Now where's the key...
An index for tropes regarding those ingenious devices that permit people to walk through completely solid walls unhindered.
Only tropes that literally involve doors belong in this index: Heel–Face Revolving Door, for example, does not. Not transdimensional portals, either; they have to be actual doors.
Tropes:
Related index:
- Axe Before Entering: Using an axe to cut your way through a shut door.
- Automatic Door Malfunction: Automatic doors have a tendency to fail in fiction.
- Battering Ram: A device used to break a Locked Door open because Ramming Always Works.
- Big Door: A big door.
- Bucket Booby-Trap: Putting a bucket of water above a door so that it falls on the next person who opens the door.
- Closed Door Rapport: A (possibly one-sided) conversation between two people on opposite sides of a door.
- Dangerous Key Fumble: Dropping keys to some gate while a threat is chasing you.
- Deadpan Door Shut: Opening something, then instantly closing it with barely a reaction towards the contents.
- Open the Door and See All the People: Someone opens their front door to meet a whole mob of people, which takes the person by surprise.
- Detachable Doorknob: You turn the knob to open the door... and the knob comes out.
- Ding-Dong-Ditch Distraction: Ringing the doorbell and running away before someone answers the door.
- Doom Doors: All sci-fi sliding doors in media have the same recognizable sound effect (odds are, it's from Doom).
- Door-Closes Ending: A work ends symbolically with a door closing.
- Door Dumb: A character is unable to open a door because they're too ignorant or preoccupied to know they're doing it the wrong way.
- Door Focus: After a character exits, the camera lingers on the door. Beat. The character re-enters through the door.
- Door Handle Scare: Close-up on a turning or rattling door handle to build up suspense.
- Door of Doom: A door which signifies that crossing it will be important or have consequences.
- Door Roulette: Several unremarkable doors (or a single bizarre one) leading to progressively unwanted results with each one opened in the search of a desired one.
- Door Slam of Rage: I'm so mad, I'm going to close this door really hard to show it!
- The Door Slams You: Accidentally hurting someone with a door.
- Toyota Tripwire: A pedestrian or cyclist gets hit unexpectedly by an opening car door.
- Door to Before: At the end of a long level, there happens to be a door or otherwise easy passage to the entrance.
- Drill the Lock: If everything else fails, then drill the lock off the door.
- Exploding Closet: Opening a closed and often visibly distended door only to unleash a downpour of clutter.
- Ghost Butler: When the door shuts itself and locks after a character uses it.
- Hooking the Keys: A character uses a tool to increase their reach for the keys to their Prison.
- Improvised Lockpick: Bypassing a lock using tools not explicitly designed for lockpicking, especially MacGyvering one for use.
- Hairpin Lockpick: Picking a lock with a bobby pin or paper clip.
- Shoot Out the Lock: Using firearms to open doors.
- Skeleton Key Card: Using a credit card to disengage the sliding bolt in a door's lock.
- Interchangeable Antimatter Keys: In video games, keys are (usually) interchangeable, but can only be used once.
- Key Confusion: A character having trouble find the right key out of a keychain with lots of them.
- The Key Is Behind the Lock: The key is inside what it unlocks.
- Key Under the Doormat: Someone keeps a key under the doormat in case they get locked out.
- Knocking on Heathens' Door: Religious preachers going door-to-door to proselytize their beliefs to the occupants.
- Locked Door: Stock Video Game Puzzle where a locked door blocks your path and you need to get a key to open it.
- Locked in the Bathroom: A character barricades themselves in the bathroom to avoid a difficult conversation, or to delay their capture by pursuers.
- Luck-Based Search Technique: Finding something important, in this case the opening to a Secret Path, by accident.
- No Entrance: For the distinct lack of any sort of door or entrance.
- Ominous Knocking: Suspenseful knocking against a door.
- Ominously Open Door: Interest is drawn to the door that is left open
- Open-Door Opening: A work begins symbolically with a door opening.
- "Open!" Says Me: Someone breaks down the door, rips it off, kicks it open, or destroys it somewhat, before entering.
- Our Doors Are Different: Doors designed with Artistic License.
- Dilating Door: Doors that open like an iris or a camera shutter.
- Force-Field Door: A door made out of Some Kind of Force Field.
- Portal Door: A door that doesn't lead to an adjacent place but a more distant location.
- The Lonely Door: A door that is Bigger on the Inside.
- Scooby-Dooby Doors: A chase sequence where everyone runs through a hallway of doors in improbable ways.
- Script-Reading Doors: When the needs of the script override the door sensors.
- Paper Key-Retrieval Trick: Pushing the key out from the other side of the lock and taking it from the gap below the door.
- Real Fake Door: A useless door that leads to a wall.
- Slow Doors: A door that takes awhile to close, usually Played for Drama.
- Indy Hat Roll: Diving beneath a slow door right before it closes.
- Stuck in the Doorway: A person (for one reason or another) gets stuck in a doorway.
- Tactical Door Use: Utilizing doors in an action situation.
- Door Fu: A character uses an uninstalled door as a weapon and/or shield.
- Door Judo: Opening a door just as someone is about to knock it down.
- Tae Kwon Door: A character uses an installed door as a weapon and/or obstacle.
- Toyota Tripwire: A car door is used the hit a pursuer on foot.
- There Was a Door: Someone crashes through a wall to get in even though they could've just entered through the door.
- We Have the Keys: Bypassing or breaking down a door that you had the key for or wasn't even locked.
- Weld the Lock: Sealing a door by welding it shut.
