Misused (alt names crowner 26 Sep 2020): Go Look At The Distraction

This trope seems to be prone to misuse, perhaps because the name is so vague. It's often mistaken for other Distraction Tropes, especially Look Over There. Here's my wick check, sorted by correctness:

Correct:

• Take Five - Trope Description:

Compare Talk About That Thing, where the two characters make up an excuse to leave the room together, Stepping Out for a Quick Cup of Coffee, where the departing character makes an excuse to leave to provide privacy for someone else and plausible deniability for himself, and Go Look At The Distraction, where the third character is tricked into leaving the pair alone.

• I Love Lucy - When they're in France, Lucy has been seeing Charles Boyer everywhere, and when she sees the actual one, Ricky sends her to go powder her nose before she talks to him so he can warn Charles.

• Tropes F to J - In "iOwe You", Sam tells Freddie his relative got hurt, sending him running back to his apartment, so she could cry to Carly without him seeing.

• Old Yeller - Go Look At The Distraction: Mom asks Arliss to get her a horned toad, so he won't be present while she's dressing the injury that a boar gave to Old Yeller.

• Supernatural S 14 E 05 Nightmare Logic - Go Look At The Distraction: Dean asks Sasha to make him a sandwich when he wants to corner Neil alone. When she balks he quietly lets her know what's up.

• The Twilight Zone S 3 E 97 The Gift - Go Look At The Distraction: When he's about to operate on Williams, the doctor sends Pedro out to stargaze.

• The Office (US) - Go Look At The Distraction: The cameraman falls for this in "Weight Loss" when Jim and Pam want to get some private time. He is distracted long enough for Jim to close the door on him.

• Theatre/Hamlet - Go Look At The Distraction: Hamlet sends Polonius and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern to "Bid the players make haste" so that he can talk with Horatio in private.

• Half-Life 2 - Go Look At The Distraction: Eli sending Alyx to make tea so he can tell Gordon about the G-Man.

Misused:

• Beast and Beauty - Western Animation/Gargoyles:
  Goliath: I never realized, when you were human, how beautiful you are.
  Elisa: *wryly* You mean you thought I was ugly?
  Goliath: Well, uhh... Careful! Updraft!

• Disposable Vagrant - In Rat Race, when a heart meant for emergency transplantation gets damaged, the character responsible for delivering it suggests looking for a 'drifter', killing him, and cutting his heart out as a replacement. At which point the driver starts asking questions about the character's background. Enrico does catch on quickly, though.
  Enrico: Look, a dreefter, let's kill heem!

• Hidden in Plain Sight - Employed at a Ninja Restaurant in Freefall, where one particular ninja is sent out to chat with customers and act as a distraction.

• Not With the Safety On, You Won't - Mortadelo y Filemón:

Played for Laughs in "Los bomberos". At the end, the Big Bad is about to hammer in a huge missile to blow everything up, but Mortadelo tells him he won't be able to do it because the hammer's safety is on. When the Big Bad looks at the hammer, confused, Mortadelo knocks him out.

• Stupid Evil - Dragon Ball Z Abridged:

Frieza... kills a minion to get out of an awkward conversation, a minion who was warning him that Vegeta had escaped.

• Wardrobe Malfunction - Pantheon: Ragnarok:

Cornered by a very angry Lady J, "Loki", a member of Ensiferum tries a final ploy: telling her one of "them" is popping lose. J's response?

Lady J: Look at what I'm wearing. You think I GIVE a s***?

• Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Fully aware that the Witch-king has no intention of keeping his end of the bargain, Castamir's daughter Idril and Captain Baranor devise a different strategy; while Talion keeps the attention of the Orcs on the arena, they can sneak into the camp and rescue Castamir.

• Back to the Future - Go Look At The Distraction: It's a Running Gag in the 2010 game for Marty to quickly distract someone by pointing behind them and shouting, "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!"

• LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures - Rowan's Force-pull of the giant kyber crystal is also stronger than M-OC's ability to hold onto it. M-OC only wins by utilizing a distraction.

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Main Characters - Go Look At The Distraction: [Henry Turner] is the distraction, performing a crazy stunt at Jack and Carina's execution in order to buy time for Gibbs and the other crewmen to enact the real rescue.

• The Order of the Stick: Greysky City - Go Look At The Distraction: Or in Celia's case, listen to it.

• Western Animation - The characters are so used to his behavior that they have been known to treat it extremely casually, to the point that that Amethyst outright uses his attempt to set a rollercoaster on fire as a distraction in "Too Short To Ride".

• A Horrible World of Plot Holes and Spelling Errors - Go Look At The Distraction: DancesWithCorpses pulls this at one point to escape the Warners; the distraction in question is Milk and K.A.S.E.Y. making out.

• Green Tea Rescue - Go Look At The Distraction: Toga uses her Quirk to transform into Izuku and distract all the other teams from the battle while the rest of their team snags as many flags as possible.

• Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation - Accidental Truth: ...Hunley thus walks Brandt and "Atlee" right through security to meet the Prime Minister because Brant told him he was Hunt's target]].

• The Corpse Vanishes - Go Look At The Distraction: Dr. Lorenz's henchmen set up a car fire to distract the police escort away from a hearse so they can steal the body.

• Tropes F to J - Go Look At The Distraction: Ross distracts Rachel, despite having nothing made up to distract her with. After a short time of Ross trying to think of a conversation, Rachel assumes that he wants to get back together with her.

• Doctor Who – Classic Series - The Doctor is planning to sacrifice himself, and the Brig is determined to pull a More Expendable Than You. So how does he do it? He points over the Doctor's shoulder at an imaginary spaceship, and the Doctor actually falls for the oldest trick in the book, before getting clobbered.

• Doctor Who Series 5 - The Doctor: You know how I sometimes have really brilliant ideas?
  Amy: Yes...
  The Doctor: Sorry. [runs out from under cover] LOOK AT ME I'M A TARGET!

• Guardians of the Galaxy - Ronan: What. are. you. doing?!
  Quill: I'm distracting you, ya big turd blossom!

• Sonic Boom - Sonic then suggests they talk their feelings to his obvious discomfort. When Amy reveals that she plans of talking for a while, the team quickly run to stop Eggman's attack when the alert comes.

• The Simpsons: Seasons 9 to 16 - Apparently trying to get into the Gold Medallion Club without membership is serious business in Springfield.
  Bart: Hey, what's that crazy girl doing?!
  Lisa: I'm going into the Gold Medallion Club...with silver level membership! (Lisa laughes madly and runs inside)
  Airline Staff: The hell you are! (he pulls out a shotgun, pumps it and gives chase)

• Tropes F to J - Go Look At The Distraction: Gil does this to Agatha in the last panel here. When Tarvek gets reanimated and attacks Moloch, the latter also saves himself by pointing to something, calming the man down instantly.

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Luna: I'd want some peace and quiet, if it were me.
  Harry: I'd love some.
  Luna: Use your cloak. (points out the window) Oooh, look! A Blibbering Humdinger!

• Tropes F to J - In "iQuit iCarly", Sam distracts Carly's group by calling out Ryan Seacrest. They fall for it, prompting Sam to occupy the scaffolding venue first.

• Time Machine Series - Go Look At The Distraction: Used to escape an Aztec guard to avoid fate of a Human Sacrifice, by persuading him to look outside at a supposed earthquake so that you can time-travel out of your prison.

• Western Animation - From Pinky and the Brain: In another episode, he says "Look! A decoy!"

• Big Finish Doctor Who 077 Other Lives - Go Look At The Distraction: The Doctor tells a French couple to look behind them because the guy with the gun is very real.

• DuckTales (2017) S1E3 "The Great Dime Chase!" - Go Look At The Distraction: When Little Bulb chases Louie into the library, Louie managed to distract its attention by telling it, "Look, a distraction!", which it completely fell for it and Louie is able to escape from it.

• Legends Of Tomorrow S 5 Crisis On Infinite Earths Hour Five - Go Look At The Distraction: Sargon conjures a giant Beebo to rampage around town while he robs a jewelry store.

• Psych S 06 E 11 Heeeeeres Lassie - Go Look At The Distraction: Amy to both Shawn & Gus: "Ooh, a labradoodle!"

• Star Trek S1 E22 "Space Seed" - Go Look At The Distraction: Marla tells the guy in charge of killing Kirk to keep an eye on him — and then uses the off-button hypospray on him.

• Series/Glee - Go Look At The Distraction: Becky pulls one when helping Puck spike the punch bowl at prom.
  Becky (to Sue): Hey coach, is that a sniper in the rafters?

• Mystery Science Theater 3000 - Go Look At The Distraction: Servo when he gets caught trying to cheat on his net with Mike. "Look, a giant distracting thing!"

• Tropes A to G - Go Look At The Distraction: A Balmorra Imperial captain, when confronted about slaughtering a farming village who sold food surpluses to Republic-aligned insurgents, suggests you "go look at the bribe on the table to forget about this incident."

• Police Quest - Hero with Bad Publicity: Later, the city counsel and the mayor begin to question John Carey, and by extension, the LAPD's competence in dealing with a Serial Killer. In fact, John gets bombarded by questions by the general public the moment he steps up in city hall.
  • Go Look At The Distraction: This is interrupted and ended abruptly when Walker attempts to assassinate John Carey during questioning.

• A Slap On Titan - Go Look At The Distraction: Briefly, Petra tries to make Eren look at a squirrel when he starts catching on to her feelings for Levi.

• Awkward Zombie - Go Look At The Distraction: In the text underneath this strip:
  "...How did Virion get stabbed in the back if he leapt face-first into danger, you ask? Well, there's a rational LOOK A BEAR"

• Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension - Go Look At The Distraction: While trying to leave to face Doof, Perry throws a pebble as a distraction which makes everyone turn and investigate. Phineas provides a lampshade.
  Baljeet: Hey, what was that small noise?
  Phineas: Let's all go walk over to it!

Unclear/Debatable:

• White Sheep (RWBY) - Contrived Coincidence: In chapter 17, Ruby pulls a Go Look At The Distraction just in time for an explosion to go off in the distance, shocking both Jaune and Ruby.

• Batman: The Movie - I Need to Go Iron My Dog: The recently escaped Bruce Wayne walks nonchalantly back to Wayne Manor and tells Dick they have a "Fish Hatchery Demonstration" to attend. He also brushes off Commissioner Gordon to go back to Police Headquarters to await Batman's call.

• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears - Downplayed: Betty distracts Cute Kid Charlie by pointing out a cute puppy in the opposite direction.

• Doctor Who S36 E2 "Smile" - Go Look At The Distraction:
  • The Doctor tells Nardole to put the kettle on, planning to use his time machine to be back before he returns.
  • The Doctor tells Bill to stay by the map and guide him through the spaceship, only for her to realise that he's already memorised it and is just keeping her out of harm's way.

• Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Go Look At The Distraction: While investigating Edgeworth's office in Rise From the Ashes, Ema and Phoenix try to distract Edgeworth in order to see what's written on a crumpled note.

• Western Animation/Tangled - Go Look At The Distraction: Rapunzel requests a specific kind of paint as a birthday present, knowing that Mother Gothel's trip to get the shells to make it will buy her time to see the lanterns, which is what she really wanted all along.

Examples checked - 55/381 Total correct - 9/55 (16.4%) Total misused - 39/55 (70.9%) Total unclear - 7/55 (12.7%)

There's a couple that I'm not positive about. In particular, it's unclear whether sending someone out of the room for a purpose other than conversation should count, like the Old Yeller example. Still, even allowing for some wiggle room, it seems pretty clear that something needs to be done to clarify this trope's usage.

A bit poorly formatted, but this sounds like a better TRS opening post.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

I agree that this should be renamed. The name very much sounds like Look Behind You, and should probably be made a redirect for that trope. Lets Talk About The Distraction or Go Over Here And Talk for renames?

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Thanks SeptimusHeap! This is my first TRS post, and the third attempt to get this thread started, so I appreciate your patience. Naturalironist, I'm not crazy about those names. It sounds more like the conversing people are leaving, rather than sending the unwanted third party out of the room on some pretext. How about Get Yourself A Cup Of Coffee, from the page quote? Or Distracting Errand?

I doubt we can go with another dialogue-like name due to No New Stock Phrases, and Go Get Yourself A Cup Of Coffee doesn't sound any better than the current (out of context, it sounds like something that would be said to someone who just got out of bed and isn't completely awake). Because of that, Distracting Errand is the only one I like of the suggestions (I admit that's unintentionally an Overly Narrow Superlative).

Edit: Maybe Distracted By Discussion.

Edit: Oh, the software might be interpreting that as a discussion page (though I could be wrong about this). Maybe Discussion Due To A Distraction, Discussion As A Distraction, or Discussing The Distraction? I haven't really thought much about this, so there's probably something better out there.

Edit: I previously listed Distracting Conversation, but retracted it because it sounds like it's about eavesdropping.

Yet another edit: I misread the description last time (the description is somewhat long and I needed caffeine at the time). I took a closer look at it this time and Distracting Errand and now An Excuse To Make Them Leave are better than what I previously posted.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 5th 2020 at 7:09:59 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

^ I don't get those suggestions. Perhaps something like An Excuse To Make Them Leave.

I like that better.

Edit: Out of curiosity, why is Crummies (which has no edit history) a redirect to this? That word has nothing to do with the trope.

Edit: After going over the description again, Distracting Errand would probably be better than anything I suggested, though I still prefer An Excuse To Make Them Leave.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 5th 2020 at 7:07:17 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Btw, I wonder if we should lose the phrase "to get them out of the way" in the first sentence of Snipe Hunt. It sounds suspiciously similar to what Go Look At The Distraction tries to cover.

The entire "to get them out of the way or humiliate them" part of that sentence can probably just be replaced with "as a prank".

Edit: I just noticed that The Stinger for the Go Look At The Distraction is an Up reference that isn't even an example (the character who says it as a Running Gag is a dog who's easily distracted by squirrels).

Edit: Renamed Tropes answered the redirect question:

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 5th 2020 at 9:42:25 AM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

This does seem to be the exact same thing as Snipe Hunt, yes. Sending them on a random task to get them out of your hair is a Snipe Hunt, regardless whether you want to work on something or talk to someone without them present.

I'd say a merge is in order.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

Considering how many bad examples Go Look At The Distraction has (only 9/55 good vs. 46/55 bad), maybe merging with Snipe Hunt would be a better idea.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 6th 2020 at 12:58:29 PM

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I'd be happy with merging with Snipe Hunt, though the trope description might then need to be reworked to be more general.

Snipe Hunt covers a prank variant that has little to do with Go Look At The Distraction.

The page image for Snipe Hunt is not an example then. Carl sent Russell away for a snipe to get rid of him.

Snipe Hunt reads like a specific kind of Go Look At The Distraction.

It looks like many - if not most - of the examples of Snipe Hunt are intended as distractions, rather than pranks. Still, I can see at least one key difference between Snipe Hunt and Go Look At The Distraction: the emphasis of the former is on the nature of the errand (the impossible task), and the emphasis of the latter is its purpose (a diversion). I.e. a Snipe Hunt can be used as a distraction, but not necessarily, and when sending someone to Go Look At The Distraction, the distraction could be a Snipe Hunt, but it doesn't have to be. Considering that, I'm not sure they should be merged after all.

As to the name, let me suggest "Privacy by Distraction" or "Privacy By Diversion".

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Aug 8th 2020 at 11:38:59 AM

My Games & Writing

Tropes Are Not Narrow.

Whether the diversion actually exists or not, and whether the "victim" is sent away to have some time without him because he's annoying; or sent away to have some time without him because they want privacy; shouldn't make it two or three or four different trope pages. The current misuse is a strong suggestion that this should really be a single page.

Rhetorical, eh? ... Eight!

I'm inclined to think that the Snipe Hunt trope might be a potential method by which a character might implement this trope, but not this trope itself. Put another way, this trope is the end, and Snipe Hunt is one potential means.

Note that a Snipe Hunt isn't necessarily done to get rid of someone for a time (it can be used to humiliate, for example); and conversely, this trope needn't be achieved via a Snipe Hunt.

Thus they're orthogonal, but intersecting.

My Games & Writing

I like that. I forget that a lot of snipe hunts are purely done to embarrass or as some club tradition.

I do not think Go Look At The Distraction is a good name due to confusion as OP said.

I think a crowner would be a good idea, but I'm not sure what to put on it. Is this everything?

• Rename
• Merge with Snipe Hunt

Based on this post in the appearance trope cleanup thread, it looks like "Do nothing" can be omitted.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

I think a rename would be best here.

I'd like to apologize for all this.

I'm in favour of a rename, myself.

My Games & Writing

I'd go with rename myself, for the reasons mentioned above.

Made a crowner.

Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.

Bumping thread to re-holler for crowner to be attached.

I'd like to apologize for all this.