History Main / TheNotSoHarmlessPunishment

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/42198018/ Harry Potter and the Ritual of Love's Memory]]'': With Professor [=McGonagall=] doing more [[BotheringByTheBook enforcement of school by-laws]] than in canon, Professor Umbridge isn't able to use a Blood Quill to make Harry write lines in his own blood while carving the message into the back of his hand. Instead, she gives him a quill that whispers into his head the line he just wrote. It's not loud, it just quietly repeats the words back to him. Except that it adds an extra voice every time he has to write the line again, so after several hours of it, every repetition is a cacophony inside his head that no one else can hear, which persists afterward and leaves him with blurred vision, nausea, and unsteady on his feet.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MoralOrel'' episode: "[[Recap/MoralOrelS3E2Grounded Grounded]]", after [[ItMakesSenseInContext after getting caught bathing in his friends blood]], Clay decides to punish Orel differently than the usual spankings. He punishes him by grounding him from going to church for an entire month. In theory this doesn't sound that bad; Unlike most kids, Orel loves attending church more than anything in the world, so he does anything he can to make his own little church, where eventually [[spoiler: trying to find a Cross for his church temporarily kills him. The temporary experience with death lets him meet God, so after Orel gets revived, he keeps trying to kill himself just so he can be with God.]]

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'', Timmy once had to brave the "horrifying trials" of the "sadistic" Yugopotamians; these trials include [[{{Unishment}} walking through a flowery meadow, hugging a teddy bear, and eating chocolate]] [[labelnote:*]]To the Yugopotamians, these really ''are'' {{Not So Harmless Punishment}}s: fun and nice things cause them actual physical harm[[/labelnote]]. A later episode features Timmy cockily accepting another challenge from the Yugopotamians, expecting more of the same, only this time he has inadvertently signed up for a gladiatorial fight to the death. [[spoiler: Subverted in that, when he's given the chance, Timmy suggests a ball pit as his combat arena and pillows as weapons, giving him the advantage.]]

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'', the Trokkle King's TreacherousAdvisor fools the king into abdicating his throne to Brainy Smurf... But Brainy proves an obnoxious ruler, so now all the trokkles decide to overthrow him. When the original Trokkle King finds out about this, he gets frightened and goes to warn the other smurfs, because he knows that when the trokkles overthrow a king, they ''[[NotHyperbole throw him over]]'' a cliff, literally.

* Creator/WoodyAllen's film ''Film/TakeTheMoneyAndRun'' has a pretty nasty punishment that's made even more harmful. As the narrator states, "Food on a chain gang is scarce and not very nourishing. The men get one hot meal a day... a bowl of steam."
** Which is then shortly followed by an [[InvertedTrope inverse]] of the trope, a man who didn't give a good day's work is hauled into another room, and the warden takes Virgil over to show him "what he's got to look forward to." We see the the shadow of what appears to be the man tied to the ceiling being whipped by another guard (and sounds of whipping and the prisoner wincing seem to confirm this), but after Virgil and the warden walk through the door, we find out that the guard is whipping the prisoner's ''shadow'', instead.

* In ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'', [[spoiler:Team Star's leader Penny and the rest of her bosses]] are punished by [[spoiler:keeping up their bases as makeshift training facilities for the school to use]] while [[spoiler:Penny is offered (or rather enlisted right away in) a position to work as a technology worker for the Pokémon League due to impressing Geeta with her hacking skills having broken through the system so easily.]] While all this sounds great in paper, [[spoiler:Penny]] comes to learn how dreadful it is to work for someone [[spoiler:like Geeta, who doesn't exactly have a good impression on the rest of the Gym Leaders.]]

* [[spoiler: Princess]] Rainbow Dash in ''FanFic/TheGreatAlicornHunt'' informs the board of Alicorn Academy, that for their failure as an academic institute whose confusing policies, and ex-hippie teachers who force students to agree with their views and politics for a passing grade, have made it a breeding ground for hipsters, windmill crusaders and terrorists like the crownbreakers. To punish the institute, they will be getting......matched donations. Instead of the government just giving them the money they need, it will match whatever donations they receive from Alumni or from fundraisers and so on. This doesn't sound like much of a punishment, until Dash reminds them that their reputation has fallen in the eyes of their alumni, that virtually none of them donates anything and they've been relying almost exclusively on the crown funds, which have now been cut off.

* In ''FanFic/MirrorsImage'', Twilight decides to punish one of her changling guards by naming it Sucker Punch. Although this crosses over into CoolAndUnusualPunishment, most changlings prefer to not be named, and thus, being named really is that bad.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Dreadnoughts are the armored sarcophagi of SpaceMarine heroes, used as heavy-duty combat walkers and spending centuries in slumber between campaigns. Being put in one is an incredible honor, as it means the Marine is considered important enough in terms of experience and morale that they may continue to serve in death. Chaos Dreadnoughts have the same function... but being in one is considered one of the worst fates a servant of Chaos can face, for one simple reason: they don't get the luxury of spending their non-combat time asleep, instead having their weapons and limbs deactivated and having to wait for the next battle, fully aware of every passing second.

* ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Simpsons]]'':

* On ''Series/MyWifeAndKids'', a lot of Jay's punishments are like this. In one episode when his daughter Claire eats his halftime pie but none of his kids tell him who did it, he feeds them all only pie as punishment. They quickly figure out that [[RadishCure there is a reason that dinner is more than "just desserts."]]

* On ''Series/MyWifeAndKids'', a lot of the father's punishments are like this. In one episode when his daughter Claire eats his halftime pie but none of his kids tell him who did it, he feeds them all only pie as punishment. They quickly figure out that [[RadishCure there is a reason that dinner is more than "just desserts."]]

* Happens in ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' in "My Soul on Fire, Part 2" where the Janitor punishes J.D. for convincing everyone to come to his wedding on such short notice by keeping him at the top of a lighthouse for ten minutes...

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}}'' Beej and Lydia (and others) are playing baseball in the Neitherworld. At some point it is announced that the game has changed to "Sudden Death", meaning that the losers will have to stand in the "Losers' Circle", an area enclosed by a rope. Beej is unimpressed (as he's been dorking around the entire game anyway) until the "circle" opens up into a fang-lined maw that belches a fireball into his face.

--->'''Chalmers:''' Skinner, you're fired!\\
'''Skinner:''' ''[offended]'' Excuse ''me'', did you just call me a liar?\\

* On ''Series/MyWifeAndKids'', a lot of the father's punishments are like this. In one episode when his daughter Claire eats his halftime pie but none of his kids tell him who did it, he feeds them all only pie as punishment. They quickly figure out that there is a reason that dinner is more than "just desserts."

** Inverted in a joke used both in ''Literature/GuardsGuards'' and ''Literature/FeetOfClay'', in which it's mentioned that dwarfs punish thieves by "hanging them up by the... town hall. Sometimes for ''days''.".

* The ending of ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames Wand of Gamelon]]'' has King Harkinian do this [[spoiler:to the traitorous Duke Onkled]]. He has him scrub ''all'' the floors in Hyrule. Scrubbing floors sounds very lenient. Except [[spoiler:it's even more humiliating that imprisonment for any noble who would flaunt his authority]] and all the floors involve dangerous dungeons, plus Hyrule is an entire country and the punishment is essentially hard labor in practice.

Typically, The Not So Harmless Punishment is introduced with a very misleading name or described in a way which makes it seem quite minor and painless -- it may [[{{Unishment}} not even be a punishment at all]]. This causes the recipient to believe that he will [[HopeSpot get off easy]], giving them the chance to make a cocky remark about how he can handle something like that.

* The ending of [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaCDiGames Wand of Gamelon]] has King Harkinian do this [[spoiler:to the traitorous Duke Onkled]]. He has him scrub ''all'' the floors in Hyrule. Scrubbing floors sounds very lenient. Except [[spoiler:it's even more humiliating that imprisonment for any noble who would flaunt his authority]] and all the floors involve dangerous dungeons, plus Hyrule is an entire country and the punishment is essentially hard labor in practice.

Contrast PrankPunishment and RestrainedRevenge.

''Literature/TheCemeteriesOfAmalo'': The punishment for producing pornography is six months of hard labor in the quarries. This doesn't sound too bad, until a photographer mentions that the harsh working conditions of the quarries and various monster attacks kill most workers within six months.

* ''Literature/TheGloveOfDarthVader'': The Prophets of the Dark Side sentence two enemy moffs to three and four years in prison and a third to five years as a sentry. The prisons and sentry outpost are all on {{Death World}}s where people tend to die within a couple of years.