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Going to See the Elephant: Difference between revisions

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Going to See the Elephant (view source)

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* In [[Tamora Pierce]]'s ''[[Tortall Universe|Protector of the Small]]'' series, "going to see the kraken" is used as a [[Hold Your Hippogriffs|substitute idiom]] ... sort of—in this case, "kraken" stands for the how overwhelming one's first experience with open battle is.
* Another one that mentions the concept by name, "The Man Who Saw the Elephant" by [[Avram Davidson]] is about a farmer who goes in search of a rumoured travelling show featuring an elephant, because he's spent his entire life within a few miles of his farm and wants just once to go somewhere and do something out of the ordinary.
* ''[[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—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—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>
* From ''Space Viking'' by [[H. Beam Piper]], regarding Lucas Trask's first experience of being part of a Viking raid on a more-or-less helpless planet: "Well, you saw the elephant, Lucas. You don't seem to have liked it." Spoken by veteran Viking Captain Otto Harkaman.
* 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.)
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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* [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]'s "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" is a parody of similar Going to See the Elephant songs.
* The old kids' song "Miss Mary Mack" mentions this trope as written.
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' has two peoples who turned it into a tradition. Rashemi got Darjemma — wandering as a [[Rite of Passage]] (mostly for men, but lasses often opt in), though it's waived in the time of war. The Nimbrese youths, especially fledgling Knights, often "[http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rl/20040908a take the Tour]" on the mainland.
 
== [[Theater]] ==
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