What An Idiot / Video Games L to Z

Video Games L-O

• Laika: Aged Through Blood:
  • Trook, one of the birds in the Undernest, is holding Puppy hostage at gunpoint. Laika briefly convinces him to take her blood instead, but he ends up changing his mind and chooses to just kill the two instead.
    You'd Expect: That he would shoot Laika first. Laika is a deadly, immortal warrior while Puppy is just a harmless child. He had just enough of an element of surprise to shoot her dead and, despite the fact that she would just come back to life anyways, it would buy him enough time to grab Puppy and run away.
    Instead: He tries to shoot Puppy first. Not only that, but he also plainly tells Laika that he's going to kill them before he turns his gun to Puppy.
    Result: Laika blows his brains out.
    
  • The Two-Beaked god sucesfully captures Laika while she was infiltrating the Floating City.
    You'd Expect: Nothing, because he already won. With Laika imprisioned and the rebels killed, no one will be able to stop his plans of bombing the wasteland to get rid of all "non-bird scum". He is also able to freely experiment with her blood for the secrets of her immortality.
    Or: If he really wanted to make a statement by publicly executing her, he'd at least take away her weapons and bike.
    Instead: He just places Laika inside a considerably spacious cage and fights her all by himself.
    Result: Laika, having her entire arsenal and her trusty bike, effortlessly kills him and manages to stop his genocidal plans.
    Bonus Idiocy: Since he's a gigantic, two-headed stork, the cage ends up being rather cramped for him, which severely limits his mobility. Laika, on the other hand, can freely ride around the cage to avoid his attacks.
    In Addition: This happens right in front of a crowd, which means his subjects get to watch their glorious leader getting his ass kicked.
    
• L.A. Noire:
  • In one of the Vice street cases, Cole Phelps and Roy Earle stumble across a rooftop fight between Dudley Lynch and a black man over a girl, which ends when the black man is thrown to his death. After the fight, Dudley assures the girl, Shannon Perry, that he did it all for her, and they seem to have a romantic moment before Cole comes up the roof to talk to Dudley about the incident.
    You'd Expect: That Dudley would explain that the incident was a case of self-defense and that Shannon would testify for him. Thus allowing him to get out of the situation scot-free.
    Instead: He throws Shannon to the floor and flees the scene, only to be caught by Cole and Roy. Only then does he try to tell the cops that the whole thing was a case of self-defense.
    Result: Cole just tells him that the whole thing is out of his hands, and that if he's telling the truth, Shannon would testify so for him. But given the way he treated her when he was about to make a run for it, it seems unlikely.
    In Addition: Running away from the police tends to be a charge in and of itself.
  • In the first traffic case, a man named Adrian Black is cheating on his wife behind her back.
    You'd Expect: Adrian would at least divorce his wife if he was really unhappy with her.
    Instead: He comes up with a completely convoluted plan to cover his tracks. Using his friend's help, he bathes his car's insides in pig's blood to make it look like he was brutally murdered. Not only does Cole Phelps find out that the blood belongs to a pig instead of a human, he also discovers that Adrian was seeing another woman. Adrian is caught and Cole tells him that he's going to lose his wife, his job, and will very likely end up in jail for wasting police resources on a fake murder.
    In Addition: It's revealed that Adrian's wife will take him back despite what he did.
  • In "A Polite Invitation, Jack Kelso basically has his boss, Curtis Benson, President of California Fire and Life, dead to rights as a primary contributor to the Suburban Redevelopment Fund, not to mention finding out his affair with a 12-year old girl. However, Jack Kelso needs more solid evidence from his Boss's office.
    You'd Expect: That since Curtis knew that Jack Kelso was not one to back down, that Curtis would try to prevent Jack from reaching his office, whether it's sending goons to slow down Jack on the way, on have them ambush Jack at his office.
    Instead: He does absolutely nothing to prevent the dirt on him and the rest of the SRF from being lifted, and basically lets Kelso find out the rest about the SRF.
• The Last of Us:
  • Ellie is captured by David. He promises to spare her life and let her join his group, but it's clear that he's only interested in her for sexual reasons.
    You'd Expect: Ellie to go along with it until David decides to open the cage door, then make a run for it.
    Instead: She does pretend to go along with it at first, but then breaks David's "fucking finger" while she's still caged and tries reaching for the keys.
    The Result: David easily overpowers Ellie and has lost all patience with her, promising to kill her the next morning. The only reason she didn't get chopped up is because she bit David during the scuffle and tricked him into looking at her bite mark, causing David and James to panic long enough for her to kill James and escape.
• The Last of Us Part II:
  • Abby's group starts off strong right from the get-go. They get the drop on Tommy and Joel due to some astoundingly good luck, and Abby is busy torturing Joel to death with Tommy subdued when Ellie walks in, drawn by Joel's screams. After a brief tussle, Ellie is subdued as well, and is forced to watch as Abby deals the finishing blow on Joel.
    You'd Expect: That after brutally murdering Joel in front of his brother and surrogate daughter, they would put a bullet in both of their heads and be done with it. They know who Tommy is, and while they don't know Ellie, they do know that she's begging Abby to stop in between threatening to kill them all, so this is someone who obviously cares deeply for Joel and is probably dangerous.
    Instead: After knocking them out, they just let them go. This is apparently out of some self-righteous belief that since only Joel was their target, killing anyone else would be wrong, but they lost the moral high ground when they tortured a man to death in front of his loved ones and leaving witnesses who can identify them and seek revenge is just asking for trouble.
    Also: Some of them are wearing jackets with the name and logo of their organization, the WLF (Washington Liberation Front) on them, making it easy for them to be tracked down.
    The Result: Tommy and Ellie hunt them down and kill nearly all of them, along with dozens if not hundreds of their troops, leading to the near-total destruction of the WLF. Abby narrowly survives two vicious fights with Ellie, the second only because Ellie has a last-second change of heart.
  • On Seattle Day 1 (Abby), Mel heads for the WLF frontlines despite being pregnant.
    You'd Expect: Either a superior or one of her friends putting their foot down and telling her she can't go on active duty on account of her being physically handicapped and putting her unborn child at serious risk.
    Instead: Nobody questions Mel heading to the frontline, where she has numerous close calls with the Seraphites and is ultimately murdered by Ellie. Speaking of which...
  • In Seattle Day 3 (Ellie), Owen is falling out with Mel in the aquarium over rejoining the Fireflies at Catalina Island with Abby. Mel is about to storm out when Ellie finds the two and holds them at gunpoint.
    You'd Expect: At this point in the story, Mel is heavily pregnant with Owen's child. With that in mind, you'd think the very first thing Owen or Mel would do is mention the pregnancy to the attacker. This way, even if the two don't give what the attacker wants, there's a high likelihood that the attacker would be guilt-tripped into sparing Mel's life.
    Instead: When Ellie tries to get Abby's location from the two, Owen charges straight for her gun. This backfires on him, as Ellie easily counters his lunge and fatally wounds him with a gunshot.
    Even Worse: After Owen gets shot to death, Mel doesn't try to escape or mention her pregnancy to Ellie. Instead, she grabs a pocket knife and tries to stab Ellie only for her too to be killed (this time via being stabbed in the throat). Thus, while the story attempts to mark this moment as Ellie crossing the Moral Event Horizon, the deaths of Owen, Mel, and their unborn child is entirely on them for making stupid decisions that cost them their lives.
  • Isaac has been planning a full scale invasion of the Seraphite's home island to wipe them all out. However, days before the planned attack, dozens of his soldiers are killed by Ellie, Tommy, Dina, and Jesse. Not only that, but his two handpicked leaders of the vanguard, Abby and Manny, are unavailable for the attack due to being AWOL and dead respectively.
    You'd Expect: With a shortage of manpower and leadership, and an unknown hostile force tearing its way through his forces, Isaac should cancel the attack and focus on the outsiders. After they are dealt with, assess the ability to launch another attack and prepare for that one.
    Instead: He launches the attack anyway which goes poorly. After he dies during the assault, his forces are completely routed, with no one making it off the island.
• LBX: Little Battlers eXperience: Yoshimitsu, Muneto, and Kamiya declare that the Innovator will win at Artemis. Not only is Kaidou’s grandson Jin, a.k.a. Split-Second Killing Emperor competing, but they also have Yuuya Haibara, a powerful test subject that can control his LBX. The two will be fighting in different Blocks, meaning once they get to the finals, the Innovator have two members against three random opponents and their chances of winning the tournament succeed.
  • You’d Expect: Kaidou or someone at Innovator near the Battle Royale would tell Jin and instruct Yuuya that they are both Innovator, so they should work together to defeat the other finalists (Ban, Masquerade J, and Ota Red), and claim the Metanoia GX. In fact, Jin realizes that Kamiya Craft and Innovator have worked out before, and Yuuya might be connected to his allies, so they should be able to win even easier than expected..
  • Instead: Jin and Yuuya fight the battle royale seeing each other as enemies instead of allies and Kanou decides to finally test Psycho Scanning Mode in the middle of battle despite Yuuya doing fine in the battle. The end result is basically: PS Mode turns Yuuya insane, Jin realizes the Innovator and his father are corrupt, Jin teams up with Ban to save Yuuya, and afterwards, Jin loses to Ban, which wouldn’t have happened had Judge and Emperor been on the same side.
  • Even Worse: Jin sees the truth, and betrays his father without him ever finding out the truth. The Innovator lose Yuuya as a test player and as a valuable pawn, they never get the real Metanoia GX, and their fallback plan finally convinces Eiji to quit the Innovator. By not making sure that their allies are working together, the Innovator leaders began what contributed to their demise in the second half of the anime & games and lose three prominent and powerful soldiers in their ranks.
• League of Legends:
  • Graves and Twisted Fate got into a bank job gone wrong and the the police got the building surrounded, Twisted Fate decide to find another route to get out to avoid getting arrested.
    You'd Expect: That Graves do the same thing and back him up to ease up the task.
    Instead: He decided to make a FULL FRONTAL ASSAULT and of course, that got him busted and locked up for a decade.
    Bonus Idiocy: And blame Twisted Fate for all of it, thinking he abandoned him the whole time. Does that remind you of a situation similar of that in a League match?
  • In Syndra's backstory, Syndra was a child who had a Traumatic Superpower Awakening and became overwhelmingly powerful with little control over her magic, which absorbed and destroyed the magic from other beings. She was sent away to be taught how to control her magic.
    You'd Expect: Said teachers would make an actual effort to train Syndra, given her potential as a Person of Mass Destruction.
    Instead: Her teacher attempted to seal away Syndra's abilities without her consent and seemingly taught Syndra nothing, as her control worsened with her mentor while her general abilities also weakened. Predictably, Syndra was devastated when she learned of the seal and destroyed it, killing her teacher right afterwards.
  • In the Lux comic series, Tianna Crownguard is concerned that her niece, Lux, is visiting Sylas of Dregebourne, a known mage revolutionary being locked up in an anti-magic prison.
    You'd Expect: Tianna to tell the guards to not let Lux in anymore and interrogate Sylas on what the pair have been speaking about. Sylas may know Lux is a mage, but who's going to go talk to him in a maximum security prison?
    Instead: Tianna decides to use her family status to have Sylas publically executed without trial in broad daylight. Lux is of course horrified by this and tries to stop the execution, which leads to Sylas' escape.
  • Sylas locks up Jarvan III and IV with the intention of publically executing the former for his crimes against mages. Jarvan IV protests he supports mage rights and is in love with a mage.
    You'd Expect: Sylas to strike up a conversation with him for equality. While they have stormed the capital, the mages are far from having taken the entirety of Demacia, and soldiers could come from the rest of the countryside and fight to retake the capital. This includes Jarvan IV's personal special force, the Dragonguard, which includes Shyvana, a half-dragon and seasoned dragon killer, who could likely take on dozens of mages singlehandedly.
    Instead: Sylas mocks him and announces his intent to kill Jarvan IV for the crime of being related to Jarvan III, rather than attempting to find a solution that might improve mages' conditions in the long term.
    ** Later in the same comic, Sylas finds Jarvan III dead long before Sylas means to execute him. Jarvan IV sees this and assumes Sylas killed him.
    You'd Expect: Sylas to deny this. While he certainly meant to execute Jarvan III, that he has turned up dead means he has a traitor in his midst and that his plans are off the rails. He can't afford to make needless enemies.
    You'd Also Expect: He'd divert his attention from executing Jarvan IV and focus on finding and apprehending the traitor and ascertaining their goals.
    Instead: He brushes off the incident entirely in favour of executing Jarvan IV instead, who is extremely popular with the populace to the point where even mages in the crown at the execution are booing Sylas for doing this. He also is needlessly cruel, wasting time by trying to publicly feed Jarvan live rats, which gives Lux the time to break in and distract Sylas while Garen charges in to save Jarvan.
    Predictably: Jarvan IV uses the anti-mage crusade as a means of getting revenge for his father's death and refuses to listen to reason.
    Even Worse: The person who killed Jarvan III is heavily implied to be LeBlanc, an evil Noxian sorceress. She is also implied to have killed and replaced the Head of the Mageseeker order to lead Demacia into an all-out Civil War for the benefit of Noxus.
• Let's Find Larry!: The hooded man, the leader of a Vigilante Militia, is hunting down Willy Mack, a Serial Killer currently disguised as one of his victims, the Loved by All Larry. He runs into the protagonist, a friend of Larry who is stalking him across the city, and decides to recruit him for help.
  You'd Expect: Him to explain to the protagonist that his friend has been murdered and replaced by a serial killer so the protagonist will be more willing to help.
  Instead: For some unexplained reason, he decides to act like a mob boss and threaten the protagonist's life, extorting him into hunting down Willy, and makes no mention of the truth of the situation.
  As A Result: The protagonist goes along with it anyway, so him being more honest actually wouldn't make much of a difference and they'd probably still die to Willy in the ending. But it is still an inexplicable act that seems to have no purpose except making the player think he's the bad guy before The Reveal.
• Life Is Strange: Before the Storm:
  • Skip allowing Chloe, a well-known troublemaker, to be alone in the school bathroom for a hefty amount of time despite knowing that he needs to escort her off campus due to her causing mischief on the school prior. This leads to Chloe vandalizing the entire girls bathroom, causing him to get in trouble as well.
  • Chloe going after the dangerous and unstable Damon alone in the climax.
    You'd Expect: With clear evidence that Sera's life is threatened, Chloe calls the police then go talk to Sera after the matter is resolved, especially since Chloe has demonstrated that she had no qualm calling the police on Eliot earlier. Failing that, at least Chloe could have brought someone with her, such as David ^note if the player accepts his offer or Drew ^note if he is not crippled and on good term with Chloe, or at least something to defend herself with.
    Instead: Chloe goes to a remote place in the forest alone, without telling anyone, with absolutely nothing to protect herself with should things go sour. Chloe's plan to placate Damon with money is also full of holes, as: A) Damon hates Chloe after the whole ordeal at the junkyard, during which he stabs his own friend, let alone someone he hates B) Damon would not want to double cross the only man who is keeping him from getting prosecuted C)Damon has far more to gain in the long run from working with the DA than accepting a pile of one-time money. Thing goes as well as anyone would expect.
• Life Is Strange: True Colors:
  • Episode Two begins with most of the cast holding a wake for the recently deceased Gabe, during which Ryan brings up that Typhon ignored the call Gabe made about him, Ryan, Alex and Ethan being in the blast range for the mining explosion on the night of his death. Alex notices Mac - the safety officer on that fatal night - become unusually fearful during this discussion; as is later revealed, Typhon had ordered him to publicly deny getting Gabe's call in order to absolve themselves of any responsibility for his death. The fact that Mac was paranoid about Riley cheating on him with Gabe - and thus had reason to want Gabe dead - couldn't have helped matters.
    You'd Expect: Mac would just keep his mouth shut. Maybe someone at the wake knew he was on duty that night and was planning to bring it up, but he'd at least get points for common sense in that scenario.
    Instead: He pretty much blurts out that he never got any call, predictably outing himself as the most likely suspect to both Alex and Ryan. Alex eventually tracks him down and gets him to admit the truth, making his attempt to cover it up pointless.
  • The events of the game - or at least those revolving around Haven Springs - later turn out to be the result of one of these moments. Twelve years ago, the leader of a mining team has them dig underground into increasingly unsafe conditions.
    You'd Expect: He'd take one of his miners warning him that the soil was too wet to hold up as a cue for them to get out of there.
    Instead: He keeps on going, with the consequence being a cave-in that leads to several miners getting trapped and left to drown as the tunnel floods. The dig leader is either powerless to save them, or too afraid to even risk making an attempt. Whatever the case, it weighs heavily on his mind for the next dozen years.
    The Result: One of the deceased miners happens to be John Chen, which directly leads to his two children coming to Haven Springs years later (Gabe was searching for his father, Alex was rejoining her brother). One of them dies when Typhon attempts to definitively cover up the disaster, which sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the entire thing being exposed and the dig leader's life utterly falling apart. Jed Lucan might have thought he could conceal his greatest mistake, but it turns out he only delayed his reckoning.
• Like a Dragon/Yakuza:
  • Yakuza 4:
    • During the Ueno Seiwa Massacre, Saejima has just attacked and left, not knowing that he was actually using rubber bullets and that all the people he "killed" were still alive. With Saejima gone, Katsuragi gets to work making the massacre look like it really happened.
      You'd Expect: That Katsuragi would try and shoot where the rubber bullets hit each member to cover up their use, or at least aim the shots inconsistently as to not arouse suspicions and cover up the rubber bullet wounds some other way.
      Instead: He shoots all of them with clean, perfect headshots and makes no attempts to cover up the rubber bullet wounds.
      As A Result: Munakata, the Deputy Commissioner of the Police, quickly realizes that the whole thing was a Frame-Up due to the presence of the rubber bullet wounds, which only the police have access to, and the fact that Saejima would need Improbable Aiming Skills to get consistent headshots going against a entire group of Yakuza, ambush or not. He then proceeds to Blackmail Katsuragi into being his pawn.
      Even Worse: If Munakata wasn't a Dirty Cop it probably would have gone worse for Katsuragi, since he'd not only lose his inside man on the force but his entire plan would have fallen apart, as Saejima would get off on attempted murder charges while Katsuragi would be exposed, likely kicked out of the Ueno Seiwa Clan for the murder of his fellow members, and more than likely go to jail and be targeted by his former clan.
    • Akiyama's money. He does make a good case for not putting it in a bank due to not trusting them, and he has so much he doesn't need to invest it in anything.
      You'd Expect: He would hide it in hard-to-breach combination safes, preferably stowed in separate locations with different combinations.
      Instead: He has all ¥100 Billion hidden in a single safe behind a bookshelf in his unlocked office. The safe is only opened by pressing a button hidden behind a book on the bookshelf.
      As A Result: Kido stumbles upon it since Akiyama keeps his front door unlocked, allowing him to report it to Arai, and it all gets stolen by Katsuragi.
    • Tanimura's "Bridge" substory chain has one of the biggest human traffickers in Asia hiding as Yuji Katsuura, a philanthropist and champion of women's rights, has killed anyone who got too close to him and has sent hitmen after Tanimura and Saki-chan. During the "Successor" substory, Tanimura lures a group of hitmen into Pink Alley to beat them down before having them call it into their boss that he's dead. This allows their boss to make a public appearance at Millennium Tower.
      You'd Expect: The boss would be smart enough to smash his phone the moment the hitman called it in and get a new one since he's that rich so that when Tanimura uses the hitman's number, it just says that line has been disconnected.
      Instead: He keeps the same phone that has the hitman's number on it, allowing Tanimura to prove it's him.
      As A Result: Tanimura beats down his goons, has a Chase Battle with him and brings down his sex trafficking empire, as well as avenge his biological father.
  • Yakuza 6:
    • At the end of the previous game, Haruka's regrets with becoming an idol had piled on very high, and she had gone through much stress and another yakuza incident. By the time of her debut concert, she could no longer endure being away from her family.
      You'd Expect: Haruka to quietly retire before or after the concert.
      Or: Haruka to make a quick announcement that she's retiring during the concert before running off.
      Instead: Haruka makes a long confession during the concert, in which she reveals being raised by a former yakuza, despite being warned by Park about the damage it could cause.
      Result: While her mid-concert retirement saves Kiryu's life, her reputation goes up in flames. Eventually, the press find where she lives and backlash becomes directed to the orphanage as well.
      Worse: Kiryu was arrested and willingly accepted being sentenced for his involvement in the previous game's events, leaving Haruka with no trusted adults around when the fallout becomes worse, leading to her running away to spare her siblings from the media. This causes her to end up in Hiroshima and get in more trouble later on, setting off many of the game's events.
    • In Chapter 5, Nagumo and Kiryu enter a sauna wearing balaclavas. This, combined with their full-body clothing, makes them both quite heated and Nagumo wants to cool off.
      You'd Expect: Nagumo to head to a more secluded area to remove his mask.
      Or: Bear with the heat like Kiryu until they are in a better position.
      Instead: Nagumo immediately rips his mask off in the middle of the room, which causes Masuzoe to recognize him, compromising their stealthy approach and letting their involvement be known to both the Tojo and the Yomei.
• Lonely Wolf Treat: In Chapter 1's bad ending, the Big Bad rabbit Juju notices Treat and another wolf, Timber, passing by her village in the middle of the night, because Treat wanted to retrieve her winter coat from the nearby cabin she briefly occupied.
  You'd Expect: Juju to leave it alone and go back to her house. Since she's in a village full of rabbits, safety in numbers.
  Instead: She goes to confront Treat directly by herself, then tries to push her off a cliff, completely neglecting to think about the other wolf.
  Result: Timber shows up out of his hiding spot and pushes Juju off instead, leading to her death.
• In the Raising Sim Long Live the Queen, at times entrepreneurs come to your castle to ask you to fund their new great ideas, such as a printing press or field hospital. The money they are asking for is minimal compared to the state budget.
  You'd Expect: the protagonist princess gladly to fund such obvious benefits, pushing her kingdom into the Age of Enlightenment.
  Instead: she doesn't get what the fuss is about (sample quote: "wouldn't putting sick people together just make them die faster?") and send the innovator away empty-handed. (Granted, you can avoid this by investing heavily in economics or health training, but these have far from obvious benefits early on in the game before the choice comes up.)
  • Elodie, as Crown Princess, is fourteen years old and has spent her time at a boarding school until her mother's death, which means she is immediately the ruler of Nova and has one year before she comes of age to have her official coronation.
    You'd Expect: Elodie to be allowed to consult advisers or her father for important decisions, because she can't possibly learn everything she needs to know in a year, especially so soon after the sudden death of her mother.
    Instead: She is forced to decide everything herself with only a basic education under her belt, with no input from her father or anyone else, while the rest of the nobility is openly trying to sabotage her rule if she doesn't perform perfectly.
• Lucius has the eponymous character taking control of his "father" Charles into killing his mother, Nancy, with a nail gun. At the same time, McGuffin and another police officer are present at the scene.
  You'd Expect: that he puts two and two together that Lucius is responsible for taking control of his "father" and killing his mother and has him locked up. Happy ending, indeed.
  Instead: he comes to a conclusion that Charles is responsible for the murder, and tries to lead chase to him. During that time, he has the other police officer watch over Lucius which he does murder. For him, he assumes the worse after this.
• At one point in Luminous Arc, the player party has just subdued an opponent. They all know she has one of the Plot Coupons they're grappling for in her body, she's killed dozens of innocent civilians, and nobody has any reason to believe she's not completely synthetic.
  You'd Expect: Someone to rip the stone out of her chest. At least one party member is impulsive or pragmatic enough to do it without calling a team meeting. Either way, a serious threat is out of the game and the party is up one MacGuffin.
  Instead: They leave her to recover and fight again another day. Repeatedly.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order: The game starts with a big one. The story opens with the Guardians of the Galaxy on a mercy mission to look for survivors on a seemingly abandoned Kree warship, and stumble upon Nebula and Ronan’s trap for Thanos and the Black Order.
  You'd Expect: Nebula to explain things to the Guardians and ask for their help. Especially since none of them are really looking for a fight and at least one of them really hates Thanos.
  Instead: Nebula orders her troops to attack them and the entire operation gets stomped by the Guardians.
  Even Worse: Nebula blames the Guardians for the attack, and Ronan continues to attack the Guardians even after they realize that there’s been a misunderstanding (and Drax is the one to point this out, mind you).
  The Result: All the succeeding events of the main campaign, which nearly culminates in the universe’s destruction.
• Marvel vs. Capcom 3: In Spider-Man's ending, J Jonah Jameson sees pictures of him defeating Galactus.
  You'd Expect: He finally realizes Spider-Man is not a menace and calls off the "Hero or Menace?" thing off.
  Instead: Jameson brushes them off, and thinks that Spider-Man is teaming up with Galactus. Let's just face it, that's the Jameson we know of.
• Master Detective Archives: Rain Code: In the DLC chapter, Charisma Killed The Cat, Desuhiko has successfully lured out the Nine-Tailed Cat and fooled her into swiping a fake version of a valuable ring.
  You'd Expect: He'd capture her and turn her in (or make sure she won't get away) before revealing the trick and/or flirting with her (as he's prone to do). She's been very elusive, and he has her right in the palm of his hand.
  Instead: He uses said ring, which the museum loaned to him, to propose to her. She takes the opportunity to steal the real ring and leaves, meaning Desuhiko's best chance at capturing her has just gotten away. All because he couldn't stop trying to charm women for once in his whole life.
• Marvel's Spider-Man 2:
  • Kraven's men start closing in on Peter's suburban home. MJ tries to sneak up on one (a woman, actually) with MJ's high-tech stun gun in plain view. A neighbour sees MJ out the window.
    You'd Expect: The neighbour would keep her mouth shut, especially given all the dangerous nonsense the city has been through over the past few years, and more recently from Kraven's forces specifically. Maybe call the cops, or use the Spidey app intended for precisely this kind of emergency.
    Instead: She sticks her head out the window and angrily yells "What's going on out there?" at MJ. MJ tries to tell the neighbour to be quiet, and the neighbour just yells "You don't tell me to shush!". Which could easily get the neighbour killed if MJ was dangerous. The neighbour didn't start yelling when some armed weirdo stood on her driveway, but a normal woman clearly trying to avoid trouble was enough to set the neighbour off.
    The Result: Kraven's women nearly kills MJ. Symbiote Peter saves (and terrifies) MJ and leaves. MJ tells the neighbour to be quiet and stay inside, and the neighbour suddenly decides to be sensible.
• Max Payne 3:
  • Max goes for the final confrontation against Victor Branco and Armando Becker.
    You'd Expect: He should go with Da Silva into the hangar, in the risk of avoiding confronting an army of police forces under their command.
    Instead: He goes straight to the front entrance of the airport and started gunning down every policemen going after him. It is even lampshaded.
    Max: Smart move would have been sticking with Da Silva and going straight to the hangar, but when I was ever about smart moves? I'm a dumb move guy.
  • At the end of the game, Max has Big Bad Victor at gunpoint. Da Silva arrives and convinces him to spare him.
    You'd Expect: For Victor to quietly accept his good fortune.
    Instead: He taunts Max about how he's definitely going to walk.
    The Result: "You'll walk... WITH A LIMP!!!" [Max breaks his leg]
• Mental Omega:
  • The Allies in the finale of Hamartia. They need to keep the Paradox Conductors safe, since the Paradox Engine's Prism Cannons are the only reliable counter they have to Libra, Epsilon's Nigh-Invulnerable Super-Soldier with Psychic Powers who's just repelled their prior assault on the Mental Omega Device, crushed most of the Southern Cross Division's forces already and is the greatest threat to the Paradox Engine on the field.
    You'd Expect: They would have Robot Tanks and Attack Dogs practically sitting on the Paradox Conductors in case Epsilon somehow manage to get Infiltrators into the Engine. After all, they've already managed to sneak an attack force right on top of the London Fortress, and the Allies REALLY can't afford to take chances with the utterly dire straits they're in.
    Instead: They have intermittent dog patrols in random corridors or roaming quite far away from the Conductors themselves, while what Robot Tanks they have in the area tend to just sit around and do nothing.
    Even Worse: The one time they do have Robot Tanks sitting at the one entrance to the last Paradox Conductor, all of them are programmed to go check on the nearby Cryo supplies in the event they're damaged, instead of just having one go while the other two stay. Predictably, the Infiltrators that Epsilon get into the Engine have no trouble weaving around the dog patrols and luring the Robot Tanks away with some sabotage to the Cryo storage.
    As A Result: All the Conductors are sabotaged and the Prism Cannons go down right as the Paradox Engine has recharged and is moving into position for the final attack, leaving the Allies with only the Engine's Time Freeze on their side...which Libra can already No-Sell thanks a stolen Chrono Backpack. The Allies' final gambit fails as the still-active Libra cripples the Paradox Engine before it can de-sync the Mental Omega from the world, allowing Epsilon to butcher almost all of the remaining Allied forces and unleash their global mind control, leaving it up to the Foehn Revolt and Soviet moon garrison to fight back.
• Mercenaries 2: Corrupt Corporate Executive Ramon Solano hires the player to break a Venezuelan general who had attempted a coup out of jail. Airstrikes are called in, tanks are used, stuff blows up, mission accomplished.
  You'd Expect Solano thanks the merc for a job well done, pays them, sends them on their way, and goes on to take over the country and elevate it's status to that of a world power.
  Instead He turns on the player and has them shot. Cue the Roaring Rampage of Revenge that ends with Venezuela getting torn up and Solano himself dead.
  For Added Idiocy The merc Solano hired was the mercenary that had previously been involved in the Song Initiative. During that situation, the mercenary showed their aptitude at singlehandedly taking down a military dictatorship for money.
• Metroid Fusion:
  • Early in the game, Samus finds out onboard the B.S.L. Space Station that the Galactic Federation have been cloning creatures and animals from various planets (coincidentally coinciding with places Samus has been to).
    You'd Expect: They mainly stick to research, perhaps at best having questionable specimens on pure lockdown and research basis.
    Instead: They clone Metroids, which is baffling seeing as they specifically had Samus kill them because of how dangerous they were, and Space Pirates despite being on a semi-perpetual war with them! Consequently, the X Parasites the Metroids had been preying on grow in number, infect Samus, cause an outbreak on the space station and get plenty of dangerous tech and food to weaponize and nearly jeopardize the entire galactic system with. Whoops. Samus ends up having to blow up both the station and SR-388 to wipe out the X Parasites because of the sheer threat.
    Even Worse: When Metroid: Other M came out, it turns out that the Galactic Federation had been doing the same exact thing on the Bottle Ship, on top of trying to create and control a Mother Brain which also blew up in their faces spectacularly. They learned absolutely nothing and reached firmly into Stupid Evil. This is also topped off by the fact that Samus is forced to destroy the station and planet because Federation ships were coming in to check up on the station and practically flying in towards their inevitable demises (and would likely have foolishly attempted to contain the X Parasites); altogether, everything in these two games falls squarely on their shoulders in their eagerness to gain an edge over their enemies.
• Metroid: Other M:
  • Midway through the game, Samus is asked by her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich, to go into an area that's superheated and filled with lava.
    You'd Expect: No problem. Considering the game notably averted Bag of Spilling and Samus still has all her upgrades from Super Metroid, all she has to do is turn on her Varia/Gravity Suit and walk through without fear of being injured by the heat. Better yet, while Adam has restricted her use of weapons, there should be nothing stopping her from employing her defensive suit capabilities, especially in cases where her life is in danger.
    Alternately, he could just say "By the way, Samus, Sector 3 is known for its extreme heat, which has taken its toll on my team's power suit systems. If you have anything that protects from environmental extremes, consider its use authorized." before she gets to the superhot stuff.
    Instead: Neither of them act on the pending situation, and Samus willingly runs through the superheated area taking damage for no discernible reason, until Adam finally tells her to activate her Varia Suit when she comes face to face with a boss and is forced into a protracted battle.
    Even Worse: Again, the sole in-game justification for the authorization system is that using Power Bombs - a whole one weapon out of the six or seven you have - wherever you want would vaporize your non-Power Suited allies. This apparently means Samus is not allowed to defend herself from hostile environments as best as she can simply because Adam didn't explicitly tell her to keep doing so at the beginning.
  • There is also the fact that Adam told her if she used any power-ups without his say-so, she was off the mission with a one-way ticket to court martial town. That said, the stupidity comes in when everyone, especially Samus and even more so himself, realize she's the lynchpin of this mission's succeeding.
    You'd Expect: "Samus, turn on all non-combat abilities to ensure your survival." Alternatively, Samus to either give him the finger and activate the Varia function herself or at the very least ask his permission to do so the instant she realizes the area is superheated, because, again, protecting herself from extreme environments doesn't endanger other people.
    Instead: "I'm still mad you that you quit the Marines after I ordered my brother/your boyfriend to die. You don't get any power ups at all until I say so."
  • Samus is on her way to Sector Zero when, right as she gets to the entrance, a Metroid comes out of hiding to greet our heroine. Adam happens to be right behind them, freeze gun in hand.
    You'd Expect either Adam or Samus would freeze the damn thing and save both of their hides from being Metroid chow, or Adam asks Samus to stop and shoot the Metroid.
    Instead Adam shoots Samus with the most powerful round of ammo he had, leaving Samus utterly powerless and suitless, not even bothering to shoot the Metroid until it was right about to attack her! The only ounce justification he had for shooting Samus was to stop her from going into Sector Zero, something that could have easily been a lot less life-threatening and damaging if he simply asked her to stop. It might be just as stupid, but it would have made tons more sense and a lot less fucked up. Considering Samus has literally walked into unsurvivable environments without turning on her protective gear because he didn't specifically tell her too, she would not refuse him.
  • Additionally, Samus has just fallen to the ground after Adam has shot her in the back. She is disabled, in shock, and completely helpless. There is now a hungry Metroid floating over her head.
    You'd Expect Adam to immediately shoot the Metroid.
    Instead He waits for a good forty seconds or so while the Metroid lazily hovers closer and closer to Samus, not bothering to fire a second shot until it's literally in her face.
  • Right after this, Adam now has the following conundrum: Sector Zero is (supposedly, according to what's basically a guess on his part) full of unfreezable, basically indestructible Metroids. An explosive in the right place would detach the sector from the rest of the station and destroy it.
    You'd Expect: Adam to set the bomb to a timer, run in, and then run out. Or tell Samus to do it, since she's faster and tougher and therefore more likely to survive the run. Unless Sector Zero is completely stuffed to the gills with Metroids (and given that Adam survives the run long enough to plant the explosive, it isn't), this shouldn't be that high of a risk.
    Or: Get into his own ship or Samus's gunship, and blast Sector Zero from the outside, either destroying its connective passage or spacing the inhabitants. It's an isolated capsule, so it should be easy enough to target.
    Or: Tell Samus to activate the Gravity Suit, do a bit of spacewalking, and plant the bombs on the connective passage. If the problem is the section being too badly armored, just have Samus carry more explosives; she's essentially a Person of Mass Destruction and her own Power Bombs (specifically noted as enough to damage the station) do nothing to her.
    Instead: Adam decides to go himself, on foot, and set off the explosive while he's still inside the sector for a good old-fashioned Stupid Sacrifice. The perfect military mind in action, folks.
  • The Federation want to cover up their dastardly cloning experiments on the Bottle Ship and tie up loose ends.
    You'd Expect: They would order Adam to not board the station, shut off its distress signal and/or blockade the station with starships and threaten to destroy anyone who approaches, then board it with their own teams and eliminate any evidence as needed.
    Instead: They allow Adam to go in and replace one of his squad with an assassin whose job is to kill them all, plus Samus Aran. Because clearly getting a squad of your own men killed and attempting to murder the galaxy's finest bounty hunter when she has yet to be given any reason to work against you is far more efficient than just telling them to go away.
    However: The assassin, James Pierce, does a fantastic job of silencing potential rats such as Maurice Favreau and Keiji "K.G." Misawa though when going up against Samus, he doesn't fight fair, but survives to try and kill "Madeline Bergman", which leads to another example...
  • The Deleter/James Pierce finds "Madeline Bergman", or rather MB, and prepares to kill her without the android based on Mother Brain noticing.
    You'd Expect: James to do the usual freeze with ice and shoot with missiles thing on her since that's the way to kill Metroids, which the Galactic Feds themselves do during the "battle" against her via Samus pointing her arm cannon at her.
    Alternately: He could realize that's not the real Madeline Bergman and calmly back off before calling in his superiors to send in reinforcements to destroy MB. If the Federation asks the people of the corrupt faction about this, they can claim it was "industrial espionage" and everyone just goes about their business.
    Instead: He tries to shoot MB, which causes her to kill him in self defense.
• Mortal Kombat: Armageddon: It's learned in the game's Konquest mode that in the future, the Mortal Kombat tournament will become corrupted and its competitors will grow more numerous and gain more power from tapping into more of the fabric of reality than normal, thus causing The End of the World as We Know It with their infighting.
  You'd Expect: The Elder Gods to stop the tournament right then and there, thus preventing it from being the crux of the future apocalypse.
  Instead: They use a lowly Edenian god to start a Gambit Roulette, in the hopes of stopping the Armageddon just when it begins to start. Naturally, it backfires on them.
• Mortal Kombat 9:
  • Sindel gets supercharged thanks to the sacrificed Shang Tsung's souls, and faces the Forces of Light herself.
    You'd Expect: The heroes, worn out from recently fighting off the Cyber Lin Kuei ambush, to keep their distance and use their projectiles to attack her or at least attack all together at once, or even retreat and fight later on.
    Instead: They attack her one at a time, forgetting to use their special abilities. The end result is a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown in which Sindel kills the heroes, with only Johnny Cage and Sonya as survivors; Kitana dies from her wounds in Liu Kang's arms and Nightwolf performs a Heroic Sacrifice via Kill Sat in order to finally kill her.
  • When Jade seeks out Raiden for help to free Kitana, Millena appears and the two duke it out with Jade being the winner. Afterwards, Raiden and his group appears with Smoke seeing the beaten Millena lying on the ground. He immediately flies into a rage because he thinks Jade beat up Kitana (the two are long time friends), even though Kitana wears blue clothing while Millena is wearing purple. Raiden speaks up and points out that it's not Kitana Smoke is seeing.
    You'd Expect: Smoke would listen to an elder god when he points out the discrepency.
    Instead: Smoke completely ignores Raiden and proceeds to fight Jade, to which he loses against. The group acts like the fight never happened and move on to help save Kitana.
• Mortal Kombat 11:
  • Among their collection of time-based powers, Big Bad Kronika and her Dragon Geras have the ability to freeze mortals in place, as Geras does to Liu Kang and Kung Lao in Chapter Three, and Kronika does to a load of the heroes in Chapter Eleven. The only apparent weakness of this ability is that it doesn't work on gods like Raiden, since they're immortals who exist outside the flow of time.
    You'd Expect: Kronika and Geras to use this power a lot more liberally. Even if Raiden's immune to them, the Thunder God's mortal allies are decidedly not, and they have no way of defending against them. Once they've been rendered helpless, it should be no trouble for Kronika and Geras to either strike them down or take them prisoner.
    Instead: When Geras restrains Liu Kang and Kung Lao, he and Kronika just take the Jinsei-infused water and leave them be. When Kronika restrains Liu Kang, Cassie, Scorpion, Jax and Jacqui in the Fire Gardens, she only abducts Liu Kang, and doesn't bother taking the opportunity to try and eliminate any of Raiden's other allies. And besides a moment in Chapter Twelve, these are the only times Kronika makes use of this particular power. The only explanation given is that Kronika's already beaten them all countless times in the past, so why would she need to "cheat", as it were?
    Result: By the time Kronika's ready to execute her plan and restart the timeline, Raiden and his allies - all of whom she could have easily dealt with beforehand - have gathered an army of Special Forces, Shaolin monks and Outworlders, which they lead in an attack on her keep. And while this is admittedly not something Kronika's unlikely to have dealt with before, this time she's thrown for a loop when Raiden fuses with Liu Kang to become Fire God Liu Kang and destroys her.
  • During the events of Chapter Eight, Sonya and Present Kano are at a standoff. Sonya has Past Kano under her boot ready to snap his neck, while Present Kano has a knife to Past Johnny's throat; Present Kano orders a hostage exchange with Johnny as his bargaining chip.
    You'd Expect: Kano to begin a countdown or some kind of nastiness to force Sonya's compliance. Barring that, you'd think he would try to grab Cassie as collateral, considering he knows she's on-site, too.
    Instead: Kano tells Sonya that by slitting Johnny's throat, he'll kill Cassie too, thereby reminding her that killing the past version of someone makes it so that their present day self stopped existing from that point onwards.
    Result: Ten seconds later, Present Kano doesn't feel so good.
  Sonya: Thanks, Kano.
  Present Kano: For what, Sonya?
  Sonya: For reminding me of the rules. (HEAD SHOT!!)
• My Harem Heaven is Yandere Hell:
  • Kudou's sister-figure, Sayuri's mental illness has escalated to the point where she kidnaps an innocent boy and restrains him for days on the basis of her delusions about "demons".
    You'd Expect: That Kudou would expose Sayuri's crimes and get her professional help. Her family has more than enough money to pay for it, to say nothing of the hoard of evidence that Kudou has free access to- especially given Kudou's authority in the police force.
    Instead: He does nothing. Because he thinks that rehabilitating Sayuri would mean he didn't believe in her enough and/or that he doubted her ability to ever regain sanity. So he plays along with her delusions entirely.
• My Candy Love:
  • In "Chemical Reactions", Ms. Delanay is about to have the class begin a science experiment when she gets interrupted by Mr. Faraize. Faraize states that the Principal would like to speak to her about her transfer papers.
    You would expect: Ms. Delanay to instruct the class to not touch the chemicals and equipment while she's gone, maybe even get Mr. Faraize to oversee her students while she's away.
    Instead: She puts two students in charge and tells the class to continue on with the experiment before leaving the group of teenagers unattended.
    As a result: The students immediately begin talking with one another, and while some of them do try to follow the instructions, most don't. Amber in particular heats up a chemical so much it explodes, releasing toxic fumes. Even though Ms. Delanay is back by then, it's too little too late and the firefighting department has to be called in.
• Nancy Drew game Warnings at Waverly Academy:
  • One of the suspects has her term paper erased by the Black Cat. You are given the option of asking the suspect if she kept a hard copy. If you do, the suspect replies:
    You'd Expect: "Of course I did! Do you think I want four weeks of research to go down the drain? Good thing the Black Cat didn't count on that!"
    Instead: "No! It would be like printing out a book!"
  • Sadly, Nancy Drew herself is capable of this without you having to invoke it (the moments where it can be invoked are the ones resulting in a Game Over; which some people are known to deliberately seek out for amusement). For example, at the end of Legend of the Crystal Skull, Nancy has found the eponymous skull in a crypt. Just as she does, the culprit comes along, sees her down in the crypt with the skull, and in an Aladdin-esque moment, asks for Nancy to hand over the skull.
    You'd Expect: That Nancy, being the highly-experienced detective she is even by game standards (this is game seventeen), would see through this ruse and proclaim "A-ha! So you're the culprit!" and refuse to give up the skull even if it meant having to escape another trap.
    Instead: Nancy actually hands over the skull, then acts surprised when the culprit traps her in the crypt and takes off with the skull.
  • And then at the end of Ransom of the Seven Ships, the bum whom Nancy has been helping turns out to be a former culprit out for two things: the treasure, and revenge. And did we mention this is one of the most genuinely insane culprits in the entire series?
    You'd Expect: Nancy would do something or come up with a plan, like going through her inventory and using something on the culprit, or, even better, using her walkie-talkie to alert George.
    Instead: Nancy just...kind of stands there while the culprit rants and raves. She realizes she might be a in a trap and only whimpers "Oh no" when she still has seconds to take action. And this is a trap she has been aware of since she first came to this particular beach.
  • Sometimes, the culprits have their moments where the Villain Ball is just too tempting not to take a hold of. The worst offender of this comes from the culprit at the end of The Deadly Device, not once but twice. The first time: The culprit realizes Nancy has figured out whodunnit. They arrive at the lab, see Nancy leaving, and knock her out.
    You'd Expect: They would either kill her right there, or, if they HAD to take her to the Tesla coil lab, tie her to the lightning rod or on the floor, go up to the control room, and turn the electricity on.
    Instead: They lock her up in the Faraday Cage, which has since been rewired and is now perfectly safe, wait for her to wake up, gloats about how and why they did it, and then turn on the electric current and wait for it to gradually wear through the cage. Giving Nancy plenty of time to evaluate her situation and figure out how to get out. Without even confiscating your inventory.
  • And in the second instance of this, it gets even worse: If you are able to redirect the electricity to the lightning rod, the culprit, who is in the control booth and could clearly see electricity now dancing around the room and therefore that it’s dangerous to leave…
    You'd Expect: Stays in the control booth and turns off the electricity.
    Instead: Steps out of the control booth to see what's going on, and gets electrocuted.
  • The Final Scene: So Nancy's friend Maya has been kidnapped. Midway through the game, you find you Missed Her by That Much, but she leaves evidence behind. Through this whole game, Nancy has been playing a game of cat and mouse with the kidnapper, and every time she finds some sort of lead it ends up blown because the police don't reach it in time.
    You'd Expect: That since she's had rotten luck thus far, she would actually stow away the evidence this time, and furthermore not blabber to anyone around the theater about it until it has gone down the proper avenues.
    Instead: Through a huge lapse of logic, she leaves the evidence there and notifies several suspects that she found this evidence before making her call (which just so happens to include the eventual culprit, no less!).
    The Result: By the time the police arrive, the kidnapper has had more than enough time to hide away the evidence and completely cover their tracks, putting Nancy at yet another dead end.
    Worse Yet: Just after you narrowly miss Maya, on your way out of the secret passage the kidnapper sets up a death trap for you, making it extremely obvious this whole run-in was a setup. This should have immediately given Nancy second thoughts about leaving the evidence there, but she doesn't consider that either.
• At the end of Need for Speed: The Run, the main character, Jack, has won the titular cross-country automobile race, and received his cut of the $25 million winnings. He and his agent, Sam, later talk in a coffee shop about another race which will double his earnings.
  You'd Expect: With all the money he has earned, and after everything he has endured, for Jack to stay and relax in New York City.
  Instead: Jack accepts the offer. The last we see of him is him speeding down the highway, with numerous police cruisers behind him.
• NEO: The World Ends with You: Rindo and Fret are told by both Minamimoto and Shoka, someone with an obvious amount of experience and one of the people running the game, respectively, to pick up any pins that drop.
  You'd Expect: That after defeating the target on the second day, they would immediately think that the pin the Gorilla Noise dropped was important, especially when Minamimoto said the fight hadn't ended until they picked it up.
  Instead: They seemingly forget what pins are and seem content to not look for it.
  The Result: Kanon Tachibana grabs the pin before them and gains all their points, essentially performing a Kill Steal.
  Even Worse: They do the same in Week 2 Day 1 and get pin-stolen by Tsugumi.
• Nightmare Of The Snow: In the backstory, Shouichi, after exorcising an evil spirit in the village, has been trapped in a magic mirror by an Enemy Without of himself created by the spirit's lingering dark essence. Said version of him abused his daughter, Yukiko, and tried to force her into an Arranged Marriage, causing her to run away (with the groom Haruto, who rescued her). The real Shouichi manages to escape, only to learn that the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are about to happen and they can't evacuate in time, so in a desperate attempt to save his daughter, he has her kidnapped and plans to kill her in a ritual to reincarnate her.
  You'd Expect: For him to just tell her this so she knows why he's doing it and why “Shouichi” has been abusing her all these years.
  Instead: He doesn't, despite having ample time to do so, instead just giving vague answers about how he's sorry and “it's For Your Own Good”.
  As A Result: Haruto comes to save her, the ritual goes horribly wrong, they all die anyway, and Yukiko gets her own Enemy Within made of her rage and sorrow that curses the entire mansion and traps anyone who comes near it into a pocket dimension, leading to all the horror and tragedy that happens in the game — all of which could have potentially been avoided if Shouichi bothered to actually explain himself.
• Ninja Gaiden (NES/PC-Engine): Ryu Hayabusa brings the Shadow Demon Statue to Dr. Walter Smith, who has the Light Demon Statue, and learns from him that both of the artifacts contain the power of a demon that tried to destroy the world, all of a sudden, a ninja steals the Shadow Demon Statue, prompting Ryu to try and get it back.
  You'd Expect: That Walter Smith would have Ryu take the Light Statue with him, that way, regardless of Smith's fate, when Ryu gets the Shadow Statue back, he could still try and find someone else to protect one of the statues, especially someone he could trust with its safety.
  Instead: Walter does not consider it.
  As a result: Not only does Walter get assassinated, the Light Demon Statue gets stolen by Jaquio's/Devildoer's faction.
• Octopath Traveler:
  • In Ophilia's route, Ophilia's sister Lianna has been replaced in the Rite of the Sacred Flame by Ophilia, who has become The Unchosen One. On top of that, their father, Josef, dies of an illness while Ophilia is away, causing Lianna no end of grief over his death. A mysterious man known as "The Savior" tells Lianna that he can make all of her worries go away, and all she has to do to make it happen is to join a cult that worships a God of Evil.
    You'd Expect: Lianna would reject this offer instantly. Besides being The Chosen One (even though that didn't work out), Lianna has devoted her entire life to her faith, her church, and her family, all of which are bound to the Sacred Flame. Also, all of the local villagers look to Lianna for guidance; not only would she be setting a terrible example if she turned her back on them, there's no way any of them would forgive her. Finally, and most importantly, there's no guarantee that the Savior is even telling the truth; for all Lianna knows, the Savior is just telling her what she wants to hear for the sake of manipulating her for his own purposes. Even though Lianna's under a lot of stress, she would have enough good sense to turn the Savior's offer down without a second thought.
    Or, At the Very Least: Lianna would be skeptical of the offer and ask for advice from other clerics within the Cathedral, before deciding if this mysterious man with a Too Good to Be True offer is a case of Bad Powers, Good People or the much-more-likely Bad Powers, Bad People.
    Instead: Lianna believes the Savior, accepts the offer and becomes his vestal. As a result, she commits numerous terrible acts in the name of her goals. Lianna knocks Ophilia out with a drugged glass of wine, steals the Sacred Flame, and throws her lot in with the Savior. This cult of the Savior ends up trying to sacrifice numerous villagers' lives in Wispermill, the rest of the town are converted into brainwashed fanatics, it weakens the bonds that hold back the Eldritch Abomination Galdera, and it's eventually "revealed" that—just as Ophilia suspected—the Savior was lying about resurrecting Josef, anyways. This means Lianna turned her back on everything she knew and loved, nearly got numerous people killed, and helped nearly empower a dark god... All for Nothing. Small wonder that, at the end of Ophilia's story, Lianna is sitting in her room, staring at the wall and refusing to talk to anyone. The whole debacle becomes even Harsher in Hindsight when the player reaches the Gate of Finis and finds a diary entry by the Savior containing his thoughts post-death, where he admits he murdered Josef via slow-acting poison as part of his plan to make Lianna fall into despair and take advantage of her grief to obtain power from Galdera via the aforementioned ritual.
  • Ophilia herself has one in her final chapter. She reaches Wispermill and finds out the villagers are indeed opposed to the Sacred Flame, instead loyally following the Savior, just as Bishop Donovan had told her at the end of her previous chapter. After trying to talk to several villagers to no avail, one woman comes out of her house and tells Ophilia that her son has suddenly fallen ill, and asks for her help.
    You'd Expect: Ophilia is a very kind and compassionate woman, but the people of Wispermill aren't friendly towards those in the Order of the Sacred Flame, and this "Savior"'s followers have already resorted to kidnapping and death threats towards a child in the name of their leader's goals in her previous chapter. Keeping this in mind, you'd expect Ophilia to consider the possibility that this could be a trap and approach with caution, especially after being informed that this woman's son "suddenly" fell ill, which sounds suspicious in these circumstances.
    Instead: Ophilia lets her kindness get the better of her and enters the woman's house to help her son without hesitation.
    The Result: It's a trap! — the woman has no son, and she invites more of the Savior's followers to surround and knock Ophilia unconscious. When she regains consciousness, she finds herself imprisoned in a cell.
    Believer: Sister Ophilia. It is not wise to put too much faith in others, for there are many in this world who are all too eager to deceive.
  • At the beginning of Tressa's route, both she and a local of her hometown are robbed by a group of pirates. Tressa comes up with a plan to get their belongings back by sneaking a sleeping drug into a casket of wine, and offers the casket to a guard-pirate in front of the Caves of Maiya as an "apology" for trying to stand up to them earlier.
    You'd Expect: The guard would be suspicious that the same woman who tried to interfere with the pirates' raid earlier is just handing over wine as a peace offering, and wonder if she's planning anything.
    Instead: The guard takes the casket and heads inside to share the wine with the other pirates.
    You'd Then Expect: At least one of the other pirates would suspect that something is amiss and raise an objection.
    Instead: They all drink from the casket without suspecting anything, and fall into a deep sleep courtesy of the sleeping drug. Tressa just walks into their lair and finds the stolen belongings with little resistance. Unfortunately, one of the pirate leaders isn't drugged enough and wakes up just in time to catch Tressa red-handed, forcing her to fight him and his partner.
  • Primrose's route begins with a flashback of three mercenary assassins dressed in black robes breaking into her home and murdering her father for discovering classified information when Primrose was a little girl, which she witnessed in fear from a hiding-place and was traumatized by. The assassins' identities are then-unknown, but they each have a tattoo of a crow somewhere on their bodies: one on their left arm, one on their right arm, and one on their neck.
    You'd Expect: At least one of the assassins would have realized that, since they are breaking into a noble House—where many people would be either living or working there—with the intent to commit murder, having their Obviously Evil crow tattoos exposed for all to see would be a mistake, and to conceal their tattoos with clothing so they can't be used as a clue to track them down.
    Furthermore, You'd Expect: Upon Primrose's cry of horror after seeing her father murdered, at least one of the assassins would have realized that there is a witness in the room and it would be a mistake to leave them alive, and to murder Primrose along with her father right then and there for bearing witness to the crime, while she's still a young and inexperienced child.
    Instead: Not one of the assassins thought of either. They commit the murder and make their escape, completely ignoring the little girl in the corner of the room who has registered their crow tattoos that identify them as her father's murderers.
    The Result: Primrose grows up, learns how to fight with a dagger and dark magic, and spends many years hunting down the three assassins, killing them one by one. The neck-tattooed assassin is eventually revealed to have been acquainted with Primrose as a child and is a sadistic sociopath who enjoys watching others succumb to despair, so leaving Primrose alive that fateful day/night may have been intentional so that they can inflict further pain on her, but nonetheless the assassins' impracticality eventually comes back to bite them.
    • The Right Hand of the Crow earns bonus idiot points. He is eventually revealed to have been a former friend of Primrose's father who eventually betrayed him for petty financial gain, much to the disgust of Primrose and Revello Forsythe, another friend of her late father who remains loyal.
      You'd Expect: Upon seeing that Primrose and Revello are Disappointed by the Motive, the Right Hand of the Crow would shut his mouth and go straight to fighting Primrose.
      Instead: He clutches the Villain Ball and fabricates a story about how her father talked about "his vaunted faith and how it would shield the town from any danger" and took no action in the name of his beliefs, that "in the end, he couldn't even save himself" and scornfully laughs about how his murder and subsequent fall of House Azelhart "goes to show you what the faith of a fool is worth". This recount of Primrose's father is proved to be Blatant Lies by several recounts of him by Primrose, Revello, and even the Left Hand of the Crow. Not to mention, these words are spoken by one of the three men directly responsible for her father's murder in the first place.
      Unsurprisingly: This results in a complete train-wreck, with the Right Hand of the Crow on the receiving end — Revello loses his temper and condemns him with "You traitorous bastard!", and Primrose ends the conversation in disgust and fights him to the death. This line spoken by her lampshades the Right Hand of the Crow's stupidity in a nutshell.
      Primrose: This man — if one can even call him a man — should not live a moment longer.
  • At the climax of Chapter 1 of Primrose's route, her abusive employer, Helgenish, has taken her Only Friend Yusufa hostage when the latter covers for Primrose escaping in pursuit of the Left Hand of the Crow, severely injured Yusufa, and ambushed Primrose in an attempt to forcibly take her back to his tavern. Primrose has just exited the Sunshade Catacombs—a dungeon with Random Encounters—alive.
    You'd Expect: Helgenish to realise that this means that Primrose knows how to fight, and to use Yusufa as leverage to try to convince her to return.
    Instead: The Villain Ball comes into full effect: Helgenish stabs Yusufa in front of Primrose right then and there, kicks her off a cliff, watches her bleed to death, and even makes fun of her tearful last words.
    The Result: Primrose, enraged by the murder of her friend, snaps and fights Helgenish to the death, slitting his throat after the fact.
  • In Chapter 3 of Alfyn's route, Ogen, an experienced but cynical apothecary, happens upon Miguel, a badly injured man, and refuses to treat him. Alfyn witnesses the encounter and demands an explanation from Ogen.
    You'd Expect: Ogen to tell the truth: that he realized that Miguel is a thief and a murderer.
    Instead: Ogen dismissively asserts that he's "a free man, with the right to choose (his) patients", adding that some lives are not worth saving.
    The Result: Alfyn, outraged by Ogen's attitude, treats Miguel himself, resulting in Miguel "repaying" him by taking a young boy hostage and fleeing into the woods, forcing Alfyn to kill Miguel to save the boy's life. Perhaps learning the truth wouldn't have dissuaded Alfyn, but Ogen could have made his point in a way that made him sound less self-centered and callous.
    • The way Alfyn himself goes about the dilemma also qualifies, to a degree. He later finds out from an elderly woman that Miguel is a thief and a murderer, and Ogen confirms this is why he refused to treat him shortly thereafter.
      You'd Expect: Alfyn would alert the local authorities that Miguel is a wanted criminal. That way, he could stay true to his duty as an apothecary without having to worry too much about the consequences of treating a thief and a murderer, given that he is a Combat Medic. Earlier, he had already done this when he found out that Vanessa Hysel was a fraud apothecary carrying out a Poison and Cure Gambit.
      Even Worse: The accompanying book Octopath Traveler: The Complete Guide reveals that Therion first met Darius in the gaols under Saintsbridge, the very town that Alfyn is dealing with Miguel.
      Instead: Alfyn doesn't think of alerting the local authorities and treats Miguel under the naïve belief that the latter will Heel–Face Turn in gratitude. Miguel wastes no time betraying Alfyn's trust after being treated, kidnapping and nearly killing a young boy. Alfyn is forced to hunt down and kill Miguel to save the boy's life, but this incident leaves him with a crisis of faith.
    • On the subject, Ogen is also guilty of this. It is later revealed that he became cynical in his profession because he once treated a criminal who went on to murder his wife.
      You'd Expect: Ogen would alert local authorities when he comes across wounded criminals. As demonstrated with Miguel, Ogen has become skilled at figuring out if his patient is a murderer and could provide good evidence. While letting a potential murderer walk free is obviously a really bad idea, it is just as much a physician's duty to treat the wounded as it is a law enforcer's duty to arrest criminals like Miguel.
      Instead: Ogen leaves wounded criminals to die without a second thought, leading to his initial conflict with Alfyn who thinks he is a cold-hearted Jerkass.
• Octopath Traveler II:
  • Near the beginning of Ochette's route, a group of humans want the Beastlings to give them more land. The Beastlings are watched over by Juvah the white lion, who is none too happy about the humans' greed.
    You'd Expect: All the humans in the group to try to resolve the situation diplomatically.
    Instead: Most of them do, if a little aggressively. However, one of them decides, "Hey, let's sicc a knife on the Beastlings right in front of the white lion who can easily maul us all".
    Fortunately: Ochette arrives in time to drive the humans off.
  • During the Journey for the Dawn, Arcanette is revealed to be the true identity of Sister Mindt, the leader of the Moonshade Order posing as a kind-hearted cleric. Arcanette has found out that the party has found both pieces of Alpates' Mirror, which can relight the Sacred Flames the Order has quenched to resurrect Vide, and plans to stop the travelers by killing them.
    You'd Expect: Arcanette to orchestrate a surprise-attack on the party while their guard is down.
    Instead: She approaches the party and fully reveals her true colours to them before taking them on.
    The Result: She gets killed by them.
    Extra Points: Her motive for revealing her true nature to them was just because she wanted to get a reaction out of Temenos. Well, she got what she wanted, but not the way she planned.
• In Ōkami, the priestess Rao has been talking about trying to find the "Fox Rods" since Ammy first met her. First she was saying she would use them to cure the curse on Sei-an City, then after Ammy fixed that, she changes her reason to "get rid of all the monsters." When she went into the Ghost Ship with Ammy and the Water Dragon showed up, Rao pretty much leaped all the way to the shore, leaving the person she was supposed to be helping to get eaten. Eventually, Ammy finds the Fox Rods; they were lodged in the Water Dragon's stomach, and when she first finds them, they turn into very evil little demonic foxes that try their hardest to kill her. Then we learn that they were what drove the Water Dragon insane in the first place by leaking dark magic everywhere. Immediately after this, Rao shows up in the Water Dragon's garden in the underwater Dragon Palace and asks for the Fox Rods.
  You'd Expect: They'd be a little suspicious of how much she wants these by this point Obviously Evil artifacts and hang on to them, especially if they remembered her display of superhuman abilities after they got off the Ghost Ship or thought to consider how the hell she got down to the Dragon Palace in the first place. Even if they trusted her completely, Issun voices worry that monsters will target whoever has the Fox Rods in order to get them, and who better to deal with roving monsters than God herself?
  Instead: Ammy hands over the Fox Rods so quickly that even Issun thinks she's getting ahead of herself. Turns out that the real Rao was killed a long time ago, and the one you've been dealing with the whole time was a shapeshifted Demon Lord Ninetails who needed the Rods to unleash his full power. Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
• OMORI:
  • Aubrey in the real world has become a delinquent after Mari's death. She has been bullying Basil and stole his photo album, according to Basil. When Kel and Sunny go to talk to Aubrey, they find her at church.
    You'd Expect: They would wait until the sermon is over to talk to her.
    Instead: Kel barges in before the sermon ends to confront her. He asks her a few times politely to return the album, to his credit, but when Aubrey remains stubborn he calls her a thief.
    You'd Then Expect: The adults and churchgoers would break it up.
    Instead: They watch and gossip as Aubrey and her former friends get into a boss fight.
    The Result: Aubrey storms out of there, and Kel definitely doesn't get the photo album.
  • The next day, after her fight with Kel and Sunny, Aubrey takes out her anger on Basil while he's next to the park lake, and pushes him into the water. She forgot that he couldn't swim and goes Oh, Crap!.
    You'd Expect: Kel, the more physically athletic of the two boys, to be the one to dive into the lake after Basil and save him.
    Instead: Kel stays on land in order to "keep Aubrey busy" (despite the latter being visibly shocked by her own actions and making no visible attempts at preventing them from saving Basil) and instead has Sunny dive into the lake. This is despite the fact the that A.) Sunny has spent the last four years in his house and is obviously physically weak and B.) Kel knows that Sunny nearly drowned in said lake when they were kids.
    The Result: Both Basil and Sunny nearly drown, and likely would have if Hero didn't arrive in time.
  • The backstory, with tragic results. For some reason, neither Sunny nor Mari's parents were home despite needing to take them to a recital. Basil came to offer Sunny moral support, only to find him at the top of the stairs and Mari at the bottom of it, her neck at an odd angle and Sunny's violin beneath her, smashed into bits. It doesn't take long to figure out that Sunny pushed Mari down, though we find out later it was an accident.
    You'd Expect: Basil would dial 911 or whatever emergency services are in this universe since we see they exist in some endings. Even if Mari is dead, at least he and Sunny would have done all they could to save her, and a coroner would have established that it was an accident. They could also lie and say that her old sports injury or shock from seeing Sunny's smashed violin caused her to fall, since it's implied she would have been able to catch the railing if not for a bad knee.
    Instead: All Basil does is watch with quiet horror as Sunny goes to Mari's body, apologizes in an attempt of Please Wake Up, and drags her to bed. Then he orders Sunny to carry Mari's body outside, fashions a jumprope into a noose, and strings her body up a tree, making it look like a suicide.
    The Result: Thanks to this horrible secret, the guilt plagues Sunny and Basil for the next four years. In most endings, unless you choose to save Basil, he kills himself while having a breakdown. If you save Basil, he attacks Sunny, and injures his eye. Basil himself doesn't seem to know why he did such a thing while ranting with a Twitchy Eye about Sunny leaving him. The friendship group hears the commotion as they are sleeping over and do dial emergency services, meaning both boys get medical treatment in time, further showing the stupidity of Basil's earlier actions.

Video Games P-T

• Parappa The Rapper 2 has the titular Kid Hero growing sick of noodles after winning a lifetime supply of them. He visits Sunny and is disappointed to see that she cooked noodles for him.
  You'd Expect: Parappa would explain to Sunny about how he had nothing but noodles for days and simply wants to eat something different.
  Instead: He inverts his "I gotta believe!" catchphrase into "No! I can't believe.'" This causes Sunny to ask why Parappa is acting like such a big baby, which breaks his confidence as he runs out of the house thinking Sunny hates him for not being a grown man.
• Pedestal:
  • In the backstory, Shiori Natsume has had nearly all of her relationships ruined one-by-one due to Akari sabotaging them to drive her to despair. Midori had the letters between her and Shiori swiped by Akari, making both think the other ghosted them, Miyuki was manipulated by Akari into cutting off their friendship, and the Cat Hag was manipulated into becoming a serial cat killer by Akari which alienated Shiori; this put a huge strain on her mental state and damaged all her other relationships as well.
    You'd Expect: Shiori or any one of her friends to say something and clear up the misunderstandings, allowing them to realize Akari is behind it all and bring her to justice.
    Instead: None of them say anything. Shiori doesn't want to burden her friends, the Cat Hag is too mentally ill, and the others keep their mouth shut for seemingly no reason.
    As A Result: Shiori dies because she invited Midori to the school rooftop at night, still refuses to say anything even when she was clearly suffering, and fell off by accident and rumor gets around of it being a suicide, leaving her friends all thinking they caused her death, and by the time Aoi pieces everything together and gives the friends some form of closure, it's too late to punish Akari as she immediately leaves for Europe with her parents and gets away with everything.
  • At the end of Stage 2, Aoi Ooe has discovered that her best friend Akari was the mastermind behind Shiori's death all along. She confronts the culprit about this, and it is revealed that the culprit is leaving to Europe with family tomorrow.
    You'd Expect: For Aoi to get the culprit's confession on recording (since Aoi has a phone), secretly bring a friend or two along before confronting the culprit, and call the police so this dangerous murderer is brought to justice.
    Instead: She doesn't call anyone and confronts Akari alone, then just stands there while she leaves and gets away with everything, presumably going on to find more victims.
• Perfect Dark:
  • Daniel, repeatedly. Taking Dr. Caroll to his lightly-defended villa rather than the heavily secured Carrington Institute. Selling dataDyne the sniper rifles and handguns the force storming the building used. Repeatedly ignoring the recommendations of his top agent and pointlessly endangering the life of the President of America.
  • The President isn't much better. He knows enough to turn down Trent's recommendations, but why he doesn't simply fire such an Obviously Evil advisor is a mystery.
  • Trent counts, as well. He knows Joanna is the main reason dataDyne's plans have failed so far, plus he's got a deadly custom weapon, but every time he sees her he's content to just indulge in Evil Gloating and then run away. This directly leads to his "backup plan's" failure and his own death.
• In Phantasy Star II, the party is unable to use the access tunnel leading to the Biosystems Labs because of the bandit Darum, who went a little nuts after his daughter Teim was kidnapped. They retrieve his daughter, put a veil on her, and go to the tunnel.
  You'd Expect: Teim would throw off her veil, yell, "Daddy, it's me!" and hope he recognizes her.
  Instead: She walks up to Darum in the veil. When he demands her money, she haughtily refuses, and he cuts her down. Then he kills himself on realizing what he's done, at which point Rolf sermonizes about the increasing evil of the world. You know, Rolf, you could've prevented this one!
• From the Persona series:
  • In Persona 3
    • During the October Full Moon operation, Shinjiro ends up getting shot and mortally wounded by Takaya.
      You'd Expect: For a member of S.E.E.S to perform a healing spell on him.
      Instead: None of the seven party members, five of whom have access to these, think of doing that, instead lamenting that as it's the Dark Hour, electrical equipment is useless and taking him to the hospital likely won't help.
    • Earlier in the story, Junpei is talking to a girl (who, unbeknownst to him, is a member of Strega). So he tries to impress her with some tall tales about his heroics.
      You'd Expect: For Junpei to keep his mouth shut about S.E.E.S. Surely they would've sworn him to secrecy or something.
      Instead: He spills the beans about S.E.E.S. to this girl he barely knows at this point of the story(albeit in rather vague terms, and she just so happens to be the only member of Strega that S.E.E.S. hasn't met yet) and even lies about being the leader. As a result, he is captured by Strega under the false assumption that he's in charge of the team and is put out of commission for the full moon operation. They try to blackmail Junpei into cancelling the full moon operation or else, but thankfully the rest of S.E.E.S. shows up in time to rescue him.
  • Persona 5:
    • Ryuji has No Indoor Voice. He also slowly but surely gets introduced to the concepts of the Metaverse, even if it's a "layman's terms" explanation. After a while, the Phantom Thieves become a known force across Japan, both to the public at large and to the authorities who want to arrest them.
      You'd Expect: Ryuji would learn to keep his mouth shut, knowing how much trouble that the Phantom Thieves could be in if their identities or their methods were revealed. Even when the Thieves meet up at their hideouts, they're still in a public place, and could be caught with so much as a slip of the tongue.
      Instead: Ryuji gets so excited at being a Phantom Thief that he loudly proclaims it multiple times. This almost gets the Phantom Thieves caught at a restaurant, actually gets them caught by Makoto during her investigation into Kaneshiro, and gets ace detective Akechi to figure out that Ryuji and his friends are the Thieves. While Ryuji does eventually mellow out with some character development, it's only after getting himself and his friends into hot water multiple times.
    • Student Council President Makoto Niijima has been pressured by school principal Kobayakawa into investigating the local mob. To this end, Makoto blackmails the Phantom Thieves into helping her, and they discover that the name of the mob boss is Junya Kaneshiro. They also discover how the mob is able to move so many drugs: using unsuspecting Shujin Academy students as drug mules, then blackmailing them into continued service with threats towards the students and their families.
      You'd Expect: Seeing as how Makoto's older sister Sae is a prosecutor and has close ties to the police, Makoto would tell Sae what she knows and what the Phantom Thieves have found out about how they operate. Or, if Makoto doesn't want to involve her sister for whatever reason, just go to the police herself. Even if it may not stop things immediately, telling the police a bunch of reliable information on Kaneshiro would do a lot of good, and Makoto could tell Kobayakawa that she fulfilled the request by presenting the same information.
      Instead: Makoto intentionally gets herself kidnapped by Kaneshiro's thugs, being taken to his hideout out of a misguided desire to not be seen as "useless" to anyone. The Phantom Thieves follow, and Makoto's plan ends up being little more than trying to intimidate Kaneshiro into submission with all the authority of a small teenage girl.
      The Result: Makoto and the Thieves, who went to the trouble of going in to save her, get blackmailed for three million yen by Kaneshiro. They'd have been in much deeper trouble if they didn't need a way into Kaneshiro's Palace.
    • Speaking of Makoto, she tells the Phantom Thieves to keep the call going and to record it before approaching Kaneshiro's goon and demanding they take her to him.
      You'd Expect: They'd frisk her for anything that could be used to track her position. They know their boss is running shady operations, and people don't just demand an audience with the boss without some kind of ulterior motive.
      Instead: They take her to Kaneshiro's front door without the slightest hesitation or scrutiny.
      The Result: Not only do the Phantom Thieves find the hideout, but their boss' patience for them drops significantly because of it. He probably wouldn't have threatened their lives from the calling card if they did their jobs correctly in the first place.
      Kaneshiro: Oh, I get it. You got followed, you dumb shits!
    • The Phantom Thieves send a calling card to Masayoshi Shido, and despite the best efforts of him and his conspiracy to stop them he begins to show symptoms of a change of heart.
      You'd Expect: His co-conspirators to not let him anywhere near a camera or press conference or whatever for the foreseeable future, in order to prevent them from spilling the beans about their influence.
      Instead: They just let him make an acceptance speech, which leads to a public confession of his crimes. If not for Yaldabaoth influencing the masses to cause cult-like loyalty in his followers, they would've all been sunk right then and there.
    • In Royal, Joker, Morgana and Kasumi accidentally discover a mysterious Palace on October 3rd.
      You'd Expect: For Joker and Morgana to at least investigate who the Palace belongs to— after all, that person could be harming other people like most of the Palace owners encountered up to that point, or suffering from a crippling mental illness like Futaba was.
      Instead: Morgana decides that since not all Palace owners are evil, and all the Phantom Thieves need to be on board for a heist to take place, this mysterious Palace is not any of their business. Everybody quickly forgets about this new Palace.
      The Result: Turns out the Palace belongs to Takuto Maruki, a man who is not only friends with the Phantom Thieves, but has intimate access to all their fears and insecurities. Oh sure, he's not evil, but he is harming people as a result of his savior complex, which is made even worse by his latent Persona abilities. And once Yaldabaoth is taken out of the picture, his Palace grows out of control and threatens to overtake reality. One can't help but notice that the events of the third semester could have been avoided entirely had Joker or Morgana thought to check Kasumi's MetaNav history, seeing as how the other Phantom Thieves would have easily been on board with the heist had they known that their therapist friend had a Palace.
• In Phantasmagoria, it's increasingly made clear to Adrienne throughout the entire game that there is some evil power in the house that can manipulate objects, caused Carno to murder his wives, caused several near-fatal accidents in the past and has increasing control of her husband.
  You'd Expect: At the very least, the moment she started having visions of Carno murdering his wives Adrienne would seek help from the people in town (most of whom already believe there's something evil in the house) and get out of the house as soon as is physically possible.
  Instead: She just stays there. For day after day. Even after Don rapes her she stays for several more chapters. Really how she survives to the end of the game is a complete mystery.
• Plants vs. Zombies:
  • Dr Zomboss has access to many zombies, which he sends after you to eat your brains.
    You'd Think: He would send all of his zombies at you at once in a Zerg Rush you'd have no chance of defeating in the first level, when all you have is a Peashooter.
    Instead: He sends small groups of weak zombies which you can easily kill, and only sends stronger zombies or ones with special abilities once you've been given plants capable of countering them.
  • Crazy Dave has access to many zombie-destroying plants, which he gives to you so you can defend yourself from the zombies.
    You'd Think: He'd give you all the plants at the start of the game, so if zombies did Zerg Rush you, or ones with special abilities appeared early on, you'd stand a chance.
    Instead: He gives you one new plant every level, forcing you to fight off the zombie horde with sub-par plants and risking your life for no good reason. He even demands money for some of them!
  • In the second game, Crazy Dave needs somewhere to grow his mould colonies.
    You'd Think: He'd put them literally anywhere but the lawn.
    Instead: He puts them on the lawn, taking up valuable space you need to grow plants to stop both of you being eaten by zombies.
    But Then Again: He is crazy...
  • In the sequel, zombies which glow green drop Plant Food when killed, which you can use to power up your plants.
    You'd Expect: Dr Zomboss to single out the zombies which carry Plant Food and prevent them for attacking you.
    Or Better Yet: He'd investigate what was causing these zombies to carry Plant Food and put a stop to it.
    Instead: He lets these zombies attack you and inevitably die, giving you a powerful boost which makes most of his zombies easily killable.
  • In PvZ2, Dave uses his time machine, Penny, to go back in time to eat a taco, but Penny ends up transporting all of you to Ancient Egypt.
    You'd Expect: Dave and Penny to immediately try again to travel to the right point in time.
    Instead: All three of you stay in Egypt, risking your lives to fight zombies and collect plants for no good reason. Later, this process repeats when you end up in different time periods.
• Poppy Playtime:
  • Ever since the day it opened, back when it was still in business, Playtime Co. has put emphasis on children, working with various orphanages and foster care companies to adopt their charges, claiming to give them all good homes and loving families, complete with an on-site "daycare".
    You'd Expect: At least some of the agencies to be suspicious, wondering why they're so insistent on taking in all the orphans.
    Instead: They gladly go along with it, calling it "innovative" for its time.
    The Result: Thousands of innocent children are cruelly experimented on by their scientists for future toy inventions. It's no wonder they got shut down!
• Poptropica:
  • In Time Tangled Island, Edmund Hillary loses his goggles while on Mt. Everest thanks to the time screw-up.
    You'd Expect: Edmund Hillary, Tenzing Norgay, and the rest of the hiking crew to have brought an extra pair in case goggles get misplaced, dropped, and/or broken.
    Instead: They did not come with extra spare goggles.
    The Result: Hillary losing his goggles led to the hiking crew giving up, which led to nobody surmounting Mt. Everest, which ends up to be one of the catalysts for the Bad Future.
  • In Mythology Island, Athena warns the player to not trust Zeus and his intentions with sending you on the quest.
    You'd Expect: Athena, being the Guile Hero she usually is, to leave hints through her olives to dissuade the player from falling into the plan.
    Instead: Athena does no such thing, instead indirectly helps the player advance in the quest through the olives.
    The Result: Zeus is successful in his scheme, and all Athena does is rib you for helping him after you completed what he wanted.
    For Added Stupidity Points: Athena is the Goddess of Wisdom, for crying out loud!
  • In Super Villain Island, you're tasked with retrieving the four totems from the villains' dreams to hopefully turn them into redeemed individuals once they are broken.
    You'd Expect: The player to break the totems once retrieving them.
    Instead: The player culminates all four without laying a finger on them, fork them all over to Dr. Jupiter at once and fall into his plan.
    The Result: During the final battle, the player has to destroy the four totems while fighting Zeus to depower him.
• Postal 2 has the "Pick Up Steaks" errand on Thursday. The Postal Dude goes to a meat shop to pick up said steaks, except that the shop is actually run by cannibals.
  You'd Expect: That the cannibalistic butchers would have someone at the counter, and hopefully sell non-human meat, as to not cause suspicion. Even the most immoral locations in Paradise have some people stationed to serve people or to at least not feel empty.
  Instead: There's no one at the counter, leaving the Postal Dude confused as to why no one is there nor anyone is answering his requests.
  As a result: The Postal Dude goes into the back room to investigate, revealing how the cannibalistic butchers make their meat. The butchers (potentially, and most likely) then get slaughtered as the Dude fights his way to get non-human steaks.
• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within:
  • The Empress of Time gets an amazing stroke of good luck when the Prince walks in on Shahdee about to assassinate her, rescues her, and promptly mistakes her for one of her own servants.
    You'd Expect: Her to take advantage of this by sticking a knife in the Prince's back when he's not looking.
    Instead: She tries to kill him with ineffectual booby traps and minions.
  • At the end of the game, the Prince has the Empress cornered in the present. The Prince knows that killing the Empress will cause her remains to become the Sands of Time, and doing this in the present day will prevent him from releasing them in Azad 7 years ago and save him from his fate, but he does not want to kill the Empress and repeatedly tries to get her to stand down. The Empress herself knows all of the above as well.
    You'd Expect: The Empress to sheathe her swords, since if they do not fight, the Empress will not die, which is obviously good for her, and the Sands of Time will never be made, also preventing the Prince from releasing them in Azad, which completes the Prince's quest.
    Instead: The Empress continues to attack the Prince, and he is forced to kill her in the Bad Ending; she is only saved by the Dahaka in the Good Ending.
• [PROTOTYPE 2] has James Heller learn that his daughter, Amaya, is alive and well. After defeating Alex Mercer, he opens the bank vault to where she and Dana are being held by Alex.
  You'd Expect: Knowing fully well his daughter might be scared if she sees his arms resembling the monster who kidnapped her before the final fight, for him to turn his Tendril arms back to normal before entering to get the two out of vault.
  Instead: He enters the vault with his Tendril arms still there before turning them back to normal, resulting in Amaya being scared of him. What an idiot, indeed.
  Luckily: Just as Heller is leaving her and Dana after the rescue, Amaya gets over this fear and approaches him.
  • Alex Mercer has decided to virally transmogrify humanity, by planting sleeper agents in Blackwatch and Gentek to sabotage their work to suit his purpose. By the time of the game, the majority of Blackwatch's command structure is secretly working for him.
    You'd Expect: Him to lay low, since his victory is assured since nearly everybody involved with Whitelight is one of his Evolved.
    Instead: He infects a random marine who hates him, then tells the random marine to raise Hell. Possibly excusable because of a Hive Mind control he has over infected, but...
  • Shortly thereafter, the angry marine, Heller, kills and consumes Koenig, the head of Gentek's research and one of the key evolved in Alex's plan. Alex mentions how Heller is fucking up his plan and he should kill him.
    You'd Expect: Alex to try to kill Heller immediately, since Heller has absorbed Koenig's memories and knows Mercer's plans are very bad.
    Instead: He lets Heller go after a flimsy attempt at deflecting the issue. Heller promptly eats Mercer's second-in-command and all of the Evolved involved in the Whitelight program, and successfully stops Mercer's plans. After consuming all of those Evolved, Heller's too powerful for Alex to kill easily...
    You'd Expect: Alex to immediately focus all his attention on killing Heller, who A) wants Mercer dead, and B) is one of the very few things that can make Mercer dead.
    Instead: Mercer continues to sit on his ass, periodically sending out small groups of Evolved to get eaten by Heller, attempts to make Heller even madder by kidnapping his daughter, and gets eaten.
• The Quiet Man: The flashback that finally reveals the full context of Lorraine's death just makes everyone look dumb. Dane and his mother walk around a corner and see Taye in plain view pointing a gun at Isaac.
  You'd expect: Dane would at least react in shock or horror, and Lorraine would try to get her kid out of there.
  Instead: Dane smiles and waves at his friend. Lorraine does nothing. This even ends up as a distraction to Taye which Isaac takes advantage of. Dane and his mother continue to react in no particular fashion for the next several moments until the gun accidentally goes off. It's only then that Dane reacts in a way that implies he realizes that guns are dangerous, while his mother continues to give off a reaction that's more or less Dull Surprise.
• Rainbow Six: Vegas: Gabriel Nowak is the new guy, who somehow makes it onto the world's foremost Commando team. During his first mission, he ignores orders, gets a hostage negotiator killed, and acts petty about it when called out.
  You'd Expect: That such a loose cannon and ineffective operator would be booted from the team immediately.
  Instead: He's still a part of your squad and still disobeys orders five years later. This allows him to use Rainbow's contacts and weaponry in setting up his massive scheme which it takes you two games to undo.
  • The vast majority of the terrorists involved in the attack on Las Vegas are mercenaries, as opposed to people with any real ideological motivation. At some point, they would have been presented with a plan to attack a major city in the United States of America, the most powerful nation in the world in terms of military might, with a history of hunting terrorists to the ends of the Earth. In addition, they live in the Clancyverse, where similar complex terrorist plots against the U.S have ended very, very badly for those involved.
    You'd Expect: That they would tell the organizers of the plot where they can put their money and walk away to take on something a bit less insane.
    Instead: They get enough people to agree to it that eventually hundreds of mercenaries become terrorists-for-hire. Most of these guys then later realize just how screwed they are and attempt to react accordingly. Then it turns out most of them were duped into being the distraction force for stealing a super weapon.
• Ratchet & Clank (2002):
  • In Umbris, Ratchet and Clank pass Qwark's course, and are told to step onto a ring. But Ratchet knows that something isn't right.
    You'd Expect: That Clank would also be suspicious about the ring over a lava pit, and ask Qwark if the ring will trigger one final test for them. Or, alternately, realize that Qwark is trying to kill them, and decides to flee.
    Instead: Clank pulls Ratchet to the ring, causing Qwark to drop them into the pit and send a Blargian Snagglebeast to kill them while he flees. This also causes Ratchet and Clank to hate each other, and the former becoming very obsessed in killing Qwark.
  • Later on, a Videobot shows the Gemlik Base, above an orbit for Planet Oltanis, preparing for an unprovoked attack. Clank suggests that they invade the base to find Drek, while Ratchet counters that by suggesting that they invade the base to find Qwark.
    You'd Expect: That they Take a Third Option and defend the planet from the Blargian invasion.
    Instead: They board the base. But not without an argument other something they both agree on. As a result, most of Oltanis is in ruins by the time they finally reach it, but at least they're on good terms again by the time they reach it.
• Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters: It appears that Clank has taken several levels in dumbass in the High Impact Games canon.
  • First of all, Qwark reveals that he found his entire family tree on a site called "Faux Family.com", which Clank finds odd.
    You'd Expect: That Clank tell Qwark that the website might be a fraud because of it's very suspicious name, or at least warn him that the site might not be 100% accurate.
    Instead: He gets noticeably annoyed and says nothing, allowing Qwark to reunite with who he thinks is his father. It bites them hard.
  • Second is when the little girl begins to speak in the voice of an adult woman, commenting about her "friends". Ratchet is very shocked at this.
    You'd Expect: Clank to realize that the girl is actually allied with their enemies, and warns Ratchet that they must flee before something happens.
    Instead: He dismisses Ratchet's shock, and starts teaching Luna to talk properly. She zaps him unconscious, and both heroes are captured.
    As a bonus: Ratchet just grabs an unconscious Clank and sits there in despair instead of, say, shooting "Luna's" head off and making a run for his ship to save Clank and alert the authorities on a probable terrorist organization.
  • And finally, after destroying the "Luna" puppet that had been antagonizing them for most of the game, Clank suggests that they get the coordinates for the final planet from the puppet's database by hacking into it. Ratchet suspects that the technomites have a security program that could harm potential hackers.
    You'd Expect: That Ratchet and Clank take "Luna" to Metropolis to have Big Al hack it for them, given Al would have a better chance of getting the coordinates with all his gadgets. Plus he did say in Up Your Arsenal that he wanted a challenge for his skills.
    Instead: Clank decides to hack Luna himself. As expected, a security program inside it causes him to malfunction.
• Reader Rabbit: Math 6-9:
  • Reader has agreed to participate in a yacht race with his friend Sam. He quickly realizes that the boat they'll be using doesn't look seaworthy, and seconds into the race Sam mentions that he will "figure out" how to steer it.
    You'd Expect: For Reader to jump off the boat and swim back to the dock, which is mere metres away.
    Instead: He stays onboard, with a 'captain' who clearly doesn't know anything about sailing or the boat they're on. Cut to shipwreck.
• Darius Mason is a dolt in Red Faction: Armageddon. What he does with Kara after their vehicle breaks down though truly takes the cake as the most infuriatingly stupid thing to ever happen in the Red Faction series.
  You'd Expect: Their Spider Walker broke down right smack in the middle of bug territory. Thus, you would think the two would have fixed the problem as fast as they could so they could get on their way before company comes. (beat) You would, wouldn't you?
  Instead: While taking their time repairing the machine, the two decide to get Strangled by the Red String and make out in the middle of a Martian wasteland. Next thing you see, dozens of monsters come after them and just as the weakest alien in the game is about to kill Darius, Kara steps in and gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.
  Even Worse: All of the events in the game could've been avoided if Darius just fixed the terraformer with his nanoforge after Adam Hale blew it up. This makes the deaths of Kara, as well as countless of others, all frustratingly pointless, so he deserves the guilt that will haunt him for the rest of his life. Get a clue, Darius. GET A FUCKING CLUE.
• Return to Krondor manages to avert this trope for the most part. However, there is one glaring instance of this trope popping up at the end of the game. William is magically carried to Widow's Point by Sidi, gets to fight Bear and finally kill him. William reunites with the other four player characters and take the Tear of the Gods back to Krondor. Sidi is the guy Bear worked for and Sidi is responsible for all sorts of trouble the protagonists went through.
  You'd Expect: William bring up Sidi's name, which will cause a reaction to the other four and confront Sidi.
  Instead: The five characters go back to Krondor, seem to forget all about Sidi, and William never brings up the fact that Sidi helped him bring down Bear.
• In Ride to Hell: Retribution, Jake needs to get past an electric fence. To do this, he first decides to murder a group of truckers and steal their huge truck.
  You'd Expect: Him to just plough through the fence with the truck, and continue on his way. Or better yet, he could simply short the system, cut a few wires, or attempt to find a different entrance; he wouldn't even need to murder the innocent truckers this way. Hell, there's a fair number of trees near the fence that are taller than the fence Jake could easily climb!
  Instead: He drives the truck to a power plant, murdering several policemen along the way, kills everyone inside the plant, then blows up the fuel tanker attached to the truck, in order to invoke Stuff Blowing Up within the plant. He dives into a river to escape the explosions, and this gets him past the fence. Somehow.
  • Prior to the events of the game, Jake's father, William "Toledo" Conway is murdered by the Big Bad, Caesar. Caesar isn't satisfied with just the man himself and goes after his children.
    You'd Expect: Caesar to simply murder the rest of the Conway family, or just leave them be. As the Devil's hand operates in the same town that Mikey, Jake, and Mac live in, this should be easy.
    Instead: He... does nothing for twenty years. Colt's reaction to Mikey wearing Toledo's jacket implies that the Devil's Hand were clueless to where William's children had gone to despite the Conways not being in hiding in any way, which defies all logic and sanity. Also, Jake is apparently unaware of his own father's demise; did Mac really think a hardened killer who saw his brother die in front of him wouldn't be able to handle the news of a family member dying decades ago? While Mack didn't know for a fact that William had died, surely the fact that he hadn't heard from him in twenty years would've tipped him off that things didn't end well for him.
  • Near the end of the game, Jake decides to go after Pretty Boy and knows where he is.
    You'd Expect: That he just goes ahead and infiltrate his compound, killing anyone who gets in his way. If Pretty Boy gets away, then he can simply initiate a bike chase with him.
    Instead: Par Jake's Complexity Addiction, he wins a couple of races for Brandy, infiltrates a mine killing anyone who gets in his way, interrogate one of them to get Orson's location for the bike killing any police who gets in his way. Then the bike gets fitted with C4, gives it to Brandy and then when she gives it to Pretty Boy's compound, he shoots the bike to explode which attracts Pretty Boy's attention and begins another bike chase an act that could have been made simpler if he just trigger a warning shot instead of wasting so much time doing the things as described before.
• Root Letter: In the "Cursed Letter" route, Yukari Ishigami believes that killing Max will dispel the titular curse, and attempts to stab him, only to nearly fall off a cliff and be saved by Max grabbing her.
  You'd Expect: Her to wait until Max pulls her up on safe ground, then stab him.
  Instead: She tries to stab Max as he is pulling her up, predictably causing him to let go and her to plunge to her doom. Even if she managed to hit him, it would have only killed them both.
• In RosenkreuzStilette, Tia has defeated Iris in the final battle. Iris ponders why she'd lose to a single mage fighting by herself, and Tia reminds her that she wasn't actually fighting by herself; everyone was cheering her on. It's because Iris couldn't believe in others nor love her fellow man that she lost. Tia then tells Iris to give up.
  You'd Expect: Iris would agree to surrender and then stop her evil deeds and change her ways- or at least pretend to and regroup later.
  Instead: She laughs and mocks Tia for having let her guard down, and invokes the power of her tiara, activating the self-destruct mechanism of her palace in an attempt to crush Tia with it, and escapes in her capsule. Unknown to her, however, Tia and Lilli are saved by Talos, and they happily reunite with their friends and colleagues from RKS.
• Ryse: Son of Rome: Two moments of this.
  • After rescuing General Commodus from being burnt alive in a wicker man, Marius and Vitallion return to York where King Oswald and Boudica are being held prisoner, in an attempt to negotiate peace terms with the Britons. King Oswald is a Reasonable Authority Figure, and asks Commodus only that his people be treated as equals by the Romans.
    You'd Expect: Commodus to realize that if he does anything to anger the Britons any further, he'll ruin any chances of Rome and Britannia ever making peace, and countless innocents will suffer in the crossfire. Therefore, the wisest decision would be to agree to a peace treaty and leave the Britons be. Lest we forget, Commodus tried subjugating the Britons at the start of the game, and he ended up being captured and sent north of the wall to be a Human Sacrifice for the Picts.
    Instead: Commodus opens his arms to embrace Oswald... and then stabs him to death, repeatedly, for revolting against him in the first place, right in front of a crowd of Britons and Oswald's formidable warrior daughter.
    Even Worse: He holds out the dagger that he stabs Oswald with, enabling Marius to recognize Nero's seal on the dagger's hilt and recognize it as the same weapon that his family was killed with. And then he has the sheer audacity to tell the Britons that he and his father Nero are gods and the Britons must kneel before them as they would before the gods.
    The Result: Not only do the Britons instigate a murderous riot against every Roman in York (which Commodus only escapes by seizing the imperial warship and getting out of dodge like the Dirty Coward he is), but Boudica gathers her army and attacks Rome directly to avenge her father. Also, thanks to Marius realizing that Nero was behind his family's murder all along, he too swears revenge, and adopts the guise of Damocles to follow Commodus back to Rome and kill him and the rest of his family one by one. Awesome work, Commodus!
  • By the end of the game, Marius has killed both Basilius and Commodus, slain Boudica and reduced the barbarians to a Decapitated Army, and now he and Nero are alone together in the Emperor's bolt hole, where Marius has made it pretty clear that he wants Revenge on Nero for murdering his family, betraying his legion, and sabotaging their attempts to make peace with the Britons. Nero, not being too proud to beg, pleads with Marius to remember the Oracle stated that Nero can only die by his own sword, and asks for Marius to give him his dagger so that he can die like an emperor even if he never lived like one, because if Marius kills Nero himself, he'll anger the Gods.
    You'd Expect: Marius to bluntly state that the Gods are already angered by Nero's atrocities and Kill Him Already!. Admittedly, the historical Nero did think it was Better to Die than Be Killed, but judging by the countless artistic licenses this game has already taken, this version of Nero is clearly too cowardly to do that, and if Marius kills him now, he'll be able to install a benevolent Senate to undo all the depravities that Nero has carried out. Sure, Marius was willing to show mercy to Boudica before facing Nero, but Boudica was an Anti-Villain who was a victim of Nero's power plays just like Marius himself. Marius respected her in a way he doesn't respect Nero.
    Instead: Marius decides, against his better judgement, to give Nero his dagger and trust that the Emperor will kill himself as he promises.
    The Result: Nero, upon hearing his Praetorian Guard arriving to confront Marius outside, legs it to hide in some other part of his palace, and after Marius follows him and gets distracted by Aquilo, Nero sneaks up and stabs him In the Back, giving Marius a lethal wound.
    Fortunately: Marius stays alive long enough through sheer willpower to tackle Nero over the edge of a platform overlooking the gigantic marble statue of Nero himself. Nero lands on the upraised sword of his own statue and ends up Impaled with Extreme Prejudice, and once he dies, Rome is restored to its former glory yet again.
• The Saints Row series:
  • The Boss of the Third Street Saints is a notorious gang leader, criminal, all-around badass, and will not stop his/her rampages until his/her enemies are dead.
    You'd Expect: That the other gangs/organizations will do their best to appease to the Boss, or otherwise not give the Boss any reason to focus all his/her rage directly on them.
    Instead: They taunt or threaten the Boss, kidnap and torture/kill his/her friends and send mooks out to kill him/her routinely. The result is what you would expect.
  • An example would be Maero from Saints Row 2, who proposes an alliance between the Brotherhood and the Saints.
    You'd Expect: That he would offer to split Stillwater 50/50, or argue his case better in a polite way. The Boss can approach him at any point in the game once the Saints are reformed, but at the very least, his/her achievements include turning the Saints from a minor gang into one that ruled the entire city.
    Instead: He expects the Boss to be grateful when offered 20% of the city once the Brotherhood have taken over everything, openly regards him/her as a washed-up gangbanger, and dismisses him/her while not doing anything.
    Even worse: He ignored Jessica's warnings that the Saints would retaliate, the result leading to some ugly deaths.
  • The first of those deaths is the Saints' rookie lieutenant, Carlos, carried out by Jessica.
    You'd Think: That this person would carry out this murder quietly without alerting the Saints, and then take advantage of the fact that Brotherhood territory includes the local airport and take the next plane the hell out of Stilwater before they find out.
    Instead: They decide to be cute and make taunting phone calls to the Boss's cell phone about what they're doing, and then stay in Stilwater and go about Brotherhood business like nothing was wrong. Jessica dies in the next mission in one of the franchise's most brutal murders to date.
  • Also from the second game, Shogo Akuji interrupts Aisha's funeral to try and kill the Saints. Gat is in no mood to fight and offers him a chance to walk away and come back another time.
    You'd Expect: That the attacker would take it, if not for being wise about a fight he can't win, then at least out of Due to the Dead. Or if not even that, then at very least caution about such an Out-of-Character Moment from a premier Blood Knight like Gat who normally never passes up a chance to fight.
    Instead: He goes ahead and attacks, and the Boss and Gat pay him back with one Hell of a Laser Guided Karmic Death.
  • The Sons of Samedi have lost most of their hideouts and drug labs in Stilwater to the Saints, along with hundreds of mooks and DJ Veteran Child, the guy responsible for the gang's marketing and distribution. What once was a thriving drug cartel is now in shambles and clinging to the few neighborhoods the Saints haven't hit, yet.
    You'd Expect: That The Dragon, Mr. Sunshine, would take reports of the Sons of Samedi losing property left and right to just one Saint as evidence that his gang is up against an enemy bigger, stronger, and meaner than they are. Going off of that, he'd figure out how to bring in some heavies or use actual tactics to reclaim some of the gang's lost business without the Saints retaliating.
    Instead: Sunshine sends the Samedi's junkie customers to steal the drugs back from the Saints, motivating them with the promise to let them keep whatever they steal if they survive.
    Result: The Samedi's primary revenue stream takes one final, fatal blow as hundreds of their paying customers throw themselves to their deaths like lemmings. The Boss pumps the location of Sunshine's hideout from one of the junkies, kills Sunshine along with another hundred-or-more Samedi, and then claims the hideout for the Saints. Now all of the Sons of Samedi lieutenants are dead, leaving the Saints free to track down and kill their leader to stamp them out for good.
  • In the third game: Deckers boss Matt Miller is able to overhear a conversation between Kinzie, Pierce and the Boss through Kinzie's computer. Through this connection, which the Saints are unaware of, he learns of a powerful supercomputer that S.T.A.G. has in their possession, and sends his mooks to retrieve it for the Deckers.
    You'd Expect: Matt to not reveal to the Saints that he just overheard their conversation, so that his mooks can retrieve the supercomputer in peace, and so that he can continue to use this source of information.
    Instead: He smugly reveals himself so that he can go "Nice Job Breaking It, Hero" to Kinzie. The Saints realise that Matt is about to take the computer, and are subsequently able to steal it from him, killing several Deckers mooks in the process. Said supercomputer is later used to bring the Deckers down for good.
  • When Phillipe Loren is killed, Killbane uses his muscle to assume control of the Syndicate despite the DeWynter twins being better suited to run it, as they have Masters degrees in economics and were Loren's personal assistants for many years.
    You'd Expect: The sisters to cooperate with Killbane since he's huge, has Super-Strength, and is known to assault or kill any who piss him off; while finding a way to get Killbane out of the picture that doesn't tip him off about their intentions, such as feeding info to the Saints. Which Viola eventually does do, but only after the result of this What an Idiot moment.
    Instead: Kiki DeWynter presses Killbane's Berserk Button every chance she gets (calling him by his real name) as an act of defiance, then announces to him that she and Viola are quitting the gang.
    As a Result:Killbane grabs Kiki by the back of the neck, lifts her into the air and breaks her neck, killing her instantly.
  • Also, that game's penultimate mission. STAG second-in-command Kia rigs the Steelport Monument to blow up while leaving Shaundi and Viola there to be killed in the blast, in order to frame the Saints for the monument's destruction and justify STAG taking harsher measures against them.
    You'd Expect: Kia to not let anyone, especially the Boss, know about her plan.
    Instead: For no apparent reason, she calls the boss and explains her entire plan, thus alerting the Saints to what's going on. Granted, Kinzie discovering the scheme on her own meant that Kia keeping her mouth shut might not have helped, but that doesn't justify her boneheaded decision in the first place.
    Result: In the game's canonical ending, the Boss launches an attack on the monument, kills Kia and several other STAG personnel and prevents the monument from being destroyed, thus leading to the Saints being regarded as heroes, and STAG being forced to leave the Saints alone: the exact opposite of Kia's intended outcome.
  • Saints Row IV. In the mission to save Johnny Gat from his own hellish simulation, Matt and Kinzie has some reservations about this, especially Matt Miller.
    You'd Expect: Matt to keep his mouth shut, or to at least address the problem in a way that doesn't provoke the Boss. Keep in mind that by this time, Matt should know full well just what happens when you piss the Boss off.
    Instead: Matt abruptly says, "Saving Gat is a terrible idea!!"
    Result: The Boss promptly punches him out and proceeds to beat the crap out of him. It's only through the intervention of the Saints and a What the Hell, Hero? speech from Kinzie that prevents Matt from suffering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
• Sam & Max Series:
  • In the season 2 episode Ice Station Santa, One of Santa's elves gets possessed by a demon that was sent to him from Lower Manitoba and Santa has instructions for an exorcism to remove the demon.
    You'd Expect: Santa would follow the directions and do the exorcism himself to free the possessed elf without having to cause too much panic.
    Instead: Santa starts shooting at all of the elves and hides in his office which causes everybody to think he's possessed.
    Then: Sam & Max enter his office through his chimney while trying to figure out how to break the possession.
    You'd Expect: Santa would let the two of them know that he isn't the one possessed and give them all the details on what they have to do.
    Instead: He shoots at them like everybody else forcing them to continue the process after managing to take the exorcism instructions from under him.
    Then: After Sam & Max release the demon from the elf (while still thinking it was Santa who was possessed), Santa asks if they remembered to read the back of the instructions even though he never talked to them about it before and for that matter, shot at them if they bothered to approach the spirits needed to complete the ritual. Santa is then chased by the demon until Sam & Max use the spirits of Christmas to defeat the demon and turn it into Jello.
    You'd Expect: Santa would either lock the Jello up, throw it in the trash, or some other means of getting rid of it so that the demon can't hurt anybody else.
    Instead: He eats the jello.
    Result: Santa really does get possessed by the demon, and Sam & Max are forced to trap him in a box and send him to hell.
• Sherlock Holmes Versus Arsène Lupin. Pretty soon in the adventure, Watson gets followed by a journalist with a French-sounding name.
  You'd Expect: Watson to tell Holmes, or at least take five seconds to figure out the journalist's name, which he has on a business card, is an anagram of Arsene Lupin, French master of disguise who's used an anagram as a name all of five minutes before you meet this journalist.
  Instead: Watson plays the perfect Unwitting Pawn and lets Lupin steal the Rosetta stone.
• Shadow of Destiny is practically What an Idiot: The Game:
  • Eike Kusch is killed quite often. After each death, he is sent back in time by the Homunculus to figure out how he died and how he can avoid it.
    You'd Expect: Eike would use the more logical solutions to avoid the events that killed him, such as simply moving somewhere else to avoid being hit by a car or not eating at the restaurant to avoid food poisoning.
    Instead: Eike always chooses the most convoluted solution to solve his problems. The bit with the hit and run? Goes back in time by several decades to inspire a fledgling movie producer to make a different movie so that the movie poster in the present time is different, which somehow causes the hit and run event to not happen. The food poisoning incident? Ike goes back to the 1500s to create an antidote for that poison (since said poison also came from that era). Ike does more similarly idiotic things throughout the game, but there is simply too many to list.
  • Mr. Eckhart tells Eike that his daughter had gone missing when she was a baby. Later on in the story, an anonymous caller contacts Eckhart telling him that he knows where his child is and he would give him more information if he kills Eike.
    You'd Expect: Eckhart would go to the police so they could investigate the caller.
    Instead: Eckhart drops a flower pot out his window and it hits Eike on the head, killing him. After Ike goes back in time to undo the event, he figures out that it was Eckhart that threw the pot. Eckhart admits the deed and apologizes for trying to kill Eike while also saying that he felt like he had no other choice but to believe the caller.
• Shadow of the Colossus: A young man by the name of Wander is looking for a way to bring his girlfriend back from the dead. To that end, he carts her corpse over hill and dale to an ancient, crumbling shrine residing in a place with the cheerful name of the Forbidden Land. Upon noticing the sword in his hand, the ancient dual-voiced god of the temple, named Dormin, speaks up and offers to make a deal with Wander—kill sixteen colossi and Mono will be revived. He also warns Wander that the price he pays "may be heavy indeed."
  You'd Expect: Wander to remember that he's speaking to a disembodied voice that was apparently so evil that a whole chunk of land was deemed forbidden just to keep it sealed away, and demand to know what this price might be. Upon hearing the cost, he would admit to himself that maybe there are some things out there worth more than your own happiness, turn around and go home to give Mono a decent burial and then move on with his life.
  Instead: Wander brushes off this doom-laden remark with a dismissive "It doesn't matter." He then goes on to slaughter sixteen magnificent and mostly harmless colossi, gets his horse nearly killed and ends up becoming Dormin's next vessel. He was only stopped by the timely arrival of the man who'd been hunting him down.
• Shadowrun: Dragonfall: A team of shadowrunners are sent into a SCHERING Pharma AG lab to steal some valuable data. They botch the run, and all but one of them dies. The team’s decker, Thorvald Enstad, is being held in the building for questioning. The client that hired them tasks you and your team with killing him before the SCHERING corporation can pump any secrets out of him. It takes Thorvald no time at all to realize he’s not being rescued and start fast-talking for his life. If you decide to take the diplomatic route this mission, you accept a bribe equal to what you were being paid for the job plus a sweet weapon in exchange for escorting Thorvald to safety.
  You’d Think: That, being a shadowrunner himself, Thorvald would understand the importance of keeping his damn mouth shut and not doing anything to give the team of runners he just sweet-talked into not killing him a reason to kill him.
  Instead: Once you get to the lower levels, he cracks up at the eviscerated corpses that had your team Squicked on their way to him, and then cackles at length about hacking the robotic lab equipment to slowly butcher the innocent lab techs those corpses used to be while they were still alive. Cue your entire team demanding a bullet in his head, right before a representative from your client shows up with armed bodyguards to confirm the hit. It’s on you to decide to pull the trigger on Thorvald.
• Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: At the end, the day is saved, Ammo Baron's been run out of Scuttle Town, and all is back to normal.
  You'd Think: The citizens of Scuttle Town would impeach Mayor Scuttlebutt from office immediately upon having their town restored. The Mayor kicked off the plot of the game by selling Scuttle Town to a local warlord intent on taking over Sequin Land, and then using the money to buy chocolates so he couldn't buy it back (and not even good chocolates!). So it's his fault that Scuttle Town nearly got scuttled and turned into a firebase to attack the Sequin Land Palace from. Not only that, but his selling Ammo Baron the town gave Ammo Baron legal grounds to fire Shantae and press assault charges against her, which very nearly left Sequin Land with no one capable of saving it when a much bigger threat presented itself.
  Instead: They let him have his old office back. He fires Shantae again in the next game, and the entire town almost loses their memories to the replacement he hired.
  • Also from Pirate's Curse, The Pirate Master, Risky Boots's old master, has her at his mercy. However, she has tasked Shantae with collecting the dark magic scattered around the islands and she is on her way to confront him. Risky has also (whether by toture or of her own free will is never stated) told him that said dark magic is actually Shantae's former magic.
    You'd Expect: Given that she mutinied on him in the past, The Pirate Master to possibly have a backup plan should that be true.
    Instead: He scoffs at this and baits Shantae into releasing the magic in a Hostage for MacGuffin plot.
    The Result: Shantae gets her magic back, kicks his ass and sends The Pirate Master back to his grave, possibly for good this time.
  • Shantae and the Seven Sirens: Before the events of the game, Risky Boots made a deal with the Empress Siren. Risky would give her five half-genies for her to restore her powers. In exchange, Risky gets the sirens' airship. Come the festival, there are a total of six supposed half-genies on stage.
    You'd Expect: The Empress Siren to have all six grabbed and drained. Even if Risky had been downplaying Shantae's power level and the deal was only for five, an extra drop of power is always helpful.
    Instead: Only five are grabbed, with Shantae being the only one left.
    Result: Shantae explores the island, frees the other half genies and is able to confront and defeat the Empress Siren. Granted, there was also the factor of Rottytops pretending to be a half genie and giving her a tainted magic, but that could have been possibly offset had she grabbed Shantae with the others in the first place.

• Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux: Canon Foreigner Alex comes from one of three possible Bad Futures, depending on what route you pick. In the Neutral route, your actions stop the Schwarzwelt for the time being, but humanity grows complacent and is unable to stop the Schwarzwelt when it comes back for round two. Alex, naturally, has traveled back in time to stop this.
  You'd Expect: For her to simply get in contact with the Schwarzwelt Investigation Team and explain the situation, and try to come up with a better solution.
  Instead: She tries to kill the man single-handedly responsible for stopping the first Schwarzwelt. Repeatedly. She completely fails to realize that wasting you will only speed up the inevitable, and only thinks to try communication after you've kicked her ass at least twice and saved her ass from Zeus.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV:
  • Tayama is the Yakuza boss who is in charge of almost all of postapocalyptic Tokyo. He maintains his hold over Tokyo by manufacturing Reds, which are pills that demons eat instead of humans. Those Reds are made out of human brains. People's brains are harvested en masse inside of a large facility. Even children are raised there as human chattel. He strongarms the protagonists into killing his most powerful rivals with a hostage, but soon finds them in the plant that manufactures Reds, completely incapacitated due to hallucinogenic gases.
    You'd Expect: Tayama would have had them killed right then and there for discovering the secret.
    Instead: He brings them back to his office, without even taking their weapons, and gives them a speech about how it's a necessary evil. Even after all four protagonists make it clear how disgusted they are with him, he lets them go, trusting them to kill his rival.
    The Result: The protagonists raid the other facility that gives him power over Tokyo (a power plant) for unrelated reasons, kill him, and destroy his organization's power base.
  • Also with Tayama, the Reds are very much a temporary stopgap, which the game repeatedly reminds you.
    You'd Expect: Tayama, who is aware of the dwindling supply of Reds, to try and find any measure of finding peace with the demons. He's fully aware that this can't go on forever, and that prior human attempts to forge peace have failed, meaning he has to come up with something new. He could even ask the demons how that could be achieved, since they're on friendly terms.
    Instead: He doesn't even acknowledge the idea that it's a stopgap rather than an actual solution.
• Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse:
  • The Heroic Mime Nanashi, the heroine Asahi, and their mentors all go on a mission to kill weak demons for food. Their hunting ground is literally right outside the gates of their hometown. A wandering horde of powerful demons turn up and kill everyone except for Asashi. Asahi only survives because Nanashi made a Deal with the Devil to come back to life with increased power. Asahi, Plucky Girl that she is, quickly recovers from the tragedy and takes it upon herself to become a real hunter to bear the duty of her teachers. She decides that the only way to be seen as a real hunter is to use her teacher's old demon summoning tool (a smartphone) to recruit and train demons to fight for her.
    You'd Expect: Asahi would find another hunter that is already going out on a food hunting expedition, and persuade them to take her along so that she can recruit demons. Or otherwise find someone who wouldn't see taking her along as a burden.
    Instead: Asahi decides to leave out the back entrance, without telling anyone except for the equally inexperienced Nanashi, whom she expects to have the same sentiment. The back alleyways are just like the park her teachers died in, in that there are demons everywhere and no guarantee that there won't be one she can't handle. And no backup except for a fellow apprentice. Nanashi cannot stop her.
  • Right after recruiting a bunch of level 5 at maximum demons (in a game where they can go up to 99), Asahi gets a distress message from her phone. It's not a universal broadcast message; it was meant for her veteran deceased teacher. A group of demon hunters are trapped inside a location infamous for its danger.
    You'd Expect: Asahi would run back to town, since she has to pass through it anyways to get to the hunters, tell the other hunters about the message, and leave it to them.
    Instead: Asahi says that she's a real hunter with real demons, and decides that there's no time to get help. So she and Nanashi run to the location without telling anyone else. Again, Nanashi cannot tell anyone about the endangered comrades, despite the danger they put themselves in and the fact that a pair of barely-experienced hunters would not be the help the hunters need. While Nanashi makes short work of one demon, its boss turns up (level 72 where all the recruitable demons are level 7, tops), and would have killed the protagonists, if the Previous Player-Character Cameo hadn't saved them.
• Shinrai: Broken Beyond Despair: At the end of the game, it's revealed that Hiro tried to ask Kamen out while he was already in a relationship with Momoko.
  You'd Expect: That even if Hiro didn't know that Kamen is a lesbian, he'd realize that she'd have more than a few issues with him A)being willing to cheat on his girlfriend, and B)callously hurting her best friend.
  Instead: He asks her out and continues pursuing her despite her obvious disgust. He was only saved by the fact that Momoko refused to believe Kamen, but he pushed his luck too far when he sent messages to Kamen's cell phone, and when Momoko read them, it was the last straw that drove her to murder him.
• Sid Meier's Pirates!:
  • Any time the player is looking for family members and has Baron Raymundo at their mercy.
    You'd Expect: The player character to take Raymundo prisoner and force him to tell them the exact location of a family member.
    Instead: He's content with getting part of a map showing where to find them, and catching Raymundo again months later and repeating the process.
  • Sometimes, pirates that you've captured will escape from your ship.
    You'd Expect: Said pirate to keep a low profile away from you.
    Instead: They're stupid enough to track you down, therefore giving you the option to capture them again.
• Near the end of Silent Hill 2, James is confronted by Eddie, an overweight and mentally disturbed man who's been mocked by his peers for his entire life. Eddie is surrounded by corpses, wielding a revolver, and delivering a monologue about how everyone is made equal in death, including the fact that he's going to murder the next person who so much as looks at him funny. Eddie then says a friendly 'goodbye' to James and turns around to leave the room.
  You'd Expect James to say nothing about the crazy, bid Eddie a fond farewell and get the hell out of there.
  Instead, James asks Eddie if he's gone nuts. Eddie responds about as well as you'd expect.
• Silver Chaos: Pam is much stronger than humans, but he still lets his master, a weak-looking old man enslave, beat and rape him.
• In The Simpsons Hit & Run, Bart finds a fully-working laser gun to use as proof to Krusty that Kang and Kodos are planning to make cola-crazed citizens destroy each other.
  You'd Expect: Bart to take the laser gun straight to Krusty.
  Instead: Bart takes the laser gun to Principal Skinner, a person who cannot trust Bart with anything, who confiscates the gun from him because of Springfield Elementary's ban on laser guns despite being outside of school grounds.
• The Sims 4:
  • In the Strangerville game pack, your Sim can try to put bugs on MIB operatives.
    You'd Expect: that MIB operatives would be trained to not let strangers hug them so they don't get bugged.
    Instead: They hug your Sim like a first-day rookie.
    Result: This allows your Sim to plant the bug.
• SINoALICE: During the Act of Elimination, Aladdin and Rapunzel meet in the real world, but end up interested in each other and throw down their weapons. After deciding to be together (and Aladdin being Uncle Pennybags towards her), Aladdin says that 'they've come to a consensus' but due to the Gratuitous English on his end, Rapunzel mishears it as wanting to get married.
  You'd Expect: Aladdin to correct himself so that Rapunzel would understand.
  Result: In a fit of jealousy, the genie in the lamp kills Aladdin for it.
• In Skies of Arcadia, during the aerial battle for Yafutoma between the Armada and the Tenkou, the heroes attempt to, and succeed in, locating their captured ship. They attempt a boarding action, preparing to go side-to-side by a distance of meters with this airship, with a full crew of hostile soldiers.
  You'd Expect the Delphinus' new management to attempt evasive action, any evasive action or movement at all, or fire on the pirate ship as it makes itself a fat, slow and impossible to miss target by closing in.
  Instead the ship remains completely motionless in midair, obligingly allowing the air pirates to pull up, leap aboard, and presumably for the ship to fly off again without shooting at it once or trying to maneuver or follow the entire time. Way to go, guys. Way to go.
• In Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, the heroes need to locate all the Eternal Elemental Sources to rebuild the Core of Light to clear Skylands of the darkness Kaos has spread. One of these Sources, Tech, is in possession of Kaos' troll minions.
  You'd Expect: That the trolls would hold the source in captivity and guard it with their lives.
  Or: For them to give it to Kaos so he can guard it instead.
  Instead: The trolls use the Tech source for their army, and construct a big tank using it as the power source. It isn't a completely stupid idea, but they do risk losing the soure more this way.
  So You'd Then Expect: That the trolls would keep the tank in safety and out of reach from the Skylanders.
  Instead: They use the tank in their battle against the Skylanders. The Skylanders destroy the tank and gets their hands on the Tech source.
• Sleeping Dogs (2012): The entire Sun On Yee leadership. All of them have gathered together for Uncle Po's funeral. This comes after two attempts on Uncle Po's life and on both occasions they didn't have nearly enough protection available.
  You'd Expect: Them to bring their gang with them along with any VIPs whose deaths might force the Hong Kong police to take action.
  Instead: Only the top leaders and two or three regular members of the gang go. And they seem surprised when a rival gang shows up with assault rifles and grenade launchers. Really if it weren't for Lee the game would have pretty much ended right there.
• Snatcher: At one point, Gillian, Metal, and Random are exploring a base of the titular Snatchers, machines that look like robotic skeletons. They find a medical lab, which has a skeleton hanging from a nearby wall.
  You'd Expect: The three of them, who are all fairly experienced in dealing with Snatchers, to recognize that the thing hanging from a wall is at the very least suspicious, and go check it out more closely.
  Instead: They decide that it's just a skeletal model of the sort that you'd find in a hospital, and leave it behind. Predictably, it turns out to be a Snatcher, and proceeds to jump the trio shortly afterward. This is even worse in the later versions of the game, where the skeleton is clearly metallic to even the player.
• Sly Cooper:
  • In the third game, Sly and Bentley want to take out Don Octavio. They do this by having Bentley get into a singing contest (a painfully bad singing contest that is) against Octavio on top of a stage with a chandelier, while Sly tries to cut the chandelier's rope in order to drop it on Octavio and knock him out, leaving him wide open for the police to arrest. However, Carmelita ruins the whole plan by destroying the chandelier before it could fall on him, leading to Octavio attempting to flee by boat. After he crashes and destroys it, Sly tries to peacefully negotiate for Octavio to give up. Oh, and Murray's standing on a rooftop and noticed all of this!
    You'd expect: Murray to keep his mouth shut and let Sly and Bentley deal with Octavio before actually saying anything. He may not be fully aware of what's going on (as well as of Octavio's Berserk Button involving people's childish tastes in entertainment, like huge explosions), but still.
    Instead: He can't help but childishly gush over how "awesome" the destruction was. This presses Octavio's buttons, causing him to actually PUSH a button (which Sly tried to get him to give to them) that explodes an entire building, likely killing many innocent people. It also prompts Bentley to call Octavio a monster, which triggers the latter into kicking the former out of his wheelchair and forces Murray to make a decision between saving his friends and staying committed to his training. Nice going, Murray.
    Fortunately: Murray chooses the former and proceeds to beat up the lion for harming his friends, which allows Carmelita an easier time in arresting Octavio, getting the mafia boss out of the way.
  • At the end of the fourth game, Le Paradox is now hanging from his soon-to-be-destroyed blimp for dear life after Sly beats the crap out of him. In a moment of cowardice, he begs Sly to help him up, claiming "I do not wish to die!"
    You'd expect: Sly to ignore Le Paradox and let him fall. The guy is a completely irredeemable and insufferable Jerkass who wanted to wipe out Sly's entire family history for petty reasons, faked his royal ancestry, treated his minions like garbage, and just minutes earlier attempted to kill him and Carmelita by sending them to a "Time Tunnel". Letting him fall to his death may be cruel, but it's necessary cruelty considering the things he's done, and it gets him out of the way forever.
    Instead: Sly decides to pull him up anyway, intending to turn him over to the cops. Sure enough, Le Paradox proceeds to steal Sly's backpack containing his paragliders, intending to flee and leave Sly to die on the blimp. Fortunately, Le Paradox doesn't get very far away (he hits a plane that destroys the paraglider, causing him to fall into the ocean anyway, though he survives), but Sly is now left without a way to safely escape the blimp.
    End Result: The blimp explodes and although Sly isn't dead, he ends up trapped in Ancient Egypt without a known way to escape. And his friends can't even do ANYTHING to save him, because as pointed out by Bentley, they need to KNOW which time period he's even in to use the time machine. While Le Paradox gets karma and is sent to prison for life, it's Sly's stupidity and kindness that allowed Le Paradox to finally get rid of him in the first place, thus in a way, allowing him to squeeze out a significant victory over the Cooper Gang. It's just like what Clockwerk said back in the first game!
  Clockwerk: You sentimental fool! Empathy has always been the downfall of the Cooper Clan.
• SOMA has Simon learn that the Brain Uploading is more akin to copying a person's brain and personality, rather than actually altering where the consciousness of the person will be. And he knows it has happened to him twice, once meaning his original body and once about midway through the game, when he needs to be put into a new body to proceed. Then the upload to the ARK occurs.
  You'd Expect: Simon to have realized the implication and that merely a copy of his brain will be put onto the ARK, not himself. Especially since he has been told this twice already, including the time he saw his old body.
  Instead: Simon reacts to the news like he's never heard it before and yells at Catherine, claiming she lied to him about this and the ARK being their goal. In turn, Catherine absolutely screams at him that he knew about the copying and that he has no reason to act like this. This has to the effect that her mind becomes overstressed, stopping her simulation and effectively killing her, leaving this copy of Simon to remain on the bottom of the sea, all alone now.
• SongBird Symphony: Birb keeps meeting the Owl and helping him gather notes. Birb's mother knows that the Owl is secretly a monster who wiped out almost all of the songbirds and now wants to (1) finish the job and (2) use the notes to finish his artifact so that he can use it to conquer the forest.
  You'd Expect: Her to explain to Birb that the Owl is actually a monster, and that he really shouldn't be helping him.
  Instead: She decides to team up with the Magpie trio and have them try to intimidate Birb into giving up his quest, outright using bullying tactics at times. This only makes them come off as Jerkasses that Birb becomes determined to defy.
• Soul Edge: Siegfried had just killed a knight who, unbeknownst to him, was his father. He has since been filled with delusions of looking for his father's killer. Meanwhile, Sophitia and Taki had just defeated Cervantes, who left the male half of the Soul Edge behind. The male half of the Soul Edge pretends to be Frederick to enable Siegfried to avenge him.
  You'd Expect: Siegfried to know the sword's true nature of a violent, soul-eating sword and destroy it with his own weapon, and realize that it was he himself who killed his own father.
  Instead: He goes for the sword anyway, hoping to find whoever killed his father.
  The Result: The sword consumes Siegfried's mind and he becomes the evil Azure Knight known as Nightmare.
• Soulcalibur V:
  • Patroklos, after a period of time travelling with Z.W.E.I. and Viola, has been reunited with Pyrrha, his long lost sister. Viola then makes a few cryptic statements, the general gist of them being that Patroklos and Pyrrha cannot remain together.
    You'd Expect: Patroklos to at least figure out what she's trying to tell him, and perhaps request clarification from her.
    Instead: He regards the statements as "threats and riddles", not even realising that she's trying to warn him about something.
  • After Pyrrha defends him from Nightmare, Patroklos sees her in the state where she is destined to become the new host of Soul Edge.
    You'd Expect: Him to try finding help for her.
    Instead: He turns Soul Calibur on her. This pisses her off to the point that the next time he sees her, she starts fighting him, accusing of abandoning her like she thinks everyone would do to her.
• Before the events of South Park: The Stick of Truth occured, the new kid/Dovahkiin was hunted down by the government, purely because he was able to make over 3 billion friends on Facebook and they wanted his special talents to serve the country. After everything settled down, the new kid's parents move to South Park and they hope that he doesn't remember what had happened before they moved or what he had done.
  You'd Expect: The parents to keep him isolated so that the events don't repeat themselves.
  Instead: The kid's parents tell him to go outside and make some new friends, completely ignoring why they wanted their son to forget what happened in the first place. Lo and behold, the new kid's uncanny ability to make a ton of Facebook friends gets the government's attention again.
  Luckily: The New Kid's Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane abilities gotten through the Fighters of Zaron LARP allows him to confront the head of the government agency tasked with hunting him down and emerge victorious.
• South Park: The Fractured but Whole:
  • The main conflict between Coon and Friends and Freedom pals is that Coon and Friends' franchise plan has a lot of bias towards some heroes, which then later revealed that Doctor Timothy is currently planning a franchise plan that benefits everyone, Coon and Friends or Freedom Pals alike.
    You'd expect: For the Freedom Pals to tell the Coon and Friends (except probably Cartman) about the new franchise plan, or at least imply that the Coon and Friends will benefit from it.
    Instead: Not only do they keep the franchise plan a secret, but all they do is say vague claims about their future success.
    As a result: An unnecessary conflict drives on between the two superhero teams for no reason.
  • In the finale, Human Kite plans to bluff the Coon out by pretending to be possessed by Mitch Connor. The plan works, as The Coon rats himself out immediately to call the Human Kite out on the plan.
    You'd expect: For Human Kite to drop the act after it has served its purpose.
    Instead: He keeps acting like he's possessed Mitch Connor for no reason at all and battles both the Coon and the Freedom Pals, especially egregious if The Coon gets knocked out first.
    As a result: The rest of the heroes get confused and beat up both the Coon and Human Kite.
• Spider-Man vs. the Kingpin:
  • The police, any time they find Spider Man passed out. When they find him on the street
    You'd Expect: They would put Spider Man in a high security cell.
    Instead: They put Spider Man in an ordinary prison cell that he could easily break out of.
    Even Worse: Spider Man doesn't even need to break the door down, all he has to down is climb up on the ceiling so the cop guarding him won't see him. Then idiot cop then opens up the cell door and walks in, allowing Spider Man to escape.
  • Alternatively when Spider Man is taken to the hospital and the doctors refuses to allow him to be taken to prison until he recovers.
    You'd Expect: Spider Man and the hospital to be put under heavy security.
    Instead: The police only put one man watching the door to Spider Man's hospital room, who fell asleep allowing Spider Man to walk out the door with no resistance.
    Even Worse: The police's response to Spider Man escaping the first time is to put an extra man at the door, so Spider Man escapes through the window in response. They do NOT at any point realize that Spider Man is escaping through the window.
• Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II: The primary conflict concerns a spirit called the Departed who is haunting Konoehara Academy, issuing notices to students telling them they will be killed by another spirit, then commanding that spirit to off them. Every single time a notice has been issued, a student vanishes that night. Protagonist and Spirit Doctor Kazuo Yashiki and his friends have been called in by the headmaster, Seizou Konoe, to investigate, but the staff of the school do not believe spirits exist as their presence is unknown to the public at large.
  You'd Expect: That even if they don't believe in spirits, the staff would look at all the students who have vanished and at least come to the conclusion that a human Serial Killer is responsible, pretending to be a spirit to cover their tracks, then call the police and shut down the school until this is resolved.
  Instead: The staff assume the students are all playing a big prank and choose not to call the police; Ritsu Sakamoto in particular spends her time trying to obstruct Kazuo's investigation as much as possible under the assumption that he's just trying to prey on the schoolgirls there. The most they do is cancel nighttime clubs. It's at least implied at one point that the staff are being willfully ignorant and trying to bury the story so that the school's reputation doesn't suffer.
  As A Result: Students keep dying and vanishing until Kazuo is able to deal with the Departed, and it's indicated in the Extra Chapter that the rumors eventually spread anyway, turning the incident into a publicly-known legend and forever tying the academy to it.
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent:
  • In the opening mission of Version 1, experienced Third Echelon operative Sam Fisher is sent into Iceland, alongside a rookie agent named John Hodge, to investigate a geothermal facility which may have an active ballistic weapon that could cause significant damage if used against the populace. During the opening infiltration, it becomes clear that Hodge is... not the best suited for the role, as he acts impulsive (running ahead of Fisher twice despite the latter telling him to hang back), arrogant, dismissive of Fisher's concerns and is generally trying to prove himself in an obnoxious way, ostensibly in an attempt to impress Fisher.
    You'd Expect: That, given how Third Echelon is an ultra-secret counter-terrorist organization that routinely runs black ops abroad, and that no one is supposed to know they're in Iceland in the first place (nevermind how the program demands the best out of its operators), Fisher and/or Irving Lambert (the Mission Control) would have stressed this fact to Hodge at some point, emphasizing the gravity of the situation and how operators are supposed to conduct themselves with professionalism and a calm demeanor.
    Instead: Everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Hodge continues to act dismissive of Fisher, with Lambert not helping matters by seemingly giving Hodge a "special mission" (possibly said in jest) to turn off a ventilation system so that Fisher can infiltrate the facility... only for that plan to go out the window when Hodge decides to run in through the front door of the facility after seeing a handful of guards break their guard pattern. This action gets Hodge caught and executed while Fisher watches helplessly, just before the latter is forced to enact a risky plan (now on his own) to destroy the missile and escape in time. This even gets invoked in the conversation immediately afterwards, where Lambert admits he made a bad "judgement call". Notably, this is completely absent in Version 2 of the game, as Fisher's partner for the mission, Hisham Hamza, is a far more experienced and level-headed operator who doesn't act impulsive and follows Fisher's decision to exfiltrate immediately when Lambert demands it near the end of the mission.
  • Irving Lambert learns that Sam Fisher's daughter, Sarah, has been killed by a drunk driver.^note Splinter Cell: Conviction gives this a Retcon by stating this was part of a ploy Lambert initiated, via faking Sarah's death, to protect Sam and drive a mole within Third Echelon out of hiding. Lambert learns this information while Fisher is currently on a mission in Iceland.
    You'd Expect: That, given how this is a highly-sensitive topic and Fisher (and his partner) are currently involved in a high-stakes mission to stop a weapon that may be primed and ready to launch, he would wait until after the mission is completed and reveal this information to Fisher in a private setting, either at Third Echelon HQ or at Fisher's home.
    Instead: In both versions of the game, he delivers this message with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer right as the mission ends — and suffers for it. In Version 1, he waits until just after Fisher has completed his mission (and lost his teammate) to break the news in-person on the Osprey transport, causing Sam to lose it on the ride back home. That's the nicer scenario compared to Version 2, where Lambert calls Fisher in the middle of the mission, acts in an off-kilter way (telling him to exfiltrate the site immediately because it's going to be destroyed by other Splinter Cells en-route) and makes a vague reference to something that's happened to Fisher's daughter without stating what it is. By the time Fisher exfiltrates the facility, he's in a panic, running back to the Osprey to get more information. Neither scenario helps Sam's psyche — and according to Lambert's confession in Conviction, it was all for nothing, as the only thing it did was fundamentally change something within Fisher, while Lambert's ploy didn't work the way he wanted.
• SPY Fox:
  • In Operation: Ozone, late in the game, Pushpin gives Spy Fox the congeal pill that, when thrown into the pit of aerosol, will effectively destroy Poodles' entire space station and thwart her evil plan.
    You'd Expect: For Spy Fox to throw the pill in quietly before saying a word.
    Instead: He brags about it first, and then attempts to throw it in. Since he now has Poodles' attention, she's able to retrieve the congeal pill using one of her own gadgets and stop it from going down. She then traps Spy Fox in a steel net while she continues to finish up her evil plan.
    You'd Then Expect: For Poodles to hang onto the pill herself, or better yet, destroy the thing so Spy Fox loses all of his chances at thwarting her.
    Instead: She does nothing more but throw it into an empty trash can. In very easy reach of where Spy Fox was just standing. Apparently she had no forethought that he, a spy who was able to get past all her security and onto her spaceship, would maybe find his way out of this one.
    Fortunately: He learns his lesson over that first point and keeps quiet when throwing it down a second time.
  • Perhaps Some Assembly Required has the BIGGEST example with Napoleon Le Roach telling Spy Fox that the Dogbot cannot be stopped since he removed the off switch and hid it in the World's Fair.
    You'd Expect: That he ends it at that and imprisons Spy Fox, possibly leading him on a wild goose chase throughout the fair if he escapes.
    Instead: He blatantly tells Spy Fox not only about how to use the activation code to turn the switch off, but also how to enter the Dogbot's inner workings via its left ankle.
• Spyro: Year of the Dragon:
  • In each homeworld is a playable character locked in a cage guarded by Moneybags. Moneybags, naturally, will release them for a bribe, and in every case, the playable character then proceeds to attack him.
    You'd Expect: Moneybags after the first attack and especially the second to realize that the next one is probably going to do the same thing and either refuse to release the next playable character for any amount of gems or at least have the foresight to book it immediately after freeing them so they can't.
    Instead: Moneybags not only keeps letting the playable characters out but just walks right up to them after doing it and seems to genuinely think that each of them will be grateful for the fact that he released them only to get attacked yet again.
  • Bianca is willing to collect dragon eggs for The Sorceress because she believes The Sorceress needs those eggs to bring magic back to her homeland.
    You'd Expect: The Sorceress to keep up the lies and not telling her about what her actual plan with the eggs/babies AT ALL.
    Instead: She tells her anyway, sparking her Heel–Face Turn.
    You'd Then Expect: The Sorceress to make sure that Bianca doesn't go anywhere and either lock her up or kill her. Bianca is privy to many secrets about her base and she could easily help Spyro defeat her.
    Instead: The Sorceress seemingly doesn't even bother to stop her, only saying that she'll deal with Bianca later.
    Result: Bianca frees Hunter and tells Spyro how to get into the Sorceress's castle, leading to her being defeated.
  • After defeating the Sorceress, you find Moneybags just standing out in the open. Turns out he found a dragon egg and plans to sell it in Avalar.
    You'd Expect: Moneybags would say nothing to Spyro, go into one of the nearby portals so Spyro can't find him, and then sneak back to Avalar to do the dirty deed.
    Instead: He blurts out to Spyro about it, runs around in circles with an enraged dragon on his paws, and doesn't go into a portal until all the gems he swindled from Spyro are back in his clutches and the egg is given to him.
• After Spyro defeats Red in Spyro: A Hero's Tail, the evil red dragon retreats to the Volcanic Isle and Spyro soon arrives and receives a message from the Professor.
  You'd Expect: The Professor to tell Spyro about Red's lair and wait safely where he is right now until Spyro returns home after defeating Red again.
  Instead: He just goes straight there to try and confront Red.
  Result: The Professor winds up getting captured by Red and forced to transform his soldiers into robots.
• StarCraft:
  • The UED forces find on Tarsonis an abandoned Psi Disruptor build by the confederates. This device is able to break the zerg's psychic link, preventing the Overmind and its cerebrates to control zergs. Stukov says that it's a great tool for the UED mission (to enslave the Overmind) while Duran prefer to destroy it, since "If it falls in Mengsk's hands, it could control the zerg as well in combination with the psi emitters".
    You'd Expect that DuGalle would listen Stukov, not only because he's his longtime friend and viceadmiral of the UED, but because his suggestion made much more sense that Duran's, a guy who met recently.
    Instead he listens to Duran, and orders the Psi Disruptor to be destroyed.
  • Later Kerrigan manages to destroy the Psi Disrupter.
    You'd Expect the UED would build another one or even have another already built. The Terrans have siege tanks and science vessels and cloaking fields, so surely they have a computer capable of storing schematics, right?
    Instead they fight Kerrigan without it and their whole fleet gets wiped out.
  • In the finale of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Kerrigan breaks into Mengsk's inner sanctum and finds him strangely confident and holding something akin to a detonator in his hand. Granted, it was disguised as a lighter, but still.
    You'd Expect: that, since whatever that thing controls, it CLEARLY cannot be anything good, Kerrigan would dash forward and smash the detonator out of his hand or blast Mengsk with her psychic powers. For all she knew the detonator could trigger a nuclear bomb Mengsk planted just in case he loses.
    Instead: She just stands there like a dumbass while Mengsk presses the button, which makes the Xel-Naga artifact rise from a niche in the floor, and he very nearly kills Kerrigan with it.
  • This wallpaper,◊ which shows a Viking (anti-air flyer/anti-ground walker) fighting a Colossus (ground-attack strider so tall it can be targeted as an air unit).
    You'd Expect: The Viking to attack the Colossus with increased firepower while completely immune to its attacks.
    Instead: It's attacking the Colossus while in walker mode, doing reduced damage and getting hit by its Death Ray.
• Star Fox
  • In Star Fox 64, during the battle against Spyborg in Sector X, the boss in question managed to fake being defeated the first time and if the player takes too long to defeat it after that, Slippy will try to fight it himself while Peppy warns him not to get too close to it.
    You'd Expect: Slippy to keep a reasonable distance from Spyborg while trying to help since the robot has long flailing arms that would hit any aircraft near it.
    Instead: He gets too close to it and the Spyborg ends up swatting him to Titania where the Star Fox team has to embark there to save him.
  • In Star Fox Adventures, no matter how much of an evil genius he is, Andross is sometimes just as prone to pulling a few idiot moves here and there. During the final battle, Andross was just about to finally defeat his arch-nemesis, Fox, when Falco Lombardi, who was absent for a huge chunk of the story arrives and shoots a Smart Bomb into his mouth to save his friend and the rest of the battle has Falco providing Fox with Smart Bombs.
    You'd Expect: Andross to realize that Falco is a threat that is putting him in a losing battle and try to kill him first before he kills Fox. Problem solved.
    Instead: He completely ignores Falco and is hyper focused on ending Fox's life to bother dealing with him.
    The Result: Falco's involvement ends up being essential and Andross ends up being killed off by both of them.
  • In Star Fox Command Fox and Krystal's relationship has begun to evolve into a full-scale romance, but considering the losses and near losses he went through before and during his career, he begins to worry about Krystal more.
    You'd Expect: Fox to talk about his concerns with Krystal and why he feels that he needs her to leave the team, so Krystal would understand why he is letting her off the team and his fears were putting their relationship in danger, so that she would agree to the temporal separation until he gets it sorted out, and they would at least leave on good terms.
    Instead: He forces Krystal off the team out of fear for her safety, even though Krystal is perfectly capable of holding her own in battle as proven in her first two games, and does not go in depth about his fears that led him to do this, resulting in them leaving on a sour note, which gets worse when Krystal Took a Level in Jerkass when they meet again on any chosen story route.
  • Krystal herself proved to be just as susceptible to some stupid moments too. At the time the breakup between her and Fox takes place, she learns that Fox wanted her to leave the team for her own sake.
    You'd Expect: Krystal, who is established as telepathic that can read minds and detect distress calls from afar, to read his mind and find out why he's insisting on her leaving and address his concerns directly to catch him off guard and assure him that she can handle any threat as long as they have each other. Problem solved.
    Instead: She never used it to find out what's really going on in Fox's mind. Furthermore, she just leaves Fox in tears as if the news came as a nasty surprise to her. Just the fact that the prologue never mentioned that she made any effort to protest against it, just makes the scene even more jarring.
• In Star Ocean: The Second Story
  • The first disc culminates in the team assaulting Eluria Tower to stop the destruction of Expel by destroying the Sorcery Globe. They run headlong into the Ten Wise Men, a group of villainous beings from Nede who plan to destroy the entire universe via advanced magic. The Ten Wise Men look at the group and are surprised to see a Nedian Rena) with the party.
    You'd Expect: That they would simply kill all of them (a group of teenagers) instantly.
    Instead: They routinely mock the party, have one of their weaker members knock the party down to critically-low health without killing them and assume that Expel's destruction will finish them off. It doesn't, and the team gets saved by inadvertently transporting to Nede, whereupon they get much more powerful weapons and equipment and decide to take the fight to the Wise Men's doorstep by attacking their base at Fienal.
    And Then: They assault Fienal and are beaten down once again by the Wise Men, who mock them.
    You'd Expect: That, once again, they would just kill them and be done with it.
    Instead: They again toy with the party and leave them conscious, and are stalled long enough by the leader of the L'Aqua Defense Force so the heroes can escape. The team then gets advanced weaponry and tools from Dr. Mirage, spends several days training in simulations at the Fun City Coliseum, and it's only then that they decide to start attacking in force, by which point they're easily defeated. It isn't until the player's party has chainsawed through 2/3rds of the Wise Men that they finally start panicking, by which point the heroes are already in the final dungeon. They may take the cake as the dumbest enemies in the series.
  • Claude's father, Ronixis, is in space over Nede when the Ten Wise Men decide to use his ship as target practice by using Fienal as a glorified anti-matter cannon. They fire off a shot (at low power) that knocks the ship's shields down by a significant amount.
    You'd Expect: That, given how the ship was nearly crippled by a single shot, Ronixis would immediately order the ship to plot an escape path and get the hell out of dodge, or at the very least, start moving so the cannon can't get a lock on them. He doesn't even have much of a reason to stay either, as he believes Claude to be dead.
    Instead: He spends a good minute trying to hail the planet and start negotiations, while failing to do anything besides leave the ship parked in orbit. Even after another shot takes down the ship's shields, he doesn't do anything except admit defeat. The ship just sits until it's destroyed by a third blast.
• In Star Ocean: The Last Hope, the party lands on an Another Dimension version of 1957 Earth and gets their ship and a party member captured by the local Men in Black. After infiltrating their secret underground base and fighting their way through bizarre alien experiments, the party comes across the base's Mad Scientist commander who tells our protagonists they're honestly really just trying to solve the world energy crisis and would you please give us your ship's power source so we can stop pollution, be friends with aliens instead of experimenting on them and save the future.
  You'd Expect: The party's brainiacs if not the captain himself to realize that the ship's power source could destroy the entire planet if improperly used and categorically refuse to give it to some ethically challenged people they met 5 minutes ago, no matter how much they wanted to help "save the future".
  Instead: They give up their power source, then obliviously walk into an obvious jail cell. From there they have front-row seats to watch the crazy woman install it into her makeshift reactor which immediately starts an irreversible overload. Cue escape from exploding planet.
  • Also from the game, Sarah, unsurprisingly, has a moment that overlaps with Too Dumb to Live. At one point in the story, Sarah gets kidnapped by the evil cultists who had attempted to kidnap her previously. Now, that isn't the moment in question. What is, however, is her reaction to said cultists jumping through the window of her house.
    You'd Expect: She runs away, screaming for help and attempting to fight them off.
    Instead: She, in her own words, simply gets up and nonchalantly goes to make them tea. What... the... fuck... Sarah?
  • The party lands on Aeos where they end up fighting against Phantom Soldiers. They are outmatched until Crowe and Arumat come to their rescue. Among the party is Myuria, who has a serious vendetta towards Crowe due to her mistaken belief that he killed her husband Lucien.
    You'd Expect: For the party to immediately restrain her or tie her up until the misunderstanding is all cleared up.
    Instead: They don't even think of doing this, not even while Crowe and Arumat fight off the Phantoms. As a result, Myuria almost kills an innocent man.
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor:
  • Bode Akuna, a former Jedi who survived the Great Jedi Purge and lost his wife to the Inquisitors, is Commander Lank Denvik's spy who kept tabs on Cal Kestis since the Ninth Sister's death and the extraction of high class information from Senator Daho Sejan's yacht to give to Saw Gerrera in order to find Cere Junda, a wanted Jedi who was responsible for the death of Second Sister/Trilla, trying to corrupt Fifth Brother into giving up the Dark Side, and overall, aiding Cal's journey in fighting the Empire while trying to restore the Jedi to their former evil glory before Palpatine's Empire destroyed them for trying to overthrow him in a coup just for not wanting a new Chancellor to ruin the coming Empire with crappy reforms such as cutting down on army sizes and shutting down construction of weapons meant to keep the peace, such as the Death Star. However, the Empire has pretty strict rules on who gets to kill Jedi, since that's the Inquisitorius and Darth Vader/Anakin's job, and Denvik is crossing a serious line that could end his life.
    You'd Expect: Denvik to realize he's playing a dangerous game and just give the information on Cere Junda to Vader and the Inquisitorius, while reassigning Bode to keep tabs on the Partisans and Saw Gerrera, due to being a mercenary that worked with them, so the Empire can eliminate them and finish what Clone Force 99, and by extension, Crosshair, failed to do.
    Instead: He keeps using Bode as his spy, smugly threatening Kata's life if he didn't get more information on Cere, which causes Bode to leak the Hidden Path intel to Darth Vader and the Inquisitorius.
    The Result: Denvik's Jedha operation is performed months ahead of its intended date, resulting in Cere's death by Vader and Cal tipping dangerously closer to the Dark Side.
    It Gets Worse: When Cal goes to the Imperial Security Bureau's Satellite Station in the Nova Garon system to find Bode and the Tanalor Compass, he meets Denvik, chews him out for what he did, and nearly kills him when Bode makes his getaway, only for him to be talked out of it by Merrin and spares him so Vader can kill him, as revealed in a post game Force Echo.
• Steins;Gate: A lot of the first half of the series is Okabe being stupid and not properly communicating anything:
  • Okabe has just done a D-Mail experiment and nobody remembers it happened.
    You'd Expect: Okabe to realize that the D-Mail worked and the past has changed, and inform everyone about it like he did after Moeka's D-Mail.
    Instead: He doesn't tell anyone and continues to question everything strange, not thinking that it might have something to do with a D-Mail that was sent, nor does he ever bother to ask anyone if the D-Mail worked, even though the intended purpose of sending them is to test it.
  • Okabe has been acting strange, rambling about something not being right, and not like his other chuunibyou rants. It's very similar to when he told them that Moeka had sent a D-Mail.
    You'd Expect: Someone to realize that maybe Okabe has sent a D-Mail and to ask him about it.
    Instead: Nobody thinks to do this, and instead blame it on the heat or his usual chuuni rants.
  • Okabe has been going on a little rant about how Lukako is a guy.
    You'd Expect: Okabe to figure out that Lukako's D-mail to change his gender worked, and that's the reason everyone is acting strange, especially when one considers that both Mayuri, who's a close friend of Lukako, and Lukako herself are saying that she is a girl.
    Instead: He gets the bright idea to confirm that Lukako is a male by grabbing her genitalia. Needless to say, this isn't the best decision.
  • Okabe goes to Moeka's apartment to undo the D-mails and retrieve the IBN 500 back using her phone.
    You'd Expect: Okabe should plan carefully about going inside her apartment, since he already knows that Moeka is well-trained in combat and would be armed with a gun in advance or able to kick his ass with martial arts as she's a Rounder.
    Instead: Okabe goes straight into her apartment without thinking. Fortunately, Moeka is sitting in the corner on her phone messaging to FB desperately, not even bothering to spot him coming in, and remains submissive as he's able to snatch the phone from her hand. She couldn't brandish her gun to threaten him and just couldn't fight back.
• Street Fighter:
  • Rufus has taken it upon himself to challenge Ken Masters, and consequently goes on a trip to seek him out. The only problem? Rufus doesn't even know what Ken looks like.
    You'd Expect: That Rufus would first get a picture of Ken from somewhere like, hmm, maybe, the Internet or the newspaper. After all, Ken's an extremely rich dude, the American martial arts champion, and a well-known fighter on the street fighting circuit.
    Instead: Rufus assumes that every single Street Fighter he comes across must be Ken. Including Cammy, who for the record is a girl, simply because Rufus knows Ken is blond and Cammy happens to be blonde as well. Rufus isn't the brightest bulb, mind you, but there's a big difference between genuine ignorance and outright stupidity.
    Even worse: The newspaper that Rufus was reading when he learned about Ken had his picture in it, and it never occurred to either Rufus or his girlfriend to take it with them to make a positive ID.
  • Cammy, while attempting to destroy the information on the BLECE project, is stopped at gunpoint by C. Viper (who's been working undercover in S.I.N. for the CIA). Viper orders Cammy to step away from the computer console containing the BLECE data.
    You'd Expect: For Viper to at least reveal that she's on the good guys' side. While Cammy might not have any reason to trust or believe her, Viper would then have the opportunity to explain that she is also seeking to bring down S.I.N., and that having the BLECE information will go a long way toward that end.
    Or: For Viper to, at least, yank Cammy away from the console. If her intention is to recover the BLECE data while maintaining her cover, the least she could do would be to ensure that the data isn't in danger of being erased right there and then.
    Instead: Viper's got a gun to Cammy's head, sure, but she just stands there while Cammy's finger is an inch away from the Delete button...which she proceeds to press. This results in years' worth of undercover work going down the drain, which Viper openly laments in Cammy's hearing moments after the fact.
• Street Fighter X Tekken: In Lars and Alisa's arcade mode, the latter is feeling drained and that she needs to be recharged. The former looked at Blanka performing a trick in front of Sakura, so he approaches them to help him with his dilemma.
  You'd Expect: For him to say, "Excuse me. Can you help me? I have a robotic girl over there that needs to be recharged." That way, they'll understand and help him solve the problem.
  Instead: He said to Blanka, "Could I... just borrow you?" which makes him snap, believing he's a stranger trying to hurt him.
  So Now You'd Expect: For Sakura to calm him down and tell him that Lars may have a reason of wanting to 'borrow him'.
  Instead: She attempts to fight him for making Blanka upset, making all Lars' attempt to talk to them peacefully to help Alisa all for nothing.
• Strider: The NES Game has these two moments:
  • Sometime during Hiryu's assault on the Chinese ZAIN Base, a wounded Strider Cain wakes up.
    You'd Expect: For him to stay put while Strider Sheena tends to his wound(He did that in the manga when Hiryu tended to a stab wound he got from Kubira).
    Instead: He takes off while she wasn't looking.
    As a Result: He dies at Matic's hand before the last stage.
  • After Hiryu destroys the ZAIN Terminal in Africa, he returns to the Blue Dragon where he learns of a meeting between Faceas (Faysus actually) Clay and Strider Vice-Director Matic(Who's a higher rank than Hiryu, a Super A-Rank Strider, and at least as strong).
    You'd Expect: Sheena(A plain A-Ranked Strider) to wait for Hiryu when he heads to Las Angeles.
    Instead: She takes off ahead of him.
    As a result: She gets fatally wounded by Matic and dies. Common sense should of told these two that bravery and outright stupidity are two different things.
• Super Metroid:
  • Samus Aran, having captured the last remaining Metroid, has given said creature to the Galactic Federation. There is clearly much potential use for this creature, and it is also a very tempting prize for the space pirates.
    You'd Expect: For them to place the Metroid at a facility with EXTREMELY high security. Maybe even offering Samus a high paying job protecting the facility.
    Instead: They instead keep the Metroid at a space colony with minimal at best security.
    Result: Ridley attacks the space colony, stealing the Metroid. What follows are the events of the game.^note Even Worse, at the end of the Metroid II remake, Samus Returns, Ridley made a previous attempt at stealing the Metroid, which wasn't that long ago.
• Super Robot Wars: Original Generation 2: Lee Linjun, captain of The Shirogane, has it out for his former classmate, Tetsuya Onodera, believing him (and especially him) and his forces to be inferior to fight off the invasion of the Einst and Inspectors. But throughout the game, he shows himself to be anything but a tactical genius:
  • Early on, there's a mission where you have to defend a base against enemies that will destroy it if they so much as brush the outside wall.
    You'd Expect: Lee would use the LONG RANGE guns that can do heavy damage to small vessels on his ship to shoot at said enemies.
    Instead: He does nothing the whole mission.
  • Some time later, Lee is aboard the Shirogane when he spots two enemy Rhinoceros Mechs, one of which has Shadow-Mirror member Echidna Iisaki on-board. The Shirogane pursues them and the Mechs seem intent on letting it follow them. A few seconds in, Lee assumes that they're leading him into a trap.
    You'd Expect: Lee would stop the pursuit, lest he fall for the trap. Or, since he is that type, he'd test the waters with a few mechs.
    Instead: Lee, being the glory-hound Jerkass that he is, charges in full speed ahead. To the surprise of no one playing, it is a trap, and Lee and the Shirogane are confiscated by the Shadow-Mirror. Even Echidna herself mocks Lee for falling for what he knew was a trap.
  • Lee Linjun defects to the Shadow Mirrors after that ambush. At the game's endgame, his forces are decisively trounced by those of Tetsuya.
    You'd Expect: Lee to get the hell out of there and recoup his losses.
    Instead: He takes the Shirogane and attempts to use it to ram Tetsuya's ship, the Kurogane. Unfortunately, as Tetsuya points out, he failed to notice the functional drill in front of the Kurogane. Naturally, this doesn't end well for Lee.
• Syphon Filter 3:
  • In the game's very first mission, Gabe Logan goes to Tokyo to assassinate Shi Hao, the leader of a Chinese anti-government rebel group who was partially responsible for the events of the previous game as well as his lieutenants.
    You'd Expect: That once Shi Hao was killed, his subordinates would flee the hotel they're staying at so as not to get sniped by the rogue American agent.
    Instead: They join their mooks in trying to kill Gabe, right where he can snipe at them.
    Bonus Idiocy: Gabe actually expects them to come running into his line of fire.
• Tekken 7 shows that the feud of the Mishimas began when Heihachi had to kill his wife, Kazumi, when she tried to kill him while she's in her devil form. The encounter gave him a hint that there's a possibility that their son, Kazuya, might inherit devil powers from her.
  You'd Expect:: For Heihachi to tell Kazuya the truth of his mother's death. That way, he'll understand of what he had to do and request training from him on how to control his powers for future uses.
  Instead: Heihachi kept silent of his motive for killing Kazumi, and he attempted to kill Kazuya by throwing him in the ravine while he was just a boy.
  Result: Kazuya grew up with hatred, and Jin is born with the Devil Gene in his blood. Eventually, causing Heihachi's death in his final battle against Kazuya.
  • Speaking of the final battle against Heihachi and Kazuya where they eventually got worn out.
    You'd Expect: For Heihachi to land an empowered punch against Kazuya in the chest to finally kill him once and for all.
    Instead: He goes for the headbutt, causing Kazuya to retaliate by punching his chest with a Devil Gene empowered strike, killing him once and for all.
• Team Fortress 2: In the "Meet the Spy" trailer, the RED spy infiltrates the base and the BLU Spy, Heavy, Soldier and Scout meet. The BLU Spy decides to give them a speech about his RED counterpart's abilities.
  You'd Expect: He'd keep it short and to the point, a quick refresher on what tells to look for, and then help his team locate and subdue the intruder.
  Instead: He goes into a monologue talking up his RED counterpart's skills, which not only contributes nothing helpful toward finding him, but prompts Soldier to mistake him of being the RED Spy and shoot him in the face.
  Even Worse: BLU Spy's very poor choice in words ends up implicating himself as the RED Spy.
  BLU Spy: He could be in this very room! It could be you! It could be me! It could even be-- *gets shot*
• In the Tenchu series, whenever the protagonists are assigned to kill a specific target (who generally serves as a level boss), they will almost always make their presence known by walking up to said target and giving them "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  You'd Expect: The ninjas to approach their target in the back and slit their throat as they did for every Mook they came across on their way... But then again, doing that would mean that there would be no boss for you to fight.
  Instead : They don't even bother, thus ensuring that the now very alerted target has time to ready their weapons and/or call for assistance, leading to a fight that generally opposes a Ninja best suited for stealth and assassination and a combat-oriented character, optionally backed up by armored guards.
• TIE Fighter:
  • Admiral Harkov plans to defect to the Rebel Alliance. Not just him, but the whole fleet under his command. The only exception is the PC who just recently transferred to his garrison.
    You'd Expect: Knowing the PC is a new transfer and isn't loyal to him, Harkov will order him away for the next mission because a Rebel leader is expected to arrive shortly on his mothership.
    Instead : He let the PC take part of the mission who discovers that a Rebel leader is docking the mothership. No orders is giving from the mothership to shoot it down and Harkov himself threaten the PC for his curiosity.
    Even worse: Harkov IS a fleet admiral and has full authority over everyone on his ship. He could have simply ordered the PC to ignore the mysterious ship coming and return to the hangar. Or murder the PC upon his return to the mothership since he knows his secret.
    Result: The PC make his report to the Secret Order of the Empire and Harkov is now closely watched. The Order also insure to protect the PC from possible assassination attempts from Harkov because of his loyalty to the Empire.
• Tomb Raider (2013)
  • Lara finds that her best friend Sam is about to be burned at the stake by the Solari. Several of the cult's members are in attendance. Lara uses her bow and arrow to kill the guy with the torch before he can set Sam's pyre alight. Unfortunately, the rest of the Solari notice. At this point in the game, Lara is at least willing to kill large amounts of the Solari if it means saving her friends.
    You'd Expect: Lara to switch to her assault rifle or shotgun and start gunning down any mooks who attack her.
    Instead: She keeps using her bow, and only manages to loose one arrow (which doesn't hit anyone), before getting taken down by some of the mooks.
    Result: Lara receives a horrific No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, and the burning goes ahead as planned.Except that a gust of wind blows out the fire, apparently due to Sam being a descendent of Queen Himiko.
  • While escaping from the Solari Fortress, Lara goes up against a mook manning a mounted machine gun. Using Le Parkour, she makes it to the mook and manages to knock him to the ground, away from the gun.
    You'd Expect: Her to pull out her pistol and shoot him before he can recover.
    Instead: She tries to use the machine gun, but it's so heavy that the mook manages to knock her off the ledge they're on before she can aim at him. Lara only survives due to a grenade launcher being very nearby, and the mook being a terrible shot, allowing her to survive long enough to grab said grenade launcher and blast him with it.
  • Late in the game, Sam's been kidnapped again, and is taken to the Solari monastery solely by the Big Bad and a traitor from Lara's group. Lara heads up there as well, and actually just beats them to it. She hides as they come past her at the entrance to the monastery.
    You'd Expect: Lara to simply come out of hiding, hold the Big Bad and traitor at gunpoint (if she doesn't want to just kill them), and demand Sam's release.
    Instead: She just lets them pass by, and subsequently has to make her way through a huge fortress being torn apart by fierce storms, while fighting off a small army of Solari, and another small army of undead samurai, in order to rescue Sam.
• In Tomb Raider: Underworld, Lara Croft discovers an old Nemesis she thought she killed in the past, Atlantean god Jacqueline Natla, is alive and being held captive by Lara's rival, Amanda. Lara then goes on a wild goose chase all over the world to find the artifacts and tools needed to reach Avalon so she can find her mother who vanished over 20 years ago. However, the final step to reach Avalon can only be performed by Natla herself.
  You'd Expect: Lara, having fought Natla before, would leave her trapped in the glass containment or at least quickly kill her with Thor's Hammer.
  Instead: Lara, fueled by her desire to find her mother, frees Natla and just threatens to kill her the moment she steps out of line. This causes Natla to activate an ancient device that can sunder the Earth's crust and release poisonous ash into the atmosphere, basically destroying the world. Oh, and Lara's mother is a zombie.
• Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation has Lara Croft learn at an early age that disturbing tombs that threaten to bring danger to those who disturb it should be taken seriously as her mentor, Werner von Croy, learned the hard way when his attempt to steal the Iris artifact cause the room they were in to be caved in.
  You'd Expect: Lara to remember her past experience by not removing artifacts from their resting place unless it is safe to do so.
  Instead: Lara steals the Amulet of Horus (only bothering to read what the amulet says after escaping the tomb), which releases the Evil God, Set, and he threatens to bring The End of the World as We Know It. Now Lara is responsible for setting things right again.
  Also: Werner von Croy survived his deathtrap when he claimed the Iris.
  You'd Expect: von Croy would learn his lesson and heed the warnings of other tombs that contain artifacts.
  Instead: The man tries to steal the Amulet of Horus from Lara. When Lara tried to warn von Croy about the impending danger, he just dismisses it as "ancient hocus pocus". This causes him to get possessed by Set.
• Tomb Raider I:
  • Natla hires Lara to retrieve the Scion piece hidden in Qualopec's tomb. While Natla's intentions of taking all of the Scion pieces for herself isn't revealed until later, Natla still had a few options on how to go about it.
    You'd Expect: Natla would have Lara bring the Scion piece to her directly and then kill her or have Lara retrieve all three pieces for her and kill her afterwards (which she sort of tries to do in the game as seen in the next entry below).
    Instead: She has Larson ambush Lara in an attempt to kill her and steal the Scion piece. Lara beats him and now knows that Natla tried to screw her over, so she goes after the other Scion pieces just to spite her. The Anniversary remake justifies this by having Natla state that she knows Lara would have never given up the Scion anyway.
  • Lara at one point is ambushed and held captive by Natla's goons. Lara's artifacts get taken and is no longer useful to Natla. Natla then orders her men to kill Lara.
    You'd Expect: Natla's goons would simply shoot Lara dead.
    Instead: Lara breaks free and dives into a river below the canyon while Natla's goons just watch Lara flee. One of the henchmen does fire, but only after Lara reached the bottom and naturally, he never hits her. Natla rightfully calls her men morons. The remake averts the scene by having Natla's men actively try to kill her, though Lara still outwits them.
• The first flashback cutscene in Tomb Raider Chronicles has Lara meet with Larson in a theater to do an exchange involving the Mercury Stone. As soon as Lara hands over the briefcase of money, Pierre appears and holds Lara at gunpoint while the two men take both the artifact and the money.
  You'd Expect: Larson and Pierre to just bail while they got the chance or at least shoot her dead so she can't go after them.
  Instead: Lara puts out her hand in a ladylike fashion. Larson takes the bait and attempts to kiss Lara's hand, only for her to punch him in the face. The two men start backing up as Lara approaches them. Pierre, who has his gun out this whole time, does not shoot Lara, which allows her to kick Larson in the head to make him drop the artifact. Lara snags it and slides down to the stage and it's only at this point that Pierre tries to shoot Lara.
• Tomb Raider II has a scene where Lara talks to an injured monk at a diving rig. Marco Bartoli sneaks into the room from above and has a clear shot at them both.
  You'd Expect: Marco to shoot Lara dead.
  Instead: He chooses to shoot the monk, which alerts Lara and has her firing back at Marco while she escapes.
• Touhou Project:
  • Touhou 8: Imperishable Night has either Reimu or Marisa try to stop the titular imperishable night caused by the two characters you chose to play, in order to find the person who replaced the moon with a false one.
    You'd Expect: The main characters to explain what’s wrong with the moon, and why they needed to slow down time, potentially gaining another ally.
    Instead: They only say that there’s something wrong with the moon without explaining what, and why it’s important to slow down time, difficult boss fight ensues.
• In Transformers: Fall of Cybertron, Starscream devises a plan to attack a transport from the air to try stealing its cargo of Energon. Along the way, one of the Combaticons eyes their defenses, and sees that the transport is armed with anti-air batteries.
  You'd Expect: Starscream to rethink the strategy, and try to come up with a different plan.
  Instead: He decides to attack anyway, resulting in massive losses.
  Later: He calls for a retreat, the Combaticons stay back, and manage to salvage the mission, but destroy half the energon in the process.
  You'd Expect: For him to congratulate them on salvaging the mess, and even though half the energon is destroyed, it's better than the Autobots having it all.
  Instead: He gulags them for insubordination.
  • And when he tries to "recruit" Grimlock to his army, he keeps going on and on about how he holds all the cards, and that he'd be wise to accept his offer.
    You'd Expect: Him to consider that maybe, just maybe, Grimlock may actually be smarter than he looks, and stop treating him like a brainless attack dog.
    Instead: Right as he gets in Grimlock's face, Grimlock grabs him, and flings him into the controls holding him down, resulting in his freedom.
• Trauma Center: Under The Knife/Second Opinion,
  • Episode 1-6. Angie worries that Derek's latest patient isn't out of the clear yet, and tells him that they should examine him again and talk to his usual doctor. Unfortunately, Derek's due to help out with a symposium later on, so he's planning on meeting up with some other doctors later that day.
    You'd Expect: Derek would do what Angie says he should do, and call the doctors to either try getting the meeting postponed, or apologize and explain that he won't be able to attend. You'd think that they'd understand his reasons, being doctors themselves.
    Instead: He insists that he can't just blow the doctors off after they've travelled so far to meet him, and leaves without doing anything more for the patient. As a result of his choice, the patient in question nearly ends up dying, and Angie verbally tears Derek a new one in the next episode.
• Trauma Center: New Blood:
  • One episode has the heroes captured by The Syndicate. After they are forced to help them with a few surgeries, the doctors are put in a drowning pit by Kidman where the well will slowly fill with water and they will drown unless they agree to work for the syndicate.
    You'd Expect: Kidman would put a lock on the grate above the doctors or at the very least watch them so they don't try anything funny.
    Instead: He decides to taunt them by installing a children's toy lock on the grate and say that they'll never figure out how to open it.
    What Happens: Kidman needs to use the bathroom, so he has one of his henchman take over. Said henchman falls asleep and the doctors manage to solve the puzzle, thus they quietly escape without being detected.
  • There's an episode where the Director shows Markus and Valarie a footage of a reality TV show, Miracle Surgery, where one of the doctors on the show, Dr. Bello, slanders Caduceus, claiming all the funding they get is just to line their pockets while the taxpayers foot the bill. The Director states that her higher ups are very upset by the misinformation being spread from the show.
    You'd Expect: The higher ups would put together a lawsuit against the show for slander, make a public statement to clear the air, or just outright ignore some two bit TV show.
    Instead: They want Valarie and Markus to appear on the show and "crush" them (outperform the doctor on the show), making it sound like the people in charge of Caduceus are trying to restore their honor.
    What Happens: Despite Markus and Valarie performing very well on their on-air surgeries, the show still paints them as bad people, the network crowns Dr. Bello as the superior doctor, and the public isn't convinced that Caduceus is good for society. It isn't until Dr. Bello passes out from overusing his Healing Touch that Valarie and Markus jump in to save his patient and then using the opportunity to explain to the public what Caduceus actually does.
• While Trials of Mana is well-written for its time in many respects, developing six separate stories for each of its protagonists and all the party permutations allows problems to more easily slip through the cracks, and the Laurent arc is where this shows the most. To wit:
  1. The citadel of Laurent is located high in the mountains, defended by an army of powerful amazon guards, and protected by an impenetrable barrier of magical wind. The wind barrier is controlled by a mechanism located in the citadel's basement, and a special keystone is needed to operate the mechanism.
     You'd Expect: That the keystone would be stored in a secure, well-guarded vault, and only withdrawn from the vault when the mechanism needs to be operated. Additionally, the mechnism itself would be constantly guarded just to be safe.
     Instead: The keystone is entrusted to the young, naive prince of Laurent, and the mechanism is left completely unguarded to boot.
     You'd Then Expect: That someone would have made it explicitly clear to the prince how important the wind barrier is to the citadel's safety, and also tell him the importance of never talking to strangers, and also to immediately call the guards if he ever sees anything or anyone suspicious inside the citadel.
     Instead: Apparently no one did any of that, as the prince responds with only mild curiosity at finding a swirling vortex of darkness that starts talking to him, and when a pair of ninjas emerge from the vortex, woo him with a few "magic tricks", and then politely ask to be taken to the barrier mechanism, he obliges without any hesitation. What's more, the prince had to have been seen heading to the barrier mechanism chamber together with two strange men with unusual clothing, given he met them on the second floor balcony and would have had to lead them through the whole castle to get there, yet no one seemed to think anything of it.
     As a result: The wind barrier is deactivated^*In the original game, Elliot goes ahead to do it; in the remake, he only does so after Bil and Ben chuck explosives at him., leaving the citadel wide open to a waiting band of invaders. Given the citadel's reputation for being "impenetrable", it turned out complacency was the Amazons' worst enemy.
  2. Very nearby the citadel of Laurent is a meadow filled with somnosa flowers, whose spores are capable of putting people to sleep almost instantly. However, you will become immune to the spores' effects after being exposed to them and falling asleep just once, though the duration of the immunity is never specified (just because you're exposed and immunized once doesn't mean you're immune forever).
     You'd Expect: That new amazon guard recruits in Laurent would be exposed to the spores in a controlled environment so as to immunize all of the citadel's defenders to a potential local threat. If the immunity is limited, they'd keep a running list of who had their exposure and when, and send those whose protection expired back for another dose. Or alternatively, that they would just send some people to torch the meadow. The flowers might look pretty, but they're too potentially dangerous.
     Instead: They do neither of these things.
     As a result: Once the wind barrier is deactivated, the invaders are able to spread some sleep spores that they gathered over the citadel, putting most of the amazon guards to sleep and allowing the few amazons in places that the spores didn't reach to be easily overwhelmed. The king is slain, the majority of the amazons are killed as well, the prince is kidnapped, and the citadel is captured.
     Even Worse: According to the remake, the now-late king's coronation ceremony had once taken place in the somnosa meadow, so you can't even handwave it as them somehow not knowing about it despite its close proximity to the citadel, as everyone in attendance of the ceremony (and it's a royal coronation, so there would certainly be a LOT of people there) would have had to be exposed to and subsequently be immunized to the sleep spores before the ceremony could begin. Given how somnosas are recognizable the world over, their use by Nevarl to invade had to have been seen coming. The only logical explanation would be that the aforementioned immunity timed out some time before the invasion.
     You'd Then Expect: That the invaders, once they get nice and comfortable inside their newly-conquered citadel, to do what the amazons failed to do and get all of their troops immunized to the sleep spores. You'd also expect them to reactivate the wind barrier. You'd also expect them to hunt down and finish off the stragglers, maybe use one as a sacrifice to activate the Windstone (while any casualty near a Mana Stone could do to activate it, as demonstrated later, purging the remnants would be the bigger benefit).
     Instead: They do none of these things. Even worse, Belladonna ordered her personnel to fall back after the first invasion.
     As a result: With the help of the heroes (one of whom may be the Amazons' commanding officer), the few surviving amazons who managed to escape are able to easily retake the citadel simply by using the invaders' own tactic against them.
     Even worse: Once Zehnoa, Bil, and Ben are bested, Belladonna just gives up the fortress without any further fuss and never makes any attempt to reconquer it and never makes any other attempt to expand her territory, which begs the question of why she wanted to seize the Citadel in the first place. It clearly can't be because of the Windstone, because it was perfectly fine when the heroes saw it just prior to retaking the Citadel.
  3. As Nevarl's initial invasion of Laurent had begun, Riesz, princess of Laurent and leader of the Amazon guards, is facing off against Bil and Ben, who had tricked/forced Elliot to deactivate the wind barrier. One of the pair warns her that she really doesn't have time to be messing with them when her countrywomen are fighting and dying, and her father is in danger.
     You'd Expect: That Riesz, realizing this, would grab Elliot by the hand or the wrist, or else just heave him over her shoulder, and book it to get to where she needs to be while keeping her brother safe. Even if Bil and Ben had to pry them apart, Elliot wouldn't have been an easy grab.
     Instead: She runs off and doesn't look back to ensure he's still following her (tripwires, right?). Yes, the current situation is dire and urgent, but she surely could have taken a moment to ensure the safety of her kingdom's prince, who is also her brother. But she doesn't, and as a result, Elliot is kidnapped by the two enemies who were standing mere feet away from him without so much as a token effort to stop them. A player who has concern over this could send Riesz back to the altar, whereupon she comprehends just what her mistake had cost her.
     On the other hand, you'd expect: Bil and Ben to just leave with Elliot once they had what they wanted, if they couldn't just deactivate the altar themselves. Riesz would have to investigate the scene for what went wrong instead of having something of an idea as to what she should be doing.
     Instead: They dick around and taunt her about what's happening. They're lucky she had obligations to her people, because the alternative would have been spear-induced optical surgery.
  4. Belladonna has seized Laurent and captured Prince Elliot thanks to the Nevarlans under her control (and the complacency/incompetence of the Amazons).
     You'd Expect: For her to keep Elliot close by, to use as a hostage to keep any Amazons who escaped or any other would-be heroes from trying anything funny, and also because her master, Dark Majesty, wants a new body, and she plans to give him Elliot to use as his new vessel.
     Instead: She sells him into slavery, or lets the sale happen. She apparently changes her mind and sends "a man with red eyes", presumably her partner Malocchio, to buy him back from the slave trader, but it begs the question of why she did it in the first place. A running fan explanation is that Bil and Ben may have done the sale themselves, with the possible explanation that their brainwashing may have lapsed enough to let them make that decision, considering how they are unerringly loyal to her when it is in full effect.
  5. The party meets a surviving Amazon in Palo Port who tells them to go to the somnosa meadow. (If Riesz isn't in the party, the party overhears a conversation between her and the aforementioned Amazon, and all they hear is "meadow", and they go there presumably because their curiosity gets the better of them.)
     You'd Expect: Since everyone in the party knows what somnosa flowers are (as mentioned up above), they would take care not to succumb to the sleep spores when they head there.
     Instead: They waltz right into the middle of the meadow, and promptly pass out from the spores, only recognizing what the flowers in the meadow are as it's happening to them. The only viable explanation with Riesz around is that she kept up the illusion of ignorance in the event the eavesdroppers are more cognizant than they turned out to be.
  6. During the assault to liberate Laurent, the heroes reach Belladonna. Normally, she quickly teleports away before they have a chance to do anything to her, but if Hawkeye is in the party, he moves quickly and puts a dagger up to her throat. He is about to strike her down to avenge Eagle before Belladonna reminds him that if she dies, Jessica dies too.
     You'd Expect: That with this in mind, the party would attempt to take her prisoner, defeating her in battle but not killing her if need be. No one in the party should have had any reason to expect that they wouldn't have had to fight her before they could reclaim the citadel.
     Instead: Hawkeye puts away his dagger and drops to his hands and knees in defeat, as Belladonna gloats for a bit before teleporting away. Whether he's around or not, no one in the party makes any attempt to capture her, no matter how futile it may have been.
• Tron 2.0:
  • F-Con, a rival company, is trying to take over Encom to obtain the digitizer tech. Their CEO says in an email how he has been looking forward to this for twenty-plus years
    You'd Expect: F-Con to wait for the merger to quietly go through, the new bosses to force Alan Bradley into early retirement (with a generous severance package), and quietly appropriate the AI Ma3a and the Shiva Mark II laser as company property, launching the Datawraith project beneath everyone's notice.
    Or If that was not an option, they would use their mole, Thorne, to copy and steal the files and smuggle them back to F-Con headquarters where they could again, quietly work on it.
    Or: If Alan really made a stink about the merger and handing over his life's work, arrange for him to "disappear" from his home or even the Encom parking garage, maybe with some appropriate steps to make it look like he was a despondent, aging man who had lost his beloved wife, his close friend, was estranged from his son, and had a career go down in flames.
    Or: If they really needed the man himself alive, arrange the kidnapping and staged suicide, but make sure to keep a pioneer of AI technology and computer security (as in the guy who programmed Tron and Ma3a) away from any computer equipment, electronics, or even a telephone jack and electrical outlet.
    Instead: They arrange for a couple of goons to march into Encom in the middle of the workday, brazenly kidnap Mr. Bradley while he is on the phone with his son, threaten his life repeatedly, and lock said computing pioneer in a room full of cast off computer parts with a working power outlet and telephone line.
  • Speaking of Thorne, he was F-con's mole inside Encom for several months, observing the laser tests and sending the results back to F-Con. He heard Alan repeatedly talk about how the laser wasn't ready to digitize humans and he had almost, but not quite, worked the bugs out just yet on the safety features.
    You'd Expect: Thorne and F-Con to run some tests of their own to discern if that was truly the case or if Alan was stalling for time. You'd also expect F-Con to test this with something other than a human being right off the bat.
    Instead: Assuming Alan was just stalling, F-Con bypasses all safeties and shoots Thorne in there. Alan was not joking about those safeties. Thorne becomes a living computer virus they can't even control.
  • Jet obtains the Tron Legacy code (no relation) in the belief it will protect Ma3a from tampering, but he also finds several emails on the old Encom mainframe indicating that the code wasn't completed and has serious bugs.
    You'd Expect: Him to point these out to Ma3a and have second thoughts about installing something to her code that may not be compatible.
    Or: Wait until he could contact "Guest" and ask about the code.
    Instead: He and Ma3a find a compiler living on the Internet, he volunteers to try compiling it to himself (dude, you're a User, that alone should make it a dodgy idea). Ma3a steps in and says it's meant to protect her from tampering. As she is being compiled, Jet gets a warning from his dad not to compile it. As soon as the process completes, Ma3a goes Ax-Crazy from the buggy code, kills Byte, wounds Thorne, and tries to kill Jet, who can only get on a lightcycle and flee in terror.
• In Twisted Metal (2012), Dollface is one of three main characters who successfully win the competition. Dollface (Krista Sparks, a model who had a doll mask spiritually locked on her face by a backroom doctor) has spent the entire competition fighting to get her prize: remove the mask once and for all.
  You'd Expect: She'd wish for the mask to be removed.
  Instead: Krista has second thoughts, and realizes that she would always look beautiful if she kept the mask on. She asks Calypso to put her on "the biggest runway in the world" - he drops her on the tarmac at an airport, where Krista realizes a plane is landing behind her. Instead of running off to the side of the runway, she starts running in the opposite direction as the plane, breaks her heel, then lays down monologuing on the runway (with a good ten- to twenty-second buffer between the time she falls and when the plane lands) instead of rolling out of the way. She ends up dying just like the other two competitors.

Video Games U-Z

• In Valkyria Chronicles II, Squad G is in the middle of liberating Cosette's hometown from rebels. Once the fighting dies down, the squad begins to work on getting medical treatment to the civilians wounded in the rebel's attempted ethnic cleansing. However, seeing her hometown in ruins coupled with people dying brings up some bad memories for Cosette, causing her to freeze up.
  You'd Expect: Avan would get her to a safe place where they can get her to calm down, and have another medic tend to the wounded.
  Instead: Avan decides to snap Cosette out of it by shooting himself, reasoning that it will motivate her to get past the trauma and save his life. This not only runs the risk of making Cosette's breakdown worse and killing Avan, but cuts off Squad G's chain of command and forces Cosette to spend time on a person who would have been perfectly fine if he had behaved logically. Granted, Avan is an idiot, but there's only so much we can excuse that.

• In the first season of The Walking Dead, one of Ben's classmates is attacked by a zombie. The kid tries to get away, only to trip and fall.
  You'd Expect: The kid should have gotten up or at least crawled to get away from the zombies.
  Instead: The kid starts pleading to the zombie to not kill him and doesn't even try to get away. Obviously, he gets killed.
  • Episode 3 has the St. John family that offers Lee's party shelter and food. Sometime later, Mark gets hit in the shoulder from a bandit's arrow and the St. Johns usher Mark inside so they can treat his wounds. The family are actually cannibals and they chop off Mark's legs to be served as meat for everyone.
    You'd Expect: The St. Johns to kill Mark so his moaning isn't heard if someone goes upstairs.
    Instead: Lee goes upstairs to use the bathroom and hears Mark through the wall. Lee goes to the bedroom and finds light shining through the bottom of a bookshelf, which his hiding a door. Lee then discovers Mark in the hidden room and rushes downstairs to warn everyone. It's later explained that the St. Johns believe that keeping a person alive keeps their meat fresh whereas killing them will spoil the meat quicker.
  • Also in episode 3, Lee's group is captured by the St. Johns and Lee is locked in a room with Clementine, Kenny, Lilly, and her father Larry. Larry starts banging on the door and is angrily screaming to be let out. Lilly warns her father to calm down because of his heart condition.
    You'd Expect: Larry to calm down.
    Instead: Larry keels over from a heart attack.
    Moments Later: Kenny starts panicking over the possibility of Larry turning into a walker while Lilly insists that her father can be revived via CPR. You have the option of helping Lilly.
    You'd Expect: Kenny to simply be on standby in case something goes wrong.
    Instead: Kenny immediately smashes Larry's head in with a big salt lick block right when Larry was starting to regain consciousness. Predictably, Lilly freaks out and Lee asks Kenny what the fuck is wrong with him. Kenny can only weakly defend himself by insisting that he had to take the initiative unless they wanted to be trapped in a small room with a 6 foot tall 300 pound walker. Naturally, Lilly doesn't buy it and believes Kenny only wanted to kill her father simply because he was an asshole. Larry's death causes Lilly to distrust Kenny (and Lee if you chose to assist Kenny instead) and become more paranoid as a result.
    However: Larry regaining consciousness could have been the early stages of zombification.
  • In episode 4, Ben talks to Lee about how his actions of giving the bandits at the motel some supplies indirectly caused the death of Kenny's wife and son, Katjaa and Duck, and decides to tell Kenny about it. Lee wisely advises Ben to not tell Kenny what happened because he knows Kenny's reaction would put the group in danger.
    You'd Expect: Ben would listen to Lee's advice and keep his mouth shut for the sake of keeping the group unified.
    Instead: Ben insists that he tells Kenny his secret just to clear his sins. Later on, Ben tells Kenny what he did, causing Kenny to fly into a fit of rage while the group is under attack by a group of zombies. Kenny then has a massive distrust of Ben for the rest of the episode.
  • In Season Two, Jane is worried about Kenny's degrading sanity and how much of a threat he may or may not be.
    You'd Expect: She would watch her back, keep a careful eye on him, and make an effort not to antagonize him.
    Instead: She intentionally antagonizes him and pushes all of his Berserk Buttons about his dead family and dead girlfriend, and then pretends to have lost his adopted child to the zombies (which she also antagonizes him about) in order to "prove to Clementine he was a threat". This has predictable results and ends with one of them dead, with Jane actually claiming she didn't realize he would react like that if you choose to save her.
• In Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo, the titular characters are chasing Feathers McGraw through the lava of the volcano. They landed on one section of his hideout. As soon as they land, he activated a trap door for them to fall, but luckily, it didn't.
  You'd Expect: Wallace and Gromit should get out of the trap door.
  Instead: They just fool around the trap door. During that time, Feathers keeps on pressing the button to activate it, and it did.
• Warcraft III has Medivh trying to redeem his earlier evils by preventing a demonic invasion. He knows what's going to happen and warns every leader he can reach.
  You'd Expect Medivh to be specific and detailed to the leaders about the incoming invasion, and to try convincing the orcs to make peace with the Alliance. He'd tell Arthas exactly how the Scourge works to prevent Lordareon falling, and would try his hardest to fight the Legion if no one believed him.
  Instead Medivh makes non specific, vaguely threatening prophecies, and demand leaders follow instructions with logical fallacies apparent when one knows everything. Medivh becomes angry and petty when he's not immediately obeyed, and encourages the orcs to run away from their punishment, prompting the Alliance to pursue them in the expansion. Medivh also never helps the orcs prepare for Kalimdor, directly leading to an important demigod being killed.
• In Wasteland 2, AG Center and Highpool are attacked at the same time in a coordinated attack to damage the Rangers and discredit them.
  You'd Expect: Knowing that both places are highly valuable in the Wasteland, food and water respectively, General Vargas send your party, Echo One, to save one place and send another Ranger team to save the other.
  Instead: General Vargas tells you that no other Ranger teams are available and orders you do your best to save one and do your best to save the second other after. While it's true that the Rangers have been spreading too thin in the Wasteland for a long time, there's a special team of Elite Rangers tasked of hunting down rogue Rangers that get out of line. Was it really hard for Vargas to make an exception to the Elite Rangers' usual orders and send them to save the second area? Unless there are dozens of rogue Ranger teams constantly causing havoc, but the narrative is silent on this matter. Even so, there's also many other Rangers inside the Citadel on guard duty that could have been dispatched, more than your party of seven.
  The Result: The Rangers and Echo One are called for their failure to do their job. This has dire consequences in the epilogue, just to prove that you can't always get a Happy Ending in a horrible place like the Wasteland, but it's really the results of bad decisions from General Vargas.
• White Knight Chronicles
  • There are so many scenarios where Leonard just transforming into the White Knight could've solved so many problems, such as stopping Cisna from getting kidnapped right after catching up to the villains, or saving the Dragon Matriarch from getting her ass kicked by Sargatanas and dying to him, yet it never crosses anyone's mind.
  • The whole Greede arc. The party needs to get to the Bunker Lode Caverns, but the city is on the Demithor's back, and it's not mining season, so it won't go there to pick up ore.
    You'd expect the party to just take one of the gondolas that took them to the city just moments ago. They're not here for ore, just the kidnapped Princess Cisna, whom they suspect is there. Even if there might not be a proper port, just jumping off would theoretically work fine.
    Instead, they undergo a long and utterly convoluted Chain of Deals that eventually leads to convincing Count Drisdall who runs the place to move the Demithor all the way to the Caverns.
• The Witcher 3:
  • A ground of bandits seeking someone to rob catch sight of an huge dude with two swords in his back and wearing full armor, who also happens to have very distinctive eyes.
    You'd Expect: They'd realize he's a witcher, a warrior with supernatural abilites who fights monsters for a living, and let him be; or, even if they don't realize he's a witcher, wait for someone with no means to fight back.
    Instead: They decide to attack the battle hardened witcher, which ends in the death of their entire group.
    Even Geralt is flabergasted with the willingness the bandits throw their lives away, mentioning it word by word in Blood and Wine.
  • Depending on the choices the player makes throught the game, a pretty big moment can happen. After a lot of planning and negotiating with Nilfgaard, the plot to kill Radovid succeeds; most of the north, including Redania, will become part of Nilfgaard, with Temeria remaining self governed. Dijkstra, however, doesn't agrees with these terms and intends to backstab his co-conspirators and continue the war with Nilfgaard with him leading it. Knowing Roche and Thaler won't agree, he plans on having them killed.
    You'd Expect: Dijkstra to realize a betrayal might get him in a fight with Geralt, whom he knows is one of the best fighters in the world. So he could either wait until they are not with Geralt, whose friends with both Thaler and Roche, (depending on the choices in the second game - a great friend) to attack them; or catch them all by surprise, not giving them time to react.
    Instead: Dijkstra decides it's a great idea to inform Geralt that he intends to kill his friends and tells him to uphold the Witcher's code of neutrality or die. Having forgone this code more than once before, Geralt decides to help his friends, which ends with the death of Dijkstra and all his men.
• The World Ends with You:
  • Neku meets a Reaper who offers him a chance to do one mission to get out of the Game immediately.
    You'd Expect: That being the misanthrope he is, Neku would have at least enough skepticism of a sinister person he knows nothing about to ask what the task is before agreeing to it.
    Instead: His reaction is best paraphrased as "Sure, sign me up!" He's instructed to "erase" his partner, and is only stopped from doing so when someone turns up to explain that the Reaper has no authority to do what he thought she was offering and that he would have got out of the Game by being erased himself. Later we learn that the characters are dead and that the prize of the Game is an opportunity to return to life, so getting out of it isn't even desirable.
  • Eri, Shiki's best friend, noticed that she wasn't having any luck trying to design an outfit.
    You'd Expect: She'd help her with this problem.
    Instead: She just said, "You're not meant to be a designer." She did realize that it was a bad response after how upset Shiki got, but Shiki died before Eri could explain.
• Undertale Yellow:
  • It's revealed in the Pacifist route that, before the events of the game, Chujin realized that he was one of the few Boss Monsters in the underground. To prove his theory of being able to transform a monster into a Boss Monster with a serum, he attempted to fuse his soul with a fallen human's soul he acquired earlier. Unfortunately, it didn't work and his soul began to deteriorate. In his last recording before he died, he left a message for his wife, Ceroba, to continue his research of fusing souls. However, he tells her to not involve their young daughter Kanako as his final wish. Kanako eventually discovers the tapes and naively tries to convince Ceroba to fuse her soul with the serum.
  • You'd Expect: Given her husband didn't wish to involve Kanako and he died as a result of his research, that Ceroba would stay firm in her refusal. While this would upset Kanako, it's a small price to pay.
  • Instead: Despite initially refusing, she eventually gives in and injects her with the serum. Kanako falls down almost immediately after the injection and is subsequently sent to Alphys' lab in the hopes that her life can be saved. Unknown to anybody but Alphys and a player who played Undertale, Kanako is then most likely transformed into an Amalgamate. Ceroba is shocked that this happened despite what happened to her husband.
• Sometimes it seems that Azeroth in World of Warcraft has no shortage of stupid people among it's denizens. Here are some of the worst offenders.
  • In Tol Barad Peninsula, one daily quest involves escorting a prisoner out of Farson Hold.
    You'd Expect: The prisoner to follow you like many Escort Mission NPCs, since you found your way into the place. It's not hard to find your way out, since the dungeon is straight across the courtyard from the gate.
    Instead: The prisoner takes a few wrong turns, once even going up the stairs in one of the hold's towers, on the way out, while ignoring the door out that is within sight.
  • In one of the Legion expansion's Warlock artifact questlines, you infiltrate the Shadow Council to steal the artifact in question (and a couple others to boot). When you arrive at the Tomb of Sargeras, Gul'dan recognizes you, and even notes that you've screwed him over repeatedly, even mentioning that you helped kill Archimonde (if you participated in that raid).
    You'd Expect: He'd have his army of demons kill you, or kill you himself, continue the ritual you intend to disrupt, and destroy/take over Azeroth.
    Instead: He assumes you've decided to join the 'winning side', entrusts you with the artifacts needed for the ritual, and goes to the other side of the portal so he can't do anything but threaten you after you ruin the ritual and steal the artifacts.
  • Also from the Legion, Anduin has a force sent to Stormheim to secure the Aegis of Aggramar and see what the Horde forces there are up to.
    You'd Expect: Since Anduin is advocating peace with the Horde, he'd make sure the expedition is led by a level headed commander, preferably one who doesn't have personal reasons to hate the Horde.
    Instead: He sends Genn Greymane, who's not only one of the most anti-Horde leaders in the Alliance, but also has a very personal vendetta against Sylvanas. While he does give orders to only engage "if the situation requires it", Genn flat-out tells the player that he'll make sure it does. Sure enough, he attacks the Forsaken the moment they're spotted.
    • Genn Greymane successfully hunts down Sylvanas's fleet in Stormheim.
      You'd Expect: Genn to wait for reinforcements as he only has a single airship to assault an entire fleet.
      Instead: He attacks immediately.
      The Result: The airship is shot down and most of the expedition force dies in the fighting. For bonus points, Nathanos Blightcaller even calls the Alliance insane for attacking with such a vastly inferior force.
  • In the prequel to Battle for Azeroth, Anduin attempts to hold a peace conference with Sylvanas Windrunner, who is now Warchief of the Horde after Vol'Jin got unceremoniously shanked in Legion by some random mook. This is the very same woman whom Genn Greymane hates, who tried enslaving the Val'Kyr in Stormheim until Genn stopped her, and who has explicitly stated that she wants to end all life on Azeroth so that all can join her in Undeath.
    You'd Expect: Anduin would realize that trying to negotiate peace with a woman that violently insane is an impossible thing to do and prepare for war against her, figuring that she'd eventually declare war on the Alliance. Also, every Alliance leader worth their salt tells Anduin his plan is itself insane, and Anduin would back down due to their protests.
    Alternatively: If Anduin absolutely insists on holding a peace summit, he would at least not bring along anyone whom Sylvanas may perceive as a threat.
    Instead: Anduin assumes that Sylvanas can be redeemed and tries to hold the peace conference anyway, despite everything he knows about her. And he brings Calia Menethil to the summit along with him. Calia is the sister of Arthas, and whose very surname infuriates Sylvanas since Arthas is the reason she's so messed up to begin with, and the potential contender for the Throne of Lordaeron (which Sylvanas now rules). Despite everyone saying that it's a seriously bad idea to bring her, Anduin still does out of a misplaced sense of pride.
    The Result: Sylvanas butchers all of her emissaries and turns the meeting into a bloodbath because of one stupid girl showing up and potentially threatening her control over the Forsaken.
  • Following up from the disaster that is the peace summit, and the emergence of Azerite all over the world, the Speaker for Azeroth (a diamond-infused Magni Bronzebeard) visits every capital, begging for assistance in healing the world, since it's dying after Sargeras struck it with his sword. Nearly everyone agrees, except Sylvanas - again.
    You'd Expect: Sylvanas has seen the damage caused to Azeroth, and the destructive capacity of Azerite, and realize that this guy isn't joking, and to provide as much assistance as possible to prevent the world from dying, since y'know, that would be bad news for everyone, not just her.
    Instead: She sends him away with vague promises, spies on the people within the Horde trying to help him with the objective of purging them once she has enough dirt on them (since she sees them as a threat to her power), and actively undermines the effort to stabilize the world, while listening to Jastor Gallywix on how to use Azerite as a weapon.
    The Result: The Alliance loses its temper at the Horde trying to gain an edge over them militarily, and start developing Azerite weapons themselves, escalating an already delicate situation into a Lensman Arms Race.
  • With Azerite Weapons in hand, Sylvanas declares war on the Night Elves of Kalimdor, beginning the War of the Thorns. It goes well, since they outnumber and outgun the Night Elves, and successfully push them all the way back to their home base of Teldrassil. Every Horde leader in the region then collectively grabs the Idiot Ball firmly with monumentally stupid decisions being made.
    • After routing the Night Elves, she has Malfurion Stormrage cornered. Warlord Saurfang heavily wounds Malfurion and gives Sylvanas an opening to kill him and end the resistance immediately.
      You'd Expect: She shoots him dead then and there.
      Instead: She engages in Evil Gloating, leaves him to Saurfang as a thank you gift, and walks away.
    • With that done, Saurfang now has a chance to kill him stone dead and end the fighting.
      You'd Expect: He just takes his head off immediately. After all, those were his orders from Sylvanas to begin with.
      Instead: He just stands there and does nothing, because he feels guilty for hitting Malfurion from the back.
      The Result: Tyrande shows up and nearly kills Saurfang, before escaping with Malfurion. To be fair, Saurfang let them escape after warning them that they were about to get wrecked by the Horde, but even then it was an incredibly dumb move.
    • Sylvanas is about to invade Teldrassil and capture Darnassus, so she can use it as leverage to persuade the Alliance not to attack Kalimdor or the Horde. She then encounters a wounded and dying Night Elf on the shore who taunts her by saying she pities her for trying to fight life itself, and that she's doomed to fail.
      You'd Expect: Sylvanas to ignore the Night Elf. She's dying anyway, and winning the War, so she has no reason to give a damn about what some dying soldier has to say, especially something that pedantic.
      Instead: Sylvanas loses her temper, and to spite the dying Night Elf sets fire to the entire tree, killing most of the Night Elven and Gilnean populace there in what can best be described as genocide. For no other reason than For the Evulz.
      The Result: The genocide of the Night Elves enrages exactly everybody on both the Alliance and Horde. The Alliance declares war immediately, the very thing Sylvanas did not want, and the Horde is mutinous under her command - with almost certain chances to stage a palace coup once they get a chance, going so far as even including Nathanos Blightcaller, who was also taken aback by the decision which was definitely not according to plan.
      Even Worse: Saurfang outright walks out of the Horde, and will almost certainly be instrumental in orchestrating her downfall. Way to go, Sylvanas. Way to go.
      ** In Vol'dun, the player, one of the Sethrak, and a pair of Zandalari are trying to prevent the traitorous General Jakra'zhat from sacrificing enough trolls to unleash Mythrax the Unraveler and manage to defeat him.
      You'd Expect: The Zandalari to take him away to be tried for treason as proving his treachery was their entire reason for being in the region.
      Instead: They decide to summarily execute him.
      The Result: Jakra'zhat sacrifices himself to complete the ritual and unleash Mythrax, which later leads to the unsealing of Uldir and unleashing the (sorta) Old God G'huun.
  • At the start of the Night Warrior questline, Tyrande and several other Night Elf leaders (Shandris, Maiev, and Sira) demand to know why the Alliance hasn't liberated Darkshore from the Horde yet. The other Alliance leaders explain that not only are they in the middle of a war against the Horde, but they're about to launch a major offensive against Zandalar and simply don't have the soldiers to spare to retake Darkshore at the moment.
    You'd Expect: Tyrande, a military leader with over ten thousand years experience, to understand that the Alliance only has so many soldiers and that if their offensive on Zandalar succeeds, it will likely cripple the Horde and make retaking Darkshore far easier. Furthermore, personal feelings aside, Zandalar has more military value as a target than Darkshore.
    Instead: Tyrande storms off in a huff, declaring that the Alliance has abandoned her people (despite Stormwind feeding and housing all the Night Elf refugees), and decides to retake the Darkshore herself by undergoing a ritual that has killed literally everyone who's ever performed it.
  • Gallywix uses an experimental azerite powered mech in Drustvar against the Alliance. After using it's Wave-Motion Gun, the fuel tank says it's almost empty.
    You'd Expect: Gallywix to listen to the player and fuel the mech up with some more azerite.
    Instead: He ignores it as unimportant, declaring he never refuels until the meter is well past empty, then goes into battle against Mekkatorque.
    The Result: The mech runs out of power right when the battle starts and Gallywix is nearly killed.

• Xenoblade Chronicles:
  • Xenoblade Chronicles X:
    • In Chapter 5, the team infiltrates a heavily guarded Prone outpost to disable three of their gun turrets so the Ma-non ship can safely escape the canyon in Oblivia. They succeed, but go deeper into enemy territory in pursuit of gunfire, which leads to Prone Skells that the party then defeats.
      You'd Expect: Tatsu to have sense enough to wait 'til they had returned back to BLADE HQ to celebrate.
      Instead: He rushes out into the open and starts dancing around, thinking that it's already over, which provided a still-functioning Skell a fat, juicy free target. He would have gotten himself killed had Rook not spotted him in time to save him. Which ends up costing him/her their arm in the process.
    • During Chapter 6, the party is given a briefing on a Skell that has been left behind by the Ganglion. L'cirufe recognizes the land as tainted territory, and that the tainted literally eat any living thing that isn't them. The BLADEs, recognizing that mimeosomes aren't considered "alive", volunteer to recover the Skell while L and Tatsu stay behind.
      You'd Expect: Tatsu to stay put, since his presence would jeopardize the team, by drawing the enemy to their location.
      Instead: He rides a helicopter out to give them food. Not just to where they are in the tainted den, but to its heart. This triggers a forced encounter with tainted monsters, plus a boss fight. Lin was justifiably upset with him and calls him out on his stupidity.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3:
    • After Ouroboros flip Colony Lambda onto its back and destroy its Flame Clock, Isurd emerges from the Ferronis. Taion offers his life as penance for his strategy getting Nimue killed.
      You'd Expect: Isurd would take the opportunity to kill his former protégé. In reality, this Isurd is a fake created by Consul J. He had the perfect opportunity to kill an Ouroboros and get away with it.
      Instead: He doesn't. Consul J disintegrates the false Isurd, and reveals himself to be Joran, who had sacrificed himself to save Lanz years ago. He brags about his new power as Moebius and taunts Lanz for grieving over him.
      The Result: Ouroboros defeats Consul J and Taion makes amends with the real Isurd.
      It Gets Worse: Later on in the game, Ouroboros journeys to Keves Castle to destroy its Annihilator and Joran attempts to stop them while Interlinking with D. Unfortunately, the Annihilator is destroyed thanks to Taion and Eunie successfully pulling a Kansas City Shuffle. This would not have happened if Taion was killed at Lambda.
    • Lanz and Sena grab N and prepare to sacrifice themselves via an Annihilation Event to defeat him, since he's too powerful of a Consul/Moebius, given that he's the original Noah who became Z's Number 1 enforcer and made mincemeat out of the party, even when they themselves are in Ouroborus forms. X is (indirectly) observing the battle and Lanz & Sena's gambit.
      You'd Expect: X to not interfere with the process, since if Lanz and Sena kill N, along with themselves, the Endless Now is safe and sound, Noah and Mio would lose 2 of their closest allies, and life for Moebius would just go back to normal as if Vandham's forcing himself between Noah and Mio's teams to stop them from fighting in the Forever War never happened. After all, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.
      Instead: She neutralizes Lanz and Sena's Blades with her specter, which cancel out their Ouroborus forms and saves N from death.
      The Result: N chides X for doing such a thing, which would have grave consequences for Moebius down the road, such as N and M sacrificing themselves to affect Z's desire form.
      It Gets Worse: After N kills some of the people that tried to escape the Agnus Castle prison, he prepares to kill Noah and the party as well, but notices Mio's Homecoming tattoo, since she only has a few months left before the ceremony, and decides to imprison the party instead, while having a separate cell for Mio, so that when Mio dies due to people dying for good in a Homecoming Ceremony, he can break Noah's spirit and then behead him afterwards, unaware it's actually M who switched bodies with Mio since she doesn't want to live forever as a Moebius, which if it hadn't been the case and Mio actually died, it would've actually ended up being an "It Gets Better" for the villains instead, as not only would Noah get decapitated and the rest of the party getting executed, Moebius would've been able to use the Annihlator to destroy The City (due to Mio as M never having warned Monica and Ghondor about the fact that Shania sold out The City's location to Moebius), and with it, the Lost Numbers, and the cycle of Moebius continues as if Vandham's forcing himself between Noah and Mio's teams to stop them from fighting in the Forever War never happened.
      
• Yandere Simulator:
  • In YandereDev's "Driving Your Rivals To Murder" video, Musume Ronshaku, the Alpha Bitch Spoiled Brat of Akademi High School, is being held hostage by Ayano and Kokona at an abandoned barn. Kokona, who goes on dates with older men to help her dad pay off his massive loan to Musume's dad, is armed with a baseball bat.
    • You'd Expect: For Musume to get a firm grasp on her situation and try to calm Kokona into not attacking her. Or at the very least, NOT try to insult someone who's in a very good position to beat her to death.
    • Instead: Musume arrogantly hurls insults at an already-distraught and confused Kokona, sending her right over the edge.
    • The Result: Kokona snaps and bludgeons Musume to death, silencing her for good.
• Yggdra Union:
  • Someone has stolen Undine's Transmigragem, a sacred treasure which is used for a reproduction of its kind. A brief investigation indicates a shady human wizard from The Empire is responsible for the stolen item.
    You'd Expect: Undine's Queen Emelone to takes a serious look into the matter, and co-operates with the Royal Army who are more than willing to help them tracking down the lost artifact.
    Instead: The Undines, holding Honor Before Reason, go apeshit on human neighborhood and burn down their villages just for the heck of it. As a result, the whole nation of Undine, including the queen herself and her right-hand woman, is slained by Yggdra's army.
  • The Royal Army reaches the border of the Imperial's capital, Bronquia. After a battle against Baldus, Kylier warns Yggdra that marching into a city would turns her in a villain who invades innocent people's home country.
    You'd Expect: Yggdra to consider Kylier's warning, then either back down with her army or come up with a better plan to sneak into the enemy's stronghold without invoking needless bloodshed.
    Instead: Yggdra decides to push on, pissing off Kylier as she leaves the party permanently. As a consequence of dashing head first with an army into a town, the alarmed villagers Monica and Canaan take arms to fight the heroes, only to get killed off horribly. The whole scenario is simply one of the most tragic and idiotic Player Punch situations in gaming history.
• From Ys: The Oath in Felghana, Anti-Villain Chester wants revenge against Count McGuire for ordering Chester and his little sister Elena's hometown, Genos Island, destroyed, which also killed all of the other inhabitants. To get close to McGuire, Chester becomes a knight and pledges his loyalty to the count.
  You'd Expect : Chester would have plenty of chances, after proving his loyalty, to just stab the count when they're otherwise alone, or at least fight off the rest of the guards using his excellent sword skills, demonstrated by the fact that he's That One Boss.
  Instead: Chester chooses to do exactly what the count says because he wants the count to be Hoist by His Own Petard, using the statues that caused the destruction of Genos Island in the first place against him. This leads Chester to cross the line several times, including abandoning his little sister, stabbing one of his childhood friends and leaving him for dead because Chester's decided he can't turn back, and then infecting the entirety of a castle with a Hate Plague that turns all of the servants and knights (who had nothing to do with Genos Island) into mindless zombies. It's only after Elena finally snaps Chester out of it that he acknowledges he's gone too far, and ends up dying to save what's left of the town of Redmont.
• Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, being the original version of Super Mario Bros. 2, has Wart commit the same Boss-Arena Idiocy that he does in the Dolled-Up Installment. Wart has his fortress heavily armed, including such dangerous obstacles as Phantos, electric fields and conveyor belts. Even the Mask Gate that guards the entrance to Wart's throne room, normally a harmless obstacle, is not only sentient but hostile. At the end, Wart awaits the gang in his throne room for the final showdown. The magic Dream Machine is here, and it seems to either be sentient and decided to rebel against Wart, or malfunctioned; either way, it is spitting out vegetables everywhere, which just so happens to be Wart's one weakness.
  You'd Expect: Wart would have realized what a bad idea it is to keep the machine in his throne room, and either relocated himself, relocated the machine, or broke/destroyed the machine.
  Instead: He doesn't do any of these. He fights the gang while the machine is operating in the area, and would eventually be felled by having vegetables forcibly tossed down his digestive system.
  Even Worse: Where in Wart's throne room is the machine? Right in front of him.

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