History Main / GoldFever

* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'': One comic has a man own a house where he lured {{Disposable Vagrant}}s into a certain room where they disappeared, after which a few gold coins fell down the stairs. He admits to having done this several times, but asks Hellboy to end it. It turns out to be a trap, as the owner figured a few coins for the dregs of society meant a lot more for the Beast of the Apocalypse. He's right: a rfirgerator-sized block of gold coins crashes down the stairs, crushing him to death.

* ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}': The "red gold" of Angarak, which induces Gold Fever in those who possess it. The explanation given is that the red gold magically "calls to its own", causing the gold to be drawn together, which causes the holder to want to gather more and more in one place. The bonus here is that you can avoid the effects if you have the integrity or wisdom to refuse Angarak gifts. In later books, {{prospector}}s are encountered who have a more traditional gold fever, but this has little impact on the plot.

* ''Literature/Green2011': Having gold fever is part of being a {{leprechaun}}. Even leplings -- humans with only a drop of leprechaun blood -- have it.

b* ''Film/CryBloodApache'': After discovering a small cache of nuggets in an Apache camp, the white men murder the tribe and abduct the sole surviving member and force her to guide them to where the gold came from.

%%Zero-context examples are not allowed on wiki pages: all such examples have been commented out. An example without at least a bit of context isn't very helpful -- examples should explain *how* they are examples. Please add context before uncommenting them. Thank you!

* In ''Anime/{{Gankutsuou}}'', The Count's revenge plot against Danglars revolves around the latter's Gold Fever. After tricking Danglars into losing all of his wealth in the stock market, the Count lures him onto a spaceship with an interior constructed mostly of gold bars, which he then sends hurtling into the depths of space where Danglars will die a very rich man.
* Creator/JiroTaniguchi's ''Manga/TheIceWanderer'' tells the story of young Creator/JackLondon and his friend being saved by the titular wanderer while looking for gold in Alaska during winter. Jack wants to come back after that but the rest of their team had found gold meanwhile -- at the end he's the only one who comes back. [[spoiler: Those who stayed die.]]
* ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' has the bathhouse employees going crazy trying to pick up gold from No Face. [[spoiler:It turns out to be just enchanted rocks.]]

* ''Anime/LupinIIITravelsOfMarcoPoloAnotherPage'': Gold is mentioned as part of the Another Page treasure. Fujiko is naturally very interested, as are Lupin and Jigen.
* In ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold'', pretty much every Spaniard character save Esteban is at the very least inordinately interested in finding gold.

* Played seriously in ''Jinx'' by Creator/BrianBendis, where the eponymous protagonist carries a deep resentment of herself for once having gone crazy with gold fever, grabbing for flying dollar bills while people laid dead and dying around her.

* A ''Franchise/MickeyMouse'' comic had Mickey camping with his nephews Morty and Ferdy. The boys accidentally start a rumour of a gold strike which infects all of the other campers with gold fever. Their mad hunt for the gold causes a landslide that traps everyone in the camping ground.
* One ''{{ComicBook/Hellboy}}'' has a man own a house where he lured {{Disposable Vagrant}}s into a certain room where they disappeared, after which a few gold coins fell down the stairs. He admits to having done this several times, but asks Hellboy to end it. It turns out to be a trap, as the owner figured a few coins for the dregs of society meant a lot more for the Beast of the Apocalypse. He's right: a rfirgerator-sized block of gold coins crashes down the stairs, crushing him to death.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Tomahawk}}'' #135, Hawk and his friend Jess go in search of gold, following a TreasureMap that unknowingly leads them into an IndianBurialGround. When Hawk discovers this, he wants to leave, but Jess becomes obsessed with the acquiring all the gold, and attempts to drive out Hawk and the party of Indians seeking to bury one of their dead. Ultimately this results in Jess suffering a DeathByMaterialism.
* ''ComicBook/DeCapeEtDeCrocs'': Cenile's main reason for going to the moon is hearing that gold grows on trees there. This is in fact the case (the Moon is a weird place), and he ends up staying in open ground during a goldstorm, turned into a gold statue.
* In ''ComicBook/TheFurtherAdventuresOfIndianaJones'' #25, bandit Ivar Reiss is overcome with gold fever on entering what he believes to be the CityOfGold of El Dorado, and declares that he won't share a cent of it with anyone. This does not go over well with his men.

* There have been multiple attempts to plunder the beach of Keela-Wee in ''ComicStrip/ThePhantom'', whose sand is actually half gold. These attempts have led to the culprits betraying each other (or thinking of doing so) to increase their own shares, and the Phantom stopping them. There's even a jungle saying for this trope: "He who comes to Keela-Wee without love is buried there" (referencing the fact that the beach is normally used for weddings).

* In ''Fanfic/AgesOfShadow'', [[FallenHero Jade]] develops a love for gold after adopting her [[GodGuise persona]] as Yade Khan:

* Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'':
** The eponymous Aladdin is clearly warned to take "nothing but the lamp" from the cave full of treasure. His pet monkey, however, clearly falls for the Gold Fever as he drools over a large gemstone and grabs it, triggering the cavern collapse. [[spoiler:This has the unexpected result of saving Aladdin's life as Jafar was waiting for Aladdin to exit so he could murder him and steal the lamp for himself.]]

* The plot of ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' is kickstarted by Governor Ratcliffe's Gold Fever, as it's his desire to outdo "the gold of Cortez, the jewels of Pizarro" that gets him to lead the journey to America, and over time he becomes more and more paranoid that the local Powhatan tribe are secretly hoarding the gold. He even has a VillainSong about gold, appropriately titled, [[FunWithHomophones "Mine, Mine, Mine."]]

* ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'', which has two men joining forces with an old prospector in the 1920s to search for gold. One of them goes bad and tries to kill the others, but is killed himself by Mexican bandits who [[WorthlessYellowRocks mistake the gold for worthless sand and scatter it to the wind]].
* Played with in ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' in the Joker's first coup.
%%* The silent masterpiece, ''Film/{{Greed}}'', which is based on the Frank Norris novel ''[=McTeague=]''.
* ''Film/TheGoodTheBadAndTheUgly'' has Gold Fever as a driving force for the plot, and one of the most famous songs from the score is called "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVUZiLFPJhc The Ecstasy of Gold]]". In the scene the song plays over, Tuco, having realized that he's in the graveyard where the gold is hidden, runs blindly amongst the graves in a state akin to a religious trance, such is his desire for gold.
* The 1942 film ''Film/JungleBook'' is a flashback told by the lone survivor of a Gold Fever Massacre.
* The John Woo movie ''Film/BulletInTheHead'' features three would-be gangsters with a [[BloodBrothers bond of brotherhood]] who try to strike it rich in late '60s-era Vietnam while [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar The War]] is in full swing. Things go right straight to hell, and Gold Fever, in addition to the hellish experience of the war, is enough to break this bond, which in John Woo's other movies was all but unbreakable.
* ''Film/TarzanAndTheValleyOfGold'' sends the villain to his willing end by having him smothered by a roomful of gold dust, triggered when he greedily yanks a golden skull out of the wall.
* ''Film/MackennasGold'', a western about a motley crew of people plotting and backstabbing away in a mysterious valley where you just have to fall in the creek to come up covered in gold dust.
%%* Creator/CharlieChaplin in ''Film/TheGoldRush.''
* The movie version of ''Film/PaintYourWagon'' even has a song named "Gold Fever." Although the jealous paranoia was more about a woman than about the gold... at first, anyway. (Gold Fever was not an element of the stage version, which had a mostly different plot.)
** There's also the song "Best Things" which may as well be the theme song of this trope, especially the line: "A man has his creed, and mine is all greed."

* At the end of ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', [[TheMole Elsa Schneider]] is overcome by greed and falls to her death attempting to take the Holy Grail from its temple home. Indy himself nearly does the same thing before his father snaps him out of it.
* ''Film/WetGold'', featuring a sunken treasure hunt.
* In ''Film/ShallowGrave'', a suitcase full of cash turns three roommates into cold blooded murderers.
* Creator/SamRaimi's ''Film/ASimplePlan'', in which two brothers find a downed airplane with a dead pilot and 4.4 million dollars. They attempt to keep the feds from finding the money, but mistrust rears its head and...well, let's just say "DownerEnding" and leave it at that.
* Drives the plot in TheWestern ''Film/AManCalledSledge'' in which a gang of outlaws fall out over the fortune in gold they have stolen.
* ''Film/CowboysAndAliens'': Apparently aliens can get Gold Fever too.
* Ditto ''Film/BattlefieldEarth''. The OpeningScroll specifically states that the aliens are here for gold, [[ArtisticLicenseGeology the rarest and most valuable of all metals.]]

* This is the main plot of the wuxia flick, ''Film/DuelForGold''; a band of thieves, rogues and marauders decide to put their differences aside to steal twenty crates of golden ingots from the Imperial bureau, only to be consumed by their greed and backstab each other along the way. This is even more evident between two of the thieves, which are sisters - family means ''nothing'' when all that gold is involved.
* In ''Film/GhostShip'', the gold bars are used by the villain to drive ship crews to murder people out of greed, thereby damning themselves to Hell.
* In ''Film/ItsAMadMadMadMadWorld'', a buried suitcase full of stolen money serves as a similar catalyst.
* Onodera in ''Film/GameraVsBarugon'' proves so extreme a case that anyone delaying him taking valuable gems for more than two seconds is considered fair game for a thrashing. It eventually gets him eaten by a giant lizard.
* In ''Film/DeadBirds'', both Clyde and William are obsessed with the stolen gold. Clyde is willing to kill the rest of the gang to take it. William refuses to leave the obviously haunted house until he recovers the gold.
* As indicated by the title, this is a major theme of the film ''Film/LustForGold''. Everybody who learns of the mine is possessed by a near uncontrollable desire to possess its contents.
* ''Film/CryBloodApache'': After discovering a small cache of nuggets in an Apache camp, the white men murder the tribe and abduct the sole surviving member and force her to guide them to where the gold came from.

* In the ''Literature/LoneWolf'' "New Order Kai" book ''The Fall of Blood Mountain'', the greedy crown prince of the dwarven kingdom of Bor developed a case of this and heavily mined the veins of korlinium, a very valuable mineral with mystical properties, in the mountain. Unfortunately, said korlinium was the seal on an ancient demon's prison.
* The fifth book of ''Literature/StarChallenge'', "Galactic Raiders", features a Gold Fever [[RecycledINSPACE In SPACE!]] but replacing gold ([[WorthlessYellowRocks used for children's toys]]) with "novium", that has attributed magical properties. In one particularly nasty ending of that book, things in the galaxy spiral so out of control that a massive bar brawl among the "Nebula" crewmen (the good guys in theory) just because of some overcooked food ends with everyone there dead (including, of course, ''[[HaveANiceDeath you]]'').

* ''[[Literature/WheresWally Where's Wally Now?]]'' featured a spread set during the gold rush. The entire picture is hundreds of prospectors converging on a single point: some unfortunate schmuck holding a microscopic gold nugget.
* Creator/RudyardKipling: "The King's Ankus" from ''Literature/TheSecondJungleBook''. A succession of thieves find a jeweled object that Mowgli had found and discarded. Later he follows the trail of their dead bodies.
* Creator/JRRTolkien's legendarium:
** In ''Literature/TheHobbit'', the armies of Elves, Dwarves and Men would normally be able to get along, but can't when a [[DragonHoard dragon's hoard]] is up for grabs. It is implied that the depth of the gold fever is the result of a curse laid on the trove by Smaug (apparently a common thing for dragons to do).
** The dwarves of Moria, as Gandalf implied, "dug too greedily, [[DugTooDeep and too deep]]." Justified in that ''this'' treasure was {{Mithril}}, with military applications needed during the orc assaults, and they had no way of knowing they could dig up a [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Balrog]].
** This was the effect that the Seven Rings had on the dwarves. While the Nine Rings corrupted humans and reduced them into wraiths, the dwarves were too hardy and bound to earth to be affected that way, but the Rings made them paranoid and greedy, even as they helped them to accumulate wealth.
** The Silmarils of ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'' have this effect on people, along with the Nauglamir/Necklace of the Dwarves. When Thingol fuses the two together, [[ElvesVsDwarves well...]]
** As per common mythological depiction, dragons are obsessed with gold. Of the four named dragons in the legendarium, three are explicitly mentioned to possess massive hoards, and two spent many, many years having the time of their lives simply sleeping on it.
* One of the islands visited in ''Literature/TheVoyageOfTheDawnTreader'' features a spring which turns anything dipped in it to gold, which sparks a brief rush of Gold Fever. A vision of Aslan brings the characters to their senses before anything untoward can happen, but it's enough to prompt Reepicheep to suggest naming the island "Deathwater Island" as a warning.
** Earlier, Eustace is transformed into a dragon by sleeping on a dragon's hoard of gold and thinking greedy thoughts.
* In the ''Literature/{{Belgariad}}'', the "red gold" of Angarak, which induces Gold Fever in those who possess it. The explanation given is that the red gold magically "calls to its own", causing the gold to be drawn together, which causes the holder to want to gather more and more in one place. The bonus here is that you can avoid the effects if you have the integrity or wisdom to refuse Angarak gifts. In later books, {{prospector}}s are encountered who have a more traditional gold fever, but this has little impact on the plot.
* In Creator/FredSaberhagen's ''[[Literature/BookOfSwords Second Book of Swords]]'', the final defense of the Blue Temple's treasure hoard is the greed of the thieves, as any group of thieves who managed to penetrate all the way to the Hoard itself would presumably be overcome with greed and fall to fighting among themselves over the loot, even though there was far more there than any such thieves could hope to carry away. Is somewhat averted here, since Mark and Ben, the actual heroes of the story only end up fighting their less heroic accomplices, and remain loyal to each other. Also, the treasures they are fighting for, the eponymous magical swords, effectively cannot be shared, and can be carried away.
%%* "The Pardoner's Tale" from Chaucer's ''Literature/TheCanterburyTales''.
* ''Literature/TheSack'' ends with the titular superintelligent alien kidnapped by pirates, and the good guys think about how they could stop them from using it to rule the world. Turns out no one has to do anything - the trope worked perfectly.
* Averted in "Self-Limiting", a short story by Creator/RobertLForward. No member of the society described is obsessed with accumulating wealth, which is made not of gold but of a refined version of another rare, heavy, soft metal[[spoiler: Uranium 235]]. Anyone who is too greedy accumulates a large pile of coins under their dwelling. [[spoiler: They are then removed from the gene pool in a spectacular fashion.]]
%%* Features in ''Literature/TheEmigrants''.
* ''Literature/KnownSpace'': The short story "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is a RecycledInSpace version of ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'', set during the Literature/ManKzinWars -- except the prospectors find a little more than gold under the mountain.

** The chief cashier in ''Literature/MakingMoney'' develops a glassy stare and unnerving facial tics whenever he gets on the subject of gold, and finds the idea of banking without a gold standard tantamount to heresy. Gold is SeriousBusiness where he's concerned. The odd thing is, it's not even ''his'' gold he's obsessing over. He's just elevated his belief in the prevailing economic system to something akin to a religious conviction. He also suffers from a rather bad case of perfectionism to the point of SuperOCD, and when he finds out he's made a minor error in his figures he [[FreakOut "[has] a nasty turn"]] and locks himself in the vault... [[spoiler:which doesn't actually contain any gold, because the previous owners of the bank had quietly sold it off without telling anyone and pocketed the cash and ''nobody noticed'', proving Moist's point about the value of gold being powered by "ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve".]] [[FromBadToWorse He did not]] [[HeroicBSOD take it well]].

* Ian Fleming's short story ''Octopussy'' involves a former officer who, at the end of WWII, had smuggled a cache of NaziGold from where he was stationed, after murdering the mountaineering guide who got him to the hiding place.
* The awful fascination that Chancery exerts on parties to its cases in ''Literature/BleakHouse'' is akin to gold fever. Shown most clearly in the fate of young Richard, who begins to neglect everything else in his life to pursue his case, becomes paranoid and underhanded, and finally dies worn out.
* In Creator/JohnMilton's ''Literature/ParadiseLost'', Mammon was obsessed with gold from the word go.
-->''MAMMON, the least erected Spirit that fell \\
From heav'n, for ev'n in heav'n his looks & thoughts\\
Were always downward bent, admiring more\\
The riches of Heav'ns pavement, trod'n Gold,\\
Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd\\
In vision beatific:''
* In ''Literature/CaptainVorpatrilsAlliance'', the smuggler Vigo Imola, who's been hired to transport a bunkerful of hidden treasure dating back to the Cetagandan Occupation, decides instead to sell out his clients to their enemies. The consequences spiral out of control, and the government confiscates the treasure. It turns out to be worth ''billions''. In the original deal, Imola was to have received fifteen percent. Instead he goes to prison, and his former clients get a nice fat finder's fee and the satisfaction of telling Imola to his face what a terrible choice he made.
* In Creator/JamesRandi's book ''Flim Flam!: Psychics, Unicorns and Other Delusions'', the author documents his trip to Cuzco, Peru, to investigate claims made in Erich von Däniken's ''Gold of the Gods''. Randi tells of meeting a Father Carlo Crespi, who is mentioned in von Däniken's work, and of handling a scrap of gold belonging to the Father:

* In Jack London's ''Literature/TheCallOfTheWild'', a relatively benign case of this dooms John Thornton and his friends (save for Buck). They discover a river full of gold dust. They stay too long mining the huge bounty of gold [[spoiler:and are slaughtered by a passing band of natives]].
* In ''[[Literature/Green2011 Green]]'', having gold fever is part of being a {{leprechaun}}. Even leplings -- humans with only a drop of leprechaun blood -- have it.

* The ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' tie-in novel, ''White Silence'', has Duncan, Fitz, and Fitz's student, Danny O'Donal taking part in the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada. Over the course of the story, Danny (who grew up in dire poverty in Ireland) succumbs to this more and more, reaching a point where he went insane and tried to kill Fitz. Duncan intervened and beheaded him.
* In ''Literature/RelicMaster'', it is CommonKnowledge that the alien Sekoi people lust after gold and will be willing to sell anything for sufficient quantities of it. What we see doesn't necessarily contradict this view - our Sekoi agrees to teach its secret forbidden language to a human when promised thirty gold pieces - but [[spoiler:ultimately the gold-lust is a subversion, as it is shown that they don't value the gold themselves, but rather assume humans are subject to this trope and will go away if paid off.]]
* George RR Martin's ''Literature/TufVoyaging'': This trope drives the plot of the first story in the series, ''The Plague Star''. A historian hires some mercenaries and a slightly down-on-his-luck SpaceTrucker to investigate a possible sighting of a huge and immensely valuable derelict starship of the fallen Galactic Empire, a "seedship" used for exploration and terraforming with genetic engineering technology unequalled anywhere else in the galaxy. Within about five minutes of discovering the ship is where the historian predicted it would be, pretty much everyone is scheming to get it all to themselves, barely even pausing to acknowledge the fact that they've set off the seedship's security systems, and the atmosphere is being pumped full of horrifying plagues while the most dangerous predatory animals the old Empire had ever encountered are loosed to stalk the corridors. [[OnlySaneMan The only person not swept up in this lunacy]] is the freighter pilot who provided transport to the ship in the first place, who has no ambition beyond doing the job he was hired to do and getting paid the agreed sum, or failing that at least getting off the seedship in one piece. [[spoiler:He ends up becoming the ship's new owner by default after the second-to-last survivor is ''eaten by a Tyrannosaurus Rex''.]]
* In ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'', this has gripped the armies of the Alethi, who have marched out to war with the Parshendi, a people who had assassinated their king. The Alethi learned that the Shattered Plains, where the Parshendi are hiding out in, were home to a huge number of massive beasts known as chasmfiends, who would form colossal cocoons there as part of their life cycles. The chasmfiends each have an organ known as a "gemheart" which is essentially a massive gemstone that serves as a storage battery for [[{{Mana}} Stormlight]] that lets them [[SquareCubeLaw grow to such massive sizes]]. Because the world's [[FictionalCurrency money system revolves around trading gemstones that can contain Stormlight]], this means that every chasmfiend is a gigantic treasure chest just waiting to be opened up. As a result, the Alethi stopped caring about just fighting the Parshendi and instead focused all of their efforts on harvesting these pupating chasmfiends whenever they appear, only fighting their enemy when they meet on the field while trying to harvest the same target.
* In ''Literature/TheLongEarth'' people can get to alternate Earths by a simple process called 'stepping;. Many immediately 'step' to alternate versions of Sutter's Mill (California Gold Rush)or equivalent sites. The resulting abundance sends the price of gold crashing.[[/folder]]

* The ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'' episode, ''Film/ThePaintedHills'', has this trope in both the film and the host segments. The film averts it with Jonathan, the old prospector who has more concern for his recently-deceased partner's family than his own welfare, but plays it straight with Taylor, the lawyer of Jonathan's late partner who [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident stages an "accident"]] for Jonathan, only to eventually be [[KarmicDeath brought to justice]] by Lassie. One of the segments from that episode has Tom Servo becoming similarly infected with Gold Fever and melting Crow down into an ingot, in the mistaken belief that because Crow was colored gold, that he must be ''made'' of gold. Despite being melted into an ingot, Crow also becomes infected with Gold Fever and begins wanting ''himself''. Fun Fact: Crow is made of molybdenum.
* One episode of ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'' has the Bundys and the D'Arcys visiting an old abandoned mine and discovering gold. Naturally, the characters almost immediately go insane with greed and turn on each other, trying to steal gold from each other at night and are ready to kill each other when a tourist group shows up and the guide reveals that the "gold" is just fake nuggets they leave out for tourists to bring home. The characters instead band together and ''rob'' the tourists of all their jewelry and watches, and the episode ends with them lounging on a beach in L.A, with the radio reporting on a group of tourists being attacked by an inbred family of rednecks.
* In ''Series/{{Friends}}'' an argument occurs over a bunch of lottery tickets that were bought as a syndicate, as the characters fight over money. In the end Phoebe threatens to destroy the tickets before it hurts their friendship. She ends up dropping a bunch of them off the balcony. [[spoiler: And a guy who finds one of them wins $10,000.]]
* In an episode of ''Series/GilligansIsland,'' Mr. Howell discovers a cave full of gold. The predictable results: 1. The rest of the characters Get Theirs by outrageously overcharging the Howells for everything and 2. the group's plan to finally escape the island is scuttled when the gold everyone smuggled in their bags sinks the raft.
** [[spoiler: All except Gilligan, meaning for once, it was everyone else's fault that they didn't get rescued]].
* The episode "Treasures of the Tonga Trench" of ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'' featured most of the crew developing Gold Fever when Lt. Krieg discovers a trove of glowing blue rocks on the ocean floor. [[spoiler: Everyone involved Gets Theirs when the "rocks" turn out to be the fecal pellets of an enormous squid, which glow as a result of the bioluminescent krill that forms the creature's diet.]]

* In the ''Series/{{Beauty and the Beast|1987}}'' episode "Fever", the underground tunnel community discovers a buried treasure ship, and starts to violently fracture over the question of what should be done with it.
* In the ''Series/LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'' episode "Ouroboros", a kidnapping plot goes wrong when [[spoiler:Mitch Godel kills his fellow kidnappers as well one of the kidnap victims -- even though she had ''hired him to perpetrate the kidnapping!'' After he convinces the woman's grand-daughter April that someone else had done the killings, Mitch exchanges the ransom money for gold, which he hides "in plain sight".]] After Detectives Goren and Eames discover the truth, Goren actually uses the term "gold fever."
* In an episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' entitled "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS2E60TheRipVanWinkleCaper The Rip Van Winkle Caper]]", a group of four men steal one million dollars worth of gold bricks. Figuring that in one hundred years (2061) no one will remember them, they hide out in a cave in the desert and the mad scientist of the group puts them all in suspended animation to wait it out. [[spoiler: However, upon awakening things start to go wrong as one of the men is already dead and greed soon incites the others to kill. The twist in this episode is that in the future gold is {{worthless|YellowRocks}} and the last man standing dies lugging his worthless cargo across the desert.]]
* In an episode of ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'', Malcolm received a $10,000 fellowship grant. Hal decides to keep it a secret from Malcolm, because "he'll just blow it on Legos and candy." (Apparently, [[SarcasmMode Hal didn't realize that Malcolm's not 7 years old anymore]]). Lois and Dewey find out about the money, and HilarityEnsues.
* In the ''Series/{{Monk}}'' episode, "Mr. Monk Gets Married", Gold Fever is the main motivator behind two murders committed 125 years apart.
* ''Series/ILoveLucy'': The subject of a late-season hour-long episode, only with uranium instead of gold. There's no murder, but everyone suspects everyone else is trying to claim the uranium before they can. They have a long race to get back to the town before the misunderstanding is sorted out and they all agree to share the reward. [[spoiler:It turns out the uranium Lucy found was actually just the sample uranium included with her Geiger counter, which is worthless.]]
* On ''Series/{{Lost}}'', Hurley consciously averts this trope by choosing to share the food from the first bunker equally with everyone in one huge feast, lest Food Fever turn the survivors against one another.
* ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'': the Taelons managed to acquire a lot of gold, with the arrogant Zo'or invoking this trope in saying that they did not need to enslave the people of earth, the Taelons could merely "buy them" instead. Like most of the plotlines on the show, it went nowhere.
* One episode of ''Series/TheGreatestAmericanHero'' has Ralph (and his high school students!) following Bill Maxwell's treasure map to a long-lost gold mine. When they ''do'' find the mine, the students catch Gold Fever so badly that some of them empty their canteens and fill them with gold ore ... and then find that their bus's engine was stolen and they have to hike out across a scorching dry desert.
* The Creator/DiscoveryChannel took a group of unemployed men and made a series: ''Series/GoldRush'' out of their attempts to extract gold from a mining claim on the banks of an Alaskan river. The fever part: the group's preacher catches gold fever and joins them at the claim site. They're still digging their way through season 3.
* An episode of ''Series/{{Unforgettable}}'' has the detectives investigating a possible terrorist threat and instead discover a group of treasure hunters who are making explosives to blast their way into a sealed up room that they think is filled with old gold coins. They are so consumed by gold fever that they ignore the fact that the room is underneath a busy New York City subway station and the explosion is likely to injure or kill hundreds of people. By the time the detectives start investigating, two members of the group have already proven themselves to be TooDumbToLive and accidentally killed themselves while making the bombs. The leader of the group turns out to be [[spoiler: a transit cop]] who set things up specifically so his accomplices killed themselves off and left him with the whole treasure all to himself. Ironically, the treasure was HiddenInPlainSight and all the preparations and deaths were completely unnecessary. If they were not so blinded by greed and simply reexamined the clues, they could have found the treasure and walked away as millionaires.
* The miniseries ''Series/{{Klondike}}'' portrays the various people who participated in the Klondike Gold Rush and the extremes some of them went to find gold. One character is murdered for the mere ''possibility'' of a claim having gold even before anyone had a chance to properly dig there. Miners die of disease and starvation every day and sometimes their bodies are just left on the side of the road. Most of the characters end up with a DownerEnding or a BittersweetEnding, with a few ShootTheShaggyDog endings thrown in. When one of the characters decides to abandon the search for gold and go back to civilization, he sees that there are hundreds more gold seekers on the way to replace him.
* Parodied in an episode of ''Series/{{Community}}'', where the 'treasure' is in fact a stash of college textbooks. It becomes this trope both because the characters work at a community college and are in general prone to taking mundane things to absurd levels of SeriousBusiness anyway.
* Used in the ''Series/MissionImpossible'' episode "The Mercenaries", when the team tricks a mercenary leader into believing he's found a huge trove of gold bars, prompting him to smuggle it out of the country and cut his men out of their share.
* The MadeForTVMovie ''Film/CityBeneathTheSea'' had a dangerous radioactive substance stored for protection behind walls of gold bars. Naturally no-one would be stupid enough to steal part of that protective wall and endanger everyone's lives, right? (The gold would be radioactive too, but that wasn't brought up.)
* An InvokedTrope in ''Series/{{Hustle}}'' with a mark whom they want to deter from going to the authorities as he has in the past when being conned. So they decide to sell him a gold mine in the middle of London, so [[WhoWouldBeStupidEnough he'll be too embarrassed to do so]].
* In the ''Series/BlakesSeven'' episode "Gold", the ostensible heroes end up killing a lot of people from a neutral planet to rob a gold shipment for reasons that have nothing to do with their revolutionary ideals. While it's not the first [[TheCaper Caper]] episode for a MineralMacGuffin that [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption ends in failure]], this one has [[BigBad Servalan]] walking away with the gold and [[TheCon leaving them with a pile of worthless alien currency]]. The episode ends with the normally stoic Avon [[HeroicBSOD breaking down]] in [[DissonantLaughter insane laughter]] on realising it's all been for nothing.
* In the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "Robot of Sherwood", The Sheriff of Nottingham extorts all the gold from the land, but only gold, and is said to ignore other valuables such as gems. [[JustifiedTrope This is because]] [[spoiler:the Sheriff is smelting all that gold material as an electric conductor for his spaceship]].

* The song "One Tin Soldier" has the "people of the valley" killing the "people of the mountain" over a "treasure buried deep beneath the stone." Turns out "[[spoiler:[[AllThatGlitters 'Peace on Earth' was all it said.]]]]"
** The valley people just asked at first, and the hill people said they would willingly share without explaining. TooDumbToLive.
*** It's sort of a toss-up who was dumber than the other--the valley people might edge out because they went all genocide-y without even knowing what the treasure was. So, [[AccidentalAesop the song is also about how you should always make sure your intel is complete and trustworthy before going to war.]]

--> There was chest on chest of Spanish gold\\
With a ton of plate in the middle hold\\
And the cabins riot of stuff untold
* Music/TheStoneRoses' song "Fool's Gold" is loosely based on this trope. Ian himself admitted it was inspired by ''Treasure of the Sierra Madre''.
* Music/BrianMcNeill's song "Ewen and the Gold" is about a historical Scotsman who traveled the world in search of gold.

* The [[Myth/NorseMythology Norse legend]] of the [[Literature/TheSagaOfTheVolsungs Nibelungs]] has a massive pile of treasure over which some 50% of the mortal characters are offed, and which causes the death of the other half through the CycleOfVengeance that follows. The second owner even transformed himself into a [[DragonHoard dragon]] after killing his own father for it.
* In Myth/ClassicalMythology:

* Anyone who ever found Goldust [[StealthPun sexually attractive.]]

* ''Radio/TheGoonShow'' featured this on occasion. Parodied horribly since this is the Goons.
** In "Dishonoured", Seagoon is given a position of trust at a bank:

* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' has a spell that [[TakenForGranite turns an enemy into a gold statue]], inducing gold fever on onlookers.
* Dwarfs in ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' have this as a racial trait. Every single one has to at least fight it, and sometimes large amounts make them lose all self-preservation instinct. One notable instance is in the ''Literature/GotrekAndFelix'' novel ''Dragonslayer'', where a Trollslayer goes all Scrooge [=McDuck=] in the dragon's hoard ''in the middle of the fight''.
* 'Ghost rock fever' is part of the setting for ''TabletopGame/{{Deadlands}}'', and can even manifest as an actual physical condition. Justified, as Ghost Rock is the local {{Phlebotinum}}, and has supernatural effects as well as being absurdly valuable.
* The ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' RPG has characters making a Will save when coming across an amount of treasure worth at least as much as a king's ransom, and failing the save results in being distracted, which can be dangerous in the Conan universe where, more often than not, there's something guarding that treasure that more often than not wants to eat you. If the treasure is cursed or magically tainted in any way, a character may gain corruption points upon a failed Will save.

* Dragons suffer from this in ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', acquiring and nesting on the classic DragonHoard. At first it was believed that they suffered from a magpie-like obsession with shiny objects, but ''Draconomicon'' reveals that they are just as likely to hoard ''any'' valuables, even things like paintings or rugs. It seems that any object other creatures consider precious, a dragon will too, even if they have no use for them other than bedding. You could theoretically encounter a dragon sleeping on a stamp collection, while other works speculate that an evil dragon would covet a pauper's handful of copper pieces simply because they mean so much to him.
* ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye'': Greed for gold (can also be applied to other valuables) can be taken as negative trait that forces players and NPC s to unreasonable actions at a successful throw. And then there is Tasfarelel, the arch-demon of greed, who can grant even greater riches.
* In ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'' this is the major conflict on Ganymede. Earthlings coming to the forest moon in search of gold have come into conflict with the Ganymedians who are angered by the destruction of their native environment. A similar situation is occurring on Venus, only with Radium being the driving force instead.

* ''VideoGame/Uncharted4AThiefsEnd'' is a ''huge'' example. Nathan Drake and long-lost brother Sam are hunting for Libertalia, a legendary "pirate utopia" created by Henry Avery and other pirate lords long ago. They soon discover it only to find signs of a massive battle with hundreds of corpses strewn about. It turns out that [[spoiler: the entire "utopia" was all a massive con to trick settlers into handing over their money so the pirates could hoard it. The pirate captains started to fight for the treasure so Avery and Tews poisoned them all to get it themselves. Avery fell further into madness and paranoia to the point of having scores of settlers brutually executed. He finally tried to escape only for Tews to catch up to them. The Drakes eventually find the massive treasure hoard on a ship with the skeletons of Tews and Avery having killed each other for the gold neither could possess.]]
** This ends up being a major part of the game as well as Sam has been obsessed with finding Libertalia for years. He [[spoiler: lies to Nate about owing a big drug lord when in reality, Sam was working for treasure hunter Rafe only to double-cross him when he got the clues to find Libertalia]]. Even when they discover [[spoiler: how the entire place fell apart because of Avery's greed, Sam still insists on going after the treasure. A telling moment is Nadine, a full-fledged ''mercenary'', thinks this fight for gold is insane and just leaves Rafe to his quest. In a huge final battle, Rafe outdoes Sam by going completely mad wanting the treasure and willing to kill anyone for it. In an IronicDeath, he ends up being crushed under the weight of a huge pile of gold.]] In the end, [[spoiler: Sam does get some of the coins from the boat but realizes how his obsession nearly cost him his brother's life. Nate, meanwhile, has had his eyes opened by the whole thing to see how a life of adventure is really empty. He ends up settling down with wife Elena and a TimeSkip final chapter shows them running a successful salvage company and raising a daughter and both much happier out of this treasure hunting life.]]

* Spoofed in ''VideoGame/FableII'', where you come across the remains of a party of treasure hunters. Each corpse has a diary detailing their rising paranoia, with the last one flatly stating its owner's plan for killing his party members, then himself, in order to get the treasure...
* Also spoofed in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwords''. If all of the players have full health, the game enacts "Rupee fever". During which time any Rupees collected will be doubled in value.
* And in ''VideoGame/BarkleyShutUpAndJamGaiden'', when [[spoiler:Barkley succumbs to his terrible desire for "Incan gold" in Cuchulainn's Tomb]]. There is no prior indication that this makes sense. At all.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tomba}}'': The Evil Pigs are obsessed with gold. It's implied that their magic is powered by it. The final boss of the first game is fought in a pocket universe made entirely of treasure.
* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', Donald Duck gets a hankering for any treasure the party finds.

* The central theme of the ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Dead Money'' expansion. [[PlayerCharacter The Courier]] is abducted and forced to help a madman rob the Sierra Madre (see Film above), a pre-war casino and resort rumored to house a great treasure. The place is a death trap full of poisonous fumes, lethal holograms and mutants in hazmat suits, but just as many of its would-be looters ended up turning on each other - other characters comment on how it was a "sickness" that afflicted people. Thus, your BadBoss decided to link you and your fellow conscripts with {{Explosive Leash}}es so killing each other isn't an option (although your particular team is motivated by more than money). In the end, you may fall victim to this when you uncover the vault of gold bars in the heart of the casino: yes, you need to get the hell out of there, but surely you could afford to take ''one'' gold ingot. Or maybe two... three, if you left behind some weapons or armor...
** Or if you're stealthy enough, you can take ''all'' of them with you[[note]]if you sneak on to the elevator, you can carry as much as possible; as long as you get behind the force field before Father Elijah realizes you're not in the bunker, you can take all of the gold bars with you, and once you escape, you can store them in the abandoned bunker that took you to the Sierra Madre, making trips back and forth[[/note]].
* A valid tactic in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim''. If you're sneaky enough to slip into a bandit camp undetected, and drop a valuable gemstone or the like where a patrolling enemy can find it, [[DevelopersForesight sometimes the bandits will attack each other over who gets the loot]].
** A bored player can also do this to start a small riot in the middle of [[WretchedHive Riften]]. And if [[ActionGirl Mjoll the Lioness]] [[CurbStompBattle gets involved...]]
* While there's other motivations at work, one of the main plot points of the Sierra adventure game ''GoldRush'' is the 1848 California gold rush, and all the accompanying "Go West" fervor that came with it.
* {{Invoked}} and used as SchmuckBait in ''VideoGame/GhostbustersTheVideoGame''. The PKE Meter's flavor text states that substituting its platinum scanning-array with a rhodium replacement enhances the Meter's capability. Rhodium is extremely valuable, but as the description wryly notes, rhodium has a tendency to stain skin when touched. Permanently.
* The reason why Jack Slate's father was killed in ''VideoGame/DeadToRights'' was because he discovered the existence of a large gold deposit underneath Grant City (a former mining town back in the Gold Rush days) that a secret cabal consisting of the Grant City mayor, sheriff and the prince of some middle-eastern country had been trying to extract in secret.
* ''VideoGame/{{beatmania}} IIDX 14 GOLD'' is, as the title implies, gold-themed, and its theme song has DJ YOSHITAKA singing lines such as [[TitleScream "IIDX GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLDDDD!!"]] and "[[{{Engrish}} Make it]]! [[MoneyFetish Make money]]!"
* ''VideoGame/TheYukonTrail'' is filled with people involved in the Yukon gold rush mentioned in the RealLife section. A lot of them are returning home after losing it all, though a few are successes.
* This is one of Kintoki Sakata's defining traits in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', so much so that he insists on being nicknamed "Golden." Unusually for this trope, he isn't remotely greedy, and he seems to have absolutely no interest in the idea of gold ''as money''; he just likes it because it's shiny and can be made into gaudy accessories.

* The Nether Update in ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' introduces the Piglin mob. Normally hostile towards the player, Piglins become neutral when the player dons any piece of gold armor, and the player can barter gold ingots in exchange for items and blocks. Attempting to mine gold in the Nether with Piglins nearby will provoke them, even if the player is wearing gold armor.

* At the start of the second case of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyDualDestinies'', you're shown a cutscene of the murderer committing the crime and framing your client in order to gain access to a locked chamber in the victim's office. Through your investigation it's later revealed that the murderer was trying to steal a large gold nugget that was locked in the chamber and said to be guarded by a fearsome {{Tengu}} centuries ago when the original settlers of the town began killing each other over it.
* In ''VisualNovel/SwordDaughter'', dragon treasure is cursed and afflicts people with unquenchable avarice. Loric is fully under the influence of such a curse, and Tyrna can fall victim to it as well if she's not careful.
* While it varies a bit from game to game, a regular occurrence in ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry''. All of the Ushiromiya siblings desperately need money, and there are ten tons of gold hidden on the island for whoever can solve the epigraph...

[[folder:Web Comics]]
%%* In ''Webcomic/{{Doodze}}'' [[http://seguemediagroup.com/doodze/?p=645 don't you know the monster has a lair filled with gold.]]%%Broken link
* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', the sight of a gold piece lying on the floor is enough to get a normally cautious follower of Zola to fall for [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070725 one of Castle Heterodyne's sillier traps.]]

* Gaea from ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'' is quite greedy and not above NinjaLooting money dropped by enemies from her own teammates if she gets the opportunity. In the comic, credits are shown to have the physical form of gold coins.

* ''WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers'': In "Ambergris", the kids find a hunk of ambergris (a valuable but illegal byproduct of whale excrement used in making perfume) on the beach. Louise becomes increasingly obsessed with selling it and making a fortune, to the point where Tina ends up destroying it to snap her sister out of her mania.

** The FiveEpisodePilot revolves around Scrooge [=McDuck=] and his nephews looking for an ancient treasure, and after the loss of the first trove, it's mother lode, the Temple Of the Golden Sun. Gold Fever, identified by name, rears its ugly head in the last part, causing Scrooge to unwittingly trip a SecretTestOfCharacter trap. The lure of the gold and its sheer abundance is so great that even Hewey, Louie and Dewey fall for it shortly after Scrooge.[[note]]It apparently gives you the hiccups.[[/note]] It falls on [[WomenAreWiser Webbigail and Mrs. Beakley]] to [[OnlySaneMan keep a level head and figure out the deathtrap.]] Scrooge breaks out of his Gold Fever when his life is sufficiently threatened; the BigBad doesn't.
** Said BigBad, ''El Capitan'' is revealed to have been the same Spanish conquistador who originally stumbled across the treasure some 300 years previous, and after leaving his crew behind, ended up losing the ship with his original treasure haul, and somehow managed to survive and keep himself alive for ''[[MethuselahSyndrome centuries]]'' by sheer will just for the hope of recovering his treasure. After he and Scrooge trigger the trap in the Temple, he's still sane enough to flee along with the others, but immediately rushes back once the danger is past, only to discover that the Temple is buried under a mountain of stone and dirt. He promptly starts trying to dig it out by ''hand'', and never appears again, so presumably he's still digging away over there.
** In "[[Recap/DuckTalesS1E26TheGoldenFleecing The Golden Fleecing]]", Scrooge has wished he could somehow find the Golden Fleece since he heard about it as a child, and when he realizes that it may actually be real, he immediately goes after it. Unfortunately, his lust for the fleece blinds him to all else, despite his nephews' calling out over stealing the Fleece and abandoning Launchpad. [[FriendOrIdolDecision He gets better.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Bravestarr}}'' carium causes Carium Fever among prospectors, so much that in one episode when they're down on their luck, they get jealous when they find out that the [[{{Hobbits}} prairie people]] have it, so much that they are easily fooled by an attempt to frame them for kidnapping. Eventually, the prairie people (who are nowhere near as materialistic) make peace by simply ''showing'' them where they get it, which they [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot would have gladly done had they been asked.]]

** In ''[[WesternAnimation/FourteenCarrotRabbit 14 Carrot Rabbit]]'', claim-jumper Yosemite Sam discovers Bugs gets a "funny feeling" whenever he's near gold, and naturally tries to exploit the latter's talent. Hilarity ensues.
** Bugs succumbs himself in ''WesternAnimation/BarbaryCoastBunny'', after hitting an enormous gold nugget while burrowing his way to California, though compared to Daffy, he doesn't exhibit any negative qualities from his stroke of luck, [[ThisMeansWar only antagonizing the other character in the setting for swindling him out of his nugget]].
* A ''WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}}'' cartoon, ''Grin and Share It'' (1957), has Droopy and Butch as miners who have been close friends for years, despite their mine having never paid off. Then Droopy hits a big vein. Butch spends the rest of the episode trying to kill Droopy to get all the gold.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfJimmyNeutronBoyGenius'': Played straight in one episode as "ruby madness". Carl was the only one unaffected -- indeed, he was the only one who seemed really aware of it.

* ''WesternAnimation/StargateInfinity'': In one episode, the group manages to stumble upon valuable diamonds and hopes to strike it rich as a result not knowing mercs were after them and their newly found wealth. It becomes AnAesop as, in the end, the mercs backstab each other and, while sacrificing most of the wealth, Draga slips a diamond for one of the members of the team so she can help her family back home.
* ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'':
** Every so often, the focus goes to a sub-plot involving a [[SolidGoldPoop gold, jewel-encrusted turd]] that evokes this in anyone who sees it. What comes out of it is a long string of murders, guilt-ridden suicide, and other betrayals as everyone involved tries to be the sole owner by whatever means necessary.
** Another episode revolves around Stan's search for Oliver North's gold.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Beetlejuice}}'': Beej is bitten by the Gold Bug and contracts a fever that can only be cured by a certain alloy...
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' parodies ''Film/TheTreasureOfTheSierraMadre'', in "Three Men and a Comic Book", with a rare first issue of ''Radioactive Man'' taking the place of gold.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}'' parodied this once, replacing gold with nickels buried in a sandbox.

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': Rarity has had this happen to her. In "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E7DragonShy Dragonshy]]", she blows a diplomatic talk with a dragon (whose snoring threatens to blanket Equestria in smoke) by becoming too interested in [[DragonHoard the hoard]] he's sleeping on. This is later forced onto her in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E1TheReturnOfHarmonyPart1 The Return of Harmony, Part 1]]" when Discord [[{{Brainwashed}} brainwashes]] her into being overcome by her greed -- to add insult to injury, the "giant diamond" with which she becomes fanatically obsessed is actually a worthless boulder.
* ''WesternAnimation/RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer'': Yukon Cornelius, though he alternates wanting gold and silver. And finds a peppermint mine at the end.
* In the beginning of the Rankin Bass ChristmasSpecial ''The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold'', Ditty Doyle sees Blarney Kilikilarny's gold stash and undergoes the "I'm rich! I'm rich!" part of the fever...up until a whack from Blarney calms him down.
-->'''Blarney:''' Tell me, lad, are you a thief by trade or inclination?\\
'''Ditty:''' Neither one. Somethin' just came over me when I saw the glitter.\\
'''Blarney:''' Aye...the gold fever.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs'' has this as one of Gargamel's driving purposes for wanting to catch Smurfs, since they are part of the formula for creating the Philosopher's Stone. In "All That Glitters Isn't Smurf," Papa Smurf uses this against Gargamel by luring him toward a pile of fake gold coins made from locks of Smurfette's hair so that he could rescue the Smurfs that were captured by the evil wizard.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wakfu}}'' has Ruel (pictured above). It's eventually revealed that it's basically the [[PlanetOfHats hat]] of his race.
* ''WesternAnimation/DragonsRidersOfBerk'': In "[[Recap/DragonsRidersOfBerkS1E18GemOfADifferentColor Gem of a Different Color]]", an out-of-control gem craze sweeps the village of Berk the moment word gets out that Fishlegs found a Stone of Good Fortune, at which point the entire village starts clamoring for it, trying to touch the stone and desperately offering anything to convince him to part with it -- most people offer to give him herds' worth of livestock, and one woman tries to sell her firstborn son for the gem.

By the end of it, you can expect sanity or survival instinct to go right out the window as the characters obsessively try to hoard as much as they can, and lifelong friends to fly at each other's throats for just one more shiny coin...

[[/folder]]

* In ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'', DonaldDuck gets a hankering for any treasure the party finds.

-->'''Daffy:''' I can't help it, I'm a greedy slob! It's my hobby.

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take what they can carry or need for a comfortable life. But all of this will be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsess over how rich they now are... until it inevitably occurs to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share all of this wealth with all these ''other'' fellows...

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take what they can carry or need for a comfortable life. But all of this will be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it inevitably occurs to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share all of this wealth with all these ''other'' fellows...

By the end, you can expect sanity or survival instinct to go right out the window as the characters obsessively try to hoard as much as they can, and lifelong friends to fly at each other's throats for just one more shiny coin...

By the end, you can expect the characters to forgo anything like sanity or survival instinct as they obsessively try to hoard as much as they can, and lifelong friends to fly at each other's throats for just one more shiny coin...

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take what they can carry or need for a comfortable life. But all of this will be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it inevitably occurs to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share it with all these ''other'' fellows...

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take they can be carry or need for a comfortable life. This will all be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it inevitably occurs to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share it with all these ''other'' fellows...

''Gold''. Those who have it cannot let it go, those who don't have it covet it. There's something about it that just gets to people's heads, something beyond its simple monetary value. Characters who come across a trove of gold (or silver, gems, cash or other treasure, but most often yellow gold) will almost inevitably become obsessed over it to the point of near lunacy. This typically manifests as single-minded {{greed}} and jealousy, with characters putting their newfound need to hoard wealth above any previous goal or attachment that they may have had. The actual source of wealth can be almost anything -- a rich mine or deposit, a successful [[TheHeist bank heist]], buried PirateBooty, the spoils of war, [[DragonHoard a dragon's treasure]] -- but the effect will be the same.

''Gold''. Those who have it cannot let it go, those who don't have it covet it. There's something about it that gets to people's heads, something beyond its simple monetary value. Characters who come across a trove of gold (or silver, gems, cash or other treasure, but most often yellow gold) will almost inevitably become obsessed over it to the point of near lunacy. This typically manifests as single-minded {{greed}} and jealousy, with characters putting their newfound need to hoard wealth above any previous goal or attachment they may have had. The actual source of wealth can be almost anything -- a rich mine or deposit, a successful [[TheHeist bank heist]], buried PirateBooty, the spoils of war, [[DragonHoard a dragon's treasure]] -- but the effect will be the same.

''Gold''. Those who have it cannot let it go, those who don't have it covet it. There's something about it that gets to people's heads, something beyond its simple monetary value. Characters who come across a trove of gold (or silver, gems, cash or other treasure, but most often yellow gold) will almost inevitably become obsessed over it to the point of near lunacy. This typically manifests as single-minded {{greed}} and jealousy, with characters putting their newfound need to hoard wealth above any previous goal or attachment they may have had. The actual source of wealth can be almost anything -- a rich mine or deposit, a successful [[TheHeist bank heist]], buried PirateBooty, the spoils of war, [[DragonHoard a dragon's treasure]]... -- but the effect will be the same.

''Gold''. Those who have it cannot let it go, those who don't have it covet it. There's something about it that gets to people's heads, something beyond its simple monetary value. Characters who come across a trove of gold (or silver, gems, cash or other treasure, but most often yellow gold) will almost inevitably become obsessed over it to the point of near lunacy. This typically manifests as single-minded greed and jealousy, with characters putting their newfound need to hoard wealth above any previous goal or attachment they may have had. The actual source of wealth can be almost anything -- a rich mine or deposit, a successful [[TheHeist bank heist]], buried PirateBooty, the spoils of war, [[DragonHoard a dragon's treasure]]... -- but the effect will be the same.

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take they can be carry or need for a comfortable life. This will all be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it eventually occurs to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share it with all these ''other'' fellows...

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take they can be carry or need for a comfortable life. This will all be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it will occur to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share it with all these ''other'' fellows...

By the end, you can expect them to forgo anything like sanity or survival instinct as they obsessively try to hoard as much as they can, and lifelong friends to fly at each other's throats for just one more shiny coin...

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take they can be carry or need for a comfortable life. This will all be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it will occur to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share it with all these ''other'' fellows... By the end, you can expect them to forgo anything like sanity or survival instinct as they obsessively try to hoard as much as they can, and lifelong friends to fly at each other's throats for just one more shiny coin...

Sometimes, if the characters in question are expecting to gain a great deal of wealth through whichever means, they may consciously try to avert this trope and plan to split the wealth fairly and only take they can be carry or need for a comfortable life. This will all be forgotten the very instant that the wealth is in sight: people will rejoice, stuff bags and pockets with treasure and obsesses over how rich they now are... until it will occur to them that they'd be even ''richer'' if they didn't have to share it with all these ''other'' fellows...

By the end, you can expect them to forgo anything like sanity or survival instinct as they obsessively try to hoard as much as they can, and lifelong friends to fly at each other's throats for just one more shiny coin...

* In ''{{Literature/Green}}'', having gold fever is part of being a {{leprechaun}}. Even leplings -- humans with only a drop of leprechaun blood -- have it.

See also ArtifactOfAttraction, MoneyFetish, {{Prospector}} and especially '''{{Greed}}'''. Related is AppleOfDiscord, where greed might not be the primary motivation, but the end result still turns out to be a free-for-all.

* The plot of ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'' is kickstarted by Governor Ratcliffe's GoldFever, as it's his desire to outdo "the gold of Cortez, the jewels of Pizarro" that gets him to lead the journey to America, and over time he becomes more and more paranoid that the local Powhatan tribe are secretly hoarding the gold. He even has a VillainSong about gold, appropriately titled, [[FunWithHomophones "Mine, Mine, Mine."]]

* The fifth book of ''Literature/StarChallenge'', "Galactic Raiders", features a GoldFever [[RecycledINSPACE In SPACE!]] but replacing gold ([[WorthlessYellowRocks used for children's toys]]) with "novium", that has attributed magical properties. In one particularly nasty ending of that book, things in the galaxy spiral so out of control that a massive bar brawl among the "Nebula" crewmen (the good guys in theory) just because of some overcooked food ends with everyone there dead (including, of course, ''[[HaveANiceDeath you]]'').