History RealityEnsues / WesternAnimation

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLifeAsATeenageRobot'': The episode "The Return of Raggedy Android" deals with FantasticRacism when Jenny isn't allowed in a restaurant Brad got a job at because she's a robot and the owner doesn't like them. To combat this, Jenny gets a human suit to disguise her real features so she can hang out at the restaurant. Unfortunately, she's not able to fight the robots that keep breaking into the restaurant because the other half of the outfit pressures Jenny into acting like a regular human girl. Jenny eventually gets fed up with the other half, so she destroys the outfit and ends up saving the restaurant. Despite this, the owner of the restaurant still can't stand robots and acts like an UngratefulBastard towards Jenny. This disgusts the other teenagers, who were actually grateful Jenny saved them. The moral: no matter how nice you are to racist people and no matter what you do for them, the racism won't go away in a blink of an eye.
** Likewise, if you act like an UngratefulBastard to a bona fide hero (who just risked life and limb to save your sorry ass), your popularity tends to hit rock bottom, as the owner learned the hard way when Brad quits and all his customers leave in disgust.

* While in the Monarch's father's secret Blue Morpho lair, which is like the 60's Bat-Lair if it was used by the Green Hornet, Monarch asks Gary why he's using his laptop to go over the plan to kill Wide Wale's sub-arches instead of the massive crime computer he's resting his laptop on. Gary tells him that it's because, despite it's size, the machine is decades old. It has less computing power than a Speak-n-Spell and has no internet connection.

[[folder:''The Venture Brothers'']]

--->'''The Monarch:''' He threw me in jail. Literally. Threw me right into the yard at the state prison. Then he shouts up to the warden, "Looks like this one won't be causing any more trouble!" And he flies off with a gallant salute.\\

--->'''Brock:''' [[LampshadeHanging Yeah, they never show that part on TV.]]
* When the Guild of Calamitous Intent starts antagonising J.J., he treats them as actual villains by [[LetsGetDangerous dropping the theatrics]] and genuinely planning to kill the Monarch for being a threat to him. Both Brock Samson and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch have to point out to him that the Guild is ''far'' more powerful than they let on and that they are deliberately [[WillfullyWeak weakening themselves as part of the rules]]; if J.J. breaks the rules, then [[RuleOfEscalatingThreat they can legally skip those pretences and go full force against him.]]
* The Guild of Calamitous Intent itself exists because of this. As the OSI points out, without the Guild rules enforcing focusing on specified Arch-Enemies, having some measure of EvenEvilHasStandards, and giving a choice of "join us or die" to up-and-comers, the world would be left with mad scientists, evil masterminds and supowered maniacs running around doing god knows what kind of damage and killing uncountable amounts of civilians, which would itself draw swift retribution from all of the world's governments and armies that Supervillains couldn't sustainably fight off no matter how many mooks they hire or how much money or power they have. This way, villainy gets to remain profitable, the law ignores them, and if an Arch gets too bloodthirsty the Guild Members can claim self defense if they have to finally finish them off.
* When Henchmen 21, 24 and 1 sneak into J.J.'s base; 21 and 24 regularly mock Henchman 1 for being overprofessional and inexperienced on the mission. When 1 suggests they swim through an underwater tunnel to fulfill their mission; 21 and 24 reject this idea and decide to take the longer, safer way. 21 and 24 have been doing this longer than henchman 1 has; they know for a fact that walking on land is far more safer than blindly swimming through a tunnel that might be too long for them to hold their breath, they also know they are better off sticking together than going solo, and that the water is most likely contaminated with all sorts of diseases.

* "The Neighbors" has the titular neighbors at first, be amused by Dan’s antics and stories. But as they get progressively more deranged, like when he gets to how he almost *ahem* “does them in” purely because he’s suspicious of how nice they are? They are legitimately horrified that he tried to murder them; all because they were nice to him. They immediately move far away from him and never want to see his face again.

** A common plot in the late 90s animation was a run-in with the DepartmentOfChildDisservices where a set of coincidences convinces the social worker that the family's children are being abused. The show uses this plot for its pilot, then subverts it by having the social worker get chewed out by his boss and ReassignedToAntarctica for jumping to conclusions, and nearly having Bobby taken away from a very obviously loving family. It turns out all of the "evidence" the social worker had was circumstantial anyway, and could have cleared up everything if he had just talked to Bobby's Little League coach.
** In the episode "Keeping Up With Our Joneses", after catching Bobby smoking a cigarette, Hank disciplines him with the old punishment of making him smoke an entire carton. Not only does this get Bobby horribly addicted (as well as causing Hank and Peggy to relapse into their old smoking habits), but when Hank admits to what he'd done at a support group, the rest of the group is completely aghast and they throw him out.

** One episode had Peggy, who was "on a roll" (aka butting into everyone else's business to show how smart she was), barge onto a active crime scene, introducing herself to the cops as if she were a private detective. The scene immediately cuts to the police escorting Peggy back to her car over her protests.

** In "Be True to Your Fool" Hank tries to break the law so he can get in jail to talk to Bill. First, he jaywalks but the cop ignores it. Next, he takes his shirt off in the Get In Get Out but the cop tells him 'No shirt, no shoes, no service; isn't actually a law.

** Living in a waste-filled area will, of course, lead to a lot of birth defects and mutations as most of the residents of the Valley usually suffer from. The titular family has Bob (no arms or legs), Pickles (lost her hair and now wears a wig), Milo (super [=ADD=] among other things), Beth (growth on her head) and Chip and Biff (conjoined twins).
** The pilot episode starts when Bob's boss, George, takes away Bob's medical insurance due to too many claims. As such, they can't afford for Milo to go to a special school and allow Milo to go to a normal school.
** "Heroine Addict": Pickles wins a shopping spree, but to do so has to smoke a lot of cigarettes to find the winning filter. On the day of the spree, she barely makes it past the starting line before getting winded and can't recover in time before time runs out.

*** From the same ep, Bob enlists as a lifeguard and joins a swimming competition, but because he's using a device that amounts to a mini-mech to overcome his lack of limbs, he quickly sinks as soon as he's in the water.

* ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'': In the episode "Susie Sings the Blues", Susie gets a deal with a record producer after she pays her $1000 so she can be a singing sensation. However, Susie's older sister Alisa warns her about it and feels that it's too good to be true. Susie finds out the hard way as the so-called "producer" turns out to be a con-woman who leaves her out in the slums.

** "Little Old Slappy from Pasadena" had Slappy Squirrel race her car through town at an enormous speed, causing indirect inconvenience to some of the passersby. At the end of the short, Slappy ends up surrounded by a bunch of cops ready to arrest her for exceeding the speed limit and being a public nuisance.

** An early Pinky and the Brain short had the Brain trying to stage an alien invasion a la Orson Welles. While the people watching the nightly news are shocked, at first, the next day the newspaper reveals it was a ridiculous hoax. Thanks to TechMarchesOn, it's easier to see if a video has been faked unlike when radio was the main form of entertainment.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'': In the first episode, Huey fantasizes about telling "hard truths" before a group of white people and seeing them panic. When he actually gets the chance... they're mildly amused and praise him for having interesting viewpoints. Despite what some people may think, the majority of people don't hold their beliefs so tightly that hearing dissenting opinions will make them freak out.

* Sarah Lynn is a FormerChildStar and raging drug addict, who mentions she gets revived by paramedics on a regular basis and swallows entire bottles' worth of pills, supplied by (a surprisingly real) physician named Dr. Hu. Then she decides to go to rehab in season 3 since the same buzz doesn't affect her with how many drugs she's been taking, and manages six months of being sober. [[spoiler:Bojack then convinces her to go off the wagon and she starts chugging alcohol and drugs again at a rapid rate. The same amount of pills send her into an overdose since she lost the acquired immunity to them. And since Bojack didn't call a paramedic in time, she doesn't wake up from this last trip]]. To a lesser extent, [[spoiler:Dr. Hu goes MyGodWhatHaveIDone because even if he didn't supply the drugs, at any time he could have been responsible; he decides to go into pediatrics to protect Hollywoo kids]].

* Kevin's incompetence throughout the series has proven quite remarkable. He can't solve basic math problems, and as a high school senior, flunked a social studies test that was intended for first graders (all he had to do was list the colors of the American flag. He wrote down "yellow"). It's mentioned that the only reason he had gotten so far in school was due to the fact that he was an incredible football player, and teachers would simply pass him so he could stay off academic probation and play on the team. The series finale reveals that even that won't always save him, and he ends up [[HeldBackInSchool flunking his senior year while everyone else graduates.]]
* In the episode "Lucky Strike", a substitute teacher very transparently and creepily hits on Tiffany--even going as far as to touch her hair--in front of the whole class. When word of the incident reaches Daria's mom, she naturally freaks out and makes a furious phone call to the school, who immediately fires the substitute.
* In "Arts and Crass," Principal Angela Li forces Daria to enter her picture, that was altered to remove its political themes, into a contest against her will. Daria, in protest, vandalizes it, so Li makes a complaint to Helen. Instead of being angry with Daria, Helen spells out to Li that she violated Daria's civil rights in the process, and will be headed for a lawsuit.
* Jake's high stress and rage issues tend to be PlayedForLaughs throughout the series, but in season 3, it appears to have taken a toll on his health as he ends up having a heart attack. Granted it was a very mild one, but it was enough to give his family (even Daria) quite a scare.

* After Roy Family locked up the Smiths and hundreds of others inside Familyland Theme Park, the people were divided into factions based on the part of the park that they enjoyed the most, with Stan, Steve, Roger, and Hayley being the leaders of those factions. War and chaos broke out among all of them, with many people being slaughtered and killed left and right. People were even killed just from the initial lockdown. When Francine was finally able to set the people free, they ''sued the crap out of the park'' and turned it into a memorial for the dead.
* One episode had Terry's homophobic father [[IHaveNoSon disown him after learning of his marriage and surrogate child to Greg.]] Stan, who was homophobic but grew past it after meeting the couple, ran the gamut of finding out why he's homophobic, ranging from FreudianExcuse to ArmoredClosetGay to simply not understanding how someone could be gay. At the end of the episode, nothing happens. Terry's father is straight, manly, completely understands homosexuality is not a choice and is just a bigot because he's just a bigot, and refuses to change his ways or take back his disowning of Terry despite the explanations Stan and Greg give him. The most closure Terry gets is realizing that he doesn't need an abusive sack of crap of a father like that who can't accept him for who he is, which echoes a lot of similar sentiments people in real life share after coming out to homophobic parents who won't change their viewpoint.

* In one episode, Francine fakes a kidnapping of Roger to prove that Stan really cares for him. Stan knew the whole time since he has Caller ID, and Francine called from her cell phone.
* In another episode, Greg and Terry decide to have a baby, using Francine as a surrogate. Stan fears what will happen to the baby if raised by a gay couple so he kidnaps her to take her to Nebraska where gay couples don't have parenting rights. He ends up having a HeelRealization after meeting a couple of kids raised by a lesbian couple who are perfectly normal, so he returns the baby and apologizes. Instead of being EasilyForgiven, Greg and Terry both angrily punch him and then put a restraining order on him.

* The B plot of "Man in the Moonbounce" has Hayley give Klaus a haircut to help him with his depression. However, since Hayley isn't a qualified barber and was using more than one picture as inspiration, she ends up botching the haircut and disappointing Klaus.

* In "The Full Cognitive Redaction of Avery Bullock by the Coward Stan Smith", Stan is ordered to erase Bullock's memories when he starts developing dementia, but Stan decides to protect Bullock instead. When Stan decides to kill Bullock so he won't spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state; Bullock survives because Stan unknowingly shot a chip that effected Bullock's behaviour. Rather than be grateful to Stan for saving him from the CIA, Bullock furiously demotes him and fires him as his protégé. Bullock reminds Stan that his job requires him to be dogmatically loyal to the country and he should have been resolute in following CIA protocol. Bullock is also furious to discover that Stan allowed him to steal an armed nuclear submarine, which could have led to catastrophic consequences if either of them actually used the weapons on-board.

* The first thing Rusty does after taking over Ven-Tech is to [[BadBoss immediately fire all the employees.]] As a result, Ven-Tech's stocks end up plummeting in the next episode, leaving Rusty struggling to fix it.

* In "I’m Dreaming of a White Porsche Christmas" Stan makes a wish that he had Principal Lewis’ bachelor life. Upon learning Lewis got his life. When he basically holds the whole family hostage to convince them they’re supposed to be HIS family? It seems like Francine actually is going along with what he’s saying; until she tricks him into letting them go so Bullock and the CIA can open fire on him. Regardless of the circumstance ANYONE would find you claiming to be their family in an alternate universe insane; ESPECIALLY when you’re a known crazy person and wildcard like Lewis was before Stan got his life.

** In season 2, [=BoJack=] is cast in his dream role as his hero, disgraced runner Secretariat. The thing is that Lenny Turtletaub the producer doesn't want to show many of the historical figure's warts. He specifically forbids director Kelsey or [=BoJack=] from shooting a scene where Secretariat made a DealWithTheDevil with Richard Nixon to avoid serving in Vietnam. Despite Kelsey saying it's a bad idea, [=BoJack=] convinces her they should do it for the art, since that's her specialty, and surely Turtletaub will be impressed by their dedication. They break into the set to film it. [[spoiler:Kelsey is proven right; Turtletaub fires her for insubordination when he sees the footage, and as punishment hires a director that clashes with [=BoJack=] and sabotages his other career choices. When [=BoJack=] runs away out of guilt for ruining Kelsey and breaking down from the stress, Turtletaub proceeds to replace ''him'' with a CGI duplicate since it behaves better and isn't a mess. While Kelsey later averts this trope by pitching the movie she wants to do in season 6 and impressing producers with her tenacy, for a long time this attempt to do things her way backfired horribly]].

* In "Jane's Addition", Jane meets Tom and starts dating him. Daria reacts badly to this because Jane's the only real friend she's ever had and she dislikes how she and Jane suddenly aren't spending as much time together and how Tom occasionally ends up intruding on what time they do have. It takes a while for her to warm up to him- a full season, in fact- and because Tom also warms up to her, Jane concludes that they're interested in each other and things just get worse. The resulting fight nearly destroys their friendship, and not only is it not resolved by the end of the episode, it's only fixed at the end of the 4th season finale ''Is It Fall Yet?''

** When the Guild of Calamitous Intent starts antagonising J.J., he treats them as actual villains by [[LetsGetDangerous dropping the theatrics]] and genuinely planning to kill the Monarch for being a threat to him. Both Brock Samson and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch have to point out to him that the Guild is ''far'' more powerful than they let on and that they are deliberately [[WillfullyWeak weakening themselves as part of the rules]]; if J.J. breaks the rules, then [[RuleOfEscalatingThreat they can legally skip those pretences and go full force against him.]]

[[/folder:''The Venture Brothers'']]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', in keeping with the show's Deconstruction of Jet-Age Boy Adventurer stories.
** In the episode "Ice Station Impossible," where Doctor Impossible flies Doctor Venture out onto the tundra to kill him. Impossible is actually gloating and telling Venture exactly what he's planning to do along the way, but since they're in an Expy of the [[ComicBook/FantasticFour Fantasticar]], complete with open cockpits, Rusty literally can't hear a damn thing, due to the ambient wind noise.
** In "Tag Sale, You're It!", one of the devices Rusty is selling in the titular sale is a prototype LaserBlade. As he explains, he canned the project because the Army has no use for melee weapons and toy companies aren't interested in something that costs over two million in parts alone. It's also completely useless as an actual weapon. The blade is a beam of light, so it doesn't behave like a solid object, as #24 discovers when he attempts to [[EpicFail fight Brock Sampson with it]].
** One of the show's repeated themes is how horrifically traumatizing the boy adventurer lifestyle is. Rusty is a prime example of this, having become a pill-popping {{Jerkass}} failure in his adulthood. The episode "Self-Medication" takes this even further with Rusty attending a therapy group for former boy adventurers (including grown-up expies of WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest and Literature/TheHardyBoys) and coming to the conclusion that he was ''the most well-adjusted of the group''.
** In one of the flashbacks, a clone of Hank dresses up like Franchise/{{Batman}}, jumps off the roof of the Venture Compound using [[ParasolParachute an umbrella]] and falls to his death.
** In "Handsome Ransom", [[FlyingBrick Captain Sunshine]] dumps The Monarch in jail, [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] style. The Monarch is allowed to simply walk out, since there is no legal basis to hold him there.
--->'''The Monarch:''' He threw me in jail. Literally. Threw me right into the yard at the state prison. Then he shouts up to the warden, "Looks like this one won't be causing any more trouble!" And he flies off with a gallant salute.\\
'''Dr. Mrs. The Monarch:''' [[YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe Oh my God.]]\\
'''The Monarch:''' Apparently nobody ever told him what ''due process'' was.
** The first thing Rusty does after taking over Ven-Tech is to [[BadBoss immediately fire all the employees.]] As a result, Ven-Tech's stocks end up plummeting in the next episode, leaving Rusty struggling to fix it.
** In "The High Cost of Loathing", at a board meeting to discuss Ven-Tech's financial situation, Rusty jumps through a window to demonstrate his new hover-belt. As cool as it looks, he gets a large shard of glass in his leg that severs his femoral artery and the other shards cut up his face, causing him to pass out from the ensuing blood loss shortly after and end up hospitalized.
** While in the Monarch's father's secret Blue Morpho lair, which is like the 60's Bat-Lair if it was used by the Green Hornet, Monarch asks Gary why he's using his laptop to go over the plan to kill Wide Wale's sub-arches instead of the massive crime computer he's resting his laptop on. Gary tells him that it's because, despite it's size, the machine is decades old. It has less computing power than a Speak-n-Spell and has no internet connection.
** One of the running plot points throughout the last part of the second season is the struggle between OSI and the Guild of Calamitous Intent over an ancient orb that is believed to be a superweapon of some kind and has quite the history. Come the season finale it is activated during their climactic fight... [[AllForNothing and the thing falls apart]]. Turns out that a gadget several millennia old has a high chance of averting RagnarokProofing and the mishandling it suffered throughout the arc didn't really helped any. WordOfGod is that it was supposed to be a TakeThat to other MacGuffin-driven shows in general and some airing on Cartoon Network at the time in specific.
** At the end of the first season, Brock encounters a gravely injured [[WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest Race Bannon]] who ends up dying. The whole thing seems very dramatic... until [[NoDeadBodyPoops Race craps his pants]].
--->'''Brock:''' [[LampshadeHanging Yeah, they never show that part on TV.]]
** When the Guild of Calamitous Intent starts antagonising J.J., he treats them as actual villains by [[LetsGetDangerous dropping the theatrics]] and genuinely planning to kill the Monarch for being a threat to him. Both Brock Samson and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch have to point out to him that the Guild is ''far'' more powerful than they let on and that they are deliberately [[WillfullyWeak weakening themselves as part of the rules]]; if J.J. breaks the rules, then [[RuleOfEscalatingThreat they can legally skip those pretences and go full force against him.]]
** The Guild of Calamitous Intent itself exists because of this. As the OSI points out, without the Guild rules enforcing focusing on specified Arch-Enemies, having some measure of EvenEvilHasStandards, and giving a choice of "join us or die" to up-and-comers, the world would be left with mad scientists, evil masterminds and supowered maniacs running around doing god knows what kind of damage and killing uncountable amounts of civilians, which would itself draw swift retribution from all of the world's governments and armies that Supervillains couldn't sustainably fight off no matter how many mooks they hire or how much money or power they have. This way, villainy gets to remain profitable, the law ignores them, and if an Arch gets too bloodthirsty the Guild Members can claim self defense if they have to finally finish them off.
** When Henchmen 21, 24 and 1 sneak into J.J.'s base; 21 and 24 regularly mock Henchman 1 for being overprofessional and inexperienced on the mission. When 1 suggests they swim through an underwater tunnel to fulfill their mission; 21 and 24 reject this idea and decide to take the longer, safer way. 21 and 24 have been doing this longer than henchman 1 has; they know for a fact that walking on land is far more safer than blindly swimming through a tunnel that might be too long for them to hold their breath, they also know they are better off sticking together than going solo, and that the water is most likely contaminated with all sorts of diseases.

* When his former costar Sarah Lynn stabs herself in a store, [=BoJack=] lets her stay at his house for several days, where he finds out she is a raging drug addict. Remembering how she wanted to go to an amusement park when she was a kid, [=BoJack=] takes her there when she's thirty to apologize for not protecting her during their sitcom days. Sarah Lynn seems to appreciate the gesture, only to tell [=BoJack=] later that she's not a child anymore, and he's not her father so he can't solve her problems with one day of fun.
* He finds out that the ''Horsin Around'' creator and his former friend, Herb, has terminal cancer. [=BoJack=] goes to make amends because the studio convinced him to throw Herb under the bus after he was outed as a gay man. Herb is not interested in forgiving the horse; he says that it's [=BoJack=] refusing to talk to him for twenty years hurt more than being fired and blacklisted.
* The biggest one has to be when [[spoiler:Biscuits Braxby reveals that Bojack was directly responsible for Sarah Lynn's death to her viewers. Bojack was trying to do damage control in his first interview with her but does the second foolishly out of a sense of egotism. He is genuinely apologetic and guilty, thinking that will be enough since sitcom characters are EasilyForgiven. Biscuits then says -- much to Bojack's consternation-- that she knows he let Sarah Lynn remain unconscious for seventeen minutes to create an alibi and cover his butt rather than dial 911 immediately. Sarah Lynn in her debut said she overdoses all the time, and her party people have the sense to call paramedics for her, so that Bojack didn't do it showed that he violated basic Hollywoo decency. The human body can also go for seven minutes without oxygen, so he effectively killed her when she was physically vulnerable. Bojack himself realizes that what he did was terrible, as shown when he apologizes to a Sarah Lynn hallucination]].

*** When his former costar Sarah Lynn stabs herself in a store, [=BoJack=] lets her stay at his house for several days, where he finds out she is a raging drug addict. Remembering how she wanted to go to an amusement park when she was a kid, [=BoJack=] takes her there when she's thirty to apologize for not protecting her during their sitcom days. Sarah Lynn seems to appreciate the gesture, only to tell [=BoJack=] later that she's not a child anymore, and he's not her father so he can't solve her problems with one day of fun.
*** He finds out that the ''Horsin Around'' creator and his former friend, Herb, has terminal cancer. [=BoJack=] goes to make amends because the studio convinced him to throw Herb under the bus after he was outed as a gay man. Herb is not interested in forgiving the horse; he says that it's [=BoJack=] refusing to talk to him for twenty years hurt more than being fired and blacklisted.
*** The biggest one has to be when [[spoiler:Biscuits Braxby reveals that Bojack was directly responsible for Sarah Lynn's death to her viewers. Bojack was trying to do damage control in his first interview with her but does the second foolishly out of a sense of egotism. He is genuinely apologetic and guilty, thinking that will be enough since sitcom characters are EasilyForgiven. Biscuits then says -- much to Bojack's consternation-- that she knows he let Sarah Lynn remain unconscious for seventeen minutes to create an alibi and cover his butt rather than dial 911 immediately. Sarah Lynn in her debut said she overdoses all the time, and her party people have the sense to call paramedics for her, so that Bojack didn't do it showed that he violated basic Hollywoo decency. The human body can also go for seven minutes without oxygen, so he effectively killed her when she was physically vulnerable. Bojack himself realizes that what he did was terrible, as shown when he apologizes to a Sarah Lynn hallucination]].
** Diane has a few where her WideEyedIdealist tendencies get her in trouble:
*** She helps "rescue" a chicken from a farm where they're slaughtered to become part of the meat industry. Is it cool and righteous? [[spoiler:Not to the cops, who arrest her and her "cronies" for trespassing and robbery once they catch up]].
*** Before, she tries writing [=BoJack=]'s memoirs as a biography called ''One Trick Pony''. Diane thinks HonestyIsTheBestPolicy and to show her best friend's WartsAndAll. Only she violated the terms of her ghostwriting contract and spilled a lot of information that [=BoJack=] doesn't want to see in print, and he notes the warts lack the "And All" part. He fires her on those grounds and is not happy when she leaks excerpts to Buzzfeed to force him to concede. ReadTheFinePrint is very real, folks.
*** When writing her memoirs, she thinks that [[spoiler:going off her antidepressants will provide the pain and angst that she needs]]. Guy, [[spoiler:her boyfriend in Chicago, tells Diane that she's going through withdrawal when he sees her crying, throwing up, and saying she wants to die. Then he puts her to bed, tells her to take her meds, and waits until she's stable to talk]]. Don't go off your meds cold-turkey.
** Sarah Lynn is a FormerChildStar and raging drug addict, who mentions she gets revived by paramedics on a regular basis and swallows entire bottles' worth of pills, supplied by (a surprisingly real) physician named Dr. Hu. Then she decides to go to rehab in season 3 since the same buzz doesn't affect her with how many drugs she's been taking, and manages six months of being sober. [[spoiler:Bojack then convinces her to go off the wagon and she starts chugging alcohol and drugs again at a rapid rate. The same amount of pills send her into an overdose since she lost the acquired immunity to them. And since Bojack didn't call a paramedic in time, she doesn't wake up from this last trip]]. To a lesser extent, [[spoiler:Dr. Hu goes MyGodWhatHaveIDone because even if he didn't supply the drugs, at any time he could have been responsible; he decides to go into pediatrics to protect Hollywoo kids]].

[[folder:''Bojack Horseman]]

[[folder:''BoJack Horseman]]

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'':
** The title character in season one tends to assume that situations will resolve like they do in sitcoms, since he starred in one during the 1990s. Reality tends to hit him in the face. Case in point:
*** When his former costar Sarah Lynn stabs herself in a store, [=BoJack=] lets her stay at his house for several days, where he finds out she is a raging drug addict. Remembering how she wanted to go to an amusement park when she was a kid, [=BoJack=] takes her there when she's thirty to apologize for not protecting her during their sitcom days. Sarah Lynn seems to appreciate the gesture, only to tell [=BoJack=] later that she's not a child anymore, and he's not her father so he can't solve her problems with one day of fun.
*** He finds out that the ''Horsin Around'' creator and his former friend, Herb, has terminal cancer. [=BoJack=] goes to make amends because the studio convinced him to throw Herb under the bus after he was outed as a gay man. Herb is not interested in forgiving the horse; he says that it's [=BoJack=] refusing to talk to him for twenty years hurt more than being fired and blacklisted.
*** The biggest one has to be when [[spoiler:Biscuits Braxby reveals that Bojack was directly responsible for Sarah Lynn's death to her viewers. Bojack was trying to do damage control in his first interview with her but does the second foolishly out of a sense of egotism. He is genuinely apologetic and guilty, thinking that will be enough since sitcom characters are EasilyForgiven. Biscuits then says -- much to Bojack's consternation-- that she knows he let Sarah Lynn remain unconscious for seventeen minutes to create an alibi and cover his butt rather than dial 911 immediately. Sarah Lynn in her debut said she overdoses all the time, and her party people have the sense to call paramedics for her, so that Bojack didn't do it showed that he violated basic Hollywoo decency. The human body can also go for seven minutes without oxygen, so he effectively killed her when she was physically vulnerable. Bojack himself realizes that what he did was terrible, as shown when he apologizes to a Sarah Lynn hallucination]].
** Diane has a few where her WideEyedIdealist tendencies get her in trouble:
*** She helps "rescue" a chicken from a farm where they're slaughtered to become part of the meat industry. Is it cool and righteous? [[spoiler:Not to the cops, who arrest her and her "cronies" for trespassing and robbery once they catch up]].
*** Before, she tries writing [=BoJack=]'s memoirs as a biography called ''One Trick Pony''. Diane thinks HonestyIsTheBestPolicy and to show her best friend's WartsAndAll. Only she violated the terms of her ghostwriting contract and spilled a lot of information that [=BoJack=] doesn't want to see in print, and he notes the warts lack the "And All" part. He fires her on those grounds and is not happy when she leaks excerpts to Buzzfeed to force him to concede. ReadTheFinePrint is very real, folks.
*** When writing her memoirs, she thinks that [[spoiler:going off her antidepressants will provide the pain and angst that she needs]]. Guy, [[spoiler:her boyfriend in Chicago, tells Diane that she's going through withdrawal when he sees her crying, throwing up, and saying she wants to die. Then he puts her to bed, tells her to take her meds, and waits until she's stable to talk]]. Don't go off your meds cold-turkey.
** Sarah Lynn is a FormerChildStar and raging drug addict, who mentions she gets revived by paramedics on a regular basis and swallows entire bottles' worth of pills, supplied by (a surprisingly real) physician named Dr. Hu. Then she decides to go to rehab in season 3 since the same buzz doesn't affect her with how many drugs she's been taking, and manages six months of being sober. [[spoiler:Bojack then convinces her to go off the wagon and she starts chugging alcohol and drugs again at a rapid rate. The same amount of pills send her into an overdose since she lost the acquired immunity to them. And since Bojack didn't call a paramedic in time, she doesn't wake up from this last trip]]. To a lesser extent, [[spoiler:Dr. Hu goes MyGodWhatHaveIDone because even if he didn't supply the drugs, at any time he could have been responsible; he decides to go into pediatrics to protect Hollywoo kids]].

[[folder:''Avatar: The Last Airbender'']]
* Aang introduces the siblings to Appa and claims he can fly. Because their raft was destroyed (and because Sokka would rather not freeze to death waiting for help), they climb aboard the bison.
--> '''Aang''': First time fliers, hold on tight.\\
[[BaitAndSwitch (Appa jumps into the air...and crashes into the water.)]]
** Turns out, when you're trapped in an iceberg for a long time (not to mention having previously been caught up in a wild storm before being placed into an iceberg), you can become exhausted pretty fast. It takes at least a day of resting before Appa can successfully fly again.
* "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderTheFirebendingMasters The Firebending Masters]]" subverts DurableDeathtrap by revealing that the Sun Warrior civilization still exists, and that they were maintaining and resetting the traps.
* "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderSokkasMaster Sokka's Master]]":
** Aang tries on a ridiculously oversized suit of ScaryImpracticalArmor. He can't even move in it, falling over after a single step.
** Sokka confesses to his sword-master Piandao that he is from the Water Tribe, to which the latter admits he figured out that tidbit the moment Sokka used his actual name instead of playing it smart like Zuko and using a common name (or at least one native to the Fire Nation) instead.
---> '''Piandao''': You're gonna need a better Fire Nation cover name. Try Lee. There's a million Lees.
* In "[[Recap/AvatarTheLastAirbenderBitterWork Bitter Work]]", Aang is having trouble learning Earthbending, and Toph is being [[DrillSergeantNasty incredibly hard on him]]. Meanwhile, [[ButtMonkey Sokka]] gets trapped in a hole and is waiting to be rescued. After Aang finally passes the test and earns Toph's respect, he finds Sokka in the hole. With his newfound Earthbending skills, he steps up to plate... and Toph stops him, saying that if he tried, he'd probably break Sokka's neck by accident. She then gets him out. Just because you passed the test doesn't mean that you're an InstantExpert.
* After two episodes of turmoil, Aang finally unleashes his Avatar State. The assaulted army stops, watching in awe as the Avatar prepares to unleash his spiritual wrath upon them--and then he gets shot down immediately. With Azula, transformation is ''[[SubvertedTrope NOT]]'' [[TransformationIsAFreeAction a free action.]]
* In "The Siege of the North", Chief Arnook comes up with a plan to infiltrate the Fire Navy by using old Fire Navy uniforms... and Sokka points out that the Fire Navy has updated its wardrobe in the 85 years since the Water Tribe got the uniforms. Sure enough, the soldier that tries to assault Zhao gets found out immediately.
* "Zuko Alone": Zuko is traveling by himself in order to get a good grasp on who he is. He comes across a village and makes friends with a boy there. But when Zuko is forced to use his firebending to stop a group of thuggish Earth Kingdom soldiers abusing their authority over the town, it naturally outs him a person from the Fire Nation, and worse yet, Zuko proudly proclaims his true identity as the prince of the Fire Nation and son of the country's bloodthirsty ruler. Despite saving the village, they immediately turn on him, (the boy he befriended included) and Zuko has no choice but to leave without a word. One good deed doesn't make up for the fact that Zuko's nation launched an unprovoked war against the rest of the world, and has spent a century trying to conquer the world while using tactics that are often incredibly brutal. Being proud of your heritage as the son and grandson and great grandson of brutal dictators isn't going to win you any points with the people who have been oppressed by your family either.
* "City of Walls and Secrets":
** Jet saw Iroh firebending his tea, and is determined to find proof that he and Zuko are actually criminals. After stealing Iroh's fire stones, he expects Iroh to heat it with firebending. Instead, Iroh remembers what Zuko said about not blowing their cover and borrows extra stones from their neighbor. He may have a weakness for tea but Iroh is ''not'' stupid.
** Later, Jet storms into the tea shop, threatening Iroh and Zuko at swordpoint to out themselves. Thing is, he walks in accusing them with no evidence, in the presence of two guards who point out a teamaker ''would'' be heating tea. He gets into a fight with Zuko, who is a master fencer and remains on the defensive side until the Dai Li come. The shopowner rightly points out that Jet assaulted his employees and destroyed his shop, with the guards corroborating these stories. Jet promptly gets arrested on these charges as he's shouting that Iroh and Zuko are firebenders.
* "The Earth King": The Gaang, by this point utterly fed up with trying to navigate the conspiracies and lies in the city of Ba Sing Se, decide to go directly to the Earth King to explain what's going on. Except that in order to ''get'' to him, they have to launch an all out attack on the palace, fight numerous guards, ''and'' their enemy Long Feng already got there before them. Understandably, the Earth King isn't inclined to hear them out at first: "You invade my palace, lay waste to all my guards, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking break down my fancy door]] -- and you expect me to ''trust you!?"'' (Toph admits he has a valid point.) And when he's calmed down (and his bear, who Aang befriended earlier, [[LickedByTheDog licks him to show he remembers him]]), he wants proof before he believes their (apparently) wild claims.
** Following on from that, when the Gaang take him to see Lake Laogai (where various unethical things have been going on) they find the entrance has been destroyed and likely the rest of the facility has suffered the same fate. Obviously Long Feng and the Dai Li weren't going to leave incriminating evidence around. However, they're unable to do the same with the Fire Nation's drill that nearly breached the city walls in a previous episode, as it's out in plain sight and far too many people know about it already.
* "The Beach": Azula SacrificedBasicSkillForAwesomeTraining, but that bit her in the butt when we see that without balancing both out, she can't socialize normally, leading her to have real difficulty in talking to people. Also, it shows that when you dedicate yourself to a single way of life (in her case, the commander), it's not easy to try a new way of life that you aren't used to.
* "Imprisoned" The Gaang come across a settlement that is under Fire Nation rule, and they meet an Earthbender named Haru who's trying to keep himself under their radar. They come across an old man who's trapped under rocks and Haru uses his power to free him. Surely the old man will be grateful for saving him, right? Er, well, yeah, but doesn't stop him from reporting Haru to the Fire Nation. NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished indeed.
** From the same episode, Katara finds out what has happened and gets herself sent to the prison he was taken to, which turns out to be a ship made of metal which (at the time) the Earthbenders couldn't bend. However, for said ship to be powered, it still needed coal, which is a form of Earth. After Katara managed to get the coal to the prisoners along with some inspiring words, the Earthbenders use it to stage a prison riot. The issue was that the prisoners had their morale broken; they never thought to use the coal because they were all so battered and depressed.
* In the finale of Book 1, Zuko finally has seemingly captured Aang (who has left his physical body behind to visit the Spirit World) and made a successful escape. Only he does so by running through a blizzard, and, being fatigued from fighting Katara, wet from his infiltration as well as said fight, he almost dies from hypothermia. He only survives thanks to the others who find him. Later in Book 2, Iroh even brings this up as an example of his AndThenWhat flaw.
* The Fire Nation is a volcanic archipelago which means they have metal deposits and fertile soil which is they are the most technologically advanced and stable (politically) nation. In real life, the Industrial Revolution didn’t start until people began finding metal deposits. It allows them to have built metal ships before everyone else to trade their food. The metal ships also give them a military advantage.
* "The Headband": Aang saw firsthand that the Airbenders were annihilated in a CurbStompBattle, thanks to the skeletons he saw in the Southern Air Temple and their generally pacifist nature. In a Fire Nation school, however, it turns out the teachers believe the Airbenders had an army and were able to fight back, with Aang's teacher chiding him for questioning that. Thanks to WrittenByTheWinners, it would be like the Fire Nation to cover up that Sozin committed a heinous misdeed and murdered a group of peaceful benders.
* "The Runaway": During a training exercise, Sokka rushes at Aang from behind while screaming "SNEAK ATTACK!!!" Aang clobbers him with a pillar without even looking.
-->"[[LampshadeHanging Sokka, sneak attacks don't work if you yell it out loud.]]"
* "The Western Air Temple": Zuko thinks the best strategy to win over Team Avatar is to display humility and apologize to them for all of his misdeeds. There is just one problem; he already ''did'' that back in season 2 with Katara willing to trust him. Katara, as a result, is thinking this is another trick of his and smacks him with a water whip, reminding him of what he did before. And when you admit to your ListOfTransgressions involves trying to kill the people you're trying to join, it doesn't help your case. Not to mention that it was his fault that Ba Sing Se fell, so knowing he's the reason the BigBad won the war doesn't endear Zuko to the Gaang.
* "The Southern Air Raiders"
** Zuko tries to tell Katara he has changed and thus she should trust him. She reminds him that they went through that in Ba Sing Se, and he chose to betray her and let Azula take over the city after a bonding moment. He visibly has no argument against that, especially since that basically won the war for the Fire Nation. Not to mention Katara was traumatized when Aang died for a few minutes and it was only with her Spirit Water that she was able to revive him.
** Yon Rha was the man who killed Katara's mother when she claimed to be the last Waterbender in the Southern Tribe. Katara rightly calls him a monster for breaking into a helpless woman's home and leaving her body for her husband and children to find. It turns out, however, that his life was ruined after that; he retired and is spending his existence with his abusive mother. By the time Katara and Zuko track him down, Katara takes him down in a CurbStompBattle but finds him too pathetic to kill. Even monsters can be broken and ruined by the choices they make, and the crimes they commit.
* "Sozin's Comet, Part One": Zuko yells at the Gaang for just waiting on Sozin's Comet to pass instead of doing something about it. They reveal that, despite Aang being a ChildProdigy, that he's not ready to face Ozai on a regular day, let alone on the one day that all firebenders are superpowered. He's only been bending water for a year, earth for a few months, and fire for a few weeks. Ozai, in contrast, has been firebending for ''decades''. Not even a ChildProdigy stands a chance against a trained BigBad. Since the Day of the Black Sun was their last hope at securing a victory, the team planned to wait until Aang was older and strong enough to beat Ozai. Zuko then becomes apologetic because he realizes that he's asking Aang to fight as a CurbStompCushion against his murderous father but says there isn't a choice if they want to save the Earth Kingdom from Ozai.
* In the same episode, we see a flashback to the war meeting Zuko attended before making his HeelFaceTurn. Turns out that even though the Fire Nation finally captured Ba Sing Se, the sheer size of the Earth Kingdom continent means that their armies are spread too thin to maintain control and they are regularly dealing with rebellions in the more remote areas of the country. Just because the capital of a country is conquered doesn't mean total victory is achieved.
* Aang knew he'd have to face the Fire Lord to bring peace to the world. It never occurred to him that he'd might have to actually take the man's life in cold blood; something that not only goes against everything he learned as an Air Nomad, but as an act no 12 year old boy should ever have to burden upon himself. His friends, including said man's own son, are yelling at him to do the deed, either unaware or uncaring that the burden of the deed falls on Aang rather than directly on any of them.
* In part two of the finale when Aang [[spoiler:goes missing]], Zuko suggests that Iroh battle Ozai for the position of Fire Lord and use the power to end the war. Iroh tells Zuko that even if he did defeat Ozai in a duel, which isn't a guarantee, it wouldn't end the war. Everyone would see it as Iroh making a power grab and it would create political instability within the Fire Nation. Aang, being the appointed peacekeeper and protector for all four nations, is the only one who can defeat Ozai and ensure peace.
* Despite being stronger than Zuko, Azula is unable to defeat him during the finale of the series until she cheats and shoots Lightning at Katara, which Zuko is only just able to redirect at the cost of it damaging him. Zuko might be weaker, but his calm and focused mental state allows him to counter Azula, who is suffering a mental breakdown during this period. This is shown during their fight especially; Zuko primarily plays defensively, blocking or countering Azula, while Azula attempts to overpower him through raw power. As a result, Zuko is able to block her attacks and even counter because Azula is basically just throwing her attacks at him, while Zuko counters or avoids it. In most cases, the fighter with the calmest mental state will win because they can plan and strategize over their enemy.
** Likewise, the Agni Kai is meant to show who wins in terms of firebending skills and prowess, as well as who is calm in the face of serious injuries. Azula at first "wins" by ensuring Zuko gets struck by lightning, but she forfeits by default when chasing Katara around the arena with an intent to kill. It's clear to any eyewitnesses and Fire Nation priests that she is unfit for rule if trying to murder an InnocentBystander, especially when said bystander has to restrain her with chains to end the fight.
* "The Avatar State": General Fong tries helping Aang achieve the Avatar State by offering Aang chi-enhancing tea, rather than achieve the avatar state, the caffeine instead makes Aang too hyperactive to focus.
* Aang never fights BigBad Firelord Ozai until the GrandFinale of the series...because he’s the ruler of a nation. Ozai has to run his country, and can’t just go off to chase down the Avatar himself; instead he assigns the mission to the Admiral Zhao, who’s in the most appropriate position in the Fire Nation to lead the hunt. After, he sends his daughter Azula who is extremely dangerous and doesn’t have any other obligations that require her to be in the FN. It’s only at the end of the series, when he’s leading the assault on the Earth Kingdom under the power of Sozin’s Comet, that he fights Aang. Even then, it was more to him just showing up then actually searching for him.

[[folder:''Avatar: The Legend of Korra'']]
* One of the overall themes is to show that the original Team Avatar didn't live happily ever after. They went on to live very realistic lives, complete with personal and family issues. These issues ultimately affect the lives of their children and grandchildren; Bumi and Kya are resentful towards Tenzin due to Aang's favoritism of his only airbending child, Lin not knowing her father makes her angry at her mother, her and Suyin growing up without parental supervision messed up their ability to form relationships, etc.
* At the end of Season 1, Korra [[spoiler: is granted the use of the Avatar State by her past lives despite being a neophyte airbender and still lacking in maturity (usually an Avatar masters all four elements and the discipline from doing so is how they become fully-realized, per the [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender previous series]].)]] Come Season 2 [[spoiler: Korra is using the Avatar State to cheat at racing Tenzin's children and refusing to continue her airbending training now that she's "fully-realized." Except she's not, as an encounter with a Dark Spirit shows she's not the InstantExpert she thinks she is as any skill takes time and practice to perfect, especially if it requires a mental state entirely different from your usual self. It takes some character building with [[CoolOldGuy Iroh]] in the Spirit World before she's able to become the full Avatar]]. If someone is just handed something without earning it, nine of ten times they're not going to respect it.
* The first episode has the title character stopping some thugs from getting tribute money, destroying a lot of the street while doing so. When the police show up, they almost immediately attempt to arrest her for property damage.
** Earlier in the same episode, she tries to get food for Naga, but having been locked in a compound for the majority of her life, she didn't know she needed to carry money around and spend it in exchange for things.
** Trying to catch fish from a pond in a public park likewise draws the attention of the police, since that pond is the city's property.
* As early as the third episode of season 1, Amon gets Korra on the back foot and tacitly explains that while it's well within his power at this moment, depowering the Avatar - generally seen as the BigGood to the world at large - would turn her into a Martyr and make his still-growing Equalist faction into terrorists. So with a simple threat that she'll be last, he leaves her be, and doesn't attempt to go after her again until he's drummed up enough public support and dissatisfaction even Korra is grouped in with the "Us vs. Them" mentality the Equalist movement made. This incident also leaves Korra huddled up as a crying mess; she had never been so thoroughly defeated, helpless and threated and only remained the Avatar because the villain was a pragmatist.
* The Korra/Mako/Asami LoveTriangle in season 1 is a typical "plucky teen heroine wins boy away from girlfriend who doesn't deserve him" plotline. In season 2, the constant lies necessary to uphold it leads to a lot of lingering strain between them, Korra and Mako face difficulties in actually maintaining a relationship, Mako and Asami still have remaining feelings for each other which creates problems, and Korra and Mako eventually break up entirely, as a BelligerentSexualTension romance is not usually a good basis for a successful relationship. In season 3 everyone finally ''stops'' lying and talks it out, allowing them to deal with and move past the problems, and although Mako needs some space all three remain friends despite the fiasco.
* The first episodes of season 2 show that TheHero would ''not'' be happy if TheMentor hid important things from them "for their own good", would likely develop serious trust issues, and would probably get pretty annoyed about being constantly bossed around and told that they are TheChosenOne.
* In Season 3, Korra and Tenzin are so excited that Harmonic Convergence made several people airbenders that until they try to recruit those people to rebuild the Air Nomads, they don't realize that, new powers or not, people aren't too keen on leaving behind their lives, homes, and families in order to adopt an entirely new culture. In fact, on the trip to Ba Sing Se, the only successful recruit is Kai, a StreetUrchin thief who sees his new airbending abilities as a way to earn redemption for the wrongs he committed in the past. And while several of the new airbenders do willingly join the Air Nomads later in the series, several of them still choose to keep living their current lives.
** One of the issues created by the new airbenders who refuse to accept the monks' lifestyle is that they're not trained to hold back for the sake of only fighting in self-defense. This shows how absurdly dangerous control over the air itself can be when one goes entirely on the offensive, as a group of untrained airbenders working together can easily create a tornado, or tell the air not to enter someone's lungs and asphyxiate them ([[spoiler:as the Earth Queen finds out the hard way when Zaheer assassinated her this way]]).
* The second season ends on an uplifting note with Korra's speech about looking towards a new future. The third season quickly reveals that a lot of people are mad at the changes that have come about as a result of spirits living in the material world and all. This leads to another {{Aesop}} that part of making decisions is making peace with them, no matter how difficult.
* Then Season 4 begins with a newsreel showing that the area the spirits took over is now a major tourist attraction, intercut with scenes of people and spirits getting along peacefully. People can pretty much get used to anything.
* Korra learns a BeYourself {{Aesop}} at the end of Book 2, but over a decade of identifying mainly as the Avatar isn't brushed away so easily.
* In "Long Live The Queen", Bolin and Mako are imprisoned in the Earth Queen's dungeons. Mako tells Bolin to metalbend the doors, gives him a speech about how this is his time and gets the whole cell block to cheer him on. Bolin digs deep, focuses... and achieves absolutely nothing. You don't instantly gain a very difficult and specialist skill because people believe in you.
* This is an ExploitedTrope by Zaheer:
** In the same episode, Zaheer points out that trying to hold Korra prisoner would bring unwanted international attention upon the Earth Kingdom.
** If an authority maintains order over the masses through iron rule which is heavily disapproved of, [[spoiler:things will get ugly when that authority is bumped off]]. This is exactly what Zaheer and his team wanted.
* The ArcVillain [[KnightTemplar Zaheer]] is an InstantExpert at airbending but has only had his powers for at most a few months (and seems to use moves based off [[AttackAttackAttack firebending]] he probably picked up from [[UnholyMatrimony P'li]]), and when he faced Tenzin (who's been an airbending master nearly all his life) he [[CurbStompBattle got creamed]] [[spoiler:until his teammates arrived to ZergRush Tenzin]]. Similarly in the third season finale, [[spoiler:Bolin's new MagmaMan abilities do take away a good portion of Ghazan's advantage, but the older lavabender still has the upper hand from experience until Mako joins in.]]
* Zaheer’s legitimately a very good airbender for someone who’s had the powers for such a short amount of time but he’s also got the fact that very few people (probably a dozen at most) on earth have ever actually been around airbenders on his side. No one knows how to fight him. Kya, who grew up with an airbender dad and brother and presumably trained with them, gives him a much harder time than anyone else. Lin and Su, who also grew up around Aang and Tenzin, are similarly able to get the better of him a few episodes later.
* The Earth Queen was a terrible tyrant, no doubt about it, but killing her just creates more problems. The ensuing chaos creates a power vacuum that gives rise to another tyrant, Kuvira. This happened in real life in both China and Russia around the time show is based on.
* The Avatar State [[spoiler:doesn't cure poison, so Korra's battle ends up being short-lived once the poison gets the better of her determination]]. It's definitely not something one can bounce right back from, as by the beginning of season 4 she still hasn't recovered mentally. Her physical recovery also took three years and a lot of willpower.
* When Korra loses a fight in an underground Earthbending ring, she is smacked around in possibly the most brutal curb stompings in the show, which depicts her injuries fairly realistically and demonstrates just how painful being on the receiving end of what is essentially a beating with flying rocks would be in RealLife.
* The duel between Korra and Kuvira in "Battle of Zaofu" has a double example. Korra may have just cured herself of mercury poisoning, but she's spent most of the last three years recovering from it and hasn't had much chance to practice fighting during this time. As a result, Kuvira — who's spent the last three years fighting to stabilize the Earth Kingdom — easily kicks her ass. Unfortunately for Kuvira, reality then ensues in the opposite direction. Flippantly goad a PhysicalGod to invoke her SuperMode during a duel, and she may end up doing just that, blasting you halfway across the field before crushing your prone form with a massive boulder.
* In her final battle Ming-Hua (an armless waterbender who fights by creating [[CombatTentacles temporary prosthetics]]) lures Mako into a pool of water, giving her a decisive advantage. [[spoiler:Or at least, she thinks. She dies seconds later when Mako puts himself on dry land and just [[HighVoltageDeath zaps the pool with lightning]].]]
* Toph explains to Korra the futility of her job. Even if she stops one bad guy, there will always be others waiting to take his place. Tenzin admits she has a point but offers a less cynical view of it. Of course, Toph lightens up later on in this matter, realizing that while evil never gives up, neither should the forces of good.
* In "Enemy at the Gates", Varrick's BeleagueredAssistant Zhi Li turns against him and Bolin when the three of them get captured trying to defect from Kuvira's army [[TheDogBitesBack because she's sick and tired of Varrick treating her like crap]] in order to keep herself from being imprisoned along with them. In "Operation Beifong", it turns out that Zhu Li [[FakeDefector only pretended to switch sides in order to hurt Kuvira's spirit vine cannon experiments and gather intel on when Kuvira will attack Republic City]] because she truly does love Varrick and wanted to protect him. However, the next episode proves that being pushed around by an ungrateful boss would grate anybody's nerves and Zhu Li more-or-less meant everything she said during "the betrayal". When Varrick finds out the truth and attempts to get her to become his assistant again, she flat-out refuses and demands to be treated like an equal if he really does wants her around. This makes Varrick have a HeelRealization, and he begins to treat her better as a result, [[spoiler: culminating in the two of them becoming HappilyMarried in the GrandFinale]].
* Opal isn't [[EasilyForgiven Easily Forgiving]] towards Bolin when he and Varrick return to Republic City to warn President Raiko about Kuvira's new spirit vine weapons. While she's glad that he's alive and that he immediately deserted Kuvira [[HeelRealization once he realized that he was fighting on the wrong side]], she's [[ForgivenButNotForgotten still understandably upset with him]] and he needs to work to regain her trust again, which he does by helping Opal and Lin free the remaining Beifong family members from Kuvira's captivity. On the other hand, his friends forgive him easily, because they're like his family, and have known him far longer than Opal has.
* [[PyrrhicVillainy Zaheer's anarchist revolution is brutally crushed by a well organized military push, and Kuvira has shown herself to be even worse than Hou-Ting ever was, which Korra calls him out on.]] All Zaheer's ideals about freedom though chaos were just that, ideals. This was actually foreshadowed when Asami and Bolin were playing Pai Sho in Book Three while staking Aiwei out. [[OrderVsChaos Bolin, who was playing fast-paced Pai Sho, lost pretty much every time to the strategic and calculating Asami]] (he nearly won once, but Pabu scattered the pieces). While chaos may be effective in the short term, order tends to win out in the long term, especially when safety is threatened.
* Despite the huge technological strides made between ''The Last Airbender'' and ''Legend of Korra'', large swathes of the Earth Kingdom are shown to look pretty much the same as they did seventy years ago. This is a fairly realistic look at how economic and technological development would spread through a country as huge as the Earth Kingdom- the rest of the world is relatively much smaller and could introduce new technology faster and easier, but the sheer scale of the Earth Kingdom would make that a logistical nightmare. Add to that the devastation of the war and the comet, and the general ineptness and selfishness of the Earth Queen, and it makes sense that there would be huge areas of the Earth Kingdom set away from the railroads which would be just as isolated and underdeveloped as they were decades ago even if the nation as a whole is wealthier and more modern. There are many historical examples of this such as the USA from around the time of the Civil War to World War II, late Tsarist Russia/early Soviet Union, and modern-day China.
* At the end of "Operation Beifong" Toph saves her family but announces she's going back to her home in the swamp. When questioned, she points out that while she is powerful, she's pushing ninety and can't perform the same large-scale heroics she could when she was younger, and also notes that this is why Katara stayed out of the Water Tribe Civil War in Season 2. Unlike the White Lotus grandmasters who fought in their oldest years, not everybody will age gracefully; and Old Age can affect everyone differently.
** Toph finally reveals the long-awaited identity of Lin's father. Turns out it was just some guy named Kanto, a name that has absolutely no importance to anyone, [[AntiClimax including the audience]]. Missing parents are not automatically indicative of a special lineage, and just because the audience know the two characters doesn't mean they'll hook up together.
* Toph's BrutalHonesty and flippant nature was cute when she was a kid. It's not so cute when she directs those same brusque words and carelessness towards her own daughters; Suyin explicitly says that she wished Toph had been a parent instead of an absent authority figure which is partly why she rebelled as a teen and became a getaway driver. Lin for her part always believed that Toph cared more about her own ego and reputation than actually answering her questions about her father or putting in the minimal effort of parenting, eventually severing ties with her for several decades. Toph only gets a JerkassRealization about this when Lin says they're only allying to save an imprisoned Suyin and after that, they're going their separate ways.
** To a lesser extent, Toph invoked this when Lin was forced to arrest Suyin for serving as a getaway driver, resisting arrest, and assaulting an officer. She said if Suyin was in jail then it'd ruin her as police chief and burns the warrant, choosing to exile her daughter to her strict grandparents in the Earth Kingdom. A bandaged Lin turns it around on her by pointing out she's saying what Suyin did was okay and she can get away with it. What's more, Lin establishes that Toph by covering up what Suyin did means they are no longer on speaking terms and refuses to consider them as family.
* The two-part GrandFinale features [[HumongousMecha The Colossus]]. While the airbenders give it a lot of trouble and are able to dodge the beam itself they are still blown away by the shockwave it produces. It's mostly hollow, save for the framework, and its spirit vine power core is the size of a house, which makes sense when you consider that something that big must need a ''lot'' of power to function. And even though they managed to take it down, it and the opening of the new spirit portal still did ''immense'' damage to the city.
** Also, [[NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup the Earth Empire only managed to make one]]. The Colossus was untested technology that required a lot of time and effort to create. In fact, it took so much platinum, so many workers and so much time to create that there's no way a second one will ever be rebuilt. [[spoiler:Besides, since the Earth Empire ultimately fails to take Republic City, it's not like anyone's going to let them try.]]
* Though Kuvira surrenders and apologizes to Su, she doesn't get EasilyForgiven by the older woman.
* [[spoiler:Though the plan to take Republic City ultimately fails, the Earth Empire doesn't just automatically all disappear because their leader was captured. However, reality ensues on them when, due to the aforementioned resources needed to make the Colossus all being gone, they're completely unprepared to deal with the counterattack, and get taken down pretty swiftly.]]
* [[spoiler: In the opening of Season 4, Korra is severely mentally damaged after the mercury poisoning effectively taking away her status as the Avatar. Being raised your entire life to believe you are the chosen one had serious mental repercussions and self-esteem issues inflicted upon her as now she has no self-worth.]]

[[folder:''Ben 10'']]
* ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10 Ben 10 (Original Series)]]'':
** Grandpa Max and Enoch are both seeking an ancient sword that is said to be extremely powerful. Enoch gets the sword first... and it disintegrates in his hands. Turns out that ancient artifacts aren't always in the best condition, as Max jokingly points out.
* ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce Alien Force]]'':
** In the first 2 seasons the Highbreed are basically depicted as alien Nazis: a MasterRace who see themselves as pure, consider every single other species in the Universe as impure and are obsessed with preserving their purity. In the finale, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the multiple generations of inbreeding brought about by this way of thinking ended up making them progressively weaker, more vulnerable to sickness and eventually sterile.]]
** In the episode "Alone Together", Ben is forced into an EnemyMine with a Highbreed named Reinrassic III when they both get trapped on a hostile planet together. True to the spirit of the trope, working together to survive eventually turns them into [[FireForgedFriends willing allies, and then friends]] over the course of their time on the planet. When the two of them reach the portal which will transport them off-world, [[spoiler: Reinrassic III refuses to go with them, stating that his developing morality and kindness means that [[DeliberateValuesDissonance he has become corrupted by Ben's human influence]], and as such, he is no longer worthy of returning to the Highbreed. Just because you become FireForgedFriends with an enemy doesn't mean they're going to cast aside the entire values system of the culture they were raised in overnight. A bigot will not immediately let go of the bigotry that's been drummed into them from birth just because one of the [[FantasticRacism lesser beings]] was nice to them in a situation where they had no other options. Another dose of reality comes at the end of the arc when Reinrassic III re-appears, having thought long and hard about his experiences before deciding to return -- just in time to talk the rest of the Highbreed out of committing a SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum after Ben scrambled random aliens into their genetic code to fix their sterility issues. He and Ben part on good terms, and his ability to be a "radical" thinker gets him assigned as the Highbreed's new leader]].
** When Ben's parents find out about his heroics and try to stop it by grounding him, he does so without complaint. However, when the current threat becomes too much for him to ignore, he turns into Humungousaur and leaves the house over his parents' protests. They might be his parents, but Ben is in control of the most powerful device in the universe, and if he doesn't want to listen to them, they don't have the power to stop him, and so his parents decide to ''help'' him instead when they do catch up to him.
* ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien Ultimate Alien]]'':
** Ben had spent so long running around in semi-public places turning into aliens and fending off invasions and large-scale attacks that ''someone'' would eventually notice and not be able to be hushed by the US government. After a video of Ben transforming hits social media and the general weirdness that hits Ben's hometown of Bellwood around the time of ''Alien Force'' becomes a major talking point, the governments of the world realize the jig is up and [[TheUnmasquedWorld come clean about what they'd been keeping secret for so long]] instead of [[ImplausibleDeniability continuing to lie in the face of direct evidence]]. Humanity takes to the news surprisingly well, since humans are adaptive, and living in a world with aliens eventually just becomes another facet of life, and Ben ends up becoming the face of both the Plumbers and this new alien-friendly world.
** Also, as a result, Ben's entire name was known by most of his enemies, he never possessed a secret identity and most of his recurring nemesis know where he lives, some down to his street address. Once the masquerade is dropped, there are several points where Ben's non-badass family or friends are kidnapped and used as leverage. Ben had to make a ''very'' harsh point that if anyone threatened his family to get to him, [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown he'd use more than proper force on them in retaliation]]. On the same topic, when Zombozo kidnaps Gwen's loved ones to try to get to Ben as a RevengeByProxy, Gwen became so furious that she [[OneWingedAngel turned into her Anodite form]] and gave Zombozo such a terrifyingly punctuated death threat he never reappeared for the rest of the series.
** Ben, while fighting Antonio as Ultimate Humungousaur, eventually takes the fight onto a soccer field being sprinkled and uproots an unpowered light pole, challenging Antonio to a fencing match. Antonio pulls up a nearby light pole... which is A) wet and B) unlike Ben's, switched on. One electric shock later, he's out of it.
* ''[[WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse Omniverse]]'':
** The Nemetrix was made specifically to counter the Omnitrix, containing the DNA of the natural predators to the Omnitrix's aliens. However, the Nemetrix didn't have ''nearly'' as much time in development as the Omnitrix and with how vast the universe in the series is, there's not a counter to ''every'' single alien in the Omnitrix, if not because of how many aliens in the series there are, then simply because some of them don't even ''have'' a natural predator to begin with.[[note]]The predators in this case are counters to Heatblast, Stinkfly, Armodrillo, Crashhopper, Ball Weevil, Humungousaur, Big Chill, Grey Matter, and Brainstorm, with a later Nemetrix host also serving as one for Ditto.[[/note]]
** If the latest Omnitrix is supposed to be the true, final version, then why does it still have the glitch of giving Ben the wrong aliens? [[spoiler: It doesn't. The reason Ben keeps getting the wrong aliens as Azmuth flatly tells him is because he keeps dramatically slamming his hand down as hard as he can on it to transform and causing the timer to accidently set to random. It might be the fully functional final version of the most powerful device in the universe but it's still a piece of technology, and if you don't use technology properly then it won't 'work' properly no matter how advanced it is.]]
** In "Clyde Five", Vera Tennyson starts to make well-meaning but ultimately foolish changes around Plumber Headquarters in an attempt to make the place more cozy even though she, as a civilian, doesn't have the authority to do so. When these changes go too far and Vera [[ItMakesSenseInContext accidentally endangers Magister Patelliday's life]], Grandpa Max (who's been putting up with her for the entire episode) finally snaps and orders for her to be confined to quarters for interfering with the operations of a Plumber Base.
** In "Return to Forever", we learn that after the events of "Frogs of War", when he tried to spin doctor the Incursians invasion of Earth and banishment of Ben, Will Harangue's ratings plumeted. Turns out that when you effectively become TheQuisling to a hostile invading force, you tend to lose a ''little bit'' of the people's good faith.
* ''WesternAnimation/Ben102016'':
** The Plumbers organization either doesn't exist or Ben and his family simply have no ties and thus no contact with it. So once Ben manages to capture Vilgax, what the hell is he supposed to do next? Put the superpowered alien warlord into a regular human prison as if Vilgax wouldn't be able to destroy it in three seconds flat? Lug around his cage and be his personal jailer 24/7? Let him walk free, so he could plot his next attack? Try to kill him when even a swim in an active volcano didn't? There are just no good options.
** Zombozo treats the circus freak trio like blindly loyal henchmen who will gladly put up with any amount of abuse from him out of fear and respect of their boss. However, the trio are ''not'' blind followers. They work for him despite the abuse they suffer because [[OnlyInItForTheMoney they want to get paid]]. When it becomes clear that Zombozo will never pay them anything, they abandon their leader without a second thought.
** When Ben tries to bite into a burger covered in rock candy, he ends up hurting his teeth.
** In Breaker One-Nine's first appearance, Ben uses his new Omni-Kix power up to destroy L.I.Z.A., Breaker One-Nine's TransformingMecha. In his next appearance, Breaker One-Nine offhandedly mentions that rebuilding L.I.Z.A. put him into debt.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:''Daria'']]
Due to being a {{Deconstruction}} of High School drama TV shows, ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'' naturally has a lot of this trope:
----
* Daria and Tom get into college at schools in two different towns, and after she tells him that they won't be going to the same college, she adds that she thinks they should break up. Tom objects, saying that their colleges aren't that far away so they can still see each other, but Daria points out that their relationship is already stressful for both of them since they're from two different worlds and have virtually nothing in common; being so far apart and only seeing each other occasionally will just make the strain worse. Tom concedes the point and they part on friendly terms.
* In "Jane's Addition", Jane meets Tom and starts dating him. Daria reacts badly to this because Jane's the only real friend she's ever had and she dislikes how she and Jane suddenly aren't spending as much time together and how Tom occasionally ends up intruding on what time they do have. It takes a while for her to warm up to him- a full season, in fact- and because Tom also warms up to her, Jane concludes that they're interested in each other and things just get worse. The resulting fight nearly destroys their friendship, and not only is it not resolved by the end of the episode, it's only fixed at the end of the 4th season finale ''Is It Fall Yet?''
* In "Prize Fighters" Daria ends up being a Top 100 scholarship finalist, and must be interviewed for the scholarship board to make its final decision. However, she learns that the company offering the prize has a rather sexist and racist history, so she's rather reluctant to deal with its people. Furthermore, she considers it dishonest to attempt to behave differently from her usual manner; which is to say, to act as if she were friendly, attentive, and interesting. At her actual interview, therefore, she generally behaves the same as ever: brutally honest, sarcastic, and clipped. She even wears her regular clothing for the interview. The interviewer finds her crass behavior rude and insulting, so she doesn't get the scholarship. Interviews exist because even if an applicant looks good on paper, they may not be able to live up to the hype in person; it turns out that the interviewer actually had decided Daria was qualified for the scholarship during the initial application process, but seeing her anti-social personality made him change his mind and decide she wasn't worthy of it. If Daria did act social and friendly during the interview, even if she was faking it, she would have gotten the scholarship no problem.
** The company also turns down the scholarship to Upchuck and Jodie, the other two Lawndale High School students who became finalists, for valid reasons. Upchuck is an intelligent but obnoxious butt-kisser who kept trying to butter up the interviewer, and Jodie just sprouted out stock answers to the interviewer's questions without personalizing them.
* Kevin's incompetence throughout the series has proven quite remarkable. He can't solve basic math problems, and as a high school senior, flunked a social studies test that was intended for first graders (all he had to do was list the colors of the American flag. He wrote down "yellow"). It's mentioned that the only reason he had gotten so far in school was due to the fact that he was an incredible football player, and teachers would simply pass him so he could stay off academic probation and play on the team. The series finale reveals that even that won't always save him, and he ends up [[HeldBackInSchool flunking his senior year while everyone else graduates.]]
* In the episode "Lucky Strike", a substitute teacher very transparently and creepily hits on Tiffany--even going as far as to touch her hair--in front of the whole class. When word of the incident reaches Daria's mom, she naturally freaks out and makes a furious phone call to the school, who immediately fires the substitute.
* In "Arts and Crass," Principal Angela Li forces Daria to enter her picture, that was altered to remove its political themes, into a contest against her will. Daria, in protest, vandalizes it, so Li makes a complaint to Helen. Instead of being angry with Daria, Helen spells out to Li that she violated Daria's civil rights in the process, and will be headed for a lawsuit.
* Jake's high stress and rage issues tend to be PlayedForLaughs throughout the series, but in season 3, it appears to have taken a toll on his health as he ends up having a heart attack. Granted it was a very mild one, but it was enough to give his family (even Daria) quite a scare.
* In ''Is It Fall Yet?'', Quinn spends the summer seeing a math tutor and grows smitten with him. When she finally asks him out, he gently turns her down. Quinn may be beautiful, but personality- and interest-wise, she is just not his type. As she's used to boys fawning over her, she doesn't know how to deal with rejection and suffers a HeroicBSOD.
* In ''Is It College Yet?'', when Quinn gets a hostessing job to pay off $700 credit card bill, she befriends a fellow hostess named Lindy, but soon discovers Lindy had a bit of a drinking problem. Lindy ends up getting fired when their manager finds a drink at their post after she came in hungover and messed up on the job. Quinn later tries to confront Lindy about her drinking, but most people usually aren't willing to admit when they have an addiction and can get very upset if called out on it. It's also later revealed that her mother also has a drinking problem, so she probably doesn't want to be compared to that. Lindy takes it as a personal attack and kicks her out of her apartment. [[BittersweetEnding Lindy later comes over and apologizes, still wanting to be friends, but still won't admit to having a problem.]]
* Daria's crush on Jane's brother, Trent, in the first three seasons never goes beyond a crush ([[ShipSinking much to the disappointment of shippers]]). Besides the obvious fact that Daria is still a minor and Trent is in his early twenties, she ultimately gets over her crush as she realizes that he is just too irresponsible and unreliable for her tastes.
[[/folder]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', AlphaBitch Bonnie is hit with this more than once for the consequences of her behavior.
** In an early episode, Kim concedes the title of head cheerleader to Bonnie after Kim realizes that she can't handle the workload of the multitude of side things she does ([[WakeUpGoToSchoolSaveTheWorld including being a super spy who saves the world]]). Bonnie is initially quite smug about getting one over on Kim, until both Kim and Ron take the wind out of Bonnie's sails by pointing out that being cheer captain means a lot of extra work on the captain's part. Suddenly, Bonnie realizes [[OhCrap that she's in over her head]] and can't take it back.
** After Kim and Ron become an OfficialCouple, Bonnie kisses Ron in an attempt to make Kim jealous and drive a wedge between them. Kim gets rightfully angry at Bonnie for this, getting in Bonnie's face, clearly mad enough that she's considering getting physical after all of the constant abuse that Bonnie's put her through. Suddenly, Bonnie remembers that Kim is a super spy who routinely battles world-ending threats, and [[BullyingADragon Bonnie is nowhere close to a physical match for Kim]]. Bonnie ends up crying and backing down instantly when she realizes that she has no hope of winning a fight with Kim.