5 Movie Heroes Who Caused Their Own Biggest Problems

Early in Iron Man 3, Tony Stark gets pissed at the 

international terrorist known as the Mandarin and calls

him out on live TV. Tony says he isn't scared of no 

tiny-orange-sounding motherfucker, and to prove it,

he even gives the Mandarin the address to his house.

A few hours later, Tony is bantering with two of his 

attractive lady friends when, holy shit, the Mandarin's 

minions show up in helicopters and blow up his

house! Who could have seen that coming?

The Mistake:

Everyone, of course. But let's give the guy some credit. Let's assume Tony was just too angry/intoxicated to think straight when he gave his address to a man who can turn people into bombs -- this is still Tony Stark we're talking about. He's got a super-advanced talking house full of technology, he has literally dozens of flying robot bodyguards (that can attack autonomously, as we see later), and he's friends with a Nordic godand Samuel L. Jackson. So what precautions does he take after voluntarily making himself a target for a terrorist organization? He locks his front door. Which, incidentally, is the one thing he said he wouldn't do.

As a result, a missile blows up in Tony's face and nearly kills his girlfriend, Pepper, which frankly is like the least that could have happened in this situation. If those new Iron Man armors didn't respond to Kinect commands, allowing Tony to put one on Pepper by moving his hands in midair, she would have ended up as a cute splatter on a wall.

But maybe Tony was setting up the defenses when

 the attack happened? Nope: He was getting ready to

 depart for Tennessee ... thus leaving Pepper 

completely alone and unprotected in a house that's

 bound to blow up sooner or later. So this is less a 

case of "conflicted protagonist with a death wish" and

 more a case of "protagonist who really, really wants 

his girlfriend dead, for some reason."

Avoiding the attack would have been as easy as telling

 his suits to hover around the house looking out for 

threats, which, again, is a thing he can totally do as of

 this movie. Or, at the very least, he could have given 

the Mandarin the address to his other place, the one 

that Hulk now lives in, and if some terrorists end up 

getting humped by a giant green wang until their 

bones disintegrate, so be it.