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Bedevere: "So, logically..." Peasant: "If...she...weighs...the same as a duck...she's made of wood." Bedevere: "And therefore...?" Another Peasant: "...a witch!" Crowd: "A witch! A witch! A witch!!"
Insane Troll Logic is the kind of logic that just can't be argued with because it's so demented, so lost in its own insanity, that any attempts to correct it would be met with more gibberish. Logic failure that crosses over into parody or Poe's Law.
For examples of Insane Troll Logic by video game developers, see You Can't Get Ye Flask, Moon Logic Puzzle, and [extreme examples of] Guide Dang It.
For examples of characters who engage in this, see Ralph Wiggum, Cloud Cuckoolander, Strawmen, and of course trolls of both internet and mythological origin. For when the Insane Troll Logic actually leads to a true conclusion, see Bat Deduction and Right For The Wrong Reasons. If this trope is exaggerated beyond the point that it even makes grammatical sense, it can become a Word Salad Philosophy. Irrational Hatred may have this as its basis.
Of course, sometimes it's just Obfuscating Stupidity in action.
Intentional examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Each individual country in Axis Powers Hetalia think of this about each other's customs, languages, and even their dietary habits. A bit of Fridge Logic for those who have ever traveled outside their own country and thought this about the place they were visiting.
- Haruhi Suzumiya: Haruhi Suzumiya does this at times. Then again she is something of a Cloud Cuckoolander, but it's most likely that she doesn't mean it seriously. The prologue of the 4th novel had this nice dialogue:
Haruhi: "Crab is a no-no. I can't take it. Picking the flesh out of the shell drives me nuts. Why can't crabs make their shells edible? How come they didn't do anything about that during the course of evolution, might I ask?"
Kyon (narrating): "They don't undergo natural selection in the depths of the sea just for the sake of your stomach!"
- Stop Bullying Me: Yuri seems under the impression that being in the school's book club will make people believe he is an honors student.
- Osaka from Azumanga Daioh is full of this, but one case stands out in particular: she concludes she has to drown in order to learn how to swim, since drowned people always float (she had not yet figured out how to float).
- Isaac and Miria of Baccano! have a lot of this. One instance is kind of like the Fat Tony example, in which he argues that just as you can get vegetables from eating steak (obviously, this is wrong itself), if you steal someone's wallet, whatever is inside then belongs to you. He also asserts that a mine in which gold has never been discovered is a great place to look for gold for precisely that reason.
- Even better is his continuation of the "take someone's wallet" logic. If you pick up the person holding the wallet...
- In Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, the following "What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?" exchange happens:
Yoshii: You might not know this, but, in Japan there's a legend saying you'll be blessed if you confess beneath a legendary tree! And there's only one thing "legendary tree" could be referring to at this school... It refers to the legendary beauty, Hideyoshi Kinoshita! * Kinoshita can be translated as "under a tree". In other words, you'll be blessed if you confess to Hideyoshi! Hideyoshi: This is wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin.
- Durarara!!'s own troll Orihara Izaya runs on this logic, all the time. As do Izaya's sisters, Kururi and Mairu. Kida has moments, too, as he can conclude any remark by "... so, let's go pick up chicks!"
- Shizuo also applies in episode three. After being hit in the head by a goon, he says this:
Shizuo: "You just went for my head, didn't you? ... You know that you could kill someone by hitting a vital spot on their head, right? ... If you know this, then you were trying to kill me, right? ... So you shouldn't have any complaints no matter what I do to you, right?!" (mega punch).
- He later makes a similar rant taken to an even greater level, arguing that since there's a 0.0000000000000001 percent chance of dying from the "evil eye", beating up someone who glared at him is justified self-defense.
- Keima Katsuragi of The World God Only Knows is prone to making huge leaps of logic solely because that's the way things work in Dating Sim games. Despite having little ground for his beliefs and being perceived as somewhat delusional by his peers, he's right more often than not.
- In Char's Counterattack Char decided the best way to save the good, green Earth with its beautiful environment from being destroyed would be to throw a whole ton of nukes at it. Along with a giant asteroid.
- In the first episode of Minami-ke Chiaki uses her own brand of insane troll logic to convince her sister that her classmate's love note is actually a challenge to a fight. And Chiaki's reason for doing this? "He's popular, there's he way he likes Kana."
- It doesn't sound so insane until you listen to her translation, wherein "I love your cheerful, energetic personality" gets turned into "Hey, you're really noisy and annoying!" and "meet me in the classroom after school" translates into "Let's fight once there's no one there to hinder us." Whether or not Chiaki was being serious or simply cruel is hard to tell...
- In later episodes Chiaki uses a new form of insane troll logic to adopt herself a brother (who just so happens to be a girl) simply because their last names are the same.
- While Minami-ke is chock full of insane troll logic, Hosaka will always take the cake. Hosaka's brain automatically jumps from "Haruka likes good food" to "I must become the greatest chef ever to impress her." And it only gets worse from there.
- An episode of Kimba the White Lion has a Prima Donna Director who's filming a nature documentary use this logic as to why he put a captive orangutan in his documentary even though there are no orangutans in Africa. He says that because he and his workers are in Africa and that there's an orangutan (the captive one) right next to them, there are orangutans in Africa.
- Haguro Dou from Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest is a very scary example of this. Yeah, Haguro - people don't tend to actively go out and seek out people who want to do harm unto them. Soooooooo, why are you??
- To make this even more twisted in every possible way, his version of Disproportionate Retribution is drenched in this. Some guy doesn't want you to bug him anymore with your psychotic shenanigans - and you believe that he wronged you by "ignoring you"???? Well, why not settle this unfair dispute by kidnapping his Morality Chain, have her chained to a wall and repeatedly gang raped for several hours in front of camera where you have your object of "obsession" forcefully watch the act proceed as you threaten to release the video to insure that said Implied Love Interest has her life ruined forever unless he transform into werewolf - during a time which he can't do so - just for you?
- Gau from Nabari No Ou's blind trust in Raikou occasionally leads him to make questionable leaps in logic, including his conviction that Kouichi likes glasses so much that he draws them onto his face with magic markers.
- Katsura from Gintama in particular deserves a special mention for believing that Gintoki could hide inside a tin can and writing an exam consisting of problems like "There are 10 Shinsengumi members. Six Anti-Foreigner Faction members run into them. Three Anti-Foreigner Faction members are killed. The Anti-Foreigner Faction members kill two Shinsengumi members but six more join them and two Anti-Foreigner Faction members are injured. How many noses does Jackie have?"
Comics
- Chick Tracts thrive on this.
- This is the entire basis of the existence of the Johnny Turbo comics, and the "plot" follows suit. Buy the Turbo Duo game system, because Sega is composed of evil robots!
Film
Literature
- Discworld
- The explanation of L-space: Books contain knowledge. Knowledge is power. Power is energy. Energy = matter. Matter equals mass. A library or bookshop is "a genteel black hole that knows how to read".
- Then there's Cribbins at the end of Making Money. He intended to out Moist von Lipwig as archswindler Albert Spangler as a scam to get money out of him. But Moist outed himself before Cribbins got the chance. So Cribbins concludes that Moist, having kiboshed his scam, now owes him five thousand dollars.
- The Auditors of Discworld reason that any sentient personality exists for a finite period, which is negligible in comparison to the infinity of Time. Therefore, they instantly cease to exist if they make the fatal mistake of identifying themselves as "I". The book Lampshades the Insane Troll Logic of this, but the erring Auditors themselves vanish too quickly to ever catch on.
- Some of the less sophisticated members of the Watch (i.e. Colon and Nobby) have this approach to confessions. If someone confesses to a crime then you believe them, even if it is impossible for them to have committed said crime. The people you don't believe are the ones who won't confess. Only guilty people are trustworthy.
- Catch-22 and its sequel Closing Time. Never let Milo Minderbinder talk. Or ex-PFC Wintergreen.
- Milo was able to make a profit by selling black market foodstuffs to HIMSELF. And rightfully bragged about it.
- Later he sells a plane that's faster than the speed of light. Don't ask how he can prove it's faster than light.
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the titular guide proves that there is no life in the universe by first informing us that the universe is of infinite size, and that there is a finite number of inhabited worlds in the universe. Since any finite number divided by infinity is so small "as makes no odds", then clearly any life in the galaxy must be the product of a deranged mind.
- It also said that the Babel Fish proves there is no God. After all, it is so staggeringly improbable that such a thing would have been created by chance that it proves there is a creator. However, God has said that he refuses to provide proof of His own existence as with proof there is no need for faith, therefore by proving his existence, He simultaneously proves that He does not exist "and disappears in a puff of logic". The man who proves this goes on to prove that black is white. In the TV version, it is explained that combining all colors together in the form of paint equals black, while combining all colors in the form of light (from colored bulbs) equals white. Fittingly, the man gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing/crosswalk*
Note to other American tropers: This one confused me too, but apparently that's just what they call crosswalks that are striped black and white over in Britain .
- In The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, Zaphod justifies stealing a spaceship thusly: "Property is theft, right? Therefore, theft is property, therefore this ship is ours."
- In And Another Thing, the same people who use the Babel Fish to prove that God doesn't exist use the silver-tongued devil, an even more useful creature, to prove that Satan does. There's Lampshade Hanging about how little sense that makes.
- In Life The Universe And Everything, Ford justifies eating food left to them by natives with the reasoning that if the natives mean them harm and poisoned the food, and they don't eat it, the natives will get them some other way. Fair enough, but then he compares it to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and concludes that God is the sort of person to leave bricks covered with hats in the street - one way or another, he'll get you.
- In fairness to Ford he admits he's just trying to come up with a rationale that allows him to eat the fruit.
- Scott Adams' book The Joy Of Work includes a section called "You Are Wrong Because," a handy sheet listing various logical fallacies and suggesting the reader make a copy and hand it to a coworker with the fallacy they have committed circled. Two of the examples that stand out as examples of this trope are "Amazingly Bad Analogy" ("You can train a dog to fetch a stick. Therefore you can train a potato to dance.") and "Total Logical Disconnect" ("I enjoy pasta because my house is made of bricks.")
- Lateral Thinking Puzzles are often Wild Conclusion Puzzles instead, because the so-called "correct" answer requires you to produce out of nowhere facts you were not given in the initial puzzle. For example: A man walks into a restaurant and orders the albatross. When his meal arrives, he takes one bite, then walks outside and commits suicide. Why? Answer: The man had been in a shipwreck and stranded at sea with the other survivors for a time. During this time he was given some meat that he was told was albatross and quite liked it. But when he ate the restaurant's albatross, he realized what he had really eaten was human, because it tasted different from the meat he'd eaten at sea, and he couldn't live with that. This is the entire puzzle.
- A woman is riding a train with her husband. She goes to the dining car and returns shortly afterward, seeing a piece of fabric on the floor, while her husband is gone. She immediately falls to the ground crying, knowing that if she'd been there, her husband would still be alive. The solution? Her husband had recently had eye surgery done. The piece of fabric was a bandage meant to remain over his eyes. The train was going through a tunnel at the time the bandage slipped off, so everything was dark. The man, thinking he had gone blind and unable to find his wife (since he was, of course, asleep at the time), immediately committed suicide in despair. Try figuring that one out.
- These riddles are usually used in party games, and are not intended to be solved in a single "step". One common method is for the "guesser" to ask true/false questions about the scenario ("Was he actually served the albatross he ordered? Had the man eaten albatross in the past?" etc); when the answer to one of his questions is false/no, it's the next person's turn to ask questions, and so on around the room. First person to actually get the answer wins.
- The following "proof" mixes some wordplay in with its Insane Troll Logic: A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane; an inclined plane is a slope up; a slow pup is a lazy dog. Ergo, a sheet of paper is a lazy dog.
- A contest in GAMES magazine actually had the contestants "arrive at an illogical conclusion through a series of logical steps". Yes there was a contest on who could write the best Insane Troll Logic. The winner was this one. Proof that there is life after death. After death comes the mourning. After the morning, comes the night. Just past the Knight is the Bishop. Above the Bishop is the Pope. The pope has serious convictions. After a serious conviction, you get life. Therefore, there is life after death. This official name for this is the Fallacy of Equivocation.
- A similar wordplay-based puzzle: You're in a room with no windows or doors, and you have a mirror and a table. How do you get out? Look in the mirror and see what you saw. Take the saw, and cut the table in half. Two halves make a whole, so climb through the hole.
- In Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, words grow on trees:
"Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count.
"I've heard not," said Milo.
"Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business.
- The entire book is filled with this trope. "Be very quiet, for it goes without saying", about a cart without visible means of propulsion. Or the central plot point that Milo's task to rescue the princesses was impossible, but he was able to succeed because he didn't know that in advance.
- In a short Italian story a king once decided to inspect his dungeons. He asked the first prisoner about his crime. The prisoner pled innocent. So did all the other prisoners but one, who confessed to numerous heinous crimes. The King ordered he be thrown out of the jail at once, so that he wouldn't besmear the convention of honest people with his presence.
- A Serial Killer (who specialized in premature burial) in the Criminal Minds novel Killer Profile claimed that, while he buried his victims, he was not responsible for their deaths, they alone were. They should have tried harder to escape, and because they did not, they obviously did not want to live, and let themselves die, so all the alleged victims were not murdered, but actually committed suicide.
This is the exact same logic used by Jigsaw of the Saw film series, and may be well a homage. Most of Jigsaw's "traps" involve the victim either dying or being terribly injured.
- First printed in the book Science Askew[1], according to the proof that Barney The Dinosaur is the Antichrist or Satan, if you take the phrase CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR (since that's what his fans call him), then convert U to V and cut everything that isn't a Roman numeral, then the sum of the result (C+ V+ V+ L+ D+ I+ V) is 100+ 5+ 5+ 50+ 500+ 1+ 5 is 666.
- Wayne from Brandon Sanderson's Alloy Of Law comes up with some hilarious examples, such as: "I bought a ward against [logic] off a traveling fortune-teller. It lets me add two 'n' two and get a pickle."
Live-Action TV
- This is done repeatedly in The Colbert Report. One of the most absurd examples is the Da Colbert Code, where Stephen Colbert makes predictions using free association, starting with actors' names and titles of movies.
- ...Which in 2006 produced correct Oscar picks, including controversial surprise winner Crash. "I CALLED IT!"
- ...and again in 2009, without error. (Da Colbert Code actually spat out the right answer twice in a row when he didn't like the answer and tried again, until he finally blatantly picked the one he "wanted" to win.)
- He also used the Da Colbert Code to predict the outcome of the 2008 election through free-associations intended to link to John McCain but kept coming up with Barack Obama, much to his dismay.
- The Nostradamus Explanation of Why Bush is Mabus, from Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Flip the M upside down, drop the A, and add the "silent latin H" on the end, and you get Wbush, or W. Bush. Which is clearly what Nostradamus meant when he called the guy Mabus.
- The Nostradamus Explanations of Why either Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden was Mabus was just as random. And now there's also the little problem of both being dead...
- A documentary about Nostradomas on the History Channel used similar logic, combining the last two letters of Osama's first name, with the first three letters of Bush's surname, to "prove" that Bush and Bin Laden were both Mabus.
- Played for laughs when interviewing the main "The LHC will kill us all!" proponent on The Daily Show, whose logic on giving it a 50/50 chance of destroying the world was "It'll either happen or it won't, thus there are two possibilities, and since it can be either one, it has to be 50/50."
John Oliver: I don't think that's how probability works.
- Then beautifully parodied when John Oliver pretends to believe it is a 50/50 chance and offers that when the world ends he and the (male) proponent of the LHC-myth should try and repopulate the earth. After all, even if they're both males, there's still a 50/50 chance of them being able to successfully reproduce (it either will happen or it won't).
- Speaking of The Daily Show, its host got a marvelous display of Insane Troll Logic from Tucker Carlson on Crossfire. Carlson, floundering, started throwing out vaguely-related ad hominem distractions which Stewart deflected by... "admitting" they were true in order to move on. The video could be used to teach a class on how to deal with ITL, but it's rather sad when the comedian is the most mature person in the room:
Carlson: You had this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt-boy, to go ahead [sic] and be his butt-boy! It's embarrassing!
Stewart: Yes, I was absolutely his butt-boy. I was so far up... You would not believe what he ate two weeks ago.
- He also once used Insane Entertainer Logic to prove that Bert from Sesame Street is Hitler.
- An episode of Charmed opened with Billie coming up with this completely logical plan to find her sister, Christy, who'd been abducted as a child: the demonic forces who likely abducted her would need a powerful agent to move through in the mortal world, and who's more powerful than corporate America? So, she found a guy who was abducted as a kid — just like Christy — and now works for "corporate America" (which part? GlaxoSmithKline? WalMart? Vivid Video?), and she's meeting with him for lunch to see if there's any trace of demonic residue. It says a lot about the general quality of the episode that this plan actually scores results.
- Also keep in mind that in Charmed demons can teleport at their leisure, making their "powerful agent" completely unnecessary in the first place.
- The 1960s Batman show used a lot of this in Batman's free association logic, especially in Riddler episodes. Even if the actual answers to the riddles were straightforward, Batman had to employ a lot of ITL to figure out how they related to anything relevant.
- Penguin actually used to this to his advantage in one episode by leaving behind a purposefully cryptic (and bugged) umbrella for Batman to find, knowing he'd assume it was a clue. Penguin himself had no plans for a crime. He simply listened to Batman and Robin guess at what his next heist would be and make their plan to stop him. Armed with the knowledge of both how to commit his crime and how Batman would try to stop it, Penguin then successfully pulled off the heist.
- In John Cleese's The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization As We Know It, the [[CIA]] representative asks the Best Minds of the Police of Five Continents what they should do about Moriarty's plot to destroy civilization, etc., noting that "this fiend will stop at nothing." The Best Mind of the Police of Africa proposes that they do nothing, since if Moriarty will stop at nothing, if they do nothing he will stop. The CIA man tries to find the flaw in this, but only ends up muttering "If we do anything, he won't stop, so...."
- The majority of Michael Kelso's thought processes on That '70s Show are this. Some examples:
Point A: Kelso needs a new vehicle for Brooke and their soon-to-be-born child after his van is destroyed.
Point B: The two-seater mini-convertible is frickin' sweet, always a good thing in a vehicle.
Path A-B: Babies are tiny, the mini-convertible is tiny, therefore the mini-convertible is better for the baby than a sedan or van.
Point A: You cannot steer a canoe on land (tied to a car or sliding down a mountain).
Point B: You can use a paddle to steer a canoe.
Path A-B: It does not matter if you are on land, because you can steer a canoe with a paddle, duh.
- Similar to the Daily Show example above: In an episode of Corner Gas, someone asks, "What are the chances that we have a riot in Dog River?" Karen answers in all seriousness, "I'd say 50-50: either we get a riot, or we don't."
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the Trope Namer, using this phrase as a miniature Running Gag, appearing in three episodes. Ironically, its uses aren't really examples, though (as two of them refer to literal trolls).
- The Trope Namer is from Xander's original comment when asked to choose between Willow and Anya, by Olaf the Troll: "I...I'm not choosing between my girlfriend and my best friend! You're insane. That's insane troll logic!"
- In a flashback, Anya's then-boyfriend Olaf, whom she later turns into the aforementioned Troll, says to her "Your logic is insane, like that of a Troll!"
- While Buffy is talking to a recently-risen vampire about her failed relationships, he asks her whose fault her parents' divorce was, to which she responds, "Ok, y'know what? This is beyond evil; this is insane troll logic. What do my parents have to do with this?"
- Speaking of insane troll logic, Principal Snyder (who employs such logic to pin blame on Buffy and her allies for anything and everything) is referred to as the troll by several Scoobies...
- It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has a generous helping of this, given that all its characters are Jerk Ass idiots. For example, this is Charlie's explanation of why burning trash in the bar's furnace is environmentally sound: If he threw it away, it would just be packed into a landfill, but burning it saves heating money and converts the trash to warmth and also gives the bar the nice, smoky burning trash smell. Also, instead of just rotting away on the earth, the burned trash turns to smoke and eventually goes into the air where it turns into stars.
Mac: That doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about stars to dispute it.
- Chris Morris's sketch show Jam features a sketch in which stupid people are employed to engage in arguments, the idea being that they are so incompetent at logic that their opponents will simply give up in frustration.
- A favored tactic of Kelly Bensimon on The Real Housewives of New York City. She likes to start arguments with outrageously flawed statements as their centerpiece. For example, she once explained that the reason that she and another woman saw things so differently was because "I'm a blonde, you're a brunette". Even if that mattered, it's not true: Kelly's hair is dark auburn, not even close to blond. It's possible that she knows that this gives her an advantage, in the sense that there's no possible comeback when someone's gone and played the cray-cray card; but it's more likely that she's just an angry Cloud Cuckoolander speaking her honest mind.
- A lot of panel games aired by the BBC are for some reason allowed a certain number of uses of the word "fuck", but if they go over said limit once they will start to bleep it. It doesn't make sense at all, particularly when people have already gathered what's being discussed.
- Young Blades: In "The Chameleon," the young King Louis XIV reads part of a book from India saying that the Master of Changing Light, after years of intense study and training, can make himself look like other people. He tries concentrating for a few seconds and then gives up. Leads to this scene later in the episode:
D'Artagnan: What if I told you there is an impostor in Paris who can look like anyone?...
Louis: You've been reading that book of fairy tales, haven't you? The Master of Changing Light?... Pure fantastical nonsense! I mean, I tried it myself, and if the King of France can't bend his appearance to the force of his will, I ask you, who can?
- In Keeping Up Appearances, Hyacinth's social-climbing attempts and rationales can sometimes take on this edge. She once asked Richard to smile while doing the gardening so that if any people she was trying to impress happened to drop by they'd assume that they could afford a gardener but choose not to because Richard enjoyed it so much.
Music
Newspaper Comics
- An early Dilbert strip:
Dilbert: Reading increases my knowledge, and knowledge is power.
Dogbert: But power corrupts... and corruption is a crime... and crime doesn't pay... if you keep reading, you'll go broke!!!
Dilbert: It... it always seemed so harmless!
Dogbert: Yeah, that's what the librarians want you to think.
- Another Dilbert story arc introduced Dan the Illogical Scientist, who was a practiced hand at this sort of thing.
Dan: I'm much smarter than you because scientists have invented many things.
Dilbert: But those are other scientists, not you.
Dan: Apparently you don't understand how science works.
...
Dan: That idea won't work. I know because I've read many reports about ideas that didn't work.
Alice: You haven't even looked at my idea.
Dan: Oh, I get it; you're one of those religious nuts.
- The Pointy-Haired Boss uses insane troll logic on several occasions. In at least one occasion, one of these hell-spawned managerial decisions causes Dilbert's head to explode.
- Pearls Before Swine featured Rat wearing a hat that he claimed made him immortal. His logic was that he wore it and he hadn't died yet.
- In a Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin's reasoning for bats being bugs are that they fly, they're ugly and they're hairy. He also says he'll get an A on his paper because he's using a "professional" clear plastic binder.
Radio
- The Goon Show based a huge portion of its humour around this kind of logic.
- One of the best known examples is the exchange between Eccles and Bluebottle that is usually referred to by its first line, "What time is it, Eccles?" In this example, Eccles explains in a perfectly logical sequence of total nonsense that he knows what time it is, because he has the time written on a piece of paper in his pocket.
Tabletop Games
- In Paranoia, playing along with The Computer's Insane Troll Logic is a major survival skill and plot instigator.
- On the other hand, the Spurious Logic skill in early editions is not an example - the logic is sane, but the initial claim is a lie ("I'm an undercover Violet, Violets are cleared for plasma generators, therefore I'm cleared for this plasma generator").
- This is a madness talent in Don't Rest Your Head.
- This is part of the appeal of Warhammer 40,000's Orks. Imperial scholars theorize that somewhere in the distant past a Mekboy built two superficially identical vehicles, one of which was painted red. Due to an immeasurable internal difference, the red vehicle went faster, so the Orks decided it was due to the color scheme, a belief they've stuck with ever since. Since the Orks are unconsciously, latently psychic, this means that any vehicle painted red goes faster because they expect it to.
- Orks on military strategy: "Here's da plan: win. If we lose, it's because ya didn't follow da plan."
- Orks on friendly fire: "If ya misses it, it's obviously one o' ours. If ya hits it, den it must be one o' theirs."
- Orks on victory and defeat: "Orkses is never beaten in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die so it don't count as beat. If we runs for it we don't die neither, so we can always come back for anuvver go, see!"
- Orks on being ambushed: "Ha! Dese gits just made da classic blunda: attackin' an Ork who 'adn't found 'em already! Now we'z can stomp dem fasta, haha!"
- One Ork Warboss and his invasion fleet got sent back in time by a Warpstorm, arriving shortly before they'd left. The Warboss decided to kill his past self so he'd have two copies of his favorite gun. The resulting confusion stopped the invasion in its tracks.
- /tg/ has applied Orky logic to matters of camouflage, concluding that purple is the sneakiest color. Because you've never seen a purple army, have you?
- This can apply to the Players themselves. A swarm of infantry bodies in any other army would be a suicide tactic (or at least be a handicap in the case of the imperial guard). For the Orks, it's the only tactic! This actually works because the Orks roll so many dice, the sheer amount of actual hits are still enough to kill whatever they're targeting, despite the massive odds against them.
- In Dungeons & Dragons 4E, Slaads... have weird ways of thinking.
Theatre
- This is the basis of how the Theatre of the Absurd works. Eugene Ionesco was particularly good at this.
- Anyone Can Whistle: In the Sondheim musical, the patients from a local insane asylum infiltrate a line of pilgrims waiting to see a "miracle" set up by the mayoress and her cronies. To keep from being exposed, they call on the asylum's doctor, who sends his recently arrived assistant, J. Bowden Hapgood. Hapgood promises to separate the sane from the insane using "the principles of logic," and has an entire 13-minute musical sequence that is full of this kind of "logic".
- Any Dane or Norwegian who didn't sleep their way through school knows this classic example from Ludvig Holberg's 18th century comedy Erasmus Montanus: Erasmus, having returned to his home village after getting an education at the Copenhagen university, demonstrates the power of logical thinking to his mother by stating that since rocks can't fly and his mother can't fly, she must be a rock. The mother is so gullible that she begins to think she is a rock, but Erasmus "saves" her by pointing out that rocks can't talk, but she can, so she's not a rock after all.
- In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio orders his servants not to let his wife, Kate, eat or sleep. Kate begs their servant Gumio to give her food. Grumio pretends to use this so that he can follow Petruchio's orders.
- First he offers to get Kate some calf's foot. When she agrees he rescinds the offer, saying that calf's foot would make her bad tempered. Because starving her will give her a really sunny disposition.
- Then he offers her tripe, but takes that offer back for the same reason.
- The real kicker is the beef and mustard. When he offers this to Kate, she agrees. Then he says no, because the mustard is too hot. She says she'll have the beef without the mustard, then. He says no, the beef goes with the mustard. She says she's willing to eat one or the other or both or anything else. So Grumio comes up with the perfect solution: mustard without the beef!
- In Caryl Churchill's version of A Dream Play, there is a scene with a teacher in school arguing logic with a student of his. The teacher is asked what time is, to which he replies that since time flies, logically, time is something that flies while he's speaking. One of the other schoolboys starts to fly, claiming that by that logic, he is time. The teacher agrees, confirming that he is in fact time. But the first student says that that's impossible, and because logic failed in that case, we can therefore logically prove that logic is wrong.
- Touchstone, in As You Like It, explains that Corin's going to Hell because he never went to court:
Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.
- And while we're on the subject of fools in Shakespeare, Feste, the fool from Twelfth Night, is a master of this. For example, he attempts to prove that Olivia is a fool so that the people asked to "take away the fool" will remove her instead of him:
Feste: Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia: Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste: I think his soul is in Hell, madonna.
Olivia: I know his soul is in Heaven, fool.
Feste: The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
- Launce in The Two Gentlemen Of Verona:
Launce: Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read.
Speed: Thou liest; I can.
Launce: I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?
Speed: Marry, the son of my grandfather.
Launce: O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy grandmother: this proves that thou canst not read.
- Jack Point's explanation of how there is humour in all things in The Yeomen Of The Guard is this with a touch of Metaphorgotten:
Point: Now observe. She said "Hands off!" Whose hands? Thine. Off whom? Off her. Why? Because she is a woman. Now, had she not been a woman, thine hands had not been set upon her at all. So the reason for the laying on of hands is the reason for the taking off of hands, and herein is contradiction contradicted! It is the very marriage of pro with con; and no such lopsided union either, as times go, for pro is not more unlike con than man is unlike woman - yet men and women marry every day with none to say, "Oh, the pity of it!" but I and fools like me!
Video Games
- In Mass Effect a Renegade Shepard can say:
- In Umineko no Naku Koro ni this is essentially what the entire premise boils down to, especially early on. So you don't like how the plot is unfolding? Call out the resident magical troll and challenge her to a metaphysical game of bizarro logic chess where victory over her somehow means proving she doesn't exist.
- In-game examples would include attempts to use anything, no matter how ridiculous, as a viable theory (as long as magic isn't involved of course); from "spike-launching devices" to "small bombs".
- The game Metal Wolf Chaos features propaganda news reports that define a True American as "anyone who supports the idea of having the families and friends of terrorist sympathizers murdered in the streets" rather than "anyone who is a citizen or long-standing resident of America".
- Nakar's Let's Play of Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle has a moment that includes some rather hilarious made-up dialogue, with callbacks to the Avatar's adventures in ''Martian Dreams'':
Steve the Avatar: I call the Shadowlords to witness before the Oracle. Iolo: Ummmm. Shadowlord Nosfentor: What do you want this time, Steve? Steve: Nosfentor! Great to see you. I'd like to draw your attention to Exhibit 1.◊ Shadowlord Faulinei: That would be you and Iolo in Ultima IV, killing city guards for money. Steve: Indeed. And Exhibit 2?◊ Iolo: How is this supposed to help my defense? Steve: Oh I'm supposed to be defending you? Shadowlord Astaroth: That would be you dumping off Iolo's dead body at an inn in Ultima V. Steve: Iolo's dead body! How very interesting. And I should point out that on Mars I encountered one Dr. David Yellin. Exhibit 3◊, if you would. Iolo: I've told you before I'm n- Steve: And when Dr. Yellin wouldn't cooperate, do you recall what happened? Sigmund Freud: Ja, you shot him.◊ Steve: I shot him! Which means that Iolo has died twice. And as you are all surely aware, a man cannot be executed more than twice for committing the same crime. Thus, Iolo cannot be convicted for the crime of being Iolo. Iolo: But that makes no sense. Steve: Shut up, you're dead, and zombies have no civil rights. Lady Yelinda: Ohhhhhh, I'm starting to get it, this is retarded. Nosfentor: Glad to see someone is catching on.
- Fate/stay night Shirou Emiya has issues understanding... personal space and privacy matters.
Tohsaka: "Hey, Emiya-kun. How did you check for Issei's Command Spell?"
Emiya: "I just took his clothes off. He fought back, but I took his shirt off by force"
Tohsaka: "... ...?" Tohsaka freezes while looking at me.
Emiya (thinking): How strange of her. What part of that is strange?
- Rin from Katawa Shoujo lapses into this from time to time, most notably near the end of Lilly's Act 1 path which leaves the main character and Lilly both with a headache.
- The Spathi from Star Control 2 use this to justify their fear of an "Ultimate Evil" that surely intends to destroy them. They have never found any evidence that such an evil exists, which means that it must be hiding just outside the range of their most powerful sensors, which is proof of its nefarious intent.
- It should be noted that when humanity figures out how to open and close the slaver system-isolating forcefields they break their alliance and put it around their own system to be shut of the rest of the universe."
- Phoenix Wright from the Ace Attorney series is fond of objecting first and thinking later and of grasping at straws and coming up with imaginative guesses, but he's usually too honest and reasonable to use actual troll logic. However, in one situation where he's desperate to keep the trial going as long as possible until the police complete the next phase of their investigation, we get this exchange:
Witness: He looked suspicious because he was walking through the hall in the hotel wearing black leather gloves.
Phoenix: Footballs are made of leather! Are you saying that all footballs are suspicious just because they're made out of leather?!
- Similar exchange slightly earlier about baseballs and stitches
- Von Karma has a similar line of logic in the first game
Phoenix: He remembered the name of his fiance who commited suicide. That's why he named his parrot after her! Von Karma: My granddaughter has a dog she calls "Phoenix." Well, Mr. Phoenix Wright? Does this make you my granddaughter's fiancee!?
- Another example from the third game involves a massive stone lantern with upside-down bloody writing on it. Gumshoe voices the results of his special Gumshoe investigation: 'At the time of the murder, the stone lantern... WAS UPSIDE DOWN!!!!!!'
- Gumshoe does this a lot. Edgeworth has simply given up on understanding him.
- In Final Fantasy X, Seymour Guado argues that to save their world, Spira, from suffering, he must turn himself into Sin so that he can methodically kill everyone. Without any inhabitants in Spira, there won't be anymore suffering!
- It makes sense, albeit in a twisted way; he envisions Spira "reborn" as a world inhabited by the Unsent, just like he is. By this definition, technically no one "suffers," as everyone is already dead.
- Pokémon's Generation V's very own Animal Wrongs Group, Team Plasma. Especially the grunts and their tendency to explain themselves along the lines of 'we're abusing this Pokemon to help it!'
- Early in Suikoden V there is a tournament to decide who will get to marry the Prince's sister. One group of people decide it's their patriotic duty to get a foreign competitor kicked out of the tournament. They do this by picking a fight with him so he will get disqualified when he kills them. When the Prince tries to stop them they figure that the real Prince would never try to stop such obviously patriotic people therefore the Prince must be an impostor!
- Jables's Adventure. Jables and Squiddy plumb the depths of the Card-Carrying Villain's depravity:
Jables: I had no idea there was a villain. Squiddy: I bet he's the one who kidnapped the princess. Jables: Let her go, King Squid! King Squid: I didn't kidnap any princess. Squiddy: Then where is she? King Squid: My plan doesn't involve the princess. Squiddy: Yet you kidnapped her anyway. Jables: That's evil. King Squid: ...
- In Persona 4, the true killer, claims that he didn't kill the victims, he only threw them into the TV world, which then was responsible for their deaths. This despite it being pointed out that he knew what would happen to Saki Konishi after Mayumi Yamano died in the TV world. Also, noting that the world is influenced by people's thoughts, suggests that everyone outside, including the investigation team, is responsible, presumably saying this as a way of playing mind games with them.
- The Corwids of Zeno Clash are all a bit nuts, but among the maddest was a Corwid who decided his dearest wish was to be invisible. His plan to achieve this was plucking out the eyes of every creature that could see him.
- Dragon Age 2 - Sarcastic Hawke's logic definitely falls under this category sometimes.
- Early on in Ghost Trick, Sissel discovers that the ghost of the recently deceased dog Missile has tagged along with him into the past to prevent his death. Missile doesn't bat an eye at such a feat, reasoning that if his master can walk on two feet and he can't, he shouldn't find it weird that Sissel can walk through time and he can't. The worst part? Sissel agrees with his line of reasoning.
- Exit Fate's Father Luther explains how to spot a vampire◊.
Webcomics
Web Original
- In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Abridged, Joseph finally (not really) figures out the secret of Dio's Stand:
- Played for laughs by LoadingReadyRun with Detective Riley, a recurring character who takes one look at a crime scene and uses free-associational logic to determine the culprit. Slight subversion in that he's always right - the police have already reached the same conclusion through completely rational means.
Detective Riley: What have we here?
Officer Rodriguez: A drug deal gone bad. Real bad.
Riley: Well, the way I see it is this: the last ship that came into port here was the "Queen of Seville." Saint Isidore of Seville, patron saint of the internet, born in 560 AD - the same year Ethelbert succeeded his father Iormic as King of Kent. Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter, patrols Metropolis as Superman, also known by his Kryptonian name Kal-el. The L Word, popular TV show about lesbians, and who doesn't like lesbians? I'll tell you who - your murderer, Jeff Greenwood, known to the police as Jeffy G.
Rodriguez: That was fascinating, but... we kinda already knew that. Jeffy G admitted the whole thing on his YouTube channel this morning.
- This seems to be standard detective training in the Victoria PD, as Rodriguez starts doing this too after being promoted.
- The train of logic used in the College Humor parody video "Deceptive Deceptions". The fictional narrator "uncovers" an Ancient Conspiracy by tying together about two-and-a-half dozen people, companies, and organizations by truly nonsensical connections and flimsy associations. Case in point: John Candy.
- asdf.com:
""asdf" converted into Morse code is .- ... -.. ..-. If you take the .'s and convert them to 0's and take the -'s and convert them to 1's, you get the binary number of 010001000010, which is 1090 in decimal. The year 1090 just happens to be 2 years after Christodoulos of Patmos, supported by Emperor Alexius I Komnenos, founded the monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos. Only * 4* years after the year 1090 AD... The First Crusade (1095-99) captured Jerusalem; and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem begins. Now because the Crusade on Jerusalem happened only a short time after the crucial year 1090, we can convert the letters ASDF into the ancient Hebrew alphabet, and we get Aleph Vov Daled Samech (because of the differences in alphabets, these might not be accurate translations). We take the letters, and convert them into one word. Alephvovdaledsamech — which converted phonetically sounds like "A lef volv da leads a mech". We can then read these sounds into words, and we get "A left Volvo does leads a mech." Going further, we get "A left Volvo does lead the mechanics", or "A left Volvo does lead the mechanical industry". We can then read into it, that a "left Volvo", obviously a car made in a country where you drive on the left side of the road, will one day lead the mechanical, or automobile industry. Ford Motors Inc. must have found out about this information before I could disclose it to you — for they just bought Volvo. Ford is obviously trying to change this age-old Hebrew prophecy, and claim the automobile industry for themselves! You must rally the people! To the top of Mount Sinai! We shall stop them yet! ARMAGEDDON HAS BEGUN!!!!!
- From a truly epic post on one of GameFAQs's social boards, apparently talking about the origins of Winnie the Pooh:
Pooh backwards is Hoop. Like hula hoops, right?... Hula was invented in Hawaii. Hawaii was once part of an Asian country. Japan is in Asia ... Japan was nuked ... Microwaves also nuke ... Microwave ... Micro! Micro means very small, like the chances I have of getting a date. Date ... A calendar often tells dates. Calendars also often have pictures. Mostly pictures of puppies. Puppies grow up to be dogs. Like hot dogs! The best hot dogs are found in New York. New York has the Yankees. The Yankees fought the Confederates. The Dukes of Hazard had a Confederate flag on their car. Hazard ... the word has a Z. Z's normally signify sleeping. Sleeping leads to dreams. In some dreams you're flying ... flying like a plane. The Wright Brothers flew the first plane. And they were brothers. Like the show Band of Brothers. That series was about a war. And about WWII! WWII had Nazis. And Hitler. Hitler spelled backwards is Reltih, which makes no sense. Sense, like SPIDER SENSE. Spider-Man used spider sense to fight the Green Goblin. Green, green was the color used by Sailor Jupiter in that one cartoon. Jupiter ... Jupiter has moons! Like Callisto. Callisto was also a gun in the game Perfect Dark. Dark ... Moon ... Jupiter? Winnie the Pooh is from the dark side of Jupiter's moon, Callisto!
- The best part may be how he gets this close to making a reasoning using World War II, evades it to go on a different tangent, and then goes back to WWII later on.
- Used hilariously in Episode 2 of Red vs. Blue: Revelation.
Grif: [after what appears to have been a completely ordinary radio conversation] Simmons sounded good. I guess he's got everything under control.
Sarge: Donut and Lopez are dead and Agent Washington has taken Simmons prisoner.
Grif: What?! Everything sounded fine to me!
Sarge: Think about it! How do you answer the radio at our base?
Grif: Thank you for calling Red Base, this is Private Grif, how may I assist you today.
Sarge: And we've drilled that since day one! Simmons answered "Hi." That was my first clue.
Grif: So maybe he's just ups-
Sarge: He also said that the radio was in disrepair. When does Lopez ever let something go without the proper maintenance?
Grif: Never!
Sarge: And look at the time.
Grif: Can't, clock's broken.
Sarge: It's 17:30! And everybody knows that 17:30 is...
Grif: Donut's daily wine and cheese hour!
Sarge: I didn't hear any tinkling glasses, did you?
Grif: You're right!
Sarge: He also mentioned that the weather was "rainier", and as we all know, Mt. Rainier is the biggest land mass in the state of... Washington!
Grif: We do? Uh, I mean, we do!
Sarge: How many Washingtons do we know?
Grif: Did he mean Agent Washington?
Sarge: And who's the biggest mess we know associated with Washington?
Grif: The Meta!
Sarge: So the Meta and Washington have teamed up to kill Donut and Lopez and now they're holding Simmons and Doc prisoner.
Grif: We have to help them! Wait, Doc? How do you know he's there?
Sarge: Please, Grif, it's so obvious! I don't want to insult your intelligence by explaining every little detail.
- Done to hilarious effect in Kickassia when the Nostalgia Critic is rallying the others to invade Molassia. He convinces his friends that they want to be like the Nazis right after condemning them for being like the Nazis.
- Later, Sage uses another variant of this when he comes to the conclusion that holding an Uzi makes you immortal, the reasoning being he's holding one right now and he's still alive.
- Kurama uses this to navigate Maze Castle in episode 18 of Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged.
- From a post on the Doctor Who Forums, arguing that Vincent Van Gogh is the Master in disguise:
1. van Gogh, as we discover in ' Vincent and the Doctor', is mad. The Master is also mad. 2. van Gogh was deeply unpopular with the local rubes. The Master was terribly charismatic and brilliant at manipulating local rubes to his advantage (cf. ' The Daemons'). If the Master were trying to hide his true nature, what better way than to appear deeply unpopular with the locals? 3. van Gogh could see the Krafayis when nobody else could see it. This is probably a Time Lord ability to see things nobody else can see. 4. Alternatively, a bio-upgrade of some sort given to him offscreen during ' The Mark of the Rani'. 5. No one can agree on the correct pronunciation of 'van Gogh'. Got to be an allusion to the many different names the Master has used throughout his career. 6. I seem to recall in one serial during the seventies the Master expressed an interest in painting. 7. The name 'Vincent van Gogh' is an anagram of 'Vincent van Gogh', the alias used by the Master in this story. 8. Tony Curran. Anthony ' Tony' Ainley. Do I have to spell this out, people? 9. Being a man, he's definitely not Susan, Romana, the Rani or Rose, the only other possible candidates for a character in a Doctor Who story. Although there is a slim chance he is secretly the eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann. 10. In one of the deleted scenes for this episode, van Gogh laughs maniacally and screams, 'I am the Master', before turning into the Master. I believe the evidence is clear.
- Gaming news site Rock Paper Shotgun presents the facts about harmful gaming.
Nearly twice as many Americans own gun-displaying consoles than those who own the types of guns that require a license and paperwork to purchase. No such paperwork is necessary when buying an Xbox, and yet still teenagers will kill each other in the streets.
- The Angels and Demons abridged script provides several examples:
TOM HANKS looks up ILLUMINATI in the encyclopedia in the VATICAN’S SUPER SECRET LIBRARY.
TOM HANKS: Hmm, the word Illuminati first appears on page three of this book. Three… the third ninja turtle mentioned in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song is Raphael… the first cardinal must be in Raphael’s tomb!
TOM HANKS: Let’s see here… we’re in a tomb. Tomb… like Tombstone pizza, which is circular. Circular is the opposite of square.. of course! To Saint Peter’s Square!
TOM HANKS: Condoms… condoms are sometimes called johnnies… John James was the architect that rebuilt St. Mary’s Church… of course, the third cardinal is in a church!
AYELET ZURER:WHY THE HELL IS THIS WORKING!?
AYELET ZURER: Wait let me try one. Okay, so this guy was chained up… chains are often used for construction work… the fourth cardinal is at a construction site!
TOM HANKS: What? Don’t be stupid. The fourth element is water, so he’s in a fountain.
- SydLexia explains that Duck Tales for the NES is impossible using Zeno's Paradox, then follows up by saying that he is omnipotent, then says he is not omnipotent, and finally concludes with the revelation that this reality is a gigantic lie.
- An intentional invocation of this is a new meme out there: Troll Physics/Troll science. This consists of utilizing Insane Troll Logic for hilarious effects with science. The page there shows a lot of examples regarding Troll Science.
- The Nostalgia Critic uses this when he gets a friendly message from the Angry Video Game Nerd to find a hidden code. After ridiculous leaps of logic and cryptography that would make a Dan Brown protagonist proud, he concludes that it's absolutely nothing. Until viewed in a mirror, that is...
- In Kickassia Bennet the Sage, as surgeon general of the titular nation, gives us this little known medical fact, while holding an uzi, you cannot die. His reasoning? "I'm holding an uzi, and I'm not dead". He also claimed smoking was not only healthy for you, but was highly recommended for pregnant women. Though that time he was just holding the chart upside down.
Western Animation
- In The Simpsons episode "The Monkey Suit", creationists seeking to ban the teaching of evolution succeed by getting a scientist to testify in court that evolution is a myth — a scientist with a degree in "Truthology" from "Christian Tech".
- It's a shot at "doctors" like Kent Hovind and Carl Baugh. Both of which got their doctorate degrees the old fashioned way, by buying them.
- In an earlier episode, "Much Apu About Nothing", an isolated incident involving a bear wandering into Springfield is responded to by the creation of a multi-million dollar "Bear Patrol". When Homer states that the organization is stopping bears from coming into town, Lisa compares his logic to claiming that the ordinary rock she's holding is a potent tiger repellent, since there aren't any tigers around. Homer, naturally, offers to buy the rock.
- Another funny example is in Bart The Murderer, where Fat Tony "explains" to Bart how hijacking a truckload of cigarettes isn't wrong.
Bart: Uh, say, are you guys crooks?
Fat Tony: Bart, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?
Bart: No.
Fat Tony: Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them?
Bart: Uh uh.
Fat Tony: And, what if your family don't like bread? They like... cigarettes?
Bart: I guess that's okay.
Fat Tony: Now, what if instead of giving them away, you sold them at a price that was practically giving them away. Would that be a crime, Bart?
Bart: Hell, no.
- "If God wanted us to be vegetarians, He wouldn't have made animals out of meat!"
- Yet another example comes from "The Great Money Caper". When Homer abandons Bart at the marina after an unfruitful attempt at street magic performance, passersby take pity on him and fill his magic hat with cash. Bart arrives back home later to an amazed Homer, who wonders if Bart could try it again:
Homer: We could make a fortune!
Bart: But wouldn't that make us con artists?
Homer: Well, yeah, but ... God conned me out of sixty-five hundred bucks in car repairs.
Bart: So, in a way, we'd just be balancing out the universe.
Homer: There you go! We'd be stealing from people we know! It's just like the seasons!
- "But, Lisa, if we start conserving, the enviromentalists win!"
- During a snow storm, Homer mocks Lisa's belief in global warming, and she says global warming can have this result. Whether you agree or not, Homer invokes the trope in response.
- South Park: Cartman once used this to blame Kyle of 9/11: 11 has two 1's, 1+ 1=2, if you add 9 and 2, you get 92 which is how much Kyle got on a spelling test. Therefore Kyle planned 9/11.
- Most likely intended to parody the movie The Number 23. The entire movie is composed of such calculations.
- When Cartman used Glenn Beck's method of choosing a bunch of keywords, taking the first letter of each and using them to spell something out. Keywords he associated with Wendy were Integrated, Leftist, Liberal, Socialist, Modern, Utopian, Reformed, Farce and School. Therefore, Wendy Testaburger wants to KILL SMURFS.
- Which is extremely ironic once you remember that "SMURF" itself has been proposed to be an acronym for Soviet Men Under Red Father. So, in short, Wendy's a leftist for wanting to kill Communists!
- In the South Park episode Cancelled, there is a scientist who correctly determines what he should do in a given situation using Insane Troll Logic.
- Which itself was a parody of Jeff Goldblum's insane troll logic from Independence Day.
- In order to convince Butters to run away to Somalia with him to become pirates Cartman reminded him how horrible his life in South Park was, namely how he was harassed and ridiculed in school daily...mostly by Cartman.
- And of course:
Johnnie Cochran: ...ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
- The episode A History Channel Thanksgiving accuses the History Channel of using this.
- In Mickey's Christmas Carol, Scrooge (McDuck) uses this to get out of giving money to the poor.
Scrooge: Well, you realize if you give money to the poor, they won't be poor anymore, will they?
First Collector: Well, I—
Scrooge: And if they're not poor anymore then you won't have to raise money for them anymore.
Second Collector: Well, I suppose—
Scrooge: And if you don't have to raise money for them anymore, then you'd be out of a job. Oh please, gentlemen, don't ask me to put you out of a job. Not on Christmas Eve.
- Master Shake uses this quite often on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. One notable example is when he decided that the bus outside of the Aqua Teens' house was possessed by the ghost of Dracula. When Frylock disputes this by pointing out that it's two in the afternoon, Shake then claims that the bus is a "reverse vampire."
Frylock (using his scanning device): The call is coming from inside that school bus!
Shake: Inside the bus? It is the bus! The bus of the undead! Vampires!
Frylock: I'm not detecting any vampiritic activity. Besides, it's two o' clock in the afternoon.
Shake: It's... it's a reverse vampire! They crave the sun! Love it. They love to get tans.
Frylock: Really? And where do they come from?
Shake: Uh... Tansylvania?
Frylock: Oh, no. No, no, no way in the world!
Shake: See the wheels? Those are the markings.
Frylock: Where do you get this stuff?
- It goes downhill from there. And this is a fairly standard episode of the show.
- Other characters also rely on Insane Troll Logic, including Carl, Meatwad, the Mooninites, the Plutonians - even the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From the Future. Basically, all of the main and recurring characters except for Frylock.
- MC Pee Pants also deserves a special mention. In his first appearance as a giant spider wearing a diaper, he creates a rap CD that induces an intense desire in the listener to eat candy. After giving the listeners directions in the rap to an abandoned warehouse where they can supposedly get said candy, he lies in wait and then straps them into chairs in order to use their brain energy to power a giant drill. This is so that he can drill down into Hell and release demons to start a pyramid scheme involving diet pills. His subsequent plans in later episodes are just as insane...
- His scheme to make a rap CD and then release it exclusively in transylvania (Meatwad had to import a copy) so that a vampire fan would come to bite him and make him a vampire actually worked. But then he stepped out in the sunlight.
- An episode of Metalocalypse has the members of Dethklok worried about upcoming medical tests. They decide to detox by drinking bleach.
- Really, half the episodes of this show feature Dethklok's insane logic, like their complicated and wholly-counterproductive weight-loss scheme. Also, Two Words: Space Helicopter.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: The villagers who blamed Aang for the death of their great leader used logic that failed so badly and was basically just, "We feel this way, so there." that the only way the episode could end was by them just getting over it.
- This is the only village in the entire series where people would have actually cheered to see it burned down by the Fire Nation due to their fucked up legal system. Which forbids so many things on the defendant's part that there may as well be no trial at all. Hell, all the 'criminals' in their prison were perfectly reasonable guys who just looked bad.
- Sentencing was the job of a game of "Wheel of Fortune". At the end of the episode, there's a new festival, where they eat little Aangs made of raw dough to symbolize how they commuted sentencing (boiled in hot oil, in this case) in favor of convincing the Avatar to save their sorry skins.
- In an episode of Family Guy, Peter proves that (in his words) "cripples aren't cool". His favorite actor, Mark Harmon, doesn't need a wheelchair. Mark Harmon is cool. Therefore people who need wheelchairs aren't cool and shouldn't be allowed in his restaurant.
- Lois explaining to Chris in "Excellence in Broadcasting" that everything Fox News reports on is a lie. Even if it's true, it instantly becomes a lie if Fox News mentions it. Note that this is used to explain away the earlier revelation that Rush Limbaugh and Fred Savage were the same person, something Lois herself discovered and reported on for Fox.
- Peter tries making his own Red Bull, and uses mostly kerosene, reasoning that Red Bull and kerosene are both fuel, so kerosene equals Red Bull. When Brian points out the sheer insanity of this and the fact that the drink will probably kill Peter, Peter responds with "Brian, whatever kills me makes me stronger".
- Lois, in a fit of rage, exclaims, "Sometimes I feel like I'm married to a child!". Peter replies that if she's married to a child, then she's a pedophile, and that he'll be damned if he'll stand there and be lectured by a pervert.
- When Brian is fighting for custody of (what he thinks are) his puppies:
Lawyer: Mr Griffin, which of the following two phrases best describes Brian Griffin: Problem Drinker or African-American Haberdasher?
Peter: Uh, do I-I guess problem drinker, but that's uh-
Lawyer: Thank-you. Now: Sexual deviant or magic picture that if you stare at it long enough, you see something?
Peter: Well, sexual deviant, but that other one's not even, eh-
Lawyer: Thank-you.
- As with the Batman examples above, the Super Friends' dealings with the Riddler when he joined the Legion of Doom involved this trope. In any of these situations, it's difficult to be sure which is worse: that the Riddler could come up with this nonsense or that the Super Friends could figure it out?
- In another example, two of the Super Friends go back in time and get stuck there with no way to return. Aquaman, the genius that he is, walks to the exact location of where the Hall of Justice will be tens of thousands of years in the future. When he gets there, he takes out his communicator and turns on the homing beacon, then buries the communicator. Why? The communicator will appear in the future. Superman will be able to hear it and will know what it means, then go back in time to rescue them.
- Which would work if carbon dating had been invented and if the communicator (already shown to be nigh indestructible) had enough carbon to be dated successfully and enough battery to last all that time. When digging the foundation for the justice hall, it would be found. A few time-hops (a few dozen probably to get the date right), and then young Supes would come up, ask when in time they wanted to go, and viola. It's bad when you can make these things work easily.
- In an episode of The Fairly Odd Parents, Crocker thinks that Timmy loaned his fairy godparents to Tootie. He's right, but he's suspicious not because the entire town of Dimsdale is celebrating her birthday, but because her cake has real buttercream icing.
- Come to think of it, the same could be said for a lot of situations that make Crocker think Timmy has fairies.
- Crocker once had an argument with Steven Hawking about basic addition, which ended up with Hawking proving that 2+2=5. From the end of the episode: "Hawking! I've done the math! Two plus two isnt five! It's SIX!!! SIIIIIX!!!"
- In a classic Looney Tunes cartoon, Roughly Squeaking, mice Hubie and Bertie convince Claude the cat that he's actually a lion(and that the bulldog outside is a
moose gazelle pelican). Hubie's logic; "A lion is a member of the cat family, so that means that a cat is a member of the lion family!"
- Malory from Archer degenerates into this sometimes. For example:
Archer: Why do you change the labels on your pills anyway?
Malory: So the housekeepers don't steal them!
Archer: But if they're stealing pills, how does that help?
Malory: Because they can't read English!
- Or this gem in "Diversity Hire:"
Malory: Lana Kane, just because you're not the only black field agent...
Lana: Hey! That's not...
Malory: "Urban," whatever. You come in here and accuse Conway of...what, exactly?
Lana: OK, I can't prove anything right now, but that's
Malory: ...but that didn't stop J. Edna Hoover from prosecuting Martin Luther King, now did it?
Lana: What does that have to do with...wait, "J. Edna?"
Malory: You never heard? That J. Edgar Hoover was this huge crossdressing chicken-hawk?
Lana: I had not.
Malory: Well, that's exactly the kind of slanderous and unsubstantiated rumor that I will not tolerate at ISIS. Think about THAT while you're on suspension!
Lana: While I'm on what?
Malory: What, are you deaf and racist?
Lana: I'm black!
Malory: Oh, put it back in the deck.
- An episode of Johnny Bravo parodied the Batman-style logic with an Adam Westing Adam West, helping Johnny look for his missing mother.
Adam West: (reading fortune cookie) "Your heart's afire"...hmm, that rhymes with "tarts on a wire", which in turn sounds like "carts for hire"...Billy, your Momma's at the golf course!
- What's the World's Oldest Woman's reasoning that the egg came before the chicken? Because you have eggs for breakfast and chicken for lunch, naturally.
- Judge Whitey from Futurama, who treads the line between embracing and parodying an Acceptable Target, filled up every mental asylum in New York when he declared being poor a mental illness.
Judge Whitey: Being as I have a ham sandwich with mayonnaise waiting for me at my mansion, I declare the defendants guilty as charged.
- Seems the point there was that he just wanted to get the ruling over with and get out of there. Not so much Insane Troll Logic as it is just being a lazy, amoral Jerk Ass.
- It's a bit of Truth in Television actually. Poverty was considered a mental illness in parts of the 19th century.
- Also, the defendant will be judged more harshly if it's right before lunch. According to this study, judges grant parole about 65% of the time right after a break, and about 0% right before.
- Surely the mentally-defective Philip Fry is the most bountiful source of ITL Futurama can offer.
Morgan Proctor: Why is there yogurt in this cap?
Fry: I can explain that. You see, it used to be milk, and well... time makes fools of us all.
- And then there's this little saying:
Fry: Thanks to denial, I’m immortal.
- The whole Waterfalls family, implementing this with Hypocritical Humor. Free Waterfalls, Sr. is this Up to Eleven:
Waterfalls Sr.: Now ,now, no applause. Every time you clap your hands, you kill thousands of spores, which will someday form into nutritious fungus. Just show your appreciation with an old, friendly thumbs-up.
(Members of Penguins, Unlimited do so with awkward grins)
Waterfalls, Sr.: Please hold your thumbs to the end.
- This happens in the episode "Go Fish" from The Penguins of Madagascar. It all starts out fairly normally (considering the source) with King Julien and and Skipper claiming that they somehow managed to out-think the other, when Skipper has this gem: "But what you forgot to take into account is that I am actually you!" and he pulls off a penguin costume to reveal that he is a lemur. Julien counters with "In that case, by process of elimination, I must be you." The other characters are appropriately baffled by the exchange.
- In Beast Machines, this is the basis of Obsidian and Strika's My Master/Country Right Or Wrong attitude. Their loyalty is to Cybertron first and foremost, and according to them, whoever is ruling Cybertron is Cybertron, so they'll follow that person without question. Their fellow Vehicon Thrust eventually calls them on this (paraphrased):
"If you're loyal to anyone, doesn't that mean you're loyal to no one?"
- My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic in "Lesson Zero" Twilight Desperately needs to make a friendship report to Princess Celestia, but can't find one, and starts going through a nervous breakdown.
Twilight Sparkle: If I can't find a friendship problem...I'll make a friendship problem.
- To go into it deeper, Twilight's logic is thus: I am going to be late with my friendship report to Princess Celestia = She will be upset/will question my abilities = Princess Celestia will make me take a test = Students who don't pass tests get sent back a grade = Since Princess Celestia holds me to a higher standard I will be sent all the way back to Magic Kindergarten = All this can be solved by making a friendship problem to fix.
Real Life
- That political commentator you don't like does this all the time. You know the one.
- As the name suggests, Trolls. They often create illogical theories to prove that the side they are arguing with are actually child molesters, hypocrites or whatever. This is just one of their tactics, but it's easily the most recognizable, to the point that users often label everyone they don't agree with as a troll, which is actually an even better example of Insane Troll Logic.
- From TV Tropes! In the "This thread does not exist" article on the Wild Mass Guessing forum:
"This is a thread.
'Thread' is another word for 'string'.
'String' could be referencing 'string cheese'.
String cheese is a form of food.
Cake is also a form of food.
THEREFORE:: This thread is a lie!!"
- Pastafarianism parodies the "Correlation equals causation" fallacy with its claims that pirates prevent global warming, as the number of pirates is decreasing while temperatures increase.
- And Pastafarianism parodies a similar fallacy with its "you cannot prove you are 100% right so you must be wrong" attitude.
- It also specifies that only real pirates count, where "real pirates" is defined as the sort who dress fancy, buckle swashes, and go "Arr me scurvy dogs!" Pirates who are just guys in boats who rob other boats don't count.
- In Discordianism, the standard argument in favor of Eris' existence is "Well, someone had to put all this confusion here!"
- Additionally, a popular Discordian pastime involves demonstrating how everything can be related back to the number five.
- Likewise, the Invisible Pink Unicorn. We know she's invisible because we can't see her, and we have faith that she's pink (for the same reason).
- This is the entire point behind the Troll Science meme.
- Which eventually led to mathematicians and internet commenters who majored in math having to thoroughly disprove a Troll Proof that pi=4.
- The magic exposure website "Mallusionist" does this to all of its magic tricks. Some of their more egregious examples come from debunking Criss Angel's illusions, such as "floating shoes" for his Walk On Water illusion, or replacing the glass he's to walk through with a "pristine waterfall". A surprising number of people don't read the disclaimer at the bottom.
- Charles Manson used this to justify the murders that he ordered committed. According to him, when the victims were found dead this would spark a racial war between blacks and whites becaues the black people would be unfairly blamed for the murders. During the war Manson and his "family" would hide in a "bottomless pit" in the desert. The black people, despite having no army, no central infrastructure, and only being 13% of the population, would win. However, they would be unable to handle the tasks of administrating the government, so they would look to the surviving whites, who they just got done overthrowing, to govern them, putting Manson in charge of the U.S.
- This piece of satire.
- Various arguments making use of math can fall into this when the math is either based on made-up figures or doesn't have anything to do with the argument itself:
- A preacher named Harold Camping concluded that 21 May, 2011, was the date of the Rapture. His logic went like this: May 21st supposedly marked 7,000 years since the Noah's Ark flood and 722,500 days since Jesus' crucifixion. By Camping's numerology, 722,500 represents (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17), or the square of atonement times completeness times heaven.
- He was merely one more in a long line of date-setters and this wasn't even the first time he'd pulled such shenanigans, as mentioned in a book called 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return. The same book names a lot of other false prophecies along these lines and also mentions how people can use this kind of numerology to identify anybody they don't like as the Beast of Revelation, and many have done so.
- Leonhard Euler's possibly apocryphal "proof" supposedly presented to Denis Diderot in defense of the existence of God - "Sir, (a + b^n)/n = x , hence God exists -— reply!"
- Unfortunately, that story is probably untrue - Diderot was a mathematician too.
- Lewis Carroll once sent this problem to a friend.
If x = 1 and y = 1 Then 2(x 2 - y 2) = 0 And 5(x – y) = 0 Which is to say, 2(x 2 - y 2) = 5(x – y) Now divide each side of this equation by (x-y): [2(x 2 - y 2) = 5(x – y)] / (x – y) Which comes to 2(x + y) = 5 But (x + y) = (1 + 1) Which means that 2*2 = 5.
- The both "insanity" and "trollishness" of this logic is arguable, since unwittingly dividing by 0 is a simple mistake A LOT of people make. Unlike other examples, arguing with which is simply useless, this one is resolved by simply pointing out the issue.
- Teletubbies are evil
- An old joke: God is love. Love is blind. Stevie Wonder is God.
- This Not Always Right entry explains how being gay can help fight terrorism.
- This article explains why school buses are a tool of feminist oppression.
- Karl. Pilkington.
- Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil.
- The Ur Example of this trope would be the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Which makes this Older Than Feudalism.
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