History Main / DurableDeathtrap

** FridgeBrilliance says that they were built for instant death, but the time that passed have left the traps barely able to do the killing, giving the Goonies time to get out alive. Plus Prof. Copperpot was killed by just ONE boulder from a trap of Rock Falls Everyone Dies and before reaching the trigger mechanism, so maybe the decaying ropes just snapped and killed the Prof. Now for that wooden ship sitting in salt water for the last 300 years....

Picture the following: Our adventure/fantasy heroes enter some ancient ruins in search of [[MacGuffin something important]] or valuable. Although the site may have lain undisturbed for centuries or even millennia, [[TempleOfDoom the place is filled with a variety of lethal, fully functional traps]] left behind by the previous occupants. Said traps are often BambooTechnology considerably more complex than anything else the creators were capable of making. Even more remarkable is the fact that they have not decayed at all, even if the environment is one that should require extra maintenance, and are just as lethal as they ever were, let alone the fact that any poisons should have decayed centuries ago. Projectile traps might even be capable of [[BottomlessMagazines reloading themselves an indefinite number of times]].

** Subverted in the novel ''Discworld/{{Sourcery}}'', where the characters discover all the traps in the DeathCourse protecting King Creosote's treasure are broken down and worn out. Turns out to be a DoubleSubversion, when the only one that was actually dangerous (the rest are just practical jokes) works just fine. (In this case, the trap is 'only' about fifty years old; the lethal trap in question is one that might plausibly last that long.)
** Played for laughs in the novel ''Discworld/ReaperMan'' where a pair of priests are guarding a huge diamond inside a temple filled with death traps. Although the death traps work fine, they can't stop, well, Death himself from stealing the diamond.
** A deleted scene from ''Discworld/RaisingSteam'' (included in the exclusive Discworld Convention 2014 Folio) has Moist meet a dwarf whose job is maintaining and resetting the traps in a dungeon. To keep it sporting, he also leaves [[InexplicablyPreservedDungeonMeat food]] and [[BlatantItemPlacement first aid kits]] in various places. The author's note at the start assures us that this scene was a gift from the goddess Narrativia and has nothing to do with [[Franchise/TombRaider any video game series]] he and [[Creator/RhiannaPratchett his family members]] might enjoy.

** The situation in Laos deserves a particular mention; it was a real-life AcceptableTarget during the Vietnam war, where bombers would offload any excess munitions. There are still numerous non-profits dedicated exclusively to combing farms and safely detonating the explosives.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': One episode revolved around the investigation of a murder that happened within the apartment of a Depression-era mechanical genius tycoon that had been left completely alone for almost a hundred years. Turns out that what killed the VictimOfTheWeek (a ShadyRealEstateAgent who broke into houses to check them out before they officially entered the market) was one of various death traps that littered the apartment, created by the man as an elaborate attempt to assassinate a rival from beyond the grave, and that still worked perfectly even if they involved such insane methods as turning a corridor into a furnace and, again, had not been given any maintenance whatsoever in almost one hundred years.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'': One episode revolved around the investigation of a murder that happened within the apartment of a Depression-era mechanical genius tycoon that had been left completely alone for almost a hundred years. Turns out that what killed the man was one of various death traps that littered the apartment, created by the man as an elaborate attempt to assassinate a rival from beyond the grave, and that still worked perfectly even if they involved such insane methods as turning a corridor into a furnace and, again, had not been given any maintenance whatsoever in almost one hundred years.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* In ''FanFic/AnEntryWithABang!'', the GDI team sent to New Dallas encounter a laser turret dating back to the Star League still guarding one of the places they try to explore. [[spoiler: Then it stops with a shareware-esque notification.]]

[[folder:Videogames]]
* Also features prominently in the ''Franchise/TombRaider'' games.

* Subverted in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin'', where both a past and present version of the fortress are visited: the past has many working traps, while in the present most traps have decayed or collapsed. At various times, the only way to get past some traps is to use a time portal to go the present, walk through the nonoperative traps, and then go back to the past in a new portal (note that all other games in the series used this trope to a T).
** Justified since the locales of the other games were still inhabited until at least shortly before the games' events. In ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheSandsOfTime'', the Prince even activates the traps himself before noticing that pits, spikes and whirling blades might not be that effective against regenerating, teleporting sand monstrosities...

* Both the Rakatan ruins on Dantooine and the Temple of the [[{{Precursors}} Ancients]] fit this trope in ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic''. A particularly egregious example, as the {{backstory}} says that both places were visited by adventurers just a few years ago, who presumably had to pass through the ancient traps and 30,000-year-old sentry droids as well, yet they're all intact.
** Can be {{hand wave}}d using the SpeculativeFiction option above: the building could plausibly contain automation designed to repair its own death traps. Harder to explain the survival of the Star Maps, but those were ''definitely'' designed to last a very long time.
*** The game does explain that the Star Maps (and thus possibly other Rakatan tech) are designed to repair themselves. This is why the Star Maps are incomplete; they haven't finished repairing themselves yet.
*** They haven't finished repairing themselves... [[spoiler:after being deliberately damaged by their creators on the way out. They didn't want anyone unfriendly stumbling upon them while they were dying, after all.]] That IS actually the explicitly given explanation. It might be added that much of it shows obvious signs of deterioration anyway(Only three Functional droids on Dantooine, and about that many or more broken down, for starters?)
* The Angkor Thom temple from the video game ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' fits this trope perfectly, featuring hallways equipped with slamming wall sections, ''humongous'' blades capable of slicing a man in a single blow, and holes that fire poisonous darts. Of course, since all the characters are MadeOfIron, Ellia will only die after being hit 3 or 4 times by these traps... ''even though she's the weakest character in the game.''
** Can be chalked up to a great big [[AWizardDidIt the giant rotting bulk of slowly-dying Mantorok in the heart of the temple did it]]. Given that we KNOW [[EldritchAbomination just how powerful]] Anchients are and Mantorok has been repeatedly shown to be capable of manipulating events thousands of miles [[spoiler:and in separate timelines]] even as he slowly kicks the bucket, it's safe to say keeping the traps running would be entirely within his power. Alternatively, Pious and his patron could have done so with equal ease for the exact same reason in order to prevent anybody from getting into the temple.
* The Temple of Pandora in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarI'' is a major offender, although it circumvents the issue of why to put traps in a place that was in regular use, as it was built ''expressly'' to keep the "unworthy" out, and served no other purpose except gruesomely killing people. Despite supposedly being a thousand years old, almost all of the traps and machinery are in perfect working order. Worse, at various points, you see people who attempted to infiltrate the temple as well, living and dead, yet all the traps are reset behind them. [[spoiler: The manual briefly appears to offer an explanation by sharing legends that the architect is actually still alive in the temple somewhere... but in the game, it's eventually revealed that he's been dead for a long time, going back to the problem of no-one to maintain or reset the traps.]] Possibly it's serviced [[AWizardDidIt by the gods]].
** Ah, but what if the dead {{mooks}} are the ''repairmen''?
*** It's likely, considering that the game says those who perish in the temple are brought back as enemies.
** Bear in mind this is a setting where the gods exist and such. It's not all that much of a stretch that a god maintains it in some fashion. There -were- all sorts of Greek gods.
*** Such as Hephaestus, the god of technology. He no doubt plays some part in the upkeep.
*** Also, the Temple as a whole was a weight bound to the back of a Titan. There was no way the Olympians were going to let the setup fall to pieces. Heck, one of the teasers at the end of the game had the ruins of the Temple (still containing dire secrets, it's hinted) and the remains of the Titan discovered in modern times as whatever avoidance effects the Gods put onto his carcass finally faded.

* Lampshaded in the [[TempleOfDoom Dry Dry Ruins]] in the first VideoGame/PaperMario:

** One might wonder why a ruin lying around full of treasure in the middle of a country that practically breeds [[strike:grave robbers]] [[strike:looters]] [[AnAdventurerIsYou adventurers]] that the traps would have been either disabled or at least clogged up with bodies hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
*** Not that unbelievable when you realize the Ayleids were slavemasters who ran a very tight ship for centuries at the least and who thus built to last and that decay and the miscellaneous ways mother nature can get rid of organic debris would take care of the "full of corpses" problem.
** The strangely impractical designs of these traps makes their continued functioning seem even that much more amazing. Though it's probably for gameplay rather than logical reasons, the fact that the spike traps don't fall on players, or players fall into the spike traps, [[spoiler:'''BUT THE FLOOR RISES TO THE SPIKED CEILING''']] just screams out that it should not still be functional.
*** Hey, RuleOfCool. Granted, the AdvancingWallOfDoom on a bridge [[CorridorCubbyholeRun with ledges you have to duck into]] probably takes the cake for the zaniest trap award.
*** It helps to explain a lot about the designs when you realize that the Ayleids: A. built to last, and B. were probably sadists.
** This is very true in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' as well. Both the ubiquitous Nord ruins and the slightly less ubiquitous Dwemer ruins are packed with fully functional ancient traps. Spikes come out of the floor, inexplicable darts shoot out of the walls, spiked doors swing around at you if you step on the wrong button... and in the case of Dwemer ruins, perfectly functional steampunk automata get up and start attacking you. This is justified in several ways. In Nord ruins, the resident draugr, when not busy killing interlopers, maintain the place, though it does beg the question of where they get the materials. Even so, several ruins do feature places where decay has obviously outpaced the ability of the dragur to perform upkeep. [[LostTechnology Dwemer metal]], meanwhile, is famed for being [[FantasyMetals corrosion-proof]], the Dwemer themselves were masters of {{Magitek}} (the robots seem to be powered by some combination of steam power and soul gems), and there are plenty of little spider robots running around with oil-cans and maintaining the rest of them. [[GoddamnBats And killing interlopers.]]

* The VideoGame/WildArms games are full of these, though they are usually of the "blocks the way" rather than the "kills you" variety. VideoGame/WildArms2 was particularly bad in the way the devices seemed to have been tailored ''exactly'' so that [[PlotTailoredToTheParty the specific combination of abilities]] of the heroes who explored them thousands of years later are needed to bypass them.
** As one example, there is a switch in ''VideoGame/WildArms2'' that's at just the right height that the only way to hit it is by knocking down a series of crumbling pillars like dominoes. The trap ''relied on the dungeon being an ancient ruin'' to be bypassed. InvertedTrope?
* In ''VideoGame/{{Painkiller}}'', the medieval-style shields used by the Templar enemies can block all of Daniel's weapons - even the rockets that should have taken both shield and user simultaneously.
** Justified in that they were (strangely themed) ''demons'' in Purgatory and that they and their equipment were most likely made from Hellish materials and souls.
* Both subverted and played straight in the ''VideoGame/WarioLand'' series. Played straight with the Golden Pyramid in the fourth game (complete with portals, music room/karaoke and shop), and Rollanratl in ''Shake Dimension'' (despite being a few thousand year old robot guardian of an ancient civilization, it can still hold up the roof, fire missiles and shoot laser beams at intruders an infinite amount of times.

** ''This remote allows you to summon a giant robot hidden deep within the bowels of the earth and unleash him on your unsuspecting enemies. '''But it's out of batteries.'''''

* ''VideoGame/FreedomFighters'' also has explodey (and otherwise useless) cars seasoning its levels. It's a good safety tip to pop a car before using it for cover. The computer controlled opponents conveniently never think of this. Possibly justified by the fact that the enemy troops have no reason to leave burned-our wrecks lying around in areas they're operating in; some of the materials used in building a modern car create some really nasty chemical byproducts when they're burned.
* The penultimate dungeon in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' is a giant dilapidated lighthouse that crumbles with your every step, but all of its poison trap, slow-gas machines, and DeadlySpikes work as if they were just installed.
** Justified, because the traps are definitely magical in nature.
* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed''
** Plays it straight with the Assassin Tombs in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' dating back to at least 1290, the Romulus Lairs dating back to the Roman Empire in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'' and the Masyaf Keys lairs in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'' dating back to the early 1200s. The Auditore Family Cryp is around two hundred years old by Ezio's time and over seven hundred by Desmond's time, and still has an elaborate network of lever-activated and timed gateways. ''Brotherhood'' subverts the trope a bit with the introductory segment where the modern protagonists go through the Auditore Crypt, and in the intervening 500 years the mechanisms have all decayed (though functional pulley-operated bridges still exist).
** The Assassin Tombs may at least be somewhat justified, depending on [[spoiler:whether or not the Assassins used reverse-engineered technology from [[{{Precursors}} Those Who Came Before]].]]

* ''{{VideoGame/Diablo}}'' doesn't have many traps of the classic variety, but a common baffling feature of dungeons is skeletons inside barrels. Who put the skeleton in there? Why hasn't the skeleton broken out? If the skeleton put himself in there so he could ambush you, why does he always wait to show himself until you've broken open the barrel and the skeleton is directly in the path of your weapon?

* The ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' series plays with this - while the adventuring segments rarely actively try to kill the player, any slippery handhold or misjudged jump can spell a quick, flat death. The puzzles often involve navigating rooms with huge clockwork systems and complex hydraulics which are always visibly decayed but, as a rule, will never be quite so decayed that Drake can't get past them. There are countless occasions where the loss of one more tiny architectural detail would render the game unwinnable, and just as many occasions where that same brick or pole will fall off the wall as soon as Drake is done with it - meaning if anyone had tried before him, or if it had rained particularly hard the day before, Drake would have had to turn around and go home. While not exactly "Death traps", this trope is also invoked with the old guns that Drake and crew pick up in the first and second games that have been laying around for a half century at least in conditions that would utterly destroy the functionality of any firearm within a few months, and having them operate perfectly without jamming, specifically the MP-40s and P08 Lugers he picked up left over from {{Those Wacky Nazis}}, as well as the AK-47s he finds left over from an old expedition into Shambhala.

** And then it gets played straight in ''[[VideoGame/Uncharted2AmongThieves Among Thieves]]'', where Nate and Chloe fall into a room with a [[DescendingCeiling descending spiked ceiling]].
* The Enrichment Center in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' both subverts and plays this straight, depending on which part of the game you're in. While you're in the upper levels of the Enrichment Center that you got familiar with in the original, the place is dilapidated, overgrown, and bits of it aren't functioning right. When you go down into the bowels of the Enrichment Center to the original iteration deep underground, everything is in perfect working order, right down to the pre-recorded, automated messages from Cave Johnson, who was long-dead by the time the original game rolled around.
** The electronics and equipment you need to use are in working order, but the environment itself is definitely not. Collapsed walkways everywhere, many of the spheres once containing test chambers are in ruins and flooded. And all of the elevators leading to the surface are out of order.

* Sometimes averted, sometimes played straight in ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress''. In Fortress Mode, traps ''can'' get jammed if triggered enough times in quick succession and projectile weapon-based ones require reloading, but they don't require any maintenance and can stay functional indefinitely. Averted with the tombs that show up during worldgen, as they're littered with degraded traps that vastly reduce their ability to harm an adventurer.
* Pi'illodium in ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam''. Keep in mind the entire Pi'illo Kingdom which it was supposed to guard the temple of had literally collapsed about two thousand years before the game starts. That still didn't stop this thing firing an infinite barrage of heat seeking missiles at Mario and Luigi, flying, making comments in RoboSpeak about how their deaths were imminent and setting off a thirty second self destruct timer when its health got low. Probable same deal with Earthwake in Dreamy Wakeport, assuming it was given the nightmare chunk to hold back when the BigBad was defeated the first time round. Two thousand years of no kingdom or civilisation didn't stop that HumongousMecha either.
* ''VideoGame/TheJourneymanProject 2: Buried in Time'' graciously averts this. You visit Cichen Itza at 1050 AD, when the traps for the three underground trials have been recently built and are fully functional.

* [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Infamously]], ''VideoGame/{{Nethack}}'''s vast dungeon of horrors is full of these--bear traps, chest traps, trap doors (both the "what happened to the floor" kind and the "why did that door explode when I opened it" kind), pit traps with optional poison spikes, you name it. The magical traps were presumably made and maintained by the evil Wizard of Yendor, but it's not clear where the rest of them came from. They don't always successfully entrap you, but that's mainly a LuckStat mechanic rather than attempted realism; some traps can be reset and used on enemies, if your character manages to avoid setting them off in the process.

* [[EverythingTryingToKillYou Infamously]], ''VideoGame/{{Nethack}}'''s vast dungeon of horrors is full of these--bear traps, chest traps, trap doors (both the "what happened to the floor" kind and the "why did that door explode when I opened it" kind), pit traps with optional poison spikes, you name it. The magical traps were presumably made and maintained by the evil Wizard of Yendor, but it's not clear where the rest of them came from. They don't always successfully entrap you, but that's mainly a LuckStat mechanic rather than attempted realism; some traps can be reset and used on enemies, if your character isn't too clumsy to set them off in the process.

* The Temple of Pandora in ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'' is a major offender, although it circumvents the issue of why to put traps in a place that was in regular use, as it was built ''expressly'' to keep the "unworthy" out, and served no other purpose except gruesomely killing people. Despite supposedly being a thousand years old, almost all of the traps and machinery are in perfect working order. Worse, at various points, you see people who attempted to infiltrate the temple as well, living and dead, yet all the traps are reset behind them. [[spoiler: The manual briefly appears to offer an explanation by sharing legends that the architect is actually still alive in the temple somewhere... but in the game, it's eventually revealed that he's been dead for a long time, going back to the problem of no-one to maintain or reset the traps.]] Possibly it's serviced [[AWizardDidIt by the gods]].

** This is very true in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' as well. Both the ubiquitous Nord ruins and the slightly less ubiquitous Dwemer ruins are packed with fully functional ancient traps. Spikes come out of the floor, inexplicable darts shoot out of the walls, spiked doors swing around at you if you step on the wrong button... and in the case of Dwemer ruins, perfectly functional steampunk automata get up and start attacking you. This last one at least gets some justification; [[LostTechnology Dwemer metal]] is famed for being [[FantasyMetals corrosion-proof]], the Dwemer themselves were masters of {{Magitek}} (the robots seem to be powered by some combination of steam power and soul gems), and there are plenty of little spider robots running around with oil-cans and maintaining the rest of them. [[GoddamnBats And attacking interlopers.]]

** Plays it straight with the Assassin Tombs in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'' dating back to 1290, the Romulus Lairs dating back to the Roman Empire in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'' and the Masyaf Keys lairs in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations'' dating back to the early 1200s. The Auditore Family Crypt, which is around two hundred years old by Ezio's time and and still has an elaborate network of lever-activated, timed gateways; some of the Assassin Tombs are even older and have even more elaborate technology. ''Brotherhood'' subverts the trope a bit with the introductory segment where the modern protagonists go through the Auditore Crypt, and in the intervening 500 years the mechanisms have all decayed (though functional pulley-operated bridges still exist).
** The Assassin Tombs may at least be somewhat justified, depending on [[spoiler:whether or not the Assassins used reverse-engineered [[{{Precursors}} Those Who Came Before]] technology.]]
** Averted with the Mayan temple in [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII III]], where the primary hazard comes from the fact that the whole place is falling apart.

* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' plays it straight with the Assassin Tombs and Templar Lairs in [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII the second game]] and ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]]''. The Auditore Family Crypt from ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII'', which is around two hundred years old and yet still has an elaborate network of lever-activated, timed gateways; some of the Assassin Tombs are even older and have even more elaborate technology. ''Brotherhood'' subverts the trope a bit with the introductory segment where the modern protagonists go through the Auditore Crypt, and in the intervening 500 years the mechanisms have all decayed (though functional pulley-operated bridges still exist).

*** German Engineering

*** They still cause deaths to this day, often from being turned up by ploughing, or set off by fires burned over them. They're also a LOT less stable after nearly 100 years, and tend to be easier to set off than when they were made. It makes it very tough to make them safe - there is work for the Belgian and French bomb disposal squads for many years yet...

Both averted and played straight in The BandsOfMourning, the third book in the WaxAndWayne setting. The heroes are exploring an ancient temple in search of the titular Bands, and they run across a variety of traps while doing so. Some are still active and must be disarmed, but one -- a trap full of HollywoodAcid -- had frozen solid years ago and posed no greater risk than a bump to the head. A good thing too, since acid is the only thing that can kill the otherwise immortal [[VoluntaryShapeshifting kandra]] they were using to disarm the traps.

* Subverted in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', in which Aang and [[spoiler:Zuko]] explore the ruins of a long extinct culture. When they run into a series of booby traps, [[spoiler:Zuko]] [[LampshadeHanging wonders how the traps are still operational after all this time.]] [[spoiler:It is soon revealed that the race wasn't so extinct after all.]]

* ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' plays it straight with the Assassin Tombs and Templar Lairs in [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII the second game]] and ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood Brotherhood]]''. The Auditore Family Crypt from ''AC2'', which is around two hundred years old and yet still has an elaborate network of lever-activated, timed gateways; some of the Assassin Tombs are even older and have even more elaborate technology. ''Brotherhood'' subverts the trope a bit with the introductory segment where the modern protagonists go through the Auditore Crypt, and in the intervening 500 years the mechanisms have all decayed (though functional pulley-operated bridges still exist).

** {{Justified|Trope}} in that some of the temples are meant as tests for TheHero, and various Hyrulian deities likely maintain the traps to ensure that only TheHero enters.
** ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker Wind Waker]]'' further justifies this, revealing that there must be a Sage in each Temple in order for that Temple's power to exist in the world. Most likely, they maintain the traps within.

* MatthewReilly's 'Jack West Junior' series frequently utilizes this trope. The most egregious example is a trap in 'Seven Ancient Wonders' that when you trip the sensor will shoot a live alligator out of a wall at you. This is a trap that is at least a couple thousand years old.