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Curiosity Killed the Cast: Difference between revisions

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Curiosity Killed the Cast (view source)

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'''Kat:''' You know what this means?<br />
'''Antimony:''' We must see where it leads!<br />
'''Kat:''' Damn straight!|''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]''}}
 
Just like Pandora should have known better than to open her box, characters in fiction should know better than to ask questions, explore [[Haunted Castle|Haunted Castles]], read aloud from the [[Tome of Eldritch Lore]], or be [[Curiosity Is a Crapshoot|curious on general principle]]. It inevitably starts the plot, which of course starts things moving and gets people dying.
 
If these characters are in a horror flick, anyone showing the ''slightest bit'' of curiosity in [[Slasher Movies]] [[Sorting Algorithm of Mortality|will die.]] Or release the [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can]]. Or get their [[Genre Savvy]] friend killed as he complains that they shouldn't be there. Or gets them [[I Have You Now, My Pretty|captured]]. Etc. etc.
 
Outside of the slasher horror genre, the death rate of this trope drops considerably, even if it still stirs up a hornet's nest of trouble. Since curiosity is often the driving force that starts a plot, it can be used to get heroes into and out of several precarious situations. For example, considering the tone of her [[Web Comic]] is goofy and mysterious, odds are Kat and Antimony aren't going to be dead at the end of that particular story... though you can bet your second shadow something interesting will happen!
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Sometimes, it pays to be [[Apathy Killed the Cat|apathetic]].
 
A subtrope of [[Tempting Fate]]. Compare [[Forbidden Fruit]], [[Death Byby Sex]], [[Too Dumb to Live]]. In games, can be the cause of [[Total Party Kill]]. Often the result of falling for [[Schmuck Bait]]. See also [[Curiosity Causes Conversion]].
 
{{deathtrope}}
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{{examples}}
== Anime ==
* Spoofed in ''[[DragonballDragon Ball]]'' when Emperor Pilaf lures the cast into a trap by simply painting arrows on the floor leading to it, and ends up entirely amazed when it actually ''works''. ("I had no idea that heroes could be so ''[[Idiot Hero|stupid]]''. Must be one of those mail-order types.")
* The first arc of ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro Nini]]'' manages to both subvert this and play it straight at the same time. Throughout the arc, you are led to believe that Rena and Mion are targetting Keiichi because he's asking questions about the curse of Oyashiro-sama. As you might imagine, that's subverted, but the truth was that Rena and Mion had nothing to do with the murders, but Keiichi's panic about it fueled his paranoia about it until he kills not only them, but himself too, making this one played straight as well.
** But subverted in Nekogoroshi-hen, the aptly-named "Cat-Killing Chapter". Interesting mystery, possible explanations, slight indication that it ties back to the main plot... but everyone decides it's not worth getting involved in.
* In the episode of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' involving the retrovirus ''Monkey Business'', the protagonists stumble across a box containing a receptacle of the virus and are told not to open it. Faye is intrigued and opens it anyway, and Spike's use of brute force and firearms to separate the receptacle from its container -- evidently based solely on curiosity - causes their hostage (who knows what is inside) much nervousness.
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== Film ==
* ''[[Hocus Pocus]]'': A non-lethal example. When snooping in a house where witches used to live, and informed that a virgin lighting the candle will return them to life, the clueless teen protagonist does just that, incidentally subverting [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]].
{{quote| '''[[The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)|The Nostalgia Chick]]''': "Fucking virgins, man! Why do we even have them, anyway?"}}
* Shane Acker's ''[[9 (Animation)|9]]'' is made of this trope. In the feature film version, it's because of 9's combination of being both very naive and very curious that over half the cast of the movie is killed before it's all over. Admittedly, 1's death was heroic suicide, but it was 9's curiosity that lead him to jam the talisman in the machine and wake it up in the first place.
* ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy]]'' (Stephen Sommers version): "You must not read from the book!" Too late...
** Lampshaded with the very not [[Genre Savvy]] line: "No harm ever came from reading a book."
*** Referred back to in the second movie with: "No harm ever came from opening a chest." [[Genre Savvy|"Yeah, 'no harm ever came from reading a book', remember that one?"]]
* ''[[Alone in Thethe Dark (Film2005 film)|Alone in The Dark]]'', the movie, has the cast about to open up a door to some other world or whatever. They decide not to as the last people that opened the door where wiped from the face of the earth but not without some questioning. The villain turns up, and for reasons completely unknown, opens up the door. Sure enough, they ''really'' shouldn't have opened the door.
* The characters in the ''[[Evil Dead]]'' films could have saved themselves a lot of trouble by just leaving that tape recorder alone.
** Likewise, Professor Knowby himself would've had a relaxing, uneventful weekend if, while working on his translations, he hadn't felt the need to recite a demon resurrection spell ''out loud''.
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* The Umbrella Corporation people at the beginning of ''[[Resident Evil]]: Apocalypse''. The crack team of commandos they sent into The Hive never came back, and one of the two survivors who ''did'' barely make it out alive was infected with the T-Virus. What's the smartest move? Re-open the facility and send a second ''even less well-equipped'' team in [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?|to investigate]]!
* Arguably the leading cause of death in [[Slasher Movies]].
* The first victim in ''[[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Film)|The Texas Chainsaw Massacre]]'' walks, unprovoked, ''directly into Leatherface's kitchen''. Each successive victim heads in looking for the others. Easiest massacre ever!
* [[The Nightmare Before Christmas|Curiosity killed the cat, you know!]]
{{quote| '''Jack''': I know...}}
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* In ''[[Narnia|The Magician's Nephew]]'', a young man cannot resist the temptation to ring a bell which is marked with a warning (and [[Schmuck Bait|tantalizing]]) poem. It turns out that this bell awakens the witch Jadis, who later becomes the first evil force in Narnia. In his defense, the poem concludes by saying, in effect, "If you ''don't'' ring the bell, you'll ''never'' know what would've happened. [[Nothing Is Scarier|You'll always wonder what would've happened, and it might drive you insane]]".
** Although when confronting Aslan about that, he eventually admits that it was merely his curiosity, an not the influence of the poem, to bring him to ring it.
* Pretty much the moral of half of [[HPH.P. Lovecraft]]'s stories. The roleplayer jokes are that the only worthy treasure in a Lovecraft game are untranslatable crusty old books that permanently removes your character from play if you accidentally look at the pictures; reading any of it aloud may doom the reader, the group, humanity, the universe, all universes, or all that and beyond; that there are entire hierarchies of threats beyond that who will wipe out the merely-universe-killing threats without even noticing them, only to do the ultimate everybody dies (as soon as the stars are right). While the players have 1920's guns and would probably all die if they were against a single baby shoggoth, with the survivors going permanently insane.
* Slight subversion in [[Tamora Pierce]]'s book ''[[Tortall Universe|Trickster's Choice]]''. The main character is warned about the dangers of curiosity with this phrase. In response, she tells the other character 'and satisfaction brought it back,' with a short complaint that no one seems to ever remember the second part of the saying.
* In ''[[The War of the Worlds]]'', [[The Professor|Ogilvy]], [[We Hardly Knew Ye|Stent]], and [[Red Shirt Reporter|Henderson]] were all minor characters who were interested in the Martians and tried to talk to them. Needless to say, their plan [[Death Ray|didn't]] [[Violence Is the Only Option|work out]] [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life|very well]].
 
== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[The Wizard of Oz (Filmfilm)|The Wizard of Oz]]'' remake ''[[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]]'' has the young D.G. set off the film's events; she insists on following a singing voice into a dark cave with ominous writing about evil darkness, a creepy, exploding rock face, and then on going in deeper to help a "little girl" crying for help. Her older sister Azkadelia rightly guesses the little girl wasn't what she seemed, and was in fact a (or perhaps "THE") Wicked Witch who was [[Sealed Evil in Aa Can|trapped there]]. She gets [[Sharing a Body|possessed]] for her foresight, and gets (rightly) more than a little peeved at her younger sister, setting her on a wicked rampage.
 
 
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== Web Comics ==
 
* ''[[Freefall (Webcomic)|Freefall]]'': A robot reads a [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1900/fc01807.png note] about an aggressive neural pruning program and instead of steering clear he looks it up. The program starts downloading into his head when he goes looking for it, threatening him with a mind wipe.
* ''[[Cyanide and Happiness]]'' gives us an example of this, both literally and figuratively in [http://explosm.net/comics/2043/ this strip].
 
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* ''[[Marble Hornets]]'': A few years ago, a guy named Alex Kralie was shooting a student film of the same name. As he was filming, he started to notice a [[The Slender Man Mythos|really tall guy in a suit]] occasionally lurking in the distance. {{spoiler|As of now, Alex is on the run after a failed attempt to rebuild his life, his friend Tim has gone insane and started stalking people while wearing a mask, and we have no idea what happened to anyone besides Jay and Tim.}}
* ''[[Ben Drowned (Web Video)|Ben Drowned]]'': If only Jadusable's curiosity hadn't prompted him to accept the shady game cartridge from the old man, or posted anything to the internet, then the [[The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You|reader's]] curiousity wouldn't have led them to open "The Truth.rtf", thus releasing Ben to the whole of the internet, and things might have gone a bit better for everyone involved.
* The protagonists of [[Sevenshot Kid]] both refuse to let go of the mysteries they encounter even though they know how dangerous it is getting.
* Shows up in the [[Fan Film]] of ''[[Left 4 Dead]]''. It's a particularly facepalm-worthy moment as the character in question is an [[Action Survivor]] with experience shooting the infected and has a very conspicuous assault rifle. Which she puts down before [[Let's Split Up, Gang!|going upstairs]] and being lured in by the [[Hell Is That Noise|curious noise]].
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* ''[[Ao Oni]]'' : a game created by RPG maker. Group of teenagers decide to explore a old abandoned house, and ends up being chased by big purple monster. Most of the versions, only the protagonist survives. (there are versions that gives the player option to save friends)
** There's also the surprise end near the start; the first time the player passes the bathroom, a shadow is shown moving behind the fogged glass door (which happens to be locked). Guess what happens if you continually try to open it?
* ''[[CryofCry of Fear]]'' has a pedophile who wrote a short poem about three children. Two of them went home, but the third one stayed, and was tricked into going close up to a bush. The final line concludes that, indeed, Curiosity killed the cat.
 
 
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