Unwitting Instigator Of Doom / Western Animation

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• Adventure Time:
  • The Ice King continually interferes with Finn's attempt to prevent the Lich from reaching the Well of Power and regaining his full power. As a result the Lich, having regained his full power by the time Finn and Jake finally reach him, ends up jobbing Finn and destroying the Gauntlet, the one weapon that can hurt him, forcing Finn to find an alternative. Then the Ice King accidentally drops Bubblegum into the Well, which melts her and allows the Lich to possess her. After being frozen with help from the Ice King, she shatters, requiring medical attention to be put back together. Part of Bubblegum is missing though, causing her to come back as a 13-year-old, which later results in Earl of Lemongrab assuming the throne, if only for an episode.
    • The snail was responsible for the Lich breaking free in the first place. He just happened to have crawled into Finn's backpack right before Princess Bubblegum took Finn and Jake to the location of the Lich's imprisonment. As soon as he crawled out, the snail, having no psychic protection, was mind controlled by the Lich into freeing him and setting the above chain of events into place, not to mention the ongoing threat of the Lich when the Lich possesses the snail directly.
  • If it weren't for an unnamed Scandinavian dock worker selling an old crown to an antiquarian by the name of Simon Petrikov, the Ice King would never have existed. However, if that happened then Marceline would have most likely died in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, so it isn't all bad.
  • In the Alternate Universe "Farmworld", the Destiny Gang terrorising Finn's village and his family leads to him wearing the Ice King's crown, which in turn leads to the release of the Lich and the world being inflicted with another apocalypse.
• In the American Dad! episode, "The Hurricane", Klaus becomes this when he encourages Stan to keep trying to defend his family when Stan goes though a Heroic B So D since it was his poor decision making caused them to be in danger to begin with. This results in Stan resuming to exacerbate the dangerous situation his family is in.
• Amphibia: The story begins when Anne Boonchuy, Marcy Wu, and Sasha Waybright open a mysterious box they found in a thrift shop and it transports them to the titular world.
  • Sasha is the one who pressured Anne into shoplifting the box, even though the latter didn't want to, not realizing what the box would do — she only knew of the box because Marcy suggested it as a birthday gift.
  • The biggest twist of the second season is that Marcy is not this; she had seen the box in a book on the occult, and thus knew that it was enchanted and would send them to a magical world. While she wasn't certain it would really work, she hoped it would. Be Careful What You Wish For...
  • The real examples would be Marcy's parents and a librarian who dropped the book with the box listed in it without even realizing she did it. Marcy grabbed the book, read about the box, and snapped a picture for future reference. She then went home to her parents, who told her they were moving out of state, away from Anne and Sasha. Utterly terrified at the idea of losing them, she ran away crying... and came across the box in the store. Desperate to get away from the real world and its problems, she texted Sasha saying she'd found the perfect birthday present for Anne. Yes, had Marcy's dad not gotten a new job, or had that librarian not dropped a book, the whole series never would've happened!
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • The Earth King informed Azula (disguised as a Kyoshi Warrior) of the invasion of the Fire Nation. Cue next season where the invasion force finds all royalty in hiding, and the invasion ends in failure with almost all of them captured. Zuko hoped this would lead to his father re-thinking his strategy with the war. Unfortunately, it did, but it led to Ozai plotting genocide on the Earth Kingdom.
  • During a war council, Zuko is asked how the people of the Earth Kingdom would react to occupation. He honestly replies that as long as they had their pride, they would never give into the Fire Nation. His statement led to Ozai plotting genocide on the Earth Kingdom.
  • A running theme in the Avatar Cycle is the current Avatar dealing with the fallout from the actions of their previous incarnations. Korra is hit with the ramifications of Aang's use of energy bending. Aang runs afoul of the Dai Li, who were originally formed by Kyoshi, plus Sozin's massacre of the Air Nomads happens because Roku stays his hand from dealing with his old friend. Kyoshi is discovered relatively late as the Avatar and has to deal with several international crises, because Kuruk was too easy going, neglected his Avatar duties and died unexpectedly in his early thirties. And then it emerges that Kuruk was in fact hunting down and eliminating dark spirits caused by Yangchen favouring the human world over the spirit world, draining his life force and leading to his death.
• Castlevania (2017):
  • The Bishop burning Lisa at the stake claiming her to be a witch ultimately results in her husband Dracula deciding to carry out a rampage that will kill mankind.
  • The unnamed and undepicted "wise woman" who laid charges of witchcraft against Lisa with the Church because she was driven out of business by the fact that Lisa's medicines actually worked. As with the bishop, this lead to Dracula trying to kill off humanity as a result of her actions.
• In the one episode of Combo Niños where neither Diadoro nor Gomez had released any Divinos, Principal Bronka accidentally released a Family of snake-like Divinos.
• The Fairly OddParents!: One episode had Tootie go into Timmy's treehouse and taking two toys there. Unknown to her, they're actually Cosmo and Wanda, who have just granted Timmy a wish that involved him shrinking. Later, Chester and AJ make it worse by launching the shrunken Timmy (who they think is a toy) out of the house.
• Family Guy: There are two in "New Kidney In Town".
  • Lois, who attempts to rectify Peter's Red Bull addiction by disposing of the drink behind his back. Peter then ends up drinking kerosene.
  • Joe and Quagmire convince Peter to blow off one dialysis treatment to watch Charles in Charge at the Drunken Clam, which results in Peter's health deteriorating. Since Joe is the most rational of the three, he should have encourage Peter to still go to his dialysis.
• Fanboy and Chum Chum: In "A Very Brrr-y Icemas", the pale-skinned toddler casually mentioning the Super Mega Octo Rocket Kracken (right after Fanboy has asked for the normal Mega Octo Rocket Kracken, nonetheless) is what leads to Fanboy accidentally removing Mr. Mufflin's Man-Arctica costume and being deemed naughty to Man-Arctica.
• Final Space's third season has an assortment of these:
  • When it comes time to contact someone outside of Final Space to help activate the Hyper-Transdimensional Bridge so the Team Squad can escape the titular dimension, Ash decides to reach out to her estranged adoptive father Clarence and relay the instructions and location for doing so. What she doesn't know is that almost everyone in their home galaxy could see the message, including people who have a score to settle with Clarence and/or Gary - people like Todd Watson, who ultimately manages to shoot him dead. Of course, even Clarence had a feeling he wouldn't come back alive; he just wanted more than anything to save Ash and prove to his only surviving family member he was capable of doing the right thing for once in his life, and either way he succeeds at turning on the Bridge on his end with his dying breath and providing the crew a way home, so that checks out.
  • Speaking of Ash, it's revealed that her powers come from Invictus, who, when the former goes off to confront it about her kidnapped/possessed brother Fox, uses this connection to transform her and better establish a psychic link of sorts to keep tabs on her. Invictus utilizes this to devastating effect in "The Chamber of Doubt", where it uses Fox and a crazed, infected Bolo to play Ash and Gary like strings on a fiddle by making it look like the latter killed Fox in cold blood, and even moreso in "Until the Sky Falls" where it uses its connection to Ash to lead the Lord Commander to Earth where he betrays his master by drilling to the center of the planet to fuse with the incubating Titan and annihilates the KVN Net and Bolo in quick succession, leaving the heroes bereft of their only real shot at taking on the Titans and potentially saving the universe.
  • In "The Leaving", while the bridge (which had been blown away into the depths of space by the Lord Commander destroying Earth by fusing with the Titan inside) is charging back up, Little Cato asks what his mother was like, to which Avocato (who in actuality had killed the kid's birth parents when he was an infant and never told him) lies to his face and says she passed away from childbirth. Later, after the bridge breaks down from overcharging, Avocato frets to Gary in private about how he lied yet again, then prepares to finally tell his "son" the truth...only to come face-to-face with Ash, who'd walked in on the conversation, including his reminder to Gary about his greatest sin. All this proves to be the last straw for Ash's loyalty to the crew, and thus she deems them all murderous, lying scum and swears fealty to Invictus, while stealing away poor Little Cato to the "good side".
• Fired on Mars: On many occasions, Jeff's good intentions have disatrous consequences.
  • In the first episode, he finds new purpose in the advice from a book on label theory, but gets carried away and wastes most of Mars.ly's label supplies on items that didn't need them, such as individual pens and coffee pods. Most of the consequences are off-screen, but when Martin calls him out on it, he mentions how a biologist mistook a cup of fluoroantimonic acid for ginger ale and almost drank it due to the label shortage.
  • In the second episode, Jax tasks him with setting up party favors for Reagan's birthday, but he ends up stuck with tacky substitutes like latex gloves for balloons and bales of hay instead of flowers. In a last ditch attempt to salvage the party, Jeff turns up the nitrous oxide like Jax taught him earlier so the partygoers are too euphoric to care how stupid it looks. It goes well, until someone tries to light a candle and ignites the gas in a floor-wide explosion.
  • One of his biggest screwups comes in Episode 6, when he joins a group of rebels seeking to start their own colony, and they task him with feeding their replenishable food supply of grasshoppers twice a day. Under the stress of balancing his time with the rebels and increased responsibilities up at Mars.ly itself, Jeff gets the idea to steal Sluggo's cuckoo clock to use as a makeshift button presser for the feeder. It doesn't take long for Sluggo to find his missing clock, though, and when he takes it back, a chair that was propping it up falls on the switch, holding it down and overfeeding the grasshoppers, causing them to swarm the entire building.
• In the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends special Destination: Imagination, Herriman interferes with a resolution between the Face and the rest of the main characters, Frankie included, by scolding him, causing him to go berserk. Unlike most other examples of this trope, he immediately comes to regret this.
  Herriman: Good heavens! What's happening?
  Bloo: You peeved him off ^note the closed captions say "pissed", that's what's happening!
• Gravity Falls: Three of them in "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future"
  • By refusing to host the twins' birthday at the Shack, Stan is responsible for Mabel going to the high school and learning how "terrible" it will be, starting her breakdown. He seems to realize it when she confides in him afterward, given his worried, guilty expression, though he doesn't relent on the matter.
  • Wendy ranting about how terrible high school is while not realizing how it would affect Mabel's psyche. It stands out given how protective Wendy is normally of Mabel. Likewise, neither Candy nor Grenda suggest having the party a day or a few days before the twins' actual birthday when they reveal they have scheduling conflicts.
  • Mabel became so frightened by the idea of growing up and being separated from her brother that she gave the rift her brother and uncle tried so hard to protect over to Blendin Blandin, who promised he would use it to freeze time for her so she and the rest of Gravity Falls would never change. Instead, Blendin revealed himself to be possessed by Bill Cipher, who promptly broke it and began the apocalypse.
• In Hey Arnold!, Arnold serves as this to Eugene. Although Arnold means Eugene no harm and feels bad whenever something bad happens to him, he ends up doing something that leads to something bad happening to Eugene anyway. In "Eugene's Bike", Arnold accidentally knocks Eugene's bike into the street when he stops to tie his shoe, resulting in the bike being run over and destroyed by a street sweeper. When Arnold tries to fix the bike, he accidentally forgets to install the brake cable, resulting in Eugene being unable to stop and getting hospitalized when he crashes into an open car door. When Arnold comes to visit him, the 9 on Eugene's hospital door becomes a 6, resulting in Eugene getting his tonsils and spleen removed. When Arnold feels guilty about getting Eugene hospitalized, flashbacks show that Eugene was accidentally knocked off a seesaw at daycare, had a crab accidentally tossed onto his head, and got his finger stuck to his lips when he accidentally tasted Arnold's paste instead of his frosting. When Arnold tries to give Eugene a grand day out together, things get worse from there. Eugene falls down an open manhole, gets hit by a foul ball, chokes on a hot dog, hit in the eye with it when Arnold gives him the Heimlich Maneuver, and falls into the river when he tries to look out a tower viewer.
• In The Jungle Bunch, Ernest the Kiwi's machines, which are usually created for some mundane task (one being a machine that dug chunks of ice out of a mountain and delivered the piece to Ernest's drink) often tend to become a danger to the jungle that The Jungle Bunch has to stop.
• Kaeloo:
  • Stumpy is one in the episode "Let's Play the Quest for the Wholly Gruel". He finds the titular Wholly Gruel, a magic crayon which can make anything it draws real, and uses it to doodle all over some hieroglyphics in a cave depicting characters who resemble him and his friends. He draws a meteorite about to strike them, and his real friends, meanwhile, almost get hit by an actual meteorite.
  • In Episode 215, a random guy runs past the main four while screaming "it's coming!" in a panicked voice. Mr. Cat, who tends to see the worst in everything, is convinced that something bad is going to happen. Things escalate, and then Mr. Cat convinces everyone else in Smileyland that the end of the world is coming, leading to mass panic which causes fires, property damage, and several background characters being Driven to Suicide. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the guy from earlier was just having a Potty Emergency and there is no apocalypse coming.
• Everything that went wrong in the Kissyfur episode "The Birds And The Bears", from the cubs taking Gus' paddlecab for a spin which eventually leads them through dangerous rapids to the gators taking control of the paddlecab and using it to capture the cubs, all happened thanks to Donna's rebellious behavior. She even gets called out for it when she and some of the other cubs are captured by the gators.
  Lenny: It was your dumb idea to fool with the paddlecab, Donna!
  Duane: Yeah, it definitely wasn't a cool thing to do!
  Stuckey: Not cool at all!
• Legends of Chima: After the Dark Tribes' defeat in Season 2, Scorm, the leader of the Scorpion Tribe, decides he wants nothing more to do with Chi and has it all disposed of into the gorge below him. However, it turns out the next season's antagonists, the Ice Hunters, are at the bottom and the dropped Chi allows them to reawaken and continue their conquest of Chima.
• This often happens in Miraculous Ladybug where a character picks up the Jerkass Ball and accidentally drives someone into enough despair to be corrupted by Big Bad Hawk Moth. The undisputed queen of this trope is Alpha Bitch Chloé Bourgeois, who has a body count in the double digits. Subverted with Gabriel Agreste, who is Hawk Moth and thus a Witting Instigator of Doom.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Magic Coins, Part 1", after a rainstorm ruins the ponies' picnic, Baby Lickety-Split angrily wishes that it would never rain again. Unknown to her, this is said within hearing range of a powerful wish-granting artifact, and what would normally have only been idle venting with no further impact creates a devastating drought.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In "The Return of Harmony, Part 1", the Cutie Mark Crusaders' arguing is what indirectly leads to Discord being released.
    • "The Crystalling, Part 1": Flurry Heart destroys the Crystal Heart, the magical artifact that protects the Crystal Empire by keeping out the arctic climate of the rest of the region. This results in a massive blizzard that threatens to destroy the entire kingdom and either drive off or kill the inhabitants. The unwitting part is because she's a baby alicorn; she didn't intend to destroy it, she didn't even have the cognizance to realize what was going on. Fortunately, the Crystal Heart gets repaired and in the process seems to have helped brought her own power under control.
    • "Rock Solid Friendship" reveals that Pinkie's sister Maud Pie inadvertently helped Starlight Glimmer create her cutie mark removal spell by informing her of a stone that could contain the magic. Which wound up snowballing into Starlights' ill-conceived revenge plot against Twilight Sparkle that threatened the very timeline.
      Pinkie: [laughs nervously] Hey, I got an idea. Let's not tell anypony that part where you maybe, for sure, accidentally helped Starlight enslave a town! [laughs again, then gives Maud a Death Glare] Tell nopony!
    • "The Mean 6": Twilight's mean counterpart suggests splitting up to find the Tree of Harmony easier, while secretly plotting to betray Chrysalis. At the same time however, the real ponies have lost Pinkie and Fluttershy (the former racing away from the group, the latter being left behind) and split up as well to find them, and eventually the real and fake intertwine in various separate situations. This causes the real ponies to hate each other for the episode, believing the clones are their real friends acting horribly out of nowhere, which nearly ruins their camping trip and almost destroys their friendship.
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): In one episode, The Amoeba Boys try to commit a crime and fight the Powerpuff Girls by standing on the grass next to a sign that says keep off. They wait there over night in the rain, which makes them get sick. For them, it's just a common cold, but due to cross contamination, it becomes The Plague and nearly kills every human in Townsville.
• In the Ready Jet Go! episode "Sean's Robotic Arm", Mindy slams her toy rocket on the seesaw, causing Sean's Neil Armstrong figure to fly in the air and fall into a crevice.
• Recess: In the Season 2 episode "Bad Hair Day", TJ bribes Randall with a Señor Fusion Issue #8 comic to say the haircut he give Mikey was good. Randall compliments Mikey's haircut by saying the famous rock band called Dog's Pajamas got the same haircut, causing all the kids on the playground want the same haircut. Then they learn the truth, that this haircut was bad and the members of the band have hair that goes all the way down to their butts, causing all the kids to be angry at Gus, T.J. and Vince. Gus manages to quickly escape, but T.J. and Vince are chased away by an angry mob of their clientele.
• The third Robot Chicken Star Wars special has an unnamed man suggest that Palpatine go into politics, which of course eventually leads to him becoming Emperor, the galactic war, the forming of the Empire, and the destruction of the Jedi. Said man is seen thirty years later realizing that it was all his fault and preparing to commit suicide...at least until Wheel of Fortune comes on.
• In many Rugrats (1991) episodes, the plot gets kicked off by the babies misunderstanding something they hear from the adults:
  • "The Old Country" has Tommy overhearing Stu talk about trying to "keep out the elements" while staying in a cabin in the woods, and misunderstanding him to think that elephants are going to crush them all.
  • "The Legend of Satchmo" has Grandpa spooking the babies with a story about Sasquatch, prompting them to run off and get lost in the garden.
  • "Reptar on Ice" has Angelica talking about how the dinosaurs went extinct, prompting the babies to think that Reptar must be in hiding and so they wander off to find him at the titular ice show.
  • "The Dog Broomer" has Tommy again mishearing 'dog groomer' as 'dog broomer' and is convinced that the woman hired to groom Spike is going to kidnap him — causing all sorts of trouble for her.
  • "Dummi Bear Dinner Disaster" has the babies scheming to ruin a dinner party when Susie fears she might have to move if it goes well (her father is just having a business colleague over).
  • "When Wishes Come True" has Drew bringing a statue of Angelica to the house, with the babies fearing that Angelica has somehow been Taken for Granite. Of course the expensive statue ends up broken in their attempts to revive her.
• Samurai Jack: From Season 3's "Jack and the Traveling Creatures" The Guardian of the time portal refuses to allow Jack to pass, saying that only the one prophesized to defeat him may pass. He easily shrugs off everything Jack does and the worst Jack does is damage his suit, which angered the Guardian into beating Jack senseless. The only thing keeping him from killing Jack is the portal ordering to spare him. Despite that Jack wielded the one weapon that could destroy Aku, the Guardian refused to let him enter until he proved himself worthy. Come Season 5, his actions made things worse. He had doomed the Earth to another 50 years of Aku's tyranny, both he and his portal were destroyed long before the supposed chosen one could arrive, and Jack had lost his sword and became a depressed man bordering on suicide. All of this could have easily been avoided if he let Jack enter, prophecy or no prophecy.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: While Catra is the primary mover in the world nearly getting destroyed, requiring Queen Angella to make a Heroic Sacrifice to preserve it and making Horde Prime aware of Etheria's existence, it took a few others to get her into that position, most notably Shadow Weaver. Overlooking the role Shadow Weaver played in shaping Catra into the free-roaming disaster that she currently is, it was Shadow Weaver's escape and defection to the Rebellion that set off Catra's biggest emotional breakdown to date and left her in the mental state to do what she did.
  • In Season 4, Shadow Weaver (again) and Double Trouble both work to undermine Glimmer's bonds with Adora and Bow — Double Trouble for money, Shadow Weaver in order to gain influence over the queen. With Glimmer's support structure in ruins, especially after the loss of her mother in the last world-threatening disaster Shadow Weaver unwittingly set off, she becomes more ruthless and short-sighted, culminating in an attempt to use the Heart of Etheria's power that nearly allows Light Hope to destroy a fair chunk of the universe, and does leave Etheria in the path of Horde Prime's armada and the Sword of Protection in fragments; Glimmer herself is only spared immediate death because Catra intervenes. Meaning that ultimately nearly everything bad that happens from Season 3 onwards is directly descended from Shadow Weaver tricking Catra into bringing her the badge she wore back at Mystacor in the penultimate episode of Season 2.
• Homer from The Simpsons does this at least once or twice a season. He's even responsible for the death of Maude Flanders; Homer tells a group of bimbos to aim their 'Free t-shirt' bazookas at him, only to duck at the last possible second as he grabs a bobby pin off the ground. The barrage of t-shirts knocks Maude over the edge of the stadium to her death in front of everybody, including her husband and two children!
  Homer: I'm the one whose antics drove her out of her seat. I'm the one who provoked the lethal barrage of t-shirts. I'm the one who parked in the ambulance zone, preventing any possible resuscitation.
  • In "The War Of The Simpsons", Ned Flanders offers to serve as bartender, and prepares Homer a "Flanders Planter's Punch", a drink that has "three shots of rum, a jigger of bourbon and a little dab-a-roo of Crème de Cassis for flavor.", which seriously intoxicates Homer, embarrassing everybody, especially Marge, setting the stage for the episode's conflict.
• South Park:
  • The "Imaginationland" Trilogy has the Evil Imaginary characters when they killed all the terrorists who caused the war, killing any chance of the Evil characters knowing that the terrorists framed the Good Imaginary characters for attacking the Evil ones, so that the war would continue until both sides killed each other. But this would have been averted if the Evil characters actually won the war. Instead, with the help of Butters, the Good characters won the war. Since the Evil characters already destroyed any excuse of them being as much pawns as the Good characters, Butters refused to resurrect any Evil casualties and the survivors were imprisoned. So instead of literal "doom," they get a Fate Worse than Death.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In "Hall Monitor," Mrs. Puff does this when she (begrudgingly) chooses SpongeBob to be the hall monitor of the day. It's taken further when she allows SpongeBob to wear the belt and hat for the rest of the day because the latter overdid his speech and couldn't do his duties. SpongeBob ends up causing so much chaos to the point that he's wanted by the police. She even lampshaded this shortly after giving SpongeBob his belt and hat.
    Mrs. Puff: What are the consequences of what I've just done?
  • In "All That Glitters", the customer who ordered the Monster Krabby Patty is what leads to SpongeBob's spatula breaking and him selling his clothes to buy Le Spatula.
  • Squidward in "I Was A Teenage Gary", when he neglects to watch Gary the snail while SpongeBob is out. SpongeBob finds Gary and thinks he's ill, calling the veterinarian who recommends a shot of snail plasma. SpongeBob and the vet (who quickly leaves) have Squidward use the syringe since they're afraid of needles, but SpongeBob's squeamishness causes Squidward to stick the syringe into SpongeBob instead of Gary. This leads to SpongeBob to mutate into a snail, and when he comes to Squidward's house, he causes the latter to freak out so much that he accidentally injects himself with the syringe.
  • In "Sentimental Sponge" as SpongeBob takes out his trash, Patrick spots specific things in it and accuses SpongeBob of throwing them out and not understanding sentimental value; this causes SpongeBob to become a hoarder for the episode.
  • In "ChefBob" Squidward snubbing a customer is what causes the titular Hand Puppet to become self-aware and turns into an uncontrollable Insult Comic.
• Star Trek: Lower Decks: In "Much Ado About Boimler", Lieutenant Durga is left to powers the Rubidoux back on and manages to do this while Ramsey and Mariner explore the vessel. Only problem is the ship had been invaded by an unknown alien entity that was feeding on the ship's power, which the crew had turned off to reduce its activity, but comms interference means that Ramsey is unable to get this information across before Durga finishes powering the ship back on and awakens the entity.
  Lt. Durga: There's some sort of alien entity inside the ship!
  Ramsey: Oh, ya think?
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Barriss Offee is almost single-handedly responsible for the fall of Anakin Skywalker. After framing Ahsoka for terrorism and getting her expelled from the Jedi Order, Ahsoka was too disillusioned by their betrayal to return. This in turn led to Anakin's already waning trust in the Order diminishing further, and since he had technically failed to successfully raise a Padawan to Knight, this led to his infamous Passed-Over Promotion, making him that much easier for Darth Sidious to manipulate. To twist the knife further, Ahsoka later admitted the Villain Has a Point and if she had gone about it in literally any other way they could've worked together to stop Sidious. In Star Wars Legends it's shown that Offee had a Heel–Face Turn and was brought back into the Order, only to get killed during Order 66.
• Steven Universe:
  • It turns out, after several epic Reveals, that Bismuth may have been responsible for the Diamonds' Corruption attack on the Earth via giving Rose Quartz the idea to stage the shattering of her true identity Pink Diamond in an attempt to get Homeworld to leave the planet. She bitterly lampshades the fact when she finds out, and feels immensely guilty over what she inadvertently inspired Rose/Pink to do.
    "I thought all of our problems could be solved if we just shattered a Diamond. Guess she took my advice."
    • Of course, Rose's entire character really is just this.
  • Steven himself unintentionally gets a number of his friends nearly kidnapped to Homeworld by innocently listing off their names when speaking to Peridot way back in Season 1. It turns out that Peridot included their names in her report to Homeworld, which Yellow Diamond used as reference when sending Aquamarine and Topaz to collect humans for Blue Diamond. Steven does not take it well when he realizes this.
  • A more positive example is Ruby saving Sapphire in "The Answer" and forming Garnet for the first time. If she hadn't done so, Pearl and Rose would have been captured and the rebellion would have ended right then and there, likely resulting in the destruction of Earth. Not to mention Garnet herself becomes a key player in the series of events that leads to the downfall of the Diamonds' rule over Homeworld and the beginning of Era 3.
  • Another positive example: If Yellow Diamond hadn't sent Peridot to check on the status of the Cluster, the Crystal Gems would never have been aware of its existence until it destroyed the Earth with them on it. Instead Peridot ends up helping the Gems neutralize the Cluster, leading to the Diamonds having to come to Earth themselves to retrieve it, which then leads to the "Diamond Days" arc where their rule over Homeworld comes to an end thanks to Steven.
    • Adding to that, if Steven hadn't sneezed and taken a peak outside the warp stream in "Warp Tour", Peridot would have been able to perform her duties without issue and the Crystal Gems would have been none the wiser.
• Sym-Bionic Titan: Despite being a good king, the King of Galaluna is the reason why most of the events of the show happen. He left Modula behind when he thought he was dead, but came back as the leader of the Murtaddi. The biggest one of all is when he unwittingly doomed Galaluna, the Galalunian Commander (who was secretly a traitor and working for Modula and the Mutraddi) tricked him by saying Lance murdered the hostages on one of their moon bases. He chose to believed the Commander's lie and had Lance locked up despite him trying to warn that an invasion is coming and the Commander is lying. This comes back to bite the King when he learns that Lance was telling the truth about said invasion. Had he listened to Lance, then the invasion would've never happened.
• Wild Kratts: Bumper the baby sperm whale, and/or his mother, tend to crop up at inconvenient times that cause more trouble than help. Although friendly enough to the Wild Kratts team, just having such large animals arrive unexpectedly has caused Aviva to crash her hoverbike in "Sea Otter Swim", and forced Chris to abandon his giant squid Power Mode in "Seasquatch" for fear that other (and hungry!) sperm whales may be hanging around the mother/calf pair.
• Winx Club: Prior to the start of the series, Prince Sky and Brandon decided to switch identities to divert all threats from the prince onto Brandon. However, Sky ends up meeting and falling in love with Bloom (who spends most of the first season becoming more unsure and distressed about her identity and being targeted by the Trix for the Dragon Fire), leaving him afraid of how to tell her the truth and of what to do with his engagement with Princess Diaspro. Because of this, Bloom ends up completely humiliating herself in front of Magix when she mistakes Diaspro as a witch and fights with her at the Red Fountain exhibition, the truth only coming out when Sky stops the fight. This ends up being the final straw for Bloom, and she runs away from Magix with her heart and confidence completely shattered, leaving her wide open for the Trix to steal her powers and use them to start up a war that threatened the entirety of Magix. Had Sky been honest with Bloom and cancelled his engagement ^note  which he did after the truth came out sooner, the war with the Trix could had been avoided.
• Work It Out Wombats!: In "Talent Turmoil," Mr. E refused to get help with setting up his props. His cans fall out of the paper bag and mess up all the props, putting them in the wrong order. This causes the talent show to get ruined.

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