History TemptingFate / Literature

* In ''RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'', Sun Jian swears an oath that if he's hiding the Imperial Seal (recovered after the sacking of the capital), may he meet a violent end. You can guess what happened. Ditto for Cao Cao's ''[[WhatAnIdiot three]]'' lines to the effect of "If Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang had been smart enough to place an ambush here, we'd be doomed." By the second time, his companions have already become savvy... for all the good it does them, since he's not.

* In the ''Literature/FederationOfTheHub'' story "The Demon Breed", the alien invaders have captured the ActionGirl heroine and the man she was attempting to rescue. With a firing squad ready to execute them, their captor delivers a speech which concludes:

* In ''Literature/RallyRoundTheFlagBoys'', the chapter where Guido di Maggio gets his first impression of Walter Hoxie ends:

* Clip from ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'' tells Nimander and his group to wait in their room while he goes out to the town's tavern to see what the obviously drugged townspeople are up to. Everyone thinks it's a bad idea. It isn't disclosed what exactly happened, but the group finds him the next morning on the tavern's terrace curled into fetal position and comatose.

* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'', Oliver Wood, Gryffindor's Quidditch team captain mentions that Harry hasn't failed to win them a game as of yet. The next chapter, Harry is overcome by the effects of a dementor and, by no fault to himself, failed to catch the Snitch and lost the game.

* In Creator/ReginaldBrettnor's short story "These Stones Will Remember", [[ItMakesSenseInContext a 19th-century Russian ghost]] says of his opponent in a duel (and [[TooDumbToLive against a warning by his friend that said opponent is a crack shot]]), "[[Sarcasm Mode We shall see how deadly [with a pistol] this prince is!]]". Which, of course, is [[{{Irony}} precisely what ensued]]...

* In Creator/ReginaldBrettnor's short story "These Stones Will Remember", [[ItMakesSenseInContext a 19th-century Russian ghost]] says of his opponent in a duel (and [[TooDumbToLive against a warning by his friend that said opponent is a crack shot]]), "We shall see how deadly [with a pistol] this prince is!". Which, of course, is precisely what ensued...

* This is part of the setting in Creator/TerryPratchett's ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels. One-in-a-million chances are known to come up nine times out of ten. BUT, if you try to stack the odds against you to make it one-in-a-million, you'll usually end up with a one-in-999,874 chance instead, which pointedly does ''not'' come up nine times out of ten. Likewise, a not-quite-goddess figure called The Lady has the tendency of rewarding her favorites through unlikely happenstances, BUT will instantly abandon you should you deliberately call upon her. Temples to her tend to get struck by lightning.

* When Emma is describing the hiking trail she's urging Lori to take at the opening of ''[[AuntDimity Aunt Dimity: Snowbound]]'', she is excessively optimistic:

* In ''[[LordPeterWimsey Busman's Honeymoon]]'', the detective Lord Peter has reconstructed the trap that he believed killed the murder victim. His wife is dubious, thinking that it might have been noticed. This is followed by someone walking in and setting off the trap. [[spoiler:The murderer, no less.]]

* In ''[[HumanxCommonwealth Midworld]]'', after an encounter with a camouflaged predator that mimics a gap in the forest canopy, one of the skypeople makes a snide remark about how, at this rate, they'll run into something that "imitates ''nothing''" next. Three days later, they encounter something called the palinglass...

* The Literature/{{Animorphs}} were particularly GenreSavvy about this, often making reference to the "Irony Gods" who punish phrases such as "It can't get any worse."

** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d most of the time by Rincewind, who is [[GenreSavvy sensibly paranoid]], as things around him are usually about to kill him. He epitomises this in ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'', after the battle, all seems peaceful and quiet, and he calmly says "something is about to go wrong" (or something similar). It does.

* In ''RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'', Sun Jian swears an oath that if he's hiding the Imperial Seal (recovered after the sacking of the capital), may he meet a violent end. You can guess what happened. Ditto for Cao Cao's ''[[WhatAnIdiot three]]'' lines to the effect of "If Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang had been smart enough to place an ambush here, we'd be doomed." By the second time, his companions have already become GenreSavvy... for all the good it does them, since he's not.

* Literature/CiaphasCain, '''[[FakeUltimateHero HERO OF THE IMPERIUM]]''', often says something along these lines. Is GenreSavvy enough to know he really should know better.

* In NightOfTheLivingTrekkies, the group of survivors has organized and formulate a plan to eescape Houston before it is bombed; all they have to do is make it to the USS Stockard (an RV). Jim Pike's Sister Rayna, says, "could be worse." Then the Hotel's power fails. then when they make it to the stairwell, they can't hear anything and think the coast is clear. Rayna Says, "This should be easy", then they hear a whole mob of Zombies burst into the bottom of the stairwell. Finally, Jim snaps: "I order you to quit saying optimistic things."

* In the third book in the AlternateHistory ''WorldWar'', one of the Alien Invaders, who can't stand cold, has been reassigned to a new area in the winter and asks the pilot how cold it is. Upon being told that there is ice on the ground, he remarks: "That seems to happen a great deal on this planet. I don't suppose this Siberia can be too much worse than the rest."

* In the ''GauntsGhosts'' novel ''Blood Pact'', Gaunt sees the regiment growing steadily more restless due to the rest on Balhaut and hopes to get back into the war. He gets it, but not quite the way he wanted: [[spoiler: A Blood Pact kill-team infiltrates in search of a high-ranking traitor and the Ghosts are dragged in.]] He later recognises this.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' book ''Changes'', Harry is in a magical garden fighting a giant VideoGame/{{Centipede}}. He uses a focused beam of fire to cut it in half, and makes a wisecrack about Atari. Naturally, the two halves regenerate into [[AsteroidsMonster new centipedes]].
** Quoth Mort, in ''Ghost Story'', "It's one hour. Just one little hour. What could happen in one hour?" Lampshaded by Dresden: Mort couldn't possibly be a hero, because "heroes know better than to hand the universe lines like that".

* In the ''GotrekAndFelix'' books, dwarf inventor Malakai Makaisson built the biggest steamship ever, naming it ''Unsinkable''. It sank with all hands (except Malakai) on its first voyage. He built an airship, ''Indestructible'', which crashed, killing everyone aboard, except Makaisson. When he built a second airship, he wanted to name it ''Unstoppable''. For some reason, dwarf elder Borek, who was backing the project, wouldn't permit that.

* In Max Shulman's ''Rally Round the Flag, Boys!'', Guido di Maggio gets his first impression of Walter Hoxie:

* In ''[[Literature/{{Newsflesh Deadline]]'', Shaun runs down a list of their current problems, then [[YouJustHadToSayIt he just]] ''[[YouJustHadToSayIt has]]'' [[YouJustHadToSayIt to say]]:

* In the FederationOfTheHub story "The Demon Breed", the alien invaders have captured the ActionGirl heroine and the man she was attempting to rescue. With a firing squad ready to execute them, their captor delivers a speech which concludes: