History Main / TunnelKing

* The Diamond Dogs of ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''.

* Most {{Worms}} games will scold you if you do this. Players who make good use of the game's digging and tunneling tools are known as "Darksiders".

* Oddly, one of Team Rocket's specialties on ''[[Anime/{{Ptitlei015gc004kw4}} Pokemon]]'', and often noted by them. Their holes are good enough to impress the very TengenToppaGurrenLagann-esque Byron.

* THESE [[FullMetalAlchemist STONE ALCHEMY]] TECHNIQUES HAVE BEEN PASSED DOWN THE [[BigHam ARMSTRONG]] LINE FOR GENERATIONS!!

->''"I knew I shoulda taken that [[WrongTurnAtAlbuquerque left turn at Albuquerque]]."''
-->-- '''[[Characters/BugsBunny Bugs Bunny]]''' (Despite the wrong turn, he's still a tunnel king)

* Characters/BugsBunny is shown doing it in almost every medium. In fact, two games require Bugs to use tunneling to solve puzzles or bypass enemies, and another relies solely on ''him'' for transport between game worlds.
* The Mole from ''SouthPark: Bigger, Longer And Uncut''

* The Nome King from the [[TheWonderfulWizardOfOz OZ]] books should be the trope namer.

* In ''OnePiece'', Miss Merry Christmas is a [[DistaffCounterpart Tunnel Queen]], as she has the power of the Mole Mole Fruit. The sheer tunneling power is awesome, considering that she can dig as fast as a running man, with only one arm, and while carring, with the other one, a person ''that is out on the surface'' (meaning that that arm is cutting the terrain like a blade).

** This story inspired a one-shot ComicBook/{{Batman}} villain, also called The Mole.

* The TropeNamer is ''TheGreatEscape'', which featured Danny and Willie, nicknamed 'The Tunnel Kings', as well as Archibald 'The Mole' Ives.
** Subverted in that Danny has claustrophobia... Yeah, sucks don't it.
** Really just makes Danny more of a {{Badass}}; he's scared as hell about the tight corners and cave-ins, but hey, stuck in a German POW camp, what choice does he have? Being portrayed by Charles Bronson also doesn't hurt.

* ''{{Oz}}''. Agamemnon 'The Mole' Busmalis, who likes tunneling into banks and out of prisons. Why they don't give him a cell on an upper floor is [[FridgeLogic beyond me]].
** They eventually do. He then finds a storeroom on the ground floor and starts tunneling out during the day.

* Drill Man from ''Game/MegaMan 4'', who could burrow into the ground and pop up under Mega Man. Ground Man from ''Mega Man and Bass'' could do the same, except he could also drill into the ceiling too AND spike you with a giant drill from there.

* Excadrill the Ground/Steel mole from ''{{Pokemon}}''. Might be a reference to ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', being a mole based off a drill and all.

** And let's not forget Diglett, who is forever half-submerged in the ground, and who's species is responsible for the digging of Diglett's cave.

* [[PunnyName Molier]] in ''AtlantisTheLostEmpire:'' He's not only the team excavations expert, but also ''absolutely obsessed with dirt.'' He keeps piles of it from different parts of the world! There's apparently an explanation for his... er, profession, and equally apparently, [[YouDoNOTWantToKNow we don't want to know]].
** Near the end of the movie, he even head towards a potted plant to dig up the dirt once a formal photo-shoot of the team was over.

* The Undergrunts from ''SuperMarioGalaxy''.

* {{VideoGame/Terraria}} calls for the player character to be one if any progress is to be made.
* One of the movement powers in ''ChampionsOnline'' is tunnelling...which moves you underground as fast as flight moves you through ''air!''

* Dwarves being {{TunnelKing}}s is a central game mechanic in ''DwarfFortress''

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* Wally Floody, one of the men responsible for planning the GreatEscape from Stalag Luft 3 during WorldWar2

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[[Bong milk is good for the brain.:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/werewolf_9693_8856.jpg]]

->''"I knew I shoulda taken that [[WrongTurnAtAlbuquerque left turn at Albuquerque]]."''
-->-- '''[[Characters/BugsBunny Bugs Bunny]]''' (Despite the wrong turn, he's still a tunnel king)

A Tunnel King is a character who is an expert in, well, tunneling. His solution to almost any problem is likely to be "We'll dig our way out." Carrying the trope to its extreme, the Tunnel King may dwell BeneathTheEarth in an underground civilization that he constructed himself.

In animated series, this character will often be a burrowing animal with [[FastTunnelling their digging abilities carried to ludicrous extremes]].

Human versions of this character are almost always nicknamed TheMole, but that title was already taken for a different trope. {{Mole Miner}}s and MoleMen are often this.
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!!Examples:

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]
* Simon the Digger from ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann''. Yes, "The Digger" is his BadassNickname.
* The mole guy from ''VisionOfEscaflowne''.
* Oddly, one of Team Rocket's specialties on ''[[Anime/{{Ptitlei015gc004kw4}} Pokemon]]'', and often noted by them. Their holes are good enough to impress the very TengenToppaGurrenLagann-esque Byron.
* Ryoga from ''[[RanmaOneHalf Ranma ½]]'', once he learns the Bakusai Tenketsu, a pseudo PressurePoints attack that lets him demolish rock with a touch of a finger. Once he learns the [[KamehameHadoken Shishi Hokodan]], he gets even better at it. Why someone with [[NoSenseOfDirection his directional issues]] is burrowing under the ground in the first place is a mystery.
** Which may make him something of an {{Expy}} of the Prince of the Underworld, from ''UruseiYatsura''. Being a TunnelKing was literally his power, akin to Lum's flight and [[ShockAndAwe lightning bolts]], and he also had NoSenseOfDirection.
* A character from ''TheLawOfUeki'' has, as he calls it, "A power to turn my beautiful hair into a drill!" which allows him to dig extremely fast. Ueki states that this power is actually awesome, as he is pretty much unbeatable underground (that's the reason why he has to catch him in the air).
* One of the characters in ''DokonjoGaeru'' (Frog with Guts), named Mogura (Japanese for Mole), is this.
* In ''OnePiece'', Miss Merry Christmas is a [[DistaffCounterpart Tunnel Queen]], as she has the power of the Mole Mole Fruit. The sheer tunneling power is awesome, considering that she can dig as fast as a running man, with only one arm, and while carring, with the other one, a person ''that is out on the surface'' (meaning that that arm is cutting the terrain like a blade).
** Level 5.5 of Impel Down is said to have been created by someone with a similar power.
* Free from ''SoulEater'' wanted to escape prison using this method but [[Funny/SoulEater they only gave him chopsticks]].
* In ''FairyTail'' Virgo and [[{{Gonk}} Everlue]] with the former being Tunnel Queen.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* An early ''MadMagazine'' (back when it was a comic book) story featured a character named Melvin Mole, who could dig through anything given an implement, be it a spade, a lunch spoon, a toothpick, or even his nose hair. This leads to his downfall when he tried to tunnel out of prison and [[spoiler: ended up tunneling into his own execution chamber.]]
** This story inspired a one-shot ComicBook/{{Batman}} villain, also called The Mole.
* The Dalton Brothers from ''LuckyLuke'' are experts in escaping through tunnels. They often dig [[TooDumbToLive one tunnel each]] to get out of their single cell, but still.
* Cave Carson, an obscure DCComics character from the '60s who still makes the occasional cameo. He's a spelunker with a tunneling machine that he and his team use to explore underground caverns.
* The Mole was also an antagonist of ''MandrakeTheMagician'', a genius inventor with a headmounted broad-beam heat ray capable of vaporising rock. It was so effective, his regular outfit included a jetpack so he could keep up. Naturally, [[CutLexLuthorACheck he used it to steal from banks.]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* The TropeNamer is ''TheGreatEscape'', which featured Danny and Willie, nicknamed 'The Tunnel Kings', as well as Archibald 'The Mole' Ives.
** Subverted in that Danny has claustrophobia... Yeah, sucks don't it.
** Really just makes Danny more of a {{Badass}}; he's scared as hell about the tight corners and cave-ins, but hey, stuck in a German POW camp, what choice does he have? Being portrayed by Charles Bronson also doesn't hurt.
* The hacker mole in ''Film/{{G-Force}}''.
* Baragon from the ''{{Godzilla}}'' franchise.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]
* The Mole from the ''{{Burke}}'' novels by Andrew Vachss: He's an anti-Nazi Jew who specializes in bombs, weaponry, breaking and entering, biology and computer hacking and who lives in a series of tunnels he constructed under a junkyard.
* Mr Fox and his allies from ''TheFantasticMrFox''
* Relg, the zealot from ''TheBelgariad''. Though all his people are [[BeneathTheEarth underground dwelling]], Relg takes it to extremes, going as far as considering caves [[IncrediblyLamePun holey]]. Plus, he has a special magic that makes it possible for him (and [[{{Squick}} people he carries along]]) to ''walk through solid rock''.
* The moles in ''{{Redwall}}'', with rare exceptions like Egbert in "The Bellmaker".
* Often, [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves]].
* The two ancient sappers in ''TheWindOnTheMoon''.
* The Horta from ''StarTrek'' are a race that chew through solid rock like it was air.
* The Nome King from the [[TheWonderfulWizardOfOz OZ]] books should be the trope namer.
* Similar to the ''Belgariad'' case listed above, [[DishingOutDirt earthcrafters]] in the ''CodexAlera'' can phase through earth and rock, allowing them to travel underground without leaving any sign of their passing.
* Mulch Diggums in ''ArtemisFowl'' is a dwarf who can unhinge his jaw and inhale the earth to dig tunnels. He's often subjected to ToiletHumor in the books.

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* ''{{Oz}}''. Agamemnon 'The Mole' Busmalis, who likes tunneling into banks and out of prisons. Why they don't give him a cell on an upper floor is [[FridgeLogic beyond me]].
** They eventually do. He then finds a storeroom on the ground floor and starts tunneling out during the day.

[[AC:NewspaperComics]]
* The Mole from the ''DickTracy'' comic strip

[[AC:{{TabletopGames}}]]
* The Skaven from ''{{Warhammer}}'' have a tunneling unit. Whether it appears where it should (directly underneath the enemy's artillery units, usually) or the tunnelers screw up horribly and either collapse their tunnel, arrive somewhere on another continent or at least at a different spot on the battlefield than they should (whereupon they spend the rest of the turn bickering who held the map the wrong side up) is dependent on the roll of a die...
** Dwarven miners are a somewhat more reliable version.
* The [[BugWar Tyranids]] from ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' have tunneling creatures with the size and power of tanks.
* Kobolds in ''DungeonsAndDragons''. They're almost completely helpless in the open (arguably the weakest common monster in the game, to the point that a housecat can rip one to shreds), which they make up for by squeezing through narrow tunnels, leading attackers into traps, and using hit-and-run tactics. A tribe of kobolds in their home warren can be downright deadly.
* The Mole, a villain from the ''Golden Age of {{Champions}}''.

[[AC: Toys]]
* In {{Bionicle}}, the cave-dwelling [[DishingOutDirt Onu-Matoran]] are an entire tribe of these.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* Diggers from ''BattleRealms''.
* Tunnelers from ''{{Stronghold}}''.
* Both Baragon and Megalon in ''{{Godzilla}}: Unleashed'' can burrow as their special ability.
* ''DigDug's'' Taizo Hori and his sons, Susumu and Ataru Hori of ''[[MrDriller Mr. Driller]]'' fame.
* Dwarves being {{TunnelKing}}s is a central game mechanic in ''DwarfFortress''
* Drill Man from ''Game/MegaMan 4'', who could burrow into the ground and pop up under Mega Man. Ground Man from ''Mega Man and Bass'' could do the same, except he could also drill into the ceiling too AND spike you with a giant drill from there.
* The player in ''{{Minecraft}}'' can certainly become this; many players begin this way to avoid monsters at night.
* Excadrill the Ground/Steel mole from ''{{Pokemon}}''. Might be a reference to ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'', being a mole based off a drill and all.
** Also, the Underground Man in ''Diamond/Pearl/Platinum'', along with his son and grandson, Byron and Roark.
* The Undergrunts from ''SuperMarioGalaxy''.

[[AC:Webcomics]]
* [[CharacterTitle Digger]] from, well, ''Webcomic/{{Digger}}''.
* Sizemore from ''{{Erfworld}}'' epitomizes this trope. He can make braced, lighted, and reinforced tunnels as fast as he can walk.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* The Diggers from ''{{Recess}}''
* Tunnel Rat from ''GIJoe'' and related media. As with many Joes, often shown battling in situations having nothing to do with his or her specialty.
* Characters/BugsBunny is shown doing it in almost every medium. In fact, two games require Bugs to use tunneling to solve puzzles or bypass enemies, and another relies solely on ''him'' for transport between game worlds.
* The Mole from ''SouthPark: Bigger, Longer And Uncut''
* [[PunnyName Molier]] in ''AtlantisTheLostEmpire:'' He's not only the team excavations expert, but also ''absolutely obsessed with dirt.'' He keeps piles of it from different parts of the world! There's apparently an explanation for his... er, profession, and equally apparently, [[YouDoNOTWantToKNow we don't want to know]].
** Near the end of the movie, he even head towards a potted plant to dig up the dirt once a formal photo-shoot of the team was over.
* ''All'' the Meerkats in ''TheLionKing 1½''. Except Timon.
--> Dig, dig! Dig, dig a tunnel! Never ever gonna get done-eh! Dig, dig! Dig, dig a tunnel! Quick before the hyena come! Dig!
* ScoobyDoo is depicted this way in some episodes
* Behold the Underminer, the epilogue attacking villain in ''TheIncredibles''. He may always be beneath us, but nothing is beneath him.
* Superspeed digging was one of Zippy's many talents in ''ThePerilsOfPenelopePitstop''.
* Moliarty from ''DarkwingDuck''.
* The Diamond Dogs of ''MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''.
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* Mulch Diggums in Artemis Fowl is a dwarf who can unhinge his jaw and inhale the earth to dig tunnels. He's often subjected to ToiletHumor in the books.

* [[CharacterTitle Digger]] from, well, ''{{Digger}}''.