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Riddle Me This: Difference between revisions
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''wish you to see,
''this haunting be-riddle
''answer you'll me!''
When [[Only Smart People May Pass]], a challenge is often given in the form of a riddle. The solution to said riddle is often, in itself, the means by which the characters may continue.
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{{examples}}
== [[
* This is the standard MO of The Riddler in the ''[[Batman]]'' comics. [[Depending on the Writer]], it could be a game he plays, or it could be an outright psychotic compulsion he feels he ''has'' to play.
** Cluemaster, also from the Bat family comics, started out with pretty much the same MO, leaving little clues at his crime scenes, until he was caught and sent to Arkham. The doctors there were actually able to ''cure'' him...of his compulsion to leave clues. It figures the one time the shrinks there can do their job, it makes a criminal ''tougher'' to catch.
▲== [[Film]] - Live-Action ==
* The Director's cut of ''[[Legend (film)|Legend]]'' has Gump ask Jack this riddle: What is a bell that never rings, yet its knell makes the angels sing? Answer:{{spoiler|A bluebell. To hear it ring means that your life is at an end.}}
* Parodied in ''[[Monty Python and the Holy Grail]]'' with the old man from scene 24 and the Bridge of Death. He poses his "questions three" to every knight who seeks to cross, and failure to answer correctly plunges the knight into the Gorge of Eternal Peril. The first two questions are always the same -- the knight's name and quest ("to find the Grail", of course). The third... well, that alternates between incredibly easy ("What is your favorite color?") and terribly obscure ("What is the capital of Assyria?"). ([[Too Dumb to Live|Sir Robin flubs his own favorite color]].)
== [[Literature]] ==
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* An extreme version of this trope appeared in the original novel version of ''[[The Neverending Story (novel)|The Neverending Story]]'' when Atreyu came to the first of the three gates barring him from the Oracle Uyulala, which was a pair of sphinx-like statues that sat facing each other. The gnome researcher Engywook explained that if the sphinxes opened their eyes while someone passed between them, they would telepathically bombard the passer by with all the riddles in existence, which would paralyze the passer until they solved them all- in other words until they died. Rather than [[Impossible Task|solving the riddles,]] the only way to pass the gate was to [[Luck-Based Mission|hope the sphinxes didn't open their eyes while you passed]]. This was [[Pragmatic Adaptation|simplified in the movie]] to just shooting [[Eye Beams|energy bolts]] at the unlucky victim.
▲== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* One of the tests to find the [[Holy Grail]] in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' was to answer a series of riddles.
** The whole quest was basically a giant riddle, since they had to figure out the instructions for each individual test plus the general instructions for the quest.
* ''[[So Weird]]'' had a variation that subsituted trivia questions for riddles and instead of answering correctly to pass, the characters had to answer correctly to survive. (An incorrect answer would result in the character being turned into an eggplant.) The [[Monster of the Week|monsters of the week]] were very sneaky and would con people into playing without realizing it. (By asking a seemingly innocent question and then changing the person when they didn't know the answer, even though the person hadn't actually agreed to the game.) Fi ends up having to play the game in order to save her friends and family.
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* The [[Riddle of the Sphinx]], a trope in its own right, is [[Older Than Feudalism]]. The first author to mention it is Apollodorus in the 2nd century CE.
* Riddles are an important part of Norse Mythology, and in particular Odin is a fan of [[Duel to the Death|riddle games to the DEATH]]. This is also the inspiration for the riddle battle in [[The Hobbit]] between Gollum and Biblo, down to the unanswerable question.
* From ''[[The Bible]]'', Judges 14:18; Before he notoriously killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, Samson made a bet with 30 of them at a party, giving them a riddle. If they solved it in 30 days, he would give them 30 sheets and 30 articles of clothing, and if they could not, they’d give him the same goods. The riddle was, “Out of the eater comes something to eat, out of the strong comes something sweet.” Well, the Philistines couldn’t answer it, so they threatened his wife, saying they'd burn their house down unless she gave them the answer, which was “a lion and honey”. (Technically this was a [[Rigged Riddle]], as only he and his wife knew the incident that inspired it; when he was wooing her, he killed a lion to impress her. They made love right there, and when they were done, he noticed bees from a nearby hive swarming on the lion's carcass, so he decided to take the honey from the hive as a gift to her parents. Even so, the riddle makes little sense.) This was pretty much how the bad blood between them started.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
* Quite a few in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. For example, in the adventure "White Plume Mountain":
** The party must answer a riddle (asked by an actual sphinx) to get past a [[Deflector Shields|Wall of Force]].
*** Answer is "[[Disintegrator Ray|<Disintegrate>]]!", no?
** The [[PC]]s must figure out which of five numbers (5, 7, 9, 11 and 13) didn't belong with the others {{spoiler|9, which isn't a prime number}} or be attacked by flesh golems.
* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Call of Cthulhu]]'' supplement ''Curse of the Chthonians'', adventure "The City Without A Name". The investigators must calculate the five numbers of Cthulhu using the occult science of Gematria in order to enter, use and escape from a special chamber.
▲== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'':
** As everyone knows, Sphinxes are fond of riddles. Sphinx cards, therefore, will often pose riddles to the players, such as [http://magiccards.info/cmd/en/42.html "What is the top card of your library?"] or [http://magiccards.info/m10/en/73.html "Which creature card have I stolen from your deck?"] or [http://magiccards.info/di/en/114.html "What card is in your opponent's hand?"]
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I am your tears on the chains of the rack
I am your gift and you can't give me back }}
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* An important [[Plot Coupon]] in ''[[Ultima V]]'' is guarded by a Daemon who will ask you a riddle. Get it wrong, you'll have to fight him. Get it right, [[Subverted Trope|you'll have to fight him anyway]], because "[[Card-Carrying Villain|never trust a daemon]]."
* You must solve a Sphinx's riddle in ''[[Fantasy Quest]]''. The modern day port of the game uses a mouse rather than typed commands, simplifying this considerably.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Occurs in [https://web.archive.org/web/20090831062945/http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=26&issue=14 this] ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' strip, and is beautifully subverted in the next one.
* Subverted in the "Oceans Unmoving" arc of ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'': Solving the Riddle of
* ''[[The Non-Adventures of
* ''[[Gastrophobia
* Subverted in [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2003-11-12 this]{{Dead link}} ''[[Nodwick]]'' where they bribe the sphinx to let them pass.
** As Nodwick points out, the answer was (ironically, or perhaps not so much) "money".
* Subverted in ''[[Subnormality]]''. The sphinx meets Oedipus' ''mother''. When she learns who she's talking to, the sphinx has a massive flipout about which one of them is considered the monster, and makes Oedipus' mother take her place.
* A subversion in ''[[The Order of the Stick]]
{{quote|'''Varsuvius''' Gordium called--they have a knot you may want to take a look at.}}
* In
* In ''[[Oglaf]]'', Greir tortures a fun cultist who then tells her where the curly sword is. But then he brags that she'll never figure out the answer to the guardian's joke. She makes a threatening gesture and he spills the answer to the joke. The guardian doesn't even finish saying the joke before Greir says the answer.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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