Whenever an obstacle arises in an action or adventure story, it is usually this. Often encountered on
The Way Into Mordor, it is also found in urban settings.
Cliffs Of Insanity can be natural or man-made; if the latter, they may involve
Le Parkour or a
Clock Tower.
What they all have in common, however, is the vertical arrows reading "Plot continues this way." To simply go around (or take the elevator/tram ride) would be
inconceivable. One must take them head-on and with as little safety equipment as possible, just to be sporting.
Whether or not he was known to be in the area, the villain will invariably Cut The Rope before the hero can make it to the top. Fortunately, the hero will
grab a ledge or
something and reappear. He/she will
invariably need an assist for the last 5 feet of the climb. If the hero or villain is being pursued, he will invariably pick the tallest point in the landscape and
climb that. (Although that is
a trope in itself.)
This is a super trope dealing with Insane Precipices. This deals with the strange properties of these (mostly) fictional features, such as their apparent unavoidability. Bizarrely averted in
Role Playing Games. See
Insurmountable Waist High Fence, which is the opposite of this trope. Usually involved in a
Climbing Climax.
Sub-tropes of this Trope include:
Examples of this Trope include:
Film
- The Trope Namer is The Princess Bride. Buttercup's kidnappers climb the Cliffs of Insanity to escape pursuit, but of course the Man in Black isn't ready to give up that easily.
- The embassy in The Bourne Identity.
- The Statue of Liberty in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.
- For Your Eyes Only: James Bond climbs the Rock of Gibraltar in order to reach the monastery at the top.
- In 300, Leonidas has to climb one in order to reach the Temple of the Ephors, because as we all know Spartans are too manly for Handicapped Access. It is not said if this is the only route, or Leonidas is just showing off.
- Cliffhanger.
- Star Trek V: The film opens with Captain Kirk scaling El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
Literature
- In The Guns of Navarone, a commando team has to scale a steep cliff to get onto an island and destroy the German artillery emplacement that is fortified there.
Live Action TV
- In the Season Four finale of Angel, the titular vampire hero has to climb (without equipment, but, hey, he's a vampire) insanely tall cliffs in a hell dimension in order to reach a temple which houses the only creature to know Jasmine's true name.
Real Life
- The infamous 1972 crash of Uruguyan Air Force Flight 571. The Uruguyan national rugby team survive for over two months by eating the bodies of the deceased. Realizing that rescue searches were over, two team members walked out of the Andes mountains and into Chile to summon help.
- This was recreated in the 1993 film Alive.
- K2 is the world's second highest mountain and considered and more difficult climb than Everest due to the extremely steep and technical climb. Also it tends to have powerful storms that last several days. There is a reason it has the second highest fatality rate of any mountain.
Video Games
- You climb some high cliffs at two points in Final Fantasy VII. When you're doing it the second time you're constantly losing body heat, so you have to stop on ledges to heat yourself up occasionally.
- The cliffs to Manhannan's house in Kings Quest III. This was one of the last times that Sierra made you navigate a maze with the arrow keys, where the slightest misstep led to instant death. And you had to do this every time you needed to enter or leave the house, which you had to do all the time.
- The Cliffs of Logic in Kings Quest VI: Half puzzle sequence, half Copy Protection! Naturally, if you get one wrong, you tumble to your death.
- The cliffs in Peasant's Quest.
- The Cliffs of Madness in God Of War could almost be the Trope Namer.
- The ladder sequence in [[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater]].
