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...and Jimmy walks in. They let him into the mansion? What the fuck is up with this security team?
Abaddon: How the hell do these people keep appearing inside the supposedly most heavily defended room in this ship! Where the hell is my security! Who's in charge of them anyway? Torgaddon: Oh ... that's me. Abaddon: < face-palms> — From this page on warseer.com
Characters can enter the premises whenever the plot necessitates it, despite presumably locked doors or obvious obstacles. Any trouble they should logically run into seems deliberately not shown. Sometimes this is just a matter of not having enough money for a transitional set.
Named for the tendency of pretty much any Smallville residents to waltz through Lex's door without warning, despite being a guy who should have a string of security guards considering how many people either hate him or are trying to kill him. For Smallville the reason stems from having a limited number of sets and the mansion also doubles as his home, but in later seasons people seem to have an equally easy time getting into the corporate office.
See also Bavarian Fire Drill, Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy, No OSHA Compliance. Unrelated to Joker Immunity.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
Comic Books
- Ironically (since the Trope Namer is Smallville Lex Luthor's mansion), there are several aversions during the Y2K Brainiac 13 upgrade of Metropolis where Lex Luthor's new, truly ridiculous security measures kick Superman's ass.
Film
- In Minority Report, Tom Cruise's character goes on the lam, but manages to get back into the most secure portion of headquarters, using his own retinal scan. When he's arrested and detained, his wife uses his retinal scan AGAIN to break him out of containment.
- Which is even more of a Wall Banger when you remember that his retinas triggered an alarm on a subway a little while earlier. So the police are alerted when he tries to get on a subway but not into the most secure part of their headquarters?
- In Serving Sara, the main character needs to get into a building with a security guard at a desk in the lobby. Admittedly, this isn't exactly airtight security, but his method of distraction is worth this entry. We see him looking at a tow truck whose driver is changing a flat tire, and then we cut to the lobby of the building, followed a second later by a flaming tire rolling past the guard.
- In Terminator 3, it was never shown how the T-850, John and Katherine managed to get through a secret military base all the way to the well-guarded control room from where Skynet was launched. The novelization, however, did a Hand Wave.
Literature
- Subverted in Anne McCaffrey's The Rowan. After the main character gets over their fear of travel she plans to pay a surprise visit to her boss, teleporting into his office. When her second in command tells the boss he arranges to switch off the security that would otherwise fry her the second she arrived (she's not the only teleporter).
- Explained quite thoroughly in Good Omens: "Security bases are like beehives; they make a great deal of effort to keep people out, but once you're in everyone just sort of assumes you've been cleared by management and let you go about your business. Entire species of insects have made a niche for themselves this way."
- Other Terry Pratchett books expand upon this by noting that you will always be let through if you carry a piece of paper and stare at it angrily while muttering to yourself.
Live Action TV
- Angel regularly lampshades how easily intruders can get into Wolfram & Hart without (immediate) notice. Indeed, after abusing this lax security for years when Wolfram & Hart was the opposition, Angel then discovered that their security didn't improve much even after he and his friends were put in charge of the W&H LA branch ofice.
Angel: Call security, put 'em on red alert. Nobody gets in this building without clearance from me. I want a guard at every entrance, every elevator, every stairwell. Cover the whole building.
Harmony: Okay, but you know how that never works?
Angel: Harmony!
- This is somewhat odd considering in an early episode, Angel was aware of "vampire detectors" in the building, and had to go to a reasonable amount of trouble for another vampire to be dragged into the foyer so that he could go undetected in the offices.
- Frequently featured and lampshaded on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, often attributed to the villain's inability to find competent minions for security.
- The Farscape three-parter "Look at the Princess" is full of this. Despite endless comments about how tight the security is in the lead-up to the Royal wedding, the various protagonists and antagonists have no problem carrying out various kidnappings, assaults and assassination attempts on each other.
- Nip/Tuck season 5 is a major offender especially because the series is quite level headed and grounded in (to a point) reality. Colleen harassed Sean throughout half of the season, and in this time (from the point she is discovered to be an impostor) she managed to break into: the studio Sean was working in, his apartment to try to kill herself and die in his arms, his clinic (although it does have a flimsy security at best) in order to beg that he fixes her pulse, the Studio AGAIN, and this time presumably knocking out another minor cast member of the series he was part of since she took the role of an assisting medic within and in dangerous proximity to a blade, his apartment AGAIN to plant a BODY of a "rival" agent (she wasn't a real agent to begin with), and finally at his clinic AGAIN to try and murder him. That's made worse by the fact that she is an ordinary (albeit crazy) middle-aged woman. Not only does she break into 3 locations that ought to have some sort of security, she does so again in the SAME ORDER with apparently no difficulty whatsoever.
- They do try to at least justify it in the opening of second part of season 5.
- In the 2006 series of Robin Hood, the Merry Men seem able to waltz into Nottingham Castle any time they feel like it.
- In fairness, they also have someone on the inside, and they are quite often spotted by Alan, as well (who simply fails to report them). Their entrances to the castle are also eventually found out by the Sheriff.
- Seinfeld has an inversion: Jerry would not let one of his own neighbors into his apartment building.
- In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Shades of Grey", Jack O'Neill (who has been forced to resign from the Air Force in order to avoid criminal prosecution) is able to waltz into Stargate Command and straight into General Hammond's office, without security apparently noticing his presence at all. Now, he is a former Black Ops veteran and ex-second-in-command of the base, but it still stretches the bounds of plausibility quite a bit.
- In fact, all secret bases in Stargate SG-1 seem to have Lex Luthor Security, from Goa'uld strongholds to the SGC to NID prisons. The incident in "Shades of Grey" is actually more or less justified, as the entire thing was a Xanatos Roulette organized by Hammond and O'Neill, and the latter may have been secretly given means to bypass security and slip into Hammond's office undetected.
- On the satirical Sit Com Thats My Bush, the Drop In Character Larry is able to waltz right in the front door. At the White House.
- The amount of times that the Doctor has managed to wander into some top secret laboratory armed only with a smile and immediately start ordering people around arguably belongs here.
- In Mutant X, seemingly every time Mutant X wanted into Genomex (the Big Bad), they waltzed right in with basically nothing to stop them. Unless the plot called for one of them to get captured, of course.
- The number of times people have managed to invade, hack, or subvert the Andromeda Ascendant is more than a little disconcerting. It can be Handwaved a bit with the fact that the ship normally has a crew of thousands instead of 6 and that the people on board haven't had enough training to properly run it, but still.
- The same thing happened to the Enterprise on TNG a LOT. One episode of DS9 even had Odo tease Worf about it.
- Seriously, in TNG only the bad guys ever enacted IT security pertaining to anything except the self-destruct. Forget circuit breakers, surge surpressors, seat belts, where were the PASSWORDS?
- In Prison Break one of the characters finds the President's brother in a house in the middle of nowhere. After going to a lot of trouble to fake his death, he doesn't even bother to lock the doors of his safehouse and Robin Tunney's character just walks straight in. Though they try to excuse this in the next episode by revealing that once in, nobody can open the doors out again. Though surely it would have been easier to just lock the doors from the inside.
- The titular building of Dollhouse was originally impossible to find, let alone break into or escape from, until the end of the first season. After that, characters seem to be able to get in and out whenever the plot demands it.
Real Life
- Social Engineering. Just ask Kevin Mitnick, a famous hacker. For example, need to get inside a door that can only be opened with a card key? Just stand outside, wait for someone to come by, say something along the lines of "I'm new here" or "I'm having a bad day, my card was destroyed..." People are nice enough to open doors with no questions asked. That is just one example.
- In fact, things like these are a common problem that several organizations overlook.
- Hopefully, not the ones who have watched Diamonds Are Forever and seen Bond pull off this very trick.
- This troper thinks part of the problem with this trope in general is that most people forget the real secret to stealth isn't to go unseen - it's to look like you belong there so that no one questions your presence. Sure, you can put on the maintenance outfit, but if you're sneaking around and looking to make sure no one sees you, someone's gonna notice you. That's how Jack got into Hammond's office in "Shades of Grey." He just walked around like he owned the place and no one took any notice, because Hell, he's Jack O'Neil; he almost IS the Stargate program, why wouldn't he be here?
- Subverted in Burn Notice whenever Michael needs to get somewhere. They almost always show (or at least reference) how Michael gets to where he needs to be and it's usually just as the previous troper said - acting like he's supposed to be there. One Season Two episode has him walk into a government contractor with a friend claiming he lost his security badge. After he's inside, he further 'sneaks' into the high security area... by taking a soda can out of the trash and lifting a handprint.
- A later episode has Michael again trying to get into a government building in order to obtain something. He walks in pretending to be the weekend cleaning crew. However, getting what he needs requires him to trigger an alarm. How does he get out? He allows himself to get caught by security, pretends he's drunk (and cuts himself on the window he had to break), and begs security not to report it since he -really- needs the job or his wife will take away the kids. Security pities him, reports a false alarm, and escorts him to the front door while suggesting he take the rest of the day off to clean up/sober up.
Video Games
- The second and third Resident Evil games take place in a zombie-filled city that's been barricaded by the US government. Despite this, people, vehicles, and attack helicopters regularly pass in and out without even seeing said blockade.
- More in than out, except in endings... apparently, the military REALLY doesn't care if people die.
- MMORPG example, from City Of Heroes: Although several semi-destroyed parts of Paragon City are sealed and only heroes above certain levels are allowed to enter, you can still find unpowered civilians — not ragged refugees, but people in obvious good clothes — constantly wandering around the ruins and cornered by gangs of superpowered thugs. Similarly, every door in the city will open to random passers-by, but heroes are not permitted entry unless they have a specific mission in the building.
- Even more amusing when the civilian you had just rescued on the street enters the same building you were about to enter to clear it of bad guys.
- And of course the same rules apply in City of Villains. Yup, you may be a psychopathic mass-murdering supervillain who eats people's souls for fun and profit, but trespassing... well, even you have standards, right?
- In Mega Man games, this trope is played with. In some games you are able to just walk into Dr. Wily's fortress (some of the Mega Man X games actually teleport you into the final base). Some games avert this by requiring you to use your weapons to get inside and navigate some of the rooms. The "Magnet Beam" room from the first game and the platform hopping sequence to get in Sigma's front door in the first X series game are prime examples.
- Super Paper Mario: Mario and Luigi are able to
sneak waltz into Bowser's castle just before he begins his invasion on the Mushroom Kingdom because he his minions forgot to lock the front gate. Whoopsie.
- Doesn't this go for all the Mario games?
- Justified in Golden Sun at one point: The man who built the wall that's supposed to stop you had to take a few shortcuts in building the wall (and tells you how to get past if you read his mind).
- Splinter Cell: Sam manages to sneak into the CIA. The Cut Scene shows him using a fake ID and regular clothes before shedding it for his stealth suit. For some reason, the CIA has plenty of dark areas for him to lurk in.
- The CIA instance is actually justified by the fact that Third Echelon has pre-prepared identities and equipment to allow Splinter Cells to enter most government installations without fuss. NSA agents are allowed on CIA property.
- Lampshaded when Sam asks how he's going to get his kidnap target off the premises: Lambert reminds him that Fishers support team pulling up to the loading dock in a black van is perfectly legit, so long as nobody spots Fisher as he climbs in the back.
- Team Fortress 2: many of the capture-the-flag maps are basically military outposts disguised as lumber mills or grain silos and, minus the multitude of mercenaries, they have the worst security measures ever. Besides having all the doors left wide open (including one that looks like it could withstand a missile blast) and the intelligence just sitting on a desk in an empty room, there are lit-up signs pointing towards the intelligence. It's like they WANT it to get stolen.
- Played For Laughs in Breath Of Fire III at the McNeil Mansion. When trying to sneak in, you find a broken wall that they just fixed... poorly enough that when Rei leans on it, it falls over. Half the guards are either scared stiff or total screwoffs who don't care if you sneak in, same with the servants... one of whom even lets you use his bed as a Trauma Inn. Rei even lampshades this at one point.
- In Star Wars: Battlefront, on Hoth. If the Empire tries to take Echo Base with a frontal assault, they're in for a fight. If a trooper takes a couple of minutes to circle around and enter from the hangar, he can often capture the entire base without firing a shot.
- Pretty much any control point based multiplayer shooter: if it isn't on the front lines or a hangout for plane campers you can almost guarantee a flag will be completely deserted, making oblique approaches highly effective.
- In Modern Warfare 2's highrise map, I noticed that (depending on how skilled your opponents are) few people pay attention to the lower levels; this makes it somewhat easy to slip into the opponents base and start gunning down snipers focused at the map's center. There are a few points in other maps like this, but I've noticed this is the most prominent.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- The Gargoyles were able to access David Xanatos' castle on top of the Erie Building seemingly at will, though he probably could have stopped them if he wanted to. Sometimes, that was the point.
- Granted, they can just
fly glide up there. And Xanatos does have anti-aircraft guns and fighting robots he's used a few times, so presumably could keep them out if he actually wishes to.
- And, of course, there's the Looney Tunes version, in which you barricade the door with everything you've got, and then the creature you were trying to keep out appears behind you, with no clue of how it got in. "The Cat Came Back" sort of deal.
- Dexters Laboratory was always open to DeeDee, no matter how much security Dexter installed.
- Lampshaded in the South Park "Imagination land" three parter:
"Why is it so easy for children to get inside the Pentagon?!"
- Lampshaded in the I Am Not An Animal eposode 'Home'. When the animals are trying to break back into the vivisection laboratory they are told that:
A klaxon sounds and all the security systems turn off, just as the guards all take a twenty minute break. For some reason.
- "I really should start locking those windows."
- Subverted in Ultimate Spider Man, when Spidey tries to intimidate the Kingpin by dropping in on him unexpectedly, only to realize that the Kingpin put in shatter-proof windows to get rid of such problems. Makes the web head lose his cool.
- Happens a lot in Kim Possible. The hardest part is usually actually getting to the secret lair; once there, getting inside is cake.
- Possibly lampshaded in that a great number of these lairs are apparently rentals or villainous time shares... the villains hiding out in them might not know how to turn the security system on.
- In the original Transformers TV series, the Autobots were able to stow away on the Decepticon spacebridge pretty much at will, since the guards were always graduates of the Imperial Storm Trooper Marksmanship Academy, especially poor Shockwave. Brilliantly parodied here.
- Of course, let's not even talk about how many times Laserbeak just invited himself into the Autobots' base.
- Which is nothing compared to the first episode in which Spike finds a tape-deck WITH A DECEPTICON SYMBOL CLEARLY VISIBLE ON THE FRONT, yet thinks 'gee wizz, a cassette player! Someone must have left it in the middle of a desert right next to the Autobot base whilst out for a hike!' Of course, the tape-deck in question was Soundwave.
- Among its many other sins (such as sucking like a Tim Taylor modified vacuum cleaner), the Superman: Doomsday animated movie had Lois Lane easily sneak into the most secure areas of Luthor's building and into his office, tranquilize him into unconsciousness, call up Jimmy Olsen to help her, both of them spend a few hours going through all his files, before finally dragging the unconscious (paranoid, ridiculously-intelligent, could lose everything if this got out) Luthor over to a retinal scanner and requiring nothing more than sticking his eye against the screen to get directly into a lab where Luthor's most dangerous, most secret project was going on.
- In Exo Squad, a TV reporter has unescorted access to the bridge of the fleet's capital ship during military operations against space pirates. Geraldo Rivera has nothing on this guy...
- Futurama has the Cryogenics Lab. Characters that have entered in the third millennium include Fry (multiple times), Nibbler, Bender (multiple times), Stephen Hawking, Al Gore, Gary Gygax, Nichelle Nichols, and basically anyone who wants to be frozen for a thousand years or so (or wants that to happen to someone else). No one even seems to notice.
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