Make a Wish: Difference between revisions

* Towards the end of ''[[The Magicians]]'' the protagonist captures a [[wikipedia:Questing Beast|Questing Beast]] which then grants him three wishes. His first wish is impossible, as is the next one and the one after that. The Beast still counts them as his first wish.

* In one of the dialogues in Douglas Hofstadter's ''Gödel, Escher, Bach — an Eternal Golden Braid'', the main protagonist Achilles finds<ref>technically, this only happens within ([[It Makes Sense in Context]]) an Escher etching inside a dialogue within the dialogue</ref> a magical lamp whose [[Benevolent Genie]] grants him three wishes. Achilles tries to wish for more wishes, only to find out the genie can't do that for him; a wish about wishes is technically classified as a metawish, and in order to grant such wishes one would need a metagenie in a metalamp, whereas Achilles's genie merely is of the base variety… {{spoiler|Luckily the genie happens to have a metalamp with a metagenie in, and even petitions GOD to grant Achilles a typeless wish (that could be about wishes, or metawishes, or metametawishes…), but Achilles still manages to mess it up.}}

* Joan Aiken's short story ''The Third Wish'' has our hero Mr. Peters freeing a swan from some thorn bushes, who turns out to be the King of the Forest, who grants him three wishes. Mr. Peters wishes for a pretty wife, which is exactly what he gets (her name is Leita), only it turns out {{spoiler|Leita's actually a swan that [[Jackass Genie|the King]] turned into a human girl. She loves Mr. Peters, but misses her swan sister very badly. Mr. Peters [[I Want My Beloved to Be Happy|uses his second wish to turn her back into a swan,]] and Leita and her sister stay with him as swans for the rest of his life. [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|D'aww.]]}}

* ''[[Goosebumps]]'' tended to be quite fond of this trope as a device for lesson learning. "Be careful what you wish for" is probably the best example. Typically wishes don't go exactly as planned and the protagonist finishes the story by wishing nothing had ever happened