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

[Yourinmyspot]

I’m currently reading Jurassic Park and Arnold has gone to the maintenance shed to get the power back on. Three velociraptors are surrounding him. One gets blown up by Muldoon so he escapes into the shed.

It’s very dark and he can’t see anything so props the door open with a shoe. Why? Why would you do that. Unsurprisingly a velociraptor gets in and eats him.

I once read a TV review that talked about the ESM - the essential moment of stupidity, necessary for so many shows. I now look for the ESM in films, books and TV shows. They are very common.

Ha yes, and it's usually one person telling another person some really useful information and the other person dismissing it. Eminent comet-specialist: "We've got to leave now or we'll all be killed by the falling comet!" Person who knows nothing about comets: "What, nah, don't be so stupi....." Splat.

OR - person finds out other person is a baddy and tells obviously (obviously!) shady and crooked in-on-it Big Boss. Big Boss strokes chin. "In-ter-esting....and, er, who else have you told?" "Only you".

Came on to say this.

Our House. The husband whose name I forget, essentially don’t really understand why he did any of what he did. But mostly, if he was going to kill himself anyway then why sign the paperwork that fucked his wife and kids over in the first place?

I once read a TV review that talked about the ESM - the essential moment of stupidity, necessary for so many shows.

I used to follow a book review site which referred to heroines as 'TSTL' - Too Stupid To Live.

And there are the characters in crime novels who think they have a crucial piece of information, but put off telling anyone until they too get bonked on the head. Even Dame Agatha is guilty of this at times.

In 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin', why didn't Captain Corelli come back the female character (whose name escapes me)? He claimed he came back and saw her with a child and assumed she was married and went away again. But that explanation never really convinced me. Surely he would have at least said ,"Hello', and met her husband/family and re-assured her that he had survived.

Frankenstein creating a monster and then being surprised and alarmed that he created a monster. Wtf dude?

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Heard film critics talking about Frankenstein on the radio. For a basic plot they've redone that story a shed load of times.

The usual one - Jo marrying the professor instead of Laurie!

Yes that one

The usual one - Jo marrying the professor instead of Laurie!
I think Laurie was too young and immature for Jo at the time he asked her. He needed to go away and get a job and do some growing up, then maybe.

This always annoyed me. He threw away a supposed relationship of a lifetime, when she could have been looking after a friend’s kid for a few hours. Made no sense.
In the da Vinci code, why didn’t the grandma- who actually knew everything anyway- just hop on a plane to France and introduce herself to her granddaughter. Would have saved a lot of hassle…..

Her 'ugly' face is mentioned once by Walter at the beginning after a long description of her attractive body. Count Fosco is very attracted to her and her relationship with Walter is very close and more like a modern loving marriage than his relationship with Laura. If you remember Wilkie Collins lived with one woman and had 3 children with another, with both women aware of each other, it's not unreasonable to think we are suppose to surmise that Walter had a sexual relationship with both Laura and Marian at the end. The last chapter is ambiguous about the nature of their homelife (and the readers at the time knew about the authors love life, it was well known).

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold one of the characters deliberately gets pregnant even though she has a serious heart condition and knows the pregnancy will kill her and leave her child motherless. Nobody sensible would do that, they would adopt or use a surrogate or just not have a child.

I've just read an entire crime series in which the hero continually waves off his sister/female colleague/ girlfriend so she can nip home to get her lip balm when a murderous nutter is on the loose. You'd think he'd notice after a while that it leads to mayhem every single time.

I came on to tell Dr Galloway to get a bloody grip as well! When will she learn? Michelle is just as daft.

Fosco admired her as he understood she was brave, independent and very intelligent. Also - remember, he is portrayed as uber-brainy but also really strange and mainly negative character.

For some reason, Marian reminds me of Lila from Futurama )))

Fosco is a villian but he's a more interesting and complex character than Sir Percival Glyde who is a straight out bad un. He is urbane and intelligent and Marian says he has "interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him" so the attraction goes both ways.

Dickens wrote insipid heroines but all of Wilkie Collins' female leads are strong and intelligent characters as were plenty others in Victorian literature. What about Maggie Tulliver or Jane Eyre or Becky Sharpe?

Othello and the damned handkerchief. Really?!