Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Buffy''': I told one lie. I had one drink.

Okay folks, listen up: many of the dangerous behaviors in life are as insidious and widespread as they are because ''most of the time, nothing bad comes of doing them''. If you don't wear your seat belt, most of the time, you'll be fine. It's just that on the rare occasion that fate calls you on it, the results are usually catastrophic.

So on some TV shows, ''every time'' you do something bad, you ''will'' get caught.

On a [[Sitcom]], this isn't usually all that big a deal, except during the [[Very Special Episode]]. In the Teen Drama, it's a recipe for tragedy. Drive drunk ''even once'' and somebody is going to die. Have premarital sex ''even once'' and there's going to be an STD or an unwanted pregnancy ([[Fridge Logic|although logically speaking there can't be an STD unless at least one of the people has had sex before]], except in the less likely-to-be-used case of being given one non-sexually via birth, blood, or otherwise), and it's no use protesting, "[[But We Used a Condom]]!" And heaven help you if you even ''look'' at [[Drugs Are Bad|drugs]].

The problem with this kind of lie is that it doesn't convince anyone. Rather than having the desired effect, the audience is liable to dismiss the morality play as obvious fiction, and their trust is lost.

If the disaster that comes from risky behavior is implausible rather than merely happening quicker than you might expect, it's a [[Space Whale Aesop]].

Often [[Selective Enforcement]] seems to be intent on teaching the Aesop of "just because your friends are getting away with it does NOT mean YOU will". However, seeing it happen to someone else isn't enough. Just because he can't get away with anything doesn't mean you can't, and [[Broken Aesop|that's what people end up learning]]. Except for when this becomes [[Truth in Television]] and the person really gets bitten in the ass a couple times in a row when they try getting away with stuff.

* Explicitly avoided by [[Cory Doctorow]] in his book ''Little Brother'', as shown [http://www.locusmag.com/Perspectives/2009/11/cory-doctorow-teen-sex.html here].

* Paula Danziger employs this trope in a few of her books, particularly with heroines who decide to put themselves first for once after spending most of the book placating or looking after other people.

** In ''It's an Aardvark Eat Turtle World'', Rosie seems to spend most of her time being the diplomat, and has had to make sacrifices to ensure her mother's relationship with her best friend's father is a success, such as giving up her pets because her kinda-stepfather is allergic. When she goes on holiday with her best friend/sister, Phoebe, she ends up feeling like a third wheel as Phoebe practically ignores her. Eventually, Rosie falls for Phoebe's cousin, Jason, and starts dating him, one of the few things she does for herself...whereupon Phoebe accuses her of being selfish and putting Jason first, resulting in Phoebe's ill-thought out decision to move back with her mother. Rosie spends much of the time afterwards feeling guilty about this turn of events.

* In ''[[Maximum Ride]]: The Angel Experiment'', the Flock spend a night in New York sleeping in trees. They wake up the next morning with the police calling for them that what they're doing is illegal and to get down right now so they can have their parents called. Gazzy wonders who even looks up trees and Max comments "like there aren't worse problems going on than a bunch of kids sleeping in a tree".

* Played for laughs in ''[[The Worst Week of My Life]]'', in which even the smallest transgressions that protagonist Howard Steel commits are guaranteed to backfire on him in the most humiliating way possible at exactly the worst moment for him personally. For added 'hideously unfair [[Chew Toy|suffering]] value', however, Howard can't even get away with things that he ''didn't'' do, or even that he did ''right'', because [[Kafka Komedy|that's just how it works]].

* ''[[iCarly]]'' has both played this straight (Federal freakin' agents bursting in when they try to hack the school computer!) and averted it (Live webcast from detention and the principal's a fan of their show!)

* Arguably, ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' derives a lot of its appeal from this; the characters are amongst the most horrible people on the planet, but they ''never'' succeed at anything.

* A ''[[Taxi]]'' flashback episode shows a single taste of a "hash brownie" transforming straitlaced Harvard student James Caldwell into spaced-out hippie freak Jim Ignatowski.

** To be fair, it's when you get CAUGHT attacking someone. If you stealth kill someone while invisible or snipe them from a dark alley or use untraceable disciplines to make them commit suicide, there won't be any trouble. Many other games can take this to a "Dude WTF?" level, with small crimes NO ONE EVEN NOTICES getting you in serious trouble. In Fable, you can be attacked by guards by accidentally taking one step inside the house of SOMEONE WHO LOVES YOU a few seconds after shops close. Although since they just stop if you apologize, it's kinda subverted.

** In the patched version I have, they do attacked people in the knife fights.

* Done to a huge extent in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] [[The Elder Scrolls Four|IV: Oblivion]]''. The guards quickly find out if you've committed even the smallest crime (in this case let's say you stole a turnip from a shop), soon other city guards are alerted about this armed and dangerous turnip thief. Even if your fine is only five gold, the guards will stop at nothing to apprehend you.

** More to the point, the guards have x-ray vision, as you can be in the middle of someone's house, in their basement, with no one around. Breaking in and walking around is no problem, but the second you pick something up the guards will run into the house run down the stairs, and tell you to "Stop thief!"...unless you are crouching which somehow makes you invisible. Oh and a guard can see into your pack and identify stolen goods when you chat with them, and somehow stolen goods are distinguishable from regular goods. Yes it appears that every time someone buys a carrot, they etch their name into it.

* Many an animated plot about characters who are playing hooky from school (usually otherwise honest people) have it so that the day they pick to do ends up being a day that whoever went to school actually enjoyed. (See ''[[Rocket Power]]'' "Snow Day", ''[[Hey Arnold!]]!'' "Hookey", etc.)

* ''[[The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron|The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius]]'', "Party At Neutron's": Jimmy ''almost'' gets away with throwing a party while his parents are out for the night, but then gets in trouble when he forgot the velociraptor in the closet that someone had accidentally brought to the party with one of his time machines.

* Averted quite often in ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]''. The girls assault their teacher thinking he was a monster in disguise, undermine and cover-up a federal investigation on their friend's disappearance, and sneak into a big corporation to destroy important documents related to Will's mom's job to sabotage her career, and many other instances, all without any karma backlash from silly issues like morality.

* In ''[[Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]]'', any time a character tries to do something behind another character's back or disobeys orders, the most dramatic, most impossible, most chaotic thing the writers can think of will happen. Legions of bounty hunters will try to annihilate the guilty party's best friend, the protagonists will wind up in the villain's clutches, Star Command being taken over by giant pants...

** They did the same thing one or two episodes earlier, when he started finally defending himself from the bullies by using his powers to make a fool out of them. [[Anvilicious|Nickelodeon]] [[Personal Gain Hurts|REALLY]] [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong|has a thing against]] [[Ambition Is Evil|heroes using their powers to get ahead in life]]. Just ask [[Jimmy Neutron]] or [[Fairly Oddparents|Timmy Turner...]]

* In one episode of the less-than-well-remembered cartoon ''[[Life With Louie]]'', the title character steals a single piece of candy from a store, and is informed that the following night's inventory check will make sure that the store owners know ''exactly'' how many were stolen and whose parents to call. Might have been a BS scare tactic, but it's still [[Anvilicious]] in its use of this trope.

* In "[[Doug]]'s Math Problem", Doug fails a math test and his parents receive a school letter. His numerous attempts to see what it says first are thwarted. The school alarm system goes off when his hacker friends try to see what the school computer says. When he tries to open the letter, he cuts a corner off when he tries to use scissors, cuts himself with a letter opener, and spills liquid white and ink. When he uses steam to pry it open, it makes the ink run. Just as he is about to read it, his dad comes home and he decides to confess everything.

* ''The All New [[Superfriends]] Hour'' had a explicit version of this in the Wonder Twins solo adventures. Most stories were titled with some unacceptable teenage activity like "Drag Race" or "Hitchhiking," which featured teenagers engaged in it at the protest of their sensible friends who are forced to alert the Wonder Twins to deal with the problem. Sure enough, the offending teenagers soon find themselves in deadly peril as a direct result of their misbehaviour and have to be rescued by the Twins.