The Millstone: Difference between revisions

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).

* ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' has the protagonist, Tsunayoshi Sawada, at least in terms of sports. Any team that picks him for a game loses. He ''does'' [[Took a Level in Badass|take a level]], though.

 

* 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.

* [[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.

* 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.

** Originally, Roy considered Elan to be this and when the latter was kidnapped, Roy was hesitant to go and save him. However, he later decided that this was a jerk move and goes to rescue him. Elan eventually [[Took a Level in Badass]] in a class that lets him use his [[Genre Savvy]] more efficiently, though he still occasionally had his moments.

** 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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Character Flaw Index]]

[[Category:Contrived Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Sturgeon's Tropes]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Millstone, The}}