Basic Trope: Rather than solve a tricky problem the tricky way, do something simpler like good old violence.
- Straight: Bob is presented with a locked door. He bashes it open.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob blasts it with a rocket launcher.
- The door has a complicated lock that people have been trying to solve for years. Bob gives the door a quick kick, and it breaks open.
- Downplayed: Bob removes the lock with a crowbar.
- Justified:
- There really is no time to go look for the keys or to try to pick the lock.
- Bob, being a Mighty Glacier, completely lacks the nimbleness required to handle lock picks. In his case, Violence is the Only Option.
- This is yet another example of Bob being a Jerkass that can't bother to think of delicate solutions, in contrast to Alice The Strategist.
- Bob has tried lockpicking the door and looking for the key, but he's broke each pick and the respective key is nowhere to be found. He's all out of options, except one...
- Inverted: The door is unlocked, but it sticks to the frame and needs a good hard kick to open. Bob uses his ice powers to shrink it so that it opens easily.
- Subverted:
- Bob is presented with a locked door. He tries to bash it open but fails because the door is armored and runs off.
- Bob tries to bash the door open, but it doesn't budge. Eventually, someone opens the door from the other side.
- We Have the Keys.
- The door is a magic door that regenerates almost immediately if it's broken, so even if Bob breaks the door down, it will instantly revert back to its original state.
- Double Subverted:
- ...to grab a battering ram he can use to break the door down.
- ...by busting it open themselves.
- ... and said "keys" refer to sledgehammers.
- ...but the brick wall around the door isn't magic, so let's use that battering ram on that!
- Parodied:
- Bob smashes open every door he encounters, even the door to his own apartment.
- After Bob destroys the door to get to the MacGuffin, it is revealed the door was the MacGuffin. Bob can only react sheepishly.
- Bob tries to break through the door with enough high explosives to send the whole city block to the moon… which he does. And the door remains standing in the middle of the crater. Bob either does an Eye Take and gives up, attacks the door in an even more comical rage, or shrugs and steps around it to fetch the MacGuffin.
- Zig Zagged: Bob punches a hole through the door to reach the thumb turn on the other side, but there's a second lock that he can't reach so he bashes the door open.
- Averted: Bob doesn't break the door down.
- Enforced: "If our hero goes off to search for the key, it'll eat up a good 5 minutes which could be used for action. Let's just have him smash through."
- Lampshaded: "There Was a Door, you know!"
- Invoked: "A locked door? Screw that, I'll just break it open."
- Exploited: The lock is connected to an alarm system that goes off when Bob tries to break it.
- Defied:
- "Better not smash that door open — who knows what's on the other side? I'll just use my lockpick."
- Alice, who made the challenge to open the door, makes it clear that any smart-ass that dares try to destroy the door won't get the prize AND will need to pay (or will be arrested) for damaging an expensive device.
- Alice manufactures the door, hinges, lock, wall, floor and ceiling, and any necessary support structures of indestructible materials. Bob spends a rather comical amount of time and resources trying to bust it open before he understands that the only way through is following Alice's rules.
- Alice creates a Self-Destructing Security device or a particularly dastardly death trap that will go off if the door and surrounding walls are destroyed, damaged or assaulted in any way. It's the keys or a lockpick.
- Discussed: "I've got the keys right here. *blasts the door*
- Conversed: "Maybe the villains should make their puzzles out of sturdier materials."
- Implied: Bob comes back thirty seconds after he walks away while Annie gushes about the toughness of the Ultra-Safe-Lock 3000 and how she is going to enjoy spending the next three hours picking the lock, with the MacGuffin barely visibly poking out of his pocket.
- Deconstructed:
- The Mooks become aware of Bob's attempts to enter from the loud thuds he makes attempting to bash in. They pull out their guns and turn the door into swiss cheese.
- The Mooks, expecting trouble, have booby-trapped the door. Bob gets shredded to pieces with a Claymore mine that could have been defused or at least noticed if the door had been opened gently.
- Bob's demolition job is too noisy and leaves too much evidence behind, leading to the police getting closer to the team sooner rather than later, and probably forces the team to rush things, increasing their overall inefficiency, which leads to Bob applying more violence, furthering the cycle until they are all inevitably arrested.
- Bob's demolition job destroyed whatever was behind the door, and now not only his efforts are completely worthless, he better hope he can improvise one hell of a "Plan B".
- This obviously will paint Bob as a violent idiot to his cleverer peers, with the subsequent bad effects.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob turns the door into swiss cheese instead. The few mooks left alive are absolutely horrified.
- When the gang is up against the wall, Bob makes one last bid to make things right and salvage the heist. Namely, a full blown Dungeon Bypass involving an uncharacteristically clever and controlled use of his preferred tools that opens a far quicker getaway than they'd have otherwise while also causing so much chaos that the police can't pursue.
- Bob opens the door from a safe distance with a breaching charge, or by using a Rocket Launcher, or any other way to break the door open from a safe distance, triggering the claymore right into thin air.
- The truly clever, or at least pragmatic, of said friends will soon figure out that sometimes simple-minded brutality can be clever in its own way and forgives Bob.
- Played For Laughs: Alice goes into a rather long-winded explanation on how to unlock the door. Bob loses his patience halfway through and wanders off. He can be seen in the background wiring explosives to the door while Alice is talking before Alice's explanation is cut off by a loud explosion.
- Played For Drama: Bob is under an immense amount of stress and under a strict time limit. His solution is far quicker, but also far more dangerous and puts his life in jeopardy.
- Played For Horror: Alice runs into a panic room to save herself from Bob. Alice gets on the phone and tells whoever she contacts that the door has a complicated lock that guarantees Bob will be outside for five or six hours. Bob smashes right through the door, wall or (allegedly bulletproof) window of the panic room right in the middle of Alice's assurance and tears her apart.
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