History Main / PlagueOfGoodFortune

* In ''MyBalls'', each person has three peaks of luck in romantic endeavours. The protagonist has all three peaks combined into a period of extreme "luck" during the same month that his having sex would cause the destruction of the world.

* The protagonist of ''SayonaraZetsubouSensei'' (or ''Goodbye, Mister Despair'') keeps trying to kill himself, only to have circumstances -- often a student in the class he teaches -- save him. His gut-response to the usually violent method is "What if I had died?" His attempts to help students also go awry, with a {{Hikikomori}} settling into the school and a stalker-girl following him.

* This was supposedly Mephisto's "curse" on Doctor Doom in ''EarthX'', and Doom's rationale for hating Reed Richards. (Ironically, Doom's mother sold her soul to obtain this blessing.) Subverted in that Mephisto was (surprise!) lying, and Doom was just that good.

* ''MobyDick'': A subtle example of type 4: Once Ahab has decided to destroy Moby Dick, a lot of good things (for a superior spirit, of course) happened to him: He discovers the beauty of nature, he appreciates the loyalty of his crew, he rediscovers love and charity again when he befriends Pip, Starbuck’s reminds him of his wife and son, the captain of the Rachel begs him to save his son… It’s like the whole universe conspires to save Ahab from his self imposed doom, to convince to abandon his philosophy of RageAgainstTheHeavens … he only can blame himself.

* ''TheCatReturns'': As a reward for saving the prince, Haru is showered with gifts by the Cat Kingdom. They are all gifts from a cat's point of view, like catnip, dead mice, or [[spoiler:being turned into a cat]].

* Stephen Black manages to gain the attention of the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair in ''JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'', who gifts him with all manner of treasures in increasingly bizarre ways because he believes Stephen to be some sort of king. Needless to say, [[TheFairFolk the Gentleman]] is ''not'' the sort of person you want interested in your affairs.

* Literature/CiaphasCain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!) may qualify too. He frequently tries to keep himself safe and sound above all else, but this usually through good (or, on his part, bad) luck makes him look even more heroic and boosts his reputation even further, putting him in even more dangerous situations. Needless to say, that is the absolute opposite of what he is striving for.

* Although somewhat helped by his friends, ''BrewstersMillions'' star Richard Pryor has serious trouble getting rid of his money. Every time he turns around, he either is getting helped by his friends who think his bad decisions are the result of a gambling and drinking habit, or he's winning at the failed stocks he throws his money behind.
* The 2004 film ''{{Millions}}'' is about two English boys finding a bag full of money and have about two weeks to spend it before the UK switches over to the Euro. The protagonist, who's obsessed with saints, wants to donate the money, while his brother wants to invest, or at least spend it. It doesn't work out either way, since the younger boy's donations only attract greedy people, and the older brother finds that there's no way for a kid to either invest the money or spend a huge amount inconspicuously. When they learn the money is stolen, they end up carrying it everywhere, and the younger one, at least, realizes what a burden it is.

* A "real life" story of this portion of the trope concerns a man who attempted to commit suicide by jumping off of a cliff, hanging himself from a rock that would fall on top of him at the cliff's bottom, setting himself on fire and shooting himself in the head after swallowing poison. He proceeded to jump, only to fire the bullet which severed the rope around his neck as he landed in the ocean off the side of the relatively small cliff, with the water putting out the flames and the shock of hitting the water causing him to vomit the poison out of his body. He was picked up by a local fisherman and taken to a hospital, where he died several days later of pneumonia from the extended period of time he spent in the cold water. Snopes discusses this folk tale [[http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/suicide.asp here.]]

-->-- '''WilliamBlake'''

* In ''{{Sinfest}}'', Slick suspects that {{Satan}} is behind it to trap him.

* Gladstone Gander's luck sometimes turns against him like this. He doesn't want it in some stories simply because it's boring. DonRosa also once gave this the bizarre and not all that logical reversing twist that Dewey, Huey and Louie made him lose a lottery by making it extremely ''likely'' that he win (since his luck makes him win when it's extremely ''un''likely). [[spoiler:They fill the lottery with ''his'' name and just one with Unca Donald. It works. But not really, turns out the "tropical" cruise Donald won was struck with cold weather]]

* Steven Black manages to gain the attention of the Gentleman with the Thistle Down Hair in ''JonathanStrangeAndMrNorrell'', who gifts him with all manner of treasures in increasingly bizarre ways because he believes Steven to be some sort of king. Needless to say, [[TheFairFolk the Gentleman]] is ''not'' the sort of person you want interested in your affairs.

* In ''CanYouForgiveHer''? Anthony Trollope takes a very rich, very upper class, and young and spirited wife Glencora Palliser to a casino on the European mainland. A woman, and especially one of her elevated class, are expected to never actually gamble. She timidly bets a small amount and wins. Her husband, older and more staid, upbraids her for taking money that they didn't need and that wasn't theirs.

** Al Bundy talked at length about the Bundy Curse, which assured that any good luck would be matched with an equal amount of bad luck as soon as he admitted he was getting lucky.

** [YankTheDogsChain Al ended up arrested by the police after winning a number of stolen cars in a poker game, heavily in debt after his daughter's motorcycle stunt wrecked his son's college dormitory, and getting struck by lightning as the cops were hauling him away by the one cloud in the sky, which just happened to be hanging over his house.]]

* CiaphasCain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!) may qualify too. He frequently tries to keep himself safe and sound above all else, but this usually through good (or, on his part, bad) luck makes him look even more heroic and boosts his reputation even further, putting him in even more dangerous situations. Needless to say, that is the absolute opposite of what he is striving for.

* The 2004 film ''Millions'' is about two English boys finding a bag full of money and have about two weeks to spend it before the UK switches over to the Euro. The protagonist, who's obsessed with saints, wants to donate the money, while his brother wants to invest, or at least spend it. It doesn't work out either way, since the younger boy's donations only attract greedy people, and the older brother finds that there's no way for a kid to either invest the money or spend a huge amount inconspicuously. When they learn the money is stolen, they end up carrying it everywhere, and the younger one, at least, realizes what a burden it is.

* This actually does happen to [[TheDeptfordMice The Deptford Histories]] star Thomas Stubbs a.k.a. Thomas Triton. In the words of the fortune teller Simoon;

* Teela Brown from ''Ringworld'' has been selectively bred for luck. Unfortunately, she hasn't been bred to bring luck to those around her. Her expedition crashes and is nearly stranded because '''she'll''' be happier there. The other characters spend the sequels carefully staying thousands of miles away from her.

* One of the characters at the bar of the Crosstime Saloon (a later book in the series) and a character in ''LadySlingsTheBooze'', both by SpiderRobinson have strings of... well, luck...

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5w262XvCU Is Biorn doomed to never die in battle?]]

* The episode of ''Daria'' named either "Fail!" or "The 'F' Word" had Mr O'Neill, the English teacher, give an assignment where the students were supposed to fail. A variation of the failing at failing.

* Or the near-identical events which happened to Martin in ''{{Frasier}}''.
* Cody trying to shake his near-mystical lucky streak in ''StepByStep''.
* A more literal example occurred in ''[[TheXFiles The X-Files]]'', with a character who had unstoppable good luck, which had the unfortunate side effect of causing horrible misfortune to those around him.
* Hurley on ''{{Lost}}'' wins the lottery and gets richer and richer, but one calamity after another afflicts those around him.
* Wild coincidences rule the life of Chance Harper of ''StrangeLuck''.
* Al Bundy, on ''MarriedWithChildren'', talked at length about the Bundy Curse, which assured that any good luck would be matched with an equal amount of bad luck as soon as he admitted he was getting lucky.

*** It didn't go quite that far, but was almost as bad. [[YankTheDogsChain Al ended up arrested by the police after winning a number of stolen cars in a poker game, heavily in debt after his daughter's motorcycle stunt wrecked his son's college dormitory, and getting struck by lightning as the cops were hauling him away by the one cloud in the sky, which just happened to be hanging over his house.]]
* Though this never happened in ''Series/{{Charmed}}'', Piper had a perpetual fear that, whenever she felt contented, something (generally a MonsterOfTheWeek) would come along and ruin it.
** This could in fact be a real danger and weapon for in-universe Wicca. Magic tends to balance and use of the magic for selfish purposes will cause an eventual backlash. Bless somebody with good luck using magic and eventually the scales will balance violently.
* John Becker's wonderful [[strike:day]] '''Christmas''' in ''{{Becker}}''.
** (Un?)fortunately, his good day is completely undone in the last minute of the episode, making this also an example of the previous category.
*** [[GenreSavvy He was completely aware]] of this trope throughout the episode, however, and, in a [[SubvertedTrope subversion]], he was actually happy to see the other boot drop.

* ''TheCatReturns'': As a reward for saving the prince, Haru is showered with gifts by the Cat Kingdom. They are all gifts from a cat's point of view, like catnip, dead mice, or [[spoiler: being turned into a cat.]]

* CiaphasCain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!) may qualify too. He frequently tries to keep himself safe and sound above all else, but this usually through good (or, on his part, bad) luck makes him look even more heroic and boosts his reputation even further, putting him in even more dangerous situations. Needless to say, that is the absolute opposite of what he is stiving for.

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Compare and contrast to UnwantedHarem. See also GoneHorriblyRight, where a character gets exactly what they wanted, only to realise that what they wanted wasn't in their own best interests.

** He threw away a winning had at poker only to be dealt an even higher winning hand, then leaned against a slot machine that paid out a jackpot without a coin even being inserted!

* The B-plot of the KingOfTheHill episode "The Peggy Horror Picture Show" has Bobby and Joseph try and prank various folks around Arlen, but wind up making things better for them. In order:
** Drawing a line on a quarter with a marker, and having Dale, who was nervous about a coup at the gun club give himself a quarter massage, which leaves lines all over his face. When he arrives, his buddies assume its war paint, and immediately elect him president.

* Several RichieRich comics involve the Rich family's improbable good luck. In one, Richie goes for a date-walk with his wealth-averse girlfriend Gloria. In order to satisfy her desire for it to be just a simple walk, he goes out without even a penny in his pockets, only for an improbable series of events to occur ending with him holding a three-foot-high (a bit less than one metre) stack of paper money while a disgusted Gloria walks away (even though none of it was Richie's fault).

*** Of course, he had forty years or so of bad luck to make up for by the time things started to go his way.
*** Well, let's face it- some people just don't know the difference between Karma setting them up for a fall and Karma balancing the scales.

* An episode of ''NedsDeclassifiedSchoolSurvivalGuide'' had the titular character being nominated for class president. As he doesn't want to be, he ends up trying to do various things that make him look like a troublemaker, but they all backfire, one example being he tries to graffiti the lockers in front of a bunch of people but the paint ends up the same color as the locker, making everyone think he's trying to clean the school up.

* One of the characters at the bar of the Crosstime Saloon (a later book in the series) and a character in LadySlingsTheBooze, both by SpiderRobinson have strings of... well, luck...
* MobyDick: A subtle example of type 4: Once Ahab has decided to destroy Moby Dick, a lot of good things (for a superior spirit, of course) happened to him: He discovers the beauty of nature, he appreciates the loyalty of his crew, he rediscovers love and charity again when he befriends Pip, Starbuck’s reminds him of his wife and son, the captain of the Rachel begs him to save his son… It’s like the whole universe conspires to save Ahab from his self imposed doom, to convince to abandon his philosophy of RageAgainstTheHeavens … he only can blame himself.

* TheCatReturns: As a reward for saving the prince, Haru is showered with gifts by the Cat Kingdom. They are all gifts from a cat's point of view, like catnip, dead mice, or [[spoiler: being turned into a cat.]]

* In one story, a man gets a ring that says whoever has it will have great luck. Without even trying he becomes a king...just for the kingdom to suddenly fall apart all around him. It is only due to the ring's luck that he barely manages to escape with his life. Whole thing was so traumitizing he'd rather have died, and he throws the ring away.