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Too Dumb To Live
Umm, can I use one of my Lifelines?

"I am too stupid to LIVE!"
- Rebecca Howe, Cheers

"Defective microchips? I like the sound of that!"
- 'Mikey Simon, Kappa Mikey

The character who drives the plot by doing things that no sane human being would do. Walking down the alley alone to tell her friend about the Serial Killer. Telling her best friend not to tell anybody, but she has a crush on somebody. Walking through the streets of Sunnydale after dark. Being Lana Lang. Splitting the party. Being curious. Not only possessing Genre Blindness, but putting Zaphod Beeblebrox's Peril-Sensitive Sunglasses on over it. Even close friends have to Face Palm upon hearing of their exploits.

Closely related to The Kimberly, but distinguished in that Too Dumb To Live is the cause of the main plot (see The Load), while The Kimberly's travails are a distracting subplot. A Too Dumb To Live character who has absolutely nothing to do with any of the plots is a Ralph Wiggum. If a character becomes Too Dumb To Live for just one event or episode, often at odds with their normal behaviour, the writers have passed them the Idiot Ball. Those who are competent, however, suffer from Death By Pragmatism. Compare Lets Get Dangerous, where when it's time to fight, the character suddenly doubles in IQ points. Contrast Too Dumb To Fool, where the character really is dumb.

Examples

Anime
  • Poor Midorikawa Retasu. Her first appearance in Tokyo Mew Mew, she was a cool Dark Magical Girl... for less than an episode, until she became too weak to fight the Monster Of The Week. But as stressful as that would probably be, you still can't excuse her for forgetting her own powers when she falls into the ocean and panics. (Those powers? Water - including breathing it.)
  • The entire cast of Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh GX, though much more prominent with the duel-obsessed Judai; even when agreeing means putting your life, those of your friends, and/or the entire world/universe at terrible risk, do these people ever say NO to a duel offer? (And what would happen if they did? The implications ain't always pleasant).
    • There's a fan theory that if someone refuses to duel, they are instantly sent to the Shadow Realm, but how would anyone on the show know that?
      • The first time Joey asked to duel with Kaiba in the first episode, he said "Please, I'd have more of a challenge playing solitaire." He didn't get sent to the Shadow Realm.
    • Let's not forget that main characters casually outsmart most major and secondary antagonists, to say nothing of the poor comedy relief villains. This is particularly bad in the early chapters of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga. It's a wonder the average guy in the Yugiverse can still breed.
    • Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series lampshades this trope in one episode.
    Joey: Well, I'm late for my sister's operation, so I'm going to take a shortcut through a back alley in the middle of the night
    Yugi: Sounds potentially fatal.
    Joey: Yep. Wish me luck.
    Joey (shortly after) Hey, a bunch of mysteriously cloaked men! I think I'll run directly towards them!
  • Each and every character, without exception, in the Gantz anime, and nearly every character in the manga. All of them die at least once, and none of them die half as often as they should.
  • Messily lampshaded in Elfen Lied: Kitsuragi, Director Kurama's Dojikko secretary, really is Too Dumb To Live, as Lucy proves about 10 minutes into the first episode...
    • She just chose the worst possible place to do secretary interning...It's unlikely that she would have survived even if she had tried to run at the first sign of trouble.
  • The premise of Kage Kara Mamoru, in which a family has been secrely protected for ninjas for so long that they've lost the ability to survive normal life. The latest descendent, the female protagonist, therefore has a supernatural ability to walk blindly into trouble, and generally gets rescued before she even realises what's happening.
  • Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan: Sakura is this way around Sabato, always offering her a hand even when she had tried to kill him just seconds prior or allowing her to seduce him in her attempts to kill him.
  • Jun in Devilman Lady gets episode 1 going by encountering a strange woman (Asuka) stalking her. When Asuka comes to her door in the middle of the night, Jun, despite being afraid, unlocks her own door, willingly gets in a car with Asuka, lets Asuka drive her to a darkened area of the docks, and obediently walks into a deserted warehouse whereupon Asuka locks her in with a werewolf. Then again, Jun is a complete doormat in the beginning of the series and doesn't really think highly of herself. The fact she's a rather plain-looking model - a fact several other models say to her face - doesn't really help give confidence.
  • Fate Stay Night: Shiro, while not a typical Idiot Hero, wins some sort of prize there due to spending a good portion of the anime refusing to let the fighter do the fighting because she is a girl. He gets called on it by a number of people who think him to be What An Idiot before it sticks. The only reason he gets that far is because of his Death Is Cheap auto-healing powers.
    • The "Saber's a girl" excuse really seemed more of a "I don't want the girl I love to be in danger" cop out (and watching her get her ass handed to her the first time she fought probably cemented that). Shirou's real stupidity is his extremely high penchant for self-sacrifice (which he's also called on).
  • The main plot in the Gunnm OVAs involves a young boy trying all he can to make enough money to reach a floating city in the sky where everyone supposedly lives in luxury. He steals and kills in order to appease the requirements of a villain who has promised him he'll bring him to the city if he brings him enough money, but the audience is at a loss as to how he has fallen for it - considering said villain screams "bullshit" from a thousand miles away. He gets a bounty slapped on his ass, but he keeps up with the plan. He gets minced by a bountyhunter and saved in the nick of time - by being turned into a cyborg, while being told that the city isn't accessible by standard means. He decides not to believe that, and tries to climb one of the cables that anchor the city. A rotating anti-intruder blade comes down and slices his feet off, but still he thinks it's a good idea to keep on going. And when, in the end, he is convinced by the main character that reaching the city is an illusion and he should come down and live his life, he forgets to look behind him - and gets sliced to oblivion by another rotating blade. Way, way, way Too Dumb To Live.
  • The main character of Kyougoku Natsuhiko Kousetsu Hyakumonogatari, Yamaoka Momosuke. He has a habit of blindly trusting and attaching himself to even Obviously Evil people, trying to sacrifice himself for others and jumping in to save people from sword-wielding maniacs without any other means to defend himself than yelling "Please calm down!" He'd probably have died at least once every episode if it wasn't for Mataichi's team always saving his ass.
  • In Grave of the Fireflies, the main character, Seita, endures incredible hardships with his sister during and after WWII. Most of that hardship is a result of him running out on his kinda-mean-but-not-that-bad aunt's house to live in a cave. One of the reasons the aunt resents him is that instead of working, he goofed off during the day. And instead of getting a job, he runs off with his toddler sister. Even when things become so bad that their lives are threatened, instead of simply asking his aunt to take them back, he sticks it out, while his sister eats mudballs out of hunger. And then both he and his sister die.
    • Then again, it's quite unbelievable that their aunt just let him go—with his little sister. She should realize that in those circumstances the chances of survival for a child are very low. And she makes no attempt to get her back, even if the girl is very visibly not doing fine. Resentment aside, letting children run off to their doom is bad practice for an adult.
      • There is something to be said about running away during a war - the kid can go anywhere, any time and the person looking for them will have no clue where, when or how to begin finding him.
  • In the manga version of Fullmetal Alchemist several members of the Amestris military give Solf J. Kimblee a Philosopher's Stone so he can test it to see how much more powerful he gets. Kimblee uses it to create massive destruction, upon his return they ask for it back, and Kimblee does what everyone who has spent 5 minutes with the man expects. He swallows the stone than kills the morons who gave arguably the most psychotic person in the series (only Envy is as close) a stone that upgrades his power. Maybe next time they should do some research on the guy they use for their experiment.

Comic Books
  • The Guardians of the Universe, as of Green Lantern #27. Seeing as how what they're doing here is essentially recreating even more dangerous versions of the original Manhunters - which crazy obsessed justice machines once overthrew, and almost massacred, the Guardians.
    • And in Final Crisis, we find out that the Guardians' latest group of crazy obsessed justice machines are the perfect host bodies for the disembodied spirits of some of Darkseid's minions, who have been dead ever since Death of the New Gods. But now they can get better! Thank you so much, Guardians of the Universe!
      • In fairness, the Guardians would have had no way of knowing. Sure, there was that one Alpha Lantern from Apokolips as foreshadowing, but to foresee that as relating to thew dead New Gods, well, they would have to be nigh-omnipotent and -omniscient... Oh, wait.
      • Also, this will theoretically allow some of the other New Gods to come back, like Big Barda. ...damn. Big Barda as a Green Lantern. If that doesn't give you shivers of one kind or another, I don't know what will.
      • See JLA: The Nail, where her husband Mr Miracle ends up *as her ring*. Sex stuff is implied.
      • And again in Green Lantern Corps, where they decide that it is forbidden for Green Lanterns to love anyone...Right when a new Corps entirely dedicated to Love forms. Can't imagine how that could turn out bad, nosir.
      • Green Arrow/Green Lantern trade where Hal can't seem to work out shades of gray in any situation but it appears neither can Ganthet, who has to be taught this little trick by Oliver Queen, a guy who can't keep his zipper shut to save a life. [The same Oan who dumped the sole remaining power ring on the first non-puking person he could find. Admittedly he was desperate and it turned out okay.]
  • Slightly different in 'Emerald twilight' of Green Lantern, with The Guardians of the Universe again. During 'Emerald Twilight' (when Hal Jordan became Parallax), Jordan was on his way to Oa to take nearly limitless power from the Central Power Battery. After stranding several Green Lanterns in space (where they probably would have died), Hal arrives on Oa. Jordan removes his power ring, effectively making him a normal human, and the Guardians, who have power on a cosmic scale (give or take) just let him walk into the central power battery. They knew Jordan would kill them if he had the chance, and they practically let him. The central power battery explodes, revealing Hal Jordan as Parallax. All but one of the Guardians died, and for no good reason.
  • Superboy. All the Lampshade Hanging in the world can't explain how Superboy could be that stupid and live. Even the narrator acknowledged the stupidity of that Superboy. It turned out to be all a dream, even.
    • He was just a kid, remember.
  • One could make an argument most of the characters of The Walking Dead fall into this, though for a fair bit of them one should take into account the Uncanny Valley factor.
    • Exactly! In The Walking Dead, a good hard hit to the head takes care of a zombie. Shotgun blast to baseball bat, to well-swung brick. It's all good. Do the humans, with potentially unlimited 'ammo' take down all possible zombies? No, no they do not. Plus, much of the first story arc involves them sitting around in an open field. This, with two police officers leading the humans.
    • Except that getting close enough to a zombie to hit it with a bat or other weapon means you are close enough for it to try and eat you. Oh, and don't forget that there are potentially BILLIONS of zombies out there. Yeah. As for throwing bricks, trying to hit a small moving target (albiet a slow one) while it walks up to try and eat you,May not be the best idea.
  • Lampshaded in Nightwing #150. One of Two-Face's mooks was standing right behind a guy Two-Face wanted to shoot. Two-Face points out that this isn't a good place to be, and the guy needs it explained to him: "I can't afford to lose any red shirts." When the mook doesn't get the reference, Two-Face has had enough, declares him too dumb to live, and blows him away.

Film
  • Lampshaded in Scream, when one character calls slash film victims "dumb blondes who are always running up the stairs when they should be going out the front door." And then, some manage to still die.
  • In Dantes Peak, the grandmother decides not to leave the area of the erupting volcano, prompting most of the other characters to go after her. Later, she attempts to wade through acid, which does kill her.
    • It was arguably stupid to end up in that situation, but the actual jump into the acid was a deliberate sacrifice on her part; she was pushing the rapidly-disintegrating boat in which the rest of protagonists were huddling.
    • Possibly a Shout Out to an instance of Truth In Television; a number of the people killed in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, arguably one of the key Real Life inspirations for the film, were long-time residents of the area who simply refused to leave no matter how vociferously the seismologists warned of impending eruption.
      • In particular, a stubborn old codger named Harry Truman (No, not the president) who owned a vacation lodge up near the base of St. Helens. He didn't leave, and he died in the blast.
      • To be fair to Harry Truman he may have figured that eighty-plus was just too old to start all over again and if he lost his lodge he might as well go with it.
    • Reminds this troper of an old joke. A woman is alerted to a coming flood by a radio broadcast. She decides that, as a good Christian, God loves her and will save her. Later, she's sitting on her roof in the middle of a flood and prays to God, asking him to save her. A speedboat comes along, and the driver calls out to her. "No thank you!" the woman cries, "God will save me!" Later, as the water was up to the roof, a passing helicopter drops her a rope, which she again refuses in favor of divine intervention. The flood eventually covers her house, and she drowns. When she gets to Heaven, she asks, "Lord, I believed in you. I thought you loved me. Why didn't you save me?" God replies: "Lady, I sent a radio broadcast, a speedboat, and a helicopter. What the Hell are you doing here?"
  • Ofelia of the movie Pans Labyrinth surely qualifies in the infamous Pale Man scene. She has been warned by the Faun not to touch any of the food on display, or else; the magic book, just in case she forgot, tells her again... and guess what she does? She apparently doesn't notice the horrific looking creature sitting as still as a statue at the head of the table, never mind hear it springing to life as she takes a bite out of some fruit. The fairies with her even wave their arms and try to warn her not to, but she just greedily swats them out of the way and they end up getting eaten by the Pale Man for their troubles. At this point, this troper found it hard to feel any sympathy for Ofelia when the Faun goes apesh** on hearing she ate some of the food when we were obviously meant to think the Faun was being harsh. I can't blame him. I don't care how tasty that fruit looked, when a mystical, creepy looking thing with antlers and some monkey-like fairies tell you not to touch anything, don't touch anything!
    • The scene is, frankly, so incredibly bizarre that it's tempting to conclude that there was some sort of magic at work.
    • This troper's mother suggested that the faun may have actually intended for this to happen, so this might be a Justified Trope. Oh, and the faeries come back in the end, when Ofelia is seen returning 'home'.
      • it's also been suggested that the faun and the Pale man THE SAME PERSON. we never see them at the same place, do we?
      • That's just based on the fact they have the same actor.
    • It probably stems from the fact that living in Spain at the height of World War Two, she hasn't seen fruit in quite some time due to rationing.
    • Also, don't forget the resemblance to the myth of Persephone in Hades.
    • It serves another important purpose, too: One of the major themes of the movie is that her refusal to automatically obey authority is heroic. See also the ending.
    • As the director pointed out in the commentary- she was starving at this point in time, she hadn't had anything to eat all day and she'd been incredibly active. Not that it makes here any smarter, but it makes the mistake less bizarre.
      • Most people don't seem to realize that the second task was completed on the same day as the first. Ofelia had been sent to bed without dinner because she'd come home with her nice dress all muddied from the first task. It's uncomfortable when your parents use this as a punishment, even if you haven't been running around all day. Also, the Pale man hadn't moved the entire time she'd been there, and it seems she'd lost some of her fear of him after picking a door. Though she really should have kept her eye on the timer, since she knew that her task had to be completed before the timer ran out.
      • She could have simply grabbed the entire plate of grapes and ran for the exit. As it was she only got two grapes in exchange for almost being killed and eaten.
      • She tells the Faun later that she didn't think anyone would miss a few grapes. She might have thought an entire plate of them would have been, though. Maybe this was just to show that she is willing and able to break the rules by eating a few grapes (and, as pointed out previously, her tasks couldn't be accomplished if she followed the rules blindly—she has to be able to think for herself) but has enough in the morals department to know she shouldn't steal a whole plate of them.
  • The entire Jedi order. Let's make a bunch of rules that not only run counter to human nature, but help ensure that your number will always be relatively low. Then let's blithely ignore signs that all is not well until one of your members gets de-lifed by something you thought was a myth. And then let's utterly ignore the growing power and corresponding immaturity and unpredictability of your "Chosen One", all the while getting played like chess pieces by the ultimate BBEG, who was literally staring you in the face the whole time.
    • Let's also make it a rule that, if we ever find someone sensitive to the Force older than six, we refuse to train them. It's not like the Sith will ever find and nurture the latent potential of this Force-sensitive person, and the candidate probably won't hold a grudge against the Jedi Order for refusing to have them trained. Or if we do begrudgingly agree to have them trained, give them to an untested Jedi who was trained by a maverick that bucked the system at every opportunity. Let's go as far as to refuse to train the last remaining hope for peace and justice in the galaxy even if he goes to the trouble to track the last remaining Jedi Master down on a deserted swamp planet.
      • Yoda was not really refusing to train Luke, but was testing him to see if Luke had the determination to go through the crash course in basic Jedi training. The line "He's too old. Yes, too old to begin training" sounds a lot like it was made up in the spur of the moment.
  • Basically, the level of intelligence exhibited by the human race in the film Idiocracy can be boiled down to two phrases: "Ow, my balls!" and "Welcome to Costco... I love you."
    • "It's got electrolytes!"
  • Hud from Cloverfield may qualify definitely qualifies. Whether his friends are being attacked by parasitic creatures or a gigantic monster is hovering over him with a hungry look in its (many) eyes, it never occurs to him to just put the damn camera down and do something! Naturally, another character loses her life to save him from the parasites while his hands are full, and the hungry monster ends up eating him. One of the Rifftrax boys describes Hud as "straddling a fine line between dumbass and inanimate object."
    • Heck, the same goes for The Blair Witch Project, Diary of the Dead, the remake of House on Haunted Hill, and Quarantine, too. Well, Quarantine is a contested case, as they at least offer a decent justification for the usually flimsy "people have to know!" premise, but still: we can B.S. about a director's artistic commentary on voyeurism and whatnot, but when it comes down to brass tacks, Handheld Camera = Idiot Ball.
      • Why stop at Hud? The decision to follow the Head Idiot-in-Charge toward the monster tearing Manhattan apart when there was still plenty of time to jump in a car and drive north out of the city in safety and comfort just on the slim possibility that his girlfriend might still be alive makes me glad these morons were safely removed from the gene pool.
  • Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds has Melanie going up to a room she knows is filled with birds. The result is She is nearly killed by dozens of attacking birds.. When the actress asked "Hitch, why would I do this?", he replied "Because I tell you to."
  • The opening scene in Scary Movie treats us to the opening Chase Scene, where the Pursued Protagonist has to make the hard choice between "safety" and "death" seen in the page picture.
  • In a rather unfortunate moment of Fridge Logic Michael's Heroic Sacrifice in 2004 version of Dawn Of The Dead was spoiled for this editor when he began to wonder how many zombifications could have been avoided if characters wore thick, long-sleeved clothing instead of flimsy t-shirts. Pretty much all his sympathy for the characters went out the window at that point.
    • What, only then? And not dropping a crowbar for a croquet mallet? Or hoping glass doors hold up against a horde of zombies? Or thinking that a dog would be the best to deliver a package of food through a crowd of zombies, with no expected complications? Or charging after said dog when things don't go as planned? Or the time when...
    • You think those people were Too Dumb To Live? You obviously haven't seen the original 1978 version of the movie. In one scene, a biker in a sombrero sits down to take his blood pressure while Stephen is shooting at his friends. It takes another biker to tell him he's being stupid and pulls him away from the machine, but later on, he returns to the machine to get his blood pressure taken despite the fact that zombies are clearly beginning to surround him (the camera angle shows a very small area around him) and despite the fact that all his friends are either 1. Getting shot at by Peter 2. Getting eaten alive. or 3. Getting the hell out of dodge. The result of his stupidity is predictable.
  • 2006's Babel relied on this for its plot. This is, in all seriousness, what starts the movie's action going: "Oh look, a bus! We're in the middle of the desert in a country well-known for its terror threats. Let's shoot at the bus! That's always a good idea."
    • Because teenaged boys are famous for always thinking through the consequences of their actions.
  • Ed from Shaun of the Dead takes this to new levels. The characters need to get past a horde of zombies, and do so by acting like zombies to avoid drawing attention. When they are nearly to apparent safety, Ed's phone goes off... and he answers it and starts cheerfully talking on the phone, less than ten feet from dozens of zombies.
    • But this movie was a satire of horror movies, so this is kind of what you'd expect.
  • The Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Trying to enlist the Judeo-Christian God's help in the extermination of His Chosen People?
    • Fully justified. After all, this is what the real-life Nazi were frequently doing. "God is with us" was a Nazi slogan and was found on the belt buckle of the official Nazi uniform.
      • Perhaps, but it's still whole new levels of stupid to try to find an artifact that was made by Jews, possessed only by Jews throughout history (except during the brief periods it was captured, but those people were ruined very soon thereafter), and about which Yahweh is frankly really pissy about, in order to protect your ability to kill the chosen people of said god. Seriously, they would be lucky if it didn't do anything.
      • This goes for anti-semitism in general though, it makes no sense. There's a total disconnect between the Biblical Hebrews and more modern Jews. Apparently "killing" Jesus caused the whole race to transform into a bunch of evil, egg-laying, shapeshifting, greedy money lovers that are the source of all that is wrong.
      • Although this troper's Religion Teacher (of all people) pointed out that the Ark killing people was linked to a passage in the bible that states that any mortal who looks at God will die. The Ark was containing the power of God. Same result. So really, the Nazi's idiocy is "READ THE BIBLE DUMBASSES!!"
      • Bad example. The Nazis in Raiders weren't expecting the Ark to do anything. Not even Indy believed in it at first. As viewers, we knew what the Ark's opinion of the Nazis was when it burned the Hoheitsabzeichen off of the box, but even after that, people who went into the theater with no spoiler knowledge were not expecting the big wrath of God Vegas stage show at the end.
  • Anyone that gets in a fight with a character played by Samuel L Jackson is by definition the paragon of this trope.
    • Unless it's a shark, or a Sith Lord.
      • Or an oversized Velociraptor.
    • This is also true of anyone who accuses Bruce Willis of being a cowboy.
  • Although this trope is hardly rare in slasher movies, special mention must be given to the Final Girl from Friday The 13th. She ommitted Once Is Not Enough no less than three times, each time leaving the killer's weapon right there for them when they woke up. There were a bunch of other examples of her stupidity, but that was the outstanding one.
  • Multiple characters in Burn After Reading more than qualify, but Chad Feldheimer goes above and beyond the call of duty, and definitely earns the title since he ends up getting shot in the head before the second act is even over.
  • The science fiction spoof Mom And Dad Save The World has a memorably absurd case of this on a massive scale, played for laughs of course: There's a weapon called the light grenade that disintegrates anyone it comes in contact with once the pin is pulled, but only if the victim is dumb enough to actually pick it up. It has the phrase "PICK ME UP" engraved on it. Because the movie literally takes place on a planet full of idiots, one of these left out in the open takes out an entire platoon of evil troops, each one picking it up immediately after seeing what just happened to the last guy who did that.
    • The icing on the cake was the leader of the platoon calling for backup.
  • You'd think by now that the JSDF in the Godzilla films would learn that their conventional weaponry (IE: Tanks, missiles, cannons, giant lasers...Ok, maybe that last one isn't that conventional.) have NO effect whatsoever on the titular monster and, if anything, only makes him angrier. Nope. Even after 28+ movies, they still try the same tactics over and over again.
  • Capturing a giant ape who's smitten with a female human and bringing him back to civilization? That's a GREAT idea! What's the worst that could happen? Oh...right...
  • The archangel Gabriel from the movie Gabriel qualifies. From the very first person that he meets onward he is constantly warned that using his powers will attract the attention of every bad guy in the city, letting them know exactly where he is. So what does he do? Why, he seeks out his fallen comrades who are in hiding and proceeds to use large quantities of his powers to "help" them, even when they specifically and emphatically tell him not to and yell at him for it after the fact.
    • To top it all off, Gabriel is actually shocked and suffers a Heroic BSOD when he learns that he DID, in fact, lead the bad guys to his comrades and they all died because of his stupidity. Asmodeus even points out "if you didn't want them dead, why did you lead us to them?"
    • Gabriel truly proves himself too dumb to live when after Michael makes a last minute heel face turn and gives Gabriel the last of his life essence in order to save his life, dying in the process, Gabriel proceeds to throw himself off of the building to his own death MERE MOMENTS LATER!

Literature
  • Anybody who has ever allowed Hercule Poirot, Columbo, Jessica Fletcher, or any other crime-solving detective to be anywhere near them. Dinner, vacation, school reunions, wherever these people go, murders are committed that they have to solve. This might be mistaken as simple Genre Blindness, but for the fact that this is often a known phenomenon within the show. Poirot, for example, has commented that he can't go anywhere without people dying. Adrian Monk's assistant Natalie called him the 'anti-Christ' in one episode, noting that even when he was on vacation people died around him. When Jessica Fletcher testified in a murder trial, a lawyer tried to discredit her by pointing out how many of her friends, relatives and acquaintances were accused murderers.
    • To their credit, at least Poirot and Columbo were famous homicide detectives, so they got 'called' to murders as often as they just happened to be around when they occured. A couple Poirot counterexamples are The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, in which Poirot investigates a murder in his own town, and Cards on the Table, in which Poirot is purposefully invited to dinner and bridge with suspected murderers (the host is a bit bonkers).
    • And quite a lot of times even Miss Marple didn't show up until after the first murder had been committed and someone who knew of her had called her in. Examples are A Pocket Full of Rye, The Moving Finger, A Murder is Announced, Nemesis.
    • This troper has long held a theory, mirrored in some fanfic, that Jessica Fletcher is actually the world's most cunning serial killer, and the secret of her success was in always finding a patsy to blame the murders on. Alternately, you'd think that after noticing someone always dies whenever she goes anywhere, they'd brick her into her little Cabbot Cove cabin and shove groceries in through a hatch.
      • They tried. Two bricklayers and three grocery boys later, they decided unleashing her on the world was better than keeping her around.
  • Elaida from the Wheel Of Time might be too dumb to die—as in, she could be impaled in the head with a Blighted tree specifically charged by the True Power to kill anything it touched instantaneously and she would be too confused about what was going on to actually bother to drop dead. Everything she does creates one diplomatic disaster after another. She sends the White Tower into civil war, tries to kidnap the Dragon Reborn (the Dragon must kneel to the White Tower!), sends fifty Aes Sedai to attack the Black Tower (I don't believe those rumors of there being hundreds of organized, militant channelers!), and ends up doing everything possible to prevent unification. Forget the rebels, she has a fabulous new palace to build for herself! By the penultimate book, the rebels' existence and the impending final battle against the Dark One are probably all that's keeping her alive.
    • Therava, who seems to be more interested in turning Galina Casban into her sex slave, than in being the advisor of the Shaido Aiel. The rest of the Shaido Aiel may also be Too Dumb To Live. Many, many other characters get handed Idiot Balls from time to time, but their moments of clarity may disqualify them from this trope.
    • The dumbest character in the entire backstory is King Laman Damodred, who 20 years before the start of the series cuts down a special tree called Avendoraldera. Said tree was given to his nation by the Aiel, a bunch of Proud Warrior Race Guys who could take over half the world if they weren't busy raiding each other. The insulted Aiel join together to invade the country, destroy its army, loot the cities, and chop Laman's head off. All because Laman wanted the wood for his new throne.
    • A LOT of the main main characters in this series are too dumb to live, most notably the main character, who lets Moiraine, the only ally amongst the Aes Sedai he could actually trust, get killed purely because her attacker, Lanfear, was female. AND LANFEAR WAS TRYING TO KILL HIS GIRLFRIENDS AS WELL, AND HE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! Killing women is wrong, people. Even if not killing them means letting your friends die.
      • In his tenuous defense, that's probably more insanity than stupidity.
  • Burt, the lead character of the Stephen King short story Children of the Corn is a particularly terrible example of Too Dumb To Live. He takes far too long to admit to himself that something is seriously wrong in the town of Gatlin... and even once he does, decides to linger just to make his wife - who realized much earlier and wanted to leave immediately - squirm. This results in both of them dying horrible and otherwise completely avoidable deaths.
  • A Song Of Ice And Fire has two female antagonists who think themselves to be considerably more intelligent than they really are, with disastrous results. Cersei re-empowered the Faiths Militant, and Lysa was dumb enough to trust Littlefinger without question. Leaving the Moon Door open and then confronting him right in front of it wasn't bright either.
    • And don't even get this Troper STARTED on Catelyn.
  • Victor Frankenstein of Mary Shelley's original novel, decides to run away from, and afterwards basically forget about, his completely successful experiment in the creation of new life, after he decides that the result is uglier looking than he expected. He is then surprised when said creation becomes angry and decides to kill him.
    • Not only that, but all the monster wants is a female companion. Victor starts making one to appease it, then gets afraid the two of them would spawn a race of monsters, so he destroys the unfinished female, which prompts the monster to commit new murders in revenge. Victor never considers that he could just leave out some of the plumbing. Not only that, but despite knowing the monster has a history of killing the people that he, Victor, loves, despite knowing that it considers him guilty for the death of its 'bride', despite its explicit warning that it will "be with you on your wedding night," when Victor marries Elizabeth he assumes that he is the monster's next target, and sends his new wife away to wait in her room completely unprotected. The results are predictable.
  • Anyone who steps into the Mended Drum declaring themselves to be invincible will find the patrons will test that claim seriously.
    • Quite naturally, by the usual Genre Savvy Discworld population, any examples of Too Dumb To Live that result in the person getting killed are marked down as "suicide" by the City Watch. There are a lot of ways to commit suicide in Ankh-Morpork. Walking into the Drum calling yourself "Vincent the Invulnerable" was just the icing on the cake.
  • In Oath of Fealty by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the plot is initiated by a group of teenagers who, as a prank, try to sneak into a heavily surveilled arcology while carrying a box labeled "bomb". They take just enough precautions to defeat all of the nonlethal methods of stopping them. The abject stupidity of this act is very heavily lampshaded, and spawns the repeated phrase "Think of it as evolution in action."
  • This is a long standing complaint of fans of Romance fiction who use the abbreviation TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) to describe any heroine (or hero) who drives the plot by sending all reason and common sense on sabbatical while pursuing the love of their lives.
    • And speaking of which, let's give a big shout-out to Bella Swan ofTwilight! Honestly, while I freely admit that the books are one rollicking avalanche of Guilty Pleasures, Bella NEEDS to be changed over so she'll have the strength to lug around that big-ass Idiot Ball she's been strapped to ever since she saw Edward Cullen walk into the school cafeteria...

Live Action TV
  • Smallville: As already mentioned above, Lana Lang. (Honestly; going swimming, after dark, in the school pool, in Smallville?)
    • She's died 12 times and got KO'd 43 times.
  • In Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the residents of the town are hilariously aware and in denial of the presence of vampires and other demons.
    • Given a Lampshade Hanging in one episode where a character gleefully predicts that if there aren't as many mysterious disappearances and unexplained deaths on the team this year, they might make state in basketball.
  • The entire cast of the British comedy The Young Ones falls into this trope. The amount they don't know, and then the amount they presume to know, boggles the mind, but it's all harmless fun. Watching them try to sell a nuke to Libyan dictators was especially hilarious. To be fair, the environment they find themselves in could have come out of a Dada Comic's portrayal of London, as said nuke is actually a plane's egg, and it hatches a baby plane at the end of the episode.
  • Shane Vendrell from The Shield. Stupid, racist hick cop who's put his and his entire corrupt team's necks on the line due to his attempts to work the system like his mentor, Vic Mackey. Never mind that twice, those schemes have cost innocent lives and given the bad worse guys reams of blackmail material. Oh, and he killed teammate Lem because he was afraid Lem was going to rat them out to the Feds. Never mind that they were making plans to sneak Lem to Mexico.
    • Though not as street-smart as Vic, Shane does possess a low cunning that's allowed him to subvert this trope. Of course, the final season still has a few episodes left....
      • But ultimately he didn't, committing suicide and taking his wife and children with him in order to "preserve their innocence."
  • People from the civilian fleet tend to do this a lot in Battlestar Galactica.
    • Just to provide an example. At least 1/3 of the civilian fleet is dependent upon the Galactica for water supplies, and the whole fleet is dependent on the Galactica as the only source of defence they have against the Cylons, not to mention its crew are the only proper organized force remaining so that even though they have a civilian government, it would be unable to function with the military running things. Then you have people like Zarek who wanted to bring it all down just a few days after the genocide of the Colonies (though he has gotten better about it), but he has always been a Well Intentioned Extremist anyway. Then you have the other civilians. Granted you don't want to be walked over all the time, but how do these actions make sense?: Refusing to supply your only defence as a protest, Halting supply of the fleet's entire fuel thus limiting their options hugely in the event of a Cylon attack, sabotaging the military and blowing yourself up because you think the fleet needs to make peace with the Cylons when in fact the Colonies had already surrendered but the Cylons were not (at that time) amenable to opening a dialogue even if the military had considered it as a viable option.
  • A bit character from Doctor Who, "The Unicorn and the Wasp," goes out with the wonderfully Genre Blind line, "I say, what are you doing with that lead piping?" to cap it off he's named Professor Peach (though to be fair, the episode is set before Cluedo was published).
    • And was an Affectionate Parody of murder mysteries in general, including a lot of bits parodying Cluedo in particular
  • Various characters on The Red Green Show, most notably Bill and Edgar Montrose, as well as most of the characters mentioned by Red but never actually seen on the show.
  • In the CSI episode "Boom" from season 1, the team is investigating a bombing and receives offers of help from a guy who says he's a real amateur bomb enthusiast. Said guy is, of course, the primary suspect. The guy ends up blowing himself up by going to retrieve a bomb the real bomber placed in a high school.
  • How could no one have mentioned Mohinder Suresh of Heroes fame? For someone who's supposed to be so intelligent, he manages to be pretty darn stupid. Perhaps the best example is how in the third season premiere, he decided to inject himself with a serum that he just randomly created without ANY regard to possible side effects. Too Dumb To Live indeed
    • Well, at least he seems to be paying for it.
      • Still, it's a testament to his idiocy that - considering he spent all of Season 2 working with a virus that removed a person's superpowers - that he created a formula to do the EXACT OPPOSITE (i.e. give a normal person superpowers) within a matter of days... after being asked to find a cure for superpowers.
      • Not having seen the series, I don't know how that worked out in the story, but that's not necessarily a dumb move in theory. Not to many scientists in fiction, when asked to make something that could easily go wrong or be misused, have the foresight to make something to counter it.
    • Oh come on! This is Heroes. If we listed all the characters individually giving them one Too Dumb To Live entry each, we'd effectively triple this page in length.
      • Even so, Mohinder is something special... and by special I mean "special needs" special,
    • That Mohinder, a scientific genius, would do something so stupid is arguably more a case of Character Derailment. After all, in previous seasons he seemed in love with the concept of scientific ethic, and then suddenly, for absolutely no reason, he just throws it all out the window.
      • Then again, this is the same guy who willingly chose to betray Noah Bennet to The Company in Season 2 - despite having numerous first-hand experiences in seeing how hopeless corrupt The Company is - based on their word that Noah had obviously gone crazy and was too dangerous to be allowed to run free.
    • The worst Too Dumb To Live of Heroes HAS to be Peter Petrelli 2nd season. not only does he end up with the villain of the season, but he repeatedly encounters trusted individuals straight up telling him that Adam is evil, including several of the people who worked with him to save New York earlier. Not to MENTION the fact that he watches as Adam casually and calmly BLOWS SOMEONE AWAY without any kind of comment on Peter's part. Only at the very end does he put two and two together and realize he is about to assist in genocide.
  • A fair number of MacGyver antagonists are undone by their own stupidity: in the very second episode ("The Golden Triangle"), a dictator dies when he lunges at Mac with a sword, trips, falls down, and impales himself. In "Partners", Murdock, who would become a recurring nemesis, is undone because when Mac throws a rock at him, Murdock, one of the world's most notorious assassins, panics and drops a lit stick of dynamite. In "Kill Zone", a risk-taking scientist cavalierly waves around a container of mutated super-virus while insisting that nothing could possibly go wrong until her dog (For some reason, it's "Bring Your Dog To Work Day" at the xenovirology lab) concludes she wants to play fetch. It gets bad enough that in the Clip Show episode "Friends", Mac actually has a Ten Minute Retirement when he realizes that the only reason he's still alive is through an unlikely string of luck and the stupidity of others. And that's not even considering Locking Mac Gyver In The Store Cupboard.
    • There was also the female antagonist in Phoenix Under Siege, who throws a flying kick at Mac, misses entirely, and catapults herself right out of a high rise window.
  • Many many many teams in Knightmare lost because of abject stupidity, like responding to an attacker by turning off the lights or seemingly taking great care to walk their dungeoneer off a cliff.
  • Susan Meyer from Desperate Housewives is way too 'dumb to live', add her uncanny ability to misinterpret absolutely everything about everyone with her ungodly clumsiness and you just ask yourself how did she manage to live up to be twelve (I mean, thirty... something). Oh, the characters of the series also question themselves the very same thing.
  • Most of the cast of The Red Green Show suffers from this trope to some extent, but by far the best example is Bill. Whether it's pouring gasoline into a go-cart while the engine is still running, using his finger to test the sharpness of an axe, carrying chainsaws around in his coveralls, attempting to pole-vault off the roof of a moving vehicle, or sitting on a beanbag chair filled with propane and using a lit match to blow himself into the air to catch something that had drifted off into the sky, it's a miracle that Bill is not only still alive, but has all his limbs still intact.
  • Robin Maxwell in V: The Original Miniseries. First she wanders out of hiding, to be discovered by collaborator Daniel, which leads to the Maxwells having to move, Daniel's parents being arrested, and his grandfather being killed. Having learned nothing, she leaves hiding again, this time getting captured by the Visitors, which leads to the Resistance camp being attacked and her mother being killed.

Tabletop RPG
  • The Hand of Vecna is an Artifact Of Doom that requires its user to cut off his or her own hand and graft Vecna's in its place, granting vast magical powers. The Eye of Vecna is much the same. Guess what happened to the first adventuring party to find the (initially two-eyed) Head of Vecna?
    • It wasn't quite their fault, since the Head was created (supposedly) by a rival adventuring party. Still... the first character was a druid, traveling alone, without any bladed weapons (and, therefore, no way to cut his own head off). Clearly, the obvious solution was to summon a gorilla and have it cut off his head. Not that the other members of the party were much smarter, mind you.
      • Even better, according to the original tale that Druid was part of the adventuring group that had created the Head in the first place. The rest of them just never bothered to tell him about it. And then the other group actually came to blows about who would get their head replaced, not to mention doing it to two of their characters in succession.

Video Games
  • Phoenix Wright, great lawyer that he is, suffers from this on occasion in service to the plot; his own intuition has to be shunted aside for the player to have an active role. Sometimes, however, this justification fails. Take the third case of the first game, where he blithely confronts a blackmailer on her actions, knowing full well she has ties to the Yakuza. Only a Big Damn Heroes moment from Gumshoe keeps him from getting rubbed out. Actually, Wright does this in almost every single case in the first game, and always seems to do so in secluded places with no witnesses where his suspected murderer holds all the cards.
    • This troper thought that case 4 in the first game was the worst offender, when you have a letter planning out the entire conspiracy that the villain's planned in his (apparently distinct) handwriting then the first thing I'd do (and would have done if the game allowed me) is immediately head to the court house and have it placed in evidence after making several photocopies and putting them in a safe place. Or at the very least not carry the bloody thing around with me so the villain can subdue me with a tazor and make off with it. Although to be fair when his mentor tried the same thing in case 2 it got her killed for her troubles.
      • To be fair, in the first game, Phoenix was working on his first, second, third, fourth and fifth cases ever, which gives him some leeway in terms of naivete. (Why he should be more naive than the players, many of whom haven't attended law school and who knew better on their very first playthrough, is still a fair question.) Not to mention the fact that he's going up against extremely powerful people, in most cases without knowing it. Mistakes are par for the course, and he does eventually learn, as shown in the second and third games.
      • He's got a pretty stupid moment in the third game, too, even if you don't count the way he acted when he was on trial in college. The fifth case may include the stupidest Phoenix moment in the history of Ace Attorney, when Phoenix attempts to run across a burning rope bridge high above a canyon because Maya is on the other side and she might be in danger. This troper is even a Phoenix/Maya shipper and she finds Phoenix's actions pretty ridiculous.
    • Given that Phoenix Wright is the protagonist, these become frustrating But Thou Must moments - most players are probably not too dumb to live. In the more open-ended investigation sections, it almost reaches Guide Dang It - after all, Phoenix Wright can't really be too dumb to live, can he?
      • I wouldn't say Phoenix is "dumb" per se, but more like wacky Courtroom Antics force him to play dumb (including us, the players) to find out the truth in the pool of nonsense.
      • In fact, in Trials and Tribulations, Phoenix does get an Smarts Upgrade, and he begins saying this like, "There's something wrong with that testimony" to draw attention to it. This troper found it annoying as hell, because I want to figure things out for myself!
      • Even more so for the above, despite his appearance and occupation in "Apollo Justice", Phoenix has clearly matured significantly to the point that while his wits have not dimmed, he's completely shed the 'nervous beginner' side of his personality.
    • Phoenix's moments of this don't even compare to that of Misty Fey and Godot, the former who dies as a result in the final case. When Godot finds out about finds out about the plan Morgan Fey has to allow her daughter Pearl to become head of the Fey clan rather than Misty's daughter Maya, which is through Pearl reading a letter Morgan gives her instructing her to channel multiple murderer Dahlia's spirit and kill Maya, and finds said letter, he confronts Misty Fey about it. Rather than solving this conflict the easy way, which would be to hide the letter or warn Maya and Pearl about Morgan's plan...Misty channels Dahlia's spirit instead, in order to prevent Pearl from doing so, nevermind the danger she would be putting her daughter's life and her own life into that she could have easily prevented.
  • In Supreme Commander, an ally of your character touches an ancient alien device that is emitting a strange energy signature, in violation of a direct order from the commander in chief of the entire cybran nation. He survives, but you have to kill him and his robotic battle suit after the artifact takes over. you know it's a bad sign when the other AI characters start yelling at him, but the funny energy signature mentioned should have given it away.
  • In Age Of Empires III: The War Chiefs campaign Sheriff Billy Holme, cornered by his ex partner Chayton (Holme had a Face Heel Turn) chooses to back into a cliff face surrounded by TNT. after talking for a bit, Holme attempts a Quick Draw shot on Chayton, forgetting that A) his gun was at his back while Chayton had his at his side and B) Native Tribes have a quick reation time and Chayton was half Sioux. You can guess how it ends.
  • In 7 Days a Skeptic, something has been killing off the members of a starship. The three surviving crew members have just been attacked by the revived corpse of the captain, the first to die. They defeated it, but they're not sure whatever animated it is really dead. Then they realize they can flee the ship on the escape pods... after a good nights rest. In separate rooms. (Not to mention the fact that the escape pods are restricted access!)
    • This is not so much an example for those involved, so much as the designer of the ship. They characters explicitly state that it takes twelve hours to fuel and ready the escape pods... yeah, the EMERGENCY ESCAPE PODS. The author admits it to be contrived in the commentary, in order to have it get up to the "7 Days" mentioned in the title.
      • Still, the fact that they decided to go to sleep alone (instead of, say, barricading themselves in the escape pod corridor and keeping watch) qualifies them as Too Dumb To Live.
  • Bioshock: Dr Suchong, who created the Big Daddies, was having trouble imprinting the Big Daddies on the little sisters. In a audio diary it is shown that he got angry and slapped a little sister. You find his body drilled to his worktable.
    • Mind you, if you listen to the whole audio log, Suchong explains that he's been having problems getting the protective instinct imprintation-thing working. His death at the Big Daddy's hands is supposed to ironically reveal that he he did, in fact, get the imprintation to work correctly, he just didn't know what triggered it...
  • Pretty much every target of an Escort Mission ever. Taking the longer but safer route? Nah, lets take the way through the heavily populated monster village!
    • To say nothing of civilians who insist on going through a warzone at all for whatever retarded reason.
      • To say nothing of the civilian who decides that taking a convoluted and longer route meeting every enemy in the war zone rather than the shorter path.
  • God Of War 2: Our "hero" is a jaded, brutal, paranoid man-god who's storming through the city of Rhodes in an effort to destroy it in the name of Sparta. This is an extraordinarily capable man. So what does he do when Zeus sends down a heavenly sword, demands our guy drain his godly power into the blade and answers the man's suspicious question with a vaguely ominous response? Three guesses.
  • In Final Fantasy Tactics, Rapha (or Rafa in the original translation) becomes Too Dumb To Live in the Riovanes Castle Roof battle of Chapter 3, where Rapha charges blindly into Elmdore and his Assassins, even though she barely has any HP to withstand more than two hits and the Assassins can kill instantly. Considering the battle is lost if Rapha dies, and she starts out closer to the enemy than Ramza's party does, keeping her alive proves extremely frustrating for all but the fastest-moving parties. Her steadfast determination to get herself killed eventually prompted the "Rafa Syndrome" description for AI-controlled characters.
  • Civilians in every Arcade Shooter ever. Here's a tip, people: If you're a hostage or otherwise in a building full of nasty evil things and the heroes come to rescue you, get down on the floor in full view of the rescuers and don't get up until they tell you it's all clear. Do NOT jump out from behind crates and surprise them!
  • Lindsay in Dead Rising. We Could Have Avoided All This if she hadn't opened the mall's front door, which a horde of zombies is clawing at right now, in order to let her precious little poochy in. And did I mention that the dog is clearly also a zombie? (The glowing red eyes are a dead giveaway.) The devteam clearly knew what people would think of her, though, and in the bonus Infinity Mode, where food-hoarding survivors are trying to kill you just as hard as the zombies, she dies as soon as you see her.

Web Comics
  • Fighter from Eight Bit Theater. In fact, he's so dumb he can't even BE killed.
  • Gordon Frohman from the Half-Life based comic Concerned is quite possibly the definition of too dumb to live as it's revealed near the end of the comic that he's been playing the entire game with the Buddha cheat on this whole time; he then turns it off, with predictable results.
  • The crocodiles from Pearls Before Swine frequently end up killing themselves or fellow crocs in their idiotic attempts to kill the Zebra ("zeeba neighba").
  • Ethan of Ctrl+Alt+Del.
  • Girl Genius: "I will shoot any man who tries to move this ship". Not only is this guy as good as dead, he just doomed the whole crew with him (well, assuming they could have made it out in time).
    • Although if you read on, you'll find that the crew definitely did not comply. He even seems to have helped in their escape, albeit not as he'd have hoped!
    • Also, it seems that Agatha only ordered the castle to chase them out.
  • Torg (and sometimes Riff) take this role occasionally in Sluggy Freelance. Probably the most extreme example was when they summoned a demon with the power to destroy the world just so it would give them a case of beer and $20 in cash. If the demon hadn't been a few cents shy of the full twenty, the series would have been a lot shorter.
  • Casey And Andy may be brilliant inventors, but they're literally Too Dumb To Live, since they get killed constantly. Trick juggling near unprotected anti-matter, skydiving but forgetting to pack the chutes, the wood-powered submarine with the chimney... The list is WAY too long.
  • The webcomic Bob and George parodies this by noting that one of the main characters has the "extraordinary ability to not recognize life-threatening injuries." In other words - he's too stupid to die.

Western Animation
  • Two Words: Inspector Gadget.
  • Every single character in Drawn Together.
  • Hank and Dean from The Venture Brothers. In fact, they truly are too dumb to live: the show reveals that they have both died several times, mostly due to their own incredible stupidity. Describing them as "death-prone", their father keeps a few clones growing in the lab as a precaution.
  • Sealab 2021 has characters who, if not meeting this trope individually, meet it as a team. Many episodes end in the destruction of the Sealab (continuity means nothing).
    • To say that the Sealab crew is Too Dumb To Live is an understatement; they're Too Dumb To Save The World, as evidenced in the episode "ASHDTV" where they get a combination asteroid smasher and HDTV intended for Spacelab, and despite warnings of a giant meteor heading towards Earth, ignore the TV's asteroid-destroying abilities and keep on watching TV.
  • It is amazing how long the eponymous character of Invader Zim has managed to survive, considering how often his idiocy has made things literally blow up in his face. GIR is a more extreme example, although being a robot, he's easily repaired.
  • If Spongebob Squarepants doesn't count - Patrick Star inclusive - nothing does.
    • To be fair, most of the other characters have had their moments too.
    • Patrick does seem literally too dumb to live in that he is shown to experience what could be described as a near-complete shutdown of mental faculties, leaving him merely drooling and cross-eyed.
  • The eponymous character in Chowder. Not only does he usually drive the plot along by either destroying something in stupidity or just by being incredibly stupid, but, well, apparently he's literally too dumb to live without someone directing him. This is a guy who once thought the proper way to put away a spoon was to shove it in an electrical outlet after all (and judging from the marks it happened more than once).
    • But he's so cute!
  • Winx Club, "Secret Guardian": Bloom finds a book on herself at Cloud Tower's (witches' school) library, and decides to read it. This was not part of the mission's intent (to take Stella's ring from the witches, stolen one episode earlier), and it leads to CT's principal noticing their intrusion, resulting in the Winx being attacked by bugs, and then being stripped of their powers upon returning to their school.
  • While most of the cast of Aqua Teen Hunger Force qualifies for the Idiot Ball in some form, no one exemplifies Too Dumb To Live as well as Master Shake. Indeed, Shake repeatedly dies in many episodes (continuity is non-existent on the show), usually by his own stupidity. He has sliced himself in half with a katana, eaten a sandwich that he knew would send him to a hell dimension where an axe-wielding cyclops awaited to slice his head open, and has gone as far as committing suicide to ruin Meatwad's Ouija video game.