| abstract | - Anthropologists posit that one of the turning points in human development was a growing ability to communicate. In fiction, one of the turning points in dramatic development was the ability not to communicate. Sometimes this poor communication can be entirely legitimate. After all, miscommunication and misunderstanding happens all the time in real life, and some stories are written with this point in mind. This often happens in mystery stories, such as Detective Conan episodes, in which a murderer kills an innocent victim due to a misunderstanding. But frequently, a situation arises where the author wants the plot to go a certain direction, but for it to do so one or more characters have to misunderstand each other. Common enough in Real Life, so it should be no trouble to pull off in fiction, right? Well, there's a few problems... the misunderstanding is pretty easy to clear up, and the characters are pretty good speakers who are on good terms and speak frankly to each other without needlessly holding back. So what's the author to do? They have the coolest plot twist or Climax Boss fight, but it absolutely hinges on these guys being, however briefly, unable to articulate their point. To solve this problem the author reduces the characters' verbal skills to those of three-year-olds. Shy three-year-olds, with a stutter. And then we see that Poor Communication Kills. All the characters involved go out of character for a moment so that they can't (or won't) tell their side of the story, or creates a false urgency because there's "No Time to Explain", or just plain making them act like a disgruntled loner and telling their friends to Figure It Out Yourself when cooperation (or at least non-interference) is infinitely preferable. No matter which reason, it seems that at least half of the people involved have simultaneously gotten hold of the Idiot Ball, if not everyone. Or to summarize: Poor Communication Kills is when a misunderstanding is entirely implausible and against the characters' previously exhibited communication skills, personality and relationship, and any normal person could clear up the misunderstanding in less than 30 seconds and solve the plot. (However, those rarer instances when in-character poor communication kills can count, too.) Though similar, this trope does not include things like Selective Obliviousness, You're Just Jealous, or Sarcastic Confession as those are failures to listen rather than speak; though honestly authors can nerf even that ability when they need the Reasonable Authority Figure to become a useless adult. On the other hand, there are some times when poor communication is completely within character for the story, and it does end up killing (or at least harming). Compare Dramatically Missing the Point. Open Mouth Insert Foot. Contrast: Just Eat Gilligan, Amnesia Danger. Common ways to NOT get the point across:
* Angrish - A character is too angry to get his point across coherently.
* Calling Me a Logarithm - A character misunderstands an unfamiliar word as an insult.
* Can You Hear Me Now - characters are unable to communicate by phone due to a plot-convenient malfunction, such as a lack of signal or a flat battery.
* Cannot Spit It Out - The character purposefully keeps quiet out of conflicted feelings.
* Cannot Tell a Joke - A character's attempts to be humorous just leaves their audience bemused, bothered and bewildered.
* Cassandra Truth - A character who is never believed because her claims are seen as insane.
* Cassandra Did It - when she's proven right, sometimes everyone will just assume she did it.
* Crying Wolf - The dumbass has lied to them before, so they think he's lying again even when he's telling the truth.
* The End Is Nigh - No-one believes those crazy guys with sandwich boards anyway.
* Ignored Expert - A modern version of Cassandra, who has found irrefutable empirically acquired proof of doom that everyone refuses to believe.
* Not-So-Imaginary Friend - This poor soul can't expose the Devil in Plain Sight, how infuriating!
* Could Have Avoided This Plot - The end result of many communication breakdowns.
* Cryptically Unhelpful Answer - The answers to questions are cryptic. As well as unhelpful.
* Cryptic Conversation - Being mysterious for the sake of being vague, this rarely helps the heroes get anywhere or stop the villains.
* Culture Clash - Each character is quite certain that the other understands what is meant.
* Digging Yourself Deeper - How most people get tongue tied into being a Cassandra Truth.
* Divided We Fall - Your friends allies regard you as a greater threat than their (and your) enemies.
* Does Not Know How to Say Thanks - When a character tries to express his gratitude to someone but has no idea how to go about it.
* Friend or Foe - You can't tell who to trust.
* From a Certain Point of View - Telling the recipient something the speaker knows is not true, or at least mostly not true, (and is likely very aware that the listener will take it the wrong way) but considers it justified as being true.
* Headbutting Heroes: You and another hero do NOT get along.
* Ignored Confession - If someone is impaired in any way, whatever revelation they say will be ignored. Even if it seems perfectly logical that it would be so.
* Interrupted Cooldown Hug - Any time a non-violent solution against a nigh-unstoppable force seems likely, someone will shoot at it.
* It Seemed Trivial: Someone keeps his mouth shut about a vital fact because he doesn't know how important that fact actually is.
* Let's You and Him Fight - Why any two Super Heroes or teams fight in comic books. At least it usually gets sorted out fairly quickly once someone asks Why Isn't It Attacking?
* Locked Out of the Loop - Keeping vital information from the hero, either for valid reasons or "just because". Rarely ends amicably.
* Lost in Transmission - You are getting some vital information when suddenly, right as you are being told the key ingredient, the phone cuts out. Or the radio falls into static, or the computer has a psychotic break from reality. In any case, you are now standing there with a green wire in one hand, a red wire in the other, and no idea which one you were supposed to cut.
* Love You and Everybody: - A character confesses platonic love for something, and is misunderstood to mean romantic love.
* Mistaken Confession - A character confesses to something they weren't being asked about.
* Not Helping Your Case - The character falls under suspicion, and reacts in a way that makes him look even more suspicious.
* No Time to Explain - An excuse for several of the following; considering how time works in movies, pretty much a non-excuse.
* Not Now, Kiddo - Shushing away children or allies when they have important news.
* Nonverbal Miscommunication - When words are out of the mix, things tend to get worse. If only someone created a language based on making signs... still they'd find a way to mess it up.
* One Dialogue, Two Conversations - Two characters have a conversation, but each party is actually addressing a different topic than the other without realizing it for some time, if ever.
* One Side of the Story - The result of several of these.
* Rage Against the Mentor - The result of heroes getting fed up with abstruse and cryptic mentors and allies.
* Remember That You Trust Me - Some loners never let the Aesop stick permanently.
* Rhetorical Request Blunder - A frustrated person expresses a wish they wouldn't really want to come true, but someone close to them takes it literally and acts on it.
* Right Hand Versus Left Hand - What happens when two groups who should be allies fight, simply because no one bothers to find out which side they're all on!
* Self-Offense
* Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness - When Smart people Cannot Spit It Out because their language is too elevated.
* That Came Out Wrong - When someone utters a perfectly innocent remark only for it it to sound like something smutty.
* Third-Act Misunderstanding - A result of some of these, usually from an initial lie being revealed.
* Why Didn't You Just Say So? - The standard response to finally breaking through Poor Communication Kills. An example of Lampshade Hanging.
* You Didn't Ask- Not sharing important information unless specifically asked to.
* You Have to Believe Me - Very often in the disaster and horror genre, anyone who learns of the impending disaster in time to stop it loses the ability to not talk like a homeless schizophrenic.
* You Know What You Did - A soap opera staple, the result of a loved one thinking you're cheating because of One Side of the Story. Worst part is the poor sap doesn't know what he did!
* You Make Me Sic - A character writes something to another... but the only response they get is that their spelling needs work. Examples of Poor Communication Kills include:
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