History Main / NecroNonSequitur

* In the mobile game ''VideoGame/VoodooDoll'', prodding [[VoodooDoll the titular doll]], instead of directly mirroring the effect on the person, will make something happen to them; as LetsPlay/GrayStillPlays finds out, [[https://youtu.be/sg0drcURlMQ even the first scenario]] can result in a kid's arm getting caught in a bus door and torn off. Another improbable fate is being crushed by a rock falling from the sky. In the middle of a city.

** [[spoiler:[[Music/ElvisPresley Wonder of U]]]], the [[FightingSpirit Stand]] of [[spoiler:[[BewareTheSillyOnes Tooru]]]], the BigBad of ''Manga/{{Jojolion}}'', takes this UpToEleven. Not only can it cause freak accidents to happen to anyone who expresses intent to pursue it or its user, it goes a step further by [[RealityWarper warping reality]] in such a way that normally harmless things become deadly. Anyone targeted by it can have their fingers [[MadeOfPlasticine cut off by falling leaves]], or suddenly die from their pimples turning poisonous.

* Manga/JojosBizarreAdventure:
** The Feng-Shui assassination technique used by minor antagonist Kenzo in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean'' exploits this. He's able to read the Feng-Shui of an area to position himself in 'lucky' spots to avoid damage while pushing his opponents into 'unlucky' spots. Once in these unlucky spots, his opponents are usually hit by stray projectiles, or placed in other deadly situations, all of which happen by mere coincidence and the target's bad luck.
** [[spoiler:[[Music/ElvisPresley Wonder of U]]]], the [[FightingSpirit Stand]] of [[spoiler:[[BewareTheSillyOnes Tooru]]]], the BigBad of ''Manga/{{Jojolion}}'', takes this UpToEleven. Not only can it cause freak accidents to happen to anyone who expresses intent to pursue it or its user, it goes a step further by [[RealityWarper warping reality]] in such a way that normally harmless things become deadly. Anyone targeted by it can have their fingers [[MadeOfPlasticine cut off by falling leaves]], or suddenly die from their pimples turning poisonous.
* ''Manga/TheDisastrousLifeOfSaikiK'': One of Saiki's many powers is the ability to have prophetic visions about accidents happening. When this power is first introduced, he stops a disaster just by picking up a rock on the sidewalk, then explains to the audience that the rock would have triggered a chain reaction resulting in a gas station blowing up. Immediately after he has another prophetic vision but this time only sees the result of the chain reaction but not what started it and so has to interrupt the chain of accidents at the very last step by catching some falling sparks before they start an explosion at his school.

* In Franchise/TheDCU, supervillain Major Disaster sells his soul to the demon Neron in exchange for the power to be able to create this kind of chain of events.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3639659/3/A-Bad-Week-at-the-Wizengamot A Bad Week at the Wizengamot]]'' ex-Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge throws a rock through the open window of Dudley Dursley's home meth lab, which starts a highly-improbable chain of events that ends with Number Four Privet Drive exploding and Fudge being decapitated by a flying toilet seat.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12132355/1/Tin-Foiled Tin Foiled]]'' when Voldemort tries sending Harry a fake vision during OWL exams, it's repelled by the tinfoil hat he started wearing to block Legilimency. The resulting backlash knocks Voldemort into a cauldron of Draft of Living Death he was going to use on Harry's friends, dislodging it. The rolling cauldron accidentally detonates the bomb that was intended for the Ministry of Magic, blowing up Malfoy Manor and sending Voldemort flying into the Avon. Since he's unconscious and the [[SoulJar Horcruxes]] don't protect his physical body, he dies by drowning.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* The first death Light causes in ''Film/DeathNote2017'' plays out in this fashion to fulfill the [[OffWithHisHead "decapitation"]] he specified. A woman's shopping bag rips open, spilling her groceries on the ground, which causes a kid's basketball to bounce into the street. The kid runs into the street to get the ball, running in front of a car that swerves out of the way to avoid the kid. This causes a truck with a ladder on the roof to swerve as well, crashing into a parked car so that inertia causes the ladder to extend with enough force to sever the victim's head from his lower jaw.
* ''Film/{{Accident}}'' features a gang of {{Professional Killer}}s who specialise in creating these. The murders [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident are assumed to be accidents]] because the circumstances are so unlikely it doesn't seem feasible that anyone could have orchestrated them.

* Aornis Hades, from ''Literature/ThursdayNext's'' ''Lost In a Good Book,'' specializes in these, thanks to her ability to control entropy and coincidences -- Thursday senses her presence by shaking a jar of lentils and rice; if they form patterns, watch out. In fact, Fforde in general seems to like these.
* "Try and Change the Past" by Creator/FritzLeiber, in which a Time Soldier from the Literature/ChangeWar tries to use his tools to prevent his own past death. (Time Soldiers are recruited just before the moment of their death, but -- for handwaved reasons -- ''remember'' dying.) He goes back and prevents himself from being shot, only to see his past self, with a look of despair, pick up the gun and shoot himself. So he goes back again and disables the gun -- only to see his past self hit by a bullet-sized ''meteorite'' in exactly the same place the bullet struck in the previous two deaths. At which point he understandably gives up.

* Arguably, Creator/JohnDicksonCarr's ''The Hollow Man'', often considered with some justification to be the definitive LockedRoomMystery. It's a very clever explanation, but [[FridgeLogic the more you think about it, the less likely it becomes]].
* Similarly to the ''Science Of Discworld'' example, ''Literature/AndAnotherThing'' has Fate get so piqued at Arthur's survival that every other Arthur Dent in the [[TheMultiverse multiverse]] gets killed in ways ranging from the plausible (being run over by the bulldozer when lying outside his house) to the less so (being electrocuted by his headphones while at his local radio job). Most of them are {{Continuity Nod}}s, with the cleverest example probably being the Arthur who drowns in a freak rainstorm after pissing off [[PersonalRaincloud Rob McKenna]].

* ''Series/DeadLikeMe'':
** The [[GrimReaper reaper]] characters had these sorts of deaths (along with murder and suicide, much less often) as their areas of specialization, and a gaggle of little nearly invisible hobgoblin-things running around to make sure the inane contrivances necessary would be set up JUST right.
** Averted in the Pilot episode. "Gravelings" set the majority of events in action in the entire series. However, in the bank scene when Mason takes George along to get some hands-on experience, the only event in that entire scene (that the Graveling had anything to do with was dropping the [[spoiler:banana peel]]. The rest of the events were caused by gunshots, adultery, and a ridiculous, poorly thought out bank robbery.
** This is also how the main character met her demise: [[spoiler:[[TheCanKickedHim Death by toilet seat]] [[DeathFromAbove from]] ''[[DeathFromAbove space]]''.]]
** Due to their SeenItAll mindset, this gets to the point where the Reapers frequently make small talk discussing how their assigned target is going to get killed. Even funnier is they rarely, if ever, are able to guess how it's actually going to happen.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** In a reversal of ''The X-Files'' example, "Bad Day at Black Rock" features an ArtifactOfDoom lucky rabbit's foot that grants its owner ''phenomenal'' luck... until they lose it (and "EVERYONE LOSES IT!"), at which point they suffer more and more until they eventually meet their demise with this trope. Near the end of the episode, when Dean, who has the rabbit's foot, is held at gunpoint while standing near Sam, Dean boasts that the shooter can't hit him, but as the shooter demonstrates, the fact that Sam is among those who've lost the foot means that she can't miss him. They destroy the foot before it kills them, but other examples in the episode actually showed this trope in motion.
** Also in "Mystery Spot" they were trapped in a GroundhogDayLoop where Dean died at some point every time. Initially fairly mundane, the manner of his death became increasingly outlandish. Eventually it was revealed that [[spoiler: the {{Trickster god}} had set it up. And of course, has a nasty sense of humor.]]
** "My Heart Will Go On" introduces [[spoiler: [[TheHecateSisters Atropos]], who kills by freezing time and setting up these coincidences.]]
* The vast majority of ''Series/JonathanCreek'' murders fall under this.
* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Cassandra", the eponymous computer has the ability to predict the future, and knows that she will be killed by one Dave Lister. Said character explains to her that he has no intention of doing so, and makes a point of peacefully walking away from her. But not before spitting out his chewing gum and absent-mindedly sticking it to the wall...
* Lampshaded and soon subverted in ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "Family Secret", wherein Abby describes a complex set of events that caused an ambulance to blow up. (She later finds the detonator.)
-->'''Gibbs:''' Not an accident.\\
'''Abby:''' Not unless the angel of death is going through a Rube Goldberg stage.
%%* Much of the premise behind ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie''
* In a season 3 episode of ''Series/{{Fringe}}'', set in the AlternateUniverse. In the opening scene of the episode, a man with artificially enhanced intelligence kills his victim thusly: He balances a ball-point pen on a mailbox on the street and walks away. A car drives through a deep puddle, and the splash hits the pen and upsets its balance. The pen falls to the ground and is noticed by an old man nearby, who pick it up (probably out of nostalgia, since in the AU pens were almost entirely replaced by digital means). The old man, in stopping to pick up the pen, accidentally blocked the path of a cyclist. The cyclist swerves to avoid him but winds up bumping a shop's fruit stand and knocking it over. A homeless man takes advantage of the spill to try to steal some of the fallen fruit. The resulting kerfuffle between the shop owner and the homeless man distracts a bus driver, who fails to see that the light has changed from green to yellow to red. The intended target begins to cross the street when her sign changes to "Walk." She does not see the bus approaching because she is focusing on the flowers that she just bought, is hit by the bus, and killed.
* ''Series/{{Alphas}}'' had a character who killed similarly. He was killing because he was paranoid - he [[IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat thought everyone could do that]] and that every single bad thing in his life was caused by someone setting it up to happen to him.

* In the mobile game ''Voodoo Doll'', prodding [[VoodooDoll the titular doll]], instead of directly mirroring the effect on the person, will make something happen to them; as LetsPlay/GrayStillPlays finds out, [[https://youtu.be/sg0drcURlMQ even the first scenario]] can result in a kid's arm getting caught in a bus door and torn off. Another improbable fate is being crushed by a rock falling from the sky. In the middle of a city.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* In one cliffhanger episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Peggy discovers the body of [[spoiler: Buck's disgruntled mistress Debbie]] in a dumpster, just as Buck is in the midst of a messy divorce. The following episode revolves around the mystery of who killed [[spoiler: Debbie]], and despite several people having different reasons for wanting her dead, they eventually figure out that [[spoiler: Debbie accidentally killed herself: while hiding in a dumpster waiting to kill Buck with a shotgun, she got impatient and bought a giant nachos and drink, then tripped over the shotgun trying to climb back into the dumpster without spilling her soda and shot herself.]]

* The first death Light causes in ''Film/DeathNote2017'' plays out in this fashion to fulfill the "decapitation" he specified. A woman's shopping bag rips open spilling her groceries on the ground which causes a kid's basketball to bounce into the street. The kid runs into the street to get the ball, running in front of a car that swerves out of the way to avoid the kid. This causes a truck with a ladder on the roof to swerve as well, crashing into a parked car so that inertia causes the ladder to extend with enough force to sever the victim's head from his lower jaw.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3639659/3/A-Bad-Week-at-the-Wizengamot A Bad Week at the Wizengamot]]'' ex-Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge throwing a rock through the open window of Dudley Dursley's home meth lab, which starts a highly-improbable chain of events that ends with Number Four Privet Drive exploding and Fudge being decapitated by a flying toilet seat.

* A death instance on Reddit, describes a motorcyclist who couldn't stop, slammed into a bus, and thr bus' mirror took [[OffWithHisHead his head clean off]]. That's not this trope though, what is this trope is that the decapitated human head then slammed into a woman that was sitting at the bus stop, killing her.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3639659/3/A-Bad-Week-at-the-Wizengamot A Bad Week at the Wizengamot]]'' ex-Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge throwing a rock through the open window of Dudley Dursley's home meth lab starts a highly-improbable chain of events which ends with Number Four Privet Drive exploding and Fudge being decapitated by a flying toilet seat.

* Played with in ''Manga/DeathNote''. The user of the Death Note can specify the circumstances of their victim's death, including what exactly they ''do'' before death, offering a limited degree of MindControl over the victim; however, if the specified circumstances are physically impossible, or the actions described are completely out of character, the victim will simply die of a heart attack in 40 seconds as usual. Suicide is not considered "out of character" as far as the Death Note is concerned; its rules state that any human can be driven to it.

-->'''Marge:''' But I thought broccoli was good for you!\\
'''Dr. Hibbert:''' Oh no, broccoli is one of nature's most dangerous foods. It even tries to warn you with its terrible taste!

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Homer's various near-misses in ''Treehouse of Horror XI'' segment "G-G-Ghost D-D-Dad". He ends up dying by choking on a piece of broccoli.
-->'''Marge''': ''But I thought broccoli was good for you!''\\
'''Dr. Hibbert''': ''Oh no, broccoli is one of nature's most dangerous foods. It even tries to warn you with its terrible taste!''

** [[spoiler:[[Music/ElvisPresley Wonder of U]]]], the [[FightingSpirit Stand]] of [[spoiler:[[BewareTheSillyOnes Tooru]]]], the BigBad of ''Manga/{{Jojolion}}'', takes this UpToEleven. Not only can it cause freak accidents to happen to anyone who expresses intent to pursue it or its user, it goes a step further by [[RealityWarper warping reality]] in such a way that normally harless things become deadly. Anyone targeted by it can have their fingers [[MadeOfPlasticine cut off by falling leaves]], or suddenly die from their pimples turning poisonous.

* The Feng-Shui assassination technique used by minor antagonist Kenzo in ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStoneOcean'' exploits this. He's able to read the Feng-Shui of an area to position himself in 'lucky' spots to avoid damage while pushing his opponents into 'unlucky' spots. Once in these unlucky spots, his opponents are usually hit by stray projectiles, or placed in other deadly situations, all of which happen by mere coincidence and the target's bad luck.

## He was seen breaking down a woman's door, who smacked him in the head with a crowbar. He then stumbled off, and it's likely he just fell in the pool and drowned. But...
## Blood work confirmed anaphylactic shock; he was poisoned by someone he was having an affair with, using his shellfish allergy -- for bonus points, the jerk's ''wife'' fed the other woman a big meal of shellfish, so ''she'' would introduce the tropomyosins to his system through his ''urethra'' during a '''[[DeathBySex blow-job]].'''
## There's also a little hole in his throat; turns out, as he was stumbling about with his throat closing up, he encountered a slightly slow individual he'd beaten up on several occasions -- who for some reason had a crossbow -- shot at him, thinking he was some kind of demon. But that didn't kill him; the arrow passed ''through his trachea but not any major arteries'', giving him a makeshift tracheotomy, which allowed him to breathe again. Also, instead of going to the hospital, he went and found his allergy medication, and fixed that issue.
## The blood work also confirmed the presence of ''snake venom'' and a "bite" -- that turned out to be needle marks; the venom was injected by the boyfriend of the woman who hit him with the crowbar -- and he thought ''she'' injected him. However, the timeline shows he ''survived'' that.
## Ultimately, they realize that the AssholeVictim -- battered but stable -- sat down by the swimming pool, whereupon his lawn chair collapsed and dumped him in, and he drowned. "The lawn chair did it."

* The fanon version of ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40K'''s Eldrad Ulthuan (the single most powerful Eldar farseer) devote his immense powers of foresight to [[MemeticTroll this kind of stupid prank at the expense of his entourage]] (fatality optional), leading to heartfelt comments of "Eldrad: What a ''dick''"). Examples include:

* Creator/IsaacAsimov uses it in one of his ''Azazel'' short stories. George's friend is offered an important position with one catch - the first person to hold it died after thirty two years, the second after sixteen, the third after eight... in short, should he accept it, he'll die a year later. So, George summons the titular demon, who takes care that nothing on Earth can harm the friend. Alas, as with Fritz Leiber's example above, a [[NoManOfWomanBorn meteorite]] through the heart remains a viable option.

-->-- ''Discworld/InterestingTimes''

** In ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld III: Darwin's Watch'', the influence of the Auditors (who desire to hold up human progress so we don't escape Earth before it becomes a snowball) means that in ''every single AlternateUniverse'', Darwin dies in increasingly unlikely ways before he can write ''The Origin of Species''.
** ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'' also mentions this effect in one of Pratchett's archetypal [[FootnoteFever footnotes]]. And also demonstrates it. When Rincewind gets sent by the wizards, they just happen to get a lit cannon in return due to the nature of the spell. Ponder stops it firing, seemingly in innocent subversion of an overused trope. Most of a Novel later they decide to bring Rincewind Back, and light the cannon again just to leave it as they found it. Guess what happens to the main villain....

** The death of the religious monomaniac Vorbis in ''Discworld/SmallGods'' is a direct lift from Greek mythology and involves a hungry eagle, a sentient tortoise who "persuades" the eagle to let go at exactly the right moment, and a precisely judged parabolic trajectory in which three pounds of tortoise travelling at speed impacts square-on with the priest's skull.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

[[folder:Videogames]]

-->'''Harry:''' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments For my next trick]]: [[AnvilOnHead anvils]].

A SubTrope of YouCantFightFate. When this is an InvokedTrope, see RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts. Compare DiceRollDeath.

Depending on the situation, the COD could be used for a number of plotlines; the three biggest being:

# to convey that some [[PowersThatBe higher power has an active hand in things]], and [[CosmicPlaything is a sick, sick little monkey to boot]], or

A Necro Non Sequitur puts a character on a one-way track at full speed, destination 6 feet under, [[{{Railroading}} on the "What the hell was that?" express]]. Characters who die by this trope meet their demise in the form of a cosmic RubeGoldbergDevice of coincidences, with [[RubeGoldbergHatesYourGuts everything lining up just so]] to ensure that the sheer impossibility of how they were killed [[DisasterDominoes works like clockwork]]. Sometimes it's [[RasputinianDeath long and tedious]], sometimes it's [[DroppedABridgeOnHim quick and convenient]], but no matter what, it cannot make any sense whatsoever when one looks at it close enough.

* "Try and Change the Past" by Creator/FritzLeiber, in which a Time Soldier tries to use his tools to prevent his own past death. (Time Soldiers are recruited just before the moment of their death, but - for handwaved reasons - ''remember'' dying.) He goes back and prevents himself from being shot, only to see his past self, with a look of despair, pick up the gun and shoot himself. So he goes back again and disables the gun -- only to see his past self hit by a bullet-sized ''meteorite'' in exactly the same place the bullet struck in the previous two deaths. At which point he understandably gives up.

* This is a side effect of the Feng-Shui assassination technique used by minor antagonist Kenzo from part 6 of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure''. He's able to read the Feng-Shui of an area to position himself in 'lucky' spots to avoid damage while pushing his opponents into 'unlucky' spots. Once in these unlucky spots, his opponents are usually hit by stray projectiles, or placed in other deadly situations, all of which happen by mere coincidence and the target's bad luck.

Depending on the situation, the COD could be used for a number of plotlines; the three biggest being (1) to give the investigators something more oddball to occupy their time with and (2) to convey that some [[PowersThatBe higher power has an active hand in things]], and [[CosmicPlaything is a sick, sick little monkey to boot]], or 3.) the writers were concentrating on ways to create a CruelAndUnusualDeath in order to generate pure, unadulterated horror.

!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* A death curse causes a few of these deaths in ''Literature/{{Another}}''. The first such death is a girl who trips on a staircase and gets impaled by the pointy end of an umbrella at the bottom.
** The Calamity seems to like stairs. It strangles(!) another girl to death on a different set... and it's not pretty.

[[folder:Comicbooks]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Film]]

* In ''Discworld/TheScienceOfDiscworld III: Darwin's Watch'', the influence of the Auditors (who desire to hold up human progress so we don't escape Earth before it becomes a snowball) means that in ''every single AlternateUniverse'', Darwin dies in increasingly unlikely ways before he can write ''The Origin of Species''.
** ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'' also mentions this effect in one of Pratchett's archetypal [[FootnoteFever footnotes]].
*** And also demonstrates it. When Rincewind gets sent by the wizards, they just happen to get a lit cannon in return due to the nature of the spell. Ponder stops it firing, seemingly in innocent subversion of an overused trope. Most of a Novel later they decide to bring Rincewind Back, and light the cannon again just to leave it as they found it. Guess what happens to the main villain....
---->When someone survives due to a sequence of freak events we call it a miracle. But when someone ''dies'' due to a sequence of freak events, that's ''also'' a miracle. Just because it isn't nice, doesn't mean it's not miraculous.

* Aornis Hades, from ''Literature/ThursdayNext's'' ''Lost In a Good Book,'' specializes in these, thanks to her ability to control entropy and coincidences - Thursday senses her presence by shaking a jar of lentils and rice; if they form patterns, watch out. In fact, Fforde in general seems to like these.
* "Try and Change the Past" by Creator/FritzLeiber, in which a Time Soldier tries to use his tools to prevent his own past death. (Time Soldiers are recruited just before the moment of their death, but - for handwaved reasons - ''remember'' dying.) He goes back and prevents himself from being shot, only to see his past self, with a look of despair, pick up the gun and shoot himself. So he goes back again and disables the gun - only to see his past self hit by a bullet-sized ''meteorite'' in exactly the same place the bullet struck in the previous two deaths. At which point he understandably gives up.
* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', an "entropy curse" causes bad luck and is a magical way of murdering without it being detectable (by mundane means, at least.) A sloppy one can result in positively cartoonish ways of dying instead of the preferred plausible accidents.
** For example, one victim was hit by a runaway car... while water skiing. One was stung to death by bees that appeared out of nowhere in the trunk of her car. But perhaps the most spectacular was when [[spoiler:Harry redirected the curse at the last moment to an attacking vampire,]] only to see him crushed by a frozen turkey falling at terminal velocity. And then the timer dings.
---> '''Harry:''' [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments For my next trick]]: [[AnvilOnHead anvils]].

* "The Goldberg Variation", a seventh season episode of ''Series/TheXFiles'', had several mobsters trying to kill the luckiest man on Earth; all of them perished themselves in increasingly complicated ways because his luck comes at the cost of anyone who intends him any form of harm. Mulder's [[TheSummation summation]] of how a dead hitman ended up hanging from a ceiling fan by his shoelace is a triumphant example of this trope.
-->'''Mulder''': I'm thinking it was a heart attack.\\
'''Scully''': What the '''hell''' happened here, Mulder?\\
'''Mulder''': Cause... and effect.\\
'''Scully''': Meaning...?\\
'''Mulder''': Okay, so... watch. ''[stands in front of doorframe, matching actions to words]'' So Bellini kicks down the door — whaa gaa! — poised to kill Weems, right? And just as he's about to pull the trigger a noise startles him... the buzzer — when I buzzed to be let back in the apartment. So when he does pull the trigger, his aim is off, right? And he hits the lamp, which falls over and knocks over the ironing board, so as the bullet ricochets Weems dives over the sofa. Now, when Bellini goes for him he trips over the ironing board, bounces off the chair, flips end over end and his shoelace gets caught in the fan — QED. ''[Scully laughs. The shoelace suddenly breaks and the body falls to the floor]''
** Bonus points; They kept trying to kill him because he was using his luck to collect enough money to pay for a new liver for his dying neighbor's kid, and the last mobster to die was an organ donor who just happened to be a tissue match.
* The [[GrimReaper reaper]] characters in ''Series/DeadLikeMe'' had these sorts of deaths (along with murder and suicide, much less often) as their areas of specialization, and a gaggle of little nearly invisible hobgoblin-things running around to make sure the inane contrivances necessary would be set up JUST right.
** Averted in the Pilot episode. '''Gravelings''' set the majority of events in action in the entire series. However, in the bank scene when Mason takes George along to get some hands-on experience, the only event in that entire scene (that the Graveling had anything to do with was dropping the [[spoiler:banana peel]]. The rest of the events were caused by gunshots, adultery, and a ridiculous, poorly thought out bank robbery.

* In a reversal of ''The X-Files'' example, ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'''s "Bad Day At Black Rock" features an ArtifactOfDoom lucky rabbit's foot that grants its owner ''phenomenal'' luck... until they lose it (and "EVERYONE LOSES IT!"), at which point they suffer more and more until they eventually meet their demise with this trope.
** Near the end of the episode, when Dean, who has the rabbit's foot, is held at gunpoint while standing near Sam, Dean boasts that the shooter can't hit him, but as the shooter demonstrates, the fact that Sam is among those who've lost the foot means that she can't miss him. They destroy the foot before it kills them, but other examples in the episode actually showed this trope in motion.

* Lampshaded and soon subverted in ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' episode "Family Secret", wherein Abby describes a complex set of events that caused an ambulance to blow up.
-->'''Gibbs''': Not an accident.\\

** She later found the detonator.
* Much of the premise behind ''Series/OneThousandWaysToDie''