This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
I changed the "most common answer" for the trope's puzzle, because that's how I've always remembered it (not just from Labyrinth, either; I remember reading a puzzle book before the movie came out that had a similar puzzle, with the same kind of solution). The solution gave before my edit smacked of the Labyrinth Sarah solution, which - if you've seen the movie - is quite incorrect.
Kilyle: I'm more familiar with the "second-most common" question, but I have adored Haley's answer since the moment I saw it. I intend to use it someday if I ever have good reason to set up something like this in one of my projects. But the real problem, you know, is the stipulation of "only one question." Otherwise you could just start a conversation about the weather. ("Is it raining?" or the like.) And I don't think that Sombrero comic actually included any information about which head would vouch for which path.
By the way, that "skips straight to the violence" bit should have a link to When All You Have Is a Hammer…, shouldn't it?
Someone should add the bit from 'The 10th Kingdom' . . .
Andyroid: It's there already. Does your browser have a search function? I've found that helps when tracking down specific entries in a page.
Blork: Kilyle, in the second panel of the sombrero comic the monster says "the correct path lies with the one who tells the truth" so once she had determined which was which she would know the answer. Of course, this means that the question would work even if the monster wasn't wearing a sombrero.
—- Zander Schubert: Unsure whether I should put this in as an example or in the main text of the page, but here goes:
- This troper has an old book on maths puzzles which goes in depth into a common variation, where you're on a fork in the road on an island, looking for the nearest village, and there's only one person who may be a liar or a truth teller. After going into various solutions involving multiple choices, confusing the words for "yes" and "no" and even arguments on what a liar (or someone who doesn't understand mathematical logic) would actually do, it suggests using the question "Do you know there's free beer at the village?" and then following them to the village.
CodeMan38: This cat macro
was featured on I Can Has Cheezburger recently. You know a trope's old when it gets cat-macro'd. ^_^
Off Side 7: There's an entire book of these, very entertaining... I forget the name. Something like, The Devil and the Mathematician? Someone help me out here...
Robin Adams: Raymond Smullyan himself has written lots of puzzle books. All of them start with a chapter of knights and knaves puzzles, some of them have nothing else. I think you're thinking of Satan, Cantor and Infinity. The Lady or the Tiger and What is the Name of this Book? are also good ones.
Laota: Removed this from the Labyrinth example —
- Ambiguous. It could be a punishment for hubris, or it could be another example of the nasty scenario (see above) where the puzzlers are actually lying about the conditions of the puzzle.
- Or perhaps the guards are telling the truth, and if Sarah had chosen the other door, she would have been killed instantly; all she had to do was ask the hands to send her up rather than down to move forward, and the "piece of cake" line was a coincidence, as she would have fallen down the hole in any case.
— as the trapdoor opening was a direct consequence of Sarah saying the Labyrinth was a piece of cake. She does it again when confronted by Jareth himself, who asks her how she's liking his Labyrinth, and as a result of her belittling the challenge, Jareth winds his clock forward several hours and sets The Cleaners on her and Hoggle. By saying the Labyrinth is easy, she's basically asking Jareth to make it more difficult.
