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No seriously. Don't.
Thor: How do you like that, you deicidal maniac? Huh? HUH? Now who's so big and tough?
Loki: Dude, don't taunt the god-killing abomination.
The heroes are facing the villain, and is in some sort of power over it. Perhaps they've locked it up, or it's not as terrifying as they thought, or maybe it's lost all its powers. At any rate, one of the heroes starts to taunt it, and is warned by another character "Don't taunt the X!".
The character does not have to be warned, the taunting alone is enough to invoke this trope.
Also see Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu for the title's inspiration. To not be confused with Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu which is more about distraction, or Bullying A Dragon; which differs in that the entity is choosing not to splatter you. For now. And, please remember: Cthulhu is NOT Happy Fun Ball.
Examples:
Literature
- Hysterically done to Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit. Bilbo makes this mistake when talking to Smaug. While Smaug can't see him since he's invisible, he can smell Bilbo, as well as hear him breathing, so he's got a good rough idea of where the little hobbit is. Smaug also has fire breath. Bilbo gets somewhat burned for taunting the dragon, and in a rare example of this trope where the person who did the taunting figures out its a bad idea, is prompted into saying "Never laugh at live dragons, Bilbo you fool!"
- In "The Odyssey," Odysseus taunts Polyphemus the Cyclops after having blinded him and escaped back to the ship. An unwise decision on Odysseus' part, since this incenses Polyphemus' father - who just happens to be Poseidon, god of the sea, and who ensures that Odysseus doesn't make it back home for another ten years.
- What really made this unwise is that Odysseus revealed his real name while taunting. If he just had let Polyphemus think it was "No Man" who blinded him, then he wouldn't had suffered for almost ten years
Live Action TV
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer example from "Fear Itself", where the Demon that is manipulating reality in a Haunted House turns out to be no bigger than a Barbie doll. What's funny is the reason.
Xander: Who's a little fear demon? Come on! Who's a little fear demon?
Giles: Don't taunt the fear demon.
Xander: Why, can he hurt me?
Giles: No, it's just tacky.
- In season one of Heroes, Mohinder has Sylar tied up and begins to taunt him. The trope name didn't need to be said for the audience to start saying it.
- In his defense, he had already injected Sylar with a power-nullifying drug before tying him up. Perhaps he took too long in ranting about his revenge, but he had every reason to think he had plenty of time.
- Subverted in the Star Trek TOS episode "Space Seed", wherein Mc Coy taunts Khan who is holding a scalpel to his throat, and Khan indicates afterward that the taunting is what saved Mc Coy's life.
- In Star Trek Voyager, Q takes his son, Q2, to task for meddling with the Borg.
Q: If the continuum has told you once, they've told you 1000 times, DON'T PROVOKE THE BORG!
- Given the status of the Q, of course, this would seem more like Yog-Sothoth telling Cthulhu to stop taunting the Puny Humans. But for some reason, Q does seem genuinely worried...
- Because Q fears that one day the Borg will adapt to Q's power if it is used on them repeatedly.
- Only because thanks to Voyager being Voyager, the Q have been reduced from Physical God to just another alien race the crew gets to talk down to.
- To be fair, when Q first introduced them in the Next Generation, they did seem to top the list of Q's top ten worst abominations in the Galaxy (which at the time was exactly why he was shunting the enterprise into their path).
- Also keep in mind that Q does NOT get along with his peers. If he pissed off the Borg and caused them to go on some sort of world-eating, race destroying rampage because they're feeling slighted, things might get...unpleasant for him.
- In the same episode, Q2 at one point seals Nelix's mouth shut. Later on, when his powers are removed temporarily, Nelix feels the need to mock and annoy an individual who may once again gain unlimited power in a week.
- Bones, don't taunt the sociopath
- Deadliest Catch:
Cornelia Marie Crewmember: Is that all you got?
(A few minutes later, a rogue wave washes over the aforementioned boat's deck)
Mike Rowe: It's not wise to taunt the Bering Sea.
Video Games
- In the first Spongebob Square Pants game, you are warned," It's not a good idea to antagonize the Dutchman right now."
- In Starcraft on a certain installation mission, a pair of marines are shooting at some zerglings in a pen. One complacently states "Hehe, they're not so tough, they bleed too."
- Subsequently the base is overrun by zerg.
- In a similar type of mission in the Brood War Expansion. When the base gets overrun by Zerg, your squad will eventually come across a group of Ultralisks trapped in a pen. One of the marines will say, "Well wouldya look at that! They're trapped!" And they really are.
- In Clive Barker's Jericho poor Cole decides to inform the team that the firstborn is going to unleash some crazy awesome reality bending magical shit, and in exchange for this he implodes her mortal form.
- After solving a conflict between a priestess of Umberlee and some followers of Talos, the hero of Baldurs Gate notes that "Gods are not to be trifled with. They trifle back."
- In Metroid Prime, on one of the Space Pirate terminals you can read "Science Team reminds all personnel to refrain from anatagonizing Metroids. Severe penalties will be enforced for all violations of this order.
- Subverted in Arcanum. One of the end-game characters in a giant, humanoid dragon. Logic would suggest not pissing this creature off. However, as you learn earlier in the game, this creature is actually a human who transformed himself with magic and a huge coward. Puff up your chest (or mention Nasrudin) and he'll be cowed instantly.
Web Comics
- The page quote comes from this
 Order Of The Stick strip.
- 8-Bit Theater brings us this conversation between Black Mage and Sarda:
Black Mage: Don't take this the wrong way, but that sounds like crap. Almost as crap-like as Red Mage Here.
Sarda: Are you done belly-achin'?
Black Mage: No, actually. I would like to take a moment to note what an odd choice... Oh, what have I done?
...
Fighter: What's crawling out of Black Mage's mouth?
Sarda: He's just vomiting his entire digestive tract.
Western Animation
- The "Slimer!" short "Don't Tease the Sleaze" is pretty much made of this. The titular Sleaze is locked in the Ghostbusters' containment unit. Ray cautions Slimer not to taunt it. You know what happens next.
- The line "Flash, stop heckling the Supervillain!" was used in Justice League.
- The Simpsons Did It.
Marge: Bart, stop pestering Satan!
- Rolf to Eddy:
Rolf: Careful Eddy, do not taunt the doodle!
*Eddy keeps doing so, chicken flips out*
Other
- T-shirt: "Do Not Meddle In The Affairs Of Dragons, For You Are Crunchy And Taste Good With Ketchup."
- This troper always heard that version with "sysadmins"...
- This troper heard that somewhere else which wasn't a T-shirt... but he can't remember where.
- Possibly a bumper sticker? This troper saw the phrase on one of those long before he saw it on a t-shirt.
- I think JRR Tolkien had the line "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger." And the above quote seems to be a playful twist.
- Which is possibly an interpretation of a quote of the even earlier G.K. Chesterton: "Do not invoke the ancient gods, for they annoy very easily."
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