What an Idiot!/Other Media

Fanfic

 * In Soulless Shell, Arnold has been sentenced to death for rape by Leif, who is the incredibly powerful leader of the vermin of Redwall, but manages to escape and convince his guards to join him.
 * You'd Expect: Him to flee the country, given that no creature alive can even hope to challenge Leif. Failing that, you'd expect him to come up with a plan to take Leif by surprise and use his guards to gain an advantage in numbers.
 * Instead: Arnold decides that vengeance against Leif can wait until after he's raped a young girl. Since Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil Leif finds him, turns into a demon, and kills him. His guards aren't even present, and soon afterward try to attack Leif in revenge, only to get killed fairly easily.
 * A few times in A Very Special Arthur.
 * In the beginning, after Arthur hits his head on the bottom of the pool, they get out to call 911.
 * You'd Expect: That his friends would take him out of the pool, since he's still submerged in water and unconscious after hitting his head.
 * Instead: They leave him in the pool, underwater, for 20 minutes until the ambulance arrives, which helps cause him to become mentally retarded (and this is following the in-story logic behind this, as Arthur would be dead in real life).
 * Arthur’s friends try to reverse his condition, but are told that the only hope for doing so, stem cell treatment, is illegal. They then decide to replicate the process that caused it in order to get him back to normal.
 * You’d Expect: Them to use simple logic (as well as listen to the Brain when he points this out) and determine that pushing him into the pool would only make it worse.
 * Instead: They go through with it, and are surprised when it makes Arthur's condition even worse.
 * In Eiga Sentai Scanranger, Peter uses the Film Power of all-mighty God to fight Blackorg and is inches away from winning...
 * You’d Expect: The other Scanrangers to sit back and watch. Or, to just get out of there.
 * Instead: Takeshi, for some reason, runs out and asks to help Peter. Momentarily distracted telling Takeshi to leave, Peter is left vulnerable to a fatal blow by Blackorg.

Myth and Legend

 * Pecos Bill. On their wedding day, his bride Sluefoot Sue tried to ride his horse Widow Maker. Widow Maker throws her off, and her bustle starts bouncing her higher and higher; she can't stop herself because her wedding dress was made to be removed by her husband, and she's not carrying her knife to her wedding.
 * You'd Expect: Pecos, being a sharpshooter supreme and a true master of the lasso, would either shoot out the bustle to stop her bouncing or throw a rope around his beloved and brake her down. This is, after all, a man who can shoot a star from the sky or rope and ride a cyclone. Or, hell, just shoot the horse!
 * Instead: Pecos shoots her so she won't have to suffer a horrible death from thirst. Yep.
 * Additionally: It should be noted that the Disney version spares Sue that ignominious fate, instead having her bounce to the moon. You'd think Disney would've given him a happier ending.
 * Also: Depending on the version of the tale, Bill does try roping her...and misses. For example, in the Disney version Pecos tries to lasso her but his horse Widowmaker steps on the rope and keeps from succeeding.
 * Every "I fear my son will upstage me" scenario in Greek Mythology. A god/king learns from an oracle "your son with this woman will one day kill you".
 * You'd Expect: That God/king to avoid the woman like the plague and find someone else, or eventually raise the child with the kind of love and affection that would diffuse thoughts of patricide.
 * Instead: That God/king will attempt to kill or disown their son, an act which will only justify their kid committing patricide, not dissuade it.
 * And how 'bout probably the most famous one in mythology? Paris has been chosen as a judge to determine whether Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite is most beautiful. All three try to bribe him — Hera offers World Domination, Athena offers genius smarts and martial skill, and Aphrodite offers the love of the most beautiful woman in the world.
 * You'd Expect: Paris to choose Hera and gain a royal harem as part and parcel of World Domination, or to choose Athena and use his smarts to gain World Domination and aforementioned harem. Just about every person who has read the myth has thought this at some point.
 * Instead: Paris chooses Aphrodite and gains the hand of an already-married queen, with most of the armies of Greece bound to rescue her, as well as the enmity of two of the most powerful goddesses in the pantheon. Cue Trojan War.
 * And then there's Jason, former leader of the Argonauts, he who retrieved the golden fleece, and a hero actually under the divine patronage of Hera. He returns from the journey victorious, since he had the love and assistance of the powerful and mildly Cute and Psycho princess Medea, who has gone so far as to murder her own brother as a distraction so Jason and his crew could escape her father's wrath.
 * You'd Expect: Jason would return to his father's kingdom and settle down in peace with his lover.
 * Instead: Jason decides to marry a princess named Glauce so he could have wealth and fame and the like, even though Medea has already had two children by him (and is, as mentioned above Cute and Psycho to the extreme) and the man's patron goddess is HERA, also known as the goddess of marriage and the most vengeful out of the Olympians. So Medea kills Jason's new bride, the bride's father, and their two children in revenge before taking off. Jason dies alone and forgotten many years later, when the Argo's ancient, rotting prow breaks right over his head.
 * It gets worse. Jason had taken a vow to be faithful to Medea, and the traditional divine punishment for breaking oaths, according to Herodotus? Killing off the oathbreaker's entire family, which makes Jason's anger at Medea for doing just that very a much a what an idiot moment.
 * As told in The Odyssey, we have Odysseus and his men who have come across the island of Polyphemus the Cyclops. Odysseus outwits his ravenous foe by getting him drunk and then jabbing him in his eye. In a blind rage, the Cyclops accidentally lets them free and they escape. To make it work, Odysseus introduced himself to Polyphemus as "nobody."
 * You'd Expect: Odysseus to just get to his ship, set sail and never look back.
 * Instead: Odysseus takes time to gloat at his foe and gives him his real name. Unfortunately for him, Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon, the very sea god who's already pissed at Odysseus's lack of humility. Poseidon then ensures that the trip home is a living nightmare.

New Media

 * Numerous commenters on this article, as evidenced by the bit in bold. Basically, if you type the words "Facebook login" into Google, that article's the first result. Hundreds of idiots arrived at that page via Google, and despite the page looking NOTHING like Facebook, proceeded to whine that they were unable to login in the comments. (It's also worth noting that for a time, the article came up first but is clearly marked as a NEWS article.)
 * Type "w" in Google. See that part where it says "www.facebook.com"? Yeah, more people have actually Googled "www.facebook.com" than Wikipedia. You know, instead of just putting it in the address bar. It Gets Worse as you type in another "w" — people actually Googled "www.google.com". On Google.

Professional Wrestling

 * Michelle McCool's heel-turn angle with Maria on Smackdown in 2008/2009.
 * You'd Expect: After McCool losing two matches and taking it out on Maria both times, Maria would show some caution around McCool, and so would Eve after Maria gets the snot kicked out of her when McCool finally loses the title.
 * Instead: Apparently girlfriends do this all the time in wrestling land? That's what she told them, and that was enough to gain their forgiveness. And they totally didn't see the asskicking they would get coming.
 * The last TNA show before 10.10.10. has Dixie Carter, finally fed up with Abyss' actions after he basically tried to "abduct" her, orders Eric Bischoff to fire him. Bischoff then brings her the legal documents to make said firing official.
 * You'd Expect: Dixie to read the contract carefully before signing.
 * Instead: She immediately signs it without even looking at it, letting her anger with Abyss' actions earlier overcome her common sense. The contract she signed really was to turn over the majority of shares to Hulk Hogan, thus screwing herself out of the company.
 * You'd Expect: Her to then fight the contract somehow, having been defrauded with a clear trail of what happened. (On national TV no less.)
 *  Instead: She just disappears.
 * Kaval lasts five minutes in a grueling match against The Big Show to earn a spot on Team Smackdown at the 2010 Bragging Rights. Then Tyler Reks comes out to challenge him for his spot. Teddy Long comes out to stop him.
 * You'd Expect: Kaval, obviously in no condition to compete after his match, to request it be postponed in order to give time for his body to heal.
 * Instead: He, being The Determinator that he is, throws out all logic and accepts Reks' challenge. Only for him to be beaten quickly, thus losing his spot.
 * Wade Barrett has two of these moments in a triple-threat cage match, both in the same match:
 * Wade's on top of the cage with both Randy Orton and Sheamus on the floor.
 * You'd Expect: Barrett to exit the cage, knowing that his place (let alone leadership) in The Nexus is on the line.
 * Instead: He goes for an elbow drop on Sheamus, which he counters with his knees. But that's nothing compared to...
 * Wade's climbing up the cage with both of his opponents down. CM Punk runs out and climbs the cage, seemingly to help him.
 * You'd Expect: Barrett to either drop down and walk out the door, or at least knock Punk away, knowing that he's been the one who has been trying to usurp control of Nexus from him.
 * Instead: He takes Punk's hand, which he uses as an opportunity to strip him of his Nexus armband before knocking him back down the cage.
 * Following the successful completion of his Xanatos Roulette against The Undertaker, Kane has the World Heavyweight Championship and his brother is buried alive for the fifth time. His next challenger, is one-time rival Edge. Who, in a move full of Moral Dissonance in and of itself, promptly decides to kidnap his father to try to get in his head, and after one title shot failed, to get another one.
 * You'd Expect: Kane to immediately go straight to General Manager Teddy Long and threaten to walk out with the belt if Teddy doesn't force Edge to give Paul Bearer back, especially since kidnapping non-wrestlers isn't something Long is supposed to condone anyway. If Teddy refused to give Paul back, he could easily make good on his threat until Teddy finally caves or gets kicked out for someone else with some sense who will do the right thing. In other words, what CM Punk did in 2011, except more specific to a brand (Smackdown), less "Voice of the Voiceless", and more "GIVE ME BACK MY DAD!".
 * Instead: Kane keeps scrambling around and running after wherever Edge showed his face last like a blubbering idiot, and is driven to the point of pleading humanity in desperation. He ends up with Teddy right in front of him at least twice, yet can only ask "Where's Paul!?" or "Where's Edge!?".
 * The result: Daddy Paul gets Put On a Bus again, Kane gets trapped in a four-way TLC match at the end of the year and loses the World Heavyweight Title to Edge, promptly becoming a midcard human-like face AGAIN shortly thereafter.
 * On the 12/5/11 airing of Monday Night Raw, Randy Orton is in a match with the Miz. They're both out of the ring and Randy slams Miz. Wade Barrett comes out and watches the match and both the Miz and Randy are close to being counted out. Randy pushes the Miz into the ring.
 * You'd Expect: Randy to ignore Wade and continue the match.
 * Instead: Randy chases Wade and gets counted out as a result.

Tabletop RPG

 * Warhammer 40000: In Angron's backstory, he was an escaped gladiator who was trapped with his army of fellow escaped gladiators with a huge army coming at him. The battle barge of the Emperor is in orbit, and the Emperor could probably destroy the army and rescue Angron's comrades in no time.
 * You'd Expect: The emperor destroys the enemy army. Orbital fire, Space Marines, doing it personally. You've got a lot of options when you have spaceships, troops, guns and enough Psychic Powers to make the gods themselves run screaming.
 * Instead: He rescues Angron and retreats with his ship, thus killing most of the gladiators and giving Angron a grudge that would later cause him to join the traitor legions.
 * In a similar manner, at the start of Warlord Ghazkhull's first invasion of Armageddon, the planet was under the rule of Overlord Herman Von Strab, who was once described as "the greatest waste of flesh and bone born in the last 500 years". So the Orks start to invade.
 * You'd Expect: Von Strab to pull his finger out and deal with it the moment the first hulk appeared — after all, these are the Orks, who live for war and aren't really sure how their death-spitting war machines work anyway.
 * Instead: Von Strab sits on his ass doing absolutely nothing as the Orks happily establish a beachhead. He then sends his army piecemeal to be happily slaughtered, sends out a legion of titans unaided to try and destroy them, then virus bombs the major cities when the Orks get to them. Needless to say, when the Space Marines turn up, they aren't happy.
 * So: The idiot becomes a war criminal and is turfed off of Armageddon. He comes back in the Third War on Armageddon, supported by the Orks, and claims he has divine right to rule over Armageddon. We're really not sure why anyone believed him, but some did.

Theater

 * The Comedy of Errors: One character has been searching for his long-lost twin, and comes to a town where said twin actually lives, causing him to be recognized by everyone and confused with his twin. Mistakes abound, and Hilarity Ensues.
 * You'd Expect: That he'd come to the obvious conclusion that his search is over — his twin lives in this town, and the character's just being mistaken for him.
 * Instead: He grows progressively more and more confused about everything that happens and ultimately concludes that the entire town's full of witches who are tricking him. Nobody figures it out until the twins come face-to-face.
 * In the backstory of The Trachiniae, Deianira is nearly raped by a centaur called Nessus. Her husband Herakles shoots him with arrows poisoned by hydra blood. As Nessus is dying, he gives Deianira some drops of blood from said wound and tells her to handle it very carefully — it's a love potion that will make Herakles' affections return to her should they ever stray.
 * You'd Expect: She'd put two and two together. This centaur has bad intentions towards her. This centaur hates her husband. He's not actually going to give her something helpful. He was shot with poisoned arrows. Love potion = deadly poison.
 * Instead: At a moment when Herakles has fallen in love with another woman, she tries to save her marriage by using the love potion on him. It kills him brutally.
 * Cyrano De Bergerac, an Impoverished Patrician Starving Artist, unknown yet talented playwright, is offered the Patronage of Cardenal Richelieu, The most powerful man in all France and known playwright, who will only edit one or two verses of Cyrano’s unproduced play, "Agrippine".
 * You’d Expect: A serious, talented Starving Artist who has never been represented in scene will recognize this as a golden opportunity and be tolerant of a powerful Mecenas with a lot of money who really has experience with playwriting and whom really could improve "Agrippine".
 * Instead: Cyrano arrogantly invokes Protection From Editors and nastily rejects the patronage. To put things in perspective, rejecting Cardenal Richelieu’s patronage in The Cavalier Years Paris it’s like someone in Marvel Universe rejecting Doctor Doom’s patronage, or someone in DC Universe rejecting Lex Luthor’s patronage when he was President Evil of the United States.

Other
""That king, although no one denies/His heart was of abnormal size/Yet he'd have acted otherwise/If he'd have been acuter.""
 * In Bionicle, Takanuva, Gali, and Pohatu are fighting giant bugs. Business as usual for them really, but Takanuva is worried that his regular light powers won't be powerful enough. He does have a bunch of new toys, though!
 * You'd Expect: That he'd just use his new power-amplifying weapon if he was that worried. Or if he didn't want to drain his light powers, he has a blaster that could do it for him.
 * Instead: He uses his new shadow power without the amplifier, winning the fight but freaking his friends out and making them think he might be one of the evil shadow-slinging shapeshifters flying around.
 * Stan Kroenke, owner of the Denver Nuggets and their home arena, the Pepsi Center, is faced with the genuine possibility that his team might make the NBA playoffs. Problem is, he'd already scheduled a WWE Monday Night Raw broadcast during playoff week when, should the team actually make the playoffs, there's a 50/50 chance they'd be playing a home game.
 * You'd Think: That Kroenke would alert WWE to the possible conflict months in advance, and allow them the possibility that they may need to find another venue for that date.
 * Instead: He waits until the Nuggets make the playoffs and the playoff schedule was officially announced (which deemed the Monday night game a home game), thus giving WWE all of six days to move their event somewhere else. And offered them a much, much smaller venue to run their broadcast from. And did all this to Vince McMahon, widely acknowledged as the world's richest carny. The whole thing spun into a vicious firestorm of negative publicity for Kroenke, the Nuggets, and the NBA, which Vince was only too happy to stoke, making the rounds of various sports shows to talk about how little confidence Kroenke had in his team. The Nuggets' playoff rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, got in on the Nugget-bashing by giving WWE their arena, the Staples Center, to do the broadcast. All in all, the whole fiasco meant tons of lost revenue for Denver and a whole lot of egg on Kroenke's face.
 * The titular monarch in the song "There Lived a King" from The Gondoliers, who was grieved that not everyone was as well-off as he.
 * You'd Expect: He call together the best minds on economics and try to work out a policy that prospered as much of the population as possible, and revisit it from time to time.
 * Instead: He promotes each person in the kingdom to the top of the hierarchy of their chosen métier.


 * One commercial has a pair of teenage boys calling their mother and complaining they are hungry. The mother says to go make themselves Tostino's (a frozen pizza snack), with the boys complaining that they don't have any.
 * You'd Expect: The boys to actually look around the freezer first before discovering whether or not they have the said snack.
 * Instead: Their eyes are glued to their right while the snack is just a few inches away on their left. The mother seems to know the boys are too lazy to actually look so she says "Front, left, Tostino's!" God forbid anything happens to these kids should their mother be gone for an extended period of time.

Real Life

 * Adolf Hitler was not exactly the sharpest knife in the military drawer.
 * December 7, 1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler's rather busy trying to crush rebellious Great Britain, whose Royal Air Force has been giving his Luftwaffe what-for for the better part of two years.
 * You'd Expect: Hitler to quietly rejoice that the second-largest, most powerful military force in the world is otherwise occupied, particularly since he has the world's greatest military force also giving him what-for on the Eastern Front.
 * Instead: He promptly declares war on the United States. This turns out to be a mistake.
 * WWII: Hitler decides to invade Russia.
 * You'd Expect: Hitler to analyze the geography and climate of his enemy, and realise that invading Russia successfully is only slightly more difficult than flying to Mars sans space shuttle. (Hint: Russia is enormous, and it is cold. This makes it almost impossible to successfully invade, and therefore makes Hitler's decision only slightly less moronic than the aforementioned declaration of war on the USA.)
 * Instead: He invades Russia. The battle is an almost total rout, as the entire population of the planet is likely not a sizable enough force to successfully invade Russia, especially considering his supply lines were almost totally cut off. All this ends with most of Hitler's army dead of starvation, freezing, or both.
 * On February 26, 1993, Mohammed Salameh used a Ryder truck to try to blow up the World Trade Center.
 * You'd Expect: That he'd be more concerned about hiding from arrest than about getting a few bucks back.
 * Instead: He makes a phone call to the company that rented him the truck, claiming that it was "stolen".
 * The one and only thing Paris Hilton has to do in order to claim her vast inheritance is behave like a decent, civilized human being.
 * You’d Expect: She'd behave like a decent, civilized human being.
 * Instead: She parties constantly, drinks and drugs to excess, makes a sex tape that leaks onto the internet, winds up in prison for several probation violations, and just generally embarrasses her family. Grandpa (Barron Hilton) pledges her cut of the Hilton fortune to charity.
 * Global Radio, the British equivalent of Clear Channel, decide to rebrand some stations in the East Midlands to "Capital".
 * You'd Expect: Listeners would accept the name, and think nothing has changed but the name (as they have done in North America).
 * Instead: They remove all local shows from RAM FM and Leicester Sound, relaying 96 Trent FM instead, and drop the local 1-4:00 PM (London time GMT) afternoon show off 96 Trent FM. The station becomes local only at breakfast (6-10:00 Am), drivetime (4-7:00 PM) and Saturday/Sunday morning (9:00 AM to 1:00 PM, previously 8:00 AM to Noon). Cue protests from listeners on social networking sites and complaints of They Changed It, Now It Sucks. Whether they did or not, opinions will differ on this.
 * Prodrive, a British racing team, got an F1 entry for 2008 which was based on using a customer chassis by McLaren-Mercedes. In Formula One, customer chassis were an area of dubious loopholes and it was very likely that mid-field teams would file protest against such a tactic.
 * You'd Expect: David Richards and Prodrive preparing a contingency plan in case a team files protest and costumer chassis get disallowed.
 * Instead: They let themselves get caught on the wrong foot and forfeit their entry for 2008.
 * In the 2011 NCAA Tournament, Ohio State played Kentucky. The Wildcats have just hit a shot to go up by two points with about five seconds left, and the Buckeyes have timeouts left.
 * You'd Expect: Thad Matta to call a timeout to help set up a final shot.
 * Instead: The Buckeyes try and get the ball up the court quickly, resulting in a bad shot and an early exit from the tournament.
 * World War II, the invasion of Normandy: Adolf Hitler's armies defending France are equipped with many deadly, high-powered Panzer tanks that will prove to be a nightmare for the Allies when they try to liberate France.
 * You'd Expect: That Der Fuhrer would authorize his generals to unleash the Panzers whenever it was tactically necessary, and use their resources as efficiently as they can.
 * Instead: Hitler orders that the Panzers can only be used with his personal authorization. He's also completely terrified his subordinates, and lets them know that he hates being woken up in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, when the invasion of Normandy begins, Hitler is asleep and his stooges are too terrified of his wrath to go in and wake him up so he can give the order to use the Panzers. The end result is a Crowning Moment of Awesome for the Allies, and the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
 * It's 1187, and Saladin, having marched 30 000 men into Palestine, has to, somehow, beat the 20 000 men that the Crusaders could call up. The Fatimid king can only beat the crusaders on the field instead of sieges - and Saladin prepares to exploit this, baiting a trap for Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem by besieging a fortress which belongs to another high commander of the Crusaders, Raynald of Châtillon. Saladin leaves his main army behind to further improve his chances of making the bait work.
 * You'd Expect: As Raynald pointed out - stay where they are, in a safe place near an oasis. However, he was called a coward...
 * Instead: Which led to chivalry's notion of bravery rearing its ugly head. Guy marches his army through the desert - getting harrased by Muslim light cavalry along the way. Saladin forced the crusaders onto a plateau - thirsty, demoralized and with a situation so bad five Christian knights defecting to the Muslim side, the Crusaders attempted to get to the springs of Hattin - resulting in a battle in which the Crusaders get destroyed and Guy and Raynald captured. As Saladin wrote later on, "Satan incited Guy to do what ran counter to his purpose." indeed.
 * A science teacher at a local high school wanted to get out of work several times, so she creates a fake jury duty notice to show to her superiors.
 * You'd Expect: That the teacher would double check the fake notice to make sure it looked legit.
 * Instead: The woman wound up making several spelling errors (sighted instead of cited, trails instead of trials, etc.) on the documents, which got her bosses to catch on and fire her, plus forcing her to pay back the money she took from the Department of Education during her "time off" from work.
 * A young second grade teacher decides she wants to take a break. She calls in a sick day.
 * You'd Expect: She and her husband would take in a movie or maybe a ball game. At the very least, you'd expect her to do something low-key.
 * Instead: She dons a bikini, goes on shock jock Howard Stern's radio show, and wins a "hot wife" contest. Pictures of her are put on Stern's website. She then comes home to find that her school FOUND OUT about the Stern show, and that they have fired her because she violated a school district morality code by both going on the show and taking a sick day under false pretenses.
 * So: She sues the school district, despite the fact that the morality clause was in the contract that she signed when she took the job. She loses the prize money she won from the Stern show to lawyer fees, and she still has no job with the school district post-lawsuit.