personal pet peeve #3,417

[lirazel]

When Person A wants Person B to do something and Person B refuses. So Person A says something like, "Well, you must just be scared then," or "Oh, that means you can't do it" or something, and Person B immediately gets so offended that he or she must do this thing and prove Person A wrong WRONG WRONG DAMMIT!!!

Uh, would that work on y'all? Because that would totally not work on me. Maybe it's just because I'm, like, the least competative person in the world, but I would roll my eyes if someone tried to emotionally blackmail me in this way. But maybe that's just me? Maybe this isn't just a lazy trope and other people would actually fall for this sort of thing? I don't know. Any thoughts? Because this BUGS me. It's a trope that I want to see die forever unless the people in question live in an honor-based society where it actually makes sense for them to behave this way (dueling pistols at sunrise! That sort of thing) or if the character in question has been canonically established as hyper-competative.

Apparently my newfound commitment to posting here means that y'all will be on the receiving end of every single thought that pops into my head, no matter how inconsequential. Lucky you!

Comments

[diebirchen.livejournal.com]

Forget competitive; I don't like to be manipulated. And it won't die out. Can't beat people for sheer cussédness.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know! It's such a blatant manipulation--you'd have to be incredibly dumb not to know exactly what the other person is doing, and yet in movies/TV/books people CONSTANTLY FALL FOR IT. I do not understand.

(I really like that you put the accent mark on cussédness so that people would know how to pronounce it! I looove that word.)

[diebirchen.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- about that accent mark: I am the Fairy Godmother of Verbal Usage. I beta for such things as grammar, parallel structure, diction, agreement, vocabulary, punctuation, logic, and so forth. I see every jot and tittle that isn't precise. It's both a gift and a curse.