Misplaced Retribution in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- Assassin x Monkey
: Played for Laughs when, during the Fortune-Teller Baba arc, a pre-teen Yor Briar is ashamed that Bulma would expose her breasts to Roshi, with Bulma shouting that Krillin was the one to pull down her topnote . Bulma also has to intervene when Yor thinks she'll have to do the same thing when she's Bulma's age. - In R2 of Code Prime Marianne blames Optimus for the Ragnarök Connection falling apart. The actual perpetrator was V.V. foolishly believing that they could cut a deal with Megatron, which ended up exposing the plan to him in the first place.
- Dead or Alive 4: The Devil Factor: Bass Armstrong wanders into a store and finds a poster of his daughter Tina posing nude. Enraged, he beats up the clerk and throws him through a window, ignoring his protests that he just mans the cash register and has nothing to do with the merchandise.
- In An Extraordinary Journey, it is revealed that one of Angelus’s victims went to great lengths to twist Kathy, Liam’s sister, into a particularly twisted vampire who retained her human soul but fused it with demons. As a result, Kathy is not only stronger than a vampire her age should be, but she also has a particularly powerful form of telepathy that lets her control others, and a strong desire to see her brother suffer. Her creator apparently ignored the fact that Angelus wouldn’t care about Kathy’s current state if they met and the human soul who would care about her didn’t do anything more serious than go after the wrong woman in an alley.
- JoJo New Universe: Defied by Keicho Nijimura in Diamond is Unbreakable. While he's aware that Jotaro Kujo killed DIO which led to the vampire cells inserted into Keicho's father to mutate and nearly kill him, he doesn't blame the Crusaders in the slightest, pinning the blame solely on DIO for putting his cells in the Nijimura patriarch in the first place.
- Discussed in the Maleficent/Descendants crossover A mother's love when Fae-Maleficent meets her Auradon counterpart and is Disappointed by the Motive when she learns that her other self cursed Aurora just because she wasn't invited to the christening; while Fae-Maleficent now recognises that cursing Aurora for her father's actions was wrong, she at least had a genuine personal grievance with King Stefan.
- Metal Gear: Green: When all the coffee disappears, Aizawa immediately blames Yamada because he was the last person to use the coffee machine. Midnight had to stop him and explain that it was Nezu who took the coffee, not Yamada.
- Likewise, after the combat trial, he blames Ochako for essentially abandoning her teammate, not caring of the fact her teammate was uncooperative, viewed her as a pathetic failure, refused to consider tactics and did what was viewed as a suicide charge among other things.
- Various Buffy the Vampire Slayer fics have accused the Kalderash clan of this regarding the nature of the curse that restored Angel’s soul; since Angel and Angelus are distinct entities, cursing Angelus with a soul just leaves the vampire demon trapped while condemning the human soul to be tormented by guilt over memories of actions that the soul technically didn’t commit.
- In Death Note: The Abridged Series (Kpts4tv) Rem blames Light for Misa's stupidity and demands that he save her "or I'll rip your face off."
- In Frozen Hearts (Sakume), when two of Prince Harald's men mistreat Prince Hans while bringing him back from Arendelle, their father, King George, has them dismissed. Harald responds by beating up Hans.
- Twice over in La polilla y la mariposa. A group of men attempt to rape Anná for her association with Bruno, whom one of them blames for his daughter's death because he predicted it happening.
- In The Lion King Adventures, Mtumwa tries to kill Simba (and Nala by extension) for Scar's death, even though that was actually Hago's doing. This is actually justified, however, as Mtumwa wasn't present when it happened, and only heard about it after it was distorted by word of mouth retellings.
- In Beyond Heroes: Of Sunshine and Red Lyrium, as in canon, Cassandra believes Varric lied to her about knowing where Hawke was all along. But as angry as she is with him, she briefly takes it out on the Inquisitor, Bethany Hawke, which in Varric's opinion is significantly worse. The truth is that neither Varric nor Bethany could have given her the specific information she wanted, but Cass is still mired in grief about the event which kickstarted the plot and needs someone to blame.
- The Narrator of That Guy Destroys Psionics notes with no small amount of confusion that, despite another party member raping NPCs left and right and sexually harassing Elsimore, the Drow Wilder decided that Elsimore was the irredeemable pedophile (to be fair, his constant checking for children with magical power did give that impression) who needed to be lectured. She eventually tried to PK him for being annoying and using a cantrip to talk in her ear.
- Briefly features in TO on the Streets; Monica has spent the last few years thinking that her entire family wanted her to leave while Ross has spent the same time believing Monica ran away, but in reality their mother told Monica to leave and then told Jack and Ross that Monica ran off after stealing some things when they came back from a holiday. When the siblings meet by chance at Monica and Chandler's wedding (Chandler invited Ross as his college roommate without knowing he was also Monica's brother), Ross and Chandler are each immediately defensive of their right to talk to and protect Monica respectively. However, once Rachel encourages Monica to explain what really happened to her, Ross and Chandler assure each other that they understand that the other's reaction was appropriate based on what they believed about Monica's situation.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Madison and Mark Russell both feel animosity towards San, not least due to Ghidorah hunting Madison in Boston and killing Vivienne Graham in Antarctica. In actuality, San genuinely doesn't know what his brothers and his regrown Alternate Self did after he was decapitated at Isla de Mara, and it was technically Ichi who killed Vivienne while San only did the transforming and resurrecting bits.
- Kaiju Revolution: Kong is left behind on Planet X with Rodan, Godzilla and Anguirus despite not going on rampages like they did.
- In Caring for Crookshanks, Ron tells McGonagall about Crookshanks' repeated attacks against both him and Scabbers, causing McGonagall to force Hermione to send her cat home. Hermione decides to retaliate against Ron by telling McGonagall about the Marauder's Map, something that only harms Harry who had nothing to do with the situation.
- Gene Burrows, the villain of the 24 Hours, is seeking revenge on the cast of Histeria (especially Loud) because eight months prior to the story, he was working on an appearance-changing formula when he was distracted by an hour-long Histeria marathon, and Loud's yelling in particular. Unable to turn off the television, since both it and the remote were damaged, Gene messed up his formula and was fired from the Science Organization when the demonstration of said formula proved to be a disaster. When Loud reveals that two of Gene's lab mice were responsible for the destruction of both the remote and the television, Gene dismisses this, justifying his hatred by claiming that, since Loud's yelling caused him to forget his formula, Loud is responsible for what happened.
- Vincent Morre, The Dragon from the sequel Another 24 Hours, tops this. During the events of the previous story, he was attempting to study for his final medical exam, but was unable to do so due to Gene's act of revenge on the Histeria cast (a twenty-four hour marathon which could not be switched off, muted, or otherwise escaped from), and as a result, failed his exams. Seeking revenge, he proceeds to...join up with Gene (y'know, the guy responsible for the marathon) to hunt down the Histeria cast, instead of getting even with Gene, or even the dean of the medical school, who refused to postpone the exam and give everyone more time to study.
- Vincent Morre, The Dragon from the sequel Another 24 Hours
- Applies to a degree in Heir and Pride when Stoick chooses to arrest Astrid alone for attacking Hiccup before the end of the war. While Astrid was involved in an attack on Hiccup when she resented his performance in dragon training, she was only part of a group rather than the only attacker, and she's also the only person in Berk who has actually apologised to Hiccup directly rather than just acting apologetic or leaving him something while he was unconscious.
- Discussed in order to avert it in Karma Circle: Judgement. While Daan Yel correctly judges that Gaz is a horrible person, he starts to conflate her with the Irken soldier who tortured and mutilated him due to similarly cruel natures. His mentor Purgatory has to snap him out of it, telling him not to project his issues, as it will influence his judgement and make him punish Gaz for something she didn't actually do instead of the things she actually is guilty of.
- In The Wings of Lilith, Lilith, Adam’s first wife, is enraged at being mistreated by Adam and God enabling his behavior, having joined up with the demons of Hell out of anger. To get revenge on God, she murders completely innocent babies out of pure spite. The reason for this is also disproportionate; after she fled to Hell and Adam demanded her back, God had some of his angels threaten to kill her demonic children should she not return, and when she refused, they left peacefully. While being angry over the threat is a reasonable reaction, her response (the aforementioned baby murders) is completely reprehensible.
- The Vow: When Shen is banished, he takes Lianne's seemingly cold response to it to mean that she has cast him aside as an inconvenience and believes so for the next thirty years, not knowing of her true role in preventing his execution. When Shen returns to Gongmen, he takes Lianne prisoner, treats her scornfully and announces his intention to wed her in order to make her suffer. When he's finally told what she did to save him, he feels disgusted with himself.
- In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, Dr. Wily got his start in villainy (at least in part) when he made a mistake that caused Proto Man a great deal of pain shortly after Proto Man first activated; however, Dr. Wily irrationally accused Dr. Light of sabotaging Proto Man's blueprints, in a manner similar to the Doctor Doom example under the Comics folder of this page.
- CONSEQUENCES: Narrowly Averted in SUN'S WRATH: After Lila pushes Luka into traffic, Hell-ios intends to burn the driver alive. Fortunately for them, they manage to pull up dashcam footage revealing what Lila did, turning his wrath towards the one truly responsible for Luka's injuries.
- Scarlet Lady:
- At the end of "The Bubbler", when Chloé learns that the birthday gift she ordered for Adrien won't be arriving anytime soon since the akuma sent all the adults away for hours and completely disrupted all business, she responds by grabbing Sabrina's tablet and cracking her over the head with it.
- Discussed during "Reflekta". When the newly akumatized Juleka attacks Sabrina, Rose defends her, pointing out that the Beta Bitch wasn't actually involved in Chloé's scheme this time and entreating her not to harm innocent people. This convinces Reflekta that she needs to focus on Chloé instead.
- Audrey specializes in this to the point that attempting to fire others for doing anything that doesn't measure up to her impossibly high standards is practically her Character Catchphrase. Marinette points out that this is exactly why she ultimately turns down her offer of apprenticeship: Audrey is so notoriously flaky that she'd probably fire her before they even made it to New York.
- Two Letters: After the new Ladybug implies that Alya was trying to expose her Secret Identity just for the sake of posting a big reveal on her Ladyblog, most of Paris is convinced she was working for Hawkmoth. Not only is her family threatened and harassed to the point that her parents are forced to publicly denounce her in order to keep their jobs, Nino's family fears that he'll face this for being her boyfriend. So they move away. Alya and Nino try to maintain a Long-Distance Relationship, but it falls apart.
- In the Betrayal Fic When she left and what she took, most of the former temporary heroes blame Marinette for the events of "Miracle Queen". Why? Because Chloé's Karma Houdini Warranty ran out, meaning she's out of their reach, and they decide to hold Marinette responsible for the party they threw celebrating her as Queen Bee... despite how Adrien was the one who guilt-tripped her into convincing them to do that. When she tries defending herself by pointing that out, they simply rail at her for letting her crush blind her to how naive his reasoning was.
- Downplayed in that Adrien does wind up socially isolated, due to his stubbornly defending Chloé and insisting he hasn't done anything wrong and that the others should apologize to him. However, this pales in comparison to the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown Marinette suffered.
- The Wolves in the Woods: When the Iberian Heroes reveal themselves, Chat Noir immediately assumes that Ladybug must have contacted them and throws a fit, gripping her arm while screaming at her for daring to seek more backup — can't she see how special and unique their partnership is?! Why can't she just accept that HE'S the only one she needs?!
- Mean Rabbit: Aizawa attempts to expel the Quirkless Izuku on their first day; Izuku challenges him by calling out his blatant discrimination, pointing out that he performed better at several of the purely physical challenges than his classmates. Aizawa pits him in a 'rematch' against the five lowest-placed students, and when Izuku outperforms them all, responds by expelling them instead. He then lets them back in the next day, insisting it was all a 'logical ruse' to motivate the lot. Rather than getting upset at their teacher for his sadistic practices, several of Izuku's classmates blame him for the whole ordeal, calling him selfish for standing up for himself.
- Think Before You Speak:
- Izuku dodged Katsuki's attempt to blast him during their first training exercise; as a result, Tenya was hit instead. Tensei hears about what happened from Aizawa (who tells a skewed tale of what happened), and subsequently blames Izuku while speaking to the media about what happened.
- When he learns what Tensei did, Tenya fears that this will happen to him as well — namely, that his classmates will assume he was responsible for his big brother targeting Izuku and shun him for it. Thankfully, this is averted: when he returns to school, Izuku and Ochako immediately make clear that they don't blame him, and the rest of the class follows their lead.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Pony POV Series:
- In the Dark World, Fluttercruel's reaction to Discord being mortally wounded is to go One-Winged Angel and try to kill the Elements of Harmony in retaliation. This despite the fact that not only was this actually Rancor's doing, but Cruelty was there and saw it happen. Though in this case, it's justified by the fact that her grief and rage has driven her insane.
- In the Finale Arc, Venus learns that Tootsie is wielding her murdered son Cupid's Bow. Venus attacks the child and tries to kill her, accusing her of robbing and defiling her son's grave. Tootsie had no idea who Cupid was and had been given the bow as a gift by the villains. She eventually realizes she was overreacting and sends Tootsie an apology gift.
- In First Try Series, an Iwa genin tries to avenge her father, who was killed in the Third Shinobi War, by setting fatal traps to kill Konoha genin in the Kiri Chunin Exams. It gets her twin brother and their teammate slaughtered by a Kyuubi-powered, enraged Naruto, leaving her to flee for her life.
- Naru-Hina Chronicles: Sasuke blames Evil Sasuke for all the hate, pain, and mistakes Sasuke once made, and starts slipping back into his old ways in preparation to face Evil Sasuke. Fortunately, a well-timed slap from Sakura and her insistence that no matter how much she loves him, she could not be with him with revenge in their lives bring him around.
- Penny Saves Paldea: Clavell decides to help dismantle Team Star because he thinks they're responsible for distorting reality around Paldea. While Team Star is actively interacting with the distortions, they aren't responsible for them; the team is gathering data on the phenomena for their leader so she can figure out how to stop them from happening.
- In Pokémon Reset Bloodlines, Paul is upset that Erika is not accepting challenges from male trainers and leaves the city in a huff. He takes out his anger on some hapless wild Pokémon and later when he runs into Ash, decides to pick a fight with him. Worse, one of these Pokémon was Ash's Primeape, and ended up blasting him away into the sky, making Ash furious enough to take up his challenge.
- In the Power Rangers: Dino Thunder fic Duty & Honor, the Rangers are forced to face the threat of Zordon's brother, Xondar, who is seeking to kill all Power Rangers to 'punish' them for the death of his brother. However, they eventually learn- with the insight provided by Zordon's spirit- that Xondar's actions are actually more based around his own guilt over not being there to save his brother, attacking the Rangers who had no choice but to let Zordon die rather than face his own guilt that he chose not to join Zordon's mission against evil.
- In Lost Together, Dragon Prince Herb has lost a family treasure to his arranged bride stealing it before doing a runner and really wants to fix the situation before his parents come back. When Mousse and Shampoo confess the stolen heirloom has been picked up by Ranko (currently impossible to track down), Herb flips out and declares he will raze the Amazon village to the ground. Why? Because Ranko was their prisoner, and if they didn't let her espace, she wouldn't have the heirloom in her possession. Herb's own advisor is utterly aghast by the prince's reaction, but hopes Ranko will be quickly found so as to prevent the village's destruction.
- The Svenjaya contract in The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World. After the Svenjaya "Great Mistake", whatever that was, the entire tribe had to pay by being sent into indentured servitude for 40 years. It's now been 30 years, and since the average lifespan of a Svenjaya is 30-40 years, several generations that had absolutely nothing to do with the Great Mistake have been growing up in virtual slavery. The four are disgusted by this and vow to help the Svenjaya change the contract.
- Bequeathed from Pale Estates: After the Ironborn start raiding again, King Robert Baratheon orders Theon Greyjoy's death to fulfill his purpose as a hostage. With help from Robb and some of his bannermen, Theon fakes his death and flees the North. As Theon later learns, Robert's actions were this trope — Theon's father Balon and sister Asha have both been dead since the Plague and the Ironborn raiding the coasts are the slaves and thralls that have taken over Pyke. Theon has technically been the Lord of the Iron Islands since then, but he, obviously, has nothing to do with his people's current actions.
- In Sonic X: Dark Chaos, Tsali ended up murdering Cosmo's entire race in revenge after being slowly and tortuously turned into a robot, even though only his adopted father Luke/Dark Oak was actually responsible for it.
- Going Solo has a Mad Doctor who basically lost his sanity after his family was killed on the Death Star. Luke is actually who took out the thing, while Han only had a small role, shooting a couple Imperial fighters so Luke could destroy the thing. In the fic, the whole group is captured, but it's Han who has a badly injured arm with an embedded knife tip, and who's the target for the doctor's rage. The guy also has a hate on Corellians, which makes him even more eager to torment Han.
- In If I Knew Then What I Know Now, Dean is at one point captured by Paul Brookes (possibly an alias), a man whose family were killed by an unspecified creature and was taken in by the hunter who killed the creature afterwards. Brookes has decided to take his anger out on the hunters that failed to save people and expected gratitude for showing up too late, to the point of finding hunters with children and killing the children in front of their parents, ignoring Dean’s protest that the hunters do their best and by Brookes’ argument police should be blamed for failing to stop criminals committing crimes in the first place.
- In Sailor John: A Pirate's Vendetta, Spencer Murphy's father was killed by a Stirling Single (Emily's class). Even though only one specific engine was at fault, Spencer swore revenge on the entire class, as opposed to going after the one at fault.
- The “Avenge Thomas” movement in Sodor’s Legend of the Lost Treasure Bad Ending (which is an alternate ending for Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure) is a protest movement who blame the Fat Controller (since resigned) and his family for the “Harwick Disaster” and Thomas’ death in the Disaster due to the Fat Controller’s scolding of Thomas before this happened. This is despite the fact that it was Sailor John who killed Thomas, and the Hatts never wanted Thomas to be killed.
- From Concert to Chaos has the main antagonists, Miku Zatsune and Rin Arakawa, inflict this on Miku and Rin by beating the living daylights out of them during a concert, because Zatsune and Arakawa were absolutely convinced that their former boyfriends, Mikuo and Len, broke up with them because of the girls' interfering, even though it was THEIR OWN DAMN FAULT and Miku and Rin were completely innocent. Even more to the point, they trapped the audience in a wall of fire to prevent them from escaping, simply to show the world how evil they were.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series:
- Marik swearing revenge against the Pharaoh for living a miserable life as a tombkeeper is treated as such. As Yugi points out, not only were Marik's father and, to a lesser extent, sister the ones who abused him in the first place and thus should be the ones who deserve the blame, but Marik basically swore revenge against a man who was already dead (and for thousands of years at that). It is in fact slightly more plausible in the original anime, where Marik openly resented the Pharaoh and was led to believe that the Pharaoh's spirit ordered for the murder of his father (which was actually a lie to keep Marik from knowing about his father's true killer, Yami Marik).
- Alister's backstory gets parodied to hell and back in the abridged series. Like in canon, Alister swore vengeance against Seto Kaiba for the war that devastated his home country and the death of his little brother despite having absolutely nothing to do with either of the two. However, it turns out Alister truly didn't know who to blame for both the war and his brother's death since neither his country nor the country that attacked his had any names. So Alister decided to redirect the blame towards the first person he saw who he thought was associated with the war, which turned out to be Seto's adoptive father Gozaburo.
