Karma Houdini

Karma Houdinis are people who don't get punished for any wrongdoing. They are the opposite of Butt-Monkeys. No matter how bad they do, or how much they deserve it, Karma just seems to forget about them and instead punish the innocent Butt-Monkeys.

Notable Karma Houdinis
NOTE: Please do not put Harry Houdini, because although he is the trope namer, he is real, and this is for fictional characters ONLY.
 * Danger Mouse (2015) (mh:besttvshows:Danger Mouse' (2015); He has done wrong things and half of the time bad things don't happen to him.
 * Dukey (Seasons 4-6) (''Johnny Test; Although he is supposed to be the role-model of Johnny Test, he is actually responsible for putting Johnny into a handful of situations, and not once is he blamed (except occasionally by Johnny's sisters))
 * Susan and Mary Test (Seasons 4-6) (Johnny Test; Half of the time they get away with DNA experiments or other prohibited experiments. Especially making Dukey talk. This is mainly focused on experimenting with Johnny, altering his DNA as well. And they usually don't get caught.)
 * mh:loathsomecharacters:Hugh Test (Seasons 4-6) (Johnny Test; It is implied that he hates Johnny. In "99 Deeds of Johnny Test", he threatened to send him to the military academy if he got one more detention and was UPSET that his permanent record was cleared. And in "Spotless Johnny", he threatened to take away PANTS for a WEEK. Not only will that get Johnny in trouble for public nudity but it will also get Hugh arrested because he's the responsible one.)
 * SpongeBob SquarePants (Season 6-8) (SpongeBob SquarePants)
 * Patrick Star (Seasons 6-8) (SpongeBob SquarePants); Is this of the Idiot-Houdini category.
 * Jerry (Gene Deitch Era)(mh:terribletvshows:Tom and Jerry (Gene Deitch Era))
 * Mr. Krabs (SpongeBob Squarepants; especially in later seasons of the series. Most infamously in One Couse Meal, where he led Plankton to attempt suicide by letting himself be roadkill after he tormented Plankton by wearing a Pearl costume and then Mr. Krabs Laughs  when SpongeBob tells him this.)
 * Big Tex Arkana (mh:besttvshows:Buddy Thunderstruck; Due to his greedy and villainous nature, he was shown to be running a pawnshop with thieves and underpaid employees that hard work for any wage in earlier segments of the show which caused him to be doing illegal crimes with them, most notably in the infamous episode, Get the Hock Out where he hires Buddy and Darnell (despite them having no money) just to scam other Greasepit citizens into their stuff that they got from his pawnshop. In fact, all the crimes that he and his employees did will lead to them being arrested by Sheriff Cannonball or lose more money from his pawnshop dealing with lawsuits and thousand dollar fines from Thunderstruck Trucking and other people who either got their stuff broken or stolen by his employees, despite this, Big Tex somehow redeemed himself in "The Sneezing Fits of Death" (though he did went on a trip without knowing that his son was left at home in Babysitters Yo).)
 * Glenn Quagmire (Seasons 7-present) (Family Guy)
 * Megan Parker (mh:besttvshows:Drake & Josh; Her constant practical jokes and pranks more often than not get Drake and Josh into trouble and she never gets punished for any of them, leaving Drake and Josh alone to be given the blame while Megan always gets off scot-free.)
 * Lynn Loud Jr. (The Loud House; Constantly bullies her brother Lincoln by using him as a sports dummy and nicknames him "Stinkoln". She got away with threatening to beat Lincoln with her baseball bat. Then, she called him "bad luck", which eventually led to him being locked out of the house with his bedroom boarded up and his things sold off. He is then forced to sleep outside on a pile of leaves and is later forced to wear a squirrel suit to earn "good luck" to the Loud family for an unknown amount of time. All within the infamous episode No Such Luck. She also didn't get punished for shoving Lincoln, Rusty, and Zach into lockers in Schooled! and for giving her Principal a fine in that special.)
 * Sergio (The Casagrandes; He's constantly causing trouble by stealing stuff, destroying things, antagonizing people, invading privacy, pulling pranks, insulting others, bullying Bobby etc. His unfriendly actions range from being mildly obnoxious to downright villainous whenever he does something bad.)
 * Bendy (Foster's Home for imaginary friends; Pictured; Framed Bloo, Coco, Eduardo, and Wilt for doing pranks around the home and tricked both Mr. Herrman and Frankie into believing him. He then pulls a nasty grin at them whenever Mr. Herrman and Frankie have their backs turned. In the end, Bloo got punished by being forced to clean up the Gum under the couch while Bendy got off scot-free. (Though Bloo kinda desired it given how he usually is.) He was so hated that he never appeared in another Foster's Home episode again except for his signature being shown briefly in the final episode Goodbye to Bloo.)
 * Goofball McGee; (He treated Frankie like his own personal servant, messed up her chores and pinned the blame on her, and exposed her disguise and made Mr. Herriman punish her and took her place at a concert she wanted to go and boasted about it to her, and when it was revealed that he really is an imaginary friend, this somehow excuses all of his actions and he gets off scot-free.)
 * Bowser (SuperMarioLogan) along with Mr Goodman (SuperMarioLogan), Rosalina (SuperMarioLogan) and Jeffy (SuperMarioLogan) [even for some exceptions].
 * Duncan (Total Drama Island-Total Drama World Tour) (While he did get away with bullying Harold most of the time, he does not get repercussions for cheating on Courtney for Gwen. This act was what caused Gwen to be hated by her team. Duncan indirectly caused Gwen's elimination by throwing a dingo at Cody. Otherwise, Cody would have voted for Courtney, along with Gwen and Heather, sending Courtney home. Duncan's cheating on Courtney was what caused Gwen to be placed on the Villainous Vultures, despite her good behavior.)
 * Kaname Asagiri (Magical Girl Site) (He was captured by Detective Kichiro Misumi, instead of being taken to custody after he killed Nijimi.)
 * Sarina Shizukume (Magical Girl Site) (She was slit to the throat by Yatsumura instead of putting down the box cutter, while Sarina was trying to scar Aya for revenge in killing her friends)
 * Jade West (Victorious) (She couldn't play Steamboat Suzy, but she was never punished for causing Tori to pass out from blood loss.)
 * Abby Anderson (The Last of Us Part II) (She killed Joel with her golf club, murdered most people who were close to Ellie, and did a Gollum by biting off two of Ellie's fingers. She escaped by setting off on a speedboat.)
 * Max (Max & Ruby; is rarely punished for his actions)
 * Tokkori (Kirby: Right Back at Ya!; Tokkori sometimes never receives any comeuppances for his actions. Though unlike a couple of characters mentioned here, he does get what he deserves from time to time in return.)
 * Wonder Woman (2011)(Wonder Woman (2011))
 * Sierra Burgess(Sierra Burgess is a Loser)
 * Chilly Willy (Woody Woodpecker) (Chilly almost always wins in the end of his episodes (even more than Woody Woodpecker), even in episodes where he doesn't deserve to win for stealing food and also be a jerk to Smedley. In The New Woody Woodpecker Show he always wins in every episode. His 2018 version is much worse as a sadistic psychopath who tortures even Woody Woodpecker and acts more like a villain than a hero.)
 * Mr. Kat (Kid vs. Kat; constantly bullies and frames Coop Burtonburger and gets away with it scot-free (He's only a Karma Houdini when he doesn't get comeuppance, because sometimes he does))
 * Lofty (a one time character who made his only appearance in The Smurfs in an episode, "A Loss of Smurf" [He's not to be confused with the character from Bob the Builder]; although he served as a saboteur to a character, he is the one who tricked Vanity into taking a bog bath that turned him into a Wartmonger, and since Lofty never appeared throughout the rest of the episode, he never recieved any comeuppance for his actions, which would have been either the other Smurfs confronting him or recieving karma of any form)
 * Jeffy (SuperMarioLogan) While he can get his comeuppance at time, he mostly tortures his father and Rosalina lets him get away with it time after time.
 * Chris McLean (Total Drama) (While he did get sufficient karma in the first four seasons--even getting arrested for hosting Revenge of the Island on a toxic waste dump--Chris gets little to no punishment at the end of All-Stars and Pahkitew Island. This is ironic because Chris was supposed to be on parole for the events of season four. The worst thing Chris did was reveal Shawn's confessions and Sky's audition tape to their respective helpers Jasmine and Dave. This was the move that Chris does not get any punishment for, considering this was the last episode of the original Total Drama series before the show went into spin-offs and Chris was semi-retired.)
 * Pizza Rat (We Bare Bears: The Movie; He literally ratted out the Bear's location to Agent Trout and his troops in a selfish act to get more social media followers and is never seen again for the remainder of the movie and gets off scot-free.)
 * Gerald Broflovski (South Park (season 20); his actions caused the entire conflict of the season, he became an online troll known as SkankHunt42 and targeted women and little girls and bully them to commit suicide, which causes the girls at South Park elementary to become hostile towards the boys, and corrupted Butters into becoming a misogynist and rallies other boy students to join him to protest against the girls, and framed his sons Kyle and Ike to his wife Shiela that they're SkankHunt42, and gets off scot-free at the end of the season.
 * D'Vorah (Mortal Kombat; She is always betraying someone in order to gain more power, and killed off fan favorite characters like Baraka, Mileena, and even Scorpion (one of the most iconic characters of the franchise and mascot) and she is never seen again for the rest of MK11's story mode.)
 * '''Sugar (Total Drama: Pahkitew Island

The Overall Reason Why This Trope Sucks

 * Basically, this trope serves as hateful character development, where characters you hate or despite get off scot free from anything they caused and actually deserve their comeuppance more than the Butt-Monkeys.

Comments
