I must be explaining myself really badly because I completely agree with you.
i've said several times that i don't care at all about how well-founded the danger of a complaint to mc for 'the fire' is and in the same way i don't care at all about how sensible this double signature student loan is whose money is slid into the hands of a non-student but whose obligations are all on a student. i don't find them particularly successful moments, but i don't really care.
but everything that makes the characters in the story i read seem stupid is a problem, stupid beyond justification ("they are young", "they are in love", "they are naive" etc.).
and since the consequence of this is that I lose interest in a character, for me it represents bad writing. of course it's subjective, I have no claim to objectivity.
if at the end of it all the loan was a gigantic set up by Maya's father this for me would bring down the interest in the character, I accepted everything Maya/DPc told me about it, if the solution is that it was all a scam (as was evident from the real world) it would demolish Maya's character for me.
it's like in the shakespearean example you gave if the whole thing ends with a lawyer declaring that it's all nonsense and they can all go home happy. the drama becomes farce, and i don't care anymore.
I only mentioned Maya and Jill because they are the 2 most obvious and discussed examples, but I could have done the same reasoning for Sage, who keeps refusing to take into consideration Quinn's responsibilities ("it's her way of joking" "it's just her attitude" "it's her strange sense of humour"...)
I don't play BADIK to train myself in law or right to study, but if at the end the solution to carry on the story is to make the protagonists idiots for me there is a problem and a big one too
No, you explain yourself well, i just wake up thinking in the loan issue and The Merchant of Venice, and used your post as an excuse for that. Who knows, maybe tomorrow i wake up with a different example for your specific point and use another guy answer to explain myself. There are strategy that you used when you are a slow thinker.
Also i wanted to highlight something i saw in different people and myself. Generally speaking we all will go more hard against a DPC than we will do against Shakespeare, because we will forgive the later what we will not to the first one. So, how can we trust our own or a different judgement?. Thoose are questions that i would love to answer and yet i can't.
For example, in The Merchant of Venice, Anthony will accept to sign that loan in thoose terms i told from a man he despice, and that hate him. The trap was clear, yet he accepted couse he thought he was going to be able to pay it. He didnt tried to ask to a different guy and he was also a man of business. We could easily say that, that move was beyond stupidity. And yet noone will say that Shakespeare is a bad writer, we will say something like: ""But he thought he was going to be able to pay it, he jsut had bad luck (a storm)", or even "It just a play, it doesn't matter, besides, did you see how good was Shylock's monologue?".
I saw a lot of that in Game of Thrones, people who decided to ignore some issues by season 4, complained about the same issues when where happening on season 8. It wass the same people and the same issues. So is not even subjectivity there, couse the subject is the same.
I, also thought about Sage, mostly as an argument against Sage fans/Maya haters, but you correctely anticipate my point.
I will say that once we accept that Maya's loan has sense, and Tybalt has ground for a lawsuit, then neither Maya and specially Jill plots are that stupid.
My grandmother (perfect 10 in highschool) was scamed by her sister by making her sign some paper she didnt read. I myself am not so clever in thoose issues. So for me it has sense that Maya felt for that trap. Even more i will not call her stupid, couse i know people who is way smart for some things and way stupid for others. You could also say that Maya by refusing to give her dad a key would already putting herself in a bad position with his father who would inmediately suspect something.
Jill is a little more hard one, but she is kind of stupid when it comes to this issues... i mean she is a virgin and a naive one, so at least is not out of character. If you are virgin at 21 (?) you have some psicological issues that are blocking you emotionally, and thoose kind of issues are not a joke. I met at least to people who couldnt went outside their homes for some time without having a panick attack. For me was completely irrational, imagine a 23 year old boy (and not a weak one or a coward one) who was afraid to walk in the streets in a beautifull summer day.
Yet is true that Bella point was quite obvious. but at least she can gain some time. Refusing to see the MC behind Tybalt's back on the other hand has less sense. I guess Tybalt was defenetely being stupid, trying to win Jill with blackmails, but he is kind of a cartoon and we men are defenetely stupid when it comes to sex, specially at that age.
Generally speaking if Covid pandemic tought me somethin is that you should never underestimate the human stupidity. I also like stupid people anyway.