Stop Helping Me!/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Stop Helping Me! in Literature include:

  • In the Infocom novel Wishbringer, the hero is supplied with a magic radio that provides helpful advice and alerts him to danger... by turning itself on and playing music very loudly, invariably alerting the danger to him as well.
  • Harry Potter: Dobby may be the personification of Stop Helping Me. His attempts to "save" Harry from danger inevitably led to Harry being worse off, and in the end Harry makes him promise to "never try to save my life again."
    • ... He broke that promise, too. And then he died.
      • More like Fridge Brilliance. Dobby was a free elf when he made that promise. He had the freedom to choose whether or not to keep that promise. When he broke that promise, that was in the last book, and he helped them escape from the Malfoy's house when Voldemort was going to be arriving any minute. He had a good reason to break his promise, and Harry and his friends really needed his help at that point. His death was shocking and sad, and he died being free and happy that he helped Harry Potter one final time.
    • In The Card Game, the "Dobby's Help" card gives your opponent a bonus so excessive (drawing 10 cards) it brings them closer to losing. The flavor text is a line of Ron's from |the book: "If he doesn't stop trying to save your life he's going to kill you."
    • At one point, Harry alludes to a game of chess with Ron that he might not have lost so badly if Percy hadn't been trying to help him every second.
  • In the third The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy book Life, the Universe, and Everything, Zaphod Beeblebrox's ship, the Heart of Gold, is invaded by deadly robots from the planet Krikkit. In an attempt to gain passage to the bridge without the robots noticing, Zaphod instructs a door to be completely silent upon entering, instead of its usual content sigh. It then proceeds to loudly ask him immediately afterwards if it did a good job.
    • The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is full of these, in fact. Most of them are the work of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, such as Marvin the Paranoid Android and Eddie the Shipboard Computer, as well as the aforementioned doors on the Heart of Gold. One of the non-robotic examples is Zaphod's set of Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses, which help you develop a relaxed attitude to danger; at the first hint of trouble, they turn totally black, and thus prevent you from seeing anything that might alarm you.
  • Relatively minor example, in the picture book "Too Many Babas", everybody attempts to help out with the stew to the point it tastes like crap.
  • Darth Bane: Johun Othone is made of this trope during the Duel on Tython in the second book of the trilogy. Darth Zannah herself remarks that had Johun not constantly been getting in the way of Sarro Xaj while both fought Zannah, she would have died.
    • Later on, he does get called away. And she very nearly does get killed. Fortunately, Bane indirectly saves her.
  • Don Quixote: Many characters (most memorably Andres, the flogged boy) react this way to Don Quixote's interference.

'For the love of God, sir knight-errant, if you ever meet me again, though you may see them cutting me to pieces, give me no aid or succour, but leave me to my misfortune, which will not be so great but that a greater will come to me by being helped by your worship, on whom and all the knights-errant that have ever been born God send his curse