History Main / TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong

* Creator/HenrikIbsen was generally not fond of this trope (perhaps because, as a critic of Victorian society, he ended up being shouted down a lot) and used pretty much every one of his plays as a celebration of individualism and subverting TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong. Especially ''Theatre/AnEnemyOfThePeople'' is particularly harsh in criticizing such form of thinking, despite the complainer ending up something of a DoomedMoralVictor.

* Writers of ''GIJoe'' admit that this was one of the bits of ExecutiveMeddling they had to deal with, requiring them to depict the "good" teamwork of the G.I. Joes, and the "bad" arguing of the Cobra organization. However, they also admit this worked out in the end, since the constant squabbles and power-plays between Commander, Destro, Zartan, Baroness, and the Crimson Twins made for better plots, and made them much more interesting characters than many of the comparatively blander Joes.

*** Given both characters' track record, it's hard to tell whether Rainbow Dash shooting down Twilight Sparkle's suggestion to call off the Pegasi's tornado in "Hurricane Fluttershy" is meant to be playing or subverting this trope. Regardless the pegasi team side with Rainbow and succeed.

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/{{Transformers}}''. Gears complains about everything but the other Autobots actually like having him around because they find his complaints amusing and his behavior never leads him to trouble. In fact, the one time he was content and helpful it was because the Decepticons were controlling him. Played straight with Starscream, whose constant complaints about Megatron's leadership often gave the Autobots an opening for victory. The complainer is always wrong even when the group is evil.

May overlap with SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers or SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids if the majority judges a character for their cynical/idealistic beliefs. It can also overlap with MadeOutToBeAJerkass when the complainer is complaining about another jerkass. Compare TallPoppySyndrome, Obsessively Normal. Contrast with IgnoredExpert, OnlySaneMan, and ProperlyParanoid where the sole complainer is right. When this trope is inverted, the Complainer becomes a BlitheSpirit. Also contrast PeerPressureMakesYouEvil, where the Aesop is that you ''shouldn't'' go along with the group. See also ForgottenBirthday, where the person who bottles up his complaints about his birthday being forgotten is often found to be in the wrong in the end; also see UnacceptableTargets, wherein you are always wrong if you do not like the UnacceptableTarget.

May overlap with SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers or SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids if the majority judges a character for their cynical/idealistic beliefs. Compare TallPoppySyndrome, ObsessivelyNormal. Contrast with IgnoredExpert, OnlySaneMan, and ProperlyParanoid where the sole complainer is right. When this trope is inverted, the Complainer becomes a BlitheSpirit. Also contrast PeerPressureMakesYouEvil, where the Aesop is that you ''shouldn't'' go along with the group. See also ForgottenBirthday, where the person who bottles up his complaints about his birthday being forgotten is often found to be in the wrong in the end; also see UnacceptableTargets, wherein you are always wrong if you do not like the UnacceptableTarget.

*** Played straight in "Parental Glidence". Admidditly, she was really harsh when she was chewing out her parents for all the things they've done over the episode. But still, the narrative and the characters treat her as the one in the wrong for daring to have a problem with her parents' overbearing affection.

*** Played straight in "Parental Glidence". Admidditly, she was harsh when she was chewing out her parents for all the things they've done over the episode, but still, the narrative and the characters treat her as the one in the wrong for daring to complain about her parents overbearing affection.

** Batman subverts this Trope quite a lot in ''Justice League''. In the episode ''Hereafter,'' while the rest of the Justice League discuss what should be done after Superman's apparent death and who they should recruit to replace him, Batman refuses to take part (although he does show up for the funeral). He instead focuses on trying to find out what happened to Superman, knowing he's still alive somewhere.

* Creator/JimHenson created some puppet characters to advertise Advertising/WilkinsCoffee. One was called Wilkins and one was called Wontkins. Wilkins would go on about how wonderful coffee was and would offer some to Wontkins, who would refuse. Wilkins would then shoot Wontkins with a cannon or drop something heavy on him. In one ad, Wilkins ''erased Wontkins from existence'' before cryptically saying to the camera, "If you don't like Wilkins, you don't go anywhere!" Less The Complainer Is Always Wrong, more The Complainer Must DIE!
* Environmentalism group 1010 Global produced an ad called [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOmLcSeU2UY No Pressure]] in which a variety of people (teachers, bosses, etc.), asked their respective groups to come up with ideas for a new green initiative or contribute to it. "No pressure," they assure everyone. There's usually one or two dissenters... who are then ''blown up''. [[NightmareFuel Not in a cartoonish way, either, but in a shower of blood and guts]]. [[WouldHurtAChild Children included]]. Somehow it was written, pitched, filmed, produced and released without anyone wondering "will this be seen as violent or threatening?" Needless to say, it was seen as being in poor taste, and taken down. [[NeverLiveItDown But the Internet is forever...]]

** One episode featured Garfield, sick of having to deal with them, [[AppleOfDiscord manipulate them into a situation where they COULDN'T agree]]: [[spoiler:pizza toppings, which Garfield claims ''no'' two people "in the history of Italian cooking" have ''ever'' been able to agree on]].

* DonaldDuck is frequently subject to this, especially in his confrontations with Chip and Dale, but "Crazy Over Daisy" is one of the worst: The chipmunks spend the entire short ridiculing, tormenting and abusing Donald to the point where they destroy his bicycle, and when he essentially punishes them by building a new bike that the chipmunks have to power, Daisy scolds and dumps Donald for being abusive to THEM.

* Similar to Wheeler below Stan from ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' is always considered an abusive jerkass no matter the situation even when the Aesop is completely flip flopped with another character doing the exact same thing Stan will still be presented as in the wrong.

** Wheeler. This reaches ridiculous levels in a Season 4 episode where he's portrayed as a heartless jerk because he's the only one who doesn't want to take every injured or endangered animal they find on their missions back to Hope Island, which even Gaia told them they shouldn't do. Even on a show ''founded on the GreenAesop premise'', removing exotic species from their natural habitat is okay if everyone agrees with it!

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBusyWorldOfRichardScarry'' has the brothers Pig Will and Pig Won't, who somehow manage to embody this Aesop using only two people. As their names suggest, one agrees to ''every'' request or offer, and the other refuses every offer. In the original book Pig Won't would always say "I won't", without even thinking about it. So one day when their father asks who wants to go with him to visit the fire station, Pig Won't declares "I won't". At the fire station, Pig Will gets to play with the dalmatian, wear a fire suit, play with the fire hose (with adult supervision), and it all ends with an all-you-can-eat hot fudge sundae orgy! When Pig Won't sees all the fun Pig Will had, he immediately becomes Pig Me Too.

* [[WellExcuseMePrincess Courtney]] on ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama.'' She is, admittedly, bossy and often unpleasant, but this trope really kicks in during the second season. Everyone acts like she doesn't deserve to be back on the show, even though her original elimination really ''was'' the result of outright cheating. In her first episode she's put on the Killer Grips, and basically has to do all the work due to [[KidAppealCharacter Owen]]'s SanitySlippage and [[{{Narcissist}} Justin]]'s refusal to do anything; nevertheless, everyone acts outraged that she thinks they're incompetent. It ends with everyone trying to vote her off (despite knowing that they couldn't) and acting like it was a MoralEventHorizon when Courtney voted for Owen instead, despite him being TheLoad for the entire episode.

** Even in cases where the character is dead wrong on one thing, Lewis tends to give the character many redeeming qualities in other areas. Trumpkin may not believe in Aslan or the legendary rulers of Narnia, but he is also brave, loyal, smart, and kind. When he sees that Caspian is set on trying to summon supernatural aid, Trumpkin volunteers to help despite his certainty that no such aid will come.

* ''Creator/HafthorJuliusBjornsson'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c19HRM0x-lA made a vodka ad]] where he asserts that everybody loves his vodka. [[ActorAllusion Cut to some poor schmuck]] [[Series/GameOfThrones with Hafthor's thumbs over his eyes]].

* Played for laughs in ''FireEmblem: The Sacred Stones'': L'Arachel and Dozla are both constantly happy and hyperactive, while Rennac is cynical and wants nothing to do with their adventures. Naturally, he always gets dragged along for the ride. [[spoiler:His ending hints that he eventually got used to them, though; his many escape attempts failed, but admittedly he didn't try very hard to get away in the first place.]] It might be part of it, however, that Rennac has [[StatisticallySpeaking absolutely terrible luck]].

** And they've now just thrown up their hands, said screw it and reached for the ResetButton. [[spoiler:Iron Man committed what amounts to suicide by putting himself into a PVS and having his memory restored from a back-up made some (so far) indeterminate length of time pre-civil war, Captain America is back and doesn't want to talk about it and, apparently, the US President has power to repeal the Superhuman Registration Act, [[YouFailLawForever an act of congress]], overnight on a whim.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLandBeforeTime'' television series episode "The Bright Circle Celebration", everybody, especially Petrie, is excited for the upcoming Bright Circle Celebration, which seems to be [[YouMeanXmas a cross between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve.]] Cera and her dad, however, think the whole holiday is ridiculous; to them, it doesn't make sense to thank the Bright Circle for shining. Then a [[CantGetAwayWithNuthin meteor shower starts a fire and threatens to burn down the valley]], and Cera and her dad end up joining in the celebration with everyone else.

** There has been a sequel to this episode called "Roy Gets Sacked", which followed Roy as he thinks his friends don't want him anymore and finds himself back as a co-star to the Buddy Bears (who are this time accompanied by an AffirmativeActionGirl) in essentially the same role as before, but this time he is relieved to hear that they don't have any 16-ton safes to drop on him anymore. Unfortunately for Roy, [[ExactWords they drop other things on him instead]], such as a piano, a 1988 Convertible, and [[spoiler:a '''27'''-ton safe]]. Roy just makes a break for it after that last one, rather than tell the audience to make their own decisions like last time.

* Ace Ray of ''Fanfic/MyLittleUnicorn'' falls into this, as well as StrawmanHasAPoint. He gets kicked off the Wonderbolts for complaining about Starfleet, and is portrayed as a loser who lounges around the house all day - even his own sister disagrees with him and has little sympathy. He ultimately ends up getting arrested after threatening to kill his sister in a fit of rage, and is {{Brainwashed}} to like Starfleet. However, he comes off as more accurate than the author intended regarding Starfleet's flaws and failures.

* Surprising aversion in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM''. The way things usually work is for the Rangers to defend Corinth from one monster attack at a time, but newcomers Gem and Gemma are unimpressed, saying that they'd rather take the fight to the bad guys. They strike out on their own, and Scott, who couldn't get Colonel Truman to listen to his theory about the villains' real plan, goes with them. Naturally, the reckless rebels learn their lesson about going off on their own, right? [[spoiler:Wrong. The villains had found a way to suck the air out of the city through its force field, and with the shields powered as high as they were, they couldn't be powered down in time to save everyone. The outpost Gem and Gemma wanted to attack? Guess what it was being used for? Yeah. If not for the trio doing everything you're not supposed to do on Saturday morning TV, everyone in Corinth, the last human settlement on Earth, would be very dead by now.]]
* On the opposite end of the spectrum we have ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', where none of the heroes ever have any legitimate disagreements with each other. Any time they do, even if there's a reason for it, it's actually because of an evil spell by Rita Repulsa, and once it's broken, the conflict is immediately resolved and everyone's best friends again.

* Subverted in the Zerg campaign of ''VideoGame/{{StarCraft|I}}'' with Zasz, an obnoxious lieutenant in the ranks of the alien race. He spends the first half of the campaign being obviously jealous because [[HiveMind The Overmind]] has chosen Kerrigan has his ultimate creation. Then Zasz gets killed for good because nobody else listened when he said the Protoss were setting up an obvious trap and Kerrigan was falling right into it.
* [[spoiler:Ultimately double subverted]] in Hanako's route of ''VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo'', Hisao spends most of the route complaining, in his narration and occasionally to others, that no one, not even the teachers, cares whether Hanako attends class. [[spoiler:In the good ending, he realizes that he is being overprotective and understands why Mutou allows Hanako to leave if she needs to do so.]]
* This is one of the criticisms that often gets thrown at ''VideoGame/Persona4'', in relation to [[spoiler: the murderer, Adachi]]. Particularly during the one scene where the members of Investigation Team "counter" [[spoiler:his]] complaints about life by essentially doing nothing but invoking this in differing wording (e.g. "You're just acting like a whiny child", "your opinions don't matter since you're just a criminal", ect).

* ''Film/ChristmasWithTheKranks'' involves the Kranks being pressured into expensively celebrating Christmas by the ''entire neighborhood''. Every house on their block is apparently supposed to have a gigantic FrostyTheSnowman on the roof and soon protesters are demanding that the Kranks "Free Frosty!" At the end, their daughter decides to come home for Christmas so they and the neighbors can deck the house out in record time for a big, fluffy ending celebrating the joys of absolute conformity.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGetAlongGang'' was, in the eyes of some, completely dedicated to this trope. The "complainer" in this case was even depicted as [[JustEatGilligan a compulsive gambler who'd bet the clubhouse at the slightest provocation]]. Creator/MarkEvanier would directly make fun of what he felt was this series' message of this trope in ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends''.

* Inverted by ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}''. In the episode "Best of the Nest" Brain tells the group that a hit computer game is terribly innacurate. They dismiss it as complaining, but he turns out to be right.