Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys

Narrative

Genre

Media

Topical Tropes

Other Categories

new edits
page history
related to...
edit page
discuss
view source
forum

Idiot Plot
"It's a malignant case of wall-to-wall dumb."
— John Bradshaw Layfield, WWE Friday Night Smackdown!

"Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."
— The Principal, Billy Madison

Popularized by film critic Roger Ebert, a term for a plot that hangs together only because the main characters behave like idiots, often because there's a Writer On Board. It's not so bad if the characters are supposed to be acting like idiots, but it's very bad if the Idiot Plot depends on a character suddenly acting stupid enough for the plot to work.

A much more grating form is the "second-order idiot plot", in which the plot can only function if every character involved, including side characters, suddenly loses about 50 IQ points. (In fact, Damon Knight originally coined the term "second-order idiot plot" to refer to science fiction stories in which the entire fictional society relies upon its citizens behaving like idiots.)

In any case, expect these many and varied examples to make you want to read the pertinent plot points back to whoever wrote them and then scream "DERP DERP DERP!".

See also Idiot Ball, Too Dumb To Live, Wall Banger, Credit Card Plot, Plot Induced Stupidity and Stupidity Is The Only Option.
Examples:

Anime
  • School Days. Somewhat excusable by the fact that it masquerades itself as a comedy for, oh, about one episode and a half; afterwards it becomes truly cringe-worthy. This editor had made a permanent dent in his desk from beating his head against it after only six episodes of it.
    • It's not that farfetched to think that this was actually intentional, though. The game is a deconstruction of the Tenchi Solution, after all, so...
  • The ending of Gundam Seed Destiny hinged on the Minerva crew acting like complete idiots so that they would fight the Three Ship Alliance. The crew ignores Gilbert Durandal creating a fake Lacus Clyne and his plan to control people's destiny. They even let slide the fact that Durandal is willing to use his newly acquired doomsday cannon to blow away entire countries if they don't agree to his Destiny Plan. At one point Meyrin Hawke, one of two members of the Minerva crew who were smart enough to defect, asks her sister Lunamaria Hawke why she is fighting for ZAFT when she should know they are evil; Lunamaria says nothing.
    • In Lunamaria's defense, Meyrin's exact "plea" was, "Sister, this is the real Lacus... !" The Black Tristars then immediately tried to kill her while she was left in shock by Meyrin's nonsensical radio spam. Great way to convince someone that they're evil and you're not, Meyrin.
    • Durandal's plan to replace Lacus Clyne with an impostor is entirely dependent on the world population being stupid enough not to notice the impostor's vastly different personality (not to mention much larger boobs, and the fact that she dresses MUCH more revealingly).
    • Worse than that, while ZAFT was busy invading Earth in the name of self-defense, they completely ignored the OMNI military bases on the Moon, practically in their back yard considering that they lived in space colonies. This, of course, bit them in the ass when OMNI used their moon-based laser cannon to completely blow away several colonies.
    • The ending? Really, the show as a whole turned into an Idiot Plot by episode 13, where everything up through the ending hinged on the Archangel going to war and creating conflicts due to their stubborn belief that just because anonymous would-be assassins were piloting ZAFT suits (nevermind three had just been stolen by the Earth Alliance weeks earlier, and Kira owned one himself), they must have been personally sent by top of ZAFT command.
  • Lampshaded in the Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series spinoff Cr@psule Monsters:
    Alex "Definitely Not A Villain" Brisbane: Step on the map.
    Yugi: Make me.
    Alex Brisbane: Oh, come on. I'll be your friend.
    Yugi: Look. There's no way I'm stepping on any freaking map.
    Alex Brisbane: What if I told you there was candy inside the map?
    Yugi: You've got to be kidding me. I'd have to be an idiot to fall for that.
    Tea: Candy? That sounds pretty good.
    Tristan: Yes. Let's go get the candy!
  • Sonic X takes this to absurd proportions... When everyone on the planet forgets the very basics of astronomy for a couple of episodes, except Sonic himself, amusingly enough. This is when Eggman rigs the moon to block out the sun, making it look like the moon pretty much stopped, along with the sun. Nobody finds this fishy because they've forgotten that the moon revolves around the Earth, and the Earth around the sun, not to mention the Earth spins on an embarrasingly wonky axis. Eggman takes the oppertunity to try and brainwash everyone with the lamps he sells, only to have his plan foiled by Sonic yet again, because he was the only one not holding on to the gigantic Idiot Ball.
  • Zoids Guardian Force is an idiot plot for the duration of its run. The villain, Hiltz, wants to revive the "true" Deathsaurer and destroy the world. To do this, he makes a copy of the Deathsaurer's core and installs it into another Zoid, the Death Stinger. He then uses the Death Stinger to go on a cross-country rampage which not only alerts the world to his plot, but sees the protagonists develop the weapons and skills that are used to defeat him in the final episode as a response. There was nothing stopping him from simply revivng the Deathsaurer in about the middle of the series... save for the desire to sell more toys.
    • Didn't he actually have to find the Death Saurer's body first?
  • Lelouch and Suzaku's relationship in Code Geass R2 is wrecked because Lelouch won't tell Suzaku that what he did to Euphemia was an accident. Suzaku kills his best friend because his best friend is a complete idiot.
    • Do you really think that Suzaku would have accepted, "The truth is that I ordered Euphemia to kill all the Japanese as a joke at the exact moment when my Geass went into Mode Lock."? Hell, even I can barely believe that, that plot twist was such a Wall Banger.
    • Wait, the Suzaku killing Lelouch was part of a plan by both of them and is unrelated to the Euphinator accident.
      • He could have said something anytime between Season 1, and most of Season 2, and it would have prevented a lot of crap from happening.
    • Considering how intelligent Lelouch, Schneizel, and Xingke are, you would think that someone would figure out that it would be best for all three to get together and have a discussion about how best to make peace. Instead, Schneizel builds a doom fortress that kills millions, Lelouch brainwashes hundreds of Britannian soldiers, and neither even try to have a discussion. Are they children or grown men?
    • One could say the entire Marianne subplot is a massive Idiot Plot on the part of the writers, considering how many people would have had to either have been fake memorie'd by Charles or just have been straight up delusional for Lelouch to not ever find out that his mother wasn't a complete saint until almost the end of the series. Everyone from Cornelia to Orange got smacked by this one.

Comic Books
  • Supreme Power, the J. Michael Straczynski reboot of Marvel's Squadron Supreme (a typically Marvel-dark riff on the characters of DC's Justice League Of America), has large parts of its plot dependent on the chronic tendency (seen before in much of Straczynski's work) for virtually everyone in any kind of government-representative role to be malicious, incompetent, or both.
    • The most egregious example is in the story of Mark Milton, or "Hyperion," the Superman-analogue: when a superpowered child falls from the sky in a spaceship, he is taken within minutes by the government and put in the custody of two dedicated agents, who pretend to be married so they can raise him as an American citizen in an artificially created (and heavily-monitored) "perfect family environment". However, with all the effort put into creating this environment, it somehow fails to occur to anyone in the project that getting an actually-married couple to play the role of Mom and Pop would be far easier on the agents, far more psychologically healthy for the child, and far safer should he ever, oh, find out about any of this.
      • On the other hand, it was when the agents began having a real relationship that things started going wrong in the Milton household. Suddenly, things were messy and complicated and a lot more like Real Life than the project had intended. The agents weren't supposed to have any concerns beyond raising Mark "perfectly". Of course, that still leaves the agents and their bosses firmly in posession of the Idiot Ball.
  • Angel Densetsu raises the Idiot Plot to an art form - the entire concept is that the main character unwittingly becomes the most fearsome gangster in Japan because of the whole cast's inability to communicate properly. Granted, this is well-justified by the personalities of the characters involved.
  • One More Day. Because making bargains with a devil is never a good idea. Though maybe the idiot plot is whatever drove Joe Quesada to commission this one.
  • In the So Bad Its Horrible Amazons Attack storyline, the entire Amazon race (the only apparent exception being Wonder Woman herself) carries an Idiot Ball the size of the moon. On the advice of Circe, an evil goddess who has tried to exterminate the Amazons on multiple occasions, they decide to declare war on one of the most powerful nations in the world; one that is home to many of the strongest superheroes in the DC Universe. The end result? The Amazon race is scattered across the world, they suffer Character Derailment that makes them a bunch of Straw Feminists, the entire USA hates them, and the reputations of heroes associated with them (Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, Supergirl to name a few) are left tarnished. This troper isn't sure what's worse; this or Countdown.
    • Oh, and the secret weapon they were going to use to bring the US to its knees? Giant magical bees. While awesome, a bunch of giant bees doesn't exactly measure up to nukes.

Film
  • The movie X-Men: The Last Stand features a double idiot plot. The government hears that Magneto is raising an army to attack the mutant cure laboratory on Alcatraz. In response, they arm the guards there only with mutant cure dart weapons in plastic dart rifles, thus leaving them totally defenseless against an attack with conventional weapons (Magneto could easily take care of firearms, but the dart rifles should be able to use the Instant Sedation darts seen in the second movie). Then, Magneto's army attacks, and no one in it brings along any weapons.
    • It's actually a triple idiot plot. Magneto and his army are attacking an island compound in order to kill the mutant being held within, as his blood is being used to make a mutant cure. In order to get there, Magneto rips up a bridge and hovers it over to the island, with his entire army standing on the bridge. This looks very cool. However, rather than dropping the bridge at the entrance to the island and then fighting a pitched battle to get to the mutant, Magneto could have literally dropped the bridge on the mutant.
      • Magneto wanted to capture the mutant alive, so he could force the mutant cure on mutants that didn't play ball with his new world order.
    • The whole thing is full of "it's not as if" moments — Magneto is surprised to realize that the guns are plastic, partway into the fight, but it's not as if he had some kind of ability to sense metal at a distance that had been highlighted in the plot about fifteen minutes ago; Logan has to kill Jean Grey, 'cause it's not as if there's a bunch of needles full of make-you-not-a-mutant juice nearby...
      • I think the problem with using the cure on Jean was that she wouldn't let any of the needles get close enough to her. And anyone who tried to get within a hundred feet of her was killed on the spot. She was just too powerful. Besides which, don't you know it's much more tragic when you have to kill your one true love because she's out of control?
      • The needles probably could have survived getting near to her, as Wolverine's pants seemed to have no problem surviving the disintegration. Pants he apparently borrowed from the Hulk. At he very least he could have put it in his pocket.
      • Also, it's not like a former prison island would have a ready source of metal to use as weapons or anything.
  • Star Wars, specifically Return of the Jedi and the Battle of Endor. On the Imperial side of the ledger — the Emperor's plan is to let the Rebels think the second Death Star is vulnerable to attack so they will plan a fleet assault against it, then cause the failure of the Rebels' attempt to sabotage the Death Star's shield generator and thus have the Rebel fleet destroying itself by attacking an impregnable fortress, yes? Would somebody please explain to me where in this strategy is there any requirement to let the Rebel sabotage team land on Endor at all? There isn't any, of course. The only thing that needs to happen here to let the grand scheme go forward is for the sabotage team to accomplish nothing. Having their shuttle tractored into the Executor's hangar bay and then be peeled open at leisure by Darth Vader and 500 stormtroopers would qualify for a whole lot of nothing. (This being said, it was Vader's decision to let them land, not the Emperor's; he likely did not want to risk Luke until he had set up the playing field.)
    • Of course, the Rebels earn no major points here either. Even with the pure luck of finding the single most ridiculous plot twist in the original trilogy, a.k.a. the Ewoks, they walked straight into the trap anyway. Because there is absolutely nothing suspicious about a completely unguarded back door on a top-secret vital defense installation! Nor is there any problem re: that you flew in yesterday pretending to be the supply shuttle for this base, and by now they're probably going to be a little curious why you were last seen flying down from orbit, but never bothered to actually land where you were supposed to! Nope! Let's just walk right in!
  • Attack of the Clones scored a major idiot moment by Obi-Wan being told point blank that the clones had been made for the republic years before. Does anyone think that an army of clones made this far in advance is a little suspicious? No, they just take the clones, and be glad they have an army to fight with.
  • The villains in Signs are aliens who have a vulnerability to water. They invade a planet that looks like this◊ without wearing protective suits, or any clothing at all for that matter.
    • And they want to eat people, who are mostly made of a fluid that burns them like acid. It'd be like humans invading Venus so they can drink from large vats of boiling sulphuric acid...
      • This troper believes it can all be explained as an incident of Interplanetary Hazing. "And you have to do it naked. Did I mention the planet is covered in water?"
  • The ending of the original Ocean's 11 movie. This troper saw it coming from a mile away and wondered how stupid they had to be to put the money in a coffin and not make sure that it wasn't cremated.
  • Much of the tension in Spider Man 3 could have been relieved if Mary-Jane had asked Peter "You do realize my role in the play was replaced, right?" Or if Peter would have taken a deep breath and talked things through with her after "killing" Harry. On the other hand, he was under the effects of the evil suit, but it felt like he forgot her entirely after getting his revenge.
    • Don't forget the admittedly in-movie (but treading actual What An Idiot territory) stupidity of, on a whim, publicly giving an open-mouthed kiss to his lab partner at the same time he was still going steady with Mary-Jane. "Special kiss" in and of itself or not, and not even going into fidelity issues, it doesn't take a sociologist to realize that that is going to raise some hackles.
  • Into the Blue hinges almost entirely on the main character, Jared, being nose blood-inducingly dumb at every possible turn. Why does he drive his girlfriend away by refusing to tell her that her life is in danger because of his dumb deals with the gangsters? Why doesn't he try to tell the gangsters why there's been a delay in the plan instead of getting into a firefight without a weapon? Why does he leave his girlfriend tied up at the mercy of the gangsters to dive in the water WITH HIS HANDS TIED BEHIND HIS BACK? Why does he destroy the drugs when they're the only thing the gangsters are interested in? WHY DOES HE RANDOMLY TELL THEM ALL THEY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE GIGANTIC TREASURE? This editor just had to get that off his chest, sorry.
  • The whole of Death Note's third Alternate Continuity film L: Change the World. L spends the entire movie running from the terrorists with his pet FBI agent, when he could have called for backup from either the Japanese police or the FBI at any time. Just milking money from his poor dead corpse.
  • Hellboy 2: The Golden Army: Is rife with these. Beside the usual "I'm pregnant but I won't tell him as to maximize the angst" plot, the heros rapidly capture one of the Mc Guffin the Big Bad needs to awake the titular Golden Army. Now, they realize that they have no particular need for that item or the Golden Army, but rather then destroying it by giving it to the one team member who can melt anything, they leave it with Abe's Shallow Female Love Interest, who told them explicitly that she acts as a magic homing beacon for the Big Bad. Guess what happens?
    • To be fair, Abe keeps the crown-piece a secret, and the rest of the team think they're going to confront the Big Bad with the Mc Guffin safely in the base. So it's Idiot Plot only for Abe, not the entire team, and he's not exactly thinking straight at the time.
    • But if you want a real idiot plot, consider that Abe's Shallow Female Love Interest knows that due to her mystical bond with the villain, any wound inflicted on him will also be done to her, and vice versa. So, at the end, in extremis, she kills herself to kill the villain! Oh the angst! ... especially given that she could have, y'know, just stabbed herself in the sword hand, or had somebody punch her unconscious...
  • Open Water 2:Adrift concerns six people who sail a luxury yacht into the middle of nowhere and decide to go swimming. It would have been nice if one of them had remembered to lower the boarding ladder first. The one hydrophobic woman who didn't want to go swimming gets thrown overboard by her oh-so-sensitive husband trying to cure her fear of water. So now we have six people trapped in the water and an infant alone on board. Believe it or not the stupidity level increases from here.
  • Sybock's Xanatos Gambit in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a pretty dumb one and only works because everyone else in the galaxy is apparently an idiot. He takes a Federation officer, a Klingon and a Romulan hostage so that a starship will be sent for him and his primative followers to hijack. This plan relies heavily on only one of the three most powerful governments in the galaxy bothing to make a rescue attempt and, indeed, that they only send one ship rather than a whole fleet.
  • Con Air starts off with an Army Ranger meeting his wife in a bar, and her getting hit on by a drunk guy who later tries to beat him up in the parking lot, along with two friends. The drunk guy had to rip off the lead's ribbons-several rows of 'em-before starting the fight. Poe, of course, rips 'em a new one, culminating in the first guy pulling a knife, whereupon Poe gives him a strike to the head that accidentally kills him. (Hey, realism in a Michael Bay movie!) Cut to the courthouse, where his lawyer advises him to plead out so he can get a reduced sentence. The judge disagrees, citing the fact that Poe should be held to a higher standard because he's...an Army Ranger. Given that he was wearing a uniform before the fight, and the assailants tried to rape his wife and kill him, he should've gotten off with self-defense. The lawyer doesn't even have him dress in a spare uniform at the trial. The rest of the film can be excused by Rule Of Cool.
    • IIRC, His wife implies that he was a hellraiser before he joined the army ("You were almost 'that guy' again"), Poe's wife runs before the knife comes out, and the guys' friends take the knife with them as they flee. This might make a self-defense claim risky...if there hadn't been dozens of witnesses in the bar to prove that the other guy started it earlier in the evening. The Idiot Ball was bouncing off every character in that courtroom.
  • 28 Weeks Later. So the governments decide to repopulate London because they think they've got the whole "zombie" thing under control, and look how well that turned out last time! But things are going all right until those idiot kids decide that that whole quarantine to keep them from being eaten just isn't for them and go joyriding to their old house. They find their mother, and despite it being very obvious she's infected with the Rage virus in some form, everyone decides it's a great idea to bring her back to the city for observation. Manpower at the base is apparently spread pretty thin, because they don't even bother to leave a friggin' guard on her door, which allows her husband to waltz into the room unopposed, and in a truly spectacular What An Idiot moment, starts making out with her, which of course infects him, and it's all down hill from there. And that's in the first twenty minutes!

Literature
  • Half the Harry Potter novels hinge on adults giving Harry and his friends incomplete or misleading information about what is going on because they don't want to burden young Harry with the Awful Truth. This never helps, and by the fifth novel you start to have serious doubts about how wise The Dumbledore really is if he thinks that keeping the truth from the Heroes will somehow get them to keep themselves out of the action. He himself admits that this was pretty stupid in the fifth book.
    • Also on the baddie's side, the plan to get Harry to the graveyard in Goblet of Fire was impossibly convoluted, as was the plan to steal the prophecy from the Ministry... and then Voldemort blows his cover by showing up at the end of the battle anyway. Voldemort should get the Evil Overlord List thrown at him. Hard.
    • Further, it never occurs to Harry that he should just take his suspicions to Dumbledore in books 2, 3, or 4. Even after each book ends with Dumbledore proving himself to be a very sympathetic listener who believes everything he's told, at least by Harry.
  • Dracula would have never sunk his fangs in Mina's neck if the heroes had remembered a single god damn thing they'd learned about vampires from their ordeal with Lucy. Especially since Mina was displaying all the symptoms of being a vampire victim that Lucy displayed earlier... Exacerbated by the fact that Mina was with her when Lucy got first attacked and started displaying those symptoms. And they had Van Helsing with them the whole time. WTF?
  • The White Tower rebellion plotline from the Wheel Of Time has turned into this. One side of the conflict has rediscovered several lost spells, has a large army led by a famous general, and has surrounded the White Tower, preventing most movement. The other side, inside the tower, are at each other's throats, constantly in-fighting, and are vastly outnumbered due to their leader being a dumbass. Not to mention the fact that the Chosen One will never make a treaty with the Tower because their leader ordered his kidnapping, and beating. Okay, given, The Mole organization is doing its best to foster these problems, but one would think that the Tower's ruling body would, at some point, notice that they are in a ridiculously weak position and their leader is a drooling idiot, and remove her from power. And all this is going on with the final battle over the fate of the world just around the corner...
  • The story of Adam and Eve in The Bible. They can do whatever they want, have eternal life, eternal youth, and their work consists of stuff like making up names for species and subduing the Earth. The only condition is that they don't eat the fruit of a certain tree. No prizes for guessing what they end up doing, but it makes this trope Older Than Dirt.
    • Similarly, God orders Lot and his family to flee the burning city of Sodom if they are to survive—with the arbitrary condition that they must never look back. Lot's wife does anyway, and God reacts by turning her into a pillar of salt.
    • Some Islamic philosophers believe that they got thrown out on purpose; knowledge of good and evil would bring them closer to Allah, which was worth the suffering.
  • Mentioned in a Black Widowers story: One character mentions he's having trouble writing his story without it turning into an idiot plot, and was trying to find a way to prevent characters from asking the obvious question that would resolve the mystery. Their guest then causes another idiot plot in much the same way.
  • A good portion of folklore involves people doing the one thing that they've been warned they must not do under any circumstances: Orpheus looking back on Eurydice, Psyche lighting a lamp to see Cupid, Snow White letting strange people into the house when the dwarfs are away...the list goes on and on.
    • To be fair, Orpheus thought he had fulfilled the terms of his bargain with Hades- he just didn't read the fine print. And Psyche was convinced by her Evil Stepsisters that Cupid was actually some kind of Eldritch Horror or somesuch, and had to know for sure. Now, of course, why Cupid would insist that she never see him is open to interpretation...
  • The Draka stories by S.M. Stirling. There's this empire in Africa which conquers everything it can grab (talking about whole continents here), enslaves pretty much everyone, has an extremely supremacist ideology, plus supreme technology, acts like independent even while being a British colony, but noone - whether nazis, communists or good democrats - decides to do anything to stop them.
    • The premise is that the Draka are a sort of Evil Twin society to the United States. Historically, no major nation decided to stop the US from becoming powerful from 1812 up to World War Two. The catch, and this is where the idiocy comes in, is that the US wasn't deliberately expanding into the spheres of interest of countries powerful enough to stop it, except for a few minor border clashes with the British Empire over a river valley here and there. Whereas the Draka do, especially during their alternate version of World War One.
  • Pretty much everything that PG Wodehouse ever wrote, but the man was so incredibly good at it, you barely notice. Plus, let's face it; when you're dealing with characters like Bertie Wooster, what else do you expect?
  • The war between Haven and Manticore in David Weber's Honor Harrington series is rapidly approaching this: formerly a simple good-versus-evil conflict, now both sides are led by good people who, in some cases, have worked actually together and like each other. Continuation of the conflict (which is now being goaded by an outside force both sides hate) would require an incredible amount of stupidity on both sides...fortunately Victor Cachat is on the case.
  • The science fiction short story 'The Cold Equations' arguably fits this trope, for the sheer amount of idiotically negligent design and procedure choices of the starship builders. This thus also results in a Broken Aesop.
  • Being There, both novel and film, is a satire that uses an Idiot Plot to help make its point. The whole story hinges on how people who believe themselves to be sensible and intelligent nevertheless jump to their own, desired conclusions time after time in their dealings with Chance The Gardener, never asking the questions most people would be tempted to ask based on what he says. This is partially because he appears to be a sensible, intelligent person himself, but is in fact an imbecile who doesn't understand what's going on and thus isn't able to correct others.

Live Action TV
  • Pretty much every episode of Three's Company.
  • Smallville, episode "Whisper", in which Clark gets super-hearing and everybody's IQ drops 30 (desperately-needed) points.
    • Another glaring example is "Action", where super-secretive Clark Kent stupidly rents his farm out to a film crew for the Movie-Within-the-Show, "Warrior Angel". This is especially idiotic because only a few episodes previous, Clark's Super Powered Cousin, Kara, arrived and she's a lot less careful about keeping her secrets than Clark is, increasing the chances of being found out tenfold. Also, why a big-budget movie is being filmed on a goddamned Kansas farm rather than in California, or, better yet: Canada is never made clear, though it's Truth In Television that some people let a big budget go to their head and they can't but do location shooting whenever possible.
  • In the Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode "Intervention", the entire Scooby Gang doesn't realize that Buffy is acting very unusual and completely like a robot that they encountered just 4 episodes earlier. Buffy angrily points this out in the show.
  • Heroes unfortunately (for an otherwise great series) has several examples of forced railroading of the plot in its three-part season finale.
    • Near the end of the season, Claire has several The Kimberly moments, fleeing from people who obviously had her best interests at heart and into trouble on more than one occasion. Ando's deciding Hiro would give up if he had one more conversation with his dad, and thus going to take on Sylar(!) alone (!!), isn't much better.
    • In "Landslide", Peter Petrelli telepathically eavesdrops on Sylar's plans to enlist the police's unwitting aid in attacking Ted Sprague... and then does nothing when he's subsequently arrested.
    • In "How To Stop An Exploding Man", Mr. Bennet warns Parkman not to confront Sylar because "he'll kill you" - but one would think just telling him Sylar is telekinetic and has Ted Sprague's powers would be more viscerally persuasive.
    • The idiocy of the Company in controlling their superpowered prisoners seems pretty key. Depowering Sylar was a good idea, but leaving him alone and guarded by only one person, whom he wanted to kill anyway with no means of knowing their condition, is roughly the worst idea imaginable. And Adam? Oh, let's just keep him in a cell. Next to the impressionable idiot with god-like powers. It's not like Adam has had decades to plan his escape or anything. There are so many more, it would probably be easier to list plot points that weren't pure stupidity.
    • In season 3, a group of supposedly Bad Ass freakjob villains escape. Their big plan? Hurt people and rob a bank. Joker they ain't.
    • Also from season 3, basically anything to do with Mohinder and his impromptu reenactment of The Fly.
    • Basically every time Peter shows up on screen and forgets that he can teleport or read minds (ie, always). Notable examples include not bothering to mindread the villainous Adam to find out if he can be trusted, and for commenting that there was impossible to use Claire's blood to save Nathan Petrelli after he's been shot because they're on opposite sides of the continent.
      • I thought it was obvious when you learned that he's the Peter from the future and wants Nathan to die. He lied.
  • Too many episodes of Star Trek Voyager to count, but it occurs in Star Trek Enterprise, too. Either the main characters have to act like morons for the sake of "conflict" or "suspense", or the crew runs into some stubborn Aliens Of The Week who behave like belligerent jerks or fanatical idiots solely so that there will be a conflict of interests.
    • Not to mention the Original Series...
  • One episode of The Twilight Zone had some people rob a bank of gold and then put themselves in suspended animation (which one of the robbers invented) for years in order to avoid getting in trouble for it. Had they just patented and sold the invention not only would they have probably become made more money than they did in the bank robbery, it also would've prevented them from having to worry about the law in the first place.
  • CSI Miami. Many, many times. When the main cast aren't being idiots for the sake of contrived personal issues, the case of the week inevitably depends on everyone else being idiots. The acting and writing varies between So Bad Its Good and So Bad Its Horrible.
    • Not to mention the series can't go two episodes without having some form of Strawman Political. So not only do we have idiots, we have smug idiots.
  • In one episode of Scrubs, JD is distraught about turning 30 without having accomplished anything on his "Things To Do Before I Turn 30" list. Understandable enough. 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. This would be a perfectly acceptable, if thoroughly silly, sitcom plot, if one of the other to-do list items wasn't "learn the difference between 'Senator' and 'Congressman.'" Five minutes with the Constitution or, even worse, 30 seconds on Google would have given him a solution and an end to his angst.
    • You're really over-estimating JD's ability to learn simple things. He read "The Iraq War for Dummies" and still didn't understand simple concepts. Besides, how often do you get to run in a triathalon? He could always learn that crucial difference later.
  • For all the well-written plots Firefly had, "The Message" had a huge, glaring plot point that relied on Mal not taking five seconds to explain the plan they came up with to Tracy. Instead, they had a tense standoff with guns drawn, trading barbs and threats for a good five minutes straight, and Mal never bothers telling Tracy how they're going to get him out of trouble.
    • It's definitely second-order at that. Most of the crew knew of the plan, and Tracy didn't bother to ask why his old commander would suddenly be so willing to sell him out either. On top of that, Mal repeatedly stated that Tracy had gotten himself into that mess, and they weren't going to help him out of it, as if he actually wanted it to end the way it did.
  • Veronica Mars season one ends with Veronica finding the tapes that implicate Aaron Echolls and then, rather than immediately going to one of the many state troopers who would certainly have been present in the house, since the governor was attending a party there, she drives away all by herself except for the full-grown man she somehow managed to avoid noticing hiding in the backseat of her Chrysler LeBaron. (The entire last third of that episode was more like a horror movie than a detective show, complete with a Made Of Iron Big Bad.)
    • Don't forget the season finale where she singlehandedly went after a very powerful organization with absolutely no regard for the consequences. She doesn't even check for security while breaking into their mansion headquarters so of course she gets caught on tape. When another character states she just made some powerful enemies, she just Hand Waves it away with "It wouldn't be the first time." No, you idiot: This time you pissed off the kind of people who can make you disappear and the fact that this is America isn't going to save you. At the end of the episode, the head of the organization states quite clearly to a shocked Veronica (who literally thought she had won) that he's decided to make her life a living Hell because he knows she's responsible. He does.
  • Towards the end of the third season of Lost, the survivors face the challenge of turning off a radio transmitter in an underwater facility. After locating the facility by following it's power cable, one character agrees to swam down on a suicide mission to throw the switch, knowing he will drown in the process. At no point in the series do any characters even remark on the fact that they have a large, exposed power cable on the surface. The plot demands a noble sacrifice, and thus the characters rendered incapable of seeing the obvious alternative means of achieving their goal.
  • In an episode of CSI New York, an escaped convict's plan to escape to Canada involves hijacking a commercial airliner flying out of New York and landing at an abandoned airstrip in Montreal. Leaving aside the writers apparently not realizing that Canada does, in fact, have police who would respond to a hijacked plane entering Canadian airspace, there's also the stupidity of the plan given that the bad guy could have taken a bus or train to upstate New York, gotten off, and found someplace to quietly walk across the Longest Undefended Border in the World.

Music
  • The anti-war song 'One Tin Soldier' tells of how the people of one nation invade and massacre another to claim a treasure that turns out to be symbolic. The other nation could have avoided this easily if they had just taken five minutes to explain the situation to the messenger sent to demand it rather than being needlessly cryptic.
    • I'd say it's the Valley Folk's fault, as the Mountain People immediately offered to give the treasure to them... But the Valley folk decided to invade anyway, probably spending more than the treasure they thought was there in the process...

Video Games
Videogames really can't get away with these, as they can cause brutal Gameplay And Story Segregation, but developers try anyway. If the player character is the idiot, see Stupidity Is The Only Option. Plot-essential NPC stupidity can go here.
  • The Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney series is really guilty of this. Most of the time your clients are in a pickle because they won't talk.
    • There are several occasions of things that Nick really shouldn't have had to point out. In the fourth case of the first game, for example, it falls to Nick to point out a bullet hole in a picture that hadn't been accounted for for nearly a decade. When he does, everyone is shocked and surprised, apparently having never seen this piece of major, case-changing evidence.
    • The fourth game (Apollo Justice) is a major offender here. You have to figure out a magic trick, not because it has any relevance to the case but simply because the judge wants to know. Furthermore, everyone except the judge and the main character have already figured out the trick but simply refuse to help since "you can't tell a magician's trick". These statements are made by the woman who really loves your client like a son and would sooner die than see him go into prison, your partner who works on the case with you and is a goddamn magician (who also expressed extreme sympathy for your client) and even the prosecution whose self-declared duty it is to "find the only truth" regarding murders. However, that part wasn't half as stupid as the fact that practically everyone is convinced that the frail little fourteen-year-old pianist who was unlikely to have ever handled a weapon before in his life managed to use a 45-caliber pistol to kill the victim, despite the fact that it's constantly mentioned that the recoil would be enough to dislocate the arm of a grown man of average build. The most the prosecution says about this is that it may have thrown the boy's aim off a bit, and nobody else questions it. And after firing two shots from the gun, the small child apparently had the strength to carry the corpse of the victim (a large adult) a fairly long distance to where it was found. The question of whether he would be strong enough to do this is never even brought up.
  • The Bards Tale - the modern version had an idiot plot, that only revealed itself to be an idiot plot at the end. It turns out the Distressed Damsel is really an imprisoned demon queen, thing is the Druids not only did not warn The Bard that he was being manipulated to unleash a great evil (not that it would be the first time the Bard did it). If anyone stopped to explain anything, then well, there goes the whole game.
    • And that the cute little dog that the Bard adopted wouldn't have been killed in the game's major Kick the dog moment.
  • Much of the conflict from Sonic Adventure 2 comes from the fact that people can't tell Shadow and Sonic apart. Although the two are fast, the same height and share similar facial features, their color patterns are vastly different (Sonic is blue, Shadow is black and red) and their spines are shaped differently, making it very easy to see the difference between the two, even as blurs.
    • Similarly, Mario and Shadow Mario in Super Mario Sunshine. Shadow Mario looks like he's made of dark blue water, while Mario is Caucasian with a red shirt and hat (although the overalls are blue). (And yes, I felt it was necessary to describe what Mario looks like).
  • In Knights Of The Old Republic, it is revealed that the main character is in fact Darth Revan, a Sith who waged war on Republic, slaughtering millions and then was apparently betrayed and killed by Darth Malak. The truth is that Revan's memory was destroyed and was then reprogrammed into the main character. As a result, the game either ends with Revan's ultimate redemption, or tragic return to The Dark Side. However, in the sequel, the writers apparently felt that many players may not have liked the idea that they were forced to have played as an ex-Sith, and came up with a bizarre subplot that Revan had apparently invaded the Republic in order to save it. A completely pointless plot that makes no sense which all came about as a heavy handed attempt to make a character appear more sympathetic.
    • Hey, the subplot is suggested by another resident ex-sith, Kreia, who spends most of the game manipulating the PC. Nobody ever said she was telling the truth, and nobody said that Revan was more sypathetic for targeting heavily populated, non-industrial worlds in order to further his plans. That's up to the player.
    • For this editor, the revelations about Revan in the second game made him less sympathetic. Training soldiers to deliberately torture and kill Jedi? Sending the people he didn't trust to Malachor V so they would be killed along with the enemy? Revan was far more sympathetic as a generic Sith Lord being backstabbed by his apprentice.
  • Mega Man 9. Dr. Wily, the villain for the last 8 games, appears on TV to declare that Dr. Light, the man who helped put him away the last 8 times, is the true villain. He then goes on to ask for money to be transferred into his Swiss bank account, so that he can fight Dr. Light himself. For some reason, a planet full of idiots falls for this, and Dr. Light is arrested.
    • In fairness, Mega Man realizes it's Wily pretty quickly, and he himself makes fun of Wily's Villain Decay in epic fashion. He does, however, make an incredibly stupid mistake near the end.
  • Many of the Story Arcs in City Of Heroes, especially when Nemesis gets involved. A lot of it involves blatantly misplaced trust in blatantly villainous organizations with proven track records. None of it quite compares to the free comic books involving the Freedom Phalanx, however. They basically get turned into total caricatures of their in-game selves, completely incompetent to a level that makes one wonder how they could have become the premier superhero group. They also get defeated by opponents that, in-game, would just go squish in a single attack from them (although Gameplay And Story Segregation could technically apply here). It has to be seen to be believed. It still bothers a majority of the players that these comics are, sadly, canon.
  • The Dungeons&Dragons computer game Death Knights of Krynn featured a stuning moment of idiot plot. For most of the game, the party have been accompanied by Sir Durfey, a veteran knight and expert undead hunter. Bear the latter in mind. During the penultimate dungeon (an evil tower in this middle of undead-infested countryside), the party rescues Lenore, a (very large and muscular) serving girl who is blatantly Kitiara (minion of the Arch-boss) in disguise. Durfey immediately volunteers to leave the party and escort her home on his own. Repeat: The expert undead hunter wants to lead the thinly disguised henchwoman home through undead country. He leaves (the player can't control this; he will leave the party regardless) and is, unsurpsingly, ambushed by the undead, killed and bought back as a Zombie to fight the party.
    • Note that he's only two rooms ahead of the room that he left from. That's right, he was killed, bought back as a Zombie and positioned with an army of minions to fight the players in the time it takes to cross two rooms.
  • The whole of Diablo II could have been easily avoided had the original game's hero not decided that his skull was a proper place to hide a gem containing the soul of terror incarnate. Nice job.
    • Then again, he may have been under the control of Diablo at the time.
  • In [[Fallout]] 3, the plausibility/coolness of any given plot point directly corresponds to its distance from the Jefferson Memorial. At the fringes of the map, we get Tranquility Lane, the Identity of John Henry Eden, and the introduction and Big Damn Heroes moment of [[Badass Fawkes]]. A mile or so away the plot still manages to throw out a Humoungous Mecha… but as you get closer you realize that the same mech sets up for an Anticlimax. Right at ground zero we have The Starscream seemingly dying once, and then coming back and forgetting to be the starscream until your character with high speech reminds him. Then comes the ending, but the less said about that, the better.
  • Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks is a humongous offender of this, made especially egregious when you realize it's an action-adventure remake of Mortal Kombat 2, where our heroes aren't nearly as moronic. Whereas our heroes' foolish actions in MK 2 is forgivable due to their unfamiliarity with Outworld and distractions of other important things (like taking revenge for the death of an entire shrine or rescuing a fallen comrade), Shaolin Monks used Character Derailment to make everyone so brick-stupid as to fall for a Thirty Xanatos Pile Up that could've only succeeded if they weren't smart or perceptive enough to realize their "friends" are not themselves. Well...Johnny Cage retained enough Genre Savvy to realize what was going on, but his keen insight unfortunately didn't rub off on anyone else.

Western Animation
  • Virtually every episode of the most recent Fantastic Four animated series involves a catastrophe either A. started when Reed Richards' latest invention malfunctions, B. triggered by Johnny Storm's stupidity, or C. set off when Johnny Storm's stupidity causes Reed Richards' latest invention to malfunction.
  • The entirety of The Grim Adventures of the Kids Next Door was just one big Idiot Plot that involved all kinds of different KND and Billy and Mandy characters falling for some of the most pathetic Paper Thin Disguises in fictional history. We can expect this thing from the cast of Billy and Mandy but every single KND moon base operative too?
  • As mentioned above, this is standard fare for The Grim Adventures Of Billy And Mandy, to the point where few episodes begin without being catalysed by Billy AKA Idiot Ball incarnate and Grim and Mandy stupidly giving in to his demands. Sure, Grim is their best friend/slave forever, but one expects better from the relatively Genre Savvy Mandy.
    • Grim also never realizes that he only promised to be their best friend for ever, not their slave. He's fully capable of doing just about anything he wants that a friend could do such as standing up for your self or even being a jerk to them as long as he still is considered their best friend (think Mac and Bloo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends).
  • Happens more than it should to poor Eddie Spenser, Jr. on Filmation's Ghostbusters. It doesn't help that he gets a few episodes where he's quite capable of busting ghosts along with the best of 'em.
  • The various Super Mario Bros cartoons were often driven by the characters being suddenly weakened to the point where they walk into or can't escape traps that they would have easily dealt with before. Some ridiculous examples include them just standing and watching as Harmless Villain King Koopa tosses Chain Chomps at them, which latch onto their ankles like makeshift manacles and leave them easy to capture and, in the Super Mario World cartoon, they get forced to jump into a warp pipe leading to a Magikoopa's haunted house HQ when he threatens to throw Bob-ombs at them"!
  • Super Friends. Just... Super Friends.
  • A lot of the new episodes of Spongebob contain Idiot Plots but one that really stands out is "A Flea in her Dome", where Sandy gets a flea from her trip to Texas, and uses a flea collar to get it off, which then goes to Spongebob, then Patrick. They spend 6 minutes of idiocy before realizing that they could use WATER to get the flea off. SIGH.....
Revealing Coverup
« Contrived Stupidity Tropes »
Ignored Enemy
Hazardous Water
« Bad Writing »
IKEA Erotica
Creative Commons License
This wiki is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.