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Laser-Guided Karma: Difference between revisions
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'''For sake of trope differentiation, examples should be limited to bad karma, heroic or villainous, and when an opponent's "good karma" combines to double wham the antagonist.'''
{{examples
== Anime and Manga ==
* Cell and Frieza from ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' are perfect examples. Thier own actions always come back to bite them in the ass. Cell is a fine example of the most stupid [[Kick the Dog]] to give himself a strong opponent, oopsie. Then we have Frieza, the victim of the age old trope, the [[Self
* Probably about 90%-95% of the death toll or sufferers of [[A Fate Worse Than Death]] in ''[[Franken Fran]]'' are the result of this, although some of them are rather excessive. {{spoiler|Chapter 10 is probably the worst here. An arrogant germophobe who sees the rest of humanity as immoral, filthy fools who need to be educated and improved by the "elite" gets swarmed by cockroaches, nearly raped, has all her skin burned off, and gets skin grafts made from cockroach exoskeletons. The stress causes her to go insane and try to tear off her skin. An epilogue page in the collection shows her to have recovered from her insanity and attempt to remove her own skin... only for the graft to have gone wrong and her face to be covered in living, twitching cockroach legs.}}
* [[Gundam 00]]: Nena Trinity initiated a massacre of wedding guests in Spain because she was tired and overworked. One girl named Louise Halevy survived. During the next season, said Louise [[God Mode|gets a haxx Mobile Armour]] and kills Nena who is using an old outdated Mobile Suit.
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** Flash Thompson seems to be an aversion, as he ends up sharing an apartment with Peter Parker. More brutally averted/lampshaded when {{spoiler|he loses his legs when serving in Iraq, saving a fellow soldier, fulfilling the jock ending up crippled aspect of this trope.}}
*** Subverted, or maybe double subverted, after he becomes the new host of the Venom symbiote. Yeah he gets awesome superpowers that make him more like his hero Spider-Man and his legs back. On the other hand, the symbiote has a nasty tendency to bring out the worst in people {{spoiler|and he's already eaten someone.}}
* [[Preacher (Comic Book)|Cassidy]] the vampire is captured and tortured mercilessly by a hitman until Jesse arrives to save him. Jesse knocks the hitman into the pit where Cassidy's been contained, breaking his neck in the fall and paralyzing but not killing him. The last shot is of Cassidy leaning right over him with a big grin and saying "How're yeh?"
* In Scrooge and Flintheart's second confrontation for determining who was the world's richest duck, they convert all their holdings into silver dollars and will have the piles measured. Glomgold, worried he might lose, tries to cheat by purchasing a special liquid that can shrink things with the goal of using it to shrink Scrooge's pile of money. His plan is thwarted, and he ultimately loses...by the same amount of silver dollars that he spent to buy the juice
* In one issue early in his time as ''[[The Flash]]'', Wally West expresses contempt for a homeless man who seeks shelter in his apartment building. Then ''he's'' evicted, and thanks to various other misfortunes (his credit cards being inexplicably declined, his superspeed shorting out from hunger, losing both his luggage and his mother) he's reduced to eating pretzels from mud puddles in less than a day and getting the same amount of scorn from passersby (one of who dropped that pretzel in the puddle to see if he was desperate enough to eat it). It eventually turns out that it's all due to machinations from aliens who were deliberately putting him under stress.
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* The final outcome that awaits Carter Burke in ''[[Aliens]]'' is this in spades.
* In "No Country For Old Men", Anton Chigurh murders the innocent wife of the protagonist even after she argues with him that he has no reason to kill her. As soon as he drives off, he gets hit by a car.
* A very ''literal'' use of this trope was utilized in ''Austin Powers in Goldmember'', specifically in regards to the film's titular villain. To put it simply, Goldmember betrays Dr. Evil (who surprising for his name, undergoes a [[Heel Face Turn]] when he [[Luke, I Am Your Father|learns that he is actually Austin Power's long lost brother, and that Nigel Powers is his father]]) and attempts to fulfill that Dr. Evil nearly started: The destruction of the planet with a Golden Meteorite dragged onto the planet by the Preparation H tractor beam. He also kept a spare of the master key (hint: It's his gilded groin) after losing the original Master Key into the shark tank. Dr. Evil, now Dougie Powers, manages to reverse the polarity of the tractor beam, causing the energies caused by his activating the tractor beam to backfire on Goldmember, electrocuting him, fall near the shark tank's edge. He is then arrested, and going by his comments is most likely going to await execution.
* In [[The Dark Knight]], Coleman Reese is about to use his information on Lucius Fox as a means of extortion, but backs off when Lucius bluffs him by pointing out a few theoretical flaws in his strategy. Getting off with a warning might make him seem like a [[Karma Houdini]], but then consider what happens later in the movie, when he is apparently considering revealing Batman's identity so as to appease the Joker:
{{quote| '''Random caller''': Harvey Dent wouldn't give in to this maniac, do you think you know better than him?<br />
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* Lots of [[Fairy Tale|fairy tales]] rely on this trope. [[Charles Perrault (Creator)|Charles Perrault]] and [[The Brothers Grimm (Creator)|The Brothers Grimm]] have a lot of stories like this, such as ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamonds_and_Toads Diamonds and Toads]'' and ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_Bee The Queen Bee]''. In at least one Russian story, [[Baba Yaga]]'s gate/pets/household goods help the heroine to escape because she was kinder to them than Baba Yaga was.
** Many fairy tales have poor, hungry, often ugly old women who just want some food or a place to stay. They may or may not be a fairy queen in disguise, but it's ''always'' a [[Secret Test of Character]], generally with good advice for the people who succeed and deadly [[Curse|curses]] for those who don't. The most obvious example is "[[Beauty and The Beast (Literature)|Beauty and The Beast]]".
* And [[Older Than Feudalism|you know what it means]] when the tale of [[Androcles' Lion|"Androcles and the Lion"]] runs on this...
* In the ''[[Lord of the Rings (Literature)|Lord of the Rings]]'', each of the Ring-bearers shows mercy to Gollum and is rewarded for it later. Bilbo refrains from murdering Gollum in the goblin caves, and is rewarded (according to Gandalf) by taking very little hurt from the evil of the Ring, and being able to give it up at the end. Frodo is merciful when Gollum finds him and Sam in the Emyn Muil, and is rewarded when Gollum successfully gets the two of them into [[Mordor]]. Finally, Sam himself shows mercy to Gollum on the slopes of Mount Doom, and is rewarded when Gollum bites the Ring from Frodo's hand (thus freeing Frodo from the Ring's control) and falls with it into the Fire. Conversely, the Ring's malevolent corruption of Gollum ultimately results in the Ring's own destruction.
* In ''[[Harry Potter (Literature)|Harry Potter]]'', this trope is subverted and then played straight, then subverted again. Harry allows Wormtail to live, even though Wormtail was responsible for the death of Harry's parents, which first allows Wormtail to find Voldemort and return him to full power. However, as Dumbledore suggested, Harry's kindness meant that Wormtail felt that he was in Harry's debt, eventually leading to Wormtail saving Harry's life in the final book. Wormtail is then rewarded for this act of mercy by being strangled to death by his own magical prosthetic hand, which had been programmed to do so by Voldemort in case Wormtail's loyalty ever wavered again.
** Snape does this. {{spoiler|Voldemort kills the woman he loves, he betrays Voldemort and spies for the Order.}} Also, Narcissa Malfoy in Deathly Hallows: {{spoiler|Voldemort tries to get her son killed, takes over her house, and treats her family like dirt; she lies to him at a crucial moment, causing Harry to win.}}
** A possible case of [[Laser
*** Umbridge at the end of ''Order of the Phoenix''. Hates "half-breeds" like centaurs, mermaids, etc. Traumatised so badly by them that the next time we see her (not too long after the incident in question), she's practically catatonic.
*** Lockhart, who takes credit for other people's achievements then erases their memories. He {{spoiler|gets his memory erased (accidentally) by ''himself'' towards the end of ''Chamber of Secrets''}}.
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** Jason helping an old woman across a stream was fortuitous, for she was actually Hera in disguise, and she set in motion the events that let to his later adventures with the Argonauts.
*** Jason would suffer both good ''and'' bad karma with this trope, as his efforts to dump his lawful wife Medea (who had allowed the Argonauts to escape the land of her father Aeetes) for another woman cost him Hera's favor and led to his disgrace and eventual death.
*** Jason's betrayal was a case of [[Laser
** Ixion is another mention, given that he first murdered his father-in-law, fled to Mount Olympus to escape punishment, and repaid Zeus's hospitality by ''[[Too Dumb to Live|attempting to rape Hera]]''. An infuriated Zeus banished him to Hades, where he was strapped to a flaming wheel and left to spin around for the rest of eternity.
*** Ixion's son Peirithoos is just as bad, convincing Theseus to sneak down with him into Hades and kidnap Persephone to be his bride. Needless to say, Hades was not amused. When Heracles came down to the Underworld on the last of his Twelve Labours, he was allowed to free Theseus from Hades' captivity. The Underworld shook when he tried to free Peirithoos, which was Hades' way of letting our hero know that this was a ''very'' bad idea.
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* In the prologue of ''[[Resident Evil]] 4'', you can choose to rescue a stray dog from a bear trap. Most players do this solely due to the dog's [[The Woobie|Woobie-ness]], to be rewarded when he jumps into their fight with El Gigante, distracting him and making the fight easier.
* Early at the fair in ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'', Crono has the opportunity to help a little girl find her cat, and to eat a random man's lunch for HP. A few sequences latter, though, he needs character witnesses, and every Good or Evil act comes back up... [[Kangaroo Court|not that it will matter]]. Sure, being found innocent nets you a couple Elixirs, but...
* At the end of ''[[Metroid]] II'' Samus spares a baby Metroid that imprinted upon her as its mother. In ''Super Metroid'', the Metroid returns the favor by {{spoiler|not draining Samus to death}}, and then {{spoiler|sacrificing itself to save her life in the fight against Mother Brain, triggering the mother of all [[Mama Bear]] moments from Samus, who, by the way, now has the [[Infinity
** Not counting for the fact that without that baby [[So Cool Its Awesome|Super Metroid]] wouldn't happen...
*** In the beginning of ''Metroid Fusion'', {{spoiler|Samus gets infected by the X Parasite, whose only natural enemies are the Metroids she all but annihilated. Her life is saved by cells extracted from the last Metroid}} and these events would have happened with less favorable results even without the baby Metroid.
*** ...Except that it is also negative [[Laser
** Another cross-game example: Remember those cute critters that taught you how to shinespark and wall-climb in ''Super Metroid''? At the end of ''Super Metroid'' you can take some time off your busy schedule of {{spoiler|escaping the [[Load
* Especially common in adventure games by [[Sierra]], especially ''[[Quest for Glory]]'' and ''[[King's Quest]]'', being based off of ~The Hero's Journey~ and [[Mega Crossover]] [[Fairy Tales]] respectively. Kill a rare flower? You'll eventually get turned into one. Fail to stop a cat from attacking a rat? [[Unwinnable|Well now who's going to chew through your ropes]]?
** [[Quest for Glory]] tends towards the positive karma version of this trope (usually negative karma is quite predictable since someone is present and may warn you not to do something). Fail to rescue the monkey from the cage? Well good luck going to the lost city. Didn't show compassion to the woman turned into a tree? Well no magic fruit to make a dispel potion!
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* In the second ''[[Ryu ga Gotoku]]'' game, Kazuma helping out a fun-loving old lady with item quests will allow him to learn some useful fighting techniques, and eventually discover that she is in fact the former martial arts instructor of a Triad leader he fought in the first game.
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' has this. At one point late in the game, you can choose to either help a man who once betrayed you with a large heroin deal (you're ordered to do so by a mafia boss), or just kill the guy for revenge. Whichever choice you make though, you end up paying for it DEARLY. {{spoiler|if you help with the H deal, not only do you get double-crossed AGAIN, but your cousin gets killed. If you go and kill the guy who betrayed you, the mafia boss that ordered you to work with him comes along and shoots your girlfriend. During a WEDDING!}}
** The mission that follows ''this'' lets the player get their turn at inflicting some [[Laser
* Near the end of ''[[Dead Space (Video Game)|Dead Space]]'', you desperately fight to put an artifact back in place on a pedestal to neutralize all the alien monsters on the planet. Then [[The Mole]] shows up and steals it away, ''mocking you.'' Not five minutes later, said Mole is smashed into paste by the [[Cosmic Horror]] that ''would'' have left everyone alone if the artifact hadn't been disturbed.
** In the sequel, {{spoiler|Daina Le Guin}} dies about 20 seconds after you find out {{spoiler|she}} was a Unitologist using you the whole time.
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* Positive and negative karma example: in ''[[The Incredibles]]'', Syndrome being callous about Mr. Incredible threatening to kill Mirage, and Mr. Incredible not being able to carry out the threat is what convinced her to do a [[Mook Face Turn]] and help the Incredibles stop the robot.
** Another example is Mr. Incredible's rather callous treatment of Buddy, who only wanted to fight alongside his hero. This, obviously, came back to bite Mr. Incredible when Syndrome appeared, some [[Disproportionate Retribution]] aside. In the end, however, it doesn't end well for Syndrome when he later [[Kick the Dog|shoots Mr. Incredible's family out of the sky,]] leading to the exact same family coming to their patron's rescue and giving Syndrome a good, hard, well-earned ass-beating throughout the rest of the film.
* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', Sokka tries to stop [[Well
** An indirect, somewhat subtle example that could just as well be a coincidence. Ozai burned and banished his son, Zuko, when he was thirteen years old. Cut to only a few years later, when Ozai is defeated by Aang, who was (presumably) thirteen years old.
** To add the this, it is later pointed out (by Zuko himself, no less) to Ozai that if he'd never banished Zuko in the first place, things would have probably worked in his favor.
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* In ''[[The Batman (Animation)|The Batman]] vs [[Dracula]]'', when [[The Joker]] shocks Penguin and tosses him in the river, Penguin recovers just in time to see Batman swing after a retreating Joker. He nearly drops the trope name:
{{quote| '''Penguin:''' Instant karma, Joker!}}
* The Joker is usually a [[Karma Houdini]], but he got it good in an episode of [[Batman:
* ''[[Spongebob SquarePants]]''
** Squidward's horrific luck was intially presented as a product of this trope due to his [[Jerkass]] attitude, as the show evolved however, his [[Butt Monkey]] role became less provoked and leaned more into [[Comedic Sociopathy]] territory.
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* Several stories on ''[[Not Always Right]]''.
* [http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/03/25/lions-lunch-on-poacher-115875-22137406/ Hunter setting illegal snares is chased off of game preserve by hippos and eaten by lions.]
* Three guys [http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/1054639/sydney-ninjas-rescue-student-from-attackers attempt to mug someone] in Sydney, outside what turns out to be [[Instant Awesome, Just Add Ninja|a ninjitsu class]].
* From the Maury Povich Show, we have [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1BQEJLbK0w this] fine speciment of humanity. It's hard to feel sympathy for this bum given that he apparently never paid one thin dime in child support to the kids' mother.
* One German agent in Istanbul during [[World War II]] was being more of a bother than the [[Emniyet]] preferred. So the [[Emniyet]] sent a man to go up to him and say, "We have discovered that you are Jewish..."
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* Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet died of a heart attack on 10 December 2006 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Rights_Day Human Rights Day]). It was also the 84th birthday of his wife Lucia Hiriart.
* It seems that it is at least true that Casey Anthony lied about the investigation and the search cost a load of money. She was not guilty of murder and released however she now owes 217,000 dollars for Caylee's search. {{link|http://news.yahoo.com/casey-anthony-now-owes-217k-caylees-search-211020186.html}}
* After scoring major legal victories against Samsung in Germany and Australia (as well as a minor victory in the rest of the European Union and a stalemate in the United States) and HTC in the United States, [http://www.droidmatters.com/news/apple-hit-with-an-injunction-for-infringing-motorola-patents-in-germany/ BAM! Motorola whacks Apple and basically asks them,] [[Bond One
* [[Lindsay Lohan]]'s father Michael was convicted of sexually and physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Kate Majors and somehow managed to avoid getting a jail sentence, getting sentenced to four months of anger management instead, which many people were angry at. Soon, Michael was scheduled for emergency heart surgery due to chest pains, and the surgery would up being delayed after blood clots were found in his lung.
* During the European-Ottoman conflicts it was common for [[Pirates]] to raid peaceful villages for slaves. When one was captured his probable fate would be to be [[Galley Slave|hauling an oar himself]].
* The Cabin Boy Thomas Pellew was captured by Barbary Pirates and [[Made a Slave]]. Later he escaped. His descendent Edward Pellew would return to the same place, [[Gunboat Diplomacy|with two dozen ships of the line]].
* During a regular-season [[Useful Notes/Ice Hockey|NHL game]] in December 2010, the Anaheim Ducks' Bobby Ryan had his stick stolen from him by Minnesota Wild player Mikko Koivu. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmi8CR2sxXA Later on that same play], {{spoiler|Ryan steals Koivu's stick and scores with it. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Keep in mind that Koivu is right-handed, and Ryan is left-handed.]]}}
* [[Gene Roddenberry]] produced the pilot for a proposed [[ABC]] series called ''The Long Hunt Of April Savage'' in 1965 (the only pilot he oversaw which he didn't create - he did it on behalf of his friend [[The Man From UNCLE|Sam Rolfe]]), and banned the network liaison fron the set. Fifteen years later the man from the network, Harve Bennett, was put in charge of the second ''[[Star Trek]]'' film after Roddenberry's behaviour on [[Troubled Production|the first one]], and not only brought it in for "less than [[Precision F
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