Yank the Dog's Chain: Difference between revisions

'''Nnoitra:''' LOL, no. }}

** [[The Woobie|Momo Hinamori]]. Oh, so you want to forever serve the man you practically are in love with? How nice... except oh no, he's suddenly dead and you've just found his corpse maimed and pinned to a wall! And after you try to attack the captain you're utterly convinced that did it, you get arrested! But wait, they found a letter from Aizen, revealing the killer's true identity... too bad that happens to be your childhood best friend, Toshiro Hitsugaya! So wracked with grief, you break out of your cell and try to kill ''him'', only to be knocked out soon after; when you do wake up, you follow him around, go to a part of the Soul Society inaccessible to even captain-level shinigami where you find the person you originally tried to kill, but what's this? He says there's someone who wants to meet you! And standing right behind you is ''your captain, perfectly alive.'' You immediately hug him and start to cry, because you're so happy he's alive and well and-- wait a minute, did he just stab you? Hahahah, guess what, ''you've just been betrayed and the man you idolized was all just a lie''. Have fun being stuck in a coma for the next 40 or so chapters and remaining in extremely heavy denial when you wake up! When all of that's done, you remain out of the picture for a while {{spoiler|until chapter 334, where, hooray, you've made a [[Big Damn Heroes|spectacular comeback]] saving Matsumoto, hopefully over the trauma of the whole Aizen ordeal! Erm, not quite: you still refer to him as "Captain Aizen," but hey, you're gonna kick some ass and show every actions speak louder than words, right? Well, not really... despite fending off three Fraccion, you get owned by some freaky chimaera thing and guess what, no redeeming moment for you! ''[[Sarcasm Mode|But lucky you, it gets even better!]]'' Cue about 60 chapters later and you make a return... except, once again, you've been ''stabbed again'', by -- get ready for this -- ''your best friend, Hitsugaya''. Have fun getting over that one!}} Oh, and did we mention you're one of the most hated characters in the Western fandom, for ''all'' of that happening to you? Yeah, it's really fun to be you, isn't it?

** The anime has one of these that almost might approach the end of the manga in cruelty. {{spoiler|The Jusenkyō Guide comes to Japan because this is a special day, a day in which a certain body of water can be connected to Jusenkyō's base water, allowing it to be turned into an extension of whichever spring is desired. The lucky body of water is none other than the Tendō's koi pond, which means that every cursed person in Nerima can get cured -- even Shampoo, as once the ritual is complete the Guide can freely change the pond from Spring of Drowned Guy to Spring of Drowned Girl or whatever is desired. The episode leads up to the climax of the ceremony, everyone is literally a few seconds away from being cured... and what happens? Ryōga trips and breaks the rope, canceling the spell before anyone can get cured -- and what's more this ritual can't be repeated for another '''thousand years'''. And then the Jusenkyō Guide wanders back home before anyone can think of tagging along, or asking him to send them back some Nanniichuan.}}

* Tsunade, from ''[[Naruto]]'', almost always loses when she makes a bet, but when she wins, she takes it as a sign that something bad is going to happen. She gets on a winning streak while gambling shortly before she sees Orochimaru again, wins the lottery around the time Gaara is kidnapped, and after Jiraiya suggests that she bet all she has {{spoiler|that he won't make it back}}, on the assumption that she wouldn't win, {{spoiler|he gets killed by Pain}}.

** At the end of season 2, the fleet finds a habitable planet and, under the leadership of {{spoiler|President Gaius Baltar, settle on the newly-named New Caprica.}} Skip forward a year and, although there are some hiccups, things appear to be running fairly smoothly - more importantly, {{spoiler|there haven't been any Cylon attacks in that past year}}. Then...{{spoiler|yep, here come the Cylons. Since the fleet has been reduced to patrolling in orbit, they can't fight off the Cylon ships and Baltar is forced to surrender.}}

* In ''[[La Femme Nikita]]'', the titular character's dream is to be freed from life as an assassin and to continue a normal, happy existence. She often comes across opportunities to escape, but all her attempts fall just out of reach of success.

* The end of ''[[Blackadder]] Goes Forth''. The Guns fall silent just seconds before they are due to go over the top to certain death and they think the war is over, that they lived through it, The Great War, 1914 to 1917... [[Tear Jerker|oh damn]].

** 'Course, really, this only counts for poor Baldrick, George and Darling. Blackadder knew damn well the whole while, as would anyone else with a little knowledge of trench life during the Great War. Honestly, it's part of the power of the moment that the audience already ''know'' there's a chain being yanked.

* In a slightly less sympathetic use of the trope, [[The Nostalgia Chick]] puts on some mood music when [[Todd in the Shadows]] finally agrees to sleep with her out of boredom. The "mood music" turns out to be "Reproduction" from ''[[Grease]] II'', and he runs off, much to her anger.

* [[The Nostalgia Critic]] gets plenty of yanking, but the cruelest might have to be near the start of ''[[Simon Sez]]''. When he complains to [[Obscurus Lupa]] that he always gives in to people wanting to do a review with him, she says she won't push it and leaves. He's overjoyed that someone finally listened to him and he now has a new lease on life, but it turns out that {{spoiler|she was just trolling him.}}