Dungeon Bypass: Difference between revisions

[[File:beat maze the easy way 3020.jpg|frame| Screw it. I want that cheese NOW.]]

 

 

So the villain is feeling quite secure in their dungeon/castle/tower/fun house/generic headquarters. The path to their location is filled with [[The Maze|a maze of twisty little passages, all alike]], each filled with [[Death Trap|death traps]] and [[Elite Mooks]] that would quickly kill the protagonists, or at least inconvenience them by a lot and let the villain escape if they need to.

... but the heroes just fly up to the top of the tower where they are. Or [[Bullethole Door|blast a shortcut]] to their place (not coincidentally, blasting the villain in the process as well). Or enter an overlooked route. All that dungeon preparation? Wasted. If the villain hasn't been taken out yet, they might complain about how these things were supposed to go.

 

 

Heroes that find another way to get past a maze may also count. Basically, the Dungeon Bypass is where the hero takes a shortcut instead of whatever the intended path was (possibly exploiting [[Myopic Architecture]] in the process). If used in combat, this can be in some contexts a case of [[Fighting Dirty]]. This is a [[Sub-Trope]] of [[Fake Skill]].

 

Compare [[Take a Third Option]] (any generic option of going along an unintended route), [[Cutting the Knot]] (for ''making'' the shortcut), and [[Easy Level Trick]] (pulling this stunt on any sort of level in a video game).

 

== Advertising ==

* An advert for jeans saw a man and a woman running through a series of walls, and by extension, rooms. Parodied in the title sequence of early series of ''Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway''.

 

* In ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS]]'', when Quattro learns that the heroine has found out where she is, she tries to console herself on the fact she's in the core of the ship while Nanoha's in the Throne Room, two places separated by many doors, swarms of drones, and a huge maze of corridors. She then notices Nanoha pointing [[BFG|her staff]] at the floor and powering up for a ''Blaster 3'' [[Wave Motion Gun|Divine Buster]], and promptly realizes that she is ''screwed''. Made even more impressive by the fact the ENTIRE ship is covered by an anti-magic field... So the beam had to be also powerful enough to resist the anti-magic effect.

{{quote|'''Quattro:''' She's going to just blast through the walls? [[Oh Crap|Oh dear mother of God...!]]}}

*** Teana repeats the feat in ''[[Sound Stage X]]'', {{spoiler|having learned Starlight Breaker from Nanoha}}.

* In the [[Manga]] version of ''[[The Slayers]]'', the villainess had filled a five-story building with mages and warriors capable of matching Lina. Instead of going through them, Lina just flies straight to the top of the tower where the villainess was.

* ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'' did this at one point during the Hunter Exam arc. Gon and his companions (plus Tonpa "The Rookie Killer", a [[Smug Snake]] who was acting like [[The Load]] on purpose) are near the exit of a tower full of traps when they come across a branch. The "easy path" goes straight to the exit, but the door to the easy path will only open if they leave two members of their group behind and chained to the wall. The "hard path" will allow all of them to exit, but will take too long for them to make the deadline for escaping the tower. However, the two exits are next to each other, so after some thought and a lot of effort, they manage to break through the wall separating the easy path and the hard path.

** Gon also did this in a later story arc. He and his friend had been manipulated into a mansion by a tough enemy talented in anticipating their movements (and who knew where the doors were). The heroic duo started kicking through the walls...

* Both subverted and played straight with the Maze Card in ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]''; trying to fly over the walls causes them to grow (or turns the maze into an Escher masterpiece), but the Moon Bell knocks down the walls in a straight line.

* Occurs in ''[[One Piece]]'', during the Enies Lobby arc. The crew has to reach the top of a courthouse tower and Zoro, whose sense of direction [[No Sense of Direction|rivals Ryoga Hibiki]], is having a tough time finding his way. Eventually he realizes he merely needs to go up, and launches his ''Tatsumaki'' attack (straight upwards windcutting tornado) and clears a path upwards for himself, inadvertently sending Chopper and Nami up as well. Afterwards, Sanji presumably has the same idea and crashes through the room just after Zoro climbs out.

* In a short story of ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'', the SOS Brigade are stuck acting out a typical Medieval RPG in simulated space. Not only do they bypass a lot of dungeons and battles (by threatening an NPC, no less), but the biggest use of this trope is found when they reach the final dungeon, still at level one and probably lacking all the key items and skills they need to beat the last boss. The solution? Mikuru accidentally casts two doomsday level spells at once, completely demolishing the entire castle and the [[Big Bad]] with it. [[Fission Mailed|And the hostages they were supposed to rescue.]]

* In ''[[The Cat Returns]]'', the King's henchmen put up fake walls in a maze to make sure the heroes can't find their way to the end. However, the Baron realizes a wall is fake, and the kicks it down—which, since the henchmen had unknowingly set themselves up like dominoes, causes a chain reaction of falling walls until they form a pathway straight to the exit.

* In ''[[Yu Yu Hakusho]]'', Hiei, Kurama and Kuwabara give Yusuke a boost to help him reach a window in Suzaku's tower on top of Maze Castle, enabling him to fight Suzaku while they work their way up to him.

* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! R]]'', Seto Kaiba does this twice. First, he lands on the roof of the building in his Blue-Eyes Jet rather than Duel his way through the lower floors. As he Duels the first card professor, Mokuba hacks into the security system as unlocks the door, making the Duel for the keycard superfluous. Kaiba announces he simply needed a warm-up before Dueling Yako.

* The only way anyone gets around in ''[[Bleach]]''.

 

* In ''[[Superman|Superman: Ending Battle]]'', Superman gets trapped inside ''[[Living Ship|Bunny: The Living Ship]]'' by Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman. Trying to bust out is nearly impossible, because the inside is an ever-shifting dimension. Supes fires his heat vision at the wall and keeps pouring it on. Since metal conducts heat, the heat travels everywhere and the ship overheats and shuts down.

{{quote|'''Cyborg:''' You're already twenty miles deeper into the ship than when you started... Make that forty. I can fold ''Bunny'' back in on herself indefinitely, a technorganic Moebius Strip. We're going to be at this for a very, very long time.}}

 

== Fan Works ==

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', Jeft pits the four and the Hunter against the essentially impregnable Twisted Temple and the [[Touch of Death|death-touch-wielding]] [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|Brothers of Doom]]. The Brothers have left two small windows open to lure stupid invaders into the temple. Unfortunately for them (and Jeft), this is a golden opportunity for Ringo to prove once and for all that no, he is not useless. He [[Mind Over Matter|telekinetically]] removes each Brother one by one and drops them in a large box that John made out of ice.

 

* When [[WALL-E]] wants to power up, he rolls outside and opens his solar panels. When EVE is in a hurry and wants to power WALL-E up, she blows a hole in the ceiling with her plasma cannon. Note that the door was open and not five feet away.

** It's also worth noting that "blow something up with my plasma cannon" is EVE's [[When All You Have Is a Hammer|default problem-solving technique]].

{{quote|'''Kuzco''': No! It can't be! How did you get back here before us?

'''Yzma''': Ah...uh... how did we, Kronk?

'''Kronk''': ''(pulls down a map of the dotted lines)'' Well ya got me. By all accounts it doesn't make sense. }}

* The Xenomorphs pull this one on the heroes in ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]''. After the humans supposedly barricade all the doors and air ducts, the Aliens just climb above the dropped ceiling.

* Subverted in ''[[Labyrinth]]''. Shortly after Sarah enters the labyrinth, she asks directions from a small sentient caterpillar. "Don't go that way. ''Never'' go that way," he tells her, at which she thanks him and heads off in the opposite direction. When she's gone: "If she'd gone that way, she'd'a gone straight to that castle."

* In ''[[Casino Royale]]'', while the mook is going through a building under construction with [[Le Parkour]], [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] just goes through walls, shoots down an elevated platform for it to fall...

** One of the published books shows what happened during his test. According to it, he reprogrammed the test so it was possible to talk his way out of the fight, so it is a little of both.

** [[Star Trek (film)|The new flick]] shows the events of the test (in the altered timeline): Kirk reprograms the simulator to "delete" the enemy defences and make them easy as pie to kill. Much more of a Dungeon Bypass.

* Averted in [[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]. The Fellowship tries to go around Moria via a mountain pass, but Saruman awakens the mountain of Caradhras, causing an avalanche of rocks and snow that blocks their way, causing our heroes to have to backtrack and go through Moria anyway.

* [[Played for Laughs]] in [[Robin Hood: Men in Tights]]. Little John stands on a bridge and demands Robin fight him to pass. Achoo points out that the river beneath "ain't exactly the Mississippi". Or even a ''river'', for that matter; "stream" would be generous.

 

== Literature ==

** [[Fridge Logic|Why couldn't he just do a repeat of the first task, again?]]

* In ''[[Emberverse|Dies the Fire]]'' by [[S.M. Stirling]], some outside force suddenly causes electricity to stop working all over the Earth. In Oregon, the main (human) villain begins establishing a brutal fiefdom, and orders the construction of a well-defended fort blocking an important pass. Fortunately for the heroes, ''hang-gliders'' still work just fine, and they land a strike-force on the fort's roof and breach the defenses from the rear.

* From [[Loophole Abuse]]: In one of the ''[[Dinotopia]]'' spin-off novels, the protagonists find themselves in a Lost City inhabited by Troodon samurai ([[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|just go with it]]). The Troodon challenge the humans to different contests to win citizenship, one of which is a race through an obstacle course. The [[Most Writers Are Human|human]], Andrew, wins by bypassing the course and just running down the strip of land between his course and his opponent's, because there [[Loophole Abuse|isn't a rule]] against it. This becomes very popular, and although the rules are immediately changed, "Pulling an Andrew" begins to occur in other activities around the city as well.

* In one of the ''[[Star Wars]]'' [[Expanded Universe]] novels, Han Solo remarks that he "never saw a maze that couldn't be greatly simplified with a good blaster".

** This was probably inspired by Leia's way of getting herself and her rescuers out of a very tight situation in ''A New Hope''. Granted, it landed them in a garbage masher, but it still counts for something.

* In ''[[Posleen War Series|When The Devil Dances]]'' and ''Hell's Faire'', the "Screaming Meemie" units accompanying the 7000 ton "Bun Bun", tend to take full advantage of the passage of the SheVa smashing everything in its path flat. The resultant path is still impassable for wheeled vehicles, but for the tanks<ref>* the MetalStorm turrets replace the regular turrets on [[Yanks With Tanks|M-1 Abrams tanks]], whose hulls are left unchanged save for the turret interface</ref> traveling through the impressions that each section of SheVa tread leaves isn't a problem.

* In [[Codex Alera]] the Vord bypass an impenetrable Canim fortification by tunneling underneath it to attack them from behind. It took the Canim completely off guard because the Vord had enough [[We Have Reserves|reserves]] to continuously attack the front while tunneling behind.

* Brandon Sanderson's ''[[Warbreaker]]'' Vasher uses Nightblood to demolish walls in the royal palace in order to reach his target Denth. It's not a straight example because it's not a dungeon but the effect is the same.

* In ''[[Who Moved My Cheese?]]'', Hem and Haw chisel holes in the wall of Cheese Station C to see if more cheese is behind the wall.

 

* Happens in the ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "The Serpent's Lair":

{{quote|'''Bra'tac:''' The shield generators are far below, there -- in the very bowels of the ship. We must climb down several decks, through the length of the ship. Then, taking our weapons, we must--

'''Kryten:''' Or we could use the teleporter. }}

** Again from ''Duct Soup''. The crew crawl through the ventilation shafts of ''Starbug'' after the ship apparently goes offline. {{spoiler|Kryten made sure the doors were functional but didn't explain this until they got back}}.

* In ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Space Sheriff Gavan: The Movie|Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger vs. Space Sheriff Gavan the Movie]]'', the Gokaiger have to climb all the way to the top of the [[Big Bad]]'s tower to rescue Gavan, but once he's free they simply blow a hole in each of the successive floors to get them back to the ground level. Then, adding injury to insult, they pull out their [[BFG]] and fire it upwards, taking out a large section of the castle and killing all the bad guys they bypassed.

 

== Music ==

No passage below the dungeon }}

 

* In [[Greek Mythology]], Theseus tied his string to the end of the maze, dropped it, and it rolled down, where he just followed it until it eventually led to the minotaur. While not technically a bypass, he did circumvent the whole dead ends thing that a maze is supposed to have.

** Except the Labyrinth is not a maze. It's a pair of interwoven paths, with one junction, so that one has no choice but to go toward the center, where the minotaur would presumably be. The idea of Theseus using string to find the way is probably apocryphal.

* In some parts of Sweden, fishermen used to believe that every village was infested with little invisible gnomes, whose main desire was to get out on the sea. To do this, the gnomes would follow the villagers around. If a fisherman didn't get rid of the gnomes before going out in his boat, it would mean terrible bad luck. So how did they get rid of the gnomes? Easy: Dungeon Bypass! Every fishing village would have a labyrinth (mostly a simple spiral) built from rocks as big as a head or so. Before going out, the fisherman would walk all the way to the middle of the spiral, the gnomes presumably trailing him. When he reached the middle, he would simply run across the stones, down to his boat, and cast off. The gnomes, too small to jump over the stones, would have to take the long way out of the spiral, and would be too late to sneak on the boat. Though one wonders why no gnome ever got the idea of waiting by the boats...

* [[Older Than Feudalism]]: In ''[[The Bible]]'', rather than attempt to get through the heavily defended and fortified walls of the city of Jericho, Joshua and the Israelites paraded around the city for days before blowing their trumpets. This caused the walls to crumble completely.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** The spell Passwall creates a temporary hole in a wall of your choice. A portable hole does much the same and a few other tricks. Another all-time utility spell is Dig. And wizards learn Disintegrate not only because it's save-or-die.

** A feared (by DMs) tactic is the "scry and die", in which the player characters use divination spells to locate the [[Big Bad]], then cast a teleport spell to ambush him wherever he happens to be, bypassing any and all elaborately prepared defenses he has set up. Such is the fate of those who don't use counter-measures adequate of the level of troubles they ask for, but it's a game balance problem - if defenses against magical ambushes are too easy to implement, you eventually lose the ability to spring those plot-convenient ambushes on your ''players''... Still, most countermeasures cover only specific effects and aren't convenient enough to be foolproof: for long-range divinations there are Non-detection and Mislead, items with nondetection effect and mundane means like lead sheets (for scrying) or running water (for Locate Creature), and Detect Scrying as early warning. There are a few protections against mind reading, too, though not in core rules.

** In [[Tomb of Horrors]] At least one group of adventurers has made it through without a single casualty by having a team of dwarves dig around the traps and obstacles with non-magical mining equipment over the course of several weeks. The writers planned for ethereal travel, melding into stone, magical defenses, teleportation, etc. but never expected an ordinary pickaxe and a group of patient, careful adventurers.

* Many RPGs have so many ways of doing this that it may be futile to try to list them all. There appear to be two main reasons for this: first, many games include countless different spells whose implications are often poorly thought out (though some of this is intentional). The second reason is many games try to write rules for every conceivable situation, including tunneling through a wall with a battle axe.

* ''[[Exalted]]'': Solars with the correct Charm can bypass locked doors by ''walking through them'', and more veteran ones can remove the walls by punching people through them. Meanwhile, those with dematerialization effects can just stroll through walls, and experienced Infernals can just load up Pellegrina's Fury and ''erode away everything in their path''. Of course, the point of ''Exalted'' isn't about whether the heroes ''can'' make it through the dungeon, it's about whether they ''should'', and how they intend to solve the long-term problems that led to the dungeon attack in the first place.

 

** It is also possible to go past most of the Undercity plot by simply bribing the guards at the entrance (exit) and most other dungeons can be severely shortened through use of the transformation-teleport bug.

** And unofficially, one of the most popular [[Game Mod|mods]] for ''Shadows of Amn'' is an NPC that justs teleports you and your party to the end of the opening dungeon with any worthwhile items, quest hooks, and the equivalent gold roughly equal to the market value of all the [[Vendor Trash|junk that you could have picked off each damned corpse]] as well as a bunch of experience points. Because in a game with very high replay value, after a few times through, [[Scrappy Level|that dungeon really is that boring.]]

* In ''[[Neverwinter Nights 2]]'', the supposed [[Door to Before]] in the Temple of Seasons can be opened from the "wrong" side by any decent rogue, skipping the entire dungeon.

** It is possible to do this in the Golem Dungeon in ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'', as there is a door right at the entrance that leads straight to the final room of the dungeon. It takes a ''lot'' of lockpicking skill to open it, however.

***** "Two-Faced Tanner", from GTA III, involves over-taking and killing an undercover cop. As soon as you attack his car, you get the cops on your case, coming at you with just about everything they have. You can't disable his vehicle beforehand. What you can do is get ahead of him, jump out of your car, and then destroy his car with an M-16. It takes about half a magazine, and when he dies the cops automatically desist.

***** The street races in GTA Vice City can be made much easier by simply killing all of your opponents in the opening seconds with a tank cannon shell.

** ''[[Grand Theft Auto IV]]'' has one in the mission Pest Control, where you have to kill {{spoiler|Ray Boccino}}. Before the mission starts, you can see his car sitting outside the building the mission starts at, so you can simply slap a car bomb on it and set it off when he gets in. You still have to clean up his guards, but you skip the entire pursuit section of the mission.

* In ''[[Pokémon Red and Blue]]'', you can, after acquiring the usage of Surf and Fly, bypass the extremely annoying Seafoam Islands dungeon by surfing south from Pallet Town, landing in Cinnabar Island. It means skipping Articuno, but it's easy to pick it up later.

* The Chronosphere from ''[[Command & Conquer: Red Alert]]'' allows the Allies to teleport their troops all around the battlefield, bypassing the enemy defences. In a commendable aversion of [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]], they use it story-wise as well in the final mission of Red Alert 2, when they teleport their army from Cuba to Moscow to end the war in one decisive strike.

* The [[Jet Pack]] item from ''[[Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg]]'' allows you to float indefinitely, but only at the initial hight you start floating from. Naturally, this means that if you can jump off from a high enough point, you can go over just about anything and go to pretty much anywhere in a level. At least one level in [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Blizzard Castle]] seems to encourage this to get around a particularly vicious slide.

** The 7th mission can be completed in about thirty seconds by simply casting "Defense Matrix" on the SCV with the Psi Emitter and sending him directly to the beacon in the enemy's base. The right route there results in very few defenders in your way, and with the Defense Matrix they can't kill the SCV in time before he gets to the beacon.

** A Protoss mission expects you to wait until another general arrives with enough reinforcements to destroy the heavily guarded enemy base. Though it is very difficult, you can potentially destroy the base on your own without him before he arrives.

* In the PC version of ''[[Far Cry]]'', in the second level, a lifeboat is hanging from the top of a beached carrier. A lucky shot from the lower deck of the carrier can break the chains, dropping the lifeboat into the water and skipping the section on top of the carrier altogether.

* Acknowledged in ''[[Gaia Online|zOMG!]]'', which has guards stationed at the west and north entrances of Barton Town to try and prevent low-level players from leaving town in those directions (into Zen Gardens and Bassken Lake areas respectively). This doesn't work as well as you'd think, because the early-game areas don't have monsters that automatically attack players, so a surprising number of newbs ignore the quest chains, walk through the low-level areas without fighting anything and gaining experience, and [[Too Dumb to Live|then wonder why all the enemies in the higher-level areas suddenly aggro and oneshot them]].

* In the first level of Unit 3 in ''[[Quake II]]'', you can skip the [[Laser Hallway]] jumping puzzle by detouring through the moat and an underground passage that drops you out at the exit. Don't forget the secrets on the main path, though.

* In ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'', if you fight off the ganados in the village before entering the house containing the shotgun, Dr. Salvador won't spawn here. Don't go into the path leading to the next area, since he guards the door there. Also, fighting the second El Gigante is optional.

* [http://www.captainsnes.com/2003/02/07/278-the-easy-way-to-beat-the-castle-level/ This strip] of ''[[Captain SNES]]'' shows what's likely the ultimate example of this trope.

* The titular order in ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' skips two levels of a dungeon by taking the service stairwell.

* Duv in ''[[Goblins]]: Life Through Their Eyes'' attempts this (using slave labour to dig a hole into the [[Dungeon Crawl]]) in order to gain an [[Artifact of Doom]] which will restore her lost power. However, she only manages to bypass the hundred-foot-high gates, rather than the whole dungeon.

** Tempts Fate is fond of this trope. Being [[Tempting Fate|who he is]] Tempts uses it even when the normal route is safer, because he doesn't like it safe.

** [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] [[Averted Trope|unsuccessfully]] much later in the comic. Upon arrival at the [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|Temple of Fiends]], Black Mage suggests that the Light Warriors land their airship at the top of the temple, crushing a few floors in the process and "killing their way" downwards, as he put it. Red Mage disagrees, mainly because the airship's autopilot (designed by omnipotent [[Jerkass]] elder Mage Sarda) had been pre-programmed to land them at the entrance and their previous attempts to manually control the airships given them were [[Hilarity Ensues|uniformly disastrous]].

* ''[[Bob and George]]'' has this happen with the Wily Castle in almost every game retelling. Some of the Robot Master stages, too.

* Right at the beginning of the rpg-story in ''[[Absurd Notions]]''. Starts [http://www.absurdnotions.org/page9.html here], solution [http://www.absurdnotions.org/page11.html here].

* ''[[Homestuck]]'': Why go in a dungeon when you can [http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004628 pull it apart]?

* In ''[[Kevin and Kell]]'', Danielle, a [[Defector From Decadence]] who left Rabbit's Revenge, thinks she's safe in the Dewclaw house basement because Kell, a skilled predator, lives there and Rabbit's Revenge wouldn't risk facing her to reach her. Two members then tunnel into her room.

 

== Web Original ==

* The RinkWorks game Maze Maker generates a random printable maze. The same website allows visitors to submit altered screenshots from the site as "RinkWorks Graffiti" ([http://www.rinkworks.com/graffiti/ see here]). Needless to say, it's quite popular to use this in Maze Maker graffiti.

** More specifically, one of the early "Graffiti" images was a maze with an extra wall drawn in, rendering the maze impossible to complete in the normal sense. A significant number of later Graffiti images are Graffitis of ''the original altered Graffiti maze''.

}}

* In ''[[Journey Quest]]'' Perf and Nara accomplish this {{spoiler|on the Temple of All Dooms, by accident!}}

 

== Western Animation ==

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Popeye]]''; Popeye and Bluto are charting a course. Bluto wants to go around all the perilous obstacles, but Popeye scoffingly draws a straight line through them.

* In the second episode of ''[[Xiaolin Showdown]]'', Omi, the enthusiastic combat monk, sets a record for the obstacle course, leaping through and beating down the obstacles to reach the target. But next to go is Clay, the stalwart [[Dishing Out Dirt|Earth]] monk, who notices that the course is arranged in a circle. When the clock starts, he beats Omi's time by turning and walking all of ten feet from the starting line to the target.

* ''[[Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures|The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest]]'': The title character is stuck in a death maze within Quest-World, his dad's enormous virtual reality. He quickly comes across some snakes who turn things they bite into stone, and wastes little time into goading them to transform one of his hands and one of his feet; he uses these to [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief|tear down the maze's imposing grey walls for an easy exit.]]

 

== Real Life ==

* The Israeli army has developed tactics for urban warfare that probably count as an example of this trope. Instead of going through booby-trapped streets and narrow alleys in which troops may be exposed to sniper fire, Israeli soldiers literally ''walk through walls'', using explosives to create passageways through houses and other buildings.

** This sounds not dissimilar to an event on the Green Line in Nicosia (the divided capital of Cyprus). Reputedly, the local Turkish contingent were suspected of discreetly expanding a blockhouse so it extended into the UN secure zone. The local UN commander responded by going on patrol one morning... driving a bulldozer.

** In actuality that tactic (often called mouse-holing) predates both of the previous examples. According to [[The Other Wiki]] this was used as early as the Battle of Stalingrad. Another related ancient military tactic is undermining, digging a tunnel beneath an enemy stronghold to either knock it down or blow it up.

*** Notably this happened during the Siege of Petersburg during the [[American Civil War]]. Union troops dug a mineshaft underneath the Confederate lines and set off a sizable stash of explosives. Death From Below, pretty much. The resulting fight was dubbed the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Battle of the Crater]].

** Taken to an extreme in the 2009 Israel/Gaza conflict. According to the accounts of some Israeli soldiers, Hamas gunmen and suicide bombers attempted to lure them into houses most likely rigged with booby traps. Instead of taking the bait, Israeli soldiers simply just knocked down the houses with bulldozers.

** Also, American troops in Iraq often face insurgents who, when charged, run and hide inside a building they hope to defend, at which point the Americans promptly call in an airstrike. The situation's so common it's earned its own unofficial acronym. (AWR, for Allah's Waiting Room.)

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Narrative Devices]]

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]