Poor Communication Kills: Difference between revisions

* In ''[[The One (film)|The One]]'', the protagonist routinely tells other police officers about his sociopathic alternate-universe duplicate with the words "He is me," instead of "He looks exactly like me." While it's possible that the police might not have believed him, he never seems to make any effort to tell the mundane cops about his doppelganger, so he has to fend them off as well.

* As [http://www.brunching.com/daredevil.html The Self-Made Critic] points out, this could have cleared up a lot of confusion in the movie ''[[Daredevil]]'':

{{spoiler|'''Daredevil'''}}: "Aces!" }}

* This is what caused General Ashdown to kick John Connor out of [[La Résistance]] in ''[[Terminator Salvation]]''. Of course, what Ashdown didn't know was that John Connor wanted to save someone vital to Tech-Com (his father, Kyle Reese, then a teenager), and even though Connor didn't give the full details to his own unit, the whole unit rebels against Ashdown by siding with Connor so he could save Reese. (Of course, Ashdown doesn't know about the rebellion until after he learns that the attack on Skynet wouldn't go forward until Connor gave the order, thereby deposing Ashdown mere minutes before he gets blown to smithereens.)

** Because it's very common for Mayans in the poor rural areas of Mexico to speak no or very little Spanish.

* In the second book of [[A Song of Ice and Fire]], Robb could have avoided a whole mess of trouble if he'd just confided in his underlings a bit more. He goes off to fight the Lannister's western army and leaves his uncle Edmure to hold Riverrun. When the Lannister eastern army starts harrying Riverrun's borders, Edmure rides off with his army and succeeds beating them back to a full retreat. Cue celebrations and parties... until Robb returns and, after publicly honoring his uncle's success, browbeats him in private for disobeying his orders. Turns out he had planned to lure the eastern army into attacking Riverrun so he could come in from the south and crush it between his army and the castle.

"You were told to hold the castle. What part of that did you fail to comprehend?" }}

* Herman Melville took this trope literally in his little-known novella ''Billy Budd'', in which Billy, a Christlike figure whose only flaw is a tendency to stutter when he gets upset, {{spoiler|killed the master-at-arms, Claggart, after Claggart falsely accused him of conspiracy to mutiny. He got so upset when he couldn't stop stuttering long enough to defend himself that he punched Claggart in the temple and he died. All three main characters--Billy, Claggart, and Captain Vere--die.}} But, then again, without it all of Melville's lovely [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|symbolism]] falls apart, and we can't have that.

* [[Shakespeare]] seemed to be fond of this trope. The most famous example is probably ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', where Juliet fakes her own death, and her message to Romeo explaining the situation never reaches him, causing Romeo to kill Paris and commit suicide. Upon discovering this, Juliet also kills herself.

** [[Discussed Trope|Discussed]] in ''[[Bells Are Ringing]]'', where answering service girl Ella tries to explain to a policeman that "my job is to get messages to people on time" and imagines herself at "Veronaphone" passing Juliet's message on to Romeo.

** [[Othello]] was easily swayed by Iago to believe his wife had been cheating on him and kills her. Only later does he realize that if he had bothered to verify the truth with anyone other than Iago, the stories wouldn't have matched up. Emilia at least was smart enough to figure out what was going on.

 

*** Even if no one uses any form of communication in Left 4 Dead, the survivor characters constantly vocalize what is going on so that everyone can understand the current situation. Despite this, some players fail to save others who are in trouble because they weren't listening.

* This is utilized in a malicious manner by the titular ''Mastermind'' in a flash movie based off of ''Mastermind: World Conqueror''. He uses it to confuse a superhero before [[Shark Pool|pressing the Shark Tank button]].

'''Mastermind''': [[[Evil Laugh]]] You stupid *** hole! }}

* While a lack of communication will cause casualties, in [[America's Army]] this trope is also subverted. When a player throws a grenade, the soldier will shout "Frag out" (albeit in a foreign language), giving away his position and alerting the enemy to the incoming grenade.

* In ''[[Team Fortress 2]]'', if only the BLU Soldier and RED Demoman had just talked to each other instead of rushing at each other with rocket launcher and pipe bombs a-blazing, the whole WAR could have been averted, their friendship could have been saved, and they could be having ribs together right now.

** Alternately, if they had talked to each other first, they could have come to the conclusion both teams were being played, convinced their teammates of this, convinced their superiors of this, and rallied both companies together, which would lead to the Administrator, Saxton, and every higher-up at Mann Co. and TF Industries collectively having more dots on their domes than any [[Testosterone Poisoning|Hale]] could hope to survive. Machiavellian and disgusting though she may be, the Administrator had pragmatic reasons for breaking them up.

** Don't forget, the Administrator used their [[Berserk Button|Berserk Buttons]] against one another. And Soldier and Demo aren't the sharpest knives in the... [[Toy Story 3|place where you]] [[Hypocritical Humor|keep the knives]].

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'':

* As the [[Kangaroo Court]] episode shows, Aang from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' does not have a future as a defense attorney. More specifically, he was put on trial for "crimes" his past life had committed, and when his friends Katara and Sokka coach him with various innocence proving facts, he sort of... spazzes out.

** There's also the communication gap of life-or-death proportions in [[Grand Finale|"The Phoenix King"]]. {{spoiler|Zuko is outraged at the rest of the Gaang's seemingly slacking off when Sozin's Comet is due any day. Turns out they forgot to tell him that they've figured the Fire Nation already rules the whole world so they might as well just wait until after the comet's come and gone before fighting the Fire Lord again. Zuko then tells them the Fire Nation is going to use the comet to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground, which he's slightly more justified in withholding from the rest as he assumed they were still planning to have the fight before the comet arrived.}}

'''Zuko''': {{spoiler|I didn't think I had to. I assumed you were still going to fight him before the comet. No one told ''me'' you decided to wait!}} }}

** Thankfully, though, he at least manages to bridge said communication gap, because everyone takes Sozin's Comet ''way'' more seriously after that!

* Parodied in ''[[The Simpsons]]'', when Fat Tony and his mob come to kill Homer in one episode, they find themselves under fire from an unknown sniper. Attempting to get a visual on their assailant, Fat Tony asks [[Meaningful Name|Johnny Tightlips]] if he saw the shooter. Unfortunately, Johnny "sees alotta things". Which isn't exactly that helpful in the current situation.

** In another episode, Johnny Tightlips has been shot during a gunfight:

'''Johnny:''' Tell him to suck a lemon. }}

* Many of the worse parts of ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' could have been avoided if Sumdac had told them about how he found their "friend" Megatron...