We Could Have Avoided All This - Television Tropes & Idioms

In Yu-Gi-Oh The Abridged Series, Yami rants to Pegasus about all the unnecessary death, expense and pointless angst he's caused by setting up the Duelist Kingdom tournament to try and cheat Yugi out of the Millennium Puzzle. "Did you ever consider just asking me for it? I mean, do you have any idea how much time and money you’ve wasted with this whole façade? People have died because you wanted a necklace! I killed a gay clown for Ra’s sake!"
- It's true, too. "Hi, I'm a filthy rich business mogul with an interest in Egyptian artifacts. How would you like living like a king and never having to work again in your entire life?" "But... Grandpa..." "You can share. Disgustingly large sums of money are nice like that."
- It helps that, in the original Japanese version, it had nothing to do with the puzzle—he just had to beat Yugi to get some executives on his side (don't ask). Of course, there was still no need for the soul stealing and the giant tournament.
  - Wait, didn't he already beat Yugi quite easily in the second episode? I guess magical duels over video tapes don't count.
  - It needed to be high profile so that everyone would see Yugi beaten, in order to restore Kaiba Corp's reputation, which had taken a blow from Yugi beating Kaiba. This meant that Pegasus had to build up the hype for his tournament, then make sure that Yugi would definitely attend and be motivated enough to reach the finals. Pegasus' interest in Kaiba Corp was in having enough access to its holographic technology to develop it to the point where it could be combined with the Millenium Eye to create a means of seeing his dead wife for extended periods.
  - One has to wonder how exactly it took a blow, not like they'd *broadcast* that Kaiba'd lost a duel, even over a security camera. And really, nobody'd really believe a punk kid over an entire corporation. And even then. ITS A CARD GAME. Why do companies reputations rely solely upon their owner beating someone in a card game? Makes no sense. Next you'll say that there are no more wars. Its all just decided over a very tense game of cards.
  - Card games are serious business!
  - In the manga, Kaiba did broadcast his duel with Yugi; there was even a stadium full of spectators. Kaiba had been hoping to humiliate Yugi to satisfy his own ego after Yugi had beat him in a previous duel. That goal didn't quite work out.
- It's also revealed that the Big Five wanted to take over Kaiba Corp and merge with Industrial Illusions.
In Uchuu Senkan Yamato/Star Blazers, after the crew of the Yamato is forced to destroy the Gamilas (Gamilon) homeworld, Kodai (Derek) is depressed about it, particularly because he and the crew had learned that the invasion of Earth was just to help save Gamilas, and the entire war could have been avoided if the Gamilas had just asked for help...
In the second season of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, the Wolkenritter assume that stealing others' magical powers is the only way to save their master. That's obviously wrong (and It Got Worse) but they don't realize that until the late episodes, joining forces with the heroes. Generally, Nanoha herself believes that everything can be avoided and always inquires about the baddies' motivation (usually, to no avail) before befriending them into submission.
- Unlike many examples of this trope, Nanoha and the other heroes didn't have any alternate ideas for saving Hayate, although it took them a while to find out about the Wolkenritter's goal. The incident is resolved when the Book of Darkness is completed, Hayate manages to reach out to the book itself, and the heroes, the Wolkenritter and Hayate team up to defeat the defense program.
- The source material being what it is, Academy Blues has Hayate offer this fillip to the villains. Endless Waltz shows that the other side did not really bite.
- In the first season, Fate Testarossa refuses to ask for Nanoha's help in recovering the Lost Logia, even though Nanoha's only objective was that they were safely sealed. Although this probably wouldn't have worked in the long run anyway, considering the Fate's Mom was going to use them to break reality.
Had Mello sucked up his pride and deigned to work with Near after L's death in Death Note, the whole "5 years later" debacle probably wouldn't have happened.
Giant Robo has one of the largest named character death count in non-Tomino work, and it all happened, because someone misunderstood von Fogler.
- To be fair to the antagonist, von Fogler the antagonist's dad really should've left a note or something for his son to read instead of making a video message that plays only when all three anti-shizuma drives are united. Said antagonist does call von Fogler out on this.
In Junjou Romantica, Nowaki disappears from Hiroki's life for a year without so much as leaving a note. Hiroki is understandably pissed off, and when Nowaki comes back they have a fight that lasts for weeks before finally being resolved. It's not until after they've made up and decided to move in together that Hiroki remembers that, um, actually Nowaki did tell him he was going to leave... and, in fact, Hiroki encouraged him to do so... it's just that Hiroki wasn't paying enough attention to the conversation to remember it afterwards. Ooops. Like Hiroki says, "Wow... that sure makes me look like the bad guy here."

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In a 1970s Archie story, a young man kidnaps Betty, under the assumption that she's Mr. Lodge's daughter, in retaliation for Lodge not promoting his father to a middle-management position. When the crook is caught, Lodge tells him that he had in fact made him a vice president.
Marvel and DC comics constantly have the old 'Newly Introduced Heroes Have A Misunderstanding Then Fight' plot, which would usually be averted if they had been more level-headed or listened to their comrades telling them they're all on the same side. This happens especially in crossovers.
- This even has its own trope.
- This is referenced in Watchmen, when Ozymandias says that it was common for superheroes to fight each other when they first meet. The Comedian doesn't seem to care if he knows they're a hero or not.

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This troper had a reaction like this to the plot of National Treasure: Book Of Secrets. The antagonist, played by Ed Harris, explains at the end that he accused protagonist Ben Gates's ancestor of being a conspirator in Lincoln's death in order to get him to help unravel a mystery involving the City of Gold. Apparently, the idea of just asking for help from someone who clearly enjoys solving puzzles never occurred to him.
- Ultimately though, Ed Harris wanted sole *credit* for finding the city, not just the reward.
The Wizard Of Oz subverts this. While Dorothy could have gone home the second she got the magic slippers, she never would have learned anything about herself if she had, and none of her new friends would have been met - not to mention all of her friends would still be in the messes they were stuck in. In other words, the journey was far more important than the destination.
- And in the book the first good witch didn't knew how the slippers worked anyway...
This troper thinks all of the conflict in Pixars Up could have been avoided if Carl and Muntz had just taken five minutes to talk their situation out. However, this may have been justified, since it's strongly inferred that Muntz is psychopatic, irrational and stir-crazy.
- Or if Carl looked at Ellie's adventure book and read her last message earlier, he might not have felt so attached to the house in the first place.
In Batman Begins, R'as al'Gul plans to destroy Gotham City with a deadly gas attack. He is able to pull this off by exploiting the corruption of the system in order to infiltrate "every level" of Gotham's infrastructure. However, his Knight Templar attitude prevents him from considering the possibility of exploiting The League of Shadows' ill-gotten positions to help Batman fight crime instead of dismissing Gotham as "beyond redemption" and getting the entire city's population to murder each other.

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In the novel Red Storm Rising, the Soviet Union's oil pipelines are cut off by terrorist attacks, and the USSR launches an invasion of West Germany (wait... what oil? front pressure?) and the Middle East in order to get the oil it needs. By the end of the novel, the Russians are repelled, and in the final pages a NATO commander quips that if only the Soviets had asked for help, the West would have been happy to sell it to them.
- This type of situation was handled far better in the novel The Devil's Alternative, where the Soviet Union is permitted to purchase desperately needed wheat by agreeing to arms reductions, thus averting a similar invasion of West Germany.
- To be more clear, in Red Storm Rising, the Soviet Union's ability to refine oil is crippled, but they still have substantial reserves-which they decide to use fueling the military invasions. This becomes a plot point later in the book when NATO learns why the war began, and that the Soviets are indeed running out of fuel. The redirection of NATO's air campaign to prioritize Soviet fuel supplies is crucial in bringing the Soviet advance to a halt.
Author Matthew Stover presents an interesting twist on this one in Blade of Tyshalle. In the book’s prologue, protagonists Kris Hansen and Hari Michaelson plot to get Hari out of Magic School and into Battle School. Their plan hinges on getting Hari to demonstrate his fighting prowess by "saving" Kris from a rival, crippling him in the process. Afterward, the head teacher tells them their plan has succeeded, but laments that another person’s dream was crushed so that they could have theirs, adding plaintively "Couldn’t you have asked?"
In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40000 Soul Drinkers novel Chapter War, the Howling Griffons sacrificed much of a penal legion and left behind a planet being invaded by orks in order to bring down the Soul Drinkers. After they fought, with considerable death on both sides, the Soul Drinkers manage to convince them that they are not, in fact, the Black Chalice they had sworn to get Revenge on, and they were, in fact, breaking their oath to defend the planet.
In Queen Zixi of Ix (by the author of the Oz series), the title character is a Vain Sorceress who attempts to steal a magical cloak that will grant one wish to each person who wears it. In the end, when her schemes are discovered, the cloak's owners tell her that they would have been willing to let her borrow the cloak and make her one wish, so she had no need to resort to theft. However, this incident convinces the fairies who made the cloak that humanity is no longer worthy of such a gift, and they take it back—so Zixi still never gets to have her wish granted.
Although the events of Dune are interesting, it includes a not easily identifiable but particularly Wallbanger version of this trope. Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV hatches a plot to kill a popular, charismatic noble Leto Atreides whose army is beginning to rival his. However, in one of the brief chapter introductions, its revealed that the Emperor would have preferred to marry Leto to his eldest daughter. Which makes one wonder why didn't he marry her to Leto's son Paul who was the same age as her?

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The Doctor has started doing this a lot in the new series. Often times, he'll offer the Monster Of The Week a chance to go somewhere else where humanity won't be bothered. When they refuse, he brings the pain.
- The Monster Of The Week finally agreed to this in "Forest of the Dead." Just as the Vashta Nerada's about to make mincemeat of The Doctor, he says, "You're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up." The Vashta Nerada pause, then withdraw, telling The Doctor he has one day to solve everything.
  - he does.
In Babylon Five, the Earth-Minbari War, which almost wiped out the human race, was started by the captain of an Earth starship panicking when the Minbari sensors disabled their Faster than Light engine. Also, since the Minbari were approaching with their weapons bared (a Minbari display of respect) and stealth technology active (therefore preventing the humans from determining whether or not the weapons were charged), the Captain thought that it was the prelude to an attack, opened fire and not only eliminated the interference to their FTL, but also killed the Minbari leader, which prompted the Minbari to begin a massive war against the human race.
- One wonders if Humanity is the only race to misinterpret the Minbari custom of baring weapons 'in respect', or just the only one to survive the misunderstanding.
- In fairness, the Minbari leader quickly figured out that they were faced with a ship that had no idea that opening their weapons ports was a sign of respect, and immediately ordered them closed. If the Earth captain had held his composure for only a few minutes longer, the whole thing could have been avoided. The fact that the killed leader was a high-ranking and beloved holy man did not help matters.
- Also, the Minbari Gray Council voted by a slim majority to go on a genocidal rampage instead of trying to figure out what happened.
Lost: Why on earth couldn't Ben have just ASKED Jack to do his surgery, rather than kidnapping Jack and his friends, shoving them in cages, et al?
- While it may be impossible to tell why a Magnificent Bastard does anything, after what happened to Ethan, it would likely involve either confessing that he is an Other first (bad idea), or at least just kidnapping Jack...which actually would have avoided a whole lot of being held hostage, after all.
- And Jack would have demanded that everyone gets off the island first. Jack may be a doctor, but he's not going to doctor people who could trivially save everyone and aren't. Also, the Others had already started harassing the Losties before Ben found out he was sick. The real question is why didn't he simply go back to the mainland and get help.
Season three premiere of Heroes. Instead of Peter travelling back in time and trying to shoot his brother dead to prevent him from telling everyone about the people with powers, why not use his telekinesis to unplug the mike? Or, you know, going back ten minutes earlier and sit down for a chat?
In the Star Trek The Next Generation episode "11001001", the Bynars, a Federation species whose "hat" is binary logic and computers, seize control of the Enterprise in order to save their planetary database, tricking most of the crew into evacuating the ship and then trapping Picard and Riker in the holodeck. When Picard learns about their predicament and asks why they didn't just ask for help, they explain "you might have said no". Riker goes on to observe that, as the Bynars only think in binary absolutes, even the mere possibility of being turned down seemed like a certainty to them.

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Orly Taitz filed suit July 8, 2009 with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia seeking a temporary restraining order on his upcoming deployment and status as a conscientious objector for her client, Major Stefan Cook, on the grounds that President Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. The military revoked Major Cook's orders, not because of his case, but because he'd volunteered for that deployment and was allowed to change his mind any time before he was scheduled to report
- Justified, Cook signed up well after Barack Obama was president, and wanted to spotlight the Birther conspiracy theory. It worked. Orly Taitz who has no actual competency (she claims to be an expert but she gets even the simplest laws wrong) has become the face of the Birther conspiracy.
- Well, it worked as far as getting a bunch of nuts to admire you. But they can forget about any military career.

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Neverwinter Nights 2, wherein a lot of time (and pain) could have been avoided if Ammon Jerro hadn't decided that only he could find the means to kill the King of Shadows. The result: there is a lot of pointless bloodshed, and in the end his granddaughter Shandra Jerro - last of the Jerro line - is forced/tricked into releasing the devils and demons that gave Jerro his power. Ammon then kills her personally before realizing who she was. And only after that does he join the PC.
- It fits his nature however, as his D&D alignment is Neutral Evil, and that his prior experiences had let him to believe that only he saw the dangers of the King of Shadows. He was even willing to sell his soul to the lowest planes - and states that he would make the same choice again to save the people of Faurûn from the King of Shadows.
In Kingdom Hearts 2, the villains carry out their plans by having Sora kill The Heartless. Since Sora wants to do this anyway, there seems to be no reason why they couldn't have just left him to himself so he could do this, rather than kidnapping his girlfriend in an attempt to blackmail him into doing something he already wanted to do.
- The girlfriend-kidnapping was originally Axel's idea, and his goals weren't exactly coincidental with the Organization by the time he pulled that one. Of course, it doesn't explain why the Organization decided to go with it. Possibly they lost their last brainy type when Axel defected.
- It's probably because Sora was coming up against the (rather mindless) normal Nobodies, and given the amount of resources available to him, it's almost certain he'd find out the (very bad) reason the Nobodies want the Heartless to be destroyed and stop doing it.
In the Freespace video game 'verse, Human-Vasudan conflict was started by a misunderstanding. With extremely complex language of the Vasudans, it's only so easy for Humans to do major diplomatic insults.
In Metal Gear Solid 4, the main antagonists pretend they want to Take Over The World, but it's ultimately revealed that it was all part of a convoluted Xanatos Roulette to destroy the real Big Bad, the Patriots, a network of A Is controlling the United States and by extension the human race. Their master plan to accomplish this? Give the hero the components to an AI destroying virus, then goad him into fighting his way through their army of mooks, while the main antagonists themselves even pretend to betray each other and end up either dying fighting the hero or committing suicide in front of him to apologize for all the crap they've put him through, ALL so the hero can (with great effort) make it to their internet connection at the heart of their Doom Fortress and upload the computer virus to melt the brains of the world-controlling A Is. Why they couldn't just ask nicely is anyone's guess.
- Or, y'know, upload the virus themselves, seeing as how they were in possession of both the virus components and the network uplink to the Patriot System.
- Apparently, Naomi had hit a dead end with finishing the virus and decided to give it to the heroes, who had a Otacon and a kid genius in their ranks who could finish it and execute the plan as demonstrated above.
- And asking the heroes directly would have sent up a red flag for the Patriots, to say the least.
In Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Ike and allies think they're playing out this trope. As it turns out, they're wrong, and Micaiah has a very good reason for not accepting their offer to help. When they do learn the reason, blame is the further thing on anyone's mind.
- Played absurdly straight (regarding the same situation, no less) with Almedha, who knows exactly how the entire thing works and simply chooses not to tell anyone until an ostensible tragedy occurs.
In Golden Sun: The Lost Age, the bad guys try to justify their actions—if the elemental lighthouses aren't lit, their village will freeze over and/or be swallowed into the abyss—and indeed, eventually the whole world will follow them. The fact that they decided the only way to solve this problem was through theft, kidnapping, blackmail, threats, and generally acting like Jerkass, Villain Ball holders rather undercuts any sympathy they might have hoped to engender.
- The above troper forgets that they spoke with the elders of Vale beforehand and were disbelieved. It is rather difficult to say that We Could Have Avoided All This when they already tried that and it didn't work. Admittedly, they could have bothered to explain to the heroes on one of their several subsequent encounters, but then we wouldn't have a plot.
- Plus, the antagonists are stated to have been a bit...fanatical, and would probably have been averse to the idea of compromise.
- This troper points out that this trope applies far more to the first game, in which rather than explain what was going on to Isaac and his friends and possibly gain their help, Felix decided it was a better idea to let 4 super-powered children run around trying to kill him.
Tales Of Phantasia plays this trope straight with Dhaos. Dhaos wants to save his homeworld and to do that he needs the mana seed from the mana tree in the heroes' world, but people in the heroes' world are building weapons of mass destruction that would kill the mana tree. So what does he do? He starts causing massive destruction around the world, causing people to fight against him. When the heroes in the game realize his real motivation after killing him, they immediately put up the barrier around the tree so mana cannot be drained from it. Seriously, why he couldn't explain his situation every time heroes come to stop him and persuade them into joining his cause (or at least let people around the world know his true motive so he doesn't get pegged as "evil") is anyone's guess.
Super Paper Mario: Seeing how one of the many fortune tellers in the game can figure out the solution to almost any issue, one has to wonder why the heck Count Bleck didn't just ask somebody or another for help searching for Timpani before turning Woobie Destroyer Of Worlds on us.
- One would assume he doesn't believe in fortune tellers, then.
  - Or that they only work for the players.
In most of the Kirby games, Kirby spends most of the game trying to get to and defeat King Dedede, only to have it turn out that whatever Dedede was up to was part of a plan to defeat the REAL bad guy.
Case 3-5 of Phoenix Wright. Misty Fey's death could have been prevented if Godot would just have told Phoenix about the plot to kill Maya. You know, the guy who tries to cross a burning bridge in a snowstorm to check on her, without even knowing if she's in danger?

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In Survival Of The Fittest there are the deaths of Arthur Williams and Simon Wood. In Arthur's case, all his killer (Bobby Jacks) wanted to do was leave, but he rushed him while trying to play hero and was shot in the head. This after Bobby was convinced Neil Sinclair had sent someone to kill him after supposedly letting him leave. Simon, on the other hand, assumed Darnell Butler was playing the game and attacked him before he could explain himself, causing Darnell to accidentally kill him. If he had let Darnell talk, the whole fight wouldn't have happened.

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Samurai Jack: The princess who gathers together a bunch of bounty hunters to kill Jack in the hopes of using this as leverage to free her country from Aku (It wouldn't work, Aku's too much of a Jerk Ass), even though Jack himself would probably be glad to help her (freeing people from Aku's tyranny is what he does, after all).

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