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* ''Literature/TheEnemy''. The quarrel between Jordan and Achilleus in the final book is caused by Jordan seizing a dog which Achilleus gave to his friend, Paddy. Jordan's eyesight is failing and he needs the dog to act as his eyes, but he is [[HidingTheHandicap reluctant to tell anyone]] and simply takes the animal without explanation, leaving Paddy heartbroken and Achilleus so angry with Jordan that he [[AchillesInHisTent refuses to join the battle against the sickos]]. Achilleus and Jordan do eventually patch up their differences, but not before Paddy has been killed in a misguided attempt to prove himself.
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* In ''Literature/FoundationsEdge'', it is mentions that the Second Foundation has many urban legends about the importance of properly communicating in a report. The best known (and the one least likely to be true) says that the first report about [[OutOfContextVillain the Mule]] was ignored because, due to some mistake, it was understood to be a report about ''a'' mule, leading to a very costly delay in response.
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Actually, it's Doran's fault. Ser Barristan Selmy told Quentyn that had Doran revealed the marriage pact earlier then Dany wouldn't have gone into a lot of trouble going to Slavers' Bay where she married Hidahz to keep Mereen from going into chaos which delayed her plans to conquer Westeros.
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** Likewise, [[spoiler: Doran Martell]] keeps much of his plans hidden from his family and their allies. This ultimately leads to an ill-fated round of XanatosSpeedChess that ends with [[spoiler: his son Quentyn dying a slow and agonizing death.]]
** That's not ''entirely'' accurate. [[spoiler: Quentyn died horribly, but it was his own fault for thinking he could control a dragon, just like Daenerys did.]] [[spoiler: Doran Martell's secrets made his daughter, Arianne, think that he was pushing her aside in order to make Quentyn his heir. To avoid that, she kidnaps Princess Myrcella and things [[AnArmAndALeg go downhill]] from there.]]
** That's not ''entirely'' accurate. [[spoiler: Quentyn died horribly, but it was his own fault for thinking he could control a dragon, just like Daenerys did.]] [[spoiler: Doran Martell's secrets made his daughter, Arianne, think that he was pushing her aside in order to make Quentyn his heir. To avoid that, she kidnaps Princess Myrcella and things [[AnArmAndALeg go downhill]] from there.]]
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** Likewise, [[spoiler: Doran Martell]] keeps much of his plans hidden from his family and their allies. This ultimately leads to an ill-fated round of XanatosSpeedChess that ends with [[spoiler: led to [[spoiler:Princess Myrcella losing an ear after his daughter Arianne's failed attempt to crown her and his son Quentyn dying in a slow and slow, agonizing death.]]
** That's not ''entirely'' accurate. [[spoiler: Quentyn died horribly, but it was his own fault for thinking he could control a dragon, just likedeath after failing to woo Daenerys did.]] [[spoiler: and attempting to tame her dragons instead when she's gone]]. Ser Barristan Selmy noted that [[spoiler:if Doran Martell's secrets made his daughter, Arianne, think that he was pushing her aside revealed the marriage pact earlier then Daenerys wouldn't experience any trouble in order to make Quentyn his heir. To avoid that, she kidnaps Princess Myrcella and things [[AnArmAndALeg go downhill]] from there.]]Slavers' Bay]].
** That's not ''entirely'' accurate. [[spoiler: Quentyn died horribly, but it was his own fault for thinking he could control a dragon, just like
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** Occurs in the very first book: Honor pursues the Havenite Q-Ship running from the Medusa system when she realizes that their plan to grab the system would have the Q-ship "fleeing" to a waiting squadron of warships. She's right, but the premature start of the Medusan uprising the Havenites were promoting screwed up their plan so the captain was running to tell the warships ''not'' to come into the system. But he couldn't admit it because it would confirm Haven's covert actions, and the resulting combat destroys the Q-ship, nearly destroys Harrington's ship, and costs her a large chunk of her crew, even though it should have been blazingly obvious to him that the jig was up and the Manticorans obviously knew what was going on.
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** Occurs in the very first book: Honor pursues the Havenite Q-Ship running from the Medusa system when she realizes that their plan to grab the system would have the Q-ship "fleeing" to a waiting squadron of warships. She's right, but the premature start of the Medusan uprising the Havenites were promoting screwed up their plan so the captain was running to tell the warships ''not'' to come into the system. But he couldn't admit it because it would confirm Haven's covert actions, and the resulting combat destroys the Q-ship, nearly destroys Harrington's ship, and costs her a large chunk of her crew, even though it should have been was blazingly obvious to him that the jig was up and the Manticorans obviously knew what was going on.on. His problem was that surrendering the ship would provide concrete proof (not only of the plan, but Havenite Q-Ships). And even were he to be honest about what he was and that he was going to call the operation off, Harrington would have no reason to believe him.
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* Due to the secret nature of Dreamland ops, the characters of DaleBrown's books often find themselves going up against ostensible allies both within and without America even when there's not supposed to be overt conflict.
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* Due to the secret nature of Dreamland ops, the characters of DaleBrown's Creator/DaleBrown's books often find themselves going up against ostensible allies both within and without America even when there's not supposed to be overt conflict.
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* In ''Literature/TheWitchlands'', at one point Iseult is pursued by a group of Cleaved and leads them onto a Nomatsi road, which they can't navigate and die on. Some time later, she has a dream conversation with Esme, who tells her that she actually Cleaved those men and sent them after Iseult to help her - they were carrying food and one of them had hunting gear to give Iseult.
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* Romeo & Juliet (Older than Steam): Shakespeare's main characters die because Juliet didn't communicate her plans to Romeo (he missed the message because he was busy) and he thought she was really dead, so he kills himself to be with her, then she kills herself to be with him.
* Romeo & Juliet (Older than Steam): Shakespeare's main characters die because Juliet didn't communicate her plans to Romeo (he missed the message because he was busy) and he thought she was really dead, so he kills himself to be with her, then she kills herself to be with him.
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* Examined in the first written ''Literature/HoratioHornblower'' novel, not as a consequence of bad judgment but because transoceanic communication in 1812 was incredibly dodgy. Before leaving England, Hornblower was given orders to sail to the west coast of Nicaragua without sighting land and support a tinpot dictator fighting the Spanish. Though the order not to sight land is incredibly unrealistic, Hornblower manages it, provides materiel to El Supremo, and hands a captured Spanish frigate to him because he's still acting under orders to assist the rebels. Then he's visited by a Spanish ship which provides the happy news that England and Spain are allies! So Hornblower has to go and get the frigate back, nearly losing his own ship in the process, because otherwise his career would be destroyed for following his orders exactly.
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Huge example missing.
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*Romeo & Juliet (Older than Steam): Shakespeare's main characters die because Juliet didn't communicate her plans to Romeo (he missed the message because he was busy) and he thought she was really dead, so he kills himself to be with her, then she kills herself to be with him.
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* Nearly the entire plot of ''Literature/ArielBlock'' is Poor Communication Kills, literally. Ariel's mother Roberta hates her, therefore believes that when Ariel asks if her brother is dead, she's really confessing she killed him. Ariel knew he was dead because of Roberta's expression as she left his room but "try telling a thing like that to Roberta". A series of incidents like this go into cascading failures ending [[spoiler: with Roberta killing herself because she doesn't know Ariel has a cassette recorder]].
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* ''{{Dracula}}'', where the excessively gentlemanly heroes deliberately choose not to tell Mina Harker about their vampire hunt so as not to distress her, thus making her the [[DistressedDamsel perfect target]]. Ironically, once the damage is done and they must let her in on it, she copes rather better than her husband did.
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* ''{{Dracula}}'', ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'', where the excessively gentlemanly heroes deliberately choose not to tell Mina Harker about their vampire hunt so as not to distress her, thus making her the [[DistressedDamsel perfect target]]. Ironically, once the damage is done and they must let her in on it, she copes rather better than her husband did.
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* In TheRepublicOfTrees, Isobel tells Michael that she broke up with her previous boyfriend because he wanted something from her that she wouldn't give him... [[spoiler:he wanted her to stop cheating on him ]] As the result, Michael learns the truth at the worst possible moment and the already unstable situation spirals out of control to ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' proportions.
* In ''Film/TheRuins'', poor communication literally kills, as the Mayan-speaking locals are unable to effectively warn the main characters away from the titular ruins. TruthInTelevision, as it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish, much less English.
* In the second book of ASongOfIceAndFire, Robb could have avoided a whole mess of trouble if he'd just confided in his underlings a bit more. He goes off to fight the Lannister's western army and leaves his uncle Edmure to hold Riverrun. When the Lannister eastern army starts harrying Riverrun's borders, Edmure rides off with his army and succeeds beating them back to a full retreat. Cue celebrations and parties... until Robb returns and, after publicly honoring his uncle's success, browbeats him in private for disobeying his orders. Turns out he had planned to lure the eastern army into attacking Riverrun so he could come in from the south and crush it between his army and the castle.
* In ''Film/TheRuins'', poor communication literally kills, as the Mayan-speaking locals are unable to effectively warn the main characters away from the titular ruins. TruthInTelevision, as it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish, much less English.
* In the second book of ASongOfIceAndFire, Robb could have avoided a whole mess of trouble if he'd just confided in his underlings a bit more. He goes off to fight the Lannister's western army and leaves his uncle Edmure to hold Riverrun. When the Lannister eastern army starts harrying Riverrun's borders, Edmure rides off with his army and succeeds beating them back to a full retreat. Cue celebrations and parties... until Robb returns and, after publicly honoring his uncle's success, browbeats him in private for disobeying his orders. Turns out he had planned to lure the eastern army into attacking Riverrun so he could come in from the south and crush it between his army and the castle.
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* In TheRepublicOfTrees, ''Literature/TheRepublicOfTrees'', Isobel tells Michael that she broke up with her previous boyfriend because he wanted something from her that she wouldn't give him... [[spoiler:he wanted her to stop cheating on him ]] As the result, Michael learns the truth at the worst possible moment and the already unstable situation spirals out of control to ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' proportions.
* In''Film/TheRuins'', ''Literature/TheRuins'', poor communication literally kills, as the Mayan-speaking locals are unable to effectively warn the main characters away from the titular ruins. TruthInTelevision, as it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish, much less English.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** In the secondbook of ASongOfIceAndFire, book, Robb could have avoided a whole mess of trouble if he'd just confided in his underlings a bit more. He goes off to fight the Lannister's western army and leaves his uncle Edmure to hold Riverrun. When the Lannister eastern army starts harrying Riverrun's borders, Edmure rides off with his army and succeeds beating them back to a full retreat. Cue celebrations and parties... until Robb returns and, after publicly honoring his uncle's success, browbeats him in private for disobeying his orders. Turns out he had planned to lure the eastern army into attacking Riverrun so he could come in from the south and crush it between his army and the castle.
* In
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** In the second
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* In TimothyZahn's Conqueror's trilogy, when humans had First Contact with an alien race, they sent a peaceful first contact radio communication. Unfortunately, the aliens perceived it as [[spoiler:one of their dreaded Elderdeath weapons]]. So, the aliens immediately opened fire, quickly shredding the human battle fleet in minutes and starting a nasty war, based on mutual misunderstandings.
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* In TimothyZahn's Conqueror's Creator/TimothyZahn's ''Literature/{{Conqueror}}'''s trilogy, when humans had First Contact with an alien race, they sent a peaceful first contact radio communication. Unfortunately, the aliens perceived it as [[spoiler:one of their dreaded Elderdeath weapons]]. So, the aliens immediately opened fire, quickly shredding the human battle fleet in minutes and starting a nasty war, based on mutual misunderstandings.
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** And it's also the reason that Lucy and her mother died; if the men had been upfront with the women, then there would be no plot.
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** And it's also the reason that Lucy and her mother died; if Van Helsing (who was the men only guy who had any inkling of what was going on with Lucy at that point) had been upfront with the women, then there would be no plot.
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* In ''Website/TheOnion'''s Literature/OurDumbCentury'', all the casualties of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI turn out to be this. Archduke Fraz Ferdinand wasn't assassinated he just went on vacation; when he finally returns, sees what happened, and explains the misunderstanding, the war is called off and the survivors go home mildly embarrassed.
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* In ''Website/TheOnion'''s Literature/OurDumbCentury'', ''Literature/OurDumbCentury'', all the casualties of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI turn out to be this. Archduke Fraz Ferdinand wasn't assassinated he just went on vacation; when he finally returns, sees what happened, and explains the misunderstanding, the war is called off and the survivors go home mildly embarrassed.
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***Harry also fails to give Murphy relevant information again, causing her to suspect him to be involved, again.
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** Dumbledore is even worse, in ''every single book'' concealing information from Harry that often could save Harry the entire plot. Dumbledore claims in book 5 to realize why this is a terrible idea after it literally gets someone killed... and then is right back at it the next book, failing to tell Harry [[spoiler:that Dumbledore knows about Draco's plot, anything that would reassure Harry about trusting Snape, or that Dumbledore is going to die soon regardless.]]
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** Dumbledore is even worse, in ''every single book'' concealing information from Harry that often could save Harry the entire plot. Dumbledore claims in book 5 to realize why this is a terrible idea after it literally gets someone killed... and then is right back at it the next book, failing to tell Harry [[spoiler:that Dumbledore knows about Draco's plot, anything that would reassure Harry about trusting Snape, or that Dumbledore is going to die soon regardless. However, this can be excused as Harry's mind is linked to Voldemort's, meaning Voldemort can potentially find out whatever Dumbledore is planning. ]]
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* In ''TheForeverWar'', a war that lasts centuries between humans and an alien race [[spoiler:turns out to be based on a misunderstanding]]. Considering that the author is a Vietnam vet, one need merely read The Pentagon Papers to see where he gets his idea.
* A large part of later books in the ''EndersGame'' series. Turns out [[spoiler:the formics were not hostile, but simply unaware that humans were intelligent, at least on an individual level. After the second war, they tried to apologize, but were destroyed before they learned to communicate with us.]] In addition, the whole debate over whether two alien species can communicate and coexist is dominant, especially as a situation gets closer and closer to "Communicate with them, or commit Xenocide." [[spoiler:Placing our heroes in the exact same situation as the formics.]]
** Also, the main plot of ''SpeakerForTheDead'' occurs because no one stops to ask the Piggies "Say, why exactly did you kill those two people and ritually disembowel them?" Seemingly, neither of the people who got disemboweled thought to say anything along the lines of [[spoiler: "Why are you doing this?...What's the third life?...Oh, I see. Uh, humans don't do that. It'll just kill us horribly. Please don't."]]
* BeingThere is a variation; the whole plot is based on characters misinterpreting most everything [[SeeminglyProfoundFool Chance the Gardener]] says (with the twist that he cannot correct them because he isn't able to understand what's going on).
* A large part of later books in the ''EndersGame'' series. Turns out [[spoiler:the formics were not hostile, but simply unaware that humans were intelligent, at least on an individual level. After the second war, they tried to apologize, but were destroyed before they learned to communicate with us.]] In addition, the whole debate over whether two alien species can communicate and coexist is dominant, especially as a situation gets closer and closer to "Communicate with them, or commit Xenocide." [[spoiler:Placing our heroes in the exact same situation as the formics.]]
** Also, the main plot of ''SpeakerForTheDead'' occurs because no one stops to ask the Piggies "Say, why exactly did you kill those two people and ritually disembowel them?" Seemingly, neither of the people who got disemboweled thought to say anything along the lines of [[spoiler: "Why are you doing this?...What's the third life?...Oh, I see. Uh, humans don't do that. It'll just kill us horribly. Please don't."]]
* BeingThere is a variation; the whole plot is based on characters misinterpreting most everything [[SeeminglyProfoundFool Chance the Gardener]] says (with the twist that he cannot correct them because he isn't able to understand what's going on).
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* In ''TheForeverWar'', ''Literature/TheForeverWar'', a war that lasts centuries between humans and an alien race [[spoiler:turns out to be based on a misunderstanding]]. Considering that the author is a Vietnam vet, one need merely read The Pentagon Papers to see where he gets his idea.
* A large part of later books in the''EndersGame'' ''Literature/EndersGame'' series. Turns out [[spoiler:the formics were not hostile, but simply unaware that humans were intelligent, at least on an individual level. After the second war, they tried to apologize, but were destroyed before they learned to communicate with us.]] In addition, the whole debate over whether two alien species can communicate and coexist is dominant, especially as a situation gets closer and closer to "Communicate with them, or commit Xenocide." [[spoiler:Placing our heroes in the exact same situation as the formics.]]
** * Also, the main plot of ''SpeakerForTheDead'' ''Literature/SpeakerForTheDead'' occurs because no one stops to ask the Piggies "Say, why exactly did you kill those two people and ritually disembowel them?" Seemingly, neither of the people who got disemboweled thought to say anything along the lines of [[spoiler: "Why are you doing this?...What's the third life?...Oh, I see. Uh, humans don't do that. It'll just kill us horribly. Please don't."]]
*BeingThere ''Literature/BeingThere'' is a variation; the whole plot is based on characters misinterpreting most everything [[SeeminglyProfoundFool Chance the Gardener]] says (with the twist that he cannot correct them because he isn't able to understand what's going on).
* A large part of later books in the
*
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* ''{{Metro 2033}}'' with the Dark Ones, they just want to find a way to help the humans out, but the telepathy caused people to go mad and thought they were out to kill them like other mutants. Needless to say Artyom realize this a bit too late as he plants the transmitter.
* In ''Arrow's Fall'', part of the ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, the novel's primary romantic tension is caused by Dirk assuming himself to be part of a LoveTriangle consisting of himself, Kris, and Talia, and trying to pull an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, when in fact both Kris and Talia are trying to get her hooked up with Dirk. Dirk's stubborn refusal to discuss the matter with either of them sends him into a [[DrowningMySorrows breakdown]], and causes the resolution to be put off until after [[spoiler:Talia nearly dies and Kris ''does'' die]].
* In ''Arrow's Fall'', part of the ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, the novel's primary romantic tension is caused by Dirk assuming himself to be part of a LoveTriangle consisting of himself, Kris, and Talia, and trying to pull an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, when in fact both Kris and Talia are trying to get her hooked up with Dirk. Dirk's stubborn refusal to discuss the matter with either of them sends him into a [[DrowningMySorrows breakdown]], and causes the resolution to be put off until after [[spoiler:Talia nearly dies and Kris ''does'' die]].
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* ''{{Metro ''Literature/{{Metro 2033}}'' with the Dark Ones, they just want to find a way to help the humans out, but the telepathy caused people to go mad and thought they were out to kill them like other mutants. Needless to say Artyom realize this a bit too late as he plants the transmitter.
* In ''Arrow's Fall'', part of the''HeraldsOfValdemar'' ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, the novel's primary romantic tension is caused by Dirk assuming himself to be part of a LoveTriangle consisting of himself, Kris, and Talia, and trying to pull an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, when in fact both Kris and Talia are trying to get her hooked up with Dirk. Dirk's stubborn refusal to discuss the matter with either of them sends him into a [[DrowningMySorrows breakdown]], and causes the resolution to be put off until after [[spoiler:Talia nearly dies and Kris ''does'' die]].
* In ''Arrow's Fall'', part of the
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* In the ''InSpirituEtVeritate'' series by Zoe Reed, Kyla is forced under threat of death to break up with Camille over the phone during the climax of the first book. Fully three-quarters of the second book is spent with them still broken up, Kyla under the impression that Camille hasn't forgiven her and Camille under the impression that Kyla dumped her of her own volition. Camille is the more egregious case, since shortly after the phone call she finds Kyla tied up by the bad guy and doesn't connect the two.
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* In the ''InSpirituEtVeritate'' ''Literature/InSpirituEtVeritate'' series by Zoe Reed, Kyla is forced under threat of death to break up with Camille over the phone during the climax of the first book. Fully three-quarters of the second book is spent with them still broken up, Kyla under the impression that Camille hasn't forgiven her and Camille under the impression that Kyla dumped her of her own volition. Camille is the more egregious case, since shortly after the phone call she finds Kyla tied up by the bad guy and doesn't connect the two.
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** Early on? Harry has this problem constantly. It took him multiple books until he finally told Michael about Lasciel. In ''Literature/ColdDays,'' Thomas gives him a WhatTheHellHero for not telling him that Harry was going to become the Winter Knight, because as someone used to struggling against his darker nature he could have helped. Kirby wouldn't have died in ''Literature/TurnCoat,'' if Harry had warned the Alphas about the naagloshii (prompting another WhatTheHellHero). This list goes on.
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** Early on? Harry has this problem constantly. It took him multiple books until he finally told Michael about Lasciel. In ''Literature/ColdDays,'' Thomas gives him a WhatTheHellHero for not telling him that Harry was going to [[spoiler: become the Winter Knight, Knight]], because as someone used to struggling against his darker nature he could have helped. Kirby [[spoiler: wouldn't have died died]] in ''Literature/TurnCoat,'' if Harry had warned the Alphas about the naagloshii (prompting another WhatTheHellHero). This list goes on.
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** Early on? Harry has this problem constantly. It took him multiple books until he finally told Michael about Lasciel. In ''Literature/ColdDays,'' Thomas gives him a WhatTheHellHero for not telling him that Harry was going to become the Winter Knight, because as someone used to struggling against his darker nature he could have helped. Kirby wouldn't have died in ''Literature/TurnCoat,'' if Harry had warned the Alphas about the naagloshii (prompting another WhatTheHellHero). This list goes on.
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*** Even ignoring that mistake, Dalinar's visions are not very clear. Part of this is because his mind wasn't ready to accept the visions in the beginning, so when he woke up from the first one (which clearly outlined what was coming and what he needed to do) it was just a muddled dream. Fortunately, they're on repeat. Unfortunately, [[spoiler:since they're just pre-recorded messages, the one who made them in the first place doesn't know what context Dalinar needs. He's thrust into fierce battles against enemies he's never heard of, and sees the powers of the Knights Radiant without being given more than a single clue as to how to bring them back]].
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* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'':
** ''Literature/TheWayOfKings'':
*** Every soldier in Sadeas' army refuses to tell the bridgemen why they are not allowed shields, and are forced to run into enemy arrows completely unprotected. When Kaladin thinks of a way to use the bridge as a shield, [[spoiler:he turns the battle into a rout for his side, since the Parshendi start ignoring the bridgemen and shooting at the real soldiers]]. Though there is a good reason the bridgemen weren't told: [[spoiler:They're bait, there to get killed by the Parshendi instead of real soldiers. Sadeas is quite rightly worried that if the bridgemen knew that, they'd just kill themselves]].
*** A more minor example, but at one point Dalinar recommends that the king retreat from the war--which, to a ProudWarriorRace, is a horrific show of cowardice. What Dalinar ''meant'' was that they should approach the war more intelligently, finding a way to win either through extermination or forcing the enemy to surrender. By the time he explains this better to the king, rumors of Dalinar's cowardice have already spread through the camp and caused a few more problems.
*** During his visions, Dalinar asks the mysterious voice if he should trust Sadeas. The voice says "Yes. Act with honor, and honor shall aid you." [[spoiler:This lets Sadeas betray Dalinar at the climax, killing off thousands of Dalinar's soldiers. It turns out that the voice in the visions isn't interactive, it's a pre-recorded message. The voice could never hear him, and all its "cryptic" answers were just the result of Dalinar misinterpreting statements as answers to his questions]].
** ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'':
*** When assassins come for [[spoiler:Jasnah]], she assumed they would kill her and then leave. Instead, they started killing everyone on the ship. If she had told anyone else, they probably could have repelled the enemy, or at least known to stay in their cabins where the assassins would hopefully leave them alone.
*** Kaladin refuses to tell anyone outside Bridge Four that he's becoming a Knight Radiant, despite the fact that Dalinar is attempting to refound them and Kaladin knows he is trustworthy. This very nearly results in all of Dalinar's plans falling apart and Elhokar killed (both by the Assassin in White and other killers), not to mention nearly causing Kaladin's own fall from grace.
*** When Shallan reaches the Shattered Plains, she also doesn't tell anyone she's becoming a Knight Radiant. This doesn't get anyone directly killed, but it would have prevented Amaram from being named head of the new Order, which would have made several other plotlines go more smoothly.
*** Dalinar isn't immune to this himself. After Kaladin helps Adolin in his duel and [[spoiler:gets thrown in prison for calling out Amaram]], Dalinar treats Kaladin like a soldier who did something stupid (which he did), but doesn't mention that he has his own plan to vindicate Kaladin. This results in Kaladin [[spoiler:aiding some people out to assassinate Elhokar]], and nearly throwing the entire kingdom into chaos.
** ''Literature/TheWayOfKings'':
*** Every soldier in Sadeas' army refuses to tell the bridgemen why they are not allowed shields, and are forced to run into enemy arrows completely unprotected. When Kaladin thinks of a way to use the bridge as a shield, [[spoiler:he turns the battle into a rout for his side, since the Parshendi start ignoring the bridgemen and shooting at the real soldiers]]. Though there is a good reason the bridgemen weren't told: [[spoiler:They're bait, there to get killed by the Parshendi instead of real soldiers. Sadeas is quite rightly worried that if the bridgemen knew that, they'd just kill themselves]].
*** A more minor example, but at one point Dalinar recommends that the king retreat from the war--which, to a ProudWarriorRace, is a horrific show of cowardice. What Dalinar ''meant'' was that they should approach the war more intelligently, finding a way to win either through extermination or forcing the enemy to surrender. By the time he explains this better to the king, rumors of Dalinar's cowardice have already spread through the camp and caused a few more problems.
*** During his visions, Dalinar asks the mysterious voice if he should trust Sadeas. The voice says "Yes. Act with honor, and honor shall aid you." [[spoiler:This lets Sadeas betray Dalinar at the climax, killing off thousands of Dalinar's soldiers. It turns out that the voice in the visions isn't interactive, it's a pre-recorded message. The voice could never hear him, and all its "cryptic" answers were just the result of Dalinar misinterpreting statements as answers to his questions]].
** ''Literature/WordsOfRadiance'':
*** When assassins come for [[spoiler:Jasnah]], she assumed they would kill her and then leave. Instead, they started killing everyone on the ship. If she had told anyone else, they probably could have repelled the enemy, or at least known to stay in their cabins where the assassins would hopefully leave them alone.
*** Kaladin refuses to tell anyone outside Bridge Four that he's becoming a Knight Radiant, despite the fact that Dalinar is attempting to refound them and Kaladin knows he is trustworthy. This very nearly results in all of Dalinar's plans falling apart and Elhokar killed (both by the Assassin in White and other killers), not to mention nearly causing Kaladin's own fall from grace.
*** When Shallan reaches the Shattered Plains, she also doesn't tell anyone she's becoming a Knight Radiant. This doesn't get anyone directly killed, but it would have prevented Amaram from being named head of the new Order, which would have made several other plotlines go more smoothly.
*** Dalinar isn't immune to this himself. After Kaladin helps Adolin in his duel and [[spoiler:gets thrown in prison for calling out Amaram]], Dalinar treats Kaladin like a soldier who did something stupid (which he did), but doesn't mention that he has his own plan to vindicate Kaladin. This results in Kaladin [[spoiler:aiding some people out to assassinate Elhokar]], and nearly throwing the entire kingdom into chaos.
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* In ''Literature/TheShatteredKingdoms'', Jachad accuses Meiran/Lahlil of poor communication, saying that if she'd only trust him enough to reveal her objectives, their fight wouldn't have happened. She retorts that she'd waited in vain for a similar trust from him — she [[SecretSecretKeeper already knew his dark secret]], but wanted him to ''tell'' it to her, and since he never did, why should she tell ''him'' anything? Regardless of whose fault it is, though, the secrets doesn't do either of them any favours.
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* In Timothy Zahn's Conqueror's trilogy, when humans had First Contact with an alien race, they sent a peaceful first contact radio communication. Unfortunately, the aliens did not use radio emissions. In fact, to them, radio is a dreaded Elderdeath weapon. So, the aliens immediately opened fire, quickly shredding the human battle fleet in minutes.
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* In Timothy Zahn's TimothyZahn's Conqueror's trilogy, when humans had First Contact with an alien race, they sent a peaceful first contact radio communication. Unfortunately, the aliens did not use radio emissions. In fact, to them, radio is a perceived it as [[spoiler:one of their dreaded Elderdeath weapon. weapons]]. So, the aliens immediately opened fire, quickly shredding the human battle fleet in minutes. minutes and starting a nasty war, based on mutual misunderstandings.
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* In Timothy Zahn's Conqueror's trilogy, when humans had First Contact with an alien race, they sent a peaceful first contact radio communication. Unfortunately, the aliens did not use radio emissions. In fact, to them, radio is a dreaded Elderdeath weapon. So, the aliens immediately opened fire, quickly shredding the human battle fleet in minutes.
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* {{Dragonvarld}}: If, after seeing her lover Melisande running away with a man, Bellona had been willing to talk to her rather than sticking to her conclusion of infidelity and treason, the plot of the first book might have been rather different. They later reunite and talk it out, but by that stage, [[spoiler:Melisande is on track to die in childbirth after being raped, while Bellona is on track to have to fight her own estranged troops]].
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* {{Dragonvarld}}: ''Literature/{{Dragonvarld}}'': If, after seeing her lover Melisande running away with a man, Bellona had been willing to talk to her rather than sticking to her conclusion of infidelity and treason, the plot of the first book might have been rather different. They later reunite and talk it out, but by that stage, [[spoiler:Melisande is on track to die in childbirth after being raped, while Bellona is on track to have to fight her own estranged troops]].
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* {{Dragonvarld}}: If, after seeing her lover Melisande running away with a man, Bellona had been willing to talk to her rather than sticking to her conclusion of infidelity and treason, the plot of the first book might have been rather different. They later reunite and talk it out, but by that stage, [[spoiler:Melisande is on track to die in childbirth after being raped, while Bellona is on track to have to fight her own estranged troops]].
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* The CultureClash variety happens in ''TheLeftHandOfDarkness'', in which a very large mess could have been avoided if Estraven had been more straightforward with Genly as to what his goals were. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since in Gethenian culture advice is considered an insult, and Estraven was trying to avoid damaging Genly's honor; only later did he realize his mistake.
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* The CultureClash variety happens in ''TheLeftHandOfDarkness'', ''Literature/TheLeftHandOfDarkness'', in which a very large mess could have been avoided if Estraven had been more straightforward with Genly as to what his goals were. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since in Gethenian culture advice is considered an insult, and Estraven was trying to avoid damaging Genly's honor; only later did he realize his mistake.
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* In TheRepublicOfTrees, Isobel tells Michael that she broke up with her previous boyfriend because he wanted something from her that she wouldn't give him... [[spoiler:he wanted her to stop cheating on him ]] As the result, Michael learns the truth at the worst possible moment and the already unstable situation spirals out of control to LordOfTheFlies proportions.
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* In TheRepublicOfTrees, Isobel tells Michael that she broke up with her previous boyfriend because he wanted something from her that she wouldn't give him... [[spoiler:he wanted her to stop cheating on him ]] As the result, Michael learns the truth at the worst possible moment and the already unstable situation spirals out of control to LordOfTheFlies ''Literature/LordOfTheFlies'' proportions.
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* In ''Literature/TheAndromedaStrain'', some crucial information fails to get the the Wildfire team in time because of a [[FailsafeFailure torn piece of paper jamming the alarm bell on a teletype machine]] (remember, [[TechnologyMarchesOn this was SOTA technology]] in 1966).
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* In Jeramey Kraatz's ''/Literature/TheCloakSociety'' novel ''Fall of Heroes'', defied. [[spoiler:Carla insists on talking with Lux and Lone Star and shutting out the kids. Amp enables them to eavesdrop, justifying it on the grounds that they should not have to.]]
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* ''Literature/{{Manifestation}}'': At one point, Gabby Palladino is unable to explain the supernatural dangers that she's been seeing all around her, and as a result, she fails to warn a group of innocent people of an impending disaster.
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* The ''Literature/HarryPotter'' books run on this trope, otherwise they'd all be 100 pages long. The most prominent offenders:
** Harry himself almost always keeps important information from the adults, and when he does try to sound the alarm, [[YouHaveToBelieveMe he never provides any evidence.]]
** Dumbledore is even worse, in ''every single book'' concealing information from Harry that often could save Harry the entire plot. Dumbledore claims in book 5 to realize why this is a terrible idea after it literally gets someone killed... and then is right back at it the next book, failing to tell Harry [[spoiler:that Dumbledore knows about Draco's plot, anything that would reassure Harry about trusting Snape, or that Dumbledore is going to die soon regardless.]]
** Sirius can't even communicate well enough to explain to a bunch of frightened children that he's not actually going to murder them, he somehow failed to say the words "I didn't kill those people, here, check my wand", and the entire disaster in Order of the Phoenix would have been avoided if he'd simply outright said to Harry [[spoiler: "Hey, here's this two way mirror your dad used to own, you can use it to talk to me any time."]]
* ''{{Dracula}}'', where the excessively gentlemanly heroes deliberately choose not to tell Mina Harker about their vampire hunt so as not to distress her, thus making her the [[DistressedDamsel perfect target]]. Ironically, once the damage is done and they must let her in on it, she copes rather better than her husband did.
** And it's also the reason that Lucy and her mother died; if the men had been upfront with the women, then there would be no plot.
* Creator/PGWodehouse's Literature/JeevesAndWooster novels: Almost everything bad that ever happened to Bertie Wooster. The rest of it seems to be blackmail.
* Every....single...protagonist in Robert Jordan's Literature/TheWheelOfTime series appears to suffer from this. Seriously. While the bad guys are also killing each other off to determine who gets to be TheDragon, the BigBad at least can give clear orders and expect to see them carried out. Usually.
** Considering the whole Aiel vs. the Whitecloaks vs. the Rebel Tower vs. the White Tower vs. Elaida vs. the [[OverlyLongGag Asha'man]] vs.... well, ''everyone'' the Dark one could probably just sit back and wait for the good guys to kill each other off, although at least half of the disputes arise or are at least made worse by agents of the Dark one amongst them.
*** Just looking at specific protagonists: [[TheChosenOne Rand]] doesn't tell anyone anything about anything. He doesn't want his idyllic hometown or his lovers targeted by his enemies, people think he's a [[JustifiedTrope dangerous lunatic]], and he's trying to fight several [[TheChessmaster Chessmasters]] at once. Mat hasn't told Rand what he's been doing for the last five books partly because he likes avoiding responsibility, but mostly because he would need a channeler's help to do it and he doesn't trust or want to be indebted to them. Perrin hasn't told Rand anything for the last four books because it's taken him that long to accomplish what everyone thought would be a simple assignment. Elayne and Egwene have been keeping their distance from Rand for six books because being seen in contact with him would subvert their own political power. Nynaeve and Min don't tell anyone anything because they're worried about Rand's fragile mental state and don't want to do anything he could possibly interpret as a betrayal. Any one of those might make sense, but all of them together... especially considering how many problems [[DramaticIrony the reader knows]] the lack of communication has caused...
** The series also shows the corollary: when the protagonists finally ''get a clue'' and start working together and sharing information, plots get solved. Since Brandon Sanderson took over the series, the pattern of nobody talking to anyone else has broken, and this has allowed them to start preparing for Tarmon Gai'don. Even before then, Rand only survived the Battle of Shadar Logoth because Cadsuane forced him to take some backup along instead of running off and trying to [[spoiler:cleanse ''saidin'']] with only Nynaeve's assistance.
* In TheRepublicOfTrees, Isobel tells Michael that she broke up with her previous boyfriend because he wanted something from her that she wouldn't give him... [[spoiler:he wanted her to stop cheating on him ]] As the result, Michael learns the truth at the worst possible moment and the already unstable situation spirals out of control to LordOfTheFlies proportions.
* In ''Film/TheRuins'', poor communication literally kills, as the Mayan-speaking locals are unable to effectively warn the main characters away from the titular ruins. TruthInTelevision, as it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish, much less English.
* In the second book of ASongOfIceAndFire, Robb could have avoided a whole mess of trouble if he'd just confided in his underlings a bit more. He goes off to fight the Lannister's western army and leaves his uncle Edmure to hold Riverrun. When the Lannister eastern army starts harrying Riverrun's borders, Edmure rides off with his army and succeeds beating them back to a full retreat. Cue celebrations and parties... until Robb returns and, after publicly honoring his uncle's success, browbeats him in private for disobeying his orders. Turns out he had planned to lure the eastern army into attacking Riverrun so he could come in from the south and crush it between his army and the castle.
-->"But I was never told of this!"
-->"You were told to hold the castle. What part of that did you fail to comprehend?"
** Likewise, [[spoiler: Doran Martell]] keeps much of his plans hidden from his family and their allies. This ultimately leads to an ill-fated round of XanatosSpeedChess that ends with [[spoiler: his son Quentyn dying a slow and agonizing death.]]
** That's not ''entirely'' accurate. [[spoiler: Quentyn died horribly, but it was his own fault for thinking he could control a dragon, just like Daenerys did.]] [[spoiler: Doran Martell's secrets made his daughter, Arianne, think that he was pushing her aside in order to make Quentyn his heir. To avoid that, she kidnaps Princess Myrcella and things [[AnArmAndALeg go downhill]] from there.]]
* Herman Melville took this trope literally in his novella ''Literature/BillyBudd'', in which Billy, a Christlike figure whose only flaw is a tendency to stutter when he gets upset, [[spoiler:killed the master-at-arms, Claggart, after Claggart falsely accused him of conspiracy to mutiny. He got so upset when he couldn't stop stuttering long enough to defend himself that he punched Claggart in the temple and he died. All three main characters--Billy, Claggart, and Captain Vere--die.]] But, then again, without it all of Melville's lovely [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic symbolism]] falls apart, and we can't have that.
* Creator/DavidWeber has this on a grander scale then most with his ''Literature/HellsGate'' series when poor communication causes two civilizations, which hadn't even known the other existed until recently, to start what is promising to be a long and brutal war.
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'':
** Deliberately tampered with communication restarts the Manticore-Haven war. The guy who did it wanted to make the Havenite president just angry enough that she was ''almost'' ready to go to war and he could step in and save the day. He underestimates by about one degree of anger, and millions die. Suffice it to say he's lucky he [[spoiler:died in a ''genuine'' accident]], because the president in question was preparing to have him charged with treason and executed.
** An unintentional example from that series was the attempted [=McQueen=] coup: [=McQueen=] knew that she'd eventually be considered too much of a threat by the Committee for Public Safety and would be eliminated, and so starts planning her contingency plan for when the time came. Pierre and St-Just also recognized she'd be a threat and would probably have to be eliminated so start planning ''their'' contingency plan for when the time came. A partially overheard conversation results in [=McQueen=] believing they were moving against her immediately (instead of merely planning to at some point in the future), causing her to launch her own plan prematurely.
** Occurs in the very first book: Honor pursues the Havenite Q-Ship running from the Medusa system when she realizes that their plan to grab the system would have the Q-ship "fleeing" to a waiting squadron of warships. She's right, but the premature start of the Medusan uprising the Havenites were promoting screwed up their plan so the captain was running to tell the warships ''not'' to come into the system. But he couldn't admit it because it would confirm Haven's covert actions, and the resulting combat destroys the Q-ship, nearly destroys Harrington's ship, and costs her a large chunk of her crew, even though it should have been blazingly obvious to him that the jig was up and the Manticorans obviously knew what was going on.
* In ''TheForeverWar'', a war that lasts centuries between humans and an alien race [[spoiler:turns out to be based on a misunderstanding]]. Considering that the author is a Vietnam vet, one need merely read The Pentagon Papers to see where he gets his idea.
* A large part of later books in the ''EndersGame'' series. Turns out [[spoiler:the formics were not hostile, but simply unaware that humans were intelligent, at least on an individual level. After the second war, they tried to apologize, but were destroyed before they learned to communicate with us.]] In addition, the whole debate over whether two alien species can communicate and coexist is dominant, especially as a situation gets closer and closer to "Communicate with them, or commit Xenocide." [[spoiler:Placing our heroes in the exact same situation as the formics.]]
** Also, the main plot of ''SpeakerForTheDead'' occurs because no one stops to ask the Piggies "Say, why exactly did you kill those two people and ritually disembowel them?" Seemingly, neither of the people who got disemboweled thought to say anything along the lines of [[spoiler: "Why are you doing this?...What's the third life?...Oh, I see. Uh, humans don't do that. It'll just kill us horribly. Please don't."]]
* BeingThere is a variation; the whole plot is based on characters misinterpreting most everything [[SeeminglyProfoundFool Chance the Gardener]] says (with the twist that he cannot correct them because he isn't able to understand what's going on).
* Due to the secret nature of Dreamland ops, the characters of DaleBrown's books often find themselves going up against ostensible allies both within and without America even when there's not supposed to be overt conflict.
* ''{{Metro 2033}}'' with the Dark Ones, they just want to find a way to help the humans out, but the telepathy caused people to go mad and thought they were out to kill them like other mutants. Needless to say Artyom realize this a bit too late as he plants the transmitter.
* In ''Arrow's Fall'', part of the ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, the novel's primary romantic tension is caused by Dirk assuming himself to be part of a LoveTriangle consisting of himself, Kris, and Talia, and trying to pull an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, when in fact both Kris and Talia are trying to get her hooked up with Dirk. Dirk's stubborn refusal to discuss the matter with either of them sends him into a [[DrowningMySorrows breakdown]], and causes the resolution to be put off until after [[spoiler:Talia nearly dies and Kris ''does'' die]].
* In the Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Sparkling Cyanide'', Sandra Farraday knows that her husband Stephan is having an affair with Rosemary Barton, is afraid Stephan will leave her for Rosemary, and is prepared to kill Rosemary to prevent that from happening. Stephan, on the other hand, has grown tired of Rosemary and realized that Sandra is his real true love, but he's afraid that Sandra will leave him when she finds out about it, and is prepared to kill Rosemary to prevent the affair from becoming public. [[spoiler:Technically, poor communication didn't actually ''kill'' in this case, since neither Stephan nor Sandra was the murderer, but it very easily could have.]]
* ''The Key to Rondo'' could plausibly have instead been titled: ''Poor Communication Kills: The Novel''.
* In ''Literature/TheElenium'' series, an Eshandist leader had a speech problem and at one battle he yelled "Fall on your foes!" but mangled it and his followers heard "Fall on your swords!" He spent the next several years wondering why he lost.
* In ''Website/TheOnion'''s Literature/OurDumbCentury'', all the casualties of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI turn out to be this. Archduke Fraz Ferdinand wasn't assassinated he just went on vacation; when he finally returns, sees what happened, and explains the misunderstanding, the war is called off and the survivors go home mildly embarrassed.
* In a Franchise/StarWars novella, Imperial officer Kyle Katarn defects to the Rebel Alliance after he finds out that the Empire recently killed his father. He embarks on a black ops mission to recover part of the Death Star schematics, but is, naturally, monitored by the rebels to see if his turn was legitimate. When he's seen meeting with another Imperial, Mon Mothma gives the order to agent Jan Ors to kill him. What they don't know is that the officer was an old friend of Kyle's whom Kyle had persuaded to help him. Jan and Kyle end up in a MexicanStandoff, and if Jan hadn't found it impossible to kill the man that she was developing feelings for, the scenario would have ended in tragedy.
** There have been some ''terrible'' cases of this trope occurring across the StarWars Expanded Universe. One of the biggest ones was the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. It turns out that a number of people like Palpatine/Sidious, Vergere, Thrawn, and Darth Krayt ''knew'' about their existence and simply did not tell the galaxy at large - and giving vague hints to only a few people at the most. Sure, most of these people were villains and some of them were neutral, but a lot of grief (among other things) could have spared if people were simply told about it. The same things can be applied to Jacen and Abeloth, as well as Darth Bane's Sith Order and the Jedi Order.
* In ''Literature/CaptainCorellisMandolin'', [[spoiler:Pelagia spends decades waiting for Corelli, during which time she adopts an abandoned baby (named after him, no less). Turns out that Corelli did come back relatively early on, but saw her with the baby, assumed she must've had it with another man, and stormed off without talking to her. When Pelagia asks if he didn't consider the possibility that she was raped in his absence, he [[ValuesDissonance admits that]] [[DefiledForever it probably wouldn't have made a difference to him]].]]
* In ''Literature/TheShahnameh'', a series of accidents and deception both well and ill-intentioned result in Rostem killing Sohrab, the outcome neither of them wanted.
* ''Literature/TheIdiot''. No one seems capable of actually saying what they mean--even Prince Myshkin, the most innocently outspoken character, falls prey to this tendency--and the misunderstandings and suspicions that arise from this are major driving forces on the plot.
* In ''Literature/DirgeForPresterJohn'', John and his people have completely different ideas of what war is. He knows it means a lot of bloodshed (even if he naively also thinks of glory). His people think of the mating season of the cranes and pygmies.
* The CultureClash variety happens in ''TheLeftHandOfDarkness'', in which a very large mess could have been avoided if Estraven had been more straightforward with Genly as to what his goals were. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since in Gethenian culture advice is considered an insult, and Estraven was trying to avoid damaging Genly's honor; only later did he realize his mistake.
* In the early ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' books Harry has a chronic problem with not giving his mundane allies enough information. He wises up about it quite a bit in later books, but not before quite a bit of damage is done:
** In ''Literature/StormFront'' Murphy actually starts to suspect that he's the killer because he keeps balking at telling her anything about the case (partially because the White Council suspects him as well and would see him researching the curse as evidence) and walks right into a giant scorpion in Harry's office created by the actual killer.
** At the beginning of ''Literature/FoolMoon'' Harry does not see fit to tell a young and inexperienced magic user everything he can about a magic circle diagram that she's asking about, instead simply telling her that a set of runes in the diagram must be a mistake, because he can tell it binds creatures of both flesh and spirit and he doesn't want her messing with demons. Only later does he learn that she was trying to use the circle to confine a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent loup-garou]], and not having enough information about it has gotten her killed and left the loup-garou free to rampage around Chicago racking up a substantial body count.
** In ''Literature/GravePeril,'' Harry tells Susan pretty much everything about the politics in going to the vampire party... except for one thing: he's only allowed to give protection to one guest. Anyone else who shows up with him is fair game. Naturally, this omission screws everything up when Susan copies his invitation without his knowledge in order to crash the party.
* ''Literature/TheIcePalace'' is virtually built of this trope. The whole story begins with a tragic CannotSpitItOut moment where one of the two main characters (two eleven year old girls) freaks the other one out, and the result is an incredibly huge guilt trip where one of them freezes to death inside a frozen waterfall, and the other goes through a long DespairEventHorizon for five months (i.e. the rest of the book).
* One of the ''Inspector Montalbano'' books has a bad case of mishearing- Montalbano's lieutenant, Mimi, comes to his house late at night, looking very stressed, and tells him that he's got something that he needs to tell him: he's decided to get married. He phrases this as 'I've decided to take a wife', but Montalbano hears it as 'I've decided to take my life' and freaks out. It takes a while to sort out the situation, but they get there.
* Jeremy from ''Literature/StrengthAndJustice: Side: Strength'' has a bad case of CannotSpitItOut with his girlfriend over sharing information that there is a possible implication that the LawEnforcementInc they work for might be involved in taking away people's magical powers by force. It finally culminates in his girlfriend thinking he's cheating on her, complete with confrontation.
* Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt gives us a really painful example of CanNotSpitItOut in her debut novel, ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}''. It's the story about young Beatrice, who's bullied and pressured by her abusive and tyrannical uncle into an engagement with a man. A man who's not only like forty years older than her, but he also treats women like they're dirt under his shoes. So what does she do? Of course, she tells nobody the truth about why she agreed to marry this man (he would get her beautiful but weak cousin instead, if she didn't sacrifice herself). To be fair, she really is in a crappy situation, but still, yikes... And unfortunately, her love interest Seth is no better. Since he thinks that she willingly rejected him to marry an old disgusting aristocrat, stupid pride keeps him from admitting that he loves her. Several misunderstandings between them (sigh...) leads to much misery for them both (including that Beatrice gets [[spoiler:brutally raped and battered on her wedding night)]].
* A lot of the tragedy in ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'' could have been avoided if Persephone had only made it clearer to Reynard that, though she finds him charming, she would never seriously consider having a relationship with him.
* In the ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' story "Highway Robbery", the heroes are trying to catch a pair of car thieves, and send out two people as [[TheBait live bait]] to drive around aimlessly for several hours. There's a communicator in each car, so that if something happens, MissionControl will know about it. After doing this for several hours with no luck, they decide to go home and try again the next day. As she begins driving home, Melody's car is stolen (with her in it), but ''mission control has switched off their communicator and is unaware of it.'' In their defense, it was about 4 a.m. at this point and everyone was getting punchy.
* Ava believes this is what happened when she reports on Countess Elinor in ''Literature/KingdomOfLittleWounds''. All she said was the woman had a lover, and then Elinor was arrested for high treason.
* In the ''InSpirituEtVeritate'' series by Zoe Reed, Kyla is forced under threat of death to break up with Camille over the phone during the climax of the first book. Fully three-quarters of the second book is spent with them still broken up, Kyla under the impression that Camille hasn't forgiven her and Camille under the impression that Kyla dumped her of her own volition. Camille is the more egregious case, since shortly after the phone call she finds Kyla tied up by the bad guy and doesn't connect the two.
* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', it's revealed that humanity was only the third most intelligent lifeform on Earth, behind mice and dolphins. Dolphins knew of the impending destruction of the planet Earth. They made many attempts to alert mankind to the impending doom, but they were mistaken as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually decided to leave Earth by their own means. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop while whistling the Star Spangled Banner, when in fact the message was this: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish."
----
** Harry himself almost always keeps important information from the adults, and when he does try to sound the alarm, [[YouHaveToBelieveMe he never provides any evidence.]]
** Dumbledore is even worse, in ''every single book'' concealing information from Harry that often could save Harry the entire plot. Dumbledore claims in book 5 to realize why this is a terrible idea after it literally gets someone killed... and then is right back at it the next book, failing to tell Harry [[spoiler:that Dumbledore knows about Draco's plot, anything that would reassure Harry about trusting Snape, or that Dumbledore is going to die soon regardless.]]
** Sirius can't even communicate well enough to explain to a bunch of frightened children that he's not actually going to murder them, he somehow failed to say the words "I didn't kill those people, here, check my wand", and the entire disaster in Order of the Phoenix would have been avoided if he'd simply outright said to Harry [[spoiler: "Hey, here's this two way mirror your dad used to own, you can use it to talk to me any time."]]
* ''{{Dracula}}'', where the excessively gentlemanly heroes deliberately choose not to tell Mina Harker about their vampire hunt so as not to distress her, thus making her the [[DistressedDamsel perfect target]]. Ironically, once the damage is done and they must let her in on it, she copes rather better than her husband did.
** And it's also the reason that Lucy and her mother died; if the men had been upfront with the women, then there would be no plot.
* Creator/PGWodehouse's Literature/JeevesAndWooster novels: Almost everything bad that ever happened to Bertie Wooster. The rest of it seems to be blackmail.
* Every....single...protagonist in Robert Jordan's Literature/TheWheelOfTime series appears to suffer from this. Seriously. While the bad guys are also killing each other off to determine who gets to be TheDragon, the BigBad at least can give clear orders and expect to see them carried out. Usually.
** Considering the whole Aiel vs. the Whitecloaks vs. the Rebel Tower vs. the White Tower vs. Elaida vs. the [[OverlyLongGag Asha'man]] vs.... well, ''everyone'' the Dark one could probably just sit back and wait for the good guys to kill each other off, although at least half of the disputes arise or are at least made worse by agents of the Dark one amongst them.
*** Just looking at specific protagonists: [[TheChosenOne Rand]] doesn't tell anyone anything about anything. He doesn't want his idyllic hometown or his lovers targeted by his enemies, people think he's a [[JustifiedTrope dangerous lunatic]], and he's trying to fight several [[TheChessmaster Chessmasters]] at once. Mat hasn't told Rand what he's been doing for the last five books partly because he likes avoiding responsibility, but mostly because he would need a channeler's help to do it and he doesn't trust or want to be indebted to them. Perrin hasn't told Rand anything for the last four books because it's taken him that long to accomplish what everyone thought would be a simple assignment. Elayne and Egwene have been keeping their distance from Rand for six books because being seen in contact with him would subvert their own political power. Nynaeve and Min don't tell anyone anything because they're worried about Rand's fragile mental state and don't want to do anything he could possibly interpret as a betrayal. Any one of those might make sense, but all of them together... especially considering how many problems [[DramaticIrony the reader knows]] the lack of communication has caused...
** The series also shows the corollary: when the protagonists finally ''get a clue'' and start working together and sharing information, plots get solved. Since Brandon Sanderson took over the series, the pattern of nobody talking to anyone else has broken, and this has allowed them to start preparing for Tarmon Gai'don. Even before then, Rand only survived the Battle of Shadar Logoth because Cadsuane forced him to take some backup along instead of running off and trying to [[spoiler:cleanse ''saidin'']] with only Nynaeve's assistance.
* In TheRepublicOfTrees, Isobel tells Michael that she broke up with her previous boyfriend because he wanted something from her that she wouldn't give him... [[spoiler:he wanted her to stop cheating on him ]] As the result, Michael learns the truth at the worst possible moment and the already unstable situation spirals out of control to LordOfTheFlies proportions.
* In ''Film/TheRuins'', poor communication literally kills, as the Mayan-speaking locals are unable to effectively warn the main characters away from the titular ruins. TruthInTelevision, as it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish, much less English.
* In the second book of ASongOfIceAndFire, Robb could have avoided a whole mess of trouble if he'd just confided in his underlings a bit more. He goes off to fight the Lannister's western army and leaves his uncle Edmure to hold Riverrun. When the Lannister eastern army starts harrying Riverrun's borders, Edmure rides off with his army and succeeds beating them back to a full retreat. Cue celebrations and parties... until Robb returns and, after publicly honoring his uncle's success, browbeats him in private for disobeying his orders. Turns out he had planned to lure the eastern army into attacking Riverrun so he could come in from the south and crush it between his army and the castle.
-->"But I was never told of this!"
-->"You were told to hold the castle. What part of that did you fail to comprehend?"
** Likewise, [[spoiler: Doran Martell]] keeps much of his plans hidden from his family and their allies. This ultimately leads to an ill-fated round of XanatosSpeedChess that ends with [[spoiler: his son Quentyn dying a slow and agonizing death.]]
** That's not ''entirely'' accurate. [[spoiler: Quentyn died horribly, but it was his own fault for thinking he could control a dragon, just like Daenerys did.]] [[spoiler: Doran Martell's secrets made his daughter, Arianne, think that he was pushing her aside in order to make Quentyn his heir. To avoid that, she kidnaps Princess Myrcella and things [[AnArmAndALeg go downhill]] from there.]]
* Herman Melville took this trope literally in his novella ''Literature/BillyBudd'', in which Billy, a Christlike figure whose only flaw is a tendency to stutter when he gets upset, [[spoiler:killed the master-at-arms, Claggart, after Claggart falsely accused him of conspiracy to mutiny. He got so upset when he couldn't stop stuttering long enough to defend himself that he punched Claggart in the temple and he died. All three main characters--Billy, Claggart, and Captain Vere--die.]] But, then again, without it all of Melville's lovely [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic symbolism]] falls apart, and we can't have that.
* Creator/DavidWeber has this on a grander scale then most with his ''Literature/HellsGate'' series when poor communication causes two civilizations, which hadn't even known the other existed until recently, to start what is promising to be a long and brutal war.
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'':
** Deliberately tampered with communication restarts the Manticore-Haven war. The guy who did it wanted to make the Havenite president just angry enough that she was ''almost'' ready to go to war and he could step in and save the day. He underestimates by about one degree of anger, and millions die. Suffice it to say he's lucky he [[spoiler:died in a ''genuine'' accident]], because the president in question was preparing to have him charged with treason and executed.
** An unintentional example from that series was the attempted [=McQueen=] coup: [=McQueen=] knew that she'd eventually be considered too much of a threat by the Committee for Public Safety and would be eliminated, and so starts planning her contingency plan for when the time came. Pierre and St-Just also recognized she'd be a threat and would probably have to be eliminated so start planning ''their'' contingency plan for when the time came. A partially overheard conversation results in [=McQueen=] believing they were moving against her immediately (instead of merely planning to at some point in the future), causing her to launch her own plan prematurely.
** Occurs in the very first book: Honor pursues the Havenite Q-Ship running from the Medusa system when she realizes that their plan to grab the system would have the Q-ship "fleeing" to a waiting squadron of warships. She's right, but the premature start of the Medusan uprising the Havenites were promoting screwed up their plan so the captain was running to tell the warships ''not'' to come into the system. But he couldn't admit it because it would confirm Haven's covert actions, and the resulting combat destroys the Q-ship, nearly destroys Harrington's ship, and costs her a large chunk of her crew, even though it should have been blazingly obvious to him that the jig was up and the Manticorans obviously knew what was going on.
* In ''TheForeverWar'', a war that lasts centuries between humans and an alien race [[spoiler:turns out to be based on a misunderstanding]]. Considering that the author is a Vietnam vet, one need merely read The Pentagon Papers to see where he gets his idea.
* A large part of later books in the ''EndersGame'' series. Turns out [[spoiler:the formics were not hostile, but simply unaware that humans were intelligent, at least on an individual level. After the second war, they tried to apologize, but were destroyed before they learned to communicate with us.]] In addition, the whole debate over whether two alien species can communicate and coexist is dominant, especially as a situation gets closer and closer to "Communicate with them, or commit Xenocide." [[spoiler:Placing our heroes in the exact same situation as the formics.]]
** Also, the main plot of ''SpeakerForTheDead'' occurs because no one stops to ask the Piggies "Say, why exactly did you kill those two people and ritually disembowel them?" Seemingly, neither of the people who got disemboweled thought to say anything along the lines of [[spoiler: "Why are you doing this?...What's the third life?...Oh, I see. Uh, humans don't do that. It'll just kill us horribly. Please don't."]]
* BeingThere is a variation; the whole plot is based on characters misinterpreting most everything [[SeeminglyProfoundFool Chance the Gardener]] says (with the twist that he cannot correct them because he isn't able to understand what's going on).
* Due to the secret nature of Dreamland ops, the characters of DaleBrown's books often find themselves going up against ostensible allies both within and without America even when there's not supposed to be overt conflict.
* ''{{Metro 2033}}'' with the Dark Ones, they just want to find a way to help the humans out, but the telepathy caused people to go mad and thought they were out to kill them like other mutants. Needless to say Artyom realize this a bit too late as he plants the transmitter.
* In ''Arrow's Fall'', part of the ''HeraldsOfValdemar'' series, the novel's primary romantic tension is caused by Dirk assuming himself to be part of a LoveTriangle consisting of himself, Kris, and Talia, and trying to pull an IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy, when in fact both Kris and Talia are trying to get her hooked up with Dirk. Dirk's stubborn refusal to discuss the matter with either of them sends him into a [[DrowningMySorrows breakdown]], and causes the resolution to be put off until after [[spoiler:Talia nearly dies and Kris ''does'' die]].
* In the Creator/AgathaChristie novel ''Sparkling Cyanide'', Sandra Farraday knows that her husband Stephan is having an affair with Rosemary Barton, is afraid Stephan will leave her for Rosemary, and is prepared to kill Rosemary to prevent that from happening. Stephan, on the other hand, has grown tired of Rosemary and realized that Sandra is his real true love, but he's afraid that Sandra will leave him when she finds out about it, and is prepared to kill Rosemary to prevent the affair from becoming public. [[spoiler:Technically, poor communication didn't actually ''kill'' in this case, since neither Stephan nor Sandra was the murderer, but it very easily could have.]]
* ''The Key to Rondo'' could plausibly have instead been titled: ''Poor Communication Kills: The Novel''.
* In ''Literature/TheElenium'' series, an Eshandist leader had a speech problem and at one battle he yelled "Fall on your foes!" but mangled it and his followers heard "Fall on your swords!" He spent the next several years wondering why he lost.
* In ''Website/TheOnion'''s Literature/OurDumbCentury'', all the casualties of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI turn out to be this. Archduke Fraz Ferdinand wasn't assassinated he just went on vacation; when he finally returns, sees what happened, and explains the misunderstanding, the war is called off and the survivors go home mildly embarrassed.
* In a Franchise/StarWars novella, Imperial officer Kyle Katarn defects to the Rebel Alliance after he finds out that the Empire recently killed his father. He embarks on a black ops mission to recover part of the Death Star schematics, but is, naturally, monitored by the rebels to see if his turn was legitimate. When he's seen meeting with another Imperial, Mon Mothma gives the order to agent Jan Ors to kill him. What they don't know is that the officer was an old friend of Kyle's whom Kyle had persuaded to help him. Jan and Kyle end up in a MexicanStandoff, and if Jan hadn't found it impossible to kill the man that she was developing feelings for, the scenario would have ended in tragedy.
** There have been some ''terrible'' cases of this trope occurring across the StarWars Expanded Universe. One of the biggest ones was the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. It turns out that a number of people like Palpatine/Sidious, Vergere, Thrawn, and Darth Krayt ''knew'' about their existence and simply did not tell the galaxy at large - and giving vague hints to only a few people at the most. Sure, most of these people were villains and some of them were neutral, but a lot of grief (among other things) could have spared if people were simply told about it. The same things can be applied to Jacen and Abeloth, as well as Darth Bane's Sith Order and the Jedi Order.
* In ''Literature/CaptainCorellisMandolin'', [[spoiler:Pelagia spends decades waiting for Corelli, during which time she adopts an abandoned baby (named after him, no less). Turns out that Corelli did come back relatively early on, but saw her with the baby, assumed she must've had it with another man, and stormed off without talking to her. When Pelagia asks if he didn't consider the possibility that she was raped in his absence, he [[ValuesDissonance admits that]] [[DefiledForever it probably wouldn't have made a difference to him]].]]
* In ''Literature/TheShahnameh'', a series of accidents and deception both well and ill-intentioned result in Rostem killing Sohrab, the outcome neither of them wanted.
* ''Literature/TheIdiot''. No one seems capable of actually saying what they mean--even Prince Myshkin, the most innocently outspoken character, falls prey to this tendency--and the misunderstandings and suspicions that arise from this are major driving forces on the plot.
* In ''Literature/DirgeForPresterJohn'', John and his people have completely different ideas of what war is. He knows it means a lot of bloodshed (even if he naively also thinks of glory). His people think of the mating season of the cranes and pygmies.
* The CultureClash variety happens in ''TheLeftHandOfDarkness'', in which a very large mess could have been avoided if Estraven had been more straightforward with Genly as to what his goals were. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since in Gethenian culture advice is considered an insult, and Estraven was trying to avoid damaging Genly's honor; only later did he realize his mistake.
* In the early ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' books Harry has a chronic problem with not giving his mundane allies enough information. He wises up about it quite a bit in later books, but not before quite a bit of damage is done:
** In ''Literature/StormFront'' Murphy actually starts to suspect that he's the killer because he keeps balking at telling her anything about the case (partially because the White Council suspects him as well and would see him researching the curse as evidence) and walks right into a giant scorpion in Harry's office created by the actual killer.
** At the beginning of ''Literature/FoolMoon'' Harry does not see fit to tell a young and inexperienced magic user everything he can about a magic circle diagram that she's asking about, instead simply telling her that a set of runes in the diagram must be a mistake, because he can tell it binds creatures of both flesh and spirit and he doesn't want her messing with demons. Only later does he learn that she was trying to use the circle to confine a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent loup-garou]], and not having enough information about it has gotten her killed and left the loup-garou free to rampage around Chicago racking up a substantial body count.
** In ''Literature/GravePeril,'' Harry tells Susan pretty much everything about the politics in going to the vampire party... except for one thing: he's only allowed to give protection to one guest. Anyone else who shows up with him is fair game. Naturally, this omission screws everything up when Susan copies his invitation without his knowledge in order to crash the party.
* ''Literature/TheIcePalace'' is virtually built of this trope. The whole story begins with a tragic CannotSpitItOut moment where one of the two main characters (two eleven year old girls) freaks the other one out, and the result is an incredibly huge guilt trip where one of them freezes to death inside a frozen waterfall, and the other goes through a long DespairEventHorizon for five months (i.e. the rest of the book).
* One of the ''Inspector Montalbano'' books has a bad case of mishearing- Montalbano's lieutenant, Mimi, comes to his house late at night, looking very stressed, and tells him that he's got something that he needs to tell him: he's decided to get married. He phrases this as 'I've decided to take a wife', but Montalbano hears it as 'I've decided to take my life' and freaks out. It takes a while to sort out the situation, but they get there.
* Jeremy from ''Literature/StrengthAndJustice: Side: Strength'' has a bad case of CannotSpitItOut with his girlfriend over sharing information that there is a possible implication that the LawEnforcementInc they work for might be involved in taking away people's magical powers by force. It finally culminates in his girlfriend thinking he's cheating on her, complete with confrontation.
* Creator/SimonaAhrnstedt gives us a really painful example of CanNotSpitItOut in her debut novel, ''Literature/{{Overenskommelser}}''. It's the story about young Beatrice, who's bullied and pressured by her abusive and tyrannical uncle into an engagement with a man. A man who's not only like forty years older than her, but he also treats women like they're dirt under his shoes. So what does she do? Of course, she tells nobody the truth about why she agreed to marry this man (he would get her beautiful but weak cousin instead, if she didn't sacrifice herself). To be fair, she really is in a crappy situation, but still, yikes... And unfortunately, her love interest Seth is no better. Since he thinks that she willingly rejected him to marry an old disgusting aristocrat, stupid pride keeps him from admitting that he loves her. Several misunderstandings between them (sigh...) leads to much misery for them both (including that Beatrice gets [[spoiler:brutally raped and battered on her wedding night)]].
* A lot of the tragedy in ''Literature/TheReynardCycle'' could have been avoided if Persephone had only made it clearer to Reynard that, though she finds him charming, she would never seriously consider having a relationship with him.
* In the ''Literature/{{Relativity}}'' story "Highway Robbery", the heroes are trying to catch a pair of car thieves, and send out two people as [[TheBait live bait]] to drive around aimlessly for several hours. There's a communicator in each car, so that if something happens, MissionControl will know about it. After doing this for several hours with no luck, they decide to go home and try again the next day. As she begins driving home, Melody's car is stolen (with her in it), but ''mission control has switched off their communicator and is unaware of it.'' In their defense, it was about 4 a.m. at this point and everyone was getting punchy.
* Ava believes this is what happened when she reports on Countess Elinor in ''Literature/KingdomOfLittleWounds''. All she said was the woman had a lover, and then Elinor was arrested for high treason.
* In the ''InSpirituEtVeritate'' series by Zoe Reed, Kyla is forced under threat of death to break up with Camille over the phone during the climax of the first book. Fully three-quarters of the second book is spent with them still broken up, Kyla under the impression that Camille hasn't forgiven her and Camille under the impression that Kyla dumped her of her own volition. Camille is the more egregious case, since shortly after the phone call she finds Kyla tied up by the bad guy and doesn't connect the two.
* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', it's revealed that humanity was only the third most intelligent lifeform on Earth, behind mice and dolphins. Dolphins knew of the impending destruction of the planet Earth. They made many attempts to alert mankind to the impending doom, but they were mistaken as amusing attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually decided to leave Earth by their own means. The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards somersault through a hoop while whistling the Star Spangled Banner, when in fact the message was this: "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish."
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