Everybody Did It: Difference between revisions

Not related to the other kind of "doing it." [[Everybody Has Lots of Sex|Usually]].

 

 

{{examples}}

* Chapter 30 of ''[[Franken Fran]]'' is set up as a typical murder mystery, and sure enough, people start getting attacked, although Fran manages to keep them alive. {{spoiler|It turns out that they're injuring themselves, because they enjoy having Fran operate on them.}}

* Seems to be part of the point that the various narrators are trying to make in [[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]. {{spoiler|Any time the parents find the gold, they will inevitably begin offing one another like crazy in a bid to [[Gold Fever|keep it for themselves]], making every single one of them possible culprits}}.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Peter Milligan's ''[[Shade the Changing Man]]'' used this to ''avoid'' solving the mystery of "Who Shot JFK?", instead Hand Waving with a glancing look at every possible speculation, then concluding that Everybody Did It. Justified in that Shade is a stranger to American culture, and that he was dealing with a madman's obsession covering up for grieving his lost daughter.

 

* The murders committed in ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'' were pulled off by the NWA (Neighbourhood Watch Alliance), which consisted of almost every named character in town.

* [[Played for Laughs]] in the climax of ''[[The Pink Panther]]'' movie ''[[A Shot in The Dark]]''. Clouseau's interrogation goes completely out of control as the different suspects start bickering amongst each other and shouting accusations; from this, he is somehow able to deduce that "they were all murderers, except for Maurice, who was a blackmailer!"

* Reginald Hill's [[Dalziel and Pascoe]] novel parodies this trope in ''Pictures of Perfection.'' Virtually every major character commits ''some'' sort of crime, {{spoiler|except for murder.}} Much to Dalziel's irritation, {{spoiler|nobody wants to file charges against anybody else.}}

* [[Older Than Print]]: ''[[The Trouble with Harry]]'' (above) is based on "The Tale of the Hunchback" from ''The [[Arabian Nights]]''.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* [[Played for Laughs]] in the ''[[Ripping Yarns]]'' episode "Murder at Moorstones Manor," which ends with a standoff between the characters claiming credit for the murder.

* In an episode of ''[[Foyle's War]]'', the victim is hit over the head with a rock and then drowned in a trough. It turns out these assaults were committed by two different people, and witnessed by a third would-be assailant who never got his chance to do anything. The rock-wielder is let off, with [[Lampshading]] to the effect that he's just lucky half the town was out to get the guy that night.

 

== Theater ==

* The JB Priestley play ''[[An Inspector Calls]]'' features this trope to a degree. Although the girl committed suicide, the entire Birling family drove her to it one way or another, and this drives the acceptance of social guilt that Priestley wrote the play to emphasize.

 

* In ''[[Ace Attorney Investigations]]'', {{spoiler|Callisto Yew}} claims to be the Yatagarasu before escaping custody. However, Kay claims the Yatagarasu was {{spoiler|her father.}} Turns out neither is quite true. {{spoiler|They were both ''members'' of [[Collective Identity|the Yatagarasu]]--as was Detective Badd.}}

* Part of a Jedi test in [[Knights of the Old Republic]]. Two people are suspected of killing a man, when it turns out that both of them intended to do so independently of each other, but one of them (non-fatally) shot the other conspirator by mistake when he thought he was the victim, which allows you to find the truth yourself.

* In the Hidden Object game ''[[Mystery Case Files|Madame Fate]]'', all of the suspects are revealed to be plotting against the fortune-teller and/or one another. {{spoiler|Subverted; someone else kills Fate -- and all the suspects -- before they can enact their schemes.}}

 

== Western Animation ==

** Also in "Mystery of the Samurai Sword", the Scooby-Doo Rule that "the first fully named character did it" is both played straight and subverted - ALL the named characters are in on the plot.

* Done in an episode of ''[[The PJs]]'', Thurgood takes Calvin and Juicy's homemade go-cart for a ride and wreaks it in the process. He plays innocent while the residents try to get to the bottom of who broke it. To which each one admits they had taken it for a joyride in some form or another.

 

== Real Life ==