Fridge / Nancy Drew

Major spoilers abound for the video game series.

Fridge Brilliance

• In Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, Nancy mentions in a phone conversation how Emily made tea for her. Given that Emily poisoned Sally's well water, this may well have been an attempt to murder her.
• In White Wolf of Icicle Creek, Bill remarks that the area's inhabitants were less tolerant of wolves "50 years ago." How does Bill, a tourist, know this? He used to live at the Lodge.
• Why is there a perpetual motion machine in your room in Curse of Blackmoor Manor? To calm you down. The urge to run away like crazy after scary things come up in a game is strong, and you either have to find your way back to the path or go to a known safe spot and calm down. In point-and-click games, most players will have found it, and rather than being an intimidating tick-tock, it's a steady noise.
• Also, while two of the coats-of-arms in Blackmoor Manor contain pictorial clues which are essential to solving puzzles, and all the Initiates' emblems are necessary to forge the final key, some of the others contain hints that aren't crucial, but can help you approach the corresponding puzzles correctly. The one with the rainbow confirms that the tile-puzzle should be arranged with the moon on the left, and the one from Loulou's original trainer shows the parrot and an open mouth, hinting that talking to the bird will help you solve his puzzle.
• In the ending of Secret of The Old Clock, it's mentioned that Josiah didn't leave anything to Richard Topham, a guy he supposedly respected. This was probably Josiah's way of testing whether Topham's boasts about having telepathy were legitimate- if they were, he would've known about the elaborate scheme Josiah was enacting to hide his will. And if they weren't, well, Topham was a scammer who didn't deserve any more of Josiah's money.
• Why does Nancy get booked into jail for catching a female Dunguness crab? In real life, the fine for catching and keeping is only $100-150, but Nancy probably didn't have the money on her so she just had to spend a day or so in jail.
  • Additionally, it's a game over because of a failure to accomplish objectives.
• Check the lock of hair on Rachel's head - you can see it swap.
• Why would Minette be making a "Come-back" collection? Presumably, she might have gotten off with a lighter sentence, and possibly have been ordered to see a psychiatrist who could evaluate her mental condition.
• Why would Jane try to gaslight her stepmother into thinking she's becoming a werewolf if she wants her mother back? She's a child - she didn't think this through. She also probably didn't understand what may have actually been the reason for the divorce. They could be Amicable Exes at least.
• The antique phones in the Captain's Cove hotel in Haunted Carousel are intentional - it's made to invoke an old feeling. They knew guests were more likely to have cell phones anyway.
• So why was Rachel considered a valedictorian candidate? She didn't just have Nancy do her homework for her - she was having Kim do it.
• So why did Yanni get Guadalupe kicked out of the lodge? He can't frame her for anything. Therefore she can easily get in his way.
  • This is also why he doesn't order Nancy to stay at the site he intends to blow up - if she stays? He kills a witness and can frame his fall guy for murder.

Fridge Logic

• Occasionally crops up when back-and-forth dialogue is kept sparse for pacing's sake, as when two different characters from Danger on Deception Island apparently know your e-mail address without being told.
• In The Captive Curse, the monster allegedly carries off young women who are wearing a specific necklace. It's never explained how, since these girls are never seen again, the necklace returns to be worn by a new victim, unless it was rediscovered later.
• Occasionally a Game Over will have you being kicked out of the investigation site by a character who, if you finish the game, turns out to be the culprit who was "counting on you" to find the treasure, evidence, etc... You'd think that, say, Shorty from Secret of Shadow Ranch could forgive you a few under-ripe vegetables if letting you stick around made him rich.
  • Even Evil Has Standards.
  • This is somewhat of a Gameplay and Story Segregation to help keep the player guessing as to who the culprit could be since in some cases, the culprit's identity is not inherently obvious. Notable examples include Shorty from Secret of Shadow Ranch, Mike and Pua from Creature of Kapu Cave, and Victor Lossett from The Deadly Device.
• The reveal of "Ghost of Thornton Hall" explains that the hauntings are really hallucinations caused by carbon monoxide poisoning, but that doesn't explain why they also occur in the cemetery, the crypt, and the ruins where Charlotte died. It also doesn't explain one of the game-overs, when one of the suspects sends the ghost to attack you. Then again, it could be a case of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane.
  • Her Interactive did an email interview where they more or less claimed this was the case, as well as answered other pressing questions fans had come up with. You can find the entirety of the interview here.
    "There are a few possible explanations for the hauntings in Ghost of Thornton Hall, and we’ve hidden the answer in the game – and for the time being at least, we’re going to keep that secret. I will say this though, it isn’t just ONE thing from the list of possible culprits (Harper and Jessalyn dressing up, low-level exposure to carbon monoxide, the power of suggestion, that odd bit of film you find in the projector, or perhaps even a real ghost.) When it comes to deciding what caused each haunting, we’re leaving that up to you – at least for now. Perhaps we’ll revisit this again in the future, but for now, we want to let everyone who plays the game put those pieces together themselves."
• Almost all of the puzzles in The Curse of Blackmoor Manor were created by the Penvellyns in order to protect their ancestral treasure. One such puzzle is a word game, in which you have to play with Loulou the parrot in order to open a particular door. Thing is, the puzzles were also designed to be solved by every successive Penvellyn heir (skipping a generation, as per tradition). So Jane's granddaughter or grandson will be the next one to search for the treasure - but how on earth are they going to accomplish that without Loulou? There's no way the parrot will live that long.
  • Presumably Jane's grandfather expected she would either find a way to incorporate the entry words Loulou knows into her puzzle or would get and train another parrot.
    • Like Coucou in Ransom of the Seven Ships.
  • Jane already designs games - and the high scores contain these words for the puzzle. That's her way of doing it.
• Your tendencies to be a Kleptomaniac Hero become this trope, especially when characters don't call you out about their missing possessions. For example, in Labyrinth of Lies, you have to steal the director's script - which has all the lighting cues in it, the weights of the flies, and a code for the stage lift, to name a few. And you do this on opening night. And since the show is the cover for an elaborate heist, this is a very important document - and you carry it around for almost the entire game. And there's no mention of the director dipping into extra copies.
• Occasionally, a game will make it possible for Nancy to seal off the entrance she'd used to access the final location, keeping the essential key or other access-item on her person, only for the villain to pop up and confront her despite there being no way for them to have followed her. This became less of a problem later in the series when the Big Bad would often admit to having their own key and/or using a secret passage Nancy missed.
• In Danger on Deception Island, the game only checks for bad ingredients when making a sandwich, even when the combination of the ingredients in the sandwich (including peanut butter, tomatoes, ice cream, lettuce, ketchup, mustard, meat, expired mayonnaise, and actual jellyfish) should make a person hurl.
  • Nancy can also carry around a literal ice cream sandwich throughout the entire game. Wouldn't it melt?
  • If a sadistic player makes Nancy put the mayonnaise, baking soda, or jellyfish on a sandwich, wouldn't she notice something was wrong when she ate it? Katie is implied to scarf down the sandwich too quick to notice if you gave her a bad ingredient, but Nancy should know better.

Fridge Horror

• For The Captive Curse. The monster does not actually exist, in the present at least. All's well that ends well, right? Except we never find out who/what was the 'monster' that kidnapped Renate's sister in the past. Think about something, anything dragging a child into the forest, never to be seen again, and tell me you don't find that disquieting.
  • Considering what was going on in Germany at the most likely time Renate and her sister were children has provided potential suspects...and none of them are pleasant.
• Although Curse of Blackmoor Manor ends on an upbeat note, it's unlikely that Linda could just forget how deeply she'd fallen into the "werewolf" delusion. Eating raw steak? Saying things to Nancy that implies actual Horror Hunger on her part? Even after learning she was drugged, she'd still going to need a lot of therapy to reconcile how easily she'd been slipping into a bestial persona.
  • There's also the fact that as it was revealed, she was being drugged with somebody else's medication. This is actually very VERY dangerous!
• In Warnings at Waverly Academy, the incidents that prompted Nancy being called in include a claustrophobic girl being locked in a closet and another girl having her food spiked with an allergen, both of which could have been lethal. Both these incidents are referred to as mere pranks, which really doesn't paint the staff in a good light. Somewhat mitigated in that the reference was made by a student who turned out to be the culprit, but it's kind of unnerving just how violent the competition for valedictorian got.
  • This can happen in real-life sadly rather than just be Truth in Television - the competition for Valedictorian can be VERY cutthroat.
• Alibi in Ashes kicks off with an attempt on Nancy's life and has pretty much the entire town (save the police chief, Ned, Bess, and George) being totally willing to buy that Nancy is an arsonist. Makes you wonder what else might lie under the surface in River Heights.
• In Secret of the Scarlet Hand, one of the Game Over sequences results in Nancy suffocating to death in the monolith. A newspaper clip from 700 years into the future is then shown, stating how scientists were baffled at finding two mummies in the ancient structure. Although disturbing in and of itself, it gets even worse when you consider how badly her death/disappearance must have affected her father, Ned, Bess, George, and anyone else who cared about her. If Nancy's body was only found in the year 2702, then that means they died without ever finding out what really happened to her. Heck, even if they held any kind of memorial service, they would have had nothing to bury. Those are some pretty dark implications, especially when you consider that this particular game was rated E for everyone.
• Also counts as Fridge Sadness, but in The Haunted Carousel, a throwaway line from Ingrid reveals that when Rolfe Kessler was carving the horses for the carousel, he said that if they were ever separated, bad luck would follow. She's referring to the recent theft and coaster accident, but remember that Joy's mother died in a car accident the same night Joy received one of the horses for her birthday, and her father filed for bankruptcy years later before dying of a heart attack in court. Coincidence? Or a real-life curse?
• In Ransom of the Seven Ships, Bess was trapped in an underground tomb, the lack of oxygen in which was starting to be uncomfortable by the time Nancy arrived. Originally both her and George were supposed to be trapped there. If the villain's plan had gone as intended, would they have asphyxiated before help came?
• Note the one operating the gumbo food truck in Crystal Skull. It's Shorty. Oh, Crap!.
  • Fridge Brilliance: It's actually not Nancy he's talking to - it's Bess. Even though he used to work for Bess's aunt and uncle, he was already gone by the time Bess&George finally made it to Shadow Ranch and thus he never would have recognised her face. To Shorty? She's just another customer.
  • Although this is likely just a case of a Reused Character Design and a Call-Back rather than Shorty actually returning.
• Imagining what poor Fiona went through growing up with her very rough childhood.

Fridge Sadness

• The fact that Rentaro will have been broken up with someone he genuinely likes. Sure, he may have "deserved" it, but it's also sad.
• Pua might actually end up with criminal charges lasting into adulthood that could make it difficult for her to get a job into adulthood. While she's not the only culprit who is a minor, she was essentially an accomplice to her father.
• Nancy leaving Blackmoor Manor is honestly a little sad if you think about it - Nancy's one of the few people who decided to relate to Jane on a personal level beyond trying to push her into her family's strange and esoteric conditions. Unless the Penvellyns decide to send her to a nearby school, she'll probably have almost no friends simply because she never got to be with other children her own age. And if she ends up going to a boarding school - like Waverly Academy - she'll end up with even greater abandonment issues with her dad and her stepmother.
• What did cause the divorce of the Penvellyns? There's a good chance that it may have been on good terms... but there's also a chance that Jane might actually need therapy if it turns out that her mother was more than happy to leave her.
• Henry Bolet may end up in a loveless relationship that's all give and no take.