History StupidEvil / LiveActionTV

** What makes King Joffrey Baratheon so dangerous to everyone including himself is that he isn't just cruel, he's ''stupid'' and cruel. This starts with his execution of [[spoiler:Lord Ned Stark, which triggers a war with the North]], leaving his regime vulnerable to his nominal father Robert Baratheon's brothers, who want to usurp his rule (and they quickly put on an appearance) when the smart thing to do (and what his mother Cersei and others wanted) would have been to keep Ned alive but ReassignedToAntarctica and negotiate a truce or alliance with the North. In a world of {{Magnificent Bastard}}s practicing PragmaticVillainy, no one's very impressed with him engaging in pointlessly evil acts just for the sake of being a bastard heedless of the consequences. He's compared ''negatively'' to Mad King Aerys at a few points. It reaches a peak in "The Old Gods and the New" when Joffrey triggers a riot in King's Landing by ordering the crowd of starving smallfolk ''[[DisproportionateRetribution put to death because one of them threw cow dung at him]]'', as per the novel. Joffrey's uncle Tyrion Lannister does not hesitate to express his distaste and all but invokes the trope by name with this splendid description:

** It must be genetic because Cersei Lannister (and her twin brother Jaime, to a slightly lesser extent) tend to default to killing people and pissing people off even when it blatantly conflicts with their interests, something which their father Tywin and brother Tyrion separately note about Cersei. Both Cersei and Jaime suffer from no one particularly liking them, and neither seems to understand the true reasons why. Only in comparison to her son Joffrey does Cersei seem reasonable. It gets to the point where Tywin is quick to empower his much-disparaged son Tyrion to mitigate Cersei's calamities despite hating his guts. Cersei-related examples:

** Ramsay Snow/Bolton stands out as being incapable of restraining his sadism at great cost to his cause, though unlike Joffrey, he ''is'' intelligent and street-wise when he needs to be. The problem is that he mainly uses his intelligence to devise ways to torture and torment people for kicks, often without considering the long-term consequences of his cruel acts.

* When [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic the Homeguard]] is introduced in ''Series/BabylonFive'', the cell on the station is preparing a coordinated set of assassinations on all four ambassadors, which in turn is a signal to other cells to set their own plans in motion. Do they keep their heads down in the meantime, so as to remain undetected until they're ready to strike? Nope! They repeatedly attack random non-humans all over the station and leave their calling cards, quickly getting Station Security on the hunt for them. These attacks don't play any part in the big plan, they just ''really'' wanted to beat up aliens.

* In ''The Making of the Mob'', Vito Genovese is consistently portrayed this way. His great feats include murdering a former associate in broad daylight to get out of paying the guy (which ultimately resulted in his having to leave the country); murdering another guy so that he could marry his widow; stealing supplies from the United States Army ''during World War II'' (when he was already under suspicion for having close ties to Mussolini); and the Apalachin Conference, in which he invited La Cosa Nostra leaders from around the country to a farm in Upstate New York in order to celebrate the establishment of his own crime family -- and drew the attention of the New York State Police, resulting in dozens of arrests.

* ''Series/LukeCage'': Tone is a very loyal triggerman to Darnell "Cottonmouth" Stokes, and that is where the problem lies -- he is an OverzealousUnderling who does not stop looking for a fight and putting people in the ground for the sake of enhancing his boss' respect in the underworld even when Stokes explicitly orders him to cut it out. Tone [[EstablishingCharacterMoment begins his appearance in the show]] getting in the face of another gangster for [[DisproportionateRetribution allegedly not showing Stokes enough respect]] when the conversation had been very casual. The tragedy that causes the whole series to happen -- the shooting of Pops' Barber Shop -- is performed by Tone when he sees a kid who stole from Stokes has taken refuge inside, with zero care about the fact his own boss followed the rule of it being a TruceZone (and did so because Pops has a very old friend of his) because he believed following that rule made Stokes look weak. He [[YouHaveFailedMe definitely did not do himself any favors]] by gloating about it to Stokes ("Whoo! Somebody call [[Creator/QuentinTarantino Quentin!]]").

* ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'': [[MonsterOfTheWeek Phantoms]] are magical beings that emerge from humans who fall into despair, resulting in the latter’s death. Some Phantoms try to force Gates, humans with the potential to spawn Phantoms, into despair by attacking them directly, believing that the fear of death is enough to cause despair. This is not an effective method because the Phantom [[DidntThinkThisThrough doesn’t consider the risk of accidentally killing their target before they can fall into despair]], and while the fear of death is a natural human trait, it isn’t necessarily enough to create extreme anguish. Case in point with the Phantom Weretiger, whose target is the grandmother of the secondary Rider. He tries to attack her, only for a young man to step in the way and take the blow. It shows that while it’s enough to knock him out, it could’ve seriously injured or killed an elderly woman. There’s also the factor that she is begging him to make her fall into despair and was actually [[MamaBear trying to spawn a Phantom in hopes that it can help sustain the life of her grandson]]. This means that she’s not afraid to die, so Weretiger’s attack would’ve been all for naught. His fellow Phantom Gremlin puts two and two together, coming up with a better plan by forcing the Gate to [[ForcedToWatch watch]] the brutal death of her grandson. Fortunately, the pair are able to predict such a scenario, and arrange to have the titular hero rescue the hostage during the distraction.
* Most of the villains in ''Series/KamenRiderZeroOne'' suffer from this, especially [[AIIsACrapshoot the Ark]], [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Gai Amatsu]], [[EvilTwin Azu]] and [[KillAllHumans Horobi]]. All four of them commit [[KickTheDog wantonly evil acts]] that do nothing to further their goals at best and actively hinder their goals at worst. The only reason they get away with anything is because the rest of the characters [[IdiotBall aren't much smarter]].

** Nyder in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS12E4GenesisOfTheDaleks Genesis of the Daleks]]" has a brilliantly illogical moment where he opens fire on the Doctor, Harry, and ''his own boss'', risking his general's life just to kill a couple of people out of racism. This actually works to enhance how much of a psycho he is.

* The mob bosses that vy for Falcone's position as head honcho of ''Series/{{Gotham's}}'' crime syndicates are as bad as each other. Mooney and Maroni plot to overthrow Falcone, but their plans would leave too many dead bodies that would result in disorder. Also, when they do have Falcone in their hands, they quickly turn on each other for full control over Gotham's underworld. At least Fish tries to feign team spirit with Maroni, but he insists on mocking her and insulting her in every sentence that he utters, becoming the straightest case of this among the mafia.

* ''Series/{{Gotham}}'':
** The other mob bosses aren't any better either. Mooney and Maroni plot to overthrow Falcone, but their plans would leave too many dead bodies that will result in disorder. Also, when they do have Falcone in their hands, they quickly turn on each other for full control over Gotham's underworld.
** At least Fish tried to feign team spirit with Maroni, but he insisted on mocking her and insulting her at every sentence, becoming the straightest case of this among the mafia.

** The Penguin is an obvious DirtyCoward, and he makes very little effort to hide that he is obviously playing both Falcone and Maroni. [[SavedByCanon Of course, he gets away with it.]]

** Viserys Targaryen. Provoking his superiors is not a wise idea.

** Ramsay stands out as being incapable of restraining his sadism at great cost to his cause, though unlike Joffrey, he ''is'' intelligent and street-wise when he needs to be. The problem is that he mainly uses his intelligence to devise ways to torture and torment people for kicks, often without considering the long-term consequences of his cruel acts.
*** When Roose returns to the Dreadfort, he's quick to chastise Ramsay for how he's managed to destroy any chance of making a badly needed alliance with the Greyjoys just because he wanted to have a bit of pointless fun utterly breaking Theon Greyjoy.

*** In Season 6, his father coldly points out that "playing his games" with Sansa, i.e. raping and torturing her repeatedly and causing her to run away, may well have cost him the support of the North. Without Sansa, the Boltons have no hold over the other Northern lords. In the following episode, Ramsay correctly surmises that Sansa is running away to her brother Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at Castle Black, and suggests they wage war against Castle Black to reclaim his bride. However, Roose believes the Northern lords would rise up against him for murdering the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.

*** In his fight with Prince Oberyn Martell of Dorne, Clegane publicly confesses to killing his sister Princess Elia and her children. That was an OpenSecret, but as long as he kept his mouth shut, Doran Martell could justify not starting a conflict with the crown. Once Gregor destroys the Lannister's PlausibleDeniability, [[spoiler:Ellaria Sand's coup and subsequent declaration of war go off almost completely unopposed in Dorne]].