History Main / MoralLuck

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Willow's RoaringRampageOfRevenge is forgiven fairly easily, even though (in-universe) it was really just luck and timing which prevented her from bringing about the apocalypse. Although it's acknowledged (again, in-universe) that the actions were bad, and she spends quite some time [[{{Angst}} angsting]] about them.

* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' has a murder mystery where there are two suspects with insufficient forensic evidence to convict either of them, only confirming that the blood found on the scene and the weapon were not owned by the victim. The result that comes out of this is that both men actually intended to murder the victim, and one suspect only missed out on the murder because the other suspect had already killed the victim. Rickard Lusoff intended to murder Calder Nettic for cheating him in a business deal, but Handon Guld had already murdered Nettic as revenge for his wife cheating on him with Nettic. Lusoff panicked and shot Guld, leading to a noticeable injury that exposes both of them as the blood turns out to be Guld's. Lusoff is charged with attempted murder of Nettic as he only dodged killing anyone by missing a vital area on Guld and Nettic being dead already and also got slapped with aggravated assault on and attempted murder of Guld. Guld himself got charged for the murder of Nettic.

* In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 2'', at the end of Part II, Max [[spoiler:shoots his partner Winterson dead when she draws a gun on known criminal Mona]]. At the end of Part III Chapter 3, he learns [[spoiler:she was a mole for the BigBad and was planning to murder both him and Mona]]. To his credit, Max does not use this revelation to vindicate his own actions.

* [[Franchise/SpiderMan Spider-Man]] has been beating himself up for the inverse of this for years. Though certainly guilty of apathy and selfishness, Peter Parker had no way of knowing that the burglar who passed him would end up committing a murder, let alone that his victim would be his [[DeathByOriginStory Uncle Ben]], but he insists on treating this act as just shy of pulling the trigger himself, and has spent his life since trying to [[TheAtoner make up for this lapse in judgement]]. This is an example of TropesAreNotBad, though, because this is meant as the thesis for the character.

* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': The ethical/religious basis for TrialByCombat in Westeros is that the winner was favored by the gods, and thus must be innocent or otherwise deserving of exoneration. Of course, in practice this often means an innocent person is convicted (or inversely, a guilty person is acquitted) simply because one of the champions was luckier or more skilled. Two of the three major trials by combat hand down false verdicts due to this, and the one that ends up being true is won because Bronn is a consummate CombatPragmatist.

* ''Series/{{Oz}}'': Various members of the prison administration argue that the inmates deserve excessive punishment to them by virtue of being inmates. Some of them, particularly Governor Devlin, take it farther by saying that it means they should be denied basic human rights just to make their stay in prison even worse.

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E3Brothers Brothers]]", a boy pranks his younger brother, which scares the brother enough for him to run and hide. While hiding, the younger brother eats a fruit that leaves him so ill he nearly dies. The older brother is severely scolded by numerous cast members for "nearly killing" his brother. However, while a little cruel for a prank, there was no reason for the older brother to expect anything worse then his younger brother being frightened for a while because of it.

In order to qualify for this trope, a character has to carry out an action whose consequences depend mostly on luck and be praised (or blamed) by other characters (or by the work itself) for their morality/immorality. It doesn't count if a character carries out such an action, no one judges them for it, and the reader is left to draw their own conclusions. The action has to be specifically treated as ethical or unethical by the work itself or by characters in it. [[note]]Of course, just because the characters praise or blame an action doesn't mean the creator shares their opinion.[[/note]]

->''Heads you're a hero, tails you're a villain.''
-->-- ''Mirari''

* Arguably, [[Franchise/SpiderMan Spider-Man]] has been beating himself up for the inverse of this for years. Though certainly guilty of apathy and selfishness, Peter Parker had no way of knowing that the burglar who passed him would end up committing a murder, let alone that his victim would be his [[DeathByOriginStory Uncle Ben]], but he insists on treating this act as just shy of pulling the trigger himself, and has spent his life since trying to [[TheAtoner make up for this lapse in judgement]]. This is an example of TropesAreNotBad, though, because this is meant as the thesis for the character.

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* Pointed out as ''WebVideo/CinemaSins'' 11th sin for ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'' when Scott and his daughter are sliding down a massive slide he's constructed throughout his multi-story house:
-->Everyone's going to call this the "he's a great dad" scene, but if she'd flown off this cardboard slide contraption and gotten a concussion, we'd all be rightfully blasting his ass as a terrible and reckless father. (Ding!)
[[/folder]]

* Arguably, [[Franchise/SpiderMan Spider-Man]] has been beating himself up for the inverse of this for years. Though certainly guilty of apathy and selfishness, Peter Parker had no way of knowing that the burglar who passed him would end up committing a murder, let alone that his victim would be his [[DeathByOriginStory Uncle Ben]].

WhatTheHellHero can serve to avert this, allowing the character's actions - and not just results - to be judged. Compare MoralDissonance, NoEndorHolocaust, AccidentalHero and the various LuckTropes. Related to MillionToOneChance and HowDidYouKnowIDidnt. Also consider ConvenientlyEmptyBuilding, where a character destroys a building that happens to be empty, turning being responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocents into mere property damage by sheer luck. LaserGuidedKarma is sometimes offered as an explanation for this. LuckBasedMission is the video game equivalent, while TheMagicPokerEquation is a rough equivalent for card playing. Compare OmniscientMoralityLicense: when a character's plans are only seen as "good" because they literally saw the result before it happened, in spite of what they may do to achieve it. If used without irony, it can easily devolve into straight-up UsefulNotes/VictimBlaming if the writer isn't careful.

Supertrope to CartesianKarma, where characters are held responsible (by the narrative and/or other characters) for things they were [[MindControl controlled]] into doing, and AlternatePersonalityPunishment.

* ''VideoGame/Halo4'' begins with Dr. Catherine Halsey being interrogated by ONI over her role in the [[SuperSoldier Spartan]] program. She claims that kidnapping children and turning them into the ultimate warriors helped save humanity when the [[KillAllHumans Covenant]] attacked. The ONI interrogator calls her out on this self-serving narrative, noting that the Spartans were originally trained to quell human rebellions well before they even knew about the Covenant.

-->'''House:''' I'm sure this goes against everything you've been taught, but right and wrong do exist. Just because you don't know what the right answer is, maybe there's no way you ''could'' know what the right answer is, it doesn't make your answer right or even okay. It's just plain wrong.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones''': The final season has a lot of characters rumbling about how Daenerys is clearly unstable and can't be trusted, and they're usually framed as in the right. In particular, Sansa's distrust is treated as shrewdness, with everyone [[InformedAbility calling her out for her intelligence]]. Sure enough, their claims are vindicated when Daenerys snaps and burns down half of King's Landing for no reason. But up to that point, to their knowledge, Dany had never done anything out of the ordinary for a noble character in the setting, and had gotten many chances to do something on the level of what she did at King's Landing and then staunchly headed in another direction. If anything, most of her prior actions (while not flawless) suggested her to be a very restrained, reasonable, and empathetic ruler, so their accusations up to that point came across as totally unfounded.

-->--''Mirari''

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Films -- Animated]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'': Invoked and exploited. Simba believes that the roar he made in the canyon was what started the stampede that killed his father. Even though he didn't know the herd was even there (which the audience knows is moot anyway since Scar orchestrated the stampede), Scar uses it to make Simba think he's just as guilty as if he had intentionally committed murder.

'''Scar:''' Of course, ''of course'' you didn't. No one ever ''means'' for these things to happen. But the king is dead. If it weren't for ''you'', he'd still be alive.

* In ''Film/Fury1936'', the protagonist tries to get his attempted lynchers executed by hiding his survival. This is because attempted murder is a much less serious crime than murder, even though the only difference is whether the attack succeeded in killing the victim (which in many cases, and especially his, can be entirely attributable to blind luck -- rather than a change of heart on the murderer(s)'s part).

-->''"Luckily they turned out to be drug dealers"''

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* ''Series/Charmed1998'' has an episode where the sisters deal with a warlock making an unusual master plan. Phoebe has a premonition of the warlock attacking a male witch and they ignore the advice of their new whitelighter to go to the scene of the crime - where it turns out the victim in the premonition was an evil darklighter and the warlock just killed him to get his crossbow. Prue defends going anyway by saying that the sisters weren't in any danger - and is told "that makes you ''lucky'', not smart!"

** The episode "Nobody's Fault' which discussed this trope. Chase got stabbed during the case and it looked like the patient was going to die. The doctor examining House's counduct clearly planned to find House at fault. At the last minute, the patient's wife showed up and explained that while House may not be nice he was right and he had managed to save her husband. Ultimately, House was exonerated. Being House, he then called his accuser a coward. It was clear the man had intended to find him guilty before the wife showed. House pointed out that with his methods "Good things usually happen. Bad things sometimes happen" and that whether they worked out in this particular case did not determine whether he did the right thing.
** The episode ''Three Stories'' has a framing device of House recounting several case studies his team had handled to a lecture hall full of med students. One case is of a man suffering from a severe snake bite, only the team doesn't know what kind of snake it was, and the wrong antivenom could set off a reaction that would kill him. The students are left with two options; wait for the humane society to find and identify the snake so you can apply what you know is the correct antivenom, even though the patient is highly unlikely to survive long enough, or make an educated guess on what type of antivenom to administer and hope you got the right one. When House asks the students which action they should take, half of them vote one route and half for the other, and House is up-front that one of these choices will kill the patient. The students point out that they have no way of possibly knowing which choice could save the patient and which would kill him, only for House to shoot that excuse down. You ultimately ''do'' wind up making the choice either way, and even if that choice is entirely unfair you still have to be the one to make it, and it could still wind up killing regardless of intent.

* ''Series/Merlin2008'': Kilgarrah's warnings that Morgana is not to be trusted and will do bad things with her magic read very hollow when Merlin withholding his own magic from her is what leads to her FaceHeelTurn - because Morgause soon shows up and whisks Morgana away to her side. That the dragon was right at all is luck or a SelfFulfillingProphecy (which Merlin wouldn't have fulfilled ''if'' the dragon hadn't given him warnings about Morgana in the first place).

** JD was given a patient to monitor who was having unusual problems and no one else could figure out why. JD spent some time trying to figure it out, but got distracted dealing with some major interpersonal problems between the main characters. He realized that he ignored his patient for a really long time and ended up running into Dr. Kelso upon returning. He admitted he did nothing to help the patient, and Kelso surprised him with praise, as the patient was having problems because of excessive treatments and constantly changing medications--doing nothing let the patient burn it out and recover naturally. It was mostly AnAesop about sometimes letting problems run their course, but JD knew solving the medical mystery was dumb luck and he should have gotten in trouble.

** In the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS4E3Brothers Brothers]]", a boy pranks his younger brother, which scares the brother enough for him to run and hide. While hiding, the younger brother eats a fruit that leaves him so ill he nearly dies. The older brother is severely scolded by numerous cast members for 'nearly killing' his brother. However, while a little cruel for a prank, there was no reason for the older brother to expect anything worse then his younger brother being frightened for a while because of it.
** {{Subverted}} in the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episodes "Rules of Engagement." Worf is on trial for destroying a Klingon civilian transport ship that accidentally decloaked in the middle of a battle. It eventually comes out that Worf was set up; the Klingons remotely decloaked an empty civilian ship for Worf to destroy so that they could embarrass the Federation. Worf is exonerated and everyone gets ready for a celebration, when Captain Sisko pulls Worf aside to berate him for opening fire on a vessel before determining whether or not it was a threat and tell him just how incredibly lucky he was that it ''was'' a setup and not actually a ship full of innocent civilians.

* Pointed out as ''WebVideo/CinemaSins'' 11th sin for ''Film/AntManAndTheWasp'' when Scott and his daughter are sliding down a massive slide he's constructed throughout his multi-story house:
--> Everyone's going to call this the "he's a great dad" scene, but if she'd flown off this cardboard slide contraption and gotten a concussion, we'd all be rightfully blasting his ass as a terrible and reckless father. (Ding!)

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'':

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': In "A Canterlot Wedding" Twilight's suspicion of Cadance being having turned evil lead her to making outrageous accusations with no evidence is dismissed and treaded as wrong by everyone, [[JerkassRealization even Twilight afterwards]], until it's revealed Cadance had been replaced by an evil shapeshifter. Suddenly, everyone is treated as wrong for dismissing Twilight and Twilight as right for trusting her instincts despite it being for reasons [[OutsideContextProblem completely unforeseeable]] and [[RightForTheWrongReasons different than what Twilight suspected and accused of]], and that Twilight was still guilty of the above rash actions that caused them to dismiss her in the first place.

* In ''Manga/FruitsBasket'', Hatsuharu forcefully kisses his ex-girlfriend, because he guesses that [[BreakHisHeartToSaveHim she still loves him]]. He's right, but he had little justification for that guess, which prompted [[https://boards.4channel.org/a/thread/205503019 some readers]] to see him as UnintentionallyUnsympathetic. The kiss itself is portrayed as romantic and quickly [[NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization becomes]] consensual.

* Discussed and defied in ''Literature/TheAmazingDaysOfAbbyHayes'', when Abby's little brother gets badly hurt when she's at the park with him, and promised to watch him. She feels terribly guilty and is convinced her mother will be furious, but to her surprise, her mother, while worried, is very kind and understanding, even commending Abby for managing to remain calm long enough to get someone else in the park to call an ambulance. Abby says it's all her fault for letting her brother jump off the swing, but her mother asks, over the years, how many times have she and all her siblings jumped off the swing? Probably hundreds of times, she says. And how many times did someone crack their head open and have to go to the hospital? Never, until today. So how could Abby have possibly known ''today'' would be the day it happened? The important thing is, she got help in time, and her brother will be okay.
* In Jane Austen's ''Literature/{{Persuasion}}'', Anne Elliot suggests that the defining moral dilemma of the novel--was she right to break off her engagement to the love of her life or not?--can really only be judged on the basis of Moral Luck. As it happens, her ex-fiance turned into a SuddenlySuitableSuitor, leading most modern readers to think that Anne was wrong to listen to her mentor and break the engagement. On the other hand, her mentor [[JerkassHasAPoint has a point]] that, if Anne had married her [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen naval officer fiance]] and he had been killed in action instead, Anne would have been left widowed, poor, and probably cut out of her father's good graces forever. (Consider that [[RealitySubtext in Real Life]], Jane Austen's sister lost her fiance when he left to get enough money for them to marry and died at sea.)

* ''VideoGame/CastleForestIslandSea'', being about philosophy, discusses this trope, especially in conjunction with the [[MultipleHeadCase three-headed monster]] whose heads think independently. If two of them eat people and the third won't, is the third head as guilty as the others? It's connected to the same stomach!

* In ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama,'' [[BigFun Owen]] by the end of season two: he constantly did stupid things that just happened to work out and receive CharacterShilling as a result. (Example: eating a huge buffet of fake food, somehow not realizing that it was fake the whole time, but conveniently burping up the key that they were supposed to find in it.) Ending this in season three helped him get RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap.