Going to See the Elephant: Difference between revisions

Somewhere, not too far from the hero's hometown, there is something new and exotic to go see or do. The hero is fascinated with the idea of checking out this new thing, and he and his friends set out on a journey to do just that. Their journey drives the rest of the plot. This differs from characters on a quest, because there's no overarching need for them to take the trip, other than "let's go take the trip". They're tourists, not heroes out to destroy [[The Lord of the Rings|The One Ring]]. In addition, the actual object at the end of the journey is utterly unimportant, other than as a prod for the character to take the journey in the first place.

{{examples|Examples: }}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In ''[[Tangled (Disney)|Tangled]]'', the entire reason Rapunzel leaves her tower is to go see the lights that appear on her birthday every year. They're more important than most examples though, as they are sent by {{spoiler|her parents, the King and Queen of Corona, who want her to return more than anything}}.

* [[Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle]]. [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin]].

* In the [[Stephen King]] novella ''The Body'' (and its film adaptation, ''[[Stand Byby Me]]''), the kids travel cross-country to see a dead body.

* Barnaby Tucker, in Thornton Wilder's ''The Matchmaker'' (and its derivative, ''[[Hello, Dolly!]]!'') has the fixed desire of seeing the stuffed whale in Barnum's museum when he goes to New York.

** Mentioned by name in [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'' novel ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Witches Abroad|Witches Abroad]]''. It's even the last line, as the witches talk about how they're eager to get back home to Lancre: "But they took the long way round, and saw the elephant."

* ''[[Forgotten Realms|Starlight and Shadows]]'' [[Forgotten Realms]] trilogy. A young, talented and [[Chaotic Neutral|fun-loving]] drow wizard chanced upon a book about some forgotten surface people that mentioned an obscure tradition -- runetradition—rune magic. She thought it may be interesting to investigate the matter. Not that she expected to find a great power in it, just because it's unusual enough. The rest of three books cover ''some'' consequences of her curiosity.

* ''[[The Epic of Gilgamesh]]'': One of the literally oldest quests in the book is this trope -- Gilgameshtrope—Gilgamesh decides to celebrate his new [[Ho Yay|friendship]] with Enkidu by going to the Forest of Cedars and killing the guardian Humbaba ''for absolutely no logical reason'', even in context. <ref>Gilgamesh later goes on a more goal-oriented heroic quest to find the secret of eternal life.</ref>

* There is a short story in the ''[[Honorverse]]'' called "let's go to Prague" that starts out as being about a vacation. Of course it gets complicated from there.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s "'The Man Who Traveled in Elephants"'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]] is a literal inversion of sorts. A traveling salesman and his wife don't want to settle down in retirement. They need some nominal reason to justify roaming around the country, so imagine themselves to be selling elephants. (They figure they don't need to take an actual sample elephant to show, because, heck, everyone knows what an elephant looks like.)

* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" is a parody of similar [[Going to See Thethe Elephant]] songs.

* From ''Roomies!'', [https://web.archive.org/web/20120705004431/http://www.itswalky.com/d/19990714.html Danny and Billie see Mount Rushmore.] Because.

== [[TruthReal in TelevisionLife]] ==