The Guards Must Be Crazy: Difference between revisions

* Getting easily distracted, especially by [[Fake Out Make Out|prisoners getting it on]].

* But never curious enough to eavesdrop on conversations between the prisoner and [[Alone With Prisoner Ploy|unscheduled higher-ups]], ''especially'' when they say they [[Alone With Prisoner Ploy|want to be alone]] with a prisoner, if you know what I mean.

* Never learning that it's NOT [[Attack Attack Attack|a good idea to fight]] the hero/villain. Especially after he/she just left [[Atop a Mountain of Corpses|a mountain of their corpses]] in his/her wake.

* ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'':

** [[Playing With a Trope|Played with]] in the episode "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S24 E4 Dragonfire|Dragonfire]]", when the Doctor distracts a guard by engaging him in a philosophical discussion on the nature of existence, a subject about which the guard is particularly enthusiastic.

** Both averted and played straight in "[[Doctor Who (TV)/Recap/S18 E4 State of Decay|State of Decay]]" -- one of the guards recognises that the man claiming to be a guard is, in fact, a known deserter. But the other doesn't... and falls for "the old prisoner trick".

* From a review of the ''[[Blake's Seven (TV)|Blakes Seven]]'' episode "Bounty".

* Subverted in ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (TV)|Battlestar Galactica Reimagined]]'' in that when someone escapes from a cell it's either ({{spoiler|Bulldog, and later Ellen Tigh}} escaping from the Cylon basestar) or because the guards are in on things (Laura Roslin in Season 2, and Tom Zarek during [[The Mutiny]]). Probably the least plausible occasion is when Gina escapes from the Pegasus brig, makes her way to Admiral Cain's quarters and shoots her, ''and then'' slips off the battlestar unnoticed. Although she had the help of Baltar, a uniform and things were chaotic in the aftermath of a major attack, it still stretched the bounds of credibility.

* In the ''[[Babylon 5 (TV)|Babylon 5]]'' episode "Between the Darkness and the Light", Garibaldi plays on his recent media fame in capturing Sheridan to break him out again. This gets him past the outer guard, but the cell guards aren't so impressed.

* ''Time Lord'' RPG (based on ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'') main rules, "Curse of the Cyclops" adventure. If the entire [[PC]] party is captured and there is no one to rescue them, the guards will demonstrate their usual stupidity and allow the prisoners to fool them and escape.

* Another aversion comes with the Guard Dogs in ''[[King's Quest VI]]''. Alex has to get creative, either by magic or by using his small build and what amounts to a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burqa burqa] to get past. Even then, he'd better not get busted. Saladin, true to his namesake, is not an idiot.

** Speaking of Zelda, the guards in ''[[The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' don't react unless you're several feet in front of them.

* In the first ''[[Commandos (Video Game)|Commandos]]'' game some of the levels had prisons. If one of your men was spotted then he would be held at gunpoint, and as long as he didn't move or perform an offensive action then he would eventually be marched off to the jail where his buddies could later break him out (or, more likely, you could just [[Save Scumming|reload]]). However, in maps with no jail the lone guards would [[Artificial Stupidity|never, ever fire]] on one of your men as long as he remained perfectly still, and only the arrival of a patrol would cause them to shoot. If there were no patrols nearby then you have a man crawl to a chosen spot and then suddenly stand up, ensuring that a guard spotted him and stood there with his cone of vision fixated on the one spot. Any other guards that could see the commando or another alerted guard would join in, potentially causing a chain reaction where dozens of enemies would converge and look towards one point. If your squad's brave volunteer was carefully positioned then it was fairly trivial for another squad member to then methodically stab everyone whilst they were distracted. This troper called this the 'Sniper tactic', since the Sniper was the most [[What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway|useless squad member]], making him an ideal candidate for the job.

* The guards of the "high security" prison in the ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' episodes "The Boiling Rock". Sokka and Zuko somehow obtain uniforms and pass themselves off as newbies. The [[Alone With Prisoner Ploy]] occurs in the first of the two episodes. Strangely enough, Zuko slips up and is caught - but Sokka, who was the one alone with Suki, isn't suspected at all. Later on, Sokka pulls up his mask and goes to the side to talk to two prisoners. They're obviously not hiding particularly well because they ''are'' caught...by another prisoner. The second episode is rife with its own examples of [[The Guards Must Be Crazy]] as well.

* In 1982, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Fagan_incident an unhinged man climbed the wall of Buckingham palace.] Someone saw him and reported it, but by the time guards came to look, he was gone and they decided he must have left already; they raised no alarm. When he went through a window, the security system alerted a policeman on duty, who assumed it was a malfunction and '''silenced the alarm twice in a row'''. Wandering through the halls, he passed a housekeeper, who '''greeted him'''. He eventually made it to the Queen's chamber, where she was sleeping unguarded, woke her up, and chatted to her as she tried to get help by two different methods (a button and the phone); nobody came for ten minutes. As Hollywood writer [[William Goldman]] said it, if you would put this in a movie, people probably would throw rotten eggs at the screen for breaking their [[Suspension of Disbelief]].

* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mas_Selamat_bin_Kastari Mas Selamat bin Kastari], one of the most influential terrorists in Southeast Asia escaped Singapore's most well-guarded prison by going to the toilet, changing quickly, and climbing out the window. When he was recaptured more than a year later, it was revealed that he climbed into the storm drains, went 20+ kilometers north in 3 days, created improvised flotation devices from trash, and swam across from Singapore to Malaysia and met up with other operatives. Apparently, it was so unexpected, that theories ranged from his escape a cover for the fact that he had died in detention, he used black magic to get out, or he was allowed to escape so that he could lead authorities to other terrorists.

[[Category:Trope]]