History Main / RightUnderTheirNoses

* The 1979 spy film ''Charlie Muffin'' (aka ''A Deadly Game'') ends with Charlie (having betrayed British Intelligence in revenge for them setting him up to be killed) relaxing with his wife in a hotel in Brighton, England. "They'll look all over the world, but they won't look here." In the novels the movie is based on however, Charlie does eventually get caught.

* ''Gold in the Sky'', the 1958 sci-fi thriller by Alan E. Nourse. Our hero escapes the minions of an evil asteroid mining corporation by clamping himself to the outside of their spacecraft in magnetic boots. He then infiltrates TheMothership via AirVentInfiltration (this is before it became a DeadHorseTrope) and then belatedly realises he's been carrying the MacGuffin the villains have been searching for, [[spoiler:an alien RayGun hidden in his father's gun holster.]]

* ''Gold in the Sky'', the 1958 sci-fi thriller by Alan E. Nourse. Our heroe escapes the minions of an evil asteroid mining corporation by clamping himself to the outside of their spacecraft in magnetic boots. He then infiltrates TheMothership via AirVentInfiltration (this is before it became a DeadHorseTrope) and then belatedly realises he's been carrying the MacGuffin the villains have been searching for, [[spoiler:an alien RayGun hidden in his father's gun holster.]]

* [[StormingTheCastle Charging]] the fortress (OneManArmy, ItsUpToYou) on trumped up reasons (DamselIn Distress) when observing from a safe distance might make more sense.

This is true even if the antagonist or whoever the hero is avoiding has ''all'' his forces concentrated in an easily avoidable heavily armed complex. Despite the fact that the {{Sword of Plot Advancement}} is not to be found there, the hero must encounter the {{Damsel in Distress}} somehow.

* [[StormingTheCastle Charging]] the fortress ({{One Man Army}}, {{Its Up To You}}) on trumped up reasons ({{Damsel In Distress}}) when observing from a safe distance might make more sense.

* [[ClimbingTHeCliffsOfInsanity Geographic]] or logistical [[InsurmountableWaistHighFence hurdles]] require the Hero to sneak past a checkpoint. The {{Mooks}} come perilously close to detecting the hero ({{Its Probably Nothing}}).
* Accidentally encountering the {{Big Bad}} while disguised as someone else ({{Hey Wait}}!)

* The J.A. Johnstone western story ''Assault of the Mountain Man'' has this done ''twice'' to the murderous outlaw gang during the same train robbery. First, the messenger riding with the safe opens the safe and hides almost all of the money inside of it under another crate in the car, and closes the safe again with just few hundred dollars left. When the train robbers open the safe they assume that the paltry money in there is all the money in the express car. ''Then'' when they try to rob the passengers, the conductor and the African-American porter have convinced all of the passengers to keep a couple dollars a piece and give all of there money for Julius to hide under his shirt. Sure enough, the frustrated robbers collect almost no money from the passengers, even after searching several they are convinced have more money hidden, [[BeneathNotice all the while never bothering to search the African-American porter, who they even have following them to hold open the bag for any money the passengers do have.]] The newspaper headlines reporting on the robbery the next day do not shy away from poking at how the robbers were fooled in this manner not once, but twice.

* In ''Literature/TheSherwoodRing'', British soldier Peaceable Sherwood takes his hidden militia to crash for the winter at...the shut-up-for-the-war house of the soldier assigned to capturing him, Richard Grahame. Richard is unpleasantly surprised when he makes the mistake of coming over to the house to rummage around for a Christmas gift for his girlfriend.
* The title character of ''[[WoodenShipsAndIronMen Captain Caution]]'', an American privateer, insists he doesn't believe in taking chances. His French friend is incredulous: sailing right into a British-held port and anchoring where the fort's guns will have a perfect shot at him isn't taking chances? Of course not; since he made himself so totally vulnerable to them, the British '''knew''' he couldn't be an American coming in to capture one of the ships already in port. And that night, he sneaked a crew aboard....

** The legend of Bael the Bard says that when he [[AbductionIsLove stole away Lord Stark's daughter,]] they hide in the Winterfell crypts. No one found them for years.

* Used in both of the first two ''VideoGame/{{Enigmatis}}'' games. In the first game, [[spoiler:Detective Hamilton spends ''thirty years'' in the town of Maple Creek, disguised as a secretive hermit, in order to gather intel on the BigBad]]. In this case, it's unclear whether his target is really unaware of his presence or if he's just being very studiously ignored. In the second game's bonus chapter, a young woman [[spoiler:skulks around the area where her companions are imprisoned]], and even tells herself that "The closer to danger, the farther from harm," reasoning that she won't be noticed because no one expects her to be there. [[spoiler:Unlike the first example, she is ''horribly'' wrong.]]

* Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': The Gaang tries to infiltrate a royal party in order to get close to the Earth King and inform him that the Fire Nation is getting increasingly close tovictory over the Earth Kingdom. Unfortunately, the very nice man who lets them into the party is the head of the Da Li, the SecretPolice intent on making everyone in Ba Sing Se unaware that there's a war in the first place.

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* In [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the movie]] version of ''[[Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheTwoTowers The Two Towers]]'', Pippin suggests this as reason for Treebeard to take him and Merry back towards Isengard; of course, he had other reasons for wanting Treebeard to see Isengard close-up.

* In one strip of ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'', Calvin is hiding from his mother, who is trying to get him to take a bath. Calvin avoids being caught by hiding ''in the bathtub.''

* While attempting to avoid pursuit by Nazis in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', Indiana Jones and his father go through Berlin to get the journal back. They manage to [[HeyWait run into Hitler - who proceeds to write his autograph in it]]. And this is ''after'' Hitler has "declared war on the Jones boys" (as the BigBad of the film put it).
* In any ''Myth/RobinHood'' film, the titular hero will sneak his entire band into Nottingham dressed as peasants.

* ''Film/ConquestOfThePlanetOfTheApes'' has the main villain making this remark about having owned Caesar, the chimp everyone was searching for, all along.
* In ''Film/TheGumballRally'', one of the teams evades a roadblock by driving into a truck.
* Even funnier, in ''Film/TheCannonballRun'', they sneak a known race participant (Burt and Dom's ambulance van) through a road block on the back of a "low-boy" carrier, covered only with a tarp and looking exactly like a van covered with a tarp.
* ''Film/CarryOnSpying''. The headquarters of the evil S.T.E.N.C.H organisation is right under the headquarters of the British Secret Service where the spies started their mission. After the ElaborateUndergroundBase blows up, the heroes take the elevator to the surface and emerge from a closet in DaChief's office.
* In ''Film/CastawayOnTheMoon'', Seong-geun gets marooned on a DesertedIsland--under a bridge, in the middle of the Han River, ''in the middle of Seoul''. No one driving the bridge or sailing the river ever sees him, because no one's supposed to be there.
* The 1979 spy film ''Charlie Muffin'' (aka ''A Deadly Game'') ends with Charlie (having betrayed British Intelligence in revenge for them setting him up to be killed) relaxing with his wife in a hotel in Brighton, England. "They'll look all over the world, but they won't look here." In the novels the movie is based on however, Charlie does eventually get caught.

* In Series 2 of ''Series/Marcella'', [[spoiler:the SerialKiller has managed to hide the body of one of their victims inside the very police station the main character works at, by dumping in the maintenance compartment of an elevator shaft]].

* In [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the movie]] version of ''[[LordOfTheRings The Two Towers]]'', Pippin suggests this as reason for Treebeard to take him and Merry back towards Isengard; of course, he had other reasons for wanting Treebeard to see Isengard close-up.

-->-- '''Pippin''', ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings: The Two Towers''

** Although the biggest one, in light of the prequel trilogy, still has to be the decision to hide Luke on his father's home planet under his own name with his only known relatives. Obi-Wan was banking a lot on the idea that Vader would never want to go to Tatooine ever again.

* Literature/CiaphasCain ''always'' manages to foil the enemy's application of this trope, usually by heading to the sector least likely to see action (to the confusion of the underlings, who all believe in his gung-ho '''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM''' persona). This results in him stumbling on a tunnel leading to the enemy, an infiltration unit, or daemonic summoning ritual in progress, and therefore putting his life even further at risk than if he'd gone to the front line. One of his MauveShirts has a similar ability, her bad luck leading to discover previously-unseen enemies or traps.

** In ''Literature/ThePrincessAndTheQueen,'' when Rhaenyra storms King's Landing, Aegon II hides in the last place she would ever think to look: [[spoiler: in Dragonstone, ''her own home'']].