The Millstone: Difference between revisions
m
clean up
m (update links) |
m (clean up) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
Things tend to go wrong in drama; this is how drama persists. And when something goes wrong, it's usually the fault of
The Millstone is the character, usually [[The Ditz]], who is specifically responsible for the failure of every plan that the heroes carry out. It's because of them that [[Failure Is the Only Option]]. For some reason, they're usually given the linchpin of this week's plan... which they will then botch, forcing the heroes to try again next week. If the main characters could just get rid of the Millstone, they'd be home free... but then the show would be over; see [[Just Eat Gilligan]].
Line 6:
Frequently, the villains [[Conservation of Competence|have a Millstone on their side as well]], which is how the heroes can stand their own against them. Odd if the same villains invoke [[You Have Failed Me]] to [[The Blofeld Ploy|other people]] but not the Millstone.
The trope name comes from the phrase "millstone around my neck". For those not versed in agriculture, a millstone is a large (often
Compare to [[The Load]], who doesn't ''cause'' failure but is still of little or no worth. [[General Failure]] is when the guy who's [[Pointy-Haired Boss|supposed to be in charge]] suffers from this. Such a character could also turn out to be the [[Spanner in the Works]] or [[Unwitting Instigator of Doom]]. This character is also generally [[The Klutz]].
Line 41:
* Vincent Vega of ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'' is this to Jules. He was too incompetent to not wave his gun around with his finger on the trigger and got them in some truly "deep shit" by blowing Marvin's brains out in broad daylight, and then {{spoiler|after Jules leaves, he's too incompetent to pull off a hit by himself and ends up getting killed because he left a loaded weapon laying around his target's apartment.}}
** The last one is debatable, after all, {{spoiler|if you're a lowly boxer that has seriously pissed off the most powerful crime boss in the city ON PURPOSE, are you going to be anywhere NEAR any place associated with you? It was only the extenuating circumstances of his ditz girlfriend leaving his irreplaceable family heirloom watch at his house that he went there. Honestly, I'd feel pretty comfortable doing the same thing Vincent did, the chances he would actually show up were astronomically low.}}
* [[Limitless]]: Eddie begins this movie as [[The Load]], a harmless loser. Then Eddie takes [[Applied Phlebotinum|NZT-48 pills]] a revolutionary new pharmaceutical that allows him to tap his full potential… as
Line 53:
* ''[[Gilligan's Island|Gilligans Island]]''
** Gilligan is the epitome of this trope. If the other castaways had [[Just Eat Gilligan|resorted to cannibalism and eaten him]], they could have gotten off the island the next day. He's so much an embodiment of this trope that it was almost titled "The Gilligan". To be fair, the other castaways were at least able to punish him with things like forcing him to be a cuckoo clock sounder, dive dozens of times for a telephone cable, jail him and otherwise humiliate him to their hearts' content.
** Also, the episodes that ''didn't'' center around their latest attempt to get off the island (and these made up about half the series) instead focused around the latest danger on the island, and Gilligan was always the one who saved them in those cases. So no Gilligan and maybe they'd have gotten off the
** In one episode, they find a gold mine on the island, as well as a salvageable life raft from the Minnow. Everybody except Gilligan tries to sneak a bag of gold onto the raft, after being explicitly warned by the Professor not to. The raft sinks as soon as they shove off. Gilligan proceeds to [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshade the fact that he's usually the one to screw these things up.]]
* ''[[The Mole (TV series)|The Mole]]'' is a [[Reality TV]] show built entirely around this trope. The players add money to a jackpot by performing tasks, which The Mole tries to sabotage. Every so often, there is a quiz that asks about The Mole (which, naturally, The Mole aces every time), and whoever knows the least is eliminated. Somewhat subverted in that the players, in order to screw with each other's knowledge and extend their own games, don't always give it their all, and thus the entire team becomes The Millstone.
Line 70:
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]''
** Lance Vance. Only helpful thing he ever does is {{spoiler|betray you so you can finally shoot his dumb ass}}.
** While he's like this in ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City|Vice City]]'', he's even worse in ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City Stories|Vice City Stories]]''
* ''[[Fallout]]''
** ''[[Fallout 2]]'' has the Pariah Dog, a random encounter that can join over the party limit, drops your luck to 1, and gives you the Jinxed trait. The only way to fix this is to get the dog killed, but the damn thing has loads of HP and runs away the moment a battle starts.
Line 86:
== Web Animation ==
* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]''
** Grif from the Red army fits the trope perfectly. Being a conscript, he is unwilling to work, has terrible stamina and practically is Red Team's [[Butt Monkey]]. More to the point, he regularly shirks his
** Donut is arguably worse than Grif in this regard, as evidenced by the time Donut and Grif were sent out on a spying mission together. Donut treated it like a game and wound up getting himself captured almost immediately.
** Caboose is definitely the millstone of the Blue team. He has a tendency to kill his teammates (especially Church, whom he has killed in some fashion at least three times) and is otherwise unable to function in battle (in one scene, he manages to get a grenade stuck to the wall his team is hiding behind). In fact, he is best directed to fight the team's enemies by asking him to ''help the other side''.
* [[Played for Laughs]] with the [[Leeroy Jenkins]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU video]. Subversion: in this video, the ''entire party''
Line 96:
** Villainous, borderline example: [[Word of God|Rich's commentary]] tells us that Nale often needs Thog because of his sheer power, but his stupidity foils his plans half the time.
** Originally, Roy considered Elan to be this and when the latter was kidnapped, Roy was hesitant to go and save him. However, he later decided that this was a jerk move and goes to rescue him. Elan eventually [[Took a Level In Badass]] in a class that lets him use his [[Genre Savvy]] more efficiently, though he still occasionally had his moments.
** The real Millstone of the Order is certainly Belkar. His sociopathy and frequent refusal to listen to orders ruin the party's planning several
Line 102:
* ''[[Scooby Doo]]''
** Subversion: Shaggy and Scooby always botch the plan to catch the [[Monster of the Week]]... and in the process of botching it ''succeed'' at catching the monster.
** Daphne is a [[Double Entendre|straighter]] example, with some [[Lampshade Hanging]] from [[The Generic Guy|Freddy]]. She is the one who is constantly tripping traps, or getting
** And, as much as we may want to, we can't forget about [[The Scrappy|Scrappy-Doo.]] He would constantly make things worse by trying to fight the monsters himself and need Shaggy and Scooby to go back and rescue him.
* ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]''
| |||