Idiot Ball / Web Animation

• In Dusk's Dawn Donut doesn't notice anything suspicious about the antagonist after he claims that he's "obviously cured."
• Coach Z on Homestar Runner. It seems that he only keeps his "more than two praeblams" (other than his butt fixation) for one episode. The whole cast plays dodgeball with the proverbial Idiot Ball.
  • The titular character IS an Idiot Ball, which is really almost the point of any short with him in it.
  • Really, everybody's held the idiot ball at some point or another. Even the more saner members of the cast (I.E. Strong Bad, Bubs, Marzipan) can go from Only Sane Man to complete looney in a matter of seconds. Even Strong Sad, probably the only consistently sane man, has his moments of utter craziness.
• The How It Should Have Ended series often shows what would have happened had this trope been Averted or Subverted in a film.
• RWBY:
  • While dueling with Vernal at Haven, Weiss sacrifices her highly flexible combat style and abilities in favour of repeatedly trying to summon her newly mastered Knight avatar. Each time, she leaves herself wide-open to direct strikes from Vernal, who makes it clear she won't let Weiss take the "easy way out". Thus, she quickly loses the fight. With her Aura broken, Cinder inflicts a fatal blow. Jaune's Semblance awakens in response, saving her life. As Team RWBY later battles the Ace-Ops, Weiss shows she's learned from the Vernal fight by using complex strategy to keep her opponent off-balance and blinded just long enough to allow her to safely summon the Knight.
  • In Volume 5, Raven plans to use the Relic of Knowledge to keep Salem away from her tribe. At the conclusion of the volume, Yang points out just how poorly thought out her plan is: if Salem is willing to pursue her for daring to harbour the Spring Maiden, she'll become even more determined to hunt Raven down to obtain a Relic. Yang successfully convinces the cowardly Raven to leave the Relic with her more courageous daughter.
  • Cinder successfully carries out Salem's plan for Beacon, adapting on the fly to unexpected events. However, she's obsessed with stealing power and killing Ruby, thus ignoring Watts' warning and sabotaging Salem's stealthy plan for Haven in favour of a noisy confrontation with the heroes so she can target Ruby and the Spring Maiden. As Watts predicts, the consequences are a "bloody mess"; the villains are defeated, the heroes gain the Relic, and Cinder is left for dead. Ostracised from Salem until she redeems herself, she keeps unsuccessfully sabotaging Salem's plans for personal gain until Watts furiously calls out her failings in the eighth volume. This time, she listens and returns to her Beacon form.
  • In Volume 7, Robyn protects Mantle aggressively and recklessly, while Clover's blind obedience to Ironwood reflects Qrow's Undying Loyalty to Ozpin prior to its breakdown. An all-nighter sees them transporting Tyrian when they learn some awful news that triggers a cascade of poor decisions caused by exhaustion, stress, established character flaws and Tyrian baiting Robyn and Qrow. In Volume 8, Qrow moodily dwells on the poor decisions that were made. After learning of Ironwood's betrayal of Mantle as well as his intentions to arrest the heroes, a frustrates Robyn recklessly fights Clover, who is trying to arrest Qrow, leading to Tyrian crashing the airship. With Robyn unconscious, a three-way battle ensues where Qrow prioritises Tyrian, Clover prioritises Qrow, and Tyrian baits Qrow into a truce against Clover. It ends with Tyrian down, Qrow disarmed and Clover without Aura. While Qrow and Clover argue about Undying Loyalty, Tyrian kills Clover with Qrow's weapon and flees.
• Anon: Roxy, Sam, and Lilly's kidnap attempt on Chelsea, Tucker, Hunter, and Kyle. Sure, individually they're all pretty scary but are all totally inept when it comes to working together. Lilly basically allows herself to be caught when she stands outside the hotel room where it all takes place, Sam forgets that she left the gun on the table to make out with Tucker, and Roxy forgets to put bullets in the gun in the first place. It doesn't take much for the trio to be caught out.
• If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device Special 4: "Kitten & Tzeentch play a Children's Card Game" starts off with Magnus the Red and "Kitten" hanging out on a spaceship and planning to do something fun during the trip. Magnus chooses the first activity, and basically for no reason chooses to play with a Ouija Board — which, he is himself quick to point out, is often used by Warp entities to do nasty things to the unwary users. So it's while knowing this and while being on the run from one of the very gods of the Warp that Magnus chooses to play with such a board. Unsurprisingly, this is the set-up for a struggle over Magnus's soul when his "adoptive father" comes to take it back.
• Shrapnel: Bringing Potato, a human child, into a vehemently anti-human city where many of the residents have an outstanding sense of smell for what amounts to a field trip, and expecting that wearing a pair of fake cat ears is enough to blend in with the locals isn’t Reznya’s best idea. Somewhat Downplayed in that Reznya clearly meant for it to be a short trip and only lets Potato near people she knows she can trust, and that things only truly go wrong when she has a lapse in judgment and allows Potato to run off, with a gun, unsupervised. Jackal lampshades how none of the adults in the room (himself included) even try to stop her.
  Jackal: Uhh, not sure we should be letting her run off with a gun.
• 50 Ways to Die in Minecraft: In the fairy-tale episode, RedstoneNed (who is normally The Smart Guy) wishes to become immortal, jumps into lava, and then wishes to become mortal again. The genie advises him to get out of the lava, but Ned doesn't listen.