How Did You Get It?

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A character has gotten something really rare, expensive, shouldn't exist, or at the very least, not supposed to have at all, and is questioned on how it was obtained. Thus, the character has to think of a plausible answer. Blatant Lies ensue.

Examples of How Did You Get It? include:

Literature

  • In The Hobbit, where Bilbo lies to the Dwarves about how he got the ring and what it can do.
  • Pops up in Eragon. The eponymous hero has a mark on his hand because he's bound to a dragon, and needs to explain it. He just says he's had it for as long as he can remember.
  • In The Moonstone, the eponymous diamond is pawned to a moneylender. His first question is "How did you come by this?" and he refuses to lend anything until he's got a truthful answer.

Video Games

  • There was a minor meme, 'Kronk smash!', in World of Warcraft, spawned by a Noob asking said Kronk how did he get the Infinity Plus One Hammer of the time, Sulfuras. Kronk's answer became a universal answer to every question for a short time.
    • At least on my realm, it seems like the answer to every Cataclysm related question, ranging from "Where can I train <profession>?" to "Where'd all the portals go?" is "In Silithus" (Silithus being a remote, out of the way zone that takes forever to get to from any Alliance city and was the only zone in Azeroth that was untouched by the Shattering).

Western Animation

  • In one episode of Doug, Al and Moo have to ask for Skeeter's help in dealing with an invention that's become increasingly erratic and dangerous. When Skeeter looks it over, he's impressed with the design, but becomes alarmed when he realizes it's fueled by Plutonium. When he asks the twins where the heck they found Plutonium, they respond in unison that "we found it".
  • The Fairly OddParents: Timmy's response to people asking where he got his stuff from wishing by saying it's from the internet. Up to and including:

Dad: Where did you get heat vision??
Timmy: Uh... Internet?

  • In the Family Guy Empire Strikes Back parody "Something, Something, Something, Dark Side" Darth Stewie is talking to an underling, and suddenly notices that the underling is eating a piece of cake. "Cake? Where did you get cake?" "Oh, it's Gary's birthday, but I think there isn't any cake left." (Quotes not 100% accurate, but that's the gist.)
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