History Main / NoMatterHowMuchIBeg

->''"...and plead, and cry, '''don't give that paper back to me, EVER.'''"''
-->-- '''[[TropeNamer Squidward Tentacles]]''', ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'', "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS1E16ValentinesDayThePaper The Paper]]"

* In an episode of the 2007 version of ''WesternAnimation/{{George of the Jungle|2007}}'', the gang convinces George to go back on his vow to always help people because of him doing menial tasks for Big Mitch. But when Mitch has them captured, they try to call George for help, but George refuses to help on the grounds of what they said.

* By ''Film/RevengeOfThePinkPanther '', Clouseau's instructions to manservant Cato to continually surprise him with martial arts attacks, no matter what else he may be told, have become quite frustrating for Clouseau because Cato is now doing it ''all the time''.

* In ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'', when Gaia and Doctor Blight are in a FreakyFridayFlip, Blight apparently forgot to tell her assistant her EvilPlan, because before switching back, Gaia instructs him to do a bunch of eco-friendly things, no matter how much she tells him to stop later.

-->'''Quagmire:''' Peter, no! They went away! My hiccups are gone!
-->'''Peter:''' Oh no, that's exactly what you said not to listen to.
-->'''Quagmire:''' Peter, please, I swear! They're gone! ''Listen!''
-->'''Peter:''' Sorry, Quagmire. I promised to get take you out of your misery. And when I give my word on something, I give it my all, [[CutawayGag like when I guarded Jeffrey Epstein.]]

* ''Film/KungPowEnterTheFist'' has an odd example, in that it's not that the begging was ignored, it was never even done. [[TheChosenOne ChosenOne]], [[ItMakesSenseInContext attempting to emulate]] [[BigBad Betty's]] feat of strength, tells a group of peasants to hit him repeatedly with sticks (including a repeated GroinAttack) until he gives the signal, or [[FoeTossingCharge throws them dramatically off of his body]]. [[HilarityEnsues They beat him to unconsciousness.]]
** "D-... do you think that was the signal?"

Often, they will add the caveat that no matter what they do or say to try and obtain that thing, and no matter how convincing they sound, they ''must not'' be allowed to have it - that is, they are pre-emptively overriding their own authority.

-->-- '''[[TropeNamer Squidward Tentacles]]''', ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants, "The Paper"''

-->-- '''[[TropeNamer Squidward]]''', ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants, "The Paper"''

** In another episode, Chandler tells Pheobe and Rachel he's thinking of calling a girl he's split up with. They think it's a good idea.

* ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}:

* On ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', Robin, reeling over a breakup, warns friend (and ex-boyfriend) Ted that some time in the future she will attempt rebound sex with him, and makes him promise to resist her advances. By the time she makes her move, she's such an emotional wreck that Ted finds resisting very easy.

* ''Film/{{Candy}}'' doesn't include the scene where Dan and Candy told Casper to not give them drugs no matter how much they begged, but they reference it in the rambling answering machine message they leave him where they're begging him for the drugs.

This kind of situation can turn bad if something happens that Alice didn't foresee, and [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp she now needs exactly what she's told Bob not to give her]].

** Frederick's friends still refuse to let him out... and then he [[Awesome/YoungFrankenstein manages to talk the Monster round anyway.]]

A character believes that they will imminently lose their self-control, and therefore asks another character to deny them something at all costs. That something could be an important or dangerous item, or perhaps they may even be [[SelfRestraint asking for themselves to be restrained]], taking away their freedom. They will often stress that, no matter what they do or say to try and obtain that thing, they must not be allowed to have it - that is, they are pre-emptively overriding their own authority.

* Alice fears that she is about to become [[NotHimself Not Herself]], and she foresees some danger as a result of that - perhaps she has some dangerous power that needs to be suppressed, for example. She may ask to be restrained or to have something taken away to prevent her from using it.

This is usually quite stressful for the person being asked to fulfill the request, as they are often a trusted friend, and are now being asked specifically ''not'' to trust someone they care about. Sometimes, Alice may try a test run on Bob by acting nice and seeing how quickly he gives in (at which point she will likely berate him for doing exactly what she told him not to).

* Alice needs to give up something important for her own wellbeing, but she doesn't have the force of will to get rid of it herself, so she asks Bob to do it. For example: "No matter how much I beg, don't let me [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife get on TV Tropes until I've finished my homework so I'm not distracted.]]"

* Dojo in ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown'' makes himself a special prison because every thousand years or so he grows a second head and becomes totally evil for a day. He then instructs the monks not to let him free no matter what until the next day. Omi, of course, eventually falls for one of his tricks.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'': After raiding the cookie jar gives her a stomach ache from Hell, Angelica orders the babies to stop her from eating cookies ever again, "Even if I beg, even if I cry, even if I threaten to beat your baby brains in!" [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity predictably ensues]].
** At the end of "Cuffed", when Chuckie and Angelica managed to free themselves from being [[ChainedHeat cuffed together]], Angelica tells Chuckie to go and never speak to her again. But when she accidentally cuffs herself to her bed with the key just out of her reach, she tries to call Chuckie back to help her.
-->'''Angelica:''' Come back, Chuckie! Come back!
-->'''Chuckie:''' Oh no, Angelica. I know when I'm not wanted.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants''
** The trope namer and page quote is the episode "The Paper," in which Squidward throws away a gum wrapper, and Spongebob takes it and asks Squidward if he wants it back. Squidward gets fed up after a while and tells Spongebob the quote at the top. Cue Spongebob doing all sorts of weird and amazing things with said paper and Squidward eventually trading away everything he owns to get the paper back. [[TheChewToy Only to find out that he can't do anything Spongebob did with it.]]
** Also, "Krusty Love" where Mr. Krabs gives [=SpongeBob=] his wallet and instructs him not to give it to him while he's on his date with Mrs. Puff. Before the date even starts, Krabs is begging him to buy something. When [=SpongeBob=] gives in and brings it, Krabs berates him for spending all his money. It goes back and forth for a while until [=SpongeBob=] snaps, gives Mr. Krabs a manic tirade, and leaves.
** In the comic "Great Grandma", Squidward, embarrassed to be invited over to his grandma's house, makes Spongebob promise to pretend he doesn't exist for a month, that the visit will last three minutes, that she's not allowed to play any music, and that he won't eat anything she cooks. Then he finds that he actually really ''likes'' Spongebob's grandmother, has a lot in common with her, and forgets that he made all of these promises with Spongebob. He doesn't get punished as harshly for breaking these promises but the sight of Spongebob's unmoisturised grandmother makes him faint.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' had this one; it was one of the episodes where Sylvester mistakes a baby kangaroo for a giant mouse. At one point asks to be locked in a box with it so he can finally catch it, giving instructions to his son not to open it so the kangaroo doesn't escape. Naturally, he gets beaten senseless, while his son admires his dad's dedication.
** Sylvester and his son once took upon a job chasing mice inside a ship. Trying to get out of catching the "giant mouse", Sylvester said that, since there's only one of it and several normal-sized mice, Junior should handle the giant one. After Junior tricked the "giant mouse" back into its cage, Sylvester led Junior outside the room and told him not to open the door no matter what he hears because Junior might dislike what he sees. Soon after that, a mouse Sylvester was chasing got inside a crate full of vitamins made to enhance mice muscles, and continued to pummel Sylvester inside while his son [[ExactWords kept his promise and refused to open the door]].
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', Dale asks to be locked in a small vent with a raccoon so that he can capture/kill it. Dale orders Hank and the others not to let him out until it is subdued, no matter how much he begs and screams. Naturally, once he's locked in there, he begins begging and screaming to be let out. Hank lets him (and the raccoon) out, and Dale chides him with, "I give you ''one'' little thing to do, and you screw it up."
* Done multiple times within the space of one episode of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' with Jon Arbuckle's Little Black Book.
-->'''Garfield:''' Make up your mind!
* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/CampLazlo'', Scoutmaster Lumpus wanted some time alone, so he told the scouts not to help him while he was fishing. Later, he calls for help (because he's being attacked by a ''sea serpent''), and HilarityEnsues as the scouts debate whether they should 'help him by helping him' or 'help him by ''not'' helping him'. [[FunnyBackgroundEvent All the while as the serpent tries to eat Lumpus, who is still frantically pleading for help.]]
** In another episode, Edward fakes a yeti attack on the air, and when the Jelly Beans rush to help him out, he says he took care of the situation. Next evening, he insists that everybody stays in their cabins and don't come into the radio station "because it's too dangerous" (and so he could fake another attack). Before long, real yetis invade the radio station and Edward is screaming for help. Fortunately everyone rushed in this time, even though the platypus wasn't in any danger at all.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheMask'': Not wanting his alter ego to become Mayor, Stanley instructed Milo to hide the mask and not tell him where it was until the election was over. Stanley would later learn Pretorius was the opposing candidate. Can you believe Stanley would try this again in a later episode?
* In an episode of the 2007 version of ''WesternAnimation/{{George of the Jungle|2007}}'', the gang convinces George to go back on his vow to always help people because of him doing menial tasks for Big Mitch. But when Mitch has them captured, they try to call George for help, but George refuses to help on the grounds of what they said.

* In ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers'', when Gaia and Doctor Blight are in a BodySwap, Blight apparently forgot to tell her assistant her EvilPlan, because before switching back, Gaia instructs him to do a bunch of eco-friendly things, no matter how much she tells him to stop later.

Falls into two major categories, though other variants are possible.

* '''Version 1:''' Alice, for whatever reason, hands over a possession to Bob and asks Bob not to give it back until X happens. Example: "No matter how much I beg, don't let me [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife get on TV Tropes until I've finished my homework so I'm not distracted.]]"
* '''Version 2:''' A variant of SelfRestraint. Alice allows herself to be [[KindRestraints tied up or imprisoned]] and instructs Bob not to let her loose--usually because she is about to be [[NotHimself Not Herself]] in some way, or acquire some dangerous power.

Either way, Alice is doing something she knows is for the best, but she also knows that she'll want out later and will need someone else to keep her in line. She will always tell Bob, "Remember, you can't give in, no matter how much I beg you." She may even do a test run -- which Bob will fail -- and then berate him for his failure.

Of course, we all know that Alice will eventually beg Bob to break the rule, typically because something she hadn't foreseen has just happened and now she ''[[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp needs]]'' what she's told him not to give her. Bob, naturally, will refuse, creating either humor or drama. The comical versions of this plot almost always overlap with ALessonLearnedTooWell, where Alice has Bob 'trained' to obey her order to the point where even she can't override it.

There is an exception:

* '''Version 3''': (Keep in mind this example is only for non-malicious items.) Alice has left Item X in location D (say her house J miles away) because she does not want it for V reason. Bob finds it, and tries to return it. Alice refuses, but Bob is persistent. Alice says Bob can keep Item X, and Bob doesn't want to take it from her because he finds it "stealing" (or any other reason really.) Alice uses this trope, and Bob walks away. He probably does something with it Alice wants to do, and she asks for it back. Bob refuses, because "no matter how much I beg or what have you, don't give X back."

Whether Bob gives in or not is dependent on the genre of the story. It may be played for laughs with Bob taking the directions too literally and refusing to free Alice even when he obviously should, either out of malice or stupidity. In some cases, Bob will justify his refusal by asking "[[SecretTestOfCharacter How do I know this is not a test?]]", in which case [[Catch22Dilemma any answer Alice might give him will of course be treated as proof of his suspicion]]. If Bob is especially stupid, he may go the opposite route and let Alice out prematurely when she asks him. This may lead to dire consequences if Alice is a danger to those around her, or may be played for laughs with Alice rebuking him for letting her go.

* In an episode of the 2007 version of ''WesternAnimation/GeorgeOfTheJungle'', the gang convinces George to go back on his vow to always help people because of him doing menial tasks for Big Mitch. But when Mitch has them captured, they try to call George for help, but George refuses to help on the grounds of what they said.

Either way, Alice is doing something she knows is for the best, but she also knows that she'll want out later and needs someone else to keep her in line. She will always tell Bob, "Remember, you can't give in, no matter how much I beg you." Later, Alice will almost invariably beg Bob to give the object back/let her out of prison. Often she will be entirely justified in doing so because of some development she hadn't foreseen.

Whether Bob gives in or not is dependent on the genre of the story. It may be played for laughs with Bob taking the directions too literally and refusing to free Alice even when he obviously should, either out of malice or stupidity. In some cases, Bob will justfiy his refusal by asking "[[SecretTestOfCharacter How do I know this is not a test?]]", in which case [[Catch22Dilemma any answer Alice might give him will of course be treated as proof of his suspicion]]. If Bob is especially stupid, he may go the opposite route and let Alice out prematurely when she asks him. This may lead to dire consequences if Alice is a danger to those around her, or may be played for laughs with Alice rebuking him for letting her go.