…so here be some blank space for mouseover people…
One of the things that has always bugged me about the first Harry Potter book is that by solving Dumbledore’s mirror puzzle Harry manages to completely circumvent the protection it gave to the Stone. Voldemort/Quirrell would have had a much harder time getting the Stone from the mirror than he/they would have from Harry’s pocket, so wouldn’t it have been better all around if Harry had just stayed in bed and left things as they were?
Similarly, in the first Tomb Raider movie Lara actually stops the bad guys from makng a mistake that would have prevented them from getting what they wanted (in the temple with the big Buddha statue). If she’d just left them to it, the whole crisis at the end would never have been an issue.
Am I remembering these incorrectly or could each of these evil plots have been foiled by the hero staying away? And what other books/TV shows/films etc does this apply to?
(I’m sure there’s a TV Tropes page on this somewhere but I ain’t going near there today - I’m wasting enough time here as it is.)
Several Sherlock Holmes stories are like this – Holmes’ involvement reveals the facts of the case to the reader, but in several cases no action by him id required. (Sometimes he makes things better, as in The Yellow Face or The Blanched Soldier, but “no actual crime is committed”, as he puts it). Holmes really isn’t needed in The Case of Charles Augustus Milverton, for instance.
As others have noted pretty often, Indiana Jones could’ve done nothing in Raiders of the Lost Ark and things would have come out alright.
I think the “heroes” were actual nuisances in Jurassic Park II; The Lost World
If she’d just stayed at home, she’d probably still have her grandfather. Long strenuous trips in a hot car, with aged and unhealthy people, can spontaneously bring exactly that result–Death.
Also, what good results did performing in the pageant create? That Miss Sunshine’s family members have oppositional defiance disorder? Giving the thumbs-up to drug addiction from a cool, hep ol’ man? Or how to violate a corpse? If the family stayed home, and the Mom got more involved in her kids lives instead of being pissed off at her husband who is an absentee father anyway, there would have been a much more productive scenario then allowing your child to be in a pagaent where there will be obviously “snooty” people who will look down upon your beautiful child that isn’t “just so.” We are supposed to protect our kids from circumstances that are less than optimal; not throw them into shark-infested waters. I’m with “the son” in this movie. The mother’s reasons for allowing her daughter to do this are irrational and irresponsible. Children have the rest of their lives to involve themselves in self-abusing scenarios. We(as parents) don’t need to show them how. JMHO.
Yes, the world should be a better place. No, there should NOT be prejudice against anyone that has a gut. Yes, I did like the move very much…I just thought the “motivation” was poor.
Big spoiler for Cube: the characters spend the whole movie trying to escape a prison of 26x26x26 rooms, that shift according to a mathematical algorithm. They eventually discover that the room they woke up in was the “bridge room”, the only one that moves into position to bridge the gap between the rooms and the exit. In other words, if they’d stayed put, the room would have moved right to the exit eventually.
Not a terribly famous movie, but Agnes Moorehead’s uninvited investigation into murders in The Bat caused more deaths than it prevented. It’s particularly maddening since she’s so smug and self-congratulatory in the last scene for having solved the mystery without reflecting on the cost.
Not sure I agree with that one. It was Holmes who picked the safe containing all of Milverton’s blackmail material - and destroyed it all after Milverton’s death. Without Holmes, its continued existance could have led to all sorts of trouble for the (many) blackmail victims.
Yeah, but he wasn’t needed to “solve” the case he was hired for. It’s good that he got rid of other incriminating documents, but the incident that started the case didn’t need him to resolve it.
But there wasn’t any “case to solve”. Here, Holmes was hired to act as an agent for an aristocrat who was being blackmailed and could not afford the outrageous sum the blackmailer was demanding. His orders were, by hook or by crook, to either obtain, steal or destroy the letters. He originally offers the blackmailer a lesser sum, but then, when the Blackmailer turns him down - resolves on robbery.
The plot objective was that he had to remove the letters. In the end, he does just that - by burning all of Milverton’s letters. Milverton’s death was incidental to his goal (though obviously, ending his reign as blackmailer was a nice bonus, and it is true that Holmes had nothing to do with that - at best, he would have ended Milverton’s current blackmail projects).
Sure, if he hadn’t shown up and started digging, the Nazis wouldn’t have found the real site as quickly, but you don’t have to be brilliant to eventually realize that there might be something worthwhile on the other side of that pendant, and go looking for it again.
Hell, the measurement was in whole units of measurement. Making a dozen staffs of different multiples and digging in every spot was easily within the manpower represented there.
Yep. Exactly. So the Nazis get the Ark with no problemo, and then conduct the ceremony to open it, which goes off without a hitch with no meddling Doctor Jones. Then all the Nazis melt, which is what happens when Nazis open the Ark of YHWH’s Chosen People. Then the movie ends.
That’s not a get-out-of-jail-free either. Unless all the Nazis who knew about the ark being opened were present at its opening, then the next group of Nazis comes, sees what happens, and starts to do some tests with better precautions.
Unless you think that Indy and Marion survived due to being pure of heart, and not due to them closing their eyes.
This is the Ark of the Covenant. I’m a hardline atheist, but c’mon. No way no how do the Nazis (or anyone else) manage to circumvent the wrath of god with “better precautions.” There is no defense against the direct wrath of god.
Actually, things would have turned out better if Indiana Jones hadn’t done anything; the Ark would have been opened in Hitler’s presence- complete with the super-aging and the face-melting and the Old Testament-style Wrath of God- which would have taken out Hitler (and one presumes several other top-ranking Nazis, doubtless including people like Goebbels and Goering), and World War II would subsequently be an amusing “What If?” game for armchair military historians to play in fashionable gentlemen’s clubs.
Possibly, but remember the original plan was to fly the Ark straight from the dig site to Berlin- on the plane that Indy & Marion sabotaged. If the plane hadn’t been sabotaged, the Ark would have flown straight to Der Fuhrer (more or less); cue Face-Melting. Fin.
This. I love the movie. Just watched it last week for the millionth time. But it drives me crazy, too. If Indy and everybody really believed in the Ark, then why would they think for a second that the fucking Nazis would be able to wield its power? Wouldn’t God be able to tell the difference between good and Hitler? And if Indy et al didn’t believe the Ark was capable of being a direct line to God, then who gives a fuck? Let Hitler spend the time and money on digging aimlessly in the desert for years. I mean, if Indy just wanted it for the principle of the thing, that’s fine, but that really wasn’t what was feeding the urgency of the plot. At least The Last Crusade almost presented a credible threat, since presumably the Cup would work regardless of who wielded it–of course, the Holy Grail couldn’t be removed, but at least Indy had the added motivation of rescuing his dad.