History Main / SecretTest

* ''Literature/TheBible''. One interpretation, popular among military historians, gives this as the true lesson behind the story of [[BadassIsraeli Gideon]] (Judges, ch. 7). Faced with a superior opponent, Gideon starts with a host of 32,000 men. He begins by [[YouCanTurnBack asking for volunteers only]], which drops him down to 10,000 men. Then he puts them through a grueling march across the desert, at the end of which is an oasis. Most of the men put their faces down to the water, but 300 men scoop up the water in their hands so that they can keep watch while they drink. Those 300 are selected as the [[BadassArmy most spirited, most disciplined, and most well-conditioned of all his men]], and with them Gideon conducts the first Special Forces raid in recorded history: they infiltrate the enemy camp with trumpets and clay jars, surround their sleeping opponents, and proceed to blow their horns and smash their jars. Their opponents are understandably scared to all hell by the utterly weird nature of the attack and rout immediately, where they are slaughtered to a man by a separate blocking force of Israelites. The Bible credits Divine Inspiration for the whole thing, but whether or not you believe it, it's hard not to see the parallels between Gideon's method and modern Special Forces selection.

* In order to become a member of the Wiki/SCPFoundation site, it's a requirement that you read all rules before submitting an application. Nestled deep within the various rules pages are passwords and instructions that you must insert those passwords in your application as well. All applications without passwords are denied.

[[folder:Anime and Manga ]]
* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'': After the Dark Tournament, Yusuke is kidnapped and his friends have to engage in challenges other than the physical confrontations they have in the past. [[spoiler: It turns out to have been staged by Genkai and her students, to keep Yusuke from becoming too cocky after his victory.]]
* Done in a strange way in ''Franchise/OnePiece''. In the Jaya arc, Luffy and Zoro help an apparently feeble and sickly old man, Doc Q, onto his equally feeble and sickly horse. As thanks, he offers some apples, which [[IdiotHero Luffy]] eagerly accepts. It turns out some of the apples contain detonators which would blow up once bitten into. Luckily, Luffy's apple wasn't a "bad apple." In reality, the doctor had been testing Luffy's luck.
* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}''
** In ''Manga/DigimonVTamer01'', Lord [=HolyAngemon=] pulls Yagami Taichi and Zeromaru, who are undefeated in battle, into the Digimon World to see if their strategies in the human world translate ([[WrongGenreSavvy they don't]], but Zero is [[{{Determinator}} well disciplined]], Taichi is a [[AwesomeByAnalysis quick learner]] and both are [[TaughtByExperience studious]]). Seeing they're capable of surviving, he sends a scout, Gabo, to guide them to his palace so he can personally ask them to kill Lord Demon, the leader of the belligerent forces. At any time Lord [=HolyAngemon=] was prepared to send them back home, including if they met all his expectations but turned him down.
** [[RecycledScript This plot is repeated]] in ''Anime/DigimonFrontier'' with Ophanimon and the EnsembleCast of humans. The main difference here is that Ophanimon's test was much more irresponsible than Lord [=HolyAngemon=]'s. Even though his forces were slowly losing ground to Demon, Lord [=HolyAngemon=] still had extensive reconnaissance and control over most of the continent, so he could ensure Taichi's relative safety until he and Zero had proved ready for real battles. Ophanimon had effectively lost, and though the kids could be sent back home, they had nothing but a a couple weak guides and a single Angemon to protect them if they weren't up to the task and somehow missed their train ride home. Still, if she hadn't done this she would have completely lost. [[IntrafranchiseCrossover There's a bonus chapter]] of ''Digimon V-Tamer 01'' that [[LampshadeHanging highlights]] how less competent most of Ophanimon's warriors are than Taichi and Zero (without Koji Minamoto they'd all be dead).
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''
** At the beginning of the anime's Bount arc, our heroes are confronted by a trio of mod souls that kidnap them and a number of innocent schoolchildren, apparently as part of some bizarre game with their lives at stake. Later they discover that the mod souls were created by and are under the control of [[spoiler: Kisuke Urahara, who is using them to test the main characters' abilities and teach them teamwork]].
** Ichigo gets one when he [[spoiler:need his zanpakuto reforged. Being rejected by the sword smith and sent back to the world of the living. After he converses with his father, it's revealed to be a test, and he's taken back to regain his sword.]]

* In ''LightNovel/GoodLuckNinomiyaKun'', Ryoko does this to her brother Shungo, Mayu, and Reika. While relaxing at a beach, some heavily armed military soldiers show up and tie them up. Shungo manages to escape with the two girls, and later has Mayu take Reika away somewhere to hide while he tries to slow down the soldiers. In the end, he ends up fighting a masked fighter, and manages to break the mask, [[spoiler: which turns out to be his sister, who tells him the whole thing was a test and also for Candid Camera.]]

* ''Manga/BlueExorcist'' has the trainees locked in a building while Yukio is out and get attacked by a Ghoul-type demon. After they narrowly manage to defeat it, Mephisto reveals that it was a test, and a bunch of Exorcists emerge from the walls where they'd been keeping an eye on the fight. [[spoiler: Later it turns out that one of the people running the test really was trying to kill Rin.]]

* ''Anime/MacrossDelta'': When Freyja auditions to join the tactical sound unit Walkure (whose job involves putting on concerts in the middle of combat zones to [[MusicSoothesTheSavageBeast calm berserkers out of their rages]]), [[spoiler:she is told that she failed and is sent home on a tram car. Partway though, the [[HatePlague Var Syndrome alarm]] goes off and one the passengers begins to turn psychotic. Freyja starts singing, and the guy calms down... then the other passengers are revealed to be the Walkure in disguise. It had all been staged to see how Freyja would react to a life-and-death situation, and was part of her audition. She passed.]]
* ''Manga/HunterXHunter'':
** The people taking the Hunter Exam gather in a subterranean tunnel, and their guide, Satotz, leads them to where they need to go. Satotz then starts walking faster and faster, telling the crowd behind him to simply follow him--as people fall behind and are unable to catch back up, the rest of the examinees realize the exam has already begun, and Satotz is testing them on their speed and physical endurance.
** The Hunter Exam itself supposedly ends with the Chairman handing each person who passes their very own Hunter License. The truth is that there is one more phase after that: each person then must learn and become adept at Nen, a means of harnessing life force and channeling it into special powers, as their fellow Hunters will not take them seriously without having done this. That being said, this portion has a high pass rate, as the Hunter Association sends someone to each person to teach them.

* Creator/CarlBarks' [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse Scrooge McDuck]] stories

* Creator/HansChristianAndersen's ''Literature/ThePrincessAndThePea''. A prince wants to marry a princess but can't know whether a woman who claims to be a real princess actually is. When one woman claims to be a princess, his mother decides to test her by putting a pea beneath her mattress, which has 20 more mattresses and feather beds between it and the pea. The woman says she spent a sleepless night because of something hard in her bed. The prince realizes that she must be a princess because of her highly sensitive nature, and they get married.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

* In ''FanFic/EquestriaAHistoryRevealed'', the LemonyNarrator believes that Celestia is leaving out hints of her [[TheConspiracy conspiracies]] for ponies smart enough to see them to find. However, she is almost definitely incorrect on all fronts, and is really cherrypicking connections based off [[InsaneTrollLogic tremendous leaps in logic]]. She doesn't notice her mistake though, probably due to her ConspiracyTheorist nature.

%% * In the ''Manga/DigimonVTamer01''/''Anime/DigimonAdventure'' crossover fic ''Fanfic/TheTeacherOfAllThings'', Piximon tries to pull this. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for Tai, the Dark Ocean screws him over. He is understandably pissed.]]

* ''Film/ThePrincessBride''. Westley returns and discovers that Buttercup, his OneTrueLove, is about to be married to Prince Humperdinck. After he rescues her from her kidnappers (under the alias of the Dread Pirate Roberts), he doesn't reveal his true identity and claims to have killed Westley in the hope of finding out whether or not she still loves him.
* ''Film/TheAvengers1998''. Steed invites Mrs. Peel to meet him inside the Boodles club, but doesn't tell her that women aren't allowed inside. He's testing her on her initiative. Note that Mrs. Peel figures out that it's a test.
* Disney's ''Film/TwentyThousandLeaguesUnderTheSea''. Nemo tells Professor Aronnax that he can stay on the Nautilus, but Ned Land and Conseil will be left topside when the ship submerges, leaving them floating on the ocean. Professor Aronnax decides to remain with his friends. Nemo has the Nautilus partially submerged, but then surfaces again and tells his second in command "I found out what I wanted to know.". Later he talks with Professor Aronnax.
-->'''Arronax''': I am still curious as to the reason you spared our lives.
-->'''Nemo''': In your case, I wanted to test your loyalty to your companions. I may have use for such misplaced devotion...It comforts me to know that your life was not too dear a price to pay for the love of your fellow man.
* ''Film/VForVendetta''. V tests Evey's resolve by putting her through starvation, torture and death threats in what appears to be a government concentration camp but is really his basement. When he reveals the truth, she responds by packing her bags, but eventually comes to see the purpose of the test.
* ''Film/UndercoverBrother''. Sista Girl confronts the title character in his apartment and points a gun at him to test his courage. He says "If you're going to shoot me, shoot me", thus passing the test.
* ''Film/MenInBlack''. J's idiosyncratic responses to the entrance tests earn him the scorn of the other applicants and appear to be ruining his chances, but in the end he's the only successful applicant, with the implication that initiative and outside-the-box thinking were what the tests were looking for all along. The novelisation has K explicitly saying that J's decisions in the target-shooting test were the correct ones.
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger''

* ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'' (1980). Emperor Ming puts the entire human race through a test of its powers of perception. Unfortunately, being perceptive is very dangerous.

* In ''Film/{{Willow}}'', the High Aldwin tests his potential apprentices by holding up his hand and asking them to choose which finger contains the power to control the world. Each hopeful, including Willow, chooses one of the High Aldwin's extended fingers; all of them choose incorrectly, and the test ends with no new apprentice selected. Later, before leaving on the expedition to deliver baby Elora Danan to the crossroads, Willow admits that his initial impulse was to choose his ''own'' finger, which the High Aldwin tells him was the correct answer.

* ''Film/WarGames''. At the beginning of the film, a U.S. ICBM base receives orders to launch its missiles. One of the officers refuses to participate in the launch, preventing it from occurring. It's later revealed that the situation was a nationwide test of the officers' willingness to launch on command. 22% of the bases failed to launch their missiles, causing serious dismay in the political and military leadership.
* ''Film/SpiesLikeUs''. Emmett Fitz-Hume and Austin Millbarge are sent to a Special Projects Training facility to learn how how to be spies. After they parachute in, they are surrounded by sword-armed ninjas who threaten to attack them. After this goes on for a few seconds, a military officer named Colonel Rhombus appears. He tells them that it's how he welcomes new trainees, because he must know right away what he's got to work with. In this case his assessment is: "Pussy".

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** ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' magazine

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''

* ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}''

* Rossini's opera ''La Cenerentola'', which is a much [[AdaptationExpansion fleshed-out]] re-telling of the Cinderella story. Alidoro, the tutor of the prince, dresses himself in rags and comes to the house of Don Magnifico. His two daughters send him away, but his step-daughter Cenerentola takes pity on him and offer him food. Alidoro thinks this girl is right for the prince, and so offers to doll her up for the royal ball.

* ''VideoGame/DarkCloud 2''
** [[KidHero Max]] has been looking forward to the circus for a long time. He treasures his ticket and finishes all his chores at the workshop just to make it on time! But then a filthy, shoeless street urchin steals his ticket! After chasing the kid all over the town square, he finally catches up and gets his ticket back... only to give it back to the child, because he can see just how much that poor, homeless kid wants to see the circus too. Turns out, this was actually [[spoiler: Monica Raybrandt, princess from 100 years into the future, testing Max's heart as the wielder of the [[CosmicKeystone Earth Atlamillia]]]].

* In the end of the last Dark Brotherhood story arc quest in ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'' [[spoiler: The Night Mother reveals that she knew who the traitor was all along but refrained from telling anyone because she wanted to see if her followers could figure it out on their own. They failed the test. Badly.]]

* ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite''. When Booker is about to enter the Good Time Club the villain Fink tells him over the PA system that "The best kind of interview is one where the applicant doesn't know he's being evaluated." When Booker enters the audience area he attacked by a series of opponents. After the end of the fight he learns that Fink was testing him for the job of Head of Security for Fink Enterprises.
* ''VideoGame/LunarWalkingSchool'': When Ellie, Lena and the rest of the new freshmen first arrive at [[WizardingSchool Iyen]], it appears to be completely deserted. While they set out to secure food and shelter, the boys immediately turn condenscending, and steal all of the girls' food and extra clothes, prompting the heroines to kick their butts. None of the students face any consequences after the truth is revealed.

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'':
** Baron Wulfenbach enjoys using these on his son, the first one we see involving an analysis of an apparently important but ultimately non-working invention of his to see if Gil was sure enough of his own skills as a [[MadScientist Spark]] to point out that his overlord father made a mistake. He gives these often enough that Gil tends to asks his father with an annoyed tone if an unexpected occurrence was actually one of his little tests for him.
** When Agatha first meets Othar Tryggvassen, GentlemanAdventurer, she asks him incredulously about some of his past accomplishments. He mentions the last one doesn't ring a bell to him, to which Agatha answers that she made it up.

* ''Webcomic/{{Misfile}}'', Ash's father has Rumisiel re-roof his house and dig a new leach field for the septic tank as a test of how long it would take Rumi to blow it off. If [[PsychoExGirlfriend Cassiel]] had not distracted him by claiming a threat to Ash's life then Rumi would have completed those tasks. A possible more meta example is that Rumisiel's handling of the [[RetGone misfile]] itself may be a secret test by his [[PointyHairedBoss superiors in heaven]], but this remains [[EpilepticTrees a fan theory]] pending WordOfGod either way.
* In ''Webcomic/DominicDeegan'', [[spoiler:the titular seer's cruise vacation turned out to be one of these. Rilian tested Dominic and Luna through their interactions with the different people they met with, and if Dominic had failed any of the tests, Rilian was prepared to kill him on the spot rather than risking Dominic going through a psychotic Mindbreak.]]

--> '''Masamichi:''' He didn't hang up.
* In ''Webcomic/CityOfReality'', an immigrant has to pass a test in order to be accepted into the City of Reality. The test, however, is actually made while the immigrants are queuing and waiting for the test to begin. Will they help the crying child? Are they polite when speaking to strangers etc. (thecityofreality.com - Chapter 5-2: Do You Believe in Magic? Part 2)
* In ''Webcomic/DelilahDirkAndTheTurkishLieutenant'', [[http://www.delilahdirk.com/ddattl/ch2-041-042.html Delilah explains that she wouldn't tell if she was evaluating him because then it wouldn't be a fair evaluation.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "The Magicks of Megas-Tu". The Megans tell Captain Kirk that [[LouisCypher Lucien]], the Megan who helped the Enterprise crew earlier, must be punished for betraying his people. Captain Kirk risks death to help Lucien, after which the Megans tell him that they were testing him to make sure humans could be trusted.
* One ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode has Peter grilling a potential boyfriend of Meg's, asking a series of personal questions. The final question he asks is whether the boyfriend has ever done a particular masturbation technique [[spoiler: (the stranger)]]. Since the boyfriend answers honestly, Peter responds, "Not anymore you don't, you're dating my daughter!"

** OldBeggarTest: The hero's moral capacities are being tested by a powerful figure disguised in rags
* SecretTestOfThievingSkill: The hero thinks he's stealing treasure, but it's actually just a test to evaluate him for the real heist
* HiddenPurposeTest: The hero knows he's being tested but not what he's being tested on
* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: The hero doesn't know there's no way to beat it
* DangerRoomColdOpen: The ''audience'' doesn't know the hero's being tested

* Many upper managers will take a prospective applicant out to lunch if they've passed everything up through the interview. Based on how the applicant acts towards the wait staff, they can blow their chances. The test here being [[NiceToTheWaiter how they will treat those they view as beneath them.]] If you're willing to verbally abuse the waiter, they have an idea of how you'll treat those under your supervision and on down the line.

* On ''TheSimpsons'', when Marge reacts with horror to Dr Hibbert suggesting she could sell one of her children, he says "That was a test. If you had responded in any other way, you'd be in jail now." He isn't totally convincing.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' has the episode "Treats." When Garry's favorite snail treat is discontinued he hounds Spongebob to scour the world to find the treats. When there are none to be found anywhere, Spongebob takes Patrick's advice to tell Garry "no." Garry then goes to bed happy to know Spogebob can finally say "no."

* In his autobiography ''About Face'' David Hackword mentions how he selected members of a raiding company by throwing a (dummy) grenade in among them. If they threw themselves on the grenade they lost, because they were stupid. If they didn't freeze up or do something stupid, but instead got the hell out of the tent, they passed.

* Former ABC News reporter Sam Donaldson recounted in his memoirs, ''Hold On, Mr. President!'', how before he began his journalism career he had the opportunity to be interviewed by oilman Nelson Bunker Hunt for a job with him. It went pretty well, he asked, and at the end Hunt asked him what sort of salary he was looking at; Donaldson demurred. On the way out, Hunt's secetary asked him about how the interview went, and he told her, including the end. She told him right away he'd lost the job opportunity with that one, since Hunt believed that any man worth hiring would have no problem saying how much he thought he was worth.
* In ''Liar's Poker'', Michael Lewis recounts how it was not uncommon for Wall Street firms hiring new college or business school graduates in the early 1980s to sometimes use a stress-interview technique where the interviewer would walk in a few minutes after the interviewee had arrived, then ignore him/her completely for, potentially, even longer, taking/making phone calls, doing other work. The idea was to test the interviewee's ability/willingness to take control of the situation. According to Lewis, one interviewee grew so frustrated at being treated this way that he threw a chair out the window ... of a Lower Manhattan high-rise, many storeys up.[[note]]This gave rise in turn to an urban legend that the guy had ''jumped'' out the window ...[[/note]]

* One of the most famous real-life examples is Music/VanHalen's [[http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp way of making sure the technical specifications of their performance contracts were being read and followed]]: the document called for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones removed, and included a clause that they could cancel the show and walk away with the money if this was not followed. This was not Van Halen being a bunch of divas; rather, it was their way of making sure the venue was actually paying attention and reading everything in full.
** To elaborate: Van Halen's shows had flying harnesses, enough pyrotechnics for a small war, and unprecedented lighting. Their rigs were immense and ''very'' dangerous if they collapsed. Early in the band's career, they and their roadies suffered so many near-misses due to substandard preparation that it's a miracle no one died on tour. The potential consequence (which they never enforced) ensured that no venue would knowingly fail to comply with this directive, so if the directive was violated, it could only be by pure carelessness or oversight, which meant there were likely to be problems elsewhere. If there were brown M&Ms in the bowl (or if there ''was'' no bowl), it indicated to the tour staff that they needed to personally check the setup for other, more serious mistakes.

* One of the most famous real-life examples is Music/VanHalen's [[http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/vanhalen.asp way of making sure the technical specifications of their performance contracts were being read and followed]]: the document called for them to be provided with a bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones removed, and included a clause that they could cancel the show and walk away with the money if this was not followed. This was not Van Halen being a diva; rather, it was his way of making sure the venue was actually paying attention and reading everything in full.

** In "Some Heir Over the Rainbow", Scrooge [=McDuck=] wanted to test his potential heirs (DonaldDuck, Gladstone Gander and Huey, Dewey and Louie) without them knowing they were being tested. He picked up three pots, placed one thousand dollars within each of them and placed them at strategic places where his relatives would find it. Scrooge planned to choose his heir based on how they'd use the money. [[spoiler:He chose Huey, Dewey and Louie]].

* In ''LightNovel/GoshuushouSamaNinomiyaKun'', Ryoko does this to her brother Shungo, Mayu, and Reika. While relaxing at a beach, some heavily armed military soldiers show up and tie them up. Shungo manages to escape with the two girls, and later has Mayu take Reika away somewhere to hide while he tries to slow down the soldiers. In the end, he ends up fighting a masked fighter, and manages to break the mask, [[spoiler: which turns out to be his sister, who tells him the whole thing was a test and also for Candid Camera.]]

* The short story by author Lance Manley THE TEST,[[http://lance-wandering.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-test.html]] has a man (and his aunt) visiting his mother where he proceeds to ask her casually if she would like to chat about her other son, that she hasn't spoken to in many years. The mother is indifferent while the aunt is quietly freaking out in the background. It turns out the younger brother has been murdered and the visit was a secret test to see if the mother cared about her son BEFORE she was told that he had died. The denouement is that the remaining son then cuts off all contact with his mother as a result, meaning she loses both her sons.

* The entirety of ''VideoGame/WorldofWarcraft'''s Wrath of the Lich King expansion was this, apparently. [[BigBad The Lich King]] actually wanted the world's greatest champion's to try and defeat him, knowing that they would fail. The idea was to kill them all, and then raise them into undeath under his control. Had he managed to succeed, the world really would have been screwed because the player characters have already proved capable of killing dragons and subduing [[EldritchAbomination Old Gods]]. He does actually kill the players at the end of the fight, but another character intervenes before he can complete his plans. [[spoiler: his one mistake was underestimating the power of the [[CoolSword Ashbringer]]. What he doesn't know is that the Ashbringer is probably powered by the heart of a [[OurAngelsAreDifferent Naaru]], and as such it can break his [[CoolSword sword Frostmourne]]. Since Frostmourne is a soul-eating sword, all the souls come out when it is broken and they're pissed off for obvious reasons. The souls of his victims are what ultimately defeat the Lich King.]]

* ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'' (1980). Emperor Ming puts the entire human race through one of these.

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's short story "Profession", the main character George is put in a House for the Feeble-minded in a future where everyone is assigned a job and Educated (that is, their minds are filled with information from learning tapes) except for the "feeble-minded". It was really a test - if he protested being labelled feeble-minded and tried to escape the House, it proved he was gifted with the ability of original thought and therefore a cornerstone of human society.
* In the SherlockHolmes story "The Abbey Grange", Holmes learns that the murderer was acting in self defence, and to protect the victim's wife. He offers to give the man time to escape before telling the police, to which he angrily refuses, because that would leave the woman in the lurch. Holmes then says "I was only testing you, and you ring true every time," and doesn't tell the police at all.

{* ''TabletopGame/{Shadowrun}}''

* ''TabletopGame/{{Victoriana}}'' supplement ''Face in the Smoke Volume One: The Secret Masters''. A person being considered to join the Silencius secret society is given a mission to track down and kill a renegade magic user. What the potential recruit doesn't know is that the "renegade" is actually a member of the Silencius leaving false clues for them to follow. If the recruit tracks down the "renegade" successfully, they can join.

* In ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'', Malcolm claims he might be a worse king than Macbeth, because he is so full of lust and greed. Macduff reacts with consternation, but then Malcolm tells him it's all a lie and in fact he's the most virtuous Boy Scout in Scotland. It's not completely clear, but it is possible Malcolm is testing Macduff to make sure his first allegiance is to the benefit of Scotland.

** According to one interpretation, Macbeth himself may have been subject to such a test. The witches' prophecy told him that he would first become Thane of Cawdor, and then king hereafter. However they didn't tell him how or when he would become king. They did not convince him to plot with Lady Macbeth to murder king Duncan, they did not place daggers into his hands, and they did not force him to commit the deed and cover it up. He did all that on his own, out of his own free will. If the prophecy had been truly inevitable, Macbeth could just as easily have sat back and rested on his laurels until it happened on its own (which he actually notes at one point early in the play). Needless to say, he failed the test of character. Big time.
** Another interpretation is that he actually did expect to be named Prince of Cumberland (Duncan's heir): that's why he acts so shocked when Duncan actually names his son, Malcolm. (In RealLife, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanistry the throne of Scotland]] was ''not'' hereditary: the king was expected to pick a successor from the senior noblemen of the kingdom. As a victorious general, Macbeth would have expected to be in the running. Being passed over for the king's young son must have been a huge shock.)

* ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite''. When Booker is about to enter the Good Time Club the {{villain}} Fink tells him over the PA system that "The best kind of interview is one where the applicant doesn't know he's being evaluated." When Booker enters the audience area he attacked by a series of opponents. After the end of the fight he learns that Fink was testing him for the job of Head of Security for Fink Enterprises.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''