If major characters are separated and/or there's a question about one of them surviving or succeeding in their task, but one character says calmly, "I know he's okay, I can feel it", then you can all but guarantee that this character will in fact be okay, despite the character not having anything to base this on. Usually, the only exception is if the crooks are the main characters, in which case the detective's Gut Feeling will be known about and used to their advantage. In fact, regardless of a detective's condition, including being constantly drunk, paranoid, insane, or otherwise idiotic, his gut feeling will be his redeeming factor. Particularly common in summer action movies and Film Noir. If the hero has a gut feeling about where the villain is hiding (or the bank robber's getaway method, or where the terrorists have hidden the bomb, or where the arms dealers are meeting, or where the killer hid the body, etc.), you can safely disregard any and all evidence to the contrary because the hero will inevitably be proved right.įor example, it won't matter if the police have a gang's written plans, recorded phone calls, and the like saying they're going to rob Bank A, if the lead character/detective has a gut feeling they'll rob Bank B it will all turn out to be an elaborate fake-out, or the gang knew they were Being Watched and recorded and were speaking in code. Contrast the Horrible Judge of Character.Īnother well-established piece of heroic gut feeling is that the hero can metaphorically read the villain's mind. Then this happens they're usually right.Ĭompare Evil-Detecting Dog.
Sometimes, though, characters are willing to risk a lot on that gut feeling. Often the main character isn't aware of this, it's just that the villain conveniently turns out to be someone they were uneasy about all along. Perhaps writers think this is a subtler way to quickly point out who the bad guys are. For example: If a person has an "honest face", we can probably trust them. The main character is an Excellent Judge of Character: his gut feeling about a person, not necessarily based on more than a couple minutes of interaction, is by far the most accurate measurement available of how good or evil that person is. Gut feeling can be broken down into three categories: There are certain exceptions such as if a character says about another "I've got a sudden feeling we might not see each other again", then the chances are only about 50-50 of the main character being right, and if he is wrong it is still guaranteed to be a while (unless this trope is purposely subverted).
If a main character says something and justifies it as being a hunch, gut feeling, or an "I just know", then about 90% of the time he will turn out to be right. One thing you can count on in virtually any genre of fiction is that the heroes will have an uncanny sense of intuition, often bordering on being psychic.
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