Bat Deduction: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
{{quote|<poem>'''Batman:''' Pretty fishy what happened to me on that ladder.
'''Gordon:''' You mean, where there's a fish, there could be a Penguin.
'''Robin:''' But wait! It happened at sea! See? "C" for Catwoman!
'''Batman:''' Yet -- that exploding shark was pulling my leg!
'''Gordon:''' [[The Joker]]!
'''O'Hara:''' It all adds up to a sinister riddle... Riddle-er. Riddler?</poem>|''[[Batman:
So you have the average detective story, with a huge, widely spanning mystery that has both the detective and the viewers stumped. You've got it going, but, now that you're in the thicket, you've run yourself into a corner. It would take more space than available to connect the pieces, and you don't want to drag the viewer along with boring step by step exposition, so what are you going to do?
Wait, your main character is a detective, isn't he? Why not just have him deduce that these things are connected, and move on. [[The Smart Guy|He's a genius]], why not [[Smart Ball|just leave it at that]]?
In short, this is when a character makes a huge jump to reach a conclusion, often through a mental [[Wiki Walk]], that has to be made in order for the plot to progress, but without any real explanation for what might have spurred the conclusion.
Often used in cases where the viewers already know that everything's connected and how they connect, but there's no in-story explanation, and the plot really needs to get to the next part.
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Detective novelist Ronald A. Knox discouraged the use of this in his [http://www.diogenes-club.com/knoxrules.htm Decalogue for detective fiction].
The [[Trope Namer]] is [[Batman]], specifically the 60's [[Adam West]] ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'', who, given his title as the World's Greatest Detective, can easily fall into this when a writer gets into a rut (or is [[Rule of Funny|playing it up for laughs]]). Can also be interpreted as "batshit crazy deduction," or, less often, "lazy writer deduction."
Compare [[Eureka Moment]], where the seemingly illogical leap actually does have a logical explanation - it just doesn't get explained at the time in order to keep up the suspense;
{{examples|Examples}}▼
Not to be confused with chiropteran tax savings.
== Anime & Manga ==▼
* This is a key feature of ''[[Case Closed]]'', owing to difficulty translating. In the original Japanese version of ''[[Detective Conan]]'', an unfortunately large number of clues rely on Japanese puns and cultural references that can't really be translated, so non-Japanese readers/viewers can't fit the clues together.
** Though the case involving {{spoiler|Kan'o (spelt using the characters 'ka' + 'n' + 'o') referring to the person Kano (spelt using the characters 'ka' + 'no')}} was easier to solve for Western audiences.
* ''[[
** Near does this, especially in the anime, which compressed a 5 volume arc into 11 episodes. The manga explains his deductions a lot
** In early episodes of the anime, L does a bit of this but it drops off as enough clues are established for the audience to follow what's happening. The bilinear narration between Light and L only makes it all the more obvious.
* This is how Lucy deducted where Mavis' grave was in the exam arc of ''[[Fairy Tail]]''. We have six hours to find the grave? The only six letter word related to death is "demise"… and it is the only one that has the letter "E" twice… so the grave is somewhere in the E route of the first exam!
* While the story ''does'' have elements of a [[Fair Play
==
* Justified in ''[[Grant Morrisons Batman]]'', where Batman points out that he ''needs'' to use half-mad logic and bizarre connective leaps to "match wits" with a rotating group of homicidal, delusional sociopaths, or people will die. Likewise, the Joker himself admits that Batman may have driven him to [
** Taken still further during Morrison's [[Justice League]] run by [[Martian Manhunter]] who shapeshifts his brain to make the irrational intuitive regions big and the logical regions small so he can think like the Joker. The chaotic maze he and Superman are trapped in [[Translation Convention|suddenly appears to have a straight path from entry to exit.]]
* Parodied in ''[[Nemesis]]'', where the title villain tries coming up with some riddles with which to taunt the police. "What's black and white and red all over?" {{spoiler|The next day a football stadium is bombed to the ground.}}
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== Fan Works ==
* Parodied in ''[[
{{quote|
* ''[[The Darker Knight]]'' takes this to an extreme.
* Played straight for laughs in ''[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11806414/1/Amy-Potter-is-Batgirl Amy Potter is Batgirl!]'' by "Philosophize", a ''[[Harry Potter]]''/[[Batman (TV series)|1960s ''Batman'' TV show]] crossover with a fem!Harry. Amy, trapped in the Triwizard Tournament, deduces the purpose of the golden egg thusly:
{{quote|"I think the screeching is what we need to focus on," Remus said at one point, having just shot down an elaborate theory of Sirius' that the egg represented an enormous golden snitch and that I'd spend the second task playing Quidditch with giants who used boulders for bludgers. Only too happy to give ''that'' one a miss, I stood up and started pacing — I always thought better that way.
"Screeching... screeching... What else screeches?" I asked, and when no one answered, I said, "Owls!"
"Okay..." Sirius said slowly, trading a puzzled look with Remus.
"And what's an owl's favorite food? A mouse!" I was on a roll now. Normally I was able to bounce ideas off of Bruce or Dick, so I was disappointed that Sirius and Remus weren't helping, but at the moment it didn't seem to matter. "And at one time, 'flittermouse' was another word for a bat!"
"So?" Remus asked.
"Well, what else begins with B?" Suddenly it all fell into place. "Black Lake!" I exclaimed, snapping my fingers. "Obviously the second task will be held in the Black Lake, so I'll need to submerge this egg in some water to get the clue!" I rushed over and hugged an oddly baffled Remus before grabbing the egg from him. "Thanks, Remus, you're a genius!"}}
==
* In ''[[Batman:
** There is
** Two riddles have the answers "egg" and "make applesauce". This means the villains are going to attack the [[Expy]] for the UN. You see, applesauce is a single unified mixture (like the UN), and the egg is a capsule (like the UN).
* In ''[[
** Of course, this trope ''always'' comes into play when the Riddler is involved. However, the four riddles that eventually lead Batman to deduce the Riddler's identity are, on their own, perfectly reasonable: it's the clues hidden ''in'' the riddles that pretty much defy logic. To elaborate: Each riddle has a number in it: 13, 1, 8 and 5. These correspond to the letters M, A, H and E. Bruce puts 1 and 8 together, making it MRE. MRE = Mr. E = Mystery. Another word for Mystery is Enigma, leading him to conclude that the Riddler is Mister E. Nygma. At least in the [[Peter David]] novelization he had to spend some time after finding the numbers trying to work out the meaning.
** The movie does show that Bruce Wayne is dubious about the supervisor's apparent suicide from day one, so much so that he ordered full benefits be paid out to the man's family even though their insurance doesn't cover suicide (he's versed in psychology and must have observed that the supervisor didn't seem suicidal). Put that together with the scene Bruce had witnessed earlier with the belligerent supervisor humiliating the clearly unstable Nygma and its not so big a leap for Bruce to conclude that Nygma murdered his boss once Bruce knew that Nygma was a supervillain.
*** For what it's worth, the riddles in the movie were devised by ''New York Times'' puzzlemaster Will Shortz.
** In fact, one of the reasons the Riddler was never used that much in comics even before he reformed was that it's hard to get around this trope where he's concerned without making the riddles insultingly
* In ''[[Evolution (
* In ''[[Superman]]'', Lex Luthor somehow reasons that kryptonite is lethal to Superman just because he is from Krypton and that pieces of Krypton must have fallen to Earth just because of the location and time of Krypton's explosion in 1948 (which he knows from reading details in Superman's interview with Lois Lane, which Superman never actually provides in the interview
** He gets one pass in the director's cut, however. He tried EVERYTHING ELSE first, with fire, ice, lightning, etc.
* ''[[Black Dynamite]]'' brilliantly parodies the entire concept [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PSueHOY-Jk here].
* Subverted in ''[[The Princess Bride (
* Subverted with Jason in ''[[Mystery Team]]'', who sometimes makes assumptions based on the smallest pieces of evidence. Played straight later with Jason connecting the murders to {{spoiler|Robert}} when he tells him to "Take a chill pill."
* In ''[[Without a Clue]]'', lampshaded. A mysterious number is given, and Sherlock Holmes uses a few long and complicated leaps of logic to deduce that it means a specific warehouse. {{spoiler|At the end Holmes and Watson explain to the person who left the clue how they figured it out, leading to a sudden [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] - the victim reveals that the number was simply the address of the warehouse he was being held at.}}
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== Literature ==
* Deconstructed in a scene in Paul Auster's ''[[The New York Trilogy|City of Glass]]'', where it is used to show that the character doing it completely insane.
* Joyfully inverted in Sherlock Holmes' ''The Adventure of the Yellow-Face''. The title detective extrapolates a complex theory involving murder and foul-play to explain the case without having so much as set foot in Norbury to Watson. And then, rather than every leap of logic/intuition being
** Holmes himself was invented, in part, because Arthur Conan Doyle was sick and tired of seeing detectives in fiction who ''always'' solved the case via this trope.
* Harry's deductions about the Deathly Hallows in ''[[Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (
* Sir Nathaniel in [[Bram Stoker
* In ''[[Book Girl]] and the Famished Spirit'', the Literature Club receives a mysterious letter written in a number code; Tohko immediately deduces the meaning based on what seems to be free-association.
{{quote|
* Early in ''[[
* In ''[[The Lost Fleet]]'' captain Geary reasons why Syndics would delete software from evacuated base is the {{spoiler|existence of until now unknown and unsuspected aliens}}
* The Department of Dead Ends in the work of Roy Vickers was described in its first appearance as an attempt to weaponise this trope. On one occasion, they caught a murderer by punning on his name.
* [[Dirk Gently]]. He once came to the correct conclusion as a result of the insurance people describing an explosion as an "act of God".
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== Live-Action TV ==
* The 1966-68 ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' series made liberal use of this, as the various villains would usually leave clues for World's Greatest Detective, and the correct solution almost always required Bat Deductions. This turned pretty often with [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp_9FEWgmFA The Riddler].
** Once, Batman solved one of the riddler's riddles that wasn't even spoken or written. Riddler used a wax-based solvent to dissolve a hole through the wall of a vault, and on doing a forensic investigation of the crime scene, Batman's chemical analysis revealed it to contain Nitrogen, Uranium, and Sodium:
{{quote|
'''Batman:''' ''Reverse'' the order, and what do you have?
'''Robin:''' S-U-N.
'''Batman:''' Of course, that's got to be it!
'''Robin:''' But what's it supposed to mean?
'''Batman:''' Robin, I'm surprised at you. You're supposed to be studying French in school. What's the French word for sun?
'''Robin:''' Soleil!
'''Batman:''' Correct. The Riddler has left us a clear indication of where he intends to strike next. Back at Madame Soleil's wax museum! }}
*** Also the IUPAC naming convention places Sodium's symbol as Na not S (which is Sulphur/Sulfur). So N, U, Na ...or Na-N-U: It's Mork!
** The series was so aware that it was going to rely on this sort of thing that [[Invoked Trope|invoking the trope]] formed the backbone of the plot of the ''very third episode''. The Penguin, being out of ideas for a heist, sends a random umbrella to Batman. His plan: Batman will analyze the "clue", use
*** The series actually got worse as time went by. Batgirl once deduced the plot of an entire episode based on the fact that her father was late getting home and that a new singer was in town.
*** In another episode, Riddler [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|knockoff]] "The Puzzler" left a clue that "will make Batman and Robin ''really'' put on their thinking caps": a piece of paper with the single word "Puzzles". Cue extraordinarily [[Egregious]] use of this trope.
* Mulder did this a lot in ''[[The X
** This varied a lot on an episode-to-episode basis. One of the true non-paranormal detective episodes, "The Amazing Maleeni" about the magician who seems to decapitate himself ''for real'' during his act left all the clues in a breadcrumb trail and a sufficiently sharp viewer ''can'' deduce the conclusion and unravel the entire mystery just before Mulder gives the solution in the final reveal.
* One of the main characters in ''[[The Others (TV series)|The Others]]'' had his divination power work like this.
* Used heavily in the early seasons of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' whenever an Anomaly of the Week needed to be explained.
* Happened now and again in ''[[Star Trek:
{{quote|
'''Spock:''' Kohms? Communists? The parallel is almost too close, Captain. It would mean they fought the war your Earth avoided, and in this case, the Asiatics won and took over this planet. }}
* An episode from the last season of ''[[
* [[Stephen Colbert]] used this technique to twice pick the Oscar winners. He has a shockingly good success rate.
** Considering how rare it is for an Oscar to be awarded purely on merit (among the rubrics used is whether or not an actor is "due", and no, I'm not kidding), maybe "shocking" is the wrong word.
** Colbert parodied himself by using the technique to "pick" the winner of the 2008 Presidential Elections. He kept using starting points clearly designed to point to John McCain, but wound up picking [[Barack Obama]] every time. Even when he started on... John McCain.
** Colbert and others generally use this kind of reasoning in parodies of [[Glenn Beck]]'s chalkboard illustrations.
* In one episode of ''[[
** To be fair, Reid had already clued in that something was wrong: his first hint was the uncharacteristic behavior the suspect had after the test.
* ''[[All That]]'' featured Detective Dan, who relied upon a combination of this and [[Insane Troll Logic]].
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** {{spoiler|However, at that point, he's desperate, grasping at straws, and it's still not enough information to find the real killer.}}
* Even worse in L.A.Noire where in one case Cole deduces that {{spoiler|from the corpse of a recently stabbed victim he finds a ticket, therefore the fighter you were looking for is in the theater.}} Wait what? Even your Partner lampshades this.
* A good portion of the ''[[
* ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro
* In ''[[The Adventures of Sam
{{quote|
'''Sam:''' Mind readers! That's it!... No, that's not it.
'''Max''' By the way, have you seen my copy of "Emetics" the handbook for multi-coloured happiness by Hugh Bliss?
'''Sam:''' Colours!... No. Think, Max, think!
'''Max:''' I know I had it this morning.
'''Sam:''' That's it! "Morning"! In the ancient tongue of the mud-worshipping Kappalahotek tribe of the Serengeti, our word "morning" means "he who destroys the hypnotic rainbow man"! That's the word he fears the most! So this Roy G. Biv is the one person we've met who's never said the word "morning"! That means it's--
''(phone rings, Sam answers)''
'''Sam:''' It's the Commissioner!
'''Max:''' The Commissioner? I never did trust him!
'''Sam:''' No, chucklehead, it's Hugh Bliss!
'''Max:''' Never! }}
* This is lampooned in ''[[Space Quest|Space Quest V]]''. When Beatrice is infected by [[The Virus]], Roger and his crew have no idea at first how to cure her, and can only use a cryogenic chamber to slow the infection. Later, however, Spike - a [[Face Hugger]] Roger befriended earlier - starts hopping on the chamber, and then the transporter; Roger somehow surmises from this that Spike is telling them to "initiate a manual control bypass to reverse the phase polarity of the interface grid and then use the transporter to reintegrate Beatrice's molecules." Cliffy seems to think that's [[Crazy Enough to Work]] and it does.
== Web Animation ==
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== Web Comics ==
* Spoofed in [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1345.html this] ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' strip, were the heroes totally get it wrong.
* Happens in ''[[
{{quote|
* Deconstructed humorously in [http://nonadventures.com/2011/04/16/another-mine-mess/ this] episode of ''[[The Non
* ''[[Chainsawsuit]]'' has a character guessing what another
* ''[[
== Web Original ==
* In the ''[[Loading Ready Run]]'' [http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/archive/all/date/desc?search=rapidfire Rapidfire Comedy Sketches], they intermittently show a police detective following this sort of train of thought, eventually proven right by way of a much simpler solution.
{{quote|
'''Rodriguez:''' That's pretty much about it, he turned himself in this morning.
'''Riley:''' ''Outstanding''. }}
* Morgan Freeman uses this in ''[[Celebrity Bric
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20100305081343/http://dozerfleetwiki2.wiki-site.com/index.php/When_Bikes_Argue_2 When Bikes Argue 2]'' has the following exchange:
{{quote|
'''Ackro:''' All I see, are, grease smudges!
'''Hilo:''' The one close to me looks like an alien spaceship! Because the Martians have agreed with us that the ghost town's gotta go!...
And the mushroom cloud-like [grease smudge] next to you... is the end of Muhammy al-Dracula!
'''Ackro:''' And where are we gonna get plutonium to nuke Mecca from, a
'''Hilo:''' [[Gosh Dang It to Heck|Snagnabbit]], that's it! If we can't find plutonium for the bomb, we'll never convince the werewolves to come out during a crescent moon!
[[Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?|Because they'll be showing]] ''[[
::Hence, Hilo realizes that Ackro is right in saying that it's preposterous for bicycles in a pole barn to nuke Mecca. But his reasoning doubles as both [[Right for
* [http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/021649.html This] ''[[Overheard]]'' bit of navigational wisdom.
* [[Seanbaby]], on Batman and the Riddler (in the animated ''[[
{{quote|
* "The Editing Room" did a parody screenplay of ''[[Angels
{{quote|
* Ranger in ''[[Comic Fury Werewolf]]'' has an unusual brand of "logic". His deductions rely on a series of jumps in logic which qualify as this more often than they don't.
* Facebook answers the [[Hitch Hikers Guide to The Galaxy|Question]] in [https://web.archive.org/web/20120618082234/http://www.unfriendable.com/view/Facebook/38862 this way].
== Western Animation ==
* [[Batman]], in the 1970s ''[[
* This is one of [[Darkwing Duck]]'s signature detective skills: for instance, finding the location of the Fearsome Five's hideout from a
* In the ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "Legends", the [[Expy|Justice
** The earth crime being the trophy for the clay court tennis championship makes a ''bit'' more sense when you consider that the criminal who commits it is The Sportsman.
* In the episode "Cancelled", ''[[South Park]]'''s parody of ''[[Independence Day]]'', the scientist (Jeff, for Jeff Goldblum) would fixate on a random element and follow a completely nonsensical chain of reasoning to come up with the solution. For example:
{{quote|
'''Chef:''' Butt sex?!
'''Jeff:''' Butt sex requires a lot of lubrication, right? Lubrication. Lubruh... Chupuh... Chupacabra's the, the goat killer of Mexican folklore. Folklore is stories from the past that are often fictionalized. Fictionalized to heighten drama. Drama students! Students at colleges usually have bicycles! Bi, bian, binary. It's binary code!
'''Chef:''' ... Who's having butt sex?
'''Jeff:''' There's a huge ship of some kind in Earth's orbit! But why? Wait a minute: chaos theory! Chaos theory, it was first thought of in [[The Sixties]]. Sixty. That's the number of episodes they made of ''[[Punky Brewster]]'' before it was cancelled. Cancelled... Don't you see? The show is over! The aliens are cancelling Earth!
'''Jeff:''' Whoever they are, if they're receiving messages, they might be sending them, too. Wait a minute: candy bars. They usually come in a wrapper. Just like you... wrap a Christmas present. Christmas happens when it's cold. Cold, as in Alaska - that's... with polar bears. Polar bears... pola... polarity! I can [[Reverse Polarity|switch the polarity]] to see what transmissions are coming from the location this one is being sent to!
'''Chef:''' ''THAT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING SENSE!!'' }}
** If it wasn't obviously intended otherwise, you might think he'd already subconsciously come up with the right answers in a more logical intuitive way and needed to babble randomly until he managed to get a hold of them consciously.
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** And then he interprets the flag sticking out of the holes as signs of a race of mole men who are plotting to create mole-human hybrids so they can [[Take Over the World]].
* Professor Farnsworth of ''[[Futurama]]'' uses this a lot in "The Duh-Vinci Code":
{{quote|
'''Leela:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|But, Professor]]--
'''Professor Farnsworth: ''THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION!'' ''' }}
** Even better is the fact that he ignores the more obvious deduction, the Fountain of Neptune, also in Rome.
* Naturally, episodes of ''[[Batman:
** This exchange between Batman and Alfred in the Batmobile, where Batman has a handful of coins and the clue "Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no tales. It all makes sense when you add it up."
{{quote|
'''Alfred:''' And "copper" is another word for "policeman"!
'''Batman:''' And no tails means heads. Police... Head... Quarters!
[...]
'''Batman:''' Four quarters and one penny equal 101 cents, so... Police headquarters, room 101! }}
::: The silliest thing about this? ''Batman was going to go back there eventually anyway''.
** Same episode, leads into the above one. Three computers crash around Gotham, displaying only a riddle on screen: "Where does a 500-pound gorilla sleep?" "What's worse than a millipede with flat feet?" "How do you fit 5 elephants into a compact car?" Train of logic: the Riddler doesn't usually use such commonly known riddles meaning the answers to the riddles are a red herring. The riddles themselves all contain numbers: 500, 1000, 5. Convert to roman numerals and get D,M,V... ''the Department of Motor Vehicles!!!''
* ''[[Underdog (
== Real Life ==
* [[ARG
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Logic Tropes]]
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