History Main / TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong

*** "Uh-oh. Two independent thought alarms in one day. The students are overstimulated. Willie! Remove all the colored chalk from the classrooms."

*** Although one might interpret this as the WarpedAesop "If someone you care about is unhappy, don't bother trying to cheer them up because it won't work." There was a similar episode of ''The All-New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh'', in which the animals attempted to cheer up Eeyore because he spent all his days staring gloomily at clouds. In a nice twist, after each of their heavy-handed attempts failed, Piglet simply sits and talks to Eeyore, who reveals that he's not depressed - he is, in fact, playing an imaginary game with the clouds. A nice avoidance of this trope, in that the gang is encouraged to find out more about Eeyore's unusual behaviour and even appreciate it on its own terms.

* For a FanDumb example, take Hope Estheim from ''FinalFantasyXIII''. He pretty much earned the title of TheScrappy because he was in mourning of his mother.

** An interesting subversion is the episode "Touchdown Tommy". The B-Plot has the dads watching a big football game, though Chaz wants to watch the chess tournament. They blow him off and she's stuck watching the game. Apparently, he knew what he was saying - because the dads were too busy watching football, the babies covered the living room in chocolate milk and Didi and Betty were ''pissed'' when they got back.

* Subverted in ''NaruTaru''. The Complainer is a girl named Miyoko Shitou who is a part of a group of girls that bully the local LonelyRichKid, therefore she's a complainer who's actually ''right''. [[spoiler: And she's the only one of the group who doesn't ''die''. Well, at least not as a result of said LonelyRichKid's reprisal, which means [[KillEmAll she lived around a few months/a year longer than the the rest of the population on Earth aside of Shiina, Mamiko and their kids]]. ]]

'''All''': [[HypocriticalHumor ''We all have an individual point of view!'']]

'''All''': ''We all have an individual point of view!''

* Parodied heavily with the ShowWithinAShow "The Buddy Bears" from ''{{Garfield and Friends}}''. They were three "cute" bears in GayNineties attire who would endlessly perform an obnoxious "barbershop" routine with canes and madcap dancing. Not coincidentally, the head writer of ''{{Garfield and Friends}}'', and the writer of this episode, was MarkEvanier. 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]].

* Parodied heavily with the ShowWithinAShow "The Buddy Bears" from ''{{Garfield and Friends}}''. Not coincidentally, the head writer of ''{{Garfield and Friends}}'', and the writer of this episode, was MarkEvanier. 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]].

**** [[SchrodingersCat Except when they order pizza....]]

* TVTropes. Compare ItsTheSameSoItSucks with TheyChangedItNowItSucks.

* TVTropes tends to have this attitude about any complaining.

** Why would you send a letter to someone you don't think exists?

* TeenTitansTroubleInTokyo: Beast Boy I know, And his friends they can't stand him & his corny jokes.

* Beast Boy from ''TeenTitans''. There are occasions where he's shown to be right, or at least neutral. He has arguments with Cyborg over his vegetarianism vs. Cy's love of meat, and Aqualad is shown having similar views about fish. There's also Starfire's love of food with mustard, including Raven's love of herbal tea and waffles.

* Beast Boy from ''TeenTitans''. There are occasions where he's shown to be right, or at least neutral. He has arguments with Cyborg over his vegetarianism vs. Cy's love of meat, and Aqualad is shown having similar views about fish.

** That's ridiculous! Tvtropes openly permits critique of subject as long as it is well considered and researched!

TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong trope is almost nonexistent in German-produced shows these days, because Germans have always been chronic nitpickers who ''love'' to complain about things and point out where someone's argument went wrong. But Germany had a lock-step mentality of its own up to WWII; blame it on the Prussians and their proclaimed virtues of duty, military obedience and loyalty to those higher-up with a bigger funny hat/moustache than your own (as well as, ahem, [[ThoseWackyNazis some other guys]] who [[{{Understatement}} didn't take too kindly]] to complainers). The resultant social backlash against conformism and old corrupt structures during the 1960s was called the "68er Generation", which unfortunately in some cases went far beyond its intended goals, ending with some people on the extreme end of the movement proposing armed anarchy.

This is a surprisingly common [[AnAesop theme]] in children's shows, especially in the 1980s when MoralGuardians (in the USA) promoted it as the primary "pro-social" moral. The essence, as summed up in [[http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL145.htm this article by Mark Evanier]], is this: ''the group is always right; [[TropeNamer the complainer is always wrong]]''. Thus, [[WarpedAesop you should always agree]] with your friends and go along with whatever they want to do without argument -- unless it has to do with [[DrugsAreBad drugs]], of course. In extreme cases, ThePowerOfFriendship can even be contingent on making the holdout agree with the majority. The problems with mindless conformity encapsulated in the JumpOffABridgeRebuttal never come up, since, you know, everyone jumping off a bridge together is ''social'' and LonersAreFreaks.

** And they've now just thrown up their hands, said screw it and reached for the {{reset button}}. [[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) indeterminant legnth 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.]]

---> Crowd: Yes! We are all individuals!
---> Man: I'm not.
---> Crowd: Shh!

* The most annoying thing about TheSistersGrimm books is that the main character embodies this trope by the ton. Sabrina says "I don't think we should believe this daft-acting old woman who claims to be our grandma and believes fairy tales are real." Yeah well, She's wrong and her little sister is right. Sabrina says "You know, maybe we shouldn't hang out with a guy who's losing control over the BigBad Wolf that posesses him." That may sound sensible, [[spoiler: and she does end up getting possessed by the BigBad Wolf herself]] but so far as her grandmother and sister are concerned, she's being the bitch to end all bitches. Even something that ought to be sensible, like "I don't think my little sister should be trusted with really powerful magic just yet," results in Sabrina being treated like she's an idiot who can't see that her little sister is all grown-up. At the age of seven. Sometimes Sabrina is genuinely wrong, because she has lots of trust issues and makes bad calls. However, sometimes Sabrina seems to be wrong just because sensible behaviour has been flipped on its back as part of a conspiracy to ensure that she always is.

* ''Allegras Window'': The class was asked what their favorite vegetable was, and they all answered "blue zutabaga," [hottip:*:a fictional vegetable that often featured in the show] except Allegra, who had never had one before, and said that her favorite vegetable was the carrot. Over the course of the episode, Allegra was urged by everyone she knew to try blue zutabagas, until the end, when she finally tasted one, and decided it was, in fact, her favorite vegetable. The ''intended'' Aesop of that episode was likely "[[IDoNotLikeGreenEggsAndHam don't be afraid to try new foods]]," and the classroom scene was probably to emphasize how good everyone thought this vegetable was, so why still insist you won't like it? Good point, [[BrokenAesop bad approach]].

* An episode of ''BarneyAndFriends'' had each of the children wanting to do something ''different'': when the question of "What shall ''we'' do today?" came up one wanted to swing, one wanted to listen to music, one wanted to paint a picture, and so on. Let each child do what he or she liked? Unthinkable. No, instead we'll '''Take Turns''' -- we'll all get on the swings, then we'll all paint pictures, then we'll all listen to music, because it's wrong and impossible to do something or even want to do it unless we ''all'; do it. Because what ''you'' want to do is meaningless unless ''we'' want to do it.

* For a FanDumb example, take Hope Estheim from FinalFantasyXIII. He pretty much earned the title of TheScrappy because he was in mourning of his mother.

* MuppetBabies: Fozzie Bear, The jokes he tells are booed at regardless.

* Subverted in the JusticeLeague episode "Panic in the Sky". {{Batman}} was the only one who refused to surrender himself to the authorities. [[spoiler:If he didn't go to confront Amanda Waller, the rest of the League would still be imprisoned and Luthor would have completed the powerful and immortal android he was going to transfer his consciousness to and make himself a living god.]]

* In FostersHomeForImaginaryFriends, Bloo is the only one to be on to Bendy being, well, a total prick. Nobody believes Bloo. Even when he proves that Bendy was guilty, Bloo screws himself by proving it in the most convoluted way possible and ends up destroying most of the house while Bendy "stole a cookie."