What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?: Difference between revisions

{{quote|'''Manager:''' I want to apologize, humbly, deeply, and sincerely about the fork.

'''Man:''' Oh please, it's only a tiny bit... I couldn't see it.

 

This trope is when somebody does something wrong, but it's a mild wrong, like a white lie, a low misdemeanor (as in a $20 fine), or something that at most gets a "Hey! Not cool!" from your friends, and then the show treats it as crossing the [[Moral Event Horizon]], or at least coming dangerously close.

That candy bar you shoplifted? Those 50 cents it cost will land you about 50 years in prison! You're scum! How could you! The store owners will starve because of you! I hope you can live with yourself!

 

# '''Writers believe this is as wrong as they are showing it.''' In this case, the "What do you mean," part is from the writer, so this overlaps with [[Values Dissonance]]. [[Straw Character]]s and [[Digital Piracy Is Evil]] are the most common forms of this. A prime source of [[Narm]].

# '''Writers think this isn't that bad, but exaggerate for effect.''' So this isn't moral dissonance, it's just [[Anvilicious]]. Even if the thing is wrong, presenting it as something magnitudes worse usually makes it a [[Clueless Aesop]]. [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin']] uses this a lot.

# '''Writers use [[Values Dissonance]] for [[Played for Drama|dramatic effect]].''' This is common in [[Dystopia]]s, police states, histories, and cults. But it can also be used to make organizations look like this when they aren't, like with [[Straw Dystopia]]s. But thanks to [[Values Dissonance]], this is often about [[Truth in Television|real cultures]] from the past or present.

 

Since laws all over the world are rife with [[Values Dissonance]], things that are misdemeanors or not even illegal in one country but treated as serious crimes in others can seem like this.

 

'''Compare with:'''

 

'''Contrast with:'''

* [[Kick the Dog]]: An action that helps characterize a morally neutral or ambiguous character as bad.

* [[Moral Event Horizon]]: A crime committed really ''is'' horrific and unforgivable.

 

* The advertisements where the cow hunts down (and presumably kills) a man who decided he'd prefer eating dead chicken over eating dead cow.

* Gamefly commercials. Various gamers having [[Freak-Out|epic-level temper tantrums]] over a bad game they purchased, complete with screaming, destruction of personal property, and even chucking televisions off their roofs.

* Subway has a line of commercials best paraphrased as "Fast food will ruin your life." Someone ordering a fairly normal fast food meal is told things like they'll instantly get fat, be abandoned by their significant other, and need therapy.

* A commercial for the sweetener Truvia shows a woman committing a particular act. After she completes this act, the shame and self-loathing on her face is glaring. Her SO walks up and looks down at her with a look of absolute disgust. The heinous act this woman committed? Eating a tiny piece of cheesecake, which could have led to her getting fat.

** Yay eating disorders!

* A laundry detergent commercial directed by [[Rob Zombie]] portrays some of the less favorable outcomes of a wash cycle (stretching, shrinking and fading) in the style of cold-blooded torture.

* One credit card commercial showed people streaming through a checkout counter with astounding speed, swiping their cards with mechanical precision. Then one guy pauses for a moment to pull out cash. The line comes to a halt, and ''every single person there'' gives him a very nasty look for not being a credit-card-using speed demon.

* You don't give your children All-Natural Organic <Insert brand specifics here> snacks? Well, enjoy eating your pesticide-coated cardboard.

* [[Johnny Turbo]] fights tooth and nail against the evil Feka corporation for trying to make a profit with a competing product.

* Oak milk. One ad has a somewhat odd fellow walking through a near-deserted fairground at night rambling about a state of "hungrythirsty" before declaring:

{{quote|''I wish I'd given Oak to my son when he was a child, haha, just kidding, [[I Have No Son|I don't have a son]], well technically I do, but [[This Is Unforgivable!|he's in real estate...]]''}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind]]'' features the third kind: "Show no mercy to the insolent!"

* ''[[Full Metal Panic!]] Fumoffu'': There's a Horse headed pervert walking the streets. Does he flash his victims, grope them, molest them? No, he gives them ponytails. [[Raised by Wolves|Sousuke]] suggests that they torture him. And then he actually gets arrested and is told that he'll be doing a long time in jail.

* Elsee from ''[[The World God Only Knows]]'' once used her demonic powers to skip class to bake a cake, and commented that she's a bad demon for doing so.

** Earlier in the same episode, three of the Sisters (10032, 10039 and 13577) react to the discovery that Misaka 19090 has been dieting and reading a women's magazine by chasing her down like red-eyed demons. We never find out what happened.

* In ''[[Tiger and Bunny]]'', Keith Goodman would like everyone to know that ruining birthday parties is a terrible, ''terrible'' atrocity.

'''The Clipper''': Of course Pooky! Pooky is the stigmata of your evil! }}

* In ''[[The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]]'', Hyde eventually reveals what horrible sins that Verse's Dr. Jekyll had seen in himself, that had led him to try to isolate his "evil nature" in the first place. His "heinous crimes"? {{spoiler|Borrowing a book without asking, and feeling sexually attracted to young men without ever acting upon those feelings.}} Of course, [[Deliberate Values Dissonance|the latter was viewed as slightly more heinous in Victorian times than today]], but nevertheless.

== Film ==

* ''[[The Big Lebowski]]'', Walter pulls a gun on a fellow bowler for stepping over the line in a league match and refusing to take the penalty. "MARK IT ZERO!"

* ''[[Follow That Bird]]'': Despite The Sleaze Brothers' real crime through the film was attempting to kidnap Big Bird to put into their circus, they ultimately get punished by officer John Candy for [[Brick Joke|"Stealing an apple from a kid's lunch box."]]

* ''[[You've Got Mail]]'': While Kathleen and Joe are having a tiff at a dinner party (shortly after small-bookstore owner Kathleen finds out Joe is the part of the corporate Fox Books hierarchy), he nonchantantly scoops some caviar off a dessert plate onto his own. Kathleen is offended by that ("That caviar is a GARNISH!"), prompting Joe to look her in the eye and wordlessly put more caviar on his plate.

== Literature ==

* Violet Beauregarde in original ''[[Charlie and the Chocolate Factory]]'' novel. The other "bad" kids were spoiled brat Veruca Salt, gluttonous Augustus Gloop, and Mike Teavee who has become violent from watching too much television. Violet's flaw was [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|chewing gum too much]].

* ''The Return of the Home Run Kid'' by Matt Christopher runs into this problem not on its own merits, but when considered in light of its predecessor. The focus of the story is the main character's baseball training under a fellow who was kicked out of the major leagues for betting against his own team, and said fellow teaches dishonorable tricks like pretending to have been hit by a pitch. Fairly bad, sure? But in the previous book, ''The Kid Who Only Hit Homers'', our hero used magic to ensure that he never struck out, and this was treated as entirely proper. Anyone who considered that poor sportsmanship probably wasn't still reading the books, and anyone who accepted it would have a hard time telling how physical cheating is worse than magical cheating.

* Yes, Cybomec from ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' gets a lot of [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]] points for killing Pentacko. But his other victims committed such offenses as 1) [[Sadist Teacher|having been cruel to him back in elementary school]], 2) [[One Steve Limit|having the same first name as another target]], 3) [[A God Am I|being annoying when reminding him that he can't defeat the Definition Essentials]], 4) [[The Only One Allowed to Defeat You|denying him the chance to take out someone he'd sell his soul for the chance to kill]], or 5) simply being in his way.

* ''[[Alex And The Ironic Gentleman]]'' has the heroine spending most of the book repeatedly running away from the same [[Stern Chase|implacable pursuers]] -- {{spoiler|a bunch of little old ladies who want vengeance because she stepped over the velvet ropes in a museum}}.

* The infamous tunnel disaster scene in ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]'' does this by claiming that [[Asshole Victim|every passenger on the train died justifiably]] due to their beliefs.

* The novel ''The Last Catholic in America'' has a scene in which the main character is despairing over his imminent damnation for stealing a dollar after being told by a nun that a dollar is about the amount that would qualify for a mortal sin. The priest he confesses this to disagrees.

* Subverted in ''[[Starship Troopers (novel)|Starship Troopers]]''. An officer tells some officer candidates a story from the Napoleonic era: a junior navy officer during ship battle picks up his heavily wounded commander and carries him to a safe place. During that time all other officers on the ship are killed, so the young guy winds up a commanding officer on the ship - and, because he left his post, he stands trial and is cashiered (and is lucky not to be hanged). It seems a gross injustice for the candidates - but the officer explains that the punishment was completely justified: for an officer to have left his post without an order is really a very [[Serious Business]], because if a sudden catastrophe happens, it is much more likely to disrupt a unit without a commanding officer.

* In a Richard Scarrey book called: Richard Scarrey's Please and Thank You Book (covers proper etiquitte) a mom absolutely freaks because her kid dared to ask why he had to do something as a bad example.

{{quote|''I am not a vindictive man, but I felt, as anybody would have felt in my place, that if fellows like young Tuppy are allowed to get away with it the whole fabric of Society and Civilization must inevitably crumble.''}}

* Since ''[[Mommie Dearest]]'' is about growing up with an abusive mother, a lot of the things that set Joan off come off this way, including the infamous wire hanger scene from the film adaptation.

* ''[[Monty Python's Flying Circus]]'' did the fourth kind quite a few times, satirizing the way British culture used to encourage the first kind. The page quote comes from their restaurant sketch, combining this with [[My Greatest Failure]].

* In the ''[[Seinfeld]]'' episode The Package, Jerry is interrogated by Newman for mail fraud... and let's just say Newman relishes in the thought of catching and fining Jerry, even if there wasn't much actual fraud going on. [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|He still gets fined, though.]]

*** Quark was even exiled from Ferengi society for a time for the unforgivable sin of...breaking a contract to sell his remains when he thought he was dying.

* An interesting subversion in an episode of ''[[Cold Case]]'': The victim was in prison for seven years for stealing a pair of shoes. He only got six months for the actual theft. The rest were added on from his repeated escape attempts.

** The difference is that Hawkeye pulled that earlier stunt with Trapper John who tended to be very much like Hawkeye in his ethics. However, Hawkeye learns the hard way that BJ has an entirely different point of view. In fact, that the early drafts of the script was closer to recycled with BJ going along willingly, only to have the actor, Mike Farrell, objected that this was mutilation and he wanted his character to reflect that same revulsion.

* Marvin in ''[[Weeds]]'' claims to have once brought back the wrong order from 7-11 for U-turn. He now has an artificial patella.

* The opening sequence of ''[[Dexter]]'' is a borderline case, as the montage shows us the protagonist accomplishing mundane acts of his morning routine (shaving, cooking eggs and bacon, lacing his shoes) in a way suggesting his psychopathic nature.

* ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'': Ted flashbacks to a date he had with a girl who had "the Crazy Eyes". As she and Ted are about to cross the street, a car screeches to a halt in front of them. The driver is apologetic, and Ted gestures that it's okay, but his date grabs a post and starts beating the car with it shouting "WATCH! WHERE! YOU'RE! GOING!"

** When Barney discovered that Ted has an ex who was once a porn star.

** Another time Castle and Beckett find out that Ryan's fiance slept with another man while she was already dating Ryan. They fear that this information will destroy the relationship and angst over wheter to tell him. When they finally tell him, he reveals that he already knew and did not thik that it was a problem since they were only dating for a month at the time and were not yet exclusive.

* [[Saved by the Bell|Jessie's]] (in)famous addiction to caffeine pills. This was the extremely common [[The Nineties|1990's]] [[Very Special Episode]] about otherwise [[Lawful Stupid]] overachievers using stimulants to get better grades. [[Family Ties|Alex P. Keaton]] and [[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air|Carlton Banks]] played this straight by actually getting addicted to prescription drugs, with [[Anvilicious]] results, but, because [[Can't Get Away with Nuthin'|the show was expressly aimed at kids,]] the producers refused to reference or even imply illegal drug use in a [[Drugs Are Bad]] episode. The result is poor Elizabeth Berkley [[Chewing the Scenery]] over a bottle of no-doze as if it were Oxycontin.

{{quote|'''Buffy''': Oh. God. ([[Beat]]) He's ''really'' going to go through the whole speech, isn't he?}}

* ''[[Charmed]]'' reconstructed this in the episode "Morality Bites". The sisters use their powers to punish a man who lets his dog pee in their garden and Phoebe then sees a premonition of her own death in the future and the sisters travel there to find out that Phoebe used her powers to kill a man, got caught and was being burned at the stake while modern day witch trials were going on. When the sisters come back to their time, they discover that the man they punished at the start of the episode is the same man who was leading the witch trials in the future. Phoebe then suggests that them using their powers to punish the man starts them off using them for personal gain.

{{quote|'''Piper:''' But this is just a little thing.

* On a couple of episodes of [[Sports Night]], Bobbi Bernstein substitutes for Casey as anchor, which Dan has a problem with, since she claims he slept with her in Spain, and then never called. He swears not only has he never slept with her, he never even knew her back then, he's never been to Spain, and he wouldn't treat a woman like that. Whoever he tells this story to has the same response; "Oh, Dan. You never called?"

** Averted when he finds out that he had been to Spain and slept with Bobbi, he was just so drunk on the trip he forgot about it. Bobbi was also going by Roberta at the time and he didn't connect Bobbi with the name.

* The video to John Waite's "Missing You" uses type 3 because this is about his girlfriend suddenly leaving him for no reason. At one point, he ''breaks a phone booth phone'' out of anger and heartbreak.

* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "Don't Download This Song" mocks type 1 of the [[Digital Piracy Is Evil]] message (making it a type 4).

* [[They Might Be Giants|"Why did you grow a beard?]] Why did you grow a beard? I can't leave you alone for five minutes! What the Christ! What the Devil! Why did you grow a beard?!"

* Crime Spree by MC Frontalot. Front acts like a criminal mastermind, even though his crimes are petty at best.

{{quote|''I'm the number one menace for miles around/With the littering, the loitering, [[Mattress Tag Gag|the mattress tags]]/all the [[Perfectly Cromulent Word|piratated]] [[Digital Piracy Is Evil|MP3s I grabbed]]/ All the cable I stole/[[Bathroom Stall Graffiti|certain bathroom stalls I wrote on]]/I'm so cruel and cold you'll put a coat on!''}}

* Trouble on my Mind by Pusha T ft. Tyler, The Creator is about wanting to cause trouble yet has lyrics such as "Let's hit a couple bars and give some bitches wet willies." The music video features the two throwing eggs at random passerby, doing wheelies in a Rascal and trashing a hotel room.

* Psychostick thrives on this, with songs like "I Hate Doing Laundry" and "Don't Eat My Food".

== [[Professional Wrestling]] ==

* This being a form of show business where [[Popularity Power]] counts for so much, it's really not surprising when this trope shows up in wrestling.

** It's never more blatant than when the audience boos a [[Evil Foreigner|foreign heel]] ''simply for being foreign''. The heel might not even have had the chance to commit any misdeed yet, or at worst has simply declared his native country to be the greatest in the world [[Double Standard|(something that Americans are saying all the time, and they hardly ever seem to get scolded for it)]]. A good example was French-Canadian wrestler Sylvan Grenier, who in the summer of 2006 became Quebec's "Ambassador to the World" and was forever talking up how great the province of Quebec was. He was certainly annoying, and perhaps a bit [[Faux Affably Evil]], but the American crowds treated everything he said or did as negatively as if it came from King Booker or Mr. Kennedy (two of the biggest heels on ''SmackDown!'' at the time), even if it was morally neutral or an honest mistake. Of course, Sylvan was eventually given some [[Kick the Dog]] characteristics to retroactively justify all this hatred, but the principle still applies.

== Theatre ==

* In ''[[The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny]]'', Jimmy's crimes, by increasing severity of the sentences he is handed by the [[Kangaroo Court]], are: indirect murder of a friend (the man who [[Casualty in the Ring|killed him in the ring]] is unknown to the court because he's the prosecutor); breach of the peace; seducing a girl (i.e. a prostitute); singing a subversive song; and not paying for two rounds of whiskey and a broken bar-rail. For this last offense, which the court declares to be the most heinous crime in the world, Jimmy is sentenced to die in the electric chair. It may even be worse than premeditated murder (a crime which the prosecutor bewails using ''exactly the same words''), because one accused of that might have money to [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|bribe the judge]].

{{quote|{{spoiler|'''The Illusive Man'''}}: Shepard. ''You're in my chair.''}}

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* Type 4 from ''[[Skin Horse]]'': Sweetheart's idea of a "rampage" is [[Poke the Poodle|spilling coffee next to a "no littering" sign]]. The Chimeric Anti-Defamation League hears about it and tries to revoke her membership. You know things are bad when ''Unity'' is the voice of sanity - her reaction is, "Who called you, and how could they tell it was a rampage?"

* In a ''[[User Friendly]]'' arc, Erwin the computer dreams of being [[Mercy Kill]]ed for having an incurable case of Windows NT, and going to Purgatory. When his [[List of Transgressions]] is recited, installing NT turns out to have been a greater sin than nearly starting a border war in Africa.

** In the [[Ultimate Universe|Comprehensive Universe]], Imaki behaves slightly more realistically. Her one night's stand with Jack is ignored, however. And Candi ends up having on-and-off sex with Donte a lot less often.

* ''Edmund Finney's Quest'' quadruply does not subvert this [http://eqcomics.com/2011/09/02/an-arrest/ here]. (The "fake bomb threat" was part of a [[Monty Python|Four Yorkshiremen]] argument and, of course, was neither a fake bomb threat nor a real one.)

== [[Web Original]] ==

* Episode 4 of [[Chobits Abridged]] has this. Loitering is so heinous, the police pull and cock their guns just to be sure.

* Jen of [[Cake Wrecks]] writes out phonetic [[Spiteful Spit|spitting sounds]] ("ptooey") at the mere mention of the dreaded cupcake cake.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!]

{{quote|Some people considered them “cute”, he understood. There were even dolls and some dreadful Disney cartoon. He gazed at an animal face with outsized human eyes, a skull bloated to hold a man-sized brain, a foreshortened muzzle which somehow twisted itself to mimic human speech (he had been told that he would find Equestria full of English-speakers: very few humans could duplicate the whinnying local speech), and forelimbs that looked like tapering cones of hairy flesh until they bent with, again, that blasphemous plasticity…and he was to entrust his life to things like this one?}}

* In ''[[Mega Man Dies at the End]]'', [[Bomberman]] ([[Name's the Same|not]] [[Mega Man (video game)|Bomb Man]]) is a psychopath with a fondness for [[Stuff Blowing Up]], yet people seem most upset at the fact that he uses the metric system.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Fish slapping, from the ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' film Jonah. Justified in that it's all a story being told by the modern day Pirates, and saying what the ''real'' Assyrians did would be inappropriate for their young audience.

* In ''[[Adventure Time]]'', the earl of Lemongrab has some... er, interesting concepts when it comes to punishing those who do wrong. Making a mess? Thirty days in the dungeon. Asking questions? Thirty-TWO days in the dungeon. Refusing to clean up mess, or asking who exactly Lemongrab is talking to? Three hours dungeon. Harmless prank? Seven years dungeon, no trials. Assuring Lemongrab that the prank was harmless? Twelve years dungeon. Elaborate, painful prank involving spicy food? ONE MILLION YEARS DUNGEON!!! (Of course, Lemongrab isn't evil—he's just young, angry, and a bit of an idiot.)

** Princess Bubblegum and Finn decide to play a harmless prank on the earl of Lemongrab—basically, they leave a sign beside his bed that says "YOU REALLY SMELL LIKE DOG BUNS." How does the earl react? He clenches his fists, starts shaking, and opens up his mouth wide to scream loudly in sheer outrage for several seconds. And how does he attempt to punish those responsible? Round up EVERYONE in the castle, to sentence them to seven years in the dungeon, no trials!

** It's actually a fairly common theme through the series: DW is a consummate [[Karma Houdini]], and Arthur's inability to get away with anything approaches [[Butt Monkey]] levels.

*** Justified, in a way - older kids are often punished more harshly than younger ones because they're supposed to know the rules by their age. DW is only four, and thus makes mistakes and has a lot of learning to do. Arthur, on the other hand, is eight, and should really know better most of the time. Not to mention that Arthur is an [[Unreliable Narrator]], being eight, and might not cover whatever punishments DW suffers for her own actions.

{{quote|"Losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever! '''''FOR-EV-ER!!!'''''"}}

** Rarity simply cannot abide crimes against fashion and/or fabulosity.

* In an early episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'' the FBI burst into Peter's living room and shoot the VCR when he attempts to tape Monday Night Football with the expressly-written consent of ABC, but not the NFL.

* ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'' plays this for comedic effect in a few episodes, but one incident with normally [[The Quiet One|calm, soft-spoken, steady]] Clay stands out:

'''Clay:''' And [[Big Eater|the hot dogs]]! (runs after Jack Spicer, [[Berserk Button|losing his hat]] in the process and [[Oh Crap|not even caring]]) Come back here with them doggies, you no-good low-down snake, you yellow-bellied dirty little sidewinder [[Beware the Nice Ones|I'M GON' GET YOU]]! }}

* One ''[[Dudley Do-Right]]'' episode involves having the titular character be discharged from the Mounted Police for doing the unthinkable...{{spoiler|eating his peas...with a ''KNIFE''!}}

* In ''[[Tripping the Rift]]'', Chode was sentenced to death for littering on a [[Neat Freak]] planet. Also as he was being arrested, a person who accidentally missed hitting the trash can with his trash was instantly vaporized.

* Used in [[Avatar: The Last Airbender]].

Cabbage Merchant: "[[Off with His Head|Off with their heads!]] One for each head of cabbage!" }}

** Somewhat justified, since this is this poor guy's business. But he seems to be able to replenish his supply for the next time his cabbage stand gets destroyed.

== [[Real Life]] ==

* [[Grammar Nazi]]: HEIL SPELLCHECK!

* In his autobiography, ''The Confessions'', Saint Augustine wangsts at length over a monstrous sin he committed while he was a young man in Africa. What was the heinous crime, you ask? He ''stole some pears!'' Low quality ones! Which he threw away without eating! Okay, it was that he did it just [[For the Evulz]], but the degree still falls under this.

* In MK Gandhi's memoirs ''The Story of my Experiments With Truth'', he feels wretched with guilt over simply ''tasting'' meat when he was young.

* There are many people who consider it some kind of crime against nature to use the [[Useful Notes/Fonts|Comic Sans or Papyrus fonts]].

* Coding "grammar" is a hot topic of debate amongst even professional programmers. A group of people will lynch you if you fail to put the curly brace on the same line as the start of a new scope. Or if you CamelCase. Or you use Hungarian Notation. Or, if you do none of those things, [[Morton's Fork|a different group of people will lynch you]].

* Apparently cupcakes are a clear and present danger to airplanes and must be confiscated.

* Anti-drug propaganda, particularly that intended for minors, tends to drag this flailing into the deepest pits of Narm.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Rule of Drama]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:What Do You Mean It's Not an Index?]]