The opposite of the usual sitcom plot of everything going wrong, the
plague of good fortune is when a character has an amazing series of good things happen to them, despite the fact that they don't want it to. There are several reasons for them to fear their good luck:
They have something riding on failure (See
Springtime For Hitler for other examples of this):
- The Paranoia Agent episode "Happy Family Planning" has an odd version of this; its central characters repeatedly attempt suicide, only to fail every time. They eventually discover they actually did die in one of their attempts and just didn't realize it.
- The Bob Ricci general parody song "Depressing Rock Song" is about a person who has all sorts of good things happen to him but wants bad things to so that he could have material for a song.
- Similarly, the Arrogant Worms have a song called "Shipwreck Balladeer". It's about the singer lamenting that "they're building ships too good today" and, since there aren't any more shipwrecks, he has nothing to sing about.
- The protagonist of Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (or Goodbye, Mister Despair) keeps trying to kill himself, only to have circumstances — often a student in the class he teaches — save him. His gut-response to the usually violent method is "What if I had died?" His attempts to help students also go awry, with a Hikikomori settling into the school and a stalker-girl following him.
- Although somewhat helped by his friends, Brewster's Millions star Richard Pryor has serious trouble getting rid of his money. Every time he turns around, he either is getting helped by his friends who think his bad decisions are the result of a gambling and drinking habit, or he's winning at the failed stocks he throws his money behind.
- The O. Henry story The Cop and the Anthem is about a bum who tries to get arrested so he can spend the upcoming winter comfortable in jail instead of on the street where he might freeze to death. Various circumstances keep him a free man despite his best efforts.
The good fortune is only coming to them out of mistakes and misunderstandings, which the character feels would be wrong to let slide:
- For instance, the episode of Friends where Phoebe's bank accidentally credits her account five hundred dollars, and her attempts to rectify the situation eventually land her with seven grand.
- Or the near-identical events which happened to Martin in Frasier.
The character fears that if good things keep happening, eventually something awful will happen to restore the karmic balance:
- Cody trying to shake his near-mystical lucky streak in Step by Step.
- A more literal example occurred in The X-Files, with a character who had unstoppable good luck, which had the unfortunate side effect of causing horrible misfortune to those around him.
- Hurley on Lost wins the lottery and gets richer and richer, but one calamity after another afflicts those around him.
- Wild coincidences rule the life of Chance Harper of Strange Luck.
- Literary example: Rincewind in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, who "knows" that this applies to him (and it often does).
- While Sam Vimes thinks in one novel that the string of good luck he's had come his way the last few years (marriage to a good woman, massive wealth, a revitalized City Watch, a son) can't possibly last, and sooner or later the bill's gonna come due. It hasn't. Yet.
- Of course, he had forty years or so of bad luck to make up for by the time things started to go his way.
- Al Bundy, on Married With Children, talked at length about the Bundy Curse, which assured that any good luck would be matched with an equal amount of bad luck as soon as he admitted he was getting lucky.
- This curse is put on its head in one episode where Al gets a whole slew of luck, and he fears he's going to die.
- This is Older Than Feudalism: Herodotus tells the story of a Greek king who had such good luck that he threw a cherished ring in the ocean to try and balance things out, hoping to dodge whatever doom the gods had in store for him. The ring was eaten by a fish, the fish captured by a fisherman, and the ring returned to the king. This sealed his fate—he lost everything.
- Whenever Tsunade in Naruto gets lucky at gambling, it's a bad omen. And she's quite aware of this.
- Needless to say, the ONE time she tries to use this to her advantage, by betting everything she had that one of her allies would die...She wins.
- This actually does happen to ''The Deptford Histories'' star Thomas Stubbs a.k.a. Thomas Triton. In the words of the fortune teller Simoon;
"Fortune may indeed be shining upon you, yet so bright does her glory gleam that those about you are lost in shadow and she is blind to them. Though you may survive great peril it does not mean your companions shall. Almost, the charm you bask in is the very beacon that leads them to disaster."
All this good luck really damages the character's philosophy of the world being a miserable place:
- John Becker's wonderful day in Becker.
- One of the ghosts in the anime Ghost Hunt attempted to commit suicide by various means after being jilted by a man. None of them succeeded due to sheer dumb luck. Despondent, she gave up and walked home only to slip, fall and crack her skull....
The character feels cheated of his or her honor because he should have
earned what he's lucking into, or harbour dark suspicions about
why he's getting so lucky...
This one is quite often played straight. Of course, if played straight but not
well it's a case of
Cursed With Awesome.
- In the Legend of the Five Rings fiction, Bayushi Tangen, lived his life in shame because of what he viewed as a curse. What was the curse you ask... he was so lucky, the Gods would smile on him and allow even the most poorly thought out, suicidal plan to work perfectly. At one point, he defeated an entire enemy army because a tower fell on their archers, and a bolt of lightning struck their general just as he was about to kill Tangen. There is a drawback - nothing he ever does will be "his accomplishment", because his luck does everything for him.
- Every time Honor Harrington gets a new satchel of medals, promotions, and fabulous cash prizes heaped on her, her first reaction is deep embarrassment at her own perceived unworthiness for them. Her second is darkly ruminating upon the possible political motives behind them.
- This was supposedly Mephisto's "curse" on Doctor Doom in Earth X, and Doom's rationale for hating Reed Richards. (Ironically, Doom's mother sold her soul to obtain this blessing.) Subverted in that Mephisto was (surprise!) lying, and Doom was just that good.
- Steven Black manages to gain the attention of the Gentleman with the Thistle Down Hair in Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell, who gifts him with all manner of treasures in increasingly bizarre ways because he believes Steven to be some sort of king. Needless to say, the Gentleman is not the sort of person you want interested in your affairs.
A common way for one of these plots to end is for the good luck to end in a
parade of bad luck, which has the ironic effect of making the character much happier, unless, of course, the bad luck happens too late to matter.
The polar opposite of
Kafka Komedy.
