Idiot Ball

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WARNING: Prolonged exposure to the idiot ball can cause severely reduced intelligence, complete social ineptitude, and death.

Obi-Wan: Wait a minute. How did this happen? We're smarter than this.

Anakin: Apparently not.
—Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If multiple characters have the Idiot Ball it becomes an Idiot Plot. Temporary (or permanent) Genre Blindness is often a cause of this trope.

Coined by Hank Azaria on Herman's Head: Azaria would ask the writing staff, "Who's carrying the idiot ball this week?" This is generally not a compliment on the writing because the person carrying the idiot ball is often acting Out of Character, misunderstanding something that could be cleared up by asking a single reasonable question or performing a simple problem-solving action, but that he isn't doing solely because the writers don't want him to. It's almost as if the character is being willfully stupid or obtuse.

Unsurprisingly, this provokes a What an Idiot! response from the audience. However, sometimes, the purpose is to help the audience. Sometimes, the holder of the idiot ball asks the dumb question to allow a certain amount of exposition to occur that wouldn't organically be talked about, but needs to be stated for the audience.

On the other hand, making stupid mistakes can be the hallmark of Character Development if the person recognizes it in the end. Seeing someone discarding the idiot ball can be a rewarding moment when they are Taught By Experience.

See also Villain Ball, Hero Ball, Distress Ball, Idiot Plot, Forgot About His Powers, Alcohol-Induced Idiocy, Comedy of Errors, Too Dumb to Live, What an Idiot!, Conflict Ball, Bullying a Dragon, Mugging the Monster, Failed a Spot Check, Ping-Pong Naivete, Third-Act Stupidity *big breath* , and Out-of-Character Moment. A Stupidity-Inducing Attack is essentially what happens when a character deliberately throws the Idiot Ball at another character.

This trope is the Opposite Trope of Smart Ball, and probably not closely related to Sanity Ball, Happy Fun Ball or Advantage Ball. And not even remotely related to the Timey-Wimey Ball.

Related "forgetfulness" tropes:

Character Condition Character doesn't remember, or Remembered Too Late Character remembers, maybe Just in Time
Has magical or metahuman ability Forgot About His Powers, Reed Richards Is Useless Remembered I Could Fly
Has mundane ability Idiot Ball Forgot I Could Change the Rules
Doesn't have mundane ability Forgot I Couldn't Swim ?
Examples of Idiot Ball are listed on these subpages:
Examples of Idiot Ball include:

Myths & Religion

  • In The Bible, Delilah asks Samson how to take away his Super Strength. Samson tells her that he can lose his strength if he is bound with new ropes or if his hair is braided, both of which are lies. Delilah tries both of these and fails. Then, after she tries to take away his strength twice, Samson tells her to cut his hair, which works. Memorably pointed out by Orson Scott Card's character Alvin Maker.
    • Then again, Samson is established as not the sharpest knife in the drawer to begin with.
    • Abraham is traveling through Egypt with his lovely wife, Sarah in tow. He fears that the Egyptians would kill him and take her away because of her beauty. So, what does he do? He stuffs her into a box. He didn't stop to think that maybe, just maybe that box would, you know, have to pass through customs. Then when she is discovered, he tells them that she's only his sister, which results in Sarah being taken into the Pharaoh's harem. The real icing on the cake? This happens twice!
  • Hey, Eve, don't eat the apple.
  • Probably not the only case in Greek Mythology, but the biggest: Rhea fooled her husband Kronos from devouring little baby Zeus by giving him a stone in diapers. To be fair, she did get him drunk first.
    • "Orpheus, you vanquished every obstacle in your path and made us weep, you love your girl so much. She can come back to the living world, just don't look back, okay ?" "Derp!"
      • Being fair to Orpheus, that was a case of bastard referee. Orpheus had already made it out of the cave and so thought it was safe to look back, but Hades went 'Nope, you both have to be outside the cave before one of you can look back, and she was still one step inside the door. So, fuck you.'
  • In Norse Mythology, Frigg went on a pilgrimage throughout the world and extracted a promise from everything in existence that they would not harm her beloved son Balder. The other gods even made a game out of it, putting the amused Balder in the middle of a circle and throwing things at him just to watch the things dodge him. That's not the Idiot Ball; that's cute. The Idiot Ball shows up when Loki disguises himself as an old woman who manages to get Frigg to explain that she didn't get this promise from one thing - mistletoe, because she deemed it "too young" to be bound to such a vow. He immediately gets mistletoe and tricks Balder's blind brother into throwing it at him, resulting in Balder's death. Frigg, you twit, why would you tell anyone about that, especially knowing that there's a nasty trickster god running around who's really good at disguises?

Professional Wrestling

  • After a rift with Arn Anderson, Ric Flair recruited Sting to be his partner in a tag match against Anderson and Brian Pillman at WCW Halloween Havoc 1995. Sting accepted. Then, as soon as he tagged Flair, he got himself an old-fashioned Horseman Beatdown.
  • Lex Luger carried it frequently in his WWF stint, but the worst instance of them all was when he had to fight off rumors of selling out to Ted DiBiase. The loudest voice of said rumors happened to be Tatanka. The two faced off at Summerslam 94 with the Native American coming out on top. After the match, Luger still couldn't figure out what the Million Dollar Man had to do with this.. until Tatanka beat him up post-match.
  • Randy Savage carried it in the 1993 Royal Rumble. After dropping his flying elbow on Yokozuna, he went for a pinfall. Problem is, pins do not count in a Royal Rumble match. Yoko powered out of the pin, sent the Macho Man over the top, and secured a WWF Championship match at Wrestlemania IX.

Web Animation

  • Coach Z on Homestar Runner. It seems that he only keeps his "more than two praeblams" (other than his butt fixation) for one episode. The whole cast plays dodgeball with the proverbial Idiot Ball.
    • The titular character IS an Idiot Ball, which is really almost the point of any short with him in it.

Web Comics

  • In a case of a literal Idiot Ball, Xykon from The Order of the Stick wipes out the Azure City paladins by tossing a superbounce ball inscribed with a Symbol of Insanity into their midst, causing them to turn on each other in a tremendous bloodbath of confusion.
    • When Vaarsuvius decides to take on Xykon by himself, it's not nearly as stupid an idea as it might seem due to a Deal with the Devil (and the Demon, and the Daemon) s/he made recently to gain a massive amount of power. Too bad s/he's carrying an Idiot Ball for the entire fight. Used to trigger character growth when it makes him/her realize that simply throwing spells at a target isn't enough to take it down without strategy - soon after, V and a paladin manage to severely inconvenience the Big Bad with a third-level spell and a class feature.
  • Hazel from Girls with Slingshots goes through an insane level of mental gymnastics in her belief that Jaime's new love interest must be male, despite knowing she's been with girls before. When Jaime tells Hazel her new "boyfriend" is Erin, Hazel (who, admittedly, doesn't remember Erin's name) hears it as "Aaron", even when Jaime repeats it several times, and when Erin herself points out her own name with a meaningful stare. They then go on a double date, where Erin shows up in a bowler hat, glasses, and a fake moustache, and not only does Hazel not recognize her, but has to be told by her boyfriend that Erin is female, after she and Jaime have gone to the restroom together.
    • "Aaron" and "Erin" are homophonous in many regions in North America. Erin is an androgynous name, also.
  • A rather in-character Idiot Ball is given to Jade in Jade 6, when she helps with a rather... dangerous-sounding deal. Thing is, she said she'd help, the person really needs it, it SHOULD all go okay, right? (She's shown ALMOST catching herself, but she keeps slipping back.) Partially caused by a massive Hero Ball, as well.
  • Jim in Darths and Droids has a lot of idiot ball moments, though, in this case, it's a more integral part of the character, and generally gets used for laughs. The entire plot of the series effectively starts because of such a moment.
    • The entire plot of the comic is based off of people refusing to let go of the Idiot Ball (usually Jim, but everyone gets a turn). Not to mention the entire point of the comic is to explain the large amount of Idiot Balls in the prequels (see above).
  • In The Dreamer at the end of issue #10, Alexander offers to take Beatrice to safety to Washington's headquarters, but Beatrice stays put with Alan and Nathan. Alan is supposed to take Beatrice to Washington for interrogation about what happened when she was with Howe - and Alexander could easily have taken her to Washington himself!
  • This strip from Chaff City features a literal Idiot Ball for sale in a gadget shop - the characters experiment with picking it up, and as the title of the strip states, Hilarity Ensues.
  • Champions and Heroes, on too many Dragon Age characters: "[SPOILERS] Maker damnit!"

Web Original

Real Life

  • There is a whole website about people who managed quite impressing feats of stupidity. Quite honestly most of the following examples look pretty harmless in comparison.
  • Bernie Madoff ran an elaborate Ponzi scheme for years. The SEC was repeatedly given tips and warnings over the years, but completely failed to discover the massive fraud. He was only stopped when his own SONS turned him in.
  • Anyone who starts a riot in a scene with a tense atmosphere. Seriously, who comes across one of those and thinks "Wow, this could use some violence!"
    • The thing about mobs is that they become collective idiots.
    • Villains can manipulate mobs that way.
  • HBGary was a very important and security company, so much that the founder wrote the book on rootkits and it worked for the federal government and big corporations. Yet somehow, when Anonymous hacked one of their employees and then the whole company, it was evident that HBGary had made tons and tons of security mistakes that are dealt with in even a beginner's book. Unable to suspend your disbelief? Read this arstecnica article. The hindsights made in HBGary are so hard to believe that some people in the security world are speculating that maybe HBGary were acting as some kind of Honey Pot to trap Anonymous later.
  • World War I: For the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915, the British very carefully calculated exactly how much artillery fire they would have to apply over how long in order to break through the German defences. They picked up the Idiot Ball after that, though, hardly even bothering to do the same calculations again until much later (with predictable results). To be fair, by the time they were running assaults on the scale of the Somme, the pre-war arms industry hadn't grown enough to supply them with enough shells and they had to settle for firing off everything they had and hoping it was enough (which it too often wasn't). Later, when they had all they wanted and could break any German defence system at will, they handed the idiot ball to the Americans... who refused to learn from experience and were determined to reinvent the wheel.
  • Adolf Hitler grabbed the idiot ball during the later years of World War II and hung on for dear death.
  • In the NHL, if a team pulls the goalie in overtime, they lose the one point they would normally acquire after forcing OT. Los Angeles Kings coach (at the time) Andy Murray pulled Cristobal Huet to bring in the extra attacker in a late season game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Andrew Cassels scored the empty netter, and the Kings lost that overtime loss point.
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