idiot plots

Idiot plots!  I have a particular hatred of them.  I hate it when the hero acts like an idiot, I hate it when the villain acts like an idiot, I hate it when the comic sidekick acts like an idiot, I hate it when the bystanders act like idiots. . . .

Ran across an example lately where the opening was all the characters acting like idiots.  All of them were given the swollen heads necessary to explain why they all underestimated each other -- but to explain or even justify something is not to make me like it.  One of them acts like he has acquired a great insight into the universe, and then we had some characters not acting like idiots, but the idiots killed them -- and at the very end, the characters learn they were idiots because the mastermind is idiot enough to reveal himself, expecting them to greet him with great glee now that they learn they were lied to.  It gets him killed, but while the idiot who kills him momentarily feels guilty about having killed the non-idiotic character, before the kill, as soon as it is done, he forgets the guilt and still acts like he has a great insight in the universe.  He doesn't even feel the need to atone. . . .

Not that I like it even in small doses.  And even motivated stupidity can be very hard to take.