History Main / ConflictBall

* During the climax of ThePrincessAndTheFrog, [[spoiler: while she's still a frog Tiana thinks that Prince Naveen has left her when she sees him in human form marring Charlotte... despite the fact that she knows she will turn human again once he does and personally saw that the enemy impersonates him]]. The twist of the knife is that this indirectly causes [[spoiler: Ray's death]].

* In TheWestWing episode "Isaac and Ishmael", the normally calm, moral and - of course - liberal Leo [=McGarry=] character has to turn into a ranting strawman of a right-wing ideologue for plot purposes. It should be pointed out that this episode's canonicity is debatable, particularly since the actors give a small speech at the beginning that openly states that it doesn't fit into the regular continuity.
** So, not all that "debatable" then.
** Well, his behavior isn't all ''that'' out of character. Leo is the administration's advocate for the Star Wars missile defense program and coal, and he actually resigned as chief of staff over his opposition to Bartlet's Middle East peace plan.
*** Yes, of ''course'' being a Star Wars and coal advocate means a character is also right-wing jingoistic bigot! [[SarcasmMode Everyone knows that if you agree with one Republican tenet, you must agree with all of them, because the Republican party is natural law, not a political construct!]] And the last point would be valid if not for the fact that said disagreement and resignation occurred much later in the series, and when it did, it was decried as extreme CharacterDerailment. In fact, it's usually ''Bartlet'' who goes into overreacting PapaWolf mode over threats to his country, and it's usually Leo who reigns him in and acts as the moral center. So it's actually not merely a ConflictBall, but an absolutely unrecognizable OutOfCharacterMoment.
**** Given that this comes in a '''non-canonical''' episode ''dealing with nine eleven'' and filmed within two weeks of said event, one should perhaps not be ''at all surprised'' that it's a bit out of character.

** The Going Merry was not only a present from Ussop's sick friend, and a reminder of his home town, but a sentient being. It's understandable that Usopp would have trouble letting go. At the same time, it couldn't sail any longer. Luffy had no choice but to get a new ship. He couldn't very well give in to Usopp and sail his crew to their deaths.

*** The Going Merry [[spoiler:fixes itself in the Skypia Arc and Usopp knows that too]]. It's plain heartless to abandon it, but at the same time still sailing in it is plain brainless (and Luffy is not THAT brainless). Franky [[spoiler: even points out it's better FOR THE SHIP to abandon it, because if the crew it loves sinks with it, the ship will not find peace]]. Usopp's denial is part of his character personality [[FreudianExcuse based on his own side story]]. Eventually Usopp learns that [[spoiler: things like this happen and he has to learn from this, not deny it or lie to himself]] leading to a moment of redemption, yes, this one, at the end of Water Seven Arc [[spoiler: he's still a coward and fights with deception, but now he doesn't make excuses for his coward personality; he now accepts he is a coward. Plain and simple]]
* The Soul Society in {{Bleach}} does more than occasionally show fondness for this trope as Captain Yammamoto and Central 46 have been considered to do this before. Though some are willing to contest the former, the latter not so much.

* The character Steven Caldwell of StargateAtlantis was, according to the actor, supposed to be more of a jerk in the original script. However the actor subtley nicened him up a bit. Unfortunately the trade off was that whenever the script called for him to truly be a jerk, it often looked a little forced. One notable example is the episode ''Sateda'', in which Shepard claims that Caldwell doesn't value alien team members such as Ronin as much as earth members, a point that had never been hinted at before.

*** [[spoiler:You milage may vary on this. Her plan had gotten a couple of Potentials killed and Xander lost an eye. Now she was suggesting the same idea a couple days later. She was rapidly proving to be a terrible general. That was no reason to kick her out of her own house, though.]]

* The entire population of Azeroth was handed one of these between ''{{Warcraft}} III'' and ''WorldOfWarcraft''. Nearly all the civlizations of Kalimdor, which includes forces from both the Alliance and the Horde, allied to fend off the Burning Legion and the Scourge by the end of the former game, but those alliances dissolve ''offscreen'' in the years between the games. The release of ''Wrath of the Lich King'', and the corresponding rise of the Scourge as a major threat once again, has caused a thaw in relations between the coalitions, but they still battle openly in some places. The main purpose of the war seems to be to have an excuse for the two sides to be in opposition.

* Used as a joke in some of the ''{{Touhou}}'' games, especially fightning games. Often the fights are for improbable, ridiculous reasons. However, it's also clear that, ultimately, [[BloodKnight these people just like beating the heck out of each other]]!

* ''BrideWars'' has the two protagonists have their weddings for the same date. The two have been best friends for years, but they now suddenly don't want a double wedding. BadMovieBeatdown had a field day pointing out how arbitrary it was, to the point of a gaping PlotHole.

* The Soul Society in {{Bleach}} does more than occasionally show fondness for this trope as Captain Yammamoto and Central 46 have been considered to do this before. Though some are willing to contest the former another words YourMileageMayVary, the latter not so much.
** Which is a little odd considering how little the Central 46 have actually been in it; their biggest mistake wasexiling Urahara for a crime he did'nt commit, but was expertly framed for by Aizen. In the Soul Society arc they were presented as ruthless pedantic to the point of LawfulStupid, if not plain evil, in wanting Rukia dead, but this too was a ploy by Aizen as [[spoiler: he had actually murdered all of them already and had taken their place]].

* While normally a good show, BuffyTheVampireSlayer is really, really bad about this. Sometimes conflict seems randomly shoehorned in among the characters just so the writers can meet some sort of mandatory drama quota.
** These days, that could pretty much apply to ANY prime-time drama...

* ''BrideWars'' has the two protagonists have their weddings for the same date. The two have been best friends for years, but they now suddenly don't want a double wedding. [[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses Bad Movie Beatdown]] had a field day pointing out how arbitrary it was, to the point of a gaping PlotHole.

When there is something making the characters fight all of a sudden, that's a HatePlague.

** Nah, they were just cowards. That's why they were hiding in the first place while all the real Jedi died.
*** So Kavar protecting Queen Talia, Zais freeing Mira from Visquis' hideout and Vrook heading out to fight mercenaries alone to buy you time to prep Khoonda's defences, each putting themselves at great risk, always for your benefit, are common traits of cowards?
*** By Jedi standards, they were. All of them decided to hide rather than fight the Sith openly, and despite your efforts they don't really change their minds even when they have a shot at winning. All of their actions in the game are just a repetition of mistakes they've already made.
**** "All of their actions in the game are just a repetition of mistakes they've already made." That's ''exactly'' what is wrong with the Jedi. That's ''exactly'' the conflict given in the novelization of Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover. Yoda realizes in the fight with Darth Sidious that the Sith had been preparing to wage a new war with the Jedi, while the Jedi had been preparing to wage the ''exact same war they had already fought''. The Jedi had lost before Sidious's plan had gone into effect. They had lost before Yoda was even born.
** One explanation for how the remnants of the Jedi council acted was group mentality. People have a tendency to be more irrational and irresponsible when acting as a part of a group than when confronted as individuals.
*** [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation Or]], they realized they were completely outgunned by the Sith (who had just curbstomped an ''entire planet'' where the rest of the Order had gathered. The ''entire planet'' was rendered completely lifeless but for one survivor, who ended up as a Sith Lord's plaything until he [[DefeatMeansFriendship sends her at your character]]). Only [[ShellShockedVeteran Zez Kai-Ell]] had given up completely, [[GoodIsNotNice Vrook]] and [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Kavar]] were playing for time. Of course, the one responsible for the Jedi getting massacred, [[spoiler: Atris]], was a hardliner who hated your guts already and underestimated the Sith ''constantly'', leading to a nasty fall to the Dark Side after receiving a magnificent The Reason You Suck Speech from the game's Magnificent Bastard. The problem wasn't the Jedi were in a group being unreasonable; they were all being [[IneffectualLoner Ineffectual Loners]] and deriding the others' efforts until you come along.
** A better example of the Conflict Ball in Jedi hands would be the Ruusan Reformations. This is where you see the movies' Order come to be from the comics' and games' Order. Much stricter, less flexible, and a bunch of new rules that make conflict virtually impossible to avoid. (No love on pain of expulsion? Really?) This is what Yoda is thinking of in the above example. This is where the Jedi stopped growing and became static/stagnant.

* In the {{Dinotopia}} book ''The Maze'', at one point the characters enter a field of [[HatePlague angry gas]]. They would never have known about it if Booj hadn't taken the offer of "You think you're above us anyway, why don't ''you'' go ''up?''" literally, and jumped to a ledge above the level of the gas.

*** The use of the ConflictBall in Season Seven - particularly when [[spoiler: Buffy was kicked out of the house]] - may be partially influenced by changing scripts. [[spoiler: According to rumour, Xander was supposed to be outright ''killed'' instead of just losing an eye - this was only changed when they realised there wouldn't be sufficient time to mourn him in the last episodes. Regardless, having Buffy's friends kick her out of the house would have made a fair bit more sense if one of her closest friends ''had'' been killed by her thoughtless plan. This doesn't excuse the outright idiocy of promoting FAITH - a girl who's had issues with mental stability and basic morality in the past - to the position of replacement leader over the experienced and intelligent Willow or Giles - even Xander would have been a better choice for leader, since his crippling injury was caused by trying to SAVE the girls from Caleb (and he's had a lot of experience on the field as well]].

** Justified quite a bit, in that Emily ''likes'' her "misfiled" existence - in which she's learned a lot of new and interesting things, made new friends and basically lives a life that's more than extension of her mother's lost dreams. She also knows Ash's hates her new life (or more specifically, hates the fact that [[GenderBender he's a she]] in it). Emily doesn't really want to fix things, and only admits this when Ash tries to get her to commiserate with her one time too many. She even tried to explain this.

** Red and Blue. You mean like Bloods and Crips?

[[AC: All Television, Live-Action or Animated]]
* Any retelling of Dickens' ''AChristmasCarol'' needs to have one of the characters abruptly meaner for no apparent reason so they can learn to change their ways back to the way they were before the episode. Or have a JerkAss character turn nicer, [[AesopAmnesia only to revert to their usual ways afterwards]].
** Except {{Blackadder}}, which did the opposite (made its Blackadder uncharacteristically nice) in order to do a ''reversal'' of the YetAnotherChristmasCarol Plot.

* The Soul Society in {{Bleach}} does more than occasionally show fondness for this trope as Captain Yammamoto and Central 46 have been considered to do this before. (Though some are willing to contest the former another words YourMileageMayVary, the latter not so much.)

* In TheWestWing episode "Isaac and Ishmael" (pretty much the first fictional TV response to 9/11 [[DidNotDoTheResearch unless you count the episode of ''SouthPark'' that aired about a month after the attack]]), the normally calm, moral and - of course - liberal Leo [=McGarry=] character has to turn into a ranting strawman of a right-wing ideologue for plot purposes. It should be pointed out that this episode's canonicity is debatable, particularly since the actors give a small speech at the beginning that openly states that it doesn't fit into the regular continuity.

** To be fair [[spoiler: how would YOU feel if you saw the guy you love marrying another girl? Your first thought would probably be Mama Odie was wrong would she said the curse would be fixed for both of them, and then heartbreak would take over. ]] Admittedly, she did know a second Naveen was running around. After all they've been through, and what just happened to her, it's understandable how she reacted. Besides, it all worked out in the end, [[spoiler: even for Ray.]]