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{{trope}}
{{quote|''No good deed goes unpunished
''All helpful urges should be circumvented
''No good deed goes unpunished
''Sure, I meant well -- well, look at what well-meant did!''
|'''Elphaba''', "No Good Deed" from ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]''}}
We all know that [[Karma]] can be a bitch, but sometimes it's a total [[Jerkass]]. It's not enough that the bad guy is a [[Karma Houdini]]. It's not enough that the good guy [[Can't Get Away
If this happens because the hero helps people who are ungrateful, it can be a case of [[All of the Other Reindeer]] or [[The Farmer and the Viper]]. More often, helping out exposes the hero to some other danger, like the wrath of a villain whose plans were disrupted by said good deed, or the wrath of a populace that is opposed to the method of said helping out, such as in many [[Burn the Witch]] stories that involve actual witches, or being [[Arrested for Heroism]].
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It should also be noted that this trope is more complicated than it looks. Sometimes good intentions bring unjust punishment, but sometimes good intentions result in ''very bad'' results because the good-intentioned person was also foolish, incompetent, or ignorant. In many cases whether a bad outcome was undeserved or not depends on the details.
As Robert Heinlein's character Lazarus Long observes in one story, "Good intentions are no substitute for knowing how the buzzsaw works." Which doesn't mean that life is not often cruelly unjust, it merely means that things are often not as simple as they look at first glance.
Alternatively ''a villain'' can be a victim of this trope if an act of mercy on his part is what leads to his downfall.
Named for a well-known saying attributed to Clare Boothe Luce. Compare [[Being Good Sucks]], where it's the act of being good (rather than the deeds themselves) that brings suffering, and contrast [[Laser-Guided Karma]] where ''every'' deed (good or otherwise) gets paid back in spades.
Contrast [[Androcles' Lion]] and [[Character Witness]], for when good deeds are duly rewarded.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Monster (manga)|Monster]]'' is all about this trope. Dr. Tenma saves the life of a young boy, who turns out to be the titular [[Complete Monster]], and spends the rest of the series paying for it. He also has a habit of risking capture to tend to others' wounds, even when he ''knows'' they're bad guys, and he eventually {{spoiler|gets caught by the police}} because he stopped to help a little kid who scraped his knee. [[The Woobie|Poor Tenma]].
* The reason [[Naruto|Nagato]] finally snapped and became Pain. Well, that and a bit of more general [[Cosmic Plaything]] status and a [[Dead Little Sister|dead best friend]] (whose corpse he preserved and rigged up as a zombie avatar of himself).
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* This happens frequently to the title character of ''[[Kaiji]]'', almost to the point of being the theme of the show.
** His situation starts with him cosigning on a loan for a friend. Months later, this turns out to be a loan from the [[Yakuza]], who show up on Kaiji's doorstep to collect on the loan when said friend disappears. (Funnily enough, he trashes a nice car out of frustration just before this. It turns out to be a yakuza car... and he suffers no punishment at all.)
** He gets an offer to go onto a ship and gamble for one night for a chance to clear this debt. After getting scammed multiple times in multiple ways, he decides to team up with his friend (who apparently didn't disappear after all...) and another man down on his luck to give him a better chance of winning the gamble. Early on, he meets the conditions to leave the ship with his debt cleared, but he refuses to leave until he's helped his two team members do the same. By the end of the allowed time for the gamble, he gets the other two to meet the conditions while losing his own advantage and being taken as a
** He convinces someone else to "buy" him back and then takes back the extra cash his friends were trying to keep. He then uses this cash to "buy" back another scam victim out of sympathy. It turns out that this arrangement has a few strings attached, sending him into even greater debt than before.
** He's later abducted by the yakuza again and presented with a race for enough money to cover his new debt three times over. He only gets this money if he finishes first or second. The race is a footrace across a thin iron bar. With a potentially fatal and definitely very painful elevation. There are three times as many contestants as iron bars. Pushing other contestants down is not only allowed, but encouraged, and there's one guy in front of him. The one guy in front of him is slow as hell, but he refuses to push. The guy behind him catches up and isn't so nice... Luckily, he manages to grab the bar and pull himself back up, being disqualified but not injured.
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* [[Butt Monkey|Crona]] from ''[[Soul Eater]]''. The epitome of this trope when [[Ambiguous Gender|s/he]] {{spoiler|joins Shibusen but is forced to spy on them by his/her [[Jerkass]] mother, Medusa}}
* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Yusuke is a teen delinquent, always in trouble, being told he'll never amount to anything (and starting to believe it). One day, he sees a little boy chasing a ball into the street, and rushes out to stop him without a second thought. He gets killed as a result. The worst part is if Yusuke had not pushed the kid out of the way, the kid would have been perfectly fine. Because Yusuke 'saved' him, he got some scrapes. Though eventually dying turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to Yusuke, since he gets better.
** After everything he does in the
* ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'':
** Accelerator
** Not to mention Touma himself, who almost always winds up in the hospital after helping someone.
* Valiant efforts and good intentions don't usually turn out so well for people in ''[[Gantz]]''. The series starts off with two of the main characters (one of them against his will) helping a drunk homeless man who had stumbled onto the subway tracks. They manage to get him onto the platform, and are subsequently hit by a train.
* In the manga and second adaptation ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Winry's parents, two medics that worked to save the lives of several injured Ishbalans in the genocide, were killed by {{spoiler|Scar}}, after bandaging him up and treating his wounds. When Winry finds out, [[Break the Cutie|she immediately loses it]].
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* In the 13th [[Dragonball Z]] movie, Gohan and Videl as The Great Saiyaman and Saiyawoman end up saving Hoi from committing suicide by jumping off a building. Turns out Hoi was a terrible man who wanted to revive a demon and was the survivor of an equally evil race of extraterrestrial wizards, and intended to feed Earth to it.
* This is pretty much the punishment for being a good person in the ''[[Berserk]]'' universe.
* {{spoiler|Annie}} spared Armin in ''[[Attack on Titan]]'' who then deduced she was {{spoiler|the female titan}}.
== [[Comic Books]] ==▼
▲== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Incredible Hulk]]'' is another series that springs from this trope, with Bruce Banner paying an even more personal cost for saving Rick Jones.
* [[Deadpool]]'s bad luck is compounded by his own insanity and [[Blue and Orange Morality|off kilter morality]]. He might do good, but even if he's acknowledged by the other heroes, instead of acceptance he'll receive a swift boot out of the city. Acceptance is all the guy really wants, which makes Wade's case even more tragic.
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* The ''[[Sin City]]'' story "That Yellow Bastard" is this trope in a nutshell. All Detective John Hartigan wants to do is close his one unsolved case and stop a [[Serial Killer]] who likes to [[Complete Monster|rape little girls and slash them to ribbons]] and put his ass away so that he can finally retire in peace. Said sick fuck happens to be the son of a powerful and ruthless U.S. Senator, one who will not stand for anyone messing with him, no matter how justified it is. As a result, Hartigan pays dearly for saving Nancy Callahan, the eleven-year-old girl slated to become the monster's next victim. Good lord, does he pay dearly. Said corrupt senator pays to have Hartigan's heart fixed, and then sets him up to take the fall for raping the girl (who didn't even get raped). Worse, he has to let his wife think he's the [[Complete Monster]] everyone says he is, because she'll be killed if he ever claims innocence. There's a special circle in Hell reserved specifically for the Roark family, but years later when Nancy is in trouble again Hartigan does get revenge by castrating Junior (again, and with his ''bare hands'') {{spoiler|before killing him and succumbing to his own wounds}}.
* In ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' Vol. 3 #19 (February 1986): "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished", a group of Legionaires are forced to deal with the menace that the Sun-Eater they destroyed was intended to stop.
* In ''[[The Long Halloween]]'' Thomas Wayne saved the life of Carmine Falcone, since he's a doctor first and foremost dedicated to saving lives, and rebuffed Carmine's father's attempts to bribe him to keep the incident quiet. When this incident came to light years later it cast suspicion on Thomas' son Bruce. Harvey Dent -- [[The Resenter|already resentful of Bruce Wayne's wealth]]
* Just about every time a superhero [[Save the Villain|Saves The Villain]]. The villain rarely ever appreciates the effort or does a [[Heel Face Turn]]. It just means the villain will live to make life hell for everyone else another day.
* In the first issue of ''[[Ultimate X-Men]]'', Bobby uses his ice powers to save a ''large'' group of people from a falling sentinel. He gets a bottle thrown at his head for doing so, since it just outed him as a mutant. Hell, the entire premise of X-Men is that they fight to save a world that hates and fears them, resulting in basically this.
** Similarly, During Ultimatum, a lot of the X-Men die to stop Magneto, and the ones who survived did just as much. Mutants were just as effected by the attacks as everyone else, and most tried to stop it. Afterwords, mutants are being openly hunted by the goverment, the level of abuse they get has increased, and even thought mutants like Kitty Pryde risked their lives to help the public during the attacks, her peers are all bullying her and even report her to the goverment which causes them to come looking for her.
* ''[[Ultimate Spider-Man]]'' ends with Spidey throwing all he has to stop the Ultimate Five, which ends with his death via a truck explosion.
* In ''[[The Mighty Thor|Thor (Vol.5) #4]]'', Jane Foster - who at the time, has the powers and identity of Thor - is accosted by longtime Thor villain Absorbing Man, who laughs at the idea of a woman taking the hero's role. This comment causes Titania - his own wife and frequent accomplice - to slug him and knock him unconscious. Despite sparing Jane a difficult fight, Jane still smacks Titania across the face with Mjolnir and takes her in. ([[What the Hell, Hero?]])
== [[Fan Works]] ==▼
▲== Fan Works ==
* In the Third Movement of ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', the four encounter a colony of shrunken humans being used as a science project by aliens. They unshrink the humans and take 40 of them back to C'hou to start a new life. But [[Unwanted Rescue|the humans resent being removed from their universe]] and, among other things, steal the four's personal stuff after the four are whisked away to look for the third piece of the Vasyn.
* ''[[Summer Days and Evening Flames]]'': Starfall puts his racism against griffins aside long enough to rescue Gilda from several criminals, freeing her from her bonds and defending her form would-be lethal blows. Although he did kill one (in defense of another), he was still arrested due to "vigilantism" by not being reinstated into the guard yet.
* ''[[Pattycakes]]'': Dash would have preferred to keep napping, but went to see Fluttershy because she's a good friend; it got her [[Slipping a Mickey|mickey'd]], [[Mind Rape|mindraped]] and mentally regressed, roughly [[In That Order]].
* The ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' fanfiction ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/840435/1/Good_Samaritan_Blues
== [[Film]] ==▼
▲== Film ==
* From Christopher Nolan's ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'':
** In ''The Dark Knight'' Sal Maroni explains to [[Batman]] that nobody will tell him where [[The Joker]] is because Batman has "[[Thou Shalt Not Kill|rules]]," while the Joker does not. In a choice between the two, it's healthier to make Batman mad to avoid pissing off the Joker than it would be the other way around.
** In ''[[Batman Begins]]'', when Bruce went out of his way to save his mentor, he learns later he was {{spoiler|Genocidal Knight Templar Ra's Al Ghul, and that in doing so he nearly destroys Gotham. And in fact, it is revealed that this is exactly the sort of work the League of Shadows (i.e. the clan of ninjas Bruce had been training under) [[Ancient Conspiracy|had been doing for centuries]], including ''sacking Rome'' and ''spreading the Black Plague''.}}
* In ''[[Léon: The Professional]]'', saving Mathilda is what eventually gets Leon killed... [[Go Out with a Smile|but he was never happier.]]
* ''[[No Country for Old Men]]''. Llewelyn Moss would have gotten away with stealing the drug cash if he hadn't gone back to give water to a dying man.
* In ''[[Snake Eyes]]'', Nicolas Cage plays a [[Dirty Cop|sleazy corrupt cop]] who suddenly finds his conscience when he uncovers and subsequently tries to prevent a plot to assassinate a political whistleblower. {{spoiler|He succeeds, and in the epilogue he is initially hailed as a hero, but winds up going to jail after the extra publicity shines a light on his shady past.}}
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* In ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'', Captain John Miller's decision to spare Steamboat Willie comes back to bite him in the ass later on, {{spoiler|when the latter kills him}}.
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* ''[[To Kill a Mockingbird]]'', by Harper Lee, where the whole story revolves around a good deed that is punished, namely the protagonist's father, a defense attorney, making the unpopular decision to defend a black man who has been falsely accused. Even more so the reason that the black man is in trouble in the first place was because he did a number of good deeds for a troubled young white woman because he felt pity for her.
* ''Justine'', by the [[Marquis de Sade]], is an incredibly over-the-top rendering of this trope, with the title character's virtue and good deeds rewarded with the worst kind of abuse and suffering throughout her life. And considering that the author's name is where we get the word "sadism," we have a clear picture of just how bad things get for her.
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* In the ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', most characters after their heroics are punished accordingly by their local female authority, i.e. Aes Sedai, Wise Ones, Maidens, wife.
* ''[[Fighting Fantasy]]'' was notorious about the "magical beggar" trope. Virtually every beggar you would meet would give you help that is far more valuable than the single coin you had to donate to them. In one book this is explained by the generosity of your donation: sure, you give a single gold piece every time, but the standard currency for those parts is ''copper''.
* In ''[[The Sound and
* [[Anita Blake]] quotes the saying in her first book, ''Guilty Pleasures'': "He had to be stopped. If I hadn't interfered tonight, he would have been stopped. No good deed goes unpunished."
* [[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]] could be the poster child for this trope. No matter how many times he saves the world, no matter how many times he does the right thing, ''breaking even is coming out ahead for him''. And he doesn't come out ahead very often.
** And let's not forget poor {{spoiler|Murphy. }} In Proven Guilty, {{spoiler|she abandons an investigation to help Harry save a teenage girl who is the daughter of a [[Knight Templar]], by going through ''the heart of Winter itself'', with no guarentee that she'll come out alive, the odds stacked against her. She doesn't even hesitate to help. Her reward? A demotion, and a warning that she'll get fired if it happens again. }}
* ''[[Forgotten Realms
* In ''[[The Bible]]'', [[The Messiah|Jesus]] resurrects the dead, feeds the hungry, heals the sick and disabled, teaches the way of the right and has done no wrong. He becomes hated by the Pharisees and is put on the cross.▼
** Proverbs 17:13 denounces this:▼
{{quote|Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.}}▼
▲* [[Forgotten Realms|Drizz't's]] good deeds in the early part of his life caused him no small amount of grief. During his first surface raid he spared the life of a little elf girl and faked her death. Unfortunately, Lolth knew about this and didn't like that he ''wasn't'' an [[Ax Crazy]] child murderer. She demanded a sacrifice from his house, and his father Zaknafein sacrificed himself in Drizz't's place. [[It Got Worse]] when the little elf girl he spared grew up and mistakenly blamed Drizz't for the massacre that claimed her family that night due to her trauma. She spent her entire life hunting him and nearly killed him only to die in the attempt. Then there was the time he stumbled upon a gang of barghest whelps that had murdered a farming family and avenged them by killing the whelps. This earned him misplaced blame for the murders (as a Drow, he was a prime suspect) and the ire of a persistent bounty hunter. This trend more or less ended after he met his [[True Companions]], who made sure Drizz't would get better PR.
** And that girl he saved? The one his father was killed over because Drizz't didn't murder her? She grew up to be violently obsessed with the purple-eyed drow she saw on the day her family was killed, tracked him down, and forced Drizz't to kill her in self-defense when she tried to seek revenge on the man who saved her life for crimes he did not commit. Drizz't recognized her after she died.
* In ''[[Honor Harrington|Honor Among Enemies]]'', Warner Caslet is the captain of a light cruiser in the navy of the People's Republic of Haven. Haven has recently suffered a coup d'etat and is now ruled by a vicious, bloodthirsty regime which not only [[You Have Failed Me...|kills the officers who fail in their assignments]], but shoots their families for good measure. When he is dispatched to the Silesian Confederacy as a scout for a commerce raiding operation that will prey on the merchant shipping of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, which Haven is at war with, he discovers a batch of home-grown pirates who are sadistic on a whole new level, capturing merchant ships even when they know they will not be able to take any captured cargo with them and torturing/raping the crew ''en masse''. Caslet manages to convince his [[The Political Officer|Peoples Commissioner]] that these pirates deserve to be caught, even if it is not in their orders to do so, and eventually tracks down their ship. However, the pirates are in the midst of capturing another freighter, and this one is a ''Manticoran'' ship, which Caslet has standing orders to capture himself. Caslet knows that there is a good chance that his ship will be destroyed if he decides to engage the pirates, and his own superiors might very well execute him on general principles if he risks his command to save a ship belonging to an enemy nation, but his personal integrity will not allow him to stand by and he again convinces his Commissioner to allow an intervention...[[Dramatic Irony|then the Manticoran "freighter" he was trying to save revealed that it was a disguised warship and ended up capturing]] ''[[Dramatic Irony|his]]'' [[Dramatic Irony|ship.]] He avoids his government's wrath over this due to a legal loophole (All the officers claimed that the Manticoran freighter was flying under Andermani colors at the time in their reports, and his orders stated he was to assist Andermani ships), only then to end up earning the personal displeasure of a dubiously sane member of the Committee of Public Safety for showing basic decency to prisoners of war.
* Michael (and Michael alone) is a frequent victim of this in the ''[[Knight and Rogue Series]]''. Trying to save a 'kidnapped' woman gets Michael arrested, taking the fall for another man gets him flogged, letting Fisk escape Ceciel's guards gets him expreimented on, refusing to arrest an innocent woman gets him marked unredeemed, stopping a man from beating a young boy gets him arrested-again, helping to put out a fire gets him chased by a mob, helping arrest a murderer gets him kicked out of town, and trying to save a man who's falling gets him accused of murder. As Fisk says, heroism is vastly overrated.
* [[Harry Potter]]'s mom wouldn't have been able to preform the heroic sacrifice that brought about Voldemort's first downfall if Voldemort didn't give her the chance to stand aside in the first place.
▲== Live Action TV ==
* [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'s life runs on this trope. No matter what she does, the PTB find new ways to fuck with her.
** [[Angel]] has this happen as well, particularly in the 4th and 5th seasons.
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** Trip quotes the saying in ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'''s "The Andorian Incident". The good deed in this case is paying a visit to a remote Vulcan monastery... which happens to have been taken over by Andorians, and the away team's arrival makes the situation even worse.
*** Except it results in them getting Commander Shran as an ally, which [[With Friends Like These...|despite the problems he causes]] does Earth a lot of good in the long run. The act has serious consequences for T'Pol's career however.
* One episode of ''[[Frasier]]'' has the title character question whether it's good to be a Good Samaritan on the basis of how frequently his attempts to do good have backfired on him (note that the parable itself is ''not'' an
* In ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'', Ned attempts to undo the revenge taken by Chuck and Olive on Balsam's Bittersweets and gets arrested for murder as a result.
** And once, when he was still a kid, he climbed up a tree for a kindergarten class to show them baby birds...but they were all dead. So he revived them, and showed the birds to the class...Then they decided to show him the three baby woodpeckers that they were going to release that day...
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* In the ''[[Monk]]'' episode "Mr. Monk and the Three Julies", the Graduate Student Julie Teeger (not to be confused with Natalie's daughter) ends up getting a package meant to be delivered to a housewife of the same name by mistake, and generously delivers it to the rightful receiver. Unfortunately, that package contained evidence that her husband, George Teeger, was unfaithful to her, and both the housewife and the grad student in return end up killed by the husband.
* A constant theme on ''[[The Wire]]'', particularly with regard to the Baltimore Police Department. Any police character who sticks his neck out to try to do some good ''will'' be [[Reassigned to Antarctica]], if not fired outright, for the sin of pissing off the bosses and/or the politicians.
* ''[[The Invisible Man (TV series)|
* ''[[Heroes]]'': Someone is helping Mark Parkman fix a tire, unfortunately, Sylar is possessing him at the time and kills the helpful man with a tire iron.
* Sheldon in ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' helped Penny go to the hospital by driving her over. She later rewards his kindness by essentially forcing him to go to court for a parking ticket on the same day as a Stan Lee autographing convention at the comic book store.
== Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legend ==
▲* In ''[[The Bible]]'', [[The Messiah|Jesus]] resurrects the dead, feeds the hungry, heals the sick and disabled, teaches the way of the right and has done no wrong. He becomes hated by the Pharisees and is put on the cross.
▲** Proverbs 17:13 denounces this:
▲{{quote|Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not depart from his house.}}
* In some versions, Mordred of [[King Arthur|Arthurian legend]]. At the [[wikipedia:Battle of Camlann|Battle of Camlann]], Mordred
==
* As settings, both the ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' and ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' love this. Do a good deed? Well, it'll cost you a pound of flesh ''and'' probably [[World Half Empty|not greatly impact things anyway]]. Do the easy bad deed instead? Get rewarded with power/riches/expediency, but dinged by the [[Karma Meter]]. Do option 1 enough times and you'll get killed or ground to a masochistic paste. Do option 2 enough times and you'll destroy yourself. Do half and half and live a quasi-happy/angsty life... for a time. Try to live in happy ignorance and apathy, and somebody else will ding your [[Karma Meter]] ''for you'' when you aren't looking.▼
▲* In some versions, Mordred of [[King Arthur|Arthurian legend]]. At the [[wikipedia:Battle of Camlann|Battle of Camlann]], Mordred {{spoiler|draws his sword in order to kill a serpent at Arthur's heel during peace negotiations}}, but Bedwyr sees this as an act of betrayal and calls for war. This ends with {{spoiler|Arthur and Mordred killing one another and Mordred being seen as a traitor forever}}.
* So common in ''[[Warhammer
* ''[[Dungeons
* The Abyssal exalts in ''[[Exalted]]'' have this in spades. Picked out at death to serve [[Omnicidal Maniac]] undead gods and given corrupted divine powers, they ''can'' choose to go the [[Dark Is Not Evil]] route. Only the more positive, life affirming things they do, the likelier it is the said gods take over your body and someone you care about is [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|randomly killed]]. This is why Abyssal Exaltation is the only type that both a) must be willingly accepted by the recipient and b) allows for the possibility of redeeming and changing state into a Solar Exalted. The designers already knew that it's a screw-over, and thus made it both require you to willingly sign on with the Neverborn (i.e., you've got it coming) and allow an escape mechanism.▼
* Elphaba, the protagonist in the Broadway musical ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'', finally has enough of her misfortunes during the song "No Good Deed," quoted above. By the time the musical number occurs, every major act of kindness or benevolence Elphaba's ever tried has blown up in her face. One of the more [[Egregious]] examples came when
▲* As settings, both ''[[Old World of Darkness]]'' and ''[[New World of Darkness]]'' love this. Do a good deed? Well, it'll cost you a pound of flesh ''and'' probably [[World Half Empty|not greatly impact things anyway]]. Do the easy bad deed instead? Get rewarded with power/riches/expediency, but dinged by the [[Karma Meter]]. Do option 1 enough times and you'll get killed or ground to a masochistic paste. Do option 2 enough times and you'll destroy yourself. Do half and half and live a quasi-happy/angsty life... for a time. Try to live in happy ignorance and apathy, and somebody else will ding your [[Karma Meter]] ''for you'' when you aren't looking.
▲* So common in ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' that it's rare to see anyone even ''try'' to do good deeds anymore. A quote from the [[Card-Carrying Villain|forces of Chaos]] Codex: "Let no good deed go unpunished, and let no evil deed go unrewarded."
▲* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' adventure ''A Hot Day in L'Trel'' in Dungeon magazine #44. After the [[PC|PCs]] risk their lives to save a woman from a burning house, the woman sues them because she was injured during the rescue.
▲* The Abyssal exalts in [[Exalted]] have this in spades. Picked out at death to serve [[Omnicidal Maniac]] undead gods and given corrupted divine powers, they ''can'' choose to go the [[Dark Is Not Evil]] route. Only the more positive, life affirming things they do, the likelier it is the said gods take over your body and someone you care about is [[Dropped a Bridge on Him|randomly killed]]. This is why Abyssal Exaltation is the only type that both a) must be willingly accepted by the recipient and b) allows for the possibility of redeeming and changing state into a Solar Exalted. The designers already knew that it's a screw-over, and thus made it both require you to willingly sign on with the Neverborn (i.e., you've got it coming) and allow an escape mechanism.
▲== [[Theater]] ==
▲* Elphaba, the protagonist in the Broadway musical ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]'', finally has enough of her misfortunes during the song "No Good Deed," quoted above. By the time the musical number occurs, every major act of kindness or benevolence Elphaba's ever tried has blown up in her face. One of the more [[Egregious]] examples came when {{spoiler|her enchanting of her crippled sister Nessarose's jeweled shoes enabled Nessa to walk, just in time to have her heart broken by the man she loved, and in a jealous rage, snatch up the very same book that gave her the use of her legs and use it to cast a horrible curse on him, which Elphaba could only save him from by turning him into the Tin Man.}}
** And to quote the Tin-Man: ''Holy Christ!''
{{quote|''It's due to her I'm made of tin, her spell made this occur.
''And for once I'm glad I'm heartless, I'll be heartless killing her!''}}
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic]] II''. If you give a beggar some money, Kreia's [[What
{{quote|'''Kreia:''' If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself... and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. You stole that struggle from them, cheapened it. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. And when they triumph, they will be even stronger for the victory.}}
** The speech is punctuated by the beggar being beaten up for the money ''you'' gave him, and even if you choose the dark side option and send the beggar away, [[Cruelty Is the Only Option|he gets beaten up anyway by the guy you just threatened]].
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** Taken to extremes in ''[[Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten]]'' with Artina's death being caused by her healing someone. The recipient becomes an [[Omnicidal Maniac]] as a result of said death.
* Deconstructed in ''[[Castlevania]]'' with Lisa, who was burned at the stake for practicing medicine. Dracula does NOT take this well and resumes his war with humanity.
* Ramza in ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]'' is one of the only legitimately good people in the story. His run of bad luck starts when he tries to help a desperate squire ([[The Scrappy|Argath]]) rescue his Lord and Ramza's own brother subtly suggests how to go about it, which leaves his home at Eagrose undefended when the Corpse Brigade comes by to kidnap his best friend's sister. When the ''entire world'' is full of [[
* Happens in spades to Norman Jayden from ''[[Heavy Rain]]''. {{spoiler|If he goes to the warehouse to save Shaun, he slowly succumbs to his addiction to ARI and inability to differentiate it from reality}}
* Colette from ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' qualifies. Always nice to people, yet fate seems to hate her for no reason.
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** Similarly, the woman who left him basically did it out of guilt for her part in Vincent's father's death when both were trying to research Chaos.
** Chaos in Dissidia was shown to be somewhat merciful to his minions, even unwilling to punish them if they disobey them. Unfortunately for him, this also results in most of the villains not being truly loyal to Chaos, to the extent that once he {{spoiler|offs Cosmos}}, they end up doing their own thing, abandoning Chaos, with only Garland remaining by Chaos' side.
* ''[[Super Mario Bros.
* Subverted in ''[[Odin Sphere]]''. Gwendolyn (outside the battlefield) is actually a pretty kind and caring person. She exposes and eliminates a traitor and rescues her half-sister Velvet (despite her own feelings) to ease her father's pain. She suffers punishment for
* In ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', Emiya Shirou stays at school late to sweep the archery dojo as a favour to his friend Shinji. This gets him ''stabbed in the heart''. By Cúchulainn.
** Also, {{spoiler|Archer. His entire ''life'' turned out to be one big example of this trope as a result of his blind devotion to his ideals, and he keeps on doing it even after death.}}
** In ''Fate/Zero'' the only thing {{spoiler|Kayneth}} did which could be considered an act of kindness--{{spoiler|giving up at the Grail War (with it his only chance to restore his pride and damaged body) to save his fiancee's life}}
* In the ''good'' ending for ''[[Phantasy Star]] Portable'', {{spoiler|you and your partner's reward for saving the galaxy is being discharged from the Guardians and being branded traitors because your partner was an unknowing (not to mention ''unwilling'') pawn in the [[Big Bad]]'s scheme and you refused to leave her behind.}} Is it any wonder [[Hero with Bad Publicity|the Guardians aren't very well liked in part 3?]]
* In ''[[Shadow Hearts]]: From the New World'', we learn that the main antagonist is hero Johnny Garland's older sister, who [[Heroic Sacrifice|sacrificed her mind and memory]] to bring him [[Back
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' pulls the fake-distress-call-leading-to-a-trap routine on the player, and it's hinted that in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', a great many of Shepard's decisions may come back to bite the player in the nether regions.
** If you repent for killing the Rachni queen in the first game by {{spoiler|saving the false queen in the third game, she'll eventually betray you and severely damage your military}}.
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** Did you {{spoiler|rewrite the Heretic Geth}}? Congrats, you just made {{spoiler|getting the Geth and Quarians to make peace}} ''[[Luck-Based Mission|that]]'' much harder.
* Massive irony (and massive spoilers) in one possible ending of ''[[Heavy Rain]]''. If {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]]}} selflessly saves a certain person's life, and {{spoiler|kills all the heroes}}, he'll appear to get away with it all in the end only to end up being killed by the one, completely unrelated person whose life he saved.
* Subverted in ''[[Fahrenheit (2005 video game)|Fahrenheit]]'', at one point Lucas (who by this point is a fugitive wanted for murder) has the choice of saving a drowning boy while a cop who saw him leave the crime scene happens to be approaching. If he does save him, the cop does in fact recognize him but chooses to let him go.
* In the backstory to ''[[Gears of War]]'', Dom testifies in Fenix's defense after he is charged with desertion for his ''entirely justified'' attempt to save his father. His "reward" is being demoted, facing public humiliation, and being hated by the top brass for "supporting a traitor".
* Similarly, in ''[[Resistance]]: Retribution'', James Grayson's reward for destroying ''26'' Chimera conversion facilities is...to be imprisoned and threatened with execution because he disobeyed ''one'' order.
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** You also have Patches the Hyena, who every time you "help" him, he traps you with a horrible enemy, Satsuki, who if you're good offers you a quest to grab a sword where at the end he tries to kill you with it if you give it to him, tries to kill you to steal it if you don't, and just straight up tries to kill you if he see's you with it equipped, if you're bad, his evil version tries to kill you without even bothering with the quest, and of course there is the end of the game {{spoiler|where you get to be a Monumental, a living seal for the [[Big Bad|Old One]] until you die, assuming that the Maiden in Black was just doing the same routine as last time, though this is up for debate. Oh, this also means that all Soul Arts will be gone from the world.}}
* One of the main ways ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' shows that it is depressing and cynical as hell is showing how nearly every good deed John performs ultimately amounts to nothing. {{spoiler|Help the desperate hooker make a new life for herself? Her pimp hunts her down and murders her. Help a Chinese immigrant get back to his lover? He dies of an opium overdose before he's even halfway there. Help a woman whose pregnant get funds from her illegitimate suitor? It turns out she's a con artist, and you just killed an innocent man (albeit in self defense) and left a distraught woman widowed...}}
* ''
* So at the beginning of ''[[Singularity]]'', an unstable time warp sends you back to 1955, right into the midst of a burning building and dying Soviet scientists. You find one man running for his life, only for the floor to collapse beneath him. Naturally, you grab his hand and carry him to safety. Oh, the catch? Turns out Dr. Demichev had cruelty to rival Stalin and because you saved him, the project he was working on went further than it ever had in the original history, giving him fantastic weapons that allowed him to take over the world. {{spoiler|And the only way to undo it is to go back in time and kill yourself. If you do so, it causes a [[Snap Back]] to the beginning of the game so you don't technically die... then you find out you're in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union ''still'' rules the world, albeit with a (hopefully) much more benevolent person in charge.}}
* ''[[Return to Krondor]]'' plays this straight, at the beginning of the game no less. You can tear down a sweatshop that uses children as labourers. Now while this may give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside, it turns out that there are consequences. The owner of the sweatshop, Yusef, worked for Jazhara's uncle in Kesh. You will encounter Izmali assassins - ninja-like killers who will attack you with poisoned daggers. They were apparently paid by Jazhara's uncle to kill you for meddling in the affairs of Kesh. You will encounter a group of them in the third chapter of the game, and another group roughly halfway through the game. In the second last chapter, you will find a dead group of these assassins. If you search their bodies, you will find out in a letter written by Jazhara's uncle that {{spoiler|The Crawler, who Yusef was an agent for, pulled strings and is the one actually responsible for these assassins being sent in the first place. Jazhara's uncle is trying to tell her that he knows she was not meddling in the affairs of Kesh, and that there is little he can actually do, due to the Crawler being quite powerful and elusive.}} You can decide not to even investigate the sweatshop, and you will never be accosted by the Izmali assassins.
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops]]'', Big Boss, when he participated in the Mozambician War of Independence, rescued a war orphan named Frank Jaegar after fighting him, and placed him in a rehab facility hoping that he would recover and be safe. Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize until after the fact that some CIA personnel accessed the rehab facility and took Frank Jaegar and placed him into an inhuman experiment called the Perfect Soldier Project, of which he was the sole successful, surviving result, turning him into Null.
* ''Civilization 4'' has a random wartime event that tells you the enemy has shown unexpected mercy towards wounded prisoners of war, and that this could be a stepping stone towards negotiations for peace. The player then receives the option to either force a 10 turn peace treaty with a +1 bonus to the relations with the enemy civ, or continue the fight. The option to continue the fight actually says "No good deed shall go unpunished".
* Support nice old man Harrowmont to keep ruthless fratricidal bastard Bhelen off the throne of Orzammar in [[Dragon Age]]? Congratulations, Harrowmont gets assassinated within a year of his coronation and Orzammar is back to where it was before you intervened.
* One of the defining tropes of ''[[Space Quest]]''. So you saved the galaxy, the ambassador of [[Star Con]], and the crew of an entire starship, defeating the [[Big Bad]] for good measure. So what's your reward for doing so? [[Insignia Rip Off Ritual|You are forcibly and literally stripped of your rank]], demoted to Janitor, and basically told to be lucky that you weren't convicted of war crimes.
* In ''[[Dark Souls]]'' the "reward" for following through with the quest to link the First Flame is a horrible burning existence as the new Cinder. And it's doubtful how "good" this deed really is.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* ''[[Squid Row]]'': After Grace [[Lazy Bum|lets all the special orders accumulate]], and Randie clears them, the viciously unpleasant Grace get more hours.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* Bruno Bozzetto's ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeSzFtqLxQ4 "How to Drive: Yes and No"]''
* Agent Washington from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' could be a poster child for this trope. He went against his orders to spare Agent South's life... and she shot him in the back as thanks (following orders from the same command as him, no less). After he returns to work, instead of receiving the support he needs to stop [[The Juggernaut|The Meta]], he gets saddled with bureaucracy and a team full of idiots. And after he takes down that military organization and puts a stop to its numerous unsanctioned experiments based on [[
▲* [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/840435/1/Good_Samaritan_Blues This] ''[[Lord of the Rings]]'' fanfiction. The title says it all.
* The ending of ''Operation Graveyard'' counts as this. See it [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534717 HERE].▼
▲* Agent Washington from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' could be a poster child for this trope. He went against his orders to spare Agent South's life... and she shot him in the back as thanks (following orders from the same command as him, no less). After he returns to work, instead of receiving the support he needs to stop [[The Juggernaut|The Meta]], he gets saddled with bureaucracy and a team full of idiots. And after he takes down that military organization and puts a stop to its numerous unsanctioned experiments based on [[AI Is a Crapshoot|fragmented AIs]], he gets [[Arrested for Heroism|slapped with a number of criminal charges for his efforts]] (most notably, 7 counts of destruction of military property).
▲* The ending of ''Operation Graveyard'' counts as this. See it [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534717 HERE]
* In V4 of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', Luke Templeton talks Clio Gabriella out of committing suicide and generally helps her out. How does she repay him? By shooting him in the chest and head.
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* There's a [[Donald Duck]] cartoon short where Donald gives an ant a bit of sugar out of kindness. In return for his good deed, the ants invade his house for more and eventually cause it to blow up, presumably killing Donald.
* In a similar vein, the episode "Can You Spare a Dime?" of ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'' features Squidward quitting his job over a misunderstanding. When he ends up losing his house, Spongebob selflessly takes him into his own home, and takes care of him. Squidward "thanks" him by becoming a freeloader, forcing SpongeBob to wait on him hand and foot.
* Happens rather brutally to Zuko in a season 2 episode of ''
** And even more brutally three years earlier when he spoke out against sacrificing newly-recruited soldiers, and got burned and banished for it.
** And Haru in season 1, who saved an old guy from a cave using Earthbending, but was turned into the Fire Nation soldiers by said guy.
** Azula of all people [[Shipper on Deck|ships]] her brother and best friend together the result: {{spoiler|Mai pulls a [[High Heel Face Turn]] betrayed her for Zuko and that was just the [[Humiliation Conga|beginning]]}}
* ''[[Eek! The Cat]]''{{'}}s catchphrase was "It never hurts to help!" [[Amusing Injuries|It always did]], though [[The Pollyanna|he often didn't notice]].
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'':
**
** Frank Grimes saves Homer from drinking a vial of acid, but smashes it against a wall. Burns chews out Grimes for wasting his precious acid ([[No OSHA Compliance|Though who keeps acid in the dining area?]]), and even worse, had he not saved Homer he might not have died.
** Also, Ned Flanders attempted to be kind by allowing two female college students to stay while they sleep and work on their studies. How do they repay him? By using the room he rented out to them as a studio for a soft-core video site, sexy slumber party. Similarly in the same episode, Flanders attempts to be a good neighbor to his town and to Homer, but his attempts at good deeds are repaid by Homer leaking the video to the whole town, as well as the town cheering on the girls when he evicts them, and mocking him behind their backs.
** Bart, as the Shadow Knight, decides to do a good deed and sacrifice two thirds of his life to resurrect an elf, Marge, although Marge tends to Bart, the same can't be said for the rest of the characters, deciding that his action meant he was easy pickings, and decided to take advantage of his weakened state by brutally slaughtering him.
** When Homer [[Flowers for Algernon Syndrome|became smart]] he sends a safety report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This leads to everyone losing their jobs.
* [[Hero Antagonist|Dib]] from ''[[Invader Zim]]
* Buttons from ''[[Animaniacs]]'' embodies this trope. Every episode has Mindy getting out of her harness or crib etc, and causing Buttons to go and save her, [[Badly-Battered Babysitter|going through absolute hell in the process]]. And at the end of every short the [[Adults Are Useless|parents]] scolds him every [[Precision F-Strike|FUCKING TIME!!]] Well, at least Mindy comforts him. He gets {{spoiler|praised and rewarded for his dedication and loyalty in [[The Movie]]}}, however.
* An episode of ''[[Adventure Time]]'' where Finn shares his food with a man who turns out to be a wizard. The wizard turns him into a giant foot for his kindness. The moral that this wizard was trying to teach Finn? [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|People are jerks and you shouldn't help them.]]
* Most of the time, when Disney's [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]] does a good deed in the TV series based on the film, it turns out okay. However, in "The Citadel", the introductory episode for [[Knight of Cerebus]] [[Evil Sorcerer]] Mozenrath, when Aladdin tries to save a woman and her baby from a monster, they're actually illusions designed to lure Aladdin in so that Mozenrath can try to talk him into capturing ''another'' monster. Aladdin refuses, because Mozenrath is [[Obviously Evil]], but then gets sent to Mozenrath's castle ''anyway''. He finally catches the creature, and then decides to do a good deed for ''it'', letting it back into its own world rather than leaving it as a slave to Mozenrath. Essentially, good deeds were in this case punished with the bitter enmity of the series' most powerful villain.
** In
* Batman always follows through with [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|one rule]] when dealing with the Joker, sometimes even saving the latter. Come ''[[Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker]]'', and the flashback that ensued, Batman most likely will wish he hadn't followed that rule knowing that Batman was in a way responsible for the Joker's most horrific (as well as final) act.
* In one ''[[Tom and Jerry]]'' cartoon, Tom is out in the snow and begs Jerry to help him. Jerry lets Tom into the penthouse apartment he lives in, warms Tom up, and gives him a hot meal. When the owner returns home and attempts to throw Tom out, he ingratiates himself to her by grabbing Jerry and throwing him out in the snow. Of course, this gives Jerry the justification he needs to scare Tom out of the house again and then ignore a second plea for help at the end of the cartoon.
* ''[[X-Men: Evolution]]'' has the end of season 2: The sentinel is released, and by sticking around to fight it, the mutants are forced to reveal themselves, causing mass witch hunting and prejudice against them, even after they prove that they weren't responsible for the Sentinel and were the good guys there. Then, as the end of the series proves, the same thing happens when {{spoiler|They defeat Apocalypse, and its revealed that mutant hatred will continue, more, and more powerful, sentinels will be built and used, one of their closest allies will be consumed by darkness, and at least two of them will be noticibly missing in the future line up. Hey, at least Magneto will become good and the Brotherhood will join SHIELD, but since it was SHIELD who were placed in charge of Sentinel production in the present, that might not be a good thing.}}
▲* In an episode of Aladdin, thanks to Iago getting a bump on the head, he experienced an uncharacteristic amount of selflessness and charitability by giving away a lot of things, including Genie's lamp. Unfortunately, this characteristic ended up causing more harm than good not only to him, but to everyone near him as well.
== [[Real Life]] ==
* One example is that of Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax, a homeless man in
* Additionally, [[Dirty Cop|crooked]], [[Police Are Useless|lazy cops]] have been known to pin crimes on the people who called them just because they are having a difficult time finding the real criminal. Calling the cops and, as a consequence, being asked to testify in court as a witness can make them a target.
* And when it comes gang violence, anyone who is a potential witness will either not call the cops or refuse to testify in court, fearing that the gang member's allies will hunt them and/or their family/friends down for revenge. Street gangs knew about this and some have started to wear shirts with the phrase "Don't Snitch" (or a variation of it) on them to intimidate people into keeping quiet.
* Whistleblowers. You typically lose your job, can't easily find another with your status, and this is the best case scenario without legal repercussions or death threats.
* [[wikipedia:Oliver Sipple|Oliver Sipple]] saved President [[Gerald Ford]]. The resulting media frenzy over his heroic act outed him as a gay veteran, leading to estrangement from his conservative family and numerous unsuccessful lawsuits to the media.
* A Mexican illegal alien while crossing the border stops to help a boy and his mother victims of a car crash, he gets detained and deported.
* It is illegal in some states to top off parking meters in front of cars that don't belong to you, since it deprives the city of the money from a parking ticket.
* It is illegal (operating a taxi without a license) in some cities to advertise a free service giving people a free ride home if they had too much to drink. This is because being able to get a drunk person into your car to take where you want is a wonderful opportunity for the less-than-generous, but it also causes people to drive when they really shouldn't.
* The fact that Good Samaritan Laws exist in
** In some emergencies, it really ''is'' preferable that non-experts not get involved, because they ''will'' either doom the victim or become new victims themselves. Drowning is a classic example. Don't jump into the water to rescue a swimmer in distress if you don't know what you're doing.
* A grown man helping a child who is lost [[Paedo Hunt|can get
* The trope name is frequently quoted by ''[[Judge Judy]]'', in cases where the plaintiff got screwed over by trying to help someone (usually by lending money to a deadbeat).
* Read headlines at [[Fark]].com and you'll eventually come across many of these.
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