gollum2When the word “trope” got brought up in a discussion recently, I was so excited and the first thing that popped in my head was one word: riddles. Ever since I was little, riddles have been my favorite thing to do in my free time. I can sit and think about riddles for hours. One of my favorite movies, The Hobbit, has an amazing riddle scene (the exchange between Bilbo and Gollum over the ring) that I could sit and watch over and over again. From time to time, I’ll sit and read the riddles from the book just to admire the amazing logical structure behind the riddle JRR Tolkien has gifted us with. I think riddles fascinate me so much because it’s the ability to make one idea into a metaphor and wait for it to connect with another human’s mind when they get it. In a sense, it feels like communicating in code without a single explanation, and waiting for it to register in somebody’s mind. It makes books feel so much more interactive when they include riddles because the reader gets to sit there and try to solve the riddle for themselves before they read on, and sometimes if they can figure it out, they know the answer before the main character does, it’s in a way creating your own sense of foreshadowing. Here’s the riddle interaction from The Hobbit as a good example of what I’m talking about. hubpages.com/…/The-Riddles-In-The-Hobbit-Riddles-In-The-Dark-Answers

The second example I’d like to give is from my favorite show, Psych. This 3 part episode is about a tag team serial killer in Santa Barbra that leaves notes and riddles all around the city for the police to find in order for them to find the victim, and eventually possibly the killer. Here’s the first full episode, it’s time consuming (and $2) but so well written and thought out, and most definitely worth watching. youtube.com/watch