Cheaters Never Prosper: Difference between revisions
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Subverted in ''[[Tower of God]]'', where the Hide And Seek test was actually about to teams competing in doing a task better than the other, without even coming in contact. Since the the test was only a point gathering test serving to qualify the best for the last test, people started going out of their way to beat their own teammates to the point of injuring them to incapacitate them. {{spoiler|While Koon lead to his team to sure victory but in the end helped Quant to make them lose anyway, just to help his friends on the opposing team, Parakewl and Mauchi tried to make everybody sacrifice themselves for them and even took hostages, while Ho tried to eliminate Baam and Androssi gathered her fellow Fishermen in one point and attacked them. The end result was that Mauchi failed while Parakewl passed, Androssi was the best Fisherman but Hong Chunhwa also managed to pass, Ho died and Koon succeeded.}} Success was not determined by the degree of rule-abiding, but by skill of bending the rules, strength and sheer luck.
* Jyonouchi in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' has a habit of dueling cheaters, such as Mai (perfume) and Bandit Keith (cards in his bracelets) in the Duelist Kingdom arc, and Espa (had his brothers spy on his opponents) and Weevil (sabotaged his deck) in Battle City. Predictably, they all lost to him.▼
** Also, there's the matter of Pegasus, whose [[Game Breaker|Millenium Eye and ridiculously over-powered cards]] definitely grant him an advantage, but the cards are arguably not cheating as, well, [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|he invented the game and he says so]].▼
** Earlier on, Dark Yugi spends his time [[Knight Templar|making sure]] that people who cheat against him <s> never prosper</s> are subject to horrible [[Mind Rape]] for the rest of their lives.▼
* Team Rocket in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''. There is also a story where there is a Pokemon competition that both Jessie and James enter seperately. Jessie cheats while James is determined to play fair. As is typical of this trope, Jessie loses while James is actually the winner, which goes to show that even someone from Team Rocket can win if he doesn't act like a criminal.
** Actually a pretty consistent theme in the show. Compare how well Team Rocket tends to do when they play by the rules rather than [[Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat|cheat.]]
** They're often shown to actually be competent in battles and contests, and have just as close if not closer with their Pokemon as Ash and his friends. They're just not very evil.
** The worst cheater was probably Faba, seeing as it was his own fault he lost to Ash in what was likely the most humiliating defeat in the whole Aloha League arc. He had trained his Hypno to use his telekinesis to choose an opponent's Pokemon before the opponent could, and also trained it to select the smallest and weakest one. This meant Ash "accidentally" chose Meltan rather than Pikachu. Unfortunately for Faba, Meltan may be a teeny-tiny, cute-looking Pokemon who isn't very tough, but it eats metal, and rendered Hypno powerless after mistaking its pendulum for a snack. Ash won in less than a minute. [[What an Idiot!| And Faba even had the nerve to complain to the referee!]]
* For an anime where a card game is so vital to the plot, ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'' has lots of cases:
▲** Jyonouchi
** If one reads the manga, Keith wasn't even ''invited'' to the tournament at all and took far more cards into it than the rules allowed; that's another strike against Bonz, by the way, as the cards he used against Jyonouchi were supplied by someone else.
▲** Also, there's the matter of Pegasus, whose [[Game Breaker|Millenium Eye and ridiculously over-powered cards]] definitely grant him an advantage, but the cards are arguably not cheating as, well, [[Screw the Rules, I Make Them|he invented the game and he says so]].
▲** Earlier on, Dark Yugi spends his time [[Knight Templar|making sure]] that people who cheat against him <s> never prosper</s> are subject to horrible [[Mind Rape]] for the rest of their lives.
** Most Rare Hunters that Yugi dueled in Battle City cheated too. Seeker used counterfeit Exodia cards that were also marked with ink that only he could see using special contact lenses. He also used multiple Exodia pieces and Graceful Charity copies (although, whether that's illegal in this continuity isn't clear). Mask of Light and Mask of Darkness (Lumis and Umbra) had microphones hidden under their hoods, letting them communicate with each other in a way that Yugi and Kaiba clearly couldn't. (After stating that a team wasn't allowed to share cards and strategies, no less.) In both cases, the Rare Hunters lost.
** Pandora/Arkana was a more blatant cheater: he trimmed the edges of an important card (Dark Magician) so that it landed on top of his deck when Yugi cut it; additionally, in the manga he boasted - to himself - that as a stage magician, he knew over one-hundred ways to cheat at cards. {{spoiler| Yugi was on to him, however; after using Card Destruction to ruin his plan (for the moment) he told Pandora that it was clear to him that someone who would risk damaging his cards by "shotgun shuffling" would probably stoop to a trick like that too.}}
** You could likely even say Kaiba did this in the Duelist Kingdom arc, [[Stop or I Shoot Myself|as threatening suicide]] to force an opponent to back down [[Understatement|isn't very sporting]]. While Yugi ''did'' back down, meaning he won that duel - technically - it only led Kaiba to [[Your Soul Is Mine|something even worse.]]
** Putting aside his use of the Millennium Rod to bring a foe's nightmares to life, Marik's insistence that Odion use a duplicate copy of The Winged Dragon of Ra is an illegal move in [[Real Life]] rules. Essentially, he had given Odion a "proxy card", which is a violation of tournament rules. Unfortunately, this backfires on Marik for a ''very'' different reason, Odion is [[Bolt of Divine Retribution| smote by the furious spirit of the true Winged Dragon of Ra]], and Marik's darker side dominates him completely.
*** You could even say Marik was breaking the rules of actual tournaments later by even using the Winged Dragon of Ra, as the text for its effect is written in Egyptian. Real life tournament rules state that a card with foreign language text is permissible, ''if'' you provide your opponent with a translation. Now, whether Mai or Bakura could have used Ra safely even if they ''had'' been given one is debatable, but the rule is still there.
* Moving on to ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]''
** Exactly how much Saiou/Satorius was cheating in Season 2 was debatable. (It was clear that [[Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers| the Light of Ruin was helping him at least a little]], made more obvious when the thing [[Demonic Possession| took complete control of him]] in the [[Final Battle]].) However, he blatantly cheated in Season 4, planting a card called Arcana Force 0 - The Fool in Judai/Jaden's deck before the duel, and much like Weevil, using a Spell Card to force him to summon it. Once he had done that, he was able to use its presence in combination with other cards that let him forgo the coin tosses on his luck-based cards, and was able to safely use some of the most dangerous ones, like Tour of Doom and Sowing of the Fool. Unfortunately for him, Judai found a weakness in this strategy, managed to destroy the Fool, and when Saiou had to depend purely on luck for those cards, it proved outright terrible.
** In the manga version of ''Yu-Gi-Oh! GX'', Judai's first opponent, a teacher applicant named Ryuga, is cheating by using a device that prevents his opponents from using Spell Cards. Judai is put in a tight spot when he's unable to use Fusion, but he manages to turn it around without even finding out what his opponent was doing. Ryuga is never seen after that story; many fans assume he was fired, especially since losing to Judai meant he failed to fulfill the conditions needed to be recognized as an official professor of the school.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's]]'':
** Clark Smith, the member of Yliaster who {{spoiler| murdered Sherry LeBlanc's parents (although Sherry does admit that he didn't do it himself, but simply "allowed" it to happen).}} When Yusei confronts him, he challenges Yusei to a "Concentration Duel", a special duel with house rules with elements of the game Concentration. It's rigged; the cards are all spread out face-down on the table, and Clark knows what his are due to marks on them that only he can read due to his special glasses. {{spoiler| Yusei realizes he's cheating and wins anyway, and Clark pays dearly after he tries to kill Yusei and Sherry, something that defies the orders of his masters - [[Ret-Gone| they erase him from existence]], literally.}}
** Another example was Team Catastrophe. Originally three down-on-their-luck losers from Satellite, the Three Emperors of Yliaster gave them two Dark Cards that they thought would help them win the WRGP and catapult them to stardom. However, the first of these two cards was Hook the Hidden Knight, a card that housed the spirit of a demon that let them defeat Team Unicorn by sabotaging their D-Wheels, causing their opponents to crash and injuring them. Team Catastrophe didn't fare as well against Team 5D's; after Crow defeated their first duelist and destroyed Hook the Hidden Knight, their leader Nicholas went up against Jack, {{spoiler| and used the second Dark Card, a far more potent one [[Evil Is Not a Toy| that he could not control.]] Nicholas barely escaped with his life, and in the end, he and his two teammates were bigger losers than they were before.}}
** Then there was Takasu, the sleazy warden of the facility. In his duel with Yusei, he had them both wear [[Shock Collar]]s designed to shock a duelist when he lost Life Points; his was purposely not working. He also used a security camera to look at Yusei's hand during the whole duel; however, this backfired on him badly when another inmate hacked the facility's system to turn his Shock Collar on and then killed the power so that he briefly couldn't use the camera, causing him to make a mistake. In general, the reason for Takasu's downfall was that he abused the inmates so much, they were all more than willing to help Yusei bring him down.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal]]'':
** The first cheaters in this series were Rikuo and Kaio (called Scorch and Chills in the dub) the original holders of Number 61: Volcasaurus and Number 19: Freezadon, respectively. As if cheating via deck stacking wasn't bad enough, they planned to rob a rare card from a museum and frame Shark for it. Fortunately, [[Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain| the two weren't convincing cheaters - or villains - anyway.]]
** Jin (called Fortuno in the dub) used a hidden camera to spy on the cards in Yuma's hand and relay the info to his D-Gazer, giving him an advantage because some of his cards required guessing the cards in the opponent's hand. Cathy figured it out and destroyed the camera, then Yuma was able to beat him.
** Tron and his three sons all cheated in some way, and in each case, they were ultimately beaten.
*** V had an incredibly broken monster on his field that was hidden from view, and didn't let Kaito see it until the last second.
*** III stole Yuma's "Kattobing" and {{spoiler| killed Astral}}, deleting both from Yuma's memories, severely diminishing his dueling skills. {{spoiler|Astral got better.}}
*** IV tricked Shark into peeking in his deck to get him disqualified, and led Shark into a Magma field where his monsters were at a disadvantage.
*** Tron himself used powerful magic to cheat, using his crest's power to eliminate any Trap Cards caught in his way during the Duel Carnival ride. (In his defense, exactly how much this qualifies as cheating is debatable, as Droite was the one who placed most of them deliberately to stop him.)
** Then there was Mr. Heartland, who didn't even try to hide the fact that he blatantly rigged the duels between his henchmen, the Fearsome Five, and the heroes. Heartland used a device that let Semimaru, Kurage and Mosquito Ninja all start their duels by taking half their opponents life points and adding it to theirs, just because he could. On top of that, Kurage and Mosquito Ninja handicap their opponents with poison and hallucinations respectively, while Semimaru simply discards a Battle Royal rule he doesn't like (not that he takes advantage of discarding that rule...) Nonetheless, they all lost, proving that they were poor duelists who couldn't win even when they didn't care if the heroes knew they were cheating.
** While many fans are of the opinion that Yuma and Astral's use of "Shining Draw" is a violation of the rules, they at least limit it duels against villains who cheat worse. The same couldn't be said of [[Light Is Not Good|Eliphas, the angelic, godlike ruler of the Astral World]]. His divine powers and authority over the Astral World let him use the Shining Draw ability any time he wants (the equivalent of magical deck-stacking, turning the ability into blatant cheating), as opposed to Yuma, who can use it at most twice per duel, and only in ZEXAL Mode. Miraculously, Yuma defeated him anyway, even without Astral to help him.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V]]'':
** Zigzagged with seedy Duel Monsters agent Nico Smiley, who seriously rigs the odds of several duels against Yuya, only for Yuya to triumph each time. For instance, in Yuya's duel with the genius, Kyuando Eita, Yuya's last challenge is [[Impossible Task| to prove Fermat's Last Theorem in five seconds]] (required of Yuya for the final Trap Card) would be impossible by any reasonable standard.<ref>There has only been one correct proof of this theorem, by Andrew Wiles and it took him seven years of work on top of untold decades of other mathematicians' work before him who tried and were unable to complete it. Even if Yuya already could have somehow memorized (let alone understood) the entire proof, it requires over 100 pages to write down and a specialist to even read.</ref> (Of course, Yuya won because he had ''wanted'' to answer wrong on that one, but Nico remains a cheater for including it.) Nico does prosper, however, because his intention is to test Yuya, who proves to be even better than he'd hoped.
** A far more malevolent cheater was Jean-Michel Roget, the [[Arc Villain]] of the Synchro Dimension arc. During the Friendship Cup, when he felt Rin's victory over Yugo would benefit more to his overall goal, he used his control over the race track to make sure Rin would find and obtain the Action Cards far more easy. His mistake: Rin is not the type who feels she needs help. Once she figured out what was happening, she stopped even ''trying'' to gain the cards, and while that cost her the duel, it forced Roget to change his plan, and speaking of which...
*** Having learned nothing, he not only tried the same strategy during Yuya's duel with Crow, he planted a brainwashing chip in Yuya's helmet. But instead of truly brainwashing him, it awakened a malevolent spirit in him and ''all three'' of his dimensional counterparts. This spirit {{spoiler| (later revealed to be ZARC, the true [[Big Bad]] of the series)}} was able to take complete control of them, causing Yuya to duel in a way best described [[The Power of Hate| as demonically enhanced rage]], putting himself and Crow in mortal danger. Ironically, this benefited Yuya in the end, as it debunked Crow's earlier suspicion that Yuya was in cahoots with Roget; Crow figured nobody could be loyal enough to Roget to the point of suicidal.
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! SEVENS]]'', [[Arc Villain| Roa]] has a very unique way of cheating, he ''accuses Yuga'' of cheating. After convincing Yuga to tell him the story of how he got his ace monster (during a very public event in the middle of the duel between Yuga and Roa) Seven Roads Magician (he got it from a [[Mysterious Backer]] - Otes - who inspired him to create Rush Dueling) Roa points out that Otes was disqualified from the tournament where Otes gave him the card, the reason being that Sevens Road Magician is an illegal card. At first, this claim becomes impossible to confirm or debunk, as the card is ''incredibly'' rare, and finding another duelist who used it becomes difficult in such a limited time available, meaning Yuga would be disqualified if the card is even drawn, and Roa’s deck is specifically designed to make him draw as fast as possible. However, Roa’s plan fails in the worst possible way - Otes himself appears, confirming that the card is legal and that the true reason he was disqualified was because he was a Gohan employee participating in a Gohan-sponsored tournament. The worst part about this is how petty Roa was being - his motive for this was [[Misplaced Retribution|resentment that Otes hadn't given ''him'' the card.]]
* Taken to a beautiful extreme by ''[[Ninin ga Shinobuden]]'', which has Onsokumaru attempting to cheat at baseball by causing the ball to multiply itself. It backfires in a spectacular fashion when Miyabi summons a bunch of floating hands to catch every ball, getting Onsokumaru out [[108]] times, winning the next four games by default in the process.
* Inverted by ''[[Naruto]]'' and the first portion of the Chuunin Exam. The first portion is a written test far too difficult for the level of the examinees, who are expelled with their teammates if caught cheating too many times. These details are clues to the true nature of the test: The examinees are ''supposed'' to cheat, but not actually get caught, as what's actually being tested is the ninjas' ability to gain information.
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== Literature ==
* In ''[[
* Icarus, a chariot driver in ''[[Detectives in Togas]]''. He manages to push his opponent Ben Gor from his chariot - but the horses keep running well without their driver, and without his weight, they're much faster.
* Waver Velvet is the only Master in ''[[Fate/Zero]]'' who doesn't cheat at some point through the Fourth Holy Grail War. {{spoiler|He doesn't win, but he makes it through the war alive, and is the only one of the surviving Masters who is better off at the end of the war than he was at the start.}}
== [[Live
* Subverted by ''[[Married... with Children]]'' when Al Bundy uses a mistakenly issued senior citizens discount card to get in, and eventually win, the senior olympics, beating out an honest competitor who had refused to do the very thing Al was doing in the process. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] at episode's end with the narration "I bet you thought Al was going to let the old guy win. Well then you haven't been paying attention these past years."
** With Al himself giving the [[Broken Aesop]] [[Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught|"It's only cheating, if you get caught."]]
* ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'': The fifth-season episode "Quarterback Sneak" deals with the ethics of cheating and thwarting cheaters. Here, Greg, quarterback of the Westdale High football team, suspects that Marcia's new boyfriend, Jerry Rogers (the quarterback from rival Fairview High), is out to steal his team's playbook as his team is struggling to find a way to beat Westdale at the latter's homecoming. After a failed attempt to swipe the playbook during his first visit to the Bradys, Jerry invites himself over again and succeeds in the theft. Greg—instead of reporting to his coach the first theft attempt (especially since Bobby had seen Jerry try to steal the playbook, and thus would have been a reliable witness) -- had prepared by creating a phony playbook. The boys laugh about how they've "put one over Jerry," but Mike overhears the boys' revelry and brings them down to earth by saying what he's done was just as dishonest and was unfair to the Fairview players and coaches who were playing by the rules. Eventually, the Fairview High coach finds out about Jerry's theft and kicks him off the team; it is not known what, if anything, happens to Greg ... although he is able to lead Westdale to a 20-7 victory.
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*** Even more ironically, Dick Dastardly almost won a race through legitimate means but stopped short of the finish line just to pose for the photo finish.
* Also every episode of ''Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics''. The Rottens cheated in absolutely every event, and almost always came in last. However, this is one of the few shows in which while the results were subsequently discounted due to the team's cheating, several of their tricks during were accepted as not actually being against the rules, and indeed were able to come in first place at the end of the episode, albeit very rarely.
** There's one 'pity win' episode were the Rottens get away with every single trick they pull.
** There was also one episode that ended in a three-way tie, occuring because the Rottens got bonus points when their ill-concieved attempt to use a rocket during a race (they went ''over'' the finish line, but the rules state going ''through'' it is required) resulted in them breaking a world record. Interestingly, they seemed okay with ''that'' result.
** Other characters occasionally get called on doing questionable things, but they tend to be less outright cheating and more trying to bend the rules and failing.
* Spike the bulldog in several [[Droopy Dog]] cartoons. Whenever the two are on a competition, he tries to sabotage Droopy, but as Droopy is [[Born Lucky]], they end up backfiring on Spike, or even actually ''helping'' Droopy win. One cartoon has Spike tricking Droop into signing a document stating that he cheated, thus disqualifying him and making Spike the winner. But Spike got his in the end: the prize was a kiss from the Queen of Sports - who was [[Abhorrent Admirer|hideously ugly]].
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* The bullies at the end of ''[[Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown]]'' use some really nasty tricks (even life-threatening to the Peanuts gang), but at the end can't reach the finish line due to their raft sinking.
* Mertle from ''[[Lilo & Stitch: The Series]]'' does this constantly through every contest she and Lilo are in and actually manages to get away with it in some cases. In a dog show contest, she sabotaged Stitch's water by placing caffeine in it (if you saw the movie you know what it does to Stitch) and ended up winning the contest. But conceded the trophy because the duo helped rescue her dog (actually an experiment) from Gantu. Another case was that she used an experiment against Lilo (not that Lilo didn't use it first) and once again won, but she overbinged on the prize (a supply of sno cones) making it a case of [[Was It Really Worth It?|Not Worth It]]. The trope is play straight during a quiz contest between their two families, Mertle uses one of her friend to feed her the answers through a earpiece. Lilo finds out halfway though the contest and uses the a experiment at the time to incapacitate Mertle's helper. Come next round Mertle's on her own and promptly loses.
* In an episode of ''[[South Park]]'', Cartman pretends to be mentally handicapped in order to enter the Special Olympics. Unfortunately for him, he's not actually athletic and comes in dead last. Zigzagged a little, as he ''is'' pretty happy when he gets a $50 gift certificate as a "spirit award".
** In the same episode, Jimmy uses steroids to win, and then because of what Cartman does he gives up his medal (given to him by a group of steroid-abusing athletes). He then gives a [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] about why people who use steroids are terrible people, while Barry Bonds grins in the background.
* In the Tom Slick short in ''[[George of the Jungle]]'', every of Tom's lead opponent (mostly Baron Otto Matic) cheat in every way to win the race and always fail.
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Truth in Television|How 'bout them Patriots?]]{{context}}
* While we're talking football, how about The Denver Broncos, the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers cap avoidance?
** Don't forget the SEC in College Football. There's a reason why they're known as the "Surely Everyone's Cheating" conference, aka SEC. Every single program in the SEC has been on NCAA probation for cheating, and yet have won the last 3 1A FBS National Championships. Hell, you can include the other BCS conferences in this category.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Stock Aesops]]
[[Category:Sports Story Tropes]]
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[[Category:Dishonor Tropes]]
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