Didn't Think This Through: Difference between revisions

* ''[[One Piece]]'' has the "Fake Straw Hat Pirates" based in Sabaody Archipelago after the time-skip. Since Monkey D. Luffy has attained even more infamy than ever before due to his part in the War at the Summit, One guy going by the name "Three Tongued" Demalo Black got the bright idea of posing as him and setting up a crew to pose as the Straw Hat Pirates, usually getting his way by relying on Luffy's fame to threaten people and recruit fearsome pirates into his crew. Unfortunately, round out the time they were recruiting the ''real'' Straw Hats came back, and it got steadily worse when they try to recruit a pair of [[Ax Crazy]] pirate captains who intend to kill the Straw Hats for more fame, and the Marines show up with [[Mecha-Mooks|Pacifistas]], with a Marine Captain personally knocking out Demalo Black with his axe [[Too Dumb to Live|for trying to talk smack to him, while pretending to be Luffy]].

* Almost happens in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. The cast are discussing ways to retrieve Asuna and the Great Grandmaster Key from the Big Bads, and get the idea to use Natsumi's artifact (which makes the enemy completely unable to sense your presence) to get close for an ambush. Unfortunately {{spoiler|The [[Anti-Magic]] field coming from Asuna would make that plan useless.}} They almost go with the plan until Ako realizes the flaw. Cue Yue coming up with a workable solution, and a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for everyone involved.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Batman]]'' villain Warren "Great White Shark" White successfully pled insanity to escape embezzlement charges. He was sent to Arkham and wound up at the mercy of Gotham's worst psychopaths. Oops.

* The Human Torch (not Johnny Storm, [[The Golden Age of Comic Books| the original one]]) once fought a villain called Asbestos Lady, who figured the best way to fight a fire-based hero was by using an asbestos costume. Know how she died? From cancer. Go figure.

 

== Film ==

'''Carmen:''' And that you've done. Now what?

'''Dusty:''' Well, we really didn't expect the first part of the plan to work, [[Indy Ploy|so we have no further plan]]. Sometimes you can overplan these things. }}

* In ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'', [[Evil Chancellor|Jafar]] is defeated when Aladdin tricks him into wishing to become an all-powerful genie. Jafar either forgot or was not aware that genies in this setting are bound to a magic lamp and obliged to grant wishes ''by nature''.

{{quote|'''Genie:''' It's all part and parcel of the whole Genie gig. [[Large Ham|PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER!]] ...Itty-bitty living space.}}

* In ''[[Monster Hunter International]] Siege'' a lawyer (who is a [[Contest Winner Cameo]]) steals an important file from under the protagonist's noses and, thinking they work for the mafia, tries to blackmail them for it. His attempt is the worst blackmail possible. He sets up a meeting in person ''in front of his work place'' so the people supposedly being blackmailed just need to look at his employer's website to find his real name and share his face with their comrades. He sets up this meeting in a seedy bar downtown... while still looking like a successful lawyer and standing out to a crazy degree. Despite having seen how blatantly huge Owen Pitt, one of the people he attempts to blackmail, is and believing they work for the mafia, is totally unprepared for the possibility of physical threat. When a third party enters and threatens him, he ''still'' hasn't learned his lesson and starts from the top. When the protagonists effortlessly dispatch the third party with firearms and tell him they were a zombie and some necromancers, he '''still''' tries to go through with the blackmail before finally admitting he kept the file on his person. Owen Pitt dubs him the "worst blackmailer ever".

 

* An episode of ''[[Blake's 7]]'' [[Played for Laughs|plays this for laughs]] with its [[Justified Trope|justification]]: when Vila asks Tarrant if he can actually dock their tiny ship into the [[Cool Ship|Liberator]] that they have just reclaimed from [[Big Bad|Servalan]], the following exchange occurs. (Incidentally, it's just a throwaway gag, since the very next scene has them already back on the Liberator safely.)

{{quote|'''Tarrant:''' I hadn't really considered it.

'''Vila:''' What?

'''Tarrant:''' I thought we'd be dead by now. }}

* In a ''[[Saved by the Bell]]'' episode, Zack has detention on the day of a trivia contest for a trip to Hawaii. He send's Screech in his place, who comes back to ask him a question. Mr. Belding explains only those in detention can talk to others there, so Screech purposely gets in trouble. When he sits down, Zack tells him the obvious problem with that plan.

* On an episode of ''[[Seinfeld]]'' Kramer is at a department store when he decides to sell the clothes he's wearing to another customer. When he's left naked in the store's changing room with nothing to put on, he whimpers, "I didn't think it through!"

== Newspaper Comics ==

* [http://www.dilbert.com/2011-10-22/ This] ''[[Dilbert]]'' strip.

 

== Video Games ==

* In the ''[[Thundercats 2011|ThunderCats (2011)]]'' episode "The Forest of Magi Oar," the young hero Lion-O begins to recognize and [[Lampshade Hanging]] his own lack of forethought. When he uses his gauntlet's [[Grappling Hook Pistol]] to latch onto a retreating [[Giant Flyer]] Viragor, Lion-O has just enough time to realize "[[Oh Crap|maybe this is a bad idea]]" before he gets violently dragged along for the ride. Shortly thereafter, he faces down the charging [[Big Badass Bird of Prey]] after [[Sheathe Your Sword|tossing his weapons aside]]. Again, he muses, "[[This Is Gonna Suck|probably another bad idea]]," seconds before it grabs him in its talons. The latter gamble does manage to [[Subverted Trope|pay off]], since, on a hunch {{spoiler|Lion-O is betting Viragor proves [[Dark Is Not Evil]]}}.

* In an episode of ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters]]'', the heroes confront the werewolf Fangster and a mob of other werewolves created from stray dogs. Tracy's solution to dealing with him involves a collapsible cage pulled from his ghost-pack, but Fangster isn't impressed, sarcastically asking how they intend to get him in there. Indeed, this idea fails to work and they have to fall back and think of something else.

 

== Real Life ==

* Many of [[Donald Trump]]'s detractors have stated that simply thinking a few minutes before hitting the "Send" button on Twitter might have solved a lot of his problems.

** The most notable example was the [[w:2021 storming of the United States Capitol|January 6, 2021 Capitol Building riot]], which he at least partially encouraged. Breaking and entering the seat of the United States government (something that did not happen even during the [[American Civil War]]) and assaulting police is ''not'' the right way to convince everyone that the opposing candidate "stole" the election. The blatant act of terrorism caused Trump to lose much of his already waning support, and also caused the press to refer to him with words like "fascist", "traitor", and "Nazi", which they had, up to then, tried hard to avoid doing. Whatever the case, it was obvious to everyone [[Captain Obvious| it did not improve his political career or reputation]], likely ruining it and that of many others.

** The storm of pardons he issued in his final weeks in office. Accepting a pardon by American law is an admission of guilt by the pardoned party, but worse, doing so removes the recipient's protection against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment (because they can't be prosecuted they can't incriminate themselves); consequently they can be compelled to testify -- in this case, against Trump. It took several weeks for this to occur to anyone in Trump's White House (at which point it was too late); Federal investigators, of course, were aware of this and are more than happy to trade the convictions of a few underlings for testimony against Trump himself.

** His border wall - likely the keystone of his original campaign - was an ill-conceived and unrealistic goal right from the start, for many reasons:

* Conservative lawyers fought all the way to the Supreme Court to win the right to let businesses refuse to serve anyone they care to -- a right that they only imagined being used by Christian bakeries to refuse to make cakes for gay weddings. Two years after the Supreme Court decision, social media outlets, online merchant sites, large banks, the PGA, and other private companies quickly and publicly stopped doing business with [[Donald Trump]] -- who was President when the Supreme Court decision was handed down.

* In 2010, Todd Davis, the CEO of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeLock LifeLock], had the "brilliant" idea to ''reveal his actual Social Security Number'' in a commercial, claiming his product would prevent ''any'' hacker from using it to steal his identity. Unfortunately, thirteen hackers proved him wrong. Adding insult to injury, such an [[Epic Fail]] undermined their customers' confidence in the product, and LifeLine was fined millions for deceptive advertising.

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[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]