Western Animation - TV Tropes (2024)

• In the bulk of his appearances, Abis Mal is shown tracking down various magical beings and artifacts, hoping to use them to conquer Agrabah. Inevitably, the being/artifact in question will turn on him, forcing Aladdin and co. to step in and save the day, but Abis never learns.
• Evil Sorcerer Mozenrath gets bitten by this in "The Book of Khartoum". He finds a tome of evil magic and contacts the spirit within it, which instructs him on how to create a powerful artifact called the Philosopher's Stone. The book tells him that the Stone will vastly increase his magical power. When the Stone is ready, though, Mozenrath discovers that "the Book of Khartoum" is actually a magical prison for an evil wizard named Khartoum, and the Stone is the one thing that can free him. The wizard then steals the Stone and breaks free. Mozenrath's own magic is nothing against Khartoum; it takes the intervention of Aladdin and his friends to defeat Khartoum.

• In the episode "Birds of a Feather", Veronica Vreeland brings The Penguin into her social circle as a publicity stunt. He eventually finds out he's being used and in his true flamboyantly villainous fashion, kidnaps and attempts to murder her. An especially depressing case as Penguin genuinely had performed a Heel–Face Turn and truly was being a good man now... until he learned the truth about Veronica and his heart was so thoroughly broken he dove head-first back into villainy.
• There's also the episode "Joker's Wild," in which a casino owner opens a Joker-themed resort, thinking the supervillain will destroy the place out of spite and bring the owner a hefty insurance check. Once the Joker is wise to the con, though, he instead sets his sights on making sure the owner is part of the total loss.
• And then there's "Mad Love," in which Harley springs the Joker from Arkham, desperately infatuated with him and convinced they'll live out a Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque romance. The feelings aren't exactly mutual, and their relationship quickly turns into a nasty cycle of abuse and betrayal on Joker's end.
• In some cases this proves two-way short-sighted since Joker unhinging Harley into his personal sycophant has ugly repercussions whenever he decides he's done with the facade (case in point the revenge beating he suffered for ditching her in "Joker's Billions"). For all the abuse she takes, Harley is quite forceful that she's Joker's commitment, whether he still wants her or not.
• "Over the Edge" has Commissioner Gordon enlisting Bane to help him bring down Batman. Of course, it ends as well as you'd expect a deal with a supervillain to go.

  Gordon: We had a deal!
  Bane: Thought about it. Didn't work for me.

• F.O.W.L. decides to find Taurus Bullba (the villain from the pilot and one of the only non-goofy villains of the series) and rebuild him as a Cyborg. He's pissed. His voice is dripping with bitter sarcasm when he says, "So what if I have to drink motor-oil co*cktails for the rest of my life?"
• In the comics, F.O.W.L. high command decide to revive Duckthulu. Surprisingly, Duckthulu thanks them by disposing of them and then continuing to destroy all of reality.

• In "McMystery At McDuck McManor!", it looks like this has happened when Black Arts Beagle summons what he believes to be a demon, only for him to disappear literally shouting, "I'm not as good as I thought I was!" As it turns out, he's summoned the ghost of Scrooge's old butler, who was sort of behind everything anyway and later admits he has a flair for the dramatic.
• A straight example occurs in the Grand Finale. Magica, Ma Beagle, and Glomgold are not happy that Bradford captured them, had Steelbeak use them as puppets, and intended to erase them for his plan for absolute order. Not one character complains when Magica turns him into an actual non-sapient buzzard as punishment.

• Played straight in "Dreamscaperers" where Gideon, trying once more to get a hold of the Mystery Shack, summons a certain triangle-shaped Dream Demon to help steal the deed to the Shack. Bill Cipher goes on to become the Big Bad of the series, eventually coercing Gideon into being Demoted to Dragon when Bill finally breaks the barriers between his world and reality.
• Averted by Dipper in "Northwest Mansion Mystery". While he is angry at the Northwests for taking advantage of his willingness to get rid of the ghost and sympathizes with the ghost's desire for revenge, he recognizes that the ghost is unstable and doesn't want to risk letting him out of the mirror he sealed him in while his sister is at the party. Unfortunately, the ghost averts Evil Cannot Comprehend Good and appeals to Dipper's better nature by asking him to hold the mirror up so he can see the trees one last time before he is exorcised. When Dipper agrees, the ghost heats the mirror up, causing Dipper to drop and break it.

• An episode had an evil sorcerer freeing an evil dragon and said dragon sticking the sorcerer into his old prison.
• In "To Save Skeletor", Skeletor decides to summon an elder god. You can guess from the episode title how that worked out.

• In Season 1, Shendu, who was turned into a statue for almost a millennium, promises to reward the Dark Hand (Valmont and his Enforcers) with vast ancient treasures if they acquire all the magical Talismans needed to release him. Upon Shendu returning to his true form, he completely reneges on their deal and refuses to pay up.
• In the Season 3 finale, Shendu (now a spirit) pulls this on Daolon Wong, who offers to resurrect him in exchange for giving Wong the Dragon Talisman power that Shendu's body will attract.^note To the surprise of absolutely no one (except for Wong of course), Shendu takes both the Dragon power and the other two Talisman powers (Pig and Rooster) that Wong had acquired earlier.
• One case unrelated to Shendu: In the Season 4 premiere, Daolon Wong prepares a potion to allow him to recreate the seal of the Shadowkhan, with the intent of summoning them so that they can break him and the Enforcers out of Section 13's prison. However, he actually ends up freeing the Shadowkhan's true master Tarakudo, who breaks out the Enforcers and leaves him there.

• Felix Faust releasing Hades. He learned from his experiences and was able to live out the more fun side of the trope by possessing Tala later on.
• And with Dr. Milo releasing Doomsday.

  Milo: And you'll solve both our problems?

  See Also

  Spongebob Squarepants: Alternative Endings - Chapter 3 - PyroPioneer100 Best Shows To Watch On Disney Plus In 2022 - OtakuKart90 Best Drama TV Shows of all Time - OtakuKart'Coney Island stew': Mermaid Parade kicks off summer by embracing the weird

  Doomsday: Yes. Release me.

  Milo (deactivating the restraints): ...Wait! What are you doing?

  See Also

  When My Sons Lost Their Dad Way Too Young, My Own Father Stepped In – Kveller

  Doomsday (seizing Milo by the head): Your problem's solved.

• A bunch of teenagers tried to do some cult-like ritual hoping it would grant them powers; it goes awry and instead summons Solomon Grundy back from the dead. His first victim was one of the teens.
• Invoked in the penultimate episode of the show: Lex Luthor attempts to revive Brainiac from his last known gravesite so he can team up with him again. To do this, he uses the Evil Sorceress Tala as a conduit to revive him, a process which will kill her. Metron warns him against doing it, but Lex Luthor brushes him off, thinking that Metron doesn't want him to repeat the events of Divided We Fall (Lex liked his partnership with Brainiac and destroying the universe to craft a new one in his image), but unfortunately for everyone, Metron was trying (somewhat poorly) to tell him that back when Brainiac died in Twilight, Darkseid had also died on the same base. Guess how Tala gets her final revenge on Luthor. No, go on, guess.

• Cat Blanc, torn between listening to Hawk Moth (who he had just learned is his father) and listening to his Lady, accidentally triggers an Angst Nuke that wipes out all of Paris, killing everyone in it but himself, including Hawk Moth (and Ladybug). Time travel was required to fix this one.
• Robustus turns on him and hacks into his security systems, making them fire upon him. He survives, but is too busy dodging missiles to revoke Robustus's powers, which was likely the point.
• YanLuoShi, pretty much the instant Hawk Moth tries to boss him around, declares that nobody tells him what to do and blasts him with his Eye Beams, vaporizing him. He gets brought back by Ladybug's World-Healing Wave.
  • Worth noting that both supervillains deliberately turning on Hawk Moth were the result of akumatizing non-humans (Robustus originally being Markov, a robot, and YanLuoShi originally being Mei Shi, a supernatural creature). Presumably they can resist his control better than humans can.

• Discord himself has to learn this lesson in the Season 4 finale. Celestia has asked him to stop Tirek's rampage; instead the latter manages to appeal to his vanity and convince him that he is now his new special friend and they should rule Equestria together. As soon as Tirek has grown strong enough absorbing the magic of enough ponies, he promptly turns around and steals Discord's powers as well.
• Trixie tracks down the Alicorn Amulet after the Ursa Incident ruined her life to get revenge...except the Amulet is actually an Artifact of Doom that corrupts its user and drives them insane.

• In The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo episode "Ship of Ghouls", the ghost captain of the Queen Myrtle plans to free the ghosts imprisoned from the Chest of Demons once his ship has passed the Bermuda Triangle. His attempts to get the released gestalt form of the ghosts to join him, however, result in the gestalt being turning on him and consuming him alongside the other ghosts aboard the ship.
• In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, Professor Pericles spent the entire series and a good chunk of his backstory trying to free the entity in the sarcophagus that drove most of the plot hoping to claim its power. In the end, he finally does, only for said entity to use Pericles as a physical vessel, killing him in the process.

Bart: I thought dabbling in the dark arts would be good for a chuckle. How wrong I was.

Kyle: Oh God it burns! My soul is on fire! Oh, I don't like this! I didn't know it would feel so... dark and evil!

Stan: Well, what did you expect, dude? It's the son of the devil!

• This bites Megatron in the ass again in the series finale. Megatron spent the entire series feeding himself with Dark Energon to make himself stronger and create better weapons. Dark Energon comes from Unicron, and when Megatron dies, he ends up being used as Unicron's possessed slave. Unicron makes it abundantly clear Megatron controls nothing and is simply his new puppet and chew toy.

• The spirit of a nigh-omnipotent sorceress who was freed from her puzzle-box prison by Jack in the pilot, and promised him the world if he helped her. Although Jack never quite succeeded and eventually became her adversary, when Raimundo restores her powers with his Face–Heel Turn, she repays him by... granting his every wish and grooming him to rule the world alongside her. It seems she was a villainess of her word after all.
• A straighter example is Hannibal Bean corrupting Chase Young. He gives him the Lao Mang Long Soup to turn the monk evil. Once he does, Chase Young betrays him and locks him away in Ying Yang World.
• Another straight example occurred in the episode "The Demon Seed." Vlad meets with Jack and suggests releasing an evil called the Heylin Seed. This proves a very stupid idea as the Botanical Abomination released from the seed is quick to turn the two and decides he will rule the world himself.