Times where characters realized they "Could Have Avoided This!" in Video Games.
- Assassin's Creed:
- In Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Tarik Barleti, the captain of the Sultan's bodyguards, agrees to smuggle weapons on behalf of the Templars so he can learn the location of their hideout and ambush them. The Sultan's grandson Suleiman, unaware of his intentions, suspects him of betraying the Ottoman Empire and orders Ezio to assassinate him. Tarik laments his own hubris with his final words, and Suleiman, upon learning the truth, expresses regret that he was so secretive and chose a terrible way of doing a good thing.
- In Assassin's Creed : Forsaken, when Charles Lee tries to 'blame' the resurgence of the Colonial Assassins on Haytham Kenway's fathering of their lead member about twenty years before, Haytham answers back that it was actually Charles Lee's mistreatment of the 4-year-old Ratonhnhaké:tonnote that convinced the boy that Lee — and by extension his associates — were the enemy.
- In Assassin's Creed Syndicate, during the Last Maharajah DLC, Jacob and Evie go through a long night at a fancy party at the tower, having to protect Duleep Singh from being framed for theft of the Koh-I-Noor while trying to nab it themselves, and when they get back to their fellow Assassin Henry Green, he smashes the diamond with a hammer, revealing it's a fake. Then he tells them if they'd included him in their plan, he could've told them this.
- Assassin's Creed Origins: One sidequest has a group of bandits laying siege to a town because they want a bow belonging to a woman who lives there. After Bayek kills them, he tells her this, and she says if they'd asked she'd have just given them the damn bow. Bayek points out they'd probably have just killed her anyway.
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla: As the game goes on, Dag grows increasingly resentful of Eivor, believing they're trying to usurp Sigurd's place or just leave him to die. Eventually he gets pissed off enough to challenge Eivor to a fight to the death. As they start, Eivor angrily notes if he's just bothered to take the time to ask rather than leap straight to conclusions, they would've explained (though given Dag's temperament and the fact Eivor brushed him off several times over a period of months, this seems a little dubious).
- In Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, they realize late in the game that Alfred is actually working toward the same goal of destroying the castle as they are, because Zangetsu simply takes him aside and talks to him. Miriam laments how she could have avoided most of the game had she done the same and worked with him rather than against him, though Zangetsu does point out how she likely wouldn't have believed him, and he likely wouldn't have been willing to talk to her anyways as she was already firmly on Dominique's side at that point.
- Chicory: A Colorful Tale: If visited in the post-game, Queen Drosera admits to being so old that she's witnessed cycles of corruption caused by wielders not taking care of the pain in their hearts, but a combination of her own elderly forgetfulness and assuming such information was still spread at the surface led to her neglecting to mention this back when it would have been useful.
- In Dragon Age: Origins: The Warden can lampshade and berate Loghain for this when they meet near the endgame. A Blight is threatening Ferelden, the Grey Wardens are elite fighters specifically tasked with stopping Blights, and military genius Teyrn Loghain has been trying to stop the Blight too by seizing the throne and forcing the whole nation to unite under his banner. Seems like a no-brainer that they would unite for a common goal, yet Loghain spends most of the game doing everything in his power to try to discredit and kill off all Grey Wardens (after leaving the king and his army and most Grey Wardens to die in battle and then pinning the blame on the surviving Grey Wardens), dividing the nation into a needless (and gridlocked) civil war, and preventing the surviving Grey Wardens from doing their jobs of stopping the Blight. The Player Character can spend most of the endgame trying in vain to convince Loghain that they could have joined forces from the beginning and then addressed whatever issues they have with one another, and can even offer to join forces on the spot. Loghain, of course, rejects the Player Character's offer, forcing them to spend yet more time running around gathering proof that he's corrupt and support from other nobles to depose him, so they can finally direct their focus on the Blight rather than fighting each other. And all of this is due to Loghain's paranoia about the Grey Wardens being covert agents for Orlais, which he'd helped lead a rebellion against as a young man.
- While a weakened Ferelden post-Blight will surely be a good news for Orlais that they will see it as a precedence for them to reclaim their lost province, given the Empire's brewing issues in regards to Empress Celene's ascension, the Orlesian nobility's distaste to her foreign policies, and her cousin Grand Duke Gaspard vying for the throne cause a bloody civil war that spreads throughout the empire, Loghain's fears of Orlais taking advantage of a weakened Ferelden ends up a moot since Orlais is busy fighting in their own turf. As for the Orlesian Grey Wardens, like most Wardens, are very particular of the Grey Warden's neutrality as shown with Warden Stroud's non-involvement during the Qunari invasion of Kirkwall back at the second game. They don't even have an influence to their home country's Grand Game, so there is no way that the Order is being a covert agent working for the Empire as Loghain accuses them to be, and their help to rebuild the Ferelden Grey Wardens is undeniably out of genuine concern and he is stalling their efforts to help their Ferelden counterparts prepare for the Blight. This really earn Loghain their distrust despite him being a member of the Order as shown at the third game had he survived the events of the first game.
- In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, one of the main plots is a bloody Civil War between the Empire and the rebels lead by Ulfric Stormcloak, who kicked off the conflict by killing Skyrim's High King Torygg during a duel. According to court wizard Sybille Stentor, Torygg had a great deal of respect for Ulfric and probably would have declared independence if Ulfric had simply asked him to do it. However, Stentor is also of the opinion that there were other factors in playnote , so the whole "you should have just asked" portion would never have come into play in the first place.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising: Viridi outright states that the entire Chaos Kin fiasco could have been avoided if Arlon had simply told Pit and Palutena that the Lunar Sanctum that they destroyed was a Tailor-Made Prison for the creature.
- If you're playing a Lightside Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, then a great deal of the problems that crop up in your game (including at least one instance of an entire mining station being murdered) are a direct result of Goto's attempts to capture you to get you to do things he could've just asked you to do, as you can point out when you meet.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Princess Zelda had a prophetic dream warning her that Ganondorf wasn't truly loyal to the king and was plotting to steal the Triforce, and concocted a plan to stop him by having Link get to it first. Naturally, it would've been a very short game if it worked. Link proves too young to stand up to Ganondorf and their opening the Sacred Realm to get the Triforce hands it on a silver platter to Ganondorf who couldn't have accessed it otherwise. One Time Skip later, an Older and Wiser Zelda admits this would't have happened if not for naive planning and in the ending sends Link back in time in order for them to avoid this.
- The Mass Effect universe has a centuries-long war being fought between the quarians and the geth, because the quarians saw the geth becoming self-aware and tried to destroy them, but lost and got driven off their planet. After that, the goal of the entire quarian race has been retaking their homeworld. It turns out that the geth actually want peace with the quarians, and would happily give them their planet back if they just agreed to leave the geth alone. Instead, the widespread (though understandable) bigotry of the quarians in general, Poor Communication Kills on part of the geth, and the blind hatred of one individual quarian will get one of the species completely wiped out unless Shepard does literally everything right in their interactions with both sides. The paragon option to convince the quarians to make peace is to point this out.Shepard: The geth don't want to fight you. If you can believe that for just one minute, this war will be over!
- In Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, Makoto Kagutsuchi realizes that he could've simply told the truth about Kanai Ward's residents in order to avoid the many things he had to commit to keep Kanai Ward's truth a secret from the world. This included a Batman Gambit involving taking Yomi out of power (he's homunculus too just like the rest of Kanai Ward), and faking the deaths of the Master Detectives of the Nocturnal Detective Agency. As for before the main plot where Yuma solves cases in Kanai Ward with his fellow detectives, he would have also been able to avoid the deaths of the Master Detectives in Chapter 0 since Kanai Ward wouldn't have been isolated, as well as the murders that occurred under the impression that the residents still believed themselves to be human for the past three years when they were really immortals, the impersonation of the WDO's Number One, and the mass kidnapping of death row inmates to feed the homunculi residents of Kanai Ward.
- In Neverwinter Nights 2, you can speak these words to a warlock who just murdered his own granddaughter, one of your allies, in a fit of rage. The warlock in question is trying to achieve the same thing you are, reforging the Sword of Gith so that the King of Shadows can be defeated, but he's spent the past two chapters trying to kill anyone who might own a shard of the sword, including you. You can also say this to the githyanki high commander after the boss fight against her. Like the warlock, she too wants the sword reforged so it can be used against the King of Shadows, but is so incensed by a crime she believes you committed against her race that she believes killing you is the only acceptable outcome.
- In Neverwinter, one quest has the player find the Soul Jar of a Lich who just wants to find a quiet place to rest instead of trying to possess the player. After finding three unsatisfying potential resting places (the last of which would've been perfect except that someone wrecked it before you arrived), the Lich decides to let the player destroy him. Taking the Soul Jar to a cleric reveals that its too powerful for him to destroy, so he'll lock it in a massive vault filled with other dangerous relics that exists for just these kind of scenarios. The cleric is then surprised to hear faint laugher coming from the soul jar, as the Lich realizes the irony of the situation.
- Paper Mario:
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door: After Mario and his party win the Boss Battle with Cortez, he gets up again, pointing out that he's a ghost and you can't kill him. Then he finds out that all you wanted was the Star (he had thought you wanted his entire treasure) and says he never liked that gem anyway, and gives it to you.
- Paper Mario: Color Splash: The main plot of the game surrounds Bowser being covered in black paint because he jumped into Prisma Fountain and mixed the colors together. Near the end of the game, Huey figures this out and says that the plot could've been resolved if a sign instructing not to mix the paint was added near the fountain.
- In Persona 5: When the Phantom Thieves confront Black Mask, they learn that Black Mask is not only in cahoots with the Big Bad, but that they're actually a Dragon with an Agenda. Black Mask, that is to say Goro Akechi, plans to help Masayoshi Shido become Prime Minister of Japan, and then utterly destroy his political career by exposing his crimes, as well as admitting to being Shido's bastard son. This would ultimately force Shido to have to "beg his abandoned child for forgiveness". The Phantom Thieves point out that this plan has become basically pointless, as Black Mask knows that they could steal the Big Bad's heart and force him to become a better person. Black Mask refuses to acknowledge that solution, because it would mean their work — including multiple assaults, murders, and disruption of life all across Japan — would be for naught, and that they'd have to admit being second-best to Player Character Joker.
- During the Dénouement of Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, the Storyteller admits he really could have avoided his whole elaborate charade if the story he came up with to warn his young daughter off ringing the town bell wasn't that a witch would possess her if she did. A second example comes up when it turns out that Eve, not Espella, rang the Bell of Ruin, and the Storyteller knew all along. Eve claims that if the Storyteller had come out and said that Eve was responsible, then everything could have been avoided, but the Storyteller points out that he knew Eve had honestly believed Espella to be responsible for the fire, and he had no desire to call Eve a liar.
- In Resident Evil 6, Ada Wong has been lured into this massive convoluted scheme by her Evil Knockoff Carla Radames to get revenge on Derek Simmons, which has culminated in several viral outbreaks and presumably hundreds of thousands of people dead. Once Carla herself is dead, Ada muses over how she would have willingly helped Carla get revenge on Derek for such a heinous thing, had Carla simply contacted her and asked for help.
- In the Resident Evil 2 (Remake), the whole reason Claire gets trapped in Raccoon City during a Zombie Apocalypse is she went there to find her brother Chris. When she learns from Marvin that Chris left Raccoon City weeks ago to go on vacation in Europe, and that coming to the city was a complete waste of time, her morose response of "Vacation? That's... that's great news" is simultaneously heartbreaking and hilarious.
- The first season of Sam & Max: Freelance Police has a Running Gag where the duo visit Bosco's store and Sam asks him if he has a number of items. Bosco almost always answers "no". However, Sam does this again in the season finale, asking for a few items that would have helped solve various puzzles in the previous episodes. This time, Bosco has everything he asks for. When Max hears this, he yells "Why didn't we ask sooner?"
- Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Downplayed. Rottytops only disguised herself as Fillin the Blank because she assumed she wouldn't get invited to the island vacation by Shantae. Naturally, Shantae actually did want to invite Rottytops; the only reason she didn't was because she couldn't find her zombie friend. Because Rottytops had already enacted her plan. However, it's later acknowledged that the chain of events caused by this misunderstanding is the only reason the game's villain could be defeated, making any frustration and embarrassment over the situation moot.Rottytops: Hey, that makes me a hero!
- Spec Ops: The Line is built around this trope. At the end you're told the whole game could've been over if Walker and co. had just completed their recon mission and radioed command. Instead, Walker treated his mission like an America Saves the Day plot, and not only did he doom Dubai and his teammates, he also destroyed his sanity along the way. The game even chastises the player for continuing to play the game rather than stopping at a certain point. This trope is definitely Played for Drama.
- Early test versions of the game averted But Thou Must!, with players actually having the option to report in when they were supposed to. This was changed when, unsurprisingly, pretty much all of the playtesters did it without a second thought, prematurely ending the game.
- Grendor the Rhynoc, the Big Bad of Spyro: Season of Ice, captures all the fairies in an attempt to reverse the spell he accidentally put on himself. When Spyro defeats him and frees the last fairy, she flat out asks Grendor why he didn't just ask for help, then cures him with a wave of her wand.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: The Sith Inquisitor PC can tell their Arch-Enemy Darth Thanaton several times that the only reason they're fighting is because Thanaton is trying to kill them, and they're not going to just sit down and let him. They can even offer to accept him as their new Sith Master upon their first meeting. Thanaton is too stubborn to listen, insisting that Sith tradition demands their death.
- In Tales of the Abyss massive chunks of the game could have been skipped had Asch been more cooperative with The Team instead of taking turns leading them on with little explanation or antagonising Luke. This is lampshaded several times later on, as Luke is as baffled as the player by his stubborn uncooperativeness. Not to mention, outside of Asch, if the group hadn't kept Luke Locked Out of the Loop Akzeriuth might not have been destroyed something that Jade acknowledges as he in particular had information that would have most likely changed everything if it had been revealed before that happened.
- In Undertale, there are two examples during the True Pacifist route.
- When Toriel intervenes, saving you from Asgore, she lambastes him for his actions, saying that rather than wait for seven humans to fall down into the underground so that he could kill them and use their souls to destroy the barrier, he only needed to kill one human (a monster with a human's soul and vice versa can pass through) and then pass through the barrier to take the other six souls. Toriel concludes that Asgore was too cowardly to go out and kill humans or let his people down, and simply waited, hoping that no more humans would come.
- In the ending, if you ask to stay with Toriel, she'll tell you that if that's what you wanted, you should have said that near the beginning of the game, when your refusal to stay in the Ruins leads to the first major boss fight against her. Of course, she's also aware that your decision to leave the ruins ultimately resulted in the destruction of the barrier and freedom for all monsters.
- About 80% of the plot of Xenoblade Chronicles 1 turns on a misunderstanding between Egil and the peoples of Bionis writ-large. Egil didn't have a vendetta against them personally, it was their forgotten god Zanza that he had a minor dispute with. It turns out though that Zanza was as much of threat to the peoples of Bionis as he was to the Egil and his people, though it was inconceivable to Egil that they would either a) actually stand up to oppose Zanza or b) even have the strength to stand against them in the first place. When Shulk and his friends prove him wrong spectacularly on both fronts he not only admits he was wrong, but makes amends for his horrific crimes in the most literally epic way possible.
- In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, once Zeke finally explains himself, pretty much everyone in the party calls him out on the fact that just saying his piece instead of persisting with his theatrics would have saved everyone a lot of grief. This is an example of that being a good thing, though. Sure, taking Rex to Indol much earlier would have alleviated the pressure of the party's status as wanted men, but the lack of resources and Character Development would have completely doomed Rex when he met the Big Bad.
- The entire main plot of Yakuza, tragically enough. When travelling to the final showdown with Nishiki, Kiryu muses that if he had chosen to let Nishiki take responsibility for the murder of Sohei Dojima, he could quite likely have protected both Yumi and Yuko while Nishiki was in prison and let Nishiki build a strong career on the fear and respect he would have as a patriarch killer, and that in spite of his good intentions, his actions throughout the game did a lot more harm than good.
- Yes, Your Grace: The plot is kickstarted when Beyran, the bandit to whom King Eryk promised his first-born daughter for marriage in a bid to get away with his life, prepares to invade Eryk's kingdom unless the promise is kept. Eryk, however, has no intention of keeping his promise and marries his daughter to the Prince of a foreign kingdom with a large army. It later turns out that Beyran is actually leading a large group of peaceful refugees outside his home country, knew Eryk respecting his promise was a long shot, and was genuinely ready to discuss an alternative that wouldn't end with just-barely-of age girls married off to strangers. Meanwhile, Eryk's son-in-law is an abusive jerk who kills his new wife a few month into the marriage. After finding that information out, Eryk realizes he made a big mistake by assuming Beyran was coming to invade and wasn't open to discussion, and that many deaths and ill feelings could have been avoided.
