Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
215,870
edits
prefix>Import Bot (Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.Wishplosion 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.Wishplosion, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
No edit summary |
||
(12 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown) | |||
Line 2:
So the enemy is a [[Literal Genie]], and has been attempting to corrupt the heroes by [[Make a Wish|giving them wishes]], or maybe after the heroes are done will be free to wreak havoc. [[Be Careful What You Wish For]]!
Since [[
It usually helps if the hero doesn't succumb to the temptation of trying to benefit from the wishes and defeat the genie at the same time, but some have beaten the odds and have accomplished that. Usually the results are a dramatic explosion, but not always. Sometimes it's merely a [[Reset Button]] being pushed.
The most benevolent form is [[Freeing the Genie]] - this act of immense selflessness might be [[Laser
Of course, whether or not the wording of the Wishplosion would work depends on the writer.
{{examples
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]'', Miki keeps abusing the wish-granting puffballs Kesaran Pasaran for selfish and trivial reasons. When Nube and her classmates are left hanging by the side of a building by an explosion, she uses all her remaining Kesaran Pasaran to save their lives.
** They make a comeback in the manga when, upon seeing the [[Orochi]] rise to destroy humanity thanks to a [[Mad Scientist]]'s portal into the supernatural realm, [[The Power of Friendship|Hiroshi, Kyoko, Miki, Tatsuya, and Makoto join hands]] and use the same portal to summon a ''titanic'', city-sized Kesaran Pasaran to pop the [[Orochi]] out of existence.
** In both cases, it's a ''literal'' wishplosion, since the collected Kesaran Pasaran (or the single, giant one) actually ''explode'' into smaller puffs that spread cheer, health, and good luck over the entire city, [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|covering everyone with holiday joy in the first case]] and [[Reset Button|undoing all the damage from the second]].
* ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'': This is how {{spoiler|the eponymous character}} simultaneously saves the universe, saves the [[Magical Girl
** Her wish {{spoiler|(personally destroy every witch ever before they're born)}} was against the laws of the universe {{spoiler|(since witches were an integral part of the life-cycle of a magical girl)}}. The solution to this dilemma? {{spoiler|[[The End of the World
** {{spoiler|It's important to note the significance of wishing to ''[[Exact Words|personally]]'' prevent the existence of witches. As per her wish, she appears in person before every magical girl who's about to witch out and collects their grief. After having collected this incalculable grief, she predictably overloads and is about to become Gretchen. [[But Wait! There's More!|But as she must abort witches with her own hands, as per her wish,]] Madoka simultaneously appears in a form strong enough to prevent Gretchen's existence. This is what allows her to exist as she does now.}}
==
* In the ''[[
** Of course, this was her intention. They were in love. (Awwww!)
{{quote|
''(pause)''
'''Zola:''' Does this mean you can't do it?
'''Jamel:''' Can you wait five minutes? }}
* ''[[Lucifer (
== Films ==
* Disney's ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'' had an interesting example where the hero tricks the villain into wishing he was a genie, said villain not realizing that he would then be trapped in his own lamp.
** Although, Jafar then becomes [[Sealed Evil in
* In ''[[The Neverending Story (
* In Disney's ''[[Darby O
* In the 2000 remake of ''[[Bedazzled]]'', the protagonist is granted ''seven'' wishes by a literal [[Deal
** In the original, he accidentally used all seven because he didn't realize asking for an ice cream cone had counted as a wish, particularly as that one had been accomplished by him and the Devil going down to the shop and buying one. Then the Devil just gave him his soul back, on the basis that he already had as many as he needed.
** If you read into it a certain way, the Devil is just fulfilling her role in the grand cosmic design. {{spoiler|When Elliot ends up in jail, a stranger informs him that his soul belongs to God, not to him. Later, in the ending, this "friend" and the Devil are playing chess together, suggesting they may not exactly be enemies (said previous scenes implied that the "friend" was an angel or God). She still tries to cheat by rearranging the pieces, though.}}
* Done once a film, with a different human "mark" each time, in the ''[[Wishmaster]]'' series. In the first film, the mark wishes the accident that freed the djinn had never happened. In the second, she wishes (basically) for her innocence back so that she qualifies to re-trap him. In the third, she summons an angel to fight him. Finally, the fourth plays with
** Played with initially in the second movie, when the heroine tries a couple of wishes to get rid of the djinn (such as wishing there was no evil in the world), with the djinn explaining why he can't grant the wishes, forcing her to choose again.
*** She also wished for him to blow his brains out; he immediately complies, and she discovers he is in fact [[Immune to Bullets]]. "If it's any consolation," he adds, "That hurt like hell."
Line 45 ⟶ 44:
== Literature ==
* [[Older Than Print]]: In the original ''[[
** In one story, a man's wife gets rid of an evil genie by wishing he would straighten out a single hair. (In today's age of salons, this wouldn't work.)
** There's also the Fisherman and the Genie, where the fisherman, although he can't make a wish since he came up against a Genie so Jackass that it won't even pretend to grant wishes before it kills you, says he does not understand how such a huge genie fits in such a tiny bottle. The genie, who is naturally very proud of his magic, goes back into the bottle to show the fisherman, rendering him harmless.
* A variant of this, with a ghost instead of a genie, is found in a [https://web.archive.org/web/20130729044613/http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/ghost.html Zen Story] about a man who is plagued by the ghost of his wife. She torments him by repeating the conversations that he has with his new lady-friend, word-for-word. In short, the ghost knows everything that he knows. After following a Zen master's advice, he challenges the ghost by scooping up a handful of beans and saying, "Tell me exactly how many beans there are in my hand." The ghost vanished.
* In the novel ''[[The Wish Giver Three Tales Of Coventry]]'' by Bill Brittain, the good guy clears up all the bad wishes by basically wishing for the wishes to revert, "with no tricks." Apparently his good-heartedness combined with saying "with no tricks" made it work.
* ''[[
** And then has to qualify this by adding "-- in ''real money'', not fairy gold!"
*** Though technically, "like a gentleman" would cover this caveat, depending on how [[Literal Genie|intentionally literal]] the cluricaune is.
* In Douglas Hofstadter's ''[[
* In second half of ''[[The Wishing Season]]'' by [[Esther Friesner]], a Jinn will be free to wreak havoc as soon as the hero uses his half-wish (he only gets half of what is stated in the wish), so he wishes for the Jinn to be free. This ends up with the Jinn being free of the spell that made him grant wishes, but married to a very nagging demoness.
** In the first part, genies are required to tell new masters that they can only have 3 wishes. Guess what happens when an inexperienced genie forgets this? {{spoiler|He wishes for as many wishes as there are stars in the sky.}}
* In [[Larry Niven
== Live
* In the new ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' series, episode "I of Newton", based on a short story by Joe Haldeman, a physics professor is confronted with a demon who'll kill him if he can't find a wish he can't grant. Said genie tells the man that he's capable of doing anything, even the impossible, in physics; and he can go anywhere and is aware of all existence. Teacher finally gets rid of him by "putting his last wish in the form of a command, 'Get lost.'"
** Aware of all existence? Is he Laplace's Demon?
* In the original ''Twilight Zone'' episode "The Man in the Bottle", a genie grants a man four [[Be Careful What You Wish For|Monkey's Paw]] type wishes. The third wish is to become the ruler of a country who can't be overthrown, so the genie turns him into Hitler at the end of World War II. The man's last wish is that all of the previously granted wishes be canceled.
* ''[[VR Troopers]]'' and ''[[Weird Science]]'' both have a villain who wishes to have never met the wish granter. Followed to a letter.
Line 75 ⟶ 74:
== Web Comics ==
* In one of the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' parody stories in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', Torg is confronted with a djinn who grants two wishes to anyone, although it will try to screw up the wish as much as possible. For some reason, this always entails "randomly" turning the wisher into chocolate. The djinn mentions that should anyone survive the first wish, the second one will be much less twisted. Torg's solution? {{spoiler|"Turn Torg Potter into chocolate." But that's not really his name.}}
** Later several of the protagonists run into demon-genies who could steal their souls at will and don't have to grant any wishes they don't want to, but like to play games by letting them try to think of wishes that will get them out. They're outwitted by {{spoiler|Aylee}} of all people, who in exchange to her soul wishes that Torg not be restrained by them in any way, which they take to mean that they won't restrain them ''within'' their own domain, but not allowed to ''leave''. Next Zoë, acting on {{spoiler|Aylee's}} instructions, pretends to try to make a wish so dreadful that they would let her go out of sheer [[Arson, Murder, and Admiration|admiration]]. She wishes that {{spoiler|blood of the innocents should rain all over their house. The head demon grants this with a shrug and is about to move on, when the soul of Torg's sentient sword, whose physical form is in the house, gains its [[Infinity
* ''[[Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]]'': "I wish I'd gotten that question right." Now the number of electrons in a hydrogen atom is two! BOOM!
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (
* One ''[[The Smurfs]]'' short had a [[Literal Genie]] (who doubles as a prankster trickster), first controlled by Gargamel and then by Papa Smurf. Papa orders the "Genie Meanie" to first undo all the tricks it had performed that day, and his last command to it is to stay in its bottle until it can learn to stop being mean.
* In an old ''[[Sinbad the Sailor]]'' cartoon, a genie's last wish will determine whether he is good or evil. The villains have used up the first wish, so the hero is in a quandary. Wishing the villains dead counts as evil, so how can he stop them? He wishes that "none of this ever happened", which counts as a good wish.
* Likewise, in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[The Fairly
** There's also a literal interpretation of [[Your Head Asplode|Wishplosion]], in the form of Magical Backup. If a godparent can't grant wishes to their kids, they explode into confetti.
* ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' episode "Cinderella Cat" features a genie doing a Marlon Brando impression (he's a Fairy "Godfather", [[Parental Bonus|get it?]]). Garfield wishes for lasagna, and the Godfather gets it from a vendor. Garfield wishes for money, and the genie gets it from a bank. Garfield tries to forego his last wish, but the genie insists, so... he wishes for a fairy god''mother'' to appear, who turns out to be his wife. She promptly started berating him, and they both left, leaving Garfield to deal with this book he found...
Line 92 ⟶ 91:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Print]]
[[Category:Magic and Powers]]
▲[[Category:Wishplosion]]
|