Life Isn't Fair

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Life isn't fair. Deal with it." Fiction Isn't Fair and neither is Real Life. Another one of those Stock Phrases, usually particularly irritating to the character it's being told to. Another way of saying "deal with it". Sometimes used to respond to an accusation that the character wasn't fighting fair.

Examples of Life Isn't Fair include:

Anime and Manga

  • In Macross Plus, Isamu snaps at Myung's self-pity by telling her that sometimes life isn't fair and that she needs to deal with it, instead of feeling sorry for herself.
  • In My Hero Academia the students are, at first, upset at Eraser-Head's harsh conditions, as well as the role-playing exercise where the team playing the villains have an unfair advantage. Eraser-Head tells them that's the point. They're learning to be heroes, and villains do not play fair, so they'd best learn how to deal with it.
  • In the second season of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (the dub only) Sartorious' henchman X tells Jaden this, telling him that you can't always get everything you want, emphasizing it by saying that when he was Jaden's age, he used to dream of being a pastry chef. Of course, considering the type of person X is and considering that he seems to love his actual job a little too much, that of an Amoral Attorney who is willing to use cruel and underhanded methods to crush the will of his opponent, this comes off as a Broken Aesop.

Comic Books

  • In Transmetropolitan, when Spider meets with The Beast before the election, The Beast invokes this in spirit when Spider points out how unfair some of The Beast's views are.

Spider: That's sick.
The Beast: That's the way it is. Life sucks. Wear a hat.

Film

"Who ever said life is fair? Where is that written? Life isn't always fair."

"Life is pain, your highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Hey, thumbdick, I was a damn good shrink. Nineteen years I worked with a lot of people through a lot of shit. OK, I slept with a patient or two. It's not like I didn't care about them. I loved being a doctor. I used to not charge half my patients. Then the fucking state comes along, they send in some bitch undercover, and I'm fucked. Life isn't fair, is it?

"You and Black, you're two of a kind: sentimental children, forever whining about how bitterly unfair your lives have been. Well, it may have escaped your notice, but life isn't fair. Your blessed father knew that; in fact, he frequently saw to it!"

"Life is cruel! Why should the afterlife be any different?"

Sarah: (for about the seventeenth time since the film started) That's not fair!
Jareth: You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is.

  • Jason feels the need to bring this up to a recently orphaned girl in Mystery Team.

Jason: Life isn't fair. If life was fair, I'd have gotten a new bike for Christmas, instead of a stupid car.

  • Scar in The Lion King says this in a creepy tone.
    • Heck, it's the first thing said in the film!

Literature

Bella: Hasn't anyone ever told you? Life isn't fair.

No, life isn't fair, but I try to be.

Count Olaf: (stuck in a cage, talking to the distraught Baudelaire children) Life isn't fair.

"Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."
"Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all."

Live-Action TV

Life isn't fair, Will. I mean, was it fair when Bambi's mother died?

  • In one episode of Babylon 5, Marcus the Ranger expresses a rather enlightened outlook on the subject:

You know, um…I used to think that it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.

Picard: It's possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life.

Music

  • Young Jeezy in "Soul Survivor":

"A hundred grand on my wrist; yea, life sucks."

  • Relient K's "Be My Escape" uses the phrase to invert the message.

And this life sentence that I’m serving
 I admit that I’m every bit deserving
 But the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair

  • Papa Roach in "She Loves Me Not":

I don't know
 If I care.
 I'm the jerk;
 Life's not fair.

  • The chorus of the Black Box Recorder song "Child Psychology" goes like this:

Life is unfair
 Kill yourself or get over it.

Newspaper Comics

Calvin's dad: The world is isn't fair, Calvin.
Calvin: I know, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

  • George Carlin had a bit in one his stand up routines wherehe not only expounded on how unfair life was, but also noted "Everyone who ever told me that life was fair died horribly before age 35."

Video Games

Tali: I don't think life is about what you deserve.

Web Comics

Doctor: I'm so sorry. I know this is hard and she was so young. Sometimes it just doesn't seem fair.
Fred:: Miss, I had almost forty years with the most amazin' woman in the world. If life is unfair, it was unfair in my favor.

Real Life

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