History Main / ThirdActStupidity

* A FailureIsTheOnlyOption example takes place in just about every Generation in ''Anime/{{Pokémon}}'' with Ash. He will defeat all the Gym Leaders (or befriend them, or [[DefeatMeansFriendship both]]), gain all of the badges, defeat Team Rocket whenever they show up, dismantle the resident criminal organization (unless it's Team Rocket itself, but he will still put a stop to the Team's current plan), save the world and beat a few OlympusMons. But once he gets to the League, unless it's not canon to the games (like the Orange Island League), he will ''ALWAYS LOSE!'' And after that, he will promptly go back home, leave all his Pokémon at Professor Oak's lab except for Pikachu, go to another region and repeat the process from the beginning.

* In ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'', [[CardCarryingVillain Hazama]]/[[AxCrazy Yuuki]][[{{Troll}} Terumi]] fell hard on this trope. He spent ''VideoGame/BlazBlueCalamityTrigger'' standing on the sidelines of the GroundhogDayLoop, memorizing everyone's patterns, carefully manipulating events, setting up [[CrazyPrepared lots and lots of preparations]] and playing XanatosSpeedChess with [[LittleMissBadass Rachel]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Alucard]], one of the few besides himself with RippleEffectProofMemory, for the chance of breaking the time loop with a head start, all without letting slip he's a bad guy. And at the end of the first act/game, the loop ''is'' finally broken, all of his plans play out smoothly and everything ends in his advantage... In ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'', he has a spell come into effect that allows him to observe all timelines of the [[TitleDrop Continuum Shift]], effectively allowing him to ''choose'' the exact timeline in which the protagonists hold the IdiotBall, he successfully forges [[Myth/JapaneseMythology Kusanagi:]] [[RageAgainstTheHeavens Sword of the Godslayer]], outmaneuvers [[TheOmniscient Takamagahara]], and finally [[TheBadGuysWin gets to declare himself the winner of the second act/game]]. Hey, I told you he was CrazyPrepared... However, come ''VideoGame/BlazBlueChronophantasma'', he makes several stupid, amateurish mistakes that ultimately end up getting him KilledOffForReal by the heroes midway through the third act/game...

** The Monks trilogy of Series 10 technically has Third ''Episode'' Stupidity. "Extremis" establishes them as all-seeing, RealityWarper villains planning for every possible contingency in their plan to conquer Earth, which pays off for them in "The Pyramid at the End of the World". They show up at a point where humanity is doomed to be wiped out -- unless they give up their freedom to the Monks -- '''and''' the Doctor is in a vulnerable state due to [[spoiler: blindness that he won't admit to others]]. The Doctor stops the crisis '''but''' ends up endangered, [[spoiler: and his companion Bill sells out humanity to save him in hopes he can save the day again]]! With that, "The Lie of the Land" picks up six months later with the Monks having brainwashed most of humanity into believing them to have always been benevolent superiors. But despite their amazing powers they manage to miss [[spoiler: the Doctor's faked loyalty to them, his companion-assisted escape, and the resultant plan to undo them]] and put up ''very'' little of a fight against the good guys. A character who's had previous experience with the Monks says their numbers are too small for them to remain all-seeing once they come into power, don't think about backup plans for holding on to said power, and thus can only rule a planet's population forevermore if [[spoiler: the Apocalypse Maiden's bloodline never ends]]. Nor do they learn from their experiences. But all this comes only in the third episode, after two in which they were effectively omnipotent; if they remained such, the Doctor and his friends would never find a way to beat them.

** The Namek Saga is notable for the guerilla-style tactics that the heroes are required to use throughout: Krillin and Gohan are no match for most of Frieza's elite henchmen, Vegeta is slightly higher up the power scale and ascends higher but is still forced to play it smart to outwit the godlike Frieza. By the end of the saga, Vegeta throws all this careful planning aside and stupidly goads Frieza into transforming, arrogantly believing that Frieza wouldn't get that much stronger; it ultimately costs him his life.

* Thrawn in his StarWars trilogy. The author has openly admitted that he couldn't think of any way, realistically, for the good guys to win against the relatively intelligent and cautious master strategist, and that he had to take up the IdiotBall for the last few chapters to give the story its happy ending.

** Actually he was able to leave due to hospitality rules. He then proceeded to build a house with four doors so he could see danger coming from any direction. It was after this that he was captured.

* ''Manga/DeathNote'': Light starts out being CrazyPrepared and doing everything possible to preserve his secret, but as he starts buying into his own [[AGodAmI hype]], he starts viewing himself as invincible and stops being so careful. After the TimeSkip, he's gone from [[MemoryGambit erasing his own memory, trusting in the brilliance of his planning to ensure L's death while cementing his own complete innocence]]... to ''[[WhatAnIdiot hiding the Death Note in storage and really hoping no one finds it while he's not looking]].''

Compare LoweredMonsterDifficulty, WhyDontYouJustShootHim, ThirdActMisunderstanding, YouCantThwartStageOne.

* ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': The Namek Saga is notable for the guerilla-style tactics that the heroes are required to use throughout: Krillin and Gohan are no match for most of Frieza's elite henchmen, Vegeta is slightly higher up the power scale and ascends higher but is still forced to play it smart to outwit the godlike Frieza. By the end of the saga, Vegeta throws all this careful planning aside and stupidly goads Frieza into transforming, arrogantly believing that Frieza wouldn't get that much stronger; it ultimately costs him his life.

* [[DragonBallZ The Namek saga]] is notable for the guerilla-style tactics that the heroes are required to use throughout: Krillin and Gohan are no match for most of Frieza's elite henchmen, Vegeta is slightly higher up the power scale and ascends higher but is still forced to play it smart to outwit the godlike Frieza. By the end of the saga, Vegeta directly challenges Frieza in his final form. [[WhatAnIdiot Even though he can sense ki and could probably sense just how utterly enormous Frieza's power was compared to his own.]]
** Frieza reveals to Goku during their fight that he's only using a tiny percentage of his power, which he then proves by upping his power to half of its maximum to [[{{CurbStompBattle}} smash monkey.]] So it's actually not unlikely that Vegeta ''couldn't'' sense just out outclassed he was. [[{{SmallNameBigEgo}} Not that this sort of behavior is out of character for him.]]

* Sosuke Aizen, the BigBad of ''Anime/{{Bleach}}'', is a big offender of this; one could even make the case that this was [[InvokedTrope invoked]] to justify this behemoth's downfall. He more or less singlehandedly takes out the entire cast with a mixture of [[MagnificentBastard Magnificent Bastardy]] and being one of the strongest shinigami in existence, but as the final battle approaches, he devolves in a fairly straightforward monster (literally) who tosses aside his lucidity in favor of brute strength, as he feels no one can reach the necessary level of power to defeat him anymore and he can afford to just power on through everything without strategy. [[CurbStompBattle It doesn't end well for him.]]

** Hugo Strange in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. He spends most of the game and the prequel comics matching wits with Batman, who has a lot of trouble genuinely messing with his plans because Strange has studied him so thoroughly. In the last third of the game, [[spoiler: Strange takes a hostage over a video screen, forcing Batman to stay still while he lectures him and his goons fill the room. Instead of forcing Batman to not fight back for the sake of the hostage, Strange just lets him go, allowing Batman to knock out all of his men. And despite how familiar he is with Batman's tactics, when Batman begins climbing the tower to his control room and his thugs can't locate him, Strange just assumes he's fallen off.]] Arguably, his lackluster security and decision to control the prison with WayneTech equipment and having his headquaters on a tower without emergency exits extend to a larger timespan that the third act, but his actions near the climax are more notable.

** This happens every now and then in the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamSeries''.

* Hugo Strange in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. He spends most of the game and the prequel comics matching wits with Batman, who has a lot of trouble genuinely messing with his plans because Strange has studied him so thoroughly. In the last third of the game, [[spoiler: Strange takes a hostage over a video screen, forcing Batman to stay still while he lectures him and his goons fill the room. Instead of forcing Batman to not fight back for the sake of the hostage, Strange just lets him go, allowing Batman to knock out all of his men. And despite how familiar he is with Batman's tactics, when Batman begins climbing the tower to his control room and his thugs can't locate him, Strange just assumes he's fallen off.]]

** ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight'' ultimately plays this trope straight, but not without some heavy [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagging]] first. By the endgame, [[ScaryScarecrows Scarecrow]] has scored [[DarkestHour a major victory]] by [[spoiler:covering Gotham City in the Cloudburst fear toxin, and plans to do the same to the entire American East Coast]]. Scarecrow is content to sit back and watch Batman suffer; but his [[TheDragon Dragon]], the titular Arkham Knight, who [[DangerouslyGenreSavvy knows full well how dangerous Batman can be]] and specifically [[VillainTeamUp joined up with Scarecrow]] [[{{Revenge}} so he can get even with the Bat]], is having none of it and [[WhyDontYaJustShootHim decides to go after Batman himself]]. After the Knight [[spoiler:reveals himself to be Jason Todd and is taken out by Batman, Scarecrow continues with his initial ToThePain plan as though nothing happened]]. [[SpannerInTheWorks Unbeknownst to Scarecrow, however]], [[spoiler:The Joker, who has been serving as Batman's EnemyWithin for much of the game, begins taking over Batman's psyche the more Bruce is exposed to the fear gas. Even though Scarecrow manages to get Batman to unmask himself on national television, he ''still'' loses because he's so intent on breaking Batman through fear that he inadvertently allows Batman to win through fear toxin; first by allowing Joker to take over, then by showing him a BadFuture where the MonsterClown AttentionWhore dies alone and forgotten, allowing Bruce to regain control]].

* In VisualNovel/FateStayNight, this is the (self-acknowledged) critical weakness of [[{{TheLancer}} Rin]] - she gets all the little things right, gets all the middle-sized things right, and then screws it up when it really counts. [[{{Foil}} This helps contrast her]] with [[TheHero Shirou]], who's [[LetsGetDangerous the opposite.]]

* In VisualNovel/FateStayNight, this is the only weakness of [[{{Tsundere}} Rin]]. She is good at the third most important thing, the second most important thing, but she always screws up when it comes to the first.

* Part of the fun of ''Series/{{Columbo}}'' was [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagging this]]. He's seem like a fool, and even seem to fall into this, but it's all an act. The irony is his act is an attempt to invoke this trope, seeming careless, stupid and oblivious so his enemies will slip up and Columbo can nail them.

* None of the characters in ''[[{{Film/Hellboy}} Hellboy II]]'' make intelligent decisions in the third act, which lead to [[spoiler: the villain getting the MacGuffin and the LoveInterest dying]] (although critics felt it didn't hurt the overall film).

* ''VantagePoint'': [[spoiler:Veronica]], who has killed or helped kill dozens of people, including children, ruins the terrorists' plan because she can't run over a little girl. At this point the terrorists had succeeded at everything. All they had to do was literally drive away in triumph.