives into Land of Liars, where everybody is obliged by law to lie, naming night day, black white etc. Naturally, they don't care about his voice - they have other problems!
* Most of the works of [[Clive Barker]] have this theme; want to know where the mysterious girls are coming from?  {{spoiler|[[Gender Bender|you become one yourself]]}}. Want to gain notoriety for finding out that an [[Urban Legend]] is true?  {{spoiler|You will... as his next victim.}}
** Want to find a [[Hellraiser|dimension of limitless pleasure?]] The Cenobites have such sights to show you...
* [[The Lord of the Rings|Frodo]] always [[In Harm's Way|wished for adventures]] when he was small... didn't work out well, either.
** Also part of the backstory of the Nazgul: they were once mighty, arrogant Kings of Men who desired power and long life. So Sauron gave them magic rings. Now they are immortal...undead slaves to Sauron's will.
* In ''[[Chronicles of Thomas Covenant|The Land]]'', drinking the Blood of the Earth gives the power to command absolutely anything to happen, but limited human minds simply cannot know all consequences of a sudden change to reality. So it's usually safest not to use it.
* In [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]'s ''[[The Lathe of Heaven]]'', the protagonist is repeatedly asked to dream of a solution to a pressing problem, and the solution turns out to be worse than the original. For example, asked to make sure that there is enough food for everyone, he dreams of a plague that has killed most people in the past, and the survivors have enough to eat. Then, when there are alien invaders on the Moon, he is asked to dream that the aliens are no longer on the moon, so he makes them leave the Moon for...Earth.
* The entire premise of [[John Brunner]]'s novel ''The Traveller in Black'' is that of a man who grants wishes in ways that are ''never'' to the wishers' liking, the ultimate goal of which is to replace Chaos with Order.
** Not quite true; those who are selfish get their comeuppance, but the few who are unselfish (e.g. someone who wishes the Traveller success in his present quest, a little girl who wants to make the fire burn brighter so the family hut will be warm) are rewarded.
** Moreover, the Traveller often simply accelerates a comeuppance that the character was bound to suffer anyway, as when he splashes Lorega with the transformative water she'd intended to jump into already.
* There's a short story about a world where wishes came true automatically. In this setting, people lived idyllic lives as their every needs were met. Unfortunately, there was [[The Fool|a fool]], whose wishes were so poorly conceived that they always backfired on him. After making a number of increasingly short-sighted wishes, he finally thought of one that would put an end to this chain of misfortune: he wished "that wishes would no longer automatically come true." The next and final line of the story reads, "Things were tough all over."
** Pity nobody ever told him to wish he weren't a fool.
* ''[[Chrestomanci|Witch Week]]'' by [[Diana Wynne Jones]] has Charles use his new-found powers to torment Simon, the classroom bully. How does he do this? With a literal game of Simon says; [[Too Dumb to Live|anything Simon says]] [[Fridge Logic|comes true]]. After a few mishaps (With Simon saying everything from 'You girls stink' to 'I'm not clever at all!'), Chrestomanci comes in, gets Simon to shut up and tells Charles how horribly everything could've gone if Simon had said something like 'Two plus two equals three' or the like.
** The fact that Simon was actually using this for his gain pretty well in the beginning (by turning things to gold) only makes this double-edged for Charles to watch what ''he'' wishes for too.
* Bill Brittain's ''[[The Wish Giver]]'' is all about this. Three children in a small American town (along with the [[Narrator]], a man from the general store who answers to the nickname "Stew Meat") get cards that supposedly grant wishes from a mysterious vendor at the county fair, and the three stories in the book deal with the consequences of [[Literal Genie|the kids' ill-thought-out wishes]]: A sharp-tongued tomboy named Polly wishes people would start being glad to see her, and much to the amusement of her peers she starts to croak like a bullfrog whenever she starts insulting people; a sentimental girl named Rowena wishes the handsome young traveling salesman she has a crush on would "put down roots in Coven Tree and never leave", and he starts turning into a tree; a farm boy named Adam wishes his family's farm had more than enough water, and it ends up flooded. In the epilogue, the trio have learned their lessons, and beg Stew Meat to [[Wishplosion|undo their wishes with his own wish card]].
* Non-supernatural example: In Margaret Atwood's ''[[The Handmaid's Tale]]'', the character of Serena Joy is a former conservative televangelist who preached that women belonged in the home and helped to support the overthrow of the United States by the theocratic Republic of Gilead; by the time of the novel, she has been stripped of her public role, reduced to the role of subjugated housewife, and forced to be present while another woman - the Handmaid of the title - has sex with her husband every month. As the narrator protagonist wryly notes, "How furious she must be, now that she's been taken at her word."
** Along the same lines, Sinclair Lewis' ''It Can't Happen Here'' details the takeover of the U.S. government by a fascist regime led by a demagogue named Buzz Windrip. Many characters who initially supported Windrip's regime wind up becoming imprisoned or executed by it.
* In [[C. J. Cherryh]]'s Russian trilogy (''Rusalka'', ''Chernevog,'' and ''Yvgenie''), wizards work magic by wanting something. Since the form of the wish takes the easiest path, a wish, for example, for the five-year-old wizard's father to not hit him again could — and did — result in the house burning down and both his parents dying in the fire. Every wish is fraught with the potential for disaster, and not wanting things is like not thinking of elephants, so wizards, by and large, end up insane hermits.
* A ''[[Goosebumps]]'' book with this very title has this as its premise, with the term ''[[Reset Button]]'' loosely applied.
* It doesn't ''quite'' come true, but there is a scene in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' where Arya (disguised as a servant-girl) is talking to an annoying Frey squire who keeps jabbering about how he's going to marry a princess. At some point Arya just snaps at him, yelling "I wish your princess was ''dead!''" not knowing she just wished her own demise. Averted in some ways in that she's still alive, although whether or not she's still Arya Stark is questionable.
** And also when at the beginning of "A Game of Thrones" Catelyn prayed to the Seven Gods that they let Bran stay in Winterfell. He ended up falling from a tower and not being able to walk ever again.
** And at one point,  {{spoiler|Jeyne Poole}} remarks about how when she was little, she often dreamed how it would be like to be a Stark. Now she does know for sure - and this involves massive [[Break the Cutie]].
* A principal point in the novel ''[[Coraline (novel)|Coraline]]'' by [[Neil Gaiman]]—even used as a tagline in the film. Coraline wants her life to be more interesting, exciting, and engaging... she gets it, but not the way she wants.
* One of the characters in "[[The Eschaton Series|Singularity Sky]]" by Charles Stross receives three wishes. His first wish is to be young again; he becomes eight years old. Not quite what he had in mind, but as certain people sought to kill him, he was not going to complain. His second wish is for some "real friends"; he gets some talking animals. His third wish is for adventure. Bad idea.
* A running theme in the ''Tiffany Aching'' series (the young adult ''[[Discworld]]'' books):
** In ''[[The Wee Free Men]]'', Tiffany's baby brother is stolen by the Queen of the Fairies, who will give him whatever he wants - and since he wants sweets, he'll get sweets, and nothing else, for the rest of his life.
** In the third book in the series, ''[[Wintersmith]]'', Tiffany doesn't want the titular [[Anthropomorphic Personification]] of Winter to continue making her name in frost, or icebergs that look like her, but feels sorry and lets him make all the snowflake portraits of her that he wishes. As the story opens with a [[Flash Forward]] of the entire Chalk covered in tens of feet of snow, you can see where this is going.
** In ''[[A Hat Full of Sky]]'', this trope is explicitly dissected, with Granny Weatherwax pointing out that if someone in a story gets three wishes, the third will always be "undo the harm caused by the first two wishes".
*** And in the beginning of the book it's noted that had Tiffany said aloud that she'd like to marry a prince, the Feegles might well show up at her door with an (unconscious) prince and a (tied up) priest ready to perform the ceremony.
** There's an example in the main series as well: in ''[[Eric]]'', the titular character demands three wishes from Rincewind the wizzard [sic]: mastery over the kingdoms of the world; to meet the most beautiful woman who ever lived; and to live forever. Oh, and a chest of gold. The first wish (granted by {{spoiler|Vassenego}} ''through'' Rincewind) sends them in orbit above the Disc, and then to one of Eric's new dominions for tribute (the Tezuman empire, the inhabitants of which want to sacrifice them for being a bad landlord, metaphorically speaking). The second wish takes them to the Tsortean Wars, where they meet Elenor of Tsort (an [[Expy]] of Helen of Troy), the most beautiful woman who ever lived- ten years and seven children too late. As for the third wish, well, if you want to live for ever, you have to go back to the start of "ever", right?
* Common in ''[[Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell]]'', especially when fairies are involved. The [[The Fair Folk|Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair]] even invokes this, as one of his plans for defeating Jonathan Strange is to appear to him and offer him whatever he wants, on the basis that it's bound to cause him trouble. That plan rather backfired when Strange doesn't ask for infinite gold, the most beautiful woman in the world or something distracting and troublesome like that, but instead asks for various lost pieces of information about magic The Gentleman doesn't want him to know, leaving him flustered and trying to convince him to pick something else.
* Serwe's backstory in ''[[Second Apocalypse]]'' has a lot to do with this trope. Her prayers to gods come true several times but not in a way she wants.
* ''Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand'' by Gail Carson Levine. The Neverland fairies get a wand to repay a mermaid, but, unaware that all wands have a mind of their own, accidentally pick one of the meanest wands.
* In ''[[Death Star]]'', Imperial gunner Tenn Graneet, after Alderaan, remembers his grandfather's saying about being careful what you wish for.
{{quote|Now he understood exactly what that meant. He had wanted to fire the big gun, and he had gotten to do just that. The only man in the galaxy who had shot it for real, at real targets, and look what it had brought him: [[Heel Realization|misery beyond]] [[Being Evil Sucks|his]] [[My God, What Have I Done?|ugliest dreams]].}}
* ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' plays with this quite a bit.
** Pextel wanted to be an astronaut. He [[Unwilling Roboticisation|became a robot]] astronaut, but had to fight evil ''against his job description''. He also wanted to have an intelligent discussion with his father.  {{spoiler|And Huli dies shortly thereafter.}} He wanted his mother to believe in him. [[Defied Trope|Too bad]]! She [[Fantastic Racism|doesn't trust]] Mechies.
** Rhodney wanted to live a life that didn't feel wasted. He ends up in a relationship that feels like a [[Shaggy Dog Story]] anyway.
** Marlack wanted to settle a score with the Yehtzig pirate who raped his sister. He nearly gets himself killed trying.
** Pinkella wanted her family to come to their senses and start behaving themselves again.  {{spoiler|They died defying her wishes, [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|to no benefit of theirs]].}}
** Neone wanted to save her father from Pentacko. [[Evil Laugh|Ha ha ha]] [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog|ha ha!!!...]]
** Consto wanted a shot at [[A God Am I|becoming a god]]. Too bad those Definition Essentials got in the way...all he can hope for is to become [[The Starscream|Preamble]]...who in the end, never really does completely break free from his servitude to [[The Antichrist|Astrabolo]].
* In Franny Billingsley's ''Well Wished'' this trope is the main basis of the plot. The antagonist sets up the protagonist to fall for this trap.  {{spoiler|She tricks the protagonist into a making wish that she knows will exchange her crippled body for the protagonist's healthy one.}}
* In Melissa Marr's ''[[Wicked Lovely|Ink Exchange]]'' Leslie wishes for 'no more fear and pain' when she gets her tattoo -- she ends up being used as a conduit by some very [[Darker and Edgier|dark]] [[The Fair Folk|faeries]] with a [[Horror Hunger]] for negative emotions, unable to feel anything for more than a few seconds and barely lucid.
* Mat from ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' books is granted three wishes, but doesn't realise it and goes on a rant. Luckily, he manages to get some useful stuff from it.
* In [[C. S. Lewis]]'s ''[[The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'' one of the seven lords is stranded on an island where all of your dreams come true. The lord and his sailors come to a frightening realization: daydreams don't count, but nightmares do.
** Also, in ''[[The Magician's Nephew]]'', the fruit that Digory picks for Aslan grants wishes. But as the writing on the garden wall warns...
{{quote|''Come in through the gold gates or not at all.''
''Take of my fruit for others or forbear.''
''For those who steal or those who climb the wall''
''Shall find their heart's desire and find despair.'' }}
* In [[Lord Dunsany]]'s ''[[The King of Elfland's Daughter]]'', the commoners want a magical lord. This means the lord has to send his son after the title character for a bride and causes all the subsequent problems.
* In ''The Emperor's Winding Sheet'' by Jill Paton Walsh, the last Emperor of Constantinople said that in his youth he plotted and schemed to become Emperor, and God punished him-by making him Emperor.
* In Edward Everett Hale's short story "[http://www.bartleby.com/ebook/adobe/3106.pdf The Man Without a Country]", Philip Nolan, as a young man enamored with Aaron Burr, cries out at his court-martial, "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" The court grants him his wish by sentencing him to [[Flying Dutchman|forever live on ships sailing away from the United States]] and be forbidden from ever hearing or reading anything about the United States ever again. He comes to really and truly regret his wish, and makes sure to tell the narrator not to make the same mistake he did.
* At the end of L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter|Prospero In Hell]]'', Miranda reflects on how she had wished to have a common enemy for her family to unite against. She got one. (It's the second in a trilogy.)
* ''[[Forgotten Realms|Elfsong]]'' by Elaine Cunningham includes a stanza from [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job|Danilo Thann]] which says this in the chorus. [http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1888&whichpage=22#61128 It's] a [[Bawdy Song]]. {{spoiler|"Your wish bespoke how long it [[Bigger Is Better in Bed|WAS]], and not how long 'twould [[Speed Sex|LAST]]!". And yes, it's about a knight's lance.}}
* One implication of a [[Cautionary Tale]] "A tomboy who became a real boy". A girl wants to do boyish things, and now she '''has''' to do boyish things, since she just [[Gender Bender|became a boy]].
* A short story ''The Dumpster''. Sick of your asocial family?, The dumpster will replace it with copies that behave perfectly, '''but''': 1) They will be creepy in their own way, and, most important 2)YOU are now held to the same high standards - slack off and the dumpster will replace you with a perfect copy as well.
* In Peter Freund's ''Mysteria'' series, there is a teenage girl Jessie who, when her father starts a book about the titular land, is excited of it and wants to go there; and then she accidently gets stuck in Mysteria, which is '''very bad''' because  {{spoiler|she requires insulin injections and Mysteria doesn't have this, even with the magic, so she must find a way back before her supply runs out...}}
* ''[[In Death]]'': Eve is doing paperwork, which she hates, at the beginning of ''New York To Dallas''. She wishes that there was some murderer out there for her to go get. She gets it in the form of Isaac McQueen, a rapist, pedophile, [[Complete Monster]], the first murderer she took down while she was in uniform, and is out for [[Revenge]] against Eve. [[It Gets Worse]] when Isaac goes to Dallas, the place where she killed her [[Complete Monster]] father in self-defense at 8 years old. Paperwork suddenly looks very good right about now.
* In "[[The Obsidian Trilogy]]" and "[[The Enduring Flame Trilogy]]" Wildmages can make wishes to the Wildmagic which will grant it for a price which varies depending on the difficulty of the wish. Since the magic will grant you what you ask for, not what you want, Wildmages are warned to think carefully what they really want/desire in order to not waste time and energy paying off a wasted wish, and to minimize the cost of any necessary wishes.
* ''[[Septimus Heap]]'': [[Lampshaded]] with Marcia becoming ExtraOrdinary Wizard, since she wished it all the time and it eventually became true... by Alther being shot on the day she became EOW: "Beware what you wish for, lest it come true"
* [[Half Upon a Time]] gives us a great moment right from the beginning. Jack, whose father was Jack from [[Jack and the Beanstalk]], is arguing with his grandfather about Jack's lack of ambition.
{{quote|'''Jack''': ''I should be able to just stick out my arms, and have a princess fall right into them!''}}
* ''[[Enchantress From the Stars]]'': Young, overenthusiastic Elana wants to be a part of expedition on Andrecia. She gets her wish when  {{spoiler|Ilura, another agent, is killed}} and from then on is on for a ''very'' harsh mission from which she now can't back down.

== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* The plot of ''[[Beetleborgs]]'' centers around three kids who wish to be their favorite comic book superheroes. Consequently, the villains also appear, handing out several [[Curb Stomp Battle]]s over the course of the series.
** The first episode of the second season, ''Metallix'', also showed that the wish had a second part - you get the powers, you get the bad guys. No more bad guys? No more powers. Thankfully, new bad guys showed up and the kids were back in action.
* ''[[The Secret World of Alex Mack]]'' did this when Alex wished she had "never been born". She wakes up in a world where her mother got into the chemical truck accident instead of her and was kidnapped by the Plant to be a research subject, her father was fired from his job as a scientist to keep this fact hidden from him and had to take a job unloading cargo trucks, and Annie had to get a job to support them causing her genius level grades to drop.
* ''[[The Cosby Show]]'' did this plot, with Theo as the teenager who wanted to be treated like an adult, in its first season, but it has appeared in other series as well.
* ''[[iCarly]]'': The [[Christmas Episode]] ''iChristmas''. Carly wishes for Spencer to be normal, and an ''It's a Wonderful Life'' style homage ensues, ending, of course, with Carly more appreciative than ever of her life.
* Standard episode plot for ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''.
** Ensnaring wronged people with Be Careful What You Wish For is the whole modus operandi of vengeance demons in Buffy. They find somebody who's been wronged, get them to make a wish, and then make the wish come true in a gruesome manner that the wisher never intended.
*** In the episode entitled "The Wish," Cordelia wished that "Buffy Summers had never come to Sunnydale." In the [[Bizarro Universe|Bizarro World]] which resulted, Cordelia's friends, Willow and Xander, had been killed and changed into vampires, and Cordelia herself was eventually killed.
**** This is an interesting variation The [[Deconstruction]] occurs, but then is [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] at the end, as the [[Reset Button]] is pressed so hard that only the wish-granter remembers that the wish even happened. Naturally, Cordelia learns nothing and at the end we see her ranting off a string of increasingly angry wishes about Buffy.
*** In "Older and Far Away," Dawn makes a wish to Halfrek that everybody would spend more time with her. Halfrek makes the dream come true by {{spoiler|magically making it impossible for any of the guests at Buffy's party to leave the house}}.
*** And then promptly picks up the [[Idiot Ball]] by entering the house herself, causing the curse to affect her.,
*** In "Selfless," a girl who was cruelly dumped by her boyfriend in front of a dozen or so of his frat mates wishes that they all learn what it feels like to {{spoiler|have their hearts ripped out from their chests. So of course Anya summons a huge spider demon that [[Literal Genie|massacres the frat boys by ripping out their hearts from their chests]]. Willow later finds the girl locked in a closet, in fetal position, saying "I take it back" over and over.}}
*** Later "Selfless," Anya makes a wish to D'Hoffryn that her vengeance curse be undone. D'Hoffryn answers that undoing the curses requires the death of a vengeance demon. {{spoiler|Anya agrees to the price, assuming that she's the one who will die, but then D'Hoffryn summons Anya's friend Halfrek and kills her to undo Anya's curses}}.
** In another example from the series, Buffy wishes that her parental figures, Joyce (her actual mother) and Giles (her Watcher) would stop forcing her to be responsible. Later in the episode, entitled "Band Candy," when the adults lose their ability to act responsibly, Buffy sees the disasters that can result when no one does what they are supposed to do, e.g. vampires can steal babies to feed to giant demon snakes if no one cares to watch out for such things. The Reset is rarely complete though - quite a few memories and changes were kept until the end of the show.
** A more terrifying example occurs in the episode wherein Dawn [[Came Back Wrong|uses a spell to bring Joyce Summers back to life]]. It's the classic Monkey's Paw, and the horror is only increased by the fact that {{spoiler|except for her feet walking through the cemetery, we never see what Joyce looked like. She had been dead for some time, so...}}
*** Actually, she might have been 100% fine, just in a state of shock like Buffy later was. Dawn may have re-killed her mother due to fear, when she could have been 100% fine in the end. It's actually quite likely that she would have been fine, as Buffy was dead longer and got better. [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|Nice job breaking it, Dawnie.]]
*** But considering the look of horror on Buffy's face when she found out what Dawn was going to do, coupled with the revelation that the 'nice old man' is an evil demon, well... Also, Willow and Dawn used ''different spells''. Willow's, undertaken by an extremely powerful witch, was an ancient resurrection ritual that used rare mystical ingredients, featured the god Osiris testing the caster, and was used on someone who died a mystical death. Dawn's, on the other hand, was a sheet of paper handed her by an evil demon that could be performed without apparent effort by a teenager with no magical experience whatsoever on someone who died naturally.
*** Also, in Buffyverse, actual resurrection defies [[No Ontological Inertia]]:  {{spoiler|Buffy was alive after the urn was shattered, so if Joyce were truly alive, she wouldn't disappear just because Dawn broke the spell}}.
*** Not to mention that we  {{spoiler|actually do see a hint of what Joyce looks like courtesy of an eerie shadow that passes by the front curtains of the house as she is heading for the front door.}}
*** To be fair to Dawn, she did learn from it, with her constant insistence of reminding everyone about the Monkey's Paw (the fact that if it seems too good to be true, it most likely is) when Buffy starts getting new powers in Season 8. {{spoiler|She's absolutely right.}}
** Eventually, they knew better than to say they wished for things aloud, given every time they do, something perverts the wish. This is much to the chagrin of Anya, who was trying to get them to wish for something so she could pervert it.
** Cordelia actually has this happen to her ''twice''—given the opportunity in ''[[Angel]]'' to wish she had never gotten the visions which were killing her she found herself in a world where Angel was insane, Wesley was missing an arm, and Fred was nowhere to be found.
* ''[[News Radio]]'' did a hilarious variation on this where Dave and Lisa put Bill in charge of the station for a day in order to show him how hard their jobs were; the twist was that Bill knew what they were doing from the start (going so far as to ask if they were doing it), but he still played along until they admitted to what they were doing.
* Subverted in ''[[Dad's Army]]'', when Captain Mainwaring decides to give persistent grumbler Private Frazer a week's experience in commanding the unit in order to see that it is not as easy as he thinks, only for Frazer to grow increasingly tyrannical and arrogant with power; the catch is that Frazer, although unpopular with the rest of the men, actually proves himself a competent commanding officer whose skills are even recognized and rewarded by a superior officer.
* In the ''[[The X-Files]]'' episode "[[Bilingual Bonus|Je Souhaite]]", Mulder meets a female genie who can grant anyone three wishes... but she is forced to interpret the wishes rather literally, causing her much frustration at the stupidity of people who don't think things through. It is revealed that she used to be a poor peasant woman in the Middle Ages, who found the original genie and squandered her first two wishes asking for a mule and a magic sack of turnips that never ran out. For her third wish, she asked for great power and eternal life: the other genie promptly turned her into a genie, too. The downside: She is now bound to act on the decisions of whichever idiot unrolls her from the carpet she is mystically connected to, and she cannot grant wishes to herself. When Mulder wishes for "peace on Earth", his wish is granted... by making every other person in the world disappear except him. The genie tells him it is impossible for her to change the minds of 6 billion people, but making them disappear was within the rules. Mulder uses his final wish {{spoiler|by giving it to her, granting her the ability to make her own decisions and become a mortal woman again.}}
** It's implied that rather than the genie being forced to carry out the wishes literally, [[Jackass Genie|she's actually pissed off at having to grant everyone's selfish wishes and so makes a point of obeying the letter but not the spirit of the wish]]. As Mulder puts it, she's a bitch.
* ''[[Charmed]]'' has several genies corrupting the wishes of the characters that made them.
* One episode of ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' has a boy running into a genie who grants him several wishes, but they all end up backfiring on him. For example, when he wishes for a brand new car, the boy gets it, but is later arrested when the police discover that the car is stolen. In order to end his torment, the boy finally wishes that he had never met the genie, effectively pressing the [[Reset Button]].
** Another episode uses a thinly-veiled version of ''The Monkey's Paw'': One of the kids wishes to win a race, so a wild dog shows up and breaks his rival's leg, etc. The wishes escalate until one of them wishes his grandfather (who's dead) were there, at which point Zombie Gramps starts knocking on the door (you don't get to see it, though) until one of the kids wishes they'd never made the wishes.
** In another one, a girl wishes to live in a fairy tale world, and her wish is granted by the [[Jackass Genie]] Sandman.
* In [[Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)|The 2004 ''Battlestar Galactica'']], the surviving Colonials tried their best to find Earth for three and a half seasons. They found Earth  {{spoiler|and it is utterly devastated.}}
** A metastory: when [[Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series)|the original ''Battlestar Galactica'']] was cancelled, people rooted for its revival... then for putting it to rest.
** In the Miniseries novel, Gaius Baltar is depicted as "somebody who spends first half of his life trying to get famous, then spends the rest wearing sunglasses [to be unrecognised]".
* ''[[Babylon 5]]''. One quote:
{{quote|'''Londo:''' ...All right. ''Fine''. You ''really'' want to know what ''I'' want?! You ''really'' want to know ''the truth''?! I want my people to reclaim their rightful place in the galaxy. I want to see the Centauri stretch forth their hand again, and command the stars. I want a rebirth of glory, a renaissance of power. I want to stop running through my life like a man late for an appointment, afraid to... To look back, or to look forward. I want us to be what we used to be. I ''want''... I want it ''all back'', the way that it was! Does that answer your question?
'''[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Morden:]]''' ...Yes. ''Yes it does''. }}
** In an aversion of the trope, the results of exchange did ''not'' come due to [[Time Travel]] or alternate dimensions, was ''not'' subject to a [[Snap Back]], and was generally one of the major causes of the show's [[Myth Arc]].
** G'Kar's answer to the same question is another example for that matter. {{spoiler|He wished for the Centauri to suffer a horrific defeat that meant they could never threaten his planet again. The wish had no real twist to it, but by the time it happened G'Kar had developed beyond such bloodthirsty thinking and so he wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.}}
** Inverted when Mr. Morden asks Vir Cotto what he wants, and we get [[Inverted Trope|Be Careful Who You Ask What They Wish For]]:
{{quote|'''Vir:''' I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they [[Off with His Head|cut off your head]] and [[Decapitation Presentation|stick it on a pike]] – as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this. Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?}}
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'' had an episode with a whole town full of this trope because of a wishing well that worked, involving most notably (and hilariously, in [[Mood Whiplash|that depressing ''Supernatural'' way]]) a little girl wishing for a giant talking Teddy Bear. Who spent most of the subsequent episode drinking, watching porn and trying to commit suicide. Life as a giant talking Teddy Bear, apparently, makes [[Hitchhikers Guide|Marvin the Paranoid Android]]'s life seem full of cheer and meaning. In a possible aversion though, the brothers stop the wishing well before things go catastrophically bad.
* The Imagin of ''[[Kamen Rider Den-O]]'' operate on this trope. They seek out people and grant their wishes, but only in letter. In one episode, when a park groundskeeper wished to make his park a safe haven for strays, the Imajin granting the wish responded by attacking any human who set foot in the park and barricading the entrances.
* The third season finale of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' seems to drop a load of this in Sylar's lap if one looks back at his words from season 1:
{{quote|'''Gabriel Gray/Sylar:''' [to Chandra] When I was a kid I used to wish some stranger would come and tell me my family wasn't really my family. Oh, they weren't bad people, they were just...insignificant. And I wanted to be different. Special.  {{spoiler|I wanted to change. A new name, a new life}}.}}
* [[Disney Channel]] had a weekend special where they did this with 3 of their shows:
** ''[[Hannah Montana]]''- Miley wishes she was just Hannah Montana all the time. It is granted and her dad married a [[Gold Digger]], her best friend became [[Alpha Bitch]], and her brother became a hobo.
** ''[[Cory in The House]]'' - Corey Baxter wishes that he was president of the U.S.A. After it's granted, Corey uses his authority to get rich, and slacks off on his presidential duties. This leads to being completely unprepared for an alien invasion, and a literal [[Reset Button]] is pressed at the end.
** ''[[The Suite Life of Zack and Cody]]''- Zack and Cody wish that they were superheroes. After having to defeat now-supervillian Mr. Moseby, the twins learn they'll have to fight evil 24/7 and give up all their free time. This prompts them to try and fix things by running fast enough to travel through time, to before they made the wish.
*** Though not an actual wish, in "The Suite Smell of Excess", Zack and Cody get a chance to go to an alternate world where everything is reversed and they can play around as much as they like and do whatever they want when they want. However after a few days of excess, they realize that the "preferred" alternate universe Tipton is NOT the perfect place they thought it would be.
* A 1965 episode of ''[[The Alfred Hitchcock Hour]]'' features an adaptation of the ''Monkey's Paw'' story.
* As does an episode of ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'', "Last Respects", which features three sisters. After one sister wishes for a million pounds, another sister dies in a car crash with the third sister (who survives). Guess what the insurance payoff was? When she wishes that the sister ''hadn't'' died in the accident, she gets a call from the morgue, and finds out that she was ''murdered'' before the accident. When the third sister admits to the murder and comes after her, she deliberately invokes the "Comes back as a Zombie" part to let her slain sister avenge herself.
* Many ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' episodes used this trope. One notable one being "Time Enough at Last" starring Burgess Meredith. He wanted to be left alone so he could read and wound up the lone survivor of a nuclear war...[[Cruel Twist Ending|with broken glasses]].
* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' used this in a sketch parodying a fairy tale; a witch invokes a curse upon the attendants of a wedding, turning everyone present into chickens. After a brief second, her eyes widen and she adds "EXCEPT ME!" It's too late, though.
{{quote|'''Witch Chicken:''' Oh, ''bugger.''}}
* Perhaps unsurprisingly, ''[[Fantasy Island]]'' employed this trope quite often.
* The ''[[Tales from the Darkside]]'' episode ''The Milkman Cometh'' featured a milkman that granted wishes that his customers wrote down and left in their discarded milk bottles. One guy gets addicted to having his wishes granted, and the family soon becomes rich, but his [[Genre Savvy]] son begs him to stop before they get screwed over. He refuses, and wishes that they had a second child, only for the milkman to grant it by ''breaking into the house and raping his wife''.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'' had the Family of Blood, who wanted immortality so badly that they hunted the Doctor for months, then on finding him proceeded to decimate a village in order to draw him out of hiding. When he does, there's hell to pay.
{{quote|'''Brother:''' We wanted to live forever, [[Fate Worse Than Death|so the Doctor made sure that we did.]]}}
* The genie from the episode "Fruit of a Poisoned Tree" in ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'' says that he has granted 1001 wishes and 1001 times seen things end badly. We see three wishes granted during the episode, the King's wish  {{spoiler|for the genie's freedom, which results in the genie falling in love with the Queen and murdering the King,}} the second wish was for the genie to have the third allowing the genie's own wish  {{spoiler|to be able to stay with his true love forever and always be able to gaze on her face, resulting in him turning into the Queen's Magic Mirror}}, and they would seem to confirm the genie's statement.
* On one occasion in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'', Ted was angry at Barney, who offered Ted one free hit anywhere but the face. [[Groin Attack|He didn't hit him in the face.]]
* One Episode of ''[[The Adventures of Shirley Holmes]]'' has a teenage girl who was constaltnly harassing the [[Child Star]] boy for some [[Show Within a Show|unknown series]], with the intent to get him out of the show, so that she could the star instead. The boy actually '''did''' want to quit, but the [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]] wouldn't let him. Shirley exposes the executive and helps the boy to nullify his contract, but didn't find any evidence against the girl. The narration then states: "But she did got what she deserved: her own studio contract, with lots of fine print..." Cue the sight of the girl, forced to do a "take 12" of some stupid episode, exhausted, angry, and clearly miserable after just a few days - and earlier it was established that the contracts with this studio have a minimum term of two years. For the girl, those years will be '''very''' long.

== [[Music]] ==
* The titular character of [[Marilyn Manson]]'s concept album ''Antichrist Superstar'' rises to become the [[Physical God]] he always dreamed of being, but crosses the [[Despair Event Horizon]] in the process and destroys the earth in a nihilistic rage. The last words of the album are actually "when all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed" - [[Broken Record|repeated]] over and over amidst a wall of static.
* The titular King in [[Metallica]]'s "King Nothing" did get the title he worked for, but alienated his would-be subjects in the process, leaving him alone to attend to a crumbling kingdom.
* The [[Talking Heads (band)|Talking Heads]] song, "Burning Down The House" opens up with "Watch out, you might get what you're after"
* Kinda done in [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "Albuquerque":
{{quote|"I see this guy Marty tryin' to carry a big ol' sofa up the stairs all by himself. So I, I say to him, I say 'Hey, you want me to help you with that?' And Marty, he just rolls his eyes and goes '[[Ask a Stupid Question|Noooo, I want you to cut off my arms and legs with a chainsaw!]]' So I did."}}
* Eurydice in ''[[Hadestown]]'' wants to "lie down forever," so she's taken to the underworld.
* The narrator of Rush's song "Xanadu" wishes he could visit the stately pleasure dome of Coleridge's poem and gain immortality by drinking honeydew and the milk of paradise. He succeeds, but finds himself eternally trapped within the dome.
* Mentioned in the [[Art of Dying]] song "Completely;" the lead-in line to the chorus in (both versions) is "watch what you wish for, you know you just might get it..." In the original, there is a line in the chorus about how "everything you want/ain't always what you need..."
* The song "Black Fox" by Heather Dale. Whilst out on a unsucessesful fox-hunt, the master huntsman proclaims "If only the Devil himself come by, we'd run him such a race!". A little black fox then appears, and the huntsmen chase it until it crosses a river... and promtply turns into the devil, whereupon the huntsmen have a collective [[Oh Crap]] moment and flee, pursued by the (now-laughing) little black fox.

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* Lots of ''[[Garfield]]'' examples:
** In one strip, Garfield wishes for a 50-pound pan of lasagna; it falls on him. "Now wouldn't you think I'd know better than to make a wish like that on a Monday?" he muses.
** In another strip, Jon scolds Garfield about how he is "doing nothing with your life" then goes to the store, saying, "when I come back, I want you to have learned something". By the time he comes back, Garfield has ''[https://www.gocomics.com/garfield/1985/03/10 learned to use his credit card]'', and has bought enough junk with it to construct his own "man cave".
** [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in another strip:
{{quote|'''Garfield''': Reruns! Yesterday's news... Leftovers! There's never anything '''new''' around here!
'''Jon''': Run for your life! The plumbing backed up, and thousands of piranha are spawning in the toilet!!
'''Garfield''': '''[[Oh, No, Not Again|Again]]?!''' }}

== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* In [[The Bible]], even God could be harsh in granting wishes when the wishers were being too whiny. In response to the Israelites complaining about all manna and no meat, he gave them meat for a month "until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you" (KJV).
** Jephthah in the book of Judges gets a lesson in Be Careful What You Pray For, when he prays to God, "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the LORD's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." (Judges 11:30,31) God gives him the victory, but when Jephthah comes home, the first thing that greets him at the doors was his only daughter! The jury is undecided over how Jephthah actually goes through with the sacrifice, whether he does make her a burnt offering or, as some believe, keeps her a virgin for the rest of her life, which in that culture at the time was considered a sacrifice.
** Of course, though, the Bible [[Mind Screw|being what it is]], these could just God and/or the author of those specific books/passages teaching humanity the [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|important lesson]] to "choose your words carefully".
* One particular instance is Draupadi, the Pandavas's wife, in the ''[[Mahabharata]]'' yearning for a husband in her previous life. She wanted her husband to be as strong as Vayu, as talented as Indra, as moral as Dharma and as beautiful as the Ashwini twins. She forgot to specify that she wanted '''one husband'''. As a result, in her next incarnation, she married five men and was the wife of five husbands simultaneously.

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* Notorious warning given by almost all GM's in fantasy roleplaying when a player acquires a magical artifact or spell that grants them wishes. Often leads to almost comic wordings of wishes to avoid the GM taking it too literally and punishing the player. Apparently the fact that ''wish'' is 9th level (requiring the character to be at 17th level with genius-level Intelligence to be able to cast it at all) and ''ages the caster five years'' (In pre-3rd edition [[Dungeons & Dragons]]) isn't bad enough.
** This reminds me, when you get a wish spell, NEVER sing the Oscar Meyer Weiner song.
** Theoretically, you could cast a 2nd ''wish'' spell to de-age your caster 10 years, thus negating the aging effects of both your 1st ''wish'' spell and the wish you used to de-age yourself. Or, just use the ''wish'' phrasing found in the "Be careful what you wish for" section [http://www.rogermwilcox.com/ADnD/Munchkin.html here].
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has a cycle of Wish cards, the flavour text of each of which is a variant on the following: "He wished for X, but not for the Y to [Verb that means use effectively] it."
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'': a piece of background fluff mentions the Dark Angels besieging the fortress of a rogue planetary Governor who'd turned to Chaos. The governor asks his daemon of Tzeentch for a way to break the siege, the daemon hands him something and disappears. The governor just has time to wonder what it is before he is surrounded by the hulking blue force fields heralding teleporting [[Space Marine]] Terminators- the daemon gave him a teleport homing beacon allowing the Dark Angels to kill the governor, effectively ending the siege.

== [[Theatre]] ==
* In Igor Stravinsky's ''[[wikipedia:The Rake's Progress|The Rake's Progress]]'', the hapless (and gormless) Tom Rakewell's troubles start with him wishing he had money, upon which a mysterious manservant appears to inform him that an estranged uncle has left him a fortune. Once Tom realises that urban decadence and high living are no substitute for the love he left behind in the countryside, he wishes he were happy, and his servant convinces him to marry a genderbending circus artist. Once the marriage falls apart, he dreams of a machine that turns stone into bread and, upon waking, wishes it were true; the servant wheels in a prototype. The machine is a complete fraud, and Tom is bankrupted. You'd think the fact that the servant gives his name as "[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Nick Shadow]]" would have [[Deal with the Devil|rung a bell at some point]]...
* Stephen Sondheim's ''[[Into the Woods]]'': Everyone wishes for something at one point - in fact, the beginning prologue song comprised of mostly the lyrics "I wish, more than anything, more than life" - but it typically backfires. Cinderella wishes to go to the Festival but doesn't count on a prince chasing her around the woods. The Baker and his wife wish to have a child but don't intend to also run around the woods trying to get stuff for the Witch.
** This theme carries through the whole thing. Just when you think everything is resolved, [[What an Idiot!|someone]] [[Oh Crap|whispers]] [[Tempting Fate|"I wish..."]], which kicks off the whole [[Darker and Edgier|second half of the play.]]
* In Shakespeare's ''[[Henry V]]'', Henry asks three traitorous nobles what he should do with a drunk who called him a nasty name. The nobles, unaware that Henry knows of their treachery, tell him emphatically that he should show no mercy for this (minor) infraction and punish the drunk harshly. In doing so, they leave themselves no room to ask for mercy when Henry reveals his knowledge of their betrayal. He has them executed.
* Shows up in ''[[I Married an Angel]]''.

== [[Video Games]] ==
* This is one of the main subtexts of ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 2'', as the game shows exactly what the players who wanted to be Solid Snake would have to go through with Raiden.
* Calypso, from the ''[[Twisted Metal]]'' games. He grants the winners of his competitions their wishes in a manner that either kills them or results in an outcome ''different'' from what they had envisioned. A case of the former in ''Twisted Metal: Head-On'' is when the driver of Spectre, Chuckie Floop, wished for a lot of money and was then buried alive underneath a massive pile of cash. In Warthog's ending for ''Twisted Metal 2'', Calypso delivers a sickeningly brilliant example of the latter when he grants the 105-year-old Captain Rogers' wish for a youthful body ... [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-iCbYgWQfw sans the head to match].
** Occasionally, Calypso will grant a wish straight, only for the winner to experience the inevitable or natural consequences of their wish.
*** And for all his trickery, Calypso has indeed suffered a reversal of this ({{spoiler|Sweet Tooth in ''Twisted Metal: Black''}}).
** Carl Roberts (Outlaw) to his sister Jamie: "I wish you'd shut up!" [[Wipe That Smile Off Your Face|Jamie's mouth grows shut]].
* Most of the "bad" endings in ''[[STALKER|S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl]]'' consist of this, with the player character succumbing to the temptation to make a wish to the mysterious artifact in the middle of Chernobyl (the wish chosen depending on certain conditions). All of these wishes end up backfiring on him:
** "I want the Zone to disappear": {{spoiler|the PC goes blind}}
** "Mankind is corrupt, it must be controlled<ref>In the original Russian he says ''destroyed''</ref>": {{spoiler|Images of war and death start flashing followed by the PC standing in a black void}}
** "I want to be rich": {{spoiler|the PC sees gold coins falling from the sky...which turn out to be an hallucination: the "coins" are actually bolts falling from the ceiling which collapses on the PC, killing him.}}
** "I want to rule the world": {{spoiler|the PC is absorbed into the [[Hive Mind|C-Consciousness]].}}
** "I want to be immortal": {{spoiler|the PC is turned into a metal statue.}}
* In ''[[Baldur's Gate]] II: Throne of Bhaal'' you get the ''wish'' spell. It's a hell of a lot more powerful than the ''limited wish'' spell and also level 9. It's also extremely tricky to cast, as the Djinn that you summon is a grumpy so-and-so who's out to get you and as such you will need a very good Wisdom score to be able to handle him okay. A WIS of 18 is nigh-on essential to get the most out of this spell, and anything under 9 WIS is catastrophic. When you cast the spell, time is stopped and the casting character negotiates with the Djinn for some hours - finally he presents you with "a list of 5 ways I can interpret your wish - choose one".
** The conditions on ''wish'' and ''limited wish'' even at very high Wisdom can make them a prime example of a [[Useless Useful Spell]]. For example, asking to be protected against the undead will make it summon a horde of vampires to attack you so that there are some undead to be protected against, then not protecting you from them. This isn't Literal Genie twisting of words, it's just... not doing the thing you asked in any way.
*** Only because you got the wording of that wish wrong. It was "prepared against undead". And you do need undead to be prepared against. In the wishes where you ask for protection, you get it. Of course, if you ask to be immune to magic, you probably forgot that healing and buffs are magic also... Another example is if you for a horde to overrun your enemies, you never specified what horde and you get a horde of rabbits. It is a combination of stupidly open-ended wishes and a [[Literal Genie|Literal]]/JerkassGenie
* A major concept behind the Game of ''[[Afterlife]]'' by [[LucasArts]]. This is even billed as rule #1 of the afterlife. Specifically, it's stated that souls are treated differently after death based on what they believed in while living.
* ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' utilizes a classic and particularly chilling [[A Worldwide Punomenon|incarnation]] of the trope. An NPC named Yves Tale-Chaser will trade stories with the Nameless One and his companions. One of them begins with a man who comes to in an alley, remembering nothing. An old woman is in front of him, and she asks, "And your third wish?" He says he doesn't understand, and she explains she had offered him three wishes, and he'd already used two - and the second wish was to undo and forget his first wish. So, for the third, he asks to know who he is. She cackles softly as she prepares to grant his wish, and he asks what's so funny. "That was your first wish." It's heavily implied in another part of the game that this actually occurred between the Nameless One and the Night Hag Ravel Puzzlewell.
* Anyone who's gotten ''[[La-Mulana]]'''s [[Brutal Bonus Level]] [[Bragging Rights Reward]] (''without'' spoiling it for themselves) can tell you this.
* The same goes for people who have [[Save the Princess|Saved The Princess]] in ''[[Eversion]]''.
* ''[[Eternal Darkness]]'' has this happen once. Bored Cambodian temple dancer Ellia finds herself all alone with nothing but [[Great Big Book of Everything|what she thinks is an innocuous book of legends]] to entertain herself, wishes that something exciting would happen to her, and ends up immediately getting locked inside the temple, finding herself entangled and directly involved in the book's "legends," and  {{spoiler|killed as a result of all this}}. Now, was that exciting enough for you, Ellia?
**  {{spoiler|It's actually worse than just that. She is turned into a zombie-like husk of a person (still alive) who has to wait until a second hero arrives to undo her mistake. For reference, Ellia's chapter takes place in 1150. That second hero who puts her out of her misery? He arrives in '''1983'''.}}
* Discussed in detail in ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', but for the most part averted. Except for Archer. {{spoiler|I want to save everyone! I know, how about I make a contract with the world? Guardian Spirits gets to save people all the time! Oh wait, they actually kill people en masse indiscriminately to ''prevent'' them from killing even ''more'' people. Woops.}} Other than that little mistake, it seems the idea is 'do what you can with your own ability, and accept your own failures if it doesn't work.
* One of the side stories in ''[[Tsukihime|Kagetsu Tohya]]'' has Shiki living in a world based on [[Twin Threesome Fantasy]] fantasy scenario he had. The problem is, he realized such a thing could never happen unless they were in a world all by themselves plus he's currently already trapped inside a [[Groundhog Day Loop]]. So the [[Dream Within a Dream]] he has just traps him a world where he's living forever inside the mansion grounds with only Kohaku and Hisui, doing whatever he likes with them while slowly going insane.
* There's a wish-granting [[Familiar|Mana]] ({{spoiler|the ''main character''}}) in ''[[Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis]]''. The first wish it ever granted was death, although, in a subversion, that wish was ''exactly'' what the person who wished it was asking for.
* In ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'', the [[Precursors]] offer to turn Jak into one of them as thanks for his services. All of a sudden [[Aristocrats Are Evil|Count Veger]] arrives with a gun demanding that HE be turned into one instead. The Precursor says "Be Careful What You Wish For" and does something to Veger. Shortly afterwards it's revealed that the [[Energy Being]] they were talking to was just a hologram and that the Precursors...are ottsels. Cue [[Karmic Transformation]] when Veger realizes the implications of this.
** Later, Daxter, finally in peace with his ottsel appearance, asks for a set of pants. His girlfriend then says that those pants are so cute, she wished she had a pair of them herself. Cue the precursors' "Be Careful What You Wish For" a second time, and the girl getting a pair of pants just like that... and turned into an Ottsel so she could fit into them.
*** Not that she seems to mind all that much.
**** Of course not. Those pants look great!
* [[Nethack|...killed by an Archon called You get a bad feeling about this.]]
** To clarify: In ''Nethack'', it is possible to be granted a wish. A common choice is to wish for a blessed Archon figurine, which when used has an 80% chance of netting you an extremely powerful pet. There is, however a 10% chance that it will instead be generated hostile. [[Have a Nice Death]]!
* The plot of ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics Advance]]''. The protagonists were bullied and disabled children who wished to live in the world of their favorite game, ''Final Fantasy'', to escape their bleary daily life, and the wish comes true. Now they can live in a world where their real life shortcomings have disappeared and have a fun, adventure-filled life! Except that, as Marshe soon discovers, the fantasy world is basically fueled by evil and the longer he and his friends stay there, the bigger the possibility that ''both'' their original world and this fantasy one get destroyed. 
** This is more evidently shown on how Marche's friends and relatives are affected by the world of Final Fantasy. Ritz, troubled and bullied for her prematurely white hair, gets to live in a place where that's is a non-issue; Donner, handicapped because of an illness, finds himself able and healthy; Mewt, living with the dual shame of his mother's absense and his father's public patheticness, becomes a prince with a living mother and a father who is the most important person in that realm; and Cid, Mewt's father, who is dealing with a depression-fueled alcoholism so heavy he lowkey neglects his son, finds himself with regained soberty and actual power and responsability. But as Marche quickly notes, in the magic world Ritz and Donner have lost most of their morality and awareness in their wish to keep their new life to the point of betraying Marche to the villains (something they would never have done in the real world), Mewt has regressed into a toddler-like level of maturity, Cid's apparently powerful possition is actually a very restrictive one, and the latter two are being used as living batteries by the actual Big Bad. As revealed in the [[Final Fantasy Tactics A2|sequel]], Marche truly didn't really had a problem with the magical world and he even returns to visit, what he had a problem with was to see all of his beloved people losing their willingness to deal with their real world problems or consider that this new world could give them a different set of problems just as bad as the ones they left behind
* ''[[Persona 2]]: Innocent Sin'' puts a spin on this. You don't so much have to be careful what you wish for, as be careful about wishing at all. Having your wildest dreams handed to you without struggle or effort will eventually rob you of your ideal energy, causing you to fade away to nonexistence.
** In ''[[Persona 2]] Eternal Punishment'' {{spoiler|Ulala life is so pathethic she envies the apparently more fullfiled one of her roommate Maya, to the point she secretly wanted her gone. To Ulala's horror, she finds helself forcibly manipulated into trying to murder Maya with her own hands}}.
* This was the case on the production level for ''[[Left 4 Dead]] 2''. [[Valve Corporation|Valve]] is notoriously known for their [[Schedule Slip|Valve Time]] due to how long they take to produce games in order to perfect them and/or delaying games after they get close to a release date. People got sick of Valve taking too long to produce anything, so Valve made Left 4 Dead 2 nearly one year after the first game was released in order to prove to people that they CAN release on time and on a fixed schedule. While Left 4 Dead 2 was generally well received, the more dedicated fans complain to this day about random bugs and balance issues with some people stating Valve Time is actually a good thing and Valve should not be rushed.
** Similarly, corner camping became a huge issue in ''Left 4 Dead 1''; it was a technique used by survivor players where they huddle in a corner or in a closet and mow down all infected that came their way. People complained about the exploit and started to make suggestions to counter corner camping, which Valve implemented for Left 4 Dead 2 with new infected that dealt with survivors that holed up in a spot (Spitter, Charger, and Jockey), allowing common infected to rush in from more places, and included gauntlet crescendos where survivors have to keep moving through a never ending horde and stop the source (such an an alarm). This worked ''too'' well since now most survivor players will always rush the maps and hardly stop, making it difficult for zombie players to be able to spawn in time or attack effectively. Naturally, people are complaining about the changes and want even more special infected that has the ability to stop a survivor from running.
* In ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'', the [[Our Demons Are Different|Daedric Prince]] Clavicus Vile is essentially this trope given corporeal form. The cave in which you find his shrine is populated with vampires that wished for an end to their suffering, which they presumably thought meant a cure for vampirism. He gave them [[Player Character|a heavily armed adventurer]]. Vile sends you after the Rueful Axe, which he granted to a wizard who wished to end his daughter's lycanthropy.
* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable]]: The Gears of Destiny'': As [[Genki Girl|Levi]] mentioned {{spoiler|[[Heroic Sacrifice|with her dying breath]]}}, [[Evil Overlord|Lord Dearche]] finally got the nigh-unlimited power that she had always wanted. However, it came at a price she was never willing to pay, namely, {{spoiler|[[Bequeathed Power|the lives of]] [[Hypercompetent Sidekick|Stern]] and [[Boisterous Bruiser|Levi]], [[Undying Loyalty|her two loyal retainers]]}}. Unsurprisingly, her main motivation for the rest of the game is to reverse this {{spoiler|so she could get Stern and Levi back}}.
* ''[[Undertale]]'': Burgerpants really admired Mettaton, and wished above all things to work with him, moving to Hotlad to get the chance to do so. His wish came true, and now Burgerpants is a [[Burger Fool]] with a serious case of [[No Hero to His Valet]], having seen Mettaton real, overdemanding personality and [[Bad Boss]] qualities way too often. He even says says the name of this trope word for word when telling his history to the player character.

== [[Web Animation]] ==
* In the ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' fan-adaptation [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUgBMyh-dPM seen here], a veteran researcher is given what most in the Foundation would consider a dream job, attendant to SCP-999, one of the friendliest and nicest of SCPs. Simply being in SCP-999's presence makes people happy and energetic, and the odds of it trying to kill you seem almost nonexistent. Who wouldn't want such a job? ''However'', the briefing she gets from one of the 05-Council upon getting the promotion tells the entire history and purpose of SCP-999; all of a sudden, she realizes what her new position entails, protecting a creature destined to grow up to be the [[Anti-Anti-Christ]] and defend all of existence against its dark father [[God of Evil|the Scarlet King]]. Suddenly, this doesn't quite seem like the dream job she envisioned...

== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Also the title (more or less) of [http://www.p-synd.com/careful.htm this furry cartoon] ([[NSFW]]), where the wish leads to the heroine {{spoiler|being [[Taken for Granite]] (or at least metal)}}.
* In ''[[Real Life Comics]]'', a character playing a D&D game gets a ring of three wishes, much to the chagrin of the DM. The character immediately wishes for more gold than he knows what to do with, and his player is instantly crushed by a giant gold boulder. When the previous wish is reversed while still losing the wish, he then wishes for a million gold pieces, and receives gold pieces so small that he "might be able to afford an ale with them". When he finally gets a wish written up by a ''lawyer'' in order to avoid any exploitable loopholes, the DM relents and has no choice but to grant the wish. And then the player's character gets eaten by a dragon.
** Another DM had a player who wished for an infinite gold mine. His wish was granted, and the player's character was instantly teleported into a mine of solid gold, stretching forever in all directions...
* Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs from ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' wished to get his job back after getting demoted. He got his job back, to process all the people who have died when the Irregular Universe was torn apart from [[Time Paradox]].
* ''[[The Perry Bible Fellowship]]'' [http://pbfcomics.com/126/ here] and [http://pbfcomics.com/210/ there]. Although the latter is more like "dammit, I wasted my wish."
* ''[[Minus]]''. [http://www.kiwisbybeat.com/minus25.html when] you ask to be sent back in time, specify ''when'' first.
** From the very end: "Who do you want brought back?" Think carefully. {{spoiler|"Everyone" is a ''lot'' of people... and animals...}}
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has a variation: Castle Heterodyne seems to delight in [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080820 creative] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080924 interpretation] of Agatha's orders. Not so much because of malice as much as because it's too [[Axe Crazy]] to imagine she might NOT want to kill everyone.
** Martellus [https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20201005 asked for it].
* [http://www.viruscomix.com/page428.html This] ''[[Subnormality]]'' strip shows how to have everything you could ever need in life.
{{quote|So you're one of '''[[Literal Genie|those]]''' genies.}}
* ''[[Weesh]]'' has this as its premise. However, the wish-granter is not malicious (mischievious, perhaps) or literal, but the wish-makers often fail to see the implications of their wishes.
* In ''Giselle'' one demon girl finds out that [http://lowroad75.comicgenesis.com/d/20090522.html wishing wells don't like cheapskates].
* ''[[Erfworld]]'' puts an interesting spin on this trope after Parson {{spoiler|erupts a volcano to destroy the invading army and [[My God, What Have I Done?|realizes what exactly he's done]].}}
{{quote|'''Parson:''' "I mean, then... what's the lesson supposed to be here, Wanda? 'Be careful what you wish for?' This isn't what I wished for!"
'''Wanda:''' "Hah! You didn't wish for this world, Parson Gotti. It wished for you. }}
:* Also, the "Ultimate Warlord" spell. Why did Stanley get Parson? Well, this is how he described what he wanted:
{{quote|"I want him to be ''obsessed'' with war! Somebody who plans wars and kills his enemies for ''fun!''<ref>Parson enjoys playing table top wargames, a ''lot''</ref> I want somebody who snacks on Gwiffons<ref>Gwiffons look ''exactly'' like marshmallow Peeps.</ref> and eats Marbits for ''breakfast!''<ref>Parson calls marshmallow bits (like the kind you find in Lucky Charms) "Marbits= ''Mar''shmallow ''bits''".</ref>}}
:* Well, he got exactly what he asked for.
:* Not to mention Parson's last words on Earth prior to being [[Trapped in Another World|summoned]]:
{{quote|"See if I could, like, literally escape into one of these games, I'd do it in a second. Just snap my fingers and teleport in? Absolutely. Bam! Seeya!"}}
* [http://www.whatisdeepfried.com/2004/03/17/pipe-dream/ This ''Deep Fried''] gives a possible solution.
{{quote|'''Roadkill:''' Wish ''One'': I want all my wishes loopholed out of any negative or ironic consequences. Wish ''Two'': Apply wish number one to itself ex post facto. Wish ''Three'': Make me the effin' master of the Universe '''NOW'''.}}
* Pretty much any plot in ''[[The Wotch]]'' involving Djinn will feature at least one of these types of wishes. It is explained that some Djinn do it out of spite for the human race, others do it because they've been summoned through a curse bottle that ''mandates'' their wishes backfire.
* ''[[Sinfest]]'' got a wishing well... and [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209173844/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3451 Slicky wasn't very specific] the first time.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209185743/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3831 Kundalini] arc when [[Loony Fan|Lil' E]] tried himself in this "serpent power" thing. He awakened a dormant serpent power, all right...
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20140209174440/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2569 Monique tells the world to do its worst]. Then cites this trope.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20080430095721/http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2140 Slick tells God that the world is boring.]
* ''[[Spiderwebs]]'' is a rare web comic built around "Be careful what you wish for" that doesn't involve a [[Literal Genie]]: Selena was perfectly willing to explain [[Gender Bender|the consequences of Luke's wish]] to him but Luke was too impatient to listen.
* In a [[Real Life]] example, fans of ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' were looking for a [[Fan Community Nicknames|nickname for themselves]], so they asked the creator to choose one for them. They now refer to themselves as 'Bunnies'
* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'': Quentyn--[[Genre Savvy|fully aware]] of [[Literal Genie|what he's dealing with]]--''is'' careful what he wishes for and uses his [[Three Wishes]] to [[Humiliation Conga|utterly screw over his fae enemy]] {{spoiler|(specifically, wishes that the fae would render null and void every favour and debt owed him, rendering the fae broke, to return all he stole to the duchy of Fenwick, and to return to the Fae world, ''never to hunt the mortal realms again'')}}.[[Double Subversion|Doubly subverted]] when he later realizes that he could have used those wishes to get back the artifacts he's looking for and [[Zig-Zagging Trope|TREBLY subverted]] when a fae ally tells him that wishing for the artfacts back wouldn't have worked.
* In ''[[Squid Row]]'' [http://squidrowcomics.com/?p=923 what Randi learned last year]
* In ''[[Tales Of Gnosis College]]'' Ashley should have been more careful with her wishes during her modeling session. {{spoiler|Wishing that people could gaze on her beauty forever she [[Taken for Granite|turns into a statue]].}}
* ''[[Amazing Super Powers]]'' got [http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2009/02/toys-are-alive/ this]. As to what the kid should have beware, see [[Alt Text]].
* Very old Vera Salt of ''[[Magellan]]'' found a genie and wished herself [//magellanverse.com/comic/djinn/ to be younger]. She started to age backwards until she was a child. Then, she [//magellanverse.com/comic/diapers/ wished for a way to age herself] and had to siphon age from others over several centuries in order to maintain a stable age. Finally, when she was in custody, she used her last wish to wish [https://web.archive.org/web/20120508123131/http://magellanverse.com/?p=2324 herself free] and ended up dying of old age.
* In ''[[Homestuck]]'', Aranea wished she could be outgoing and adventurous without caring about what other people think of her. Then she helped perform the [[Cosmic Retcon|Scratch]] and got her wish, at least vicariously... but at the cost of her people being enslaved by a devil-figure and being driven to near-extinction
* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'', after September scared November with the story of a mother who turned her daughter into a raven, [http://www.forthewicked.net/archive/05-07.html their mother assured November that she would never wish her daughters away, being aware of the dangers.]
* In ''[[Sequential Art]]'' [http://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=959 #959], Pip doesn't want to die as a pinata. The alternative that he gets is just as unappealing.
* ''Redpanels'' [http://redpanels.com/56 illustrates] a rather straightforward political variety.
* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]'' version: "[//www.schlockmercenary.com/2016-08-15 don't wish for big things!]" (explanation on the previous page). Putzho [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2017-04-03 asks for it]. Also, once Petey took "sufficiently godlike" attitude, the careful approach is to [//www.schlockmercenary.com/2019-08-06 avoid asking for things he "could" do] unless you want it to happen.
* ''[[Freefall]]'' has [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3400/fc03337.htm yet another belated realization] provoked by a contact with [[Impossible Thief|a Sqid]].
{{quote|'''Niomi''' (thought): Humanity! Go to the stars! Be an inspiration to the alien races you meet! Talk about being careful what you wish for.}}

== [[Web Original]] ==
* Rob from ''[[Dimension Heroes]]'' wishing for a less boring summer. Boy, did he get that wish granted...
* The [[Creepypasta]] titled "The Three Wishes", found on [[Encyclopedia Dramatica]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20170525134246/https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/Creepypasta/Paranormal_Creepypasta#The_Three_Wishes here] (It may be one of the least [[NSFW]] pages on the article, but it's still ED, so exercise caution).
** 95% of creepypasta is this.
* Invoked in an intentionally nonsensical manner in the ''[[Something Awful]]'' parody "horror film" ''[[Doom House]]''. "My name is Reginald P. Linux, and ever since my wife died, I've been very depressed. This is why I've been searching for the house of my dreams. But as a philosopher once said, be careful what you dream for, because you ''just... might... get it''." Since he wasn't "dreaming for" a house haunted by [[Creepy Doll|an odd-looking figurine]] and  {{spoiler|built over a terrorist burial camp}}, this makes no sense, and it's only put there as a parody of bad writing.
* ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog]]'' is this trope played deadly straight. Billy/Dr. Horrible wants to be a supervillain and join the Evil League of Evil. He also wants to get a girlfriend. Well, he gets one of his wishes when the Evil League demands that he commit a heinous crime ("a murder would be nice of course") as a membership test. This turns out to be [[Foreshadowing]], as the final confrontation with his [[Arch Enemy]], Captain Hammer, ends with the latter's humiliating defeat and the entire world bowing to him in fear due to the murder of... {{spoiler|his girlfriend, Penny, who he killed accidentally during the crossfire}}. Cue his entry into the Evil League, having both gained and lost everything he wanted.
* From one of [[The Cinema Snob]]'s reviews, ''Beware Children At Play''...
{{quote|'''Snob:''' You know, the kids are evil, just fucking kill them!
''(Massacre of children begins as the Snob watches in horror)''
'''Snob:'''...I wasn't serious about killing them! }}
* In one [[Retsupurae]] showing a kid who wanted all of his [[I Know Kung Faux|"fighting moves"]] to be used for [[M.U.G.E.N]], [[Slowbeef]] comments that it couldn't get any worse... just before he shows [[Dancing Theme|off]] [[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya|his]] Super Attack.
** This tends to happen whenever Slowbeef says "[[Tempting Fate|how could this get any worse]]" and variants...[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=27VeT3dVQE8#t=348s with one notable exception].
* There was a ''[[Pathfinder (tabletop game)|Pathfinder]]'' DM who wanted much to do a campaign about a world where psionics were replacing magic and do a ''X-men'' meet ''D&D'' thing, he didn't care that the players were mostly unpleasant people in and out of character as long as they acquiesced to use his house rules. Then he angered a player who wanted to play a more subdued character by ordering him to "[[Min-Maxing|minmax]] or GTFO" to mesh with the setting. Said player took him to his word [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/That_Guy_Destroys_Psionics and created Elsinor], an uber-powered wizard that took offense with psionics replacing magic, and managed to destroy the source of psionics and the universe ''twice'' in the very first session of the campaign (and even following the DM house rules!) before the DM just kicked him out of his house because of his [[Off the Rails|epic derailing]].

== [[Western Animation]] ==
* This trope is the entire premise of ''[[The Fairly OddParents]]''.
** Both subverted and affirmed. Subverted because Cosmo and Wanda have a huge book of rules to protect Timmy, and Wanda tries to warn Timmy when he makes a bad wish (Cosmo then grants it anyway). Affirmed by Norm the Genie.
* This drives the movie ''[[Shrek]] Forever After''. When Shrek wants "one day where I can be an ogre like I used to be," he gets it. Too bad the deal he made with the [[Big Bad]] has rather unpleasant consequences.
* The ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' universe has a well that grants any wish. Once, three men wished that they would become the ultimate warriors. And they did! By becoming the well's eternal gaurdians. (Except... Jack beat them. So they weren't really ultimate. But, whatever.)
** They were the ultimate warriors at the time their wish was granted, and Jack [[Took a Level in Badass]] to beat them (since he apparently didn't have enough levels already).
* In the ''[[ReBoot]]'' episode "Enzo the Smart", Enzo fiddles with the system clock in order to make himself smarter than everyone else, and instead makes everyone else ''half'' as smart as he is. Since he's [[Just a Kid]], this ends up making everyone else in the city of Mainframe really dumb.
{{quote|'''Enzo:''' Dude! Everything's gone 8 bit!}}
* ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' did this in one episode, though the wishing character was not aware that their wish would be granted. Notable for the fact that at the end of the episode the [[Reset Button]] remained largely untouched. All the characters retained full memories of everything that had transpired, and a permanent change to Danny's ghost costume was made.
** There was another, earlier episode with the same villain with the same premise where Tucker wished he had ghost powers. The [[Reset Button]] was pressed because Tucker did not handle them all that well...
* The pilot of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' had Optimus Prime nostalgically wishing that he'd been around to fight Decepticons in the Great War. Ten minutes later the biggest, baddest Decepticon of all time shows up with his warship. It's not pretty.
* Parodied in ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy]]'', "A Dumb Wish". Grim's mom gives Billy, Mandy, and Grim three wishes. Billy squanders his wish, and his arguing with Grim bugs Mandy enough that she wishes they would shut up, causing Billy and Grim's mouths to become sealed shut. Since Grim can't talk, Mandy gets his wish, and Grim and Billy compete to see who gets their mouth fixed by buttering up to Mandy. They only succeed in driving Mandy to the point that she shouts "I wish everyone in the entire world would just ''go away''!" After everyone else on the planet disappears, Mandy seems to [[My God, What Have I Done?|regret what she did]], only to instead smile for [[Perpetual Frowner|one of the only times ever]] and say "Perfect".
** Another episode, "Wishbones," also played with this trope. A [[Literal Genie]] trapped in the form of [[Rhymes on a Dime|a talking, rhyming skull]] named Thromnambular spends most of the episode granting various characters wishes, which inevitably backfire. (It's explicitly said that it ''doesn't matter'' what they're wishing for, it'll screw them over regardless.) Thronambular is condemned to grant nine wishes before it can be freed from its skull form, more on that later. One example of a wish (and its reworking) is General Skarr wishing to be ruler of the world. A giant statue of himself rises from the ground beneath him and grows so large, he ends up in the upper atmosphere and suffocates. When it's Mandy's turn to make a wish, she [[Genre Savvy|realizes that any wish she makes will only turn out badly]], so instead she decides to sell her wish to the highest bidder. A frustrated Grim pushes the [[Reset Button]] when he declares "I wish you two had never found that skull!" This wish does not backfire, instead returning everything to the way it was before Billy and Mandy found the skull. Grim then wishes that he was free of his promise to be Billy and Mandy's best friend, and that Thronambular was free of his imprisonment, hoping that Thronambular would be grateful enough not to stab him in the back. To Grim's horror, Thronambular grants the wish by trading their dilemmas: Thronambular had to keep Grim's promise, but gained a body. Grim found himself trapped as a skull, and bound to carry out the eight remaining wishes.
** It's unclear if Thronambular really had to keep Grim's promise.
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' 
** The third Halloween episode had a segment based on ''[[The Monkey's Paw]]''. Homer buys the magic paw at a [[Bazaar of the Bizarre]] and he and his family try wishing for fame and wealth (which backfires when [[Hype Aversion|everyone gets sick of hearing about the Simpsons]]) world peace (which backfires when aliens attack the now defenseless Earth) and a turkey sandwich (which backfires because the turkey's a little dry.) Homer gives the monkey paw to Flanders in the hope that it backfires on him too, but the [[Rule of Funny]] ensures that no such thing happens.
*** More like the end of the episode ensures that Flanders' wishes don't backfire (that we get to see). Indeed, Kang and Kodos imply that his first wish, to rid the world of alien invaders, will backfire because humans will develop "[[Bigger Stick|bigger boards, with bigger nails, until they build a board with a nail it in so large, it will destroy them all!]]"
** Played for laughs in "Bart Gets Hit By a Car":
{{quote|'''Carl:''' I heard Mr. Burns crushed your boy. 
'''Homer:''' Yeah. If I wasn't so spineless, I'd march into Mr. Burns' office right now and-- 
'''Smithers:''' SIMPSON! Burns wants you to march into his office right now!}}
* "Wish World" from the ''[[Mighty Orbots]]'' series. Oh-No wishes to be human—and thanks to one of the [[Big Bad]] goons, she becomes human—but discover that Oh-No can't power up the Mighty Orbots in this form.
* The episode "The Magic Coins" from ''[[My Little Pony]]''.
** Also, in "The Prince and the Ponies", the First-Tooth Baby Ponies were jealous of the extra attention the newborns were receiving and wished them ill only to be sorry when they saw it had actually happened. An important and applicable lesson for the target audience.
* The entire premise of the [[Celebrity Toons|Celebrity Toon]] ''[[Wish Kid]]''. Nick gets a magical baseball glove that lets him have one wish a week - and that's it. And they're all temporary and can end at any time, meaning that every single wish he makes disappears at the worst possible time. All so he can learn this trope as a moral ''every single episode''.
* Played straight and averted in ''[[Gargoyles]]''. When we first meet Puck, he plays [[Literal Genie]] to Demona. Later, it's revealed that when Puck revealed himself to Xanatos for the first time, he offered him either a single wish or  {{spoiler|a lifetime of loyal service as [[Puss in Boots|Owen Burnett.]] }} Proving himself to be the smartest person in the entire series, Xanatos chooses the latter.
** Puck ended up on the receiving end of this too. One of his major motivations throughout the series is delaying his return to Avalon because he finds the mortal world too fun. At the end of "The Gathering", Oberon decides to give Puck what he wants...by trapping him in human form (except for the purposes of training Alexander in magic) and banishing him from Avalon ''forever''.
* The ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' episode "A Lad in a Lamp" has the heroes meet a malicious genie who would teach them just this if the episode didn't come with its very own built-in [[Reset Button]].
** A similar thing happens in an episode of [[DuckTales (1987)]]: both Scrooge [[McDuck]] and Flintheart Glomgold find a magical lamp. To decide who gets it, the genie tells them to race each other back home. Glomgold wins, and his first wish is for Scrooge to be stranded on a desert island. However, his ''second'' wish is that he could see the look on Scrooge's face, and he's sent to the same island to do so. Then he wishes that he "had never found this blasted lamp". Cue the [[Reset Button]], and Scrooge this time wildly chases Glomgold out of the cave without finding the lamp, just before a cave-in traps it forever.
* ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]'': The team fought a wish-making ghost who functioned as a [[Literal Genie]]. It turned Eduardo into Kylie's cat (because he wanted to be closer to her). The episode was actaully titled "Be Careful What You Wish For".
* A preview episode has ''[[Ben 10]]'' easily dispatching criminals, and, in the end, he was wondering if there was any challenge left for him. The episode in question is the {{spoiler|[[Series Finale]]}}, which introduced the {{spoiler|Negative 10}}.
* One episode of ''[[Wunschpunsch]]'' revolved around it - Wizards created a spell that granted one wish for every person in the city, but always in the way to backfire. The wizards used it later for themselves, sure they'd found a wish that would let them get rid of their boss and not backfire at them in any way. They were wrong.
* Towards the end of ''[[Disney Fairies|TinkerBell and the Last Treasure]]'', Tink accidentally uses the [[Pirate Booty|Mirror of Incanta]], which she intended to use to repair the [[Mineral MacGuffin|broken moonstone]], when she snaps at her [[Non-Human Sidekick]], "I wish you would be quiet for just one minute!"
* ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'': In ''Group Therapy'', just before going to sleep, Peter remarks, "I wish I could just wake up tomorrow, with Doc and his merry morons back in jail." Oh, he gets his wish alright. But at the cost of losing himself to the symbiote, waking up exhausted, and being out of the loop for a whole day that his aunt has had a heart attack.
* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' had an episode that featured Mr. Krabs wishing for the power to be able to talk to money. It turns out that money always wants to be spent.
* ''[[Cow and Chicken]]'' also had this in an self titled episode. It turns out Chicken wished Cow would shut up, which backfires as Cow cannot warn Chicken of the dangers of the road to prevent him from getting hit and she cannot speak during the testimony when Chicken is put into prison for 50 years.
* The Human CentiPad episode of ''[[South Park]]'' has Cartman demanding God to "give me a courtesy lick before I get fucked!" after Cartman loses his [[The Human Centipede|Human Centipede]]/iPad hybrid. God complies by smiting Cartman with a bolt of lightning, landing Cartman in the hospital.
* ''[[The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]]'': In "Wishing Not so Well", K'nuckles wishes to be left alone and is immediately finds himself in a Stormalong that contains no other people. It doesn't work out so well for him.
* In ''[[Phineas and Ferb]] Get Busted'', Candace busts Phineas and Ferb on building an unsafe airlift, and their mother sends them away to a reformatory school; at first, Candace is glad they are away, but it is not too long before she begins to miss them. {{spoiler|[[It Gets Worse]] when she finds out [[The Alcatraz|how the reformatory school is run]].}} Candace's friend Stacy even calls her out on this:
{{quote|'''Stacy:''' You finally have everything you ever wanted. Call me when you get over it!}}
* In the ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'' episode "The Cutie Pox", Apple Bloom uses a magical flower called "Heart's Desire" to finally get her Cutie Mark. Unfortunately, over the course of the day she gets several ''more'' cutie marks, each of which brings [[Blessed with Suck|both a new talent and a compulsion to practice that talent endlessly]], whether it's window-washing, tap-dancing, speaking French, or ''lion-taming''.
** The theme also shows up in "Sisterhooves Social," when Rarity wants to get away from Sweetie Belle earlier on but misses her later on, or "Green Isn't Your Colour," when Rarity is so jealous of Fluttershy's fame as a model that she wishes Fluttershy would just humiliate herself on-stage, and Rarity feels awful when it actually ''happens.'' Even the first two episodes seem to have a hint of this with Twilight Sparkle at first not wanting to make new friends, only to find out later that "just when I learn how wonderful it is to have friends, I have to leave them." That is a milder case, though, {{spoiler|as it turns out Celestia lets Twilight stay in Ponyville with her new friends anyway}}.
** A hint of this also shows up in "May The Best Pet Win," with Rainbow Dash insisting earlier on that she wanted a fast, agile, flying animal for a pet... and after putting the animals through competitions testing these (among other) traits she found out that the falcon met her standards the most... but by the time she found this out, she had evidently changed her mind about what she wanted in a pet after all, as she clearly wasn't happy about being told that the falcon won. {{spoiler|Of course, she found out a [[Loophole Abuse|loophole]] in her rules that allowed her to adopt a tortoise instead, in a clear contrast to what she at first wanted.}}
* In the ''[[Young Justice (animation)|Young Justice]]'' episode "Misplaced", Zatanna tells Artemis how she wished her [[Overprotective Dad]] would give her some space. The very next second, her father (and the rest of the adults) disappear before them.  {{spoiler|At the end of the episode, Zatara sacrifices himself so that Nabu wouldn't possess Zatanna. She may never get her father back.}}
* ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'': In one episode, Garfield found a wishing well and wished there were no more mondays. At first, when he learned the wish became true, he was happy. A few weeks later, Garfield felt the drawbacks of a world without mondays: the streets were full of garbage because garbagemen only came at Mondays; gyms that used to be open for all days of the week were closed; movie theaters never showed new movies because they only changed their movies at Mondays; Jon couldn't buy more food because he always received his paychecks at Mondays; and he always made lasagna at Mondays. Being a [[Big Eater]], the two last bits were what horrified Garfield the most. He then returned to the wishing well, desperately asking for the Mondays to be back. The well refused and threatened to remove other stuff, until the well's mother, who revealed they were actually aliens who look like wells, forced him to restore everything back to normal. Garfield then started loving Mondays. At least until he was reminded of why he hated them in the first place.
* ''[[Aladdin (1992 Disney film)| Aladdin: The Series]]'': In "Do the Rat Thing", Jasmine tries to prove to Aladdin that she can survive the way he did originally by dressing up as a "street rat" (much the way she did at the beginning of the first movie) and going to the bad part of town, dragging Iago with her this time. She manages to steal something - a mirror, which she has no idea is able to grant wishes. After getting away with it, she looks at her reflection in it and declares herself a "street rat", while Iago sarcastically adds, "If you're a street rat, [[And I'm the Queen of Sheba| I'm a frilled lizard!]]" and then the mirror's magic kicks in, [[Baleful Polymorph|turning her into an actual rat and him into a frilled lizard]]. Worse, the mirror itself shatters because she drops it when it happened, making it unusable as a solution to the problem, and worse yet, humans can't understand what they are saying anymore, meaning they are ''entirely'' on their own. The whole rest of the episode consists of the two of them trying to make it back to the palace without getting stepped on or otherwise killed so they could get Genie to break the spell, which is ''not'' easy.
* In ''[[The Smurfs (animation)|The Smurfs]]'' episode "The Magic Egg", the Egg is a powerful magical device created by Gargamel that can grant wishes; naturally, he loses it, the Smurfs get ahold of it, then it causes incredible chaos. Eventually, it falls into Big Mouth's hands, but he throws it away when he realizes it is inedible, and...
{{quote|'''Gargamel:''' That egg must be around here somewhere, Azrael, I... 
''(Egg flies out of nowhere and conks him on the head.)'' 
'''Gargamel''' ''(dizzy)'': Oh my, Azreal, I found it... ''(collapses)''}}

== [[Real Life]] ==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131025033857/http://homeonthestrange.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=4 The Open-Source Wish Project] tries to find perfect, loophole-less wordings for wishes to avert this trope. While it might work against the [[Jerkass Genie]], it doesn't really strike at the heart of the lesson of this trope; if you get exactly the thing you wanted, there's still the possibility you'll find you don't like it.
* In a rough flowchart of the endings for ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'', [[BioWare]] writer supposedly noted that he wanted the endings to cause [[Memetic Mutation|LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE]]. He/They got his/their wish; ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'s'' ending quickly became as infamous for being [[Fandom Gank|infuriatingly confusing and nonsensical]] as that of ''[[Lost]]'' and that of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', the [[Trope Codifier]] for [[Gainax Ending]]s.
* In 2001, the city of Buffalo, NY had no snow in November and most of December, and it was possible that the city would have no snow on Christmas. So on Christmas Eve, everyone in Buffalo wished for a white Christmas. The next day, they awoke to the beginning of a 5-day blizzard that killed 4 people and dropped ''seven feet of snow'' onto the city. Whoops.
* During the years 2005-2006 many people in USA and UK desperately wished for real estate prices to fall. They did fall in 2007 - and the result was a recession that lasted several years.
* Richard Heene's attempt to become a reality star with his ''Balloon Boy'' stunt on October 15, 2009. Looks like he succeeded, just not in the way he had hoped for.
* After viewing his teammate going past him for the win as an act of betrayal, [[Formula One|Gilles Villeneuve]] vowed never to speak to Didier Pironi ever again. He got it: Villeneuve was killed in qualifying the very next race.
* [[Robert Pattinson]], star of the highly divisive ''[[Twilight (novel)|Twilight]]'' saga only auditioned [[Only in It For the Money|for the money]] and the chance to work with [[Kristen Stewart|his celebrity crush]]. He then got stalked by fans and received death threats from haters, even years after the film series finished. And [[It Got Worse|it gets worse]] - he [[Creator Backlash|thinks the saga is stupid]] in every way. At least he managed to date his costar Stewart for a while, but that relation ended when she cheated on him with the director of a film she starred in.
* As it was entering its third season, the producers of ''[[Moral Orel]]'' asked the creators to give them the darkest season they could. And boy did they get it. One episode in particular, the infamous "Alone", was so dark, the producers sliced season three's original episode count in half and axed the show.
* Chicago Bears fans wished to be rid of Rex Grossman for throwing too many interceptions (despite leading them to the Super Bowl in his first season as a starter). Then came along Jay Cutler who lead the NFL in interceptions.
* Fanboys of [[Nintendo]] wanted the company to reign supreme in the [[Console Wars]] after taking a beating from Sony for two generations in a row. The [[Wii]] comes along and puts Nintendo back on top, but at the expense of the hardcore fans as Nintendo marketed the majority of its gaming to the casuals. Cue nerd rage.
** Speaking of gaming, we have some contemporary gamers complaining about [[Sequelphobic|too many video game sequels]]. Cue the cancellation of the long-awaited ''[[Mega Man Legends]] 3'' and ''[[Ace Attorney|Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2]]'' not getting localized. One begins to wonder if there really ''is'' such a thing as a Monkey's Paw and who the hell's making wishes on it...
** Video game fans have said that game controls were getting stagnant since there was a lack of arcades or addons. Cue the [[Wii]], announcing the addition of motion controls into the home, something previously only seen in certain arcade machines... and everyone saying they wanted to go back to just button-pressing.
** Oh, we're not done yet - gamers have also bitched on why more people weren't playing games, or were wishing games were a bit more streamlined. Now they cry non-stop about how [[It's Popular, Now It Sucks]] or "Consolitis". See [[Nostalgia Filter]].
* This is a common consequence of a phenomenon known as "Punishment voting", when people vote ''in masse'' for the ideological opposite of whoever is in power now, just to get that person out of office and have a different face and political party. Usually, the newcomer candidate turns out to be the opposite of what the voters (and, sometimes, the candidate sponsors) wanted. If you combine that with [[Nostalgia Filter]], the results can be awful.
** Punishment voting also takes place in referendums, a notable example being [[w:Brexit|Brexit]]
* When Lena, a young German girl, moved out from her Parents' house at 18 (this was in 2007), they were ''not happy'' about it and had repeatedly tried to convince her to come back. Then Lena got caught in the [[w:Love Parade disaster|2010 Love Parade Disaster]]. Since then, she returned to her parent's house - and she refuses to leave and constantly clings to her parents.
* Many lottery winners encounter this, due to not being used to handling such large amounts of money. It's estimated 60% of them wind up bankrupt within a year. See [[A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted]].
* The [[Drugs Are Bad|temperance movement]] in America got its wish with the Prohibition in the early [[The Roaring Twenties|1920s]]. But far from making the country a nation of teetotallers, it only forced an entire industry into the hands of the [[Black Market]], encouraged illicit alcohol production and drinking in [[Vice City|speakeasy parlours]], and led to an unworkable ban that [[Bad Cop, Incompetent Cop|underpaid and corrupt police officers]] struggled to uphold. The problems only receded when Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
* Surely a lot of people must have wished growing up that pizza could be considered a vegetable. [http://www.thejournal.ie/us-congress-rules-that-pizza-is-a-vegetable-282033-Nov2011/ Now that it is,] one cannot help but think many of these same people must find it bittersweet.
* [[Carrie Fisher]] had complained about how boring Princess Leia's wardrobe was from the [[A New Hope|first]] [[The Empire Strikes Back|two]] ''[[Star Wars]]'' movies, so [[George Lucas]] had wardrobe make the iconic [[Go-Go Enslavement|Slave]] [[Fetish Fuel|Leia]] [[Theiss Titillation Theory|costume]] for ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''. She would describe it as "what supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell".
** Similarly, when [[Natalie Portman]] voiced similar complaints about her Padmé's wardrobe for ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' while preparing for ''[[Attack of the Clones]]'', they outfitted her with [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:PadmefullDinnernoshawl.jpg this black corseted number] Padmé wears in the scene of dinner with Anakin.
* [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] was actually rather peeved when he got the Democratic nomination for vice president in 1960—you see, he wanted the top job, not the post that his predecessor and fellow Texan John Nance Garner had described as "not worth a bucket of warm piss." Then [[John F. Kennedy]] got shot, and LBJ became one of the most unpopular presidents in US history. (True, he would [[Vindicated by History|eventually be considered one of the better Presidents overall]], despite [[The Vietnam War|that whole Vietnam thing]]—but that comes as a small consolation to a man who's been dead for decades).
* "If the Germans want a war of extermination, then they will get one." - [[Josef Stalin]], in a speech in November 1941.
* For that matter, we can add [[It's Popular, Now It Sucks]] to this - a lot of people wish for certain franchises and the like to be more popular. Then all of a sudden, [[Hipster|half their fans turn their backs on it when it ''does'' become popular]], as the fandom gets [[Eternal September|a sudden influx of newbies]] who bring the [[Fan Dumb]] with them.
* In a way, this has happened to gun manufactures and the NRA. Ever since the 1960s, the NRA have warned Americans that Democrats would take their guns. Originally, it put folks in the South in a tizzy, but most eventually figured out it was a lie to gain votes for conservatives, and stopped worrying. But in the Election of 2008, and all during [[Barack Obama|President Obama]]'s terms in office, it became a hot-button issue, and all you could hear in gun stores, was, "If you want it, you better buy it now because Obama and the Democrats are going to outlaw them." That was an automatic sale, no matter what the price on the gun was. Another was the 22 cal. ammunition. Some group was [[Blatant Lies|putting out the "news"]] that Obama was outlawing its manufacture. Gun stores sold out fast, and if you could find them, they were priced in the $10.00 a box range. Fast forward to [[Donald Trump]]. Remington Firearms filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy and those $10 boxes of ammo cannot sell for $3. Nobody now believes the Republican controlled government will outlaw their guns, and their most powerful pitch for the last half-century is gone. 
** [[Joe Biden]]'s victory in 2020 doesn't seem to have improved the situation for them either, with [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/15/us/politics/nra-bankruptcy.html the NRA itself filing for bankruptcy] in January of 2021. 

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[[Category:Index Backfire]]
[[Category:Wish Fulfillment]]
[[Category:Transformation Causes]]
[[Category:Plot Twist]]
[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]
[[Category:Sour Grapes Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:Plots]]
[[Category:Be Careful What You Say]]
[[Category:Index of Consequences]]
[[Category:Gothic Horror Tropes]]