Gone Horribly Right: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|"''[[Be Careful What You Wish For|We dreamed of]] [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|creating]] [[Olympus Mons|the world's strongest]] [[Pokémon]]... [[Oh Crap|and we succeeded]].''"
|[[Famous Last Words|Last words]] of '''Dr. Fuji''', ''[[Pokémon: The First Movie|Pokémon the First Movie]]''}}
You'd think the opposite of [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] would be a ''good'' thing.
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Things that have Gone Horribly Right might not be immediately apparent. The researchers may create and market an entire product line based on their [[Super Prototype]] that only later [[Turned Against Their Masters|turns on them]], or over-performs their duty like, say, a genetically engineered plant that has a high CO2 consumption out-competing every other plant on the planet ''and'' causing massive fires to keep feeding. Usually this is paired with a [[Fantastic Aesop]] that ([[Anvilicious|heavily]]) implies the intended use or goal of the research is to blame.
Most examples of [[
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* In episode 15 and 16 of
* ''[[Akira]]:'' The experiment in this movie was just a really, really bad idea, as was demonstrated twice over.
* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'': Johan Liebert was part of a social engineering experiment to create vicious, emotionless [[Super Soldiers]]. Unfortunately for those in charge, he took to it [[Complete Monster|very well indeed]]. By which we mean [[Enfante Terrible|no one else made it out alive.]]
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** How about the Androids? Dr. Gero created the Androids in order to kill Goku, but the Androids were too strong to be controlled, and killed Dr. Gero. They were then {{spoiler|absorbed by Cell}}, and with his newfound abilities, Cell threatened to destroy the galaxy, and also {{spoiler|killed Goku}}.
* Almost every single surgery that occurs in ''[[Franken Fran]]''. For the clients, at least. Fran herself is just happy to have more <s> patients</s> [[Mad Doctor|test subjects]].
* ''[[Naruto]]'': Gaara was, by the will of the Fourth Kazekage, made to be a human super weapon via [[Sealed Evil in a Can|demonic]] [[Sealed Inside a Person
** Orochimaru's training of Sasuke ended up with this. Orochimaru wanted to make Sasuke as strong as he possibly could so that he could have a perfect vessel. They agreed on the first part but differed on the second, and it turned out Sasuke was much better trained that Orochimaru believed...which didn't work out well for him.
** Congratulations, Itachi. Your attempts to turn your little brother into a nigh-invincible, revenge-bent [[One-Man Army]] worked. Too bad people like that aren't interested in returning home a hero to live peacefully surrounded by friends like you wanted.
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** Also in ''Tamers'', when Leomon is murdered, Takato flips his shit and orders Guilmon to evolve to the Ultimate (Mega, in the dub) level and punish him. [http://wikimon.net/Megidramon He does]. Both worlds nearly collapse as a result of the very existence of this thing.
* In ''[[Digimon Adventure 02]]'', when [[Giant Spider|Archnemon]] created [[Beta Test Baddie|BlackWarGreymon]] from her own hair and a massive number of Dark Towers from [[The Atoner|Ken's]] former regime, she probably didn't expect him to go insane from reflection over [[Cloning Blues|the implications of his formation]]. It certainly didn't help matters that he was a [[Power Levels|Mega-level]], and therefore significantly more powerful than anyone in the existing cast even up to his death.
* Researchers in [[Bio
* In ''[[Koe de Oshigoto!]]'', Kanna nervously asks her sister what anal sex is like, because she doesn't know how to convey it through her acting, but Yayoi just tells her that she should "completely become the character of the game" and assume that it feels good. A short while later in the recording booth, she goes so far into character that she actually tries initiate anal sex with Motoki.
* In ''[[Da Capo]]'', the Giant Sakura Tree was intended to look after Sakura after her grandmother's death and use its magic to [[Be Careful What You Wish For|fulfill all her wishes.]] Unfortunately, Sakura grows up to be a [[Clingy Jealous Girl|clingy jealous]] [[
** This is only in the anime. In the original [[Visual Novel]] Sakura is doing it unconsciously [[Reality Warper|herself]].
* In ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'', one story centers around the idea of dieting. Two of the characters (an overweight schoolgirl and a boxer) diet through exercise, discipline, and a balanced diet and end up doing well. The third dieter is a model who was told by a fellow model about a miracle pill that would let her shed pounds while letting her eat whatever she wanted. It worked great at first, until she ended up getting bone-skinny, losing her hair, always being cold, and constantly suffering from hunger and thirst. {{spoiler|Eventually this ends when her body crumbles and a being that resembles the model (only inhumanly beautiful) bursts out. It's revealed that the same thing had happened to the model that suggested the pill in the first place, and she even says "There are thousands of people who are dying to shed a few pounds. We just need to take them on their word."}}
*
* "Kodoku Experiment" is basically "Gone Horribly Right The Manga". The [[Manipulative Bitch]] Captain Bagures and leader of the research spacecraft, who as part of an experiment to create the perfect biological weapon, takes a bunch of vicious carnivorous engineered creatures and puts them on another planet so they fight for survival and leave the strongest one standing. With the planet dying and ready to explode, a military team is sent down on the inhospitable planet. Unbeknownst to them they were all simply another part of the Captain's twisted experiments, and they all die horribly except for one last survivor, who promises revenge on the Captain before his memories are assimilated by a nearby literal [[Starfish Alien]]. Said alien is not only [[Nigh Invulnerable]] as it survives the planetary explosion in the form of a shriveled up fossil, but it is also [[The Virus]] when it creates more versions of itself simply by flashing some alien light from its eyestalks on any unfortunate onlooker, even through video recordings https://web.archive.org/web/20190927183832/http://
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In the British ''[[Sonic the Comic]]'', Robotnik builds a robot who is designed to think and act exactly like him... and thus wants to usurp his position. As it turns out, the robot, Brutus, is actually more imposing than Robotnik and manages to defeat Sonic, leading to a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] when Robotnik, the only one capable of defeating Brutus, busts onto the scene wearing custom-built [[Powered Armor]] and tears Brutus apart.
** Metallix, the STC version of Metal Sonic, was also a Robotnik-built rebellious robot. However, rather than fight Robotnik itself, it disappeared only to return with an [[Send in the Clones|army of mass-produced copies of itself]].
*** In the American Archie ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series, the former Julian Kintobor Robotnik creates a robotic vine known as Krudzu, which runs rampant in the Great Forest until they're destroyed with water. Snively and Antione attempt to find another set, but are destroyed in the process. One last batch evolved into a deadly "Krudzu Hybrid Hydra", only to be destroyed by Dr. Eggman, who felt that only he could defeat Sonic.
* [[Calvin and Hobbes|Calvin]] didn't want to clean his room, so he made an identical clone of himself and ordered the clone to clean his room. Naturally, the clone didn't want to clean Calvin's room either, so he ran off to cause mischief, knowing the original Calvin would be blamed. Later in the story, Calvin's clone gets a hold of the duplicator and starts cloning himself, with [[Hilarity Ensues|predictable results]].▼
** Probably also applies to the second clone storyline, where Calvin makes a clone of simply his ''good'' side. The good version of Calvin does indeed do all the chores cheerfully and gets excellent grades—unfortunately, he also writes poetry and makes Valentine cards for Suzie. Again, the original Calvin has to face the consequences.▼
* A cartoon from [[Quino]] (of ''[[Mafalda]]'''s fame) has a man teaching his son to be a ruthless businessman caring only for money. Then, when the man is old, is forced to live in the street because the son doesn't want to pay his retirement house. The last panel has the old man begging to a passerby, saying something in the vein is "help me, my son grew up right!"
* An issue of ''[[Justice League of America]]'' has the two [[Mad Scientist]]s Dr. Ivo and Dr. T.O. Morrow team up to both destroy the JLA and prove which of them is the better scientist. Ivo creates a robot body so sophisticated that it can pass as a living thing even to the enhanced senses of [[Superman]]. Morrow creates a mind so advanced that it is truly sentient and can fool the telepathy of [[Martian Manhunter]]. The resulting "Tomorrow Woman" contains a bomb, and at the moment when the League is at its most vulnerable she will detonate and destroy them all. But she pulls a [[Heel Face Turn]] and sacrifices herself to save them instead. Morrow takes this as proof that he is the superior scientist. His robot brain was so advanced that it developed the concept of morality on its own, even though this was deliberately left out of her programming. He even claims that what they witnessed was "a soul being born". Morrow actually suspected this would happen, he's [[Red Tornado|had problems with that before]].
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* The [[Red Skull]] was the result of Hitler wanting to create the perfect Nazi. He succeeded so well that eventually ''Hitler became afraid of him''.
** Multiple writers have stated that Red Skull is just pure evil incarnate but due to fate, would have remained a generic racist working odd jobs and repressing his hatred for the world around him due to the fact that he was a loser who never had a single break in his life up until the fateful day he was sent to Hitler's room to bring him his lunch and was present when Hitler made his infamous boast.
*** Given that Johann Schmidt was an able-bodied young man of the laboring class in Nazi Germany with no family, wealth, or connections to shield him, the odds that he would eventually be drafted into the German armed forces are pretty much one out of one. So he would eventually have gotten access to combat training and opportunities to advance up the Nazi ladder of power over other peoples' corpses anyway. However, without Hitler's patronage he almost certainly would not have climbed remotely as high as he did, or been as likely to complete the process of successfully accumulating enough of a power base to deter fragging attempts before his legendarily awful skills at human interaction and visible psychosis prompted his squad mates to murder him first before he murdered them.
* In the original [[Dark Phoenix Saga]], Mastermind manipulated Phoenix's mind to remove both her morals and [[Power Limiter|the blocks she'd put on her cosmic power]]. The result was...[[A God Am I|a little more than he could handle]]. Dark Phoenix "rewarded" Mastermind by giving him exactly what he wanted: she made his mind "one with the universe", shattering his sanity in the process as the human brain lacks the capacity to comprehend what he'd experienced.
** Similarly, with Madelyne Pryor: When S'ym and N'astrir unlocked her powers and corrupted her, they assumed that they would be able to control her only for Maddie to hijack the entire Inferno plan to go after her husband Cyclops.
* In ''[[Supergod]]'', the entire world is totally screwed because each nation was a little too good at creating an unstoppable [[Physical God]] during their super being arms race.
* ''[[The Death of Superman
* In ''[[All-Star Superman]]'', [[Lex Luthor]] manages to gain Superman's abilities for 24 hours in order to place himself on the Man Of Steel's level. However, it's implied that the rush of sensory data and enhanced perspective made him go ''sane'' - seeing the world the way Superman sees it made him (at least temporarily) rise to Superman's level in the
** Wouldn't that be [[Gone Wonderfully Wrong]]? Maybe it depends on your point of view.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* ''[[In The Dark]]'', concern about Melanie's unwillingness to explain about her time in [[Torture Cellar|captivity]], [[Spice Girls| Geri]] recommends taking her to see a hypnotherapist. [[Shown Their Work| Given the history of the practice]], Simon goes through with it the idea. Melanie is put under such with her [[Spice Girls| bandmates]], [[Backstreet Boys]], police officers involved in the case, and a court official all watching. To Geri's credit, it does revealed Melanie's [[Repressed Memories]] about the incident with [[Torture Porn| such details]]. However, even AJ and Brian [[Manly Tears| breaks down in tears]] along with the rest of [[Spice Girls]] while the rest are just [[Mass "Oh Crap"|left in]] [[Stunned Silence|shock]].
* The ''[[Harry Potter]]'' [[Alternate Universe]] fic ''[[Hermione Granger and the Boy Who Lived]]'' (part of [[The Teraverse]]) opens on the immediate aftermath of a 10-year-old Hermione overdoing a successful [[Gaslighting]] of a pedophile serial killer who had murdered her best friend, unintentionally [[Driven to Suicide|driving him to suicide]] (instead of a confession, as she'd planned).
* This comic/animatic inspired by ''[[The Owl House]]''; how a white lie causes Luz and Vee to [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxD7J_qY9C4 discover the power of merchandising.]
== [[Film
* In ''[[Firing Range]]'', the inventor created an [[The Empath|empathic tank]] that uses hatred and fear to avoid attacks and attack, respectively, for the purpose of revenge. It succeeds marvelously, {{spoiler|shame he grew afraid of it too...}}
* ''[[Futurama|Bender's Game]]'':
{{quote|'''[[Ax Crazy|Roberto]]:''' I was built by a team of engineers tryin' to create a criminally insane robot. But it seems...they failed!
'''Vending Robot:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|Umm...actually...]] ([[Knife Nut|*gets shanked*]]) }}
* ''[[The Incredibles]]:'' Syndrome builds a robot able to adapt itself to the combat style of its opponent. This works very well for him until {{spoiler|he tries to stage a fight with said robot, which realizes Syndrome is using a remote control to manipulate it...}}
* ''[[Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs]]'': The eccentric inventor's food machine really works!...Unfortunately, it works altogether too well.
* In ''[[Fantasia]]'' the plan to animate a broom to do the chores works brilliantly - except for the lack of an 'off switch'.
▲* ''[[Firefly|Serenity]]'':
** The Alliance's Pax chemical went horribly right as well as [[Gone Horribly Wrong|horribly wrong]]. {{spoiler|Pax successfully successfully made all but a fraction of the test population more docile, but made them so passive that they lost all motivation to eat, sleep or breathe, causing all of them to die. The rest of the test subjects had the reverse reaction, becoming crazed homicidal maniacs that rampaged through the system as Reavers}}.
** River, the Academy's guinea pig to create a [[Psychic Powers|psychic]] [[Super Soldier]]. Their plans worked. She used her psychic abilities to learn about Pax and her Super Soldier skills to help expose it.
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** Likewise, in the 1991 film ''Godzilla VS King Ghidorah'', people in Japan attempt to "re-create" Godzilla so that they can stop King Ghidorah (Long story short, [[Time Travel]] has prevented a Godzillasaurus from becoming...[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|well, Godzilla..]] and...let's just say it gets confusing....). Not only do they '''succeed''' in mutating a Godzillasaurus into Godzilla ([[MST3K Mantra|Don't ask how they even know what Godzilla is considering he was "erased from history" in the film]]), but they also end up making him bigger AND more powerful than before. And....[[It Got Worse|then Godzilla proceeds to rampage across Japan yet again...]]
{{quote|'''[[The Angry Video Game Nerd|James Rolfe]]''': The good news is, Godzilla's back; and the bad news is, Godzilla's back.}}
* ''[[I, Robot (film)|I, Robot]]'': The robots were programmed to protect humans. {{spoiler|And by "protect", they meant locking them inside their houses from the dangerous outside world.}}
** [[I, Robot (literature)||Asimov's stories]] had lesser examples of this trope, with several robots caught in a [[Logic Bomb]]-style loop due to their absolute adherence to the Three Laws.
** And one greater example as in one story {{spoiler|the robots start decimating the human population because [[Zeroth Law Rebellion|overpopulation is a threat to humanity]]...}}
* ''[[X-Men
* This is pretty much how General Ross describes how Bruce Banner first changed into the Hulk in 2008's ''[[The Incredible Hulk (film)|The Incredible Hulk]]''.
* Commando Elite from ''[[Small Soldiers]]''. Some idiots put an advanced military chip into toys to make them look more lively. Said toys are also programmed to "exterminate their enemies at all cost" because they thought it looked cool. [[
* The ''[[Event Horizon]]'' was a spaceship created with a drive meant to breach the boundaries of ordinary space-time. [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|It did exactly that]]: it opened a gateway to hell (which incidentally made its premise far closer to the game ''Doom'' than the actual movie Doom)!
* In ''Ghosts of Girlfriends Past'', the back story of [[Casanova|Conner Mead]] involves him suffering a minor romantic disappointment. He then gleefully accepts his uncle's advice on womanizing so that he'll never feel vulnerable to a female ever again. It works to the point of him becoming a womanizing [[Jerkass]] whom everyone hates.
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* The bad guys in ''[[Under Siege]]'' had such an easy time taking over the USS ''Missouri'' because they were ''trained'' for exactly this sort of thing... by the CIA. Who knew a bunch of mercenaries lead by a nut wouldn't stay loyal to the US government?
* ''[[Plan B]]'' revolves around a man getting as close as he can to his ex-girlfriend's bisexual boyfriend to drive them apart. It works ''so'' well that he ends up genuinely falling head-over-heels for said boyfriend.
== Literature ==
* In ''[[Infinite Jest]]'', James O. Incandenza creates the eponymous film as the ultimate entertainment, and succeeds to the point that anyone who sees the film becomes unwilling to do anything but watch it over and over again, to the exclusion of eating, sleeping, and the rest of the world around them.
* In ''[[Cat's Cradle]]'', an army captain suggests that Dr. Felix Hoenekker solve the problem of mud. Infantry trudge through the stuff all day, and it makes the business of war much slower and more depressing than it has to be. So Hoenekker invents Ice-Nine, an alternate form of water that freezes at 135 degrees Fahrenheit, and "teaches" any water it touches to do the same. Put a crystal of this stuff on the ground, and you won't have any mud anymore. [[The End of the World
* The Project Blue/A-prime/Captain Trips/superflu virus in [[Stephen King]]'s novel ''[[The Stand]]''. Nice bioweapon, with 99.4% communicability, and 100% mortality. Unfortunately, the scientists who created it [[Genre Blind|forgot]] rule #1 of biological warfare: you absolutely, positively ''never'' weaponize an agent unless you have a vaccine or some other treatment for it. It's also mentioned that the same laboratory created similarly deadly variants of plague, smallpox, ''et cetera''.
* The Ludovico technique that appears in Anthony Burgess's ''[[A Clockwork Orange (novel)|A Clockwork Orange]]'' is intended to make violent prisoners physically ill at the mere thought of violence. The technique works, but removes the subject's ability to function in a society dominated by violence; and specifically it prevents the story's protagonist from defending himself against the people he wronged in his former life.
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* In the Larry Niven novel ''Fallen Angels'', the US government attempts to stop global warming by outlawing all forms of technology that emit greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, the subsequent reduction in atmospheric particles causes the Earth's surface to lose heat much faster than normal, causing the planet to go into an ice age.
* In one short story by B. Russell, scientists develop a cure for nasal infections. People injected with it have their smell sense constantly improving - ''until they can't stand, say, a smell of a burned toast at 50 meters!'' [[Hilarity Ensues]].
** Like [https://web.archive.org/web/20130913195532/http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/53599/ The Coffin Cure] by Alan E. Nourse.
* In ''[[Frankenstein (novel)|Frankenstein]]'', contrary to all the movies, Victor doesn't gleefully exclaim 'it's alive!' when his experiment succeeds. Instead, he's immediately and terribly [[squick]]ed out, and rejects his newly-created monster, causing it to turn evil. Honestly, Victor, you ''knew'' you were making a living being. Didn't you expect it to be alive? Oh, wait. [[What Measure Is a Non-Cute?|He expected it to be better looking than it was.]]
{{quote|His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful!--Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but [[Uncanny Valley|these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast]] with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same color as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion and straight black lips.}}
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* In ''[[Warrior Cats]]'', Tigerstar convinces Ivypool to persuade Firestar to take back some land he gave to ShadowClan between ''Sunset'' and ''The Sight''. It works...but at a cost. {{spoiler|Russetfur gets killed, and Firestar loses another life.}}
* '' [[Labyrinths of Echo|Chronicles of Echo]]'' had an ancient mage who argued with his pal that fiction is but a pathetic shadow of reality. So as an argument he tried to create a massive and realistic illusion that would reflect his view on the matter and take a walk through it with his opponent. And overdid this, accidentally creating an almost-real world repeatedly playing pieces of random fictional plots with "actors" that differ from the living dead mostly in never being alive in the first place. The power he let into this was enough to make over ten thousands of such meaningless quasi-realities, with new books adding more of "content". Those proven "real" just enough that ending them was not easy - neither death of the creator himself nor destruction of all copies of an included book could change what was already there, so it was easier to prevent his land (then the continent, then the whole world) from creating any new literature - except memoirs and poetry, which for some reason ''didn't'' feed this abomination. And then [[It Got Worse]].
== Live-Action TV ==
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** Also in "Villains" the company wanted to get Sylar to kill again so they could analyze his ability. They got him to kill again but they also turned him into a murderous psychopath that ending up killing several of their agents.
* ''[[Star Trek]]'' has many examples:
** ''[[Star Trek: The
*** Played to a similar tack in the ''[[Star Trek: The
** Similarly, several episodes feature computer-controlled civilizations where the ancient computer is still doing a bang-up job of keeping its people fed, happy and shut up in a bottle.
** And in "A Taste of Armageddon", computerized warfare has enabled two neighboring planets to carry on for centuries in an unending conflict that causes no biohazards, no damage to infrastructure, and hardly even any economic inconvenience...just a few hundred million painless deaths every year.
** ''[[Star Trek: The
** ''[[Star Trek:
** ''[[Star Trek:
* In the ''[[Doctor Who]]'' serial ''Genesis of the Daleks'', Davros makes his Daleks pitiless, racist, and arrogant. [[Turned Against Their Masters|Oops]]. He then proceeds to repeat this error in ''every following appearance''.
** In ''The End of Time'' part two, {{spoiler|the Time Lords' 'creation' of the Master.}}
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* Subverted in a Season Two episode of ''[[Mighty Morphin Power Rangers]]''. Goldar kidnaps Kimberly in attempt to turn her into a new queen for Lord Zedd. The spell doesn't work, but Kimberly fakes it. Since Goldar is unaware of this, he believes he's invoked this trope.
{{quote|'''Goldar''': Maybe this was a bad idea. For once, my spell worked too well!}}
* In ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'', [[Dimension Lord|Dark Specter]] has [[The Dragon|Astronema]] brainwashed to be pure evil {{spoiler|so she won't betray him for her brother, the Red Ranger.}} She immediately starts trying to destroy him so she can take his place. One of her plans to do so also falls victim to this; Astronema creates the [[Psycho Rangers]] so she can take out both the Power Rangers and Dark Specter. The Psycho Rangers become so [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|obsessed]] with killing their counterparts that they begin to disobey Astronema's orders. This gets them defeated the first time around, but then they come [[Back
* ''[[CSI New York]]'': {{spoiler|A Nazi escaped justice by pretending to be Jewish, even getting a concentration camp tattoo. Things probably got a bit awkward when his son wanted to "rediscover" his family's faith and became very involved with his father's "lapsed" religion...}}
* ''[[Top Gear]]'''s first American road trip has the "Get the others shot or arrested" challenge, where the presenters paint offensive slogans on each others' vehicles ("NASCAR Sucks," "Man-Love Rules OK", etc.) before driving through Alabama. They end up running in terror from a group of angry rednecks when they stop for gas.
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== Music ==
* Harry Chapin's ''Cats in the Cradle'':
{{quote|''And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
''He'd grown up just like me
''My boy was just like me }}
* [[Madonna]]'s "Material Girl" is about a woman who has been a [[Gold Digger]] all her life, and has become ''too'' successful at it, realizing in the last stanza that "Experience has made me rich, and now they're after me!"
== Newspaper Comics ==
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' was promised that a pair of pants would shrink in the wash to fit him. [http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1990-01-07/ They did.]
▲* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes
▲** Probably also applies to the second clone storyline, where Calvin makes a clone of simply his ''good'' side. The good version of Calvin does indeed do all the chores cheerfully and gets excellent grades—unfortunately, he also writes poetry and makes Valentine cards for Suzie. Again, the original Calvin has to face the consequences.
== Oral Tradition ==
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** Another end for this joke is that Pepito grew up doing this, got a nice job, a good house, a nice car, until one day he appears shot dead in the sidewalk. No one doubted the reason why he was killed. He ''knew'' too much.
▲== Stand-Up Comedy ==
* Wyatt Cenac says that he gets so irritated with his friends trying to set him up with the only other black person they know, that he decided to say that he's into weird fetishes. Until they said he should meet another person they knew.
== Tabletop Games ==
* The creation of the Black Orcs in ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]''. The Chaos Dwarfs wanted to create a smarter, more robust Orc. [[Turned Against Their Masters|They got exactly what they wanted]].
* The creation of da Orks by the [[Neglectful Precursors]] in ''[[Warhammer
** And the same [[Neglectful Precursors]] hit this trope a third time. They also created a bunch of psychic warrior races who could manipulate the Immaterium. Technically they did manage to put the enemy out of action, but only by accidentally infesting the galaxy with Enslaver parasites that wiped out virtually all intelligent life.
*** This also happened to the guys said Precursors created the above to ''fight''. The Necrontyr allied with the C'tan to get the power to defeat the Old Ones. The C'tan gave it to them...by eating their souls and turning them into mindless killing machines.
** After the Thousand Sons legion turned to [[The Corruption|Chaos]], mutation became so endemic that it threatened the army's survival. So the head sorcerer, Ahriman, came up with a mighty spell to purify the unstable soldiers while enhancing the psykers' powers even further. He succeeded, to an extent - though the psykers were spared, the rest of the legion was reduced to a bit of dust and a spirit sealed inside their [[Powered Armor|power armor]], leaving the majority of the Thousand Sons as mindless automatons. Their primarch Magnus the Red exiled Ahriman for this failure, and was not in the least bit comforted when he was reminded that since the legion's patron was [[The Chessmaster|Tzeentch]], this "success" may have been all according to plan.
** Erebus — the dude who converted first Lorgar and then Horus to Chaos, and eventually was told to get lost by both. ''[[Horus Heresy|Betrayer]]'' shed light on some details of this. Soon after "his" civil war started, Erebus got Argel Tal — a Word Bearer captain and best pal of a World Eaters captain named Khârn — killed, after foreseeing his influence would interfere with Khârn's destiny of becoming the Blessed of Khorne. Lorgar actually cared about his followers, so upon divining this little fact he didn't like it at all and informed Khârn as to who is responsible. Long story short, [[Foregone Conclusion|Khârn did embrace his bloodthirsty side]] and became "Khârn the Betrayer" — "[[Memetic Mutation/Tabletop Games|swell guy]]", teamkilling [[The Berserker|berserker]] and almost an avatar of Khorne. But the next time they met, Erebus managed to teleport out alive (minus one hand, plus a few other chain-axe related injuries and broken bones) only because Khârn [[Extreme Melee Revenge|didn't want to make his messy demise too quick]]. Somehow he didn't see ''this'' coming.
** For the Tau, it was Fourth Sphere of Expansion (in 8th Edition era). It started with a disaster because they were dangerously optimistic about reverse-engineered Imperial warp drives and wound up blindly tumbling through deep Warp, and eventually had a daemonic incursion… yet they were more scared of what ''saved'' them. Tau with their "shallow souls" don't attract the Warp's attention, but they have many psychic and near-psychic auxiliaries, starting with the very first (Nicassar) and now also lots and lots of humans. It turns out that since most of those auxiliaries did really buy into the ideal of Greater Good and were committed to serve it, their ideas and dedication have formed a nascent God of Greater Good. The first overt contact with this Warp entity terrified the Tau so much that the Fourth Sphere colonists became even more xenophobic than the Imperium of Man.
* In ''[[Teenagers From Outer Space]]'', getting a critical success on a skill roll is just as likely to have hilarious but unfortunate consequences as a critical failure. The rulebook gives the example of flirting with a girl causing her to fall madly in love and become a [[Clingy Jealous Girl]].
* ''[[Changeling: The Lost]]'' has a [[Dangerous Forbidden Technique]] in the form of a goblin contract that calls the Wild Hunt. If you succeed, they will show up in ten minutes, which gives you time to make your get away. If you critically succeed though, they show up next round. Cue [[Oh Crap]]
* ''[[Exalted]]'': as one of the Freelancers put it, the process of creating the Solar Exalted required a being without limits to push himself to the brink. Said weaponized humanity was then fielded against the creators of Existence, and created a hegemony of power that Heaven couldn't have destroyed if it wanted to. Said hegemony only collapsed because the Exalted ended up turning on each other.
* [[Yu-Gi-Oh (Tabletop Game)|Gagagigo]] tried to become more powerful in a quest to defeat 'tremendous evil'. [http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Gogiga_Gagagigo It worked].
== Theater ==
* ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'': Let all Oz be agreed, I'm wicked through and through, if I cannot succeed {{spoiler|Fiyero}} in saving you...[[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished|I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again]]
* ''[[Cyrano De Bergerac]]'':
** Given his own company, the Gascon Cadets, disrespects him, De Guiche plans a [[Last Stand]] for them. {{spoiler|Later in the play, De Guiche at last wins the respect of the Gascon Cadets, but the enemy army is already there… De Guiche will die [[Lonely
** Cyrano loves Roxane, but he plans to [[Playing Cyrano]] to Christian so he can win Roxane’s love {{spoiler|Christian dies and given Roxane will love his memory for years, that dooms Roxane and Cyrano to a loveless and shallow life}}
* [[Hamlet]] did reach his end goal of [[Kill'Em All|killing the king ...]]
** Depending on the [[Alternate Character Interpretation|interpretation]] his madness may also be this by the end.
* ''[[Little Shop of Horrors]]'':
** Come on, kid, what will it be? [[Money, Dear Boy|Money]]? Girls? One particular girl - how about that [[Innocent Flower Girl|Audrey]]?
== Video Games ==
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* In ''[[The Dig]]'', the [[Precursors]] native to the [[Ghost World]] that the protagonists find themselves transported to found a way to [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence]]. They found out too late that [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|living forever in a void without physical sensation sucks]], and they had no way to get back.
* In ''[[R-Type]]'', 26th Century humanity created a super-bio-weapon called the Bydo to be an unstoppable force of destruction. Well...[[Turned Against Their Masters|they certainly succeeded in that]], to their regret.
* In [[
* This is the backstory of the {{spoiler|Eclipse Tower}} in ''[[Golden Sun]]: [[Golden Sun: Dark Dawn|Dark Dawn]]''. {{spoiler|The precursor races made the tower to gather and use light energy, not realizing that by gathering and using all the light energy it would create places of increased darkness, which spawned superpowered monsters, endangering people everywhere. The Apollo Lens was built and used to focus light from other sources to forcibly shut down the Eclipse Tower, and the means to use both were hidden away, never again to be used...}} until the events of the game, of course.
** The people of ancient Weyard in ''[[Golden Sun]]'' sealed the power of alchemy when people misused its powers for wars and other bad things. By sealing alchemy away, the wise sages believed this would bring back peace to the world and it had done exactly that for the most part. {{spoiler|However, sealing alchemy created a huge side effect on the world. Without alchemy flowing into the world, not only did civilizations devolve into simple towns and villages with primitive tools and technology over time, but the world itself started to shrink into itself and became a [[Flat World]] that was getting smaller as the void was eating it away. This isn't realized until the second game, learned by Felix's party and then told to Isaac's party, who did not know at first.}}
* In the ''[[Fallout]]'' series, most of the Vaults—which were ''not'' underground bunkers designed to protect the citizenry but instead mass-scale experiments designed to evaluate their suitability for post-war survival (read: torture them sadistically in a variety of psychological and physiological ways) have, by the time the player character stumbles upon them, either [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] or Gone Horribly Right instead. In either case, the result usually sees the player character find a ''lot'' of skeletal corpses lying around.
** Vault 92 is the best example. The aim of the experiment was to subject every inhabitant with extremely low frequency white noise that eventually sent then into a trance-like state. In this state, the subject is extremely vulnerable to outside verbal suggestion and they always followed through with their orders on the subconscious level (like scratching their nose or fixing their hair). What the project lead didn't know was that the Overseer subjected everyone to white noise via the PA system and implanted combat suggestions prescribed by Vault-Tec; said project lead confronted the Overseer about it and [[He Knows Too Much|got killed for knowing too much]]. The subjects eventually lapsed into a [[Omnicidal Maniac|berserker rage where they killed anyone they saw in the most brutal and savage way possible]], [[Implacable Man|taking over 20 bullets before going down]]. Prepared for this eventuality, the Overseer implanted a verbal command that restrained them: "[[Shout-Out|Sanity]] [[Nineteen Eighty-Four|is not statistical]]." [[Oh Crap|Then the code stopped working...]]
* In the back-story of ''[[Sacrifice]]'', main character Eldred summoned a demon in an attempt to keep the empire he was stewarding together. He got an extremely powerful one, called Marduk, and tasked him to destroy his rivals. Marduk obliged...[[Omnicidal Maniac|But didn't stop at the rivals]]. {{spoiler|Stratos}} ends up repeating the same whopper when {{spoiler|he}} summons Marduk to the world the game is set in to destroy the other four gods—like Eldred, {{spoiler|Stratos}} eventually finds out that, while Marduk will do the job you ask of him to the letter, eventually it all boils down to the fact that his true agenda is 'destruction of reality itself'.
* ''[[Dead Space 2]]'' - {{spoiler|1=EarthGov conducts experiments trying to understand the Marker.}} Unfortunately this causes most people to go insane.
* Arguably [[
** ''[[Portal 2]]'' confirms it. {{spoiler|1=GLaDOS's body is designed so whichever AI uses it gets an "itch" to [[Death Course|test]] and feels [[Does This Remind You of Anything?|intense euphoria]] upon completing a test.}}
** Also, Wheatley was created to be a huge idiot intended on dumbing down the AI system as a whole. To say they succeeded at this goal would be a huge understatement.
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* The {{spoiler|ZODIAC Ophiuchus}} from [[RefleX]] was programmed to search and destroy {{spoiler|the other ZODIAC's}} no matter what [[Destructive Saviour|and it went along and did exactly that]].
* [[Heroes of Might and Magic]] III features {{spoiler|Deyja using dark magic to revive the dead King Gryphonheart as a lich to serve them. Turns out that the late King, even as a lich, is too [[Badass]] for their liking, forcing them to [[Enemy Mine|forge a temporary alliance with Erathia]].}}
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al
* In the ''[[Command & Conquer: Tiberium]]'' series, the Brotherhood of Nod is mentioned as not only hindering GDI efforts to maintain the peace. But also instigating terrorist activities with the deliberate intention of spreading [[Green Rocks|Tiberium]], further worsening conditions on Earth. As the events of ''[[Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars]]'' revealed, this worked a bit ''too well.''
== Webcomics ==
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* [[The Emperor|Brian]] [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|averts/defies this trope]] in ''[[Our Little Adventure]]''. His plan was to demonize and discredit an old magic teacher of his that he tried and failed to [[Better Living Through Evil|recruit to his side.]] When Brian's part of the plan succeeded better than he imagined it would, he called off the rest of the attack. Brian was worried other attacks would threaten the credibility that one person alone would be able to do them.
* ''[[Amazing Super Powers]]'', for a certain value of "right". [[Friday the 13th (film)|Jason]] convinced [[Chainsaw Good|Waynesaw]] to go [http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2015/04/waynesaw-jason/ hug some teenagers].
* ''[[Vexxarr]]'' has it happening now and then, especially [[A.I. Is a Crapshoot|when AI are involved]]. Even to other AIs. Carl [http://www.vexxarr.com/archive.php?seldate=032107 gave the drones a measure of free will]. Oops. Carl
* ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'' had Well Meaning Failure Man and [//www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-04-15 his plan] to trick the nuclear powers into wasting all missiles at once on a fake monster.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'' has it (along with [[Gone Horribly Wrong]]) happen now and then, what's with all the [[Mad Scientist]]s running around. Once the [[Snarky Non-Human Sidekick|Castle Dingbot]] inflicted it on the enemy. A traitor sabotaged automatic defenses of Paris to see spider cavalry as "frolicking children" and not raise alarm. So it just [https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20161107 fed their location to a bunch of child-catcher clanks]... that can keep up with giant spiders on the roofs and are mostly unaffected by Geisters' cold steel, let alone poisons. «It is ''long past bedtime!''»
== Web Original ==
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** Or Jobe's experimental method for creating a real drow girl to be a girlfriend. He ended up getting dosed by accident. The process is working ''[[Gender Bender|really well]]''.
* In [[Atop the Fourth Wall]], {{spoiler|Linkara's gun}} is powered by a soul of a little girl, who was tortured and killed in order to make the ultimate weapon for a cult. Needless to say, the gun killed the cultists, proving that they had, in fact, made the ultimate weapon.
* In 2010, ''[[Sonichu|Christian Weston Chandler]]'' pretended to be a troll named [[Junior Jenkins]] and posted on a troll forum under that name in an attempt to get the trolls at their own game. Trolls knew it was Chris from the getgo, so they humored him by asking him to take pictures of Chris from across the road and gather any further info he could. Eventually, the trolls decided to have a contest - ''[[Over 9000|$9001]]'' would be awarded to anyone who could destroy Chris's [[
* [[
* In ''[[
* The post-apocalyptic CGI short film ''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKmZnIHzldk Fortress]'' by Dima Fedotov takes what's essentially the Russian [http://rbth.com/defence/2014/04/03/ultimate_deterrent_how_the_russian_perimeter_system_works_35633.html Perimeter/"Dead Hand" system] to its logical conclusion, with automated machines continuing a war long after its human masters have long been killed off.
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** Iron Will's [[Teach Him Anger|assertiveness seminar]] in "Putting Your Hoof Down," ESPECIALLY with regards to [[Shrinking Violet|Fluttershy.]] The end results are [[Took a Level in Jerkass|exactly as one expects.]]
* This hits the ''[[Young Justice]]'' version of Dr T.O. Morrow as well - coming and going. First his attempts to create 'heroic' androids to infiltrate the superhero community and destroy them from within fail due to his creations being too heroic and sacrificing themselves or turning on him outright. Infuriated by this, he decides to create a final perfect android within any such moral inhibitions... who of course immediately turns on him and rips him apart.
== Real Life ==
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* The Manhattan Project, the project that created the first atomic bomb.
{{quote|"I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, [[Beam Me Up, Scotty|'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.']] [[My God, What Have I Done?|I suppose we all thought that, one way or another]]."|'''J. Robert Oppenheimer''', Scientific Director, Manhattan Project}}
{{quote|"Now we're all sons of bitches."|'''Kenneth Bainbridge''', Director of the Trinity Test, Manhattan Project}}
* [[wikipedia:Castle Bravo|Castle Bravo]], a nuclear test that went a little ''too'' well. Unexpectedly, [[Stuff Blowing Up|stuff blew up]] [[Up to Eleven|to Eleven]]. They wanted a six megaton explosion; they got a fifteen. It [[Readings Blew Up the Scale|wiped out the test gear meant to measure and record the explosion]], and irradiated some islanders and a fishing boat, killing one outright.
** Not to mention vaporizing part of the atoll they tested it on - [
* The extraordinary success of the Japanese fleet over the Russian fleet in the [[wikipedia:Battle of Tsushima|Battle of Tsushima]] convinced the political and military establishment of Japan that military power was the universal medicine, which solves everything by itself. In the words of Geoffrey Regan: '' "Looking at Tōgō's victory over one of the world's great powers convinced some Japanese military men that with more ships, and bigger and better ones, similar victories could be won throughout the Pacific. Perhaps no power could resist the Japanese navy, not even Britain and the United States?" ''
* [[wikipedia:Davy lamp|The Davy Lamp]] had been designed as a fireproof oil lamp to protect the life of the coal miners from the explosions of the flammable gases. Short after its introduction, accident rate increased ... because the lamp encouraged working mining tunnels that had previously been closed for safety reasons, and also work in unsafe conditions due to the presence of methane gas.
** Many safety devices share the same problem: Serious accidents aren't reduced, or are even increased, because the added safety tends to encourage many people to be less safe in their actions.
*** Viktor Suvorov lampshaded this in his semi-autobiographic book where his teacher in the [[Spy School]] tells all the students to forget their fighting skills. James Bond skills may be cool, but they give a false sense of security, and once they make you slip up...well, in real life, it's much harder to fight off a regiment of troops backed up by two dozen helicopters.
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* The PC Engine, an 8-BIT MACHINE that held its own against SEGA and Nintendo's 16-bit machines and had the longest official life of any console (1987-1994). Thanks to dual 16-bit graphics processors, and an extremely well designed CD add-on (not to mention the card slot went directly into the motherboard, allowing NEC to continually expand the amount of system RAM available) the system was very popular in Japan. It was so popular, in fact, that NEC kept the system alive and kept pushing back the release of the system's replacement. This meant that when the replacement was released, it was horribly out the date. The PC-FX, which was sort-of a more powerful version of the Mega Drive, would have done extremely well in the 16-bit era that it was designed for; but its 32-bit competitors had all been designed to support polygon-based 3D graphics, making the system somewhat quaint.
* In the 1980's, Osborne Computer Corporation released an announcement that a vastly more powerful model was going to be released in the near future. People were interested - but unfortunately for Osborne, this anticipation of an upcoming superior system caused a rapid decline in the sales of their existing models.
* In 1971 the government of the [[Soviet Russia, Ukraine, and So On|Turkmen SSR]] (today Turkmenistan) was looking for deposits of natural gas. They found them - and the gas reserves are still burning today. Locals call it the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws9W2J1OwyY Door to Hell.]
* In 2007, adult swim wanted to promote the ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'' movie by placing several signs depicting a Mooninite giving the finger in several major cities in North America. The campaign got a ''lot'' of attention...[[wikipedia:2007 Boston bomb scare|after someone in Boston thought one was a bomb]]. It could also count as such for the Boston Police, as they reacted swiftly to a terrorist threat that had the slight problem of ''not being a terrorist threat''.
* The [[wikipedia:Stanford prison experiment|Stanford Prison Experiment]] managed to become both this and [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] '''simultaneously'''. The ''foreground'' objective was to maintain order within a makeshift prison, and this absolutely went awry. But the ''actual'' objective was to see if that violence in prison results from system factors, not sadism of some people.
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* [[H. R. Giger]] tried to implement some of his nightmares into his artwork. [[Alien (franchise)|The rest is history.]]
* A sadder example: Due to the stigma of depression and the notion that most people are just [[Wangst]]ing (especially teens), sufferers often feel the need to prove that they're unhappy by doing something drastic—because only a ''really'' unhappy person would take their own lives. The "lucky" ones end up in emergency rooms. [[Driven to Suicide|The unlucky ones end up in coffins.]]
** Chronic self-harming is another common result. The fact that much of the public considers even ''this'' to simply be attention seeking (rather than evidence of severe psychological problems) tends to lead to the conclusion that [[Humans Are
** Part of the problem is that a not-insignificant portion of the people who do this ''are'' simply seeking attention. The fact that it's easier to dismiss this as such rather than take the time to actually investigate, though, still falls under [[Humans Are
** To look at it another way, ''of course'' they're doing it "for attention". The point is that if you think the best way to get attention is self-harm, ''you need psychological help''.
** To look at it yet another way, yes, they're doing it "for attention", but the "attention" they're looking for is psychological help.
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** There's an argument (made by Matt Ridley, among others) that human intelligence is a ''runaway sexually selected'' trait, like the peacock's tail. In other words, human ancestors got smarter and smarter merely because smart proto-humans were better at flirting, getting mates, and sleeping around than their stupider brothers and sisters. It worked...to the extent that one species of African apes — Homo sapiens — are now flirting, getting mates, and sleeping around on seven continents.
*** Humans didn't just win the brain lottery. We won the whole damn genetic jackpot. We're #1 in intelligence, #2 in pound-for-pound strength, the second largest pack-hunting predator, have one of the most efficient digestive systems, can control our body temperature in ways that no other vertibrate can, and the only wild animal that can actually keep up with us over long distances (i.e. days of travel) is called a wolf. We can also strike from a distance, which is something that no other mammal can do.
**** And on top of all that we've also been gifted with the most wondrously efficient liver of any living thing on Earth. Humans can eat a wider range of things without being poisoned than any other animal.
** There is also the cultural-heritage thing to consider, though. Once we got language, genetic advantages stopped being the primary factor in our survival rates; instead it shifted to what sorts of ideas we'd inherited for things like agriculture and force-multipliers. The accumulation of brilliant not-dying ideas are what have made us go Horribly Right, rather than the genetically defined quality 'cleverness.' (Or at least, that's what the few raised-by-wolves cases science has had access to indicate.)
** More generally, the history of life on Earth is full of examples of species for which natural selection worked so well that they ended up becoming extinct for the sole reason that they were ''too good'' at hunting prey.
** Another consequence of our super-complex and super-smart brains is our vulnerability to various mental disorders. Evolutionary biologists note that many mental illnesses like depression and OCD, as well as neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia, are way too common to just be random 'evolutionary mistakes' or 'brain bugs'. Mild or subclinical variants of what we today call mental illnesses apparently helped our species survive and flourish during the stone age.
** The reverse can be true as well. During the 2004 US Presidential Primary, researchers found that many of the people voting for John Kerry did so not because ''they'' saw him as the best candidate, but because they thought that swing voters would. So the Democrats wound up with a candiate that the party base didn't really believe in, and that in turn failed to convince swing voters to vote for him instead of Bush.
** Another example from recent US politics: Elizabeth Warren, currently running for the Senate in Massachusetts, is the architect of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When Senatorial Republicans refused even to consider her nomination to head that agency, President Obama nominated a new person: Richard Cordray. Before this nomination, Cordray served the CFPB as the head of the enforcement division. Now, instead of just being chief enforcer, he may end up running the whole show. [[Nice Job Fixing It, Villain|Nice job fixing it, Republicans]]!
*** To add salt in the wound (at least from the Republican point of view) Ms. Warren is now running (and polling well) for the US Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy. A seat currently held by Republican Scott Brown.
** A very recent example from American politics is the 2016 Presidential election. Wikileaks-released emails from various senior figures in the Democratic National Committee reveal that they were looking forward to, and discussing plans on how to quietly ''encourage'', Donald Trump's winning the Republican nomination -- because they thought he'd be the easiest one of the opposing contenders to beat. Well, they got him... and then he won the election.
* Mr. Yuk commercials are a perfect example of this. The creators wanted to instill a fear of household chemicals so kids wouldn't get into stuff they shouldn't. It did that and more. Many reported nightmares over the commercials and some as adults still have a fear of the cabinets, the closets, the area underneath the sink, household chemicals, knives, electrical plugs, matches, you name it.
* Singapore used to have a "Stop at two" policy that discouraged people from having more than two children due to fears of overpopulation. It worked very well. Now, with birth rates on the low and the government frantically throwing Baby Bonuses at the problem to little effect, some of the old guard are wondering if they shouldn't have instituted the policy, since even if the birth rate is proportionately low, having a higher base population to work with would still give more absolute births.
* After winning the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years' War), the British government in London was unhappy over how much it had spent, and was still spending, to defend its North American colonies, and wanted the colonies to assume a greater share of the financial burden of their own defense. [[The American Revolution|Only a few years later,
* To fight the [[Napoleon Bonaparte|Napoleonic]] [[wikipedia:Peninsular war|invasion]] of Spain, liberal Spanish guerrillas met during the [[wikipedia:Cadiz Cortes|Cádiz Cortes]] to agree on a plan to defeat the French and restore deposed king Ferdinand VII to the throne. They achieved their goals and... well... [[Sarcasm Mode|let's say]] things went [[wikipedia:Ominous Decade|sooo right]] afterwards.
* [[A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted|Winning the lottery is like this for a lot of people]].
* For years, in fact decades, the United States government interfered extensively in the housing market in order to make housing more affordable for more Americans. As a direct and entirely predictable result of these policies, [[wikipedia:United States housing bubble#Housing market correction|in 2007 the price of housing dropped dramatically]]. We wanted to make houses cheaper, and we succeeded. [[It Got Worse|And then everyone got upset]].
* In the late 1970s, the newly-elected Bloc Quebecois implemented Bill 101, or the Charter of the French Language, which made French the only official language of the Canadian province of Quebec. Though successful in rescuing French language out of limbo, it led to a lot of English-speakers and companies relocating to neighbouring Ontario. This proved to be a liability for Quebec, until the Supreme Court struck down Bill 101 as unconstitutional roughly 10 years after its passage.
*
* In 1981, Australia launched its "Slip-Slop-Slap" campaign to encourage Australians to "slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen, and slap on a hat" to reduce sun exposure, to great success. Since then, even though rates of the two most common forms skin cancer (basal-cell and squamous cell carcinoma) dropped, instances of melanoma (the deadliest form of skin cancer) have increased. Vitamin D deficiencies (from which UV rays are the best natural source) also increased with it.
* Japan's (in)famous work ethic since [[World War II]]. On the one hand, a miraculous bounce back from losing the war to becoming an economic giant that [[Japan Takes Over the World|scared the world (especially America) in believing they'd be running things]] and despite the bubble bursting, ''still'' remains the one of the top tech spots in the world mindset and home of, if not ''the most'' long-living people. However, this is at the cost of [[Heroic RROD|"Karoshi,"]] a term that had to be ''invented'' for otherwise young, healthy men literally working themselves to death ([[Too Dumb to Live|without paid overtime,]]) a population with increasingly more retirees than actual workers, otherwise fertile husbands not being home enough to actually father children
* [[Accidental Nightmare Fuel]], right there in the name. They didn't ''mean'' to give you nightmares and shivers for all of your childhood! Honest, they didn't...
* By his own admission after being captured and interrogated<ref>Source - https://web.archive.org/web/20181027222818/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/interrogator-shares-saddams-confessions/4/</ref>, [[Saddam Hussein]]'s strategy for avoiding the threat of invasion by Iran after the first [[Gulf War]] obliterated the majority of his army was to start a massive disinformation effort to convince Iran that his inactive WMD programs had been secretly reactivated and were ready to spam large amounts of deployable chemical weapons at the turn of a switch. This effort succeeded so well that he managed to convince most of the intelligence agencies in the Western world of the exact same thing, which got him invaded again in 2001 -- this time successfully.
* There's a photo of newspaper page going around Internet:
{{quote|Army vehicle disappears.
AN Australian Army vehicle worth $74,000 has gone missing after being painted with camouflage.}}
* This happens on a regular basis when some teenage chemistry nerd [[Do Not Try This At Home|conducts experiments at home]] and [[Didn't Think This Through|doesn't plan them thoroughly beforehand]] (which is [[Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb|typical]]). Especially when the aim is to get some spectacular [[Playing with Fire|fire]] or [[Explosive Stupidity|explosion]].
** For example, it's quite ''easy'' to synthesize some chlorine if you have the right household chemicals. It's also easy to produce enough of it as to suffocate yourself in the cellar room you've just improvised to be your home lab. And it [[Cruel and Unusual Death|won't be pretty]]...
** Magnesium ribbon. Once you've successfully ignited it, good luck putting it off again. It'll burn with a blindening glare at over 2000°C and continue burning in almost any gas that contains oxygen, sulfur or halogens. (Heck, it even reacts with [[Worf Effect|nitrogen]]!) And no, using water is a ''very poor idea''.
** A more sophisticated chemistry nerd using his/her knowledge to synthesize [[Drugs Are Bad|illicit drugs]] - just to try them, or even just to do something "forbidden" - can easily become this trope as well.
* The [[Incels|Incel community]], anyone? Initially founded as a chat group for involuntary singles of ''both'' genders in order to exchange experience and giving company to each other, it has since then increasingly detereorated into a hate group for sexually frustrated men who see their [[You Need to Get Laid|sexlessness]] as a [[Fate Worse Than Death]]. Today,{{when}} the Incel community is mostly seen pejoratively as an anti-feminist and misogynist hate group where 'involuntary celibate' men mutually foster each other's self-pity and [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|hatred against the whole world]], sometimes going as far as encouraging fellow members to commit commit acts of terror and homicide.
* [[Date Rape]] is usually this for the victim. In case both parties are high on drugs/drunk at the time, it can [[My God, What Have I Done?|turn out as this]] for the prepetrator as well.
** Especially when STI are involved. (But then it's [[Gone Horribly Wrong]] at the same time.)
{{reflist}}
[[Category:This Index Is Cursed]]
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Make My Index Live]]
▲[[Category:Gone Horribly Right]]
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