History Main / LiteralMinded

* ''Film/FreddyGotFingered'': "You must get inside the animal."

* In ''Fanfic/TheEarthAdventuresOfMonStar'', when Star's parents told Star to go "hunting for a suitable prince", they didn't mean that she ''literally'' hunted one down, especially an Earth human who wound up there by accident.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* If speaking on a very general level, autistic people. Even after being taught to distinguish metaphors and idioms from normal conversation, they will still tend to think of the literal meaning before interpreting it, just as one would with a foreign language. Many autistic people have been fascinated/obsessed with learning the meanings of different idioms at some point in their lives.
** For someone who is autistic, "I was being polite" will eventually come to mean "ILied"
** It can also be frustrating to ask rhetorical questions to an autistic person because they will think you were asking a normal question. They just don't know when a question is rhetorical or not.
** Another thing that trips autistic people up is when a person keeps saying "It's ok" or something in that vein just to be nice, and the autistic person thinks that the allistic person really means it. It makes the eventual blowup seem to come out of nowhere and come off as a form of KickTheDog.
** On the other hand, this can also be subverted: not all autistic people are overly literal-minded, and if they are, not all are so to the same degree.
** Inverted when autistics are being sarcastic and an allistic person assumes they're being literal. It's not uncommon for adult autistics to over-emphasize sarcasm to avoid misunderstandings, not unlike a child that has just started to learn the concept.
* Schizophrenics have been noted in making errors with the meanings of metaphors and irony -- typically that they do tend to take things literally.
* Religious fundamentalism is defined by strict adherence to literal readings of their holy texts and orthodox theology.
* Young children, particularly preschoolers, are extremely literal-minded. They lack both the life experience and the reasoning skills to understand figurative speech. It's one of the reasons why you have to be careful about how you word things in order not to confuse or terrify your child. Example: When Aunt Maude passes away, you shouldn't tell your 4-year-old she's just "sleeping." You end up with a child who is terrified to go to bed, for fear it could happen to them. Also part of the reason why Disney is able to get so many innuendos in their movies without compromising the minds of young children. Parents get the figurative speech, the kids don't.
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule Work to Rule]]. In totalitarian societies like the old Soviet Union, literal interpretation of laws may be one of very few ways people can express discontent with them since following poorly-chosen laws and thus becoming an inefficient worker will make the case that the laws have to be changed; this can also be seen on a smaller scale with workers in private firms.\\\
In communist/totalitarian economies, minimizing one's workload is often the only functional incentive, and Work-to-rule can be a way of achieving it. PJ O'Rourke's humorous example involving a Soviet shoe factory: "If they tell you to make 5,000 shoes, you make 5,000 left-footed baby shoes. If they tell you to produce 2,000 pounds of shoes, you make one giant concrete overshoe."
* A computer will do exactly what you told it to do, [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor whether you want it to]] [[AIIsACrapshoot or not.]]
* This can happen to confused foreigners with limited understanding of a language, thus lacking knowledge of proverbs, slang and such. For example, one may respond to "tell me about it" by explaining the subject at hand.
* Likewise, you'll probably get this reaction when trying to translate directly into a foreign language an expression or idiomatic with no equivalent in said language, and thus that can only be interpreted literally.
** For example, a Canadian paper about bilingual traps in business mentions you shouldn't translate the expression "at the end of the day" to francophones, as they are likely to understand the task at hand is to be finished before nightfall.
** Similarly, when in a French TV series a character tells another "you missed an episode," they're not breaking the fourth wall. It's just a common French expression to say someone is out of the loop. Though the double meaning of the literal meaning ''and'' the expression can be used deliberately as a {{Pun}}.
** Also still on the Foreign Language track, even when people perfectly understand what was said, the sentence can be an idiom in one language but not in another. For example, "How are you?" does exist in a wide range of languages. But while the British recognize it as a polite idiom and will reply with "Fine, thank you", a German doesn't and will think you're actually interested in their current situation and mood, thus telling you in ''every detail'' about how things are currently going. Equally, a lot of empty phrases that Japanese use are often misinterpreted because of this by foreigners (such as the infamous cases of Japanese using "Yes" when being asked a question).
* For fun, go ask Creator/TroyBaker for a ShoutOut next time you see him at a convention.
* Text in its purest form can easily fool people when taken at face value. Sarcasm or other types of figurative speech can easily be lost when there's no voice behind it or any punctuation that indicates that the phrase is not literal. Many people within online forums tend to end their posts with a "/s" to indicate they were being sarcastic, though most do it just out of jest rather than being CaptainObvious about it. This was incidentally the source of the original version of PoesLaw; if you don't make it clear there's no way to tell if you're parodying a position with a more extreme version or just actually more extreme. That being said, many trolls will respond with literal-minded replies just to rile people up.
* Ben Shapiro is semi-notorious for his bizarrely literal interpretations of song lyrics, such as an infamous video where he criticizes "Imagine" by Music/JohnLennon, such as saying that "all the people living for today" means no one bothers to plan for the future, rather than the general idea that living in the present moment is a good thing. Or that saying "nothing to kill or die for" means no one would care about stopping bad people, rather than the intended message (rejecting the HumansAreWarriors mindset). He followed it up by complaining about Music/CardiB's song "WAP" where, near the end, he talks about the line "Bring a bucket and mop" and assumes there is literally that much fluid, and she must have some kind of disease, unintentionally making the song seem way [[{{Squick}} squickier]] than before.
* In one interview where he answered fan questions, Creator/KeanuReeves was asked what his secret to staying so [[HumbleHero down-to-earth]] was. His ''immediate'' response was "gravity".
* Graphic designed James Fridman will take on any request to photoshop images... but will often take the requests literally, which can lead to some hilarious results.
* In the UsefulNotes/MyersBriggs personality model, people who tend toward Sensing, and in the UsefulNotes/BigFivePersonalityTraits, people who score low in Openness to Experience, may tend to be this, favoring concrete over abstract concepts.
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[[caption-width-right:330:When it's raining cats and dogs, [[{{Pun}} don't step in a poodle!]]]]

* Sōsuke Sagara from ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic''. His literal-mindedness provides a lot of humor in quite a few serious situations (as well as not-serious situations). One funny moment in the novels comes during the Behemoth arc. Sōsuke defeated Takuma, which is supposed to result in a TearJerker moment, where the dying Takuma moans, "I lost, sister. Why'd I lose?..." Sōsuke proceeds to take the question ''literally'', and tactlessly attempts to explain to Takuma why he failed so miserably in an "I-told-you-so, but did you listen?" sort of way. Needless to say, Kaname tells him to shut up, and Tessa tries to repair the dramatic atmosphere.

* ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya'': During the group's beach vacation, Nagato follows a party game instruction to turn away, face back, and say "I love you," to the letter, with about as much emotion as she displays in general. Also, when Kyon and Haruhi go out to investigate a [[spoiler: staged]] murder, she extends Haruhi's order not to open the door to anyone to include ''her'' when they come back; Haruhi actually calls her out on this trope after Kyon specifies said order revoked.

* ''LightNovel/ThePetGirlOfSakurasou'': When asked for the reasons behind her actions ("What are you thinking?!"), resident IdiotSavant Mashiro answers instead with ''exactly'' what is she thinking at the moment: ([[NonSequitur "Of the Earth"]]).

* In the ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' fic ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6825798/1/Clash_of_the_unlikely_lovers Clash of the unlikely lovers]]'', Accelerator and Vento of the Front have sex, with Vento eventually screaming, "My pussy is on fire!" Last Order, who was outside, is traumatized, thinking Vento was talking about an actual cat that was on fire.

* ''FanFic/{{Swordsaint}}'': [[LightNovel/SwordArtOnline Cardinal]] has moments of this. For example, Kayaba tells it to give Kirito, Asuna, and Joan useful items after defeating the Gleam Eyes. It did so for Kirito and Joan, but because Asuna was spending more after she started dating Kirito, it gave her a shield, counter to her fighting style, so she could sell it for funds.

* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'': When being interrogated by Yuri, Loid says that he would take a bullet or even a nuke to save his wife, Yuri's sister. Yuri is shocked--he'd take a bullet for his sister of course, but how could anyone take a ''nuke'' for her? The narration helpfully reminds us that he's drunk.

* ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss'': [[WhiteMagicianGirl Tear]] [[AloofDarkHairedGirl Grants]]. She at one point takes Luke telling her she "hasn't changed" in reference to her still donning her uniform after the time skip.
* ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia'': Estelle tends to take a lot of sayings quite literally, to the confusion of her teammates. This is the result of her living in a castle her entire life. She does eventually get a bit better about this.
-->'''Yuri:''' It'll be a hundred years before you can beat me.\\

* ''VideoGame/CoffeeTalk'': Even if Neil's informed of the meaning of idioms, they have a hard time getting them because they take them literally. Same goes for Amanda in Episode 2, who asks Lua to clarify what she meant when she asked them what "brought them here".
--> '''Amanda:''' Please define your question. Do you mean here on this planet?\\
'''Lua:''' That too, but also here, in this café.

* ''VideoGame/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAsPortable: The Gears of Destiny'' has Levi the Slasher, the [[DumbMuscle Material of Power who prefers to leave the thinking]] to [[TheSmartGuy Stern]] and [[NobleDemon Lord Dearche]]. When Fate explains to her that the dead Alicia is now "beyond the skies", she interprets this to mean that she's currently abroad in another world.

* In a scene from ''VideoGame/TearsToTiara2'', after a heartwarming YouAreNotAlone moment with Hamil, Tart tells him that eventually he has to be able to shoulder her weight as well. Hamil smiles and says that's quite a burden. Tart replies saying how can Hamil be so weak when the little girl Charis can do it, surprising Hamil who was just wondering a moment ago where Tart and Charis were. Cuts to Charis shaking and limping up the rest of the mountain. She said she could, and in a moment of Literal Minded Tart has Charis carry her up the mountain. And The PluckyGirl actually tried, and evidently got quite far. And she remained as cheerful as ever, determined to get stronger so next time she could do it all the way, leaving Hamil to {{facepalm}} and [[IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat explain to the Goddess the actual physical limitations of a human girl]].
* Dekar from ''VideoGame/LufiaIIRiseOfTheSinistrals'' and the remake ''[[VideoGame/LufiaCurseOfTheSinistrals Curse of the Sinistrals]]'' completely fails to understand Idura's taunts, and in both versions takes Idura's "nameless master" comment to mean that Idura's master ''literally has no name''.
* Strong from ''Videogame/{{Fallout 4}}'' is a mutant who has heard about the "Milk of Human Kindness" and believes it to be an actual beverage.
* Early in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'', you go visit a baker with companions Jonathan and Walter, and Walter asks the baker for loaves that are "still kicking", i.e. fresh. The baker responds by saying that he doesn't know of any "bread that kicks".
* The Boss in the ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' series occasionally shows signs of this. Take this instance in ''VideoGame/SaintsRow1'', for example:
--> '''Jack:''' Hey, kid, how'd you like to make some quick cash?\\
''([[NoNameGiven The Playa]] approaches Jack's table and [[ExactWords reaches for the money Jack had just been counting)]]''\\
'''Jack''': Evidently, you aren't familiar with the no-touching rule...
** This trope is lampshaded in a cutscene from ''VideoGame/SaintsRowGatOutOfHell''
--->'''Jezebel:''' I want to punch my father in the face!\\
'''Johnny:''' We're going to get along just fine.\\
'''Narrator:''' Of course, Jezebel was speaking metaphorically, but Johnny didn't notice.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemThreeHouses'', Petra is a ForeignExchangeStudent from[=/=]princess of Brigid, an island nation that speaks a different language than in Fodlan. As such, many idioms and slang terms tend to go over her head, since her mastery of Fodlan's language is a work in progress.
* Sten from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' is a partial example. Sometimes, he's genuinely literal-minded because he doesn't get the local culture and its metaphors. Often, however, he [[LiteralistSnarking feigns being literal-minded]] because he finds it funny.
--> '''Warden''': Do you have to be so literal?\\
'''Sten''': No, it's a choice, not a necessity.
* ''Videogame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas'': Cesar has some difficulty with the rhetorical question "Does the Pope shit in the woods?"
--> I already told you, I don't know! Where His Holiness does his business ''is'' his business!
* ''VideoGame/{{Cloudpunk}}'': Androids and automata tend not to get figurative speech. [[RobotDog Camus]], given that he's with you the entire game, is particularly prone to this.
-->'''Rania:''' You really are firing all cylinders tonight, Camus.\\
'''Camus:''' I do not have cylinders. I am a dog.
* In the short cartoon "Expiration Date", ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'''s Soldier takes an offhand comment that he can teleport bread if he wants as an instruction to spend three days doing nothing but.

* Played with but averted on ''Series/SesameStreet'', during a "News Flash" segment involving Old King Cole:
-->'''King Cole:''' Bring me my royal pipe, and step on it!\\

* Lightning [=McQueen=] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'', particularly during the part where Doc Hudson tells him some advice: turn right to go left. Lightning, after [[SarcasmMode sarcastically thanking Doc]], proceeds to turn right, leading to him [[EpicFail driving off a ledge and landing in a cactus patch]]. It later turns out this is literally true in the original context (racing on a dirt track).

* Lightning [=McQueen=] in ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'', particularly during the part where Doc Hudson tells him some advice: turn right to go left. Lightning, after [[SarcasmMode sarcastically thanking Doc]], proceeds to turn right, leading to an EpicFail. It later turns out this is literally true in the original context (racing on a dirt track).

Characters who have this as a primary characteristic will occasionally be TheComicallySerious. Compare LiteralMetaphor, ShapedLikeItself, and DoubleMeaning. Frequently results in ComicallyMissingThePoint.

* ''WebVideo/TheBuggerAnthology'': Dalek Sec proudly [[BadassBoast boasts that one Dalek could wipe out five million Cybermen]], only for Caan to volunteer to be that one Dalek.
--> '''Dalek Sec: I WAS BEING FIGURATIVE.'''\\
'''Dalek Caan: OH.'''

* ''Film/{{Spaceballs}}'': President Skroob orders his minions to "comb the desert" to find the heroes; cut to the {{Mooks}} dragging a gigantic comb through the sand. Colonel Sandurz [[LampshadeHanging asks if they aren't being too literal]], and [[CaptainErsatz Dark Helmet]] responds "He said comb the desert, so we're combing the desert!"

* A popular form of joke in ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'', although some jokes get LostInTranslation in English. One that survived in episode 1 involved Satoshi asking Pikachu to "tell him his story", which Pikachu interprets as "showing him his teeth"; this survived as Ash asking him to open his mouth, which he does literally.

* Franchise/TheFlash: Bart Allen alias ComicBook/{{Impulse}}/Kid Flash is pretty literal-minded, though it could be justified in his case: not only is he from the future, but he grew up in virtual reality.
-->'''Franchise/{{Superman}}:''' The Pope was very understanding -- especially when you wondered if he was Catholic.\\

* ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} Kara Zor-El suffers from this at the beginning of ''Comicbook/ManyHappyReturns''. Justified because she is a very innocent kid who has just been stranded in another planet and can barely speak English. Sarcasm, jokes and idiomatic expressions tend to go over her head.

* Also from ''ComicBook/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', ComicBook/RocketRaccoon occasionally encounters this problem, especially when he tries to pun, as in his own miniseries:

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'': In his introductory storyline Henri Ducard is called back to Gotham to testify against Bruce Wayne. His hosts send a limo to pick him up and ask what name he'll go by. He tells them to pick one at random. The chauffeur stands at the airport holding a sign that reads "Random".
* One ''Westernanimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' story in the ''Comicbook/{{Animaniacs}}'' comic had Pinky ruining Brain's plan ([[SpannerInTheWorks as usual]]) for this: while they were trying to get into production special basketball shoes ("I didn't know basketballs had feet!") that would propel its wearers into the stratosphere, Brain noted "all they want is bells and whistles". So when the shoes have been made and are in everyone's feet, Brain activating them had the sneakers instead emmitting loud noises of bells and whistles, because Pinky took that comment as an advice for design changes.

-->'''Garfield:''' "That's about a seven on the creepy scale."

** Woof Casino has a learning disorder that makes him feel unable to act without receiving orders. Once he gets orders, though, he takes them to the extreme. He volunteers when his disabled younger brother is reaped, not so much out of love and affection, but because he interprets the pleas to "save me" as a command. When his mentor orders him to "learn everything", he goes to every training station in the gymnasium, picking up the skills to earn a training score of 11. This [[PlayedForHorror takes a darker turn]] when [[spoiler:his last opponent in the arena mutters, "[[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil Aw, fuck me.]]"]] Then, after his victory, Duke Saint-Rose tells Woof to [[spoiler:"Stop obeying everybody's damn orders" and he does ''that'' without a second's pause.]]
** Blinded by {{greed}}, Hessian Leblanc, the Head Gamemaker for [[HandicappedBadass Snag's]] Games, responds to the President's orders for an "explosive" Hunger Games by [[spoiler:only supplying hand grenades as weapons at the Cornucopia, which ends [[StuffBlowingUp just as well as you'd expect]]. {{Deconstructed|Trope}} when Hessian ends up getting executed painfully over this blunder.]]

'''Yuri''': Not excatly.

* In the ''WebVideo/{{Jreg}}'' video "A Neo-Nazi With They/Them Pronouns," the titular character goes by they/them pronouns not because they reject the gender binary, but because they have five entities poessessing their body.

* Graphic designed James Fridman will take on any request to photoshop images... but will often take the requests literally, which can [[HilarityEnsues lead to some hilarious results]].

* Parodied ''Webcomic/SaturdayMorningBreakfastCereal'': "In this part of Manhattan, 'Kill my mom' was slang for 'Kill my dad.'" (This was what someone took too literally.)

** Another thing that trips Autistic people up is when a person keeps saying "It's ok" or something in that vein just to be nice, and the autistic person thinks that the allistic person really means it. It makes the eventual blowup seem to come out of nowhere and come off as a form of KickTheDog.

** Inverted when autistics are being sarcastic and an allistic person assumes they're being literal. It's not uncommon for adult autistics to overemphasize sarcasm to avoid misunderstandings, not unlike a child that has just started to learn the concept.