# Easy Answers for Fictional Dilemmas **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2025, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080 "2025-04-15T20:26:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/21 "2025-04-15T22:59:22Z")
Here’s another one: Two people want to descend a tall cliff, too steep to be able to descent without a rope. They have a rope, and the rope is longer than the cliff, but it’s not twice as long. Easy, right? Just tie the rope to something at the top of the cliff. Except, they also want to bring the rope with them. I’ve seen this at least twice, once as Frodo and Sam are entering Mordor, and once in one of Heinlein’s short stories (I think it was “Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon”). In one case, the solution was magic rope that unties itself when needed, and in the other, it was a changeover with pitons halfway down the cliff face (which goes wrong when the pitons come loose). But there’s a better solution. Just before the end of the rope, make an eye knot, with a long end (long enough to reach the bottom of the cliff) and a short end coming off of it. Loop the long end around whatever you’re using for an anchor (tree, boulder, whatever), feed it through the eye, and down the cliff. Tie a counterweight to the short end, lighter than the climbers, and hang that over the edge, too. As long as the climbers are hanging on the rope, the whole thing is held tight. When the climbers reach the bottom and let go, the counterweight falls down, and pulls the long end of the rope back through the eye. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/22 "2025-04-15T23:06:21Z")
Just don’t let go when you’re setting things up or the counterweight and the rope will go down the cliff without you. Much more of a risk than getting your anchor set up _before_ throwing the rest of the rope over. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/23 "2025-04-15T23:06:59Z")
She calls it “stunner tag”, I think. The theory is, if two groups are fighting with stunners, the side with one person standing at the end wins everything, because that one combatant can wake their team up and tie up their opponents. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/24 "2025-04-15T23:12:33Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Just don’t let go when you’re setting things up or the counterweight and the rope will go down the cliff without you. Well, you obviously don’t actually hang the counterweight over the edge until you’re just about to go over the edge yourself. At which point “just don’t let go” assumes even greater importance. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2025, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/25 "2025-04-15T23:46:11Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > She calls it “stunner tag”, I think. I think that was in another book…two guys were searching the same area, see each other, and immediately stun each other, since the reflex is literally, “Shoot first and ask questions later”. There’s little downside to being trigger-happy with a stunner. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/26 "2025-04-16T00:06:10Z")
Sure, but it’s still a slightly more delicate operation. If you are about to descend, but put down the rope because you forgot your canteen and need to grab it, you’d better remember to bring the counterweight back up first. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/27 "2025-04-16T00:24:42Z")
In the Will Forte TV series _The Last Man On Earth_ he was initially living in a mansion with no electricity and faulty plumbing, and a broken front door. Read a damn book and fix them yourself, you lazy bum. Hook up solar panels, and feed pipes from a water tower if need be. ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/28 "2025-04-16T06:39:43Z")
I thought of an alternate solution to the scene in _Men in Black_ where the applicants are taking the written test. Instead of dragging the table over to his chair, like Will Smith’s character did, I would have just laid on the floor and completed the test. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/29 "2025-04-16T06:56:01Z")
This reminds me of the YouTube channel “how it should’ve ended”. One episode has Gandalf taking Frodo on a big bird and dropping the ring into the volcano from above. Why not? Another scenario that always bugged me as a kid was why the Jedi were so useless in Star Wars. If size didn’t matter to Yoda, why didn’t he just fling the Death Star into a random star and call it a day? Why couldn’t Vader just force choke Luke from afar? Why didn’t they all work together to kill Jar Jar in the first two minutes? ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/30 "2025-04-16T06:57:46Z")
> [@anny\_m](#): > > The final episode of M_A_S\*H. > > The docs are on a bus with some locals. The Chinese are going to kill them if the find them, so they have to be quiet. A woman has a baby who will not stop crying. Woman kills baby to keep everyone safe. > > Really? A whole bus of medical personnel, and not one brought a medical bag that held a sedative? Hawkeye didn’t know it was a baby. He thought it was a chicken. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/31 "2025-04-16T08:28:28Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > This isn’t even a dilemma at all. He is giving the boats no reason **not** to blow up the other I think the assumption is that they already have a reason **not** to blow up each other in that _blowing up other people is commonly considered an undesirable choice._ ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/32 "2025-04-16T08:32:57Z")
Yeah, or Indiana Jones stays home, avoiding a whole load of hurt and peril; the Nazis get the Ark of the Covenant, open it and melt/explode, then the ark gets crated up and hidden away; The End. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/33 "2025-04-16T08:43:09Z")
This reasoning was done in the TV series “The Big Bang Theory”. Sheldon makes his girlfriend Amy watch Sheldon’t favorite movie, “Indiana Jones”. After they watch it he asks her what she thought and she basically says what you just said. There is no point to the movie because even if Indy did absolutely nothing the end result would have been the same. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/kWE6M-rhh2U/hqdefault.jpg "The Big Bang Theory - Amy ruins the Indiana Jones franchise") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWE6M-rhh2U) ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/34 "2025-04-16T08:46:03Z")
I haven’t seen the episode in a long time, but wasn’t it future Hawkyeye repressing the fact it was a baby? Hawkeye in the moment knows it’s a baby. We think it’s a chicken for most of the episode because narrator Hawkeye tells us it was a chicken. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/35 "2025-04-16T09:39:38Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Another scenario that always bugged me as a kid was why the Jedi were so useless in Star Wars. If size didn’t matter to Yoda, why didn’t he just fling the Death Star into a random star and call it a day? Hey, size also matters not to _Vader,_ who wants the Death Star to _not do that,_ right? /s ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/36 "2025-04-16T09:47:49Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > The Cold Equations > > There are plenty of solutions that are worth trying. The protagonist doesn’t try _anything_. As has been pointed out before, a simple pre flight check would have avoided the situation in the first place. IIRC The emergency ship was dispatched with a vaccine to save the lives of something like ten colonists. So, they will go to all that trouble for a handful of colonists who volunteered to be in danger on the frontier but nobody even tries to save the life of an innocent who is in peril because of the lack of a pre flight check, the lack of proper saftey precuations, and the lack of proper signs? That deserves special mention because it was due to [editorial interference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations#Development). The author kept coming up with ways to save the girl, and the editor kept sending it back demanding that it be changed so she dies. That’s why the scenario feels so forced and artificial; it _was._ > The story was shaped by _[Astounding Science Fiction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astounding_Science_Fiction)_ editor [John W. Campbell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_W._Campbell), who sent “Cold Equations” back to Godwin three times before he got the version he wanted because “Godwin kept coming up with ingenious ways to save the girl!” > [@Reply](#): > > This reminds me of the YouTube channel “how it should’ve ended”. One episode has Gandalf taking Frodo on a big bird and dropping the ring into the volcano from above. Why not? For one thing, that’s how you get a flying Dark Lord when the Eagle succumbs to the Ring, tips Frodo off to plummet to his death and takes the Ring for itself. Also, Sauron would have probably noticed and had the Eagle mobbed with Fell Beasts. What you really need for the job is something that doesn’t exist in the setting: a drone. Something remote controlled that doesn’t _have_ a mind to subvert, controlled by someone far out of range of the Ring. That should work fine. > [@Horatius](#): > > I think that was in another book…two guys were searching the same area, see each other, and immediately stun each other, since the reflex is literally, “Shoot first and ask questions later”. It was in both books, actually. _Brothers In Arms_ and _A Civil Campaign._ It was more important in _Brothers In Arms_, since that’s the one where Miles lured two groups of pursuers into eliminating each other with the help of “stunner reflexes”. Ivan compared it to particles and antiparticles annihilating each other. “Poof!” …Now I think I want to re-read some of those books again. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/37 "2025-04-16T11:30:42Z")
There’s always one easy answer: Nuke it from orbit. “Some lunatic is holding two boatloads of people hostage and demanding one kills the other.” “Nuke it from orbit.” “Some old guy has busted his glasses and can’t find replacements.” “Nuke it from orbit.” See how E-Z it is? Works every time! It’s the only way to be sure. 🤪 😆 ETA: Spock: Edith Keeler must die. NIFO. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/38 "2025-04-16T11:42:09Z")
Yes - if Hawkeye thought it was a chicken at the time, he wouldn’t have ever have “remembered” that it was a baby. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/39 "2025-04-16T12:38:29Z")
That’s why Sydney the psych was there: because Hawkeye was going crazy from the stress of what happened and was delusional. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2025, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080/40 "2025-04-16T12:43:25Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > Immediately, his glasses fall from his face, and break on the concrete. > > Whoa. What a twist. Guess he’s screwed, right? > > So, why can’t he find the ruins of a drug store or an optician’s shop, and see if he can’t find a magnifying glass or something? Yeah, it’ll be harder to find such stuff without his glasses, but not impossible. Plus it’ll give him “something to do…do…” > > I admit that this solution didn’t come to me until after I had watched this episode about thirty times. There’s an even easier solution. He can make himself a pair of pinhole glasses. No glass or plastic lenses required. It just helps to have a lot of light. That’s the solution offered by one Outdoors magazine for “what to do if you lose your glasses”. I’ve also written about it at length in columns and books. I’ve long suspected that ancient cultures used pinhole glasses (well, probably in the form of pinhole lorgnettes or monocles) for fixing myopia and presbyopia. It’s just that most such devices would’ve been made of perishable materials, or not recognized for what they were by archaeologists. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/easy-answers-for-fictional-dilemmas/1017080.md?page=3)