Sandbox / Ignorance Is Wicks

Ignorance Is Bliss is: "situations where somebody uses someone to make or do something by lying about what exactly it is that they're doing, or assuring them that it's for the greater good". Which is different from the meaning of the much older saying.

(Wingedcatgirl's posted to "Is this an example?", drawing attention to the misuse on the page. Since it removed numerous entries, I've not taken on-page examples in consideration because they won't reflect how wicks are used.)

55 wicks checked

Correct: 2
Misuse or unclear: 53

Correct (lying to the populace to secure a goal)

2

• Beneath Notice: Revealed to be a subversion in later chapters: The Party is aware that the proles form the bulk of the population, and they know that if they keep proles ignorant by promoting a lifestyle of booze, gambling, and cheap pornography while giving them the impression that they can get away with things Party members can't, the proles will never pose a threat. And just to be totally sure, they have Thought Police spies embedded within the prole population, one of whom turns in Winston and Julia after he rents them a room over his shop to privately have sex for pleasure (a banned activity).
• Solatorobo: Red the Hunter: Elh doesn't let Red know the true cost of sealing Lares to gain his cooperation.

Misuse (it's better not knowing the truth, so someone remains ignorant or someone keeps someone else in the dark / character learned the truth but was better off not knowing)

27

• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Charly, film of the book mentioned below, is almost as famous as the book. Unlike the book, it does embrace Ignorance Is Bliss in the end.
• Sycophantic Servant: Zim of Invader Zim. Everything he does is for the Tallest, and he goes to ridiculous lengths to try to impress them. It never works, since they originally sent him out in space so he would die and never return to Planet Irk, which he's oblivious to, for the better.
• A Song of Ice and Fire - Other Westerosi: Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Cersei recalls her having these. According to Cersei, one look of them sent Jeyne Farman running for the hills (though Cersei concedes not having her fortune told by Maggy might have worked out in Jeyne's favour, given she's now Happily Married with a dozen kids).
• Chainsaw Man: Quanxi expresses this belief, stating that it's better to not know because it makes your happier. She's notably unhappy to learn that all white fish taste the same, taking the pleasure of eating sushi, and learn every little bad thing about a news anchor she used to admire.
• Gems of War: At first, Ferit is determinated to slay Xerodar for the eldritch knowledge it may bestow him... but has enough memory of his past to decide that he may be better off without that knowledge.
• Heretical Edge Bystanders And Independent Heretics: Because she grew up without knowledge of the supernatural, Abigail has no idea that she's been under surveillance her entire life. She is much better adjusted than her twin brother Wyatt as a result.
• Little Busters!: Wants to keep the "Groundhog Day" Loop going forever, so Riki and Rin won't have to face the Awful Truth in the real world, and also so he can continue to play with everyone.
• Magia Record Main Cast: Awful Truth: Whenever she summons her Doppel it puts her to sleep to prevent her from seeing anything while it's active. Anything it encounters that goes against Felicia's worldview or beliefs gets covered with mud and smashed. This helps her avoid learning the truth behind her wish, which is probably for the best.
• Christopher Nolan: Nolan's films often deal with the theme of fooling either one's self or others into believing something that's easier to digest than the reality.
• Go Gently: Taylor with Kenta, and in general considering some of the dark truths hidden by the cold unloving world.
• Sonic Origins (Ri2):
  • Shade tells the gang not to tell Gemerl about his past as the Nocturnus main Weapon of Mass Destruction. It's for the best.
  • Discussed among the group. Although this trope allows people to live their lives without worrying for the end of the world everyday, it also renders them completely helpless when the danger does show up in front of their faces.
• Cafe Setareh: Ebi feels that Fariba and her mother would be better off not knowing that Khosro is dead, so he burns all the newspapers that would tell them.
• Smallville: "Freak": In an otherwise pretty nightmarish episode, when Chloe asks Daniel what happened last night, he somewhat apologetically asks if they had sex because he was really drunk and didn't remember anything. Turns out he had his memory at Lex's secret lab wiped and the same happens to Chloe later. Although considering the pain and humiliation she went through in Lex's hands, it's probably for the best.
• Tropes H to O:
  • Trip brings this up in Chapter 9 when he tells Ash to make sure Goh never learns about the Infinity Train.
    Trip: If he learns about the Train, he’s going to become obsessed with it, like he became obsessed with Mew, with Pokémon and you [Ash]. And if he becomes obsessed with it, he’ll try to enter it. And if he enters it, then that’s two children that have disappeared completely and there’ll be even less of a chance of finding Chloe if Chloe is adamant about never wanting to see him ever again.
    Ash: But...that’s just like lying to him!
    Trip: Ignorance is bliss in this case. Have him do what he loved even when Chloe was still in this city and he’ll never ever have to know. I mean, it’s not like it’s going to make a difference, right? He wasn’t thinking of Chloe then and he shouldn’t be thinking of her now if he knows what’s good for him.
  • Jinny is completely ignorant as to what happened in the Unown Arc, which Trip and Serena hope to maintain.
• Mediochre Q Seth Series: For Happiness: Why Queen MAB goes along with so many cover-ups, apparently. Ignorance Is Bliss, after all.
• Reborn! (2004): What all the guys simultaneously agree upon when faced with the choice of telling Kyoko and Haru the truth in the Future Arc. Though Tsuna ends up telling them anyway, much to Ryohei’s displeasure.
• Tropes I to L: The Dark Curse exiled characters from a fairy tale world into the real world with new memories. Considering nearly all of them have ridiculously tragic back stories, sometimes not knowing is a blessing.
• Gilmore Girls S 02 E 12: Lorelai wants to remain ignorant about what she is eating, because whenever she has eaten something really good in her life it always turned out to be something gross. It turns out to be true about the food she is eating this time, too.
• Jean's Magical Education: Deadpan Snarker: Jean, whenever he speaks French, is either being emotional or snarky. Of course, people in Gensokyo don't know French, and are gladly unaware of what he has to say.
• The Magnus Archives Season Five: Of a sort; faced with the hopeless, wide expanse of the surface, the statement subject decides to go back down to the icy depth because the darkness down there at least gives some feeling of hope for something they can't see and means they don't have to see the Eye watching them from above and delighting in their suffering.
• In the Dark: In the second season premiere, Murphy is ready to tell Chloe how her father is a killer but after talking to the girl, she realizes she can't bring herself to ruin her life like this and keeps it quiet.
• Threshold: Molly convinces a cop that the team are just tracking terrorists, saying it's to keep their cover. But Fenway says he really did it so "that cop could actually sleep at night."
• God of War (PS4): Averted. Atreus's sickness stems from him being unaware of his godly lineage, so he would benefit from knowing it. When Kratos tells him, this gets played straight hard. First it gets to his head, and later he sees all the downsides to god-hood. Kratos straight up tells him he wished to spare Atreus the knowledge.
• A Day With Bowser Jr: Larry overhears a snippet of conversation that hints at the koopalings true origins, but he decides to just forget he heard it because he feels he'd be happier not knowing.
• Sluggy Freelance: The survivors of Mohkadun chose to forget their forsaken background and assimilate into the Egyptians for this reason. Macha felt that burying the truth was foolish, but the elders did not see things that way. Elder Maloufo even went so far as to threaten Macha with exile if he refused to let go of their past.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: Twilight, as a result of her Midnight Sparkle angst, feels this way about her not knowing magic existed. This is part of her song "The Midnight Inside Me", where she regrets learning about magic.

Misuse (absentminded/ignorant/memory-wiped character)

7

• Decomposite Character: Combined with Literal Split Personality in One step backwards and Three forwards: When Hawkmoth and his supporters made their reality-altering Wishes, Lila wanted to become the center of Adrien's universe. In order to grant his former holder a chance at freedom, Plagg splits him into two: the cheerfully oblivious Adrien Agreste, and Felix Agreste, who retains all of Adrien's memories of the original timeline.
• Deep Blue Sea Roleplay: Spends the entire first motive blissfully unaware that it's even happening, since his memories keep being erased and he spends his time flirting instead of getting in on the action.
• Splatoon: A big part of the reason why Marina was able to adapt to Inkling society despite being an Octoling is because either the Inklings are very uneducated on Octarians and think she's just an "exotic" person or they don't care either way. She was afraid she would be shunned out even after Pearl learns about her dubious past as a Child Prodigy of Octarian technology used for evil, but Pearl instead reassures her people (and herself) love her.
• Les Nombrils: Jenny's homelife is in a terrible state, but she's too stupid to realise it.
• Tropes D to I: None of the cast knows about Brian's death in the alternate timeline now except for Brian himself, and he only knows the bare minimum about it.
• Turbulence: Due to Kakarot not knowing about his Saiyan heritage at the moment nor the fact he was not originally destined to go to Namek, he is unaware of Earth and that his original mission was to exterminate all life forms on the planet.
• The Blacklist: After he kills her and then himself, a final swarm of butterflies emerges... and when the now-rescued kids see it, they react just as they did at the beginning: by Ignorance Is Bliss-fully cheering.

Misuse (The World Is Not Ready/You Are Not Ready)

4

• Tropes I to M:
  • The reason Coulson's special team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents exist is that The World Is Not Ready for most of the weird things happening in the world. He even gives an Appeal to Obscurity example to hammer his point. Playful Hacker Skye feels differently and thinks an Unmasqued World is the way to go.
  • "Providence" reveals that once S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrets have flooded onto the Internet, Skye realizes that Coulson was right: The World Is Not Ready.
  • Coulson's being kept in the dark about his resurrection, and the implanted memories of Tahiti were specifically to keep him ignorant of the real circumstances of his resurrection (see And I Must Scream), which otherwise were too unbearable for him to go on living.
• Men in Black Films: The organisation stays private and uses neuralyzers to erase memories. The organisation believes humans simply aren't ready for knowledge about aliens and since they don't really need to know or care, then they have no reason to know.
  Jay: Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.
  Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet.
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: People ask, "Why do you fight? Why do you kill? Why do you destroy?" They will die with these questions unanswered. That is humanity's bliss.
• Eclipse Phase: Played straight with Firewall and Project Ozma. Suppressing knowledge of the Exsurgent virus, asyncs, the ETI and the true nature of the TITANs is considered one of their top priorities, since they don't know if humanity will be able to handle the horrible truth.

Unclear, other misuse, or ZCE

15

• Endro~!: Yusha's group, big time, but the version that met the Demon Lord were even worse. They straight up ignore her while getting wrapped up in their own little worlds; Yusha just walked up to the Demon Lord alone, Seira was more focused on berating Yusha's recklessness (which Yusha just laughs at), Mei was finding and stealing the Demon Lord's secret poem collection, and Fai was running into pillars and stealing the Demon Lord's snacks. It's even how the plot got set off, as their carefree attitudes angered the Demon Lord to try and kill them upfront instead of toying with them. This made Yusha decide to use their strongest attack straight away, but of course she forgot the full incantation midway through.
• Alfred's Playhouse: Dictator Pickles gives Alfred a magical fantasy world to live in so he can take control of his body.
• A Young Woman's Political Record: Tanya decides to have Elya stop local polling operations specifically so she doesn't see her approval ratings until the very last minute. All well and good since she's trying to get herself removed from office, but she barely understands just how popular she is already.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: Bakura and the spirit of the ring ("Dark Bakura"). Said spirit has made his host lie, steal and commit murder, in a cruel fashion to boot. And Bakura is just blissfully oblivious to all this after the Monster World arc.
• Black Butler - Phantomhive Household: Ciel tells Snake that his missing friends' whereabouts were unknown and that staying with Ciel is the fastest way to see them again. The reader knows that they were all killed by Ciel's staff when they attempted to ambush the mansion.
• The Belgariad Garion And His Companions: Deliberately.
• Wander over Yonder: Neckbeard certainly thinks so because they are "too stupid", but that turns out to be far from the case.
• Magia, Pacem, Bellum Terrarum:
  • Homura envied Mami's ignorance about the truth about Witches.
  • Also, Audrey, Ligaya and Serafina lived happy lives in the arms of Salvae, under the care of Elise who they would challenge later on.
• The Rules of the Game: How the upper class deal with the looming threat of war.
• The Book of Dust: Sister Fenella seems to be trying to take this approach when it comes to the activities of the CCD.
• The Osmerian Conflict: At the start anyway. The crew eventually learns that their simple mission was not at all very simple.
• Once Upon A Time S 2 E 12 Inthe Nameofthe Brother:
  Ruby: Regina thought she was punishing us by erasing who we were. She underestimated just how much crap we wanted to forget.
• Resident Evil Roleplaying: How the other characters treat Alyssa.
• Eclipse Phase: Averted with Menton morphs - depression is common among those who are forced to resleeve from Mentons to less mentally capable morphs, since they can literally feel how much dumber they are.
• Monika Before Story: You can play this mod as you would play a regular visual novel and get the ending for a girl of your choice, but it doesn't resolve the main plot. Lampshaded by the compliation notes.
  • Also, the girls themselves end up being lobotomized during the installation sequence, with the Main Character rewriting their .chr files that contain memories regarding the old club and the real you, so the game can progress as a normal visual novel.