Do Wrong, Right

"Y'know how when you’re dating someone and you don’t want to cheat on them, unless it’s with someone really hot? Well, this is the same kind of deal. If you're gonna do something wrong, do it right!"

— Joey Tribbiani, Friends

Alice deliberately does something immoral or bad. Bob finds out and takes her to task — not because she did the misdeed, but because she did it incorrectly. Say, she had robbed a bank. "I can’t believe you, Alice! Why did you do that?!", Bob might say. "You should have taken more money, robbed an outlet not so close to home, and done more to cover your tracks."

This trope can also apply to situations where, for example, after Alice takes Bob's sports car out for a drive without his permission and returns, instead of scolding her, he asks her, "How did it run?"

Primarily a comedy trope, but it can show up Played for Drama as well- say, giving the audience the Hope Spot of a villain stopping another from killing a helpless hero... so that they can demonstrate proper weapon technique by doing it themselves. Alternately, it is being used to set up an Even Evil Has Standards moment (say, "Don't overgloat"), or the objection is more practical (e.g., "They could have traced you back to our hideout.")

May sometimes overlap with Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught. If kidnapping is involved, it can overlap with Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?. Related to Insult Backfire and Grammar Correction Gag. See also Because I'm Good At It. May come after a Chew-Out Fake-Out or Berate and Switch. See Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat for doing wrong, wrong, or Wrong Insult Offence for insulting someone wrong. See Your Approval Fills Me with Shame for when a person's (mis)deeds earn him a compliment from a bad guy. Compare Milholland Relationship Moment, where Alice expects Bob to blow up in anger over something she's done to him, only for him to stay calm and react as if it's not a big deal. Also see Pragmatic Villainy, which is all about villains who do wrong right quite often. Compare Opponent Instruction.

Not related to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Accel World, Taku chides Nomi for using acceleration to cheat on tests, saying that always acing certain tests is obviously suspicious. While Taku is disgusted with himself for abusing the power of acceleration in the past (as well as Nomi by extension, since Nomi reminds Taku of how he used to be), he brought this up as the reason Taku was able to challenge Nomi despite him not being on the match list; Taku anticipated when Nomi would accelerate and did so at the same time in order to challenge him.
• In Attack on Titan, Ymir is less irritated by Krista's suicidal martyr complex than her dishonesty in not admitting to herself that she has one.
• Bleach:
  • Unohana isn't insulted by Kenpachi attempting to fight her, but by his halfheartedness in doing so. In her opinion, someone shouldn't fight unless they intend to win- focusing more on having fun and/or fighting honourably is the mark of a dilettante. (Also, she wants to be treated seriously.)
  • In the Soul Society arc, it turns out that Soifon isn't angry at Yoruichi (her patron and Protectorate) because the latter followed Urahara into exile and dishonor. She's angry because Yoruichi didn't give Soifon an opportunity to join her.
• Great Teacher Onizuka: When Onizuka catches Miyabi playing hooky and shoplifting, he shows her how to do it properly.
  Onizuka: Now this... this is shoplifting. [dumps a hundred nail polish bottles down her shirt] And now you run!
• In Killer Killer, Hijirihara is more concerned that the killers he's assigned to catch don't have the passion to back up their crimes than the fact that they're killing at all. In fact, he even grades them on it when he figures out their motivations.
• In the opening of episode 3 of Kotoura-san, Manabe and Kotoura walk in to their classroom to see that, after Manabe's rather loud and public Love Confession the previous day, their classmates have written their names together under an Umbrella of Togetherness. Manabe criticizes his classmates for it... because they didn't put any hearts on it. He then proceeds to draw several hearts all over it while his male classmates bow to him in respect.
• At the beginning of the Chunin Exams in Naruto, the written test has only a 20% penalty for being caught cheating. Why? Half the material wasn't even actually taught—the real point of the exam was to test the students' ability to gather intel through stealth. Given the outlandish methods of cheating some characters used, it's implied that the proctors allowed anything that would plausibly work for reconnaissance in the field to pass without comment, and only imposed the cheating penalties on incompetent cheaters. For example: Gaara is secretly creating an eye out of sand to see other people's tests. The examiner, Ibiki, can tell that Gaara is up to something, but is unable to discern the specifics, and therefore lets it slide without marking him down.
• One Piece: When Zoro asks why the Straw Hats weren't more insistent about Vivi joining them, they all give him insulting names. Usopp then reproaches Luffy... because Luffy didn't insult Zoro properly, instead just calling him "Santoryu", his sword style. In the 4Kids dub, Luffy instead calls Zolo by his own name ("Zolo-brain!") and Usopp yells Luffy's name in an accusitory tone before reprimanding him for simply calling him his own name.
• In one episode of Samurai Champloo, a pair of twins have been writing graffiti on every surface they can get their brushes on. When their former teacher sees this, he complains that it's awful... because their penmanship is terrible.
  Teacher: They should be ashamed,
  Woman: I agree.
  Teacher: Dammit! YOU'RE WRITING IT WRONG!
• Control Freak Chiri Kitsu of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei does this quite a lot. She has a scene where she angrily objects to thugs beating someone half to death- not because she finds what they are doing wrong, but they need to beat him more so he's literally halfway between life and death.
• Soul Eater's introductory chapter/episode for Black Star and Tsubaki has the former try to peek on the latter taking a bath. Tsubaki throws a shuriken into his face—not for being a pervert, but for doing such a terrible job of sneaking around. It becomes amusing when it's revealed in a far later manga chapter that she is more perverted than him (in fact, she's the most perverted out of their group of friends, outside of Blair.) Maybe she enjoys the fact that Black Star finds her sexy.

Comedy

• Margaret Cho describes her outrage at being called a racial slur in Mobile, Alabama. "I was so mad! I just looked at him and said, 'Chink?! I'm sorry, chinks are Chinese. I'm Korean. I'm a gook, all right? If you're going to be racist, at least learn the terminology.'"
• Josh Wolf once told a story about coming home from vacation to find a $200 bill for porn and naturally assumes his son was responsible. He mentions that the reason he was mostly mad wasn't because his son was watching porn, but because he ordered it when there was free porn on the internet.

Comic Books

• In Diabolik it was believed that, once she recovered her sanity, Elisabeth Gay hates Diabolik for manipulating her into being an unknowing accomplice of his crimes, breaking her heart and driving her insane twice (the first by accident as a side effect of the other things and the shock of discovering she was living with a murderer, the second, done as soon as she had recovered from the first because he knew she was terrified at the idea of becoming insane, as revenge for calling the police when she discovered what looked severed heads and thus getting him arrested and exposed as Diabolik), but she eventually admitted she actually hated him for taking Eva Kant as a willing accomplice in her place. This gets worse when a Whole Episode Flashback reveals he had considered doing that and she had (barely) failed his test.
• Kaijumax: The reason that Hellmoth kills the Creature of Devil's Creek wasn't because he betrayed the Cryptids or asked his his father for a weapon to kill him, but because he didn't have the guts to even attempt to do so.
• In Kaput & Zosky, planet Jobi-Joba is a world of obstructive bureaucrats. The planet's denizens tell all visitors to fill out a series of many pointless forms... especially if their purpose is to take over Jobi-Joba. In fact, any invader who refuses to fill out those forms gets easily defeated.
• In the Legion of Super-Heroes story The Great Darkness Saga, the narration lampshades the billions of Daxamites brainwashed by Darkseid into blazing a path of destruction through the galaxy "[are] doing a very good job for a very bad cause."
• Ms. Marvel (2014):
  • Ms. Marvel is a teenage Muslim girl who can't resist smelling bacon ("Delicious, delicious infidel meat"). Her friends think she should either eat it or stick to her principles. "Chow or chow not, there is no smell."
  • In another example, she explains to her teacher at the mosque that she is disobeying her parents (by sneaking out of the house) so that she can help people. Much to her surprise, his response is basically this trope:
    Imam: Do what you are doing with as much honor and skill as you can.
• Robin (1993): Bruce confronts Tim upon realizing Tim has altered portions of his parents' wills and forged the papers for an "uncle" and hired an actor to fill the role in order to avoid becoming a ward of the state following his parents' murders and his step-mother having a breakdown and being committed. Instead of telling him off for the multiple forgeries or not coming to Bruce to find a way around the situation without breaking any laws Bruce tells him how proud he is while showing Tim how to make the deception foolproof.
• In one issue of The Simpsons, Bart, Homer and Grandpa (among several other characters) get stuck in a frozen area of the Krusty factory. (It Makes Sense in Context.) Homer decides that they should eat Grandpa, and Abe protests...because no sane person would want to eat a scrawny old man like himself.
• In Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics), when the Egg Boss Cassia catches one of her subordinates playing video games instead of monitoring the screens like he's supposed to, she tells him that if he's gonna slack off like that he can at least do it well enough to beat her high score.
• S.W.O.R.D. (2020): In the final issue, Gyrich is cornered by Abigail Brand, who tells him they don't mind his plan to burn Krakoa to the ground. In fact, they agree with it. What they do object to is that he's so bad at it. So she spaces him.
• Venom (2021): In issue #25, Doctor Doom grumbles to Eddie about how he knows Kang the Conqueror will raid his tomb, but won't take any cool tech or artworks from it, and Doom surely would leave something like that in there. So why didn't Kang take that, and not just some random junk? It's another reason Doom hates Kang.
• Vote Loki: The titular character goes on a rant about how all politicians are liars (which he finds very amusing) but when someone called him a hypocrite for this he continued that his problem is that they don't lie well enough... and he would do it much better if he was running.

Comic Strips

• Beetle Bailey: In an early April 2011 Sunday Strip, Sgt. Snorkel caught Beetle drawing insulting pictures of him on building exteriors throughout Camp Swampy. So Sarge hired an art teacher for Beetle.
• A strip by Joan Cornellà had a boy's mother catch her son watching porn, then smiling approvingly after getting him to watch a video of a man fucking a dog.
• In one For Better or for Worse, Michael gives Ellie some flowers he picked from a neighbour's garden. Though she puts them in water, Ellie chastises him for picking someone else's flowers before telling him that if if he is going to pick them, he should leave them on the stem.
• FoxTrot had an early strip where Andy is attempting to scold Peter for going 90 mph in their car, while Roger is more interested in how it handled, and whether Peter thought it could've broken 100.
• In the German comic Ingo Pien about humanized penguins, a Neo-nazi sieg-heils in court. The judge reprimands him: "If you ever do the 'sieg-heil' again... do it smartly!"
• Zits:
  • In one strip, Jeremy and Hector are caught driving their unregistered van on the streets. Jeremy's dad asks three questions: "Are you okay?" "Was anyone hurt?" and "How did it handle?"
  • In another set of strips, Jeremy's parents go out somewhere for the evening, and he decides to walk around naked, only for various people to try to come visit him. Eventually, Pierce catches him after already entering, and advises him to pull such a stunt with confidence if he's gonna try.

Fan Works

• Alexander "Brand" Fraiser: Mayor Wilkins is rather upset with Angelus for his assault on Xander because it drew the attention of the US Air Force.
• All For Luz: Tyler Wittebane believes the Antagonistic Governor, who organised a Deadly Game scheme to kill off the superpowered kids, had the right idea, but the wrong approach. He believes Luz, the current All For One holder, can't be controlled and should have been killed from the beginning.
• Apex Predator (MHA): When the League of Villains attacks the USJ, Izuku, instead of being terrified, is instead baffled at how poorly thought out the attack was because attacking high schoolers will only make them look like martyrs and will play into the hero narrative (which is the opposite of what the League is trying to accomplish). He lectures Shigaraki over this in the middle of the attack and actually gets him to back off and rethink his approach. Of course, this only adds to Izuku's reputation as The Dreaded among Yuuei.
• The Awakening of a Magus: During the Hogsmeade attack, a few Slytherin students leave for their dorms. After Draco and Snape follow and catch them putting on Death Eater apparel, Snape remarks anyone with a bit of brain wouldn't have played their hand so soon, but instead waited for an opportunity to backstab in the middle of a fight.
• In the chapter "Devil Chess?" of Beyond the Outer Gates Lies... A high school library?, Harry seems ready to scold Sona for using her water dragon to intimidate Riser (after Ise gave him a severe case of dracophobia). Instead, he tells her she could make the dragon much scarier, and proceeds to illustrate.
  • In the sequel, during the Kyoto school travel, Azazel warns the boys against trying to peek in on the girls... and that, if they do, at least use methods that will not get them caught, like a periscope or taking photos with a selfie stick.
• Blessed with a Hero's Heart: When Izuku uses his vines to restrain Darkness, the latter complains because he's not using thorns as well.
• Crack Fic: Aizawa punishes Uraraka, Kirishima, Hagakure, and Midoriya because they were trying to hide a bag of crack cocaine while he was doing room inspection for not handing it as soon as they found it and because of how badly they were trying to do it.
• The Dragon King: After Snotlout is outed for stealing from his own father, using the money to bribe Mildew and Dogsbreath to behave while he's acting chief and then let the twins take the blame for the theft, Spitelout chews him out. Not for stealing from him mind you, but because he got caught.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Dr. Mizuno is concerned upon hearing about Ami getting drunk at the victory party held for defeating the assortment of Keepers, but consoles herself that the ensuing hangover would have taught Ami better. On being told that there was no hangover due to the alcohol being magically created and temporary...
  "Ami, that can't be healthy! Liquid suddenly disappearing from cells that are already using it - I shudder to think what that does to a metabolism. Next time you want to get drunk, use a real drink! Doctor's order!"
• Equestria Girls: A Fairly Odd Friendship: When Mr. Turner witnesses Rainbow about to vandalize Dinkleberg's car with a crowbar, he admonishes her... for using a weak weapon, advising her instead to use a brick or a golf club so she can destroy his windshield much more quickly and make a clean getaway.
• In The Evil Queen, Joker holds a cognition at gunpoint demanding information. His persona Arsene stops Joker. As he explains, a threat only works if you go through with it, and a pistol means killing their victim and getting no information. When Joker switches to holding a knife to the cognition's ear, Arsene approves. After all, a maimed victim can still talk.
• Fate/Sunny Order: After being freed from brainwashing while in Jasonland, Cu Chulain tells Emiya and Robin that his real problem wasn't with the brainwashing, but the execution. Cu was brainwashed into thinking he was King Cyzicus (Medea's father), but he thinks a more effective method would have been to make him believe he had to attack his former allies. Instead, an artificial personality was implanted and kept him from fighting at his full potential.
• In A Glass of Wine, Misato chides Shinji for drinking her wine and then putting the bottle back where she could find it instead of throwing it away.
  Misato: Where did my wine go?
  Shinji: I'm sorry?
  Misato: See this empty bottle and how it was stashed away back on the shelf? If you drank the stuff, why did you put the empty bottle back where I could find it?
  Shinji: I didn't—
  Misato: Kiddo, I'm not angry. You don't have to lie. Throw that away when you get a chance.
• In Harry Is a Dragon, and That's OK, Uncle Vernon reveals that he told his sister that Harry was sent to a youth corrections facility to explain why he was never at home. He's less annoyed by the implication and more that they didn't just use a simpler solution - namely that he was at a cheap school on a government grant, since then they wouldn't have to explain the issue of holidays.
• Harry Potter and the Bleached Phoenix has Snape take off House points from students he discovers repeating Japanese curse words because they're pronouncing them wrong.
• How to Lose a Guy in 10 Minutes: After Faith chokes out Xander, his first act upon waking up is to offer to teach her how to properly choke someone out.
  Xander: I had time to tap out the William Tell Overture on your arm.
• In A Jedi, a Wizard, and a Scooby Walk into a Bar, Snape agrees with Xander's decision to fail several Slytherin essays when he learns Xander is failing them so badly because of how blatant their plagiarizing was. Shortly afterwards, he makes no comment on Xander deducting several points from a group of Slytherins for "being caught trying to spy".
• Along with a strong alibi, Kagami and Chloé in The Murder of Lila Rossi use this as their reason to Detective Wolfe for why they didn't kill the titular character.
  • Kagami wouldn't bother hiding if she had killed Lila, since she would have only done it if she was a threat to Kagami or her loved ones, and would have confessed to it immediately without a hint of guilt.
  • Chloé admits that she does have the money to hire an assassin to kill Lila, but wouldn't have hired one for doing a "sloppy job"^note Lila's body was found in an alleyway, without a murder weapon, phone, or usable fingerprints. She would have instructed the killer to dispose the body far out of Paris to keep Chloé from being a suspect.
  • When Wolfe finds out the real identity of the active heroes, she definitely rules them out as suspects despite having a grudge against Lila. While they had powers to bypass cameras, they also have the powers to get rid of Lila's body, such as Chat Noir's Catacylsm, Bunnyx's time travel, or the Horse Miraculous's teleportation.
• A Pairing Of Souls features Shen Qingqiu getting mad when accused of sabotaging his student by giving him a false cultivation manual because it's too much of a sloppy and hazardous method, claiming he would have induced qi deviations instead and no one would have suspected anything.
• Several Ravenclaws in Princess of the Blacks disapprove of the attempted murder of Jen merely because the perpetrators didn't follow proper protocol for declaring a blood feud.
• A Rabbit Among Wolves: Ilia and Sun call out the White Fang wannabees for not only being imposters, but for their tactical incompetence and pathetic attempts at seeming edgy.
• When Naruto beats the hell out of Sasuke in Shards for insulting his teacher, both Harribel and the other sensei punish him for it. Harribel punishes him because he didn't chamber his first kick properly, causing him to tear his abdominal muscles. The other sensei punish him for getting caught beating Sasuke.
• In this Star vs. the Forces of Evil fan comic, a young Star is stopped from whacking her cousin with a folding chair by a royal guard, who promptly admonishes her...and then hands her a child-sized stool to use instead.
• Buffy is shocked, in Tabula Avatar, when Dawn swears in Ilythiiri. Tara makes her say it again, this time with proper grammar.
• Things I Am Not Allowed to Do at the PPC: Rule 457 bans baiting newbies into letting cesium come into contact with water, but permits agents to weaponize doing so against Sues.
• In Thousand Shinji, Shinji is big on this. His reaction to Misato saying he and Asuka better behave while she is away is: "She doesn't trust me to properly dispose of the evidence?"
• Kaito chews out Hattori when he catches him reading some confidential files in The Trouble With Soulmarks, yelling that he should be taking photos of the contents so he can peruse them later before stomping off to guard the door.
• In Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse, when the Nerimans initially take to piracy they're very successful, easily taking down Marines and pirates alike. However they don't understand the culture of being a pirate and so lack a Jolly Roger or crew name. A pirate captain they just defeated in battle manages to claim a moral victory by declaring his crew at least fought and lost as proper pirates; meanwhile, the Marines give them the insulting title "the Dirty Coward Pirates".
• In Dragon Age: Inquisition fanfic Walking in Circles, when Evelyn and Solas get caught while they’re having a tryst (it’s actually just a cover for Solas’s failed escape attempt), she gets a scolding from First Enchanter Monette but it’s mainly about Evelyn’s choice in partner and places to do it rather than her having a lover in the first place. As Monette put it, if Evelyn has to get a lover, it’s better to be someone with influence (like a Templar) rather than an apostate elf with no name or influence.
• In When Harry met Wednesday:
  • Wednesday Addams disdains Voldemort killing entire families because he always seems to leave a survivor or two; something Wednesday views as sloppy.
  • In the first chapter Wednesday informs Harry he shouldn't jump off the cliff they're on because it's only tall enough to horribly maim him. She does offer to go down to the water with him and drown him though if he's determined to kill himself.
• In Who the Heck is Naruto? Hashirama (in Naruto's body) scolds a young girl writing graffiti on the academy walls because she used the wrong kanji for Mizuki and whore. Even funnier, he's appalled that a 10 year old doesn't know the correct kanji for whore, stating that every Senju knows it by the time they turn eight.
• In X-Men: The Early Years, Jean gets into trouble after hitting a pervert, and Scott and Xavier remind her that physical assault should be carried out when there are no witnesses around.
  Prof. Xavier: Listen to me. If you had put Will Anderson's head through that wall somewhere that wasn't in front of witnesses, I would say, yes, fight this. You didn't though; you put his head through the wall at Harry's on a very crowded night in front of a whole restaurant of witnesses. If you fight this, Jean, you are going to lose.
  Scott: See, next time, you wait in the dark parking lot for him to come out, jump him, and kick the crud out of him. Remember — no witnesses.

Film — Animation

• In The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Captain Phoebus finds Judge Frollo in the dungeons of the Palace of Justice. The Judge calls for an inquisitor whipping a prisoner and instructs him to ease off and wait between lashes. Not to give the prisoner some reprieve, but because whipping too fast means the pain of the old wound dulls the sting of the new one.
• In The Incredibles, Dash gets sent to the principal's office for using his Super-Speed to put a tack on the teacher's chair during class. His father is genuinely impressed, especially about how Dash went too fast to be picked up on video. At least as far as the others in the room were concerned, it was also an example of Comically Missing the Point — primarily because it's clear that Bob's just living vicariously through his son's use of his powers.
• In Monsters, Inc., Mike Wazowski corrects Randall's pronunciation of 'cretin', saying "If you're gonna threaten me, do it properly."
• Just before the climax of My Little Pony: Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer admonishes Snips and Snails for destroying the decorations in the gym. Not because it was wrong — Sunset was the one who ordered them to do it, after all — but because they almost did it too well, threatening to push the Fall Formal back a week, which would have ruined the plans of both Sunset and Twilight Sparkle.
  • She does it again in My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games (a rare heroic example), berating Twilight Sparkle for creating a magic-containing device when she doesn't even understand what she's containing.

Film — Live-Action

• In The Movie of The Addams Family:
  • Morticia spots Wednesday carrying a cleaver. When she asks, "Is that for your brother?" and Wednesday nods, Morticia replies, "I don't think so", takes the knife away... and hands her daughter a bigger cleaver.
  • Gordon sees Wednesday and Pugsley rehearsing their swordfight for the school play. When Wednesday falls "dead", Gordon exclaims in disgust, runs downstairs and shows Pugsley exactly where he should be aiming - "the jugular!"
• In Angels with Dirty Faces, some of the kids try to pickpocket Rocky, not knowing he's a gangster. Being an expert pickpocket himself, he catches them and even tracks down their hideout - and then tells them how to do a better job getting away with the crime next time.
• A decidedly non-comedic example in The Breakfast Club. Andy Clark's father, who has plenty of experience bullying nerds in his youth, doesn't seem to care at all that his son pulled a painful and humiliating prank on another student — his only concern is that Andy got caught.
• In Michael Moore's satire Canadian Bacon, about a drummed-up war between the United States and Canada, a group of gung-ho Americans drive through Canada in a van covered with anti-Canadian graffiti. A cop pulls them over to reprimand them... because in Canada all signage needs to be in English and French.
• Dead Poets Society: Charlie Dalton pranks Welton Academy with an alleged phone call from God saying that the Academy should start admitting girls. Naturally, Dean Nolan isn't amused by this, and Charlie gets punished with a paddling. Later, Mr. Keating rebukes him, telling him that "there's a time for caution and a time for daring, with a wise man understanding which is called for". However, he adds that the "phone call from God" would have been even more daring if it had been a Collect call.
• In The Dictator, the titular character, General Aladeen, is kidnapped by a racist xenophobic American who plans to torture and kill him on the orders of Aladeen's Treacherous Advisor. Being a Torture Technician himself, Aladeen repeatedly mocks his captor's technique and outdated tool set, much to the latter's annoyance.
• Fair Game: When the hunters discover that Jessica has welded their guns together during the night, Grease Monkey Sparks' reaction is:
  It's a good job of welding, but. (notices Death Glare from the other two) Maybe not.
• In Frankenstein 1970, Victor comments that the concentration camp commandant having his tongue cut out was 'a beautiful piece of surgery' (implicitly admiring his own work).
• In Glass Onion, Blanc is almost offended when he realizes the two crimes he's been investigating are both the result of Miles murdering somebody on the spur of the moment rather than a complicated plot. He even berates the culprit for stealing the one creative idea from Blanc's own warning.
• The opening scene of The Godfather has Vito Corleone chiding a man for not showing him the proper respect when requesting an assassination.
• In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Weasley brothers take their father's flying Ford Anglia car and rescue Harry from 4 Privet Drive, and their mother isn't too happy about it. Their father, however:
  Molly Weasley: Your sons flew that enchanted car of yours to Surrey and back last night!
  Arthur Weasley: Did you really? (Beat) How'd it go? (Muffled discussion; Molly hits him with a tea towel) I mean, that was very wrong indeed, boys, very wrong of you!
• In John Wick, everyone's criticism of Iosef for beating a man, killing his dog, and stealing his Cool Car is that he did it to John Wick of all people.
• In A League of Their Own, after Evelyn's son nearly causes the team's bus to crash, Mae grabs a baseball bat and says "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to kill your son." As Mae is chasing the boy around the bus, one of the other team members yells at her, "don't use my bat! Use Marla's, it's heavier!"
• In Liar Liar, Greta tells Fletcher about a friend of hers who was sued for $6,000 by a burglar who was injured in the course of breaking into her house. He lets out a horrified "No!", but then continues "I'd have gotten him 10."
• In The Lost Boys, Sam steals his grandfather's precious car in order to engage in some vampire slaying. When next they meet, this exchange occurs.
  Grandpa: Do you know the rule about filling up the car with gas when you take it without asking?
  Sam: No, Grandpa.
  Grandpa: Well, now you do.
• One scene in the two-part film Menendez: A Killing in Beverly Hills, has both infamous brothers robbing various places as a way to rebel against their strict father and to avoid the boredom of their privileged lifestyle. When they get caught, their father scolds them, not for being criminals, but for being so bad at it they got caught, which he points out is another in a long line of disappointments he is angry about.
• In Monty Python's Life of Brian, Brian gets caught writing anti-Roman graffiti by a legionnaire who forces him to write it over and over again correctly, after correcting his atrocious Latin grammar at sword-point.
  Roman Centurion: (upon seeing graffiti vandalism) What's this, then? "Romanes Eunt Domus"? "People called Romanes they go the house"?
  Brian: It— it says, "Romans, go home".
  Centurion: No, it doesn't. What's Latin for "Roman"? Come on! (pinches Brian's earlobe)
  Brian: Aah!
  Centurion: Come on!
  Brian: "R— Romanus"?
  (after a lot more discussion on the proper grammar, they correct it to "Romani Ite Domum")
  Centurion: Now, write it out a hundred times.
  Brian: Yes, sir, thank you, sir, hail Caesar, sir!
  Centurion: (saluting) Hail Caesar. If it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
• Pearl Harbor: Admiral Yamamoto makes clear from the outset that he opposes his government's decision to go to war with the United States. But if war is coming, he will plan the attack on Pearl Harbor down to the last detail, to give his country its best chance of winning.
• A sinister example in Ransom: Jimmy Shaker comes across the kidnappers' hideout, apparently by mistake. He sneaks in, discovers the whole operation, surprises the only thug present and holds him at gunpoint. It looks like the kid is saved! Shaker then... scolds Cubby for not protecting the hideout properly. He's a Dirty Cop, in fact the mastermind behind the kidnapping, and he merely tells Cubby not to be so stupid in the future. This being because just before this, Cubby went into a corner bodega where the NYPD were detaining a shoplifter, and bought children's cereal, the sort of red flag that could tip the cops off.
• In the beginning of RRR (2022), the film's antagonist reprimands a British soldier for trying to shoot an Indian blocking the road... by explaining the bullet in his gun is far too valuable to waste on someone like them, and encouraging him to use a different method.
• In the 2007 movie The Savages, when Philip Seymour Hoffman's character finds out his sister (Laura Linney) stole pain pills from a dead man's room, he only asks, "Do they work?"
• Scare Campaign: Just before he is about to suffer Murder by Cremation, Marcus sees the footage of The Mole Abby being Buried Alive, and has to admit that they are actually a really good actor.
• Secondhand Lions. Pop quiz: You're an old guy who just got out of the hospital for a heart attack. You go to a diner for some grub and get harassed by knife-wielding delinquents. What do you do? Well, if you're Hub McCann, you start teaching them proper knife-handling technique before they cut their own fingers off...
• In Skyfall, Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee Gareth Mallory catches Q and Tanner creating a trail for Silva to follow in his pursuit of M, whom James Bond is protecting at the eponymous lodge. Q and Tanner think they are in trouble, but Mallory instead gives them tips on the best path to give Silva to make sure he is taking the bait.
  Q: But, sir, what if the PM finds out?
  Mallory: Well, then, we're all buggered, aren't we?
• In Spaceballs, as Lone Star is infiltrating the mothership, he tries incapacitating a guard using the Vulcan nerve pinch. Unfortunately, the guard doesn't collapse. Instead, he chastises Lone Star for doing it wrong and instructs him on the correct technique. Lone Star adjusts his grip, and the guard promptly falls unconscious.
• The Suicide Squad. When Bloodsport is visited by his daughter in prison, she confesses that she got arrested for shoplifting a TV watch. Bloodsport tries to give her advice on how to steal better under the watchful eyes of the security guards, which leads to them having a shouting match because she wants him to be a better parent instead.
  Bloodsport: Next time you want to nick something, you take a partner, and they can be your lookout.
  Tyla: That's your advice?
  Bloodsport: Yeah.
  Tyla: (Suddenly Shouting) You're a terrible father! I can't believe you don't care that I stole, only that I got caught!
  Bloodsport: (right back at her) I don't only care that you got caught; I care that you got caught for stealing something as stupid as a fucking TV watch!
  Tyla: It does other things too!
  Bloodsport: But nothing that your phone can't fucking do! It's embarrassing!
  Tyla: No, what's fucking embarrassing is having you as my father.
• Shows up a lot in the horror-comedy Tragedy Girls. Sadie and McKayla are aspiring Serial Killers, and take their work seriously, so they frequently critique each other's techniques during their kills. They're also appalled with a fellow murderer's victim turns out to be Not Quite Dead, McKayla snapping, "Really? You couldn't even do that right?"
• In the The Three Stooges short "The Brideless Groom", Larry hefts a flintlock pistol from an antique collection and prepares to wade into the massive Cat Fight in front of them, using the pistol as a bludgeon. Moe rebukes him, "Wait a minute! You wouldn't hit a lady with that?" Larry looks suitably abashed... and Moe hands him an antique rifle: "Use this, it's bigger."

Literature

• In Atlas Shrugged, our hero is being tortured using electroshock. When the machine breaks down, none of the bad guys are competent enough to fix it. The hero tells them how to go about it, which entirely freaks them out as it makes them realize a clear Aesop; not only do they need him more than he does them, even their tools of torture are dependent on men like him to make them work. They are nothing without those they oppress.
• In the novella The Austro-Hungarian Connection, after a bit of hearing Denise Beasely's potty mouth and noticing her expression suggested she was expecting to be told to not use foul language (one of her pet peeves), Janos Drugeth mentally comments that his father would have taken her to task for it were he there to hear it. Not for the fact that a 16 year old girl was swearing, but because of Denise's "free verse" foulmouthing, the senior Drugeth believing in a more formalized approach to cursing.
• Darth Plagueis: Plagueis mortally wounds his master, Darth Tenebrous, while the two of them are using the Force to protect themselves from a cave-in. Tenebrous initially praises Plagueis for seizing the opportunity to take a Klingon Promotion in accordance with the Sith ways, only to become angry and rebuke him when he realizes that Plagueis let the cave-in crush their starship. They're in the middle of nowhere on a backwater planet, and by sacrificing the ship for a chance to kill his master, Plagueis has jeopardized the continued existence of the Sith. Plagueis takes the criticism poorly and snaps Tenebrous's neck.
• Discworld:
  • Feet of Clay, the proprietor of the Dwarf Bread Museum is hit over the head with a loaf of bread (this is more serious than it sounds; dwarfs make bread to last, and not necessarily to be edible). His ghost laments to Death what a terrible waste this was... as there's now a dent in the bread's crust, and he said that since it's one of the exhibits.
    "What was wrong with a simple cosh? Or even a hammer? I could have provided one if asked."
  • In Witches Abroad, Granny Weatherwax confronts her elder sister in the climax of the book and spends a good chunk of it berating her. For a lot of things; for disappearing when they were both young at a time that was hard for the whole family, for robbing Granny of the choice of whether to be the good sister or the bad one by running off and being the bad one, but most of all because the entire time, the last seventy-someodd years, Lilith has made herself the villain of the piece while being totally convinced that she's the good sister. Granny tells her that she could have at least had the common decency to enjoy herself in being the bad one, and raves about how much better a villain she, Granny, would have made, because she would have embraced being the bad one rather than deluding herself; but she had to be the good one, and when you know right from wrong you can't choose wrong.
  • Wyrd Sisters gives another quote, after things have deteriorated to the point where Granny Weatherwax decides to abandon her "no meddling [in politics]" rule:
    Nanny Ogg: As you progress in the Craft, you'll learn there is another rule. Esme's obeyed it all her life. When you break rules, break 'em good and hard.
  • In Night Watch:
    • Vimes yells at some citizens to tear down their barricade... because it's an Absurdly Ineffective Barricade and he wants them to make it better, along with putting the new one in a better defensive chokepoint down the road. While Vimes actually doesn't think it's wrong to build the barricades, it is illegal, and he has to make a decision.
    • When Mountjoy-Standfast is questioning Nobby about what's going on behind the barricade, Nobby mentions that he wants to join the army in order to steal boots off of the bodies. Mountjoy-Standfast gets indignantly angry and points out that the soldier who brought him in, Gabitass, would never stoop to stealing dead men's boots, and Gabitass agrees. However, a footnote adds that Gabitass's advice on the subject would be to skip the boots because there isn't much money in it and you can't carry that many, and that it's better to stick with jewelry, which is more valuable and portable.
  • In Making Money, Moist doesn't want Pucci Lavish to convince the crowd that the new banknotes are worthless, but for a professional con man like himself, there's still something dispairing about watching someone who's just that bad at persuading people.
• Dispatches: During the siege of Khe Sanh in the Vietnam War, a Marine bumps into someone at night and says "You wanna watch where the fuck you're going." He gets the reply "That's 'You want to watch where the fuck you're going, sir.' " The other man was a lieutenant.
• Doom Valley Prep School: The point of Doom Valley Prep School's "higher education" is not to make villains, any illiterate bum can be one of those. What the school wants to churn out are successful villains, and if the unworthy wind up dying, wishing they were dead, or polymorphed into some non-sapient creature that no longer cares, so be it.
• Dragon Bones: Oreg admits to Ward that he has been hiding a slave (Ward considers it a good thing, the slave's owners would call it theft), who belongs to some noblemen that have come to Ward to ask for help in catching her. Ward asks him if he has given her enough to eat and warm blankets.
• Every Heart a Doorway: Referenced by the self-professed Mad Scientist Jack after her fellow students start showing up murdered — as she says, if she were the one killing them, she'd never waste a perfectly good corpse like that.
• In Charles Stross's The Family Trade, when Miriam confesses to sleeping with Olga's fiancé Roland, Olga asks if Roland was any good.
• Firestarter: The assassin Rainbird reminisces about a mentor of his who taught him how to crack safes, and a story he once told about a pair of crooks trying to crack a safe who had some time to work on it and employed several techniques. When all else failed, they finally decided to blast it open, but used too much dynamite. The resulting explosion blew open the safe, but also shredded the money inside, rendering it completely worthless. The point of this story, as he explained to Rainbird, was that those idiots didn't beat the safe: you haven't beaten the safe unless you get what's inside it in a usable condition. Rainbird draws parallels between this story and what the Shop is trying to do with little Charlene McGee: if, in their efforts to Break the Cutie they attempt too much coercion, he's certain she'll commit suicide and they'll get nothing useful out of her either.
• In The Murderbot Diaries, Murderbot informs the reader that it didn't kill the human whose murder it's been asked to investigate. If it had, it wouldn't dump the body in the station mall, for fuck's sake.
• In Glory in the Thunder, Rashk lectures Vahagn about the correct way to murder a good person who doesn’t deserve to die.
• In The Godfather, Vito chastises his 16 year old son Santino when he discovers that he was involved in an armed robbery, which could cause embarrassment to the family. He ends the diatribe with "And what did you earn for your night's work? Fifty dollars each? Twenty?" ... "Lawyers can steal more with a briefcase than a thousand men with guns and masks."
• Harry Potter:
  • Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:
    • When Umbridge becomes Headmistress, Peeves the Poltergeist begins to wreak havoc, to which the other Hogwarts teachers are remarkably insouciant. At one point, Professor McGonagall passes by while he's trying to unscrew a chandelier, and Harry swears that he hears her telling him, "It unscrews the other way."
    • When Umbridge is finally run out of the school, McGonagall notes she would have joined everyone but Peeves borrowed her walking stick to hit Umbridge over the head with. The tone implies less that Peeves took it and more he politely asked her for it, telling her exactly what he needed it for.
    • Harry tries to use the Cruciatus curse on Bellatrix and fails. She admonishes him, saying that for it to work, you really have to want to cause pain: righteous anger is a poor fuel for the spell. It helps him get it right against Amycus Carrow in book 7.
  • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore and Harry infiltrate one of Voldemort's hiding spots for his Horcruxes, with Dumbledore using his extensive knowledge of magic to identify most of the traps before they're triggered. Some of his comments ("Oh, surely not! Crude, how very, very crude...") suggest that he's disappointed in the quality of the traps Voldemort has set for intruders: the traps are designed to weaken intruders in various ways, but could have been much more effective if they just killed the intruders instead...
• A Hole in the Fence: When Brigadier Beauras catches Grisón trying to sneak -clumsily and badly- into the Forbidden Zone once again, the man grumbles about the town's kids sucking at stealth, and even more insultingly, believing they crawl around and hide themselves well.
• Kama Sutra: "I advise you not to commit adultery. But if you must, follow those rules: 1. Never woo two ladies who live in the same house..."
• In the Knight and Rogue Series Fisk is endlessly exasperated with Michael's inability to lie.
• In Tamora Pierce's Lady Knight, not one but several people sneak off (disobeying army orders in the process) to help Keladry attack the opposing side. This results in one informing another that he's going the wrong way.
• Towards the end of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, Edmund Bertram is nervous about his first encounter with Mary Crawford after her brother and his married sister were discovered having an affair. He's sure she'll be as ashamed and upset about it as he is. Oh, Mary's mad at them all right... for being stupid enough to get caught.
• Used to great effect in Molnfri bombnatt by Swedish writer Vibeke Ohlson. The main character is an elderly German woman who moved to Sweden after World War II. At one point, she encounters a bunch of Neo-Nazis on the streets of Stockholm, and she immediately starts yelling at them: "If you have to go around shouting those slogans, at least don't sound so damn Swedish! Sieg Heil! That's how to say it!"
• In "Null-ABC" by H. Beam Piper, Bodyguard Doug Yetsko objects when a gang of high school students grab pistols and burp guns instead of stun weapons to go quell a riot. Then he's pointed at a viewscreen showing just how bad the riot has become, and abruptly changes his mind:
  Yetsko: [handing a burp gun back] Look; you gotta press this little gizmo, here, to let the action shut when there’s no clip in, or when the clip’s empty. When you got a loaded clip in, you just pull back on this and let go—
• Played for Drama in Överenskommelser by Simona Ahrnstedt. Rosenschiöld is angry with Edvard for making a fourteen-year-old girl pregnant and abandoning her to die after an abortion. But not because doing it was wrong, but because Edvard was stupid enough to do this to a girl from an upper class family! If the girl had come from a working class family, Rosenschiöld couldn't have cared less.
• In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Claire's mom, a former villain, encourages her daughter to do what makes her happy, even if that means super-villainy. She gives the protagonists advice on how to be the best villains they can.
• When Phule's Company started, Sushi was extremely annoyed by Do-Wop, whom he called "petty thief" in his face. Do-Wop didn't notice which word was emphasized until it was pointed out to him directly, along with the minimum prize value Sushi (a former white-collar criminal) considered worth any risk at all.
  Phule: If I understand you correctly, Sushi, your objection to Do-Wop is not the fact that he steals, but rather the scale he operates on.
• The Prince is a how-to guide on doing this. Sooner or later, a Prince is going to be put in a position where he's going to have to do something morally reprehensible in order to preserve the stability of his kingdom. This is a simple fact and an inevitability of politics. Machiavelli offers advice on how to do this properly.
• The Redemption of Althalus: After Dweia shows the assembled group examples of what has been happening in Perquaine (noblemen and priests collaborating to do whatever they want, which includes raping peasant women and seizing a well belonging to a peasant village so a nobleman can grow crops and throw the peasants out), someone asks why they're interfering in the rebellion, as it looks to be long overdue, and Dweia responds that the wrong people are leading the rebellion.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Since the mainstream culture among mages tends to default to Asskicking Leads to Leadership, Kimberly Magic Academy encourages students to settle their disputes with Wizard Duels adjudicated by upperclassmen. The "wrong" way to settle things is to skip all those formalities and just beat the stuffing out of each other in a lecture hall, as shown in volume 1 (episode 4 of the anime) when Oliver, Nanao, and Guy end up in detention for attacking a group of their classmates who were bullying Katie.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • The villainous Roose Bolton scolds his Axe-Crazy son Ramsay about his flagrant rape, murder and torture sprees. That's all perfectly fine, but you've got to be both selective and subtle about it to meet his standards. When Ramsay expresses intent on skinning one of their allies alive for an insult and turning her into a pair of boots, Roose frustratedly tells him that not only would this further alienate their key allies, but that human skin is also far too thin to make good boots in the first place.
  • Stannis Baratheon, being a Principles Zealot, has more respect for any honest foe doing their best to ruin him than any ally of his who shows disloyalty or treachery. He doesn't mind so much being opposed by someone who honestly believes in something that turns out to be wrong, but someone who's a mere opportunist, in it for themselves and, worse, incompetent annoys him whether they be ally or foe. And will get told how they should have been more like the guy on the other side (or some widely held historical villain example) who is/was at least good at this dirty job of politics.
  • Both Tywin and Tyrion Lannister make several, varied attempts to get through to Joffrey how to Evil King it correctly as his Hands — and, have to give up because he's only interested in The Caligula play-style and, seemingly, going for the speed record. Their attempts do, however, illustrate both their political and moral similarities... and differences.
  • During the sack of King's Landing in Robert's Rebellion, Tywin Lannister told Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch to find and kill the Royal family. Lorch killed Rhaenys Targaryen (a three-year old) by stabbing her 50 times. He claims it was because she kicked him and wouldn't stop screaming. Even Tywin was shocked by the brutal nature of her death, and later said a "clever" man would've used sweet words to calm her and then smothered her with a pillow.
  • This is Tyrion's argument as to why he didn't kill Joeffrey when accused of it. While he had good reasons to want to (then again, so did most of the Seven Kingdoms), if he'd done it he'd have been more subtle about it than sitting right next to the murdered person at dinner and gawk as they died.
  • In a way, this is Sandor Clegane's mission in life when he bumps into fools, naifs or naive fools. It's more a case of "How To Cynicism Correctly Before You Wind Up As Burned As I Was" in his case, however.
  • Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish is a dab hand at handing advice out that may as well come directly from Xanatos Speed Chess: The Users Guide for Good Form in a Gambit-Rich Environment. The problem is, he makes certain he usually does it via Sarcastic Confession, as part of generalized, hilarious snark or after somebody's utter failure, so it does other people very little good before they come a cropper. Mostly.
  • Daenerys finds she actually could use an experienced dash of this aimed at her, after making a complete hash of conquering and ruling a couple of the Free Cities. The problem is that she has almost too many advisors, all with differing takes on how to advise (or how flipping obliquely to vaguely hint around the bush in the case of Quaithe), combined with their clashing personal, cultural and/or moral agendas that don't make it easy for her to discern decent advise like this from complete and utter rubbish.
• Spy School: When it looks like Erica has turned on the CIA in the eighth book the most convincing argument in her defense is that if she was really trying to kill Ben then she could have easily done so in a less conspicuous and more intelligent way.
• In the Star Trek novel The Pandora Principle, Saavik knocks Spock out and leaves him behind so she can take on the potentially fatal job of destroying her hated home planet. Afterwards, Spock reprimands her severely...for not planning things out better, as one really must when choosing to disobey orders. He adds that he planned things very carefully, that time he hijacked the Enterprise.
• In Dorothy L. Sayers' Strong Poison, Bill Rumm is a thoroughly reformed cracksman. But he still can admire a good job and disapproves of dynamiting open safes.
• In The Malloreon, the heroes find an important prophecy recorded by the Angarak priesthood on Genuine Human Hide. Belgarath is disgusted - because human hide is downright terrible at holding ink, and the words have almost completely faded. He rants that the writers were so preoccupied with being gratuitously evil, they forgot practical considerations.

Live-Action TV

• The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. has Brisco playing poker with another guy, both of them cheating constantly until finally Brisco wins with five kings to the other man's five queens. The man gladly accepts the loss with "He cheated me fair and square."
• In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, Holmes once complains to Watson that the most interesting crime news in that day's Times is a report of a failed pickpocketing attempt:
  "Mind you, Watson: a failed attempt. They forgot how to do the simplest things."
• Babylon 5:
  • Garibaldi seems to have a rule about this: if someone is doing something illegal but for the right reasons, he'll give them tips on how to do so in a way that doesn't put Babylon 5 at risk, after sounding them out. G'Kar and Garibaldi in "Comes the Inquisitor":
    Garibaldi: I always leave a little room for someone to disappoint me. Thank you for not doing it.
  • In "Passing Through Gethsemane", Ivanova challenges one of Brother Theo's monks to bet on the outcome of a chess game. Brother Edward counters that "gambling is one of the lesser sins. I've always felt that if you're gonna sin you should go for one of the really big ones", which also foreshadows brother Edward's past life as a serial murderer.
  • In "The Illusion of Truth", Ivanova threatens to throw a reporter out an airlock. The reporter isn't happy and complains to Sheridan. Sheridan rips into Ivanova — for not specifying that the reporter would be "stripped naked and thrown out an airlock." After all, they shouldn't waste perfectly good clothing. It gets a chuckle out of the reporter.
• One episode of Battlestar Galactica (2003) has Chief Tyrol find some of his deck crew illegally distilling their own alcoholic drinks on the flight deck. He proceeds to explain that their setup is exactly wrong and likely to make somebody blind, and tells them to come back later so he can show them how it's done. (This might be considered an inversion of this trope, since the toxicity of mis-made moonshine is a real danger, and thus doing it wrong really is the worst part of what they're up to.)
• Being Human:
  • In the episode where George Sands teaches English as a Foreign Language, George finds that one of his students has vandalized the WC, writing "Mr. Sands Suck Cocks". George takes out a marker pen and corrects the grammar.
  • Earlier, George's students wanted him to teach them curse words, because they never know what people are saying to them when they're being cursed at. George figures he might as well go with it, since swearing is just as much a part of language as anything else.
• Better Call Saul:
  • Saul berates a couple of skaters who try to pull a scam on him by intentionally getting hit by his car. He berates them for their poorly thought out scheme, their first mistake being targetting the car of someone who obviously doesn't have much money to pay them.
  • Mike gives advice like this often to Nacho and the hopelessly naive Daniel Wormald, neither whom think out their criminal plans all the way through.
  • Kim has this attitude when it comes to Jimmy's scams. It's pretty clear that she's content with benefitting from Jimmy's scams and largely only lectures Jimmy when he makes mistakes that could lead to him getting caught.
• In one episode of The Big Bang Theory, Leonard mocks Sheldon by comparing him to Captain Hook. Sheldon's complaint is that Leonard got facts wrong while mocking him.
  Sheldon: Captain Hook’s hand was eaten by a crocodile, not an alligator. If you’re going to mock me, at least get your facts straight.
• On black•ish, Dre teaches Junior to takes his bullies down with insults. When he finds out from the principal that Junior has been "roasting" the other students, Dre is so happy he gets up and starts dancing.
• Breaking Bad:
  • In the first episode, when Walt partners up with Jesse to cook meth, he describes Jesse's meth as "garbage" and his laboratory setup as "ridiculous", and teaches him how to make the purest, highest-grade street meth possible in optimal laboratory conditions, without any filler adulterants added, like Jesse's "signature" chili powder. Although Jesse is extremely skeptical at first, once he actually sees the meth Walt produces, he's thoroughly impressed.
  • Walt goes to a hardware store and notices a tweaker foolishly buying meth making equipment wholesale. He schools him on "different items, different stores" and buying the wrong kind of matches. The tweaker runs off in fear. This leads to the iconic "stay out of my territory" scene.
  • Skyler, once she gets dragged into Walt's secret-keeping, criticizes his money-laundering along the same line.
    "If you're gonna launder money, Walt, at least do it right."
  • Saul's whole job is to steer Walt and Jesse's drug peddling in ways that won't get them caught, such as advising that Jesse purchase a nail salon and Walt purchase a laser tag arena to launder their ill-gotten gains so that the IRS doesn't catch on.
• Rory Bremner parodies US political attack ads:
  "Bill Clinton says he smoked marijuana at Oxford, but that he did not inhale. Would you vote for somebody that doesn't know how to toke a joint?"
• El Chavo del ocho: Often, El Chavo is about to punch Quico out in anger for something, and then la Chilindrina chastises him for it, before giving him a brick or another object so he can hit Quico harder.
• In Cobra Kai, Johnny's reaction when he learns about cyberbullying is especially incensed at the bullies not doing their bullying in person, differently from what he did when he was in high school:
  "What a bunch of pussies! Back in my day, if you wanted to tease someone you did it to their face! There was honor! Respect! These geeks hiding behind their computers, what a bunch of spineless losers. You're not afraid of these losers, are you? You're gonna take shit from these losers? Good, because when I'm done with you, you're gonna be sending a message back. Only it's not gonna be with your keyboard. It's gonna be with your fists!"
• On The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert declared station KTVU's gaffe at presenting the fake names "Sum Ting Wong", "Wi Tu Lo", "Ho Lee Fuk" and "Bang Ding Ow" as crew members of crashed Asiania Flight 214 as "wrong". Because those are Chinese names, and the airline is Korean. He then suggested "Captain Park Ma Plen Tu-Sun" and "Hau Yu Lan Dis Tang".
  Stephen: If you're going to make a racist joke, at least get the ethnicity right!
• In Community, when Gilbert gets caught using cheat codes to try and swindle Pierce out of his father's inheritance by manipulating the virtual reality game, Jeff lets him have it in this manner:
  Jeff: You're cheating, which I have no problem with, but you're getting caught, and that's not cool!
• The Crown last episode Prince Philip doesn't yell at the costume shop for renting Wehrmacht uniform — given he fought in World War II, he may hate it, but it's still legal — but he yells at them for renting an incorrect Wehrmacht uniform (with a swastika armband which was only worn by Nazi Party officials, not regular soldiers).
• In the Doctor Who minisode "Friend from the Future" (which introduced Bill Potts), Bill involuntarily lapses into this after first encountering Daleks, noting that their cries of "Exterminate! Exterminate!" aren't very efficient and they'd save time by shouting "Kill! Kill!" instead, if they really must shout something at all. Cue the Doctor: "Do you really want them at peak efficiency?"
• Frasier:
  • In Season Four's "The Unnatural", Bulldog tells Frasier that every son goes through a Broken Pedestal moment with his father; Bulldog's came when he got home early and found his dad in bed with another woman. Frasier starts to commiserate, but Bulldog says that wasn't the bad part:
    Bulldog: She was ugly, Doc. I mean coyote ugly. My own dad. And the best he could come up with was, "hey, you don't look at the mail while you're poking the fire." [Beat] Hey, I just got that! [laughs]
  • In Season Seven's "Father of the Bride", Donny is furious when one of his clients is caught making credit card payments to an escort service:
    Donny: Any idiot knows you've gotta pay a hooker in cash!
• Fresh Meat:
  • Discussing the fact that JP tried to store some of his sperm in the ice cube tray:
    Howard: That won't work. You'd need liquid nitrogen.
    Kingsley: I love how your reaction is "That won't work," instead of "I hope you haven't gotten cum on my frozen pizzas, because I don't like that topping."
  • Comes up again after JP cheats in a quiz competition and gets caught:
    JP: I just didn't want to look stupid!
    Sam: You can't even cheat properly. That's how stupid you are.
• In a Thanksgiving Episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Uncle Phil happily remarks about his excitement for the "big ol' butterball" (meaning a turkey). Geoffrey naturally can't resist the opportunity and remarks "Well, you are what you eat." Uncle Phil, who is quite used to Geoffrey's jokes about his weight, decides to unleash some Tranquil Fury and tells him off for being unoriginal, using a dangerously cheerful tone while pointing out other, more creative ways to insult him. It's notably one of the few times Geoffrey seems genuinely afraid of Phil.
  Uncle Phil: You could be poetic. "His corpulent flesh rolls around his bones like a thick chocolate pudding." Or scientific! "He is so huge, that food comes to him from the gravitational pull alone!" Or, you could be quizzical! "Is that your head, or is your neck blowing a bubble?" You could be ribald, ironic, vaudevillian—whatever! But be creative! (Dropping his jovial manner) You got that?
  • Seems to be a riff on a similar moment in Cyrano de Bergerac.
• In one Friends storyline, pregnant vegetarian Phoebe is agonising over her Wacky Cravings, and occasionally nibbling on pieces of leftover meat. Joey gives her the advice seen in the quote at the top of this page as he gets out a couple of steaks.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Tywin Lannister cottons on to the fact that Arya Stark is a highborn Northern girl posing as a lowborn Southern girl (although presumably not to her exact identity, which would have been of great interest to him) and corrects her pronunciation of "my lord" (commoners pronounce it "m'lord"), telling her that if she's going to lie to him, she ought to do it well.
  • Tyrion can't resist making aside, snarky comments and after-action reviews about inept assassinations and transparent frame-ups:
    • He denies any involvement in the attempt on Bran's life, pointing out he'd have to be an idiot to give the assassin a unique knife that Littlefinger knew Tyrion owned.
    • Invoked when he realizes that it wasn't Cersei, but Joffrey, who ordered the assassination attempt on him during the Battle of the Blackwater, due to Tyrion being unafraid to call him out on his antics. He admits in retrospect, it should have been obvious who was responsible.
      Tyrion: So he wants me dead, fine, but his stupidity! He could have had me poisoned and no one would have known! But the King, orders the Kingsguard, to murder the Hand of the King, in full view of his own army... the boy's an idiot!
    • Once again invoked when he stands accused of poisoning Joffrey. He takes some intellectual offense at being accused of an assassination so half-assed that it blatantly makes himself the primary suspect. If he really did do it, he says, he'd be smart enough to not stand around gawking as his nephew chokes out his last breaths.
  • Sandor Clegane and Arya Stark are riding past a group of Frey soldiers boasting of their part in the Red Wedding when Arya slips off the horse, walks up to one of them and stabs him repeatedly in the neck, forcing Sandor to kill the other three in her defense. Worse, she stole Sandor's own dagger to do it. His response?
    Sandor: Next time you're going to do something like that, tell me first.
  • "My mother told me not to throw stones at cripples. My father told me: Aim for their heads!" — Ramsay Snow. Ironically, Ramsay's antics with this victim earn him a lecture from his father about not torturing valuable hostages.
  • As Brienne tells Arya, Lord Selwyn Tarth became so tired of his daughter Brienne's belligerent attitude to all her potential suitors and her always getting into fights and losing because of her lack of discipline, that he shrugged and decided to get her the formal training as a knight which she needed to do it properly, in spite of Westerosi society being extremely disapproving of female fighters, reasoning if she was going to get in fights and beat people up, she might as well do it right.
• In the Glee episode "The Rhodes Not Taken," Will recruits former glee club member April Rhodes to join New Directions through Loophole Abuse—since she never actually graduated high school, she can still enroll as a student and thus be in the club. Initially, the students don't want her around (largely because she's a middle-aged woman), but April, who's something of The Lad-ette, wins their favor by teaching them how to do various inappropriate things properly: she instructs Kurt on how to drink chablis without getting caught and thus be confident (it helps that she also gives him her "primo collection of vintage muscle magazines") and Tina and Mercedes on how to shoplift all manner of goods by hiding them between their legs (they tell Will they've changed their minds while wearing expensive new accessories).
• In an episode of Good News Week that aired the week after ex-Prime Minister John Howard had a shoe thrown at him on live television, Mikey talked about the event, saying that after the event had occurred, he had never been so ashamed of being an Australian... because it was the worst bloody shot he'd ever seen!
• Grey's Anatomy: On a slow day, resident jerk Alex keeps pranking the boyfriend of his latest intern, out of jealousy. Veteran Dr. Webber confronts him about it, saying "I thought you were better than that!" It turns out he just wants to suggest better pranks.
• Hannah Montana. "If I still liked a guy, I would have done the same thing." "Really?" "Well, I would have done it a little better."
• Homicide: Life on the Street: John Munch's Establishing Character Moment comes when he gets fed up with a suspect's Blatant Lies and going on a tirade demanding that he lie to him with respect, thank you very much.
  Detective John Munch: You're saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I'm just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait until that big guy comes back. I'm probably just his secretary. I'm just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King.
  Bernard: I'm telling you the truth.
  Munch: I've been in murder police for ten years. If you're going to lie to me, you lie to me with respect. What is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut? Got a problem with my haircut? Don't you ever lie to me like I'm Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams. I am not Montel Williams!
  Bernard: …Who's Montel Williams?
• Parodied in the House episode "Euphoria," when House suspects the patient's symptoms are caused by an infection he got from using pigeon droppings as free fertilizer for his marijuana crop.
  House: Let's hope this experience teaches our cop a lesson — don't cut corners when you're growing your pot.
• In the second episode of How to Get Away with Murder, a man is accused of murdering his wife by stabbing her several times and leaving a lot of blood. The defense argues that the man, an experienced hunter, would know how to kill someone cleanly, with only one slash of the knife. They use a previous murder that he committed, but was acquitted of, as evidence of how he would kill someone. The jury returns an acquittal.
• El internado: The pupils want to protest because the parents (apart from forcing Hector out of the Headmaster position) want to kick the main characters out of school, so they paint "Expulsarnos a todos" (roughly translated, To kick us all out) on a wall, and the parents complain.
  Parent: ¡Esto es indignante! (This is outrageous!)
  Héctor: Desde luego. Expulsadnos se escribe con D de Dinamarca. (Of course. It should be written with a D, like Denmark.)
  Parent: ¿Le parece gracioso? ¡Haga algo! (Do you think this is funny? Do something!)
  Héctor: ¿Yo? ¡No! Ya no soy el director de este colegio. (Me? Not at all! I am not this school's headmaster anymore.)
• Iron Fist (2017): Harold Meachum is totally unfazed by the fact that Ward is embezzling Rand company funds for himself, since pretty much everyone else on the board of directors has their private vices, and this was Ward's. All he does lament is that Ward is doing it so stupidly, forcing Harold to hide Ward's embezzling from the company accountants and the SEC.
  Harold Meachum: But honestly, Ward, couldn't you have just gotten a mistress? Much simpler.
• An episode of JAG had a Marine Drill Sergeant Nasty being held at gunpoint by a kid working for a street gang. He informed him that not only was he holding the gun wrong, but that it was obviously so poorly maintained that the only one in danger from the gun being fired was the kid. Later, another gangster tries to shoot the same Marine, and ends up blowing his own hand off when his gun catastrophically misfires.
• Knight Rider: The prisoners are planning a jailbreak, and feel they have no choice but to take Devon (who's been falsely imprisoned) with them. Devon insists that if they're going to break out, they'll do it Devon's way, since his plan has a chance of succeeding.
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver:
  • In his segment on the Iran Deal, he responds to a clip of an Iranian leader threatening to topple "The Zionist regime"^note A term used by Iranian leaders as a way to refer to Israel without officially recognizing its existence that "if you're going to threaten to destroy a country, at least get their name right."
  • When Vice Admiral Tim Giardina — who until that point was in charge of America's nuclear weapons stockpile — was caught using fake poker chips, John's first comment was, ethical issues aside, if he were remotely competent for his position, he would never have been caught.
    John: I'm sorry, but a Vice Admiral has to have the mental fortitude to fool an Iowa pit boss. You have to!
  • Revisited when the Secret Service leaked Jason Chaffetz's failed application. Which is worse: that they acted like a table of high school mean girls, or that they didn't bother to learn he regularly embarrasses himself without outside help?
  • In his segment on Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, John comments that most rich people get their sons-in-law cushy do-nothing jobs, but Donald Trump "can't even get nepotism right" and got his son-in-law a do-everything job.
• Legends of Tomorrow: When the Legends must kidnap their younger selves to protect them, the teenaged version of Sara slaps teenaged Mick when he comes on to her. Present-day Sara scolds her, telling her not to hit — And next time, she should hit with a flat palm.
• M*A*S*H:
  • Colonel Potter does almost the exact same thing as the Battlestar Galactica example above in his first appearance, explaining that he received his WWII Purple Heart in Guam when a still blew up in his tent.
  • In the episode "Life With Father", Henry finds out his wife cheated on him while he was in Korea. The thing that seems to upset him most about it is that she cheated with an orthodontist and not a medical doctor.
    Henry: Oh Lorraine, honey, not an orthodontist.
• On Mind of Mencia, Carlos brought up the fact that after 9/11, hate crimes against Hindus went up in the United States. He stated that while he doesn't endorse it, if you are going to hate crime someone, learn the difference between a Muslim and a Hindu.
• Happens between Fran Fine and the Sheffield children quite a few times on The Nanny. For instance, in "The Butler, the Husband, the Wife and Her Mother", when Fran's sister-in-law dismissively realizes that Fran is a nanny, not Maxwell Sheffield's wife, Maggie says "Who asked you, you big green cow?!". Fran, however, calmly says "Maggie, it's turquoise...".
  • In another example, Fran discovers that Maggie has a hickey from her boyfriend. She immediately scolds her...for trying to cover it up with foundation. "You need oil-based concealer!"
  • When the family is eating pizza, Fran remarks that since it's a fattening food, she only wants one slice. She proceeds to pick up two pieces and put one on top of the other, claiming that it only counts as one because "the body doesn't know." It's not clear if she's genuinely unaware or simply believes her own lies.
• In the Season 3 opener of Melissa & Joey, Ryder is suspended from school for a full year for smoking marijuana on a field trip. Mel is rightly pissed off at him for this but as an addendum, she's annoyed that he was stupid enough to confess while everybody else who was involved denied it.
• Pablo Escobar The Drug Lord: When Pablo is a young boy, he tries to cheat on a math test by stealing the answers beforehand, only to be caught by his teacher who then switches the test. When his mother berates him for what he did, she tells him that his real mistake was getting caught, a lesson he's inferred to have taken to heart in his subsequent criminal career.
• Person of Interest: This is said word for word by Zoe to a corrupt politician.
  Zoe: If you're going to do something wrong, do it right.
• Princess Agents: Yuan Che tells off Chu Qiao for beating Xiao Ce. Then he adds that if she has to beat him, she should make sure no one's around first.
• On a Christmas episode of Roseanne, Jackie convinces Roseanne to put Christmas lights around a sleeping Nana Mary (as revenge for the cheap presents she gave them). When Bev walks in, she starts chewing them out for being irresponsible...because they're putting the lights on wrong.
  • "A Stash from the Past" sees Roseanne discovering a bag of weed hidden in the house. Dan reminds her that it's actually her pot (she gave it up when she got pregnant), and the two decide to smoke some for old times' sake. When Jackie walks in on the scene, she initially scolds them—then pushes Dan out of the way to show him the proper way to roll a joint.
• Saturday Night Live: A musical skit in Season 42 features Emma Stone, Kate McKinnon, and Aidy Briyant singing a 90s styled Christmas song about "The Christmas Candle," a nine dollar peach candle that gets gifted to everyone as "The gift of having a gift to give away." It was initially sitting in a woman's closet for a year before she dusted it off and gave it to a coworker as part of an office gift exchange. Within a day it managed to pass so many hands it crossed the Atlantic. Briyant has a solo wherein she advises the candle is fine as is, and including anything with it like tiny soaps or hand lotions you might've gotten from a hotel bathroom will only make everything look worse and even more inconsiderate as a gift.
• Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby: On of Mr. Gormsby's signature traits is his tolerance for the 5-F student's uncivillized behaviour, so long as it is properly done. In one episode, his first reaction to a developmentally disabled teenager running through the halls pretending to be a Spitfire (complete with droning propeller noises) is to yell at the student for getting the sound of a working Spitfire engine completely wrong and then proceeds to demonstrate the proper way to pretend to be a Spitfire, complete with arms extended like wings. In another episode, we get this lovely gem when a student admits to firebombing another teacher's car (note that Steve, the teacher, is quite toxic to everyone, especially 5-F students, and Gormsby does not hide his contempt for Steve):
  Hohepa: Steve didn't blow up his car. It was me.
  Mr Gormsby: Me what?
  Hohepa: Me, sir. I've been having some pretty negative feelings lately, sir. Alienated from my friends, I've had some feelings of resentment towards authority figures. Sir.
  Mr Gormsby: Don't give me that Tibetan-mung-bean, I-wasn't-breast-fed-as-a-child, family-conference stuff! Blowing up machinery can be a commendable act in the right circumstances, but this is not El Alamein, and we are not fighting the Hun! Still, it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the sabotage was well planned and perfectly executed. You were a bit heavy-handed with the volatile substances, but I put that down to the fact that you probably helped yourself to chemicals and machinery from your uncle's methamphetamine lab.
  Hohepa: (nods)
  Mr Gormsby: Typical. Never use chemicals you haven't mixed yourself! It makes it much harder to estimate possible collateral damage.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
  • Quark frequently berates Rom for not being a sufficiently greedy (and outright criminal) jerk, that being the Ferengi Hat of choice. The first-season episode "The Nagus" shows what it takes for Quark to praise Rom: conspire to kill Quark for his own profit. Quark takes it as a sign that Rom may have the "lobes" and guts for the cutthroat business world after all, and gives Rom a (meaningless) promotion at the bar.
  • In "Improbable Cause", when Julian pointedly tells Garak the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf, Garak's take on the Aesop is not "don't lie", but "don't tell the same lie twice."
  • In "Sacrifice of Angels", when planning for a conquered Alpha Quadrant, Weyoun speculates that Earth will be the origin of the major organized rebellion, so they should eradicate its population early. Dukat tells him bluntly he can't do that. Weyoun asks why, and Dukat tells him that a true victory isn't to kill your enemies, it's to make them believe they were wrong to ever oppose someone of your greatness.
  • In "Time's Orphan", O'Brien is trying to sneak his daughter out of a holding cell, and off the station back to a time portal (she originally stepped into the portal at age 7 and came back a few days later at age 18, mostly feral by this point) and security catches them. Odo shows up and says he's disappointed... because he thought O'Brien would have been good enough to break her out and sneak off the station without being caught.
• Star Trek: Discovery: The show's first season takes a trek into the Mirror Universe, where it turns out that Gabriel Lorca's motivation is this trope. The entire Empire is run under the murderous, xenophobic, and canibalistic Empress Philippa Georgiou, who's entire regime exemplifies the worst of humanity to a tee. But Lorca feels that she isn't being brutal enough, specifically because she keeps other alien species as slaves rather than exterminating them, and wants to overthrow her so he can run things to an even higher standard of brutality. He had even convinced Michael Burnham's Mirror counterpart to help him, in spite of her being the Emperor's adopted daughter, as Season 3 of the series revealed that Mirror Burnham hated Georgiou for elevating her to a higher status, as she was content with simply ruling over the trash heap she was found in.
• One episode of Still Standing sees Brian volunteering at a widow's house. Judy's initially thrilled by his good deed, until she discovers that the supposed "little old lady" is actually an incredibly attractive sixty-something woman (for context, the widow is played by Bo Derek). She makes Bill give Brian a talk about not ogling women, and he does so...by teaching him how to ogle without women realizing he's doing it. He offers Judy some False Reassurance later by claiming "You'll never see him staring at a woman again."
• In Strangers with Candy, Jerri Blank, a middle aged woman who recently got out of jail and is picking up her life where she left off... back in high school, acknowledges this trope.
  Jerri: Oh, I'm still doin' the wrong things, but at least I'm doing them the right way.
• In the Top Gear (UK) Africa Special, Jeremy steals some metal from the hood of James' car. James, however, berates him for the shoddy execution ("He's wasted material" "He's left sharp edges") of the theft rather than the fact that he put a giant hole in the car. He then mentions that there were all of the tools needed to do the theft competently in the back of his car.
• A very heartwarming example, from the revival of Upstairs Downstairs. It's revealed that Ivy has been sneaking cold leftovers outside, to feed the family's previous footman (fired and arrested several episodes back, after getting into a barfight). When she's caught, the other servants tell her "You can't bring him cold dinner outside! Bring him inside, and give him warm dinner."
• In Series 10 of Waterloo Road, Kevin expertly hacks the computer systems of a multinational technology firm but does no damage and leaves without a trace of him ever having been there. Leo tries it later working from Kevin's notes but neglects to use a proxy and leaves a digital footprint that gets traced back to the school. Guess what Kevin's most annoyed about.
• In season five of The Wire, the Major Crimes Unit's investigation into Marlo Stanfield is shut down due to Carcetti's budget cuts. This causes Jimmy McNulty to fabricate a Serial Killer by staging the bodies of dead vagrants, hoping media attention will cause the higher-ups to pressure Carcetti into allocating more funding for the police department. Bunk tries to have Lester Freamon set McNulty straight...only for Lester to realize that McNulty hasn't made this "serial killer" jazzy enough for the press to sensationalize.
  Lester: Yeah, you fucked up.
  Bunk: Yeah! Tell him!
  Lester: No, I mean if you wanna do it right, a straight-up strangle's not enough, not after some vagrant. Sensationalize it. Give the killer some fucked-up fantasy, somethin' bad. Real bad. It's gotta grip the hearts and minds, give people what they want from a serial killer.
  Bunk: Lester, what the fuck?!
• In a short on You Can't Do That on Television, a brave Mountie confronts the Dastardly Whiplash tying the Damsel in Distress to the railroad tracks... to correct his knot-tying technique.

Music

• Called out by name in Do Wrong Right by The Devil Makes Three
  I ain't angry or a nut just to give you people some.
  Quiet in the head ain't no way to get it done.
  If you're gonna raise a ruckus, one word of advice:
  If you're gonna do wrong, buddy, do wrong right. [...]
  You wanna make a little mess? You wanna make a little crime?
  If you're gonna do wrong, buddy, do wrong right.
• "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffie tells the story of a teenage boy who declares his love for a girl named Charlene by spray-painting it on a water tower. The townspeople take issue not with the fact that he vandalized a water tower, but that he used green instead of red paint. Averted due to the fact that Charlene loved it anyways.
• The point of The Heavy's Curse Me Good: If you're going to curse Kelvin's name, at least do it well.
• A gag near the end of Brad Paisley's music video for Celebrity has a character inspired by Simon Cowell (played by William Shatner) invoke this trope. He stops Brad in the parking lot, and the following exchange occurs:
  Shatner: Hey! Where's my... Hey! Get out of my car!
  Paisley: I was... I was just-
  Shatner: Get out of my car! It's a valuable car!
  Paisley: It's really nice...
  Shatner: (checks information on car dashboard) You put 200 miles on my car!
  Paisley: Second gear... sticks a little bit.
  Shatner: You got it into second gear?
  Paisley: Yeah?
  Shatner: How'd you do that?
• Vern Gosdin's "If You're Gonna Do Me Wrong, Do it Right," encouraging his cheating wife to thoroughly rub it in that she's leaving him...but then to make it a clean break, so he doesn't have to hold on hope she's coming back.

Myths & Religion

• The Mahabharata: In the Menon's translation, when Shakuni gambles with King Yudhishtira, he cheats and cheats obviously, winning every single throw. This convinces Krishna beyond all doubt that Shakuni was using loaded dice, and makes him far more vengeful than he would have been otherwise. Because of those dice, there can be no doubt that Shakuni's intentions were malevolent- and consequently, no hope of reconciliation between him and the Pandavas. In comparison, "just" cheating Yudhishtira out of his kingship, his family, and his wife would have been less insulting.
• There's a Jewish saying "if you are going to eat pork, let it run from your beard". That is, if you aren't going to follow God's commandments? Might as well go all out and enjoy not following them.

Podcasts

• In episode four of Mystery Show, Starlee talks to a former 911 operator, who tells her about a call involving a man who taught his dog to drive his car.
  Carol: We cited him for allowing an unlicensed driver to drive the vehicle.
  Starlee: Wait a minute! If the dog got a license would it then be legal?
  Carol: Probably.
  Starlee: This is probably not the lesson I'm supposed to be learning from this, but I want to teach my dog to drive as soon as I get off the phone.
  Carol: Well, don't do it on a busy road. That's all I have to say.

Pro Wrestling

• CM Punk has a series called Grammar Slam, where he corrects the grammar of his haters, and chews them out for not even being able to insult him correctly.
  [after reading a tweet that said 'your a bitch'] You! Are! You are a bitch! You're a bitch- learn some correct grammar, for Christ's sake!

Puppet Shows

• In LazyTown, the episode "Robbie's Dream Team" has Robbie Rotten trying to teach Bobby, Tobby and Flobby how to be a real villain. Mostly by trying to catch Sportacus. And of course, they fail every time.
  "Here's a little lesson in trickery, this is going down in history..."
• The Muppet Show: In one episode, guest star James Coburn, on seeing Animal eating a chair, demonstrates the right way to deal with aggression.
  James: Animal... Animal, come here. Listen, there's right ways and wrong ways to handle aggression.
  Animal: Aggression?
  James: Yeah. You don't want to bust a chair up like that.
  Animal: Wha?
  James: You want to bust it up like this!
  [He grabs the chair and shatters it against the staircase post, then goes up to his dressing room.]
  Animal: My kind of guy! JIMMY! JIMMY! JIMMY...! [Follows him upstairs.]

Radio

• Bleak Expectations: At one point in series 4, Mr. Benevolent fires Pippa Bin from the position of Saucy Evil Consort because she hasn't gotten the distinction between doing something bad, and doing something evilly. For example, washing up badly isn't evil, merely unhygienic. Washing up evil involves at least two smashed plates and one crying orphan.
• In the Cabin Pressure episode "Qikiqtarjuaq", when an angry client reports Douglas to Carolyn for altering the cabin address to include the titles of Hitchcock films, Carolyn asks how many he got in and congratulates Douglas for managing thirteen.

Theater

• In an epic and Older Than Television example Cyrano de Bergerac is insulted by a foppish nobleman who tells him "Your nose is rather large." Cyrano then proceeds to give numerous examples of how he could have insulted him in far wittier fashion.
• In Lizzie, Emma gets an entire song called "What the Fuck Now, Lizzie?!", chewing Lizzie out for axing her father and stepmother to death... but not for the reasons you'd think.
  Lizzie, my love, is this the best that you could do?
  Damned if I leave you alone for a minute!
  What possessed you to murder the old man, too?
  Made a deal, had a plan, and an axe wasn't in it!
  What the fuck! What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck now, Lizzie?!

Video Games

• Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum in BioShock was such a scientific prodigy, she would assist the Nazi scientists with their experiments and even correct their scientific errors when she was only 16 years old... and a prisoner in a concentration camp. One understandably confused Nazi scientist asked her why the hell she would want to help the people doing such horrible things to her, and she responded with, "If you're going to do such things, at least you should do them properly."
• Arachnos of City of Heroes is pretty much made of this stuff. They consider it their calling to show the evil doers of the world the proper way to evil do.
• In Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia, the games' various Big Bads tend to have this opinion about each other depending on what they're out for—warlords like the Emperor want to subdue the place, while the showboating Kuja is disgusted with other villains' lack of elegance and stagecraft. And none of them can stand Kefka - even Seymour, an Omnicidal Maniac himself, is disgusted by the sheer purposelessness of Kefka's wanton destruction.
• Early in Dragon Age: Origins, the group is attacked by Bandits who set up a toll booth. After you beat them, one dialogue option for the Warden is, "This shoddy operation is pathetic. I could do better."
• In the hypothetical route for Jin in Dynasty Warriors 8, Sima Yi is forced out of retirement to stop a revolt by Zhong Hui. Instead of chastising him for his treachery, he criticizes the rebellion itself.
  Sima Yi: Just what is the point of this rebellion?! Your foolishness knows no limits! Honestly! I would have prepared properly, and made sure that—
  Zhang Chunhua: My lord. I think that's quite enough.
• Happens regularly in EVE Online: Player thieves, spies and saboteurs are frequently chastised for either using Paper Thin Disguises or blowing their covers too early.
  • Player pirates will call out a pirate that pins down a victim and demands a ransom, and then welches on a promise not to destroy a player's ship or pod after they pay up. Doing this makes the "customer" less inclined to cooperate with future ransoms, and can even cause them to Rage Quit EVE altogether.
• In Fallout 3, in the G.O.A.T. test, there is a question where your grandmother wants you to kill a resident. One of the possible answers is to ask her for a Minigun to make sure you don't miss.
• Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes has a side mission featuring Byleth, Jeralt, and Leonie. Once he finds out that the poachers they're tracking down kidnapped some commoners, Jeralt calls the poachers "a disgrace to poaching." Alois (who also came along) points out that it sounds like Jeralt is saying there's any honor in poaching in the first place.
• In FTL: Faster Than Light, a random encounter has you stumble upon a pirate vessel terrorizing a colony. If you have the Fire Bomb or Fire Beam weapons, you're given the option to show him how to do it properly by burning their cities from orbit, which earns better rewards than the normal options.
• Grand Theft Auto V:
  • Trevor has this reaction if you're playing as him during one of the thief-related Random Events.
    "You call yourself a bank robber? You're a disgrace."
  • This is the reason why Franklin wants to apprentice under Michael. If he's going to be a career criminal, he wants to be doing jobs that have high risks and high rewards that can get him out of the ghettos, not just slinging five-dollar baggies of dope.
• As an Easter egg in Hitman 3, if you wear a ninja outfit (which is considered suspicious everywhere) and then get caught by a guard, the guard will berate you... not for trespassing, but for being an embarassment to ninjas by sucking at the whole "stealth assassin" gimmick.
• In League of Legends, Sivir is a mercenary who's Only in It for the Money. For a while she was working for Noxus, but quit after their unprovoked invasion of Ionia. Not because she had a moral objection, but because she correctly expected it to turn into a quagmire and didn't want to be working for idiots.
• During Zaeed's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2, Zaeed triggers an explosion at the Blue Suns refinery to force a way in and distract Vido and his army. Paragon Shepard is pissed because this is directly endangering the workers at the refinery and compromising the mission they're supposedly out to do. Renegade Shepard, however, is merely upset that Zaeed didn't warn them beforehand.
• In Mass Effect 3 it turns out the turians planted an enormous bomb on Tuchanka shortly after deploying the Genophage. At the time it made a brutal kind of sense, but now it's a problem and must be disarmed. Javik will tell Garrus that the turians' mistake was planting it and then just leaving it, as they should have either detonated it immediately or used it as leverage/blackmail to keep the krogan in line.
• In the endgame of Metroid Fusion, Samus argues with her AI commanding officer (which she has privately named ADAM after her former commanding officer), to let her blow up the BSL station they're on in order to erradicate the X-Parasites before the Federation arrives and the X assimilates them and spreads through the rest of galaxy, expressing a willingness to die in the explosion if that's what it takes. ADAM immediately lambasts this plan because not only would just destroying the station leave the X-Parasites on planet SR-388 below alive, but if Samus dies, then that would leave nobody able to confront the X-Parasites in case they survive. He then revises the plan so that instead, Samus alters the station's orbit to collide with the planet so that it's destroyed as well and then escapes herself on her gunship.
• In Papers, Please, Grestin Border security guard Calensk is rather pissed off about a bomb being dropped on your desk. Not just because he'll lose a potential part of his paycheck, but he spends the entire process of you defusing the bomb mocking on how easy it is to defuse. Basically, the terrorist decided to helpfully label which wires to cut in order and also "protect" them with a cover it takes you less than five seconds to remove with a screwdriver. After this, he sells the bomb and gives you a cut of the profits.
• In one part of the Hive in Planescape: Torment, you find a blood-splattered woman begging for help. If you have high enough Wisdom, you'll figure out that she's just trying to lure you into a trap set to be mugged and murdered. One possible dialog option after that is to point out the flaws in her technique and suggest improvements (chief among them being "don't pick marks who are big, heavily armed, dangerous-looking people").
• The Illuminati of The Secret World tends to have this sort of attitude as a default for opposing the various evil organizations the player goes up against.
  Kirsten Geary: Now clearly Orochi has been compromised from the inside, which saves us so much time on setting it up ourselves. Whatever endgame they had in mind has blown up in their faces. Now they are going down like their share index. This is wide open for us to really turn the apocalypse around, and be clinking mojitos when the others are still crawling from the wreckage.
• In Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, Starter Villain Don Octavio will berate Sly if the latter is caught while sneaking after him.
  Octavio: I've got a shadow, huh? You stink! Back in my day, thieves knew how not to get caught!
• Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic:
  • Some of the Sith feel this about Darth Malak's betrayal of Darth Revan. Sith are supposed to kill each other for power, but the philosophy behind it is that the strongest should rule, so the betrayal should be a display of power or cunning. Stabbing your extremely capable superior in the back in the middle of a battle against your mutual enemies, on the other hand, is just self-destructive opportunism.
  • One sidequest at the Sith Academy has you recover an ancient blade and two fakes from a tomb. One of your fellow students tries to threaten you for the blade, as he was unwilling to risk the traps himself. Assuming you don't just kill him, you can give him a fake and let him run back to the head Sith. He'll get force-choked for the trouble, not because his methods were underhanded, but because he was too stupid to check the authenticity of what he was stealing.
• In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, your Robot Buddy HK-47 is a Robotic Psychopath who prides himself on being a precise, efficient killing machine. However, he learns that a Superior Successor known as the HK-50s are being mass-produced and he's disgusted by them prioritizing mass murder over efficiency.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic:
  • Occasionally, a Light Sided or Neutral Empire character can use this reaction when encountering some of the Republic's less-than-heroic actions. There's also Dr. Lokin of the Imperial agent's party, whose reaction to being tortured is to snark that his captors' technique stinks. He's done worse to family.
  • In the Sith Inquisitor's storyline, this is implied to be one of the reasons why Xalek simply beating his rivals to death in broad daylight should not mean he becomes your apprentice despite technically succeeding in the test. While murder is against the rules, he didn't even try to practice any level of subterfuge or use of the Force. Regardless of your opinions on the matter, he's now your second apprentice.
  • A similar situation occurs at the start of the Sith Warrior's storyline. Your mentor at the Sith Academy saw you had potential and basically forces you to cheat your way through your training to be on the fast track to becoming Darth Baras' apprentice. Baras finds out about this and while subterfuge is part of the Sith way, he's disgusted to learn that you were never even taught the basics of your Religion of Evil's philosophies and punishes your mentor by sending you to kill him.
• Undertale:
  • Toriel has this opinion of Asgore's plan. She didn't condone the plan to begin with, but once she finds out he had second thoughts and went for a much more passive Plan B, she calls him a coward for trying to avoid the issue without actually committing to his change of heart. She's not happy at all that he's planning to kill seven humans and take their souls so he can shatter the barrier, but what really steams her is that he's just waited for those humans to fall into the underground by coincidence... instead of the far more efficient plan of Asgore using the first soul he got to walk through the barrier and kill six more humans on the surface. The second plan's advantages are obvious, and Asgore's hesitance to do a very bad thing efficiently has kept the monster race trapped far longer than they needed to be.
  • Similarly, if you do a lot of killing but don't quite reach a No Mercy run, at the end, Sans will call you out on not being good enough at being evil, and unsubtly hint that maybe you should try being not evil.
• World of Warcraft:
  • In Warlords of Draenor, Gul'dan manages to overthrow Grom by bringing attention to the fact that for all his promises of conquest, he's accomplished little beyond getting most of the Iron Horde killed.
  • A warlock spying on a Burning Legion invasion site criticizes their layout to the point he says it causes him physical pain to see someone so incompetent.

Web Animation

• In the Doodle Toons episode, "The Way the Cruncher Crumbles", Cruncher catches Crumbles trying to commit suicide. She uses a giant eraser to erase herself from existence, but Cruncher gives her a gun to use instead since it's much quicker.
• Hellaverse: A recurring theme in Helluva Boss is that the Seven Deadly Sins encourage the denizens of Hell to partake in their respective sins, but in proper ways, bordering on Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Played for Drama in S1E8. Beelzebub is Gluttony's Embodiment of Vice, but she views her work as For Happiness and just wants people to have a good time. As the embodiment of Gluttony, Bee approves of overconsumption and overindulgence in food, alcohol, drugs, and ANYTHING else that you enjoy. But she disapproves of when people overindulge for reasons like depression and escapism instead of purely for the enjoyment of gluttony for its own sake, and encourages Loona to take Blitzo home when he starts engaging in self-destructive behavior.
  • Asmodeus, the Sin of Lust, approves of wild sex lives and lust driven, sometimes self destructive, flings, but wants them to be consensual for all involved as lust should not be forced upon, seeing Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil.
  • Seemingly defied with Mammon, the Sin of Greed, who shows no standards over how greed should be indulged. This does, however, earn him the distaste of at least one other Sin (specifically Asmodeus).
• Homestar Runner:
  • In one episode of Teen Girl Squad, Tompkins gets called into the Principal's Office. We find out why in an Easter Egg at the end:
    Tompkins: Aw, c'mon, [sic] Prinicpal^note He even pronounces it "prinnick-pal" Strong Bad! I only stole one Sega tape!
    Strong Bad: That's just it, Tompkins. You could have stolen upwards of one Sega tape!
    Tompkins: Aw, peas!
  • In "Halloween Hijinks", Coach Z scolds the Sad Kids for some half-hearted attempts at Halloween Trickery.
    Coach Z: Deviled eggs? Three pieces o' two-ply? Ya call those Halloween jinx?

Web Comics

• 8-Bit Theater: The Warriors of Light, White Mage and Black Belt are trying to set up an ambush on some monsters... but then Fighter warns the monsters about the ambush. And when the group is going to attack, Fighter attacks his partners. Black Mage has a good long rant about what he has done.
• Cyanide and Happiness has a typically sadistic angle involving a man interrupting a self-hanging... in order to show the suicide how to tie a noose properly.
• Digger and Murai discover the cave in which a dead god's followers are mechanically forcing his disembodied heart to beat.
  Murai: I'd hoped it was the madness. This is horrible.
  Digger: And inefficient! Man, a couple of pulleys here and there, and they could have halved their labor.
• Dumbing of Age: Galasso fires Syndey Yus from her waitress job not for messing up an order on purpose, but rather because her intended victims are not cowed, merely confused, and this has brought shame to Galasso's Pizzas (and Subs).
• One Evil, Inc. strip started with the surprising knowledge that Evil Atom worked in his neighborhood watch group. Moments later, it's subverted when he sees a man with a club robbing an old woman, takes it from him- and shows him that his downswing's all wrong.
• In Gunnerkrigg Court, Eglamore tells Annie, while punishing her for breaking Court rules, that she should try harder to avoid getting caught, as her mother would. Annie actually calls him out on it.
• Schlock Mercenary:
  • Dr. Bunnigus barges into Tagon's bathroom while he's sitting on the toilet to berate him for his manipulation of Nick. Tagon's vocal reply finishes with "if you're going to yell at someone, do it from the diaphragm". After demonstrating, no less.
  • The entirety of Sergeant Schlock's Character Development consists of learning this in various ways. As a result, he's gone from a randomly murderous Blood Knight who periodically induces chaos just for the sake of entertainment, to a controllably murderous Blood Knight who can strategise, show restraint, work as part of a team, lead a team, and generally only eat the people he's told to.
• In The Last Days of FOXHOUND, a guard instructs Liquid Snake in the proper technique of snapping his own neck. (The context being that The Sorrow is taking Liquid on a trip through the other side, but Liquid has some amnesia and doesn't actually remember doing most of the impressively bad(ass?) things he's being shown; he's taking notes as he asks the guard what exactly he did.)
  • After quite a lot of Cerebus Syndrome kicks in, Ocelot goes in on Liquid for murdering Scratch for knowing too much: not because of any moral dimension, because Ocelot is so far from the moral high ground on that one that he might as well be in the Earth's core, but because Liquid hasn't thought far enough ahead to close off another loose end in the form of Scratch's friend Eddie.
• The Order of the Stick:
  • Inverted in one strip, when Lord Kubota praises a minion he knows is shamelessly lying to his face, because it shows how well her training is progressing.
  • Tarquin considers Nale, Elan's Evil Twin, a failure not because Nale's a villain, but because he cares more about his ego than about being the most successful villain possible.
    Elan: Does that mean you wouldn't have cared what he believed in, as long as he went about it in the correct way?
    Tarquin: Well, I suppose, after a fashion, but—
    Elan: Good! [draws sword] Because I'm pretty sure a climactic duel is the proper procedure for dramatically defeating corrupt tyrants!
    Tarquin: On a rooftop, no less. Exquisite.
  • Nale, for his part, despises Tarquin for lacking flair and ambition in his villainy.
  • In Snips, Snails, and Dragon Tails, blackguards will not just eat babies. They are insufficiently tasty to do so without the application of mustard.
• Original Life: Abigail's Mad Scientist tendencies lean towards this; she's not angry about people using radical and untested methods to better themselves, as long as they follow scientific procedure. Also, her homicidal imaginary friend:
  Abigail: BONK! STOP [BLOWING UP MY TOYS]! Your targeting matrix is off.
• Subverted in Shortpacked!. After Mike (who goes out of his way to be a creative asshole) cuts off Amber's hot water mid-shower...
  Amber: Really? That's it? Something out of a bad Rob Schneider movie? I think I'm more mad that you didn't even try than I am that you pulled this stunt.
  Mike: Gotcha.
• The Prime of Ambition provides good advice (after one related Beat Panel):
  Thanatos: Really, Audriel. If you insist on distrusting me, at least take a good go at it, not this half-assed snappishness for the sake of appearances.
• 6 Gun Mage: When an untrustworthy new recruit is missing, her friend tells their commander that she's having "women troubles." The commander says they'll both be punished, not for lying, but for lying poorly. The commander doesn't even bother actually finding out why the recruit is missing; he just wants to make sure they all know that lives could depend on them successfully lying for a friend.
• In one Something*Positive flashforward to Pamjee's teenage years, Aubery is horrified when she comes home to find a bottle of cheap wine, because no daughter of hers is going to drink crap.
• Stand Still, Stay Silent: After Tuuri disobeys Mikkel's orders and tags along with him on his own exploration of an abandonned fort, Mikkel's reaction is to tell her to not do such a thing again. And that should she do so anyway, she should at least avoid taking the civilian under the crew's protection along with her.
• Girl Genius: At one point, a social science Spark claims to be "overly soft-hearted" because he always used to insist on letting the orphans out of their containment tanks for Christmas. The others present stare at him in shock... until he clarifies that he wasn't talking about the control group, allaying the concerns of everyone there except Agatha.
• Freefall:
  • Early on, Max Post chides Sam Starfall not for being a crook - indeed, the two were only interacting because they stole each other's wallets and went to the same restaurant to spend each others' money - but because his desire to be famous and well-respected makes him a less effective crook.
    Max: You want to be noticed. You want to be remembered. A lawbreaker doesn't want to be noticed or remembered! You're pursuing mutually exclusive goals! You don't have criminal tendencies, you've got managerial tendencies.
    Sam: Hey, I'm not that bad!
  • Sam opposes Mr Kornada's plan to lobotomise every robot in the system to get at their money because if you kill the people you're stealing from, you can't steal from them again later.
  • When Sam is tapped to mentor robots in crime, he goes into great detail on the philosophy of crime in order to genuinely be the best Sensei for Scoundrels he can be.
    Sam: Becoming a criminal is a big step. The last thing you want in a career change is buyer's remorse.

Web Original

• A sentiment expressed by the Gord of Acts of Gord, a video game store owner who frequently catches people trying to steal his merchandise. He will sometimes admonish the thieves not only for stealing, but for stealing really crappy games, many of them worth five dollars or less.
• Ask That Guy with the Glasses:
  The Narrator: I am dying and only have 24 hours left to live. I don't know what to do. Should I go around killing people I have always hated, or should I engage in some other random activity?
  Ask That Guy: Well don't go killing people you've always hated. Do something much more random, like... killing people that you've never met.
• The Casual Criminalist, a channel hosted by the prolific Simon Whistler, has a Running Gag where Simon exhorts incompetent criminals not to make obvious, stupid errors in the course of their crimes, to the point that the channel comments have come up with a "Simon's Rules for Criminals" list including suggestions such as "don't leave your ID at the scene of the crime" and "don't use your distinctive personal vehicle when committing a robbery."
• Deadcoders Reviews:
  • He subtracted a point for Aelita making an extremely rude suicide attempt.
  • "Even Minecraft can maintain a consistent moon, XANA!"
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged: In Episode of Bardock, Bardock criticizes Chilled's minions for being so pathetic at terrorizing innocent civilians. In the credits, Bardock even demonstrates by killing a sick child himself.
• Epic Rap Battles of History:
  • In "Hannibal Lecter vs. Jack the Ripper", one of Lecter's lines to Jack from one Serial Killer to another is "I don't mind that you're naughty, Jack, I hate that you're sloppy!"
  • Throughout the "Darth Vader vs. Adolf Hitler" trilogy, there's the implication that one of Vader's main gripes with his opponent — aside from disgust at his actions — is Hitler's sheer incompetence as a warlord. As Vader says in part 3:
    Vader: You dumb motherfucker, didn't Napoleon let you know? When you conquer Russia, better pack some fucking winter clothes!
  • In "Che Guevara vs. Guy Fawkes," Guevara lambasts Fawkes not for attempting to blow up the King of England, but for failing and getting caught:
    Che: You tried to rebel against James the First.
    Here's a tip for your next plot: try to rehearse!
    
    You had one job, cabron: to strike a matchstick!
    Got caught with a fuse like your bars: not lit!
  • In "The Joker vs. Pennywise", Pennywise tells the Joker that if you want to kill people, it's easier to off them while they're still young.
  • In "Thanos vs. J. Robert Oppenheimer": while bringing up Oppenheimer's numerous trysts with married women, Thanos chastises the scientist… not for engaging in infidelity, but for doing so in a way that resulted in one of his partners getting pregnant, saying Oppenheimer should've just settled for a blowjob instead.
• The whole point of the Evil Overlord List is pointing out common flaws in the plans of fictional evil overlords.
• In a season 2 episode of Marble Hornets, one character's reaction to another's breaking into their current home is this. Instead of being mad about the actual trespassing, they are more annoyed at the character's shoddy attempt to be a master spy.
  Alex: You broke into my house! I was taking out the trash! What were you possibly hoping to find in that amount of time?
• Not Always Learning
  • In this story, a gym teacher has his students practice shooting basketballs, but tells them "no trick shots". One group of students gets bored and starts attempting trick shots, and the teacher tells them to stay after class. They do, and he tells them "Well, if you're gonna break the rules, do it the right way," and shows them how to do some real trick shots.
  • In this story, while the teacher is out of the room during a Spanish-language class, one student starts teaching others some of the Spanish swearwords they learned from their friend's housekeeper. The teacher comes back, catches them, and chews them out... for their poor dialect and pronunciation. The teacher spends the rest of the lesson teaching the class the correct usage of Spanish swearwords (although with the warning that if the teacher catches anyone actually using them in school, they get detention).
  • This teacher finds a drawing of a penis ejaculating onto a girl's face on the classroom whiteboard, and proceeds to lecture the vandals about the incorrect anatomy, thoroughly mocking them in front of the entire class.
  "If you're going to do such immature jokes, at least do them properly! You obviously not only didn't pay attention in (sex ed and art) class, you apparently never even bothered to look at your own genitals. I'm very disappointed in you."
• A Practical Guide to Evil revolves around Villains who are trying to do Evil better, to the point that "Do Wrong, Right" is the series' subtitle. Early on, this takes the form of making (relatively) sane, easy to implement, Genre Savvy plans to defeat their enemies while avoiding comeuppance by heroes; later, it takes the form of convincing villains that they can get more done by creating and participating in lawful institutions than compulsively backstabbing each other.
  • The Dread Empire of Praes has such a proud tradition of Villainy that they consider "two-faced" to be an insult because it implies only one layer of deception.
  • The Calamities once mocked Tyrant for his use of Blood Magic to power his Floating Siege Engines. Not only is that a dated tactic, but his technique was sloppy. Any of them could have achieved the same effect with far fewer sacrifices necessary.
• Sword Art Online Abridged:
  • Kirito defuses a standoff with Laughing Coffin by pointing out how they provide "an essential in-demand service", and gives them tips on how to improve their business by dropping the "Bible-quoting serial killer" motif they've got going.
    Kirito: What you guys need is a total rebranding: ad campaign, PR blast, get your faces out there! Let people know you're not just about the fire and brimstone - you are multifaceted, three-dimensional killing machines, and you have got a little something for everyone. Because contract killing... is a beat we can all dance to.
    Johnny Black: Ohhh man, I got chills...
    PoH: You've given us much to think about, young man.
  • Later episodes reveal that this ended up getting them killed - Laughing Coffin got it in their heads that they needed to let potential clients know where their evil hideout was, with predictable results.
  • In the second season, during a breakout, Asuna is appalled when she comes across the laboratory where Sugou is keeping other players' consciousnesses trapped in virtual reality.
    Asuna: Do you really need a torture terminal for every brain? That's so inefficient! Just cram 'em all into one — you'd have room for like a nice koi pond, maybe a garden to really feng shui the place — golly, I'd be so much better at crime!
• Todd in the Shadows:
  • In "Top Ten Songs About Mediocre Romance", Todd accuses the couple in "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)" of being so bad at romance, they can't even cheat on each other properly.
  • In his One-Hit Wonderland episode on "The Rhythm of the Night", he says that Lee Marrow knew so little about Shanghai that he tried to portray them as reductive stereotypes in his early songs and failed even at that.
• This Tumblr post◊ about four Satan worshippers who stabbed four Russian teens 666 times each before eating them.
• In the Whateley Universe, Imp (a former supervillain) berates students who have spent weeks solid trying to catch her in her evil acts, performing such breaches of the law and student code as sneaking into her classroom to plant bugs, sneaking into her other classroom and stealing a bag of fish candy she kept in a locked safe, and breaking into her apartment. She's particularly irked at the lattermost, but what really gets her dander up is the fact that the Spy Kids were so bad at it, and she even offers to train them to get better.
• The live show of What the Fuck Is Wrong with You? occasionally has "Be a Better Criminal With Tara", where Tara points out the problems with criminals' logic and plans. One wonderful example of this: "If you're gonna sell your balls, sell them for something awesome! That car better be a fucking Transformer!"

Western Animation

• Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers: A group of cadets are due for a lesson from Goose and a couple set up a prank involving a bucket of water timed to drench their guest instructor. The rest of them are questioning the sanity of the pranksters, as Goose has a scary enough reputation. But they aren't able to defuse the prank in time, Goose gets drenched, and the cadets are going Oh, Crap! Goose then raises an eyebrow and changes his lesson plan to how to properly pull off a prank.
• In the American Dad! episode "Crotchwalkers", when Steve is caught shoplifting, Francine lambastes him not because he was shoplifting in the first place, but because he got caught, because she's been shoplifting for years without ever getting caught, so she decides to teach him what she knows and go on a shoplifting spree with him.
• Archer:
  • In "Dial M For Mother", Sterling Archer criticizes Cyril for cheating on Lana. When Cyril points out that Archer cheated on Lana just as much when they had a relationship, Archer points out that it's not the cheating he disapproves of, it's cheating on Lana with low-hanging fruit like Cheryl, who's willing to have sex with most people — whereas Archer only skipped out on Lana to nail super-hotties like starlets, models, oh, and one time two actual princesses. At the same time. Sisters. Sploosh. Archer's boinked Cheryl as well, but not while he was actually dating anyone else. In Archer's eyes, Lana is way too awesome to cheat on for anything except the best, which is as close to respectful as he's capable of being.
  • In another episode, Pam is being held hostage by a group of thugs who meant to snatch Cheryl to extort a huge ransom from her family, since it's revealed in the same episode that Cheryl was Secretly Wealthy the whole time and using a fake last name so none of her coworkers would realize that she was actually a member of the extremely rich Tunt family. The thugs are trying to torture Pam into giving them information, but nothing they do fazes her for a second, and when one of them is repeatedly punching her in the face, she makes fun of his form and tells him to see if "your daddy will give you a roll of nickels."
• During the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "Tales of Ba Sing Se", a mugger makes the mistake of trying to rob Iroh. He easily shoves him over, takes his knife...then demonstrates a better stance for him to use. (However, he uses this to have a long talk with the man and persuade him to give honest work another shot.)
  • Later, in "The Boiling Rock- Part 1," Zuko catches Sokka hijacking Appa to attempt to break his father out of the titular prison. Sokka's ready to defend his intentions and fight Zuko if necessary. Zuko just points out that prisons don't have flying bison daycare, so he'll take Sokka in his war balloon.
• Subverted in the first scene of Beware the Batman: the first gun a criminal uses against Batman runs dry and when the criminal reaches for a knife, Batman tells him he'll be better off with his backup gun. When that doesn't work, Batman informs him that he was lying.
• In the Bojack Horseman episode "Escape from L.A.", BoJack is chaperoning a group of high school kids to their prom. When he discovers one of the girls sneaked in a flask, he was disgusted. Not because they were underage kids drinking, but because her flask contained vodka mixed with Red Bull which he says will make them sick. He then goes to a liquor store and buys them bourbon but he tells them to cut it with water so they don't get a hangover.
• The Boondocks: In the episode "Riley Wuz Here", an art teacher sees Riley graffiti tagging someone's house, and instead of trying to stop him, gives him advice on how to improve the message.
• "If you want wrongdoing done right, you have to wrongdo it yourself" is the frequent lament of Mad Scientist Dr. Badvibes on C.O.P.S. (Animated Series)
• In "College Bored," the third episode of Daria, Daria starts writing term papers for college students and demands cash only payments ("I don't take checks from college students"). Jake, in one of his rare moments in savviness, is clearly proud of her when he finds out.
  Jake: And she made you pay in cash.
  College Student: That's right.
  Jake (smirking): Good girl.
• In an episode of Descendants: Wicked World, Audrey is admonished by Freddie for stealing a necklace from her father's shop...because the necklace isn't worth stealing and she should've gone for something that looked cuter.
• In the Duckman episode "It's the Thing of the Principal", Duckman, disguised as a student, makes various attempts to get in trouble so he can be sent to the Vice Principal's office. In one attempt, he takes a knife and writes "The school board suck eggs" on the wall.
  Teacher: Did you do this?
  Duckman: What of it!?
  Teacher: (takes the knife) "School board" is a collective noun. (changes the "suck" to "sucks") Conjugation, young man, conjugation.
• In Ed, Edd n Eddy, after Eddy crashes Rolf's tractor:
  Eddy: Cool crash, huh Ed?
  Ed: I've seen better, Eddy.
  Eddy: What?
  Ed: Look. The tractor is still intact, you could have done a lot more with the tree, and you hardly wrecked Kevin's fence. And the steering wheel should be rammed over your head like so. [he demonstrates]
  Eddy: Oh, excuse me! I'm such a hack.
• In an Anthology of Interest episode of Futurama, Leela murders Hermes, and is trying to dispose of the corpse using the food disposal. Bender enters, leading to the following line:
  Bender: Hermes' dreadlocks? And his arm?! Leela. I'm shocked! Food goes in the disposal, hair and flesh go in the trash!
  Leela: I'm sorry, I couldn't stop — w-wait. Don't you care that I murdered Hermes?
  Bender: Not even a little!
• Harley Quinn (2019):
  • Bane catches Penguin's nephew Joshua putting out a hit on a fellow member of the Legion of Doom and chews him out... for using the Legion's corporate credit card for the down payment.
    Bane: The credit card is for emergencies only! When you put out a hit, you pay in cash!
  • Played straight in "Inner (Para) Demons" where Ivy states that Harley’s reckless use of Parademons gifted to her by Darkseid, causing mass genocide... had no actual purpose. She had no endgame to the chaos she was causing.
• In one Hey Arnold! episode, Harold is caught trying to steal a ham from Mr. Green's butcher shop. His parents send him to their rabbi, who gives a passing complaint about the theft but seems especially annoyed that he stole something that wasn't even kosher.
• In a short in House of Mouse Mickey lands in jail and calls on Goofy to try to get him out. Goofy's first attempt is a Jail Bake, but the guard says filing the doors would never work and the easiest way to escape would be to knock the guard out and take his keys.
• King of the Hill:
  • Hank Hill catches Bobby smoking and decides to punish the boy by forcing him to chainsmoke until he's green in the face. Hank then feels compelled to correct his son's smoking technique: "Whatever you do you should do right, even if it's something wrong."
  • In another episode, Bobby tries to lie to cover up that Joseph made out in the janitor's closet, but Hank is not impressed:
    Bobby: He was just, um, selling drugs.
    Hank: [admonishing] That was an awful lie, son. Terrible.
• In The Legend of Korra, Master Tenzin chastises young airbending prodigy Kai for whaling on a sky bison calf poacher he has already rendered defenseless, as such vengefulness is against Air Nomad morality... and then praises him for his good technique while doing so.
• In the Metalocalypse episode "Dethsiduals", Murderface is shocked at the fact that the band he just signed to his new record label are heroin addicts... because they're not wealthy enough to justify it.
  "Don't they know the order of shit? You become famous first, then you become a heroin addict!"
• In Moral Orel, many of Clay's lessons amount to this when correcting Orel. For example, Clay didn't care that Orel used a satanic book to raise the dead. He was annoyed that the dead themselves didn't have any clothes to wear after rising from the grave (Orel thought it was their original clothes that smelled bad instead of their decomposing bodies, which was why he took them off).
• One of the pilot shorts for The Powerpuff Girls (1998), "Crime 101", had the girls trying to teach the Amoeba Boys how to commit crime. Of course, the girls end up getting arrested for it.
• Rick and Morty:
  • In "Close Rick-Counters of the Rick Kind", Rick Sanchez criticizes the Morty Dome — a giant dome covered in hundreds of alternate universe copies of Morty being tortured continuously as a sort of psychic shield — for being gross overkill, citing that the same effect could be accomplished by a mere five Mortys and a jumper cable.
    • In "Bethic Twinstinct", Rick expresses disapproval not of Beth's fling with her clone, having implicitly done the same with alternate versions of himself, but their clumsy and transparent methods of hiding it.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Camp Krusty", Bart gives Homer Simpson an altered report card containing straight A-pluses. Homer quickly realizes that they were previously D-minuses and chides Bart for getting greedy. "You know, a D turns into a B so easily." Before that on the bus ride home, Lisa lamented that he should have at least forged plausible grades.
  • In "Two Dozen and One Greyhounds", Bart Simpson shrugs off accusations from the rest of the family about a rash of destruction around the house (revealed to have been caused by a hyperactive Santa's Little Helper), claiming, "this is mindless vandalism, with none of my usual social commentary."
  • In "Missionary Impossible", Mr. Burns lists one of the black marks on Homer's performance record as "selling plutonium to the Iraqis without any mark-up."
  • Substitute teacher Mr. Bergstrom coaches his class on how to make fun of his name.
    Mr. Bergstrom: Feel free to make fun of my name if you want. Two suggestions are Mr. "Nerdstrom" and Mr. "Boogerstrom".
    • Groundskeeper Willie does the same thing in "Mypods and Broomsticks", when Bart explains his mocking nicknames to new student Bashir:
    Bart: We call Skinner "Skinrash", "Mr. Weiner" is Mr. Winer, and Groundskeeper Willie is "Groundscreeper Stupid".
    Willie: Oh, that's not clever! There's so many aspects of me you can mock! I'm poor, I'm dirty, and I think movies are real.
  • Lisa Simpson catches Bart taking the non-marshmallow pieces of his Lucky Charms and putting them back in the box. Instead of suggesting he eat them, she suggests he just put them in the trash.
  • In "Grade School Confidential," Bart sees Mrs. Krabappel and Principal Skinner kiss. In order to prevent the word from spreading, Skinner and Krabappel pull Bart aside and tell him that what he saw was just a figment of his overactive imagination. Bart's immediate response is to chide them for not coming up with a more convincing lie.
  • In "Make Room for Lisa", when Chief Wiggum sees what he thinks is litter in the ocean, he is upset that people dump their trash... without a permit.
    Chief Wiggum: It's not like those permits are hard to get!
  • In "Miracle On Evergreen Terrace" Lisa attempts to strangle Bart after he confesses to burning down the Christmas tree and putting the family into debt, but Homer pulls her off. The reason?
    Homer Simpson: Your hands are too weak! (Strangles Bart himself.)
  • In "Homer Vs. The Eighteenth Amendment", Marge Simpson is actually supportive of Homer's alcohol bootlegging, as she's genuinely impressed with his ingenuity. Even when she does eventually suggest that he call it quits, it's more for Know When to Fold 'Em reasons than any kind of moral one.
• South Park:
  • Kyle is visited by his cousin, also named Kyle, who is a ridiculously neurotic Jewish stereotype. Kyle pays the incredibly anti-Semitic Cartman $40 not to make fun of him. When Cousin Kyle finds out it looks like he'll be hurt, but instead he just wants to know if Kyle tried haggling for a lower price. Kyle is... kind of stunned.
  • In the "Chickenlover" episode, Officer Barbrady steps down because he's illiterate, and Cartman comes on as temporary replacement. Throughout the episode, Cartman is beating people up with his nightstick, telling them to "respect mah authoriteh!" At the end, Cartman hits the Chickenlover in the kneecaps until Officer Barbrady stops him and demonstrates proper police procedure: hit 'em in the head, they go down quicker.
  • In the "Sexual Healing" episode, several sex addicted celebrities are taken into therapy and taught the key lesson of "not getting caught".
  • In "Freemium Isn't Free", Satan has a mix of this, Even Evil Has Standards and Pragmatic Villainy when it comes to Freemium games. As the lord of temptation, he explains to Stan the nature of how the whole temptation thing works. He's pretty PO'd when he discovers the Canadian Devil has making Freemium games. After all, temptation has to be over something worthwhile and people making a conscious decision. Freemium games were just blatant Skinner box manipulation. Satan says it lacks nuance though he also shows disdain at the exploitation of mental issues rather than free will.
• In most Transformers series, this is the Decepticon (and later Predacon) attitude towards treachery in the ranks. The general idea is that if the former leader was too incompetent to keep his people in line then he deserved to be overthrown. Therefore, if you try to take over but are bad at it, you're in for a serious ass-kicking. In Beast Wars, Megatron explicitly says this to Tarantulas, commenting that he could forgive being betrayed and overthrown if Tarantulas wasn't a complete idiot about it.
  Megatron: I can suffer your treachery, lieutenant, but not your incompetence! Treachery requires NO mistakes!

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