Idiot Ball is a trope about characters being unexpectedly stupid in order to further the plot. There's concerns about overlap with What an Idiot!, despite the latter trope being subjective. Another potential concern is the trope being used as complaint bait, or for any example of a character doing something dumb even if it's in character.
Potholes and comments will be bolded, examples alphabetized.
Wicks checked: 88/88
open/close all folders
Correct, non-complainy usage
- Anime.Sarazanmai: Enta thinks he can hide his theft of the dishes of hope from people who read his mind on a regular basis.
- Characters.Bleach Espada: While he's chasing Askin in the final arc, the Sternritter suddenly throws a Gift Ball at him. Rather than avoid the strange attack entirely, he chooses to swipe at it with his arm, getting poisoned and put out of action for quite some time. Askin compares this to a child not learning to be cautious of gifts from strangers.
- Characters.Forged Destiny Enemies: Spends a week torturing Jaune and Lisa only to leave them with a summoned Salem, and absolutely no way to either know or guarantee a wish made by either won't directly or immediately screw her over.
- Characters.Gate: The first incident can understandably be brushed aside since she and her unit had no idea about the peace treaty. The second incident.... not so much. Despite knowing how important it was to treat Itami and his men (but especially Itami) with respect and safety, she ends up slapping him because he along with everyone else in the room was ignoring her when she prepared herself to sleep with him. The Princess' reaction to finding out about this is priceless.
- Fanfic.Starcrossed: Kirk attacks Romulus (Nemesis's capital), engaging in open battle with Nemesis. Given that he only has 600 ships left and that Nemesis's fleet has used its overwhelming technological advantage to crush them easily whenever they engaged it, this seems to happen purely so that Kirk goes off on his own out of despair, which is needed for the plot. Seems to count.
- Film.Blast Of Silence: Frank gets to hold this when his employers plan a trap for him. Despite being an experienced hitman, he never considers the fact that they are Mafia bigwigs and they want to meet him at a largely deserted area as a warning sign. This is what ends up killing him. Seems valid.
- Film.Minority Report: Two examples, both seem valid.
- Albeit a somewhat justified one. Anderton learns that he's been predicted to go to a specific kind of building at a specific time to kill someone he's never met. The logical thing to do — which John himself even suggests at one point — would be to simply lay low until such time that the vision was rendered invalid, at worst proving that the Precogs' vision was wrong or, one could argue, was prevented because he himself chose to prevent it. If he had hung around in the crappy apartment where he got the eye transplant, he'd have been in the clear. As Witwer points out, however, Anderton won't just run and hide, "because he thinks he's innocent". Even when Agatha tries to persuade Anderton not to face his "destiny", Anderton won't, as he does not believe he could have committed a murder and is so driven to find out why he would do so. Anderton does end up not killing the guy intentionally, but it happens anyway thanks to a Gun Struggle.
- Witwer learns that someone has possibly managed to "trick" Precrime with a faked vision, one that would require intimate knowledge of the system and access to secured files, severely limiting the possible suspects. He chooses to detail all of this to one of said suspects after handing the man a gun while the Precogs are currently unable to detect murders. His fate after that is pretty obvious.
- ICarly.Tropes F To J: Carly in "iSell Penny Tees". Why on earth would she pay the kids up front? They were apparently being paid $10 a day, there were at least a half-dozen of them, so she'd have paid out anywhere from $400 to $1000.
- Literature.The Shattering Prelude To Cataclysm: Cairne doesn't seem as wise as he usually is when he confronts Garrosh over supposedly sabotaging a peaceful druid meeting and massacring everyone there. (In fact, it was the Twilight's Hammer.) Especially since he hurls insults straight at Garrosh's face, has no evidence to back up his claims and doesn't seem to realize that Garrosh has no idea what he's talking about.
- Music.Ancient Bards:
- Sendor and Daltor in A New Dawn Ending. Sendor's former lover Shena already told him souls can't simply be brought back with magic, not even theirs combined, and not even of the Black Crystal Sword. But Sendor, mad with desire to bring back their son Surod, uses the Sword for that purpose anyway, All for Nothing.
- And now Daltor's case: sure, he meant well to fight Sendor and shattering the Black Crystal Sword seemed to be the only way to overpower him, but how much did he know about that eldritch demon that blackened the crystal that trapped it in the first place?!
- Recap.Adventure Time S 5 E 28 Be More: The whole mess could've been avoided if BMO didn't delete his core files for no reason.
- Recap.Blakes Seven S 3 E 2 Powerplay: Two examples, both context-lite, but both seem to count.
- Even if he dismissed the Primitives' concerns as exaggerated, Vila seems awful trusting of the High-Techs for a professional criminal.
- Klegg gives Tarrant and Avon five minutes to surrender. As they're right outside the door, five seconds would have been enough; this only gives them time to cook up a plan.
- Recap.Moshi Monsters Moptop Mischief: Sweet Tooth seems to be a bit dumb in this mission: doing a ridiculously poor job at acting like Zack, then playing guitar instead of dancing in a dance competition.
- Recap.Superman And Lois S 1 E 1 Pilot: Decades have passed and Clark has his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic now, but in all that time it's never occurred to him to move his advanced alien starship out of the basement of a barn hidden by nothing more than a locked door that is defeated by a crowbar.
- Recap.Tintin The Red Sea Sharks: Tintin, of all characters, suggests that they drink the sea water to survive while he, Haddock and Skut are drifting away on their raft. Altough Haddock is against the idea, this is not for the realistic reasons and he's just trying to find an excuse to not drink water.
- SelfDemonstrating.Norm The Genie: After seeing how much freedom his idiot fairies have, I hatched up a plan to switch places with them and take my revenge on Canada! Don't ask. My plan worked as I got his dumb fairies to take my place in my lamp! Then, for some reason, I just floated there while Turner conveniently finds the only type of vacuum (a Smoof brand btw) that can even trap me, an all-powerful genie. Hey! I blame Canada on that one as well! A bit obscured by the self-demonstrating part, but this does qualify as described.
- Series.Ik Mik Loreland: The second episode starts with one for the main character as she comes across a shooting star. She could have easily wished for all the letters and words to return. Instead, she simply wastes her wish to dry her clothes.
- Series.Killing Eve: Characters tend to catch it often.
- Bill chases Villanelle into a nightclub, despite being in no way prepared to deal with her
- No one decides to give Eve protection or put surveillance on her house, even after Villanelle knows where she lives and is clearly obsessed with her.
- Series.Never Have I Ever: Devi thinking she could date two guys simultaneously. It doesn't last long before they find out, and both are very angry with her. She's generally smarter than this, but is just so thrilled that both are into her she does it anyway.
- Series.Rosemary And Thyme: Both examples seem to count.
- What kicks off the murder plot in "Arabica and the Early Spider". The victim is working late and sees some suspicious figures digging up his lawn. Instead of doing the smart thing of retreating inside and calling the police he chooses to confront them and gets shot for his troubles. Rosemary also gets hit with this in the same episode, as after being shot at through her window she stands up instead of ducking under the desk, and a moment later chooses to open the door and yell at the shooters. Both instances are heavily lampshaded by the more level headed characters.
- The title characters run the length of the field with this in "The Gooseberry Bush". After finding an abandoned baby you'd assume they would turn it in to the police. Instead, deeming the 20-mile distance to the nearest police station too much of a bother, they keep it - even refusing to tell the police when they are on site after finding a body. Turned up to eleven when they decide to stash a gun next to the baby - even pointing the barrel at him while concealing it.
- Series.Terminator The Sarah Conner Chronicles: Heroes suffer from these from time to time in order to lead to development of additional plot arcs. Particularly, in ep. 208 the protagonists decide to bury Cromartie’s body instead of taking it with them right away, giving it a chance to disappear, and in ep. 213 Sarah decides to check and “infiltrate” a secret military front without any additional backup.
- TabletopGame.Tales From The Floating Vagabond: In-universe; any PC with the Howard, Fine, and Howard Effect has the ability to cooperate with another person to bamboozle other characters, temporarily making them more gullible and less cool-headed. Seems like a correct in-universe usage.
- Toys.CS Toys: Immediately after the Machine Tornador review and before the Agito Trinity Form review, everyone decided to gang up on ExplodingShark and Negiz for no good reason. Mr. S. had to intervene so he could do the review without a bunch of kicking going on in the commentary bar.
- VideoGame.Trinity Souls Of Zill Oll: Dagda is shown to be surprisingly intelligent, however he still falls for a simple pit trap and is stuck their for days until Areus rescues him.
- VideoGame.Zombie Army Trilogy: Karl and the other survivors apparently just left the Book of Souls after they found it couldn't work instead of taking it with them. This winds up greatly helping the returned Hitler, who uses the Book to increase his own power, very nearly resulting in the whole world getting swarmed into a zombie apocalypse. Seems to fit with the context given.
- Webcomic.Semi Auto Semla: Julia firmly holds it when, after being handed solid evidences of the Trevaines' illegal operations, she decides to confront them alone in their own manor while bringing the documents with her. She didn't even think of giving the evidences to her superiors or, at least, making copies.
- WesternAnimation.Aladdin And The King Of Thieves: Cassim grabs it by trying to steal the Oracle during the private wedding ceremony. He knows his son and in-laws are expecting him, and he could always try another time, or simply ask Aladdin if he can ask the Oracle a question. Oh, and it turns out the guards set a trap to catch him red-handed.
- WesternAnimation.Ratatoing: Everyone at one point or another. Ironically, Greg comes off as the smartest when he's supposed to be the idiot and/or the idiotic Fat Comic Relief. These examples seem to qualify.
- Despite seeing how Greg turned on the ceiling fan, Carol still takes a minute and a half to turn it off again, while being given very simple instructions by the token idiot.
- Likewise, Greg decides to grab hold of Marcel instead of turning off the fan despite knowing how to operate it.
- Despite seeing how Greg turned on the ceiling fan, Carol still takes a minute and a half to turn it off again, while being given very simple instructions by the token idiot.
- WesternAnimation.Visionaries: "The Power of the Wise" not only opens with the Spectral Knights accidentally and then purposefully insulting Merklynn, they also ignore him when he says going on a quest to find a way to keep from aging is a terrible idea. Naturally, they, particularly Leoric, get schooled. Seems correct with the info given.
Complainy, but correct usage
- ComicStrip.Nine Chickweed Lane: Edda wakes up feeling unusually nauseous and thinks she's pregnant. She goes from her home in New York City to her mom and stepdad in Connecticut, flies to her grandma and half/step/biological grandpa in Austria, flies back to NYC, tells her boyfriend Amos and her roommate Seth that she might be pregnant, and then has the courage to have a pregnancy test done only after Seth berates her for being an idiot and a coward for "not wanting to know the answer" in the first place. Seems valid, but also seems a bit negative in tone.
- Film.Zombi 2: The survivors actually had a pretty decent chance of holding out against the horde in the hospital near the end of the film... if only Dr. Menard had remembered to shoot the corpses already inside the building. You know, like he'd been doing the entire movie already. Text already italicized, so I kept it that way. This sounds accurate, but also whiny.
- Series.Bates Motel: Thinking that Shelby had leverage against Norma because he discovered Keith Summers' belt. Even if he'd kept it in his house, it would be hard for him to convincingly explain why he had it in his possession. But the truly idiotic part happens when it comes to the boat. How hard could it be to discredit the value of it as evidence? The boat it was being kept on belonged to the victim! Just leave it there. Sounds accurate, but also sounds complainy.
- Series.Nip Tuck: The patient in Season 6 who hates looking beautiful and perfect. (Of course, she could save herself ten grand if she just gains 50 pounds, but no one points this out). Might count, but is complainy, and also has the
Unfortunate Implications that gaining weight would inherently make her less beautiful. Eugh. - Series.Whitechapel TV Series: These examples might be legit, but they're pretty whiny.
- During Series 1, the sheer length of time that various people suspect Buchan might be the Ripper copycat, based solely on his in-depth knowledge of how the murders were committed. This is despite the fact that, (as he rightfully points out), there are millions of Ripperologists who possess the exact same knowledge and it can easily be found online!
- In fact lets not go over how incredibly incompetent the entire department is at times, especially in season 3.
- The entire murder department completely dismisses the idea that the serial killer could be the carpenter because they saw him walk normally once, completely ignoring the fact he worked with all of the victims and literally anyone could tell you a man has the ability to hide a limp
- Nobody even considers following up the missing persons link until after the killer kills 4 more girls that look like her.
- Two officers guarding a possible killer (or conspirator at least) leave to get her a cup of tea.
- VideoGame.Age Of Mythology: The entire Titans campaign is the result of this: Might be valid, but seems very negative.
- First, the Atlanteans believe the questionable advice of the now-possessed Krios with, well, no question, and just go along with everything he says. Even though his tone is oddly assertive and clearly evil, and he conveniently dreams of where to go next and finds Sky Passages. Almost like he has an agenda. Hmm...
- Second, after the Atlanteans are strangely attacked by two Greek scouts when they first set up camp in Greece, Castor responds by defeating the Greeks in the area in retaliation, which escalates to Egypt and Scandinavia and inadvertently allows some of the Titans to escape. At no point do the Atlanteans consider that the Greeks may have attacked them because they were repairing temples to the Titans; which one Atlantean soldier even remarked was forbidden barely ten seconds before the Greeks attacked.
- The initial Greeks themselves get this: when told Castor is coming with a small force, they immediately attack rather than allow Castor to discuss matters with them, turning Castor against them completely.
- Third, when arriving in a new land the Atlanteans automatically make the worst decision imaginable. Just arrived in Egypt? Let's take all their relics! Visiting the Norselands? We'll topple their tower to Odin! Accidentally wound up on the slopes of Mount Olympus? Let's attack it to prove our superiority!
- WebAnimation.Snowdrop: So nopony in Cloudsdale - not even the teacher or Snowdrop's mother - thinks that a blind filly may need some help getting to and from her house in the middle of the worst storm of the season - in a city tens of thousands of feet in the sky? It's frankly amazing Snowdrop hasn't plummeted to her death yet. Seems correct, but very complainy.
- WesternAnimation.Gumby: The movie borders on Idiot Plot. The characters could practically end the plot about halfway into the movie. Goo ties them up, they shut down the Gumby robot and the fake clayboy robots. It could end there, right? But nooo, they literally leave the blockheads tied up and allow them to escape.
- The characters were tossing an Idiot Ball back and forth before that, too:
"But shouldn't we call the police?""No time for that now." - WesternAnimation.Visionaries: "The Power of the Wise" not only opens with the Spectral Knights accidentally and then purposefully insulting Merklynn, they also ignore him when he says going on a quest to find a way to keep from aging is a terrible idea. Naturally, they, particularly Leoric, get schooled. Seems a bit too negative, but not invalid.
- Wrestling.Lita: It wasn't just that she cheated on Matt, but that in the process she turned her back on the fans who had loved her for some five years and that she was surprised that the fans resented her for that. Might count as Idiot Ball, but is also bashy about it.
Misuse, complainy or not
- Anime.Last Exile: A few, but when Mullin starts getting wistful for his "glory days" as a cannon-fodder rifleman, every viewer is required by law to perform a Face Palm and quietly tell him to take his Darwin Award and get out of here... Not only is this bash-y, but I don't think a character just saying something stupid even counts for this trope.
- AudioPlay.Ghost Rider The Audio Drama: Lets lock up a guy with superpowers in a normal prison. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
- Blog.Ask A Pony: In-Universe, anyone who signed up for the Vocational Death Cruise — a "cruise" with numerous mentions of death in the name, locales, and invitation, hosted by Santalestia, a Bad Santa version of Celestia who gave out lumps of foal meat instead of coal. Lampshaded by one of the Rarity blogs, which highlighted all the mentions of "death" in the invitation and declined by saying "A lady is not stupid." Doesn't appear to be correct usage, because there's no indication that these ponies aren't just stupid instead of uncharacteristically stupid.
- Characters.Deathloop: Justified. Julianna wants to convince Colt to stop trying to break the loop, but has already done so countless times, just to lose the progress she's made with him to his amnesia. By the time the game starts she's bored enough to be willing to take less than wise risks when she tries new ways to achieve that goal, which enables the player to break the loop. This appears to be completely in-character given the circumstances.
- Characters.Life Unexpected: Lux's plan and reaction in "Crisis Unaverted" when Cate says she won't take in Tasha so she won't have to go to a foster home three hours away. Lux pulled the "I never asked you for anything!" gambit and asked at the worse possible time for Cate, not even considering that, y'know, Cate has problems of her own and can't exactly handle taking in another kid. Her blaming Cate made her come off like a selfish bitch. Complainy, and seems to just be the character's general personality.
- Characters.Othello: He's smitten with Desdemona so follows her and her newly-wed husband (a big scary general) to a war-torn country in an attempt to win her back. It sounds like this character is just not smart.
- DarthWiki.Idiot Design: Some early programmers note were, unsurprisingly, stupid enough to use this almost-not-a-bug as a feature. So, when the 24-bit 80286 rolled in, a problem arose - nothing wrapped anymore. Complaining about real people and tech.
- Film.Good Boys: At the highway scene, traffic started out slow. The Bean Bag Boys are hesitant to cross through even at a time when the cars are going at no faster than 5 mph. Literally halfway, they stop to check on a text. Then, the traffic resumes back to the usual 50+ mph. Hilarity Ensues as they try to cross the second half of the freeway. Seems to not affect the plot, and also seems to be in character from what I can tell.
- ICarly.Tropes F To J (1): Spencer is especially prone, as he can switch between intelligent protective older brother into someone who will build a machine seemingly intended to fling hammers at high velocity at head height, or a "sculpture" which seems tailor-made to catch fire at random. This is just who Spencer is. There's another example in the "correct" folder.
- IdiotPlot.Twilight: Bella herself is a walking Idiot Ball. Anybody who comes into contact with her (most notably Edward) starts making random, ridiculous decisions that establish them as Too Dumb to Live. The narrative says this is deliberate — she's just so unique that she naturally provokes such reactions, which really doesn't help matters. Even when the characters try, Bella shows a marked inability to process information; if the characters tell her anything, she forgets it almost immediately. This leads to several occasions where Bella is told two obviously connected pieces of information and doesn't put two and two together until someone explains it to her. Obviously bash-y, and if it's a consistent character trait I don't think it counts.
- WebVideo.Mindcrack: Kurt gets saddled with this on occasion, as seen when he obsesses over "resetting his spawn" in Season 3 and complains about how hard it is to get string while walking right past cobwebs in Season 6. In Season 16 he dives at Baj and places lava on him to kill Baj, but it kills Kurt too. Consistent characterization
- Music.ONEUS: When Xion says he wanted to dress up as a princess when he was a kid and specifies it was the one from Beauty and the Beast, Keonhee responds with: "Rapunzel?" There's no plot here, just a person saying a dumb thing. A real life person.
- Manga.Aishiteruze Baby: Much of the conflict in the beginning of the manga/anime results from Kippei leaving Yuzu alone on the way to pick her up from kindergarten, after picking her up or some variation thereof, e.g. 'Please wait here alone in the middle of the street while I take my own sweet time to buy some caramel sweets for you', to the point where Yuzu wises up and refuses to leave her class until Kippei shows up. If this is a repeated thing, then it's not OOC
- Podcast.Thespian Talk: When a criminal gets arrested for committing a crime while holding the Idiot Ball, Gomer and the co-host of the week will often point out how to NOT get caught, with the disclaimer: "You really shouldn't be doing this, but if you must..." Since it's discussing real people, it hinges too much on assumptions about said real-life people.
- Recap.The Powerpuff Girls Special 1: Whoever's idea it was to send the Key of the World to Townsville was definitely carrying this ball. The girls even lampshade what a stupid idea it is. Not attached to a specific character.
- Series.Deal Or No Deal: The majority of contestants get handed one at some point. The most persistent carriers of the Ball frequently end up carrying it straight to a 1¢ win as they are too stubborn and/or stupid to give up and take the deal offered. It's especially bad when the Banker decides to give them the Game Show equivalent of a pity party and offer them something very close to the top remaining amount...and they still walk away with the penny. Bashes real-life people.
- Series.C Hi Ps: Watch enough episodes and a viewer might come to the conclusion that (a) California Highway Patrol officers are complete morons, or (b) the show was written by former police officers from around Los Angeles out to make the CHP officers look like complete morons. If the characters are constantly stupid, it's just who they are.
- Series.Pair Of Kings: The protagonists hold one with regards to Lanny, ignoring his poorly-concealing insults and attempts to get rid of them. This is Lanny being a Devil in Plain Sight, and the boys are always idiots, so this doesn't count.
- TabletopGame.Xiangqi: Even grand masters carry it from time to time.
- Theatre.Ghosts: Manders is the prominent ball holder in this play. He is elegantly tricked by Engstrand, and has to get all the Info Dump straight in his face from Mrs Alving. As a priest, he should have known his flock a little better than that. When he confronts Engstrand, he is tricked again. When he decides not to take any insurance on the memorial home, and then almost gets framed for arson later, he is almost Too Dumb to Live. If this happens consistently, the character is just stupid.
- Theatre.Captain Sabertooth: Any character might pick it up at any time, usually when it's funnier that way. Wally and Wimp pass the Idiot Ball between themselves so many times during any given story that it's impossible to say which brother, if any of them, has the brain at the moment. If this is so common, does it really count?
- Theatre.When Midnight Strikes: It takes Christopher far too long to realise that Jennifer knows about his affair. And he has apparently not noticed that Nicole has been in love with him for years. Doesn't seem like an Idiot Ball so much as a general romance plot scenario.
- VideoGame.Battalion Wars: Admiral A-Qira takes this to Idiot Ball levels, repeatedly ignoring Lei-Qo's warnings that something's strange about the Anglo attack and ultimately playing right into Kaiser Vlad's hands. If it's a consistent character trait, it's not Idiot Ball.
- VideoGame.Space Empires: Weaponized. The Mental Flailer subsystem, researched from the Psychic tech tree, delays all existing weapons of the victim ship for several turns, provided the ship is managed by a living crew instead of a master computer. Has nothing to do with the trope from what I can tell.
- WebVideo.Ephemeral Rift: Happened in hindsight in this video
when Paul admits in the video description that using rubbing alcohol to clean action figures was not a good idea- as seen with a few toys in the video, isopropyl alcohol can dissolve paints as some figures lose chest decals instantly. A real person who just made a mistake.
Unsure
- Anime.Batman Ninja: Joker inexplicably decides to take a nap in the middle of the battle against Batman and co., giving them enough time to summon Grodd's monkey army. Possibly justified in that he may think his massive barrage of cannons and rockets has wiped them out. It's the Joker and all, and this example attempts to justify itself, so I'm not really sure.
- Characters.Aurora Cycle: The majority of book 2's drama could have been avoided had he simply told the team about his father being the Starslayer. It was obviously difficult to say, but hardly impossible. The team might have mistrusted him for a while, but they wouldn't have tossed him out. Furthermore the team could have known about Saedii's hunt for him and the Starslayer's Trigger. This seems more like Poor Communication Kills, and I don't know enough to say it counts as Idiot Ball, but I also don't know enough to say it doesn't.
- Series.Avenue 5: When an alarm goes off, former astronaut Spike informs Ryan that the reason is an oxygen leak. This rumor spreads like a wildfire, as do rumors that they are going to have to eject 500 non-essential passengers. It is only later, when the entire ship is panicking and Rav is accused of being a murderer for suggesting ejecting 500 people, that Billie realizes that it was not an oxygen alarm, but rather a notification regarding the newborn space-baby; Spike comments that this was the other possible reason but he'd assumed they had already checked for that. As written, I can't tell if this is in character, or just dumb.
ZCE/partial context/potholes/misc
- Insufficiently Advanced Aliens: Also from Voyager, the humans abducted in "The 37's" rebelled against their Briori captors, but destroyed the ship that could have returned them to Earth in the process. By the time Voyager reaches them their tech has advanced substantially from 1937 Earth, but still isn't up to Federation standards. Stupid, yes, but there's no way for me to know if it's OOC or not.
- Seeker Archetype: J of Marble Hornets does some rather stupid things in his quest to find out what happened to Alex. Until Entry #23, where he swears off the whole thing, due to having the living crap scared out of him by Slender Man. It doesn't last, by the way. Knowing the series, J is indeed pretty stupid, but he's stupid very consistently which makes this ZCE also likely misuse.
- Animation.Mezga Csalad: Aladár and Máris. The former is a Teen Genius who occasionally takes advantage of his gullible family, the latter is a grumpy Deadpan Snarker who often makes comments on his neighbours' idiocy. That said, both of them can grab the Idiot Ball when the plot requires it.
- Anime.Bubblegum Crisis: Relating to Deus Angst Machina above, if Sylvie can hypnotize people with her eyes, why does she need to use the D.D. Battlemover to drain victims of their blood?
- Anime.Xabungle: Elchi likes to juggle these every few episodes.
- Blog.Sevenshot Kid: Marc is definitely holding it. Eric is too. It seems like the two of them are playing a friendly game of catch with it. If they're always holding it, this doesn't sound completely OOC...but then again, the context is too low to really be sure.
- Characters.Abraxas Hrodvitnon Humans: He handles it in Chapter 8 when Monster X is being reborn, asking why Monarch aren't trying to fence it with a containment field, which prompts Mariko to spell out why that would be a very idiotic move. So...May we know why it's stupid?
- Characters.Heavyweights: After the boys trap Tony and lock him up in a cage enforced by electric wires, Pat offers to release him. Tony responds by threatening a Groin Attack on Pat somehow thinking Pat had something to do with his predicament, and so Pat leaves him as he is. Doesn't elaborate enough to explain why this is stupid and OOC
- Characters.The Big Damn Roleplay: Crevan, for attempting to jump down several flights of Hogwarts stairs, expecting it to work out well.
- Characters.Legendz: Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Doubles with Idiot Ball. Hadn't she corrected Shu about the right way to say 'Reborn', Shiron would never have awakened. Not sure if the character was expected to know that or not.
- DarthWiki.Homage: The team goes around ressurecting their dead comrades , their journey taking them to Victorian England, modern Venice, and ancient Israel, and eventually separating the prince from the rest of the gang. When they are reunited after a seven-year Time Skip, The Prince reveals that should the Dagger fail, he has two chances to return afterwards before he's Killed Off for Real. Coincidentally, one of those times comes quickly, as he runs out of sand and falls off of Mt. Sinai. No idea what's so stupid here.
- Fanfic.Bad Idea: Subverted. The Justice League truly decide to fight against the Light, using their own scheme against them. I'm not sure how this or anything under this bullet qualifies as a subversion...
- They release information into public about Lex Luthor funding Unwitting Test Subject programs which ruins his reputation and ends his Arbitrarily Large Bank Account;
- They call upon the aid of New Genesis, which allows them to end the trafficking of Apokoipsian tech into Earth which strip Queen Bee and Savage without resources;
- The Guardians of the Universe embargo Apokolips, which results in Savage being stranded there.
- With the aid of New Genesis and Earth's magic users, the League is able to contain Klarion the Witch Boy.
- Fanfic.Saiyan In Brockton: In the middle of a fight between Lung and Sun Wukong- arguably the two most physically powerful capes in the Bay area- which in itself is part of a massive gang war, a random civilian wanders into the middle of the fight and starts recording it on his cell phone. His presence forces Sun Wukong to go on the defensive and have to take a massive fire blast from Lung to save the fool, nearly costing him the fight. Had Glory Girl not shown up, it's quite possible that Sun Wukong could have been killed. A random bystander isn't enough of a character to be OOC.
- Fanfic.Yuso: Between Noah and Finn, the options are a sword that Finn bought off the internet and uses in roleplay, and a crossbow that both boys have practiced with enough to be proficient at reloading it quickly. Not that the practice does Noah any good against Nago.
- Film.Gangs Of New York: Monk was carrying it when he turned his back on Bill the Butcher while the latter was clearly in a killing mood. Sounds dumb, but there's no indication the character isn't always dumb.
- JustForFun.Disneys Ghosts: Manders is the one character who doesn`t need much improval from the Disney side, except for his Heel–Face Turn towards the end of the movie. ?
- Literature.Executive Orders: The UIR attempts to do this against the U.S., but they don't get very far, due to a combination of Idiot Ball moments and not taking Jack seriously. Not enough context; a Possible War example
- Manga.Ai Ore Love Me: Mizuki. Often results in her holding the Idiot Ball whenever Akira tries to make a move on her. Although admittedly sometimes he's more forceful than necessary. A Tsundere example.
- Manga.Knights: Nina, after getting it into her head that Euphemia is sleeping with her beloved Mist while also having orgies with the enemy soldiers, decides to sell Mist out to the Saints so they can be Together in Death. Euphemia isn't shown as being a whole lot better, at least in letting Nina believe that she and Mist are getting it on, but in her defense sheltered, lovelorn, and occasionally dumb Nina hit her Berserk Button pretty hard. Once the two of them actually avert Poor Communication Kills, stuff gets a little better...for a while, anyway. A Love Makes You Crazy example.
- Podcast.Doomsayers: Passed between the characters at blinding speed.
- Recap.Alix Le Sphinx Dor: Alix sends three emissaries to Julius Caesar's camp. One of them is Aldéric, the guy who was the chief before Alix came back and who planned to execute Vanic. Not enough context to judge by.
- Recap.Cheers S 2 E 4 Homicidal Ham: Diane's choice of the murder scene from Othello was ill-considered.
- Recap.Watchmen S 01 Ep 07: Blake figures out what's going on and immediately explains it all to Mrs Crawford, who turns out to be in on it.
- Roleplay.Comic Fury Werewolf: It wasn't made public, but when Ice was jailed on the final day of Game X, He and Espeh pretty much gave up all hope and had resigned themselves to their fate. They'd even arranged to skip the next two phases so they could die together (whilst taking Ranger out, out of spite). Then Ranger unvoted...
- Roleplay.Lightning War: Marcus Pendry, when he decides to attack the much-more powerful Ercole Malaspina.
- Recap.Watchman S 01 E 7: Blake figures out what's going on and immediately explains it all to Mrs Crawford, who turns out to be in on it. No explanation for why this would be OOC.
- Series.The Middle: Brick. Axl and Sue's stupidity have always been consistent but Brick's intelligence will disappear depending on the episode or situation. Describes a character who holds the idiot ball, but doesn't elaborate. This might be more like Depending on the Writer for all I know.
- VideoGame.Aion: Yeah, sure Zikel, please attack the Balaur diplomats your friends summoned for peace talks. Cue Tower exploding in the resulting conflict and the After the End situation at present.
- Webcomic.Green Kirby Air Ride: Green Kirby, notably in Comic 2 and 3.
- WesternAnimation.Magoos Puddle Jumper: At least Magoo has the excuse of being legally blind. Apparently Waldo doesn't realize they're underwater because he's a moron.
- WesternAnimation.Shrek Forever After: A variant where Shrek physically travels and explores a timeline where he was never born instead of just looking at it from his own timeline. ???
Wicks with Darth Wiki/What An Idiot counterparts- separate count, will overlap with the above folders
- Film.Blast Of Silence and YMMV.Blast Of Silence: Both examples mention Frankie falling for the trap set up by the Mafia.
- Film.Good Boys and YMMV.Good Boys: The 50+ mph traffic scene is mentioned in both examples.
- Characters.Heavyweights and YMMV.Heavyweights: Both examples discuss Pat and Tony, with the What an Idiot! version being longer and more complain-y as well.
- ICarly.Tropes F To J and WhatAnIdiot.iCarly: Both reference Carly's actions in "iSell Penny Tees".
- Series.Deal Or No Deal: No example on the YMMV page, but the trope is potholed in the Idiot Ball example.
- WebAnimation.Snowdrop and YMMV.Snowdrop: Both examples discuss Snowdrop being stuck in the storm.
