Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:USE THIS ONE 7772.jpg|link=Robin Hood (TV series)|frame|[[Dull Surprise|Oh look.]] [[Damsel Scrappy|Kate's in trouble]]. [[Designated Victim|Again]]. [[Ungrateful Bastard|Whatever you do]].....'''[[Unwanted Rescue|don't help her]]'''.]]

 

{{quote|''"[[Worst Whatever Ever|WORST! RESCUE! EVER!]]"''|'''The Doctor''', ''[[Doctor Who]]'', ''The End of Time''}}

 

Can sometimes be warranted in the case of a [[Terrifying Rescuer]] or [[Destructive Saviour]].

 

* In ''[[Claymore]]'', Clare rescues a hostage Galatea by chopping of Agatha's arm, and Galatea comments that Clare ended up [[Close-Call Haircut|cutting off some of her hair]]. Clare then apologizes, and takes care of the rest of Agatha. In this case it's a mutual joke, since Clair had just said the precision of her technique had improved.

* ''[[Bleach]]''

* From ''[[Girls und Panzer]]'', we have Kuromorimine Girls High School as a whole, and [[Girls und Panzer/Characters|Erika Itsumi]] in particular. The series' backstory is that Miho Nishizumi saved the crew of a Kuromorimine tank from drowning, but in doing so lost a game. A '''''game'''''. She was ostracized for this "failure," and eventually left Kuromorimine because she couldn't stand it. This is like a school in the U.S. punishing a football player for thinking that saving lives is more important than winning the big end-of-season game. And a light novel reveals that Erika, one of the girls most contemptuous of Miho about the rescue, was '''[[Ungrateful Bastard|in]]''' the tank whose crew she saved.

 

* "[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]: Hero or Menace" has been the headline of every issue of the Daily Bugle for the last 40+ years, and it has been justified on maybe 2 occasions when Chameleon or Venom shows up, the rest of the time it just doesn't make sense, especially after big events like "''[[Maximum Carnage]]''".

** And who is the one responsible for this [[Malicious Slander]], you ask? Spidey has had to save J. Jonah Jameson's sorry ass ''dozens'' of times, and this Trope applies ''every'' time.

* After saving the planet half-a-dozen times, [[The Authority]] are betrayed and attacked by assorted national governments for being too powerful (and daring to have their own opinions). Once the Authority recovers, they decide to ''ignore'' the latest world threat, and order every superhero on the planet to do the same, in order to make the normal humans come up with their own damn rescue for once.

 

* In ''[[Oh God, Not Again|Oh God Not Again]]'', Ginny was quite put out by the lack of heroics involved in Harry's defeat of the basilisk (which consisted of {{spoiler|Harry pulling out a rooster and letting it crow, making the basilisk drop dead)}}. She's further annoyed when Harry mentions that the book Lockhart's going to write about the experience is going to be, um, embellished.

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', the four rescue 40 people from being shrunken playthings, but the people aren't happy because they were transferred to another universe in the process. Understandable, but still....

* In [https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10151779/1/Shadowchasers-Conspiracy ''Shadowchasers Conspiracy''], Sofia's way of "thanking" her former {{spoiler|and future}} boyfriend Philip for saving her from imprisonment and possibly slavery is to belt him across the teeth. ''Entirely'' justified, as he is mostly responsible for her being captured in the first place, due to an [[Evil Plan]] by a [[Hidden Villain]] whom he won't even tell her about. He doesn't deny responsibility, claiming "I actually feel better now that you did that –" and she replies by saying, "C'mere, I'll make you feel ''great!''" Sofia's fellow Shadowchasers take her side and refuse to intervene, one of them telling him, "You're on your own, Phil," as they go and wait outside.

 

* In the beginning of the ''[[The Incredibles]]'', Mr. Incredible stops a train from flying off the tracks after a bomb explodes in front of it. Unfortunately, the sudden stop gives all the passengers whiplash, and they sue (jointly with the "victim" of an [[Unwanted Rescue]]). Thus this trope becomes practically the whole basic premise for ''The Incredibles''. After the aforementioned incident, people all over the country decide to get in on the action, blaming every Super they could get their lawsuits on for anything they could possibly pin on them. The Supers are eventually forced to go into hiding as a direct result.

* [[Shrek]]:

'''Shrek:''' Yeah! ''(looking at some charred remains nearby)'' [[Genre Savvy|Right before they burst into flame!]] }}

* At the end of ''[[Ice Age]] 2'', Scrat has a near-death experience and sees heaven full of the acorns he had been trying to obtain since the beginning of ''Ice Age 1''. Sid, however, revives him. Scrat is understandably enraged.

* Subverted in ''[[Hancock]]'', when the eponymous [[Jerkass]] hero saves a man from being hit by a train by flipping his car over onto the next and derailing the train. Most of the bystanders are irate, but the rescued man points out that Hancock ''just saved his life!'' Of course... he could have done a better job. Or a good job, even. It should be noted that by that point, everyone had a good damn reason to be irate at him, even without a rescue.

* In ''[[Titanic]]'', Rose DeWitt Bukater's mother, Ruth, wishes for the lifeboats to be seated according to class ''[[Too Dumb to Live|while the ship is sinking]]'', and hopes they aren't [[Rich Bitch|too crowded]]. Rose understandably gets pissed and delivers a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] that leaves her mother dumbfounded.

* Trashy Taiwan Indy Jones rip-off ''[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1328865/ Ci Ling (Treasure Hunter)]'' (2009): female lead resents being rescued by male lead, simply because her father does not come with the rescue party.

* In ''[[Hudson Hawk]]'', after the title character saves the blooming love interest from a falling stone horse, she tells him he didn't have to do that. "It's what any hero would do." "No, I mean you didn't have to knock me over like that and tear my dress." - but she was only teasing.

{{quote|'''Harry:''' Promise me something.

'''Dobby:''' Anything, sir.

{{quote|'''Vespa:''' I will not be rescued in such filth.}}

* In ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'' Sir Galahad stumbles into the Castle Anthrax where he's told: "Oh, I am afraid our life must seem very dull and quiet compared to yours. We are but eight score young blondes and brunettes, all between sixteen and nineteen-and-a-half, cut off in this castle with no one to protect us. Oooh. It is a lonely life: bathing, dressing, undressing, making exciting underwear. We are just not used to handsome knights. Nay. Nay. Come. Come. You may lie here. Oh, but you are wounded!" Then Sir Lancelot "rescues" him.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** In ''Streams of Silver'', while Drizzt, Wulfgar, Regis and Bruenor are running from a bunch of trolls and [[Gaia's Vengeance]], Bruenor trips and Wulfgar picks him up and starts running again. After narrowly escaping, Bruenor angrily asks Wulfgar where his axe is, followed by Drizzt sarcastically reprimanding Wulfgar that he should have taken the axe and left Bruenor behind.

** Drizzt has to run from his kind and was almost hunted down, shortly after (and because of) saving the young moon elf girl while participating in surface raid. He [[Blood-Splattered Innocents|plausibly faked killing her]] to do so and even this bluff was very close to immediate failure. [http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Ellifain_Tuuserail Ellifain Tuuserail] turned out to be less than happy with it, especially because she remembered it poorly and was convinced that Drizzt slain her mother. Later she tried to kill him (almost successfully).

:: Of note is that Cain's regiment had already proposed their aid in replanting it, while Asmar's didn't.

 

* The premise of one episode of ''[[Lois and Clark]]'': Superman saves a musician from being crushed by a falling, oversized speaker... and the guy sues him for spraining his arm. The rest of the episode features a lot of people trying to cash in. At the trial, the court room is rigged with a C12 bomb, and Superman bursts through the ceiling to fly off with it, saving everyone... and the musician claims to have gone blind from getting plaster dust in his eyes. Finally his girlfriend gets fed up, reveals that he's just pretending to be injured, and tells him to lay off harassing the hero.

* ''[[Red Dwarf]]''

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

 

* ''[[Wicked (theatre)|Wicked]]''

** The Cowardly Lion's reason for joining the [[Torches and Pitchforks|witch-hunting mob]]—this after she saved him from sadistic scientists. In all fairness, there's a giant crowd hunting for blood. Claiming to hate Elphaba equals not dying. And he doesn't make light of the fact that he's a coward.

:* And the Tin Man himself—being turned into tin saved his life. Of course, given that when he woke up she was gone and the nearest person blamed it on her, he might just not know the whole story.

 

* The ''[[The Phantom Menace]]'' game:

** In the Mos Espa level, at one point someone standing outside their apartment asks you to deal with the thieves inside. You need to do this in order to get through the apartment and find your way to Shmi and Anakin's slave quarters. However, the person asking you to help them is ungrateful and offers you nothing in return, instead complaining "It took you long enough... hope you didn't break anything."

* In ''[[King's Quest IV|King's Quest IV the Perils of Rosella]]'', Rosella rescues a prince from a lifetime as a frog by kissing him and breaking the spell. Despite the fact that she ''is'' a princess, he takes one look at her disguise (a peasant girl outfit) and complains that he's been rescued by the wrong person.

 

* A big part of why Archer in ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'' is so pissed off is because this is essentially ''every'' rescue for him. Nobody understands why he is helping people so he has very few friends and tends to make enemies when saving people. He is even ''put to death'' by someone he just saved because the disaster is blamed on him. At one point he rescues Shirou from Caster's temple; half of the rescue involves both of them telling the other to shut up.

 

* In ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'', Sarge is shot in the head and is revived when Grif [[Clean Pretty Reliable|gives him CPR]]. When he's told that it was CPR that saved him, he thanks Simmons, thinking he was the one who saved his life. When Simmons tells him it was actually [[Butt Monkey|Grif]] who saved his life, Sarge immediately chided Grif about the [[Hypocritical Humor|idiocy of using CPR for a bullet wound to the head]]. "What would you do if I got shot in the foot? Rub my neck with aloe vera?" Guess how Doc tries to treat Caboose when he gets shot in the foot. Less successful results though, Caboose's toe falls off.

 

* Bun-Bun from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', after falling unconscious during his fight scene in "Dangerous Days", doesn't even let Torg ''finish'' telling him that Kiki saved Bun-Bun's life or that Torg himself killed the [[Big Bad]]. As [[The Big Guy]] of the strip, he can't handle being saved by two of its wussiest characters. "''My fragile little mind is on the brink here, understand?''"

* In ''[[Freefall]],'' Mr. Kornada is upset about his rescue from a building being wrecked by a hurricane because his rescuers won't let him attend a meeting.

 

* ''[[The Questport Chronicles]]:'' When the heroes rescue the Lord of the Supreme Council from the Castle by the Lake, she chews them out for barging into a situation that was [[Blatant Lies|completely under control]].

 

* Monty of ''[[Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers (animation)|Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers]]'' is given a cheese-attack-induced burst of energy by a fellow Ranger telling him they have cheese in order to get him to break out. Monty thinks that was a dirty trick.

* In an episode of ''[[Gargoyles]]'', the title creatures save some civilians from some extremist terrorists. The civilians react to the Gargoyles with horror and tell them to keep away. Brooklyn adds, dryly, "Don't gush over us or anything. It's kind of embarrassing."

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Gratitude Tropes]]

[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]

[[Category:Index to The Rescue]]