Basic Trope: Someone breaks the law, but gets a lot more heat for their crime than they expected.
- Straight: Alice and Bob try to rob a pair of random bystanders, only to discover that one of them is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice drops some litter, which causes a car accident leading to scores of casualties, including the Prime Minister.
- Alice ripping the tag from a mattress in her mattress dealership begins a chain of events (some of them being Alice doing more, equally insignificant, crimes) that leads to the eruption of World War Three.
- Downplayed: Bob is in a hurry and parks illegally (deciding to just accept it if he's fined)...failing to realize he'd done so in a handicapped space.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob chose their target at random, it's just bad luck they were as important as they were.
- Alice and/or Bob are impulsive idiots. If someone gets in the way of what they want, out come the guns and the attempted murder. Again, it was bad luck that they chose someone who would bring so much retaliation down on their heads.
- The crime itself was minor, but the police/court needs to figure out how culpable Alice and Bob are for the Disaster Dominoes it set off.
- The crime itself was minor, but Alice and Bob had the bad luck of performing it during elections or any other time when the local politicians need to show they are tough on crime. Cue the book being thrown at them.
- Inverted:
- Alice and Bob think they're kidnapping the Prime Minister, but it turns out they grabbed a random bystander by accident.
- Alice attempts to distract the police for Bob by running around naked. It turns out that they wound up in a Free-Love Future where just about anything short of rape is legal to do in public.
- Alice and Bob save a stranger from a gang of thugs... Who turns out to be the Prime Minister.
- Subverted: Alice and Bob think they're robbing an important official, but he assures them he's just a simple civil servant...
- Double Subverted: ...a (well liked, but mostly pen pushing) high ranking police official. He and his colleagues quickly track Alice and Bob down later.
- Parodied: The victim is clearly wearing a sash with "Mayor" on it. Alice and Bob don't realize until it's too late anyway.
- Zig Zagged: The amount of media/police interest the crime generates seems to vary depending on the plot.
- Averted:
- Alice and Bob decide not to go through with their robbery.
- Alice and Bob commit a crime and they get as much heat for their crime as they expected.
- Enforced: There wouldn't be a plot if Alice and Bob's crime wasn't more notable than a simple mugging.
- Lampshaded: "Do you know who I am!?" "...should we?"
- Invoked: The Prime Minister goes trawling for muggers to give a friend in the police department a relatively easy, but high profile, case to solve.
- Implied: Alice and Bob are seen dragged out of their besieged home by a heavily-armed SWAT Team and Bob yells out an insulted "It was just a wallet, man!!"
- Exploited: Alice and Bob carry around a pair of handcuffs, in case they rob someone who might be worth holding to ransom.
- Defied:
- Alice and Bob follow their targets around for a bit to confirm who they are.
- Alice and Bob don't care about how notorious it may end up being — kidnap the Pope, steal a wallet, Fame Through Infamy can come in many ways, right?
- Discussed: "What if this old guy turns out to be the Pope or something?"
- Conversed: "Why would they rob the Prime Minister? They should know it was a bad idea." "They probably thought he was just some guy."
- Plotted A Good Waste: The victim seems vaguely important...but the crime goes without a hitch and it never comes up again.
- Played For Laughs: Alice and Bob taunt their victim about how they'll get away with the robbery because it won't be of any interest to the police.
- Played For Drama: Alice and Bob were driven to the crime out of desperation, but because of the high-profile nature of the crime, the public will demand that they have the book thrown at them.
- Played For Horror: Alice and Bob are ineffectual and sympathetic. Their crime accidentally made them targets for the "psycho cops" of the district and/or that one superhero that is a serial killer on the side, who have no problem causing all kinds of murder and mayhem in the path to capturing them, let alone what will happen once they actually DO capture them...
...I only wanted to link back to Unintentionally Notorious Crime...but I ended up blanking it! Oh, Crap!!
