What Is the Idiot Ball?
To borrow the definition from TV Tropes, "A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If multiple characters have the Idiot Ball, it becomes an Idiot Plot. Temporary (or permanent) Genre Blindness is often a cause of this trope". As you can see, the Idiot Ball trope describes when a character's stupidity is so great, or influential, it help to power a small plot line.
The most common occurrence of the trope is as follows:
The most common occurrence of the trope is as follows:
- A character acting OOC (Out Of Character).
- A character misunderstanding something that could be cleared up by asking a single reasonable question.
- A character failing to preform a simple action.
Why is the Idiot Ball Needed?
As it isn't a big surprise to anyone, the usage of this trope involves a response from the audience along the lines of "What an Idiot!" But sometimes the Idiot Ball has to be held for the benefit of the audience.
Often the Idiot ball has to be held by a person so he/she can ask a stupid question that is necessary to reveal exposition that wouldn't be talked about naturally, but said exposition needs to be there for the audience.
Also, the protagonist of the story kind of needs to keep the Idiot Ball at all times. If the protagonist of a story was just as smart as the villain, the story would be done in less than half the time and it wouldn't be nearly as fun. If you didn't just under stand that sentence, let me put it in simple terms: a hero holding the Idiot Ball makes for a long, entertaining and fun story, while a smart and dangerously genre savvy hero makes a story incredibly short and boring.
Also, the protagonist of the story kind of needs to keep the Idiot Ball at all times. If the protagonist of a story was just as smart as the villain, the story would be done in less than half the time and it wouldn't be nearly as fun. If you didn't just under stand that sentence, let me put it in simple terms: a hero holding the Idiot Ball makes for a long, entertaining and fun story, while a smart and dangerously genre savvy hero makes a story incredibly short and boring.
When the Idiot Ball is Dangerous
When it comes to the idiot ball, everyone needs to carry it in order to demonstrate that people make mistakes, especially the protagonist. But the Idiot Ball becomes critically dangerous when the cause of it is Character Derailment (a character becomes largely different from what was previously established about them). While Character Derailment is not technically a trope, it should be taken into consideration when writing. The best way to avoid this from happening is recognizing who needs to hold the idiot ball and when exactly it needs to take effect.