Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped

 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
type
FeatureClass
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
label
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
page
InescapablePrisonEasilyEscaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
comment
Alice gets unfairly sentenced to a lifetime in prison or some equally bleak fate. In this prison are others who have been trapped there for years, decades, or even centuries. In all those years they never found a way to escape, and they tell her that it's impossible. But Alice being the protagonist and all, she'll inevitably find a way to escape. And she'll do it within minutes. Something others have attempted and failed at for centuries, and Alice can do it in under 22 minutes. Because she's The Hero, that's why.
If the main character is trapped somewhere said to be "inescapable," they are, invariably, going to be able to find a way to escape. This will frequently be achieved so easily you'll be left to marvel at how no one was able to think of it before.
Usually attributed to Status Quo Is God, and because spending an entire season sitting around in prison can get a bit boring for the viewer. Usually justified if the escape is aided by allies from outside the prison.
Bonus points if it's a Kid Hero.
This trope only applies if the escape is done very easily and/or quickly AND if the prison is designed to be impervious to breaching. If the prison break takes a ton of planning and is as difficult as it realistically should be, then that's a Great Escape. If the prison is easy to escape from, but isn't necessarily played up as inescapable, then it's just a Cardboard Prison.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
fetched
2024-03-01T18:46:35Z
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
parsed
2024-03-01T18:46:35Z
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to CombatTentacles: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to FireForgedFriends: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to LeeroyJenkins: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to OneOfTheseDoorsIsNotLikeTheOther: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to Parodied: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to PlayAlongPrisoner: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to SherlockHolmes1932: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingComment
Dropped link to TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: Not an Item - FEATURE
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingUnknown
Sherlock Holmes (1932)
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
isPartOf
DBTropes
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_11b7db91
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_11b7db91
comment
Adventure Time: In "Wizard", Finn gets tricked into keeping a meteor at bay for eternity. The two other people that are trapped there have been there for at least decades and had never figured out how to get out. Within minutes, Finn devises a plan to free them, and it works.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_11b7db91
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_11b7db91
featureConfidence
1.0
 Adventure Time
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_11b7db91
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2250e67e
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2250e67e
comment
Star Trek: Enterprise. In "Judgement", Captain Archer is sentenced to the Klingon prison planet of Rura Penthe. So the series can continue, his crew just bribe the guards at the end of the episode to get him released.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2250e67e
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2250e67e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Star Trek: Enterprise
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2250e67e
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2b4ed8de
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2b4ed8de
comment
In Yo-kai Watch Manjimutt and several other prisoners decide to plan a prison escape. It's apparently a high-security prison however they get over the wall easily. They end up failing at the last minute when Manjimutt ends up alerting the guards, by howling at the moon.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2b4ed8de
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2b4ed8de
featureConfidence
1.0
 Yo-kai Watch
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_2b4ed8de
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3c08531b
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3c08531b
comment
Avengers Assemble: In season 3 the Avengers are placed in an underwater supermax by Truman Marsh who assures them they'll never get out. Moments later it turned out Black Widow's managed to sneak in, replace one of the guards and then busts everyone else out no problem.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3c08531b
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3c08531b
featureConfidence
1.0
 Avengers Assemble
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3c08531b
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3e374b30
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3e374b30
comment
In The Dark Knight Rises, after Batman finds himself on the wrong end of a Curb-Stomp Battle, Bane throws a crippled Bruce Wayne into a deep, well-like prison somewhere in the middle east, on the other side of the world from Gotham City. It is repeatedly pointed out by just about everyone that escape is virtually impossible. The prisoners have all been there for years, if not decades, with a grand total of one escape in its known history, which is implied to have taken years of planning, and was undertaken by a fit and nimble young child with the assistance of a big, burly bodyguard to protect her the whole time. Meanwhile, Bruce is trusted by no-one and has been injured so badly that he can't even walk, let alone climb the unclimbable hole. So of course, being Batman, not only does he recover near-instantly and escape in a matter of weeks, he manages to make it back to Gotham in time to stop Bane's plot.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3e374b30
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3e374b30
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Dark Knight Rises
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_3e374b30
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4a453e0d
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4a453e0d
comment
In Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay the title characters run through a cell door that some distracted guards leave open, climb over the dead body of a terrorist who had shorted out the electric fence, then just seconds later find a boat full of Cuban refugees who offer them a lift to the USA. They are in Guantanamo for barely 5 minutes.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4a453e0d
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4a453e0d
featureConfidence
1.0
 Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4a453e0d
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4ff8055d
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4ff8055d
comment
Downplayed in the last chapter of the Labyrinths of Echo series, where Max winds up in the Quiet City—the one place in the multiverse from which supposedly no one has ever escaped—and escapes it within about a year. Justified, however, in that Max already knows that escape is at least theoretically possible, since a bit earlier, he has met the first person to have ever pulled it off (King Mönin) and furthermore, Max is an Arbiter, meaning that his wishes (including his desire to escape) are so reality-warping, that not even the Quiet City can defy them.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4ff8055d
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4ff8055d
featureConfidence
1.0
 Labyrinths of Echo
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_4ff8055d
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_526d4c5c
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_526d4c5c
comment
In Knights of the Old Republic, if the Player Character takes the Schmuck Bait during a certain sidequest, he'll get trapped inside the Rakatan Prison. Here he meets an ancient alien who has been trapped there for tens of thousands of years, but thankfully, he knows a technique which can allow the PC to escape back to the real world in an instant. Sort of Justified by the fact that the escape requires two people to make it work, and all the other people who went in between the PC and the ancient prisoner chose to instead wander off into the void and be driven insane. Also, it's possible for the PC to screw it up, enabling the original prisoner to escape instead of him, while he's just stuck there for all eternity (which functions as a Non-Standard Game Over, gameplay-wise).
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_526d4c5c
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_526d4c5c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Knights of the Old Republic (Video Game)
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_526d4c5c
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_70814599
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_70814599
comment
In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Prisoners", SG-1 is imprisoned by an offworld civilization for aiding and abetting a fugitive. The prison consists of a cavern where the only way in or out is by a stargate whose dialing device has been removed, theoretically making escape impossible. Since SG-1 knows considerably more about the workings of the stargate than other prisoners, they're able to re-power the gate with help from another prisoner and dial out manually.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_70814599
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_70814599
featureConfidence
1.0
 Stargate SG-1
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_70814599
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_75149ccd
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_75149ccd
comment
In the X-Wing Series novel The Krytos Trap, Corran Horn is imprisoned in Ysanne Isard's prison-slash-Manchurian Agent factory Lusankya, which is reputedly inescapable: Tycho Celchu only broke loose when he was being transferred to another prison, and at least one prisoner, Jan Dodonna, has been there since the Empire sacked the Rebel base on Yavin IV after A New Hope. Due to a fluke during a prison riot, Corran realizes that A) Isard is using Artificial Gravity to flip the prisoners upside-down and B) the supposed hard-labor punishment of breaking rocks is just busy-work, and is able to escape the prison by climbing through the ore processors. The Lusankya prison turns out to be part of super star destroyer buried underneath Coruscant's planetary metropolis.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_75149ccd
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_75149ccd
featureConfidence
1.0
 X-Wing Series
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_75149ccd
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_7d5e43b0
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_7d5e43b0
comment
The Goodies: In "Goodies in the Nick", the Goodies are sentenced to a long stretch in prison. Once they bother taking the blankets off their heads (which, admittedly does take several years) they almost immediately discover a means of escape, via a toilet that dumps them out through the wall.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_7d5e43b0
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_7d5e43b0
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Goodies
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_7d5e43b0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8aa7c509
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8aa7c509
comment
Star vs. the Forces of Evil: In "Pixtopia", Star and her friends are sentenced to work in the mines possibly for the rest of their lives. There are other people in the mines who look like they must have been there for years who tell them that there's no way to escape. Seconds later, they find the exit and escape through it.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8aa7c509
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8aa7c509
featureConfidence
1.0
 Star vs. the Forces of Evil
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8aa7c509
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8ec33a88
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8ec33a88
comment
In Chapter 5 of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 the protagonists must infiltrate Li Garte Prison Camp to break out an ally with important intel. The prison camp is established to be extremely secure, with only one person having escaped in its history (and even then, at the cost of the lives of the rest of the group who tried to escape with her). However, upon reaching the prison it's clear that it only has a handful of guards who are too inept to notice the brightly colored protagonists sneak in amongst the actual prisoners. This, combined with the fact that prisoners are allowed to continue using their weapons in order to carry out their Prisoner's Work means that it's incredibly easy for the protagonists and their allies to bust out when the time comes. The only reason the prison break doesn't work out for Noah and the others is because Shania snitches about their escape plan.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8ec33a88
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8ec33a88
featureConfidence
1.0
 Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Video Game)
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_8ec33a88
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_a2c37f38
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_a2c37f38
comment
In Planescape: Torment, angering the Lady of Pain who rules the city of Sigil will result in being stuck in a maze which is designed specifically for the individual. The trick of the mazes is that they have exits that are supposed to be nearly impossible to find, and most who have been Mazed have never escaped.
However, if the protagonist is Mazed, the player is faced with a relatively simple One of These Doors Is Not Like the Other ploy to get out. It turns out the Nameless One has been Mazed before in a previous incarnation (given that you find things from that incarnation in the Maze), and it's implied that the Lady of Pain simply sent him back to that same Maze without resetting it to the very difficult original conditions, letting the Nameless One more or less walk out.
The Night Hag Ravel Puzzlewell has also been Mazed, and you need to find her as part of the plot. Her Maze is even easier to escape: she's known how the entire time she's been in it, she just doesn't bother leaving physically because she can send avatars out at will. You can wind up meeting and interacting with three of them in the first couple chapters of the game- one is an embalmer in the Mortuary, one is a hedge witch and midwife living in the Hive, and one lives in Pharod's Court.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_a2c37f38
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_a2c37f38
featureConfidence
1.0
 Planescape: Torment (Video Game)
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_a2c37f38
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_b4fe32c9
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_b4fe32c9
comment
Invader Zim: When Zim is taken back to Foodcourtia by Sizz-Lorr, the security systems will made Zim explode if he tries to escape, until best customer Eric the Blob mentions how the prison he worked at removed the security systems upon learning that prisoners could easily avoid having their bio-data scanned by hiding in objects like trash cans. Zim uses this by frying himself into food for Eric, and busting himself out once Eric steps out the door.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_b4fe32c9
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_b4fe32c9
featureConfidence
1.0
 Invader Zim
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_b4fe32c9
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_c6fd45
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_c6fd45
comment
In Void Domain, the prison within hell is specifically designed for holding demons. Humans are another matter entirely.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_c6fd45
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_c6fd45
featureConfidence
1.0
 Void Domain
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_c6fd45
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db06e0f1
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db06e0f1
comment
In Ring of Fear, O'Malley escapes from a maximum security facility for the criminally insane mere minutes after his appeal is turned down, with no indication that he has done any planning or preparation for it.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db06e0f1
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db06e0f1
featureConfidence
1.0
 Ring of Fear
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db06e0f1
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db96ded4
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db96ded4
comment
The Legend of Korra: The Red Lotus were each kept inside a separate Tailor-Made Prison that prevented their powers from manifesting, and even then they were guarded around the clock. Nevertheless, all four of them broke out over a single episode.
Zaheer was kept on a remote mountaintop and had the least precautions (a metal bridge that was deployed via bending), as he wasn't a bender. Admittedly, no one (including Zaheer) was expecting for airbending to spontaneously manifest in people across the world, so he was able to escape easily enough once he'd mastered his new talent (it helped that he was a massive airbender fanboy, having studied their philosophies for so long).
Ghazan (an earthbender) is kept on a wooden platform out at sea. Then it turns out he's a lavabender, and all it took for him to escape was for Zaheer showing up (disguised as a guard) to throw some stones in his cage for him to create a lava shuriken and bust out.
Ming-Hua (a waterbender) was kept in a volcano to ensure she couldn't use the atmospheric humidity to waterbend. Zaheer and Ghazan managed to get her enough water to form Combat Tentacles to break out of her cell.
P'li (a firebender) was kept chained up in a polar prison (extreme cold prevents firebending) at the bottom of a crevasse with a metal forehead cover to prevent her from combustionbending. Ming-Hua used her waterbending to shatter the cell door and P'li's chains, and then climb out of the crevasse with her.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db96ded4
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db96ded4
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Legend of Korra
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_db96ded4
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_e4b1e91e
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_e4b1e91e
comment
Henry Stickmin Series: The Wall of Fleeing the Complex is a maximum-security prison built into a cliff face in some wintry region (located in Canada, according to Word of God). It hasn't had a single successful escape attempt, and the past fifty years of its existence have gone entirely without incident. Then they capture the infamous Henry Stickmin, with the warden, Dmitri Petrov, promising that he's "going to be here for a long time". Henry's possible escape routes include:
Subtly asking his fellow convict for a boost up, sneaking his way through the Wall unseen, and taking off in a dinghy. Rank: Ghost Inmate.
Taking said fellow convict with him, tag-teaming every obstacle between them and the yard, starting a Prison Riot, and riding off on a motorcycle. Rank: Convict Allies. The page quote is from this route.
Charge-tackling the brute standing at the door, stealing a truck, getting stuck on the edge of a cliff, and letting Dmitri push over the truck thinking he went down with it. Rank: Presumed Dead.
In connection to specific endings of the game's predecessor, Infiltrating the Airship, waiting to be transferred to a cell, breaking down to the next level, and calling in a government buddy to pick him up. Rank: International Rescue Operative.note Calling in the criminal Toppat Clan for the pickup ends less-than-well.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_e4b1e91e
featureApplicability
1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_e4b1e91e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Henry Stickmin Series (Video Game)
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_e4b1e91e
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_ef076a36
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_ef076a36
comment
Star Trek: Voyager. Averted in "The Chute". Harry Kim and Tom Paris are falsely imprisoned and thrown into a prison on a Space Station. All the expected tricks of a Starfleet hero fail to work, and they have to be rescued from the outside by Captain Janeway. It's made clear that if she hadn't tracked them down, they would have died in there.
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_ef076a36
featureApplicability
-1.0
 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_ef076a36
featureConfidence
1.0
 Star Trek: Voyager
hasFeature
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped / int_ef076a36

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 "Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
processingCategory2
Prison Tropes
 Sephro / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 Way of Choices / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 InescapablePrisoneasilyEscaped
sameAs
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 The Bright Sessions (Podcast) / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 The Goodies / int_299a7c85
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 Shadow Wolf Mysteries (Video Game) / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Video Game) / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 Immortal Love (Video Game) / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped
 Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus / int_5939ac65
type
"Inescapable" Prison Easily Escaped