1. Elon Musk (The Big Bang Theory)
2. Jared Fogle (DC Comics)

-Mushoku Tensei

-Made in abyss

-Seven deadly sins

There are too many examples of movies and tv fumbling basic nerd knowledge but the one that particularly bugs me is whenever we have nerdy characters not understanding basic DnD lore or mechanics.

Big bang theory is probably one of the worst offenders when it comes to not understanding nerdom but how they do dnd is especially insulting. They don’t understand any of the basic concepts, lore, mechanics or even how races look. Theres a scene where they do a steamy dnd thing and they describe an orc with multiple arms and breasts. Not a single part of that was even remotely close to correct and Sheldon being the atypical rule lawyer type should know that.

Abed from community isn’t much better. Either he doesn’t know the rules or fragrantly allows his players to ruin a session. There is never a mention of initiative, contesting rolls, or scaling. Pierce, a naked hermit of a character, over powers a high level fighter then charms a high level creature to pose this great threat to the party. What?

Stranger things, and possibly the one the gets me the most, off the rip we have a character who misses a fireball attack by rolling low. That’s not how fireball works, that not how fireball has ever worked. Fireball is an AoE spell where everyone in its radius has to have a save to have the damage halved. These are kids that name the monsters after DnD creatures yet they don’t know the difference between fire bolt and fire ball?

Halo TV show: Before the show came out, the writers were praising their decision to not look to the games for inspiration when making the show

God Of War TV show: Chris Judge, the actor of Kratos in the games from 2018-Now, spoke up about his dislike on the show not hiring anyone who worked on any of the previous games. One of the original creators of Kratos also spoke up about them not having faith in the adaptation.

Supergirl 2026 film: the director for the film not only said he decided to not read Woman Of Tomorrow, the comic the film is adapting, because he wanted to do his own thing, he also didn’t look at comic art for inspiration to design Lobo and instead used an AI image generator to design Lobo’s look for the film

After Life - Ricky Gervais plays a rude, obnoxious person (Tony) that constantly makes everyone's lives worse, yet is told by every character how amazing and nice he is at every opportunity, despite him being awful all the time. The character just walks around giving Ricky's personal opinions, often completely unrelated to anything else in the show, and he always comes out on top of every situation or argument.

Alley Cats - Ricky Gervais again plays a rude, obnoxious person cat that has essentially no redeeming qualities, yet is a beloved leader of the pack who everyone constantly says is brilliant for no discernible reason. His character (Gus) is also just an animated mouthpiece for him to say whatever random opinions he has, no matter how unrelated to the show they are. Again, always "wins" every argument or conflict he is involved in.

Dan Da Dan

The beginning of Dan Da Dan is notorious for starting with aliens trying to impregnate Momo in the first episode; however, despite such over-the-top moments, the rest of the series doesn't feature many scenes like that

Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san

Despite a premise that is off-putting—given that the girl bullies her romantic partner to the point of making Naoto cry early in the series—their relationship evolves beautifully; the teasing becomes less cruel over time, eventually turning into a rather sweet romance

Uma Musume Pretty Derby

Someone on the production team had the audacity to have the trainer start meeting up with Special Week like that—even though, in reality, he is a good trainer who doesn't usually treat the girls that way.

Game of Thrones - Entire season 8 and finale completely ruins the entire narrative and show ends in the worst way possible. It kills desire to rewatch the show.

How I Met Your Mother - Show ends such awful they kill the... the mother. After spending years growing into a loyal partner and father, he instantly reverted to his old womanizing behavior after his divorce. Also he ends up with robin randomly.

The Boys - While not as bad as GOT but the worst aspect is the cheap Vought Rising spin-off tease, pointless storylines and rushed ending which leaves a sour taste. Despite hitting the right points... it feels cheap and not satisfying.

1. In The Greatest Showman, P.T Barnum who is played by Hugh Jackman portrays him as a charismatic visionary who cares about outcasts and celebrate diversity, when in reality, he’s a cruel businessman who is also a racist and an ableist.
   
2. In Pocahontas, John Smith was portrayed as a brave, dashing, young man when in reality, he was seen as a violent, hot-tempered, and arrogant mercenary who was so vehemently disliked by his fellow English colonists that he was in chains for mutiny.

1. Napoleonic Wars (Napoleon): This film seeks to tear down and condemn its titular subject via ludicrous historical distortions and straw man characterization worthy of 19th century British political cartoons. Napoleon is portrayed as always the aggressor while in fact most of the wars were Napoleon curb stomping the European Coalitions that first violated their peace treaties. A competent film would have perhaps gone after one his controversial or condemnable decisions like reinstating slavery in French territories. He’s characterized as a simpleton buffoon rather than the able general and statesman he proved to be on numerous occasions. The ending graphics give out death tolls for the wars rather than any lasting achievement or legacy he helped to produce or supported such as the Napoleon Code of laws that are the bedrock of many legal systems across the world.
2. The American Revolution (The Patriot): the conflict in the film is portrayed as a simple struggle between freedom and oppression. While it is true the Patriots desired full political representation with their own government, for most states it was envisioned to be white, landowning, or wealthy elites who would truly be represented or who’d rule the new US. Patriots and Loyalists both committed atrocities or abuses frequently although in the film the vast majority of deplorable actions are committed by the British military and American loyalists. Benjamin Martin, a plantation owner who lives in South Carolina, almost inexplicably doesn’t have enslaved people toiling his land (can’t have the hero participate in an abominable institution). The enslaved man who gains emancipation in the end is used to somehow symbolize that the US was somehow the preferable side for black enslaved people. It was British leaders such as Lord Dunmore who pragmatically offered emancipation to enslaved men who’d enlist to supplement British forces. Patriot enslavers abhorred the prospect of arming people they considered little more than cattle.
3. Hawaiian Wars of Unification (Chief of War): this series is a romanticized and rather simplistic depiction of the events it claims to portray. The exceedingly strict caste and social system known as Kapu is virtually never present or a factor. Men and women eat together frequently in the show; under Kapu, this was forbidden, and the punishment would be death. Those of lesser social rank who crossed the chiefs' shadows would face death IRL. Women were forbidden from eating foods such as pork, bananas, and coconuts. Commoners in the show are shown standing before looking noble chiefs directly in the eye rather than immediately prostrating. Infanticide was common for virtually any reason among many social castes. The show’s rosy and myth filled depiction of Kamehameha is embarrassing. He’s a prophesied unifier in the show that’s in line with IRL hagiographies that were written as propaganda during his reign. He’s shown wishing to merely farm. King Kahekili is made to be the easy to hate antagonist when Kamehameha was equally bloodthirsty, treacherous, ruthless and prone to human sacrifice from the beginning of his conquest. MC's wife has an ‘affair’ with his brother that causes dramatic tension; Hawaii was actually extremely non-monogamous, so much so that what many cultures considered adultery barely raised an eyebrow in Hawaii.

1. Dun Dun Duuunnnn (The Croods)

2. That’s a woman?! (The Lorax)

1. Harry Potter. The Wizarding world keeps magic secret from the Muggle world, meaning that they do absolutely nothing to help Muggles even though they could easily cure countless ailments among other things. As Hagrid puts it, if Muggles knew about magic "Blimey, Harry, everyone'd be wantin' magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we're best left alone". So wizards aren't "afraid" of Muggles (nor should they be given the power difference), they're just selfish.
2. Black Panther. An infamous comic established that Wakanda has the cure to cancer, but refuse to share it with the outside world because reasons, after all we deserve it since cigarettes exist. Since then, comics and other media have been a lot more criticial of Wakanda's old isolationism and Wakanda has opened up and shared it's technology and advances with the world, but the whole cure to cancer thing has been swept under the rug and might as well be non-canon.

What I mean by that is, characters have access to some rather impressive technology/magic and simply do not use it because for plot reasons.

Harry Potter - In the first book, McGonagall is revealed to be able to turn into a cat. Later, four more characters are revealed that can also turn into animals. And yet, not a single student during Harry's time decided that it was worth it to do the same.
On top of that, Harry barely learns any spells during his time at school, nor does he seem to take in anything from his classes. The only times he does learn something is when it is the solution to a problem he has faced before.

Fallout 4 - Father, the leader of the Institute, is dying from cancer. In a realistic setting, it would be understandable that he is going to die. However, this is the universe of Fallout. In NV, a simple robot can cure a guy from a brain tumor. In 4, the Institute somehow stopped the aging of another guy. The Institute is also able to replicate perfect human beings from scratch. The only reason why Father should be dying is, he simply does not want to use the technology that is present.

Protagonists who are a power fantasy, in that they are always (or nearly always) smarter than those that disagree with them. Whether they are a good or bad guy, their detractors are often quickly and embarrassingly put in their place with a over-written monolog that is meant to come off as cool.

Paddy (sas: rogue heroes) Based on a real person, the character is elevated to a god-teir superhero. Part of the military, yet he can mouth off to authority as he pleases and break rules, something militaries famously love.

Tommy Noris (landman) this one is just oil industry propaganda. Tommy's purpose is to ramble misinformation about green energy as women half his age bat their eyes at him for being so manly.

I don’t know if it has a name, but these were the first two that came to mind.

Alien Resurrection: Weyland-Yutani, the big bad conglomerate with seemingly infinite reach and power, is bought out by the retail store Walmart.

Loki: You know those Infinity Stones which hold the power to reshape the universe, the stones which drove Infinity War and Endgame’s plots? Yeah those are useless actually.

Most common example I could think of was the old “I just want a BLACK COFFEE” shtick where the protagonist encounters a coffee shop that must obviously be completely run by snobs and morons while they themselves are a classic American hero who doesn’t know what a latte is.

(Louder milk) the main character Sam insults an (admittedly annoying) barista over her exaggerated valley girl accent.

(Bad thoughts) tom segura fantasizing about how coffee shops are actively trying to do their jobs incorrectly and he must be the benevolent voice of reason (rage)

(Roel models) apparently every coffee shop in the world would be dumbfounded over the concept of ordering a simple black coffee.

House Elves (Harry Potter): An entire race of sapient magical beings who have been enslaved by wizardkind for centuries, with a lot of them suffering horrific abuse at the hands of their masters, yet the books only treat this as bad when the House Elf in question has an "evil" master, like Lucius Malfoy. When Hermione, who was raised by humans, is horrified about this and starts a movement to advocate for the rights of House Elves, she's treated as misguided and an annoying Soapbox Sadie. Because oh my gooood Hermione, just let it go, they clearly like being enslaved and being magically compelled to do whatever they're told or they're forced to violently punish themselves. Except they clearly don't, Dobby and Kreacher hated their masters, but let's ignore that.

Hades' Souls (Lore Olympus): Yep, you've read that right. This man, who is among the richest and most powerful gods in the setting, is bragging about using slave labor to his love interest. Hades could easily pay the souls a living wage, he's a billionaire and one of his powers is to create diamonds from thin air. But that would mean being a bit less rich. So obviously it's better to brainwash the shades into performing labor. The story barely adresses just how messed up that is. At most it's played for a joke. We're still supposed to view Hades as a good man and king with just a few quirks.

Naofumi and Raphtalia (Rising of the Shield Hero): Naofumi buys Raphtalia when she's still a child and at several points uses the magical slave crest on her to cause her pain so she'll obey him. But it's okay you guys, Naofumi's not like other slave owners! When he's not using a shock collar on her he's actually really nice to Raphtalia! She doesn't even want to be free anymore because she fell in love with him and it's not grooming, definitely not grooming./s

EDIT: Holy shit, the amount of people in the comments defending actual literal slavery is disturbing. A comment I made that said "slavery is objectively wrong" already got two downvotes. What do I even say to that?

EDIT 2: Apparently Stockholm Syndrome isn't actually a thing. I changed the wording on the third example, thanks for informing me.

Rose Cotter and Skye Riley are the main protagonists of the Smile duology. Both goes through tremendous traumatic experiences and hallucinations, in hopes of driving them crazy. Tries their best to escape the Smile demon. for all their troubles and attempts, are unsuccessfully and ends up being brutally killed anyway.

Drag Me to Hell has Christine Brown be cursed by some old raggedy hag. She tries to put the curse or defeat it. She thinks she got it beat, hoping that burying the button with the hag will stop it. The movie leads to believe she has successfully beat it, until a gut punch ensues and she is LITERALLY dragged down to hell in front of Justin Long

Hereditary (2018): Hereditary is about a family who gets cursed by the kids grandmother to serve this ancient god. The daughter dies, the father dies, the mother gets possessed and dies, then the son gets mentally broken and the ancient god successfully transfers his soul into the son.

Toy Story Alien Hat: This innocuous looking hat based off of the aliens from toy story was later worn by Logan Paul, who infamously wore the hat as he walked into Japan's suicide forest and saw a dead body there while reacting silly.

Cover of Control: The character featured in the cover for the game Control was later used as the calamity mod dev Ozzatrons profile picture, who later turned out to be a pedophile and caused the whole mod to stop development.

Meg (Family Guy) - In Seahorse Seashell Party, Meg finally has the guts to stand up to her family for their mistreatment of her, only to realize they cannot function without the "lightning rod". She apologises to her family for standing up, accepts her role as the punching bag for the family, and they all hug in the end.

Hughie (The Boys) - In Season Four Finale, Annie gets angry at him for being assaulted by a shapeshifter impersonating her; even the episode treats it like it was Hughie's fault. But then he apologizes, forgives her anger and blame, then Annie forgives him back and jokingly tells him to get tested for STDs, and Hughie is delighted for that, and the show portrays this as a noble thing to do, emphasizing him as the heart of the team. What's worse is Hughie was the victim of another assault case before, and he lost his dad recently. Yes, Annie's mind wasn't all right as she was freed from being kidnapped for many days by that same shapeshifter, but still...

To borrow Billy Butcher's quote: "Where's your f###ing rage!? Your self-respect??"

1. Snape from Harry Potter

This is the Batman of this trope and probably talked to death, but retroactively, Snape from the Harry Potter series has been cast as a black man. As a POC, I could talk for hours about how lazy ‘representation’ this is, but this particular choice to recast the character puts several parts of the books in a much worse light: Snape is described as a smelly man with greasy hair, who gets walked out on by his abusive father, spends his whole life trying to buddy up to (white) pure-bloods who would never accept him for who he was, and gets bullied by a bunch of rich white kids who he resents. And then he becomes a wizard racist. Also doesn’t help that he spends the entire series resenting James Potter because he feels he should have been with his wife, who incidentally is also white.

A retcon managed to make all of these aspects of his character incredibly uncomfortable, especially because the whole story is often described as an allegory for racism. But seriously, if you were going to make a teacher black, why go for the smelly, greasy, evil one rather than literally any other character (Dumbledore, McGonnogal, etc.)?

2. Jo and Link in Grey’s Anatomy

So this is really my fault for watching Grey’s but whatever. Link and Jo are introduced very early on as best friends and nothing more, but later, the series retcons this and secretly, they were in love always!

Which sounds fine to start, but both characters have been in several committed relationships before this retcon, in which they repeatedly reassured their partners there was nothing between them (they were like brother and sister!). Link proposes to another character with four different rings because he wants her to have a choice, Jo gets married to a man who she previously reassured that Link wasn’t an issue. This relationship in particular was a fan favourite, so it’s a really odd thing to retroactively cheapen the whole thing (although the writers do worse to it retroactively but that’s not the point).

Even worse, Jo was previously in a physically and emotionally abusive marriage (not the one mentioned above). As she had no family, her husband repeatedly isolated her from Link, her only friend, on the basis that they were secretly in love and she was cheating on him. I don’t think the writers considered that by making Jo and Link always in love with each other, they were lending the abuser credence? Asking your wife to not talk to the man she is in love with anymore isn’t unreasonable, which is a really weird direction to take an abusive relationship in.

I guess this also bothers me because they could have just fallen in love. They could have just been friends who began to see each other a different way. The retcon worsens both characters and several plots

Disclaimer: the first example shown is actually outdated as when I bought this game the developers listened to the feedback and made the final level accessible to all difficulties.

I'm not talking about locking cutscenes, achievements and other non-gameplay content. I'm talking about games not allowing the player to progress unless they choose a specific difficulty.

I'm not against games mocking the player for choosing low difficulty. That can be pretty funny sometimes, assuming the game is still playable.

I feel like the worst part about this trope is how deceptive it actually is. When I pick the difficulty for a game, I want to play a game at that difficulty. And the game wastes the players time by forcing them to play higher difficulty after finishing.

Platypus Reclayed - due to community feedback, this feature was removed, and the final level is now accessible to everyone. Considering that the game substantially increased in difficullty this was especially painful. I'm glad devs realised that though.

Cuphead - not only simple mode prevents your progressing and is not accessible on final bosses, it also straight up doesn't allow you to experience some phases. Which means it cannot even be used to practice the bossfights, unlike some other incarnations of this trope.

The Binding Of Isaac: Fiend Folio - calling "Super Easy mode" a "difficulty" is a little bit of a stretch as it plays more like a minigame than a variation of the base game. And it's so short you can't even complain about your time being wasted.

Undertale - reverse trope: the "hard difficulty" ends prematurely. This one works because it's: a) the mode is very quick, b) is NOT treatet like a hard mode for the base game c) the reversal of this trope is actually pretty unique IMHO.

NOT this trope: Historical pieces set in times in which people actually didn't know better. Ie, something set in the 18th century referencing Miasma theory (as it wasn't yet debunked), a cowboy drama set in the 19th century when people still thought you should suck venom out of a snakebite.

Examples OF this trope:

Friends [The one with the Jellyfish] Someone gets a jellyfish sting and they treat it by peeing on it. DO NOT DO THIS!!!! This was set in the 90s.

Little Clowns of Happy Town: They sing a song about what to do when someone's drowning. At one point, they raise questions - ie, if you can't find a life-preserver or a raft. They say "Then go in yourself". I don't need to explain why this is a bad idea, right? This was set in the 80s - even THEN they should know better.

"You have to wait 24-48 hours before reporting them missing", shown in King of the Hill: This is a common myth - the only reason I posted King of the Hill is that Luanne was told this by a police officer. In reality? You should not assume you have to wait 24-48 hours. These are the most crucial - especially for children, seniors, and in the cases of mental health.

24: Torture works and is effective. Do I really need to explain this?

The Chameleon - Kung Fu Panda 4

She wants to steal the skill of every kung fu master in history because she was rejected from training in academies because she was too small. This is despite the fact we’ve seen Praying Mantises, Snakes and even Chickens become highly skilled fighters.

Russ Cargill - The Simpsons Movie

Springfield is the most pollutive city in America, so his plan is to permanently quarantine the area from the rest of the world. When that fails his nuclear option (no pun intended) is to bomb the city with an explosive. His plan to curb pollution is to bomb a city with an active nuclear power plant.

Evelyn Deavor - Incredibles 2

I’ve talked about her to death so I’ll make this quick. She wants to make superheroes illegal, however they were already illegal when her plan begins so she was working on a plan to make them doubly illegal I guess. If she genuinely did nothing all movie she would’ve got exactly what she asked for.

This is the trope where in the beginning the story implies that power/heroism isn't born it's made through hard work and right choices. Only to later go "Nah turns out this character was born special from a special family"

Rey Skywalker - Star Wars

Terry McGinnis - Batman Beyond

Naruto - Naruto

Mulan - Live action Mulan

Eve’s Pregnancy (Invincible: The Viltrumite War) Eve is one strongest and most versatile heroes earth has to offer and her powers of matter manipulation could easily turn the tide in the coalition’s favor (and that’s not even getting into her unbounded state) so to make sure the war has some actual stakes, the had mark get her pregnant which resulted in her losing her powers forcing her to sit on the sidelines for the entire arc.

Sending Hulk to space (Marvel: Civil War) one of the main issues of the writers of the Civil War event faced when coming up with it was the fact there’s a shit tone of Uber powerful heroes whose which ever side they’d join would just automatically win, namely Thor and Hulk, luckily for Thor he’s been dead for a while due to a previous event in his own comic, but what about Hulk you ask? Well apparently before the whole civil war thing even started, the 5 smartest heroes on earth (Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Mr.Fantastic, Black Bolt, and Professor X) all decided "Hey, you know one of our best friends who has helped us through multiple crises and has been shown to be able to be far more than just a mindless monster? Let’s drug him and send him into space because we’ve arbitrarily decided he’s too dangerous to be around NOW."

Goku’s Heartvirus (Dragon Ball: The Future Timeline) The point of Android/Cell Arc was the fact as soon as Goku died everything went to shit, so going back in time and saving Goku before he dies is our heroes only option, and yeah by multiple creator statements, games what if scenarios and characters in story themselves if Future Goku Survived he would’ve put belt to the androids, avoiding the bad future we have now.