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* The scene that would have filled the plot hole was cut due to time constraints or other reasons.
* [[Adaptation-Induced Plothole|While adapting a story to a new medium]], the adaption team made a wrong assumption about a future [[Plot Point]], and added a detail which was later contradicted by the creator of the source material (Compare [[Overtook the Manga]]). Another one is [[Adaptation Explanation Extrication|removal of the explanation for a plot element]] without which the [[Plot]] element doesn't make sense.
* [[Dub
* In comedies, the plot hole may be deliberately induced as [[Rule of Funny|the basis for a joke]], usually consisting of [[Lampshade Hanging]].<ref>By definition, a plot hole cannot be [[Justified]], but if it is used by the author in this way, then it's not a case of bad writing.</ref>
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* In ''[[Naruto]]'', {{spoiler|the title character is the son of the Fourth Hokage}} but none of the kids in his class are able to figure that out. Considering the Fourth Hokage's face is ''sculpted onto a mountain'', surely at least one kid would have made the obvious connection, considering that [[I Knew It!|it was blatantly obvious from the start]]. It might be argued that a few had figured it out and kept it a secret, but then why wouldn't they treat [[The Messiah|Naruto]] with more respect?
** He is also said to have failed the final exams three times (and the exam at the start of the series is his fourth), but is in the same age group as others from his class (who are presumably taking it for the first time). This would mean he must have advanced through the earlier classes much faster than others (notably [[The Rival|Sasuke]] and even [[Arrogant Kung Fu Guy|Neji]]) and yet he is called a failure and a dropout.
*** This is explained by how the Japanese school system differs from the Western system. In Japan, students never get held back a grade regardless of how poorly they perform. Failing your end-of-year exams simply means that you hose your overall class ranking and can't get accepted into the better schools after completing primary school.
** Now that it has been confirmed that {{spoiler|Both of Naruto's parents died very shortly ater he was born (maybe hours later)}} this begs the question: From that day to where the story starts, {{spoiler|who raised Naruto when he was too young to take care of himself}}? This is even made further confusing when it is mentioned several times that Naruto was treated like a pariah in his childhood and that people wouldn't even want to go near him.
** Naruto's nine-tailed demon fox beast must be 'exorcised' last, not down to a case of numerical order; as numbers 1 to 8 don't need to be harvested in any particular order - no explanation for this has been issued - all seems a case of simple convenience.
*** For no particular reason, Naruto's beast is hailed ''the strongest of all''; allegedly because it has ''the most tails'', though the one tailed belonging to a fellow child that has since been written out the story (the beast that is) and six have hardly been present within the series, so where's our proof?
*** The Four-Tails once pointed out the fox made the assumption it was the strongest, due to having the most tails.
*** Furthermore, we are later informed that all tailed beasts merge to create one new entity; 9 beasts in unity create a 10 tailed beast - meaning all beast are actually equally significant, therefore; why don't they unite to create a 45 tailed beast?
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* In the ''[[Dragon Ball]] Z'' anime, Garlic Jr. shouldn't exist being that the movie he mentions his backstory in, ''Dead Zone'', contradicts the first episode (No one knowing of Goku's son, Gohan).
* In ''[[Trigun]]'', Vash possesses a special revolver that has a hidden function of grafting to his arm and mutating it into an energy weapon of mass destruction. When Vash tries to stop Knives at the city of July, Knives exerts some control over the gun that forces Vash to destroy the city against his will. The same thing happens decades later in another city, leaving Vash emotionally devastated and fearful of causing more harm. So...why doesn't he just destroy the gun?
=== Comic Books ===
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** Similar Ms. Marvel gets killed twice. When questioned about this the writers claimed, tongue-in-cheek, that one was her identical twin sister.
* One [[Superman]]/[[Batman]] [[Plot]] involved Dr. Light pulling the mother of all [[What an Idiot!]] moments with ''his entire plan'', but one part of it made no sense: Dr. Light builds a rather phallic magic wand using some kind of crap about Zatanna's magic being based around light. OK. So how the fuck did it get ''to the North Pole''? (Of course, this is ''far'' from the only problem with that story, but what the hell).
* A revelation in ''[[Wolverine]]'' says that Logan's adamantium is actually toxic and his healing factor is constantly having to counteract blood poisoning. Not only should a non-reactive indestructible metal [[Artistic License Chemistry|not work like that]] (there's a reason metals like titanium and stainless steel are used in surgical implants), but it creates a big fat plot hole in the perfectly healthy forms of Lady Deathstrike, Cyber, and Bullseye (all of whom have adamantium skeletons) and the formerly healthy Hammerhead (who had an adamantium skull). You could [[Hand Wave]] Deathstrike and Cyber (both being cyborgs who could presumably have systems that could deal with the toxicity). The otherwise normal human Bullseye and Hammerhead? Not so much.
** Another version of that was that the process of bonding metal to Wolverine's bones interfered with his body's ability to replenish red blood cells (because that's what bone marrow is for), meaning that without his healing factor to do the job he'd soon die of massive anemia. Which has the benefit of at least making some kind of sense by comic-book standards.
*** While that explanation would explain Hammerhead (the man's only had one bone replaced, and that in his skull, so his bone marrow is still mostly there) it would not explain Bullseye, who has no healing factor and has had most of his large marrow-containing bones replaced.
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* ''[[Rock-a-Doodle]]''. The farm animals believe that the rooster Chanticleer causes the sun to rise when he crows. Except one day Chanticleer doesn't crow and the sun rises anyway, so the animals make fun of him until he leaves. Then while he's gone, the sun never rises on the farm because Chanticleer isn't there to crow. So why did the sun come up that one time?
** [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]] in-story; "Have you ever woken before your alarm, looked around sleepily, and then gone back to sleep to wait for it to go off?" Does this implication of an anthropomorphic sun just raise more questions? Maybe. But if you can accept a talking rooster going off to be a [[Film]] star...
* In the original ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'', why does Buzz act like a toy (i.e., go inert) around Andy and other humans before he knows he's a toy?
** [[Word of God]] says that that is an involuntary response to humans being present, and you have to try really hard to overcome it, which only happens once anyway.
** Besides, he might not admit he's a toy, but he could very well realise it, just be in denial about it. Nothing in the movie indicates otherwise.
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* In ''[[Ocean's Eleven]]'', the duffel bags of hooker ads magically appear in the vault elevator. [[Matt Damon]] and George Clooney don't carry them in. The Chinese acrobat couldn't fit them into his small case (nor could they get them up to the elevator, which was stopped), and the security guys carry them out before the fake SWAT team gets there.
** Not to mention the small point that the amount of money they were stealing (assuming that each bill was $100, which wouldn't be likely) would weigh 3,520 lbs and couldn't be carried out by 8 men. Much less, fit into a few briefcases.
** In the movie, an EMP was used to black out Vegas temporarily. That's not how those machines work, and the electronics affected would be turned into useless metal (not just offline for a few moments, as in the movie). Planes would fall out of the sky, patients in hospitals would die, and the entire area would be left without electricity/working parts until ''everything'' affected was replaced. That means that the plan goes from a utilizing a prank-like power surge to a major terrorist attack costing potentially billions of dollars and hundreds of lives. As for the suggestion that hospitals have backup power, so does casino security. To defeat one you must defeat both.
* ''[[
* In ''[[Terminator]] 2'', the T-1000 is sent back in time despite the fact that it is all metal, which contradicts the previous film's assertion that only objects surrounded by living tissue can travel through time. The discrepancy is never addressed in the series.
** Possibly averted. In the first film, Kyle Reese admitted he didn't fully understand the physics. "I didn't build the fucking thing!"
*** Additionally, we already know that Skynet has the technology to wrap a robot in a layer of living human tissue because that's how the T-800s work. It would be easy to provide a similar layer for the T-1000 that it then ditches when it no longer has need of it; indeed, the engineering problem of making a one-use disposable layer of tissue would be notably simpler than making one that had to credibly hold up a human impersonation for a prolonged period of time under all the stresses of field use.
* ''[[Terminator]] 3'' The Skynet itself. At the end, John realizes that there's no server to destroy, that Skynet has become sentient by distributing itself among virtually every computer in the country. This contradicts the first two films' statements and implications that Skynet is an actual physical computer. The actual core itself is even shown in the Universal Studios attraction based on the Terminator films. (Granted, a theme park ride probably can't be considered canon, but still...)Also, the first film is a predestination paradox wherein the machines' attempts to kill John Connor is what causes him to be conceived in the first piece -- (also, though a cut scene was shot, not shown explicitly in the first movie; that sending the T800 back to kill Connor allowed Cyberdyne to create Skynet and the advanced machines in the first place) -- But the second movie created a paradox that should have wiped John Connor from the face of existence. T3 fixed the ending of T2 by allowing a way for the war and Skynet to still happen, and John's father can still go back and do what need to be done, but as result sending Terminators back in time to kill certain key players becomes an exercise in futility in itself and they cannot kill anyone before they're destined to die.
** Terminator 1 states that Kyle Reese comes from a possible future and the first two films state that the future can be changed. By averting the bad future all the Connors have done in respect to John's existence is create a parallel future which has interacted with theirs.
* In ''[[Terminator Salvation]]'', Skynet somehow knows Kyle Reese is John Connor's dad. It has no way of knowing this, unless John was somehow dumb enough to spread the information around while fully aware his sworn enemy has access to time travelling robots.
* In ''[[Flight Plan]]'', the crew finds out that Kyle Pratt's daughter supposedly died with her father. No one on the crew thought to point out the obvious: where is the other casket? If she was just acting out of grief and delusion, there should be two caskets in the plane, not just the one carrying her dead husband. Good thing Pratt's not an [[Idiot Ball]]. There is also a rare case of [[Lampshade Hanging]] making everything worse: Kyle does ask Carson where the other casket is and he claims that he doesn't care after the trouble she's caused everyone on board. While it's later revealed that he is the villain, this still only calls attention to the fact that Captain Rich and the other flight attendants don't care either. See: [[Voodoo Shark]].
** There's also the matter that for "The Twist" to work someone would have had to pick up the daughter and carry her to the hiding place. How did no one notice him doing this? For that matter, nobody in nearby seats, except for another child right at the end of the [[Film]], ever mentioned seeing the child.▼
▲There's also the matter that for "The Twist" to work someone would have had to pick up the daughter and carry her to the hiding place. How did no one notice him doing this? For that matter, nobody in nearby seats, except for another child right at the end of the [[Film]], ever mentioned seeing the child.
* ''[[The Butterfly Effect]]'' has several. [[Timey-Wimey Ball|Time-traveling inconsistencies]] throughout the story aside... When he's trying to convince someone he is altering the past, he use a trip back in time to give himself injuries sure to leave scars, and instead of the entire time between being rewritten so he always had those scars like every other time, they just magically appear in front of the person he's trying to convince. This also contradicts the idea present throughout (and in the title of) the film that minor changes would alter [[The Protagonist|the protagonist's]] life forever - in all other cases, changing a minor detail leads to a completely different future scenario, here, it's ''exactly'' the same (ending up in the same prison with the same people and in the exact same situation?).
* In ''[[Evil Dead|Army of Darkness]]'' has a few, given the loose and silly nature of the [[Film]].
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** When Ash escapes from The Pit, as spiked walls close on it. Several minutes later, the monster from the pit climbs out, despite the walls still being closed, and Ash shoots it with his shotgun that he didn't have a few seconds earlier, causing it to fall back into the pit and land in the water below.
** After Ash takes the [[Tome of Eldritch Lore|Necronomicon]] and wakes the eponymous army of the dead, he rides back to the castle from the graveyard in what seems like an hour or so. But later on when a scout reports on the army's position, he says that it will take a few ''days'' for them to arrive.
* In his review of ''[[Memento]]'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20121003112235/http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=
* A big plot hole occurs at the end of ''[[Alone in the Dark (2005 film)|Alone in The Dark]]''. The Xenos (the aliens that Carnby has been fighting for half of the movie) are supposed to be weak against light, but he and Cedrac are attacked by them in broad daylight after they emerge from underground.
* ''[[Die Hard 2]]'': The terrorists hold the planes hostage in the air by shutting down the lights at Dulles Airport. Given the amount of time and fuel the planes are depicted as having, they could have easily made it to dozens of other civilian or military airports. Any of the '''three''' other airports in the DC area could have warned the airborne planes with their own non-crippled radio system and then the terrorist threat evaporates.
** Actually, the warning could have been delivered using ''any radio at all'' capable of transmitting on aviation guard frequency—including the radios in any of the parked planes, handheld or vehicle-mounted aviation emergency radios, the radio at the police station used to talk to the police helicopter units, or possibly even a relatively advanced ham radio setup.
** Given that the planes had sufficient fuel to loiter on station for 2–3 hours they had enough fuel to divert to ''Atlanta'', let alone someplace nearby like Boston.
* In ''[[
* In ''[[The Fugitive (film)|The Fugitive]]'', Helen Kimble clearly tells the 911 operator that "There's someone in my house". As in, an intruder, not her husband. Yet the prosecution fails to notice this, and his defense lawyers fail too as well. At the very least, it would have provided the jury with reasonable doubt.
** Didn't the defense attorney point that out in the movie, only for the prosecutor to counter that it was a reasonable statement to make for a woman who had just heard an intruder enter the house several rooms away at a time she was not expecting her husband to be home until a few hours later?
* The ''[[S Club 7]]'' movie has a ton of them.
** First of all the band see supposedly live footage of themselves performing in Los Angeles (meant to be their clones). Except the footage being shown is from their Carnival Tour when Paul was still in the band, so none of them comments on why there is a seventh band member onstage or why Jo, Jon and Hannah have extremely different hairstyles from their clone counterparts when they seem them later. And the exact same performance is shown again at the end of the movie, still meant to be a live show.
** Second of all the trio that kidnap the clones - Jo, Bradley and Tina - are the ones that find out who Victor Gaughan is and that they were cloned. When the real Jon, Hannah and Rachel get kidnapped Jon says "Gaughan is going to clone us again" when he shouldn't have any idea who Gaughan is or that they've even been cloned in the first place. Later when the whole band meet Gaughan Rachel asks "are you the man who bought the knickers off the internet?" when again, she shouldn't know that. Though if you wanted to, you could suggest that the other three explained to them in the couple of minutes they left the cell to when they were captured again.
** To get the clones to revolt, the Bradley clone gives a passionate speech about how great the outside world is...when his only experience of it was the week or so he'd been on tour and kept in careful isolation. While it is shown that the clones get programmed to love what the real band members love, it's unlikely Alistair would give them programming to make them want to rebel. He also mentions boomerangs but the Rachel and Hannah clones had no idea what a boomerang was until they were kidnapped so why should Bradley know? Now if the Rachel, Hannah or Jon clones had given the speech then that would make sense.
** When the band kidnaps three of the clones, they do so while shooting a music video and we see the real Hannah and Jon having to improvise the dance routine since they haven't learned it yet. However we see Rachel following it perfectly when she shouldn't know it at all.
** Rachel switches with her clone by sitting down in front of a piece of glass, pretending it's a mirror and then copying what the clone does. How the hell did she pull that off? The clones are a bit dim but you'd think they know how a mirror works.
** Jo's clone does not appear in the shower scenes (in real life she had a back injury which required for her role to be less physical) but the other clones don't mention where she is, especially since they say Jon must be reported to Alistair for not showering with them.
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* In [[Fantastic Voyage]] there's a major plot hole in that the submarine (or the individual molecules which make up the submarine) do not grow back to their original size and [[Body Horror|gruesomely kill the patient]] at the end. Neither does the crew member who was killed and left behind. When writing the book, Asimov managed to fix these and some of the other holes.
** This particular Plot Hole is parodied in a [[The Simpsons (animation)|Simpsons]] episode takeoff where the family has to save [[Big Bad|Mr. Burns]] {{spoiler|At the end, [[Idiot Hero|Homer]] is left behind and does grow back to size [[Body Horror|living inside Mr. Burns's skin at his full size]].}}
* ''[[Resident Evil: Afterlife]]'': Alice somehow manages to land her plane on the roof of the prison in downtown Los Angeles, but we see beforehand that it is almost completely out of fuel. She barely even makes it to the roof, and then crash lands on it. Despite seeing this, the characters immediately start demanding that she fly them out of there, and one of them later steals the plane. Where did the fuel come from?
* In ''[[Spider-Man]] 2'', Harry tells Doc Ock that in order to find Spider-Man he must find Peter first. Doc Ock finds Peter with Mary Jane in the cafe and throws a car through the window straight at them. Any normal man would've been killed instantly, and Doc Ock doesn't know that Peter is Spider-Man. Given that Peter is his only lead on Spider-Man, it makes no sense that Doc Ock would effectively try to kill him. Near the film's climax, Spider-Man asks Harry to tell him the location of Doc Ock's hideout so he can save MJ and the city. Which Harry does. But how did Harry know where Doc Ock's hideout was in the first place? Doc Ock never tells him, and there's no evidence he's been keeping tabs on Ock.
* ''[[Spider-Man]] 3'' has a huge gap of logic. Namely, how in the hell does Eddie Brock/Venom know anything at all about Sandman?! Much less, about how Spider-Man won't let him help his sick daughter?! Readers of the comic may know the symbiote bestows information about Peter to Eddie in his venom costume, giving a reasonable explanation about how he knows about Sandman. Not quote so much about the daughter, though. However, this is not outright stated in the film so newcomers may still be in the dark.
* In ''[[Star Trek II: The
* The [[Harry Potter (film)|film series of ''
** In ''[[Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)|Prisoner of Azkaban]]'' Lupin berates Harry for being so careless as to wander the corridors at night with a map that could lead a murderer right to him. Except that it is never explained to either Harry or the audience a) How Lupin knows that the blank piece of parchment is a map b) How Sirius Black would know that it was a map c) Why Harry having the map makes it any more dangerous, as Sirius would have to get to him in order to get the map d) Why Lupin keeping the map makes it safer, as surely it would be an advantage if Harry saw that Sirius was anywhere in the castle grounds he could just run in the opposite direction.
** "Why Harry having the map makes it any more dangerous" can be explained without knowing the information left out from the book if you assume that Lupin was worried Harry would be careless with the map and leave it lying around where Sirius could find it.
** The lack of explanation about the Marauders leads over into all the successive films, as in ''[[Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]'' and ''[[Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)|Order of the Phoenix]]'' Harry refers to Sirius as Padfoot for no apparent reason. The significance of his patronus being a stag and Lily and {{spoiler|Snape's}} being a doe is left unexplained, which also causes Harry's insistence that it was James who saved him and Sirius from the dementors in PoA to look incredibly stupid.
** Sirius never gives Harry the two-way mirrors, so in ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1]]'' the mirror shard appears out of nowhere with no explanation. Sure this is mentioned later, when Aberforth explains that Mundungus stole it and sold it, but anyone who hadn't read the books would probably be hard pressed to remember who that was. Also, what sort of
** The scene explaining the taboo on Voldemort's name in ''DH'' is deleted, so it just looks like the trio either have incredibly bad luck, or the Death Eaters are fantastic trackers who don't tell Voldemort where to find Harry and inexplicably go after him themselves, and Xenophilius Lovegood is insane, but happens to have incredible timing.
** At the beginning of ''Deathly Hallows
* The captor's plan in ''[[Nine Dead]]'' largely depends on him knowing information that he simply did not possess or had access to. Having presumably witnessed his son's trial and the insurance company's investigation, he should at least know the identities of Kelly, Chan, Eddie, and maybe Jackson (if he was the investigating officer). He could have found out the identity and whereabouts of Coogan based on information his son would have provided him and some additional research. However, he never knew anything about Christian and Sulley's deal, Leon selling the gun to Christian, Christian confessing to Father Francis that he was the real robber, or Kelley and Jackson committing legal fraud, nor could he have known without being omniscient.
* In ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' (2009) why do they need to drill to the center of a planet to create a black hole? Wouldn't dropping the red matter on the surface work just as well?
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** A possible interpretation is that Athos was the bastard child of a lord. He gave his mistress (Athos's mom) a ring, which she eventually gave to Athos, the lord's illegitimate child and therefore not officially recognized as his "son".
* Marie Michon, the "seamstress" in Tours, signs her name as "Aglaé Michon" in one of her letters. Of course, this could be some kind of code, but it's never explained.
* [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Shining]]'' has a minor hole. Near the beginning, Ullman recites some of the hotel's history to Jack Torrance at length, during which he mentions that the roque court was installed by Horace Derwent in the late 1940s. Much later, Jack finds a rule book for a roque tournament held at the Overlook in the 1920s.
* In the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
* In ''[[Harry Potter and
** In ''[[Harry Potter and
** The Marauders Map creates a huge plot hole. Somehow Fred and George Weasley fail to notice for ''two years'' that there is someone named Peter Pettigrew in their brother Ron's dorm every night...
** The ''entire plot of Harry Potter'' is born in a giant plot hole. The deaths of the Potters is the defining element of Harry's life, and yet in book 7 we are shown that its entirely possible for a resident of a house under a Fidelius charm to be their ''own'' Secret-Keeper, and thus be completely safe. Had James or Lily just used themselves as a Secret-Keeper, nothing happens.
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* In the case of ''[[Dead Souls]]'' just because parts of the second half of the novel are literally missing, since Gogol originally wanted to destroy the whole text. Sadly, the complete story is now [[Lost Forever]].
* In-universe example in ''[[The Kite Runner]]'' - as a child, Amir writes a story about a man who cries pearls. The man in the story isn't weepy by nature, and has to do increasingly horrific things to make himself cry. At the end of the story he's murdered his wife. The servant, Hassan, points out that the man could have just cut onions instead and Amir is shocked that even uneducated and illiterate servants can know about things like plot holes.
** The disbelief stems more from the idea that Hassan thought of something he didn't, meaning a servant had outsmarted him. Given that he's just a child, and has presumably been told that the class system is fair, it's only natural for him to be confused by this.
* ''[[In Death]]'': Here's a big one...the story ''Glory In Death'' has Roarke killing off Morse to save Eve and Nadine's lives at the end. However, ''Immortal In Death'', the book that comes after, has Eve and Nadine talking about Morse is going to be put on trial and that Morse was not insane. How do you put a dead person on trial?
* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'' Retribution Kahlee Sanders mentions never hearing of the Reapers before, despite a major plot point of the previous book involving her discussing the Reapers with the quarian Admiralty Board.
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* In ''[[Ender's Game]]'': Clearly it's both possible and desirable for the Buggers to relocate a queen off the home world, since one is in the ship Mazer Rackham destroyed in the Second Invasion. So explain why all the queens are on the home world? Especially when they see the invasion coming enough to ship out an egg. How about a few queens instead?
** Considering that they knew the mind of the person who would be their executioner, they probably thought it futile. Ender Wiggin is ''scary'' when he's focused on something, and that doesn't change throughout the series, despite his taking three thousand years in order to atone for his "sin".
* As pointed out in a certain ''[[Warrior Cats]]'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20130626234537/http://hyperadam.deviantart.com/gallery/23785581 Abridge series] Yellowfang had no idea about the Dark Forests' plans to destroy the clans, despite her telling Jayfeather about it in the previous book.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* In ''[[Monty Python]]'s'' Cycling Tour, the protagonist is hauled before a firing squad three times for execution. The first two times, the firing squad [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|misses the target]]. The third time the squad charges at the protagonist and tries to skewer him with their bayonets. A grey screen with the words "Scene Missing" then appears. The next scene shows the protagonist free outside the prison saying "What an amazing escape!"
* In one episode of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'', a recruit spots a plot hole in a training exercise. A recruit is part of a bunch of recent Air Force graduates training for a role in the Stargate program. Part of a training exercise requires that they have no backup from SG-1 because SG-1 was caught in an ambush attack by a small number of Jaffa and called for backup; the recruit notes that SG-1 is too elite to be held down by a small number of Jaffa, and if it was an ambush attack, they wouldn't have had time to call in for backup. Later on, Sam remarks to Jack, "He's right, you know."
* In several episodes (all five seasons, actually) of ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', a recurrent plot hole is the inability to use systems on Atlantis because of the lack of sufficient power because of
* In the ''[[Star Trek: The
* The last ''[[Star Trek]]'' television series (to date), ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'', has the crew of the eponymous ship encounter Borg drones 200 years before they were encountered by [[The Captain|Captain Picard]] and the [[Cool Starship|U.S.S.]] ''[[Cool Starship|Enterprise]]''[[Cool Starship|-D]]. This comes as a direct result of what happened in the [[Film]] ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]''. The pieces of a crashed Borg cube are discovered in Antarctica. The crew see and fight Borgified crewmen on an alien freighter. The ship's doctor, Phlox, is infected with nanoprobes (but manages to cure himself, something Beverly Crusher wasn't able to do with [[The Captain|Picard]]). They have sensor data on the Borg-augmented ship and their audio transmissions. Nevertheless, 200 years later, no one knows what the Borg look like, how they attack people, or what their technology does to starships and living beings. As the satirical website FirstTvDrama.com put it so eloquently:▼
{{quote|''"You can lay this side by side with Archer not bothering to ask the Ferengi for their name after they hijacked the ship. This time, they have tech, records, photos, scans, DNA samples, dead nano-bots, etc, and it only creates a bigger plot hole}}. There's an entire massive debris field site in the North Pole. How do you cover up something like that. They either nuked it (which would surely get the attention of the Vulcans), left it (which means it's still there), or they cleaned it all up, which means they further learned stuff from it. Remember kids, there was NO cover up that took place. So how do you explain this plot hole?"''}}▼
** Another ''Enterprise'' episode sent the ship to investigate the first human colony outside the solar system to find out why it had suddenly stopped communicating with Earth - ''roughly 80 years prior''. Nobody had been sent to check this out earlier, because humans didn't have sufficiently fast ships. When T'Pol points out that the Vulcans had such ships eighty years ago, and could have investigated immediately, Captain Archer says only that asking favors from the Vulcans tended to carry a high price. There is no further elaboration of this point, even though they later discover that prompt Vulcan disaster-recovery assistance would have been extremely helpful to the colonists.▼
* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' plays [[How Unscientific|fast and loose with its own rules]] at the best of times, mostly because it's [[MST3K Mantra|more concerned]] with being a [[Rule of Funny|sitcom]]. One notable example of many is a double-whammy: In "Backwards", how are Rimmer and Kryten able to keep in contact with Holly on Backwards Earth when the ship (and thus Holly's mainframe) is in a completely different part of space ''and'' time? And if Holly ''is'' in contact with them, why doesn't she just tell Lister and the Cat what happened to them, instead of leaving Lister and the Cat to trawl through space for ''three weeks'' before finding the time hole?▼
▲* In the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", the ''Enterprise'' encounters a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]]. Kirk leads a landing party down to the nearby planet, where the alien reveals that [[Ancient Astronauts|he is the Greek god Apollo]]. Later in the episode, Spock, who had been on the ''Enterprise'' the whole time, makes reference to Apollo. There is no way Spock could have known who the alien was as Apollo immediately jammed the landing party's communicators.
** In a really weird example, Kirk suddenly knows at the end of "And The Children Shall Lead" that the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]] of the week is called "the Gorgon". This was not only never mentioned in front of Kirk, it was not mentioned previously in the episode at all.
** Toward the end of "Mirror, Mirror", Kirk asks Spock how long he calculates before the Halkan prediction that widespread revolt will overthrow the Empire comes true. Except no Halkan is ever shown predicting that; it was either edited out of the footage before broadcast, or removed from the script before filming.
* The ''[[Charmed]]'' episode "Chris Crossed" brings a ton of them up. First of all Chris's hair is long in the flashbacks when it was short when he first appeared at the end of Season 5, as well as his clothes being different. Second of all, the flashback shows Chris going through a portal in the attic when he orbed into the attic in his first episode. And when he first appeared, he says he has come to stop the Titans as they rule the world in his future. Yet the flashbacks have no mention of the Titans.
** He also mentions that Paige was killed by the Titans yet in a later episode he says he goes to her for money in the future.
** He could have, you know, ''LIED'' about the Titans thing as an excuse on ''why'' he came back, since the real reason would be complicated and likely scare the crap out of them. A real Plot hole in the Chris plot is the whole Valhala thing. Why did he send Leo to Valhala in the first place? It's what caused Leo and Piper's temporary breakup which {{spoiler|Nearly stops them from doing the dirty and concieving him}}. It's like he wanted to make his mission as dificult as possible.
▲* The last ''[[Star Trek]]'' television series (to date), ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Enterprise]]'', has the crew of the eponymous ship encounter Borg drones 200 years before they were encountered by [[The Captain|Captain Picard]] and the [[Cool Starship|U.S.S.]] ''[[Cool Starship|Enterprise]]''[[Cool Starship|-D]]. This comes as a direct result of what happened in the [[Film]] ''[[Star Trek: First Contact]]''. The pieces of a crashed Borg cube are discovered in Antarctica. The crew see and fight Borgified crewmen on an alien freighter. The ship's doctor, Phlox, is infected with nanoprobes (but manages to cure himself, something Beverly Crusher wasn't able to do with [[The Captain|Picard]]). They have sensor data on the Borg-augmented ship and their audio transmissions. Nevertheless, 200 years later, no one knows what the Borg look like, how they attack people, or what their technology does to starships and living beings. As the satirical website FirstTvDrama.com put it so eloquently:
* The Last season of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' introduces a new form of Super-Vampire called the Turokhan. Turokhans have the same weaknesses as regular vampires. They die by a wooden stake in the heart, or decapitation, or sunlight. But their strengths are massively amplified, to the point that the highly experienced and strong Buffy Summers is unable to drive a stake deep enough through the Turokahn's super tough and thick skin to pierce its heart. A vicious, brutal, lopsided beatdown of curbstomp proportions ensues. Later Buffy is only able to kill this one Turokhan by luring him to a battlefield of her choosing where, after a lengthy battle she finally manages to decapitate him using razor wire. So, clearly the Turokhan are insanely tough right? This was the point. Cue the inverse law of Ninjas. In the final episodes Buffy and her squad of newly activated rookie slayers proceed to casually and effortlessly dust Turokhans left and right. Upstairs, the purely human (but fairly badass by human standards) Robin Wood is also effortlessly killing every Turokhan that comes near him with a simple metal knife to the chest. Nerdy little Andrew and clueless Anya (also both human, and considerably less combat-capable than Robin) are also effortlessly killing Turokhans. Anya kills one with a glancing blow from her sword to the hip. [[Word of God]] acknowledges the inconsistency, but says that the story of empowerment is more important than continuity [http://slayageonline.com/EBS/btvs/DVD_Commentaries/chosen.htm here] ▼
▲{{quote|
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20170520173107/http://www.firsttvdrama.com/enterprise/e5.php3 Also] from FirstTvDrama.com - an [[Excuse Plot]] (for a mpreg fanfic from nowhere) not even bothering with remembering the excuse:
{{quote|''I spent three days on an alien ship and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.''
At least Reed made an effort to ask if Tucker got a look at their weapons. But nobody asked anything about the trip. Archer didn't ask if Tucker could get a picture of the aliens, or at least make an effort to draw one for Starfleet's records. Hoshi didn't ask for a copy of their language. They gave the aliens information on what Tucker eats, but Tucker didn't try to pocket an alien cheese stick or anything to bring back with him. For God's sakes, the aliens had food growing all over the walls and Tucker couldn't grab a couple of grapes as he made his way out the door?
Why is it that B&B have been going out of their way to hype up the "exploring and discovering new lifeforms" angle (going so far as to create an entire prequal series to do so) if all we're doing is watching the crew take these encounters casually? }}
▲** Another ''Enterprise'' episode sent the ship to investigate the first human colony outside the solar system to find out why it had suddenly stopped communicating with Earth - ''roughly 80 years prior''. Nobody had been sent to check this out earlier, because humans didn't have sufficiently fast ships. When T'Pol points out that the Vulcans had such ships eighty years ago, and could have investigated immediately, Captain Archer says only that asking favors from the Vulcans tended to carry a high price. There is no further elaboration of this point, even though they later discover that prompt Vulcan disaster-recovery assistance would have been extremely helpful to the colonists.
▲* ''[[Red Dwarf]]'' plays [[How Unscientific|fast and loose with its own rules]] at the best of times, mostly because it's [[MST3K Mantra|more concerned]] with being a [[Rule of Funny|sitcom]]. One notable example of many is a double-whammy: In "Backwards", how are Rimmer and Kryten able to keep in contact with Holly on Backwards Earth when the ship (and thus Holly's mainframe) is in a completely different part of space ''and'' time? And if Holly ''is'' in contact with them, why doesn't she just tell Lister and the Cat what happened to them, instead of leaving Lister and the Cat to trawl through space for ''three weeks'' before finding the time hole?
▲* The Last season of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' introduces [[Serial Escalation|a new form of Super-Vampire]] called the Turokhan. Turokhans have the same weaknesses as regular vampires. They die by a wooden stake in the heart, or decapitation, or sunlight. But their strengths are massively amplified, to the point that the highly experienced and strong Buffy Summers is unable to drive a stake deep enough through the Turokahn's super tough and thick skin to pierce its heart. A vicious, brutal, lopsided beatdown of curbstomp proportions ensues. Later Buffy is only able to kill this one Turokhan by luring him to a battlefield of her choosing where, after a lengthy battle she finally manages to decapitate him using razor wire. So, clearly the Turokhan are insanely tough right? This was the point. Cue the inverse law of Ninjas. In the final episodes Buffy and her squad of newly activated rookie slayers proceed to casually and effortlessly dust Turokhans left and right. Upstairs, the purely human (but fairly badass by human standards) Robin Wood is also effortlessly killing every Turokhan that comes near him with a simple metal knife to the chest. Nerdy little Andrew and clueless Anya (also both human, and considerably less combat-capable than Robin) are also effortlessly killing Turokhans. Anya kills one with a glancing blow from her sword to the hip. [[Word of God]] acknowledges the inconsistency, but says that the story of empowerment is more important than continuity [https://web.archive.org/web/20130303093000/http://slayageonline.com/EBS/btvs/DVD_Commentaries/chosen.htm here]
** One popular fan theory is that the first Turokhan Buffy fought, the one that gave her so much trouble, was the #1 champion fighter of the entire race and significantly more capable than his rank-and-file brethren. (And it would be logical, when sending a lone warrior to attack your enemy's strongest fighter, to send the strongest warrior ''you'' have instead of just randomly picking an average one.)
* Towards the end of Season 1 of ''[[Sons of Anarchy]]'', the [[Cowboy Cop]] ATF Agent Stahl attempts to fracture the charter by setting up Opie to look like he's gone into witness protection. She then cuts Opie loose because she doesn't have enough to hold him, but bugs his phone and car on the chance that he says something incriminating. SAMCRO has every reason to believe that Opie's the snitch and of course they do believe this, which is confirmed in their minds when they find the bugs. Now at this point, the Cops and ATF know that A) either SAMCRO or Opie himself discovered the bugs and destroyed them- in either case they are not going to produce any evidence, B) SAMCRO is extremely likely to murder Opie as a result of their little trick, and C) in 24 hours, the US Attorney will reveal his case, charging Opie and proving that he is ''not'' the snitch. Hale, the [[Fair Cop]], is torn up about what to do - reasoning that if he tells SAMCRO that Opie is not the snitch, he is leaking classified information. But all he needs to do is keep him safe for one night, and the answer should be staring him in the face: ''arrest Opie'' on a trumped-up charge (which is hardly as bad as the crap they pulled to get to this point) and keep him off the streets for 24 hours. The truth comes out the very next day. But he dithers so long that Opie's wife is murdered in a botched hit because he was [[Acquitted Too Late]], setting off the events of Season 2.
* A rather small one appears in ''[[24|Twenty Four]]'' season 4, episode 9. Dina agrees to tell CTU all she knows if they can guarantee her son's safety. The son then tells his father, who is attempting to kill him, that if he kills him his mother will tell CTU everything because she cares about his safety. Does not compute!
* In the ''[[Mad About You]]'' episode "The Caper", several different couples go into the Buckmans' neighbor's apartment to fetch food. Each couple, when they return, comments on the neighbor's gorgeous painting. When the painting goes missing, each couple in turn is accused of having stolen it while they were fetching the food — despite the fact that the later couples reported it was still there when they saw it.
* Naturally, as [[Heroes]] is filled with superheroes and time travel, it's fraught with too many plot holes to even attempt listing them all.
** As Claire's ability {{spoiler|allows her to completely avoid the affects of alcohol and win in a drinking contest for money. Whereas later on in the series Claire's drugged when 'special' people are being rounded up, and it works on her. Also the Company puts both Sylar and Peter in medical comas at a point in time, while both of them have Claire's healing factor}}.
** While both Peter and Sylar {{spoiler|were in those medical comas, there comes the issue that in season 1 the room Sylar was kept in seemed to dampen abilities (if the Haitian/Renee was there the whole time he would've stopped Eden), whereas in season 2 Peter needs to take pills to dampen abilities, and in season three there's early on the drug induced comas}}
** Also how when Sylar takes {{spoiler|Elle's ability, he doesn't need to kill her. Presumably because he gains abilities through understanding how people work, and he ''understands'' Elle. Later he says that this was because he didn't need to cut people's heads open to take their powers anymore. Yet he still...acts like he does, can't take Matt's power like this, or what's his face with the puppet master ability in the fourth season finale}}. It is explained that he can obtain powers through empathy, like Peter could. It's just that as a psychopath, empathy is difficult for him, whereas it's second nature to Peter.
=== Tabletop Games ===
* The ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' module ''The Forest Oracle'' (The only reason this isn't unanimously considered the worst module TSR published is the existence of ''The Avatar Saga'' where the only gameplay is [[Random Encounters]] and multiple [[Unwinnable Boss Battle]]s) is full of these. The most obvious is that some thieves that rob people using a sleep spell they have no way of actually casting.
=== Theatre ===
* In [[Rodgers and Hammerstein]]'s backstage musical ''Me and Juliet'', some of the theatergoers are humming tunes from the [[Show Within a Show]] during intermission: "Marriage Type Love", "No Other Love", "It's Me". The problem here is that "It's Me" was only sung backstage, not onstage, so the audience shouldn't have heard it. Hammerstein privately acknowledged this mistake.
* Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' featured a pretty big one: just before Caesar was assassinated, a random person is shown writing a letter to Caesar about the treachery of his senate—who this man is, how he knows about the treachery, and why he knows every single person involved in the plot is never told—it turns out to be irrelevant, however, as he never delivers the letter anyway.
=== Video Games ===
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** In ''zOMG!'', it is stated that all the towns are completely cut off from each other due to [[Everything Trying to Kill You|things coming to life and attacking people]]. It's implied that Aekea is fighting off its factory equipment, that all the boats to Isle De Gambino have been closed, and that people attempting to walk to Durem are disappearing. And yet in the Wapanese comic, all of the NPCs are able to travel from town to town without any issues.
* ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]] 7'' has two different plot holes depending on the version. In the original, it was stated that Mega Man couldn't kill Dr. Wily due to robotic laws preventing him from harming a human. Why would Wily have to beg for mercy in all previous games and let Mega Man arrest him in 6? In the [[American Kirby Is Hardcore]] version, Mega Man disregards those laws and tries to kill Wily. There is no explanation why he didn't try to kill Wily in all subsequent games.
* In ''[[Resident Evil 3: Nemesis]]'', depending on the choices you make, Nicholai will sometimes appear at the gas station and be ''in the room'' when it explodes, destroying an entire city block. He survives this unscathed, and without any Plot Virus [[Hand Wave]].
* In the first ''[[God of War]]'' the gods send Kratos to find Pandora's Box, open it, absorb the power to kill a god within, and kill Ares. This he does. In the last game Kratos is trying to find the box, open it, absorb the power to kill a god within, and kill Zeus. He accomplishes the first two steps, only to discover that ''duh'', he already did step three. What, did everyone think it just didn't take the first time, especially given that he's been killing gods left and right ever since? Furthermore, Zeus makes it clear that the box, which contained both the evils of the Titan's war which corrupted the gods and the power to kill him, was never supposed to have been opened in the first place. So why did he ever help Kratos reach it?
* Perhaps minor, but in ''[[Dead Space 2]]'', the main character finds an audio log saying that all the necromorph samples liquefied once the original marker was destroyed. This conflicts with the ending of the first game, which had a necromorph appear after the marker was destroyed, completely whole and in tact. This can be written off in several way, however. Notably, the main character is (in-universe) insane after the events of the first game and hallucinating. It is also possible that the researcher was simply wrong. (She wasn't THERE!) Or, perhaps, the liquification process doesn't happen immediately after the source marker is destroyed.
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== [[Lampshade Hanging]] ==
=== Anime and Manga ===
* ''[[Bleach]]'': [[Anime]] [[
{{quote|'''Yumichika''': "So that soul-revealing device isn't just for you?"
'''Rin''': "Yes, it can materialise any nearby soul."
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{{quote|'''ALPO:''' Say, Carrion is hundreds of light-yarons [sic] away. How did you get back so quickly?
'''STARTREK:''' The same way I got there. I went through a loophole in the plot! }}
* In the Sonic fanfiction [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5180067/1/bChao_b_of_the_bWorld_b_bUnite_b Chao of the World, Unite!], plot holes are used so frequently they are a form of transportation.
{{quote|'''Maria''': Boy, it's a good thing that severe decompression from that hole isn't causing the ship to buckle and explode, or that the air that's whooshing out isn't knocking us into the sun, or something.
'''Amy''': Why isn't it?
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* In the fanmade parody campaign "Deus Ex Machina" for [[Free Space]], a plot hole is a physical entity that causes random impossible things to happen. The player gets caught in one early on, and the story just plain stops trying to make even a semblance of sense from there (not that it made a great deal of sense beforehand...)
* In the same fashion in the "Ridiculous" campaign of [[Free Space]], a bunch of ships from different universes and time get caught in some plot hole dimension. Then it's a whole bunch of ridiculous (hence the name?) canon and non-canon stuff. {{spoiler|Not to mention the This! Is! Sparta! part}}. Did I tell you about a ship measuring the "plot density" before entering the plot hole, and getting a negative result ?
* In the [[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* In ''[[Alan Wake]]'', Plot Holes form the villain's primary advantage. The Lake brings to life anything that an artist creates while inside it, but if that artist leaves an unexplained hole, the Darkness fills it in in the worst possible way. The previous writer before Wake simply wrote his wife back to life without any explanation, but the Darkness was happy to provide one.
=== Webcomics ===
* ''[[Bob and George]]'' [http://bobandgeorge.com/archives/index.php?date=011019 gleefully] [[
* In the webcomic "[[Real Life]]", a Plot Hole appears as a sort of space-time anomaly which functions as a portal into a blank dimension in which the protagonist has to resolve the current hole in the plot of the [[Story Arc]] before they can escape back into "reality". Thus far, the mechanism has only been used once. Said plot hole was eventually tricked into manifesting in a different dimension entirely, with tragic consequences.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130526134716/http://www.badlydrawnkitties.com/OldComics/20020617_gif_view.htm This strip] of ''[[Badly Drawn Kitties]]'' explains a plot hole rather succinctly. In fact, you could say it explains ''all'' plot holes rather succinctly.
* [http://lunarandkirk.comicgenesis.com/d/20051005.html This strip] of "The Wacky Adventures of Lunar and Kirk" is the first of a series involving a literal hole in the world caused by a plot hole, which will swallow and destroy anyone or anything that enters it.
* The ship in [[I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space]] veers dangerously near to a Plot Hole, before they are saved by a hasty (offpage) explanation.
* The [[Ciem Webcomic Series]] features a thread [https://web.archive.org/web/20130602093307/http://dozerfleetprod.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=gerosha&action=display&thread=55 here] seeking to explain what the author fears may become a serious Plot Hole in the form of [[Anachronism Stew]].
* [[Acrobat]] has a villain called Plot Hole, [[Arch Enemy]] of Plot Twist. He keeps coming back, after getting killed multiple times, without any explanation and believes that Plot Twist created him
{{quote|'''Plot Hole:''' That's what plot twist does! Creates plot holes!}}
* Gleefully parodied by ''[[Goblins|Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes]]'', in the [http://goblins.keenspot.com/tf9.html Tempts Fate 9] bonus strip. Tempts fights an ancient dragon, the speaking of whose name will cause him to be sucked into a Plot Hole and vanish forever.
* An old David Herbert comic [https://web.archive.org/web/20130402024325/http://www.drunkduck.com/Golden_Gamers/ Golden Gamers] used to frequently use plot holes as one of the abilities of the main characters.
* Plot holes appear in the quite literal sense in [[The Way of the Metagamer]].
* ''[[Ansem Retort]]'' not only handwaved the "Yuffie got killed in Season 1" hole, but pointed out that recurring characters include [[Star Wars|Darth Maul]] and Jesus, so any minor plot hole pretty much means nothing.
* ''[[Full Frontal Nerdity]]'' [http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=536 illustrates] a problem common with badly thought out [[prequel]]s.
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* The [[Protectors of the Plot Continuum]] actually harness plot holes to make their technology work, such as portal devices or inter-universe communicators.
* A similar idea, except exclusively used with "Plothole Generators" in the [[Anti Cliche and Mary Sue Elimination Society]]. All other gadgets in the Society operate exclusively on [[Applied Phlebotinum]].
* In ''[[To Boldly Flee]]'', the third movie from [[That Guy With
=== Western Animation ===
* In the ''[[Tiny Toons]]'' [[Made for TV Movie]] ''How I Spent My Summer Vacation'', Buster and Babs return to Acme Acres via a literal "plot hole", to which Babs remarks [[Who Writes This Crap?|"I was wondering how those hack writers were going to wrap this up."]] Lampshaded again in a travel episode, where a set of luggage is devoured by Dizzy Devil, but reappears later. Babs pronounces it to be "A plot hole big enough to drive a Mack truck through!"
* Similarly in ''[[The Emperor's New Groove|The Emperors New Groove]]'', Kronk and Yzma get struck by lightning and fall into a gigantic pit during a chase scene and yet somehow beat the heroes to their destination. Both of them, when called on this, acknowledge that they have no way to explain how this happened, and Kronk even has a diagram of the enormous (plot) hole they fell into.
* In ''[[The Penguins of Madagascar]]'' episode "Otter Gone Wild", a feral Marlene is captured by a giant cage falling out of nowhere. King Julien asks where the cage came from. Kowalski replies that that's classified information.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:This Index Is Highly Improbable]]
[[Category:Logic Tropes]]
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[[Category:Consistency]]
[[Category:Narrative Tropes]]
▲[[Category:Plot Hole]]
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