Myopic Architecture: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Played straight in a TV ad for [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichet_Serrurerie_Batiment a French reinforced door company]: France's equivalent of a SWAT team is raiding an apartment building and hits a particular door with a battering ram: This only makes a huge hole in the wall around it, with the door and its frame still standing.

 

* In one chapter of ''[[Keroro Gunsou]]'', the Keronians test out their new security system on Momoka's mother Oka, who wants to get her hands on Keroro for some reason. The first obstacle is a series of electronic locks on the mini-fridge that serves as the main entrance to the lair. What does Oka do? Rip the door off its hinges.

* In the finale arc in the manga ''[[Ranma ½]]'', Akane is held in a cell by the bird tribe. She desperately tries to kick and ram the bars through to no avail. In her frustration, she leans to one side... and tears open the flimsy lock on the cell.

 

* In ''[[Doctor Strange]]: The Oath'', a door is sealed with a magic sigil. Strange asks Wong to break the door down. Seconds later, the Night Nurse calmly picks the lock [[Hairpin Lockpick|with a hairpin]].

 

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' presents a lesson: Don't build a jail door using half-pin hinges.

* ''[[Star Wars]]'' has The Death Star. Surely no one would shoot missiles into an open chute that leads directly to the main reactor. And it wouldn't hurt to place said chute at the end of a long valley that puts any attacking fighters out of shot from the defensive guns.

* In ''[[RED (film)|RED]]'', Bruce Willis circumvents a password-protected lock that he describes as "unbreakable" by kicking a hole in the flimsy drywall next to it and opening the door from the inside.

 

* The main gate of ''[[Redwall|Redwall Abbey]]'' is large and thick, impervious to even the most dedicated of sieges. Basically, not one invading vermin horde has ever gotten through it. The tiny wicker side-gate, on the other hand, has been breached by countless invading hordes over the seasons, probably accounting for every successful invasion of the abbey. This is presumably intentional, since it would be easy to station three well-armed, armoured guards there during a siege to hack up any single file intruders who tried to get in. Unfortunately, being peaceful monk and villagers, the Redwall inhabitants never think of that.

** In ''[[Redwall|The Bellmaker]]'', the heroes are able to escape their prison cell by hacking the hinges (which are on the inside) off.

* In one of [[Christopher Anvil]]'s ''Interstellar Patrol'' stories, the villain boasts of how impregnable his [[Elaborate Underground Base]] is. When the protagonist puts this to the test, he finds that neither the villain nor his contractors realised that it's no good having foot-thick walls if they only go up to ceiling height, with a convenient access void above them.

 

* In one episode of ''[[The Mentalist]]'', the [[Victim of the Week]] was killed via exposure to a deadly virus kept in a high security vault accessed by retina scan - which didn't work right and would let in anybody who presented their eye for scanning.

* A minor example in ''[[The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'', someone shuts a metal security door in their faces, and Sarah asks Cameron if she can get through it. Being a Terminator she could given time, but it's faster to punch a hole in the concrete wall. Of course, the person they were going after was expecting human pursuers, against whom the wall would have been sufficient.

* A common conceit in Michael Weston's voice-overs on ''[[Burn Notice]]'' is that people are more apt to reinforce doors than the nearby walls.

 

* There is a ''[[Hagar the Horrible]]'' strip where Hagar returns from a-plundering, handing Helga a large, well-crafted castle-style lock, noting that she's been worried about people breaking into their house. She's initially overjoyed, untill she asks where he got it. "Oh, it wasn't too hard — it only took me five seconds to rip it out."

* In a ''Gnasher and Gnipper'' strip, after the dogs knock over Dad one time too many, he buys a pair of special gnash-proof chains to keep them restrained. Fortunately for the dogs, while the chains were completely gnash-proof, the wall wasn't.

 

 

* In ''[[A Very Potter Musical]]'' Ron assures everyone that Voldemort can't get in, because he's barricaded the door. Seconds later, Voldemort enters through a curtain right next to the door.

 

* Often exploited by Revan in ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]''.

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Second Sight]]'' {{spoiler|eventually hides himself in a room behind a large pane of glass which, apparently, is immune to not only bullets but all of your various psychic powers. Too bad for him the ''frame'' is ordinary metal.}}

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask]]'', the gate to the castle of Ikana is sealed and cannot be opened by any means... too bad there's a big hole in the wall right next to it.

 

* ''[[Homestuck]]''. HB: Pry the wall from the safe. (Unfortunately, "''That notion is even more ridiculous than the last one.''")

* ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' uses [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/971204 this trope] [http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/971208 twice] in the Sluggy of the Living Freelance storyline.

 

* Played for laughs in ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'': One scene in the nuke plant in "Last Exit to Springfield" involved Burns and Smithers going through several layers of increasing security to reach a control room, which was seen to also feature an ill-fitting, flapping screen door leading directly to the parking lot, through which Burns has to shoo away a stray dog.

* In an episode of the 1967 ''[[Fantastic Four]]'', Diablo is running from Thing and retreats into a panic room. He assumes he's safe, since the door is made of titanium, which Thing is not strong enough to break. When Thing reaches to room, he just breaks through the wall.

 

* After a long and bloody siege that they had pretty well held off up to that point, Constantinople finally fell when someone left a small supply gate open, allowing the invading army to come in.

* Cryptography brings us the "Single Point of Failure". Basically, if each part of your system is secured with a different password, a cracker who gets just one of those passwords will have a hard time doing much damage. But if you use the same password for everything, you're hosed.

** Cryptography has this issue in more ways than one. There are branches of mathematics devoted to developing crypto-systems that are pretty much mathematically guaranteed to be secure. However, once these systems are developed, they are turned over to people who use passwords like "password" or leave their login information on a little sticky note on the monitor.

*** Computer Security is pretty much governed by this trope. Unlike other security systems, an attacker doen't get hurt if they fail to break in. So they simply try every conceivable way into a system.

** Thus leading to the following expression: "The user is the biggest threat to any security system."

* [[Truth in Television]]: Some of the better deadbolts can withstand forces that would put a hole in an outer wall. And, of course, there are a lot of houses that have solid steel doors with deadbolts and security screen doors... and great big picture windows right next to them.

* Straitjackets are [[Invoked Trope|designed this way]], in that someone who's both rational and moderately flexible can often work their way out of them after a few tries.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]