No Sense of Direction

Thankfully some members of the crew aren't this out of whack.
"Grrrr!! Not again! This is the 75TH time! I could have SWORN Caelin was in this direction!"
—Wallace, Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword

A character who has no idea where he's going, and tends to get lost easily.

And not just the regular kind of lost either. They could get lost in a walk-in closet. This person simply has No Sense of Direction.

A little like the Flying Dutchman, except that his character wanders not because of a curse, but because he can't find where he's trying to go. Often becomes one of those Achievements in Ignorance when the character somehow arrives at the right place despite their utter inability to get there.

Also see Directionless Driver, when the character actively refuses navigation assistance.

Examples of No Sense of Direction include:

Advertising

  • One commercial for a mobile phone's GPS mapping feature shows Ozzy Osbourne needing the device to find the bathroom in his mansion. Hilariously enough, it actually shows he didn't even know he had said bathroom. (This may be justified. Ozzy is quite wealthy, and so, probably has a considerably large house. Combine this with the effects of his long-term use of hardcore drugs...)


Anime & Manga

  • Red Blood Cell from Cells at Work!.
  • The Trope Codifier is Ryōga Hibiki of Ranma ½. He's so predictably late that everyone schedules their meetings with him a week early to allow for a week of him finding his way. This runs in his family and leads to Parental Abandonment as they can never manage to be home at the same time (girl-Ranma was even able to claim she was a sister he had never met using this and a Wig, Dress, Accent). He seems to always either take the wrong direction (when given the choice between three roads, one of which he's told is right and one of which he's told is wrong, he takes the third road), or take directions too literally (when told to go "straight down the road" to the Seikan Tunnel from Hokkaido, he did just that—despite the fact the road curved and his route caused him to leap off of the road). His absurd levels of stamina, which lets him run at top speed for literally hours or even days without stopping, as well as being able to plough right through everything in his path, does not make things better, as he can cover distances far sooner than direction-givers might expect and, particularly after learning the Breaking Point, there's literally nothing that can force him to change directions.
In the anime, an early montage showing Ryōga's travels includes an image of him standing in front of the Kremlin. And then there's the Shishi Hokodan story arc, which starts with Ranma reading a letter from Ryōga, which he claims to have sent from Hokkaido. It's accompanied by a photo of him standing in front of a sign reading "Welcome to Hong Kong" with Chinese locals visible in the background, so there is Canon evidence of Ryōga traversing an ocean without realizing it. In his first appearance, there's a snippet with people laughing when he says he walked to that location. He's on a yacht. At one point, he goes the wrong direction immediately after being given directions. He once made a map describing how he found the item of the week. The map show France, Africa, China, the dojo, and a red car.He even went the wrong direction from the starting line in a race. It was a three-legged race and he was tied to Ukyō, who was going the right way. One of his Image Songs (Haikei Akane-san) is written as a travel card/love letter to Akane. He angsts a lot about being so far away from her, but the lyrics make it clear that while he thinks he's in the other end of Japan, he's probably in her backyard.
  • In the abridged chronicles, he's gone from having No Sense of Direction, to having No Sense of Direction and a stubborn refusal to ask for them. When he finally decides to ask, he thinks that "north" is "up."
  • Fanfiction likes to emphasize this. Numerous fanfics have him getting so badly lost he somehow manages to wander into other dimensions.
  • The fact that both his mother and his father share his inability to find his way without a lot of trial-and-error occasionally gives rise to theories that they're related somehow. On the other hand, at least one writer suggested his father was just a Traveling Salesman, and only his mother was cursed.
  • Several of the Straw Hat pirates in One Piece, as pictured.
    • Roronoa Zoro (pictured above, upper left), by far the worst, is prone to get lost easily, to the point of taking off in the opposite direction as soon as the group sets out. When needing to go south, he once went in exactly the wrong direction despite being in the company of a bird whose head will only ever point to the south. When told to head north, he climbs the tallest building in the vicinity (again, the "north is up" principle). He can be quoted as having once said "It was on the right side of the map, so I just have to keep going right." He then turned to the left. Zoro gets lost in a situation where it should've been impossible (like when Nami outright tells him to follow her in the CP 9 arc), and often blames the others for "getting lost". Hilariously seen in this video. To the tune of Yakety Sax, for added points. The absolute worst example has to be at Enies Lobby. He gets lost walking to a set of stairs 20 feet in front of him. He blames Nami's bad directions. Chopper (pictured above, upper right) responded by offering to make Zoro a cure for hopeless idiocy. Post-time skip, when the crew was reuniting on Sabaody Archipelago, Zoro was first one there and is incredibly smug about it (though it was thanks to Perona's help). Though played straight back into position when he decides to go fishing and gets on a pirate ship as well. He blames destiny and cuts the ship in half. He has, on the other hand, no trouble finding someone when he wants to get away from them, like in a post-Enies Lobby filler episode when he's wearing an embarrassing shirt he doesn't want to be seen in, and ends up running into everyone in the crew when trying to avoid them. He's been called a fantasista (roughly, calling someone a "daydreamer" in a derogatory fashion) twice. By Nami in Enies Lobby, and by Perona in the Whereabouts stories.
    • Luffy (pictured above, bottom of image), who thinks the best way to find "south" is to head in the direction it's warmest, isn't much better. It's so bad that in the anime version, even the narrator gives up on them.
  • In Bleach, Kenpachi has No Sense of Direction and has to rely on Yachiru for guidance. Unfortunately, she is just as bad as him. The fact that Seireitei is built like a huge labyrinth isn't a big help either. Not that it slows them down any.
  • Ran Mouri in Detective Conan. Combine that with some bad luck, and the kid often ends up in trouble.
  • Dominic from Eureka Seven.
  • Hatsuharu in Fruits Basket gets lost a great deal. So much that whenever he has to go to the Sohma main estate for any parties, the family delivers him the invitation days before they do the same to the others so he won't arrive late.
  • In the little-known hentai manga Gorgon, all three Gorgon Sisters have this in levels that even rival Ryōga, the king of this trope. When you add the fact that Ciera has fangs and a curiously familiar headband, it makes you wonder if they aren't related.
  • In Hajime no Ippo Alexander Volg Zangief is a Russian man with very rusty Japanese, so in his first appearance he couldn't read the kanjis in the subway signs adequately and wasn't able to really explain his problem to others until Ippo showed up.
  • Isumi from Hayate the Combat Butler, who seems to be magnetized towards Nagi's house when she's not lost altogether. Once she ended up trying to take a train to Rio de Janeiro and somehow wound up on DenLiner.... She actually broke down in tears when she arrived somewhere on time for about the first time ever.
  • Pokémon
    • In the anime, the Goldenrod Gym Leader, Whitney, is like this.
    • In the beginning of the Sinnoh arc, Dawn has no clue how to get to the Sandgem Town lab and so she runs into Professor Rowan by complete accident. Her Piplup is even worse, though it may run in its evolution line...
    • Team Twerp cannot help but get completely lost on too many occasions to count. It gets ridiculous when you realize that at some point in their journey (throughout the Advanced Generation series, and halfway through the Diamond and Pearl series), they even had their universe's equivalent of a GPS.
  • The Prince of Tennis
    • In the first episode, Ryoma Echizen asked Sakuno Ryuzaki for directions... and she gave him the wrong ones. In a later episode, she arrives to their meeting several minutes late because she got lost too.
    • She's nowhere as bad as Kintarou, though. I doubt she'd get off a train in the wrong city!
  • Urusei Yatsura has the Prince of the Underworld. An alien warlord who could excavate tunnels with incredible speed and greatly enjoyed doing so, he also was infamous for getting lost in his own tunnels and digging them in the wrong directions.
  • Rurouni Kenshin
    • Sanosuke Sagara not only got lost trying to get to Kyoto, but he got himself even more lost with a compass in the Shishio arc.
    • This is apparently an inherited trait: his father Kamishimoemon is seemingly just as bad, as IIRC they met up after years in the north of the country... when his dad was just as lost as Sano was.
  • Kouyuu from Saiunkoku Monogatari is constantly getting lost on the walkways of the imperial palace, even with a map, and claims that the library where he works has been moved. This is mostly because during his childhood, his foster mother had the furniture rearranged every time he left the living room to strengthen her stories of the house being haunted and to curb his possible escape plan. It eventually cost him his sense of direction. He can get lost, it is said, within thirty paces. The only exceptions are if it's an emergency—when he discovers that Shuurei has been kidnapped, he's able to rush directly to Shuurei's rooms without incident—and, for some reason, if he's drunk.
  • Soul Eater
    • Marie, to the point where in the last few episodes of the Anime Crona decides just to choose all the opposite directions Marie takes and they end up getting to where they need to go.
    • Free the werewolf isn't much better. In the Baba Yaga arc of the manga he was supposed to destroy tower 1 and he went toward tower 2 instead. In the end he ended up at tower 8. Besides towers 2 and 8 were opposite to each other. He had been in Baba Yaga's Castle for a pretty long time by then...
  • Ginji Amano from GetBackers. He goes back to The Limitless Fortress (Mugenjou) and gets lost while attempting to find Makubex in the IL arc. Keep in mind that Ginji was the leader of his area, called lower town, in Mugenjou. Also, he grew up there.
  • Tenchi Muyo
    • Mihoshi has managed to wander aimlessly into extradimensional spaces, such as Washu's Lab... especially Washu's Lab. Which is not only extradimensional, but specifically designed only be possible to connect to the outside universe when Washu wants it connected.
    • Similarly, Mitoto in GXP gets so engrossed in her cleaning that she usually ends up scrubbing the decks of a battleship even though she started in a bathroom at Galaxy Police Headquarters. Even the Space Pirates know about her, and let her go about her business when she ends up on their ships (probably because it would be impossible to hold her!). Like mother, like daughter. Namely, they're Washu's great- and great-great-granddaughter respectively. Washu herself, to the contrary, never gets lost. Nor does Mihoshi's great-great-aunt Ryoko (Washu's genetically engineered pseudo-clone daughter).
  • Austria from Axis Powers Hetalia is so bad at directions that he actually had to stay home for Valentine's because his roommate at that time, Germany, told him that he'd get lost if he went outside to buy a Valentine's gift for his best friend and ex-wife, Hungary. He opted to make her a gift himself.
  • Allen Walker from D Gray Man has been described as a "master of getting lost."
  • Love Hina
    • Su and Shinobu end up touring Japan on accident while trying to reach Kyoto. They even knew that they could just get there by one train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto. They ended up travelling from Tokyo to Hokkaido (the far northern island), and then later ended up in Okinawa (the far southern island) and many places in-between.
    • Motoko and Mitsune are no better. They ended up spending all the money they had at tourist attractions along the way, so had to find some quick cash just for food and transportation.
  • In Nagasarete Airantou, Shinobu can get lost crossing a street, and often suffers from severe hunger since she couldn't find any food for days. In one issue, another character found her and actually tried to hold her hand in order to get her to her destination. Unfortunately, Shinobu didn't like being babysat and ended up replacing herself with a log and even an animal. They both ended up getting lost. Shinobu seems to think there's nothing wrong with this character trait. Then again, she's just Dumb Muscle.
  • Nyan Koi: Chizuru Mochizuki is a mail carrier and she even admits she has a horrible sense of direction, asking Junpei to help her find the places she's supposed to deliver to.
  • Ryoma of the Power Stone anime has an incredible tendency to get lost, though not as often as most examples.
  • Chelsea Arcot of Shukufuku no Campanella, who was still pacing outside of the Clan Oasis homestead where she was headed, not knowing if she's there yet. Lampshaded by her childhood friend Shelly Maycraft after being ushered in and introducing herself. Interesting for such a person to become a Holy Knight.
  • The title character of Saki. It's pretty much a Running Gag in the tournament arcs that Saki gets lost whenever she wanders off on her own.
  • Heart no Kuni no Alice has Ace.
  • Asu no Yoichi now has an entire family tree of people with no sense of direction. To make it even worse, they have great senses while fighting blindfolded.
  • Tomoe and Shizuka in Queens Blade can't find where they're going with detailed maps. Granted, most of these maps are centuries out of date, but even with proper maps they still manage to get completely lost.
  • Manga series Gorgeous Carat has Florian, who is frequently shown getting lost. It becomes important to the plot, even. The other main character Ray realizes Florian has been kidnapped when the kidnapper tells him Florian left to go sightseeing, something he would obviously never do.
  • In the manga of Chrono Crusade, Rosette's journey from NYC to San Francisco to rescue her brother (A mission she went into demon-hunting to accomplish, and willingly sacrificed 3/4s of her lifespan to accomplish) took the the following route: First she went on a pilgrimage to her childhood home in Michigan. Then she traveled to Washington DC, where she got her car demolished (again). From there she took a train to Chicago (Which was hijacked and totaled en route). At this point, the Order got sick of the damage caused by her meandering journey and chartered a plane to take her to California. Either Moriyama Did Not Do the Research about US Geography, or Rosette is a terrible cross-country navigator, because her trip was about 1500 miles longer than it should have been.
  • Miyano Mayu from B Gata H Kei.

Fan Works

  • Midnight Green has very poor navigation skills. On one occasion when he simply wanted to walk down the stret, he ended up touring the entirety of Equestria, including Cloudsdale. Keep in mind he's a unicorn. His magical GPS doesn't help him either, as the thing simply does not work at all, claiming him to be in Canterlot when he's at Zecora's hut.
  • In the Harry Potter fic Gadach Wen, after a fifth-year Hufflepuff named Stephen commented that he'd never be able to find his way to the dungeons on his own, Susan Bones replied "You wouldn't have been able to find the common room had we not drawn you a map in first year."
  • In the Harry Potter fic Papa Snape, Harry and his best friend from Muggle school were teasing each other on the Hogwarts Express before first year:

Melody: You got lost in the school building the last day of term -- walking from your locker to the cafeteria. They're right next to each other!
Harry: I made a wrong turn!
Melody: You were found on the roof.
Harry: It was an accident!


Films -- Live-Action

  • In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy says that Marcus Brody "once got lost in his own museum".
  • In Joe Versus the Volcano, the Waponis are renowned for having no sense of direction. Some of their ancestors were the crew of a Roman galley that got so lost that it sailed deep into the South Pacific and discovered their island.
  • During one gig, the members of Spinal Tap managed to get lost between their dressing room and the stage.


Literature

  • In Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar mysteries, barrister Julia Larwood is notorious among her friends for getting lost in her native city of London, let alone anywhere else.
    • This is a plot point in Thus Was Adonis Murdered, when Julia goes to Venice on holiday, having borrowed Ragwort's guidebooks to various cities in the region. She manages to more-or-less navigate for some of her fellow tour group members one day by checking the map, finding out where they are, and recommending that they go see anything near that spot. She turned out to have been using a guidebook for the wrong city, which led to an art thief, also in the party, stealing a valueless painting from one of the churches they visited, because Julia quoted the guidebook's entry for a different church altogether.
    • Mentioned in passing in The Shortest Way to Hades, when Julia wraps up one of Selena's court cases, where finding the court in question is described as an expedition comparable to finding the source of the Blue Nile.
  • Joey Harker in Neil Gaiman's Interworld has literally gotten lost in his own house... though his inability to find his way around in three-dimensional space might have something to do with his worldwalking abilities.
  • Sir Gareth in Gerald Morris' The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf. One of his brothers comments that he "needs a trail of breadcrumbs to find his own chamber pot".
  • Discworld: In Terry Pratchett's and Stephen Briggs' The Discworld Mapp, explorer Sir Roderick Purdeigh once "wrote a short monograph claiming that the Circle Sea was in fact one million miles across. His erratic six-month voyage on it, during which he never once sighted land, has long been considered one of the most difficult ever achieved (akin to turning an elephant around inside a phone booth without touching the sides)." In The Last Continent, the Dean mentions that Sir Roderick once got lost in his own wardrobe.
  • Dirk Gently, of Dirk Gentlys Holistic Detective Agency. In The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul, his preferred method of navigating is following any car that looks like it knows where it's going. In this case, though, it's less a poor sense of direction and more a case of intentionally invoking the Theory of Narrative Causality.

Dirk Gently: I find an automobile that looks like it knows where it's going, and follow it. I find that I rarely end up where I wanted to go, yet always end up where I need to be.

  • In Alcatraz and the Scrivener's Bones, Kazan's Smedry Talent is to get lost, which allows him to wind up in places which should be impossible to reach once he finds himself again.
  • Agrivex in Curse of the Wolfgirl, her attempts to teleport from London to Edinburgh go via Southampton (about as far from Edinburgh as you can get on the UK Mainland), Cardiff (Wales), and an unknown island containing some seals, amongst other places. And this with her using a map.
  • Bill Bryson's father is described at length in The Lost Continent as being unwilling to ask for directions, and, when finally pressed into doing so, wanders off with the person he asks leaving his family sitting in the car watching flies copulate.
  • There's one children's book about a little boy who's the World Champion of Getting Lost. Yes, apparently this is Serious Business in this book—it's even mentioned that he took the title from another kid some time ago.
  • The reason Ludo Bagman gives for not being worried about Bertha Jorkins disappearance in Harry Potter/Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire}} is that Bertha has no sense of direction and probably went to Australia when she meant to go to Albania.


Live-Action TV

  • Blackadder: Captain Redbeard Rum [1] managed to discover Australia 200 years early while trying to sail from England to France. His usual method of sailing is to spin in circles until everyone gets sick, then go home. Except that by "everyone", he apparently means himself—he doesn't believe a crew is a necessary part of a sailing expedition.
  • The Closer: Brenda Johnson is a brilliant interrogator who can see intricacies and loopholes in a case that no one else would even think of, but she couldn't find her way out of a paper bag... which is why Sgt. Gabriel usually does the driving.
  • Maxwell Smart in Get Smart gets lost in the Pentagon. Note that "would you believe..." is one of Max's Catch Phrases, involving an epic overstatement of what's actually happening that gets pared down as he's called on it.

Maxwell Smart: One of our agents once got lost in the Pentagon for three days. Would you believe it? Three days!
Chief: Max, I find that hard to believe.
Maxwell Smart: Well, let's see. I went in there on a Thursday...

    • Apparently it really is very easy to get lost in the Pentagon—it's full of long, grey, windowless corridors all looking alike, and some are on a gentle slope so you can go from one floor to the next without realising it.
  • One Monty Python's Flying Circus skit featured "The 100-yard dash for people with no sense of directions". At the boom of the starting gun, they scatter every which way.
  • Top Gear
    • Co-host James "Captain Slow" May is reputed to have no sense of direction. Undoubtedly some of this is played up for comedic effect.

Clarkson: To make sure we aren't accused of bias towards the car, it will be driven by [...] a man with no known sense of direction. Him!
(cut to the back of May's head, as he is facing the audience instead of the camera)

May claims that his mental mapping is off and his mental picture of England is flipped north/south. He did start the Botswana challenge by driving towards the wrong border.
    • Michael Schumacher is apparently afflicted with this, as he did a lap around the track and had no idea where he was going. He eventually started going the wrong way. We're talking about a seven-times Formula One world champion here (go figure). Then again, it is Top Gear, and where Rule of Cool isn't in play, Rule of Funny usually is.
  • A character named Wrong Way Feldman, played by Hans Conreid, appeared in two first-season episodes of Gilligans Island.
  • At least one team a season on The Amazing Race gets eliminated after getting tragically lost. Has led to a few Shocking Eliminations.


Radio


Sports

  • The chaos of sports can sometimes induce this...
  • 1/1/29: During the Rose Bowl, California Bear Roy Riegels picked up a fumble and began running to his own end zone before he was stopped by a teammate at his own 1-yard line. The following punt was blocked and recovered by the Yellow Jackets for a safety—the ultimate difference in an 8-7 Georgia Tech win. Riegels picked up the nickname "Wrong Way" ever since.
  • 10/25/64: Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall picked up a fumble and ran to the end zone (his own, that is), giving the 49ers two points on a safety when he tossed the ball away thinking it was a touchdown.
  • When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were an expansion team in 1976, their first game was played in the Houston Astrodome. They couldn't find their way from the locker room to the field, and almost missed the kickoff. Keep in mind that expansion team rosters are stocked with players from existing teams: a couple of the Buccaneers had formerly played for the Houston Oilers, whose home stadium was the Astrodome, and who played seven games there every season. Even if one considers that they only knew how to find their way from the home locker room, that doesn't excuse the ten or so former Cincinnati Bengals on the team, who as division rivals played a game there every season. Plus, the Bucs were held scoreless in the game, meaning that once on the field, they couldn't find the end zone.
  • Miami Dolphins defensive end T.J. Turner was nicknamed "Wrong Way T.J." after flipping his vehicle at a highway exit ramp in West Palm Beach. He apparently took a wrong turn at Miami's confusing Golden Glades Interchange, where several- err, too many major highways intersect. Easy enough mistake to make...but he went on for another 80 miles before trying to turn around, and was not able to execute said maneuver without turning his truck upside down.


Tabletop Games


Video Games

  • Wallace in Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword. To the point that, after he sets off adventuring after the tutorial levels, he may somehow manage to run into your party again while lost, and rejoin you. It is hinted, however, that that one may have been less related to his lack of direction sense and more to him singlehandedly hunting down the Taliver bandits that killed his lady in liege Lyn's parents and tribe.
  • Sammar in Sonic Unleashed. She starts out lost in Apotos, and after you help exorcise her demons, she thinks she's able to get back on her way home, only to get lost again a few more times.
  • Pulled twice in the Suikoden series, with Raura in II and Hortez VII in III. Konami plays with this trope a bit with Hortez, actually. He seeks to make a scroll-making shop in the army's home base, but every time your character gives him the directions, he ends up in a completely different town. After doing this 3 times, you're given the option to give him the wrong directions. Naturally, doing so will result in him getting to the base and officially being recruited.
  • Masaki Andoh in Super Robot Wars tends to get lost easily, whether it's in a battleship or flying around on his Humongous Mecha. A brief list of his "accomplishments":
  • In Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia, this is hilariously played with by Shurelia, who easily gets lost in her own tower, not to mention, everywhere else. Also referenced to in Cross Edge, where Misha and Aurica are suddenly worried and go into a panic when they realize that Shurelia is missing. Gets parodied even further in Cross Edge when she goes missing again, and Meu goes to look for her. They both end up getting chased by monsters and getting even more hopelessly lost. Zelos puts it best: "Those two need GPS devices tagged on them or something." And within the same game, both Whim and Lily supposedly get lost, and as Raze points out, they were both right behind the camp.
  • Pavel of Professor Layton is an explorer who has no idea which way he's supposed to go. In The Curious Village, he somehow gets from the sewers into the sealed tower. One result of this is that he drops every foreign language he knows into his speech, because he's apparently ended up in a lot of countries this way.
  • Atelier Annie has Beaux, who somehow managed to cross an ocean without even knowing how he did so. He goes missing for a week while delivering a package next door to Annie's workshop, and even with a globe and a compass he still gets lost. He was in denial until he gets the compass fixed.
  • Metal Slug has the Aikawa siblings, Rumi and Madoka, both of whom are in the supply division. Before each mission, they load up their bags with useful items and try to deliver them to the player characters. Unfortunately, the both of them are horrible with directions, which lead to them getting the nickname "The Wandering Ghost."
  • In Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale, you run into a girl named Nagi who got lost in the Amber dungeon on the way home. After the third time you encounter her, Recette eventually tells Nagi where her shop is... and has to stop for breath twice in the process until Nagi says she gets it. It gets better: she never even realizes she's in a constantly-shifting dungeon until it's pointed out. Recette and Tear are genuinely shocked when she finally makes it to the shop. And to cap it all off, the game goes on to imply Nagi got lost while going from point to point in Japan. The game is set somewhere vaguely European.
  • In RuneScape, during one quest, you can run into an NPC named Olaf. Eventually, you get a map from him, but he warns you that he could never decipher the mysterious and runic symbols on the map. It's a map of the immediate area with a big X about fifteen steps away.
  • Just about anyone playing a Metroidvania for the first time, without any guides.
  • The Idolmaster: Azusa Miura is not only a ditzy easygoing girl, she is directionally challenged. When not really escorted, she could easily get lost.


Visual Novels

  • The Visual Novel Happiness! has Shinya Kamijyo, who has such a terrible sense of direction, that when he intends to go to school (even when accompanied by his twin sister Saya), he always ends up elsewhere (such as the sewers), but no matter where he is, whenever Saya is in any danger, he instantly knows where she is and comes rushing towards her exact location within seconds.
  • In the Dating Sim Princess Debut, Prince Luciano is notorious for his total lack of navigation skills, and gets angry if anyone calls him on it. In one instance, he confuses the local lake for an ocean.
  • In Katawa Shoujo, Hisao is a subtler example than most, but still fits. In Shizune's route, it takes him an hour to get back to the school from the Shanghai, which students often visit at lunch. In Act 1, while looking for the library, he wanders into the tea room and meets Lilly for the first time.


Web Animation

  • Donut of Red vs. Blue tends to wind up at the opposing Blue base due to this, those times he doesn't wind up at the cliff wall, instead. This apparently extends to spatial awareness as well.

Donut: You're leaving us out here?! In the middle of nowhere?! We'll die!
Church: Die of what?
Donut: Exposure! You may as well just throw us to the wolves right now!
Church: Your base is right there. You could have walked back in the time we've been talking!


Web Comics

  • Black Belt in Eight Bit Theater has gotten so lost he breaks the laws of physics. Once, he managed to create a copy of himself by bending space-time while getting lost in a straight hallway; another time, he managed to cross a lava pit by following the rope that he was holding up on one side.

Black Belt: You try walking a straight line without bumping into wave functions of neighboring realities!
Black Mage: We do it all the time. It's called not being so stupid it warps the universe!
Fighter: Univarse. It's pronounced "univarse".

Ambrosia: One time when she was a kid, she got lost in the castle for several hours trying to find her room.

  • Zoro's lack of direction is also present in the webcomic One Piece: Grand Line 3 Point 5. As part of his Min-Maxing Zoro's player took the "Super Directionless" flaw. Whenever he wants to move without help he has to roll a 100 sided die and see where he winds up, making it essentially a random teleport.


Web Original

  • "Mr. Lost" from the SCP Foundation is wholly incapable of being transported or directed to any destination. He himself can't choose a destination and just wanders aimlessly everywhere. If anything does try to transport him, random events such as radar malfunctions and earthquakes will render transportation impossible. Even worse, his lousy sense of direction is contagious.
  • YouTube star Tobuscus suffers from this in any game he plays that doesn't have an obvious linear path forward. Particular examples include Minecraft and Skyrim. In the former he has a mod that provides a minimap plus waypoints and completely ignores it 95% of the time; and in the latter he regularly ignores his compass and the quest markers that appear on it, often spending half an episode wandering off in the entirely wrong direction.
    • Skyrim is a particularly noteworthy example here in that not only does the game provide quest markers and a GPS-accurate world map, not only does it have a waypoint-based fast-travel system, but it also has a Novice-level pathfinding spell that actually shows a glowing line on the ground leading down the nearest navigable path to your quest destination.
    • Not to mention that any experienced Skyrim player can usually find the nearest town without using the Clairvoyance spell or the world map, because the game not only has excellent long-distance visibility for landmarks but also has region-based terrain.

Western Animation

  • Rocky and Bullwinkle: Captain Peter "Wrong Way" Peachfuzz. He's so bad that his crew keeps him in a fake control room while the ship's real controls are elsewhere. But then he loses his way, goes into the real controls by mistake, and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Bugs Bunny can end up anywhere in the world, after missing that left turn in Albuquerque.
  • In World of Quest, Way is a living direction finder, able to locate and display a route to absolutely anything, anywhere. The rest of her people can't go two blocks without getting lost.
  • Played with in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko is tracking Aang to capture him, but the records of his positions show his movement near impossible to predict. Zuko comments that he must truly be a master of evasion. Cut to Sokka saying, "You have no idea where we're going, do you?" as Aang is literally going wherever he wants to have fun at, i.e. a place to go surfing before heading off to a different location.
  • In the Finnish political satire Itsevaltiaat Kuningasmusikaali, two Finnish ministers got lost while trying to find a dragon's lair (It Makes Sense in Context). Their path goes trough a farm, a tropical island and the moon until accidentally finding a dragon's lair.


Real Life

  • The outdoor humorist Patrick McManus often writes about his ability to get lost. He even invented the "Modified Stationary Panic", (jumping in place and screaming) which keeps you from running blindly into 1) a tree/rock/lamppost or 2) the next county/state/country when you realize you're hopelessly lost.
  • Famed aviator Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan: Denied permission to fly the Atlantic by the FAA in 1938, he took off after angrily declaring his intention to return home to Long Beach, California. He landed in Ireland 28 hours and 18 minutes later, claiming he'd flown the wrong way. Wrong Way Corrigan lived until 1995 and never once admitted that his transatlantic flight was anything other than an accident. Several fictional characters on this page were named in his honor.
  • There is a Russian saying for No Sense of Direction meaning "to lose one's way in a three-pine forest". There are many more colorful idioms out there for describing the trope.
  • In Japanese the word "houkouonchi" literally means "directionally tone-deaf", and is used more idiomatically to call someone an idiot.
  1. ↑ a one-shot character played by Tom Baker
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