Sandbox / TB Qwickcheck

Fully correct: newly discovered secret about their identity (1/50)

• Power Pack Trial Balloon Question: Seeking assurance from her mother, Julie (who has super-speed and flight at the time) is told she would still be loved "even if you grew wings and flew".

Hiding part of their identity, but not a new discovery about themself (10/50)

• Tropes S to Z: Veronica would like to know your opinion about the Brotherhood before she will confess that she is a member herself.
• Let Me In: After Abby is sick in the car park of the arcade, Owen immediately goes to comfort and hug her. Abby, touched by this, asks him if he likes her, and Owen replies that he does, a lot. Abby decided to ask further about whether Owen would still like her if she wasn't a girl (i.e. that she's a vampire, not a normal human). Owen gets confused by this but confirms that he would still love her.
• Catch Your Breath Ace finally gets an answer to the Trial Balloon Question he's been contemplating for the better part of a month. While out to sea and on Isobu's back, with Sabo there for moral support, Ace decides to let Kei in on his secret.
  Ace: "What would you say… What would you say if you met the Pirate King's son?"
  Kei: "If I met the Pirate King's son… I'd raise my hand like this, then say 'Yo.' Just like I did when we met."
  Ace: "D-did you hear what I said? Gol D. Roger's son. People say the man was a demon! The World Government—they'd call anyone with his blood a demon just for that. It's the most cursed blood in the world…"
  Kei: "Really? A demon? Then you're in good company, aren't you?"
• Literature/Friday:
  • Friday floats a question to one of her husbands in Christchurch to find out how he feels about Artificial Persons. Having gotten an unsatisfactory response, she escalates the issue by unmistakably proving herself to be one, which promptly gets her kicked out.
  • Later in her travels, Friday encounters a fellow AP, but neither knows that the other is one and so both play out the expected dance of Fantastic Racism in their society. This results in him getting cold feet and her crying herself to sleep.
• Let the Right One In: Twofold. Eli asks Oskar if he would still like her if she weren't a girl. He says sure he would. What Eli really means is he is neither female nor human.
• The Undomestic Goddess: Samantha, who's a lawyer, but currently working as more of a maid, and the guy she loves hates lawyers.
• I Have This Friend Played for Drama: Alice has superpowers and asks Bob, "My friend has superpowers. What would you do if it was me?". Bob says that he'd disown her.
• Battlestar Galactica 2003 S 03 E 02 Precipice: Jammer asks Tyrol if the New Caprica Police are just honest men forced to do bad things and Tyrol tells him the collaborators will be hanged for their actions, not knowing Jammer is one himself.
• Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance When he asks what would happen if an angel was found in the Netherworld and the general consensus is "the angel will get the crap beaten out of them", he looks very nervous.
• Becoming the Mask The usual response to The Reveal is "Was It All a Lie?" Occasionally, they will test the waters with a Trial Balloon Question.

Asking a "hypothetical" question about something other than their personal identity (25/50)

• Obsession Song Poets of the Fall's "Carnival of Rust" has its Love Hungry singer advertising his deeply dysfunctional, passive-aggressive fixation on his listener via an opening verse that takes the form of a Trial Balloon Question lathered in Wishful Projection.
• The Confidant * In ThunderCats, Court Mage and Old Retainer Jaga suspects that young Rebel Prince Lion-O has seen a vision during a Rite of Passage, and is frightened of disclosing it because of a reputation as a Cloudcuckoolander and family Black Sheep. To prompt Lion-O to confide in him, Jaga notes that legend says "... our greatest king will possess the ability of "Sight Beyond Sight." which prompts Lion-O to ask a Trial Balloon Question about visions. After a pep talk, Lion-O is won over and says he has something to tell Jaga.
• What Is This Index? Trial Balloon Question: Asking a hypothetical question that is actually about yourself.
• Tropes Q to Z
  Calvin: Do you love me, Dad?
  Dad: Of course I do Calvin.
  Calvin: Would you still love me if I did something bad?
  Dad: Well, of course... I... would...
  Calvin: I mean something really, really...
  Dad: CALVIN, WHAT DID YOU DO?!
  • Another strip has Calvin plotting to throw a water balloon at Hobbes, only for Hobbes to catch him and ask a completely hypothetical question about if he knew tomorrow was his last day on Earth, would he do something different if it meant it wouldn't be his last day on Earth?
    Calvin: I don't think that question was very hypothetical at all.
• Im Giving You A Nightcall: Twice, Roy is asked what he would do if Edward turned out to be Fullmetal. Roy missed the point of the question, refuses to consider that possibility, state that Edward can’t be Fullmetal. He states he would arrest Edward if he was. Not the answer Edward, Hughes and Hawkeye were searching for.
• Swinging Pendulum When Kaien tells Ichigo that he and the Shiba have Ichigo's back, Ichigo asks if they would stand by him if he was declared a traitor. Kaien answers seriously that he would help Ichigo because he believes that Ichigo would either have a very good reason for being a traitor or have been framed.
• A Safe Place (1971): Mitch asks Noah how she'd feel if he murdered his other girl, Rita. When Noah asks him if he actually murdered her, he replies that he did. Neither he nor Noah is terribly upset about it.
• The Last Seduction: As part of her plan to use Mike to kill Clay, she first ropes him in by convincing him to cold call high-payout life insurance beneficiaries, suggesting that they could make more than enough money to skip town and live on by killing abusive husbands and splitting the life insurance payouts with the abused spouse. She even does a convincing test run with one of the wives she calls while Mike listens in, and as a further surprise, the wife actually seems to be interested in her doing it before Bridget claims she's not serious and hangs up. It's a big red flag that Mike completely ignores due to his infatuation with Bridget.
• Secret Vampire: After James tells her she can get rid of her cancer by becoming a vampire but would have to fake her death and never contact her loved ones again, Poppy asks her mother what she would do if, 'hypothetically', she could travel far away to be cured but would never be allowed to return. Her mother says that while she'd miss her terribly, she'd let Poppy go wherever she needed to be saved "but there isn't such a place". Hearing this helps Poppy to make up her mind to accept James' offer.
• evermore (2020): In "tolerate it," the Love Martyr narrator asks her partner, "But what would you do if I / Break free and leave us in ruins?"
• Bendy and the Ink Machine When you hear Joey's tape and how he mentions cheating death as an idea... he may have actually done that through the Ink Machine...
• Unconfessed Unemployment Discussed: "Alice, just hypothetically, what would you say if I lost my job?"
• Calvin And Hobbes The Series S 3 E 5 Chains
  Calvin: Andy, quick! If you got a chain letter mailed to you saying you were going die a horrible death if you didn't forward it, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
  (beat)
  Andy: Uuuuuh..
  Calvin: Hypothetically, of course!
• It Feels More Like A Memory Chapter 7 Talk Less Smile More Aaron‘s grandfather tries to teach him lying is the worst thing he could do. Aaron, who hasn’t revealed that he remembers killing Alexander, asks his grandfather if killing someone would be worse than lying.
• Lilo & Stitch: The Series S1 E18 "Yaarp" Lilo's idea involves installing an alien invasion alarm on the school's roof for the good of all humankind, and also for "any friendly aliens who may or may not be living there disguised as her dog."
• Paradise PDS 03 E 02 Top Cops Karen sends one of these out, when asking the mutants what would happen if Fitz wasn't in prison.
  Clovis: We, the mutants, demands to know what happened to Gerald Fitzgerald, the man who put us in this mutated state!
  Karen: Uh, what if I said I pardoned him?
  Clovis: I don't know. I'd probably puke acid in your face and kill you.
  Karen: Oh. Then I did not pardon him.
• The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air S 1 E 06 Mistaken Identity Armor-Piercing Response: Carlton gets into an argument with Will over whether or not the cops that arrested them were targeting them for being black. As Carlton tries to deny Will's thoughts, he asks his father a Trial Balloon Question whose answer begins to shatter his optimism.
  Carlton: If you were a policeman, and you saw a car driving 2 miles an hour, wouldn't you stop him?
  Phil: I asked myself that question the first time I was stopped.
• The Interns S 3 E 15 Levin's mother is here, to see his "girl", about whom she already has a very negative opinion (based on just the fact that he chose to hide her even from his mother). In attempt to hide from her the fact that his girlfriend is Lyuba (who managed to go into conflict with her right from the start), Levin lies that his girlfriend is dead; unfortunately, Levin's mother decides to learn more about her, for which she asks... Lyuba. Lyuba proceeds to describe herself, and learns that Levin's mother actually doesn't hate what Lyuba described to her... until Lyuba formally introduces herself as Levin's girlfriend, and learns that Levin's mother only complimented Lyuba because it's considered to be rude to criticise the dead.
• The Simpsons S18 E8 "The Haw-Hawed Couple" Homer asks Lisa how she would react if Wizard Greystash died, she says that would be the day her childhood ends. This prompts Homer to revise the book's ending.
• Horrible Histories Bonnie Prince Charlie sounds out a potential helper by pretending to be conducting a door-to-door poll about himself in a silly voice.
• Space Force (2020) Trial Balloon Question: Mark asks Erin how she would feel if he started dating, despite still being married to her incarcerated mother. Erin reacts with horror, and naturally that's when Mark's new love interest comes down the stairs after staying over the previous night.
• Will & Grace Leo grows bored of living in New York and wants to go back to Doctors Without Borders in Cambodia, but he has to tell Grace first.
  Leo: Grace, you'd want me to be happy, right?
  Grace: Not if it affects me in any negative way. [smiles sweetly]
• The Importance of Being Earnest: "Couldn't you love me if my name wasn't Ernest?"
• Tropes T to Z Inverted as Jaga deliberately walks Lion-O into asking one
  Jaga: The Book says that our greatest king will possess the ability of "Sight Beyond Sight,"
  Lion-O: Like having visions?
• Monster Pulse While out drinking with Ned, Lulenski awkwardly asks if he ever had to kill anyone during his days with a cop. What might seem like random, morbid curiosity is in fact her way of testing whether he'd be a sympathetic confidant...or at least would have any advice for dealing with her own guilt over mercy-killing Roger.

[[folder: ZCE/ potholes/ index links (14/50)]]

• The opening verse of Poets of the Fall's Obsession Song "Carnival of Rust," implies that the speaker has been unhealthily fixating on the object of their affection for so long they've been losing sleep, while the lyrics pivot from a passive, Wishful Projection-fueled Trial Balloon Question to a line that Deconstructs the declaration itself as predatory in nature.
• Main/Dialogue
• Stock Phrases
• That is, unless it's a Trial Balloon Question, in which case there's more likely to be broken hearts and blood.
• Compare Trial Balloon Question (a related but much more innocuous trope)
• Genesis of Aquarion (True ZCE)
• Beyond the Outer Gate Lies... Harry asks how big would be the fallout if the church where Asia was taken hostage in were to… hypothetically… be burned down to a crisp. Koneko fixes him with narrowed eyes and updates her assessment of him from "suspicious" to "definitely suspicious."
• IThoughtItMeant.S To T A Trial Balloon Question is not about offering free balloons preceding a subscription.
• Esper Mami (true ZCE)
• Live-Action TV
• Battlestar Galactica 2003 S 04 E 18 Islanded In A Stream Of Stars Kara goes to put a bullet in Sam, for entirely different reasons.
• Little Shop of Horrors (true ZCE)
• Tales of Symphonia Trial Balloon Question: The Question is skipped however, with the answer being given straight.
• Western Animation/Doug