Basic Trope: Telling others that life isn't as pleasant as it is.
- Straight: Harold smugly tells Mike how life isn't fair and cruelly tells him to deal with it.
- Exaggerated: Emperor Harold Evulz smugly tells Mike how life sucks because he's completely worthless while he's the best at everything he does.
- Downplayed: Harold empathetically tells Mike that life is not always fair, but good things still happen and life is still worth living.
- Justified:
- Harold was just looking for an excuse to be insensitive and unsympathetic to Mike's situation.
- Harold was only saying it to end Mike's ventings.
- Harold only tells Mike this to open his eyes on what kind of world he's living in.
- Harold is actually trying to help Mike by convincing him that he needs to worry less about playing nice and more about achieving his own goals.
- Inverted: Harold gleefully tells Mike how life is fair and enjoyable.
- Subverted: Harold tells Mike that life isn't fair ... but Mike is relieved, because if it was fair, it would mean all his misfortunes were deserved and that he was always being actively judged.
- Double Subverted: Mike then tells this to Bob, who doesn’t believe it.
- Parodied: Harold says that life isn’t fair, even though he lives in a complete Sugar Bowl.
- Zig-Zagged: Harold changes his mind a lot as to whether life is or isn’t fair.
- Averted: Harold doesn't say the phrase "Life isn't fair."
- Enforced: The author intends for this to be the work’s Aesop.
- Lampshaded:
- "Life isn't fair? I've heard better phrases than that."
- "Of course life isn't fair, Harold. If it was, people like you would be obliterated on the spot."
- Invoked: Mike complains endlessly to provoke Harold into saying it, leading to Subverted.
- Exploited: Harold seeks to corrupt Mike by getting him to believe this philosophy.
- Defied:
- Harold chooses not to tell Mike that life isn't fair, feeling that it would become so clichéd and annoying.
- Mike: "Harold, you're being unfair to me right the hell now and if you so much as think there is any way for you to justify it, I swear that I break every damn bone in your body and we'll see how that is unfair." Harold decides to cut Mike some slack, or at the very least use a line other than 'life isn't fair'.
- Discussed:
- "What's up with people using the 'life isn't fair' phrase?"
- "Well, life may not be fair, but that's the point: It's what drives me to make it fair. It's what helps me to grow as a person, because Misery Builds Character. I mean, I've gotten my fair share of the short end of the stick, and look at me! I'm a badass now! Life isn't fair, but at least I'm growing as a person!"
- Conversed: "Are the writers trying to make us feel depressed whenever someone says 'life sucks'?"
- Deconstructed:
- Harold says that life isn't fair, but he's doing nothing to make it better when he could. Or, worse, he is one of the leaders in promulgating the unfairness.
- Because of that phrase, Mike becomes a jaded and bitter Straw Nihilist, thus making life in general even worse than it already is.
- Reconstructed:
- Mike concludes that life isn't fair, but it's up to him to make it better. Meanwhile, Harold receives his comeuppance for his bragging, now realizing the statement is used against him. To put icing on the cake, Mike takes this opportunity to get back at Harold by saying the statement against him.
- After a demoralizing speech from Harold, Mike responds, "Life isn't fair, huh? Well neither am I!" and proceeds to give a beating to Harold.
- Played for Laughs: Harold says, "Life isn't fair," only for Mike to point out several ways in which it is fair.
- Played For Drama:
- Harold says "Life isn't fair" as a one-liner to follow up him doing an act of severe cruelty to Mike.
- After all of the ignoble things Mike has had to endure, it's hearing this line that truly pushed him over the edge.
Back to Life Isn't Fair, because it isn’t.
