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Inspector Lestrade: Difference between revisions
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A character who is long on observational acuity and a bit short on connecting the dots. Named after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character '''Inspector Lestrade''', who would always attempt to solve the case before [[Sherlock Holmes]] could, and always failed miserably. Where an [[Amateur Sleuth]] is involved, this character is nearly always a police officer, because the [[Police Are Useless]].
[[Tropes Are Not Bad|A good Lestrade]], especially a self-aware one, can still be a valuable resource to their great detective, doing much of the legwork and research, as well as being [[Friend on the Force|a companion who has the legal authority to make arrests]]. [[Trope Namer|Lestrade]] himself often acted like this in the later Holmes stories. A Lestrade might also be capable of dealing with most standard crimes, and only calls in the protagonist when he's confronted with something especially unusual that would be a better use of the protagonist's talents. An unhelpful one may become an [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]], and one with a chip on his shoulder about the Sleuth being better able to do his job than he is. Particularly in earlier Holmes stories, Lestrade himself also had a bit of this in his character, though he got better with time: compare his portrayals in ''A Study in Scarlet'' and ''Hound Of The Baskervilles''.
A common act of [[Genre Blindness]] faced by the Lestrade is for them to over-confidently and prematurely declare that the case is open-and-shut; obviously [[Always Murder|the dead person]] [[Never Suicide|committed suicide]], or the [[The Corpse Stops Here|obvious culprit]] [[Wrongly Accused|was the one who did it]]. Of course, whilst they're busy putting their feet up or [[Miscarriage of Justice|throwing the book at an innocent person]], the Sleuth is almost instantly discovering the clues that prove that the Lestrade is way, ''way'' off base.
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* Mikio Jinno in ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]''.
* Detective Bum Woo in the [[Korean Series]] ''[[Bad Boy]]''.
* In ''[[Sherlock]]'', Inspector Lestrade is both a helpful, self-aware version of this trope, as well as being a [[Friend on the Force]].
** The DVD commentary reveals that an important part of casting Lestrade was finding someone who the audience could believe would, if Sherlock Holmes did not exist, eventually solve the crimes on his own.
* Various characters of this type show up throughout the entire run of ''[[Doctor Who]]''.
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* Detective Gumshoe from ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]]''. Also Ema Skye in ''Apollo Justice''. Shi-Long Lang fills a similar role in ''Investigations'', though he switches between this trope and [[Inspector Javert]].
* Dojima of ''[[Persona 4]]''. He figures out a great deal about the murders, and that his [[Heroic Mime]] nephew is involved in the case. Unfortunately, he [[Wrong Genre Savvy|doesn't realize]] that he's living in an [[Urban Fantasy]] setting so he really can't do much. And then he's handed the [[Idiot Ball]].
** Dojima is more [[Locked Out of the Loop]] than this trope. He manages to stay relatively close with the Investigation team on solving the murders with only about half (or less) of the clues {{spoiler|and later on, he's the only cop still working on the case despite the fact that the rest of the department believes that it has been closed}}. A better example would be his partner, Adachi, from whom the main characters learn much about the police investigation (Dojima himself remains tight lipped about the subject) {{spoiler|though it turns out that Adachi is the real killer and has spent the entire game misleading you}}.
* Inspector Chelmey of the ''[[Professor Layton]]'' games fits this trope to a T. He jumps to conclusions regarding the second game's murder case, and Layton must set him straight. Chelmey apparently has a reputation for being a detective who gets solid results...[[Informed Ability|Something the game notes as being a tad presumptuous about his abilities.]]
** In fact, his treating the matter as a murder at all casts doubts on his competence. You can't have a murder investigation without proof that somebody died, and non-medical personnel cannot legally declare someone to be dead unless the body is in pieces. So he was investigating a murder - and actually tried to arrest a man for that murder - without any evidence that a murder took place at all. {{spoiler|This becomes especially clear at the end, where it is revealed that not only was there no foul play involved in what happened to the doctor, he hadn't actually died.}}
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== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Sherlock Holmes in
* Chief Grizzly ([[Hey, It's That Voice!|Voiced by Xzibit, incidentally.]]) in ''[[Hoodwinked]]''.
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[[Category:Characters As Device]]
[[Category:Cops and Detectives]]
[[Category:
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