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Main Karma Houdini Discussion
The paragraph about most Karma Houdini's being Magnificent Bastards bothers me a lot. A bit about the audience sometimes wanting the villain to get away with it all is fine, but usually this is not the case.
Added "because it's funny" to the list of reasons. One of the big ones that comes to mind is Garland Green's fate in Con Air, the scene of him getting away with his crimes was only kept in the final movie because test audiences laughed their asses off at it.
I have a question to ask: What if the villain "does" get a punishment, but the punishment is so weak compared to the villain's actions that in the end they still get away scot-free, but only with a few consequences.
Does that qualify as a Karma Houdini? Or does the Karma Houdini have to receive no punishment whatsoever?
"Some authors simply grow enamored of particular characters, and don't want to see them punished or killed (even if the character did just happen to cook the heroine's button-cute little brother in a stew and serve it to her with a side of foie gras)."
lol, Nightmare Fuel much?
Isn't this pretty subjective? After all, what's an "appropriate" or "proportional" punishment depends very much on who you ask, unless you're in a court of law.
the description of the Karma Houdini trope is basically "Laser Guided Karma misses". The description for laser guided karma is that it is an unrealistic and anvilicious space whale aesop.
There are 3 issues with it:
1. If it is merely a subversion of another trope, why does it merit its own name?
2. Since it subverts the unrealistic space whale aesop by having a realistic "nothing happens" why is it even mentioned? might as well make a trope called "gravity". And naturally, because it is something so mundane there are a ridiculous amount of examples, enough that each medium gets their own page.
3. A good number of the examples actually are not subversions of laser guided karma, but an actual opposite; the opposite is where villains don't just get away with doing bad things, but they get away with doing things that there is absolutely no logical explanation how they could have gotten away with it...
I think the best approach is to amend the definition to fit #3, where its not that villain gets away, but that they get away with no punishment where there is no logical explanation on how they could escape retribution.
When did this trope shift from being about a horribly villain who totally escapes, unpunished for their crimes - which is a nice, neat and entirely straightforward trope - to being about complaining about a character did something a bit mean and it was never addressed? One example involves a woman splashing water on a man's face, as far as I can tell. Seriously?
I think a picture of DW a from Arthur would be better for this trope as most of the Wall Banger examples for this show involve her so she would be the perfect poster child for it.
Should this be YMMV? I saw an example on a page that is debatable.
Further, can a protagonist be a Karma Houdini if they're on the darker rungs of the Sliding Scale Of Antiheroes?
Their is a small problem with the picture. The episode is from season 5, and he doesn't get shot until season 6.
Are Vegeta and Buu from DBZ karma houdinis? Before the story both were responsible for destroying who knows how many planets of populated beings without a shred of remorse. In the series itself Vegeta slew a bunch of Nameks and bragged out it later. He abandoned his son for the early part his life willingly. Against Cell he allowed Cell to achieve his perfect form and he allowed himself to be controlled by an evil magician to have the power to satisfy his pride. Yet, after the Frieza saga no one ever really calls him out on any of his crap or about how he had killed who knows how many without a shred of remorse. Does his heel face turn somehow protect him or does his past and getting the crap beat out of him numerous times count as Karma?
Pretty much the same with Buu. Does the fact Evil Buu is insane to begin wtih and later killed and Fat Buu is pretty much naively innocent make Buu not a karma houdini?
I believe Karma Houdini should be renamed to show that only villains fit this trope. I recently included Arthur's D.W. on this list not knowing this only applied to villains. The name Karma Houdini just doesn't say that.
On the Live Action TV page, Sam Puckett keeps getting deleted due to not being a villain. I'm sure there are other characters aside from her who are displayed as heroic but haven't been erased ;\
Does it count as a Karma Houdini if a character is not shown being punished, but it is assumed that they will be?
I was wondering this after seeing this trope mentioned in the Headscratchers page for The Iron Giant.
To be specific, in that film, Mansley orders a nuclear missile to be launched into the middle of a crowded town, right in front of the general. I'd assume he was arrested after that, but it isn't explicitly shown.