Biggest Plot Pet Peeves?

I HATE seeing poorly-written plots, especially when it's convenient things that happen just to make the hero survive, the secret not get out, or whatever.
-Hero about to die, but someone somehow finds them and helps them...and this happens 3-300 more times throughout the series (*cough* Supernatural *cough*).
-Person was waiting to tell protagonist about x (already bullshit), and they are killed right before that (also bullshit).
-Person going through 14 million possibilities of events, and finding just ONE where the win (bullshit), and that one doesn't include him using his power to stop time and defeating the villain (extremely bullshit). This one pissed me off the most. "Oh, but he said it was the ONLY way." Yeah, that's bullshit. It was made the way for convenience, not because there was only one actual way. He could stop time, take off the gauntlet, and either hide, or destroy (or hide and have that lady destroy) the stones. Hell, he could stop time and kill Thanos. Take a rock or something, and bash his head in. The only reason this wasn't done was for convenience (and so there could be a new movie).

 

"It's not what it looks like!"

Then absolutely no elaboration, and other person walks out of the room. Person doesn't chase them. C'mon...

 

How about a newly-discovered magical ability that miraculously solves the problem at hand?
Or, as someone lies on the brink of death, suddenly an item is found/revealed/brought to them that can save them?
Or Character A is mad at Character B because they thing situation A happened, and Character B is mad at Character A because they think that Situation B happened, and it could be solved if they just TALKED to each other...but they refuse to.

 

Pointless self-sacrifices for drama. No you did not need to stay behind to hold those people off, your crew was already boarding the escape pod and the bad guys were having trouble getting through the door to the escape pod bay.

 

Wait, you mean a ship with autopilot doesn't need a purple-haired lady to stay with it?

And why wasn't that method used on the Death Star? And why are those bomber ships at the start so damn slow, making your own death by dropping them a likely possibility? Nevermind the whole flying through space while unconscious debacle...that whole movie is a mess.

 

In Westerns the MC always "just got shot in the shoulder" or "it's just a flesh wound".
In real life if you get shot in the shoulder your life could be ruined forvever. There are a lot of important muscles and nerves in there and some arteries. You can actually die from being shot in the shoulder and if you do survive you won't be using that arm the same way again.

 

On the other end of the spectrum, you have people that automatically die from being stabbed. As long as it's not in certain places, being stabbed usually doesn't have a high mortality rate. And I've seen books where the MC is in the hospital for like a week after being stabbed. For most stabbings, try MAYBE 24 hours, followed by weeks of soreness.

 

You're right about that. There's also being able to beat someone to death with your bare hands. In reality, it is really hard to kill someone with just your bare hands (a normal person with no disabilities and is fighting back). That's why real crime scenes are a bloody mess. It takes a lot of beating and a long time to beat someone to death barehanded.

 

And they probably smell bad. Did you ever leave some meat out to defrost and forgot about it then came home from vacation two weeks later?

 

What about Harry Potter? Tons of plot holes. I'll accept that Lily's love saved Harry, but why did Harry become a horcrux? From every way they've been described, you can control where you horcrux is contained. Additionally, Harry drops the stone. They never explain whether the last person to possess it is resurrected, or if you have to be holding it at the time. People say it doesn't matter because Voldemort killed the horcrux, not Harry. But Harry IS the horcrux, and that spell has no precedent for doing anything OTHER than killing a person. And why didn't Voldemort create another horcrux? Sure, he'd be weaker, but he'd survive. A basic hedge of his bet would mean an eighth battle for him.

 

The fact that I was referencing a completely different show just highlights how completely overdone this stupid cliche is.

 

So, my turn and I said this in a rant once somewhere on this forum, but here looks like a good place.

My biggest petvee is faux happy endings.

It's an ending that implies a happy ending while ignoring the ramifications of the protagonists/ "Good Guys" actions. My biggest example is Mad Max: Fury Road.

So, you live in a hard hellscape ravaged by nuclear war and have this leader, he is hard man, a tyrant and you could call him evil, I suppose. But he has a working community, it's not prefect but hey people are surviving and thriving in it. They have trade with neighboring settlements and a culture of their own... but no... he bad... must kill bad man.

So, go find fairy land, find it's a swamp down, retrieve seeds of life, gonna take over the bad guy's settelment and freedom for all... enjoy the waters of life...

oh wait.. what's that dust cloud in the distance? oh yeah... we might have killed the leaders of those settlements and they might be a bit pissed at us for doing so and wanting revenge. Also a package of seeds is not going to save a goddamn settlement of hundreds. not to mention all the bigger baddies out there, who will come knocking, with guns.


Also stormtrooper aim, that annoys me as well, though some theories are that it they were deliberately meant to miss so that Luke, Leia and Han could escape. But what about the rest of the films.

I was going to say the original end of Fallout 3 where it's either you or Sarah Lyons who must sacrifice themselves by entering the radiation filled chamber to start the purifier, when you have companions who are not only immune but two of them Fawkes and Charon are healed by it... So it would be like taking a bath in spring water to them but no... you are bad for asking them to do it, which amounts to me rejecting a snickers bar or a cup of coffee. And even when they fixed it, they both still grumble about it and you are branded an asshole for not sacrficing yourself instead of doing the smart thing that a sane human would do.

Yeah, this too, it's like those people didn't exists, which they sort of didn't but for immersion they do. And the hero just causes their death like it was nothing. I wrote an epilogue for my MC, Kristol, where she laments and regrets living to such an old age while others died so young, in her name.

 

Almost anything having to do with information security because it's so wrong:

• uber-hackers who can get into secure computers from the Apple store in 30 seconds
• uber-hackers who can hack into a newly-discovered alien race's computers and deliver crippling malware into it.
• ultra-viruses that cannot be stopped and affect everything -- in a recent book I read, all of humanity across several star systems was wiped out by a broadcast virus that crashed (irreparably) everything
• sophisticated well-funded organizations that don't have the sense to air-gap their sensitive systems or backup their data to Iron Mountain

The list goes on ...

 

Oh, and the Evil Empire Cliche... I hate that one as well... mostly because I have Five empires in my books, two of them are good, one is neutral, one is aggressive and the third is a space federation that calls itself an empire (does have an emperor) for the intimidation factor. But they each have a history and a culture that explains them as well. rather than.

I am the Evil Space Empire of the Cosmos and I must do Evil things... because I am an Evil Empire.... boogied-boogied.

 

I'll respond to posts when I'm not on my phone, but I will say that my goal is to have ZERO plot holes /dumb decisions in my series (unless intentional). If a major character would probably die in a situation, he will. If the entire war can be averted with a simple conversation, it will be.

 

You know this one makes me a think of another one, alien races that come to destroy other planets to harvest them rather than colonize them... it's like why destroy a living planet... not to mention there is plenty of resources just floating out in the cosmos.

 

Phoenix down

 

From the Final fantasy games? How come you can revive anyone at anytime, until the plot determines they are officially dead.

 

Erisssssss!!!!!!

I mean, they could have given her a PD and said “oh no, she’s hurt too bad.”

 

Why didn't Frodo use the eagles? Ready to hear bullshit excuses.

 

And so Dr Strange saw a future where he attempted to bash Thanos's skull open with a rock. However, it turns out that a being that can take the weight of several thousand tonnes of steel is pretty resistant to being bashed with a rock. After that he tried to take off the gauntlet, but it turns out that without the person straightening their fingers, that's really hard to do for something that's made of metal.
Beyond that, the stones seem to have a limited range, considering the Guardian's put themselves back together after being turned into slinkies.

 

Sure, maybe a rock wouldn't work, but he can freeze time. He can literally do anything to Thanos he wants.

 

For me it’s the good old fashioned deus ex machina. It’s fine to resolve things in a sudden, but the writer has to do the groundwork first.

 

1) The Nazgul could intercept their entry into Mordor. If things don't work out, if they get downed over Mordor, then all they've accomplished is bringing the Ring right to Sauron.

2) The Eagles follow the Valar's (specifically Manwë's, I believe) orders. Eru and the Valar prefer a soft touch when it comes to intervening in worldly affairs.

3) Up until Frodo puts on the Ring in Mount Doom, Sauron cannot even conceive of the idea that someone would want to destroy it. He's convinced others will try to take his place. If their true intent were revealed earlier, it would be trivial for him to blanket the mountain with troops, making its destruction impossible.