This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Plot Hole: From YKTTW
Silver2195: Removed a bunch of natter, complaining, and other bad stuff. Fast Eddie ... vague references, debatable examples ...
- The 2004 film version of The Stepford Wives is rather notorious for its plot holes. A notable is that it's revealed that the Stepford-ism is caused by microchips implanted in the brain and not by replacing the women with gynoids, but at a couple of points earlier in the film, they did such robotic things as spitting money out of their mouths and being immune to fire.
- This Troper thought it fairly clear that the fellows decided to add in cybernetic 'extras' as well as control chips (given that the latter was the only thing compromised at the end, they kinda regretted it).
- Another noticeable plot hole is that halfway through, Joanna and Walter's two children disappear, and are never seen or heard from again.
- This troper read a novel when he was a kid about a middle school troublemaker who comes from a broken home. The kid tries to hide his home life, even going so far as to put a false phone number on forms given to the school. Later in the book, a teacher ends up having a heart-to-heart with the kid, and the kid admits that he fakes his phone number so no-one can call his mother, making it easier for him to intercept the bad news sent home and fake her signature. Not long after that, the teacher calls the kid's mother, even though he was never told the real phone number. Back when I first read that, I thought, "how did he know the kid's number? He never told him!"
- This troper remembers a fantasy series that he never finished, where in the second book the protagonists seemed to switch between knowing and not knowing the one time that a secret, magically hidden city could be reached from one chapter to another.
Jordan: I think the Stepford Wives example is workable- I also saw that as a plot hole, particularly given the fire scene which really implied the women were robots- I'd imagine it would be painful to have that much robotic modification and none of the women reference it after the chips are removed. One detail I forget about the movie is that the women were made sexier by the process- did that revert when the chips were turned off?
Fast Eddie: Cool enough. I haven't seen it. Is there some way to reconcile the first example with the "this troper" entry so that it doesn't read like a debate?
Cornadian: The entry on the Sword of Truth series is not really a plot hole so much as an intentional demonstration of the hipocrisy of the Big Bad's "ideals". It might fit with It Just Bugs Me!, but the context makes it awfully clear that the *intent* of the disparity is to make the Order's ideals look hypocritical. As for the protagonist's alleged inconsistencies in reasoning, these are not only misunderstood in the Plot Hole entry, but would be reasonable even if they were accurately conveyed given it would more likely be a demonstration of internal conflict in the Hero rather than being a mistake overlooked by the author. Even if accidental and, again, accurately conveyed, it would still be a reasonable thing given people are prone to slight logical self-contradictions. In that case, it might be fair game for It Just Bugs Me!. In light of this, I've excised the example for nonconformance to the trope.
Can'tRememberMyName: Regarding the Empire Strikes Back, I think the assumption was that Luke was on Dagobah for 1-2 weeks; maybe a full month. There's a lot of downtime traveling in hyperspace, repairing the Falcon, and their time on Bespin. Yoda probably gave him the Abridged Jedi Training, mostly focusing on the killing part and resisting the Dark Side. In fairness, Luke had learned a bit about the Force on his own, pulling off a Force Pull with his lightsaber at the beginning of the movie.
Unknown Troper: Removed the Mass Effect entry because of a fairly simple justification that shot down the whole "hole" in question.
Webrunner: I think this page needs to be revisited. Almost every example is either 1) debatable 2) something that isn't necessarily a plot hole, just something that's not entirely explained. For example: An item appearing later somewhere other than where it was last seen, as a McGuffin in the current story, is not a plot hole (finding an Egyptian artifact at the North Pole). An item appearing somewhere other than where it is known to be is a plot hole (finding King Tut's sarcophagas at the North Pole). 3) A Voodoo Shark, which there's a trope for 4) Something that's a new development that otherwise wouldn't be expected but is explained. (eg: the Death Knights being members of the Horde and Alliance is listed as a plot hole for World of Warcraft. This isn't a plot hole because if you play a Death Knight you watched it happen).
