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Take a Third Option

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Quotes • Headscratchers • Playing With • Useful Notes • Analysis • Image Links • Haiku • Laconic
"There's always a third way, and it's not a combination of the other two ways. It's a different way."
—David Carradine
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE 6431

Sometimes a hero faces an agonizing decision where the apparent two choices are terrible, such as a "Friend or Idol?" Decision or a Sadistic Choice. Typically, the hero chooses the lesser of two evils.

However, sometimes the hero can respond with, "I don't like those choices, I'm taking a third option!" It is usually something completely unorthodox or seemingly suicidal. Yet this typically turns out to be the best choice after all, and the day is saved completely.

Note that this will usually either be incredibly awesome, if the scriptwriters are clever, or incredibly stupid, if they're not. Deciding which examples are which is an exercise left to the reader.

This can be the hidden solution to a Secret Test of Character. It's also one way to resolve a Debate and Switch and the only one of Cutting the Knot. If done poorly, it may fall victim to the Golden Mean Fallacy. Sometimes it's triggered by Heads-Tails-Edge. When the options are different sides in a conflict, taking a third option may lead to becoming Omnicidal Neutral.

In most Power Trio scenarios, when The Spock advocates one course of action and The McCoy insists upon the other, The Kirk will be particularly fond of using this method as a solution to the problem of the week (achieving a result they both will approve of). This is also the best way to deal with a Xanatos Gambit. A true Magnificent Bastard will have anticipated that, though.

Not entirely related to Third Option Adaptation, except by the fact that the producers decided to Take a Third Option in order to avoid neither of the previous options look correct.

Compare Loophole Abuse and Steal the Surroundings, which can be used to utilize this trope. When completely averted, you have a Sadistic Choice.

Examples of Take a Third Option include:

Other Examples[]

Advertising[]

  • In the early 90s, Miller Light had a television campaign based around this. For example in one 1993 comercial, a couple is arguing over whether to watch a dog show or drag racing. They then put Miller Light on top of the television, which apparently allows them to watch both. The result is more absurd than you'd expect.

Fanfiction[]

Game Theory[]

  • A classic from Mathematics: the Truel, a duel with three participants. Mr. White has a one in three chance of hitting his target, Mr. Grey a two in three chance, and Mr. Black is a perfect shot. To make things fair, Mr. White has the first shot. Who should he shoot?
    • If he shoots at Mr. Grey, he might kill him, then Mr. Black has the next shot. "Oops".
    • If he shoots at Mr. Black, seemingly the best option, he might kill him, then Mr. Grey has the next shot. Oh dear.
    • If he takes a third option and shoots into the air, Mr. Grey and Mr. Black shoot at each other until one dies, then Mr. White has the first shot in a duel. Note that the odds are still against Mr. White, so he may want to look into an even thirdier option like running away and changing his name.


Music[]

  • In the story of "Alices Restaurant", Arlo Guthrie, upon being summoned to the police station over a matter of a pile of trash, surmises that the police officer will either commend Arlo and his friends for their honesty (which even Arlo says is highly improbable) or verbally chew them out. Instead of either of those possibilities, they get arrested.
  • Occurs in the story of "The Choice", by Ben Weiner. Or, parodied, rather. The two options are soup or salad, and the third option, eventually suggested by the impatient waiter, is soup and salad.
  • In the song Gay or European from Legally Blonde the Musical, everyone is debating whether or not Mikos is gay or European. As it turns out, he's gay and European.
  • "Weapon of Choice" by Fatboy Slim.

 "You could go with this, or you could go with that... or you could go with us."


Radio[]

  • Adventures in Odyssey has an episode where Connie becomes the valedictorian. One of the things she has to do on stage however is say a prayer. So the principal of the college and her tutor let her write a prayer, only to find it makes references to Jesus which offends other members of the faculty. So the principal says she should pray the college's "acceptable" prayer. He adds that if she doesn't pray the "acceptable" prayer he'll stop her during her prayer and get her in more trouble. However, her tutor says if she wants to say her own prayer, she (and some other faculty members) will support her. On the day itself Connie makes the decision to...not pray at all!


Theater[]

  • The Merchant of Venice: Launcelot has to decide between continuing to work for Shylock, whom he sees as "the devil", or running away...which would be committing a sin, thereby putting him in the service of the real devil. He gets out of the dilemma when his father shows up and helps him to lawfully switch jobs.
  • A Midsummer Night's Dream is an interesting example. Hermia has to decide between marrying Demetrius or being put to death, with the "third option" of becoming a nun. She takes a fourth option, running off with Lysander to get away from the laws of Athens.
  • In the Avenue Q song "It Sucks To Be Me"

 Kate Whose life sucks more, mine or Brian's?

Rod and Nicky OURS!


Webcomics[]

  • Near the end of the "Snowsong" arc of Dominic Deegan, Oracle For Hire, Snowsong turns herself into ice and orders Gregory (to whom she's frozen herself) to make a choice - save her life via magic and give her ice golem time to destroy the city of Barthis, or smash her to pieces and kill her so he can stop the golem. Gregory merely smiles, removes the spells on himself (which turns her back to normal) and uses another set of spells to turn them into a kinetic force powerful enough to shatter the golem on impact.
  • In Erfworld, Vinny Doombats suggests two options for escaping an enemy trap, after warning Ansom that "You won't like 'em." because they leave the enemy with a free hand to finish off Ansom's siege train. Ansom chooses the third option of taking his chances with the trap and ordering a hunt for the enemy's raiding force.
    • This is Parson's MO. Faced with the decision between fighting a losing battle and surrendering the stronghold? Parson orders his remaining casters to cast Animate Dead... on the volcano the stronghold is sitting on, blowing away the stronghold and the enemy. Parson later wonders if the titular RPG Mechanics Verse is designed to promote outside-the-box thinking.
  • In Order of the Stick, the PCs try in #428 to determine which one of three identical-looking skeletons is the real Big Bad, and which are the decoys. They have only one shot at guessing. The answer is: they're all decoys. The fourth (and real) one is currently invisible and flying right next to them on his zombie dragon.
  • In The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, creator Chris Hastings chose a third option in regards to the question of whether or not to include shading in the strips. He hired a colorist.
  • I would... pee on everything.
  • Comes up more than once in Tales of the Questor - in the story, the third option often is, literally, "hire a questor".
  • In its ten year anniversary of The Matrix comic, Xkcd manages to screw the red and blue pills and take the third option.
  • From Darths and Droids #250:

 R2D2: What was the third option again?

  • Parodied in this DMFA guest strip, which presents a standard Good Angel, Bad Angel scenario regarding the purchase of an expensive colored pencil set with money earned from donations. By the time it's over, however, both sides agree on her alternative solution: "LARCENY WAS NOT THE ANSWER!"
  • Tailsteak's website (yes, Tailsteak of One Over Zero fame) has a series of comics called "TQ" (short for "tertium quid", literally "third option" in Latin) in which the titular character, presumably an Author Avatar, steps into a debate between a hippie and a rich businessman to tell them they're both wrong about such-and-such an issue, to the annoyance of both.
  • In Freefall, Florence is induced to take one when she flips a coin near Sam.
  • Collar 6- Who does Sixx send into the contest? Herself!!!
  • Emily spells it out in Spacetrawler.
  • In Ansem Retort, Xemnas asks Axel how he plans on stopping Xemnas and saving Sora at the same time? Axel's response? He's fine with one of two and kills Sora himself.
  • Underling: Lazarus sabotages the traps rather than take them, even if they are supposed to be tests.
  • Homestuck: The newly-revived Aradia is holding Bec Noir in place with her time powers. However, she can't hold him there forever, giving her the choice of releasing him and dying now or holding him in place and dying when she eventually runs out of power. Her solution? Release him, then use his own space-bending powers against him to run straight to his power source and the dream bubbles of her friends.
  • In A Girl and Her Fed, the Girl lists three unacceptable options for dealing with four hundred brainwashed human superweapons and wraps up the list with, "Sounds like the fourth choice is your only option."

Web Original[]

  • Fatebane frequently chooses a bizarre out-of-box-thinking way of getting out of seemingly impossible situations in Associated Space, to the extent that his companion lampshades this tendency:

  "What?" David looked doubtful. "There's a third option? Crazy and daring?"

  Always delicious. Never complicated. Just cake.

  • Accomplished by Jesse Cox of OMF Gcata during a Let's Play of the DLC of Deus Ex Human Revolution. Rather than give in to a Sadistic Choice of rescuing a crucial witness or several innocents, he successfully reasons out where the poison gas threatening them is and destroys it instead.
  • Played for Black Comedy by The Nostalgia Critic. When Spoony gives him the choice of watching the Reb Brown Captain America or blackmail pictures of roofie-induced crossdressing being posted everywhere, he decides to hang himself instead.

Miscellaneous[]

  • The glass with water in half of it. Half full, or half empty? A joke says that an engineer will answer, "The glass is twice as large as it needs to be."
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