Sandbox / Nature Is Not A Toy Wick Check

Here a wick check will be performed on Nature Is Not a Toy.

Why?: This trope suffers from an extremely unclear definition, with the description not saying anything about what the trope is, and as a result the examples have been brought up as being all over the place.

Wicks checked: 31/31

Wick totals:

• 7/31 examples, or 22.58%, dealt with forms of science or scientific experiments going wrong (overlapping with Gone Horribly Wrong),
• 9/31 examples, or 29.03%, dealt with forms of nature or nature-based beings fighting back against humanity/manipualation,
• 2/31 examples, or 6.45%, dealt with non-scientific abuse of nature going wrong (also overlapping with Gone Horribly Wrong),
• 3/31 examples, or 9.68%, dealt with general references to the destruction of nature or the environment,
• 2/31 examples, or 6.45%, lacked context or didn't fit the other categories, and
• 8/31 examples, or 25.81%, were unclassifiable.

---

Science/scientific experiment gone wrong (7/31)

1. Ignored Expert: The Onion brings this up in "Experts Agree Giant, Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat," where one scientist (who is apparently played by Jeff Goldblum) claims that Nature Is Not a Toy and this can only go badly. Naturally, the reporters, having spent the past few minutes gushing about the project, rebuke him as a luddite. Scientific experiment gone wrong.
2. Genre Blindness: The reporters from The Onion segment "Experts Agree Giant, Bioengineered Crabs Pose No Threat." They happily muse on how useful the superhuman strength and acidic spray of the crabs would be in construction and congratulate Doctor Lester Mordock for turning his life around after he was left disabled in a military accident and replaced his arm with a robot crab claw. When a scientist, depicted as Jeff Goldblum, warns that Nature Is Not a Toy, they dismiss him as a luddite and cheerfully discuss how one of the crabs can apparently solve Rubix cubes. Scientific experiment implied to be going wrong.
3. Characters.Batman Beyond Villains: Shriek was an excellent audio engineer whose inventions allowed him to manipulate sound waves in a variety of different ways, from demolition to outright psychological manipulation. Unfortunately, brilliant as they were, they began proving to be too expensive to build and, as Derek Powers points out when Shriek tries to land a legitimate job at Wayne-Powers, impractical. Derek instead enlists Shriek as a hitman in an assassination attempt against Bruce Wayne, but is foiled by Terry. In the ensuing fight, Terry briefly manages to use Shriek's own inventions against him by turning on every machine in the factory they're fighting in, making it impossible for Shriek to locate him at first. Shriek adjusts the disks on his suit to mute all other sounds except for Terry's footsteps, but this backfires on him rather spectacularly when one of the disks gets struck by Terry's Batarang and massively amplifies all audio input, rendering Shriek completely deaf. Scientific experiment gone wrong.
4. Characters.Primeval: He intends to manipulate the Anomalies and disrupt Convergence partly so he can create an endless supply of green energy to solve the global energy crisis, unaware that his project is responsible for destroying civilization and dooming the Earth to total biosphere extinction in Matt's Bad Future. Matt and even Connor call Philip out on ignoring the consequences of disrupting nature's balance and not considering the ways his plan could backfire, and they're ultimately vindicated in the final episode. Scientific experiment gone wrong.
5. Characters.Spider Man Trilogy Supervillains: Otto endeavored to create a clean source of infinite energy to power all of New York, and in that pursuit, he made multiple breakthroughs in the field of robotics and fusion. This resulted in the creation of a reactor capable of forming a mini-star, and the four robotic arms, each with highly advanced AI and composed of the heat and magnetic-resistant material necessary to control the star's magnetic field. However, during the nearly successful demonstration in his home in New York, he neglects to account for the possibility of the star's magnetic field inducing currents on the metals within his own home (or arrogantly assumed it within his ability to control), and the resulting accident kills his wife, and fries the inhibitor chip preventing the arms' AI from controlling him. The second time he tries it, he regains enough of his humanity and his true identity to pull a Heroic Sacrifice before the star's growing magnetic field tears all of New York apart. Scientific experiment gone wrong.
6. Film.The Titan: Rick Janssen is one of 14 volunteers undergoing human test trials in the hopes of being the first to establish an interstellar colony on one of Saturn's moons, Titan, to combat Earth's overpopulation crisis, and is joined by his wife Abigail (a medical researcher) and son Lucas at the research facility Rick is sent to. While the initial tests results were promising, under increasingly intense training tests (to force the human body to adapt to the moon's atmospheric conditions and environment), things start to go wrong when Zane, another test subject, has a mental breakdown while Rick begins shedding his skin when taking a break at the bottom of the pool. After Zane suffers a second mental breakdown and kills his wife, while Rick suffers complications from his recent conreal surgery, Abigail confronts Martin. When he refuses to give a straight answer, Abigail later sneaks into his office, and discovers that all 14 tests subjects are having their DNA infused with the DNA from various different animal species. By the end of the film, Rick is the only surviving test subject that was successfully sent to Titan, the others having perished during the trials or killed in the confrontations with military police (after having slain some of the police as well). Scientific experiment gone wrong.
7. Series.Chernobyl: Nuclear energy is actually quite safe and one of the most ecologically friendly sources of energy if handled properly. However, between the inherently flawed design of Reactor 4, the inexperienced operators, and the arrogance of the plant's higher-ups in the face of an increasingly obvious and dangerous life-threatening event, practically ensured the disaster to occur sooner or later. And in the process, doom thousands to horrific fates. A form of science gone wrong.

Nature or nature-based beings fight back against humanity/manipulation (9/31)

1. Earth Song (in description): Sung and listened to by Nature Lovers, the common Earth Song likes to portray the plants and animals of the world as an awesome thing that we as a species must defend lest nature come to realize that we are the problem and reap justice upon us all. Refers to nature fighting back against humanity.
2. Gaia's Vengeance (in description): Unlike in a case of Gaia's Lament, where Gaia is sad and depressed at what's happened and wallowing in self-pity, we aren't getting off easy this time. In this case, she's mad as hell and isn't gonna take it anymore. Nature is definitely not a toy. Seems to refer to nature fighting back against humanity.
3. Characters.Aquaman Rogues Gallery: Programmed to allow only a limited amount of inhabitants on the isle. Atlanna thinks she can keep it appeased by a sacrifice. As Dr. Shin and archaeologist Daniel Evans observe, she's bitten off more than she can chew, and Karaku comes for her. Nature-based being fights back against manipulation.
4. Characters.Monster Verse Humans: They think they can level the global socio-political playing field by forcibly awakening the Titans and trying to manipulate their actions using the ORCA. It's heavily implied in the King of the Monsters Creative Closing Credits that even if they hadn't fucked up by awakening the hostile alien Ghidorah, their plan to control the Titans instead of letting the Titans sort themselves out would have still spiraled out of control, albeit without the same risk of global multicellular extinction that Ghidorah presented. Nature-based beings fight back against manipulators.
5. GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters2019.Tropes I To P: The human heroes criticize the eco-terrorists' (mostly Emma's) plan to forcibly accelerate the Titans' awakenings and manipulate them into restoring the ecosphere, because no-one has a sufficient understanding of what they're tampering with: each Titan is a living natural disaster in its own right, and the consequences in the probable event that humans make one wrong move could be even more cataclysmic than the eco-terrorists' intended projections already are. It turns out that the eco-terrorists have majorly fucked up by awakening Monster Zero (a rival Alpha Titan about whom far too little was known): Monster Zero/Ghidorah forcibly takes control of the other Titans for his own wants, and he commands them to begin razing down humanity's cities and the global ecosystems. Even Alan Jonah calls Emma out for genuinely believing that they could control nature on such a scale, making it clear that he always suspected there was a chance they would lose control and he was fine with it so long as devastation to humanity was assured. Nature-based being fights back against manipulation.
6. Franchise.Monster Verse: In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the humans heroes consist of scientists who are ambivalent (to the point of inaction) about whether or not the Titans they study are the key to humanity's salvation or the gateway to its destruction, and a Tragic Bigot with multiple Fatal Flaws under his belt. The human antagonists are eco-terrorists who believe they can set the Titans loose on the world and then try to control them using an experimental device, without expecting it to spiral out of their control (which it does). Nature-based being fights back against manipulation.
7. Film.Jurassic World: Henry Wu at one point offhandedly mentions he could have utilized and manipulated the dinosaurs' genetic code to make them look and behave much more accurately to the genuine article, but Masrani wanted something more thrilling, and was coincidentally unaware that Wu and Hoskins were already conspiring to create a living biological weapon. Thus the Indominus Rex was created, and because of her incredibly high intelligence, combined with her ability to camouflage and hide from thermal radiation, she eventually broke out and went on a rampage that destroyed the park. Nature-based being fights back after experimentation.
8. Film.Splice: Clive and Elsa created a pair of vermiforms named Fred and Ginger for the express purpose of having an easily available source of enzymes and other medical research. When the two specimens prove to be a success, they take their research of gene splicing a little further by introducing human DNA into their next creation, Dren, and take her away from the labs of the pharmaceutical company they work for to prevent them from being discovered. Because Clive and Elsa neglected to keep an eye on Fred and Ginger, they fail to realize Ginger became a male in the interim before the two specimens fight to the death. It's a trait Dren inherits, and after her transition into a male, Dren subsequently rapes and impregnates Elsa, and kills Clive and one of their bosses before Elsa kills Dren herself. Nature-based being attacks back after experimentation.
9. Series.Primeval: It's revealed in the show's final season that Philip Burton's plan with New Dawn is to use the Anomalies as a source of endless green energy for the world, by forcibly creating a giant man-made Anomaly in the midst of the Earth's upcoming geomagnetic reversal (potentially disrupting the process in and of itself). Not only is Philip destined to lose control of the Anomaly, but the disaster has created a Bad Future which makes the Future Predator-overrun other Bad Future from Season 3 look like a healing Eden where Hope Springs Eternal by comparison. Effectively a scientific experiment gone wrong.

Non-scientific abuse of nature gone wrong (2/31)

1. Literature.The Belgariad: Garion once magically summons up a lightning storm against an army. Two years later, he gets a furious dressing-down from Belgarath the Sorcerer, who's spent all the intervening time smoothing out the meteorological Disaster Dominoes Garion's weather manipulation caused. Non-scientific abuse of nature leads to future problems.
2. Recap.The Casagrandes S 3 E 10 Skatey Cat Weather Beaten: Ronnie Anne, Carl, CJ, and Carlitos learn this the hard way when they mess with the weather using Tlaloc. Non-scientific abuse of nature leads to future problems.

General references to destruction of nature/the environment (3/31)

1. PlayingWith.Rich Bitch: Alexis originally appears to be a saintly, yet spoiled woman from a royal family, who would help even people she utterly despises, and she also is part of the Fiction 500. When out of the public sight however, she is a bloodthirsty Evil Overlord who murders her victims For the Evulz on a constant basis after torturing and raping them, be they men, women, kids, seniors, or even dogs, cats and other animals... Pothole refers to general abuse of nature.
2. Characters.Im In Love With The Villainess: TAIM, a powerful AI created by the original Claire in her efforts to save humanity from environmental destruction. Her plan to stop the original Rei Ohashi from ending the Eternal Loop System sets the overarching plot into motion. Pothole refers to general environmental destruction.
3. Characters.My Hero Academia School Faculty And Staff: A fact that she's all too aware of, given the inherent destructive nature of black holes, and she takes great care to maintain control over her powers so as to not kill anyone or cause even more damage. Character tries to prevent environmental destruction.

Zero context and other (2/31)

1. Romanticism Versus Enlightenment: Whereas the Enlightenment would agree with this trope in the vein of Nature Is Not Nice, the Romantics would point out that this trope is true in the sense that abusing nature is not nice. Refers to the actual message that nature should not be abused.
2. NightmareFuel.Legacy Of Kain: Bane the Druid, Dejoule the Energist, and Anarcrothe the Alchemist, whose insanity drove all of of them to create a land of distorted nature, physics, and matter called Dark Eden, enveloped by a sphere of dark energy that is quickly expanding and threatening to engulf all of Nosgoth. No-context pothole.

Unclassifiable (8/31)

1. Mother Nature (in description): Often a bona fide Physical God, if not outright one of the Powers That Be. Actually pissing her off is likely to result in Gaia's Vengeance (also compare Nature Is Not a Toy), while making her sad can result in Gaia's Lament. "Compare" link.
2. Nature Is Not Nice "See also" link.
3. Powered by a Black Hole "See also" link.
4. Super-Trope Index.
5. Tropes of Nature Index.
6. Administrivia.Tropes Needing TRS Index.
7. Image Source.Photography Index.
8. Laconic.Nature Is Not A Toy Laconic.