History Main / CuriosityIsACrapshoot

All in all, by its very nature, CuriosityIsACrapshoot and the only possible way to have a clue about whether it's rewarded or punished is to be GenreSavvy. In a SurvivalHorror Film, it's bad to ignore the HauntedHouseHistorian and go into the HauntedHouse... although deciding that ItsProbablyNothing is just as bad. In a [[SpeculativeFiction Sci Fi flick]], usually good (science is about trying to learn things you didn't know) but sometimes over-the-top NightmareFuel (because ScienceIsBad). Fantasy and folk tales, you'll almost certainly do the wrong thing anyway, what with {{Family Unfriendly Aesop}}s, but usually get a chance to undo it through a series of {{Impossible Task}}s (climb mountains until you wear out thirty pairs of shoes...).

* ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': Definitely bad in the episode "Sneaky Peepers". When Miss Brooks accidentally orders a copy of Rodin's "The Kiss" instead of "The Thinker" for Madison High School. Mr. Conklin orders the offending statue covered up until it can be returned. After falsely accusing Walter Denton of looking at the statue, Denton decides to setup a trap door to catch the actual culprit. Lo and behold, Walter Denton, Miss Brooks, Mr. Boynton, Mr. Conlin and Head of the School Board Mr. Stone end up falling through the door and locked in a storage room in the basement.

* ''To Serve Man'', wherein the cast all blithely head off to their unwitting deaths and are saved by one guy who is curious enough to figure out just what ToServeMan means.[[note]]Not so in ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'' version.[[/note]]

* ''To Serve Man'', wherein the cast all blithely head off to their unwitting deaths and are saved by one guy who is curious enough to figure out just what ToServeMan means.
** Not in Series/TheTwilightZone version.

* Vanilla Coke's product launch had a [[TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily vaguely mobster-looking fellow]] (played by Chazz Palminteri) [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmOiABTTjw4 congratulating a young man on his "youthful curiosity" and giving him a Vanilla Coke.]]

* In ''TimeBandits'', Kevin's curiosity enables him to recognize the things that the dwarfs just want to loot. The only good adult in the film, Agammenon, [[ParentalSubstitute encourages]] his desire to learn.

* Psyche disobeyed her husband Cupid, who warned her not to try to [[ForbiddenFruit find out who he was]] by lighting a lamp while he was asleep to look at him. Punished for this with a quest and several tasks to complete for [[MyBelovedSmother his mother Aphrodite]], she didn't exactly learn better, as her last task was to bring back the beauty of the Queen of the Underworld in a box. Peeking put her to sleep. Fortunately, Cupid had gotten fed up with the situation, [[DeusExMachina showed up]], got her awake again, and [[HappilyEverAfter brought her to Olympus where she was made a goddess]].

* In Creator/PatriciaAMcKillip's ''The Book of Atrix Wolfe'', Saro and her father watched Atrix Wolfe's spell because of her curiosity -- and got caught.

* As mentioned above, Rudyard Kipling's "The Elephant's Child" (from his ''Literature/JustSoStories'' and [[ConstantlyCurious it's own trope]]). He was spanked repeatedly by his relatives for his "'satiable curiosity", and nearly killed when a crocodile sank his teeth into his nose. As the Elephant's Child pulled against the crocodile, he stretched his nose out. He then used his new nose to spank his relatives back, until they decided to get their noses stretched as well, which is why elephants have trunks.

* In ''WebAnimation/IfTheEmperorHadATextToSpeechDevice'', the Emperor is convinced of this, claiming that Magnus' fall from grace and subsequent destruction of his homeworld were the result of him being too curious for his own good. Magnus [[CallingTheOldManOut fires back that maybe that wouldn't have happened if the Emperor had bothered to explain]] ''[[DugTooDeep why]]'' such curiosity would be dangerous when dealing with [[EldritchLocation the Warp]].

* In the final episode of season 1 of ''Anime/GhostInTheShell:StandAloneComplex'' the Major argues that simple curiosity is the factor that keeps the individuality of people from becoming consumed by increasing synchronization of cyberbrains. [[spoiler: This is particularly relevant coming from her at that moment, since she just spent some time cruising around the cyberbrain web as a bodiless soul to avoid an assassination attempt. There was a very real chance that her individuality could've been overwhelmed by other minds without a body to anchor her.]] Of course, this being Ghost in the Shell, the topic is complicated. Certainly, more than a few people get killed by accidentally discovering conspiracies after investigating a few strange irregularities.

* In the final episode of season 1 of ''Anime/GhostInTheShell'' the Major lists curiosity [[spoiler: as one of the reasons why she was able to maintain her individuality as an individual ghost despite being subjected the thoughts and feelings to an internet's worth of souls when her body was killed.]] Of course, this being Ghost in the Shell, the topic is complicated. Certainly, more than a few people get killed by accidentally discovering conspiracies after investigating a few strange irregularities.

** Technically, we never find out what the consequences would be for ''not'' ringing the bell in ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew''. The verse does imply that NothingIsScarier...

** Technically, we never find out what the consequences would be for ''not'' ringing the bell in ''TheMagiciansNephew''. The verse does imply that NothingIsScarier...

* In Creator/CSLewis[='=]s ''[[{{Narnia}} The Silver Chair]]'', the character giving advice was himself only a small percentage of the time, and seemed insane when he's actually giving the right advice. But at least there they had the literal WordOfGod to guide them onto the correct course.

* Delivered {{Anvilicious}}ly in ''MethodsOfRationality'': "That is the story of how Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres was almost killed by his own lack of curiosity."

* Considered for several paragraphs in one of TimothyZahn's [[TheThrawnTrilogy Thrawn]] novels where Luke, having returned to Dagobah and recalling Yoda's advice on how some emotions inherently serve the Dark Side, ponders which side curiosity is aligned with before deciding it's probably a bit of both.

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's Literature/ConanTheBarbarian stories:

[[AC:General]]
* Just about every entry over at SchmuckBait would probably qualify.
* There's also the old story about how "curiosity killed the cat."

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's ConanTheBarbarian stories:

* ''TheMagiciansNephew'' provides us with the page quote.