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Some are affected by its power more than others.
Obi-Wan: Wait a minute. How did this happen? We're smarter than this. Anakin: Apparently not. — Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
John McClane: You think I'm fuckin' stupid, Hans? (elevator arrives full of reinforcements) Hans Gruber: You were saying? — Die Hard
Mr. Potatohead: Did you all take stupid pills this morning? — Toy Story
A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If the character does this the entire time then the character is Too Dumb To Live, and if multiple characters have the Idiot Ball it becomes an Idiot Plot. Temporary (or permanent) Genre Blindness is often a cause of this trope.
Coined by Hank Azaria on Hermans Head: Azaria would ask the writing staff, "Who's carrying the idiot ball this week?" This is not a compliment. The person carrying the idiot ball is often acting out of character, or misunderstanding something that could be cleared up by a single reasonable question that he isn't asking solely because the writers don't want him to ask. It's almost as if the character is being willfully stupid or obtuse. Unsurprisingly, this provokes a What An Idiot response from the audience.
See also Villain Ball, Hero Ball, Distress Ball, Idiot Plot, Plot Induced Stupidity, Oops I Did It Again, Three Is Company, Too Dumb To Live, Wall Banger, What An Idiot, Conflict Ball, Bullying A Dragon, Mugging The Monster, Failed A Spot Check, Third Act Stupidity *big breath* and Out Of Character Moment.
This trope is the opposite of Smart Ball.
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Examples
Advertising
- One commercial takes the Idiot Ball to truly staggering heights. A Comcast commercial features contestants on a show called You Might Think DirecTV Has More HD But You're Wrong
. The contestants only have to answer a single question - which has more HD, satellite or cable? The host, a voice-over, and the frickin' name of the gameshow tells them that "You Might Think DirecTV Has More HD than Comcast But You're Wrong," and yes, they get it wrong.
Anime and Manga
Comics
- The "One More Day" storyline in Spider Man sees Peter Parker doing the Atlas gig with an Idiot Ball of truly gargantuan proportions. Making a deal with the closest analogue to a devil Marvel comics possess to save the life of his already elderly aunt, at the expense of not only his current marriage, but the entire history of that marriage? Quite possibly the first example of stuffing someone in the fridge but leaving them alive to taunt the audience with. This is even worse when you consider the number of readily available contacts the man had with spells, technology, and/or mutant powers that would put her together as good as or even better than new with minimal effort.
- Parker supposedly went to those contacts, but it was shown that all of those people couldn't help him. That means guys who could take a left arm, brain, and half a heart and rebuild a person from those pieces couldn't heal a gunshot wound. Hell, Tony Stark, a man without any real medical knowledge, managed to build a super pacemaker IN A CAVE! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!, but there was no one who could take care of a simple gunshot wound. This wasn't an idiot ball, this was a galactic-scale Idiot Plot.
- It was stated (exactly once, probably in an attempt at an Author Saving Throw) that by the time Peter started making the rounds looking for help, May was already brain dead. There was, for all intents and purposes, no one left to save. Still doesn't explain why none of Spidey's allies stepped up to offer assistance when word got out.
- Even if she was braindead, that shouldn't be a problem for Dr. Strange...DR. FUCKING STRANGE...the guy who actually has the power to literally CALL Gods from other universes and tell them to do things for him. Surely a God, even a minor God, could fix that problem. More so since Elixir, and X-Man, can literally control every cell in a person's body, It's truly ridiculous to suggest any amount of brain damage would stop him from healing her...in fact, it only raises the question of why Spider-Man didn't go to him immediately after she was shot, prior to brain death, when he probably could have healed her over a phone call (he grew back a person's heart after it was ripped out, I'm not even kind of joking when I say he could heal mortal wounds over a phone call).
- Most of them, especially Strange, spouted some vague Prime Directive stuff to refuse helping (nevermind how each is perfectly willing to spank reality whenever convenient). At least they offered the, acutally good, advice that instead of worrying, Peter should just enjoy his last day with his aunt. Sadly, depite the entire universe telling him this is a bad idea, Joe--I mean Peter couldn't stand to see his mother figure die because of his enemies.
- Xavier excusing Emma trying to mentally seduce Scott while she was treating him. As one who believes so strongly in his ethics, he would not have stood for that. He would have thrown her out, regardless of whether was anything physical. It's not as though Xavier never misused his power, but he still has standards.
- The otherwise excellent Watchmen features this with Doctor Manhattan, who exists in every part of his lifetime at once. The other characters constantly accuse him of not caring about anything — ignoring the death of John Kennedy, for example, because he foresaw that he didn't do anything about the death of John Kennedy — when they should have learned by that point that he did that kind of thing, and that the problem could very easily have been resolved by simply asking him questions.
- The Watchmen Sourcebook written by Moore for the Watchmen module of the DC RPG in the early 90s actually has a moment where someone asks if Jon and Laurie get married in the future, and Jon says she leaves him in October of 1985.
- There was a villain who blamed Max Mercury for the death of his family, gained access to a time machine, and used it to try and destroy Max Mercury. He was temporarily incapacitated with horror when asked why he hadn't used it to save his family.
- Superman and the Flash are probably the heroes most prone to these, given that one has ridiculously powerful Combo Platter Powers, and the other has the ability to move at near light speed, and drain time and perception of time out of things.
- "What's that you say? Villains including a man who can absorb powers through touch, a woman who can turn into electricity on a whim, and a man powered by Kryptonite, my greatest weakness, are all after me? I'm gonna go punch 'em!"
- Let's not forget that when a villain (Luthor) did get control of Flash's abilities, he almost took out the entire Watch Tower and all the heroes single handedly.
- Although in Flash's defense, it's made pretty clear that he could be that destructive if he wanted to. He holds back on purpose.
- Comics blog Polite Dissent refers to this phenomenon as ONISGS ("Oh No, I Suddenly Got Stupid")
- Everyone in a Superman comic...ever. The most obvious being that no one can see past Clark's glasses. Also Clark very stupidly says that he and Superman grew up together and are like brothers. Yeah, that's not going make people notice how you look exactly like him!
- This is specifically addressed within the book. At several points it has been observed that one of Superman's greatest abilities is that when he takes on the persona of Clark Kent he speaks in a different way, holds himself in a different way, and has a different walk. All Star Superman takes this several steps further by having Clark be an accident prone klutz, whose accidents always happen to solve a particular problem nobody had noticed (tripping over an electrical cord and stopping someone being electrocuted, for example). This may be taken as being an example of Lampshade Hanging.
- Isn't it all just due to his Super Hypnotism?
- Perhaps they're all just distracted by the many beautifully woven hangings on or about his person?
Films
Literature
- Talismans of Shannara does this to Wren, who just spent the last entire book learning how easy it is for trust to be betrayed, but who still falls for the trap of a character everyone including her suspected, pretty much just to get her kidnapped and in contact with the other good guys to tell them what she knows. When she gets back, nothing horrible seems to have happened to her army in her absence.
- Grace in Vampirates takes forever to figure out that she's on a ship crewed by the titular creatures, despite knowing that they exist before they find her.
- The Draka series of Alternate History novels, in which enemies of the Dominion outright ignore it until it's too late. Repeatedly. Knowing it's happened before. As one synopsis put it, the first 'alternate' in the setting's history must have been an 11th Commandment reading "Thou Shalt Not Attack the Dominion of Draka".
- Herodotus tells of a king named Croesus who consults an oracle to determine whether or not he should attack an enemy's kingdom. The oracle says that if he attacks, "a great kingdom will be destroyed," at which point Croesus commits his army and ends up losing his capital city and being enslaved. Of course, he could've just asked which kingdom would be destroyed, but that's not nearly as fun, is it?
- The Oracle was always intentionally vague, and there was even a quote upon the entrance to her temple saying, in effect, "Know thyself." In that respect Croesus held the idiot ball in that he overestimated his forces.
- Also, asking just one question to the Oracle was a huge deal, as the questioner was expected to make an offering to the Oracle before asking. Croesus brought a HUGE load of loot all the way to Delphi, so asking "Which Empire?" would mean a trip back to Lydia, emptying more of his treasury, then another trip back to Delphi. Not the most economical way of divination, or maybe Croesus was just stingy.
- In Eldest, two of the Big Bad's henchmen show up in the hero's hometown looking for the hero's cousin. The two characters in question are instantly recognized as the monsters who killed the hero's uncle by the townspeople, who tell the henchmen that the hero's cousin is out hunting and they don't know when he'll be back. Let's repeat that: the townspeople, in order to protect the hero's cousin, tell two known arsonists/murderers that he's out and will be back later, apparently expecting the henchmen to turn around and go home.
- Mara Jade didn't even find it a little suspicious that she couldn't sense Nom Anor with the force. If she'd confronted him on it right off the bat, she'd have prevented about half the problems in the entire New Jedi Order series. Way to go, Jade.
- Nom Anor grabs it too. After ten years of spying on them, he doesn't even think it's a little dangerous to try and kill Luke's wife.
- In the X Wing Series, Corran Horn is an ex-cop turned fighter pilot for the Rebellion. He's given a cover identity and put on
Coruscant Imperial Center, the capital city-world of the Empire, to gather information as part of an operation to take the planet. But one day, after one of his companions tries to have sex with him and he refuses, he decides to go walking while ruminating on his past, and pays no attention to where he is going. At all. He finds himself at a Wretched Hive and as it turns out the whole thing acted as a Shaggy Search Technique, but really, wandering an enemy-held world and heading into the depths of its seedy underbelly while not paying attention to where he's going? The Force looks after fools.
- Sylvester would like to add that this page makes him wish he was a rock.
- Charles Todd's A False Mirror starts off with several characters playing "catch the Idiot Ball":
- Stephen Mallory, confronted by local detective Bennett about the mysterious disappearance of Matthew Hamilton, husband of Mallory's former girlfriend Felicity, immediately charges off to see Felicity. This despite the fact that Mallory is automatically the prime suspect, since he is still obviously obsessed with Felicity.
- In the course of evading Bennett, Mallory runs over Bennett's foot with his car. This does not make Mallory more popular with the local constabulary.
- When the police catch up with Mallory at the Hamilton's house, Felicity has the brilliant idea of pretending that Mallory is holding her and her maid, Nan, hostage. At gunpoint. It belatedly occurs to her that this is the epitome of an Idiot Ball maneuver.
- To make matters worse, Nan tells two different people, including Inspector Rutledge, that Felicity set up the mock hostage situation. Nobody feels obligated to inquire further.
- Frankenstein, in Mary Shelley's original novel, is warned that the monster will visit him on his wedding night. So he leaves his new bride alone while he goes outside to reconnoiter the area. And he's surprised when the monster breaks into the bedroom and kills his wife? Not only that, Frankenstein could have avoided the whole problem if, instead of "aborting" the creation of a bride for the monster because he was worried about hordes of the creatures overrunning the world, he'd simply made her infertile.
- On "simply making her infertile":
- A) medicine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries probably didn't know enough about the mechanisms of reproduction. They were still arguing between Preformationism
, Spontaneous Generation , and Aristotelean Epigenesis .
- B) Even the straightforward method of giving the Bride the uterus of a woman past menopause might not have worked. Frankenstein's whole methodology was restoring vitality to inert tissue, after all; if he could raised the dead, and cause flesh to knit together well enough to function as a whole, why wouldn't that restore function to all organs?
- The simplest solution to these potential problems would be to construct her with no uterus at all. Neither she nor her mate would have any reason to suspect that's why she never gets pregnant.
- Huge example in the Mortal Engines series: The protagonist is just about to escape from a city under siege using an air balloon, which is about to fly to the place his love interest is staying. One idiot ball later, he jumps out of the balloon, while it's taking off, while everyone's shouting at him to stay in the basket, while the city's being destroyed, and runs off to fetch a letter from said love interest. A letter he's already read. Needless to say, the balloon's gone when he gets back. Wall Banger.
- The plot of The Demolished Man begins with an exchange of coded messages using a key described in the book. Check the translation.
- "What in the name of diseased crap are you reading?"
- In "A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" said King and Yankee decide to do some legwork among the peasants. What gives away their disguises? The King babbling on about how turnips grow on trees and apples below ground.
- Just about every named character in The Wheel Of Time. Notable incidents:
- Rand leaving Callandor in the Stone of Tear (He was incredibly lucky that none of the Forsaken decided to take action)
- Pedron Niall employing Padan Fain as an advisor.
- Just about everything Eladia has done from book 5 onward.
- Moiraine insisting on upholding the tradition of Aes Sedai superiority by witholding information (even from the ta'veren.
- Suian Sanche sending untrained girls after a group of thirteen Black sisters (only many contrived coincidences and idiot balls on the Black sisters' part saved them)
Live Action TV
- Friends, when Monica believed that Chandler found sharks sexually arousing ("The One with the Sharks").
- Are we forgetting Monica and Chandler's Secret Relationship? Everyone else grabbed the Idiot Ball like crazy. Ironically, Joey, who is normally king of the Idiot Ball, figures it out first.
- And then Monica and Chandler grab the ball once everyone has found out but Ross - who they want to keep it a secret from more than anyone. They know he just moved in across the street, they've already been caught fooling around once by Phoebe through Ross' new window, and they don't think to close the drapes?!
- ...and even after those many years of spying on Ugly Naked Guy from the same distance, they hadn't figured out that Ross might have a similarly unobstructed view in the other direction.
- They had other things on their minds, If You Know What I Mean...
- Pretty much every episode of Threes Company.
- Friends even had a Take That against the show in one episode, when they're all watching the show and Chandler says something to the effect of "Oh, this is the episode of Three's Company where there's some sort of misunderstanding." Phoebe replies "Then I've already seen this one," and switches the TV off.
- Pretty much every episode of Bewitched.
- My favorite example comes in Star Trek The Next Generation episode "Unification part 2." So, the villainous Romulan Sela has revealed her plan to invade and occupy Vulcan, but it's critical that Star Fleet not be warned ahead of time. Across from is seated Captain Jean Luc Picard, Lt. Commander Data, and Ambassador fuckin' Spock-three of the smartest and most bad ass characters in all of Star Trek- whom she has managed to capture. So what does she do now? Leave the three of them in her office. Unattended. And with access to her computer. Geez, it's like she wasn't even trying.
- We can forgive Major Anthony Nelson for not wanting Jeannie to give him the riches of the world - a strong work ethic and the desire to earn one's keep is what built countries like the USA. But for him to constantly wave off Jeannie's amorous advances and instead date women who aren't anywhere CLOSE to as gorgeous as she?!!! Coming to his senses and finally marrying her in Season Six is all that's keeping him from being Too Dumb To Live.
- In the Corner Gas episode "Whataphobia", Lacey is revealed to be terrified of balloons. The rest of the episode centers around different reactions to this fear, such as Hank's misguided attempts to "cure" this fear. In fact, pretty much anything Hank does.
- Hank's not really carrying the Idiot Ball so much as he's just an idiot.
- Every member of Torchwood has been directly responsible for at least one of the crises they've had to face - Gwen in "Day One," Ianto in "Cyberwoman," Toshiko in "Greeks Bearing Gifts," Owen in "End of Days," and Suzie in "Everything Changes" and "They Keep Killing Suzie." To be fair, Suzie is an amoral serial killer. It's not so much stupidity as not caring what happens to other people. People also chalk Ianto's up to the fact that his love for Lisa has blinded him to the fact that, no, that isn't Lisa anymore (even though it looks like her)
- Captain Jack's been Idiot Balled twice in Season Two:
- If he knows that Captain John Hart is dangerous, why not go with him himself, instead of sending someone who he thinks that John may get the better of?
- Using the resurrection glove to raise Owen just to give him two minutes to prepare for death (by which we mean "panic"), when he knows full well that good things do not happen when the gloves are used, and this is a new glove he just stole so whatever side-effects it might have are unknown. The side-effects? Summoning Death himself to walk the earth and destroy all humanity. Nice job, "Captain".
- In the first season episode "Countrycide", the team goes off to inspect a body all together as a group. In doing so, they abandon their camp with some of their supplies and equipment and leave the keys in their SUV. As far as they knew, their were aliens capable of who-knows-what on the loose, and were thus giving them access to their supplies. As would be expected, the SUV is stolen.
- From the same episode, you have two people ready to kick down a door and probably get shot at, one's a rookie with little combat experience, the other's FRELLING IMMORTAL! Which one do you send in first?
- In "Something Borrowed", Gwen goes alien hunting the night before her wedding, and gets bitten. What do you think happened?
- If most of the seemingly stupid things Gwen does are really in character for her, is it still considered an Idiot Ball?
- How about the opening of "Fragments"? Lapse of judgment number one: "Hmm, there seem to be alien life forms registering... let's split up not once, but TWICE, despite the fact that we have no idea what this alien might be or if we'll even be able to fight it alone." And number two, which is somehow even WORSE?: "Oh, look, it's not aliens after all... it's bombs that are set to go off any second now. Let's all stand and stare at them instead of running away!" While the rest of the episode makes up for it, it's pretty hard to get through those opening scenes without outright laughing at the pathetic stupidity.
- To summarize a conversation between Jack and Ianto in the radio play Asylum: "Let's mess around with this unknown possibly alien technology that appears to be extremely powerful! Oh, drat, we foolishly cut off all communication and gridlocked the traffic around us. Wanna hot wire a motorcycle and steal it? Hello pussycat! Meow!" (And that italicized bit is direct quote.)
- The "Children of Earth" miniseries has an Idiot Ball of a political kind, namely the British government, which, having made what turns out to be a massive blunder in 1965, tries to resolve its present consequences by attempting to cover its ass while at the same time giving the villains what they want, rather than spending any time looking into a way to stop them. Sadly, there may definitely be a bit of Truth In Television there.
- Ianto's death in "Children of Earth" is caused by one giant Idiot Ball shared by Jack and Ianto. Because their big plan to make the aliens go away is... to threaten them. Yup. That's it. Jack, who has been fighting aliens on Earth for over 100 years, and who was once a Time Agent and traveled with the Doctor, can't think of anything better than that. And Ianto goes along with it and with him... just because. So when the aliens call Jack's bluff and release a virus, there's nothing either one of them can do but die.
- The Drew Carey Show lampshades and inverts this by having the characters pick up an object called an Epiphany Ball while snooping around in a laboratory at night. Whoever holds the ball suddenly gains understanding to all their problems. Predictably, after it gets passed around a bit, they fight over the ball and it is shattered as it dropped to the floor.
- On Farscape there was this one time John got sent back to his first meeting with Aeryn. Of course, rather then letting her just beat him up, he fights back like she taught him. And reels of her name and regiment. When she's eventually got him down again, she asks "How did you know my name?" He crowns his stupidity by telling her a better question would be asking how he knew about a birthmark on her hip... then, infuriated, she breaks his neck. Is anyone surprised?
- To be fair, at the time Crichton believed that these "flashbacks" were all illusions created by Einstein, the resident godlike alien; as such, he didn't take any of it seriously until Einstein pointed out that he'd accidentally brought something back from his third flashback.
- The companions on Doctor Who are regular recipients of the Idiot Ball, even if by that point they're shown to be relatively intelligent and Genre Savvy people. A glaring example is from the new series episode "Father's Day", wherein Rose ignores the Doctor's warning about interference and stops her father from dying, despite seeing first hand exactly what happens when you ignore the Doctor.
- Sarah Jane gets the exact same idiot ball in "The Temptation of Sarah Jane", with numerous lampshade hangings. Thankfully, she's a good actor, and it's built up. (She is also Genre Savvy enough to know how screwed she is.)
- Described quite nicely in a Blake's 7 episode.
Avon: None of us showed conspicuous intelligence on this occasion.
- Perhaps it was Idiot Dodgeball?
- Let's face it Heroes has so many of these that it'd be easier to point out when they ''aren't'' being stupid.
- If anything the frequency and size of the idiot balls has increased exponentially as the seasons passed from a reasonable suspension of disbelief to characters regularly choosing the most utterly insane, illogical and downright stupid course of action.
- The entire Buffy cast in the episode "Intervention." No one wonders why Buffy's acting oddly and using highly unusual speech patterns only three episodes (to be fair, the time that passed between episodes is unknown) after a robot with identical behaviour and mannerisms showed up, and everybody could immediately tell it was a robot then, despite next to zero hints.
- If there weren't moments (and even an entire hour at the end of the miniseries) when he actually had a clue and wasn't screwing things up, Tony Lewis of The Tenth Kingdom would actually be Too Dumb To Live. With those additions to the character, he just carries the Idiot Ball for the entire adventure only to finally drop it during the assault on Wendell's castle. But the most obviously idiotic moment (aside from breaking the magic mirror) has to be in part one, when he proves he definitely never paid attention to Aladdin or any other wish-granting story. For his third wish on the dragon dung bean, he wishes for a vacuum cleaner which would clean the entire apartment so he would never have to lift a finger...even though for his first wish he caused his building's superintendent and his entire family to become his slaves forever.
- Of honorable mention is his decision in Little Lamb Village to take the Traveling mirror, which had already shown a penchant for disappearing and being hard to track down, and hide it on the only movable object in the barn.
- I'd have to nominate the Midas Touch incident—mostly because by that time he'd been in the Nine Kingdoms long enough to know it ran on fairy-tale tropes, AND was warned by Wolf, who was actually native to the area, to forget it, but accepted the spell anyway, and of course, managed to turn one of his friends to gold. Wolf later remarked, "It was almost ... predictable."
- He walks in on the Wolf Man angrily backing his daughter up against a wall...and just goes on with what he was going to say, apparently not even noticing.
- Why, Supernatural? Why on earth would Sam and Dean even let Bela see the Colt, let alone leave her alone with it? They know she can easily unlock the safe and they certainly know that she can't be trusted.
- They must have got it from their father. What was he thinking? Meg and her brother were obviously going to test the Colt out and they would obviously want to tear him and his sons apart when they found out that it was a fake.
- And another one for Sam in Long Distance Caller. Leaving your unstable, few-seconds-away-from-losing-it brother alone in the hotel room, just telling him not to go anywhere and expecting him to actually stay? I thought you would have known better by now, Sammy.
- For such a smart boy, Sam has grabbed a lot of Idiot Balls. The most glaring was in Nightshifter. He might be acting even colder/bitchier than normal and he certainly has all his attention on the job but telling Dean to get the guard outside where the news and police are waiting? Here's an idea, Sam, why don't you (y'know, considering you aren't the one being wanted for murder) do it while Dean takes care of the shifter. That would have made a lot more sense.
- In NUMB3RS the entire FBI hauls around an idiot ball the size of the shop. While for the sake of the plot it's all right that every case they meet requires advanced maths to solve, it does not explain why the FBI is incapable of any police work. One of the more outrageous example concerns a fugitive whom the FBI has been after for months. They know the man is on the run, but has not left his home county. Even with that they still cannot find him, but even worse is the fact that the show's resident math genius uses advanced math to reveal to the FBI that the fugitive is regularly stopping at his old home to visit his wife. Indeed, at no point in those long months has it ever occurred to any of the FBI's agents that the fugitive who's staying in his home county may be contacting his loved ones and that they could just catch him by putting up surveillance on the man's wife. The whole show is like this, featuring FBI agents whose only qualifications are that they are damn good at kicking down doors while shouting for people to drop their weapons.
- Scrubs: JD is distraught about turning 30 without having accomplished anything on his "Things To Do Before I Turn 30" list. Two days before his birthday, he finds out that a couple of the hospital's sad sacks are competing in a triathlon; very convenient, as "finish a triathlon" is one of the things to do on his list. You can guess what happens next. Acceptable sitcom plot, except that "figure out the difference betweeen Senator and Congressman" is on the list. For one thing, it's almost impossible to believe a reasonably intelligent, very well-educated person like JD would struggle with that concept. Also, even accepting that, five minutes with the Constitution or, even worse, 30 seconds on Google would have given him a solution and an end to his angst.
- Generally inverted on Reno 911... During every sketch, one of the idiotic policemen seems to be handed a competence ball, demonstrating an inconsistent amount of skill and intuition in dealing with the idiot criminal or idiot partner. This could be Hand Waved by the necessity of the comedic Straight Man.
- The Comepetence Ball seemed to go to all the bit-characters, making them practically Mary Sue perfect in order to make the regular actors look idiotic... and even more annoyingly than ordinary Mary Sue characters, since it would usually end up with the regular characters being injured or humilitated in some way, but they were also center-stage while the bit-characters were barely visible.
- CSI's season 8 pilot gave the Idiot Ball to Sara, who should have encountered basic survival stuff at some point during her lifetime, either from a job safety kind of lecture (given how much wandering the CSIs do) or from a case involving a dead guy in the wilderness, as both San Francisco and Las Vegas have nearby places to get lost and noob hikers to get lost in them.
- Celebrity Jeopardy, where pretty much every contestant is holding the Idiot Ball except Sean Connery.
- Lampshaded at the end of a Malcolm in the Middle episode:
Policeman: So you found the gun, removed it from the original holder, touched it again to move it to a different spot, used a hacksaw to try to disable it and shot it, and didn't think to call the police until after that? Malcolm: Yeah. Policeman: What's your IQ again?
- An episode of How I Met Your Mother revolves around this. Robin and Lily spend the episode on a chase around New York to find Ted, who has (according to the stories of the people they ask) been apparently cheating on Robin and generally doing things that really "don't sound like Ted". It later turns out it was Barney the whole time, who gave Ted's name to prove that the line "Ted Mosby, architect" makes girls want you. If only either of the girls had thought to ask any of these people what Ted looks like or what he was wearing... I guess hearing "blonde" or "in a suit" would have killed the entire episode's plot in five minutes.
- Barney and Robin get to carry the idiot ball in the first episode of season five, when they have spent months having a relationship in secret because they're not ready to define said relationship yet (and if their friends knew they would insist that they do so), only to leave the bar, go upstairs to Robin and Ted's apartment and start having foreplay out on the livingroom couch. And then they actually look surprised when the others walk in. They could have kept their relationship to themselves for much longer if they had thought of something as simple as a) going to Barney's place or b) going to Robin's bedroom.
- Wesley's actions during the latter part of Season 3 seem to consist of one-half Deathgrip on the Idiot Ball and one-half Bad Ass, stirred to taste and left to simmer. Why he a) first went to Holtz instead of, how you say, one of his own goddamned friends and b) beat the everliving crap out of Lorne when Lorne got a partial reading of him while Wesley was singing instead of continuing to sing, letting Lorne carry on reading him and figuring out just why Wesley was abducting Connor is an abiding mystery, the answers of which are known only to Angel's writers.
- IMHO Angel would have done to remember this is the same man who was about to sell him and Buffy out to the demon who needed help with the hard to reach places. THIS is why the Council sacked him. I mean the man believed a TALKING HAMBURGER. Also, just a hint, Wes, sky =! blanket.
- (In Stargate Atlantis)The death of Carson Beckett. Exactly when did walking slowly away from a BOMB DISPOSAL UNIT taking care of a high-explosive tumour nobody's ever handled before seem like a good idea?
- McKay and Daniel Jackson got it in Season five's "First Contact". If any other member of the cast had been held at gunpoint by aliens demanding that they activate an unknown device which had originally been shut down due to "unforseen consequences" great enough that it was worth letting the Wraith live, they would have taken the bullet first.
- You can hand the ball to the Ancients as well, for not sending around an email saying "don't use any Stargates for the next month or so while we go pick off our stranded enemies" before switching the device on
- There's an especially wacky example in the late Stargate SG 1 episode "Bad Guys." The heroes go through a gate and find themselves trapped in a museum storage area with a loud party in the next room. They think they can hide six hours until rescue arrives, but then a lady shows up, screams, and runs away. Col. Mitchell's response? He chases her, rifle drawn, into the room where the party's taking place. When a security guard quite reasonably opens fire, Mitchell shoots him in the leg and takes the entire party hostage. The kicker is that Ben Browder, Mitchell's actor, cowrote the episode.
- Lee Adama is the usual carrier of the Idiot Ball in Battlestar Galactica. It's lampshaded when Roslin tells him she knows she can count on him to do the right thing, but the smart thing? Not so much.
- Kara Thrace also has a few of these, although the abolute king of this trope has got to be Dr. Gaius Baltar.
- Col. Tigh also get his hard by this trope. For example, one amusing example was when, after ordering in the Marines to quell rioting in the fleet and being told that there weren't enough Marine officers to lead all of the necessary teams, he came up with the brilliant idea of assigning Viper pilots to lead the teams. You know, those guys who spend all they're time flying around in Vipers and have absolutely no experience whatsoever at leading men into combat. To be fair, he does get told off by Doc Cottle, but still.
- Every so often, House or one of his team will miss something ridiculously obvious so the plot can be padded out to 42 minutes:
- "Maternity" — Every doctor at Princeton Plainsboro managed to convieniently forget that newborns carry the same antibodies as their mothers.
- "Histories" — Foreman didn't make a connection between the bats he found at a homeless patients shelter and rabies.
- "Distractions" — Every doctor failed to notice the cigarette burn and nicotine stains on the patient.
- To be fair, In Distractions the patient had previously gotten in an ATV crash that caused him to be covered in burns. It was believed that the cigarette burns could have been a burn from a drop of gas
- "Skin Deep" — Every doctor managed to miss the fact that their patient had no uterus and didn't notice the pair of undecended testes in her abdomen despite numerous ultrasounds and scans.
- "Epic Fail" — Foreman fired Thirteen, because her working as his subordinate would break them up. There is no way she would dump you after that, genius! Say it with me: Epic Fail!
- In Spooks, it was sometimes held by Adam. Dies while holding it because he does a handbrake turn in a bomb-rigged car and then parks it instead of jumping out and letting it run for another twenty/thirty yards.
- Hi there, entire population of Camelot.
- One episode of Bones has Temperance convinced it is out right irrational to think her book could be connected to the series of murders that mirror exactly the ones she wrote about.
- That's not really fair. Brennan later admitted that she knew they were connected, but she didn't want to believe it because that would make her responsible for the murders. She wasn't stupid, she was just feeling guilty.
- Have any of the losties from Lost ever asked the Others the rather relevant question: "Why?"
- It would help. How much, we won't know, considering how the Others are cryptic (and in the case of Ben, outright liars) in their conversations.
Video Games
- No More Heroes has the viewpoint character hug the idiot ball and never let go. It's not clear whether this is meant as a You Suck, or just for Rule Of Cool, but it. never. stops. If there is a trap, no matter how obvious, Travis will walk right into it. If there is a trick, no matter how old, Mr. Touchdown will fall for it. If there is a foe, Travis will charge them head first. Those trip mines might be obviously placed, but Travis Touchdown will never resist the urge to pass right over them. Good thing he's nearly invulnerable.
- The Rank Seven fight apparently straps six or seven extra idiot balls to the Travis. That's probably as a Kick The Dog thing for the bad guy, though it does get a little ridiculous.
- Perhaps the best use of this, though, is during the Rank Two fight, in which leaves the Idiot Ball out for the player to grab. Periodically, the boss will just collapse on the ground and start weeping. If the player decides that this is a perfect opportunity to take her out, the boss immediately parries the blow, and proceeds to beat Travis to death, regardless of his current health.
- There is a catch to this though. There are two different animations, one is her Playing Possum and the other animation is the real deal. She is open for attack should the latter occur.
- Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe gives essentially the whole cast bar a few the Idiot Ball for essentially the whole plot. Even when they weren't hopped up on interdimensional Unstoppable Rage, the characters did a bang up job of not trusting eachother and, at times, straight up not noticing clues that maybe the other fighters from the other universes are possibly going through the same thing they are. As a result, massive Lets You And Him Fight. It doesn't help that whenever anyone starts to wonder whether they weren't fighting enemies, someone would suddenly appear going through said Rage and attack, though even then the symptoms of the rage are obvious (the recognize it when it affects each other, for instance). Of course, this mainly just hinders them from doing anything relatively productive, and, ironically, the only person doing anything towards fixing things is Lex Luthor. Meanwhile, the only other people who aren't held back either use it to go on a spree of destruction (Joker being Joker, really), or loses opportunities to figure things out once they arrive ( Batman). Superman, of course, being Superman, is the only other one who remains optimistic and friendly despite aggression from basically everyone.
- Granted, this is absurdly common in most Fighting Games, just this is one of the more recent big offenders.
- In God of War 2, Kratos happily drains all of his power into the Sword of Olympus and is promptly betrayed at his weakest, even though Persephone does the exact same thing to him in Chains of Olympus
- Not to mention the fact that up until then Kratos was doing perfectly well in the fight without the blade.
- Although not exactly under the scope of this article, the overly stupid Cirno from the Touhou games is known as "?" or "Nineball". Thus, she's an idiot and she's a ball.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, when Tails brought the fake Chaos emerald AND the real one to the Space Colony ARK, when he could have left it back on Earth and Eggman would probably had never known.
- In consequence, When Sonic is handing over the fake emerald in exchange for Amy, Eggman captures him into a capsule to send him out in space, exclaiming that he couldn't be fooled by that fake emerald. To which Tails asks. "How did you know it wasn't the real one?" On to which Eggman responds "Because you just told me, Foxboy!"
- In Final Fantasy VIII, Quistis tells off Rinoa at General Caraway's (Rinoa's father) residence, then leads her group away to perform its mission (pulling a switch that will imprison Sorceress Edea and provide a clear shot for Irvine.) Once Quistis and the others have arrived, she feels guilty for hurting Rinoa's feelings and takes everyone back to the mansion to apologize, despite the severe importance of the mission and the extremely limited time they have to pull it off... only to end up locking herself and her group in the mansion when Rinoa (who never even saw her) accidentally springs a trap. It's nothing short of a miracle that Quistis' group found a way out of the mansion in time to perform its mission.
- If the player pays attention in the beginning of Half Life, he will likely wonder how Dr. Freeman even made it to the testing chamber for all the Idiot Balls the science team is juggling. Disregarding safety protocols because Breen says so? Going ahead with the experiment after a power outage toasts half the data in the computers? Ignoring an EXPLODING CIRCUIT after safety protocols are overridden? Using a super-pure crystal sample at super-high intensity? It's a wonder Gordon survived the tram ride.
- It clearly affected him too. As noted in the IJBM page for Half-Life 2, he climbs into inescapable Stalker pods not once but twice in the citadel and is only saved by two lucky breaks.
- In Advance Wars at one point, in order to give the player tutorial information on airports, Andy (who's supposed to be a whizzkid when it comes to machines) infamously asks "What's an airport?".
- Also done to Will in Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict. Despite being one of the above average students in the military academy, and having just gone through a continent and a half, STILL had to consult a textbook to figure out how to check the range of a Talon Gun.
- Valkyria Chronicles is really an Idiot Plot for basically everyone but the main villain; the Gallian Army repeatedly does truly stupid things when you consider how awesome but unrealistic everything is. Admittedly this is mostly so that player-controlled Squad 7 can remain the central force of the game, but you can watch basically every scene and find somebody doing something stupid that's preventing their side from winning the war until the romance plot is over.
- Faldio shoots Alicia to awaken Valkyria powers in her. If he had just asked and let her make the decision herself, pretty much the entire second half of the game could have been avoided.
- Here's a hint, guys out there: if your girlfriend is on the verge of an emotional breakdown in front of you, the proper course of action does not involve you standing there doing nothing while she runs away, nearly in tears and telling herself (and you) she'll be okay.
- The entire playable cast grabs the idiot ball at one point in Final Fantasy VII. They're trying to stop Sephiroth from getting the Black Materia, and they know that Cloud is vulnerable to being brainwashed by Sephiroth. So what do they do once they've reached the Black Materia first? They give it to Cloud.
- This is made even worse by the fact that Cloud told them not to give it to him, under any circumstances. The character holding the Black Materia is left behind before the big confrontation, and told to stay put. Then, Sephiroth uses an illusion to trick them into thinking Cloud is in trouble, they rush forward to help, and when they see Cloud surrounded by a group of Shinra, they calmly hand it over.
- In Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Al Revis, all the characters get their stupid moments (mostly seen in their personal sidequests). Though this is intentional, the things they do are so dumb (up to and including using deadly force on each other, only to be Easily Forgiven) that it breaks the Suspension Of Disbelief.
- Most Ace Attorney cases are dependent on a particular character holding the Idiot Ball at a particular time. Usually it's a witness holding it, but sometimes the judge or even the prosecutor will be the one who have it. When Phoenix or Apollo holds it (which is quite often), it typically causes a massive Wall Banger for the player. But Thou Must!
- Silent Hill games often force the player to accept the Idiot Ball in order to advance, possibly deliberately as part of the ongoing torturous mind screw. Consider the number of times in one particular game that the player is asked whether James will stick his arm into a dark hole or leap into a pit whose bottom he cannot see.
- In Jade Empire, Master Li reveals to you that he is really the Emperor's brother. Only afterward does he think it prudent to chase off the eavesdropping Gao. The same Gao who had hours earlier gotten fed up with the favoritism Master Li had been showing you all these years. The same Gao who had been expelled for using barred magic in his duel with you. The same Gao whose father is a crime boss with ties to the Lotus Assassins, who have been searching for the Emperor's brother since the events at Dirge twenty years prior. The results are predictable. Subverted, of course; Master Li had planned the whole thing, probably from the moment he accepted Gao into his school in the first place.
- Midori of Devil Survivor loves playing with this. Once she gets her own COMP, she promptly goes Leeroy Jenkins on the demons and simply will. Not. Listen to anyone's warnings. Even running into an invincible demon doesn't shake her grip on it.
- The only reason she listens is when she was nearly Lynched because she never considered the idea that people would be afraid of a weirdly-dressed girl summoning demons.
- The Amiga game Nemac IV takes places in a facility of the same name, housing a supercomputer designed to oversee defence and with complete control of non-human military assets. Fortunately, the people who created the computer decided to test it with a simulated invasion to see how it would respond, feeding it almost all the information it needed to act. Unfortunately, the one piece of information they left out was the fact that the invasion was simulated.
- In terms of player vs. player combat, World Of Warcraft basically forces this on you. The storyline makes it abundantly clear that the war between the Horde and the Alliance is counterproductive at best, and yet it only rewards you if you take on the role of a rabid patriot.
- In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption the main villain, Dark Samus, is able to kill you with a non-standard game over if you are ever fully saturated by phazon radiation. Of course, the Idiot Ball goes to the Galactic Federation for making this possible in the first place. When Samus, and a group of fellow bounty hunters, is zapped by Dark Samus's phazon beam at the beginning of the game, they find that all the bounty hunters have been genetically altered by the beam to allow their bodies to generate phazon energy. Rather than trying to fix the problem, they install a device to draw on this deadly, unpredictable energy directly into your power suit. Of course, this is justified in that every major boss in the game can ONLY be defeated using this device.
- Also justified because the Federation studied the Phazon that their bodies were generating, and their results told them that it had no negative effects on the Hunters. The first time the corruption idea even came up was after Samus landed on Bryyo, which was over a month after they started generating Phazon.
- The heroes of Persona 4 miss many a glaring contradiction in their investigation of the kidnappings and subsequent murders taking place in their hometown. One particularly explicit use of the idiot ball is when the entire team leaves a known potential victim completely unprotected so that they can apprehend a balding, overweight voyeur climbing up a telephone pole in broad daylight, believing him to be the true culprit. It seems highly unlikely that a group of high school students would mistake such a character for a villain who up to that point had been so discreet and efficient that even the police didn't have the slightest idea regarding his identity. They were encouraged by inept policeman Adachi, who wanted to clear the team out for the real kidnapper, but this is hardly an excuse.
- Even worse is the scene leading up to Nanako's kidnapping. Neither Dojima nor Souji think that Souji might be able to demonstrate his claims of being able to enter TVs by sticking his hand in the one not ten feet away. Trained policeman Dojima then proceeds to leave his daughter alone and unprotected, immediately after Souji receives a letter threatening someone close to him with death.
- Let's be honest. Taro Namatame had this going on too. All the while he was "saving" people and he never once considered that the TV world and the Midnight Channel might be connected to each other. If he had thought of that, he might have considered that the TV world had caused the deaths of Mayumi Yamano and Saki Konishi.
- Dear god, Luna's Disney Death in Star Force 3 could have been completely avoided if she didn't casually walk up to Megaman, stick around long enough to point out two of the characters hanging around are people she knows, and not notice Joker until he was in front of her and not just threatening, but outright saying he was going to destroy her. And Megaman/Geo is no better, chasing after Joker when he TELEPORTS AWAY, leaving Luna a sitting duck to his attack from behind. This wouldn't be so stupid if he didn't just witnessed him teleporting in front of Luna in the first place.
- In Mario And Luigi Bowsers Inside Story, this kind of thing basically fuels the plot, from Bowser getting stepped on by everything too big to fight normally and eating dangerous shrooms from lunatics. But the defining moment? Bowser EATS the DARK STAR. Keep in mind that the Dark Star is an Artifact Of Doom... and an EldritchAbomination In turn, it copies him by absorbing his DNA, mutates bacteria type creatures inside him, proceeds to eat whole the remains of the last villain he fought after Mario and Luigi battle it in a Boss Battle, capture Peach and nearly cause the end of the world.
- Still, Bowser didn't so much as actually eat it as the Dark Star just teleported it inside of him. Nonetheless while Bowser is guilty of this trope it's fitting for him and he usually manages to turn it into a Crowning Moment Of Awesome or a Crowning Moment Of Funny either through the Mario Brothers helping him out or just through being a Badass.
- In Grandia II, Staff Chick Elena. Full stop. Once it is revealed that she and Action Girl Millennia are one and the same person, with the latter being a superpowered, "inner demon" alter ego of the former, Elena decides to have herself exorcised—this despite the fact that Millennia has done nothing more evil than testify quite blatantly to her sexual attraction to Ryudo and display a love of fighting and killing...but only of monsters and villains. The pope then proceeds to tell her, quite explicitly, that if he exorcises her, he will use the shard of Valmar within her to reconstruct the demon and with him, destroy the world. He could not have been any more explicit. What does she do? Ignore what he said, and still agree to the exorcism just because, in her Incorruptible Pure Pureness, Purity Sue nature, she cannot stand to have anything demonic within her. So just to recap, what is being weighed here is: Millennia versus the release of the Big Bad and The End Of The World As We Know It. What does she choose? To top it off, this stupidity of Elena's gets one of your party members killed—the Proud Warrior Race Guy, Gentle Giant Mareg who was also the strongest and arguably most useful in a fight, right after he received his ultimate weapon of course—leaving you with the Joke Character, Spoony Bard Prince Roan. So, you lose an utterly awesome, superlative fighter for one 40 levels weaker whose best move is throwing rocks at the enemies, AND doom the world...all to get rid of a pair of wings and a slightly oversexed action junkie? Is it any wonder she's apologizing to the Hero for the rest of the game? Since in his words "a world that has someone like her representing it is one I don't want to save".
- In Luigis Mansion, this is lampshaded in game by King Boo, with the plot itself relying on insane amounts of idiotic decisions by the characters. Luigi actually believes he won a free mansion in a contest he didn't even enter (already the setup for your standard scam)? Then Mario explores the place early... and gets captured. And Luigi finds out the mansion looks nothing like the picture and is haunted. Later, Luigi presses the switch that says 'do not press', unleashes the fifty odd Boos trapped under the grate, and approaches various suspicious events without hesitation.
Web Animation
- Coach Z on Homestar Runner. It seems that he only keeps his "more than two praeblams" (other than his butt fixation) for one episode.
- Hell, the whole cast plays dodgeball with the Idiot Ball. Proverbially, or course.
Web Comics
- In a case of a literal Idiot Ball, Xykon from Order Of The Stick wipes out the Azure City paladins by tossing a superbounce ball inscribed with a Symbol of Insanity into their midst, causing them to turn on each other in a tremendous bloodbath of confusion.
- When Vaarsuvius decides to take on
Xykon by himself , it's not nearly as stupid an idea as it might seem due to a Deal With The Devil (and the Demon, and the Daemon) she made recently to gain a massive amount of power. Too bad he's carrying an Idiot Ball for the entire fight .
- Justified due to V's completely wrecked emotional and mental state at the time: Within the last 100 comic strips, V had watched powerlessly as a group of low-level soldiers died cursing V's inability to save them, failed to get months of the elven equivalent of sleep due to pervading nightmares, been crushed in battle by a dragon who threatened to devour his/her children, and then sold his/her soul to fiends in order to protect his/her family and assist his/her scattered allies. Except V's family gets so scared and angry of V's dark magic that they leave V. And V's allies manage to gather together without V's magic. The Three Fiends predicted an 84% chance that V would attack Xykon, his/her's biggest threat due to combined stress of V's experiences and the pain of leasing his/her soul.
- Hazel from Girls With Slingshots goes through an insane level of mental gymnastics in her belief that Jaime's new love interest must be male, despite knowing she's been with girls before. When Jaime tells Hazel her new "boyfriend" is Erin, Hazel (who, admittedly, doesn't remember Erin's name) hears it as "Aaron," even when Jaime repeats it several times, and even when Erin herself points out her own name with a meaningful stare. They then go on a double date, where Erin shows up in a bowler hat, glasses, and a fake moustache, and not only does Hazel not recognize her, but has to be told by her boyfriend that Erin is female, after she and Jaime have gone to the restroom together.
- Inverted in 8-bit Theater. Everyone seems to be passing around a minor Sanity Ball. Which they lose sometimes.
- A rather in character Idiot Ball is given to Jade in Jade 6, when she helps with a rather...dangerous...sounding deal. Thing is, she said she'd help, the person really needs it, it SHOULD all go okay, right? (She's shown ALMOST catching herself, but she keeps slipping back.) Partially caused by a massive Hero Ball, as well.
- Jim in Darths And Droids has a lot of idiot ball moments, though, in this case, it's a more integral part of the character, and generally gets used for laughs. The entire plot of the series effectively starts because of such a moment.
Western Animation
- In the Ben 10 episode "A Change Of Face", Grandpa Max doesn't notice that Gwen is acting odd; the source of the odd behavior is that villainess Charmcaster has swapped bodies with Gwen. Even later on, after the ruse has been revealed and more body-swapping has occurred, Grandpa Max still can't tell who's who without a scorecard... This is pretty glaring, given that Max is a former Plumber (this show's MIB equivalent), has been repeatedly shown to be pretty clever, and above all is their grandfather.
- Another example is in the Alien Force episode "Good Copy, Bad Copy". You'd think that, considering how much weird stuff they've seen, Kevin and Gwen would immediately be suspicious of 'Ben' (really a Galvan named Albedo) claiming he's looking for Ben. Instead, they just assume he's the real thing having lost his mind, setting up for the old "Which one is which?" bit.
- In the Gargoyles episode "Vows" Demona gains possession of an artifact known as the Phoenix Gate, which allows the holder to travel to any place at any time at will. She travels back in time and informs her past self (also in possession of the past version of the Gate) that SHE should use the Gate to change history, instead of just doing it herself with the Gate she already possesses. The ultimate lesson is that history is immutable, though the reason for this apart from a large, conspicuous Idiot Ball is unclear
- Made even worse by the fact that present day Demona says she remembers the whole incident (well Goliath's talk after she got knocked out), but if she remembers that it's pretty odd to think she'd have forgotten meeting herself. So if she already had memories of her plan failing, why go through with it? It reeks of Dr. Manhatten style pre-destination.
- The aforementioned PALES in comparison with the sheer idiocy Demona displays in "Hunter's moon". So, after a centuries-old search she has finally assembled all the elements for the fatal blow against humanity: an enchanted virus that will kill all sentient beings on the planet. She also has a magical figurine that will protect the gargoyles from the virus. She is ready to break the container and release the virus when Goliath and Co break in. So she, you guessed it, start monologizing. In the worst Bond Villainesque manner possible. Not only does she elaborate on her plan, but she actually POINTS to the figurine on the table as if plrading: "Goliath, be so kind and smash the thing thus rendering the plan I've spent the last 500 years implementing completely pointless...There you go! You're such a sweetheart!"
- Honorable Mention: The Orb of Confusion in Spongebob Squarepants - a literal Idiot Ball (picutured above).
- On a less literal note, the trope applies to several episodes, with varying results - Spongebob, Patrick, Mr. Krabs and/or Plankton will be saddled with the idiot ball at any time whatsoever. The only ones safe are Sandy and Squidward...and even then...
- The same goes for The Fairly Oddparents, where in most episodes it's Timmy's idiocy that gets the plot moving.
- This very web page is referenced and linked to in Ed Liu's Toon Zone review
of the Flintstones sequel series The Pebbles And Bamm Bamm Show. To wit:
- "[Pebbles is] the one most often saddled with the Idiot Ball, since most of the episodes rely on her misunderstanding something and then finding the worst possible way to fix her mistakes."
- Avatar The Last Airbender:
- Iroh, usually The Obi Wan, Retired Badass and The Caretaker in one, once almost killed himself by drinking tea made of the leaves of a perceived delicious tea plant that wasn't. Followed by a small Find The Cure plot. (Though this may have been a bit of character exposition, meant to demonstrate exactly how much Iroh enjoys his tea.)
- Also, using Firebending to heat his tea while they were trying to stay incognito... in the Earth Kingdom... surrounded by refugees from the invading Fire Nation forces. Zuko immediately lampshades: "What are you doing firebending your tea?! For a wise old man, that was a pretty stupid move!"
- Of course Zuko has no room to talk, he has had two massive idiot balls. The first was when the ending to the second season finale where he betrays his uncle, and tries to capture the Avatar, because Azula (a notorious liar) told him that their father forgave him and wants him back. When he returns Ozai does forgive Zuko but only because he believed that Zuko killed the Avatar. The second was in the series finale, when he told everyone that Ozai planned to ethnically cleanse the Earth Kingdom, something he should have mentioned in "The Western Air Temple" several episodes ago; it was kind of important.
- Justified. Zuko says he had not mentioned it because he had no reason to; as far as he knew, Aang still had the goal of defeating the Fire Lord before Sozin's Comet returned...but in actuality, Aang and the others had decided to wait until AFTER the comet had come and gone, without telling Zuko.
- On the other hand, shouldn't Zuko have realized that something was up before they are down to three days before the comet arrives, since apparently no one has mentioned to him what the battle plan was? He's cutting it kind of close to question why they are still on vacation when the Final Battle is supposedly right around the corner. Not that it let's the rest of the cast off for failing to talk to the guy with such extensive inside information about the enemy.
- Basically, Poor Communication Kills.
- Despite being relatively sane, Slinkman of Camp Lazlo likes to carry the Idiot Ball around a lot.
- In the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series, Antoine would occasionally be used for this. The mini-episode Fed Up with Antoine was the most blatant example of this trope.
- Interestingly, Sonic was also given the Idiot Ball for a single episode. In the episode "No Brainer", Sonic nearly gave away the location of the Freedom Fighter's secret base due to being hit with a memory-erasing gun.
- Thrust is actually pretty smart in Transformers Armada when he first shows up. After several Deus Ex Machina-induced failures he starts spending a lot more time around the Idiot Ball, culminating in getting his rear kicked by human children.
- A case of a literal idiot ball can be found on The Simpsons. In one episode, Lisa is no less smart than she usually is, but she's feeling like an idiot because a new girl in class, Alison, has proven to be better than her at everything. Visiting Alison's house, Lisa attempts to play an anagram game with Alison's father but fails miserably. Taking her to be a simpleton, Alison's father hands Lisa a red rubber ball, saying "this is a ball. Perhaps you'd like to bounce it."
- Pranksta Rap – The plot revolves around Bart faking his own kidnapping and gives rise to two idiot ball moments. Bart handwrites the ransom note. Marge fails to recognise her own son’s handwriting.
- Star Wars The Clone Wars has an episode where Obi-Wan and Anakin are sent to negotiate with some Weequay who have captured Count Dooku. Right from the start, they go in expecting a trap, yet apparently did not bother to think of any counter measures. They quite willingly hand over their lightsabres rather than hide them and worst of all, at the end when they've finally broken free and have the Weequay leader at blade point, ready to give up and come to prison quietly, Obi-Wan tells Anakin to let him go. Why? Why? Why? They never even try to explain why Obi-Wan suddenly wants to let someone who lied to them, drugged them, kidnapped them and tortured them get off scot free!
- Because he knows Count Dooku is going to hunt them down as Obi-wan points out at the end when the Captain ask why are they being let go.
- So this Jedi Knight, this paragon of justice and peace, is perfectly happy to let a Sith Lord run around murdering, instead of doing his job by the book, which would be arresting the guy? Wow, who knew Obi-Wan was a Jerkass...
- Obi-Wan did advise the pirate captain that it would be a really good idea to find some other planet to hide on, before Dooku got around to looking for him.
- The Clone Wars also has Cad Bane, a bounty hunter who seems to have the power to hand out idiot balls to all of his enemies. In every one of his appearances, he manages to succeed by turning the Jedi into complete morons. Bigger idiots than they usually are in the prequel era, that is.
- Lion-O of ThunderCats runs headlong down the field with the Idiot Ball held very tightly ( I'm going to go exploring! Uh-Oh, trouble I can't handle myself! Wait, can't call the other Thundercats, the episode's not three-quarters over yet! ) though he occasionally passes it off to other Thundercats. Tygra, especially, seems willing to run with it. Lion-O has the justification of being a mental child, but Tygra and the others have no excuse.
- Every character in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon would carry the ball when the plot required. A stand-out moment includes a scene in the series' third episode, when, left to their own devices in April's appartment, the turtles suddenly become retards: Leonardo begins throwing tubes of lipstick at a painting, calling it "target practice"; Raph interprets "insert capful of Shampoo into tub" as referring to an actual baseball cap; Donny starts fiddling with April's answering machine with no regard as to her privacy; and Mikey proves incapable of making instant pizza which he had no permission to touch. April is undestandably furious.
Real Life
- People practically pass the Idiot Ball around on a regular basis. From such man-made disasters like "The Great Irish Famine" to "The Great Leap Forward", incompetence, miscommunication, and plain malice are passed up and down a line until a small error becomes a really big problem.
- Of course, one must always remember Hanlons Razor.
- Many disasters of this sort happen because of an underlying problem that encourages people to act in ways that an outsider would call idiotic. For example, during the Chinese "Great Leap Forward," everyone had a strong incentive to cover up problems, because the Party leadership tended to Shoot The Messenger when someone admitted to a shortfall in production. In the Potato Famine, the British aristocrats with the power to control government policy in Ireland didn't care much about what happened there, and so avoided dealing with the famine until it became serious to ignore.
- I generally count willful ignorance in the "malice" section.
- Regarding the Irish Potato Famine, some in London thought famine was inevitable and interfering would do no good, as Malthus had predicted that population would eventually outstrip food production ... ignoring that Ireland (pop. 10m) was producing enough food for 20 million. They took the pragmatic option, deciding that food shortages in British cities would lead to revolution, but food shortages in Ballynackfigginspittle would just exterminate those semi-human creatures no-one cares about.
- Lets not forget the case a few years ago where NASA lost a billion dollar space probe because some idiot forgot to convert from american standard to metric. Apparently rocket scientists are above checking their work.
- You can generally rely on six-year-olds to be six-year-olds, and that's about it. Nothing illustrates this quite so well as the recent "Balloon Boy" fiasco, when, having executed his plan for fame and attention well enough to get away with it if not actually avoid raising suspicion, the father asks his son (on national television even) why he didn't come out from where he was hiding when he heard everyone looking for him, and the kid responds, "You said we were doing it for the show."
- Luigi Cardona is a not-so-well-known Italian general during the First World War who held onto his Idiot Ball for a very long time. He was a general who believed in Napoleonic tactics, even thought the technology had been much improved during the 100 years between Napoleon and him. His failed offensives - 11 in total - along the Izonso (now called the Soča) River emptied the Italian manpower significantly and eventually led to the near-collapse of the Italian army after a Central Powers counterattack at Caporetto. That the Izonso is located in the Alps and that the Austrians held stronger positions didn't help matters either.
- In WW 1 France and Britain going to war with Germany, the country whose chemical industry produced 90% of the explosives used by the French and British army.
- To be fair, France didn't really have the option of NOT going to war with Germany, once she'd been invaded. And Britain was bound by treaty to come to France's aid.
- No it wasn't. Britain joined the war because Germany invaded Belgium.
- Hell, the entirety of World War One itself is one big giant idiot ball. The ultimatum issued by the Austrian government after the assasination of Franz Ferdinand and the Serbian reply were basically insult-trading instead of diplomacy. Especially since almost no one in Austria liked Franz Ferdinand and Emperor Franz Josef didn't really want to go to war. Later on in the war the Germans and the Allies were both committed to total victory, which meant that attempts by Pope Benedict XV and Emperor Charles of Austria to resolve the war diplomatically were rejected out of hand on both sides. Then there was the German plan to knock Russia out of the war: send Vladimir Lenin back. Way to use your heads, guys.
Web Original
- Open Blue's Back Story has King Armando of Avelion betting his country's second largest colony in a swordfight with the greatest swordsman in the Old World. Naturally, he lost. For a skilled diplomat and peacemaker, Tempting Fate like that wasn't exactly a pretty smart thing to do.
- Whateley Universe example: during the 'combat finals' at Whateley Academy, Buster (super-strong brick who gets stronger and tougher the more you hit him) drew Aquerna, one of the school losers. He lost by chasing her all over the place until she found a spot where she had the advantage. Lampshade Hanging by the instructors, who pointed out that he was so much stronger than she was, all he had to do was go to the 'win spot' and type in his answers, and she wouldn't have been able to do a thing to stop him.
- Cracked's 6 Movie Plots Made Possible by Bafflingly Bad Decisions
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