Rogun "the Butcher" Mattrik: You lost a blaster shipment of mine some time back, and I don't recall ever getting an apology. How 'bout it, Cap'n? You know how to say "I'm sorry"?
Smuggler PC: I'm sorry. But Skavak was the man to blame for that, and he's dead.
Rogun: Plenty of blame to go around. I'm generous that way. No one steals from me and lives, boy/girl.
Smuggler PC: I'm sorry. But Skavak was the man to blame for that, and he's dead.
Rogun: Plenty of blame to go around. I'm generous that way. No one steals from me and lives, boy/girl.
A Third-Party Deal Breaker is, as the name describes, a third party who interferes with a deal they weren't even a part of and ruins the whole thing.
The reasons for this vary: the deal may have included their unknowing involvement and they were upset they weren't consulted. They may have heard about the deal and butted in to get involved, only for their interference to kill the arrangement. Perhaps they're a busybody/jerkass who can't mind his own business. They may simply want to kill the deal for practical reasons. Or maybe they weren't even aware of the arrangement and intruded for unrelated reasons.
Ironically, when a Third-Party Deal Breaker kills the deal, the one who usually gets in trouble is the party who didn't deliver because of the third party's interference. Such as the kidnapped victim not being freed after a failed Ransom Drop.
Subtrope of Spanner in the Works and (usually) Misplaced Retribution. Can be a supertrope of Breach of Promise of Marriage if a Love Triangle or Parental Marriage Veto is involved. See also Nice Job Breaking It, Hero if the third party's interference has disastrous effects, or Nice Job Fixing It, Villain if the interference backfires and helps solidify the deal. Compare Threatening Mediator, where violence between two parties is prevented by the threat of violence from a third party.
Not to be confused with Third Party Stops Attack, but overlap is possible under the right conditions.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- In the Beetlejuice comic book series, one installment sees Beetlejuice enter a Deal with the Devil — literally, as he agrees to a couple thousand years of personal servitude to "Lucky Lucifer" in order for Lydia's lottery ticket to be a winner. When Lydia finds out about the arrangement, she talks the Devil out of it.
- Black Cat (2019): The Black Fox makes a deal with the Gilded Saint for himself and Black Cat to be made immortal in exchange for the Saint getting to own Manhattan. Black Cat undoes the deal by tricking the Saint into thinking the Fox has reneged on their bargain, freeing Manhattan and condemning the Fox to being trapped in the Gilded Saint's possession for eternity.
- Ambassador Myodo convinces Okko and his companions to turn over the shapeshifting Masuku to her, intending to use him to replace the increasingly ineffectual Daimyo Oyatsu. In return she promises that he will be able to roam the Empire freely once again, implying she intended to make the imposter Daimyo rescind the bounty on Okko's head. However, once Masuku has replaced Oyatsu, he decides to keep the bounty in place, having his own reasons to hate Okko.
Fan Works
- The Mountain and the Wolf: Daenerys and Cersei are holding a final parley, although neither expects much of it. The Wolf starts yelling insults at Cersei from hiding, infuriating her to the point where she has hostages brought from the cells and executes them. The Wolf justifies his behavior by saying that the hostages were better off dead now than by starvation or Cersei using them as bargaining chips during the siege. In fact, his actual goal is to get Daenerys to attack the city rather than resolve the war through diplomacy, and when the city opens its gates to her he has her hit with a spell to tip the scales on the side of violence.
Film — Live-Action
- Kaamelott: Premier Volet: Arthur and Venec are being taken across the Aquitanian border by the bounty hunter Alzagar to be delivered to Lancelot. As Alzagar is talking to the border guard, Arthur starts talking for the first time since he was caught (somewhere in North Africa), yelling that he was unlawfully abducted and that he's the property of master Damian the Sassanid, demanding to know since when slavery is authorized in Aquitania. Venec joins in, but the guard seems fine with letting them through... until Venec gets a bright idea.
Venec: [offscreen] THE DUCHESS OF AQUITANIA IS A WHORE!
[Stunned Silence]
Alzagar: When he says 'whore', it's in the good sense of the word.
Border Guard: Book these dipshits. They'll explain themselves to the duke.
- This works perfectly, allowing Arthur to go free as the duke and he are friends.
- Man on Fire: The negotiations to get back Pita Ramos after she is kidnapped go to hell when a secret brotherhood of dirty cops attack the Ransom Drop to steal the money, killing a nephew of the leader of the kidnapping group. This leads to the kidnapping group apparently killing Pita as payback, leading to John Creasy murdering everybody who had anything to do with the whole mess in revenge.
- Spider-Man: Homecoming: Adrian Toomes's construction company wins a contract with New York City to clean up alien debris left from the Chitauri invasion, but then the Stark Industries-backed Department of Damage Control seizes the contract, leaving Toomes with the bills for the equipment he bought and employees he hired for the job but no revenue to pay them. This leads to Toomes becoming an Arms Dealer of stolen Chitauri weapons to keep his family and employees fed and housed.
- Star Wars: Shortly before A New Hope, Han Solo ends up on Jabba the Hutt's bad side when he dumps a drug shipment to avoid getting caught with it by the Empire (depicted in the Legends novel Rebel Dawn). He spends quite some time trying to get the money together to pay Jabba back the value of the shipment plus interest, only for further entanglements with the Rebels and the Empire to keep interfering until Jabba finally loses all patience with him and uses a carbonite-frozen Solo as a decoration for his throne room.
Literature
- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi: Amina gains the power to perceive and physically handle magical pacts. She uses this to sever the bond between Falco and his minions, revoking the powers he granted them. One minion is horrified — he'd traded his cousin's life for those powers.
- The Han Solo Trilogy: In Rebel Dawn, Han is running a spice shipment for Jabba the Hutt when he spots an Imperial patrol ship. He dumps his cargo in space to avoid being caught with it when the Imps board, even making a note of the coordinates so he can come back later to get it, but when he returns, it's not there. This leads to Jabba demanding Han get him either the money or the spice, leading into A New Hope.
- The Seventh Tower: As an old Lord of the Spirit World Aenir, the villain Sharrakor can give some orders to Spiritshadow Familiars that supersede their bond to their human. One is to force them back to Aenir, leaving the human incapacitated by the damaged bond.
- Spinning Silver: The climax has a heroic version when Irina breaks the demonic pact that keeps her husband Trapped in Villainy. His mother sold him into the pact, but Irina argues that a wife's claim to her husband supersedes a mother's claim to her son.
- The Stormlight Archive: A magical version of this causes a nasty surprise in Rhythm of War. The mad Herald Ishar's unchecked power over spiritual Connection is revealed to extend to the Oathbound Power of a Knight Radiant and their Spren. He very nearly steals Dalinar's bond to the Stormfather before he's interrupted.
- The Wheel of Time: The Chosen One Rand somehow perceives the pact joining Asmodean to the Dark One and severs it. Asmodean panics — not only does it negate the Dark One's protection on him, he knows the Dark One will assume he turned traitor and react with extreme prejudice.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5: In the TV movie In the Beginning, Londo tells the story of the Earth-Minbari war. During negotiations, Londo had a Centari cruiser sent to bomb a meeting between Captain Sheridan and the Minbari Lennon, brokered by the Narn. Londo did this because he thought that the Narns were planning an arms deal. Instead Londo's actions prolonged the war because both the humans and Minbari blamed each other.
- Catch-22: Yossarian manages to blackmail Colonel Cathcart into agreeing to let him rotate home to the States in exchange for keeping mum about Aarfy raping and murdering a woman in Rome, only for General Scheisskopf to override Cathcart his first day on base in petty vengeance for Yo-Yo cuckolding him at the start of the series. (In the book he never found out about the affair.)
- The Good Wife:
- After Will Gardner's funeral, Alicia and Diane go out for drinks, and randomly raise the prospect of a merger between their competing law firms. At the same time, they're representing opposing spouses in a divorce case and are on the verge of settling the issue amicably, when David Lee, having gotten wind of the proposed merger, intentionally drops antagonistic information into the divorce negotiations to scuttle both deals.
- Following the scandalous end of Alicia's run for State's Attorney, she goes back to Florrick, Agos, & Lockhart planning to cancel the retirement deal she had negotiated with them to exit the firm upon her election so she can continue working there. Diane's associate R.D. insists on forcing Alicia out, not wanting his political law work with the firm tainted by association with Alicia's scandal, and Diane and Cary bow to the pressure.
- Exploited in an episode of Law & Order. Desperate to find a kidnapped girl whose kidnapper managed to be captured separately from her, Jack McCoy reluctantly makes a deal with the kidnapper to grant him immunity in exchange for the girl's location. Of course, since Jack was only an ADA at the time, he wasn't actually authorized to make that deal, and when DA Arthur Branch finds out - after the girl has been rescued - he intervenes and convinces the judge to throw the deal out and slam the kidnapper with the maximum sentence.
- A strange aversion happens in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Quark is stricken with a terminal illness, and makes arrangements to sell off his remains according to Ferengi custom. Then he finds out that it was a misdiagnosis, and he's not going to die after all. But apparently Ferengi law doesn't let a little thing like not being dead nullify the deal, putting Quark in the tough position of breaking a contract (one of the highest crimes possible, making him Persona Non Grata among Ferengi) or fulfilling it.
Newspaper Comics
- Calvin and Hobbes: In the strips for the week of 17 May 1996
, Calvin's mom happens upon him about to eat worms in exchange for Susie's nickel. Calvin's mom drags him home, telling Susie that it's mean to take advantage of kids who lack sense. Calvin complains loudly... and then thanks her once they're away from Susie, since he was originally just trying to gross Susie out and got outsmarted.
Tabletop Games
- Arkham Horror 3rd Edition: Father Mateo's unique ability "Signum Crucis" removes Wounds, Horror, or Conditions from investigators. Dark Pacts are Conditions, so he can negate them entirely before the investigator has to suffer their cost.
- Mage: The Awakening:
- The Seal of Solomon, an artifact ring with power beyond mortal magic, empowers its wearer's touch to destroy any Magically-Binding Contract with an otherworldly entity. It sacrifices a permanent Willpower dot and doubtlessly incurs the entity's anger, but the steep cost could still be preferable to the loss of life, sanity, or soul that such a pact can incur.
- Fate magic can create, alter, or negate binding oaths without triggering the penalty for oathbreaking. In crossovers with Changeling: The Lost, this Wrong Context Magic makes Changelings and Fae very nervous, as Pledges are the cornerstone of their society.
- The Prince in Tatters is an Abyssal spirit who can be contracted for a unique service of Wrong Context Magic: he can nullify a binding oath in such a way that it appears intact and unaltered to magical scrutiny.
- Princess: The Hopeful: A Princess with the Charm "Forced Vows Are No Vows" can renegotiate or negate a Magically-Binding Contract. The name suggests that it's used to free mortals from Leonine Contracts, but it's not limited to such cases.
- Vampire: The Requiem: The Sotoha Bloodline's Bushido-inspired code mandates My Master, Right or Wrong with only two exceptions: a vassal who survives Seppuku is freed from their oath, and a vassal who commits ritual Suicide by Sunlight to denounce their Lord frees all the Lord's vassals.
Video Games
- Divinity: Original Sin: Jahan made a deal with a demon to live for 1000 years, then forfeit his life and soul. The player characters take the simple expedient of killing the demon when it tries to collect. As a bonus, the deal makes him The Ageless, since the demon expected to kill him personally.
- Attempted in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim when the Dovahkiin convenes a peace talk between the Imperial Legion and the Stormcloak rebels (assuming they haven't resolved the Skyrim Civil War by that point in the main quest). The Thalmor, who want the war to continue in order to keep both sides as weak as possible, send their ambassador Elenwen to gate-crash the talks and demand a seat at the negotiating table; if she's allowed to remain, she will spend most of the talks trying to antagonize the Stormcloak leader Ulfric in the hopes of collapsing the talks.
- Grand Theft Auto: Vice City: The arranged drug deal between the Forelli Crime Family and the Vance Crime Family in the prologue is botched when a group of assassins later revealed to have been on Ricardo Diaz's payroll ambush the deal, kill Tommy Vercetti's two companions and Victor Vance, and take all the drugs to an unknown location. This Downer Beginning ultimately sets up the events of the rest of the game, where Tommy tries to locate and reclaim the stolen drugs and money for the increasingly agitated Sonny Forelli.
- Star Trek Online: In the Romulan mission "Turning Point", the Tal Shiar try to sabotage the international conference on political recognition for the nascent Romulan Republic. It completely backfires: they're caught red-handed by KDF Captain Ja'rod, and then Commander Temer dies shielding Ambassador Woldan from a bomb, proving once and for all that the Republic are worthy allies.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Smuggler PC's prologue has them running a shipment of blasters for crime boss Rogun the Butcher. Their ship is stolen by Starter Villain Skavak on Ord Mantell before they can make the handoff; Skavak then fences the cargo to the Imperial-backed Mantellian rebels to make room for a Chekhov's Armory. This forces the Smuggler to spend the rest of the class story trying to get Rogun off their back (an homage to Han Solo's character arc in the original trilogy).
Webcomics
- Tales of the Questor: The Faerie Court grants Quentyn Three Wishes from the Fae Prince Dolan to reward Quentyn and punish the Prince. His first is to nullify all debts and favours owed the Prince, effectively stripping away almost all his assets in the Fae "economy".
Web Original
- Parodied in the myth of "consensual" sex meme, where both parties consent to sex, but forgot to ask Jesus (or whoever the meme replaces him with) for permission.
Western Animation
- In the Bojack Horseman episode "Old Acquaintance", Bojack's plan to star in a small independent movie is sabotaged by his manager, Princess Caroyln, who wants to sign him to a big-budget film trilogy, and thus demands more money from the indie in order to scare them off. When he finds out about it, he's pissed and decides to fire her.
- In Garfield and Friends segment "The Pie-Eyed Piper", based on The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Garfield plays the titular piper and makes a deal with Jon, the kingdom's exterminator, to rid Hamelin of mice in exchange for Italian food. Jon thinks the deal is fair; however, after the piper gets rid of the mice, the cowardly king refuses to honor the deal, saying that doing so he would have to admit that he wasn't in command of the situation. The piper retaliates against the king by taking away all the Italian chefs in the kingdom.
- The Simpsons: In "Treehouse of Horror IV", Homer makes a Deal with the Devil for a donut. Marge gets him out of it by successfully arguing that he'd already pledged his soul to her; the Devil curses him to have a donut for a head in retaliation.
Real Life
- Examples in real-world law:
- In common law jurisdictions, there is what is known as "tortious interference with a contract", which is defined as when a third party intentionally damages, sabotages, or interferes with the contractual or business relationship between two other parties. If the third party's intentional conduct caused economic harm to the contracting parties (such as a loss of business), then they may be liable to pay damages to either or both of the contracting parties. One of the earliest well-known lawsuits over such a claim was the case Tarleton v. McGawley from England in 1793, in which the owners of a trading ship sued a rival company claiming that the latter had interfered with their business by opening fire at their customers (with a cannon, no less) to scare them away.
- The legal concepts of acts of God and force majeure deal with completely unforeseeable disasters that render contracts unfulfillable; generally, the parties to the contract are released from obligation.
- Alienation of affections is a common law tort allowing a spouse to sue a third party alleged to having caused the collapse of his marriage.
- In criminal trials, plea bargains are negotiated between the prosecutors and the defense lawyers but they must be approved by the judge. Occasionally a judge will reject the plea bargain and the lawyers must either attempt to negotiate a new one or proceed with a trial.
- It's believed that one of the motivations for Hamas attacking Israel and starting a war in 2023 was to derail secret talks about normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Several other Arab statesnote had already normalized relations with Israel, showing that the issue of Palestine is no longer significant enough to them to dominate foreign policy. If even Saudi Arabia opened relations, the remaining holdouts would likely follow. This would be disastrous for Hamas, and would render them largely irrelevant on the global stage.
