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I didn't Kick the Dog, so where's my cookie?
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Buffy: What are you doing? |
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A character expects special extra kudos for behaving in a situation like a decent human being instead of a Jerkass, disregarding that basic humanity is expected of others by default, rather than something above-and-beyond, to be rewarded for. Also includes other people complimenting the first character's extra special moral behavior.
Can inspire Then Let Me Be Evil if the character is treated around as negatively as actual villains despite their good nature.
Compare It's All About Me, Dogged Nice Guy (at its worst), Entitled to Have You, and Pitying Perversion. Contrast Dude, Where's My Respect?, in which a character actually does heroic things but gets no positive acknowledgement for it. Also contrast strong cases of Crapsack World, where having a shed of humanity actually is to exceed any reasonable expectations.
Film[]
- Yondu in Guardians of the Galaxy constantly, for twenty-six years, reminds Peter how he selflessly protected the lad from being eaten by the other Ravagers. In the climax, Peter rages at him to shut up about this. Normal people don't even think about eating others, let alone expect the potential meal to be grateful about it. The sequel reveals that Yondu thought Peter knew he was saying this in jest but it did sour Peter's view of the Ravagers.
Literature[]
- Invoked in The Picture of Dorian Gray, when Dorian realises that his painting is reflecting all the hedonism he's committed, and thinks that not picking up this country girl he comes across will improve it. The painting develops a smug grin of hypocrisy.
- One Dave Barry column has this insight into the male mindset: being little more than toilet-trained cavemen, they will occasionally perform an act of great heroism like doing the laundry without being asked or making spaghetti without setting the house on fire, only to be confused when other people (read: women) don't consider this an accomplishment worthy of a Nobel Prize.
- Edward Cullen from Twilight embodies this mindset. "I'm not killing every random human in my path, I deserve a cookie!", even though he's never lifted a finger to stop anyone else from eating people, or tried to save anyone in danger of getting eaten. Come to think of it, pretty much everyone in Twilight fits this mentality.
- The Dursleys in Harry Potter. Vernon expects Harry to be worshipping the ground he walks on for giving him food and shelter despite abusing his nephew for nearly two decades. When Dudley was thankful for Harry saving his life, Petunia treated her son as the most selfless being to ever live, all but demanding that Harry genuflect to Dudley.
- Hera in Percy Jackson & the Olympians and Sequel Series The Heroes of Olympus. Made all the worse by the fact that everyone knows that she's an utter Bitch in Sheep's Clothing and is doing any kindness less because she's the Well-Intentioned Extremist she paints herself as, but just for her fragile ego.
Live Action TV[]
- In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike the erstwhile evil vampire tries to impress Buffy by helping people injured in a roof collapse, and especially wants credit for not drinking their blood.
- Doctor Who:
- In the Doctor Who episode "Boom Town", Blon Slitheen has a nice chat with a young pregnant woman about family instead of eating her. The Doctor doesn't fall for it. It's also worth mentioning that said villain's scheme would have ended up destroying the world, making her arguments nothing more than a hollow stalling tactic.
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Blon: I spared her life. |
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- In "The Lie of the Land" the Doctor asks Missy for help. Before she reveals what she knows, she fires off a list of distractions she wants during her imprisonment. Since Missy is trying to pull a Heel Face Turn, the Doctor calls her out on this trope only for Missy to retort that she's entirely a Play-Along Prisoner. She has been putting in the legwork, even staying in her cell when she had six months to escape into the galaxy with no consequences, so she's owed something.
- Played with on an episode of The X-Files. Agent Mulder says something along the lines of "If I had a peg leg, everyone would applaud me just for being alive, but because I'm normal, I'm expected to exceed."
- Seinfeld often had Inner Monologues by Jerry where he praised himself for being such a good person.
- A Discussed Trope in The Good Place. People, just naturally, do expect some form of reward for good deeds, even something as basic as a "thank you" for holding open a door, and it's questioned if that invalidates the goodness of the act, given that it was arguably done for selfish reasons.
- Seth in the Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode "He Said, She Said". He's never hired a prostitute and is open to a woman directing Star Wars so he has to be a feminist. Jake even questions if the bar for basic human decency is now that low.
- Sheldon Cooper has shades of this in The Big Bang Theory. His Ambiguous Disorder leads to him making a lot of Brutal Honesty comments that clearly make people uncomfortable but since he never outright insults them, he expects everyone to praise him for speaking the truth.
Newspaper Comics[]
- One Baby Blues strip featured Zoey excitingly telling her mom that she just saw her brother Hammie bend over in front of her, and didn't kick him! The last panel has her complaining about how hard it is to get brownie points.
Web Comics[]
- There was a Zogonia strip that went something like:
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Kev: I can't believe you don't trust me! All those times when I was on guard duty, I could have slit your throat while you slept and taken all the treasure, but I didn't! And this is the thanks I get? |
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- Belkar in Order of the Stick prequel, On The Origin Of PCs. He thinks he deserves a reward for the restraint he showed by not killing all the barmaids in a tavern brawl, and suggests that if humans don't want him to murder people, they should put up a sign saying "Thank you for not killing more than five of us".
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Prison Guard: We don't want you to kill ANY of us! |
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Stand Up Comedy[]
- A gem from Chris Rock that would make an excellent page quote if not for the, ahem... controversial language;
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Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people, and there's two sides, there's black people and there's (n). [...] You know the worst thing about (n)? (N)s always want credit for some shit they supposed to do. A (n) will brag about some shit a normal man just does. A (n) will say some shit like, "I take care of my kids." You're supposed to, you dumb motherfucker! What kind of ignorant shit is that? "I ain't never been to jail!" What do you want, a cookie?! You're not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation-having motherfucker!'" |
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Video Games[]
- Inverted in Mass Effect:
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Shepard: Saving my boots from burning lava is part of your job, Joker. We don't give medals to soldiers for doing their jobs. |
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- Only if you choose the Renegade dialogue option. If you choose Paragon, Joker will comment that he would probably have to shave his Badass Beard for the award ceremony, and no award is worth that.
Western Animation[]
- This exchange from Avatar: The Last Airbender, while the group was talking about Zuko's sudden Face Heel Turn, and citing setting Appa free instead of leaving him to rot as one good thing he's done.
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Sokka: [Sarcastically] Oh, hurray! After a lifetime of evil, at least he didn't add animal cruelty to the list! |
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- In X-Men: Evolution, after Lance saves an elderly lady (out of genuine decency) from a train wreck Wanda caused and the lady richly rewards the Brotherhood, the Brotherhood begins to do "good deeds"--but only for the reward and occasionally engineering the situations in the first place. When their reputation collapses and the rewards vanish, they go back to their typical Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain routine.
- The Simpsons:
- In the episode "Crook and Ladder", where Homer and the other volunteer firefighters and get so many thank-you gifts that they come to expect it. They steal from Mr. Burns when he refuses to reward them, then just start robbing places as a matter of course.
- Similar to the above, the episode "Blood Feud" had Homer save Mr. Burns' life by allowing Bart to be a donor during a blood transfusion. Homer's main reason for doing so was the belief that Mr. Burns would grant the Simpson family some grand reward, being disgusted that they received nothing more than a thank you note. Slightly mitigated by Smithers believing the Simpsons deserved a reward for saving the life of the person he cherished most. And since this was early in the series, Burns did take Smithers' feelings into consideration and bought the family a giant Olmec head as a thank-you.
- On South Park, Cartman is freaking out around Christmastime about whether or not he's been "nice" enough to merit Santa's favor. He suggests that brushing his teeth counts as a "nice" action, only for his "naughty and nice accountant" to note that that doesn't really count.
- This is basically Prince Lotor's attitude during his time allied with the heroes in Voltron: Legendary Defender. He's not his father Emperor Zarkon, so they should trust him and love him. Except he is just like Zarkon, possibly even worse because at least Zarkon was honest about his motivations...at least the ones he could actually remember.
- The Great Diamond Authority in Steven Universe: The Movie. It's so bad that Steven ultimately has to give them a prize, Spinel.
- Discord went back and forth on this in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, though it was often Played for Laughs.
- The people of Etheria in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power should all be worshipping Horde Prime. After all he didn't raze their planet to the ground for no good reason.
- Family Guy:
- Lois pegs Brian as acting like this in "The D in Apartment 23". While she knows that Brian just told a bad joke that landed flat, she accurately points out that he hasn't done anything to convince the angry mob of that. He just expects that being a liberal and deleting his Twitter will grant him a free pass rather than simply apologizing.
- Lois herself falls victim to this in "Customer of the Week". She eagerly desires to be customer of the week to validate herself but Stewie points out that she's simply doing the most basic of things that are expected of a customer. And when she does try to go above and beyond, her enthusiasm is blatantly fake.
- Lois again in "A Bottle Episode". After being banned from Airbnb for stealing a bottle of shampoo, she spends the second act of the episode trying to show what a good person she is, even as everyone points out that she stole the shampoo. It doesn't matter how little shampoo was in the bottle or how well she treated the rest of the house, she stole from her host and very clearly doesn't think she did anything wrong, only acting contrite because she was caught. By the episode's end, she outright admits that she's just a Villain Protagonist.
- Chloé Bourgeois in Seasons 2 and 3 of Miraculous Ladybug. She doesn't want to be a hero because of the goodness in her heart, she wants to be one because she's an It's All About Me Attention Whore who wants praise from Ladybug if she does a good thing.
- Adam in the first season of Hazbin Hotel notes that the denizens of Hell should be worshipping him as the first of the human species. This is despite the fact that he personally leads a yearly campaign to exterminate them largely For the Evulz.
Real Life[]
- Feminist cookies.
- Many woke people have Freak Outs when the women and minority people that they white-knight for don't treat them like their saviors, or have opinions that dare be contrary to theirs.
- Look closely when a person, whether male or female, whines and complains because people of either the same or opposite gender will not date him or her. Many times, the complainer will fit square into this trope - they treat others well gunning for a kiss, a date or more, and will get MAD if they're not given what they want. The words "incel", "femcel", "gayncel" and "incelbian" exist for a reason.
- On the January 13th 2021 episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Sam called out near every Republican in the US Congress for their token denouncements of January 6th 2021. After supporting Donald Trump for the four years that led up to the Capitol Riot, they don't get to suddenly take the high ground. Given that most ultimately walked back their initial critiques, she was quite right to do so.