r/TopCharacterTropes • u/MammothPenguin69 • 16d ago

Hated Tropes Stupid Contrived Survival Stories

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. 12 Feet Deep - Two idiots decide they absolutely positively MUST go swimming in a pool after it's closed. An incredibly contrived sequence of events happens so they get stuck in a pool. So the movie can happen.

  2. Frozen (not that one) - Three idiots decide they absolutely positively MUST get on a ski-lift after it's closed. To the point of bribing the operator who for some stupid reason doesn't say anything. Do the movie can happen. Also, Wolves are not that aggressive. They are typically shy and avoid humans.

  3. 47 Meters Down- Arguably the most believable scenario on this list. It's still really stupid.

  4. Fall- Two idiots decide to climb an abandoned radio tower without proper equipment that would make escaping their predicament trivially easy. Stop me if you've heard this one before

so the movie can happen.

16.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

226

u/0kids4now 16d ago

I immediately thought of 127 hours, but then realized it's based on a true story...

112

u/Unfair_Pineapple8813 16d ago

127 Hours is not at all contrived. People climb canyons all the time. Aron Ralston didn't do anything wrong or out of the ordinary. His only mistake was not telling other climbers where he was going, which is a bad mistake, but one that is quite common. He just got very unlucky to have an accident in a canyon that doesn't see much foot traffic.

53

u/DyingSunSeverian 16d ago

Yeah I think a much better example is Christopher McCandless (as depicted in the movie Into the Wild).

Now that dude made so many easy-to-avoid mistakes it’s almost like he was just plainly suicidal.

Obviously neither of these films is contrived at all since they actually happened, but yeah, very different circumstances.

16

u/HandsomePaddyRedux 15d ago

McCandless wasn’t suicidal, but likely mentally ill. He was sort of a cross between Ted Kaczynski and Michael Scott trying to be Survivorman. He wanted to disconnect from the social, medical, nutritional, and technological safety net of modern society with no practical skills for doing so. He could have even survived for a considerable period of time if he had known that potatoes are edible, but the rest of the plant is not.

4

u/your_moms_a_clone 15d ago

Didn't he starve to death?

5

u/HandsomePaddyRedux 15d ago

Yes, specifically he ate some potato plants because he didn’t know what a terrible idea that was. The severe diarrhea and vomiting caused him to waste his drinking water trying, and failing, to keep hydrated. This left him too weak to seek help or forage for more food.

3

u/animalia555 16d ago

Is he real life Monkey D. Luffy or something?

10

u/MaineSoxGuy93 16d ago

Aron's book though made it pretty clear he was a reckless idiot. He wrote about how he got his friends trapped during an avalanche and didn't seem to understand why they wanted nothing to do with him after that.

4

u/Malacro 15d ago

“He didn’t do anything wrong, other than that massive thing he did wrong.”

3

u/altymcalty-2 15d ago

That's just the nature of extreme sports like freeclimbing or canyon climbing. You can do almost everything perfectly, and sometimes thing will still go to shit. Just the luck of the draw, the same way your life can go perfectly normal and you can still get killed by a drunk chick slamming into your car on the way home from work

1

u/NEBanshee 15d ago

When "only mistake" is literally the worst mistake you can make when doing a solo climb intentionally out where no one is going to be.

And doing a solo climb is as stupidly dangerous as a solo scuba dive, to begin with.

Also no props to Aron for having cheap azz equipment like a DollarStore utility knife.

47

u/thepvbrother 16d ago

I thought of The Perfect Storm, but that was also true but the idiots did not survive

2

u/Imaginary_Pattern365 16d ago

I actually dont want these people to survive in these stupid ass conditions. Like thats their fault doing risky things and not thinking. I want it to show other idiots you will just be laughed at after your death. Rip cave dwellers and climbers.

2

u/AriaTheTransgressor 16d ago

I just don't like stories that end with happy endings or deus ex machina. I want a story where the protag is trapped, tries absolutely everything possible, and fails anyway.

I want a story where I'm rooting for there success, but it doesn't make a difference.

I want stories that show real world desperation and how sometimes, no matter what you do, the end is the end.

1

u/Heavy_Signature_5619 15d ago

Check out Floyd Collins.

2

u/unk214 16d ago

Yeah but sometimes they drag people down with them. Isn’t there a story of a dad taking his daughters camping then a bear attacks them. The daughter calls the mom for help but there is nothing she can do.

1

u/stiff_tipper 16d ago

actual fucking psychopath

6

u/BrotherSeamus 16d ago

Apollo 13. Three idiots decide they absolutely positively MUST go to the moon