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"Who wants to put on some blindfolds and get into my car?"

A point in a story where a character is blindfolded and taken somewhere.

A blindfold is not even necessary. Being shoved and driven somewhere in a locked car trunk is pretty much blindfolded, for all intents and purposes — so long as the protagonist doesn't know where they are being taken.

Sometimes used in initiation ceremonies, trust-building exercises, or to hide the location of where a prisoner is being taken. Sometimes a character will sit down and try to figure out where they were taken by other senses than their vision.


Examples

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    Comic Books 
  • Batman usually does this when bringing visitors to the Batcave, for Secret Identity reasons.
  • Buck Danny was once captured by Lady X's goons and driven into her headquarters that way.
  • Nightwing blindfolds Robin (Tim Drake) for a training exercise where they balance on top of a train and Dick occasionally asks Tim where they are to see how well Tim is paying attention to their surroundings without the use of his sight.
  • Birds of Prey: It happens to Black Canary in #92. While switching places with Lady Shiva for a year, Shiva taking Canary's place on the Birds of Prey while Canary trains like Shiva did in the same village, Canary comments on how the location of the village has been kept well hidden. Though unlike other examples analyzing the turns or the sounds the tires made on certain roads, she comments on how her driver speaks in broken English, with an unidentifiable accent, either by accident or design. Though the endless series of blindfolds didn't help. And unfortunately for her, she gets a bag thrown over her head minutes later as part of her training. And this is after Deathstroke did the same thing to her years earlier.
  • The Phantom: The way to the Bandar Village and the Skull Cave go through an hidden passage way through an waterfall. Whenever one of the selected few has been allowed to visit, they are being led blindfolded through the Jungle.
    • In the 2019 Sunday Strip "The Spy Ship", the Phantom's daughter Heloise blindfolds her college room-mate and "Best Friend" Kadia when she takes her to the Bandar Village, this causing quite a few raised eyebrows within the fandom since traditionally the women being led blindfolded through the waterfall by the Phantom would end up the mother of said Phantom's children.

    Fan Works 

    Films — Animated 
  • At the end of Frozen (2013), Anna leads a blindfolded Kristoff through the streets of Arendelle to show him a surprise. She accidentally leads him into a pole along the way. She also forgets to remove his blindfold for the big reveal.
  • Minion in Megamind kidnaps Roxanne with Knockout Gas, then puts a bag over her head when she starts to wake up, so she won't know where she is. Since this isn't the first time this has happened, she's more concerned with Megamind failing to wash the bag between kidnappings than with actually being kidnapped.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In the Sherlock Holmes (2009) movie, Sherlock Holmes has a bag slipped over his head, and is taken to a secret location... however being Sherlock Holmes, he easily provides a turn-by-turn recap of the route they took.
    Sir Thomas: Mr. Holmes, apologies for summoning you like this. I'm sure it's quite a mystery as to where you are, and who I am...
    Sherlock Holmes: As to where I am, I was, admittedly, lost for a moment, between Charing Cross and Holborn, but I was saved by the bread shop on Saffron Hill. The only baker to use a certain French glaze on their loaves - a Brittany sage. After that, the carriage forked left, then right, and then the tell-tale bump at the Fleet Conduit. And as to who you are, that took every ounce of my not-inconsiderable experience. The letters on your desk were addressed to a Sir Thomas Rotherham. Lord Chief Justice, that would be the official title. Who you really are is, of course, another matter entirely. Judging by the sacred ox on your ring, you're the secret head of the Temple of the Four Orders in whose headquarters we now sit, located on the northwest corner of St. James Square, I think. As to the mystery, the only mystery is why you bothered to blindfold me at all.
    Sir Thomas: ...yes, well, standard procedure, I suppose.
  • In the movie Sneakers, a man is blindfolded and kidnapped but a blind member of the team is eventually able to make out where he was taken by asking how far apart the seams sounded in the bridge that the car crossed. Subverted when the kidnap victim says he passed near what sounded like a cocktail party — it turns out to be a gaggle of geese.
  • In Time Bandits, Kevin is blindfolded and taken to the king's room to be initiated as the king's son.
  • A variation happens in Beverly Hills Ninja, Haru is blindfolded when he is first taken to the Big Bad's warehouse. Later, he blindfolds himself and tries to use his "ninja skills" to remember the route. He is completely clueless, of course. Luckily, his clan brother Gobei knows the route well and takes the wheel without Haru knowing.
  • In Legend (1985) Jack blindfolds Lily before taking her to see the unicorns.
  • Mission: Impossible Film Series:
    • In the first film, Ethan Hunt is told to put on a black hood preventing him from seeing anything before he's taken to see the mysterious Max, being told that it's "the price of admission".
    • This is used as a Brick Joke in Ghost Protocol when Ethan goes to meet an underworld figure who happens to have one of Max's former goons working for him; the man recognises Hunt and produces a similar blindfold with a wry smile.
  • In Taken 2, when Liam Neeson's character and his ex-wife are captured. During the trip, he counts time in seconds and notes any and all turns they make along with any sounds he hears, including those of grenades thrown by his daughter.
  • At the beginning of The Dark Knight Rises a group of Bane's mercenaries are captured and put on the CIA plane with bags over their heads so that the CIA interrogator is unaware until it's too late that one of them is Bane.
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Lois Lane and her photographer are black-hooded when going to interview a rebel leader. Turns out the photographer is a CIA agent carrying a Tracking Device. And later when Lois is kidnapped by Lex Luthor's men, they make no attempt at this trope, ferrying her by helicopter directly to the Lexcorp building, as the plan is that Superman will turn up and save her anyway.
  • Rogue One. Saw Gerrara's forces take Jyn, Cassian, Baze, and Chirrut to their base but put bags over their head. Chirrut, already blind himself, is exasperated.
    Chirrut: Are you kidding me? I'm blind!
  • Although we don't see it, Marian and Sarah (her maid) ask for this to be done when they're taken to Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves' hideaway so as not to endanger him or the other outlaws hiding there.
  • In Murder at the Baskervilles, Stanford is blindfolded when being brought to or taken from Moriarty's hideout.
  • The Insider opens with CBS producer Lowell Bergman being hooded while taken to a sheikh in Lebanon that Mike Wallace wants to do an interview with. His job is scouting out the location (along with his cameraman) as well as making sure the interview subject consents to the interview before Mike gets on a plane.
  • Candy spends most of The Candy Snatchers blindfolded. When she tries to remove the blindfold, Alan says, "Listen, chickie, this little blindfold here is the only thing that's keeping you alive. So you figure out whether you want it on or off."
  • In The Sleeping Cardinal, Roland Adair is blindfolded when he is brought to Moriarty's headquarters to receive his instructions.
  • In The Three Musketeers (1961), D'Artagnan is blindfolded while being brought to the castle of Milady de Winter.
  • King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. Arthur is bound and later has a sack put over his head by La Résistance when taking him on horseback to their cave, as they don't like him or trust him at this point, rightful king or not.
    Arthur: You do know I can see through this? Trees everywhere.
  • The Mother of Swiss Family Robinson is blindfolded and led to the elaborate family treehouse once Father and their sons are finished constructing it.
  • In Marley & Me, Jen is brought to meet some labrador puppies (including their future dog Marley) while blindfolded, with the blindfold only coming off once she's in front of the pen they're in.
  • Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life. When a Shay-Ling minion is sent to deliver a package to Mad Scientist Dr. Jonathan Reiss, The Dragon sprays a liquid in the courier's eyes before taking him to their secret weapons lab. "You might see again in an hour. Maybe."
  • Blindfold (1966): As part of General Pratt's security measures, Snow is made to wear a blindfold whenever he's brought to see Vincenti so that he doesn't know the way there. It has its desired effect; when Fitzpatrick uses torture to try to get Snow to spill Vincenti's location, Snow honestly can't say where it is since he legitimately doesn't know.

    Literature 
  • This is what happens with the cobbler is brought in to sew Kasim's body back together (he was drawn and quartered by the thieves, and if he were buried like that it'd make him look like a crook) in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: He is blindfolded and spun around before being brought to the room where the body is kept. Interestingly, the thieves find the place in spite of this by taking advantage of the cobbler's muscle memory - one of them blindfolds him and spins him around the same number of times, then has him lead the way.
  • In The Bridge Kingdom Archives Maridrinian princess Lara, newly-wed to Ithicanian king Aren, is blindfolded when they enter the Ithicanian bridge - the structure and particularly the ways in and out are the nation's greatest secret and Lara was supposed never to even get inside it.
  • Charlie Wilson's War. A Pakistani official is blindfolded when taken to the CIA's Spy School. He takes offense, given that he's already running the CIA's proxy war in Afghanistan for them.
  • In Death Plus Ten Years, the author Roger Cooper is arrested by the Iranian secret police, who then get into an argument on which one of them was supposed to bring the blindfold. He has to guide them to a nearby chemist so they can get a bandage for the task. Cooper was familiar enough with Tehran to work out where they were taking him anyway, despite a deliberately circuitous route. When in prison, he was also blindfolded with a towel when being taken to the shower or toilet — the kinder guards adjusted the towel so Cooper could at least see his feet when walking.
  • Discworld:
    • Small Gods - Brutha and Vorbis, while being led through the trap-filled labyrinth of Ephebe, which protects the inner city from people like...well, Vorbis. Unfortunately, the labyrinth keepers never counted on someone with a memory as perfect as Brutha's. When he's ordered to lead Vorbis through the maze so the Omnians can take over, Brutha realises that he could just make a run for it or lead Vorbis into a trap, but can't bring himself to do it, even knowing what Vorbis has planned.
    • Night Watch has the History Monks blindfold Vimes to bring him to his temple so they can explain just what happened to him. Vimes gets around it by "reading" the street through his feet, since he is so familiar with the city that he can tell the difference between the different types of paving, which lets him find his way back to the temple. Lu-Tze actually bets that this would happen.
  • In Geheimen van het Wilde Woudnote  by Tonke Dragt, Tiuri and the Fool are captured, blindfolded and led to the Taren Castle. As the Fool has however been there before (and escaped), the trope is mildly deconstructed at the end:
    Fool: I know where we are! I hear it, I smell it, I feel it, friend! I don't need to see it.
    Fool: (continues with an extremely detailed and lengthy description of the landscape)
    Viridian: You can take off their blindfolds, they shall see everything. One of them can apparently see through the rag anyway, and neither of them will be able to tell anyone about this.
  • Gods and Warriors:
    • When Pirra first appears in The Outsiders, it's revealed that her abusive mother ordered her to be blindfolded and carried to a ship when they set sail to Akea so that her rebellious daughter, who's forced in an Arranged Marriage, couldn't have a look at the sea as punishment. However, Userref, Pirra's big-brotherly slave, let her have a glimpse of the sea before securing her in the hold.
    • This is done to Hylas and Pirra when Keftian survivors capture them and take them to their hideout in Eye of the Falcon.
    • In The Crocodile Tomb, Hylas and Pirra experience this yet again when they are first brought to meet Nebetku in the Houses of Eternity.
    • This happens twice to Hylas in Warrior Bronze; first when the Akean rebels take him to their camp, and then when they bring him before Akastos, the rightful High Chieftain of Mycenae.
  • Happen in one of the Judge Dee stories, where the victim thinks he was taken somewhere in the mountains in a closed palanquin. Tao Gan, however, thinks it's a ruse- he thinks it more likely that they carriers simply tilted the palanquin and walked around the inner courtyard of a large house, with the occasional "Watch the cliff!" for effect.
  • Keeper of the Lost Cities: In Lodestar, Sophie is blindfolded for the walk to meet Gethen, since he's being kept in a high security location.
  • In one of the Letterland books, Bouncy Ben is blindfolded before his birthday trip in a balloon.
  • Happens twice in The Lord of the Rings:
    • In The Fellowship of the Ring the elves of Lothlórien insist on blindfolding Gimli's eyes before the fellowship is taken to the elf village. When he objects to being singled out that way, Aragorn says that all of them shall be blindfolded.
    • In The Two Towers Faramir blindfolds Frodo and Sam before leading them to the refuge of Henneth Annûn. When it comes time to lead them away from the refuge, he trusts them enough to forgo blindfolds, but does want to blindfold Gollum. Frodo insists that he do it to all three of them again, and do it to Gollum last so that he can certain there is nothing to fear over it.
  • In the Modesty Blaise books, Modesty occasionally gets the blindfold treatment — which doesn't help, as she seems to have an unerring sense of location.
  • This happens to Nancy Drew in the book The Captive Witness, set in communist East Germany, when she is taken to a viewing a film that has been banned by the country's government. Of course, being Nancy Drew, she is still able to get a general idea of where she's been taken by making note of how long they've been driving, the sounds she hears, and the number of stairs at their destination.
  • Bobby Marks gets to have one of these courtesy of Willie Rumson in One Fat Summer
  • Played for Drama in Poster Girl as everyone was constantly monitored via their Insight eye implants the only way to do something without the regime noticing was to do it while blindfolded. Including parents only being able with their 'illegal' children while blindfolded.
  • Mentioned and subverted in Rainbow Six: former Russian spy Dmitriy Popov is taken by a contact to meet with the head of an IRA terrorist cell wearing a blindfold, and he notes that the car takes a deliberately circuitous route...that he doesn't bother at all trying to memorize, because he has no interest or need to do so, and because, as his internal monologue points out, trying to memorize the route is possible to a point, but after a few dozen turns, anyone will get hopelessly lost. When he meets with the terrorist leader, Popov doesn't miss the opportunity to point out that the fieldcraft is excellent, as he has no idea where he is, with the unspoken implication being that he's just stroking the terrorist's ego.
  • In Room, Ma mentions being blindfolded by Old Nick before being taken to Room.
  • Used in at least two Sherlock Holmes stories. In both "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" and "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", Holmes' client was bundled into a carriage that they could not see out of and driven to an unknown destination. Holmes, of course, figures out where they had been taken or at least the general area from clues.
  • Split Heirs: Discussed when the Black Weasel's Bold Bush-dwellers fail to blindfold the messenger Artemisia sends to check on the boys a few weeks after sending them away while taking him to their hideout. This results in the messenger getting Press-Ganged into joining them, while the answer is sent by Arrowgram.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Babylon 5 has Garibaldi end up having to deal with this in the episode The Exercise Of Vital Powers. As he has well-founded trust issues, he's not excited about the prospect, and ends up discussing it at length with Wade, his mysterious employer's agent.
  • Better Call Saul:
    • Early in season 4, Gus Fring is seeking structural engineers to figure out how to excavate a secret basement underneath a laundromat he just purchased, with the intention of using said basement to build a meth lab. Because Gus doesn't trust local engineers, he recruits outside help from overseas. As a security measure, engineers being sought for the job must take a very complicated route that ensures anyone who doesn't pass the job interview knows minimal information about the project. They fly into Denver, where they are directed to a pre-paid car with keys under the wheel well and a burner phone in the cupholder. They are then directed by Mike to drive to a pickup point on the side of a two lane road in the Rocky Mountains, where they are to then take out their luggage and don a black hood from the trunk. Then, Mike and another guy, Nick, show up, put the candidate in the back of a windowless van, and drive him all the way down to Albuquerque, not removing the bag until the candidate is inside the laundromat. Then the candidate does an analysis of the site, while Gus is discreetly observing them from the shadows and having Mike act as his representative. The first candidate, a French engineer, is quickly rejected when he starts talking about other jobs he did and shows more interest in getting paid well than doing a proper job. As a result, he is re-bagged, put back in the van, and dumped back on the Colorado road where he left the car with a return plane ticket in his pocket. The second candidate, a German engineer, proves more trustworthy and more meticulous with his work ethic despite looking shabbier and having stomach issues, so is not subjected to the return trip and is instead hired by Gus on the spot.
    • In the Once More, with Clarity scene of Walt and Jesse kidnapping Saul Goodman, "Breaking Bad" (the episode) has him hooded and tied up in the back of the RV. As he thinks it's Lalo's men coming for him, he has an even worse panic attack when he feels they're going off-road, and begs them to do this anywhere but the desert.
  • On Jericho (2006), Mrs. Green is taken to a secret location where Jake Green is being held prisoner. When she returns they are able to identify it as a pig farm from her saying there was a horrible smell.
  • Get Smart had Max being taken by Siegfried to a secret location. Not only was Max and Siegfried are blindfolded but the driver is blindfolded too.
    • Another episode had Max and 99 blindfolded and made to feel they were being put on a long plane trip (without leaving a room in Washington) to let them deduce they were taken to a secret headquarters in Buenos Aires.
  • In one MythBusters episode, Jamie heads out to "a secret location" to shoot a fish with a minigun. When he arrives, he pulls a blindfolded Adam out of the back of the car.
  • Used in Supernatural. Of course the boys are trained to memorize twists and turns...
  • In the pilot of Falling Skies, Tom and his team are taken prisoner by a gang of outlaws, who have set up in a school auditorium. The prisoners are, of course, taken to the location wearing black bags over their heads. Later, when Tom's son Hal is taken back to bring the kidnappers' demands to Captain Weaver, he is also wearing a bag.
  • Mike Rowe is blindfolded on the trip to the source of the mud used to dirty MLB baseballs (pristine balls are difficult to grip). He says it reminds him of "that time I interviewed that sheik."
  • One episode of The Saint had Simon Templar made prisoner and driven around a city. Too bad they passed some locations that made very characteristic sounds.
  • The Bill. The police doubt the story of a bank manager who was held captive overnight, then forced to empty his vaults, because he said they drove over a couple of humpbacked bridges and stayed in a room near a combine harvester, none of which matches anything near Sun Hill. While the detectives are driving around checking out clues however they drive over two humps on an unpaved road and realise that the hostage, scared and locked in a trunk, could easily have mistaken them for the bridges. Working from that clue they soon find the room, which is near a factory whose machinery produces the 'harvester' sound.
  • Used in The Amazing Race Family Edition, where teams were put onto a bus to be taken to a mystery location (Huntsville, Alabama).
  • Used occasionally on Burn Notice. Michael's narration discusses how this is somewhat of an occupational hazard for spies, but wearing a sack on your head is still very unpleasant. Not necessarily because you're being kept in the dark - sometimes people don't bother to wash the head bags.
  • The Lifetime Movie of the Week The Last Mafia Marriage is the story of a young woman married to a mafioso. While he was in hiding, she would drive to a local restaurant where she would be met by his associates in the mafia and blindfolded before being driven to his secret location. The explanation for this was "if you don't know where you're going, you can't tell anyone", namely the cops looking to interrogate her in order to find out where her husband was.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Sandor Clegane is hooded after he's captured by the Brotherhood without Banners, along with Arya and Gendry.
    Audrey: Apologies, but you're one ugly fucker, and I'd rather not see you no more. (Sandor can't see where he's going, so his head slams into the top bar of the wagon) Watch your head.
  • Person of Interest
    • Any Victim of the Week who has to be taken to the disused library that's the headquarters of Team Machine gets this. Though when Team Machine rescue Leon Tao a second time, they claim this trope is not for secrecy, but because they don't want him turning up again, asking for help.
    • Root wears a black hood when being sent to a CIA Black Site for interrogation. In a Dramatic Irony, Control ends up suffering this fate herself. Usually though when someone gets a black hood over their head, it's a sign they're about to be carted off by assassins to be interrogated and murdered.
  • Altered Carbon. Takeshi Kovacs is taken unconscious to the headquarters of the Big Bad. He leaves under escort from The Dragon, who hands Kovacs a black hood while they're still in the elevator so Kovacs won't know where he's been. When Kovacs refuses to wear it, The Dragon makes it clear that either he plays along or his friends die. "Whom should I kill first?"
  • Mr. Bean: In "Mr Bean in Room 426", shortly after arriving in his hotel room, Mr Bean takes his blindfolded teddy out of his suitcase, as if it was a surprise journey. In Mind the Baby, Mr Bean, he also blindfolds a young boy (by pulling the boy's clothes over his head) and spinning him round, leaving the boy to stumble away, when the boy is threatening to spoil Mr Bean's fun with arcade machines.
  • Monk: In "Mr. Monk and the Missing Granny," when Monk and Sharona are getting Julie Parlow's grandmother to recount any details as to where her kidnappers took her, she's not of much help since she was blindfolded the whole time. However, she remembers some non-visual clues that allow Monk to reconstruct the route, like a stop where she smelled fresh bread (from a bakery), a lengthy stop where no one got out of the van (at a drawbridge), and it being raining in the morning when there wasn't any rain that day (from sprinklers on the kidnappers' street).
  • In Thunderbirds, in the episode "Cry Wolf", the two boys who visit Tracy Island are blindfolded before arriving and leaving, to keep them unaware of the island's secret location.
  • In the Broad City episode "Knockoffs," Ilana and her mother buy shady counterfeit purses from dealers who insist on driving them in a van with covered windows while they wear Sleep Masks. They bring their own masks because they once got pink eye from blindfolds provided by the dealer.
  • Heroes: In "A Clear and Present Danger", this happens to the entire main cast of Volume 4 sans Sylar alongside a few extras and characters from the graphic novels (and as revealed there, even supporting characters like Monica and oddly enough, Nana Dawson) in a manner reminiscent of prisoners being sent to Guantanamo Bay. After being captured, not only do they have black sacks over their heads but they're also wearing prison jumpsuits while the sacks are adorned with blacked out goggles and earmuffs as they're being transported to God knows where by plane. The only upside is that the prisoners are not aware of their situation after their capture due to being drugged unlike most examples. They are however, groggy and barely conscious, only being able to move their heads and only standing up and walking when being led by the guards. The scene itself even puts a surprising amount of focus on the hooded characters in this part with several close-up shots of them, a whole scene of Claire having the sack over head taken off after being seen hooded, the hooded characters being seen in the background when the focus isn't strictly on them and a scene showing the entire process of them being processed to the plane. Though Claire, with the help of a recovered Peter does at least make some of them conscious again, main characters and extras alike, but by the end of the episode, not only is the plane they're being transported in falling with some of them still hooded and drugged (though this may have been for the best), one of them falls out of the plane due to the air turbulence ripping out her seat with her still strapped to it and still hooded and drugged. Thankfully, said prisoner is later shown in the graphic novel, Rebellion Part 2, to be alive and well (even being given a name), using her powers to cushion herself to safety. Though funny enough, her only appearance in the show and her first appearance as more than an extra both have her having a bag over her head. Security footage of the characters being hooded was also later seen in "Exposed" as a MacGuffin for the episode.
    • Tracy has the worst luck in this regard. Not only is she the first one to be captured (while in her bathrobe no less), she was apparently hooded and drugged for so long she gasped for breath once Claire takes off the bag over her head and undrugs her in the plane. And in the very next episode, "Trust and Blood", this happens to her again in the final scene, though this time she isn't drugged and neither is the sack on her head covered with blacked out goggles and and earmuffs. Unfortunately for her, she is redrugged and rehooded in the final scene of the episode. Note that Tracy is the only character in the series, let alone the season, who has a bag thrown over head multiple times (other than Hiro in the plane (but even then, it was only one episode) and Claire (but that's one season later)). In consecutive episodes no less. Though in the next episode, it is shown that she isn't hooded and drugged during her stay in prison. In fact, they don't do this for other superpowered humans again, even in the graphic novels.
      • One season later, in "Strange Attractors", Claire has a bag thrown over her head again along with her roommate, Gretchen, and a few other girls as part of a sorority hazing ritual, thankfully for Claire. The two are then thrown into the trunk of a car as they're transported with the others in separate cars. Amusingly, Claire is more annoyed this is happening to her again even if under lighter circumstances. Gretchen and the others however, are clearly more nervous, breathing heavily and slightly shaking. Even when their seniors loudly closes a door behind them as the ritual starts, Claire is unfazed while the others are clearly taken aback by it.
  • Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: In the pilot, Skye is broadcasting an Internet transmission when Coulson and Ward find her and put a black sack over her head and bring her to their base for interrogation.
  • CSI: NY: Mac is blindfolded when he’s kidnapped and taken for a ride in one episode. The intent isn’t to kill him but to get him to drop a case. Mac doesn’t intimidate, though.
  • Wash and Mal are blindfolded during the ride to Niska’a space station in Firefly “War Stories”.
  • The Wild Wild West: In the episode "The Night of the Bubbling Death", James West and National Archives curator Silas Grigsby are blindfolded as they're brought into the bowels of Freemantle's Elaborate Underground Base. About half of the way, they're turned around several times by Freemantle's men so they won't know which direction they took inside.

    Radio 
  • Cabin Pressure has a Trust-Building Blunder version, where the entirety of MJN Air (all four of them) are made to don smoke hoods and rescue a dummy from a mock-airplane (filled with real smoke, because mock-smoke is a right bugger to get your hands on). They're led by Arthur, who somehow manages to interpret the instructions for everyone to hold on to the belt of the person in front of them to hold on to Martin's belt, resulting in everyone spending four minutes wandering in a circle before they catch on, and only then because Martin fainted.

    Tabletop RPG 
  • Basic Dungeons & Dragons module B8 Journey to the Rock. If the PCs surrender to the chameleon men they're blindfolded and taken to a secret mountain cavern.

    Video Games 
  • The "Mike Toreno" mission in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, where you have to track down a stolen van, based on Toreno telling T-bone Mendez what he can hear from his surroundings outside the van.
  • Murder in the Alps: When Anna Myers is kidnapped by Gerhard Wagner and Dhara Biguá in Forgotten Memento, they force her to wear a sack over her head during the car drive, with Gerhard sarcastically telling her to try the "hat" on. She still has it on when she's brought before Oskar Havel and knocked unconscious.

    Visual Novels 
  • In Melody, the protagonist does this to Melody a couple of times to surprise her.
  • Queen of Thieves: To keep Il Cerchio's location secret, people entering or leaving are blindfolded and then transported by gondola.

    Webcomics 

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time: In the second season episode "Mystery Train", Jake blindfolded the sleeping Finn before waking him up, making Finn think he is blind. After revealing the truth, Jake told him to leave it on and took him to the train.
  • Family Guy: In the Season 2 episode "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Bucks", Peter is blindfolded on the way to his birthday surprise. The camera pulls back to reveal he's the one driving there.
  • Gravity Falls: In "The Legend of the Gobblewonker", Stan takes the kids on a blind-folded trip to the lake for a day of fishing. On the way there, Dipper is concerned by Stan's bad driving.
    Dipper: Grunkle Stan, are you wearing a blindfold?
    Stan: No, but with these cataracts, I might as well be. (beat) What is that, a woodpecker?
  • South Park: In "Fantastic Easter Special", Stan's dad Randy puts a bag over his head when they drive to the secret location for The Hare Club For Men, but he takes it off when he finds out he already knows where it is.
  • Steven Universe: Steven has a habit of doing this to Lapis Lazuli when he wants to surprise her with a present. As she's twice as tall as he is, she helps him out by blindfolding herself with her (translucent) wings. It's as adorable as it is silly.
  • The Simpsons: Parodied in "Blame It on Lisa". After Homer is kidnapped, we see him on a boat with a bag over his head. It turns out he put it on himself, and the kidnappers are rather annoyed about it.
    Homer: Where are you taking me?
    Kidnapper #2: Shut up... and take that stupid bag off your head.
    Homer: No. It smells like cinnamon.

    Real Life 
  • Often used as a trust-building exercise.
  • The blind only technically go everywhere like this. They tend to pick up on more things than the sighted give them credit for, though.
  • In the 1930s, Machine Gun Kelly's kidnapping of Charles Urschel proved to be his undoing, as despite blindfolding Urschel to keep him from seeing anything identifying of his location, Urschel made note of evidence of his experience, including remembering background sounds, counting footsteps and leaving fingerprints on surfaces in reach. This proved invaluable for the FBI in its investigation, as this allowed them to figure out where exactly he was held prisoner.
  • Sometimes used when presenting gifts which are too big to be wrapped in paper: a child might be blindfolded and led to their new bike or climbing frame.
  • Someone (especially children) can be made to believe they are flying, or very high up: they are blindfolded and stand on a chair with their hands on the shoulders of somebody standing on the ground. The chair is lifted up, and the person on the ground crouches. Even though they're actually a small distance off the ground, it can feel very high up to the person who cannot see. Sometimes a commentary is provided about the tiny landscape below them, and children can have a book gently lowered on to their head to make them feel as if they are touching the sky.
  • Visitors to spectacular natural views such as the Grand Canyon are sometimes blindfolded for the journey there, so they can have the amazing view suddenly revealed to them.


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