Eureka Moment: Difference between revisions

* [[Nero Wolfe]] does this quite a bit. He's got all the pieces, but can't make them fit together, Archie (or one of the suspects) says something that causes him to look at one particular thing in a different way, and everything falls into place. He will often admit to Archie when it was something that he said or did; if it was someone else, he saves the information for the [[The Summation|Parlor Scene.]] Both Archie and the reader know one has just occurred when Nero starts doing his "lip exercises".

* Subverted, while lampshading the subversion, in Mil Millington's ''[[Love And Other Near-Death Experiences]]'', in which the central character has a startling realization that he recognizes would qualify as a Eureka Moment - except that nobody did or said anything to trigger it, it just happened without prompting.

* In ''[[Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn]]'', near the climax of the third novel, [[Magical Native American|Binabik the troll]] has a classic Eureka Moment during his party's escape from the [[The Fair Folk|Norns]] beneath Asu'a, as a result of an offhand comment from the dwarrows who are aiding them. Unconventionally, this leads not to the solution to the plot but the [[Oh Crap|horrifying realization]] that the heroes have been doing the [[Big Bad]]'s bidding the entire time.

* In the grand tradition of mystery novels, happens frequently in [[Ngaio Marsh]]'s ''Inspector Alleyn'' series. An interesting departure is that the Eureka moment for Alleyn usually occurs near the middle of the book, with the reader catching up as more evidence is gathered.