Misused: What An Idiot

Informed intelligence?

Well, for situations that could've been avoided, there's already a myriad of tropes: Idiot Plot, Just Eat Gilligan, and even the objective and in-universe trope "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 14th 2021 at 2:52:56 PM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

"Unintentionally Unintelligent" was meant to be distinct from Informed Intelligence in it was individual moments and could apply to those otherwise genuinely intelligent. Informed Intelligence is once consistently guilty of such. We can discuss names and such later.

That's the thing, What An Idiot is audiences feeling X was stupid when X did something stupid, which doesn't seem meaningful. The rules we have to keep it somewhat meaningful, doesn't apply when we wouldn't expect them to be make intelligent choices, makes it redundant with Idiot Ball. Limiting WAI to unintended examples would make it distinct.

Wall Banger distinguish unintelligent from bad moments when it was about "head-trauma inducing stupidity", hence it devolving into such complaining it was cut. But in light of that I'm now iffy about moving to Darth as that could lead to the same, still leaving it as an option to consider.

Another though: make What An Idiot a super trope only to be used if no other stupidity tropes fit. (If it's not intentional stupidity, it's probably not being used as a trope.)

I think part of the issue is... How do you tell when a character's actions were intentionally dumb? Do they need to be called out in-universe? Does the narrative need to frame the character as exceptionally unintelligent, such as with other supplementary tropes like being blonde or getting bad grades? Or is it enough to just point to the character's actions and say there was no way the creators didn't realize how dumb it all seemed?

I think that's one of the issues we've been running into with a lot of tropes lately, and it pops up here because if the main difference is intentional stupidity vs unintentional stupidity, well... What's the difference between bad writing and a character intentionally written to be stupid if there's no indication that they're supposed to be this dumb?

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So this is like the Moral Dissonance thread all over again? (Now I feel bad too because I was the OP of both.)

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Hey, it's not your fault. And I wouldn't say the issues are exactly the same. It's more like the issue we've been having at the Critical Research Failure thread where the only line between it and Artistic License is authorial intent. But this is assuming that creator intent is actually a factor in Idiot Ball and What An Idiot to begin with.

My question is- is it / should it be a factor? And if yes, how is it determined?

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Well complaining is a big issue with this trope, so authorial intent may be helpful in weeding out entries with lots of that.

I also no longer want this in Darth Wiki because I don't want a Wall Banger repeat situation.

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TBF, I used to read Wall Banger all the time when it actually existed. It was supposed to be for moments so dumb you'd throw the script at the wall, but people mostly just used it as Dethroning Moment Lite. It might end up suffering the same issues Wall Banger did, and I agree it's not worth the risk, but I'm not sure if the result will be exactly the same.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Are all Contrived Stupidity Tropes pretty much the specific versions of Idiot Ball or there are some that are not?

Edited by Amonimus on Dec 14th 2021 at 12:46:21 PM

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

No. The Ball tropes are supposed to be "plot needs to move so character acts uncharacteristically X".

Idiot Ball is specifically Out-of-Character Moment idiocy (in-character idiocy due to being an established idiot, fatal flaws, or other exonerating circumstances is exempt) that's needed to advance the plot in the desired direction. My impression is that it's more about the OOC than the plot advancing, is that so?

As What An Idiot does not allow examples where you would not expect them to make intelligent decisions, how does that not limit it to OOC idiocy (as in-character idiocy is by definition expected) thus making it identical and redundant with Idiot Ball? That's what I think is causing confusion.

@themayorofsimpleton: Do you have a link to the old Moral Dissonance thread? I would like to see what went wrong there to try to a paid that here and the current MD TRS.

@WarJay77: "Unintentionally Unintelligent" would require it be portrayed as intelligent or justified, if neutral or unclear on the matter than not an example. Intentional stupidity would be called out in work, suffer due karmic consequence, or stem from established character traits/flaws. I can give specific examples tomorrow to discuss this further over if interested. If we have Unintentionally Sympathetic/Unsympathetic, I don't see why Unintelligent couldn't work as well.

I was referring to the current MD thread, actually.

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My main concern here, Ferot, is that while a character being intended as sympathetic or not is usually easy to figure out (Are they a protagonist? Are they an antagonist? Are they often portrayed as being unreasonable or unlikable? Do they get what they want in the end? Etc.), unintentional stupidity isn't always easy to distinguish from intentional stupidity. A character might just be genuinely dumb, or they might be just written really poorly and doing things the audience perceives as dumb without it being intended as dumb.

In other words, a character being dumb isn't always easy to distinguish from the character's writing being sloppy.

Now, obviously there's still ways to tell, such as how other characters treat them, but it's not always a definite.

I'm not saying Unintentionally Unintelligent can't work, but we need to lay the ground rules for how we can tell a dumb character from an unintentionally dumb character.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Here's a proposed Unintentionally Unintelligent entry to see how that would work.

• Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: Master Eraqus and Terra were meant to be Tragic Heroes; Eraqus for his friendship with Master Xehanort blinding him to how evil he'd become and Terra for his insecurities and Eraqus vouching for Xehanort enabling them to manipulate him. But due to how Obviously Evil Xehanort was (including canonical sighs of darkness corruption) and acted, many saw their trusting him as more Too Dumb to Live than tragic.

This explains why, even though their trusting him was a mistake they suffer consequences for, it was less intelligent than intended as there was a reason it was stupid not acknowledged by the narrative.

Just realized something, the something that doomed Wall Bangers. Many find stupidity so unlivable they use it interchangeably with unsympathetic and bad writing. Is that why you think Unintentionally Unintelligent would be harder to make work than Unintentionally Sympathetic/Unsympathetic? This would also be something however we fix What An Idiot should address. (Maybe something about audiences reacting so strongly to idiocy should be it's own trope. "Idiocy Is Worse Than Cruelty" is something I've seen.)

Not quite what I'm worried about, but now that you mention it...

Yeah, my main issue is more that a character's intelligence isn't as simple as their intended morality and likability. Since a character doing something stupid is often seen as bad writing in general unless they're just meant to be "the dumb one", the line between intentional stupidity and bad writing is harder to draw. Not impossible, just hard.

But you're right that stupidity is also seen as unsympathetic and unlikable.

Edited by WarJay77 on Dec 15th 2021 at 11:07:18 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

That does sound like something. A character does something that has very high risks and (caused) high consequences, but the audience doesn't agree with the reasoning of their choice the narrative is using.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

There's one entry I added myself at one point, a purely in-universe example where the characters comment in the conclusion on how they knew a character was dumb, but in this particular case they think he was being dumber than usual (due to a case of Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome). Seeing this thread, I'm wondering now - would such an example really belong on "What An Idiot!", or is there another trope that it qualifies for instead, for people commenting on another person being stupid?

Until next time...

Anon e Mouse Jr.

"Could Have Avoided This!" Plot, lampshaded Idiot Ball?

Or even What the Hell, Hero?.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

On analysis, it's none of those.

• Idiot Ball is for normally competent people acting dumb, and this guy's clearly not too bright from the beginning.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot just plain doesn't fit.
• What the Hell, Hero? doesn't fit because the book is a mystery, and this guy's one of the villains (who committed a spur-of-the-moment killing; the other crimes in the book were committed by the real big bad of the story).
  
  

The in-universe lampshading remark that prompted me to put it on the What An Idiot page (along with Chronic Evidence Retention Syndrome) was "How many killers are actually dumb enough to drive around with the murder weapon in the trunk of their cars?"

Until next time...

Anon e Mouse Jr.

That reminds me how there used to be an example on WhatAnIdiot.Steven Universe where Steven gave Onion a replication device in exchange for an action figure. After Onion uses the device to cause chaos, Pearl asks Steven why he didn't just use the device to replicate the action figure.

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Stating the Simple Solution?

I do some cleanup and then I enjoy shows you probably think are cringe.

As What An Idiot is effectively always used by audiences as a complaint, any examples that are intentional/self-aware of the stupidity (e.g. "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot, Stating the Simple Solution) seem misuse.

If WAI is not supposed to be just complaints about idiocy, what is it that is separate from more objective Stupidity Tropes? (The only thing I can think of is it being unintentional.)

Question; how/is is in-universe examples of What An Idiot different then You Fool!? Does the latter require the word "fool" be used?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Dec 18th 2021 at 2:04:07 AM

So does anyone else have any ideas?

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Rename it to something less ambiguous?

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