Closed Circle: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

This is a stock plot designed to force the characters or players to stay in a location and get involved in the adventure... and not be able to leave until it's done.

 

'''There are the following ways to go about this:'''

# The location, normally connected to the rest of the world, is made inescapable.

# Orientation is difficult and any attempt will end with [[Going in Circles]]. Usually nightfall or bad weather is making it even more difficult. Maps, [[Can You Hear Me Now?|phones, GPS etc. have been lost or destroyed]], or never existed in the first place. The characters are too glad to have one certain point on the horizon (even if it is the [[Haunted House]]) than to risk wandering off and get hopelessly lost.

# The area is [[Gateless Ghetto|normally inaccessible]], and the vehicle they came in on is damaged or destroyed.

# The characters won't leave, or aren't allowed to by other people or beings.

 

 

Thanks to [[Technology Marches On]], an increasingly unavoidable bit of [[Fridge Logic]] crops up in modern works regarding why the characters don't just call the police/mountain rescue/the [[Ghostbusters]] on their mobile phones. Hence the nigh-omnipresent [[Necessary Weasel]] that is [[Can You Hear Me Now?]].

 

{{examples}}

* The Island mystery in ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] [[Genre Savvy|of course]]. Itsuki even uses what might be the common name for describing it: a Closed Circle. Ultimately, {{spoiler|it turns out to have been an invoked trope.}}

** In the novels they later get in a similar situation while going on a ski resort. {{spoiler|Turns out this one isn't intentionally done, and it took practically all of Nagato's powers and some basic knowledge in graph theory for them to escape.}}

* ''[[Liar Game]]'' frequently invokes this trope by setting its various challenges in secluded locations. Rarely are the players physically prohibited from leaving, but only winners can truly "escape" by paying half their winnings to the tournament committee; the rest end up in crushing debt.

* If you are chosen by the titular ''[[Gantz]]'', try to exit a set area before the time limit and [[Your Head Asplode]]. Everybody else is free to move through the area as they please, but the scenario is always set so they can affect nothing.

 

== Comic Books ==

* The protagonists of ''[[Elks Run]]'' happen to ''live'' in their Closed Circle. Their town was built to be isolated from the rest of society, with the only way out being a tunnel through the mountains that could easily be blocked off during an emergency. Police investigation of a [[Vigilante Execution]] qualifies as an emergency to those who participated in said execution, no matter how much the rest of the cast wants to get the hell out of town.

 

== Film ==

* The entire point of [[The Breakfast Club]] is that none of the characters would even speak to each other if they hadn't been forced to stay alone with each other for the day.

* Played out on a large scale in ''[[Tremors]]''. Yes, the monster's stomping ground is a great big valley, but it's a great big valley ''that no one can leave''.

 

== Literature ==

* ''The Invisible Host'': human agency

* Anthony Boucher's ''The Case of the Seven Sneezes''

* [[Agatha Christie]]'s ''[[Ten Little Indians]]'': Bad weather and sabotaged communications.

** Syren island in ''Syren''.

** The Heaps' room in ''Darke''.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'', so much so that people ask why they don't [[Just Eat Gilligan]].

* ''[[Lost]]'', which starts with the survivors of a plane crash. Then in season five, {{spoiler|most of the ones who left the island returned}}.

* The [[Leverage]] episode ''The Ten Little Grifters Job'' - whose title is also an [[Agatha Christie]] [[Ten Little Indians|homage]] - plays with this trope.

* The Village Head in Saengchori controls who comes and goes in ''[[Once Upon a Time In Saengchori]]''.

 

== Role Playing Games ==

* Almost all dramatic [[Journal Roleplay]] games take place in closed circles, forcing characters to stay where they otherwise wouldn't (unless a player drops). This is so prevalent that this type of game has earned the name "spooky jamjar".

* The player gets to inflict this on others in one quest of [[The Elder Scrolls IV Obivion]]. In one of the Dark Brotherhood quests, you are locked in a mansion with a small group of people. The rest of the group think they're being invited in as part of a game by the host where no one can leave until the hidden treasure is found. There is no treasure, and the host has hired you to kill everyone else.

 

 

* In a ''[[Ravenloft]]'' campaign, a DM can use the Mists to keep players from straying from a certain area (ie, players go into the Mists and emerge in the same place), but doing so is a cheap trick.

** Some individual locations within the setting are Closed Circles by their very nature, as with Baron Evensong's one-room study/prison.

* This is sort of assumed in many ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]'' games, since anyone retaining 2 SAN would want to keep far away from the scary things players encounter. But if the players don't go investigate the horrors, there's no game.

 

== Theatre ==

* Also the premise of ''[[The Mousetrap]]''.

* Jean-Paul Sartre's ''[[No Exit]]'' plays with this trope. The characters are only locked in by their own flaws and mediocrity.

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' has Joker take over the entire Arkham island, trapping Batman inside and forcing him to confront some of his major arch-enemies and a lot of henchmen. By the mid-point of the game, Batman displays that he could have left Arkham any time he felt like it, but refuses to do so until he gets the island back under control.

** Note that while Batman himself could in theory leave whenever he likes, this is not true of other characters - at one point {{spoiler|Commissioner Gordon}} leaves via speedboat, only to be promptly recaptured by Joker's men.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: [[Oblivion]]'' - Intentionally invoked by the contracting client in the 'Whodunit?' quest for the Dark Brotherhood. The same client also awards a performance bonus for carrying the trope out to its murder mystery conclusion.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' starts because the characters feel this way. They live on a series of islands and feel like there's nothing to do, so they build a raft to see the world. Chain of Memories plays it straight. A narrow pathway leads to Castle Oblivion. There's nothing but an empty field in the opposite direction. To top it off, Marluxia appears and hints to Sora that Riku is there.

* In ''[[Shivers]]'', the player is locked in the museum grounds on a dare. In addition, once the player enters the museum, there is no way out.

* You are stuck in [[Lovecraft Country|the titular]] [[Town with a Dark Secret|town of]] ''[[Anchorhead]]''. Your car broke down and has been towed away to the city of Arkham, and your purse and phone are in it. The only phone you can find doesn't work; the road out of town leads into wilderness. In addition, as {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Croseus's]] [[Demonic Possession|power over him]]}} grows, your husband outright refuses to leave, and you're determined not to go without him.

 

== Web Comics ==

* Goro of ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]'' had to fend off four thieves assaulting a hospital. The first attempt at doing so, activating an ice barrier around the hospital, accidentally locked the thieves ''in'' the hospital with her.

* The entirety of ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'' takes place inside a cruelly labyrinthine office building. The main characters spend all 1600+ pages solving its puzzles both in the building and in their imaginary worlds.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Mystery Tropes]]

[[Category:Cosmic Horror Tropes]]

[[Category:Stupidity Tropes]]

[[Category:Plots]]