Characters who died because they were dumb-

[TeChameleon]

So I'm reading through the old Legion of Super-Heroes stories, and ran across a minor villainness named 'Charma', who had a power she couldn't switch off- men would become hypnotically infatuated with her, to the point of making efforts to rescue her that in fiction are normally reserved for true loved ones being in danger, and women would become homicidally enraged at her. She was eventually defeated, put in a power-dampening rig (which did nothing to impede her mobility or vision, just shut her powers off), and shipped off to prison. The next time she is mentioned, we find she died off panel because she deliberately broke out of her power-suppressing rig.

In an all-women's prison.

While knowing full well what her powers did to women.

That has to be one of the dumbest ways I've ever heard of to die. So what are some other hilariously, suicidally stupid characters? Not just ones who went out on an impulsive decision that turned out to be a bad one, but sheer, premeditated stupidity on a lethal scale. Basically the Darwin Award winners of fiction-dom.

[GloatingSwine]

Everyone who ever died in a horror movie.

Ever.

[Fyraltari]

In the first ever Conan the Cimmerian story, The Phoenix on the sword a minor bad guy ends up alone with another bad guy’s slave, named Toth-Amon. Toth-Amon explains to him that he used to be the greatest sorcerer of all of Stygia, a man who terrified even demons and ruled the land as he pleased. Unfortunately for him his power was inside a ring in the likeness of Set the Snake God and that ring was stolen from him by a Shemite burglar. After fleeing his former kingdom, Toth-Amon pursued the thief to a particular city but was made a slave there.
The minor bad guy tells him that reminds him of his lucky snake ring that he bought in the same city from a Shemite burglar who stole it from a Stygian sorcerer. He then proceeds to show said lucky ring to Toth-Amon with whom he is currently alone and who is not restrained in any way.

Surprisingly, he died.

[Rodin]

Garlic Junior is pretty high on my list. Having gained immortality from the Dragonballs he could have comfortably defeated Goku and Piccolo in a fight. They get more tired and beaten up over time, he does not, he will eventually win.

Instead, he opens up a portal to a void of nothingness and promptly gets booted into it by a 5 year old kid.

Upon finally escaping from the void, he goes out of his way to confront said kid and re-opens the portal to the void...and gets booted into it again.

For a more comedic example, there's that one vampire in Discworld who insists on working at a pencil factory, holy water bottling plant, etc. When it's suggested to him that maybe he shouldn't work at those places he starts whining about being discriminated against.

[Daimbert]

Everyone who ever died in a horror movie.

Ever.

I'm not sure how much you're just kidding around here, but there are lots of cases in horror movies where this isn't the case. Anyone who dies before they have any idea that there's a threat (everyone in the first Friday the 13th movie, for example, and most of them in the sequels) didn't die stupidly. Also anyone who chooses to die to buy time or to get the heroine and/or the people who might actually be able to stop the killer permanently didn't die stupidly (Nancy's death in the third Nightmare on Elm Street is an example of this).

There are, however, indeed a number of cases where the people die because they were being idiotic. But most of those are either that the character is overly skeptical and should have known better based on what they'd seen, or cases of bad writing.

[Rodin]

Ooh, I've got another good one: Viserys.

Insulting a barbarian chief to his face, when you're at a feast surrounded by 20,000 of his best mates? Dumb.

Taking your sword out in a barbarian city where the penalty for drawing a weapon is death? Dumb.

Using said sword to threaten the wife of the clan chieftain? Even dumber.

Pointing your sword at the unborn child of said chieftain and telling him you'll "surgically" remove the child before stealing his wife? DUUUUMMMMB.

It's a miracle Viserys lasted as long as he did.

[Themrys]

So I'm reading through the old Legion of Super-Heroes stories, and ran across a minor villainness named 'Charma', who had a power she couldn't switch off- men would become hypnotically infatuated with her, to the point of making efforts to rescue her that in fiction are normally reserved for true loved ones being in danger, and women would become homicidally enraged at her. She was eventually defeated, put in a power-dampening rig (which did nothing to impede her mobility or vision, just shut her powers off), and shipped off to prison. The next time she is mentioned, we find she died off panel because she deliberately broke out of her power-suppressing rig.

In an all-women's prison.

While knowing full well what her powers did to women.

That has to be one of the dumbest ways I've ever heard of to die. So what are some other hilariously, suicidally stupid characters? Not just ones who went out on an impulsive decision that turned out to be a bad one, but sheer, premeditated stupidity on a lethal scale. Basically the Darwin Award winners of fiction-dom.

That sounds like a suicide.

I don't know that character, but to me, it sounds she had it really bad. What was she supposed to do, being attacked by homidicdally enraged women all the time? She would have to kill them in self-defense. And she'd likely have kill some men, too - those who didn't express their infatuation in a gentlemanlike manner because they, well, weren't gentlemen to begin with.

So ... why, exactly, was she a villain? She might have become an upstanding citizen if they just had presented her with that power-dampening device instead of imprisoning her.

No wonder she didn't want to spend years in prison with women who, with her only dampened powers, wouldn't have been exactly fond of her.



So as for characters who died because they were dumb ...


There must be a lot of those in Harry Potter.


Let's start at the beginning of the timeline. Merope Gaunt was dumb for thinking a man she had fed a love potion would come to really care about her instead of hating her for what she did after the potion wore off. (I don't think she qualifies for a Darwin Award, though - her father clearly never taught her normal social skills, so she's disqualified for not having known better. And also for having had a baby.)

Voldemort is a more straightforward case. He had access to all kinds of education and clearly used it, so he could have known that trying to prevent a prophecy from coming true is a very stupid idea indeed.
Especially so if it involves killing a baby.

He qualifies for the Darwin Award, as I don't consider Cursed Child canon.

Quirrell, if he actually, as I think is only hinted at, sought out Voldemort in the hopes of gaining power. Seeking out the immortal remains of the world's worst evil wizard is extremely dumb.


Then there's Sirius Black. Tells Harry that you can tell what kind of person someone his by how he treats his subordinates. Treats his own house elf like crap. Is killed as result of the actions of said house elf. (He was also killed because Harry was dumb, but his own dumbness definitely contributed.)

Dumbledore doesn't get a Darwin Award because he committed assisted suicide before the curse on the ring could kill him. But otherwise he'd qualify.

Peter Pettigrew - I am going to count him. He went and resurrected Voldemort when he could have just found himself a nice muggle family and continued his life as pretend pet. He as killed by Voldemort, which would never have happened if he had kept his head down. Or at least not very likely.

I will give Voldemort's second death a pass because Voldemort apparently could not have known that killing, or trying to kill, his Death Eaters' loved ones was a bad idea, on account of not really understanding love.

[Fyraltari]

Ooh, I've got another good one: Viserys.

Insulting a barbarian chief to his face, when you're at a feast surrounded by 20,000 of his best mates? Dumb.

Taking your sword out in a barbarian city where the penalty for drawing a weapon is death? Dumb.

Using said sword to threaten the wife of the clan chieftain? Even dumber.

Pointing your sword at the unborn child of said chieftain and telling him you'll "surgically" remove the child before stealing his wife? DUUUUMMMMB.

It's a miracle Viserys lasted as long as he did.

To be fair, he was very drunk that one time.

[Themrys]

To be fair, he was very drunk that one time.

Are drunk people disqualified for Darwin Awards?

I would argue that it is Darwin Award worthy to get drunk in the first place if you know that you will be in a city where you might get killed for doing the sort of thing you tend to do while drunk.

GoT seems to be full of people who don't really think through the fact that violence begets violence, and that it would be much wiser to limit oneself to the strictly necessary acts of violence.

[Fyraltari]

Are drunk people disqualified for Darwin Awards?

I would argue that it is Darwin Award worthy to get drunk in the first place if you know that you will be in a city where you might get killed for doing the sort of thing you tend to do while drunk.

Fair point.

[Tvtyrant]

Every character in the Walking Dead. For literally countless reasons from choosing to remain in formerly densely populated regions, to forgetting every trick they come up with, to not forming a formal government at any point. Idiot balls everywhere.

[Saph]

I think Prometheus beats most of these.

The crew of the ship hit Darwin Award levels of stupidity, not once, but over and over again. Just to pick one example: two of the characters get split up from the rest of the crew and end up back in an abandoned alien structure just in time to see some small mutated worm-like creatures emerging from black goop. The creatures look and sound like hissing jet-black cobras with too many teeth.

One of the characters decides to crouch down next to the cobra-thing and stroke it.

His profession? He's a biologist.

[Rodin]

To be fair, he was very drunk that one time.

My new headcanon is that Viserys said "Hold my beer and watch this!" to his drinking buddies right before he sauntered up.

[ben-zayb]

Everyone who ever died in a horror movie.

Ever.

Addendum: This includes the movie Tucker & Dale vs Evil

[Themrys]

One of the characters decides to crouch down next to the cobra-thing and stroke it.

His profession? He's a biologist.

To be fair, biologists are weird.

If you shout "I found a spider!" ... well, in any group containing biologists, they will likely make up the majority of people who run towards you.

The stroking part is too much even for a biologist, though.

[Wraith]

There are two appropriate TV Tropes pages for this phenomenon, in slightly different contexts:

Too Dumb To Live - Characters whose idiocy almost immediately causes their demise, or at least severe physical harm to befall them. The afore-mentioned Horror Movie protagonists who go to investigate the spooky noise in the basement, for example, and that guy who decided that his 9mm would probably do the trick to put down Superman where 30 seconds prolonged drilling with a minigun had failed.

Suicidal Overconfidence - A character does something so overwhelmingly and unbelievably dangerous that death is nigh guaranteed, utterly convinced that they're going to pull it off. The nameless bandits who draw a sword and try to extort money from the Dragonborn, or anyone who decides that he and his 3 friends can probably take down John Wick because they outnumber him.

[TeChameleon]

That sounds like a suicide.

I don't know that character, but to me, it sounds she had it really bad. What was she supposed to do, being attacked by homidicdally enraged women all the time? She would have to kill them in self-defense. And she'd likely have kill some men, too - those who didn't express their infatuation in a gentlemanlike manner because they, well, weren't gentlemen to begin with.

So ... why, exactly, was she a villain? She might have become an upstanding citizen if they just had presented her with that power-dampening device instead of imprisoning her.

No wonder she didn't want to spend years in prison with women who, with her only dampened powers, wouldn't have been exactly fond of her.

While Charma did have a crappy backstory, it doesn't really excuse mind-raping a guy into becoming a supervillain, then using him as her accomplice in an attempt to kidnap and murder the Legion of Super-Heroes for... reasons. She'd never had any interaction with them before, and as far as I can recall, didn't have any personal animosity towards any of the heroes.

Also, she didn't really have to worry about untowards advances- the men she enslaved didn't do anything she didn't want them to while under her influence.

So yeah... the whole 'upstanding citizen' thing wasn't too likely. And she was narcissistic enough that depression-suicide wasn't very likely either, so as far as I can tell, she just died because she was dumb.

[137beth]

Scar. After killing his brother, he has a young Simba at his mercy. He knows that if Simba were allowed to grow up, he could be a threat to Scar's rule. He was standing right next to cub Simba, and could easily have torn his nephew to pieces on the spot.

Instead, Scar gives Simba a head start, telling him to run away. Then he sends his minions to kill Simba (after giving Simba a few moments to put distance between himself and the hyenas), and then doesn't check to see if they actually killed him.

Even after Simba returns as an adult, Scar still has the upper hand. Simba is still wracked with guilt over Mufasa's death, and Scar is very nearly victorious. But at the last minute, Scar destroys his advantage by telling Simba "Hey, you know that terrible guilt you've been feeling for most of your life? Redirect that feeling into righteous anger at me! "

And then he backstabbed is only long-term allies, who finally gave him the death he had coming.

[Themrys]

Also, she didn't really have to worry about untowards advances- the men she enslaved didn't do anything she didn't want them to while under her influence.

Ok, in that case, she really was dumb.

Could have gone to a place where women aren't allowed, be let in because of her superpowers, and live life in peace.

(Though I wonder why her mother didn't kill her immediately after birth ... if that homicidal rage thing was an inborn trait and started immediately after birth. Even if her mother's love had managed to overcome the rage response to her powers, she couldn't have had a happy childhood ...)

Sounds like bad writing to me. She could have made an intriguing character if someone had taken that superpower at face value and spun something out of the conflicts that would naturally arise instead of just using it as gimmick to make a "sexy women who know they're sexy are evil" point.

[LaZodiac]

Garlic Junior is pretty high on my list. Having gained immortality from the Dragonballs he could have comfortably defeated Goku and Piccolo in a fight. They get more tired and beaten up over time, he does not, he will eventually win.

Instead, he opens up a portal to a void of nothingness and promptly gets booted into it by a 5 year old kid.

Upon finally escaping from the void, he goes out of his way to confront said kid and re-opens the portal to the void...and gets booted into it again.

For a more comedic example, there's that one vampire in Discworld who insists on working at a pencil factory, holy water bottling plant, etc. When it's suggested to him that maybe he shouldn't work at those places he starts whining about being discriminated against.

I'd argue against this. Immortal just means you don't die. Doesn't mean you have infinite stamina and are immune to pain. Goku and friends can't BEAT him, sure, but likewise he can't either. The void is the only thing he really had that could defeat them.

[TeChameleon]

Ok, in that case, she really was dumb.

Could have gone to a place where women aren't allowed, be let in because of her superpowers, and live life in peace.

(Though I wonder why her mother didn't kill her immediately after birth ... if that homicidal rage thing was an inborn trait and started immediately after birth. Even if her mother's love had managed to overcome the rage response to her powers, she couldn't have had a happy childhood ...)

Sounds like bad writing to me. She could have made an intriguing character if someone had taken that superpower at face value and spun something out of the conflicts that would naturally arise instead of just using it as gimmick to make a "sexy women who know they're sexy are evil" point.

If I recall correctly, the power manifested at puberty (in an orphanage... like I said, her life sucked).

And there wasn't a lot of 'I'm sexy and I know it', it was more just straight-up mind-control (it was, after all, a comic written under the CCA). She honestly mostly seemed to be on a power trip, wanting to kill the LoSH because they were the most powerful force known to her, and it would be a rush to prove herself more powerful than them.

... like I said, she never seemed to be all that bright

[False God]

I'll echo the "everyone in a horror movie ever" sentiments.

Outside of horror, I have to go with Unicron in Transformers the Movie. The ONE THING that could destroy him was The Matrix, which Galvatron was wearing when Unicron ate him. It's your own fault man. Seriously, just knock him out into space or something. Don't eat the thing that's destined to kill you.

[Douglas]

The main character in I Hate Dragons. He smells supernaturally delicious to dragons, to the point where their ability to think rationally gets overwhelmed by their hunger for this incredibly tasty morsel and they take very stupid risks to go after him. He's employed by some dragon hunters who use him as bait.

He gets tired of being dragon bait (literally), thinking that eventually one of those close calls will go the wrong way and kill him, and quits the job. He doesn't think about the fact that he can't turn this ability off.

[Eldan]

To be fair, biologists are weird.

If you shout "I found a spider!" ... well, in any group containing biologists, they will likely make up the majority of people who run towards you.

The stroking part is too much even for a biologist, though.

You haven't met some of the biologists I have.

It's not just spiders. If you shouted "look, a gooey black cobra with too many teeth!" a lot of the biologists I know would run over too. And maybe not stroke it, but at least poke it with a stick.

[veti]

Most villains in most movies ever. There's a reason for the Evil Overlord list.

Also, the character - usually a scientist of some sort - whose reaction to seeing three or more people gruesomely dispatched by some unknown monster is: "how interesting, maybe we can communicate with it". That's been a trope since before any of us were born.

[Saph]

You haven't met some of the biologists I have.

It's not just spiders. If you shouted "look, a gooey black cobra with too many teeth!" a lot of the biologists I know would run over too. And maybe not stroke it, but at least poke it with a stick.

Okay, so I should add that these two crew members from Prometheus also decide to:

(a) enter an unknown alien environment with no weapons, armour, or protective equipment of any kind,
(b) remove their helmets in an alien environment without checking it for pathogens of any kind,
(c) run away from the rest of the crew in said alien environment, and get lost, despite having access to hyper-advanced mapping technology that the crew used ten minutes ago to map out the entire structure. Oh, and the other guy who's with the biologist, who gets lost with him? HE'S THE ONE WHO DID THE MAPPING.

Added together, I'm pretty sure that makes them AT LEAST as dumb as anyone else in the thread. I haven't read of anyone who beats them, anyway.

[Kitten Champion]

I have to agree with Prometheus being beyond the pale with this.

With the Alien franchise, there's generally a fairly solid reasoning with regards to why the various characters end up as they do. 90% of which is an immoral corporation's indifference to sacrificing the lives of it's workers and anyone else not rich or powerful enough to complain for the mere possibility of further profits -- the other 10% being whatever happened in Alien Resurrection. While some of the characters do show an abundance of pragmatic caution, it just doesn't matter because they've got next to no agency in their lives to ultimately elect to do the sane thing whenever feasible.

Then you have Prometheus where the crew is the best of the best - or as close to - who are sent on this hugely expensive mission to find the very Creator of Humanity, and they just Red Shirt it up like a bunch of chuckleyucks. It stands out for how dissonant it is with the ambition of the work. Like sending the horny teenagers from your typical 80's slasher movie in to perform delicate diplomacy during the Cuban missile crisis or something, despite the gravity of the work's themes it's still interested in delivering the stereotypical horror deaths at set intervals as if the audience would get bored otherwise.

[Eldan]

Okay, so I should add that these two crew members from Prometheus also decide to:

(a) enter an unknown alien environment with no weapons, armour, or protective equipment of any kind,
(b) remove their helmets in an alien environment without checking it for pathogens of any kind,
(c) run away from the rest of the crew in said alien environment, and get lost, despite having access to hyper-advanced mapping technology that the crew used ten minutes ago to map out the entire structure. Oh, and the other guy who's with the biologist, who gets lost with him? HE'S THE ONE WHO DID THE MAPPING.

Added together, I'm pretty sure that makes them AT LEAST as dumb as anyone else in the thread. I haven't read of anyone who beats them, anyway.

Oh, I'm not saying they weren't spectacularly dumb. I saw that movie too and I was facepalming a lot. The mapping especially was spectacularly dumb.

But as a biologist, I absolutely understand the instinct to stick your face up to any interesting form of life you see.

[Wraith]

Feeling the urge to find a new and strange species and then pick it up and play with it while making goo-goo noises, is what makes you a biologist.

Giving in to that urge without taking proper precautions, is what makes you an idiot.

[TripleD]

Going old-school with this: The Epic of Anzu from Sumer.

Ea, god of wisdom and ruler of the universe, decides to swimming. He asks his servant, the bird-demon Anzu, to watch his stuff while he's in the water.

Anzu: "Hey, what's that clay block in the pile?"

Ea: "Oh that's the tablet of creation. It's the source of my power."

Anzu: "So um, theoretically speaking, what would happen if I took it?"

Ea: "You'd gain total omnipotence. The universe would conform itself to your desires. Your word would be reality."

Anzu: "Huh."

Ea: "Yep. Interesting stuff... well see you in an hour!"

When the thing that any five-year-old could see happening happens, the gods are standing around trying to figure out how defeat Anzu. Most of the gods just want to give up, as defeating a being who can win by saying "you lose" presents a bit of a tactical pickle. Ninurta decides to take his chances though.

Luckily, Anzu is possibly the dumbest being in this story. When Ninurta fires his arrow at Anzu, rather than saying one of a million other ways to resolve the situation, he utters "return from where you came". The metal tip of the arrow falls into the earth, and the shaft becomes a tree and falls to the ground.

Admittedly it's a cool visual. Ninurta knew that Anzu would say it though, so he fletched his arrow with a feather of Anzu. When the rest of the arrow was exploding into base parts, the feather flies straight into Anzu, killing him.

Weirdly enough something similar happened to Gilgamesh in his epic. He puts aside the bread of life while bathing and a snake takes it. Apparently poolside theft was a big issue in ancient Mesopotamia.