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1[[quoteright:257:[[UsefulNotes/TarotCards https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/RWS_Tarot_00_Fool.jpg]]]]
2[[caption-width-right:257:"Uh, buddy? Watch that last step."]]
3
4->''"Sometimes it depresses me how well dumb luck works for you."''
5-->-- '''Colonel Jevee Ceeta''' to Kaff Tagon, ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''
6
7Not the kind of fool that Creator/MrT [[YouFool pities.]] [[note]] Well, not often, anyway.[[/note]]
8
9The Fool has [[TheDitz no idea what they're doing]], has a dim idea at best who their enemies are or [[FearlessFool whether they are in danger]], and has only their cheerful disposition to protect them. That and [[BornLucky the blessing of Lady Luck herself]].
10
11The Fool's strength comes from supernatural fortune bordering on Karma. Since The Fool is [[DumbIsGood such a good person]], [[KarmicProtection nothing bad happens to them.]] The BigBad may send hundreds of assassins, but each time The Fool will [[CoincidentalDodge bend over at just the right time]], or [[SpannerInTheWorks accidentally activate]] some [[RubeGoldbergDevice Rube Goldberg-esque]] [[DisasterDominoes chain of events]] that [[DidntSeeThatComing leads to the villain's downfall]]. Occasionally, their good luck will be siphoned from someone else around them so that they suffer bad luck. The Fool might even turn out to be TheChosenOne, but they'd be [[TheChosenZero the last one to suspect it]].
12
13The Fool was often the AudienceSurrogate of medieval plays, representing the {{Everyman}} or KarmicTrickster, but typically [[BookDumb more clever than smart]]. In the annual Feast of Fools, he was [[PrincessForADay King for a Day]].
14
15See also TheDitz, TheKlutz, TooDumbToFool, UnluckilyLucky, ObfuscatingStupidity, {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, IdiotHero, InvincibleIncompetent, and CuteClumsyGirl. For the court fool, see CourtJester. See IdiotHoudini for the more aggressive variant of this. When mistaken for someone important, he's the SeeminglyProfoundFool.
16
17For the Creator/ChristopherMoore novel about the character from ''Theatre/KingLear'', see ''Literature/{{Fool}}''.
18----
19!!Example subpages
20
21[[index]]
22* TheFool/{{Anime}}
23* TheFool/ComicBooks
24* TheFool/FairyTales
25* TheFool/{{Film}}
26* TheFool/{{Literature}}
27* TheFool/LiveActionTV
28* TheFool/TabletopGames
29* TheFool/VideoGames
30* TheFool/{{Webcomics}}
31* TheFool/WesternAnimation
32[[/index]]
33
34----
35
36[[foldercontrol]]
37
38[[folder: Comedy]]
39* George Carlin referred to his job as a comedian as "foole," spelling it with a final "e" on job applications just to play with potential employers.
40[[/folder]]
41
42[[folder:FanWorks]]
43* ''Webcomic/HetaliaAxisPowers'' fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11886910/1/Gankona-Unnachgiebig-Unità Gankona, Unnachgiebig, Unità]]'': Italy sure seems like one. After all, he seems to be oblivious to ''a lot'' of things including Germany's and Japan's ''obvious'' feelings for him. Key word: ''[[ObfuscatingStupidity seemed]]''.
44* Bane Johns, the fifth Interrogator ''Fanfic/AllGuardsmenParty'': despite what seems like a surfeit of confidence and a lack of strategic planning or common sense, every event in his mission seems to go his way without fail. [[spoiler:Turns out he's a psyker with RealityWarper tendencies who can arrange probability to go in his favor - by siphoning his teammates' luck away.]]
45[[/folder]]
46
47[[folder:Music]]
48* [[Music/TheBeatles The Fool on the Hill]], of course.
49* A song by Brazilian group Titãs has the line: "O acaso vai me proteger enquanto eu andar distraído." - Meaning "Luck will protect me as long as I walk on absent-mindedly".
50* One of jazz composer Stan Kenton's most well known pieces is entitled "La Suerte de los Tontos" - which translates as "the luck of the fool."
51* "The Company of Fools" by Great Big Sea (co-written by Creator/RussellCrowe) is about how The Fool can often be the most honest and honorable person around.
52[[/folder]]
53
54[[folder:Theatre]]
55* Every other [[Creator/WilliamShakespeare Shakespeare]] play has the Fool, usually as a {{Foil}} of some sort. In more serious dramas, he replaces the Fool with ThoseTwoGuys.
56** In ''The Winter's Tale'', the Shepherd's Son (for whom no name is given, but in some printings is called Clown) and to a lesser extent, the Shepherd.
57** Launcelot Gobbo in ''Theatre/TheMerchantOfVenice''.
58* A stock character of the CommediaDellArte genre.
59[[/folder]]
60
61[[folder:Web Animation]]
62* The eponymous character from ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner'', especially in the earlier cartoons, when Homestar would always beat Strong Bad, no matter how much Strong Bad cheated; Homestar was eventually [[{{Flanderization}} flanderized]] into a character [[TheDitz too stupid to know when he'd lost]], which also frustrated Strong Bad's efforts.
63-->'''Strong Bad:''' It's like, even when we win, he wins.
64* Pretty much every character in ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' is TheFool. Caboose starts out as one as well, but he quickly descends to pure idiocy.
65[[/folder]]
66
67[[folder:Web Original]]
68* The anthropomorphic [[{{Moe}} cute-girl]] version of Windows [=ME=], Me-tan.
69* Twig in ''WebVideo/FalloutNukaBreak'' is a protagonist example. He's stupid, overweight and has abysmal combat skills. According to WordOfGod, if he didn't have a Luck stat of 10 in his S.P.E.C.I.A.L, he pretty much would've died years ago.
70* The eponymous character from ''WebVideo/FreemansMind'' is anything but kind or inherently good-natured, but the vast majority of his progress through the series is through sheer dumb luck. Often times, he clears the way forward by doing seemingly random, unrelated things or just wandering around aimlessly until he finds somewhere he hasn't been already.
71-->'''Freeman:''' Awwright! I'm making a lot of progress for not knowing what the hell I'm doing!
72* ''WebVideo/{{Markiplier}}'' proves to be himself to be this when playing ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', when he somehow manages to stumble his way to victory between being [[BeginnersLuck so bad at the game they assume he couldn't possibly be a successful Imposter]] and [[RefugeInAudacity so audacious people refuse to believe he's creative enough to lie about such things]]. In one match he actually ''blatantly admits'' he killed a Crewmate but laughs it off, so his friends just assume he's being his usual self and write it off as a joke, and moments later is actually ''seen'' killing a Crewmate by Sean and pulls the dumbest, most predictable, and most obvious trick in the game: report the body himself and claim the witness did it. ''It works'' and he goes on to ''win the match''.
73--> '''Sean:''' You're letting the dumbest player get away with the smartest thing! And now he's gonna gloat about it for days! You're welcome!
74* Dan plays a game similar to Markiplier's when ''WebVideo/GameGrumps'' come together to play ''VideoGame/AmongUs''. Dan's excuse for not doing any tasks is that "he's been running around trying to figure out what to do", which is basically the "dog ate my homework" of Imposter excuses in that game, but people ''actually believe it'' because he truly is that lost and clueless about the game. One game culminates in two Crewmates and Dan, with each Crewmate urging ''him to vote for the other survivor'' -- an InstantWinCondition for Dan no matter who he votes for. Another game has him running around basically having free reign to kill Crewmates because the others keep following him around trying to protect him and teach him how to play -- he goes on to win this match too by, in his own words, "once again stumbling ass-backward into victory." It's not until his third match as an Imposter that he finally gets outed, and that's only because the other Imposter is Arin: it is ''so'' obvious when the titular Game Grumps are working together that they get almost immediately outed and lose with only a couple of kills.
75* Sparadrap from ''Franchise/{{Noob}}'' has a general StupidGood[=/=]KindHeartedSimpleton attitude that sometimes verges on TooDumbToLive, but often survives situations that should have taken him to the RespawnPoint by sheer luck and obliviousness to what is happening around him. The best show for this is his long-standing MistakenForBadass situation with Dark Avenger in the webseries and comic.
76[[/folder]]
77
78[[folder: Real Life]]
79* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Dexter Timothy Dexter]]. A man who lacked any formal education, he managed to make a fortune by making a series of horrible business decisions that, due to [[BornLucky sheer luck]], turned out to be extremely profitable. The man made the stupidest decisions possible ([[AdviceBackfire including a number suggested by hated enemies]]) and every one of them came out as a profit. Some examples:
80** Stocking up on Continental dollars during the Revolutionary War. None of the people who made the suggestion ever gave thought to the possibility that the colonies would ''[[TemptingFate win]]''...which they did.
81** He'd also bought lots of British pounds and French currency, which also became valuable once trading resumed after the American Revolution.
82** On marrying a wealthy widow, he decided to play the stock market. By picking stocks at random. They all went up.
83** Selling the strangest things to the Caribbean:
84*** Bed warming pans, which you don't need in the tropics. But the warming pans turned out to be great molasses ladles. (It was said, though, Dexter had a captain who watched out for him, and made the trade to the booming molasses industry.)
85*** Stray cats. But it turned out the Caribbean was having a rat problem.
86*** ''Mittens''. But traders there bound for ''Siberia'' took them off his hands.
87** He sent Bibles to the ''East Indies'', a not-exactly-Christian area. Except there were missionaries over there at the same time, eager to use the bibles to spread Christianity in the area.
88** Sending coal to Newcastle, the feat he's often known for. As in a place built on the coal-mining industry (thus the phrase "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coals_to_Newcastle Coals to Newcastle]]" meaning "giving them something they have too much of already"). What happened just before it got there? ''The coal miners went on strike in the dead of winter,'' so everyone bought his coal at a premium.
89** Stocking up warehouses full of whale bones. Then someone discovered that whalebone made an ideal reinforcing material for corsets. He sold clean out.
90** He wrote a book about himself, with capitals sprinkled about at random, and no [[NoPunctuationPeriod punctuation anywhere in the main text]] (starting with the second edition, it DID have a page of punctuation marks at the end, suggesting the readers "solt and peper it as they plese", as literal as PunctuationShaker can get). In a case of SoBadItsGood meets BileFascination, it sold well.
91*** Though from the sound of it, a number of people were probably hoping that they could figure out [[ObfuscatingStupidity how the hell he pulled those stunts off]].
92*** Or Dexter knew of his reputation as TheFool by then [[ObfuscatingStupidity and played off of it]]. It was said he later actually used his experience to better know which markets had high demand for a needed good, and bought that good in other places where it was a bargain, then resold said good to the first markets for profit. He'd made the first manufacturing center for clay pipes, and bought stock in vital toll bridges and great tracts of land. So even TheFool might be smart as well as lucky.
93*** Then again, the man ''also'' faked his own death so that he could attend his own funeral, during which he [[DomesticAbuse beat his wife]] because [[https://historicipswich.org/2015/01/08/lord-timothy-dexter/ she wasn't sad enough over it]], so he may have just been insane.
94*** In a final bit of serendipity, both editions are now valuable collectors' items.
95----
96[[/folder]]
97

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