Basic Trope: Bad behavior has immediate consequences.
- Straight: Lucy lies to her parents so she can attend a Wild Teen Party. The party gets busted up by the police and she spends the night in jail, and her parents lecture her about how she's just lost all their trust. An Anvilicious Aesop is dispatched.
- Exaggerated:
- Lucy decides to visit a Wild Teen Party. She immediately gets plastered, sleeps with Jerk Jock Jason, then drunkenly drives right into a car accident and is horribly killed. And right up until that point, she's been a saint.
- Lucy is sitting outside the party in her car, trying to decide whether or not she should attend. After much hemming and hawing, she finally decides to go. The moment she steps inside the house...the cops come in and start arresting people, including her. Everyone at the party then gets a slap on the wrist...except Lucy, who gets a much harsher punishment due to her dad being the chief of police.
- Lucy never lies to her parents, never thinks of going, and when she has to go out she never gets within five miles of the party (which is well-recorded by multiple witnesses, video feeds and her car and phone GPS). The events of the party create such a bad reputation for all of the town's teens that she becomes a pariah anyway.
- Downplayed:
- Lucy attends the Wild Teen Party without any authority figure knowing she was ever there, but sprains her ankle on the way home.
- Lucy attends several such parties and gets away with it, but eventually her luck runs out.
- Lucy isn't arrested, cops don't bust up the party, but she sneaks in and her parents catch her and ground her for a month.
- Justified:
- Lucy has been put under house arrest for some previous incident, and the ankle bracelet immediately alerts the police.
- Lucy is Stupid Evil, and never tries keeping her activities discreet.
- Big Brother Is Watching, and the police are very punctual.
- The God or gods of the setting have untied hands and are very tough on immoral behavior.
- Laser-Guided Karma
- Inverted:
- Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin'.
- Karma Houdini.
- Alice likes getting away with nuthin'.
- Subverted:
- Lucy doesn't leave her room, having no intention of going. Her parents, however, don't believe her and head on over to the party to catch her out, only to return empty handed and realise that she has been in her room the entire time.
- Lucy lies to her parents, attends the Wild Teen Party... and has a great time.
- Double Subverted: ...Only to have this bite her in the butt a few episodes later when she finds out she's abruptly pregnant.
- Parodied:
- Lucy lies to her parents and goes to a Wild Teen Party where the police immediately turn up and join the party themselves. Lucy gets arrested anyway.
- Lucy lies to her parents and goes to a Wild Teen Party where she discovers that her parents are already there partying wildly themselves. Lucy is shocked and tries to leave but the police show up due to the noise. Lucy's parents escape in the confusion while Lucy spends a night in jail. Her parents later pick her up and chew her out for lying to them while completely ignoring their own actions.
- Zig Zagged: See Parodied.
- Averted:
- Lucy lies to her parents and goes to a Wild Teen Party. She successfully sneaks back home afterwards and is met with no consequences.
- Lucy doesn't go the the Wild Teen Party at all.
- Enforced:
- The executives want to make sure those morons watching at home get the message that these things are bad.
- If Lucy's bad actions didn't yield immediate negative consequences, there wouldn't be anything interesting about the fact that she did them. Thus, the writers would cut it out of the story altogether.
- Lampshaded: After the police bust the party that Lucy's attending, she exclaims, "Oh, come on! I party once, and this happens? Can't I get away with anything?"
- Invoked: Rita manipulates Lucy into wanting to attend the party, knowing that she'll get caught and suffer immediate consequences for it.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- Lucy lies to her parents and sneaks out to a Wild Teen Party, but then realizes that the police are sure to turn up. She sneaks out and avoids further consequences.
- Alternatively, Lucy tells her parents the truth about the party she wants to go to. Her parents let her go anyway, and she enjoys herself.
- Alice tells her parents about the party and makes perfectly clear that she doesn't wants to go.
- Discussed: Lucy and Alice chat about how a party like this is bound to have cops bust it up. But that's silly and immediate consequences only happen on TV.
- Conversed: Lucy exclaims as she's getting arrested, "Why didn't I pay attention to Degrassi? These parties never amount to anything good!"
- Deconstructed:
- Despite how destructive the behavior is, people still engage in it because they find their lives shallow, painful and meaningless. Death is not a deterrent, but a perk — the sex, drugs and booze let them feel a brief flicker of happiness before their abrupt demise ends their suffering once and for all.
- Whenever Bob does something wrong it comes back to bite him in the ass in the most humiliating and personally destructive way possible, regardless of any malicious intent on his part. Bob becomes increasingly paranoid and gradually withdraws from society for fear of the consequences of his next indiscretion.
- Reconstructed: However, life isn't nearly as bad as that cynical view makes them out to be, and those who avoid bad behavior are rewarded with good, happy and fulfilling lives.
- Played For Laughs: Rita manipulates Lucy into wanting to attend the party, but ends up stumbling into her own trap and is caught by the police alongside Lucy, utterly humiliated.
- Played For Drama: Lucy was a straight-A student on the sports team and a perfect model for all to see. This one event ruins her life, tarnishing her reputation, and gets her kicked from the sports teams forever. So begins the slow spiral of destruction.
- Played For Horror: Lucy decided to go to this one party, her first one ever, and considering her personality it will be her only one ever. She becomes a target for extermination by the Spree Killer that sneaks in, who has decided all rowdy teens deserve to die.
HA! Caught you! Back to Can't Get Away with Nuthin' with you, then!
