Loophole Abuse/Literature: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|''There's going to be trouble over this. ... I'm on the back of a horse a hundred feet up in the air, being taken somewhere mysterious that's a bit like a magic land with goblins and talking animals. There's only so much more trouble I could ''get'' into... Besides, is riding a flying horse against school rules? I bet it's not written down anywhere.''}}

{{quote|{{smallcaps| The Hogfather can. The Hogfather gives presents. There's no better present than a future.}}}}

* In ''The Zucchini Warriors'' by [[Gordon Korman]], Cathy from the girls' boarding school across the street pulls a [[Sweet Polly Oliver]] and serves as quarterback, leading the team to victory. Naturally, once it's found out, the team coach attempts to argue that girls can too play football (despite having said in a prior interview that they can't). The referee shuts this down by pointing out that, as this is the Macdonald Hall football team and Cathy is not a student there, she's not eligible to play.

* In one of the ''[[Dinotopia]]'' books (''Lost City''), the newcomers to the lost Troodon warrior haven of Halcyon are challenged to complete either an underground maze or an obstacle course against one of the residents. The rules of the obstacle course are, simply, to get from one end to the other before the opponent completes his own course... but the honor-bound saurians had never previously considered the strategy of avoiding all of the obstacles and running down the empty ground between the two courses...

** Immediately after this, the Dright asks for one of Christopher's lives in return for Tacroy's soul, but Christopher realizes that this will grant the Dright control over him. Chistopher thus gives the Dright one of his lives and immediately sets it on fire. (Of course, it did hurt a bit.)

* In the children's novel ''Ralph S. Mouse'' by [[Beverly Cleary]], Ralph's human friend, having discovered Ralph and his comparatively impressive intellect, decides to bring him to school for show and tell. The children decide to test his smarts by putting him in a maze with some food at the end and seeing how long it took him to get to the food. Ralph decides that the whole thing is stupid, climbs up the wall, and runs along the top of the maze to get to the food quicker. The children call loophole abuse, but instead of forcing the issue by covering the maze, they just put him back at the beginning, allowing Ralph to repeat his stunt over and over until the children get fed up and declare that, far from being smart, Ralph is too stupid to complete the maze by following the rules. Ralph and his human friend find this an unfair assessment, since they asked Ralph to get to the food as quick as possible and Ralph delivered repeatedly.

* ''[[Redwall]]'': Matthias, at the top of a bell tower, promises [[Big Bad]] Cluny he'll come down if Cluny releases his hostage. {{spoiler|Ain't no rule that Matthias couldn't cut down the giant bell, which Cluny is directly under, before coming down.}}

* Part of the backstory of David Gerrold's ''[[War Against the Chtorr]]'' series is that the United States had severe arms limitations imposed on it after the last world war. There was no such restriction on weapons ''research''. Therefore, the U.S. funneled tons of money into advanced weapon design programs and built modular factories that could be turned to war production with the flip of a switch.

** In the short story "Nothing in the Rules", one team at a girls' swimming competition contains a mermaid, who of course wins everything. In response to the opposition's outrage, the team coach points out that the rules only specify that all entrants must be female; nothing is said about species. The officials are reluctantly forced to admit that he's right. Whereupon the opposing coach visits the city zoo and borrows a female seal, who (properly incentivized with a bucket of fish) outswims the mermaid. To avoid disqualification for not using the proper swimming form, the mermaid only competes in the freestyle events.

** In ''Throwback'' a genetically recreated prehistoric human becomes a football player. In this case any "humans only" rules don't apply because before the story began the recreated cavemen fought for their civil rights and were legally recognized as people, even though they are technically not the same species as most humans.

* Ain't no rule that a chicken can't be mayor. This one is from the book ''Herb Seasoning'' by Julian Thompson. Said chicken actually understands English and can write in (no pun intended) chicken scratch, but she's really being used as a figurehead for a conman. Long story, just read the book. Oh, and there Ain't No Rule that says the cure for depression can't be a mixture of eel slime and aspirin. Applied topically, of course.

* Used in Robert Asprin's ''[[Phule's Company]]'', when the company competes on an obstacle course against the elite Red Eagles. The race specifies "full combat gear and conditions," and the Eagles make good time navigating the obstacles in heavy packs with loaded weapons. Then on their turn, Phule's company blows up the obstacles, and sprints straight through in record time. Some Eagles complain that this is cheating, but their own commander agrees that in "combat conditions," you're not worried about being polite to the landscape.

** Harry loves Loophole Abuse. He can't use magic to kill, so instead he uses magic to ''annoy'', making the less even-tempered spellslinger he's facing burn down his own house while still inside. When being chased by increasingly powerful assassins sent by Summer, which owes him a boon, he discovers that they can only hunt him until the dawn, and so requests {{spoiler|a donut. And not a magicked donut, but a fresh donut. With sprinkles.}} Naturally, it takes a while to find, at least until morning {{spoiler|since there are no donut stores open at night.}} In the most recent novel, he's told {{spoiler|only crazy ghosts can become corporeal and interact with the real world, and quickly realizes that the actions he takes, the things he does, marks him as more than slightly unhinged. Welcome to the real world, ghost Harry!}}

* In the [[Dale Brown]] novel ''Flight of the Old Dog'', the Soviets refuse to shut down their Kavaznya [[Frickin' Laser Beams|laser]] [[Wave Motion Gun|Cannon]], claiming that the previous strategic arms treaties said nothing about ground-based laser systems. In ''Shadows of Steel'' it is said that while the USSR and China signed arms control treaties against selling to Iran, none of the other post-Soviet states did.

* In ''[[The Guardians]]'', there ain't no rule that a Guardian can't become human, exercise human rights, and become a Guardian again. {{spoiler|And they gain a second Gift upon their second self-sacrifice, which is why Michael has so many Gifts.}}

* The land of ''[[Xanth]]'' has a law stating that the king must be an adult Magician and forbidding ruling queens. However, in one book an enemy is incapacitating kings one after another and they're running out of Magicians... until one of the heroes decides that if a Sorceress is really just a female Magician, there's no rule that they can't have a [[She Is the King|female king]].

* In the ''[[Dune]]'' universe, there is a major prohibition against using nuclear weapons against human targets. {{spoiler|Just before the final battle, Muad'Dib uses a nuke to blow a hole in the a large rock formation so his army can pass through. He points out that no humans were killed by the nuke.}}

* In ''[[Chronicles of Narnia|The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe]]'', the Pevensies justify wearing fur coats that don't belong to them on their foray into another, wintery world, on the grounds that they won't even be taking them out of [[Cool Gate|the wardrobe]].

* In the [[Clock Punk]] fantasy ''Goblin Moon'', a friend of the heroine's aunt marries a criminal she's never met, just before he is executed for his crimes. She does this because she owes her creditors a fortune, which automatically become her husband's problem as soon as she weds him; as an instant widow, she's free of her debts and can go on to marry the man she actually loves. All the criminal gets out of it is the company of a prostitute and a bottle of wine for his last night, courtesy of a well-bribed jailer.

* In the first [[Red Dwarf]] Book, ''Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers'', it is explained that after the advent of genetic modification, specially created athletes were designed for their league games with their entire bodies suited for their role - twelve foot basketball players, boxers with heads of unthinking muscle and so on. One football (soccer) team fielded a goalie which was basically a massive oblong block of flesh that filled the entire goal mouth. Somehow they still failed to qualify for the second round.

* According to Captain Bartleby in ''[[1632|1636: The Saxon Uprising]]'', there's no rule that the Dollar is the ''exclusive'' currency of the USE, allowing the Third Division the capability to produce its own currency for purchasing supplies.

* In ''[[Animorphs]]'', to prevent the destruction of the galaxy that will be inevitable should they come to direct blows, the Ellimist and the Crayak set a bunch of rules for themselves in how to resolve their conflict... and then find as many loopholes as they possibly can. The Ellimist isn't allowed to directly save all humans from the Yeerks, but can take a small sampling of them and relocate them on another planet? Show the world's anti-Yeerk heroes a possible future to encourage them to agree to relocation... but give them a massive hint for how they can score a decisive victory over the Yeerks in the process. The Crayak's lackey, the Drode, isn't allowed to kill any sentient life? Set the self-destruct sequence on a bunch of robots (robots aren't alive!) to draw his targets into a situation likely (but not guaranteed) to kill them.

** In "The Berenstain Bears and the Bully", Brother Bear has the [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl| No Attacks on Girls]] clause that he was taught to follow, but he simply teaches Sister Bear how to defend herself since there wasn't a rule against teaching his sister how to fight.

* In the ''[[Safehold]]'' series by [[David Weber]], the heroes relentlessly exploit loopholes and creative interpretations of the religious prohibitions concerning technological advances.

** One of the more notable examples of outright abuse comes with explosives and chemistry: the [[God Guise|"archangels"]] who created the rules couldn't explain ''why'' certain things shouldn't be done (since that would expose people to too much knowledge), only saying that mixing chemicals X and Y would result in dangerous, magical retribution. If, however, you ''wanted'' that "magical retribution" to occur in certain controlled conditions, say in a fuse attached to a gunpowder-filled artillery shell...

* In ''[[Fate/Zero]]'', Kiritsugu signs a [[Magically-Binding Contract]] with Lord El-Melloi - El-Melloi will order [[Person of Mass Destruction|Lancer]] to commit suicide and withdraw from the Holy Grail War, and in exchange Kiritsugu cannot harm him or his fiance. As soon as Lancer is dead, Kiritsugu's assistant shoots El-Melloi.

** Kiritsugu again: [[Aint No Rule]] that the Einzbern Master has to be an Einzbern, or that a Master has to be the one who supports his Servant.

* [[Isaac Asimov]]: The Robot stories are basically a study in Loophole Abuse. Robots ''must'' obey the Three Laws, but many of the stories place a Robot in a situation where strict adherence to the Three Laws is impossible, and so the Robot must engage in some judicious moral wrangling to reach a resolution. Sometimes it boils down to a "spirit of the law" versus "letter of the law" situation. Other times it involves situational interpretation of the Laws (ie, a Robot cannot harm a human, but what constitutes "harm?" Does social embarassment count as "harm?" etc.) Chronologically later stories involve the creation of a "Zeroth Law," and introduces the concept of the "Greater Good" into the Robots' morality.

* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Hermetic Millenium|Count to a Trillion]]'', Menelaus tries a [[Mad Scientist|nutty]], very hypothetical, and dangerous experiment as soon as the shuttle leaves Earth—meaning he's no longer covered by Earth law, and not yet under the captain's authority on the ship. Reaction to this reasoning: they knew they shouldn't have brought along a lawyer.