< Hoist by His Own Petard

Hoist by His Own Petard/Real Life

  • John Carman -- a Freeholder from Atlantic County in New Jersey -- lost his seat in 2017 to a woman he motivated to run against him against him. If you are wondering what made her decide to run, it was that he shared a misogynistic image macro about the 2017 Women's March.
  • Ongoing, non-evil example: Many people will tell you that the level of play in the National Basketball Association is way down from its Magic/Bird/Jordan peak. It is - and it's not for lack of star power. Two decisions meant to maintain continuity are largely to blame:
    • The Rookie Salary Cap, meant to prevent such owner foolishness as Glen "Big Dog" Robinson's infamous $100 million rookie contract by putting a limit on how much rookie contracts can be worth (About $5mil a year, for five years, max). This led to a flood of high school players and "one-and-done" college players rushing to the league to get their rookie contracts "out of the way" so they could make the big money, which then led to many rosters full of players who are literally learning on the job.
    • A Veteran's pay scale was put into place to keep owners from low-balling veteran players on contracts. Players with six years or more NBA experience are guaranteed at least $1million a year (You get $1.5 with 10+ years). This led to owners signing less-experienced (and often less-skilled) but cheaper younger players to fill roster spots.
      • Expanding the league by nearly a third (From 23 teams to 30 over the last two decades) hasn't helped, either.
    • Then again, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is just a result of looking through the Nostalgia Filter.
  • Marie Curie's major claims to fame are her study of radioactivity as well as discovering radium. The dangers of radiation exposure weren't understood at the time and she ultimately died of radiation poisoning.
    • Then again, if it wasn't for her studies on radium and radioactivity, we might not have fully understood radiation poisoning as well as we do, which makes her a martyr for scientific knowledge.
    • Her husband Pierre as well. He didn't die of direct effects of radiation exposure (Marie died of leukemia, almost certainly caused by her extensive long-term exposure to all manner of radioactives) he did have a rather famous burn on his chest (probably a radiation burn from the vial of radium he often carried in his shirt pocket) and was suffering symptoms that may have been radiation sickness when he stumbled in the street and was run over by a horse-drawn cart (radiation sickness can cause dizziness, confusion, and delirium).
  • Similar to the above, but rather more sinister, Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, who was one of the co-founders of the United States Radium Corporation, famous for its callous treatment of employees adversely effected by the radiation from the radioactive paint they produced, eventually died of aplastic anemia, caused by his own exposure to radium
  • Maximilien Robespierre, who was behind much of the Reign of Terror that followed The French Revolution, was ultimately himself executed by the guillotine which he so adored. Along with quite a few others. (Another irony is that several people who participated in Thermidor actually were against the guillotine, as it was too slow-- and were more in favour of shooting their victims randomly with a cannon from a distance and throwing them into a mass grave to die.)
    • However, the rumor that Dr. Guillotin was executed on the device he had introduced (referenced in the above Discworld example) is untrue.
    • It's also shown in at least one film that Louis XVI had a hand in designing the guillotine, which he was later put to death by.
  • Lord Shang Yang, author of The Book of Lord Shang and notorious in ancient China for his draconian punishments, met his end under a punishment that he himself formulated into Qin law when he was convicted of treason against King Huiwen of Qin. The punishment, which was reserved for law enforcers who broke the law themselves, called for not only the offender's execution, but that of his family as well. Ouch.
    • And it gets better: when he tried to hide out in a hotel in an attempt to escape the above fate, he was refused, as the strict laws he had enacted in Qin while in power made it illegal for a hotel owner to admit a guest without proper identification.
    • The Qin Dynasty did itself no favors in being so harsh--they only lasted 15 years.
  • Joke/urban legend: A terrorist once sent a mail bomb which had insufficient postage. It was returned to him, and he, forgetting what was in it, opened the envelope. (Does that count as a suicide bombing?)
    • From the same source: Two animal rights activists were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn, Germany, by freeing a captive herd. Suddenly all two thousand of pigs stampeded through the gate they were opening, and trampled the hapless protesters to death.
  • The infamous Pope Alexander VI died in suspicious circumstances. While many historians attribute his death to a plague, a popular rumor claims that he accidentally drank poisoned wine intended for one of his political rivals.
  • Soviet dictator Josef Stalin had maintained his grip on power for more than three decades by terrifying everyone around him. One night in 1953, Stalin stayed up drinking with his goons until about 3 or 4 AM, at which time he went to bed. When Stalin didn't come out at his usual hour, people began to get concerned, but they left him alone since they were under strict orders not to disturb him and too terrified of his wrath to risk going in to check on him. By the time one of his cronies finally mustered enough nerve to see what was going on, it was 10 PM of the next day and Stalin was dying of a stroke. Stalin lay for almost a full day, helpless and alone. Had his stooges checked on him, they might have been able to get the doctors in on time, but as it was, Stalin's own brutal tactics kept his thugs from saving his sorry hide. If that isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is.
    • To add insult to injury, interior minister Lavrentiy Beria mocked Stalin after his apparent death. When Stalin showed signs of consciousness, Beria crouched down to kiss his hand, and when Stalin went unconscious again, Beria spat upon his body. Beria would later gloat that he killed Stalin with poison.
      • Stalin had also recently initiated (or was about to initiate) a purge of doctors.
        • This really applied to the USSR in general, and still does in communist countries (North Korea especially). As was remarked later "Oftentimes, the one who put someone in the gulag yesterday was sentenced to the gulag today."
          • Generally, just look at photos or video of who is around the Leader to find out who is "in favor." The best example is on the cover of a book Soviet Censorship. Let's just say those who fell out of 'favor' were never seen again.
    • Stalin's policy of cleansing the "worker's paradise" of intellectuals (i.e. people smarter than him) often backfired, as it meant the Soviet Union would end up with inferior technology thanks to all the smart people being sent to Siberia. Now imagine What Could Have Been if he would've had a little more foresight.
      • Additionally, he would often shut down technological breakthroughs that were ahead of their time and wouldn't be discovered (or implemented) again for at least a decade. For example, his aircraft designers during World War Two had many innovative ideas for jet fighters and bombers, which Stalin quickly suppressed, making the scientists work on designing cheap, fast-produced planes. Once the tide in the war had turned, he didn't feel the need to improve on what was already working.
        • The exact opposite being done by Germans, who managed to develop from scratch quick solutions of dubious reliability such as interleaving wheels on tanks, play with projects doomed from the start such as tanks too heavy to move anywhere and a giant cannon that could break anything, but hit nothing, and really produce expensive military innovations such as jet fighters and ballistic missiles without prerequisites that would make them efficient -- during the war which they started already short on resources.
  • Another one from Soviet Russia during the war. The Russians strapped bombs to dogs as a living anti-tank mine. Problem, they trained the dogs with the diesel using Russian tanks, and the dogs didn't go under the petrol using German ones. Oops.
  • On one occasion, late in his life, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, considered by many to be the "inventor of radar," reportedly was pulled over in Canada for speeding by a radar-gun toting policeman. His remark was, "Had I known what you were going to do with it I would never have invented it!"
  • That Other Wiki has its own article on the subject.
  • NFL player Plaxico Burress served time for unlawfully carrying a gun at a nightclub. This case is special because:
    • It was only made public knowledge that he was carrying a gun because he accidentally shot himself.
    • He accidentally shot himself because his gun was in a style of clothing that only an idiot would wear to a nightclub.
    • The NYPD only found out about this because it was on the news, because he was so popular, and not because he'd gone to a hospital. [1].
  • King James II of Scotland was a big supporter of the use of then-modern artillery in warfare. He was killed when one of his own cannons exploded.
  • The Peacemaker Accident. The USS Princeton was the first screw propelled ship in the US navy hosted a large number of dignitaries and most of the cabinet. The opportunity was used to show off different cannons to the higher ups. One of these was named the Peacemaker. Its explosion killed 7 including the Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of State, the Captain, and the head of the construction, equipment and repairs.
  • Enron's accounting fraud. A lot of the transactions used in the fraud created large amounts of extra debt, and a lot of the other transactions and investments lost value very quickly when the company was being investigated, significantly speeding up the bankruptcy.
  • A Greek brass worker named Perilaus invented the brazen bull, a particularly gruesome brand of execution. The victim would be placed inside a hollow brass statue of a bull, and a fire would be lit underneath. The screams of the victim were turned, by the bull's inner workings into the roars of an angry bull. Perilaus presented it as a gift to Phalaris, a ruler of a local city-state. So disgusted was Phalaris with this invention that he ordered its creator to be its first victim.
His words revolted me. I loathed the thought of such ingenious cruelty, and resolved to punish the artificer in kind. "If this is anything more than an empty boast, Perilaus," I said to him, "if your art can really produce this effect, get inside yourself, and pretend to roar; and we will see whether the pipes will make such music as you describe." He consented; and when he was inside I closed the aperture, and ordered a fire to be kindled. "Receive," I cried, "the due reward of your wondrous art: let the music-master be the first to play."
—Phalaris I
  • On Christmas Eve of 2008, Bruce Jeffrey Pardo went to a party held by his relatives dressed in a Santa suit, opened fire on them and killed eight, and then set fire to the house with a homemade flamethrower. His original plan was to establish an alibi and flee the country; however, the homemade flamethrower burned part of the Santa suit into his flesh, sabotaging his plans and driving him to commit suicide.
  • On February 16, 2010, a man responsible for a string of terrifying holdups in Adelaide, South Australia was arrested due to the fact that not only were two of the stolen cars used for the robberies parked on his property, he had in his possession a SPAS-12 shotgun, which was clearly identifiable on the released CCTV footage of some of the robberies, and is very rare, not to mention illegal to own in Australia.
  • Thomas Midgley, Jr. is a double example: he invented leaded gasoline and CFCs, contributing to some of humankind's greatest screwups, then died when a machine he built to hoist him out of bed malfunctioned and strangled him.
    • Talk about irony. Literally hoisted by one's own invention.
  • The 2009 Cincinnati Bengals played their final game of the regular season against the New York Jets. The Jets would only enter the playoffs if they won, but the Bengals already had their best position locked up and so rested their players and visibly did not play hard to win the game. The Jets won handily. The following week the Jets played Cincinnati again, and eliminated them from the playoffs.
  • The urban legend of the guy who was killed by his own fart gas. The MythBusters busted this one.
  • Drug suspect kills self with own shotgun booby trap.
  • In 1982, Universal Studios sued Nintendo of America on the grounds that their Donkey Kong arcade game was a rip-off of Universal's King Kong. However, Nintendo's lawyer Did Do the Research, and found out that Universal had previously won a lawsuit declaring King Kong was in the public domain. The judge ruled that Universal had acted in bad faith by threatening Nintendo's licensees, and Nintendo received $57,000 (plus damages and attorney's fees) as a result.
  • In 1927, Isadora Duncan, a dancer known for wearing long scarves, died from a broken neck when a large silk scarf draped around her neck became entangled around one of the vehicle's open-spoked wheels and rear axle.
    • Also in 1927: J.G. Parry-Thomas, a Welsh racing driver, was decapitated by his car's drive chain which, under stress, snapped and whipped into the cockpit. He was attempting to break his own land speed record which he had set the previous year. Despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171 mph (275 km/h).
  • 1928: Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician, died following one of his experiments, in which the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, L. I. Koldomasov, was given to him in a transfusion.
  • The Collyer brothers, extreme cases of compulsive hoarders, were found dead in their home in New York in 1947. The younger brother, Langley, died by falling victim to a booby trap he had set up, causing a mountain of objects, books, and newspapers to fall on him crushing him to death. His blind brother, Homer, who had depended on Langley for care, died of starvation some days later. Their bodies were recovered after massive efforts in removing many tons of debris from their home.
  • The term in question is still valid today; several movies and TV shows dealing with The War on Terror, such as The Kingdom or NCIS, have pointed out that bomb-makers often lose a finger or two to their own bombs, or worse.
    • Some of the funniest cases reordered here.
  • In 2004, when it looked like John Kerry might win the presidential election, the Democrats scrambled to change the rules so that an appointee of the (Republican) governor, Mitt Romney, wouldn't serve out the term. Six years later, under a Democratic governor, Ted Kennedy died too quickly for them to change the rules back, but it didn't really matter since the Democrats couldn't possibly lose a Massachusetts Senate election, right? Right? Right?
  • Basketball player crushed by collapsing wall after grabbing hoop.
  • The owner of the Carrier Chipping Company was shredded by his own wood chipper.
  • Infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was responsible for the deaths of 17 young men, most of who were black. Two years into his prison term, he was brutally murdered by being impaled through the ass with a broomstick and having his head bashed in with an iron bar. His killer? An African-American man.
    • Also killed alongside Dahmer by the same man was inmate Jesse Anderson. His crime? Murdering his wife, then trying to pin the crime on two black men.
    • Similarly, rumor has it that is was a woman executioner who flipped the switch on serial killer Ted Bundy, who killed 36 women.
  • An unlicensed pyrotechnician was decapitated by a firework when he looked down the tube after it failed to launch.
  • Happened in the Burmese general election of 1990; the regime officially said the election was multi-party(and it was), but they thought they were so popular their candidates would win easily. Results? National League for Democracy wins 392 seats (out of 492), making for a rather convincing win. However, the junta refused to recognize the results, and put NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, making this more of a Subverted Trope.
  • In 1917 the British were having a problem with a particular German-laid minefield off the coast of Ireland. It seemed that however diligent the RN minesweepers were in their duties, ships were still being lost in this field. The Director of Naval Intelligence, Admiral Sir William Reginald Hall, deduced that the Germans were eavesdropping on the minesweepers' radio traffic, and were simply sending a U-boat out to re-lay the minefield when they heard the sweepers broadcast the 'field cleared' message. The British response? To leave the minefield intact and broadcast a false 'field cleared' signal. UC-44 sailed out to re-lay the field...and was sunk by the mines. The only survivor was her Commander, who was furious that the RN minesweepers had done such an inefficient job of clearing the field.
  • Jimi Heselden, owner of the Segway company, died after driving one of his own products off a cliff.
  • A Indonesian militant was trying to bomb a police station with a homemade bomb. But on his way in his bicycle it blew up before he got there.
    • More than one bomb maker has met his end while assembling a bomb, and more than one bomber has had the bomb go off before he could arrive at the target. At least a few have died from accidentally setting their bomb vests off while giving their buddies one last good bye hug. It's not a job that lends itself well to on the job training.
  • On Dec. 17, 1989, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu order his security forces to fire on anti-government protestors, but on Dec. 22, the Romanian army defected to the demonstrators, and on Christmas Day, he and his wife were executed by firing squad.
    • Even better, his wife Elena's Last Words were reportedly, "Can it be that the firing squad is still in use in Romania?"
  • Numerous politicians have put out campaign commercials, or made speeches, attacking their opponents that have ended up hurting them far more. In one of the more notable cases in recent history, Meg Whitman, running for governor of California, made a speech about how California used to be such a better place back in the day, which was the reason she moved there, and she'd like California to be like it was then. Her opponent's campaign immediately put that portion of the speech in an advertisement, helpfully pointing out that Whitman's opponent, Jerry Brown, had been the governor during the time Whitman was pining for.
  • Unblack metal is this trope applied to a musical ideology. Basically, it takes the sound of Black Metal-a genre of music known for Satanism-and pairs it with Christian lyrics.
  • In 1964 US President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration started a bill that would end legal discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin. A southern congressman, not liking the "race" part, added "ending legal discrimination on the basis of sex" hoping that people would decide not to vote for it due to this. As a result, several female members of the House took up the bill, and the bill was passed...protecting race, color, religion, national origin, and sex.
  • The Chinese philosopher, Han Fei Tzu, was imprisoned by the leader of the Chinese state of Chin due to a policy of imprisoning and/or killing scholars and intellectuals. Said policy was proposed by none other than Han Fei Tzu himself.
  • In April 2011, Lady Gaga, the infamous diva of odd clothing choices, tripped and nearly broke her nose while performing a concert in Atlanta, GA. What did she trip on? An article of ridiculous clothing she had ripped off as a part of the show.
  • The Lapua Movement was a radical right, anti-communist political movement in Finland in the early 1930s. By pressuring the Finnish government through kidnappings and assaults, the Movement managed to pass several anti-communist laws, including the Protection of the Republic Act, nominally meant to ban "anti-government entities". After the Movement attempted to overthrow the government, the Lapua Movement was banned under the Protection of the Republic Act, the very legislation the Movement helped to legalise.
  • The Khmer Rouge turned Cambodia into a huge death camp from 1975 to 1979. When Vietnam got fed up with them, the Khmer Rogue had so devastated their own country that they were in no shape to resist. The war was over in two weeks. Oh, and what was one of the big things that caused Vietnam to say "enough is enough"? Cambodians fleeing into Vietnam to escape the Khmer Rouge. It should say something about how badly communism failed in Cambodia that the monarchy was restored.
  • A motorcyclist died in an accident while protesting helmet laws.
  • In the 2011 Women's World Cup Quarterfinal between Brazil and the USA, Brazil held a 2-1 in extra time. In the final minutes of extra time, one of the Brazilian women faked an injury to draw out the medical team and went off on a stretcher. Seconds after being carted off, she hopped off the stretcher and rejoined the game with no difficulty - drawing a yellow card for her flagrant diving. However, her stunt led the ref to award 3 minutes of injury stoppage time, and the USA scored the equalizing goal in the 2nd. The USA would then advance on penalty kicks.
  • Pablo Escobar, the kingpin of the notorious Medellin Cartel, kept attempting to kill those who opposed him politically. Ultimately, many of these hits lead to his defeat because they angered the wrong people and lead to a massive manhunt against him that ultimately lead to his downfall.
    • And that wrong people (besides the Colombians) were the U.S Government.
    • A lot of his fellow criminals ended up becoming his enemies as well, as they (including a rival cartel) banded together to form a group called Los Pepes (People Persecuted by Pablo Escobar) that fought back against Escobar by fighting as dirty as he did. It has never been conclusively established whether or not the Colombian and US governments were involved with Los Pepes, and if they were, it's not clear to what extent. However, what is clear is that they were invaluable in taking down Escobar.
  • Employee restraint clauses are supposed to help defy this by preventing companies from creating their own competitors, at least for a time. Supposed to.
  • In 1976, on the eve of the West Indies Cricket team's tour of England, English captain Tony Greig (an expatriate South African) commented, "If they're down, they (the West Indians) grovel, and I (...) intend to make them grovel." The comment incensed the West Indians, who proceeded to annihilate England in the series. West Indies captain Clive Lloyd commented:

"The word 'grovel' is one guaranteed to raise the blood pressure of any black man. The fact they were used by a white South African made it even worse. We were angry and West Indians everywhere were angry. We resolved to show him and everyone else that the days for grovelling were over."

  • A Congressman who was campaigning against a cell phone ban while driving got into a fenderbender while conducting a radio interview on the subject on his cell phone.
  • The Comics Code Authority forbade any reference to drugs, even negative portrayals. When Stan Lee was asked by the US Government to do an anti-drug magazine, the CCA refused to approve it. Stan Lee just released it without CCA approval, and readers happily filled in that approval gap. Result: The CCA ended up looking clueless and eventually going out of business altogether in 2011.
  • A man in Mexico tried to bomb government offices and accidentally set off the bomb.
  • Mark Zuckeberg's photos were revealed after a Facebook glitch appeared.
  • In 2002, a 79 year-old Belgian, who apparently hated his estranged family, rigged his house with 20 deadly booby traps, from tripwire shotguns to an exploding beer crate (set to detonate when a certain number of bottles were removed). Apparently, he was smart enough to realize that his memory was going to Hell in a hand-basket, so he wrote a list of 20 enigmatic clues to remind him where the traps were. Too bad the list didn't help at all, and he ended up being shot by one of his own traps.
  • It's possible that Charles Manson might have gotten away with his "Helter Skelter" murders (at least long enough to mastermind more) were it not for one of his drugged up cronies telling every detail of the crimes to two cell mates, who went and informed the police.
  • During the American Civil War, the South's attitudes about race being what they were, the Confederacy decided against freeing their slaves and raising troops of black soldiers. This refusal exacerbated the already considerable logistical advantages the North had, including the fact that the Union did raise black troops, and helped ensure the CSA's already-likely defeat.
  • The French puppet emperor of Mexico Maximillian II attempted to dissuade the Mexicans from rebelling against him by enacting a law that sentenced every rebel captured in battle to death by firing squad. When he himself was captured by the rebels in 1867, the same law was applied to him and he was executed by firing squad.
  • In 2011, a group called Million Mom March protested against an issue of Archie Comics' Life With Archie in which one of the characters, a gay man, married his partner. End result? The issue selling out in record time and copies being sold higher on eBay. When they caught wind of what Marvel Comics was doing in an issue of Astonishing X-Men, they did the same. Marvel's response? "Please, keep protesting."
  • One notable aversion was a literal petard in the 1948 Siege of Jerusalem. In a final attempt to storm the Old City the IDF used what was basically an updated petard-a shaped charge mine intended to be placed against the wall and blow a breech by remote detonator. However it was a dud so in one sense nobody was hoisted. As the attack failed in another way it was an indirect example.
  • Donald Trump's angry rants on Twitter have been used against him many times, as this article shows.
  1. ↑ Hospitals in New York are required to report this kind of case, because the hospital did not do this because Plaxico was famous, and were found out because he was so famous, this makes an example for them too
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