Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Karma Houdini / Literature

Go To

Karma Houdini in Literature.

By Author

  • Jane Austen frequently uses one of these to keep her Happily Ever After ending from being too perfect:
    • In Sense and Sensibility: Robert Ferrars gets to keep the generous inheritance he unjustly received in his brother Edward's place (his mother cut him off for refusing to make a rich match she had planned) and live a life of wealth, idleness and luxury while Edward and Elinor are forced to scrape by on their combined inheritances and Edward's salary as a clergyman; his wife Lucy, the Clingy Jealous Girl who almost stole Edward from Elinor, eventually uses her natural talent for flattery to earn the acceptance of Mrs. Ferrars, who never has to pay for her constant verbal abuse of Elinor; and the selfish John Dashwood and his wife receive no retribution for their mistreatment of John's sisters and step-mother throughout the book. The heroic couples are happier with each other than they could ever be with more money or the approval of their snobby relatives. It's also implied that Robert and Lucy are frequently quarrelsome with both each other and with John and Fanny, indicating that although they obtained the material wealth they desired, their characters prevent them from being truly happy.
    • In Northanger Abbey, General Tilney receives no punishment or public censure for his mistreatment of Catherine, and her marriage to his son Henry doesn't happen until he approves of it thanks to an unrelated Deus ex Machina — the heroine doesn't get what she wants until the person who tried hardest to sabotage her sees it as beneficial to himself too! John Thorpe also gets away with his Malicious Slander of Catherine and her family that started that conflict.
    • Mr. Elliot of Persuasion disappears, never to be punished for ruining Mr. Smith's life and leaving his crippled widow to suffer by refusing to exert the effort to get her the funds from an estate she desperately needs to survive (Captain Wentworth takes care of it later). It's implied he hooked up with the heroine's father's would-be 2nd wife.
    • George Wickham from Pride and Prejudice once tried to seduce Darcy's underage sister in revenge for not giving him more money after he wasted his inheritance, slanders Darcy's name in Hertfordshire, seduces Elizabeth's younger sister Lydia, and runs off with her to London with no intention of marrying her. This being 19th century Britain, when even rumors of premarital sex could ruin a woman's reputation forever. His comeuppance? He gets paid a ton of money to marry her, above and beyond her dowry plus all of his debts in Hertfordshire and Brighton paid off. He gets away completely scot-free; the only thing that could possibly be considered a punishment is that Lydia seems like she'd be a pretty annoying wife. Authors of works inspired by this generally have him receiving comeuppance of some description. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has Darcy beat the shit out of him (thus rendering him lame), Bride and Prejudice has Darcy, Lalita, and Lakhi gang up on him, while the Latter-Day version has him getting arrested for gambling. Curiously, Lost In Austen goes the opposite route entirely.
  • Agatha Christie:
    • At the end of the novel Five Little Pigs, Hercule Poirot is forced to concede that he has no proof to convict the murderer and the murderer has no intention of confessing, meaning that they will most likely never answer for their crime. However, it's not exactly a clear-cut case of this trope: The victim was the only person the murderer ever loved, and it's all but outright stated that she's pathetically unable to move on or find any joy in life whatsoever as a result. She's evaded the justice system, but her true punishment is living an empty shell of a life knowing that she destroyed the only thing that ever brought her happiness for little better reason than spite.
    • Defied in And Then There Were None, as the murderer deliberately chooses nine victims, most of them having been previously been Karma Houdinis of various crimes.
    • Double Subversion in Murder on the Orient Express. The victim was killed because he was previously a Karma Houdini for the kidnapping and murder of a little girl, but everyone on the train had some connection to the girl's family, Everybody Did It, and Poirot lets them all become Karma Houdinis for THAT murder.
    • Played straight in Sad Cypress, Ordeal by Innocence and At Bertram's Hotel, where the killer realizes that the jig is up and quietly slinks away when no one is watching, leaving it uncertain if they'll ever be brought to justice.
    • Three of The Thirteen Problems end with the killer having escaped justice: "The Companion", in which the protagonist chooses not to report the killer to the police because he sympathises with her and she'll be dead in six months anyway; "The Four Suspects", in which the killer manages to flee back to Germany before her identity is discovered (although Miss Marple speculates that she'll come to a bad end due to associating with terrorists); and "The Herb of Death", in which the fact that a murder even happened is only discovered because of a letter sent after the killer's death.
  • Works by Homer:
    • Helen of Troy cheats on her husband, runs off with another man, and starts a war that will kill tens of thousands of soldiers as well as leading to the complete destruction of the city of Troy. She suffers no repercussions at all.
  • It seems Victor Hugo loved Karma Houdinis.
    • In Les Misérables the evil Thenardier not only goes free, but uses the money Marius gave him to become a slave trader in the United States. This example definitely fits the first reason for having a Karma Houdini, sending a message that despite the ultimate happy ending, evil tends to triumph. In the musical, Thenardier and his wife both profit from the revolution and their body-looting, but they do gleefully sing that they're aware that when they die, they'll end up in Hell.
      • Two other characters responsible for messing up Fantine's life, the student who gets her pregnant and abandons her and Bamatabois, the politician who assaults her after she becomes a prostitute, have nothing bad happen to them, and Hugo discusses how both of them consider their behavior nothing more than good-humoured fun.
    • Phoebus in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, is a womanizing soldier who suffers no ill effects after allowing the woman who supposedly "killed" him to hang for the crime. However, it is implied that his marriage at the end of the story will be an unhappy one. Most film adaptations of the story have him meet a more "karmically proper" fate and Disney's animated adaptation actually turns him into a hero who gets the girl in the end.
    • Because Rigoletto is based on a theater piece by him named "The King is having fun", and the King of France (Duke of Mantua in the opera) also never gets his comeuppance for what he does to Blanche/Gilda, who also dies there for being a Love Martyr.
    • He wrote a poem, "Sultan Murad", which is a long description of murders, genocides and other bloodshed perpetrated by Murad. At the end, Murad goes to heaven for having shown pity for a pig dying in front of a butcher's shop.
  • Cormac McCarthy:
    • Judge Holden, of Blood Meridian.
    • The cannibals of The Road.
    • The three murderous strangers of Outer Dark.
    • Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men. Over the course of the book, he kills a cop, a guy who had a car he wanted, several dozen Mexican drugrunners, a harmless old woman who happened to be in the wrong place, a hotel clerk who happened to be on shift when he showed up, the hitman with a heart of gold, some more Mexicans, and the protagonist's wife. He also blows up a car just outside a pharmacy, so he can rip off some medical supplies to fix his leg. His punishment? A broken arm. And while the movie ends there, the book establishes that he finds the money, he’s never caught by the police, and he’s able to secure a high-ranking position in the Greater Scope Villain’s organization. Granted, this all was the point of the story's message, but still.

  • Edgar Allan Poe:
    • The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor details how he immured his friend in a wall over a perceived insult, and reveals that it's been 50 years since this happened, and that he has gotten away with it. Montresor even invokes this by saying successful Revenge is only complete when retribution doesn't overtake the redresser.
    • Subverted in a different short story. The Imp of the Perverse, where the narrator commits murder and gets away scot-free, but then falls victim to the titular Imp of the Perverse, the urge everyone has to do things they know are stupid and self-destructive. In his case, he realizes the only way he could possibly be caught is if he confessed, and the thought bothers him until he eventually gives in and confesses, causing him to be sent to prison.
  • With the exception of Yertle the Turtle, and the unwelcome guests in Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, it's rare that any villain in any Dr. Seuss book gets what's coming to him or her.
    • Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the fix-it-up chappie from The Sneetches, and quite likely the very first Karma Houdini we met as young children. Mr. McBean takes advantage of the Sneetches' prejudices again and again, charging them for his service of adding or removing the stars on their bellies. First it was just three dollars, then it was ten dollars, and so on and so on. His punishment? Mr. McBean departs a rich man toward the end of the tale. Although the Karma Houdini's actions did ultimately help the people he conned.
    • The creators of the Horton Hears a Who! film even used this to justify the Sour Kangaroo being Easily Forgiven, as "Dr. Seuss wasn't in the comeuppance business."
  • Works by Harry Turtledove:
    • In any book, odds are about 50/50 as to whether the nastier characters will be punished or not. This is partly for realism and partly because many of his characters can't be easily quantified as good or evil. Perhaps the most egregious is his Worldwar series, where Adolf Hitler gets to die of natural causes. Then Germany is nuked in 1964.
    • Averted in the Timeline-191 storyline, How Few Remain. This is with Kimball being revealed as the one who sunk the destroyer USS Ericsson after the WW1 Armistice was announced. The US government doesn't do anything, and then the widow of one of the Ericsson's crew comes down and puts enough lead in his chest to make damn sure he wasn't getting up. If her escape is a Karma Houdini...

By Work

  • 2666: Hans gets away with murdering Sammer by becoming Archimboldi.
  • In Abomination by Robert Swindells, Martha's parents are members of a fundamentalist sect called the Righteous, which imposes strict rules on its members and sees beating children and depriving them of food as acceptable means of enforcing discipline - in the 1990s. Martha is subjected to both forms of punishment and is also locked in her room on a couple of occasions. Not only that, her older sister Mary was kicked out of the family home for giving birth out of wedlock and her son confined to the cellar, with Martha forced to care for him and keep his existence secret. Eventually, Martha (with the help of a boy from school) manages to get in touch with Mary, who comes to the house and rescues both her son and Martha. However, while Mary and Martha would be well within their rights to prosecute their parents for child cruelty and false imprisonment, they don't pursue the matter. Instead, they and Mary's son go off and start a new life together, though their parents do lose both their daughters, their grandson and any future grandchildren, so they haven't got away without suffering any negative consequences for their actions.
  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian:
    • Rowdy's abusive drunken father never got his comeuppance at the end of the book.
    • Arnold never got detention nor got expelled after he punch Roger in the face telling a racist joke in front of him.
    • The three older boys from the Rez wearing Frankenstein masks beat up Arnold on Halloween night, stole his candy and donation money from him, and got off Scott free.
  • The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford: Outlaws Charlie Ford, Robert Ford and Dick Liddil all receive pardons for their crimes in return for service, though they all die relatively young for various reasons. Frank James, however, beats all the charges leveled against him and lives to a ripe old age.
  • The Attack of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks: Zigzagged. The evil politician behind the con evades justice easily, since nothing can be stuck on him. The shotgun of a very pissed millionaire doesn't ask for proofs, though.
  • Finch, the Big Bad of The Ables escapes justice in the end. While he is forever denied his goal, and he becomes the most wanted man on the planet, he never actually gets killed or captured within the story.
  • Adventure Hunters':
    • Jerrod is not punished for starting the initial conflict. His Captain of the Guard had to twist his arm to make him give back the lands he took.
    • Zambwe disappears after he is paid; no mention is ever made of him again.
  • Uncle Pete in Alfie's Home outright molests his nephew the Title Character. At the end, he is told that what he did was wrong…and that's it. No real punishment. No arrest. He just gets told that what he did was wrong and is then forgiven. WHAT?!?
  • Anybody who has read American Psycho will know that the exploits of Ax-Crazy Serial Killer Patrick Bateman are some of the most sadistic and gruesome atrocities ever depicted in literature, yet in the end, because of the emotional emptiness of everyone around him, he received no comeuppance, even after admitting his crimes to his lawyer. It is implied that this is exactly what Patrick didn't want, however, and in the end, even his horrific crimes leave him with nothing but emptiness and despair. Then again, Bateman is just so fucked in the head that it's entirely possible that all those horrific murders never actually took place. For all we know, he just imagined the whole thing.
  • Unusually for a John Grisham novel, the villain of The Appeal is an astoundingly successful example. Carl Trudeau gets away with having carcinogens dumped into the water supply of a poor Mississippi town, rigging a judicial election to avoid having to pay damages for said dumping, bankrupting the main characters, and purposefully running his company into the ground so he can buy the stock while it's dirt cheap and then make billions when the lawsuits for the illegal dumping are dismissed and the stock rises in value. The novel ends with him being worth $3 billion, and contemplating how to make it into $6 billion. All because he was run off the Forbes 400 by the little law firm that wasn't afraid to take it on. He's most definitely a Magnificent Bastard.
  • The Apprentice Adept series has a few:
    • Adept Red in the original trilogy. Though we find out later that The Oracle, itself, had set her on the path of destruction via a carefully worded prophecy, she's still directly responsible for several murders - including Adept Blue (Stile's Proton self), her own Proton self, plus Stile's best friend, Hulk - and the knee injuries that ended his horse racing career. This in addition to being one of the nastier Adepts around. Her fate... Exile from Phaze after losing to Stile in a Great Game match, her crimes completely unaddressed.
    • Within the series, however, exile from Proton is often treated as a Fate Worse than Death (probably due to Author Appeal). It also means she'll never be able to go back to Phaze, as Proton is the only place where you can cross over to it. So she's been denied all her power, banished from her home, and kicked into an unfamiliar universe (albeit, admittedly, with a damn good severance package). So she doesn't get off completely without retribution, she's just not punished as thoroughly as some might like.
  • Arabian Nights:
    • Sultan Shahryar is given no comeuppance at all for the murders he has committed in the past; in fact, he ends up with a loving wife and children and gets to live Happily Ever After. (Even worse, the ending shows his brother has been doing the same thing.)
    • It happens in a few individual stories too; the guy who chopped up his wife and threw her in a trunk in "The Tale of the Three Apples" because he mistakenly thought she was cheating on him is rewarded with a stipend and a concubine. (Possibly Scheherazade was Pandering to the Base there.)
    • The Evil Vizier in "King Yunan and the Sage Duban", maybe. The sage is dead because the vizier convinced the king to kill him, but the king is dead because the sage's book was poisoned. No mention of who becomes king or whether the vizier was punished. It's possible he was if the king had sons who could take the throne; it's just not mentioned. It's just as possible the Vizier became king.
  • In novels where he's the antagonist, Arsène Lupin always gets off scot-free. More often than not he outright wins. The series is named after him, so....
  • The little girl in The Bad Seed. Not in the movie version, however, thank you very much Hays Code.
  • The Battle Of The Virgins: Marcos tries to shoot his soon-to-be ex Mariana in court right after the judge gives her custody of their son. He is released after making bail and returns to Spain, and there is no talk of getting him extradited back to Puerto Rico to face any criminal charges.
  • Ben Safford Mysteries: The Greater-Scope Villain of Murder in High Place, who is financing a revolution against a democratic government for selfish reasons, escapes to a non-extradition country. The accomplice who commits the murders is less lucky.
  • Between Heaven and Earth: After arriving in Africa, DJ puts down his bags to treat a local kid's scraped knee. He then sees his bags were stolen by some kids while they were unattended. He tries to chase them, but fails to catch them. He then goes with Sarah to a black market run by those same kids who sell him back his stolen bags. Needless to say, the kids get away with all of it.
  • The villain who ordered Amiranda Crest's murder in Bitter Gold Hearts, Willa Dount, not only gets away with the crime, but is 180,000 gold marks richer at the end.
  • James Swallow, author of the Blood Angels series, lobbied Black Library and Games Workshop to let him kill Fabius Bile in Black Tide, but was refused. Ergo, Bile never receives adequate punishment for his crimes against sapient life.
  • Breaking Point (2002) ends with Charlie Good getting away with planning to bomb his biology teacher's classroom and framing the main character Paul Richmond for the whole thing.
  • In A Brother's Price:
    • Ren, Lylia and Halley get away with kissing a boy they are not married to, which should usually draw his sisters' ire, and/or make him a bit angry, as it could easily end with him being Defiled Forever. This is most likely intentional, as it is a gender-swapped setting, and it is lampshaded that boys are raised to be unable to say "no" to women, but at the same time expected to be chaste. To her credit, Ren does some of the lampshading, and acknowledges that she probably sounds like a hypocrite for telling her victim that he should be allowed to say no. He liked the kisses, but that doesn't excuse it.
  • In Dale Brown books, Russian President Evils have usually met sticky ends. The Chinese ones? All get away with it. Also, the Iranian general Buzhazi, who survives Shadows of Steel and returns to benefit from an Enemy Mine.
  • In My Life in Black and White by Natasha Friend, Taylor, jealous of constantly being overshadowed by her friend Lexi's beauty popularity, and the attention she receives from boys over her, makes out with Lexi's boyfriend to get back at her. When Lexi sees this, she leaves the party a wreck in another boy's car, which crashes when he tries to sexually assault Lexi, causing Lexi to be permanently disfigured. As a result of Lexi's disfigurement, she is no longer beautiful and boys who once fawned at her now stare at her in disgust while many of the pretty, popular girls who used to be in her clique rub in her face how much prettier they are than her like they felt like Lexi did to them. Taylor, meanwhile, has taken Lexi's place as the most beautiful and popular girl in school and gets the attention Lexi used to get. Lexi ultimately forgives her and they become friends again, but Taylor basically suffers no consequences for being a horrible friend and gets her wish to be more pretty and popular than Lexi while Lexi will always have to live with a badly disfigured face and will always be seen as ugly compared to Taylor, who will always be much more beautiful than Lexi now.
  • Catch-22 gives us both Milo Minderbender and Aarfy. The first sells the parachutes and medical supplies of his squadron to the enemy to make money, and lets his squadron be bombed (providing location and removing defences) in order to sell cotton and ends the novel as one of the richest men in America, while the latter rapes and murders a woman and gets off completely, utterly free, while the police arrest the main character standing next to Aarfy for going A.W.O.L.
    • Aarfy even tells Yossarian that he'll get away with it, and the police apologise to him for interrupting.
      Aarfy: They're not coming to arrest me. Not good old Aarfy.
  • At the end of The Children And The Wolves, Bounce has lost virtually nothing. Sure, her plans have been upset but she suffers no punishment for all of her crimes and she can always find another source of revenue to finish the job she started. On top of that, there's almost nothing linking her to the crimes, as the boy who upset her plans ran away from home and the only other one who knows what happened is wrapped around her finger. The only other person who could possibly identify her is a little girl who doesn't even know her real name and might not even remember her face.
  • Children's Literature in which the main antagonist receives little-to-no comeuppance for their crimes tend to be at the top of "most frequently banned" lists. Like The Chocolate War and Blubber.
  • Pa in The Color Purple. He regularly rapes (and twice impregnates) his daughter, Celie, and steals the babies the night they're born, then slanders her as loose to explain the pregnancies to her sick and dying mother. Later, he counter-offers her hand in marriage to Mr.____ when he asks for her younger sister, Nettie, because he wants to keep said younger sister to himself; Pa offers him Celie and cites the physical damage he's done as a selling point— "You can do everything just how you like, and she ain't gonna make you feed it or clothe it." He lives to a ripe old age, dies having sex with his new wife, and never even has to face up to any of the horrible atrocities he visited on his family, let alone suffer any consequences for them. The best we get is finding out that he wasn't Celie's biological father, and that Celie and Nettie will get their house back; it's a bit of a hollow victory, since the house should have passed to them when their mother passed away, and Pa never had a right to it to begin with.
  • In W.E.B. Griffin's The Corps series, Macklin is this in almost every book. In the first book alone, he falsifies reports to put blame on his subordinates, but escapes a court-martial due to them not wanting to draw attention to intelligence matters, and stays in the Corps because of the war scare freezing dismissals. Then he continues his grudge against Ken McCoy by sabotaging his officer's training, escaping a court-martial (which would probably be for treason under the circumstances) because it would look bad for The Corps to admit having someone like him in it.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses: Feyre never suffers the repercussions for having destroyed the Spring Court, facilitating the advance of Hybern's forces through Tamlin's territory and eliminating a potential ally for their efforts after she succeeded in her revenge plan. It is implied that the civil war she sparked may have caused the deaths of thousands of innocents and yet she receives no comeuppance for this. Worse still is that as of A Court of Frost and Starlight she lives a privileged and happy life, unfazed by any sense of guilt or remorse for her actions.
  • In Dead Souls, Chichikov fakes the testament of Khlobuyev's rich aunt, is even thrown into prison, but the influential Murayov liberates him with a complicated scheme, and Chichikov can leave the town - although Murayov also told him to change his ways.
  • In Dear Mr. Henshaw, there is a thief who steals items from people's lunchboxes, namely the main characters' desserts and other various food items from other people's lunches. The thief is never actually caught, nor are they ever figured out.
  • In Dostoevsky's Demons, Petr Stepanovic, Smug Snake and Manipulative Bastard, causes the death and/or the ruin of the great majority of the other characters, both the positive and the negative ones, either directly or indirectly; by the end of the book, he is the only one who gets away from the massacre unscathed, happy and successful.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Greg's little brother Manny, hoo boy. Manny frequently causes lots of problems for the rest of his family, and neither of his parents seem to have the guts to punish him for them. How bad does it get? Near the end of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever, there's a blizzard going on outside, and Manny shuts off the power to every room in the house except his own room, locks himself in there with a ton of food, toys, and other things and leaves his mother and brothers to die. What happens when he's caught? He blames everything on his inability to tie his shoes and suffers no consequences for nearly freezing everyone to death. It's small wonder that he's considered The Scrappy to many a fan of the books.
  • The Dinner: The ending suggests that Michel and Rick completely get away with their manslaughter of the homeless woman and their murder of their cousin/adoptive brother Beau. Claire also gets away with her public assault of Serge, simply because Serge didn't consider it a good idea to file charges against his own sister-in-law.
  • In Disgrace, by J. M. Coetzee, a woman called Lucy is gang raped by three men. Two of the rapists are never caught — the third and youngest attacker, Pollux, she sees at her neighbour's party. Her father (not exactly the most upstanding person in the novel to say the least, but still her father) freaks out. Turns out Pollux is the neighbour's brother-in-law. The neighbour has known all along that he was one of the attackers, but has been protecting him. Lucy herself refuses to do much, because she doesn't want to "cause trouble" by pressing charges. Instead, she decides to "protect" herself by marrying into the rapist's family, effectively handing her home and land over to them in the process. Worse, her neighbour says that while he'll marry her (polygamously) in the meantime, Pollux will marry her when he's old enough. Adding vicious insult to horrific injury...did we mention that Lucy is a lesbian who would otherwise never have considered marrying a man? It's all tangled up in the politics of Post-Apartheid South Africa, but the bottom line is that the rapists are all Karma Houdinis, beyond the beating the father gives Pollux (in which Lucy rescues her attacker from her father).
  • In Rumer Godden's children's novel The Dolls' House, the villainess Marchpane, after enslaving the other dolls and turning their owners to neglect them in her favour, successfully sets a trap to lead Mrs. Plantagenet to incinerate herself in the fireplace. She is not punished, just sent back to her previous existence as a museum exhibit.
  • The Dragon Business: Norrimund the Corpulent may be an amiable dunce, but between his Ungrateful Bastard cheapness and misogynistic treatment of his daughter (with him saying that princesses don't even qualify as real people and are only good for marriage alliances), he is an objectively unpleasant person. He avoids getting killed, and when his eviler neighbor Duke Kerrl convinces Norrimund to adopt him for a planned Inheritance Murder, Norrimund even ends up doubling the size of his kingdom when Kerrl dies instead, and the adoption makes Norrimund Kerrl's heir.
  • Wyrn of Elantris is a justified example on several levels - while he is responsible for almost all of the turmoil of the book, he accomplishes this through agents and his only appearance on page is a cameo. Also, Brandon Sanderson still plans on someday writing a sequel, so preserving his Big Bad was rather important. The villain who actually does the evil deeds in question, though, gets a nice Karmic Death courtesy of the resident Magnificent Bastard.
  • The eponymous villain of the Fantômas novels delights in committing extremely brutal and sadistic crimes for seemingly no reason at all. Despite the heroes' efforts, he escapes justice, every time.
  • In The First Law, Bayaz is a manipulative bastard responsible for directly killing hundreds and indirectly killing thousands, as well as extending or provoking multiple wars over personal grudges or to strengthen his personal power. Even worse, the things listed here are just over the course of the books, he's been doing this for hundreds of years beforehand as well. The Age of Madness books end with the first events that could really even be called a defeat for him, and even then it's clear he's still quite influential and working on building an even stronger base of power.
  • Despite everything that he does throughout his series, Harry Paget Flashman always manages to avoid any sort of comeuppance for his crimes and cowardice and is even thought of as a hero in the British Empire. This is not so much the case in Tom Brown's Schooldays.
  • Forgotten Realms:
    • In the short story "Dark Mirror," the village bully of Pengallen keeps a goblin as a slave. When the goblin escapes, he tricks Drizzt into recapturing him. And while Drizzt, who's learned the truth, goes off to get help, he murders the goblin, claims it was self-defense, and intimidates the rest of Pengallen into backing him up when Drizzt gets back. Drizzt, whose acceptance as a drow on the surface is already tenuous, is unable to do anything.
    • Jarlaxle manipulated events to start a war in Luskan. After the fighting was over, with tons of citizens dead and the city partially destroyed, he deliberately caused starvation by preventing the flow of supplies into the city, and starved the people of Luskan until they rebelled against the new government and installed Jarlaxle's associate as the next ruler. Not only is this not treated as a Moral Event Horizon, but Jarlaxle suffers no real consequences for it, convincing Drizzt that he had nothing to do with it.
  • An interesting example from "George Washington Gomez" by Americo Paredes, in that the main protagonist becomes the villain in the last chapter. Another example of doing it to anger the reader, as it illustrates him becoming an Uncle Tom.
  • In Michael Grant's Gone series, Albert doesn't get any retribution for abandoning Perdido Beach in Fear. Thanks to a publicity stunt in Light, he ends up getting interviewed by CNBC, and McDonald pays for his education.
  • Flannery O’Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find created quite a shock with readers when the villain "The Misfit" murders a family in cold blood with no consequences whatsoever (physically, anyway).
  • Goosebumps:
  • Some of the inhabitants of Heaven in C. S. Lewis's The Great Divorce appear to be this by most measures. It's a severe stumbling block for some of the dead spirits, most notably the Big Ghost, whose guide got to Heaven via deathbed conversion. The point Lewis is making is that everyone in Heaven is a Karma Houdini. It's no good saying one person deserves Heaven more than another, because in the end, no one does. The ones who make it in are those who realize they'll never earn it on their own merits, and accept Jesus' gift.
  • The Great Brain plays with this.
    • Often, Tom does get away with his sneaky and conniving ways with no one able to do anything about it. Indeed, there are times when adults openly want Tom arrested for some antics but (ignoring he's still just a kid), it's pointed out he technically hasn't broken any laws. However, other times, Tom does get in trouble although even then, the worst he gets as punishment is losing his allowance or a week of the "silent treatment," which still seems light compared to the trouble he causes. It helps Tom is a master of Loophole Abuse and Exact Words to the point a legally inclined teenage "judge" acknowledges his scams are often just the other guy falling for what was clearly spelled out for him.
    • The sixth book, The Return of the Great Brain highlights this. Tom is under a suspended sentence of a year of the "silent treatment" by every kid in town that will be revoked if he's found to have bilked anyone. Tom is more careful than ever to work his plots to ensure he can earn money but not only not found to be breaking the sentence but even comes out better on JD. Notably, this is the one book of the series where Tom faces no punishment from his parents for anything as if they were to punish him, the kids revoke his "sentence."
    • Subverted in Me and My Little Brain as J.D. tries this himself, but sadly, he soon realizes this only seems to work for Tom and his own would-be schemes land him in trouble. He wisely decides to just give up trying to emulate Tom.
  • In The Great Gatsby, when his mistress was killed by Daisy, Tom directs her suicidally depressed husband to get revenge on Gatsby, who then kills both Gatsby and himself. Tom and Daisy drift off to Chicago and leave the whole mess behind. However, it is implied their relationship has been ruined by the whole experience. It's one of the themes of the book: the rich makes a huge mess and leave, making others clean up.
  • Sadaiyo of the Griffin's Daughter trilogy. He's cruel, sadistic, spiteful, and utterly self-absorbed. His parents, Lord Sen and Lady Amara basically overlook his many petty and not-so-petty cruelties (up to and including attempting to rape Jelena) because he's the heir to Sen's throne and hold out hope he'll grow up on his own. He doesn't.
  • Josh Pinder in the spin-off Halloween book The Old Myers Place. He at first appears fairly normal, but his status as a spoiled, assholish Rich Bitch soon becomes apparent, and he eventually tries to rape the main character (with it being revealed he tried doing the same to another girl the previous year). You'd think all that would cause Michael to zero in on him like a homing missile, but no, he survives.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Vernon & Petunia Dursley. After 10 years of child abuse that should have gotten both of them in prison (and for which they are not even remotely sorry) all that happens at the end is they are bundled off on a vacation to keep them safe. They were never really punished for what they did, but when a wizard would turn up, they always got a scare. Their son Dudley had an encounter with Dementors then went on to mature and redeem himself.
    • The Malfoys. The Malfoy family are magic Nazis, and it's pretty clear only a fraction of the crimes they've really committed is confirmed, but because Narcissa loved her son, they get to go scot-free. The exception is Draco himself: Though he was an unpleasant jerk and tried to murder Dumbledore, it was done under duress, his jerkass acts sometimes got punished and he does go on to try and become a better person and changes his racist ways.
    • The entire Inquisitorial Squad in Order of the Phoenix suffers Amusing Injuries, but they don't receive any punishment for acting like Umbridge's Secret Police and engaging in active torture. In fact, their points removal last through the end of the year so that McGonagall has to add points for Snape to want to deduct.
    • The Aurors that sent McGonagall to the hospital with their Stunners still have their jobs.
    • While Kreacher is Lighter and Softer by the end for sure and even pulls a Heel–Face Turn of a sorts, he never acknowledges any remorse or faces any punishment for instigating Sirius' death in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
    • Romilda Vane gives Harry a box of sweets spiked with love potion in Half-Blood Prince (the magical equivalent of a date rape drug) and it's only because of Hermione hearing about it beforehand that Harry doesn't eat them (Ron eats them instead). We never hear about Romilda being punished despite the fact that Professor Slughorn and prefects Hermione and Ron knew about the love potion. Love potions are also one of the few dangerous things that Dumbledore has had the good sense to forbid. Which doesn't stop the Weasley twins from smuggling them in. For which they are never punished, either.
    • Word of God says Rita Skeeter is this trope, because she is still working with the Daily Prophet and writing terrible stories about people, hasn't been punished for being an unregistered Animagus, and never receives comeuppance throughout the entire series.
  • Variation: General Ebeso in Heroic Proportions dies in his sleep after a brutal reign and would have been one, but janitor fakes an assassination on the toilet, making him a mockery in death.
  • The short story "History and Economics" from Assassin Fantastic has a nasty Karma Houdini: the young Herr Jan Arner confronts the woman he suspects assassinated his sister, only to realize his own uncle ordered her murder — and sent him right to the assassin so she could finish that part of the contract as well. He figures this out right as she finishes the job.
  • Horrid Henry:
    • In Tricks and Treats, Henry is grounded on Halloween for cutting off almost all of his brother's hair, then proceeds to sneak out in disguise and scare all the other kids out of their treats. He makes it back to his room before his parents can find out he snuck out and on top of that his brother gives him another bag of treats to make up for him supposedly missing out on trick-or-treating.
  • Household Gods: Nicole's rapist in Carnantum simply disappears, never identified let alone punished.
  • Les Farley from Philip Roth's The Human Stain gets away with the murder of his ex-wife and her lover. However as the portions of the book shown from his perspective suggest that he will never recover from his psychological scars due to his experiences in Vietnam it's hard to see him as a gloating victor.
  • In I'm In Love With the Villainess, Lambert Orso is found unquestionably guilty of attempted mass murder, stirring civil unrest, and an incestuous relationship with his sister, to boot; his plans would have succeeded if not for the intervention of the protagonist, Rei. However, Rei is also responsible for keeping them from getting executed, and helping him and his sister rebuild their lives in another country, as lovers. It's implied they're doing very well for themselves.
  • Rosalind in the Tana French novel In the Woods poisons her younger sisters Katy and Jessica in order to make them sick. When Katy finally wises up and stops eating anything Rosalind gives her, Rosalind arranges for Katy to be raped and murdered. Rosalind brags about this to the police, but because she's only 17, they can't use her confession because her parents weren't present when she made it.
  • In Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, the Windrip regime oppresses and brutalizes the American population. Unfortunately, Windrip and Macgoblin never face justice for their crimes, living in exile in France and Haiti, respectively.
  • John Putnam Thatcher:
    • In Murder Makes the Wheels Go Round;
      • Former Michigan Motors president Eberhart was directly involved in a multi-billion dollar price-fixing conspiracy in the Back Story. While he had to resign, he stayed out of jail due to lack of proof, the DOJ doesn't get that proof over the course of the novel, and Eberhart still holds a lot of influence and prestige within the company.
      • Chairman of the board Dennis French is complicit in the conspiracy at least to the extent that he's hiding evidence of Eberhart's involvement months later, and also refuses to fire the executives who did get convicted after their release from prison when every other auto company involved in the conspiracy fires its malefactors. French doesn't even suffer the minimal punishment Eberhart got, and comes out of the book with his job and reputation intact.
    • While the main villain from When in Greece gets his just deserts, his circle of friends suffer nothing worse than the failure of their plan despite plotting to overthrow the government, murder a political opponent, and nationalize a foreign business under a false pretext.
    • In Right on the Money, the murderer (who has also robbed people who trust him) escapes to Europe as the police close in on him.
    • In Come to Dust, one character is suspected of being a hit-and-run driver who recklessly kills two teenagers. It turns out that he's innocent, but it's never confirmed whether the real hit-and-run driver is ever caught.
  • The plot of John's Lily is kicked off by two kidnappers abducting three-year-old Lily from her wealthy family so they can return her for the reward money. When they leave her by the side of a road for a few hours so they can go get drunk, John finds her and takes her in. Three years later, the kidnappers recognise Lily and her locket at Carsham Fair and try to abduct her again. This time she's rescued by the Blands and brought back to John's house. Lily is eventually restored to her original family while the kidnappers fail to obtain the reward money, but they're never apprehended and never suffer a real consequence.
  • The only time Fisk really gets caught causing trouble in the Knight and Rogue Series is when it's needed as an excuse to get him indebted to Michael. Other than that, he can lie, dance around the police, and break into all the houses he wants. Granted, most of his burglaries are actually for the greater good, even if he's doing them to people who are in no violation of the law. The only reason he doesn't do it more is because Michael ruins any con Fisk tries to run in his presence.
  • Knowledge of Angels: Although the abbess curses them, she doesn't inform the authorities of the shepherds raping Amara, and they're never punished or even arrested.
  • Jack and Roger in Lord of the Flies. While the book is filled with cases of Humans Are the Real Monsters, these two are the worst. Hopefully the Navy caused this trope to be averted.
  • Magic for Liars: Tabitha performed an unsanctioned and risky medical operation that killed the patient (to be fair, the patient would be dead within weeks without the operation and was conducted with consent). To prepare for that, she practiced on a student in a nonsterile environment without anaesthesia or sedative. Ivy tells her to quit her position and get some therapy, but there are no official records nor consequences of Tabitha's actions.
  • The Errant in the Malazan Book of the Fallen doesn't get any comeuppance in the main series, nor the prequel, despite being responsible for plenty of suffering on all fronts — not least of all his bid to destroy the world.
  • At the end of Roald Dahl's Matilda, Harry Wormwood prepares to flee the police who are onto him and his crooked car business, but there's no sign of him or his wife getting any comeuppance for their abuse of Matilda.
  • Medea from Greek mythology and the play by Euripides. After many, many acts of murder (including her blameless younger brother in a cold-blooded attempt to get away) she is rescued from death by the gods and spirited away to become a queen in Athens. Oh, and she ended up married to Achilles in the afterlife.
    • Averted in the Musical Adaptation Marie Christine, where the musical is a flashback told from inside her jail cell, before she is to be executed in the morning.
    • Some versions portray Medea as a less evil person, where she only killed her brother through an accident, and Jason was a jerkass, who wanted to leave her for another woman. It goes at least back to Euripides, who made her a sympathetic character in his play about her. He even let her talk against the oppression of women in ancient Greek society!.
  • Zack State, the central character of The Mental State, has a talent for wriggling his way out of any situation. Apart from his first offence, he is never punished for any of the crimes he commits while in prison, including theft, blackmail, smuggling, arson, hacking, poisoning, and framing someone. He even manages to swing an early release thanks to good conduct and survives the whole ordeal with little more than a slight bruise that could have been a hundred times worse.
  • In Metaltown this is both discussed in-story and played straight with Lena's father, who is so rich and powerful that putting him away or getting him in trouble is futile. The closest thing to karma he gets is giving the workers fairer treatment.
  • My Sister, the Serial Killer: By the end of the book, Ayoola has killed four men, ruined the life of a fifth one, and introduces number six.
  • Roys Bedoys: Justified to an extent in “No Cookies, Roys Bedoys”, where the Bedoys brothers and their pets all take cookies before dinner despite not being allowed. Only Roys makes up for it (by helping to bake some more), but then, Loys is only two and the pets didn’t know better.
  • Worlds of Power:
    • In the adaptation of Metal Gear, While Vermon CaTaffy's plan to launch nukes across the world was thwarted, he slipped away while Justin "Solid Snake" Halley was not looking and ultimately receives no repercussions for his actions.
    • Foster in the adaptation of Ninja Gaiden gets little more than a slap on the wrist for not only nearly blundering the world towards the apocalypse, but also forcing children to do his dirty work for him, and once all is said and done ordering one of said children to kill the other.
  • Double Subversion in Midnight's Children. Shiva sells out the titular group to the Widow, and personally captures Saleem himself. He's also implied to have murdered an awful lot of people. He does get castrated along with the other midnight's children, but otherwise gets off scot-free...until one of his mistresses returns to shoot him through the heart. Except not; less than two pages later Saleem reveals that Shiva is still at large, and he's so terrified that Shiva will find him that he made up the story for peace of mind. Greater-Scope Villain Indira Gandhi also returns to power after a Hope Spot where she loses the 1977 election. (In Real Life, she was later assassinated, but the book was published three years before that event took place.)
  • The abusive, murderous husband in Holly Lisle's Midnight Rain does get what's coming to him, but his wealthy family, who switched him with another guy in a coma to fake his death and aid and abet his stalking of the main character, gets off.
  • The Inner Party members from Nineteen Eighty-Four. They try to eliminate all joy in the world and it's implied that they will never fall out of power. It wouldn't be much of a dystopia otherwise.
  • Nory Ryans Song: Cunningham gets away with his hateful treatment of the Irish tenants because, being a rich English lord, there's not much they can do against him other than escape by leaving Ireland entirely. The man who tried to sell Nory milk and then pushed her down and stole her packages after she refused to buy from him also qualifies, as he's last seen running off with them.
  • Martin is an almost ridiculous example in The Oathsworn series. Even tortured and imprisoned several times he still manages to come back and cause trouble everytime.
  • Oliver Twisted: Fagin escapes with his group of young thieves before The Cavalry of the Knights of Nostradamus arrive. Both they and the evil Brotherhood of Fenris are keen to find Fagin's whereabouts but he's nowhere to be seen.
  • At the beginning of On a Pale Horse, Zane goes into a shop where an extremely dishonest shopkeeper sells magic stones. Zane was fated to win the love of an incredibly beautiful and rich woman, but the shopkeeper tricks him into trading this destiny for a magical stone whose powers are all but useless. The shopkeeper gets to marry this beautiful, rich, and loving wife, while Zane is so distressed by losing this chance at happiness that he is Driven to Suicide. We never see this shopkeeper again, so his story ends with him Riding into the Sunset with the woman whose love he stole from Zane.
  • On the Street Where You Live: Richard Carter went to his grave with no one knowing he was responsible for the deaths of Madeline, Letitia, Ellen and his own son, and indirectly hastened his first wife's death; although he died of illness in his late 50s and wasn't fondly remembered by his widow, he still died a rich man, remarried and became a father again, and got to live a relatively full life (more than can be said for his victims), with no one knowing of his crimes until over a century later.
  • The entire Thorburn family, in Pact, has successfully been this for the past seven generations in a setting where Karma is an actual law of the universe and bad deeds get passed down through family lines. At this point, the universe is less throwing bad luck their way and more overtly trying to kill them, and the current heir continues to evade it.
  • Motley in Perdido Street Station by China Miéville. After being, through greed and irresponsibility, one of the primary causes of the near-destruction of the city, and raping and torturing the protagonist's girlfriend halfway to insanity (what sent her all the way wasn't entirely his fault) he gets off scot-free apart from having the statue he was forcing her to make of him destroyed.
  • One of the Platonic Dialogues specifically brought up a theoretical "loved tyrant" as a Villain with Good Publicity and Karma Houdini to be the counterpart to The Chew Toy and Hero with Bad Publicity, the "hated philosopher" in consideration of whether morality comes merely from reward and punishment, or from some deeper source. (Plato contends, more or less, that the philosopher is still better off because his is the well-ordered rational soul, and has thus found Eudaimonia, true happiness; this in spite of having had his eyes gouged out with a hot poker and being sent to Hell by the Greeks' gods who are just as susceptible to false propaganda as the mortals.)
  • The Olympian Gods from the Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus are stated outright to be no better than the Titans, the latter of which create their army from the demigods, mortal spirits, and minor gods abused by the twelve main ones. A river god in the second series notes major Olympians are rarely punished for their crimes. The worst is Zeus whose pride and breaking of sacred oaths creates most of the problems in both series, but uses his power and position to either not suffer any consequences or force them on others. The worst that happens is the twelve main ones are humiliated a couple of times and have to promise to treat others better. Several promises they break outright and no one trusts them to keep the other ones in the long-term. Apollo eventually gets some karma for his dickishness, but the other eleven, not so much.
  • Lampshaded in The Princess Bride. "Nobody kills Humperdinck. He lives." However, Humperdinck's fate is a bit more like a Fate Worse than Death, as it is suggested that living in the shadow of his own cowardice is his punishment.
  • Rabble thinks so with Norman after he throws a rock that sends Mille Bellows to the hospital. Only Rabble and Veronica knew he threw the rock, but when they get him to help Millie as a form of punishment, Veronica convinces him to do it for other reasons (including the fact that he has a crush on Veronica). Eventually, Rabble lets him know they know he threw the rock and that he should understand he did wrong to hit a ninety-something-year-old women with a rock, even if accidentally.
  • Isabel from The Razor's Edge is a bit of an egregious example; she tried to prevent Larry and Sophie from getting married by tempting Sophie with alcohol and lead her out of Paris, leading Sophie to her death. When the narrator finds out, Isabel tries to justify her actions by saying that Sophie would've ruined Larry's life if she married him, but she later said that she's glad and enjoyed the fact that she killed Sophie, all while smiling. While the narrator tells her that she'll never have Larry, this turns out to be a bit of a weak punishment as Isabel will still inherit her fortune and become richer than ever before. Worse yet, her reward is "an assured position backed by a substantial fortune in an active and cultured community." This may even be an Exaggerated Trope.
  • In REAMDE, a Chinese hacker named Marlon and his friends write a ransomware virus that's spread through the popular MMORPG T'Rain demanding payment in return for Marlon releasing the victim's files, which starts the whole mess. At the end of the novel, he cashes in his $2 million and retires. Anyone, who has ever fallen victim to such an attack, would justifiably feel angry at this.
  • In the Agent Pendergast novel Reliquary, Mrs. Wisher might be considered one. She is largely responsible for the riots that take place and is rewarded with a government position.
  • Lord Scourge from The Old Republic novel Revan, who gets away with not only backstabbing the Exile and never feeling any regret over cold-bloodedly murdering her, but being awarded a medal of honor by Republic forces.
  • The series of books focusing on Tom Ripley, Affably Evil Villain Protagonist, showcase his various misdeeds which include a string of violent murders, with him always getting away with it.
  • A deconstructed trope in The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin. The main character Matthew wanted to kill his physically and emotionally abusive mother, especially after she kidnapped his little sister. Instead, he let her be. But she can no longer have custody over her children and can't return home out of fear of being thrown into jail for kidnapping. She would still send letters to her children, sometimes warm, sometimes threatening, but she has no power over their lives anymore. She could live her own life however she wanted, flirty and irresponsible, but as Matthew noted, she is getting older and harsh reality is catching up to her. One of her favorite tactics is using her beauty to seduce random men into doing what she wants, but as she ages, she's going to find it harder to do that.
  • In The Scholomance, Ophelia suffers absolutely no consequences for murdering an entire graduating class of teenagers to gain the dark magic needed for a ritual where she sacrificed her own unborn child to create a horrifying monster she could use against other enclaves. At the end of the series, she's been promoted to Domina of New York.
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events:
    • Most of the cast of the series were all last seen in a hotel that was on fire. No one, not even the narrator, knows who survived, if any. If they all did survive (which is possible, as the Baudelaires and Justice Strauss did warn everyone to evacuate), it means that all of the people who committed crimes and were horrible got away (although most of them aren't confirmed, it's all but stated that The Man With A Beard But No Hair survived). Interestingly, this was doubly subverted by Mr. Sir. In The Miserable Mill, the end implies that he will be in some sort of legal trouble, as it is revealed that it's illegal in their town to use coupons as payment. While he appears to be fine in The Penultimate Peril, he mentions that the forest he uses for boards is running out of trees and he hopes that the meeting he was called for will be about some business deal, implying that even if he did survive the fire, his company was screwed anyway.
  • Lord Pumphrey of the Sharpe series. Seemingly a fun, cool chap who does what he has to do for the crown of England. Then he ruthlessly has Sharpe's girlfriend and her father's throats cut. When confronted about this in the latest Sharpe book, he mockingly tells Sharpe he's not sorry in the least and skips out with no retribution in the slightest. (Well, Sharpe destroys a letter he'd been planning to use for blackmail purposes but that's the opposite of Disproportionate Retribution.) Many readers hope he's to get his in future books as he sure deserves it.
  • Sherlock Holmes:
    • The title character is beaten by a Karma Houdini in "A Case of Identity". Holmes, having figured out his game, has confronted the culprit at Baker Street, and he admits his guilt but notes that the law cannot touch him. Holmes is forced to let him go, though not without the slight consolation of wiping the sneer off his face by threatening him with a whip.
    • Subverted in "The Blue Carbuncle," in which Holmes actually lets the thief off without punishment, reasoning that prison would make him a worse man than the atoner he now was.
    • In The Hound of the D'Urbervilles, about Moriarty and Moran, Moran even though he meets his canon fate-being arrested for murder because of Holmes following the end of The Great Hiatus-he gets let out after a few years, as opposed to being hanged. Its implied that Moriarty's criminal Firm, though busted, was not totally broken, and Moriarty, as former number two, still had some juice.
    • A Study in Scarlet: The killer dies in prison of an aortic aneurysm before he can be brought to trial.
    • "The Adventure of the Blue Coronet" sees the titular coronet's thieves, Sir George Burnwell and Mary Holder, allowed to go free, as Holmes is unable to have them arrested without causing a national scandal, settling for simply reclaiming the coronet and hoping they get their comeuppance in time.
    • In "The Engineer's Thumb", Holmes's client is an engineer called in by Colonel Lysander Stark to fix a hydraulic press. However, he realizes that Stark and his associates are using the press for something other than its intended use, and makes the mistake of confronting Stark, who tries to kill him with a cleaver, severing his thumb in the process before he manages to escape. Holmes realizes that Stark and his two accomplices are counterfeiters, but when he arrives at their house, he finds that the three have already packed up their money and escaped, with the only consolation being that the engineer accidentally set their house on fire while escaping and destroyed their machine.
    • "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" ends with the criminals who accidentally killed Lady Carfax while abducting her escaping from the police.
    • During "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott", the criminals manage to escape, and although one of them likely killed the other, they are never caught.
    • The killer in "The Boscombe Valley Mystery" is not arrested at the end, as he has a fatal disease that means he would almost certainly die before he could be hanged anyway.
  • In the Father Brown story "The Sins of Prince Saradine", the title character pulls off a brilliant one of these by manipulating his two enemies so that one of them kills the other believing it to be him, and gets executed without ever finding out he was wrong.
  • In Paul Murray's novel Skippy Dies, after driving Skippy to suicide Lori feels as if she did nothing wrong. Also, Skippy's swimming coach gets away with drugging him and sexually abusing him because the principal didn't want to deface the school's reputation and upset the already grieving parents.
  • The Son Of The Ironworker: Cosme, the chief shepherd of the foster mother's protagonist, reveals Martín's location to his evil grandfather with the intention of getting him arrested so that Martín cannot disrupt his gold-digging plan to romance his widowed adoptive mother. Martín is forced to flee the country without confronting Cosme about his actions or reveal them to Laurea, so the man gets away with everything.
  • Happens to some villains in A Song of Ice and Fire, even though there are two more books to be written. Not only does Littlefinger never get punished for his Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, he's one of the only characters who actually comes out of every single book better than he started it. Though on the other hand, the series is unfinished, and it's entirely possible the plan is for Baelish to meet his doom in a book that is not yet written. Given that he did very much get his in the show, it's probably more likely than him being intended to get off scot-free for his misdeeds.
  • In The Spirit Thief, Sara ultimately vanishes, despite all the pain and torture she inflicted on spirits and her manipulation of people around her. While it's mentioned that river spirits hate her now and will drown her at first opportunity, her ex-husband is determined to rescue her out of sense of honor. Between that and her own cunning, she'll probably escape almost unscathed.
  • An American ship captain in Harry Harrison's Stars And Stripes Forever Alternate History trilogy blows up a British ship without provocation. Why? Because he wants a fight. It's not even much of a fight, as the American ship blows the opponent away with two volleys from its main guns, and the Brits don't even have time to react. That incident is quickly forgotten, and the captain in question gets away scot-free.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina:
      • Navik the Red never faces any punishment for the genocide of Greedo's clan (at least until Rodia falls to the Yuuzhan Vong).
      • Dr. Evazan also gets away with his crimes, at least here. One guide says he was later killed by Boba Fett for the bounty on him.
    • Natasi Daala was a former Imperial admiral who oversaw the construction of the Death Star, the enslavement of genius children to build it, and the bombardment of several pacifist planets before attacking the New Republic twice in an attempt at Avenging the Villain. After seemingly reforming during the Second Galactic Civil War she's elected Chief of State of The Alliance in Fate of the Jedi, only for her to quickly reveal that she still hates the Jedi and becomes a President Evil. After exiling Luke, attempting to reenact Order 66, and terrorizing the public with Mandalorian Secret Police, she's briefly Put on a Prison Bus only to be broken out by Boba Fett. Aside from having her political ambitions crushed, she faces no real comeuppance for her decades of war crimes.
    • I, Jedi: ** Corran is appalled after Kyp is forgiven having blown up the entire planet Carida, with millions murdered by doing so and Luke welcomes him back into the Jedi Academy. Even if he was incluenced by Exar Kun, Corran thinks it's hardly enough for this treatment, and he gives Luke a brutal "The Reason You Suck" Speech before quitting the Jedi Order. On further reflection though he admits executing Kyp or giving him life in prison wouldn't undo this, and spending the rest of his days atoning by serving the galaxy as a Jedi is the best option, though he's still not happy with it.
    • Tavira remains at large by the end of the book, but with no Force sensitives as her allies it's only a matter of time until her pirate gang is tracked down.
  • Steve Stirling's notorious dystopia the Domination of the Draka wins at the end of The Stone Dogs.
  • Done by Mark Twain way back in the 1860s, who satirized the Laser-Guided Karma of children's morality tales in "The Story of the Bad Little Boy".
  • Subverted for Krager in The Tamuli. He gets away (last seen on a boat headed homewards), and as a rich man, too... except being a life-long alcoholic takes its toll, and by the time the heroes take stock and worry where he is, he is so far gone that he probably wouldn't even realize if someone stabbed him. When the party members point out this trope, the group healer states that his alcoholism is so far gone he will die an extremely painful death of liver failure in six months, tops, without any of them having to lift a finger.
  • The Teresa Knight Trilogy: In Strip Poker the bad guys who are really behind the book's events (people from the international corporations involved with trafficking coltan in the Congo) face no consequences as their hitman gets killed and so they're not identified.
  • Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera has one of the greatest Karma Houdinis ever, as the Villain Protagonist Macheath who is a rapist and mass murderer is not only reprieved at the end of the play, but also receives a title of nobility and accompanying castle, as well as a life-long pension.
  • In Timba Comes Home by Sheila Jeffries, a cat named Vati (the brother of the title character) gets declawed at the request of his owner's wife after he scratches the couple's small daughter, who was pulling his tail. The story is set in the UK, where declawing cats is illegal, but there's no mention of this woman being prosecuted for animal cruelty, nor of the vet who carried out the procedure losing their licence.
  • In Time Scout, Jack the Ripper half gets away with it.
  • Matthew Reilly's The Tournament: Crown Prince Selim, as per history, in spite of being a medieval sex trafficker. Though the postscript about the historical figures reminds us that his life was quite ignominious.
  • Treasure Island:
    • Long John Silver, who gets away with his life and a few hundred pounds from the treasure (rather less than one tenth of one percent).
    • Also Ben Gunn. Nobody seems particularly bothered that he was a part of one of the most feared pirate crews that ever sailed, and he gets a larger share of the treasure than Silver did (which he manages to blow in three weeks, at which point he is given a pension). Presumably, the characters and readers consider his time marooned on the island punishment enough (not to mention it mellowed him out considerably).
  • The Volturi from the Twilight series. The last part of Breaking Dawn puts the protagonists in a position to finally face them in a huge battle... but nothing actually happens. The Volturi get to go home and eat more humans, as do the Cullens' more unsavory temporary allies. When you're a tiny island of good in a global society of evil, there are gonna be a lot of Karma Houdinis whatever you do.note 
  • In Kerrelyn Sparks's vampire romance The Undead Next Door, Heather's ex-husband is a total dick. He's condescending, constantly calls his ex-wife a whore, belittles her, and is emotionally abusive. He is put under mind control so that he thinks he's a cockroach every time he curses her. In the end, though, he learns nothing from the experience but the mind control is lifted so he can spend weekends with his five-year-old-daughter.
  • In Naomi Novik's Uprooted, Solya is envious of the Sarkan's position as most powerful wizard in Polnya and chooses to believe that Sarkan is playing politics when Sarkan's only goal is to protect the country from the malevolent Wood on its border. Solya manipulates Sarkan and his student, The Protagonist Agnieszka, and allies himself with the Fearless Fool Prince Marek. The pair eventually bring half of Polnya's army to assault Sarkan's tower, which is defended by the other half, leaving the whole shattered at a time when their neighbor Rosya is getting aggressive. After the whole thing is revealed to be a Batman Gambit by the Wood, Solya gives some help to Sarkan and Agnieszka (who are too shellshocked and exhausted to chew him out) and then limps home to the capital to go unpunished even though he was acting voluntarily rather than through the Wood's corruption.
  • In Utopia 58, Ellie reveals that she's the Father, and that she was manipulating Kay into revealing the locations of rebel hideouts so she could secretly send the White Army to attack them. In the process of doing so, she succeeded in capturing or killing hundreds of rebels and other enemies of Isonomia. The book ends with Kay getting stoned to death, while Ellie is free to continue ruling over the eponymous utopia.
  • The Vicomte de Bragelonne has two examples:
    • King Louis XIV steals the hero's girlfriend, causing him to commit Suicide by Cop, which in turn causes Athos (his father) to die in sympathy with him. The King then goes on to dump said girlfriend, live happily ever after and become an important historical figure.
    • Aramis scams Porthos into helping him carry out a complicated scheme to put the King's twin brother on the throne (letting Porthos think they're helping the real King). They're discovered and forced to flee, and Porthos dies when a cave collapses. A few years later, Aramis is back in France as a Spanish diplomat and treated with all honour, even by the King.
  • Viceroy's Pride: Discussed. The oligarchs who caused the collapse of the world order eventually realize which way the wind is blowing and sue for amnesty. General Finch is on board, but everyone else points out that if they let these assholes get away with indirectly killing thousands (at a minimum), then they'll be right back where they started and no one will have any faith in justice. In the end, they are allowed to self-exile and keep a million dollars, but none of their actual power.
  • Dolokhov in War and Peace, an icy, Badass amoral jerk prone to horrible actions. After a lifetime of mischief and general unpleasantness, he even becomes something of a hero of the Russian resistance against Napoleon. Well, he does get shot in a duel in the book's first part, but he eventually recovers.
  • In The Warlord Chronicles by Bernard Cornwell, (author of the Sharpe series above) most of the various bad guys get a Karmic Death of some sort, but several get off scot free, such as the Saxon King Cerdic and his champion Liofa. More significantly, the oily, treacherous, Corrupt Clergyman Sansum never gets any payback that sticks to him after betraying every side in 3 books, and ends the last book by ordering the protagonist and narrator to perform a Last Stand against the oncoming Saxon invaders in order to cover Sansum's retreat.
  • Warrior Cats:
    • Blackstar follows Brokenstar and later Tigerstar, and does horrible things for them, such as attempting to kidnap innocent kits to use as Child Soldiers and slaughtering the half-starved Stonefur in an unfair fight for being Half-Clan. However, after Tigerstar dies, everyone is content to let Blackstar become leader of ShadowClan and never mention his horrible deeds again.
    • Also Misha from the Expanded Universe novel SkyClan's Destiny. She both rips out Percy's eye and takes one of Leafstar's lives. Does anything bad at all happen to her? No, she gets off with just a slap of the wrist.
    • There's also Ashfur — his Karma Houdini status is even discussed in-universe. As revenge for Squirrelflight breaking up with him, he plots with Hawkfrost to try and kill his own Clan leader (Squirrelflight's father), framing Squirrelflight's mate Brambleclaw in the process, and after that fails he later attempts to murder her children. When she reveals that they're not really hers, he decides to reveal that information publicly in order to humiliate her. He gets killed by Hollyleaf before he can do this. Ashfur shows up in StarClan — the feline version of heaven — in a later book. Jayfeather, one of the cats Ashfur had tried to kill, is furious that he's there, and asks his Spirit Advisor Yellowfang why he's there, when most traitors/murderers go to the Dark Forest. Yellowfang responds that "His only fault was to love too much". Unfortunately, Ashfur getting off the hook proves to be a massive mistake; he becomes the Big Bad of seventh arc, where he betrays and traps StarClan and subsequently nearly destroys all the Clans in his relentless pursuit of Squirrelflight.
    • Shrewclaw, Tallstar's bully from Tallstar's Revenge. Even after all the mean stuff he did to the latter, he was never reprimanded much and continued taunting Tallstar. Though it can be said that he felt bad about it after he died and somehow made up with Tallstar in the end of the story.
  • In the second book of Watchers of the Throne, the Minotaurs openly disobey the appointed High Lords, run a campaign of terror across Terra, murder a pair of Imperial Fists, bombard a cathedral, aid in arresting the High Lords and kill a Custodian in battle. Any other Chapter would be censured, if not eradicated. They agree to obey the new Master of the Administratum and are sent away from Terra, as they're still useful. The only consolation left is that the Custodes kill quite a few Minotaurs before the fighting subsides.
  • In We Can't Rewind, the teacher who molested and impregnated eleven-year-old Denise vanishes as soon as he finds out she's pregnant, and is never seen again. The narrator (her future husband Don) mentions how he'd gladly strangle him if he could catch him, but unlike all the made up stories where justice typically prevails, people like that guy sometimes get away with their crimes in the real world.
  • A central theme of Tana French's thriller The Witch Elm is that narrator Toby Hennessy (obliviously) has never had to deal with consequences for his actions—everyone around him gets punished or otherwise hurt by the fallout, but Toby gets at most a slap on the wrist before being handed yet another second chance. Antics he believes are harmless and all in good fun have serious impacts on other people's lives that Toby not only fails to notice, but refuses to believe in if someone else points them out. (In fact, the whole plot happens mostly because back in secondary school Toby didn't believe his cousin when she told him how bad a situation was, and went and played a prank that made things ten times worse. She was left with the mess and traumatized; he never even noticed something was wrong until the body was found.) However, arguably at the end of the book the Karma Houdini Warranty has kicked in. While he gets off extremely lightly for killing a cop, he's lost everything he valued (his self-image, his bright future, his girlfriend, etc), and his life is still wrecked even if he won't be spending it in jail.
  • In When Demons Walk the eponymous demon gets back to its homeworld, without any occasion for the protagonist to take revenge for the murder of her mentor. Everyone is glad to be rid of the demon, so it is not much of a concern.
  • The three boys who raped Audrina in My Sweet Audrina never receive any comeuppance for their crimes, due to everything that occurs afterwards.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top