Wasteful Wishing/Playing With
Basic Trope: A character is given the opportunity to wish for anything, an wastes it on something frivolous.
- Straight: Al Ladding is given Three Wishes by a Genie in a Bottle. The Literal Genie horribly mangles his first two wishes, and he has to use the third to press the Reset Button.
- Exaggerated: Al goes through a spectacular rise and fall, and ends up with less than he started.
- Downplayed: Al ends up slightly better off, and wiser, but regrets that he wasted such an impossible opportunity.
- Justified: Al's flawed wishes represent his own flaws - Greed, perhaps, or shallowness. His final wish represents Character Development, Laser-Guided Karma and/or learning An Aesop.
- Inverted: Al makes two fantastic wishes; perfect health until he dies peacefully in his sleep at the age of 101, and to be able to spend that time with his One True Love. He plans to use the third for Freeing the Genie, but unfortunately words it "I wish you were never imprisoned in that lamp"...
- Subverted: Al realises what a mess he's made of his life, but nonetheless decides to Turn the Other Cheek and use his last wish to free the genie. The genie is immensely grateful, and promises him a great reward...
- Double Subverted: ...but discovers he's lost his powers. Instead, Al has become a genie himself, as the lamp demands Equivalent Exchange. The moral is, never try to help anyone or you'll get screwed over.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: The Genie is simply a form of Supernatural Aid, and Al uses his allotted wishes to more or less useful effect throughout the story.
- Enforced: They're going for An Aesop to Be Careful What You Wish For.
- Lampshaded: "Ever wonder why we give people Three Wishes? It always takes them the first two to figure out what they really want."
- Invoked: Al is really Genre Savvy, and makes a mundane first wish specifically to gauge the genie's reaction to it, and thus find out who he's dealing with—a Benevolent Genie will give him a perfectly prepared turkey sandwich; a Literal Genie will give him the sandwich exactly as described, with no mayo; and if it's a Jackass Genie who gives him a live turkey between two slices of bread, he's going to put the lamp down and walk away as fast as he can.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: "That's a dumb wish and I won't have anything to do with it. Think again, bozo."
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Played For Drama: Al wishes for something. Later, he needs to make a different wish... but it's too late, the wish was wasted.
You wish to go to Wasteful Wishing? Seriously? You could just click that link, but OK...