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Riddle Me This: Difference between revisions
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Not to be confused with the popular comedy podcast [[Answer Me This]].
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{{examples|Examples }}
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== [[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.}}
* ''[[Monty Python and
== [[Literature]] ==
* In ''[[The Hobbit]]'' Gollum challenged Bilbo to a riddle contest. Famously, Bilbo's final "riddle" is actually a question: "What have I got in my pocket?" Gollum protests that it shouldn't count, but goes for it anyway (demanding three guesses); the book itself wonders if it's fair, concluding that since Gollum tried to guess the answer anyway, it passes. What did Bilbo have in his pocket? [[Oh Crap|The Ring]].
* Then a subversion in ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', where the Fellowship ''thinks'' this is the way to open the door to the mines of Moria, but it turns out they're [[Speak Friend and Enter|seriously overthinking it]].
* In [[Larry Niven]] and Steven Barnes' novel ''Dream Park'', one of the [[PC]]'s must answer a series of riddles to save the party.
* The entrance to the Ravenclaw common room in ''[[Harry Potter]]''.
** In ''Goblet of Fire'', Harry encounters a sphinx in the final maze and manages to solve its riddle (which is a simple word puzzle rather than the [[Riddle of the Sphinx]]).
* The key to unlock the way into (or perhaps it was out of, it's been a while since the source if this reference read it) a secret tunnel in the tenth ''[[A Series of Unfortunate Events]]'' novel, ''The Slippery Slope''.
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== [[Role Playing Games]] ==
* Quite a few in ''[[Dungeons and 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|PCs]] 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]]'' 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.
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* ''[[Exile|Exile II]]'' has a dungeon that is supposed to test your mind. In addition to several puzzles are many riddles.
* ''[[Professor Layton]]''; regularly lampshaded with Layton ineffectually protesting that he has other things to do other than solve riddles. Ineffectually, as he still has to solve the damn things.
* [[Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent|Nelson Tethers]], like Layton, has puzzle his way past all sorts of challenges. In Tethers' case, the reasons for riddling are a lot less funny than Layton's.
* ''[[Spyro the Dragon|Spyro: Year of the Dragon]]'' featured a level called Haunted Tombs, in which the dogs down there would make you solve a riddle before passing certain points or doing challenges.
* ''[[Might and Magic]]''
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* ''[[Baldur's Gate]] 2'' throws these at you by the bucket load, sometimes in a quest, sometimes to get started on a quest.
* Appears twice in ''[[Dragon Age Origins]]'': a set of three in the Mage origin story, and a set of 10 as part of the gauntlet protecting the Sacred Ashes. The second set particularly fits the trope, because {{spoiler|the answer to each ghost's riddle is also symbolic of the part they played in the history of the Ashes. Piecing together the history beforehand helps you figure out the riddle, and the ghosts' spiel lets you better understand the quest itself and which of its outcomes is the good/bad one}}.
** When Alistair asks Sten what he did to pass the time during his two week stay in his cage, Sten replies that he would pose riddles to passing travelers and offer them riches in reward. Alistair asks if he really did this, and Sten, being among the resident [[Deadpan Snarker|Deadpan Snarkers]], replies with a flat no.
** In ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'', Isabela asks Hawke for advice on how to convince her archenemy's second-in-command to give away his boss's location. Her final suggestion is to challenge him to a riddle game, and make, "Where is your boss?" one of the riddles.
* In ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' the witch Ravel presents travelers with the question "What can change the nature of a man?" Allegedly, she grants wishes to those who get the answer right, and if they got it wrong she killed them. Subverted harshly because {{spoiler|she's lying. She kills everyone whatever they answer, as she only cared about the Player Character's answer.}}
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Occurs in [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 {{spoiler|Uncle Time}} is rewarded with the solver being freed from Timeless Space, except no one has even heard of it, and it is "solved" by accident.
* [[The Non-Adventures of Wonderella|Wonderella]] knows how to [http://nonadventures.com/2009/08/15/a-sphinx-says-what/ deal with this].
* [[Gastrophobia|Inconsequentia's]] sphinx Trivia is trying to come up with a new riddle. The old one (viz. the classic [[Riddle of the Sphinx]]) was so obvious even Phobia saw it coming (she was just letting Trivia finish to be polite, which Gastro has yet to learn).
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* [[Freakazoid|"I am the doorkeeper with horrible skin. Answer my riddle and then you come in."]]
** [[Lampshade Hanging|"Oh, man. I hate these."]]
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