The Problem With Plot Holes

How story settings can be characters too.

By Taban Isfahaninejad

Pedro Pascal and Gabriel Luna as Joel and Tommy in HBO's the Last of Us / photo: HBO

Media criticism on the internet has come a long way since the era of CinemaSins’ peak. Finding small logical inconsistencies in fiction is thankfully no longer considered the ultimate “gotcha," and plot-hole-focused criticism is now generally considered “bad” criticism. In some ways, we’ve even flopped over to the opposite extreme, with “let people enjoy things” being sometimes deployed as a bulwark against even the lightest of critiques. Yet while I was critiquing HBO’s The Last of Us as it came out, I started wondering: to what extent do plot holes make— or break— a piece of media?

The short answer, in my opinion, is that it depends. The long answer is while almost every show, movie or book will have plot holes in some shape or form, the types of plot holes that writers leave in their work reveals a great deal about their understanding of their characters, plot, genre, and even storytelling itself.

For the purpose of this essay, let’s restrict the definition of plot holes to gaps in the logic of a story. For example, if a movie establishes that it takes place in a universe with no cheese, and yet a character later eats a delicious wheel of Brie, that would be a plot hole; an inconsistency in the established logic of the narrative. In short, a plot hole is when a conflict occurs between how things are supposed to happen and what really happens.

In this way, the process by which plot holes are created serve as microcosms of stories themselves. Plot holes are when logic of the fictional world enters into conflict with the plot progression, just as how most stories are about the inhabitants of a fictional world entering into conflict with the plot the author has written for them.

Plot holes aren’t inherently bad. There’s a writing phrase, “wasting shoe leather,” that’s often used, particularly in screenwriting, to help writers tighten up their scripts. The idea is that if character A needs to get to place B for the sake of the plot, you shouldn’t waste your time describing how they got there. While it might be a plot hole for a character to be able to get to their destination, depending on the specifics of the world, this might not actually be that big a deal. In a drama set in the modern age, for example, a character being able to travel across a distance in 30 minutes that would take at least 2 hours to cross in real life might not affect the quality of the overall plot, even if it might break the immersion a bit by being unrealistic. Sure, it’s unrealistic, but it doesn’t take anything away from the characters or the world.

In a more fantastical world, though, a similar plot hole might have much stronger negative effects on the narrative, and “wasting shoe leather,” might actually enrich the plot. For example, the same plot hole in a period drama or fantasy world without cars, planes, or trains would not only break the immersion, but break the logic of the established world in much more serious ways. In a lot of environment-based genre fiction, the time period or fantasy setting is almost like a character in the story.

Part of the appeal is seeing how characters will be able to do things like travel long distances with their old-timey or fantasy equivalents of our modern technologies. How will the Chronicles of Narnia’s Pevensie siblings manage to make it across a landscape that seems to have it out for them? Sometimes, the environment is even a character literally: in the Narnia movies, the environment is sometimes even literally a character, as the trees or ocean rise out of the soil or riverbed to join the battle. In Lord of the Rings, a great deal of the story is spent on the journey itself. Meanwhile, Downton Abbey opens by showing us how news traveled in the early 20th century; we watch a telegram be tapped out, see telegram lines flashing by Bates’ train window, and then the footmen iron the newspapers so the ink doesn’t bleed when the nobility read them.

In these cases, breaking the story’s narrative logic isn’t just a momentary lapse, but a missed opportunity to fully inhabit the established fictional world. This, in my opinion, is the worst- and most revealing- kind of plot hole: the ones that represent a missed opportunity to enrich the art piece.

Joel and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) in expensive winter coats / photo: HBO

One such plot hole occurs halfway through HBO’s The Last of Us, when main characters Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are traversing across the country to find Joel’s brother Tommy (Gabriel Luna). As the plot progresses, the seasons change from fall to winter, and Joel and Ellie have to suit up for the cold weather. They do, donning warm sweaters, coats, gloves, and jackets. Yet despite the fact that the show is set 20 years after the world succumbed to a zombie virus, and that Joel and Ellie have presumably hastily scavenged these clothes along the way, their winter garments look… extremely new. Joel’s coat looks expensive, good quality, and not worn through at all. (In fact, it’s a custom shearling coat made by the luxury Canadian winter-wear bread HiSO. For reference, a similar coat from their website retails at around $2,200 CAD.) Ellie, likewise, is wearing what looks like something you’d find for hundreds of dollars at the nearest Patagonia or MEC. Later, Tommy’s jean jacket is in better condition and looks better quality than what me or anyone I know can probably afford.

How did Joel and Ellie manage to scavenge such incredibly expensive and good quality winter gear, while trekking across a barren, dangerous landscape, in a world where scarcity of food and supplies is a well established major issue? This might seem like a slight aberration in the logic of the show— and it might have been, if the show was a different genre. For example, if this was a drama where a main character was established to have cheap taste, but then wore a coat that actually cost thousands of dollars, that might be a plot hole that most wouldn’t notice or care about. But the reason this specific mistake in this specific universe strongly negatively impacts the show is because of The Last of Us’s status as a zombie show, and because of that genre’s specific relationship with “situational horror.”

The Last of Us is set in a post-apocalyptic world 20 years after the outbreak of a deadly zombie virus, and as with all apocalypse media, the environment and its challenges are a major factor in both the plot and horror factor. Apocalypse and zombie media in particular frequently engage in “situational” horror: from Train to Busan to All Of Us Are Dead to The Walking Dead and beyond, challenges like not having any emergency services to call or struggling to find water and food are among the main conflicts of the series. Some of The Walking Dead’s most famous visuals and plot resolutions come from characters finding creative ways to repurpose the remains of their ruined world; for example, in season 3, they find refuge in a prison from the hordes of zombies outside. Likewise, Korean zombie media like Train to Busan and All of Us Are Dead often heavily rely not only on the terror of the zombies, but on terrifying “situations” like being trapped in a classroom or train with the infected. Scarcity of supplies and the creative solutions the main characters solve their problems with is a major appeal of the genre. This situational horror is also present in the original Last of Us game: one example would be when Joel accidentally steps on a trap set up for zombies and has to fight off a horde of infected while suspended upside down, or when he falls into an abandoned elevator shaft. In good apocalypse media, the world is, itself, a character, and being able to watch how people subvert, improvise, and innovate their surroundings is a huge part of the appeal.

It’s this that makes the coat mistake serious instead of trivial; not just because it’s illogical, but because one of the major draws of the genre is seeing how people are able to innovate despite the restrictions of their circumstances. The problem isn’t the plot hole itself— it’s the missed opportunity for the innovation and creativity that it represents. In zombie media, the environment itself is a character, and a threatening one at that.The “man vs. nature” conflict is one of the hallmarks of the genre, and to blatantly skip right over it is a massive missed opportunity.

Plot holes happen when a technicality stands in the way of the actual plot. The problem with plot holes isn’t that they themselves signify a lack of care or intellect on the part of the writers, but that they could have been something great. Sure, it isn’t unforgivable for Joel to wear a thousand-dollar coat, but wouldn’t it have enriched the art if the writers instead found a creative way for him and Ellie to keep warm? A plot hole happens when a writer knows that character A must accomplish task B, but there’s an obstacle in the way. If absolutely necessary, it’s acceptable to skip the conflict by way or plot convenience or hole, but too many or particularly offensive skips betray a lack of care on the part of the author for storytelling in general.