A moment where a character's stupidity fuels an episode, or a small plot line. If multiple characters have the Idiot Ball it becomes an Idiot Plot. Temporary (or permanent) Genre Blindness is often a cause of this trope. Unsurprisingly, this provokes a What an Idiot! response from the audience. However, sometimes, the purpose is to help the audience. Sometimes, the holder of the idiot ball asks the dumb question to allow a certain amount of exposition to occur that wouldn't organically be talked about, but needs to be stated for the audience.