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{{trope}}
[[File:rsz forbidden fruit by lolita art 3326.jpg|frame|[http://lolita-art.deviantart.com/art/forbidden-fruit-36390123 Image] courtesy of Daniela Uhlig.
{{quote|''If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.''
There are two closed doors right next to each other, identical in every way except one: One has a large KEEP OUT sign on it in bold, red letters. [[Schmuck Bait|Which door is someone more likely to try to open]]? It's not rocket science.
'''Forbidden Fruit''' is a person, place, or thing absolutely irresistible to one or more characters, whose appeal lies solely in the fact it has been [[Department of Redundancy Department|forbidden, prohibited, and declared unquestionably off limits]]. They feel they must have it only because they know they can't or shouldn't have it. Frequently takes the form of a [[Sealed Evil in a Can|Pandora's Box]] you are not to open, a [[Big Red Button]] you are not to press, an experiment you are not to mess with, a person you are not allowed to be with, or [[Turn Out Like His Father|even hear about]], a potion you are not to taste under any circumstances, or [[Forbidden Zone|a place nobody is supposed to ever visit]].
Can be a result of [[Genre Blindness]], but not usually, since the attraction of '''Forbidden Fruit''' is in and of itself [[Schmuck Bait|contrary to logic]]. More often than not, the characters ''know'' that going for it would be a stupid move; they just can't help themselves. (They are particularly likely [[Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb|to be young]].)
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See also [[Curiosity Killed the Cast]], [[Don't Touch It, You Idiot!]], [[Schmuck Bait]], and [[Wanting Is Better Than Having]]. Prime source of [[Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere]], [[Do Not Do This Cool Thing]] and the [[Streisand Effect]].
For the [[Kerry Greenwood]] novel of the same name, see ''[[Corinna Chapman]]''.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' has a human example, where ultra-popular 'School Queen' Sayoko's interest in Keichii originally stemmed from his complete disinterest in her.
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** Aoshima is implied to lust after Belldandy because of this trope.
* In episode 57 of ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'', Viper the Elder captures Kururu with a trap hidden in a box marked "Don't you dare open this!" As he goes to open the box, Kururu even remarks "That just makes me want to open it even more."
* The sealed door at the Fuuka Shrine in ''[[
* In ''[[Mamotte Shugogetten]]'', one of Shaorin's previous masters was a little girl. When she wanted to go to the town near their house, Shaorin told her absolutely no, because the wolves were near it. Shaorin later goes to town herself, leaving the girl all alone. The instant Shaorin leaves, the little girl leaves as well. This leads to the girl being fatally injured by the wolves and dying in Shaorin's arms.
* Implied in ''[[One Piece]]'' with Boa Hancock. She's declared the "most beautiful woman in the world," and can mesmerize and have pretty much ''any'' man she wants. Guess who she ends up falling for? Luffy, the [[Chaste Hero]] who will [[No Hugging, No Kissing|absolutely never return her feelings]]. It's even implied that she fell for him ''because'' he was "not like the others," with him calling her a "stupid lady" and telling her to shut up.
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==
* Rogue of the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]''. Her mutant powers keep her from touching others or else they will be rendered comatose. Gambit, [[Casanova|relentless and successful womanizer]], finds himself stuck on the notion of a woman that even he can't have. (It helps that, like most of the women in the Marvel universe, she's gorgeous.)
== Fairy Tales ==
* In "[[East of the Sun and West of the Moon]]", the heroine disobeys the bear's warnings not to speak with her mother alone.
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131104130719/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/swanmaiden/stories/lang.html The Nine Pea-Hens and the Golden Apples]", the hero opens the twelfth door his wife had forbidden.
* In "[[Little Red Riding Hood]]", the little girl leaves the path, which her mother had forbidden.
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131027163722/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/firebird/stories/goldbird.html The Golden Bird]", the older sons disobey the fox [[Threshold Guardians|up front]], and after initial obedience, the youngest son disobeys him repeatedly.
* In "[
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130621050640/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/asbjornsenmoe/mastermaid.html The Mastermaid]", a prince working for a giant is forbidden to go through a door. Fortunately, he disobeys and finds the Mastermaid, who tells him how to survive.
* In [[Joseph Jacobs]]'s "[https://web.archive.org/web/20130718151123/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/sevendwarfs/stories/goldtree.html Gold Tree and Silver Tree]", after Gold-Tree is enchanted into her sleep, her husband the prince remarries and forbids his second wife to go into the chamber where her coffin is. The second wife disobeys and revives Gold-Tree.
* In [[The Brothers Grimm (creator)|The Brothers Grimm]]'s "[
* In "[http://www.mythfolklore.net/andrewlang/009.htm The Blue Mountains]" and "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131204111257/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/93raven.html The Raven]", the hero must stay awake to greet the heroine and fails.
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20131214001257/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/3ourladyschild.html Our Lady's Child]", the heroine looks through a forbidden door and is punished until she confesses.
* "[https://web.archive.org/web/20140405134935/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/6faithfuljohn.html Faithful John]" is forbidden by the old king to let the prince see a portrait, but when the prince becomes king, he overrides him.
* In "[https://web.archive.org/web/20170618020621/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/goosegirl/index.html The Goose Girl]", the queen gives the princess a handkerchief with three drops of blood in it and orders her to take great care of it; the princess is careless and loses the handkerchief, which had protected her.
* "[[Tatterhood]]" forbids her family to watch while she fights witches and trolls; when her sister does, her head is turned to a calf's head. Not to mention Tatterhood's existence came about because her mother ate something she was forbidden to.
* Though it is very prevalent in fairy tales—still, there are also a multitude of fairy tales aversions, a small sample of which: "[
* Appears in the "[[Bluebeard]]". A mysterious nobleman leaves his young wife a key to a door which she ''must never open''. Of course, she does open it, and discovers the mutilated corpses of his former wives.
* In the story ''Strega Nona'', a young man named Anthony works for the kindly old titular character. She has a magic kettle that she uses to conjure pasta, and she tells him not to touch it. Naturally, he disobeys her.
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** Then subverted when it turns out that her daughter knew exactly what her mother was doing and why. The two characters in question end up married.
== Live
* The [[Content Warnings|TV content rating system]] introduced in the US in 1996 had the same
** ''[[FoxTrot]]'' lampshaded this in a 1997 strip with Jason flipping through the channels and continuing to change each time he came across something labeled TV-Y, TV-Y7, TV-G, and TV-PG, until he yells, "Is there nothing for a kid to watch when his parents aren't home?" Then he comes across a program rated TV-MA, and says, "Finally."
** Then in 1997, it seems the [[Moral Guardians]] had clearly not learned their lesson and expanded on this mistake when they pushed for even more detailed content warnings. In addition to the rating of the show displayed in the upper corner, they had to have letters indicating the content of the show such as L for language, S for Sexual situations, and V for violence. This only helped kids even further with identifying the shows they wanted to watch.
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* An episode of ''[[Will and Grace]]'' featured Jack finding a mysterious locked room in Karen apartment that even Roasario is afraid to enter. Jack relented after Karen literally wrestled him away, only to fall into the room on accident. {{spoiler|The room is a nursery that Karen set up after a pregnancy scare; the fact that she kept it at all is a major [[Pet the Dog]] moment.}}
* ''[[Caitlin's Way]]'': When Caitlin and Griffin are looking for a shortcut home, Caitlin instantly wants to cut through a field with a NO TRESPASSING sign simply because she saw the sign there, calling it "an invitation."
* Symbolically invoked in
* In the ''[[Married... with Children]]'' episode "A Little of the Top" Al was accidentally circumcised and had to abstain from sex for a month. For most of their marriage, Al put great effort into avoiding sex with his wife. But now that it was forbidden, she suddenly became some sort of irresistible sex goddess whose every casual action seemed to turn him on.
* ''[[Lizzie McGuire]]'' The episode "First Kiss" has Lizzie getting her first boyfriend, which her dad isn't too thrilled about, but her mom assures him that the number one way to make a boy even more appealing to a girl is to tell her she can't see him.
* ''[[Underbelly]]'' faced this problem on it's release, as the court cases for Victor Brincatt and Thomas Hentshel (the people behind the murder of Jason Moran at his kid's Auskick clinic) and other cases in the Melbourne Gangland War were proceeding at the time. Out of fear that the jury would be influence by the show it was banned in Victoria, with one notable exception being episode five. Freak weather conditions in Tasmania bounced the signal to Victoria, allowing people in the state to get their first glimpse of the show.
== Music ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* 4e D&D's H1 module, ''Keep on the Shadowfell'', has a door with a sign that says "Danger! Stay away!" and then scratched below "REALLY!" Guess how many adventuring parties DON'T go through that door? {{spoiler|Inside is a room that holds a very vicious blue slime monster (that has TPKed many a party attempting said module.)}}
* Pretty much every Tabletop RPG Dungeon Crawl ever. As in:
{{quote|'''Old Guy in Tavern:''' There's an ancient ruin over yonder said to hold a terrible curse. Legend says that there are creatures in there that will drive you mad! Nobody who has ventured in has ever returned alive!
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* In ''[[Paranoia]]'', the Commies initially [[Windmill Political|didn't exist]] - they'd disappeared long before Alpha Complex was built, but The Computer mistook civil defense files from 1957 as being up to date. Then some citizens got so fed up with The Computer that they decided to become the thing It hated most, even knowing nothing else about it.
** And devote themselves to the ideals of [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Groucho Marx and John Lennon]].
* In ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' and ''[[Warhammer
* In a ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' article, Mark Rosewater used this to explain the goblin mentality, with a button and telling people [[Schmuck Bait|do not touch that button!]] {{spoiler|It would scramble the page.}}
* ''[[Everway]]'' supplement "Spherewalker Sourcebook", story "The Serpent of Ice". A magician who lives behind a waterfall tells a tribe of hunters that they can take all of the water they want from below the waterfall, but not to take any from the spring that feeds the waterfall. The chief of the tribe and her son decide to take water from the spring anyway, and the water turns into a serpent that kills the son.
* ''[[Risk]]: Legacy'' is a campaign-oriented version of the classic board game, with a series of envelopes that you're supposed to open over a series of fifteen games; they contain various items that affect the layout of the board, the abilities of the various factions, and other things that change how future games are played. There's one sealed envelope at the bottom of the box that simply reads "DO NOT OPEN. EVER". {{spoiler|The contents of this envelope vary between different copies of the game, and may or may not have far-reaching consequences for your campaign.}}
== Video Games ==
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{{quote|'''Tali''': I mean a young woman gets rescued by [[Knight in Shining Armour|a dashing commander]] who lets her join his crew and then goes off to ''save the galaxy?'' How could she ''not'' develop an interest in him?}}
==
* One panel in webcomic ''[[Casey and Andy]]'' showed an [[Star Wars|Imperial Admiral laughing while putting signs around a door saying "Warning! No Bothans!"]]
* Subverted in ''[[Oglaf]]'', in which the main character is pestered by a magic door to open it. [[Sealed Evil in a Can|It isn't explained what's inside it, why it's sentient, or why the Mistress wants him to open it so darn bad.]]
* ''[[Bob and George]]'': [http://www.bobandgeorge.com/archives/040127c Don't touch anything].
* ''[[Bird Boy]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20110210064527/http://bird-boy.com/volume-1-page-8 gets told he can't hunt and does not listen.]
* In one ''[[Nukees]]'' strip, Gav decides he absolutely ''has'' to see what's on the other side of a door when he notices there are roughly a dozen different warning signs on it.
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [
== Web Original ==
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* ''[[Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]]'', "The Trouble with Scribbles", concerns Bloo and a door marked with, what else? "STAY AWAY. DO NOT ENTER." Mind you, Bloo only becomes attracted to opening it after Mr. Herriman tells him that it contains "deep, dark, mysterious secrets" (emphasis on ''secrets'', as Bloo can't resist knowing them and then letting them out).
* Subverted in ''[[Garfield and Friends|Garfield's Nine Lives]]'' where a girl and cat live in a idyllic garden, with one condition, that a glass case must never be opened. The characters, who don't seem to have a serious thought in their heads, are tempted to violate that rule. However, while the story plays up their temptation to maximum suspense, at the climax, they leave the case alone and stay in the garden forever.
* Subverted in a ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|Simpsons]]'' Halloween episode; when Homer sees the school thermostat with the note "Do not touch -- Willie" on it, he reads it as "Do not touch Willie", regards it as good advice, and promptly turns up the heat.
** A more straightforward example is the Halloween episode where Homer [[Deal with the Devil|sells his soul to the Devil]] for a doughnut, then realizes that the Devil can't have his soul if he doesn't eat the whole thing. So he leaves a piece, marks it "Daddy's Soul Donut. Do Not Eat" and puts it in the fridge. Later, Homer goes for a midnight snack, sees his note and goes "Mmm. Forbidden donut... ''chomp!''"
** There's also the time when Bart is at the Wiggum household and he and Ralph get into the chief's closet which contains all his police gear, including weapons. The chief catches them and admonishes Ralph with "Why are you so fascinated with Daddy's [[Schmuck Bait|Forbidden Closet of Mystery]]?"
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** It was Frederick II of Prussia that did it first, doing the guard stunt in 1744. Parmentier discovered potatoes by being a prisoner of Prussia during the Seven Year War. Parmentier wasn't able to pull off his stunt until 1786.
* The ''Ripley's Believe It Or Not'' museum in Atlantic City, New Jersey has a display piece which is nothing more than a large steamer trunk and a sign which says "Open at your own risk." {{spoiler|The trunk doesn't actually have anything inside that's worth seeing, but lifting the lid activates a hidden mechanism. The person opening the trunk is abruptly hit, via a barely noticeable hole in the floor, with a sharp blast of very cold air. It's an experiment in human curiosity.}}
* The US Department of Energy is currently [https://web.archive.org/web/20130623005734/http://www.arch.ksu.edu/seamon/Brill.htm designing a facility in New Mexico to contain hazardous nuclear waste for 10,000 years.] One of the design challenges is avoiding tempting future treasure-hunters who might mistake the warnings and defenses as proof that something ''valuable'' is stored within.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20120720173327/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth101/wipp.html The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.]
* When the Netherlands decriminalized marijuana teenage use dropped from 11% to 8%. Guess we know who was just trying to be a rebel.
* The "Do Not Eat" packet in beef jerky. You just KNOW it's gotta give you super powers or something...
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* There is a particularly large fountain on the campus of Florida State University that has a sign saying 'Please Keep Out of Fountain'. It had become tradition for students to throw their friends in the fountain on their birthday, right up until the powers that be decided to do away with the 'keep out of the fountain' rule since no one listened anyway. The birthday dunkings stopped, until a student group petitioned the school to make it against the rules again.
== Don't open this folder! ==
* See? Not so easy is it?
** We'll forgive you if you hit "Open/Close All Folders" without looking.
*** You can see what's inside from the edit page; [[Rules Lawyer|technically that's not opening it]].
* It hasn't been a folder since the fork, you know. It ''can't'' be opened.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Romance Novel Plots]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:Forbidden Fruit]]▼
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
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