Discussion HoistByHisOwnPetard / RealLIfe

I agree that this page is kind of a mess for many different reasons, and there really needs to be an admin clean up. However, which serial killer are you referencing that was citied in this page? If you're referring to Gacy (which I admittedly added), I think he counts as an example, as if he wouldn't have abducted his last victim in such a clumsy and flagrant manner, he wouldn't have attracted the police investigation that ended up doing him in. For most of his killing spree, he was targeting victims that were either troubled teenagers in low income families that were easily explainable as runaways or transients living on the edges of society. Which made him virtually undetectable to law enforcement.

With his last victim however, was from a fairly well off family with a considerable amount of clout, and was taken in the presence of his mother and several people that were very familiar with Gacy. If he simply left that last victim alone, Gacy might have been able to continue murdering for who knows how long. Thus his downfall was entirely on his own hands.

But to me "hoist by his own petard" doesn't just mean "got careless" or "overreached." As the main page correctly characterises it, it typically involves the villain's own method or invention or weapon somehow rebounding against them, often in an ironic way. Say Gacy's whole MO had been deviously based around well-off families, and that had (somehow) protected him, but on this one occasion, the well-off victim was exactly what led to his capture, that would be "hoist by his own petard." But that doesn't apply here. "If he simply [hadn't taken some ill-judged risk], he might have been able to continue [committing crimes] for who knows how long" is true of pretty much every career criminal who's ever been caught, but they don't all belong on this page, because that doesn't rise to the level of "hoist by their own petard."

Sorry for the months late reply, but I just thought that "hoist by his own petard" simply meant downfalls inflicted by ones' own actions. Are you familiar with the case of Emmett Clifton Nave of Missouri by any chance? If not, he was a sex offender and career criminal that abducted 6 nurses from a hospital after he murdered his landlady. Nave forced his hostages to inject drugs into him, and he overdosed and went unconscious as a result. Obviously, this made it very easy for the responding officers to arrest him, and he was sentenced to death and executed for his crime spree.

Does Nave's case count as TV Trope's definition of "hoist by his own petard"? As it was his desire to steal hospital prescriptions and his subsequent overdosing from forcing his captives into administering them into him that lead to his capture.

The problem is that the Hoist by His Own Petard is centered around the theme of an individual's actions being responsible for their own downfalls. With recent events, they are either ongoing or easily reignited, and can often flip from any unforeseeable circumstances. Thus, it is almost impossible to predict what the long term effects and consequences of their actions have on themselves or the events at hand.

It would probably be best to wait until the example is more buried in the past and when the aftershocks are more solidified and visible for it to be citied here. If there isn't a "No Recent Examples" rule on this page, then that is almost certainly admin oversight, and should probably be emplaced soon.

Besides, a significant number of the examples I deleted were users blatantly inserting their own opinions on ongoing political controversies into this page, and were just prime flame bait material.

So in your opinion how long should we wait until an example can be added?

In my personal opinion, probably 10 years after the approximate resolution at the bare minimum, though maybe 5 could work depending on the circumstances of the situation.

Yeah, that sounds fair. But if something clearly backfires on somebody right away (like the Ocean Gate submarine) maybe that can have a shorter wait time than 5 years. I think the mods should be brought into this conversation.

Even still, there is always the chance that using recent examples on this page will run into what I'm going to call the "Justin Roiland trap." I remember when the news of Roiland facing charges of domestic abuse and false imprisonment against an unidentified ex girlfriend was made public, there was several internet denizens predicting that he would face a pretty hefty prison sentence. It didn't help that there was a lot of grown women and young girls alike that came out of the shed claiming that he sexually harassed or groomed them.

However, against all of those outsider expectations, the courts completely dismissed the charges on the grounds of "lack of sufficient evidence." Like with the Roiland case, there are just so many unknowns behind the scenes or unexpected turns that could completely change events beyond what was previously forecasted. There just needs to be a balance against editors getting too carried away with their expectations here.

I still see your point with incidents like Stockten Rush and his Oceangate sub where the writing is very quickly on the wall. I would also love to hear any input of the mods, and it should entirely up to them to make such calls. I'm overstepping with my backseat modding of this page.

There is a ban on using current political figures.