Shame If Something Happened: Difference between revisions

** Since "ECM" and {{spoiler|"ECCM"}} are pretty obscure acronyms and sound pretty similar: The ECM is an [[Anti-Magic]] field, {{spoiler|the ECCM is an Anti Anti Magic field.}}

* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', {{spoiler|[[Magnificent Bastard|King Yomi]]}} managed to do this on [[The Smart Guy|Kurama]] and get away with it, revealing that not only had he already done extensive research on Kurama and his [[Morality Pet|human family]], but that he'd taken measures to {{spoiler|[[Blackmail|ensure that Kurama will be forced to work for him]]}}.

'''Kurama''': You bastard... }}

 

* Frank Nitti threatens Eliot Ness's family in this manner, in ''[[The Untouchables]]''. "Nice house."

* This is how Kobayashi keeps the protagonists working for Soze in ''[[The Usual Suspects]]''.

** He proceeds to shoot the man he's talking to, along with his son. [[Complete Monster|After he gets what he wants.]]

* In the crime/horror movie ''[[Se7en]]'', villain John Doe taunts Detective David Mills by talking about how lovely Mills' wife Tracy is. Of course, this is subverted in that {{spoiler|John Doe has already killed Tracy in order to enrage Mills and get Doe exactly what he wants -- his own murder, at Mills' hands.}}

* ''[[Die Hard]]'': "That's a very nice suit. It would be a shame to ruin it."

* The villain in ''The Lincoln Lawyer'' uses this.

* A deleted scene from the movie [[After the Sunset]] has the local gangster telling professional thief Max, "I love the view of the water from your house." Max corrects him, "You mean the view of my house from the water" (which actually isn't much better, as both lines indicate that he knows where Max lives). The gangster assures him that his first statement was correct, leaving Max to worry about his and his fiancee's safety should he tangle with the man.

* In [[The Sentinel]], the villain outright threatens his henchman when he tries to renege on their plan to assassinate the president. "We're not going to kill ''you''. We're going to kill ''her''. (holds up picture of man's wife) And then we're going to kill her. (holds up picture of man's daughter) And then we're going to kill her. (holds up picture of man's other daughter)

== Literature ==

* Subverted in the [[Backstory]] to the ''[[Discworld]]'' novels, where the basically-good Bad Guy (the Patrician) uses it on ''really'' Bad Guys (the heads of various criminal gangs) after persuading them to form a Thieves' Guild that ''regulates'' crime (more or less turning it into an official, ''legal'' profession), for the purpose of reminding them what can happen if they don't honor the deal:

"So did they, after a fashion." }}

** Also from ''[[Discworld]]'', the kind of behavior that led to the disbanding of the Ankh-Morpork ''Guild of Fire Fighters'', who were paid per fire extinguished. "The penny really dropped after 'Charcoal Wednesday'". The guild also had people take out fire protection insurance policies, with encouragement along the lines of "that thatch roof there, would go up like a torch with one carelessly thrown match, ''know what I mean''."

** In ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud]]'': After two troll thugs working for the troll crime boss Chrysophrase tell Commander Vimes that their boss wants to see him, Vimes tells them "Well, he knows where I live," to which one of them remarks meaningfully "Yeah, he ''does''." [[Berserk Button|Not a good idea.]] Later, Chrysophrase insists to Vimes that he never gave orders to make any threats, and had the infractors... [[You Have Failed Me|dealt with]].

*** In the same book, {{spoiler|the Low King of the Dwarfs unthinkingly snaps at Vimes "You stand here defying me with a handful of men and your wife and child not ten miles away--" and to his credit quickly realises this was a mistake, especially once he learns dwarf extremists have ''already'' targeted said wife and child once.}}

'''Vimes''': {{spoiler|Good. They're staying in a house not ten miles away.}} }}

*** Especially embarrassing for Rhys, because once he and Vimes had had a second to think, both of them realized that Rhys couldn't possibly have known where Sybil and Young Sam were unless he, *ahem*, had a spy in the Watch.

* The Romulans specialize in this in the [[Star Trek Novel Verse]], particularly the "nice family" variant. D'deridex pulls it on Valdore in the [[Star Trek Enterprise Relaunch]], Sela on a Kevratan rebel in the [[Star Trek: The Next Generation Relaunch]], and Koval on Pardek in the novel ''Rogue'' (according to a later story in [[Star Trek: Titan]], Koval actually went through with the threat and murdered Pardek's young daughter).

* ''A Mere Interlude'' by [[Thomas Hardy]]:

 

 

* [[Magnificent Bastard|Scorpius]] from ''[[Farscape]]'' pulls a rather aggressive version of this trope by forcibly showing [[The Hero|John]] a hologram of Earth and [[Kick the Dog|threatening]] [[Earthshattering Kaboom|to send a fleet to destroy it]] if he doesn't start co-operating. {{spoiler|Despite this, even after John foils his plans, Scorpius gets a rather sympathetic scene where he points out that petty revenge against John is pointless if the [[Freudian Excuse|revenge he really wanted]] was out of his grasp.}}

* The protection version is sent up in ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'', when Dino and Luigi Vercotti try this with an Army base.

'''Dino:''' Be a shame if someone was to set fire to ''them.'' }}

* Parodied in ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'', where an officer delivers his files to Lois in response to her objecting a traffic ticket, and tries to make innocuous small-talk:

'''Lois:''' Are you ''threatening'' me!? }}

* Played with in episode 4.08 of ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]''. Lieutenant Roosevelt remarks that Jax has a beautiful family and naturally, it would be a shame if anything happened to them. However, he's not threatening Jax, just emphasizing that getting into the drug business could cause his loved ones serious harm - by this point the Sons have already been witness to multiple assasination attempts by their cartel's competition.

** And again, in ''[[Power Rangers Dino Thunder]]'' by [[The Atoner|the White Ranger]] when he tries to threaten the resident bad-girl into returning a [[Serious Business|children's]] [[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|trading card]] by revealing to [[Big Bad|his father]] that her cover was blown. Funny how it's the former bad guys who are okay with pulling this stuff...

* On ''[[Leverage]]'', Nathan et al learn a hard lesson on why it's not a good idea to piss off the wrong people while passing through a town to help someone.

* ''[[Police Squad!]]!'' had an episode with a mob protection racket; this trope was one of the few that the episode played straight.

* One ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'' short involved a bread salesman; Mike and the bots decided to add some subtext to one scene with a grocer.

'' '''Mike:''' Be a shame if this ran over your kid.'' }}

* ''[[Peep Show]]'': "Nice packet of Crunchy Nut you've got here, pretty expensive as I recall..."

* On ''[[The League of Gentlemen]]'', Papa Lazarou's exceptionally creepy "makeup speech" eventually turns out to be one of these about a woman he's kidnapped.

* ''[[Foyle's War]]'' contains two examples in the same episode... both of which are rather awesomely thrown back in the faces of the people trying to intimidate our heroes:

** Number one has an arrested black marketeer casually mention to Milner that many of the people he works with won't be pleased that Milner has arrested him, and that Milner should 'be careful' and 'watch his back'. Unfortunately for the black marketeer, he made this comment in front of the desk sergeant as well, giving Milner a reason to calmly add two more charges to his sheet -- obstruction and threatening a police officer. {{spoiler|Even more unfortunately for the black marketeer, someone else later ''does'' try to kill Milner, thus putting the black marketeer in the position of Chief Suspect. The marketeer ends up having to frantically backtrack and plead that he didn't have anything to do with it, honestly}}.

* In the second ''[[Jak and Daxter]]'' game, [[Villainous Glutton|Krew]] is trying to convince Jak to throw the championship race, which Jak refuses to do. Krew then makes a thinly veiled threat against [[Weasel Mascot|Daxter]]. [[The Dragon|Errol]] then makes a dramatic entrance, so we don't get to see Jak rip Krew to shreds for daring to threaten his best friend.

* [[Lampshade Hanging]] in the [[ZX Spectrum]] game "Bugsy":

Okay, so ya want originality. Well, let me tell you dis is 1922 and right now dis line is very original. }}

 

== Web Originals ==

* [[That Guy With The Glasses|Paw]] adds this subtext to a scene in his [[Let's Play]] of ''[[King's Quest V]]''.

'''Paw:''' Shame if anything were to ''happen'' to it! }}

* ''[[Key of Awesome]]'': "I'd hate for something bad to happen to your family..."

* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', [[Evil Chancellor|Long Feng]] tells Aang "I understand you’ve been looking for your bison. It would be quite a shame if you were not able to complete your quest." This is a variation on the standard trope, as the threat was merely expulsion from the city; although Long Feng ''was'' indeed holding Appa, he had to know that directly using him as a hostage would end... badly.

** In ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', a trio of bender thugs from the [[The Triads and the Tongs|Triple Threat Triad]] are rather unsubtle about it.

* ''[[Freakazoid]]'' had a one-shot villain named Arms Akimbo, an old-style gangster who offered "Oops Insurance"; whenever the shopkeeper asked "What's 'Oops Insurance'?", he'd knock something over and say "Oops". This culminates with a [[Stock Footage]] building [[Stuff Blowing Up|exploding]], [[Crowning Moment of Funny|followed by his usual "Oops".]]