History Main / ConvenientlyPlacedSharpThing

* ''WesternAnimation/BatmanMysteryOfTheBatwoman'': After the Penguin is entangled by the Batwoman, he is able to cut himself free on one of the shuriken his BodyguardBabes put into the wall when they came to rescue. An interesting case, as the sharp thing was not present when he got tied up.

** In "All Access," Stella's stalker/ex-boyfriend breaks into her apartment, ties her hands behind her back, and [[IdiotBall dumps her in her own bathtub]] where she (unrealistically quickly) breaks apart a straight-razor and uses the blade to cut through her bonds.
** In "The Untouchable," perps use a WoundedGazelleGambit to ambush Mac. They then taze him from behind, zip-tie his hands, and pull a knit cap over his head before leaving him in a construction area. He manages to find a piece of rebar to saw thru the tie, and also does so more quickly than would be realistic.

* ''Mindstar Rising'', a sci-fi novel by Creator/PeterFHamilton, has the protagonist and his fellow captive stomping their hands to crush the bones so they can pull them through the handcuffs. Even though he can create neurohormones to dull the pain, it still severely squicks them both.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'':

* Franchise/{{Batman}}: Deliberately {{invoked|Trope}} by ComicBook/TheJoker in the standalone story "Slayride". Tim Drake/Robin wakes up to find himself [[BoundAndGagged tied up]] by the Joker in a car he stole from a family on Christmas Eve. Robin searches behind his back for something to cut his bonds, and finds a small toy car, snaps the hood off it and starts cutting. But shortly after that, the Joker snatches the car hood out of Robin's hands, because [[MagnificentBastard the Joker placed it there]]. Just to provide false hope. Oh, that [[ForTheEvulz Joker]]!

* The American president (played by Creator/HarrisonFord, no less) from ''Film/AirForceOne''. The film's rating permits showing that using a glass shard cuts you while you're cutting the rope.

** [[spoiler:attempts to do the chair-hop, but ends up simply falling over, knocking over a steel drum and landing in a gushing pool of gasoline. [[TwoFaced This doesn't end well.]]]]
** ComicBook/TheJoker uses broken glass to escape, but his handcuffs were taken off during his interrogation and the glass was broken when Batman slammed his head into the window.
* ''Film/{{Deadpool|2016}}''. The BigBad has kidnapped Deadpool's ex-girlfriend and locked her in a hyperbaric chamber which has the oxygen pumped out. During the battle Deadpool [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks throws a katana to pierce the chamber]], letting the oxygen back in. She uses the lodged katana to cut her zipties, then pushes the blade out (despite the injury to her hand this inflicts) so she can open the chamber and use the katana for a BigDamnHeroes to save Deadpool.
* Subversion in the 1967 film ''Film/DoctorDolittle'' starring Rex Harrison: He just asks mice to chew through the ropes.

* In ''Film/HalloweenIIISeasonOfTheWitch'', (the one without Michael Myers) the main character is bound to a chair so a laser powered by Stonehenge can shoot out of the microchip in the Halloween mask he is being forced to wear and will cause snakes and bugs to crawl out of his mouth. Anyway, he manages to take out the television from across the room by flinging something at it. The camera cuts away and cuts back to him with a glass shard in his hands, covering the fact that there's no logical way he could have grabbed it.

* ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland'':
** Parodied in ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland''. When Guybrush is thrown underwater tied to a heavy idol, the ground around him is ''[[RedHerring littered]]'' with swords, scissors, and other miscellaneous sharp objects, all of which are just out of reach. If you wait a while, you'll hear two people on the dock discuss whether they should throw a knife into the water, and then decide not to. The solution, of course, is to [[spoiler:pick up the idol (which he didn't have a problem carrying in the previous scene) and climb out]].
** The same joke appears in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland''. After Guybrush is swallowed whole by a very large snake, you can see that all around you are: a Snake-Slicing machete, a can of Snake-Away, the Jaws of Life, a good-size Snake-Beating plank, some high-fiber cereal, and a Nine Iron golf club. All of these things would easily allow him to escape if they weren't outside the snake. This time, the solution is [[spoiler:to combine an ipecac flower he cut earlier with a container of pancake syrup inside the snake and force it to throw up.]]

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland''. After Guybrush is swallowed whole by a very large snake, you can see that all around you are: a Snake-Slicing machete, a can of Snake-Away, the Jaws of Life, a good-size Snake-Beating plank, some high-fiber cereal, and a Nine Iron golf club. All of these things would easily allow him to escape if they weren't outside the snake.

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland''. When Guybrush is thrown underwater tied to a heavy idol, the ground around him is ''[[RedHerring littered]]'' with swords, scissors, and other miscellaneous sharp objects, all of which are just out of reach. If you wait a while, you'll hear two people on the dock discuss whether they should throw a knife into the water, and then decide not to. The solution, of course, is to [[spoiler:pick up the idol and climb out]].

* Franchise/{{Batman}}. All the time.
** Deliberately {{invoked|Trope}} by ComicBook/TheJoker in the standalone story "Slayride". Tim Drake/Robin wakes up to find himself [[BoundAndGagged tied up]] by the Joker in a car he stole from a family on Christmas Eve. Robin searches behind his back for something to cut his bonds, and finds a small toy car, snaps the hood off it and starts cutting. But shortly after that, the Joker snatches the car hood out of Robin's hands, because [[MagnificentBastard the Joker placed it there]]. Just to provide false hope. Oh, that [[ForTheEvulz Joker]]!

* ''VideoGame/{{Nightshade}}'' on the NES has this or a variant in a couple points. Right at the start of the game, you use a Conveniently Placed Candle (The game even notes it's there "For no explainable reason" when you examine it) to free yourself from a chair. Later, one of the continue scenarios has you use some sharp metal protruding from the wall as part of your escape.

** ''Film/InidanaJonesAndTheDialOfDestiny'': After being captured by the Nazis at the start of the movie, Indy is able to palm a piece of broken glass when he is shoved on to some broken bottles on the floor, and later uses it cut his bonds. Later, during the climax, Indy uses the head of a ballista bolt stuck through the fuselage of the plane to cut the ropes on his hands.

* In the short story "Literature/TheBorderlandOfSol" by Creator/LarryNiven, an extremely limber Beowulf Schaefer has his arms very securely tied to the coolant line of the [[BigBad Big Bad's]] superweapon. It just so happens that he has a piece of [[AbsurdlySharpBlade monomolecular wire]] sewn into one of the buttons on his clothing, but its not like his hands are free to reach it... so he uses his ''feet'' instead. Instead of trying to cut his bonds directly, he cuts the coolant line right through, making for a big mess involving a miniature black hole that was being manipulated by a mechanism using said coolant line, and the antagonist being HoistByHisOwnPetard.[[note]]He was using the black hole to rob ships leaving from Sol, and then eliminate the evidence afterward by using that black hole to consume the ships and people aboard them.[[/note]]

* In the seventh ''LightNovel/TheGardenOfSinners'', [[spoiler:Shiki]] manages to one-up most of the examples on this page by [[spoiler:''chewing her own thumb off'']] to get out of handcuffs. Of course, [[spoiler:the thumb in question is on her [[ArtificialLimbs artificial left arm]]]], but it just shows how hardcore the character is. It's even more hardcore when you realize that despite being an artificial limb, she can feel through it and is nearly indistinguishable from a flesh and blood arm.

* In ''Film/{{Firewalker}}'', Max breaks a glass bottle of Perrier with his bare hand by squeezing it really hard, and uses the shards to cut the rope. He was given the bottle by his nemesis to troll him, as he was left in the middle of a desert to die of exposure.

* In an episode of ''LightNovel/SpiceAndWolf'', some thugs beat up Lawrence, tie him up, then leave him in the woods to die. Lawrence uses the embers of his campfire to escape, but he does burn his arms in the process.