Adults Are Useless: Difference between revisions
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But on a handful of drama shows, there's a real venom to it. ''[[Radio Free Roscoe]]'' is about a group of heroic teens who defy a tyrannical school administration. On a smaller scale, ''[[Degrassi the Next Generation]]'' has episodes where it is implied that stealing school property is no big deal, but it's disgraceful to inform on the thief.
Shows where
Also common when [[Not Now, Kiddo|adults are told something is happening, but simply don't believe it]], resulting in a [[Cassandra Truth]]. The logical extreme of this trope is [[There Are No Adults]].
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** "Mr. Poe meant well, but a jar of mustard probably also means well and would do a better job of keeping the Beaudelaires out of danger."
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[IT]]'', the children in the Loser's Club are the only ones who know what's really going on in Derry. The adults are ineffectual and many of the Losers have troubled home lives: Beverly Marsh's father is [[Abusive Parents|physically abusive]], Eddie Kaspbrak's mother is [[My Beloved Smother|neurotic and smothering]] and Bill Denbrough's parents spend all of their time grieving for their [[Dead Little Sister|younger son George]] and ignoring Bill.
** The book [[
* This happens constantly in ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]''. On the other hand, it is also occasionally averted and subverted, particularly in the massive battle near the end of the last book:
{{quote|"We shall secure the school against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named while you search for this -- this object."
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** It is lightly implied that Dumbledore does this intentionally in order to train Harry without the latter being aware of it, especially in the first book. And, when the adults actually do do something, it tends to be pretty spectacular- the Battle in the Atrium and the Inferi cave, in particular.
** Played straightest in ''Goblet.'' Several powerful wizards vow to find out how Harry's name got into the cup, and apparently find out ''nothing'' over the course of an entire school year.
* Subverted in the ''[[Grey Griffins]]'' series. Adults save the kids' asses a lot. Adults are pretty powerful, in fact, on both the hero and villain side of things. The number of important adult characters looking out for the [[Kid Hero
* In the build up to the [[Author Filibuster]] that was the fourth book, during the third book in the YA ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' series, one of the characters starts a child uprising against adults. Naturally, there's no such thing as a web-faring adult to also support/argue the issues, and the adults really are responsible for it all. After all, ''every'' adult so far in the series is evil, no matter how long they spend being friendly to begin with.
** Except Valencia Martinez, who is fairly useful and kind. (Although admittedly, {{spoiler|she did apparently allow her daughter to be made into an avian-human hybrid, but she does say that she was locked out of the project against her will. Possibly if she hadn't been, things might have turned out a little better.}})
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* In the ''[[Circle of Magic]]'' series, adults tend to be useful, excepting ''Street Magic''- when Briar attempts to get stone mage Jebilu Stoneslicer to teach Evvy, Stoneslicer proves himself to be selfish and useless- he tells Briar to take Evvy away from Chammur and to send her to Winding Circle. He then proceeds to make a number of assumptions about Evvy based solely on the fact that she is a poor orphan, and tells Briar that she will never get anywhere because of that. He does agree to teach her only after Rosethorn talks to him, and is later revealed to be the worst possible teacher for Evvy. Not to mention the scene when Briar is questioned by the mutabir, or leader of Chammur- Briar repeatedly suggests possible crimes to charge Lady Zenadia with, only to be informed that she is too high in rank to be bothered with such charges, and like Stoneslicer, the mutabir dismisses the teenage gang, the Vipers, and Evvy as poor people of no real value, and not worth helping.
* In [[Robin McKinley]]'s ''[[Deerskin]]'', a novel in which a king takes a rather [[Parental Incest|unhealthy interest in his daughter]], several adults notice this but neither do or say a thing to help her even when he announces he plans to marry her, because their king is above reproach. This does not end well.
* Averted in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series, where the adult wizards actually listen to and believe the child wizards,<ref>"So, a talking speck of light told you that the book which describes the entirety of reality has gone missing? Okay, thanks for telling us."</ref>
* Just about every ''[[Goosebumps]]'' book. Yes, some arguably have the excuse of magic hiding what's going on, but some cases are just silly. For example, in ''Say Cheese and Die...Again'', the narrator is cursed to continually gain weight, putting on more than three hundred pounds in one day, and his parents chalk it up to an allergy attack and leave him to just go to school as normal the next day. Even though he can't fit in their car. Meanwhile, his friend was cursed to continue to lose weight until she looks like "a stick with a lemon on the top", and again is just sent to school as normal. The site [http://www.bloggerbeware.com/ Blogger Beware] even has a "Questionable Parenting" section for each story.
** ''Chicken Chicken'' (book #53 of the original series) is even worse. It's painfully obvious that Crystal and Cole are turning into chickens (what with their feathers appearing and their lips turning hard and beak-like) and the parents ''DO NOTHING''. To make matters worse, they're preparing chicken for a barbecue in front of their affected kids ''and'' they laugh at Crystal and Cole when they start acting like chickens during the barbecue. No wonder Troy Steele (the guy who does Blogger Beware) hates his book.
* Did any of the adults (i.e. Ned and Alice Wakefield and/or the Sweet Valley Police) in ''[[Sweet Valley High]]'' ever do anything to prevent the insanity that coalesced around those "perfect size six" twins? Kidnappings, Murders, Rapes, all somehow involving the same two girls, the perpetrators constantly getting away only to cause 3-4 books worth of harassment. Parents who apparently allowed their 7 year old children the range of teenagers (if you think I'm kidding, go read some Sweet Valley Twins books where the kids go adventuring at night.)
* Every single adult in the book ''Little Chicago,'' save for a doctor and nurse at the start (and the protagonist's barely-adult sister) are ''horribly'' useless. After the eleven-year-old protagonist, Blacky, is molested by a family friend, he sees a social worker about it and the molester is put in jail. But after that, his mother is a neglectful woman who's almost constantly in a daze, stopped taking prescribed medicine for vanity purposes, and brought a drunk man
* In the ''[[Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]]'', with the exception of Jim, every adult that Huck meets is some kind of murderer, thief, charlatan, liar or phony. Of course, one of the points of the novel is the irony all those people like that looking down on a decent human being like Jim because he's black.
* Played straight and averted in the ''[[Babysitters Club]]'' books. Some of the parents, particularly those of the sitters themselves, are intelligent, reasonable, helpful people. Others are well-meaning but a bit clueless, and have to be given insight into their children's fears and wants by the sitters because they don't pick up on them otherwise. Possibly the straightest example of the trope are Jessi's parents, who thought it was perfectly acceptable to leave their eleven-year-old daughter in charge of her eight-year-old sister and two-year-old brother for ''an entire weekend''.
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== Live Action TV ==
* In ''[[3-2-1 Contact|3-2-1-Contact]]'''s "The Bloodhound Gang" segments, the adults who are the targets of con artists are typically complete idiots to the point where one easy mark has ''his own child'' have control of his own finances.
* The Australian kids' show ''[[Mirror Mirror]]'' managed an odd variant, where, aside from the Old Man, who was managing what has to be one of the most epic [[Gambit Roulette
** For the record: The adults in Louisa's family had no idea, and their tutor was in the pay of their rather nasty neighbour, who was hiding the son of Tsar Nicholas II, in a ploy to sell him back to Russia. As for Jo, her father gets clued in, but can't use the mirror. The worst offender would have been Dr Coigley, who was unknowingly working for the Old Man.
* Arguably ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'', as while all of the adults in the show constantly make terrible decisions and ruin any good thing that they get, George-Michael is running a relatively successful business and Maeby {{spoiler|cons her way into a job as a movie studio executive. This is further highlighted by the fact that one of Maeby's better ideas as an executive is ruined by Michael.}}
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* Oddly inverted in ''[[Persona 2]]''. The high schoolers that star in ''Innocent Sin'' mess everything up, and the adults in ''Eternal Punishment'' have to fix things. Although Tatsuya ''does'' join in later on.
** Absent in ''[[Persona 3]]'' which features adults in on the masquerade to some extent and try to help you outside of the main conflict region of the Midnight Hour, but can't do anything directly. Also, one of the first tier [[Big Bad|BigBads]] is an adult.
** Justified in ''[[Persona 4]]'' where the conflict occurs in a region where the police have no access and the people who do are either indoctrinated into the masquerade or are former victims. The
* Put to obnoxiously [[Anvilicious]] use in ''[[Wild Arms 4]]''. You'll be sick of seeing it played out by the time you clear the first dungeon.
* ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' is ''especially'' cruel - Literally ''all'' of the adults are either just standing around, willing to netbattle instead of try to fix things, or nothing. The only competent adults are either involved with the WWW (Even Baryl & Colonel), Mr. Higsby, (For different reasons) or Lan's dad.
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* ''[[Penny and Aggie]]'' has slipped into this. While adults used to be shown as being reasonably aware of things you'd expect them to know about their kids, "The Popsicle War" has a student widely publicize a video in which she accuses another student of lesbian rape, to the point where even all the students at a completely different school know about it within a few hours... and not a single adult shows awareness of this, not even the administrators you'd expect to be concerned about a student rapist in their population.
** [[Averted Trope|Averted]] gradually but decisively with regard to [[The Sociopath|Cyndi's]] dangerous and [[For the Evulz|sadistic]] schemes, beginning in "Her Private Chambers" when Penny's parents, overhearing her and Stan discussing what she's done, resolve to act as Penny's "allies" in stopping her. In "Mister Smiles," Lynda acts on this by calling Cyndi's mother about her actions. Although this doesn't have an immediate effect, because Cyndi's an excellent [[Manipulative Bastard|liar and actor]], it does plant the first seeds of suspicion in her mother, at least. Finally, at the climax of "Missing Person," the FBI, investigating {{spoiler|Cyndi's kidnapping}}, examines her laptop, which her parents surrendered, and finds on it a private journal in which she details her past and future plans to {{spoiler|[[Driven to Suicide|drive her classmates to suicide]]}}. When Cyndi's parents view this after {{spoiler|Cyndi has talked her captor Charlotte into stabbing herself}}, they {{spoiler|commit her to a psychiatric hospital}}.
** Averted in "The Last Summer of Youth: May," when Penny's parents, Rob and Lynda, prevent a potential date rape at her
* In ''[[Suicide for Hire]]'', nobody seems to bother to investigate what their teenage offspring are up to, nor get suspicious at the rash of teen suicides (despite [http://suicideforhire.comicgenesis.com/d/20080217.html their utter lack of subtlety]). Two adults so far have found out about SFH, but only in order to request its services.
* ''[[Precocious (Webcomic)|Precocious]]'' sometimes subverts and sometimes plays straight this trope. Most of the parents are just as smart as their kids, but the stuff those kids can get away with is astonishing sometimes.
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* Adults, at least in the Pregame of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', are almost always unable to stop any fights, bullying, drug use, stealing, etc. The main reason of this is that if handlers want to establish their characters as "bad", they don't want to have them be caught by adults, as that would ruin the reputation.
** Subverted to an extent in the v4 pre-game, where players were warned that inappropriate behaviour, if caught, would result in exclusion from the school trip.
* In ''[[KIKEN]]'', this is a [[Deconstructed Trope]]. That's because adults aren't ''entirely''
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** Really; we can add a lot of things done by some of the kids on that playground to this list. Half the stuff people do in ''[[Recess]]'' on a regular basis seem to be ignored by adults. Doesn't help that Ms. Finster is more keen on looking for kids chewing bubble gum or bringing outside toys in.
** Miss Grotke ususally subverts this trope, as she's usually always standing up for what the kids belive in and giving them advice, but at the same time, she can be pretty oblivious to the gang's plans.
** Weirdly, the only consistently [[Reasonable Authority Figure]] is King
*** Eleven or twelve,
** Subverted in [[The Movie]]. It starts out like this, but then the kids bite off more than they can chew trying to stop the Evil Plot™ and the faculty have to rescue them.
* In ''[[Storm Hawks]]'', the entire free world is at risk of being overrun by a teenage supervillain... and the only people who can save the day are a bunch of plucky teen heroes. The only adults seen are either [[Miniature Senior Citizens|tiny elderly folk]] or [[Mooks|cannon fodder]].
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* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' half-averts this trope. The number of times the main characters have encountered useless, ineffectual or just plain stupid adults (Lao Bei Fong, General Fong) is about equal to the number of encounters with scarily competent and powerful adults (Iroh, King Bumi). Some are marginally useful, but rarely affect the plot directly (Hakoda, Piandao).
** In the third season, there are a number of useful adults, particularly during the Invasion. Most notably Sokka and Katara's father Hakoda, although Teo's [[Mad Scientist]] dad is also right behind him. The Boulder and the Hippo, along with Hugh and the Swamp Benders, also rank high. Naturally, {{spoiler|all of them are captured by the end of the episode to prevent them from stealing the spotlight any further}}.
** And then the [[Grand Finale]] has {{spoiler|the [[Old Master|old masters]], a whole ''squad'' of [[Badass Grandpa
** In all, it's more like
** Really, the adults are less useless on average than the children - it's more a problem of "next to Aang, Iroh, and Azula, no-one with significant screen time seems consequential."
* ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'': SpongeBob tells Ms. Puff to protect him from a threatening bully. That SpongeBob has to spell it out for her after the bully's drawn pictures of himself beating up the sponge is already dumb enough, but then he hears that she specifically used his name while talking to the bully about it. Said bully even threatens his own father when SpongeBob tries to use him for help.
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** However one of the Operatives' father ({{spoiler|namely Niegel aka Numbah 1's}}) turns out to be {{spoiler|The KND's greatest agent, Numbuh Zero, and was briefly recommissioned to help the KND fight against Grandfather and his legion of Senior Citizombies.}}
** There's also Numbuh Two's mother in her first appearance, when she defeats the Common Cold after the Kids have been unable to do so. Of course this was fairly early in the series and Mrs. Gilligan has a completely different personality in all subsequent appearances.
* Pick ''any'' adult on ''[[Moral Orel]]'' and you'll find some degree of uselessness or [[Jerkass
** The episode "Innocent" [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshades]] this by having the adults realize their careless advice is often what causes Orel (who takes things literally) to do the crazy things that he does. They're forced to acknowledge that ''maybe'' they don't actually know what they're talking about * gasp!* . Their "solution" isn't much better. The adults, including Orel's dad, try to avoid Orel entirely and, failing that, try to avoid giving advice and passes him off on someone else. The end result: {{spoiler|Orel tries to prove to God he is "innocent" by [[Blood Bath|bathing in his friends' blood]].}}
** Later on in the show, however, Reverend Rod Putty and Coach Daniel Stopframe subvert this, actually doing their part to help Orel.
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* Adults are so useless in ''[[Peanuts]]'' that they never appear onscreen or have any lines. Their voices are simulated by a muted trombone.
** That is taken from the comic strip, which was done that way to keep eye-level with the kids. Taller adults would have not worked in that format.
** This trope was always played straight in the strip, however, as the general message is that the kids are on their own to fend for
* Every adult in ''[[The Fairly Odd Parents]]'' is either incompetent (Mr. Turner, the Mayor), clueless (Mrs. Turner, Principal Waxaplax), indifferent (the Dinklebergs, the Buxaplentys), cowardly (Vicky's parents), or flat out evil (Crocker, Doug Dimmadome). Even on Yugopotamia, Mark's parents are utterly useless in an emergency (such as the Gigglepie invasion or the attempted assassination of Grippulon). Fairy adults seem fairly competent, albeit eccentric.
** Everyone above 10, actually.
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