Forbidden Fruit - Television Tropes & Idioms

East of the Sun, West of the Moon — the Fairy Tale heroine uses her mother's candle to see the enchanted bear at night, and brings about disaster

You know you're not supposed to go in there. What is your fascination with my Forbidden Closet of Mystery?
— Chief Wiggum, The Simpsons

When I read the warning label on the gun that read "Please do not shoot at people," I immediately wanted to start shooting at people. Why did I do something that people shouldn't do? That itself explained how primitive and childish I was at the time.
— Keiichi, telling his friends how he got started shooting little girls with his bb gun, Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni

There are two closed doors right next to each other, identical in every way except one: One has a large KEEP OUT sign on it in bold, red letters. Which door is someone more likely to try to open? It's not rocket science...

Forbidden Fruit is a person, place or thing absolutely irresistible to one or more characters, whose appeal lies solely in the fact it has been forbidden, prohibited, and declared unquestionably off limits. They feel they must have it only because they know they can't or shouldn't have it. Frequently takes the form of a Pandora's Box you are not to open, a Big Red Button you are not to press, an experiment you are not to mess with, a potion you are not to taste under any circumstances, or a place nobody is supposed to ever visit.

Can be a result of Genre Blindness, but not usually since the attraction of Forbidden Fruit is in and of itself contrary to logic. More often than not, the characters know that going for it would be a stupid move; they just can't help themselves. (They are particularly likely to be young.)

Needless to say, opening the forbidden door or acquiring the Forbidden Fruit leads to disaster 99.9% of the time. Used often in setting Booby Traps, where it becomes Schmuck Bait, when a villain intentionally takes advantage of the power of Forbidden Fruit to lure heroes to their doom.

Can also be seen in shipping; people like pairings with the Capulet Counterpart, Ho Yay, incest, etc. because it breaks taboo.

The trope takes its name from the Bible, where Eve is tempted into eating the Forbidden Fruit (an apple, according to Fanon), making this Older Than Dirt. For the record, it is now believed that the "forbidden fruit" of the Bible was actually a pomegranate (or a metaphor).

In his analysis of the Fairy Tale, The Morphology of the Folktale, Vladimir Propp concluded that the functions "prohibition" and "disobedience" really formed a single plot function — any prohibition was bound to be violated.

See also Dont Touch It You Idiot and Schmuck Bait. Prime source of Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere.

Examples

Anime and Manga

Ah My Goddess has a human example, where ultra-popular 'School Queen' Sayoko's interest in Keichii originally stemmed from his complete disinterest in her.
- In one of the Ah My Goddess "Mini-Goddesses" adventures, Skuld labels a Big Red Button "Do Not Touch," and naturally Gan-chan and Urd fight over who will press it first. Skuld wisely re-labels it "Please Touch Me," causing them to lose interest — at which point the ever-obliging Belldandy pushes the button.
In episode 57 of Keroro Gunsou, Viper the Elder captures Kururu with a trap hidden in a box marked "Don't you dare open this!" As he goes to open the box, Kururu even remarks "That just makes me want to open it even more."
The sealed door at the Fuuka Shrine in Mai-HiME, episode 6. Mai and her friends are warned ahead of time by Shiho's grandfather never to open it, out of fear of unleashing a great evil. Midori, who had been sneaking around the place all day playing Adventurer Archaeologist, gets locked inside the shrine with seemingly no way out. She didn't hear the warning. Guess what happens next.
Implied in One Piece with Boa Hancock. She's declared the "most beautiful woman in the world," and can mesmerize and have pretty much any man she wants. Guess who she ends up falling for? Luffy, the Chaste Hero who will absolutely never return her feelings. It's even implied that she fell for him because he was "not like the others," with him calling her a "stupid lady" and telling her to shut up.
Arguably, any person who wants Sousuke from Full Metal Panic. Which is a lot of people. Pretty much every one of them knows that it's near impossible for him to ever return their feelings. And although each one of them normally has another person who is in love with them, they can't seem to help but be drawn to the mysterious and unattainable Sousuke. It came as a huge shock to most characters that he started to have some reciprocating feelings towards Kaname - something even she didn't know or expect (as she herself even thought that having feelings for him is hopeless, but it's something she just can't help).
- Especially noticeable with Gauron, who actually had two beautiful girls who were desperately in love with him, and whose existence revolved around him. Did he care? No. He just can't seem to forget that beautiful and emotionless boy he saw once upon a time, who currently hates him with a passion and loves to beat the shit out of him.
  - Er...it's canon that he had...certain thoughts...about Sousuke, so unless this troper is forgetting something, it's quite possible that Gauron was gay, rather than an orientation that would enable him to care about the girls in that way.
  - Depends, as there are implications that he might be Bi (as impossible as that might sound). He definitely had something going on with that female scientist (in Khanka), where he strangled her, and they both derived a lot of pleasure from it (as detailed further in the novels). Granted, in both cases of the twin girls and the female scientist, feelings-wise, it seemed much more one-sided (as the female scientist seemed to be a lot more... errr... passionate about it, and it's implied that she tries to actively make him angry so he'll do that sort of stuff to her, as well as the twins loving Gauron and caring about him a lot more than the other way around). But excluding his almost Single Target Sexuality-esque obsession with Sousuke, a lot of sources indicate that he's not really picky or exclusively gay.
Sakura Gari: The one person Souma finds himself truly falling in love with is the only person who has absolutely no interest in him. As a matter of fact, it's addressed that the main reason he fell in love with Masataka was because Masataka was "different from the others." And Souma, of course, unaccustomed to not getting sex from someone he wants, proceeds to tie Masataka up and rape him repeatedly.

Comics

Human example: Rogue of the X-Men. Her mutant powers keep her from touching others or else they will be rendered comatose (it never occurs to her to get hold of an inhibiting device that could be removed or turned off in combat) Gambit, relentless and successful womanizer, finds himself stuck on the notion of a woman that even he can't have. (It helps that, like most of the X-women, she's gorgeous.)

Fairy Tales

In East of the Sun, West of the Moon, the heroine disobeys the bear's warnings not to speak with her mother alone.
- Probably based on the tale of Eros and Psyche.
In The Nine Pea-Hens and the Golden Apples, the hero opens the twelfth door his wife had forbidden.
In Little Red Riding Hood, the little girl leaves the path, which her mother had forbidden.
In The Golden Bird, the older sons disobey the fox up front, and after initial obedience, the youngest son disobeys him repeatedly.
In The Dancing Water, the Singing Apple, and the Speaking Bird, on his third quest, the older son disobeys the hermit's commands, and is turned to stone; his younger son followed; only their sister saves them.
In The Mastermaid, a prince working for a giant is forbidden to go through a door. Fortunately, he disobeys and finds the Mastermaid, who tells him how to survive.
In Gold Tree and Silver Tree, after Gold-Tree is enchanted into her sleep, her husband the prince remarries and forbids his second wife to go into the chamber where her coffin is. The second wife disobeys and revives Gold-Tree.
In Iron Hans, the prince disobeys his father's order not to let Iron Hans free, and is kidnapped; then he disobeys Iron Hans's order not to let anything into a well, and is exiled.
In The Blue Mountains and The Raven, the hero must stay awake to greet the heroine and fails.
In Our Lady's Child, the heroine looks through a forbidden door and is punished until she confesses.
Faithful John is forbidden by the old king to let the prince see a portrait, but when the prince becomes king, he overrides him.
In The Goose Girl, the queen gives the princess a handkerchief with three drops of blood in it and orders her to take great care of it; the princess is careless and loses the handkerchief, which had protected her.
Tatterhood forbids her family to watch while she fights witches and trolls; when her sister did, her head was turned to a calf's head. Not to mention Tatterhood's existance came about because her mother ate something she was forbidden to.
Though it is very prevalent in fairy tales — still, there are also a multitude of fairy tales aversions, a small sample of which: Bearskin, The Gingerbread man, Bremen Town Musicians, The Rose Tree, and The Three Spinners.
Appears in the Grimms' fairy tale of König Blaubart (king Bluebeard) in their first edition of 1812, which itself was based on an older French folk tale about La Barbe Bleue collected (not collected, written; it's called a "literary fairy tale") by Charles Perrault in 1697. A mysterious nobleman leaves his young wife a key to a door which she must never open. Of course, she does open it, and discovers the mutilated corpses of his former wives.

Film

In Disney's Aladdin, the title character and his monkey Abu are warned to "touch nothing but the lamp" when going through the underground treasure caves. When Aladdin tells Abu to "Wait Here", Abu sees a giant gem and can't help himself; his greed overcomes him and he grabs it, unleashing a tidal wave of lava on them.
Shrek has the nervous Donkey having to be goaded into crossing a rickety rope-and-plank bridge over a volcano. He says, before they set out, "Don't look down." Donkey actually manages not to, though he seems like he's about to try once or twice...and then he puts a foot wrong and ends up with his face poking through a gap in the planks. "SHREK! I'M LOOKIN' DOWN!"
The Avengers. While going to have tea with Mother, Steed warns Mrs. Peel not to take a macaroon because they're Mother's favorite. Guess what she does during the meal. To be fair, she was just doing it to tease him because he's so straitlaced. At the end when she and Steed have tea with Mother again, she deliberately doesn't take a macaroon as a gesture of friendship to Steed.
In one segment of the Tales From The Darkside movie involves a man who witnesses a demonic monster brutally murder someone. The monster spares his life on the condition that he never tell anyone else about it. Years later, the man is married to a beautiful woman and has two children...guess what he does? The minute he tells his wife about the monster and the killing, she turns into the monster and kills him, then leaves with her now-equally demonic-looking children.
Any film that becomes hard to see immediately gets this appeal attached to it - whether it be a film rating that means people under a certain age can't see it (all 12-year-olds dream of sneaking into an R-rated movie), distribution or ownership rights issues preventing its release/rerelease, or content issues compelling the studios to voluntarily withhold it. A prime example of the latter would be Disney's 1947 Song Of The South, unavailable in the US for decades because of concerns about now-outdated racial stereotypes - this has, of course, led to many annoyed fans who want to see it.

Literature

Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice: Darcy and Elizabeth give Lady Catherine the credit for giving them the last push they needed to get engaged by deliberately warning each of them not to get married. In fact, Darcy considers this the clearest Aesop of their story: "The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine's unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts."
A similar scene happens 50 some years later in Little Women: right after Meg politely rejects John Brook's proposal out of fear, Aunt March arrives, jumps the gun, and orders her not to accept him. Meg's response: "I shall marry whom I please, Aunt March, and you can leave your money to anyone you like!"
In John C Wright's The Golden Age, Phaethon is warned that he can recover from his Laser Guided Amnesia only at the price of exile.
The Bell in CS Lewis's The Magician's Nephew, the children ring the bell despite a more than clear warning posted next to it that something bad will happen — Lampshaded by the fact that the sign also says that not ringing the bell will most likely drive visitors insane, since they'll spend the rest of their lives wondering what the something bad would have been.
- Not to mention that the kids (Polly and Diggory) argued about this for a while: Polly said they shouldn't, Diggory said they should, and when Polly tried to stop Diggory he injured her wrist to stop her, then made the bell ring.
  - Aslan still makes him feel bad, though. Jesus metaphors tend to do that.
- Later, Diggory must get an actual fruit from a tree and not for himself. The White Witch tempts him, but when she suggests he could leave Polly behind to hide what he did, he realizes that she's not as generous as she seems.
- In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lucy, reading through a spellbook, comes on some forbidden spells. She resists one that would make her the most beautiful woman ever alive yet cause misfortune to others (and mostly because Aslan's face appeared in the page), but casts another (where she can learn what her friends think of her) and regrets it (as the book then shows her best friend Marjorie badmouthing her in front of another schoolgirl. Aslan does tell Lucy that Marjorie didn't mean what she said and only lied to get the other girl off her back.).
A favorite device of Edgar Allan Poe in many of his short horror stories involves a character/narrator who is overcome by the urge to kill someone for no other reason than because he knows it is wrong and he shouldn't. He is aware of this psychology, he has no reason to give in to these urges, but it drives him crazy until he does. Poe's own term for this phenomenon is "the Imp of the Perverse."
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Hermione delightedly explains that Professor Umbridge has done the one thing that will guarantee every student will read Harry's interview with Rita Skeeter: ban it.
- Ironically, in the first book, there is a corridor that is designated as forbidden, which the charecters only end up in by accident. Apparently, everyone else took Dumbledore's warning of a "most painful death" seriously. The same goes for the actually named Forbidden Forest, which the characters only wind up in because circumstances force them, and which most people avoid due to rumours of it being filled with horrible beasts (though the Weasley twins had apparently made attempts to enter it). However, the forest is entered again in nearly every book; Hagrid once held classes in there (though Hagrid is of the opinion that nothing in the forest would harm anyone with him because its denizens know him so well).
Mentioned in Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time. Susan wonders why someone would build a clock that stopped time and then realizes: "If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."
- In Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, Ridcully finds a door marked, "Do not open under any circumstances." So, naturally, he orders it opened, just so he can see why it was sealed shut.
  - By the end of the book it is sealed up again, but the groundskeeper makes sure not to seal it too well as he knows that the next Archchancellor will want it opened again. He knows how wizards think, apparently.
- In The Last Continent this is further lampshaded, as they prop open a window to another dimension/time and hang a sign on it saying, "Do not touch the window, not even to see what would happen."
- The Unseen University Challenge includes a passing mention of the not-entirely-complimentary nickname "Merkins" for Americans, with a footnote whose text is "do not look this word up in the dictionary" but the subtext is "the dictionary's over there, what are you waiting for?"
Some could say that Edward Cullen is like the "forbidden fruit" to Bella when she first meets him in Twilight. In fact, the hand holding an apple on the cover is a reference to this trope.
In many variants of the Chivalric Romance The Knight of the Swan, the knight arrives to aid a lady, marries her or her daughter, but forbids anyone to ask what his name or origin is. When this is broken, he leaves.
In the revised edition of The Gunslinger Walter O’Dim leaves a note stating that if a woman says the word "nineteen" to a man he has brought back from the dead, that he will tell her the secrets of the afterlife, and it will drive her mad. He signs the note with a slimily and follows this with "P.S. Did I mention the word is NINETEEN?"
Pointed out in Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary:
"forbidden, p.p. Invested with a new and irresistible charm."
Played with in Patricia C. Wrede's Dealing with Dragons. After accidentally unleashing a djinn from an unlabeled bottle (that one character had been warned not to touch but the other hadn't) Cimorene thinks fast enough to recover the situation, seals the spirit in the bottle again, and then makes an "idiot-proof" label that explains exactly why it shouldn't be opened to prevent future mishaps. Oh, and the incident also furthers the plot.
In "A POISON TREE" from Songs of Experience, the narrator's foe covets and steals an apple in the knowledge it belongs to the narrator. Of course, it turns out to be poisonous.

Live Action Television

One episode of Father Ted featured two big red shiny buttons beside each other in an airplane cockpit, labelled "Emergency" and "Dump Fuel". When first introduced, and told not to push them, Father Dougal finds they're irresistibly calling to him. Naturally, later in the show, an emergency occurs and he is told to press the "Emergency" button. Three guesses what goes wrong...
- To top it off, the Captain of the aeroplane does not know what pressing the button marked 'EMERGENCY' actually does as they've never had to press before. Those in the cockpit decide not to panic the passengers by telling them what's going on and just follow procedure and push the button. Unbeknowst on the flight deck the button triggers an alarm in the passenger section and the word 'EMERGENCY' comes up on all the displays and is repeated over-and-over on the PA system.
- Before the start of the series, Dougal evidently once faced the same problem on the bridge of a SeaLink ferry.
Full House: D.J. Tanner went through the Pandora's Box-scenario with a gym bag belonging to her Uncle Jesse.
The kids of Salute Your Shorts get back at a spoiled brat who's made their lives miserable by telling her she's now free to "trash whatever you want to trash, destroy whatever you want to destroy..." except press "that little red button over there," which promptly sets off a well-organized Booby Trapped room that leaves her covered in egg yolks, spaghetti sauce and feathers.
The Rev. Eric Camden of Seventh Heaven points out in one episode that ever since his wife put him on a diet, all he wants to do is eat.
Malcolm In The Middle: Malcolm and Reese find a door with a sign saying it's for authorized personnel only AND "forbidden". Malcolm is hesitant but Reese sways him with "They wouldn't put something like that up unless there was something really bitching on the other side." Malcolm turns to the camera and says "I can't find a flaw in his logic."
- The next scene the two are hauled by a security guard. While Malcolm openly blames Reese, he admits that "It was pretty bitching" making this a bit of a subversion. While they did end up disciplined for their antic, considering the lives of the cast, this case seems to be more an acceptable consequence.
The programme Derren Brown: Trick Or Treat had fun with this. One episode involved a member of the public being challenged the go five minutes without pressing the Big Red Button that would kill a kitten. After five minutes of bleeping Twenty Four- style countdown, and repeated reminders to not kill the kitten, she eventually did it at the last second. The lights went out. When they came back up, the kitten was fine. The woman's psyche...not so much.
Season three of Heroes introduces Hiro by him watching a video will of his father telling him he just inherited a safe, and never to open the safe, or the world may end. The very next thing Hiro does is open it.
- Kaito apparently expected nothing less of his son, seeing that the safe contains another video saying 'I told you not to open it!'
In the Doctor Who episode "The Impossible Planet", the Doctor, when confronted with a large pit, in the centre of a planet referred to as Hell, which is in orbit around a black hole, with the Devil attacking, discusses with a scientist why they have an urge to jump down the pit, and how the feeling is. The Doctor resists at first, but later has no choice but to absail down. When he runs out of rope but not pit, he gives into the temptation to fall. However, the Forbidden Fruit in this instance is good- if he hadn't given in, Satan would have been able to escape and take over the universe.
An episode of Will And Grace featured Jack finding a mysterious locked room in Karen's apartment that even Roasario is afraid to enter. Jack relented after Karen literally wrestled him away, only to fall into the room on accident. The room is a nursery that Karen set up after a pregnancy scare; the fact that she kept it at all is a major Pet The Dog moment.

Mythology

The trope-namer - the original Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden. IT WAS A SET-UP, PEOPLE! THE SNAKE WAS FRAMED! Those two dolts we're all descended from would have had apples for lunch no matter what! THE WHOLE THING WAS RIGGED!
Pandora and the box she was told never to open. The Greek Gods, who were huge bastards at the best of times, gave her the box, told her not to open it, then gave her a huge amount of curiosity, so that eventually she WOULD open the box. And this was to punish mankind for accepting Prometheus' gift of fire. She opened it, and the world has been suffering for it ever since, though surprisingly, there wasn't a large line of angry Greeks ready to kill her. Since they were the first evils, maybe the typical reaction was: "Hmm. I wonder what this i—OHMYGODAAAAAHHH!"
- It's worse. Some variations include the fact that the only thing that could not escape from the box was Hope since Pandora got scared and closed the box as fast as she could.
  - Most versions, of course, state that Hope was the one good thing to come out of the box, although in some versions she had to open the box a second time for it to come out. However, in one version This Troper once read and has not heard of since, "Anti-Hope" (or something to that effect) was the one demon that Pandora was able to keep in the box.
- Depending on which version you read, Pandora herself was created by the gods and given to Epimetheus, brother of Prometheus. Before he was imprisoned by the gods for giving fire to mortals, Prometheus warned his brother never to accept any gifts from the gods. However, Epimetheus became so enchanted with Pandora that he accepted her (and the box she was carrying) without worrying about his brother's warning.
  - Prometheus means "forethought" and Epimethus means "afterthought". Which explains why Epithemus is so dumb.
In the Tale of Cupid and Psyche, jealous Venus sends Cupid to use his arrows to cause Psyche (whose beauty is praised above Venus, naturally) to fall in love with the most hideous thing in the world. Cupid bungles the assignment and pricks himself with loves arrow, falling in love with Psyche instantly. Psyche finds herself living the good life with a god, but on the condition that she never see her new husband. Naturally, this works out no better than any of the other examples on this page.
Another Greek example is the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was a famed singer whose fiancee, Eurydice, was bitten on the heel by a poisonous snake and killed, while she was fleeing centaurs who were trying to rape her on her wedding day. Grieving for his lost wife, Orpheus travelled to the underworld and sang to Hades and Persephone, begging them to release Eurydice and allow her to live the rest of her life. They were so moved by his song that they relented, saying that Eurydice's spirit would follow him out of the underworld and she would be restored to life once they reached the surface. The one caveat to this agreement was that Orpheus was never to look back when he was leaving the underworld. Orpheus climbed back out the way he came but, as he reached the surface, suddenly began wondering if Eurydice was really following him... and guess what happened next. Unable to quench his doubt, he turned to check of Eurydice was behind him. She was just a few steps from leaving the Underworld and returning to life but, since he had broken his pledge, her spirit sank back into the underworld and, despite much more begging on Orpheus's behalf, Hades and Persephone wouldn't give him a second chance.
- Could he not have waited the extra few seconds and listened for her calling him and saying she was alright?
I recall a story I read for class in middle school that invoked this trope. I don't recall the name, but it was mythology as far as I know. A woman married a man from the land of the dead and bore him a son. When the man was called back, he took his son with him. His wife promptly went over to retrieve her son and her husband allowed it, but she was told not to remove the 15 handkerchiefs from his face for 15 days. The woman informed her mother, the child's grandmother, of this. On the 14th day, Granny got tired of waiting and was miffed that she couldn't look upon her grandson's face and removed them, and when they were all removed she held a baby's skeleton in her arms. Anyone know what it's called? So Yeah don't take the handkerchiefs off the baby's face for 15 days.

Real Life

Real Life example: when potatoes were introduced in Europe, Antoine Parmentier promoted them by having potato fields near Paris protected by royal troops, thus giving the impression that said-vegetables were a delicacy, fit only for nobles' or the king's table. Of course, the men posted were told to accept bribes and retire at nightfall, making it extra-easy for peasants to give in to temptation...
- It was Frederick II of Prussia that did it first, doing the guard stunt in 1744. Parmentier discovered potatoes by being a prisoner of Prussia during the Seven Year War. Parmentier wasn't able to pull off his stunt until 1786.
This is why you should never, EVER say the phrase "don't look down" (unless you actually want to watch the ensuing freak-out).
Truth In Television: If anyone ever utters "Man, I can't say that," people in earshot will almost always want to know what it is that shouldn't be said. Averted if the listener knows the speaker has a habit of going way too far.
Real life example: The Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum in Atlantic City, New Jersey has a display piece which is nothing more than a large steamer trunk and a sign which says "Open at your own risk." This troper did it. The trunk doesn't actually have anything inside that's worth seeing, but lifting the lid activates a hidden mechanism. The person opening the trunk is abruptly hit, via a barely noticeable hole in the floor, with a sharp blast of very cold air. It's an experiment in human curiosity.
- If the museum thinks that anyone over the age of five will learn anything from that "experiment" that they didn't know already, they're idiots. This Troper thinks it more likely that this is done partially for amusement.
The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
Real Life: When Holland decriminalized Marijuana teenage use dropped from 11% to 8%. Guess we know who was just trying to be a rebel.
Real Life example: The "Do Not Eat" packet in beef jerky. You just KNOW it's gotta give you super powers or something...
- Spoiler: It totally does. Go eat some now.
- Lampshaded in This Video where a character goes on a long discourse about whether or not he can eat it.
Ditto the "silica gel: do not eat" in clothes boxes. It's designed to keep everything dry by sucking all the moisture out of the air. This troper did once (accidentally) get some on his tongue - trust me, the drying effect works.
- Though it's understandable to have "do not eat" on an insert in a food product, this troper can't help but wonder if many people had the idea "why don't I have this thing that came in a clothes box for a snack" before being told not to?
  - It's probably labeled clearly "Do Not Eat" because it looks exactly like a packet of salt.
The likeliest reason why they have warning labels like "Do not attempt to stop chainsaw with genitals"
I could put a link here saying "Do not click this link; it goes directly to 'two girls, one cup'. Do not click. Ever. At all. You won’t like it if you do." And sure enough, people would click it.
- If Brain Bleach was ever invented, that is why it would sell.
- I clicked the link. Kittens? KITTENS!! Stop messing with my mind!!!
- I clicked the link in hope to finally see that video everyone keeps ~~talking~~ screaming and barfing about. I was disappointed.
- I clicked expecting a Rick Roll. Well played, sir.
The Streisand effect.
Non-Nightmare Fuel Unleaded example: A person leaves a some unwanted furniture on the street with a sign that says "Free". Several hours pass, with no takers. He replaces the "Free" sign with "$10" and within a few minutes all the furniture is gone.

Tabletop Games

4e D&D's H1 module, Keep on the Shadowfell, has a door with a sign that says "Danger! Stay away!" and then scratched below "REALLY!" Guess how many adventuring parties DON'T go through that door?
Inside is a room that holds a very vicious blue slime monster (that has TPKed many a party attempting said module.)
Pretty much every Tabletop RPG Dungeon Crawl ever. As in:
Old Guy in Tavern: There's an ancient ruin over yonder said to hold a terrible curse. Legend says that there are creatures in there that will drive you mad! Nobody who has ventured in has ever returned alive!
Adventuring Party: Thanks, old man. Next stop: Evil Ruins!
- Also any game where someone tells you "We used to use that path, but only a fool or a hero would go there now." Off we go, then.

Video Games

In the video game Blasto, the player would run across large buttons labeled "DO NOT PUSH". Pushing them kills you instantly... most of the time. One rather nasty one scrambles the buttons on your controller, making it next to impossible to figure out how to access the menu and get out of the game. And some are beneficial.
Hoborg's crown in The Neverhood becomes this.
The Path. Like you're really going to stay on it.

Webcomics

One panel in webcomic Casey And Andy showed an Imperial Admiral laughing while putting signs around a door saying "Warning! No Bothans!"

Western Animation

Dee Dee in Dexters Laboratory comes face to face with irresistible Forbidden Fruit (buttons, experiments, etc.) every way she turns in Dexter's lab, and goes for it every time.
Caitlins Way: When Caitlin and Griffin are looking for a shortcut home, Caitlin instantly wants to cut through a field with a NO TRESPASSING sign simply because she saw the sign there, calling it "an invitation."
Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends, "The Trouble with Scribbles", concerns Bloo and a door marked with, what else? "STAY AWAY. DO NOT ENTER." Mind you, Bloo only becomes attracted to opening it after Mr. Herriman tells him that it contains "deep, dark, mysterious secrets" (emphasis on secrets, as Bloo can't resist knowing them).
Subverted in Garfield's Nine Lives where a girl and cat live in a idyllic garden, with one condition, that a glass case must never be opened. The characters, who don't seem to have a serious thought in their heads, are tempted to violate that rule. However, while the story plays up their temptation to maximum suspense, at the climax, they leave the case alone and stay in the garden forever.
Subverted in a Simpsons Halloween episode; when Homer sees the school thermostat with the note "Do not touch — Willie" on it, he reads it as "Do not touch Willie", regards it as good advice, and promptly turns up the heat.
- A more straightforward example is the Halloween episode where Homer sells his soul to the Devil for a doughnut, then realizes that the Devil can't have his soul if he doesn't eat it. So he marks it "Homer's Forbidden Donut. Do Not Eat" and puts it in the fridge. Later, Homer goes for a midnight snack, sees his note and goes "Mmm. Forbidden donut...chomp!"
- There's also the time when Bart is at the Wiggum's house and he and Ralph get into the chief's closet which contains all his police gear, including weapons. The chief catches them and admonishes Ralph with "Why are you so facinated with Daddy's Forbidden Closet of Mystery?"
Who can forget the History Eraser Button from The Ren And Stimpy Show, probably the most famous example of a Big Red Button you're not supposed to press that gets pressed anyway.
Clerks The Animated Series: When breaking into Leonardo Leonardo's skyscraper, Dante and Randall come across a door on the roof with skulls hanging off it and 'MAZE OF DEATH' written in blood on the door. Naturally, Randall wants to go through this door, even though Dante protests and points out the perfectly ordinary door leading to the same place right next to it. We don't see the horrors that they experience when they choose door number one, but given that it apparently includes a minotaur and a Billy Crystal / Robin Williams movie, door number two seems to have been the better bet.
In Mamotte Shugogetten, one of Shaorin's previous masters was a little girl. When she wanted to go to the town near their house, Shaorin told her absolutely no, because the wolves were near it. Shaorin later goes to town herself, leaving the girl all alone. The instant Shaorin leaves, the little girl leaves as well. This leads to the girl being fatally injured by the wolves and dying in Shaorin's arms.
"The Secret Box" episode of Sponge Bob Square Pants centers on SpongeBob's obsession with a box that Patrick carries around.
In an episode of Futurama, Professor Farnsworth creates a box with another universe inside and orders Leela to guard it. Of course, this "forces" Bender and Fry to immediately make every effort to steal the box. Leela distracts them with a decoy filled with booze and tangled Christmas tree lights, but then finally succumbs to temptation herself and looks in the real box.
Cartman accidentally succeeds in triggering this trope when he buys a money-losing theme park and plans to use it exclusively for his own use. However, denying everyone else entry creates ravenous public demand, which is copied by other businesses.

Wikis

Wiki example: the ever-unatainable All Blue Entry.
- Also on this wiki: We all know what happens when you invoke Candle Jack, but none of us can ever resist saying it.
- Spoiler tags. Especially if it's a series you care about. You know you want to find out nooooo! They killed your favorite character!!
This is probably the main reason the Wondrous Ladies Room trope exists, and why so many things have fun subverting it or mocking it.

Food Chains

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Force Feeding

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Foreign Fanservice