Ungrateful Bastard / Other Media

Ungrateful Bastards in other forms of media.

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Advertising

• This advert for Carling beer features a man stranded on a desert island, who meets a friendly and apparently sapient crab which leads him to a fridge full of Carling. Together the two work to get the fridge powered up and the beer chilled, with the crab even running on a treadmill to power it. The man then eats the crab.

Asian Animation

• In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, Wolffy's reaction to the goats saving him is usually to try to capture them anyway. One such example is in Joys of Seasons Episode 26, where Wolffy captures Jonie after she saves him from nearly falling off the edge of a cliff — using the same rope that Jonie used to rescue him, no less.

Audio Play

• A justified example from the Blake's 7 audios: After trying to kill or capture them for two seasons straight, did you really think Servalan would not take advantage of a crippled Liberator? That it was crippled holding the line against the Andromedan invasion is irrelevant.

Fairy Tales

• The Brothers Grimm story The Bremen Town Musicians features a donkey, a cat, a dog and a rooster who are all past their prime years and no longer able to perform their services for their masters. Instead of allowing the animals to spend their final years in peace, each animal's owner plans to simply dispose of their beasts and replace them with newer animals. The animals decide to set off on their own.
• In The Fire-Bird, the Horse of Power, and the Princess Vasilissa, the tsar keeps on using the archer's success as a reason to give him a new task or get his head cut off. Then when the princess demands it, he has the archer thrown into boiling water.
• In The One-Handed Girl, the girl refused payment for a pumpkin, instead giving it to her sister-in-law. When the sister-in-law tries to get another the next day, the girl is out, so she tells the girl's brother that the girl had refused to sell her any, even though she sold them to other.
• The Pied Piper of Hamelin: The town of Hamelin refuses to pay the Pied Piper the amount they had promised him for solving their terrible rat infestation. In short, they stiff him. In some versions, he's even falsely blamed for bringing the rats in the first place. But they pay for it in spades, as he kidnaps their children. In fact, the saying "time to pay the piper" is derived from this story.
• Some versions of Puss in Boots end this way, with the cat being promised a fine funeral when he eventually passes on. Playing dead to test his master's sincerity, the cat finds out that the real plan was just to fling him out the window. The cat promptly ceases his charade and leaves, understandably pissed.
• "Snow-White and Rose-Red": The dwarf demands help from the girls whenever he's in trouble, always has a trivial complaint about the help he's given, and never bothers to thank them afterwards.
• Alexander Afanasyev's "The Soldier And Death": The soldier is given three dry biscuits in payment for serving the tsar for twenty-five years.
  All these years I have served the Tzar and had good clothes to my back and my belly full of victuals. And now I am like to be both hungry and cold. Already I've nothing but three dry biscuits.
• "Little Master Misery": Even though his rich brother barely helped him when he was living in squalid conditions, Ivan does not hold him against him; Ivan actually invites his brother to his name-day feast, greets him warmly and sincerely, makes sure to give him and his wife the best places at the table and the best food. Ivan's brother's reaction is becoming insanely envious of his brother because Ivan is now wealthier than him and plotting his ruin.

Jokes

• The joke about the pig that is so talented (can play piano, talk, etc.) that the farmer is eating the poor thing one piece at a time, starting with its limbs, because "a pig this good, you don't eat it all at once". What makes the joke this trope is that on some versions of the story the pig saved the farmer, his entire family and all of the other animals in the farm from some disaster (fire, tornado, etc, even bodily carrying them to a safe zone-and on some versions even repeatedly) back when it had all of its limbs. Some versions of the joke do have the farmer giving the pig a very luxurious spot on the farm to live in as a symbol of gratitude, but the fact that the farmer still wishes to eat him, and has started to do so by crippling him doesn't even try to make it Fridge Horror that it's a Gilded Cage.
• A mother and her child are walking along a beachside boardwalk when suddenly a colossal wave surges up and washes the kid out to sea. The mother drops to her knees, begs God to return her child to her, breaks down crying, etc. Another wave comes up, and deposits the kid safe and sound next to her. The mother now praises God... until she notices something.
  Hey! Where's his hat!?

Music

• The captain of the Golden Vanity promises the sky to whoever sinks the enemy ship (French or Spanish, depending on who's covering), then goes back on his word when the cabin boy succeeds, refusing even to pull him back on board. Some versions have the kid surviving, most not.
• The blues standard "How Blue Can You Get", which was Covered Up by B.B. King, goes into great detail about how the speaker's wife/girlfriend is ungrateful for everything he's done for her.
  I gave you a brand new Ford,
  you said, "I want a Cadillac"
  I bought you a ten dollar dinner,
  you said "Thanks for the snack"
  I let you live in my penthouse,
  you said it was just a shack
  I gave you seven children,
  and now you want to give them back
• In the old Scottish folk song "The Fair Flower of Northumberland," in Northumberland (just south of Scotland), a prisoner from Scotland is locked up. The chief magistrate's 15-year-old daughter unlocks him after he promises to marry her "and make [her] a lady of high degree." Once they're in Scotland, he displays nothing but contempt for her— beginning with "Get down from that horse, you're a brazen-faced whore."
• In The Lonely Island's "Threw It On The Ground", the protagonist is offered several items for free, including an energy drink, a hot dog, and a piece of a kid's birthday cake. Not satisfied with politely declining, he takes these items and violently throws them on the ground. Bonus points for the poor birthday kid, because he throws the rest of the cake too.
  I said, "Man, what do I look like? A charity case?"
  I took it, and threw it on the GROUUUUND!
  I don't need your handouts!
  I'm an adult!
  Please, you can't buy me, hot dog man!
• Lorrie Morgan:
  • His 1997 Country Music hit, "Good As I Was To You", sees a woman find out that her middle-aged husband is seeing a younger woman on the side and, as the song begins, confronts them at a fine restaurant. There, after summoning her courage, confronts her philandering husband – and, it's implied, not quietly – and says the following:
    Good as I was to you, is this the thanks I get?
    Are all the years we shared, so easy to forget?
    Does this mean that you've won?
    Are you finally having fun?
    Is she your dream come true?
    Oh, she sure looks good, but she wont ever be
    Good as i was to you.
  • In the video for the song, the two-timing husband is a double-loser. After trying to grovel his way out of the situation and his (presumably soon-to-be-ex) wife telling the head waiter she Was Just Leaving and then the mistress "You can have him, I don't want him anymore," the mistress, too, walks out on the guy.

Professional Wrestling

• Sensacional Carlitos came to BJ and Mr. 450's aid after they were jumped and had the World Wrestling League Americas title stolen from them by Joe Bravo, Escobar, and Negrín. Since you're on this page, Mr. 450's lack of gratitude shouldn't surprise you.

Radio

• One episode of Dragnet involves a lady who worked for years to get a murderess paroled, and then when she was, offered houseroom and hospitality. The murderess took out a life insurance policy on her hostess and murdered her. Hardly surprising that said murderess's life was forfeit this time around.

Religion and Mythology

• The Bible -– particularly the Gospels -– contains many parables and passages about gratitude:
  • Luke 17:11-19 is the story of Jesus cleansing ten lepers, but only one of them –- a Samaritan -– thinks to thank Jesus and praise Him. While Jesus has plenty of praise for the one who did show his gratitude, He is highly offended at the nine who didn't: "Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?" And He said to him, "Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well."
  • Matthew 18: 21-35 tells the story of the unmerciful servant. Here, the ruler of a kingdom demands that a lowly servant repay all his debts –- 10,000 talents, several billion dollars by modern standards -– immediately or face imprisonment and torture. The servant begs for mercy and more time to repay the debt, which moves the king enough to cancel the debt altogether. Not long thereafter, the servant encounters one of his debtors, who owes him 100 denarii, which is maybe a few months' rent by modern standards. Likewise, the man's friend says he doesn't have the money and begs for time to collect the money to repay the debt, but the servant refuses to ease up on him and has him badly beaten. The king learns of this incident, summons the servant and screams at him, "You wicked servant. I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?" Jesus –- who again weaves this parable –- then explains that the king rescinded his pardon and had the servant jailed and tortured until the debt could be repaid (which would be... never). His entire point was that good Christians show mercy and gratitude.
  • Matthew 20:1-16 is about laborers in the vineyard. Here, the owner of the vineyard hires workers in stages, paying them all an identical sum at the end of the day, regardless of how many hours they worked, whether for several hours or just a few minutes. The workers who received their denarius for working only a short time are thankful, but those who worked all day in scorching heat and without breaks complain when they are given the same denarius. The master, sensing that his worker(s) are ungrateful for what they view as meager pay, replies, "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?" Jesus' point, aside from gratuity, is one He makes several times in the Gospels: "The last will be first, and the first last." (Matthew 20:16).
• In Classical Mythology, Medea sacrificed everything she had for Jason and saved the citizens of Corinth from a famine. The Corinthians tried to get Jason to dump her and her children, and Jason went with it. As Medea was a demigoddess with enormous skill and power, they paid dearly for it, with Jason's punishment being so bad that Hera, goddess of marriage, the patron divinity Jason had spurned by abandoning Medea, and rightly infamous for her sadistic punishments against Zeus' lovers, couldn't find anything more to add aside from letting him live with it.
• In Mesopotamian Mythology, the incompetent gardener Shukaletuda prayed the gods for help in saving his garden, and when the Goddess of Fertility came down from Heaven to help him he raped her in her sleep. Since the Goddess of Fertility is Inanna, that all other gods fear, he paid dearly.

Theater

• Cyrano de Bergerac: Cyrano lampshades, invokes and tragically averts this trope as the supreme aspiration in his work: After being bullied all his life, Cyrano distrust everyone who claims to help him, and coldly reject any intent of friendship or any help from a powerful person (De Guiche and Cardenal Richelieu at Act II Scene VI). He does not suspect that Christian will help him in his love life and that averting this trope will be his downfall. Lampshaded in Act II Scene VIII.
  Cyrano: ...
  ... And then, if glory come by chance your way,
  To pay no tribute unto Caesar, none,
  But keep the merit all your own! ...
• From Wicked, the Cowardly Lion's reason for joining the witch-hunting mob:
  Tin Man: And the lion also has a grievance to repay, if she'd let him fight his own battles when he was young he wouldn't be a coward today!

Web Animation

• Epithet Erased:
  • Mera thanks Molly for saving her from Giovanni's attack by taking her prisoner and attempting to steal her Epithet, and routinely berates and insults her loyal minion Indus. She does manage to grate out a "thank you" when Molly uses the powers Mera tried to steal to ease her pain at the end of the Museum arc, but she has to be pushed into it by Indus.
  • Neither Molly's juvenile, irresponsible father Martin nor her self-obsessed, bratty sister Lorelai appreciate the hard work she puts into making the household work after Calliope Blyndeff's death. Martin explicitly considers supervising her class on a field trip, badly, to be "punching his parent card" and thus a justification for leaving a twelve-year-old to man the shop until late for the third night running, and Lorelai deals with Molly busting her ass to keep the shop running, cook the food, do the chores, pay the taxes and all the other work she puts in by blowing off her own chores and whining that Molly doesn't play with her any more.
• Red vs. Blue:
  • Due to his hatred of Grif, Sarge will often disregard and criticize anything he may have done, even if Sarge would congratulate Simmons and Donut for doing the same thing. Most notably in Season One, when Grif somehow revives Sarge from a bullet wound to the head with CPR, after which Sarge thanks Simmons for saving him, but after being told it was Grif who saved him, Sarge's response is to criticize how he revived him.
  • It is revealed after Season Six, that after helping bring down Project Freelancer, Agent Washington was "rewarded" by being locked up with the rest of the Freelancer personnel and is only released, after coming across some valuable information.
• RWBY
  • An invoked example. James Ironwood's stubborn pride and paranoia make him believe he's sacrificing himself to protect people from Salem. Once his friends and allies eventually challenge these decisions and try pointing out he's double-crossing friends, sowing distrust between allies and hurting people rather than helping them, he doubles-down on his belief he's the one doing the right thing. He and Winter Schnee fight over it at the end of the eighth volume, where he reveals he believes everyone's ungrateful for his sacrifices to rescue them. Winter says he's forced everyone else to sacrifice instead of him, but he considers it proof of what he's saying.
  • Expecting Cinder Fall to show gratitude for anything is like expecting fire to be cold. Throughout Volumes 2 and 3, Emerald and Mercury follow her orders to the letter, with Mercury even risking serious injury, yet she never once thanks them, instead acting like it is to be expected from them. Cinder completely fails to obtain the Winter Maiden's power, but Neo successfully presents her with the stolen Relic of Knowledge. This immediately improves Cinder's mood, who contemptuously snatches the Relic from Neo and walks off with a smug smile and no hint of gratitude. Neo watches her go with an irritated expression on her face.

Web Comics

• While most of the Light Warriors in 8-Bit Theater are selfish monsters for whom earnest gratitude is a foreign concept, Thief, who combines elven smugness with unrepentant greed, has a particularly bad case. For reference, the following conversation takes place immediately after Dragoon kills a dragon that has come within inches of killing Thief already and is just about to finish the job:
  Thief: You killed Muffin? Seriously, I'm asking. My retinas may have detached from shaking.
  Dragoon: Oh, she's quite dead. Y'know, I'm not sure if "Muffin" was really her name!
  Thief: That's fascinating. Now shut up and get off my flying unfair taxation fortress.
  Dragoon: Do elves have a word for gratitude?
  Thief: God, I'd throw you off myself if only I could see.
• In Bad Machinery when Archie saves Linton from drowning he comments that it probably only saved him so it could kill him itself. Jack then claims to be phoning the dictionary to ask for a stronger version of the word "ungrateful".
• In Concerned Norman Frohman has been saving his twin brother Gordon from danger since they were young, generally by pushing him out of the way. Gordon, however, merely gets angry that Norman keeps shoving him, since he's too stupid to realize that he'd been in danger, and doesn't understand that he should be grateful.
• DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything:
  • The low-rank Dicers antagonize Dongtae for any reason, but the moment they are in danger and he has to be everyone's savior.
  • Eunju saves Soyoung from being stabbed in the neck by another Dicer. The only thing she does in turn is complain Eunju didn't do so faster.
• The entire elf race in Errant Story — their response to being saved from genocide? Threaten to hunt down the one that saved them if she didn't relinquish the power she "stole" to save them.
• Erstwhile:
  • The bride orders Maid Maleen to take her place at the ceremony under threat of death, and Maid Maleen returns as soon as the ceremony is done. The bride snaps at her.
  • The dwarf in Rose Red and Snow White — griping about his beard when they saved his life.
• Freefall: Mr Kornada raises this to an art form. It's telling that his first appearance has him abandon Florence to a hurricane despite her saving his life because he values his attendance at a meeting over her survival, and this is nowhere near the biggest display of entitlement the man produces.
  Mr Kornada: Mr Starfall, once a job is done, we have a standard policy for dealing with contractors. Please bend over. We give them a swift kick in the pants and then wonder why they don't want to work for us again. Have a nice day.
  Sam: (thinking) Despite being the most admirable human I've ever met, he didn't pay me, and for that I must have revenge.
• Girl Genius: When Martellus first shows up Tarvek saves him from being killed by the Dreen, in response Martellus snidely tells Tarvek that he's supposed to be dead and that Martellus is going to take Tarvek's place as the Storm King. Later that day he throws a poisoned dagger into Tarvek's chest.
• In Gunnerkrigg Court, neither of the two fairies shows Annie or Kat any gratitude or even courtesy for helping them reconcile.
• Homestuck:
  • The Author Avatar saves Spades Slick from fatal wounds and the death of his universe, and nurses him back to health. How is said Author Avatar thanked? Multiple stab wounds and stubborn refusal to drink his fresh Butler-milk.
  • Vriska thinks all of her friends are like this. The reality is, her method of "helping" people would leave anyone a bit bitter.
• In Impure Blood, people with Ancient blood can expect this treatment, as did their ancestors:
  • Apparently the appropriate response to his help in saving a city is to try to arrest Roan for being a half-blood. Of course, someone would actually have to arrest him...
  • Dara rescues a family from Auhle's Golem soldiers. The family repays her by knocking her out from behind and delivering her to the prison. When she's released, she's bitter enough to try joining Auhle rather than endure it anymore.
• MeatShield: Prince Jonus of Westhame. After they saved his sorry life and soul from a demoness and a bunch of evil cultists, he has the gall to try and get the heroes arrested for "laying a hand on his person". Jaine's response sums it up best.
• Slightly Damned:
  • Demons are widely despised in Medius; ergo, several people Buwaro selflessly helps out will usually respond with violence. Such as when he offered to help an old lady with her groceries, only for her to whack him in the face with her purse. She apologizes, though, because she apparently thought he was wearing a costume.
  • Rhea, Buwaro, and Jake help out civilians during the demonic invasion of St. Curtis. When Buwaro tries to help out a Jakkai, this particular Jakkai's response is to punch him in the face.
  • Kieri's brother Kazai is one of the more extreme examples. Demons from Hell's army take him and Kieri as hostages, taking them to Mt. Sentinel via wagon, where they will be sacrificed in order to bring more demons into Medius. After Buwaro risks life and limb to save the two angel siblings from the demons' clutches, finally managing to succeed after a grueling battle against several demons that left both him and Rhea heavily battered and fatigued, Kazai physically assaults him the next time they confront each other, and refuses to be any nicer to him, much less even THANK him, despite the fact that Kazai and his sister would be DEAD if not for him. The fact that Buwaro took Kieri as a "prisoner" in the first place (though only as a ploy) probably had something to do with it, but by that point, even a complete idiot (like Azurai) could tell he was a Fake Defector.
  • Also, in St. Curtis' cathedral, a caretaker angel sees Buwaro, clearly looking terrified, and runs from him, dragging her blind angel friend along with her, yelling at her to run. This is despite the fact that Buwaro had also saved her and her young son from certain death - i.e. they were literally on the same wagon as the Suizahn twins were.
• In Spinnerette Adrastrea had her ability to walk restored by Dr. Singh after she sustained severe neurological damage in Afghanistan. Several years later, she contracts ALS, and somehow blames him for it. She promptly becomes a supervillain and tries to kill him and the nurses at his clinic and destroy his potential cure to ALS.
• TwoKinds:
  • Maren is completely ungrateful to Raine for helping save her life from an assassin's poison after it's revealed that Raine is actually half-Keidran, making her come off as even more racist than Red, who's otherwise slowly coming around to a more sympathetic angle. The best she bothers to do when Red speaks in Raine's defense concerning all Raine did for them is a dismissive "Eh, fine. Whatever."
  • Eric refuses to let his slaves go even though they risked their own lives and sacrificed their chance at freedom to wait for him to return to the ship. And these slaves weren't even under a control spell at the time. Then again, considering who makes the decision to wait, and that nobody wanted Eric to let them go in the first place, only to let them be bought their freedom, it's not all that clear cut. Eric even specifically made sure Kat and the slaves were ready to escape on their own if he and the others failed. Besides, even one half of the slaves aren't sure about how good an idea it is to be that free in the first place, and if both mind-controlled slaves were set free, that would leave the ship to be crewed by just Kat and Eric, making travel almost impossible. Eric's got a lot more reasons not to set them free besides being a jerk, even if that turns out to be his main reason. Later strips reveal that the notion of freeing a slave out of gratitude is simply outside of Eric's frame of reference and also carries serious, potentially even fatal, consequences. Eric eventually comes around after he's had some time to think about it and Trace figures out how to provide him with Plausible Deniability.
• A strip of Val and Isaac involves a time when Doris managed to save a man from choking to death. He gave her a 3.4/5, to "encourage her to do better; she'll thank me later." She didn't.
• Bryce Oh in Weak Hero. Despite Stephen treating Bryce with nothing but kindness and respect, Bryce's raging inferiority complex causes him to turn against Stephen and revel in him getting beaten up by bullies.

Web Original

• Critical Role: After the Mighty Nein save the city of Rexxentrum from a full Kryn invasion and the unleashing of the ancient god of oblivion, they are first accused of treason by King Dwendal himself, and after clearing their names, their reward... is free hotel rooms. The Nein commiserate that they'll at least be able to eat fancy food on the Empire's dime, only to find out that only their rooms are paid for, not their meals.
• Kitboga is a scambaiter popular on YouTube and Twitch. One of the ways in which "refund" scammers attempt to get money from victims is to connect to their computer, pretend to accidentally refund too much money into the victim's bank account (without actually sending any money at all) and then tell the victim they have to go out and purchase Google Play gift cards to reimburse them or else they'll lose their job. Kitboga's typical response to this is to pretend to go out and get the cards and then have the scammer connect to his virtual machine and watch him redeem them on Google Play (just as fake as the money they sent, but they don't know this.) When they rage and scream in response to this, he treats them as this, saying that they ought to be thanking him, that he did this to save their job.
• In Noob, Bartémulius and Nostariat, the recurring Insufferable Genius Quest Giver pair. In addition to insulting the protagonists all while expecting their help, they never thank them once the help is given. The comic version of the story at least shows their monetary rewards to be quite decent.
• Played for Laughs in The Nostalgia Critic's Moulin Rouge! review. brentalfloss came to help with the review, and, at the end, The Nostalgia Chick dictates that "[they] need a sad ending, just for the sake of a sad ending" since it's a Moulin Rogue review. The Critic shrugs, pulls out a gun and shoots Brent. Not long after, Brent shoots the Critic from Heaven and grumbles "Ungrateful jackass..."
• Taco-Man Plays Zelda II has Princess Zelda's ghost visit Taco-Man while he plays, and constantly express impatience with how long it takes him to wake her. After his victory in beating the game restores Zelda's ghost to her body, she doesn't thank him for his help, and sounds sarcastic when singing praises of "a banana beat[ing] a shitty game from the '80s". Before Taco-Man leaves, he tells Zelda, "You're just rude and ungrateful!"

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