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Shaggy Search Technique: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
In the land of fiction, if you need to find [[Secret Path|secret passages]] or switches in your [[Temple of Doom]] or [[Haunted Castle]], there's not really a point in doing logical things like looking for irregularities, listening for hollows, or other methods. Because the best way to find these things is sheer fluke.
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This basically comes about because someone looking for mysterious passages is kinda boring to watch, and finding them normally isn't much more interesting. Related to [[Bookcase Passage]].
Named after Shaggy in ''[[Scooby-Doo (animation)|Scooby-Doo]]'', who found more clues and secrets through accidents and falling over than any [[Great Detective]] ever could. Any similarities to [[Shaggy Dog Story]] are coincidental.
Compare [[Eureka Moment]] and [[You Were Trying Too Hard]].
{{examples}}
== Film ==
* ''[[Indiana Jones]]''
** The trap variation in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom]]''. Short Round leans against the wall, triggering the [[Descending Ceiling]] plus [[Spikes of Doom]]. Why the builders decided to have the trap set off by a protruding block in the wall rather than, say, a hidden floor switch is a question for the ages. Maybe it was only supposed to prevent idiots from reaching the aforementioned Temple. Technically, there was a floor switch, which sealed them in when Short Round stepped on it. Frustrated, Indy tells him to stand against the wall, out of the way...
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== Literature ==
* ''[[Discworld]]''
** In ''[[
** [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] (with little success) in ''[[
* ''[[Good Omens]]'': A variation was subverted in Pratchett and Gaiman's novel. Among the search techniques the heroine attempts in trying to find her lost book of prophecies is giving up theatrically and letting her gaze fall organically on a patch of
* Sort of in ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]''. Leia and others, looking for the Delta Source that is reporting things to Thrawn, rest for a bit in the room where most of the spying happens, and then Leia looks at a droid tending one of the decorative color-changing trees and notices the red ripples forming and spreading each time the droid clicks
:Similarly, in the ''[[X Wing Series]]'', Corran Horn, while infiltrating on Coruscant, goes walking without paying attention to where he's going because he's thinking. Yes, he does this on a hostile planet. But the Force was with him, since not only did he ''not'' get jumped while [[Contemplate Our Navels|contemplating his past]], but he ended up outside of a [[Wretched Hive]] where an enemy was having a drink, and in the following pages he ends up finding some friends he hadn't seen for a while.
* Happens to Hamlet in [[Tom Holt]]'s ''My Hero'', during a sequence that's ''supposed'' to be demonstrating that the [[Theory of Narrative Causality]] no longer applies but keeps getting undermined by the fact that (this being a Tom Holt novel) the [[Rule of Funny]] is still in full effect.
* Averted in Darren Shan's ''Demonata'' series in ''Lord Loss''. Grubbs seems like the kind of impulsive young kid to stop searching early and accidentally trip the switch, but he somehow has the patience to try every single wine bottle in his uncle's cellar until he finds the one that's a hidden switch. He goes through dozens of bottles.
* Exaggerated in [[Arthur Machen]]'s early works, where ''every single plot development'' came about this way.
== Live
* In ''[[The Comic Strip Presents|Five Go Mad In Dorset]]'', a British television special which viciously parodied [[Enid Blyton|Enid Blyton's]] ''Famous Five'' children's stories, the titular protagonists open a concealed door by yanking three times on a random tree-branch.
* [[Lampshaded|Lampshade lovingly hung]] in the ''[[Babylon 5]]'' episode ''War Without End''. Ivanova and Marcus Cole are looking for an access panel. Ivanova declares that they'll need some luck finding one. Marcus replies that he doesn't believe in luck, even as he's turning - and his Minbari Fighting Pike (collapsible metal staff) knocks into the panel, causing it to fall open. Quoth Marcus, "Then again..."
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons
▲* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'': A tried-and-true technique of any party. Let the fighter (or [[Nodwick|henchman]]) go first to "disarm" all the traps, and simply heal them later.
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' had a list of options to search a secret wall, such as examining it, poking it, shoulder barging it etc. After a while it came up with the option "rest"... which led you to lean back on the wall, and open the door. Justified in that this was in the upside-down/backwards castle, so the the best way to get through the wall was to apply the smallest amount of force possible.
** A similliar event happens in [[Breath of Fire 3]] when the gang of [[Loveable Rogue
* Colette from ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' is [[Dojikko|incredibly clumsy]], but when she trips she tends to fall on the exact thing she's looking for.
* In a lot of [[Point and Click]] games, randomly clicking on everything is a good way to find things.
* In ''[[Ghostbusters]]'', you have to find a hidden passage in the New York Public Library. The hidden passage is hidden behind a bookshelf, but the idea is subverted twofold: first, the Phantom Librarian guides you to it; second, the PKE Meter and Paragoggles tell you exactly where to look.
== Web Comics ==
*
▲* Subverted in ''[[Girl Genius]]'' by [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20031006 Agatha] and [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20101124 Tarvek].
* [[Invoked Trope|Invoked]] in ''[[Order of the Stick]]'' by Roy [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0691.html here].
* ''[[Chasing the Sunset]]'': Suggested as a possible method for finding a secret door in [https://web.archive.org/web/20171001093944/http://www.fantasycomic.com/index.php?p=c166 this strip].
* Played straight in [http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20110819 this] ''[[Ctrl+Alt+Del]]'' strip.
* …and in [http://strewthcomic.com/2011/09/22/chapter-five-page-four/ this]{{Dead link}} ''Strewth!'' strip.
== Western Animation ==
* The video version of ''[[Garfield His 9 Lives]]'', during [[Garfield]]'s second life in [[Ancient Egypt]]. He's sealed in a tomb, Odie comes sniffing around, looking for a loose stone block, thinks he's found one, and pushes it with all his might. Then he takes a breather, leaning against the stone block next to it, and it slides in easily.
* ''[[Danger Mouse]]'': Subverted when DM is trying to find the entrance to a forbidden temple; when he leans on something a door opens behind him... but he doesn't notice and carries on looking.
* Parodied in ''[[The Venture Bros]]'' when Dr. Venture grabs a candle holder on the wall and flips it over expecting something to happen. Dr. Byron Orpheus informs him that it doesn't do anything...except dump wax on his carpet.
* In the film ''[[Igor]]'', the main characters are being chased, so Brain starts trying to find a switch for a secret passage on the wall. Igor tells him there isn't a secret passage and bangs the opposite wall in frustration, hitting the switch for the secret passage.
* Oddly, in ''[[A Pup Named Scooby
* ''[[Ben 10]]'' has Ben doing this with the omnitrix; rather than trying logical patterns or anything like that, he just randomly rotates the dial. It actually doesn't do anything for many episodes, until he gets lucky and triggers the [[Super Mode]] that removes form time limits. Other characters call him on the useless fiddling several times as well. It may be all justified by the fact that he's a kid and no one understands the thing anyway, but whatever.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
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