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Changed line(s) 49 (click to see context) from:
** In addition, when planning to rape Harrington herself, he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night, and 2) She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'', he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
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** In addition, when planning to rape Harrington herself, he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) that:
### He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night,and 2) and
### She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'', he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
### He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night,
### She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'', he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
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!Note: As a DeathTrope, [[HandlingSpoilers all spoilers on this page are unmarked]].
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Changed line(s) 9 (click to see context) from:
* All the authorities in the story ''Watchbird'', by RobertSheckley. First, they build a crowd of machines programmed to protect humans, and make them autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient, [[spoiler: and the machines get out of control and start protecting anything, from cows to other machines, so economy, farming and stuff ends in chaos]], [[ItGotWorse and then]], to protect humanity [[spoiler: they build a crowd of machines programmed to kill the first ones... and these are also autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient]].
to:
* All the authorities in the story ''Watchbird'', by RobertSheckley. First, they build a crowd of machines programmed to protect humans, and make them autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient, [[spoiler: and the machines get out of control and start protecting anything, from cows to other machines, so economy, farming and stuff ends in chaos]], chaos, [[ItGotWorse and then]], to protect humanity [[spoiler: they build a crowd of machines programmed to kill the first ones... and these are also autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient]].efficient.
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* T'Lana from the ''StarTrek'' pocket books is a very short-lived character in the current Borg StoryArc for just this reason. From the first book she is introduced in [[spoiler:she immediately questions the judgment of practically everybody on board the ship who isn't a [[FantasticRacism Vulcan]], she objects to nearly every action anyone ranked above her takes, and spearheads a mutiny with other members of the senior staff against [[StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]], only to give command back to him refusing to simply admit that she fucked up majorly. Even [[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]] eventually just walks away during a conversation with her, after calling her the vulcan equivalent of a dim-witted jerkass. At the end of the second book she appears in, Picard wants her gone, which means something when his current first officer once defected to the Klingon Empire and thus could, ''very technically'', be called a traitor. Her ultimate fate? She's replaced with GenkiGirl T'ryssa Chen, a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-vulcan]] who prefers her human side and roleplaying as an elf, and gets blown into powder when the Borg partially glass Vulcan.]]
to:
* T'Lana from the ''StarTrek'' pocket books is a very short-lived character in the current Borg StoryArc for just this reason. From the first book she is introduced in [[spoiler:she she immediately questions the judgment of practically everybody on board the ship who isn't a [[FantasticRacism Vulcan]], she objects to nearly every action anyone ranked above her takes, and spearheads a mutiny with other members of the senior staff against [[StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]], only to give command back to him refusing to simply admit that she fucked up majorly. Even [[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]] eventually just walks away during a conversation with her, after calling her the vulcan equivalent of a dim-witted jerkass. At the end of the second book she appears in, Picard wants her gone, which means something when his current first officer once defected to the Klingon Empire and thus could, ''very technically'', be called a traitor. Her ultimate fate? She's replaced with GenkiGirl T'ryssa Chen, a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-vulcan]] who prefers her human side and roleplaying as an elf, and gets blown into powder when the Borg partially glass Vulcan.]]
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* Pavel Young from the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series is a villainous example. His pinnacle of stupidity may have to be [[spoiler:raping his own chief of security]] which unsurprisingly happens shortly before his death.
** [[spoiler:Raping his own chief of security by force]] would be bad enough -- and in character, too. But no, Pavel's not quite that smart. No. He [[spoiler:rapes her by blackmail]] and then has her set up [[spoiler:the murder of Honor's lover.]] So, when she [[spoiler:quietly makes sure the information on where to find the killer, who can in turn tell Honor who hired ''him'',]] it really comes as no surprise to those of us who aren't Too Dumb to Live.
*** From what we find out later, [[spoiler: if he'd just asked nicely and not used blackmail at all then she'd probably have consented to everything he blackmailed her into, without betraying him.]]
** In addition, [[spoiler: when planning to rape Harrington herself]], he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night, and 2) She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet [[spoiler: ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'']], he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
** Pretty much any flag officer in the Solarian League Navy. Seriously. The only one shown yet who's even remotely competent [[spoiler:is planning to defect from the League as soon as possible]]. The rest are self-serving, belligerent assholes who all ignore the ''many'' reports of their enemy's vastly superior technology. [[spoiler:And then get blown to chunky salsa for their pains.]]
** [[spoiler:Raping his own chief of security by force]] would be bad enough -- and in character, too. But no, Pavel's not quite that smart. No. He [[spoiler:rapes her by blackmail]] and then has her set up [[spoiler:the murder of Honor's lover.]] So, when she [[spoiler:quietly makes sure the information on where to find the killer, who can in turn tell Honor who hired ''him'',]] it really comes as no surprise to those of us who aren't Too Dumb to Live.
*** From what we find out later, [[spoiler: if he'd just asked nicely and not used blackmail at all then she'd probably have consented to everything he blackmailed her into, without betraying him.]]
** In addition, [[spoiler: when planning to rape Harrington herself]], he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night, and 2) She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet [[spoiler: ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'']], he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
** Pretty much any flag officer in the Solarian League Navy. Seriously. The only one shown yet who's even remotely competent [[spoiler:is planning to defect from the League as soon as possible]]. The rest are self-serving, belligerent assholes who all ignore the ''many'' reports of their enemy's vastly superior technology. [[spoiler:And then get blown to chunky salsa for their pains.]]
to:
* Pavel Young from the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series is a villainous example. His pinnacle of stupidity may have to be [[spoiler:raping raping his own chief of security]] security which unsurprisingly happens shortly before his death.
**[[spoiler:Raping Raping his own chief of security by force]] force would be bad enough -- and in character, too. But no, Pavel's not quite that smart. No. He [[spoiler:rapes rapes her by blackmail]] blackmail and then has her set up [[spoiler:the the murder of Honor's lover.]] lover. So, when she [[spoiler:quietly quietly makes sure the information on where to find the killer, who can in turn tell Honor who hired ''him'',]] it ''him'',it really comes as no surprise to those of us who aren't Too Dumb to Live.
*** From what we find out later, [[spoiler: if he'd just asked nicely and not used blackmail at all then she'd probably have consented to everything he blackmailed her into, without betraying him.]]
** In addition, [[spoiler: when planning to rape Harrington herself]], herself, he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night, and 2) She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet [[spoiler: ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'']], that'', he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
** Pretty much any flag officer in the Solarian League Navy. Seriously. The only one shown yet who's even remotely competent[[spoiler:is is planning to defect from the League as soon as possible]].possible. The rest are self-serving, belligerent assholes who all ignore the ''many'' reports of their enemy's vastly superior technology. [[spoiler:And And then get blown to chunky salsa for their pains.]]
**
** Pretty much any flag officer in the Solarian League Navy. Seriously. The only one shown yet who's even remotely competent
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* ''Judge and Jury'', by JamesPatterson and Andrew Gross, is about the trial of a mob leader who is a powerful sociopath. The judge lets him ''hear the jury's names'' during selection. Even after he gets someone to break into her alarmed house, leave the evening paper under her pillow, and ''all but openly threatens her'', she does nothing. [[spoiler:By the end of the day, all but one of the jurors is dead to a bomb.]] The retrial is locked down like Fort Knox.
to:
* ''Judge and Jury'', by JamesPatterson and Andrew Gross, is about the trial of a mob leader who is a powerful sociopath. The judge lets him ''hear the jury's names'' during selection. Even after he gets someone to break into her alarmed house, leave the evening paper under her pillow, and ''all but openly threatens her'', she does nothing. [[spoiler:By By the end of the day, all but one of the jurors is dead to a bomb.]] bomb. The retrial is locked down like Fort Knox.
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* In AlastairReynolds ''RevelationSpace'' novels [[spoiler: Whichever moron invented the Greenfly - self replicating robots whose only directive is: Modify all matter in the Universe into the form most efficient for the growth of plants. The latter books and stories show they succeed in this to the extent possible in the lifetime of the universe. Given that FTL flight is not possible in this universe, there's no conceivable use for the Greenfly on a solar system wide level (there are too few near-FTL ships to make importing food economic). It is conceivable that they would be of use in inhabited systems where they could convert spare asteroids etc. So why build them to have such blind ambition? Hell, why give them the ability to think at all given the problems humanity had with the Inhibitors?]]
to:
* In AlastairReynolds ''RevelationSpace'' novels [[spoiler: Whichever novels, whichever moron invented the Greenfly - self replicating robots whose only directive is: Modify all matter in the Universe into the form most efficient for the growth of plants. The latter books and stories show they succeed in this to the extent possible in the lifetime of the universe. Given that FTL flight is not possible in this universe, there's no conceivable use for the Greenfly on a solar system wide level (there are too few near-FTL ships to make importing food economic). It is conceivable that they would be of use in inhabited systems where they could convert spare asteroids etc. So why build them to have such blind ambition? Hell, why give them the ability to think at all given the problems humanity had with the Inhibitors?]]
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** [[spoiler:Viserys. Threatening the wife of a barbarian chieftain in front of said chieftain, with your sword out in the barbarian's holy city where it's forbidden? What could possibly go wrong?]]
** [[spoiler:Ned. Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned. So here's the guy who has a crush on your wife and tells you explicitly not to trust him? Well, trust him! So the queen is fucking her twin brother, has three incest children and might have had a part in killing the king? Tell her that you know enough to get her killed! Oh, and said king? He is on his deathbed, this is the time to be tactful and not to tell him what you know, even though it could have saved the country from a civil war. Great job!]]
** [[spoiler:Like father, like son. Congratulations on marrying the first girl you fucked, Robb, even though you have just broken your arranged marriage pact.]]
** [[spoiler:Also, belittling the son you despised since he was born while said son - who is, by the way, convicted on charges on regicide and kinslaying and sentenced to die - is holding a crossbow at you is a great idea. Right, Tywin?]]
** [[spoiler:Empowering the clergy is also brilliant, especially if you happen to fuck half of the palace. Right, Cersei? Though unlike the other examples, she is yet alive.]]
** [[spoiler:Flouting direct orders is a great way to keep your head. Especially if your Commander just spent the last several months among savage raiders. And you locked him in the cooler, literally, for a few days. And tried to get him killed. And had a hand in killing his father. Surely Lord Snow only meant to give you a haircut, right Janos?]]
** [[spoiler:I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he tries to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately cames and finish him off, and therefore...]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Llewelyn:''' Here you are. Too dumb to live.]]
** [[spoiler:Ned. Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned. So here's the guy who has a crush on your wife and tells you explicitly not to trust him? Well, trust him! So the queen is fucking her twin brother, has three incest children and might have had a part in killing the king? Tell her that you know enough to get her killed! Oh, and said king? He is on his deathbed, this is the time to be tactful and not to tell him what you know, even though it could have saved the country from a civil war. Great job!]]
** [[spoiler:Like father, like son. Congratulations on marrying the first girl you fucked, Robb, even though you have just broken your arranged marriage pact.]]
** [[spoiler:Also, belittling the son you despised since he was born while said son - who is, by the way, convicted on charges on regicide and kinslaying and sentenced to die - is holding a crossbow at you is a great idea. Right, Tywin?]]
** [[spoiler:Empowering the clergy is also brilliant, especially if you happen to fuck half of the palace. Right, Cersei? Though unlike the other examples, she is yet alive.]]
** [[spoiler:Flouting direct orders is a great way to keep your head. Especially if your Commander just spent the last several months among savage raiders. And you locked him in the cooler, literally, for a few days. And tried to get him killed. And had a hand in killing his father. Surely Lord Snow only meant to give you a haircut, right Janos?]]
** [[spoiler:I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he tries to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately cames and finish him off, and therefore...]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Llewelyn:''' Here you are. Too dumb to live.]]
to:
** [[spoiler:Viserys. Viserys. Threatening the wife of a barbarian chieftain in front of said chieftain, with your sword out in the barbarian's holy city where it's forbidden? What could possibly go wrong?]]
wrong?
**[[spoiler:Ned.Ned. Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned. So here's the guy who has a crush on your wife and tells you explicitly not to trust him? Well, trust him! So the queen is fucking her twin brother, has three incest children and might have had a part in killing the king? Tell her that you know enough to get her killed! Oh, and said king? He is on his deathbed, this is the time to be tactful and not to tell him what you know, even though it could have saved the country from a civil war. Great job!]]
job!
**[[spoiler:Like Like father, like son. Congratulations on marrying the first girl you fucked, Robb, even though you have just broken your arranged marriage pact.]]
pact.
**[[spoiler:Also, Also, belittling the son you despised since he was born while said son - who is, by the way, convicted on charges on regicide and kinslaying and sentenced to die - is holding a crossbow at you is a great idea. Right, Tywin?]]
Tywin?
**[[spoiler:Empowering Empowering the clergy is also brilliant, especially if you happen to fuck half of the palace. Right, Cersei? Though unlike the other examples, she is yet alive.]]
alive.
**[[spoiler:Flouting Flouting direct orders is a great way to keep your head. Especially if your Commander just spent the last several months among savage raiders. And you locked him in the cooler, literally, for a few days. And tried to get him killed. And had a hand in killing his father. Surely Lord Snow only meant to give you a haircut, right Janos?]]
Janos?
**[[spoiler:I I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]
Quentyn?
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to[[spoiler: the dead gangster he tries to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately cames and finish him off, and therefore...]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Llewelyn:'''therefore...
-->'''Llewelyn:''' Here you are. Too dumb to live.]]
**
**
**
**
**
**
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to
-->[[spoiler:'''Llewelyn:'''
-->'''Llewelyn:''' Here you are. Too dumb to live.
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* The unnamed SMERSH agent who executes Le Chiffre and his crew at the end of ''CasinoRoyale''. This has the interesting side effect of saving Bond's life. Despite knowing that Bond is a resourceful, and therefore dangerous, foreign service agent, he declines to kill him, basically giving the reason that his superior did not file the paperwork that would give the order for him to kill any opposing spies that he happened to encounter over the course of his mission. He also acknowledges that, under ordinary circumstances, he'd be under orders to kill Bond. But, that order wasn't specifically given, so he's just going to carve a brand onto Bond's body (to help them identify Bond in the future, a randomly dickish move that serves no purpose other than to make Bond hate SMERSH just a little bit more) and leave him be. Come on!
to:
* The unnamed SMERSH agent who executes Le Chiffre and his crew at the end of ''CasinoRoyale''.''Literature/CasinoRoyale''. This has the interesting side effect of saving Bond's life. Despite knowing that Bond is a resourceful, and therefore dangerous, foreign service agent, he declines to kill him, basically giving the reason that his superior did not file the paperwork that would give the order for him to kill any opposing spies that he happened to encounter over the course of his mission. He also acknowledges that, under ordinary circumstances, he'd be under orders to kill Bond. But, that order wasn't specifically given, so he's just going to carve a brand onto Bond's body (to help them identify Bond in the future, a randomly dickish move that serves no purpose other than to make Bond hate SMERSH just a little bit more) and leave him be. Come on!
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** The Yemeni in ''Executive Intent''. After the Chinese prove they're not going to be soft-hearted like the West with their DisproportionateRetribution takeover of Mogadishu, the Yemeni bomb a Chinese frigate. No prizes for guessing whose shit is still to get wrecked.
to:
** The Yemeni in ''Executive Intent''. After the Chinese prove they're not going to be soft-hearted like the West with their DisproportionateRetribution takeover of Mogadishu, the Yemeni still bomb a Chinese frigate. No prizes for guessing whose shit is still going to get wrecked.
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* In the DaleBrown novel ''Edge of Battle'', Zakharov criticises the prison-breaking illegal immigrants as this, saying that if they had ran for the border rather than trying to take on a MotionCaptureMecha they would still be alive.
to:
* In the DaleBrown novel ''Edge of Battle'', Zakharov criticises the prison-breaking illegal immigrants as this, saying that if they had ran for the border rather than trying to take on a MotionCaptureMecha MiniMecha they would still be alive.alive.
** The Yemeni in ''Executive Intent''. After the Chinese prove they're not going to be soft-hearted like the West with their DisproportionateRetribution takeover of Mogadishu, the Yemeni bomb a Chinese frigate. No prizes for guessing whose shit is still to get wrecked.
** The Yemeni in ''Executive Intent''. After the Chinese prove they're not going to be soft-hearted like the West with their DisproportionateRetribution takeover of Mogadishu, the Yemeni bomb a Chinese frigate. No prizes for guessing whose shit is still to get wrecked.
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** Discworld/FeetOfClay features a RunningGag about a vampire whose employment choices (including holy water bottler, sunglasses tester and picket fence builder) take it UpToEleven, seeming to indicate an intense desire to end his afterlife.
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** Discworld/FeetOfClay features a RunningGag character who definitely qualifies, despite technically not being alive. He's a vampire whose employment choices (including holy water bottler, sunglasses tester and picket fence builder) seem to indicate an intense desire to end his afterlife.
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** Discworld/FeetOfClay features a RunningGag character who definitely qualifies, despite technically not being alive. He's a vampire whose employment choices (including holy water bottler, sunglasses tester and picket fence builder) seem to indicate an intense desire to end his afterlife.
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Changed line(s) 74 (click to see context) from:
* Samson from TheBible. When your wife who, BTW, comes from the nation that hates your guts, keeps eliciting the secret of your super-human strength out of you, and you [[GenreSavy keep giving her fake answeres]], and every night you keep waking up to find yourself surrounded by enemies, and ''those fake answers used on you'', the very last thing you'd want to do is to give that bitch a real answer.
to:
* Samson from TheBible. When your wife who, BTW, comes from the nation that hates your guts, keeps eliciting the secret of your super-human strength out of you, and you [[GenreSavy [[GenreSavvy keep giving her fake answeres]], answers]], and every night you keep waking up to find yourself surrounded by enemies, and ''those fake answers used on you'', the very last thing you'd want to do is to give that bitch a real answer.
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** Apparently, despite having just created a universe massive beyond human comprehension, he decides to put his first two humans right next to a tree which, if they ate the fruit, would ruin everything. Whats more, he does this despite being all-knowing, and thus knowing exactly what will happen.
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** [[spoiler:Flouting direct orders is a great way to keep your head. Especially if your Commander just spent the last several months among savage raiders. And you locked him in the cooler, literally, for a few days. And tried to get him killed. And had a hand in killing his father. Surely Lord Snow only meant to give you a haircut, right Janos?]]
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to:
* In ''TheLongWalk'', a walker who dies early on was wearing sneakers, despite the rulebook that the contestants were given in advance explicitly telling them not to do so, as no other type of footwear will help develop blisters faster on long distances. Predictably, he develops blisters pretty soon, and is ticketed after walking at the required speed becomes too painful for him one time too many. Garraty even [[DiscussedTrope discusses it]] in his internal monologue.
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I got better was TR Sed and renamed; probably fits the new definition.
Changed line(s) 27 (click to see context) from:
** The modern version rubs salt in the wound by producing an awful mixture of DeusExMachina, IGotBetter, and {{Bowdleris|e}}ation. Not only does she suffer nothing for her impressive stupidity, but the original version's moral of "don't trust strangers" is completely dropped in favor of a happy ending.
to:
** The modern version rubs salt in the wound by producing an awful mixture of DeusExMachina, IGotBetter, UnexplainedRecovery, and {{Bowdleris|e}}ation. Not only does she suffer nothing for her impressive stupidity, but the original version's moral of "don't trust strangers" is completely dropped in favor of a happy ending.
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One Idiot Ball moment is not really an example of this trope. Susan is fairly smart and savvy otherwise.
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* [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] gets invited to a vampire ball. As it's an obvious trap, and there will be dozens of homicidal vampires there, [[IntrepidReporter Susan]] isn't allowed to come. More so, she is specifically warned and explained to, that as a {{Muggle}}, she shouldn't be going. Makes sense right? Apparently not to Susan. She sneaks in to the party for a scoop, violating the peace pact that the vampires had, meaning either she, or one of the other main characters have to be sacrificed. [[spoiler: She gets herself turned into a vamp.]] Chalk it up to a moment of holding the IdiotBall.
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** Not to mention that Honor herself has demonstrated a pattern of sneaky tactics, misdirection, concealing her intentions and disguising her forces. Her enemies, who have often studied her tactics in detail, then routinely see exactly what she wants them to see, decide "Oh, she's just screwed up this time", and charge straight into her traps. The one time they didn't? Was the one time she was actually running a bluff.
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** It's most likely that Samson didn't know cutting his hair would result in his disempowerment. He had done pretty much every bad thing one could do as a Nazarite such as never drinking alcohol. [[{{Jerkass}} He simply didn't care]]. When his wife cut his hair it was the final straw that caused God to finally revoke his powers.
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Changed line(s) 86 (click to see context) from:
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he tries to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and finish him off, and therefore...]]
to:
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he tries to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came cames and finish him off, and therefore...]]
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Changed line(s) 86 (click to see context) from:
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he try to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and finish him off, and therefore...]]
to:
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he try tries to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and finish him off, and therefore...]]
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Changed line(s) 86 (click to see context) from:
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he try to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and shot him, and therefore...]]
to:
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he try to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and shot him, finish him off, and therefore...]]
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Changed line(s) 85 (click to see context) from:
** [[spoiler:I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]
to:
** [[spoiler:I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]Quentyn?]]
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he try to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and shot him, and therefore...]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Llewelyn:''' Here you are. Too dumb to live.]]
* In {{No Country For Old Men}}, Llewelyn Moss literally gives this trope to [[spoiler: the dead gangster he try to bring water to when he comes back by night to the scene of the shooting. Apparently the said gangster (though he was indeed wounded) just sat there waiting for the man who ultimately came and shot him, and therefore...]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Llewelyn:''' Here you are. Too dumb to live.]]
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* ''LittleRedRidingHood'', making this one OlderThanPrint. TerryPratchett said it best in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'':
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* ''LittleRedRidingHood'', making this one OlderThanPrint.OlderThanPrint: ''LittleRedRidingHood''. TerryPratchett said it best in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'':
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** It's pretty explicit that the palantirs are addictive for people who aren't very strong-willed, at least if the person they've got on speed-dial is Sauron.
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** It's pretty explicit that the palantirs palantiri are addictive for people who aren't very strong-willed, at least if the person they've got on speed-dial is Sauron.
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* Ivan in "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf." He double-subverts YoungestChildWins in that, while in many other fairy tales the older siblings are the ones to disregard the instructions and the youngest wins by doing what they're supposed to, Ivan is the one who repeatedly touches things he's been specifically told not to while trying to steal the Firebird etc., trips magical burglar alarms, and gets sent on one FetchQuest after another as a consequence (and he keeps getting told that he wouldn't have had to resort to burglary if he'd just ''asked''). De-subverted because the wolf keeps bailing him out, even after he actually ''dies''.
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* Ivan in "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf." He double-subverts YoungestChildWins in that, while in many other fairy tales the older siblings are the ones to disregard the instructions and the youngest wins by doing what they're supposed to, Ivan is the one who repeatedly touches things he's been specifically told not to while trying to steal the Firebird etc., trips magical burglar alarms, and gets sent on one FetchQuest after another as a consequence (and he keeps getting told that he wouldn't have had to resort to burglary if he'd just ''asked''). De-subverted because the wolf keeps bailing him out, even after he actually ''dies''.''dies''.
*''ASongOfIceAndFire'': too many examples to count. Being [[AnyoneCanDie the kind of books they are]], they usually don't survive. Some examples:
** [[spoiler:Viserys. Threatening the wife of a barbarian chieftain in front of said chieftain, with your sword out in the barbarian's holy city where it's forbidden? What could possibly go wrong?]]
** [[spoiler:Ned. Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned. So here's the guy who has a crush on your wife and tells you explicitly not to trust him? Well, trust him! So the queen is fucking her twin brother, has three incest children and might have had a part in killing the king? Tell her that you know enough to get her killed! Oh, and said king? He is on his deathbed, this is the time to be tactful and not to tell him what you know, even though it could have saved the country from a civil war. Great job!]]
** [[spoiler:Like father, like son. Congratulations on marrying the first girl you fucked, Robb, even though you have just broken your arranged marriage pact.]]
** [[spoiler:Also, belittling the son you despised since he was born while said son - who is, by the way, convicted on charges on regicide and kinslaying and sentenced to die - is holding a crossbow at you is a great idea. Right, Tywin?]]
** [[spoiler:Empowering the clergy is also brilliant, especially if you happen to fuck half of the palace. Right, Cersei? Though unlike the other examples, she is yet alive.]]
** [[spoiler:I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]
*''ASongOfIceAndFire'': too many examples to count. Being [[AnyoneCanDie the kind of books they are]], they usually don't survive. Some examples:
** [[spoiler:Viserys. Threatening the wife of a barbarian chieftain in front of said chieftain, with your sword out in the barbarian's holy city where it's forbidden? What could possibly go wrong?]]
** [[spoiler:Ned. Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned, Ned. So here's the guy who has a crush on your wife and tells you explicitly not to trust him? Well, trust him! So the queen is fucking her twin brother, has three incest children and might have had a part in killing the king? Tell her that you know enough to get her killed! Oh, and said king? He is on his deathbed, this is the time to be tactful and not to tell him what you know, even though it could have saved the country from a civil war. Great job!]]
** [[spoiler:Like father, like son. Congratulations on marrying the first girl you fucked, Robb, even though you have just broken your arranged marriage pact.]]
** [[spoiler:Also, belittling the son you despised since he was born while said son - who is, by the way, convicted on charges on regicide and kinslaying and sentenced to die - is holding a crossbow at you is a great idea. Right, Tywin?]]
** [[spoiler:Empowering the clergy is also brilliant, especially if you happen to fuck half of the palace. Right, Cersei? Though unlike the other examples, she is yet alive.]]
** [[spoiler:I took dragontaming 101, how hard can it be to tame two dragons? Well, how hard is it, Quentyn?]]
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*** According to the Bible, he did it because [[GodIsEvil God basically forced him to.]] Earlier in the story, he also wanted to let the Hebrews go when the plagues kept happening, but God [[MindControl "hardened Pharaoh's heart."]]
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*** According to the Bible, he did it because [[GodIsEvil God basically forced him to.]] Earlier in the story, he also wanted to let the Hebrews go when the plagues kept happening, but God [[MindControl "hardened Pharaoh's heart."]]"]]
* Ivan in "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf." He double-subverts YoungestChildWins in that, while in many other fairy tales the older siblings are the ones to disregard the instructions and the youngest wins by doing what they're supposed to, Ivan is the one who repeatedly touches things he's been specifically told not to while trying to steal the Firebird etc., trips magical burglar alarms, and gets sent on one FetchQuest after another as a consequence (and he keeps getting told that he wouldn't have had to resort to burglary if he'd just ''asked''). De-subverted because the wolf keeps bailing him out, even after he actually ''dies''.
* Ivan in "Tsarevich Ivan, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf." He double-subverts YoungestChildWins in that, while in many other fairy tales the older siblings are the ones to disregard the instructions and the youngest wins by doing what they're supposed to, Ivan is the one who repeatedly touches things he's been specifically told not to while trying to steal the Firebird etc., trips magical burglar alarms, and gets sent on one FetchQuest after another as a consequence (and he keeps getting told that he wouldn't have had to resort to burglary if he'd just ''asked''). De-subverted because the wolf keeps bailing him out, even after he actually ''dies''.
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*** According to the Bible, he did it because [[GodIsEvil God basically forced him to.]] Earlier in the story, he also wanted to let the Hebrews go when the plagues kept happening, but God "hardened Pharaoh's heart."
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*** According to the Bible, he did it because [[GodIsEvil God basically forced him to.]] Earlier in the story, he also wanted to let the Hebrews go when the plagues kept happening, but God [[MindControl "hardened Pharaoh's heart.""]]
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** Also, the Pharaoh, who, even after Moses utterly desolates his kingdom with all manner of destructive "miracles", still somehow decides that he's going to hunt all the Hebrews down and bring them back to be his slaves.
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** Also, the Pharaoh, who, even after Moses utterly desolates his kingdom with all manner of destructive "miracles", still somehow decides that he's going to hunt all the Hebrews down and bring them back to be his slaves.slaves.
*** According to the Bible, he did it because [[GodIsEvil God basically forced him to.]] Earlier in the story, he also wanted to let the Hebrews go when the plagues kept happening, but God "hardened Pharaoh's heart."
*** According to the Bible, he did it because [[GodIsEvil God basically forced him to.]] Earlier in the story, he also wanted to let the Hebrews go when the plagues kept happening, but God "hardened Pharaoh's heart."
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* For the most part in the [[PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Jackson series]] everyone more or less arguably suffers from this with the protagonists routinely walking right into obvious traps set by monsters or in one particularly egregious example when the rag tag group of heroes is in a junk yard of Hephaestus within which they are told explicitly [[SchmuckBait not to touch or take anything]] the characters of course proceed to do that, with one even going so far as to [[ItMakesSenseInContext take a bite out of a crown.]] What follows is a character death that could have so easily been avoided that the YouCantFightFate message of the series became somewhat of a WallBanger at that moment.
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* For the most part in the [[PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Jackson series]] everyone more or less arguably suffers from this with the protagonists routinely walking right into obvious traps set by monsters or in one particularly egregious example when the rag tag group of heroes is in a junk yard of Hephaestus within which they are told explicitly [[SchmuckBait not to touch or take anything]] the characters of course proceed to do that, with one even going so far as to [[ItMakesSenseInContext take a bite out of a crown.]] What follows is a character death that could have so easily been avoided that the YouCantFightFate message of the series became somewhat of a WallBanger at that moment.moment.
* Samson from TheBible. When your wife who, BTW, comes from the nation that hates your guts, keeps eliciting the secret of your super-human strength out of you, and you [[GenreSavy keep giving her fake answeres]], and every night you keep waking up to find yourself surrounded by enemies, and ''those fake answers used on you'', the very last thing you'd want to do is to give that bitch a real answer.
** Said enemies, the Philistines, deserve a mention as well for allowing Samson to grow his hair back, even though they know it's what his superhuman strength springs from.
** Also, the Pharaoh, who, even after Moses utterly desolates his kingdom with all manner of destructive "miracles", still somehow decides that he's going to hunt all the Hebrews down and bring them back to be his slaves.
* Samson from TheBible. When your wife who, BTW, comes from the nation that hates your guts, keeps eliciting the secret of your super-human strength out of you, and you [[GenreSavy keep giving her fake answeres]], and every night you keep waking up to find yourself surrounded by enemies, and ''those fake answers used on you'', the very last thing you'd want to do is to give that bitch a real answer.
** Said enemies, the Philistines, deserve a mention as well for allowing Samson to grow his hair back, even though they know it's what his superhuman strength springs from.
** Also, the Pharaoh, who, even after Moses utterly desolates his kingdom with all manner of destructive "miracles", still somehow decides that he's going to hunt all the Hebrews down and bring them back to be his slaves.
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** And then there's Ginny with Tom Riddle's diary in ''Chamber of Secrets''. Basically, once she realizes that the diary is [[MindControl making her]] do bad things, instead of reporting it over to a teacher or to a Prefect, she just tosses it into a toilet, where Harry stumbles upon it. And when it winds up back into her possession once more, she still keeps it and still ''writes in it''. Sure she was only 11, but a little brain power would've been nice right there.
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* In a case where TooDumbToLive is apparently contagious, Robert Bloch's CthulhuMythos story "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" concerns an archeologist who's lured to a hidden Egyptian tomb that has prophetic depictions of the future on its walls. He walks past centuries of illustrated history, never suspecting his death-cultist guide is going to murder him, despite seeing one picture after another in which previous foreign visitors have been led there by death-cult members and killed. Not only does he stride obliviously to his own death, blind to the implications of his predecessors' fates, but apparently is ''only the latest'' idiot to do so, among centuries of similar idiots!
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* In a case where TooDumbToLive is apparently contagious, Robert Bloch's CthulhuMythos story "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" concerns an archeologist who's lured to a hidden Egyptian tomb that has prophetic depictions of the future on its walls. He walks past centuries of illustrated history, never suspecting his death-cultist guide is going to murder him, despite seeing one picture after another in which previous foreign visitors have been led there by death-cult members and killed. Not only does he stride obliviously to his own death, blind to the implications of his predecessors' fates, but apparently is ''only the latest'' idiot to do so, among centuries of similar idiots!idiots!
* For the most part in the [[PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Jackson series]] everyone more or less arguably suffers from this with the protagonists routinely walking right into obvious traps set by monsters or in one particularly egregious example when the rag tag group of heroes is in a junk yard of Hephaestus within which they are told explicitly [[SchmuckBait not to touch or take anything]] the characters of course proceed to do that, with one even going so far as to [[ItMakesSenseInContext take a bite out of a crown.]] What follows is a character death that could have so easily been avoided that the YouCantFightFate message of the series became somewhat of a WallBanger at that moment.
* For the most part in the [[PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians Percy Jackson series]] everyone more or less arguably suffers from this with the protagonists routinely walking right into obvious traps set by monsters or in one particularly egregious example when the rag tag group of heroes is in a junk yard of Hephaestus within which they are told explicitly [[SchmuckBait not to touch or take anything]] the characters of course proceed to do that, with one even going so far as to [[ItMakesSenseInContext take a bite out of a crown.]] What follows is a character death that could have so easily been avoided that the YouCantFightFate message of the series became somewhat of a WallBanger at that moment.
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* In SalemsLot by StephenKing, Susan Norton, despite being warned by Ben Mears and Matt Burke that they should stay away from the Marsten House for now, goes there all on her own to see if there's really a vampire there. What's more, on the way she encounters twelve year old Mark Petrie who actually has warded off a vampire the previous night. Now, with proof and a new ally, does she suggest that the two of them go back to town and get reinforcements to return in force? No, she and Mark go up to the house all on their own. What do you think happens?
* In the ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' novels this pretty much sums up the New Republic/Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. The Old Republic lasted "a thousand generations". The New Republic lasted less than one, largely because it was so mired in politics that it was wholly unable to adequately respond to an extragalactic invasion. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our [[RebelLeader passionately individualistic heroes]] the invaders are eventually stopped and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances is formed. During it's brief existence it has allowed a [[GalacticConqueror Sith Lord]] to exploit a legal technicality to seize power, the second time this had occurred in less than a century. Once our heroes sort that out, the GFFA then arbitrarily appoints a [[GeneralFailure former enemy who once tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy their capital planet]] as their new Chief of State for no apparent reason other than that a real election would be too much trouble and there were seemingly no qualified candidates amongst the ranks of their own government. Needless to say, more trouble quickly ensues. All of this keeps the Jedi in a role of [[LaResistance constantly having to oppose their own government]] and likewise routinely being out of favor with said government, who are deeply offended by the Jedi's ceaseless attempts to stop their lemming-like drive towards self-destruction.
* Carpathia's plan in Left Behind is to follow every step of the divine plan that leads to his inevitable defeat, as opposing to try and Screw Destiny by, for example, ruling fairly and trying to create a better world, or just nuking the whole planet to spite Him. Well okay, he did intend to deviate from the plan at the last possible minute by waiting until Jesus actually returned and then shooting him. This works about as well as you'd expect.
* The ''{{Dune}}'' prequels: the machine empire is many times bigger than the League of Nobles, with hundreds of planets, and robots working around the clock on every one of them. They could easily create enough nuclear missiles to take out the dozen or so Noble planets in one swift strike. They don't. We learn that they can't reach the planets because they are surrounded by an atmospheric shield that fries robot brains; but why not simply firing nukes from above the atmosphere, straight down? Especially since every planet in the Duneverse is a {{Planetville}}.
* Peter in ''The Boy Who Reversed Himself''. He is sacrificed to a man-eating boar (he lives anyway) because Laura and Omar don't consider him worth saving. Besides, it was Peter that got them stuck in the 4th Dimension in the first place due to his stupidity.
* Burt, the lead character of the StephenKing short story ''ChildrenOfTheCorn'' is a particularly terrible example of Too Dumb to Live. He takes far too long to admit to himself that something is seriously wrong in the town of Gatlin... and even once he does, decides to linger just to make his wife -- who realized much earlier and wanted to leave immediately -- squirm. This results in both of them dying horrible and otherwise completely avoidable deaths.
* One example that stands out in ''HarryPotter'' is when [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Dolores Umbridge]] spews racial slurs at a herd of armed and very pissed off centaurs.
* All the authorities in the story ''Watchbird'', by RobertSheckley. First, they build a crowd of machines programmed to protect humans, and make them autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient, [[spoiler: and the machines get out of control and start protecting anything, from cows to other machines, so economy, farming and stuff ends in chaos]], [[ItGotWorse and then]], to protect humanity [[spoiler: they build a crowd of machines programmed to kill the first ones... and these are also autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient]].
* The existentialist/absurdist book ''TheStranger'' has Meursault, the main character. The majority of the book is Camus trying to turn the WhatTheHellHero moment in the first part into a {{Crowning Moment of Awesome}}.
* Victor {{Frankenstein}} of MaryShelley's [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} original novel]], decides to run away from, and afterwards basically forget about, his ''completely successful'' [[FrankensteinsMonster experiment in the creation of new life]], after he decides that the result is uglier looking than he expected. He is then surprised when said creation feels epically neglected and decides to kill him.
** Not only that, but all the monster wants is familial love at first and then a female companion. Victor starts making one to appease it, then gets afraid the two of them would spawn a race of monsters, so he destroys the unfinished female, which prompts the monster to commit new murders in revenge. Victor never considers that he could just leave out some of the plumbing. ''Not only that'', but despite knowing the monster has a history of killing the people that he, Victor, loves, despite knowing that it considers him guilty for the death of its 'bride', despite its explicit warning that it will "be with you on your wedding night," when Victor marries Elizabeth he assumes that ''he'' is the monster's next target, and sends his new wife away to wait in her room completely unprotected. The results are predictable.
* The Kzinti from [[LarryNiven Larry Niven's]] ''KnownSpace'' series. While they are formidable-looking 8' tall, 500-pound tiger-men, a combination of room-temperature IQ and uncontrollable hair-trigger tempers means that they ALWAYS lose, even in hand to hand combat with humans 1/3 their mass. Specifically, their only tactic is [[LeeroyJenkins "scream and leap"]]. Niven, ''actual'' cats [[YouFailBiologyForever know more complicated tactics than that.]] Part of it can be chalked up to HonorBeforeReason, but societies whose honor codes start hurting them learn how to RulesLawyer the honor code pretty fast, if they don't junk it outright. Even worse, their race supposedly got its space-age tech by overthrowing an advanced spacefaring civilization that conquered their planet. How the heck they managed to do so despite their above-described dumbassery is anyone's guess.
** They did so ''before'' they were that dumb. They were tribal warrior primitives before they overthrew the spacefarers and stole their tech. Then they used the biotech they'd stolen to genetically engineer themselves to be perfect - as defined by a primitive tribal warrior culture, i.e. massively aggressive, status-conscious, and utterly truthful. They actually rebuilt their descendants to be ''unable'' to RulesLawyer their honor code. This doesn't change much until evolution kicks back in... once they attack humans.
* ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'': TerryPratchett explores this being intentional in {{Discworld/CarpeJugulum}}. [[FridgeLogic Why are there so many anti-vampire items in a classic horror vampire's castle?]] GenreSavvy vampires engage in ContractualGenreBlindness, being AffablyEvil, and sometimes even limiting themselves to PokeThePoodle-levels of evil, in order to ensure that nobody ever decides to go out of their way to utterly destroy them.
** By the usual GenreSavvy ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'' population, any examples of Too Dumb to Live that result in the person getting killed are marked down as "[[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch suicide]]" by the City Watch. There are a ''lot'' of ways to commit suicide in Ankh-Morpork. Walking into the Drum calling yourself "Vincent the Invulnerable" is just the icing on the cake.
** Calling a dwarf ''short stuff'' or ''lawn gnome'' is also suicide, considering the insulted dwarf most likely possesses a very sharp pickaxe about his person.
** Wandering into the Shades in Ankh Morpork is also a definite form of suicide.
** In fact, it's such a recurring problem in Ankh-Morpork that the city actually has a 'Being Bloody Stupid' law.
** Twoflower. Oh gods, Twoflower...''"Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."''
** The all-volunteer Lancre Mountain Rescue Team have an even less tolerant attitude to TooDumbToLive than the Ankh-Morpork Watch. They're happy to help people who are in trouble through no fault of their own, but if they have to risk their lives for someone who thought it'd be fun to go mountaineering in slippers, with a length of clothesline for the difficult bits, they may take him further up the mountain and leave him there. Stupidity kills, so it's best if it kills the stupid before they take someone else with them.
* In ''Oath of Fealty'' by LarryNiven and Jerry Pournelle, the plot is initiated by a group of teenagers who, as a prank, try to sneak into a heavily surveillance filled arcology while carrying a box labeled "bomb". They take ''just enough'' precautions to defeat all of the ''non''lethal methods of stopping them. The abject stupidity of this act is very heavily {{lampshade|Hanging}}d, and spawns the repeated phrase "[[MemeticMutation Think of it as evolution in action]]."
** Don't forget the locked door they break through has a sign that warns, "If you enter here YOU WILL DIE!" Among other skull and crossbones-type warnings.
* This is a long standing complaint of fans of Romance fiction who use the abbreviation TSTL (Too Stupid to Live) to describe any heroine (or hero) who drives the plot by sending all reason and common sense on sabbatical while pursuing the love of their lives.
* ''LittleRedRidingHood'', making this one OlderThanPrint. TerryPratchett said it best in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'':
-->"... some girl who can't tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family."
** The modern version rubs salt in the wound by producing an awful mixture of DeusExMachina, IGotBetter, and {{Bowdleris|e}}ation. Not only does she suffer nothing for her impressive stupidity, but the original version's moral of "don't trust strangers" is completely dropped in favor of a happy ending.
* T'Lana from the ''StarTrek'' pocket books is a very short-lived character in the current Borg StoryArc for just this reason. From the first book she is introduced in [[spoiler:she immediately questions the judgment of practically everybody on board the ship who isn't a [[FantasticRacism Vulcan]], she objects to nearly every action anyone ranked above her takes, and spearheads a mutiny with other members of the senior staff against [[StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]], only to give command back to him refusing to simply admit that she fucked up majorly. Even [[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]] eventually just walks away during a conversation with her, after calling her the vulcan equivalent of a dim-witted jerkass. At the end of the second book she appears in, Picard wants her gone, which means something when his current first officer once defected to the Klingon Empire and thus could, ''very technically'', be called a traitor. Her ultimate fate? She's replaced with GenkiGirl T'ryssa Chen, a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-vulcan]] who prefers her human side and roleplaying as an elf, and gets blown into powder when the Borg partially glass Vulcan.]]
* ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. Ma Su. Good God, Ma Su. During the Shu Kingdom's expedition against the Wei Kingdom, Ma Su was put in charge of defending Jie Ting, a very important location for the Shu forces. The location is near a mountain so Ma Su thought it would be a good idea to camp at the top of the mountain. Normally this would be a good idea, EXCEPT in this case, if they camped at the mountain and Wei surrounds them, their water supply at the bottom of the mountain would be cut off. Pretty much everybody except Ma Su sees this and he even ignores their warnings and proceeds to camp at the mountain. Guess what happened.
* The trolls in ''TheHobbit'' spend all night arguing about how they're going to cook Bilbo and the dwarves, apparently forgetting [[TakenForGranite what happens when sunlight hits them]].
** Of course, the implication was that Gandalf successfully got them so busy arguing that they simply lost track of the time and didn't notice it was getting to dawn. Of course, one would assume that with such a weakness, the trolls would have the sense to take better care, but yeah...
** WordOfGod says that most trolls are extremely low in intelligence and the mere fact that these three could speak basic English meant they were the troll equivalents of astrophysicists.
* Pippin in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Even if you don't count the first time ("Ooh, we're in a dark scary place that Gandalf wants us to move through quickly, but there's a big hole in the ground and I wanna see how deep it is... let's drop a stone!"), there's still this lovely number. "I have to look at it! I'll take it from the wizard when he's sleeping! But, hey! This time he doesn't have a perfectly good reason for not letting me see the shiny rock that Saruman used to communicate with Sauron! Even though he's older than the world and I already killed him once."
** It's pretty explicit that the palantirs are addictive for people who aren't very strong-willed, at least if the person they've got on speed-dial is Sauron.
** And wasn't throwing the rock down the deep hole an accident?
*** In the movie, they simply decided to tone down his too-dumb-to-live factor a bit and make it an accident. It was wholly on purpose in the book.
* Bella Swan of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. Bella ''NEEDS'' to be changed over so she'll have the strength to lug around that big-ass IdiotBall she's been strapped to ever since she saw Edward Cullen walk into the school cafeteria.
** A dedicated {{Spork}}er put it best while describing the cliff-diving incident in ''New Moon'':
--->"She's not just TemptingFate. She's rolling around on fate's bed. Naked. With one of her girlfriends. Pouring baby oil on each other. Begging fate to join in on the fun. Um, if you'll excuse me, I need to, uh . . . [[ADateWithRosiePalms take five]]."
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Alice in ''New Moon'' (film ''and'' book):
--->"I have never met anyone so prone to life threatening idiocy."
** Bree and Diego from ''The Short, Second Life of Bree Tanner'' would surely count as well. They both know that they're being kept in a basement by a Riley, who (A) has been kidnapping other teenagers to make into vampires and (B) clearly doesn't care if they kill each other. Later on, they discover that the story they had been fed about how sunlight burns them up was a lie. They also learn that they were all being used as canon fodder and Bree remembers that the night she had been turned into a vampire, she had been kidnapped and tricked into it. They ''also'' find out that Riley is discussing plans with [[BigBad Victoria]]. So of course they come to the conclusion [[WhatAnIdiot that Riley is completely innocent and will surely help them if they tell him everything they know]], so Diego decides to meet him alone, to tell Riley that [[HeKnowsTooMuch he knows all of these secrets]], without telling anyone except for Bree where he is going. Needless to say, Diego does not return. Bree qualifies as this trope because after all of that, she doesn't realize that Diego is dead until Riley has run off and left her and the other vampires to be killed by the Cullens. [[SarcasmMode What a brilliant pair!]]
* The unnamed SMERSH agent who executes Le Chiffre and his crew at the end of ''CasinoRoyale''. This has the interesting side effect of saving Bond's life. Despite knowing that Bond is a resourceful, and therefore dangerous, foreign service agent, he declines to kill him, basically giving the reason that his superior did not file the paperwork that would give the order for him to kill any opposing spies that he happened to encounter over the course of his mission. He also acknowledges that, under ordinary circumstances, he'd be under orders to kill Bond. But, that order wasn't specifically given, so he's just going to carve a brand onto Bond's body (to help them identify Bond in the future, a randomly dickish move that serves no purpose other than to make Bond hate SMERSH just a little bit more) and leave him be. Come on!
* Pavel Young from the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series is a villainous example. His pinnacle of stupidity may have to be [[spoiler:raping his own chief of security]] which unsurprisingly happens shortly before his death.
** [[spoiler:Raping his own chief of security by force]] would be bad enough -- and in character, too. But no, Pavel's not quite that smart. No. He [[spoiler:rapes her by blackmail]] and then has her set up [[spoiler:the murder of Honor's lover.]] So, when she [[spoiler:quietly makes sure the information on where to find the killer, who can in turn tell Honor who hired ''him'',]] it really comes as no surprise to those of us who aren't Too Dumb to Live.
*** From what we find out later, [[spoiler: if he'd just asked nicely and not used blackmail at all then she'd probably have consented to everything he blackmailed her into, without betraying him.]]
** In addition, [[spoiler: when planning to rape Harrington herself]], he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night, and 2) She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet [[spoiler: ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'']], he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
** Pretty much any flag officer in the Solarian League Navy. Seriously. The only one shown yet who's even remotely competent [[spoiler:is planning to defect from the League as soon as possible]]. The rest are self-serving, belligerent assholes who all ignore the ''many'' reports of their enemy's vastly superior technology. [[spoiler:And then get blown to chunky salsa for their pains.]]
* Governor Aubert of DavidWeber's ''InFuryBorn'' is a subversion. When we first meet him, he's ignoring the warnings of the elite Marines stationed on Gyangtse, instead listening to the advice of his even stupider advisor, Salgado, which results in a major uprising by separatist forces. However, when said uprising occurs, Aubert realizes his stupidity, fires his advisor, and aids the Marines in resolving the conflict.
* In [[HellsGate Hell's Gate]], we have (Commander of) Fifty (roughly equivalent to a lieutenant, I believe) Shevan Garlath, whose stupidity promptly leads to the first Arcanan/Sharonan bloodbath. He died in said bloodbath, fittingly enough.
* Arguably the ''entire human race'', in ''CatsCradle'' by KurtVonnegut. In a nutshell, TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt comes about because human beings are stupid enough to keep inventing things that are increasingly more destructive.
* In the DaleBrown novel ''Edge of Battle'', Zakharov criticises the prison-breaking illegal immigrants as this, saying that if they had ran for the border rather than trying to take on a MotionCaptureMecha they would still be alive.
* In the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''His Last Command'', Gaunt has a group of enemies under his guns when one of them reaches for a gun. Gaunt calls him an idiot and shoots him.
* ''Judge and Jury'', by JamesPatterson and Andrew Gross, is about the trial of a mob leader who is a powerful sociopath. The judge lets him ''hear the jury's names'' during selection. Even after he gets someone to break into her alarmed house, leave the evening paper under her pillow, and ''all but openly threatens her'', she does nothing. [[spoiler:By the end of the day, all but one of the jurors is dead to a bomb.]] The retrial is locked down like Fort Knox.
* In the last book of the ''InheritanceCycle'', King Orrin takes this UpToEleven with his plan to send an envoy to Galbatorix, try to negotiate a peace agreement, and tell him the Varden's position. Because to do otherwise would be discourteous.
* ''{{Wolfbreed}}'' gives us Darien, a man who must have been born under a stupid sign. First off, he is a werewolf and grew up in a town made up entirely of werewolves. His parents and everybody in the town tell him not to let anyone outside the village know he is a werewolf or run around in wolf form in broad daylight because there is a ChurchMilitant BadassArmy out there that has pledged to destroy werewolves. Guess what Darien does, and then after the [[DoomedHometown predictable results]], refuses to accept blame for his actions and projects his self-loathing onto humanity. [[CompleteMonster So he starts killing innocent people]] to lure a unit of said army into his trap. That's right, he picks a fight with a group of about forty elite soldiers specifically trained and armed to kill his kind and have plenty of experience doing so and then Darien has the gall to act surprised when they nearly kill him. Then he tries to convince a female werewolf, who has been raised by ordinary humans, that he lusts after that HumansAreBastards and he does so by framing her for murder! And he does so in such a way that the girl, the soldiers and just about every other major character knows he is really responsible in about two minutes after the killing takes place!
* For all of the times that R.A. Salvatore has [[OurElvesAreBetter made drow look vastly superior to humans]], the drow invaders do something immensely stupid in ''[[LegacyOfTheDrowSeries Siege Of Darkness]]''. The drow forces are split into two groups: one attacking Mithral Hall from underground, and the other attacking from the surface. During the planning stages, everybody seemingly forgot that drow eyes ''cannot tolerate sunlight'' unless they've become used to it. Or perhaps none of them thought that the battle would last the entire night and that they would still be fighting the good guys when the sun came up. In any case, when the dawn comes, the drow on the surface are blinded and pretty well screwed.
** The drow expected the sun to come up and even trained looking at light to be prepared for it. They just greatly overestimated their tolerance for sunlight, as it was the first time they actually saw it.
* You don't need to know the lore behind [[{{Hellraiser}} Lemarchand's Configurations]] to realize that a small, ornate box sitting ''[[{{Gorn}} in the middle of a blast zone of blood, flesh and entrails]]'' is a ''bad sign.'' So what does one of the protagonists of the short story ''A Little Piece of Hell'' do? March right across the carnage to the box and decide he wants to figure out how to open it.
* The father in the 1998 Newbery Medal winner ''Out Of The Dust'' instigates the main [[DeathByNewberyMedal plot]] of the book by leaving a pail of kerosene by the stove. A pile of ''highly combustible fuel that has a flashpoint of roughly 100-150 degrees Fahrenheit and that gives off toxic fumes''. Not to mention that, since it's oil, it's hard to extinguish with water. ''[[SarcasmMode Really great]]'' [[SarcasmMode idea to have a bucket of this stuff around a food preparation area]].
* AgathaChristie stories. You can pretty much guarantee that one of the victims saw who did it and decided it would be a smart move to blackmail the serial killer and sneak off to meet them in a lonely spot to collect the first payment.
* In the third MercyThompson novel, several kids beat up Jesse Hauptmann precisely ''because'' her father is a werewolf. If Jesse hadn't refused to tell her father their names, he would have killed them.
* If the titular protagonist of WinnieThePooh didn't live in a SugarBowl and/or had a [[KingdomHearts superpowered kid swordsman looking after him]], he would have been dead at least 20 times over by now.
* Tang Sanzang of ''JourneyToTheWest'' definitely qualifies. Despite having three demonic bodyguards constantly warning him about the evil nature of the strangers that they encounter he constantly disregards their advice because he can't see the forest through the trees. Even after being captured and nearly cooked alive multiple times Sanzang still doesn't understand that beauty doesn't equal good.
* Vee and Nora both of ''Hush, Hush''. Vee finds out that a mysterious stalker is frightening Nora so her brilliant plan is not to talk to an employee at the store they're in for help, but to disguise herself as Nora, lead the stalker off into a graveyard, have Nora follow after, and between them confront a potentially armed and dangerous person. This, unsurprisingly, leads to Vee being concussed and having her arm broken. And immediately after she gets out of the hospital, she decides that they ought to go poking around and spy on the guy who they think attacked her to begin with. Nora gets this because she is point-blank ''told'' by Patch that he has planned to murder her and knows that he can influence her thoughts and feelings ''and still thinks it's a good idea to date him''!!!
* In AlastairReynolds ''RevelationSpace'' novels [[spoiler: Whichever moron invented the Greenfly - self replicating robots whose only directive is: Modify all matter in the Universe into the form most efficient for the growth of plants. The latter books and stories show they succeed in this to the extent possible in the lifetime of the universe. Given that FTL flight is not possible in this universe, there's no conceivable use for the Greenfly on a solar system wide level (there are too few near-FTL ships to make importing food economic). It is conceivable that they would be of use in inhabited systems where they could convert spare asteroids etc. So why build them to have such blind ambition? Hell, why give them the ability to think at all given the problems humanity had with the Inhibitors?]]
* ''Literature/CanYouSurviveTheZombieApocalypse'' allows you to make some extremely stupid choices, like trying to fight zombies with a pool cue and a bright orange ''Big Buck Hunter'' toy shotgun. [[CaptainObvious Making these choices will lead to your death, and sometimes undeath.]]
* A tangential example in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." When the rebelling lunar colony starts [[ColonyDrop throwing 100 ton rocks from orbit]], they explicitly target highly visible but mostly unoccupied places, since this is an intimidation tactic: they want the Earthlings to know that they could flatten cities if they wanted to, but not to have to actually kill millions. Even so, in the first round of strikes, thousands of people (mostly in North America) decide that this is so little of a threat they pack picnics and go to the target sites to watch... even though these impacts had the power of a small nuclear bomb. The rubberneckers got predictably dead.
* Michael from the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries'' makes a habit of seeking out killers, and will knowingly walk into traps that are pretty much always set to get him, a man with no legal rights, framed for a hanging crime. Even if this is to save lives or try and at least see who's setting you up, when you're the sort of protagonist who usually gets at least two good beating a book and have people wanting you executed just for getting into a street fight, this is a ''very'' bad idea.
* [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] gets invited to a vampire ball. As it's an obvious trap, and there will be dozens of homicidal vampires there, [[IntrepidReporter Susan]] isn't allowed to come. More so, she is specifically warned and explained to, that as a {{Muggle}}, she shouldn't be going. Makes sense right? Apparently not to Susan. She sneaks in to the party for a scoop, violating the peace pact that the vampires had, meaning either she, or one of the other main characters have to be sacrificed. [[spoiler: She gets herself turned into a vamp.]] Chalk it up to a moment of holding the IdiotBall.
* ''InDeath'': Some of the murder victims completely qualify for this trope. Tiara Kent from ''Eternity In Death'' stands out the most, because she had a boyfriend who had her convinced that he was a vampire and he could make her into one. She shut off the security system like he asked her to, and never considered that he needed to keep his face from being seen on the cameras. She drank a concoction like he asked her to, and never considered that it might contain rape drugs and other [[SarcasmMode lovely]] ingredients in it. She has sex with him, and he drains her blood, resulting in her death. She didn't change into a vampire, by the way. Eve and Peabody even discuss the victim's stupidity, and Peabody explains that the victim was a rich, spoiled girl who was not known for her brains.
* In a case where TooDumbToLive is apparently contagious, Robert Bloch's CthulhuMythos story "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" concerns an archeologist who's lured to a hidden Egyptian tomb that has prophetic depictions of the future on its walls. He walks past centuries of illustrated history, never suspecting his death-cultist guide is going to murder him, despite seeing one picture after another in which previous foreign visitors have been led there by death-cult members and killed. Not only does he stride obliviously to his own death, blind to the implications of his predecessors' fates, but apparently is ''only the latest'' idiot to do so, among centuries of similar idiots!
* In the ''StarWarsExpandedUniverse'' novels this pretty much sums up the New Republic/Galactic Federation of Free Alliances. The Old Republic lasted "a thousand generations". The New Republic lasted less than one, largely because it was so mired in politics that it was wholly unable to adequately respond to an extragalactic invasion. Thanks to the tireless efforts of our [[RebelLeader passionately individualistic heroes]] the invaders are eventually stopped and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances is formed. During it's brief existence it has allowed a [[GalacticConqueror Sith Lord]] to exploit a legal technicality to seize power, the second time this had occurred in less than a century. Once our heroes sort that out, the GFFA then arbitrarily appoints a [[GeneralFailure former enemy who once tried, unsuccessfully, to destroy their capital planet]] as their new Chief of State for no apparent reason other than that a real election would be too much trouble and there were seemingly no qualified candidates amongst the ranks of their own government. Needless to say, more trouble quickly ensues. All of this keeps the Jedi in a role of [[LaResistance constantly having to oppose their own government]] and likewise routinely being out of favor with said government, who are deeply offended by the Jedi's ceaseless attempts to stop their lemming-like drive towards self-destruction.
* Carpathia's plan in Left Behind is to follow every step of the divine plan that leads to his inevitable defeat, as opposing to try and Screw Destiny by, for example, ruling fairly and trying to create a better world, or just nuking the whole planet to spite Him. Well okay, he did intend to deviate from the plan at the last possible minute by waiting until Jesus actually returned and then shooting him. This works about as well as you'd expect.
* The ''{{Dune}}'' prequels: the machine empire is many times bigger than the League of Nobles, with hundreds of planets, and robots working around the clock on every one of them. They could easily create enough nuclear missiles to take out the dozen or so Noble planets in one swift strike. They don't. We learn that they can't reach the planets because they are surrounded by an atmospheric shield that fries robot brains; but why not simply firing nukes from above the atmosphere, straight down? Especially since every planet in the Duneverse is a {{Planetville}}.
* Peter in ''The Boy Who Reversed Himself''. He is sacrificed to a man-eating boar (he lives anyway) because Laura and Omar don't consider him worth saving. Besides, it was Peter that got them stuck in the 4th Dimension in the first place due to his stupidity.
* Burt, the lead character of the StephenKing short story ''ChildrenOfTheCorn'' is a particularly terrible example of Too Dumb to Live. He takes far too long to admit to himself that something is seriously wrong in the town of Gatlin... and even once he does, decides to linger just to make his wife -- who realized much earlier and wanted to leave immediately -- squirm. This results in both of them dying horrible and otherwise completely avoidable deaths.
* One example that stands out in ''HarryPotter'' is when [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain Dolores Umbridge]] spews racial slurs at a herd of armed and very pissed off centaurs.
* All the authorities in the story ''Watchbird'', by RobertSheckley. First, they build a crowd of machines programmed to protect humans, and make them autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient, [[spoiler: and the machines get out of control and start protecting anything, from cows to other machines, so economy, farming and stuff ends in chaos]], [[ItGotWorse and then]], to protect humanity [[spoiler: they build a crowd of machines programmed to kill the first ones... and these are also autonomous, self-taught and without any control circuit so they can be efficient]].
* The existentialist/absurdist book ''TheStranger'' has Meursault, the main character. The majority of the book is Camus trying to turn the WhatTheHellHero moment in the first part into a {{Crowning Moment of Awesome}}.
* Victor {{Frankenstein}} of MaryShelley's [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} original novel]], decides to run away from, and afterwards basically forget about, his ''completely successful'' [[FrankensteinsMonster experiment in the creation of new life]], after he decides that the result is uglier looking than he expected. He is then surprised when said creation feels epically neglected and decides to kill him.
** Not only that, but all the monster wants is familial love at first and then a female companion. Victor starts making one to appease it, then gets afraid the two of them would spawn a race of monsters, so he destroys the unfinished female, which prompts the monster to commit new murders in revenge. Victor never considers that he could just leave out some of the plumbing. ''Not only that'', but despite knowing the monster has a history of killing the people that he, Victor, loves, despite knowing that it considers him guilty for the death of its 'bride', despite its explicit warning that it will "be with you on your wedding night," when Victor marries Elizabeth he assumes that ''he'' is the monster's next target, and sends his new wife away to wait in her room completely unprotected. The results are predictable.
* The Kzinti from [[LarryNiven Larry Niven's]] ''KnownSpace'' series. While they are formidable-looking 8' tall, 500-pound tiger-men, a combination of room-temperature IQ and uncontrollable hair-trigger tempers means that they ALWAYS lose, even in hand to hand combat with humans 1/3 their mass. Specifically, their only tactic is [[LeeroyJenkins "scream and leap"]]. Niven, ''actual'' cats [[YouFailBiologyForever know more complicated tactics than that.]] Part of it can be chalked up to HonorBeforeReason, but societies whose honor codes start hurting them learn how to RulesLawyer the honor code pretty fast, if they don't junk it outright. Even worse, their race supposedly got its space-age tech by overthrowing an advanced spacefaring civilization that conquered their planet. How the heck they managed to do so despite their above-described dumbassery is anyone's guess.
** They did so ''before'' they were that dumb. They were tribal warrior primitives before they overthrew the spacefarers and stole their tech. Then they used the biotech they'd stolen to genetically engineer themselves to be perfect - as defined by a primitive tribal warrior culture, i.e. massively aggressive, status-conscious, and utterly truthful. They actually rebuilt their descendants to be ''unable'' to RulesLawyer their honor code. This doesn't change much until evolution kicks back in... once they attack humans.
* ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'': TerryPratchett explores this being intentional in {{Discworld/CarpeJugulum}}. [[FridgeLogic Why are there so many anti-vampire items in a classic horror vampire's castle?]] GenreSavvy vampires engage in ContractualGenreBlindness, being AffablyEvil, and sometimes even limiting themselves to PokeThePoodle-levels of evil, in order to ensure that nobody ever decides to go out of their way to utterly destroy them.
** By the usual GenreSavvy ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'' population, any examples of Too Dumb to Live that result in the person getting killed are marked down as "[[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch suicide]]" by the City Watch. There are a ''lot'' of ways to commit suicide in Ankh-Morpork. Walking into the Drum calling yourself "Vincent the Invulnerable" is just the icing on the cake.
** Calling a dwarf ''short stuff'' or ''lawn gnome'' is also suicide, considering the insulted dwarf most likely possesses a very sharp pickaxe about his person.
** Wandering into the Shades in Ankh Morpork is also a definite form of suicide.
** In fact, it's such a recurring problem in Ankh-Morpork that the city actually has a 'Being Bloody Stupid' law.
** Twoflower. Oh gods, Twoflower...''"Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."''
** The all-volunteer Lancre Mountain Rescue Team have an even less tolerant attitude to TooDumbToLive than the Ankh-Morpork Watch. They're happy to help people who are in trouble through no fault of their own, but if they have to risk their lives for someone who thought it'd be fun to go mountaineering in slippers, with a length of clothesline for the difficult bits, they may take him further up the mountain and leave him there. Stupidity kills, so it's best if it kills the stupid before they take someone else with them.
* In ''Oath of Fealty'' by LarryNiven and Jerry Pournelle, the plot is initiated by a group of teenagers who, as a prank, try to sneak into a heavily surveillance filled arcology while carrying a box labeled "bomb". They take ''just enough'' precautions to defeat all of the ''non''lethal methods of stopping them. The abject stupidity of this act is very heavily {{lampshade|Hanging}}d, and spawns the repeated phrase "[[MemeticMutation Think of it as evolution in action]]."
** Don't forget the locked door they break through has a sign that warns, "If you enter here YOU WILL DIE!" Among other skull and crossbones-type warnings.
* This is a long standing complaint of fans of Romance fiction who use the abbreviation TSTL (Too Stupid to Live) to describe any heroine (or hero) who drives the plot by sending all reason and common sense on sabbatical while pursuing the love of their lives.
* ''LittleRedRidingHood'', making this one OlderThanPrint. TerryPratchett said it best in ''Discworld/TheWeeFreeMen'':
-->"... some girl who can't tell the difference between a wolf and her grandmother must either have been as dense as teak or come from an extremely ugly family."
** The modern version rubs salt in the wound by producing an awful mixture of DeusExMachina, IGotBetter, and {{Bowdleris|e}}ation. Not only does she suffer nothing for her impressive stupidity, but the original version's moral of "don't trust strangers" is completely dropped in favor of a happy ending.
* T'Lana from the ''StarTrek'' pocket books is a very short-lived character in the current Borg StoryArc for just this reason. From the first book she is introduced in [[spoiler:she immediately questions the judgment of practically everybody on board the ship who isn't a [[FantasticRacism Vulcan]], she objects to nearly every action anyone ranked above her takes, and spearheads a mutiny with other members of the senior staff against [[StarTrekTheNextGeneration Picard]], only to give command back to him refusing to simply admit that she fucked up majorly. Even [[StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Spock]] eventually just walks away during a conversation with her, after calling her the vulcan equivalent of a dim-witted jerkass. At the end of the second book she appears in, Picard wants her gone, which means something when his current first officer once defected to the Klingon Empire and thus could, ''very technically'', be called a traitor. Her ultimate fate? She's replaced with GenkiGirl T'ryssa Chen, a [[HalfHumanHybrid half-vulcan]] who prefers her human side and roleplaying as an elf, and gets blown into powder when the Borg partially glass Vulcan.]]
* ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms''. Ma Su. Good God, Ma Su. During the Shu Kingdom's expedition against the Wei Kingdom, Ma Su was put in charge of defending Jie Ting, a very important location for the Shu forces. The location is near a mountain so Ma Su thought it would be a good idea to camp at the top of the mountain. Normally this would be a good idea, EXCEPT in this case, if they camped at the mountain and Wei surrounds them, their water supply at the bottom of the mountain would be cut off. Pretty much everybody except Ma Su sees this and he even ignores their warnings and proceeds to camp at the mountain. Guess what happened.
* The trolls in ''TheHobbit'' spend all night arguing about how they're going to cook Bilbo and the dwarves, apparently forgetting [[TakenForGranite what happens when sunlight hits them]].
** Of course, the implication was that Gandalf successfully got them so busy arguing that they simply lost track of the time and didn't notice it was getting to dawn. Of course, one would assume that with such a weakness, the trolls would have the sense to take better care, but yeah...
** WordOfGod says that most trolls are extremely low in intelligence and the mere fact that these three could speak basic English meant they were the troll equivalents of astrophysicists.
* Pippin in ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''. Even if you don't count the first time ("Ooh, we're in a dark scary place that Gandalf wants us to move through quickly, but there's a big hole in the ground and I wanna see how deep it is... let's drop a stone!"), there's still this lovely number. "I have to look at it! I'll take it from the wizard when he's sleeping! But, hey! This time he doesn't have a perfectly good reason for not letting me see the shiny rock that Saruman used to communicate with Sauron! Even though he's older than the world and I already killed him once."
** It's pretty explicit that the palantirs are addictive for people who aren't very strong-willed, at least if the person they've got on speed-dial is Sauron.
** And wasn't throwing the rock down the deep hole an accident?
*** In the movie, they simply decided to tone down his too-dumb-to-live factor a bit and make it an accident. It was wholly on purpose in the book.
* Bella Swan of ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''. Bella ''NEEDS'' to be changed over so she'll have the strength to lug around that big-ass IdiotBall she's been strapped to ever since she saw Edward Cullen walk into the school cafeteria.
** A dedicated {{Spork}}er put it best while describing the cliff-diving incident in ''New Moon'':
--->"She's not just TemptingFate. She's rolling around on fate's bed. Naked. With one of her girlfriends. Pouring baby oil on each other. Begging fate to join in on the fun. Um, if you'll excuse me, I need to, uh . . . [[ADateWithRosiePalms take five]]."
** {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Alice in ''New Moon'' (film ''and'' book):
--->"I have never met anyone so prone to life threatening idiocy."
** Bree and Diego from ''The Short, Second Life of Bree Tanner'' would surely count as well. They both know that they're being kept in a basement by a Riley, who (A) has been kidnapping other teenagers to make into vampires and (B) clearly doesn't care if they kill each other. Later on, they discover that the story they had been fed about how sunlight burns them up was a lie. They also learn that they were all being used as canon fodder and Bree remembers that the night she had been turned into a vampire, she had been kidnapped and tricked into it. They ''also'' find out that Riley is discussing plans with [[BigBad Victoria]]. So of course they come to the conclusion [[WhatAnIdiot that Riley is completely innocent and will surely help them if they tell him everything they know]], so Diego decides to meet him alone, to tell Riley that [[HeKnowsTooMuch he knows all of these secrets]], without telling anyone except for Bree where he is going. Needless to say, Diego does not return. Bree qualifies as this trope because after all of that, she doesn't realize that Diego is dead until Riley has run off and left her and the other vampires to be killed by the Cullens. [[SarcasmMode What a brilliant pair!]]
* The unnamed SMERSH agent who executes Le Chiffre and his crew at the end of ''CasinoRoyale''. This has the interesting side effect of saving Bond's life. Despite knowing that Bond is a resourceful, and therefore dangerous, foreign service agent, he declines to kill him, basically giving the reason that his superior did not file the paperwork that would give the order for him to kill any opposing spies that he happened to encounter over the course of his mission. He also acknowledges that, under ordinary circumstances, he'd be under orders to kill Bond. But, that order wasn't specifically given, so he's just going to carve a brand onto Bond's body (to help them identify Bond in the future, a randomly dickish move that serves no purpose other than to make Bond hate SMERSH just a little bit more) and leave him be. Come on!
* Pavel Young from the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series is a villainous example. His pinnacle of stupidity may have to be [[spoiler:raping his own chief of security]] which unsurprisingly happens shortly before his death.
** [[spoiler:Raping his own chief of security by force]] would be bad enough -- and in character, too. But no, Pavel's not quite that smart. No. He [[spoiler:rapes her by blackmail]] and then has her set up [[spoiler:the murder of Honor's lover.]] So, when she [[spoiler:quietly makes sure the information on where to find the killer, who can in turn tell Honor who hired ''him'',]] it really comes as no surprise to those of us who aren't Too Dumb to Live.
*** From what we find out later, [[spoiler: if he'd just asked nicely and not used blackmail at all then she'd probably have consented to everything he blackmailed her into, without betraying him.]]
** In addition, [[spoiler: when planning to rape Harrington herself]], he failed to put two and two together in that: 1) He realised that she used the gym alone in the dead of night, and 2) She was on the Saganami Island unarmed combat team. Add to that that she's from a heavy-gravity planet [[spoiler: ''and her family had been genetically modified to cope with that'']], he was lucky to get away with ''just'' broken bones.
** Pretty much any flag officer in the Solarian League Navy. Seriously. The only one shown yet who's even remotely competent [[spoiler:is planning to defect from the League as soon as possible]]. The rest are self-serving, belligerent assholes who all ignore the ''many'' reports of their enemy's vastly superior technology. [[spoiler:And then get blown to chunky salsa for their pains.]]
* Governor Aubert of DavidWeber's ''InFuryBorn'' is a subversion. When we first meet him, he's ignoring the warnings of the elite Marines stationed on Gyangtse, instead listening to the advice of his even stupider advisor, Salgado, which results in a major uprising by separatist forces. However, when said uprising occurs, Aubert realizes his stupidity, fires his advisor, and aids the Marines in resolving the conflict.
* In [[HellsGate Hell's Gate]], we have (Commander of) Fifty (roughly equivalent to a lieutenant, I believe) Shevan Garlath, whose stupidity promptly leads to the first Arcanan/Sharonan bloodbath. He died in said bloodbath, fittingly enough.
* Arguably the ''entire human race'', in ''CatsCradle'' by KurtVonnegut. In a nutshell, TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt comes about because human beings are stupid enough to keep inventing things that are increasingly more destructive.
* In the DaleBrown novel ''Edge of Battle'', Zakharov criticises the prison-breaking illegal immigrants as this, saying that if they had ran for the border rather than trying to take on a MotionCaptureMecha they would still be alive.
* In the ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' novel ''His Last Command'', Gaunt has a group of enemies under his guns when one of them reaches for a gun. Gaunt calls him an idiot and shoots him.
* ''Judge and Jury'', by JamesPatterson and Andrew Gross, is about the trial of a mob leader who is a powerful sociopath. The judge lets him ''hear the jury's names'' during selection. Even after he gets someone to break into her alarmed house, leave the evening paper under her pillow, and ''all but openly threatens her'', she does nothing. [[spoiler:By the end of the day, all but one of the jurors is dead to a bomb.]] The retrial is locked down like Fort Knox.
* In the last book of the ''InheritanceCycle'', King Orrin takes this UpToEleven with his plan to send an envoy to Galbatorix, try to negotiate a peace agreement, and tell him the Varden's position. Because to do otherwise would be discourteous.
* ''{{Wolfbreed}}'' gives us Darien, a man who must have been born under a stupid sign. First off, he is a werewolf and grew up in a town made up entirely of werewolves. His parents and everybody in the town tell him not to let anyone outside the village know he is a werewolf or run around in wolf form in broad daylight because there is a ChurchMilitant BadassArmy out there that has pledged to destroy werewolves. Guess what Darien does, and then after the [[DoomedHometown predictable results]], refuses to accept blame for his actions and projects his self-loathing onto humanity. [[CompleteMonster So he starts killing innocent people]] to lure a unit of said army into his trap. That's right, he picks a fight with a group of about forty elite soldiers specifically trained and armed to kill his kind and have plenty of experience doing so and then Darien has the gall to act surprised when they nearly kill him. Then he tries to convince a female werewolf, who has been raised by ordinary humans, that he lusts after that HumansAreBastards and he does so by framing her for murder! And he does so in such a way that the girl, the soldiers and just about every other major character knows he is really responsible in about two minutes after the killing takes place!
* For all of the times that R.A. Salvatore has [[OurElvesAreBetter made drow look vastly superior to humans]], the drow invaders do something immensely stupid in ''[[LegacyOfTheDrowSeries Siege Of Darkness]]''. The drow forces are split into two groups: one attacking Mithral Hall from underground, and the other attacking from the surface. During the planning stages, everybody seemingly forgot that drow eyes ''cannot tolerate sunlight'' unless they've become used to it. Or perhaps none of them thought that the battle would last the entire night and that they would still be fighting the good guys when the sun came up. In any case, when the dawn comes, the drow on the surface are blinded and pretty well screwed.
** The drow expected the sun to come up and even trained looking at light to be prepared for it. They just greatly overestimated their tolerance for sunlight, as it was the first time they actually saw it.
* You don't need to know the lore behind [[{{Hellraiser}} Lemarchand's Configurations]] to realize that a small, ornate box sitting ''[[{{Gorn}} in the middle of a blast zone of blood, flesh and entrails]]'' is a ''bad sign.'' So what does one of the protagonists of the short story ''A Little Piece of Hell'' do? March right across the carnage to the box and decide he wants to figure out how to open it.
* The father in the 1998 Newbery Medal winner ''Out Of The Dust'' instigates the main [[DeathByNewberyMedal plot]] of the book by leaving a pail of kerosene by the stove. A pile of ''highly combustible fuel that has a flashpoint of roughly 100-150 degrees Fahrenheit and that gives off toxic fumes''. Not to mention that, since it's oil, it's hard to extinguish with water. ''[[SarcasmMode Really great]]'' [[SarcasmMode idea to have a bucket of this stuff around a food preparation area]].
* AgathaChristie stories. You can pretty much guarantee that one of the victims saw who did it and decided it would be a smart move to blackmail the serial killer and sneak off to meet them in a lonely spot to collect the first payment.
* In the third MercyThompson novel, several kids beat up Jesse Hauptmann precisely ''because'' her father is a werewolf. If Jesse hadn't refused to tell her father their names, he would have killed them.
* If the titular protagonist of WinnieThePooh didn't live in a SugarBowl and/or had a [[KingdomHearts superpowered kid swordsman looking after him]], he would have been dead at least 20 times over by now.
* Tang Sanzang of ''JourneyToTheWest'' definitely qualifies. Despite having three demonic bodyguards constantly warning him about the evil nature of the strangers that they encounter he constantly disregards their advice because he can't see the forest through the trees. Even after being captured and nearly cooked alive multiple times Sanzang still doesn't understand that beauty doesn't equal good.
* Vee and Nora both of ''Hush, Hush''. Vee finds out that a mysterious stalker is frightening Nora so her brilliant plan is not to talk to an employee at the store they're in for help, but to disguise herself as Nora, lead the stalker off into a graveyard, have Nora follow after, and between them confront a potentially armed and dangerous person. This, unsurprisingly, leads to Vee being concussed and having her arm broken. And immediately after she gets out of the hospital, she decides that they ought to go poking around and spy on the guy who they think attacked her to begin with. Nora gets this because she is point-blank ''told'' by Patch that he has planned to murder her and knows that he can influence her thoughts and feelings ''and still thinks it's a good idea to date him''!!!
* In AlastairReynolds ''RevelationSpace'' novels [[spoiler: Whichever moron invented the Greenfly - self replicating robots whose only directive is: Modify all matter in the Universe into the form most efficient for the growth of plants. The latter books and stories show they succeed in this to the extent possible in the lifetime of the universe. Given that FTL flight is not possible in this universe, there's no conceivable use for the Greenfly on a solar system wide level (there are too few near-FTL ships to make importing food economic). It is conceivable that they would be of use in inhabited systems where they could convert spare asteroids etc. So why build them to have such blind ambition? Hell, why give them the ability to think at all given the problems humanity had with the Inhibitors?]]
* ''Literature/CanYouSurviveTheZombieApocalypse'' allows you to make some extremely stupid choices, like trying to fight zombies with a pool cue and a bright orange ''Big Buck Hunter'' toy shotgun. [[CaptainObvious Making these choices will lead to your death, and sometimes undeath.]]
* A tangential example in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress." When the rebelling lunar colony starts [[ColonyDrop throwing 100 ton rocks from orbit]], they explicitly target highly visible but mostly unoccupied places, since this is an intimidation tactic: they want the Earthlings to know that they could flatten cities if they wanted to, but not to have to actually kill millions. Even so, in the first round of strikes, thousands of people (mostly in North America) decide that this is so little of a threat they pack picnics and go to the target sites to watch... even though these impacts had the power of a small nuclear bomb. The rubberneckers got predictably dead.
* Michael from the ''Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries'' makes a habit of seeking out killers, and will knowingly walk into traps that are pretty much always set to get him, a man with no legal rights, framed for a hanging crime. Even if this is to save lives or try and at least see who's setting you up, when you're the sort of protagonist who usually gets at least two good beating a book and have people wanting you executed just for getting into a street fight, this is a ''very'' bad idea.
* [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] gets invited to a vampire ball. As it's an obvious trap, and there will be dozens of homicidal vampires there, [[IntrepidReporter Susan]] isn't allowed to come. More so, she is specifically warned and explained to, that as a {{Muggle}}, she shouldn't be going. Makes sense right? Apparently not to Susan. She sneaks in to the party for a scoop, violating the peace pact that the vampires had, meaning either she, or one of the other main characters have to be sacrificed. [[spoiler: She gets herself turned into a vamp.]] Chalk it up to a moment of holding the IdiotBall.
* ''InDeath'': Some of the murder victims completely qualify for this trope. Tiara Kent from ''Eternity In Death'' stands out the most, because she had a boyfriend who had her convinced that he was a vampire and he could make her into one. She shut off the security system like he asked her to, and never considered that he needed to keep his face from being seen on the cameras. She drank a concoction like he asked her to, and never considered that it might contain rape drugs and other [[SarcasmMode lovely]] ingredients in it. She has sex with him, and he drains her blood, resulting in her death. She didn't change into a vampire, by the way. Eve and Peabody even discuss the victim's stupidity, and Peabody explains that the victim was a rich, spoiled girl who was not known for her brains.
* In a case where TooDumbToLive is apparently contagious, Robert Bloch's CthulhuMythos story "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" concerns an archeologist who's lured to a hidden Egyptian tomb that has prophetic depictions of the future on its walls. He walks past centuries of illustrated history, never suspecting his death-cultist guide is going to murder him, despite seeing one picture after another in which previous foreign visitors have been led there by death-cult members and killed. Not only does he stride obliviously to his own death, blind to the implications of his predecessors' fates, but apparently is ''only the latest'' idiot to do so, among centuries of similar idiots!
