Basic Trope: A character's attempt to compensate for a wrongdoing is not enough to make up for it.
- Straight: Bob burns down Charles' house and buys him a pizza as a peace offering.
- Exaggerated: Bob murders Charles' entire family, cuts off his limbs, steals his life savings, and dips his toothbrush into the toilet bowl, then says, "Sorry, that was mean."
- Downplayed:
- Bob destroys Charles' $2,000 laptop and pays him $500 toward a replacement.
- Bob burns down Charles' house down and gets him a free night at a No-Tell Motel.
- Justified:
- Bob is a Narcissist who believes his apology is sufficient and that Charles is the bad guy for not accepting it.
- Bob runs on Blue-and-Orange Morality; where he comes from, everything he did is considered very minor.
- Bob wishes he could make up for destroying Charles' laptop, but $500 is all he has.
- Bob is just apologizing to make himself feel better or because he wants something from Charles, and doesn't want to inconvenience himself by making the appropriate restitution.
- Bob is already serving or already served time in prison for arson. He feels as though he already partially paid his debt to Charles through his jail time.
- Bob refuses to accept responsibility for Charles's loss, giving him a token payment to get him to back off.
- Inverted:
- Disproportionate Retribution
- Bob plays a practical joke on Charles, then feels awful about it and puts Charles in his will before committing suicide.
- Bob is remorseful to the point where he wants to make up for what he did to Charles for the rest of his life.
- Subverted:
- The pizza box has money inside to buy a new house with.
- It's $500 per installment, not in total.
- The motel is only meant to keep Charles from seeing the rebuilding of his house before it is finished.note
- Double Subverted: Charles angrily says, "Yeah, I should think so too." Bob reveals that the money is fake, and because Charles failed the test, he will not be getting the real money.
- Parodied: Bob presses a button that destroys the entire world. Floating around in space, everyone glares at him unamused, and he chuckles and says, "Whoops. My bad."
- Zig-Zagged: Bob was just joking and gives Charles the real money, and Charles uses it to buy a new house. But the house is in poor condition, so Bob pays for it to be renovated, but this puts him over what the previous house originally cost. Charles (rightly) points out that it's Bob's own fault he's in this situation as he had no business burning down Charles' home in the first place.
- Averted: Bob's restitution is directly proportionate to the original offense.
- Enforced: "How can we establish Bob doesn't care about others?" "Have him do something terrible and try to get on good terms with the wrong party, but only if it doesn't come at a great cost to himself."
- Lampshaded: "I think you need to pay Charles a little more than that..."
- Invoked:
- Bob wants to pay Charles back in full, but Alice won't let him endanger their own financial situation.
- Bob intended the restitution to be a Backhanded Apology.
- Exploited: Charles actually accepts the pizza as restitution, so Bob continues doing terrible things since it will cost him little to nothing.
- Defied: Charles takes Bob to court to make him compensate him fully for the destroyed house.
- Discussed: "Hey, let's go burn down Charles' house! It'll be funny!" "I don't know about that ... we don't have enough money to pay for the damage..."
- Conversed: "Alan, if you did that to me and tried to make up for it the way Bob did, I would strike you down where you stand."
- Implied: Bob offers to pay Charles back and takes out his wallet. He looks inside, then laughs nervously and shows the single dollar inside (along with cobwebs) to Charles.
- Deconstructed: Bob wasn't prepared to compensate Charles fully, so when the judge forces him to do so, it puts a severe financial strain on Bob as his paychecks are shaved to repay Charles gradually.
- Reconstructed: Charles dies unexpectedly, meaning Bob no longer has a creditor to pay back.
- Played for Laughs: "Come on, Charles! All I did was burn down your house! Do you have ANY idea how long I had to wait in line for this pizza?!"
- Played for Drama: Bob goes through a rough financial patch unrelated to the wage garnishment. Unfortunately, he's also burned his bridges with all his other acquaintances for various reasons, so he has no option but to ask Charles to help him, and no reasonable person would expect Charles to do so willingly...
- Played for Horror: ???
Back to Disproportionate Restitution
