The Worthless Treasure Twist trope as used in popular culture. A type of Plot Twist in which people spend a great deal of effort to find what they've been .
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Scholars disagree as to whether any of this treasure was unearthed in ancient times or even what makes up the total of the treasure. They do agree, however, that its value would be mindboggling and, when found, would be considered one of the greatest archeological finds of all time. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. Randy Bradford, a member of the Ancient History Research Foundation , currently seems to be the foremost expert on the Lue Treasure map, which is difficult to find information on.
A series of hieroglyphs, it looks nothing like a map, but is said to be created by an unknown Nazi loyalist in the United States who buried tons of gold bullion on his property just before World War II. He died and took his secrets with him. The map made it into the hands of the FBI who supposedly could not break the code. American treasure hunter Karl Von Mueller made the map famous in the s, but its meaning and riches remain a mystery.
So long as there were ships trading, there were pirates. Yes, they pillaged and stole. When the chest containing the money is opened, the characters' reactions are those of disappointment. The Dukes of Hazzard once found a treasure map that led to a lost fortune.
This was one of the few times Boss Hogg managed to come out on top, only to discover the fortune was Confederate money. The real treasure was the payroll document signed by General Lee. Little House on the Prairie: The plot twist came when they had already run up a huge line of credit at the Mercantile purchasing new farm equipment, seeds, etc.
The Street Fighter movie has a variation. He runs into Sagat who cracks open the suitcase and discovers it's full of the money that was to be the currency for Bison's new country. Thus instead of the money being for a country that no longer exists, the money is for a country that would never exist. In one of the McAuslan stories, a British army unit in post-WW2 Libya catch the local villagers sneaking into their fort to dig up a trunkful of Italian money, apparently unaware it's now worthless after the defeat of Fascist Italy.
When the locals steal it back, no-one bothers to do anything about it. In Bordan Deal's story "The Big Bajoor" and the movie based on it gypsy fortuneteller Vanya swindles an elderly woman out of the fortune left to her by her late father. Vanya's abusive husband Sandor burns the money when they discover that it's Confederate and she taunts him about it after finding an accompanying book which lists exactly how much it was worth in then-modern US dollars.
British TV series "When The Boat Comes In"; Russian sailor Kaganovich comes to England to confront Jack Ford and to recover the money his father paid him to smuggle him out of revolutionary Russia; Ford hands over every penny, unspent; to reveal that Kaganovich Senior had paid him in money issued by Kerensky's Provisional Government, and which became worthless when Lenin's Bolshevik Government issued a new currency.
The trope is Recycled In Space in the episode "Gold". Our heroes rob a shipment of gold being transferred from the planet Zerok to the Federation. The gold has had its atomic composition changed to prevent it being stolen, so they exchange this useless gold for a Briefcase Full of Money in Zerok currency.
Then they discover that Zerok has just joined the Federation, rendering the currency invalid, while the Big Bad can just have the gold changed back to normal on Zerok. It turns out to be the enemy's top tactician, General Gold, who died in an attack on the convoy. The pilot who made the attack who had been missing for a day or two had burned half of Gold's papers and used the other half as tissues, since he couldn't read them.
The base commander bursts out laughing upon hearing this, since deciphering them could have ended the war. In Ashitano Nadja we have George, Nadja and Kennosuke setting off to find a treasure that supposedly belonged to Joan of Arc It turns out to be a beautiful flower patch that Joan herself planted as a teenager, before leaving her beloved countryside. The episode of Cardcaptor Sakura with the Shield card explains that the spirit of said card has, appropriately, an instinct for guarding things and will, in the absence of proper guidance, find some treasure, latch onto it, and protect it from all comers including, in this case, the very annoyed rightful owner.
The treasure it selects is not revealed until Sakura breaks through the shield and captures the card, and turns out to be of purely sentimental value a bouquet of flowers in memory of Sakura's late mother, treasured by her cousin aka Tomoyo's mom. In this same episode is a similar example, revealing Tomoyo's most prized possession. Tomoyo is filthy rich, has her own bodyguards, cool high-tech toys, and a seemingly limitless budget to dress up Sakura in cute costumes and film her. Her most prized possession is a child's eraser, in the shape of a bunny rabbit, worth maybe ten yen, given to her by her best friend Sakura on the day they met and lovingly cherished for years afterwards.
Detective Conan has played with this a few times: Episode had a mansion where the treasure was the view from a hidden window.
On Conan revealing this, the villain had a complete breakdown over all they had done to find it - including mass murder and disfiguring their own face. Professor Agasa set up a treasure hunting trip for the kids, but once they followed the clues to the treasure, they're shocked to find that the toys were ruined; Conan eventually deduces that a robber was trying to find counterfeit printing plates, all while discovering and decoding the clues to where said plates were hidden. Shinichi, as a young boy, met the elder Kaitou Kid the current Kaitou Kid's father who gave him a clue that sent him on a puzzle-solving trip with Ran, but Shinichi misinterpreted the last clue so he thought the reward was the trip and the view of the sunset; upon revisiting the case as Conan, he realized the proper solution was to tear open the leather wallet holding the very first clue, upon which the message was revealed: The treasure—a big honking diamond—is very real, but removing it from its place causes the nearby spring to overflow and flood the entire area.
Only putting it back allows the group to leave safely. In the anime-only "Meiji Restoration Mystery Tour", the treasure turns out to be a letter talking about the ideals of the Meiji Restoration. Of course, the villains that are also trying to get what they think will be find a treasure rich enough to buy the whole country are not impressed.
This is somewhat subverted when it is revealed that the letter had a rare and valuable stamp with a printing error on it that would have been worth a lot if the villain had not torn it up. Another filler story featuring a criminal attempting to drain Osaka castle to find what he believes is treasure, before Conan and Heiji come across him, reveal that the letter claiming that treasure lies there is a forgery written in hopes of weakening the castle's defenses, and thwart his plans.
The letter itself does have archaeological value, as it was most likely written near the end of the Sengoku period, but considering the criminal illegally trespassed into a historical location and kidnapped Kazuha, he won't be able to capitalize on it. Subverted in Dirty Pair episode A treasure hunter looking for treasure in the ruins of an alien planet has hired Kei and Yuri to help him find the treasure and fight off a rival treasure hunter in exchange for a share of the profits.
It turns out that the treasure is a piece of paper with writing in the alien language, which Kei and Yuri can't read but the treasure hunter can. He claims that it says is "there is a value in cooperating with each other", referring to it taking three people to open the door to the room where it was. Yuri comments that "this is the typical ending to a treasure hunt". However, the writing was actually instructions on how to use some Lost Technology and thus highly valuable; the treasure hunter lied about it to avoid paying them. He does later send them flowers - an entire roomful of roses.
At the last volume of Doraemon manga, a chapter was about Nobita, Doraemon, Giant and Suneo competed in finding real treasures as 2 pirate teams.
Treasure - Wikipedia
The treasures were there before they decided to make it as a pirate game. However, the very pirate game which consisted of them sailing at sea and shooting cannonballs at each other delayed their treasure hunting, resulting in someone had already dug the treasures ahead of them.
Double Subverted in Dragon Ball: His subordinates are not pleased to discover that his planned wish is to be taller. In the Fruits Basket manga, Akito's prized box contains Akito was told that it contained her father's soul, but it was a lie from the person who gave it to her. Frequently serves as the Aesop to many episodes of Guardian Fairy Michel —mostly due to the fact that the Black Hammer Gang seem completely unable to understand the metaphorical use of the word "treasure. However, the "treasures" are always appreciated by someone else, meaning their antics to "steal" them nonetheless disrupt the lives of many innocents.
Near the end of the Greed Island arc, the group defeats Razor and goes up a tower to gain an ultra-rare card, Patch of Shore. Their NPC guide talks about how there was no treasure in a particular cave and that its beauty and holiness was the real treasure The card isn't particularly valuable in and of itself, but it is necessary to beat the game. Actually, it kind of is valuable. It's an SS card, the highest rarity ranking, only 3 copies of it can exist at a given time in the entire game and obtaining it is spectacularly hard.
As soon as the protagonists obtain it they manage to copy it, monopolise it and therefore force the villains into a confrontation if they want a shot at winning the game. Strategically, it's a vital asset. Part 3 of Jojos Bizarre Adventure has Polnareff encounter a wish-granting genie that turns out to be an enemy stand. When it's revealed that the genie grants wishes by just making things out of dirt, he's disappointed when he realizes that the treasure hoard he jokingly used his first wish on turned out to be worthless.
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The Law of Ueki has a Double Subversion: The team finds a treasure box as part of a competition, and considering the theme of the show, it's pretty clear what its going to be. But then they open it Not for resale, either. Too big for my pocket, anyway.
Return the Treasure , have had similar non-treasure "treasures" — possibly largely as a Shout-Out to Cagliostro which continues to influence the franchise heavily. In Lupin III Stolen Lupin , Lupin rents out a village from its occupants for a day for the sole purpose of tricking the baddies into thinking the "Lupin Treasure" is stored there. One of the guest characters then concludes that the real "Lupin Treasure" is his friendships with the rest of his gang. Subverted in Lupin III: The Secret of Twilight Gemini: Lupin finally assembles the titular split diamond , allowing a long-suppressed Moroccan tribe the chance to access its ancestral treasure.
It turns out to be an empty cave with a message on the wall stating that community is the real treasure. The tribe's princess is content with this, but Fujiko yells in frustration and kicks the wall The cave's walls are covered in diamonds under the facade. After the climax, Lupin reveals the object that he'd been trying to steal. Granted, it's a gold corkscrew, but he was chasing it because it was a treasure that his grandfather had described, rather than the intrinsic worth of the object.
Hitler's legacy contains the stuff that he didn't want anyone to see, because he was so embarrassed. Farewell to Nostradamus plays with this too, with Lupin's gang after a book of the prophecies of Nostradamus, which assuming it's an original from that long ago could be expected to be rare and valuable. When the treasure is finally found, it turns out that Julia had been doodling all over it while playing in the vault as a child, which made it essentially unreadable and ruined any historical value it might have had.
Pulled twice in an episode of Mahoraba , when the residents of Narutakisou go on a treasure hunt. What they pulled out turns to be photos of the residents three generations before, along with a note saying that the earlier group went on the same hunt and found nothing but a note that said "Good Job". Subverted in Mahou Sensei Negima! The book exists, but a complicated series of events leads to a Friend or Idol Decision , and they spend a few days studying the old fashioned way.
They all pass, and learn a lesson about hard work or something. All of it turned out to be a Xanatos Gambit by the Headmaster. Man-stuck-in-a-chest Gaimon has spent at least twenty years obsessing over a few treasure chests sitting on the top of a small peak he can't climb up. Luffy offers to go up and fetch them, but when he does refuses to give the chests to Gaimon. Gaimon realizes that the treasure he had been looking forward to is already gone, but soon decides that at least now he can get on with his life, and really enjoy the island he's been trapped on.
In one TV special, the Straw Hat Pirates help the guest find her father's treasure in hope of sharing it. Unfortunately especially for Nami , it was a gigantic pearl, so they couldn't take any of it. Besides, the true value of the pearl is that it is a token of her father's drive for adventure. Also the treasure called 'One Piece' itself was considered a rumor until Whitebeard confirmed its existence with his dying breath , though what exactly the treasure is remains a mystery. In addition, Luffy, when given a chance to not only learn that it exists but exactly what it is, vehemently insists on being left ignorant about the One Piece.
To Luffy, One Piece isn't the treasure, the act of trying to find it is. A little short story in the Ouran High School Host Club manga dealt with the host club trying to find the perfect soup that their principal had sampled when he was younger. Turns out it was a very common soup and that the one giving the soup to the principal would later be his wife. Puzzle of God deconstructed 2 to 1.
A puzzle of the week was designed to reward the solver with a view of beautiful landscape. By the time the protagonist solves it, it has already been destroyed to build leisure facilities. There is a rather silly subversion in the story where Ranma finally reveals himself to his mother.
The other half of the story is the attempt to keep his father from taking a family treasure, hidden in a box the whole time, and pawning it. When Genma finally gets the treasure and takes it to the pawnshop, it's only a single slip of paper. The slip of paper is a pawn ticket: It doesn't really matter, as it was apparently worth about twenty bucks.
Two halves of a scroll that was long ago cut in half are reunited to reveal a precious secret — which turns out to be a pickle recipe. However, the pickle recipe is greatly prized by the couple who reassembled the scroll. Mostly because the male, Prince Kirin, literally can't eat anything but pickles.
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Nodoka herself pulled this on Ranma and Akane and their suitors accidentally. She gives her son a gift to give Akane, and after opening it, everyone believes it's an engagement ring. Cue the chases, battles, claims and flying weaponry before Ranma can finally give it to her. Turned out to be a pill box with a unique design, for the aspirin and antacids for the hardships that a woman in the Saotome family must endure. After searching through a series of caves, they come to a sprawling herb garden.
Very precious to the witches who hid the garden ages ago, but with the increased availability of said herbs in the time frame of the series, they had little value left. However, it soon turned out that the picture was placed to disguise the real treasure, a microchip containing information on Fortress Maximus' location. In the anime of Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever , the villain is after Fiasse to get control of a secret inheritance she will receive on her marriage or her thirtieth birthday, whichever comes first. When Fiasse eventually gets her inheritance long after the villain is defeated, it turns out to be the deed to a honeymoon villa and a box of home videos.
Though Scrooge and the rest find the treasure they came for, Scrooge himself makes it perfectly clear at the end that the real treasure he got from this adventure was the reconciliation with his sister, and the letter from his father. Inside is a chamber where Croesus kept his 'greatest treasure'. Upon opening it, he finds that the 'greatest treasure' is the very first coin Croesus, inventor of money, literally made.
Scrooge was less than amused, particularly because he gave up the rest of the bin's contents for the right to it. The coin isn't literally worthless of course, but worth far less than what he just gave up. In Carl Barks ' Uncle Scrooge comic "Back to Long Ago", Scrooge and Donald race against each other for a treasure buried on an island centuries ago, only to find that the chest contains nothing but a bunch of dried-up potatoes: One Danish story had a similar twist, where the treasure turns out to be tons and tons of salt — which of course was used for money back in ye olden days.
Another Carl Barks story revolves around Scrooge buying up all the issued U. S quarters, then dumping all except one in the Mariana Trench so his sole remaining coin would become incredibly valuable. After his coin is accidentally destroyed, he goes diving for a new one, only to discover that the area he dumped the coins in is the hiding place of Atlantis , hidden away from the rest of the world by the almost insurmountable depth. After a long adventure, Scrooge and his nephews manages to escape with a few coins, only for Scrooge to find out back on land that the coins he have are now so rare that the only person that can afford to buy them is himself , making the treasure both incredibly valuable AND effectively worthless.
Scrooge drags Gladstone along on an adventure to find the hidden treasure of a princess. It turns out to be her childhood toys. Strangely enough, while Scrooge is understandably miffed by this turn of events, Gladstone finds it so heartwarming that he's moved to tears. And, of course, there's the fact that Scrooge McDuck's own greatest treasure is the first dime he ever made, an item with very little intrinsic value, but it representative of Scrooge's hard work the fact that it's owned by the richest duck alive is the reason why Magica DeSpell constantly seeks to steal it, because it allegedly would grant great totemic power to a spell that would make her rich Back when Contact published a magazine in conjunction with their series, they ran a comic art serial titled "Cosmic Crew", which managed to do this trope both ways.
After obtaining the final piece of their treasure on earth, the crew received a message about the importance of knowledge One of the original Richie Rich comic books plays with the trope. Richie puts something he feels is valuable in a safe while explaining to his dog that valuables should be kept somewhere safe. So Dollar the dog has the bright idea of digging up his favorite bone and replacing Richie's treasure in the safe with his own.
Later, robbers crack the safe They assume it's a valuable fossil. Their boss disabuses them of the notion "It's a two-day old soup bone" by abusing them. Back at the Rich mansion, Dollar is heartbroken Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog does this in issue 7. The Freedom Fighters find a treasure map belonging to Uncle Chuck, but aren't impressed — since Robotnik conquered Mobius, money has no value.
Sonic suggests that the treasure might be an invention Chuck made that could help in the resistance, so they go anyway. Robotnik hears about the hunt, and at the end of the story, gets away with the treasure. However, Sonic isn't too upset, having at that moment remembered what the treasure is, and how sentimental Uncle Chuck was.
Robotnik was not amused. I suggest we stay out of his way for few days Until he calms down Or he'll destroy us all! All that trouble over a pair of Sonic's bronzed baby shoes! A Bamse story from evolves around the gang and two shore thieves looking for a treasure chest in a subterranean maze. They find the chest, open it, and inside is An obscure caricature comic had two archaeologists spending forty years in search of King Solomon's treasure. When they finally locate it, they find an inscription reading "The greatest treasure is to love and be loved".
Fortunately, the old stamps on said letters are valuable enough to cover the costs of repairing the theater. In one Captain America story, the Red Skull is after Hitler's lost strongbox, imagining it to contain scientific and military secrets. As it turned out, the box contained the things Hitler wanted to preserve of his legacy: This is another case where, while the treasure isn't what was expected, it still isn't worthless if you actually do some research and try to find the right buyer.
Memorabilia from a historical figure as prolific and infamous as Hitler could be worth obscene amounts of money; in the real world, surviving paintings by Hitler sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars despite the fact that he was considered an average artist at best. After numerous betrayals, double-crosses and murders, the coffin is eventually obtained, but the weather, insects and vermin have completely destroyed the paper money. In a Spider-Man story, Spider-Man has a rematch with the burglar who murdered Uncle Ben years ago, in the same townhouse where the Parker family lived at the time.
It turns out the reason the burglar robbed the house in the first place was because he had heard that the house was once occupied by a retired gangster who had left a box full of documents in the attic detailing the location of his fortune. After the burglar is taken care of he dies of fright when Spider-Man reveals his identity to him , Peter asks Aunt May about the box.
She says that she and Ben had thrown the box out years earlier, as silverfish had destroyed the contents. Mystique burgles the home of The Richest Man In The World as a favour for her friend Fantomex and steals his Most Treasured Possession; when she opens the box containing it, it is revealed to be Fantasio and his cousin Zantafio have to undergo three trials invent something for the betterment of mankind, race in the Auto Grand Prix, and capture a Marsupilami in order to compete which of them gets the inheritance from their long-lost uncle.
In the end, it turns out the uncle was broke and had nothing to leave his nephews — and so he devised the trials, so that the inheritance would be the accomplishments, adventures and life lessons the two men achieved while undergoing the trials. In one Woody Woodpecker comic, Woody, his niece, and his nephew run out of gas and seek help at the nearby Red Diamond Mine.
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Unfortunately, two men are in the process of holding up the place. Woody and the kids are forced to help the robbers and Woody tricks them into letting him overload their helicopter with the diamonds. After the helicopter crashes into the nearby pond, Woody offers to help the prospector recover the diamonds from the helicopter. The prospector reveals it's actually a salt mine and his name is Red Diamond. In a Looney Tunes comic starring Yosemite Sam in pirate mode , he inherits a parrot which recites a list of instructions that end "then straight down to the sparkling treasure".
After finding the correct island and following the instructions which turn out not to be as clear as they sound he finds Subverted in a story where B. Brian exploits the pricing charts in the manual , selling the ancient parchments and furniture to collectors and raking in a hundred times what they would have on any normal adventure, much to B.
The Hard 8 staffer in charge of the tournament had wisely left before this was discovered and a riot broke out. The Phantom is said to have a treasure room in his Skull cave deep in the woods. One comic book has a story involving a bunch of criminals who plan to kill the Phantom and the pygmies and steal the treasure.
Worthless Treasure Twist
The plan involves one of the criminals pretending to be lost in the jungle and being taken in by the Phantom. At one point, he asks if he can see the treasure and when it is shown, he thinks it is complete junk since there is a rusty sword, an old horn, a dusty snake in a bottle, and other items like that. He was looking at Excalibur, the Horn of Roland, the mummified remains of the asp used by Cleopatra to kill herself, and other such priceless antiques.
What makes this even funnier is that the Phantom actually introduces every single item in detail as he brings it out and the criminal still doesn't realise their worth. Later on, after his associates are captured and shown the treasure as a courtesy, they realise just how much it was worth. Then the Phantom further reveals that this was his major treasure room and shows them his minor treasure room which is actually full of the gold and jewels and gems that they thought they would find.
The Movie had this. The Duke of Zil is outraged to discover that the magical book of power he's spent the movie searching for has nothing but the words "Truth, Love and Wisdom" written on the pages. Played with in that the book still has the power to kill the Master Cylinder when Felix throws it at him. A variation was used in Aladdin , where the dusty old lamp provided near-infinite possibilities. The various treasures were not only just the tip of what the lamp could do, but not touching them was enforced by the cave. Kung Fu Panda played it straight not once but twice: In both cases, it's not the secret that's valuable, it's the journey and growth needed to earn the secret that really ends up being useful.
The main character is instructed by his uncle's ghost to read a certain book on the grave of a witch who had been sentenced to death in his hometown. He assumes it's a spell that will stop the curse from happening. Turns out it's a copy of Sleeping Beauty. Which does postpone the curse for a year. The book really is just Sleeping Beauty , but it was the witch's favorite bedtime story, and somebody from her family has to read it to her to keep her sleeping for another year.
Zig-zagged with Disney's Atlantis: Most of the exploration crew going to Atlantis expect to find some fabulous treasure there and are willing to kill the remaining people in Atlantis to get it. Milo, on the other hand, is completely looking forward to the knowledge he'll gain on such an ancient and advanced civilization. The crew learns the value of the culture of Atlantis, but in saving the people they unearth a honking big treasure, which they are given as a reward. The eponymous "treasure" in An American Tail: To summarize, Fievel and his friends find an old encoded map left behind by Native American mice, and bring it to an archeologist who organizes an underground expedition.
The physical "treasure", as it turns out, is a beaded tapestry that tells the history of the Lenape mouse tribe. The real treasure is the history and culture of the tribe itself. This comes as a disappointment to Tony, who was hoping to get rich, as well as to the villains who wanted to steal it. It Was His Sled. And in Citizen Kane , it gets tossed into the incinerator along with the wealthy protagonist's other worldly possessions.
Example of the first kind: The Maltese Falcon is "The In the Casper movie, Carrigan and Dibs discover a secret message claiming that there's a treasure in Whipstaff Manor; the whole reason that they want the ghosts out of the house is so that they can search for it. However, as the audience learns going into Act 3, that message was actually just left over from when Casper and his father would play pirates, and Casper's "treasure" is a baseball glove and a ball signed by Duke Snider.
To be fair, that would be worth a bit of money , but probably not as much as Carrigan and Dibs were expecting. National Treasure has the main characters enter the room where they believe the treasure is, only to find They conclude that the treasure was already discovered and could now be anywhere in the world. What follows is a Heroic B. A Spanish treasure ship called the San Miguel was lost in the area in Small finds by local treasure hunters suggest that the ship could have gone down somewhere near Amelia Island. Despite finding fragments of other ships that were part of the Spanish cargo fleet alongside the San Miguel, no one has found the billion-dollar haul yet.
Many people think Dutch Schultz's treasure is buried somewhere near the tiny town of Phoenicia in the Catskill Mountains. Dutch Schultz real name: He made a fortune with bootlegged liquor, illegal lotteries and other criminal activities. When he was being prosecuted for tax evasion, Schultz allegedly stashed some of his fortune at a secret location in the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. He was acquitted of tax evasion, but prosecutors started pursuing other charges, so Schultz was not able to get his hidden loot. He managed to avoid jail, but he was eventually gunned down on orders from rival crime bosses.
Some stories say Schultz mumbled barely coherent words about the treasure as he bled out after being shot. Others tell of maps to the treasure that the city-dwelling mob men were unable to decipher. Many people think the treasure is buried somewhere near the hamlet of Phoenicia in the Catskill Mountains. Thomas Beale was part of a group that found a large treasure in the American West in The men transported the haul to their home state of Virginia, where they buried it. Beale decided to write three ciphers that would give the location and contents of the treasure in case something happened to the group when they returned to the West to bring back more treasure.
Neither Beale nor anyone else from the group ever returned to Virginian — but no one was able to decipher to codes. The story was made public in the s.