History Main / GutFeeling

* ''[[WesternAnimation/AdventureTime Your gut says he's evil, my gut says he's good/ Why not put our guts together and end this funky feud!]]''

* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. Cowley's instinct tells him that Chief Constable Green is using illegal methods to maintain law and order. The Minister retorts that you can't put 'instincts' down on paper. Later one of Green's men says that his instinct tells him that Bodie and Doyle are trouble. Green replies that he likes instincts because "they can't be put on paper."

Often the main character isn't aware of this, it's just that the villain conveniently turns out to be someone they were uneasy about all along. Sometimes, though, characters are willing to risk a lot on that gut feeling. Then this happens they're usually right. This is a common trait of the MarySue; they're perfect, so anyone who they don't like has to be the [[DesignatedVillain bad guy]].

'''(Reading the villain's mind.)'''

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

* In ''Franchise/MassEffect'', Wrex once did a job for [[BigBad Saren]] along with a bunch of other mercenaries. However, the first time he actually saw Saren, he got a feeling that there was something ''very'' wrong with the whole situation, and fled before receiving any payment[[note]]It was a pretty hefty sum, too[[/note]]. Turns out his hunch was right; all of the other mercs turned up dead within a week after the job was finished.

** Also in ''The Lord of the Rings'': Gandalf is such an incredible judge of character that he actually knows that the ending [[spoiler:will be Gollum's doing]], "for good or ill." (And he has to know, deep down that it's [[spoiler:for good,]] or he would advise Frodo differently.
** And in the backstory, Galadriel is the only Elf in Eregion who thinks there's something fishy about this Annatar fellow. [[spoiler: he's actually Sauron.]]

* Subverted in ''Literature/HarryPotter'': [[spoiler:Harry distrusts Snape from the moment he meets him]], and his opinion never changes. At the end of ''Half-Blood Prince'', he is apparently proved right, but then finds out in Deathly Hallows that his Gut Feeling was entirely wrong, even though [[spoiler:Snape hated Harry with a vengeance and had actively worked to ensure that Harry hated him just as much.]] Harry tends to be an intuitive and perceptive person, but he's also very emotional, and his feelings cloud his judgement - which leads to him mistaking his personal dislike of characters like Malfoy and Snape for evidence that they're up to something (which they may or may not be).

* [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Data]], of all people, in the Next Generation episode "Data's Day"; though, being Data, he doesn't recognise his uneasiness as a gut feeling and wishes he could have gut feelings to back up the information he has on the Enterprise's passenger.

* ''Literature/HarryPotter''. thanks to Harry's mental connection to Voldy, he literally ''can'' read the villain's mind. So this is played straight all through ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallows Deathly Hallows]]''. He can roughly chart what Voldemort is doing by his gut feelings. However, in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix Order of the Phoenix]]'', [[spoiler:his firm belief that the Death Eaters captured Sirius turns out to have been planted by Voldemort himself, resulting in Sirius getting KilledOffForReal]]. [[HesJustHiding Unless you ask the fangirls]].

* ''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 enemies 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 villains, who turned out to be disposable mooks anyway.

* Runge from ''Anime/{{Monster}}'' is purportedly able to reconstruct a crime scene based on the emotions and other similarly nebulous traces of human presence he senses in it.
* Tsuna from ''Manga/KatekyoHitmanReborn'' has the "vongola hyper-intuition" which gives him various insights over the course of the show about everybody's character; including both knowing which current villians are really good and will defect, and being able to tell [[spoiler:when his guardians are either not themselves or have been replaced by the first-generation guardians he is so good at this that even when HIS first generation guardian attempts to block his intuition it doesn't work.]]

* ''Anime/MaiHime'', 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 ''Literature/TheConditionsOfGreatDetectives'' Banzo states that he knows the murderer in one episode is the one with the perfect alibi due to his gut instinct. Fujii responds that it's the stupidest thing he's ever said because there's no justification for it and because he's always wrong.

The main character is an infallible judge of character: his gut feeling about a person, not necessarily based on more than a couple minutes of interaction, is by far the most accurate measurement available of how good or evil that person is. For example: If a person has an "honest face," we can probably trust them. Perhaps writers think this is a subtler way to [[DesignatedVillain quickly point out who the bad guys are]].

Often the main character isn't aware of this, it's just that the villain conveniently turns out to be someone they were uneasy about all along. Sometimes, though, characters are willing to risk a lot on that gut feeling; when this happens they're usually right. This is also common trait of the MarySue; they're perfect, so anyone who they don't like has to be the [[DesignatedVillain bad guy]].

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.

* Particularly in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'', but continuing into Digimon Adventure 02, Hikari has this ability for both 1 and 3 (definitely 1, and I think I remember an instance of 3). This is Justified with her crest of light, which supposedly gives her extra good v. evil-related abilities that are vaguely alluded to throughout 02 without ever actually explained. Convenient, right?

* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', at the onset of the quest to find Thorald Gray-Mane, the quest giver, Thorald's mother, displays this heavily when told her son is dead. So does Thorald's brother when you talk to him.

* In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing'', Gandalf not only knows that Frodo is fine, he expects Aragorn to know it as well: "What does your heart tell you?"

* Invoked in ''Literature/MenAtArms'' when Angua attributes knowing that an explosion had been caused by a dragon blowing itself up to women's intuition. In fact it's because she's a werewolf and talked to a dog who was at the scene, but decided "Because a little dog told me" was a worse explanation.

* Betty, from ''Series/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.

* On ''Series/{{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.

* In VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim, at the onset of the quest to find Thorald Gray-Mane, the quest giver, Thorald's mother, displays this heavily when told her son is dead. So does Thorald's brother when you talk to him.

** This led to an annoying persistent UrbanLegend saying that the "original script" had Lando actually dying at the end, but was changed because "test audiences" (which ''Star Wars'' movies never are screened for) disapproved. Thankfully, it's since been [[http://web.archive.org/web/20040904153521/http://www.starwars.com/episode-iv/feature/20000530/ debunked]].

* ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': 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."

[[/folder]]
----

* 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 ''well'' 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.

* Invoked in ''Discworld/MenAtArms'' when Angua attributes knowing that an explosion had been caused by a dragon blowing itself up to women's intuition. In fact it's because she's a werewolf and talked to a dog who was at the scene, but decided "Because a little dog told me" was a worse explanation.

[[folder: Comic Book]]
* ComicBook/ScottPilgrim: A couple of instances happens when Ramon asks Kim if Scott will be ok while fighting the robots. Kim's usuallu responds with. "Come on! He's Scott Pilgrim." Justified in that he has never lost a single battle (minus his fight with the school bullies) [[spoiler: until Vol 6]].
** After [[spoiler: Scott Pilgrim gets into a fight with Gideon, Kim somehow senses that Scott is fighting someone and gives the "Come on, you're Scott Pilgrim! I know you can win" in the form of a SkyFace]].
[[/folder]]

* In ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRings The Return of the King]]'', Gandalf not only knows that Frodo is fine, he expects Aragorn to know it as well: "What does your heart tell you?"

* The following conversation from the third ''Film/LordOfTheRings'' movie: "How do we know Frodo is still alive?" "What does your heart tell you?"

* Subverted in the episode of ''WesternAnimation/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.

** Mocked by Snape in the film of ''Half Blood Prince'', when Harry accuses Malfoy of nearly killing another student. (Harry is correct, but has zero proof to back it up.)

'''Snape''': ''[extremely sarcastic]'' You just... know? How wonderful it must be, to be the Chosen One, to have gifts that lesser men can only ''dream'' of possessing.

** Mocked by Snape in the film of ''Half Blood Prince'', when Harry accuses Malfoy of nearly killing another student.
-->'''[=McGonagall=]''': That is a very serious accusation, Potter. Do you have any evidence?\\

'''Snape''': (extremely sarcastic) You just... know? How wonderful it must be, to be the Chosen One, to have gifts that lesser people can only ''dream'' of possessing.

-->'''[=McGonagall=]''': That is a very serious accusation, Potter. Do you have any evidence?
-->'''Harry''': I just know.
-->'''Snape''': (extremely sarcastic) You just... know? How wonderful it must be, to be the Chosen One, to have gifts that lesser people can only ''dream'' of possessing.

* ''Series/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.

* ''[[Series/TwentyFour Jack Bauer]]''.
* [[Series/ATouchOfFrost Jack Frost.]]
* [[Series/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.