History Main / GutFeeling

->"''I don't like him. I don't have any evidence, [[HumansThroughAlienEyes but like you humans say]], I feel it in my gut.''"

'''[[color:blue:1) Judge of character.]]'''

'''[[color:purple:2) Reading the villain's mind.]]'''

'''[[color:maroon:3) He's okay, I can feel it.]]'''

'''[[color:Orange:Gut Feeling Related Tropes]]'''

'''[[color:blue:Examples: (Judge of Character)]]'''

** Compare with GenreSavvy - when it comes to Jack, there's very little between the two tropes. He could well be acting based entirely on his instinct, or he has all but memorised the 'scripts' for each of the LargeHam villains he fights every week. They are, after all, thousands of years old and somewhat set in their ways, as the show mentions several times.

'''[[color:purple:Examples: (Reading the villain's mind.)]]'''

* ''Series/DueSouth'': Ray often acts on his hunches, which he has based on his [[GenreSavvy having grown up in Chicago and spent years working as a cop]]. Fraser gets a hunch of his own about midway through the miniseries. [[spoiler: His hunch was wrong, and he and Ray almost get killed for it.]]

'''[[color:maroon:Examples: (He's okay, I can feel it.)]]'''

'''[[color:Orange:(Other Examples)]]'''

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales'': Scrooge has Launchpad fly him to Cat Island to investigate why his fishing fleet hasn't made contact for weeks, saying, "I have a funny feeling something weird has happened here." When they arrive and find the fishing boats abandoned but no fisherman, Launchpad echoes, "I have a funny feeling your funny feeling was right, Mr. Mc D."

* Subverted at the end of Theatre/KingLear [[ZerothLawOfTropeExamples by William Shakespeare]], with [[spoiler: Lear's death scene with Cordelia]].

* [[ATouchOfFrost Jack Frost.]]

* In ''Discworld/{{Thud}}'' Fred Colon warns Sam Vimes that he can "feel in his water" that there's something going on with the dwarfs. Vimes muses on how well "Fred Colon's Water" will hold up in court, but concludes that an old street-monster like Fred Colon (who, at that point, has walked a beat for over three decades) has more than enough experience to make that call even with the very limited information he has, and if Colon believes there's reason to worry, there probably is.

* In ''Discworld/NightWatch'' Fred Colon urges Sam Vimes to not participate in a certain operation because he can "feel in his watter" that it's going to get bad. Vimes muses on how well "Fred Colon's Water" will hold up in court, but concludes that an old street-monster like Fred Colon (who, at that point, has walked a beat for over three decades) has more than enough experience to make that call even with the very limited information he has, and if Colon believes there's reason to worry, there probably is.

* Subverted in the ''LeftBehind'' book series, where one character's wife is believed to have died when a plane crashed into the ocean, but he has a gut feeling she's alive. He investigates the wreckage... and finds her body.

* Carth Onasi insists in ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic II'' that Revan is not dead: "I feel like I would know!" By this point, of course, Carth has demonstrated a degree of prescience on several occasions (his Wookieepedia entry questions whether or not he's Force Sensitive), so he's not pulling this particular gut feeling out of nowhere.

* Subverted in the episode of ''TheSimpsons'' with Sherry Robins (or whatever the Mary Poppins-clone's name was). At the end, as she's flying off with her umbrella, Homer tells the kids that he has a feeling they'll be seeing her again real soon. Meanwhile, in the background behind him, we see Sherry get sucked into a jet engine and ripped to shreds.

* In ''Discworrd/NightWatch'' Fred Colon urges Sam Vimes to not participate in a certain operation because he can "feel in his watter" that it's going to get bad. Vimes muses on how well "Fred Colon's Water" will hold up in court, but concludes that an old street-monster like Fred Colon (who, at that point, has walked a beat for over three decades) has more than enough experience to make that call even with the very limited information he has, and if Colon believes there's reason to worry, there probably is.

'''[[color:maroon:3) He's okay, I can feel it]]'''

'''[[color:purple:(reading the villain's mind)]]'''

'''[[color:maroon:(he's okay, I just know it)]]'''

* Creator/StephenColbert pokes fun at politicians who rely on their gut over facts (see quotes page).

* [[Literature/TheSwordOfTruth Kahlan]] decided that the men who objected to her taking command of their forces, who had previously been fighting a hopeless battle against the Imperial Order, intended to side with them and ordered all but one of them killed. Surprise, the survivor admitted they did intend to go up to the enemy army and try to join up.

Another well established piece of heroic gut feeling is that the hero can read the villain's mind. Or close enough. If the hero has a gut feeling about where the villain is hiding, (or the bank robber's getaway method, or where the terrorists have hidden the bomb, or where the arms dealers are meeting, or where the killer hid the body, etc), you can safely disregard any and all evidence to the contrary because the hero will inevitably be proved right.

* ''Anime/DragonballZ'', while having numerous straight examples of this trope, has subverted it at least once. Before a tournament arc, all the heroes are uneasy about a short blue guy. That short blue guy was (one of the) the Supreme Kais and just about the only good guy there besides the main characters. They'd completely missed the real bad guys there. In this example the characters were basing their assumptions based on how strong the others were. The Supreme Kai was far stronger than the villians, who turned out to be disposable mooks anyway.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', Dave has "a really bad feeling about all this" before flying off to confront Aranea on LOFAF, and even tells the Mayor goodbye in case "i never see you again". Shortly later he and most of his friends are killed in [S] Game Over. This might have been his Time powers sensing they were all in a doomed timeline, though.

* This is often used in manga and anime on [[WorthyOpponent Worthy Opponents]], particularly those whose opposition is caused by a misunderstanding, and those who will be making a HeelFaceTurn.
* ''DragonballZ'', while having numerous straight examples of this trope, has subverted it at least once. Before a tournament arc, all the heroes are uneasy about a short blue guy. That short blue guy was (one of the) the Supreme Kais and just about the only good guy there besides the main characters. They'd completely missed the real bad guys there. In this example the characters were basing their assumptions based on how strong the others were. The Supreme Kai was far stronger than the villians, who turned out to be disposable mooks anyway.

* ''Anime/{{Mai-HiME}}'', episode 2: Haruka tells Yukino that she ''doesn't'' trust Mai, and tries to convince her skeptic friend that Mai's arrival by ferry is somehow connected to the weirdness in their school. [[spoiler:It turns out Haruka's suspicion is well-founded, as Mai's [=HiME=] abilities kick in later that night while [[AndYourLittleDogToo defending Takumi from an Orphan]].]]

* In ''7th Sea'', Scryers (male and female alike) can, on top of a buttload of other advantages, automatically tell if another character is a Hero, Villain, or Scoundrel just by looking at them. That's just one of the reasons why most ''7th Sea'' {{Game Master}}s don't usually allow the Sophia's Daughters in their games...

* ''An American Tail'': Tanya still believes Fievel is alive and somewhere out there... and even sings a song to that effect.

* Jason Bourne in ''Film/TheBourneSeries'' has this is spades. In the first film he moves almost completely by gut feeling. Justified in that he is an amnesiac and is mostly unaware of what he knows and must rely on his gut. In the second fil his gut feeling helps him identify an assassin just by the car he's driving and his overall look. In the third film he guides a man through a crowded train station crawling with CIA agents who want to capture/kill him, avoiding the cameras and knowing just when to move and when to sta put.

* On {{Lost}} the entire first season, Rose calmly asserts to the other survivors that her husband Bernard was alive and that she can feel it despite Bernard being in the tail section that separated during the crash. Early in season two she is proven correct.

* Several people use this as a basis for their treatment of Baltar in ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'', most notably Laura Roslin but also Adama and Tigh. All three judge him to be shifty, eccentric and irritating at best and their gut feelings are that he cannot be trusted. All of which is perfectly true. Roslin actually describes using her gut feeling when Baltar is accused of aiding the Cylon attack, [[spoiler: which he did do, just not as intentionally or personally as he was being framed as doing]], although her feeling is only partially correct in that she believes him to be the kind of man who would[[spoiler: intentionally sell out his people before it was a life or death decision for him, when in fact he was just a dupe]].

* "Warehouse13": Pete and Myka were chosen for the team based on their inverse personalities. Myka bases her work on cold, calculating facts and logic. Pete, however, goes by feelings and intuition. This is shown in his distrust of [[spoiler: HG Wells]]

* Betty, from ''DeadLikeMe'' had a lightbulb that went off in her stomach whenever she looked at someone. This lightbulb would immediately tell her what kind of person they were, although the types they were sorted into were or seemed frivolous, such as: Mouth-breather people or talks-on-airplane people.

* In the cop movie ''{{Heat}}'', AlPacino's character and RobertDeNiro's have a bit of this towards each other. De Niro's character, the crook, stops in the middle of a heist because he can sense that Pacino is watching him. Later, Pacino's investigation team is following De Niro's crooks as they seem to be casing a job. Everyone on the team is puzzled, as there seems to be nothing there worth stealing, until after a few seconds Pacino reads De Niro's mind and figures out that what De Niro and company have actually done is lure the police into exposing their surveillance team.

* Barton Keyes in ''DoubleIndemnity'' can always detect a phony insurance claim by gut feeling, personified as a "little man" who lives in his stomach and ties knots in it when something is wrong with a claim. Subverted in that he apparently fails to get any bad feelings about the guy who actually committed the murder, and almost pins it on an innocent man instead.

* The concept is discussed in one story of the StarfleetCorpsOfEngineers as something P8 "Pattie" Blue has learnt to respect, due to influence from the other races she works with:

* In {{Main/Mistborn}}, Vin has remarkably good instincts. Elend notes that she will come up with seemingly random conclusions, based on nothing more than gut feeling... that will be absolutely right.

* [[BurnNotice Michael Weston]]. In an early episode, he senses that a target is attempting to BluffTheImpostor, (with Michael being the impostor) and instinctively responds in just the perfect way. He later admits to Sam that it was pure luck that it worked.

* Brennan from ''{{Bones}}'' comments on FBI partner Booth's frequent use of his gut, as opposed to her "facts and logic" method. Booth's skill as an agent come from his judge of character and even some uses of number 3.
* Horatio Caine in ''CSIMiami''. In fact, one wonders why the Miami-Dade police department even needs crime scene investigators, given the guilty party always turns out to be the person H doesn't like.

* [[ThoseTwoGuys Issei]] of ''FateStayNight''. He's right about Saber, the main heroine, being a good person, even though he only just met her. He's right about Rin not being what she appears and he's right about Shinji not being a good person. On the other hand, he's wrong about Rin being ''evil'' (she's not), the man he considers to be a brother is an [[SadistTeacher amoral teacher]], and he thinks Caster is a good person. [[spoiler:She kills him in one Bad End.]]

* ''DragonballZ'', while having numerous straight examples of this trope, has subverted it at least once. Before a tournament arc, all the heroes are uneasy about a short blue guy. That short blue guy was (one of the) the Supreme Kais and just about the only good guy there besides the main characters. They'd completely missed the real bad guys there.
** Though in this example the characters were basing their assumptions based on how strong the others were. The Supreme Kai was far stronger than the villians, who turned out to be disposable mooks anyway.

* From ''WapsiSquare'' [[http://wapsisquare.com/comic/agutfeeling/ "I find that when a body part starts making decisions, one must proceed with caution."]]
* In ''{{Homestuck}}'', Dave has "a really bad feeling about all this" before flying off to confront Aranea on LOFAF, and even tells the Mayor goodbye in case "i never see you again". Shortly later he and most of his friends are killed in [S] Game Over. This might have been his Time powers sensing they were all in a doomed timeline, though.