View source for Right Under Their Noses

{{trope}}
{{quote|''"The closer we are to danger, the further we are from harm."''
|'''Pippin''', '''''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers]]'''''}}

The safest way to avoid detection in stories is always '''Right Under The Enemy's Nose'''. It's the last place they'll think to look.

This is true even if the antagonist or whoever the hero is avoiding has ''all'' his forces concentrated in an easily avoidable heavily armed complex. Despite the fact that the [[Sword of Plot Advancement]] is not to be found there, the hero must encounter the [[Damsel in Distress]] somehow.

Even when it would make more sense to avoid the enemy stronghold altogether, the seasoned marksmen who swarm the wilderness are always [[Border Patrol|much more likely]] to capture our heroes if they attempt to sensibly bushwhack away from the enemy camp, whereas the [[The Guards Must Be Crazy|soft green recruits]] at the main gate would never imagine someone walking up to the Front Door.

Compare [[Hidden in Plain Sight]].

This may extend to:

* Literally walking up to the Front Door, usually [[Dressing as the Enemy|disguised]] as [[The Dung Ages|filthy peasants]]. (''"these aren't the droids you are looking for."'')
* [[Storming the Castle|Charging]] the fortress ([[One-Man Army]], [[It's Up to You]]) on trumped up reasons ([[Damsel in Distress]]) when observing from a safe distance might make more sense.
* Swimming through the [[Secret Path|enemy's moat]]/[[Absurdly Spacious Sewer|sewer system]]/[[Air Vent Passageway|air vent]] and discovering something fascinating to move the plot along when the heroes could have avoided the place entirely.
* [[Chokepoint Geography|Geographic]] or logistical [[Insurmountable Waist High Fence|hurdles]] require the Hero to sneak past a checkpoint. The [[Mooks]] come perilously close to detecting the hero ([[It's Probably Nothing]]).
* Accidentally encountering the [[Big Bad]] while disguised as someone else ([[Hey, Wait!]]!)
* Actively seeking out the most heavily guarded facility on the grounds that ''"it's the last place they'll expect to find us!!"''

Corollary #1: security is always more and more lax the closer you get to the seat of power, until one can finally sneak into the ruler's [[Schmuck Banquet|lavishly appointed ballroom]] and mooch food off the table. Cue an [[No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine|Improbably Polite]] conversation with whoever lives in said innermost retreat.

Corollary #2: If the hero ''does'' sensibly attempt to avoid detection by enemy forces by marching in the opposite direction, plot mechanics will dictate that the hero's attempt to avoid detection will be thwarted, or else be ambushed when [[The Dark Chick|one of the villains]], despite orders to send all the Mooks elsewhere, will [[Scarily Competent Tracker|Just Know]] where to find the hero.

In any event, the hero will almost inevitably be captured or somehow come face to face with the villain while attempting to pull this "foolproof gambit" of sneaking right past enemy forces. They will usually encounter [[The Dragon]], who will uncharacteristically [[I Want Them Alive|Decide To Let Them Live]].

This trope is useful alternative to the [[Real Life]] strategy of avoiding the enemy for as long as possible:

* Enables random encounter between the hero and the [[Damsel in Distress]] or [[Woobie]] who is imprisoned in the enemy's fortress which the hero was supposedly trying to avoid.
* Enable hero to encounter and/or be captured by [[The Dragon]] early in the plot.
* Enable hero (instead of faceless Bothans) to be the first one to overhear the antagonists' [[Story-Boarding the Apocalypse|Secret Plan]].
* Give readers/viewers a chance to see inside the [[Evil Tower of Ominousness|Evil Fortress]] which any sane hero would attempt to avoid.

See also [[Walk Into Mordor]], [[We Need a Distraction]], [[Throwing the Distraction]], [[So Much for Stealth]].

Note: If the hero is a Spy, this may be a [[Justified Trope]].

{{examples}}
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* In ''[[Astral Journey: It's Complicated]]'', [[Spice Girls| Melanie]] tries to escape from the psych ward of the hospital she kept in due to for eating disorder. Once by using the ceiling over Emma's bed and again though a laundry chute, {{Spoiler| both ended in failure as she placed back.}}

== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' does this on several occasions, most notably when Han hides by sticking the Falcon on the back of a Star Destroyer.
** Well that bit was justified because the Falcon got lost among the many greebles covering the star destroyer, even for some viewers it was hard to spot.
** Although the biggest one, in light of the prequel trilogy, still has to be the decision to hide Luke on his father's home planet under his own name with his only known relatives. Obi-Wan was banking a lot on the idea that Vader would never want to go to Tatooine ever again.
*** Well, remember, it is covered in [[Riff Trax|sand]]. And [[Narm|he hates sand]].
* In [[The Lord of the Rings (film)|the movie]] version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings|The Two Towers]]'', Pippin suggests this as reason for Treebeard to take him and Merry back towards Isengard; of course, he had other reasons for wanting Treebeard to see Isengard close-up.
{{quote|'''Pippin:''' "If we go south, we can slip past Saruman unnoticed. '''The closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm!'''"
'''Treebeard:''' "That... doesn't make any sense to me! Then again... you ''are'' very small. South it is, then!" }}
* While attempting to avoid pursuit by Nazis in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade|The Last Crusade]]'', [[Indiana Jones]] and his father go through Berlin to get the journal back. They manage to [[Hey, Wait!|run into Hitler who proceeds to write his autograph in it]]. And this is ''after'' Hitler has "declared war on the Jones boys" (as the [[Big Bad]] of the film put it).
* In any ''[[Robin Hood]]'' film, the titular hero will sneak his entire band into Nottingham dressed as peasants.
* [[Zorro]]. Swashbucklers in general seem to be fond of this.
* ''[[Planet of the Apes|Conquest of the Planet Of the Apes]]'' has the main villain making this remark about having owned Caesar, the chimp everyone was searching for, all along.
* In ''[[The Gumball Rally]]'', one of the teams evades a roadblock by driving into a truck.

== [[Literature]] ==
* This is explicitly how [[The Lord of the Rings|Sam and Frodo]] succeed. After all, who in their right mind would take the one artifact Sauron needs to rule the world right to his doorstep? Tolkien at one point tried to make up an excuse for them to sneak into [[Eldritch Location|Minas Morgul]], but thought better of it.
* In ''The Sherwood Ring'', British soldier Peaceable Sherwood takes his hidden militia to crash for the winter at...the shut-up-for-the-war house of the soldier assigned to capturing him, Richard Grahame. Richard is unpleasantly surprised when he makes the mistake of coming over to the house to rummage around for a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.
* The title character of ''[[Wooden Ships and Iron Men|Captain Caution]]'', an American privateer, insists he doesn't believe in taking chances. His French friend is incredulous: sailing right into a British-held port and anchoring where the fort's guns will have a perfect shot at him isn't taking chances? Of course not; since he made himself so totally vulnerable to them, the British '''knew''' he couldn't be an American coming in to capture one of the ships already in port. And that night, he snuck a crew aboard....
* In Harry Turtledove's ''Great War'' trilogy, a Confederate submarine commander is able to sail, unsubmerged, within sight of a Union fleet at New York City, protected only by audacity and the fact that the Confederate national flag (as opposed to the well-known battle flag) looks a lot like the Stars and Stripes from a distance.
** Turtledove has also featured Jewish characters in other series escaping persecution in [[Nazi Germany]] by joining the ''Wehrmacht'' or even the SS under a false identity.
* In the first ''[[Enola Holmes]]'' book, Enola, a runaway, is discovered by [[Sherlock Holmes|her brother]]. When she shakes him again, he spends all night out scouring the city for her, but she successfully escapes by hiding in his house. (And, when she departs, she's able to use some of his disguise supplies to ensure she won't be spotted.)
* In ''[[Literature]]/SomethingWickedThisWayComes'', Jim and Will hide in a sewer grate not more than ten feet away from where the [[Circus of Fear]] is parading with the reasoning that the carnival folks won't think to look in so obvious a place. They still have a couple of very close calls, though, and would in fact have been discovered by the Dust Witch's [[Super Senses]] if Will's father Charles hadn't intervened.
* In [[Star Trek: Vulcan's Heart]], during the early stages of the revolution on Romulus, Spock proposes a plan along these lines:
{{quote|Ruanek: “Audacious, hells, yes! But how in the name of all those hells are you going to get in? Just walk right up and order the gates to open?”|Spock: “Precisely”.}}
* Sultan Mehmed, Vlad Tepes' Islamic enemy in ''[[Count and Countess]]'', easily evades all of Vlad's military plans just by hiding out in a church town in the middle of Romania.  {{spoiler|Vlad does catch up with him in the end.}}
* In the ''[[Mistborn]]'' trilogy, the protagonists choose to stage their revolution right in [[The Empire]]'s capital city. The argument is that it's the last place anyone would expect them to do it, and also that it has the most resources for their use.

== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* [[Inverted]] in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'': It is revealed that the Hellmouth is in fact located directly underneath the library where Buffy and the [[In-Series Nickname|Scoobie Gang]] hang out and make their plans to stop the bad guys' plans. Given that [[Big Bad|The Master]] was trapped in the Hellmouth for all of the first season, it is thus inferred that the ''Big Bad'' had been hiding under the ''heroes''' noses the whole time, though it never seems like he's aware of the fact.
** Comes up again in the last season in the final episodes. Buffy has a verbal sparring match with Caleb at the rebuilt high-school (the site of the Hellmouth once again) and realizes that the villains SHOULD be fortifying the position in preparation for opening it up and letting out the army of super-vamps. But they aren't. Why? Because they have fortified an old winery where they had already sprung a trap on Buffy and the potentials. Again, why? Because there really is something even more important to the coming battle buried right under the winery.

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
* In one strip of [[Calvin and Hobbes]], Calvin is hiding from his mother, who is trying to get him to take a bath. Calvin avoids being caught by hiding ''in the bathtub.''
{{quote|Calvin: She'll never look here.}}

== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Played with in [http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/109.html this] [[Irregular Webcomic]] strip

== [[Web Original]] ==
* A Corollary Two example in Bob Defendi's podcast audiobook [http://playtesting.net/?cat=3 ''Death By Cliche'']. It's even [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] somewhat by the main character. Given that the entire thing is a deconstruction of bad GM-ing and poor storytelling, this isn't particularly suprising.

== [[Real Life]] ==
* A man who was seriously wanted by the FBI was working as a dishwasher in a cafeteria. In Washington, DC. In the basement of FBI headquarters.

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