Stating the Simple Solution/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A Genre Savvy person lampshades the impracticality of a plan that is more "in-universe" appropriate and suggests a much more simple, practical solution. The suggestion is usually denied or given an equally outrageous explanation.

  • Straight: The Evil Overlord is gloating over his Evil Plan and describing the Death Trap he plans for the captured Hero. His second-in-command suggests they just pull a gun and shoot him. The villain refuses, often vehemently.
  • Exaggerated: The villain kills the mook for suggesting that he kill the hero.
    • The villain has an elaborate Death Trap that would probably take a few hours, if not days, to kill The Hero. A Mook points out that he has a loaded gun in his hand and could easily kill him then and there. The villain throws the Mook out a window.
  • Justified: The minion missed the part in the ad for evil minions that said 'Contractual Genre Blindness a requirement'. The minion is Genre Savvy in a Genre Blind workplace and didn't know until now.
    • Guns are expensive.
    • From the villain's perspective, the minion is missing the point; the idea isn't to kill the hero, it's to make him suffer.
    • The villain, but not the minion, is aware that the hero is Immune to Bullets; the long death trap is designed to render him vulnerable, and then kill him.
  • Inverted: The villain wants to kill the hero in a quick, practical manner, but the minion stops him.
  • Subverted: The villain, upon hearing his minion's suggestion, realizes that he's right and does shoot the hero.
  • Double Subverted: ...In the foot. Turns out the suggestion gave the villain the brilliant idea that making the hero a cripple before putting him into a slow, painful and exotic death is much funnier.
    • Hears the mook's suggestion and buys a gun, but finds out that bullets are expensive.
  • Zig Zagged: The villain, upon hearing his minion's suggestion, says that the minion is right, pulls out a gun, and points it at the hero. He then marches the hero into a deathtrap, and says that it still wouldn't be as fun. However, at the end of the deathtrap, the villain is waiting with a gun...
    • The villan realizes the Mook is right. He finds a gun and while practicing for the big moment, realizes he's a lousy shot. And goes with the plan anyway.
  • Parodied: The villain describes in elaborate detail why he's not supposed to kill heroes. You mean they aren't supposed to escape and try to stop him again?
  • Deconstructed: Due to high turnover rate of minions (i.e. they get killed) who gainsay the villain on his Genre Blindness, the minions eventually lose all desire to take initiative or be helpful and stay far, far away from the villain when not explicitly ordered to. The villain ends up losing a lot of battles because his minions are too afraid to attempt to correct his Genre Blindness and is eventually killed during a one-on-one gloating session with a (seemingly) captured hero because nobody else was around.
  • Reconstructed: The masterless minions go on to work for a villain with better employee relations, whom they feel safer questioning. If pressed, the villain limits himself to explaining that he has worked very hard to reach the point at which he can kill the hero, and he's not going to have it over in a mundane and unsatisfying brief way when a longer, more ego-boosting, and more sadistic fashion can be dreamt up.
  • Averted: Nobody calls the villain on his Genre Blindness.
  • Enforced: The writers need the hero to stick around, so of course the villains can't just finish him off. On the other side, they don't want his Bond Villain Stupidity to go unnoticed either, so they lampshade it via this trope.
  • Lampshaded: This trope by definition is a lampshading of Bond Villain Stupidity. "You never just shoot the heroes when you have the chance. You know they always escape!"
  • Invoked: The villain is looking for a new Number Two who exhibits some common sense, guts and initiative, and decides that someone who asks this question has potential for the job. Thus, he intentionally sets up a situation like this to see if any of his minions react appropriately.
  • Defied: "...And in case any of you smartasses want to question my plans and suggest I 'just shoot him', I'd just like to remind you beforehand that there's space in my Death Trap for two".
    • The minion doesn't bother asking the Big Bad, and shots the hero himself.
  • Discussed: "So, um... Does anybody want to point out to him that this 'overdramatic Death Trap' shtick never ever works?"
  • Conversed: Two characters watch a cartoon where the villain puts the hero into a deathtrap, and one asks the other why the bad guy never just shoots them in that sort of situation. Extra fourth wall points if the one doing the asking is the in-universe villain, who does the exact same thing when he gets the opportunity.

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