Never My Fault / Animated Films

• Played for very dark laughs in Alice in Wonderland; when the Queen of Hearts confronts a trio of cards for painting her roses red (after they accidentally planted white ones), the three of them start placing the blame on each other in a desperate attempt to keep their heads. By the end of their blame game, however, the Queen has had enough and cuts the knot by demanding that all of them get executed for it.
• Subverted in The Angry Birds Movie. After the pigs steal all eggs from the birds and destroy their village, Judge Peckinpah walks up to Red, who knew of the pigs' true motives ever since the first encounter and tried to warn them to no avail, with a Death Glare on the face, as if he's about to blame him for the birds' suffering...but then he steps down, Death Glare fading from his face, and pleads Red for help, admitting that it was his fault and apologizing for not trusting Red in the first place.
• Beauty and the Beast:
  • Belle, while healing Beast after he saved her from the wolves, got into an argument with him over who was to blame for the wolves attacking. Beast retorts that Belle should have never entered the forbidden room and she retorts that he should control his temper... which is not exactly an excuse. True, it was partially Beast's fault Belle ran away due to him screaming at her and not explaining himself better; but for all his bad temper, Beast HAD told her to not enter that room, and had excellent reasons to forbid her from doing so. Despite being more calmed afterwards, she disobeyed, and her entering the room and almost touching the rose could have made Beast be stuck in that shape forever, so he kind of had a reason to scream at her.
  • Gaston refuses to believe Belle's rejection of him was because of how much of a rude and conceited jerk he is. He goes as far as to blame her for the humilation he suffered from her refusal to marry him, despite that he assembled a wedding for them outside her house, before he ever courted her, much less proposed to her, and without her knowledge. Instead of recognizing why she doesn't like him and find ways to bond with her and show a good side, he threatens to have her father sent to an asylum unless she marries him. Even when this backfires when Belle proves the Beast's existence to everyone, Gaston still can't understand why she hates him, and instead decides to kill the Beast himself.
• Brave:
  • Merida spends most of the film refusing to acknowledge her own role in the political disaster and her mother being turned into a bear. Actually admitting her fault is an essential bit of Character Development for her.
  • Her mother, Queen Elinor, fits this trope as well. Elinor doesn't seem to realize that most people, her daughter included, would react badly to being forced into marriage, and Elinor behaves as though she cannot understand why Merida would object. She does eventually have a realization and give a speech (through Merida, as Elinor is still a bear at this point) about how young people should be allowed to choose for themselves who they will marry.
• This is the firm stance of Kenai from Brother Bear after his brother dies and Kenai himself is transformed into an ursine. Growing out of this immaturity and learning that he did do a lot of damage to his friends and family is an important part of his Character Development and leads to him becoming The Atoner.
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: Mayor Shelbourne blames Flint for the food apocalypse and encourages the people to go after him... except that he kept pressuring Flint to make the food in spite of the danger it's causing and had accidentally destroyed Flint's computer that would have stopped it.
• Despicable Me: When Edith breaks the beaker of green liquid in Gru's kitchen, Gru notices and Edith says, "Somebody broke that."
• Encanto: Played with in the case of Abuela Alma. She takes the responsibility of being granted a miracle very seriously and constantly tries to guide her children and grandchildren to give back to the community to prove they are worthy of that miracle. Unfortunately, she has become so focused on this goal that she's grown unaware of the toll it is taking on her family, and if something goes wrong, she's quick to blame others for it (particularly Mirabel). It takes Mirabel's Calling the Old Woman Out and a collapse of the miracle to get Alma to actually look around at how her family has been affected. At the river, Alma acknowledges that everything that's happened was her fault and is genuinely remorseful for it.
• Frozen:
  • An early Cut Song called "Cool With Me" had Elsa have this type of view on relationship with her sister. Anna and Elsa were extremely close as children but have drifted apart over the years. Elsa completely blames Anna for everything while acting cocky about her own self.
    We've been falling out for way too long.
    So let's forget I'm right and forget you're wrong.
    Okay! Let's try forgivin', maybe we could live in harmony.
  • At the end of the Tie-In Novel A Frozen Heart, Since Hans lied so much about his family, Anna, Elsa and Kristoff doubt that they're as bad as he claimed and deconstruct his Freudian Excuse by stating that he should take responsibility for his actions instead of pinning the blame on his family.
• Done by Goofy of all characters in A Goofy Movie. When their car starts rolling down the mountain, he blames Max for both the car running away (Goofy should have put the brakes on) and the door being locked. Max retorts that the locked door was on Goofy's side. Goofy then blames Max for distracting him and tells Max he should have put the brakes on himself, but he accidentally breaks it. Max uses that to show that Goofy "ruins everything". Then Goofy blames Max for "ruining the vacation". Then Max told him he never even wanted to come and should have just let him stay home. The argument ends with Goofy saying all he wanted was to spend time with him and doesn't want them to become any more distant.
  Goofy: You're my son, Max. No matter how big you get, you'll always be my son.
• Played very darkly in the Disney animated movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Combine this with Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny, and you have Judge Claude Frollo.
  • This is Frollo's defining Fatal Flaw, as he repeatedly uses Psychological Projection to find faults in others while blatantly ignoring his own. Clopin even lampshades this in the opening song as well. Many have called him out on his hypocrisy and using religion as an excuse for his atrocities, but to his dying words, Frollo never realizes he could be wrong.
  • Despite claiming to be a pious and morally upright man, he develops an obsession with the gypsy Esmeralda, rationalizing his lust by claiming she seduced him. All she did was act a little friendly during her dance (in a dance like that, it's hard not to). And then he goes on to blame GOD. The Ominous Latin Choir in the background doesn't seem to agree, singing the Act of Contrition during his song.
    "It's not my fault!" (Mea culpa)
    "I'm not to blame!" (Mea culpa)
    "It is the gypsy girl, the witch who set this flame!" (Mea maxima culpa)
    "It's not my fault!" (Mea culpa)
    "If in God's plan!" (Mea culpa)
    "He made the devil so much stronger than a man!" (Mea maxima culpa)
  • Frollo also chases a woman through the city on his horse because he thinks the bundle she's carrying is stolen property, only to unintentionally kill her in front of Notre Dame; his excuse to the Archdeacon is that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't run from him in the first place. He also orders his men to burn down a home, with an innocent family still inside, with the excuse that they were harboring gypsies (despite the only "proof" being that someone had found a gypsy emblem on their property). He even explodes on poor Quasimodo for letting Esmeralda escape Notre Dame and blames him for the torching of Paris, when it is in fact Frollo who ordered it.
• The Incredibles: Syndrome's motivation falls kind of flat when you realize that even though Mr. Incredible told him he worked alone, Buddy had distracted him repeatedly, let Bomb Voyage escape, and had nearly gotten himself killed because he repeatedly tried to "help". In Syndrome's Self-Serving Memory of the scene, Bomb Voyage is no longer present at all, and so it seemed as though Mr. Incredible rejected him for no reason whatsoever. He later blames them for the derailing of his Evil Plan even though it was his own fault for not considering what his Omnidroid might do and fleeing when it turned against him since he had no real experience as a superhero.
• The Jungle Book 2: Shere Khan believes that Kaa knows where Mowgli is (after hearing the snake grumble "man-cub"). Truthfully, Kaa has no idea where Mowgli is, but Shere Khan won't believe him and continues to threaten the python. So to save his skin, Kaa fearfully lies to the tiger that Mowgli's at the swamp, allowing him to flee. When Shere Khan arrives at the swamp with Mowgli nowhere to be found, he angrily growls "That snake lied to me!", but he's the one at fault for not believing Kaa when he told him the truth: "I don't know where Mowgli is".
• Kung Fu Panda 2: One of Lord Shen's main flaws. He refuses to take responsibility for his own evil actions, instead blaming his parents for not supporting him and the rest of the world for standing in his way.
• The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island has the adult dinosaurs looking for the children who have wandered off. Mr. Threehorn growls at Grandpa Longneck at how he blames Littlefoot for getting Cera missing, but when he's questioned by the sauropod on why he blames Littlefoot, he sheepishly admits that he feels the need to blame somebody.
  • A more tragic version occurs in the seventh film, The Stone of Cold Fire, via flashback. After disagreeing with the other dinosaurs on the best route to the Great Valley during the events of the first film, Petrie's uncle Pterano led a splinter group of the dinosaurs in a different direction and seemingly found the Great Valley, or as close to it as to make no difference. And then the raptors showed up. Pterano returned to the original herd with a bad case of Survivor's Guilt and, when asked what happened to the rest, would only ever say that it wasn't his fault. Part of his character development is getting over his ego and owning up to his mistakes.
• The Lion King:
  • The Lion King (1994): Scar tries to shift the blame for the lack of food to the lionesses who won't hunt, instead of admitting that letting the hyenas eat the lions' game was what caused their food shortage. When Simba has Scar at his mercy, Scar tries to shift blame onto the hyenas. They overhear, and become extremely angry. Anger is an appetite stimulant.
  • The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: Zira blames Kovu for Nuka getting himself killed trying to get the attention and praise she never gave him. She even weeps for her elder son briefly before turning her sorrow into anger at her youngest.
• Madagascar:
  • Madagascar:
    • Alex chews out Marty for getting them transferred from New York to Africa, which Marty responds by saying that he didn't intend for them to get transferred and that it's not his fault. Gloria doesn't believe that and asks "You're kidding, right, Marty?" But near the end of the movie, after Alex turns feral and runs away, Marty realizes that his wish to be in the wild cost them their friend.
    • Alex, meanwhile, seems to completely ignore the fact that him convincing Melman and Gloria to go after Marty just exacerbated the whole problem with a mass breakout rather than a singular incident (sure, the Penguins had escaped on their own, but they likely would have gotten away), and his actions at Grand Central Station were effectively the last straw in convincing the humans that the animals wanted to be free.
    • Also, Melman chews out Marty for telling them what he wished for when blowing out his birthday candles and causing them bad luck, even though as Marty points out, he warned them that telling them what he wished for was bad luck and they insisted that he tell them.
• Maya the Bee Movie combines this with Implausible Deniability. Maya insists that Buzzlina is hiding the royal jelly under her crown, but nobody believes her. Then, Buzzlina's crown gets knocked off, with the vial of jelly inside it, and when it lands on the ground, one of the bees goes to pick it up, which reveals the jelly to the shocked crowd. Willy flies down and grabs the jelly to protect it from Buzzlina, at which point she yells, "Thief! Arrest him!"
• Meet the Robinsons:
  • Bowler Hat Guy blames Lewis for his Freudian Excuse that caused his Start of Darkness in the first place, despite Lewis pointing out that BHG himself let it go this far.
  • Lewis’s hands aren’t as clean either. BHG‘s (his former roommate, Goob) Freudian Excuse stems from Lewis working for long hours of the night on developing the memory scanner, leading to Goob’s sleep deprivation and losing a ballgame, while Lewis didn’t consider his work would affect his roommate. So once Lewis finds out BHG motivations, he simple tells him he should move on. Even if BHG refusal to let it go is beyond pale, he is right that Lewis comes out as very selfish in that regard. Lewis does come to feel bad about this, so he makes sure on the very instant when he comes back to his timeline is to wake up Goob during the game.
• Megamind:
  • Megamind's Fatal Flaw is that he can never admit he's wrong or sorry. The most he can manage is "I was less right" towards Minion about dating Roxanne. He finally manages a sincere apology to the Warden and Minion when Tighten kidnaps and threatens Roxanne.
  • A fundamental flaw of Hal's personality. He hurts his hand by banging it against the van, and it's the stupid van's fault. When Roxanne rejects his advances, it's because she just doesn't appreciate what a "Nice Guy" he is. Megamind calls Hal out on this during the latter's Psychopathic Manchild tantrum on the city.
    Hal/Titan: This is the last time you make a fool out of me!
    Megamind: I made you a hero. You did the fool thing all by yourself!
• Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas: Daisy disowns Donald in "Donald's Gift" when he embarasses her by trashing a Christmas exhibition. The problem was that he was under a lot of stress and had already told her he didn't want to go to the mall, but she forced him to go anyway, which led to his breakdown.
• Monsters University: Sulley initially blames Mike for getting him kicked out of the Scare program, even though it was really his fault for neglecting his studies.
• Pocahontas: Governor Ratcliffe blames the Native Americans for not finding any gold, John Smith for Taking the Bullet, and his own men for treason when they have him arrested.
• Puss in Boots (2011): Humpty Dumpty blames Puss for abandoning him to the guards of San Ricardo and wants revenge on him for it. He conveniently forgets that just a few minutes before Puss left him behind, Humpty had tricked Puss into helping him rob the town's bank and thus unjustly branded him an outlaw. When he finally reveals his revenge scheme to Puss, Humpty makes it perfectly clear that he doesn't view his trickery as a betrayal at all, believing Puss was supposed to just go along with it because they were sworn blood-brothers.
• Reign of the Supermen sees Cyborg-Superman, originally astronaut Hank Henshaw, blame the death of his wife and crew, killed by the impact of the meteor carrying Doomsday on its way to Earth, on Superman for not saving them. This is despite the fact that Darkseid was the one who created Doomsday and sent the monster to Earth in the first place, to say nothing of the fact that Henshaw was also culpable for the accident as he just waited in the hopes Superman would save them, rather than doing the smart thing and launching the shuttle to get out of the way himself.
• Shrek 2:
  • Prince Charming refuses to believe that he is the reason Fiona is not falling in love with him and that the only reason she's spending any time with him is because she thinks he's a transformed Shrek. In his case, he doesn't want Fiona to love him because he has feelings for her, it's because he needs to marry her to secure a position as the future king of Far Far Away. He also rages out to Harold over all the troubles he went through the journey of rescuing Fiona, only to not make it on time.
  • The Fairy Godmother is just as bad. When King Harold rightly points out how it was Prince Charming's own fault for not rescuing Princess Fiona on time, she got upset on her son’s behalf, after ordering Prince Charming to tone it down so that she can finish his Villainous Breakdown. She goes as far as to blame Harold for ruining her diet when she orders from a fast food joint, even offering to treat Harold.
• In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, the parents of the four boys get angry when their kids go to see the Terrance and Phillip movie, especially when Kenny dies trying to replicate one of the stunts. While the parents blame the studio executives for the movie first, he points out that the movie was intended for adults, and the boys illegally snuck in to see it, to which the parents concede the point. But then, they decide to blame the country of Canada for the film, since the movie was produced there. The song "Blame Canada" has the closing line "We must blame them and cause a fuss/before somebody thinks of blaming us!" showing the parents will blame anybody but themselves for what happened, since they don't want to admit that they were being irresponsible with their children. It's only after the parents murder Terrance and Phillip, America and Canada are on the brink of war, and all Hell is breaking loose that the parents admit that they made a mistake.
• Strange Magic: Roland immediately blames Sunny for drawing the ire of the Bog King by making a love potion, even though he was the one who convinced him to do it.
• The Super Mario Bros. Movie: During the final battle, Bowser blames Mario for ruining his chances with Princess Peach, even though it's obvious that she despised the Koopa King for his cruelty and possessiveness, never mind the fact that he tried to kill her moments earlier for rejecting him.
• Toy Story 3:
  • Hamm calls out Mr. Potato Head for not believing Woody that Andy never intended to throw them away... even though Hamm didn't believe Woody either.
  • Jessie admits to Woody that the toys were wrong not to believe him. When she says that she was wrong specifically, Mr. Potato Head adds, "Jessie's right, Woody. She was wrong!"
• Wreck-It Ralph: Gene acts as though it's all Ralph's fault that their game has been put at risk. While Ralph is at fault for abandoning his game to go out and win a medal, it's also Gene's fault for A) treating him like garbage along with the other Nicelanders and B) challenging him to go out and win a medal and claiming that it'll never happen.