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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|"''Ask any fighter: A hammer is just a really heavy set of lockpicks.''"|''[[DM of the Rings]]''}}
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Heroes who make a habit of doing this may boast that [[We Do the Impossible]].
{{examples}}
== Myth And Legend ==
* The [[Ur Example]] and [[Trope Namer]] was the mythical, impossibly complex [[wikipedia:Gordian knot|Gordian knot]] that, the oracles predicted, could only be untied by the future king of Asia. Alexander the Great tried in vain to untie it and then, when that didn't work, simply drew his sword and sliced it in two. Other versions of the story are the exact opposite of the trope, however, with Alexander finding a clever way to untie the knot without cutting it, like where he basically removes the main object that the knot was apparently wrapped around, thus loosening its entire structure; the equivalent of leveling a building by removing its foundation.
**In any event the Priests of Gordium were [[Might Makes Right|not going to argue]] were they?
== Anime and Manga ==
▲* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''
** In one episode where the main characters are doing the [[Indy Escape]]. When they run out of places to... well, run, Honda turns around and punches the boulder as it's about to crush them. It pops. Turns out it was a balloon with a speaker inside.
** Also, the episode in which Kaiba literally crashes Pegasus' mainframe--[[Colony Drop|he smashes it with a satellite]].
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* ''[[The Big O]]''
** In one episode, Roger is about to open a door using a high-tech device that would form the key for a lock when inserted, just before Dorothy just breaks the door open. ...with a one-handed push.
** In the last episode Roger [[
* In ''[[Mouse]]'', one ancient challenge was to figure out how to untie this extremely hard knot. Alexander the Great solved it by simply cutting it. So to make the next one more challenging, they made the second knot out of metal chains.
* In ''[[Phi Brain: Kami no Puzzle|Phi Brain Kami no Puzzle]]'', [[The Protagonist|Daimon Kaito]] is trapped in a [[Death Trap|Fool's Puzzle]] in the form of a burning tower. Ideally, he would use a maze of elevators to reach the top where the goal is, but the flames have risen high enough to block the route. His solution is to break off the door of one of the elevators so that he can jump off when it passes a floor that ''will'' let him take the route to the goal.
==
* The first arc of ''[[The Losers]]'' has team tech Jensen having to copy the secure hard drives of Goliath, an oil company. When security finds out about the operation and exchange fire with his friends, he hacks the outer casing with an axe and pries the thing out whole.▼
* Notable ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' player Zvi Mowshowitz used the line "If brute force doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough. Why not use more?" in [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/zm41 a column on proper Magic strategy].▼
** Even more so recently, because contrary to his original "famous" deck, [[Turbo Lands]], his recent decks in the past season have all been super-aggressive aggro decks, with some of them winning on turn 3 or 4.▼
▲* The first arc of [[The Losers]] has team tech Jensen having to copy the secure hard drives of Goliath, an oil company. When security finds out about the operation and exchange fire with his friends, he hacks the outer casing with an axe and pries the thing out whole.
* ''[[Watchmen]]'' features the Gordian Knot Lock Company (one of many companies owned by Ozymandias, who fancies himself a new Alexander the Great). Rorschach breaks the door down. [[Running Gag|Several times.]] {{spoiler|This is actually a clue as to Ozymandias' endgame: the U.S. and Soviet Union are on the verge of nuclear war, and have been at each other's throats for so long that it has become impossible to untangle them from their conflict. So he plans to cut the knot by introducing a third side for them to unite themselves against--an genetically engineered monster that he teleports to New York, killing half the city. What's frightening is that--at least initially--it ''works''.}}
** {{spoiler|A case of [[Enemy Mine]], if you think about it. Long ago, [[Nazi Germany]] united both sides as a target to destroy. Oz' simply invents a "knot-cutting sword" that they won't learn is nonexistent, at least until peaceful coexistence is already a reality. The only [[Epic Fail]] in reasoning here is the assumption that [[The Great Politics Mess-Up|both sides will automatically endure as political entities]].}}
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{{quote|'''Huntress:''' Did I see you cheating?
'''Batman:''' ''Winning.'' }}
* ''[[Nodwick]]'': Yeagar [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2009-10-16 shows how he deals with]{{Dead link}} [[Only Smart People May Pass]] (and that is hardly the only time he does so).
** He has a similar reaction to cursed swords with the equivalent of [[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything]].
* Whenever [[Batman]] battles The Riddler, he'll often beat his riddles using either this Trope or [[Take a Third Option]], essentially bypassing various [[Xanatos Gambit
* The section of ''[[Preacher (Comic Book)|Preacher]]'' that shows [[Big Bad|Herr Starr's]] background and [[Start of Darkness|turn to villainy]] includes a bit where, as part of his training in [[wikipedia:GSG 9|GSG 9]], Starr is confronted a [[Sadist Teacher|sadistic unarmed combat instructor]] known for beating new recruits viciously. In front of the class, the instructor demands to know how Starr would defeat him in hand to hand combat as an obvious prelude to inflicting such a beating on Starr. Starr responds by [[Combat Pragmatist|shooting the instructor in the leg]] and saying that he never intends to be unarmed. GSG decided that it showed [[Crazy Awesome|innovation]], and it was one of the things that caught [[Ancient Conspiracy|The Grail's]] eye.
== Film ==
* In the film ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'', J is taking a test with several other potential MIB candidates. The written part of the test is administered in a room with a large table surrounded by several egg-shaped chairs, although the table is out of reach. J is the only one to think of pulling the table closer to him so he can use it.
* In the new ''[[Casino Royale]]'', [[James Bond]] pursues a [[Le Parkour|freerunning]] enemy who nimbly scales obstacles and slips through narrow gaps. Bond finds more simple but equally effective means of traversing obstacles, such as running straight through a plaster wall.
* A similar thing happens in ''[[Johnny English Reborn]]'' (a parody of spy movies and takes quite a few cues from ''[[James Bond (film)|James Bond]]''). While chasing someone, the sequence goes as follows: Opponent climbs over a fence. Johnny opens the door. Opponent uses parkour. Johnny uses a ladder. Opponent jumps across a gap and onto a building. Johnny uses a crane carrying a load of bricks to send himself across. Opponent scales scaffolding to get down. Johnny uses the lift.
* In ''[[
* This is practically [[Indiana Jones]]' ''[[Planet of Hats|hat]]'' (well, other than the [[Nice Hat|cool fedora]]).
** [[Raiders of the Lost Ark|When Jones is confronted by a swordsman]], he simply [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DzcOCyHDqc shoots him].
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** In a non-violent method, he comes to a cross road with two caravans of vehicles trying to both get by at the same time. He pulls rank and stands in the cross road, ordering one vehicle from one group to go by, then one from the other group. All they needed was a traffic cop directing them but it took a general to do it.
* In the ''[[Night Watch|Day Watch]]'', Tamerlane spends a while examining the ways into the maze guarding the Chalk of Fate, before realizing it would be a lot easier to simply [[There Was a Door|blast through the walls]] themselves to get to the middle.
* In ''[[
* [[Se7en|In seemingly]] [[Sherlock Holmes|every buddy cop movie]], [[The Presidio|there is a scene]] wherein a character will attempt to open a door with lock picks or some other delicate method, whilst his street smart friend will simply kick the door in.
* In the Robert Downey Jr./Guy Ritchie version of [[Sherlock Holmes (film)|Sherlock Holmes]], Holmes takes out a very professional looking lockpicking kit to open up a locked door. [[Rule of Cool|Watson just kicks the thing down.]]
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* In the film of ''[[The Bourne Series (film)|The Bourne Identity]]'', both Jason and Marie get in on this. Jason makes a complicated plan to get some information on one of his other identities from a hotel, but Marie simply walks up to the hotel manager, introduces herself as the personal assistant to "John Michael Kane", and asks for a photocopy of his hotel bill. Later, Marie and Jason are trying to get into Marie's cousin's house to hide. Marie starts looking for the spare key, but Jason rams the door open with his shoulder.
* Played with in ''[[Blue Streak]]''. [[Martin Lawrence]]'s character is a professional jewel thief, trying to steal a large diamond under heavy security. Him and his apprentice get to the safe. The pro asks the rookie (in a quiz-like fashion) how to open the safe. The rookie starts rattling off the procedure. The pro stops him and tells him that step one is to check if the door is open. Naturally, he's just kidding. The safe is locked.
== Literature ==
* In the [[Artemis Fowl]] series, Holly had to defeat a number of projected holographic opponents as part of her entrance exam to the LEP. Rather than fight with all of the holograms, she simply shot the projector. They had to pass her because she technically defeated every single opponent.
* [[Discworld]]:
*
*** According to Norwegian folklore, King Olaf did the same thing, thereby winning an island from the king of Sweden.
*** It should be noted that none of Cohen's barbarian horde were very impressed by the story, feeling that cutting it was rather a cheap move.
** Another time Granny Weatherwax challenges three prospective witches to knock her hat off. Two of them decline to attempt, one concentrates and fails to do anything. She then asks Nanny Ogg to demonstrate, who then throws a stick at her head.
{{quote|'''Girl:''' Any of us could have done that!
'''Granny:''' But you didn't. }}
*** This is a running theme in that particular book; the younger witches think witchcraft is about magic, while the older ones ''know'' that witchcraft is about having the capacity to think sensibly for three seconds in a row. When the younger witches still complain, Granny gets frustrated and obliges them by using magic to blow up Nanny's hat.
** Also, apparently in the early days of the Watch, they had a sledgehammer that they referred to as "the search warrant." As in, "We're going to need to check his house for evidence. Don't forget to bring the search warrant."
* Speaking of Olaf, or in this case Captain Sham, this is employed in book the third of ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' to reveal Count Olaf's disguise to authority figures, with the author explaining the concept by name (Gordian Knot) immediately beforehand.
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* Averted in-universe in [[Tortall Universe|Bloodhound,]] where Beka is given a briefcase charmed for protection before setting out to Port Caynn. The spell is on the whole case, "none of this spelled-the-buckle-so-cut-the-leather nonsense."
▲== Live Action TV ==
* In the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "Full Circle", Carter, Jonas Quinn and the ascended Daniel are trying to find the Eye of Ra. They decipher ''where'' it is, but can't figure out how to open the compartment...until Carter, noting that they don't have much time, tells the other two to stand back, and shoots it open with her P90.
** And much earlier, as Bra'tac is telling SG-1 of the convoluted series of tasks they have to do to destroy the shield generators, O'Neill busies himself with pulling the pins on a pair of frag grenades and dropping them down the hole.
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* On ''[[All That]]'', this was pretty much the M.O. of Kel Mitchell's Repair Man (Man man man man man...), who would "fix" problematic objects by simply destroying them completely. No more object, no more problem.
* On ''[[Leverage]]'' Eliot disables a security camera by throwing a rock at it. Unusually, the [[Magical Security Cam]] doesn't apply in a show that likes its Hollywood security systems, and the guards come to find out why the camera went out.
* ''[[The Tenth Kingdom]]'' sees a pair of doors near the end, when Tony and Virginia are trying to sneak into the castle. The creature guarding the doors is a talking frog, and he presents a variation of the [[Knights and Knaves]] scenario where, of course, one door leads to a horrible death. Tony, by now fed up with the [[Insane Troll Logic|bizarre rules
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'':
** In the episode "Fear Itself", Anya asks Giles if he can make a door to rescue the trapped Scoobies in the haunted house. He says "I can", and instead of a mystical spell, whips out a chainsaw and starts cutting.
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== Machinima ==
* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'': Church is implanted with ten megaton bomb which proceeds to destroy the present and send everyone into the future, except for himself who instead gets sent into the past (don't ask). After returning to the present, Church makes several attempts to disarm the bomb in his former self only to be constantly met with failure, including making several copies of himself. At one point, his plan is as follows:
{{quote|'''Church:''' And then I teleported back and just decided to kill everybody that I could see.
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** Sarge uses his contingency plan when their attempt to bluff their way past the computer failed. The contingency plan being a shot gun.
==
=== Card Games ===
▲* Notable ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' player Zvi Mowshowitz used the line "If brute force doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough. Why not use more?" in [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/zm41 a column on proper Magic strategy].
▲** Even more so recently, because contrary to his original "famous" deck, [[Turbo Lands]], his recent decks in the past season have all been super-aggressive aggro decks, with some of them winning on turn 3 or 4.
=== Tabletop RPG ===
* In [[Tabletop RPG
** A hilarious example is seen in [http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=680 this] ''[[DM of the Rings]]'' strip, where the players come across the doors to the Mines of Moria, completely ignore the riddle and instead rattle off several increasingly ludicrous ways of
* In ''[[Ars Magica]]'', this is part of the theme of House Tytalus, and part of the background has an apprentice to a mage challenged, as his final exam, to open a box which his master has spent a long time enchanting. After gearing up, and throwing every spell at it that he had, the apprentice kneels in front of his master, acknowledging that he was not ready to be a full mage. His master then walks over to the box and pulls the lid open. He hadn't locked it.
* That door magically reinforced, locked, and likely to have a trap on it? No problem. Smash through the wall next to it.
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Portal 2]]'', there is a point in which Wheatley must "hack" open a door. He tells you to turn around, then smashes the window, allowing Chell to portal herself into there.
** He does the same thing when attempting a "manual override" on a wall.
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* In ''[[Deus Ex]]'', doors had both a lock strength and physical strength. You can break any door with the right firepower provided its strength was not infinite. They took this out in subsequent games.
* In ''[[Call of Duty]] 2'', during the Battle of Stalingrad campaign, you get a bunch of Germans barricade themselves in a building. Instead of trying to talk them into surrendering or trying to beat down the door, the commander simply orders you to place charges on the building supports. As the building collapses, he screams: "This is how you negotiate with fascists!"
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[8-Bit
▲* In ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|8-bit Theater]]'', in a mystic castle, Fighter is subjected to the trial of sloth, wherein the trial monster attempts to get Fighter to overcome his reliance on stagnant sword skills, and instead use his brain in combat for once. Fighter promptly slaughters the monster, stating that his brain told him that it was faster that way.
** [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2003/12/04/episode-359-flawless-victories/ Obstacle course? Mo' like ka-boom course.]
** Black Mage makes a reference to the [[Trope Namer]] when confronted with a sealed, metal door with a confusing riddle on it.
{{quote|'''Black Mage:''' Okay. I seem to remember some dead old king guy who, when presented with a problem of unsolvable perplexity, would blaze a path to victory via stabbity means. Therefore!
''* TINKTINKTINKTINKTINKTINK* '' }}
* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', when
** S13 took a page from her book. When robots ran a rescue mission into an area screened with ether syphon buoys (with [[Reality Warper|Zimmy's power]] running unchecked inside), they put a ''torpedo'' into one buoy and entered through that place once fireworks stopped. A few pages later, Renard in [[Big Badass Wolf]] form crushed with teeth the talisman blocking Antimony's abilities - though he noted that this ''was'' a contest of raw power (and Renard apparently counts as a major mythological entities one tier below gods).
* [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0327.html This] ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' comic, providing a method around the [[Knights and Knaves]] problem by having Haley shoot one of them in the foot. They even gave a disgruntled [[The Smart Guy|Smart Guy]], who had been about to work the thing out logically, a nice [[Lampshade Hanging]]:
{{quote|'''Vaarsuvius:''' Gordium called. They have a knot that you may want to take a look at.}}
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** Vaarsuvius's solution to preventing [[Smug Snake|Daimyo Kubota]] from weaseling out of his trial is to [[Murder Is the Best Solution|Disintegrate him and scatter the ashes.]]
*** It's more like a solution to the problem that Kubota was distracting from V, Elan, and Dukon's attempts to reunite with the rest of the group. V had no clue who the heck Kubota was, so preventing him from escaping justice was just a happy side-effect.
* ''[[Adventurers!]]!'' uses this a few times in order to subvert the usual RPG Puzzle.
* In ''[[No Rest for The Wicked (webcomic)|No Rest for The Wicked]]'', Perrault propounds a scheme to get the owner of a castle with locked gates to let them through them. Red uses her ax on the gate.
* ''[[Girl Genius]]'': Violence is a workable way to [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20050725 stop Lars from panicking]. "I'm fine! Perfectly calm!" Of course, Jaegers (and DuPree, oh god, ''[[Psycho for Hire|DuPree]]'') tend to take this approach to ''everything''.
* In [http://lfgcomic.com/page/207 this] ''[[Looking for Group]]'', Richard, while possessing a golem, is asked to undertake a perilous and tedious quest to free the mages caged in crystal by eventually getting three fangs from the "open mouth" of a twenty-headed dragon to smash a glowing crystal. Richard of course decides to take the easy way out and try to smash the crystal himself. And though it's not explicitly shown, he succeeded.
* ''[[Supermegatopia]]'': When Crushed and company are faced with navigating an evil-infested mansion (and risking a horrible death at the hands of the undead nasties sure to be lurking within) in order to destroy an ancient artifact, the intrepid heroine elects to simply <s>[
* ''[[Goblins]]'' plays this one brilliantly. When Dies Horribly's party is forced to solve the riddle of the temple guardian, [[Speak of the Devil|Noe]], who will kill them horribly if they summon him more than three times (and homonyms such as "know" and "no", which are used frequently, will also summon him), [[Big Guy]] K'seliss solves the problem in a beautifully direct fashion: {{spoiler|intentionally summoning him,
** Tempts Fate is challenged with a devilishly complicated riddle by a talking door, and the wrong answer will unleash horrible death. Tempts Fate elects not to answer at all, and just opens the door, which wasn't locked. After all, it never said he had to give a ''right'' answer either.
** At one point, tempts is confronted with a series of armor piercing arrow launchers that will kill anything attempting to cross the room. He jumps into the air, activating his magic belt, and his metal skin deflects them. The Rant Golem picks up a bit of sand, which is the solution, and passes by completely unharmed. Oddly, he knew the solution ahead of time, and but was bored.
* Faevv in [[Juathuur]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20190814164920/http://oneway.juathuur.com/1/?strip_id=111 thinks like a shadow-user.]
* In ''[[Bob and George]]'', a handful of Dr. Cossack's Robot Masters, lead by [[Death Is a Slap on The Wrist|Ran]], have to figure out how break into Dr. Wily's fortress. He discusses the various traps and hazards they'll have to navigate; Dive Man blows up the front door and walks in.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428205504/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20090416 Hyraxx opens] [https://web.archive.org/web/20150428205501/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20090418 a door.]
* [[Captain SNES|A Superscope]] [http://www.captainsnes.com/2004/01/29/416-it-counts-as-a-set-of-masterwork-lockpicks-ya-know/ used to pick a tough lock]. [[How We Got Here|Alex's captor suggests that a]] [[MacGuffin]] [[We Have the Keys|Alex possessed at the time would've been the logical solution.]] [[It Got Worse|Alex agrees (with hindsight) that he should've considered it.]]
* ''[[Xkcd]]'' strip [http://xkcd.com/538/ 538]
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'''Schlock:''' And that's why they call it a blast door. }}
* ''[[Keychain of Creation]]'' had a [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0145.html fiendishly complicated lock].
* ''[[Hero in Training]]'': [http://www.herointrainingcomic.com/?date=2007-12-22 these]{{Dead link}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20130527000230/http://www.herointrainingcomic.com/?date=2007-12-27 strips].
* ''[[Rusty and Co.]]'' had [[The Ditz|Madeline]] after [http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-6-35/ a brief struggle] with the classic (pre-school) puzzle solving it her own way (on the next page, and then two pages later).
== Web Original ==
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* [[Whateley Universe]] example: in "Boston Brawl 2", the Necromancer creates a horrific rip in time-space that the mages try to magically repair. Instead, Bladedancer just slices through it with Destiny's Wave.
* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] shows how he deals with [[Soup Cans]] in his ''[[Silent Hill]]'' reviews:
** ''Silent Hill: Dying Inside'' alternate ending: His door is covered with unbreakable chains (as per ''[[Silent Hill 4]]'')? Yeah, well, the ''[[Myopic Architecture|wall]]'' [[Myopic Architecture|they're attached to is plasterboard]]
** ''Silent Hill: Dead/Alive'': There's a paper bag in front of his door that can't be moved without "something needlessly complex and crafted from several parts"? Screw that, he's just going to shoot it.
** By the point of ''Silent Hill: The Grinning Man'', the soup cans have gotten wise. Linkara finds boxes blocking his door and threatens to turn them to ashes if they don't
== Western Animation ==
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* Nearly every time a locked door and keypad appears in ''[[The Secret Show]]'', there is a request to enter a complicated and time consuming code or input, to which the heroes usually respond by blowing up the keypad, [[Destruction Equals Off Switch|which always inexplicably opens the door]].
* In one Ludwig Von Drake cartoon, Drake explains his method of getting rid of an annoying but probably fixable experiment; he teleports it to who-knows-where with another annoying but probably fixable experiment.
* In one episode of ''[[DuckTales (1987)]]'', McDuck is thrown in prison with Iron Mask, and tells him "you have to [[Use Your Head]] to get out". The Mask then destroys one wall with his helmet.
* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Homer uses an ancient map to escape the plant so he can sneak away to a tour of the Duff brewery. He encounters a giant spider and consults the map, which says, "To escape the spider's curse, simply quote a Bible verse." When Homer can't think of any Bible verses, he throws a rock at it and knocks it out.
** One Treehouse of Horror special puts Bart and Lisa are in Fairy Tale Land. When Bart comes across the Three Bears' porridge, he (of course) discovers that one is too hot and the other is too cold. He remarks "It doesn't take a genius to figure this out." and proceeds to ''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|pour the contents of one bowl into the other]]''.
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* ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'' used this once. When Him gives the girls a [[Train Problem|"Train A is travelling..."]] problem with real trains that'll collide if they don't stop them, Blossom first tries to solve it with an abacus, then realizes, "We're superheroes! Let's just find the trains and stop them!"
** Movie example: The girls play an [[Does Not Know His Own Strength|unintentionally]] destructive game of tag. Blossom and Bubbles hide on the top of a building dozens of blocks away from Buttercup. Buttercup snaps and '''tears''' through all those buildings to get to them.
* This is featured in ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]] 2'' when Buzz and his friends are trying to rescue Woody. When asked how they're going to get past a grate to attack who they think are evil toys torturing Woody, Buzz says, "[[Use Your Head]]!" [[Gilligan Cut|Cut to Rex being used as a battering ram]], screaming, "But I don't want to use my head!" before crashing through. In a fake outtake scene, the grate was still screwed on by accident, which had predictable results.
* Optimus Prime, ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'', in the episode "Day of the Machines":
{{quote|'''Human scientist''': It's a safe bet ''those'' doors are locked.
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* ''[[Iron Man: Armored Adventures]]'': Tony's classmate Happy winds up in the armor and has to deal with a bomb about to go off. Tony doesn't know how to defuse the bomb...so Happy just snaps it in half.
* During Gaston's [[Villain Song]] in Disney's ''[[Beauty and the Beast]]'', the line "No one matches wits like Gaston!" is sung while Gaston is shown playing chess with someone... and throws the board and pieces into the air.
* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'': This is often how Riddler's complex puzzles and deathtraps are solved.
** His debut episode involves a re-creation of a video game maze, which Batman [[Dungeon Bypass|bypasses]] by hacking the controls of the flying guardian; later, when faced with a robot minotaur, Bats orders the same guardian to ram it.
** In "What is Reality?", he lures the heroes into a virtual reality simulation by trapping Commissioner Gordon's consciousness inside it. When they get to the center, they discover that their goal is inside a [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo|Baxter's box]]. Batman's solution? Turn his hands into hammers and break the damn thing, [[Brick Joke|referencing an earlier comment by Robin:]]
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* Xanatos of ''[[Gargoyles]]'' attempts to do this towards the end of the ''City of Stone'' arc. In order to save the city, Xanatos and Goliath need to get a password for Demona. Demona is locked in combat with her [[Arch Enemy]], the [[Anti-Villain]] MacBeth. Goliath attempts to talk the two into stopping, and only succeeds in getting both of them to attack him. Out of patience, Xanatos tells Goliath "If they won't listen to reason, take them both both down. We'll sort it out after", and shoots at both with a laser. It doesn't work because Xanatos [[Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy|somehow manages to miss them from about three feet away]].
* In ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', one of the puzzles in "We Call it Maze" is to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar. While the duo and Baljeet attempt to solve the problem mathematically, Buford's solution was to eat all the jellybeans, then type the number zero. And it ''worked'', too.
{{quote|'''[[Bollywood Nerd|Baljeet:]]''' Okay, technically that was correct, but you did not show your work!
'''Buford:''' [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|I will in about twenty minutes.]] }}
* In the beginning of one episode of ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', the four monks-in-training are tasked to get a stuffed toy dog at the end of an obstical course. Clay, closer to Earth cowboy, upon noting that the course is shaped like a circle, with the start and finish right next to each other, simply turns around snatches the dog off its pedestal. This comes up several more times in the episode, where the moral is, "Simple solutions to complicated problems"
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* A [[Monster of the Week|Supervillain of the Week]] on one episode of ''[[The Batman]]'' had Bats and four scientists tied up in a sort of game show, whose object was to stump the supervillain or get dumped into acid. The scientists ask difficult science and math questions; the supervillain answered them all easily. When it was Batman's turn, he simply asked the supervillain "What is the true identity of the Batman?" Apparently the supervillain never thought to take Batman's costume off.
** That part would require him to actually grab Batman, and we all know how hard [[Badass Normal|that would be]].
== Real Life ==
* One of the best ways to disarm a nuclear bomb is ''to shoot it''. While this is incredibly counter-intuitive, most modern nuclear weapons operate in such a way that the desired nuclear yield will only occur if the high-explosive plates around it all fire at the exact same instant with an acceptable error in the fractions of seconds. So if one plate goes off too early, the bomb won't go critical, and the explosion will be...smaller. And still radioactive, but considerably less destructive.
** Also works for conventional explosives as well. Skilled bombmakers will include all sorts of intricate anti-tampering mechanisms to prevent the warhead being disarmed, but firing a .50-calibre bullet through the timer almost never fails; at worst you'll set the thing off prematurely, but if you know the bomb's there then you can clear the blast radius before the EOD team arrive.
* In the military, when opening a door in or around a combat zone that has not been previously entered one must first check for booby-traps, then carefully open the door, checking it for traps along the way, unless there is any chance whatsoever of a hostile inside the room, in which case you blow the hinges to hell with 12 gauge slugs or C4 then kick the door the rest of the way down.
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[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:Plots]]
▲[[Category:Cutting the Knot]]
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