What daft things have characters done in books, and you think why!?

In The Woman in White why on earth would Walter fall in love with drippy Laura, rather that Marian who had some go about her? Who'd want to be shackled to a limp rag?

Read Rumpelstiltskin last night. In this version he takes a necklace then a ring and then finally the baby. But why does he need the necklace and ring if he can spin straw into gold?

Remember the first Scream movie, which sent daft things up and was still scary?

Sigh.

Cromwell, near the end of The Mirror and the Light. Just flee the country, man. You are richer than God, you can get away!

<persons mentioning the historical inaccuracy of this plea have a fair point>

I remember my dad reading The Outsider by Camus and his take on it was that he thought it was a good book but 'he shouldn't have shot that Arab.'

It's been ages since I read it, but the Dursleys know about Hogwarts etc, don't they?

Petunia certainly does, and she has some idea of what happened to James and Lily, even if she doesn't know details.

True. And add to that pretty much anything that any character does in a Hardy novel. I love his books but constantly want to give his characters a shake.

It's been ages since I read it, but the Dursleys know about Hogwarts etc, don't they? Petunia's sister went. They hate it but they know it's real, I think.

I read many books and think I’d never do that but also IRL people do things I can’t believe.

When Harry Potter gets a letter from a strange ‘school’ and everyone’s like sure just go. And even he, at 11, doesn’t have a developed enough sense of basic safety to think this might be dangerous, everyone just takes the letters at their face value that there’s a real school and assumes this dodgy bloke who’s followed them to the arse end of nowhere is above board and not a serial killer or something. Irl that would be so unbelievably dodgy and any normal person would ring the police on Hagrid.

In at least one one of the Simon Serrailler books by Susan Hill he lets a character off the hook because he doesn't see why she should be punished for her crime.
He's supposed to be a high Flyer! I was really into the series, but that sort of thing put me off.

When all children in every children's book ever sort out all the adult problems without asking any adults.
I mean, it would be a very boring book if they didn't, but I'm surprised they don't all end up dead.

Pretty much everything that Tess does in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Actually, pretty much everything that everyone does in Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

One of my pet peeves is a character who lives by the sea in Ireland and buys fish in the market in the city which is a three hour's drive away.

Oh I think the point is that she would have ended up with Gale if it hadn’t been for the Games and the war. After her experiences she could no longer relate to him and couldn’t forgive him for <spoiler if you haven’t read the third book>.

Ruth Galloway's prolonged game of pick-me-oh-please-pick-me with the highly dislikeable Nelson is dafter than any of the errors of judgment that inevitably end up with her spending a while stuck down a hole.

I think I had a thread here recently asking if people ever yearned to warn characters. Same basic idea.

I always want to warn Lily Bart against her "daft" impulses in House of Mirth.

In every romantic novel ever written from Jane Austen to Lucy Diamond the lead male and female characters have a minor misunderstanding on page 2 - cue 345 pages of dancing around each other, sulking, distractions and one near miss with another person. They finally resolve the issue on page 348.

If they just had a frank chat on page 3 the book could end happily there.

All readers know that the matter will arise and be resolved before opening the book.

In too many books, the heroine goes off on her own in response to a message, or to meet someone, when she knows there's a dodgy character around, without telling anyone where she is going. And the reader is screaming at her 'don't do it!'

Yes, Ruth Galloway, that includes you.

In Hunger Games why doesn't she fancy Gale?