Shame If Something Happened: Difference between revisions

Often parodied: the [[Big Bad]] will threaten the hero with [[Poke the Poodle|some minor inconvenience]], and it will be treated with the [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|same seriousness]] as a death threat, if not more seriously.

 

{{examples}}

 

** {{spoiler|Then, when Kaname is released, Sousuke reveals that he'd bribed the little brother to play along. We're not sure how much he was joking about the rest, though...}}

* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', a great manga scene shows Ed trying to quit his job, but then the Fuhrer King casually remarks about Ed's "nice childhood friend Winry", who of course Ed has fairly intense feelings for. Averted when Kimblee makes a similar comment to Ed, but is honestly saying that he just thinks Winry is nice.

* Subverted [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesomely]] in ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]''. The Normal People, who have The Children in an [[Psychic Static|ECM]] field try to get Minamoto's computer password by threatening Kaoru, {{spoiler|''[[Memetic Mutation|just as Minamoto planned]]''. The password Minamoto told them was actually a trigger for an emergency ECCM unit, freeing Kaoru to use her powers.}}

** 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.}}

{{quote| '''{{spoiler|Yomi}}:''' Humans love to travel don't they? It would be a shame if a plane were to crash. Although I doubt a story about middle-aged newlyweds dying on their honeymoon would even make it on the evening news.<br />

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

 

== Comicbooks ==

** In an excellent story arc in 2002, however, Peter finally DID realize it was just a bluff, when {{spoiler|he came within an inch of killing the Goblin and Osborn tearfully told him to go ahead.}} Peter, realizing that Osborn is so miserable he's stooped to doing stuff like this just for the ''attention'', just walked away. And when Osborn yelled that by this time tomorrow all his loved ones will be dead, [[Not Afraid of You Anymore|Peter said "Go right ahead", and left.]]

* Played completely straight in the ''[[Astro City]]'' story "Knock Wood": a lawyer uses a genius defense to acquit the son of a mafia boss, who then wants to recruit him permanently. When the lawyer refuses, the boss says the trope name nearly verbatim to threaten his family if he turns down the offer...

 

 

== Fan Fiction ==

 

 

* In ''[[The Castle]]'', the firm that is trying to buy the main characters' house send a man around after he refuses their offer. He makes vaguely threatening comments that leave the main character riled up, and later trashes his car. When they try it on his neighbour, a Kuwaiti man, he replies: "You send someone 'round to see me, make threats, I send someone 'round to see you, blow up your car." They decide to leave the Kuwaiti man alone.

** The man later tries it again -- only this time, after he makes his threatening comments, the main character's son does a less subtle version of this trope by putting a shotgun in his face.

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

{{quote| Your daughter, Hayley, she's very pretty. She has soccer practice on Saturday?}}

** 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''."

*** The error, in hindsight, was paying them on commission.

*** 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.}}

{{quote| '''Rhys''': {{spoiler|I do look forward to meeting Lady Sybil again. And your son, of course.}}<br />

'''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.

* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Nation]]'', one of the [[The Men in Black|Gentlemen of Last Resort]] casually mentions another character's birthplace, mother, and several other minor details. That character mentions that it felt like the start of a threat, and the fact that no actual threat followed was not comforting.

* In a non-Pratchett involved example, Payne Harrison's ''Storming Intrepid'' ends with {{spoiler|A meeting between the US President, the Vice-President(President-Elect), and the General Secretary of the Soviet Union, formerly the head of the KGB and [[The Chessmaster]] behind the events of the plot.}} Said plot has revolved around an anti-nuke [[Kill Sat]] that the Americans have. {{spoiler|The GS says that if the US insists on rebuilding the destroyed weapon, Russia will simply have to find alternate delivery methods. Then he shows a KGB colonel next to a red, white, and blue barrel in Red Square. And another photo with the same man, in normal clothes, next to the barrel in Washington, DC. He notes how ''small'' it's possible to make nuclear bombs nowadays, small enough to fit in a barrel...}}

* In Kim Newman's "Soho Golem", a local gangland boss attempts to secure psychic detective Richard Jeperson's cooperation in the investigation of the rather horrific supernatural execution of one of his colleagues by intimidating him with a threat of this nature. Jeperson's response is to cheerfully laugh in his face and to inform the gangster that his threats are meaningless; not only has Jeperson come across too many nastier things in his time to be intimidated by some thug, but the supernatural nature of the threat mean the rules the gangster lives by no longer apply here, and he's dependent on Jeperson's goodwill to remain in the land of the living, not the other way around.

* in " trial by journal" the bad guy uses this to get the wrongfully accused guy's lawyer to quit. she quits to protect her two kids.

* In the seventh [[Harry Potter]] book, {{spoiler|this was how the Death Eaters got Luna's father to sell out Harry.}}

* In the early 20th century novel ''A Candle in Her Room,'' the third-generation protagonist Nina finds herself confronting the wicked Dido. The person Melissa loves most in the world is her great-aunt Melissa, who became her guardian after the deaths of her parents, and in order to compel Nina to do what she wants, Dido starts talking about what a terrible thing it would be if elderly Aunt Liss were to stumble on the stairs or something equally dangerous.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

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

{{quote| '''Luigi:''' How many men you got here, colonel? <br />

'''Luigi:''' Paratroops, Dino. <br />

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

{{quote| '''Police Officer:''' Nice house you have here.<br />

'''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.

* The episode "Damned If You Don't" of ''[[American Gothic]]'' inverts this trope: when Buck comes to collect on a debt, and mentions him having "a lovely daughter...how old is she now, fifteen?" Carter believes (helped along by the sheriff's smarmy turn from [[Affably Evil]] to [[Squick|downright pedophilic]]) that this is a blatant threat to his daughter's life if he turns Buck down--but all the sheriff is doing is innocently offering her a job at the precinct. Of course, when Carter ''does'' turn him down and opts for a different means of paying the debt, the daughter, his wife, and his entire livelihood are indeed threatened...with tragic consequences.

** "Scrump" may be inherently funny, but it's also a British pastime, generally involving small children pinching apples from people's trees, hence its relevance.

* Lana Lang in S6 of ''[[Smallville]]'' does this with one of Lex Luthor's scientists with regards to his family, home and livelihood. Of course, Lana being [[Creator's Pet|Lana]], the scientist shows up later in the series to help her get superpowers...''on purpose''.

* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] in ''[[Power Rangers Ninja Storm]]'', when it's actually the ''good guys'' doing the persuading, complete with the "Nice place you got here" shtick. The duo pulls the [[Poke the Poodle|parody version]], which is met with worry from the object of their persuasion.

* 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.

{{quote| "Too bad you won't be here next week when the [victim]'s house burns down."}}

* 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.

{{quote| "You know, the thing a lot of people don't realize about makeup is that you can tend to overdo it. It's much better to have too little, and then add on. I learned my skills from [[I Have You Now, My Pretty|my wives]]. Each one of them has something different to offer. ''Your'' wife, for example, knows a great deal about curling eyelashes. You didn't know that, did you? Perhaps you should have paid more attention to her. I ''know'' I did."}}

** 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}}.

** Number two has Sam overhear a conversation that perhaps she shouldn't have between a suspect and a third party at her new job in a map-making facility. Later that night, the suspect surprises her as she's leaving to go home, suggesting that it ''really'' would be better for her if she forgot all about that conversation, and that he really wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her as a result of it. Sam calmly replies that she'd actually forgotten all about the incident already, "but since you're so worried about it you've come out here to try and bully me, I'm going to mention it to everyone I can." She then rides off without a backwards glance, leaving the suspect with an [[Oh Crap]] expression and the feeling that this possibly wasn't one of his better ideas.

* A gang member once tried this on ''[[NCIS]]'', threatening McGee and Ziva if Gibbs didn't get off his back. Notwithstanding who [[Badass|Ziva]] ''is'' (or [[Badass Bookworm|McGee]] for that matter), he was [[Too Dumb to Live|saying this straight to Gibbs' face.]] Needless to say, he took it back. ''Fast.''

* Schillinger does this to Beecher in ''[[Oz]]'' saying he's got a beautiful wife and kids, forcing Beecher to take the photos he has of his family and tear them up.

* Parodied in a ''[[Mad TV]]'' Miss Swan sketch. A mobster tries to extort money out of her by threatening her beauty salon. He demonstrates what could happen if she doesn't pay by "accidentally" knocking a glass jar on the floor. However, Miss Swan is such a [[Cloudcuckoolander]] that she finds that to be entertaining, and begins destroying other things in her store for fun. The thug has to quickly step in and stop her before she destroys her television.

* [[Law and Order UK]]: James Steel confronts his nemesis, confronting him with irrefutable evidence of his guilt in several murders and urging him to have the decency to plead guilty and not torture the families of his victims with a lengthy trial. The man responds by casually asking, "He's eight, isn't he? Your little boy? Ethan? Gradley Street, Edinburgh. Beautiful house they've got. But busy roads, though. On his walk to school." Although stunned to realize just how much of a [[Complete Monster]] he's dealing with, Steel keeps it together long enough to coldly bid the man farewell and walk out of the room.

 

== Webcomics ==

** [http://ozyandmillie.org/2003/08/20/ozy-and-millie-1246/ The government can.]

* In [[Kevin and Kell]], a beaver makes this threat against Kevin's tree house. Kevin responds by threatening the beaver's dam in a similar manner, forcing him to back off.

* In ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'', Urban Eddie and his goons use this approach on several businesses in the rebuilt Barthis, as part of Stunt's plan to take control of the town. Subverted when the aforementioned townsfolk and business owners see through the ploy and aren't intimidated by it. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* In ''[[Darths and Droids]]'', the protagonists gain the help of the Gungans when Anakin mentions that they know where the Gungan's Lost Orb of Phanastacoria is, and [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0158.html wouldn't it be a shame] if someone's starfighter accidently blew it up?

 

== Web Originals ==

{{quote| '''Graham:''' This is a lovely little shop you have here.<br />

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

* Parodied in ''[[Jimmy Neutron]]: Boy Genius'', when Cindy, trying to sell products for a school fundraiser, says the above phrase in regards to a rocking horse on the man's front porch. This causes him to worriedly buy several boxes.

* 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.

{{quote| '''Waterbender gangster''': Mr. Chung, please tell me you have my money, or else I can't protect your fine establishment. ''[The Firebender gangster [[Finger-Snap Lighter|palms a ball of fire]] and grins]''}}

* ''[[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".]]