Cutting the Knot: Difference between revisions

** It wasn't Hercules's resourcefulness the princess was [[Distracted by the Sexy|admiring.]]

* In ''[[Justice League]]'', Batman loses in a fight to Prometheus because he downloaded the fighting abilities of several great martial artists. In the rematch, Batman wins because he switched that disc with another, containing the fighting skills of Professor Stephen Hawking.

'''Batman:''' ''Winning.'' }}

* ''[[Nodwick]]'': Yeagar [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2009-10-16 shows how he deals with] [[Only Smart People May Pass]] (and that is hardly the only time he does so).

** Miles Dyson starts to explain how to open the container holding the robot arm, but is interrupted by John breaking it.

** Also, when his keycard isn't working to open a door earlier in the scene, he is interrupted by Arnie blowing it up.

'''Terminator''': *hefts grenade launcher* "Let me try mine." }}

** When John Connor, in a phone box, asks Arnie if he has a quarter for a phone. Arnie smashes open the phone's money box, picks up a quarter, and hands it to John.

* ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' gives us the Corben Dallas method of negotiating a dangerous hostage situation:

'''Corben:''' Anyone else wanna negotiate? }}

** [[Fridge Brilliance|Of course, this only works]] because the Mangalores give up when he shot their commanding officer, and Mangalores are absolutely useless without their leader. Really. They literally won't fight without a senior Mangalore present.

** Because the last leader just got shot in the head.

* ''[[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra]]''

'''Breaker:''' --or you could just stab it. }}

* ''[[MacGruber]]'' ([[The Movie]]) sees the eponymous hero confronted with a nuclear missile that's about to launch. He looks at the complicated wiring, panics, and declares he doesn't know how to defuse it. His allies express their disappointment and the villain basically says "[[I Knew It!]]"...to which Mac replies that he wasn't finished. He ''does'' know how to rip out the guidance computer, the plutonium, and a couple of other critical parts. The missile will still explode, but it won't go anywhere before it does and it won't be nuclear.

* In the movie ''[[Sneakers]]'', [[Robert Redford]]'s character is faced with a locked door and keypad and asks for advice over his earpiece on how to disable it. After several moments of a one sided conversation with Redford saying "mm hmm... uh huh... yeah," he says "Okay, I'll give it a shot," and kicks in the door.

* ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]''. Sky Captain tries to figure out a way to get into Dr. Jennings' lab. Polly smashes the window, reaches in and unlocks the door.

* ''[[Patton]]''. During the invasion of Sicily an entire column of troops is being held up by a couple of stubborn donkeys on a bridge. After his subordinates try to push, pull and cajole them out of the way, Patton steps up, delivers a bullet to each of their brains and has them tossed off the bridge.

** 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 ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger]]'', one drill sergeant tells the recruits that if they can get a flag off the flagpole, they won't need to finish their run and can take a ride back to base. After everyone fails to climb up the flagpole, Steve Rogers takes out the screws at its base, causing it to fall over, removes the flag, and gives it to the sergeant.

* In ''[[Ever After]]'', the servants are trying to get Danielle out of the cabinet her mother locked her up in. Feeling that it is useless to pick the lock, Da Vinci comes over, simply pulls out the hinges to the door and opens it that way. Da Vinci comically lampshades this.

'''Da Vinci''': Yes. I will go down in history as a man who opened a door. }}

* In ''[[The Last Unicorn]]'' Schmendrick tries various spells to free the unicorn. After a few unsuccessful tries he produces a set of keys he has stolen that will open the cage.

** 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.

'''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.

** Penny has to get Sheldon's Flash drive from inside a puzzle box. Before he gives her the instructions on how to open it over the phone, Penny asks if he has any emotional attachment to the box. When Sheldon answers no, she simply smashes it open.

** In another episode, Howard tries using a robot hand to pleasure himself. After Leonard and Rajesh run out of ideas of what to do, they take Howard to the Emergency Room. There, the Nurse suggests simply turning the hand off, and despite Howards pleas not to do so, she turns it off, and the hand lets go.

* 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.

* In ''[[Burn Notice]]'', Michael spends most of an episode trying to gather enough evidence to get a war criminal extradited to his home country. When the plan falls through, he simply kidnaps him and ships him back home in a crate.

* In the ''[[Torchwood]]'' episode "Meat," when the team tries to break into a warehouse, the following dialog ensues:

'''Ianto:''' [[Deadpan Snarker|Well, that's one way of doing it.]] }}

* One episode of ''[[Bones]]'' has an actual corpse inside a Halloween maze made out of hay-bales. After spending some time trying to make their way through the maze normally, Booth gets frustrated, asks the policeman standing next to the corpse to toss his flashlight in the air, and barrels his way through walls until he reaches it.

** He's smart enough to do it ''after'' kissing Beckett.

* In one episode of ''[[Titus]]'', Titus is trying to formally propose to his girlfriend in the emergency room while both their families are there after a Thanksgiving brawl. Unfortunately, her thieving ex-con older brother has stolen it; though tied to a chair by the police officers who dragged him in for treatment, he still refuses to give up the ring. Titus asks his dad for help:

* In an episode of ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'', the only weapon that can kill the monster of the week is a sword trapped Excalibur-style inside a stone. Dean does at first try just pulling it out, confident that he's the brave knight the legend says can free the sword; when that doesn't work he switches to sticking explosives all over the rock. {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Funny|And manages to break the sword]]}}.

* In a dream sequence on ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'', someone tells the Skipper's character "Inspector Whatney", "Use your head, Inspector!" to defeat the vampire. The inspector head butts him. This works.

 

* ''[[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:

'''Church:''' Well... seemed like fun... think I went a little nuts there for a while... }}

** Sarge uses his contingency plan when their attempt to bluff their way past the computer failed. The contingency plan being a shot gun.

* In ''[[Second Sight]]'' at the end of the game, the [[Big Bad]] hides behind bullet/psi-proof glass. {{spoiler|Too bad the frame wasn't psi-proof as well.}}

* The fictional [http://syndicate.lubie.org/swars/html/swars_book_cataclysm.php Book of Cataclysms] from ''[[Syndicate|Syndicate Wars]]'' featured this passage:

* From ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]'', we get this exchange when the duo comes across an upgraded wrench in a glass container:

Ratchet: *Having broken open the case with his own wrench* Solved it.|Victory music plays-}}

** In the same game, while not a real puzzle, Planet Joba contains multiple doors with switches wired to them, but the doors often have enemies behind them, and a smart player will have to prepare themselves with an appropriate weapon so that they can find a switch and react in time in order to defeat the resulting attacking enemies. An even smarter player will just hop on a nearby turret, blast open the door, and then blast the enemies inside.

* See also ''[[Tom Clancy]]'s [[Splinter Cell]]: Chaos Theory.'' Locks can either be slowly but quietly unlocked, or Sam can cut through them with his blade. This makes a lot of noise, and enemies are smart enough to know when doors have been tampered with.

** In the same game, in the "Displace" level, Sam has to get codes from a laptop by accessing it wirelessly. This would require Sam to stalk the men carrying the laptop. Or he could just use his gadgets to take them down by force.

* This is pretty much the defining characteristic of Johnny Gat from ''[[Saints Row]]''. Presented with any intelligent, well-worked-out plan, his own suggestion is invariably to simply kill everyone in the general vicinity until the problem goes away. This isn't for ease or effectiveness; he just loves to kill people.

* ''[[Devil May Cry]]'': Dante, while trying to return to town in his section of the fourth game, comes across a board game/puzzle that Nero had to stay and waste his time with previously in the Cathedral's basement. A statue of Dante and the die appear prompting him to play through with it to leave the room. Deciding not to waste his time while poison gas slips through the room, Dante slices the die in two, ending (and somehow winning) the game prematurely.

** [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.

''* TINKTINKTINKTINKTINKTINK* '' }}

* In ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'', when Renardine is trapped by a complex magitek binding Antimony can't figure out how to free him. Jones smashes the device.

* [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]]:

** Beautifully inverted by the encounter with the hydra, which they defeated by decapitating it until it <s>regenerated so many heads it could no longer hold them all up to fight</s> didn't have enough blood for all the heads it regenerated. The group outwitted the test of brawn and bullied their way through the test of brains, leaving the test of heart... {{spoiler|a medical examination}}

** Xykon may be the patron saint of this trope. "And now I see that planning doesn't matter. Strategy doesn't matter. Only two things matter: Force in as great a concentration as you can muster, and style. And in a pinch, style can slide."

** The [http://xkcd.com/399/ travelling salesman problem].

* ''[[Schlock Mercenary]]''

'''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].

* This is featured in ''[[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":

'''Optimus''': Fortunately, I know a delicate lockpicking technique. [BOOM!] }}

* ''[[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.

** 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:]]

* 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.

'''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"