History Main / InevitablyBrokenRule

* The RuleOfTwo in ''Franchise/StarWars'' indicates that there may only be two Sith at a time: a master and an apprentice, and the apprentice's job is to strengthen the Sith as a whole by killing their master and becoming the next one (or by failing and getting weeded out). Actually, masters routinely take multiple apprentices, and apprentices frequently take their own apprentices, to the point where the Sith don't really expect the Rule to be obeyed literally. However, the rule still has value in channeling the Sith's ChronicBackstabbingDisorder; illicit apprentices become pawns in the endless game between master and apprentice, and there's no chance of collusion between multiple apprentices of the same master (which weakens the Sith by allowing a weaker apprentice to supplant a stronger master).

* {{Invoked|Trope}} with the famed "first rule of ''Film/FightClub'': you do not talk about Fight Club!" The rule is deliberate (and ultimately successful) SchmuckBait on Tyler's part, as he actually ''wants'' the members of the titular Club to tell as many people as possible to get as many as he can involved in [[spoiler:Project Mayhem.]].

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'': In "Pet Feud", the Biogenetically Engineered Experimental Bipedal Organism (BEEBO), can only be fed once in his whole lifetime; if he eats more than once, this will trick his brain into thinking he needs to constantly eat, turning him into an ExtremeOmnivore monster. While the girls take this lesson to heart, they unfortunately fail to inform the others that BEEBO already ate; thus ''each girl'' feeds BEEBO once, triggering this habit.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': In "Pet Feud", the Biogenetically Engineered Experimental Bipedal Organism (BEEBO), can only be fed once in his whole lifetime; if he eats more than once, this will trick his brain into thinking he needs to constantly eat, turning him into an ExtremeOmnivore monster. While the girls take this lesson to heart, they unfortunately fail to inform the others that BEEBO already ate; thus ''each girl'' feeds BEEBO once, triggering this habit.

* In ''Series/TheMandalorian'', Mando's #1 rule is that no living thing can ever see his face, and if they do he's never allowed to wear the helmet again. Unsurprisingly him removing his helmet becomes a [[OncePerEpisode Once Per Season]] thing, though {{Rules Lawyer}}ed each time: the first time he's seen helmetless by a robot, so no ''living'' thing has seen his face, and the second time everyone who saw him without the helmet either ended up dead or "[[FakingTheDead dead]]", so again no '''''living''''' thing has seen his face. [[spoiler:He finally breaks it for real, without making excuses or trying to justify it, in the series finale so [[TearJerker Grogu can see his face when they say goodbye]].]]

* This is a common plot on ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry''. Tom is threatened to be thrown out if he makes a mess, or wakes up Spike the bulldog, or whatever. Jerry, naturally, proceeds to make sure the rule is broken, with Tom scrambling to keep that from happening. It started with the very first short in the series, "WesternAnimation/PussGetsTheBoot", and was used in other shorts like "WesternAnimation/QuietPlease" and "WesternAnimation/MouseCleaning".

* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug: When [[BigGood Master Fu’s]] superior Grand Master Su-Han makes his appearance, he reads off several rules that both Fu and Marinette [[{{Irony}} have already broken long before he arrived]].

* While the titular institution from ''Literature/TheFerrymanInstitute'' has many rules and regulations its employees have to work under, three big ones -- rules that, if broken, can lead to the Ferryman's immediate transition to [[AFateWorseThanDeath Purgatory]] -- are as follows: do not interfere with a death, do not let go of your ferryman key (the thing that makes them [[InvisibleToNormals invisible to the living]]) and keep the Ferryman Institute a secret from mankind. [[spoiler:The presidential mission Charles was given gave him the option to prevent Alice from committing suicide (which he did), he puts down his key to console with a car-crash victim to make her death a peaceful one and he tells Alice a ''lot'' of Institute secrets after they both become fugitives.]]

* ForbiddenFruit, in which a character wants to do something solely because they were told not to.

Compare and contrast IThoughtItWasForbidden, in which a character breaks a rule ''without'' suffering the stated consequences. See also TemptingFate and SelfFulfillingProphecy, both tropes in which talking about something causes it (or its opposite) to happen. For InUniverse cases where the ''characters'' believe rules are made to be broken, see NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught.