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Trope, Madness Tropes, Logic Tropes,
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Insane Troll Logic
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Bedevere: "So, logically..."
Peasant: "If...she...weighs...the same as a duck...she's made of wood."
Bedevere: "And therefore...?"
Another Peasant: "...a witch!"
Crowd: "A witch! A witch! A witch!!"
Insane Troll Logic is the kind of logic that just can't be argued with because it's so demented, so lost in its own insanity, that any attempts to correct it would be met with more gibberish. Logic failure that crosses over into Parody or Poe's Law.
For examples of Insane Troll Logic by video game developers, see You Can't Get Ye Flask, Chewbacca Defense, Moon Logic Puzzle, and [extreme examples of] Guide Dang It.
For examples of characters who engage in this, see The Ditz, Cloudcuckoolander, Strawmen, Moral Guardians, and of course trolls of both internet and mythological origin. For when the Insane Troll Logic actually leads to a true conclusion, see Bat Deduction and Right for the Wrong Reasons. If this trope is exaggerated beyond the point that it even makes grammatical sense, it can become a Word Salad Philosophy. Irrational Hatred may have this as its basis.
Of course, sometimes it's just Obfuscating Stupidity or Obfuscating Insanity in action.
Intentional examples:
This recent ad campaign from DirecTV. See what happens when you make bad decisions -- namely, choosing the Other Guys' subpar cable services. For example:
If you wait too long for the cable repairman to arrive, you get bored. When you get bored, you start staring out windows. When you start staring out windows, you see things you shouldn't see. When you see things you shouldn't see, you need to vanish. When you need to vanish, you fake your own death. When you fake your own death, you dye your eyebrows. And when you dye your eyebrows, you attend your own funeral as a man named Phil Shifley.
Geico recently started a campaign centered around the car insurance taste test. Yes.
Toast always lands buttered-side down. Cats always land on their feet. So, what happens when you tape toast, buttered-side up, on a cat's back? Infinite energy!
Each individual country in Axis Powers Hetalia think of this about each other's customs, languages, and even their dietary habits. A bit of Fridge Logic for those who have ever traveled outside their own country and thought this about the place they were visiting.
Haruhi Suzumiya: Haruhi Suzumiya does this at times. Then again she is something of a Cloudcuckoolander, but it's most likely that she doesn't mean it seriously. The prologue of the 4th novel had this nice dialogue:
Haruhi: "Crab is a no-no. I can't take it. Picking the flesh out of the shell drives me nuts. Why can't crabs make their shells edible? How come they didn't do anything about that during the course of evolution, might I ask?"
Kyon (narrating): "They don't undergo natural selection in the depths of the sea just for the sake of your stomach!"
Haruhi's take on that classic storytelling element, The Climax:
Haruhi: There's something I've always wondered about. You often see people die in the last episode of TV shows and the like. Doesn't that feel unnatural? Why do they just happen to die at that time? It's strange. That's why I hate anything where someone dies at the end! I would never make a movie like that!
Stop Bullying Me: Yuri seems under the impression that being in the school's book club will make people believe he is an honors student.
Osaka from Azumanga Daioh is full of this, but one case stands out in particular: she concludes she has to drown in order to learn how to swim, since drowned people always float (she had not yet figured out how to float).
She also concludes that, since snails are not insects, they must in fact be bugs.
Isaac and Miria of Baccano have a lot of this. One instance is kind of like the Fat Tony example, in which he argues that just as you can get vegetables from eating steak (obviously, this is wrong itself), if you steal someone's wallet, whatever is inside then belongs to you. He also asserts that a mine in which gold has never been discovered is a great place to look for gold for precisely that reason.
Even better, the entire 'mining for gold' thing is linked with their usual career of thievery by Isaac claiming that they're stealing from the Earth itself.
One of their heists involved stealing the front door of a museum, so that nobody could get in.
Even better is his continuation of the "take someone's wallet" logic. If you pick up the person holding the wallet...
The Slash reveals that Jacuzzi's mind tends to switch to Insane Troll Logic when he's scared.
...A loud doorbell is scary. Scary like something dangerous. Dangerous like the Mafia, which means the Mafia have come to kill us, I know it! I have to hide!
In Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu, the following "What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?" exchange happens:
Yoshii: You might not know this, but, in Japan there's a legend saying you'll be blessed if you confess beneath a legendary tree! And there's only one thing "legendary tree" could be referring to at this school... It refers to the legendary beauty, Hideyoshi Kinoshita![1] In other words, you'll be blessed if you confess to Hideyoshi!
Hideyoshi: This is wrong on so many levels that I don't even know where to begin.
Durarara's own troll Orihara Izaya runs on this logic, all the time. As do Izaya's sisters, Kururi and Mairu. Kida has moments, too, as he can conclude any remark by "... so, let's go pick up chicks!"
Shizuo also applies in episode three. After being hit in the head by a goon, he says this:
Shizuo: "You just went for my head, didn't you? ... You know that you could kill someone by hitting a vital spot on their head, right? ... If you know this, then you were trying to kill me, right? ... So you shouldn't have any complaints no matter what I do to you, right?!" (mega punch).
He later makes a similar rant taken to an even greater level, arguing that since there's a 0.0000000000000001 percent chance of dying from the "evil eye", beating up someone who glared at him is justified self-defense.
Keima Katsuragi of The World God Only Knows is prone to making huge leaps of logic solely because that's the way things work in Dating Sim games. Despite having little ground for his beliefs and being perceived as somewhat delusional by his peers, he's right more often than not.
In Chars Counterattack Char decided the best way to save the good, green Earth with its beautiful environment from being destroyed would be to throw a whole ton of nukes at it. Along with a giant asteroid.
In the original show, Hayato and Kai are so mad that Amuro Ray wasn't executed for desertion that they, wait for it, desert. I don't know where to begin with that.
In the first episode of Minami-ke Chiaki uses her own brand of insane troll logic to convince her sister that her classmate's love note is actually a challenge to a fight. And Chiaki's reason for doing this? "He's popular, there's no way he likes Kana."
It doesn't sound so insane until you listen to her translation, wherein "I love your cheerful, energetic personality" gets turned into "Hey, you're really noisy and annoying!" and "meet me in the classroom after school" translates into "Let's fight once there's no one there to hinder us." Whether or not Chiaki was being serious or simply cruel is hard to tell...
In later episodes Chiaki uses a new form of insane troll logic to adopt herself a brother (who just so happens to be a girl) simply because their last names are the same.
While Minami-ke is chock full of insane troll logic, Hosaka will always take the cake. Hosaka's brain automatically jumps from "Haruka likes good food" to "I must become the greatest chef ever to impress her." And it only gets worse from there.
An episode of Kimba the White Lion has a Prima Donna Director who's filming a nature documentary use this logic as to why he put a captive orangutan in his documentary even though there are no orangutans in Africa. He says that because he and his workers are in Africa and that there's an orangutan (the captive one) right next to them, there are orangutans in Africa.
Haguro Dou from Wolf Guy Wolfen Crest is a very scary example of this. Yeah, Haguro - people don't tend to actively go out and seek out people who want to do harm unto them. Soooooooo, why are you??
To make this even more twisted in every possible way, his version of Disproportionate Retribution is drenched in this. Some guy doesn't want you to bug him anymore with your psychotic shenanigans - and you believe that he wronged you by "ignoring you"???? Well, why not settle this unfair dispute by kidnapping his Morality Chain, have her chained to a wall and repeatedly gang raped for several hours in front of camera where you have your object of "obsession" forcefully watch the act proceed as you threaten to release the video to insure that said Implied Love Interest has her life ruined forever unless he transform into werewolf - during a time which he can't do so - just for you?
Gau from Nabari no Ou's blind trust in Raikou occasionally leads him to make questionable leaps in logic, including his conviction that Kouichi likes glasses so much that he draws them onto his face with magic markers.
Katsura from Gintama in particular deserves a special mention for believing that Gintoki could hide inside a tin can and writing an exam consisting of problems like "There are 10 Shinsengumi members. Six Anti-Foreigner Faction members run into them. Three Anti-Foreigner Faction members are killed. The Anti-Foreigner Faction members kill two Shinsengumi members but six more join them and two Anti-Foreigner Faction members are injured. How many noses does Jackie have?"
"This question is incredibly difficult so I'll give you extra time."
Turns 19 and 20 of Code Geass revel in this, with the Black Knights' betrayal by gunpoint of Lelouch based on some spotty testimony and failure to realize he didn't necessarily use it on them given that they were even able to go ahead with the betrayal, and Ohgi telling Kallen that not only did they not need Zero any longer, but they now had Britannian forces to help them find and kill Zero. The same Britannian forces they fought for liberation against. DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.
Although it's among the least of his problems, Zouken Matou's treatment of Sakura falls into this (and maybe a bit of Unfortunate Implications), at its core: concerned that raping her with a hive of bugs every night since she was a small child will make her a sex-hungry nymphomaniac, he sends his grandson to rape her once in awhile to take the edge off, for her sake.
Chick Tracts thrive on this.
This is the entire basis of the existence of the Johnny Turbo comics, and the "plot" follows suit. Buy the Turbo Duo game system, because Sega is composed of evil robots!
Everything Doctor Doom does makes sense if you believe as he does that everything wrong with his life is Reed Richard's fault.
in Silent Hill Rose knows where to go by finding vague items, she always turns out to be right, but it gets odd when she MUST go to the hotel because she found a piece of a sign in some dead guys mouth.
In Harold And Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the eponymous characters are arrested and forced to eat "cockmeat sandwich". When Kumar asks a guard (whose dick he and Harold have to suck) if the guard is gay, he responds, "There ain't nothing gay about getting your dick sucked; you're the gay ones for sucking my dick! In fact, it creeps me out being around you fags." The group escapes before they have to put this to the test.
Murder By Death: Somehow Sam Diamond links a girl walking off with his money in 1940 Paris with the German invasion of France that by chance occurred two hours later.
Paraphrased from Monty Python and The Holy Grail: Witches burn. Wood also burns. Therefore witches are made of wood. Wood floats in water. A duck also floats in water. So logically, if she weighs the same as a duck, she's made of wood! And therefore, Burn the Witch. When they put her on the scales, she does indeed weigh the same as the duck. The townspeople first reach the conclusion that they can tell if she's a witch by throwing her into the pond, which actually is part of witchcraft folklore. Logically, if the accused floats, she's a witch using magic and must be burned. If she sinks and drowns, she's not.
In Life of Brian, a bunch of people become convinced that Brian is The Messiah, which he vehemently denies. As somebody points out, "Only the true Messiah denies his divinity!" So Brian says that he is the Messiah, causing the crowd to shout, "He is! He is!"
Barbossa occasionally strays into this territory in Pirates of the Caribbean. This gem comes from the third movie:
Barbossa: "Aye, we're good and lost now.
Elizabeth: "Lost?"
Barbossa: "For sure, you have to be lost to find a place as can't be found, elsewise everyone would know where it is!"
In Batman: The Movie
The Dynamic Duo, Commissioner Gordon, and Chief O'Hara are attempting to figure out who made a murderous attack on the Caped Crusader -- with a shark stuffed full of TNT:
Batman: Pretty fishy what happened to me on that ladder.
Gordon: You mean, where there's a fish, there could be a Penguin.
Robin: But wait! It happened at sea! See? "C" for Catwoman!
Batman: Yet -- that exploding shark was pulling my leg!
Gordon: The Joker!
O'Hara: It all adds up to a sinister riddle... Riddle-er. Riddler?
The same movie tops it later when Batman and Robin try to figure out the Riddler's clues to his latest caper-
Batman: What is yellow and writes?
Robin: A ballpoint banana!
Batman: Correct. And... What kind of people are always in a hurry?
Robin: Rushing... People.... Russians!
Batman: Now... Putting the two together- what would you say they mean?
Robin: I got it! Someone Russian is gonna slip on a banana peel and break their neck!
Batman: Precisely Robin!
The Penguin turns Guilt By Association on its head in a debate with Batman:
Penguin: Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals! That's who. Look in the old newspapers. Every picture of Batman shows him with thugs, and with thieves, hob-nobbing with crooks... Whereas my pictures always show me surrounded by whom? By the police!
Played for laughs in this scene from Black Dynamite, where the gang make a ludicrous number of associations to deduce the villains' scheme.
Major plot point in 1982's Alone in the Dark (1982 film). Dr. Bain has come to replace Dr. Merton in a mental institute. Patients who really liked Merton come to the conclusion that Merton is gone, Bain is here, Bain killed Merton and they ought to kill him before he kills them too. Granted, they are literally insane.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: "If the lord intended us to walk, he wouldn't have invented roller skates."
Speed Zone: When Vic comes to kill Alec, Alec tries to talk him out of it. He's placed money on a car in a cross-country road race and explains that the odds of that car winning are one hundred to one. He then reasons that since he's been gambling with Vic's boss for ninety-six months (12 months in a year X 8 years), his odds of winning the bet are four to one (100 - 4).
Alec:Their odds are a hundred. My odds are four. Vic, I can win that race even if that car blows all four tires and an engine!
Caligula: "You're an honest man and thus a bad Roman. Therefore you're a traitor. Pure logic."
Abbott and Costello's movie Little Giant brings us this gem where Costello's character attempts to prove (three different ways) that 7 x 13 = 28.
In The Gore Gore Girls, detective Abraham Gentry intentionally puts Lieutenant Anderson on the wrong track in his pursuit of a Serial Killer through a bit of Insane Troll Logic: When the Lieutenant asks Abraham what he was doing with the victim the night the murder occurred, he makes a sarcastic comment about witnessing to her and giving her a Bible. The Lieutenant points out that there wasn't a Bible at the scene, and Abraham replies that the murderer must have stolen it, and therefor the person they're looking for must be a religious fanatic. At a later crime scene, he manages to keep the Lieutenant looking in this direction despite the fact that this victim did have a Bible; obviously the killer stole her Bible, then replaced it with another one to throw the police off.
The explanation of L-space: Books contain knowledge. Knowledge is power. Power is energy. Energy = matter. Matter equals mass. A library or bookshop is "a genteel black hole that knows how to read".
Then there's Cribbins at the end of Making Money. He intended to out Moist von Lipwig as archswindler Albert Spangler as a scam to get money out of him. But Moist outed himself before Cribbins got the chance. So Cribbins concludes that Moist, having kiboshed his scam, now owes him five thousand dollars.
The Auditors of Discworld reason that any sentient personality exists for a finite period, which is negligible in comparison to the infinity of Time. Therefore, they instantly cease to exist if they make the fatal mistake of identifying themselves as "I". The book Lampshades the Insane Troll Logic of this, but the erring Auditors themselves vanish too quickly to ever catch on.
Some of the less sophisticated members of the Watch (i.e. Colon and Nobby) have this approach to confessions. If someone confesses to a crime then you believe them, even if it is impossible for them to have committed said crime. The people you don't believe are the ones who won't confess. Only guilty people are trustworthy.
Catch-22 and its sequel Closing Time. Never let Milo Minderbinder talk. Or ex-PFC Wintergreen. Milo was able to make a profit by selling black market foodstuffs to himself. And rightfully bragged about it.
In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
the titular guide proves that there is no life in the universe by first informing us that the universe is of infinite size, and that there is a finite number of inhabited worlds in the universe. Since any finite number divided by infinity is so small "as makes no odds", then clearly any life in the galaxy must be the product of a deranged mind.
It also said that the Babel Fish proves there is no God. After all, it is so staggeringly improbable that such a thing would have been created by chance that it proves there is a creator. However, God has said that he refuses to provide proof of His own existence as with proof there is no need for faith, therefore by proving his existence, He simultaneously proves that He does not exist "and disappears in a Puff of Logic". The man who proves this goes on to prove that black is white. In the TV version, it is explained that combining all colors together in the form of paint equals black, while combining all colors in the form of light (from colored bulbs) equals white. Fittingly, the man gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing/crosswalk.
Legal precedent was established when the Guide was sued by the families of hitchhikers who had taken the entry on the planet Traal literally. (It said "The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal often makes a very good meal for visiting tourists" rather than "The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal often makes a very good meal of visiting tourists") The Guide's lawyers summoned a poet to testify under oath that beauty was truth and truth beauty and therefore blamed life for failing to be either beautiful or true. The judges concurred, and in a moving statement, held life itself in contempt of court and duly confiscated it from all present before retiring for a pleasant evening's ultra-golf.
In The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy, Zaphod justifies stealing a spaceship thusly: "Property is theft, right? Therefore, theft is property, therefore this ship is ours."
In And Another Thing, the same people who use the Babel Fish to prove that God doesn't exist use the silver-tongued devil, an even more useful creature, to prove that Satan does. There's Lampshade Hanging about how little sense that makes.
In Life The Universe And Everything, Ford justifies eating food left to them by natives with the reasoning that if the natives mean them harm and poisoned the food, and they don't eat it, the natives will get them some other way. Fair enough, but then he compares it to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden and concludes that God is the sort of person to leave bricks covered with hats in the street - one way or another, he'll get you.
Dirk Gently. His chosen career was built around using this in order to list anything he likes, even holidays to the Bahamas, as "case-related expenses", although since nobody ever pays for his services, such as they are, it's kind of a futile gesture. Luckily, most of his cases can be solved by Bat Deductions, not that he'll ever get paid for doing so.
Scott Adams' book The Joy Of Work includes a section called "You Are Wrong Because," a handy sheet listing various logical fallacies and suggesting the reader make a copy and hand it to a coworker with the fallacy they have committed circled. Two of the examples that stand out as examples of this trope are "Amazingly Bad Analogy" ("You can train a dog to fetch a stick. Therefore you can train a potato to dance.") and "Total Logical Disconnect" ("I enjoy pasta because my house is made of bricks.")
Lateral Thinking Puzzles are often Wild Conclusion Puzzles instead, because the so-called "correct" answer requires you to produce out of nowhere facts you were not given in the initial puzzle. For example: A man walks into a restaurant and orders the albatross. When his meal arrives, he takes one bite, then walks outside and commits suicide. Why? Answer: The man had been in a shipwreck and stranded at sea with the other survivors for a time. During this time he was given some meat that he was told was albatross and quite liked it. But when he ate the restaurant's albatross, he realized what he had really eaten was human, because it tasted different from the meat he'd eaten at sea, and he couldn't live with that. This is the entire puzzle.
A woman is riding a train with her husband. She goes to the dining car and returns shortly afterward, seeing a piece of fabric on the floor, while her husband is gone. She immediately falls to the ground crying, knowing that if she'd been there, her husband would still be alive. The solution? Her husband had recently had eye surgery done. The piece of fabric was a bandage meant to remain over his eyes. The train was going through a tunnel at the time the bandage slipped off, so everything was dark. The man, thinking he had gone blind and unable to find his wife (since he was, of course, asleep at the time), immediately committed suicide in despair. Try figuring that one out.
The following "proof" mixes some wordplay in with its Insane Troll Logic: A sheet of paper is an ink-lined plane; an inclined plane is a slope up; a slow pup is a lazy dog. Ergo, a sheet of paper is a lazy dog.
A contest in GAMES magazine actually had the contestants "arrive at an illogical conclusion through a series of logical steps". Yes there was a contest on who could write the best Insane Troll Logic. The winner was this one. Proof that there is life after death. After death comes the mourning. After the morning, comes the night. Just past the Knight is the Bishop. Above the Bishop is the Pope. The pope has serious convictions. After a serious conviction, you get life. Therefore, there is life after death. This official name for this is the Fallacy of Equivocation.
You're in a room with no windows or doors, and you have a mirror and a table. How do you get out? Look in the mirror and see what you saw. Take the saw, and cut the table in half. Two halves make a whole, so climb through the hole.
In Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth
words grow on trees:
"Well, money doesn't grow on trees, does it?" demanded the count.
"I've heard not," said Milo.
"Then something must. Why not words?" exclaimed the undersecretary triumphantly. The crowd cheered his display of logic and continued about its business.
"Be very quiet, for it goes without saying", about a cart without visible means of propulsion. Or the central plot point that Milo's task to rescue the princesses was impossible, but he was able to succeed because he didn't know that in advance.
In a short Italian story a king once decided to inspect his dungeons. He asked the first prisoner about his crime. The prisoner pled innocent. So did all the other prisoners but one, who confessed to numerous heinous crimes. The King ordered he be thrown out of the jail at once, so that he wouldn't besmear the convention of honest people with his presence.
A Serial Killer (who specialized in premature burial) in the Criminal Minds novel Killer Profile claimed that, while he buried his victims, he was not responsible for their deaths, they alone were. They should have tried harder to escape, and because they did not, they obviously did not want to live, and let themselves die, so all the alleged victims were not murdered, but actually committed suicide.
First printed in the book Science Askew[1], according to the proof that Barney The Dinosaur is the Antichrist or Satan, if you take the phrase CUTE PURPLE DINOSAUR (since that's what his fans call him), then convert U to V and cut everything that isn't a Roman numeral, then the sum of the result (C+ V+ V+ L+ D+ I+ V) is 100+ 5+ 5+ 50+ 500+ 1+ 5 is 666.
Wayne from Brandon Sanderson's Alloy of Law comes up with some hilarious examples, such as: "I bought a ward against [logic] off a traveling fortune-teller. It lets me add two 'n' two and get a pickle."
Kill Time or Die Trying:
Nathan: The routes must be the same length, or there would be signs saying otherwise
Abdel from Someone Elses War doesn't just speak this language, he practically invented it.
In the Star Risk Ltd series, Jasmine King left her previous job after her supervisor decided she was too perfect to be human, therefore she was an android, therefore he didn't legally need to pay her.
This is done repeatedly in The Colbert Report. One of the most absurd examples is the Da Colbert Code, where Stephen Colbert makes predictions using free association, starting with actors' names and titles of movies.
...Which in 2006 produced correct Oscar picks, including controversial surprise winner Crash. "I CALLED IT!"
...and again in 2009, without error. (Da Colbert Code actually spat out the right answer twice in a row when he didn't like the answer and tried again, until he finally blatantly picked the one he "wanted" to win.)
He also used the Da Colbert Code to predict the outcome of the 2008 election through free-associations intended to link to John McCain but kept coming up with Barack Obama, much to his dismay.
The Nostradamus Explanation of Why Bush is Mabus, from Penn and Teller Bullshit Flip the M upside down, drop the A, and add the "silent latin H" on the end, and you get Wbush, or W. Bush. Which is clearly what Nostradamus meant when he called the guy Mabus.
The Nostradamus Explanations of Why either Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden was Mabus was just as random. And now there's also the little problem of both being dead...
A documentary about Nostradamus on the History Channel used similar logic, combining the last two letters of Osama's first name, with the first three letters of Bush's surname, to "prove" that Bush and Bin Laden were both Mabus.
Played for laughs when interviewing the main "The LHC will kill us all!" proponent on The Daily Show, whose logic on giving it a 50/50 chance of destroying the world was "It'll either happen or it won't, thus there are two possibilities, and since it can be either one, it has to be 50/50."
John Oliver: I don't think that's how probability works.
Then beautifully parodied when John Oliver pretends to believe it is a 50/50 chance and offers that when the world ends he and the (male) proponent of the LHC-myth should try and repopulate the earth. After all, even if they're both males, there's still a 50/50 chance of them being able to successfully reproduce (it either will happen or it won't).
Speaking of The Daily Show, its host got a marvelous display of Insane Troll Logic from Tucker Carlson on Crossfire. Carlson, floundering, started throwing out vaguely-related ad hominem distractions which Stewart deflected by... "admitting" they were true in order to move on. The video could be used to teach a class on how to deal with ITL, but it's rather sad when the comedian is the most mature person in the room:
Carlson: You had this marvelous opportunity not to be the guy's butt-boy, to go ahead [sic] and be his butt-boy! It's embarrassing!
Stewart: Yes, I was absolutely his butt-boy. I was so far up... You would not believe what he ate two weeks ago.
He also once used Insane Entertainer Logic to prove that Bert from Sesame Street is Hitler in a brilliant parody of Glenn Beck.
An episode of Charmed opened with Billie coming up with this completely logical plan to find her sister, Christy, who'd been abducted as a child: the demonic forces who likely abducted her would need a powerful agent to move through in the mortal world, and who's more powerful than corporate America? So, she found a guy who was abducted as a kid -- just like Christy -- and now works for "corporate America" (which part? GlaxoSmithKline? WalMart? Vivid Video?), and she's meeting with him for lunch to see if there's any trace of demonic residue. It says a lot about the general quality of the episode that this plan actually scores results.
Also keep in mind that in Charmed demons can teleport at their leisure, making their "powerful agent" completely unnecessary in the first place. Thus this is a case of Poe's Law, since its not meant to be a parody but its taken seriously. Now you understand why in certain circles Charmed writers were known as 'Crack Monkeys'
The 1960s Batman show used a lot of this in Batman's free association logic, especially in Riddler episodes. Even if the actual answers to the riddles were straightforward, Batman had to employ a lot of ITL to figure out how they related to anything relevant.
Penguin actually used to this to his advantage in one episode by leaving behind a purposefully cryptic (and bugged) umbrella for Batman to find, knowing he'd assume it was a clue. Penguin himself had no plans for a crime. He simply listened to Batman and Robin guess at what his next heist would be and make their plan to stop him. Armed with the knowledge of both how to commit his crime and how Batman would try to stop it, Penguin then successfully pulled off the heist.
In John Cleese's The Strange Case Of The End Of Civilization As We Know It, the CIA representative asks the Best Minds of the Police of Five Continents what they should do about Moriarty's plot to destroy civilization, etc., noting that "this fiend will stop at nothing." The Best Mind of the Police of Africa proposes that they do nothing, since if Moriarty will stop at nothing, if they do nothing he will stop. The CIA man tries to find the flaw in this, but only ends up muttering "If we do anything, he won't stop, so...."
Earlier, havoc ensues when the CIA man reporting to the President of the United States (who is not Gerald Ford, honest) insists on responding to a question with "Negative".
"You found a negative?"
"No, I was speaking IN the negative."
"HE found a negative?"
"He was speaking in the negative too."
"You mean... there was a photograph of you speaking to me... and the negative was in Groppinger's diary?
The majority of Michael Kelso's thought processes on That 70s Show are this. Some examples:
Point A: Kelso needs a new vehicle for Brooke and their soon-to-be-born child after his van is destroyed.
Point B: The two-seater mini-convertible is frickin' sweet, always a good thing in a vehicle.
Path A-B: Babies are tiny, the mini-convertible is tiny, therefore the mini-convertible is better for the baby than a sedan or van.
Point A: You cannot steer a canoe on land (tied to a car or sliding down a mountain).
Point B: You can use a paddle to steer a canoe.
Path A-B: It does not matter if you are on land, because you can steer a canoe with a paddle, duh.
Similar to the Daily Show example above: In an episode of Corner Gas, someone asks, "What are the chances that we have a riot in Dog River?" Karen answers in all seriousness, "I'd say 50-50: either we get a riot, or we don't."
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the Trope Namer, using this phrase as a miniature Running Gag, appearing in three episodes. Ironically, its uses aren't really examples, though (as two of them refer to literal trolls).
The Trope Namer is from Xander's original comment when asked to choose between Willow and Anya, by Olaf the Troll: "I...I'm not choosing between my girlfriend and my best friend! You're insane. That's insane troll logic!"
In a flashback, Anya's then-boyfriend Olaf, whom she later turns into the aforementioned Troll, says to her "Your logic is insane, like that of a Troll!"
While Buffy is talking to a recently-risen vampire about her failed relationships, he asks her whose fault her parents' divorce was, to which she responds, "Ok, y'know what? This is beyond evil; this is insane troll logic. What do my parents have to do with this?"
Speaking of insane troll logic, Principal Snyder (who employs such logic to pin blame on Buffy and her allies for anything and everything) is referred to as the troll by several Scoobies...
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has a generous helping of this, given that all its characters are Jerkass idiots. For example, this is Charlie's explanation of why burning trash in the bar's furnace is environmentally sound: If he threw it away, it would just be packed into a landfill, but burning it saves heating money and converts the trash to warmth and also gives the bar the nice, smoky burning trash smell. Also, instead of just rotting away on the earth, the burned trash turns to smoke and eventually goes into the air where it turns into stars.
Mac: That doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about stars to dispute it.
Chris Morris's sketch show Jam features a sketch in which stupid people are employed to engage in arguments, the idea being that they are so incompetent at logic that their opponents will simply give up in frustration.
A favored tactic of Kelly Bensimon on The Real Housewives of New York City. She likes to start arguments with outrageously flawed statements as their centerpiece. For example, she once explained that the reason that she and another woman saw things so differently was because "I'm a blonde, you're a brunette". Even if that mattered, it's not true: Kelly's hair is dark auburn, not even close to blond. It's possible that she knows that this gives her an advantage, in the sense that there's no possible comeback when someone's gone and played the cray-cray card; but it's more likely that she's just an angry Cloudcuckoolander speaking her honest mind.
A lot of panel games aired by the BBC are for some reason allowed a certain number of uses of the word "fuck", but if they go over said limit once they will start to bleep it. It doesn't make sense at all, particularly when people have already gathered what's being discussed.
Young Blades: In "The Chameleon," the young King Louis XIV reads part of a book from India saying that the Master of Changing Light, after years of intense study and training, can make himself look like other people. He tries concentrating for a few seconds and then gives up. Leads to this scene later in the episode:
D'Artagnan: What if I told you there is an impostor in Paris who can look like anyone?...
Louis: You've been reading that book of fairy tales, haven't you? The Master of Changing Light?... Pure fantastical nonsense! I mean, I tried it myself, and if the King of France can't bend his appearance to the force of his will, I ask you, who can?
D'Artagnan & Duval: (Stunned Silence)
In Keeping Up Appearances, Hyacinth's social-climbing attempts and rationales can sometimes take on this edge. She once asked Richard to smile while doing the gardening so that if any people she was trying to impress happened to drop by they'd assume that they could afford a gardener but choose not to because Richard enjoyed it so much.
This crops up in just about every speech given by Roderick Spode who is meant to be a parody of Sir Oswald Mosley in Jeeves and Wooster. Some of his ideas include creating a giant collapsible channel bridge to drown anyone who tries to cross and wants to replace 27,000 miles of railway track in order to widen their spacing by eight inches to facilitate the transportation of livestock, paid for by the fact that sheep will be able to stand sideways
On Martin, the title character's CD player has gone missing and he spends the whole episode trying to figure out who took it. It turns that Martin's upstairs neighbor, Brotha Man, borrowed it without Martin's knowledge. Brotha Man explains that he left a note for Martin underneath his bathroom sink, figuring that Martin would eventually look there because Brotha Man had used up all the toilet paper. Everyone in the room, including Martin, is rendered speechless as Brotha Man casually shuffles out the window.
This A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketch uses it brilliantly. During the interrogation, when the woman accused of being a lesbian points out that she's married a Bishop of the Church of England, the Prosecutor points out that the Church owns land. Land upon which housed have been built. Houses in which it is statistically probably that private acts of lesboid love have been committed.
Let There Be Guns by The Arrogant Worms.
Worm1: Nobody ever gets shot, cause everybody have a gun.
Worm2: Makes sense.
Everybody: Wouldn't it be great if everybody had a gun?...
Also, their "Don't Go Into Politics" concludes that going into politics, science, or music is a bad idea, because so many famous politicians, scientists, and musicians are now dead.
An early Dilbert strip:
Dilbert: Reading increases my knowledge, and knowledge is power.
Dogbert: But power corrupts... and corruption is a crime... and crime doesn't pay... if you keep reading, you'll go broke!!!
Dilbert: It... it always seemed so harmless!
Dogbert: Yeah, that's what the librarians want you to think.
Another Dilbert story arc introduced Dan the Illogical Scientist, who was a practiced hand at this sort of thing.
Dan: I'm much smarter than you because scientists have invented many things.
Dilbert: But those are other scientists, not you.
Dan: Apparently you don't understand how science works.
Dan: That idea won't work. I know because I've read many reports about ideas that didn't work.
Alice: You haven't even looked at my idea.
Dan: Oh, I get it; you're one of those religious nuts.
The Pointy-Haired Boss uses insane troll logic on several occasions. In at least one occasion, one of these hell-spawned managerial decisions causes Dilbert's head to explode.
Another example is Wally saying that there's no need for him to wash his towels, because he's the cleanest object in his house after bathing or washing. Therefore, his towels get cleaner every time they touch him
Pearls Before Swine featured Rat wearing a hat that he claimed made him immortal. His logic was that he wore it and he hadn't died yet.
In a Calvin and Hobbes strip, Calvin's reasoning for bats being bugs are that they fly, they're ugly and they're hairy. He also says he'll get an A on his paper because he's using a "professional" clear plastic binder.
Pogo does this constantly. For example, when Albert is on trial for allegedly eating Pup-Dog, Seminole Sam produces a fish skeleton as evidence, arguing that Pup-Dog was so fond of water he was "jus' like a fish." Porkypine refutes him by pointing out that it's a catfish skeleton.
The Goon Show based a huge portion of its humor around this kind of logic. One of the best known examples is the exchange between Eccles and Bluebottle that is usually referred to by its first line, "What time is it, Eccles?" In this example, Eccles explains in a perfectly logical sequence of total nonsense that he knows what time it is, because he has the time written on a piece of paper in his pocket.
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue uses a lot of this logic, either taking it seriously (of course Mornington Crescent is a real, rational game with a long and detailed history) or as one-off gags and quick silliness.
Humph: Graeme, why are cashew nuts never sold in their sells?
Graeme: Ah, that's because cashews are actually monkey kidneys. And monkey kidneys don't come in shells, they come in monkeys. That would bulk out the packaging too much.
In Paranoia, playing along with The Computer's Insane Troll Logic is a major survival skill and plot instigator.
On the other hand, the Spurious Logic skill in early editions is not an example - the logic is sane, but the initial claim is a lie ("I'm an undercover Violet, Violets are cleared for plasma generators, therefore I'm cleared for this plasma generator").
This is a madness talent in Don't Rest Your Head.
This is part of the appeal of Warhammer 40000's Orks. Imperial scholars theorize that somewhere in the distant past a Mekboy built two superficially identical vehicles, one of which was painted red. Due to an immeasurable internal difference, the red vehicle went faster, so the Orks decided it was due to the color scheme, a belief they've stuck with ever since. Since the Orks are unconsciously, latently psychic, this means that any vehicle painted red goes faster because they expect it to.
Orks on military strategy: "Here's da plan: win. If we lose, it's because ya didn't follow da plan."
Orks on friendly fire: "If ya misses it, it's obviously one o' ours. If ya hits it, den it must be one o' theirs."
Orks on victory and defeat: "Orkses is never beaten in battle. If we win we win, if we die we die so it don't count as beat. If we runs for it we don't die neither, so we can always come back for anuvver go, see!"
Orks on being ambushed: "Ha! Dese gits just made da classic blunda: attackin' an Ork who 'adn't found 'em already! Now we'z can stomp dem fasta, haha!"
One Ork Warboss and his invasion fleet got sent back in time by a Warpstorm, arriving shortly before they'd left. The Warboss decided to kill his past self so he'd have two copies of his favorite gun. The resulting confusion stopped the invasion in its tracks.
/tg/ has applied Orky logic to matters of camouflage, concluding that purple is the sneakiest color. Because you've never seen a purple army, have you?
This can apply to the Players themselves. A swarm of infantry bodies in any other army would be a suicide tactic (or at least be a handicap in the case of the imperial guard). For the Orks, it's the only tactic! This actually works because the Orks roll so many dice, the sheer amount of actual hits are still enough to kill whatever they're targeting, despite the massive odds against them.
In Dungeons and Dragons, slaadi... have weird ways of thinking.
For those out of the loop, slaadi are outsiders from the realm of chaos, are Always Chaotic Neutral (or Chaotic Evil in 4th edition), and who have a mechanically-enforced Our Monsters Are Weird creature-generation system. They also look like giant anthropomorphic frogs.
Bill Cosby has a famous routine about him being rudely awakened by his wife, and his daughter asking him if she can have cake for breakfast. He decides it must be healthy because it has eggs, wheat and milk in it, and says yes.
His wife then comes down, sees what the kids are eating, "has a conniption", and then sends him back to the bedroom... which is where he wanted to go in the first place. What do you call Insane Troll Logic that works?
This is the basis of how the Theatre of the Absurd works. Eugene Ionesco was particularly good at this.
Anyone Can Whistle: In the Sondheim Musical, the patients from a local insane asylum infiltrate a line of pilgrims waiting to see a "miracle" set up by the mayoress and her cronies. To keep from being exposed, they call on the asylum's doctor, who sends his recently arrived assistant, J. Bowden Hapgood. Hapgood promises to separate the sane from the insane using "the principles of logic," and has an entire 13-minute musical sequence that is full of this kind of "logic".
Any Dane or Norwegian who didn't sleep their way through school knows this classic example from Ludvig Holberg's 18th century comedy Erasmus Montanus: Erasmus, having returned to his home village after getting an education at the Copenhagen university, demonstrates the power of logical thinking to his mother by stating that since rocks can't fly and his mother can't fly, she must be a rock. The mother is so gullible that she begins to think she is a rock, but Erasmus "saves" her by pointing out that rocks can't talk, but she can, so she's not a rock after all.
In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio orders his servants not to let his wife, Kate, eat or sleep. Kate begs their servant Gumio to give her food. Grumio pretends to use this so that he can follow Petruchio's orders.
First he offers to get Kate some calf's foot. When she agrees he rescinds the offer, saying that calf's foot would make her bad tempered. Because starving her will give her a really sunny disposition.
Then he offers her tripe, but takes that offer back for the same reason.
The real kicker is the beef and mustard. When he offers this to Kate, she agrees. Then he says no, because the mustard is too hot. She says she'll have the beef without the mustard, then. He says no, the beef goes with the mustard. She says she's willing to eat one or the other or both or anything else. So Grumio comes up with the perfect solution: mustard without the beef!
In Caryl Churchill's version of A Dream Play, there is a scene with a teacher in school arguing logic with a student of his. The teacher is asked what time is, to which he replies that since time flies, logically, time is something that flies while he's speaking. One of the other schoolboys starts to fly, claiming that by that logic, he is time. The teacher agrees, confirming that he is in fact time. But the first student says that that's impossible, and because logic failed in that case, we can therefore logically prove that logic is wrong.
Touchstone, in As You Like It, explains that Corin's going to Hell because he never went to court:
Why, if thou never wast at court, thou never sawest good manners; if thou never sawest good manners, then thy manners must be wicked; and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous state, shepherd.
And while we're on the subject of fools in Shakespeare, Feste, the fool from Twelfth Night, is a master of this. For example, he attempts to prove that Olivia is a fool so that the people asked to "take away the fool" will remove her instead of him:
Feste: Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia: Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste: I think his soul is in Hell, madonna.
Olivia: I know his soul is in Heaven, fool.
Feste: The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.
Launce in Two Gentlemen of Verona:
Launce: Fie on thee, jolt-head! thou canst not read.
Speed: Thou liest; I can.
Launce: I will try thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?
Speed: Marry, the son of my grandfather.
Launce: O illiterate loiterer! it was the son of thy grandmother: this proves that thou canst not read.
Jack Point's explanation of how there is humour in all things in The Yeomen of the Guard is this with a touch of Metaphorgotten:
Point: Now observe. She said "Hands off!" Whose hands? Thine. Off whom? Off her. Why? Because she is a woman. Now, had she not been a woman, thine hands had not been set upon her at all. So the reason for the laying on of hands is the reason for the taking off of hands, and herein is contradiction contradicted! It is the very marriage of pro with con; and no such lopsided union either, as times go, for pro is not more unlike con than man is unlike woman - yet men and women marry every day with none to say, "Oh, the pity of it!" but I and fools like me!
Angels in America has Roy Cohn explaining to his doctor at length how he is not homosexual, even though he does have sex with men, as homosexuality is really about lacking social, economical and political power.
"Roy Cohn is not a homosexual. Roy Cohn is heterosexual man, Henry, who fucks around with guys."
In Mass Effect a Renegade Shepard can say:
Shepard: You refused to testify. Obviously you hate justice and deserve this.
Lorik Qi'in: What insane breed of logic is that?!
An indoctrinated Hanar reasons that if his race worships the Protheans and the remaining Protheans were converted into the Reapers' slaves, the Hanar must worship the Reapers. Shepard might refer to this as "insane jellyfish" logic.
In Umineko no Naku Koro ni this is essentially what the entire premise boils down to, especially early on. So you don't like how the plot is unfolding? Call out the resident magical troll and challenge her to a metaphysical game of bizarro logic chess where victory over her somehow means proving she doesn't exist.
In-game examples would include attempts to use anything, no matter how ridiculous, as a viable theory (as long as magic isn't involved of course); from "spike-launching devices" to "small bombs".
The game Metal Wolf Chaos features propaganda news reports that define a True American as "anyone who supports the idea of having the families and friends of terrorist sympathizers murdered in the streets" rather than "anyone who is a citizen or long-standing resident of America".
Nakar's Let's Play of Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle has a moment that includes some rather hilarious made-up dialogue, with callbacks to the Avatar's adventures in Martian Dreams:
Steve the Avatar: I call the Shadowlords to witness before the Oracle.
Iolo: Ummmm.
Shadowlord Nosfentor: What do you want this time, Steve?
Steve: Nosfentor! Great to see you. I'd like to draw your attention to Exhibit 1.
Shadowlord Faulinei: That would be you and Iolo in Ultima IV, killing city guards for money.
Steve: Indeed. And Exhibit 2?
Iolo: How is this supposed to help my defense?
Steve: Oh I'm supposed to be defending you?
Shadowlord Astaroth: That would be you dumping off Iolo's dead body at an inn in Ultima V.
Steve: Iolo's dead body! How very interesting. And I should point out that on Mars I encountered one Dr. David Yellin. Exhibit 3, if you would.
Iolo: I've told you before I'm n-
Steve: And when Dr. Yellin wouldn't cooperate, do you recall what happened?
Sigmund Freud: Ja, you shot him.
Steve: I shot him! Which means that Iolo has died twice. And as you are all surely aware, a man cannot be executed more than twice for committing the same crime. Thus, Iolo cannot be convicted for the crime of being Iolo.
Iolo: But that makes no sense.
Steve: Shut up, you're dead, and zombies have no civil rights.
Lady Yelinda: Ohhhhhh, I'm starting to get it, this is retarded.
Nosfentor: Glad to see someone is catching on.
Fate/stay night Shirou Emiya has issues understanding... personal space and privacy matters.
Tohsaka: "Hey, Emiya-kun. How did you check for Issei's Command Spell?"
Emiya: "I just took his clothes off. He fought back, but I took his shirt off by force"
Tohsaka: "... ...?" Tohsaka freezes while looking at me.
Emiya (thinking): How strange of her. What part of that is strange?
Rin from Katawa Shoujo lapses into this from time to time, most notably near the end of Lilly's Act 1 path which leaves the main character and Lilly both with a headache.
The Spathi from Star Control 2 use this to justify their fear of an "Ultimate Evil" that surely intends to destroy them. They have never found any evidence that such an evil exists, which means that it must be hiding just outside the range of their most powerful sensors, which is proof of its nefarious intent.
It should be noted that when humanity figures out how to open and close the slaver system-isolating forcefields they break their alliance and put it around their own system to be shut of the rest of the universe."
Phoenix Wright from the Ace Attorney series is fond of objecting first and thinking later and of grasping at straws and coming up with imaginative guesses, but he's usually too honest and reasonable to use actual troll logic. However, in one situation where he's desperate to keep the trial going as long as possible until the police complete the next phase of their investigation, we get this exchange:
Witness: He looked suspicious because he was walking through the hall in the hotel wearing black leather gloves.
Phoenix: Footballs are made of leather! Are you saying that all footballs are suspicious just because they're made out of leather?!
Similar exchange slightly earlier about baseballs and stitches
Von Karma has a similar line of logic in the first game
Phoenix: He remembered the name of his fiance who commited suicide. That's why he named his parrot after her!
Von Karma: My granddaughter has a dog she calls "Phoenix." Well, Mr. Phoenix Wright? Does this make you my granddaughter's fiancee!?
Another example from the third game involves a massive stone lantern with upside-down bloody writing on it. Gumshoe voices the results of his special Gumshoe investigation: 'At the time of the murder, the stone lantern... WAS UPSIDE DOWN!!!!!!' Gumshoe does this a lot. Edgeworth has simply given up on understanding him.
Pokémon Black and White's very own Animal Wrongs Group, Team Plasma. Especially the grunts and their tendency to explain themselves along the lines of 'we're abusing this Pokemon to help it!'
Early in Suikoden V there is a tournament to decide who will get to marry the Prince's sister. One group of people decide it's their patriotic duty to get a foreign competitor kicked out of the tournament. They do this by picking a fight with him so he will get disqualified when he kills them. When the Prince tries to stop them they figure that the real Prince would never try to stop such obviously patriotic people therefore the Prince must be an impostor!
Jabless Adventure. Jables and Squiddy plumb the depths of the Card-Carrying Villain's depravity:
Jables: I had no idea there was a villain.
Squiddy: I bet he's the one who kidnapped the princess.
Jables: Let her go, King Squid!
King Squid: I didn't kidnap any princess.
Squiddy: Then where is she?
King Squid: My plan doesn't involve the princess.
Squiddy: Yet you kidnapped her anyway.
Jables: That's evil.
King Squid: ...
In Persona 4, the true killer, claims that he didn't kill the victims, he only threw them into the TV world, which then was responsible for their deaths. This despite it being pointed out that he knew what would happen to Saki Konishi after Mayumi Yamano died in the TV world. Also, noting that the world is influenced by people's thoughts, suggests that everyone outside, including the investigation team, is responsible, presumably saying this as a way of playing mind games with them.
The Corwids of Zeno Clash are all a bit nuts, but among the maddest was a Corwid who decided his dearest wish was to be invisible. His plan to achieve this was plucking out the eyes of every creature that could see him.
Dragon Age 2 - Sarcastic Hawke's logic definitely falls under this category sometimes.
Early on in Ghost Trick, Sissel discovers that the ghost of the recently deceased dog Missile has tagged along with him into the past to prevent his death. Missile doesn't bat an eye at such a feat, reasoning that if his master can walk on two feet and he can't, he shouldn't find it weird that Sissel can walk through time and he can't. The worst part? Sissel agrees with his line of reasoning.
To be absolutely fair, Sissel is a cat.
Exit Fate's Father Luther explains how to spot a vampire.
Baldur's Gate II has some of this logic coming from an actual insane troll. Here's the conversation if you try to keep a dialogue going as long as possible instead of attacking him right after he says:
Troll Cook: Hello there foodthing. You are just in time. Please just jump onto the grill over there.
Protagonist: Pardon me?
Troll Cook: The grill. That big metal thing. Jump on. Be careful, it's hot!
Protagonist: You speak well for a troll.
Troll Cook: My mother tried hard to give me good learning. She sent me to live with these hobgoblins here. They smart. Trained me how to cook real good.
Protagonist: Do you like these orcs?
Troll Cook: They smell bad, but they're okay. They can be mean sometimes. Chief DigDag sometimes cuts my fingers off and throws them onto the grill. Says they taste like sausages.
Protagonist: Doesn't that hurt?
Troll Cook: Yep. But I'm a troll. Fingers cut off. Fingers grow back. Now quit talking and start broiling! Chief DigDag doesn't like me talking to the food.
Protagonist: I'm not letting you cook me, you crazy troll!
Troll Cook: Uncle Cajum, he was crazy. Me, I'm not crazy. I'm a cook. Now get on the grill!
Protagonist: Why would I want to be on the grill?
Troll Cook: Geez. It's impossible to get good help nowadays. If you're not on the grill, how am I going to cook you?
Protagonist: I don't want to be cooked.
Troll Cook: If you didn't want to be cooked, then why did you apply for the job? I think you'll all make a tasty snack! Boys! Get 'em!
All of Red Mage's plans in Eight Bit Theater run on this very logic. When stranded on an island, Thief quite accurately states that Red Mage's planning would likely involve blowing up the island with them on it with the justification that they're no longer on the island anymore. While Red Mage's actual plan was much less dangerous, it did involve massive amounts of Evilutionary Biology for the Chocobos and a willingness to exploit his Mime ability beyond its actual usefulness.
Just about everyone in Eight Bit Theater is either a liar, a cheat, or utterly stupid, if not all three, so conversations tend toward this. For example; In this comic, Red Mage explains how his plan to shoot down a visible sky castle, then repair it, in order to fly high enough to find the invisible sky castle "makes too little sense to fail."
Black Mage: Okay Red Mage, enlighten us. How can a plan that makes no sense work?
Red Mage: One simple reason: It makes too little sense to fail.
BM: What.
RM: Most plans are critically flawed by their own logic. A failure at any step will ruin everything after it. That's just basic cause and effect. It's easy for a good plan to fall apart. Therefore, a plan that has no attachment to logic cannot be stopped. The success or failure of any step will have no effect on the macro level.
BM: That's so stupid I can't even see straight anymore.
RM: Now imagine what'll happen when physics tries to figure it out!
Miko from Order of the Stick.
Roy: It's like she's got that monk ability that lets you jump as far as you want, except with her, it applies to conclusions.
Similarly, Tsukiko's grounds for her conclusion that the undead are nice people. For the link-shy, her reasoning is that the living are bastards, so as the antithesis of life, the man-eating undead must actually be sweet, innocent, virtuous entities.
The Empress of Blood knows that dragons get more powerful as they get bigger. However, she decided to make herself bigger by overeating. All this does is make her morbidly obese, but she still thinks it's working
Elan learned that Armor counts against Hide checks. This led him to the conclusion that going naked would make him invisible. Hilarity ensued
This is also his reaction when Haley reverses the definitions of adventure and adventurer to make him feel better. Even Miko is weirded out by his brand of Insane Troll Logic.
Shortpacked shows us REALLY insane troll logic here. This is based on an actual troll on his blog (link)
Joey's plan to sneak into his landlord's house in A Game of Fools has to be seen to be believed.
As well as Sylvester and Tomato's brilliant plan to help Adam steal Katie off her boyfriend.
And Roscoe and Joey's arguments against gay marriage.
Jim's truly spectacular plan to throw the Mos Espa podrace in Darths and Droids.
Reginald from Nedroid has workout advice. Given that it's better to do fewer reps with more weight, is to take it to its logical conclusion and do zero reps of a million pounds.
Used in The Non-Adventures of Wonderella here to con Jesus into... Insane Troll Logic stuff.
Featured in "troll physics," a form of 4chan's /v/ board's MS Paint comics.
The reasoning behind Nathan's actions in Ménage à 3 as explained by himself:
His explanation about how he's not gay or bisexual, despite starting each day out by having anal sex with one of his male subordinates.
His excuse for cheating on both Dillon and Amber Amber and his wife all at the same time.
Utilized in this and many other Ctrl+Alt+Del comics, typically involving Ethan or (on a far weirder scale) Chef Brian ("I are pant").
In El Goonish Shive, most of the characters seem to think that Tedd's explanation of the reason he maintains long hair is Insane Troll Logic. Oddly, it actually makes perfect sense. You see, Tedd looks very androgynous and would quite like to look more manly. But he keeps long hair anyway. If he cut his hair, he would look very slightly more manly but it would be obvious that the thing that makes him look so feminine is his actual face itself. If he keeps his hair in a really girly long hairstyle, then everyone at school with him assumes that he would look manly if not for his hair.
In Tales Of Zenith, Tam O'Shanter says that it's JFK's fault the Oklahoma City Courthouse was bombed. "JFK appointed his brother Attorney General. This got Congress so mad they passed a law that the president can't appoint any relatives to a cabinet position. This meant that Bill Clinton couldn't appoint his wife Attorney General, so when Waco happened, instead of Hillary talking it out with David Koresh, Janet Reno allowed the FBI to use tanks and tear gas, and people couldn't get out and died. As a result, Timothy Mc Veigh saw what happened and decided to blow up the Oklahoma City Courthouse. That's why it's JFK's fault, if he hadn't appointed his brother Attorney General, Hillary would have been able to be appointed, and she's too politically savvy to have made the mistake Janet Reno did."
Real Life Comics depicts an instance that actually happened to creator Greg Dean in real life: He tried to order a Pepsi in a Dave and Buster's, but was refused because he wasn't of age to drink alcohol yet (despite his repeated protestations that Pepsi isn't alcoholic). This gets a Call Back when Greg finally does hit the legal drinking age - the first thing he does is go back to D&B's and say "I want a freaking Pepsi."
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal gives us this.
All over the place in Mountain Time
Numerous Xkcd comics employ this trope, particularly when involving Black Hat Guy.
The Whiteboard: According to Doc, he won't need a parachute when he next goes skydiving. He'll just bring along an extension cord or some welding leads, and it's an even bet that they'll snag on something before he lands.
In Sinfest, Lil' Evil argues that Evilution -- the theory humans are descendents of Evil Monkeys -- must be true because Church people don't like it.
In Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure Abridged, Joseph finally (not really) figures out the secret of Dio's Stand:
Joseph: Wait a minute...time! Kronos was the god of time in Greek mythology. Greece won the Euro Cup in 2004. George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004. George W. Bush was impersonated in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. Kal Penn is in Barack Obama's administration. Will Smith looks like Barack Obama. Will Smith's son is going to be in the next Karate Kid - oh my god I got it!!
Spoiler Alert: Dio's stand, The World (known better as ZA WARUDO!), stops time. It doesn't breathe fire.
Played for laughs by Loading Ready Run with Detective Riley, a recurring character who takes one look at a crime scene and uses free-associational logic to determine the culprit. Slight subversion in that he's always right - the police have already reached the same conclusion through completely rational means.
Detective Riley: What have we here?
Officer Rodriguez: A drug deal gone bad. Real bad.
Riley: Well, the way I see it is this: the last ship that came into port here was the "Queen of Seville." Saint Isidore of Seville, patron saint of the internet, born in 560 AD - the same year Ethelbert succeeded his father Iormic as King of Kent. Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter, patrols Metropolis as Superman, also known by his Kryptonian name Kal-el. The L Word, popular TV show about lesbians, and who doesn't like lesbians? I'll tell you who - your murderer, Jeff Greenwood, known to the police as Jeffy G.
Rodriguez: That was fascinating, but... we kinda already knew that. Jeffy G admitted the whole thing on his YouTube channel this morning.
Riley : Outstanding.
This seems to be standard detective training in the Victoria PD, as Rodriguez starts doing this too after being promoted.
The train of logic used in the College Humor parody video "Deceptive Deceptions". The fictional narrator "uncovers" an Ancient Conspiracy by tying together about two-and-a-half dozen people, companies, and organizations by truly nonsensical connections and flimsy associations. Case in point: John Candy.
asdf.com:
""asdf" converted into Morse code is .- ... -.. ..-. If you take the .'s and convert them to 0's and take the -'s and convert them to 1's, you get the binary number of 010001000010, which is 1090 in decimal. The year 1090 just happens to be 2 years after Christodoulos of Patmos, supported by Emperor Alexius I Komnenos, founded the monastery of Saint John the Theologian on Patmos. Only * 4* years after the year 1090 AD... The First Crusade (1095-99) captured Jerusalem; and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem begins. Now because the Crusade on Jerusalem happened only a short time after the crucial year 1090, we can convert the letters ASDF into the ancient Hebrew alphabet, and we get Aleph Vov Daled Samech (because of the differences in alphabets, these might not be accurate translations). We take the letters, and convert them into one word. Alephvovdaledsamech -- which converted phonetically sounds like "A lef volv da leads a mech". We can then read these sounds into words, and we get "A left Volvo does leads a mech." Going further, we get "A left Volvo does lead the mechanics", or "A left Volvo does lead the mechanical industry". We can then read into it, that a "left Volvo", obviously a car made in a country where you drive on the left side of the road, will one day lead the mechanical, or automobile industry. Ford Motors Inc. must have found out about this information before I could disclose it to you -- for they just bought Volvo. Ford is obviously trying to change this age-old Hebrew prophecy, and claim the automobile industry for themselves! You must rally the people! To the top of Mount Sinai! We shall stop them yet! ARMAGEDDON HAS BEGUN!!!!!
From a truly epic post on one of Game FAQs's social boards, apparently talking about the origins of Winnie the Pooh:
Pooh backwards is Hoop. Like hula hoops, right?... Hula was invented in Hawaii. Hawaii was once part of an Asian country. Japan is in Asia ... Japan was nuked ... Microwaves also nuke ... Microwave ... Micro! Micro means very small, like the chances I have of getting a date. Date ... A calendar often tells dates. Calendars also often have pictures. Mostly pictures of puppies. Puppies grow up to be dogs. Like hot dogs! The best hot dogs are found in New York. New York has the Yankees. The Yankees fought the Confederates. The Dukes of Hazard had a Confederate flag on their car. Hazard ... the word has a Z. Z's normally signify sleeping. Sleeping leads to dreams. In some dreams you're flying ... flying like a plane. The Wright Brothers flew the first plane. And they were brothers. Like the show Band of Brothers. That series was about a war. And about WWII! WWII had Nazis. And Hitler. Hitler spelled backwards is Reltih, which makes no sense. Sense, like Spider Sense. Spider-Man used spider sense to fight the Green Goblin. Green, green was the color used by Sailor Jupiter in that one cartoon. Jupiter ... Jupiter has moons! Like Callisto. Callisto was also a gun in the game Perfect Dark. Dark ... Moon ... Jupiter? Winnie the Pooh is from the dark side of Jupiter's moon, Callisto!
The best part may be how he gets this close to making a reasoning using World War II, evades it to go on a different tangent, and then goes back to WWII later on.
Used hilariously in Episode 2 of Red vs. Blue: Revelation.
Grif: [after what appears to have been a completely ordinary radio conversation] Simmons sounded good. I guess he's got everything under control.
Sarge: Donut and Lopez are dead and Agent Washington has taken Simmons prisoner.
Grif: What?! Everything sounded fine to me!
Sarge: Think about it! How do you answer the radio at our base?
Grif: Thank you for calling Red Base, this is Private Grif, how may I assist you today.
Sarge: And we've drilled that since day one! Simmons answered "Hi." That was my first clue.
Grif: So maybe he's just ups-
Sarge: He also said that the radio was in disrepair. When does Lopez ever let something go without the proper maintenance?
Grif: Never!
Sarge: And look at the time.
Grif: Can't, clock's broken.
Sarge: It's 17:30! And everybody knows that 17:30 is...
Grif: Donut's daily wine and cheese hour!
Sarge: I didn't hear any tinkling glasses, did you?
Grif: You're right!
Sarge: He also mentioned that the weather was "rainier", and as we all know, Mt. Rainier is the biggest land mass in the state of... Washington!
Grif: We do? Uh, I mean, we do!
Sarge: How many Washingtons do we know?
Grif: Did he mean Agent Washington?
Sarge: And who's the biggest mess we know associated with Washington?
Grif: The Meta!
Sarge: So the Meta and Washington have teamed up to kill Donut and Lopez and now they're holding Simmons and Doc prisoner.
Grif: We have to help them! Wait, Doc? How do you know he's there?
Sarge: Please, Grif, it's so obvious! I don't want to insult your intelligence by explaining every little detail.
Most humorously of all, Simmons was not actually trying to send a coded message, yet Sarge was completely correct!
Most of that conversation is superfluous context. The IST is the part where Sarge told Grif he didn't want to insult his intelligence.
Caboose does this frequently.
Caboose: Time...line? Time is not made out of lines. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round!
Done to hilarious effect in Kickassia when the Nostalgia Critic is rallying the others to invade Molassia. He convinces his friends that they want to be like the Nazis right after condemning them for being like the Nazis.
Later, Sage uses another variant of this when he comes to the conclusion that holding an Uzi makes you immortal, the reasoning being he's holding one right now and he's still alive.
Kurama uses this to navigate Maze Castle in episode 18 of Yu Yu Hakusho Abridged.
From a post on the Doctor Who Forums, arguing that Vincent van Gogh is the Master in disguise:
1. van Gogh, as we discover in 'Vincent and the Doctor', is mad. The Master is also mad.
2. van Gogh was deeply unpopular with the local rubes. The Master was terribly charismatic and brilliant at manipulating local rubes to his advantage (cf. 'The Daemons'). If the Master were trying to hide his true nature, what better way than to appear deeply unpopular with the locals?
3. van Gogh could see the Krafayis when nobody else could see it. This is probably a Time Lord ability to see things nobody else can see.
4. Alternatively, a bio-upgrade of some sort given to him offscreen during 'The Mark of the Rani'.
5. No one can agree on the correct pronunciation of 'van Gogh'. Got to be an allusion to the many different names the Master has used throughout his career.
6. I seem to recall in one serial during the seventies the Master expressed an interest in painting.
7. The name 'Vincent van Gogh' is an anagram of 'Vincent van Gogh', the alias used by the Master in this story.
8. Tony Curran. Anthony Tony Ainley. Do I have to spell this out, people?
9. Being a man, he's definitely not Susan, Romana, the Rani or Rose, the only other possible candidates for a character in a Doctor Who story. Although there is a slim chance he is secretly the eighth Doctor, played by Paul McGann.
10. In one of the deleted scenes for this episode, van Gogh laughs maniacally and screams, 'I am the Master', before turning into the Master.
I believe the evidence is clear.
Gaming news site Rock Paper Shotgun presents the facts about harmful gaming.
Nearly twice as many Americans own gun-displaying consoles than those who own the types of guns that require a license and paperwork to purchase. No such paperwork is necessary when buying an Xbox, and yet still teenagers will kill each other in the streets.
The Angels and Demons abridged script provides several examples:
TOM HANKS looks up ILLUMINATI in the encyclopedia in the VATICAN'S SUPER SECRET LIBRARY.
TOM HANKS: Hmm, the word Illuminati first appears on page three of this book. Three… the third ninja turtle mentioned in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song is Raphael… the first cardinal must be in Raphael's tomb!
TOM HANKS: Let's see here… we're in a tomb. Tomb… like Tombstone pizza, which is circular. Circular is the opposite of square.. of course! To Saint Peter's Square!
TOM HANKS: Condoms… condoms are sometimes called johnnies… John James was the architect that rebuilt St. Mary's Church… of course, the third cardinal is in a church!
AYELET ZURER:WHY THE HELL IS THIS WORKING!?
AYELET ZURER: Wait let me try one. Okay, so this guy was chained up… chains are often used for construction work… the fourth cardinal is at a construction site!
TOM HANKS: What? Don't be stupid. The fourth element is water, so he's in a fountain.
SydLexia explains that Duck Tales for the NES is impossible using Zeno's Paradox, then follows up by saying that he is omnipotent, then says he is not omnipotent, and finally concludes with the revelation that this reality is a gigantic lie.
An intentional invocation of this is a new meme out there: Troll Physics/Troll science. This consists of utilizing Insane Troll Logic for hilarious effects with science. The page there shows a lot of examples regarding Troll Science.
The Nostalgia Critic uses this when he gets a friendly message from The Angry Video Game Nerd to find a hidden code. After ridiculous leaps of logic and cryptography that would make a Dan Brown protagonist proud, he concludes that it's absolutely nothing. Until viewed in a mirror, that is...
In Kickassia Bennet the Sage, as surgeon general of the titular nation, gives us this little known medical fact, while holding an uzi, you cannot die. His reasoning? "I'm holding an uzi, and I'm not dead". He also claimed smoking was not only healthy for you, but was highly recommended for pregnant women. Though that time he was just holding the chart upside down.
A poster on Yahoo! Answers' infamous Religion & Spirituality forum once used the following argument to "prove" said forum was Satan
"Devil" spelled backwards is "lived". Does this mean Satan is now dead?
Also, "devil" pronounced backwards is "livid". He must be pissed about being dead.
And if you take "livid", drop the first and last letters, and convert what remains into a single symbol, you get M, who is James Bond's boss. As we know, the James Bond series was written by Ian Fleming, who is not to be confused with fellow writer Anne Fleming, who comes from Canada, which is also the name of an indie-folk-rock band, "band" being a word meaning "a belt, strap, or ring". And if you've won a belt in the ring, you're probably a wrestler, which is derived from a much more real sport that was very popular in ancient Greece, which sounds like "grease" which is a substance found in many fatty foods including chips, which are a key component in the manufacture of computers, the invention of which is attributed to Alan Turing (1912-1954). 1954 is when the first nuclear powered submarine was launched. It was called the Nautilus, named after the submarine driven my Captain Nemo, who was once played by James Mason. "Mason" is used as shorthand for "Freemason", which uses a draftsman's compass in their logo. Compass also refers to a navigational instrument which uses the earth's magnetic fields to point North, which is the opposite of South, which is where fried chicken comes from, "chicken" being slang for a kilogram of cocaine, which used to be used in the manufacture of Coca-Cola, makers of Sprite, a type of mythical water spirit, "spirit" being the root of the word "spirituality" as in "Religion & Spirituality", therefore R&S is Satan!
Soren of Cracked explains why you should support SOPA[2]
In The Simpsons episode "The Monkey Suit", creationists seeking to ban the teaching of evolution succeed by getting a scientist to testify in court that evolution is a myth -- a scientist with a degree in "Truthology" from "Christian Tech".
It's a shot at "doctors" like Kent Hovind and Carl Baugh. Both of which got their doctorate degrees the old fashioned way, by buying them.
In an earlier episode, "Much Apu About Nothing", an isolated incident involving a bear wandering into Springfield is responded to by the creation of a multi-million dollar "Bear Patrol". When Homer states that the organization is stopping bears from coming into town, Lisa compares his logic to claiming that the ordinary rock she's holding is a potent tiger repellent, since there aren't any tigers around. Homer, naturally, offers to buy the rock.
Another funny example is in Bart The Murderer, where Fat Tony "explains" to Bart how hijacking a truckload of cigarettes isn't wrong.
Bart: Uh, say, are you guys crooks?
Fat Tony: Bart, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family?
Bart: No.
Fat Tony: Well, suppose you got a large starving family. Is it wrong to steal a truckload of bread to feed them?
Bart: Uh uh.
Fat Tony: And, what if your family don't like bread? They like... cigarettes?
Bart: I guess that's okay.
Fat Tony: Now, what if instead of giving them away, you sold them at a price that was practically giving them away. Would that be a crime, Bart?
Bart: Hell, no.
"If God wanted us to be vegetarians, He wouldn't have made animals out of meat!"
Yet another example comes from "The Great Money Caper". When Homer abandons Bart at the marina after an unfruitful attempt at street magic performance, passersby take pity on him and fill his magic hat with cash. Bart arrives back home later to an amazed Homer, who wonders if Bart could try it again:
Homer: We could make a fortune!
Bart: But wouldn't that make us con artists?
Homer: Well, yeah, but ... God conned me out of sixty-five hundred bucks in car repairs.
Bart: So, in a way, we'd just be balancing out the universe.
Homer: There you go! We'd be stealing from people we know! It's just like the seasons!
"But, Lisa, if we start conserving, the enviromentalists win!"
During a snow storm, Homer mocks Lisa's belief in global warming, and she says global warming can have this result. Whether you agree or not, Homer invokes the trope in response.
In one of the future episodes, Lisa is the president and Homer is searching the White House for a treasure Lincoln supposedly buried somewhere on the grounds. At one point he just starts counting his steps from an arbitary place and expects to find the gold at 100 paces.
In "Bart on the Road":
Homer: Doughnut?
Lisa: No thanks. Don't you have any fruit?
Homer: This has purple stuff inside. Purple is a fruit.
"No one who speaks German could be an evil man."
In an episode where Homer buys bacon to get its grease to sell:
Bart: You're spending more money on bacon than you're getting for the grease.
Homer: Yeah, but your mother pays for the bacon.
Bart: Doesn't she get her money from you?
Homer: And I get my money from grease. What's the problem?
South Park:
In "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce" Cartman uses this this to blame Kyle for 9/11: 11 has two 1's, 1+ 1=2, if you add 9 and 2, you get 92 which is how much Kyle got on a spelling test shortly after 9/11. Therefore, Kyle planned 9/11.[3]
Most likely intended to parody the movie The Number 23. The entire movie is composed of such calculations.
In "Dances With Smurfs" Cartman uses Glenn Beck's method of choosing a bunch of keywords, taking the first letter of each and using them to spell something out. Keywords he associates with Wendy are Integrated, Leftist, Liberal, Socialist, Modern, Utopian, Reformed, Farce and School. Therefore, Wendy Testaburger wants to KILL SMURFS.
Which is extremely ironic once you remember that "SMURF" itself has been proposed to be an acronym for Soviet Men Under Red Father. So, in short, Wendy's a leftist for wanting to kill Communists!
In the South Park episode Cancelled, there is a scientist who correctly determines what he should do in a given situation using Insane Troll Logic. Which itself was a parody of Jeff Goldblum's insane troll logic from Independence Day.
In order to convince Butters to run away to Somalia with him to become pirates Cartman reminded him how horrible his life in South Park was, namely how he was harassed and ridiculed in school daily...mostly by Cartman.
Johnnie Cochran: ...ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!
The episode A History Channel Thanksgiving accuses the History Channel of using this.
Cartman relies on driking Mountain Dew in order to stay awake and not die of boredom during the Season 16 episode "I Should Have Never Gone Ziplining". This combined with his usual diet causes all kinds of bowel mishaps. When he resorts to drinking "Double Dew", a drink with twice the caffeine and sugar as regular Mountain Dew, Kyle points out the aforementioned harmful effects. Cartman points out that what he's drinking is actually Diet Double Dew, with only half the caffeine and sugar as regular Double Dew. Which, if you "dew the math", means he's drinking regular Mountain Dew.
In Mickey's Christmas Carol, Scrooge (McDuck) uses this to get out of giving money to the poor.
Scrooge: Well, you realize if you give money to the poor, they won't be poor anymore, will they?
First Collector: Well, I--
Scrooge: And if they're not poor anymore then you won't have to raise money for them anymore.
Second Collector: Well, I suppose--
Scrooge: And if you don't have to raise money for them anymore, then you'd be out of a job. Oh please, gentlemen, don't ask me to put you out of a job. Not on Christmas Eve.
Master Shake uses this quite often on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. One notable example is when he decided that the bus outside of the Aqua Teens' house was possessed by the ghost of Dracula. When Frylock disputes this by pointing out that it's two in the afternoon, Shake then claims that the bus is a "reverse vampire."
Frylock (using his scanning device): The call is coming from inside that school bus!
Shake: Inside the bus? It is the bus! The bus of the undead! Vampires!
Frylock: I'm not detecting any vampiritic activity. Besides, it's two o' clock in the afternoon.
Shake: It's... it's a reverse vampire! They crave the sun! Love it. They love to get tans.
Frylock: Really? And where do they come from?
Shake: Uh... Tansylvania?
Frylock: Oh, no. No, no, no way in the world!
Shake: See the wheels? Those are the markings.
Frylock: Where do you get this stuff?
It goes downhill from there. And this is a fairly standard episode of the show.
Other characters also rely on Insane Troll Logic, including Carl, Meatwad, the Mooninites, the Plutonians - even the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From the Future. Basically, all of the main and recurring characters except for Frylock.
MC Pee Pants also deserves a special mention. In his first appearance as a giant spider wearing a diaper, he creates a rap CD that induces an intense desire in the listener to eat candy. After giving the listeners directions in the rap to an abandoned warehouse where they can supposedly get said candy, he lies in wait and then straps them into chairs in order to use their brain energy to power a giant drill. This is so that he can drill down into Hell and release demons to start a pyramid scheme involving diet pills. His subsequent plans in later episodes are just as insane...
His scheme to make a rap CD and then release it exclusively in transylvania (Meatwad had to import a copy) so that a vampire fan would come to bite him and make him a vampire actually worked. But then he stepped out in the sunlight.
An episode of Metalocalypse has the members of Dethklok worried about upcoming medical tests. They decide to detox by drinking bleach.
Nathan: Bleach is mostly water. We're mostly water. Therefore, we are bleach.
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The villagers who blamed Aang for the death of their great leader used logic that failed so badly and was basically just, "We feel this way, so there." that the only way the episode could end was by them just getting over it.
This is the only village in the entire series where people would have actually cheered to see it burned down by the Fire Nation due to their fucked up legal system. Which forbids so many things on the defendant's part that there may as well be no trial at all. Hell, all the 'criminals' in their prison were perfectly reasonable guys who just looked bad.
Sentencing was the job of a game of "Wheel of Fortune". At the end of the episode, there's a new festival, where they eat little Aangs made of raw dough to symbolize how they commuted sentencing (boiled in hot oil, in this case) in favor of convincing the Avatar to save their sorry skins.
In an episode of Family Guy, Peter proves that (in his words) "cripples aren't cool". His favorite actor, Mark Harmon, doesn't need a wheelchair. Mark Harmon is cool. Therefore people who need wheelchairs aren't cool and shouldn't be allowed in his restaurant.
Lois explaining to Chris in "Excellence in Broadcasting" that everything Fox News reports on is a lie. Even if it's true, it instantly becomes a lie if Fox News mentions it. Note that this is used to explain away the earlier revelation that Rush Limbaugh and Fred Savage were the same person, something Lois herself discovered and reported on for Fox.
Peter tries making his own Red Bull, and uses mostly kerosene, reasoning that Red Bull and kerosene are both fuel, so kerosene equals Red Bull. When Brian points out the sheer insanity of this and the fact that the drink will probably kill Peter, Peter responds with "Brian, whatever kills me makes me stronger".
Lois, in a fit of rage, exclaims, "Sometimes I feel like I'm married to a child!". Peter replies that if she's married to a child, then she's a pedophile, and that he'll be damned if he'll stand there and be lectured by a pervert.
When Brian is fighting for custody of (what he thinks are) his puppies:
Lawyer: Mr Griffin, which of the following two phrases best describes Brian Griffin: Problem Drinker or African-American Haberdasher?
Peter: Uh, do I-I guess problem drinker, but that's uh-
Lawyer: Thank-you. Now: Sexual deviant or magic picture that if you stare at it long enough, you see something?
Peter: Well, sexual deviant, but that other one's not even, eh-
Lawyer: Thank-you.
"Who cares what you think, you're a dog, you can't see in color, which means you can't see the colors of the American flag. Commie."
A Running Gag in the series combines this with Paper-Thin Disguise in that a character (Peter and Mort) pretends to be something they're not (Peter pretending to be a cowboy astronaut to impress his high school classmates at a reunion, and Mort disguising himself as a Catholic Priest to get through Nazi Germany unhindered), and the disguise is blown all because some normally easily-removed article of clothing is...well, easily removed. (Peter's cowboy hat, and Mort's priest collar (To be fair, the Nazis were getting suspicious of the latter anyway, but that still doesn't explain how they knew Mort was Jewish just from his disguise failing))
As with the Batman examples above, the Superfriends' dealings with the Riddler when he joined the Legion of Doom involved this trope. In any of these situations, it's difficult to be sure which is worse: that the Riddler could come up with this nonsense or that the Superfriends could figure it out?
In another example, two of the Super Friends go back in time and get stuck there with no way to return. Aquaman, the genius that he is, walks to the exact location of where the Hall of Justice will be tens of thousands of years in the future. When he gets there, he takes out his communicator and turns on the homing beacon, then buries the communicator. Why? The communicator will appear in the future. Superman will be able to hear it and will know what it means, then go back in time to rescue them. Which would work if carbon dating had been invented and if the communicator (already shown to be nigh indestructible) had enough carbon to be dated successfully and enough battery to last all that time. When digging the foundation for the justice hall, it would be found. A few time-hops (a few dozen probably to get the date right), and then young Supes would come up, ask when in time they wanted to go, and viola. It's bad when you can make these things work easily.
In an episode of The Fairly Odd Parents, Crocker thinks that Timmy loaned his fairy godparents to Tootie. He's right, but he's suspicious not because the entire town of Dimsdale is celebrating her birthday, but because her cake has real buttercream icing.
Come to think of it, the same could be said for a lot of situations that make Crocker think Timmy has fairies.
Crocker once had an argument with Steven Hawking about basic addition, which ended up with Hawking proving that 2+2=5. From the end of the episode: "Hawking! I've done the math! Two plus two isnt five! It's SIX!!! SIIIIIX!!!"
In a classic Looney Tunes cartoon, Roughly Squeaking, mice Hubie and Bertie convince Claude the cat that he's actually a lion(and that the bulldog outside is a moose gazelle pelican). Hubie's logic; "A lion is a member of the cat family, so that means that a cat is a member of the lion family!"
After being pelted by a snowball, the Villain of the Week asks Bugs Bunny how he can make snowballs in the summer, Bugs responds with, "It's too cold to make them in the winter".
Malory from Archer degenerates into this sometimes. For example:
Archer: Why do you change the labels on your pills anyway?
Malory: So the housekeepers don't steal them!
Archer: But if they're stealing pills, how does that help?
Malory: Because they can't read English!
Or this gem in "Diversity Hire:"
Malory: Lana Kane, just because you're not the only black field agent...
Lana: Hey! That's not...
Malory: "Urban," whatever. You come in here and accuse Conway of...what, exactly?
Lana: OK, I can't prove anything right now, but that's
Malory: ...but that didn't stop J. Edna Hoover from prosecuting Martin Luther King, now did it?
Lana: What does that have to do with...wait, "J. Edna?"
Malory: You never heard? That J. Edgar Hoover was this huge crossdressing chicken-hawk?
Lana: I had not.
Malory: Well, that's exactly the kind of slanderous and unsubstantiated rumor that I will not tolerate at ISIS. Think about THAT while you're on suspension!
Lana: While I'm on what?
Malory: What, are you deaf and racist?
Lana: I'm black!
Malory: Oh, put it back in the deck.
An episode of Johnny Bravo parodied the Batman-style logic with an Adam Westing Adam West, helping Johnny look for his missing mother.
Adam West: (reading fortune cookie) "Your heart's afire"...hmm, that rhymes with "tarts on a wire", which in turn sounds like "carts for hire"...Billy, your Momma's at the golf course!
What's the World's Oldest Woman's reasoning that the egg came before the chicken? Because you have eggs for breakfast and chicken for lunch, naturally.
Judge Whitey from Futurama, who treads the line between embracing and parodying an Acceptable Target, filled up every mental asylum in New York when he declared being poor a mental illness.
Judge Whitey: Being as I have a ham sandwich with mayonnaise waiting for me at my mansion, I declare the defendants guilty as charged.
Seems the point there was that he just wanted to get the ruling over with and get out of there. Not so much Insane Troll Logic as it is just being a lazy, amoral Jerkass.
It's a bit of Truth in Television actually. Poverty was considered a mental illness in parts of the 19th century.
Also, the defendant will be judged more harshly if it's right before lunch. According to this study, judges grant parole about 65% of the time right after a break, and about 0% right before.
Surely the mentally-defective Philip Fry is the most bountiful source of ITL Futurama can offer.
Morgan Proctor: Why is there yogurt in this cap?
Fry: I can explain that. You see, it used to be milk, and well... time makes fools of us all.
And then there's this little saying:
Fry: Thanks to denial, I'm immortal.
Farnsworth has a nefarious habit of this as well. Given that he's Fry's descended newphew, it makes sense. To him, having his crew being sent on tedious and life-threatening suicide missions is "good news (everyone!)". When they are finally given a break at the beginning of "The Sting" by not having to go on the very mission that killed the previous Planet Express crew, Farnsworth tells them "Bad news, everyone! You're not good enough to go on our next mission!"
The whole Waterfalls family, implementing this with Hypocritical Humor. Free Waterfalls, Sr. is this Up to Eleven:
Waterfalls Sr.: Now, now, no applause. Every time you clap your hands, you kill thousands of spores, which will someday form into nutritious fungus. Just show your appreciation with an old, friendly thumbs-up.
(Members of Penguins, Unlimited do so with awkward grins)
Waterfalls, Sr.: Please hold your thumbs to the end.
This happens in the episode "Go Fish" from The Penguins of Madagascar. It all starts out fairly normally (considering the source) with King Julien and and Skipper claiming that they somehow managed to out-think the other, when Skipper has this gem: "But what you forgot to take into account is that I am actually you!" and he pulls off a penguin costume to reveal that he is a lemur. Julien counters with "In that case, by process of elimination, I must be you." The other characters are appropriately baffled by the exchange.
In Beast Machines, this is the basis of Obsidian and Strika's My Master/Country Right Or Wrong attitude. Their loyalty is to Cybertron first and foremost, and according to them, whoever is ruling Cybertron is Cybertron, so they'll follow that person without question. Their fellow Vehicon Thrust eventually calls them on this (paraphrased):
"If you're loyal to anyone, doesn't that mean you're loyal to no one?"
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic in "Lesson Zero" Twilight Desperately needs to make a friendship report to Princess Celestia, but can't find one, and starts going through a nervous breakdown.
Twilight Sparkle: If I can't find a friendship problem... I'll MAKE a friendship problem!
To go into it deeper, Twilight's logic is thus: "I am going to be late with my friendship report to Princess Celestia = She will be upset/will question my abilities = Princess Celestia will make me take a test = Students who don't pass tests get sent back a grade = Since Princess Celestia holds me to a higher standard, I will be sent all the way back to Magic Kindergarten = All this can be solved if I fix a friendship problem = In the absence of such a problem, I should make one."
In "It's About Time", Twilight has another Freak-Out as the supposed disaster on Tuesday morning draws ever closer. She decides that the only "logical" solution is to stop time itself so that Tuesday morning never comes.
A meta-example. Twilight Sparkle's Cutie Mark contains seven six-pointed starts, which will be referenced here. The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything is often attributed to the number 42. The sum of all points on Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark is 42. Twilight Sparkle represents the Element of Magic. Therefore Magic is the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything. But Friendship is Magic, so Friendship is the Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything.
In "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", Pinkie Pie makes wild assumptions that the other three bakers were responsible for eating her cake. Twilight quickly points out that each of her claims were ridiculous.
In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Sen. R Kelly clams that mutants are a "unnatural mistake of nature".
In American Dad episode oedipal panties review that stan has been kidnapping his mom dad on there 3rd date to stop them from her heart now stan has done this trope a lot in the episodes were main character but this show that he had this kind of logic he was a kid
As the name suggests, Trolls. They often create illogical theories to prove that the side they are arguing with are actually child molesters, hypocrites or whatever. This is just one of their tactics, but it's easily the most recognizable, to the point that users often label everyone they don't agree with as a troll, which is actually an even better example of Insane Troll Logic.
A recent example: Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act. This would require internet service providers to log the traffic of all its users for a minimum of 18 months in which a government agency can access - fortunately, they'll still need warrants and probable cause for most of us, because the "administrative subpoenas" clause refers only to issues involving unregistered sex offenders, which is a far less blanketing term than it sounds - it refers only to people convicted of being a sex offender who, for whatever reason, have failed to put themselves on a registry. Regardless, if you're against it, you support illegal pornography - just like its previous failed incarnation, the SAFETY act.
From TV Tropes! In the "This thread does not exist" article on the Wild Mass Guessing forum:
"This is a thread.
'Thread' is another word for 'string'.
'String' could be referencing 'string cheese'.
String cheese is a form of food.
Cake is also a form of food.
THEREFORE:: This thread is a lie!!"
Pastafarianism:
Parodies the "Correlation equals causation" fallacy with its claims that pirates prevent global warming, as the number of pirates is decreasing while temperatures increase.
And Pastafarianism parodies a similar fallacy with its "you cannot prove you are 100% right so you must be wrong" attitude.
Pastafarianism is quickly developing its own insane troll logic, however, in that a lot of its adherents take it way, way, too seriously. They hold 'masses' now.
It also specifies that only real pirates count, where "real pirates" is defined as the sort who dress fancy, buckle swashes, and go "Arr me scurvy dogs!" Pirates who are just guys in boats who rob other boats don't count.
In Discordianism, the standard argument in favor of Eris' existence is "Well, someone had to put all this confusion here!"
Additionally, a popular Discordian pastime involves demonstrating how everything can be related back to the number five.
Likewise, the Invisible Pink Unicorn. We know she's invisible because we can't see her, and we have faith that she's pink (for the same reason).
Of course, anyone who would have enough information about Discordians to write anything about them would in fact be using troll logic, since trusting Discordians to be honest about their feelings is a pointless endeavor except when it isn't.
This is the entire point behind the Troll Science meme. Which eventually led to mathematicians and internet commenters who majored in math having to thoroughly disprove a Troll Proof that pi=4.
Animation of the Troll Science meme in action, available here.
The magic exposure website "Mallusionist" does this to all of its magic tricks. Some of their more egregious examples come from debunking Criss Angel's illusions, such as "floating shoes" for his Walk On Water illusion, or replacing the glass he's to walk through with a "pristine waterfall". A surprising number of people don't read the disclaimer at the bottom.
Charles Manson used this to justify the murders that he ordered committed. According to him, when the victims were found dead this would spark a racial war between blacks and whites becaues the black people would be unfairly blamed for the murders. During the war Manson and his "family" would hide in a "bottomless pit" in the desert. The black people, despite having no army, no central infrastructure, and only being 13% of the population, would win. However, they would be unable to handle the tasks of administrating the government, so they would look to the surviving whites, who they just got done overthrowing, to govern them, putting Manson in charge of the U.S.
Time Cube, which holds that Earth is really two round Earths compressed into a cube, where it takes 24 hours for 96 hours to pass, and anyone who uses common, ordinary logic, physics, and thought says otherwise is just an evil brainwashed tool of Big Academia.
Various arguments making use of math can fall into this when the math is either based on made-up figures or doesn't have anything to do with the argument itself:
A 'preacher' named Harold Camping concluded that 21 May, 2011, was the date of the Rapture. His logic went like this: May 21st supposedly marked 7,000 years since the Noah's Ark flood and 722,500 days since Jesus' crucifixion. By Camping's numerology, 722,500 represents (5 x 10 x 17) x (5 x 10 x 17), or the square of atonement times completeness times heaven.
He was merely one more in a long line of date-setters and this wasn't even the first time he'd pulled such shenanigans, as mentioned in a book called 99 Reasons Why No One Knows When Christ Will Return. The same book names a lot of other false prophecies along these lines and also mentions how people can use this kind of numerology to identify anybody they don't like as the Beast of Revelation, and many have done so.
After May 21 came and went and the world kept ticking, Camping said that the physical Rapture would occur on October 21. It didn't, and in March 2012 he admitted that there was no way to predict when it might happen (if at all).
Leonhard Euler's possibly apocryphal "proof" supposedly presented to Denis Diderot in defense of the existence of God - "Sir, (a + b^n)/n = x , hence God exists -— reply!"
Unfortunately, that story is probably untrue - Diderot was a mathematician too.
Lewis Carroll once sent this problem to a friend.
If x = 1 and y = 1
Then 2(x2 - y2) = 0
And 5(x – y) = 0
Which is to say, 2(x2 - y2) = 5(x – y)
Now divide each side of this equation by (x-y): [2(x2 - y2) = 5(x – y)] / (x – y)
Which comes to 2(x + y) = 5
But (x + y) = (1 + 1)
Which means that 2*2 = 5.
The both "insanity" and "trollishness" of this logic is arguable, since unwittingly dividing by 0 is a simple mistake A LOT of people make. Unlike other examples, arguing with which is simply useless, this one is resolved by simply pointing out the issue.
Teletubbies are evil
The infamous Women = Evil joke. Women require time and money (Women = Time * Money). Time is money (Women = Money * Money = Money ^ 2). Money is the root of all evil (Money ^ 2 = Evil). Therefore, Women = Evil.
Since evil is negative, money is thus imaginary.
If evil is negative than Evil ^ 2 is positive or good so two wrongs make a right and a woman is two wrongs
An old joke: God is love. Love is blind. Stevie Wonder is God.
Or alternately: If love is blind and God is love, and Ray Charles is blind, then God plays the piano.
And the addition: I am nobody. Nobody's perfect. Therefore I'm perfect. But only God is perfect, so A God Am I. Oh dear, I'm blind!
But can you play the piano?
This Not Always Right entry explains how being gay can help fight terrorism.
This article explains why school buses are a tool of feminist oppression.
Power corrupts. Knowledge is power. Study hard. Be evil.
The Ur Example of this trope would be the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise. Which makes this Older Than Feudalism.
"The more you learn, the more you know. The more you know, the more you forget. The more your forget, the less you know. Therefore, the more you learn, the less you know."
Kisses can melt all of your ice cream
A fandom example, as to why Harry Potter is better than Twilight. Robert Pattinson played both Cedric and Edward, so Cedric = Edward. Voldemort killed Cedric, so Voldemort > Cedric = Edward. Harry Potter killed Voldemort, so Harry Potter > Lord Voldemort > Cedric = Edward. Edward Cullen is synonymous with Twilight, so Harry Potter > Lord Voldemort > Cedric = Edward = Twilight. Therefore, Harry Potter > Twilight.
At a public forum to discuss the introduction of an LGBT protection law in Lincoln, Nebraska, this woman's bizarre, rambling, homophobic and borderline incomprehensible testimony is so densely packed with Insane Troll Logic that it is rapidly earning memetic status.
Worse yet, she's a diagnosed schizophrenic attempting a Bat Deduction. The Mind Screw was likely inevitable.
The Russian chronologist Anatoly Fomenko believes the Middle Ages didn't actually exist, and that this has been kept secret for 500 years.
Children, before a certain age, are actually incapable of logical thinking. This is completely normal, but understanding the thought processes they follow is key in early childhood education. Google "preoperational stage" for more info.
↑ Kinoshita can be translated as "under a tree".
↑ If believe that, you deserve a Darwin Award...
↑ It's even more hilarious when you consider that Kyle would have been 4 years old when it happened.
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