kurtwagnermorelikekurtwagnerd:
kurtwagnermorelikekurtwagnerd:
you know what’s always bugged me? when a character is faced with some magical two headed being or some shit and one always lies while the other tells the truth and to figure out which is which the character’s like “which one of you is the liar” or something like bruh literally all you gotta do is be like “what’s two plus two” one of them’s gonna say four and the other one is gonna say 83 or some shit. there you go. answered. go on with your magical quest to defeat david bowie.
this has forty notes. that’s forty more notes than expected.
THIS IS A VERY GOOD POINT and deserves more notes
LISTEN i don’t normally engage in Discourse but this information is DANGEROUSLY MISLEADING!
the point of the riddle isn’t to figure out which one is lying, in fact, knowing which one lies and which one tells the truth is irrelevant. What you want is the correct answer from the magical beast/two guards/etc. Usually this means knowing which path to take. For that, you HAVE to ask it “if i ask the other head/guard/etc which is the safe way to go, what will they tell me?”
if you asked the truth-telling one, they’ll tell you the wrong way, because the liar will always mislead you. if you ask the liar, they’ll tell you the wrong way, because they’re misleading you, so
ALWAYS do the opposite of whatever answer you get.
“who cares this is a stupid tumblr post this doesn’t matter irl–”
WRONG AGAIN! story time:
A few years ago a friend threw a halloween party, and since he dressed as the Riddler, he decided to have a riddle contest.
now, i’ve been preparing for a riddle contest my entire life, since i first read the hobbit and it got bilbo out of trouble. for some reason, i assumed riddle contests were as inevitable as quicksand.
I answered the first riddle easily (it was one of the ones from the hobbit) and then i had to answer the next one to win a bottle of top-shelf rum. it was a variation on the two-guard riddle, only i had to choose one of two paper bags. one had crappy cheap vodka, the other the nice rum.
the host and his friend did the classic one lies one tells the truth thing, and of course before i asked everyone started shouting “ask him what color your hair is!” and stuff like that, but i already knew what to ask, so i shushed them and won the rum
remember, kids, it doesn’t matter which one is lying and which one is telling the truth. all that matters is you get the correct knowledge to move you forward, win your rum, and make you seem like a superhuman riddle-solver to a crowd of drunken party guests.
always be ready for a riddle contest
Here’s a thing that usually doesn’t come up when people try to criticise this riddle as well. One of the conditions of the riddle is typically that you only get to ask one question. You arrive at the liar and the truth teller and you need to find out which bridge is safe and which one will collapse when you’re halfway across.
They tell you that one of them always lies and that one of them always tells the truth. And they tell you you can ask them one question.
If you ask “What’s two plus two?” than great. You know which one lies but you also still don’t know which bridge you can cross and can’t find out.
You played yourself.
i can get the answer in zero questions. block all the other exits, light them on fire, and see which way they run.
^ Look at Alexander the Great up here, cutting the knot and all.
Tag: Riddles
I sincerely believe that by 7th year Ravenclaws would just tell the door to their common room to fuck off and it would open for them
Q “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
A “You shouldn’t shove either up your arse.”
“…Technically, yes.”Imagine it, a poor First Year is waiting outside the common room, they can’t answer the riddle in a way to appease the eagle and must wait until someone else to answer it for them. It’s getting late, they’re starting to resign themselves to having to spend the night here.
Suddenly, their saviour comes! It’s a seventh year! Back from a night finishing off their Araithmancy essay in the Library. They look angry, but our poor little first year squares their shoulders, waiting to see what will happen, and hope that they’ll keep the door open for them.
The Seventh Year bangs the handle against the wall, and a slightly disgruntled voice asks the question again: “What is the truth?”
The Student Replies, “The Truth is that I am so fucking sick of all these mother fucking questions about stupid fucking topics like this you bloody fuck-witted bastard. Who in the name of Merlin’s saggy left testicle gives a fucking damn about all this shit anyway? I’ve been working my arse off in the library for the last seven hours now let me the fuck in or, truthfully, I’ll blast my way in and take you with me.”
The eagle knocker tutts, but allows the student entry anyway, and our little first year enters, eyes wide and in shock. They watch the seventh year go up to their bedroom, awe all over their face at their new hero. They did, indeed, learn something that day by waiting for someone to arrive, they learnt that swearing has a magic all of it’s fucking own, and that sometimes it is big and clever to use it.
The only head canon I will ever accept. Its both perfectly witty and fantastically assholish
witty and fantastically assholish… pretty much quintessential ravenclaw traits right there
My favorite version of this headcanon is that there is one Ravenclaw who went all seven years by answering the riddles with some variation of “not a potato” and was only ever wrong once.