History Main / ThatsWhatIWouldDo

* This is how the titular Series/{{Castle}} helps solve crimes: by being GenreSavvy and knowing what he would write in a given situation.

''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged,'' when King Kai is relating Goku's fight with Freeza to Yamcha, Tien, and Chautzu, the latter correctly guesses that a desperate Freeza "Blew himself up, along with his opponent" because that's exactly what he tried against Nappa. King Kai's response is "Yeah, but this time it ''worked.''

* In ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' season 15, the heroes need to figure out how [[spoiler:the Blues and Reds]] are planning to destroy the UNSC, and turn to Sarge since he's as dumb and crazy as they are. When asked what he do if he wanted to get to a heavily fortified base, he would tunnel underground. And from there along with knowing their enemy is heading to the other side of thw globe from the UNSC, the heroes realize that [[spoiler:Temple]] is planning to do exactly that.

* In ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged,'' when King Kai is relating Goku's fight with Freeza to Yamcha, Tien, and Chautzu, the latter correctly guesses that a desperate Freeza "Blew himself up, along with his opponent" because that's exactly what he tried against Nappa. King Kai's response is "Yeah, but this time it ''worked.''

In speculative fiction stories, sometimes the hero knows what the villain will do because they may be [[CloningBlues effectively the same person]], in which case it is much easier for the hero to imagine himself in the villain's shoes.

->'''Riddick:''' Don't bother. Guards ain't there. They figured out the Necros are comin' for me. Plan was to clean the bank, ghost the mercs, break wide for the tunnel. And then somebody got a lucky shot off with this rocket launcher here... and took out the sled. Guards took off on foot, but rigged the door so no one could follow. They'll take the one ship in the hangar and leave everyone else to die.
->'''Toombs:''' How come you know all this shit? You weren't even here.
->'''Riddick:''' 'Cause it was my plan.
-->-- ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick''

* In the ''Comicbook/{{Batman}}'' series' event ''Comicbook/{{Knightfall}}'', the Batmobile is stolen. Batman gets it back, starts the car… and it explodes. Fortunately, he guesses this just in time to leap out of the car. ComicBook/{{Robin|Series}} asks him how he guessed the villain had wired the car to blow. Batman's response: "Because that's what I'd do."

* In ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'', Riddick seems to know everything that happened in the fight that he wasn't there to witness, and then the others escaped in the chaos. When asked how he knew all that, he said it was his plan.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* In the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Star Trek]]'' episode "Balance of Terror", this is Kirk's comment after [[WorthyOpponent the nameless Romulan commander]] dodges one of the Enterprise's attacks: "He did exactly what I would have done. I won't underestimate him again." The Romulan commander does pretty much the same thing, guessing Kirk's actions and motivations while saying "If I were their commander, that is what I would do."

** The TwoPartEpisode "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People" has a lot of this, since all the one-off characters--and the Doctor--get duplicated throughout the course of the story. Most impressively, one of the doppelgangers manages to guess a password that her original created after the split happened, because it's the password that she would have used.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS39E6FluxChapterSixTheVanquishers "The Vanquishers"]], the Doctor is split into [[MesACrowd three Doctors]] in the same timeline but different areas of Space. One Doctor turns up to rescue the other and traps the BigBad in his own torture device. When the rescued Doctor says, "That's what I would have done!" her (somewhat confused) companion points out, "That's what you ''did'' do!"

* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. Ex-CIA assassin John Reese does this a lot (likely to troll his TechnicalPacifist partner Harold Finch) in response to the VillainOfTheWeek's murder plot.
* ''Series/TheProfessionals''. In "Not A Very Civil Servant", a CorruptCorporateExecutive arranges for TheDragon to kill off an accountant who knows too much. Later the executive goes through the accountant's files and [[OhCrap finds evidence that he had been making photocopies of every document]] as BetrayalInsurance. When TheDragon asks how he knew to look in the first place, the executive reveals that he's been taking exactly the same precautions against his [[TheStarScream smarter Dragon betraying him]].
* ''Series/ThePunisher2017''. In a flashback to his service in Kandahar, Frank Castle cites this trope when he tries to warn his superiors the next objective is a Taliban trap. [[CassandraTruth They don't listen.]]
* ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''. In "Deadlock", a NegativeSpaceWedgie duplicates ''Voyager'' and its crew, but only one can survive. This trope works better than usual because Captain Janeway really does know what her other self will do.
--> '''Janeway 1:''' You're going to [[SelfDestructMechanism self-destruct your ship]].\\
'''Janeway 2:''' What makes you say that?\\
'''Janeway 1:''' Because that's what I would do if your ''Voyager'' were intact and my ''Voyager'' were crippled.

[[folder:Web Comics]]
* ''WebComic/DarthsAndDroids'' has this exchange early in the ''Solo'' chapter:

* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' once formed a desperate alliance with Darkseid against a supervillain. Darkseid realized the villain was going to go for the food stores to starve the populace with this logic.

* This is how the titular Series/{{Castle}} helps [[TheyFightCrime solve crimes]]: by being GenreSavvy and knowing what he would write in a given situation.

*** This was taken UpToEleven in UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, where the officers on both sides generally all attended West Point, had the same instructors, studied the same books, et cetera. Some of them had even fought together in the UsefulNotes/MexicanAmericanWar. The two combined tropes led to the Civil War being the U.S.’ bloodiest war.