Boasting can serve many practical purposes; it can inspire confidence, intimidate people, and build one's reputation. Even if said boasting is a bluff, it effectively becomes the truth so long as people believe it. On the other hand, boasting can easily backfire on someone under the wrong circumstances. Whether or not the boasting is true and/or whether or not the person/people being boasted to believe it can play a huge factor in a boast harming someone.
There are a number of common circumstances in which boasting can backfire on someone; if someone boasts in order to bluff someone, the other party calling them out by demanding they prove their boasts. Even if someone buys into a bluff, the boaster might find themselves in trouble if their believers expect them to be able to fulfill their boasts. Even in cases where someone isn't bluffing but buys into their bragging, their overconfidence can result in them making boasts that they have no ability to back up. In some cases, a person bragging on another's behalf can cause the other party to get in trouble because of their overconfidence in the other person's abilities.
The consequences for boasting can vary; if someone boasts their abilities, they will end up humiliating themselves when their boasting proves to be empty. If someone boasts to challenge or intimidate other people, they might end up biting off more than they can chew if they try it with the wrong person or people. Some braggarts might even end up Saying Too Much and revealing key information to those who aren't supposed to know.
Someone who's a Miles Gloriosus and/or a Fake Ultimate Hero might be guilty of doing this. See also Threat Backfire and Stolen Credit Backfire. If the boast isn't true, it might lead to an Honesty Aesop. Compare Break the Haughty. Could potentially lead to a situation where someone needs to Maintain the Lie. Can be used to subvert a Badass Boast. Often a form of Laser-Guided Karma. Can lead to someone being Killed Mid-Sentence. Often a consequence of a Blasphemous Boast.
To avoid discussions of real-life controversies, No Real Life Examples, Please!
Examples:
open/close all folders
Anime & Manga
- Black Lagoon: During a raid on a Neo-Nazi ship, Revy ends up emptying her guns on some soldiers. One of the soldiers, Fritz Stanford, encounters her and has a loaded gun. Rather than just shoot her and he done with it, he wastes time bragging about how powerful his customized gun is, which gives Revy enough time to reload and shoot him dead.
- My Hero Academia: At the beginning of the Sports Festival, Katsuki Bakugo is called to deliver a speech as the first-year student who scored the highest on the entrance exam. His "speech" amounts to a boasting declaration that he'll get first place. With Class 1-A's reputation already painting them as a class of arrogant glory-hogs, this moment backfired on his entire class at a time when they desperately needed some good PR. As a result, they were targeted by everyone, especially their jealous counterpart class, 1-B.
Comic Books
- Runaways (2005): While the team is investigating who framed their ally Cloak for the assault on his partner Dagger, Chase Stein poses as a representative of The Pride (the defunct crime syndicate-slash-cult in which his parents were members) in order to get a meeting with a drug dealer in New York City. During the meeting, he claims that The Pride has been considering expanding its operations into the Big Apple, and thus he wants to know what kind of drugs are on the market there. The whole thing is just a ruse to find out if there are drugs that can allow someone to replicate Cloak's powers and how widely used such drugs are, and when he gets the answers he's looking for, he gives no more thought to the matter. Later, towards the end of the run, the entire team gets hauled before The Kingpin; it turns out the dealer they spoke to ran his mouth about having a new market for his drugs, and now Wilson Fisk wants to know why the Hell a west-coast crime syndicate was poking around on his turf. The Runaways are subsequently forced to do a job for him to smooth things over, setting up the events of the final arc.
Fan Works
- The Mountain and the Wolf: The Wolf is very particular about people boasting about their exploits (along with Alcohol-Induced Idiocy), as he knows quite a bit on the subject. He punishes one of his men for claiming he could beat Brienne in a fight then failing to do so.
"Any man who sails with me must make good on his claims."
Tyrion looked at the marauder scrubbing away.
"Is it really that much of a flaw?"
The Wolf wiped his mouth and looked at Tyrion, grabbing a golden drinking horn his henchman had just placed in front of him.
"It is a dangerous thing to make idle boasts you cannot back up. I learned that to my cost long ago, and will not see it happen on my ship if I can help it."
Tyrion looked incredulous.
"Like your Dothraki? I doubt there's any man who's never boasted of his real or imaginary exploits while drunk."
Beer erupted from the Wolf's drinking horn as his fist closed on it, crushing it in a heartbeat. The Wolf seemed to be looking at something thousands of miles away.
"Got that right."
Films — Animated
- Monsters University: When ROR and OK are the last fraternities standing going into the final round of the Scare Games, Jerk Jock Johnny Worthington tried to intimidate Mike Wazowski. But Mike’s confidence has only grown over the course of the games, so he isn’t having it. His Armor-Piercing Response gives ROR a very rude awakening.
Worthington: Enjoy the attention while it lasts, boys. After you lose... no one will remember you.
Mike: Maybe, but when you lose... no one will let you forget it. - Rango: Rango spends much of the film bragging about how he's a legend of the West, including the claim he once killed three outlaws with "one bullet". Then the topic of Rattlesnake Jake comes up, he claims Jake is his brother and that he's able to drink Jake's venom. When Jake himself actually shows up, it's implied part of the reason he does is because he's heard about Rango's boasting and is outraged at being used as a prop for some braggart to puff himself up. He even makes his appearance with a sneering, "Hello... "brother"."
- Shark Tale: After the mafia shark Franky dies in a failed attempt to kill Oscar, Oscar plays it off as something he caused on purpose to save both face and his own life from Ernie and Bernie, declaring himself the Sharkslayer. He learns the hard way that being the Sharkslayer means that other fish want him to fight more sharks, and Lenny's father Don Lino is plotting revenge. When Angie suggests he just admit the truth, Oscar just laughs because he has literally everything to lose if he does.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: When SpongeBob offers to retrieve King Neptune's stolen crown in order to clear Mr. Krabs's name, Neptune gives SpongeBob and Patrick ten days to find the crown or Krabs will be executed. Patrick is so confident in SpongeBob's abilities that he insists that he doesn't need ten days, which results in King Neptune only giving six days instead. As a result, SpongeBob and Patrick just barely manage to get the crown back in time before Krabs is executed.
Films — Live-Action
- Happy Gilmore: Shooter McGavin tries to intimidate Happy Gilmore, telling him that he's "in big trouble, though, pal, I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast." Happy is somewhat unimpressed, retorting in disbelief with "You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?" Shooter doesn't really have a response, sheepishly coming back with a half-assed "No..."
Literature
- Aesop's Fables: Some of the stories have the moral of "boasting too much makes you look like an idiot."
- In "The Boasting Traveler," a man boasts that he traveled to Rhodes and did a jump so far (or so long) that no one could beat it, and says that if his friends travel to Rhodes, everyone will say it's true. One of his friends simply says that if he can jump that far, he should demonstrate it right now.
- In "The Quack Frog," a frog boasts that he is a doctor who can cure all diseases. Another frog asks how he can call himself a doctor when he cannot cure his own lame legs and blotchy skin.
- In "The Monkey and the Dolphin," a monkey is getting a ride from a dolphin, and starts boasting about wonderful, made-up stories from his life to sound impressive. When the dolphin asks if he knows about Herring Roads, the monkey thinks he's talking about someone called "Rhodes" and starts going on about how Rhodes is an old college friend of his. The dolphin is so disgusted, he throws the monkey off his back to drown.
- American Girls: Kaya: Kaya's first book focuses not only on establishing her life with her tribe, but on her Fatal Flaw of boasting about her skills (such as her beloved pet horse, Steps High). After her boasting leads to an incident that gets her and several other kids into serious trouble, she earns the Embarrassing Nickname "Magpie" (because she's selfish). This leads her to try to be less reckless and prideful. By the end of Meet Kaya, she's managed to shake the nickname after risking her safety to save her sister's life.
- In Anne of Green Gables, Anne and her friends are daring each other to do things. After one girl is dared to walk across the top of a fence Anne tries to be cool, saying that it's not such a big deal, she knows a girl in another town who could walk across the ridge of a roof. Of course she is dared to do the same. Anne's pride forces her to try it, but she falls off in the attempt and breaks her ankle.
- The Belgariad: The Bear-Cult are a group of xenophobic fundamentalists who talk a big game about being the true guardians of ancient Alorn heritage against foreign influences. In the fifth book, when the Alorn nations are under attack, Queens Porenn and Islena call their bluff and ship the Cult's entire leadership off to the front lines, since they clearly want to guard the nation so badly.
- The Brave Little Tailor: A tailor kills seven flies at once. Unfortunately, when he brags about it, it's misheard or taken out of context, and he's believed to have killed seven men or even seven giants (in the Disney version, he does a Walk-In Chime-In to someone asking "Have you ever killed a giant?"), and as the kingdom is under attack by one, the tailor is immediately sent out to deal with it.
- Discworld: This trope is the reason why it's considered suicide to enter Ankh-Morpork bars calling yourself "Vincent the Invulnerable" or any such title. Morporkians are a very distrustful people and will test that kind of boast. To exhaustion. The last words of one such person were noted as being "You can't kill me because I've got magic arrrrrgggggghhhhh".
- Discussed and defied in The Elric Saga, when Elric's Companion, Jhery-a-Conel, sings about how small and weak and puny and inoffensive he is. This amuses Elric, who points out Jhery is none of these things and is underselling himself. Jhery points out that if he turns the song into a boast about his abilities, then he's drawing attention to himself to anyone who might be listening, and might be moved to come and practically test the claim.
- Harry Potter:
- Gilderoy Lockhart, who first appeared in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, is an arrogant braggart who annoys his colleagues with his constant boasting. Eventually, they get fed up, take his boasting at his word, and assign him to deal with the monster in the titular Chamber of Secrets. Afterward, Harry and Ron find him in his office frantically packing up in preparation to flee, leading to the reveal that Lockhart is a fraud who stole other people's achievements.
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: This is how Antioch Peverell met his death: he obtained a powerful wand known as the Elder Wand from Death himself, and boasted about how unbeatable it was. As a result of his bragging, a thief killed him and stole it to claim its power for himself. Ron states Antioch's mistake was bragging about the wand, which is what made him a target, and claimed that if he had the Elder Wand, he would've kept it secret.
- Murder is Easy: Lord Whitfield boasts about the fact that he's so righteous that God kills off anyone who annoys him. Luke Fitzwilliam, who had been trying to solve these deaths—which all appear to be accidents but the sheer number of them in a small town makes them seem like murders, suspects that Lord Whitfield murdered them. Luckily, this is subverted when Bridget Conway figures out who the real murderer is, and the murderer is stopped before she can kill Bridget Conway.
- The Orphan Train Adventures: Megan exploits this during In the Face of Danger. Her adoptive parents read the story of "The Fox and the Crow" to her, where a tricky fox flatters a crow in order to get the cheese she is carrying. She also hears about the outlaw, Cully Napes, who is a skilled marksman even when drunk. When Cully Napes invades the house, she distracts him by talking about how good of a shot he is, prompting him to brag about his skill. Then she challenges him to shoot the branches off a faraway tree. He is so distracted, he doesn't notice her aiming a rifle at him until it's too late. She holds him there until help is able to arrive.
- Spinning Silver: An ill-timed boast is the story's Inciting Incident. When Miryem saves her father's moneylending business and lifts her family out of poverty, her mother frets over how coldhearted she's become, so Miryem angrily asks why she's sorry to have "a daughter who can turn silver to gold". Unfortunately, they're passing through an Enchanted Forest at the time, so the Staryk King takes note and decides to make her prove her claim.
- A Wizard in Rhyme: The Inciting Incident of The Oathbound Wizard is when the Court Mage Matthew brags to the Queen that he'll personally defeat the evil king of their enemy nation Ibile, then doubles down and swears to God that he'll do it or die trying. Such vows are binding in the setting, so his next spell misfires and teleports him deep into Ibile to make good on his word.
Live-Action TV
- Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction: One episode involves a man going to prison to track down his son's murderer. He ends up in the same cell as him, and the murderer brags about how he killed the guy, describing how he struck him with a chunk of asphalt. The father quickly reveals himself and gets his revenge.
- Blackadder: In "Money", Blackadder is facing serious financial ruin, yet he has always boasted to the Queen about how wealthy he is. Because of this, the Queen casually asks him for money throughout the episode, which he has to give to her.
- The Defenders (2017): With Elektra having successfully captured Danny Rand, Alexandra is left to pacify the Hand's other Fingers, who seem ready to riot.
Alexandra: [to Elektra] Kill Luke Cage. Kill Jessica Jones. And the Devil of Hell's Kitchen, whoever he is. [to Murakami, Madame Gao, and Bakuto] I'm so happy you're all on board with the plan. But let me remind you, I neutralized our enemies. I brought you the Iron Fist. I was able to keep the most important operation in our history running while you succumbed to chaos and conflict. I have proven myself to be the one and only true leader-[Elektra abruptly impales her from behind with a sai]
Elektra Natchios: His name is Matthew. - The Twilight Zone: Zigzagged in "Hocus Pocus and Frisby". Somerset Frisby is a teller of tall tales and Blatant Lies that usually have his friends entertained. However, his tall tales and "embellishments" are overheard by a group of aliens who determine to abduct Frisby for study on their world, believing him to be an exemplary specimen of humanity. He manages to extricate himself from the predicament when he discovers that his harmonica music is dreadfully painful to the aliens. He runs back to his gas station to tell all of his friends, who are there to have a surprise party for his birthday. They listen with zeal to his harrowing tale, and declare it his best story yet, but don't believe a word of it.
- In Yo Gabba Gabba!, Toodee lies that she can do magic and fly, but when Brobee tells everyone that she can, she has to eat crow and admit she lied. Thus, her friends berate her in song for lying.
Mythology & Religion
- Classical Mythology
- In the story of Arachne, she was a mortal girl who was a highly skilled weaver and created beautiful tapestries. People praised her so much that she grew a big ego and boasted that she was as skilled as the goddess Athena, if not better. Athena was angry and challenged her to a weaving contest. In different versions of the story, Arachne loses the contest or spitefully creates a tapestry showing evil things the gods have done, both of which result in Athena transforming her into a spider. In another version, Arachne actually is the better weaver, but Athena turns her into a spider anyway out of sheer pettiness.
All spiders descend from Arachne, and as the Greeks watched them spinning their thread wonderfully fine, they remembered the contest with Athena and thought that it was not right for even the best of men to claim equality with the gods.
- Marsyas was a satyr who found Athena's aulos
and learned to play it beautifully, boasting that it made him a better musician than Apollo. Apollo came down and challenged Marsyas to a musical contest, to which Marsyas accepted, and the Muses were to judge the victor. Apollo played his lyre, Marsyas the aulos, and the first round was considered a draw. The myth diverges here, with one version having Apollo play his lyre upside-down, which Marsyas could not do with his aulos, while in another, Apollo sang as he played his lyre, which Marsyas could also not do. In all cases, Apollo wins and, feeling insulted by the initial boast, has Marsyas flayed as punishment.
- In the story of Arachne, she was a mortal girl who was a highly skilled weaver and created beautiful tapestries. People praised her so much that she grew a big ego and boasted that she was as skilled as the goddess Athena, if not better. Athena was angry and challenged her to a weaving contest. In different versions of the story, Arachne loses the contest or spitefully creates a tapestry showing evil things the gods have done, both of which result in Athena transforming her into a spider. In another version, Arachne actually is the better weaver, but Athena turns her into a spider anyway out of sheer pettiness.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer Fantasy: After a great victory where Wulfrik personally killed the chieftain of a rival tribe and downing several barrels of mead, he starts drunkenly boasting of his prowess until he's killed two of every monster in the Wastes, beaten up three emperors, and is the equal of any warrior living or dead. The next morning, he wakes up with a hangover and the ability to speak and understand every language, and is now cursed to sail around the world challenging and killing those foes the Chaos gods demand of him.
- The novel Wulfrik goes considerably deeper into the angst caused by Wulfrik's bragging than in the tabletop codex, since at first he has no inclination to sail the world at the gods' behest, only wanting to marry his betrothed and reign over the tribe instead of forever risking his life all over the world. His tendency to inflate his exploits gets called out, and by the end, he's stopped doing it and embraced his Cursed with Awesome fate.
Video Games
- Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown: Because Spare Squadron is made up of convicts, Colonel McKinsey treats everyone at the penal colony like less than dirt. He wants to get out of his position by any means possible, so he starts to take credit for the Spare Squadron's accomplishments when they (and specifically Trigger) begin to turn the tide of the war in Osea's favor. He's hoping to get promoted up to a cushy desk job back in Osea's mainland. Unfortunately for him, Osea High Command interprets his actions as McKinsey itching for more action, so the front lines are exactly where they put him.
- In Dragon Quest XI, Prince Faris has been avoiding knightly training and hiding that with a boastful attitude, but he had to keep the lies going to not disappoint everyone. When the heroes meet him, he asks the Luminary to disguise himself as him to participate in the annual horse race and later the party has to help him defeat the giant Slayer of the Sands, and when it escaped on the entrance of Gallopolis, the entire city cheered for him to protect them, something that was clearly not possible for him. Still, he managed to salvage his reputation by facing the monster even as scared and outmatched as he was.
- Undertale: One of the actions in the Mettaton EX battle is "Boast", and the player character will claim they will not get hurt in the next turn. Selecting it causes ratings to rise dramatically during the boss' turn, but if the player gets hurt, ratings will take an immediate drop.
Western Animation
- Dragons: Riders of Berk: In the episode "Thawfest", it's shown that Hiccup always loses the titular annual games to Snotlout. Snotlout regularly boasts about his skills in the games and how no one has a chance at beating him. This comes back to bite him when he loses to Hiccup in the new dragon-riding part of the games, and Hiccup becomes overly competitive at the thought of finally beating him.
- DuckTales (2017): The act of Scrooge, and later his nephew Louie, declaring "I'm the richest duck in the world!" attracts the attention of Bombi, a nigh-on indestructible, undead entity that actively pursues and tries to kill whoever the wealthiest person in existence currently is.
- Ed, Edd n Eddy: In "The Good, The Bad, and The Ed", Eddy challenges Rolf to earn the Hairy Chest of Resilience Badge, the hardest Urban Ranger badge in history, boasting that he could beat Rolf for it. While Eddy manages to keep up with Rolf for a while, he ultimately loses and to add insult to injury, he earns the "Crybaby Boohoo Badge" for his efforts.
- Franklin: In "Franklin Fibs", Franklin, wanting to have a talent like his friends do, lies that he can eat 76 flies in "the blink of an eye". This lands him in trouble when his friends ask to see him do it.
- Gravity Falls: Throughout the series, Mabel boasts her knowledge of romance and skills as a matchmaker... despite her only being twelve, having limited knowledge of actual relationships, and being in the middle of her "boy crazy" phase. However, in the episode "The Love God", Mabel is forced to face consequences when her boasting catches up to her: she decides to set up Robbie and Tambry after seeing that the former is still depressed after his breakup with Wendy. When the two show disgust at the idea of dating each other, Mabel slips one of Love God's potions into their food. When the two fall in love, Mabel sees Wendy's friend group fall apart as a result. She's forced to accept that she doesn't know everything about people and romance, with Love God calling her out for being more interested in promoting herself as a matchmaker than actually helping others.
- Little Princess: In "I Want to Ice Skate", the Princess lies that she's practicing for a huge dance while ice skating, when in reality she can barely skate, in an attempt to one-up Algie. Unfortunately, everyone wants to see this supposed dance, so the Princess tries to come up with excuses, such as the weather and needing it to be quiet.
- Martha Speaks: In "Martha and the One Thousand Fleas", the local dogs try to come up with a circus together. Francois, in an attempt to sound impressive, lies that he can do the "Dance of the One Thousand Fleas", which doesn't really exist, but this backfires when the other dogs ask him to do it. Francois, to stall, asks them for a bunch of random things, but when the dogs succeed at getting the things, he has to admit he lied, meaning the other dogs have to invent a dance that uses the things.
- Mickey Mouse: In the short The Brave Little Tailor, Mickey successfully kills seven flies in one swat and brags about this to other people. Due to a massive misunderstanding, they thought he was talking about giants and the king sends him to deal with a giant that was causing trouble for the kingdom, which makes Mickey panic when he realises the mix-up.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Several episodes contain An Aesop about humility, the characters learning that their ego and boastfulness only affect them and others negatively.
- In "Boast Busters", the cast is introduced to "The Great and Powerful Trixie", who is performing a Stage Magician show in Ponyville and bragging endlessly about how talented she is, even humiliating Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Rarity when they attempt to compete with her. Not only does Trixie's bragging lead to her developing a bad reputation, but Snips and Snails take her claims seriously and thus awaken an Ursa Minor so that she can defeat it like she'd bragged about doing. Naturally, all of her boasts were done to hype up her performance, and it takes Twilight to save the day.
- In "The Myserious Mare Do Well", Rainbow Dash's already large ego is inflated further when she's hailed as a hero for saving some ponies. She spends her time bragging about her heroics, signing autographs, and even getting Spike to write her biography, all things that begin to grate on her friends. To make matters worse, she starts to become more focused on her boasting than on actually saving anyone, and is quickly humiliated when Mare Do Well appears and saves the ponies first. Ponyville forgets about Rainbow to praise the newer, more humble hero instead. Her friends then reveal that they were Mare Do Well, and that they wanted her to learn a lesson about humility.
- In "All Bottled Up", the entire Mane 6 fall victim to overconfidence when trying to beat an escape-room record. They do indeed get through the room very fast, only to then start singing a song about how great their friendship is and about how they can accomplish anything together...after which they're reminded that they haven't left the room yet. They finish the escape and learn that their song cost them the record by a few seconds.
- South Park: In "Breast Cancer Show Ever", after Wendy challenges Eric Cartman to a fight after he insults her breast cancer report, Cartman brags about how he'll easily beat her in front of everyone but is secretly terrified of being beaten by a girl in public; he tries to get Wendy to call off the fight in private by falsely apologizing, but Wendy insists that he do so in public, which he refuses to protect his image. Even when he gets Wendy to call off the fight by lying to her parents that she was picking on him, Cartman still acts like a jerk towards her, which eventually causes Wendy to challenge him anyway, and while Cartman puts up a decent fight, Wendy ultimately ends up kicking his ass in public like he feared.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Squilliam Returns", Squidward tries to impress his rival Squilliam, whose succeeded in everything that Squidward failed at, by falsely claiming to own a five-star restaurant. When Squilliam says he'll invite his friends to the restaurant to eat, Squidward hatches a scheme to make himself look like a restaurant owner which works at first, but the lie eventually becomes revealed, due to SpongeBob taking Squidward’s advice to forget everything that isn’t fine dining and breathing too literally, causing Squidward to humiliate himself.
