It's Not About the Request

"Had you told me you were to march on Rome and asked for my allegiance, I would have given it. I would have judged you insane, but I would have given it. Because I look on you as my father. But you did not ask me for my allegiance. You demanded it, at sword point."

— Brutus (to Caesar), Rome

Sometimes characters refuse to go along with something, not because they don't want to do the action in question, or because doing it would violate their morality, but just because they didn't care for the way they were asked/ordered to do it. Maybe their Berserk Button was pressed in the process. Maybe the person making an otherwise reasonable request has wronged them in the past. Maybe the person asking is a rude Jerkass. Often the most small-scale and/or petty cases involve reacting negatively to someone not saying "Please" when asking the person to do something. Whatever the case may be, something about how they were asked or the person asking makes them say no.

Sometimes this overlaps with Passive-Aggressive Kombat, and can often be overcome with a bit of Politeness Judo. It may stem from having some form of Irrational Hatred for the person who makes the request/gives the order, or even be a case of The Dog Biting Back due to past rudeness, insults, disagreements, etc. May lead to Refuse to Rescue the Disliked. Compare with Screw the Money, I Have Rules!, Screw the Money, This Is Personal!, and Offing the Annoyance.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Flint the Time Detective: Halfway through the show, the Dark Lord sends one of his Elite Mooks Super Ninja to accompany Petra Fina since Petra obviously can't handle the protagonists herself. However, Super Ninja quickly makes it clear to Petra that he only obeys the Dark Lord, not her, and flat-out refuses to do anything if Petra tries to order him to. Only if she asks him politely will he listen, much to Petra's frustration.
• One Piece: Monkey D. Luffy refused to help his friends from Wano reclaim their kingdom, a statement that shocked his own crew, seeing as how Luffy tends to accept such requests at the drop of a hat. As it turns out, the reason Luffy refused was that the would-be ruler Kozuki Momonosuke ordered his retainers to make the request instead of doing it himself. In Luffy's mind, this means Momonosuke was not performing his duty as a leader. Once Momonosuke realizes this, he tearfully steps up in person and bows his head to request the Straw Hat Pirates' aid, and this time, Luffy quickly accepts.

Comic Books

• In the first volume of The Good Asian, Detective Edison Hark immediately dislikes Chinatown's seemingly perfect golden boy Terrence Chang, and when Chang requests Hark's help in catching a killer loose in Chinatown, Edison turns him down just for the pleasure of seeing the look on Chang's face when he says, "No."

Comic Strips

• A downplayed variant in a Calvin and Hobbes strip, where Calvin grudgingly goes out for a wintertime walk with his parents. Calvin bitterly complains about the cold conditions every step of the way, but it turns out that his real problem is going on the walk with his parents, not being out in the cold, because the moment they get home he willingly runs outside again to play with Hobbes and a toboggan in the snow.

Films — Live-Action

• Ali, the 2001 biopic of Muhammad Ali, plays with this somewhat in depicting Ali's refusal to be inducted into military service. While Ali is against being part of the war in any way, he has reluctantly resigned himself to be drafted... until his birth name of Cassius Clay rather than his preferred and now legal name of Muhammad Ali is used to call him to step forward and accept the draft. Ali pauses just before stepping forward when he hears this, then refuses to step forward and be inducted after all.
• The Borrowers: At city hall, Potter rudely demands a receptionist tell him how to get to the demolition office, and she replies by giving him a lot of complicated instructions, ending with "walk quickly". Later on, Pete politely asks for the same thing and she gives him much simpler instructions that get him there faster.
• In Doctor Strange, Kaecilius attempts to recruit Strange by making some valid points about life, death, and the hypocrisy of the Ancient One, all of which Strange is sympathetic to. However, Strange refuses because it's obvious that Kaecilius has been corrupted by Dormammu, who has twisted Kaecilius into a murderous Unwitting Pawn of the Dimension Lord despite his sympathetic motivations.
• Ghostbusters (1984): The crux of Peter refusing to show Walter Peck the containment unit is that Peck came in with an air of condescension, barely veiled accusations of fraud, and plain rudeness (for example, after being told Peter has doctorates in psychology and parapsychology, Peck still refers to him as "Mister" Venkman, instead of "Doctor" Venkman, and did so quite deliberately). Peter tells Peck that he did not use the magic word, which Peter then has to point out is simply saying "Please". This leads to the disastrous incident of Peck obtaining a court order in record time and ordering the containment unit shut down.
• In both the novel and movie of The Godfather, when Bonasera asks Don Corleone to have the men who beat up his daughter killed (after the judge suspended their sentence), the Don refuses to do it at first because Bonasera doesn't ask out of friendship or respect, but wants to know how much he has to pay to get this justice. Once Bonasera asks him in the right way (calling him "Godfather" and kissing his hand), the Don agrees to the request.
• In Nanny McPhee, McPhee enchants the Brown children into not being able to control their movements. When they ask her to lift the curse, she refuses to do it until they say please.
• In the film version of The Postman, at the start of the movie both the main character "Shakespeare" (so called because he was doing performances of Shakespeare's plays at the time) and a mixed race man called Woody are both forcibly conscripted into the Holnist Army. When Shakespeare tries to desert the Army, Woody and a sergeant who's been verbally harassing Woody over his race the entire time find him. Woody seems resigned to killing Shakespeare, as if he doesn't the sergeant or the rest of the Holnists will kill him, but when the sergeant hurls more racist abuse at him while ordering Woody to kill Shakespeare, Woody hits a breaking point and attacks the sergeant instead, which gives Shakespeare just enough time to escape.
• A downplayed example occurs in Pulp Fiction. At first during the "Bonnie Situation" segment, Vincent is none too pleased when Winston Wolfe comes on the scene and curtly gives them orders so that they can safely dispose of both a body and a car that is covered in blood and gore from said body. After Wolfe has finished, Vincent briefly balks and grumbles about Wolfe's brisk manner by saying that "A please would be nice." Wolfe responds with a relatively mild speech that calls out Vincent for being difficult for no good reason when time is a factor and Vincent and Jules urgently need Wolfe's help, which he ends with "So pretty please, with sugar on top, go clean the fucking car." Having gotten that much of a courtesy, Vincent gets to work, and by the end of the segment treats Wolfe with much more respect and apologizes for his behavior.
• In Star Trek (2009), Spock is first seen being invited to join the Vulcan Science Academy, an honour he is all too willing to accept...until the head of the committee praises him for having overcome the "disadvantage" of being half-human. Having his parentage insulted in this way is a major Berserk Button for Spock, and he promptly turns down the offer in favour of joining Starfleet instead.
  Vulcan Council President: No Vulcan has ever declined admission to this academy!
  Spock: Then, as I am half-human, your record remains untarnished.
• In X-Men: First Class, Magneto doesn't disagree with Shaw's views of an inevitable conflict between humans and mutants, but when Shaw makes a We Can Rule Together pitch, Magneto refuses and kills the former Nazi because Shaw tortured him in a concentration camp as a child, and, more importantly, killed his mother.
  Magneto: I'd like you to know that I agree with every word you said... but unfortunately, you killed my mother. [murders Shaw]

Literature

• In Ghostbusters: a Paranormal Picture Book, a kids' book that parodies Ghostbusters and stars the characters as grade schoolers, Walt asks for a flyer. Peter says no, "because you didn't say the magic word."
• Harry Potter:
  • In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the heroes are wandering around one night when they run into Peeves. One of them asks him to please not tell anyone, and he says to them that he really should. Then another one of them asks rudely, at which point Peeves alerts Filch that there are students out. They hide before Filch arrives, but when Filch asks Peeves where they went in a somewhat rude and demanding way, Peeves is no longer inclined to tell Filch anything, and says that he "shan't say nothing if you don't say please!" When Filch gives in and says please, Peeves literally says, "Nothing!"
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: When Dudley demands, "Pass the frying pan," Harry at first refuses, and says irritably, "You've forgotten the magic word," meaning "please". Unfortunately, this is a big mistake, as the Dursleys are terrified of magic and anything to do with it.
  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: When Hermione tries to talk to the snide, sarcastic Phineas Nigellus Black in his painting, she first asks for Phineas Nigellus, then Professor Black, and finally she says, "Please can we talk to you?" Phineas then appears, saying, "'Please' always helps."
• In the kids' book The Magic Word, Paxton asks for a cookie, but his babysitter asks him what the "magic word" is. For some reason (the narration notes that it's unknown whether it was because he was sick of being asked for the "magic word", thought it would be funny, or didn't like the sitter's smile), he says, "Alakazoomba!" instead of "please", which magically makes the cookie appear.
• Throughout The Railway Series and its Animated Adaptation Thomas & Friends, the Troublesome Trucks will routinely misbehave or even intentionally derail the engine pulling them simply because they didn't like the tone they ordered them about. Of course, being troublesome trucks, they generally like finding any excuse to cause misery for an engine anyway.
  Oliver: Look sharp!
  Trucks: That's not the way to speak. Pay him out!

Live-Action TV

• The Borrowers: Lampshaded. Homily yells at a bee to get out of their house in the model village; and finally blurts out, "Oh, please go away!" The bee does then fly out, and Pod says smugly, "You see what happens when you say 'please'."
• Late in the first season of Galavant the increasingly evil Queen Madalena orders Gareth, who is the chief enforcer/bodyguard of her husband King Richard to torture a group of the protagonists, and he refuses to do so. When she asks Gareth if he has an issue with torturing people despite his brutal reputation, Gareth firmly replies that he doesn't (and says that he actually rather likes torture), but he's been Richard's loyal bodyguard/enforcer since the two men were boys, and Gareth only takes orders from Richard, not Madalena. At least at that point in time, as later in the show Gareth becomes a willing ally to Madalena.
• In Rome, this is the reason that Brutus cites for not joining Caesar when Caesar marched on the city of Rome and the Republic split between Caesar's faction and that of Pompey and the conservative patricians. He states that if Caesar had asked for his allegiance and help, Brutus would have joined him no matter the misgivings Brutus had, simply because of their relationship. However, Brutus claims that Caesar's heavy-handed methods left Brutus honor-bound to refuse him.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street:
  • Discussed when Oscar teaches Elmo to be a grouch, and Elmo gets into Oscar's trash can. When Oscar wants his trash can back, Elmo repeatedly replies "Go Away", as Oscar had taught him. Maria suggests that Oscar might have to ask nicely, and even say "please". However, this does not work, and Elmo still tells him to go away.
  • Parodied in one skit, where Telly asks Rosita what "por favor" means, and she replies, "Please." She's telling him what it means, but he thinks she's telling him to say please before she'll answer him.

Theatre

• In The Twelve Months, the Stepdaughter refuses to give the Queen a lift to the palace because the latter tries to offer her a reward for it instead of simply asking. When the Queen corrects her mistake, the Stepdaughter happily agrees to help her.

Toys

• Transformers:
  • This is generally the fatal flaw of the Dinobots: while they generally want the same thing as the Autobots, they hate taking orders from Optimus Prime, forcing the Autobot leader to use diplomacy, flattery, and outright trickery to get any use out of them. The expanded toy bios give the reasons for their hatred, with varying degrees of pettiness.
    • Grimlock believes that as "the strongest", he should be leading the Autobots. He finds Optimus Prime's concerns for stupid insignificant matters like "casualties" or "collateral damage" to be pointless.
    • Swoop hates Optimus because Optimus once commanded Swoop's unit early in the war, and even saved his life. Optimus kept quiet about the rescue due to recognising Swoop's pride was badly hurt by the whole thing, but Swoop thinks Optimus kept quiet to lord it over him.
    • Slag hates taking orders from Optimus Prime, but it ought to be pointed out that he just hates taking orders in general. At times, even Grimlock has trouble keeping him in line (this being why Slag is often The Lancer of the team).
    • Snarl hates everything and everyone, and only feels happy in the heat of combat when he can forget everything and just focus on survival. Since Grimlock usually leads them into the thickest fighting, Snarl is marginally more tolerant of Grimlock than he is of Optimus Prime (who may sometimes order the Dinobots to hold back in order to achieve a different objective).
    • Sludge hates Optimus Prime because everyone else on the team seems to, and they're his friends, so...
  • Fangry's toy bio makes note that any sort of request, order, or even suggestion will send him into a frothing rage (even when it's something he'd do anyway, like "attack"). The only ones who can get away with giving him orders are the likes of Megatron or Bludgeon, who can (and have) beaten him almost to death for talking back to them.
  • The Autobot Hot Rod Patrol, a Micromaster team led by Big Daddy, is a group of delinquents who carry a big chip on their tiny shoulders. As a result, they're distrustful and reluctant to take orders from the "big guys" (i.e. the regular-sized Autobots). Big Daddy at least understands that Optimus Prime isn't the sort to throw their lives away, but that just means he's willing to hear Optimus out.
  • The Off Road Patrol (an Autobot Micromaster team) is mentioned as being an extremely close-knit team. So close-knit, in fact, that they dislike being given orders by anyone outside of their group. The only reason they stick with the Autobots is because they understand that the Decepticons would happily use them as Cannon Fodder... or as spare parts.

Video Games

• Evil West: Towards the climax of the game, James Harrow furiously gives some orders to Dr. Emilia Blackwell in his typical foul-mouthed and misogynistic way. It turns out to be the last straw which motivates her to finally stand up to him.
  James Harrow: Dr. Blackwell, I Can't Believe I'm Saying This, but as of right now, you are the fuckin' Director of the soon-to-be-renamed Rentier Institute, with all the perks and privileges entitled within. But for now, I want you to lock these sons of bitches up for high treason! And after that, you're gonna squeeze every bit of vital information out of the tick that's currently inhabiting the carcass of William Rentier. And once you're done, apply your own damn protocols and put a bullet in its head, like you should have done days ago!
  [Dr. Blackwell stays furiously quiet]
  James Harrow: Are you havin' some sort of female moment?! I FUCKIN' WANT! THIS FUCKIN' DONE! RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW!
  Dr. Emilia Blackwell: Allow me to present a counter-proposal... You leave Calico right now and never come back, you lying, sweaty, lecherous, potty-mouthed, flatulent... ugly-moustached creep!
• In The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, the Subrosian smith isn't opposed to doing the work of polishing the Rusty Bell or performing the shield upgrade, but will only do it if the right dialog choices are made. With the Bell, he won't help if Link asks politely, but will if ordered to do so, while with the shield he only helps if you seem indifferent to it.

Webcomics

• Kill Six Billion Demons: In "Breaker of Infinities", Gog-Agog refuses to join the other Demiurges in binding the Omnicidal Maniac Jagganoth because, even with all of reality on the line, they won't admit they need her help. Even for an insane Monster Clown, it's one insult too many.

Web Videos

• In the Real-Time Fandub of Resident Evil 2 (Remake), Ada demands Leon to give her the Jumanjification Juice, but Leon will only give it to her if she says "please".
  Ada: [points a gun at Leon] Give me the fucking thing!
  Leon: [points a gun back at Ada] I hold to my values, bitch! You still haven't said "please", you motherfucker!
  Ada: Please give me the Jumanjification Juice!
  Leon: Well, now you were rude about it because you said "fuck" in it!

Western Animation

• Gravity Falls: Stanley Pines hasn't seen his twin brother Stanford in ten years since he got thrown out of their house for accidentally destroying Ford's science fair project, but when he receives a message from Ford telling him he needs his help at his new home in Gravity Falls, Stan immediately drops all things and heads over. However, when he gets there, Ford instructs him to take one of his journals and take it far away from town to prevent the portal Bill Cipher tricked him into building from being recreated. Stan, angered that the first thing Ford said to him after not seeing each other for ten years was basically to get out (especially since Ford phrased it in a way referencing their childhood dream to sail around the world) refuses and tries to destroy the journal instead, leading to an argument and fight between the two that eventually leads to the portal accidentally activating and Ford getting trapped in it for thirty years.
• In the pilot of Human Resources, Gil and Joe get stuck in the elevator and they call on Todd for help. He asks them to say please, but Gil gets irreverent and rudely asks him to do his job. Todd hangs up on them in response.
• The Lion Guard: This is the primary character trait of Bupu. Whenever someone acts demanding to him, expect nothing short of obstinance. He’ll only cooperate if someone’s nice to him.
• Looney Tunes: In "Hare Lift", Yosemite Sam hijacks a plane and orders Bugs Bunny, whom he mistakes for the pilot, to fly. As the plane goes into a nosedive, Sam is shocked to find Bugs calmly reading a manual on how to fly. Panicking, Sam pulls his gun on Bugs and demands that he read faster. Bugs then closes the book and says, "I refuse to look up any more reference because you talked mean to me. Say you're sorry." Sam refuses, but as he sees the ground approaching fast, he relents and says sorry. Bugs then asks that he say "sorry with sugar on it" just to twist the knife. Sam refuses again, but now the plane is almost about to crash, and after some failed attempts to act nonchalant, Sam swallows his pride and says, "I'm sorry with sugar on it." Bugs then pulls the plane out of its nosedive, just mere feet from hitting the ground.
• In The Simpsons episode "One Fish, Two Fish, Blow Fish, Blue Fish", Homer Simpson is caught speeding by police cops Eddie and Lou. Homer, thinking he has a day to live after eating a tainted meal the previous night, impatiently insists they just hurry it up and give him the ticket. This is something the cops were going to do, but they get ticked off by his attitude, so instead of just giving him a ticket they throw him in jail for being a wiseguy and trying to order them around instead.
• Star Trek: The Animated Series: In "The Practical Joker", the spaceship's computer comes alive and starts pranking the crew. At one point, Kirk gives it a command, and it responds, "Say please." When Kirk does, the computer says, "Say, 'pretty please'," but when he complies, it adds, "Say, 'pretty please with sugar on.'"

---