History Main / IfYouTauntHimYouWillBeJustLikeHim

* In ''Anime/SCryed'', Maxfell's alter only works when he's in trouble, so he taunts Kazuma by implying that there are bombs in the toys he handed out. Really, he's just provoking Kazuma into making him desperate.

* In the film ''Film/StarshipTroopers'', a fleet officer taunts the main character, Johnny Rico, trying to get him to fight back. When Johnny tells him that he would have to be insane to hit an officer, the man tells him to 'disregard rank'. This ends in an all-out brawl. This is an aversion because the room was full of people, including officers who outranked them both, who heard the guy loudly announce "We are disregarding rank" right before Rico beat the shit out of him.

* In Creator/TerryPratchett's Literature/{{Discworld}}, one villain made the mistake of facing Carrot, who is indeed a much better man than he is. So he just kills the villain. Vimes explicitly thinks that a bad man will gloat, but a good man will not, and so will just kill you without any fanfare if he has come to the conclusion he has to do the deed.
** Vimes would later go on to use his lack of taunting a victim to prove to himself that he's a good man - after (necessarily) killing an utterly loathsome villain in ''Literature/TheFifthElephant'', he notes in an internal monologue all the BondOneLiner comments he ''could'' make. He makes none of them, because if he did "then he'd know that what he had just done was murder."

* A particularly cruel variation in ''Film/ThePatriot'': The villain kills the hero's civilian son in front of him early in the film and later tries to bait the hero into breaking a truce by bringing it up.

* Done on ''Series/{{Taxi}}'' - a snobby hairdresser (Ted Danson!) deliberately gives Elaine a frightful haircut. She vows revenge, going back with her friends, and is just about to dump a bowl of some viscous goo on him, when Alex tells her "You do that and you're no better than him!". She agrees and they start to leave. Louie excuses himself, turns back, and dumps the stuff on him, saying "''[[PoisonousFriend She]]'' [[PoisonousFriend may be better than you, but]] ''[[PoisonousFriend I]]'' [[PoisonousFriend ain't!]]"

* ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'': [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0500.html "A Reason to Keep Trying"]]. Roy refuses to stoop so low as to respond to his father's taunts.

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic and WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd had a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAXWVRYgdNo hell of a lot of fun with this one]]. First, the AVGN plays it straight by "taking the high road" and ''complimenting'' the Critic. Then it's subverted when the Critic suspects that he's being passive-aggressive, leaving a hidden insult in his response. It's then subverted ''[[DoubleSubversion again]]'' when the Critic's Da Vince Code-esque attempts to "translate" the post leaves him with nothing but jibberish. Heh, looks like the AVGN really ''was'' taking the higher road when he...Wait a tic, doesn't it kinda look like "LICK MY SHIT NOSTALGIA CRITIC" backwa-GOD DAMMIT, NERD! This was made even better when the Nerd admitted to planting that message.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' episode [[Recap/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPowerS2E02TiesThatBind "The Ties That Bind"]]. Catra is held captive by Glimmer and Bow, who she [[ColdBloodedTorture previously held captive and tortured]]. She constantly reminds them of this fact and taunts them about doing the same to the captive Entrapra ([[spoiler: failing to mention that [[FaceHeelTurn Entrapta isn't a captive]]]]). Bow constantly invokes this trope, reminding Glimmer they have to take the high road since [[TheFettered they're the good guys]]. Subverted since Catra eventually breaks Glimmer's self-restraint due to her EvilGloating over [[spoiler: Entraptra's FaceHeelTurn]].

** Besides the quote at the top of the page, other analogies involve wrestling with [[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/07/08/pig/ pigs]] and [[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/07/06/chimney/ chimney sweeps]].
** There's also many variants of "[[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/02/19/fool/ Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference]]" -- often [[BeamMeUpScotty misattributed]] to Creator/MarkTwain. [[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/539027-never-argue-with-stupid-people-they-will-drag-you-down Another version attributed to Twain]] goes: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

[[folder:Comicbooks]]

Naturally, this trope can tend to be a pretty heavy BrokenAesop- the NaiveEverygirl must forgive and understand and offer her friendship to the AlphaBitch no matter how badly and rudely and unfairly she's treated... but don't expect anybody to cut her a break, ever. The number of times main characters must learn to accept jerks and devils in plain sight because "it's the right thing to do" is exactly proportionate to the number of times they [[SelectiveEnforcement can't get away with similar infractions.]]

* TruthInTelevision, as most victims of social bullying can attest.
** Or rather, this is something the teachers and parents keep telling victims of social bullying, for various reasons.
* [[Music/OneDirection Harry Styles]] was recently advised by his bandmates not to respond to Music/TaylorSwift's unflattering parody of him.

When an evil character is in the same vicinity as a good character, usually something devious is going on. Sometimes, though, the villain just doesn't want to fight. Maybe they just finished a hero/villain teamup. Maybe they're in a neutral zone, and they can't be overtly hostile. Or maybe the evil one is just smart enough to realize that sometimes the best way to hit somebody is to trick them into crawling down to evil's level.

* In the film ''Film/StarshipTroopers'', a fleet officer taunts the main character, Johnny Rico, trying to get him to fight back. When Johnny tells him that he would have to be insane to hit an officer, the man tells him to 'disregard rank'. This ends in an all out brawl. This is a aversion because the room was full of people, including officers who outranked them both, who heard the guy loudly announce "We are disregarding rank" right before Rico beat the shit out of him.

* Subverted in the ''Series/{{Buffy|The Vampire Slayer}}'' episode, "Fear Itself". Giles tells Xander to stop mocking the (pint sized) demon.

* Done on ''Series/{{Taxi}}'' - a snobby hairdresser (Ted Danson!) deliberately gives Elaine a frightful haircut. She vows revenge, going back with her friends, and is just about to dump a bowl of some viscous goo on him, when Alex tells her "You do that and you're no better than him!". She agrees and they start to leave. Louie excuses himself, turns back and dumps the stuff on him, saying "''[[PoisonousFriend She]]'' [[PoisonousFriend may be better than you, but]] ''[[PoisonousFriend I]]'' [[PoisonousFriend ain't!]]"

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', [[spoiler: Asahi]] taunts the Warrior of Light after [[spoiler: the battle with Tsukuyomi]], rubbing in the fact that not only has he [[spoiler: [[TheBadGuyWins ensured that peace between Garlemald and Doma has been permanently broken]]]], but that that if they kill him, it will cause a further diplomatic incident anyway. This is all after [[spoiler: he stages a FrameUp to make Doma look guilty for causing a Summoning]], so at this point it's basically just EvilGloating. The Warrior of Light looks like they're about to gore [[spoiler: Asahi]] on the spot. [[spoiler: Thankfully, Yotsuyu does the deed instead, preventing the Warrior of Light from needing to make a decision.]]

* WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic and WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd had a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAXWVRYgdNo hell of a lot of fun with this one]]. First, the AVGN plays it straight by "taking the high road" and ''complimenting'' the Critic. Then it's subverted when the Critic suspects that he's being passive agressive, leaving a hidden insult in his response. It's then subverted ''[[DoubleSubversion again]]'' when the Critic's Da Vince Code-esque attempts to "translate" the post leaves him with nothing but jibberish. Heh, looks like the AVGN really ''was'' taking the higher road when he...Wait a tic, doesn't it kinda look like "LICK MY SHIT NOSTALGIA CRITIC" backwa-GOD DAMMIT, NERD! This was made even better when the Nerd admitted to planting that message.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPower'' episode [[Recap/SheRaAndThePrincessesOfPowerS2E02TiesThatBind "The Ties That Bind"]]. Catra is held captive by Glimmer and Bow, who she [[ColdBloodedTorture previously held captive and tortured]]. She constantly reminds them of this fact and taunts them about doing the same to the captive Entrapra ([[spoiler: failing to mention that [[FaceHeelTurn Entrapta isn't a captive]]]]). Bow constantly invokes this trope, reminding Glimmer they have to take the high road since [[TheFettered they're the good guys]]. Subverted since Catra eventually break's Glimmer self-restraint due to her EvilGloating over [[spoiler: Entraptra's FaceHeelTurn]].

** Or rather, this is something the teachers and parents keep telling victims of social bullying, [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment for various reasons]].