History Main / AesopCollateralDamage

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', an enchantress curses the prince into a Beast for his lack of hospitality, but also turns his household staff into {{Animate Inanimate Object}}s. The Broadway version and live-action remake (see below) soften the collateral damage by having the staff discuss that they were the ones who had let the Beast turn into a SpoiledBrat in the first place, however it still doesn't justify turning a ''seven-year-old'' into a teacup. Considering the original fairytale was written in 1740, this isn't as strange as it seems to a modern audience: the King or Prince effectively ''[[FisherKingdom is]]'' [[FisherKingdom the kingdom]] and the royal staff are bound to him. The sovereignty of the citizen is a very republican idea.

* A horrific and intentional example of Aesop Collateral damage is found in Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's short story ''Hell Screen''. An obsessive and sadistic painter cannot paint anything he hasn't seen, so when he is commissioned to paint a picture of Hell by the tyrannical Japanese lord he serves, he tortures his apprentices to get the references he needs. Finally, he decides he needs to have a carriage set on fire and the woman inside to ''burn alive.'' The lord agrees. The victim? A pure, innocent and intelligent young woman [[spoiler:...the painter's daughter, and the one thing on Earth he truly loved]]. According to the servant narrating the story, the Lord does this to teach the painter a lesson about putting art above all other duties and concerns. However, the servant is [[UnreliableNarrator unlikely to be telling the precise truth]], out of fear of or devotion to his lord, so it seems more likely that [[spoiler:this was the lord's twisted revenge on the daughter, Yukimi, for spurning his advances...advances that the narrator claimed never happened, despite ''witnessing'' his attempted rape of Yukimi]]. After the execution, the painter finishes his screen [[spoiler:and is DrivenToSuicide - the lord is a KarmaHoudini]].

* ''Literature/LookingForAlaska'' is one of the most famously gutwrenching examples in teen literature, featuring the friends of the eponymous HardDrinkingPartyGirl encouraging her self-destructive behavior due to seeing it as endearingly rebellious rather than a cry for help, and learning their lesson after the ultimate result is her being killed while driving drunk.

** As Creator/MarkTwain points out, there had to have been the usual proportion of children born to the people of Noah's generation. Then God sent the rain, "and drowned those poor little chaps". Though admittedly with the [[CrapsackWorld state of the world]], it is tragically unlikely the children would have turned out better than their [[AlwaysChaoticEvil parents]].

** One of the biggest examples in Greek mythology comes from the House of Atreus. Tantalus, the family's patriarch, was a demigod who got along with his divine relatives rather well until he decided to test the limits of their omniscience by [[ImAHumanitarian killing his son Pelops and baking him into a pie]], which he then served on Mount Olympus. Nearly all the gods immediately saw through the ruse (with the exception of Demeter, who had recently lost her daughter Persephone to Hades and thus took a small bite before she too stopped) and were absolutely furious. The gods gave Tantalus his famous punishment--[[AndIMustScream to be cursed with a burning hunger and thirst and forever trapped in a pool of water with a fruit tree right above his head, with the water and fruit always moving just out of reach]]--but that apparently wasn't enough retribution for what he'd done. His ''entire family line'' was cursed: Pelops (who the gods revived) had three children who did horrible things including murder, incest, and forced cannibalism, while his grandchildren included Agamemnon and Menelaus, who you might know for their involvement in that whole Trojan War thing. And Agamemnon himself also killed one of his daughters to appease the gods and ended up murdered himself (as did the psychic Cassandra, whom he'd taken as a war prize, and who was [[CassandraTruth cursed by Apollo to never be believed]] for refusing him), which led two of his remaining children - Orestes and Electra - to cause even more death and destruction until Orestes ''finally'' begged Athena for forgiveness, at which point the curse was broken. So to recap: wars were fought and raged, innocent children were killed, rape and incest occurred on a grand scale, and countless people died...all because ''one person'' decided to test the power of the gods. Yikes.

* [[AntiHero Lelouch]], the protagonist of ''Anime/CodeGeass'', started war against the empire of Britannia, but early on didn't fully understand the consequences of war. Sure, he knew that he's putting his life on the line and that he'll have to kill in order to win, but he didn't care much about casualties on any side, and while he tried to avoid or at least minimise collateral damage he didn't give much thought to it when it happened. Then, in episode twelve, [[spoiler:he learns that one of the Britannian soldiers killed in his latest battle was a good friend's father. He later gets said friend and his beloved half sister killed too]].

** It is very common in Biblical stories that innocent descendants (even if they lived centuries after the crime in question had happened) [[SinsOfOurFathers are punished for what their ancestors did.]] One example is when Noah puts a curse on his innocent grandson Canaan and his descendants, since Ham (Canaan's father) had peeked at a drunk Noah's naked body! [[note]]The Canaanites would become the enemies of the Israelites for several centuries in later books in the Bible, so that is probably why they were believed to have a cursed origin.[[/note]] And in the end of the Book of Genesis, when Jacob is proclaiming his last blessings to his sons, he brings up Simeon's and Levi's violence and wrath ([[MisplacedRetribution he is probably referring to how they had killed all the men in a city, because one guy had raped their sister]]), before he proclaims that their descendants (who are not even born yet and thus had nothing to do with that event) are cursed to be scattered among the other Israelites. [[note]]Simeon's tribe must have been forgiven at some point, because they did get as much land as any other tribe. Levi's tribe had to become landless priests though, so ''they'' would have to live among other tribes and never got any property of their own.[[/note]] And that is only two examples from the first book!

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': After [[spoiler:Iroh's son died during the Earth Kingdom campaign,]] Iroh went into HeroicBSOD and wanted nothing to do with ruling the Fire Nation. His scheming brother Ozai tried to convince his father Azulon to name him as heir. Azulon did not take it well and ordered Ozai to kill his own firstborn, Zuko. And Ozai would cheerfully have done it too, but he made a deal with his wife: she would make an untraceable poison with which to kill Azulon, in exchange for letting Zuko live. Ursa then fled the Fire Nation, leaving Zuko a WellDoneSonGuy, his sister Azula a DaddysLittleVillain, and Ozai free to continue trying to TakeOverTheWorld.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'', John Constantine constantly [[DidYouJustScamCthulhu pisses off powerful beings like Heaven and Hell]] and [[FlippingTheBird flips them off]] when he's satisfied. Though his enemies can't touch him, his family and friends substitute to pay the price which was supposed to be his in the first place. He ends up mourning them afterwards. Though with Constantine's luck, his friends and family tend to die even when he's ''not'' doing anything to endanger them.

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', an enchantress curses the prince into a Beast for his lack of hospitality, but also turns his household staff into {{Animate Inanimate Object}}s. The Broadway version and live-action remake (see below) soften the collateral damage by having the staff discuss that they were the ones who had let the Beast turn into a SpoiledBrat in the first place, however it still doesn't justify turning a ''seven-year-old'' into a teacup.

* This is parodied on ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': The "WesternAnimation/TreehouseOfHorror XII" story "Hex and the City" had a fortune teller curse Homer's family because he insulted her. They suffer through freakish transformations, and Bart actually dies, but Homer goes on refusing to [[CurseEscapeClause reverse the curse by apologizing]] because none of it is happening to ''[[ItsAllAboutMe him]]''. It's especially [[{{Jerkass}} cruel of Homer]] because the apology wouldn't just reverse the curse, it would even resurrect Bart.

* ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet themselves'' are this to the Montagues and Capulets. Their endless feuding and public violence has gone on for far too long, yet a member of each od their families was able to dond love and try to avert or escape that nonsense. They faol, and in their efforts, they either get killed or succumb to despair. This, and the deaths of several others, is what finally gets the two families to bury the hatchet.

** King Midas had made a stupid wish for that everything he touched to turn to gold. But after this wish had been granted, it started to backfire on him - the original myth {{avert|edTrope}}s this since Midas quickly realizes when eating that 'Food' is part of 'everything', and gold isn't consumable, begging for the original god who granted him the wish to take it back - but later retellings makes Midas an AdaptationalDumbass by immediately afterward hugging his daughter, thus turning her into this trope.

* Season 2 of ''WesternAnimation/InfinityTrain'' introduces Grace Monroe, a teenage passenger who leads a group of fellow child passengers called the Apex; they are shown to actively be trying to make the numbers on their hands go ''up'' (when the numbers are actually supposed to go ''down'' so they can leave the train), and do so by frequently attacking the train's native denizens. Season 3 sees Grace and her best friend and second-in-command, Simon, get separated from the rest of the Apex and have to find their way back, working together with a little girl named Hazel and her denizen companion, Tuba. [[spoiler:It turns out to be Grace's RedemptionQuest, and at the end of the season, she's made a HeelFaceTurn, convinced the rest of the Apex to do the same, and they're all working to get their numbers down so they can go home. However, it comes at a great cost: Simon murders Tuba just as Grace is becoming attached to her; Hazel (whom Grace had come to love like a little sister) is so traumatized by her time with them that she leaves them forever; and Simon [[JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope jumps off the slippery slope]], becomes worse than ever, tries to murder Grace even after she saves him from falling off the train, and then dies in front of her. Though Grace is becoming a better person, it's clear by the end that she's quite emotionally worn down by everything that happened to reach that point.]]

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'', the household staff are cursed, as well as the Beast himself. The Broadway version and live-action remake (see below) soften the collateral damage by having the staff discuss that they were the ones who had let the Beast turn into a SpoiledBrat in the first place, however it still doesn't justify turning a ''seven-year-old'' into a teacup.

This is quite common in many mythologies, where the gods teach someone a lesson by cursing his entire family -- but not necessarily them -- or setting up his descendants for misery. Sometimes this is the result of severe ValuesDissonance. In comic books and the like, in StuffedIntoTheFridge's purest form, female supporting characters die so that male heroes can learn vague lessons about the price of heroism, after which said heroes usually find new love interests and generally get on with their lives. It's also a core part of ItsAWonderfulPlot stories, given that the people around the hero have to suffer in the alternate timeline to persuade him that he needs to return to existence; however, the unfortunate facets are softened by the fact that the hero's innocent social circle are saved and blissfully ignorant of what happened by the end. It's definitely part of ThePunishment where the punished usually becomes some kind of monster that hurts innocent people.

* Parodied in ''WesternAnimation/YinYangYo'': A fairy creates a villain that grows every time Yin and Yang lie. At the end, she shows up and congratulates them on learning their lesson... [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome only to have the townspeople angrily point out that she destroyed the city in the process]].

** This is especially unfair when one considers that as servants, especially in the given time period, there was no way they could have protected the Prince or corrected his later behaviour as it would be seen as completely going above their social rank and suggesting that they had the audacity to tell their masters what to do -- both big no-no's. [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem A noble]] would throw such rebellious servants out without job references at best, making it very difficult to secure future employment and leaving them in poverty.

[[quoteright:325:[[ComicBook/KingMidasAndTheGoldenTouch https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Midas_3453.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:325:King Midas's daughter appears to pay the ultimate price for her father's lust for gold.]]

* ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': Uncle Ben's death teaches Peter that he should use his powers with responsibility, and most versions of Spider-Man across the multi-verse, (non-Peter versions of Spider-Man substituting Uncle Ben for another character, like Peter for Spider-Gwen or Miles Morales,) and in most adaptations of the comics, have this tragedy as a central feature of his backstory.