History Main / MoralLuck

* There are many books and rumors surrounding the development of astronomy that uphold early astronomers who upheld a heliocentric (Earth revolves around the sun) viewpoint as scientific pioneers, in opposition to the geocentric (sun revolves around the Earth) viewpoint being cast as borne out of nothing more than tradition. In reality, prior to the 1500s, it was the other way around; all observations from the physics and technology of the day pointed to geocentricism being right, and it wasn't fully disproven until large scientific developments made it clear that it wasn't. Meanwhile, the explanations for heliocentricism were largely along the lines of "the sun should be in the center because it's made of fire and fire is the most precious element", or "the classical-era astronomer suggested the above reasoning, and he lived in the classical era so he must have a point." So while figures like Philolaus did make an accurate prediction, they didn't do so through scientific rigor (in fact, many early heliocentric systems make very little sense); they just made an assumption that turned out to be right.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones''': The final season has a lot of characters rumbling about how Daenerys is clearly unstable and can't be trusted, and they're usually framed as in the right. In particular, Sansa's distrust is treated as shrewdness, with everyone [[InformedAbility calling her out for her intelligence]]. Sure enough, their claims are vindicated when Daenerys snaps and burns down half of King's Landing. But up to that point, to their knowledge, Dany had never done anything out of the ordinary for a noble character in the setting, and had gotten many chances to do something on the level of what she did at King's Landing and then staunchly headed in another direction. If anything, most of her prior actions (while not flawless) suggested her to be a very restrained, reasonable, and empathetic ruler, so their accusations up to that point came across as totally unfounded.

WhatTheHellHero can serve to avert this, allowing the character's actions - and not just results - to be judged. Compare MoralDissonance, NoEndorHolocaust and the various LuckTropes. Related to MillionToOneChance and HowDidYouKnowIDidnt. Also consider ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding, where a character destroys a building that happens to be empty, turning being responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocents into mere property damage by sheer luck. LaserGuidedKarma is sometimes offered as an explanation for this. LuckBasedMission is the video game equivalent, while TheMagicPokerEquation is a rough equivalent for card playing. Compare OmniscientMoralityLicense: when a character's plans are only seen as "good" because they literally saw the result before it happened, in spite of what they may do to achieve it. If used without irony, it can easily devolve into straight-up UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming if the writer isn't careful.

** The episode ''Three Stories'' has a framing device of House recounting several case studies his team had handled to a lecture hall full of med students. One case is of a many suffering from a severe snake bite, only the team does't know what kind of snake it was, and the wrong antivenom could set off a reaction that would kill him. The students are left with two options; wait for the humane society to find and identify the snake so you can apply what you know is the correct dose, even though the patient is highly unlikely to survive long enough, or make an educated guess on what type of antivenom to administer and hope you got the right one. When House asks the students which route they should go, half of them vote one route and half for the other, and House is up-front that one of these choices will kill the patient. The students point out that they have no way of possibly knowing which course of action could save the patient and which would kill him, only for House to explain that it's a cold hard fact of medicine that you still have to make hard choices that could result in someone's death, and not knowing the right course won't make it easier.

* ''Series/{{House}}'' had the episode "Nobody's Fault' which discussed this trope. Chase got stabbed during the case and it looked like the patient was going to die. The doctor examining House's counduct clearly planned to find House at fault. At the last minute, the patient's wife showed up and explained that while House may not be nice he was right and he had managed to save her husband. Ultimately, House was exonerated. Being House, he then called his accuser a coward. It was clear the man had intended to find him guilty before the wife showed. House pointed out that with his methods "Good things usually happen. Bad things sometimes happen" and that whether they worked out in this particular case did not determine whether he did the right thing.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', this is a big part of why Princess Celestia's Aesop about the importance of trusting one's instincts in "A Canterlot Wedding" is such a [[BrokenAesop broken lesson]]. Twilight's instincts were to make outrageous accusations with no evidence, which ruined her credibility and were made clear to be wrong by both the narrative and Celestia herself until it turned out she was RightForTheWrongReasons, while everyone else's instincts were to trust the fake Cadance, which was made clear to be ''right'' by both the narrative and Celestia herself, until they turned out to be wrong for the right reasons. Further, Twilight's accusations were never actually correct or reflected what the fake Cadance actually was -- the reveal that Cadance was actually the episode's villain in disguise was entirely unrelated to any of Twilight's claims. It's difficult to get a lesson about trusting one's instincts out of a chain of events that show it's only good to trust your instincts when you get lucky and they happen to be right, leading some viewers to [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation interpret it as Princess Celestia just trying to save face]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama,'' this is part of why fans started to think of [[BigFun Owen]] as a CreatorsPet by the end of season two: he constantly did stupid things that just happened to work out and receive CharacterShilling as a result. (Example: eating a huge buffet of fake food, somehow not realizing that it was fake the whole time, but conveniently burping up the key that they were supposed to find in it.) Ending this in season three helped him get RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap.

Moral luck is a concept in philosophy in which a person is praised or blamed for an action they carried out, the consequences of which were primarily dependent on blind luck. The archetypal thought experiment is that of the painter Gauguin, who abandoned his family in order to pursue his artistic muse. Because he was successful, people praise him for his courage and determination. But supposing that, through no fault of his own, Gauguin never caught a lucky break or simply wasn't as talented as he thought he was. Would he then be any different from a {{Jerkass}} DisappearedDad?

In order to qualify for this trope, a character has to carry out an action whose consequences depend mostly on luck, and be praised (or blamed) by other characters (or by the work itself) for their morality/immorality. It doesn't count if a character carries out such an action and no one judges them for it, and the reader is left to draw their own conclusions. The action has to be specifically treated as ethical or unethical by the work itself or characters in it. [[note]]Of course, just because the characters praise or blame an action, that doesn't mean the creator shares their opinion.[[/note]]

When the writer does it, this trope can easily transform a hero into a DesignatedHero or even a villain once FridgeLogic or FridgeHorror set in (or, conversely, transform a villain into an AntiVillain). It is often closely related to ProtagonistCenteredMorality when the protagonist is forcefully presented as being in the right. Even among sympathetic characters in a work, a DoubleStandard may form: the resident ButtMonkey's actions will always result in failure and they will be blamed for it, while the KarmaHoudini protagonist's actions will always succeed and they will receive praise. TheExtremistWasRight is when WellIntentionedExtremist has his/her Moral Luck high and working; they did extreme things, but they end up helping/successful, and they receive praise for it.

WhatTheHellHero can serve to avert this, allowing the character's actions - and not just results - to be judged. Compare MoralDissonance, NoEndorHolocaust and the various LuckTropes. Related to MillionToOneChance and HowDidYouKnowIDidnt. Also consider ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding, where a character destroys a building that happens to be empty, turning being responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocents into mere property damage by sheer luck. LaserGuidedKarma is sometimes offered as an explanation for this. LuckBasedMission is the video game equivalent, while TheMagicPokerEquation is a rough equivalent for card playing. Compare OmniscientMoralityLicense: when a character's plans are only seen as "good" because they literally saw it become true before it happened, in spite of what they may do to achieve it. If used without irony, it can easily devolve into straight-up UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming if the writer isn't careful.

* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone'', it's lampshaded after the troll incident. Prof. [=McGonagall=] awards Harry and Ron five House points each "for sheer, dumb luck". While there was some skill involved, both Ron and Harry were exceptionally lucky nevertheless.

* The existence of criminal charges like attempted murder and attempted rape [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-Zags this trope]]. On the one hand, they allow for punishing people who intended to carry out serious crimes but, due to a stroke of luck, didn't succeed. Someone who tries but fails to commit a crime like murder is every bit as dangerous and morally culpable as someone who succeeds at it; however, you can't charge them with murder since no one was actually killed, so the legal system needs a separate charge in order to avert this trope. On the other hand, attempted charges typically carry less severe charges than successful crimes, playing this trope straight. However, if the charges [[AllCrimesAreEqual carried the same sentence]], that might inspire perpetrators to go through with murdering the victim, so the logic is that a lesser punishment should be levied rather than this. A possible solution would be making a legal distinction between a murder attempt that failed because the shot missed, and one that failed because the would-be killer couldn't go through with it. While this isn't written into the law, that could be taken into account at sentencing.

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E3Brothers Brothers]]". A boy pranks his younger brother which scares the brother enough for him to run and hide. While hiding the younger brother eats a fruit that leaves him so ill he nearly dies. The older brother is severely scolded by numerous cast members for 'nearly killing' his brother. However, while a little cruel for a prank, there was no reason for the older brother to expect anything worse then his younger brother being frightened for a while because of it. This feels particularly horrible since a child that young would likely already be very guilt-ridden to the point of tears and any competent parent would go out of their way to tell the child that this wasn't his fault, not further scolding or blaming him. Especially as humans in the future are supposedly ''kinder''.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Willow's RoaringRampageOfRevenge is forgiven fairly easily, even though (in-universe) it was really just luck and timing which prevented her from bringing about the apocalypse. Although it's acknowledged (again, in-universe) that the actions were bad, and she spends quite some time [[Angst angsting]] about them.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Willow's RoaringRampageOfRevenge is forgiven fairly easily, even though (in-universe) it was really just luck and timing which prevented her from bringing about the apocalypse.

** A later episode has an attempted invocation by Louie. Louie's latest GetRichQuickScheme is to use Gyro's Time Tub to travel through history and retrieve lost treasures, which results in a storm that starts moving things through time at random. The storm gets so bad that the entire family is thrown throughout history before Louie can undo the damage and set things right, but he winds up grounded for how badly his actions backfired. He tries to argue that he hadn't meant to cause to time storm (and it's shown that he was taking steps to avoid problems with the time travel) so he should be let off the hook, but there's no avoiding consequences this time regardless of intentions.

WhatTheHellHero can serve to avert this, allowing the character's actions - and not just results - to be judged. Compare MoralDissonance, NoEndorHolocaust and the various LuckTropes. Related to MillionToOneChance and HowDidYouKnowIDidnt. LaserGuidedKarma is sometimes offered as an explanation for this. LuckBasedMission is the video game equivalent, while TheMagicPokerEquation is a rough equivalent for card playing. Compare OmniscientMoralityLicense: when a character's plans are only seen as "good" because they literally saw it become true before it happened, in spite of what they may do to achieve it. If used without irony, it can easily devolve into straight-up UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming if the writer isn't careful.

** Rob Lucci's philosophy of [[BlackAndWhiteInsanity "Dark Justice"]] holds that if the [[OneWorldOrder World Government]] benefits from hurting people, those people are evil even if it's over something they have no control over. Robin only knows about [[LostLanguage Poneglyphs]] because she was a child on the island researching them. Lucci doesn't just think that justifies killing or imprisoning Robin, but that it ''makes her a bad person''.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The Straw Hat Pirates often step into the affairs of the islands they visit. While there are good-hearted and heroic members of the crew, they usually interfere because the local BigBad [[HeroicNeutral has hurt them or someone they care about]]. The primary reason they're often hailed as heroes by the locals is because the people they attack are making other peoples' lives miserable. This makes the Impel Down arc especially notable: here, Luffy isn't merely doing his usual thing on a simple city -- it's a world-famous prison with some of the most dangerous prisoners in the world held within; he's there to rescue his brother Ace, while causing a riot that releases some of the prisoners. The chief and vice wardens of the prison, Magellan and Hannyabal, ruthless and scary persons though they may be, also sincerely believe in keeping these prisoners behind bars for the good of the people, and they outright tell Luffy this. It's one of the few times where Luffy invades a facility of law-keepers, and unlike the last time (Enies Lobby), the main keepers of the place [[VillainHasAPoint do have a point]]; they're basically {{Hero Antagonist}}s to Luffy's VillainProtagonist (in this arc). Luffy, at least, admits that he isn't much of a "hero", nor does he want to be one.

* In Jane Austen's ''Persuasion'', Anne Elliot suggests that the defining moral dilemma of the novel--was she right to break off her engagement to the love of her life or not?--can really only be judged on the basis of Moral Luck. As it happens, her ex-fiance turned into a SuddenlySuitableSuitor, leading most modern readers to think that Anne was wrong to listen to her mentor and break the engagement. On the other hand, her mentor [[JerkassHasAPoint has a point]] that, if Anne had married her [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen naval officer fiance]] and he had been killed in action instead, Anne would have been left widowed, poor, and probably cut out of her father's good graces forever. (Consider that [[RealitySubtext in Real Life]], Jane Austen's sister lost her fiance when he left to get enough money for them to marry and died at sea.)

Moral luck is a concept in philosophy in which a person is praised or blamed for an action they carried out, the consequences of which were primarily dependent on blind luck. The archetypal thought experiment is that of the painter Gauguin, who abandoned his family in order to pursue his artistic muse. Because he was successful, people praise him for his courage and determination. But supposing that, through no fault of his own, Gauguin never caught a lucky break or simply wasn't as talented as he thought he was. Would he then be any different from a {{Jerkass}} DisappearedDad? In short, here, what's important is not about what they do, it's about how it turns out.

* ''Disney/TheLionKing'': Invoked and exploited. Simba believes that the roar he made in the canyon was what started the stampede that killed his father. Even though he didn't know the herd was even there (which the audience knows is moot anyway since Scar orchestrated the stampede), Scar uses it to make Simba think he's just as guilty as if he had intentionally committed murder.

When the writer does it, this trope can easily transform a hero into a DesignatedHero or even a villain once FridgeLogic or FridgeHorror set in (or, conversely, transform a villain into an AntiVillain). It is often closely related to ProtagonistCenteredMorality when the protagonist is forcefully presented as being in the right. Even among sympathetic characters in a work, a DoubleStandard may form: the resident ButtMonkey's actions will always result in failure and they will be blamed for it, while the KarmaHoudini protagonist's or other character's will always succeed and they will receive praise. TheExtremistWasRight is when WellIntentionedExtremist has his/her Moral Luck high and working; they did extreme things, but they end up helping/successful, and they receive praise for it.

In order to qualify for this trope, a character has to carry out an action whose consequences depend mostly on luck, and be praised (or blamed) by other characters (or by the work itself) for their morality/immorality. It doesn't count if a character carries out such an action and no one judges them for it, and the reader is left to draw their own conclusions. The action has to be specifically treated as ethical or unethical by the work itself or characters in it. Of course this may have been the creator's intention all along to show how wrong the other characters criteria are.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/TheNakedGun 2½: The Smell of Fear'';. Frank is commended for his one thousandth drug-dealer killed. However he accidentally ran over the last two with his car.

* Played for laughs in ''Film/TheNakedGun 2&frac12 : The Smell of Fear'';. Frank is commended for his one thousandth drug-dealer killed. However he accidentally ran over the last two with his car.