Briar Patching

The Joker gives a whole new meaning to Batman Gambit.

"Skin me, Br'er Fox, snatch out my eyeballs, tear out my ears by the roots, and cut off my legs, but do please, Br'er Fox, don't fling me in that briar patch!"

— Br'er Rabbit, Song of the South

A deliberate use of Reverse Psychology in order to get a desired result. Alice begs and pleads with Bob not to take a certain course of action — do anything, anything at all, but that! Terror, fear, hysterics, every scenery-chomping trick is pulled out to make Bob think that this is the worst possible thing he could do to Alice. And thinking that, he does it.

Naturally, it's exactly what Alice wants or needs.

If Bob takes pity on Alice, it's Springtime for Hitler. Alice may beg "Anything but That!" at some point. Compare Try and Follow and Fake Weakness. May (still) be liable to Threat Backfire or Reverse Psychology Backfire. Almost always a subtrope of Schmuck Bait. If it works, Alice gets an Unishment. Mischief for Punishment is when Alice acts out deliberately to get the "punishment" she wants. May also overlap with Too Kinky to Torture and Forbidden Fruit.

One of The Oldest Tricks in the Book. In modern fiction, writers often use this trick if they want to emphasize how stupid a villain is, or make an amusing I Know You Know I Know situation out of it.

Compare Fence Painting, which (in some versions) is a similar use of psychology to get someone to perform a task.

Has nothing to do with the act of patching software, or cloth for that matter.

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Examples:

Advertising

• At least one type of health cereal has used this trope in advertising, even adopting slogans along the lines of "You won't like it."
  • In the UK, Marmite is advertised in a similar way — they've turned the fact that 50% of the populace hate it into a selling point.
  • Similarly, Buckley's Cough Syrup: "It tastes awful, but it works". Probably intentional, given that they have pine needle oil as a non-medicinal ingredient.
    • It does taste awful. And it works. Needs about a gallon of [insert your favorite drink here] to get the rotten-turnip taste out of your mouth, though...
  • One of their advertisements went 'We're # 1, but we taste like number two."
• "Arrogant Bastard Ale: This is an aggressive beer. You probably won't like it. It is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to be able to appreciate an ale of this quality and depth. We would suggest that you stick to safer and more familiar territory — maybe something with a multi-million dollar ad campaign aimed at convincing you it's made in a little brewery, or one that implies that their tasteless fizzy yellow beer will give you more sex appeal. Perhaps you think multi-million dollar ad campaigns make a beer taste better. Perhaps you are mouthing your words as you read this." (From Stone Brewing. That's the copy on the back of the bottle.)
  • As it turns out, despite the advertising, quite a lot of people do like it, since it's a damn good beer.
• In the 1970s, it was Listerine: "What do you think of Listerine?" "I hate it!◊ But I use it twice a day. It really works." Franklin Ajaye had a parody of this ad, with Trojans condoms.
• After the first lunar landing, Volkswagen ran an ad depicting the moon-lander with the slogan, "It's ugly, but it gets you there."

Anime and Manga

• One of the most popular examples of Briar Patching in Japanese media comes from the rakugo story Manjuu Kowai (I Hate Manjuu), in which a man fakes a phobia to manjuu (small cakes with red bean paste filling) to make his friends fill his room with the cakes; upon being discovered eating one, he simply quips "well, what I'm actually afraid of is delicious tea."
  • A version of this story is told by Yata and Kereellis in The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service as part of a Boke and Tsukkomi Routine. The audience (some pensioners they're supposed to be entertaining) just gives them stony looks.
  • Paraiso (a Yonkoma series by Dowman Seiman) gives us an example of how this story would look in the hands of a Yaoi Fangirl:
  Boy A: You were lying about being afraid of anal, weren't you?
  Boy B: Well, actually... I'm afraid of giving you oral.
  (cue squeeing)
• Dragon Ball: Piccolo Jr turns himself into a giant during his fight with Goku. Goku says that he can take him, but he would be in real trouble if Piccolo could get any bigger, which Piccolo promptly does. Goku then says "Fooled you" and jumps down Piccolo's mouth to retrieve the bottle Piccolo had swallowed which Kami had been trapped in.
• In an episode of Yo-kai Watch, Nate becomes inspirited by Noway, a yokai that forces its targets to say "no way" to any request in a condescending matter. He tries to get Tattletell and Blazion to confront it the normal way, but Noway inspirits and incapacitates them both. When it turns its magic against Whisper, Whisper refuses to help until Nate lies to him and tells him he doesn't need help. He uses this same tactic when Noway inspirits Jibanyan, and gets the upper hand by telling Jibanyan not to use his Paws of Fury on Noway.
• In a oneshot manga, Overthrown for my Younger Sister, but She's a Ticking Time Bomb, a viscount's daughter, Marie Darlington, gets dumped by her fiance, a duke's son, Andrew Hallaway, in favor of her younger sister Lucy. Marie makes a big deal about how all the effort she put into the relationship was wasted, but her parents convince her to back down since their in dire financial straits and need the Hallaways' money. As soon as the new couple leave however, the family and servants start celebrating. It turns out that the family is struggling because Lucy has a massive gambling problem and as a result has racked up an enormous debt. The family had actually been subtly pushing the two together since Marie convinced their debtors to put the debt under Lucy's name so that it would transfer to the Hallaways (since the other option was for the Darlingtons to declare bankruptcy and default on debt). As a result, the Hallaways are bankrupted, Andrew and Lucy are punished with exile to the frontier colonies, and the Darlingtons manage to recover, allowing Marie to pick up a new fiance she actually likes.

Audio Plays

• In one of the Big Finish Doctor Who audios, a Nazi has gotten hold of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver (and the Doctor himself) and thinks that, despite the Doctor's comments to the contrary, it's a weapon. During this exchange he is examining it.
  Nazi: Who are you with, Doctor? The SOE? The OSS? Hmm? Where is your aircraft hidden?
  The Doctor: (calmly) One thing at a time, Major. Oh, and I wouldn't press the button on the end in particular.
  Nazi: Answer me! (presses button, promptly incapacitating himself with the sound waves)
  The Doctor: Especially not when you're pointing it right at your own head. (takes it back) I bet that rattled your fillings. I think I'd best look after it, don't you?

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering's control decks make use of this by making players think you have a counter when you don't because blue decks always run four copies of Counterspell, Force of Will, or whatever else is legal in that format. Many players, upon seeing two untapped islands and a card in hand, will be more than a little hesitant to play a spell.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • Similarly playable with the Trap Cards, which are usually meant to be used on the opponent's turn. So any face-down card in the spell zone is a potential source of worry because you never know just when the opponent will flip and activate it. Even attempting to counter it may be the intent, as more advanced strategies employ reverse psychology to entice the opponent into a predictable action. You can pull off similar effects with certain Effect Monsters, particularly when they're Set face-down. Especially in early sets, an Effect Monster can have a Flip or "When attacked" effect that can make players think twice about targeting the hidden monster so as to reveal it.
  • The anime Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds shows two specific instances. One has Yusei dueling a security robot equipped with a Lockdown Deck (which uses a lot of Counter Traps) and knowledge of Yusei's prior duels. Yusei then beats the robot at its own game by making it over-commit and exploiting the weaknesses it creates. Another is against a jail warden equipped with an Iron Chain Deck (which makes the opponent discard frequently to make them lose by deck exhaustion). In this case, Yusei holds for last a card that depends on a full discard pile to work.

Comedy

• In her special Home Bird, Sarah Millican describes an encounter she had with a woman in the audience at a show, who claimed that she killed a half-dead frog her cat had brought in... by drowning it. Millican does a brief imitation of the frog briar patching the woman. "Oh no! Don't put us in the water! I hate the water!"
• The traditional rakugo story "Manjuu kowai" ("Meat buns are scary") is about a group of boys talking about things they find scary. One boy claims to be afraid of manjuu (steamed meat buns), and the other boys find this so absurd they decide to prank him by buying up all the manjuu they can and sending them to his house. The punchline, of course, is that the boy loves meat buns and said he thought they were scary to trick his friends into buying them for him.

Comic Books

• Aquaman: In the New 52 run, Aquaman manages to trick a deranged Hercules into trying to drown him by acting scared of the water. Naturally, this gives Aquaman the upper hand in their fight.
• Astro City: Used by Marta Dobrescu in "Party of the Second Part" — when the Silver Adept is on trial for blasphemy by the Cult of Tzammath, Marta tricks them into summoning Tzammath directly by claiming they're not capable of doing so.
• In the Batman: Shadow of the Bat story "Road to No Man's Land", Dr. Arkham tells his charges that he'll release them from the Asylum (since there's no food, no guards, no medication, and no chance of relief arriving) on condition that they don't go to Gotham because "those poor people have suffered enough". The lunatics accept the deal, and head straight for Gotham... just before the bridges get blown up and it's cut off from the rest of the country.
• In The Black Knight Glorps Again by Don Rosa, Gentleman Thief Arpin Lusene, having made himself into The Juggernaut by using an invention by Gyro Gearloose that can annihilate anything except diamonds, decides to frame a career-crowning impossible theft by annihilating (and pretending he stole) Scrooge McDuck's collection of memorabilia. Scrooge begs him to at least spare the giant gold nugget that made him rich, but that only prompts him to go for it first. Which was, of course, the intention, since it's really a fake nugget in a room whose insides are covered with diamond dust, the only substance Lusene can't cut through, so he is trapped inside as surely as if he had no special equipment. However, this only partially works, since Lusene realizes that something is wrong before he actually sets foot inside the room, and has to be forced in by Donald, who is then at his mercy.
• Captain America faces a Nazi spy who had stolen a powerful prototype disintegrator gun and is attempting to blast his way out. Finally, Cap stops him by begging him not to use the gun at full intensity; the mook of course puts it that setting and it blows up in his face.
• Played in Doctor Aphra when our antihero begs Vader that if he is going to execute her she'd prefer the speed of lightsaber decapitation over the horror of asphyxiation in space. When he does execute her by kicking her out the airlock she rolls out her survival plan.
• In one issue of the Fantastic Four, a cornered Blastaar suddenly begs the heroes not to throw his Cosmic Control Rod into a nearby "atomic disintegrator". Sue Storm is immediately suspicious, but Johnny Storm throws it in anyway. Turns out the "disintegrator" was really a prison cell for Blastaar's rival Annihilus, who uses the Rod's power to bust out and trounce the Fantastic Four.
• Iron Man: Invoked by name in a War Machine story. After he fakes his death to get access to enough technology to rebuild himself, his ally Gloria Sandoval starts pleading for him: "Please! Please... oh please don't throw me into that briar patch."
• JLA (1997): In the Terror Incognita story line, Martian Manhunter begs the White Martians, who have subdued the entire League, to just kill them, while subtly influencing Superman to think about the Phantom Zone and getting the leader to believe that being sent into said Phantom Zone is a Fate Worse than Death. This not only allows the League to cheat death but also gives them a place to plan free of telepathic interference.
• In one The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck story, a native chief who hates Scrooge appears right while The Generalissimo is holding Scrooge at swordpoint and knocks the man out. Scrooge then tricks the chief into taking away a cart of gold (which he actually needs to get rid of to avoid jeopardizing a far bigger deal) and letting the authorities in a neighboring country take custody of the general by pretending to be horrified at both prospects, at which point the chief takes the gold for his tribe and the general as a prisoner immediately.
  Scrooge: Please don't turn him over to Colombia. He is the traitor-chief who made it possible for Panama to break away from Colombia. They will put my poor friend into prison forever. (Crocodile Tears)
• In one MAD: The Lighter Side Of, a kid gets in trouble, and begs his mother not to tell his father. The mother gleefully says she's going to do it, and another kid tells him he was stupid to reveal his fear of his father, only to find out that the kid thinks his father will go easy on him.
• In The Sandman: Overture, Dream is imprisoned inside a black hole by a group of insane stars. Not coincidentally, the total darkness of his prison winds up transporting him to the realm of his mother Night, whose servant interrupts his complaints by snarking that he will next "be asking us not to throw you in the briar patch". Subverted in that Night refuses to help, and Dream has to be rescued by Destiny, which neither of them planned out.
• Spider-Man once webbed Scorpion's tail to his leg, then pleaded "Just don't finish me off with that tail... please." Scorpy then attacks with his tail, causing him to break his leg.
• Starman (DC Comics): In the Grand Guignol storyline, Adam Strange gets attacked in his lab as he finishes preparing a mass teleport device. The problem is that not only is he now a hostage, even though his machine is online, Opal City at the moment is sealed by an impenetrable shadow shield. The hostage taker smugly asks him how to disable the teleport, and Adam is quick to fall to his knees and beg him not to press a certain button, since it will undo his work. The idiot proceeds to do so, and instantly the machine attempts to do its job, sending him to splat against the shield.
• Attempted unsuccessfully by Dirty Coward Boomerang in The Superior Foes of Spider-Man, because he's just too blatant about it; dragging his sort-of-girlfriend (whose name he doesn't even know) out of hiding to beg Bullseye not to kill her and leave him alive:
  Bullseye: This is just embarrassing.
  Boomerang: That would be so much worse! Don't do that totally awesome thing that you did to Daredevil that you're so proud of! Anything but that!
  Girlfriend: Oh, you pathetic @#$%@*!

Comic Strips

• In Bloom County, here, Binkley tries this gambit out with the monster in the anxiety closet, pleading "Don't send out Nastassja Kinski to give me a Swedish massage!" It works until he overplays his hand by adding "With a big slice of cheesecake."
• In an early Calvin and Hobbes strip, Suzie tells Calvin to pass a note to her friend, telling him it's a secret, so he shouldn't read it. Naturally, Calvin can't resist...
  Note: Calvin, you stinkhead. I told you not to read this.
  • The next time Susie asks him to pass a note, Calvin makes an attempt at a pre-emptive offensive by standing up and yelling to Miss Wormwood that Susie is passing notes. He asks Miss Wormwood to read Susie's note out loud, which lambasts Calvin for being a tattle-tale.
• Subverted in Footrot Flats in which Dog word-for-word attempts to invoke the trick on an angered Wal. Cut to later in which Dog, having been thrown into the briar patch, is cursing out the literary reference as it turns out being thrown in a briar patch is incredibly unpleasant.
• Subverted twice in FoxTrot.
  • When Jason gets in trouble for damaging the car, he proves singularly unapologetic, and asks that Roger not make him eat a whole box of Ding Dongs and instead take away his computer for a month. Roger takes this suggestion and gives him the latter punishment, except for two months.
    Jason: Boy, when reverse psychology backfires, it really backfires.
  • Pretty much the same joke is used when Jason begs Andy not to buy a new computer with Windows, and she says she won't, causing Jason to mumble that "Reverse psychology must have been invented by a parent."
• In Prickly City, Kevin's first step in angling for the VP nomination is to announce he would never accept it.

Fan Works

• Ben 10: Guardians: NRG is an Energy Being who wears a protective suit so others aren't hurt by his radiation. At one point, he tricks a group of opponents by claiming removing said suit will destroy him; once they open it up, he's able to turn the tables and take control of the fight back.
• In Blooper Mario Sunshine, Mario convinces a horde of angry Piantas that he really, really doesn't want to be thrown into Noki Bay... when that's actually where he wants to go in order to face Eely-Mouth.
• Double Agent Vader: This is how Anakin gets access to the Death Star project so he can feed information about it to the rebels. He knows the Emperor knows he hates the very idea of the Death Star and won't believe him if he takes an interest, so he finds a way to annoy Palpatine enough to get assigned to the Death Star as punishment. It works so well that when Grand Moff Tarkin gets wind of the possibility that there might be a critical flaw in the Death Star's exhaust system, he puts Anakin in charge of combing through the plans to find it, on the assumption that this will be menial work that Anakin will hate.
• The Emancipators: Izuku uses this against Monoma during their match at the Sports Festival, pleading with him not to try copying his Quirk. After all, it's too powerful, and he'd only hurt himself if he tried to use it. Naturally, this only galvanizes Monoma into doing just that, and exploding his arm when he activates it.
• Emerald Flight Book One: Union: Harry tells the Parasite not to touch his scar, claiming that it's the strongest part of his powers. This results in partially draining the Horcrux instead of Harry.
• Fate/Starry Night: After Ritsuka deprives him of the Book of False Attendant, Shinji attempts to convince Ritsuka to destroy the book so Rider's control will go back to Sakura. But Ritsuka sees through Shinji's Bad "Bad Acting" and decides to keep the book instead.
• Feralnette AU: After Marinette takes the heat for Alya pushing Lila, Principal Damocles isn't quite sure about the best way to punish her, as Chloé ensured that expulsion is off the table. Marinette suggests that it would be a shame if she couldn't participate in school activities anymore, and he readily agrees to this. Much to Marinette's delight, as Ms. Bustier had been passive-aggressively expecting her to make all the costumes for Mylène's school play.
• For the Glory of Irk: Vero tricks Lard Nar into taking him to Earth by pretending that going there would be unbearable for him; as such, the wannabe rebel is happy to head to Earth in order to torment his "captive".
• Fuzzy Logic: One of Musume's favorite tactics for getting what she wants from Konohagakure's Council is convincing them that she doesn't want them to do a particular thing. Minato and Shikaku catch onto this, as do Shikaku's teammates Chouza and Inoichi.
• Green Tea Rescue: During their 'Heroes vs Villains' training exercise, Izuku and Ochako trick Tsuyu and Fumikage in this fashion. Their opponents are searching for a fake bomb hidden somewhere in the building, and they act like they're increasingly desperate to ensure they don't enter a certain room... which is completely empty. When Tsuyu and Fumikage get inside, all they find is that they've just been cornered.
• Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past: When meeting Ron for the first time again, Harry knows that he might reject his offer of sweets if he thinks Harry is being too generous or expressing pity. So Harry makes a point of repeatedly insulting the sweets, acting like Ron would be doing him a huge favor by trading one of his corned beef sandwiches for some of them.
  Harry: I don't suppose you'd be willing to take some of this junk for one of your sandwiches, would you?
• Hellsing Ultimate Abridged: In order to get Alucard to go to Brazil, Walter tells him he's forbidden from going to Brazil. It is, of course, heavily implied that Alucard knows full well what Walter is trying to do, but goes to Brazil anyway because he knows he really should, and because if they need to send him, it's probably going to be an impossibly violent and painful (read: fun) visit anyway.
  Alucard: Well that settles it, I'm going traveling!
  Walter: Yes, you can go anywhere you wish. Except for Brazil. Sir Integra was quite insistent that you never visit Brazil.
  (Beat)
  Alucard: TakingthePoliceGirlandtheFrenchman!
• Implacable: In the Omake "The Rules of Evidence", Piggot steals Danny's PC in an effort to get rid of the evidence it holds of how Taylor was Triggered. Danny acts as though he doesn't want the police to know what's on there, leading to them checking the computer and discovering said evidence.
• Infinity Train: Seeker of Crocus: Upon seeing Ai (in his human form), Tokio begs him to please oh please, don't take the cards he's holding in a make-shift deck holder. Ai takes the top five cards either way, curious as to what type they are (just normal playing cards)...before Tokio says "Boom" and they explode in his face.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Olympian Journey: Held captive by Ares, Jade tells him to hit her as hard as he can. He can tell that she's baiting him, but he's legitimately curious to see where she's going with it, so he does. Jade then uses the blow to escape his grasp like a human missile.
• Knight of Salem: When confronted by Cinder, Jaune pretends that the briefcase he's carrying is full of the serum they use to empower themselves, lamenting that "all will be lost" if they inject it. What's actually inside the briefcase is a formula that, when injected, turns out to be poisonous, turning Cinder to stone.
• In the Death Note fic Point of Succession in order to get L to let him work with him, Light tells L he doesn't want to work with him.
• Prince Of Heroes has Izuku defeat All For One this way. Turns out that taking One For All will cause both Quirks to destroy each other, and whoever's hosting them in the process.
• In Replay, Harry tells his aunt he'll do anything but vacuuming the house, which is actually the chore he hates the least.
• The Lost fanfiction Shadows uses this as an allegory while describing Jack's thoughts as Ben desperately pleads not to be taken from the island: "He's not about to throw Br'er Rabbit into the briar patch."
• In Turn Back Time, Dudley is invited to an open house at Warner Academy and Harry's aunt and uncle discuss what to do with him. Harry, realizing that Hermione will be there, pleads with his uncle not to be taken to the open house, claiming the other kids would make fun of him.
• The Vaults Weren't Meant To Save Anyone, So I'll SAVE Them Myself: It turns out that the Barrier was actually an example of this. Not all of the humans wanted to wipe out monsterkind, so they tricked their more murderous companions into believing it would be far crueler to seal them away underground instead.

Films — Animation

• In Disney's Aladdin, after Jafar has seized the magic lamp, he uses his first two wishes to become Sultan of Agrabah and then the most powerful sorcerer. When Jafar refers to himself as the most powerful being on Earth, Aladdin remarks that the Genie is more powerful than Jafar will ever be. Jafar uses his third wish to become the most powerful genie, with he and Genie believing Aladdin slipped up and gave Jafar the idea. Jafar is then magically pulled into a newly created lamp, being trapped as part of the rules of a genie.
  Aladdin: Phenomenal cosmic power... itty-bitty living space.
• In the film version of The Magic Roundabout when Dougal is caught, the soldier asks him how he should torture him for information. Dougal tells him never to feed him sugar cubes (caramel in the American dub) because that's the worst thing they could do.
• In Stitch! The Movie, when Jumba refuses to tell Hamsterviel where his experiment pods are, he decides to activate the experiment Gantu was able to find and have it torture Jumba, with the scientist worriedly noting that the Experiment in question, 625, has all the same powers as Stitch. A delighted Hamsterviel then has Gantu activate the pod before the pair duck of the room, expecting to hear Jumba's pleas for mercy. When they hear nothing, however, they go back in and are shocked to find the Experiment eating sandwiches, with an amused Jumba commenting that in spite of all his powers, even advanced language programing, 625 is a lazy coward who prefers to make sandwiches. Needless to say, Hamsterviel is irked.

Films — Live-Action

• Bill Cosby, in his concert film Bill Cosby: Himself, tells a story about a time when his wife threw him out of bed and demanded that he make breakfast for the children. He ends up giving them slices of chocolate cake, which enrages his wife, who then sends him to his room. Which is where he wanted to be in the first place. Any questions?
• Richard Pryor begs a judge not to release him to his parole officer in Bustin' Loose. When the judge ignores him, he and the parole officer exchange warm handshakes.
• In Election, lesbian Tammy Metzler falsely confesses to destroying the school election posters precisely so she'll get sent to a Catholic girls' school. At one point we see her "begging" her mom not to make her go there.
• Fight Club:
  • Tyler's rule number one about Fight Club: "You do not talk about Fight Club!" He really does want people to talk about Fight Club and spread its message, but making it seem like an exclusive in-crowd makes it more alluring to its members and more likely to be spread around.
  • Tyler plays head-games with the narrator by dramatically gasping, "No, not the green wire!" during a Wire Dilemma.
• In the final moments of In the Loop, this is how Malcolm Tucker gets the news stations to focus on the garden wall story. He does so by "begging" the reporter not to run the story because it would ruin him, Tucker having blackmailed the same reporter into spiking a story that genuinely would have caused him problems at the start of the film. While screwing over Foster, it distracts enough attention to prevent the leaking of the anti-war paper from getting any traction, and allows the vote for war to pass.
• In Let's Go to Prison, Nelson does this to Lenard when he finds the syringe of boat cleaner Nelson was going to kill himself with.
  Nelson: (As Lenard injects himself) Please don't throw me into the briar patch.
• In Little Big Man, General Custer hires Jack Crabb as a scout, reasoning that because Crabb hates him and wishes to get revenge on him for killing the Cheyenne, everything he tells Custer will be a lie, thereby making him a "reverse barometer". They get to the Little Bighorn and Custer asks if they should attack:
  Crabb: General, you go down there.
  Custer: You're advising me to go into the Coulee?
  Crabb: Yes, sir.
  Custer: There are no Indians there, I suppose.
  Crabb: I didn't say that. There are thousands of Indians down there. And when they get done with you, there won't be nothing left but a greasy stain. This ain't the Washite River, General, and them ain't helpless women and children waiting for you. They're Cheyenne brave, and Sioux. You go down there, General, if you've got the nerve.
  Custer: Still trying to outsmart me, aren't you, mule-skinner? You want me to think that you don't want me to go down there, but the subtle truth is you really don't want me to go down there!
• In the 1998 adaptation of The Man in the Iron Mask, Philippe does some impromptu and rather inspired Briar Patching after he's been recaptured, begging Louis to kill him rather than put him back in prison with predictable results. When Athos, Porthos, and Aramis arrive to rescue Philippe, he's ready and waiting for them rather than being the emotional wreck they were expecting, leading to one of the great lines in movie history:
  I wear the mask; the mask doesn't wear me.
• In Men in Black 3, J gets pulled over by some racist cops and they start frisking him. The cops pull out the neuralizer and he angrily demands to see his lawyer "before you press that small button on the side firmly." Cue them doing exactly that.
• In both movies, this was how Mr. Coriander convinced Bastian to read The Never Ending Story. Of course, in the novel Bastian just steals it. It turns out to be alright, because after it's gone, Coriander doesn't realize he ever had it. But he does know about Fantastica (Fantasia in the movies.)
• At the climax of Robert Altman's Popeye, Bluto forces Popeye to eat spinach because he knows the sailor hates the way it tastes. Bluto should've known better than to take Poopdeck Pappy's word for it, as that was exactly what Pappy was coaxing him to do so Popeye would finally power up and beat him.
• The Israeli film Sallah Shabati has the titular character desperate to get out of the ma'abara ("transit camp", basically shacks that the Israeli government stuck the flood of Jewish immigrants mostly from the Arab world who arrived after Israel's founding) and into the nice new housing development just down the road. After realizing that in Israel you only get what you don't want, he leads a protest at the local Housing Authority office demanding that they let him stay in the ma'abara, and the film ends with Shabati, his family, and his neighbor triumphant as they're hauled away by the police to the housing development.
• In the first Scooby-Doo Live-Action Adaptation, a mysterious voodoo man tells Daphne not to go into Spooky Island Castle. Daphne suspects that it's this trope in order to have her go to the castle, where he might have sprung a trap. In reality he simply didn't want her to go because he thought it was cursed.
• Used in Star Trek: Insurrection, with a nebula conveniently named the "Briar Patch". The Enterprise is being pursued by So'na ships who have no qualms about using forbidden weapons, so Riker takes a huge risk that pays off.^note He sucks up some of the Made of Explodium gas that makes up the Briar Patch and shoots it back out between them and the So'na. The So'na fire a few seconds later and ignite the gas, the resulting explosion destroys one ship and cripples the other.
  Riker: It's time to use the Briar Patch the way Br'er Rabbit did.
• Arguably in Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. The infamous "I have the high ground" exchange on Mustafar comes across as odd to swordfighting specialists, who know that the high ground is a disadvantage in a swordfight. Think about it: being downhill from your opponent grants you easier access to their legs and obviates the need to defend your own. But in this case, Anakin is on a floating platform, not the slope. But his jump gives Obi-Wan the perfect opening to slash his other 3 limb off and send him tumbling back down the riverbank.
• In Steel, the title hero is captured and Big Bad Nathaniel Burke is asking how the latter's hammer weapon works. Steel tells him not to turn the red switch because "she'll get too hot for you." In the beginning of the movie, said Big Bad was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army precisely for setting an experimental supersonic gun to full power level which was not approved by for testing, the resulting sonic wave ricocheting, causing a building to collapse and several people to be killed and injured. You'd think he'd learn his lesson? Not exactly:
  Burke: Well, you know me: I always take things to the next level.

The switch then causes the hammer to fly right back into Steel's hands, followed by the latter kicking Burke's ass.

• Superman II: Superman tells Lex Luthor to try to lure the three Kryptonian criminals into his depowering chamber, counting on Lex to betray him and share this knowledge with the three and that they would force him into the chamber. Fortunately, he'd reconfigured the chamber to depower all the Kryptonians outside of it.
• In Wild Wild West, when Artemus is caught and about to be executed, he begs to be "shot in my heart, which has loved this country so much" because he is wearing his prototype for a bulletproof vest. Unfortunately, it doesn't work.
  Loveless: Shoot him in the head.
  Artemus: Damn.
• The Wizard of Oz: When some apple trees vigorously object to Dorothy picking from them, the Scarecrow deliberately goads them into trying to bean him with their fruit.

Literature

• The Trope Namer comes from Br'er Rabbit begging Br'er Fox not to throw him into the briar patch (Br'er Rabbit was born and raised in the briar patch so is not threatened by the thorns, whereas the Fox won't be able to follow him in there). The 19th-century vintage of the original Uncle Remus stories qualify this as Older Than Radio. The earliest versions, of unknown date, can be found in the African and Cherokee folk tales which became the Uncle Remus stories.
  • The story is retold in the Disney film Song of the South, and more or less faithfully recreated (with audience participation!) in Splash Mountain, where, as soon as Br'er Rabbit says this, your log crests the conveyor lift and goes down the big drop. The funny thing about Splash Mountain is that lots of people don't realize that Br'er Rabbit was using reverse psychology in that instance. Taken out of its original context, it looks like he really didn't want to be thrown in, and that it's just by luck that things turn out okay for him.
  • Coonskin gives us another Br'er Rabbit to contend with. Cornered by thugs he pleads:
    Br'er Rabbit: Please don't throw me out the window to that cold ground below! Shoot me, strangle me, do anything you want... just don't throw me into that garbage can!
  • Also shows up in Universal's adaptation The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, where Brer Rabbit uses this on Brer Fox and Brer Wolf.

By Title:

• In The Acts of Caine novel Heroes Die Caine uses this as part of tricking Ma'elKoth into following his Batman Gambit. He directly refers to the trope name while doing so.
• The famous Trojan Horse from The Aeneid was actually an example of this, not a gift. The Trojans were told that the horse was a gift to Athena, and as an offering it could not be interfered with. But their hubris got the better of them and they brought the horse into the city as a battle trophy, whereupon the soldiers inside escaped, opened the gates for the rest of the army, and sacked the city.
• Mulch uses this in the third Artemis Fowl book, convincing two Mooks to bury him alive. At which point, he unhinges his jaw and burrows away.
• In Bored of the Rings, Frito, cornered by the Nozdrul, does his best Br'er Rabbit impersonation and begs them not to throw him in "dat briar patch ober dere." It's the oldest trick in the book, and they fall for it hook, line and sinker.
• The title character of Bud, Not Buddy does this when his foster parents threaten to send him back to the orphanage. He doesn't want to go back to the orphanage necessarily, but knows it's better to have them impose a punishment they think is terrible rather than something that really would make him miserable. At one point, he even brings up the Trope Namer while discussing this.
• Captain Underpants does this to Melvin Sneedly (in the guise of "The Wily Wonder Nerd" as part of one of George and Harold's comics) in book 7. Wonder Nerd goes to dunk Captain Underpants in the lake after he begs him not to, but as it turns out, it's exactly what he wanted Melvin to do. The water causes Wonder Nerd's radioactive underpants — that have in-universe mutated him into a giant — to shrink and make him swell up like a balloon, which in turn lets the Captain defeat Wonder Nerd by puncturing and accordingly deflating him back to normal size with a nearby bird.
  Moral of the Story: Always buy pre-shrunk underwear!
• In the book Catherine, Called Birdy, Perkin, the goat-boy, pays the yearly rent on his grandmother's cottage with a goat. In the preceding weeks before the rent is due, he will tell people that he will give up any goat except a certain one for the rent. When it comes time to pay, Catherine's father, the lord of the manor, will insist on being given that goat, thinking that he's gotten the best of Perkin. Each time, it turns out that the particular goat is either the meanest or smelliest one of the flock, or the one that will try to eat the laundry.
• Attempted by Ralph in The Coral Island when pirates demand to know where his two friends are hiding. Ralph says, "Villain, to blow my brains out would make short work of me, and be soon over. Death by drowning is as sure, and the agony prolonged, yet, I tell you to your face, if you were to toss me over yonder cliff into the sea, I would not tell you where my companions are, and I dare you to try me!" in the hopes that they'll throw him into the ocean so he can swim back to the cave where his friends are hiding, which has an underwater opening. The pirate captain almost has Ralph thrown into the water, but changes his mind at the last minute, and has him put to work as The Cabin Boy instead.
• Explicitly referenced in the YA novel Dont Look Behind You, about a girl in the Witness Protection Program. The guy who was chasing her catches up to her in the climax, and she tells him about her claustrophobia and begs for him to stash her anywhere but the tiny, dark closet. When he does, a relative who is stuck with her tells her that she shouldn't have told him she was claustrophobic, and she just giggles, says "Don't throw me into the briar patch!" and climbs out the crawlspace in the ceiling.
• In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Hermione fakes tears and uses this strategy to trick Dolores Umbridge into a position where she can be ambushed. She begs Harry not to reveal the location of "the secret weapon in the Forbidden Forest", whatever he does. Naturally, Umbridge marches the kids into the Forbidden Forest at wand-point and demands that they take her to it... at which point, she's ambushed and pummeled by Centaurs, who had explicitly forbidden the adults at Hogwarts from entering the Forest. Uncharacteristically for an example of this trope, it both works and backfires, as the centaurs don't like the idea of having been used and they decide to attack the kids as well. Fortunately, they're saved a second time by the timely appearance of the giant Grawp.
• Help! I'm Trapped...: In Help I'm Trapped in My Camp Counselor's Body, the protagonists are caught trying to sabotage a menacing rival group of campers who discuss dangerous ways to keep them injured or detained until after the competition. A character who read Bre’r Rabbit keeps muttering that those sound better in the briar patch, and sure enough, this inspires their captors to throw them into a briar patch, which they get out of after a few minutes. However, since they aren’t as small as a rabbits, they also get cut up a lot more by the briars than the rabbit in the original story.
• At one point in Heretical Edge, Flick baits some Seosten underling guards into shooting her with laser weapons so she can absorb the lasers and shoot them back. Unfortunately for her, while she's distracted from doing this, another guard tries to use a sword on her, which she couldn't absorb, so Tabbris has to save her.
• How the Marquis Got His Coat Back: The Marquis would really like the Shepherd not to steal the letter that's in his shirt pocket and read it. Really.
• In Ice Station, Scarecrow tricks Mr Nero into opening a retractable bridge during a Mexican Standoff by looking nervously at the controls. He'd also tied two grenades across the opening so the pins would be pulled when it retracted.
• The Donald Westlake book Killy, has the narrator's Batman Gambit include frantically pleading with the local Immoral Journalist he's been clashing with not to take pictures of the arrest of a suspected murderess because one of his Union coworkers is in bed with her at the time, which of course spurs her to hurry to take humiliating pictures of both of them during the arrest. This is all part of his Batman Gambit to humiliate and discredit both the coworker, who's been Stealing the Credit from him, and also stole his girlfriend, and the police -who've repeatedly beaten him up and arrested him under false pretenses- as the woman is innocent of murder at least and will easily be able to prove it after being arrested in such a public way by the overconfident cops.
• The Mad Scientists' Club: In "The Telltalte Transmitter" Dinky tricks a group of bank robbers into taking his radio (which has a homing beacon) by making sure they notice it and then begging them to let him keep it.
• Explicitly referenced and used as a ploy in Live Free Or Die, to prevent the Horvath from bombarding Earth's major cities over maple syrup. Prior to revealing that was his plan after the Glatun intervention, all Tyler Vernon would say of his plan was "I am of the South. We have our ways." Once the Glatun sent a battlecruiser to get the Horvath out of Earth's orbit, he answered in an interview "In the words of the smartest rabbit I know; 'Don't throw me in dat dere briar patch, Br'er Fox!'"
• Mistborn: The Original Trilogy: The Hero of Ages, TenSoon deliberately lets his captors overhear him saying how degrading he found it to have been made to wear the bones of a dog under his previous master. Of course they give him the dog bones to wear when his sentence is carried out; quoth, "that was exactly what TenSoon had been counting on." Naturally the abilities of that body make it much easier for him to escape, aided by the fact that the normally highly obedient kandra didn't expect him to actually resist the sentence of having his bones broken with hammers, being thrown in a pit for a thousand years, and finally executed via acid bath.
• This is a big part of the plot of Clive Barker's book Mister B. Gone. (This is a huge spoiler, so think before you read it.) In a terrifying case of The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You the first-person narrator (who admits to being a demon) tells the reader to close the book and burn it, at first asking, then begging, then moving into genuinely terrifying threats. Given what he does for the whole second half of the book, his descriptions of what he will do to torture you and his noting that he could be right behind you, that you could turn around and not have time to scream are not easily shrugged off. Even the firmest of skeptics would be frightened to finish the book. If you are brave enough to do so, he confesses that he was lying, and admits that was all a trick. He WANTED you to burn the book, because that would have set him free. He can't really do anything to you unless you burn it. He even suggests giving the book to someone you don't like.
• This is the primary conceit of the literary classic The Monster at the End of This Book; Grover warns the reader not to finish the book, as they will surely be devoured by the monster. In the legendary and chilling denouement, it is revealed that Grover himself is the monster at the end of the book, and the reader is in no real danger.
  • A sequel to the book was made with Elmo joining Grover. Here, Elmo encourages the reader to continue to read the book while Grover, like before, tries to get them to stop. Of course, the ending is the same as the previous book, where both of them are the monsters at the end of the book.
• In Percy Jackson and the Olympians, at one point Percy begs for Nereus not to jump into the ocean with him. Nereus does. And well, with Percy being the son of the sea god...
• Stealthily referenced by the Reassignment Backfire in Robert Asprin's No Phule Like An Old Phule. The rabbit-like Thumper, nee Zigger (the Space Legion encourages and expects pseudonyms), is hoping to get sent to one of the best groups in the Legion. After someone frames him for a prank, the pranked commanding officer sends him to what he for personal reasons considers the absolute worst unit in the Legion: A widely respected former Ragtag Bunch of Misfits that always has a space for another outcast.
• In L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero Lost, the heroes are confronted by the three demons who have stolen Mephistopheles's Staff of Summoning. Mephisto screams to his compatriots that if the demons use his staff against them, he will surely be killed. Miranda can't believe he is attempting this, and Mab even sarcastically cites Br'er Rabbit under his breath. Thus, Miranda is stunned when the ploy works, and the demons actually choose to use the staff to summon Chimera, not knowing that the staff only allows summoning creatures—not controlling them. Cue Mephisto happily scratching all three of Chimera's heads.
• In the Rainbow Magic series, in Gabriella's book the girls beg not to be taken to Jack Frost when they really want to get information from him.
• Ranger's Apprentice: One book has a variation; Erak conspires with Evanlyn to smuggle her and Will (who have been made slaves) out of Hallisholm and make it look like they took a boat. Trying to disguise his true motive for talking to her, Erak spreads the story that he wants Evanlyn to come serve him personally rather than working in the hall kitchen. To throw off any suspicion of collusion, Evanlyn rants for the next week or so about how repulsive Erak is and what a misfortune it is that she has to work for him.
• The Rise of Renegade X: In the first book, Pete tries to torture Damien by making him torture Kat, and Damien mocks him as a coward who is too scared to hurt Kat himself or kill Damien, even though they are standing right by the ledge of a skyscraper and Damien has a well-known fear of heights. Pete buys it and makes Damien jump off the roof, certain he is subjecting his foe to the cruelest death possible for him. Unfortunately for Pete, Damien has recently developed the power of flight.
• The marketing for A Series of Unfortunate Events revolves around them warning the readers that the books are about an absurd amount of bad things happening to people, and the faint of heart should probably go read something more cheerful. Ironically, the advertising is right on the money — the story gets really grim.
• In Michael Flynn's Spiral Arm series, The January Dancer, the Fudir, inveigling his way off planet, tells the man who's taking him, "You'll have to arrest me, Br'er Fox."
• In the Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Glass Empires story "The Worst of Both Worlds," Luc Picard (mirror alternate of Jean-Luc Picard) successfully uses this method to trick a Cardassian gul into destroying his own ship. The Br'er Rabbit story is mentioned by name, Picard suggesting in his head that maybe they shouldn't have been so quick to destroy Earth culture.
• Star Wars: Annihilation: A captured Jedi tricks the Captain of the Sith Cool Starship The Ascendant Spear that's been turning the tide of the war into attacking Duro (where a trap is waiting) by claiming under interrogation that the whole purpose of his mission was to keep The Ascendant Spear from joining in the attack on Duro, pretending to gloat about how he believes he has accomplished the mission and causing Darth Karrid to furiously order her crew to Duro right away.
• Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising: In the final battle, admiral Ar'alani orders one of her ships to fake grave avaries in order to beg the neutral Vak to help evacuate the crew. She then hails the Nikardun to tell them about the Vak rescue shuttles, pointing out their neutrality and rescue purpose means they should in no circumstances be shot at. What happens next shows the Vak how little the Nikardun care about their neutrality, and they promptly join the battle.
• In Poul Anderson's Time Patrol story "The Only Game In Town", the protagonist warns his captors that the modern distilled spirits he's carrying are "too strong for Mongols". Naturally, they take that as a dare, and quickly succumb to booze much stronger than they're used to.
• In The Vor Game, the Dendarii mercenary fleet is having a bit of a power struggle, and an enemy delivers Miles to them to worsen the situation. Miles recognizes the voice on the other end of the comm link, realizes that if he gets tossed in an escape pod he'll get picked up by a Captain who's personally loyal to him, and so begs his captors to not just throw him out there... and naturally enough, they do. Miles is back in charge of the fleet in a matter of hours.
• Nathan Ausubel's A Treasury of Jewish Folklore includes an anecdote about a thief who, on being captured and beaten, pleads for the townspeople to do anything other than throwing him over a certain fence. Once he's on the other side he laughs and runs away.
• In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel False Gods, when Karkasy dissects Erebus's behavior at the meeting, he points out that first he speaks, with provocative words, in front of the largest crowd possible, and then suggests it had best be talked over privately; and when he had provoked Horus into going to the moon of the world, he argued against it.
• Whateley Universe: From The Final Drumpf (Part 5): When Jesse uses this to get what he wants, by getting the magical villain to fail in sacrificing him. After that, he says:
  "BORN AND RAISED IN THE BRIAR PATCH, BITCH! BORN AND RAISED IN THE BRIAR PATCH!"
• A particularly elaborate version in Wintersmith, where travelling witch Miss Tick has written a book for would-be witch-hunters, explaining that burning a witch just makes her angry, and the best plan is to rob her of her powers by giving her soup (not tomato, as that would make her more powerful), then providing pillows and blankets to trick her into going to sleep, and later waking her quietly with a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit (a ginger biscuit may also work, plain would be a very bad idea), tying her hands with a bosun's knot and throwing her in the river. The knot is easily undone, and Miss Tick was a swimming champion at school.
• There's an old story about a turtle who was caught eating the crops. The villagers gather around and debate what to do with him, and each time he agrees that he'd made an excellent drum or great soup, but please don't throw him in the river. Eventually, the group decides that the worst punishment would be his worst fear. They throw the turtle in the river and he swims along on his merry way.

Live-Action TV

• In Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., it's revealed that Grant Ward had been doing this when he told Agent Coulson that he didn't want to be part of the team. It was all a trick to play on Coulson's need to "fix" people and gain his trust, making it easier for Ward to be The Mole.
• Lampshaded on Airwolf. A renegade military officer sets a huge trap for Hawke and Airwolf with Hawke taunting the guy before ducking into a canyon. The officer orders a massive strike against it that nearly kills civilians in the area. It's enough for another officer to recognize the man has gone over the edge and has him arrested. At which point, Airwolf comes out of hiding with Hawke openly mocking the officer with "please don't throw me into that briar patch."
• Better Call Saul: After Hector Salamanca's drug operation is shut down due to Gus Fring's machinations, Hector and his goons pay a visit to Los Pollos Hermanos and hold the employees hostage until Gus arrives. Hector, planted in Gus's office, tries to intimidate Gus into trafficking Hector's drugs from now on. But Gus is the reason why Hector's supply line is shut down, so he pretends to be intimidated, to let Hector think that he has all the power.
• As befits a show with a Guile Hero, Burn Notice has done this quite a few times. In one episode, a captured Sam plays a head of Russian intelligence into thinking he's a bounty hunter going after Michael, infiltrates her camp, sets a diversion, then when Michael beats her and she asks what he wants, he says he wants "the bastard who tried to capture me. The one with the chin." Sam yells, "how can you do this to me? I was helping you! Colonel, don't hand me off to them! They'll kill me!" They let him walk right back out the front door, where he escapes.
• Cutthroat Kitchen: Did you forget a critical ingredient? Well, sometimes the sabotages will provide the needed ingredient, albeit one with lower quality (chicken in a can) or a time-consuming method of harvesting it (scraping pasta off macaroni art). But both are better than not having it, and if you can trick your opponent into sabotaging you with it, you also get them to spend their money to give you a key ingredient.
• Doctor Who: "Remembrance of the Daleks": The Seventh Doctor begs Davros not to use the Hand of Omega, knowing full well it will only encourage him to do so. Davros does, and it turns out to have been rigged, destroying his own homeworld of Skaro. Whether or not this lays the ultimate blame for the planet's destruction on the Doctor is a hotly contested philosophical issue in fandom.
• Family Matters:
  • Done when Carl, Laura and Steve take his time machine into the past during the pirate days. Carl unwittingly becomes the captain of a ship but the pirates soon turn on him since they can't do anything pirate-y under his command. They set to have the three walk the plank, but Steve begs them not to "have to do it together" which the pirates of course do. This is what Steve want since with all of three bunched together, he can use his time machine to warp them away.
  • An earlier episode did this too when Carl forces Steve to move his inventions to a storage after causing one mishap too many in the house. However the night they do it, a street gang with a vendetta against Carl invade the storage and set to seriously harm the two. When one of the thugs notice Steve's Transformation Chamber, Steve manages to convince them to put Carl and him in it so they can see the effects (with the promise of becoming the singer Bruce Springsteen). The thugs fall for it, but what comes out turns out to be Bruce Lee. Cue ass-kicking.
• In The Flash (2014) episode "The Wrath of Savitar", the S.T.A.R. Labs team deduce that Big Bad Savitar is trapped in the Speed Force, and needs the complete Philosopher's Stone to escape ... which makes the fact Barry threw most of it into the Speed Force to keep it out of Savitar's hands a huge mistake, but at least there's one shard left. Cut to Savitar's mental projection taunting Wally that he just doesn't have the speed to throw the final shard safely into the Force the way Barry did...
• In House, Cuddy tries this on House by asking him not to come to her baby daughter Rachel's simchat bat, a traditional Jewish baby-naming ceremony. Naturally, Hilarity Ensues.
• In one episode of iZombie, minor villain Don E begs a thug sent to kill him to do it quickly with a clean headshot, claiming that he can't stand pain, while at the same time insulting the thug and getting him angry. Sure enough, the thug shoots him in the gut instead. Since Don E is a zombie, the wound isn't even particularly painful to him, let alone fatal - whereas a headshot is the one thing that would have killed him.
• On Lost, Ben does this to get Locke to blow up the sub, thus allowing him to avoid his promises to let Jack and Juliet leave to and cut off the Others from the outside world.
• Malcolm in the Middle:
  • A non-verbal example: Malcolm is shown making what looks to be the world's most disgusting sandwich, taking crud from the fridge, from the sink drain, from under the couch, etc. and putting it all between two slices of bread. He sits down to eat it... and Reese immediately swoops in to steal it, and takes a bite before he realizes he's been had.
  • Averted in a later episode where Reese attempts to get intentionally grounded to avoid having to spend money to take his girlfriend to a dance, but Lois knows what Reese is up to, and tells him the grounding begins the day after the dance.
• On the Married... with Children episode "Naughty but Niece", Bud begs Al, when the time comes for him to decide a punishment, to do anything but send him to his room. Let alone for a week. Al, slow-witted as ever, thinks it over and, with a cartoon light bulb almost literally appearing over his head, says, "You go to your room!... ''For. One. Week." Bud wants to spend as much time in his room as possible because for the first time in his life he is having a hot fling with a neighbor who regularly comes in through his window.
  • In the special Buck the Dog episode, Buck meets a homeless female dog he wants to get with and invites her to his home. She rewards him for this by trying to win the Bundys over while turning them against Buck so she can take over as the family pet. During the episode, Al orders his favorite cheese cake and cant wait for it to arrive. When it arrives, Buck tricks the female dog into thinking its for her and begs her to share some of it with him before the Bundys get rid of him for good. She cruelly responds by eating the cake in front of him, just when Al is coming down the stairs and sees his favorite cheese cake being ravaged. She gets kicked out, Buck's home is secure, and being a Graceful Loser, the female dog gives Buck the reward he wanted in the first place when they meet again.
• The Muppet Show: In the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans episode, Fozzie gets a rare win in the Bear on Patrol sketch when an outlaw goes gunning for Link Hogthrob, as the pig cowers under the desk, Fozzie throws himself in front of the prison door, pleading for the outlaw not to go in there - only for the crook demanding to be let in - and is promptly locked in.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: During The Violent Years' "four sexy women raping a man" scene, Servo riffs: "If all four of you get involved, I understand. It could get rough, and that's fine." Mike adds: "I beg of you, don't lightly kiss my belly and don't nibble on my nipple buds, and don't drag your shiny hair across my body because I HATE that!"
• Done in Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide episode about Lunch when a gluttonous kid called "One Bite" keeps eating everyone's lunches before they can. Ned hits upon the idea to make a sandwich with some of the hottest condiments he can find (Tabasco sauce, wasabi, hot mustard, etc). So when lunch comes, naturally One Bite sets his sights on it. Ned drones "No stop, please, don't" before pretty much handing the sandwich over to him.
• In Pixelface, it's established that if you tell Rex not to do something, he'll accidentally do exactly what you told him not to do. When he has to make a crucial kick in a football game, his friends sneak in to cheer him on and tell him not to break the goal, which he does.
• Inverted in Scrubs. The Janitor is getting married, and he invites everyone in the hospital to it — however, it's 3 days from the receipt of the invitations, and it's in the Bahamas. Naturally, everyone who got invited started wondering out loud how he could expect them to go, and nearly went back to their regular business... until JD gives a heartwarming speech about how they don't appreciate The Janitor enough and need to pay him back for everything he does. Turns out The Janitor really didn't want anyone to come, and he gets incredibly annoyed when a whole bunch of major characters show up.
  • Dr. Kelso does this once, too, uniting the hospital by being a complete and utter asshole.
  • He does it yet again in another episode. Everyone knows that the day after the Kelsos' anniversary, Dr. Kelso is uncharacteristically happy (wink, wink). They always take this opportunity to ask him for things the hospital needs, as he always says yes on that day. Turk later finds out that Mrs. Kelso is out of town, meaning she couldn't have made Bob so happy the night before. Kelso admits that the only reason he acts that happy and agreeable one day of the year is so that people refrain from bothering him with requests for the rest of the year. If their requests are important enough, they'll save them for that day. If they're not that important, they'll be forgotten about and he won't even have to hear about them.
• Combination of inversion and subversion in an episode of Seinfeld, specifically, the backwards episode. Elaine's friend sent her an invitation to her wedding in India. After asking about India (including the groom's Indian parents), Elaine and the gang concluded that the friend was holding the wedding in such an inconvenient location so that no one would attend but she'd still get wedding gifts from them. Elaine decides to attend the wedding purely out of spite, only to find out that her friend's invitation was sincere and she was overjoyed to see Elaine when no one else had chosen to attend (don't worry; the gang still manages to ruin things when they let slip that Elaine had slept with the groom years ago).
• Stargate SG-1: In a reversal, the bad guys are the ones who do the Briar Patching. In the episode "Beachhead", SG-1 tries to blow up a stargate with a nuke, only to find out the Ori wanted this to happen so they could draw enough power from it to create a supergate.
• A Running Gag on That's So Raven was Raven talking to someone, having a vision involving that person, asking them, "You're not thinking of [doing what I just saw], are you?", and them replying, no, but now that she mentions it, that's a great idea!
• The Tomorrow People (1973): "The New Gods". An ancient alien consciousness leads John to destroy its idol, thinking it to be the source of the being's power. In fact, the idol was restraining its power, so its destruction set it free.
• Katherine Pierce of The Vampire Diaries is very good at this: she begs Damon not to kill Elijah, leading him to believe that doing so will trap her in an underground tomb for the rest of eternity. Imagine his surprise when he completes the mission only to find Katherine in his shower.
• In White Collar, Neal tricks Peter into letting him out of his sight by getting "caught" with lockpicks. Peter locks him in a closet over his protests and then Neal promptly escapes.
• Lampshaded AND Inverted in The Wire: In the first episode, McNulty makes a bet with Landsman revealing where he would least want to serve: on a boat. Then later in the season, Lester warns McNulty, "When they ask you where you wanna go, and they are gonna ask you where you wanna go, do yourself a favor. Keep your mouth shut." Guess where we see McNulty working at the start of season 2?

Music

• Used in "Don't Throw Me in the Briarpatch" by Keith Palmer where the narrator uses this to get a woman not to drive him to drown his sorrows:
  You're always working up some punishment for me
  I just hope it doesn't cross your mind to make me leave
  Oh, please don't throw me in the briarpatch
  Whatever you do, don't send me back
  To that awful place where the beer's ice cold
  The women are wild and the good times roll
  I'd hate to think you'd be so cruel
  To make me go where my friends shoot pool
  Close that door, lock that latch
  Please don't throw me in the briarpatch

Podcasts

• In an early "Beyond Belief" segment of The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Frank and Sadie Doyle encounter Nightmares the Clown, a Pennywise Expy that tries to terrify them, only Sadie can't take him seriously because she finds even Monster Clowns hilarious. In frustration, Nightmares turns into a giant spider, which Frank says Sadie is afraid of. Sadie then points out that she's only afraid of regular spiders, because of how tiny they are. Nightmares turns into a normal spider, and gets promptly stepped on by Frank.

Radio

• Subverted in the I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again radio parody of the Uncle Remus stories, which went something like this. Yes, with the hilarious accents.
  Br'er Fox: I's gonna skin you and boil you and eat you up, Br'er Rabbit.
  Br'er Rabbit: Whatever you say, suh, just don't throw me in de briar patch.
  Br'er Fox: I know, I's gonna throw you in de briar patch!
  (cry of pain)
  Br'er Rabbit: I said don't throw me in de flaming briar patch!
• John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme: One storyteller sketch has him staying in a creepy inn, with the innkeeper pointing out a hatch in the corner which he must never, ever open. And naturally, as an Englishman the storyteller's word is his bond, so he doesn't, and is quite perplexed by the notion he would have. After two nights of this, the monsters lurking behind the hatch are getting pretty hungry, but it turns out they can only eat people who have agreed not to open the hatch. Eventually, the innkeeper falls victim to his own trap.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon magazine #8 adventure "The Flowers of Flame". Long ago, an evil spirit was trapped in a bottle. When the bottle was found by the pure shukenja Ko Hung Cho, the spirit offered him anything if he would release it, but he refused. It then asked him not to take it to the valley of Lo Chi and throw it into the Eternal Flames, lying to him that doing so would destroy it. Ko Hung Cho decided to do it and ended up freeing the spirit to do great evil.
• Paranoia 1E adventure The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues. The traitor Oregon Warbler will act wildly afraid of a trap in an attempt to get the Troubleshooters to make him go in front of them, much like Brer Rabbit in Song of the South. If they do, he will take the opportunity to escape and taunt the Troubleshooters by saying "Born and bred in the briar patch."

Video Games

• American Arcadia: Vivian goes to great lengths explaining to Trevor why it'd be impossible for him to trigger the Arcadia failsafe. Trevor eventually decides to do just that, exactly as planned as the "failsafe" is just another part of the "Truman Show" Plot.
• Day of the Tentacle: In the final puzzle, Purple Tentacle reveals that he always aims his shrinking ray for the center of the forehead. This is the clue that the solution is to persuade him to try to shrink Dr. Fred. Because Dr. Fred is wearing his lamp, the lamp reflects the ray, and it shrinks Purple instead.
• In one of Edge of Eternity's Party Chats, Selene describes how she spread rumors that she was terrified of the Corrosion, and then engaged in some Bothering by the Book so that she would be Kicked Upstairs into researching a cure for the disease, which was what she wanted.
• Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis ends with Indy being forced by Mad Scientist Dr. Ubermann to be his guinea pig for testing the Atlantean ascension machine. (This is right after he's seen Nazi agent Klaus Kerner jump eagerly into the machine only to be turned into a dwarf minotaur.) The only way to keep Indy from being transformed into a rampaging energy being with a lifespan of about 15 seconds is to have him convince Dr. Ubermann that he wants to be transformed so he can turn around and use his newfound omnipotence against the mad doctor; Dr. Ubermann then decides to test the machine out on himself instead, and is transformed into (you guessed it) a rampaging energy being with a lifespan of about 15 seconds.
• In the first Paper Mario game, Bowser asks a kidnapped Princess Peach what Mario's greatest weakness is so he can set up a good trap. Playing as the princess, you are given a choice between a weak enemy, a powerful enemy, or a useful item. Whichever you pick will show up later when you play as Mario. Super Paper Mario does this again, albeit with the shapeshifting villain asking the hero directly the three things they most fear while disguised as their ally.
• In competitive Pokémon, this is the entire concept behind "baiting", which is a strategy of giving one of your Pokemon a specific move and/or tweaking their stats in order to lure in and knock out a Pokemon that typically counters them, especially if it makes the Pokemon in question worse at their typical role.
  • One of the earliest and most definitive examples of this is Hidden Power Ground Skarmory in Generation III, which sacrifices a valuable moveslot and a significant chunk of its normally-exceptional defensive stats in order to KO Magneton in one hit.
  • In more general terms, this is also the intended usage of the abilities Defiance and Guts, which give a Pokemon a massive boost to physical attacks in response to strategies typically used to counter said Pokemon. (Lowering their stats and Burning or Paralyzing them, respectively.)
• Portal:
  • GLaDOS the AI drops its Morality Core and constantly encourages the player's character to leave "that Aperture-Science-Thing-We-Don't-Know-What-It-Does" alone, expecting that the character's distrust towards it will cause her to destroy it. GLaDOS even hangs a lampshade by saying, "Do you think I'm trying to trick you with reverse psychology? I mean, seriously now..."), but Stupidity Is the Only Option to continue.
  • In Portal 2, in the Final Boss fight. You are presented with the opportunity to press a button that the boss in question apparently very much does not want you to. Except that when you try to press it, it turns out to have been booby trapped with a difficult to detect trap. Unfortunately, your options were press the button or die when the end boss' own stupidity causes his entire lair to explode and kill everyone within, including you.

Web Comics

• In Darths & Droids, R2-D2 is fitted with a Restraining Bolt that limits his actions, including making R2-D2 incapable of thinking of the possibility of removing it. So when a new player joins as Luke/Adam, Pete has R2 say, in character, that he does not want Luke/Adam to remove it, and the possibility of it being removed is something he doesn't even want to think about. Naturally, Corey has Luke/Adam remove the bolt. The Game Master awards role-playing experience to R2 for this clever act.
• Cucumber Quest: Almond tricks Splash Master into releasing her by begging him not to throw the giant barrel blocking her way at her brother, Cucumber.
• In Elf Only Inn, Duke, who has been annoying the rest of his chat room with ninja antics, informs Megan that he will not betray his Ninja clan, even if she "tied him down and forced him to call her his mistress." She smiles sardonically, and in the next panel has rope ready and says, "Business before pleasure, 'kay?" Duke agrees.
• Freefall once had Sam very afraid he may be contracted.
• Narbonic: Referenced here◊.
  Artie: Do you mind staying on the island?
  Dave: It doesn't matter. I complained, and, as usual, Helen and Mell decided to do the opposite. If that's the way they want it, I'll just have to cope with living on a tropical island with two scantily-clad women.
  [beat]
  Artie: Sometimes I worry that you're much smarter than you let on.
  Dave: No, Bre'er Narbon! Don't toss me in that thar briar patch!
  • Later, in Skin Horse (a sequel to Narbonic), Tip attempts to apologize to Doctor Lee for using her as a pawn in a game of one-upsmanship with Artie. She is, of course, terribly, terribly put out by having to spend her day having two attractive men ply her with favours.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Attempted (but failed) when Xykon warns all his minions not to let the heroes touch the Gate, wink wink. (Said Gate can only open if touched by one pure of heart, meaning Xykon himself and his lackeys are out.) Fortunately, Haley already knows about the trick and stops Elan from touching it.
  • Haley herself makes use of it after the adventure is over, when she (using her Appraise skill) is assigned the task of determining the value of the treasure the party collected, so it can be fairly divided. She winds up giving all of the treasure to the other party members, claiming only five worthless rocks for herself. The others smell a rat and decide that the rocks must be incredibly valuable, or the greedy Haley wouldn't want them. As punishment for trying to trick them, Roy insists that everyone but her get a rock, and she gets a "mere" double share of the other loot as paltry compensation. Haley complains, but naturally this was always the plan.
    Roy: You brought this on yourself, Haley.
    Haley: Yes. Yes, I did.
  • Subverted when Eugene assumes this is what Roy is up to when the latter says he does not want the former to help him scry on the mortal plane. Roy had actually gotten sick of Eugene's Jerkass behavior and was trying to wash his hands of the guy instead of rising to the bait and getting into another argument, but he does accept on the condition that if Eugene ever gets into the Afterlife, he disappears and never tries to contact his dead family again.
  • Inverted in strip 1296 when the group is fighting a dragon with mind-control powers. After Roy shrugs them off, Hayley taunts the dragon that he can keep trying to mind control them all he likes (hence the inversion) because they're all protected against it — thus successfully making him stop trying it on other party members who aren't really protected.
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal: The Joker tells Batman that he'll never stop his plan to let Batman survive the night.
• Sluggy Freelance: Torg tries this when he's being interrogated by two bad guys called Chen and Killum. "Whatever you do, don't hurt Mr. Killum! He's my best friend!" Chen turns to Killum with a shocked expression but realizes the absurdity of falling for that a second later.
• Seen in Spacetrawler when Yuri's being "tortured" by some bounty hunters here and here, before being subverted here.
• Tower of God: In "Hell Train: Name Hunt Station", Yukan is beaten by the heroes and put under a Magically-Binding Contract to obey them. They tell him to lead them to a dangerous character called Alphine, and he does. When they get to Aplhine's door, he pleads for them not to enter because it's too dangerous. Of course they do anyway, and he's happy about that, because it's not like he minds their getting killed. They probably would have entered even if he didn't tell them not to, but he certainly made an effort to use reverse psychology to make them do it.

Web Original

• From Acts of Gord, when a woman threatens to report him to the government for refusing to let her open an account without a valid ID. Of course, the number he actually gives her is his own.
  Gord: Oh please... no. Don't do that, please. They'll shut me down! Please, I beg of you and implore you not to do that. Whatever you do, don't call the "Bureau of Video Games and Customer Service". I've already got my one warning, and if they get another complaint they'll shut me down... please, don't...

Web Videos

• The Angry Video Game Nerd, knowing that the characters from the games he plays often show up to harass him, tries to do this when reviewing pornographic Atari games, but is unsuccessful.
  Nerd: This one's called Gigolo. The idea is that you're this nude woman on the streets breakin' into random houses where you find men to have your way with. Y'know, that's really weird. Could you imagine if you're just sittin' around, mindin' your own business, then all of a sudden some naked chick breaks in and starts humpin' the crap outta ya? [looks at door expectantly, but it doesn't open] Y'know, that's really not fair. I get Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger, and Spider-Man, Bugs Bunny... but no naked chick. Fuck this shit.
• Call Me Kevin: For most of his Grand Theft Auto V Chaos Mod streams, control of the mayhem is handed over to Twitch chat. Occasionally, he will be reduced to frantically trying to claim that "Blue Traffic" or "Repair All Vehicles" would be just "so wacky and chaotic" in comparison to "Extreme Griefer Jesus" or "Doomsday". Occasionally his chat will even play along, either because they took pity on him or because if they never threw him a bone it'd be too predictable.
• Subverted, double subverted, and triple-subverted in this video; a group of superheroes try and use Reverse Psychology to persuade the viewer to go to New York Comic Con, but then go overboard and start threatening you, and then start using reverse psychology to make you stay away.

Western Animation

• The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: A special where he begs the villains to do anything but make them eat the "deadly" powder he brought (it gives them super powers).
• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, episode "Mindnet:" the Artifact of Doom is an Electronic Telepathy machine that, on natural telepaths, acts as an Amplifier Artifact. The Queen of the Crown has one half, the Rangers have the other. The Queen's got the Rangers surrounded. Niko shrugs and says the Queen can have it if they go free, knowing damn well the Queen won't uphold her end of it. Niko warns Her Majesty to start with a low setting. Sure enough, no sooner are both parts fit together than the Queen cranks it up. Niko barely gets the team together and they pull their Mental Fusion tactic to shield themselves. Meanwhile the device has caused everyone else in the room to read each other's minds. Considering the room's inhabitants are The Queen, her scheming Mooks, and the psychotic mercenary Ryker Kilbane...all hell breaks loose, the device gets smashed in the dust-up, and the Rangers are able to escape.
• Adventure Time:
  • In "The Lich", The Lich tricks Finn into stealing the stones of power from Ooo royalty and placing them in the Enchiridion, which will open a portal to the "time room" of the wish-granting Prismo, which is part of the Lich's latest scheme to wipe out all life on Ooo. When Finn tries to destroy the Enchiridion, the Lich lets out a Big "NO!"... and then it turns out breaking the Enchiridion is what opens the portal, and the Lich was exploiting Finn's desperation to keep the Enchiridion out of the hands of evil.
  • Villainous version in the episode "Death in Bloom", when Finn and Jake visit the underworld. At one point they come across a river which Jake wants to drink from. A talking skull urges him on, Finn of course realizes it's a trap and tells Jake not to. So the skull tells him to not drink from the river. This is all the convincing Jake needs to jump in. The result is that he ends up losing his memory of who Finn is.
• In the crossover between Disney's Aladdin: The Series and Hercules: The Animated Series, one of Hades' minions gets his hands on Genie's lamp. Jasmine yells "Oh no! Don't rub it! Whatever you do, don't rub that lamp!" Minion rubs anyway and gets punched by Genie.
• Subverted in an episode of Angela Anaconda. Angela's rival Nanette ends up getting the job of casting people for a play based on Greek mythology, and Angela wants to be Hercules. Since she knows Nanette will cast her in a role she'll hate, Angela loudly complains about not wanting to play Hercules. Nanette, however, sees past the ruse, and casts her as Medusa. This backfires however, as Angela "sssssomehow" manages to to have fun with the role anyway.
• In the Animaniacs (2020) episode "Yakko Amakko," after the cartoonist has tormented him for a while, Yakko begs not to be drawn with extra arms. The cartoonist does so, and Yakko uses the arms to overpower the pen....
• In Ben 10, Gwen tells the villains not to throw them out of the space station into the vacuum of space. The villain of course attempts this but once their space suits are removed, she is able to use her magic attacks like normal again.
• Ben 10: Omniverse: Ben, as NRG, begs some hostile Kraaho who have him pinned to not remove his armor, claiming that doing so will destroy him. The Kraaho redouble their efforts and succeed, and then they have to contend with NRG's more powerful true form.
• The Captain Planet and the Planeteers episode "The Unbearable Brightness of Being" had Dr. Blight switch minds with Gaia. In order to power the machine needed to reverse the process, Gaia had to trick Dr. Blight into using her powers to strike Captain Planet with lightning, which she did by convincing Blight that lightning could destroy Captain Planet.
• One episode of Darkwing Duck has the hero beg his captors to do anything but scald him with water from an oversized tea kettle (it's a long story). Luckily the Mooks forget Darkwing's friend Comet Guy's powers are triggered by the sound of a whistle...
• Danny Phantom: Tucker has been corrupted by Be Careful What You Wish For ghost powers and has Danny at his mercy. Danny says, "No, don't throw me into the Ghost Zone!" and uses this to trick Tucker into losing his powers.
• Dave the Barbarian: One episode has Fang angry that their version of the Army doesn't take her seriously to the point of saying she couldn't squash a bug. But since she is specifically great at squashing bugs, she decides to send a letter to a villain asking not to invade them. And to specifically not bring giant bugs for his invasion.
• He-Man and the Masters of the Universe:
  • An episode of the original series features a villain named Zalt, an extradimensional tyrant whose plan involves using technology to siphon power from both creatures and magical items. When He-Man and Orko find him, He-Man says out loud that "I hope he doesn't want my sword!" causing Zalt to use telekinesis to grab it. Which is what the hero wanted, because by chanting By the Power of Grayskull! while Zalt is holding it, the villain is clobbered by said Power, which also destroys the technology.
  • Skeletor does little better in the remake. In the episode "Turnabout", Adam and Teela drive boldly into a place in full view of Snake Mountain, Teela saying loudly that she hopes Skeletor doesn't see him. Naturally, he does, and naturally, he walks right into an ambush set by her dad and the other Masters.
• In the Lilo & Stitch: The Series episode "Dupe", Gantu activates four experiments to use as a strike team against Lilo and Stitch. When he gets his hands on Dupe, Lilo yells, "He doesn't want to make clones of your army!" Gantu does just that... which is exactly what Lilo wanted because one of Dupe's side effects is splitting the power among his clones, resulting in an army of four hundred so weak that a trio of Pleakleys - each at 1/3 strength - plows through it easily, also letting Lilo fuse four Stitches back into one so he can match Gantu as usual.
• Looney Tunes:
  • Bugs Bunny did this a few times. For example, he was facing Yosemite Sam as an alien. He counters a robot "ferret" with one of his own design. Bug's robot says "I'll go with you on one condition: that you don't press this button." and points to a big red button on his chest. The alien robot hates the condition ("No Earth robot is telling me what button I can't press!" it angrily says) and presses away in defiance. Cue a CRUNCH as a lump of metal pops out and punches the robot.
  • At the end of "1001 Rabbit Tales", Bugs begs Sam not to throw him down a hole. Being a rabbit, Bugs easily burrows away.
  • Done when Daffy tries to hitchhike his way to the south and forces his way into Porky's car. He practically gets Porky into trouble with the law and fellow motorists with his brashness. Fed up, Porky comes up with a plan to buy a present from a gift shop and puts it into his trunk. Telling Daffy not to open it till later, naturally Daffy can't resist temptation and opens the trunk where all of his baggage that was stuffed to compacity flies out into his face, allowing Porky to drive off, free from Daffy's side seat driving. For added revenge, the present turned out to be a novelty hitch hiking thumb.
• In one episode of The Smurfs (1981), an evil spirit in a wishing well brainwashes all the smurfs except Papa Smurf in order to get his spellbook (as it turns out, the well is a prison for him, and Papa Smurf put him there years ago). When he finally gets it, he still can't find the spell he needs, so he has the other smurfs drag Papa Smurf to the well to make him tell where the spell is. Papa Smurf then warns him about "the green page" in the book, warning him that he must never read it. Guess what the spirit does? (We never actually find out what's on the green page, but it doesn't end well for the villain.)
• Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "The Practical Joker". Passing through an energy field causes the Enterprise computer to play jokes on the crew. Captain Kirk pretends to be scared of the field and tricks the deranged computer into taking the ship through the field again, which reverses the effect that made the computer go bonkers.
• Superman, having lost most of his powers due to being held in a cage under artificial red sunlight, used a double-reverse version in the Animated Series episode "The Main Man, part II". He specifically tells the thugs attacking him that "they don't want to" throw him into the enclosure to which he's just knocked down the door, knowing full well they'd do just that. They do, and discover that instead of a bloodthirsty beast, it contains a dodo. From Earth. And a yellow sun lamp, which quickly recharges him. Cue ass-kicking.
• In one episode of Tutenstein, Set has stolen Tut's magical staff but doesn't know how to unlock its power, so Tut tells Cleo within earshot of Set that they'll be safe as long as he doesn't recite a certain magical chant while holding the staff's ears. Set does just that and ends up being blasted to kingdom come by the staff.
• In the Underdog story "A New Villain," Underdog begs his would-be killer, the Electric Eel, not to dump him in the lake — because Underdog knows that the water in the lake will dissipate the charge the villain used to paralyze him. Naturally, the egotistical Eel falls for it.
• Wild Kratts:
  • In the episode "The Gecko Effect," the gang has shrunk down with the Miniaturizer to learn about geckos. Unfortunately, Zach Varmitech infiltrates the Tortuga and steals the Miniaturizer while the Wild Kratts are away, when the Wild Kratts return, Zach traps them in a glass jar. Of course, the animal of the day is the gecko, and they have their creature power suits and gecko disks; so Martin tries this on Zach by saying, (paraphrase): 'At least in this jar, we're safe from those creepy geckos. Man, they really creep me out! As long as Zach doesn't put one in the jar, I'll be good!' Unfortunately, Zach is an idiot when it comes to animals and has no idea what a gecko is, so Martin has to continue, while pretending he doesn't know Zach is listening: 'You know, those weird lizards that can climb on walls! Like the one on that wall, right over there!' Eventually, it works, and they can escape.

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"I was bred and born in the briar patch, Br'er Fox," he called. "Born and bred in the briar patch."

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