Stupidly wrong but persistent tropes in books, plays, comics, movies and TV

Dr. Strange went back in time before he hit and channeled chakra from one of the Infinity Stones to the bare minimum of equipment to keep Tony alive. :wink: (Not really, just riffing Marvelesque…)

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I beg to differ, in GoT almost nobody wears helmets, or hats for that matter. It’s like they weren’t invented. Everyone wanders around in the snowfall at the Wall without fucking hats. No wonder Stannis lost, didn’t have the sense to put on a hat in the snow. I was going to say “winter”, but I knew I would be corrected that winter hadn’t come yet.

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Why are characters in so much media simply horrible at communication? Many of the long-term problems between characters could be solved by opening their mouths and simply talking to one another. (Yeah, I know, then the writers would have to figure out something else to do with the characters rather than brooding or misunderstanding one another.)

Perhaps it’s not exactly “stupidly wrong,” as many people in the real world do actually work this way, but as someone who’s relationships don’t work anything like that, I tend to end up somewhat alienated by it.

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It’s a premise of the Ancillary Justice series that a purely logical AI would never be able to make a decision, because it would be endlessly comparing lists of minutiae in order to arrive at the most logical solution. So the ship AIs love their crews, space station AIs love their residents (although they like some individuals better than others, and that’s basically what sets off the entire plot.)

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I was thinking of scenes like this:



Admittedly, GoT isn’t the worst offender, but judging by the body count, the most dangerous thing you can do in a battle is to wear a helmet.

And yeah, put a hat on (although Jon Snow didn’t need one before the last season).

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Another one: The plucky heroine has managed to clobber the monster*, leaving it unconscious or semi-conscious on the ground. Instead of going whamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwhamwham until it is well and truly deceased, she then drops her improvised bludgeon beside the already-recovering body, turns her back on it, and tries to wriggle through the tiny basement window.

*replace with serial killer as necessary

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Hadn’t seen it that way, the helmet as a medieval Red Shirt. I’m certain the producers would claim it was so we would could see and recognize their heroes. But somehow back in ancient history, film history I mean, before 1960 and the demise of the hat as a required outdoors male accessory, EVERYONE in movies wore hats. From Bogart to John Wayne, from Sherwood Forest to Monument Valley to concrete jungles. Have we lost the ability to recognize people when they wear a hat? What happened to giving them unique hats, like Clint wore in the “no Name” movies, or even the Hounds unique helmet?

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The reference to throwing away your weapon reminded me of another of my “scream at the screen” tropes: throwing away your empty canteen in the desert. Ummm, you might want that if you ever find water, YOU IDIOT!!

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I started a post about all the tropes specifically related to females, and then my fingers grew tired and my head nearly exploded. So, I’ll just refer to this chart: The Female Character Flowchart - Overthinking It

I understand it’s annoying when AI is misrepresented or time travel insists the traveler could build a toaster for our Viking invaders or CPR is not correctly portrayed, but try having your entire gender be a trope.

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How about the near-destruction of large, metropolitan cities in pursuit of a mcguffin, with zero hindsight given to that destruction. Yeah, we did sorta blow up half of Rio, but Diesel and his ragtag crew of genius hackers/fighters/builders/con artists got away with the glittery box and howabout them tanned biceps!

Of course, willful suspension of disbelief and all that jazz.

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Yeah, I understand what you are saying. I phrased it that way because, as you point out, it’s a woman 90% of the time in that situation, although I’ve seen male characters exhibit the same illogical behaviour. At least in scenes like that it’s dramatically satisfying for the woman to prevail by her own actions.

Sometimes I think the filmmakers do it precisely so that audiences will yell at the screen.

I don’t know if films like that are your thing, but I enjoyed Hush, which has a female protagonist who survives by a combination of toughness and ingenuity.

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Related: tear gas. People coughing a little and wiping their eyes free of that horrible shit. Uh, nope. Works for people walking through fires or fiery areas, too. Thick smoke is nasty stuff.

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Then there is the converse, shows like 24, where field torture always yields accurate info, not just whatever the torturer wanted to hear.

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Thief #2: Got the password. I think. [hands him piece of paper]
Thief #1: You think? [takes paper]
Thief #2: I hit him pretty hard that third time.
Thief #1: Whatever. Let’s try it. [types in password; login returns ‘incorrect password’. Tries three more times, same result.]
Thief #2: I’ll go hit him again. Be right back.

(See also: NSA)

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I know, and I’m not picking on you. :slight_smile: I read greedily through this thread because my husband and I laugh about stupidly wrong tropes. We recently watched “Stranger Things” and laughed that the small public library would have that wide a collection of newspapers on microfilm circa early 1980s.

But it’s not just the plucky heroine. It’s the damsel in distress. The manic pixie dream girl. The tough as nails grandma with wisdom beyond her years. And on and on and on. I hope I’m still kicking it on this mortal coil when no journalist or critic ever has to utter the phrase “strong female protagonist” because it really shouldn’t be worth commenting on that she’s female.

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Trope: spaceships that routinely experience turbulence and toss crew members around like beans in a maracas that don’t have any seatbelts or other restraints to protect people.

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But they have inertial dampeners! That somehow can prevent the crew from feeling an almost instant acceleration to light speed, but can’t negate the impact of a glancing blow off the shields!

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+ 1,000 :-)
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People who don’t want stilton really cheese me off.

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