History Main / MortonsFork

* ''ComicStrip/USAcres'': [[https://garfield.com/usacres/1988/10/15 Orson asked Booker and Sheldon if they wanted him to read a book or if they wanted to watch [=TV=].]] Booker eagerly replied "Television!" and Orson then got inside a [=TV=] and started reading a book inside it.

[[folder:Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': Himiko Yumeno becomes a major suspect in the second case due to Ryoma's corpse being discovered during her magic show. Unfortunately for her, clearing her of suspicion also means uncovering the method she used to escape the water tank, because she claims she used real magic and not tricks.
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Contrast SweetAndSourGrapes, wherein a good outcome occurs regardless of the choice made. Not to be confused with ButThouMust, where you have only one choice forced upon you. Not interchangeable with Catch22Dilemma, where the problem is circular—to achieve one thing you must first do or acquire something else, but to do or acquire ''that'' you must have the first thing.

->''"Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you this authority?" Jesus replied, "I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism -- where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?" They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' But if we say, 'Of human origin' -- we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet." So they answered Jesus, "We don't know." Then he said, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."''
-->-- '''[[Literature/TheFourGospels Matthew 21:23-27 NIV]]'''

* An internet meme shows a desperately sweating man at a control panel with two mutually-exclusive options on it, usually phrased in a way to call out a hypocrite on their nonsense.

* An internet meme shows a desperately sweating man at a control panel with two mutually-exclusive options on it.

* Asking someone if their mom knows something humiliating about them, for example, that they watch hentai. Yes means she knows, no means she doesn't know, but either way they've confessed. A related joke is "Do you still beat your wife/dog?"

* A variant of Gilbert Gottfried's "Ugu" joke under "Comedy" is to make the method of execution itself be Ugu (or whatever nonsense word means "getting screwed by everyone in the village").

* From Creator/GilbertGottfried, "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcuSHwdmxM0 Death or Ugu]]" (NSFW): Two people are captured by the HollywoodNatives of DarkestAfrica and get to choose their fate: Death or ugu. The first guy figures that whatever ugu is, it has to be better than death, so he chooses ugu, and is promptly gang-raped by the entire tribe for several days straight. The second guy, now that he has seen what ugu is, [[FateWorseThanDeath immediately chooses death]]. The tribal leader obliges, "Death it is! ...But first, ugu."

* Asking someone if their mom knows something humiliating about them, for example, that they watch hentai. Yes means she knows, no means she doesn't know, but either way they've confessed.
** A related joke is "Do you still beat your wife/dog?"

* Asking someone if their mom knows something humiliating about them, for example, that they watch [[BestialityIsDepraved horse porn]]. Yes means she knows, no means she doesn't know, but either way they've confessed.
** A related joke is "Do you still beat your wife?"

A related joke is "Do you still beat your wife?"

->''"Jesus entered the temple courts, and, while he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. “And who gave you this authority?” Jesus replied, “I will also ask you one question. If you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?” They discussed it among themselves and said, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will ask, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ But if we say, ‘Of human origin’—we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.” Then he said, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things."''

* {{MortonsFork/Literature}}

* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' audio ''[[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWhoNEDASTheTimeWarS3E4TheWarValeyard The War Valeyard]]'', the Valeyard is faced with a choice of either [[spoiler:being trapped in a time loop where he believes he is the Doctor trying to save a doomed world or escaping the loop only to regress back to his true self. As the Eighth Doctor prepares to depart the loop, the Valeyard chooses to stay so that he can at least believe he's the hero rather than leave the loop and become a villain again]].

* In the ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'' drama "The Crimes of Thomas Brewster", the Doctor is kidnapped by a crime boss whose idiot henchman has mistaken him for a rival crime boss who happens to go by "the Doctor".
-->'''Mr. Gallagher''': If you ''were'' the Doctor I was after, I'd let Mick take you outside and indulge his... homicidal tendencies.\\
'''Mick''': Hur hur hur.\\
'''Gallagher''': Shut it!\\
'''Doctor''': But as I'm clearly the victim of a case of mistaken identity...\\
'''Gallagher''': You give me something of a problem. A problem with one very... obvious solution.\\
'''Doctor''': A solution which involves Mick taking me outside...\\
'''Gallagher''': Well done, you've read me mind.

* {{MortonsFork/Other}}

* In ''Comicbook/WhateverHappenedToTheCapedCrusader'', the kid whose been told to keep an eye on the Jokermobile feels he's in one of these. If he runs, the Joker will feel he's broken their agreement, hunt him down and kill him. If he ''stays'', the Joker will probably find something wrong with the car and kill him.

* An argument in ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'' ends up putting Thugboy in one of these—it turns out he slept with his girlfriend Empowered's rival Sistah Spooky a few months before he met her, and she just asked him how they compared. If he says Spooky was better in bed, then that's obviously bad. If he says they're about the same, then that would suggest them to be interchangeable, which is even worse. And as he discovers, if he says Emp is better, then that's implying he stayed with Emp primarily (if not solely) because she was better at sex, since it can't be because she's a really cool and powerful superhero (since Spooky is stronger and more famous). No matter what, she's getting angry.

* In ''Comicbook/{{Lucifer}}'', the Japanese pantheon attempts this on Lucifer, since they want to kill him but honor forbids they do so without a technical cause. The plan is to serve sacred meat to him at a banquet. If he eats the meat, this will be a deadly insult. If he does not eat it, this is an affront to their hospitality, another deadly insult. It [[TakeAThirdOption doesn't work]], of course because Lucifer says he cannot possibly insult his hosts by partaking of the meat before ''they'' do. And as it turns out, Lucifer violated hospitality anyway by [[spoiler:poisoning one of the gods during cocktail hour]], but he also justifies that by reminding them that betrayal and intrigue are the rules by which his hosts live, and he is only obeying those rules.

** He once declared that if his coin comes scarred side up he'll destroy half the city; if it comes clean side up, [[ExactWords he'll save half the city]]. The coin comes clean side up ... and Two-Face promptly prepares to destroy the ''other'' half of the city.

* Quite a few riddles involve a rigged "choice" between a powerful person and a lesser person in the presence of an arbiter. It is a choice of two items (such as a pair of cards, one with a black spot, the other blank); one choice (in this case, the black spot) generally means death to the person, while the other means life. Unbeknownst to the arbiter, ''both'' cards are marked with the black spot. The lesser person, however, ''does'' know (or suspect) the trick, but the lesser person cannot simply abandon this choice because it would ''also'' result in death, and trying to call out the more powerful person would be no better. How does the lesser person survive? [[spoiler:Choose a card, then immediately [[EatTheEvidence eat it]] before anyone else can see it. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard The remaining card will be a black spot, so the arbiter will assume that the lesser person consumed the blank.]] And if it turns out the powerful person ''was'' being fair after all, the lesser person would likely be no worse off than they would be if they'd simply showed their card.]]
* One Anansi the Spider story involves this. Some bugs are caught by him and he proposes a liar's contest; everyone will tell an outrageous story and the winner is the first one to make the others say "That's not true!" When it gets to Anansi's turn, the tale he tells is about how all the bugs hatched from his garden are his property to do with as he pleases. Well, the bugs can't say "That's true," because they would be admitting they're Anansi's property, and be eaten. But they can't say "That's not true" either because they would be declaring Anansi the winner (and be eaten). They fly away instead, and [[JustSoStory that's why spiders are always hunting moths and mosquitoes.]]

* ''WebVideo/UltraFastPony:'' In the opening scene of the episode "Winning", Apple Bloom needs help from Zecora, so she extorts her by threatening to tell the police that Zecora gave her drugs. Reluctantly, Zecora agrees. And how exactly does Apple Bloom need help? "I need you to give me drugs!"

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': The Reds and Blues force [[spoiler: Felix]] into one during their final confrontation by shooting a sticky grenade at his light shield then tossing another grenade at his feet. If he moves too much or drops the heavy shield to get away, the sticky grenade goes off in his face. If he doesn't drop the shield he won't be able to avoid the grenade beside him. He's still trying to think of a way out when the latter scenario kills him.

[[folder:Webcomics]]
* A [[https://twitter.com/harusaki31/status/1111179836356124673/photo/4 webmanga]] had a YaoiFangirl wife ask her husband to help her sort through a stack of tags with handsome boys on them into "[[{{Seme}} Top]]" and "[[{{Uke}} Bottom]]" piles. Much to her frustration, the "Bottom" pile she sorted consists of the entire stack; under her logic, a relationship between a fresh-faced salaryman and a musclebound sportsman means the latter will bottom for the subversive value, but putting that same salaryman with a skinny freeter means the ''salaryman's'' a bottom for the same reason. If anyone can bottom depending on context, then that means ''everyone'' is a bottom. The only way she sees a path out of the fork is to TakeAThirdOption and draw Top-only characters herself, but the best she can come up with is a [[CastingCouch faceless idol producer]], a [[DirtyOldMan middle-aged buisnessman]], and [[BestialityIsDepraved an octopus]].[[note]]All of which, as one commenter pointed out, have also bottomed for subversive value.[[/note]]
[[/folder]]

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'': The Reds and Blues force [[spoiler: Felix]] into one during their final confrontation by shooting a sticky grenade at his light shield then tossing another grenade at his feet. If he moves too much or drops the heavy shield to get away, the sticky grenade goes off in his face. If he doesn't drop the shield he'll be blown up by the grenade beside him. He's still trying to think of a way out when the latter scenario kills him.

* A short [[StylisticSuck parody visual novel]] called ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmTwMSKW7RA Fake Novel: Girl Simulator]]'' combines this with UnwinnableJokeGame. It has four girls (all of them [[{{Expy}} expies]] of various girls from anime) that you can choose to talk to. For each girl, you have three choices of how to respond to her. Regardless of which choice you select, she gets mad at you and it's game over. You can also just sit there and do nothing. She'll eventually get mad at you for not answering her and it's game over.

* A [[https://twitter.com/harusaki31/status/1111179836356124673/photo/4 webmanga]] had a YaoiFangirl wife ask her husband to help her sort through a stack of tags with handsome boys on them into "[[{{Seme}} Top]]" and "[[{{Uke}} Bottom]]" piles. Much to her frustration, the "Bottom" pile consists of the entire stack; under her logic, a relationship between a fresh-faced salaryman and a musclebound sportsman means the latter will bottom for the subversive value, but putting that same salaryman with a skinny freeter means the ''salaryman's'' a bottom for the same reason. The only way she sees a path out of the fork is to TakeAThirdOption and draw Top-only characters herself, but the best she can come up with is a [[CastingCouch faceless idol producer]], a [[DirtyOldMan middle-aged buisnessman]], and [[BestialityIsDepraved an octopus]].

* From Music/Eminem's "Kill You"