Got another saying that vexes me. The Dutch one is: Van de nood een deugd maken. It sort of literally-ish means that you use an emergency to your favor, and several searches keep saying the accurate translation is: Turning necessity into virtue. That just sounds off to me. Is that really something your grandma told you at some point during your childhood? I know making lemonade out of lemons is a viable alternative, but the conversation as it is now doesn't really allow for the whole colloquialism. Antagonist and MC meet in a situation so bad that I don't even know how to get them out of it. The antagonist goes: "Did you come to run me over again?" And I could make the MC go: "No, but I could make lemonade while I'm here." But that doesn't work, does it? Does it make sense in this form?
Hmm, is it possible to make one up? Or do you need it to be a term people are familiar with? "There is opportunity in a crisis." "Despair can be a good affair." "Their starvation is our salvation." "Your emergency is our wealth convergency." Lol, sounds like a bad company slogan... "Your destruction is my introduction." "Crisis favors the hero." There is also: "Fortune favors the bold." Which might not be what you're looking for though. I don't know.
I'd probably just make something up, potentially cringey like: The antagonist goes: "Did you come to run me over again?" "No, but I got some new boots I need to break in."
There's the saying "Why let a perfectly good crisis go to waste." Or certain variations on it like "Our opponents never let a crisis go to waste." Meaning they'll immediately jump on any crisis and politicize it. Not sure it's quite what you're looking for. Or the simplified "Never let a crisis go to waste."
That doesn't work because one person has been given lemons (the one who got 'run over,') while the other one is saying "I can make lemonade." It's mixed up. Plus it sounds like whatever is happening is more serious than life giving somebody lemons. But I have no understanding of the situation or what's meant by 'getting run over.'
Van de nood een deugd maken = from the need a virtue make ? I don't have any Dutch but I don't think virtue is a good translation of deugd in this context. Deugd here is like a good, or that to which a good is owed, or that which is deserving of benefit. Whereas virtue is a quality that emits or produces or generates good: it has an opposite directionality. Wiktionary doesn't show any etymological connection to 'duty' 'dues' or 'debt' but Indo-European has dʰewgʰ=to produce something useful and deh₃=to give and it's tempting to want to link them all. 'merit' has the same directionality, but it's abstract and general. We wouldn't say "I have a merit" or "my deafness is a merit" or "he has many merits." (ah, we might say the last one, but I think merit then becomes a general word for a good quality) "He turns needs into merits" or "he turns need into merit" or "he makes merit from need" isn't sufficiently clear. What were his needs are now his merits? He thinks his needs are owed to him? It's that children's cartoon trope where someone gets the flu and everyone treats them nicely and does everything for them while they're in bed - and they get used to it and pretend to still be ill when really they're already better. When they do this, they are "making the most of it." Or they are "taking advantage" of others' kindness. Sayings have to be snappy to be remembered, so although human wisdom is universal each language ends up capturing different bits of it in its sayings. I don't think English can produce a neat equivalent for this Dutch saying because there isn't a close enough equivalent to deugd. We can turn a situation to our advantage. Or we can turn a liability into an asset. Privileges become expectations. In these examples there is a tension between two substantives. We sense a contrast. But "a need" has a strange register. If we turn a need into an advantage, or an asset, or benefit, or expectation - for some reason I don't sense a similar tension or contrast. It might be that we don't like "need" being a substantive at all (except in bureaucratese/official-speak). And then neither half of the saying has a close equivalent. Well perhaps there is something here that is close to the context or will give someone else a brainwave.
Lemonade is 'the best of a bad situation.' But you're looking for opportunity, closer to a net gain in the face of adversity I guess. Nothing personally comes to mind. I have two random brainstorming spitballs below: Since this may be the most serious situation the protag has ever found himself in, some gravity is potentially earned even if the story is comedic over all. A somber "No" or merely just silent regard as an answer might sell the reader on just how dire these straights have become, especially contrasted with the wry comment it's in response to. Or if we want the banter to continue: "No. This is the one conceivable situation where that wouldn't help."
I like to mess around with some of those old adages, probably well beyond the cute factor, or it'll be like my signature. One of those two anyway. Did you come to run me over again? Hey, you can't make an omelette without breaking some legs. Other than that, depending on their relationship, which can be entirely rewritten to make this fit: Run me over to Ikea you say. Run me over to Tesco express. You give me shit when I don't and now, the one time I'm willing to run you over...
This might work if I change 'crisis' a little. I doubt Eddie (MC) would see this for the crisis it is right away. Well, they've both been given lemons, really. It's definitely more serious than lemons, though. The antagonist has been run over by Eddie two books ago, in an escape and ultimately awesome finale of said book. For this book, Eddie has to go back to where it happened, and for interdimensional reasons winds up at a place where escape is so incredibly impossible that even god-like powers don't help. Antagaonist has already been enjoying his lemons for years now, and Eddie just got them because the mission he was on is now nigh on impossible to complete (and as it stands, I really have no idea how to get him out. Should be fun). Free lemons for everybody. Van de nood een deugd maken = Make the best of a bad situation Turning necessity to virtue would work, too, but as a saying, adage, or proverb, it just doesn't sound familiar. Lemons/lemonade do, though. It's always the simple ones that work best. Exactly. That's why the whole virtue/necessity thing didn't work for me. It doesn't have the ring of a saying to it. It's not a definite no from me, but it's probably not something Eddie would do. This is the guy who talks back to the devil for not liking the "right" music and who summons demons to get a phone number. He'll probably have more in the chamber than just a no. ;o) If you mean a signature in your post, I didn't see one. Just FIY.
Well, given your specific example, and a rough translation, if you are insistent upon using it, I rather like B.E. Nugent's response above: "Hey, you can't make an omelette without breaking some legs." Nice play on a classic american saying.
