I'm not super loving the OP
Laser-Guided Karma's description generally implies there's _some_ relationship between the misdeed and the karma being suffered.
The laser guided seems to be more about the timing of the karma.
Edited by Ghilz on Sep 6th 2025 at 6:31:51 AM
Not exactly, unfortunately.
Before making this thread, I've tried looking for a higher quality of the image via reverse image search, tineye, etc and found nothing. This is old artwork ripped from an PC game from the '90s with no high quality equivalents, so there aren't many upgrade options.
Nah, it's fine.
Edited by Tylerbear12 on Sep 6th 2025 at 7:10:20 AM
Local Odd Squad Connoisseur
I'll second that. I think both current and OP are not really illustrative. (OP looks more like an image for Space Whale Aesop (like potholed in the caption) except that SWA already has a solid one.)
Edited by Kroetski on Sep 7th 2025 at 7:05:53 PM
There's too many men, too many people, making too many problemsYeah if it had a source or was open source it'd be amazingly good.
Is OP really misrepresentative of the trope? The way I understand it, it's about someone getting a karmic return for their deeds; notably, one of the examples straight up goes "Mocking Bugs Bunny will land an anvil on your head". In OP's image, the exact same thing is happening — only replace Bugs Bunny with the guy with the fanny pack and the falling anvil with a snake. Cosmetically it's different, but conceptually it's the same. A guy is mocking someone and he gets punished for it by some cartoonish force of nature. I really cannot agree with 7 considering the article itself already lists a similar example.
That being said, I would pull current regardless. Size issue aside, the only thing I can really get from it is a guy kicking a cat and there's a thundercloud behind him, for all I know that's a visual representation of him being malicious and harmful than some karmic comeuppance.
The Bugs Bunny example is more likely intending that Bugs himself (Or your own actions) cause the Anvil to fall on you (as it is what happens on the shows) and not "You call Bugs a dick and an unrelated anvil falls on your head"
All the other examples in the descriptions have a link, either causative or at least thematic. "Villain mistreats his secretary, she helps the heroes. Heroes help a beast, befriend Androcles' Lion. Villain accuses someone of stealing, gets accused of the exact same thing"
This is also born out by the extended description that talks about Heroes good deeds landing them help, while villains misdeeds leads to their own downfall.
The Fanny pack and the Snake have no relationship whatsoever, either causal or thematic. As the caption itself points out, this comes across more as a Space Whale Aesop than this.
(Unrelated but I was also surprised to learn that this trope applies to good Karma. I don't think I've ever seen it applied to anything but bad karma)
Edited by Ghilz on Sep 7th 2025 at 2:34:45 PM
On the note of good karma, it's a bit long, but how about Link getting a weapon upgrade for honesty in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? (I used a Link with the magic boomerang from another game for more visibility. If it looks too off I can try for another sprite)
25.1

25.2 And a two panel combining the pose from the bottom.

Edited by Earnest on Sep 8th 2025 at 9:03:44 AM

While I like the current image for Laser-Guided Karma, it is far too small and low quality to work, and I wasn't able to find a suitable upgrade that meets the size requirements, so I'm gonna bring in a new suggestion.
Mr Lovenstein
Funnily enough, this was actually posted on TV Trope's twitter page
a few years back.
(it's a four panel strip, so two should be okay).
Edited by Tylerbear12 on Sep 6th 2025 at 4:10:06 AM