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Riddle of the Sphinx: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Parodied in ''[[Final Fantasy Unlimited]]'' episode 16, where the "correct" answer is the Hemoran bacterium. The person who answered "a human" got it wrong.
** Parodied ''again'' in the same sequence when someone tries a ridiculously complicated answer to a riddle...and the "correct" answer is the simple, obvious one. As it turns out, {{spoiler|the entire quiz is a sham}}.
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== Film ==
* Played with in ''[[Mirror Mask]]''. Helena, when asked this riddle, answers with the name of the performing dog from the circus in which she grew up. The sphinx tells her that the answer is man, and she responds...
{{quote|'''Helena:''' Nuh-uh. I saw him. He was walking on four legs in the morning, two legs during the afternoon show, and he was limping on three in the evening because he hurt his paw! He can skateboard, too.}}
== Literature ==
* Subverted in [[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]] during The Battle of the Labyrinth, Percy and the gang meet the Sphinx who, like everything else in Greek mythology in this series, gets modernized. She now uses an SAT style automatic grader and asks random trivia questions. Annabeth, who was taking the quiz expecting to hear the original questions, takes this as an insult to her intelligence and refuses to take the quiz. [[What an Idiot!|Guess who has to fight a Sphinx.]]
* Spoofed in the [[Discworld]] novel ''[[
* Parodied by John Sladek, in a story parodying ''[[Cordwainer Smith]]''. "The answer is a coffee table. I fixed four legs to it in the morning but two legs fell off in the afternoon, and by the evening I'd only gotten around to replacing one of them."
* In [[Gene Wolfe]]'s ''[[Soldier of the Mist]]'', Latro meets up with the same sphinx. He answers that it is a man going a journey: in the morning, he rides a horse, but when the horse is stolen, he walks, and then in the evening, he cuts himself a walking stick. This answer was also approved by the sphinx.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger]]'' has this as one of the questions asked by Dora Sphinx- his victim, who'd answered every riddle correctly until then, didn't get this one.
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* Mentioned in [[PDQ Bach]]'s ''Oedipus Tex'' (of course), where a "Bigfoot" plays the Sphinx's role and Oedipus plays that of his brother Rex.
▲== Newspaper & Magazine Comics ==
* Spoofed, along with many other stock riddles, in ''[[Sovisa]]'' when Alexi is confronted by a riddle-telling old man (a further spoof, in that the man states it's one of the few jobs a man of his age can hold down), Alexi antagonizes him by answering his riddles ''before he's finished telling them''. A section of the text is as follows:
{{quote|'''Man:''' Listen well to your first ''fiendish'' riddle, foolish boy! "What walks on four legs in-"
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* Subverted in ''[[Phil Foglio|What's New? with Phil and Dixie]]'', in which a sphinx insists that everybody knows the "four legs, two legs, three legs" riddle, so instead asks: "[[Tongue-Twister|How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood]]?"
== Recorded and Stand Up Comedy ==
* The comedian Richard Herring says the answer shouldn't be a man because a stick isn't really a leg. The real answer should be Paul McCartney and his wives.
* An [[Emo Philips]] routine postulates that the answer is a donkey, "who has four legs in the morning, then in the afternoon you chop two of them off, then in the evening you glue one back on again."
== Tabletop Games ==
* This is the [[Flavor Text]] of [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=159309 Petra Sphinx] in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''.
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' Module I3 ''Pharaoh''. Inside the tomb of Amun-re the [[PC]]s can encounter an androshpinx who offers to play a [[Riddle Me This]] game with them. If they can answer one of his riddles he will answer a question from them about the tomb. One of the riddles he can ask is this standard riddle.
== Video Games ==
* Used in ''[[Devil May Cry]] 3'', where you were supposed to walk through the doorway with the right number of glowing eyes. Picking the wrong doorway led to a fight against several monsters and a [[Puzzle Reset]].
* The third-level boss of ''[[Wario Master of Disguise]]'' for the Nintendo DS has the player answering a sphinx's riddles, the answers being objects you saw during the level (including the "man" riddle). Miss a question and you die instantly.
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* Averted in the ''Riddle of the Sphinx'' video game, which has nothing to do with this old trope except the name.
* Shows up in the [[Unexpected Gameplay Change|Unexpected Text Adventure]] section of ''[[NieR]]''.
* Played with in [[Monster Girl Quest]]. As part of a trial to be [[Engagement Challenge|eligible to marry]] a [[Our Dragons Are Different|dragon]], a Sphinx gives this question, and it is lampshaded by Luka how almost everyone knows the answer to this question and that it's anticlimactic. {{spoiler|The riddle's true purpose is to illustrate that any monster and human romance will be a [[Mayfly-December Romance]] and to make the trial taker aware of this fact and its implications.}} Note that if Luka answers, "Me!" the Sphinx accepts that as correct, as Luka is human.
== Web Comics ==
* ''[[Nerf Now]]'': If this question ever comes up in ''[[Jeopardy!]]'', [[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night|Dracula's]] [http://www.nerfnow.com/comic/67 got it covered.]
* Parodied on [http://gastrophobia.com/index.php?date=2009-03-06 these] [http://gastrophobia.com/index.php?date=2009-03-09 two] pages of ''[[Gastrophobia]]'', where ''everyone'' knows the Sphinx's riddle. But they don't have to be so ''rude'' about it. It's to the point where she's now trying to think up a new riddle.
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== Western Animation ==
* Used particularly badly in one episode of ''[[Extreme Ghostbusters]]'', where a ghost modeled on the Sphinx asks this of its victims and renders those who answer incorrectly into helpless, mindless beings. This includes ''an entire chapter of [[Mensa]]'', the one group of people who you would expect to know the answer.
* Similarly, the opening of an episode of ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy]]: The Animated Series'' had the O'Connells, a family of [[Adventurer Archaeologist]]s/Egyptologists, oblivious of the answer to the riddle. You'd think at least Evie would know...
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Stock Puzzle]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
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