History Main / AesopCollateralDamage

* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheatre3000'', though most famous for mocking corny sci-fi films from the '50s and '60s, also featured a lot of corny ''crime'' films from the same period, which employed this trope in spades due to the standards of UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode mandating that criminals could not be shown profiting from their misdeeds, something Joel, Mike, and the Bots laid into with utter glee. Standout examples include ''Film/TheGirlInLoversLane'', where the title character is raped and murdered by a stalker mere minutes after her boyfriend decides to resume his life as a [[{{Hobos}} drifter]] rather than settle down with her (and the boyfriend himself is nearly lynched by her vengeful father, who believes he is the killer, for good measure); and ''Film/HighSchoolBigShot'', where a hapless teenager's intended-to-be-bloodless attempt to lift some mob money from his boss' safe to impress his crush abruptly blooms into a gory MexicanStandoff between his group of thieves, the mobsters, the cops, and the girl's [[CrazyJealousGuy sociopathic ex-boyfriend]] that leaves most of the participants dead and everyone else shipped off to jail.

* ''Franchise/SpiderMan'': Uncle Ben's death teaches Peter that he should use his powers with responsibility, and most versions of Spider-Man across the multi-verse (non-Peter versions of Spider-Man substituting Uncle Ben for another character, like Peter for Spider-Gwen or Miles Morales) and in most adaptations of the comics.

Sometimes in mythological, religious and fantasy works, somebody does or says something that shows he's in need of an attitude adjustment. Either a being (often a deity or similarly powerful creature) or Fate itself will [[AesopEnforcer act overtly]] to [[AnAesop teach this lesson]]. Unfortunately, the direct victim of this tutelage will often ''not'' be the person in need of the lesson, but rather one or more persons close to him, who have not been shown to have done anything wrong. Typical victims of this twisted situation are children, spouses, loved ones and colleagues of the culprit, and the suffering often involves their deaths. In light of this, the culprit expresses remorse and either changes his ways or gives way to grief. Either way, he won't be making ''that'' mistake again. It is rarely, if ever, mentioned that the entirely innocent suffer the most.

Sometimes in mythological, religious and fantasy works, somebody does or says something that shows he's in need of an attitude adjustment. Either a being (often a deity or similarly powerful creature) or Fate itself will [[AesopEnforcer act overtly]] to [[AnAesop teach this lesson]]. Unfortunately, the direct victim of this tutelage will often ''not'' be the person in need of the lesson, but rather one or more persons close to him, who have not been shown to have done anything wrong. Typical victims of this twisted situation are children, spouses and colleagues of the culprit, and the suffering often involves their deaths. In light of this, the culprit expresses remorse and either changes his ways or gives way to grief. Either way, he won't be making ''that'' mistake again. It is rarely, if ever, mentioned that the entirely innocent suffer the most.

Sometimes in mythological, religious and fantasy works, somebody does or says something that shows he's in need of an attitude adjustment. Either a being (often a deity or similarly powerful creature) or Fate itself will [[AesopEnforcer act overtly]] to [[AnAesop teach this lesson]]. Unfortunately, the direct victim of this tutelage ''isn't'' the person in need of the lesson, but rather one or more persons close to him, who have not been shown to have done anything wrong. Typical victims are children, spouses and colleagues of the culprit, and the suffering often involves their deaths. In light of this, the culprit expresses remorse and either changes his ways or gives way to grief. Either way, he won't be making ''that'' mistake again. It is rarely, if ever, mentioned that the entirely innocent suffer the most.

This often overlaps with RevengeByProxy and MisplacedRetribution. Naturally, the InnocentBystander is an aspect of this trope. Generally a result of ProtagonistCenteredMorality. Can be considered a HardTruthAesop in its harshness -- the culprit is taught that his actions have consequences that affect others. For cases when the aesop-learner directly causes the damage, see KickTheMoralityPet. Also compare SpecialAesopVictim.

Sometimes in mythological, religious and fantasy works, somebody does or says something that shows he's in need of an attitude adjustment. Either a being (often a deity or similarly powerful creature) or Fate itself will [[AesopEnforcer act overtly]] to [[AnAesop teach this lesson]]. Unfortunately, the direct victim of this tutelage isn't the person in need of the lesson, but rather one or more persons close to him, who have not been shown to have done anything wrong. Typical victims are children, spouses and colleagues of the culprit, and the suffering often involves their deaths. In light of this, the culprit expresses remorse and either changes his ways or gives way to grief. Either way, he won't be making ''that'' mistake again. It is rarely, if ever, mentioned that the entirely innocent suffer the most.

This often overlaps with RevengeByProxy and MisplacedRetribution. Naturally, InnocentBystander is an aspect of this trope. Generally a result of ProtagonistCenteredMorality. Can be considered a HardTruthAesop in its harshness -- the culprit is taught that his actions have consequences that affect others. For cases when the aesop-learner directly causes the damage, see KickTheMoralityPet. Also compare SpecialAesopVictim.

** King Midas had made a stupid wish for that everything he touched to turn to gold. But after this wish had been granted, it started to backfire on him (for example, he could no longer eat without turning all his food into gold). But the culmination was that Midas accidentally turned his ''daughter'' into gold (this part is seen in the page image).

This often overlaps with RevengeByProxy and MisplacedRetribution. Naturally, InnocentBystander is an aspect of this trope. Generally a result of ProtagonistCenteredMorality. Can be considered a HardTruthAesop in its harshness -- the culprit is taught that his actions have consequences that affect others. For cases when the aesop-learner directly causes the damage, see KickTheMoralityPet.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'': A fairy creates a villain that grows every time Yin and Yang lie. At the end, she shows up and congratulates them on learning their lesson... [[RealityEnsues only to have the townspeople angrily point out that she destroyed the city in the process]].

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce'' when Master Shake fails to lay the electrical bills, and Frylock refuses to pay them instead so that Shake will be forced to learn his lesson no matter how much all of the Aqua Teens suffer. As it turns out, Shake 's too much of a lazy, selfish bastard to learn from his mistakes, and he just starts mooching off of Carl instead, while Frylock continues to refuse to pay the bills for the sake of Shake learning the aesop.

* ''{{Literature/Wulfrik}}'': For most of the book, Wulfrik is trying to undo the curse he brought on himself through his hubris (boasting that he was the greatest warrior in the world, which the Dark Gods demanded he prove endlessly or be tortured by daemons for eternity). Once he's finally learned that YouCantFightFate, everything he used to want ([[spoiler:leadership of the Sarls, the death of Viglundr, the hand of his daughter Hjordis]]) has been destroyed by his hand ([[spoiler:he sets Viglundr up for destruction by multiple tribes, leaving him alive to see it, and reluctantly sacrifices Hjordis to the gods]]). He reflects that he's lost a lot in trying to escape his fate ([[spoiler:his tribe, his love, his friends]]), but it made him even more famous and powerful than if he'd succeeded (he never wants for volunteers on his flying teleporting longship which he also obtained thanks to his curse).

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Q Who". Irritated by Picard's arrogance, Q sends the ''Enterprise'' light years across the galaxy to an unexplored region of space and then disappears. They run into the Borg, who kill eighteen crew members. Picard learns his lesson, but eighteen innocents die for it: Picard calls Q out on what he has done and says that while he understands the lesson and appreciates its message, there must've been a way to teach it that didn't result in the deaths of eighteen people, to which Q retorts "[[ShutUpKirk If you can't take a little bloody nose, maybe you should go home and crawl under your bed. It's not safe out here, it's wondrous, with treasures to satiate desires both subtle and gross. But, it's not for the timid.]]". Later episodes revealed that [[CruelToBeKind Q actually did this in part to provide the Alpha Quadrant with a disguised warning about the existence of the Borg so that Starfleet could start mobilizing and be ready before they arrived]].

* Happens a lot in ''ComicBook/ChickTracts''. A particularly nasty example is ''[[https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1068/1068_01.asp Mean Momma]]'', where the title character and her delinquent sons commit various crimes, from petty grudges to robbery. What follows is that the elder son dies in a crash, driving a truck he stole, then the middle kid immediately hangs himself for hearing that the late was his mom's favorite. Then, while the mother is away from town to buy medicine for her feverish baby, ''a tornado razes their house with the baby still inside''. All happened with the implication that it was God's handiwork, so that the mother will repent. And the mother thanks God for his kindness in saving her, ignoring that the children whom she raised to be hateful and bitter individuals are now burning in hell.

* [[AntiHero Lelouch]], the protagonist of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', started war against empire of Brittania, but early on didn't fully understand the consequences of war. Sure, he knew that he's putting his life on the line and that he'll have to kill in order to win, but he didn't care much about casualties on any side, and while he tried to avoid or at least minimise collateral damage he didn't give much thought to it when it happened. [[spoiler:Until he finds out that during one battle he accidentally killed his friend's father.]]

* Literature/TheBible is full of these:

** The story of Job is actually ''not'' an example, though it might seem so -- it goes one step further, and beyond the trope, in that even the person who is "punished" by having his loved ones die is innocent. Job loses everything, including his family, but though his friends insist he must have done something to deserve it, he's in fact innocent and God is just (sort of) testing him. Still, the logic is much the same in terms of collateral damage -- he even gets new children in the end. This is considered a happy ending, but not for Job's first kids. They're still dead.
*** Although some have noted that technically, the Biblical narrative never says they died--[[ExactWords just that messengers TOLD Job that they did]]. This has led to an alternate interpretation that the two sets of kids are actually the same.
** As Creator/MarkTwain points out, there had to have been the usual proportion of children born to the people of Noah's generation. Then God sent the rain, "and drowned those poor little chaps".

* This is parodied on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror XXII" story "Hex And The City" had a fortune teller curse Homer's family because he insulted her. They suffer through freakish transformations, and Bart actually dies, but Homer goes on refusing to [[CurseEscapeClause reverse the curse by apologizing]] because none of it's happening to ''him''. It's especially [[{{Jerkass}} egregious]] given that the apology would even resurrect Bart.

* Season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' introduces Grace Monroe, a teenage passenger who leads a group of fellow child passengers called the Apex; they are shown to actively be trying to make the numbers on their hands go ''up'' (when the numbers are actually supposed to go ''down'' so they can leave the train), and do so by frequently attacking the train's native denizens. Season 3 sees Grace and her best friend and second-in-command, Simon, get separated from the rest of the Apex and have to find their way back, working together with a little girl named Hazel and her denizen companion, Tuba. [[spoiler:It turns out to be Grace's RedemptionQuest, and at the end of the season, she's made a HeelFaceTurn, convinced the rest of the Apex to do the same, and they're all working to get their numbers down so they can go home. However, it came at a great cost: Simon murdered Tuba just as Grace was becoming attached to her; Hazel (whom Grace had come to love like a little sister) is so traumatized by her time with them that she leaves them forever; and Simon [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope jumped off the slippery slope]], became worse than ever, tried to murder Grace even after she saved him from falling off the train, and then died in front of her. Though Grace is becoming a better person, it's clear by the end that she's quite emotionally worn down by everything that happened to reach that point.]]

This often overlaps with RevengeByProxy and MisplacedRetribution. Naturally, InnocentBystander is an aspect of this trope. Generally a result of ProtagonistCenteredMorality. Can be considered a FamilyUnfriendlyAesop in its harshness -- the culprit is taught that his actions have consequences that affect others. For cases when the aesop-learner directly causes the damage, see KickTheMoralityPet.

-->-- '''[[OpeningNarration Narrator]]''' of ''Website/TheEditingRoom''’s abridged script for ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast''

* In Disney's ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'', the household staff are cursed, as well as the Beast himself. The Broadway version and live-action remake (see below) softens the collateral damage by having the staff discuss that they were the ones who had let the Beast turn into a SpoiledBrat in the first place, however it still doesn't justify turning a ''seven year old'' into a teacup.

* This is parodied on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': A "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror" episode had a fortuneteller curse Homer's family because he insulted her. They suffer through freakish transformations, and Bart actually dies, but Homer goes on refusing to [[CurseEscapeClause reverse the curse by apologizing]] because none of it's happening to ''him''. It's especially [[JerkAss egregious]] given that the apology would even resurrect Bart.
---> '''Homer''': Apologizing won't bring Bart back.
---> '''Marge''': The fortuneteller said it would.
--->'''Homer''': (''crosses arms, looks away sulkily'') She's not the boss of me.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Q Who". Irritated by Picard's arrogance, Q sends the ''Enterprise'' light years across the galaxy to an unexplored region of space and then disappears. They run into the Borg, who kill eighteen crew members. Picard learns his lesson, but eighteen innocents die for it: Picard calls Q out on what he has done and says that while he understands the lesson and appreciates its message, there must've been a way to teach it that didn't result in the deaths of eighteen people, to which Q replies that if [[JerkassGods he can't take a little bloody lip, he should go back home and crawl under his bed]], and that while the universe has vast treasures to offer to anyone who seeks them regardless of what they're after, it's not a safe place or for the timid. Later episodes revealed that Q actually did this in part to provide the Alpha Quadrant with a disguised warning about the existence of the Borg so that Starfleet could start mobilizing and be ready before they arrived.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'', John Constantine has a bit of a knack in keeping his MagnificentBastard title in check. He constantly [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu pisses off powerful beings like Heaven and Hell]] and [[FlippingTheBird flips them off]] when he's satisfied. Though his enemies can't touch him, his family and friends substitute to pay the price which was supposed to be his in the first place. He ends up mourning them afterwards.