Shaggy Dog Story: Difference between revisions
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** Well, for the ''villains'', sure. They spend the entire movie manipulating and killing each other (as well as anyone who gets in the way) over the eponymous statue of a falcon which is covered in black enamel but secretly covered in jewels. At the end, they form an alliance and attain it... only to find it is a fake. For [[Humphrey Bogart|Sam]] [[Private Detective|Spade]], though, it's a grandslam: the falcon lured all these villains out of the woodwork, allowing him to work with them, getting him out from under the police's thumb, make money, and even {{spoiler|reveal his heroic colors by setting every last one of them up to go to jail, including the [[Femme Fatale]] who killed his partner.}}
* In ''[[Eyes Wide Shut]]'', Bill suspects that his wife is having an affair and gets himself embroiled in some dark sexual circles while trying to sow his own wild oats. It turns out that his situation was not nearly as dark as he thought it was, he decides against having sex with anyone after all, and his wife was never disloyal to him in the first place.
* Many examples in ''[[Indiana Jones]]'', where villains often discover that whatever [[Artifact of Doom]] they're trying to find doesn't work quite the way that thought it did:
** ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]''. Indy and the Nazis spend the whole movie fighting over the eponymous [[MacGuffin]]. Then at the end, the Nazis get the Ark and open it only to be swept away by The [[Deus Ex Machina|Wrath Of God]]. As is often pointed out, Indy could have ''done nothing'' and the movie would have still ended the same way.
* In ''[[The Wizard of Oz (film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'', Dorothy had no reason to go on her whole adventure to find the Wizard and kill the Wicked Witch of the West. The only thing she needed to get home was right on her feet the entire time. As comedian Dennis Miller noted: "So Glenda appears at the end and says, 'You had the power to go home all along!' I always wanted Dorothy to look at her and say, 'Yeah, bitch? And you had the power to tell me that two hours ago!"<ref>This was caused by the scriptwriters combining two characters from the original book -- the Witch of the North and the Witch of the South -- into a single character without regard to plot logic.</ref>▼
** In ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]'', the [[Big Bad]] is an [[Immortality Seeker]] attempting to find the Holy Grail. The villain doesn't live long enough that the the immortality it bestows lasts only as long as the recipient remains in the vault where it is kept, and the Grail cannot safely be taken out of the vault.
** The villain in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny]]'' {{spoiler|seeks the Antikythera Mechanism in order to to time-travel back to 1939, assassinate Adolf Hitler, and lead Germany to victory in World War II. He finds out too late that the fissure created by the device is "set" so that it can lead only to one year, 212 BC as Archimedes invented it in order to summon aid from the future during the Seige of Syracuse.}}
▲* In ''[[The Wizard of Oz (film)|The Wizard of Oz]]'', Dorothy had no reason to go on her whole adventure to find the Wizard and kill the Wicked Witch of the West. The only thing she needed to get home was right on her feet the entire time. As comedian Dennis Miller noted: "So
* ''[[Burn After Reading]]'' ends with the CIA director and Palmer sitting in an office contemplating what the heck happened. The only thing they learned, they muse, is to not do it again, if only they knew what, if anything, they did to cause the whole thing in the first place.
* The 2002 [[Britney Spears]] roadtrip movie ''[[Crossroads (2002 film)|Crossroads]]'' has this times three, with three childhood wishes: Britney wants to reunite with her [[Missing Mom]], [[Pirates of the Caribbean|"Anna-Marie"]] wants to get married, and "Boomkat" wants to be a singer. Near the end of their journey Britney learns her mom wants nothing to do with her ([[Sex and the City|"Samantha"]] doesn't want any reminders of her slutty past(!)); Anna-Marie discovers her boyfriend is a cheater, and Boomkat is just not as good at singing as Britney.
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* ''[[American Psycho]]'' by [[Bret Easton Ellis]] (and the film adaptation) - Patrick Bateman becomes increasingly insane and homicidal and a lot of people die at his hands, culminating in him confessing to his lawyer... but in the end, no one believes him, and the book and film end as they begin, with him making boring small talk with boring, self-absorbed people. Patrick himself says at one point: "There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant ''nothing''..."
* ''[[The Andromeda Strain]]''; the entire book is spent trying to find a cure for said strain, only to reveal at the end that {{spoiler|it had already mutated into a non-infectious form. Because of breathing quickly (but that's another matter entirely)}} Granted, it's still dangerous, but...
* ''[[
** Also , take note that this actually does something in the plot. {{spoiler|Dumbledore not being on the castle at that time makes it possible for the Death Eaters to enter; and gives Harry (and the readers) even more reasons to hate Voldemort. I doubt anyone couldn't feel bad for Dumbledore's dying wish to be unfulfilled, and that everyone hated the villains more}}.
** Further, it may have been according to plan and it allowed things to happen for the "good guys": {{spoiler|it gave Harry a lead on tracking down the other horcruxes (R.A.B) and allowed Snape to finish off Dumbledore allowing Voldemort to be tricked into thinking Dumbledore's wand was bound to Snape when it was actually bound to Malfoy}}.
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** Scott Adams in general is fairly fond of this trope, often times inspired by [[Ripped from the Headlines|real life stories from readers]] about [[Pointy-Haired Boss|Pointy Haired Bosses]].
* When the extended flashback in the strip [[9 Chickweed Lane|Nine Chickweed Lane]] began, it was promoted as being the story of how Gran fell in love with her husband; it finished as being how marrying O'Malley was a consolation prize because her true love and Juliette's birth father had to return to Austria.
* ''[[Peanuts]]'':
** There was a very long series of strips involving Peppermint Patty training for an ice skating tournament that ran over a whole winter. First, she hired Snoopy as a coach. Then she convinced Marcie to make her a skating dress; Marcie tried her best, but she couldn't sew, and made an awful dress. It almost ruined their friendship, until Marcie's mother made Patty a beautiful dress. Then Patty needed to get a new hairdo to go with it; Marcie was no good at that, so Patty went to Charlie Brown's dad - who's a barber. Unfortunately, he mistook her for a boy, and gave her a boy's haircut. Patty averted another disaster by buying a wig... {{spoiler|but in the end, it all turned out to be pointless, because the tournament was actually a roller skating competition.}}
** In another long arc, Linus' teacher Ms. Othmar asked him to bring eggshells to school so that his class could make model igloos, but again and again, Linus either kept forgetting or something would happen to foil his plans. (One time he remembered to bring them - on Saturday.) {{spoiler|Finally, he remembered, and brought them to school, only to find that Ms. Othmar had quit her job and was getting married. (As Linus said, "I knew the eggshells were only a manifestation of a deeper problem!") The story did end on a high note: Linus sent her a box of eggshells as a wedding present.}}
== Radio ==
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** The three most visible cases are: the The Geth War-{{spoiler|There is only one ending that even allows them to exist as [[A Is]] rendering all the work to force peace with the Quarians meaningless}}; Krogan Genophage-{{spoiler|With the bulk of the Krogans off their homeworld the loss of the Relays means that regardless of being cured or not they won't make it home to continue their race and may just die out}} and the Salvation of Earth-{{spoiler|With Humanity's entire military and civil government gone and no way to get assistance then Earth will likely degenerate rather then be saved (barring if it was just incinerated)}}.
{{quote|''As a side note: There is a DLC being made to remedy the lack of resolutions (which forced the inferences as to the conclusion listed above). As to whether this will retroactively "Un-Shaggy Dog Story" the game as released is [[Broken Base|highly debatable]].''}}
* In ''[[Kid Kool]]'', the goal is to save the king, who is dying by finding the "seven wonder herbs." If the player doesn't finish the game quick enough, the king dies before you even GET to the end. Bonus points since the game's controls are so bad, that it's virtually unplayable.
* A rare example that's clear from the start occurs in ''[[Valkyria Chronicles III]]''. The new antagonists of the game are Calamity Raven, a group of Darcsen mercenaries pushing themselves through hell fighting against Gallia in hopes of gaining the resources needed to create a Darcsen free state away from the [[Fantastic Racism]] that plagues their people on the rest of the continent. Anyone who has the finished the first game (set at the same time as the third) or played the second (which is set after the first, third, and fourth) will know that in the ending of the first game Gallia's princess reveals the entire royal line are Darcsens, and the supposed calamity they caused was a falsehood created by the [[Written by the Winners|really villainous]] Valklyria, turning Gallia into a land where Darcsen are able to live more or less freely. Thus it's clear to the player not only are Calamity Raven's extreme efforts fruitless, if they ''were'' to succeed it would actually be counter-intuitive to their goals.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
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* The ''[[Storm Hawks]]'' episode "Thunder Run" has the gang rush to save their friend after he pissed off a mob boss. The mob boss asks for "Rosen Yoga" and gives the team until sundown to retrieve it. They do, and "Rosen Yoga" turned out to be Frozen Yogurt (the Mob Boss has an incredibly bad lisp that makes him mispronounce things). {{spoiler|What really makes this a shaggy story is that the mob boss later got impressed with Junko's eating habits, and filled up on food after an eating contest before the Storm Hawks got back, not to mention giving his respects to his new-found friend. Piper was understandably pissed after learning all of this.}}
* In one episode of ''[[Doug]]'', Patti invites Doug to a dinner party she'll be hosting that weekend, with [[Stock Yuck|liver and onions]] on the menu. Doug is horrified, but doesn't dare back out for fear of offending her, so he spends the entire week trying and failing to make himself eat liver and onions so he'll at least know what he's in for. When he finally forces himself to try it at a restaurant on the night before the party, he realizes that it isn't anywhere near as bad as he thought it'd be. The next evening, he arrives at Patti's house, ready to chow down, only for her to tell him that she was ''joking'' about the liver and onions; everyone's eating hot dogs instead.
* Lots of the protagonist's zany schemes in ''[[Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales]]'' turn out to be this. In one episode, he and Chumley find a map that supposedly leads to a treasure hidden by a pirate named Jack the Joker, but they can't understand the numerical coordinates. After Stanley yells at them for inadvertently getting everyone in the zoo to start digging up the place, they consult their friend Mr. Whoopie, construct a homemade compass, and use the map to find the buried chest, only to be caught by Stanley again (seeing as they were digging up his own front lawn this time) who decides to punish them by having them locked up for a week. Still they manage to keep the chest, but when they open it, a jack-in-the-box pops out with a note that says, "Ha-ha! - [[Meaningful Name| Jack the Joker]]".
** Even worse was one story that almost becomes a [[Shoot the Shaggy Dog]] story. After the two of them unknowingly pay a paperboy with Stanley's priceless rare coin, he threatens to punish them by making them work on the rock pile unless they got it back. So they run after him only to find he has paid the ice cream man with it, then follow the ice cream man to a bakery. After questioning the baker, he claims he had dropped the coin in some cookie dough, which he had used to make cookies that Chumley had eaten while they were talking to him. After a lot of unsuccessful attempts to extract it, they consult Mr. Whoopie again, who x-rays Chumley, only to find no coin. Which means they are screwed. Later, after several hours of backbreaking labor on the rock pile after Stanley makes good his threat, Chumley discovers a cookie under his hat that he had been saving - with the coin inside it. Cue [[Unstoppable Rage]] from Tennessee as he chases Chumley, ''throwing rocks at him''.
== Other ==
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