Biggest Plot And Logic Failures (likely Spoilers)

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Inspired by the Deus ex Machina thread, I thought we could talk about the biggest failures in logic and plotting.

To get the ball rolling, I'll talk about an author that I actually think is pretty great: Paul Kearney.

The Monarchies of God:

The bad guys show in the last book that they have both invincible armies and the ability to infiltrate even the most heavily-guarded rooms and turn their former enemies into allies or subjects - or to just kill them. Despite this, they allow Corfe (I think that's his name) to live and lead viable resistance. It doesn't make any sense - they could have killed or turned the entire leadership of their enemies at will. They had already shown that no one had the power to stop this.

This was mostly revealed in book 5, and unfortunately had the side effect of making most of the previous 4 books fairly pointless.

And I know someone is going to mention the issue in the Long Price Quartet, but that's not a real issue because:

Although individual poets could be assassinated, even a hint that assassins were involved in one's death would have invited a reprisal of untold devastation from the others. At least, that's what I understand.

(null)

[Contrarius]

The most egregious recent one I can think of is in Magic's Price, the third "Last Herald-Mage" book by Mercedes Lackey.

In it, Our Hero (Vanyel) is a Herald-Mage -- a group of protector-wizard types who have served his country for a long long time. But, all of a sudden, he

"suddenly" notices that he's the very last Herald-Mage surviving. Seriously?? Seriously, nobody ever noticed that: 1. they were running out of Herald-Mages at a rapid rate; and 2. when they were already down to 4 Herald-Mages, nobody was worried when two of the remaining 4 suddenly died mysteriously; and 3. nobody cared that no new recruits had been turning up for training for YEARS?? Nobody went out to try to find any?? And 4. somehow the Herald-Mages IN Valdemar couldn't find anyone to train, but an evil mage in a DIFFERENT country could sniff out the potential recruits and kill em anyway??

All that was a throw-the-book-against-the-wall type of failure for me. ;)

[Arthmail]

The point in the Bible were its stated that all men have free will. But then Judas is basically forced to betray Jesus, because otherwise the ressurection could not have happened. Seems free will for all men, save Judas, who is then railroaded into hanging himself.

Well done, god, well done.

[sologdin]

could've avoided the tiresome civil war thing and had a nice story about zombies if the one-armed guy had just given the kid chocolates instead of throwing him out the window.

[Lord of the Night]

Only one I can think of is in Goodkind's Confessor.

When Richard Rahl uses the Boxes of Orden without any of the ritual or preperations that Darken Rahl went through and even Richard admitted in the second book were necessary. And yet he just did it like that. Complete logic drop.

LotN

[Lian]

The point in the Bible were its stated that all men have free will. But then Judas is basically forced to betray Jesus, because otherwise the ressurection could not have happened. Seems free will for all men, save Judas, who is then railroaded into hanging himself.

Well done, god, well done.

That's why there is canon discontinuity on the new testament. :P

Also, did anyone find in Dune the fact that house Atreides (supposedly some of the smartest people in the galaxy) were stupid enough to fall into the trap that they knew was a trap, just because they couldn't think out of the box?! Plot convenience.

[Grack21]

any one who gets as far as confessor has had their own logic failure

[The Marquis de Leech]

Perhaps the biggest plot hole in LOTR (and no, it's not the eagles): the Nazgul attack on Weathertop. Why not continue to press the attack? Stabbing then running away introduces too many variables.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Arthmail,

How was Judas forced to suicide?

[polishgenius]

The point in the Bible were its stated that all men have free will. But then Judas is basically forced to betray Jesus, because otherwise the ressurection could not have happened. Seems free will for all men, save Judas, who is then railroaded into hanging himself.

Why couldn't the Resurrection have happened? I don't know because I'm not God but one could just as easily take it to read that the Scriptures said Jesus would be betrayed because He was, rather than He was betrayed because the Scriptures said so.

[Lord of the Night]

any one who gets as far as confessor has had their own logic failure

I haven't read it, i've just read a plot summary.

LotN

[Sci-2]

Why couldn't the Resurrection have happened?

Because if Jesus lives there is no Resurrection. I suppose Jesus could have lived to old age but it wouldn't give us the dramatic suffering-for-sins element.

This means someone has to bear the crime of killing him, which means either those people are actually innocent or some weird convoluted logic whereby you can be held accountable by a just God for crimes you were forced to commit.

Used to work in a theo department, so word of advice: Like Copperfield's tricks, best not to think about it too much. ;-)

[red snow]

My favourite of late is still Fevre Dream's vampire reproductive biology

Every female vampire dies during childbirth. So how did vampires ever grow in number? And never a mention of every vampire having a twin sibling!

I'll try and think of some more.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Because if Jesus lives there is no Resurrection. I suppose Jesus could have lived to old age but it wouldn't give us the dramatic suffering-for-sins element.

Perhaps another way of looking at it: if no-one ended up killing Jesus, it's because humans didn't need saving? But since they did, they did. If that makes any sense.

(As for Free Will vs Omniscient God, the traditional way around is to say God can see your future choices, but those choices are yours. It's rather like how we know how WWII ended, but it was still Hitler's choice to start it).

[polishgenius]

Because if Jesus lives there is no Resurrection. I suppose Jesus could have lived to old age but it wouldn't give us the dramatic suffering-for-sins element.

This means someone has to bear the crime of killing him, which means either those people are actually innocent or some weird convoluted logic whereby you can be held accountable by a just God for crimes you were forced to commit.

The Resurrection was only necessary because we live in a world where an innocent could be put to death. If we had no free will, our sins wouldn't need redeeming.

In terms of Judas specifically; that he did betray Him doesn't mean that he had to for Jesus to die. There's several instances in the Gospels where someone goes to stone Jesus but He 'slips away' or they cannot seize him. Which only begs the question why the Jewish leaders felt that they needed someone to betray Jesus in order to kill Him.

I'm going off-topic, I fear... so (Harry Potter spoilers)

why are the three Unspeakable Curses so illegal and feared when there exist thousands of spells, charms and hexes that have the net same effect? Especially the one about killing people. Using Avada Kedavra is horrifying but stupefying someone while they're three hundred feet in the air on a broom is okay?

Also, if murder causes a soul to tear every time, then Voldemort has only actually killed, iirc, seven people which makes him a less effective ruthless mass-murderer than probably most of his troops and why aren't all of them immortal too?

[Sci-2]

I'm going to skip over the Jesus & Jewish leaders stuff, as I can't see it going well.

So more logic fail -

Why does that shape changer in Throne of the Crescent Moon lose her powers during her period?

Why didn't the Inchie Bros guard the Heron Spear? (I suspect there's more to this than what Bakker has told us.)

Why didn't Spiderman stop the guy who took the money outside the wrestling place, tie him up with webs AND THEN take the money? Meaning, Uncle Ben would still be alive and he'd have the cash.

[sologdin]

why doesn't sauron just Kill Everyone before the ring is found?

why doesn't gollum just take the ring when the hobbitses thieves bagginses are sleeping and accordingly become the ringlord?

[Newsun]

why doesn't sauron just Kill Everyone before the ring is found?

why doesn't gollum just take the ring when the hobbitses thieves bagginses are sleeping and accordingly become the ringlord?

I don't think gollum could become a ringlord strong enough to challenge sauron bc he doesn't have the preexisting strength of a maiar.

[Newsun]

Also, THE EAGLES, FOR CHRISSAKES THE EAGLES

[Newsun]

Also, THE EAGLES, FOR CHRISSAKES THE EAGLES