History WhatAnIdiot / Literature

* ''ComicBook/{{Dog Man|DavPilkey}}'':
** In "Robo-Chief", chapter 2 of ''Dog Man'', [[DaChief the Chief]] receives a visit from [[MayorPain the Mayor]], who threatens to fire him and replace him with a robot if he fails to stop any more crimes. [[TheHero Dog Man]] finds out that the Mayor is ''actually'' plotting to take over the city. Achieving this goal requires the use of [[InvisibilityInk invisible spray]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': She would simply use it on herself and, say, go around causing property damage, rob banks or let every imprisoned crook out of jail completely undetected. Then, she'd have "evidence" to fire the Chief.\\
'''Instead''': She mails it to [[CatsAreMean Petey the Cat]] in his jail cell. While he uses it to break out of jail ''and'' the Mayor gets the Chief fired as she intended, her plan backfires not long after she has [[WelcomeToEvilMart crime stores]]. Petey doesn't take kindly to this and retaliates by using his invisibility to scare every potential customer. However, upon being informed that the stores are "haunted", she puts two and two together that Petey is behind it.\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': The Mayor to trick Petey into visiting her lair with the promise of a "reward" only to wash the spray off instead and lock him up.\\
'''Instead''': She sends Robo-Chief to destroy him only for Petey to dupe the robot into destroying every evil shop and blowing itself up. Her plan is ''doubly'' foiled when Dog Man reveals her evil plan via cell-phone recording, [[LaserGuidedKarma which ultimately gets her imprisoned]].

*** In a story told to Charlie by his Grandpa Joe, Mr. Wonka travels to India to help a Indian prince named Pondicherry to build a palace out of chocolate. Once the work is done, Mr. Wonka, who knows that the hot Indian climate won't let the palace stand for long, warns Pondicherry that he would start eating up the place now if he was the prince.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Pondicherry to realise that Wonka has a point and do exactly as he had suggested.\\

'''Extra Points:''' Charlie outright states that the guy should have burped, to which Wonka agrees, but the latter mentions that he "didn't or couldn't or wouldn't. I don't know which. Maybe he was too polite". In other words, the Oompa-Loompa wouldn't burp.

'''You'd Expect:''' Veruca to take Wonka's word for it and not go any further (especially since she already has two dogs, four cats, six rabbits, a cage of white mice, a hamster, two parakeets, a parrot, three canaries, a turtle, and a bowl of goldfish).\\

** In [[Literature/CharlieAndTheGreatGlassElevator the second book,]] Mr. Wonka has a dozen pills known as Wonka-Vite that can reduce the age of anyone who takes them. He offers them to Charlie Bucket's bedridden grandparents, Grandpa George (age 81), Grandma Georgina (age 78), and Grandma Josephine (age 80 years and 3 months), and firmly establishes that each pill will make a person 20 years younger.\\

** There is at least one scenario per book where Protagonist Greg gets in trouble.\\

'''You'd Expect''': Greg would check up on the dog once or twice each day to make sure it gets fed properly and doesn't make any messes. Additionally, if (for some reason) he can't take care of the dog for a prolonged period of time, he'd get someone else (like Rowley or Rodrick) to take care of it.\\
'''Instead''': For the last two weeks, Greg decides to leave the dog alone until the day before the neighbors come back, so he can clean up whatever mess was made in one go.\\

* ''Literature/FreckleJuice'' (1971) by Creator/JudyBlume: A second-grader named Andrew Marcus envies his classmate Nicky Lane's freckles and wants his own. Another classmate, Sharon, sells Andrew a "recipe" for "freckle juice" for 50¢. After Andrew pays her, she throws the recipe on the floor; it lands halfway between their desks. He reaches out to pick it up, and he falls on the floor. Their teacher, Miss Kelly, notices this and she takes the recipe and reads it, telling Andrew that she'll give it back to him after school.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Miss Kelly, after reading it, would ask both Andrew and Sharon about it after school. Miss Kelly would thus realize that Sharon has conned Andrew out of his money (since the note claims that mixing grape juice, mayonnaise, vinegar, olive oil, ketchup, mustard, pepper, salt, lemon juice, and a speck of onion together produces a concoction that gives freckles to whomever drinks it), and she'd make her give him his money back.\\

'''You'd Then Expect:''' While Andrew is at home, he'd tell his mother about his "deal" with Sharon, and his mother would call the school and tell them about it.\\

'''Unfortunately:''' Sharon receives no consequences, since Andrew still doesn't reveal her "secret recipe for freckle juice" to either his mother or Miss Kelly.

** The titular chubby tabby cat of Davis's popular comic strip observes his owner, cartoonist Jon Arbuckle, getting ready to take him and Odie, the dog, on a picnic. Jon realizes that he's forgotten the pickles, and decides to go to out and get some. Before this, he realizes that he has to take precautions against his furry friends sneaking the food.\\

'''Instead:''' He goes to the trouble of figuring out how to get Odie to bite through his rope, and then through the string. Garfield and Odie eat all of the picnic food (as expected, Garfield eats most of it).\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Mrs. Kranky would call the doctor and say that her mother appears to have grown immune to the medicine, and ask that the doctor prescribe her a different medicine.\\

'''The Result:''' After he gives her the medicine, it makes her grow so tall that she can no longer sleep in the house, and she must instead sleep in the barn. However, it does her good in the sense that it makes her "as frisky as a ferret". George also gives the medicine to one of the family's chickens, and it makes her grow as well, but she retains her bodily proportions in her giant size. Later, George and his father use the rest of the medicine on the family's farm animals (the pigs, sheep, bullocks, goat, and pony). The medicine had made Grandma increase only in height, but it makes the animals retain all of their bodily proportions in their giant sizes. However, there is not enough medicine for all of the chickens.\\
'''Later:''' George and his father make another version of the medicine, using the same ingredients as before, and give some to another chicken. All it does is make her legs grow. They make two more versions of the medicine, as George remembers a few ingredients that he has left out. The third version of the medicine makes a cockerel's neck grow, and the fourth version makes another chicken shrink to the size of a newly-hatched chick. They have a teacup full of the mixture. Grandma comes into the yard and demands to know where her morning cup of tea is. She notices the teacup George is holding, containing what appears to be tea, but is actually 50 doses of his "Marvelous Medicine Number Four". She grabs it, and Mr. Kranky encourages her to drink it, while George and his mother shout a warning to Grandma to refrain from this.\\
'''The Result:''' Grandma, after drinking her "tea", shrinks back to normal size... but she keeps shrinking, until she becomes microscopic. Nobody can find her. "That's what happens to you if you're grumpy and bad-tempered", Mr. Kranky points out, and he adds, "Great medicine of yours, George".

** Afterward, Harriet gets bullied by her classmates. Her parents get wind of it when Harriet tries faking sick for several days. They are blindsided by how to help her, since they left that to Ole Golly, who left to get married.\\

'''Instead''': They tell Harriet to think of how hurt her classmates must be feeling, and missing the signs that she's being bullied. When she refuses to do schoolwork, they confiscate her notebook, the absolute RageBreakingPoint for her.\\
'''The Result''': Harriet starts ExtremeMeleeRevenge that gets her suspended from school: she tells Rachel that Rachel's father doesn't love her anymore, sneaks a frog into Marion's desk, and cuts out a huge chunk of Laura's hair. To cap it all off, she nearly makes the cook quit by ruining the poor woman's cake. A child psychologist has to tell Mr. and Mrs. Welsh what's obvious to the reader: Harriet needs a writing outlet that won't get her bullied, and that Ole Golly's advice will stay with her.
** In the book, Ole Golly is debating leaving to get married, but the choice is taken from her when she's fired after some frankly irresponsible behavior on her part. Namely, Ole Golly decided that it was time that Harriet met Mr. Waldenstein, and offered to take Harriet to have an egg cream with him, so that it would be easier for the eventual separation of Harriet losing her nanny and the person who understands her the most. She just made one mistake: "Catherine" didn't tell Mr. or Mrs. Welch that she was taking Harriet out past her bedtime or even left a note. The Welches come back and are tearing up the place, looking for Harriet and Catherine. Mrs. Welch goes MamaBear and tells off Ole Golly for her irresponsible behavior, firing her on the spot before tucking in a peeved and crying Harriet, and then stopping to hear Ole Golly's side of the story.\\

'''The Result''': The schoolhouse is one of the many losses that Green Lake suffers; one of its former students, Linda Miller, finds reason to marry Trout for his money. Kate goes from a sweet schoolteacher to a raging bandit, who starts shooting men after robbing them and kissing them. Her first victim is the sheriff, whom demanded a kiss in exchange for Sam's life. The only reason that she doesn't hunt down Trout and kill him is because she wants him to live in misery, and unleashes a DyingCurse on him when he and his wife Linda catch up to her and interrogate her about her robbery treasures. In addition, rain stops falling in Green Lake, turning it into a barren wasteland rather than the paradise it once was. To make money off it, [[spoiler:Trout's great-granddaughter Ms. Walker creates a prison labor camp and then later has to sell it after the Attorney General and Stanley's new lawyer find evidence of child abuse, closing down the camp]].

* ''Literature/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'': In Chapter 15, [[AbusiveParents Abusive Aunts]] Spiker and Sponge have decided that James has been outside too long, ignorant that he has crawled inside the magic giant peach. With the help of James' new insect friends, the peach breaks free from its stem and is rolling towards the aunts, much to their fear.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Given the names of both characters for Mr. Clever to see though Little Miss Trouble's lie. If Mr. Clever ever meets Mr. Small after this encounter, he would see that Mr. Small has already been a victim of Little Miss Trouble's false rumors since Mr. Uppity gave him a black eye.\\

'''Instead''': She doesn't think to do that and as a result, the Bossybot prevents Mr. Funny from telling jokes, Little Miss Hug from hugging people and Little Miss Giggles from giggling. Then to make matters worse, the Bossybot takes control over the other robots she built and causes them to spiral out of control. \\

'''You'd Also Expect''': Dorothy would warn Ramona that if she even touches the cake or messes with it, she's going to her room and will miss out on the evening festivities. Ramona is only four but she understands the meaning of being sent to her room.\\

'''The Result''': Ramona takes advantage of the lull in the kitchen to shove her doll into the oven, where it lands in the cake pan. The doll burns into the batter, which becomes rubbery. Aside from the fact that Ramona ruined the second birthday cake, she could have easily started a house fire. Beezus understandably starts crying, and Ramona does too in either MyGodWhatHaveIDone mode or realizing that she's being scolded. Dorothy does tell Ramona that she knows better than to play with the oven before sending her to her room, but it's hard to say if Ramona did.\\
'''Fortunately''': Aunt Beatrice is coming over for dinner and she goes to a bakery to pick a beautiful birthday cake for her niece. Beezus by then is able to laugh when Aunt Beatrice jokingly tells her and Dorothy to make sure nothing happens to this one. The cake survives to the end of the evening, and everyone is able to enjoy it.
** In "Ramona and Her Father," Ramona gets jealous when Beezus is chosen as the star of the Christmas pageant. She, Howie, and Davy volunteer to be sheep, and she says her mother will make her a costume. Mrs. Quimby is patient with the request while gently telling Ramona there is no time with her working as a receptionist in a doctor's office, but Mr. Quimby, who is jobless for the moment, isn't. He asks if Ramona thought that her mother's schedule was limited before volunteering herself.\\

** In the very first book, ''The Bad Beginning'', the children go to see Mr. Poe to share how terrible living with Count Olaf has been for them. Namely he keeps them all in one room (with one bed), gives them a number of terribles chores daily, has terrible friends, is drunk often and recently struck Klaus on the face.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Toad to realize that he's a terrible driver. As the Water Rat says, Toad could hire someone who can teach him how to drive. He would have to pay his coach good wages, but he's more than rich enough for that to not be a problem, and the alternative would be to wreck several more motor cars and likely get himself seriously injured, or even killed.\\

** Toad manages to break out of prison with assistance from the gaoler's daughter, disguised as a washerwoman. On [[TheHomewardJourney his way back home]], he hears the sound of--you guessed it--a motor car, and steps forward to greet the drivers... only to realize that they're the exact same owners of the car he stole when his misadventures began, and that it's the exact same car. Fortunately, his washerwoman disguise means they don't recognize him, and he successfully persuades them to drive him home, since they were conveniently planning to pass by his home anyway.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Pooh to realize he's now clearly too fat to crawl out the front door and use the back door.\\

* ''Literature/TheWitches'' by Creator/RoaldDahl (1983): A 7-year-old boy (the narrator of the story), whose parents have died in a car crash, now lives with his maternal grandmother, who is Norwegian and an expert on the titular "real" witches, in Oslo, Norway. She tells her grandson how to tell them apart from ordinary women (e.g. their blue saliva, larger-than-normal nostrils, and the fact that they always wear gloves in public, since they have cat-like claws in place of fingernails). She mentions that witches are not human women, but rather demonesses in human shape. She also explains that the witches of each country have annual meetings, possibly at a hotel in the manner of most groups of women who are holding meetings. At each meeting, the witches are instructed by the witches' ruler, the Grand High Witch Of All The World, on how to magically get rid of children. This is because to witches, clean children smell like dogs' droppings; therefore, the boy's grandmother advises him to bathe only once a month. The boy and his grandmother have to move back to England, where he was born, and three weeks into the Summer Term, she comes down with pneumonia. She recovers in three more weeks, but the doctor points out that in her condition, she and her grandson cannot go on their planned holiday to Arendal, Norway, where she had spent her own summer holidays at her grandson's age. The doctor tells them that they can, however, go to the Hotel Magnificent in Bournemouth, England, and they do as he says.\\

'''You'd Expect:''' Knowing that Lennie is mentally challenged and has recently broken her husband's hand in a fight, she would be careful around him and ask that he not touch her.\\

* ''Literature/OfMiceAndMen'': Curley's wife approaches Lennie and opens up to him about how miserable her life is. Lennie tells her that he likes touching soft things.
'''You'd Expect:''' Knowing that Lennie is mentally challenged and has recently broken her husband's hand in a fight, she would be careful around him and ask that he not touch her.
'''Instead''': She invites Lennie to stroke her hair, and when he does so, she gets upset that he'll mess it up and angrily tells him to stop, which panics Lennie. She then keeps screaming even when Lennie tries to explain that he didn't mean any harm.

'''Even Worse:''': The army Astyages is put in charge of is going to Persia to fight Astyages' grandson, a half-Mede who has become King of Persia. His name? [[UsefulNotes/CyrusTheGreat Cyrus]]. His aim? Conquest. Will he ally with his great-uncle to beat his grandpa? You bet.

'''You'd Expect:''': Little Miss Trouble to not misbehave, after all Little Miss Neat was kind enough to let her come round to stay and perhaps she might let her stay at some point in the future. \\

'''Or:''': ''One'' would test it, and the other would wait outside in the fresh air and watch through the window.\\

'''Instead:''' He decided to antagonize her further, the which causes her to open a gate with something malign behind it, the which has ''very'' unpleasant results.\\

* In the ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' novel "Dragons of Spring Dawning", the [[RedBaron Golden General]] Laurana, the commanding general of the [[TheAlliance Whitestone Army]] during the War of the Lance, receives a message from the enemy general (who also happens to be her romantic rival), Kitiara Uth Matar, claiming that their mutual love interest, Tanis Half-Elven, is dying and wants to see her, which Kitiara will only allow if Laurana comes in person in the middle of the night to a secret meeting site without bringing any guards or telling anyone. The message provides no proof that Tanis is even with Kitiara much less that he has been mortally wounded. Laurana's leadership is vital to the success of the Whitestone Army, and it will cripple them if she is killed or captured.\\
'''You'd Think:''' Laurana would immediately realize that a message from her ArchEnemy, that offers up SchmuckBait to try and lure her to a vulnerable location without any protection is [[ObviousTrap obviously a trap.]]\\
'''Or:''' That even if Laurana believes the message, she would decide that her responsibilty to her army and the people it is protecting must take precedence over her own desires.\\
'''Or at least:''' That even if Laurana believes the message and decides to go to the meeting site, she would at least take some precautions just in case it turns out to be an ambush.\\
'''Instead:''' Laurana completely believes the message, gives no thought at all to the potential danger to herself or her army, and goes to the meeting site without taking any precautions at all. Not surprisingly it turns out to be a trap, and Laurana is taken prisoner, greatly weakening the Whitestone Army.\\
'''You'd Also Think:''' That in the same scene, Laurana's "friends", Flint Fireforge and Tasslehoff Burrfoot, who both believe the message to be a trap, would, after seeing how Laurana is acting irrational and about to do something suicidally foolish, do whatever it takes to keep her from going to the meeting site, even if they have to physically restrain her to keep her from going.\\
'''Instead:''' Not only do Flint and Tas do nothing to stop Laurana, but they even end up showing her how to get to the meeting site without being detected by her own guards. It's enough to make you wonder if Flint and Tas were actually working for Kitiara since her whole scheme would have failed without their help.

** There is this soldier guy named Charles Campion, who is on sentry duty in an army lab making bioweapons. The lab suffers a containment breach.

'''As A Result''': Cue the world-ending pandemic.\\
** You had to isolate those people from the Texan small town where Campion dude cropped up again on the display. While everyone is one by one dying of ThePlague, one guy named Stu Redman isn't even sick. This guy is the first case of TheImmune to the disease ever found.

'''As A Result''': The pandemic only goes away when only immune people are still alive - what aren't many. After two weeks. A cure is never found. \\

'''Instead:''' They decide to wait for some decades, and in the meantime, a) [[BigBad Galbatorix]] empowers himself to a ridiculous degree, a) the same guy gets plenty of time to work on an AncientConspiracy, c) Murtagh is found and becomes Galbatorix' TheDragon, d) both Ajihad and Hrothgar die quite quickly, and the succession crisis to the latter is particularly egregious. The Varden decide to become right then active when Galbatorix has reached the peak of his power, and Eragon is still not ready. Instead of riding straight to the forest to undergo TrainingFromHell, he goes there outright relaxed by foot and spends most of his time there chasing after Arya.

* ''Literature/HarrietTheSpy:''

* In ''[[Literature/{{Valdemar}} Winds of Fate]]'', [[RebelliousPrincess Princess Elspeth]] has gone on a mission to recruit a mage willing, able, and suited to teach any potential mages of her land - including herself. She finds out on the way that the Companions have bent all of their formidable abilities toward getting her to just such a mage, and have been doing so for quite some time.\\
'''You'd Expect''' that, being a princess and Herald, trained in diplomacy and statecraft and the exigencies thereof, she'd go along. With substantial grumbling, most likely, and most certainly after giving Gwena a well-deserved and truly epic dressing-down but she does understand these things.\\
'''Instead''', upon discovering she's been (in her words) "led about like some stupid sheep," she immediately decides to head for another city entirely, where she knows nobody, to search among a people she knows nothing about, for representatives of another people that she knows almost nothing about, expect that centuries before they trained one Valdemaran mage, without even knowing the language of either group. Granted, she realizes later that this is an incredibly stupid idea, but she sticks with her moronic plan.

'''Fortunately''': Ella survives the winter, and when the hears the circus train's whistle one morning in May, she escapes from the farm.''

'''You'd Expect''': That Virgil would be ignore the literal demons and take the path God has lined out.\\

* ''Literature/TheDaVinciCode'': The main plot of the Da Vinci Code is this. Jacques Saunier was murdered in the Louvre. Autopsy reports confirm that he received an AgonizingStomachWound, and he used the blood from it to write one last message, which seems to be a lament. One last line reads: "PS. Find Robert Langdon." Langdon is an American academic, who was supposed to meet Sauniere for drinks the night before. As Robert explains, Sauniere never appeared and Robert thought he was stood up. Bezu Fache, the bobby in charge of the investigation, considers Robert as a primary suspect despite the lack of a motive or means, just that Jacques wrote his name down. He still doesn't have a case, and Robert lampshades that he doesn't even own a gun. if you go by the book continuity, Robert helped solve a murder in the Vatican so he does have a positive reputation.\\

'''As A Result:''' The wife eventually gets curious, opens the door and finds out the secret. She drops the key on the floor out of shock and gets the key dirty with blood and can't wash the blood off. She tells her sister about the discovery and the latter goes to get their brothers to help them escape the next morning. Bluebird comes home earlier than expected, sees the key covered with blood and finds out his wife discovered the truth. As he prepares to end her life her sister and brothers come and kill Bluebird.

'''You’d Expect''': Her employers would learn to phrase things literally after she screwed up the first few times.\\

* ''Literature/BridgeToTerabithia'': The crux of the story is next-door neighbors Leslie and Jesse swing on a rope to go into the part of their backyard past the river. It's a rope that's been there long before Jesse's families even moved in, and he notes that it's fraying. It's even noted in the film that Jesse says it could snap at any time. Later, [[spoiler:Jesse's dad reveals he knew the kids were using it to go over the river, shocking Jesse because he thought it was his and Leslie's secret]].\\

'''You'd Expect:''' That Andi would therefore express her anger verbally, not physically (as the latter is less likely to get her killed).\\

* In the dark romance novel ''Tears of Tess'' by Pepper Winters, Tess has just escaped from the man holding her captive, with a GPS locator still strapped on her ankle. She flags down a car, and the driver lends her a knife.
** '''You'd Expect''' her to cut the GPS off and throw it out the window. [[spoiler:Plot dictates that her captor must be able to track her down, but he later demonstrates that he knows who the driver of the car she's in now is, and his bodyguard is pursuing Tess when she gets in the car, so he could quite easily recognise the license plate, or the driver could simply ''not have a knife.'']]
** '''Instead''', she cuts off the GPS, and then ''puts it on the floor of the moving vehicle that she is still riding in.'' This is never portrayed as a stupid thing to do, either; [[spoiler:when her captor inevitably finds her, both of them act like keeping the GPS with her was a perfectly reasonable thing to do and his tracking her with it was some sort of miracle or act of genius.]]

* ''Literature/TheWitches'' by Creator/RoaldDahl (1983):
** A 7-year-old boy (the narrator of the story), whose parents have died in a car crash, now lives with his maternal grandmother, who is Norwegian and an expert on the titular "real" witches, in Oslo, Norway. She tells her grandson how to tell them apart from ordinary women (e.g. their blue saliva, larger-than-normal nostrils, and the fact that they always wear gloves in public, since they have cat-like claws in place of fingernails). She mentions that witches are not human women, but rather demonesses in human shape. She also explains that the witches of each country have annual meetings, possibly at a hotel in the manner of most groups of women who are holding meetings. At each meeting, the witches are instructed by the witches' ruler, the Grand High Witch Of All The World, on how to magically get rid of children. This is because to witches, clean children smell like dogs' droppings; therefore, the boy's grandmother advises him to bathe only once a month. The boy and his grandmother have to move back to England, where he was born, and three weeks into the Summer Term, she comes down with pneumonia. She recovers in three more weeks, but the doctor points out that in her condition, she and her grandson cannot go on their planned holiday to Arendal, Norway, where she had spent her own summer holidays at her grandson's age. The doctor tells them that they can, however, go to the Hotel Magnificent in Bournemouth, England, and they do as he says.\\

"I found myself thinking, ''What's so wonderful about being a little boy anyway? Why is that necessarily any better than being a mouse? I know that mice get hunted and they sometimes get poisoned or caught in traps. But little boys sometimes get killed, too. Little boys can be run over by motor-cars or they can die of some awful illness. Little boys have to go to school. Mice don't. Mice don't have to pass exams. Mice don't have to worry about money. Mice, as far as I can see, have only two enemies, humans and cats. My grandmother is a human, but I know for certain that she will always love me whoever I am. And she never, thank goodness, keeps a cat. When mice grow up, they don't ever have to go to war and fight against other mice. Mice,'' I felt pretty certain, ''all like each other. People don't.''

* Literature/TheDarkglassMountainTrilogy: After the events of prequel ''Literature/{{Threshold}}'', in which Magi awaken an EldritchAbomination that twists them into its puppets and attempts to end the world, the Threshold pyramid was abandoned and the Magi who worshiped it were all killed.
** '''You'd Expect:''' People would take note of this and not return to the location, much less try to complete the project via the same methods as before.
** '''Instead:''' New Magi with the exact same FunctionalMagic reemerge and not only complete the pyramid, but end up waking up two ''new'' [[EldritchAbomination abominations]] that try to destroy the world.

* In ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'', the eponymous Count preys upon innocent Lucy, until the all-knowing Dr Van Helsing arrives. After Lucy dies, returns as a vampire, and is bloodily dispatched by the shaken heroes, Van Helsing and Mina Harker put together the scattered diary records and other clues to discern the villain behind it, and the group bands together to hunt down Dracula. \\
'''You'd expect''' - With Van Helsing as their mentor, they'd fully investigate anything and everything going on in and around their group that might be evidence of Dracula messing with them, and keep a close guard with full precautions on every member of their group. \\
'''Instead''' - They get so focused on gallantly tracking down and destroying Dracula's earth-boxes that they ignore the pleas and warnings of Renfield, despite ''knowing'' his connection to the Count, and being chivalrous Victorian chauvinists, leave Mina behind... alone... unprotected... while they do so. When she's suddenly pale, exhausted and shaken by recurring nightmares identical to Lucy's, they conclude that she's just tired from her 'unwomanly' exertions as part of their group.

'''You'd Expect''' - After the heroes catch onto what Dracula is and try to ward him off, for him to have the common sense to kidnap Lucy away from the bedroom. Finish vamping her then use her to lure Mina away and make her his as well or even better as a distraction to the heroes while he move in on Mina.\\
'''Instead''' - He leaves Lucy there, giving the heroes a perfect example what vampirism is and how to kill it. And thus how to kill him. \\
'''Furthermore''' - Why didn't he bother to take his brides along with him as well? It obvious the main characters outnumbered him even with his power. More backup would've benefited him greatly during his blood drinking spree.

'''You'd expect'''-He would get out of there right away.\\
'''Instead'''-He waits until the day the brides will eat him.

* ''Ella'' by Bill Peet:

** Ella, the elephant of the Bell Brothers Circus, has let the praise that the audience gives her for being a star performer go to her head. One day while it's raining, the circus staff make her help them get one of the wagons out of a mud hole. This makes her sulk, and she quits the circus. However, as the train pulls out, she has a change of heart and pursues the train while trumpeting through her trunk, but the train is too noisy for her to be heard. Therefore, she continues to follow the track, hoping to locate them in the next town, where she knows they'll stop. Unfortunately, she walks from sunrise to sunset "without even passing through one tiny town". She gets hungry, and eats a haystack on a nearby farm. Lucifer Kirk, the farmer, notices this.

'''You'd Expect''': Mr. Kirk would notice Ella's robe and headdress, and, realizing that she's from the circus, he'd call them to report that she's on his farm.

'''Instead''': He puts her to work doing farm chores such as pulling the plow, mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, picking the apples, gathering the eggs, and feeding the pigs. The only chore that she enjoys is watering the flowers.

'''You'd Wonder''': How he can afford to feed her, considering how much food and water an elephant requires daily (as a female Asiatic elephant, she's a mammal who weighs roughly 3 tons), and why he makes her gather the eggs. She can fit only her head and one of her front legs into the henhouse, frightening the hens and causing them to try to drive her away by pecking her trunk, which causes her to drop and break several of the eggs.

'''Even Worse''': Mr. Kirk makes Ella gather firewood during the winter, which is further proof that he should have called the circus as soon as she showed up on his farm. Unlike their extinct relatives, the mammoths, present-day elephants are not adapted to this type of climate.

'''Fortunately''': Ella survives the winter, and when the hears the circus train's whistle one morning in May, she escapes from the farm.

--> '''Elephant Son''': Papa, can you still think about only one thing at a time?
--> '''Father Elephant''': Yes, my boy, that is correct.
--> '''Elephant Son''': Well, then, you might stop thinking about your newspaper and begin to think about the slipper that is on your left foot.
--> '''Father Elephant''': But my boy, Papa's newspaper is far more interesting and important and informative than the slipper that is on his left foot.
--> '''Elephant Son''': That may be true, but while your newspaper is not on fire from the ashes of your cigar, the slipper that is on your left foot certainly is!\\

* ''Literature/FreckleJuice'' (1971) by Creator/JudyBlume.
** A second-grader named Andrew Marcus envies his classmate Nicky Lane's freckles and wants his own. Another classmate, Sharon, sells Andrew a "recipe" for "freckle juice" for 50¢. After Andrew pays her, she throws the recipe on the floor; it lands halfway between their desks. He reaches out to pick it up, and he falls on the floor. Their teacher, Miss Kelly, notices this and she takes the recipe and reads it, telling Andrew that she'll give it back to him after school.\\

'''Instead:''' She realizes how important the note is to him, and she simply returns it to him. Later, at home, Andrew follows the recipe and drinks the "freckle juice". All it gives him is a stomachache--he doesn't feel well enough to even talk--and he has to stay home from school tomorrow.

'''You'd Then Expect:''' While Andrew is at home, he'd tell his mother about his "deal" with Sharon, and his mother would call the school and tell them about it.

'''Instead:''' Nobody brings this up at all, and the next day, when Andrew is well enough to go back to school, he brings a magic marker (blue, since he can't find a brown one) with him and draws freckles on his face. As Nicky points out, "Whoever heard of blue freckles?".

'''Fortunately:''' Miss Kelly gives Andrew a note telling him how to wash his "freckles" off with the enclosed "magic freckle remover" (a lemon-scented bar of soap), and then she tells him that she finds him attractive just the way that he is.

* ''Literature/CuriousGeorgeGoesToTheHospital'': The titular curious monkey of the series by H. A. Rey has discovered a wooden jigsaw puzzle in its box, sitting on the desk of his friend, the man with the yellow hat. He opens it, and thinks that it's a box of candy. He puts one of the puzzle pieces into his mouth.

'''You'd Expect''': He'd spit it out as soon as realizes that it doesn't taste like candy.

'''Instead''': He doesn't, and swallows it whole.

'''Later''': The man returns home, and notices that George has already opened the puzzle, which he says was supposed to be a surprise for him. They put the puzzle together, but, as expected, one of the pieces is missing.

'''You'd Have Expected''': That if the puzzle was supposed to be a surprise for George, then the man, knowing George's curiosity, would have had it with him, and not left it out where George could find it easily.

'''The Result''': George has to go to the hospital, as the title indicates.

'''

'''Instead''': They continue to use figures of speech, and she continues to take instructions wrong. They actually did learn to do that at the end of the first book, but they obviously forgot to in later books.

'''Even So:''' Thomas had to use all of the money his sister Lara had allowed him to take, and he and Harry really could have used the money.\\

'''Instead''': He fully reveals what he wants to do to both another crocodile and four other animals; a hippo, an elephant, a monkey, and a bird. Unsurprisingly, during his attempts to eat children, the latter four each disrupt his attempts and alert the children to what he's up to, with the hippo outright attacking him. His loose lips even result in his death, as the elephant decides to stop him for good by throwing him into the sun.