History WhatAnIdiot / TheLordOfTheRings

'''Instead:''' He rebuffs Gandalf's quite sensible suggestions and rage about the fact that he'll never let Aragorn take the throne, saying that the throne of Gondor is his, and no other's. And in the film, when Pippin lights the beacon that will call Rohan to battle, at Gandalf's prompting, he gets angry with Gandalf.\\

* At some point after the Prologue, Elrond and Isildur take the Ring to the Crack of Doom, to destroy it and end Sauron once and for all. However, the power of the ring overwhelms Isildur, who declares that the ring is ''his'', and turns to leave the chamber.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Elrond to do ''everything'' in his power to ensure the Ring is destroyed. For example, attempt to restrain or overpower Isildur. As a last resort, tackle him and let both of them fall into the lava. The Ring is too dangerous to leave intact, and the importance of ensuring its destruction far outweighs even the lives of the King of Gondor and the Lord of Rivendell.\\
'''Instead:''' Elrond just stands there, impotently yelling "Isildur!" while the King strides out of the chamber. He doesn't even ''move'', let alone take any sort of action to prevent Isildur walking away with Middle Earth's one and only WMD.

* After Gandalf has removed the spell on Théoden and he's back to normal, Saruman no longer has any power over Rohan and [[TreacherousAdvisor Gríma Wormtongue]] is thrown out of the court (literally, down the steps). Théoden then goes to kill Gríma.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Aragorn to let Théoden kill that treacherous S.O.B.\\
'''Instead''': Aragorn stops him, claiming that "Enough blood has been spilled on [Gríma's] account".\\
'''You'd Then Expect''': Them to imprison Wormtongue to stop him from returning to Saruman with vital information.\\
'''Instead (!)''': They let Wormtongue escape back to Saruman without even trying to stop him.\\
'''The Result''': Gríma Wormtongue tells Saruman exactly where to attack and how, subsequently leading to the Battle of Helm's Deep, which kills hundreds more RedShirt soldiers, presumably including children. Although, in the book, Wormtongue doesn't arrive at Orthanc until after the Ents have had their communal spring cleaning.

* (Movieverse) Aragorn is escorting the four Hobbits to Rivendell with the Ring.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' Elrond to either send out a war party to escort the Hobbits and Aragorn, or at least send Elf-lords of great power and skill.\\
'''Instead:''' He sends one lightly-armed woman who, as far as we know, is no match for the Nazgul, and who just barely gets Frodo away. Um...[[AdaptationDeviation what exactly are you up to,]] [[OneManArmy Glorfindel?]]

* Saruman's army is marching on Helm's Deep, ten thousand strong. There's little hope of survival, but if the Rohirrim put up a fighting chance there's hope that at least some of them could survive.\\
'''You'd Expect''': Théoden to recruit everyone who can wield a sword in order to give themselves a fighting chance, including the women, and especially including his badass shieldmaiden niece, Eowyn.\\
'''Instead''': Théoden sends all the women, including his aforementioned badass shieldmaiden niece, into the caves to wait and be slaughtered like cattle, and his recruitment plan is basically grabbing anyone who has a dick regardless of age or ability. This includes children as young as eight and old men who can barely wield a bow.\\
'''The Result''': Even with help from the elves, every single person at Helm's Deep would have been killed if Gandalf and Eomer hadn't shown up in the nick of time. What's even more depressing is seeing Eowyn in action in the next film. She took out the Witch-King. Having her (and other women like her) could have easily turned the tide in their favour. (Even in the case of untrained women, just putting a sword in their hands and telling them that fighting will [[MamaBear protect their children would have produced some pretty good results]].)

* Saruman's army is marching on Helm's Deep, ten thousand strong. There's little hope of survival, but if the Rohirrim put up a fighting chance there's hope that at least some of them could survive.
'''You'd Expect''': Théoden to recruit everyone who can wield a sword in order to give themselves a fighting chance, including the women, and especially including his badass shieldmaiden niece, Eowyn.
'''Instead''': Théoden sends all the women, including his aforementioned badass shieldmaiden niece, into the caves to wait and be slaughtered like cattle, and his recruitment plan is basically grabbing anyone who has a dick regardless of age or ability. This includes children as young as eight and old men who can barely wield a bow.

'''Instead''': He reaches his arm out to Isildur, intending to grab him and burn him, but is too slow about, and Isildur cuts Sauron's fingers off, including the one with the Ring. It leads to Sauron's body blowing up, and he ends up (after the Ring continued to exist) existing as a flaming eyeball over Barad-Dûr.

'''Instead''': Thanks to ExecutiveMeddling (shooting elephants in the eyes would be rather blatant animal cruelty, regardless of the reality of the situation, and would invite protest from animal protection groups), he orders his men to charge the Mumakil and we're then treated to a montage of them getting trampled, tossed aside by their tusks or shot by the Haradrim.

* In the film, Elrond and the household of Rivendell decides to leave for the Grey Havens ''in the middle of war'', complete with ritual lanterns glowing in the dark and almost no visible armor or weapons. ''At night!''\\
'''You'd Expect''': Elrond to be a mite more strategic, knowing full well that the area around Rivendell is swarming with Orcs (who attack in the dark), and to just wait it out until the whole thing is over.\\
'''Instead''': He urges them to leave Middle Earth within the hour.

'''Instead''': Thanks to ExecutiveMeddling (shooting elephants in the eyes would be rather blatant animal cruelty, regardless of the reality of the situation, and would invite protest from animal protection groups), he orders his men to charge the Mumakil and we're then treated to a montage of them getting trampled, tossed aside by their tusks or shot by the Haradrim. Had Aragorn not shown up with the Dead Men of Dunharrow when he did, it's likely the Rohirrim would have been wiped out. Ironically, it's not this act of stupidity that gets Théoden killed. It's the Witch-King that does him in.

'''Instead''': Pippin just *has* to go investigate the dang well. In the book he drops a stone into it, whereas in the film he touches a corpse and its skull falls in. In both cases, any hopes of passing through Moria quietly are ruined, and it isn't long afterwards that the Company ends up having to fight their way through a bunch of orcs. Then things go from bad to worse because the orcs end up stirring up the Balrog, and they barely manage to make it out of Moria alive, minus Gandalf.

'''The Result:''' The Nazgul attack the Hobbits, and Frodo gets impaled by the Witch King's blade, and is nearly killed as a result of it.

'''Instead''': Merry and Pippin apparently haven't learned from their mistakes yet and throw rocks into the pond to pass the time, which awakens the Watcher in the Water and nearly gets Frodo killed. They only manage to get out of the situation by conveniently getting part of the mines to collapse on the Watcher, which subsequently traps the Fellowship and leaves them no choice but to go through the mines when they had just been reconsidering their decision minutes before.
'''You'd Then Expect''': That Pippin would finally get the message and not go investigate a well they end up near while exploring the depths of Moria. Giving in to his curiosity has never turned out well for either him or anyone adventuring with him.

'''The Result:''' The Nazgul attack the Hobbits, and Frodo gets impaled by the Witch King's blade, and is nearly killed as a result of it.\\
'''On The Other Hand:''' In the books, [[RightForTheWrongReasons making a fire was actually Aragorn's idea,]] as the Nazgûl [[WeakenedByTheLight fear its light.]] This would make Frodo the idiot in the films for snuffing it out.

'''The Result:''' The Nazgul attack the Hobbits, and Frodo gets impaled by the Witch King's blade, and is nearly killed as a result of it.

'''For Added Stupidity:''' Up to this point, Gimli has been constantly boasting about the hospitality of the Dwarves, having no idea that they're all dead, so Gandalf's refusal to go there makes even less sense because it looks like he's actively making the Fellowship take more dangerous routes rather than go through an area controlled by allies. And again, Gandalf would rather let Gimli find their bodies instead of just telling him what happened.

* We later see that Elrond went with Isildur to the Crack of Doom, to destroy the One Ring and permanently end Sauron. Isildur, however, is overcome by the temptation of the Ring, so turns to leave, declaring he will not destroy it.\\
'''You'd Expect:''' That Elrond would do everything within his not inconsiderable power to stop the Ring leaving the chamber intact, up to and including tackling Isildur and the Ring into the fires. After all, this is the One Ring, the Ultimate Weapon of Sauron, and the source of all his monstrous power. The lives of any two individuals, no matter how high-ranking, pale into insignificance when compared with the risk of leaving the One Ring intact.\\
'''Instead:''' Elrond watches Isildur leave, impotently shouting after him but ultimately doing nothing to prevent his departure.

'''For Added Stupidity:''' Up to this point, Gimli has been constantly boasting about the hospitality of the Dwarves, having no idea that they're all dead, so Gandalf's refusal to go there makes even less sense because it looks like he's actively making the Fellowship take more dangerous routes rather than go through an area controlled by allies. And again, Gandalf would rather let Gimli find their bodies instead of just telling him what happened to him.

'''Instead''': He just lets him go and makes no attempt to stop him from escaping with the fact that Saruman has allied with Sauron. Less of a problem in the book, since we don't see Saruman using fireballs (and [[AllThereInTheManual some of Tolkien's notes]] give multiple versions of Gandalf's escape that agree on Saruman not being there at the time.

'''Instead''': Gandalf only gives a vague answer that he would only go there if he had no choice, and eventually has to let Frodo decide to go there when Saruman blocks the other paths. Furthermore, even in this instance, Gandalf refuses to warn them until said demon is basically on top of them. Again, not a problem in the book because Gandalf didn't know there was a Balrog; all he knew was that there was some vague danger.

'''Instead''': He obliges, despite knowing that he didn't eat the Lembas bread, breaks down, crying, and lets Frodo go on his own with the treacherous Gollum! In addition, he starts leaving and when he hit the bottom of the area, he sees the Lembas bread, and gets reminded of the fact that ''he didn't'' eat it! By the time he gets back up, Frodo has been poisoned by the giant spider, Shelob. Sam takes him for dead and abandons him to the orcs, though he takes the Ring first, and it is only the orcs' expositional banter that clues him in to Frodo's NotQuiteDead state. Frodo then gets taken to the Orc fortress of Cirith Ungol, necessitating a side trip by Sam to save him.

'''Instead:''' he rebuffs Faramir's claims, saying that he and his men ran away because of cowardice, and orders him to lead a small army to retake Osgiliath, which leads to disastrous results.