10 More Movie Idiots Who Basically Created Their Own Villains

9. The Spartans Rejected The Key To Their Defeat - 300

Given how impossibly attractive and chiselled the Spartan army are who make a final, heroic last stand against the monstrous armies of Xerxes, you'd think that part of their recruitment programme involved candidates sending underwear selfies. Either that or they simply pick the most physically impressive specimens they can and then make them fight in their pants to intimidate the enemy with sheer sexiness.

Unfortunately, that mentality is exactly what leads to their demise when they turn away an enthusiastic wannabe warrior in the shape of Ephialtes.

The severely deformed Spartan exile - whose parents fled lest he be killed for his disfigurement as a baby - returns to his home looking for the sense of belonging and validation being a Spartan warrior would bring. Sadly, because his body makes him unable to fight in formation, he's rejected and given noncombatant duties, even though Leonidas is sympathetic to him.

He's not the problem though. The issue is with the other Spartans, who ostracise Ephialtes and call him "monster" and with the idea that Ephialtes cannot fight because of his redundancy in a phalanx formation. The reality in the movie is that they barely do any of their fighting in formation, so they reject the guy who then defects and tells the enemy of a weakness at their rear simply because he doesn't fit a system they barely use. Idiots.