Chain of Deals: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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* The [[Dragaera]] novel ''Orca'' follows this trope, as Vlad has to fulfill a series of deals in order to obtain a cure for a friend.
* [[Neil Gaiman]] and [[Dave McKean]]'s children's book ''The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish'' has the protagonist trade his father for two goldfish, then have to unravel the
* John tries such a chain in ''Me and My Little Brain'' after talking to a man who could start with a fifty-cent pocketknife and trade up to a twenty-dollar cow. He manages about nine or ten trades easily, but the chain collapses because he never considered what ''he'' would want out of the whole deal. He accepts a piglet as payment in the final trade, but since he can't keep it at home or afford to board it elsewhere, the other boy offers to take it back.
* In one of the [[Henry Reed]] books, Henry goes to visit an auction, and starting out with some fireplace tools that turn out to be valuable to another bidder who missed them, he parlays the two dollar bid on the tools through to another item and another, until he ends up getting an item and two dollars for his item, finally ending up with two items that the owner bid $40 apiece, a lot of money to Henry. By the time he's finished he's essentially traded things that he ends up getting something worth $100, which cost him nothing because he got the original $2 back during one of the trades.
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* There is a children's story about a woman who wants her son to go to school on time. He refuses, so she tells a cane to beat the boy up. The cane doesn't want to, so she tells a fire to burn the cane. When the fire refuses, she orders a puddle of water to put out the fire, then orders a cow to drink the water when refuses too, tells a butcher to kill the cow, orders a rope to hang the butcher, tells a mouse to gnaw on the rope, and finally tells a cat to eat the mouse, which it agrees to in return for a saucer of milk, and in the end the boy goes off to school. One has to wonder what the moral of the tale is, given that the sociopathic main character callously attempts to orchestrate the deaths of several people, animals and curiously sentient objects just because they refuse to carry out her murderous intents.
* This is how the Deveels in Aspirin's ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' series make their fortunes. The graphic novel even contains a visual representation of a chain of deals that begins with a coat hanger and concludes with a giant ruby.
* The well-known Danish fairy tale writer [[Hans Christian Andersen]] also wrote a lot of short stories with all sorts of themes and
* Example from a forgotten story in a magazine: The protagonist was named Scipio (after the Roman general) and he lived in a small town. His goal for the story required him to trade things with different people in succession with the end result of allowing a collector to complete his prized set of Napoleonic silver plates if the collector did what Scipio wanted him to do. This story of Scipio trading things to accomplish something apparently a regular feature in this magazine.
* In the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]], this is the [[Planet of Hats|species hat]] of the Squibs. The more complex and outrageous the deal, the more prestigious it is.
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** Okay... The Ferengi have always insisted they are the best businessmen in the galaxy - this proves it. Nog, [[You Fail Economics Forever|You Win Economics Forever!]]
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' had one of these in the episode "The Ties that Bind"... which also featured Daniel Jackson as the [[Butt Monkey]].
** To clarify: Daniel and Vala needed to recover an item Vala stole from a former lover so he would reveal how to sever the bond left behind by the bracelets. Doing this involves a
* A short gag on ''[[Sports Night]]''.
* Francis in ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' attempts this to get something or other, and agrees to make exchanges between just about all the loggers in the camp. The problem for Francis is that it's a chain of ''promised'' deals, and he keeps making grander and grander promises to try to ground out the chain at something he can manage. He keeps going unsuccessfully until they find out it's rapidly becoming a complete sham and kick the crap out of him.
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* Several of the ''Zelda'' games, including ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening|The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'', include an item-trading quest of some sort. The one in ''Link's Awakening'' nets you a Magnifying Glass that will allow you to see invisible enemies, get the Boomerang, ''and'' reach the [[Final Boss]], while the one in ''Ocarina'' nets you the powerful Biggoron's Sword.
** The fan-made game ''[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/253819 The Legend of Zelda and the Lampshade of No Real Significance]'' has this as pretty much the entire plot.
* ''[[Suikoden I]]'' has a classic example, where recruiting a particular member of the 108 Stars of Destiny requires you to run through a long
** There's official art of her with a fan of throwing knives between her fingers. That chick was just spoiling for a war or two, but needed to clean her commoner gowns first.
* Used in ''[[Golden Sun]]: The Lost Age'', where you help a penguin cross a stream and get started in a trading sequence that takes you through every little island on the map, eventually unlocking an area with a bonus boss.
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* An old Japanese legend tells of a man who started off with a single piece of straw, and traded up until he was rich. This was referenced in two video games:
** In ''[[Shadow Hearts|Shadow Hearts: Covenant]]'', where a sidequest starts off with a man telling the player this story and giving them a straw. Eventually, the player can trade this to get the [[Infinity+1 Sword]] for one of the characters. To be fair, it's a [[Paper Fan of Doom|pretty, yet magical, steel fan]], unless the player makes a wrong trade and ends up with worthless junk (or a small fortune in cash).
** The legend is referenced and subverted in ''[[Saiunkoku Monogatari]]'', where a character starts off with money for dinner ingredients, but ends up going through a
* ''[[Animal Crossing]]'' occasionally forces you to go on a variant of this, in which an animal wants to get an item back from another one who borrowed it... but then you go there and discover that that animal lent the item to someone else. You have to keep following the item until you get it and can bring it back to its owner.
** It can get really weird when half the village is sharing the same handkerchief.
* A quest in ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has you getting caught in one of these while trying to get some stolen comic books back for the Gnomish Gnomads. Not only is the quest optional, the reward sucks. It also refers to the [[Real Life]] example above: the only item you actually retrieve yourself is the {{spoiler|big red paperclip in the Haiku Dungeon}}.
* The trickiest puzzle in the original ''[[Final Fantasy I]]'' is basically a chain of deals, the difference being that not all the trades are deliberate.<ref>You need to escape the inland sea with your boat. A dwarf can make a canal, but needs TNT. There's TNT in Corneria, but the room it's stored in is locked by the Mystic Key. The Elf Prince has the Key, but he's been cursed into an eternal slumber. Matoya can cure the eternal slumber curse, but can't see anything without her crystal. The king in the Northwest Castle as the crystal, but wants the legendary Crown from the Marsh Cave. The trick here is that the king is actually the dark elf Astos, who will try to kill you when you bring back the Crown, but the rest of the chain plays out normally</ref>
** In the Dawn of Souls remake of the game, there's a Chain of Deals puzzle that involves trading things between a bunch of dwarves in order to progress in a dungeon.
* All the ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]]'' games have NPCs who want to trade BattleChips with you. Most of the trades are standalone, but in games 3 and 6, you can make several successive trades to obtain a powerful chip.
** You can screw the chain up in 6 by dumping one of the in-between chips (DublShot C) in the trader; it's almost impossible to get another one in C code. This sounds like a hard mistake to
* ''[[Ogre Battle]]'' has at least one of these in the series. The original SNES game, Episode IV, [[Queen|March of the Black Queen]] had several. The first you see is the powerful Ring of Undead, held by a wizard early in the game who would trade it for a Lexicon of Undead. And then there is the Diaspola chain. You start with some pirates with a copy of The Saga who are looking for a Map, which is in town with a man who is looking for Amatsu that can be found in the trade shop of neighboring town who only buys Furs which an underhanded sneak has and will part ways with if you give him all you money or return his stolen goblet held by bandits who want to hear a Foul Tome you received from a previous stage. Each of these items is worth progressively more than the previous.
* The desert monkey cave in ''[[Earthbound]]'' is basically a Puzzle Chain of Deals. With some lampshading thrown in ("amongst all these doors..."). Thankfully it's [[Rule of Funny|funny]]. Some players still consider it the most frustrating part of the game, mostly because ''every room looks like every other room'' and one item turns into something else (thus rendering it useless) after too much time passes. Fortunately, the player's guide (which was originally packaged with the game) eliminated most of the frustration by providing maps.
* ''Secret of Evermore'''s greek market blatantly uses this, though it's entirely optional. It's even pretty complex, with multiple traders giving the same item for different exchanges, but the rewards you can get through it are items that permanently boost your abilities, so it's worth your time and resources.
* ''[[Romancing SaGa]]'' involved a large trade quest kicked off when Strom (Water Elemental Lord) demands the "Raincloud Armlet" in exchange for a captive princess. It's in the possession of Adyllis (Earth Elemental Lord), who will only give it up if you give him the Cyclone Shoes, which you can only get by trading the Ignigarde Helmet to Avi (Wind Elemental Lord) by acquiring the Ice Sword for Pyrix (Fire Elemental Lord) in which you must plunk down 20,000 gold or by killing a recruitable character. At any point in the chain, you can decide to brute-force the whole thing and just beat the crap out of the dragon, though and you get an awesome shield as a [[Randomly Drops|Item Drop]]. However that does have some repercussions, by killing Strom you cannot get the optimal amount of jewels for doing the quest normally, are unable to do his Ecology Quest and also getting the chance to fight his Corrupted Form; Slask ([[Randomly Drops|Item Drop]] is the Chaosbringer; A powerful 2 Handed Axe that gives an Intellect boost). {{spoiler|This also bars you from exploring his temple later, meaning that you can't get the items inside -- including the Water Spirit, which is required for ''another'' quest with ''fantastic'' rewards.}} Also there is a trading ability for you to use in which you can trade items with monsters; so a mini
** Actually if you trade with monsters enough, they become "Crowned" which means they are stronger but give better [[Randomly Drops|Item Drops]]. Also trading with monsters can net in quite a bit of jewels or cash if you trade correctly.
* This is how you get the [[Infinity+1 Sword]] in ''[[Alundra 2: A New Legend Begins|Alundra 2]]''.
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== Western Animation ==
* The ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'' episode "Who, What, Where, Ed!" featured a
* In one of the "Lord Bravery" segments of ''[[Freakazoid]]'', Lord Bravery is given a Cease-and-Desist order on his name, as it was first used by a bakery. As it turns out, the bakery resorted to Lord Bravery because the name the owner wanted to use was already taken. The owner offers to give Lord Bravery back his name if the owners of the business with the name she wants will give it to her. This leads to a ridiculously long chain of businesses with ludicrously inappropriate names that ends only with the discovery of a shop owner who is quite happy with his business' name, causing the chain to collapse.
** And forcing Lord Bravery to change his monicker to Lord Smoked Meats And Fishes, making people respect him even ''less'' than they did before.
* This was also the basis for the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short ''Leghorn Swoggled'', with Henery Hawk making a long string of deals in order to catch Foghorn Leghorn. After making a bunch of deals (dog wants a bone, cat knows where to get a bone but wants a fish, mouse knows where to get fish but wants cheese) he remarks "I wonder what the cheese will want?"
** Also happens in ''Dime to Retire'', where Daffy runs a scam in the hotel Porky is staying at. First, he let a mouse into Porky's room, which drove Porky nuts by eating a piece of celery, prompting him to have Daffy bring in a cat to chase it off for a mere $5, only for the cat to refuse to let him sleep on his bed, thus Daffy brought a dog to scare it away for $10, only for the boxer (after hearing a bell, courtesy of Daffy) to start punching Porky, after which Daffy charged $26 to bring in a lion to get rid of it, which naturally tried to eat Porky, then for another $72, Daffy used an elephant to drive out the lion, however, the elephant then took up most of the room, so for $666, Daffy released the mouse back into Porky's room to scare it off, leaving Porky with the celery-eating mouse all over again.
* ''[[The Life and Times of Juniper Lee]]'', "It's the Great Pumpkin, Juniper Lee": June manages to successfully complete a
* In an episode of ''[[Recess]]'' the gang arrange a
* Parodied on ''[[Two Stupid Dogs]]''. An off the hook payphone tells the dogs to get a quarter, so they go to a change machine, but they need to get a dollar. This leads them on a quest to get larger and larger sums of money, each of which is eventually traded in for a smaller amount right down to the quarter.
** {{spoiler|Which is then used to phone the larger dog, in prison with a $10,000 bail.}}
* ''[[Chowder]]'' goes through a
* In an episode of ''[[House of Mouse]]'', after accidentally spending the rent money on cheese, Mickey is in desperate need of $50. [[The Sword in the Stone|Merlin will give Mickey $50 in exchange for a sword for Arthur]], [[The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad|The Headless Horseman will give Mickey a sword in exchange for a pumpkin to use as a head]], [[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]] will give Mickey a pumpkin in exchange for an alternate ride home, [[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]] will give Cinderalla a carpet ride home if he can get a rose for Jasmine, [[Beauty and the Beast|Beast will give Mickey an enchanted rose in exchange for a book for Belle]], and [[Fantasia|Yen Sid]] is in no mood at all to share his books, scaring Mickey off and throwing the whole chain apart.
* A ''U.S. Acres'' segment in ''[[Garfield and Friends]]'' had Orson wanting to get Bo a record player. Booker has one but wants a skateboard. After failing to hit Roy's three practical jokes, one of which involved super-hot chewing gum, Orson convinces Roy to part with his skateboard in exchange for a pie. Lanolin is willing to give up her pie for a stepladder. Wade is more than happy to get rid of his stepladder, but Orson insists on giving him something... specifically, the spicy chewing gum he got from Roy. When Wade realizes how horrible the gum is, he takes back his ladder, causing the whole chain to temporarily reverse.
* An episode of ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' had Jimmy go through one to get Beezy's [[Collector of the Strange|collection of chewed gum]] back.
* One episode of ''[[Dave the Barbarian]]'' featured the main characters getting caught on a ridiculous looping
* In ''Futurama'', after the Robot Devil trades hands with Fry, he starts a chain of deals involving Leela and Bender to get his hands back.
== Real Life ==
* The impracticality of this in large-scale societies is one of the major reasons (the others being transportability and storability) for introducing currency,<ref>Or currency spontaneously arising in the form of a good accepted as such by custom, like precious metals or salt</ref>
** Star Trek reviewer [[SF Debris]] went into this topic at some length while reviewing a [[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|DS9]] episode about a Chain of Deals. He pointed out that although the Federation claims to have eliminated money and the need for money, clearly people still have needs or desires that cannot be met except through exchange of goods and services, and that the absence of an accepted currency just makes the whole thing wastefully inefficient and even comical. He also points out an [[Accidental Aesop]]: Since Jake has never used money, he has no comprehension of its value, which is why he thoughtlessly badgers his best friend into trading away ''several years' worth of savings'' on a baseball card.
* Wondering about the page picture? As documented on [http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/ One Red Paperclip], in the course of one year (July 2005 to July 2006) Kyle MacDonald negotiated a
** Incidentally, he borrowed the paperclip back. To [[Crowning Moment of Funny|bend into an engagement ring to propose to his wife]].
*** She can hardly complain- it's worth the same as a house!
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