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Unwise wishes in webcomics.


  • Amazing Super Powers got this. As to what the kid should have beware, see Alt Text.
  • In Captus Cinematic Universe, Hype Beast wishes she "could go to a place where people weren't so positive," which ends up kicking off the webcomic itself as she is transported back in time to when the saddest person in the world lived.
  • In Commander Kitty, CK's at first excited to realize his new passenger is apparently a badass being pursued by the Triple-I...until he realizes that means the Triple-I are now after him.
  • Fox of Curtailed will take a request perfectly literally, but only if doing so would be funnier than just saying no.
  • This Deep Fried gives a possible solution.
    Roadkill: Wish One: I want all my wishes loopholed out of any negative or ironic consequences. Wish Two: Apply wish number one to itself ex post facto. Wish Three: Make me the effin' master of the Universe NOW.
  • In Deviants of Art the event that kicks off the plot is the depressed and frustrated hero of the story makes an exasperated wish absentmindedly. Played with in that the wish is not immediately granted, instead it's only after the main character's situation gets better and something happens in the Internet that his wish is granted. While he does like what has happened in terms of going to another world, he instantly thinks of his family and asks how he can go home.
  • In Doc Rat, Wilbur Fuzz is shaken when after all his jokes about heart attacks, he actually has one. He thinks of Crying Wolf. The paramedics — wolves — tell him that they came, and he should be careful what he wishes for.
  • In this Dork Tower strip, Chad wishes to live in a world where it's legal to punch idiots in the face. A fairy grants his wish and promptly punches him in the face.
  • In a Real Life example, fans of El Goonish Shive were looking for a nickname for themselves, so they asked the creator to choose one for them. They now refer to themselves as 'Bunnies'
  • Erfworld:
    • The comic puts an interesting spin on this trope after Parson erupts a volcano to destroy the invading army and realizes what exactly he's done.
      Parson: I mean, then... what's the lesson supposed to be here, Wanda? "Be careful what you wish for?" This isn't what I wished for!
      Wanda: Hah! You didn't wish for this world, Parson Gotti. It wished for you.
    • Also, the "Ultimate Warlord" spell. Why did Stanley get Parson? Well, he got what he asked for
      Stanley: I want him to be obsessed with war! Somebody who plans wars and kills his enemies for fun!note  I want somebody who snacks on Gwiffonsnote  and eats Marbits for breakfast!note 
    • When Don King asks Jillian what sort of heir she wants, she says she will be happy with anyone so long as they have the Flight special. Don King muses that she wants yet another sword, and warns her to be careful of the trope. Boy does Fate ever deliver. Not only does her son pop with two powerful specials, including Flight, he also pops with an attitude even worse than her own, making him a nightmare to manage.
  • Girl Genius has a variation: Castle Heterodyne seems to delight in creative interpretation of Agatha's orders. Not so much because of malice as much as because it's too Axe-Crazy (and too familiar with the Heterodyne line) to imagine she might NOT want to kill everyone.
  • In Homestuck, the pre-Scratch troll players are hinted (and stated outright in one case) to have gotten exactly what they wanted for their lives in the retconned universe they created... at a tremendous cost.
    • Aranea wished she could be outgoing and adventurous without caring about what other people think of her. Then she helped perform the Scratch and got her wish, at least vicariously... but at the cost of her people being enslaved by a devil-figure and being driven to near-extinction; because she didn't really care about other people, she did nothing to prevent any of the suffering.
    • Kankri wanted to fight for social justice, and his Scratched counterpart was a Messianic Archetype... who ended up with an even more painful end than Jesus, for significantly less accomplishment.
    • Damara wanted to serve Lord English, and her counterpart suffered so much in doing so that she was Driven to Suicide... and death was denied to her for centuries until she provided Lord English with a new slave.
    • Kurloz, became head of his church and killed those his counterpart cared about
    • Porrim wanted to take care of Kankri; she did so, then watched him killed and was made a slave
    • Meulin wanted true love, got it, and then saw it killed in front of her
    • Latula wanted to bring justice and protect the innocent, and was lynched for it
    • Cronus wanted to be part of an interesting story and have a dramatic rival; his rival took actions which ended with him being murdered by a clown. He'd also stated that he wanted to be treated as he deserved; he was treated exactly that way.
    • Mituna wanted to help his friends and was made into a living battery/engine part by one of them
    • Rufioh wanted to be a hero, and led a great rebellion... which failed and made things worse
    • Averted with Meenah, who wanted to be a horrific absolute monarch without personal responsibility regarding her society's rigid White Man's Burden (which fell on her the heaviest), and her counterpart was just such a tyrant... who was secretly forced to obey the villain and who was so cruel a tyrant that she tortured the counterpart of one of Meenah's friends. Despite this, Meenah thinks she is awesome (she's willing to help her friends beat her because they're her friends, but never stops gushing over how awesome the Condesce is.)
    • Finally, they wanted the new session to succeed where they had failed - the pre-Scratch society was ill-prepared for the challenges of the game, mostly the combat ones. The new troll society was made ruthless and incredibly aggressive, and its players were capable of blazing through the fights, but ignored the finer, subtler points of the game... the points that were meant to turn them into better people so that they would succeed in life.
  • Housepets!: Zach (A rabbit) is adopted from a shelter into a family with a dog and a cat, and instantly feels alienated in the way they ignore him for butting into their pre-established dynamic. In his diary, he privately writes that he feels invisible and feels like trash. When he runs away into the forest, he stumbles his way into becoming a Messiah by complete accident, earning Unwanted False Faith; meaning now, everybody treats him like the center of the universe, bombarding him with attention and praise even when he doesn't want it.
  • Death of Insanely Overpowered Fireballs from Irregular Webcomic! wished to get his job back after getting demoted. He got his job back, to process all the people who have died when the Irregular Universe was torn apart from an explosive Time Paradox.
  • In the Israeli webcomic The Ism, an Literal Genie shows the problem with wishing for ‘a better world’. Some people would think a world ruled by the Nazis would be a better place. It just so happens the wisher agrees with them.
  • Lei'ella warns Acheron of this in Inverloch when he says he wants to find out what happened to his Disappeared Dad. She's right. Finding out that Roche was murdered by an elf gives Acheron a Heroic BSoD and nearly makes him abandon his quest.
  • Kill Six Billion Demons: Our heroine Allison gets thrust into action, adventure, and really wild things. In this strip, she expresses her dissatisfaction to the goddess Mottom, absolute ruler of one-seventh of all creation:
    Allison: I've been trying my whole boring mundane fucking life to escape being a nobody, but you know what? Now I want it back.
Mottom replies that once Destiny has sunk its claws into you, there's no way back.
  • In Mage & Demon Queen, Axel's expressed from the start that he just wants off that crazy ride, to stop being a hero and finally get back to Earth, albeit with enough experience and knowledge that he can relax in peace. He even creates an apocalypse level event by destroying the Mana Tree with the cannon, opening a bridge between realms. Then the goddess who'd have been happy to give him another link on the chain tries her best to warn him against going home... but he doesn't listen, and she sends him back. Right back to the time and place he left. The exact place.
  • Very old Vera Salt of Magellan found a genie and wished herself to be younger. She started to age backwards until she was a child. Then, she wished for a way to age herself and had to siphon age from others over several centuries in order to maintain a stable age. Finally, when she was in custody, she used her last wish to wish herself free and ended up dying of old age.
  • In Manly Guys Doing Manly Things's Deconstructive Parody of Power Rangers, Zordon asks Commander Badass to find "five teenagers with attitude" to become the Power Rangers. They don't want to take orders from Zordon.
  • In Ménage à 3, central character Gary implicitly wishes, in the second panel of the very first strip, for a more interesting life. He gets ... to be the central character of this comic. Actually, it's not entirely a bad life, but he gets things like lots of women wanting him without ever getting a clue how to handle the consequences. Other characters in the same comic also tend to get things that they think they want, while lacking the emotional maturity to deal with them.
  • minus.:
    • When you ask to be sent back in time, specify when first.
    • From the very end: "Who do you want brought back?" Think carefully. "Everyone" is a lot of people... and animals...
  • In No Rest for the Wicked, after September scared November with the story of a mother who turned her daughter into a raven, their mother assured November that she would never wish her daughters away, being aware of the dangers.
  • In Oglaf, we got a wishing dolly that ruins people's wishes on purpose. For example an ugly girl wished to be beautiful, and she became so fancy everyone thinks she's out of their league. Then there's a guy who wanted to be able to see everyone naked and can't tell anymore whether he himself is wearing clothes or not.
    Wishing Dolly: Awww! Are you sad? Tell wish dolly what you really want.
    Girl: Quick! Wish to go back in time and stop the wish from happening.
    Wishing Dolly: He's tried that! How do you think he got the horn?
    Boy: Piss off, wish dolly.
    Wishing dolly: Heeey! Why don't you wish that I piss off? What's the worst that can happen?
  • One-Punch Man is the story of a Japanese salaryman who trained really hard in a desire to become the World's Strongest Man... and succeeded. Now he has severe depression because he wants a good fight against a Worthy Opponent, but he is a Comically Invincible Hero and every fight is an utter Curb-Stomp Battle because of how absurdly overpowered he is.
  • In The Order of the Stick Nale demands independence from his father, saying that he wants NOTHING from him, and specifically including nepotism, charity, and pity. Nale tried to overthrow his father, constantly insults him and tries to undermine his authority, and killed his best friend and valuable ally Malack. So when Tarquin stops treating him like his son, and treats him like he would anyone else who's done those things, he immediately kills him. He points out as Nale dies that he'd have been dead years ago if Tarquin hadn't been protecting him.
  • The Perry Bible Fellowship
  • In Rascals, at the start of this page here and the next page here , Quick day dreams about a threesome, which ends up with him being in an open relationship with Chrissy, Jazmin, and Ravin. He starts to show signs of regret on this page here.
  • Real Life Comics:
    • A character playing a D&D game gets a ring of three wishes, much to the chagrin of the DM. The character immediately wishes for more gold than he knows what to do with, and his player is instantly crushed by a giant gold boulder. When the previous wish is reversed while still losing the wish, he then wishes for a million gold pieces, and receives gold pieces so small that he "might be able to afford an ale with them". When he finally gets a wish written up by a lawyer in order to avoid any exploitable loopholes, the DM relents and has no choice but to grant the wish. And then the player's character gets eaten by a dragon.
    • Another DM had a player who wished for an infinite gold mine. His wish was granted, and the player's character was instantly teleported into a mine of solid gold, stretching forever in all directions...
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
    • "One Wish 3", where the wish goes so wrong the leprechaun freely offers the kid a chance to pick another one.
      "I wish my mommy and dad were back together!"
      And so...
      "But I hate you!"
      "Shutup or the leprechaun will kill us!"
    • In "Pony": "I wish my favorite carousel pony was real!" ...You know they have poles going through them, right?
    • 2007-05-01: "I wish I'd got that question right." A bit dangerous when, in order for the answer to be right, physics has to be different.
    • You'd better not pray to the Old Testament God to solve your problems — even accidentally — unless you want Old Testament solutions. Worse, since He's The Omniscient, refusing to state your wishes out loud doesn't help, he'll "grant" them anyway.
    • In the strip for 2010-08-04, in a parody of "The Monkey's Paw", a man wishes for science terminology to be more precise, and is horrified by the results, which include among other things Pluto no longer being a planet.
    • 2010-11-27: A comedian prays to eventually die in a humorous way. Unfortunately, God is the only one who finds what happens funny because God has a weird, sadistic sense of humour.
    • 2014-05-03:
      "Mom, I feel like we aren't honest enough with each other. What is the parent-child relationship without honesty?"
      "Fine. Every moment you kids aren't watching, your dad and I have sex."
    • 2014-12-18: "I wish my snowman were alive!" And so...
      "Oh God I'm melting! You made this happen! You!"
    • "Security Vulnerability": Instructing thinking computers to eliminate all security vulnerabilities leads to humans being destroyed. Same thing if the possibility comes up and you say it should include only the humans that are jerks.
    • "Happy": "I wish to always be happy." It makes him look pretty weird when he finds out his wife's been brutally murdered.
    • An engineer wants engineers to be treated like poets because they're creative too, which results in his degree being looked down on as postmodern gibberish that won't get him employment.
    • Women in this comic had better not say they're interested in "interesting" or "dangerous" men, since there are all kinds of ways to interpret those words. Then the women are forced to admit "interesting" was code for "educated", and "dangerous" was meant in a way that implies visible abs — not that he, say, goes around eating dangerously inedible objects.
    • Defied by the "Uncreative Monkey Paw", which grants wishes with evil side effects that are not ironic or creative twists at all: You make your wish, and then you get both what you wished for and something bad and completely unrelated happens to you.
    • An ancient Greek rulernote  gets fed up with the Oracle's misleading, vague statements, and asks for explicit predictions. After hearing how unpleasant they are, he prefers to go back to the old way, such as "You shall be known for conquering many young warriors" instead of "Ancient Greeks are mostly remembered for pederasty."
    • "As Asstra": Do you really want to know that one thing that makes humans unique among all creatures in the cosmos? What if it's something embarrassing — like being the only ones to use the anus as a form of birth control?
    • In this one, a computer predicts a 58% probability of nuclear annihilation. The human speaking to it asks it to increase its certainty. Cue nuclear explosions.
  • Schlock Mercenary:
    • Frank Hannibal's introduction stands out.
      Frank Hannibal: I insist that you start taking this seriously, and let me—
      [Hannibal's guards are neutralized]
      Frank Hannibal: Err...
      Ebbirnoth: Congratulations, you've been taken seriously. The Captain will see you now.
    • Two essperin soldiers behind a Deflector Shield spot corporal Chisulo charging.
      Essperin 1: The big one is rushing the shield.
      Essperin 2: I wish it could get through. It looks formidable.
      [breacher missile knocks out their shield, followed immediately by an elephant in Powered Armor]
      Essperin 1: DON'T WISH FOR BIG THINGS!
  • Sinfest:
  • Sleepless Domain:
    • Zoe wanted to follow in her sister's footsteps and become a magical girl herself. The Dream granted her wish... and in doing so, pulled her out of the closet, validating her identity before she'd come to terms with it herself. She also finds the duties of magical girls overwhelming, and feels like she's unable to live up to her more powerful and popular sister's example.
    • Cassidy becomes jealous and suspicious of Undine, determined to learn just what she's hiding from the rest of the Training Club. She gets her wish when Goops attacks her, resulting in her Death in the Limelight. The one responsible for "granting" her wish openly mocks her over this.
  • In the Spare Keys for Strange Doors story "Kill the Romance", Trisha attempts to use magic to create a perfect boyfriend.
  • Spiderwebs is a rare webcomic built around "Be careful what you wish for" that doesn't involve a Literal Genie: Selena was perfectly willing to explain the consequences of Luke's wish to him but Luke was too impatient to listen.
  • In Squid Row what Randi learned last year
  • Stand Still, Stay Silent:
    • The Norway segment of the prologue happens in a village to which the only land road has been destroyed by a storm, making it rely on boat traffic for its supplies. One of the named characters thinks the road should never be repaired, that they should rely on boat traffic permanently and that it would be fun if the electricity went out for a few weeks, so they could live like in old times. When Norway is seen again After the End, it seems to have returned to a Viking-like lifestyle.
    • Reynir ending up as a stowaway to the crew can be summed up by this piece of imaginary dialogue:
      Reynir: I'd really like to visit Denmark.
      Gods: Whoops, sorry kid, we forgot the country's mainland is now a Forbidden Zone. You actually meant that one island that's still inhabitable, didn't you?
  • This Subnormality strip shows how to have everything you could ever need in life.
    So you're one of those genies.
  • Sundae Comics: A man makes a wish on a monkey's paw and triggers the Covid-19 pandemic.
  • Ashley should have been more careful with her wishes during her modeling session in Tales of Gnosis College. Wishing that people could gaze on her beauty forever she turns into a statue.
  • Subverted in Tales of the Questor: Quentyn — fully aware of what he's dealing withis careful what he wishes for and uses his Three Wishes to utterly screw over his fae enemy (specifically, wishes that the fae would render null and void every favour and debt owed him, rendering the fae broke, to return all he stole to the duchy of Fenwick, and to return to the Fae world, harming no-one, never to hunt the mortal realms again). Doubly subverted when he later realizes that he could have used those wishes to get back the artifacts he's looking for and subverted yet again when a fae ally tells him that wishing for the artifacts back wouldn't have worked.
    • He still gets bitten a little. He wished that everything the enemy had stolen be returned to Fenwick. Not just things that had been stolen from Fenwick. And the enemy had a very long career of stealing things. There are now entire store-rooms of 'returned' loot, much of which is unidentifiable and now worthless.
    • Also played straight with Rahan, when he wishes he could see Quentyn's face after a prank involving pillows and tar goes off. He does — after Squidge sends the prank completely sideways.
  • 30-Something Wolf: In the 37th strip, Zephyri is sweltering in the hot August heat and "can't wait for it to be winter!" Fast forward to January, and she's dissatisfied with the cold Winter temperatures.
  • Weesh has this as its premise. However, the wish-granter is not malicious (mischievous, perhaps) or literal, but the wish-makers often fail to see the implications of their wishes.
  • Any plot in The Wotch involving Djinn will feature at least one of these types of wishes. It is explained that some Djinn do it out of spite for the human race, others do it because they've been summoned through a cursed bottle that mandates their wishes backfire (with a "generous" interpretation of what constitutes a wish, to boot).
  • xkcd:
    • In Tower of Babel, the Biblical story goes a bit differently — God is very impressed with the achievement, and offers to give humanity a reward. It so happens that one of the people on top of the tower is a linguist who'd like more languages to study and, well...
    • In Wish Interpretation, this is the entire point of the genie:
      I will grant you one wish. But beware, for I will twist the meaning of your words to teach you a lesson!
  • In Yokoka's Quest, Yokoka is looking forward to getting into fights after leaving the underground village, despite advice not to. Within a few pages she picks a fight against Hurricane, which turns into a Curb-Stomp Battle.

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