History VideoGame / TheMysteryOfTheDruids

* DaChief: Miller is a clear-cut example. While it's unclear how he thinks of miscellaneous staff members like Chris or Janet, it's made very clear that [[SurroundedByIdiots he has nothing but contempt for Halligan and Lowry]], referring to them as "idiots" and "blockheads", to name a few. Additionally, much of Halligan's interaction with Miller has the boss annoyed at him for one reason or another before being rudely dismissed, but that could just be because [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Halligan]] is, [[TheMillstone well]], ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Halligan]]''.

* DaChief: Miller is a clear-cut example. While it's unclear how he thinks of miscellaneous staff members like Chris or Janet, it's made very clear that [[SurroundedByIdiots he has nothing but contempt for Halligan and Lowry]], referring to them as "idiots" and "blockheads", to name a few. Additionally, much of Halligan's interaction with Miller has the boss annoyed at him for one reason or another before being rudely dismissed, but that could just be because Halligan is, [[TheFriendNobodyLikes well]], ''[[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Halligan]]''.

* DaChief: Miller has nothing but contempt for Halligan and Lowry; 99% of your interactions with him consist of him yelling at Halligan before telling him to get out of his office.

* KleptomaniacHero: Like most adventure game protagonists, you need to help yourself to whatever you can to get through certain puzzles. Unlike most such protagonists, Halligan stands out because his office workers ''already know about this'' and hate him for it. He also seems to have a habit of breaking the items he steals.
** At one point you need the scrape salt off a ferry that's too far away to reach by hand. You ultimately have to trick a fisherman into leaving you to guard his expensive fishing pole. Even though you only need it for something a few feet away, Halligan straight up takes the whole thing with him and never even uses it in the rest of the game.

* MoonLogicPuzzle: So, so many. One of the most JustForFun/{{egregious}} involves finding the Amulet of Transformation. This is done by going to a pier, finding and capturing a cat, throwing it at a fisherman's bait so you can steal his fishing rod and a bucket to scrape coarse salt off the side of a ship. Then, heading to an old druid castle's ruins, you slip by a locked gate with a file folder to get to a nearby mausoleum, grind the salt into something finer on a gravestone, then you throw it at the mausoleum, ''and the mausoleum'' '''''[[StuffBlowingUp explodes.]]''''' Inside is an [[InexplicableTreasureChests inexplicable treasure chest]] with the amulet.[[note]]The ship captain does tell you about how the old castle was destroyed when salt was thrown at it, and the mausoleum of the castle's lord is directly noted to resemble a castle, but it's still fairy tale logic, and even starting the puzzle chain requires arbitrary conversation triggers and triggering another puzzle by doing nothing.[[/note]] What makes it even worse is that you can accidentally [[{{Unwinnable}} softlock]] yourself by going to the castle too early, preventing the correct dialogue option from appearing and making it impossible to get the salt.

** [[spoiler:When he ends up at the house of a few cannibals, he doesn't seem to realize that the person they're waiting for dinner was InvitedAsDinner until he sees them being killed. Even then, he has to be outright told that the meat at the dinner table is human flesh (whether or not he was {{brainwashed}} at the time)]].

** It's very notable when Halligan [[spoiler:ends up at the house of a few cannibals and doesn't seem to realize that the person they're waiting for dinner was InvitedAsDinner until he sees them being killed. Even then, he has to be outright told that the meat at the dinner table is human flesh (whether or not he was {{brainwashed}} at the time)]].

* IdiotBall: Usually more inconsiderate than stupid, Halligan has his moments. He's never heard of Ethanol and can't begin to figure out what the druid water symbol is supposed to represent, despite being one of the most basic and intuitive iconographic symbols. While it's good to not have the character know too much and leave the ''audience'' confused, Halligan's lack of information about certain topics makes certain puzzles needlessly confusing for the opposite reason. Its very notable when Halligan [[spoiler:ends up at the house of a few cannibals and doesn't seem to realize that the person they're waiting for dinner was InvitedAsDinner until he sees them being killed. Even then, he has to be outright told that the meat at the dinner table is human flesh (whether or not he was {{Brainwashed}} at the time)]].

* IdiotBall: Usually more inconsiderate than stupid, Halligan has his moments. He's never heard of Ethanol and can't begin to figure out what the druid water symbol is supposed to represent, despite being one of the most basic and intuitive iconographic symbols. While it's good to not have the character know too much and leave the ''audience'' confused, Halligan's lack of information about certain topics makes certain puzzles needlessly confusing for the opposite reason. Is very notable when Halligan ends up at the house of a few cannibals and doesn't seem to realize that the person they're waiting for dinner was InvitedAsDinner until he sees them being killed. Even then, he has to be outright told that the meat at the dinner table is human flesh (whether or not he was brainwashed at the time).
** Becomes outright ridiculous when a the game forces the player to do multiple puzzles to use a crystal bar that shows druids perform a ritual with infants, only for Halligan to tell Maglor in pure shock and terror that they might do a ritual with children. Something that Mr. Blake, Lord Sinclair and Melanie told him at separate points in the game already.

* ImColdSoCold: Melanie quotes this trope almost verbatim after Halligan defeated the Circle. Fortunately for her, Halligan still has some of the life-saving mistletoes with him, and what little bit of druidic magic given to him by the [[spoiler:human flesh he ate during the second act]].

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Many would assume that Halligan is destroying his would-be parachute and call it fake when he manages to successfully float with it later. But plenty of parachutes do indeed have a hole (called Apex Hole) in them to keep the parachute from swaying violently.

* BagOfSpilling: Averted. Not once does Halligan lose all of his inventory throughout the game, leading to Halligan carrying a majority of items that are no longer useful to the finale.

->''"HALLIGAN! [[BerserkButton WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS?]]"''

->''"HALLIGAN! WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS?"''
-->-- '''Lowry,''' '' reacting to [[BerserkButton Halligan being Halligan.]]''

->''"Halligan! WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS?"''

-->-- '''Lowry,''' '' upon realizing that Halligan has [[BerserkButton stolen something yet again.]]''

-->-- '''Lowry,''' '' upon realizing that Halligan has [[BerserkButton stolen his stuff yet again.]]''

-->-- '''Lowry,''' '' upon realizing that his [[BerserkButton scissors have been filched.]]''

->''"Halligan! Where are my scissors?"''
-->-- '''Lowry,''' '' confronting Halligan regarding his habit of [[BerserkButton stealing his office supplies.]]''

->''"HALLIGAN! WHERE ARE MY SCISSORS?"''
-->-- '''Lowry,''' ''at the end of his rope regarding Halligan's [[BerserkButton habit of stealing his office supplies.]]''

** It's also made clear that Halligan is partially responsible for the police being useless. Due to him using it to "jokingly" putting out an arrest warrant for Prince Charles after Princess Diana's death, accessing the database requires an ridiculous amount of paperwork, and due to him breaking and wasting tons of office supplies, so does ordering new office supplies.

This 2001 PC game is largely remembered for its [[MemeticMutation meme-worthy]] box art, but that hilarious image doesn't even begin to cover the bizarre plot and even more bizarre puzzles.

->''"HALLIGAN! Where are my scissors?!"''
-->-- '''Lowry,''' ''at the end of his rope regarding Halligan's [[BerserkButton propensity to pilfer his office supplies]]''

* MultipleEndings: The game has one of the "early bad ending" variety: [[spoiler:If Melanie gets caught outside Lord Sinclair's manor, she'll be brought in where a {{Brainwashed}} Halligan will invite her as a "guest of honour" for dinner. [[NonstandardGameOver Following this is a black screen of text]] that reports that a few days afterwards, her skeleton is found in a forest, Halligan is declared missing, and was last seen leaving Scotland Yard.]]