The Millstone: Difference between revisions

The Millstone is the character, usually [[The Ditz]], who is specifically responsible for the failure of every plan that the heroes carry out. It's because of them that [[Failure Is the Only Option]]. For some reason, they're usually given the linchpin of this week's plan... which they will then botch, forcing the heroes to try again next week. If the main characters could just get rid of the Millstone, they'd be home free... but then the show would be over; see [[Just Eat Gilligan]].

 

 

The trope name comes from the phrase "millstone around my neck". For those not versed in agriculture, a millstone is a large (often 2–3 feet in diameter) stone disc used by mills to render things well pulverized, such as grinding grain into flour. A typical millstone is several hundred pounds of solid rock: understandably, being necklaced with one would make your life considerably more difficult (especially because the necklacing tends to happen on top of a bridge, shortly before a splashy noise is heard).

 

Compare to [[The Load]], who doesn't ''cause'' failure but is still of little or no worth. [[General Failure]] is when the guy who's [[Pointy-Haired Boss|supposed to be in charge]] suffers from this. Such a character could also turn out to be the [[Spanner in the Works]] or [[Unwitting Instigator of Doom]]. This character is also generally [[The Klutz]].

 

{{examples}}

* Excel Excel from ''[[Excel Saga (manga)|Excel Saga]]'' is an example. Granted, most of Il Palazzo's plans are rather silly to begin with, but she ensures that they have no chance of success.

** Near the end of the [[Excel Saga (anime)|anime series]], Il Palazzo realizes this and fires her {{spoiler|by shooting her through the chest and leaving her to die}}; he conquers the city two episodes later (though the city's destruction might have helped with that conquering a little).

* In ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'', comically ditzy Italy spends most of his time dragging down the Axis powers.

* Mihoshi in ''[[Tenchi Universe]]'' definitely counts, in contrast to the OAV where she is a [[Genius Ditz]].

 

* Ed in ''[[Shaun of the Dead]]'' repeatedly endangers everyone else through simply being [[Too Dumb to Live]]. The worst instance occurs when the group is attempting to sneak past dozens of zombies. Ed's cell phone rings, and he answers it and begins cheerfully and loudly talking on it. Later, when they are attempting to hide from the zombies in a pub, he turns on the fruit machine. He also gets a bit too caught up in the excitement of dealing with the zombies violently, thus needlessly endangering everyone else several times for the thrills. Unlike many examples here, however, Shaun actually twigs on and angrily berates Ed for it (thus, rather amusingly, becoming something of a Millstone himself, since his spleen-venting unfortunately occurs right in front of said zombies).

* Subverted in ''[[Night of the Living Dead]]'', in which the character who all throughout the movie looks like he's going to be the Millstone turns out to have been right all along, and if the hero had just listened to him and followed his plan, everyone would have survived. In essence, the ''hero'' becomes the Millstone. Although you could arguably make a better case for Tom and Judy, whose incompetence destroyed their chance of using the truck to get to safety.

* ''[[The Big Lebowski]]'': Walter Sobchak is a cross between this and a total [[Jerkass|asshole]]. Everything goes completely wrong for the Dude the moment he opens his mouth or comes up with a plan of his own. The kicker? {{spoiler|Walter's was right all along.}}

* Virtually every bad thing that happens to the protagonists in the second half of ''[[Dante's Peak|Dantes Peak]]'' can be laid at the feet of Ruth, who endangers her daughter, grandchildren, the daughter's love interest and a [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|dog]] merely by existing. And then, after an attempt to rescue her and everyone else at her place, she [[Sarcasm Mode|heroically]] [[Heroic Sacrifice|sacrifices herself]] to save everyone from sinking into the acid lake they would never have been on if she'd evacuated when she was supposed to.

** This is mostly just in the movies however; in the book, Frodo himself reveals his identity by keeping his hand in his pocket with the ring while singing, the fire on Weathertop was actually Aragorn's idea (and implied not to have been the reason the wraiths found the party), Boromir woke up The Watcher instead, and while Pippin does throw a stone into a well in Moria, it's not made obvious if it is what alerts the Orcs and the Balrog to the Fellowship's presence.

* Vincent Vega of ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' is this to Jules. He was too incompetent to not wave his gun around with his finger on the trigger and got them in some truly "deep shit" by blowing Marvin's brains out in broad daylight, and then {{spoiler|after Jules leaves, he's too incompetent to pull off a hit by himself and ends up getting killed because he left a loaded weapon laying around his target's apartment.}}

* [[Limitless]]: Eddie begins this movie as [[The Load]], a harmless loser. Then Eddie takes [[Applied Phlebotinum|NZT-48 pills]] a revolutionary new pharmaceutical that allows him to tap his full potential… as The Millstone. He manages to ruin his boss [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Van Loon’s]] greatest business; he unwillingly hooks [[The Mafiya|the Russian into NZT]], his two bodyguards are killed, so two [[Heroic Bystander|HeroicBystanders]]. He doesn't care. His girlfriend Lindy realizes Eddie cannot care about anything except NZT, so she abandons him as fast as she can.

 

* [[Lampshaded]] and [[Subverted]] in ''[[Around the World in Eighty Days]]'' where Aouda fears she was Fogg's Millstone delaying him on his trip and missed the deadline. However, Fogg firmly denies she was any problem and any concerns she may still have are dispelled by the fact that she is then instrumental instead in saving the day.

* In ''[[The Darksword Trilogy]]'', [[Lovable Traitor]] Simkin cheerfully ruins his companions' plans at every opportunity. The other heroes scream at Joram to [[Just Eat Gilligan]] already, but Joram insists in violation of all [[Honor Before Reason|reason]] and [[Violation of Common Sense|common sense]] on trusting Simkin. {{spoiler|In the end, Joram's faith proves to have been the right choice.}}

* ''[[The Twelve Chairs]]'': Ippolit Matveyevich "Kisa" Vorobyaninov first is an employer to his [[Magnificent Bastard]] companyon Ostap Bender, then becomes [[The Load]]... and then, when they almost buy the titular jewel-stuffed [[MacGuffin]], not only does Kisa get drunk and spend all the cash, he completely screws ''any possibility'' of them buying the chairs ever and causes the chairs to be sold separately. Throughout the story he degrades morally and ends up ''[[Moral Event Horizon|killing Ostap in the sleep]]'' (luckily, he got better) right before going for the final chair, only to discover that treasure was already found and taken away due to his own stupidity.

 

** Gilligan is the epitome of this trope. If the other castaways had [[Just Eat Gilligan|resorted to cannibalism and eaten him]], they could have gotten off the island the next day. He's so much an embodiment of this trope that it was almost titled "The Gilligan". To be fair, the other castaways were at least able to punish him with things like forcing him to be a cuckoo clock sounder, dive dozens of times for a telephone cable, jail him and otherwise humiliate him to their hearts' content.

** Also, the episodes that ''didn't'' center around their latest attempt to get off the island (and these made up about half the series) instead focused around the latest danger on the island, and Gilligan was always the one who saved them in those cases. So no Gilligan and maybe they'd have gotten off the island—or maybe they'd have been fried by the volcano or blown up by the mine that washed ashore.

* Hank in ''[[Corner Gas]]'' is one, thanks to him being that show's [[The Ditz|ditz]].

* In ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'', Howard and Vince take turns. Which is the true Millstone is too close to call, as they'll occasionally switch in the same episode. (see The Nightmare of Milky Joe) Their millstoning gets more prevalent when they leave the Zooniverse after season one, as Bob Fossil is no longer instigating episodes.

* A typical episode of Ricky Gervais's ''[[Extras]]'' would involve his character Andy divulging an embarrassing secret to his friend Maggie, who would inevitably spill the beans to someone in a position to humiliate him over it. Yet as Millstone-ish as Maggie could be, it is eventually Andy who is considered his own worst enemy considering ''he never learns to keep his mouth shut.''

* This type of character is parodied in ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'' in the "Get Me Hennimore!" sketches, where we have the completely idiotic Hennimore screwing things up every single week. Only, it's mostly the fault of the boss for coming up with two mutually exclusive and dangerous schemes.

* Morgan from ''[[Chuck]]''. He grows out of it, though.

 

 

** Lance Vance. Only helpful thing he ever does is {{spoiler|betray you so you can finally shoot his dumb ass}}.

** While he's like this in ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Vice City]]'', he's even worse in ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories|Vice City Stories]]''—most of his brother Vic's problems are due to his screw-ups.

** ''[[Fallout 2]]'' has the Pariah Dog, a random encounter that can join over the party limit, drops your luck to 1, and gives you the Jinxed trait. The only way to fix this is to get the dog killed, but the damn thing has loads of HP and runs away the moment a battle starts.

** Joshua Graham was to be this in ''[[Fallout: Van Buren]]''. A tough but evil guy who would piss off almost everyone if he were recruited. As opposed to what he [[Badass|became]] in ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]''. The closest thing in New Vegas would be [[Cold Sniper|Boone]], but only if you planned on allying/being friendly with [[The Horde|Caesar's Legion]] since his response to them is to [[Berserk Button|shoot on sight]].

** The Council for the most part. Despite the fact that you are Spectre, ostensibly with carte blanche from said Council, ''any'' action you take is second-guessed and vital information or resources are often withheld. Even after a galaxy-wide invasion, {{spoiler|the Asari councilor delays telling you about a Prothean beacon until its location is all but overrun with Reapers}}.

* ''Any'' [[Escort Mission]] where a [[Too Dumb to Live]] escortee jumps in your line of fire, walks instead of running (or runs so fast you can't catch up with them) or even attacks every enemy in sight to guarantee mission failure.

* ''[[Ghost Recon]]'' your own teammates tend to get themselves killed, by getting themselves shot by the enemy, moving themselves out in the open, or getting in your line of fire.

 

* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]''

** Grif from the Red army fits the trope perfectly. Being a conscript, he is unwilling to work, has terrible stamina and practically is Red Team's [[Butt Monkey]]. More to the point, he regularly shirks his duty—during one battle, he forgot to bring the spare ammo. In another scenario, he sold all the spare ammo to the Blues. In Grif's own defense, he's intentionally The Millstone; he's trying to get discharged by any means possible, up to and including criminal negligence. In the rare occasion when he's actually trying, he's a lot more useful.

* [[Played for Laughs]] with the [[Leeroy Jenkins]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU video]. Subversion: in this video, the ''entire party''—or at least the leader—is a Millstone. The overly complicated plan made ''no sense at all'' and was not appropriate whatsoever for this encounter. Leeroy did nothing but speed up their demise.

 

** Villainous, borderline example: [[Word of God|Rich's commentary]] tells us that Nale often needs Thog because of his sheer power, but his stupidity foils his plans half the time.

** The real Millstone of the Order is certainly Belkar. His sociopathy and frequent refusal to listen to orders ruin the party's planning several times—for example, leaving the spellcasters undefended to kill goblins, putting the bandit camp on fire because he couldn't wait, {{spoiler|or killing the Oracle}}. He has somehow grown out of it after his [[Vision Quest]], though.

 

** Subversion: Shaggy and Scooby always botch the plan to catch the [[Monster of the Week]]... and in the process of botching it ''succeed'' at catching the monster.

** Pinky always manages to screw up Brain's plans to [[Take Over the World]]. This is partly averted in that frequently Brain's plans fail of their own accord or due to bad luck, and not through any fault of Pinky's. The Brain is sometimes too stubborn to listen to the plan's legitimate flaw Pinky points out, which naturally occurs at the climax.

** Subverted in another episode when Brain builds a device to increase Pinky's intelligence, so that Pinky will no longer impede the success of his plans. Pinky then reviews all of Brain's plans and points out that they were all flawed to begin with. Thus Brain is really his own Millstone.

** Eddy himself seems to fit the mold even more than Ed. Many, many of the Eds failures come from Eddy's impatience, arrogance, and greed taking the scam far beyond their capabilities. Truthfully, without [[Jerkass|Eddy]], the other two would probably be easily accepted by the other kids.

** And then, every once in a great while, the Eds will do something right without any one of them screwing it up. In those cases, one of the other kids screws it up. Most commonly [[Jerkass|Kevin]], [[Spoiled Brat|Sarah]], or the Kanker Sisters, but [[Cloudcuckoolander|Johnny]] and [[Funny Foreigner|Rolf]] do it a lot, too.

* Mike Simon in ''[[Kappa Mikey]]'' is the source of any number of bizarre and inexplicable predicaments. Of course, [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|he's also wildly popular]], and most of his castmates seem rather fond of him, so this one's [[Justified Trope|got a reasonable explanation.]] It didn't stop a pretty nice [[Lampshade Hanging]], though...

{{quote|'''Ozu:''' You make a goood point... Perhaps we should start holding Mikey accountable for his actions?

* ''[[Regular Show]]'' Rigby, who is almost always the cause of all the bizarre stuff that happens to everyone, and getting him and Mordecai into trouble. If Rigby is part of something mundane, he would make it to something beyond weird and life threatening.

 

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Contrived Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Sturgeon's Tropes]]