Karmic Trickster

That's what happens when you tangle with the wabbit.

“First, Bush invades my home turf. Then he takes my pals. Then he makes fun of the way I talk (probably). Now, he steals my right to raise a disobedient, smart-alecky son! Well, that’s it!”

— Homer Simpson, The Simpsons, “Two Bad Neighbors”

The Trickster who specializes in unstuffing stuffed shirts, deflating puffed-up egos, trivializing the self-important, and confusing know-it-alls. The Karmic Trickster is normally harmless, even friendly, if left alone. Once their dignity is dented or their person threatened, however, it's no holds barred — the target is in for humiliation, embarrassment, and bewilderment. Any tactic is fair game as long as it does not cause actual physical harm to the target. Only when the target has surrendered does the Karmic Trickster conclude their vengeance.

Being completely self-centered, the Karmic Trickster normally acts only on their own behalf, but can be convinced to help others — they have a soft spot for babies, innocents, and those who are truly good, and when their sympathy is evoked, will go to the ends of the earth for them. Sometimes they sow chaos for the sake of chaos, but only when they get carried away in the midst of one of their campaigns. Most of the time, he simply wants to be left alone, and heaven help whoever messes with him! Given all of their righteous retribution, sometimes these characters can exist somewhere between this, The Prankster, and borderline Neutral Evil if their self-righteous attitudes end up attacking characters for little more than existing nearby them, and can often just seem like Comedic Sociopathy if our trickster operates as a Designated Hero regardless of where they sit on The Trickster scale and the only Karmic anything involved about them is being a Karma Houdini.

Between them, Karmic Trickster and The Prankster comprise two-thirds of The Trickster classic. His actions are as much to teach as to gain revenge, where The Prankster is the embodiment of mischief for mischief's sake.

See also: Karmic Protection.

May masquerade as The Fool or vice versa; whether silly or wise, they will always display Hidden Depths (if only a knack for comedy and Simpleminded Wisdom) whom the audience may laugh at. This is not always true of other Tricksters in general, who are sometimes cast as cloud cuckoolanders, irrepressible agents of chaos, lesser chaos-bringers who are constantly being taught a lesson themselves, or cosmic butt monkeys. Such traits rarely apply here. Indeed, the Karmic Trickster is the least vulnerable to Hoist by His Own Petard or to Counter Zany (which they can often turn into Zany Scheme Chicken).

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• The very aptly-named Karma of Assassination Classroom is this trope as well as being a Bully Hunter. Hunting a Bully who was academically gifted in defense of a student from the lowest class got him kicked down to Class-E as well... where he is now thriving in learning assassination techniques to add to his arsenal.
• Shadow Man of Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace is this. When provoked, he'll do his very best to bring the culprit to justice using Gentleman Thief methods.
• Kurumi from Kanako Inuki's horror manga Presents spends much of her time giving people presents that result in them and/or others getting what they truly deserve, whether for good or, much more often, for ill. She will sometimes warn people away from choices regarding gifts that will end badly for them (they don't usually listen) or give them advice regarding presents, but this usually turns out the same way as when she offers the presents herself.

Films — Live-Action

• The Marx Brothers, making it Older Than They Think. Groucho's line "Then it's war!" from Duck Soup is the inspiration for Bugs Bunny's Battle Cry. The film includes a literal war, splicing in footage from World War I.
• Mahoney from Police Academy is given a choice between joining the police or facing jail for his Karmic Trickster actions. Note that becoming a police officer only curbed him slightly (or not at all where jerkass superiors are involved) but at least it gave him a badge to indulge in his true heroic tendencies.
• Eddie Murphy plays this role as Chandler Jarrell, The Hero and Chosen One of The Golden Child. Once he learns that Sardo Numspa is the Big Bad, he taunts him at every opportunity and takes a sort of childish glee in making him look foolish.
• The title character played by Audrey Tautou in Amélie, who sets out to drive a Jerkass grocer insane by making barely noticeable changes in his apartment.
• The main protagonists of Brain Donors play this role against egotistical ballet dancer Roberto Volare.
• The Shawshank Redemption: He tends not to get a trickster reputation due mostly to his temperament (soft-spoken rather than wacky), but after being imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit and extorted into laundering money for the warden, Andy Dufresne escapes from prison, steals the warden's dirty money, and exposes the corruption in the prison, resulting in the warden's suicide and the arrest of The Dragon. Bugs Bunny would be proud.

Literature

• In The Stormlight Archive, this is Wit's entire job. One can tell he greatly enjoys it, and more or less every single noble deserves it.
• Randall Patrick McMurphy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a somewhat more realistic version of this. In the end, though, Nurse Ratchet always wins, and McMurphy is in fact a certifiable sociopath, so it could be said he gets his own comeuppance.
• Pumphutt in Krabat walks from mill to mill and punishes the masters who treat their apprentices like shit.
• El-Ahrairah in Watership Down falls somewhere in these lines, along with being a Guile Hero. It makes sense, as he's supposed to represent the rabbits' gift for outrunning and outmaneuvering their enemies.
• A Song of Ice and Fire: Hurt Tyrion Lannister, and you can face the whole gamut of getting deconstructed hilariously in public to being outright shown up by what he does to undermine your position in inventive ways. Hurt somebody else, however… and, he goes to town to make you look just as idiotic to others as he finds you to be. Just ask Joffrey. Push him even further, and, well… it gets deadly — out-of-prison-with-a-crossbow-on-the-can deadly — as his father Tywin learns.

Live-Action TV

• On Supernatural, this is the Trickster's MO: he seeks out people who he thinks are assholes or who annoy him, and punishes them in some manner he deems appropriate, generally killing them in the process.
• Tough to say whether this belongs under Live-Action TV or Western Animation, but part of the Farscape episode "Revenging Angel" depicts Crichton in a coma using a series of Chuck Jones-inspired animated sequences in a Shout-Out to the classic Looney Tunes shorts. Crichton's role is variously the Road Runner or Bugs Bunny, depending on whether he's just trying to run away from D'Argo, or actively taking revenge for having put him in the coma in the first place (the latter placing him squarely in this trope).
• In the BBC sitcom Waiting for God, this would be Diana Trent, most often deflating Harvey "The Idiot" Baynes in the midst of one of his schemes to defraud or otherwise suppress the tenants of Bayview.

Myths & Religion

• Br'er Rabbit, moreso in the original stories than in the Disneyfied Song of the South. Bugs Bunny was partially based on this character.
• The Norse god Loki, although sometimes The Prankster, brought Karmic Trickery to bear against the villains for the greater good on several occasions. Loki would often tart himself up in drag to trick his enemies — a classic Karmic Trickery ploy — and often teamed up with Thor for a mix of Brains and Brawn.
• In many North American Native traditions, the figure of Coyote, and Raven a bit further north.
• Anansi the Spider in Ghana and the Caribbean. He carries on this role in Neil Gaiman's American Gods and Anansi Boys.
• Till Eulenspiegel in German folklore: many of his "merry pranks" are aimed at exposing the hypocrisy and greed of others.
• Yiddish tales from the Ukraine feature Hershele Ostropolyer, who cheats rich misers out of their dinner, mocks well-dressed party-goers for only caring about looks, etc.
• Oddly enough (or maybe not, considering the duality obsession), Tezcatlipoca of Aztec Mythology. While masquerading as a merchant he was sent to war commanding a legion of dwarves in a Uriah Gambit by a local king. The king figured the dwarves would see the enemy soldiers and flee, leaving their leader to die. Tezcatlipoca instead gave them a Rousing Speech that resulted in them fighting at his side and returning home victorious. The King had to name him as a war hero.

Pro Wrestling

• The character Eddie Guerrero portrayed in the late part of his WWE career was very much a Karmic Trickster; he'd jokingly use heelish tactics against heels, but because they were all bad guys, and he was so funny about it, the crowds ate it up. One of his favorite tactics was to pound the mat with a steel chair, throw it into an opponent's hands, and collapse to the mat so that when the Easily-Distracted Referee turned back around, he'd naturally assume that the heel hit Eddie with the chair. And then, when the ref turned around to chastise the heel (on the occasions where he didn't outright disqualify him), he'd mug for the crowd and pose for the heel, such as putting his hands behind his head as if he were relaxing in a hammock. And when the referee's back was turned removing the chair from the ring, Eddie would often take the heel out with a low blow.

Tabletop Games

• Princess: The Hopeful: This is one of the job descriptions for the Princesses of Spades. As the court that values freedom, laughter, and autonomy, a Princess of Spades will often dedicate herself to deflating the egos of the pompous and making repressive authority figures look like fools. Being a Princess, she is also much more likely to do this even if the authority in question isn't yet doing her any harm, as long as there are others who are being harmed or she thinks the authority figure himself is likely to benefit from a quick deflating.
• Magic: The Gathering: Oko the Trickster, a Puck Expy and Planeswalker, is a Subversion; he claims to be this, humiliating and humbling arrogant and pompous authority figures, but in reality he just enjoys causing chaos, often of the cruel and sadistic variety, and sees all authority figures as deserving of his "pranks." In The Wildered Quest he kidnaps the King of Eldraine, who it must be said is anything but pompous or arrogant, and trying to engineer a war between humanity and elves just so he can watch the chaos unfold.

Theater

• Twelfth Night: Feste the jester embodies this role, appropriately enough for a play celebrating the Twelfth Night. The festivities are supposed to showcase the inversion of the social order and laugh at it all, which is precisely what Feste does. He points out the logical flaws in Olivia's mourning, sees through even Viola's clever wordplay and cuts the pompous, Puritan Malvolio down to size... and then some.

Webcomics

• In Sinfest, the angels cheerfully rhapsodize about how Good Feels Good — right next to Satan's soul-buying booth. He also hunts them and often gets pranked when he does so. And when he is not doing so — given that he's Satan and they don't prank other characters, Karma can be assumed.
• Lindsay Dawn and her daughter Leila in the roleplays of White Dark Life are both this crossed with Bully Hunter, constantly playing pranks on bullies and bad guys to take them down a peg and protect the innocent from harmful shenanigans. Said pranks very frequently involve explosions and other forms of property damage (they've leveled Bowser's Castle several times), but Lindsay and Leila both go out of their way to avoid actually hurting anyone except when inevitable (as Corneria once learned the hard way).

Video Games

• Touchstarved has Kuras, who's nothing but kind to the unfortunate (so far, at least) while selling fake alchemical ingredients to the Senobium's sinister clerics.

Web Original

• Whateley Universe:
  • Definitely Beltane, who's notorious on campus for playing pranks on deserving Jerkass classmates, particularly if said classmate is picking on one of Beltane's friends. Has the power of controlling ectoplasm, so can perform spectacular tricks.
  • Also the recent character Thorn, who has the same power set. Thorn's also fond of just general silliness, using himself as the "butt". Yes, they have apparently met, and are currently engaged in a prank war.
  • In a later story, Bladedancer's girlfriend, Molly (a.k.a. "Gateway"), decides to summon up a trickster spirit to punish a notorious bully for messing with her friends. She was fortunate indeed to stipulate that it not cause him actual harm, else the karmic debt might have gotten loaded onto her in turn.

Western Animation

• Looney Tunes:
  • Bugs Bunny is a famous Karmic Trickster and former trope namer. This characterization was a considered decision on the part of Bugs' creators: it was required that the antagonist strike first. Note that it was not from the start: in his early days, Bugs was more of The Prankster; in fact, the gag that the page image is based on is from the 1942 short "The Wacky Wabbit", in which Bugs is actually the one that antagonizes Elmer, and not the other way around. On the rare occasions that Bugs does strike first, he tends to suffer a defeat at the hands of the one he antagonized.
  • Tweety is another example. He's content to sing and swing in his cage until Sylvester starts trying to eat him, and then retaliation comes.
  • The Road Runner is an odd example. While he does occasionally tease the Coyote who's trying to catch him, he very rarely has to actually do anything to thwart him. He'll just keep running around and, wherever he goes, the laws of physics will re-write themselves so the Coyote gets tormented.
  • In 1941, Tex Avery directed The Crackpot Quail, the title character of which bore a very strong resemblance to his early Bugs Bunny. Crackpot was paired up with Willoughby the Dog, who had previously tangled with Bugs in Avery's The Heckling Hare; he had a voice that sounded a bit like Bugs'; he even addressed Willoughby repeatedly as "Doc"!
• Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog nudges Sonic into this direction, repeatedly foiling Robotnik's plans in the most Looney Tunes-esque ways imaginable.
• The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) in Animaniacs (although Wakko is closer to being The Prankster) are somewhat offset by the fact that they can be cheerful and annoying to anybody, but are generally harmless until someone starts being a Jerkass. Then he gets labeled their "Special Friend", and all bets are off. In one episode, they're being driven crazy by a Maria Von Trapp expy... but can't bring themselves to clobber her, because she's not doing anything wrong. They hire Slappy, although by the end the nanny ends up with a family more likely to appreciate her (that is, a parody of the Von Trapps).
• Most of the Tiny Toons from Tiny Toon Adventures fit into this category. Especially Babs and Buster. Makes sense, considering the entire show is an Affectionate Parody of old Looney Tunes cartoons, featuring Expies of old Looney Tunes characters being taught by said characters.
• Eric Cartman in the South Park episode "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants". The visual style imitates Bugs Bunny wartime short films. Cartman also qualifies as a (very dark) Karmic Trickster in "Scott Tenorman Must Die!" — perhaps as a kind of one-upsmanship of Scott Tenorman, who himself is also a Trickster.
• Loud Kiddington from Histeria!!, particularly in a sketch featuring him as a Mountie in the episode "North America".
• Tom and Jerry: Jerry generally waits until Tom victimizes him before unleashing torment upon the cat... except when he occasionally didn't wait. These days it seems to be a very mutual rivalry, or even Jerry being the "bad guy".
• In most Donald Duck cartoons where Donald is the antagonist, this tends to be the case. Chip and Dale or Huey, Dewey, and Louie especially. Mickey Mouse even serves in this role to Donald as opposed to his usual one of the Straight Man in "Magician Mickey".
• Mickey again takes on this role in a House of Mouse cartoon where he's held hostage by Pete and his even dumber backwoods cousin Zeke, who had just robbed a bank. Mickey convinces both parties that one of them is trying to do the other one in and take the money for themselves, and then proceeds to add fuel to the fire as their paranoia sets in and their stupidity takes over.
• The title character in Wander over Yonder tends to be a nice furry orange creature, and generally doesn't set out for taking antagonists down in return for a perceived slight — but a lot of his antics come out this way anyway. However, in "The Waste of Time", he's revealed to know exactly what he's doing, because he's been practicing for thousands of years.
• Tex Avery MGM Cartoons: In the short "Bad Luck Blackie", a black cat helps a kitten get even with a Bully Bulldog by causing the dog bad luck, which takes the form of various heavy things falling on the dog out of nowhere.

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