Chekhov's Armoury: Difference between revisions
Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8
m (Mass update links) |
(Rescuing 1 sources and tagging 0 as dead.) #IABot (v2.0.8) |
||
| (9 intermediate revisions by 4 users not shown) | |||
Line 4:
A [[Chekhov's Gun]] is an item introduced before its use, and is usually quite inconspicuous. In a movie, if you see a brief shot of a single object, such as a fork on a table, you can be guaranteed that that particular item will be used later in order to resolve a problem or as a weapon. The item's function may or may not be fully apparent at first and discovering its use may be part of the narrative device.
[[Chekhov's Armoury]] is when the writer uses several (and in some cases, uses too many) Chekhov's Guns, not all of which are painfully obvious. (Skilled writers may give the painfully obvious ones trivial uses, and use them chiefly to [[Red Herring|disguise]] the minor ones.)
[[The Law of Conservation of Detail]] taken to its logical extreme.
Carefully written and/or [[Myth Arc]]-laden shows tend to have a Chekhov's Armoury. It also provides good potting soil for [[Epileptic Trees]]. Opposite of [[Cow Tools]], where there are a large number of seemingly significant tchotchkes which turn out to be just window dressing.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* A ''lot'' of stuff in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]!'', especially regarding {{spoiler|Asuna. Notably, all of the times the spells Negi cast on her fail is not due to him being an [[Inept Mage]], but rather due to her Magic Cancel ability. Not to mention that her poor grades are implied to be caused by a large scale [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]] spell.}} Plus a bunch of other stuff.
** ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]!'''s Armoury was especially effective because much of the foreshadowing was disguised as comedy, once again especially with regards to {{spoiler|Asuna. Her superhuman speed, strength, and agility were mostly played for slapstick humor, her Magic Cancel was mostly played for fanservice (so that Negi's spells would blast her clothes off but leave her unharmed), and so forth.}}
** Also, while not necessarily an example of Chekhov's Armoury per se, it's also interesting to pay attention to how Akamatsu handled the fighters and supernatural characters in the earlier chapters. For example, [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/mahou_sensei_negima/v01/c005/18.html the characters who were left out of the Dodgeball game].<ref>All of them, excepting the cheerleaders, are extreme [[Badass|BadAsses]] who could have won the match singlehanded</ref>
* ''[[Pokémon Special]]'', where everything is a [[Chekhov's Gun]] and no character has only one appearance.
== Comic Books ==
* [[Justified Trope|Justified]] in [[Phil Foglio]]'s ''[[Stanley and His Monster]]'' miniseries: When Stanley has to go to
* ''[[100 Bullets|One Hundred Bullets]]'' has its fair share. To say the very least.
Line 33:
** But it is so rare for any gadget he gets with an explanation not to be used, that he should have bribed Q to only explain him about gadgets that "will allow you to safely take out unsuspecting enemies from a great distance" instead of those that are "short ranged, one shot weapons which will not be noticed by the enemy, and you can use as a last resort when captured, bound and being tortured".
*** Q is the prototypical Chekhov's Armourer.
** Parodied by [[Eddie Izzard]] in one of his routines. "Q, I had a lot of stuff I didn't bloody use! The watch that turns into a hamster, what was the point of that?"
{{quote|
** Rumor has it this results from the writers going back and adding a gadget whenever they write themselves into a corner.
** ''[[Die Another Day]]'' had a gadget that was, in fact, used twice. {{spoiler|Bond uses the ultrasonic ring to get out of a situation in an elevated greenhouse, and again to get Jinx into his car quickly.}}
** Subverted by the BMW in ''[[
* Surprisingly, ''[[Paul Blart: Mall Cop]]''. Absolutely everything from the comedy half of the movie makes an appearance when Paul is fighting back against the robbers. {{spoiler|Even the hot sauce.}}
** Well, not ''so''
* ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'' may have more so than ''[[Die Hard]]'', including two actual armouries.
** And a [[Sea Mine]].
Line 45:
* {{spoiler|Almost every single wish made}} in ''Shorts'' (and Helvetica's science project) is used in the final "short" in the fight against {{spoiler|[[Giant Mecha]] Mr. Black, including the Bipedal Crocodile Army, the Super-Smart Baby, the germs, the aliens, the dung beetle...}}
* In ''[[Escape From L.A.]],'' Snake is given a number of items, including an ordinary pack of matches. He uses everything given, {{spoiler|including the matches, to light his cigarette in the total darkness once all of the world's electricity has been eliminated.}}
* In ''[[Pee
* James Cameron's ''[[Avatar (film)|Avatar]]'': almost every creature seen throughout the film fights in the final fight. The Toruk, the viperwolves, the thanator, etc., everything is foreshadowed, in addition to Eytukan's bow and [[Chekhov's Skill|falling from a great height]].
* ''[[Untraceable]]'' does this with quite a few things. Amongst them are {{spoiler|1=blinking in Morse Code, a rototiller, and a car with OnStar}}. All of those moments almost feel like throwaway scenes, but then they all come into play in the latter half of the movie.
* In the beginning of ''Used Cars'' a Mexican guy who supplies them with cars says he has a ton of them just sitting around (there has to be at least 250 in a picture he shows them). Later in the movie a driver's ed teacher, who they sold crappy cars to, is angry because now his 250 students can't learn to drive. At the end of the movie the lot is being sued for false advertisement (due to the bad guy messing with an ad to say they have a mile of cars then paying off "experts" to say it wasn't tampered with). A mile of cars is said to be about 250 cars and if they don't have that many at the lot when the judge comes by to see they lose. Remember how the Mexican had at least 250 cars and how the teacher had 250 students?
* ''[[My Girl (manga)|My Girl]]'' has a whole bunch, including {{spoiler|the child-sized coffin, Vada's mood ring, Thomas J's allergies, and the fact that Vada lives in a funeral home.}}
* The weapons the brothers end up buying in ''[[The Boondock Saints]]'' all get used right down to the "stupid f--king rope" and "rambo" knife. A LITERAL Chekhov's Armory.
* With the exception of the ballistic knife, every weapon Frank Castle uses in ''[[The Punisher (film)|The Punisher]]'' is shown beforehand either in a montage or as part of a scene.
* An extremely literal example in ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]''. Optimus Prime has taken to lugging around a trailer to match his trailer-truck vehicle form. The trailer transforms into a small armory of equipment he might need, such as jets, sword and shield, and more guns. Every one of these becomes important later on.
* In ''[[Johnny English]] Reborn'', anything that comes up in the first 10 minutes of the film is useful later on. e.g Taking a kick to the jewels without feeling pain, the mind controlling the body, him having the experience that age brings as opposed to the energy of youth etc.
* ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]''. Even the [[
* Andy's prison cell in ''[[The Shawshank Redemption]]'' is this as it contains the items that are relevant to {{spoiler|his escape}}.
* [[DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story]] contains a [[Chekhov's Gun]] in every other line of dialogue, usually disguised as punchlines or throwaway gags.
Line 66:
* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', and about half of them were all introduced at the same event, Bianca's party in ''Grave Peril''.
* [[George R. R. Martin]]'s ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]''.
* The ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' series. Everything is a [[Chekhov's Gun]]. ''Everything''. If you hear about a cabinet, a love potion, a locket, a snitch- chances it will turn up, often books later, as a plot point.
** Rowling elevated this to an ''art form.''
** The longest-spanning one being the {{spoiler|Snitch that Harry caught in his first ever Quidditch game}}. It appeared about halfway through the first book, was never even MENTIONED again until near the beginning of the last book. While it was around, it's true purpose wasn't fulfilled until ''three'' chapters before the end of the entire book: {{spoiler|It held the Resurrection Stone.}}
* The ''[[Commonwealth Saga]]'' uses this trope. Anything introduced at all will have some factor later on. ''Anything''. If not in that saga, then in ''The Void Trilogy'' (set a few thousand years after).
* ''[[Mistborn]]''. Sweet [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]]. By the end of the third book, so many seemingly insignificant conversations, objects, and so on wind up being absurdly important. The biggest is probably {{spoiler|Vin's earring,}} but there are others.
** The author, Brandon Sanderson, is fond of this. Both ''[[Elantris]]'' and ''[[Warbreaker]],'' have fully stocked armories of their own. [[The Stormlight Archive|The Way of Kings]] is the first book of a ten book series and has already had a number of Chekhov's Guns that were fired, and many other things that are probably loaded Chekhov's Guns that will fire in future books.
* ''[[My Father's Dragon]]'' has a kid pack up a backpack full of ordinary kid stuff, like whistles and sticks of gum, and set out on a mission to rescue a dragon. You guessed it: everything he has in his backpack gets used at one point or another.
** [[Justified]] in that he was advised to bring all that by a stray cat, who told him about the dragon to begin with. This cat had been to the island where the dragon was being held, and presumably knew about all the obstacles. Note that the kid seems to know exactly what to do for every animal he comes across.
Line 85:
* ''[[MacGyver]]''. Just take a look around the room, remember what he has in his pockets, oh, and that tennis racket you were holding for your son. Yeah, now let's go disarm a nuclear warhead.
* ''[[Jericho]]'', in a manner of speaking, literally has a Chekhov's Armoury: {{spoiler|In episode two, Robert Hawkins is seen mysteriously unpacking weaponry into a location of storage. It isn't until 18 episodes later when this cache of weapons is used to ''fight a frickin' war.'' May also be <s>[[Someday This Will Come in Handy]]</s>..}}
* ''[[Lost]]''. The hard part is figuring out which ones are Chekhov's Guns, which are [[Red Herring
* Absolutely everything in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''. People, events, pictures of people, the whole thing. {{spoiler|Jolinar knew something. There's two Stargates on Earth. They can overload their Stargate to shunt the connection to another one. Teal'c carries a big staff weapon normally on offworld missions. Apophis died on camera. The Asgard are floating about the place. The Reetu are invisible, and the Tok'ra have invisible Reetu detection guns, which they gave to the SGC. One shot from a Zatgun stuns, two kills. That's not including the solid Stargate fact that every single piece of Earth mythology regardless of age or culture will definitely turn out to be alien in origin, with most gods being Goa'uld.}}
** Isn't that mostly just good continuity and writers using items established in previous episodes though? Most of the examples cited have the follow-up episode take place at least a season after the establishing one, and Stargate didn't seem to be a series usually planned very far in advance.
Line 111:
* ''[[Sharin no Kuni]]'' has one of these. Most of its items relate to {{spoiler|the fact that Ririko is actually there, in the scene, and she's almost always following Kenichi. It's just that no one even acknowledges her existence due to the Maximum Penalty she bears.}}
* The LACK of this trope in adventure games can lead to an [[Empty Room Psych]] when the players go crazy trying to figure out what the useless inventory item is meant for.
* While not revealed at the start, it's worth noting that to complete ''[[Zelda II: The Adventure of Link|Zelda II the Adventure of Link]]'' (at least, the way it's [[Gameplay Derailment|meant to]] [[Minimalist Run|be played]]) you must get every item and every spell in the game, which means you must get every MP upgrade as well. Some of these appear to be unnecessary until you've spent a lot of effort only to find it's impossible to progress. The game itself is so minimalist that there exist no more [[
* ''[[Ultima IX]]'' subverts this with Britain's Avatar Museum. It holds every puzzle-solving [[Plot Coupon]] in the history of the series, not one of which become relevant to this game.
* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'': There are tonnes of hints about the true nature of {{spoiler|the Suul'ka}} littered in the lore. It looks so obvious in hindsight.
Line 120:
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* So much stuff in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' that the wiki doesn't even have a list. The most notable examples might be the Heterodyne it's-not-a-lamp, Agatha's broken locket, the fate of Dr. Merlot... and oh, Dear Ghu, the time windows.
** One of the fans tried to [https://murgatroyd666.livejournal.com/11584.html collect these] - 2013/10/09 that list was updated to 35. The last so far is "2015/02/05: #33 has been fired" (Agatha's wasp-eater [https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20151221 exposes revenants]).
* ''[[8-Bit Theater
** When the characters all get their class changes, Thief says that he stole his ninja upgrade from the future. Later, when {{spoiler|Chaos downgrades the party back to level 1,}} Thief is the only one left in his class change suit. For about 5 seconds. {{spoiler|Because guess where he stole it from...}}
** In [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2010/02/20/episode-1221-longest-set-up-in-webcomic-history/ comic 1221] it pulled quite possibly the biggest one in history at 1,214 issues long when it turnes out that {{spoiler|despite Black mage saying that it would never work the world was saved by four 'white' mages}}. Brian Clevinger we salute you.
* ''[[MS Paint Adventures]]'' - both ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'' and ''[[Homestuck]]''. Nearly every single item introduced becomes relevant to the plot, or at least pops up again later. Hussie admits that a lot of his foreshadowing is done by going back and looking for stuff to make references to. He has ''also'' admitted to having at least one plot detail in store for a year.
* ''[[Last Res0rt]]''
* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' keeps its armory stocked with Chekhov's full arsenal. [[Chekhov's Gunman|Minor characters]], [[Chekhov's Gag|running gags given new significance]]... even [[Red Herring|red herrings]] have a tendency to return as some sort of plot device.
* ''EatATau'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20171023160956/http://eatatau.smackjeeves.com/comics/2283888/non-sequitur/ illustrates] (NSFW).
{{quote|Dear EatATau readers: This is a piano. And these are bushes. But this is a pistol. This is Chekhov. Those are his guns.}}
== Web Original ==
* [[Fallout Equestria]] is an epic Checkhov's Armory, written by an author who has professed [[Chekhov's Gun]] as a favorite trope, stating that "everything is either a [[Chekhov's Gun]] or a [[Red Herring]]."
* The ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' is made of this trope. For example, nearly every single thing Phase has ever bought or acquired for her utility belt has gotten used ''somewhere'', even if it's in another author's story. The story about Cavalier and Skybolt turning to the Dark Side and becoming The Don's servants was written back in 2004. The significance of that and what it really meant to the plots has only come out in the more recent stories, starting with "Christmas Elves". The backstory of Tennyo was introduced in the earliest stories; how it could be used as a weapon against her didn't come out for about ''five years''.
* Practically literal with the showdown between [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] {{spoiler|and his alternates}} and Mechakara. Almost every weapon {{spoiler|bar pokeball-captured Pyramid Head, which Linkara felt would just be too much in an already complicated battle}} from previous reviews is brought out, along with {{spoiler|Black Lantern Spoony and the rarely-seen Pollo.}}
Line 137 ⟶ 139:
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Aeon Flux]]'' was filled with these, although most were quite obvious.
* ''[[Totally Spies!]]!'' does this every single episode, as a James Bond reference.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' is legendary for its extensive usage of Chekhov's Gun.
* The [[Grand Finale]] of ''[[Lilo
* This is pretty much a staple of many cartoons aimed at very young children. ''[[Dora the Explorer]]'', which started the trend, actually averts the trope slightly by sometimes carrying a few items she doesn't need.
* Averted in [[The Venture Brothers]]. One episode has Brock Sampson going through the standard OSI mission tool kit, and throws away everything in it because they are either "gay, stupid, or never uses them."
** Much like in the ''Dresden Files'' example above, large group scenes tend to introduce characters and plot points that become very significant later on, so it may at first seem like the writers are using this trope. They aren't. They've admitted when they're stuck they just go back and look at old episodes to find something to write about.
* Used expertly in [[Rango]]. {{spoiler|Roadkill and the Spirit of the West? Used to break Rango out of his [[Heroic BSOD]]. The freaky cactai? Lead Rango to the pip the mayor is using to hold back the water and help turn it back on to defeat Jake and save the town. The hole the three moles dug in the middle of the street? Used to let a blast of water up to blast Jake skyhigh. The rest of the mole's family? Used in a [[Gondor Calls for Aid]] to defeat Jake. The one bullet Jake leaves in Rango's gun? Used to free Rango and Bean from the mayor's [[Death Trap]].}} The crowner is Rango is actually [[Genre Savvy]] enough to use it intentionally!
* ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]].'' There's one for every other episode, {{spoiler|and one that was built up over an entire season to boot. The letters Twilight writes to Celestia throughout the first season are used to free her and her friends from Discord's [[Mind Rape]] and enable them to teach him that [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|friendship is indeed worth fighting for.]]}}
Line 150 ⟶ 152:
[[Category:Laws and Formulas]]
[[Category:Chekhov's Gun]]
[[Category:Chekhov
| |||