History Main / InstantMessengerPigeon

* The Wizard Derk, in ''DarkLordOfDerkholm'' and ''Year of the Griffin'' by DianaWynneJones, breeds very clever pigeons, who are smart enough to know where people are, and very devoted to getting there.

* One caller to [[GrandTheftAuto Chatterbox]] who is the head of an organization trying to get people to stop using phones, says that the group has had to resort to homing pigeons, who keep disappearing. Later on a redneck calls in saying that pigeons make a good meal, and sometimes they "come with notes attached, just like a fortune cookie with wings."

* ''[[TheSims My Sims Kingdoms]]'' has a pigeon that works opposite to real life; no matter where in the world you and your friends are, it will find you with messages from the King and then return home.
* ''[[TheSims The Sims Medieval]]'' has a pigeon mailbox that acts pretty much the same as a normal mailbox/telephone in ''TheSims''. For example, if your monarch sends a pigeon-delivered invite to foreign dignitaries, they will be on the castle doorstep within the hour.

* Related: In ''GirlGenius'', Agatha tries to send out several little propeller clanks to send a message to someone, and three of them are destroyed before ever making it off the castle grounds by one of the Geisterdamen's many albino beasties. One escapes, but we have yet to know if it ever made successfully made contact with anyone. Given the level of miss-communication between the two sides, probably not. Also, the tiny clanks were smart enough to take orders and make escape plans.

* ''{{Naruto}}'' averted this trope, by actually having the pigeon taking several days to reach its destination.

* Averted to some extent in RobertJordan's ''WheelOfTime''. Few details are given, but messenger birds do seem to get eaten or intercepted on a regular basis.

* The ''{{Discworld}}'' book ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' appears to use messenger pigeons properly. They are sent over short distances from a traveling remote reporter to the ''Ankh-Morpork Times'' stationary base in Borogravia. The birds are frequently waylaid (especially by the Morporkian military) and long-distance and two-way communication is handled exclusively by semaphore telegraph.

* Several messenger pigeons were carried across the English Channel during the D-Day invasion by war correspondents. After Reuters reporter Charles Lynch let his birds go, carrying his reports of the action, most of them flew in the wrong direction -- inland. He cursed them for traitors, but they ignored him.

* Parodied in ''{{Robin Hood Men in Tights}}''. When the Merry Men get some info in Nottingham, they wonder how to get it to Sherwood Forest. One of them then says, "We'll [[IncrediblyLamePun fox it to them]]!" Followed by them attaching the message to a fox, which oddly ran off making dolphin sounds.

* George R. R. Martin's ''{{A Song of Ice and Fire}}'' has ravens; though they can only reach established outposts like Riverrun or Castle Black, they're still uncannily quick and unerring about it. Martin has admitted the ravens are a product of RuleOfCool. (RealLife ravens are very smart birds, mind, but pigeons have them beat on directions.)

* The Wizard Derk, in ''{{Dark Lord of Derkholm}}'' and ''Year of the Griffin'' by DianaWynneJones, breeds very clever pigeons, who are smart enough to know where people are, and very devoted to getting there.

* Used and justified in almost exactly the same form as above in the ''{{Heralds of Valdemar}}'' books by MercedesLackey. Mages occasionally send hummingbird messengers; again, their speed and flexible addressing is chalked up to magical enhancement.

* {{Dragonriders of Pern}} has the fire lizards, which are especially useful for this due to the fact that they can teleport.

** Except the bird presumably nested in one location and thus flew there, was given a note, and... flew back to where it had been. They were in theory using one single bird to communicate over the course of years.
** The bird had one of its wings replaced by a stuffed parrot's wing that was attached with a bejeweled harness. Where it nested was the least of its problems.

* Done on ''Series/{{Jack of All Trades}}'', but with a talking parrot.

** Foiled if you are missing the appropriate perk/attribute/etc. Have a different character send the bird if this happens.

* In ''{{Suikoden IV}}'', the Gaien Marine Knights Academy keeps several messenger birds for communicating with other islands. According to the game map, there aren't too many places for the poor things to ''land'' during their flights back and forth... Not that it matters much, given that [[spoiler: the whole flock gets slaughtered shortly before a surprise attack]].

* Bird {{Pokemon}} are used for this all over the franchise. This is more justified than some examples because Flying-type {{Pokemon}} are much tougher than actual pigeons, and are also fully sapient and understand human speech.

* Spoofed in [[http://www.explosm.net/comics/1391/ this]] ''{{Cyanide and Happiness}}'' comic.

* In ''TheAdventuresOfShanShan'', [[http://shanshan.upperrealms.com/view.php?pageid=002&chapterid=2 the messenger is a bird. Presumably magic, thereby evading most of the problems]].

* Played (almost) straight in {{Hanna-Barbera}}'s ''{{Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines}}''. Yankee Doodle Pigeon was pursued by Dick Dastardly and crew.
* The Goodfeathers spend some time as one of these in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}''. Turns out they're not that good at it. Oddly, a German fighter pilot was able to try to shoot them down. They eventually make it to the destination after at one point figuring that walking would be safer. [[spoiler:They're too late with the message, anyway.]]

* Averted in ''Buddha'', where Naradatta convinces Tatta to possess an animal in a desperate attempt to contact his mentor, Asita. In between third party interceptions, exhaustion, and being attacked by predators, Tatta possesses several animals and ends up killing nearly all of them. When Asita finally gets the message, his first reaction is to severely punish Naradatta for being so reckless with the lives of animals.

* Averted to some extent in RobertJordan's ''{{Wheel of Time}}''. Few details are given, but messenger birds do seem to get eaten or intercepted on a regular basis.

* Averted to the point of inversion in one episode of the French comedic series ''Series/{{Kaamelott}}''. The Knights of the Round Table use pigeons to send important messages, but the birds seem to take their time and sometimes the messages are several months old, causing great confusion. Pondering about this, King Arthur finally concludes that "our pigeons are just dumb..."

* ''Webcomic/OrderOfTheStick'': Vaarsuvius develops the spell "Greater Animal Messenger": it sends three messenger birds that couldn't deviate from the path or be affected by illusions, and would verbally repeat a message once they got within five feet of their target. Vaarsuvius made it clear that the absurd amount of time and lost sleep [[TemptingFate has assured success]]. The birds were, [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife of course]], shot down with arrows and eaten by their intended recipients.

* ''{{Tales of the Questor}}'' averts it twice. The first time, the bird gets eaten by a hawk, the second time, a bird refuses to go out into cold weather.

* ''[[TheMummy The Mummy Returns]]'' (the sequel to the Brendan Fraser movie) featured an Instant Messenger ''Falcon'' named "Horus", used to communicate with the leaders of the Medjai. Apparently, Horus is smart enough to track down the leaders of a group of nomads, then return to a group of adventurers who are wandering all over the Middle East. The bird eventually gets shot out of the sky by TheDragon, though.

[[quoteright:350:[[{{magico}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pigeon_news_8712.png]]]]

* Understandable in ''GoldenSun: The Lost Age'', where the pigeon is being sent from the house of Piers's uncle to another character's home in Lemuria; there are so few people around, and Piers, [[spoiler: Lunpa]], and King Hydros all seem to be close enough that it's believable they'd have pigeon contacts for each other.

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-->-- ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', [[http://www.avatarspiritmedia.net/transcripts.php?ep=307 "The Runaway"]]

* ''[[RealmOfTheElderlings The Rain Wilds Chronicles]]'' has a framing story told via letters between two pigeon handlers. Here, the concept was handled pretty well. The pigeons are used by a pair of interdependent cities to communicate, and are sent to various coops by boat. The pigeon handlers get reprimanded at one point for using such an expensive system for personal letters, and important letters are sent with several pigeons.

* Played completely straight in ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'', episode "The Blue Spirit", in which despite the fact that Commander Zhao is visiting someone else's command, the messenger hawk flies directly to him. And at exactly the right plot-appropriate moment. Smart hawks.

* {{Lampshaded}} in the ''[=~Avatar: The Last Airbender~=]'' episode "The Runaway", when Sokka purchases a Messenger Hawk only to discover it didn't come with a manual. Telling it to take a message to "Gran-Gran, South Pole" doesn't help, though by the end of the episode it seems to have developed a magical GPS service for Toph's parents, though they at least live in a town and not ''the south pole''. To be fair, there hasn't been any evidence yet that Hawky actually successfully delivered the message.

* In ''{{Strays}}'', [[http://www.straysonline.com/comic/142.htm]] Feral gets a messenger hawk. Which can, apparently, track him down personally, since he's on the move.

* Done in ''{{Mother 3}}'' with Hinawa's letter to Flint; the pigeon is even patiently sleeping outside Flint's door when he gets to it.

* Averted to the point of inversion in one episode of the French comedic series ''{{Kaamelott}}''. The Knights of the Round Table use pigeons to send important messages, but the birds seem to take their time and sometimes the messages are several months old, causing great confusion. Pondering about this, King Arthur finally concludes that "our pigeons are just dumb..."

* The Goodfeathers spend some time as one of these in an episode of ''{{Animaniacs}}''. Turns out they're not that good at it. Oddly, a German fighter pilot was able to try to shoot them down. They eventually make it to the destination after at one point figuring that walking would be safer. [[spoiler:They're too late with the message, anyway.]]

* ''AlloAllo'' used a "long-distance duck". Of course, it's dubious as to whether the duck even made it out of the city.

* Perhaps referenced, intentionally or not, by the IM client formerly known as gAIM, now [[http://www.pidgin.im Pidgin]].
** A "pidgin" in linguistics is a proto-language consisting of mixed vocabulary and grammar from multiple languages used in the same place/time. As a name for an IM client capable of connecting simultaneously to multiple IM protocols, it makes perfect sense, without clumsily referencing this trope.
*** Except that the Pidgin IM client's logo is, in fact, [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal plainly a purple pigeon]], thus making the reference quite relevant to this trope.

* ''{{The Order of the Stick}}'': Vaarsuvius develops the spell "Greater Animal Messenger": it sends three messenger birds that couldn't deviate from the path or be affected by illusions, and would verbally repeat a message once they got within five feet of their target. Vaarsuvius made it clear that the absurd amount of time and lost sleep [[TemptingFate has assured success]]. The birds were, [[TVTropesWillRuinYourLife of course]], shot down with arrows and eaten by their intended recipients.

* One issue of ''Conan the Barbarian'' has a particulaily horrendous example. A mole in Conan's army was sending messages by pigeons to her employer, the enemy. Conan outwits them because, as it turns out, he's had archers intercept and shoot down the pigeon, read the message, then put the message on another pigeon and send off so the enemy wouldn't suspect anything. Gee, good thing pigeons come with standardised directions these days, yeah?

** Mister Ramada also has a pet hawk that can act as a messenger. The final war sequence and the climax of the game is kicked off by it delivering a vital message, requiring it to find a ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean [[spoiler: while injured severly enough for it to [[AlmostDeadGuy die immediately]] after delivery]].

* In ''{{Strays}}'', [http://www.straysonline.com/comic/142.htm Feral gets a messenger hawk. Which can, apparently, track him down personally, since he's on the move.]]

* ''{{Warhammer}}'': TheEmpire uses pigeons as weapons (like a messager but with bombs), however if there is a change, it will complety miss its traget or just go right back to its master...

* Perhaps referenced, intentionaly or not, by the IM client formerly known as gAIM, now [[http://www.pidgin.im Pidgin]].

* Averted heavily in ''TheLostBattalion''. Every time the titular battalion tries to send a messenger pigeon back to headquarters, the Germans quickly shoot them down. It's only through sheer luck that they manage to get one through the German lines.

* Done on ''{{Jack of All Trades}}'', but with a talking parrot.

* Played straight in ''{{Valiant}}'', though in a rare case of [[DidNotDoTheResearch Having Done the Research]] there actually were German predator birds chasing the pigeons.

* ''[[TheSims The Sims Medieval]]'' has a pigeon mailbox that acts pretty much the same as a normal mailbox in ''TheSims''. For example, if your monarch sends a pigeon-delivered invite to foreign dignitaries, they will be on the castle doorstep within the hour.