Born Lucky: Difference between revisions

[[File:oolated-vert-2 9235.jpg|link=Carl Barks|frame|Such a bad day. Usually a squirrel will just vomit it on the table.]]

 

 

A character so mind-bogglingly lucky that it defies all chance. They'll win every contest or lottery they enter (in especially extreme cases, they don't even need to, the winning ticket will somehow come to them). Usually a weak explanation is given for this luck, attributing it to some kind of supernatural force but not going into any kind of detail. Despite the trope title, this luck does not necessarily begin at birth.

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Millefeuille Sakuraba of ''[[Galaxy Angel (anime)|Galaxy Angel]]'' has this as her defining trait. In the second episode, a ''meteor'' smashed the casino she was playing in to give her the win. That's just one of many instances of her extreme luck. This was later balanced by a recurring and plot-convenient Conservation of Luck.

* Sakurako of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. Her luck is so well known that, when the [[Muggle]] part of Negi's class found themselves unable to find where Negi's travelling party went, they relied on Sakurako to randomly lead them in the right direction, which she successfully did... despite the fact that it's a location so magically hidden, that a normal human has a lottery's chance of accidentally stumbling across it. It's a [[Running Gag]] that whenever the 3A girls are betting on something, she wins, no matter how unlikely the eventual outcome was. [[Word of God]] says that should she ever get a pactio, it would boost the luck of whoever she chooses.

* ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'': Justy Ueki Tyler is a lazy, incompetent, bumbling idiot, and as the name might suggest, he is the most irresponsible man to ever hold the rank of "Captain." He also happens to be the luckiest man alive. He gets out of near-impossible situations by nothing but luck (unless he's really just ''[[Obfuscating Stupidity|that good.]]''). At his bad days he only escapes from overwhelming fleets; on his better days he sinks them. Without any weapon. Or fighter. Damn, they sink themselves.

** Touma has the opposite problem. His special power destroys his own luck so he's born unlucky, if you don't count his ''[[Unwanted Harem]]''.

** Played straight when he finds out that {{spoiler|[[Cool Big Sis|Kaori]]}} has this and [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|rightfully]] angsts over it.

'''Nodoka:''' Isn't that wonderful?

'''Akane:''' Oh, I'm usually lucky at these things. }}

 

 

** Inverted in a [[Don Rosa]] comic. Due to being struck by lightning on his birthday while in front of a magic symbol in his youth, Gladstone is always phenominally ''unlucky'' on his birthdays. He spends the entire comic trying to get away from attending, but circumstances bring him to his own party, where he admits the truth. When a lightning storm suddenly shows up he manages to undo the curse, and prevent Donald from gaining luck powers of his own.

** And on top of that, his luck occasionally got him into more trouble than he would have been in without it. One story involved a treasure in the Amazon, and he decided he needed a helicopter to get to it before Donald could. He got there, but he didn't know that the tribe native to the area attached negative superstitions to helicopters. (Yes, they played with this character a ''lot''. As a general rule, Gladstone's luck works at its best when he just let it flow. When Gladstone asks for something specific, most of the time it come back to bite him. Lazing around is his most profit activity.)

* This is the sum of the [[Marvel Universe]] character Longshot's powers. After appearing in a miniseries of his own, he was grabbed by Chris Claremont for a stint in the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'', despite not being a mutant (he's a genetically engineered alien and his luck powers are magical, but the X-Men were never picky about members). Longshot's luck was extremely strong but limited: it could only be used for altruistic purposes.

** Actually, later on he was revealed to be, in fact, a mutant. Despite his powers being genetically engineered, his free will is an unexpected engineering error. Despite that not being a regular genetic mutation, in a race of genetically engineered beings an unexpected error is nothing else then a mutation.

*** She doesn't actively trigger her powers in the sense that she can turn the luck on or off, it's more like she has to be aware of what she is affecting the probability of. From TOW, "if debris falling from the sky was about to hit her in the head, she would still be hurt if she stood still. However, if she tried to avoid it, she would move perfectly to avoid each and every piece about to hit her."

** Same thing was used in a ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' story, when a [[Psychic Powers|psyker]] in a [[Circus of Fear]] manipulated the odds so that her boss, seeing the six misfires, angrily tried the same on himself. Bang.

* A largely defunct American manga, ''[[Pantheon High]]'', had a character with this kind of luck because he was the son of the Japanese goddess of luck, Benten. (Un)fortunately he had no guarantee whatsoever of getting lucky in ways that are actually useful to his situation. When he and two girls are threatened by the World Snake, one of the girls remarks that he might end up beating the snake, or he might end up making out with both of them at once.

* It could be argued that ''[[Groo the Wanderer]]'' fits this trope - all the bad things happen around him, afflicting everybody else, never Groo himself.

* Spawny Get (Geordie English for [[Lucky Bastard]]) from [[Viz]] embodies this trope, typically having a piece of moderate bad luck that causes a piece of very, very good luck. In one strip, he is carrying a ten-pound note into a bookmaker's to place a bet when he slips on a turd; he lets go of the money and yells "Oh bugger, I've skidded on a dog dirt!" The ten-pound note flies into the hand of the bookmaker, who assumes Spawny Get is placing a bet on a horse called "Oh bugger, I've skidded on a dog dirt". Which wins. At odds of 1,000-1.

* This was explicitly the only power of Johnny Thunder, a [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Gag Series]] character best known for his membership in the [[Justice Society of America]]. He was the seventh son of a seventh son, born on July 7, 1917, and this gave him uncanny luck. It later turned out that the circumstances of his birth had given him control over a genie called the Thunderbolt, and it was the T-bolt who pulled him out of so many jams.

* Likewise, Rachel in the American ''[[Big Brother]]''. She comes back with an unbreakable alliance with Brendon and is also paired up with Jeff and Jordan, who are likewise unbreakable. They are then put against people who barely know each other and have never played; the veterans (Rachel, Brendon, Jeff, Jordan, Daniele) have. The challenges are all something they're familiar with. After her boyfriend was evicted from the house, he somehow wins a popular vote to come back but is voted back out again. Then after things get turned around again and causing Jeff and Daniele to be voted out, then Rachel and Jordan are put on the block, Porsche is forced to open Pandora's Box...and the twist seems tailor-made to benefit Rachel and Jordan. Conveniently, the next veto competition (Read: That Rachel ''needs'' to win) is... a carbon copy of the first competition in the game that Rachel won, with a different prop. The twist manages to save both Rachel and Jordan, then the next head of household challenge is a challenge that Rachel had already won in the past - and just a couple days before, she was talking about how she did so well on it. When she's forced to open Pandora's box, it's not a game changing power that completely sabotages her game like it did to Porsche...it's a shopping spree. That's some ''[[Sarcasm Mode|amazing]]'' [[Sarcasm Mode|luck]].

 

 

== Other ==

* ''[[Homestuck]]'' has Clover of the Felt and Vriska Serket. Though, we don't know if Clover was born lucky, or just received the power from his master, and Vriska actually steals luck from other people.

* The 'probability Warpers' of the [[Whateley Universe]] have this. Currently there are so many of them at [[Super-Hero School|Whateley Academy]] that the administration has problems spreading them out among different dorms. Kismet also has magical powers. Hazard also has some kind of precognitive gift. Clover is trying to become a powerful wizard too. Then there's Murphy whose luck is usually bad.

 

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In the animated series, ''[[Class of the Titans]],'' the phenomenal luck of one of the main characters, Neil, allows him to win everything from battles against mythical creatures to coin tosses. This is especially useful for him since, unlike the other Titans who are descended from ancient Greek heroes and possess incredible fighting abilities, Neil is descended from Narcissus and only has his ancestor?s good looks and vain personality.

* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Luck of the Fryrish" the seven-leaf clover given to {{spoiler|Fry's nephew, also called}} Philip J. Fry, granted him lifelong luck. "The ever-lucky Fry made his fortune after striking oil in the bathroom of the mansion he had won in a lottery."

* In ''[[Kim Possible]]'', Ron is definitely lucky. It's explained by a combination of the Ron factor and the Mystical Monkey Power. His ''own'' ''father'', an actuary, calculates that Ron should've been taken out years ago on Kim's missions.

* [[Adolf Hitler]] survived dozens of assassination attempts, most of them by sheer luck.

* In one of the few instances where alcohol actually did something good, [[Seth MacFarlane]] slept-in with a hangover on the morning of September 11 and missed his flight-Flight 11 to be exact.

** Even more than that, Yamaguchi returned to Nagasaki still significantly injured, so he went to see a doctor. The doctor asked him how he had been injured, and ''as Yamaguchi was explaining the vaporization of Hiroshima, the second bomb dropped''. In the middle of his explanation. That's remarkable coincidence.

** As a result of being one of ''very'' few people to survive the only two offensive atomic bombings in history, and the longest-lived of them, he became an extremely vocal opponent to nuclear weapons, and his voice was respected in Japan (which, to this day, refuses nuclear derivatives—although nuclear power plants are just fine).

[[Category:Luck Tropes]]

[[Category:Stock Super Powers]]