Fiction
"Now why hasn't anyone cursed Galbatroix? You apparently don't need to know his name to work this sort of magic, but no one has done this. Why? It seems so easy. Just say the magic words and poof. Do you know what we call this? We call this a Plot Hole."
— Kippurbird, Eragon Sporkings
"My god, this plot is like Swiss cheese!"
— Kyon, The Abridging of Haruhi Suzumiya
"How?! It literally doesn't make any sense! It took everything you had to defeat a single me, yet you have enough power to overload the Big Gete Star?!
"wild magic and miracle working, chaos theory and weird science, acts of god and freak occurrences, at the point where unbelievable coincidences and contrived events converge, I reach my hand into the gaping hole that exists in the plot of the universe, I send my prayers across the barrier of logic, calling forth the forces of pure dumb luck to aid my quest, let the improbable happen, I summon Deus ex Machina!!!"
— Meji Hinadori, Errant Story Chapter 1 Page 23
Kuzco: No! It can't be! How'd you get back here before us?
Yzma: Ah— (pause) Uh... How did we, Kronk?
Kronk: Well, ya got me. (shows a diagram explaining the improbability of the situation) By all accounts, it doesn't make sense.
Yzma: Ah— (pause) Uh... How did we, Kronk?
Kronk: Well, ya got me. (shows a diagram explaining the improbability of the situation) By all accounts, it doesn't make sense.
— The Emperor's New Groove lampshading Traveling at the Speed of Plot.
Eliot: Sorry, time out. I thought the weird door swallowed the keys.
Quentin: Yeah, no, it did, but then...
Eliot: But then she has them again? [...] This is sloppy plotting.
Quentin: Yeah, no, it did, but then...
Eliot: But then she has them again? [...] This is sloppy plotting.
Makarov: What did you do?!
Pandora: Triggered a disaster for any story: Plot holes catching up!
Pandora: Triggered a disaster for any story: Plot holes catching up!
Reviews
[This story] doesn't have plot holes, it has plot sinkholes, this thing. They just form and just engulf most of the game.
— Nerd³ about Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
Tom: Oh, good, the Nazis are here. They'll fix this up.
Joel: 'We're the Padding Department! Where's the plot hole?'
Joel: 'We're the Padding Department! Where's the plot hole?'
"This dude can control and create electricity with his brain, which by allrights makes him one of the most powerful people on the face of the Earth. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen should be straight up wrestling in his front yard to determine who gets to recruit him. And yet, he just cold gets dropped without Sabretooth even breaking stride. Seriously: How is this guy not just kept in a room in case they ever need to just instantly murder Iron Man?"
Kevin: Do you think the audience will notice the policeman's gold tooth and realize later in the movie that he's the smart burglar?
Kevin's Sister: Who cares? If they were paying attention they'd realize this plot is so full of holes the script could've been typed on Swiss cheese!
Kevin's Sister: Who cares? If they were paying attention they'd realize this plot is so full of holes the script could've been typed on Swiss cheese!
— Home A-Groan, the MAD spoof of the original Home Alone
"By the honor of plot holes, I have the Plot Device!"
— The Nostalgia Chick, on the memory-wiping backstory of She-Ra: Princess of Power
"It’s worth noting that The Wrath of Khan plays as fast and as loose with continuity as J. J. Abrams’ reboot, demonstrating that the Star Trek canon was never quite as sacrosanct as various fans want to believe. This was a show which couldn’t decide who was paying Kirk’s wages for most of the first season, let alone that he didn’t actually receive any wages. The most obvious other continuity goof here is the suggestion that Khan remembers Chekov from "Space Seed" (“I never forget a face!”), despite the fact that Chekov wasn’t actually a part of the cast at the time...Walter Koenig famously jokes that Chekov once held up a toilet when Khan really needed to go, leading to a life-long vendetta."
"The Enterprise makes it to the center of the galaxy, despite the fact no ship can supposedly survive the radiation but I guess if your ship has the name "Enterprise" painted on it, it can survive anything... Oh and the Klingon ship also makes it through, again they never explain how or why, I guess the whole "gee no ship can survive the trip" thing is a bunch of bullshit RIGHT MR. SHATNER DIRECTOR SIR!?!?!?!?"
Shinzon: Picard, I invite you to dinner, but I'm in no hurry even though my DNA is fucked up so I'll die in 24 hours unless I kidnap you and drain your blood. No hurry at all, so let us wait till tomorrow, because ... because ... Christ, who the fuck wrote this script?
[next day]
Shinzon: Did you sleep well? I did; I'm 12 hours closer to death! Now, let me waste even more time by talking to you about my childhood. The Romulans cloned you to create me, then stuck me in the dilithium mines and abused me for years. This is why I now seek to bring glory to the Romulan Empire by ... Sweet Mother of God, I can't believe I'm in this shitty movie.
[next day]
Shinzon: Did you sleep well? I did; I'm 12 hours closer to death! Now, let me waste even more time by talking to you about my childhood. The Romulans cloned you to create me, then stuck me in the dilithium mines and abused me for years. This is why I now seek to bring glory to the Romulan Empire by ... Sweet Mother of God, I can't believe I'm in this shitty movie.
Cracked: Once, back when you looked more like the guy from Seabiscuit and less like the only likeable character in The Social Network, you were talking to Mary Jane outside your house. But then she got in a fancy car driven by her boyfriend. So you decided to buy a car to impress her, but they were too expensive. So you entered a wrestling competition, but the owner stiffed you on your prize money. Because of that, you let a thief escape with his money. Because of that, Uncle Ben died. There's a very clear sequence of events that anyone paying attention can follow. For comparison, last week you fought Electro, who was mad at you for missing his birthday. After you defeated him, you went home and watched TV for a while. Then you decided to investigate your father's disappearance because you were mad at his briefcase.
Spider-Man: So what you're saying is that if my life were a movie, it wouldn't make sense.
Cracked: If your life were a movie, it wouldn't just "not make sense"... It would have audience members crying into their popcorn and hurling whiskey-spiked Slushees at the projector.
Spider-Man: So what you're saying is that if my life were a movie, it wouldn't make sense.
Cracked: If your life were a movie, it wouldn't just "not make sense"... It would have audience members crying into their popcorn and hurling whiskey-spiked Slushees at the projector.
Hold on...How come Vriska could read Jade's "Holo-screen" (?) Did she somehow learn how to read in English?
Oh fuck, Homestuck's leaking like a sieve, EVERYONE ABANDON SHIP!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh fuck, Homestuck's leaking like a sieve, EVERYONE ABANDON SHIP!!!!!!!!!!!
— Andrew Hussie, via his former Formspring
"CHRISTOPH WALTZ leaves the FILM as confused as the AUDIENCE."
— The Three Musketeers: The Abridged Script
"Severus was not quite sure what a "Plot Hole" was, but Faustus seemed to be obsessed with them, and claimed they were everywhere. The evidence, he claimed, was abundant if you looked at England alone: Hogwarts had had a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every year for twenty years without anybody noticing or commenting on it; nobody ever said the Dark Lord's name yet everybody seemed to know it; the Death Eaters, an illegal secret society, had decided it would be a brilliant idea to get indelible tattoos."
— The Lamentable Comedy of Severus, Half-Blood Prince of Denmark, a Harry Potter Fanfic by After the Rain
, a Harry Potter Fanfic by After the Rain"If Ike is killed from the Black Knight's son, I'll just assume the cause of death to be that he fell into a Plot Hole and died."
— Taken from a discussion speculating what will happen in Radiant Dawn, before it was officially released in English.
"If a tree falls in the forest, and the authors later forget it fell, is it still standing? I have no idea."
— Fred Clark, on Left Behind
Left Behind"I found a plot hole! NURSE!"
—Zero Punctuation review of Skyward Sword
"Deeper into their [Mutants] base, we see a mix of stolen GDI and NOD tech. including a fully operational second generation Obelisk of Light. How in the FUCK did they manage that!? Like I can understand if it was a restored one from the previous war, but... This model is fresh, new, top of the line! WE don't even have access to it yet!"
— Dr White on one of Tiberian Sun's NOD's missions.
