No Sympathy for Stupidity

[MetalDooley]

Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones

Spoiler

So he finds out that the Queen has been fucking her twin brother and that none of the royal children are legitimate.What does he do?

Well he decides to privately tell the Queen that he knows and that he's going to do something about it when the king returns from his hunting trip which of course only gives the brotherfucker time to move against him.Then he declines the King's brothers offer of military assisstance because he trusts that Littlefinger has gotten the city watch on his side even though Littlefinger has already told Ned not to trust him

Jeez Ned it's like you were asking to be executed

 

[Jacques Joseph]

I really like watching romantic comedies whenever I'm just having a bad day. I mean, something just stupid and light hearted and fun to watch, like, oh, What's Your Number. But I hate the ones where it's just a matter of "miscommunication". The whole movie is miscommunication.

If you just sat down and told someone, hey I wrote that email, or hey, I like you, this whole movie wouldn't have to happen and I wouldn't have to waste my time. And I'm okay with that.

This. A hudred times this.
This is exactly the reason why I find it excruciating to watch most romantic comedies. I really, almost physically, can´t stand watching all those people trying to solve things behind each other´s backs when it´s so obvious it´s only going to make things worse. But hey... if they laid their cards on the table straight away, there would be no movie, right?

Also, a shout-out to Prometheus, the whole cast was beating each other over the right to carry the Idiot ball in that one...

On a somewhat different note: Fawlty Towers was quite difficult to watch for me at first. While John Cleese´s character doesn´t do so many stupid things, everything still goes wrong for him all the time... that sitcom definitely was a lesson in "have-no-compassion-if-you-want-to-enjoy-comedy".

EDIT: As I was navigating my own TvTropes link, I also though of Man of Steel. Man, were they all acting like a real bunch of idiots in that one...

 

[yamy]

Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones

Spoiler

So he finds out that the Queen has been fucking her twin brother and that none of the royal children are legitimate.What does he do?

Well he decides to privately tell the Queen that he knows and that he's going to do something about it when the king returns from his hunting trip which of course only gives the brotherfucker time to move against him.Then he declines the King's brothers offer of military assisstance because he trusts that Littlefinger has gotten the city watch on his side even though Littlefinger has already told Ned not to trust him

Jeez Ned it's like you were asking to be executed

Well the point is that Ned is so honourable that he just HAD to tell her, because he knew what Robert could do in his rage (likely murder the lot of them + possible war with the Westerlands). It also shows how incredibly unsuited he was to his job, as contrasted by Tyrion who succeeded him.

Yes it was stupid but it was for the point of characterization, which is better than when characters are stupid for convenient plot reasons.

 

[MetalDooley]

Well the point is that Ned is so honourable that he just HAD to tell her, because he knew what Robert could do in his rage (likely murder the lot of them + possible war with the Westerlands). It also shows how incredibly unsuited he was to his job, as contrasted by Tyrion who succeeded him.

Yes it was stupid but it was for the point of characterization, which is better than when characters are stupid for convenient plot reasons.

Oh I understand the reasons but there comes a point where you've gone past honourable and jumped straight to pants on head retarded which is what Ned does.I mean Littlefinger pretty much tells him to his face "don't trust me" and he still goes ahead and trusts him.I was facepalming at Ned by the end

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

I have to say I've enjoyed these examples. I can easily see myself yelling at the screen because of their foolishness. I don't watch GoT, but one of my pet peeves is when someone puts their honour above doing the right thing. It's really bad when they are able to kill a mass murderer but refuse to because it would dirty their conscience. Apparently the fact that they are effectively permitting the murder of several more innocent people doesn't bother them as much. This is the primary reason I really don't like the Justice League or similar organizations.

Just thought of another one from a movie I've been railing on recently, though I actually do like it. Sarah Harding and Nick van Owen from The Lost World: Jurassic Park. They both know that the hunters harmed the infant t-rex with the intent of luring in the adult male. This would obviously mean they had a parental connection and would act aggressively to save their young. This behaviour pattern is in fact championed by Harding against her colleagues, so she has a particular ideological connection with the idea that a t-rex would be very upset should the young be harmed.

Yet they don't foresee the issues when they bring the thing back to the camp and put everyone's life in danger (which they NEVER apologizes for and Van Owen even insists on blaming the hunters). They both ignore several calls from their intercom systems for no real reason and then are surprised when, guess what, the T-Rexes show up for their young and are very cranky.

Later on she's walking around with a vest covered in the infant's blood and NOBODY tell her to get rid of it, even when she's the one insisting the Rexes will track them.

It's infuriating that these are the two characters that genuinely deserved to die in this movie and neither did.

 

[geK0]

It's not the character's fault that the writer makes them screw up in stupid ways!

 

[Dying_Jester]

I know exactly what movie you are talking about and I couldn't tell you the name either. The moment they went into her room for the second time without any safety gear I stopped watching.

I'm trying to watch The Strain right now but I think I'll call it quits. So many stupid characters. The only guy I hope survives is the pest control guy because if he sees someone infected he gets shit done!

On a side note, if anyone hasn't seen it, don't bother watching The Strain, the stupidity of the characters will make you hate yourself for wasting an hour watching TV.

 

[Drake the Dragonheart]

Any time a group of goons/soldiers/dumb teenagers decide to split up to find some kind of powerful monster/alien/superhero/supervillain with powers and/or abilities far beyond their own. What on God's green earth are you hoping to accomplish?!

They always get picked off one by one, leaving the remaining survivors increasingly rattled and jumpy. You'd think they'd realize after the first or second one and order everyone to regroup, but no. They let the thing they're hunting dictate the pace of the engagement until you're left with one hysterical redshirt whimpering and cowering at shadows before meeting their inevitable fate. I realize scenes like this are often used to raise tension, but most of the time I can't get past the sheer idiocy of the plan.

The other side of that coin. When the bad guy's mooks clearly outnumber the hero, and they choose to attack him one at a time.

there is an entire trope dedicated to this. Too Stupid to live.

 

[the December King]

It always disappoints me when characters do something dumb, but on the other hand if they never did, then the movies would never have anything cool happen in them.

Prometheus is a prime example of this. I don't want to see everyone doing their job superbly and nothing exciting happening- this isn't Star Trek TNG. I want stupid mistakes so I can watch it all crumble!

P.S: I think the big problem with the rolling ship chasing the characters in Prometheus is that we were given these awesome looks at HOW the ship is rolling, when the people on the ground would have seen basically a huge wall of approaching death. I'm not saying that characters weren't silly in Prometheus, just trying to rationalize some of the dumb.

I know exactly what movie you are talking about and I couldn't tell you the name either. The moment they went into her room for the second time without any safety gear I stopped watching.

I'm trying to watch The Strain right now but I think I'll call it quits. So many stupid characters. The only guy I hope survives is the pest control guy because if he sees someone infected he gets shit done!

On a side note, if anyone hasn't seen it, don't bother watching The Strain, the stupidity of the characters will make you hate yourself for wasting an hour watching TV.

It's too bad, but I suspected as much when I heard it was coming to TV. The first book was great, but the whole idea bombed in the third book, and lost me.

 

[tippy2k2]

How did an excellent movie like "28 Days Later" get such a shitty sequel in "28 Weeks Later". It's like everyone took stupid pills after Great Britain was destroyed by zombies in 28 Days

Uh....spoiler alert I guess? It IS a 7 year old movie people...

A handful of the stupid:

Soldier: "Sir! We found a survivor! She seems to have the virus inside her. It's dormant but she's still very contagious"
Superior: "Well stick her in this locked room! We don't need guards or anything because we'll put up a "contagious" sign. It's not like her husband who figured her to be dead works here and would want to go see her, right?"
Husband: "My wife is alive! I must go to her now! Oh my God, she threw up on me! I'm turning into a zombie! Who saw this coming!?!?"

Followed by:
Solider: "Sir! I guess the husband did work here. We figured the locked door that he had access to would be enough to deter anyone from getting to the infected lady but somehow it failed. What do we do!?!?"
Superior: "Quickly! Lock everyone in the powerless garage! A large group of panicking civilians in a pitch black area will not go bad"
Soldier: "Should we at least lock the doors sir?"
Superior: "What are we made of money!?! Locks are expensive!"
Civilians: "Zombies are down here and we're all dying!!!! Look, we're all zombies now! Who saw this coming!??!!"

Seriously...it's like they forgot how zombies work. I can at least forgive zombie-stupidity in movies where they don't exist but they JUST fought this God damn threat! It's not like they didn't know how these stupid things worked.

 

[DaWaffledude]

Warnig spoilers

I have been annoyed by stupid characters many times. I have no sympathy at all for them.

Dr Who is a MASSIVE offender. Modern DW is terrible for it.
Old DW, I don't know. It might be less stupid.

But new DW, frack!
Most or all of the characters are so painfully stupid, they all deserve to die. When they do, it is very well deserved.
There are characters whos entire thing is being so stupid they need to die ASAP.

Roses entire schtick was running round round touching stuff and pissing everyone off, then whining when they all came after her.
If they tied that slack faced bimbo up in the tardis every time they landed, they'd have little to no trouble.
She could turn a trip to the supermarket into a mess.

The Doctor himself, frack! The writing now is so bad it's vomit inducing. I saw the end of the last episode,after coming back from a walk. Someone else was watching it and I was tired.
I felt like throwing up the entire time it was on. I left the room in disgust after a point.
He's still bi-polar, hysterical, fake pacifist, pansy.
When done right he's a pacifist, but does what he has to if pushed.
But the fake pacifism, he occilates horrifically between passive agressive, schitzophrenic, hysterical, hypocritical, insanely judgemental, and a load of other moods. None of which are right!

I've never watched an episode of Dr Who, but...

Isn't he supposed to be have just gone through a complete, sudden, personality change? I'd imagine that would affect your ability to deal with situations consistently.

 

[Rob Gustafson]

I have one to beat all of yours. This one's stupidity goes not with the motives and the actions of the characters, but the physics of the movie itself.

Starship F'ing Troopers.

Where do I begin? The "bugs" are a danger to humanity because a) they live among us and eat our brains, b) they send Doogie Howser to relive his past and start opening people up at random, or c) they fart fire into space to knock asteroids into trajectories that, though the separation is light-years, still conduct tactical strikes against Earth? If you picked "C", you're a cynical bastard, or you've seen the movie, but you're right! ("B" kinda happens, but as an Earth scientist, he at least opens up the bug he's working with.)

The heroes act sci-fi stupid in having high technology and space superiority (except for the fire-farting bugs acting as artillery, I guess), yet they grab guns and make troop landings against an enemy that is mostly dangerous close-up. The only way they could be dumber is if they lodged bayonets instead of shooting. Apparently glassing the planet from orbit wasn't a priority. Now, I will freely admit that I have not seen this movie lately, but I remember shaking my head, picking up my jaw, and just NOT believing how mind-numbingly stupid they portrayed humanity to be. At least that cartoon Roughnecks was a fun watch. Maybe someone can poke holes and provide some justification for a few things in the movie, but on the whole, it's the stupidest movie with the most laughable premise I've seen.

 

[ecoho]

Several episodes of several sitcoms, off the top of my head most notably Eric from That 70's Show and Frasier from...Frasier.

There are SEVERAL episodes of these shows where a single ounce of common sense telling them "stop talking right now." or "No, that's a BAD idea..." would do wonders for them...but no...they're dumb because the story has to continue.

Well to be fair to Eric, he is high like 70% of the time, so of course his common sense superpower isn't working right.

On topic: Any movie in which the phrase "don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes" or any similar phrase is uttered, baring films that take place before the invention of rifling and detachable magazines. Why? Because if you're being attacked by a horde of enemies you should shoot them BEFORE THEY'RE FUCKING ON TOP OF YOU. That's what guns were made for, to shoot people who are far away from you before they're able to get within punching distance. I give a pass to period media because muskets and the like had terrible accuracy and reload times, so it was prudent to get closer to enemies to make sure your shots counted, but in the modern era doing that is ridiculously stupid.

ok the only time you would ever hear that order is ether;
1. old musket area as you explained.
2. you have limited ammo and are most likely going to die horribly anyways.

seriously though waiting till you have no chance at missing is usually a good idea(id prefer when you still have about 150yds of distance but oh well)

OT: every horror movie were they split up. seriously stick the fuck together and when you have the bad guy on the ground don't run beat them to death or in the case of Jason cut off all his limbs burry them on separate continents(that's more towards Jason x )

 

[Vivi22]

the army guys found that bullets and missiles did not work on the kryptonians so of cause they keeps shooting them anyway. Hell one guy pulls out a knife for god's sake.

To be fair, it did seem at first that concentrated fire from their A-10's was at least slowing them down/knocking them back. And once it was clear that wasn't working they mostly tried missiles. You only had instances of soldiers shooting them and getting taken out, in part because the Kryptonians were so damn fast that running wasn't an option.

As for the guy with the knife, it was pretty clear he knew he was going to die and simply chose to go down fighting rather than just sit their and accept it. He knew he'd lose, he knew his knife would probably be useless, but it didn't matter.

 

[Vivi22]

I have one to beat all of yours. This one's stupidity goes not with the motives and the actions of the characters, but the physics of the movie itself.

Starship F'ing Troopers.

Where do I begin? The "bugs" are a danger to humanity because a) they live among us and eat our brains, b) they send Doogie Howser to relive his past and start opening people up at random, or c) they fart fire into space to knock asteroids into trajectories that, though the separation is light-years, still conduct tactical strikes against Earth? If you picked "C", you're a cynical bastard, or you've seen the movie, but you're right! ("B" kinda happens, but as an Earth scientist, he at least opens up the bug he's working with.)

The heroes act sci-fi stupid in having high technology and space superiority (except for the fire-farting bugs acting as artillery, I guess), yet they grab guns and make troop landings against an enemy that is mostly dangerous close-up. The only way they could be dumber is if they lodged bayonets instead of shooting. Apparently glassing the planet from orbit wasn't a priority. Now, I will freely admit that I have not seen this movie lately, but I remember shaking my head, picking up my jaw, and just NOT believing how mind-numbingly stupid they portrayed humanity to be. At least that cartoon Roughnecks was a fun watch. Maybe someone can poke holes and provide some justification for a few things in the movie, but on the whole, it's the stupidest movie with the most laughable premise I've seen.

No denying their stupidity in tactics though that's kind of the point since the entire movie largely satirizes the sort of pro-military, pro-fascist ideology the book was accused of supporting. I haven't read the book mind you, but the movie was definitely not intended to be taken seriously. It was more of a "look how stupid these people and their society are," situation.

But there were heavy hints that the humans were thew ones who encroached on their territory and caused the war in the first place. And while it didn't occur to me until just now when I read your post, I wouldn't be surprised if the human government are the ones who sent the asteroid to hit Earth given their clearly established inability to tell the truth and heavy use of propaganda. I don't remember there being anything in the movie to indicate that other than them having a fucked up government though, so if that wasn't their intention, it is a stupid plot point, I agree.

 

[carnex]

As far as Prometheus goes, those bits with moronic scientist were intentionally there. They are not throwaway moments but a key moments in underlying narative of the movies. Or at least I see it as that. There is just no way that so many moronic moments go without notice, soI can be pretty sure that there was intention.

So, remember how in the begining of the movie we have a clash between faith and science? Well, that's the setup. The whole movie is actually about lack of trustworthiness in both science and faith. That both are unreasonable and both lead to reckless behavior. One out of faith in something higher, other in unchallenged and unrestricted curiosity and search for knowledge. One message that remained in me from the film is that both faith and science need being reined in but someone who have neither inclination (not that i necessarily agree, just talking about message of the movie).

But then I remember the autopsy and have to say "well, they really might be just that stupid"

 

[Gizmo1990]

the army guys found that bullets and missiles did not work on the kryptonians so of cause they keeps shooting them anyway. Hell one guy pulls out a knife for god's sake.

To be fair, it did seem at first that concentrated fire from their A-10's was at least slowing them down/knocking them back. And once it was clear that wasn't working they mostly tried missiles. You only had instances of soldiers shooting them and getting taken out, in part because the Kryptonians were so damn fast that running wasn't an option.

As for the guy with the knife, it was pretty clear he knew he was going to die and simply chose to go down fighting rather than just sit their and accept it. He knew he'd lose, he knew his knife would probably be useless, but it didn't matter.

I will concead the knife guy but after the fight, after seeing that guns cannot match their speed and strength a group still aproched Superman with guns at the ready. I get that they are soldiers, it's their job and they were under orders but even soldiers must bow to common sense.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I feel the same about a lot of characters. When something is searingly obvious and they don't see it, or they do something super stupid (like violate that quarantine you mentioned) over and over and over....UGH.

Actually I kind played with that in the RPG I made. You can CLEARLY see where the story is going to go. It's pretty obvious what's very likely to happen in the end. Main character doesn't see it because he doesn't WANT to see it. He refuses to consider the possibility. And then it happens. His response after recovering from the shock? "I'm a damn fool for thinking this would have turned out any differently".

In the end, the plot worked out pretty damn well. XD

 

[Pikey Mikey]

This isn't really "lost empathy" for characters, because I never had any to begin with =P But;
Tales of Graces...FUCK that game is DUMB!

To avoid...you know what, fuck it! There ARE no spoilers because the game is so goddamn obvious and repetitive in its narrative that I'm amazed I still play it... But that's because I play with a friend who likes the series (Tales games) and he's okay with me bitching and asking questions CONSTANTLY (because I do (but we joke around and have fun with it too)). Here goes... Also, he's promised me Absinthe at some point =P

...I'm gonna put up some spoiler warnings to compress the text and in case anyone actually wants to play the game. I wouldn't want to get a game spoiled if I wanted to play it, so you know, manners and decency over rage =)

Spoiler

The story is basically "The king is evil because reasons (it takes the characters four encounters and around 30 hours or something to figure out that he's possessed, because they're idiots) and we must stop him" so they go to a place to stop him. Only for the whole party to burst out "No! I can't! He's my friend, it hurts. The mere fact that I might have to stop him hurts!" (or something). The thing is, it's not even "you may have to kill/wound him", it's just "stop him from BLOWING UP THE PLANET". And they're so incompetent that they fail to even take action against him when he's standing FIVE FEET AWAY FROM THEM and draining a world crystal of energy (stupid names, won't use them). This shit happens three times and every time, they pull the "I can't do it. He's my friend" bullshit, and he tries to murder them every time they meet. He fails, because he also sucks, but he still tries to kill them. AND THEN!

After some horrid amount of time and braindeadness (it is a word, shut up =P) they go to the planet's core and find him, corrupt and babbling as always, they kick his ass (in our case, Pascal kicked his ass with an MMA-fighting elemental fire-dragon called Bloodflamme (IT WAS AWESOME!) any wonder why she's my favorite?/The only one I like (Malik's ok too)) and the corrupting being fucks off, infects another person, you kick their ass, again. And then the asshole king you saved goes "Evil thing, join me" and they fuse again... AND THEY STILL WON'T KILL HIM! This is a guy who has;

* Drained super-energy crystals of their energy, threatening the whole populace of the three continent-sized countries in the world
* REPEATEDLY attempted to kill his so called 'friends' (more like lobotomized anime-monkeys)
* BETRAYED HIS FRIENDS(/lobotomized anime-monkeys)!

That last part is what gets me and just piledrives the intelligence of everyone through the steel cage like Mick Foley got thrown of the Hell in a Cell cage. The whole game Asbel (whom I call Assbell because he's a bland idiot) (and Sophie as well...AND Cheria, god dammit everyone is brain dead in this game (everyone but Pascal)) runs around and claims that he'll stop Richard (the king) and find out why he's evil. He fails utterly, thrice (Sophie and Cheria are with him, so their failure is also three-fold) because he can't even use force against him...Again, we're not talking maiming or killing, we're talking 'kick his ass and restrain him', but no. Then he finally realizes that Richard was acting weird because he was possessed, everyone playing knew this 30 hours ago, and 'saves' him/separates him and the evil goo-being...And then he goes back to morphing with the goo-being five minutes later, in front of everyone...AND THE STILL CAN'T KILL HIM!

Seriously, I love my friends, especially my best friend whom I've known since I was 6 (around 15 years now), there are very few things I wouldn't do to help him is he wanted/needed my help. But if he became possessed and the fate of a country or THE WORLD relied on me stopping him (or killing him), as much as I care about him I would have to stop him, or at least TRY, because the world is more important than my emotions and personal bonds (insert Spock quote here). And if I managed to beat the shit out of some liquid demon-thingy enough to make it leave his body and he immediately asked it to join/fuse with him again. I would fucking murder him, because that would be a flat-out betrayal of me (and the whole world, I guess).

I should stop ranting and hide this in a spoiler-box just to keep the wall of text from flooding over.

Summary: Game sucks, everyone's dumb except Pascal who is the best character in it (not that that's saying much (she's a good/fun character and it's actually fun/entertaining when she's in the dialogue/cutscenes/thingies)) and if they had just sliced Richard the first time he tried to drain the world a lá Shinra, they would've discovered the space-goo and been able to go after it without dooming the world. We haven't finished it but the ending is gonna be Power of Friendship...and it's gonna suck...... I reeeaaally want Asbel, Sophie, Cheria and Richard (and Hubert, forgot about him (bitching, condescending bishônen)) to die...All of them.

As I re-read this, it feels like I was Captain Walker from Spec Ops while writing this.

Spoiler

going from calm (ok, calmER) to raging (and swearing)