History Main / FailedASpotcheck

Also, this ''is'' TruthInTelevision, as anyone who lost his keys in the open middle of his desk can say. BehindTheBlack or NoPeripheralVision is when the character ''should'' be able to see it from his vantage point, but doesn't because the audience can't from their angle. The ChasteHero is a character (usually male) who consistently rolls "1"s where romance is concerned. If the thing they're failing to notice is a breaking news story, that's IgnoredVitalNewsReports. If ''everyone'' fails to notice a creature that's big and dumb enough that its presence ought to be obvious, it's SuspiciouslyStealthyPredator. If one person is looking for another person but constantly fails Spot Checks when they are close to the person they're searching for, it's MissedHimByThatMuch. This is usually the reason why {{Jump Scare}}s happen. {{Banana peel}}s, however, ''thrive'' on this trope.

* ''ComicBook/{{Seconds}}: Towards the end of the comic, when Katie explains the lesson she learned about needing to accept that there are things she can't change in life, an unimpressed Ray asks if she seriously just figured that out. When Katie responds in confusion, he points out that a large poster featuring the Serenity Prayer (i.e., a Christian summation of that exact aesop) is hanging right behind him.
-->'''Ray''': My mom sent it to me went we opened. I put it out when she visited that one time, remember? That was ''three years ago''. You've been staring at this thing every day for three years.

* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}:'' In ''Literature/MakingMoney'' a group of dwarves are reluctantly helping Adora with a mining project, but are bored out of their minds and unnerved by her golem assistants. When Adora apparently gives up, she takes the golems with her. The dwarves don't bother checking how ''many'' of the golems leave with her. Apparently if they had, the King of the Dwarves might not have yelled at them so much later.

* Something very similar happens in ''WesternAnimation/Shrek2''. Shrek sneaks into the factory of the Fairy Godmother, by disguising himself in one of the workers' uniforms. Fine, except the workers are ''gnomes'', he's an ''ogre'', and [[PaperThinDisguise the entire uniform only covers his head.]]

** When Batman learns that the real Matches Malone faked his death years ago, he realises that he did the equivalent of this. At the time of Malone's apparent death, Batman was attempting to establish a criminal identity to infiltrate the underworld and get new insight into criminal activity, but criminals were reluctant to work with the completely new identities he created as they didn't trust someone without a reputation. When Batman discovered what was apparently Malone's dead body, he took advantage of the opportunity to keep Malone's death to himself and pose as the other man. It was only when Malone returned to Gotham that Batman learnt that the body he found was actually a homeless man who died by accident in a fire Malone had set, Malone using the body to fake his death; the burns were serious enough that the body passed for Matches at a casual glance, but Batman never checked any closer to confirm the identity because he was so eager to assume the man's identity.

* In Music/LesLuthiers' "Cantata del Adelantado Don Rodrigo Díaz de Carreras", at the tail end of the eponymous character's travel through South America, he finds a beautiful place where he decides to found a city he calls Caracas... the place being the center of the already founded and built city of Caracas.

* ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily'': [[spoiler:Catwoman]] finds herself trying to move giant chess pieces containing people around. She fails to notice a person's head sticking out of a pawn.

* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': When Batman learns that the real Matches Malone faked his death years ago, he realises that he did the equivalent of this. At the time of Malone's apparent death, Batman was attempting to establish a criminal identity to infiltrate the underworld and get new insight into criminal activity, but criminals were reluctant to work with the completely new identities he created as they didn't trust someone without a reputation. When Batman discovered what was apparently Malone's dead body, he took advantage of the opportunity to keep Malone's death to himself and pose as the other man. It was only when Malone returned to Gotham that Batman learnt that the body he found was actually a homeless man who died by accident in a fire Malone had set, Malone using the body to fake his death; the burns were serious enough that the body passed for Matches at a casual glance, but Batman never checked any closer to confirm the identity because he was so eager to assume the man's identity.
* In ''ComicBook/InjusticeGodsAmongUs'', Batwoman and Harley Quinn leave a gathering of a resistance group seconds before [[spoiler:Superman arrives, busting through a glass ceiling and laying waste to the building]]. Neither woman notices this until they've made it halfway down the block on Batwoman's motorcycle and she spots flames in her rearview mirror.
* In ''ComicBook/TheOtherSideOfDoomsday'', Flash and Atom trace the electrical signature of the creatures involved in the kidnapping of their love interests to an abandoned electric plant, and they decide to split up and sneak into the place. As looking around, Flash is so worried about Iris that he does not notice he has just walked by a hulking creature until it is smashing it into unconsciousness.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Euryale fails to notice a pissed off Pegasus dramatically rising from the pooling blood beneath her beheaded mortal sister. This allows Pegasus to easily knock her out when she tries to run Diana through to avenge Medusa.

* ''ComicBook/{{Tintin}}'': In ''Flight 714'', the fact that [[spoiler:plastique could set the volcano off means it was at most a day or two from erupting anyway]]. Rastapopoulos has missed the warning signs completely.
* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': Unicron, a planet-sized devourer of worlds]] is able to sneak up on the planet of Cybertron with no-one noticing him until he's close enough to take up the entire sky, because they're all busy fighting over whether or not they need to [[EnemyMine team up]] to take him on. This very moment was lampshaded by Kup at the end of issue #74. Kup asks Primus "You can sense Unicron, correct?" When given the answer of "yes, through our bond" Kup points to the sky behind Primus (and it may be noted, that the group Kup just walked away from to ask this question, has already been seen to be huddling together out of apprehension) and asks "Then how in the name of creation did you miss THAT?" Revealed in the next issue by Primus himself: Unicron snuck up on the planet in a shut-down state. He drifted up on them, and it's quite likely that the rather small army (this was before Grimlock's contingent of reactivated 'bots came back in the Ark) was still working out unit assignments and the like, going by the state of "the army" in the very next issue.

* Literature/ArthurHailey has used this in some of his books:

* PlayedForLaughs in ''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi'', where Junior Detectives Sun and Neptune completely miss Torchwick and Neo robbing a store behind them while they're focused on a misplaced trashcan.
** Another skit has Team [[=RWBY=]] Lampshade the nature of the shadowy background characters from Volume 1 of the main series, where they talk about how they don't pay much attention to them, and how they never interact with them.

* Twitch streamer [[WebVideo/The8BitDrummer The 8-Bit Drummer]] once streamed for three hours without noticing he wrote "Warining" in the title by mistake, resulting in a glorious [[ComicalOverreacting Comical Overreaction]] and hilarious SkywardScream when his chat told him.
** He missed the second Z in a regular viewer's name for over a year and a half, resulting in a RunningGag where he'd heavily overemphasize it in later streams.
** He also didn't notice a switch on his hi-hat that stopped it from opening. He played with this hi-hat for over a year with it stuck shut.

* This ''Website/NotAlwaysFriendly'' entry has the world's dumbest carjacker realize that a stopped car by the side of a road [[https://notalwaysright.com/quick-carjack-turnaround/30393/ probably wasn't a good target after all]].

* PlayedForLaughs in ''WebAnimation/RWBYChibi'', where Junior Detectives Sun and Mercury completely miss Torchwick and Neo robbing a store behind them while they're focused on a trashcan.

* When ComicBook/{{Batman}} learns that the real Matches Malone faked his death years ago, he realises that he did the equivalent of this. At the time of Malone's apparent death, Batman was attempting to establish a criminal identity to infiltrate the underworld and get new insight into criminal activity, but criminals were reluctant to work with the completely new identities he created as they didn't trust someone without a reputation. When Batman discovered what was apparently Malone's dead body, he took advantage of the opportunity to keep Malone's death to himself and pose as the other man. It was only when Malone returned to Gotham that Batman learnt that the body he found was actually a homeless man who died by accident in a fire Malone had set, Malone using the body to fake his death; the burns were serious enough that the body passed for Matches at a casual glance, but Batman never checked any closer to confirm the identity because he was so eager to assume the man's identity.

[[folder:Toys]]
* How about spotting that one Lego piece you really need? That one piece you KNOW there are several copies in the same pile? That very one piece you saw FIVE times when you weren't actually looking for it?
* This also happens when doing a jigsaw puzzle.
[[/folder]]

In ''D&D'' games, the players will ''know'' that they failed a spot check (though [=GMs=] are encouraged to roll spot checks secretly when necessary), thus they are aware of ''not being aware'' of something, only not knowing what that something is. In this ''D&D'' case, the ''player'' is aware of the ''character'' not knowing something.

Referenced in a running gag in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'', which is wholly dedicated to common "back" sides of playing [=RPGs=]. Ironically, both in ''D&D'' games and in ''The Order of the Stick'', the players will ''know'' that they failed a spot check (though ''D&D'' [=GMs=] are encouraged to roll spot checks secretly when necessary), thus they are aware of ''not being aware'' of something, only not knowing what that something is. In the ''D&D'' case, the ''player'' is aware of the ''character'' not knowing something. In ''The Order of the Stick'' case, the lack of distinction between player and character reaches the level of MediumAwareness, and is PlayedForLaughs.

** ''ComicBook/ThePlanetEaterTrilogy'': As flying towards the titular world-destroying machine, Superman is so lost in his thoughts regarding Brainiac's post-reprogramming good nature that he fails to notice a monitor light flashing on the planet's surface, and a hatch-door sliding open, before an energy beam strikes him.

** At the end of the short, the husband and wife somehow do not notice that [[spoiler:they have been killed in a nuclear explosion and gone to heaven,]] in spite of the very otherworldly scene stretching before them. The husband simply remarks that on days like this, he doesn't feel like doing much of anything, and suggests that he and his wife finish their Scrabble game.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/ExtraordinaryAttorneyWoo'': In Episode 6, Young-woo and Soo-yeon are so focused on trying to find a way to reduce their client's sentence to probation, [[spoiler: they forget that the client has already confessed to the crime, which is already enough reason for the sentencing to be reduced.]] They [[LampshadeHanging lampshade]] this.
[[/folder]]

* ''ComicBook/DeathOfTheFamily'': [[spoiler: Catwoman finds herself trying to move giant chess pieces containing people around. She fails to notice a person's head sticking out of a pawn]].

* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': Unicron, a ''[[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever planet-sized]]'' [[PlanetEater devourer of worlds]] is able to ''sneak up'' on the planet of Cybertron with ''no-one'' noticing him until he's close enough to take up the entire sky, because they're all busy fighting over whether or not they need to [[EnemyMine team up]] to take him on (that's right, they ''know'' he's coming and still don't have so much as a lookout to provide an early warning signal).
** This very moment was lampshaded by Kup at the end of American #74. Kup asks Primus "You can sense Unicron, correct?" When given the answer of "yes, through our bond" Kup points to the sky behind Primus (and it may be noted, that the group Kup just walked away from to ask this question, has already been seen to be huddling together out of apprehension) and asks "Then how in the name of creation did you miss THAT?" Revealed in the next issue by Primus himself: Unicron snuck up on the planet in a shut-down state. He drifted up on them, and it's quite likely that the rather small army (this was before Grimlock's contingent of reactivated 'bots came back in the Ark) was still working out unit assignments and the like, going by the state of "the army" in the very next issue. That being, highly unprepared and it's no small wonder so many got deactivated...