History Main / JustEatGilligan

** Many fans have, for years, been shouting for Batman to just kill [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]]. The counter-argument is that Batman fears that if he crosses that line, [[HeWhoFightsMonsters there will be no turning back]] Compounding the issue is the fact that not only has Batman passed on opportunities to (entirely legally) kill the Joker, he has ''actively intervened to stop'' [[VigilanteMan heroes with a different moral code]] from finishing off the psychopath, including perhaps most infamously ComicBook/ThePunisher. Also bear in mind, on a memorable occasion when he finally went "fuck it" and tried to kill the Joker (in ''Batman: Hush''), it was ''TheCommissionerGordon'' himself that stopped him, saying that if he tried to do that, he would consider Batman no better than the other mad-dog psychos over on Arkham and he would do whatever it took to take him down. Batman, thus, decided to stop -- because he considers Gordon a friend, and he knows he needs Gordon on his side to be effective in his war.[[note]]Though note that, during the original run of ''Hush'', Gordon had actually retired from the GCPD, and openly admitted he was a private citizen who could only appeal to Batman as a friend.[[/note]]

This can be seen as a SubTrope of IdiotBall as it's essentially an Idiot Ball so grand in scale that it doesn't just move the plot along—''it keeps it alive.'' And when numerous characters in the cast fail to pick up on this ElephantInTheRoom, you've got yourself an IdiotPlot. Is usually a type of StockParodyJoke.

** Why he doesn't find a way to make money ''as'' Spider-Man, outside of selling photos. In ''ComicBook/TheAmazingSpiderManNickSpencer'', this got touched on when Peter is employed by Jonah (who is now aware of his identity and has flipped into becoming [[StopHelpingMe his most ardent supporter, but in a typical Jonah manner]]), by having his suit record his actions as Spider-Man and livestream them for a viewing public. Though it's naturally popular and well-paying, it doesn't last long because this somewhat forces Peter to "play to a crowd", and he finds the experience too embarrassing and distracting. There's also the obvious risk of accidentally revealing his identity.

A useless character can have his place in a show: as ComicRelief, a KidAppealCharacter, or even a HateSink. But sometimes one person is [[TheMillstone so repeatedly and hopelessly incompetent]] that even the audience takes notice. If one character (or some other factor) is the main reason for ''every'' failure, why does the rest of the cast not account for that? Why do the rest of the castaways keep Gilligan around? [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why don't they just shoot him?]] (or lock him in his room, have a volunteer take him somewhere out of the way, or send him on a SnipeHunt?)

* ''Literature/HarryPotter'': In the first book Harry finds that he has inherited a lot of money, and feels really guilty since his friend Ron Weasley is stuck in PerpetualPoverty. In [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets the second book,]] Ron breaks his wand early on so that it only works some of the time, and is stuck with this for the whole book since his family is too poor to buy a new one. While this [[spoiler: becomes important for a major plot point,]] it's never explained why, if Harry has so much more money, he doesn't just buy Ron a new one. Even if it's somehow embarrassing to have your friend buy you a replacement wand, he could just [[AnonymousBenefactor buy it and have it sent to him secretly.]]

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'': One of the biggest plot points in the game is that Edelgard and Dimitri's complicated relationship, and Dimitri's descent into AxCrazy, occurs when it is revealed Edelgard is the Flame Emperor, the ArcVillain of the first half of the game, and who Dimitri thinks is behind the Tragedy of Duscur, an incident that horrible traumatized him. It gets to the point that on all routes, Dimitri would rather risk his life, and his nation, just to try and kill her, and in three of the four routes, he dies horribly trying to do so. At the same time, it is made clear Edelgard had nothing to do with it, as she had been essentially kidnapped during the time it happened, and was still a child during the events of it. Despite these details, nobody ever questions Edelgard about her involvement in the event, Edelgard herself never tries to tell Dimitri she had no part in it, and Dimitri, even on his own route where he ends up walking back on his hatred, never outright asks what role she played in the event. It gets to the point of almost being a plothole that nobody ever questions the details of her "involvement", nor that Edelgard even tries to tell her side of the conflict. Telling, ''VideoGame/FireEmblemWarriorsThreeHopes'' completely removes Edelgard's involvement as a plot point early in the game, and Dimitri never assumes she had a part in it.

* Subverted in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. It is suggested at one point that the One Ring be given to [[IncorruptiblePurePureness Tom Bombadil]], who [[ImmuneToMindControl is completely unaffected by its corruption]] mostly because he just doesn't care about it despite its great power. Gandalf shoots the suggestion down by pointing out that Tom Bombadil would probably end up losing it or throwing it away ''because'' he doesn't care about it.

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys''. According to the former employee leaving you voice mail messages, the killer animatrons in the game will attack you because they don't know what humans are - they think you're an animatronic endoskeleton without your costume and will try to force a costume onto you, killing you in the process. At one point he suggests the obvious answer of playing dead, so they think you're an empty costume instead. He quickly thinks better of it, saying that if they think you're an empty costume they'll try to shove a metal endoskeleton inside you, which would be even worse.
** Also invoked and subverted again, [[spoiler:with Night 7, the Custom Night. Specifically, if the animatrons are run by an AI, why not just hack them and make them less aggressive? Turns out you can do that and it works, more or less. Still subverted, though, as even setting their AI levels to 0 still doesn't make them harmless, not to mention hacking the bots gets you fired]].
** For that matter, though, if the animatrons are trying to get you because they think you're an endoskeleton without your costume, why not just make a fake costume (or at least a mask) and wear it to trick them? In keeping with the game's tendency to subvert this trope, this becomes a gameplay mechanic in [[VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys2 the sequel]]. [[spoiler:The downside is, there are two animatronics the mask ''doesn't'' protect you from, and you can't do the things necessary to ward them off if you have the head on.]]

This can be seen as a SubTrope of IdiotBall as it's essentially an Idiot Ball so grand in scale that it doesn't just move the plot along—''it keeps it alive.'' And when numerous characters in the cast fail to pick up on this ElephantInTheRoom, you've got yourself an IdiotPlot.

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': Parodied in "[[Recap/AnimaniacsEpisode3 Slappy Goes Walnuts]]". When Slappy Squirrel runs out of walnuts, she and Skippy go off to raid a walnut tree guarded by her arch-nemesis, Doug the Dog. When Skippy suggests that they should just go to the store to buy the walnuts they need, Slappy declines the offer because [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall she doesn't believe it would make the episode very entertaining]].
-->'''Slappy:''' Oh, yeah, we'll have them in hysterics with that bit! Six minutes in a checkout line! Ooh, somebody stop me, I'm laughing!
* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainNTheGameMaster'': It never occurs to Captain N and our heroes that he could teleport to [[BigBad Mother Brain]]'s lair and shoot her with his Zapper, thus resolving the plot and allowing him to go home.
* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': Numbuh 13 is TheFriendNobodyLikes within the organization because he's TheJinx and a WalkingDisasterArea in the vein of [[Series/FamilyMatters Steve Urkel]] and [[Film/PoliceAcademy Douglas Fackler]]. No less than four episodes revolve around his epic capacity to cause chaos with his stupid yet well-meaning bumbling (one of which even ends with the kids in Sector Five [[YouCanKeepHer leaving him with the enemy]] the moment they discover that the "kidnapped agent" they were assigned to save is him [[PityTheKidnapper knowing that this is far worse than anything they could do themselves]]) and when the KND hold an election for their new leader (by way of [[SeriousBusiness a game of tag]]), everybody gangs up to take out Numbuh 13 because as much as nobody wants the job, '''nobody''' wants him in charge even more. Why the hell he hasn't been decommissioned is never explained.
* ''WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines'' suffers from a worse example of this trope than ''Wacky Races'': the Vulture Squadron destroyed 182 planes, 2 balloons, 1 ship, 1 Zeppelin, 1 gas station, and 1 train throughout their quest to "Stop the Pigeon" but never caught Yankee Doodle Pigeon. It never occurs to Dick Dastardly that he could just shoot Yankee Doodle to bits with a gun-equipped fighter plane.
* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'' is one of the biggest examples of this trope in animation. For all his genius, Dexter is never able to keep Dee-Dee out of his laboratory. It never occurs to him that he could just use an [=ID=] checkup system for the entrance to his lab and keep Dee-Dee out for good.
* In the Disney short "Old Sequoia," WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck as a park ranger had plenty of perfect opportunities to off the beavers that sought to down the titular tree, but is distracted by the ringing of the telephone in his outlook post, despite being super-fast when it came to travel up and down it.
** In another Disney short, "No Sail", has Donald Duck and Goofy use a coin-operated sailboat that lets out its sail for a limited time if you drop in a nickel. The problem comes when they run out of nickels; they could not have been stranded at sea for so long if they had even thought of paddling the boat using their hands and/or feet.
* A lot of the time in ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'', it seems most of [[TrappedInVillainy the Urpneys]] would have quite gladly accepted being liberated by the heroes. At least one episode also shows the Wut army could very easily neutralise Zordrak in battle. As such most episodes revolve around the heroes dishing out DisproportionateRetribution to ''only'' the Urpneys and sending them back to begin another scheme. Similarly, [[InvincibleHero the Wuts and the Dream Maker]] would remain dormant or [[ForgotAboutHisPowers Forget About Their Powers]] until the final climax, always sending the more fallible Noops to fumble for the first twenty minutes of the episode. Or the heroes could TakeAThirdOption and kill Zordrak by leading him into a trap or something.
* There is not an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' which couldn't have been solved or averted by creating the standing wish of "always warn me before any wish that might take away my power to make wishes" and then just flat undoing anything left. Of course, both protagonist Timmy and fairy godparent Cosmo are ''supposed'' to be idiots (the former because he's ten years old, the latter because [[TheDitz it's]] [[RuleOfFunny funny]]). One episode actually commented on this concept as well as the Trope Namer: the time Timmy wishes that he loses his emotions and after that, has nothing to do but think, he comes to the conclusion that "the reason they couldn't build a boat on ''Gilligan's Island'' is because it would end the series...", which is somewhat similar to ''his'' situation. And sort of inverted during the Magic Muffin thing:
-->'''Cosmo:''' Well, Timmy, if you want your muffin back, why don't you just wish for it back? \\
'''Timmy:''' That's a great idea, Cosmo! I wish I had the muffin back!\\
'''Wanda:''' We can't do that. You know as well as I do that the muffin's magic is more powerful than we are.\\
'''Cosmo:''' Well, duh! [[LampshadeHanging I was just wondering why he hadn't asked.]] [[labelnote:Explanation]]There used to be an age-old question on this very page wondering why heroes in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' couldn't just wish away foes, with a somewhat flimsy reason (but a reason nonetheless InUniverse) being that the Dragon Balls' creator was weaker than the villains.[[/labelnote]]\\
(''Timmy angrily erases Cosmo's mouth, making him shout muffled gibberish'')
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'':
** Anyone who's watched the show for so long can tell you that many conflicts in many episodes are started by [[TheMillstone Peter's]] anti-social behavior, lack of intelligence or any kind of common sense, or straight-up recklessness. One episode parodying ''Film/HomeAlone'' actually contains a scene where Lois calls out Peter for all of his meddling interfering with her getting home to her child. Outside of that, Peter's incompetence is rarely, if ever, brought into question.
** There was, of course, the episode "Seahorse Seashell Party" with Meg finally [[CallingTheOldManOut giving it to Peter]] with both barrels about [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech what a shitty father and overall person he really is]]. She then has to sit back and accept her role as the family's BullyMagnet because without her to act as a "lightning rod", the Griffins would turn their horribleness on each other and escalate to the point of ''mutual death''.
* Virtually every episode of ''WesternAnimation/FantasticFourWorldsGreatestHeroes'' involves a catastrophe either A. started when Reed Richards' latest invention malfunctions, B. [[IdiotBall triggered by Johnny Storm's stupidity]], or C. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs set off when Johnny Storm's stupidity causes Reed Richards' latest invention to malfunction]]. Yes, it shows how the Fantastic Four aren't superheroes, but a superpowered family who gets into trouble, but it still applies.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheFoxbusters'': It never occurs ''once'' to the titular team that they could just find another predator and convince them to wipe out the evil foxes for good. On the other hand, the surviving foxes could probably re-populate their species and continue their campaign of evil once that's happened.
* Many plots in ''WesternAnimation/{{Hurricanes}}'' could have been avoided had Amanda and co. simply made a phone call to the police to get Stavros Garkos locked up for good.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibleHulk1996'', the military would invariably show up and ruin everything at the exact moment Bruce Banner was undergoing a procedure that would eliminate the Hulk once and for all. If they wanted to get rid of the Hulk so badly, they could have left him alone. Or simply put a bullet into Banner's brain from a mile away while he's still human. Sniper rifles were invented to kill people that it would be too dangerous to approach directly, Banner probably qualifies.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Jem}}'', the rival band of Jem and the Holograms (The Misfits) would often indulge in felonies such as kidnapping, blackmail, sabotage, slander, and even attempted murder in order to boost their own sales and discredit their opponents. A simple phone call to the police would have seen them locked up for a very long time. Made worse by the fact that Jerrica ''owns Starlight Music'' and could probably do a lot more to ensure that Eric Raymond would stop causing trouble as a record executive than a pop idol. Raymond had his own army of lawyers and mega corp resources, plus Pizzazz's wealthy father and all ''his'' connections. The pilot episode also stated the reason for the Jem persona in the first place was due to some first-rate legal and financial blackmail Raymond was laying on Starlight Records (he had a stake in the company as Benton's business partner and was trying to screw Jerica and Kimber out of their shares). Worse, most of the Holograms' royalties got folded back into the business and orphanage. Raymond wasn't bothering with side ventures.
* In ''WesternAnimation/JosieAndThePussycats'', you have to wonder why do they even put up with Alexandra, who is nothing more but TheMillstone to the group. In their outer space series, they could have gotten home if they had just pushed her out of the airlock or left her on the next planet they landed.
* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'':
** The episode "A Knight of Shadows" has the heroes trying to keep the PhilosophersStone away from Morgan Le Fay. When they acquire it, they lock it in the Watchtower--and it ends up being stolen. The story concludes with the stone being crushed to dust--which raises the question of why they bothered to lock it in the Watchtower in the first place. Partially {{justified|Trope}} in that ComicBook/MartianManhunter is the one crushing it - it could be protected against earthly threat, or he could be using strength greater than Superman's; the League also didn't have any way to know if it would explode upon being destroyed.
** Similarly in "Paradise Lost", where the League are forced to retrieve three artifacts that combine into the key that can free the SealedEvilInACan. In this case, the League can't destroy the key before the end of the episode, because [[HostageForMacGuffin there are lives at stake]], but why didn't the people who locked him up in the first place destroy the key instead of just breaking it into three easily-recombinable pieces?
** Also in the ''WesternAnimation/StaticShock'' JL crossover, with the League keeping the last piece of [[Characters/SupermanBrainiacCharacter Brainiac]] in the Watchtower. Batman even lampshades the fact that they'd be better off with it destroyed, but why it's kept intact goes unexplained. Naturally, it gets loose mere minutes later.
* ''WesternAnimation/KiddVideo'': Kidd Video and his band try to find a way out of the Flip Side, but they have to deal with Master Blaster and the Copy Cats, ''and'' the fact that '''everyone''' in the Flip Side loves Kidd Video's music. It never occurs to them that they could find more powerful weapons than music, for example, laser guns, and simply kill Master Blaster, then pretend to "break up", allowing them to flee the Flip Side as everybody will be disappointed by their "break up".
* The subplot in one ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' episode involved the characters being assigned lab partners for a school science project (and Mr. Barkin wouldn't allow them to switch). Kim is paired with a genius scientist who neither needs nor wants her help and as a result, Kim is left bored and unsatisfied because she has nothing to do. Kim's friend Monique is paired with Ron, and she is over-stressed because Ron just doesn't care and leaves her to do all the work herself. Kim and Monique could have simply worked together on Monique's project unofficially (most of the project seemed to take place outside of school) and that way all four parties would have got a decent grade and a workload that suited them. Of course if [[SternTeacher Mr. Barkin]] ever found out, this would likely result in 4 F's given the stern way he implied that any requests for a new partner would be turned down.
* ''WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug'': At least a partial amount of the power [[ConsummateLiar Lila Rossi]] has over her classmates because of her constant lying would be gone if someone made some fact-checking (she says she got tinnitus because she saved Jagged Stone's cat - a Wikipedia search would have revealed that Stone has always been allergic to pet fur since he was a ''child'' (hence why he owns a freaking ''alligator''), which would make her attempt at MovingTheGoalposts when Marinette calls her out on it even more blatant) or had common sense (Lila lies about having conditions (like the aforementioned tinnitus) that would demand the school's administration to ask her to hand over her medical records, and escalates to the point she flat-out says that she has a psych condition that makes her lie all the time... which is accepted, with no psych confirming it ''or'' having anybody question any of her previous statements, if she now is a ''certified'' pathological liar).
** On a broader scale, almost all the series supervillains are normal people "Akumatized" by [[BigBad Hawk-Moth]], and the heroes' SOP for defeating a villain is to find some way to destroy the [[CursedObject akumatized object,]] usually involving Ladybug using her Lucky Charm power to create some seemingly random object that allows her to execute a complex scheme to get at the object, and/or Cat Noir using his Cataclysm powers, which can destroy almost anything, on the object. But almost all the villains wear the object on their person, and while almost all powered beings in the show are implicitly super-durable, the objects don't appear any harder to destroy after an Akuma enters them, so using a regular firearm (or a [[FamilyFriendlyFirearms family-friendly equivalent, which the Lucky Charm can create)]] to shoot at the villain with the same precision and reflexes the heroes display doing everything else until you hit their Akumatized object seems like a much simpler way to beat most villains.
* ''WesternAnimation/MonaTheVampire'': Mona is almost never portrayed in the wrong despite being quite delusional and getting people into trouble because of her crazy beliefs that they're supernatural beings, and the adults are somehow stupid enough to believe her and her friends. It never occurs to anyone that Mona might require [[ThereAreNoTherapists some counseling]].
* ''WesternAnimation/MyGoldfishIsEvil'': It never once occurs to Beanie to just flush Admiral Bubbles or feed him to predators and his problems would be over. '''On the other hand''', Admiral Bubbles ''is'' an evil genius, so he could probably find his way back and develop something to get back for it too.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyGymPartnersAMonkey'': The basic premise is that Adam Lyon, a human preteen, is accidentally placed in [[StrangerInAStrangeSchool a school for talking animals]] thanks to a clerical error that misspelled his last name. In the [[YouMeanXMas Animas special]], Adam's outright asked why he never tried transfering back after the mistake was made painfully obvious, with him side-stepping an actual answer by saying that he's gotten attached to everyone by this point. When a similar question is posed to his parents (who turn out to be deadly allergic to animals) in a later episode, the other characters do receive a logical answer... [[TheUnreveal though the audience doesn't get to hear it]].
--> '''Principal Pixiefrog:''' By the way, Mr. and Mrs. Lyon, I've always wondered: what made you allow Adam to attend an all-animal school for four television seasons?\\
'''Mr. and Mrs. Lyon:''' ''([[TheUnintelligible long, detailed response muffled by hazmat suits]])''\\
'''Principal Pixiefrog:''' Well, I'm glad that's cleared up.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTVSpecials'': Tirek's plan is to use his Rainbow of Darkness [[ReforgedIntoAMinion to turn ponies into demonic dragons]] to drive his Chariot of Darkness to cause TheNightThatNeverEnds, even though the Rainbow of Darkness can also turn non-sentient animals such as butterflies and birds into dragons that appear more than capable of driving the chariot. There was no particular reason why Tirek needs ponies-turned-dragons to drive his chariot; if he stuck to the dragons resulting from other animals, he wouldn't have to deal with the surviving ponies at his doorstep who wound up killing him during the rescue of their friends.
* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': Did it never occur to Candace that there's a more likely chance that her Mom would believe her if she took photos of whatever activity her brothers were taking part in? In her defense, she absolutely has thought of this and has even attempted this approach a few times. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption It still didn't work]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'', [[SpannerInTheWorks considering how many times he screws them up,]] if Brain got rid of Pinky or at least kept him as far away from his plans as he could manage, he'd rule the world within a week, if that.
** It would seem so - but in "That Smarts," Pinky becomes as intelligent as Brain, to the delight of the latter... until a) Pinky starts indicating flaws in every single planet-conquering scheme and b) Brain realizes that the ''only'' way any of his plans will succeed is if one of them is an idiot. So he makes himself as "smart" (i.e. as stupid) as Pinky normally is... unfortunately, Pinky's seen how miserable Brain is now that the balance of power has shifted, and he makes himself as stupid as he was before! Needless to say, [[StatusQuoIsGod this doesn't stick]] for the rest of the series.
** It's been established in several episodes that Brain's plans are precisely what keeps them from succeeding. Pinky has come extremely close several times just by doing all the random things that come naturally to him, only for Brain to ruin it when he tries to use their position of power to his advantage for one of his schemes. Then there's the time they took a night off, and unknowingly ended up with a large group of people who wanted to find Brain and put him in charge. Basically, they'd rule the world already if they didn't keep trying to force it.
* Why doesn't Bluto just eat spinach to beat WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}? There was one cartoon in which they were [[SpringTimeForHitler trying to be hospitalized]], and Bluto did indeed eat spinach and beat up Popeye. However, Bluto didn't so much "eat" the spinach as have it forced down his throat by Popeye. At a guess, Bluto hates spinach even more than he hates Popeye, underscored by one cartoon where Bluto invents a powerful herbicide to destroy all of the world's spinach to incapacitate Popeye. Popeye pleads to the audience, and some kid with a grocery bag throws it into the screen. Popeye beats Bluto and cures all the spinach. The movie at least {{HandWave}}s this by implying that it was not that spinach itself had magical power-up properties, but that Popeye's family had long drawn strength from a diet of spinach.
** Bluto DOES eat the spinach willingly in an attempt to beat Popeye at baseball in "The Twisker Pitcher".
* ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'': Aku tries to invoke this with a simple yet remarkably effective plan. He destroys every single time portal in existence so that Jack can't make it back to his own time and then retreats into hiding to wait out the years until Jack dies of old age. The problem? When Aku first flung Jack into the past, he accidentally made Jack TheAgeless without realizing it, so now Jack ''can't'' die of old age. Oops.
* Every episode of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou'' has Mystery Inc. looking for clues in order to deduce who the villain is, then they catch him in a trap and unmask him. However, they don't actually reveal who the villain is until after they're unmasked. This means that they could avoid doing an episode's worth of detective work and just build the trap at the episode's beginning to catch the villain. In ''WesternAnimation/WhatsNewScoobyDoo'' they try this for the exact stated reason, and it works! The villain is locked in a jail cell to wait for the police. Then the villain attacks ''again,'' and when they check again he's right back in his cell ... [[spoiler:because, of course, the mastermind was actually a set of twins and they only caught one.]] This does not, of course, explain why they never try it again.
* A common criticism of ''WesternAnimation/ShadowRaiders'' revolves around how our heroes try to destroy the Beast Planet... constantly. It never works as the Beast is (supposedly) indestructible. The show would have been over quicker had our heroes just simply done something like going inside the Beast Planet without getting killed and looking for some way to destroy it from the inside, or had simply killed the Beast Generals, thus causing some sort of link to the Beast Planet to be taken away and cause it to stop working.
* ''WesternAnimation/SonicUnderground'': Most of the events could have been avoided had Queen Aleena ignored the Oracle's words and then had Robotnik killed before he could try to remove her from the throne (hence all "the Oracle is the actual villain" [=WMG=] theories).
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'':
** Plankton would be better off creating his own burger instead of constantly trying to steal the Krabby Patty Secret Formula. Or better yet, close the Chum Bucket and take up a different profession.
*** He managed to create an AI from scratch. He could be a respected computer scientist with no extra trouble at all.
** Plankton could also just get someone to secretly buy him a Krabby Patty instead of trying to steal it.
*** Or he could take an unfinished Krabby Patty from the trash in the Krusty Krab dumpster.
** In the episode "The Algae's Always Greener", Plankton creates a machine that puts him in a reality where he owns the Krusty Krab. Rather than use the opportunity to learn the secret formula completely unopposed, he instead chooses to just bask in the glory of owning a successful restaurant.
** Ms. Puff swore to herself when she opened her boating school that [[NonGivingUpSchoolGuy she would never give up on a student, ever]]. As a result, [=SpongeBob=] has remained a constant thorn at her side because he not only DrivesLikeCrazy but he becomes a titanic WalkingDisasterArea every time he sits behind a wheel and it has driven her so far up the wall with the misfortunes he's forced her to endure that she has become physically ill from all the stress and she has actually tried to '''kill him''' repeatedly in order to try to get rid of him. By this point, it's pretty clear that [[HonorBeforeReason she probably would have a better life if she made an exception to her promise, just this once, and kicked him out of her school]].
** Another idea would be to simply have her confess to [=SpongeBob=] that she hates him. If she sincerely tried to ''kill him'', you'd think she'd at least do something to try to hurt his feelings.
** If Squidward hates his job at the Krusty Krab, hates his two neighbors even more, and openly admits to hating everyone in Bikini Bottom, why couldn’t he just move out of Bikini Bottom to go someplace else? He tried this in "[[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS2E6GrandmasKissesSquidville Squidville]]", but [[StatusQuoIsGod ended up getting bored and moving back by the episode's end]].
* ''Series/TheSuperMarioBrosSuperShow'', ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfSuperMarioBros3'', and ''WesternAnimation/SuperMarioWorld''. No one ever thinks to just follow Bowser whenever he invokes VillainExitStageLeft. Likewise, despite the existence of quite a few {{Reality Warp|er}}ing {{MacGuffin}}s, anyone who has one tends to suffer from ComplexityAddiction and/or ForgotAboutHisPowers.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Smurfs|1981}}'':
** Papa Smurf's constant willingness to help Gargamel whenever his life is in danger due to his own bungling tends to be the reason he caused them so much grief over the years. Simply leaving him to his fate after he messed up would have saved them a world of trouble.
** Then there's Brainy Smurf, whose incredible ego turns himself into TheMillstone which often wrecks the village. The worst cases were "King Smurf", where he caused the Smurfs to erupt into a civil war with each other (animated series only) and "The Gingerbread Smurfs", where he created the living cookies without knowing how to get rid of them (and being dumb enough not to simply extinguish the oven and stop them from coming). He's ''always'' forgiven with little more than a scolding and is still Papa Smurf's apprentice.
* Lampshaded in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddNEddy''. After being locked out of Ed's house by [[BrattyHalfPint Sarah]], the Eds begin to scour the entire Cul-de-sac for somewhere they can watch the Monster Movie Marathon. Cue this exchange.
--> '''[[OnlySaneMan Edd]]:''' We could just go to our house, Eddy.\\
'''Eddy:''' What? [[BreakingTheFourthWall And ruin the plot]]?
** And throughout the series, it never occurs to the Edds that they could raise money by washing cars or something instead of creating all sorts of scams running on NoOSHACompliance just to earn money for some jawbreakers.
* A lot of the problems in Griffin Rock on ''WesternAnimation/TransformersRescueBots'' can be traced back to two people: news reporter Huxley Prescott and Mayor H.B. Luskey. The severity of some of their screw-ups is grounds enough to impeach/recall/vote out the latter and hull the both of them up on charges -- yet no one ever does so, despite one of the heroes being the chief of police. [[spoiler:In season 4, the citizens of Griffin Rock learn the truth about the Rescue Bots and Chase decides to run against Luskey and actually wins, only for [[ByTheBookCop Chase's]] [[RulesLawyer personality]] [[TheSpock quirks]] to screw things up, leading Chase to resign and Luskey to resume his role as mayor.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SonicTheHedgehogSatAM'':
** The Freedom Fighters constantly take Antoine along on missions. Compared to powerhouses such as [[{{Cyborg}} Bunnie]] or [[FlyingFirepower Dulcy]], who are only nominally used, Antoine is TheLoad and often screws up missions via his clumsiness. The glaring aspect of this is that it is implied to be Sally, the StraightMan of the group, that insists on bringing Antoine along, compared to Sonic who loathes Antoine and [[JerkassHasAPoint often lampshades his incompetence.]]
** Sonic never takes the opportunity to kill or capture Robotnik after his defeat, despite the ''heroes' whole goal'' being to actually overthrow him. At one point Sonic even handily invades his lair and gives him a CurbstompBattle solely as a distraction, despite it being an ideal opportunity to take him in. Ironically Antoine actually ''did'' try to capture Robotnik once, though he was obviously outmatched.
* Nicely subverted in the ''WesternAnimation/{{Squidbillies}}'' episode "A Sober Sunday." Early Cuyler spends the episode trying to lift the banning of liquor sales on Sunday but is unable to do so. At the end of the episode, Granny asks why he doesn't just buy his Sunday liquor on Saturday. He throws her in a fire and claims that it's too inconvenient.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'', like the movies, has some moments of the characters being doofuses when it comes to solving problems.
** In the second episode of Season 2, "Cargo of Doom", Cad Bane captures Ahsoka, and uses her as leverage to get Anakin to open a holocron he stole in the previous episode. Anakin could've pulled an ISurrenderSuckers moment on Cad Bane and pretend he's going to unlock the holocron, but not do it all, and instead use the Force to grab both his lightsaber and Ahsoka's while Bane is distracted by the holocron being levitated by the Force, kick Bane's butt, and save Ahsoka, AND prevent the holocron information from being unlocked, instead of playing it all real and opening it for him like he does in the actual episode before he attempts the lightsaber thing, which enables Bane to start kidnapping Force-sensitive infants in the next episode.
** In "Voyage of Temptation", when Obi-Wan finally finds Tal Merrick, who kidnapped the Duchess of Mandalore, Satine, he demands that Merrick surrender and release the duchess. Sen. Merrick then shows that he holds a remote detonator, and has set explosives on the ship. One press of a button, and everybody on it is blown to kingdom come. Obi-Wan never thinks of using the Force to pull the detonator out of Merrick's hand, which could've made saving Satine a LOT easier, and just follows Merrick (who still holds the detonator ''and'' is still holding Satine hostage) back to one of the droid deployers, where he plans to get off the Coronet, and does NOTHING about stopping him from blowing up the ship! And even Satine steps on Merrick's corn to get free from him and steals his blaster, when Merrick taunts them about the cons of either Obi-Wan or Satine killing him will tarnish their reputations, Obi-Wan still doesn't think of using the Force to pull the remote out of his hand. It's up to Anakin to resolve the situation, which he ''[[SubvertedTrope does]]'' do in the simplest and most direct manner [[spoiler:by casually [[ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer stabbing Merrick through the back with his lightsaber]] mid-monologue]].
* Ulysses Feral from ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats'' invokes this for the title heroes' ''origin''; despite clearly being told they had a target lock, his stubborn obsession to be [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou the only one allowed to bring Dark Kat down]] not only caused the Enforcers to ''lose'' the villain (which the aforementioned target lock ''would've'' likely prevented), but also forced Jake and Chance into the crash that ended their Enforcer career and began their career as the titular gang. True, there would be no cartoon, but at least they would've been able to bring a dangerous criminal to justice. Even after the incident, Feral insists on fighting against the SWAT Kats and bringing them to "justice", even though it's been shown time and time again [[ShootingSuperman the supervillains they deal with are more than the Enforcers can handle, on their own]], and other, more reasonable members of his force (like his niece Felina) can see the benefit of allying themselves with them.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', almost every time Shredder and Krang fail it is because of Bebop and Rocksteady's bumbling. Simply getting rid of the two or at least locking them up would result in far less humiliation for Shredd-Head and Krang.
** In one episode Krang points out that Shredder firing them is a bad idea, as they don't have a lot of options in the help department for their schemes. Their attempt to solve this problem blows up in their faces.
** This gets taken to the logical conclusion in ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever'', in which [[spoiler:Utrom Shredder, AKA a villain that was besting three separate generations of Turtles as well as fairly powerful allies, has already ''destroyed entire universes,'' and is ''scarily competent...'' is defeated by their screwing up]].
** Building the universe-conquering superweapon with a working power source would have done it. Given some of the stuff they used to get it temporarily working, it probably could have run at full power on a diesel engine.
* ''WesternAnimation/ThomasAndFriends'': Several plots (especially in the later seasons) could have been avoided had the engines done their jobs correctly... or if Sir Topham Hatt just simply imported some new staff from the mainland instead of using [[IncompetenceInc the incompetent people he has piloting his engines]].
* Over the course of ''WesternAnimation/ThunderCats1985'' Mumm-Ra was revealed to have an incredible array of powers and resources at his disposal. If he had used several of these at once instead of one per episode, he could have won. Possibly {{justified|Trope}} by the risk of over-using powers and rendering himself weakened and easily defeated in the next episode. Also, he's ever-living. If he had been willing to just wait the [=ThunderCats=] out, they would have gone extinct in a generation (there's nowhere near enough for a breeding population). Any progress they could have made in freeing the world from his tyranny could easily be undone afterward.
* Speaking of ''[=ThunderCats=]'', every animation where we see heroes wielding swords, guns or every obviously dangerous weapons, shows which also include ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983'', ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'', etc. Every kid who watched those shows has asked at least once in their lives, "Why don't they simply use their weapons to kill the bad guys?" Or vice versa. The real reason for this is, of course, that the Standards and Practices of the time did not allow such direct violence to be shown in cartoons.
* Entire episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TaleSpin'' are often driven by Baloo's incompetence, laziness, or [[RefugeInAudacity audacity]], or Rebecca's hardheadedness, blind ambition, or naivete. One wonders why Rebecca just doesn't let Baloo run the company instead of her.
** What could be solved simply with some logical thinking often [[DisasterDominoes snowballs]] into a very big problem. Sometimes Kit or Molly's recklessness or need for adventure complicates matters, too, though not as often as Baloo and Rebecca's character flaws do.
** Played with in one episode, where Rebecca wins a contest and needs to get her winning entry to a radio station on time to get a large sum, but she's too busy to get it mailed herself. She knows that Baloo is lazy except when something doesn't matter, so she tries to use ReversePsychology, telling him that she'd appreciate it if he could take care of mailing it out for her, but that it wasn't important. Unfortunately for her, Baloo, already experienced with how much trouble arises from her hardheadedness and blind ambition, figures that her ''laissez-faire'' attitude means it really isn't important, so he spends the fare for the letter on himself (after Rebecca said he could keep the change) and sends it via the cheapest possible postage. Cue scramble when both parties realize what they had done.
* ''Franchise/TomAndJerry'': Tom chooses to eliminate Jerry by simply hiring an exterminator to kill him, instead of futilely chasing him. Tom actually ''does'' hire an exterminator (Butch) to help him get rid of Jerry in at least one short. The result is not only Jerry outsmarting both of them, but Tom's constant bumbling of Butch's plans angering the latter so much that he starts trying to exterminate ''Tom'' by the episode's end.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'':
** Good thing the Decepticons never thought of getting rid of [[TheStarscream Starscream]]. He's the only reason the Autobots kept surviving, or even [[http://www.cracked.com/article_16954_5-reasons-megatron-should-have-fired-starscream-years-ago.html woke up in the first place]]. One time he even saved the cornered Autobots just for the sake of ruining Megatron's plans. Right in front of him, complete with a [[{{Pun}} smug one-liner]]. The first episode had a scene where he seemed to have the right idea for once (suggesting blowing up the Ark instead of boarding it; [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot the attempted boarding is what leads to the Ark crashing to begin with]]), but then a DeletedScene was uncovered years later where Megatron [[DoubleSubversion spells out why Starscream's idea was horrible]] (Megatron knew the Autobots were heading to an energy-rich planet but didn't know its exact location, hence why he wanted to follow or commandeer their ship, and why blowing them up would be counterproductive to his long-term goals).
** In the episode referenced in the above example, Megatron ''did'' actually say "No, I want to know what [the Autobots] are after." in response to Starscream's hasty and reckless suggestion.
** There are also times when Starscream points out glaring flaws in Megatron's plans (i.e. the dangerous instability of their latest energy source). Megatron will invariably respond by mocking and insulting him and ignoring his advice, only to be surprised when the plan blows up in his face in exactly the way Starscream predicted. The real solution would be for them to just work together rather than constantly try to one-up each other, then worry about fighting for control after the Autobots are out of the way.
** Thanks to the [[DependingOnTheWriter extremely varied nature of the franchise and its many continuities]], how much this trope applies depends on the series. Sometimes, Megatron does sum up the intellect to kill Starscream; he does so in [[WesternAnimation/TransformersTheMovie the movie]] after one betrayal nearly succeeds, in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersCyberverse'' [[spoiler:he kills Starscream after the ''first'' backstab]], and in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' [[BackFromTheDead he practically makes killing Starscream a habit.]] In other series, Megatron has good reason to keep Starscream around, such as wanting an incompetent backstabber as his second-in-command, rather than risk having a ''competent'' one who might actually depose him, or feeling that [[BunnyEarsLawyer Starscream's skill as an Air Commander makes up for his eccentricities]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'', Benson would really save himself an awful lot of headaches (and risking of life, limb, reputation, and sanity) if he followed through with [[GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity his constant threatening to fire Mordecai and Rigby]] and actually did it. Even when several episodes show that everybody else in the cast is capable of pulling off a faux-pas that causes absurd and ''apocalyptic'' chaos just as well as those two (and thus they need to save the day), from a strictly statistical point of view it would have been much safer. Notably, Benson hires replacements [[Recap/RegularShowS03Ep22Replaced in one episode]], and they are definitely better at doing their jobs, but they quit before even a single day is over because they refused to deal with all of the [[DangerousWorkplace craziness that regularly happens in the park]], forcing Benson to rehire Mordecai and Rigby.
* ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'': With all of his [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat cheating attempts constantly failing]], one wonders why Dick Dastardly just doesn't try racing fairly, or better yet, quit the Wacky Races for good.
* [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyoteAndTheRoadrunner Wile E. Coyote]] seems to have the ability and resources available to send away for any sort of gizmo he desires, and have it arrive immediately to aid him in his quest to catch the Road Runner. It never occurs to him to simply order some food.
** Creator Creator/ChuckJones liked to quote George Santayana's observation, "A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim." Meaning, to Wile E., eating the Road Runner is largely not the point anymore. Indeed, as Cliff Claven pointed out on ''Series/{{Cheers}}'', "What he wants is to eat that ''particular'' Road Runner. Very existential."
** Lampshaded in ''Series/NightCourt'' of all places, with Judge Stone presiding over Wile E. Coyote and telling him that next time he's hungry he should just go to a restaurant or supermarket.
** In the shorts where Wile E. is pitted against WesternAnimation/BugsBunny, it's made clear that he's in it for the intellectual challenge as much as for a meal. One would assume this is probably the case in the Road Runner shorts as well. Not to mention that, due to his being an InsufferableGenius SmugSnake[[note]]He's even got it on business cards[[/note]], being unable to capture a bird would be a blow to his pride, so he refuses to give up.
** Lampshaded in one of the leftover shorts from the failed pilot ''Adventures of the Road Runner''. Wile E. explains that the reason he compulsively chases the Road Runner is that road runners are the most friggin' delicious things on Earth, including a meat chart with all the flavors of a road runner's various cuts laid out.
** A ''ComicBook/LooneyTunes'' comic book does actually establish that Wile E. gets his food via mail order and that catching Road Runner is just his hobby.
** This is hilariously lampshaded in a short in which Wile E. [[TeamRocketWins is successful in his attempts to capture the Road Runner.]] Of course, he's now a comically puny size thanks to RuleOfFunny so the Road Runner is much...'''much''' bigger than him. Wile E. then [[NoFourthWall points out to the audience]] that he's [[SoWhatDoWeDoNow absolutely clueless as to what to do next.]]
** The heights of Wile E.'s obsession is underscored by the large number of his plans that, had they succeeded, would have ''destroyed'' the Road Runner, or at least rendered its carcass inedible.
** Really one of his main problems is that he keeps buying shoddy products from ACME. Which one episode reveals as being ''owned and operated'' by the Road Runner!
** Spoofed in [[http://www.sandraandwoo.com/2009/08/31/0090-the-hunting-methods-of-procyon-lotor/ this strip]] from the webcomic ''WebComic/SandraAndWoo'', with Woo the talking raccoon standing in for Wile E Coyote. Woo, upon failing to catch the Road Runner, does the logical thing.
** ''Film/LooneyTunesBackInAction'' seemed to justify this by revealing that he's some sort of "quality control" product tester/ACME agent.
** There's also a Creator/CartoonNetwork commercial that shows him being asked why he keeps using Acme products when they always backfire or blow up on him, to which he [[TalkingWithSigns says with a sign]], "Good line of credit".
** {{Deconstructed|Trope}} in the ''WebAnimation/SethMacfarlanesCavalcadeOfCartoonComedy'' short "Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die", which shows that were Wile E. Coyote to actually catch the Road Runner, his life would go into a downward spiral because he never considered what he would do ''after'' finally catching him.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Wunschpunsch}}'': With Bubonic and Tyrannia's spells caused by the [=Wunschpunsch=] constantly broken, Maledictus T. Maggot doesn't realize that firing them is easier than repeatedly punishing them each time they fail (then again, GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity might be in effect).
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* Just about any series (''Series/FamilyMatters'', ''Series/ThreesCompany'', etc.) with an "Annoying Next Door Neighbor." If said neighbor's constant presence bothers the family, then why don't they just lock their doors and/or get a restraining order?

* ''Series/ArrestedDevelopment'':
** GOB routinely screws up Michael's plans to save the company, week after week after week, even to the point of undoing what good Michael has achieved. Given how often this occurs, it is surprising that Michael always has a change of heart right after he decides to finally get rid of GOB for good. Indeed, the humor of the series mainly stems from the HardTruthAesop that Michael should stop caring about his family, but he is unable to.
** If only [[OnlySaneMan Michael]] had moved away from his incompetent, irresponsible and immoral family, he wouldn't have to deal with their shenanigans. To his credit, he did try to leave at the beginning of season two. But the SEC was extra suspicious at that point.
** The Creator/{{Fox}} run of the show actually ends with the SEC coming after the Bluths again and Michael finally going, "Y'know what? ''Fuck this.''" One of the first things in the order of business of the Creator/{{Netflix}} season was getting Michael back into his family's life.
** On the other hand, [[JustifiedTrope Michael can be just as bad and self-centered as the rest of the Bluths]] and one of the reasons why he hangs around is because he genuinely gets off on his own feeling of self-importance and needing to be relied on by the rest of the family. Him leaving the family to fend for themselves in order to spend time with his son he previously spent the entire series neglecting is arguably positive character development in the context.
* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'': Season 3 would be much shorter if at any point in time Oliver would just let the League of Assassins deal with the Magician like they wanted to. Considering that the Magician is a villain himself and Oliver ''himself'' wanted to kill him at two points of time for ''the same reasons'' League hunts him ([[spoiler:the Undertaking]] and [[spoiler:his role in Sara's murder]]) it makes very little sense that he would want to risk conflict with the League(which helped him in the past) just to protect him. Yes, he has a reason to protect him ([[spoiler:he's Thea's father]]) but this falls flat when you remember that [[spoiler:Thea ''herself'' rather sensibly disowned him after she learned that he drugged and brainwashed her to kill Sara]], making it look like Oliver has the ConflictBall super-glued to his hand. The show tries to justify it with the Magician's claim that the League will punish [[spoiler:Thea]] since they're the one who actually fired the arrows, but once Ra's al Ghul makes clear he considers the Magician the real killer, Oliver could have just let the problem resolve itself.
* In ''Series/{{Beetleborgs}}'', a new villain waited until the heroes' base rose out of the ground and then having the monster-planes bomb it while the vehicles were still inside. Though the heroes eventually [[MerchandiseDriven got new, cooler, vehicles]], it was a devastating blow. It also made you wonder why absolutely no one's ever thought of that before. Which is really strange, because in the rest of the many-parts episode, this monster didn't use savviness. On the contrary, at this point he destroyed all the other weapons playing by the rules, just to show he could do it.
* In ''Series/TheBeverlyHillbillies'', the Clampetts could have used their millions to buy a large farm ranch, like many oil barons in fiction do, instead of moving into a mansion in California. This would mean that they could enjoy their wealth while still living the rural life they were accustomed to and not have to deal with the many FishOutOfWater situations they had in Beverly Hills.
** In truth the only character who hates living in "Californy" is Granny. Jed is bemused by all the strange things he runs into, but he moved them there in the first place because he believed it was the proper place for rich folk like them to live. There are several cases where they do pack up and move back (and in one case Granny wanted them to move to [[Series/PetticoatJunction Hooterville]]), but always come back because StatusQuoIsGod.
* ''Series/TheBlackDonnellys'': The sheer amount of trouble and misfortune that could be avoided if Tommy stopped bailing out Jimmy and Kevin every time they do something stupid, greedy, arrogant, or hot-headed is staggering. The two are seemingly incapable of following Tommy's advice on a single intelligent matter and cause themselves, Tommy, and everyone else around them no end of grief as a result. Joey Ice Cream lampshades this, noting that Jimmy and Kevin are always dragging Tommy down, and he lets them get away with it due to familial loyalty and guilt over maiming Jimmy.
* Early in ''Series/BreakingBad'', Walter White is offered a job with excellent health insurance by a wealthy friend. [[JustifiedTrope Of course,]] his FatalFlaw is pride, so he rejects this "charity" out of hand, but if he'd simply accepted with good grace, it would have been a very short show. His {{pride}} continues to be a crippling problem for the rest of the series.
** It's implied that a similar incident made him abandon his research and become a low-paid science teacher in the first place. Heisenberg's meth trade may be new, but Walt's anger issues have always been there.
** The same friend also offers to pay for Walt's treatment in full. If Walt's true motivation really was paying for his treatment and not leaving his family in debt, as he claimed it was, he would have been an idiot to say no. It isn't until the finale that he admits that he enjoyed cooking meth for its own sake.
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** Season Four has a particularly annoying example. Xander hands Buffy a flare gun, and she replies "We're fighting vampires, not signaling ships at sea". The characters haven't had a problem with using flaming arrows to great effect on vampires, so why wouldn't a flare gun be just as effective? She uses it later which obscures the vision of her enemies, but seriously, a flare gun would be a great weapon against any vampire. A big incendiary projectile.
** Season Five established a) [[BigBad Glory]] can't leave this dimension without [[MacGuffin The Key]]. b) The key has been incarnated as Dawn, written into the timeline as Buffy's sister, c) Glory is much stronger than Buffy, and will stop at nothing to get The Key, d) Willow has the ability to send living beings to other dimensions (though admittedly her ability to choose a specific dimension is in question), and e) Buffy knows she can't take Glory head-on, so she chooses to take Dawn and run, presumably for the rest of their lives. The idea that Willow could have just sent Dawn (and probably Buffy in order to protect her) to another dimension and thus trap Glory here forever is never brought up. Glory has to do her thing in Sunnydale, on a specific date, after which (as far as we can tell) the Key is useless. So why not ship Dawn off to France for a few months? There's no indication that Glory can track her.
** Season Seven would have had far fewer complications ensue in the second half of the season had the main characters invented some kind of mandatory "touch" system where they would have to make regular physical contact with each other to see if everyone present was corporeal. The First Evil caused so many problems by imitating other characters (but is incorporeal) that it seems odd that no system is invented to regularly verify that everyone there is really who they say they are. In their defense, The First didn't actually trick them this way all that many times. It could only imitate dead people, so besides Buffy and Spike, it could only trick people with a form that had died recently without anyone knowing about it. Most of the time the people it was talking to were well aware it wasn't their dead friend they were talking to, but the First just used the forms to mess with their heads.
** For a villainous example, why there aren't more villains that simply find out where Buffy lives and dealing with her there? This is lampshaded in Season Six when the villain Warren simply gives her address to a monster to deal with her, and later visits her house and shoots her there. Probably the most problematic is in Season Seven when the First Evil's [[TheDragon minion Caleb]] has killed all of the Watcher's Council using a bomb, later kills MORE Slayer Potentials using a different bomb, simply never bombs Buffy's house where she and all of her army are living.
** Slayers rarely ever use fire when hunting vampires, despite it proving one of their greatest weaknesses, even to the oldest and strongest vampires? Particularly noticeable with the introduction of the Turok-Han, the uber-vampires from Season Seven who prove more resistant to stakes and holy water, are not affected by crosses, and do not need invitations to enter homes. Yet at no point does anyone suggest the possibility of testing their [[KillItWithFire resistance to fire?]]
** In Season 9, Andrew had set up a DeusExMachina to deal with Simone: it involved creating another Buffybot, getting the real Buffy stoned, putting Buffy's mind in the bot (and making her think she's pregnant), then setting up the real Buffy with the bot's brain to think it lives a different life in a suburban home Andrew had set up, so when the assassin strikes, bot!Buffy might be ready for it, maybe, possibly. Andrew being Andrew, he was being far too clever for his own good; a much simpler solution would have been to use the bot to lure out Simone.
* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'':
** In the third, fourth, and fifth seasons, more than half of the plots could have been resolved in ten seconds if the characters had chosen not to associate with Jay Hogart. He started off with a bad reputation, yet nobody even gives a second thought above how "cool" they'd look being his friend. What did his victims do when they finally realized he was manipulating them? They glared at him really angrily, and sometimes even spoke harsh words. Some of these kids have beaten each other up because of his tricks, but when they find out the brawl was his fault, they don't even throw a punch at him. However, he does become a semi-helpful member of the cast in the sixth and seventh seasons. He still manages to do the wrong things on several occasions there as well.
** You'd think after Jay [[spoiler:was expelled for being one of the leading causes of the school shooting]] that people would stop hanging around him, but Alex, Amy, Emma, and J.T. still thought he was cool, and just look at what happened to all of them.
* ''Series/DennisTheMenace''. Mr. Wilson's life would be much better if the Mitchells would move away. The worst part is that the man knows this, and his warnings to the other characters are tragically ignored. An episode of the animated series dealt with this. Dennis breaks Mr. Wilson's window and he boards it up, and tells Dennis to just ''pretend'' that he has moved away from now on, in an attempt to get some peace. A pair of movers show up, having gotten lost while on their way to move an entire house, and ask Dennis if he knows anyone who is moving. [[LiteralMinded Dennis points them toward Mr. Wilson's house]], and they take the boarded-up window as a sign that he is right. They lift the entire home onto a truck and take it away, with Mr. Wilson trying desperately to stop them. Eventually his house ends up in a nice coastal area, and he realizes that not only is his new location better, but ''no Dennis''. But the movers figure out their mistake and [[StatusQuoIsGod take the house back over his protests]].
* Just about any show which features TimeTravel as a plot device has the potential to suffer from this trope if the heroes are too stupid to figure out a way to use that device to its full potential.
** A stand-off occurs between the Doctor and the Master in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' parody film ''Recap/DoctorWhoTheCurseOfFatalDeath''. The Doctor wins the fight by arranging for the architects to have built a trap door under where the Master's feet would have been after the race goes extinct.
** The ''Doctor Who'' series proper {{handwave}}s this by saying that the Doctor "can't interfere with established events" -- which is code for "can't use time travel in any fashion that would make the dilemma of the week too easy to solve" or "[[ForWantOfANail having the Doctor solve the dilemma in stories taking place]] in the past would force the writers to have to keep track of a newly established AlternateHistory."
** The in-universe explanation for this is that the Doctor and other "time aware" species like the Daleks are aware of fixed points in history that cannot be changed. This is usually indicated by their significance in subsequent history books. It seems that the more an event is ingrained into legend, the less power the Doctor has to alter it. Like the ''Titanic'' sinking, the volcano which destroyed Pompeii, the mysterious destruction of the first Mars colony, etc. Attempts to push against these boundaries seem fruitless as Fate keeps making them happen anyway, as [[TimeyWimeyBall their consequences are so ramified]] that no substitute event could achieve a paradox-free outcome. It is implied that it ''is'' possible to beat fate, but only by accepting all the ramifications to the stability of time. Even a Dalek is shown sparing someone's life because it realizes she isn't meant to die yet.
** Series 6 shows what happens when a "fixed point" is altered irrevocably; [[spoiler:it breaks history. The entire history of Earth is altered so it all takes place at once, and it's ''always'' the moment when time broke]].
* For ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'', it's generally "[[YouAreGrounded Just Ground Megan]]", "Just Take Away Megan's Prank Supplies", or "Just Counter-Prank Megan". Many of the shenanigans Drake and Josh get into could have been avoided had they told their parents of Megan's misdeeds and gotten her punished. Since she acts as a DeliberatelyCuteChild in front of her parents to remain a KarmaHoudini, this is more difficult than it sounds.
* ''Series/EarthFinalConflict'' has the alien Zo'or as the primary antagonist, meaning their death would end much of the show's conflict and as a result, numerous opportunities that would allow Zo'or's death or assassination by [[LaResistance the resistance]] are prevented by {{Contrived Coincidence}}s and {{Idiot Ball}}s.
* Most of the problems caused in almost every episode of ''Series/ElChavoDelOcho'' could be avoided if the eponymous Chavo didn't screw something up with Don Ramon and Señor Barriga as the most common victims of Chavo’s thoughtlessness. Worst thing is that Chavo is allowed to live free in Vecindad just because of Señor Barriga’s kindness.
* In ''Series/FallingSkies'', Pope has caused a lot of trouble to the 2nd Mass, and has mostly been the TheLoad or TheMillstone to the resistance, and is a leader to a group of killers. You have to wonder why they even put up with him for 5 seasons, rather than just shooting him for insubordination, or at least leaving him for dead, after he hindered their cause so many times.
* ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' gave Rygel a great many opportunities to prove himself a life-endangering nuisance in the first season: at one point, trying to fool a gang of mercenaries into believing that he still holds a position of authority, he "borrows" a critical part of Moya's circuitry to decorate his sceptre- and almost gets the entire crew killed when the mercenaries kidnap him, sceptre and all. And after almost erasing Moya's data banks in an attempt to get home, releasing a virus on the crew, he eventually goes on to sell out his shipmates to Scorpius... only for the crew to begrudgingly accept his return when the attempted betrayal goes sour. Even the second season took a while to actually transform him into a useful character, revealing that they kept him around solely because while a useless, greedy, selfish idiot under normal circumstances, put him in a situation where intrigue and/or bartering are necessary and he suddenly turns into [[Literature/TheBelgariad Prince Kheldar]], which is quite handy when your budget closely resembles a shoestring.
* ''Series/TheFlash2014'':
** Episode "the Flash is born" would've been over in five minutes flat if ''anyone'' thought of exploiting [[VillainOfTheWeek Girder's]] LogicalWeakness. Bad guy in question can turn his skin to metal protecting him from practically anything Flash can throw at him. However, this wouldn't protect him from electricity. Solution: Buy a stun gun or ask local GadgeteerGenius for an electric weapon to deal with him. No one from Team Flash thinks of this.
** Inverted in "Rogue Time". Barry ''does'' have a way to quickly deal with Weather Wizard ([[spoiler:after traveling back in time an episode earlier, he knows exactly where Weather Wizard is and can catch him immediately]]) and he does so, despite being advised otherwise by Dr. Wells. This however ends up ''massively'' backfiring causing problems, among others, with recurring villain Captain Cold. The rest of the episode is pretty much cleaning up the after-effects of eating said Gilligan.
** In "Trajectory" is revealed that Zoom's powers are killing him. No one ever thinks of simply waiting for that to happen. Granted, there's a lot of damage he could do on Earth-2 in that time, so just leaving him be could be catastrophic, but no one seems to even consider the option.
** In "Versus Zoom", Zoom kidnaps Wally and says he'll only release him if Barry gives him his powers. Zoom actually keeps his promise and leaves Wally free and stays still while they inject him with Barry's powers. No one for a moment even entertained the idea of putting absolutely anything else in that syringe. Poison, a narcotic, acid, etc. Any of those would have actually given them an advantage against him, at the very least for a few minutes. More than enough for them to get the upper hand and capture him.
** The vast majority of the threats on the show are from villains who for whatever superpowers they might have still have normal human reflexes and reaction times. Instead of just running in and punching out the villains Barry has the tendency to just stand there quipping at villains which gives them the chance to actually use their powers. This is because otherwise Barry could defeat them and have them in chains before they were even capable of registering that he's there much less able to use their power. This is particularly blatant with villains like Captain Cold and Heatwave, who are just perfectly normal humans with some fancy sci-fi guns and who The Flash should be able to take out before they even pull the trigger.
** Cicada quickly became a [[TheScrappy Scrappy]] among the series [[BigBad Big Bads]] by combining this trope with InformedAbility. According to Nora, no superhero can stop him (or at least the original timeline version, which isn’t indicated to be different in any meaningful way), but his main powers are enhanced physical abilities, an energy shield (that he rarely uses) and a dagger that nullifies (most) nearby meta’s powers and he can control telekinetically. Even setting aside using lethal force to stop him from killing a member of Team Flash or escaping to inevitably kill again, or [[SupermanStaysOutOfGotham getting Supergirl, The Legends or Team Arrow]] to hand him his ass with powers, magic, or tech that he can’t nullify, they almost never attack him with ranged weaponry, and when they do (or otherwise temporarily incapacitate him), they never simply beat him into unconsciousness to have Barry run him into the pipeline or slap him in meta cuffs, allowing him to recover and either attack or pull a VillainExitStageLeft.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** After Daenerys conquers the cities of Slaver’s Bay and frees the slaves, an elderly freedman asks her to let him voluntarily sell himself back to his old master, since he was well treated in the household as a tutor to his master’s children, and his life as a homeless unemployed freedman is materially worse than his life as a slave. He also states that there are many former slaves who feel the same way he does. This is intended to show that a charismatic leader cannot resolve structural societal ills overnight, that there are no easy solutions to complex problems, and that Dany’s idealism and good intentions may need to be compromised to keep society running smoothly. The idea that the man and people like him could simply work for pay with some legal protections, particularly the right to leave their current employers if they choose, is never considered or even mentioned. Even if the idea of a wage is too advanced for a medieval-like society, there's feudalism. Not good by modern standards but much better than slavery. Daenerys actually comes from a Feudal society, and even if she was too young to remember, she seems to be well-informed about the country she pretends to rule.
** Littlefinger in the book is surprisingly good at [[DefiedTrope defying this trope]], as for all his ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, he's quite charming and useful in his own ways. Littlefinger in the show however is a DevilInPlainSight and AdaptationalWimp, but it takes seven seasons and a convoluted gambit before anyone with power over him simply decides to [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim kill him]] for his many betrayals and the obvious threat he poses.
* ''Series/GilligansIsland'':
** The title character is the {{Trope Namer|s}}, whose bungling so often sabotaged the rest of the cast's attempts to get back to civilization, that one has to wonder why they simply didn't [[ImAHumanitarian eat him]] -- ''or'' at least [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident arrange for some sort of "accident" to happen to him]]. Or if they didn't want to be killers, they could've just locked him up until they got off the island (which would likely only take a week), then send someone back for him afterwards. Or they simply could have given Gilligan a less critical role in the plan.
** Evidence from the show itself actually helps Gilligan's case. [[http://captaincomics.ning.com/forum/topics/the-baron-watches-gilligans?id=3370054%3ATopic%3A27071&page=29#comments Statistically speaking]], out of 98 episodes, only 37 involved a direct possibility of escaping the island. Of those 37, only 17 potential rescues were foiled as a result of Gilligan's actions. Admittedly, that's still a lot of rescues for one man to screw up, but the series also has a large number of episodes where Gilligan's actions ''save'' everybody -- from death, enslavement, imprisonment, etc.
** They did throw a lampshade on this in one escape attempt, in which they'd found gold on the island but the weight limit on the escape craft could only hold so much. [[NotMeThisTime Gilligan was the only one]] to actually abide by the limit, with the others attempting to smuggle more along with them than they were allowed, including the Professor.
** Invoked hard in one episode. The castaways hear a radio broadcast where an investigation of the disappearance of the Minnow concludes that their disappearance was due to the negligence of the crew. In order to see if this was the case they recreate the day the shipwreck happened, with everyone involved repeating exactly what they did that day. It's discovered that as soon as the Skipper realized the storm was blowing them off course, he ordered Gilligan to drop anchor. Gilligan, however, hadn't bothered to tie a rope around the anchor, making it worse than useless. Therefore it really is Gilligan's fault that they were shipwrecked.
** The title character of ''Series/DustysTrail'', a ''Gilligan's Island'' rip-off also made by Sherwood Schwartz, was just as bad as the ''Minnow'''s first mate. As the show's own theme song explained, Dusty got his group separated from their wagon train going to California and nothing ever goes right because of him.
* Sort of a meta example for ''Series/GrowingPains'', but after Creator/KirkCameron became a born-again Christian, everyone else in the cast suffered for it (see #2 in [[http://www.cracked.com/article_135_6-beloved-tv-shows-that-traumatized-cast-members-life.html this article]]). The simple solution would've been to [[PutOnABus write off]] (or more cathartically, [[DroppedABridgeOnHim kill off]]) Cameron's character or replace the actor with a less religiously zealous one. But that thought apparently never occurred to anyone when other cast members were kicked off because Cameron thought they were too "sinful". Well, as the Cracked article states: Cameron was the teenage heartthrob whose face was on the cover of ''Tiger Beat''. Kirk Cameron made ABC money.
* In ''Series/{{House}}'', it's never fully explained why, even as a "oh there'd be phantom pain, oh it'd stop me trying to dress like I'm a guy in my twenties" HandWave, he doesn't cut off the leg that causes him almost unending misery to the point of having to admit he's thought about killing himself multiple times cause it hurts so much. House is established to be violently resistant to any semblance of change to his routine, and he's shown dismissing amputation when he's first injured, but that was before he had time to realize how miserable the constant pain and ensuing drug-addiction would make him (and, via [[ImagineSpot Imagine Spots]] and [[StatusQuoIsGod temporary fixes)]] how much happier he'd be without it.
* ''Franchise/KamenRider'' usually avoids this trope by not using the same "BigBad sends a minion to defeat the hero each week" format as Franchise/SuperSentai, but there are exceptions. More recent series (notably ''[[Series/KamenRiderDenO Den-O]]'' and ''[[Series/KamenRiderKiva Kiva]]'') have the villains start using mass-produced [[MonsterOfTheWeek MotWs]] as {{Mooks}}, but by that point, Wataru's gotten his SuperMode and they're no challenge (as seen when Kiva takes out six with a single FinishingMove). Meanwhile, in ''Series/KamenRiderDouble,'' the villains of the week don't actually work for the BigBad, whose plan just requires ''observing'' the thugs he's sold powers to, and he is perfectly happy to have Kamen Riders fighting them and getting them to show their true strength.
** ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'' has one particularly egregious case. Nitou/Kamen Rider Beast is powered by a Chimera who requires mana to survive lest he consume his host; he gets this by consuming defeated Phantoms. One of the Phantoms and major villains of the series, Phoenix, has the ability to be reborn every time he dies. So naturally, Beast devouring Phoenix would have resolved two problems at once: how to keep Chimera from not devour Nitou AND how to ensure Phoenix wouldn't come back.
** ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' has one that affects the whole plot. The BigBad, the Ark, is an AI satellite sitting immobile at the bottom of a lake, unguarded. You'd think it would be easy for our heroes to find where the Ark is and blow it up since they know it's sunken somewhere in Daybreak Town, but this option is never brought up or even considered. And when they do decide to do something about it, instead of doing that they give it a physical body. Because apparently it having a body makes it easier to destroy it? That's... [[NiceJobBreakingItHero not what happens]].
* For some reason, the characters in ''Series/KeepingUpAppearances'' never just ''refuse'' to do whatever Hyacinth says. When Hyacinth ignores a "No", the characters appear resigned to obey her. It gets turned into a running gag when Emmet tries to coach Liz into refusing coffee with Hyacinthe. She's ''just. that.'' SCARY.
* ''Series/LastResort:''
** Sainte Marina's resident gang leader, Serrat, causes so much trouble for the ''Colorado'' sailors (particularly through manipulative actions, such as in the episode "Big Chicken Dinner" [[spoiler:where he successfully gets a sailor [[RapeAsBackstory correctly accused of rape]] found not guilty so the islanders will get angry and riot in protest against the sailors]]) that one has to wonder how he hasn't been summarily executed by now. Then again, the sailors (especially Captain Chaplin) seem to be trying to [[AlwaysLawfulGood keep up a reputation of honor and justice]] - also particularly noticeable in "Big Chicken Dinner."
** That's not even the half of it. He kidnapped three sailors and used them as hostages to get the Colorado to run a blockade. When they are late, he murders one of the sailors and it is implied that he rapes another (she later disclaims this, but the rest of the crew doesn't know that). He participates in the CIA strike team raid, helping them poison ''everyone'', which leads to two more sailors' deaths. He then straps a bomb vest to another sailor, which King barely defuses, then halfheartedly offers up a scapegoat. Then he starts selling drugs to the sailors and tortures the COB when he tries to intervene. It would be justified if the islanders loved him, but they don't, they know he's an exploitative thug. It could also be justified if he was well-protected, but he isn't; King and another SEAL sneak right into his living room without difficulty. He's just wearing PlotArmor.
* One episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'' centers around a teenage girl who comes to New York to get an abortion, because the state she's from requires parental consent and her father had previously thrown out her older sister for an unintended pregnancy. She went to the first clinic in the phone book, but the doctor there turns out to be against abortion and manages to delay her until she's past the legal limit for the procedure; as a result, the girl and her boyfriend end up battering the unborn child to death. But the entire thing would have been avoided if the teens had just ''gone to a different clinic''.
* In ''Series/LostInSpace'', Dr. Smith is a sanctimonious coward who constantly gets the whole ship in trouble through his greed. A great many potential future problems could have been solved simply by leaving him to get killed in the mess he's caused for himself.
** A later comic continuation by Innovation Comics partially addresses that by the Robinsons and West finally losing their patience with Smith, throwing him in one of the ship's cryo tubes and keeping him there. At least the movie adaptation gave an explanation as to why he wasn't immediately thrown out the airlock after his first treachery, and they ''did'' eventually leave him to die after his betraying them yet again.
** The third season episode "Time Merchant" establishes that [[spoiler:had Dr. Smith not been aboard the ''Jupiter 2'', it would have been destroyed in space by a collision. Dr. Smith's additional mass changed the ship's trajectory enough to avoid the collision but also threw the Robinsons off course]]. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain It seems that Dr. Smith is incompetent all around.]]
** In the original pilot (and the first few episodes) Dr. Smith was a scarily competent, utterly ruthless spy and saboteur who sneaks aboard the ship, [[spoiler:disables (or kills) a guard with his bare hands, reprograms the robot to sabotage the ship]], and only stays aboard because he miscalculates the amount of time he has to get off (he may have been set up by his controllers so he wouldn't still be around to answer any embarrassing questions). He was changed into the bumbling, cowardly character we all love to hate because the producers (and Johnathan Harris himself) realized that otherwise, ''they couldn't possibly justify the rest of the crew '''not''' getting rid of him somehow''. In fact, Irwin Allen originally planned to kill off the character for exactly that reason but was convinced it would be better to use him as comic relief.
* Alexander Fitzhugh on ''Series/LandOfTheGiants'' is basically an {{Expy}} of Dr. Smith – at least in that it's another Irwin Allen show and he fills the [[TheComplainerIsAlwaysWrong Complainer Is Always Wrong]] niche in the cast. Really though, he isn't nearly so hopelessly awful as Smith and generally proves himself to be a JerkWithAHeartOfGold and CowardlyLion who will come through in the end, ''after'' spending half the episode loudly proclaiming that he'll do no such thing. And his fast-talking skills are consistently actually ''useful'' for the heroes. Which isn't to say that he doesn't make trouble for the others, but he's not a complete [[TheLoad Load]] like Smith.
* ''Series/LegendsOfTomorrow'' perhaps has it worse than [[Series/TheFlash2014 other]] Arrowverse shows, due to being a SpiritualSuccessor to Series/DoctorWho. While there are stated limits as to the team’s ability to change history with the Waverider, such as [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]] being unable to interfere with events they were already a part of and certain events [[YouCantFightFate being fated to happen,]] [[KilledOffForReal character deaths]] tend to have this. Rip Hunter’s entire arc in the first season is wanting to save his family by preventing Vandal Savage’s rise to power, and later moving on. It’s never explained why he can’t just resurrect them by taking the Waverider back to pick them up before Savage killed them (presumably at a point where Past!Rip wasn’t with them). And when Laurel dies in Arrow, Rip explains that he deliberately dropped them off after the events of season 4 of Arrow because if Sarah was with Laurel at the time, she, Laurel, and their father would all be fated to die (and presumably taking Laurel with them wasn’t an option). But because there was a significant interval between Laurel being mortally wounded and dying, and the Waverider is established to have advanced medical technology, why not pick Laurel up and heal her right after she’s been stabbed and Darkh has left? Strangely, this is exactly what [[BigBad Prometheus]] and [[EvilTwin Black Siren]] trick Team Arrow into thinking happened at the beginning of Arrow’s 5th season.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' thrived on this, which is not surprising considering the connections to ''Gilligan's Island''.
** All the survivors of 815 had to do was to ''hold a big meeting and compare notes about this VERY odd island'' to keep their cool and work more as a cohesive group. This is what the survivors tried to do initially. Except there were people trying to act in the best interests of the group, such as Sayid and co. keeping the French transmission a secret. And then people acting in their own interests, like Kate trying to keep her past a secret or Sawyer making everyone hate him because he's a JerkassWoobie. And then there's Locke, who... is Locke. Arguably, part of the show's point is that when left to their own devices, people are prone to conflict and self-destruction.
--->''They come. They fight. They destroy. They corrupt. It always ends the same.''
** Part of the show's point is also that people only come to work together when all [[FireForgedFriends threatened by the same thing]] (Smokey, Others, No-Food/Water/Meds, wtf) but when they ain't, it's ''every man for himself''.
** Ben has random people kidnapped and murdered at his own whim, manipulates the protagonists continually, and is a flat-out bastard with only a ''few'' sympathetic traits (which he is quick to exploit for his own means) is constantly put into scenarios where the protagonists can kill him... and they don't. Every time this happens, it bites them in the ass later.
** By season six they do stop going along with any plan of Ben's. Anyone who was ever thinking 'Stop listening to Ben!' had to laugh when Sun knocked him unconscious and stole the boat he had led her to, and the last season continued in that vein, with all other characters completely ignoring anything Ben said or wanted to do.
* ''Series/McHalesNavy:'' [=McHale=] and his men would find themselves at risk of being court-martialed a ''lot'' less often if they'd transfer the greedy and conniving Torpedoman's Mate Lester Gruber to a different boat.
* ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'':
** You could make a case for it, but the title character's steadfast refusal to tell ''anyone'' about the fact that he has magic has caused more problems than it has solved. In particular, his treatment of Morgana led at least partially to her FaceHeelTurn. Particularly as she likewise discovers she has magic in the second series. Her neck is on the line just as much as his, as it doesn't seem like that Uther would have been merciful.
** As of Series 5, this has turned into "just kill Morgana". Sure, he can't track her down, but he has so many opportunities to just snap her neck with magic, and yet he doesn't. Why? Just... why? She's way beyond redemption by now and is probably too insane to even be bargained with. And yet in "Another's Sorrow", he doesn't even kill her when she's strangling him, even though his life is in danger and it would be painfully easy for him to explode her head. You could say that he still feels sorry for her, but he doesn't seem to have any problem with attempting to kill Mordred, who is an InUniverse DesignatedVillain. Killing Morgana might actually be explained in the finale as it's established there (and no earlier) that Morgana is really hard to kill.
** Merlin is screwed either way. No matter if he decides to ignore fate and help Morgana or Mordred or if he tries to avoid it and by killing either one of them, the result is always the worst possible outcome. The real useless character is the dragon because Merlin fares way better whenever he makes his decisions without being influenced by him or any other kind of prophecy. As soon as he knows what will come, he is doomed.
* ''Series/TheMiddle'' has two such problems:
** It's hardly suggested that Frankie would be a little less stressed out if Mike would offer to take up some of her duties or if she would call him out for just staying out of the way. Then again, it also depends on the issue as BothSidesHaveAPoint about Frankie worrying about things she shouldn't and expecting quick fixes, and there are times Mike has helped out.
** It's also never suggested that the problems with the resident bad family, the Glossners, would be solved if someone would just call the police or social services and report them. The closest is Rita herself threatening to do so to Frankie after the latter notices a bunch of stolen stuff in the family's garage.
* ''Series/MissionImpossible'' actually has this inverted. Whenever there seems to be an easier, alternate way to accomplish the goal for the episode, one of the characters will bring it up in the pre-mission briefing and then an explanation as to why that can't work is given. (In "Trial By Fury," where the mission is to re-establish a convict's good name in prison so he can continue to serve as liaison for another prisoner who's the face of his country's democracy movement, Barney asks why they can't just free them both; Phelps replies that they both know they're of far more value where they are.) In fact, the standing reason why the Impossible Mission Force can't just assassinate targets (which is obviously much easier than the convoluted schemes on the show) is because of a "policy decision" on behalf of the higher-ups in the United States.
* On ''Series/OneTreeHill'', plenty of the show's characters, especially Lucas, Nathan, and Keith, spend much of their time trying to show up or prove themselves to main villain Dan Scott. As obnoxious as he is and as small of a town as Tree Hill is, a logical yet overlooked solution is to just cut him off/ignore him; although understandably Lucas wants him to acknowledge him financially and paternally, seeing what a ManipulativeBastard he is and how little he changed over the first four seasons, they would have saved themselves ''a lot'' of headaches by choosing to no longer associate with him and his toxicity.
* ''Franchise/PowerRangers'':
** Many a fan has wondered why the BigBad never just sends all the monsters at once instead of doing it one at a time, or simply launching an attack themselves if they were so powerful. Immediately, that is, not at the final episode where the heroes get an inexplicable power boost either. Similarly, more than a few seasons had the Rangers know exactly where the villain's base was located, but it never occurred to them to take three or four HumongousMecha to the location and stomp on stuff until a final battle was forced.
** The few times the villains do actually send multiple enemies for the Rangers to fight at once (for example, during the "[[Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers Green With Evil]]" story arc which introduced the Green Ranger) the result is usually a decisive victory for the villains. Makes you wonder why they never took the hint and just did that all the time.
** The monster sending was justified in ''Series/PowerRangersTimeForce'' as Ransik isn't strong enough to control all the Mutants if he released them all at once, as pointed out by [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]]. This reason was also used in ''Series/MaskedRider''.
** Explained in ''Shin Kenjushi'' (''New/Heart Gunman'') (Née ''Jushi Sentai'' [''Musketeer Squadron'']) ''WebVideo/FranceFive'', an AffectionateParody of Franchise/SuperSentai and French culture. The Eiffel Tower projects a forcefield around planet Earth, meaning that the BigBad can only send small squadrons of troops to Earth at a time, including a monster, some [[{{Mooks}} Panous-panous]], and his two lieutenants.
** As per Tony Oliver at Power Morphicon 2007, quoting Haim Saban: "Because if they call 911, then I don't have a TV show." (Presumably Haim was saying that if somebody were to call the police whilst the MonsterOfTheWeek was still small or such, the Power Rangers would have an easy victory).
** Also makes sense in ''Series/PowerRangersRPM''. The city of Corinth is surrounded by a forcefield, meaning that each monster has to have some way to get around that and into the city. Also, finding out where the enemy's base is is a major plot point.
** Lothor, the lead villain in the delightfully self-aware ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaStorm'', actually attempts to [[MakeMyMonsterGrow supersize]] all of his monsters at once, only for the computer to respond with a memory error and his underling pointing out that he skimped on the memory upgrade that would let him supersize more than one monster at a time.
** Similarly, still in ''Ninja Storm'', "Why don't you just get the Zords from the beginning and stomp the monster?" was discussed (while not done in a way that justifies it for the whole series) when the Rangers were having trouble fighting multiple monsters who managed to break the ConservationOfNinjutsu (oh, and they ''actually were ninjas,'' working for the ninja-based villain faction.) [[Series/PowerRangersOperationOverdrive Dax]] suggests sending the Zords even though "we don't normally do this," but they couldn't be launched due to an earlier monster-inflicted computer virus.
** [[TheDitz Natsuki]] uses this ''exact'' tactic in ''[[Series/GoGoSentaiBoukenger Boukenger]]''. And it's simultaneously [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKWnVjPZoJ0 horrifying and hilarious]].
** Except once in ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'', but the result wasn't good, because this monster was specifically designed to hijack the Zords. And in ''Series/PowerRangersTurbo'', because the monster was sun-powered, and the Rangers decided the only way to defeat him was ''using the Megazord to '''shadow''' him''.
** The Zords couldn't be sent "all at once" because the "laws of Good" prevent Good from "escalating" the violence. The bad guys, especially in ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' most likely have limits such as the magic taking a heavy toll on the user. In fact, Ivan Ooze in ''TheMovie'' needed to hypnotize people to build the technology so that he could use it.
** It's also {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' comic -- one of the team asks why they don't just go straight to their [[CombiningMecha Megazords]] and squish the villain while he's still small. The response is that Zordon has instructed them to only match force for force against their enemies, due to some pseudo-Eastern mystic from space logic about fair play... of course this means that the enemy will cause ''more'' suffering, death, destruction, and damage than if they'd fought ''un''fairly...
** "Why don't villains just blow up the Rangers' houses at night?" has also been dealt with, once again, by ''Ninja Storm''. TheDragon suggests attacking them at the sports shop they work at, but Lothor says that a Ranger's power can only truly be destroyed while the Ranger is morphed. (Mind you, we've seen that prove untrue more than once in the past, but hey, they tried.)
** This is more clearly explained in ''Series/PowerRangersLightspeedRescue'' '''and''' ''Series/PowerRangersSamurai''. In ''Lightspeed Rescue'' the demons locate the base, but since it's underwater they can't destroy it as water is their {{kryptonite|Factor}}. In Samurai, it's explained that a shield protects it from monster attacks.
** Another reason is that provoking massively powerful superbeings with armies untrained for the situation at hand is a bad idea. The good guys are five teenagers who are invariably placed against nigh-impossible odds. Escalating the war would cause the villain to actually get off their duff and start actively trying to destroy shit. Sure a few buildings are destroyed along the way but it's better than the alternative.
** Almost invariably in the early seasons, the MonsterOfTheWeek would be trashing the Power Rangers, and Rita would declare, "If you think you're having it rough now, wait until you see this!" before making the monster [[MakeMyMonsterGrow grow to a preposterous size]]. At this point, the ''Power Rangers'' would use their cool toys and destroy the monster, every single time. If only Rita had left the monster at its original size, she could have won easily. For that matter, why didn't the Power Rangers just use their giant mechas on the "human-sized" monster? Another thing: every villain in ''Power Rangers'' ever has had the ability to teleport at will, anywhere, through walls, and even bring along passengers or cargo. Picture the cataclysmic implications if they were to use this power intelligently. In the Alien Rangers arc of MMPR, Goldar and Rito did ''just that,'' only with a bomb of the usual villains' making.
* ''Series/{{Revenge}}'' revolves around Emily Thorne's quest to take down the Grayson family and exonerate her framed father. This is something she easily could have accomplished in the first season as Emily effortlessly bugs Grayson manor and quickly collects a dossier of incriminating video evidence. But instead of simply turning this over to the police or the public, Emily throws the laptop full of evidence into the ocean claiming that it was a "distraction". She then proceeds to execute an elaborate 3-year-long plan where she seduces Daniel Grayson, marries into his family, and [[spoiler:attempts to frame Victoria for her faked murder]]. Over the course of this plan, she loses [[spoiler:her best friend, her lover's brother, her fiance, and her ability to bear children, all at the hands of the Graysons. Her eventual takedown of the Graysons only takes one episode and involves a fairly simple EngineeredPublicConfession]], raising the question of why she didn't just do this to begin with.
* Played hilariously straight twice in ''Series/RobinHood'' with [[TheSmurfettePrinciple the obligatory female]] Kate, though both times it happened without the writers noticing what they'd done. That this girl is a liability to the team is undeniable; she's constantly getting kidnapped, injured, and sabotaging outlaw plans thanks to her [[strike:reckless]] stupid behaviour. Therefore, it's rather amusing in the episode "Too Hot to Handle" that Kate is kidnapped (again) while the outlaws are en route to the River Trent. Instead of organising a rescue, they just continue on their way without any attempt made to go after her. Later in "Something Worth Fighting For" she marches off in a huff after being tricked into believing that Robin is cheating on her. Despite the amount of [[CreatorsPet shilling]] that goes on, nobody seems to care about or even really notice her absence -- though [[SarcasmMode luckily she arrives back]] just in time to completely ruin their successful attempt at a peaceful sit-in protest.
* ''Series/SesameStreet'': During the seasons where Mr. Snuffleupagus was thought by the adults to be Big Bird's [[NotSoImaginaryFriend imaginary friend]], it never occurred to Snuffy to scream or holler at the adults (or touch them or turn them around) to get them to notice him while he strolled right behind, likely because of his shy nature. As for Big Bird himself, he didn't think to have someone watch over Snuffy in case he runs off just as he brings the adults over to see him; it wasn't until Snuffy's reveal episode does Gordon suggest that thing, and Elmo became crucial to helping him succeed.
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. Neelix originally was a competent character. He owned and operated a single ship, knew the territory, was just ruthless enough to survive, and made his living as a grifter, a pirate, and a salvager. A few episodes later and suddenly he's a [[TheLoad useless, obnoxious, egocentric buffoon]] with the intellect and emotional capacity of a toddler. At his worst, he's [[TheMillstone gotten several crew members killed and endangered the entire ship]] on multiple occasions. In one VerySpecialEpisode, he went beyond reckless endangerment and committed ''bona fide'', premeditated treason. Not only does he never earn anything worse than a stern reprimand for the multiple fatalities he causes, he actually gets ''put in charge of people''. Despite not being an officer or even a member of Starfleet, nor having any noteworthy abilities beyond the sheer gall to appoint himself "morale officer". To top it off ''while he is in charge'' his leadership is directly the cause of one death while marooned on an alien planet. All because he has no concept of the buddy system. Even his [[LethalChef cooking causes problems]].
* ''Series/StrangerThings'': Why can't the residents of Hawkins, Indiana take a hint and move as far away from it as possible to avoid all the paranormal and supernatural happenings and to also avoid making any further contact with the Upside Down? That way, the kids wouldn't have to investigate these happenings and wind up in therapy for the rest of their lives. [[spoiler:Amusingly enough, at the end of season three, the Byers family and Eleven actually ''do'' [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere move out of Hawkins]]. Then season four starts and for a variety of reasons, [[InescapableHorror it does not help]].]]
* In ''Series/{{Survivor}}'', several seasons had people shouting, "Just vote out ''x''!" at their [=TV=]s. Especially in recent seasons, wherein players seemed to have become afraid to rock the boat and try taking control of their alliances and vote out the designated "leader".
** ''All-Stars'': By the time Chaboga Mogo realizes that Rob and Amber have no intention of bringing them to the final Tribal Council, they're down to four people and Rob is still carrying the Immunity Necklace. This comes after Rob has repeatedly told the other members of the group that he won't break his alliance[=/=]relationship with Amber for any reason. This later leads to a series of [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech "Reason You Suck" speeches]] at the final Tribal Council ... which rings hollow once the contestants realized that Rob proposed to her and that the engaged couple would win either way.
** ''Redemption Island'' would have had a ''very'' different outcome if the [[TooDumbToLive Ometepes]] realized Rob was too dangerous to be allowed to run the game. Especially jarring considering the very first tribal council, Kristina reveals she has the idol meaning that Rob doesn't, and has a ''very'' big sign reading, "Vote me out" on his face. Unsurprisingly, he wound up winning.
** ''South Pacific''. Did it simply never occur to the Savaiis that they probably should have voted out Cochran? Especially after all they did to him?
** ''One World''. Viewers very quickly began to expect that everyone would just let Colton walk all over everybody. He did- until he was medevacked.
* In ''Series/TattooedTeenageAlienFightersFromBeverlyHills'', the bumbling sidekick of the BigBad gets a chance to be in charge while the villain is away, and implements an ingenious tactic of sending down a monster, recalling it when it was close to death, and sending a new one, repeated until the heroes were worn down and defeated. On the verge of success, the BigBad returns from his trip and proves that he had a firm grip on the VillainBall by demanding that things be returned to the proven-to-fail "one monster each week" strategy.
* From the start of ''Series/UglyBetty'', Wilhelmina is openly plotting to take over ''Mode'' and run it herself. She plots, schemes, is behind at least one hostile takeover attempt, fakes a pregnancy, tries to marry Bradford, and actively sabotages others, willing to hurt the magazine as long as she gets to be in charge. Thus, the question is why the hell the Meades haven't shown her the door years ago. The series openly addresses it by pointing out that Wilhelmina is ''very'' good at her job and contacts in the fashion world ''Mode'' needs. Also, if they were to fire her, any rival magazine will snatch Wilhemina up in an instant. Thus, the Meades figure it's better [[KeepingTheEnemyClose having Wilhelmina use her talents for them.]]
[[/folder]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Anime/YuGiOh'':
** The anime features several occasions where a bad guy could achieve his goal without an [[DuelsDecideEverything obligatory Duel]], but nevertheless does one for some unknown reason. Repeatedly lampshaded in ''WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries'', including Yami Yugi StatingTheSimpleSolution more than once. This is lampshaded hardest in the first season when Yami and Yugi find out that the reason BigBad Pegasus threw the whole tournament in the first place was because he wanted the Millennium Puzzle that Yugi has. Yami Yugi then openly wonders why Pegasus didn't just ''ask for it''.
--->'''Yami Yugi:''' I mean, do you have any ''idea'' how much time and money you've wasted with this whole facade? People have ''died'' because you wanted a necklace! ''I killed a gay clown'', for Ra's sake!
** And again in the second season...
--->'''Rare Hunter:''' We are here to take your rarest card.\\
'''Joey:''' You mean you're gonna kick the crap out of me and steal it?\\
'''Rare Hunter:''' No. First we will challenge you to a children's card game. ''Then'' we will kick the crap out of you and steal it.\\
'''Joey:''' ... wouldn't it be much easier just to skip the first step?\\
'''Rare Hunter:''' Yes. Yes, it would. (''proceeds with card game'')
** And in one of Marik's Evil Council meetings:
--->'''Marik:''' We are going to challenge him to a card game! But this will be no ordinary card game. This one will take place... On a boat!\\
'''Bakura:''' Why a boat?\\
'''Marik:''' Because, uhm, when he loses the card game, we'll, uh, throw him over the edge. Into the sea. His hair will be soaked, it'll take him hours to dry it!\\
'''Bakura:''' Why do we even need to play a card game? Why can't we just push him off the boat?\\
(''long pause'')\\
'''Marik:''' '''No!''' The card game is integral to the plot! The EVIL plot! Of which I am the evil mastermind!
** And from the same Council Meeting:
--->'''Marik:''' For the last time, we're not killing him! Even if we did, [[Creator/FourKidsEntertainment those f*cktards]] would just [[{{Bowdlerise}} censor it]]!
** Sometimes it follows a reasonable logic where Yugi's puzzle will only give up its true powers if someone wins it in a competition which is why we get situations like when Bandit Keith will actually steal the puzzle and THEN stop to duel Yugi anyway. The original manga's version of the Dungeon Dice Monsters arc seems to confirm that you can't just take the puzzle and then expect to be able to use it; Ryuji's father tries to reassemble the puzzle after breaking it, and the puzzle itself starts showing him illusions that cause him to FreakOut and set the building on fire. Of course, this doesn't apply to all the non-Yugi duels that go through the card game for no reason, such as the above Joey quote which really is as nonsensical in the anime as it sounds abridged.
** In the ''Manga/YuGiOhGX'' manga, Misawa admits that he could have just asked Judai for Asuka's phone number instead of dueling with him, but that his pride would not allow him to do so, and that he wanted to duel Judai.
** But it's in the ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' series where they really went too far with it. The police have this device that forces a duel between themselves and the vehicle they're pursuing, which can disable the other vehicle... [[WebVideo/YuGiOhTheAbridgedSeries but only if they defeat the other driver in a children's card game]]. Bonus points because if they lose that children's card game THEIR vehicle gets disabled. You really have to wonder how someone got away with a pitch for standard-issue police gear that has a built-in function to let criminals get away.
** Even more painful is that duels of the ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' series, duels have [[HardLight Solid Vision]] to make the cards real, and it becomes portable in season 2. However, it's only used once by the main characters in a non-duel situation, to break out of prison, and even that ended with them dueling again. This power could have easily united them when they were separated, or busted their friends when they become slaves later on. Likewise, Security also has access to Solid Vision, but has only been shown using it to stop duelists from simply running away from duels. [[spoiler:Averted with Jean-Michel Roget, though: he has Security hold the city council hostage with Solid Vision monsters.]]
* ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'':
** When Ash competes in a Pokémon League tournament his team usually only consists of the Pokémon he caught in that particular region. He would have a far higher chance of winning if he had Professor Oak switch in a team made up of the strongest Pokémon that he's acquired from the various regions he's visited. In the Sinnoh league, however, he actually uses Pokemon from the previous regions he visited. He reaches semifinals, the furthest he ever got to (until the Kalos league) although he's defeated in the semifinals by a trainer with multiple OlympusMons. [[spoiler:He finally wins a League in Alola, and goes on to become World Champion in the following seasons.]]
** Team Rocket is best known for trying to steal Pikachu, but they just as often try to steal Pokémon from other people or places. If they simply waited for Ash and his friends to leave whoever they wanted to rob they could do so unhindered. Furthermore, Pokémon they want to steal are often wild or unowned, meaning that instead of using complicated traps and plans to steal them they could simply capture them in Poké Balls and Ash and his friends wouldn't be able to do anything about it. The show even enjoys poking fun of this. Most of Jessie and James' legitimate captures are hilariously effortless. It is also noted that after the events of Sea Temple in Unova, Giovanni himself wanted Pikachu specifically after witnessing its power firsthand and set him as the Jessie and James' primary target, explaining why they couldn't just snatch one from the wild.
* In ''Anime/{{Patlabor}},'' [=SV2=] Division 2 is often derided for the massive collateral damage they cause while fighting crime...and 90% it is caused by Ohta. Now, his gung-ho, gun-loving attitude is supposed to be {{played for laughs}}, and he is a JerkWithAHeartOfGold, really, but just the same, getting rid of him would've saved [=SV2=] of manu troubles. Note that in the manga version, Ohta is shown to be less incompetent than his anime counterparts. Also note that one of the later TV shows, points out that Ohta ''is'' very skilled, "He's never hit a cockpit," Gotoh remarks. Besides, the only other suitable pilots were on command track/or slated to go back to the US in a year. This is reinforced in the second movie, where he cooly demonstrates that he's capable of aiming from the hip with their HumongousMecha and nailing a moving target. The recruits he was drilling at the time couldn't fathom the purpose of the exercise but were impressed nonetheless.
* In ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'', Homura's conflicts with Mami and Sayaka could theoretically be avoided if Homura stopped being so antisocial and cryptic, and just flat-out ''told'' everyone [[spoiler:that magical girls turn into the witches they fight, and that Kyubey is deliberately misleading girls into making contracts in order to take advantage of the energy that is released during the girls' aforementioned witch transformations]]. However, it's eventually subverted. [[spoiler:In several previous timelines, Homura ''did'' explain everything to the rest of the cast, and they either didn't believe her until it was too late or they snapped and tried to either commit suicide or murder the other magical girls to stop them from eventually becoming witches. After seeing this happen so many times, Homura eventually just gave up on trying to explain things.]]
* In ''Manga/InuYasha'', the heroine has the ability to travel back and forth in time to Ancient Japan. Presumably, she and her friends who remain in the past after the defeat of Naraku could arrange to preserve the information on how it was done in such a way that Kagome could easily discover it in the present, take the information back to the ''past'' where the as-yet-undefeated Naraku is still wreaking havoc and use it to defeat him. Of course, trying to explain the logistics of [[TimeyWimeyBall such a paradox-based plan]] would most likely make all of the characters heads' explode, which would ''itself'' end the series ''right there.'' But of course, that depends on the exact logistics of the time travel, and, judging from the amount of present-day school she misses, the amount of time she can go back and forth is fixed.
* ''Manga/BlueSeed'' has this as its central concept. If they had just killed Momiji (normally, that is), the monsters would all be gone and peace would be restored. However, the basis of the series is to find a way to get rid of the monsters without killing her. It's directly discussed at one point in the series that earlier Kushinadas had been sacrificed during the Rite of Matsuri throughout history and the effects of their sacrifices in order to put down the Aragami were only temporary. The characters in the series recognize this and actively try to find a long-term solution.
* ''Anime/CodeGeass'' would have ended much sooner in Lelouch's favor had he abandoned his favoritism and made a much earlier attempt to kill his best friend turned rival Suzaku, or geassed Villetta into forgetting everything that happened during their first encounter. Even sooner if he'd simply made some [[spoiler:"Follow all of my orders"]] commands, which he finally begins throwing around near the end of the second season. There are some (admittedly fairly flimsy) reasons for not doing these things: Lelouch's personal brand of selfishness makes him willing to do anything for the people he cares about at the expense of everyone else (he started his entire war for the sake of his little sister), so it is a recognizable character flaw for him to hold back on Suzaku. He also dislikes taking away people's freedom (it's one of the reasons he hates [[TheEmpire Brittannia]]), so he only geasses innocent people temporarily, and his finally being willing to go that extra mile is a sign of his general breakdown. Yes, there is a lot of ambiguity and hypocrisy in his personal code of ethics ([[HypocrisyNod which he's well aware of]]), but he does actually have a reason for not solving his problems this way. His failure to deal with Viletta properly (either by geass or by execution) is certainly a stupid oversight, but could be excused by the stress of his first battle and newly-found powers causing a stupid moment. Partially justified (at least for Viletta) in that Lelouch did not know the limits of his Geass when he used it on her. He only learned his one-use limit during a subsequent episode in which he attempted to geass Kallen twice in a row.
* {{Inverted|Trope}} in ''Manga/SoulHunter''. Taikobo decides the best course of action in one of the first chapters is to take the fight directly to Dakki. Just find a way into the palace, catch her when her guard is down, and get the happy ending. The problem is that Dakki is savvy and also a {{manipulative bitch}}. She knows Taikobo's every move before he makes it and nearly kills him in a pit of snakes. Lampshaded early in a wonderful fourth-wall breaking moment when Taikoubou asks his master Genshi Tenson why doesn't ''he'' go and fight Dakki.
-->'''Taikoubou''': "If you take care of things, everything will go just fine!"\\
'''Genshi Tenson''': "Ugh, if I did as you say, this manga would end too soon!"
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'':
** Not one single character who has gained a curse at the Jusenkyō springs has thought to take a dip in whatever spring would cure them before they leave, despite there being a helpful guide there who happens to know what curse each spring carries. Several episode plots revolve around trying to get back to Jusenkyō, even, and no one explains why they left to begin with.
** There is also a storyline which involves a bar of soap that apparently cures the curse. However at the end of the story we discover that the fix is only temporary. However, it didn't seem to occur to the characters that they could have continued immunity to the curse if they used it every day like, say, one does with a bar of soap.
** Or for the matter when they need to go to China to find the spring to cure their curse why not just take a boat or plane to get there. Ranma could have just swum to China like they did before.
* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'' has an odd example where the possible solution is ''actively prevented'' by the cast. Haruhi is, unbeknownst to herself, a RealityWarper, and they don't want her to find out because she might bring about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. But she's come close to discovering her powers numerous times, and she's reset the universe once or twice accidentally, so they're only delaying the inevitable. If they just told her directly, at least it wouldn't happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Maybe she could learn to control or suppress her powers consciously. [[ZigZaggingTrope Kyon tries to tell her, but she doesn't believe him, but he later invents what he thinks is a surefire way to convince her.]] Several novels later, he still hasn't tried it. Also, nobody ever thinks of trying to either [[DePower attempt to remove her reality-warping powers]] or [[MercyKill simply killing her before she discovers she has the aforementioned reality-warping powers]] (then again, the latter option would be ''very'' drastic). Although given the nature and extent of her powers, neither would likely work, so her friends might as well make contact with one of a magical being she thinks is real like a fairy and wish Haruhi out of existence.
* ''Manga/SailorMoon'':
** The fourth season, ''[=SuperS=]'', has a new group of mysterious enemies show up to assault the people of Tokyo. All their monsters are circus-themed, and at the same time, a gigantic, sinister-looking circus tent just shows up in the middle of town without explanation. It's bigger than any building in the city and sticks out like a sore thumb. The Sailor Senshi are among the first to notice it. And then they just go about their lives, refusing to put two and two together and often wondering aloud where all these new enemies could possibly be coming from. Averted in the manga where the Senshi are on to the Dead Moon Circus from almost the beginning of the arc.
** In the second season, ''R'', because of the recent attacks by the Makai Tree Aliens, Luna ends up having to restore the memories of Usagi and the other Inner Guardians to combat this new threat. When it comes to trying to restore the memories of Mamoru (aka Tuxedo Mask), however, Luna never thinks of doing the same thing to him. Even if it wasn't possible due to Mamoru originally being from the Earth Kingdom instead of the Moon Kingdom in Usagi's previous life as Princess Serenity, it could've been worth a try at least.
* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' has a DoubleSubversion early on during the Saiyan Saga. When the group gathers the Dragon Balls to [[BackFromTheDead resurrect Goku,]] Oolong suggests that they could just wish to kill the evil Saiyans who are on their way to Earth, explaining that if it works they can bring Goku back at their leisure. However, Shenlong explains that wishes can't exceed the power of his creator Kami, and since both of the Saiyans are far stronger than him, such a wish wouldn't work. This also serves to explain why they don't try this tactic again in later story arcs. This becomes a VoodooShark, as observed by ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'': While Shenlong can't ''directly'' kill the Saiyans, nobody comes up with the idea of killing them ''in''directly, by making a wish like "[[VehicularSabotage Scramble their navigation systems]] [[KillItWithFire so they fly into a star]]", or, more simply, "[[SomebodySetUpUsTheBomb Make their spaceships explode before they get to Earth]]".
** Bulma generally serves as something of an AudienceSurrogate for this purpose - whenever an obvious solution to a problem comes up, she's usually the one to point it out. Examples include asking why they couldn't just use the Dragon Balls to kill Raditz (they couldn't gather the Dragon Balls in time) or locate Dr. Gero's lab (The main characters are fight-hungry idiots). Of course, in the latter case, Future Trunks was afraid that if they hadn't trained, Vegeta wouldn't get with Bulma and he might not exist, although he does eventually find out this wasn't necessary. Besides, if they had found Dr. Gero's lab before, they would have all been killed by Cell anyway.
** In general, a lot of these plans either have backdoor reasons why it would've went really poorly if they went through with them, or the villains past the Saiyans are just extremely resilient or have regenerative abilities. Frieza survived an exploding planet after getting cut in half and blown away by Goku. At that point it's just pragmatic to expend all focus in making sure the problem is dealt with first hand.
* ''Anime/DragonBallGT'':
** In the first arc, when the Black Star Dragon Balls got scattered throughout the galaxy, the Z Fighters thought it was best to build a spaceship and search for them, planet by planet, one at a time. However, the idea of simply using the normal Dragon Balls to wish for all the Black Star ones to appear on Earth never comes up. While this could easily be explained as being outside of Shenron's power (An explanation used in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' when it was faced with a similar problem) it comes off as odd that there isn't even a throwaway line explaining this. Not even Bulma suggests it, despite her normally being the one to suggest using the Dragon Balls to solve their problems.
** Again in episode 7-8 of ''GT''. A monster named Zoonama threatens to destroy a village with earthquakes unless they give him a bride (it later turns out that Zoonama was only bluffing and doesn't actually have the power to cause earthquakes). For some reason the Z Fighters thought it was best to dress Trunks as a woman, get Zoonama to marry him, then cut off Zoonama's earthquake-causing whiskers while he was asleep during their honeymoon. At no point do the Z Fighters consider just beating up Zoonama and tearing off his whiskers, drive him out of the village, or at the very least, attempting a sneak attack.
* ''Manga/TheHatingGirl'''s central plot point is that the main female character has [[AnnoyingArrows an arrow through her head]] because of a childhood archery accident, which has caused her a lot of physical and emotional pain over the years. The arrow can't be removed without possibly causing brain damage, but it's not until almost the end of the manga before it occurs to anyone that she could just cut off the parts that are outside her skull.
* In ''Manga/SquidGirl'', the titular character, [[BigBadWannabe Ika]], is press-ganged by [[BadassAdorable Chizuru]] into working at her family's beach restaurant after she damages a wall. The none too bright Ika never seems to realize that she could just swim away back into the ocean and reemerge on another beach far away and Chizuru would never be able to find her.
* The last half of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'' is dominated by the hunt for an unknown serial killer. One of the cast, Joseph, has the ability Hermit Purple, which gives him a decent array of divination abilities (creating pictures of the person, making detailed maps of a location, getting film of a specific place). In fact, the reason he's involved in the series to begin with is that they figured they could use his powers to help track down a different criminal, who ends up not needing to be tracked because he tries to kill Joseph, and gets beaten as soon as he tries. Despite this, nobody so much as suggests to Joseph that he could use his power to at least help locate the killer, as even if there was a chance it couldn't work, at least mentioning that would have resolved any potentially issues.
* ''Manga/AkazukinChacha'' has one example: Seravy hates Dorothy's pink hair and prefers the blonde hair she had when she was younger, and some episodes focus on his obsession with her prior self. Episode 62 (one of the episodes where the trio went back in time) reveals that Younger!Dorothy used a spell to change her hair color because Younger!Seravy wouldn't participate in a magic duel she challenged him to. Wouldn't it have been easier for Younger!Seravy to man up and fight her instead of making Younger!Dorothy make her hair "ugly" in his eyes, or better yet, why couldn't Chacha convince Younger!Seravy to man up and fight her while she was still in the past?
* ''Manga/MagicKnightRayearth'' would have been over quicker had Clef and co. tried to find the Magic Knights somewhere on Cephiro instead of kidnapping three girls from another dimension [[RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude and forcing them to become the Magic Knights to save Princess Emeraude]]. The manga had a HandWave for this, saying ''nobody from Cephiro'' can harm the Pillar, so there really was no way to avoid getting complete strangers to be taken to Cephiro to fulfill the duty as Magic Knights.
* ''Anime/{{Charlotte}}'' focuses on kids who receive superhuman abilities from a comet of the same name that passes Earth every 75 years. Some of these superhuman abilities have been known to cause trouble, and a secret organization is trying to stop these kids from causing any more trouble, while many other groups want to exploit these superhuman kids' abilities. It never occurs to this organization that they could alert the world's governments to the more troublesome superhuman kids' powers and what Charlotte's comet dust is exactly doing, and possibly lead them into launching a missile into space and destroying Charlotte as soon as the 75-year period between its passings is up.
* ''Anime/DeathNote'':
** A lot of the death and destruction of the plot would have been avoided if the heroes had destroyed the titular notebook the moment they got it, even if they didn't believed it to be for real (as for keeping it as evidence... scanners and pictures would have surely done the work), or tossed it in a river, or placed it someplace very deep and dark and established that anybody who got close to it would be considered a suspect. The problem then becomes that most of the people in charge of things are hyper-competent chessmaster-types that kept little slivers here and there as backup and/or were crazy-obsessed enough to keep the damn thing around for the sake of proving themselves right, [[ZigZaggingTrope which shouldn't have stopped others]] like [[BewareTheHonestOnes Matsuda]] from doing that, just in case. This is given a HandWave in that Light was crazy-prepared enough to put a fake rule in the Death Note that destroying it would kill everyone who touched it, specifically to avoid this scenario, but by the time the rule was exposed to be fake, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Light was already in charge of the investigation]].
** The only reason Kira is even able to kill criminals in the first place is because the broadcasts reveal not only their faces but also their real names, even though most news reports in real life not only don't show criminals' names but also blur their faces in order to protect their identities and keep them safe from the public, and many criminals cover their faces specifically to prevent the police from tracking them. Even after Kira's method of killing people is known, the news continues to publicly broadcast criminals' faces and real names, allowing Kira's murders to go uncontrolled. Had governments simply ordered the media not to reveal faces and real names, there would have been a lot fewer casualties and, even better, a better chance of finding the culprit by narrowing down their search if the killings continued in spite of it.
* ''Manga/DungeonToilet'': Yotaro's weird fixation on passing stool gets his party in trouble more often than not, sometimes to ridiculous extremes. It appears the only reason his companions haven't abandoned or killed him yet is that he ''very occasionally'' comes through for them. Of course, if they were to do that, the manga would effectively end -- Yotaro and his butt are the primary sources of the manga's content.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* Creator/BobDenver, a.k.a. Gilligan, [[LampshadeHanging hung a lampshade]] on ''Series/GilligansIsland'' himself in ''Film/BackToTheBeach''.
-->'''Bartender:''' Hey, I knew a guy who could build a nuclear reactor out of coconuts but couldn't fix a two-foot hole in a boat.
* ''Film/{{Brubaker}}'': Brubaker doesn't fire the corrupt and murderous former trustees because he knows the other prisoners will kill them if they lose that protection. This leaves them in a position to continue committing murder and hurting his reforms.
* ''Film/RosemarysBaby''. Call home to Mom, have her buy you a train ticket. Since everyone around is being creepy and lying to you, and the honest ones are dying, just go back to Nebraska or wherever.[[note]]Omaha.[[/note]] And since those special witch foods aren't available back home, that should solve the problem of the inconvenient pregnancy. [[JustifiedTrope Of course,]] Rosemary was chosen for the plot specifically because she was the sort of person who ''wouldn't'' do just that. She's the type of good Catholic girl who won't leave her husband, or have an abortion, no matter what. She's also the sort of person to remain in denial about a situation as long as she possibly can, so that she will continue to convince herself everything is just fine long past the point that another woman would go running for help. In fact, the first time the witches tried this plot, it failed because the woman was GenreSavvy enough to not cooperate, so they had to [[DrivenToSuicide drive her to suicide]] and be more careful with their choice. ''Plus'' the fact that the creeps, husband included, are extremely controlling. It's likely they'd just find a way to prevent her leaving.
* Meanwhile, in ''Film/TheStepfordWives'', the above ''Film/RosemarysBaby'' justification for stupidity is also relevant. Yes, you at least have more reason to stay, as you're tied to your kids, but you're the one who was making so much over wanting a career. You're not even fighting for independence at this point, you've already achieved it; and you've already figured out what's rotten in Denmark, so you're the last woman (actually, she literally is) who should be sticking around for the inevitable.
* In ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'', Giselle is teleported to the real world by coming out from a sewer. It seems that to come back to her original world she just had to go back to said sewer and throw herself in it [[spoiler:as it was shown in the ending by Prince Edward and Nancy]].
* ''Film/HellboyIITheGoldenArmy'': It's not until the last couple of minutes of the film that Hellboy (or anybody, really) thinks of just melting the crown that controls the Golden Army, which is after everything has ended [[spoiler:and the BigBad has died courtesy of his twin sister committing a HeroicSuicide and [[{{Synchronization}} taking him with her]]]]. It's never made clear if it was a viable option (the BigBad was pretty damn determined to kill humans regardless and would probably have looked for a different method), but it's also not made clear that it wasn't.
* ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'':
** In ''Film/SpiderMan2'', a large subplot is the fact that both Peter and Aunt May can't make rent in New York. While Peter might not want to live with May for safety reasons, the characters never even discuss the possibility. Further, Peter's professor Doc Connors complains that he is a great student but has terrible attendance (because he's working the pizza parlor and superheroing), but they never consider working for the university as an option.
** In ''Film/SpiderMan3'', Mary Jane is forced by the New Goblin to ditch Peter Parker, on pain of death. She doesn't even explain to Peter ''why'' she is dumping him, which brings up the obvious question: why doesn't she just tell him what the New Goblin is doing since she knows he's Spider-Man and therefore the best option there is to stop him? It's not like the New Goblin was even keeping tabs on her to make sure she wouldn't tell, by keeping Peter in the dark all she's doing from her perspective is letting a crazy murderous New Goblin hang around completely unchecked based on his word not to hurt anyone.
* In ''Film/{{Stagecoach}}'', Creator/JohnFord was once asked why, during the climactic chase scene, the Indians didn't just shoot the horses to stop the stagecoach? "Because the movie would have ended right there", he replied. Also the horses were probably the most valuable thing (to the Indians) on the stage. They didn't know about the stolen money and probably didn't know how many women were there. So if you kill the horses, all you get is the chance to rape and murder. This is underscored by the fact that when one of the Apaches gets close enough to the stage, the first thing he tries to do is hijack the horses.
* ''Film/UnderSiege2DarkTerritory'': Steven Seagal spends half the movie keeping the specially encoded CD the villain needs to carry out his evil plot out of the evil villain's hands. He should have just broken the darn thing.
* The ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' series. Why doesn't Edward turn Bella into a vampire? It would avert almost all of the conflict after the first movie. At first, it's more justified as Bella asks Edward and he refuses because he doesn't like being a vampire and doesn't want her to be one. But when it becomes clear in later installments that they're going to be together and that everyone agrees that she should become a Vampire with even Edward agreeing to do it, Edward's reluctance needlessly continues to complicate the matter. Furthermore, most of the other Cullens are on board with her becoming a vampire. They abstain from turning Bella themselves out of respect for Edward's wishes but as their lives are continually placed in jeopardy trying to protect her, you'd think eventually one of them would just turn Bella and get it over with.
* From ''Film/BallisticEcksVsSever'': An early action scene relies on the idea that the Defense Intelligence Agency is not allowed to actually shoot Sever in their attempt at apprehending her. (She's the only person who knows where she stashed a kidnap victim, so they need her alive.) As a result they try to shoot around her to pin her down so they can apprehend her. Needless to say, she escapes with ease. If just one person in the DIA had remembered that tasers exist, or tranquilizer darts, or tear gas, then the movie would have been over right there. Granted, that would also make {{The Bad Guy Win|s}}...
* ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'' falls victim to this until almost the very end, when the two not-so-bright heroes finally realize that, duh, they have a time machine, and proceed to arrange it so that, in some future time, they will go back into the ''past'' and cause certain events to happen in the ''present'' which will allow them to escape from jail and make it to the school in time to deliver their fateful history report. The climax of [[Film/BillAndTedsBogusJourney the sequel]] features both Bill and Ted ''and'' BigBad Nomolos [=DeNomolos=] playing this game, each attempting to get the advantage in a MexicanStandoff... until Ted rightly points out that only one side gets to win, then go back in time and stage everything just right, and they had in fact planted all the items he thought he planted to lull him into a false sense of security. Probably not so much of a concern, because the film is too silly to be taken seriously.
* A few moments in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' Saga have moments that could've solved some problems rather easily, but the characters still make some rather idiotic decisions.
** ''Episode I: Film/ThePhantomMenace'' has Qui-Gon and Queen Amidala forced to land the Naboo ship on Tatooine, since the hyperdrive is disabled, and requires a new one. Watto refuses to take Republic Credits as currency and claims that nobody else has a Naboo ship hyperdrive. As shown in Episode IV, the easy way to get off Tatooine is to hire a transport, potentially even a smuggler, rather than an overly convoluted plot to bet everything on a pod race. Especially since all they needed to do was send one person to warn everyone about the Trade Federation and then everyone else could have been picked up at their leisure. It's heavily implied, though, that once Qui-Gon encountered Anakin, he became determined to free the boy from bondage and make him a Jedi. So once he met him (very shortly after landing on Tatooine), it became (in Qui-Gon's mind at least) less about escaping to Coruscant with the Queen and more about helping this Force prodigy who by all indications is TheChosenOne achieve his destiny to bring balance to The Force.
--->''Finding him was the will of The Force. Nothing happens by accident.''
** ''Episode II: Film/AttackOfTheClones'' offers a notorious example. During the Battle of Geonosis, Obi-Wan and Anakin spot Dooku escaping, and Anakin orders the gunship's pilot to shoot him down, but he replies that they are out of rockets. Anakin doesn't even think to order the pilot to use the gunship's laser cannons and laser beam turrets to blast Dooku away. If they did, Dooku would've been killed off, he wouldn't have escaped, the Clone War doesn't have to happen, problem solved. Even if the war still begins, the Confederacy probably would've fallen quickly without Dooku's leadership. [[WordOfSaintPaul Pablo Hidalgo]] of the Lucasfilm Story Group, whose job it basically was to explain away stuff like this, stated that the gunship's lasers were strictly air-to-surface, and flying high enough to target Dooku with them would make them easy targets for the enemy's heavy fire. A mention of this in the film would have been nice, however.
** In Legends, it is perfectly possible to quickly clone Force-sensitives (for every one success, you're likely to have ten failures that are insane or grotesquely-mutated, but [[TheSociopath Palpatine wouldn't care]]). Presumably, the only reason Palpatine didn't have the Kaminoans create a clone of Anakin Skywalker that he could easily raise to be totally loyal to him from the start as soon as he had access to both was his prideful desire to corrupt THE Chosen One that the Jedi put all their faith in. After Darth Vader was crippled on Mustafar, though, he has no such excuse, because we see him willing to pick up any moderately powerful young Force-user as Vader's replacement.
** ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'' asked why, in ''Film/RogueOne'' Galen didn't just give the Death Star plans to Bodhi to give to Saw and the rebels instead of simply a message explaining what the Death Star is and that the plans that reveal the weakness he built into it are on Scarif, a very heavily guarded Imperial planet, effectively forcing his own daughter to go on a suicide mission. WordOfGod is that neither the characters nor the audience saw the whole message, and later parts detailed a plan to meet him and transfer the plans directly, also implying he didn't have access to the full plans himself, but this [[VoodooShark raises more question,]] like why Saw, who presumably saw the whole message, didn't shout anything about such critical info as Jedha was destroyed, or why the rebels needed the entire plans and not just the location of the exhaust port.
** In ''A New Hope'', had the Imperials destroyed the supposedly-empty escape pod with R2-D2, C-3PO, and the Death Star plans, it's very likely all events in the original trilogy would have been averted; Luke would have never gotten involved in the Rebellion, gotten in touch with the Force, and so forth. As the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' spoof asks, "Hold your fire? What, are we paying by the laser now?"
** If Tarkin had called in [[BoringButPractical Star Destroyers]] to surround Yavin IV while he moved the Death Star in to fire on it -to stop the rebels from fleeing during the several minutes it takes the Death Star to get into position and fire, if nothing else- the majority of the rebellion would have been crushed at Yavin, even if Luke had still destroyed the Death Star. ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' asked a similar question of why the remaining Imperial Fleet didn't just keep fighting the rebels at Endor even after the Emperor and Death Star were gone, but the New Canon explains that Palpatine had special contingencies in the event of his death that the Imperials were more concerned with.
** In ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', Stormtrooper Captain Phasma gets caught by Finn, Han and Chewie at Starkiller Base, in an effort to lower the shields around the planet, so that the Resistance X-Wings can fly in, and destroy it. As the movie's ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'' parody pointed out, she could've pulled off an ISurrenderSuckers moment and not lower the shields at all, and instead alert Starkiller Base to the presence of the intruders, thus preventing the dropping of the shields and ensuring the First Order's victory since the X-Wings wouldn't be able to fly into the planet and take it out. The new Expanded Universe and a deleted (and non-canon) scene in ''Film/TheLastJedi'' establish that Phasma is actually a DirtyCoward with [[ItsAllAboutMe no loyalty to anyone,]] but Finn didn't know that when he came up with the plan.
** ''Film/TheLastJedi'' has an entire chunk of the movie revolve around a dangerous plan by the heroes involving getting a code-breaker so Finn and Rose can sneak aboard one of the First Order's ships and disable a Hyperspace Tracker, all because the Resistances current leader, Holdo, is giving them no indication of a plan, leaving them desperate enough to go behind her back in order to try and save the Resistance. It later turns out she did have a plan, and never told anyone for reasons never made fully clear, which became criticized because the entire plot, and her death later, could have been avoided if she simply told the heroes she had a plan, rather than her refusal to just tell people she had a plan. Detractors often point out that if she simply said she had a plan, but wasn't explaining further to avoid it being leaked, than the heroes would have been safe in the end. Due to RuleOfDrama, nor letting the movie's themes be spelt out, this very obvious point is never acknowledged even when Poe flat out begs out to just ''say'' she had a plan.
* ''Film/StarTrekGenerations'': In the Nexus, Guinan notes to Picard that he can travel to any place and any time he chooses. Picard inexplicably chooses to arrive mere ''minutes'' before Soran obliterated the star in the Veridian system to stop him with Kirk's help, rather than any earlier point in the film, such as his first meeting. It was even brought up by WebVideo/TheNostalgiaCritic in his review of the movie.
* If ''Film/ThePurge'' is strictly an American phenomena (it was instituted by the New Founding Fathers of America, and no country not run by these baby-killers would institute it), then why doesn't everyone who can afford to simply take a vacation to another country the week the Purge is set to happen, and thereby not risk getting murdered? The implication is that for those who can't afford adequate protection, it's safer to stay and protect your property than to risk it being stolen or burned down, and pay tons for the plane ticket, but what if you have children or elderly with you who can't fight? Or what if you have no property worth risking your life for that you can't take with you? Or what if you decide not to pay for the plane ticket and simply hop the Canadian or Mexican border for a week, which is trivially easy? At the very least, you'd think the dead-homeless would leave the major cities around the time of the Purge (it's not until the third film that it's mentioned that the borders are closed during the Purge to prevent this, but 1) it's not made clear about whether or not this is a new measure and 2) the question still stands, only thing that changes is the fact you can't leave during the Purge). Fortunately, the film is a metaphor for general poverty, and runs on the MST3KMantra.
* In many 50's monster movies, the protagonists will declare a monster immune to conventional weapons after a few torso-shots from low-caliber revolvers don't faze it, oblivious to the fact that bigger guns and more critical points on the body exist. At the very least, ''Videogame/DeadSpace'' and ''Film/ReturnOfTheLivingDead'' showed that even something that can't technically be killed can still be dismembered or burned until it no longer poses a threat.
** One relatively newer film that resurrects this subtrope to absurd levels is ''Film/HalloweenKills'', in which the entire city of Haddonfield knows that TheDeterminator killer Michael Myers has been on a murder spree for an entire day now, and yet the best plan they come up with to deal with Myers is to just attack him [[MookChivalry one by one]], armed with nothing but melee weapons and an occasional pistol. Even with hours of prep time, not a single person in entire Haddonfield tries to shoot Myers from afar with a long-barreled firearm or to run him over with a car, even when he’s flagrantly standing in the middle of a street. Interestingly, the original ''Film/HalloweenII1981'' [[NotHisSled subverted this]] by showing that after the initial murders and Myers’s escape that took everybody by surprise, the protagonists soon found a way to make [[spoiler:Myers DeaderThanDead]].
* In ''Film/JemAndTheHolograms2015'':
** The main characters gain access to an AI companion called Synergy, which was developed by Jem's father and has the ability to display holograms and information (not to mention that it has a design similar to BB-8 from ''Film/StarWarsTheForceAwakens'', a robot concept that proved to be a massive merchandising success in real-life). At this point, the characters are also struggling to make money in order to prevent the government from foreclosing on the aunt's house, which is in arrears. It doesn't occur to any of the girls that this robot (which has groundbreaking design technology in the film's universe) would net them a meeting with virtually any tech company out there if they chose to license it or sell the concept.
** The main conceit of the second act (that Jem leaves her friends in order to pursue a solo career with Erica Raymond and therefore get the money she needs) falls flat within the world of the film. The contract Erica gives her is vaguely worded and puts Jem in such a position that she would be an indentured slave to the company, performing shows with no expectation of payment and no guarantee of royalties or future earnings. If Jem was as famous as the film played her up as, she would have many ways of making money outside of Erica's influence -- either by selling music through a third-party provider like [=iTunes=], monetizing her videos on Youtube, booking shows herself or selling memorabilia.
** There is no adequate reason given for why Jem gives up her earrings to Erica, nor any reason given why she just doesn't ask for them back from the owner (given that they are a personal item that Erica shouldn't have any reason to want to keep them in the first place, and Jem needs them to fix Synergy). Instead, Jem and the group enact a plan that involves breaking into the record company's offices after-hours so they can steal the earrings back. This only happens so that they can find Rio's father's will that explains that he's the real owner of Starlight Records.
* In ''Film/HappyDeathDay'', the protagonist, Tree, is stuck in a GroundhogDayLoop in which she is killed at the end of every day. The killer in question though, never gives Tree the impression of being anything more than a normal human [[spoiler:and is in fact two people; a dangerous but untrained and under-equipped serial killer and another college girl. Tree doesn't try simply killing or incapacitating either killer until she knows their identity though, even though she could easily use the loop to get good weapons and know exactly when and where they'll strike if she follows roughly the same path each time]].
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'':
** In a hotly debated topic, everybody keeps bringing up the eagles. Why don't the Fellowship just use them to fly to someplace near Mordor, and then get to Mount Doom quicker, and then drop the Ring, and end it once and for all? Interestingly, it's a case of this leading to a short story with a DownerEnding; without Gollum's interference, no one would have had the will to destroy the Ring. Also notice that it's not listed under Literature. The films do not explain the role of the eagles in Tolkien's works, but that role makes using them a touchy matter. For one thing, [[HandWave they say]] they're afraid of archers (which Sauron has in spades), they're not subtle (being giant eagles), no one knows how the Fellowship was going to enter Mordor, and to top it all off, the eagles get their marching orders from [[http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Eagles God via His right-hand angel]]. Just as His angels, such as Gandalf, are to aid but not dominate the Free Peoples, the eagles answer to a higher power. However, nothing's stopping the Fellowship from getting Gandalf to convince God to let them use the Eagles for their mission, ditching Sauron temporarily, and then [[WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded blindfolding the Eagles and flying them straight to Mordor]].
* ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'':
** During the third act, Marty learns that Old!Biff gave the almanac to Young!Biff in 1955 and that Young!Biff earned his first million(s) in 1958 by betting on the ponies after turning 21. That gives Doc and Marty about a three-year span of time to steal the almanac back from Young!Biff, rather than going to November 12th, 1955, the day Old!Biff went to give his younger self the almanac, and risk running into 1955!Doc and Part I!Marty. Alternatively, if they still think it would've been better to get rid of the almanac as soon as possible to minimize any changes to the timeline and because they probably don't know where else Biff is besides that date, they could have just waited until about 3 am on the day of the Under the Sea Dance (after the storm had passed) and stolen it while he was asleep or whatever. All of the urgency of the third act in Part II is incredibly forced.
* In ''[[Film/GeorgeOfTheJungle George of the Jungle 2]]'', the scheme of Ursula's ex Lyle and her mother to hypnotize her into thinking she's married to Lyle falls apart partly because they don't think of hypnotizing George Jr. too or leaving him with George. Additionally, it doesn't cross Junior's mind to tell his mother the truth until near the end.
* ''Film/WarOfTheWorlds'': Had the aliens stayed away from Earth, they wouldn't have gotten sick and died.
* ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'':
** Many reviews love to point out that since [[Characters/MarvelComicsThanos Thanos]]'s goal is to fix what he perceives to be overpopulation and diminishing resources problems, he could've just used the [[RealityWarper Infinity Gauntlet]] to create never-ending resources or alter the universe's fertility rate instead of killing half of the universe. Perhaps the heroes could have even ''aided'' Thanos in assembling the Infinity Stones rather than putting up the ''sheer'' resistance we see in this film. The WordOfGod response is that Thanos is a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist whose true desire is to prove that his original plan (killing half of his race to prevent overpopulation) would have worked (There's a reason he's called the 'Mad Titan', after all). Indeed when he found out that the heroes are not "grateful" for his actions and are trying to reverse it, Thanos drops his good intentions entirely and declares that he will use the stones to erase the ''whole'' universe before remaking it so that they will be grateful for his actions.
** Another notable case of this trope becomes apparent during the scene where Dr. Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man, Mantis, and Drax attempt to pry the Infinity Gauntlet off Thanos's arm, which ultimately fails when an enraged, grief-stricken Quill wrecks their attempt and allows Thanos to snap out of his Mantis-induced trance. Keep in mind that Dr. Strange is a powerful sorcerer who can open portals leading into nearly anywhere in the universe, which are also shown to inflict clean {{Portal Cut}}s; if he had thought of putting Thanos's arm through a portal and closed it while it was halfway through, the team wouldn't have had a hard time preventing the death of half the universe in the first place. Supposedly, this is the only one out of the 14 million outcomes that led to their victory over Thanos but given the fact that said outcome involves Tony & Natasha being dead, other timelines being altered as a result of their TimeTravel or the potential consequences of people suddenly reappearing 5 years later, it's really hard to see it that way when Strange putting more effort into subduing Thanos or Thor finishing him off would have had a far better outcome as far the viewers are concerned.
* ''Film/AvengersEndgame'': When the remaining heroes decide to go back in time to get the Infinity Stones before they were destroyed by Thanos, they go for a very convoluted plan to go to various points in the timeline (namely, the events of ''Film/TheAvengers2012'', ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'', and ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'') to retrieve the stones. However, they never think of going to between when Thanos did the Snap and escaped to The Garden planet and the day he used the Infinity Stones to destroy themselves (two days before their raid on Thanos's place with Captain Marvel) and taking him down there and retrieving all the stones in one fell swoop.
* ''Film/MiracleOnThirtyFourthStreet'' features a guy being put on trial because the adults think he's insane for claiming to be Santa. If he wanted to prove that Santa was real, why didn't he just ask the adults where they think the presents are coming from?
* ''Film/FantasticBeastsAndWhereToFindThem'': If Newt Scamander couldn't get the lock to his suitcase fixed, he could've just grabbed some rope to tie it shut...which he does by the end of the film.
* ''Film/JawsTheRevenge'' features the shark specifically coming after members of the Brody family. The mother decides to leave town, but if the shark was only coming after them, wouldn't it be easier to just ''stay away from the water''?
* ''Film/TheHatefulEight'': It's repeatedly pointed out that John Ruth would get just as much money for bringing in Daisy dead as alive, and it would certainly make his life much easier. But he insists on bringing her in alive, and his only defense is a flippant claim that he wants to give the hangman business. Oswaldo makes a small speech about the nature of justice which seems to resonate with John. [[spoiler:In the end, Warren and Mannix do their best to bring Daisy to justice by hanging her themselves instead of just shooting her]]. Ironically, [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim summarily executing the bounties]] ''was'' the bounty hunters' plan in [[Film/TheGreatSilence the film this takes much of its inspiration from,]] as the Bounty Hunters were the antagonists.
* ''Film/TheAdventuresOfCaptainMarvel'': If there are no repercussions for destroying the Golden Scorpion at the end of the serial, it should have been destroyed long ago so that more people wouldn't die over it.
* ''Film/AliceInWonderland2010'': If the Cheshire Cat can turn invisible, why couldn't he just snap the Red Queen's neck while she isn't looking instead of having Alice scar herself for life by beheading the Jabberwocky and nearly lose her life attempting it?
* Subverted in ''Film/{{Insidious}}'': In an impressive moment of genre savviness, the moment the protagonist family figures out that they are living in a haunted house and that the hauntings are malevolent in nature, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere they get the hell out of Dodge fast]]. Unfortunately for them, the "malevolent haunting" in question [[InescapableHorror just follows them to their new home]].
* Played with example in ''Film/NewJackCity''. When the Italian mafia tries to assassinate Nino Brown during a wedding, officer Scotty Appleton, who is undercover, sees a perfect chance to kill Nino by shooting him in the back of the head during the chaos. But when he is about to pull the trigger, a mobster starts firing in his direction, forcing him to return fire missing his chance. Afterwards, he tells his boss that he is tired of waiting to arrest Nino Brown when he could have just killed him.
* In the setting of {{Film/Inception}}, the danger of dream invasions is well enough known that businessmen hire people to do it to their rivals and undergo mental training to defend against it. But given that you need to be hooked up to a bunch of machines in your sleep, a few real bodyguards who clobber anyone who tries would protect you better than the training would, while also protecting you from mundane kidnapping or assassination. Yet neither of the MegaCorp owners has any physical protection.
[[/folder]]

* The series ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'' is pretty much dedicated to pointing these out. Examples are ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' (blindfold the eagles and fly them straight from Rivendell into Mordor), ''Film/{{Predator}}'' (if the Predator doesn't attack unarmed people because it's not good sport, just ditch all the weapons) ''Franchise/StarWars'' (don't wait until the Death Star has gone all the way around the planet that the rebel base orbits, just blow up the planet - in the original video, or lightspeed around the planet to the appropriate side -in the updated version, and you'll have a clear shot at the base), and ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (TakeAThirdOption by sacrificing Red Skull for the Soul Stone instead of having Natasha[=/=]Black Widow or Clint[=/=]Hawkeye be the sacrifice- though this ignores that the movie specified that the sacrifice had to be someone who you loved, which was why Thanos sacrificed Gamora instead of a random mook, and obviously Natasha and Clint don't remotely love the Red Skull).

Also known as "Idiot Premise", "Why Don't They Just Kill Him?", "You Could Have Avoided This", "Don't RecruitTeenagersWithAttitude", "Just Fix the Hole in the Boat", "[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Just Use the Eagles]]", "[[WesternAnimation/DastardlyAndMuttleyInTheirFlyingMachines Just Shoot the Pigeon]]", "[[WesternAnimation/ShadowRaiders Just Kill The Beast Generals]]", "[[Series/DrakeAndJosh Just Ground Megan]]", "[[Series/StrangerThings Just Move Out of Hawkins]]", "[[Literature/{{Redwall}} Just Fortify the Abbey]]", "[[WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone Just Kill Zordrak]]", "[[WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor Just Decommission Numbuh 13]]", "[[WesternAnimation/RegularShow Just Fire Mordecai and Rigby]]", "[[ComicStrip/DennisTheMenaceUS Just Spank Dennis]]", "[[LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya Just Depower Haruhi]]", "[[WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory Just Vaporize Dee-Dee]]", "[[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Just Murder Happosai]]", "Just Eat the {{MacGuffin}}", "Just Shoot the KarmaHoudini", "Just Kill the IdiotHoudini", or "Just Kill the BigBad".

** Book!Littlefinger is surprisingly good at [[DefiedTrope defying this trope]], as for all his ChronicBackstabbingDisorder, he's quite charming and useful in his own ways. Series!Littlefinger, however, is a DevilInPlainSight and AdaptationalWimp, but it takes seven seasons and a convoluted gambit before anyone with power over him simply decides to [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim kill him]] for his many betrayals and the obvious threat he poses.

* The last half of ''Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable'' is dominated by the hunt for an unknown serial killer. One of the cast, Joseph, has the ability Hermit Purple, which gives him a decent array of divination abilities (creating pictures of the person, making detailed maps of a location, getting film of a specific place). In fact, the reason he's involved in the series to begin with is that they figured they could use his powers to help track down a different criminal, who ends up not needing to be tracked because he tries to kill Joseph, and gets beaten as soon as he tries. Despite this, nobody so much as suggests to Joseph that he could use his power to at least help locate the killer.
** Hermit Purple’s lack of use in tracking down Yoshikage Kira (the serial killer) is because Hermit Purple’s Spirit Photography is very imprecise (for all of Part 3, Spirit Photography only created photo’s of DIO) and any attempts at making a photo of Kira with Hermit Purple would just create a photo of one of the many other Stand Users in Morioh; Joseph was invited to Morioh to track down Akira Otoishi (the other criminal) due to Akira’s Red Hot Chili Pepper traveling through powerlines, something Hermit Purple was also capable of doing.

* The series ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'' is pretty much dedicated to pointing these out. Examples are ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' (blindfold the eagles and fly them straight from Rivendell into Mordor), ''Film/{{Predator}}'' (if the Predator doesn't attack unarmed people because it's not good sport, just ditch all the weapons) ''Franchise/StarWars'' (don't wait until the Death Star has gone all the way around the planet that the rebel base orbits, just blow up the planet - in the original video, or lightspeed around the planet to the appropriate side -in the updated version, and you'll have a clear shot at the base), and ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' (TakeAThirdOption by sacrificing Red Skull for the Soul Stone instead of having Natasha[=/=]Black Widow or Clint[=/=]Hawkeye be the sacrifice).

* Deconstructing this trope is is the ''entire'' premise of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkBetweenWorlds''. [[spoiler:Lorule had faced its share of war and strife over its [[CosmicKeystone Triforce]], just like Hyrule. It grew to such a fever pitch that, in desperation, the Lorulean royal family used their wish to have their Triforce annihilated. The deconstruction? Doing so did stop the wars, but Lorule literally started to crumble in response, reducing it to the miserable state seen during the events of the game. Princess Hilda and Yuga conspired to claim Hyrule's Triforce for their own, but while Hilda sought to restore Lorule, Yuga [[GodhoodSeeker had other plans]]. [[CowardlyLion Ravio]] [[HeelFaceTurn defected]] because the two of them had succumbed to the ill desire that had doomed their world in the first place, and had supported Link through his item loaning business to this end. After returning to Hyrule, Zelda realized just how pitiable Lorule had become without its Triforce, and [[ThrowTheDogABone wished upon theirs alongside Link to have it restored]].]]

* ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'':
** Justified in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', where one of the partners suggests that they might not want to gather the Crystal Stars ([[spoiler:which sealed away the [[SealedEvilInACan Shadow Queen]]]]), in case they got them together only to have the villains steal them to use them to open the door and take over the world, but Frankly says that as the seal on the Thousand-Year Door is weakening over time, they need to use the Crystal Stars in order to [[spoiler:seal the Shadow Queen up for good]], which would also preclude destroying the stars.
** Played straight in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga''; After Mario and Luigi put the Beanstar back together, they get a message from Bowletta (Bowser possessed by Cackletta), where they want Mario and Luigi to hand the Beanstar over to them at Joke's End in exchange for Princess Peach's freedom. After the message is done, Prince Peasly proposes to use a fake replica of the Beanstar to give to the baddies to trick them without giving up the real deal. Mario and Luigi could've left the real Beanstar at Beanbean Castle for safekeeping, where it belongs, and take only the fake one in the event the villains see through the trick. But they bring both the fake Beanstar and the real Beanstar to Joke's End. Unfortunately, Fawful sees through the trick and knocks out Luigi when he shows the fake Beanstar, and steals the real one from him. Mario then ends up having to resort to dressing Luigi in drag as Peach to trick Bowletta into believing Princess Peach herself was an imposter while Luigi himself is kidnapped in her place.

Not to be confused with JustEatHim. When a villain falls prey to this trope, it is often NeverRecycleYourSchemes, WhyDontYouJustShootHim, or CutLexLuthorACheck. See also TheMillstone, when one character is the cause of this situation, FawltyTowersPlot, when the source is a lie, StoryBreakerPower, when a character's special abilities should be able to solve the conflict, and DuelsDecideEverything, when a fictional universe requires someone to win a sport against someone, even when there's no reason why they have to play, in order to do something of substance. If you were expecting this trope to be literal, i.e., if they ''did'' eat Gilligan, that would be an example of there being NoPartyLikeADonnerParty. Contrast with ForWantOfANail, WhoWillBellTheCat See also CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot, when characters acknowledge this mistake after the fact. For the many, many instances (InUniverse and out) where people argue "Just Kill [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]]!!!", please head to JokerImmunity.

* ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}'' by Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt has a severe case of this. Beatrice and Seth could have solved all their problems at once, just by [[CanNotSpitItOut talking to each other and admit that they loved each other]]! [[IdiotPlot But alas...]] At least Seth later admitted that he had been an idiot...

** When Ash competes in a Pokémon League tournament his team usually only consists of the Pokémon he caught in that particular region. He would have a far higher chance of winning if he had Professor Oak switch in a team made up of the strongest Pokémon that he's acquired from the various regions he's visited. In the Sinnoh league, however, he actually uses Pokemon from the previous regions he visited. He reaches semifinals, the furthest he ever got to (until the Kalos league) although he's defeated in the semifinals by a trainer with multiple OlympusMons. [[spoiler:Eventually, he finally wins a League in Alola.]]

* The ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' franchise has been on-and-off about all this. Sure, its kid-friendly status prevents the player trainer from being outright murdered on-screen (Ardos' plan to blow up Citadark Isle is rejected by Greevil, while N stops Ghetsis from freezing them), but ''VideoGame/PokemonXDGaleOfDarkness'' is the only instance in the games where the player trainer is directly attacked with no interruption (in this case, Wakin puts Michael to sleep and jacks the Snag Machine while he's out cold). This begs the question of why TPC doesn't push further into Pokemon-on-trainer violence more often...

* ''WesternAnimation/MyGymPartnersAMonkey'': The basic premise is that Adam Lyon, a human preteen, is accidentally placed in [[StrangerInAStrangeSchool a school for talking animals]] thanks to a clerical error that misspelled his last name. In the [[YouMeanXMas Animas special]], Adam's outright asked why he never tried transferred back after the mistake was made painfully obvious, with Adam side-stepping an actual answer by saying that he's gotten attached to everyone by this point. When a similar question is posed to his parents (who turn out to be deadly allergic to animals) in a later episode, the other characters do receive a logical answer... [[TheUnreveal though the audience doesn't get to hear it]].

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': Did it never occur to Candace that there's a more likely chance that her Mom would believe her if she took photos of whatever activity her brothers were taking part in?[[labelnote:note]]It actually did a few times, but each of those times something went wrong for her.[[/labelnote]]

* ''WesternAnimation/MyGymPartnersAMonkey'': The basic premise is that Adam Lyon, a human preteen, is accidentally placed in [[StrangerInAStrangeSchool a school for talking animals]] thanks to a clerical error that misspelled his last name. In the [[YouMeanXMas Animas special]], [[TheSmartGuy Windsor]] outright asks Adam why he never transferred back after the mistake was made painfully obvious, with Adam responding that he's gotten attached to everyone by this point. Granted, this doesn't answer why he wasn't transferred back on the first day and why the school board wasn't sued over the issue; questions that are posed to his parents in a later episode by the rest of the cast, though the audience doesn't get to hear their supposedly logical response.

* Adam Lyon from ''WesternAnimation/MyGymPartnersAMonkey'' is accidentally placed in [[StrangerInAStrangeSchool a school for talking animals]] thanks to a typo that is never fixed (plus, [[KarmaHoudini it's never stated if the person who made the typo that got Adam stuck in the talking animal school was fired for their screwup or not]]). The [[YouMeanXMas Animas]] special implies he ''could'' go back to human school, but chooses not to, a fact that is lampshaded by [[TheSmartGuy Windsor]]. Also, one wonders why the school district doesn't fix the typo since it would be easy as hell to do so.

** In Elrond's flashback of Isildur being corrupted by the One Ring in ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheFellowshipOfTheRing The Fellowship of the Ring]]'', after Elrond tells Isildur to destroy it, Isildur declines, due to being corrupted by the Ring. Because Elrond was ''right there'' as Isildur was walking away, and also, since Isildur was not invisible (since he didn't put the ring on) he could've just stopped him from leaving with the Ring, and then tossed it into the lava to destroy it, which would've derailed the whole story altogether, rather than doing absolutely nothing and letting Isildur walk off with the Ring. Also like the eagles example, it's not listed under the Literature folder, as Tolkien's own writings, however, implied that Elrond wouldn't have been able to destroy the Ring either.
** In the third movie, ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing The Return of the King]]'', Denethor thinks Faramir died, Pippin is the only one who figured out that he was [=KO=]d from a poisoned arrow and needs medical attention. After Gandalf knocks Denethor out after he yells "Abandon your posts!", ''no one'', not even Pippin himself, takes advantage of the opportunity to get Faramir to the House of Healings, or even get him medicine and have him recover! Instead, they apparently leave him unattended, and he is taken by Denethor to be burned alongside him in the Tomb of the Stewards! If Pippin had taken Faramir, all this would've been avoided!

** The second half could've been avoided if Marty had taken the [=DeLorean's=] keys out of the ignition and close and lock the doors before wandering off to look at the Hilldale suburb. This would've prevented Biff from taking it undetected and traveling back to 1955 to give his younger self the sports almanac which he uses to bet on horse races where he gets lots of money, which he then later becomes rich and powerful, corrupts Hill Valley, murders Marty's dad, George [=McFly=], forced Lorraine into marrying him, and had Doc sent to an insane asylum.