History WhatAnIdiot / VideoGames

* ''WhatAnIdiot/LikeADragon''

* [[WhatAnIdiot/VideoGamesAToK #-K]]

* [[WhatAnIdiot/VideoGamesAToK A-K]]

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[[folder:Video Games A-D]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Ann}}'': Hana Itagaki, a student at the Delta Academy of Arts, has just caught her friend, Clara, having SextraCredit with the principal. She records the whole tryst on her phone.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Her to sneak away and turn in the video evidence to the appropriate authorities, getting the principal fired and sent to jail.\\
'''Instead''': She waits until Clara has left and confronts the principal, alone, in the school garage, and ''tells him to his face'' that she recorded everything.\\
'''As A Result''': The principal strangles her to death to keep his secret from leaking, getting away with it since there were no witnesses, and she becomes a StringyHairedGhostGirl who curses the school.
* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore: Nexus''. Navis, a smaller-scale [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Corporation]], activates a LostTechnology superweapon to keep their territory safe from the larger encroaching Corporations. This weapon is the robotic equivalent of a weapon of mass destruction. So, of course, [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters it promptly goes nuts on them upon activation]] and destroys the very people who activated it, killing the Navis executives, leaving Navis in ruins and almost all of its employees and resources dead and destroyed.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The other Corporations, ''seeing Navis get completely wiped off the map'' by willy-nilly activating giant freakin' robots, would be a heck of a lot more cautious with the lost weapons that ''they'' found, and that they wouldn't '''ever''' activate those weapons without knowing exactly what those weapons did, what those weapons were capable of, and ''sure as all heaven'' not without being able to control them.\\
'''Instead''': Kisaragi, another MegaCorp that is apparently completely {{Genre Blind|ness}}, does the exact same thing ''in the exact same game.'' Only this time, not only do they activate a copy of ThatOneBoss of the entire VideoGame/ArmoredCore series (the AI of which has a KillEmAll and MurderIsTheBestSolution mentality no less), but they also activate [[SuicideAttack hundreds of thousands]], ''[[SuicideAttack if not millions]]'', [[SuicideAttack of suicide weapons]], all of which promptly go kamikaze on the rest of the Corporations and humanity in general. Oh, [[spoiler:[[DownerEnding and it also gets the protagonist of the game, you, killed.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/ArmyOfTwo'' has a scene that actually {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this trope. Salem and Rios have been set up as the fall guys after they unwittingly killed a US senator to help their corrupt boss back S&C get him out of the picture so a bill to privatize the military will pass. They board a cargo plane to head back to Miami to stop him. But Phillip Cylde, crazy as hell mercenary, who has apparently cut his mouth to create a sick Joker-esque smile, has snuck aboard the plane.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Clyde to simply kill Rios and Salem while they are sleeping and try everything possible to avoid using guns... in a flying airplane. Or maybe even just planting a time bomb and jumping out of the plane before it goes off.\\
'''Instead:''' He not only kills the pilots of the plane instead of his intended targets, he delays shooting them to gloat at how much he's going to enjoy killing them. This would be fine as he took Salem as a hostage and pretty much had control of the situation. But the US Air Force noticed the dead pilots, figured it was an approaching terrorist attack and started shooting at the plane. This gives Salem and Rios the chance to overpower Clyde and get themselves to cover. Clyde starts shooting wildly damaging the plane even further. Then Clyde throws a grenade, a short-sighted move in general. But it only gets worse as another hit from the US Air Force manages to roll the grenade back at him. Rios then {{lampshade|Hanging}}s Clyde's actions up to this point by saying "What an Idiot" and he and Salem head for the hovercraft at the back of the plane. But Clyde isn't done, he actually decides to fire a Javelin missile inside the plane. He apparently doesn't know how to use its "fire and forget" technology 'cause he misses and manages to help Rios and Salem by blasting open the jammed cargo door behind them. Rios and Salem escape on the hovercraft while Clyde ends up in the drink with the crashing plane. He survives, but he seriously screwed up his mission in so many ways.
* The ExcusePlot for the classic UsefulNotes/{{arcade game}} ''VideoGame/{{Asteroids}}'': a spaceship pilot finds themselves in the middle of an AsteroidThicket[[note]]Asteroid fields in RealLife are much more expansive and uncrowded than how they are usually depicted in fiction, a famous example being ''[[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back]]''[[/note]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The pilot would have realized how suicidally stupid it would be to park their spaceship in the middle of this asteroid field.\\
'''Instead:''' [[TooDumbToLive They didn't realize the obvious danger and did exactly that.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' The pilot is forced to fire shots at the asteroids to destroy them, and contact with any one of the asteroids [[OneHitPointWonder is instant death]].
* According to the GameOver [[TheBadGuyWins Cutscene]] in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'', Gruntilda could just tell her [[TheIgor lackey]] to turn up the power and complete the transformation from [[EvilMakesYouUgly Hag]] into [[EvilIsSexy Hot]] anytime she wanted.\\
'''You'd Expect''': She tells her lackey to turn up the power immediately, or anytime during the several hours she taunts the heroes while they [[GottaCatchThemAll collect the collectibles]] of the game.\\
'''Instead''': She does the aforementioned later, either doing nothing but taunting the heroes as they get closer and closer to her, or work on her PopQuiz LethalLavaLand.\\
'''In Addition''': After heroes beat her in (again) aforementioned PopQuiz LethalLavaLand she willingly [[EvenEvilHasStandards gives up her hostage]] and runs away, even though she was under no real obligation to do so.\\
'''But Then''': Despite Gruntilda uncharacteristically abandoning her plot and fleeing, Tootie insists that you have to properly defeat her before you can celebrate your victory. It can't be said with certainty that she would have been any nicer if they'd left her alone, but the outcome of this battle leaves her severely injured and vowing revenge, which leads to all of her villainous plots during the next three games.\\
'''And To Top It All Off''': The victim of the first game's plot and catalyst for the rest of the franchise's problems vanishes from the series entirely afterward. So what have our heroes gained?
** At the beginning of the game, Gruntilda kidnaps Tooty.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That after locking Tooty up, Gruntilda would immediately either; A: Lock up her lair against any intruders, specifically Banjo and Kazooie, B: Given her vast magical power, she would nuke Banjo and Kazooie's house with them inside it before they could leave, (Something she later flat out does in ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie), right after grabbing Tooty'' or C. Simply confront the duo prior to them completing the training courses Spiral Mountain, where they lack the experience and several critical moves that would be needed for them to even begin to be considered a threat to her. Doing any one of these would allow her plans to go off unimpeded.\\
'''Instead''': She plays OrcusOnHisThrone for the entirety of the game, never directly dealing with them. This allows them to not only rescue Tooty, but gain the abilities and experience needed to defeat her.
** Following her defeat after the final battle, Gruntilda is left crushed under a large boulder, still alive but unable to escape herself.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Since said boulder is located literally ''right up from Banjo's house,'' that he and Kazooie would find some way to permanently keep said boulder in place and seal that witch away forever. Also that they would dissuade, or fight off Klungo to prevent him from aiding Grunty's escape.\\
'''Instead''': They leave the boulder and Klungo alone. For two years. During this time Grunty nearly escapes once, (which ''should'' have prompted the heroes to take some kind of action) and finally, her sisters are able to enable her escape, setting up the entire plot for the sequel.
** In order to restore Gruntilda's body, her sisters have built a BFG that sucks the life force out whatever it targets. It is revealed that despite the gun's power, it has a massive drawback in charging time between firings.\\
'''You'd Expect''': For her sisters to immediately target Banjo and Kazooie first back in their home in Spiral Mountain, while the two have no knowledge of their plan, (given that the gun has enough range to restore Bottles later on, this is possible). Alternatively, that the sisters would immediately gather the energy needed to restore Gruntilda first, so that when they do rescue her, Grunty can gain her body right away.\\
'''Instead''': They release Grunty first, (which alerts the heroes to their plan), their subsequent firings of the gun and recharge time delay Grunt's restoration long enough for BK to catch up and defeat them.
* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'':
** Gibari and King Ladekahn have headed to Nashira to watch the skyfarers bring in today's catch. When they reach Nashira, however, they're shocked to find that Alfardian soldiers have captured the village and imprisoned the inhabitants. Ladekahn demands to know what is going on, and is laughed at by the soldiers.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He'd say something along the lines of 'I'm King Ladekahn, dumbass. What the hell are you doing on my island?'\\
'''Instead:''' He throws a fit and orders them to leave Diadem immediately, prompting the soldiers to lock him and Gibari up.
** Ladekahn also has a moment in ''Eternal Wings''. After Alfard (again) lays siege to Diadem on flimsy claims, he's told that the Alfardian emissaries would like to make a ceasefire.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He'd realize that Alfard probably doesn't have Diadem's best interests in mind.\\
'''Instead:''' He meets the Alfardians on the bridge to his castle, alone, and gets shot by Ayme. The only thing that keeps Ayme from finishing him off is Lyude's HeelFaceTurn.
* ''VideoGame/{{Battlefield 3}}'': Deuteragonist Dimitri Mayakovsky and his Spetsnaz team have traced a known terrorist to Paris who has a stolen nuclear device and plans to detonate it and intend to do whatever is necessary to stop him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd warn the French authorities that terrorists are on their soil and have a nuclear weapon primed and to request their assistance in stopping the detonation. [[spoiler:Or warn the US Government that they have a double agent in their ranks.]]\\
'''Instead:''' They don't say a word, and decide that they have no choice but to storm in guns a'blazin and waste precious time and effort having to murder any innocent French police officer who gets in their way.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Vladimir dies in the crossfire, [[NukeEm the nuke goes off without a hitch taking over a million civies with it]], Russia ends up in the middle of a major international shitstorm, and Dimitri ends up with life-threatening radiation poisoning for his trouble. An EpicFail for his squad on virtually every front.]]
** From the other side, Sgt. Henry Blackburn's Marine detachment under the leadership of [[TooDumbToLive Captain Cole]] are sent in to capture a Russian arms-dealer working with the terrorists who have taken over Iran. But when they get close to compound they find it's already being seized by Russian paratroopers who are being sent in to capture the dealer themselves.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Cole to wait and ask command to advise them on the situation or try to get in contact with the Russian forces to clarify things.\\
'''Instead:''' [[InsaneTrollLogic He takes this as proof that the Russian Army is in league with the terrorists and are covering up their mess]] and orders his under-armed and outnumbered troops to attack them completely unprovoked.\\
'''Result:''' It ends with nearly '''all''' of the Marines under Cole's command dead and as [[OnlySaneMan Montes]] points out, the assault probably triggered the biggest international incident since Pearl Harbor. All because he wanted a promotion so damn bad that he thought setting off World War III, without thinking of the possible repercussions for ''five seconds'', was the best way to get it. [[spoiler:[[IdiotPlot And it's implied it would've WORKED if Blackburn hadn't done the smart thing and wasted him.]]]]
*** Or, hell, the whole ''framing device.'' To elaborate, Sgt. Blackburn is in custody and suspected of treason to which two CIA analysts have been tasked with investigating the matter. Throughout the entire interrogation Blackburn keeps warning them that Solomon is the mastermind behind a suspected terror plot and that he plans on attacking that very day with details about how he plans to do it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they'd go over every last nook and cranny as thoroughly as possible and advise their superiors to take precautions in case of a possible terror attack. [[spoiler:Or look for evidence of a possible security leak or rogue agent.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Simply because Solomon is a CIA informant, they believe that ''everything'' Blackburn says, without question, is a lie. Despite Blackburn having a witness in the form of Montes, they never ask for his testimony - they only bring him in long enough to ask one incredibly loaded question just to bury Blackburn further, instead of anything that would either confirm ''or'' contradict Blackburn's claims - and despite having ''video evidence'' of Solomon murdering Sergeant Miller in cold blood, they never so much as have him undergo a psych evaluation.]] Instead, one of the interrogators contributes nothing and only says "Ha ha fuck you, you're lying" every chance he gets and all but confesses to Black that the interrogation is a KangarooCourt and that he's already guilty. Plus, they both ignore Cole blatantly giving the middle finger to Rules Of Engagement and every bit of evidence Black has in favor of simply blaming the Russians for everything. [[SarcasmMode Because, you know, they're Russian. They can't possibly NOT be evil.]]\\
'''Result:''' Solomon's plan ''almost'' succeeds and is only thwarted because Montes and Blackburn [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere get sick of their bullshit and escape.]] [[TooDumbToLive And if multiplayer and the sequel are any indication, they still decide to wage a completely pointless war that will cost millions of dollars and lives anyway.]]\\
'''Even Worse:''' One of the details Blackburn gives to them about Solomon's attack is that he's using public transportation to move his nuke. Late into the interrogation, one of the interrogators receives word that Solomon has indeed arrived in the city. Right as it's winding down, [[InstantlyProvenWrong the exact instant he claims they "have it under control"]], he also receives word that ''a public train has gone missing, '''and he doesn't put two and two together from that.''''' The CIA couldn't have been less effective at stopping Solomon's attack if they were actively trying to help him go through with it.
* ''Videogame/BeyondTwoSouls'': The [[BlackAndWhiteMorality (evil)]] American government has discovered a supernaturally empowered girl who has a literal guardian spirit devoted to protecting her at any cost. This spirit [[SuperpowerLottery has telekinesis and can suffocate people as well as possess their bodies]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They keep a close eye on the girl and maintain a constant watch on her throughout her life, minimalizing any influence that she might see as threatening or oppressive. Above all, they don't expose her to traumatic situations and try to keep her state of mind sane and uncompromised.\\
'''Instead:''' They make her their [[TykeBomb assassin]] and keep her from having any freedom and social contact. When the girl inevitably tries to escape their grasp, they send a small army's worth of cops and soldiers to detain her.\\
'''Result:''' The girl rebels, and goes on to kill people. A lot of people.
** Late in the game, Jodie is pressed into infiltrating a [[UsefulNotes/ChineseWithChopperSupport PLA]]-esque's top secret UnderwaterBase with her former CIA teammates, which include both her love interest Ryan and the team's token-Asian member Nick. Finding a submarine dry-dock and seeing no alternative to piloting the sub down and walking in through the front door, Jodie suggests DressingAsTheEnemy to try and slip by unnoticed. Since Jodie's supernatural connection to Aiden is needed for the mission, she gets a pass, but she still needs some backup and since the sub is only a two seater, only one other member of the squad can go with her.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They would send Nick with her so as not to arouse suspicion; even if he isn't Chinese (or [[{{Wutai}} Kaziri]], or whatever), he would be more likely to pass for one at a distance and thus, would stand out less. He could then scout ahead for the far-more conspicuous 20-something white girl.\\
'''Instead:''' They send the obviously white Ryan with her for no adequate reason other than to create dramatic/romantic tension.\\
'''Result:''' Jodie and Ryan are discovered almost immediately after exiting the sub, and are captured and tortured for information.
* ''VideoGame/{{BioShock|1}}'': MadScientist Dr. Suchong is put in charge of developing a plasmid that will make [[GiantMook Big Daddies]] protect [[MacGuffin Little Sisters]] whenever the Little Sisters are in harm's way.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Suchong would not do anything to harm the Little Sisters, in the case that his research were successful.\\
'''Instead:''' While complaining about the initial failures of his creation, he slaps a Little Sister that was trying to get his attention. [[spoiler:It ends up revealing his work was, in fact, successful when he gets ''drilled to his desk'' by a suddenly-protective Big Daddy]].
* ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'': Upon arriving in Columbia, Booker finds a poster telling the citizens that they will recognize [[TheAntiChrist the False Shepherd]] by the "AD" brand on his hand. Booker just so happens to have an identical brand on his hand.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Booker to cover up his brand with a glove or something similar to avoid attracting attention.\\
'''Instead:''' Booker disregards the sign and moves on.\\
'''Result:''' The brand is noticed by the police, and they promptly try to execute him.
* There are instances in the ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series where you really have to question the intellect of the protagonists.
** In the ''Desperation'' story of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueContinuumShift'', Noel and Tsubaki have their little tiff due to Tsubaki being thoroughly {{mindraped}} by Terumi. Noel accidentally extracts a memory of Terumi from Tsubaki's mind afterwards and comes to the conclusion that he did something to her good friend.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Noel would at least fall back and get some reinforcements. She was there at the end of ''Calamity Trigger'', and knows Terumi is bad news. Other characters have gone out of their way to advise her to give the bastard a wide berth - Makoto, her other good friend, explicitly asked her to try to stay away from him. Even if Noel and the help can't take Terumi down, they'd have an escape plan.\\
'''Instead:''' She charges on in and fights Terumi alone. [[AllAccordingToPlan Just the way he wanted it.]]
---> "I have arrived, reborn as Kusanagi. The destroyer of all living things. I am death..."
** During Chapter 6 of ''VideoGame/BlazBlueChronophantasma'', Kagura finishes his evaluation of Tsubaki and returns to Kokonoe to report what he knows (coupled with a tip that Hazama knows she's with him).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For them to invite Noel and Makoto in for the discussion, even if they had to wait. Not only is Tsubaki their closest friend, and someone they'd be willing to forsake orders to save, but Makoto, as a former Intelligence officer, could eavesdrop upon them with both of them being none the wiser.\\
'''Instead:''' They start the meeting right away. Before it ends, Makoto barges in and demands an explanation as Kokonoe laments the fact that she was eavesdropping.\\
'''You'd also expect:''' Them to have Makoto verify what she overheard and fill in the gaps as thoroughly as possible, even if she had to have Tager do so for her. An educated spy is an efficient spy, and Makoto has proven to be somewhat responsible.\\
'''Instead:''' Kokonoe berates Makoto on the responsibilities of her role while Kagura blankly assures that everything will be alright. Then when Makoto's out of the room, Kokonoe has Tager try to restrain them both (never mind that Makoto would beat the shit out of Tager [[BerserkButton if he tried to make a move on Noel]]). [[WithFriendsLikeThese If this is how you treat your allies, professor...]]\\
'''Even worse:''' Kokonoe berates Kagura on not noticing Makoto's intent this whole time, knowing full well she would act to save Tsubaki anyway. This forces the two of them to plan around the girls in situ thanks to not sharing the information, which almost gets Makoto 86'd by [[spoiler:Izanami acting through]] Tsubaki. Further still, Makoto does a thorough job warning Noel that Tsubaki would attempt to kill her, and none of the villains catch up to Noel in Story Mode before Kagura finds her. Do practice what you preach, Kokonoe, alright?
** During the climax of ''Chronophantasma'', [[spoiler:Nu forcibly attempts to merge with Noel, bringing the latter into a mindscape with a mirror, the reflection of which has white hair compared to Noel's blonde.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Noel to recognize the white-haired girl as Nu and refuse to comply. The last time she got close to Nu, things went pear-shaped, and she should at least remember that much.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:She recognizes the reflection as herself, which once again [[AllAccordingToPlan goes along with what Relius was planning]]. Rachel tries to tell her to stop, but by then the damage was done.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Relius sends Nu back to Hazama with her newly shared permissions, whereupon she summons ''[[PhysicalGod the Master Unit]]'' and things become two orders of magnitude worse for the heroes. [[SarcasmMode Way to go, girlfriend.]]]]
** In the closing act, [[spoiler:Ragna has just finished incapacitating the aforementioned Nu and dragged her out of Take-Mikazuchi alongside Celica and Minerva. Ragna, out of his desire to save Nu, asks Celica to heal her]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Ragna to belay his request until he can get a binding array on Nu, considering she just tried to kill him moments before. Even if he has genuine feelings for Nu outside of pity over her predicament, some things just shouldn't be left to chance, and there's no guarantee she won't give him [[DeadlyHug hug.exe]] once she's healthy again.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:They both go right ahead and heal her unbound. Izanami shows up, banishes Hakumen (who was trying to kill Nu despite Celica's pleas), sics Nine (formerly Phantom) on Jubei, and commands the beast to awaken. Cue hug.exe as predicted, Noel getting hurt, and Jin beaten to an inch of his life. Kokonoe was right when she said being naive would lead to someone's downfall.]]
** The heroes aren't the only ones who can fuck things up. Back in one of the bad endings of ''Continuum Shift'', Terumi was able to stay Hakumen's wrath by using Tsubaki as a human shield. Remember this for later. In ''Chronophantasma'', he is dispatched to the Coliseum, currently holding a tournament over the bounty for Ragna the Bloodedge, to investigate an anomaly within the area. This is split into two parts, since he had enough time to do both.\\
'''You'd First Expect:''' Terumi to check up on Tsubaki. Not only would he be able to use the opportunity to check up on his anti-Hakumen shield, but there are three people who want to save her from her BrainwashedAndCrazy state, all of whom are some form of threat to him; eliminating one member of this group before they could put their plan into action could make their job of saving Tsubaki that much harder. Even if he was too late to stop them, he could have a backup plan ready to go.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' That he focus on tracking the anomaly as a primary objective. Identifying what this entity is and what they're capable of would take priority in an actual fight if they are proven capable of obscuring the presence of more dangerous threats.\\
'''Instead:''' You guessed it - neither of these thought proceses came into play.\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:The instant Ragna is exposed, Terumi (still in Hazama's body) hunts him down and tortures him for shiggles; the anomaly (Celica Ayatsuki Mercury) returns to Ragna's side with Tager at her side, leaving Terumi crippled and in need of an immediate evac. In the long term, Makoto, Jin and Noel saved Tsubaki from her brainwashing, leaving Terumi without his anti-Hakumen shield and open to Time Killer. He can't pursue or punish these individuals immediately in ''Centralfiction'' because of his [[YourDaysAreNumbered broken hourglass]], something he could have salvaged if he took his little scheme a bit more seriously.]]
* ''VideoGame/BloodstainedRitualOfTheNight'': The Alchemy Guild... where to even begin? Journals from an anonymous member found throughout the game reveal how demons were summoned to Earth and how the Shardbinders were created. [[spoiler:The Alchemy Guild researched how to summon demons, led by the anonymous writer of the journals, and discovered how to transmute magic crystals to do so. They successfully summoned a single demon, which proceeded to almost ruin the entire guild single-handedly, as well as kill many innocent lives before it was put down.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:The Alchemy Guild to have realized that if ''one'' demon is capable of such pointless devastation, then summoning ''a whole army'' of demons is a ''really'' bad idea bordering on TooDumbToLive, and immediately stopped their research.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Too blinded by avarice and fearful of their wealthy patrons deserting spiritualism in favour of science amidst the UsefulNotes/IndustrialRevolution, the Alchemy Guild [[SkewedPriorities went ahead with the experiment]], gathering enough magic crystals to forcibly implant into the bodies of young people to sacrifice as part of a ritual to summon a whole army of demons to Earth, all for the purpose of [[EvilIsPetty frightening the world into continuing to give them financial support]]. The Church eventually managed to defeat the demonic invasion, [[PhyrricVictory but at the cost of countless innocent lives]], and the alchemists responsible were ultimately caught [[TooDumbToLive and executed]] for their crimes, led by Gebel, [[DeathByIrony the one Shardbinder to be subjected to the ritual and survive]].]]\\
'''Bonus Idiot Points:''' [[spoiler:An internal SpannerInTheWorks [[OnlySaneMan who realized how greedy and selfish the Alchemy Guild had become]] put the most powerful Shardbinder and the crux of their "plans", [[TheHero Miriam]], in a magic sleep for ten years, weakening the summoning by half... which was ''still'' powerful enough to devastate the world to the point that it still hasn't recovered ten years later. If the Alchemy Guild had succeeded in sacrificing Miriam, they would have brought about TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt because ''money and power''.]]\\
'''But Wait, It Gets Worse:''' [[spoiler:It is strongly suggested that the Alchemy Guild's actions are what led to Dominique [[EvilStoleMyFaith losing her faith in God]] and [[RageAgainstTheHeavens deciding to acquire enough power to slay gods]], becoming the [[BigBad main antagonist]] of the game. This makes the writer of the journals the [[GreaterScopeVillain overarching antagonist]] who is responsible for pretty much ''the entire story''. Way to go, dumbasses!]]
* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'':
** The Vault Hunters have just stormed Control Core Angel to steal the Vault key from Handsome Jack. After a grueling fight they finally have the key and have deprived Jack of his means of powering it, namely [[spoiler:his Siren daughter, Angel, who gave her life to stop her father]]. Suddenly, Jack appears and shoots [[spoiler:Roland]] dead.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For the Vault Hunters (canonically there are six present in the room during this scene), all of whom are heavily-armed badasses with little reservations about killing people, to immediately pump Jack full of lead.\\
'''Instead:''' The Vault Hunters do absolutely nothing at first. Lilith is the first to react...by charging at Jack, allowing him to slap a power-restraining collar on her and giving him a means to charge the Vault key once again. Then the Vault Hunters continue to do nothing while Jack monologues, before he takes Lilith as a human shield and tries to have her kill them, forcing her to teleport them back to Sanctuary without the key.\\
'''Result:''' The attack on Control Core Angel was all for nothing.
* ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePreSequel'': At the end of Jack's quest to take the Vault, [[spoiler:Lilith shows up, phasewalking in]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For her to [[spoiler: kill Jack where he stands]].\\
'''Instead:''' She [[spoiler:smashes the Vault relic, scarring Jack, and escapes before finishing him, leaving a psychotic dictator hellbent on getting revenge on her and Roland.]]
* While the fairies of the ''VideoGame/BravelyDefault'' series are shown to possess ages' worth of knowledge, ''VideoGame/BravelySecond'' reveals that they have ''no way'' of reliably countering someone with equal experience. The same goes to the people they 'help'.
** Kaiser Oblivion [[spoiler:confides in Janne and Nikolai about their memory issues and comes to the conclusion that the protagonists recall everything they experienced as well, making his plans an open book]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': Him to drop a silent proxy to steal the Space-Time Compass from the party, preferably in a fashion that does not give away his intentions.\\
'''Instead''': He consents to having Geist and Revenant pick it up. [[spoiler:While Rev does get the compass, a bloodsoaked priest and animate suit of armor are very conspicuous, leading Braev to bring a team to the Harena Seacaves to fence them in and have them arrested with his daughter's aid.]]
** Following this, the party then baits Minette by claiming amongst a throng of cats that they will move it to Sagitta to protect it. You know, that village with the WaveMotionGun that previously blew Oblivion's shit up.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Kaiser Oblivion to see the obvious trap and send in a small group of his best soldiers to scout out the area and/or steal the MacGuffin.\\
'''Instead''': He charges in guns-a-blazing on the Skyhold, only to be shot at and chased away... right into Norzen's typhoon. The Empire is neutralized soon after, its officers arrested to the last.
** In Chapter 6, [[spoiler:the magical backlash of the Holy Pillar's disruption dispels Yoko's wards on Caldisla, re-exposing the region -- and, more importantly, the Great Chasm -- to the world. Anne finds the Great Chasm and discovers its connection to Lord Providence, allowing her to summon Ba'als anew without the Moon getting in the way]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:Her to hold on to Turtle Dove until she has enough Ba'als to alpha strike Caldisla in the event Yew and the others survived the destruction of the Skyhold... or at least enough to keep them at bay]].\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:She sends it to Lontano Villa, where Egil detects it and reports back, allowing Yew and his lot to eliminate it. They eventually follow the Norende Ravine trail right back to her, kill her, and use the Great Chasm as an in-road to punching out Providence. Airy was the smarter sister, apparently]].
* ''VideoGame/BugFables'': The Wasp King seems to be aware of [[spoiler:Queen Vanessa and the fact her fire brooch could do with protecting the holders against his fire attack]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': The Wasp King to kill [[spoiler:Vanessa. Besides, if she wasn't at the castle during the time of Chapter 5, the bugs would've just encountered Ultimax and realize a bit too late that something's off]]. Or at least steal the [[spoiler:brooch away from her]] so nothing could counter him. It's not like [[spoiler:there wasn't any real room for objection]]\\
'''Instead''': He just tortures her at worst, meaning [[spoiler:by the time the heroes are on the way to the Giant's Lair, Vanessa gives the brooch over to them, letting them take on the Wasp King]].
* ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'':
** Right after Jimmy is led by Gary into a trap against Russell and managed to win against him, Gary proclaims his motives and flees the scene.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Jimmy and Petey to find Gary before he does anymore damage to Bullworth Academy and leave the cliques to their fates for now.\\
'''Instead:''' Jimmy never once considers just searching for Gary despite Petey's constant suggestion of simply searching for Gary over having the approval of all the five cliques. Predictably, Gary somehow managed to overthrow Jimmy as the new ruler of the school and cause massive chaos on Bullworth Academy.
** Once Jimmy managed to take pictures of Johnny's girlfriend Lola cheating on Gord and gives it to him, Johnny now has full proof of Lola's infidelity.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he approaches Lola, directly confront her infidelity based on the pictures he obtained and if she didn't give any reasonable explanation, dump her.\\
'''Instead:''' He apparently still thinks that he can win Lola back by knocking out not just Gord but anyone who even bats an eye at her such as Cornelius and Algie. This causes an unnecessary amount of tension and conflict in chapter 3 that could have been avoided if Johnny had some [[LoveMakesYouDumb common sense]].
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfCthulhuDarkCornersOfTheEarth'', Sebastian Marsh has Jack at his mercy towards the end of the game. So what does he do?
** '''You'd expect''': He kills him.
** '''Instead''': He throws him into a brig build above a tunnel and where a chisel is lying in the middle of the room (which can actually be seen ''from outside the brig''). Of course, Jack uses the chisel to break the tunnel's grate and escape the brig...
* In the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series:
** In ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsII'', the protagonists have just captured Lev Kravchenko, former [[TheDragon dragon]] to previous BigBad Dragovich, and take him to a compound to interrogate him.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Woods or Hudson, both of whom are present and know that Mason was brainwashed to be compelled to kill Kravchenko, to disarm Mason and take him to another room to regain his composure.\\
'''Instead''': They just stand there and let him watch, and do nothing when he outright cocks his gun and points it at Kravchenko.\\
'''The Result''': Mason either just barely manages to resist his brainwashing through sheer HeroicWillpower, or succumbs and murders Kravchenko before they can get any useful intel out of him. [[spoiler:Though Hudson was [[TheMole an insider for Raul Menendez by that point]] and might have intentionally been banking on it, Woods has absolutely no excuse.]]
** In ''VideoGame/CallofDutyInfiniteWarfare'', the SDF has attacked a SATO installation and stolen a prototype weapon just before UNSA Fleet Week.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Given the flagrant attack on their personnel, the UNSA not to put every ship out in the open on Fleet Week.\\
'''Instead''': They do just that.\\
'''The Result''': SDF forces hijack their anti-air guns and wipe out almost their entire fleet. Only two ships, ''Retribution'' and ''Tigris'', survive the assault and are forced to single-handedly defend Earth from the SDF from that point forward.
** At the end of ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyBlackOpsColdWar'', Bell discovers [[spoiler:they are actually a member of Perseus who was captured and brainwashed by the Americans so they could help find Perseus and his stolen nuclear arsenal. Their handler Adler then demands to know where Perseus is hiding, and Bell gives an answer.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Adler to have some sort of contingency plan in case Bell, who has every reason to hate his guts at this point, lies to him. Even if they have no other leads on Perseus, he should still keep the possibility of a trap in mind.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He puts his complete and unconditional faith in an individual who has every reason to hate his guts and want him dead.]]\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:Bell has free reign to double-cross him and lead him into an ambush, getting him and nearly his entire team killed.]]
* ''VideoGame/CaveStory'': PlayedForLaughs: After the PlayerCharacter busts Kazuma Sakamoto out of the warehouse he was trapped in in Grasstown[[note]]Aeon Genesis translation[[/note]]/Bushlands[[note]][[Creator/{{Nicalis}} NICALiS]] translation[[/note]], he and Professor Booster notice a motorcycle nearby that Kazuma deduces still works.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Kazuma would observe the motorcycle's controls before trying to drive it.\\
'''Instead:''' He starts the ignition without observing the controls.\\
'''The Result:''' Turns out Kazuma DidntThinkThisThrough; he and fellow passenger Professor Booster lose control of the motorcycle and crash-land near the teleporter to Mimiga Village, forcing the PlayerCharacter to walk back to the teleporter on foot. They survive, but the motorcycle is damaged beyond repair.
* ''VideoGame/ChildOfLight'':
** [[LightIsGood Aurora]] wakes up in the strange MagicalLand of Lemuria, that has been conquered and had its light stolen by [[DarkIsEvil Umbra]], [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]], [[CoDragons her daughters]] and their army, and is asked to restore the light. Throughout the whole of Lemuria, Aurora can find wishes hanging from bushes that each restore a small amount of HP/MP. These bushes grow back their wishes after a short period of time. They can even be found mid-battle (but take much longer to grow wishes back). In short, these wish bushes are helpful to anyone trying to stand up to the Queen of the Night's reign.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Umbra and co. to find as many wish bushes as possible, uproot and burn them.\\
'''Instead:''' [[FailedASpotCheck They do nothing]] about the wish bushes. You can see where this is going.
** [[spoiler:Norah joins Aurora's party with the promise that a MagicMirror up in the sky will transport them [[TheHomewardJourney back home to Aurora's dying father]]. When they eventually reach the magic mirror, it is revealed that it was tampered with to transport them to a prison tower. [[FromBadToWorse Worse]], Norah had been lying to Aurora the entire time and was [[LuredIntoATrap luring her into a trap]] so she and her [[TyrantTakesTheHelm tyrannical]] mother can murder her, and her friendly, caring demeanour gives way to a manipulative, cruel and [[{{Narcissist}} narcissistic]] [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who savours emotionally breaking her [[WouldHurtAChild little stepsister]] (she even lied about her name; she confirms her real name as Nox). She was able to hide her real nature extremely well with only a few subtle hints of her eventual betrayal, to the extent that this not only comes as a shock to Aurora, but can also be [[PlayerPunch a legitimate shock to the player]]. What she does ''next'', however, is not nearly so well-executed. After she and her mother fail to murder Aurora due to her crown containing magical protection, albeit knocking her unconscious and therefore are able to order Óengus to lock her up in the tower until she starves to death, Nox succeeds in capturing all of Aurora's friends and imprisoning them in cages in a separate cell for starvation, if only to spread fear to the masses who might be thinking of opposing her and her mother's rule of Lemuria.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Nox would lock the door and/or place a guard in front of it, especially since (1) the lever mechanism that unlocks the cages is ''right there in the room in plain view'', out of the prisoners' reach but easily accessed by anybody else who enters, (2) locked doors are a thing in ''Child of Light'', and they can never be unlocked at any point as there are no keys to be found in the game, and (3) there ''are'' guards elsewhere in the prison tower.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Nox decides that the cages are sufficient and leaves the door to the cell unlocked, with no guard.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler:Aurora, accompanied by Óengus (who had only pledged to serve Umbra and her daughters in exchange for the lives of his comrades), are later able to walk in with little difficulty and set them all free. Granted, Nox displays narcissism after revealing her real nature, boasting about her [[RagsToRoyalty acquiring royalty status]] through her mother's marriage to Aurora's father and later calling Aurora's friends "insects", and narcissists and sociopaths are known for being impulsive and [[DidntThinkThisThrough not thinking things through]], but she's given Aurora and co. a very good incentive to hunt her down and make her pay for what she's done to them (and later Genovefa by being heavily implied to be responsible for the Ogre that eats the rest of her kind, leaving Gen the [[LastOfHerKind sole survivor]]) with her life. Congratulations, moron.]]
*** [[spoiler:In [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Cynbel Sea]], it is shown that [[TheDragon Nox]] has the power to [[{{Flight}} fly]] without wings and [[OneWingedAngel turn into a giant]] [[ScaledUp sea serpent]] at will.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:She would have turned into her OneWingedAngel form earlier--preferably when she and [[BigBad her mother]] first heard about Aurora's soul living on in Lemuria after her mother killed her physical body in Austria--and [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim ambushed Aurora and co. while they were at much lower levels]]. If she has the power of wingless flight, then lack of water should not be a problem. That way, she could kill her little stepsister without the latter ever finding out about her true identity.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Being a sadistic sociopath (and because fighting a giant serpentine monster 20+ levels higher than you isn't much fun from a gameplay perspective), she approaches Aurora in her human form and spins a relatively complicated (and much more despicable) manipulation plot that ends up being far more effective at [[BreakTheCutie Breaking the Cutie]] than actually [[KillTheCutie killing]] her, as it turns out [[BadassAdorable Aurora]]'s crown is empowered with magical protection against the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen of the Night]]'s OneHitKill magic.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler:[[GoodIsNotSoft Aurora]] [[BeyondRedemption comes to hate Nox]] for her psychological abuse, and by the time the two fight to the death Aurora and her friends have become much stronger and can slay her.]]
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'':
** [[LargeHam Ozzie]] provides much [[Funny/ChronoTrigger hilarity]] from his own stupidity, but special mention has to go to his pit-traps. While the heroes are infiltrating the Fiendlord's Keep, Ozzie tries to stop the heroes reaching his Lord Magus by setting multiple traps that send them falling into a cell. [[{{Unishment}} The cell in question contains fake Save Points that can't attack and give high EXP. and money, four treasure chests with useful items, and the cell also contains a hidden Magic Capsule.]] In addition, one of the Save Points is actually a teleport to escape.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Ozzie would have checked earlier that the cell in question doesn't contain any free-EXP./money "enemies" or items to help the very heroes he's trying to stop, and that there's no way to escape so easily.\\
'''Instead:''' [[DidntThinkThisThrough He didn't think of any of these.]] He might as well be handing out free EXP., money and items to his enemies like candy.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' That Ozzie would realise that his pit-traps are ineffective and [[TimeForPlanB think of a different plan]] to dispatch the heroes.\\
'''Instead:''' He continues using pit-traps to send the heroes falling into the same cell over and over again, desperately hoping that things will turn out differently this time, and [[DidntSeeThatComing is taken completely by surprise]] when he inevitably exhausts all his resources. Since the fake Save Points respawn each time, [[ExaggeratedTrope he's handing out]] ''[[ExaggeratedTrope more]]'' [[ExaggeratedTrope free EXP. and money to his enemies like candy]].
** [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Queen Zeal]] succeeds in harvesting enough power from [[EldritchAbomination Lavos]] to become TheAgeless, and turns the Ocean Palace into the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Black Omen]], the BrutalBonusLevel that is nonetheless necessary if one desires closure on what happened in the Kingdom of Zeal. [[BigBad Lavos]] is still predetermined to emerge and reduce the Earth to ruin in 1999 A.D., and the Black Omen itself is infused with Lavos' power.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Queen Zeal would seal the entrance to the Black Omen during all accessible time periods while Lavos is still slumbering, so that no BigDamnHeroes can possibly interfere. She's fully confident that Lavos is completely undefeatable, but it would nonetheless be wise to take that one simple extra precaution.\\
'''Futhermore, You'd Expect:''' She would unseal the entrance ''after'' Lavos has laid waste to the world, so that if any BigDamnHeroes arrive, she could taunt them at the end with, "You've suffered through this BrutalBonusLevel... AllForNothing".\\
'''Instead:''' She does the complete opposite of that, leaving the entrance unsealed during Lavos' slumber and sealing it after Lavos awakens and destroys the Earth, taunting the heroes at the very beginning if they do try to take on the Black Omen after the Apocalypse.\\
'''Result:''' Those BigDamnHeroes arrive to interfere, and with enough skill can dispatch both the deranged Queen Zeal and Lavos, saving their planet's future. LetsPlay/{{Chuggaaconroy}} makes fun of this during his [[LetsPlay Let's Play]] of ''Chrono Trigger'':
--->'''Chugga:''' It's a known fact that it takes bad guys exactly 14,300 years to think of the brilliant plan of locking their doors so the heroes can't get to them.
* ''VideoGame/ClockTower3'' features a man intending to sacrifice his granddaughter [[DangerousSixteenthBirthday on her fifteenth birthday]]. He's doing this in order to become an immortal creature of evil.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The grandfather would treat his granddaughter with love, kindness and respect, not only so that she'll live long enough to see her fifteenth birthday, but that she'll implicitly trust him when the time comes. Even if he has to complete a ritual to sacrifice her, all he has to offer is a big birthday party for his beloved granddaughter to lure her into a trap.\\
'''Instead:''' He constantly puts her in danger against other evil forces, which eventually awakens her latent powers that help her fight off the evil. By the time she makes it to her grandfather, she promptly tells him off and kicks his ass with her newly awakened powers.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberiumWars'': The forces of GDI have managed to finally lay siege to Temple Prime, HQ for the Brotherhood of Nod and assumed location of the Nod mastermind/Messianic figure, Kane. Nod has the nasty habit of outsmarting GDI at every turn; oftentimes twisting GDI's actions against the organization. GDI's leading general advises that GDI forces attempt to hold the siege until Nod forces surrender. GDI's Director demands that they use GDI's [[KillSat Ion Cannon]]. The general notes that Nod was storing weaponized GreenRocks with enormous explosive potential in the facility, and suggests they consult their Green Rock Expert. Turns out, he's been kidnapped by Nod.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The director to realize that these events might be related, and the risk of falling into yet another [[BatmanGambit scenario where Nod tricks GDI into doing something terrible]]; therefore erring on the side of caution with the DeathRay.\\
'''Instead:''' The director orders the Ion Cannon be used, and Nod's Green Rock weapon explodes, causing a chain reaction with other Green Rocks in the area. This leads to a rather large explosion that more or less erases the entire Balkan Peninsula from existence; the director [[NoSympathy notes that the area was primarily Nod-controlled anyway]]. It's also worth noting that the Director (Redmond Boyle, played magnificently sleazily by Creator/BillyDeeWilliams) is implied to be an idiot, and later in the game, shows himself to be a fanatic of the degree of "So long as Nod is destroyed, do whatever action is necessary, even if it causes huge casualties on our side."
* In ''VideoGame/ComixZone'', Sketch Turner has made it to the final panel where General Alissa Cyan comes in to prevent the activation of a nuke.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That she has Sketch watch her back while she works, even if [[BigBad Mortus]] isn't capable of re-entering the comic, he could still draw in enemies to attack her and Sketch.\\
'''Instead:''' She tells Sketch to stay put until she disarms the nuke.\\
'''As a result:''' Mortus, swoops in to swipe Alissa from the controls and throw her in a tube filling with liquid in an attempt to drown her. Also as a result, in order to get the best ending Sketch will have to defeat Mortus before she drowns.
* ''VisualNovel/ACourtesanOfRome'': Arin plans to kill Tribune Gnaeus Rufus at night, by posing as one of his escorts.\\
'''You'd Expect''': She would come up with a plan that would look like Rufus died in an accident, without her being spotted in the crime scene.\\
'''Instead''': She either poisons him or stabs him, and doesn't even think about where to go after the deed is done.\\
'''Result''': Security finds her next to Rufus' corpse (if she chooses to stab him, he has visible stab wounds in his chest) and Syphax is forced to take the blame to save her.
* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot4ItsAboutTime'': Cortex has [[spoiler:used Kupuna-Wa to open a rift back to 1996, where his past counterpart self is about to create Crash Bandicoot. Cortex intends to use this chance to wipe Crash from existence.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' This to be simple: [[spoiler:Cortex to murder past Crash before he goes into the Cortex Vortex and maybe go after past Coco while he's at it]].\\
'''Instead:''' Cortex [[spoiler:first tries to convince his own past counterpart not to send Crash into the Cortex Vortex, but the past Cortex proves impossible to reason with. He then knocks past Cortex out and then decides to kill present Crash defeating the purpose of his time traveling.]]\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:Cortex loses yet another fight with Crash, gets banished to the end of the universe, and to add insult to injury, causes Crash to be created in the first place.]]
* ''VideoGame/CrashTagTeamRacing'':
** The game has all sorts of Die-O-Rama cut scenes that take TheManyDeathsOfYou to new heights. One of these cut scenes starts out with Crash putting a coin into a vending machine.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to push one of the buttons to pick a drink. He's dimwitted, but he's not stupid enough to be unaware of how vending machines work.\\
'''Instead:''' He forgets that part and just stands there waiting for a drink. Nothing happens.\\
'''The Result:''' He grows impatient and climbs on the machine trying to get it to dispense the drink, only for him to accidentally rock it and have it fall down and smash him.
** Later in the game, after Crash retrieves the last Power Gem from Tomb Town, everyone regroups and Coco reveals to everyone a major clue: [[spoiler:whoever the gem thief is has a connection to Wumpa Whip, as she and Pasadena (in a scrapped cutscene) have found Wumpa Whip at every crime scene around the park]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:For everyone to ask around if anyone has seen anyone or anything suspicious]].\\
'''Or''': [[spoiler:Ask Willie Wumpa Cheeks directly if he knows anything about the Wumpa Whip, because after all, ''he's a giant Wumpa fruit that dispenses Wumpa Whip'']].\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:Everyone jumps to conclusions and blames Crash for the thefts, since he was drinking some Wumpa Whip at the time]].\\
'''Now You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:For Coco, who says herself that she has an IQ of 164, to defend Crash, saying that there's no way he could be the thief, as a) the thefts started long before they even set foot in the park and b) Crash was helping Von Clutch recover the gems in the first place]].\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:Coco grabs hold of the IdiotBall and cries out, "Oh, Crash! How could you?!"]]\\
'''The Result''': [[spoiler:Willie Wumpa Cheeks snaps, calling the group out on their stupidity and confesses that he is the culprit, before fleeing to the final world, Astro Land, with Von Clutch's Black Power Gem in tow]].
* ''VideoGame/Crysis2'':
** New York has been overrun by the alien Ceph. Military command has already, by this point, hired and discarded mercenary company CELL to try containing not only the alien invasion but the plague they're spreading at the same time. When this fails (spectacularly), military command sends in Marine companies to A) contain the invasion and B) arrest the CELL operatives who have not just failed in their duty, but are completely fucking insane.\\
'''You'd Expect''': the higher-ups to let the Marines go about doing their jobs. Perhaps even send in regular soldiers to handle rounding up CELL and let Marines get on with dealing with the Ceph. The times you see the Marines in action, they seem to hold their own fairly well, if with heavy casualties. Reinforce them and let things continue that way, or, hell, investigate these reports of a man in super-armor kicking alien ass five ways till Sunday.\\
'''Instead''': They decide that extra measures are needed. Well, can't blame them for that. But they decide to strike against the Ceph by bombing out the upriver dam and ''flooding the city''. Now, these aliens have been nicknamed the Ceph. As in, cephalopods. As in, ''creatures that live in water''. Nearly every scientist talked to in the game notes how it's obvious that they are, at least, amphibious in origin, and that they seem to be at home in the water. So, not only are the higher-ups endangering the forces ''already'' in the city, they are potentially providing the aliens with an environment in which they will have an easy upper hand.
** Later, Ceph lithoship rises out of Central Park and prepares to spread the virus over the entire city, potentially much, much farther. Now, the last time a lithoship reared its head, military command launched a nuke at it. The lithoship then proceeded to not only be completely unharmed, but actually absorbed the power from the blast to boost its processes.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The higher-ups will have learned from their past mistakes and look for alternatives, seeing as the last time they nuked one of these things it went south rather spectacularly.\\
'''Instead''': ''They decide to throw a nuke at the damn thing anyways.'' Fortunately, Alcatraz sabotages it before they can get the launch in the air.
* In ''VideoGame/Crysis3'', CELL discovers that the Alpha Ceph is both the central hive mind of the Ceph colonization on Earth and [[spoiler:a massive source of energy which also happens to be the means of controlling the other Ceph - literally, the energy it releases is the same signal that controls the Ceph]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': That CELL would realize that [[spoiler:using the Alpha Ceph as an energy source isn't worth risking the destruction of all humanity if it gets loose]].\\
'''Instead''': CELL uses the [[spoiler:Alpha Ceph as a power source, interlinking all of Earth's power grids to the alien]]. And as a result, when [[spoiler:the Alpha breaks loose, another Ceph war erupts]]. [[LampshadeHanging Prophet himself is astonished by their flagrant stupidity.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Cuphead}}'': Cuphead and his brother Mugman are shooting dice at the Devil's Casino. To their surprise, they make an impressive winning streak that draws the attention of [[{{Satan}} the Devil himself]]. The Devil makes one more bet with the two heroes: ''"Win one more roll, then all the loot in my casino is yours! But if you lose, I'll have your souls! Deal?"'' Cuphead is excited to take the bet, but Mugman ''begs'' him not to do it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Cuphead to stop and think for a minute while taking his brother's warning into account. And then maybe decide that maybe it's better for them to quit while they're ahead. Because after all, making any kind of bet with [[MemeticMutation TEH DEVIL]] is ''never'' a good idea!\\
'''Instead:''' Cuphead gets {{greed}}y and impulsively makes the gamble. They lose after it comes up a Snake-Eyes, meaning that now The Devil owns both their souls. The two beg the Prince of Darkness not to take their souls and to let them repay their debt in another way.\\
'''The Result:''' Lucky for them, there ''is'' another way!: ''"I have here a list of my runaway debtors. Collect their souls for me, and I just might pardon you two mugs."'' So thanks to Cuphead's impulsiveness, he and Mugman are now sent to basically assassinate everyone who owes their souls to The Devil. And if they fail, they have to forfeit their souls to him for eternity. So what did we learn, kids?: ''Don't DealWithTheDevil.''
* In the original ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' campaign, the protagonist has battled his way through aliens and heretics alike to keep the forces of darkness from acquiring a powerful artifact. After most of them are crushed, he stands victorious with the MacGuffin in his hand, ready to destroy it. He also stands staring down the barrels of a lot of [[EnemyMine semi-friendly]] alien troops and one of their farseers who begs him not to destroy it. He is understandably reluctant, given that its destruction has been his objective for some time now.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The farseer's next words would be, "destroying it will release the powerful demon sealed inside, you unbelievable dumbass" which would be helpful, fulfill her agenda on the planet, ensure that the vast majority of her troops won't have died in vain, avoid releasing a Greater Demon and still fill her contractual quota of insulting the PunyEarthlings. If he ignores her, she can have the satisfaction of saying "I told you so", should she live long enough.\\
'''Instead''': The equally wordy but far less useful, "you know not what you do! We cannot allow this..." followed by her ordering her troops to shoot him. The artifact is broken in the ensuing firefight, and [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Hilarity Ensues]].\\
'''And the icing on the cake is:''' This is far from the first time the Eldar have chosen to insult humans rather than explain why what they're doing is a bad idea.
* ''VideoGame/DCUniverseOnline'': At the conclusion of the Villains' version of the alert "Titans Targeted," Nightwing, Red Robin, and Robin arrive to see Deathstroke escaping with the captured Cyborg while warning the "[[TheMole new recruits]]" to tell their friends The Fearsome Five not to get in his business again.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Nightwing to at least question them in regards to what Deathstroke said about their association with The Fearsome Five.\\
'''Instead:''' He ignores it and has them be a part of the effort to rescue the captured Titans. This results in not just H.I.V.E. Master's defeat, but him and Red Robin being captured along with the other Titans, being left to die in the collapsing mountain base.\\
'''The Result:''' Calculator not only gaining control of H.I.V.E. but the data of Titans Tower from the villains as well. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Way to go, Boy Blunder]].
* ''VideoGame/DeadIsland'': Jin kicks up a stink about helping those in a prison, despite warnings how dangerous it is.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' She'd listen.\\
'''Instead:''' She threatens the other survivors, causing distrust between them, ends up getting raped, and completely snaps to the point where her attack on Ryder White is taken as DrivenToSuicide.
* ''VideoGame/DeadRising'':
** In the very beginning, Frank West confronts a number of survivors in the mall. One of them is an old lady who's looking for her lost dog. A few moments later, it finally shows up - on the other side of the barricaded doors, barking, clearly zombified.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The lady to forget about it and keep back. The dog had been affected!\\
'''Instead:''' The lady breaks through, throws open the barricade and runs into the zombie hoard to grab her dog. The old lady is murdered and the zombies break in, killing most of the other survivors.
** [[spoiler:After being defeated by Frank]], Isabela is told to bring Carlito in for interrogation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he would refuse the request or come in calmly, having his plan already in motion.\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He shoots her in anger, leaving her with an obvious wound when she next sees Frank. She stops working for Carlito after this.]] [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Way to go, Carlito]].
** Before that, Frank meets her again in the supermarket after having saved her from Steven Chapman, a psychopath, and asks her to cooperate with him.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Isabela would gladly accept this since that they first met in the entrance of Willamette Mall, and he saved her life.\\
'''Instead''': She started to yell about how it's his fault that the hometown she and Carlito lived was destroyed by the zombies. Frank doesn't even call out or ask her what the hell is she talking about, so this is a double dumb moment.
** At the Hunting Shack; a survivor named James Ramsey is trying to convince Cletus to share his stockpile of guns. Cletus is rightfully paranoid about the situation and distrustful about sharing guns with complete strangers. Cletus fires a warning shot at the ceiling and both him and Frank tell James to walk away.\\
'''You'd Expect''': James would immediately understand that Cletus is not messing around and he will leave the store with Frank to find other weapons.\\
'''Instead''': He calls Cletus' bluff by silently walking towards him, [[SarcasmMode surprisingly]], Cletus shoots him square in the chest and sends him flying out of the store. If a violent drunk is threatening you at gunpoint, the last thing you want to do is challenge them or call their bluff.
** While trying to turn off the space rider machine, Frank encounters Adam the Clown and ends up in a fight with him when the latter attacks him for trying to turn off the roller coaster. Adam explains that the machine keeps the zombies away and if Frank turns it off then the zombies will return.\\
'''You'd expect''': Frank would notice the lack of zombies around and immediately comply to Adam's demands. If Frank did have to fight Adam then he would immediately turn the roller coaster back on again so the zombies stay away\\
'''Instead''': Frank is too shocked to speak and Adam takes his silence as a rejection of his demands. After defeating Adam and rescuing Greg, he leaves it off and the zombies flood the area again.
* Late in ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', an assassin somehow breaks into Morgan Everett's home and murders a mechanic so he can disguise himself as his victim and plant a bomb on Jock's helicopter.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to hide the real mechanic's dead body somewhere out of the way.\\
'''Instead:''' He leaves the corpse in plain sight, and JC only has to tilt his head slightly to the right to see it and realize something's wrong. At this point, any player with average to above-average deductive reasoning skills will either kill him on the spot or question Everett on the matter, who confirms that he's a spy and orders him killed. Either option leads to Jock defusing the bomb and surviving the assassination attempt.
* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry1'':
** At the start, Trish breaks into Dante's joint, beats the crap out of him, impales him with a sword, electrocutes him with lightning then chucks a 200+kg motorbike at him to crush him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' After what she did to him, and noticing that the lightning came out of her bare-hands, therefore proving she's not a normal human, you'd expect Dante to instantly recognize Trish as a villain and kill her immediately.\\
'''Instead:''' Dante is gullible enough to believe Trish's tall tales and lets her lead him to the evil island where his enemy awaits, and are all eager to kick his ass. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yJI-xFk6Ho Indeed.]]\\
'''In Addition:''' She also does this again late in the game when she plays damsel-in-distress to lure Dante into a boss-fight, then attacks him in the process, [[TheUnfought although it's Nightmare doing most of the attacking]].
** Even Trish is no better on the above moments. She is given an order by Mundus to eliminate Dante after [[spoiler:the BrainwashedAndCrazy Vergil]] failed. She agrees to it.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Trish would use one of Mundus' marionettes to make it look like to Dante that some imposter of her has taken her captive and proceed to attack him with Nightmare. That way, Dante wouldn't have a reason to hate Trish and having someone to fight alongside with while she maintains her cover. As for her mission, she would have to weaken him first before allowing Nightmare to finish him off.\\
'''Instead''': She tells Dante that she is working for Mundus, makes herself out to be a monster, and attacks him alongside Nightmare. Despite this, he comes to her rescue when she is about to be crushed by some debris. She asks him why, and he replies that she looks like his mother and demands that she get out of his sight from then on.\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': Trish to now realize that she has damaged him emotionally and contemplate on what she has done before approaching him some time later, hopefully giving him a chance to cool, down and apologize to him for her betrayal.\\
'''Instead''': She tries to approach him, prompting Dante to threaten her and declare her as nothing more than a demon wearing his mother's face.\\
'''Even Worse''': When he gets to Mundus' throne, Dante sees Trish being held captive, and without a defensive move, he gets immobilized by his attacks. Trish manages to get out of being captured and [[TakingTheBullet dies by taking her former master's killing blow]]. He even regrets the choice of leaving her behind upon her death. [[ChewingTheScenery "My mother risked her life for me, and now you too. I should have saved you. I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIIIIIIGHT!!"]]
* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'', the Lone Wanderer, upon defeating the title Lord of Terror, sees him revert back to a regular man with a weird-looking stone in his head, a stone that is quite obviously a soulstone of sorts for the thing he's just taken out.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Lone Wanderer would put two and two together and destroy the stone so Diablo cannot rise in this world again.\\
'''Instead:''' The Lone Wanderer decides to jam the damned thing into his own head in an attempt to contain Diablo's evil within his own body. This leads to him being taken over by Diablo by the time the second game rolls around, and things just get worse from there.
* In the [[NoExportForYou Japan only]] ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' game, [[Anime/DigimonAdventure02 D-1 Tamers]], Millenniummon is back as Moon-Millenniumon, and the only person who can take him down again is Ryo Akiyama. This is a cause for alarm, naturally. The only person who doesn't have a clue is Ryo himself, and Ken.\\
'''You'd Expect''' The Chosen Children/Digidestined to give Ryo the run-down of the situation from the start so he can train to defeat Moon-Millenniumon. This guy has taken down Millenniummon before, and if he knew, he'd train even harder.\\
'''Instead''' They set up a tournament and outright manipulate Ryo so he can become stronger, and prepared to take down Moon-Millenniumon. And they only tell him the truth at the last minute, before the final practice dungeon. Nevermind that Ryo had to sacrifice a Digimon earlier on in the Digimon Graveyard. Though Ryo did indeed defeat Moon-Millenniumon, and even though the Chosen Children did apologise for deceiving him, Ryo goes into a HeroicBSOD as a result that lasts straight into the next game, and it's probably the reason why he went to the Anime/DigimonTamers universe instead of back to his home universe. [[WhatTheHellHero What the hell, Digidestined?]]
* In ''VideoGame/DinoCrisis'', Rick and Regina's path to the port on floor B3 is blocked by a security system. While they figure out what to do, they hear a person on the radio shouting that they have a key to the port, but they have a lizard on their tail. Regina goes to the elevator shaft to intercept and is met with the [[SuperPersistentPredator T. Rex who emerges from the elevator]]. It winds up chomping on a generator when it tries to eat Regina, getting electrocuted and knocking itself unconscious.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Regina killing the T. Rex or at least wound it so it would stop chasing her.\\
'''Instead''': She leaves it alone. To no one's surprise, it shows up again at the end of the game.
* ''Videogame/{{Dishonored}}:''
** Slackjaw has been trying to break into a safe containing a lot of valuables. To this end he offers a deal to Corvo, who's on his way to assassinate the Pendleton brothers: If Corvo can get the safe's code from its owner, Slackjaw will deal with the Pendletons for him. If he decided to take the deal, Corvo will visit Slackjaw at his base to tell him the code.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That upon getting the code, Slackjaw would send one of his people to check if Corvo had used the code to rob the vault himself. Remember, Slackjaw knows next to nothing about this masked individual, and certainly doesn't know if he'll employ LoopholeAbuse or not.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' That if Corvo has done the above, Slackjaw would either get in contact with the guy and request payment of the safe's valuables (i.e. the reason he made the deal in the first place) before he goes through with his part of the bargain, or simply not risk his manpower for a man who effectively screwed him over.\\
'''Instead:''' Even if Corvo robs the safe himself, thereby depriving Slackjaw of his intended profit, Slackjaw will still get rid of the Pendletons for him.
** The Lord Regent of Dunwall has done a few very unethical things in the past: not only did he frame Corvo for the assassination of the Empress, he was also [[spoiler:responsible for the rat plague that's presently causing havok across the island]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Lord Regent to try getting rid of any evidence that connects him to the above.\\
'''Instead:''' He records a confession of his crimes. As a result, Corvo has the opportunity to get rid of him for good by broadcasting the confession to the whole of Dunwall.
* ''VideoGame/DivinityOriginalSinII'': [[spoiler: Isbeil]] [[CutscenePowerToTheMax has captured the party with one attack.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Isbeil]] knows the party is made up of highly dangerous adventurers who slaughtered many monsters and bosses. [[spoiler:Her]] [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim next action should be killing them on the spot.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Isbeil]] [[BondVillainStupidity decides to torture the party instead.]] If the party is made of undead, [[ReviveKillsZombie this actually heals them]].\\
'''Result:''' The party defeats [[spoiler:Isbeil]] since they were never restrained during their captivity, they always have their gear on and they were never drained of their [[SoulPower Source]].
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiBlueSkies'':
** In Yuri's route, [[spoiler:MC visits Yuri in a graveyard, where she has flower petals near her shoe and talks about what her parents did and were in the past]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:MC to ask if someone close to Yuri died]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He doesn't put two and two together until he first catches Yuri cutting herself.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Yuri has significantly less time to be willing to get help with her grief]].
** On Valentine's Day in Natsuki's route, [[spoiler:Sayori barges into her best friend MC's house while Natsuki is gone, despite the day being meant to be special for MC and Natsuki.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:MC to gently tell Sayori off and say she can visit tomorrow.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He can't bring himself to do anything about it.]]\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Natsuki finds them and feels cheated out of her quality time with her boyfriend]].
* ''VisualNovel/DokiDokiLiteratureClub'': The main character has just found out that [[spoiler:Sayori suffers from depression]] on the day right before the festival, and has either [[spoiler:confessed his love to her or told her that she was his dearest friend]]. On Monday morning, the main character notices that [[spoiler:Sayori]] isn't awake, [[spoiler:despite the fact that she has always walked to school with him]]. This can be quite a red flag right there. \\
'''You'd Expect:''' The main character to head to her house and [[spoiler:see why she isn't awake and responding]].\\
'''Instead:''' The main character heads straight to school and sees Monika in the classroom. He even calls [[spoiler:Sayori]] a "dummy" for sleeping in too much as well. Only after some [[spoiler:ominous hinting from Monika and and a suicide note in the form of a poem]], the main character decides to rush to [[spoiler:Sayori's house]] to see what's wrong.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Sayori succeeds in killing herself because of Monika, and even worse, during a later scene with Monika, she says that Sayori was struggling (or her survival instincts were kicking in) and had second thoughts about killing herself (she hung herself, but there's blood on her hands, indicating that she tried to free herself), meaning that if the player decided to go there much earlier, he could've tried to save her himself]].
* ''VideoGame/DoomEternal:''
** The Doom Slayer has managed to completely halt the demonic invasion of Earth by killing all of the Hell Priests and the BigBad, the Khan Makyr is forced to make a desperate move, revive the Icon of Sin.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For her to revive the thing somewhere on a secluded part of Earth, where she's explicitly stated to be unable to be harmed.\\
'''Instead:''' She attempts to revive it in her home dimension, which was cut off from Hell to boot.\\
'''Result:''' The Doom Slayer comes in and stops the ritual prematurely, causing the Icon of Sin to go off on its own, The Khan Makyr's home is promptly invaded by Hell and she eventually gets killed by the Doom Slayer.\\
'''Even Worse:''' The Icon of Sin is a reality destroying entity that consumes everything by simply existing. Had it not somehow escaped to Earth, her home would've been consumed by Hell fairly quickly.
* ''VideoGame/DragaliaLost'': In "Blessed Bloodline", Tobias is given a duty to protect a descendant of Ilia [[labelnote: spoiler note]]Actually Meene's descendant[[/labelnote]] by the name of Nino. After seeking help from Father Grennie almost results in getting them killed, the two are brought to Peng Lai by Ryszarda and Raphael who set up an inn that they tell them to stay at when they are finished eating.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The two of them would go to the inn right away. There is too many people after Nino, and it is easy to get lost in a crowd.\\
'''Instead:''' Tobias insists on waiting for the pyroblossoms before going so that Nino can see them.\\
'''The Result:''' The two of them get separated in the crowd, resulting in Nino getting captured by an assassin who brings her to Father Grennie.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestII:''
** Hargon, the High Priest, is trying to destroy the world and buying time to summon the God of Descruition Malroth. Hargon's castle, the Hall of Hargon, is atop the Rendarak plateau, surrounded by mountains on all sides. There is only one way in and that's by using a specific item, the False Idol, as a key. That item is being held by Hargon's minions.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to order his minions to ''destroy the only key that grants access to the plateau''. It is impossible to get there any other way!\\
'''Instead''': The item is found and it's guardians defeated. The Cave of Rendarak is opened and the heroes make their way to the final area of the game.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII:''
** Marcello has managed to fight off possession by [[spoiler:Rhapthorne, the BigBad of the game, who's spirit is housed in the Godbird sceptre]]. Said item has immeasurable power thanks to the being within, which very much appeals to him, ambitious as he is. However... said being has managed to take over every ''other'' being it has come across.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Marcello would lock it away for now, and immediately dispatch men to Trodain to learn how to properly seal it's power. At that point, he could use it only when absolutely necessary.\\
'''Instead''': He decides to keep it with him at all times, confident he'll be able to resist possession indefinitely.(Oh, and disregarding trivial things like sleep) In the end, simply being confronted is enough for him to be influenced and his defeat allows him to be taken over completely.
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIX:''
** Serena and Corvus have been hidden away from the Gittish Empire while her father gives her a potion that he claims will restore Corvus's injuries, but actually puts him to sleep. A few minutes later, it's revealed he sold out their town so the Empire's soldiers would take its guardian in exchange for leaving Wormwood Creak alone and Serena giftwrapped Corvus for them. Serena is understandably pissed off at her father for a move like that and tries to tell Corvus the truth.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Serena to fully explain to Corvus that her father used her to drug him and apologize.\\
'''Instead:''' She pleads for him to wake up, which, as anyone can tell you, is not a good idea since [[ShownTheirWork it takes time for the victim to fully wake up from their drugged state]].\\
'''The Result:''' The Gittish Soldiers thank Serena's father and take Corvus away, then [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness kill him after he's served his purpose]] and mortally wound Serena.\\
'''Even Worse:''' This misunderstanding makes Corvus think Serena betrayed him, [[FaceHeelTurn causing him to become evil]] and vows to destroy the mortals and Celestains alike.\\
** The Gittish Empire captures the Hero after Barbarus defeats Greygnarl with his new, improved power and imprisons them at the Gortress on Hootingham-Gore's orders. However, Goreham-Hogg believes that Hootingham made a mistake and [[MetaphoricallyTrue the Hero is not a Celestrain]]. The Gittish Soldier pipes up to try and [[CassandraTruth tell the truth]], but Goreham blows him off and orders the soldier to put the Hero to work with the other prisoners.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Hootingham-Gore to personally come down to the Gortress and tell Goreham-Hogg that his report is accurate and even if the Hero is not a Celestrain due to [[spoiler: Corvus's attack on the Observatory]], they still have the powers of one and should be imprisoned with the other Celestrains.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't visit the Gortress and [[OrcusOnHisThrone just chills out at Gittingham Palace]], allowing the Hero to meet Sterling and [[FromBadToWorse when it's shown that Goreham's Gittish Symbol that Greygnarl gave them can bypass the electric barriers, they organize a prison riot]].\\
'''The Result:''' The Hero and their allies defeat Goreham-Hogg while Sterling reclaims his whistle for the Starflight Express, allowing the Hero to storm Gittingham Palace. [[LampshadeHanging Hootingham even mentions it was a bad idea to dismiss the Hero as a threat when he confronts them at the entrance to the palace]].\\
--->'''Hootingham-Gore:''' Your actions proved me hasty in dismissing you so readily, to wit your liberation of the hoodlums hoo inhabited the Gortress. [[NeverMyFault Although it is that careless toowit Goreham-Hogg hoo is most to blame]]. It was he hoo caused King Godwyn to scold us so.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'':
** Isolde, wife of Arl Eamon, ruler of Redcliffe, discovers her son is a mage. Being her only son, revealing it would see him locked away in a tower for his entire life, an outcome she'd rather avoid.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Isolde weighs up all her options carefully, and either spends a lot of time looking for a completely trustworthy mage outside the circle to teach her son to control his magic enough to not be a problem, or failing that admit the truth and do what she can to visit her son as often as possible.\\
'''Instead:''' She takes the first apostate Mage she could and gives him the complete run of the castle while tutoring Conner. Said Mage is Jowan from the Mage Origin, who has been pressed into service by Loghain into poisoning Eamon.
** On the subject of Jowan; he found out he was going to be made Tranquil thanks to evidence he was a blood mage. In response he plans a raid on the phylactory depository to let him escape from the Circle with no way to track him down. To do this he guilts his girlfriend to help him perform this heist under assurances that the accusations of him committing blood magic are false and then attempts to do the same to his best friend (whether he actually succeeds in this is depended on player choices). This results in both his best friend and his lover being captured and him being unambiguously outed as a blood mage when he uses blood magic to make his escape.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Jowan to try to put as much distance between him and the Circle Tower as he possibly can, and even then he probably have to keep a low profile for the rest of his life.\\
'''Instead:''' He stops in the very first major settlement he comes across, agrees to take a fairly high-profile job, and then poisons a beloved leader in return for Loghain pulling some strings to get him back in the Circle. Because he's homesick.
** So with that done, Jowan poisons Eamon and he falls ill. Redcliffe now falls into the hands of Isolde.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Isolde takes over ruling the arling to the best of her ability.\\
'''Instead:''' She sends out all of Redcliffe's knights (''all'' of them) to go find the legendary Urn of Sacred Ashes in the remote hope that it ''might'' cure him. This leaves the arling, and especially the castle and nearby village defenseless and at the mercy to whatever malevolent force just happens upon it...such as a demon that has possessed her magically-inept and naive mage son by taking advantage of his own desperate wish to save his father.
** Bann Teagan, who's in charge of the Redcliffe village prepares for the desperate fight with the undead that are about to emerge from the castle. Suddenly a Gray Warden arrives and seeks entrance to the castle, which there is, through the secret passage Teagan knows about. Hoping to employ Warden's help against the undead attack he keeps silent about the passage. Warden has an option to leave the village to its doom, since, even if they help defend it, there is no way for them to get into the castle and achieve their goal, so there's no point in risking their lives.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Teagan to spill the beans about the passage. The Warden is obviously not a coward, so if provided an access to the castle, they might defeat whatever is reigning the undead and prevent the upcoming attack altogether. It's not like he loses anything as otherwise the Warden will just leave.\\
'''Instead:''' He remains silent, the whole village is slaughtered, and Teagan himself only survives because somebody still has to reveal the passage to the Warden who [[ButThouMust inexplicably returns to the village after the battle is over]].
** At the end of Anders' personal quest in ''Awakening'', the Templar assigned to capture him (he ''is'' an Apostate, after all) confronts the party, and learns that Anders has officially become a Grey Warden, making him essentially untouchable by her.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The Templar to think rationally and decide capturing one Apostate isn't worth risking the ire of the Wardens or the King/Queen. (Or suggest that you'll be the one to kill Anders if he goes off the deep end)\\
'''Instead''': She [[FreakOut completely snaps]] and tries to murder every non-Templar in the area. Naturally, this doesn't end well for her.\\
'''You'd also expect''': The ambush to take place in an empty warehouse with other templars and circle mages ready to bombard the party as soon as they stepped through the door.\\
'''Instead''': She sets up what is probably the most poorly planned ambush in the history of [=RPGs=]. The warehouse contains chests full of lyrium potions, superior mage robes for Anders, and other goodies useful for mages. She also waits patiently for the party to reach the phylactery room before delivering a PreAsskickingOneLiner (or, perhaps more accurately, Pre-Getting-Her-Ass-Kicked-One-Liner) before feebly attacking the party with only two other templars.
* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard}} 2'': Nowe, a Knight of the Seal, has just survived General Gismor's attempt to poison him, and grievously wounded Gismor in the process. His childhood friend, Eris, finds them in the room, and is naturally shocked by the scene, demanding an explanation from Nowe.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Nowe would point at Gismor and yell, "He tried to poison me! It's there, on the table!"\\
'''Instead''': Nowe runs for it, while Eris sounds the alarm and forces Nowe to carve his way through the Knights of the Seal HQ, guaranteeing he'll never be allowed back in.\\
'''Even Worse''': At several points during the game, Nowe runs into Eris, who clearly doesn't think that Nowe has told her everything about what happened. Despite all these opportunities to try to explain the truth, he never does so.
* Happens all the time in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''.
** Dwarves have an understanding of how fire works. They're known for being smiths, after all.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Dwarves would avoid things that are on fire.\\
'''Instead''': They see nothing wrong with picking up a still-burning sock and [[ManOnFire end up doing a spirited impression of a torch]].
** The elven caravan that arrives every spring is always free pickings, since it is only guarded by its pack beasts and a handful of unarmed and untrained merchants. Should you decide to capture/kill the merchants and loot the caravan, from the Elves' point of view the caravan was never heard from since it entered your territory.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The elves to do any or all of the following: Sending scouts or envoys to learn of the caravan's fate, stop sending their caravans through your turf, start dispatching an armed escort with their caravans, or sending their army to your fortress before you have the time to use the stolen goods to expand it.\\
'''Instead:''' It takes about 5-6 years of consecutive trading caravans mysteriously disappearing and their goods somehow ending up in your treasury for the elves to eventually put two and two together and send an armed force to your doorstep. Until then, they're happy to keep sending you new traders full of exotic goods.\\
'''In addition:''' Said force is always armed with wooden weapons. Which is understandable for their archers, who can be quite deadly, but makes their melee troops utterly laughable. A rookie fighter with decent iron or steel gear can take on a dozen elven warriors and walk out without a scratch.\\
'''And to top that:''' Letting an elf escape (as in, having a bloodied, beaten merchant scamper back to their city to inform their king that dwarves seize their caravans and murder their merchants) only takes off a year or two of time until elves launch a siege. That's right, for a couple years they will still send trading caravans to the fortress for which they're readying an attack.
** Dwarves also have an understanding that the various creatures of the world are dangerous. Or, at the very least, that anything that kills a dwarf probably won't be friendly to other dwarves.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That dwarves would avoid any creature that can injure or kill dwarves.\\
'''Instead''': The short, bearded idiots run out to loot the corpses of their fallen brethren while the random thing that killed the last dwarf is still in plain sight.
* ''[[VideoGame/DynastyWarriors Dynasty Warriors 4]]'': In Campaign for the Wu Territory, Sun Ce's forces have been hitting Liu Xun's area pretty hard. Yan Baihu and Wang Liang arrive with large reinforcements to assist, potentially too much for the Wu army to handle. By this point several bases that the Wu army already captured have Gongs nearby, which they soon learn banging on will signal that allies have arrived to help and that they should open the gates.
** '''You'd Expect''': Someone might check outside to make sure that these [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience red armor wearing]] soldiers that have been attacking them are nowhere near any doors, or at least place the gongs in hard to reach yet easy to observe areas. If nothing else than to just flat out refuse to open the doors on account of nearby bases being lost recently.\\
'''Instead''': The Liu Xun forces let the Wu army in, no questions asked, and promptly get slaughtered. This causes the area to be lost to Sun Ce.
* ''[[VideoGame/DynastyWarriors Dynasty Warriors 7]]'': In Guandu, Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Zhao Yun, who are allied with Yuan Shao, discovers Guan Yu on Cao Cao's side, much to their shock and disbelief. Yuan Shao finds out...\\
'''You'd Expect''': He'd allow Liu Bei to explain the situation. It's obvious that he doesn't know, much less condone this. Maybe seeing his sworn brothers may convince him to return to their side (And if he's repaying a debt to Cao Cao, he's already killed his two best warriors so that should suffice) and possibly decrease morale on the enemy's side.\\
'''Instead''': Shao accuses Liu Bei of betrayal and orders his men to capture him, distracting them from facing Cao Cao (Who History-aside most likely used this to his advantage and won the battle).\\
'''However''': At this point, Yuan Shao was implied to be senile and thus it likely wouldn't have mattered if Liu Bei explained or not.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games E-J]]
* ''VideoGame/EdEddNEddyTheMisEdventures''
** In Level 2 (Pin the Tail on the Ed), the Eds are banned from attending Jimmy's birthday party as Rolf mocks them while standing on the other side of the wood fence gate barring them.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For the Eds to use Batter-Ed on the wooden gate and crash the party.\\
'''Instead:''' They follow up on Ed's suggestion to go through the horribly unsanitary, reeking sewers that is infested with [[SewerGator alligators]], rats and clams. It takes the Eds forever to go through the AbsurdlySpaciousSewer and battle the SwarmOfRats. And once they get to Jimmy's backyard, the party's already over and all that's left of Jimmy's birthday cake is frosting stuck to the candles, which Ed proceeds to suck on.
* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'': The Novaya Russia Campaign brings us Grigor Stoyanovich, who having built up his empire, wants to leave a son or a daughter to said empire. However, he just so happens to be sterile, and none of the medical technologies can cure his sterility.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to just adopt a kid. In the 1990s alone, there were at least 455,000 orphans in Russian Orphanages, and even if the amount of orphans being adopted is larger than the amount of orphans arriving in orphanages at this point, surely there's at least one he'd find to be a worthy heir.\\
'''Instead''': He leaves the entire country to a robot named Grigor II, which was built as a bodyguard.\\
'''Result''': It's a RottenRoboticReplacement, and Grigor II begins destroying all nations not under his control, and turns Novaya Russia into a fascist regime. Molotov, someone who had previously had UndyingLoyalty towards his homeland, defects and goes back in time.
* In ''VideoGame/EndRoll'', Dreamsend Inc decides to conduct an experiment to use a new drug to create dreams/nightmares that [[TheLudovicoTechnique produce guilt in death row inmates]]. The subjects are each placed in an individual bedroom for this purpose. Given the nature of the procedure, there is a very real possibility that one of the subjects may snap from the traumatic nightmares, and explode violently (given that these ''are'' people on death row).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Dreamsend lab workers to ensure that the bedrooms are safe and free of anything subjects can use as a weapon, and that trained employees will administer the syringe containing the drug to the subjects.\\
'''Instead:''' Dreamsend gives the syringes ''to the test subjects'' and has them self-inject it.\\
'''Result:''' [[spoiler:Russell, in the true end, [[DrivenToSuicide stabs himself to death with the syringe]], just as he successfully completed the experiment.]]
* In ''VideoGame/EntryPointRoblox'', after the events of "The Lakehouse", Halcyon discovers evidence that they've been infiltrated and one of them happens to be TheMole, and they've identifed them as Rose, and one of her subordinates is the [[PlayerCharacter Freelancer]].
** '''You'd Expect:''': To ignore the Freelancer and just simply focus on eliminating Rose.
** '''Instead''': Not only do they decide to target Rose, but also the Freelancer due to their ties with her.
** '''To Be Fair''': In "Ashes", which is set prior to "The Lakehouse", the Freelancer is met by Jackdaw, who warns him about how Halcyon will discard their operatives once they have fufilled their purpose, and the Freelancer didn't show any hostility (not to mention, they were being held up at gunpoint so it's not like it didn't matter), so they have some reason to suspect.
** '''The Following Happens''': In "Dedication", Wren and the Freelancer begin to prepare a hole for a body bag, then talk about their life choices and how they got there. Unbeknownst to the Freelancer, however, Wren is about to execute them for their supposed ties towards Phoenix.
** '''You'd then Expect''': For Wren to go straight for the vital organs, instantly killing them. Given his history, he should act like a professional.
** '''Instead''': He then proceeds to wound the Freelancer, stating that their squad was compromised while stating it was "NothingPersonal", before deciding to land the final blow to them.
** '''As a Result''': Jackdaw manages to [[BigDamnHeroes come just right on time and kill Wren before he could execute the Freelancer]], and helps them recover, essentially [[NiceJobFixingItVillain marking the beginning of the end of Halcyon]] just because Wren wouldn't go straight to the point.
* In ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'', one of the chapters involves the monk Paul Luther being under suspect after discovering a dead corpse at the Oublié Cathedral. The custodian then trusts Paul to do an investigation that will help reveal evidence of a heretical conspiracy within the Cathedral. Sure enough, Paul finds some papers and artifacts that confirm their suspicions, wherein which the custodian, unveiling a sacrificial dagger he found under his pillow declares that he knows too much and that the conspirators are likely on to him.
** '''You'd Expect:''' given the custodian’s stance that both he and Paul would exit the Cathedral downstairs along with the evidence Paul has collected, in the hopes that they can warn the outside authorities of the conspiracy while presenting the evidence to prove their innocence, before the conspirators catch up to them. (Paul can use his Mace/Sword and the tome of Eternal Darkness to defend himself and the custodian if needed.)\\
'''Instead:''' Paul just leaves on his own to try and put an end to the heresy himself while a guardian sneaks up on the custodian. Paul later finds (what’s left of) him on the sacrificial pillar below the Cathedral!
** Similarly, In Maximillian’s chapter, Max uncovers a vast ancient city underneath the Roivas Mansion that is crawling with the zombies and guardians of the ancients. Because of this, he gets the idea that because of their numbers, he can’t possibly fight all of them alone, and that he needs to find some form of outside help if he is going to vanquish the threat at all.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Given that one of his servants was overtaken by a bone-theif, that he’d keep a close but subtle eye on his servants while he looked for some outside assistance, (be it his servants or the authorities) and just show them the city for themselves, and only react forcefully if one of his servants attacks him, in case he/she has been overtaken by a bone-theif.\\
'''Instead:''' before he can do any of this, under the paranoia of one of his servants being overtaken [[LeeroyJenkins he bursts into the servant’s sleeping quarters and kills four(?) of his servants]] without taking any provisional steps at all!\\
'''The Result:''' No one believes him when he explains his story, and [[NiceJobBreakingItHero he is thrown into the madhouse where he continues to shout out his warnings despite no one listening to follow him into the city.]]
* In ''[[VideoGame/AnnabelleRPGMaker The Exorcism of Annabelle Sunray]]'', the founder and head of The Church, an orphanage for troubled orphans, has passed away and someone needs to replace him. [[spoiler:Tiffany Moonlight]] is set to get the job, but [[spoiler:Jason Sunray]], who also wants the job, decides to lie to the police that [[spoiler:Tiffany]] is mentally unfit for the position.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The police to recognize this as a blatant lie, since [[spoiler:Tiffany]] is a kind, loving, and level-headed person while [[spoiler:Jason]] is a known [[AbusiveParents child abuser]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[PoliceAreUseless The police believe the abuser]], who promptly steals the job from the candidate who actually deserves it.\\
'''As A Result:''' The new head [[TyrantTakesTheHelm turns The Church into]] a horrific OrphanageOfFear where the children are subjected to similar mistreatment that the head inflicted upon [[spoiler:Annabelle]].
* In ''VideoGame/FableII'', Lucien needs to gather the three heroes and absorb their power in order to use the Tattered Spire. Obviously, you, as the hero, have to stop him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The hero to try killing one of the three heroes. If they're evil, any of them are fair game, and if they're good, the Hero of Skill is a mass murderer, extremely narcissistic, and a total {{Jerkass}} all around.\\
'''Instead:''' The hero spends over a decade gathering the heroes in order to perform a ritual to forge an artifact that removes Lucien's power after he performs his version of the ritual with the same heroes. Not only does this plan only work if Lucien captures the heroes after you already used them, but [[FromBadToWorse a ton of very bad things happened as you wasted all of that time]].
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'':
** New California Republic President Aaron Kimball decides to make a visit to Hoover Dam to deliver a speech, despite the fact the Caesar's Legion is literally next door and will be looking to take him out.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Him to do the speech by radio from a secure location ''inside'' the dam, make damn sure there was no way anyone could get in with a gun, much less a bomb, or '''not hold the speech on the front lines'''. In failing that, he could at least not announce it ahead of time so that the Legion won't have time to plan the assassination.\\
'''Instead''': He announces it ahead of time, claiming that he wants to give the troops a morale boost. This gives the Legion time to plan. He doesn't even bother to hide his entry, coming in via Vertibird, and holds the speech outside the dam. If you aren't there to protect him, he predictably dies.
** Joshua Graham is the Legate of Caesar's Legion and leads them to Hoover Dam, where they run into the forces of the New California Republic. Legion tactics dictate that the most inexperienced go first to act as a bullet sponge, followed by more experienced troops with the veterans bringing up the rear to mop up any remaining resistance. However, Hoover Dam is a bottleneck where the numbers of the Legion are made moot in the face of a hail of gunfire. In addition, cliffs surround the position and provide good positions of fire for the NCR's sharpshooters.\\
'''You'd Expect''': He would sit back, look at his tactical options and do as his boss would do, covering his flanks with skirmishers and trying to find some way around the bottleneck. And if not around it, move through it as quickly as possible.\\
'''Instead''': Graham sticks to the playbook like glue, sending his forces without cover over exposed and narrow ground. While the rank-and-file are getting torn to pieces by NCR regulars, Rangers and First Recon begin picking off the veterans in the rear from their cliff-top positions.\\
'''Even Worse''': Graham decides to counter this by sending his veterans to push to the sharpshooter's position. They fall back, heading into Boulder City, which has been rigged with explosives. The Legion's finest fall hook, line and sinker for the trap, [[StuffBlowingUp riding the town right into the stratosphere]]. The rest of the forces panic and rout with the loss of the veterans, but the dam provides no escape. Graham lost almost the entire army.\\
'''So''': Caesar is predictably angry, [[YouHaveFailedMe has his Legate]] set [[ManOnFire on fire]] and thrown into the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately for him and the Legion, Graham [[MadeOfIron miraculously survives his punishment]] and travels to New Canaan to atone for his failures and form a new group of tribals, while fending off some of the best assassins that Caesar sent after him. This not only gives the NCR a political and psychological victory, but gives the Legion a boogeyman in the form of the Burned Man. Both veteran Ranger Chief Hanlon and Graham himself discuss this, the latter admitting that while a good fighter, he was never any good at tactics.
** Caesar requests a cordial meeting with the Courier, up to and including pardoning their past crimes (which could include any of the following: convincing the Great Khans to break their alliance with the Legion, killing Vulpes Inculta in Nipton, massacring untold numbers of Legionnaires, making Cottonwood Cove radioactive, sabotaging their spy's efforts to bomb the monorail at Camp [=McCarran=], breaking up a weapons deal with the Van Graffs, and preventing the Omertas from acting on their plan to seize the New Vegas Strip at the same time the Legion makes their play). Regardless of how Benny is dealt with, Caesar is in control of the Platinum Chip, and asks the Courier to use it to destroy a Weather Monitoring Station near the base of The Fort.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Given that Caesar has never met the Courier up until this point, he's extremely curious about what's in the Station (to the point of obsessing over it for several years) and he thinks there may be some type of technology down below, he'd send some Legionnaires to escort the Courier to their destination. He even has several Legionnaires placed at the front entrance and inside the top of the station to advise the Courier about what to do.\\
'''Instead:''' Caesar simply assumes that the station was destroyed, without bothering to inquire about the matter further or sending any soldiers whatsoever to check the station. This occurs even if you upgraded the Securitrons to the Mark II firmware.
** A trio of looters led by Logan are hanging in a basement at a wrecked church in Camp Searchlight in search of any loot the NCR left behind. The thing is, the town was once home to an NCR outpost which was recently rendered uninhabitable thanks to a radioactive dirty bomb detonated in the middle of the town by Legion agents. The resulting explosion led to several casualties on both sides, and the NCR was forced to retreat elsewhere. Once the Courier stumbles upon the gang, they hire them to retrieve a package of radiation suits in a cave near Nipton. After the Courier retrieves said suits and gives them what they need, the gang and the Courier then begin looting the police and fire stations in Searchlight. During the expedition, they encounter a dangerous pack of radscorpions led by a queen giant and the group eventually squashes the scorpions dead (although in reality, it's the Courier doing all the dirty work [[TheLoad as the gang does nothing but loitering around]]). At the end of the quest, the Courier eventually retrieves all the loot that the gang needs.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Logan would agree to split even the shares with the Courier or optionally the Courier decline receiving the shares and let the gang keep everything. Either way, the deal could have ended relatively amicably.\\
'''Instead''': [[SmugSnake Logan]] pulls a YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness moment in the worst possible time ever by turning on you. Cue the Courier, who has probably already [[TookALevelInBadass taken several levels in badass by now]] and may have several companions with them, Curb-Stomping them in a messy end, and walking away with the whole lion's share of the loot. [[DidntThinkThisThrough Should've thought this through, Logan]].
* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'':
** In the quest "Curtain Call", the main NPC Rex Goodman is put into a jail by Super Mutants. However, he finds a radio.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Rex would be able to tell that the radio's sole purpose is to lure in more humans and, therefore, not use it.\\
'''Instead:''' He decides to broadcast a distress signal, which would draw in more people. Even [[BloodKnight Strong]] is able to tell that it was a trap and thought that Rex knew already.
** The entire game's main story is kickstarted by the fact that The Institute, looking to further advance Synth technology, need clean human DNA completely unaffected by nuclear fallout to do so, believing their best bet is to get it from Shawn, an infant frozen in cryostasis in Vault 111.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Institute to have their agents only unthaw both Shawn and his parents' stasis pods and convince them all to go with them to their facility, leaving the remaining residents frozen and none the wiser.\\
'''Instead:''' The Institute orders their mercenary-henchman Conrad Kellogg to unthaw and open only Shawn's pod, with the Institute scientists trying to forcefully pull Shawn out of the arms of whichever parent's holding him, [[MamaBear who]] [[PapaWolf promptly resists]]. Kellogg them shoots said parent in the head then looks directly at the Sole Survivor's pod, partially unthawed with them fully witnessing their spouse's murder and leaves after calling them "the backup" and shutting down the pods of the other residents, killing them. Even Kellogg admits the whole operation was approached in an arbitrarily violent way and might've lead to The Institute's downfall courtesy of the Sole Survivor going on a warpath against them, and depending on what choices you make later in the game, you might end up '''proving him right'''.
** Late in the game, the Brotherhood of Steel has a run in with the Railroad if you had sided with either.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That the Brotherhood might [[EnemyMine temporarily form a truce with the Railroad]] so they could take down what they both admit is the greatest threat to the Commonwealth, then continue fighting each other once the threat has been eliminated. At the very least, the Brotherhood could choose to ignore the Railroad for the time being since the Institute is the greater, immediate threat and they need as many people they can.\\
'''Instead:''' They arbitrarily attack the Railroad despite having no immediate reason to. A Sole Survivor aligned with the Railroad would wipe the floor clean with them, so it would just end up being a waste of resources.
** Similarly, the Railroad is planning to defeat the Institute, though they want a full on battle rather than rely on subterfuge like they normally do.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they would take all the help they could get, such as the Minutemen under your command.\\
'''Instead:''' Desdemona declines their help, citing their ideological differences. This doesn't make sense because both factions just want the Institute destroyed. The Minutemen's desire to create a more stable Commonwealth doesn't contradict the Railroad's desire for the liberation of synths.
** Around the endgame, Father reveals that he is dying. In both the Institute and Railroad questlines (the latter of which has you playing double agent, spying for the Railroad on the Institute), he says he's making the Sole Survivor his successor.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Sole Survivor to phone in on the Railroad and say something like "phew, he's handing off the reins to me. If we wait a month or two for this guy to croak, I can just put in the order to free the synths in one fell swoop, no fight necessary."\\
'''Instead:''' The Sole Survivor never even thinks to suggest this, and the Railroad figures a pitched battle is the best way to resolve their problems.
* ''VideoGame/FatalFrameIICrimsonButterfly'', introductory cutscene. Two sisters, Mio and Mayu, are playing in a forest when Mayu runs off out of the blue. Mio follows her, only to find that, in the space of ''about two seconds,'' the sky above has switched very conspicuously from bright day to darkest night. There is literally no way this change could be interpreted as normal. Clearly, there's some sort of [[BuffySpeak weird demon shit]] going on.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Mio stops and tries to figure out what the hell is going on. At the very least, running blindly through a pitch-dark forest is likely to get her ankle broken. At most...well, there's a reason people aren't accustomed to the sun just up and disappearing.\\
'''Instead:''' Mio continues to chase Mayu...right into the cursed, haunted village and past the magically enforced PointOfNoReturn. At no point does she show any surprise over the celestial atmosphere losing its shit, and she and Mayu walk right into the creepy, deserted village.
* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'':
** During the Heaven's Feel route, Sakura has had her internal mana eating parasite activated, causing a race against time to kill Zouken before he can screw with her head and turn him to his side. The plan is highly contingent on Sakura's state of mind staying intact.\\
'''You'd Expect''' Shirou and Rider would go out of their way to clear up Sakura's very obvious doubts and insecurities and pay more attention to what she says. Tohsaka could emphasize their family bonds. Or something. But not be a total {{jerkass}}.\\
'''Instead''' Rider hides from Shirou and Tohsaka and doesn't explain how Sakura is feeling. Shirou tunes out when Sakura tries to tell him important things, and doesn't really mention that he loves her and his reaction to Tohsaka does not mean he likes her more than Sakura. Tohsaka goes out of her way to belittle her and deride Sakura's worthlessness and willpower after the game explicitly stated her will cannot be broken by people she distrusts. Well, it had to go downhill somehow, and an IdiotPlot is better than mass DiabolusExMachina.
** In the backstory the Einzbern family got sick of being unable to win the Grail.\\
'''You'd Expect''': They would look for a really strong Servant to fight for them or look for someone really good to fight for them, both of which were things they would eventually try much later.\\
'''Instead''': In the Third War they decided to summon what they ''thought'' was [[spoiler:an actual mythological god of evil]]. Not only does it turn out that [[spoiler:he's actually an incredibly weak Servant closer to an average human]] it also means that [[spoiler:when he's killed and absorbed into the Grail his wish to actually be that god results in the corruption of the Grail]] and ultimately causes many of the later tragedies in the Fourth and Fifth wars as well as [[spoiler:almost ending humanity in one route]]. How the Einzberns ever thought it could go well, let alone better than their later plans, is a mystery.
* In the ancient ZX Spectrum game ''Feud'', bad guy Leanoric curses you with an aging spell before the start of the game that will kill you after one day. The only way to reverse the curse is to kill him.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Leanoric to actively avoid you. The sensible course of action would be to evade you for the day and win by default.\\
'''Instead''': He comes after you trying to kill you, giving you a chance to fight back and kill him, saving yourself, making one wonder what he cast the spell for.
* Near the end of ''VideoGame/FreddyPharkasFrontierPharmacist'', Freddy finds himself face to face with Kenny the Kid, the man who shot him in the ear, who has been sent by the BigBad to kill him. In this rematch duel, both shoot at the same time, but Freddy only disarms Kenny, while Kenny’s shot finds it’s mark.\\
'''You’d Expect''': Kenny to pick his gun back up and finish Freddy off.\\
'''Instead''': Kenny taunts the wounded Freddy, and also reveals the [[BigBad Big Bad’s]] identity: [[spoiler:the town schoolteacher, Penelope Primm.]] Freddy recovers from his injury, takes [[spoiler:Penelope]] down, and then kills Kenny when he checks on the situation. If Kenny had kept his mouth shut, Freddy would have never known that [[spoiler:Penelope]] was the BigBad, and he wouldn’t have gotten killed. [[SarcasmMode Way to go, Kenny.]]
* ''VideoGame/FreeSpace2'':
** A few missions into the campaign, the [[TheAlliance GTVA]] discovers an [[LostTechnology ancient artificial subspace portal]] deep in the previously strategically uninteresting Gamma Draconis system, near the site of an ambush by the [[SealedEvilInACan returning-after-thirty-years]] BigBad Shivans. The Alliance is intrigued by this discovery, because of the potential for the technology to be used to revive the collapsed subspace link to Earth, as well as the strategically-important resources that lie in the nebula beyond the portal. Unfortunately, as they explore the other side, they discover Shivans, Shivans, more Shivans, even more Shivans, and ummm... Lots of Shivans, which eventually ends up in an encounter with a massive juggernaut warship, designated Sathanas, that could rip apart an entire fleet in two minutes.\\
'''You'd Expect''' The Alliance to gather as much data as they can about the ancient portal, immediately retreat from the nebula, deactivate the portal, blow up the subspace link, and live happily ever after. The Shivans, of course, are those {{Omnicidal Maniac}}s from thirty years ago who had that invulnerable SD Lucifer with the WaveMotionGun that was used to level all of the cities in the planet of Vasuda, killing four billion Vasudans and rendering the planet uninhabitable. They nearly reached Earth, if not for the heroic efforts of Alliance pilots who managed to destroy the Lucifer in subspace, which caused the collapse of the subspace link to Earth.\\
'''Instead''': The Alliance:
*** Kept trying to fight the Shivans inside an unknown system. Never mind that this is a species that almost wiped out everyone in this side of the galaxy thirty years ago. To hell with the fact that it was the Shivans who destroyed the Ancients, a race that had a ''huge'' empire and was ''way'' more advanced than the Terrans and the Vasudans ''combined'' ([[WordOfGod not actually true for technology as a whole]], but the Alliance doesn't ''know'' that since the only surviving pieces of Ancient technology are ones belonging to a category in which the Ancients ''were'' just that advanced). Despite the fact that the only response to a threat this species knows is ''more''...and ''[[AC:bigger]]''.
*** Logically, with the Shivans having sent their ''biggest'', they could only respond with ''more''. Obviously, at this point, the GTVA does not have the logistical and manufacturing output to keep up with the more advanced Shivans and they could do nothing but attempt to gather intel about the Shivans' whereabouts and plans. The GTVA ''still'' went back inside the nebula. And did they get ''more''. They retreat, but now it's too late. The only option left is to evacuate an entire star system and blow up the jump nodes leading to the Shivan-infested systems to seal them off.
*** Ironically, a dialogue between your ''wingmen'' in the ''first'' nebula mission heavily foreshadows the later events. Yes, even the ''[[RedshirtArmy Red Shirts]]'' think this is a bad idea. One wingman even told the other to shut up, that they're just following orders and they can't do anything about it! Seriously, whoever was put in charge as the commander-in-chief of the [=GTVA=] must ''really'' have appallingly poor strategic knowledge and leadership skills for his/her military and needs to be either relieved of command or executed for horrendous incompetence.
---->'''Wingman A''': ...I never signed on for hunting Shivans!
---->'''Wingman B''': Don't kid yourself, we're the ones being hunted, pilot.
---->'''Wingman C''': Command should shut down that portal and send the Aquitaine back to Deneb. We've got no business being out here!
---->'''Wingman D''': If Command needs your opinion they'll promote you to Admiral, now shut up and focus.
** As mentioned before, the Sathanas has extremely powerful forward mounted guns.\\
'''You'd Expect''': When attacking an enemy, it will try to keep the enemy in front.\\
'''Instead''': The ship is passing the Colossus and is unable to continue firing. As a result, the Colossus survives even without further assistance of the player with the above mentioned thirty to fifty-percent hull integrity. Otherwise it would be destroyed.
* ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'':
** The people of Tsurumi Island. [[spoiler:One day, while on his own and singing a song, a boy named Ruu is approached by the Thunderbird, the guardian deity of the island. The Thunderbird is curious about his song, and he promises to sing it to her again. The other islanders are shocked at this turn of events.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:The people of Tsurumi Island would take special care of Ruu to ensure that nothing happens to him and he continues to interact with the Thunderbird.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:The people of Tsurumi Island choose Ruu as their ''[[HumanSacrifice sacrifice]]'' to the Thunderbird. This enrages her, and she lays a curse upon the entire island that blankets it in perpetual fog and causes the entire population to either die off or flee. That curse isn't undone until the Traveler reaches the island millennia later.]]
** Shenhe's parents are revealed to have been a pair of exorcists. When her mother grew ill, her father decided to do ''anything'' to try to save her from her sickness. He learns of an entity that will apparently heal the sick in exchange for the life of a child.\\
'''You'd Expect''': A renowned Exorcist to at least do some research into the kind of entity he was summoning to cure his wife to make sure it was not a demon. And also, not to sacrifice his own ''child'' to it, especially when his wife expressed the sentiment that she wanted him to prioritize taking care of Shenhe rather than saving her life. Also, not to trust an entity that required the sacrifice of a child to summon at all.\\
'''Instead''': Shenhe's father ignores all the red flags involved with the process and summons the entity, using his own child as bait.\\
'''As A Result''': The entity is of course a demon that descends on their village. Shenhe fights it with nothing more than a knife and is taken away by the Adepti. Shenhe's mother dies anyways and her father hangs himself out of guilt and pens a regretful letter to her.\\
'''Even Worse''': Their whole village is abandoned because people are unsure the demon was properly dealt with in the past.
* ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'':
** [[TheHero Isaac]] and his companions are after [[BigBadDuumvirate Saturos's]] group, who have taken two of their friends hostage. They later defeat him in battle at the Mercury Lighthouse.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Isaac's group to try capturing the weakened Saturos, thereby giving them a hostage of their own.\\
'''Instead:''' They just stand there as [[BigBadDuumvirate Alex]] explains how they were able to beat Saturos, in order to allow the latter to recover. And he does.
** Later in the game, Isaac's party is hired to defend a ship from monsters as it crosses an inland sea. It is quickly decided that the most important area of the ship to protect is the oarsmen's deck, since if any of the oarsmen are taken out, the ship won't be going anywhere. Predictably, Isaac's party are asked to defend this area.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Isaac and company to stay on the oarsmen's deck, preferably near the single entrance to it. That way, they could intercept any attacking monsters before they can harm the oarsmen.\\
'''Instead:''' They're in a ''completely different area'' than the one they're supposed to be protecting! As a result, whenever monsters attack, an oarsman is always injured by the time Isaac and his friends get there, and they have to rope one of the passengers into rowing in his place.
* In the Nightfall campaign of ''VideoGame/GuildWars'', players release Palawa Joko to help them combat the main bad guy in the game. In the past, this character attempted to conquer the area where Nightfall takes place with a strong army, and was tough to defeat. When he is released, he shows no remorse for this, and in the game starts to rebuild his army.\\
'''You'd Expect''' After defeating the main villain of the campaign, some of the player characters, heroes, and other members of the order of whispers would grab some worms (Which they have learned how to control during the game), travel to Palawa Joko while they are still on somewhat friendly terms, and capture him while his army is still weak, and the players have the capabilities needed. (This would all happen "offscreen", most likely.)\\
'''Instead''' In ''Guild Wars 2'', the backstory of the game has Palawa Joko rebuilding his army over time and taking over Elona, causing a lot of destruction and suffering. Perhaps this is simply for RuleOfFun, but it does seem odd that another villain wasn't created for that particular area.
* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'', Alyx and Gordon have just broken into a high security prison to rescue Alyx's father. They learn that [[spoiler:Dr. Mossman]] is a traitor who [[spoiler:is a WellIntentionedExtremist when it comes to keeping Alyx's father out of harm's way]]. Alyx confronts the traitor, and takes this person along to the teleporter that will be their escape method.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Alyx to just enter the coordinates herself, or at the very least ensure that [[spoiler:Dr. Mossman]] isn't in the same teleportation group as her father. Keep in mind, that this is less then a minute after she called this person out for being a traitor.\\
'''Instead:''' She has the known traitor do it, [[spoiler:then acts surprised that Dr. Mossman entered the wrong coordinates and kidnaps her father]].
* ''{{Franchise/Halo}}'':
** In ''{{VideoGame/Halo 2}}'', Sesa 'Refumee is leading a rebellion against the Covenant because he has discovered the truth about the Halos: that they're superweapons, not gateways to heaven. To silence him, the Covenant sends a special ops team led by the Arbiter, who manages to trap 'Refumee. However, Sesa has a irrefutable proof: a Forerunner Monitor of the Halos who's glad to tell the truth about the rings.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' 'Refumee would let the Arbiter listen to the Monitor and thus convert him and his troops to his cause.\\
'''Instead:''' He attacks the Arbiter before he has time to listen, and thus gets killed by him. The Arbiter thus never hears what the Monitor was going to say until the end of the game.
** In ''{{VideoGame/Halo 4}}'', the Ur-Didact is a [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] [[{{Precursors}} Forerunner]] with [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien powers of teleportation, levitation, and telekinesis]] who [[OmnicidalManiac plans to wipe out humanity]]. He's accidentally released from [[SealedEvilInACan his Cryptum]] by Master Chief, a human supersoldier who is determined to rectify his mistake.\\
'''You'd Think:''' The Didact would easily kill Master Chief and be on his way, as his great powers make any fight with him a CurbStompBattle.\\
'''Instead:''' He monologues to him at length then tosses him aside, and afterward only sends his Promethean minions to attack the Chief whenever that pesky human returns. Only at the end of the game does it occur to him to just teleport to Chief and kill him himself, and even then he wastes time by floating Chief over a chasm ''then'' slowly choking him, giving Cortana the chance to save him.
** Also in ''{{VideoGame/Halo 4}}'', Andrew Del Rio, Captain of the UNSC ''[[CoolStarship Infinity]]'' (humanity's most advanced starship), receives word from Master Chief that a SealedEvilInACan has broken out and needs to be stopped before it wages war against humans.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He'd believe the celebrated war hero and blast the Didact with everything the ship's got, while the Forerunner is still vulnerable. And send an FTL warning to Earth just in case that still doesn't work.\\
'''Instead:''' He insists Master Chief is delusional, despite [[OneManArmy him being the biggest game-changer of the war]] and despite [[ArbitrarySkepticism Del Rio having witnessed]] floating orb ships, pristine Forerunner structures, and a hollow planet all in the same day. He claims attacking is out of the question because ''Infinity'' might be destroyed, despite it being more powerful than entire fleets ''and'' having its own fleet. As for sending a message to Earth, he does so by flying ''to it'', which would take hours, rather than an instantaneous message.\\
'''Result:''' Del Rio gets stripped of his rank by Fleetcom for leaving Chief (who tries to stop the Didact on his own, when Del Rio refuses to do so) on the planet. As for the Didact, he escapes Requiem, retrieves his ship and superweapon, and slaughters the entire population of a UNSC space station and a major city on Earth.
* ''VideoGame/HamtaroHamHamHeartbreak'': One of the relationships you must save is [[ItMakesSenseInContext Dexter and Howdy]] in [[HauntedHouse Boo Manor.]] After witnessing them arguing, you find Dexter in a different room but Howdy's not with him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dexter to tell you what happened to Howdy or at the very least for him to warn you that there is a ''freaking trap door'' in the room.\\
'''Instead:''' He either stays silent or tells you to step in front of where he is facing if you do talk to him and [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption you're forced to have Hamtaro drop in the trap door.]]\\
'''So:''' Dexter rushes off to get help. In an optional {{Cutscene}}, Bijou finds him in a funeral parlor. Dexter sees a rope which he hopes he can use to pull Hamtaro and Howdy to safety. However, the rope's in an open casket.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' Dexter to just forget the rope and find another way to save his friends.\\
'''Instead:''' He climbs into the casket which [[LaserGuidedKarma slams itself shut]] and [[AndIMustScream locks him inside.]]
* ''VideoGame/HarryPotterHogwartsMystery'':
** You have to find a black quill hidden in another house's common room.\\
'''You would expect''': your character to simply ask someone from that house to find it for you or let you in.\\
'''Instead''': you shrink and unshrink yourself to sneak in yourself, despite being told how dangerous that is and having just learned that charm.\\
'''Result''': you attract unwanted attention and get in trouble after distracting the prefect with a prank.
** Penny needs someone to impersonate Snape and get Merula caught.\\
'''You would expect''': her to ask Tonks, the metamorphmagus, who probably already has practice at similar pranks.\\
'''Instead''': she has '''you''' use polyjuice and bumble through it.\\
'''Result''': Hagrid falls for it, [=McGonagall=] is suspicious, Dumbledore is onto you and has his own fun playing along and lowkey messing with you.
** A valuable flying broom goes missing, and Skye Parkin accuses a rival House's Beater of stealing it. She decides to take the player character along to search for the broom in the other House's common room.\\
'''You would expect''': Skye Parkin to search '''quietly''', peeking under the furniture '''without''' moving it, to avoid being heard by the Head of House.\\
'''Instead''': She starts flipping furniture and making a huge racket.\\
'''Result''': She and the player character get caught and landed in detention.
* ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries'':
** In the ''Government-Supported Private Investigator'' route of ''Infiltrating the Airship'', Charles Calvin can choose to shoot down Wilhelm Krieghaus of [[NebulousEvilOrganization the Toppat Clan]] so Henry can steal his key card.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Charles to single out the Toppat and gatling-fire directly at him.\\
'''Instead:''' He sweeps the firing gun near the entire room's floor.\\
'''The Result:''' Henry dies with Wilhelm, triggering a FAIL.
** ''Fleeing the Complex'':
*** In the ''International Rescue Operative'' branch, one choice at the helipad is for Henry to fall backwards off the edge.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Henry to have told Charles to stay away from the helipad, so Henry can leap off the fire exit staircase and Charles can maneuver his helicopter to rescue Henry in midair (something Charles [[AcePilot proves to be capable of]] in the ''Triple Threat'' ending of ''Completing the Mission'').\\
'''Instead:''' Henry suddenly jumps off without coordinating anything about it with Charles.\\
'''The Result:''' Charles realizes Henry's plan too late. Henry falls to his death and Alex Kempter blows up Charles with a rocket launcher, resulting in a FAIL.
*** In the [[spoiler:''The Betrayed'']] branch, Wallace Pemberton is an undercover agent for the Toppat Clan who can be chosen as the clan's first method of helping Henry escape the Wall.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to haul Henry away under the guise of being the guard who catches the latter trying to escape.\\
'''Instead:''' He loudly proclaims to Henry that he's about to help him escape.\\
'''The Result:''' The actual guards in the cafeteria hear everything he says, causing a FAIL.
** ''Completing the Mission'':
*** In the ''Free Man'' route, the Right Hand Man desires revenge against Henry Stickmin for arresting his former boss.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to just kill Henry immediately upon capturing him. Given that this is the same guy who singlehandedly infiltrated an airship full of dangerous criminals and brought him to near death to the point that he's forcefully rebuilt as a cyborg, Henry is certainly a huge threat to the clan if he stays alive.\\
'''Instead:''' He just imprisons him within their spaceship before leaving him be without any surveillance whatsoever.\\
'''The Result:''' Henry successfully escapes the ship and disables its reactor core in the process, resulting in RHM along with the remaining Toppat members stuck in space with no way of going back to earth.
*** Near the ''Master Bounty Hunter'' ending, amidst the Toppat Clan's panic over the Right Hand Man's capture, Sven Svennson is the only Toppat who can launch the rocket into orbit.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Sven to sit his ass into the cockpit's chair and activate the emergency launch protocol, akin to when Henry hijacks the rocket in the ''Stickmin Space Resort'' route.\\
'''Instead:''' He calls another Toppat and urges that they all need to leave immediately.\\
'''The Result:''' Whoever Sven called rebukes him, and he is arrested along with most of the other Toppats.
*** [[spoiler:Near the ''Valiant Hero'' ending, Henry is pulled out of his and Charles' escape pod by a desperate Jacked Hughman. Charles leaves the escape pod momentarily to shove Jacked away and rescue Henry.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Him to leap back into the escape pod with Henry in his arms.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He throws Henry inside, allowing Jacked to tackle him away from the pod.]]\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:The escape pod seals and launches itself with only Henry inside it, and Charles tragically dies when the Toppat orbital station's core explodes.]]
* ''VisualNovel/HighwayBlossoms'': In Las Vegas, Marina encounters the Trio by chance, and Mariah challenges her to a card game, with the treasure at stake.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Marina to realize that 1)she's no good at poker, 2)Mariah is obviously up to something, and 3)that the Trio don't have anything equivalent in value to the treasure.\\
'''Instead''': She takes the bait.\\
'''The Result''': Marina ends up losing her half of the treasure, and Amber has to win it back.
* ''VideoGame/Hitman2016'':
** In World of Tomorrow, Dr Francesca De Santis is informed of the destruction of the bioweapon she was creating. She decides to go down and survey the damage.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' De Santis to change into a hazmat suit as she investigates the containment room, and perhaps bring some bodyguards along with her. \\
'''Instead:''' De Santis enters the containment room completely alone, dressed in her lab uniform, and is killed when the gas is pumped back in.
** Lawyer Ken Morgan runs into his former client, hotheaded musician Jordan Cross. Cross accuses Morgan of being sent to spy on him by his estranged father. Morgan, embarrassed, takes Cross up to his suite to continue the conversation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Morgan to speak to Cross in the lounge, library or gardens of the suite.\\
'''Instead:''' Morgan, out of all places, speaks to Cross with his back facing an open window. When Morgan belittles Cross, Cross shoves Morgan out of the window and to his death. Even worse: what Morgan previously defended Cross for? The murder of his girlfriend, who Cross pushed off his penthouse roof.
* ''VideoGame/HomeworldCataclysm'':
** The heroes (a poorly armed mining company) stumble upon an alien escape pod apparently millions of years old. It gives away some strange biological readings. They report the finding to their superiors and request further orders.\\
'''You'd Expect''': A high-ranking military to order the heroes to immediately return to the homeplanet, so the pod could be properly studied in a safe environment (safe meaning "with capacity to incinerate it the moment some horrible, ship-consuming [[TheVirus Virus]] breaks out of it") and the possible benefits could be shared with the whole planet.\\
'''Instead''': They tuck in some out-of-way corner of the galaxy and open the pod by themselves.
** Said pod was snatched by the heroes from under the nose of a gang of space pirates. After some failed attempts to reclaim their prize the pirates finally catch up with the heroes. They see the lower section of the heroes' ship (where the pod apparently is) drifting separately and covered with some icky ulcerous stains. Upon their arrival the heroes immediately contact the pirates and implore them not to approach the section.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The pirates would take at least some caution and send some minor ships forward to investigate.\\
'''Instead''': They board the section with their entire fleet, get infected and destroy the last hope for the heroes to contain TheVirus.
** After TheVirus spills on the larger part of the galaxy and gains self-consciousness, it strikes a deal with a local run-down Empire: they help it find and repair an ancient advanced ship TheVirus originated from and it gives them half the galaxy to reign over.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The imperials would somehow scrap enough common sence together and turn the deal away.\\
'''Instead''': They accept, and the conflict escalates even further.
* In ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead'' 4, during the ending The World has been beaten, it mutates even more, followed by James activating a bomb in his PDA powerful enough destroy it. \\
'''You'd Expect''': For James to chuck that thing like no tomorrow, destroying The World so he and Kate can continue fighting the zombie apocalypse together.\\
'''Instead''': James performs a StupidSacrifice by diving right into The World with his PDA time bomb in hand, taking The World with him.
* In ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaVictory'', Histoire is poised to bring Neptune back from the [[AlternateUniverse Ultradimension]]. The path can only be traveled once, and Histoire is worried about someone, especially the overly-curious Nepgear, interfering.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Histoire would just tell Nepgear what was going on just before going ahead. Nepgear is the more mature of the sisters, and she wants Neptune back as much as anyone; there's no reason she'd screw anything up when they only have one shot. This goes double in the UpdatedRerelease, where the sisters have a very good relationship and it's been firmly established Nepgear would walk barefoot over broken glass to get Neptune back.\\
'''Instead:''' Histoire decides not to tell anyone, and Nepgear stumbles in and gets carried away before Histoire can stop her, resulting in BOTH Planeptune's [=CPUs=] being stranded in another world.

* ''VideoGame/InFamous'':
** The first game has Zeke getting a hold of the Ray Sphere, a device that gave Cole his powers.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He'll just give it to him to save the day from Alden.\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He attempts to use it to gain powers of his own even if it costs the lives of people. Luckily, it didn't work, so Kessler asks him to join him. What did Zeke do? [[FaceHeelTurn He does]]]].
** In an alternate future where the Ray Sphere disaster didn't effect Empire City, the Beast/[[spoiler:John White]] arrives in Empire City.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Future Cole/[[spoiler:Kessler]] to tell his family to run and own the Beast's ass with his lightning powers.\\
'''Instead''': He selfishly runs for his life along with his family. \\
'''Result''': The Whole world goes to ruin, eventually his family kicks the bucket, and it leaves Future Cole/[[spoiler:Kessler]] with no choice but to ruin the life of his past counterpart.
** In the Good Ending of ''Videogame/{{inFamous 2}}'', Cole has decided to use the RFI [[spoiler:which it will kill all Conduits, himself included]]. Suddenly, [[spoiler:Kuo]] tries to grab it off him, unable to accept this fate.\\
'''You'd Expect''': He should use his Arc Restraint to contain [[spoiler:her]] while he, Zeke, and Nix went to recharge the RFI.\\
'''Instead''': They just stare at [[spoiler:her]] while she runs away from them in anger. The next time they see [[spoiler:her]], [[spoiler:Kuo]] [[FaceHeelTurn is sided with the Beast]].
** In ''Videogame/InfamousSecondSon'', Delsin learns that Hank Daughtry is actually alive after having been supposedly killed by Augustine.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Delsin to either leave Hank to his own devices (he'd make a good distraction to keep the DUP off Delsin's tail, especially since they have the same smoke power), or try to capture him.\\
'''Instead''': After catching up with Hank, Delsin proposes an alliance (despite both Reggie and Fetch telling him to stay away from a convicted felon who uses his powers to commit crimes) so that they, along with the other two Conduits, can take Augustine down together, to which Hank agrees.\\
'''As a result''': [[spoiler:Hank leads Delsin into a trap. Turns out he was blackmailed by Augustine to bring Delsin to her in exchange for his daughter. Reggie has to save Delsin from Augustine and is killed in the process]].\\
'''Bonus Idiocy''': You'd think Hank, who is both intelligent enough to escape from DUP clutches and well aware that Augustine "has a sadistic streak a mile wide", [[spoiler:to know that Augustine would have no intention of holding her end of the bargain and thus he would warn Delsin ahead of time so that the two of them, along with Fetch, Eugene and Reggie, could take down Augustine together and get his daughter back]]. Instead, He goes along with it [[spoiler:and Augustine ends up killing Reggie, which sends Delsin on a RoaringRampageOfRevenge. And while Hank does get his daughter back, Augustine's DUP soldiers try to kill him at the marina while he's leaving town. He dispatches of them easily, but then is left to deal with a pissed off Delsin Rowe. Whether or not Delsin kills him is up to the player]].
* ''VideoGame/Injustice2'': Batman and his allies still have access to the portal that allows them to bring heroes and villains from alternate Earths to theirs--it's why Green Arrow is with them. In addition, utilizing this technology was how they were able to overthrow Superman's regime in the first place. With Brainiac's forces seemingly unstoppable, Batman realizes he's going to need Superman's help after all.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to give the Main!Universe Justice League a call and enlist their aid once again, since their Superman is just as powerful as the evil one but is actually trustworthy. Or, if he can't do it himself, ask Green Arrow to give it a try.\\
'''Instead''': This possibility ''never'' occurs to him, and he reluctantly lets Superman out of prison, thus setting the stage for the two possible endings, [[spoiler:one of them resulting in the Regime's restoration and him getting brainwashed.]]
** It also never seems to occur to Batman, Superman, or their respective allies that they can simply use Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth to force Brainiac to tell them how to free all of the cities he miniaturized and collected.
* In ''VideoGame/JetForceGemini'', Vela travels through the mine on Rith Essa, where she comes across Farmer, one of Mizar's minions, while disguised as a tribal.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to see through the disguise, as She was carrying a weapon and Floyd's hovering next to her, both of which he should remember seeing.\\
'''Instead:''' He falls for her disguise and gives Vela one of the ship parts she was after, while Farmer's fate is uncertain after this incident, [[YouHaveFailedMe it's possible that it's an unpleasant one.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games K-O]]
* In Chapter 13 of ''VideoGame/KidIcarusUprising'', Pit is infiltrating Arlon's Lunar Sanctum. At one point during the land battle, both Pit and Palutena ask Arlon why the Sanctum was built in the first place.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Arlon, being the QuintessentialBritishGentleman he is, to calmly explain why the sanctum was built in hopes of getting Pit and Palutena to back off or at least come to a deal.\\
'''Instead:''' Arlon [[PoorCommunicationKills gets irritated and refuses to answer]] and Pit fights his way through the Lunar Sanctum and eventually reaches Arlon.\\
'''Result:''' Arlon is defeated and the Lunar Sanctum is destroyed. [[spoiler:And with the Sanctum's destruction, the [[ChaosIsEvil Chaos Kin]], [[SealedEvilInACan a being of unspeakable evil is freed from the Sanctum]], allowing it to wreak havoc on the world three years later. Essentially, [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom Arlon is directly responsible for Chapters 18-21]].]] Viridi lampshades it in chapter 20.
-->'''Viridi''': If only I'd been there at the time. Or Arlon should have explained the situation, but you know how reserved he is.
* ''VideoGame/KingsQuestVIHeirTodayGoneTomorrow'':
** In the climax of the game's long path, Prince Alexander can find a hidden passage in the Castle of the Crown, where he can eavesdrop on people on the other side. He overhears the castle guards in a break room, where some of them ars talking to Captain Saladin about some concerning issues like Cassima's begging to be let out of her room, the castle's treasury being locked out ''even to the court treasurer'' [[spoiler:(as the Vizier is using it as his stash of stolen treasure from the other islands)]], and the fact that the Vizier has even magically sealed off the treasury in the first place.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Saladin, being the ReasonableAuthorityFigure he is, would get suspicious, check on Cassima for himself (who could explain what's ''really'' going on and dismiss the Vizier's claim that Alexander is a threat to her), and demand to know why the treasurer can't do his job.\\
'''Instead:''' He never considers any of this, dismisses the guards' concerns, reminds them of their oath to the Crown (despite Cassima still being the sole heir and therefore having authority!), and tells them to get ready for the royal wedding.\\
'''Result:''' Alexander is forced to crash the wedding, and is nearly killed by Saladin when attempting to expose the Vizier's true intentions for Cassima.
* In Chapter 5-4 of ''[[VideoGame/{{Knack}} Knack II]]'', Rothari and his High Goblin troops have broken into the museum and managed to find the artifact that would allow them to control the Ancient Robots. However, Knack shows up and knocks artifact out of his hand and proceeds to battle his troops.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Rothari to grab the artifact and escape while Knack is distracted fighting his troops so he complete his mission.\\
'''Instead:''' He just stands there and watches the fight, not even bothering to retrieve the artifact.\\
'''Result:''' Knack defeats his troops and Rothari is forced to leave the museum empty-handed.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'':
** One year before the start of the game, the Jedi Council send a commando of Jedi to stop Darth Revan, which include Bastila.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they refrain from sending the Republic's only hope against [[EvilOverlord an all-powerful Sith Lord]], even with a backup of veterans Jedis. Bastila is a simple Padawan and she can't use her Battle Meditation during combat. Her death or capture could immediately doom the Republic.\\
'''Instead:''' They send her in combat with other Jedis against Revan despite the great risks. She's lucky to make it out alive, only because [[TheStarscream Malak chose that very moment to betray his master]].
** So the Dantooine Jedi Council wishes to [[spoiler:retrain the amnesiac Darth Revan in the ways of the Force]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they talk to the High Jedi Council about making a decision this large.\\
'''Instead:''' They promptly [[spoiler:train the former Sith. They're lucky Revan didn't fall to the Dark Side again... well, ''immediately'' fell (depending on the player's choices).]]
** Malak is on the Star Forge, with Revan heading his way and Bastila managing his fleets. Victory seems assured.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Bastila would be somewhere far away from the conflict so that the power of the Sith Fleets is focused on the Republic. Even if Revan falls, there will never be another opportunity for the Republic to attack here, so they're the real threat. That Battle Meditation of hers is so vital that he literally burned a world to ashes, sent his personal apprentice after her, and hired bounty hunters.\\
'''Instead:''' Like the Jedi before him, he sends the single most important person to his plans in direct confrontation with the one person she should absolutely not be in contact with. As a result, either a) she's dead, b) she switches sides to the Jedi, or c) she switches sides to Darth Revan, helping take down Malak. In the first two scenarios, she's no longer using her meditation to help his fleet, so they quickly crumble and eventually, they blow up the Forge.
** Xor, a common and down on his luck mercenary with a hatred of the Cathar species, but a [[IHaveYouNowMyPretty "thing"]] for Cathar women, sees your PlayerCharacter and Juhani at a spaceport. \\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to notice that Juhani is packing a saber and wearing robes, and that the PlayerCharacter is likely similarly armed. \\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to realize that lightsabers and robes in this era NEVER means good news. He may be dealing with Jedi, who are very capable of kicking your ass if you provoke them, or Sith, who don't need an excuse to kick someone's ass. Or, failing that, someone who ''killed'' a Sith or Jedi and are now wearing their outfits as a trophy, in which case they'd ''still'' be capable of kicking his ass.\\
'''You'd Also Expect''': Him to recall that Cathar have ''amazingly'' short tempers by human standards. \\
'''Instead:''' He strolls right on up to them and asks the human PlayerCharacter how much it would take to buy Juhani, following it up with some [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain mind-boggling racist and sexist comments.]] \\
'''You'd Expect:''' Once confirming they ''are'' Jedi, to know they have a low opinion of slavers and make an excuse to run away while he's got his limbs, head, and [[GroinAttack assorted other parts]] still attached. Failing that, he'd notice that this Cathar is now travelling with, discounting the Jedi, several people with ludicrous amounts of guns, which include a Mandalorian and a Wookie, both of whom are not known for suffering fools gladly. \\
'''You'd Also Expect:''' Once he does get away, thank the Force for his lucky break and stay ''very'' far away from the ''Ebon Hawk.''\\
'''Instead:''' The idiot finds a couple of other low-rent mercs and tried to ''ambush'' a pair of Jedi in front of their ship. Needless to say, TooDumbToLive applies here.
* ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords'' has the Jedi Masters. Following the end of the war and Revan's departure, Sith assassins start knocking off Jedi from the shadows. Unable to find the source, the Jedi gather in an attempt at mass precognition. This draws the attention of Nihilus, who kills them all easily. Thus the remaining Masters go into hiding, hoping to lull the enemy into a false sense of security so they'll emerge. Years pass with absolutely zero success, until the Exile shows up and draws their attention. She sets about gathering the masters to deal with this.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That despite all the animosity between them, the Masters would see reason and agree to help. After all, they've have nothing to show for their work while the Exile manages to save two entire planets (admittedly, one of those planets was originally doomed because of her, but she fixed it), the settlement on Dantooine, and roots out the source of the bounty of Jedi.\\
'''Instead:''' Faced with pretty much direct evidence that the Sith have not only returned but are actively undermining the (as mentioned) fragile-as-hell Republic, they decide ''to do nothing''. Having gone to all the trouble of gathering on Dantooine, they decide to stick their heads back up their asses and hope for the best while the Republic dies around them. To make matters worse, they then decide the Exile is somehow an even ''bigger'' threat than the Sith, and attempt to strip her of the Force entirely rather than help her when she's ''being actively pursued by assassins''. Worst Jedi ever!\\
'''And the icing on the cake is:''' All three of them, in some way, had pretty much ignored their original idea and were trying, in their own way, to get to the bottom of the problem. Or, in the case of Zez-Kai Ell, had come to understand that maybe they were wrong to begin with. Even if they were stumbling around in the dark, they were at least ''trying''. This means that, in the time it took for them to reach Dantooine, they actually managed to ''unlearn everything'' they had done in their self-imposed exile.
* ''VideoGame/LANoire'':
** In one of the Vice street cases, Cole Phelps and Roy Earle stumble across a rooftop fight between Dudley Lynch and a black man over a girl, which ends when the black man is thrown to his death. After the fight, Dudley assures the girl, Shannon Perry, that he did it all for her, and they seem to have a romantic moment before Cole [[MomentKiller comes up the roof]] to talk to Dudley about the incident.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Dudley would explain that the incident was a case of self-defense and that Shannon would testify for him. Thus allowing him to get out of the situation scot-free.\\
'''Instead''': He throws Shannon to the floor and flees the scene, only to be caught by Cole and Roy. Only then does he try to tell the cops that the whole thing was a case of self-defense.\\
'''Result''': Cole just tells him that the whole thing is out of his hands, and that if he's telling the truth, Shannon would testify so for him. But given the way he treated her when he was about to make a run for it, it seems unlikely.\\
'''In Addition''': Running away from the police tends to be a charge in and of itself.
** In the first traffic case, a man named Adrian Black is cheating on his wife behind her back.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Adrian would at least divorce his wife if he was really unhappy with her.\\
'''Instead''': He comes up with a completely convoluted plan to cover his tracks. Using his friend's help, he bathes his car's insides in pig's blood to make it look like he was brutally murdered. Not only does Cole Phelps find out that the blood belongs to a pig instead of a human, he also discovers that Adrian was seeing another woman. Adrian is caught and Cole tells him that he's going to lose his wife, his job, and will very likely end up in jail for wasting police resources on a fake murder.\\
'''In Addition''': It's revealed that Adrian's wife will take him back despite what he did.
* ''VideoGame/TheLastOfUsPartII'':
** Abby's group [[SarcasmMode starts off strong]] right from the get-go. They get the drop on Tommy and Joel due to some astoundingly good luck, and Abby is busy torturing Joel to death with Tommy subdued when Ellie walks in, drawn by Joel's screams. After a brief tussle, Ellie is subdued as well, and is forced to watch as Abby deals the finishing blow on Joel.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That after brutally murdering Joel in front of his brother and surrogate daughter, [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim they would put a bullet in both of their heads and be done with it]]. They know who Tommy is, and while they don't know Ellie, they ''do'' know that she's begging Abby to stop in between threatening to kill them all, so this is someone who obviously cares deeply for Joel and is probably dangerous.\\
'''Instead:''' After knocking them out, they just ''let them go''. This is apparently out of some self-righteous belief that since only Joel was their target, killing anyone else would be wrong, but ''come on''. They lost the moral high ground when they tortured a man to death in front of his loved ones, and leaving witnesses who can identify them is just asking for trouble.\\
'''The Result:''' Tommy and Ellie hunt them down and kill nearly all of them, along with dozens if not hundreds of their troops, leading to the near-total destruction of the WLF.
** On Seattle Day 1 (Abby), Mel heads for the WLF frontlines despite [[spoiler:being pregnant]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Either a superior or one of her friends putting their foot down and telling her she can't go on active duty on account of [[spoiler:her being physically handicapped and putting her unborn child at serious risk]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Nobody questions Mel heading to the frontline, where she has numerous close calls with the Seraphites and is ultimately murdered by Ellie]]. Speaking of which...
** In Seattle Day 3 (Ellie), Owen is falling out with Mel in the aquarium [[spoiler:over rejoining the Fireflies at Catalina Island with Abby]]. Mel is about to storm out when Ellie finds the two and holds them at gunpoint.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:At this point in the story, Mel is heavily pregnant with Owen's child. With that in mind, you'd think the very first thing Owen or Mel would do is mention the pregnancy to the attacker. This way, even if the two don't give what the attacker wants, there's a high likelihood that the attacker would be guilt-tripped into sparing Mel's life]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:When Ellie tries to get Abby's location from the two, Owen charges straight for her gun. This backfires on him, as Ellie easily counters his lunge and fatally wounds him with a gunshot]].\\
'''Even Worse:''' [[spoiler:After Owen gets shot to death, Mel doesn't try to escape or mention her pregnancy to Ellie. Instead, she grabs a pocket knife and tries to stab Ellie only for ''her too to be killed'' (this time via being stabbed in the throat). Thus, while the story attempts to mark this moment as Ellie crossing the MoralEventHorizon, the deaths of Owen, Mel, and their unborn child is entirely on them for making stupid decisions that cost them their lives]].
** Isaac has been planning a full scale invasion of the Seraphite's home island to [[FinalSolution wipe them all out]]. However, days before the planned attack, dozens of his soldiers are killed by Ellie, Tommy, Dina, and Jesse. Not only that, but his two handpicked leaders of the vanguard, Abby and Manny, are unavailable for the attack due to being [[spoiler:AWOL and dead respectively]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' With a shortage of manpower and leadership, and an unknown hostile force tearing its way through his forces, Isaac should cancel the attack and focus on the outsiders. After they are dealt with, assess the ability to launch another attack and prepare for that one.\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He launches the attack anyway which goes poorly. After he dies during the assault, his forces are completely routed, with no one making it off the island]].
* ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'':
** [[RedoniBlueoni Graves and Twisted Fate]] got into a bank job gone wrong and the the police got the building surrounded, Twisted Fate decide to find another route to get out to avoid getting arrested.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Graves do the same thing and back him up to ease up the task.\\
'''Instead:''' He decided to make a [[LeeroyJenkins FULL FRONTAL ASSAULT]] and of course, that got him busted and locked up for a decade.\\
'''Bonus Idiocy:''' [[NeverMyFault And blame Twisted Fate for all of it]], thinking he abandoned him the whole time. Does that remind you of a situation similar of that in a league match?
* In the RaisingSim ''VisualNovel/LongLiveTheQueen'', at times entrepreneurs come to your castle to ask you to fund their new great ideas, such as a printing press or field hospital. The money they are asking for is minimal compared to the state budget.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' the protagonist princess gladly to fund such obvious benefits, pushing her kingdom into the Age of Enlightenment.\\
'''Instead:''' she doesn't get what the fuss is about (sample quote: "wouldn't putting sick people together just make them die faster?") and send the innovator away empty-handed. (Granted, you can avoid this by investing heavily in economics or health training, but these have far from obvious benefits early on in the game before the choice comes up.)
** Elodie, as Crown Princess, is fourteen years old and has spent her time at a boarding school until her mother's death, which means she is immediately the ruler of Nova and has one year before she comes of age to have her official coronation.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Elodie to be allowed to consult advisers or her father for important decisions, because she can't possibly learn everything she needs to know in a year, especially so soon after the sudden death of her mother.\\
'''Instead:''' She is forced to decide everything herself with only a basic education under her belt, with no input from [[AdultsAreUseless her father]] or anyone else, while the rest of the nobility is openly trying to sabotage her rule if she doesn't perform perfectly.
* ''{{VideoGame/Lucius}}'' has the eponymous character [[spoiler:taking control of his "father" Charles into killing his mother, Nancy, with a nail gun]]. At the same time, [=McGuffin=] and another police officer are present at the scene.\\
'''You'd Expect''': that he puts two and two together that Lucius is responsible for [[spoiler:taking control of his "father" and killing his mother]] and has him locked up. Happy ending, indeed.\\
'''Instead''': he comes to a conclusion that [[spoiler:Charles]] is responsible for the murder, and tries to lead chase to him. During that time, he has the other police officer watch over Lucius [[spoiler:which he does murder]]. For him, he assumes the worse after this.
* At one point in ''VideoGame/LuminousArc'', the player party has just subdued an opponent. They all know she has one of the {{Plot Coupon}}s they're grappling for in her body, she's killed dozens of innocent civilians, and nobody has any reason to believe she's not completely synthetic.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Someone to rip the stone out of her chest. At least one party member is impulsive or pragmatic enough to do it without calling a team meeting. Either way, a serious threat is out of the game and the party is up one MacGuffin.\\
'''Instead''': They leave her to recover and fight again another day. ''Repeatedly''.
* ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'': In Spider-Man's ending, J Jonah Jameson sees pictures of him defeating Galactus.\\
'''You'd Expect''': He finally realizes Spider-Man is not a menace and calls off the "Hero or Menace?" thing off.\\
'''Instead''': Jameson brushes them off, and thinks that Spider-Man is teaming up with Galactus. Let's just face it, that's the Jameson we know of.
* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'':
** Max goes for the final confrontation against [[spoiler:Victor Branco and Armando Becker]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': He [[spoiler:should go with Da Silva into the hangar, in the risk of avoiding confronting an army of police forces under their command]].\\
'''Instead''': He [[spoiler:goes straight to the front entrance of the airport and started gunning down every policemen going after him]]. It is even lampshaded.
--->'''Max''': Smart move would have been [[spoiler:sticking with Da Silva and going straight to the hangar]], but when I was ever about smart moves? I'm a dumb move guy.
** At the end of the game, Max has BigBad [[spoiler:Victor]] at gunpoint. Da Silva arrives and convinces him to spare him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For [[spoiler:Victor]] to quietly accept his good fortune.\\
'''Instead:''' He taunts Max about how he's definitely going to walk.\\
'''The Result:''' "[[ShutUpHannibal You'll walk... WITH A LIMP!!!]]" ''[Max breaks his leg]''
* ''VideoGame/{{Mercenaries}} 2'': CorruptCorporateExecutive Ramon Solano hires the player to break a Venezuelan general who had attempted a coup out of jail. Airstrikes are called in, tanks are used, [[StuffBlowingUp stuff blows up]], mission accomplished.\\
'''You'd Expect''' Solano thanks the merc for a job well done, pays them, sends them on their way, and goes on to take over the country and elevate it's status to that of a world power.\\
'''Instead''' He turns on the player and has them shot. Cue the RoaringRampageOfRevenge that ends with Venezuela getting torn up and Solano himself dead.\\
'''For Added Idiocy''' The merc Solano hired was the mercenary that had previously been involved in the Song Initiative. During that situation, the mercenary showed their aptitude at singlehandedly taking down a military dictatorship for money.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'':
** Early in the game, Samus finds out onboard the B.S.L. Space Station that [[TheFederation the Galactic Federation]] have been cloning creatures and animals from various planets (coincidentally coinciding with places Samus has been to).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They mainly stick to research, perhaps at best having questionable specimens on pure lockdown and research basis.\\
'''Instead:''' They clone Metroids, which is baffling seeing as they specifically had Samus kill them ''because'' of how dangerous they were, and ''Space Pirates'' despite being on a semi-perpetual '''war''' with them! Consequently, the X Parasites the Metroids had been preying on grow in number, infect Samus, cause an outbreak on the space station and get plenty of dangerous tech and food to weaponize and nearly jeopardize the entire galactic system with. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero Whoops.]] Samus ends up having to blow up both the station and SR-388 to wipe out the X Parasites because of the sheer threat.\\
'''Even Worse:''' When ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' came out, it turns out that the Galactic Federation had been doing the same exact thing on the Bottle Ship, on top of trying to create and control a [[BigBad Mother Brain]] which also blew up in their faces spectacularly. They learned ''absolutely nothing'' and reached firmly into StupidEvil. This is also topped off by the fact that Samus is forced to destroy the station and planet because Federation ships were coming in to check up on the station and practically flying in towards their inevitable demises (and would likely have foolishly attempted to contain the X Parasites); altogether, everything in these two games falls squarely on their shoulders in their eagerness to gain an edge over their enemies.
* ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'':
** Midway through the game, Samus is asked by her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich, to go into an area that's superheated and filled with lava.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' No problem. Considering the game notably averted BagOfSpilling and Samus still has all her upgrades from ''Super Metroid'', all she has to do is turn on her Varia/Gravity Suit and walk through without fear of being injured by the heat. Better yet, while Adam has restricted her use of weapons, there should be nothing stopping her from employing her defensive suit capabilities, especially in cases where her life is in danger.\\
'''Alternately''', he could just say "By the way, Samus, Sector 3 is known for its extreme heat, which has taken its toll on my team's power suit systems. If you have anything that protects from environmental extremes, consider its use authorized." before she gets to the superhot stuff.\\
'''Instead:''' Neither of them act on the pending situation, and Samus willingly runs through the superheated area taking damage for no discernible reason, until Adam ''finally'' tells her to activate her Varia Suit when she comes face to face with a boss and is forced into a protracted battle.\\
'''Even Worse:''' Again, the sole in-game justification for the authorization system is that using power bombs - a whole ''one'' weapon out of the six or seven you have - wherever you want would vaporize your non-Power Suited allies. This apparently means Samus is not allowed to defend herself from hostile environments as best as she can simply because Adam didn't explicitly tell her to keep doing so at the beginning.
** There is also the fact that Adam told her if she used any power-ups without his say-so, she was off the mission with a one-way ticket to court martial town. That said, the stupidity comes in when everyone, especially Samus ''and even more so himself'', realize she's the lynchpin of this mission's succeeding.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' "Samus, turn on all non-combat abilities to ensure your survival." Alternatively, Samus to either give him the finger and activate the Varia function herself or at the very least ''ask'' his permission to do so the instant she realizes the area is superheated, because, again, protecting herself from extreme environments doesn't endanger other people.\\
'''Instead:''' "I'm still mad you that you quit the Marines [[spoiler: after I ordered my brother/your boyfriend to die]]. You don't get any power ups at all until I say so."
** Samus is on her way to Sector Zero when, right as she gets to the entrance, a Metroid comes out of hiding to greet our heroine. Adam happens to be right behind them, freeze gun in hand.\\
'''You'd Expect''' either Adam or Samus would freeze the damn thing and save both of their hides from being Metroid chow, or Adam asks Samus to stop and shoot the Metroid.\\
'''Instead''' Adam ''shoots'' Samus with the most powerful round of ammo he had, leaving Samus utterly powerless and suitless, not even bothering to shoot the Metroid until it was right about to attack her! The only ounce justification he had for shooting Samus was to stop her from going into Sector Zero, something that could have easily been a lot less life-threatening and damaging if he simply asked her to stop. It might be just as stupid, but it would have made tons more sense and a lot less fucked up. Considering Samus has literally walked into unsurvivable environments without turning on her protective gear because he didn't specifically tell her too, she would not refuse him.
** Additionally, Samus has just fallen to the ground after Adam has shot her in the back. She is disabled, in shock, and completely helpless. There is now a hungry Metroid floating over her head.\\
'''You'd Expect''' Adam to immediately shoot the Metroid.\\
'''Instead''' He waits for a good forty seconds or so while the Metroid lazily hovers closer and closer to Samus, not bothering to fire a second shot until it's literally in her face.
** Right after this, Adam now has the following conundrum: Sector Zero is [[InformedAbility (supposedly, according to what's basically a guess on his part)]] full of unfreezable, basically indestructible Metroids. An explosive in the right place would detach the sector from the rest of the station and destroy it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Adam to set the bomb to a timer, run in, and then run out. Or tell Samus to do it, since she's faster and tougher and therefore more likely to survive the run. Unless Sector Zero is completely stuffed to the gills with Metroids (and given that Adam survives the run long enough to plant the explosive, it isn't), this shouldn't be that high of a risk.\\
'''Or:''' Get into his own ship or Samus's gunship, and blast Sector Zero from the outside, either destroying its connective passage or spacing the inhabitants. It's an isolated capsule, so it should be easy enough to target.\\
'''Or:''' Tell Samus to activate the Gravity Suit, do a bit of spacewalking, and plant the bombs on the connective passage. If the problem is the section being too badly armored, just have Samus carry more explosives; she's essentially a PersonOfMassDestruction and her own Power Bombs (specifically noted as enough to damage the station) do nothing to her.\\
'''Instead:''' Adam decides to go himself, on foot, and set off the explosive while he's still inside the sector for a good old-fashioned StupidSacrifice. The perfect military mind in action, folks.
** The Federation want to cover up their dastardly cloning experiments on the Bottle Ship and tie up loose ends.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They would order Adam to not board the station, shut off its distress signal and/or blockade the station with starships and threaten to destroy anyone who approaches, then board it with their own teams and eliminate any evidence as needed.\\
'''Instead:''' They allow Adam to go in and replace one of his squad with an assassin whose job is to kill them all, plus Samus Aran. Because clearly getting a squad of your own men killed and attempting to murder the galaxy's finest bounty hunter when she has yet to be given any reason to work against you is far more efficient than just telling them to go away.
* ''VideoGame/MortalKombatArmageddon'': It's learned in the game's Konquest mode that in the future, the Mortal Kombat tournament will become corrupted and its competitors will grow more numerous and gain more power from tapping into more of the fabric of reality than normal, thus causing TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt with their infighting.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The Elder Gods to stop the tournament right then and there, thus preventing it from being the crux of the future apocalypse.\\
'''Instead''': They use a lowly Edenian god to start a GambitRoulette, in the hopes of stopping the Armageddon ''just'' when it begins to start. Naturally, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption it backfires on them]].
* ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'':
** [[TheHighQueen Sindel]] gets supercharged thanks to the sacrificed Shang Tsung's souls, and faces the Forces of Light herself.\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[LaResistance The heroes]], worn out from recently fighting off the Cyber Lin Kuei ambush, to keep their distance and use their projectiles to attack her or at least [[ZergRush attack all together at once]], or even retreat and fight later on.\\
'''Instead''': They attack her [[ConservationOfNinjutsu one at a time]], forgetting to use [[ForgotAboutHisPowers their special abilities]]. The end result is a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown in which Sindel [[HeroKiller kills the heroes]], with only [[DeadpanSnarker Johnny Cage]] and [[ActionGirl Sonya]] as survivors; Kitana dies from her wounds in [[DiedInYourArmsTonight Liu Kang's arms]] and [[BadassNative Nightwolf]] performs a HeroicSacrifice via KillSat in order to finally [[TakingYouWithMe kill her]].
** When Jade seeks out Raiden for help to free Kitana, Millena appears and the two duke it out with Jade being the winner. Afterwards, Raiden and his group appears with Smoke seeing the beaten Millena lying on the ground. He immediately flies into a rage because he thinks Jade beat up Kitana (the two are long time friends), even though Kitana wears ''blue'' clothing while Millena is wearing ''purple''. Raiden speaks up and points out that it's not Kitana Smoke is seeing.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Smoke would listen to an ''elder god'' when he points out the discrpency.\\
'''Instead''': Smoke completely ignores Raiden and proceeds to fight Jade, to which he loses against. The group acts like the fight never happened and move on to help save Kitana.
* ''VideoGame/MortalKombat11'':
** Among [[TimeMaster their collection of time-based powers]], BigBad Kronika and her [[TheDragon Dragon]] Geras have the ability to freeze mortals in place, as Geras does to Liu Kang and Kung Lao in Chapter Three, and Kronika does to a load of the heroes in Chapter Eleven. The only apparent weakness of this ability is that it doesn't work on gods like Raiden, since they're immortals who exist outside the flow of time.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Kronika and Geras to use this power a lot more liberally. Even if Raiden's immune to them, the Thunder God's mortal allies are decidedly not, and they have no way of defending against them. Once they've been rendered helpless, it should be no trouble for Kronika and Geras to either strike them down or take them prisoner.\\
'''Instead''': When Geras restrains Liu Kang and Kung Lao, he and Kronika just take the Jinsei-infused water and leave them be. When Kronika restrains Liu Kang, Cassie, Scorpion, Jax and Jacqui in the Fire Gardens, she only abducts Liu Kang, and doesn't bother taking the opportunity to try and eliminate any of Raiden's other allies. And besides a moment in Chapter Twelve, these are the only times Kronika makes use of this particular power. The only explanation given is that [[spoiler:Kronika's already beaten them all countless times in the past, so why would she need to "cheat", as it were]]?\\
'''Result:''' By the time Kronika's ready to execute her plan and restart the timeline, Raiden and his allies - all of whom she could have easily dealt with beforehand - have gathered an army of Special Forces, Shaolin monks and Outworlders, which they lead in an attack on her keep. And while this is admittedly not something Kronika's unlikely to have dealt with before, this time she's [[DidntSeeThatComing thrown for a loop when]] Raiden [[spoiler:fuses with Liu Kang to become Fire God Liu Kang]] and destroys her.
** During the events of Chapter Eight, Sonya and Present Kano are at a standoff. Sonya has Past Kano under her boot ready to snap his neck, while Present Kano has a knife to Past Johnny's throat; Present Kano orders a hostage exchange with Johnny as his bargaining chip.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Kano to begin a countdown or some kind of nastiness to force Sonya's compliance. Barring that, you'd think he would try to grab Cassie as collateral, considering he knows she's on-site, too.\\
'''Instead''': Kano tells Sonya that by slitting Johnny's throat, he'll kill Cassie too, thereby reminding her that killing the past version of someone makes it so that their present day self stopped existing from that point onwards.\\
'''Result''': Ten seconds later, [[RetGone Present Kano]] [[Memes/AvengersInfinityWar doesn't feel so good]].
-->'''Sonya''': Thanks, Kano.\\
'''Present Kano''': For what, Sonya?\\
'''Sonya''': [[PreMortemOneLiner For reminding me of the rules.]] ''([[BoomHeadshot HEAD SHOT!!]])''
* ''VisualNovel/MyHaremHeavenIsYandereHell'':
** [[spoiler:Kudou]]'s sister-figure, Sayuri's mental illness has escalated to the point where she kidnaps an innocent boy and restrains him for days on the basis of her delusions about "demons".\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Kudou would expose Sayuri's crimes and get her professional help. Her family has more than enough money to pay for it, to say nothing of the hoard of evidence that [[spoiler:Kudou]] has free access to- especially given [[spoiler:Kudou's authority in the police force]].\\
'''Instead''': He does nothing. Because he thinks that rehabilitating Sayuri would mean he didn't ''believe'' in her enough and/or that he doubted her ability to ever regain sanity. So he plays along with her delusions entirely.
* ''VisualNovel/MyCandyLove'':
** In "Chemical Reactions", Ms. Delanay is about to have the class begin a science experiment when she gets interrupted by Mr. Faraize. Faraize states that the Principal would like to speak to her about her transfer papers.\\
'''You would expect:''' Ms. Delanay to instruct the class to not touch the chemicals and equipment while she's gone, maybe even get Mr. Faraize to oversee her students while she's away.\\
'''Instead:''' She puts two students in charge and tells the class to continue on with the experiment before leaving the group of teenagers unattended.\\
'''As a result:''' The students immediately begin talking with one another, and while some of them do try to follow the instructions, most don't. Amber in particular heats up a chemical so much it explodes, releasing toxic fumes. Even though Ms. Delanay is back by then, it's too little too late and the firefighting department has to be called in.
* [[VideoGame/NancyDrew Nancy Drew game]] ''Warnings at Waverly Academy'':
** One of the suspects has her term paper erased by the Black Cat. You are given the option of asking the suspect if she kept a hard copy. If you do, the suspect replies:\\
'''You'd Expect''': "Of course I did! Do you think I ''want'' four weeks of research to go down the drain? Good thing the Black Cat didn't count on that!"\\
'''Instead''': "No! It would be like printing out a book!"
** Sadly, Nancy Drew herself is capable of this ''without'' you having to invoke it (the moments where it ''can'' be invoked are the ones resulting in a Game Over; which some people are known to deliberately seek out for amusement). For example, at the end of ''Legend of the Crystal Skull'', Nancy has found the eponymous skull in a crypt. Just as she does, the culprit comes along, sees her down in the crypt with the skull, and in an Literature/{{Aladdin}}-esque moment, asks for Nancy to hand over the skull.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Nancy, being the highly-experienced detective she is even by game standards (this is game seventeen), would see through this ruse and proclaim "A-ha! So ''you're'' the culprit!" and refuse to give up the skull even if it meant having to escape another trap.\\
'''Instead''': Nancy actually hands over the skull, then acts surprised when the culprit traps her in the crypt and takes off with the skull.
** And then at the end of ''Ransom of the Seven Ships'', [[spoiler:the bum whom Nancy has been helping turns out to be a former culprit out for two things: the treasure, ''and'' revenge. And did we mention this is one of the most [[AxCrazy genuinely insane]] culprits in the entire series?]]\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:Nancy would do ''something'' or come up with a plan, like going through her inventory and using something on the culprit, or, even better, using her walkie-talkie to alert George]].\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:Nancy just...kind of stands there while the culprit rants and raves. She realizes she ''might'' be a in a trap and only whimpers "Oh no" ''when she still has seconds to take action.'' And this is a trap she has been aware of ''since she first came to this particular beach'']].
** Sometimes, the culprits have their moments where the VillainBall is just too tempting not to take a hold of. The worst offender of this comes from the culprit at the end of ''The Deadly Device'', not once but twice. The first time: The culprit realizes Nancy has figured out whodunnit. They arrive at the lab, see Nancy leaving, and knock her out.\\
'''You'd Expect''': They would either kill her right there, or, if they HAD to take her to the Tesla coil lab, tie her to the lightning rod or on the floor, go up to the control room, and turn the electricity on.\\
'''Instead''': They lock her up in the Faraday Cage, which has since been rewired and is now perfectly safe, wait for her to wake up, [[EvilGloating gloats about how and why they did it,]] and then turn on the electric current and wait for it to gradually wear through the cage. Giving Nancy plenty of time to evaluate her situation and figure out how to get out. Without even confiscating your inventory.
** And in the second instance of this, it gets even worse: If you are able to redirect the electricity to the lightning rod, the culprit, who is in the control booth and could clearly see electricity now dancing around the room and therefore that it’s dangerous to leave…\\
'''You'd Expect''': Stays in the control booth and turns off the electricity.\\
'''Instead''': Steps out of the control booth to see what's going on, and gets electrocuted.
** ''The Final Scene'': So Nancy's friend Maya has been kidnapped. Midway through the game, you find you [[MissedHimByThatMuch Missed Her by That Much]], but she leaves evidence behind. Through this whole game, Nancy has been playing a game of cat and mouse with the kidnapper, and every time she finds some sort of lead it ends up blown because the police don't reach it in time.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That since she's had rotten luck thus far, she would actually stow away the evidence this time, and furthermore not blabber to anyone around the theater about it until it has gone down the proper avenues.\\
'''Instead''': Through a huge lapse of logic, she ''leaves the evidence there'' and notifies ''several suspects'' that she found this evidence before making her call ([[spoiler:which just so happens to include the eventual culprit, no less!]]).\\
'''The Result''': By the time the police arrive, the kidnapper has had more than enough time to hide away the evidence and completely cover their tracks, putting Nancy at yet another dead end.\\
'''Worse Yet''': Just after you narrowly miss Maya, on your way out of the secret passage the kidnapper sets up a death trap for you, making it ''extremely'' obvious this whole run-in was a setup. This should have ''immediately'' given Nancy second thoughts about leaving the evidence there, but she doesn't consider that either.
* At the end of ''VideoGame/NeedForSpeed: The Run'', the main character, Jack, has won the titular cross-country automobile race, and received his cut of the $25 million winnings. He and his agent, Sam, later talk in a coffee shop about another race which will double his earnings.\\
'''You'd Expect''': With all the money he has earned, and after everything he has endured, for Jack to stay and relax in New York City.\\
'''Instead''': Jack accepts the offer. The last we see of him is him speeding down the highway, with numerous police cruisers behind him.
* ''VideoGame/NeoTheWorldEndsWithYou'': Rindo and Fret are told by both Minamimoto and Shoka, someone with an obvious amount of experience and one of the people running the game, respectively, to pick up any pins that drop.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That after defeating the target on the second day, they would immediately think that the pin the Gorilla Noise dropped was important, especially when Minamimoto said the fight hadn't ended until they picked it up.\\
'''Instead''': They seemingly forget what pins are and seem content to not look for it.\\
'''The Result''': Kanon Tachibana grabs the pin before them and gains all their points, essentially performing a KillSteal.\\
'''Even Worse''': They do the same in Week 2 Day 1 and get pin-stolen by Tsugumi.
* ''[[VideoGame/NinjaGaidenNES Ninja Gaiden]]'' [[UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem (NES]][[UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 /PC-Engine):]] Ryu Hayabusa brings the Shadow Demon Statue to Dr. Walter Smith, who has the Light Demon Statue, and learns from him that both of the artifacts contain the power of a demon that tried to destroy the world, all of a sudden, a ninja steals the Shadow Demon Statue, prompting Ryu to try and get it back.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Walter Smith would have Ryu take the Light Statue with him, that way, regardless of Smith's fate, when Ryu gets the Shadow Statue back, he could still try and find someone else to protect one of the statues, especially someone he could trust with its safety.\\
'''Instead''': Walter does not consider it.\\
'''As a result''': Not only does Walter get assassinated, the Light Demon Statue gets stolen by [[BigBad Jaquio's/Devildoer's]] faction.
* ''VideoGame/OctopathTraveler'':
** In Ophilia's route, Ophilia's sister Lianna has been replaced in the Rite of the Sacred Flame by Ophilia, who has become TheUnchosenOne. On top of that, [[spoiler:their father Josef dies of an illness while Ophilia is away, causing Lianna no end of grief over his death]]. A mysterious man known as "The Savior" tells Lianna that he can make all of her worries go away, and all she has to do to make it happen is to join a {{cult}} that worships a GodOfEvil.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lianna would reject this offer instantly. Besides being TheChosenOne (even though that didn't work out), Lianna has devoted her entire life to her faith, her church, and her family, all of which are bound to the Sacred Flame. Also, all of the local villagers look to Lianna for guidance; not only would she be setting a terrible example if she turned her back on them, there's no way any of them would forgive her. Finally, and most importantly, there's no guarantee that the Savior is even telling the truth; for all Lianna knows, the Savior is just [[ManipulativeBastard telling her what she wants to hear for the sake of manipulating her for his own purposes]]. Even though Lianna's under a lot of stress, she would have enough good sense to turn the Savior's offer down without a second thought.\\
'''Or, At the Very Least:''' Lianna would be sceptical of the offer and ask for advice from other clerics within the Cathedral, before deciding if this mysterious man with a TooGoodToBeTrue offer is a case of BadPowersGoodPeople or the much-more-likely BadPowersBadPeople.\\
'''Instead:''' [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter Lianna believes the Savior]], accepts the offer and becomes his vestal. As a result, she commits numerous terrible acts in the name of her goals. [[spoiler:Lianna knocks Ophilia out with a drugged glass of wine, steals the Sacred Flame, and throws her lot in with the Savior. This cult of the Savior ends up trying to sacrifice numerous villagers' lives in Wispermill, the rest of the town are converted into brainwashed fanatics, it weakens the bonds that hold back the EldritchAbomination Galdera, and it's eventually revealed that [[ILied the Savior was lying]] about bringing Josef back anyways. This means Lianna turned her back on everything she knew and loved, nearly got numerous people killed, and helped nearly resurrect a dark god... AllForNothing.]] Small wonder that, at the end of Ophilia's story, Lianna is sitting in her room, [[HeroicBSOD staring at the wall and refusing to talk to anyone]]. [[spoiler:The whole debacle becomes even HarsherInHindsight when the player reaches [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon the Gate of Finis]] and finds a diary entry by the Savior containing his thoughts post-death, where he admits he murdered Josef via slow-acting poison as part of his plan to make Lianna [[DespairEventHorizon fall into despair]] and [[ManipulativeBastard take advantage of her grief]] to obtain power from Galdera via the aforementioned ritual.]]
** Ophilia herself has one in her final chapter. She reaches Wispermill and finds out the villagers are indeed opposed to the Sacred Flame, instead loyally following [[DarkMessiah the]] [[ArcVillain Savior]], just as Bishop Donovan had told her at the end of her previous chapter. After trying to talk to several villagers to no avail, one woman comes out of her house and tells Ophilia that her son has suddenly fallen ill, and asks for her help.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Ophilia is a very kind and compassionate woman, but the people of Wispermill aren't friendly towards those in the Order of the Sacred Flame, and this "Savior"'s followers have already resorted to kidnapping and death threats towards [[WouldHurtAChild a child]] in the name of their leader's goals in her previous chapter. Keeping this in mind, you'd expect Ophilia to consider the possibility that this could be a trap and approach with caution, especially after being informed that this woman's son "suddenly" fell ill, which sounds suspicious in these circumstances.\\
'''Instead:''' Ophilia lets her kindness get the better of her and enters the woman's house to help her son without hesitation.\\
'''The Result:''' [[LuredIntoATrap It's a trap!]] -- [[ILied the woman has no son]], and she invites more of the Savior's followers to surround and knock Ophilia unconscious. When she regains consciousness, she finds herself imprisoned in a cell.
--->'''Believer:''' Sister Ophilia. [[JerkassHasAPoint It is not wise to put too much faith in others, for there are many in this world who are all too eager to deceive.]]
** At the beginning of Tressa's route, both she and a local of her hometown are robbed by a group of pirates. Tressa comes up with a plan to get their belongings back by [[SlippingAMickey sneaking a sleeping drug into a casket of wine]], and offers the casket to a guard-pirate in front of the Caves of Maiya as an "apology" for trying to stand up to them earlier.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The guard would be suspicious that the same woman who tried to interfere with the pirates' raid earlier is just handing over wine as a peace offering, and wonder if she's planning anything.\\
'''Instead:''' The guard takes the casket and heads inside to share the wine with the other pirates.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' At least one of the other pirates would suspect that something is amiss and raise an objection.\\
'''Instead:''' They all drink from the casket [[WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong without suspecting anything]], and fall into a deep sleep courtesy of the sleeping drug. Tressa just walks into their lair and finds the stolen belongings with little resistance. Unfortunately, one of the pirate leaders isn't drugged enough and wakes up just in time to catch Tressa red-handed, forcing her to fight [[StarterVillain him and his partner]].
** Primrose's route begins with a flashback of three mercenary assassins dressed in black robes [[DownerBeginning breaking into her home and murdering her father]] for [[HeKnowsTooMuch discovering classified information]] when Primrose was a little girl, which she witnessed in fear from a hiding-place and was traumatized by. The assassins' identities are then-unknown, but [[TattooedCrook they each have a tattoo of a crow]] somewhere on their bodies: one on their left arm, one on their right arm, and one on their neck.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' At least one of the assassins would have realized that, since they are breaking into a noble House—where many people would be either living or working there—with the intent to commit murder, having their ObviouslyEvil crow tattoos exposed for all to see would be a mistake, and to conceal their tattoos with clothing so they can't be used as a clue to track them down.\\
'''Furthermore, You'd Expect:''' Upon Primrose's cry of horror after seeing her father murdered, at least one of the assassins would have realized that there is a witness in the room [[SheKnowsTooMuch and it would be a mistake to leave them alive]], and to murder Primrose along with her father [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim right then and there]] for bearing witness to the crime, while she's still a young and inexperienced child.\\
'''Instead:''' [[DidntThinkThisThrough Not one of the assassins thought of either.]] They commit the murder and make their escape, completely ignoring [[SpannerInTheWorks the little girl in the corner of the room]] who has registered their crow tattoos that identify them as her father's murderers.\\
'''The Result:''' Primrose grows up, learns how to fight with a [[DeviousDaggers dagger]] and [[CastingAShadow dark magic]], and spends many years [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge hunting down the three assassins, killing them one by one]]. [[spoiler:The neck-tattooed assassin is eventually revealed to have been acquainted with Primrose as a child and is a [[{{Sadist}} sadistic]] [[TheSociopath sociopath]] who enjoys watching others succumb to despair, so leaving Primrose alive that fateful day/night may have been intentional so that they can inflict further pain on her, but nonetheless the assassins' impracticality eventually comes back to bite them.]]
*** The Right Hand of the Crow earns bonus idiot points. He is eventually revealed to have been a former friend of Primrose's father who [[FallenHero eventually]] [[EvilFormerFriend betrayed]] him for [[EvilIsPetty petty]] [[EvilPaysBetter financial gain]], much to the disgust of Primrose and Revello Forsythe, another friend of her late father who remains loyal.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Upon seeing that Primrose and Revello are DisappointedByTheMotive, the Right Hand of the Crow would shut his mouth and go straight to fighting Primrose.\\
'''Instead:''' He clutches the VillainBall and fabricates a story about how her father talked about "his vaunted faith and how it would shield the town from any danger" and took no action in the name of his beliefs, that "in the end, he couldn't even save himself" and scornfully laughs about how his murder and subsequent fall of House Azelhart "goes to show you what the faith of a fool is worth". This recount of Primrose's father is proved to be BlatantLies by several recounts of him by Primrose, Revello, and even [[VillainRespect the Left Hand of the Crow]]. Not to mention, [[TooDumbToLive these words are spoken by one of the three men directly responsible for her father's murder in the first place]].\\
'''Unsurprisingly:''' This results in a complete train-wreck, with the Right Hand of the Crow on the receiving end -- Revello loses his temper and condemns him with "You traitorous bastard!", and Primrose ends the conversation in disgust and fights him to the death. This line spoken by her [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the Right Hand of the Crow's stupidity in a nutshell.
---->'''Primrose:''' [[PrepareToDie This man — if one can even call him a man — should not live a moment longer.]]
** At the climax of Chapter 1 of Primrose's route, her [[BadBoss abusive employer]], Helgenish, has taken her OnlyFriend Yusufa hostage when the latter covers for Primrose escaping in pursuit of the Left Hand of the Crow, severely injured Yusufa, and ambushed Primrose in an attempt to forcibly take her back to his tavern. Primrose has just exited the Sunshade Catacombs--a dungeon with RandomEncounters--alive.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Helgenish to realise that this means that Primrose knows how to fight, and to use Yusufa as leverage to try to convince her to return.\\
'''Instead:''' The VillainBall comes into full effect: Helgenish stabs Yusufa [[ForcedToWatch right in front of Primrose]], kicks her off a cliff, watches her bleed to death, and even [[KickTheDog makes fun of her tearful last words]].\\
'''The Result:''' Primrose, enraged by the murder of her friend, snaps and fights [[TooDumbToLive Helgenish]] to the death, [[SlashedThroat slitting his throat]] after the fact.
** In Chapter 3 of Alfyn's route, Ogen, an experienced but cynical apothecary, happens upon Miguel, a badly injured man, and refuses to treat him. Alfyn witnesses the encounter and demands an explanation from Ogen.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Ogen to tell the truth: [[spoiler:that he realized that Miguel is a thief and a murderer]].\\
'''Instead:''' Ogen dismissively asserts that he's "a free man, with the right to choose (his) patients", adding that some lives are not worth saving.\\
'''The Result:''' Alfyn, outraged by Ogen's attitude, treats Miguel himself, resulting in [[spoiler:Miguel "repaying" him by taking a young boy hostage and fleeing into the woods, forcing Alfyn to kill Miguel to save the boy's life]]. Perhaps learning the truth wouldn't have dissuaded Alfyn, but Ogen could have made his point in a way that made him sound less self-centered and callous.
*** [[spoiler:The way Alfyn himself goes about the dilemma also qualifies, to a degree. He later finds out from an elderly woman that Miguel is a thief and a murderer, and Ogen confirms this is why he refused to treat him shortly thereafter.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Alfyn would alert the local authorities that Miguel is a wanted criminal. That way, he could stay true to his duty as an apothecary without having to worry too much about the consequences of treating a thief and a murderer, given that he is a CombatMedic. Earlier, he had already done this when he found out that Vanessa Hysel was a fraud apothecary carrying out a PoisonAndCureGambit.]]\\
'''Even Worse:''' [[spoiler:The accompanying book ''Octopath Traveler: The Complete Guide'' reveals that Therion first met Darius in the gaols under Saintsbridge, the very town that Alfyn is dealing with Miguel.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:[[DidntThinkThisThrough Alfyn doesn't think of alerting the local authorities]] and treats Miguel under the naïve belief that the latter will HeelFaceTurn in gratitude. [[TheFarmerAndTheViper Miguel wastes no time betraying Alfyn's trust]] [[UngratefulBastard after being treated]], kidnapping and nearly killing a young boy. Alfyn is forced to hunt down and kill Miguel to save the boy's life, but this incident leaves him with a crisis of faith.]]
*** [[spoiler:On the subject, Ogen is also guilty of this. It is later revealed that he became cynical in his profession because he once treated a criminal who went on to [[UngratefulBastard murder his wife]].]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Ogen would alert local authorities when he comes across wounded criminals. As demonstrated with Miguel, Ogen has become [[AwesomenessByAnalysis skilled at figuring out if his patient is a murderer]] and could provide good evidence. While letting a potential murderer walk free is obviously a ''really'' bad idea, it is just as much a physician's duty to treat the wounded as it is a law enforcer's duty to arrest criminals like Miguel.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Ogen leaves wounded criminals to die without a second thought, leading to his initial conflict with Alfyn who thinks he is a cold-hearted {{Jerkass}}.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', the priestess Rao has been talking about trying to find the "Fox Rods" since Ammy first met her. First she was saying she would use them to cure the curse on Sei-an City, then after Ammy fixed that, she changes her reason to "get rid of all the monsters." When she went into the Ghost Ship with Ammy and the Water Dragon showed up, Rao pretty much ''leaped'' all the way to the shore, leaving the person she was supposed to be helping to get eaten. Eventually, Ammy finds the Fox Rods; they were lodged in the Water Dragon's stomach, and when she first finds them, they turn into very evil little demonic foxes that try their hardest to kill her. Then we learn that they were what drove the Water Dragon insane in the first place by leaking dark magic everywhere. Immediately after this, Rao shows up in the Water Dragon's garden in the underwater Dragon Palace and asks for the Fox Rods.\\
'''You'd Expect''': They'd be a little suspicious of how much she wants these by this point ObviouslyEvil {{artifact|OfDoom}}s and hang on to them, especially if they remembered her display of superhuman abilities after they got off the Ghost Ship or thought to consider how the hell she got down to the Dragon Palace in the first place. Even if they trusted her completely, Issun voices worry that monsters will target whoever has the Fox Rods in order to get them, and who better to deal with roving monsters than God herself?\\
'''Instead''': Ammy hands over the Fox Rods so quickly that even Issun thinks she's getting ahead of herself. Turns out that [[spoiler:the real Rao was killed a long time ago, and the one you've been dealing with the whole time was a shapeshifted Demon Lord Ninetails who needed the Rods to unleash his full power]]. NiceJobBreakingItHero.
* ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'':
** Aubrey in the real world has become a delinquent after [[spoiler:Mari's death]]. She has been bullying Basil and stole his photo album, according to Basil. When Kel and Sunny go to talk to Aubrey, they find her at church.\\
'''You'd Expect''': They would wait until the sermon is over to talk to her.\\
'''Instead''': Kel barges in before the sermon ends to confront her. He asks her a few times politely to return the album, to his credit, but when Aubrey remains stubborn he calls her a thief.\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': The adults and churchgoers would break it up.\\
'''Instead''': They watch and gossip as Aubrey and her former friends get into a boss fight.\\
'''The Result''': Aubrey storms out of there, and Kel definitely doesn't get the photo album. [[spoiler:The next day, after her fight with Kel and Sunny, Aubrey takes out her anger on Basil while he's next to the park lake, and pushes him into the water. She forgot that he couldn't swim and goes OhCrap.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler: Kel, the more physically athletic of the two boys, to be the one to dive into the lake after Basil and save him.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler: Kel stays on land in order to "keep Aubrey busy" (despite the latter being visibly shocked by her own actions and making no visible attempts at preventing them from saving Basil) and instead has ''Sunny'' dive into the lake. This is despite the fact the that A.) Sunny has spent the last four years in his house and is obviously physically weak and B.) Kel knows that Sunny nearly drowned in said lake when they were kids.]]\\
'''As A Result:''' [[spoiler: Both Basil ''and'' Sunny nearly drown, and likely would have if Hero didn't arrive in time.]]
** The backstory, with tragic results. For some reason, [[spoiler:neither Sunny nor Mari's parents were home despite needing to take them to a recital. Basil came to offer Sunny moral support, only to find him at the top of the stairs and Mari at the bottom of it, her neck at an odd angle and Sunny's violin beneath her, smashed into bits. It doesn't take long to figure out that Sunny pushed Mari down, though we find out later it was an accident]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': Basil [[spoiler:would dial 911 or whatever emergency services are in this universe since we see they exist in some endings. Even if Mari is dead, at least he and Sunny would have done all they could to save her, and a coroner would have established that it was an accident. They could also lie and say that her old sports injury caused her to fall, since it's implied she would have been able to catch the railing if not for a bad knee]].\\
'''Instead''': All Basil does is watch [[spoiler:with quiet horror as Sunny goes to Mari's body, apologizes in an attempt of PleaseWakeUp, and drags her to bed. Then he orders Sunny to carry Mari's body outside, fashions a jumprope into a noose, and strings her body up a tree, making it look like a suicide]].\\
'''The Result''': Thanks to this horrible secret, [[spoiler: the guilt plagues Sunny and Basil for the next four years. In most endings, unless you choose to save Basil, he kills himself while having a breakdown. If you save Basil, he attacks Sunny, and injures his eye. Basil himself doesn't seem to know why he did such a thing while ranting with a TwitchyEye about Sunny leaving him. The friendship group hears the commotion as they are sleeping over and ''do'' dial emergency services, meaning both boys get medical treatment in time, further showing the stupidity of Basil's earlier actions]].
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games P-T]]
* ''VideoGame/ParappaTheRapper'' 2 has the titular KidHero growing sick of noodles after winning a lifetime supply of them. He visits Sunny and is disappointed to see that she cooked noodles for him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Parappa would explain to Sunny about how he had nothing but noodles for days and simply wants to eat something different.\\
'''Instead:''' He inverts his "I gotta believe!" catchphrase into "No! I can't believe.'" This causes Sunny to ask why Parappa is acting like such a big baby, which breaks his confidence as he runs out of the house thinking Sunny hates him for not being a grown man.
* ''VideoGame/PerfectDark'':
** Daniel, repeatedly. Taking Dr. Caroll to his lightly-defended villa rather than the heavily secured Carrington Institute? Check. Selling dataDyne the sniper rifles and handguns the force storming the building used? Check. Repeatedly ignoring the recommendations of his top agent and pointlessly endangering the life of the President of America? Check. And so on.
** The President isn't much better. He knows enough to turn down Trent's recommendations, but why he doesn't simply fire such an ObviouslyEvil advisor is a mystery.
** Trent counts, as well. He ''knows'' Joanna is the main reason dataDyne's plans have failed so far, plus he's got [[JustShootHim a deadly custom weapon]], but every time he sees her he's content to just indulge in EvilGloating and then run away. This directly leads to his "backup plan's" failure and his own death.
* In ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarII'', the party is [[BrokenBridge unable to use the access tunnel]] leading to the Biosystems Labs because of the bandit Darum, who went a little nuts after his daughter Teim was kidnapped. They retrieve his daughter, put a veil on her, and go to the tunnel.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Teim would throw off her veil, yell, "Daddy, it's me!" and hope he recognizes her.\\
'''Instead:''' She walks up to Darum in the veil. When he demands her money, she haughtily refuses, and he cuts her down. Then he kills himself on realizing what he's done, at which point Rolf sermonizes about the increasing evil of the world. You know, Rolf, you could've prevented this one!
* From the ''Franchise/{{Persona}}'' series:
** In ''VideoGame/Persona3''
*** During the October Full Moon operation, [[spoiler:Shinjiro ends up getting shot and mortally wounded by Takaya.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For a member of S.E.E.S [[spoiler:to perform a healing spell on him.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:[[GameplayAndStorySegregation None of the seven party members, five of whom have access to these, think of doing that,]] instead lamenting that as it's the Dark Hour, electrical equipment is useless and taking him to the hospital likely won't help.]]
*** Earlier in the story, Junpei is talking to a girl (who, unbeknownst to him, is a member of Strega). So he tries to impress her with some tall tales about his heroics.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Junpei to keep his mouth shut about S.E.E.S. Surely they would've sworn him to secrecy or something.\\
'''Instead:''' He spills the beans about S.E.E.S. to this girl he barely knows at this point of the story(albeit in rather vague terms, and she just so happens to be the only member of Strega that S.E.E.S. hasn't met yet) and even lies about being the leader. As a result, he is captured by Strega under the false assumption that he's in charge of the team and is put out of commission for the full moon operation. They try to blackmail Junpei into cancelling the full moon operation or else, but thankfully the rest of S.E.E.S. shows up in time to rescue him.
** ''VideoGame/Persona5'':
*** Ryuji has NoIndoorVoice. He also slowly but surely gets introduced to the concepts of the Metaverse, even if it's a "layman's terms" explanation. After a while, the Phantom Thieves become a known force across Japan, both to the public at large and to the authorities who want to arrest them.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Ryuji would learn to keep his mouth shut, knowing how much trouble that the Phantom Thieves could be in if their identities or their methods were revealed. Even when the Thieves meet up at their hideouts, they're still in a public place, and could be caught with so much as a slip of the tongue.\\
'''Instead''': Ryuji gets so excited at being a Phantom Thief that he loudly proclaims it multiple times. This almost gets the Phantom Thieves caught at a restaurant, actually gets them caught by Makoto during her investigation into Kaneshiro, and gets ace detective Akechi to figure out that Ryuji and his friends are the Thieves. While Ryuji does eventually mellow out with some character development, it's only after getting himself and his friends into hot water multiple times.
*** StudentCouncilPresident Makoto Niijima has been pressured by school principal Kobayakawa into investigating the local mob. To this end, Makoto blackmails the Phantom Thieves into helping her, and they discover that the name of the mob boss is Junya Kaneshiro. They also discover how the mob is able to move so many drugs: using unsuspecting Shujin Academy students as drug mules, then blackmailing them into continued service with threats towards the students and their families.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Seeing as how Makoto's older sister Sae is a prosecutor and has close ties to the police, Makoto would tell Sae what she knows and what the Phantom Thieves have found out about how they operate. Or, if Makoto doesn't want to involve her sister for whatever reason, just go to the police herself. Even if it may not stop things immediately, telling the police a bunch of reliable information on Kaneshiro would do a lot of good, and Makoto could tell Kobayakawa that she fulfilled the request by presenting the same information.\\
'''Instead:''' Makoto intentionally gets herself kidnapped by Kaneshiro's thugs, being taken to his hideout out of a misguided desire to not be seen as "useless" to anyone. The Phantom Thieves follow, and Makoto's plan ends up being little more than trying to intimidate Kaneshiro into submission with all the authority of a small teenage girl.\\
'''The Result:''' Makoto and the Thieves, who went to the trouble of going in to save her, get blackmailed for three million yen by Kaneshiro. They'd have been in much deeper trouble if they didn't need a way into Kaneshiro's Palace.
*** Speaking of Makoto, she tells the Phantom Thieves to keep the call going and to record it before approaching Kaneshiro's goon and demanding they take her to him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They'd frisk her for anything that could be used to track her position. They know their boss is running shady operations, and people don't just demand an audience with the boss without some kind of ulterior motive.\\
'''Instead:''' They take her to Kaneshiro's front door without the slightest hesitation or scrutiny.\\
'''The Result''': Not only do the Phantom Thieves find the hideout, but their boss' patience for them drops significantly because of it. He probably wouldn't have threatened their lives from the calling card if they did their jobs correctly in the first place.
---->'''Kaneshiro''': Oh, I get it. ''You got followed, you dumb shits!''
*** The Phantom Thieves send a calling card to Masayoshi Shido, and despite the best efforts of him and his conspiracy to stop them he begins to show symptoms of a change of heart.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' His co-conspirators to not let him anywhere near a camera or press conference or whatever for the foreseeable future, in order to prevent them from spilling the beans about their influence.\\
'''Instead:''' They just let him make an acceptance speech, which leads to a public confession of his crimes. If not for [[spoiler:Yaldabaoth influencing the masses to cause cult-like loyalty in his followers]], they would've all been sunk right then and there.
*** In ''[[UpdatedRerelease Royal]]'', Joker, Morgana and Kasumi accidentally discover a mysterious Palace on October 3rd.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Joker and Morgana to at least investigate who the Palace belongs to-- after all, that person could be harming other people like most of the Palace owners encountered up to that point, or suffering from a crippling mental illness like Futaba was.\\
'''Instead:''' Morgana decides that since not all Palace owners are evil, and all the Phantom Thieves need to be on board for a heist to take place, this mysterious Palace is not any of their business. Everybody quickly forgets about this new Palace.\\
'''The Result:''' Turns out the Palace belongs to [[spoiler:Takuto Maruki, a man who is not only friends with the Phantom Thieves, but has intimate access to all their fears and insecurities. Oh sure, he's [[AntiVillain not evil]], but he is harming people as a result of his savior complex, which is made even worse by his latent Persona abilities. And once [[BigBad Yaldabaoth]] is taken out of the picture, his Palace grows out of control and threatens to overtake reality]]. One can't help but notice that the events of the third semester could have been avoided entirely had Joker or Morgana thought to check Kasumi's [=MetaNav=] history, seeing as how the other Phantom Thieves would have easily been on board with the heist had they known that [[spoiler:their therapist friend had a Palace]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Phantasmagoria}}'', it's increasingly made clear to Adrienne throughout the entire game that there is some evil power in the house that can manipulate objects, caused Carno to murder his wives, caused several near-fatal accidents in the past and has increasing control of her husband.\\
'''You'd Expect''': At the very least, the moment she started having visions of Carno murdering his wives Adrienne would seek help from the people in town (most of whom already believe there's something evil in the house) and get out of the house as soon as is physically possible.\\
'''Instead''': She just stays there. For day after day. Even after Don rapes her she stays for several more chapters. Really how she survives to the end of the game is a complete mystery.
* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'':
** Dr Zomboss has access to many zombies, which he sends after you to eat your brains.\\
'''You'd Think:''' He would send all of his zombies at you at once in a ZergRush you'd have no chance of defeating in the first level, when all you have is a Peashooter.\\
'''Instead:''' He sends small groups of weak zombies which you can easily kill, and only sends stronger zombies or ones with special abilities once you've been given plants capable of countering them.
** Crazy Dave has access to many zombie-destroying plants, which he gives to you so you can defend yourself from the zombies.\\
'''You'd Think:''' He'd give you all the plants at the start of the game, so if zombies did ZergRush you, or ones with special abilities appeared early on, you'd stand a chance.\\
'''Instead:''' He gives you one new plant every level, forcing you to fight off the zombie horde with sub-par plants and risking your life for no good reason. He even demands money for some of them!
** In the second game, Crazy Dave needs somewhere to grow his mould colonies.\\
'''You'd Think:''' He'd put them literally anywhere but the lawn.\\
'''Instead:''' He puts them on the lawn, taking up valuable space you need to grow plants to stop both of you being eaten by zombies.\\
'''But Then Again:''' He is crazy...
** In the sequel, zombies which glow green drop Plant Food when killed, which you can use to power up your plants.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dr Zomboss to single out the zombies which carry Plant Food and prevent them for attacking you.\\
'''Or Better Yet:''' He'd investigate what was causing these zombies to carry Plant Food and put a stop to it.\\
'''Instead:''' He lets these zombies attack you and inevitably die, giving you a powerful boost which makes most of his zombies easily killable.
** In [=PvZ2,=] Dave uses his time machine, Penny, to go back in time to eat a taco, but Penny ends up transporting all of you to AncientEgypt.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Dave and Penny to immediately try again to travel to the right point in time.\\
'''Instead:''' All three of you stay in Egypt, risking your lives to fight zombies and collect plants for no good reason. Later, this process repeats when you end up in different time periods.
* ''VideoGame/{{Poptropica}}'':
** In Time Tangled Island, Edmund Hillary loses his goggles while on Mt. Everest thanks to the time screw-up.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, and the rest of the hiking crew to have brought an extra pair in case goggles get misplaced, dropped, and/or broken.\\
'''Instead''': They did not come with extra spare goggles.\\
'''The Result''': Hillary losing his goggles led to the hiking crew giving up, which led to nobody surmounting Mt. Everest, which ends up to be [[ForWantOfANail one of the catalysts for the]] BadFuture.
** In Mythology Island, Athena warns the player to not trust Zeus and his intentions with sending you on the quest.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Athena, being the GuileHero she usually is, to leave hints through her olives to dissuade the player from falling into the plan.\\
'''Instead''': Athena does no such thing, instead indirectly ''helps'' the player advance in the quest through the olives.\\
'''The Result''': [[spoiler:Zeus is successful in his scheme, and all Athena does is rib you for helping him ''after'' you completed what he wanted.]]\\
'''For Added Stupidity Points''': Athena is the '''''[[FridgeLogic Goddess of Wisdom]]''''', for crying out loud!
** In Super Villain Island, you're tasked with retrieving the four totems from the villains' dreams to hopefully [[HeelFaceTurn turn them into redeemed individuals]] once they are broken.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The player to break the totems once retrieving them.\\
'''Instead''': The player culminates all four ''without'' laying a finger on them, [[spoiler:fork them all over to Dr. Jupiter at once and [[UnwittingPawn fall into his plan]].]]\\
'''The Result''': During the final battle, [[spoiler:the player has to destroy the four totems while fighting Zeus to depower him.]]
* ''VideoGame/Portal2'':
** [[spoiler:Wheatley's]] surprise to Chell and [[spoiler:[=PotaTOS=]]], i.e. "The part where he kills you" is actually smart for a little idiot like him, even though he did make idiotic mistakes as well as shown below:\\
'''You'd Expect''': For him to either turn off the excursion funnel or not use it at all so that he can send Chell to where all the [[BottomlessPits boy bands and ponies are]].\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:Wheatley]] [[ComplexityAddiction apparently decided to create an elaborate death trap consisting of Chell being saved by an excursion funnel even being sprung into a stage]] where she will be killed by a [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill ridiculous amount of spike plates]], which he for some reason, only triggers it if you either use the conversion gel or you wait for a minute, more than enough to portal your way to his chamber.\\
'''However''': [[spoiler:Wheatley]] can be excused for that, because the finest minds of a generation worked together with the express purpose of [[spoiler:making him "the dumbest moron who ever lived," and even [[ItMakesSenseInContext explicitly designed him as an A.I. to make bad decisions]].]]
** Another moment is during the FinalBoss battle where he states that he will not make the same mistake that [=GlaDOS=] did by countering almost every single one of Chell's attempt against [=GlaDOS=] in the previous game.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Having seen how Chell managed to escape using the gels, he will simply relocate the gels away from his lair so that he will either succeed in bombing Chell or she will die in six minutes due to Neurotoxin.\\
'''Instead''': For some reason [[spoiler:Wheatley]] [[BossArenaIdiocy never does this resulting in his downfall]], which makes no sense considering he is smart enough to [[spoiler:Booby trap the stalemate button]] after learning from the previous encounter with [=GlaDOS=].
* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin'':
** The Empress of Time gets an amazing stroke of good luck when [[spoiler:the Prince walks in on Shahdee about to assassinate her, rescues her, and promptly mistakes her for one of her own servants]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': Her to take advantage of this by [[spoiler:sticking a knife in the Prince's back when he's not looking]].\\
'''Instead''': She tries to kill him with ineffectual booby traps and minions.
** Later on, the Prince has the Empress cornered in the present. The Prince knows that killing the Empress will [[spoiler:cause her remains to become the Sands of Time]], and doing this in the present day will [[spoiler:prevent him from releasing them in Azad 7 years ago]] and save him from his fate, but he does not want to kill the Empress and repeatedly tries to get her to stand down. The Empress herself knows all of the above as well.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The Empress to [[SheatheYourSword sheathe her swords]], since if they do not fight, the Empress will not die, which is obviously good for her, and [[spoiler:the Sands of Time will never be made, also preventing the Prince from releasing them in Azad]], which completes the Prince's quest.\\
'''Instead''': The Empress continues to attack the Prince, and he is forced to kill her in the Bad Ending; she is only saved by [[spoiler:the Dahaka]] in the Good Ending.
* ''VideoGame/Prototype2'' has [[spoiler:James Heller learn that his daughter, Amaya, is alive and well. After defeating Alex Mercer, he opens the bank vault to where she and Dana are being held by Alex]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:[[HarmfulToMinors Knowing fully well his daughter might be scared if she sees his arms resembling the monster who kidnapped her before the final fight]], for him to turn his Tendril arms back to normal before entering to get the two out of vault.]]\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:He enters the vault with his Tendril arms still there before turning them back to normal, resulting in Amaya being scared of him.]] What an idiot, indeed.\\
'''Luckily''': [[spoiler:Just as Heller is leaving her and Dana after the rescue, Amaya gets over this fear and approaches him.]]
** Alex Mercer has decided to [[ZombieApocalypse virally transmogrify humanity]], by planting sleeper agents in Blackwatch and Gentek to sabotage their work to suit his purpose. By the time of the game, [[FlockOfWolves the majority of Blackwatch's command structure is secretly working for him]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': Him to lay low, since his victory is assured since nearly everybody involved with Whitelight is one of his Evolved.\\
'''Instead''': He infects a random marine who hates him, then tells the random marine to raise Hell. Possibly excusable because of a HiveMind control he has over infected, but...
** Shortly thereafter, the angry marine, Heller, kills and consumes Koenig, the head of Gentek's research and one of the key evolved in Alex's plan. Alex mentions how Heller is fucking up his plan and he should kill him.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Alex to try to kill Heller immediately, since Heller has absorbed Koenig's memories and knows Mercer's plans are ''very bad''.\\
'''Instead''': He lets Heller go after a flimsy attempt at deflecting the issue. Heller promptly eats Mercer's second-in-command and all of the Evolved involved in the Whitelight program, and successfully stops Mercer's plans. After consuming all of those Evolved, Heller's too powerful for Alex to kill easily...\\
'''You'd Expect''': Alex to immediately focus all his attention on killing Heller, who A) wants Mercer dead, and B) is one of the ''very'' few things that can make Mercer dead.\\
'''Instead''': Mercer continues to sit on his ass, periodically sending out small groups of Evolved to get eaten by Heller, attempts to make Heller ''even madder by kidnapping his daughter'', and gets eaten.
* ''VideoGame/RainbowSix: Vegas'': Gabriel Nowak is the new guy, who somehow makes it onto the world's foremost Commando team. During his first mission, he ignores orders, gets a hostage negotiator killed, and acts petty about it when called out.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That such a loose cannon and ineffective operator would be booted from the team immediately.\\
'''Instead''': He's ''still a part of your squad'' and still disobeys orders ''five years later''. This allows him to use Rainbow's contacts and weaponry in setting up his massive scheme which it takes you two games to undo.
** The vast majority of the terrorists involved in the attack on Las Vegas are [[HiredGuns mercenaries]], as opposed to people with any real ideological motivation. At some point, they would have been presented with a plan to attack a major city in the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world in terms of military might, with a history of [[{{Determinator}} hunting terrorists to the ends of the Earth.]] In addition, they live in the [[Creator/TomClancy Clancyverse]], where similar complex terrorist plots against the U.S have ended very, ''very'' badly for those involved.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they would tell the organizers of the plot [[AssShove where they can put their money]] and walk away to take on something a bit less insane.\\
'''Instead:''' They get enough people to agree to it that eventually hundreds of mercenaries become terrorists-for-hire. Most of these guys then later [[OhCrap realize just how screwed they are]] and [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere attempt to react accordingly.]] [[spoiler:Then it turns out most of them were duped into being the distraction force for stealing a super weapon.]]
* ''VideoGame/ReaderRabbit: Math 6-9'':
** Reader has agreed to participate in a yacht race with his friend Sam. He quickly realizes that the boat they'll be using doesn't look seaworthy, and seconds into the race Sam mentions that he will "figure out" how to steer it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Reader to jump off the boat and swim back to the dock, which is mere metres away.\\
'''Instead:''' He stays onboard, with a 'captain' who clearly doesn't know ''anything'' about sailing or the boat they're on. Cut to shipwreck.
* Darius Mason is a dolt in ''VideoGame/RedFactionArmageddon''. What he does with Kara after their vehicle breaks down though truly takes the cake as the most infuriatingly stupid thing to ever happen in the ''VideoGame/RedFaction'' series.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Their Spider Walker broke down right smack in the middle of bug territory. Thus, you would think the two would have fixed the problem as fast as they could so they could get on their way before company comes. (''beat'') [[TemptingFate You would, wouldn't you?]]\\
'''Instead''': While taking their time repairing the machine, the two decide to get StrangledByTheRedString and ''make out in the middle of a Martian wasteland.'' Next thing you see, dozens of monsters come after them and just as the weakest alien in the game is about to kill Darius, Kara steps in and gets ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice.\\
'''Even Worse''': All of the events in the game could've been avoided if Darius just fixed the terraformer with his nanoforge after Adam Hale blew it up. This makes the deaths of Kara, as well as countless of others, all frustratingly pointless, so he deserves the guilt that will haunt him for the rest of his life. [[WhatTheHellHero Get a clue, Darius. GET A FUCKING CLUE.]]
* ''VideoGame/ReturnToKrondor'' manages to avert this trope for the most part. However, there is one glaring instance of this trope popping up at the end of the game. William is magically carried to Widow's Point by Sidi, gets to fight Bear and finally kill him. William reunites with the other four player characters and take the Tear of the Gods back to Krondor. Sidi is the guy Bear worked for and Sidi is responsible for all sorts of trouble the protagonists went through.\\
'''You'd Expect''': William bring up Sidi's name, which will cause a reaction to the other four and confront Sidi.\\
'''Instead''': The five characters go back to Krondor, seem to forget all about Sidi, and William never brings up the fact that Sidi helped him bring down Bear.
* In ''VideoGame/RideToHellRetribution'', Jake needs to get past an electric fence. To do this, he first decides to murder a group of truckers and steal their huge truck.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Him to just [[BoringButPractical plough through the fence with the truck]], and continue on his way. Or better yet, he could simply short the system, cut a few wires, or attempt to find a different entrance; he wouldn't even need to murder the innocent truckers this way. Hell, there's a fair number of trees near the fence that are taller than the fence Jake could easily climb!\\
'''Instead:''' He drives the truck to a power plant, murdering several policemen along the way, kills everyone inside the plant, then blows up the fuel tanker attached to the truck, in order to invoke StuffBlowingUp within the plant. He dives into a river to escape the explosions, and this gets him past the fence. Somehow.
** Prior to the events of the game, Jake's father, William "Toledo" Conway is murdered by the BigBad, Caesar. Caesar isn't satisfied with just the man himself and goes after his children.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Caesar to simply murder the rest of the Conway family, or just leave them be. As the Devil's hand operates in the same town that Mikey, Jake, and Mac live in, this should be easy.\\
'''Instead:''' He... does nothing for twenty years. Colt's reaction to Mikey wearing Toledo's jacket implies that the Devil's Hand were clueless to where William's children had gone to despite the Conways not being in hiding in any way, which defies all logic and sanity. Also, Jake is apparently unaware of his own father's demise; did Mac really think a hardened killer who saw his brother die in front of him wouldn't be able to handle the news of a family member dying decades ago? While Mack didn't know for a fact that William had died, surely the fact that he hadn't heard from him in twenty years would've tipped him off that things didn't end well for him.
** Near the end of the game, Jake decides to go after Pretty Boy and knows where he is.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he just goes ahead and infiltrate his compound, killing anyone who gets in his way. If Pretty Boy gets away, then he can simply initiate a bike chase with him.\\
'''Instead:''' Par Jake's ComplexityAddiction, he wins a couple of races for Brandy, infiltrates a mine killing anyone who gets in his way, interrogate one of them to get Orson's location for the bike killing any police who gets in his way. Then the bike gets fitted with C4, gives it to Brandy and then when she gives it to Pretty Boy's compound, he shoots the bike to explode which attracts Pretty Boy's attention and begins another bike chase an act that could have been made simpler if he just trigger a warning shot instead of wasting so much time doing the things as described before.
* ''VisualNovel/RootLetter'': In the "Cursed Letter" route, Yukari Ishigami believes that killing Max will dispel the titular curse, and attempts to stab him, only to nearly fall off a cliff and be saved by [[SaveTheVillain Max grabbing her]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Her to wait until Max pulls her up on safe ground, ''then'' stab him.\\
'''Instead:''' She tries to stab Max as he is pulling her up, predictably causing him to let go and her to [[DisneyVillainDeath plunge to her doom]]. Even if she managed to hit him, it would have only killed them both.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Rosenkreuzstilette}}'', [[spoiler:Tia has defeated Iris in the final battle. Iris ponders why she'd lose to a single mage fighting by herself, and Tia reminds her that she wasn't actually fighting by herself; everyone was cheering her on. It's because Iris couldn't believe in others nor love her fellow man that she lost. Tia then tells Iris to give up]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Iris would agree to surrender and then stop her evil deeds and change her ways- or at least pretend to and regroup later.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:She laughs and mocks Tia for having let her guard down, and invokes the power of her tiara, activating the self-destruct mechanism of her palace in an attempt to crush Tia with it, and escapes in her capsule. Unknown to her, however, Tia and Lilli are saved by Talos, and they happily reunite with their friends and colleagues from RKS.]]
* ''The VideoGame/SaintsRow series:''
** The Boss of the Third Street Saints is a notorious gang leader, criminal, all-around badass, and will not stop his/her rampages until his/her enemies are dead.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That the other gangs/organizations will do their best to appease to the Boss, or otherwise not give the Boss any reason to focus all his/her rage directly on them. \\
'''Instead''': They taunt or threaten the Boss, kidnap and torture/kill his/her friends and send mooks out to kill him/her routinely. [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge The result is what you would expect.]]
** An example would be Maero from ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2'', who proposes an alliance between the Brotherhood and the Saints.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he would offer to split Stillwater 50/50, or argue his case better in a polite way. The Boss can approach him at any point in the game once the Saints are reformed, but at the very least, his/her achievements include turning the Saints from a minor gang into one that ruled the entire city.\\
'''Instead:''' He expects the Boss to be grateful when offered 20% of the city once the Brotherhood have taken over everything, openly regards him/her as a washed-up gangbanger, and dismisses him/her while not doing anything.\\
'''Even worse:''' He ignored Jessica's warnings that the Saints would retaliate, the result leading to some ugly deaths.
** The first of those deaths is [[spoiler:the Saints' rookie lieutenant, Carlos]], carried out by [[spoiler:Jessica]].\\
'''You'd Think:''' That this person would carry out this murder quietly without alerting the Saints, and then take advantage of the fact that Brotherhood territory includes the local airport and take the next plane the hell out of Stilwater before they find out.\\
'''Instead:''' They decide to be cute and [[BullyingADragon make taunting phone calls to the Boss's cell phone about what they're doing]], and then stay in Stilwater and go about Brotherhood business like nothing was wrong. [[spoiler:Jessica dies in the next mission in one of the franchise's most brutal murders to date.]]
** Also from the second game, [[spoiler:Shogo Akuji]] interrupts [[spoiler:Aisha]]'s funeral to try and kill the Saints. Gat is in no mood to fight and offers him a chance to walk away and come back another time.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That the attacker would take it, if not for being wise about a fight he can't win, then at least out of DueToTheDead. Or if not even that, then at very least caution about such an OutOfCharacterMoment from a premier BloodKnight like Gat who normally never passes up a chance to fight.\\
'''Instead:''' He goes ahead and attacks, and the Boss and Gat [[BuriedAlive pay him back with one Hell of a]] {{Laser Guided| Karma}} KarmicDeath.
** The Sons of Samedi have lost most of their hideouts and drug labs in Stilwater to the Saints, along with hundreds of {{mooks}} and DJ Veteran Child, the guy responsible for the gang's marketing and distribution. What once was a thriving drug cartel is now in shambles and clinging to the few neighborhoods the Saints haven't hit, yet.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That TheDragon, Mr. Sunshine, would take reports of the Sons of Samedi losing property left and right to ''[[OneManArmy just one Saint]]'' as evidence that his gang is up against an enemy bigger, stronger, and meaner than they are. Going off of that, he'd figure out how to bring in some heavies or use actual tactics to reclaim some of the gang's lost business without the Saints retaliating.\\
'''Instead:''' Sunshine sends the Samedi's junkie customers to steal the drugs back from the Saints, motivating them with the promise to let them keep whatever they steal if they survive.\\
'''Result:''' The Samedi's primary revenue stream takes one final, fatal blow as hundreds of their paying customers throw themselves to their deaths like lemmings. The Boss pumps the location of Sunshine's hideout from one of the junkies, kills Sunshine along with another hundred-or-more Samedi, and then claims the hideout for the Saints. [[NiceJobFixingItVillain Now all of the Sons of Samedi lieutenants are dead, leaving the Saints free to track down and kill their leader to stamp them out for good.]]
** In [[VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird the third game]]: Deckers boss [[TheCracker Matt Miller]] is able to overhear a conversation between Kinzie, Pierce and the Boss through Kinzie's computer. Through this connection, which the Saints are unaware of, he learns of a powerful supercomputer that S.T.A.G. has in their possession, and sends his mooks to retrieve it for the Deckers.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Matt to not reveal to the Saints that he just overheard their conversation, so that his mooks can retrieve the supercomputer in peace, and so that he can continue to use this source of information.\\
'''Instead:''' He smugly reveals himself so that he can go "NiceJobBreakingItHero" to Kinzie. The Saints realise that Matt is about to take the computer, and are subsequently able to steal it from him, killing several Deckers mooks in the process. Said supercomputer is later used to bring the Deckers down for good.
** When Phillipe Loren is killed, Killbane uses his muscle to assume control of the Syndicate despite the [=DeWynter=] twins being better suited to run it, as they have Masters degrees in economics and were Loren's personal assistants for many years.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The sisters to cooperate with Killbane since he's huge, has SuperStrength, and is known to assault or kill any who piss him off; while finding a way to get Killbane out of the picture that doesn't tip him off about their intentions, such as feeding info to the Saints. [[spoiler:Which Viola eventually does do, but only after the result of this What an Idiot moment.]]\\
'''Instead''': Kiki [=DeWynter=] presses Killbane's BerserkButton every chance she gets ([[DoNotCallMePaul calling him by his real name]]) as an act of defiance, then announces to him that she and Viola are quitting the gang.\\
'''As a Result''':[[spoiler:Killbane grabs Kiki by the back of the neck, lifts her into the air and breaks her neck, killing her instantly]].
** Also, that game's penultimate mission. STAG second-in-command Kia rigs the Steelport Monument to blow up while leaving Shaundi and Viola there to be killed in the blast, in order to frame the Saints for the monument's destruction and justify STAG taking harsher measures against them.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Kia to not let anyone, especially the Boss, know about her plan.\\
'''Instead:''' For ''no apparent reason'', she calls the boss and ''explains her entire plan'', thus alerting the Saints to what's going on. Granted, Kinzie discovering the scheme on her own meant that Kia keeping her mouth shut might not have helped, but that doesn't justify her boneheaded decision in the first place.\\
'''Result:''' In the game's canonical ending, the Boss launches an attack on the monument, kills Kia and several other STAG personnel and prevents the monument from being destroyed, thus leading to the Saints being regarded as heroes, and STAG being forced to leave the Saints alone: the ''[[EpicFail exact opposite]]'' of Kia's intended outcome.
** ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV''. In the mission to [[spoiler:save Johnny Gat from his own hellish simulation]], Matt and Kinzie has some reservations about this, especially Matt Miller.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Matt to keep his mouth shut, or to at least address the problem in a way that doesn't provoke the Boss. Keep in mind that by this time, Matt should know ''full well'' just what happens when you piss the Boss off.\\
'''Instead:''' Matt abruptly says, "Saving [[spoiler:Gat]] is a terrible idea!!"\\
'''Result:''' The Boss promptly punches him out and proceeds to beat the crap out of him. It's only through the intervention of the Saints and a WhatTheHellHero speech from Kinzie that prevents Matt from suffering a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown.
* ''[[VideoGame/SamAndMaxFreelancePolice Sam & Max Series]]'':
** In the season 2 episode ''Ice Station Santa'', One of Santa's elves gets possessed by a demon that was sent to him from Lower Manitoba and Santa has instructions for an exorcism to remove the demon.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Santa would follow the directions and do the exorcism himself to free the possessed elf without having to cause too much panic.\\
'''Instead:''' Santa starts shooting at all of the elves and hides in his office which causes everybody to think he's possessed.\\
'''Then:''' Sam & Max enter his office through his chimney while trying to figure out how to break the possession.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Santa would let the two of them know that he isn't the one possessed and give them all the details on what they have to do.\\
'''Instead:''' He shoots at them like everybody else forcing them to continue the process after managing to take the exorcism instructions from under him.\\
'''Then:''' After Sam & Max release the demon from the elf (while still thinking it was Santa who was possessed), Santa asks if they remembered to read the back of the instructions even though he never talked to them about it before and for that matter, shot at them if they bothered to approach the spirits needed to complete the ritual. Santa is then chased by the demon until Sam & Max use the spirits of Christmas to defeat the demon and turn it into Jello.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Santa would either lock the Jello up, throw it in the trash, or some other means of getting rid of it so that the demon can't hurt anybody else.\\
'''Instead:''' He eats the jello.\\
'''Result:''' Santa really does get possessed by the demon, and Sam & Max are forced to trap him in a box and send him to hell.
* ''VideoGame/SherlockHolmesVersusArseneLupin''. Pretty soon in the adventure, Watson gets followed by a journalist with a French-sounding name.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Watson to tell Holmes, or at least take five seconds to [[spoiler:figure out the journalist's name, which he has on a business card, is an anagram of Arsene Lupin, French master of disguise who's used an anagram as a name all of five minutes before you meet this journalist]].\\
'''Instead:''' Watson plays the perfect UnwittingPawn and [[spoiler:lets Lupin steal the Rosetta stone]].
* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfDestiny'' is practically What an Idiot: The Game:
** Eike Kusch is killed quite often. After each death, he is sent back in time by the Homunculus to figure out how he died and how he can avoid it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Eike would use the more logical solutions to avoid the events that killed him, such as simply moving somewhere else to avoid being hit by a car or not eating at the restaurant to avoid food poisoning.\\
'''Instead:''' Eike ''always'' chooses the most convoluted solution to solve his problems. The bit with the hit and run? Goes back in time by several decades to inspire a fledgling movie producer to make a different movie so that the movie poster in the present time is different, which somehow causes the hit and run event to not happen. The food poisoning incident? Ike goes back to the 1500s to create an antidote for that poison (since said poison also came from that era). Ike does more similarly idiotic things throughout the game, but there is simply too many to list.
** Mr. Eckhart tells Eike that his daughter had gone missing when she was a baby. Later on in the story, an anonymous caller contacts Eckhart telling him that he knows where his child is and he would give him more information if he kills Eike.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Eckhart would go to the police so they could investigate the caller.\\
'''Instead:''' Eckhart drops a flower pot out his window and it hits Eike on the head, killing him. After Ike goes back in time to undo the event, he figures out that it was Eckhart that threw the pot. Eckhart admits the deed and apologizes for trying to kill Eike while also saying that he felt like he had no other choice but to believe the caller.
* ''VideoGame/ShadowOfTheColossus:'' A young man by the name of Wander is looking for a way to bring his girlfriend back from the dead. To that end, he carts her corpse over hill and dale to an ancient, crumbling shrine residing in a place with the cheerful name of the Forbidden Land. Upon noticing the sword in his hand, the ancient dual-voiced god of the temple, named Dormin, speaks up and offers to make a deal with Wander--kill sixteen colossi and Mono will be revived. He also warns Wander that the price he pays "may be heavy indeed."\\
'''You'd Expect''': Wander to remember that he's speaking to a disembodied voice that was apparently so evil that a whole chunk of land was deemed forbidden just to keep it sealed away, and demand to know what this price might be. Upon hearing the cost, he would admit to himself that maybe there are some things out there worth more than your own happiness, turn around and go home to give Mono a decent burial and then move on with his life.\\
'''Instead''': Wander brushes off this doom-laden remark with a dismissive "It doesn't matter." He then goes on to slaughter sixteen magnificent and mostly harmless colossi, [[spoiler:gets his horse nearly killed and ends up becoming Dormin's next vessel. He was only stopped by the timely arrival of the man who'd been hunting him down.]]
* ''[[Videogame/ShadowrunReturns Shadowrun: Dragonfall]]'': A team of shadowrunners are sent into a SCHERING Pharma AG lab to steal some valuable data. They botch the run, and all but one of them dies. The team’s decker, Thorvald Enstad, is being held in the building for questioning. The client that hired them tasks you and your team with killing him before the SCHERING corporation can pump any secrets out of him. It takes Thorvald no time at all to realize he’s not being rescued and start fast-talking for his life. If you decide to take the diplomatic route this mission, you accept a bribe equal to what you were being paid for the job plus a sweet weapon in exchange for escorting Thorvald to safety.\\
'''You’d Think:''' That, being a shadowrunner himself, Thorvald would understand the importance of keeping his damn mouth shut and not doing anything to give the team of runners he just sweet-talked into not killing him a reason to kill him.\\
'''Instead:''' Once you get to the lower levels, he cracks up at the eviscerated corpses that had your team {{Squick}}ed on their way to him, and then cackles at length about [[spoiler:hacking the robotic lab equipment to slowly butcher the innocent lab techs those corpses used to be while they were still alive]]. Cue your entire team demanding a bullet in his head, right before a representative from your client shows up with armed bodyguards to confirm the hit. It’s on you to decide to pull the trigger on Thorvald.
* ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse'': At the end, the day is saved, Ammo Baron's been run out of Scuttle Town, and [[StatusQuoIsGod all is back to normal]].\\
'''You'd Think:''' The citizens of Scuttle Town would impeach Mayor Scuttlebutt from office immediately upon having their town restored. The Mayor kicked off the plot of the game by selling Scuttle Town to a local warlord intent on taking over Sequin Land, and then using the money to buy chocolates so he couldn't buy it back (and not even ''good'' chocolates!). So it's his fault that Scuttle Town nearly got scuttled and turned into a firebase to attack the Sequin Land Palace from. Not only that, but his selling Ammo Baron the town gave Ammo Baron legal grounds to fire Shantae and press assault charges against her, which very nearly left Sequin Land with no one capable of saving it when a much bigger threat presented itself.\\
'''Instead:''' They let him have his old office back. [[GeorgeJetsonJobSecurity He fires Shantae again in the next game]], and [[spoiler:the entire town almost loses their memories to the replacement he hired]].
** Also from ''Pirate's Curse'', [[spoiler: The Pirate Master,]] Risky Boots's old master, has her at his mercy. However, she has tasked Shantae with collecting the dark magic scattered around the islands and she is on her way to confront him. Risky has also (whether by toture or of her own free will is never stated) told him that said dark magic is actually [[spoiler: Shantae's former magic]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Given that she mutinied on him in the past, [[spoiler: The Pirate Master]] to possibly have a backup plan should that be true.\\
'''Instead:''' He scoffs at this and baits Shantae into releasing the magic in a HostageForMacGuffin plot.\\
'''The Result:''' Shantae gets her magic back, kicks his ass and sends [[spoiler: The Pirate Master]] back to his grave, possibly for good this time.
** ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndTheSevenSirens'': [[spoiler:Before the events of the game, Risky Boots made a deal with the Empress Siren. Risky would give her five half-genies for her to restore her powers. In exchange, Risky gets the sirens' airship]]. Come the festival, there are a total of six supposed half-genies on stage.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler: The Empress Siren]] to have all six grabbed and drained. Even if [[spoiler: Risky had been downplaying Shantae's power level and]] the deal was only for five, an extra drop of power is always helpful.\\
'''Instead:''' Only five are grabbed, with Shantae being the only one left.\\
'''Result:''' Shantae explores the island, frees the other half genies and is able to confront and defeat the Empress Siren. Granted, there was also the factor of [[spoiler: Rottytops pretending to be a half genie and giving her a tainted magic]], but that could have been possibly offset had she grabbed Shantae with the others in the first place.

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney Redux'': [[spoiler:CanonForeigner Alex comes from one of three possible {{Bad Future}}s, depending on what route you pick. In the Neutral route, your actions stop the Schwarzwelt for the time being, but humanity grows complacent and is unable to stop the Schwarzwelt when it comes back for round two. Alex, naturally, has traveled back in time to stop this]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:For her to simply get in contact with the Schwarzwelt Investigation Team and explain the situation, and try to come up with a better solution]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:She tries to kill the man single-handedly responsible for stopping the first Schwarzwelt. Repeatedly. She completely fails to realize that wasting you will only speed up the inevitable, and only thinks to try communication after you've kicked her ass at least twice and saved her ass from Zeus]].
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'':
** Tayama is the Yakuza boss who is in charge of almost all of postapocalyptic Tokyo. He maintains his hold over Tokyo by manufacturing Reds, which are pills that demons eat instead of humans. Those Reds are [[spoiler:[[PoweredByAForsakenChild made out of human brains]]. People's brains are harvested en masse inside of a large facility. Even children are raised there as human chattel]]. He strongarms the protagonists into killing his most powerful rivals with a hostage, but soon finds them in the plant that manufactures Reds, completely incapacitated due to hallucinogenic gases.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Tayama would have had them killed right then and there for discovering the secret.\\
'''Instead:''' He brings them back to his office, without even taking their weapons, and gives them a speech about how it's a necessary evil. Even after all four protagonists make it clear how disgusted they are with him, he lets them go, trusting them to kill his rival.\\
'''The Result''': The protagonists raid the other facility that gives him power over Tokyo (a power plant) for unrelated reasons, kill him, and destroy his organization's power base.
** Also with Tayama, the Reds are very much a temporary stopgap, which the game repeatedly reminds you.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Tayama, who is aware of the dwindling supply of Reds, to try and find ''any'' measure of finding peace with the demons. He's fully aware that this can't go on forever, and that prior human attempts to forge peace have failed, meaning he has to come up with something new. He could even ask the demons how that could be achieved, since they're on friendly terms.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't even acknowledge the idea that it's a stopgap rather than an actual solution.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'':
** The HeroicMime Nanashi, the heroine Asahi, and their mentors all go on a mission to kill weak demons for food. Their hunting ground is literally right outside the gates of their hometown. A wandering horde of powerful demons turn up and kill everyone except for Asashi. Asahi only survives because Nanashi made a DealWithTheDevil to come back to life with increased power. Asahi, PluckyGirl that she is, quickly recovers from the tragedy and takes it upon herself to become a real hunter to bear the duty of her teachers. She decides that the only way to be seen as a real hunter is to use her teacher's old demon summoning tool (a smartphone) to recruit and train demons to fight for her.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Asahi would find another hunter that is already going out on a food hunting expedition, and persuade them to take her along so that she can recruit demons. Or otherwise find someone who wouldn't see taking her along as a burden.\\
'''Instead:''' Asahi decides to leave out the back entrance, without telling anyone except for the equally inexperienced Nanashi, whom she expects to have the same sentiment. The back alleyways are just like the park her teachers died in, in that there are demons everywhere and no guarantee that there won't be one she can't handle. And no backup except for a fellow apprentice. Nanashi cannot stop her.
** Right after recruiting a bunch of level 5 at maximum demons (in a game where they can go up to 99), Asahi gets a distress message from her phone. It's not a universal broadcast message; it was meant for her veteran deceased teacher. A group of demon hunters are trapped inside a location infamous for its danger.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Asahi would run back to town, since she has to pass through it anyways to get to the hunters, tell the other hunters about the message, and leave it to them.\\
'''Instead:''' Asahi says that she's a real hunter with real demons, and decides that there's no time to get help. So she and Nanashi run to the location without telling anyone else. Again, Nanashi cannot tell anyone about the endangered comrades, despite the danger they put themselves in and the fact that a pair of barely-experienced hunters would not be the help the hunters need. While Nanashi makes short work of one demon, its boss turns up (level 72 where all the recruitable demons are level 7, tops), and would have killed the protagonists, if the PreviousPlayerCharacterCameo hadn't saved them.
* ''VisualNovel/ShinraiBrokenBeyondDespair'': At the end of the game, it's revealed that Hiro tried to ask Kamen out while he was already in a relationship with Momoko.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That even if Hiro didn't know that Kamen [[spoiler:is a lesbian]], he'd realize that she'd have more than a few issues with him A)being willing to cheat on his girlfriend, and B)callously hurting her best friend.\\
'''Instead''': He asks her out and continues pursuing her despite her obvious disgust. He was only saved by the fact that Momoko refused to believe Kamen, but he pushed his luck too far when he sent messages to Kamen's cell phone, [[spoiler:and when Momoko read them, it was the last straw that drove her to murder him]].
* ''VideoGame/SidMeiersPirates'':
** Any time the player is looking for family members and has [[TheDragon Baron Raymundo]] at their mercy.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The player character to take Raymundo prisoner and force him to tell them the exact location of a family member.\\
'''Instead:''' He's content with getting part of a map showing where to find them, and catching Raymundo again months later and repeating the process.
** Sometimes, pirates that you've captured will escape from your ship.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Said pirate to keep a low profile away from you.\\
'''Instead:''' They're stupid enough to track you down, therefore giving you the option to capture them again.
* Near the end of ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'', James is confronted by Eddie, an overweight and mentally disturbed man who's been mocked by his peers for his entire life. Eddie is surrounded by corpses, wielding a revolver, and delivering a monologue about how everyone is made equal in death, including the fact that he's going to murder the next person who so much as looks at him funny. Eddie then says a friendly 'goodbye' to James and turns around to leave the room.\\
'''You'd Expect''' James to say nothing about the crazy, bid Eddie a fond farewell and get the hell out of there.\\
'''Instead''', James asks Eddie if he's gone nuts. Eddie [[AxCrazy responds about as well as you'd expect.]]
* ''Silver Chaos'': Pam is '''much''' stronger than humans, but he still lets his master, a weak-looking old man enslave, beat and rape him.
* In ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsHitAndRun'', Bart finds a fully-working laser gun to use as proof to Krusty that [[spoiler:Kang and Kodos are planning to make cola-crazed citizens destroy each other]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': Bart to take the laser gun straight to Krusty.\\
'''Instead''': Bart takes the laser gun to Principal Skinner, a person who cannot trust Bart with anything, who confiscates the gun from him because of Springfield Elementary's ban on laser guns ''despite being outside of school grounds''.
* ''VideoGame/TheSims4'':
** In the ''Strangerville'' game pack, your Sim can try to put bugs on [[TheMenInBlack MIB operatives]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' that MIB operatives would be [[InvokedTrope trained]] to [[HatesBeingTouched not let strangers hug them]] so they don't get bugged.\\
'''Instead:''' [[https://youtu.be/-45gZD-GgrI?t=266 They hug your Sim like a first-day rookie]], letting your Sim plant the bug.
* ''VideoGame/SINoALICE'': During the Act of Elimination, Aladdin and Rapunzel meet in the real world, but end up interested in each other and throw down their weapons. After deciding to be together (and Aladdin being UnclePennybags towards her), Aladdin says that 'they've come to a consensus' but due to the GratuitousEnglish on his end, Rapunzel mishears it as wanting to get married.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Aladdin to correct himself so that Rapunzel would understand.\\
'''Result''': In a fit of jealousy, the genie in the lamp [[spoiler: kills Aladdin for it]].
* In ''VideoGame/SkiesOfArcadia'', during the aerial battle for Yafutoma between the Armada and the Tenkou, the heroes attempt to, and succeed in, locating their captured ship. They attempt a boarding action, preparing to go side-to-side by a distance of meters with this airship, with a full crew of hostile soldiers.\\
'''You'd Expect''' the Delphinus' new management to attempt evasive action, any evasive action or movement at all, or fire on the pirate ship as it makes itself a fat, slow and impossible to miss target by closing in.\\
'''Instead''' the ship remains completely motionless in midair, obligingly allowing the air pirates to pull up, leap aboard, and presumably for the ship to fly off again without shooting at it once or trying to maneuver or follow the entire time. Way to go, guys. Way to go.
* ''VideoGame/SleepingDogs'': The entire Sun On Yee leadership. All of them have gathered together for [[spoiler:Uncle Po's funeral]]. This comes after ''two'' attempts on Uncle Po's life and on both occasions they didn't have nearly enough protection available.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Them to bring their gang with them along with any [=VIPs=] whose deaths might force the Hong Kong police to take action.\\
'''Instead''': Only the top leaders and two or three regular members of the gang go. And they seem ''surprised'' when a rival gang shows up with assault rifles and grenade launchers. Really if it weren't for Lee the game would have pretty much ended right there.
* ''VideoGame/{{SOMA}}'' has Simon learn that the BrainUploading is more akin to copying a person's brain and personality, rather than actually altering where the consciousness of the person will be. And he knows it has happened to him twice, once meaning his original body and once about midway through the game, when he needs to be put into a new body to proceed. Then the upload to the ARK occurs.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Simon to have realized the implication and that merely a copy of his brain will be put onto the ARK, not himself. Especially since he has been told this ''twice'' already, including the time he saw his old body.\\
'''Instead:''' Simon reacts to the news like he's never heard it before and yells at Catherine, claiming she lied to him about this and the ARK being their goal. In turn, Catherine absolutely screams at him that he ''knew'' about the copying and that he has no reason to act like this. [[spoiler:This has to the effect that her mind becomes overstressed, stopping her simulation and effectively killing her, leaving this copy of Simon to remain on the bottom of the sea, all alone now.]]
* ''VideoGame/SongBirdSymphony'': Birb keeps meeting the Owl and helping him gather notes. Birb's mother knows that the Owl is secretly a monster who wiped out almost all of the songbirds and now wants to (1) finish the job and (2) use the notes to finish his artifact so that he can use it to conquer the forest.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Her to explain to Birb that the Owl is actually a monster, and that he really shouldn't be helping him.\\
'''Instead:''' She decides to team up with the Magpie trio and have them try to intimidate Birb into giving up his quest, outright using bullying tactics at times. This only makes them come off as {{Jerkass}}es that Birb becomes determined to defy.
* ''[[VideoGame/SoulSeries Soul Calibur V]]'':
** Patroklos, after a period of time travelling with Z.W.E.I. and Viola, has been reunited with Pyrrha, his long lost sister. [[FortuneTeller Viola]] then makes a few cryptic statements, the general gist of them being that Patroklos and Pyrrha cannot remain together.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Patroklos to at least figure out what she's trying to tell him, and perhaps request clarification from her.\\
'''Instead:''' He regards the statements as "threats and riddles", not even realising that she's trying to warn him about something.
** After Pyrrha defends him from Nightmare, [[spoiler:Patroklos sees her in the state where she is destined to become the new host of Soul Edge.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Him to try finding help for her.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He turns Soul Calibur on her. This pisses her off to the point that the next time he sees her, she starts fighting him, [[EtTuBrute accusing of abandoning her]] like she thinks everyone would do to her.]]
* Before the events of ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'' occured, the new kid/[[spoiler:Dovahkiin]] was hunted down by the government, purely because [[spoiler:he was able to make over 3 ''billion'' friends on Facebook and they wanted his special talents to serve the country.]] After everything settled down, the new kid's parents move to South Park and they hope that he doesn't remember what had happened before they moved or what he had done.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The parents to keep him isolated so that the events don't repeat themselves.\\
'''Instead:''' The kid's parents tell him to go outside and make some new friends, completely ignoring why they wanted their son to forget what happened in the first place. [[spoiler:Lo and behold, the new kid's uncanny ability to make a ton of Facebook friends gets the government's attention again.]]
* ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheFracturedButWhole'':
** The main conflict between Coon and friends and Freedom pals is that Coon and friends' franchise plan has a lot of bias towards some heroes, which then later revealed that [[spoiler: Doctor Timothy is currently planning a franchise plan that benefits everyone, Coon and friends or Freedom pals alike.]]\\
'''You'd expect:''' That the Freedom pals member to tell the Coon and friends member (except probably [[GloryHound Cartman]]) about [[spoiler: Their new franchise plan.]]\\
'''Instead:''' Not only do they keep [[spoiler: the franchise plan]] a secret, but all they do is say vague claims about their future success.\\
'''As a result:''' An unnecessary conflict drives on between the two superhero teams for no reason.
** In the finale, Human kite planned to bluff the Coon out by pretending to be [[spoiler: Mitch Connor]], the plan works, as The Coon gets rattled out immediately.\\
'''You'd expect:''' for Human kite to drop the act.\\
'''Instead:''' he keeps acting as [[spoiler: Mitch Connor]] for no reason at all, especially egregious if The Coon gets knocked out first.\\
'''As a result:''' The rest of the heroes get confused and beat up both the Coon and Human kite.
* ''VideoGame/SpiderManVsTheKingpin'':
** The police, any time they find Spider Man passed out. When they find him on the street\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They would put Spider Man in a high security cell.\\
'''Instead:''' They put Spider Man in an ordinary prison cell that he could easily break out of.\\
'''Even Worse:''' Spider Man doesn't even need to break the door down, all he has to down is climb up on the ceiling so the cop guarding him won't see him. Then idiot cop then opens up the cell door and walks in, allowing Spider Man to escape.
** Alternatively when Spider Man is taken to the hospital and the doctors refuses to allow him to be taken to prison until he recovers.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Spider Man and the hospital to be put under heavy security.\\
'''Instead:''' The police only put one man watching the door to Spider Man's hospital room, who fell asleep allowing Spider Man to walk out the door with no resistance.\\
'''Even Worse:''' The police's response to Spider Man escaping the first time is to put an extra man at the door, so Spider Man escapes through the window in response. They do '''NOT''' at any point realize that Spider Man is escaping through the window.
* ''VideoGame/SplinterCellDoubleAgent'':
** In the opening mission of Version 1, experienced Third Echelon operative Sam Fisher is sent into Iceland, alongside a [[NewMeat rookie agent]] named John Hodge, to investigate a geothermal facility which may have an active ballistic weapon that could cause significant damage if used against the populace. During the opening infiltration, it becomes clear that Hodge is... not the best suited for the role, as he acts impulsive (running ahead of Fisher twice despite the latter telling him to hang back), arrogant, dismissive of Fisher's concerns and is generally trying to prove himself in an obnoxious way, ostensibly in an attempt to impress Fisher.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That, given how Third Echelon is an ultra-secret counter-terrorist organization that routinely runs black ops abroad, and that no one is supposed to know they're in Iceland in the first place (nevermind how the program demands the best out of its operators), Fisher and[=/=]or Irving Lambert (the MissionControl) would have stressed this fact to Hodge at some point, emphasizing the gravity of the situation and how operators are supposed to conduct themselves with professionalism and a calm demeanor.\\
'''Instead:''' Everything that can go wrong ''does'' go wrong. Hodge continues to act dismissive of Fisher, with Lambert not helping matters by seemingly giving Hodge a "special mission" (possibly said in jest) to turn off a ventilation system so that Fisher can infiltrate the facility... only for that plan to go out the window when Hodge decides to ''run in through the front door'' of the facility after seeing a handful of guards break their guard pattern. This action gets Hodge caught and executed while Fisher watches helplessly, just before the latter is forced to enact a risky plan (now on his own) to destroy the missile and escape in time. This even gets invoked in the conversation immediately afterwards, where Lambert admits he made a bad "judgement call". Notably, this is completely absent in Version 2 of the game, as Fisher's partner for the mission, Hisham Hamza, is a far more experienced and level-headed operator who doesn't act impulsive and follows Fisher's decision to exfiltrate immediately when Lambert demands it near the end of the mission.
** Irving Lambert learns that Sam Fisher's daughter, Sarah, has been killed by a drunk driver.[[note]]''VideoGame/SplinterCellConviction'' gives this a {{Retcon}} by stating this was part of a ploy Lambert initiated, via faking Sarah's death, to protect Sam and drive a mole within Third Echelon out of hiding[[/note]]. Lambert learns this information while Fisher is currently on a mission in Iceland.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That, given how this is a highly-sensitive topic and Fisher (and his partner) are currently involved in a high-stakes mission to stop a weapon that may be primed and ready to launch, he would wait until after the mission is completed and reveal this information to Fisher in a private setting, either at Third Echelon HQ or at Fisher's home.\\
'''Instead:''' In both versions of the game, he delivers this message with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer right as the mission ends -- and suffers for it. In Version 1, he waits until just after Fisher has completed his mission (and lost his teammate) to break the news in-person on the Osprey transport, causing Sam to lose it on the ride back home. That's the ''nicer'' scenario compared to Version 2, where Lambert calls Fisher in the middle of the mission, acts in an off-kilter way (telling him to exfiltrate the site immediately because it's going to be destroyed by other Splinter Cells en-route) and makes a vague reference to something that's happened to Fisher's daughter without stating what it is. By the time Fisher exfiltrates the facility, he's in a panic, running back to the Osprey to get more information. Neither scenario helps Sam's psyche -- and according to Lambert's confession in ''Conviction'', [[ShootTheShaggyDog it was all for nothing]], as the only thing it did was fundamentally change something within Fisher, while Lambert's ploy didn't work the way he wanted.
* ''VideoGame/SpyFox'':
** In ''Operation: Ozone'', late in the game, Pushpin gives Spy Fox the congeal pill that, when thrown into the pit of aerosol, will effectively destroy Poodles' entire space station and thwart her evil plan.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Spy Fox to throw the pill in quietly before saying a word.\\
'''Instead:''' He brags about it first, and ''then'' attempts to throw it in. Since he now has Poodles' attention, she's able to retrieve the congeal pill using one of her own gadgets and stop it from going down. She then traps Spy Fox in a steel net while she continues to finish up her evil plan.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' For Poodles to hang onto the pill herself, or better yet, destroy the thing so Spy Fox loses all of his chances at thwarting her.\\
'''Instead:''' She does nothing more but throw it into an empty trash can. In very easy reach of where Spy Fox was ''just standing.'' Apparently she had no forethought that he, a spy who was able to get past ''all her security'' and onto her spaceship, would ''maybe'' find his way out of this one.\\
'''Fortunately:''' He learns his lesson over that first point and keeps quiet when throwing it down a second time.
** Perhaps ''Some Assembly Required'' has the '''BIGGEST''' example with Napoleon Le Roach telling Spy Fox that the Dogbot cannot be stopped since he removed the off switch and hid it in the World's Fair.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That he ends it at that and imprisons Spy Fox, possibly leading him on a wild goose chase throughout the fair if he escapes.\\
'''Instead:''' He blatantly tells Spy Fox not only about how to use the activation code to turn the switch off, but also how to enter the Dogbot's inner workings via its left ankle.
* ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'':
** In each homeworld is a playable character locked in a cage guarded by [[MoneyDearBoy Moneybags]]. Moneybags, naturally, will release them for a bribe, and in every case, the playable character then proceeds to attack him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Moneybags after the first attack and ''especially'' the second to realize that the next one is probably going to do the same thing and either refuse to release the next playable character for any amount of gems or at least have the foresight to [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere book it immediately]] after freeing them so they can't.\\
'''Instead:''' Moneybags not only keeps letting the playable characters out but just walks right up to them after doing it and seems to genuinely think that each of them will be grateful for the fact that he released them only to get attacked yet again.
** Bianca is willing to collect dragon eggs for The Sorceress because she believes The Sorceress needs those eggs to bring magic back to her homeland.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Sorceress to keep up the lies and not telling her about what her actual plan with the eggs/babies AT ALL.\\
'''Instead:''' She tells her anyway, sparking her HeelFaceTurn.\\
'''You'd Then Expect:''' The Sorceress to make sure that Bianca doesn't go ''anywhere'' and either lock her up or kill her. Bianca is privy to many secrets about her base and she could easily help Spyro defeat her.\\
'''Instead:''' The Sorceress seemingly doesn't even bother to stop her, only saying that she'll deal with Bianca later.\\
'''Result:''' Bianca frees Hunter and tells Spyro how to get into the Sorceress's castle, leading to her being defeated.
** After defeating the Sorceress, you find Moneybags just standing out in the open. Turns out he found a dragon egg and plans to sell it in Avalar.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Moneybags would say nothing to Spyro, go into one of the nearby portals so Spyro can't find him, and then sneak back to Avalar to do the dirty deed.\\
'''Instead:''' He blurts out to Spyro about it, runs around in circles with an enraged dragon on his paws, and ''doesn't'' go into a portal until all the gems he swindled from Spyro are back in his clutches and the egg is given to him.
* After Spyro defeats Red in ''VideoGame/SpyroAHerosTail'', the evil red dragon retreats to the Volcanic Isle and Spyro soon arrives and receives a message from the Professor.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Professor to tell Spyro about Red's lair and wait safely where he is right now until Spyro returns home after defeating Red again.\\
'''Instead:''' He just goes straight there to try and confront Red.\\
'''Result:''' The Professor winds up getting captured by Red and forced to transform his soldiers into robots.
* ''VideoGame/StarCraft'':
** The UED forces find on Tarsonis an abandoned Psi Disruptor build by the confederates. This device is able to break the zerg's psychic link, preventing the Overmind and its cerebrates to control zergs. Stukov says that it's a great tool for the UED mission (to enslave the Overmind) while Duran prefer to destroy it, since "If it falls in Mengsk's hands, it could control the zerg as well in combination with the psi emitters".\\
'''You'd Expect''' that [=DuGalle=] would listen Stukov, not only because he's his longtime friend and viceadmiral of the UED, but because his suggestion made much more sense that Duran's, a guy who met recently.\\
'''Instead''' he listens to Duran, and orders the Psi Disruptor to be destroyed.
** Later Kerrigan manages to destroy the Psi Disrupter.\\
'''You'd Expect''' the UED would build another one or even have another already built. The Terrans have siege tanks and science vessels and cloaking fields, so surely they have a computer capable of storing schematics, right?\\
'''Instead''' they fight Kerrigan without it and their whole fleet gets wiped out.
** In the finale of ''VideoGame/StarCraftIIHeartOfTheSwarm'' Kerrigan breaks into Mengsk's inner sanctum and finds him strangely confident and holding something akin to a detonator in his hand. Granted, it was disguised as a lighter, but still.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' that, since whatever that thing controls, it CLEARLY cannot be anything good, Kerrigan would dash forward and smash the detonator out of his hand or blast Mengsk with her psychic powers. For all she knew the detonator could trigger a nuclear bomb Mengsk planted [[TakingYouWithMe just in case he loses]].\\
'''Instead:''' She just stands there like a dumbass while Mengsk presses the button, which [[spoiler:makes the Xel-Naga artifact rise from a niche in the floor]], and he very nearly kills Kerrigan with it.
** [[http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/File:VikingColossus_SC2_Art1.jpg This wallpaper,]] which shows a Viking (anti-air flyer/anti-ground walker) fighting a Colossus (ground-attack strider so tall it can be targeted as an air unit).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Viking to attack the Colossus with increased firepower while completely immune to its attacks.\\
'''Instead:''' It's attacking the Colossus while in walker mode, doing reduced damage and getting hit by its DeathRay.
* In ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheSecondStory''
** The first disc culminates in the team assaulting Eluria Tower to stop the destruction of Expel by destroying the Sorcery Globe. They run headlong into the Ten Wise Men, a group of villainous beings from Nede who plan to destroy the entire universe via advanced magic. The Ten Wise Men look at the group and are surprised to see a Nedian [[spoiler:Rena]]) with the party.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That they [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim would simply kill all of them (a group of teenagers) instantly]].\\
'''Instead:''' They routinely mock the party, have one of their weaker members knock the party down to critically-low health without killing them and assume that [[spoiler:Expel's destruction]] will finish them off. It doesn't, and the team gets saved by inadvertently transporting to Nede, whereupon they get much more powerful weapons and equipment and decide to take the fight to the Wise Men's doorstep by attacking their base at Fienal.\\
'''And Then:''' They assault Fienal and are beaten down once again by the Wise Men, who mock them.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That, once again, they would just kill them and be done with it.\\
'''Instead:''' They again toy with the party and leave them conscious, and are stalled long enough by the leader of the L'Aqua Defense Force so the heroes can escape. The team then gets advanced weaponry and tools from Dr. Mirage, spends several days training in simulations at the Fun City Coliseum, and it's only ''then'' that they decide to start attacking in force, by which point they're easily defeated. It isn't until the player's party has chainsawed through 2/3rds of the Wise Men that they finally start panicking, by which point the heroes are already in the final dungeon. They may take the cake as the dumbest enemies in the series.
** [[spoiler:Claude's father, Ronixis, is in space over Nede]] when the Ten Wise Men decide to use his ship as target practice by using Fienal as a glorified anti-matter cannon. They fire off a shot (at low power) that knocks the ship's shields down by a significant amount.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That, given how the ship was nearly crippled by a single shot, [[spoiler:Ronixis]] would immediately order the ship to plot an escape path and get the hell out of dodge, or at the very least, start moving so the cannon can't get a lock on them. He doesn't even have much of a reason to stay either, as [[spoiler:he believes Claude to be dead]].\\
'''Instead:''' He spends a good minute trying to hail the planet and start negotiations, while failing to do anything besides leave the ship parked in orbit. Even after ''another'' shot takes down the ship's shields, he doesn't do anything except admit defeat. The ship just sits until it's destroyed by a third blast.
* In ''VideoGame/StarOceanTheLastHope'', the party lands on [[spoiler:an AnotherDimension version of 1957 Earth]] and gets their ship and a party member captured by the local [[TheMenInBlack Men in Black]]. After infiltrating their secret underground base and fighting their way through bizarre alien experiments, the party comes across the base's MadScientist commander who tells our protagonists they're honestly really just trying to solve the world energy crisis and would you please give us your ship's power source so we can stop pollution, be friends with aliens instead of experimenting on them and save the future.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The party's brainiacs if not the captain himself to realize that the ship's power source could ''destroy the entire planet'' if improperly used and categorically refuse to give it to some ethically challenged people they met 5 minutes ago, no matter how much they wanted to help "save the future".\\
'''Instead:''' They give up their [[GreenRocks power source]], then obliviously walk into an obvious jail cell. From there they have front-row seats to watch the crazy woman install it into her makeshift reactor which immediately starts an irreversible overload. Cue escape from exploding planet.
** Also from the game, Sarah, [[TheDitz unsurprisingly]], has a moment that overlaps with TooDumbToLive. [[spoiler:At one point in the story, Sarah gets kidnapped by the evil cultists who had attempted to kidnap her previously.]] Now, that isn't the moment in question. What is, however, is [[spoiler:her reaction to said cultists jumping through the window of her house.]]\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:She runs away, screaming for help and attempting to fight them off.]]\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:She, in her own words, simply ''gets up and nonchalantly goes to make them tea''. What... the... fuck... Sarah?]]
** The party lands on Aeos where they end up fighting against Phantom Soldiers. They are outmatched until Crowe and Arumat come to their rescue. Among the party is Myuria, who has a serious vendetta towards Crowe due to her mistaken belief that he killed her husband Lucien.\\
'''You'd Expect''': For the party to immediately restrain her or tie her up until the misunderstanding is all cleared up.\\
'''Instead''': They don't even think of doing this, not even while Crowe and Arumat fight off the Phantoms. As a result, Myuria almost kills an innocent man.
* ''VisualNovel/SteinsGate'': A lot of the first half of the series is Okabe being stupid and not properly communicating anything:
** Okabe has just done a D-Mail experiment and nobody remembers it happened.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe to realize that the D-Mail worked and the past has changed, and inform everyone about it like he did after Moeka's D-Mail.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't tell anyone and continues to question everything strange, not thinking that it might have something to do with a D-Mail that was sent, nor does he ever bother to ask anyone if the D-Mail worked, even though the intended purpose of sending them is to test it.
** Okabe has been acting strange, rambling about something not being right, and not like his other chuunibyou rants. It's very similar to when he told them that Moeka had sent a D-Mail.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Someone to realize that maybe Okabe has sent a D-Mail and to ask him about it.\\
'''Instead:''' Nobody thinks to do this, and instead blame it on the heat or his usual chuuni rants.
** Okabe has been going on a little rant about how Lukako [[spoiler:is a guy]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe to figure out that [[spoiler:Lukako's D-mail to change his gender worked, and that's the reason everyone is acting strange, especially when one considers that both Mayuri, who's a close friend of Lukako, and Lukako herself are saying that she is a girl]].\\
'''Instead:''' He gets the bright idea to [[spoiler:confirm that Lukako is a male by [[CrotchGrabSexCheck grabbing her genitalia]]]]. Needless to say, this isn't the best decision.
** Okabe goes to [[spoiler:Moeka's apartment]] to [[spoiler:undo the D-mails and retrieve the IBN 500 back using her phone]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Okabe should plan carefully about going inside her apartment, since he already knows that [[spoiler:Moeka]] is well-trained in combat and would be armed with a gun in advance or able to kick his ass with martial arts as [[spoiler:she's a Rounder]].\\
'''Instead:''' Okabe goes straight into [[spoiler:her apartment]] without thinking. [[spoiler:Fortunately, Moeka is sitting in the corner on her phone messaging to FB desperately, not even bothering to spot him coming in, and remains submissive as he's able to snatch the phone from her hand. She couldn't brandish her gun to threaten him and just couldn't fight back.]]
* ''Franchise/StreetFighter'':
** [[AcroFatic Rufus]] has taken it upon himself to challenge [[HotBlooded Ken]] [[TheRival Masters]], and consequently goes on a trip to seek him out. The only problem? Rufus doesn't even know what Ken ''looks like''.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Rufus would first get a picture of Ken from somewhere like, hmm, maybe, ''the Internet or the newspaper''. After all, Ken's an extremely rich dude, the American martial arts champion, and a well-known fighter on the street fighting circuit.\\
'''Instead:''' Rufus assumes that every single Street Fighter he comes across must be Ken. Including Cammy, who for the record is a ''girl'', simply because Rufus knows Ken is blond and Cammy happens to be blonde as well. Rufus isn't the brightest bulb, mind you, but there's a big difference between genuine ignorance and outright stupidity.\\
'''Even worse:''' The newspaper that Rufus was reading when he learned about Ken ''had his picture in it,'' and it never occurred to either Rufus or his girlfriend to take it with them to make a positive ID.
** Cammy, while attempting to destroy the information on the BLECE project, is stopped at gunpoint by C. Viper ([[TheMole who's been working undercover in S.I.N. for the CIA]]). Viper orders Cammy to step away from the computer console containing the BLECE data.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Viper to at least reveal that she's on the good guys' side. While Cammy might not have any reason to trust or believe her, Viper would then have the opportunity to explain that she is also seeking to bring down S.I.N., and that having the BLECE information will go a long way toward that end.\\
'''Or:''' For Viper to, at least, yank Cammy away from the console. If her intention is to recover the BLECE data while maintaining her cover, the least she could do would be to ensure that the data isn't in danger of being erased right there and then.\\
'''Instead:''' Viper's got a gun to Cammy's head, sure, but she just ''stands there'' while Cammy's finger is an inch away from the Delete button...which she proceeds to press. This results in years' worth of undercover work going down the drain, which Viper openly laments in Cammy's hearing moments after the fact.
* ''VideoGame/StreetFighterXTekken'': In Lars and Alisa's arcade mode, the latter is feeling drained and that she needs to be recharged. The former looked at Blanka performing a trick in front of Sakura, so he approaches them to help him with his dilemma.\\
'''You'd Expect''': For him to say, "Excuse me. Can you help me? I have a [[RobotGirl robotic girl]] over there that needs to be recharged." That way, they'll understand and help him solve the problem.\\
'''Instead''': He said to Blanka, "Could I... just borrow you?" which makes him snap, believing he's a stranger trying to hurt him.\\
'''So Now You'd Expect''': For Sakura to calm him down and tell him that Lars may have a reason of wanting to 'borrow him'.\\
'''Instead''': She attempts to fight him for making Blanka upset, making all Lars' attempt to talk to them peacefully to help Alisa all for nothing.
* ''Manga/{{Strider}}'': The UsefulNotes/{{N|intendoEntertainmentSystem}}ES Game has these two moments:
** Sometime during Hiryu's assault on the Chinese ZAIN Base, a wounded Strider Cain wakes up.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For him to stay put while Strider Sheena tends to his wound(He did that in the manga when Hiryu tended to a stab wound he got from Kubira).\\
'''Instead:''' He takes off while she wasn't looking.\\
'''As a Result:''' He dies at Matic's hand before the last stage.
** After Hiryu destroys the ZAIN Terminal in Africa, he returns to the Blue Dragon where he learns of a meeting between Faceas (Faysus actually) Clay and Strider Vice-Director Matic(Who's a higher rank than Hiryu, a Super A-Rank Strider, and at least as strong).\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Sheena(A plain A-Ranked Strider) to wait for Hiryu when he heads to Las Angeles.\\
'''Instead:''' She takes off ahead of him.\\
'''As a result:''' She gets fatally wounded by Matic and dies. Common sense should of told these two that bravery and outright stupidity are two different things.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'':
** Samus Aran, having captured the [[VideoGame/MetroidIIReturnOfSamus last remaining Metroid]], has given said creature to the Galactic Federation. There is clearly much potential use for this creature, and it is also a very tempting prize for the space pirates.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For them to place the Metroid at a facility with EXTREMELY high security. Maybe even offering Samus a high paying job protecting the facility.\\
'''Instead:''' They instead keep the Metroid at a space colony with minimal at best security.\\
'''Result:''' Ridley attacks the space colony, stealing the Metroid. What follows are the events of the game.[[note]]Even Worse, at the end of the Metroid II remake, [[VideoGame/MetroidSamusReturns Samus Returns]], Ridley made a previous attempt at stealing the Metroid, which wasn't that long ago.[[/note]]
* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration 2'': [[TheNeidermeyer Lee Linjun]], captain of The Shirogane, [[TheRival has it out for his former classmate, Tetsuya Onodera]], believing him (and especially him) and his forces to be inferior to fight off the invasion of the Einst and Inspectors. But throughout the game, he shows himself to be anything but a tactical genius:
** Early on, there's a mission where you have to defend a base against enemies that will destroy it if they so much as brush the outside wall.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lee would use the LONG RANGE guns that can do heavy damage to small vessels on his ship to shoot at said enemies.\\
'''Instead:''' [[TheLoad He does nothing the whole mission]].
** Some time later, Lee is aboard the Shirogane when he spots two enemy Rhinoceros Mechs, one of which has Shadow-Mirror member Echidna Iisaki on-board. The Shirogane pursues them and the Mechs seem intent on letting it follow them. A few seconds in, Lee assumes that they're leading him into a trap.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lee would stop the pursuit, lest he fall for the trap. Or, [[WeHaveReserves since he is that type]], he'd test the waters with a few mechs.\\
'''Instead:''' Lee, being the glory-hound JerkAss that he is, charges in full speed ahead. [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption To the surprise of no one playing]], it is a trap, and Lee and the Shirogane are confiscated by the Shadow-Mirror. Even Echidna herself mocks Lee for falling for what he knew was a trap.
** Lee Linjun [[FaceHeelTurn defects to the Shadow Mirrors]] after that ambush. At the game's endgame, his forces are decisively trounced by those of Tetsuya.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lee to get the hell out of there and recoup his losses.\\
'''Instead:''' He takes the Shirogane and attempts to use it to ram Tetsuya's ship, the Kurogane. Unfortunately, as Tetsuya points out, he failed to notice [[ThisIsADrill the functional drill]] in front of the Kurogane. Naturally, this doesn't end well for Lee.
* ''VideoGame/SyphonFilter 3'':
** In the game's very first mission, Gabe Logan goes to Tokyo to assassinate Shi Hao, the leader of a Chinese anti-government rebel group who was partially responsible for the events of the previous game as well as his lieutenants.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That once Shi Hao was killed, his subordinates would flee the hotel they're staying at so as not to get sniped by the rogue American agent.\\
'''Instead:''' They join their mooks in trying to kill Gabe, right where he can snipe at them.\\
'''Bonus Idiocy:''' Gabe actually ''expects'' them to come running into his line of fire.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 7'' shows that the feud of the Mishimas began when Heihachi had to kill his wife, Kazumi, when she tried to kill him while she's in her devil form. The encounter gave him a hint that there's a possibility that their son, Kazuya, might inherit devil powers from her.\\
'''You'd Expect:''': For Heihachi to tell Kazuya the truth of his mother's death. That way, he'll understand of what he had to do and request training from him on how to control his powers for future uses.\\
'''Instead:''' Heihachi kept silent of his motive for killing Kazumi, and he attempted to kill Kazuya by throwing him in the ravine while he was just a boy.\\
'''Result:''' Kazuya grew up with hatred, and Jin is born with the Devil Gene in his blood. Eventually, causing Heihachi's death in his final battle against Kazuya.
** Speaking of the final battle against Heihachi and Kazuya where they eventually got worn out.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' For Heihachi to land an empowered punch against Kazuya in the chest to finally kill him once and for all.\\
'''Instead:''' He goes for the headbutt, causing Kazuya to retaliate by punching his chest with a Devil Gene empowered strike, killing him once and for all.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': In the "Meet the Spy" trailer, the RED spy infiltrates the base and the BLU Spy, Heavy, Soldier and Scout meet. The BLU Spy decides to give them a speech about his RED counterpart's abilities.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He'd keep it short and to the point, a quick refresher on what tells to look for, and then help his team locate and subdue the intruder.\\
'''Instead:''' He goes into a monologue talking up his RED counterpart's skills, which not only contributes nothing helpful toward finding him, but prompts Soldier to mistake him of being the RED Spy and shoot him in the face.\\
'''Even Worse''': BLU Spy's very poor choice in words ends up implicating ''himself'' as the RED Spy.
-->'''BLU Spy''': He could be in this very room! It could be you! It could be ''me''! It could even [[KilledMidSentence be--]] [[YourHeadAsplode *gets shot*]]
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}}'' series, whenever the protagonists are assigned to kill a specific target (who generally serves as a [[BossBattle level boss]]), they will almost always make their presence known by walking up to said target and giving them TheReasonYouSuckSpeech.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The ninjas to approach their target in the back and [[BackStab slit their throat]] as they did for every Mook they came across on their way... But then again, doing that would mean that [[BoringButPractical there would be no boss for you to fight]].\\
'''Instead :''' They don't even bother, thus ensuring that the now very alerted target has time to ready their weapons and/or [[JustYouAndMeAndMyGUARDS call for]] [[FlunkyBoss assistance]], leading to a fight that generally opposes a Ninja best suited for stealth and assassination and a combat-oriented character, optionally backed up by armored guards.
* ''VideoGame/TIEFighter'':
** Admiral Harkov plans to defect to the Rebel Alliance. Not just him, but the whole fleet under his command. The only exception is the PC who just recently transferred to his garrison.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Knowing the PC is a new transfer and isn't loyal to him, Harkov will order him away for the next mission because a Rebel leader is expected to arrive shortly on his mothership.\\
'''Instead :''' He let the PC take part of the mission who discovers that a Rebel leader is docking the mothership. No orders is giving from the mothership to shoot it down and Harkov himself threaten the PC for his curiosity.\\
'''Even worse:''' Harkov ''IS'' a fleet admiral and has full authority over everyone on his ship. He could have simply ordered the PC to ignore the mysterious ship coming and return to the hangar. Or murder the PC upon his return to the mothership since [[HeKnowsTooMuch he knows his secret]].\\
'''Result:''' The PC make his report to the Secret Order of the Empire and Harkov is now closely watched. The Order also insure to protect the PC from possible assassination attempts from Harkov because of his loyalty to the Empire.
* ''[[VideoGame/TombRaider2013 Tomb Raider (2013)]]''
** Lara finds that her best friend Sam is about to be burned at the stake by the Solari. Several of the cult's members are in attendance. Lara uses her bow and arrow to kill the guy with the torch before he can set Sam's pyre alight. Unfortunately, the rest of the Solari notice. At this point in the game, Lara is at least willing to kill large amounts of the Solari if it means saving her friends.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lara to switch to her assault rifle or shotgun and start gunning down any mooks who attack her.\\
'''Instead:''' She keeps using her bow, and only manages to loose one arrow (which doesn't hit anyone), before getting taken down by some of the mooks.\\
'''Result:''' Lara receives a horrific NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, and the burning goes ahead as planned.[[spoiler:Except that a gust of wind blows out the fire, apparently due to Sam being a descendent of Queen Himiko.]]
** While escaping from the Solari Fortress, Lara goes up against a mook manning a [[{{BFG}} mounted machine gun]]. Using LeParkour, she makes it to the mook and manages to knock him to the ground, away from the gun.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Her to pull out her [[BoringButPractical pistol]] and shoot him before he can recover.\\
'''Instead:''' She tries to use the machine gun, but it's so heavy that the mook manages to knock her off the ledge they're on before she can aim at him. Lara only survives due to a grenade launcher being very nearby, and the mook [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy being a terrible shot]], allowing her to survive long enough to grab said grenade launcher and blast him with it.
** Late in the game, Sam's been kidnapped again, and is taken to the Solari monastery solely by the BigBad and a traitor from Lara's group. Lara heads up there as well, and actually just beats them to it. She hides as they come past her at the entrance to the monastery.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lara to simply come out of hiding, hold the BigBad and traitor at gunpoint (if she doesn't want to just kill them), and demand Sam's release.\\
'''Instead:''' She just ''lets them pass by'', and subsequently has to make her way through a huge fortress being torn apart by fierce storms, while fighting off a small army of Solari, [[spoiler:and another small army of undead samurai]], in order to rescue Sam.
* In ''VideoGame/TombRaiderUnderworld'', Lara Croft discovers an old Nemesis she thought she killed in the past, Atlantean god Jacqueline Natla, is alive and being held captive by Lara's rival, Amanda. Lara then goes on a wild goose chase all over the world to find the artifacts and tools needed to reach Avalon so she can find her mother who vanished over 20 years ago. However, the final step to reach Avalon can only be performed by Natla herself.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lara, having fought Natla before, would leave her trapped in the glass containment or at least quickly kill her with Thor's Hammer.\\
'''Instead:''' Lara, fueled by her desire to find her mother, frees Natla and just threatens to kill her the moment she steps out of line. This causes [[spoiler:Natla to activate an ancient device that can sunder the Earth's crust and release poisonous ash into the atmosphere, basically destroying the world. Oh, and Lara's mother is a zombie]].
* ''VideoGame/TombRaiderTheLastRevelation'' has Lara Croft learn at an early age that disturbing tombs that threaten to bring danger to those who disturb it should be taken seriously as her mentor, Werner von Croy, learned the hard way when his attempt to steal the Iris artifact cause the room they were in to be caved in.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Lara to remember her past experience by not removing artifacts from their resting place unless it is safe to do so.\\
'''Instead:''' Lara steals the Amulet of Horus (only bothering to read what the amulet says after escaping the tomb), which releases the EvilGod, Set, and he threatens to bring TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Now Lara is responsible for setting things right again.\\
'''Also:''' Werner von Croy survived his deathtrap when he claimed the Iris.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' von Croy would learn his lesson and heed the warnings of other tombs that contain artifacts.\\
'''Instead:''' The man tries to steal the Amulet of Horus from Lara. When Lara tried to warn von Croy about the impending danger, he just dismisses it as "ancient hocus pocus". [[spoiler:This causes him to get possessed by Set.]]
* ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' has Lara at one point being held captive by Natla's goons. Lara's artifacts get taken and is [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness no longer useful to Natla]]. Natla then orders her men to kill Lara.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Natla's goons would simply shoot Lara dead.\\
'''Instead:''' Lara breaks free and dives into a river below the canyon while Natla's goons just watch Lara flee. One of the henchmen does fire, but only ''after'' Lara reached the bottom and naturally, he never hits her. Natla rightfully calls her men morons. The remake averts the scene by having Natla's men actively try to kill her, though Lara still outwits them.
* The first flashback cutscene in ''VideoGame/TombRaiderChronicles'' has Lara meet with Larson in a theater to do an exchange involving the Mercury Stone. As soon as Lara hands over the briefcase of money, Pierre appears and holds Lara at gunpoint while the two men take both the artifact and the money.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Larson and Pierre to just bail while they got the chance or at least shoot her dead so she can't go after them.\\
'''Instead:''' Lara puts out her hand in a ladylike fashion. Larson takes the bait and attempts to kiss Lara's hand, only for her to punch him in the face. The two men start backing up as Lara approaches them. Pierre, who has his gun out this whole time, ''does not shoot Lara'', which allows her to kick Larson in the head to make him drop the artifact. Lara snags it and slides down to the stage and it's only at this point that Pierre tries to shoot Lara.
* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'':
** Touhou 8: Imperishable Night has either Reimu or Marisa try to stop the titular imperishable night caused by the two characters you chose to play, in order to find the person who replaced the moon with a false one.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The main characters to explain what’s wrong with the moon, and why they needed to slow down time, potentially gaining another ally.\\
'''Instead:''' They only say that there’s something wrong with the moon without explaining what, and why it’s important to slow down time, difficult boss fight ensues.
* In ''VideoGame/TransformersFallOfCybertron'', Starscream devises a plan to attack a transport from the air to try stealing its cargo of Energon. Along the way, one of the Combaticons eyes their defenses, and sees that the transport is armed with anti-air batteries.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Starscream to rethink the strategy, and try to come up with a different plan.\\
'''Instead''': He decides to attack anyway, resulting in massive losses.\\
'''Later:''' He calls for a retreat, the Combaticons stay back, and manage to salvage the mission, but destroy half the energon in the process.\\
'''You'd Expect''': For him to congratulate them on salvaging the mess, and even though half the energon is destroyed, it's better than the Autobots having it all.\\
'''Instead''': He gulags them for insubordination.
** And when he tries to "recruit" Grimlock to his army, he keeps going on and on about how he holds all the cards, and that he'd be wise to accept his offer.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Him to consider that maybe, just maybe, Grimlock may actually be smarter than he looks, and stop treating him like a brainless attack dog.\\
'''Instead''': Right as he gets in Grimlock's face, Grimlock grabs him, and flings him into the controls holding him down, resulting in his freedom.
* ''VideoGame/TraumaCenter: Under The Knife/Second Opinion'',
** Episode 1-6. Angie worries that Derek's latest patient isn't out of the clear yet, and tells him that they should examine him again and talk to his usual doctor. Unfortunately, Derek's due to help out with a symposium later on, so he's planning on meeting up with some other doctors later that day.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Derek would do what Angie says he should do, and call the doctors to either try getting the meeting postponed, or apologize and explain that he won't be able to attend. You'd think that they'd understand his reasons, being doctors themselves.\\
'''Instead''': He insists that he can't just blow the doctors off after they've travelled so far to meet him, and leaves without doing anything more for the patient. As a result of his choice, the patient in question nearly ends up dying, and Angie [[WhatTheHellHero verbally tears Derek a new one]] in the next episode.
** Episode Z-3. Naomi and a DELPHI agent are operating on a reporter who crashed his car while pursuing them. It's night-time, and the crash has destroyed the light system of the tunnel it took place in, so there's zero visibility for the two. They can't move the reporter from the wreckage, and the agent notes that the headlights of his car won't be of any use illuminating the accident scene in its current position.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' It to occur to either Naomi or the agent that they could simply reverse the car into a position where they could shine the headlights on the patient. Hey presto, lighting problem solved.\\
'''Instead:''' They resort to using a penlight, followed by camera flashes, in order to see their patient, which makes the operation that bit more complicated for them and the player.
* While ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'' is well-written for its time in many respects, developing six separate stories for each of its protagonists and all the party permutations allows problems to more easily slip through the cracks, and the Laurent arc is where this shows the most. To wit:
## The citadel of Laurent is located high in the mountains, defended by an army of powerful [[BodyguardBabes amazon guards]], and protected by an impenetrable barrier of magical wind. The wind barrier is controlled by a mechanism located in the citadel's basement, and a special keystone is needed to operate the mechanism.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That the keystone would be stored in a secure, well-guarded vault, and only withdrawn from the vault when the mechanism needs to be operated. Additionally, the mechnism itself would be constantly guarded just to be safe.\\
'''Instead''': The keystone is entrusted to the young, naive prince of Laurent, and the mechanism is left completely unguarded to boot.\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': That someone would have made it explicitly clear to the prince how important the wind barrier is to the citadel's safety, and also tell him the importance of never talking to strangers, and also to immediately call the guards if he ever sees anything or anyone suspicious inside the citadel.\\
'''Instead''': Apparently no one did any of that, as the prince responds with only mild curiosity at finding a swirling vortex of darkness that starts talking to him, and when a pair of ninjas emerge from the vortex, woo him with a few "magic tricks", and then politely ask to be taken to the barrier mechanism, [[TooDumbToLive he obliges without any hesitation]]. What's more, the prince had to have been seen heading to the barrier mechanism chamber together with two strange men with unusual clothing, given he met them on the second floor balcony and would have had to lead them through the whole castle to get there, [[UnusuallyUninterestingSight yet no one seemed to think anything of it]].\\
'''As a result''': The wind barrier is deactivated[[labelnote:*]]In the original game, Elliot goes ahead to do it; in the remake, he only does so after Bil and Ben chuck explosives at him.[[/labelnote]], leaving the citadel wide open to a waiting band of invaders. Given the citadel's reputation for being "impenetrable", it turned out complacency was the Amazons' worst enemy.
## Very nearby the citadel of Laurent is a meadow filled with somnosa flowers, whose spores are capable of putting people to sleep almost instantly. However, you will become immune to the spores' effects after being exposed to them and falling asleep just once, though the duration of the immunity is never specified (just because you're exposed and immunized once doesn't mean you're immune forever).\\
'''You'd Expect''': That new amazon guard recruits in Laurent would be exposed to the spores in a controlled environment so as to immunize all of the citadel's defenders to a potential local threat. If the immunity is limited, they'd keep a running list of who had their exposure and when, and send those whose protection expired back for another dose. Or alternatively, that they would just send some people to torch the meadow. The flowers might look pretty, but they're too potentially dangerous.\\
'''Instead''': They do neither of these things.\\
'''As a result''': Once the wind barrier is deactivated, the invaders are able to spread some sleep spores that they gathered over the citadel, putting most of the amazon guards to sleep and allowing the few amazons in places that the spores didn't reach to be easily overwhelmed. The king is slain, the majority of the amazons are killed as well, the prince is kidnapped, and the citadel is captured.\\
'''Even Worse''': According to the remake, the now-late king's coronation ceremony had once taken place in the somnosa meadow, so you can't even handwave it as them somehow not knowing about it despite its close proximity to the citadel, as everyone in attendance of the ceremony (and it's a royal coronation, so there would certainly be a LOT of people there) would have had to be exposed to and subsequently be immunized to the sleep spores before the ceremony could begin. Given how somnosas are recognizable the world over, their use by Nevarl to invade had to have been seen coming. The only logical explanation would be that the aforementioned immunity timed out some time before the invasion.\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': That the invaders, once they get nice and comfortable inside their newly-conquered citadel, to do what the amazons failed to do and get all of their troops immunized to the sleep spores. You'd also expect them to reactivate the wind barrier. You'd also expect them to hunt down and finish off the stragglers, maybe use one as a sacrifice to activate the Windstone (while any casualty near a Mana Stone could do to activate it, as demonstrated later, purging the remnants would be the bigger benefit).\\
'''Instead''': They do none of these things. Even worse, Belladonna ordered her personnel to fall back after the first invasion.\\
'''As a result''': With the help of the heroes (one of whom may be the Amazons' commanding officer), the few surviving amazons who managed to escape are able to easily retake the citadel simply by using the invaders' own tactic against them.\\
'''Even worse''': Once Zehnoa, Bil, and Ben are bested, Belladonna just gives up the fortress without any further fuss and never makes any attempt to reconquer it and never makes any other attempt to expand her territory, which begs the question of why she wanted to seize the Citadel in the first place. It clearly can't be because of the Windstone, because it was perfectly fine when the heroes saw it just prior to retaking the Citadel.
## As Nevarl's initial invasion of Laurent had begun, Riesz, princess of Laurent and leader of the Amazon guards, is facing off against Bil and Ben, who had tricked/forced Elliot to deactivate the wind barrier. One of the pair warns her that she really doesn't have time to be messing with them when her countrywomen are fighting and dying, and her father is in danger.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That Riesz, realizing this, would grab Elliot by the hand or the wrist, or else just heave him over her shoulder, and book it to get to where she needs to be while keeping her brother safe. Even if Bil and Ben had to pry them apart, Elliot wouldn't have been an easy grab.\\
'''Instead''': She runs off and doesn't look back to ensure he's still following her (tripwires, right?). Yes, the current situation is dire and urgent, but she surely could have taken a moment to ensure the safety of her kingdom's prince, who is also her brother. But she doesn't, and as a result, Elliot is kidnapped by the two enemies who were standing mere feet away from him without so much as a token effort to stop them. [[DevelopersForesight A player who has concern over this could send Riesz back to the altar,]] [[ItsAllMyFault whereupon she comprehends just what her mistake had cost her.]]\\
'''On the other hand, you'd expect''': Bil and Ben to just leave with Elliot once they had what they wanted, if they couldn't just deactivate the altar themselves. Riesz would have to investigate the scene for what went wrong instead of having something of an idea as to what she should be doing.\\
'''Instead''': They dick around and taunt her about what's happening. They're lucky she had obligations to her people, because the alternative would have been [[EyeScream spear-induced optical surgery]].
## Belladonna has seized Laurent and captured Prince Elliot thanks to the Nevarlans under her control (and the complacency/incompetence of the Amazons).\\
'''You'd Expect''': For her to keep Elliot close by, to use as a hostage to keep any Amazons who escaped or any other would-be heroes from trying anything funny, [[spoiler:and also because her master, [[BigBad Dark Majesty]], [[GrandTheftMe wants a new body, and she plans to give him Elliot to use as his new vessel]]]].\\
'''Instead''': She sells him into slavery, or lets the sale happen. [[spoiler:She apparently changes her mind and sends "a man with red eyes", presumably her partner Malocchio, to buy him back from the slave trader, but it begs the question of why she did it in the first place.]] A running fan explanation is that Bil and Ben may have done the sale themselves, with the possible explanation that their brainwashing may have lapsed enough to let them make that decision, considering how they are unerringly loyal to her when it is in full effect.
## The party meets a surviving Amazon in Palo Port who tells them to go to the somnosa meadow. (If Riesz isn't in the party, the party overhears a conversation between her and the aforementioned Amazon, and all they hear is "meadow", and they go there presumably because their curiosity gets the better of them.)\\
'''You'd Expect''': Since everyone in the party knows what somnosa flowers are (as mentioned up above), they would take care not to succumb to the sleep spores when they head there.\\
'''Instead''': They waltz right into the middle of the meadow, and promptly pass out from the spores, only recognizing what the flowers in the meadow are as it's happening to them. The only viable explanation with Riesz around is that she kept up the illusion of ignorance in the event the eavesdroppers are more cognizant than they turned out to be.
## During the assault to liberate Laurent, the heroes reach Belladonna. Normally, [[VillainTeleportation she quickly teleports away before they have a chance to do anything to her]], but if Hawkeye is in the party, he moves quickly and puts a dagger up to her throat. He is about to strike her down to avenge Eagle before Belladonna reminds him that if she dies, Jessica dies too.\\
'''You'd Expect''': That with this in mind, the party would attempt to take her prisoner, defeating her in battle but not killing her if need be. No one in the party should have had any reason to expect that they wouldn't have had to fight her before they could reclaim the citadel.\\
'''Instead''': Hawkeye puts away his dagger and drops to his hands and knees in defeat, as Belladonna gloats for a bit before teleporting away. Whether he's around or not, no one in the party makes any attempt to capture her, no matter how futile it may have been.
* ''[[{{VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh}} Tron 2.0]]'':
** F-Con, a rival company, is trying to take over Encom to obtain the digitizer tech. Their CEO says in an email how he has been looking forward to this for twenty-plus years\\
'''You'd Expect''': F-Con to wait for the merger to quietly go through, the new bosses to force Alan Bradley into early retirement (with a generous severance package), and quietly appropriate the AI [=Ma3a=] and the Shiva Mark II laser as company property, launching the Datawraith project beneath everyone's notice.\\
'''Or''' If that was not an option, they would use their mole, Thorne, to copy and steal the files and smuggle them back to F-Con headquarters where they could again, quietly work on it.\\
'''Or''': If Alan ''really'' made a stink about the merger and handing over his life's work, arrange for him to "[[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident disappear]]" from his home or even the Encom parking garage, maybe with some appropriate steps to make it look like he was a despondent, aging man who had [[DrivenToSuicide lost his beloved wife, his close friend, was estranged from his son, and had a career go down in flames]]. \\
''Or'': If they really needed the man himself alive, arrange the kidnapping and staged suicide, but make sure to keep a ''pioneer of AI technology and computer security'' (as in ''the guy who programmed Tron and [=Ma3a=]'') away from any computer equipment, electronics, or even a telephone jack and electrical outlet. \\
'''Instead''': They arrange for a couple of goons to march into Encom in the middle of the workday, brazenly kidnap Mr. Bradley while he is on the phone with his son, threaten his life repeatedly, and [[LockingMacGyverInTheStoreCupboard lock said computing pioneer in a room full of cast off computer parts with a working power outlet and telephone line]].
** Speaking of Thorne, he was F-con's [[TheMole mole]] inside Encom for several months, observing the laser tests and sending the results back to F-Con. He heard Alan repeatedly talk about how the laser wasn't ready to digitize humans and he had ''almost'', but not quite, worked the bugs out just yet on the safety features.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Thorne and F-Con to run some tests of their own to discern if that was truly the case or if Alan was stalling for time. You'd also expect F-Con to test this with something other than a human being right off the bat. \\
'''Instead''': Assuming Alan was just stalling, F-Con bypasses all safeties and shoots Thorne in there. Alan was ''not'' joking about those safeties. Thorne becomes a living computer virus ''they'' can't even control.
** Jet obtains the [[NamesTheSame Tron Legacy]] code ([[{{Film/TronLegacy}} no relation]]) in the belief it will protect [=Ma3a=] from tampering, but he also finds several emails on the old Encom mainframe indicating that the code wasn't completed and has serious bugs. \\
'''You'd Expect''': Him to point these out to [=Ma3a=] and have second thoughts about installing something to her code that may not be compatible. \\
'''Or''': Wait until he could contact "Guest" and ask about the code.\\
'''Instead''': He and [=Ma3a=] find a compiler living on the Internet, ''he volunteers'' to try compiling it to himself (dude, you're a User, that alone should make it a dodgy idea). [=Ma3a=] steps in and says it's meant to protect her from tampering. As she is being compiled, Jet gets a warning from his dad ''not'' to compile it. As soon as the process completes, [=Ma3a=] goes AxCrazy from the buggy code, kills Byte, wounds Thorne, and tries to kill Jet, who can only get on a lightcycle and flee in terror.
* In ''VideoGame/TwistedMetal (2012)'', Dollface is one of three main characters who successfully win the competition. Dollface (Krista Sparks, a model who had a doll mask spiritually locked on her face by a backroom doctor) has spent the entire competition fighting to get her prize: remove the mask once and for all.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' She'd wish for the mask to be removed.\\
'''Instead:''' Krista has second thoughts, and realizes that she would always look beautiful if she kept the mask on. She asks Calypso to put her on "the biggest runway in the world" - he drops her on the tarmac at an airport, where Krista realizes a plane is landing behind her. Instead of running off to the side of the runway, she starts running in the opposite direction as the plane, breaks her heel, then lays down monologuing on the runway (with a good ten- to twenty-second buffer between the time she falls and when the plane lands) instead of rolling out of the way. She ends up dying just like the other two competitors.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games U-Z]]
* In ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII'', Squad G is in the middle of liberating [[TheMedic Cosette's]] hometown from rebels. Once the fighting dies down, the squad begins to work on getting medical treatment to the civilians wounded in the rebel's attempted ethnic cleansing. However, seeing her hometown in ruins coupled with people dying brings up some bad memories for Cosette, causing her to [[HeroicBSOD freeze up]].\\
'''You'd Expect''': Avan would get her to a safe place where they can get her to calm down, and have another medic tend to the wounded.\\
'''Instead''': Avan decides to snap Cosette out of it by ''shooting himself,'' reasoning that it will motivate her to get past the trauma and save his life. This not only runs the risk of making Cosette's breakdown worse and killing Avan, but cuts off Squad G's chain of command and forces Cosette to spend time on a person who would have been perfectly fine if he had behaved logically. Granted, Avan ''is'' an idiot, but there's only so much we can excuse that.

* In the first season of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'', one of Ben's classmates is attacked by a zombie. The kid tries to get away, only to trip and fall.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The kid should have gotten up or at least crawled to get away from the zombies.\\
'''Instead''': The kid starts ''pleading to the zombie'' to not kill him and doesn't even try to get away. Obviously, he gets killed.
** Episode 3 has the St. John family that offers Lee's party shelter and food. Sometime later, Mark gets hit in the shoulder from a bandit's arrow and the St. Johns usher Mark inside so they can treat his wounds. [[spoiler:The family are actually cannibals and they chop off Mark's legs to be served as meat for everyone.]]\\
'''You'd Expect''': [[spoiler:The St. Johns to kill Mark so his moaning isn't heard if someone goes upstairs]].\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:Lee goes upstairs to use the bathroom and hears Mark through the wall. Lee goes to the bedroom and finds light shining through the bottom of a bookshelf, which his hiding a door. Lee then discovers Mark in the hidden room and rushes downstairs to warn everyone. It's later explained that the St. Johns believe that keeping a person alive keeps their meat fresh whereas killing them will spoil the meat quicker]].
** Also in episode 3, Lee's group is captured by [[spoiler:the St. Johns]] and Lee is locked in a room with Clementine, Kenny, Lilly, and her father Larry. Larry starts banging on the door and is angrily screaming to be let out. Lilly warns her father to calm down because of his heart condition.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Larry to calm down.\\
'''Instead''': Larry keels over from a heart attack.\\
'''Moments Later''': Kenny starts panicking over the possibility of Larry turning into a walker while Lilly insists that her father can be revived via CPR. You have the option of helping Lilly.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Kenny to simply be on standby in case something goes wrong.\\
'''Instead''': Kenny immediately smashes Larry's head in with a big salt lick block right when Larry was starting to regain consciousness. Predictably, Lilly freaks out and Lee asks Kenny [[WhatTheHellHero what the fuck is wrong with him.]] Kenny can only weakly defend himself by insisting that he had to take the initiative unless they wanted to be trapped in a small room with a 6 foot tall 300 pound walker. Naturally, Lilly doesn't buy it and believes Kenny only wanted to kill her father [[AssholeVictim simply because he was an asshole.]] Larry's death causes Lilly to distrust Kenny (and Lee if you chose to assist Kenny instead) and become more paranoid as a result. \\
'''However''': Larry regaining consciousness ''[[AmbiguousSituation could]]'' have been the early stages of zombification.
** In episode 4, Ben talks to Lee about [[spoiler:how his actions of giving the bandits at the motel some supplies indirectly caused the death of Kenny's wife and son, Katjaa and Duck]], and decides to tell Kenny about it. Lee wisely advises Ben to not tell Kenny what happened because he knows Kenny's reaction would put the group in danger.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Ben would listen to Lee's advice and keep his mouth shut for the sake of keeping the group unified.\\
'''Instead''': Ben insists that he tells Kenny his secret just to clear his sins. Later on, Ben tells Kenny what he did, causing Kenny to fly into a fit of rage while the group is under attack by a group of zombies. Kenny then has a massive distrust of Ben for the rest of the episode.
** In Season Two, Jane is worried about Kenny's degrading sanity and how much of a threat he may or may not be.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' She would watch her back, keep a careful eye on him, and make an effort not to antagonize him.\\
'''Instead:''' She intentionally antagonizes him and pushes all of his {{Berserk Button}}s about his dead family and dead girlfriend, and then pretends to have lost his adopted child to the zombies (which she ''also'' antagonizes him about) in order to "prove to Clementine he was a threat". [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge This has predictable results]] and ends with one of them dead, with Jane actually claiming [[TooDumbToLive she didn't realize he would react like that]] if you choose to save her.
* In ''WesternAnimation/WallaceAndGromit in Project Zoo'', the titular characters are chasing Feathers [=McGraw=] through the lava of the volcano. They landed on one section of his hideout. As soon as they land, he activated a trap door for them to fall, but luckily, it didn't.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Wallace and Gromit should get out of the trap door.\\
'''Instead''': They just fool around the trap door. During that time, Feathers keeps on pressing the button to activate it, and it did.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' has Medivh trying to redeem his earlier evils by preventing a demonic invasion. He knows what's going to happen and warns every leader he can reach.\\
'''You'd Expect''' Medivh to be specific and detailed to the leaders about the incoming invasion, and to try convincing the orcs to make peace with the Alliance. He'd tell Arthas exactly how the Scourge works to prevent Lordareon falling, and would try his hardest to fight the Legion if no one believed him.\\
'''Instead''' Medivh makes non specific, vaguely threatening prophecies, and demand leaders follow instructions with logical fallacies apparent when one knows everything. Medivh becomes angry and petty when he's not immediately obeyed, and encourages the orcs to run away from their punishment, prompting the Alliance to pursue them in the expansion. Medivh also never helps the orcs prepare for Kalimdor, directly leading to an important demigod being killed.
* ''VideoGame/TheWitcher3'':
** A ground of bandits seeking someone to rob catch sight of an huge dude with two swords in his back and wearing full armor, who also happens to have very distinctive eyes.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' They'd realize he's a witcher, a warrior with supernatural abilites who fights monsters for a living, and let him be; or, even if they don't realize he's a witcher, wait for someone with no means to fight back.\\
'''Instead:''' They decide to attack the battle hardened witcher, which ends in the death of their entire group.\\
Even Geralt is flabergasted with the willingness the bandits throw their lives away, [[https://youtu.be/l2pKNaIuMs8 mentioning it word by word]] in ''Blood and Wine''.
** Depending on the choices the player makes throught the game, a pretty big moment can happen. [[spoiler:After a lot of planning and negotiating with Nilfgaard, the plot to kill Radovid succeeds; most of the north, including Redania, will become part of Nilfgaard, with Temeria remaining self governed. Dijkstra, however, doesn't agrees with these terms and intends to backstab his co-conspirators and continue the war with Nilfgaard with him leading it. Knowing Roche and Thaler won't agree, he plans on having them killed.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Dijkstra to realize a betrayal might get him in a fight with Geralt, whom he knows is one of the best fighters in the world. So he could either wait until they are not with Geralt, whose friends with both Thaler and Roche, (depending on the choices in the second game - a great friend) to attack them; or catch them all by surprise, not giving them time to react]].\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:Dijkstra decides it's a great idea to inform Geralt that he intends to kill his friends and tells him to uphold the Witcher's code of neutrality or die. Having forgone this code more than once before, Geralt decides to help his friends, which ends with the death of Dijkstra and all his men]].
* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'':
** [[HeadphonesEqualIsolation Neku]] meets a Reaper who offers him a chance to do one mission to get out of the Game immediately.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That being the misanthrope he is, Neku would have at least enough skepticism of a sinister person he knows nothing about to ''ask what the task is'' before agreeing to it.\\
'''Instead:''' His reaction is best paraphrased as "Sure, sign me up!" [[spoiler:He's instructed to [[NeverSayDie "erase"]] his partner, and is only stopped from ''doing so'' when someone turns up to explain that the Reaper has no authority to do what he thought she was offering and that he would have got out of the Game by being erased himself. Later we learn that the characters are ''dead'' and that the prize of the Game is an opportunity to return to life, so getting out of it isn't even desirable.]]
** Eri, Shiki's best friend, [[spoiler:noticed that she wasn't having any luck trying to design an outfit.]]\\
'''You'd Expect''': She'd help her with this problem.\\
'''Instead''': [[spoiler:She just said, "You're not meant to be a designer."]] She ''did'' realize that it was a bad response after how upset Shiki got, but Shiki died before Eri could explain.
* Sometimes it seems that Azeroth in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has no shortage of stupid people among it's denizens. Here are some of the worst offenders.
** In Tol Barad Peninsula, one daily quest involves escorting a prisoner out of Farson Hold.\\
'''You'd Expect''': The prisoner to follow you like many EscortMission [=NPCs=], since you found your way into the place. It's not hard to find your way out, since the dungeon is straight across the courtyard from the gate.\\
'''Instead''': The prisoner takes a few wrong turns, once even going up the stairs in one of the hold's towers, on the way out, while ignoring the door out that is within sight.
** In one of the Legion expansion's Warlock artifact questlines, you infiltrate the Shadow Council to steal the artifact in question (and a couple others to boot). When you arrive at the Tomb of Sargeras, Gul'dan recognizes you, and even notes that you've screwed him over repeatedly, even mentioning that you helped kill Archimonde (if you participated in that raid).\\
'''You'd Expect''': He'd have his army of demons kill you, or kill you himself, continue the ritual you intend to disrupt, and destroy/take over Azeroth.\\
'''Instead''': He assumes you've decided to join the 'winning side', entrusts you with the artifacts needed for the ritual, and goes to the other side of the portal so he can't do anything but threaten you after you ruin the ritual and steal the artifacts.
** Also from the Legion, Anduin has a force sent to Stormheim to secure the Aegis of Aggramar and see what the Horde forces there are up to.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Since Anduin is advocating peace with the Horde, he'd make sure the expedition is led by a level headed commander, preferably one who doesn't have personal reasons to hate the Horde.\\
'''Instead''': He sends Genn Greymane, who's not only one of the most anti-Horde leaders in the Alliance, but also has a very personal vendetta against Sylvanas. While he does give orders to only engage "if the situation requires it", Genn flat-out tells the player that he'll make sure it does. Sure enough, he attacks the Forsaken the moment they're spotted.
*** Genn Greymane successfully hunts down Sylvanas's fleet in Stormheim.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Genn to wait for reinforcements as he only has a single airship to assault an entire fleet.\\
'''Instead''': He attacks immediately.\\
'''The Result''': The airship is shot down and most of the expedition force dies in the fighting. For bonus points, Nathanos Blightcaller even calls the Alliance insane for attacking with such a vastly inferior force.
** In the prequel to ''Battle for Azeroth'', Anduin attempts to hold a peace conference with [[OmnicidalManiac Sylvanas Windrunner]], who is now [[TyrantTakesTheHelm Warchief]] of the Horde after Vol'Jin got [[DroppedABridgeOnHim unceremoniously shanked]] in ''Legion'' by some random mook. This is the very same woman whom Genn Greymane [[UnstoppableRage hates]], who tried enslaving the Val'Kyr in Stormheim until Genn stopped her, and who has explicitly stated that she wants to end ''[[KillEmAll all life]]'' on Azeroth so that all can join her in Undeath.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Anduin would realize that trying to negotiate peace with a woman that violently insane is an [[ImpossibleTask impossible thing]] to do and prepare for war against her, figuring that she'd eventually declare war on the Alliance. Also, every Alliance leader worth their salt tells Anduin his plan is itself insane, and Anduin would back down due to their protests.\\
'''Alternatively:''' If Anduin absolutely insists on holding a peace summit, he would at least not bring along anyone whom Sylvanas may perceive as a threat.\\
'''Instead''': Anduin assumes that Sylvanas can be redeemed and tries to hold the peace conference anyway, despite everything he knows about her. And he brings Calia Menethil to the summit along with him. Calia is the sister of Arthas, and whose very surname [[BerserkButton infuriates]] Sylvanas since Arthas is the reason she's so messed up to begin with, and the [[SpareToTheThrone potential contender]] for the Throne of Lordaeron (which Sylvanas now rules). Despite everyone saying [[DontTouchItYouIdiot that it's a seriously bad idea to bring her]], Anduin still does out of a misplaced sense of pride.\\
'''The Result''': Sylvanas butchers all of her emissaries and turns the meeting into a bloodbath because of [[NaiveNewcomer one stupid girl]] showing up and potentially threatening her control over the Forsaken.
** Following up from the disaster that is the peace summit, and the emergence of [[GreenRocks Azerite]] all over the world, the Speaker for Azeroth [[TakenForGranite (a diamond-infused Magni Bronzebeard)]] visits every capital, begging for assistance in healing the world, since it's dying after Sargeras struck it with his sword. Nearly everyone agrees, except Sylvanas - [[SingleIssueWonk again.]]\\
'''You'd Expect''': Sylvanas has seen the damage caused to Azeroth, and the destructive capacity of Azerite, and realize that this guy isn't joking, and to provide as much assistance as possible to prevent the world from dying, since y'know, that would be bad news for ''everyone'', not just her.\\
'''Instead''': She sends him away with vague promises, spies on the people within the Horde trying to help him with the objective of [[ThePurge purging them]] once she has enough dirt on them [[ItsAllAboutMe (since she sees them as a threat to her power)]], and actively [[ObstructiveBureaucrat undermines]] the effort to stabilize the world, while listening to [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Jastor]] [[SleazyPolitician Gallywix]] on how to use Azerite as a weapon.\\
'''The Result''': The Alliance loses its temper at the Horde trying to gain an edge over them militarily, and start developing Azerite weapons themselves, escalating an already delicate situation into a LensmanArmsRace.
** With Azerite Weapons in hand, Sylvanas declares war on the Night Elves of Kalimdor, beginning the War of the Thorns. It goes well, since they outnumber and outgun the Night Elves, and successfully push them all the way back to their home base of Teldrassil. Every Horde leader in the region then collectively grabs the IdiotBall firmly with monumentally stupid decisions being made.
*** After routing the Night Elves, she has Malfurion Stormrage cornered. [[SourSupporter Warlord Saurfang]] heavily wounds Malfurion and gives Sylvanas an opening to kill him and end the resistance immediately.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim She shoots him dead then and there.]]\\
'''Instead:''' She engages in EvilGloating, [[DoWithHimAsYouWill leaves him]] to Saurfang as a thank you gift, and walks away.
*** With that done, Saurfang now has a chance to kill him stone dead and end the fighting.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' He just takes his head off immediately. After all, those were his orders from Sylvanas to begin with.\\
'''Instead:''' He just stands there and does nothing, [[HonorBeforeReason because he feels guilty for hitting Malfurion from the back.]]\\
'''The Result:''' [[TheCavalry Tyrande]] shows up and nearly kills Saurfang, before escaping with Malfurion. To be fair, Saurfang let them escape after warning them that they were about to get wrecked by the Horde, but even then it was an incredibly dumb move.
*** Sylvanas is about to invade Teldrassil and capture Darnassus, so she can use it as leverage to persuade the Alliance not to attack Kalimdor or the Horde. She then encounters a wounded and dying Night Elf on the shore who taunts her by saying she pities her for trying to fight life itself, and that she's doomed to fail.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Sylvanas to ignore the Night Elf. She's dying anyway, and winning the War, so she has no reason to give a damn about what some dying soldier has to say, especially something that pedantic.\\
'''Instead:''' Sylvanas loses her temper, and [[EvilIsPetty to spite]] the dying Night Elf ''sets fire to the entire tree'', killing most of the Night Elven and Gilnean populace there in what can best be described as genocide. For no other reason than ForTheEvulz.\\
'''The Result:''' The genocide of the Night Elves [[UnstoppableRage enrages exactly everybody]] on both the Alliance and Horde. The Alliance declares war immediately, the very thing Sylvanas did '''not''' want, and the Horde is mutinous under her command - with almost certain chances to stage a palace coup once they get a chance, going so far as even including [[TheDragon Nathanos Blightcaller]], [[EveryoneHasStandards who was also taken aback by the decision]] which was definitely [[DidntSeeThatComing not according to plan]].\\
'''Even Worse:''' Saurfang outright [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere walks out]] of the Horde, and will almost certainly be instrumental in orchestrating her downfall. [[SarcasmMode Way to go, Sylvanas.]] [[EpicFail Way to go.]]\\
'''To be fair, though:''' Knowing what we know now about [[spoiler:her allegiance with the Jailor, and that all those who died at the burning Teldrassil were sent straight to the Maw, it is possible Sylvanas may have planned to burn the tree from the start, merely taunting and driving the fallen Night Elf to despair as a convenient excuse to execute her plan, masking her true intentions]].
** In Vol'dun, the player, one of the Sethrak, and a pair of Zandalari are trying to prevent the traitorous General Jakra'zhat from sacrificing enough trolls to unleash [[EldritchAbomination Mythrax the Unraveler]] and manage to defeat him.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' The Zandalari to take him away to be tried for treason as proving his treachery was their entire reason for being in the region.\\
'''Instead:''' They decide to summarily execute him.\\
'''The Result:''' Jakra'zhat sacrifices himself to complete the ritual and unleash Mythrax, which later leads to the unsealing of Uldir and unleashing the (sorta) Old God G'huun.
** At the start of the Night Warrior questline, Tyrande and several other Night Elf leaders (Shandris, Maiev, and Sira) demand to know why the Alliance hasn't liberated Darkshore from the Horde yet. The other Alliance leaders explain that not only are they in the middle of a war against the Horde, but they're about to launch a major offensive against Zandalar and simply don't have the soldiers to spare to retake Darkshore at the moment.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Tyrande, a military leader with over ten thousand years experience, to understand that the Alliance only has so many soldiers and that if their offensive on Zandalar succeeds, it will likely cripple the Horde and make retaking Darkshore far easier. Furthermore, personal feelings aside, Zandalar has more military value as a target than Darkshore.\\
'''Instead:''' Tyrande storms off in a huff, declaring that the Alliance has abandoned her people (despite Stormwind feeding and housing all the Night Elf refugees), and decides to retake the Darkshore herself by undergoing a ritual that has killed literally everyone who's ever performed it.
** Gallywix uses an experimental azerite powered mech in Drustvar against the Alliance. After using it's WaveMotionGun, the fuel tank says it's almost empty.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Gallywix to listen to the player and fuel the mech up with some more azerite.\\
'''Instead:''' He ignores it as unimportant, declaring he never refuels until the meter is well past empty, then goes into battle against Mekkatorque.\\
'''The Result:''' The mech runs out of power right when the battle starts and Gallywix is nearly killed.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'':
** In Chapter 5, the team infiltrates a heavily guarded Prone outpost to disable three of their gun turrets so the Ma-non ship can safely escape the canyon in Oblivia. They succeed, but go deeper into enemy territory in pursuit of gunfire, which leads to Prone Skells that the party then defeats.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Tatsu to have sense enough to wait 'til they had returned back to BLADE HQ to celebrate.\\
'''Instead:''' He rushes out into the open and starts dancing around, thinking that it's already over, which provided a still-functioning Skell a fat, juicy free target. He would have gotten himself killed had Rook not spotted him [[DivingSave in time to save him.]] Which ends up costing him/her [[spoiler:[[AnArmAndALeg their arm in the process]]]].
** During Chapter 6, the party is given a briefing on a Skell that has been left behind by the Ganglion. L'cirufe recognizes the land as tainted territory, and that the tainted literally eat any living thing that isn't them. The [=BLADEs=][[spoiler:, recognizing that mimeosomes aren't considered "alive", ]]volunteer to recover the Skell while L and Tatsu stay behind.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Tatsu to ''stay put'', since his presence would jeopardize the team, by drawing the enemy to their location.\\
'''Instead:''' He rides a helicopter out to give them food. Not just to where they are in the tainted den, but to ''its heart''. This triggers a forced encounter with tainted monsters, plus a boss fight. Lin was justifiably upset with him and [[LampshadeHanging calls him out on his stupidity.]]

* ''VideoGame/YandereSimulator'':
** In [=YandereDev=]'s "Driving Your Rivals To Murder" video, [[RichBitch Musume Ronshaku]], the AlphaBitch SpoiledBrat of Akademi High School, is being held hostage by Ayano and Kokona at an abandoned barn. Kokona, who [[CompensatedDating goes on dates with older men]] to help her dad pay off his massive loan to Musume's dad, is armed with a baseball bat.
*** '''You'd Expect''': For Musume to get a firm grasp on her situation and try to calm Kokona into not attacking her. Or at the very least, '''NOT''' try to insult someone who's in a very good position to beat her to death.
*** '''Instead''': Musume arrogantly [[SlutShaming hurls insults]] at an already-distraught and confused Kokona, sending her right over the edge.
*** '''The Result''': Kokona snaps and bludgeons Musume to death, silencing her for good.
* ''VideoGame/YggdraUnion'':
** Someone has stolen [[OurMermaidsAreDifferent Undine's]] [[McGuffin Transmigragem]], a sacred treasure which is used for a reproduction of its kind. A brief investigation indicates a shady human wizard from TheEmpire is responsible for the stolen item.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Undine's Queen Emelone to takes a serious look into the matter, and co-operates with the Royal Army who are more than willing to help them tracking down the lost artifact.\\
'''Instead''': The Undines, holding HonorBeforeReason, go apeshit on human neighborhood and burn down their villages just for the heck of it. As a result, the whole nation of Undine, including the queen herself and her right-hand woman, is slained by Yggdra's army.
** The Royal Army reaches the border of the Imperial's capital, Bronquia. After a battle against Baldus, Kylier warns Yggdra that marching into a city would turns her in a [[VillainProtagonist villain]] who invades innocent people's home country.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Yggdra to consider Kylier's warning, then either back down with her army or come up with a better plan to sneak into the enemy's stronghold without invoking needless bloodshed.\\
'''Instead''': Yggdra decides to push on, pissing off Kylier as she leaves the party permanently. As a consequence of dashing head first with an army into a town, the alarmed villagers Monica and Canaan take arms to fight the heroes, only to get killed off horribly. The whole scenario is simply one of the most tragic and idiotic PlayerPunch situations in gaming history.
* From ''Videogame/YsTheOathInFelghana'', AntiVillain Chester wants revenge against Count [=McGuire=] for [[DoomedHometown ordering Chester and his little sister Elena's hometown, Genos Island, destroyed]], which also killed all of the other inhabitants. To get close to [=McGuire=], Chester becomes a knight and pledges his loyalty to the count.\\
'''You'd Expect''' : Chester would have plenty of chances, after proving his loyalty, to [[WhyDontYaJustShootHim just stab the count]] when they're otherwise alone, or at least fight off the rest of the guards using his excellent sword skills, demonstrated by the fact that he's ThatOneBoss.\\
'''Instead''': Chester chooses to do exactly what the count says because [[RevengeBeforeReason he wants the count to be]] HoistByHisOwnPetard, using the statues that caused the destruction of Genos Island in the first place against him. This leads Chester to cross the line several times, including abandoning his little sister, stabbing one of his childhood friends and leaving him for dead because Chester's decided [[IveComeTooFar he can't turn back]], and then infecting the entirety of a castle with a HatePlague that turns all of the servants and knights (who had nothing to do with Genos Island) into mindless zombies. It's only after Elena ''finally'' snaps Chester out of it that he acknowledges he's gone too far, and ends up [[RedemptionEqualsDeath dying to save what's left of the town of Redmont]].
* ''[[VideoGame/DokiDokiPanic Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic]]'', being the original version of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'', has [[BigBad Wart]] commit the same BossArenaIdiocy that he does in the DolledUpInstallment. Wart has his fortress heavily armed, including such dangerous obstacles as Phantos, electric fields and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking conveyor belts]]. Even the Mask Gate that guards the entrance to Wart's throne room, normally a harmless obstacle, is not only sentient but hostile. At the end, Wart awaits the gang in his throne room for the final showdown. The magic Dream Machine is here, and it seems to either be sentient and decided to rebel against Wart, or malfunctioned; either way, it is spitting out vegetables everywhere, which just so happens to be [[WeaksauceWeakness Wart's one weakness]].\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Wart would have realized what a bad idea it is to keep the machine in his throne room, and either relocated himself, relocated the machine, or broke/destroyed the machine.\\
'''Instead:''' He doesn't do any of these. [[TooDumbToLive He fights the gang while the machine is operating in the area]], and would eventually be felled by having vegetables forcibly tossed down his digestive system.\\
'''Even Worse:''' Where in Wart's throne room is the machine? ''Right in front of him''.
[[/folder]]

** In the ''International Rescue Operative'' branch of ''Fleeing the Complex'', one choice at the helipad is for Henry to fall backwards off the edge.\\

'''The Result:''' Charles realizes Henry's plan too late. Henry falls to his death and a guard blows up Charles with a rocket launcher, resulting in a FAIL.

*** Near the ''[=Special BROvert Ops=]'' ending, amidst the Toppat Clan's panic over the Right Hand Man's capture, Sven Svennson is the only Toppat who can launch the rocket into orbit.\\

** In the ''Government-Supported Private Investigator'' route of ''Infiltrating the Airship'', Charles Calvin can choose to shoot down Wilhelm Krieghaus so Henry can steal his key card.\\

'''Instead:''' He shoots near the entire room's floor.\\

** In the ''International Rescure Operative'' branch of ''Fleeing the Complex'', one choice at the helipad is for Henry to fall backwards off the edge.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Henry to tell Charles to stay away from the helipad, so Henry can leap off the fire exit staircase and Charles can maneuver his helicopter to rescue Henry in midair (something Charles [[AcePilot proves to be capable of]] in the ''Triple Threat'' ending of ''Completing the Mission'').\\

'''The Result:''' Charles doesn't realize what's going on and just hovers in place. Henry falls to his death and a guard blows up Charles with a rocket launcher, resulting in a FAIL.

'''You'd Expect:''' Him to sit his ass into the cockpit's chair and activate the emergency launch protocol, akin to when Henry hijacks the rocket in the ''Stickmin Space Resort'' route.\\

*** [[spoiler:Near the ''Valiant Hero'' ending, Henry is pulled out of his and Charles' escape pod by a desperate Jacked Hughman. Charles Calvin leaves the espace pod momentarily to shove Jacked away and rescue Henry.]]\\

** In the ''Free Man'' route, the Right Hand Man desires revenge against Henry Stickmin for arresting his former boss.\\

** Near the ''Special BROvert Ops'' ending, amidst the Toppat Clan's panic over the Right Hand Man's capture, Sven Svennson is the only Toppat who can launch the rocket into orbit.\\

** [[spoiler:Near the ''Valiant Hero'' ending, Henry is pulled out of his and Charles' escape pod by a desperate Jacked Hughman. Charles Calvin leaves the espace pod momentarily to shove Hughman away and rescue Henry.]]\\
'''You'd Expect:''' [[spoiler:Him to leap into the escape pod with Henry in his arms.]]\\
'''Instead:''' [[spoiler:He throws Henry inside, allowing Hughman to tackle him.]]\\
'''The Result:''' [[spoiler:The escape pod seals and launches itself with only Henry inside it, and Charles tragically dies when the Toppat orbital station's core explodes.]]\\

* In the ''Free Man'' route on ''VideoGame/HenryStickminSeries'', the Right Hand Man desires revenge against Henry Stickmin for arresting his former boss.\\

'''Instead:''' He just imprisons him within their spaceship before leaving him be without any surveillance whatsoever. Unsurprisingly it not only lead to Henry successfully escaping but also destroys the ship's main engine, resulting in him along with the remaining Toppat members stuck in space with no way of going back to earth.

* ''WhatAnIdiot/TownOfSalem''

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9'', [[TheHighQueen Sindel]] is supercharged thanks to the sacrificed Shang Tsung's souls, and faces the Forces of Light herself.\\

'''Or, At the Very Least:''' Lianna would be skeptical of the offer and ask for advice from other clerics within the Cathedral, before deciding if this mysterious man with a TooGoodToBeTrue offer is a case of BadPowersGoodPeople or the much-more-likely BadPowersBadPeople.\\

** In Yuri's route, [[spoiler:MC visits Yuri in a graveyard, where she has flower petals near her shoe and talk about her parents as if she isn't around anymore]].\\