History IdiotBall / Literature

*** Corran Horn is an ex-cop turned [[AcePilot fighter pilot]] for the Rebellion. He's given a cover identity and put on Coruscant (or [[InsistentTerminology Imperial Center]], as it's known), the capital city-world of the Empire, to gather information as part of an operation to take the planet. But one day, after one of his companions tries to have sex with him and he refuses, he decides to go walking while [[ContemplateOurNavels ruminating on his past]], and pays no attention to where he is going. At all. He finds himself at a WretchedHive and as it turns out the whole thing acts as a LuckBasedSearchTechnique, but really, wandering an enemy-held world and heading into the depths of its seedy underbelly while not paying attention to where he's going? TheForce looks after fools.

* Lampshaded and then immediately double-subverted in the ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles''-novel ''The Jennifer Morgue''. Bob Howard, whom the villain knows is a world-class computer security guy, is captured by the villains and placed in a room on their flagship... that has a PC Entertainment Center. Bob immediately namedrops the trope, since one of those is more than powerful enough to do serious damage to a computer network in the hands of a sufficiently motivated hacker. However, when Bob examines the machine, he realizes the villains were smarter than he gave them credit for; they've removed all input devices except the remote control, locked all functions except the media players for everyone without an admin account, and very purposefully plugged up the Ethernet port. However, since Bob has, secreted about his person, a collapsible keyboard, a USB-stick containing about a quarter of a million worth of hacking tools and a vial of the villain's magical mascara, which connects what it is applied to to the villain's surveillance network (originaly developed to let the villain use peoples' eyes as cameras, good for corporate espionage and security), their efforts were moot anyway.
* Risevim in ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' is completely immune to Sacred Gears. After this is revealed for the first time, you'd expect the people fighting him to either use non-Sacred Gear-based attacks or let people who don't have Sacred Gears handle him (the second option is even lampshaded by Sirzechs' peerage, which doesn't have any Sacred Gear possessors in it for this reason). However, Issei and Vali (both Sacred Gear possessors) are the ones who mainly fight him, and they charge him head-on! Particularly egregious in Vali's case, as he's also a powerful magician.

* According to ''Literature/TheDeathCure'', the Coalition government that [[spoiler:released the Flare didn't seem to realize that sometimes viruses ''mutate.'' Weren't these supposed to be the world's top scientists and biologists? Did they just forget that this happens? '''Especially''' considering radiation is a prime source of viral mutation, such as the intense solar radiation that the Earth was being subjected to? What did they think was going to happen?]]

** Isabelle hold this ball too with a tight fisted grip. Following the end of Clary's faux relationship with Simon in ''City of Ashes'', she believes Simon to be a bad guy (She likes bad guys) and this plays a part in her getting Simon into a 'fake' relationship with her in ''City of Fallen Angels''. After she tells Clary about the fallout of the revelation of her and Maia both dating Simon, Clary berates her for thinking her plan could work without hurting Simon and herself, which makes Isabelle feel like an idiot and realize that she truly likes Simon and practically threw away her chance to be with him. (Though this is only temporary, as they become a permanent couple later on in the series) She feels like more of an idiot later on when Simon reveals what truly happened when Clary got with him and how they weren't truly a couple, meaning he wasn't a bad guy at all.

** Clary's mother, Jocelyn, often holds this ball with almost the same grip as Clary. Her first, and arguably most boneheaded move, was gaslighting Clary into believing she was a mundane, all because how ashamed she was of marrying Valentine and giving birth to Clary's evil older brother, Jonathan (Sebastian). Even worse, her efforts to hide crucial details about Clary's life from her not only amplify Clary's curiosity and determination to find out for herself, but it also makes Clary lose faith and trust in her. In City of Lost Souls, Isabelle tells Jocelyn all this to her face in a Reason you Suck speech. Also, her only real reason for disliking Jace is the fact that Valentine briefly raised him when he was an infant before dumping him on the steps of the New York Institute. In short, Jocelyn might be trying to make amends for being Valentine's wife, but in this case, Mother doesn't always know best.

* In "The Marching Morons" by Cyril M. Kornbluth, the population of Earth has literally "Bred for stupidity" by smart people choosing to have fewer children while idiots continue to breed indiscriminately. They have to resort to reviving a HumanPopsicle to solve the problem.

* [[LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters Every named character]] in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''. Notable incidents:

* In Pseudonymous Bosch's ''Literature/SecretSeries'', {{Cass|andraTruth}} loudly remarks that a gourmet chef's cooking might be improved with the MacGuffin of the book. The only people who [[HeKnowsTooMuch know about its existence]] outside of her friends are part of [[AncientConspiracy the Midnight Sun]], and Cass knows firsthand that they're willing to abduct and murder people who expose their plans. When [[EvilChef Senor Hugo]] asks Cass if she knows exactly what the [[MacGuffin Tuning Fork]] ''is'', [[WhatAnIdiot she tells him]], which results in Hugo (an agent of the Midnight Sun) [[HostageForMacGuffin abducting her mother]]. Although this isn't the only time Cass slips up; in the first book, she decides to investigate the Midnight Sun's spa alone by posing as a celebrity, not stopping to think that they might have caller ID, and falls into a trap. Later, she and another character eat pieces of chocolate [[SchmuckBanquet laid out in the villain's hideout]] (especially glaring since they know that enchanted chocolate is Hugo's M.O.), getting them captured. Then Cass eats ANOTHER piece at the end of the book, which puts her into a coma.

* A moment in the first ''Literature/KingdomKeepers'' book. Finn and Philby, looking for clues, search ''[[Ride/DisneyThemeParks Splash Mountain]]''. Since the ride inactive, they don't take a car, facing HazardousWater. Philby waits until they are well into the ride before telling Finn that they can't get out on the sides without setting off alarms. Meaning they have no plans to survive a four story drop.

* ''Literature/TheStand'': Stu and Frankie get it at the end. Stu gets uneasy around the growing Free Zone population and wants to find a more private place to live. But instead of just finding a quiet place somewhere near Boulder where they’d still be close enough to get medical help if needed, they set out to go across the country. Frankie’s pregnant again and they think they can find drugs and learn from books. Medicine doesn’t work that way, guys, seriously. Drugs expire fast and if there are birth complications or someone has a heart attack or gets an infection, they’ll be in big trouble.

*
** Hagrid [[spoiler:takes Harry, Ron (only in the film), Neville (in the book), Hermione and Malfoy into the Forbidden Forest to look for a Unicorn killer]] for detention. HarmfulToMinors does not begin to describe Hagrid. Then again, he didn't really know what to expect. Justified in-universe by Hagrid telling Malfoy that this is the sort of useful thing students do for detention instead of 'writing lines'.
** Vernon insults magic and threatens Harry in front of Hagrid, ''a half-giant with super strength,'' who happens to be ''from the wizarding world''. It's a good thing Hagrid isn't malicious, or Vernon would've probably ended up with a broken neck, or ''worse''.

* Franchise/StarWarsLegends:

*** Nom Anor grabs it too. After ten years of spying on them, he doesn't even think it's a ''little'' dangerous to try and [[BerserkButton kill Luke's wife]].

** ''Literature/LegacyOfTheForce'': Mara Jade doesn't realize it's a bad idea to go off alone to confront a Sith. She thought it was Lumiya, but still, she might not have been caught and killed by her Sith nephew if she'd have taken some backup with her...
** Also, Han around the same time, with his insistence on supporting Corellia in the insurrection, even though he knew full well what its leader, his cousin, [[JerkAss was like]].

*** Corran Horn is an ex-cop turned [[AcePilot fighter pilot]] for the Rebellion. He's given a cover identity and put on Coruscant (or [[InsistentTerminology Imperial Center]], as it's known), the capital city-world of the Empire, to gather information as part of an operation to take the planet. But one day, after one of his companions tries to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar have sex with him]] and he refuses, he decides to go walking while [[ContemplateOurNavels ruminating on his past]], and pays no attention to where he is going. At all. He finds himself at a WretchedHive and as it turns out the whole thing acts as a LuckBasedSearchTechnique, but really, wandering an enemy-held world and heading into the depths of its seedy underbelly while not paying attention to where he's going? TheForce looks after fools.

*** This [[http://www.alternatehistory.com/gateway/analyses/Drakaproblems.html Alternate History page]] actually points out all the historical problems the canon timeline has and how illogical the entire idea is.

* Beka's journaling in ''Literature/ProvostsDog'' is explicitly a memory aid, to the point where her watch commander orders her to start doing it again after her reports get sloppy. However, there are a few points where Beka struggles to remember some key detail crucial to the case. Does she go back over her old journal entries where she has already written about that precise thing? No, she just tries to remember it on her own. Okay.

''The Clifton Chronicles: Mightier than the Sword'': Harry Clifton is an intelligent and talented author of detective novels. He very publicly wants to free a man who's a political prisoner in the USSR because he wrote a memoir of Stalin, and knows the KGB is monitoring him and trying to sabotage him, at least while he's in Russia. Eventually, the prisoner's wife tells him where the one surviving copy is. [[spoiler:So he goes to Russia, goes ''directly to the book's location'', takes it, and heads directly back to the airport. The Russians stop him at Customs. And point out how incredibly blatant he was, from the second he talked to the wife.]]

''The Clifton Chronicles'': Harry Clifton is an intelligent and talented author of detective novels. He very publicly wants to free a man who's a political prisoner in the USSR because he wrote a memoir of Stalin, and knows the KGB is monitoring him and trying to sabotage him, at least while he's in Russia. Eventually, the prisoner's wife tells him where the one surviving copy is. [[spoiler:So he goes to Russia, goes ''directly to the book's location'', takes it, and heads directly back to the airport. The Russians stop him at Customs. And point out how incredibly blatant he was, from the second he talked to the wife.]]

*** Corran Horn is an ex-cop turned [[AcePilot fighter pilot]] for the Rebellion. He's given a cover identity and put on Coruscant (or [[InsistentTerminology Imperial Center]], as it's known), the capital city-world of the Empire, to gather information as part of an operation to take the planet. But one day, after one of his companions tries to [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar have sex with him]] and he refuses, he decides to go walking while [[ContemplateOurNavels ruminating on his past]], and pays no attention to where he is going. At all. He finds himself at a WretchedHive and as it turns out the whole thing acts as a ShaggySearchTechnique, but really, wandering an enemy-held world and heading into the depths of its seedy underbelly while not paying attention to where he's going? TheForce looks after fools.