"The easy way is always mined."
— From Murphy's Laws of Combat
A character is given two options, one of which sounds much easier/safer/more pleasant than the other one — yet when the "better" option is chosen and it's too late to change their mind, it's revealed that they've actually picked the worse option.
Named after a Running Gag in the film I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. Damon Wayans and Kadeem Hardison play Evil Minions who are always being told by other characters that they can leave the building via "the window or the stairs". Each time, they choose the stairs and each time they get thrown painfully down a long flight of stairs.
This is often invoked by other characters as a Secret Test of Character. The "window" option can sometimes take the form of someone deciding to Screw This, I'm Outta Here. When the situation is serious enough, choosing the "stairs" may set up a Cheaters Never Prosper, Mugging the Monster, or Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves scenario. If the "window" option would have gone badly anyway (although probably not as bad), the choice may overlap with a Morton's Fork.
For people actually leaving via the window, see Destination Defenestration and Super Window Jump. See also The Easy Way or the Hard Way. Contrast Sadistic Choice. When someone is baited into this folly, it's usually Schmuck Bait; see also Original Position Fallacy, which tends to be how said bait is set up. If the two bad options turn out to be the same, that's Morton's Fork. In video games, this is related to Path of Most Resistance.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- In the Indiana Jones comic miniseries The Sargasso Pirates, some Ruthless Modern Pirates take Indy prisoner and say they will only spare his life if he passes either "the wet challenge" or "the dry challenge." Indy assumes that the wet challenge is some ocean-themed life-or-death struggle and takes the dry challenge. The wet challenge turns out to be a drinking contest, while the dry challenge entails staying dry by not falling into a pit with a hungry kraken inside.
- The Ultimates (2024): In issue #6, the team meets the Hulk, who offers them a cup of tea. When they decline, he admits it was a quick-acting poison. The alternative is him and the Immortal Children, a team of gamma mutant martial artists, beat them to death.
Fan Works
- In Fate/Revelation Online, "dead" players are given the choice of working as beta-testers for upcoming content or death. Kayaba is too stingy to actually kill anyone who chooses the latter option, instead using them as test subjects for direct soul modification. The one seen after such a procedure was catatonic.
- Hours 'Verse: The climax of Monarch's Cascade sees Akira torn between whether to fight Maruki or accept a deal. While fighting looks like the harder option, it only takes four chapters and leads to a straightforward Earn Your Happy Ending, while taking the 'easy' route leads to a much more drawn-out and difficult struggle.
- A Mask of My Own Face: It's eventually revealed that all exorcists began as souls stuck in Purgatory, who were offered the chance to escape if they pledged to commit genocide in Heaven's name. If they refused, they'd be damned to Hell for all eternity. ...Except Hell isn't forever, and it's still possible to earn redemption and ascend... but the exorcists have so much blood on their hands that it's doubtful any of them will be able to atone.
- A Student Out of Time: Kazuichi's father Kenji always goes for whatever option seems easiest regardless of the long-time consequences. Such as marrying his Stalker with a Crush because she was the first girl to ever ask him out. Naturally, this led to an Awful Wedded Life, as she turned out to be a "crappy mother" who influenced Kazuichi's own obsessive tendencies.
Films — Animation
- In Finding Nemo, our heroes come across a chasm. Dory was told that they had to go through it, and she tries to tell Marlin, who ignores her and then tricks her into swimming over it, since it seems much safer. They end up in a huge swarm of jellyfish, and they both almost die because of the stings.
- In The Land Before Time, Cera and the other dinosaurs refuse to follow Littlefoot's instructions on where to go to find the Great Valley, instead taking an easier path. Their "easier path" winds up trapping them all in a deadly lava flow and nearly gets them killed until Littlefoot saves them.
- In Wish (2023), everyone in Rosa is led to believe Magnifico's method may be the easier way to grant their wish, even though no one has any idea whose wish Magnifico will grant or when, with Sabino waiting for decades. Meanwhile, the Star methods are harder as while Star does help you, you still have to put the work into it, but ultimately the wish does get granted.
Films — Live-Action
- In Frequency, the main character's father died in a burning building because he found himself in this situation (one corridor in fire, another with just smoke) and picked the easy way. When the main character tells him he has to go the other way, the father goes through the fire, which leads to a faster way out of the building.
- Subverted and then completely lampshaded in Galaxy Quest. Captain Taggert sees the path between himself and the Berylium Sphere he needed for his ship is clear. Suspecting this trope is in play, he begins taking the 'window' by dodging from boulder to boulder and rolling behind cover. Meanwhile the other characters simply stroll unmolested up the path. Gwen DeMarco looks over at him as they do and comments, "Does the rolling help, actually?" Capt. Taggerty stands up and dusts himself off. Unwilling to admit defeat, he says, "Uh huh. It helps." Then she points out that during his somersaults he actually dropped his raygun.
- Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers: The vigilante mob that arrives looking for Michael in the final act is offered a choice between escorting his attempted victims Rachel and Jamie to safety and letting the arriving police take care of Michael, or charging inside to risk getting picked off by the Nigh-Invulnerable Stealth Expert killer. They choose to drive Rachel and Jamie away, unaware that Michael is hitching an Underside Ride and quickly starts going through them to get at the girls.
- The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus: People experiencing imagination fantasies are often offered choices like climbing a steep staircase to sobriety, stopping for a nice drink at the bar, or joining the police force to beat people up or running home to their mothers. Taking the easy option tends to result in death by explosion.
- I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, as described above. The trope is subverted at the end of the film when the protagonist says "There's two ways outta here..." at which point Wayans screams and jumps out the window. This prompts one of the heroes to say, "Didn't he know about the elevator?"
- Joy Ride 3: Roadkill: When the homicidal Rusty orders Jordon, Alisa, and Mickey to meet him and their kidnapped friend at an abandoned location, Mickey leaves to go get the cops instead, while urging the others not to go to the obvious trap. Mickey is ambushed and brutally killed immediately after they part ways, while Jordon and Alisa both survive the movie.
- The Towering Inferno: Several characters are offered a chance to evacuate the burning building down a sheltered elevator rather than a dangerous zipline and accept the offer. However, the elevator is put in jeopardy by an explosion and one of its passengers falls to her death.
Gamebooks
- Star Challenge: Occasionally, readers are presented with a choice where you can risk a Million to One Chance. Taking the more sensible-sounding option tends to end with your swift demise while you're rewarded for taking the risk.
Jokes
- Many, many jokes about people going to Hell and getting to choose between a traditional torment or another that seems harmless or even desirable, only for the second choice to turn out to be The Not-So-Harmless Punishment.
Literature
- The Berenstain Bears: One book has the kids go camping à la cub scouts. At one point, their map tells them to take a long and winding mountain path around a deadly culvert, while their leader insists on taking the shortcut right over said culvert (ignoring the blank spot on the map). He takes the shortcut and promptly falls into the culvert because the bridge was out.
- In the Buffy the Vampire Slayer prequel short story "Blood and Brine," a pirate mutiny leads to the crew splitting up and taking separate ships, being faced with the choice between siding with their captain to sail a skeleton-crewed ship that has recently been subjected to monster attacks or taking a ship that is seemingly free of whatever is attracting the monster and has a much bigger crew (and will get to take a bigger share of the crew's treasure). Unfortunately for the men who side with the mutineers, the monster is being drawn to the treasure they take, not any individual ship.
- One of the main Running Gags in Ciaphas Cain. Every time Cain makes a decision that looks like he chose the easy way out at the risk of damaging his HERO OF THE IMPERIUM reputation, he always stumbles on some unsuspected danger or vital clue that reveals the greater enemy. In one he doesn't go on the frontline to fight orks and thus discovers they're on a Necron tomb world, in another he joins a recon group only to find out the rebel factions are actually genestealers, or takes a squad with him away from a battle on a hunch and ends up disturbing a daemonic summoning ritual. It's so consistent that Jurgen, who fought next to him for more than a century, is convinced that Cain's doing it on purpose. Cain does see this coming, sometimes. On many occasions, he has stood his ground or done something brave rather than take what many would consider the easier or cowardly way because he already realized the latter would definitely get him killed, while the other way at least stood a chance of survival.
- Discworld:
- Played with in Going Postal. Main character Moist von Lipwig is given a choice by Vetinari: He can take over the job of Postmaster General, or walk out a door in Vetinari's office, and Vetinari would never bother him again. Being a Genre Savvy sort of chap, Moist goes to the door, carefully peeks through it, and finds a deep pit where the floor should be. He drops a spoon into the pit, and it doesn't make a sound for a rather long time. He takes the job. At the end of the book, the Big Bad is offered the same choice with a job at the Mint. It isn't stated whether he walks straight out the door without pausing to look or purposefully did not consent to Vetinari's bargain, but it seems we will not be hearing from him again.
Vetinari: You have to admire a man who really believes in freedom of choice. Sadly, he did not believe in angels.
- Further played with in Making Money: Moist is given the same choice, and referred to the same door, on being offered a new job. Having ostentatiously repeated his previous actions, he discovers the room now has a perfectly normal floor. When he asks what happened to it, Vetinari claims to have no idea what he's talking about.
- Played with in Going Postal. Main character Moist von Lipwig is given a choice by Vetinari: He can take over the job of Postmaster General, or walk out a door in Vetinari's office, and Vetinari would never bother him again. Being a Genre Savvy sort of chap, Moist goes to the door, carefully peeks through it, and finds a deep pit where the floor should be. He drops a spoon into the pit, and it doesn't make a sound for a rather long time. He takes the job. At the end of the book, the Big Bad is offered the same choice with a job at the Mint. It isn't stated whether he walks straight out the door without pausing to look or purposefully did not consent to Vetinari's bargain, but it seems we will not be hearing from him again.
- Republic Commando Series: During Order 66, Etain is trying to escape offworld before being executed as a former Jedi, but when Bardan Jusik offers to pick her up in his speeder to take her to the spaceport, she decides it would attract too much attention and she can just blend in with a crowd while walking there, as she isn't carrying anything which would identify her as a Jedi. Unfortunately, several other Jedi who have the same idea are caught with lightsabers while she is nearby and she dies trying to break up the fight.
- Serge Storms: Sometimes, Serial Killer Serge will trick his victims into picking something that will kill them over something harmless. For instance, in Tiger Shrimp Tango, he makes a man choose between being hurt with various weapons (such as a pistol) or three cigars. The man picks the cigars, but rather than having him smoke them, Serge converts the nicotine in them to liquid form and uses them as a (highly toxic) spray to kill the guy while the revolver is unloaded.
Live-Action TV
- Cold Case:
- In "The Badlands", after one gangbanger suspect, JT, fingers another one, Joe, as someone who bragged about committing the murders, the cops ask where Joe lives. JT is reluctant to risk snitching on Joe, but the cops threaten to arrest him for the murders if they think he isn't cooperating, whereas if Joe is the killer, then they'll take him off the streets and he won't bother JT. Joe isn't the killer though (he just implied that he was to JT to build Villain Cred and keep the gangs from seeing him as easy prey, leading to his Start of Darkness), so the cops let him go, but he's mad enough about JT talking to have him killed.
- In "Kensington", recently unemployed mill worker Monty has the option between taking a risk starting a cab business with his friends (with no guarantee about the fares they will get) or withdrawing his contribution to the business (making it tank) to take a lower paying but guaranteed job at his uncle's shoe store. The shoe store goes bankrupt a few months later.
- The Collector (2004): In "The Miniaturist", the Devil gloats that Morgan could have saved his lover Katrina (and everyone else suffering from the Plague) and not ended up a cursed Collector if he had just kept working on his efforts to cure the Plague with his herbalist experiments instead of making a deal with Satan that only saved Katrina, and only for ten years.
- The introductory scene of Cormac O'Connor, hotel manager of The Continental, has him giving a minion who failed him a choice between walking out of the Continental, knowing that once he left the Truce Zone his life and that of his family would be forfeit, or jumping out the window. His body splatters on the pavement just as Winston Scott is being delivered to The Continental by Cormac's minions. Winston however is non-cooperative, so Cormac orders Charon to "show our guest the...ah, show him the elevator."
- Doctor Who: In "The Ribos Operation", the Doctor is given a mission by the White Guardian, and told that "nothing" would happen to him if he refused. The Doctor responds, "What? Nothing? You mean nothing will happen to me?", and the Guardian replies "Nothing at all. (pause) Ever."
- Jeremiah: The end of season 2 reveals that the Army of Daniel came into being when the Founders had a clear choice between leading by example as Hope Bringers to become a clear counterpart to the sinister Valhalla Sector or using authoritarian force to consolidate their territory. They choose dictatorship and end up Burning the Ships and being committed to their new government's ideals of conquest and autocracy even after the Valhalla Sector falls, when if they'd gone the other way, the Valhalla Sector would have probably still been destroyed without ever having a chance to turn its might against them and they would have had an easy time dealing with Thunder Mountain and its allies.
- Community: In the season 2 Halloween Episode "Epidemiology", Abed suggests that he, Troy and Jeff should escape the approaching horde of zombies by climbing a fence and crawling out of a window. Jeff instead opts for the door, not wanting to damage his expensive suit, and is immediately Devoured by the Horde.
Video Games
- In many a 2D Adventure Game and Platform Game, the screen will have a set amount of space it can display. If there are 2 paths to take and one has more Mooks or Spikes, it will be much easier in the long run.
- Bloodborne: The player has two options for where to send the various survivors they help throughout the game. The first is Iosefka's clinic, which is run by a friendly doctor who helps you early in the game. The second is Oedon Chapel, a desecrated old church whose sole remaining inhabitant is a creepy, deformed man who giggles and talks to himself, and seems all too eager for the player to send him some company. The twist is that shortly after you meet her, Iosefka is kidnapped and replaced by an imposter, who experiments on her — and any others who are sent to her clinic — turning them into horrible aberrations. The Chapel Dweller, on the other hand, turns out to be harmless, and depending on the player's choices, he and any other survivors at the Chapel actually have a chance of making it through the night.
- In the packed-in adventure Rivers of Light in the classic 8-bit computer game Adventure Construction Set, you face an area called Hell on your trip through the afterlife. Two paths are visible, one which is blank and the other which is on fire. Adventure Construction Set allows you to make any tile have any appearance; in this case, the "fire" tiles do minor damage that you can survive if you rest frequently or use healing items, while the "blank" tiles do horrific damage. The clue was found much earlier in the game — an inscription saying that nothing is worse than the fires of Hell.
- In Fire Emblem: Thracia 776, Leif's advisors present him with two paths for reclaiming his homeland. Dorias suggests a frontal assault through enemy territory, which is Honor Before Reason but might raise morale. August suggests a stealthy infiltration through a hidden back route. While the first path is still arguably more difficult, the first level of August's path takes the group through a Lost Woods full of invisible teleporter traps and some nasty enemy mages, which he wasn't aware of when he suggested the plan.
- In Mitra's palace in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, there are several areas where you have three hallways to choose from. On the floor in front of them, you find a message saying, "Take the long road". The shorter hallways either have a trapdoor that will drop you to the floor below or are lined with damaging floors.
- Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis has a critical plot choice where Alphonse has to choose whether or not to go along with Cybil's plan of torturing a mermaid for information. However, if you admit to her that you have no other ideas, a third option of rescuing a mermaid from other hostile humans presents itself. If you refuse, this doesn't happen, and you end up fighting the mermaid instead.
- The Walking Dead: Season Two: Episode 3 ends with your group wandering through a horde of zombies, using the classic zombie disguise. However, some zombies see through it, and one woman in your group gets bitten on the hand. You then have two choices; kill the zombie with your hatchet, or chop the woman's arm off. Over 80% of players chopped it off, because they had recently found out that chopping off the infected area just after someone is bitten can stop the infection spreading. Unfortunately, doing so results in said woman letting out a scream that attracts several zombies which kill her immediately.
Webcomics
- The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: Dr. McNinja encounters
a choice in the White House Negazone. It turns out that the Negazone likes to play tricks.
- Schlock Mercenary: Petey mentions that by all indications, the operation should be as easy as calling up some people performing a dangerous experiment and telling them to stop. Kevyn is less impressed, and when they do call it turns out that not only are they not believed, but the experiment is already well underway.
Kevyn: You do know the easy way is usually mined.
Petey: You're being optimistic. The shared experiences of ground troops throughout history is that the easy way is always mined.
Web Originals
- In one Diceman game comic, if you chose to descend the stairs, you'd meet a bunch of demons on the way up and get torn to pieces. The other option involved escaping through the window onto clotheslines.
Western Animation
- In the Avatar: The Last Airbender episode "The King of Omashu", the eponymous King is putting Aang through a series of tests. For the last one, he tells Aang to choose one of two warriors to fight. Aang tries to Take a Third Option and choose the old, crazy King himself — but he was expecting this, informing Aang that he's an incredibly powerful earthbender and tougher opponent than both of the warriors presented. In fact, he's one of the two strongest earthbenders in the entire series, the other one being Toph Beifong.
His Majesty: Heh heh, wrong choice!
- In one episode of Planet Sheen, Sheen is challenged to a gladiatorial duel to the death. When given a choice of weapon, he's told that he can use either a trident or a "huggy bunny". He picks the trident, which turns out to be essentially a fork, while his opponent picked the huggy bunny, which is actually a five-headed fire-spitting staff.
- One episode of Viva Piñata has Fergie and Paulie try to guide a sleepwalking Ella through dangerous territory, at one point having to choose between "Certain Doom Avenue" or "Fluffy Pillow Cul-de-sac". It's only after they pick the latter does Paulie remember that a cul-de-sac is closed at one end, leading to them crashing through some Dead End signs and tumbling down a hill.
Real Life
- The page quote accurately sums up military movements, especially in third and fourth generation warfare. Easy paths, such as staying on a road or crossing an open field, are deadly. Even movement within the immediate area can be like this. It can be very tedious to approach an objective properly and stick to good movement, then clear the objective properly, but failing to do so can get soldiers killed.
- Troops under fire are trained to use a variety of movement techniques which can involve crawling without lifting your head or body up, springing to your feet and running for three seconds before sprawling to the ground, and so on. In a modern army, a soldier might be expected to do this with about 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of load. Of course, they could just walk normally — and be picked off much more easily.
- Continually varying patrol routes and keeping an unpredictable schedule can be murderously taxing on the troops, but any pattern or routine which would make a troop's life easier also allows a watchful enemy to ambush them.
- Many military accomplishments amount to someone taking the hard path no one expected them to, from Hannibal's crossing the Alps and Arno to Deng Ai crossing 'impassable' mountains to invade Shu.
- Flying "nap of the earth" is a dangerous flying technique of staying low to the ground and using the topography to conceal one's location. According to Pakistan, this sort of flying allowed four US helicopters to make it to Osama bin Laden's hiding place in 2011 without Pakistani radar detection. This type of flying, whether done with helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft, is much more difficult than simply flying high above the terrain — but it does result in the aircraft not being as likely to be detected and shot down.
- Part of the complexity of planning amphibious operations is the fact that the defender knows the easy places to land forces on their shores just as well, if not better, than the attacker, and thus will inevitably place robust defenses there, including aquatic and terrestrial minefields, submerged and vehicular obstacles, and manned defenses. This gives the attacker the unenviable choice of trying to force their way through the defenses at great cost in lives and materiel, or trying to find an unexpected place to land that was dismissed as a possibility due to having some other obstacle thought to be unsurmountable. The Allied D-Day landings in Normandy in World War II are an example of the attacker choosing the "stairs" and attacking through prepared defenses anyway (though the Allies went to great lengths to convince the Axis that the landing would be somewhere else, which prevented timely reinforcement once the landings began). The UN forces landing at Inchon during the Korean War are an example of successfully choosing "the window". North Korean forces did not expect a landing there since the harbor's enormous tidal swing meant that any landing which did not succeed completely within a few hours would leave the landing ships and any supporting forces stranded and helpless as the tide went out and left them high and dry on the sand. This would also prevent a second wave or any reinforcements from arriving for a good 12 hours or so, and so the harbor was lightly defended. UN forces simply committed to the most rapid landing possible, assumed the landing ships would be stranded, and focusing their strategy on ensuring the landing forces could survive long enough for reinforcements. This succeeded and the sudden appearance of a whole army deep in their rear area forced the North Korean forces besieging Busan to rapidly retreat or face being cut off and surrounded.