I like to point out that this trope long predates The Cold Equations. In fact, it predates Tom Godwin himself.
Exactly the same plot appears in Robert Cromie’s 1890 novel A Plunge into Space. Just as in Godwin’s story, a girl stows away aboard the interplanetary vessel and has to be jettisoned because circumstances won’t allow everyone aboard to survive otherwise.
Cromie’s novel is interesting in other ways, too. The interplanetary vessel is a sphere with anti-gravity shutters, just as in H.G. Wells’ First Men in the Moon, but over a decade earlier.
It also has a preface by Jules Verne, but Verne couldn’t read English, so how could he comment on this book? Also, Verne excoriated Wells later for using an anti-gravity sphere in HIS book, but praised Cromie. A lot of critics think Verne didn’t actually write the preface.
There are a number of Star Trek episodes in both TOS and TNG where the dilemma could be solved by not giving complete strangers access to the entire ship, including the bridge. You don’t have to keep them locked in the brig, but at least confine them to quarters! And don’t give them full access to the ship’s computer either.
From the video game Final Fantasy, the original version. To make a long story short, there’s a time loop that starts when you kill a weak version of the main villain at the beginning of the game after he kidnaps the princess and the king sends you to rescue her. You’re forced to do this first because there’s a broken bridge preventing you from accessing the rest of the world, which the king will have his workers repair once you rescue the princess. The whole thing could be avoided if the king would just repair the damn bridge to start with, let you do the main adventure while the princess is still in captivity, and then rescue her as the final step in the quest.
I saw the end of one of the Mad Max movies when I was a kid, and it messed me up. Briefly, Max shackles a guy by the ankles to a truck and turns the truck into an improvised bomb. He hands the guy a hacksaw, tells him that it’ll take ten minutes to hack through the handcuff’s “high tensile steel,” and just five minutes to hack through his ankle, and then walks off. Some time later, the truck explodes behind Max.
It was super-dark–I just read that it inspired the Saw franchise–and I super disliked the scene for years, until I realized something: the truck wasn’t made from “high tensile steel.” I figure the shackled dude took three minutes to hack through the truck part he was shackled to and escaped.
Hey you: I see you there, coming in to WELLACSHWALLY about the specific truck piece he was shackled to and its density compared to ankles and how long it would ACSHWALLY take to saw through that truck piece.
Nope.
Shh.
Sit down.
He hacked through the truck part and that’s the end of it.
No, the Professor arranges a series of “accidents” where the Howells, Gilligan and the Skipper all get killed, and he spends the rest of his life never having to answer the question “Ginger or MaryAnne?” in anyway other than “both”.
I know it’s meta but Tolkien said that the number one complaint he received was that LOTR wasn’t long enough. So which would you rather have: a short story or a 1000 page novel?
The Eye has the sky covered and I like the Nazgûl’s chances against large birds. It isn’t like evil is running from Gandalf and his crop of nobodies, they just hide well. The fact that Hobbits are disregarded is the only thing the gang has going for them and the well known fact one does not simply walk into Mount Doom…until it happens.
I’m pretty sure he knew at the time it was a baby. His mind made it into a chicken so he could live with the experience. His sessions with Sidney forced him to face the truth.
Possible, but how likely? These are supposed to be crack doctors, the “pros from Dover.” It never occurs to any of them that someone on the excursion might suffer an injury and need medical attention?
First, in case anybody doesn’t know they are not just large birds. They are sentient beings. Their leader goes by Gwaihir the wind lord. There is a big question on how quickly one of the eagles would be corruped by the One Ring.
As noted, giant eagles flying to Mount Doom would be noticed. Besides the fell beasts, Sauron has corrupted crows and other things that fly.
So, using the Eagles would be a race- can they get to Mount Doom before being corrupted? Can they get to Mount Doom before Sauron stops them?
IMO It is a very chancy thing. Having the Fellowship sneak the Ring to Mount Doom would have taken a lot longer. But it had much better odds of success.
Black Mirror episodes are all variations on The Monkey’s Paw, but in reality human beings can make unconventional moves and affect other human beings. Every one I have seen would lead me to riot against the society that caused this harm to me. Not protest, I would start smashing. Maybe I would be arrested, tried and executed but BM results are all different versions of worse and I wouldn’t be alone in this future hellscape.
BTW, Googling, one producer/writer/director described the real life incident behind that.
When I went to Korea, a man told me that during the war, a North Korean patrol was crossing across a bridge. Hiding underneath were 40 or 50 South Koreans trying to escape south to avoid being imprisoned or killed by the invading soldiers. A mother’s baby in the group started to cry, and she smothered it to avoid the group’s detection. It became the focal point of the whole opening of the show with Hawkeye in the psychiatric ward under the care of Dr. Sydney.
