| 1 | %%% |
| 2 | %% |
| 3 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
| 4 | %% |
| 5 | %%% |
| 6 | !!Often a {{Death Trope|s}}, so expect to see unmarked spoilers ahead. |
| 7 | |
| 8 | [[{{Literature}} Words on paper]] can't act out an epic battle scene as well as other media, but they're just as good at depicting characters' [[HoistByHisOwnPetard downfall by their own means]]. |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | !!By Author |
| 11 | * Creator/{{Aesop}} tells the story of a [[SnakeOilSalesman traveling con man]] who dupes people into buying his [[AllNaturalSnakeOil "magical elixir"]] that's supposed to cure anything and everything that ails them. When he falls ill, he is medicated with his own product which he knows will not work, and this is where we get "a taste of his own medicine." |
| 12 | * If you're an older widow in a Creator/JaneAusten novel, you should probably not try to prevent two young people from getting together; it never seems to go as they'd like. |
| 13 | ** ''Literature/PrideAndPrejudice'': Lady Catherine de Bourgh's visit to Longbourne to "forbid" Lizzie Bennet from marrying Mr. Darcy mostly just serves to make Lizzie realize that Darcy is still in love with her despite her earlier rejection of him. |
| 14 | ** In ''Literature/SenseAndSensibility'', when Edward refuses to break off his engagement to Lucy Steele instead of agreeing to marry the wealthy Miss Morton, his mother Mrs. Ferrars not only disinherits him but immediately settles the estate on his brother Robert to spite him. Lucy promptly jilts Edward and successfully goes after Robert instead, and Mrs. Ferrars has lost all leverage she could have used to stop him marrying her. The real kicker is that Robert, being cut from a different cloth than his brother, could probably very easily have been persuaded to marry Miss Morton if he'd been told he had to do it before he received the estate. |
| 15 | * In both the Creator/AgathaChristie novel [[spoiler:''Literature/{{Curtain}}'']] and the Creator/GKChesterton novel [[spoiler:''Literature/TheManWhoKnewTooMuch'']], two cups of coffee, one poisoned, are put on a table-height revolving bookcase. When the poisoner is looking elsewhere, the bookcase is turned around by someone looking for a book. Later, the poisoner drinks the poisoned cup of coffee and the intended victim drinks the other one. Coincidentally, in both [[{{Pun}} cases]], one of the people involved is named [[spoiler:Hastings]]. |
| 16 | * Creator/IsaacAsimov: |
| 17 | ** ''Literature/Foundation1951'': |
| 18 | *** "Literature/TheMayors": The ScamReligion established by the Foundation for the Four Kingdoms allowed its monarchs to establish [[DivineRightOfKings divine authority over their people]], but the monarchs failed to realize that it also gave the Foundation an even greater power over them as the Foundation became the controller of their technology and the main object of worship. Attempt to conquer Terminus and your religious population will lead your entire civilian and military populations to revolt. |
| 19 | *** "Literature/TheMerchantPrinces": |
| 20 | *** Jorane Sutt hoped to use the trial against Hober Mallow to break the power of the merchants and ride the wave of religious fervor into greater power. Hober Mallow turned the fervor against him after he proved that the accusations were based on a lie, revealing Sutt's manipulations and riding the wave of patriotic fervor into the Mayor's office. |
| 21 | ----->''"An atom-blaster is a good weapon, but it can point both ways."'' -- '''Salvor Hardin''' |
| 22 | *** Korell's Commdor's greed, stoked by his establishing a greater industrial network with the Foundation's technology, which led to his fall when his war declaration against the Foundation left him without the essential maintenance for that technology, ruining him and his main supporters. |
| 23 | ** "{{Literature/Trends}}": Shelton [[VehicularSabotage sabotages Harman's rocket]], and the subsequent explosion sends shrapnel into the crowd. Sheldon failed to get out of the blast radius in time, dying due to the explosion he created. |
| 24 | * Creator/MatthewReilly: |
| 25 | ** In "Hell Island", the Island is overrun by 300 mountain apes who were genetically modified to be supersoldiers. They were controlled by silver disks, and anyone wearing one was immune to them. The island hadn't been overrun at all... it was part of an exercise. Schofield has Mother wipe out the disks, so nobody is immune, and everyone who was previously safe was killed by the apes, before Schofield drowned them. |
| 26 | ** Also in ''Ice Station'' when the one remaining French soldier attempts to take out the marines by planting a Claymore mine at a dead-end corridor. Rebound discovers his plan and turns the mine around, resulting in the gruesome death of the Frenchman at the hand of his own mine. |
| 27 | *** Somewhat amusingly, the aforementioned French soldier? His name is Jean '''Petard'''. |
| 28 | *** And later, the "bad guys" were themselves hoisted by not cleaning up the body of Petard. |
| 29 | ** ''Literature/TheGreatZooOfChina'': [[spoiler:The red-and-black superking's own fire breath sets it on fire, with a little assist from the fuel from CJ's flamethrower]]. |
| 30 | * Creator/VESchwab: |
| 31 | ** In the ''Literature/ShadesOfMagic'' book ''A Darker Shade of Magic'', this is how Kell defeats Athos despite Athos having greater magical power. They each possess a broken half of an ArtifactOfDoom, a black stone which enhances magic but is difficult to control. Kell goads Athos into using his half of the black stone to summon a monster, having previously learned that creations of the stone always turn on their masters. |
| 32 | ** ''Vicious'' from ''Literature/TheVillainsSeries'' has Eli. His HealingFactor saves his life on numerous occasions, but after killing [[spoiler: Victor]], he tells the police that he acted in self-defense. They proceed to arrest him because he's completely uninjured and assumed to be lying. |
| 33 | * Creator/SidneySheldon has done this a few times. |
| 34 | ** In "The Best Laid Plans," Leslie Stewart is determined to ruin the life of now President Oliver Russell for breaking their engagement years before. When a murder centers on the White House, Leslie forces her reporters to slant the news to make Russell look as guilty as possible. Hearing he's going to be served with a warrant, Leslie orders a front page story on the arrest to be put out immediately before it takes place. She's in her office when a live TV broadcast exposes the true murderer and Russell is innocent. Leslie races to stop the paper but it's already hit the streets and Leslie realizes she's about to achieve her dream of becoming world-famous....as the woman behind the biggest laughingstock in media history. |
| 35 | ** In "Nothing Lasts Forever," Paige is on trial for the death of a patient, with the D.A. arguing that it was murder, as the man left her his fortune. He calls her SadistTeacher to the stand; Paige argues that the man is recovering from a recent stroke and shouldn't be allowed, but the judge allows it. The D.A. starts to talk to him... and the doctor suddenly rips into how putting Paige on trial is a travesty, how he only ran her down to make her stronger and deeply respects her. He adds that she had no idea the guy was leaving her the money and the death wasn't even her fault. Realizing that his own witness has just destroyed his case, the D.A. tries to say the man is too ill, but the judge dryly points out that he can't use the same issue he just fought against and forces the man to drop the charges. |
| 36 | --->'''Judge:''' Here's a piece of advice you should have learned in law school. ''Never'' call a witness unless you know what they're going to say. |
| 37 | |
| 38 | !!By Title |
| 39 | |
| 40 | * ''Literature/TheAdventuresOfStrongVanya'': Anissim, an innkeeper who is on the [[BigBad Grand Duke]]'s payroll, sets the Steppe on fire to murder the main character; though, he starts the wildfire so carelessly that he does not notice the flames are surrounding him. |
| 41 | * ''Literature/AgathaHAndTheAirshipCity'': The reason Zulenna's attempt to distract a guard and get over to Castle Wulfenbach during the mess with the Hive Engine doesn't work. Some weeks prior, Zulenna had upbraided a guard for being improperly dressed while off-duty, and said guard points out that if such a person was suddenly trying to be nice to him, in a world where Slaver Wasps are a thing, he'd have to be pretty damn stupid to fall for it, wouldn't he? If Theo and Sleipnir hadn't been present with a good wrench, he'd have had her arrested then and there. |
| 42 | * Seems to be very common when finishing off the main antagonist of each ''Literature/AgentPendergast'' novel. Either something of their creation is turned against them and winds up killing them (''{{Literature/Brimstone}}'', ''Literature/TheWheelOfDarkness''), or one of their own actions winds up directly causing their own death (''Literature/TheCabinetOfCuriosities'', ''Literature/CemeteryDance'') |
| 43 | * In Anthony Horowitz's ''Literature/AlexRider'' books, the antagonist is occasionally killed by their own weapon. And it's very rarely a simple or clean death; if Anthony Horowitz ever loses his present career, he's got the makings of a nice NightmareFuelStationAttendant. |
| 44 | ** In ''Stormbreaker'', [[TheDragon Nadia Vole]]'s boss tasks her with finding a creative way of killing Alex, and she decides to drown him in a tank with a Portuguese Man O' War, telling him that its venom will kill him in a manner more painful than he can imagine if it drifts into him. Alex is able to blow up the tank from the inside, and in the chaos that follows, the Man O' War collides with Nadia and stings her to death instead. |
| 45 | ** The executives of Scorpia make the fatal mistake of underestimating Alex; in ''Scorpia'', Julia Rothman tries to use a hot air balloon to transmit lethal radio waves ([[ItMakesSenseInContext long story]]) from satellite dishes on its base, and dies when Alex disables the balloon, and it crashes down on top of her. |
| 46 | ** Then in ''Snakehead'', an even ''more'' gruesome example: Major Yu is using a prototype bomb as powerful as a nuke to create a tsunami in order to stop a group of popular NonIdleRich people from addressing the public to help encourage eradication of poverty (Satire Alert: [[spoiler:they were commissioned for this by one of the world governments to keep the status quo in check]]). Alex infiltrates his base and detonates the bomb too early. And how does this kill Yu and not Alex, when considering that Yu was half a mile away from where he was, and the bomb was thousands of feet below sea level? Because Yu had a very acute form of osteoporosis, and the shockwave from the bomb shattered his skeleton. |
| 47 | * In "Old Women Hating" from ''Literature/AlwaysComingHome'', the woman living upstairs attempts to set fire to the hated neighbor below by pouring down oil and igniting it. She is the only casualty of the fire. |
| 48 | * ''Literature/AnansiBoys'': Grahame Coates, step up and be recognized! Grahame always fires his employees mere weeks before they have been employed long enough to qualify for the severance package. The exception: Fat Charlie Nancy, who has been working for Grahame Coates for an unprecedented ''two years''. So, naturally, when Fat Charlie's brother makes Coates think that Fat Charlie is on to his long-running embezzlement scheme, Coates thinks that Fat Charlie would be the guy to pin it on. Fat Charlie is arrested and then promptly told by the policewoman interviewing him that it's laughably obvious that this has been going on for longer than even Fat Charlie has been working there, and he's being let go on grounds of being innocent. |
| 49 | * In the ''Literature/ApprenticeAdept'' book ''Unicorn Point'', Stile and his allies are about to hand over control of the [[GreatBigBookOfEverything Book Of Magic]] to the Adverse Adepts on Phaze and the [[MasterComputer Game Computer]] to the Contrary Citizens on Photon - items that would irrevocably shift the balance of power away from Stile and co. And Mach and Bane, the two most powerful individuals on either world are [[HonorBeforeReason honor bound]] to work with the Adverse/Contrary forces. Then the Adverse/Contrary forces threaten Bane and Mach's wives (in an effort to keep their [[TykeBomb even-more powerful children]] in check). This breaks the pact they had with Mach and Bane, allowing them to work openly against them. Then Adepts Tan and Purple (and their Citizen counterparts on Photon) stage a coup attempt under their allies noses. But they did this ''before'' they (the Adepts/Citizens) had actually finalized their hold on power. The chaos allowed some of the good guys to escape Purple/Tan's clutches, culminating in the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Platinum Flute]] coming back into play and the two worlds being [[MergedReality merged into one]]. And in the resulting chaos, the good guys take back control for good. |
| 50 | * ''Literature/ArtemisFowl'': |
| 51 | ** In ''The Opal Deception'', Pixie Opal Koboi arrogantly declares that she has no need of magic when she has science, and has a pituitary gland surgically implanted in her skull so that her body will generate more growth hormone and make it easier for her to masquerade as a human child. The hormones generated by the gland sap her of the last of her magic just as she needs to use her mesmer power. Even better: the need arises ''just'' after she used that power in a way that she didn't think through. Her magic runs dry before she can correct her mistake, forcing her into days of manual labor before the LEP picks her up. |
| 52 | ** Her former partner, Briar Cudgeon, suffered a more fatal version of this. He activated the plasma cannons in Koboi Labs in order to stun the B'wa Kell crime ring after his plan to betray them was revealed. When his plan to betray Opal as well is revealed shortly thereafter, she angrily rams him with her hoverchair and he's sent flying straight into the cannons' conduits, killing him. The narrator specifically notes the irony. |
| 53 | * In ''Literature/AtlasShrugged'', Robert Stadler tries to take over a DeathRay installation that he feels belongs to him. The outcome of the struggle is the obliteration of him, the building, and everything within a 100-mile radius. |
| 54 | * ''Literature/TheAtrocityArchive'' has as its villains the remnants of an alternate universe's Third Reich. They [[{{Ghostapo}} managed to turn the Holocaust into a massive necromantic working]], attracting the attention of a [[EldritchAbomination Great Old One]] they got to fight on their side. Thing is, after it destroyed the Allies, it proceeded to drain ''everything'' from the universe, to the point that said universe is facing imminent heat death only 60 years later and the Great Old One itself is trying to escape ahead of the impending collapse of reality making this a double case when the Laundry agents realize what's happening and trap it in the dying reality. |
| 55 | * In ''Literature/TheBestseller'' by Olivia Goldsmith, Judith and Daniel write a book together although Judith does most of the work. They decide to have Daniel pose the sole author "Jude Daniel" to sell it and then reveal the truth later. But Daniel is seduced by the success he thinks is coming, sleeping with his editor and refusing to give Judith her due. He reveals that he copied the book down in "handwritten notes" with faked dates and that Judith has no evidence she did anything but Daniel can prove he wrote everything. This bites him in the ass when the book is a massive flop and suddenly Daniel is the "sole author" of a disaster and ruins his life. |
| 56 | * ''Literature/TheBlackArrow'': Sir Daniel's ploy, which involved getting Dick and Joanna married to steal their inheritance, causes Dick to find out about his guardian murdering his father and slip from his grasp. Later, when Sir Daniel tries to marry Joanna to Lord Shoreby to reinforce his ties with a rich Lancaster partisan, Dick crashes the wedding (which he was invested in stopping, having fallen in love with Joanna due to Sir Daniel's manipulations), and thanks to knowing a big deal about Sir Daniel's treacherous dealings, his testimony gets his ex-guardian into hot water with his Lancastrian allies. |
| 57 | * ''Literature/BlackDogs'': The BigBad summons a demon to destroy another character, but it backfires and demons, being the hostile creatures they are, attacks him instead. |
| 58 | * The short story "BLIT" by Creator/DavidLangford is about a fractal pattern called The Parrot, a LogicBomb for the human mind, which has been weaponized by a domestic terrorist group called the Albion Action Group, and the VillainProtagonist has been tasked to spray-paint this image around town, whist wearing vision-disrupting goggles to avoid being affected himself. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, his mind eventually adjusts to counter the effect of the goggles and see clear images despite them, and when he ends up in police custody and it is thus too late to take a huge dose of alcohol to flush his visual memory, he is unable to stop his mind reassembling memories of the image into a clear image of The Parrot, thereby killing him.]] |
| 59 | * The Weavers from ''Literature/TheBraidedPath''. [[spoiler:Their plan is to terraform Saramyr so it is more suitable for the fallen god Aricat. The process leads to the creation of Aberrants, which include the Red Order who can not only summon fire but manipulate the Weave better than the Weavers (without the effects of a post-Weave mania afterwards). The Red Order, including main protagonist Kaiku, are the ones who bring the Weavers down and destroy the remains of Aricat, restoring balance to Saramyr.]] |
| 60 | * In ''Literature/ABrothersPrice'', the [[spoiler:Porter family]] rigged a theater to explode, killing their older mothers, who were getting senile and indiscreet, as well as several members of the royal family. It was specifically chosen so that [[spoiler:Keifer Porter]], who had encouraged them to visit that theater, could duck into a protected bathroom and survive. He [[BrainlessBeauty missed his cue]], so his Eldest came to get him -- and they both died in the explosion. |
| 61 | * In ''Literature/BulldogDrummond'', the criminal mastermind Lakington is fond of {{Death Trap}}s. The hero pushes him into his own AcidPool, then he leaps out and runs screaming into a BoobyTrap which mercifully breaks his neck. |
| 62 | * In ''Literature/TheCaseOfCharlesDexterWard'', three immortal sorcerers steal the remains of ancient sages and powerful leaders to summon their spirits and force them to share their mystic knowledge. They frequently share these ashes around, while constantly reminding each other never to summon any spirit they are not one hundred percent sure they can contain and banish again. After at least two centuries, one of them leaves the ashes of one particularly powerful spirit out in his lab, where an investigator searching the place accidentally mutters the spell of summoning. When he awakens, he is in the house upstairs with any trace of there ever having been any labs vanished, and he later learns the other two sorcerers died in the destruction of their mansions in Europe shortly after. |
| 63 | * ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': In book #7 (''The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare''), [[spoiler:Herb Hackpole, after getting remarried to Iris Cobb, tries to burn down the new Klingenschoen Museum so she can't work there, like she insisted she was going to continue to do after they got married. He succeeds in destroying the museum, but dies in the blaze in the process]]. |
| 64 | * In ''[[Literature/ChaletSchool The New Mistress at the Chalet School]]'', this happens to DumbBlonde new girl Yseult Pertwee. She wants to play Herod in the school Christmas play as she has acting experience, but Mary-Lou Trelawney is given the part instead. Miss Ferrars tries to pacify Yseult by letting her be Mary-Lou's understudy, but it has the opposite effect as Yseult becomes even more determined to get the part and tries to engineer a skiing accident and injure Mary-Lou. Unfortunately, she ends up injuring ''herself'' instead and is out of the play completely. Bonus points for the trope actually being namechecked in the chapter. |
| 65 | * ''Literature/{{Chrestomanci}}'': In ''The Magicians of Caprona'', the Duchess decides to punish her captives by transforming them into Theatre/PunchAndJudy puppets and forcing them to live out the show, complete with all the painful beatings involved. Fortunately, one of them manages to turn the spell (and the hangman's noose) against her. |
| 66 | * In the Creator/{{Disney}} storybook ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}} and the Ugly Stepsisters'', Cinderella's stepmother and stepsisters move into the castle with her after she marries the prince. When they overhear Cinderella say she's planning a big party for some important people, Anastasia and Drizella go about trying to ruin the preparations without her noticing. Cinderella's animal friends see the sabotage, and go about sabotaging that. Come the night of the party, the stepsisters wear absolutely hideous outfits and scare off the guests. At which point Cinderella states her stepfamily were "the important people" she was throwing the party for, leaving the sisters sobbing and Lady Tremaine pulling her hair from frustration. |
| 67 | * The Vitalizer in, well, ''Literature/ClockpunkAndTheVitalizer''. Had he not fed and tried to clean Dolores, she [[spoiler:would've never had the opportunity to climb onto the sofa and drop her plus the streetlight's combined weight on him]]. |
| 68 | * In ''Literature/Coda2013'', Anthem's original rebellion wouldn't have worked out anyway. But by letting him and his bandmates live and produce what they think is approved music, the Corp sowed the seeds for their downfall. |
| 69 | * ''Literature/CodexAlera'' has Kalarus, whose entire ''province'' becomes Alera's Pompeii when Gaius Sextus sets off the volcano he planned to unleash on the entire continent in the event of his defeat. |
| 70 | * ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'': |
| 71 | ** In "Literature/XuthalOfTheDusk", Thalis's ColdBloodedTorture of Natala means that Thalis is still there when Thog arrives, resulting in Thalis herself being killed instead of Natala, whom she'd wanted Thog to claim. |
| 72 | ** In ''Literature/TheHourOfTheDragon'', Zorathus tells Valbroso how to open his chest, without mentioning that if you do it with your bare hands, you will be poisoned. |
| 73 | ** In "Literature/AWitchShallBeBorn", Constantius, TheDragon of the thoroughly evil title character, has Conan crucified early on in the story. When the tables turn and Khauran is freed from Salome's control with the help of Conan's forces, Conan's vengeance upon Constantius involves crucifying him just as he did to him -- but unlike Conan, Constantius is nowhere near as enduring of the pain of crucifixion. |
| 74 | * ''Literature/TheDemonHeadmaster'': Two books in the series do this. The first one is when the Headmaster falls into a machine that he uses to clone life, although that only lasts until the next book, where the machine clones him. The clone -- who has the Headmaster's powers -- is undone by an information overload in his brain. |
| 75 | * In Creator/RobinJarvis' ''[[Literature/DeptfordMice Deptford Histories]]'' book ''The Oaken Throne'', the fact that the [[GodOfEvil evil rat god Hobb]] was able to escape the Underworld with a spell involving an acorn is used by [[TheHero Ysabelle]] to entrap him in that very thing. |
| 76 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': |
| 77 | ** A throwaway joke mentions that it's not often that weapon inventors are killed by their own creation and the widespread belief in this happening is due to the unfortunate death of William Blunt-Instrument in an alley. |
| 78 | ** In ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic'', Garhartra the Guestmaster casts a spell to stop a flung bottle of wine in mid-air. Eight hours later, he returns to the room just in time for the spell to wear off, and the bottle resumes its interrupted journey, smacking him on the head. |
| 79 | ** In ''Literature/WyrdSisters'', Felmet commissions a play to [[MaliciousSlander slander]] the witches and make it so that people recognize him as king. Said play forms the perfect opportunity for the witches to meddle, and the ghost of the old king to possess an actor and tell everyone that Felmet killed him. |
| 80 | ** Lilly in ''Literature/WitchesAbroad'' uses mirrors to amplify her powers. In the end she is trapped in her own mirrors, probably forever. |
| 81 | ** The vampires in ''Literature/CarpeJugulum'' bite Granny Weatherwax in order to make her a vampire as well. Unfortunately, she sent her spirit into the blood they drank, so instead of transforming her they find themselves becoming more like her. They also trained themselves to be resistant to holy symbols -- unfortunately for them, that involved ''learning to recognize'' a great many holy symbols (some of them common geometric figures), and [[OurVampiresAreDifferent the local rules]] for holy symbols only require the vampire to recognize something as a holy symbol to be affected, so when their resistance is stripped away... |
| 82 | ** The villain in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' attempted to poison the Patrician by using candles with the wicks soaked in arsenic. Vimes [[spoiler:pretends to have done]] the same trick with [[spoiler:holy water]] in the climax. The villain also used a golem to help with the plot, and it's a golem that ends up arresting him. |
| 83 | ** The RatKing in ''Literature/TheAmazingMauriceAndHisEducatedRodents'' uses his mental powers to strip the eponymous rats of their magical intelligence so they can't defy him, but he also uses it on Maurice, who once he's no longer holding back the suppressed instincts of months responds in natural cat fashion to seeing a bunch of rats in front of him. |
| 84 | * This is a standard in ''Literature/DocSavage'' series. Doc and his friends have a strict policy against killing if at all possible. (Minions he captures are even sent to a special hospital in upstate New York where they receive a special brain operation that wipes their past away, and they are re-trained to be productive citizens with no urge at all to commit crimes.) However, in virtually every one of the 181 pulp novels the master criminal, and usually their closest henchmen, are killed by their own plans to kill Doc Savage. Often, Doc himself has found some way to turn the plan back on his foes. Deaths have included such events as: being killed by poisonous vampire bats; being eaten alive by a swarm of carnivorous ants; being drowned in a flood of boiling mud from a caldera; being swept into an underground river and drowned; being burned alive in a massive gas fire intended to kill a band of people hiding on a ship in a ship's graveyard; and ''many'' foes being killed by explosions they has intended to have capture Savage. (And much more.) |
| 85 | * In ''Literature/TheDragonHoard'', this happens to most of the villains. A subplot involves an entire island turned to stone by a wicked enchantress; after the heroes restore it, they discover an out-of-the-way corner that wasn't reached by the restorative magic and is still stone -- and there is the enchantress herself, who didn't get out of the way of her own spell in time. The main villain, Maligna, is eventually defeated by turning one of her own curses back on her. |
| 86 | * In ''Literature/DragonWar'', after utterly defeating the heroes, the BigBad EvilSorcerer, the Boneless King, muses on the most creative way to destroy them. He ultimately settles on opening a portal to [[EldritchLocation the primordial chaos from before time began]], somewhere that even he himself couldn't escape from once imprisoned. Considering this, he chose the absolute worst time to betray his Dragon after the heroes forced him to see the truth of what he was doing; Pomfret throws himself at the Boneless King, carrying them both into the portal, which seals behind them. |
| 87 | * In "Literature/{{Dread}}", Quaid makes Stephen Grace face his "dread" by making him relive the experience of losing his hearing. In the process driving him insane and Stephen returns to Quaid's house reenacting Quaid's dread of the night his parents were killed. Quaid does not overcome his own dread. |
| 88 | * In ''Literature/DreamOfTheRedChamber'', this is what happens to Xia Jingui. After Xiangling, a maid in her household, inadvertently spots her (a married woman herself) with a stranger and causes said stranger to run off, [[DisproportionateRetribution Jingui decides to kill Xiangling in revenge]]. She sees her opportunity when Xiangling falls ill and feigns care, with the intent of secretly putting poison in the bowl of soup she is to give to Xiangling. The maid whom Jingui tasks with serving Xiangling, unaware of Jingui's plot and indignant at the idea of being forced to serve a fellow maid, decides to play a prank as payback by secretly adding a large number of salt into the bowl of soup meant for Xiangling when no one is looking. When Jingui pours some soup into her own bowl and proceeds to swap bowls, [[SpannerInTheWorks the maid, upon spotting Jingui's action and fearful of potential reprimands from Jingui for drinking the much-too-salty soup, quickly swaps the bowls right back without anyone else noticing, not knowing Jingui has put poison into the bowl she gives to Xiangling]]. Jingui and Xiangling both drink the soup... with [[KarmicDeath Jingui being killed by the very poison she intends for Xiangling]]. |
| 89 | * ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': |
| 90 | ** Lord Raith has a fairly [[{{Squick}} squicky]] predilection, which he ultimately becomes the victim of. Lord Raith, as a White Court Vampire, establishes dominance over his daughters by raping them and showing them that his mojo is more potent. His mojo, however, is also capped off and incapable of being refilled due to a death curse laid on him by Harry's mom -- who's also the mother of Lord Raith's son Thomas. Raith expends the last of his reserves trying to kill Harry and Thomas, which would break the curse... and provides the perfect opportunity for Lara, the eldest living child, to return the favor and use him as a PuppetKing. |
| 91 | ** Big example in ''Literature/{{Changes}}'' on Red Court vampires who tried to curse Dresden's bloodline to death. To wit: the Red Court has the ability (through massive and incredibly difficult preparation) wipe out everyone within a certain bloodline, killing the sacrifice, all their siblings, their parents, all their siblings, their grandparents, their siblings, etc, etc. The plan was to use Harry's daughter to kill the Blackstaff, the White Council's assassin and one of the strongest wizards on the planet (who also dropped a satellite on the home of a high ranking Red Court Noble recently), who is Harry's grandfather, plus dealing with Dresden himself as a bonus. Instead, Harry sacrificed the newest Red Court Vampire [[ShootTheDog (who happened to be his lover) at her own request]] which wiped out every single Red Court Vampire that was still alive and older than her at that point. |
| 92 | ** In ''Literature/GhostStory'', this is how the Corpsetaker is finally taken down, as Mortimer Linquist, an ectomancer who she was torturing with hundreds of wraiths, seizes control of those wraiths and uses them to destroy her for good. |
| 93 | ** Another example occurs in ''Literature/GravePeril''. Bianca enlists the help of a few fellow sorcerers to stir up turbulence among the ghosts of Chicago, which messes with the barrier between the living and spirit worlds, allowing the ghosts to have a greater influence (i.e. cause more havoc) among the living world, for the sake of sending one particularly nasty ghost with a grudge against Harry after him. This backfires on her at the end of the book, when Harry uses that same turbulence to his advantage, empowering all the spirits of people killed by Bianca and her minions. The ghosts proceed to go wild and slaughter every member of Bianca's entourage, including Bianca herself (who was killed by the ghost of woman she killed but blamed Harry for, which is what set off her whole vengeance scheme in the first place). |
| 94 | ** In ''Literature/SmallFavor'', Archleone is basically invulnerable due to his necktie, which is actually the noose Judas hanged himself with. Turns out he's '''not''' immune to being strangled with it, leaving him almost literally hoist by his own petard. |
| 95 | * The titular MadScientist of ''Literature/DrFranklinsIsland'' induces ForcedTransformation on three planewrecked teenagers. His compound has electrified fencing to keep subjects trapped. Trying to contain them after they escape, he's thrown into the fence. |
| 96 | * In the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' pick-a-path book ''Dungeon of Dread'', the best ending has the EvilSorcerer, who stocks his dungeon with monsters by transforming victims into them, gets transformed into a nasty little lizard/vulture critter. |
| 97 | * ''Literature/TheFaerieQueene'' Book I: The dragon rushes straight at the Redcrosse Knight "with outragious pride" in hopes of finishing the two-day fight in one bite. This does end the fight with a single blow, but its Redcrosse, as he shoves his longsword down the dragon's maw. |
| 98 | * The victim in the Literature/FatherBrown story ''The Fairy Tale of Father Brown'' [[spoiler:orders his men to shoot first, ask questions later; he is later gagged so he is unable to reverse the order.]] |
| 99 | * In ''Literature/FalseMemory'', the antagonist is a psychiatrist who [[MindRape mind rapes]] his patients and has them do all kinds of terrible things for his own entertainment. When things start to fall apart around him, he puts off a persistent patient (who has a pathological fear of Creator/KeanuReeves) by telling her ''Film/TheMatrix'' is real, and she must hide from the machines. [[spoiler:It works, but she decides he's an Agent and shoots him dead in his office. Then hires his secretary.]] |
| 100 | * The BigBad of ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear'', Borborygmus Gog, willingly participated in an experiment that [[ApocalypseHow cleansed a planet of life]]. Twenty years later, visiting that planet to try and kill off our heroes, he's [[DraggedOffToHell dragged away by the 'wraiths' which are all that's left of the natives]]. |
| 101 | * ''Literature/GenocideOnline'': When Belzenstock's lord let Rena sign the contract backed by God, he thought she will free the slaves and force him to give her his money, since he could be getting rich again later and take revenge. Instead of that, Rena ordered him to walk to the main square, get naked in front of the slaves and beg them for mercy. [[{{CurseOfBabel}} Also he cannot speak human language]]. All of this caused slaves to hate him even more, so he won't get redemption and lose his status as noble forever. |
| 102 | * ''Literature/GoblinsInTheCastle'': Brought up in ''Goblins on the Prowl''. As explained in the in-universe historical tale of "The Foolish Giant", an evil wizard threatened to turn the titular giant into a giant stone toad. When he ''did'' cast the spell, it bounced off Harry's shaving mirror and turned the wizard into a giant stone toad instead. Later subverted when it turns out the mirror was ''designed'' to reflect magic, and the wizard had purposely worn an amulet designed to draw that magic to him so he ''would'' get turned into a stone toad. |
| 103 | * The term is actually used in ''Literature/TheGreenMile'' to describe how by trying to plead innocence, Percy Wetmore ends up looking extremely incompetent. |
| 104 | * ''Literature/{{Goosebumps}}'': |
| 105 | ** King Jellyjam from ''Literature/TheHorrorAtCampJellyjam'', a disgusting BlobMonster that lives in an underground cavern, must be bathed 24/7 by child slaves to survive. Once they stop washing him, he suffocates to death on his own foul stench. |
| 106 | ** The Masked Mutant from ''Literature/AttackOfTheMutant'' is tricked into turning into acid after Skipper "accidentally" lets it slip that acid is his only weakness. He forgets too late that he can only turn into a solid and back, but if he turns into a liquid, he's stuck in that form. Thus, the Mutant's own shapeshifting abilities end up dooming him. |
| 107 | * In a supplementary material to ''Literature/GuardiansOfGaHoole'', a Tropical Screech Owl named Honeyvox drinks the potion meant for his enemy, muting him for life. |
| 108 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 109 | ** This happens to Voldemort a lot. |
| 110 | *** The first time Voldemort tried to kill Harry backfired and blew up in his face, even though he didn't ''stay'' dead. He never learns from this up to his final, and permanent, defeat. His whole trying to kill Harry in the first place sets forth his ultimate doom. In an act of cosmic irony, Voldemort [[SelfFulfillingProphecy ended up causing his own prophesied demise in trying to prevent it]]. |
| 111 | *** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'', a fang of Slytherin's Basilisk, the monster Voldemort's soul-fragment has been controlling to Petrify students, is the very thing used to destroy that fragment. (The basilisk's fangs screw Voldy over again in the last book when they are used to destroy another Horcrux.) Furthermore, the basilisk was killed with the Sword of Gryffindor, imbuing the sword with the venom's power to destroy Horcruxes. It was then used to destroy two more Horcruxes. [[TookALevelInBadass Neville]] wielded the sword to kill another snake [[spoiler:Voldemort's pet and sixth Horcrux, Nagini]]. None of those Horcruxes would have been destroyed were it not for Tom Riddle opening the Chamber of Secrets 57 years ago! |
| 112 | *** Also shown in the way Voldemort's BadBoss tendencies bit him in the ass about the diary to begin with. When Voldemort first gave Lucius Malfoy the diary Horcrux, he didn’t trust Malfoy enough to tell him what it was or even that it was important. Lucius, thinking Voldemort was dead, slipped it to Ginny, causing it to possess her so she would open the Chamber of Secrets (Dumbledore tells Harry that had Lucius known the diary was something powerful/important, he would never have used it so cavalierly for his own purposes). This causes Voldemort several problems. One, a Horcrux got destroyed by some kid who’s not even thirteen years old, making said kid’s life much easier five years down the road. Two, Dumbledore had suspected all along that Voldemort had made more than one Horcrux, but had no proof; the diary not only gave him that proof, but also gave him a timeline and general idea of what kind of items the Horcruxes could be, and he was able to do enough educated guesswork to fill in the gaps. Three, as noted above, it also got the Sword of Gryffindor embedded with basilisk venom, further allowing them to destroy other Horcruxes. His BadBoss tendencies also screw him when he left another Horcrux in Bellatrix's vault in Gringotts, apparently without telling her what it is (yes, that's right, Voldemort didn't learn anything from the whole diary disaster): Voldemort's tendency to severely punish his mooks for failure is so bad that, when Bellatrix sees the Sword of Gryffindor in the Trio's hands, her OhCrap reaction was so over-the-top that Harry was able to instantly deduce the exact location of the Horcrux in question. |
| 113 | *** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'': Voldemort's extremely convoluted plan to get Harry to a certain location relies upon Harry [[TookALevelInBadass taking a level in badass]], so he can win the Triwizard Tournament's third trial and thus be magically abducted from the one place Dumbledore and the Hogwarts staff could not magically monitor him. However, Harry's year-long training regimen advances his abilities considerably, which not only helps him to win the Tournament but also leaves him ''much'' more capable of defending himself, allowing him to escape and warn Dumbledore far earlier than Voldemort had expected. |
| 114 | *** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'': Harry's increased proficiency in Defense Against the Dark Arts further hinders Voldemort and the Death Eaters when Harry goes on train dozens of his friends and fellow students the same way -- with the result that in the final books, Harry and the students of "Dumbledore's Army" are more than capable of taking on any of Voldemort's supporters. Voldemort's rise to power may well have succeeded if he had not inadvertently forced his [[ArchEnemy arch-enemy]] to level up. |
| 115 | *** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows'', Voldemort is finally defeated when [[spoiler: his own Avada Kedavra is reflected back in his face by an Expelliarmus from Harry]] -- which in fact is merely the culmination of an extremely subtle and drawn-out Petard-Hoisting, in that [[spoiler: the only reason Harry's spell worked against the otherwise-unblockable Killing Curse was because the Elder Wand, Voldemort's anticipated uber-weapon, had been set up to recognize Harry rather than Voldemort as its true master, and "chose" to abandon Voldemort while backfiring his spell; thus, the very wand Voldemort thought would guarantee him victory turned out to be the fatal weakness that got him killed]]. |
| 116 | *** And even that wouldn't have finished him off if he hadn't tried to kill Harry earlier, and thus [[spoiler: destroyed the Horcrux inside Harry that ''would'' have kept Voldemort from properly dying]]. |
| 117 | ** ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'': Lockhart's memory charm backfires on him, because he was using Ron's very broken wand to cast it. Dumbledore mocks this ("Impaled on your own sword, Gilderoy!"). |
| 118 | ** In ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]'' Crabbe tries to kill the main trio with [[HellFire Fiendfyre]]. Since he lacked the skill to actually ''control'' Fiendfyre, the cursed flames consumed their summoner. |
| 119 | ** If Grindelwald had never attacked Aberforth in a fit of rage, his partner in crime would have never seen him for who he was until it was too late. This sets up his eventual defeat half a century later. |
| 120 | ** When Tom Riddle Sr. realized his pregnant wife was a witch and had used magic to rape him and make him think he had fallen in love with her, he fled and abandoned her and their unborn child and purposefully, understandably, never bothered to find out what happened to either of them. Said child grows up to become Voldemort, learns that his father abandoned him and his mother (although maybe not about the magical rape bit), and decides to kill Tom Sr. in revenge for his having been abandoned by him and left to be raised in an orphanage. |
| 121 | ** Cornelius Fudge denied Voldemort's return in order to keep his job and preserve his legacy as Minister, going as far as to conduct a smear campaign against Harry, Dumbledore, and their supporters for an entire year, decrying them as liars. Cue seeing Voldemort in person, in public, with ''several other witnesses'', inside the Ministry itself. He's forced to admit the truth to the Wizarding Community at large, at which point the smear campaign backfires ''massively''. All the negative publicity Harry and Dumbledore had immediately transferred to him, resulting in Fudge getting kicked out of office and going down in history as both a lying DirtyCoward and [[ZeroPercentApprovalRating the most reviled Minister of Magic]] in modern times. |
| 122 | ** In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix'' we see James use a spell to make Snape hang upside-down in the air in a flashback. In the next book, we find out Snape invented it, and considering their relationship, it's likely James learned it when Snape used it on him and/or Sirius. |
| 123 | ** A minor one in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince'': Horace Slughorn contains a memory that is crucial to Harry knowing how to defeat Voldemort, but as he is bitterly ashamed of what he told Voldemort in the memory, he resolves never to show it to anyone, and keeps several means of fighting off people who come for the memory on his person at all times. However, at the beginning of the year, he gave a bottle of Felix Felicis (Liquid Luck) to the person who made the best Draught of Living Death on their first day. Harry made the best Draught of Living Death potion, and later that year, was able to coax the memory out of Slughorn under the influence of the exact same potion Slughorn gave Harry during their first lesson. |
| 124 | ** [[TyrantTakesTheHelm Umbridge]] really shouldn't have gotten onto Harry for even ''perceived'' lying. He actually ''weaponized'' his detentions under her at least twice later on. The second time basically ended up like this: |
| 125 | --->'''Harry:''' "[[IronicEcho I must not tell lies]]." '''''STUPEFY!''''' |
| 126 | ** Umbridge also inadvertently screws herself by enacting several "Educational Decrees" that, among other things, severely limit the authority of the other teachers at Hogwarts. This backfires ''spectacularly'' when the students raise holy hell in rebellion and the teachers don't do anything to stop them because they don't have the authority to do so. (At least, that's what the teachers say, it’s more likely that they just want to make Umbridge suffer.) |
| 127 | * Lemuel's death in ''Literature/HereticalEdge''. He turns Roxa Pittman into a werewolf, figuring that if she survives the agonizing transformation her former monster hunter allies [[VanHelsingHateCrimes will turn on her]]. They DON'T. About three months later, Roxa kills him in close combat while helping Felicity Chambers get a rather useful artifact from one of Lemuel's subordinates. |
| 128 | ** And to double up - Lemuel brought silver knives as a counter to Roxa's werewolf healing. However, as she still has her old [[MegaManning Edge Heretic]] regeneration, they aren't enough, and she kills him with his own knives. |
| 129 | * In ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'' EvilChancellor Octavian, in trying to kill Jason (though his motives were questionable seeing as he was just straight up insane by now) kills himself when his clothes are stuck in the catapult he is trying to launch. Because of his actions and nature, nobody tries to stop him. |
| 130 | * ''Literature/HiveMind2016'': Keith's sabotage of the Northern Americas Group negotiations was technically treason, and was apparently just done to cause trouble, but Hive England was unable to prove it to Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement. [[spoiler:His attack on Buzz had similar enough message routing that Joint Hive Treaty Enforcement was able to connect the two and remove his right to transfer to another Hive, neutralizing his primary source of leverage against discipline.]] |
| 131 | * In Brazilian novel ''O Homem Que Matou Getulio Vargas'' (released in English as ''Literature/TwelveFingersBiographyOfAnAnarchist''), the Serbian assassin protagonist tries to kill the titular Brazilian president (who is distantly related to him) in a jockey club, using [[ScaramangaSpecial a gun hidden inside a paper picker]] (used by the janitors to pick discarded bets). He ends up [[MoeGreeneSpecial seeing]] how that such a gun doesn't work when it's filled with grass and dirt. |
| 132 | * ''Literature/HonorHarrington'', [[JustForFun/TropeOverdosed as you'd expect]], has multiple examples: |
| 133 | ** In ''Field of Dishonor,'' one of the villains is Denver Summervale, a professional duelist. He hires himself out to kill people by goading his victims into challenging him to a duel and killing them there, where it's considered legal. When he kills someone close to Honor, her eventual response is to walk up to him, accuses him of murder-for-hire, goads ''him'' into challenging ''her,'' then shoots him down with contemptuous ease during the duel itself. |
| 134 | *** His client, Pavel Young, tries to hide so Honor can't challenge him in person, and only makes public appearances at the House of Lords. Which just means Honor knows ''precisely'' where to find him, RulesLawyer access, and challenge him to a duel. The privileges and connections he tried to use to hide from her (and to hurt people through his entire life) made him a sitting duck. |
| 135 | ** In ''Flag in Exile'', Honor reveals a massive, homicidal conspiracy in front of the Grayson parliament. The chief conspirator, an expert swordsman, challenges her to a duel. Despite her battered condition, she wins anyway. Because unlike him, she's actually killed people in person before, and therefore managed to intimidate a mass murderer. |
| 136 | ** Mesa certainly has one of these coming, seeing as how their massive conspiracy to exterminate the Star Empire of Manticore and the Republic of Haven by keeping them constantly at war with each other has resulted in a massive, massive [[TookALevelInBadass increase]] in the levels of technology employed by the Manticorans and Havenites. Well, as it turns out, Victor Cachat and Anton Zilwicki are very, very much NotQuiteDead, and the end result is that Manticore and Haven - whose space navies are now approximately a thousand times more badass than they were - are teaming up to turn all that technology, skill, pent-up anger and experience on ''them''. Essentially, Mesa is facing the single set of Allied nations in the ''galaxy'' that is ready, willing, and ''able'' to destroy them, and has spent the better part of a century honing themselves to do just that. |
| 137 | ** The Mesan Alignment (and their allies/puppets in the Solarian fleet) have this happen more directly in the Shadow of Saganami subseries. The Mesans have been sending agents pretending to be Manticoran agents to foment open rebellion in worlds resistant to control by the corrupt Frontier Fleet by organizing the opposition into an armed force who are promised direct Manticoran support when they openly move for independence. This not only identifies the people who would lead a resistance, it places them in a position to be eliminated when Frontier Fleet swoops in to contain an open revolt. It works perfectly well on a number of planets until the Manticorans find out what's happening and then decide that if they're being set up to be accused of helping planets resist Frontier Fleet's corruption, then they're going to roll with it and actually do show up in force to deliver what the Mesans have been promising. This not only frees the current planet, it deals a blow to Frontier Fleet that inspires even more planets to start resisting them and ruins the Mesan operation. |
| 138 | * Two examples from ''Literature/TheHungerGames'': |
| 139 | ** Coin gives Katniss the bow and arrow to execute Snow with. Guess who she ends up shooting. |
| 140 | ** Snow would constantly drink a poison to build up his resistance so that he could poison his political opponents. After he was deposed, it's strongly suggested that he was dying partly from the effects of the poison catching up to him (although it didn't have time to kill him before he was trampled to death...) |
| 141 | * In the ''Literature/ImperialRadch'' series, Lord Anaander Mianaai gets this thanks to converting Tisarwat into one of her {{Remote Bod|y}}ies through a GrandTheftMe. Not only does it convince Breq once and for all that Mianaai is completely untrustworthy, but once she notices and breaks Mianaai's control, it leaves Tisarwat with a deep understanding of Mianaai's mind... and the security clearances to break Mianaai's control over warship and space station [=AIs=] at a critical moment. |
| 142 | * ''Literature/TheInkworldTrilogy'': "[[spoiler:But one day, the monster didn't come to fulfill Capricorn's will. It came for Capricorn's life...]]" |
| 143 | * In "Literature/{{In the Penal Colony}}" by Creator/FranzKafka, the officer is killed by the machine he helped create. Somewhat subverted in that the officer went into it willingly. |
| 144 | * ''Literature/JamesBond'': |
| 145 | ** Bond actually uses this term when discussing his would-be assassins in ''Literature/CasinoRoyale''. They were given two bombs (disguised as cameras) by Le Chiffre's men, both of which were run-of-the-mill bombs. They were told that one was a smoke bomb, and to throw the "real" bomb at Bond, while setting off the smoke bomb to escape. The assassins decided instead to set off the "smoke bomb" first, blowing themselves up. |
| 146 | ** Anton Murik in ''Literature/LicenceRenewed'' is killed with the Gyrojet pistol he used earlier against Bond in the final gunfight while trying to make his escape. |
| 147 | * ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': |
| 148 | ** Eric successfully breaks into Dengel's final lair because its owner endlessly bragged about how and why it was absolutely impregnable. Eric gleefully notes this as he avoids every trap and disarms every defense. |
| 149 | ** The fate of Mr.15 is to be dunked into a vat of his own PsychoSerum and mutate into a mindless monster. |
| 150 | * Used in ''Literature/JurassicPark''. The monsters were created for a theme park rather than as weapons, but the trope is still followed. |
| 151 | * ''Literature/KaneSeries'': In "Cold Light", young sorcerer Cereb Ak-Cetee summons a demon to help him find [[VillainProtagonist Kane]] -- and is snatched by the said demon into another dimension when Kane breaks the magical pentagram holding it. Since the demon was very unhappy with being summoned, we can only guess poor Cereb's [[DraggedOffToHell fate]]. |
| 152 | * In ''Literature/TheKillingStar'', both humanity and then our alien nemeses get Hoisted: first a race of aliens, whose only apparent purpose in the universe is to cause the deaths of others, nearly destroy mankind by flinging giant rocks at us at just under light-speed. Their reasoning? Because they heard "We Are The World" once centuries ago, and thought we meant it to say humanity was a unified nation that would attack them now that we have relativistic spaceships, and that seemed like a logical train of thought to them. [[TooDumbToLive One wonders how they ever got into space]]. In the end the humans nuke the Earth's sun, killing a good chunk of their fleet, and a few humans flee with the genetically engineered clone of Jesus Christ into deep space, planning to retaliate when they get the chance. |
| 153 | * Nicolas looks like he's going to get everything he wants in ''Literature/KingdomOfLittleWounds''. He's set himself up as regent to the child queen Beatte, he's groomed her to both like him and think of herself as a queen, and then he's all set to marry her when she comes of age. This grooming backfires. When he gets too close during an engagement celebration, she stabs him in the leg with a knife he gave her to protect her virtue until their wedding, and the wound ultimately kills him. |
| 154 | * ''Literature/LegendsAndLattes'': The Scalvert's Stone is supposedly a good-luck charm, but since what it actually does is [[spoiler:draw like-minded people to its holder]], [[HateSink Fennus]] taking it ends in a swift death. |
| 155 | * ''Literature/{{Leviathan}}'': In ''Goliath'', in a moment of badassery, Alek kills Nikola Tesla with his own electrified cane. |
| 156 | * In ''Literature/TheLicaniusTrilogy'', there are several examples of Augurs who have seen foreseen their own deaths. Many of them panic when the time comes, then accidentally instigate the circumstances of their demise. |
| 157 | * ''Literature/LockwoodAndCo'': |
| 158 | ** No one had any idea that [[spoiler:John Fairfax even knew Annie Ward, let alone that he was her lover and murderer]] until he [[spoiler:hired Lockwood & Co. to investigate Combe Carey Hall under ridiculously dangerous conditions]]. It immediately sends Lockwood investigating [[spoiler:''Fairfax''; furthermore, Fairfax doesn't pack away the memorabilia of his theatrical career before they arrive at the Hall, which includes references to his stage name and photographic proof that he knew Annie. Particularly stupid is the portrait of him playing Hamlet, the source of the quote referenced in Annie's locket]]. Lucy carries this trope to its logical conclusion when, at the climax of the first book, [[spoiler:she releases Annie's ghost from the locket, her Source, which allows her to directly take revenge on Fairfax]]. |
| 159 | ** [[spoiler:Steve Rotwell ends up falling into the giant circle of Sources he created and is presumably killed by the ghosts inside it.]] |
| 160 | ** At the end of ''The Creeping Shadow'', Penelope[[spoiler:/Marissa]] Fittes shows up at the group's household/office in Portland Row and warns them off of investigating anything other than small problems and most certain anything relating the origin of the Problem of ghosts. She also brings along her bodyguard Rupert Gale and makes an ImpliedDeathThreat. Additionally, she disparages Holly Munro and tells Quill Kipps that for leaving her agency, she's blacklisting him and stripping his pension. Once she leaves, Lockwood's immediately reaction is to call a vote which everyone agrees with to make ''her'' the target of their investigations going forward. Furthermore, by showing up at all, she inadvertently reveals her true nature to the group, as the Skull in the jar [[spoiler:recognizes that she is actually Marissa Fittes, her supposed grandmother]]. |
| 161 | * In ''Literature/LogosRun'', an evil circus master tries to kill the heroes with his dangerous poisonous snake. Once introduced to a scent, it will unerringly kill that person. His comrades all wondered why the snake had never bitten him. After sending the snake, he is injured in an unrelated event. The intended victim actually helped him by bandaging him. When he woke up, the first thing he asked was who put the bandages on him. The snake struck right after he got the answer... |
| 162 | * ''Literature/LordDarcy'': In ''Too Many Magicians'', the Marquis of London attempts to coerce Darcy into working for free to solve a murder, by using circumstantial evidence to have Darcy's right-hand sorcerer, Master Sean, locked up on suspicion of the crime. Darcy turns the tables on the Marquis, citing circumstantial evidence to suggests Lord Bontriomphe, the ''Marquis's'' right-hand man, was the culprit... and had killed the victim on the Marquis's instructions. Foiled, the Marquis grudgingly pays Lord Darcy's expenses, Master Sean is released, and they join forces with Bontriomphe to track down the real killer. |
| 163 | * ''Literature/MagicalGirlRaisingProject'': Fav turns several girls into magical girls with unique powers, then manipulates them into fighting and killing each other for his amusement. When the remaining two, Snow White and Ripple, turn on him, the powers he gave each of the girls turn against him. With Snow White's ability to read the minds of anyone in distress, she learns that a certain terminal has to be destroyed in order to kill him, and is able to tell he's lying when he attempts to bargain for his life. Ripple picks up Swim Swim's halberd, a magical weapon able to actually damage the terminal. |
| 164 | * ''Literature/MalazanBookOfTheFallen'': |
| 165 | ** Empress Laseen -- an outstanding ProfessionalKiller who [[TheUsurper gained the throne]] by assassinating Emperor Kellanved -- outmaneuvered everyone, keeping her plans secret even from her closest allies, and [[spoiler:got outmaneuvered in turn by Mallick Rel and assassinated, with Mallick Rel following her on the throne]]. |
| 166 | ** Scabandari Bloodeye wanted to get rid of any competition in the realm he and his followers had just invaded and made sure [[BuriedAlive Silchas Ruin was out of the picture]], at which point several Elder Gods decide that Scabandari's betrayal and destruction of Kurald Emurlahn is too dangerous a precendent and he needs to be taken out of the picture. |
| 167 | ** Elder God Draconus gets to find out exactly how well his newly forged [[YourSoulIsMine soul-trapping]] [[OneHitKill sword]] [[CoolSword Dragnipur]] does its job when he winds up getting his soul trapped in it himself. |
| 168 | * In ''Literature/MemorySorrowAndThorn'', forgemaster Inch spends a great deal of time torturing TheHero, Simon, by strapping him, crucifixion style, to the giant waterwheel used to power the forge's works. Simon manages to escape with Guthwulf's help; in the ensuing confrontation, Inch's belt gets caught in the wheel and he's carried off to his [[GoryDiscretionShot messy doom]]. |
| 169 | * This happens to Commissioner Viceman in ''Literature/TheMentalState''. He sends an undercover officer into prison so that he can spy on the inmates, expose anyone taking drugs and then use the information to further his career. He sends the officer in question in with a mobile phone to relay the information. However, [[SociopathicHero Zack]] uncovers the truth, steals the mobile and then threatens to tell all the criminals in prison (and several fictitious ones on the outside) who the officer really is. Viceman is forced to obey Zack's every command; otherwise, he will endanger his officer's life and possibly end up being attacked for leading someone to their death. If he had not attempted to interfere with the rights of prisoners, Zack would not have become nearly as powerful as he was by the end of the book. |
| 170 | * In the original ''Literature/TheMysteriousBenedictSociety'' book, Mr. Curtain's Whisperer invention actually provides Reynie with the encouragement he needs to resist it. The Whisperer is designed to soothe fears by simply telling those in it soothing messages. Reynie's fear, however, is of being alone, and of being so because he's betrayed his friends. It tells him that he would never betray his friends, that he's strong enough, which is exactly what Reynie needs to hear to ''not'' betray them by holding out against the Whisperer until help can come. |
| 171 | * ''The Mystery of Eatum Hall'': After Dr. Hunter the wolf spends much of the book fattening up Glenda and Horace Pork-Fowler, they wind up escaping his trap just in time when their combined weight causes cracks in the giant pie pan, prompting Dr. Hunter to climb inside to try and fix it -- only to end up being baked into a pie himself and then eaten by the wolf guests arriving from the coach. |
| 172 | * In "Literature/{{Nackles}}", Frank invents Nackles to scare his kids into staying quiet and out of his way around Christmas and spreads the story to a number of other people. He doesn't count on the power of the children's belief turning Nackles into a reality, or on the fact Nackles will have to take someone and his kids are too well-behaved. |
| 173 | * ''Literature/NaughtyNineTalesOfChristmasCrime'': In "Fruitcake," a woman gives her romantic rival a poisoned fruitcake, but she mistakes it for a gift from her LethalChef boyfriend and gives it away to the local superintendent, who then starts dating the original poisoner and obliviously gives her the (redecorated and no longer recognizable) fruitcake. |
| 174 | * Averted by the Daleks in the ''Literature/NewSeriesAdventures'' novel ''[[Recap/NewSeriesAdventuresEnginesofWar Engines of War]]''. They adapt their armour so the energies of their demat guns can be safely dispersed if they were to be used on them. |
| 175 | * In John Lymington's novel ''Literature/NightOfTheBigHeat'', [[GiantSpider spider-like aliens]] from another planet are heating up a Scottish island in the middle of winter, in order to better suit their preferred hot climate. It gets hotter and hotter until just when the entire cast seems doomed, the intense heat causes the island's trees and shrubs to catch fire. Although the humans escape unharmed, the aliens end up getting [[KillItWithFire burned alive]] by the fire caused by the very heat they created. In [[Film/NightOfTheBigHeat the 1967 movie adaptation]], the screenwriter apparently felt that it made no sense for heat-based aliens to be vulnerable to fire, so that film's example of this trope has the intense heat created by the aliens (which are changed to energy creatures resembling living scrambled eggs) instead cause a storm, and the ensuing [[KillItWithWater rain]] melts them all. |
| 176 | * ''Literature/{{Nightside}}'': |
| 177 | ** Quite a few baddies have gone down this way, either having their deadly gifts backfire or turned against them by John and his allies, or suffering a VillainousBSOD that leads them to commit suicide with their own destructive powers. |
| 178 | ** In the Lilith War arc, Lilith resurrects the dead as an army to unleash upon the city and fight at her command. She overlooks the fact that one of the resurrected is [[spoiler: her human husband, John Taylor's father]], who turns out to be necessary to stop her [[spoiler: by reversing the Babylon Working]]. |
| 179 | * Comedy example: In ''Literature/OtherwiseKnownAsSheilaTheGreat'', Sheila and her friends booby-trap the bathroom toilet seat by coating it with toothpaste, hoping Sheila's sister will sit down without looking. Not only does it fail to fool Libby, but Sheila herself forgets about it overnight and gets a toothpaste-covered rear in the morning. |
| 180 | * To cash in on ''Series/{{The Outer Limits|1963}}'' franchise, a series of short ''Outer Limits'' children's books were released a few years ago. One of those books, ''The Lost'', was about a rebellious teen who uncovers a conspiracy in her neighborhood where the adults are {{brainwashing}} their own teenage children with a machine that changes their brainwaves into sensible, hard-working adults. Like any CruelTwistEnding, she ends up brainwashed herself and becomes good-hearted and obedient, much to their parent's joy. Then she and the other teenagers take their parents (as well as the doctor responsible for administering the "therapy" in the first place) and subject them to their own machine out of the belief that they will be helping them become just like them. |
| 181 | * ''Literature/ThePerfectRun'': |
| 182 | ** [[spoiler:[[NighInvulnerable Augustus]] has a brain tumor. An invincible brain tumor that no one can possibly cut out. As Ryan points out, if he hadn't murdered the one man in the world who can cut him, that man would have likely happily helped him]]. |
| 183 | ** Adam the Ogre gets these in every run where Ryan fights him directly. The first time he tries to use the Black elixir on Ryan, Ryan shoots the bottle in his hand and the elixir ''eats'' Adam. In another, he successfully hits [[spoiler:the Panda]] with a Blue elixir, which should [[PsychoSerum turn him into a Psycho]]... except he turns out to be one of the one in a million people who can handle two elixirs, so Adam just gave his enemy a second superpower with no downside. |
| 184 | * In ''[[Literature/ProsperosDaughter Prospero Lost]]'', the Three Shadowed Ones use Mephisto's Staff of Summoning against him and two companions, to summon a chimera. Mephisto goes "Hi, Chimmie!" and chases after them with its aid; the staff only summons, it does not command, and the chimera likes him better than them. |
| 185 | * ''Literature/ProtectorOfTheSmall'': Keladry of Mindelan is the first girl in over a century to openly train as a knight, something which puts her on the receiving end of some pretty nasty nasty hazing. In an effort to embarrass and discourage her, one of her bullies ensures she gets a weighted training lance. Instead, Kel learns to excel despite the extra weight, becomes an expert at lance-work, and merely impresses everyone when the truth comes out. (In fact, she eventually starts using ''only'' weighted training weapons, reasoning that they exist because they do exactly what they're designed to: be so heavy that regular use builds muscle.) |
| 186 | * In Ludwig Uhland's ballad ''Die Rache'' (''Revenge''), a knight is murdered by his envious squire, who then steals the former's armor and horse. But while he is riding across a bridge, the horse throws him off into the river. The squire starts swimming towards the shore, but the stolen armor weighs him down and he ultimately drowns. |
| 187 | * In the ''Literature/RainbowMagic'' series, Jack Frost stealing the Princess Fairies' tiaras, particularly Eva the Enchanted Ball Fairy's, made his own ball a complete failure. |
| 188 | * In the ''Literature/RedDwarf'' novel ''Last Human'', an alternate reality evil Lister takes a massive dose of Luck Virus to protect himself from the Rage, a hive mind of fury that kills anyone it possesses. However, when he gets a taste of the Rage, as per its nature, he wants to be possessed by it more than anything in the world. And the luck virus has a way of granting one's deepest desires. |
| 189 | * In the ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' series this happens a few times. One notable example is in ''The Sable Quean''. Queen Vilaya, who poisons a young slave because he talked back to her, at the climax when his vengeful friend is chasing her, trips. The vial containing a poisoned blade, (the one she used on the slave) which she wore on a necklace, shatters and stabs her. |
| 190 | ** In ''High Rhulain'', Riggu Felis is killed by being struck with a small shuriken like weapon. The same weapon he wounded a character with at the start of the book. |
| 191 | ** In ''Mariel of Redwall'', Gabool the Wild had a giant scorpion in a pit which he throws in those he doesn't like. At the climax, when escaping the horde of heroes all wanting his head, he isn't looking where he is going and... guess what he ends up falling into. |
| 192 | * ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades'': In volume 2, Tullio Rossi organizes a [[TournamentArc dueling tournament]] among the first-years, thinking to become known as the strongest and in particular take the spotlight away from protagonist Oliver Horn. [[UnderestimatingBadassery Oliver proves to be a much more formidable opponent than he realized and soundly thrashes him]], and then he loses a second duel to ArrogantKungFuGuy Joseph Albright and is forced to withdraw from the tournament. |
| 193 | * PlayedForLaughs in "Literature/RepentHarlequinSaidTheTicktockman", when the police are seeking to catch the Harlequin, the lone dilly-dallier in a city of {{Schedule Fanatic}}s, at a gathering of scientists where he said he'd be. [[BatmanGambit They assumed that he would be late, as he often makes a huge point of being,]] giving them more time to set up ceiling-bound spiderweb-like nets to capture him. However, [[DefiedTrope he shows up twenty minutes early instead]], startling them so much that their webs suck closed around ''them'' instead. Both the Harlequin and the scientists in attendance get a huge laugh out of the whole spectacle. |
| 194 | * ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'': In ''The Baron of Maleperduys'', Drauglir offers an enormous bounty for Reynard's head. [[spoiler: Reynard responds by hiring an equally enormous army of mercenaries that ends up overwhelming Drauglir's army. He then pays them with said bounty.]] |
| 195 | * In ''Literature/TheRibbajack'', resident [[EnfanteTerrible school terror and vile bully]] Archibald Smifft summons an EldritchAbomination known as the Ribbajack and orders it to kill the school chaplain. What he doesn't know is that said chaplain is in possession of a magical medallion that not only prevents a Ribbajack from killing him, but compels it to instead kill the person who summoned it. Smifft is never seen again, AndThereWasMuchRejoicing. |
| 196 | * ''Literature/TheSaint'': In the final story in ''Thanks to the Saint'', "The Careful Terrorist", Simon Templar is opposed by a gangster, and his professional hitman, nicknamed "The Engineer", and manages to make him blow himself and his employer up. Then he quotes the Trope Namer. |
| 197 | * In ''Literature/TheSecretKeepers'', novel by Trenton Lee Stewart (author of ''The Mysterious Benedict Society''), the main antagonist, The Smoke, fills his mansion with traps which lead to the victim being imprisoned in the basement. The book's protagonist, Reuben, manages to trick him into getting snared in one of his own traps without the keys to unlock himself by baiting him with the one thing he want most. |
| 198 | * ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'': |
| 199 | ** Count Olaf is killed by the same harpoon gun he packed planning to release the biological weapon on the island. This is after being nearly poisoned by that same biological weapon. |
| 200 | ** The AdultsAreUseless mentality of everyone the kids meet probably made most of them TooDumbToLive when they refuse to believe the building they're in is on fire. YMMV on whether the (potentially lethal) negligence displayed by characters who were otherwise good people made this LaserGuidedKarma. |
| 201 | * In Karo King's ''Literature/SevenSorcerers'' series the BigBad Strood is a human subjected to [=DeathBane=], a spell that makes his death unable to reach him, which for some reason also forces his Death to obey him. He thus weaponises it and kills many with it... until one of his orders breaks the spell and Death finally catches up with him. Gotcha! |
| 202 | * ''Literature/ShadowPolice'': In ''The Severed Streets'', [[spoiler:Russell Vincent]] becomes the final victim of [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper the Ripper]] -- the spirit he had turned loose to murder his enemies -- after he loses control it (due to the efforts of the team). |
| 203 | * The ''Literature/SherlockHolmes'' story "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" features a villain who dies after being bitten by the poisonous snake he intended to use to murder his stepdaughter so he could keep her money. Holmes even remarks that he is indirectly responsible for what happened when he hit the snake with his cane to drive it away, which made it retreat and bite its owner in anger, but says he's unlikely to lose much sleep over it. |
| 204 | ** In at least one adaptation of ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheBaskervilles'' (''The Tangled Skein'', a partial sequel to Hound that also serves as a crossover with ''Literature/{{Dracula}}''), Holmes notes that the extent and complexity of Stapleton's plans was actually his undoing. As Holmes explains, the Baskerville case might not have drawn Holmes's attention if Stapleton had attempted a more conventional murder, but his use of the hound made the case so appealing that it guaranteed Holmes's interest. |
| 205 | * ''Literature/TheSillyCanineCaper'': Anna Matronic winds up foiling herself when she [[IJustShotMarvinInTheFace examines her ray gun too carelessly and accidentally shoots herself]]. She loses interest in her scheme and runs off to play with her robotic dogs. |
| 206 | * One of the short stories from ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant: Armaggedon Outta Here'' has Skulduggery tracking down a murderer, only to find that the murderer had died after magically sealing himself in a room to prevent anyone from tracking him down. |
| 207 | -->'''Valkyrie:''' He starved to death?\ |
| 208 | '''Skulduggery:''' I'm afraid he ran out of air long before that could happen. |
| 209 | * ''Literature/SnotStew'': Toby teases the family's vicious dog Butch by leaping down into his enclosure and slipping out through a hole in the fence. He also bullies his sister Kikki by eating all of her food. Turns out these don't work well together, as he discovers when he tries to squeeze through the hole... and can't. Horror follows as Butch proceeds to maul his back end, with Toby screaming that he's eating him alive. He survives, but only because the humans rush him to the vet, and he loses his tail in the process. |
| 210 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': |
| 211 | ** The loathsome city of Astapor brutally trains eunuch slave {{Super Soldier}}s for sale as mercenaries as well as to defend the city. Astapor has nothing to fear from its own soldiers, who are robotically loyal and cannot disobey an order from their masters. However, no one thought it was a bad idea to sell every single soldier they have to an ambitious warrior queen, thus turning their entire garrison into a foreign army that's already inside their walls. |
| 212 | ** Then there's Cersei's actions as Queen Regent: she reinstates the ChurchMilitant wing of the Faith of the Seven in order to pacify the rioting faithful, while plotting to frame the betrothed of her son (the crowned king) as engaged in an extramarital affair. However, the guy she sends to seduce and spill on her son's fiancée ends up ''tortured'' by the new High Septon, and confesses that he's had relations with Cersei as well. She ends up in the cells rather quickly. |
| 213 | ** The very first book has Ned Stark, whose plans to expose Cersei's adultery and Joffrey's illegitimacy end with him playing straight into the Lannisters' hands. |
| 214 | ** Also pops up in the backstory book ''Literature/FireAndBlood''. After the other regents flat-out refused to let him marry his daughter to the newly widowed King Aegon III, Unwin Peake had the bright idea of organizing a ball and having the king chose a bride, thinking that he could convince the king to choose his daughter. Despite all his attempts to kneecap the competition, Aegon ended up choosing the last person Lord Peake would've wanted. And following this, he impulsively attempted to use a threat of resigning his post as Hand in order to coerce the other regents to make Aegon set aside his choice, only for them to gladly accept his resignation and kick him off the council. |
| 215 | ** Robert Baratheon's plan to assassinate Daenerys Targaryen and her unborn child to snuff out any Targaryen attempt to retake the Iron Throne. The plan not only ends in failure, but motivates Daenerys to retake the Iron Throne. Ironically, had he not done that, Daenerys would have probably lived out the rest of her life in relative peace as khaleesi in the Great Grass Sea, far away from Westeros. |
| 216 | * In the ''Literature/SpiralArm'' novel ''On the Razor's Edge'', Donovan reflects on a maxraj, whose brutal repression of revolt brought new revolt and TheMutiny -- and how the political situation he's going into resembles that. |
| 217 | * ''Literature/StarTrekDepartmentOfTemporalInvestigations:'' In the second book, the ''Enterprise'' winds up in an alternate reality where humanity never developed space travel. As a consequence, Jonathan Archer never helped expose the Romulan manipulation of Vulcan High Command, leaving them ripe for an attempted takeover... except it turned out making the Vulcans more warlike backfired, and the Romulans wound up getting conquered instead. |
| 218 | * ''Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse'': |
| 219 | ** In ''Literature/OutboundFlight'', a Trade Federation task force gets obliterated by a much smaller force that figures out how to use the Trade Federation's own weapons against them. |
| 220 | ** The captain of said Trade Federation task force [[spoiler:is killed by his own laser pistol shot bouncing off his own personal force field which had been secretly reconfigured by Thrawn]]. |
| 221 | ** ''Literature/DarthBane'': |
| 222 | *** Sirak relies on his more exotic double blades to give him an advantage in combat and crush his usually weaker opponents. Once Bane learns its strengths and weaknesses he gets crushed, being unaccustomed to a real challenge, lacking the stamina for a prolonged fight, and having nothing else to fallback since he didn't bother learning much else. |
| 223 | *** Bane gets hit with this on two levels in ''Rule of Two''. In this book he gets infested with a colony of parasitic orbalisks, which have lightsaber-resistant hides and pump their hosts full of chemicals that augment the power of the dark side, but also have a fatal weakness to electricity. When Bane confronts several Jedi Masters in the climax and prepares to hurl Force lightning at one of them, a fatally-injured Jedi traps himself and Bane within a Force bubble. Not only does this result in Bane [[AttackReflector getting fried by his own lightning]], it also kills the orbalisks, which proceed to dump lethal toxins into Bane’s bloodstream as they die. Bane only survives because all the other Jedi were dead at that point, and his apprentice had to bring him to a healer for extensive medical treatment. |
| 224 | * "Sweat", a short story by Creator/ZoraNealeHurston, deals with a woman slowly freeing herself from an abusive marriage. In a last-ditch effort to make Delia obedient again, her husband Sykes brings a rattlesnake into the house to threaten her with. It gets out eventually and Delia flees to the barn to stay the night, while Sykes comes home and is killed by the snake. Delia also notes that he had no matches to light a lamp, which might have saved him, because he gave them all to his mistress. |
| 225 | * At the end of ''Literature/ATaleOfTwoCities'', BigBad Madame Defarge fights Jerry and Miss Pross and is killed when accidentally shot with her own pistol during the struggle. As well, the very last scene implies rather strongly that all the other villains will eventually be RewardedAsATraitorDeserves by the selfsame [[UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution revolutionary government]] they helped create. |
| 226 | * ''Literature/TalesOfTheMagicLand'': In ''The Wizard of the Emerald City'', Gingema (the Wicked Witch of the East) is the one who sends the hurricane to Kansas in order to pay humanity back for drying out swamps and killing all her beloved frogs, so Ellie's house landing on her head is her own fault. This doesn't stop the locals from praising Ellie as their savior, even though she was just along for the ride. |
| 227 | * ''Literature/ThirdTimeLuckyAndOtherStoriesOfTheMostPowerfulWizardInTheWorld'': In "The Last Lesson" Adar's spell to [[PowerParasite drain Magdelene's magic]] backfires, killing him and leaving her his magic instead. |
| 228 | * The [[ShowWithinAShow Kilgore Trout short story]] "Dog's Breakfast" mentioned in Creator/KurtVonnegut's ''Timequake'' mentions the trope by name and throws in an equal dose of TomatoInTheMirror. It's about a scientist who is convinced that the world's most brilliant people are in fact getting their ideas from aliens who are delivering messages directly into their brains. After discovering what he believes is proof of his theory, he concludes that he could only have made the discovery if he himself had been unknowingly aided by aliens; [[GoMadFromTheRevelation this realization]] [[DrivenToSuicide drives him to suicide]]. |
| 229 | * Subverted in Harper Lee's ''Literature/ToKillAMockingbird'': it is '''officially claimed''' that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife, but actually Ewell was stabbed by Boo Radley as he was trying to kill the children. Sheriff Tate deliberately spread the false claim around to protect Boo from unwanted attention. |
| 230 | * ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': |
| 231 | ** In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'', Sauron inadvertently causes his own destruction. Frodo was too weak-willed compared to Sauron to destroy the Ring, but Sméagol had been corrupted to the point of valuing the Ring more than his own life, and killed himself -- destroying the Ring in the process -- in an attempt to take it back from Frodo. |
| 232 | ** ''Literature/TheFallOfGondolin'': When attacking the eponymous hidden city, Morgoth's dragons, fire snakes and balrogs burn everything in their path until the whole mountain-encircled valley is covered with dark mists made of burning fumes and steam. It is thanks to their shadowy cover that Tuor and several hundreds of survivors are able to flee towards the mountains without being spotted. |
| 233 | ** In ''Literature/TheChildrenOfHurin'', in a heroic example of this, Túrin orders the building of a great stone bridge across the river that protects the HiddenElfVillage of Nargothrond, so that it can more effectively lead excursions against Morgoth. However, the elves of Nargothrond get into a battle against an army that turned out to be much larger than expected, most of their soldiers are wiped out, and the army led by Glaurung moves in to finish the job. As it turns out, the bridge is too well-built to be destroyed in a hurry, and it is then used by Glaurung's army to march across the river and turn Nargothrond into a pile of ash. |
| 234 | ** ''Literature/TheFallOfNumenor'': |
| 235 | *** Sauron cannot beat Ar-Pharazôn's forces so he becomes the king's chief advisor, and aware of his disproportionate ego, ambition and fear of death, cajoles Pharazôn into conquering the Blessed Realm to reach immortality, knowing that the king and his army will be destroyed instead. So Ar-Pharazôn attacks the Blessed Realm with the result that he is buried alive, his fleet is wiped out, his kingdom is drowned...and Sauron's physical body is destroyed much to his shock and terror, since it never occurred to the fallen Maiar that Eru would get involved because of his actions and also punish him for instigating the whole thing. |
| 236 | *** After rebuilding himself, Sauron returns to Mordor and attacks Gondor to destroy the last remnant of Númenor. Realizing that they will be destroyed or enslaved at this rate, Men and Elves form the Last Alliance, march to Mordor and defeat Sauron. |
| 237 | * In Creator/RobertSheckley's short story "Trap", [[spoiler:an alien has a scheme to get rid of his wife -- a scheme involving humans who are told that one end of a teleportation beam is a live trap. They "catch" three new animals. The alien then sends his wife through; she and the animals all die before the museum people arrive, and think the whole thing's a fake. The humans are desperate to regain their credibility, and once they are wise to the teleporter's real nature, one of them goes through to capture as many critters as possible -- including the murderer]]. |
| 238 | * Happens in the [[BatmanColdOpen very first chapter]] of ''Literature/{{Twig}}''. The MadScientist the Lambsbridge Orphans are after ends up getting eaten by his own creation, ''feet first''. |
| 239 | * ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': In ''A Civil Campaign'', Lord Vormuir has a clever scheme to "manufacture" liege people by breeding hundreds of daughters using uterine replicators, confiscated eggs and his own sperm. It's not just for ego -- they're all his because the government can only terminate his parental rights in cases of abuse or neglect, two things that he's been quite scrupulous in avoiding (if only because badly adjusted liege people would screw up his plan). They're all girls because traditional Barayaran chattel and inheritance law grants fathers enormous paternal rights over daughters, and since girls cannot inherit non-dower property, they can't threaten the succession of his legitimate children. Finally, the GenderRarityValue inherent in Barrayar's currently skewed demographics practically ensures that they'll all eventually attract husbands, making each child a two for one deal. It all comes crashing down on him when the emperor, citing the exact same chattel and inheritance laws, orders him to provide each one with a dowry. A fairly large dowry. |
| 240 | * ''Franchise/Warhammer40000ExpandedUniverse'' stories tend to end due to the villain inevitably screwing himself over (unless he actually succeeds, which happens a lot): |
| 241 | ** In the ''Literature/BloodAngels'' novel ''Deus Sanguinius'', Inquisitor Stele summons a daemon to a battlefield. It chooses him as its flesh vessel. |
| 242 | ** In the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''First & Only'', Rawne is kidnapped and [[ColdBloodedTorture tortured]] by Heldane before [[BigDamnHeroes Corbec and other Ghosts]] rescue him. He intended to make him a "pawn" but succeeded in only making him sensitive to influence. This, however, let Rawne sense when Heldane was about to unleash his actual pawn, and bring his weapon to bear beforehand. |
| 243 | ** In ''Literature/GreyKnights'', the BigBad Valinov is freed at his execution by Ligeia's death cultists and proceeds to use the servitor-mangler meant to kill him on Riggensen, who had succeeded in breaking him. |
| 244 | ** In the ''Literature/{{Ultramarines}} novel ''Dead Sky Black Sun'', Honsou has Uriel killed by putting him into the daemonculaba. He breaks free. Since this was the process by which the Unfleshed were created, they [[TheNoseKnows smell it]] on him, and are willing to listen to him; he gets them to join him on an attack on Honsou's fortress. |
| 245 | * ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'': |
| 246 | ** [[GodOfEvil The Dark One]] is [[SealedEvilInACan sealed away]] using the [[BlackMagic True Power]] that he gave to [[TheDragon Moridin]]. |
| 247 | ** [[TheHero Rand]] [[GrandTheftMe switches bodies]] with Moridin to survive, resulting in Moridin dying of a wound that he himself had inflicted. [[DeathSeeker Not that Moridin minds]]. |
| 248 | * ''Literature/TheWideAwakePrincess'': |
| 249 | ** In ''Unlocking the Spell'', Moonbeam tries to cast a spell on Annie. It rebounds. Moonbeam demands that she tell her who made magic reflect off her. Annie points out that Moonbeam herself had, years ago. |
| 250 | ** Queen Marissa is forced to don the ruby necklace she had given Literature/SnowWhite to kill her. |
| 251 | ** Also happens to the dwarf turning himself in a squirrel. |
| 252 | * ''Literature/TheWitchOfKnightcharm'': In order to win duels, some students at an evil WizardingSchool make themselves learn how to turn their enemies' powers and abilities against them. For instance, when the protagonist Emily fights her roommate Megumi by using amulets to generate magical barriers, Megumi uses her own powers to blast handholds into the barriers and then begins climbing on top of them, thus using Emily's own barriers as platforms which she can use to gain the high ground and attack Emily from above. |
| 253 | * The title witches of ''Literature/TheWitches'' are undone when the boy protagonist slips the Number 86 Delayed Action Mouse Maker, the potion they had used to turn him into a mouse, into the soup intended for the witches' dinner, resulting in all of them being turned into mice and being killed, the very same fate that the witches had intended for the children of Britain. |
| 254 | * ''Literature/WonderWomanWarbringer'': When Jason uses the serum created from Diana's DNA, he gets an Amazon's strength and speed, but also starts feeling their pain and hearing their screams of agony. After that, he goes down in seconds. |
| 255 | |
| 256 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext HoistByHisOwnPetard / Literature
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
