Digging Yourself Deeper

"If you ever find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'."

— John Marston, Red Dead Redemption

In a Sitcom, often a character will say something that's just meant to be a friendly little remark, and it will come out wrong, possibly sounding creepy, crazy, or offensive; they'll try and clarify it (whether they really need to or not), but just make things worse, and dig themselves deeper and deeper into the creepy/crazy/offensive pit. This may eventually lead to the character deciding to stop talking, though not always. Exceptionally deep and/or frequent excavations are commonplace in Cringe Comedies.

This is most commonly seen in comedy works, but is just as often Played for Drama - a common example is someone being caught in a situation that makes them look guilty (see The Corpse Stops Here), trying to explain that they're in fact innocent, and not only failing to convince the other party but in fact making themselves appear even more culpable.

Compare That Came Out Wrong, Freudian Slippery Slope, Did I Just Say That Out Loud?, Open Mouth, Insert Foot, Verbal Backpedaling. The comedic verbal version of From Bad to Worse.

Contrast Change the Uncomfortable Subject and Not Helping Your Case (although it can overlap with Digging Yourself Deeper).

Subjecting a character to this too often may eventually lead to a (usually) comedic version of Then Let Me Be Evil.

Not to be confused Dug Too Deep (which is about physical digging), or Digging to China (same). Nor Dig Your Own Grave, for that matter. Can go with Godwin's Law of Facial Hair, where the toothbrush mustache is associated with Hitler and evil authoritarians.

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Examples:

• Anime & Manga
• Fan Works
• Live-Action TV
• Webcomics
• Western Animation

Comic Books

• The third Blue Beetle stumbles into this when he teams up with Batman in The Brave and the Bold (revived series issue #3).
  Beetle: My armor should be able to track the watchamatrix's energy sig, but the tracking's all kaflooey. Probability-alteration factor, maybe?...I'm sorry! I'm not making excuses. I swear! I know you hate excuses! I'm trying, I promise! I just-
  Batman: Jaime... Relax.
  Beetle: ...Ohmygodyou'renotreallyBatman... OhgodIsaidthatoutloud...
  Batman: Jaime...
  Beetle: What? Don't kill me.
• Harley Quinn: The Animated Series - The Real Sidekicks of New Gotham Special: Clayface is invited on Tawny's talk show with his children so he can get called out for being an absentee father. King Shark tries to defend Clayface by talking about the caper that inadvertently led to the creation of Armani, one of the said children. Armani accuses King Shark of calling them accidents, and King Shark retorts, with a look of oblivious innocence, that no, he only called HIM the accident. Armani immediately goes for the throat.
• Used as a visual metaphor in the furry comic ISO, when Cody has to swiftly make up lies about his supposed girlfriend to keep his parents from finding out about Doug, as well as the fact he's on the outs with Todd and has a roommate he can't stand.
• Rocky (from the Swedish comic, not the boxer) once gets into this when meeting his current girlfriend's father. He wants to compliment him on his house, but makes a Freudian Slip and substitutes "dick" for "house", and then it gets worse. The girlfriend's father shuts him up with the wonderful comeback: "Kid, if you've put your foot in your mouth, at least have the sense to stand still!"
• The tie-in comic for Star Trek: Elite Force involves Beissman responding enthusiastically to the assignment of watching Seven's back. She handles it in her usual manner.
  Seven: That hole you're digging is getting deeper.
• A stunningly awkward moment for Nurse Annie in issue #421 of Uncanny X-Men, doubling as a bit of a Freudian Slippery Slope.
  Alex: So my brother tells me I have you to thank for keeping me clean and odor-free while I was a vegetable, Annie.
  Annie: Well... It was my job.
  Alex: It's still pretty special to me. If a little awkward, given what you probably had to do.
  Annie: It was my pleasure. Really. I mean—not like I get pleasure out of—I mean—I had to keep you clean—It's just part of the, the, the—
  Paige: I'm surprised she can talk with that much foot in her mouth.
  Alex: Yeah, I thought I'd be the embarrassed one. I mean, I was the one naked during the procedure.
  Annie: Well, yeah, but if I could have been the naked one, I would've been—I mean, not the naked one, that's not what I meant, I meant the one without clothes on—and you'd be naked—I mean, the one with clothes on and you'd be rubbing me naked—cleaning, not rubbing, cleaning, you know, sponging, in a medical way—
  Paige: I think she's going to explode.
• Wonder Woman" The Contest'': Mala doesn't think before talking to Diana about how excieted the Amazons are for another contest to choose Wonder Woman, even though this means replacing Diana;
  Mala: Why we were all saying that this is the best thing that could possibly happen…umm, well not the best, of course. I mean, no one meant that. You've done a…very nice job as Wonder Woman…better than nice, an excellent job… I mean, even leveling Boston was only a fluke. Perfectly understandable. And we weren't actually happy so much as-

Comic Strips

• Garfield: While talking to Liz on the phone, Jon says he lied about his past and had thousands of girlfriends.
  Jon: Okay, I'm still lying!
  Garfield: And the hole gets deeper.
• Chad from 'Patty's Perps' in Knights of the Dinner Table is a master of this.
  Chad: Awwwwh, c'mon Patty! When I said girl gamers were lame I wasn't referring to you! You're just like one of the guys.
  Patty: Like one of the guys? Your character suddenly hears a rustling in the underbrush. Roll for initiative.
  Tank: Careful, Chad. You're digging that hole deeper and deeper.
• In one series of Zits strips, when Jeremy inquires Sarah about how she's gotten a tan, he ends up telling her "Your freckles help camouflage your zits," with the comment literally hanging in the air afterwards. Jeremy desperately begs to change the subject, only to then ask Sarah "What's it like having divorced parents?" Needless to say, Sarah is not amused, and Jeremy is left smacking himself in the face with a Nerf bat.

Films — Animation

• Buster & Chauncey's Silent Night: After being framed for the theft of the church's riches, Christine tries to prove her innocence by bringing a police officer a piece of the stolen goods. All she ends up doing is confirming her guilt in his eyes.
• Sally in Cars: "I thought I'd say thank you for doing a great job, so I thought I'd let you stay with me. I mean not with me, but there. Not with me there, but there in your own cozy cone, and I'd be in my cone..."
• In The Book of Life, Joaquin does this when trying to woo Maria, which annoys her, thus making her leave the dinner table and go to her room to talk to her pet pig, whom she regards as more civilized than Joaquin.
• In Frozen II, Kristoff's fumbling attempts to propose to Anna repeatedly result in him saying things that upset her more and more.
• Mumble in Happy Feet Two does this while trying to comfort his son, Erik. Gloria even lampshades it:
  Gloria: You know Erik, when your daddy's in a deep hole, he's got to stop digging.
• Referenced in Incredibles 2. After Bob gets berated by the police for the additional damages caused by their attempted heroics at beginning of the movie, Agent Dicker stands up from the corner.
  Dicker: You wanna get out of the hole? First you gotta put down the shovel.
• Dracula in Hotel Transylvania, after getting rid of the human Jonathan (whom he has disguised, for the monsters' benefit, as a third cousin of Frankenstein's right hand), is relaxing with his monster friends in a sauna. He mentions that he really wouldn't want his Cute Monster Girl daughter to end up with Jonathan's "kind". Cue Frank getting upset. Dracula tries to explain himself and points to Jonathan's red, curly hair. Cue Griffin The Invisible Man getting annoyed, only for Dracula to lampshade that he couldn't have possibly known what Griffin's hair looks like. After a cut, we see other monsters getting annoyed.
• The Princess and the Frog: Naveen is trying to propose to Tiana in the end, and manages to make Tiana look annoyed a few times doing so. Tiana did admit that she thought the fumbling around was cute.
  Naveen: You have had quite an influence on me, which is amazing because I have dated thousands of women and— [Tiana looks annoyed] ...uh, no, like, two, three— er, just other women! And anyway, listen, you could not be more different, you know, you are— you are practically, aheh, one of the guys! [Tiana looks affronted] Nonono, you are not a guy! Let me begin again. Uh—" [Naveen stumbles and falls to the floor along with the food] I... am not myself tonight.
• From Robots, Ratchet tries to beg for mercy from his boss, Mr. Bigweld, for the way he's been running the company behind Bigweld's back:
  Ratchet: No, wait, please listen to me. You can't do this to me. This job is my life! It means everything to me! You don't know what I've done to get here. The lies I've told! The lives I've RUINED! Wait...this isn't helping me!

Films — Live-Action

• Avengers: Endgame has several examples:
  • After Tony Stark's daughter Morgan accidentally learns the word "shit" from him, he tells her not to swear, and then says "'Cause I got shit to do!". Cue her continuing to repeat the word...
  • When Scott Lang is trying to explain his idea for undoing the Snap to Steve Rogers and Natasha, he tries hard to avoid using the words "time travel" or "time machine," but slowly realizes how absurd that sounds and admits that yeah, he's talking about a time machine.
  • Subverted when the three of them are trying to explain Scott's idea to Tony Stark. Tony reacts to Scott's reference to "the rules of time travel" by asking if the entire idea came from watching Back to the Future. To his credit, Scott doesn't try to deny it.
• Bean: Subverted when Mr. Bean is forced to give an improvised speech on the Whistler's Mother painting. After fumbling for a bit, he handles the speech quite well, although it lacks any meaningful content. General Newton and much of the audience just appreciate Bean's straightforward remarks on The Power of Family. The characters who might have been offended take it as dryly comical ribbing at their earlier request not to have a boring lecture of art history, and maybe insert a joke or two into the speech, since they assumed Bean to be a stereotypical British academic.
• Wallace's conversations in The F Word almost universally fall under this trope. Fortunately, Chantry, his love interest, keeps up with him line after line, both digging themselves deeper.
• Done rather drolly in The Great New Wonderful. Pastry chef Emme, along with her assistants, is presenting a line of birthday cakes to a wealthy Park Avenue girl. The girl expresses interest in one cake, commenting on how beautiful it is. One of Emme's assistants, Justin, then chimes in with "And it's easy on the hips." Another assistant hastily bails him out by explaining that the cake is a low-density one that doesn't require a lot of processed sugar to hold it up. When he's done, Justin says "That just basically means it's less fattening."
• Jim Carrey's character in Liar Liar, cursed so that he Cannot Tell a Lie, boards an elevator with a well-endowed woman. The first words out of his mouth are about her breasts. As he tries to cover himself, more and more lines about her rack spill out... Gilligan Cut to him leaving the elevator, having gotten well-slapped.
  Woman: Everyone in the building has been so nice to me.
  Jim: Well, that's because you've got big jugs! I mean, your boobs are huge. I mean, I want to squeeze them. I mean...
• Kat, in Love at the Christmas Table, manages somehow to go from that there are romantic prospects in her life to describing how there are guys lined up one after another, ready to land... and then she admits that she's digging herself deeper.
• Happens to Cady repeatedly in Mean Girls. She refers to the phenomenon as 'word vomit'.
• More minor, yet still socially awkward occasions happen to Mr. Bingley in Pride & Prejudice (2005).
  "It's a pleasure. I mean, it's not a pleasure that she's ill. Of course not. It's a pleasure that she's here, being ill. Um..."
  "I'm not a good reader. I prefer being out of doors. Oh, I mean, I can read, of course. And I'm not suggesting you can't read out of doors..."
• My Cousin Vinny: The plot is the result of Vinny's cousin Billy and his friend Stanley being charged with murder. How did they get a murder charge? They didn't even know what they were arrested for, and kept answering questions thinking they were being charged with stealing some groceries they forgot to pay for. In fact, this is Truth in Television for many people convicted of a crime because of statements made to the police, because many of the things you say, no matter how innocuous, can lead to a conviction. It's taken up to eleven when one of them says "I shot the clerk?" as a question, but it sounds like a statement.
• Norman Bates from Psycho does this with absurd regularity.
  Norman: You eat like a bird, haha.
  Marion: You'd know, of course.
  Norman: You know, I hear the phrase 'eats like a bird' is actually a fa - fals - f - fa - falsity because birds really eat a tremendous lot.
  (Beat)
  Norman: ...I really don't know anything about birds.
• In Schtonk! (about the faked Hitler diaries), with a journalist meeting Freya von Hepp, Göring's niece.
  Nice to meet you, Frau Göring!
  Von Hepp.
  Oh, I'm sorry.
  You don't have to, I am not ashamed of my uncle.
  Neither am I, my uncle was active in the resistance!
  ''(She stays silent.)
  Maybe... the two of them sometimes have met then...
• Done in Severance (2006) with a great jab at the end:
  Richard: Hi Maggie. Not eating?
  Maggie: Why are you all so obsessed with what I eat? I am not too skinny.
  Richard: No, no, no, no. I don't mean... Just that you'll need your energy for the team games. I mean, you're perfect just the way you are. And when I say perfect, I obviously don't mean that in a sexual way. I mean perfect in a neutral way. As if I were another woman saying that you were perfect, you know? Just one woman to another. Not that I'm implying anything like that. Or that there's anything wrong with that... sort of thing. Or... anything.
  Steve: Keep digging, we can still see you.
• The Sound of Music: The Von Trapp children when trying to lie to their father about why they were late for dinner. Georg is clearly aware that they're fibbing, but is more amused than angry at their attempts and so pokes holes in their story in such a way that they either have to come clean or engage in this trope.
  Marta: Friedrich told you, Father. We were berry-picking.
  Georg: I forgot, you were berry-picking! [...] What kind of berries?
  Friedrich: Uh, blueberries, sir.
  Georg: Blueberries! Mm-mmm! ...It's, uh, too early for blueberries.
  Friedrich: (Oh, Crap! face) They were strawberries!
  Georg: Strawberries?
  Friedrich: It's been so cold lately they turned blue! (winces at what he just said while some of his siblings glare at him)
• Spock finds himself in this position in Star Trek Beyond when he explains to Kirk and McCoy how they can locate the rest of the crew by homing in on a rare radioactive isotope. Specifically, the necklace that had belonged to Spock's mother, and that he later gave to Uhura as a gift.
  McCoy: You gave your girlfriend radioactive jewelry?
  Spock: The emission is harmless, however, its unique signature makes it very easy to identify.
  McCoy: You gave your girlfriend a tracking device.
  [Beat]
  Spock: ...That was not my intention.
• Tommy Boy: Tommy tries to smooth-talk a client with one of his father's favorite sayings, however, he screws it up terribly.
  Tommy: Hey, I'll tell you what: you can take a good look at a butcher's ass by sticking your head up there but wouldn't you rather take his word for it?
  Mr. Brady: (confused) What? I'm failing to make the connection here, son.
  Tommy: No, I mean, you can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking your head up a butcher's ass, but then... No, it's gotta be your bull.
  Richard: Wow.
  Tommy: Here's the deal, if I want you—
  Richard: You have derailed.
  Tommy: Shut up, Richard!

Literature

• In the chick-lit/mystery novels Bad Kitty and Kitty Kitty, the main character Jasmine Callihan has this problem a lot. She blames it all on the monkeys that live in her head. For instance, when she is trying to leave a message on her boyfriend's cell phone, while she is convinced he is cheating on her, Hilarity Ensues:
  "Hi, Jack, it's me. Jas. Jasmine. I'm sorry I missed you on IM yesterday but I got arrested for murder. I mean, I didn't do it, but I accidentally told the police I did, so it was confusing. Now we're going for dinner at The House That Kills, but that is only a nickname because a lot of people have died there, but it's completely safe. Anyway, I hope you're having a very nice morning and not melting in anyone's mouth or hands - Sorry, I meant molting. On anyone. Ha ha. Because molting is bad. Unless you're a wee creature of the forest, but - um, never mind, I've got to go, bye."
• In the The Belgariad / The Malloreon by David Eddings, several characters fall for this, usually cut short by another character suggesting "Why don't you just stop talking now." or "What a fascinating observation, why don't we pursue that line of thought." or similar.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul: Rodrick wins the "I Must Confess" game by revealing that Löded Diper trashed Mrs. Tuttle's house for calling the police because they were playing too loud. Susan is clearly angry and confronts Rodrick about it, but the latter, instead of trying to find a way to bail himself out, cheerfully tells her "there were four of [them]!". Cue Susan making Frank pull over and forcing an apology to Mrs. Tuttle out of Rodrick.
• Discworld: During a talk with Vetinari in Making Money, Moist von Lipwig seems unable to put the metaphorical shovel down. The funniest point is probably that Vetinari didn't even ask about the problem, Moist just assumed that this was the reason why his boss wanted to talk to him.
  Moist: Look, I can explain.
  Lord Vetinari: Pray do.
  Moist: We got a bit carried away. We were a bit too creative in our thinking. We encouraged mongooses to breed in the posting boxes to keep down the snakes…
  Lord Vetinari: (silence)
  Moist: Er…which, admittedly, we introduced into the letter boxes to reduce the numbers of toads…
  Lord Vetinari: (repeats himself)
  Moist: Er…which, it's true, staff put in the posting boxes to keep down the snails…
  Lord Vetinari: (remains unvocal)
  Moist: Er…These, I must in fairness point out, got into the boxes of their own accord, in order to eat the glue on the stamps.
  Lord Vetinari: Well, at least you were saved the trouble of having to introduce them yourselves.
• In the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Blood Pact, Gaunt tricks Ayatani Zweil into going for his medical by making the latter condemn the person who hadn't gone for medicals until he realises that he's talking about himself.
• Chloe William's comment to her husband Buck when he tries to explain the reason he calls a car by a girl's name in the Left Behind book The Mark.
• In The Magician King, Quentin is outraged at the primitive learning conditions in the safe house for hedge-wizards and insists that his friend Julia doesn't belong there, insisting that she can't have learned magic from "unlicensed losers"... only for Julia to take offence, for - as Quentin full knows - she's a hedge-witch who had to learn unofficially after Brakebills turned her down and Quentin refused to help her get in. Flustered, Quentin tries to point out that it's a wonder that nobody's burned down the safe house, but Julia simply points out that he's not angry about the safety standards but about how the hedge-witches aren't good enough by his standards. In a desperate attempt to mollify Julia, Quentin changes tack and points out that he earned the right to perform magic in his years at Brakebills, claiming that the residents of the safe house picked it up at the 7-11; Julia, who had to endure several painful years of depression and obsessive study just to succeed as a hedge-witch, even going so far as to trade sex for magic knowledge, is not amused.
• A scene in Robert Asprin's Myth-ing Persons has Guido doing this to himself with his employer Skeeve; he only belatedly informs Skeeve that they're being followed, and then tries to defend himself by saying that the follower is so obvious that any idiot could tell they were there. Fellow employee Massha cheerfully invokes this trope.
• Ravirn: Ravirn has a tendency towards this, which Melchior lampshades in WebMage:
  Melchior: Judging from past experience and what little I've heard, I'm thinking you're following the pattern where you start out in a lot of trouble, and then through a series of brilliantly chosen words, make it infinitely worse.

Music

• The Jason Robert Brown song, "I Could Be In Love With Someone Like You" starts out like this, although the singer recovers admirably by the end of the song:
  My first crush on an Irish girl...
  I was ten years old, and her name was Elaine.
  Little red-haired girl;
  Well, she looked like you,
  But if you were ten,
  Which you're clearly not.
  Not that you look old, but you get my—
  I'll just stop now.

Radio

• Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge: Alan Partridge often backtracked with "Not literally; that would be hideous."
• In an episode of The News Quiz a discussion of the Channel Tunnel (sponsored by Scottish Widows Insurance) moved on to the woman in the Scottish Widows adverts, who Bob Mills thought was Sean Connery's daughter.
  Susan Calman: Roger Moore's daughter.
  Bob Mills: Roger Moore's daughter, of course. Because Sean Connery's daughter would be a hideous gnarled creature, wouldn't she? She was Roger Moore's daughter... No... No! I hope Sean Connery hasn't got a daughter because now I've just... Well, I hope he has, I hope...
  Greg Proops: You were talking about digging a tunnel before...
• NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me lampshades this with a bit of Self-Deprecation in a clip-show where host Peter Sagal quips, "When we find ourselves in a hole, we break out the steam-shovel and set course for the center of the earth."
• In Were You Raised by Wolves? a lot of Nick's and Leah's advice focuses on how to avoid this after the fact or how to get out of whatever hole listeners have dug for themselves.

Roleplay

• Played for Drama in Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues. Mirielle is carrying a box of cookies into school when she trips up and spills them everywhere. Emmanuel comes across them and starts scoffing them up, because he now has Super-Speed and using it leaves him starving. His mother then arrives and Mirielle, who's distraught at him for taking her cookies, explains to her what Emmanuel is doing. Emmanuel then receives a horrible verbal lashing from his mother for over-eating, which makes Mirielle feel terrible. She tries to get him out of it by saying that he's probably just stressed from the previous night... except that just leads his mother to attack him more for keeping information from her, which is bad enough that Emmanuel starts to cry. Mirielle finally gives up on trying to explain things and instead drags them both away, saying they need to get to class.

Theatre

• Cyrano de Bergerac: Act IV, Scene IV gives us this gem: After De Guiche informs the cadets the Last Stand, Cyrano offers Christian the goodbye letter he has prepared for Roxane, whom Cyrano has implied he does not love. Christian sees a spot in the letter and asks Cyrano why he has wept a tear on the letter:

  Cyrano: Oh!...death itself is hardly terrible,...
  —But, ne'er to see her more! That is death's sting!
  —For... I shall never...
  (Christian looks at him): We shall...
  (Quickly): I mean, you...
  Christian (snatching the letter from him): Give me that letter!

Video Games

• BioShock: Initially thrilled to be invited to live in the underwater city of Rapture, the citizens quickly lose their faith in Andrew Ryan when he starts going against his own philosophies when they start becoming an obstruction to him. By the time the protagonist arrives to the city, he's a paranoid wreck refusing to believe the deep hole he's dug for himself.
• Bioware must love these, because Merrill does this all the time in Dragon Age II, and she knows it.
  Merrill: "... and I'm rambling again, aren't I?"
• Knights of the Old Republic's Bastila has one or two Freudian slips that result in similar conversations with a male player. One of those conversation paths contains one of the funniest lines of the whole game: when Bastila is trying to clarify what she meant by 'feelings for' the player, a possible response is "You're cute when you're embarrassed."
• James Tobin has this happen to him in the game In the 1st Degree. He changes his story of what happened between him and Zack more than once. He admits to shooting himself in the leg because he was afraid no one would believe him when he said that Zack was shot in self-defense. If you play the game right, you get to watch as the prosecutor Granger pins Tobin on the leg-shooting thing. Granger asks if Tobin's first thought was to protect himself as his own business partner was lying there at his feet bleeding to death. Tobin responds by saying no, and that he tried to give Zack CPR. Granger says "You tried giving CPR to a man who was bleeding from the throat?" Tobin then gives a "Yes! I mean...No!" Yep, Tobin is so experiencing this trope.
• Shortly after you meet Liara in Mass Effect, she tells you she finds you fascinating because of your encounter with the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime. You can tease her about how clinical her interest sounds ("Sounds like you want to dissect me in a lab"), prompting her flustered response, "I only meant that you would be an interesting specimen for an in-depth study. No, that's even worse!"
  • Tali gets similarly flustered in the sequel.
  • Garrus has his moments, especially in the Citadel DLC with MShep or non-romanced FemShep where he tries to hit on a female turian and ended up calling her an alcoholic or implying that he's a serial killer depending on which path Shepard led him on.
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Kasuga and Saeko's first date goes surprisingly well, up until Kasuga suddenly proposes to her. After she hastily says good night and walks off, Kasuga relays everything he had said during that point to Nanba and Adachi. The way he describes it gives them both the impression that, save for a small miracle, their relationship may have ended before it even had a chance to begin.
• In Portal 2, Wheatley tells Chell that he hates having to look after all the 'smelly humans' and then blusters about it.
• Defied in Red Dead Redemption. When talking to his wife about Bonnie, who saved his life, John Marston quickly notices her jealousy, and wisely stops digging and starts giving her compliments.
  John: When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.
• In one skit in Tales of Symphonia, Colette asks Lloyd if he prefers her or girls like Princess Hilda. He digs himself in by saying that he likes girls like the Princess, but jumps back out by saying that he thinks Colette is cuter. Then he hops right back in and comments on how he's surrounded by pretty girls like Sheena, and was once part of Professor Raine's Fan Club. Colette angrily leaves, commenting on how Lloyd is just like Zelos, leaving both Lloyd and Zelos to wonder what exactly that's supposed to mean.
• Happens in Valkyrie Profile when unscrupulous mercenary Badrach dies and Lenneth Valkyrie appears before him. He at first thinks this means that, since a valkyrie has appeared before him, he gets to go to Valhalla. Lenneth bluntly informs him that no, she's just here to literally drag him to Hel (the Norse goddess) for his crimes in life. When Lenneth gives him the chance to come up with something redeeming, he remembers robbing and killing an old man, helping to kidnap someone, and spying on his own country. It's only at the last minute, when Badrach remembers literally one good deed (and even then, he did it mostly to get back at someone else) that Lenneth relents and takes his soul for Valhalla. Nor surprisingly, of the various einherjar that Lenneth recruits, Badrach starts with the second-lowest score for suitability for entry to Valhalla.

Visual Novels

• In Kurugaya's route in Little Busters!, Kyousuke declares that the name of their mission is 'Love Love Hunters', and when Riki complains, changes it to 'Loli Loli Hunters'. Naturally, the others are a little...unnerved by this, but all of Kyousuke's hasty attempts to insist that he isn't actually a Lolicon only end up making him look worse. Finally, he gives up and declares that he'll be going on with Loli Loli Hunters on his own...right as Rin walks into the room. She proceeds to spend the entire rest of the scene glaring at him from across the room. Kyousuke is silent.
• In Melody, the protagonist's relationship with Becca can come crashing down from a badly managed conversation. When the protagonist helps Becca paint her apartment, the mood for sex hits, but they don't have a condom ready. The protagonist can then choose to say that they could just have unprotected sex. He then goes down a path with leads Becca to kick him out, not wanting to see him again.
• In My Harem Heaven is Yandere Hell, when asked what her favorite food is, Sayuri blurts out that she wants to eat Yuuya. A shocked Yuuya quickly tries to abandon the subject, but Sayuri is so desperate to..."explain"... that she doesn't let him. And then she accidentally says no (as in, 'no, I had a different reason', not 'no, I was serious') in response to Yuuya's statement/subtle suggestion that she was joking. The situation only deteriorates from there.

Web Original

• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device:
  • When Kitten starts to tell the Emperor about the Inquisition, the Emperor is furious. Kitten tries to bring up all the good things about the organization but somehow ends up telling his lord only about the most horrid things it has done.
  • While trying to hide the existence of the Fallen from Angels not in the know, Azrael, Asmodai, and Watcher manage to blabber everything between the three of them.
• A Movie Fights question, which asks "What's is the best year for movies?" have reached a stalemate because all the gladiators have presented a well-argued case for their chosen year (Spencer for 1984, Dan for 1999, Mike for 1982), and while Andy was stuck in deciding the winner, Spencer tried to nudge him to his favour by asking him which movies would he rather watch, and which is his personal best year. Both times, all he managed to do was push the argument to Dan's, giving him the win.
• Random Assault: Mitch's attempts to save failed jokes.
• Revenge Films:
  • "I went to visit my girlfriend at the hospital, but she was screwing another guy...": When confronted by Jack for cheating, Jill snaps that her cheating was 'just a game to her', prompting Jack’s mother to tell her to Get Out!. And later, when Jill’s mother confronts Jill about her cheating in front of Jack and his parents, Jill then proudly proclaims that she 'already slept with ten guys already.' At that, all Jill’s mother can do is weakly apologize and drag Jill out, extremely embarrassed.
  • "When I asked my daughter in law, when her due date was, she answered “16 months”…" [sic]: When Joshua came back home to notify his mother Jane that his wife Karen was pregnant, his older sister Olivia questioned Karen about the alleged pregnancy's due date. When she said it would be by next winter, they point out it would be 16 months later and Jane tells her the actual duration. Karen then switches gears and claims she's not pregnant anymore, only to raise more questions as she came up with even more contradictory answers. Eventually, her "baby bump" is revealed to be just fat from her visits to restaurants.
  • "Mother-in-law kept harassing me…": When Blair faked being hit by her daughter-in-law Ali with a ladle to accuse her of mistreatment to the latter's husband, he asks her why she has a ladle in her hand. When Blair replies she took it away from Ali in their scuffle, he tells her she's in the middle of washing the dishes. Then she claims that Ali washed the dishes right after she took the ladle away from her, but the man didn't buy any of his mom's lies.
• Sekai no Fushigi: After a woman broke into Daisuke and Miyuki's wedding and revealed the latter had an affair with her husband, she tries to deny it to Daisuke. However, her poor choice of words when answering his questions only confirms it even further.
• In the Cilvanis video "When Your Friend Watches Sus Anime," a man tells his friend about "The Time I, as a 40-Year-Old, Fell in Love With a 12-Year-Old." What follows is the man trying to explain to his horrified friend how the concept isn't as bad as it sounds, from mentioning that the 40-year-old traveled back in time to his 12-year-old body, or claiming that the age of consent is different in the fantasy world, none of which make his friend feel any better.
• The victims of Jayuzumi's pranks frequently fail to realise that they are being recorded and trolled, and thus their shouting at him to stop just makes him press their buttons more.
• Todd in the Shadows lands in this in his review of "Bang Bang" specifically talking about Ariana Grande's part, struggling to talk about the sexual nature of it without sounding like a creep. Lampshaded heavily through various screen pop-ups like "Breaking News: Todd in big trouble." and "Todd digging hole even deeper."
• Good Mythical Morning: In this episode, Rhett makes a jab about community college, then tries to apologize, but cant help but continuously insert more jabs as he goes. This keeps escalating into the aftershow, as Link doesn't even attempt to debate with him, and everyone is just stunned that he's still talking. But the cherry on top is this;
  Rhett: Let somebody bust your balls every once in a while, you know? Get your balls busted by the things that don't matter. (...) And you don't have to have balls to... I mean, this is not a man-woman thing, this is...
  Link: What do you think about women, Rhett?

Real Life

• There's an old story about a German mayor who didn't want people to let their dogs run unleashed in the local forest, so he had put up a sign stating: "Anyone who'll let his dog run unleashed in the forest will be shot!" When someone remarked that this could be read as if the owners of the dogs were shot, the mayor had it "improved" to: "Anyone who'll let his dog run unleashed in the forest will be shot, the dog!" ("Dog" being a somewhat outdated insult.)
• The founder of the Papa John's restaurant company, John Schnatter, criticized black NFL players, who out of protest kneeled while the national anthem was played, for which he had to resign as CEO. In an effort to avoid any other racist controversy again, a media-training company was hired, but during a role-playing exercise conference call, he complained that KFC's Colonel Sanders used to call black people the N-word without being criticized for it, in the process actually using the slur instead of the T-Word Euphemism. He then had to resign as chairman of the board.
• At the end of Blizzcon 2018, spokesman Wyatt Cheng announced there would be a new Diablo game called Diablo Immortal, but announced that it would be a mobile game. Those in attendance didn't like this one bit, with one person asking "Is this an out of season April Fools joke?" (which briefly made him a Memetic Badass among Diablo fans). Another person asked if it would be available on PC, to which Cheng replied that it would not. A bunch of people in the audience started booing, to which Cheng replied with "do you guys not have phones?" Probably not the right thing to say to a crowd of people who've likely each spent a few thousand dollars on their gaming PC rigs. The resulting controversy was a black eye on the game and Blizzard Entertainment as a whole.
• After Tina Turner's autobiography I, Tina revealed that ex-husband Ike Turner was physically abusive, he responded by saying "Yeah I hit her, but no more than the average guy beats his wife." Then when the book was made into the film What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), which destroyed his reputation once and for all, he responded saying "Sure, I've slapped Tina. We had fights and there have been times when I punched her to the ground without thinking. But I never beat her."
• Mainland China under the CCP often accuse the USA and other Western nations of destabilizing peace... Except their aggressive expansionism throughout the South China/Sea of Asia and the territories surrounding India, and their desire to invade Taiwan rather than leave it alone, only ensures that they are seen as bullying aggressors instead.
• Three years after resigning in the wake of the Watergate scandal, which unearthed a long history of paranoid skullduggery, former US president Richard Nixon agreed to a series of interviews with English journalist David Frost in a bid to rehabilitate his public image. In the interviews' most infamous moment, Nixon responded to Frost's inquiries about the Huston Plan, an illegal proposition to spy on and terrorize political opponents, by bluntly and nonchalantly stating that "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is NOT illegal." Rather than redeem him in the eyes of the public, the interviews only emboldened the international consensus that Nixon was an unrepentant crook. The events were later dramatized in the play and film Frost/Nixon.
• Former President Rodrigo Duterte is notorious for having this kind of reputation - for example, on February 8, 2024 he threatened to have Mindanao secede from Luzon and become its own state separate from the Philippine government, then completely retracting said statement on February 28 and writing it off as "Just Joking" Justification.

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Shutting Up Now...