Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Reason: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[Back to The Future]]'', it turns out that the only reason Marty's parents got together is that his dad just happened to be a peeping tom. Marty is notably distressed by this, particularly since it {{spoiler|initially}} looks like Marty's mom would get together with whoever got hit by a truck that day.

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', series [[Butt Monkey]] Johnny Sasaki turns out to be immune to the nasty side effects that arise when the nanomachines are shut down by the [[Big Bad]], and this later allows him to have a [[Big Damn Heroes|Big Damn Hero]] moment in rescuing Meryl, all because he never got the nanomachine injections in the first place. Meryl asks him how he knew something like Liquid's hijacking of the system would happen, and Johnny says he didn't. He was just so afraid of needles he avoided all the mandatory injections.

* Both of the non-Good-aligned party members in [[Order of the Stick]]:

** Vaarsuvius does this a lot. First, [[Ambiguous Gender|s/he]] kills Kubota, who was unarmed and tied up, but was ''probably'' going to get away with murder and attempted assassination, simply because V (correctly) guessed that he was a minor villain and was tired of distractions. Later, V {{spoiler|sells hir soul to save hir family from a dragon}}, which s/he did mainly because s/he was tired of feeling powerless and wanted ultimate arcane power (an oracle even uses the trope name when predicting this event). After gaining said power, V then {{spoiler|teleports the entire Azure City fleet to a safe refuge}} because s/he was tired of dealing with them. V then {{spoiler|kills said dragon, along with every dragon directly related to it}}, which may ultimately be a good act, but s/he did it mainly out of a (justified) grudge and to prove that s/he could. Lastly, s/he attempts to {{spoiler|kill Xykon}}, not because he's Evil, but to prove that s/he is the strongest magic user in the world.

** Belkar is basically a sociopath who never thinks of anyone but himself (and probably his pet cat), but usually his bloodlust is directed at Evil beings. He is always puzzled when others express gratitude for his actions and repeatedly [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshades]] that he can loot and murder all he wants as long as his victims are the [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil|right species]].

** In a variation, Eugene Greenhilt ''desires'' the Right Thing for the Wrong Reason: he wants his son to kill the evil lich Xykon, but only so that the family blood oath can be fulfilled and he can get into the afterlife. He lords this over Roy at one point: he cannot in good conscience ''not'' do the one thing his father wants, so he has no way of bargaining with him.

* In one episode of ''[[South Park]]'', Cartman decides in prejudiced irrationality that the new Arab student is a terrorist and pulls out all the stops to save Hillary Clinton, who, coincidentally, is in South Park that very same day. Even though Cartman's theory is completely unfounded, it turns out that there ''are'' terrorists plotting to kill Hillary Clinton (Russians secretly working for {{spoiler|the British}})--but the only reason we found out about them is thanks to Cartman's prejudice. This is [[Lampshaded]] heavily at the end, when they deliver the story's moral about tolerance only for Cartman to point this out.

* Homer is cleared of indecent assault in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' by dint of Groundskeeper Willie capturing the real course of events on camera during his activities as a peeping tom. Willie is then dragged through the mud the same way Homer was.