History Main / HanlonsRazor

** This is a DiscussedTrope in Literature/ProvenGuilty, where it is shown that practitioners of BlackMagic almost always get involved in it due to not fully understanding the consequences of their actions, until they get too DrunkOnTheDarkSide to turn back. Harry specifically mentions that most "bad guys" never want to be bad guys, and often don't even realise that they are.

* A ''very'' controversial theory, put forward by the British historian A.J.P. Taylor, suggests that AdolfHitler was ''not'' the evil scheming mastermind who had filed on his plans for world domination since the "Beer Hall Putsch" (as described in a certain piece of prison literature called ''Mein Kampf''), but instead was a more or less buffoonish opportunist, who initially never thought of actually pulling through any of his ”world domination schemes" (i.e. the invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Soviet Union, etc). According to Taylor, Hitler was a small fish in the big pond who got real lucky with his new title of "chancellor", and actually tried to [[{{Metaphorgotten}} weasel]] his way up as he swam with the stream, and that it was not until Britain and France had demonstrated their lack of stamina in enforcing the Versailles Treaty towards Germany that Hitler decided he could go even a step further and become more bratty. For instance, when he attempted to remilitarise the initially demilitarised Rhine area (whose demilitarisation was in return surveilled by France). He sent over troops on ''bikes and horses'', just in case the French retaliated and he needed to make a speedy retreat. When they didn't, he simply tested the patience of the Entente nations all the way to the invasion of Czechoslovakia and finally of Poland, when France and Britain finally declared war, realising that they had missed too many opportunities to stand up to Germany rather than appease.

* [[TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] has been both a beneficiary and a victim of this trope in a few instances; in Literature/TurnCoat, [[TheChessmaster the Gatekeeper]] says he can't decide if Harry is a truly brilliant DiabolicalMastermind or a blundering imbecile. Harry just says "Dude," and indicates [[CosmicPlaything the various injuries he's constantly getting]]. In Literature/GravePeril, a big moment for [[InspectorJavert Morgan]] is his acceptance that the many times Harry has flouted the Laws of Magic or been part of some kind of disaster are not due to deliberate malice, but due to arrogance, impulsiveness and recklessness.

*** Actually, her preconceived conclusion was that '''Beklar Bitterleaf''' and [[GuiltByAssociation everyone working with him]] is evil, evil, evil...but Beklar ''had'' shown her no small amount of unmistakable malice. One would need the patience of a saint ''not'' declare holy war after his attacks and provocations. Sure it was funny readers to watch the stuck-up paladin get her comeuppance from a RefugeInAudacity midget, but look at it from her perspective.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', this is often used by fans to describe Wheatley, though it may or may not be accurate in canon. After [[spoiler:being in charge of the facility for a while]], it's a bit unclear whether or not he's just going along with it to cover up how incredibly inept he is.
** Whatever he may have become, GlaDOS is very clear that [[spoiler:Wheatley was ingeniously designed to consistently make bad choices, to such a degree that the only times he does anything clever is when doing so would inadvertently make the situation worse or hasten his own downfall.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' hung a ''big'' [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] on this trope in an episode debunking 9/11 ConspiracyTheories. [[spoiler:The existence of conspiracy theories is actually a government conspiracy; Washington failed to ''prevent'' twenty Muslim lunatics with box cutters killing 3,000 people, so they'd rather allow people to believe that they ''made'' it happen -- it actually makes the government look more formidable and in control than it is]].

This law relies on the assumption that ignorance in and of itself isn't malicious, which often doesn't fly in a court of law. It also doesn't account for malicious actions taken to conceal ignorance, which is TruthInTelevision - the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Code_of_Silence Blue Code of Silence]].

This law relies on the assumption that ignorance in and of itself isn't malicious. It also doesn't account for malicious actions taken to conceal ignorance, which is TruthInTelevision - the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Code_of_Silence Blue Code of Silence]].

** There was a movie made in the 1970s called ''The Lincoln Conspiracy''. It was "Oswald didn't act alone", with Lee Harvey Oswald replaced by John Wilkes Booth. (And 2011's ''The Conspirator'' covers a specific aspect of the same story.) And then it turns out that in reality [[FreakierThanFiction Booth actually was part of a conspiracy]]. It just turned out he was the only member of it who went through with the whole "murder another human being" aspect of the plan. His friend Lewis Paine stabbed the US Secretary of State but failed to kill him, and the other conspirator chickened out on shooting Vice President AndrewJohnson. All were eventually caught and hanged or imprisoned, except for Booth as he was shot by a soldier. Conspiracy theories claim he somehow escaped, it was a double kill, people in the US government were involved, etc[[note]]The circumstances of Booth's death didn't help. Everton Conger (1834 - 1918) was the one leading the search for the assassin. He did manage to track him down and was trying to capture him alive, for obvious interrogation purposes. Sergeant Boston Corbett (1832 - 1894?) suddenly shot at Booth, fatally wounding him. Booth was never interrogated. Conger reported Corbett's actions to be "without order, pretext or excuse". There are suggestions that Corbett was acting to silence the assassin. Far more likely, though, that it was another of Corbett's insane moments. The guy had a long history of strange behavior, arguably starting with his self-castration in 1858. Supposedly to avoid sexual temptation. He ended up in an insane asylum by 1887. His biographers have noted that Corbett had spend years working as a hatter; his exposure to mercury may have much to do with his strange behavior. At the time, mercury was used in the production of felt, so hat makers tended to suffer from mercury poisoning due to the daily exposure. Thus the phrase "mad as a hatter". And the statements made by the doctor who examined Booth's body afterwards don't help, either. He made numerous notes of things that were mismatched to Booth's known medical records, including a missing scar from the removal of a tumor that the doctor performing the examination had himself done quite recently.[[/note]]

* There's still some debate as to whether the Holodomor, the famine cause by Stalin's agricultural collectivization policies in the Ukraine, was the result of simple mismanagement or a deliberate genocide against a nation that had a (not undeserved) reputation as a breeding ground for counter-revolutionary sentiment. [[InvertedTrope This is]] ''Stalin'' -- how this trope applies to totalitarian psychopaths is an interesting question.

** The same is being debated about every dictators policies.

* A bit of [[SelfDeprecation self-aware humor]] in the US government is that the proof that there is no vast government conpsiracy to cover up the existance of aliens is that such a conspiracy would rely on the idea that the US government is capable of doing ''anything'' with what resembles competence or discretion.

* Twas neither the might of the Turkish siege nor internal betrayal that finally cracked the mighty defenses of the nigh-impregnable Constantinople. Just some random nobody (whoops) forgetting to lock a door.

* As IanFleming once wrote: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

--->'''Sluggy Character:''' Why did you do ABCDGFQRS XanatosRoulette?\\

See also PoesLaw.

A corollary to FinaglesLaw which has an infinite applications in writing comedy:

::'' Don't assume malice when stupidity is an adequate explanation; not the first time.''

The reasoning is suggested in the Mrs. Bridges test (taken from the BBC's ''UpstairsDownstairs'': "Once is bad luck, twice is a bad habit"). Thus malice becomes a reasonable hypothesis after two events. At this point the [[WKRPInCincinnati Dr Johnny Fever]] rule applies ("When everybody is out to get you, [[ProperlyParanoid paranoia is straight thinking]]"), or, as articulated by IanFleming "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

Disregarding it is a prerequisite for plots involving an AncientConspiracy, GovernmentConspiracy or similar antagonist. The existence of a powerful, secretive, and malicious cabal makes for juicier storytelling than the idea that something bad happened because one of the people in power was lazy, short-sighted, impulsive, or stupid. [[ConspiracyTheorist Of course, THEY would prefer that you believe THEM to be stupid instead of evil]]. Most aversions involve someone saying that the noise you heard was [[ItsProbablyNothing just the wind]].

** ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' in general could be considered a continuous Hanlon's Razor. Half the story arcs in the series wouldn't exist if it weren't for people making incredibly stupid decisions. There are exceptions to this rule (see the Rule of Shadoes of Grey). For instance, the Ghouls were thought to be caused by some idiot unleashing a zombie plague, when in actuality [[spoiler:the Ghouls were a HordeOfAlienLocusts that had taken human form]]. 90% or more of the time a villain has done something right, it's because he or she, one of his or her underlings, or even one of the good/neutral guys has screwed up. A good number of the plots end with two characters thusly:
--->'''Sluggy Character:''' Why did you do ABCDGFQRS GambitRoulette?\\

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', [[TheHero Roy]] tells [[KnightTemplar Miko]] that he had killed the evil lich [[BigBad Xykon]]. When she meets Xykon [[DemBones in the bones]] she immediately comes to the conclusion that Roy and the rest of the Order of the Stick are working for Xykon, and deceived her. The real explanation is that the Order didn't know how to destroy a lich: Xykon was not destroyed, but regenerated from his [[SoulJar phylactery]] after the Order were long gone.
** Miko's LawfulStupid nature causes her to attribute anything to malice rather than incompetence, because of the Prosecutor's Fallacy in dismissing any explanation that doesn't fit her preconceived conclusion that Roy Greenhilt and everyone working with him is evil, evil, evil. The ridiculous and paranoid theories she's forced to devise to hold to this viewpoint results in her invoking Grey's Law, when her willful ignorance that the Order of the Stick is not working for the bad guys becomes much, ''much'' more harmful to her homeland than any actual malice could have been. [[spoiler:Murdering the city's ruler in the insane belief that ''he'' was working with Xykon because he was cooperating with Roy, who, as we all know, ''has'' to be evil, nearly murdering the ruler's heir because she assumes being proven wrong was just a test by the gods/a trick by Roy, and eventually stopping the founder of her order from defeating the villains and saving the city when her own incompetence leads her to destroy the stone he was guarding, killing her, saving the lives of the BigBad and TheDragon, and dooming her homeland to Goblin occupation.]]

* This played a role in WWI. The fact that 4 years of horribly bloody conflict were kicked off because of a student with a pistol on a fortuitous lunch run boggles the mind. Europe in 1914 was a tangled web of treaties, ethnic tensions, and monarchical rivalries. To add to the mess, the war itself was, in all likelihood, inevitable: nobody had thought very hard when signing mutual defense treaties saying that "If any state declares war on X, we will declare war on that state." When somebody finally followed through with their treaty obligation to do just that, a dead guy's war plans went into effect automatically, and there's some evidence for the theory that the US was dragged in because some people in Europe felt that it wasn't fair to let the US stay out of the party.
* A ''very'' controversial theory, put forward by the British historian A.J.P. Taylor, suggests that AdolfHitler was ''not'' the evil scheming mastermind who had filed on his plans for world domination since the "Beer Hall Putsch" (as described in a certain piece of prison literature called ''Mein Kampf''), but instead was a more or less buffoonish opportunist, who initially never thought of pulling through any of his ”world domination schemes" (i.e. the invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Soviet Union, etc). According to Taylor, Hitler was a small fish in the big pond who got real lucky with his new title of "chancellor", and actually tried to [[{{Metaphorgotten}} weasel]] his way up as he swam with the stream, and that it was not until Britain and France had demonstrated their lack of stamina in enforcing the Versailles Treaty towards Germany that Hitler decided he could go even a step further and become more bratty. For instance, when he attempted to remilitarise the initially demilitarised Rhine area (whose demilitarisation was in return surveilled by France). He sent over troops on ''bikes and horses'', just in case the French retaliated and he needed to make a speedy retreat. When they didn't, he simply tested the patience of the Entente nations all the way to the invasion of Czechoslovakia and finally of Poland, when France and Britain finally declared war, realising that they had missed too many opportunities to stand up to Germany rather than appease.

** Conspiracy theories in general depend on the assumption that a ''lack'' of evidence is in turn ''proof'' of a cover-up. Plain ol' incompetence with a dose of coincidence doesn't seem like a cool enough explanation.

--->"Just as [[OccamsRazor it's wrong to find complicated conspiracy where simple incompetence will explain everything]], it's also [[HanlonsRazor wrong to presume evil motives where simple mental retardation may be the explanation.]]" The best part of that article is that it [[spoiler:has fake advertisements for Halliburton and Freemasonry, implying that the article itself is all part of the conspiracy]].

A corollary to FinaglesLaw which seems to have almost infinite applications in writing comedy:

::'' Don't assume malice when stupidity is an adequate explanation. At least, not the first time.''

However, once you pass the Mrs. Bridges test (taken from the BBC's ''UpstairsDownstairs'', in that "Once is bad luck, twice is a bad habit"), malice becomes a reasonable hypothesis. At this point the [[WKRPInCincinnati Dr Johnny Fever]] rule applies ("When everybody is out to get you, [[ProperlyParanoid paranoia is just straight thinking]]"), or, as articulated by IanFleming "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

Disregarding it is a prerequisite for plots involving an AncientConspiracy, GovernmentConspiracy or similar antagonist. The existence of a powerful, secretive, and malicious cabal makes for juicier storytelling than the idea that something bad happened because one of the people in power was lazy, short-sighted, impulsive, or just plain stupid. [[ConspiracyTheorist Of course, THEY would prefer that you believe THEM to be stupid instead of evil]]. Most aversions involve someone saying that the noise you heard was [[ItsProbablyNothing just the wind]].

** ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' in general could be considered a big example of Hanlon's Razor. Half the story arcs in the series wouldn't exist if it weren't for people making incredibly stupid decisions.
*** Though that particular example was a subversion, they thought the Ghouls were caused by some idiot unleashing a zombie plague, when in actuality [[spoiler:the Ghouls were a HordeOfAlienLocusts that had taken human form]].
** 90% or more of the time a villain has done something right, it's because he or she, one of his or her underlings, or even one of the good/neutral guys has screwed up. A good number of the plots end with two characters thusly:
--->'''Sluggy Character:''' Why did you do ABCDGFQRS XanatosRoulette?\\

* In ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', [[TheHero Roy]] tells [[KnightTemplar Miko]] that he had killed the evil lich [[BigBad Xykon]]. When she meets Xykon in the flesh (except, y'know, [[DemBones not]]), she immediately comes to the conclusion that Roy and the rest of the Order of the Stick are working for Xykon, and deceived her. The real explanation is that the Order didn't know how to destroy a lich: Xykon did get destroyed, but regenerated from his [[SoulJar phylactery]] after the Order were long gone.
** Miko's LawfulStupid nature causes her to attribute anything to malice rather than incompetence, particularly since she ''embodies'' the Prosecutor's Fallacy in dismissing any explanation that doesn't fit her preconceived conclusion that Roy Greenhilt and everyone working with him is evil, evil, evil. The ridiculous and paranoid theories she's forced to devise to hold to this viewpoint results in her invoking Grey's Law, when her willful ignorance that the Order of the Stick is not working for the bad guys becomes much, ''much'' more harmful to her homeland than any actual malice could have been. [[spoiler:Murdering the city's ruler in the insane belief that ''he'' was working with Xykon because he was cooperating with Roy, who, as we all know, ''has'' to be evil, nearly murdering the ruler's heir because she assumes being proven wrong was just a test by the gods/a trick by Roy, and eventually stopping the founder of her order from defeating the villains and saving the city when her own incompetence leads her to destroy the stone he was guarding, killing her, saving the lives of the BigBad and TheDragon, and dooming her homeland to Goblin occupation.]]

* Everything surrounding WorldWarI can be explained by the leaders of Europe acting like a bunch of gibbering morons. The fact that 4 years of horribly bloody conflict were kicked off because of a student with a pistol on a fortuitous lunch run boggles the mind. Europe in 1914 was a tangled web of treaties, ethnic tensions, and monarchical rivalries. To add to the mess, the war itself was, in all likelihood, inevitable: nobody had thought very hard when signing mutual defense treaties saying that "If any state declares war on X, we will declare war on that state." [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity,]] of a sort, [[HilarityEnsues Ensued]] when somebody actually finally ''did'' follow through with their treaty obligation to do just that, a dead guy's war plans went into effect automatically, and there's some evidence for the theory that the US was dragged in because some people in Europe felt that it wasn't fair to let the US stay out of the party. That probably counts as 'ignorance' of a sort, given that it could have easily enough backfired horribly.
* A ''very'' controversial theory, put forward by the British historian A.J.P. Taylor, suggests that AdolfHitler was ''not'' the evil scheming mastermind who had filed on his plans for world domination since the "Beer Hall Putsch" (as described in a certain piece of prison literature called ''Mein Kampf''), but instead was a more or less buffoonish opportunist, who initially never thought of actually pulling through any of his ”world domination schemes" (i.e. the invasion of Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Soviet Union, etc). According to Taylor, Hitler was a small fish in the big pond who got real lucky with his new title of "chancellor", and actually tried to [[{{Metaphorgotten}} weasel]] his way up as he swam with the stream, and that it was not until Britain and France had demonstrated their lack of stamina in enforcing the Versailles Treaty towards Germany that Hitler decided he could go even a step further and become more bratty. For instance, when he attempted to remilitarise the initially demilitarised Rhine area (whose demilitarisation was in return surveilled by France). He sent over troops on ''bikes and horses'', just in case the French retaliated and he needed to make a speedy retreat. When they didn't, he simply tested the patience of the Entente nations all the way to the invasion of Czechoslovakia and finally of Poland, when France and Britain finally declared war, realising that they had missed too many opportunities to stand up to Germany rather than appease.

** Conspiracy theories in general depend on the assumption that a ''lack'' of evidence is in turn ''proof'' of a cover-up. Plain ol' incompetence with a dose of coincidence just doesn't seem like a cool enough explanation, apparently.

--->"Just as [[OccamsRazor it's wrong to find complicated conspiracy where simple incompetence will explain everything]], it's also [[HanlonsRazor wrong to presume evil motives where simple mental retardation may be the explanation.]]"
*** The best part of that article is that it [[spoiler:has fake advertisements for Halliburton and Freemasonry, implying that the article itself is all part of the conspiracy]].

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'': Harmony went from a human with a soul (stupid) to a vampire without one (evil), but her personality didn't change a whit.

* Twas neither the might of the Turkish siege not internal betrayal that finally cracked the defenses of the nigh-impregnable Constantinople. Just some random schmuck (whoops) forgetting to lock a door.

** This [[http://www.cracked.com/article_15740_was-911-inside-job.html Cracked article]] says it best, and invokes this trope.

However, once you pass the Mrs. Bridges test (taken from the BBC's ''UpstairsDownstairs'', in that "Once is bad luck, twice is a bad habit"), malice becomes a reasonable hypothesis. At this point the [[WKRPInCincinnati Dr Johnny Fever]] rule applies ("When everybody is out to get you, [[ProperlyParanoid paranoia is just straight thinking]]")