"Do the right thing; Karma will get you laid!"
This trope refers to the common depiction of good characters, through wacky and unpredictable happenstance, usually end falling into a veritable harem of highly desirable and willing members of their preferred gender, while Jerkasses get dumped into a veritable harem of their least favored members of their (un)preferred gender. While in chains. Where no one can hear them scream. Incidentally, said harem of undesirable people is composed of people who will sexually assault them.
Implementation varies, they don't always fall through a skylight onto a pile of cushions with various scantily clad concubines (though that is the classic). Even sex need not be involved, it might just be a single guy ending up alone with a bus full of volleyball players they helped save and who are grateful enough to flirt with and/or dote on him. Or the good character might mope that, after spending all the movie helping the lead solve his or her love problems they're still single... to the unbearably attractive bar-person who happens to be single! Alternately the wingman and winggirl of the two leads may become a happy Beta Couple. Depending on the rating, they may only be implied to start dating, get it on, or actually get it on screen. This may occasionally be shown as one of the rewards given to The Woobie at the end if they manage to survive everything the universe throws at them.
In contrast, most Jerk Asses (and a fair number of heroic Butt Monkeys) will somehow find themselves socially or physically trapped alone with one (or more!) overly amorous people of a group that isn't just outside their target demographic, but may well scare or repulse them. Of course, to these people, "no means yes" and their struggles just set them in the mood. For extra points, he or she will have previously insulted or put down the same person or people that he or she is now trapped with due to their own actions. If the jerkass was kicking dogs, rape is implied to happen.
It's not always a person, though; animals, "monsters", or aliens can also be substituted in either case. Even a Nice Guy may have to endure a dry-humping pet of their Love Interest's as part of the romance. Extra points if it's a gorilla, which is a favorite.
Depending on how it's used, this trope may carry Unfortunate Implications. Please don't ask us to elaborate, therapy isn't cheap.
Subtrope of Laser-Guided Karma. Supertrope to Karmic Rape, Karmic STD, and Prison Rape. See also Redemption Equals Sex, or conversely Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil. May be a precursor to Babies Ever After. Since this is often an Ending Trope, beware of unmarked spoilers.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In Ie Ga Moete Jinsei Dou Demo Yoku Natta Kara, the female lead Attie, the dark elf slave, is bought for only 150 k rubes as an act of sympathy because nobody in the East Continent would be willing to buy a dark-elf due to superstitions about her race. The top selling slave, a high-elf, mocks her, bragging that she was bought for over 633 million. Attie winds up in a loving and committed relationship, where Attie initiates the sexual encounters, and both she and her master are satisfied. The high elf winds up with a guy who happily brags that she's the object of sexual and other kinds of abuse.
- In Jura Tripper, instead of being requited by any of his love interests, Jerkass God only receives affection from pet dinosaur Miyu.
- One Piece:
- Sanji ends up on an island full of cross-dressers after Bartholomew Kuma rockets the Straw Hat Pirates away from each other. He spends a lot of time unknowingly saying that he likes dressing in women's clothing to a cross-dresser he believed was a beautiful woman. Hilarity Ensues.
- Also, Absalom's molestation and ogling of Nami/Robin is repaid with the affections of Lola. Who is a zombie. And ugly. And a warthog. This is more detailed in the anime.
- Luffy, for being such a good-hearted moron, wins the affections of Boa Hancock, the World's Most Beautiful Woman, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, and leader of the all-woman kingdom Amazon Lily, which means her subjects love him too. Being Luffy, he doesn't quite "get" how lucky he is.
- Sekirei has the Nice Guy protagonist Minato Sahashi, down on his luck with his schooling, family, and living situation, helping a ditzy woman named Musubi and feeding her which initially ends up creating more problems, in the end gaining the affections of 6 Sekirei, including Musubi. Of them, four, including Musubi, are very beautiful and buxom women who are all in love with him and consider him their husband. By the series end, he is considered married to everyone in his harem (and the other issues in his life straightened out, partially as a result of confidence he gained along the way).
- A Yakuza member in Yamatogawa/Witchcraft is dropped into a pit full of bored homunculi. We don't see precisely what happens to him, but the homunculi were created for sex, and despite their feminine forms, they have penises rather than vaginas.
Comic Books
- In Deadpool: Suicide Kings, Deadpool fights the Punisher and ends up wrecking Outlaw's apartment in the process. Deadpool, with the cash he had on hand, buys her a new apartment to call home. She decides to reward him with some intimacy.
- In Ernie, a sleazy boss tries to get Doris to sleep with her, threatening to fire her if she doesn't go along. She beats him up and quits on her own. However, this was apparently not enough punishment for some people (the next strip is of the artist being chewed out by his wife and banished to the couch because the sleaze "got away with it"), so the boss is later on vacation and tries the hot tub... which is then occupied by several recently-conceiving mothers. Uh, yeah. If this seems a bit convoluted to you, you're not alone.
- Starr in Preacher orders an incompetent minion to set him up with a prostitute. He gets a male one who does not take no for an answer. This is actually quite early in Starr's Humiliation Conga.
Fan Works
- In Death Note: The Abridged Series (kpts4tv), right after Light says how much fun killing people is Ryuk notices how pretty his eyes are.
- In Dragon Ball Z Abridged, this becomes clear for Krillin as his relationship with Android 18 develops. Earlier in the series, after he was killed by Freeza and revived by the Dragon Balls, he tried to publicly take an alias so he could claim life insurance money from his death, and use the money to get a woman. The woman he got, Maron, turned out to be an IRS agent, and he got busted. As the Cell saga progressed, he genuinely fell in love with Android 18, and the attraction was mutual. His affection for her was so sincere, that he was taken aback at the end of Episode 60 when 18 propositioned him for sex (cashing in on an earlier internal declaration desiring Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex with him if they got past Cell). Their first time together was implied to be a very good experience for both, and the postscript series Dragon ShortZ shows their relationship developing further.
- The Logia Brothers: On three different occasions (as of chapter 40), Luffy has saved a woman in some way and ended up having sex with her afterwards.
- Nami and Nojiko have a threesome with Luffy after he kills Arlong.
- Mikita joins Luffy's and Nami's relationship after she's cured of the Kestia infection in the Drum Arc.
- Vivi joins their bed after Luffy saves her kingdom from Crocodile.
- In Vow of the King:
- Kukaku rewards Sado sexually after he saves her little brother's life. Afterwards, she mentions the possibility of them doing it again sometime.
- Nemu allows Ichigo to indulge himself with Candice and Bambietta partially because she feels he deserves it and also because she wanted to watch.
Films — Animation
- In Don Bluth's Anastasia, Rasputin's bat sidekick abandons him at the climax and is awarded a female bat at the end with no explanation.
- Brave: Maudie, the plump castle maid from DunBroch, and the big, hunky unnamed warrior from the Dingwall clan are shown briefly flirting at the end of the movie when the three clans are finally leaving.
- At the end of Shrek 2, the handsome but awful Prince Charming is grabbed and forcibly kissed by the ugly step-sister.
Films — Live-Action
- Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls has the protagonist enjoy a night with The Chief's Daughter, while the unfortunate Big Bad finds love in the bush. With the Extra Points. Of course, this comes back to bite Ace in the ass.
Fulton: I believe he's saying she's not a virgin.
Ace: ...they can tell that? [cue entire Wachati tribe chasing Ace through the jungle] - The ending of Dumb and Dumber subverts this — the two characters look like they're about to get a bus full of beautiful women all to themselves as reward for their noble actions, only to have it ruined by their stupidity — and then hilariously double-subverted (nay, triple subverted) seconds later.
- The Gingerweed Man: For helping Gingy with saving Barbara and Buddy, Ooga Booga is last seen with the two now-freed Sex Slaves, going to have a three-way with them.
- Euro Trip has the Jerkass sidekick going to a normal-looking brothel and not realizing anything is wrong until the girls leave as soon as he's all chained up. A burly man enters and he struggles with the complex Safeword... failing to pronounce it, he instead begs for what turns out to be the name of a sinister-looking anal rape toy. This is the only sexual encounter he has in the whole movie until the Pair the Spares happy ending.
- In the film version of George of the Jungle, the villain winds up with a (semi-sentient) gorilla... who he'd just exchanged vows with while in a dark cave, thinking it was Ursula.
- Oh, the ending to Gremlins 2: The New Batch. Gets the extra points and everything, and a particularly mean example because the guy wasn't a villain so much as kind of a jerkass. At the end, he just shrugs and accepts that the amorous female Gremlin is going to have him one way or another. After all the chaos he's been through regarding the regular gremlins, the one female that has a major crush on him is probably the least of his problems.
- Intermission: Oscar and Sally, the two shy ones, find each other. John (whose messy breakup with his girlfriend because he couldn't show any commitment kicked off the whole plot) gets her back when he admits that he cares about her. Sam gets back together with his wife (who left him when he cheated with a younger woman) — unfortunately for him, she's discovered she can use threats of physical violence to keep him in line.
- Played for laughs in Kingsman: The Secret Service: when Eggsy infiltrates the Supervillain Lair in hopes of foiling the villain's doomsday plot, he finds a captive Statuesque Stunner Swedish princess who promptly offers him some highly specific sexual favours if he saves the world. She makes good on the deal in the end, and by the sequel, they're in a happy relationship.
- Shannon Hamilton of Mallrats likes to screw girls in an extremely uncomfortable place. And the karma rebound for his jerkassery throughout the film is he ends up screwed in a very uncomfortable place for many years. Jail.
- At the end of Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Robin ends up with Maid Marian, while the Sheriff of Nothingham ends up in the arms of Abhorrent Admirer Latrine.
- Sorority Boys: Throughout the film, Adam encourages Jimmy, his little brother in the fraternity, to take advantage of inebriated girls. So when "Adina" (Adam dressed in drag) ends up passed out in Jimmy's room, he capitalizes on the opportunity. Adam then takes the same humiliating walk of shame that girls had to endure after a night with him.
- The Sword and the Sorcerer: Whilst on the run from palace guards during one of his many I'll-do-it-although-it's-certain-death escapades, the hero of the movie literally falls (well, smashes through a window) into the evil king's harem, which is filled with scantily-clad concubines reclining on cushions. Unfortunately he doesn't have time for more than a kiss. But it's a good one.
- In Tamara, Sean and Patrick frequently date raped their female classmates at parties. Tamara, using her newfound mind-control powers, retaliates by forcing them to have sex... with each other.
- After wishing for the death of Jay Baruchel in This Is the End, Jonah Hill gets raped and subsequently possessed by a demon.
- Trading Places: the protagonist ends up with Jamie Lee Curtis, while the callous, Jerkass Beeks ends up with a male amorous gorilla in a cage... wearing a (female) gorilla suit...
- X has an example where the recipient of the karma isn't the one who actually has sex. RJ brought his devoutly Christian girlfriend Lorraine to work as an audio technician on his film without telling her that it was a porn film, leaving her deeply uncomfortable amidst the sex happening around her and understandably peeved with her boyfriend. Eventually, however, she gets fed up with being seen as the Token Wholesome on the set and asks to shoot a scene in the film herself. RJ objects, but the film's sleazy producer Wayne eagerly obliges and forces RJ to film his girlfriend having sex with the well-hung Jackson if he wants to keep his job.
Literature
- Subverted in Castle in the Air. One would think being banished with two amorous fat, overly emotional women would be the djinn's punishment for kidnapping princesses to fill his harem, but he realizes that he actually finds overweight women very attractive. On their part, the women find his scales and claws to be a personal fetish and thus it becomes more Pair the Spares.
- Jane Austen tends to be a fan of this, at least implicitly. The most obvious example is Pride and Prejudice, where the too-sweet-for-their-own-good Jane and Mr. Bingley get married, as do the headstrong but ultimately noble Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth. On the other end of the spectrum, Mr. Wickham and Lydia, two of the most selfish and vile characters in the story, also end up together, but not for a happy reason. Generally in Austen's world, a person's moral character will greatly impact the quality of their marriage life.
- Ravirn is usually the Butt-Monkey of the multiverse. However... due to trying to do the right thing regardless, he's ended up with two different girlfriends. (One being one of the three Furies. Yeah.) And two others that either flirt with him or use him as a Morality Chain. Even Zeus, who plays up the Drunken College Frat Boy image, wonders how he pulls it off.
- In chapter 41 of Ship Core, one of the two leading characters, Elis, is in a bar, trying to cool off after a major battle and she's hit on by two separate guys. The first is a swaggering thug who completely ignores her military fatigues, treats her like a cheap whore, and refuses to take "no, go away" as an answer, and refusing to remove his hands from her person. When he tries to drag her off to his tent, she body-slams him to the ground, and when the guy's buddies then try to start a brawl, they wind up facing a mini-gun from Booper, a combat drone sent with Elis to the front lines, not to mention their own NCO who reams them out for picking a fight with a powerful and competent hired mercenary. She is shortly afterward approached by a puppy-faced lieutenant (her words), and he flirts with her while still treating her with respect. Even though he's not her type, she still kisses him passionately and marches off to her tent with the line "you coming or not?" to which he replies with an enthusiastic "Yes, Ma'am!"
Live Action TV
- The Boys (2019): Heroes and good characters tend to have healthy, mutually satisfying, if rather vanilla sex while the bad guys are rapists, terrible in bed, or have bizarre and gross sexual fetishes to make them less likable.
- When Hughie and Annie have sex, they both seem to climax at the same time.
- Contrast this to the literally painful sex scene between Homelander and Stillwell. It shows him to be a bad lover who suffers from Speed Sex and with a really weird complex about milk. He has an almost orgasmic expression while milking a cow and drinks it straight from the udders, unpasteurized. He's later shown to spy on Stilwell while she breast feeds her baby and steals some of her breast milk to drink.
- Stormfront, another villain, enters a sexual relationship with Homelander. While his performance improves, their sex life is shown to involve kinky or unpleasant elements, such as harming each other with Homelander frying Stormfront´s chest with his Eye Beams, or having sex in an alley near a corpse after Homelander turned a robber's head into paste. Apparently, maiming and gruesomely killing people are good for their libidos.
- The Deep has to extort women for sex; the one woman he's shown having consensual sex with is the one that he also says gives terrible blowjobs. Season 3 reveals that he has sex with animals in his free time and he seems to like them more than human partners.
- Soldier Boy founded the degenerate orgy Herogasm and is shown to have a fetish for overweight elderly women.
- Cameron Coleman, a Tucker Carlson expy, is revealed to be into getting pegged by his corporate overlord both figuratively and literally.
- Blue Hawk is shown to attend Herogasm's raunchy orgy, presumably to make him even less likable to the audience right before A-Train kills him.
- Termite uses his shrinking powers for, essentially, sounding (while drugged up and with a stranger), which leads to his partner's death. Like Blue Hawk he's also shown attending Herogasm.
- The Shannara Chronicles:
- Good people tend to have healthy relationships and satisfying sex lives while villains are either perverts (Cephelo), sexual deviants (The Dagda Mor), or romantically frustrated (Bandon).
- Played With in the Betty and Veronica Love Triangle in season 1. "Bad" girl Eretria flirts and seduces Wil early on and they go at it for around an hour of great sex and he is completely spent the following morning, showing she's great in bed, but the scene is portrayed in a non-romantic manner as it happened almost entirely off-screen and she only did it to trick him, leaving him in the morning after while taking the Elfstones with her. Meanwhile, when "good" girl Amberle has her Pre-Climax Climax with Wil, this is portrayed in a romantic Idealized Sex manner, with the scene showing them making love while triumphant music plays and followed by them happily cuddling under the bedsheets in the aftermath.
- Strange Empire: While Isabelle has to put up with some nonsense in the bedroom, Kat and Rebecca both have a great time every time we see them have sex.
- The White Queen: The consummation of Anne Neville's marriages to her first and second husbands are polar opposites in terms of how negative (the former) and positive (the latter) the sexual experiences were for her. With her unwanted Arranged Marriage to Edward of Lancaster (whom she considers to be a monster, and he hates her because she's the daughter of the man who overthrew his father), she endures a terrifying and painful marital rape while he uses his weight to pin her down to the bed. The manner in which this scene is shot, lit and scored indicates that it's a very harsh and clinical act. In sharp contrast, Richard of Gloucester, whom Anne later marries of her own volition and for love, is tender and patient with her. She sits on top of him so that she can control the pace of their lovemaking; she remains still at first (presumably due to nervousness), and he doesn't rush her. When she does start moving, they hold hands; she then moves her head down towards his so that their faces are close, and they both sigh heavily with pleasure. The lighting, camera angles and music suggest warmth and emotional intimacy. Anne's wedding night with the dreaded Edward was hell, but her wedding night with her beloved Richard is heavenly.
Web Comics
- In the "Identity" arc of El Goonish Shive, Ashley and Tom are interested in Elliot and Susan respectively, and their differing approaches earn them very different rewards. Tom attempts to manipulate Susan into dating him, knowing full well that she would turn him down if he asked her out through conventional means. This leads to him getting exposed as a manipulative asshole in front of a large number of women. Ashley, on the other hand, does her best to warn Susan about Tom's less than honest nature despite the fact that, to the best of her knowledge, this would hurt her chances with Elliot (she believed that Elliot and Susan were likely to get together). This action impressed Elliot enough that he asked her on a date.
- The wife of David Hopkins, author of Jack, was stalked for a while by her creepy ex. Apparently, among other problems, the creepy ex had bragged to her about his habit of finding beached dolphins and doing unpleasant things with their blowholes. She and Dave got their revenge on this guy by putting a cameo of a thinly-veiled avatar of him in the comic's Ironic Hell setting, condemned to be raped by dolphins for eternity.
Web Original
- Solange of the Whateley Universe is subjected to Karmic Rape at the end of "Bottle A Jinn" [1]
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Western Animation
- Discussed in an episode of King of the Hill. An attractive female exterminator shows up and develops a crush on Dale; his wife Nancy, who'd been cheating on him for years, admits that not only does she have any right to complain, but it'd be pretty karmic if Dale ran off with the other woman. Ultimately, however, Dale only loves Nancy and stays with her.
- The Legend of Korra: Mako has a problem with dithering behavior concerning his romances with Asami and Korra which ultimately ends up sinking both. He is also the only member of Team Avatar not paired up with a significant other by series end; even Bolin finds love in Opal's arms. Ironically, the two women with whom he had messy relationships end up together in the end.
- In an episode of South Park, an antagonist who repeatedly tries to get Jimmy killed is raped by a shark. On-screen. Twice.
- Kid-friendly example: In the TaleSpin episode "The Time Bandit", Baloo's punishment for almost getting Rebecca executed with one of his Zany Schemes is having to go on a date with a woman who really likes him — but happens to be as fat as Baloo himself.
