Chain of Deals: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|''"He traded sand for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand."''|[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3744 Squandered Resources], [[Magic: The Gathering]]}}

 

See also [[Fence Painting]], [[Plot Coupon]], [[Sidequest Sidestory]] and [[Match Maker Quest]]. Not to be confused with [[Chain of People]].

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

 

* ''[[Bibliotheca Mystica de Dantalian]]'' has a story like this, starting with a red paper clip, and ending with {{spoiler|a teddy bear}}.

 

 

* Occurs in a couple of [[Carl Barks]] comics, in particular when [[Donald Duck]]'s nephews are involved, who seem to be quite good at this. ''Maharajah Donald'' starts out as the nephews start with a used-up piece of pencil, they end up with a holiday for them and Donald to India or a country of the sorts. In the end, Donald is captured and will be thrown into a tiger pit. The nephews find a paperclip, exclaiming they've found the thing that can save their uncle. cut to "sometime later", when they trade something very valuable for a truckload of raw meat. They throw it over the wall of the tiger pit, feeding the tigers, thus making them not hungry anymore when Donald gets thrown in.

* [[Older Than Print]]: The Japanese legend of the straw millionaire is this trope played completely straight. A poor peasant prays to the goddess of mercy for relief from his miserable life. She grants him a single piece of straw which he trades through his travels until fortunate circumstances lead to the hand in marriage of the daughter of a millionaire.

* There're two stories from [[The Brothers Grimm (creator)|The Brothers Grimm]], both about a boy named Hans; in one, he trades all the way up to marrying a Princess (if memory serves correctly); in the other, he trades all the way down to nothing (but is still happy, because the last thing he traded for was a freaking huge millstone that did nothing but weigh him down).

{{quote|'''Old Woman:''' Cat, kill rat! Rat won't gnaw rope, rope won't hang butcher, butcher won't kill ox, ox won't drink water, water won't put out fire, fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat dog, dog won't bite pig, pig won't jump over the stile, and I shan't get home tonight!}}

* In a Russian fairy tale a rooster choked on a bean. His hen hurried to the housewife asking for some butter to lube rooster's throat, but the woman needed some milk from the cow, who needed the farmer to cut some grass for her, but the farmer needed a scythe from the blacksmith, so the hen ran to the smith, got a scythe and unwound the sequence. Naturally, cynical Russians spoofed the story, so when the hen reaches the blacksmith...

 

* The [[Dragaera]] novel ''Orca'' follows this trope, as Vlad has to fulfill a series of deals in order to obtain a cure for a friend.

* John tries such a chain in ''Me and My Little Brain'' after talking to a man who could start with a fifty-cent pocketknife and trade up to a twenty-dollar cow. He manages about nine or ten trades easily, but the chain collapses because he never considered what ''he'' would want out of the whole deal. He accepts a piglet as payment in the final trade, but since he can't keep it at home or afford to board it elsewhere, the other boy offers to take it back.

* In one of the [[Henry Reed]] books, Henry goes to visit an auction, and starting out with some fireplace tools that turn out to be valuable to another bidder who missed them, he parlays the two dollar bid on the tools through to another item and another, until he ends up getting an item and two dollars for his item, finally ending up with two items that the owner bid $40 apiece, a lot of money to Henry. By the time he's finished he's essentially traded things that he ends up getting something worth $100, which cost him nothing because he got the original $2 back during one of the trades.

* There is a children's story about a woman who wants her son to go to school on time. He refuses, so she tells a cane to beat the boy up. The cane doesn't want to, so she tells a fire to burn the cane. When the fire refuses, she orders a puddle of water to put out the fire, then orders a cow to drink the water when refuses too, tells a butcher to kill the cow, orders a rope to hang the butcher, tells a mouse to gnaw on the rope, and finally tells a cat to eat the mouse, which it agrees to in return for a saucer of milk, and in the end the boy goes off to school. One has to wonder what the moral of the tale is, given that the sociopathic main character callously attempts to orchestrate the deaths of several people, animals and curiously sentient objects just because they refuse to carry out her murderous intents.

* This is how the Deveels in Aspirin's ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' series make their fortunes. The graphic novel even contains a visual representation of a chain of deals that begins with a coat hanger and concludes with a giant ruby.

* Example from a forgotten story in a magazine: The protagonist was named Scipio (after the Roman general) and he lived in a small town. His goal for the story required him to trade things with different people in succession with the end result of allowing a collector to complete his prized set of Napoleonic silver plates if the collector did what Scipio wanted him to do. This story of Scipio trading things to accomplish something apparently a regular feature in this magazine.

* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], this is the [[Planet of Hats|species hat]] of the Squibs. The more complex and outrageous the deal, the more prestigious it is.

* ''If You Give a Mouse a Cookie'' is about the chain of deals that will result if you do what the title says.

* Francis Spufford's [[Alternate History]] novel ''Red Plenty'' has a Soviet black marketeer whose entire business is built on these kind of arrangements.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

** By contrast, the episode "The Long John Flap" features a ''series'' of separate exchanges involving a pair of Long Johns, but there's no chain to be unwound.

{{quote|'''Nog''': ''There are millions upon millions of worlds in the universe, each one filled with too much of one thing, and not enough of another. And the Great Continuum flows through them all like a mighty river, from "have" to "want" and back again! And if we navigate the Continuum with skill and grace, our ship will be filled with everything our hearts desire!''}}

** Okay... The Ferengi have always insisted they are the best businessmen in the galaxy - this proves it. Nog, [[You Fail Economics Forever|You Win Economics Forever!]]

* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' had one of these in the episode "The Ties that Bind"... which also featured Daniel Jackson as the [[Butt Monkey]].

* A short gag on ''[[Sports Night]]''.

* Francis in ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' attempts this to get something or other, and agrees to make exchanges between just about all the loggers in the camp. The problem for Francis is that it's a chain of ''promised'' deals, and he keeps making grander and grander promises to try to ground out the chain at something he can manage. He keeps going unsuccessfully until they find out it's rapidly becoming a complete sham and kick the crap out of him.

* An episode of ''[[Grey's Anatomy]]'' features a chain of kidney donations, where patient A's relative will donate to patient B, patient B's relative to patient C, etc. The chain almost falls apart at a number of occasions.

* Happens in an episode of ''[[Dark Angel]]'' as a side note rather than a plot point. Apparently this sort of thing is common given the setting.

* An Episode of ''[[Breaker High]]'', Sean and Jimmy need kitchen access from the chef to bake a pizza, who will only give them the key in exchange for a manicure from Ashley in exchange for phone minutes from Alex in exchange for Denise repairing his shorts in exchange for some Dramamine from Max in exchange for Max's Boombox from Captain Ballard in exchange for a written note from Max forged by Tamira in exchange for a picture of Max from Cassidy, who gives it to Sean "for the school yearbook" and takes it back when she realizes what it's really for, causing Sean to continually try shoddy alternatives as the chain falls apart.

* Al from ''[[Married... with Children]]'' did this using a barter system to get a recliner. He unfortunately has to undo it to get back the shoes (the ones he usually sells and what he started the system with) when he finds that his boss is coming for an inspection.

== Music ==

 

** A bucket is required, but there's a hole in it. A straw is needed to fix the bucket, but the straw is too long. An axe is needed to cut the straw, but it's too blunt. A stone is required to sharpen the axe, but it's too dry. Water is needed to wet the stone, but it needs to be carried somehow. A bucket is needed to carry the water, but there's a hole in the bucket...

 

* Several of the ''Zelda'' games, including ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'', include an item-trading quest of some sort. The one in ''Link's Awakening'' nets you a Magnifying Glass that will allow you to see invisible enemies, get the Boomerang, ''and'' reach the [[Final Boss]], while the one in ''Ocarina'' nets you the powerful Biggoron's Sword.

** The fan-made game ''[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/253819 The Legend of Zelda and the Lampshade of No Real Significance]'' has this as pretty much the entire plot.

** There's official art of her with a fan of throwing knives between her fingers. That chick was just spoiling for a war or two, but needed to clean her commoner gowns first.

* Used in ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'', where you help a penguin cross a stream and get started in a trading sequence that takes you through every little island on the map, eventually unlocking an area with a bonus boss.

* An old Japanese legend tells of a man who started off with a single piece of straw, and traded up until he was rich. This was referenced in two video games:

** In ''[[Shadow Hearts|Shadow Hearts: Covenant]]'', where a sidequest starts off with a man telling the player this story and giving them a straw. Eventually, the player can trade this to get the [[Infinity+1 Sword]] for one of the characters. To be fair, it's a [[Paper Fan of Doom|pretty, yet magical, steel fan]], unless the player makes a wrong trade and ends up with worthless junk (or a small fortune in cash).

* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' occasionally forces you to go on a variant of this, in which an animal wants to get an item back from another one who borrowed it... but then you go there and discover that that animal lent the item to someone else. You have to keep following the item until you get it and can bring it back to its owner.

** It can get really weird when half the village is sharing the same handkerchief.

* A quest in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has you getting caught in one of these while trying to get some stolen comic books back for the Gnomish Gnomads. Not only is the quest optional, the reward sucks. It also refers to the [[Real Life]] example above: the only item you actually retrieve yourself is the {{spoiler|big red paperclip in the Haiku Dungeon}}.

** In the Dawn of Souls remake of the game, there's a Chain of Deals puzzle that involves trading things between a bunch of dwarves in order to progress in a dungeon.

* All the ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' games have NPCs who want to trade BattleChips with you. Most of the trades are standalone, but in games 3 and 6, you can make several successive trades to obtain a powerful chip.

* ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' has at least one of these in the series. The original SNES game, Episode IV, [[Queen|March of the Black Queen]] had several. The first you see is the powerful Ring of Undead, held by a wizard early in the game who would trade it for a Lexicon of Undead. And then there is the Diaspola chain. You start with some pirates with a copy of The Saga who are looking for a Map, which is in town with a man who is looking for Amatsu that can be found in the trade shop of neighboring town who only buys Furs which an underhanded sneak has and will part ways with if you give him all you money or return his stolen goblet held by bandits who want to hear a Foul Tome you received from a previous stage. Each of these items is worth progressively more than the previous.

* ''Secret of Evermore'''s greek market blatantly uses this, though it's entirely optional. It's even pretty complex, with multiple traders giving the same item for different exchanges, but the rewards you can get through it are items that permanently boost your abilities, so it's worth your time and resources.

** Actually if you trade with monsters enough, they become "Crowned" which means they are stronger but give better [[Randomly Drops|Item Drops]]. Also trading with monsters can net in quite a bit of jewels or cash if you trade correctly.

* This is how you get the [[Infinity+1 Sword]] in ''[[Alundra 2: A New Legend Begins|Alundra 2]]''.

** Somewhat worthwhile though, a new recipe for a potion and 20000 free exp. Nothing to scoff at to an extent.

*** And a keyring, which is far more useful than it sounds.

* The ''[[Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron|Spirit]]'' game, ''[[Long Title|Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron: Forever Free]]'' features one near the end. In exchange for a horse's freedom, someone wants a wheel to fix their cart, the blacksmith who has a wheel wants a blanket from Little Creek, Little Creek in turn wants an axe to chop wood with...and said axe can then be <s>stolen</s> taken from Snakefinger.

* This can happen between three or more players in ''[[Heroes of Newerth]]'''s and other ''[[Defense of the Ancients]]'' clones' Single Draft mode where every player is given a choice from three random heroes that can be swapped between other players in your team.

* An obscure point-and-click adventure entitled ''[[The Day The World Broke]]'' has a doozy of a chain. To get Carbine the half-Lizard, half-camera (all the non-human characters are half-animal, half-machine) to stop standing in the path of an element valve, which is causing chaos across Earth's surface, you need to fix his lens. The only place to get a lens is the Glass Works, where Carbine doesn't have the best reputation. That's a moot point, though, as the Glass Works is too busy filling orders for new glassware for Lugnut the bartender. So you need to get a note from Lugnut, who'll give it to you in exchange for getting rival bartender Decanter to part with rare bottle of sludge. In order to get that, Decanter wants a recording of a song his mother used to sing him, which requires an instrument that's notoriously difficult to find but fortunately is in the hands of one of Lugnut's customers, Ratchet, who will trade it to you for another instrument which ''actually doesn't exist'', so you need to enlist the help of Phlange, who will help you make something that could pass for it, but in order to get Phlange to help you, you have to get her to stop standing in a different element valve. To get her to do this, you have to call Julius and Bud at Mission Control, who will finally convince her to leave, allowing you to get her help to make the instrument to trade for the other instrument to trade for the recording to trade for the sludge to trade for the note to trade for the lens. ''Whew.''

 

== Web Comics ==

 

* The first ''[[Skin Horse]]'' storyline featured an increasingly absurd chain as main character Tip tried to deal with an increasingly bizarre string of escaped/lost sentient lab experiments.

** Which proved to have some consequences, since he {{spoiler|ended up screwing up the whole chain of deals his boss was ''used'' to dealing with - which resulted in her having to find out if the new leadership down in the basement is amenable to talking with the folks upstairs.}} Lampshaded at several points during the whole chain.

 

== Web Original ==

== Western Animation ==

 

** And forcing Lord Bravery to change his monicker to Lord Smoked Meats And Fishes, making people respect him even ''less'' than they did before.

* This was also the basis for the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short ''Leghorn Swoggled'', with Henery Hawk making a long string of deals in order to catch Foghorn Leghorn. After making a bunch of deals (dog wants a bone, cat knows where to get a bone but wants a fish, mouse knows where to get fish but wants cheese) he remarks "I wonder what the cheese will want?"

** Also happens in ''Dime to Retire'', where Daffy runs a scam in the hotel Porky is staying at. First, he let a mouse into Porky's room, which drove Porky nuts by eating a piece of celery, prompting him to have Daffy bring in a cat to chase it off for a mere $5, only for the cat to refuse to let him sleep on his bed, thus Daffy brought a dog to scare it away for $10, only for the boxer (after hearing a bell, courtesy of Daffy) to start punching Porky, after which Daffy charged $26 to bring in a lion to get rid of it, which naturally tried to eat Porky, then for another $72, Daffy used an elephant to drive out the lion, however, the elephant then took up most of the room, so for $666, Daffy released the mouse back into Porky's room to scare it off, leaving Porky with the celery-eating mouse all over again.

* Parodied on ''[[Two Stupid Dogs]]''. An off the hook payphone tells the dogs to get a quarter, so they go to a change machine, but they need to get a dollar. This leads them on a quest to get larger and larger sums of money, each of which is eventually traded in for a smaller amount right down to the quarter.

** {{spoiler|Which is then used to phone the larger dog, in prison with a $10,000 bail.}}

* In an episode of ''[[House of Mouse]]'', after accidentally spending the rent money on cheese, Mickey is in desperate need of $50. [[The Sword in the Stone|Merlin will give Mickey $50 in exchange for a sword for Arthur]], [[The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad|The Headless Horseman will give Mickey a sword in exchange for a pumpkin to use as a head]], [[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]] will give Mickey a pumpkin in exchange for an alternate ride home, [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]] will give Cinderalla a carpet ride home if he can get a rose for Jasmine, [[Beauty and the Beast|Beast will give Mickey an enchanted rose in exchange for a book for Belle]], and [[Fantasia|Yen Sid]] is in no mood at all to share his books, scaring Mickey off and throwing the whole chain apart.

* A ''U.S. Acres'' segment in ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' had Orson wanting to get Bo a record player. Booker has one but wants a skateboard. After failing to hit Roy's three practical jokes, one of which involved super-hot chewing gum, Orson convinces Roy to part with his skateboard in exchange for a pie. Lanolin is willing to give up her pie for a stepladder. Wade is more than happy to get rid of his stepladder, but Orson insists on giving him something... specifically, the spicy chewing gum he got from Roy. When Wade realizes how horrible the gum is, he takes back his ladder, causing the whole chain to temporarily reverse.

* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had Jimmy go through one to get Beezy's [[Collector of the Strange|collection of chewed gum]] back.

 

== Real Life ==

** Star Trek reviewer [[SF Debris]] went into this topic at some length while reviewing a [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|DS9]] episode about a Chain of Deals. He pointed out that although the Federation claims to have eliminated money and the need for money, clearly people still have needs or desires that cannot be met except through exchange of goods and services, and that the absence of an accepted currency just makes the whole thing wastefully inefficient and even comical. He also points out an [[Accidental Aesop]]: Since Jake has never used money, he has no comprehension of its value, which is why he thoughtlessly badgers his best friend into trading away ''several years' worth of savings'' on a baseball card.

** Incidentally, he borrowed the paperclip back. To [[Crowning Moment of Funny|bend into an engagement ring to propose to his wife]].

*** She can hardly complain- it's worth the same as a house!

* Without getting into specifics, players of any kind of [[Collectible Card Game]] (or, indeed, collectible ''anything-that-comes-randomly-blind-packed'' game) have likely committed to a three-or-more-way trade in order to get that [[Last Lousy Point|last card]] for their precious deck/army/complete expansion set.

* Interestingly, electrical power systems are often ''protected'' by a chain-of-deals-like system. In interlocking, you must satisfy certain conditions in order to operate an item of equipment (disconnectors, earth switches, access gates etc.) which involves following prescribed sequences of opening/closing switches to obtain keys to access other sequences to obtain another key that opens the shutter to the hand crank you need to operate the item of equipment you were interested in the first place. For added super-bonus fun, on offshore windfarms certain steps entail ''sailing'' between ''individual turbines'', key clutched in hand. The reason for this intentional complexity is to ensure that all equipment is made safe before anyone gets anywhere near it, and that there is no danger of damaging the main grid.

 

{{reflist}}