Weekly Scroll: Idiot Plots

Plus! Gavin's podcast, morning routines, and a good chickpea post

Some housekeeping - we’ve just hit 10,000 subscribers! To celebrate, I’m offering a 30% off discount for new paid subscriptions. Paid subscribers make this Substack possible, and they get access to several paid-only posts each month. I only run these promotions once or twice a year, so if you’re on the fence now’s the time to jump in and support the blog! Click below or go directly to https://www.infinitescroll.us/10Koffer

Idiot Plots

According to Wikipedia:

In literary criticism, an idiot plot is one which is "kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot", and where the story would quickly end, or possibly not even happen, if this were not the case.

Idiot plots are typically considered a sign of poor writing. Screenwriters may write their characters to behave in a way that they wouldn’t actually behave, given their beliefs and motivations - but they act that way because the screenwriter needs them to advance a particular plot point. So the character ends up as kind of an idiot, bumbling into decisions that don’t make sense. When the boyfriend sees his girlfriend with another man, why doesn’t she immediately say ‘This is my brother’ instead of letting him yell and then storm off? Would the government official really just leave classified documents in public where a journalist could stumble across them? That’s absurd, it would never happen in the real world.

Anyways: