Completely Missing The Point - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sagara Sōsuke from Full Metal Panic! does this. A lot. With pretty much anything that isnt military-involved. This causes many of his admirers great amounts of frustration and anguish.
Korea in Axis Powers Hetalia at one point approaches China with mind-reading binoculars. China's thoughts are along the lines of "Oh no, it's him, go away, go away..." Korea concludes that the binoculars must be broken.
Might Guy of Naruto fame does this a lot. When battling an extremely dangerous opponent for a few minutes he eventually realizes that his enemy uses a sword as his weapon. Never mind the fact that the enemy used that sword to slice into Guy's best friend, Kakashi, right in front of Guy.
- Recent backstory exposition has revealed the Uchihas to be an entire clan of this. Long story short, The Messiah had two sons. The elder believed world peace could only be attained through power; the younger believed The Power Of Love was the key. The younger brother was appointed successor, which pissed off the elder so much that he dedicated himself and his descendants (the Uchiha clan, in case you haven't figured it out) to showing up his younger brother and his descendants (the Senju, the other clan that founded Konoha), drawing the entire ninja world into their feud and betraying all the ideals of peace and equality their father had worked for.
Two Breast Expansion fetish mangas explore this concept with hilarious results:
- In one a loli girl insecure about not developing, and thinking her boyfriend wants big-breasted girls (he actually only wants her because she's a flat-chested loli) gets basketball sized breast implants...her boyfriend hates it and throws her out. The girl suspects it's because she's still too small and at the end she gets even bigger ones to try and please him. The second pair is bigger than her entire torso. At the end she struts arrogantly out of the clinic, boasting about her new size, only to fall over under the weight and find that she can't lift them, and ends up looking ridiculous.
- In another a Pettanko gets rejected by breast obsessed boys, who only care about busty anime girls, one time too many and gets huge breast implants to try and meet their standards...but when they see it "in the flesh" they're so comically huge that they get squicked and reject her again. So she goes off and gets bigger ones, and they still reject her. At the end she once again thinks she's "too small" and has gotten even bigger implants, this time almost too big to move, hoping this will do the trick...
When Shamisen the calico cat suddenly speaks (with with the voice of an old philosopher) in The Sighs of Haruhi Suzumiya, Itsuki is first surprised that it's a male calico. Lampshaded by Kyon, of course.
The first Megami Sound Stage of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha featured a part where characters submitted messages to be read aloud, typically their thoughts on the present situation or other characters. The somewhat ditzy Amy's message tells Nanoha and Fate to come straight home for snacks, and asks them to pick up juice and coffee freshener for her; she apparently thought the message to the audience was actually for Nanoha and Fate.

Close Anime & Manga

On his first album, Shame Based Man, Bruce McCulloch had a recurring bit with a radio call-in show. The last of these is some happy idiot calling to say all the lonely people should "pair up". The host then gives her a list of reasons this is a dumb idea, all of which are lost on her.

Close Comedy

I sed stup flaming ok ebony’s name is ENOBY nut mary su OK!
- A Follow The Leader Troll Fic in the Twilight fandom, Twila The Girl Who Waz In Luv With A Vampyre, gave us the similar: "OK PPL I AM NOT A TROL!! I AM A VAMPIR OK"

Close Fan Fiction

One of the few things played straight in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and even then verging on parody. Jay's monkey is kidnapped and driven away in a van with a poster on the back that clearly shows its destination. After about 3 minutes of stupidity, "Silent" Bob is forced to set his friend straight.
Silent Bob: The sign! On the back of the car! Said Critters! Of Hollywood! You dumb fuck!
- Not to mention that after Bob's tirade, Jay is bothered more by getting spittle on him than the significance of Bob speaking for once.
  - He never is surprised when Silent Bob speaks, even though he only does so once or twice per movie.
In the movie Half Baked, Thurgood is telling his friends not to spend any money, as they have to save it. Then:
Scarface: You said you gave Mary Jane a pearl necklace!
Thurgood Jenkins: Obviously you missed the whole point of that story.
In Kingpin, this happens twice. Once, he holds out his rubber hand to Ish, to show him is bowling championship ring and Ish comments on his hand. Later in Reno, he holds out his hand to demonstrate its fake-ness and the guys he's showing think he's going on about the ring.
When Brian writes treasonous graffiti, all the Centurion notices is that the Latin is wrong... and then makes him correct it and write it out 100 times.
A similar situation occurs in Canadian Bacon. Sherriff Boomer, Kabral, and Roy Boy steal a truck and paint anti-Canadian graffiti on it. They later get pulled over by a Canadian highway patrolman because of it. However, it's not because the graffiti is anti-Canadian. It's because it's only in English and not also in French.
- He then helpfully provides translations and the spray-can to do them with. Aren't Canadians just the nicest people?
- And, the cop is Dan Aykroyd (who is Canadian IRL).
Martin Blank, the main character of Grosse Pointe Blank, tells everyone flat out that he makes a living as a contract killer. No one believes him until the bodies start piling up.
Dr. Evil of the Austin Powers films misses the point when Frau tries telling him that she's pregnant.
In Year One, Jack Black's character doesn't understand what lesbian means and gets into an awkward situation when he tries to sleep with one. She even tells him she likes to have sex with women and he stills doesn't get it. Admittedly he's just that stupid.
In Sin City, Marv says of his probation officer Lucille: "She's a dyke, but god knows why. With that body, she could have any man she wants." She doesn't want a man. She likes pussy.

Close Films

Angela and Diabola: When Diabola first enters school at the age of six, she draws a number of extremely disturbing pictures involving people dying horrible deaths. Her principal praises the pictures and labels Diabola an artistic genius, while completely failing to grasp her obvious violent and sociopathic tendencies.
Unusually important version in The Wheel of Time, the Aes Sedai have forgotten why they took an oath to always tell the truth. Incidentally, it was so people would trust them, not to improve their ability to twist the meaning of words. As a result, no one believes a word they say.
- Also the Wheel Of Time Aiel, who took an oath not to use swords as part of their devotion to peace. Nowadays, they cheerfully use bows and spears and are seen as barbarian warriors. Just so long as they're not killing people with swords, that would be terrible. The revelation of how totally they've missed the point sends a lot of them crazy.
Neverwhere: Croup and Vandemar are hiding out in an abandoned hospital, and Mr. Croup performs a miniature knife-throwing act with his hand and five razor blades, demonstrating perfect aim. Mr. Vandemar is not impressed, as "you didn't even hit one finger." He then proceeds to throw his own knife directly through the back of his hand, which neatly shows the supernatural nature of the pair as he does not bleed and the wound closes up instantly. ("Oh, Mr. Vandemar, if you cut us do we not bleed?" "... No.")
- Croup seems to be disappointed about not hitting any fingers, implying that he couldn't even tell the difference.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas: "How about some ether?"
In James Thurber's short story "Mr. Preble Gets Rid of His Wife," Mr. Preble is planning to murder his wife so he can run off with his secretary. She is suspicious when he asks her to go down to the cellar with him, and he blurts out the truth almost immediately — and ends up in an argument about the selfish and inconsiderate way he's chosen to go about it (she's in the middle of a book and doesn't feel like going down to the cellar to be murdered just now; it's cold down there, and he's picked out a lousy murder weapon and makes her wait while he goes to find another one... and so on).
One Tom Holt novel featured the best way to describe this in history.
''Missing the point with all the futile diligence of a blind machine-gunner."
New York magazine used to have various humorous reader competitions. One of them was to write literature and theater reviews as if by a critic who Completely Missed The Point. (E.g., one entry panned Crime and Punishment for revealing the murderer's identity at the beginning, thus spoiling the mystery. Another reviewed a Dick and Jane book, saying that the author seems to be aiming for a Hemingway-like style, "but the effect is mechanical rather than taut.")
Henry James wrote Daisy Miller as a criticism of aristocratic American snobs who looked down on people who didn't follow their rules of etiquette, particularly independent young women. The very readers he tried to chastize were ashamed, all right... ashamed of Daisy, seeing the strange American girl as the insult to Americans!

Close Literature

Brass Eye lives off this trope. "CAKE is a made-up drug. It's not made from plants, it's made from chemicals... by sick bastards..." It's made from some of each, with animal secretions thrown in to boot. Wheat flour, sugar and cocoa are all plant products; add animal-derived milk and eggs, plus chemical baking powd-oh, wait...
"This is a scientific fact. There's no evidence for it, but it's still a fact."
In Scrubs, Carla, who is from the Dominican Republic, has a dream that involves her friends conspiring to kill her. What disturbs her? That the dream isn't in Spanish.
- Partly justified in that Turk and J.D.'s motivation in the dream was getting rid of her would mean they could spend more time with each other. Their "guy love" relationship is well established throughout the series and Carla occasionally mentions she either sometimes gets worried they'll run away together or that she wishes Turk would get as excited around her as he often does with J.D.
- Another example in Season 5 when Carla loses a paitent and has the Janitor helps her look. He mentions that he didn't find his head, then goes on about how he once found a head and, since it was a weekend, left it in his locker and decided to take care of it later. On the next work day, he's forgotten about it and discovers a dismembered head in his locker now filled with rats. He punts the head off the roof, but sees that it'll land directly on Dr. Kelso. He then claims that an eagle swooped by and snatched the head in midair and carried it off. When he tries to explain why he thinks an eagle is near a hospital, Carla goes "...I can't believe you get a locker and I don't."
  - This could be because the Janitor is known to be a pathological liar and the fact he has a locker maybe is the only sensible part in the whole story.
  - But he actually has found a head before. He used it to paint a mural.
Woody Harrelson's eponymous character on Cheers is the personification of this trope. This sets up a classic subversion:
Woody: I don't get The Far Side.
Cliff: Well, you see, Woody, that's showing how cows act when humans are not around.
Woody: I mean my hometown newspaper doesn't carry The Far Side! But thanks for making me feel like a one-year-old!
This was the whole schtick of Gilda Radner's classic Saturday Night Live character Emily Litella... Oh, you mean it wasn't? It was based on Mondegreens instead? um... never mind.
In one episode of Happy Days, Chachi starts earning money from giving dancing lessons, but is too embarrased to tell anyone and instead claims that he has written and sold a song. When asked to sing the song, he claims that for copyright reasons, he can't sing the whole song, but can only sing bits of it out of order. He then begins to sing random drivel. After he leaves
Fonz: He's lying badly.
Marion: You mean, he didn't write that?
- Another time, Chachi was conversing with Mrs. Cunningham to get her blessing to marry Joanie. When he tells her "I HAVE to marry Joanie!" Mrs. Cunningham immediately freaks out (she was thinking that he had gotten her daughter pregnant). When he finally calms her down, he clarifies that he has to marry Joanie because he loves her SO much. This cheesy line wins him her blessing.
In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, where Penny dates Leonard's colleague, David Underhill, and he is jealous:
Leonard: You said that you didn't want to go out with me because I was too smart for you! Well, news flash, lady, David Underhill is ten times smarter than me!
Penny: Dave is not smarter than you. He's an idiot.
Leonard: Really? Why would you say that?
Penny: Because a smart guy takes the nude photos of his wife off his cell phone before he tries to take nude photos of his girlfriend.
Leonard: He tried to take nude photos of you?
Penny: That's what you took from that?!
- Justified in the fact that it would be extremely upsetting to hear that a love interest was going to give or in the process of giving nude photos to a Jerk Ass.
  - also...
A 3rd Rock from the Sun episode had Dick catch one of his students drawing a doodle of him with antlers and a tail. Dick thought it was brilliant and praised the student for effectively picking up "the essence of my rugged good looks".
- Really, it's the premise for that show...
James May, on a recent episode of Top Gear, about rally driver Kenny Block: "The man is completely useless, he can't drive in a straight line."
Michael Scott, from the US version of The Office.
In an episode of The Suite Life Of Zack And Cody, London and her book club review Pride And Prejudice, and identify with Caroline Bingley and lambaste Darcy for "marrying beneath him."
In an episode of That70s Show Hyde shows Fez a shirt with "Funland University" on one side and "F.U." on the other. The joke is lost on Fez (who thinks it has to do with it saying Fu).
- In another episode, shortly after Jackie starts dating with Hyde, she sees her previous boyfriend Kelso kissing with his new girlfriend, and - in the presence of Hyde - screams: "GET OFF MY BOYFRIEND!" Fez, who had his hand of Hyde's shoulder says: "I don't know why she's so upset. I was barely touching you."
Barney from How I Met Your Mother makes hot, sweaty monkey love to this trope.
- Episode 2x03 "Brunch": When Barney shows a picture he took of Ted's dad having an affair with Wendy the Waitress, Ted is naturally mortified. Barney assumes this Angst is because Ted's dad violated his duties, not as a husband, but as Barney's wingman. He called dibs on Wendy first, dammit!
- Episode 4x13 "Three Days of Snow": Barney explains how he plays a game called "Party School Bingo" where he takes a list of the Top 25 party schools in the country, arranges them on a bingo card, and fills in a space every time he sleeps with a girl from that school.
  Ted: So how many people are in on this Party School Bingo thing?
  Barney: Oh, it's just me.
  Ted: Then what's the point, then?
  Barney: The point is to get five in a row.
  Ted: And what do you get when you get five in a row?
  Barney: I get Bingo.
- Episode 4x15 "The Stinsons": When Barney watches movies, well ...
  Barney: Hey, The Karate Kid’s a great movie. It’s the story of a hopeful, young karate enthusiast whose dreams and moxie take him all the way to the All Valley Karate Championship. Of course, sadly, he loses in the final round to that nerd kid. But he learns an important lesson about gracefully accepting defeat.
  Lily: Wait, when you watch The Karate Kid you actually root for that mean blonde boy?
  Barney: No, I root for the scrawny loser from New Jersey who barely even knows karate. When I watch The Karate Kid I root for the karate kid, Johnny Lawrence from the Cobra Kai dojo. Get your head out of your ass Lily.
- Episode 3x11 "The Platinum Rule": Barney becomes convinced that an ex-girlfriend is trying to kill him.
  Barney: I dump her, and she says, "no hard feelings." She's a psycho, what other explanation is there?!

Close Live Action TV

Warhammer Fantasy has a Chaos God of, among other things, Atheism. He has followers. When dealing with Chaos Cultists, do not expect an overabundance of anything resembling sanity or logic. Of course, a god of Atheism is made weaker through worship.
- So-o, his followers actually have to deny his existense in order to make him stronger, don't they? All the while admitting that existense since they are still his followers...Huh.
- He could actually be a chaos god of paradoxes, thus growing madly in power each time he gains a follower.

Close Tabletop Games

In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, quite a few characters miss the point of what Sikieiki's trying to tell them, even when Siki's being direct. Even Reimu and Marisa are guilty of this.
In Tales of Symphonia, Lloyd is relating stories of extrinsic motivation to Colette and Regal. Despite the fact that Regal CLEARLY tells Colette that Lloyd was referring to the temptation of the food that boosted his memories, Colette seems convinced that it was Dirk's cooking itself, and not the incentive of it, that taught Lloyd how to memorize the Dwarven Vows.
- Likewise, in the sequel, Tenebrae complains about the others thinking of him as a stick-in-the-mud. Colette tells Tenebrae that he has no mud on him, and that he shouldn't feel bad. After Emil tells her that, "there was never any real mud to begin with," Colette asks if it was more like a muck or a slime instead.
  - In another scene from the sequel everyone is guessing what the guardian of the tree looks like. Zelos guesses a hot woman (as is his nature), Presea and Regal hope that it has paw pads, Raine thinks it's a being like a centurion, and Marta just think's it'll be old. Here's what Colette says:
Colette:So to sum up, the guardian is a wise old lady with a killer body and paw pads.
Shirou in Fate Stay Night has this problem when any of the Deus Sex Machina problems come up, as well as at the end of UBW good ending. To be fair, it really is kind of a stretch to link "not enough mana" to "have sex with Saber/Tohsaka".

Close Video Games

Miko Miyazaki from The Order of the Stick immediately assumes that because her own conclusions led her to kill her lord, the titular band somehow made her do it. She then takes it as far as assuming everyone in the room is working against her, and she can do no wrong because she is the strongest member of the Sapphire Guard.
Roy Greenhilt: It's like she has that Monk ability that lets you jump as far as you want, only for her, it applies to conclusions.
Ben Winchester from Loserz meets and befriends a girl who's much like his old (platonic) friend Jodie — a bisexual girl hot for Anything That Moves. The conclusion he makes... see for yourself here and here.
This Misfile strip.
Pokemon X does this when Brendan describes May to Professor Birch, saying that she's 5'4", 100 lbs, brown hair, and then mumbles "nice... firm... breasts..." while drooling (it's a long story, okay?). Professor Birch looks shocked. After Brendan leaves, Birch gets excited... because he thinks May is cooking chicken breasts for dinner.
This Cyanide and Happiness comic.
The "Cuckolded Husband" storyline in Sexy Losers sees a man repeatedly walk in on his wife having sex with his best friend. He immediately believes their implausible excuse and innocently runs with it until they regret saying anything.
Boy Meets Boy: Mikhael decides to use humour to lighten the situation when coming out to his new poker group, by putting down his cards and saying "Y'know, it's funny that I got a straight, because I'm not." Long awkward silence ensues, and Mik figures they're squicked and leaves. We cut back to the group, still sitting in amazement:
"I can't believe he got a straight that early on!"
"The man's luck is incredible!"
"Guys ... shut up."
In Ctrl Alt Del, Zeke blackmails Ethan into creating a female robot by threatening to tell Lucas about Ethan and Lilah's secret wedding, which Zeke isn't invited to because he's not even supposed to exist. Lilah is upset that now there are two robots who want to destroy humanity and the new one is really determined, and to top it all off after his companion is built Zeke blurts out their secret in front of Lucas anyway (surprisingly for a humanity-hating robot (but not for an expy of Bender) it appears to be a genuine accident). Needless to say, everyone is upset, especially Lilah. For his part, Ethan thinks Lilah is upset because since he made a feminine robot, he had to touch its boobs because girls are Always Chaotic Jealous, right?
- That's being a tad unfair. In that comic, he's going through a list of all the possible reasons he can think of for her to be angry, to make sure he apologizes for the right thing. The next thing he says after that is to go on to "I made another robot without telling or asking you" and saying "I'm pretty sure that's the big one".
This Basic Instructions strip. For added fun, it sems that both of them are missing the point in different ways.

Close Web Comics

In a Family Guy episode, Lois is shown several drawings that Stewie has done. All of them have Lois dying in a particularly gruesome fashion. Lois realizes that this can mean only one thing: "His father's not in any of these pictures; they should spend more time together." Note that the teacher concurs with her.
Something similar happens in a SpongeBob SquarePants episode, where a new student at Mrs. Puff's driving school draws himself punching the title character on the chalkboard and repeatedly threatens to kick his butt. This naturally horrifies the character, while Mrs. Puff just thinks he's a talented artist.
- Possibly a subversion; Mrs. Puff really hates SpongeBob.
Dale in King of the Hill manages to do a single-person version of this by relating to Hank about how 9 months before the birth of his son, he was watching aliens while his wife was with some other guy. Hank says, "Your wife loves you," but then Dale comes to the conclusion that his son is an alien, and asks Hank if there's any better explanation. Obviously there is, but Hank decides to refrain from pointing out the obvious.
- Well, there is no other explanation. After all, Dale's known John Redcorn to be gay for years...right?
- Relating to King of the Hill, many of the people who began watching it when Adult Swim began showing it have made numerous topics on message boards about how they hate the show because all the characters are annoying in some way (they apparently think that the writers are glorifying obnoxious morons).
The reason that the Muggles of Invader Zim are such Bats. Despite admitting many, many times that he is an alien intent on conquering Earth, Zim is dismissed as talking about something completely different.
The Brain in Pinky and the Brain openly admits he's a lab mouse trying to take over the world to virtually anyone who asks, and this remark is always dismissed.
- Then again, the admissions seem to be phrased as excessive sarcasm.
In a flashback episode of The Simpsons, when the entire town knows that Marge is pregnant, Homer keeps thinking the townspeople are congratulating him for landing his dream job, including Moe's "Way to get Marge pregnant!" Only after someone actually does congratulate him for the job, he realizes Marge is pregnant.
- Similarly, in "Homer's Night Out", while coming home from work people keep greeting him and doing hula dances. He isn't aware that the picture of him dancing with a woman has circulated (despite there being a copy of the picture right behind Apu), and just figures that they're on drugs.
- In the episode where Marge stars in a musical version of A Streetcar Named Desire, after she delivers the last line ("I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.") the cast breaks into a musical number about how "You can always depend on the kindness of strangers..."
- During the gay parade, Marge hears Patty and Smithers, hidden each in their own closets, proclaiming that they're gay and proud of it. Marge then asks, "Wouldn't it be nice if that man and that woman got together [romantically]?" (for a real life version, read the Troper Tales).
- "Goodbye Adil! I'll send you those Civil Defence plans you wanted!"
- One Running Gag is Homer missing the point of a joke and laughing at the wrong part.
Captain Hero of Drawn Together is notorious for missing the point, as illustrated by the following example.
Unusually Flexible Girl: I missed you more than a retard misses the point!
Captain Hero: What do you mean?
SouthPark: Cartman perfectly modeled this trope once when he was caught in class mimicking certain Nazi gestures and phrases, and was made to watch an anti-Nazi film, which of course only fueled his fascination with the subject. Considering that the film only showed Nazis marching and never mentioned any bad things that Hitler did, only that he "was a very naughty person", and considering that Cartman's a sociopath... yeah.
- In addition to this, we had the "Major Boobage" episode with the sub-plot of Cartman rescuing the cats from being put into the pound (eventually taking in around 100) - even going so far as to suggest that Mr. Kitty "Write a journal.", as well as replying "They're innocent victims in this! They have to hide or they'll be put to death. Something you just can't understand." when asked why the cats are in his attic. By the end, we have this exchange between Cartman and Kyle - Cartman:"But ya know, we've all learned something, you guys. We can never persecute living beings and force them into hiding. It's wrong." Kyle:"And you don't see any parallel between that and anything else in history?" Cartman:"Hmmm, nope. I have no idea what you're talking about Kyle." Though given that it IS Cartman, this could just be Eric being a Jerk Ass.
- One more! In the episode where Wendy fights Cartman, Cartman is terrified that Wendy might actually be able to beat him, which would be terribly uncool. He manages to get her into enough trouble so that she'll be severely punished if she goes near him, effectively diffusing the situation... at which point he starts taunting her again, which makes her even more determined to fight him. Repeat about three times. When they finally fight she beats the crap out of him (even declaring "I'm finished!"). When Cartman gets back onto his feet he tells the boys that since he's been beaten by a girl he'll be uncool. The boys tell him they never thought he was cool to begin with. Cartman interprets this to mean the boys now think he's cool.
In Beavis and Butthead Do America, Butthead is woken from his dream by Beavis with the alarming news that their TV has just disappeared and he can't work out why. After looking at the broken in door, the muddy footprints leading to the door, and the two people talking about how they're going to sell a TV for about a minute, Butthead finally says "Hey Beavis, I've figured something out... this sucks!"
Ron Stoppable of Kim Possible, master of the missed point. For example, fixating on a restaurant manager's decision to take his favourite meal off the menu, instead of said manager's Secret Identity as a superhero, or worrying that the Self Destruct Mechanism in Drakken's lair will destroy a mind-switching device they need to use, missing the detail that since he and Kim are tied up there, the explosion will get them too.
- Alternatively, hes met enough super villains that meeting a super hero just doesn't phase him any more, and he's just Genre Savvy enough to know that he won't die, but it's entirely possible that he could have to spend an extended amount of time in Kim's body.
On The Fairly Oddparents, Timmy's dad hears "Icky Vicky", singing about how evil Vicky is. He comes to the conclusion that it's about pumpkins.
The Danny Phantom episode The Million Dollar Ghost has the following exchange:
Newscaster: ...the need for competent, non-Jack Fenton, ghost hunters in Amity Park has never been more obvious.
Jack: Hey! They said my name!
On the Arthur episode "Arthur Goes Crosswire," Arthur gets paired with his class's shallow Rich Bitch, Muffy Crosswire to work on a project, and he quickly begins to act like her. At the episode's climax, all of Arthur's friends start acting like Muffy to show him how obnoxious he's being. Muffy thinks they're trying to flatter her:
Muffy: I didn't mind when Arthur started acting like me, but I'm sorry, there's only one me, and that's enough.

Close Western Animation

The Loading Ready Run video Son of a Bitch features this.

Close Web Original

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