Be Careful What You Wish For: Difference between revisions

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

 

 

...you just might get it.

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[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.

* 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.}}

* 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.}}

** 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.

** 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.

* 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 ''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]]''.)

* 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.}}

* [[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]].

 

* 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.

* ''[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.

 

 

* 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.

* ''[[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!''

** ''[[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.

* ''[[Bedazzled]]'' (both versions) has this as its main premise.

** 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.

* 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 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.}}

* 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.

** The same plot was given a gender flip in ''Viceversa''

* In ''[[The Thief of Bagdad]]'', Abu accidentally wishes Ahmad away this way.

* 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!"}}

* 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.]]

* 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 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.

* 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.

* 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...

** 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.

* 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):

*** 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.

* 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.

* ''[[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.

 

** 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 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.

** 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.]]

*** 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.}}

** 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.

* 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.

* 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.

 

* 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 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.

 

 

* 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.

* 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.

 

 

* 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.

* Shows up in ''[[I Married an Angel]]''.

 

* 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].

*** 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.

* 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'''.}}

* 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.

* [[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]]!

* ''[[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.

** 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}}.

 

 

* 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)}}.

** 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]].

* ''[[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.

* [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.}}

{{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. }}

{{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>}}

{{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!"}}

{{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.

** [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.]

* 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.

** 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.

* 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! }}

** 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].

 

* 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.

** 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.

** 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.

* "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]]''.

* 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!"

* ''[[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 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:

** 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.}}

 

* [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 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.

* 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.

* 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...

** 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]]

* 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.

* "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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Index Backfire]]

[[Category:Wish Fulfillment]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Plots]]

[[Category:Be Careful What You Say]]

[[Category:Index of Consequences]]