The Three Knights

4 shiney stars

During the age of the medieval empires, when knights and barbarians fought against each other, a man was captured and sentenced to death for allegedly befriending barbarians. 

The king, however, wanted to give him another chance. The king ordered him to his presence and asked him to choose one of the three knights present. 

One of the knights is the Knight of Life, and he always tells the truth. 

The second Knight is the Knight of Death, and he always tells lies. 

The third knight is the Knight of the Dungeon. He sometimes lies and sometimes tells the truth. 

If the man chooses the Knight of Death, he is to be executed before sunset. 

If he chooses the Knight of Life, he would be acquitted and set free right away. 

If he chooses the Knight of the Dungeon, he would spend the rest of his life imprisoned in the Dungeon. 

This is the first time the man ever saw these knights and could not recognize them. However, the man is allowed to ask these three knights one question each. 

Thus, the man asked the red hair knight, "What is the name of this blond hair knight?" 

The reply was "He is the Knight of the Life." 

He asked the black hair knight, "What is the name of this blond hair knight?" 

The reply was "He is the Knight of Death." 

Then he asked the blond hair knight "Who are you?" 

"I am the Knight of the Dungeon" was the reply. 

Luckily, the man was able to correctly choose the Knight of Life, and was set free immediately. 

Can you identify who was the Knight of Life, and also who the other two knights were?

 

(answer below)




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The red hair knight said Blonde was Life, so red cannot be Life (or that would be a lie)

The blonde haired knight said he was Dungeon, so he cannot be Life (or that would be a lie)

The black haired knight is therefore Life. He said Blonde is Death, which leaves Red as Dungeon

 



Difficulty
  • Hard
Type
  • Logic
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Comments

I heard this years ago, and now I finally get it. Freakin awesome!
- Jake (20 Oct 2013)

Solution does not work.

If Red is dungeon, he could have answered "Blonde is not Life" so you would have not known Red is not life.

The solution is to

1. ask any knight "If I asked you, "is [another knight] Random?" would you say yes?" If he answers yes, he is either random or named knight is random. Either way, the third knight is NOT random. If he answers no, he is either random or third knight is random.

2. Ask the non-random knight "if I asked you, "are you life?" would you say yes?"

3. Now ask the third knight if one of the other knights are random. Use his answer based on if he's a Life or liar and use elimination to find the last knight.

By bundling the question in a question: "if I asked you [question]" you will always receive the TRUE answer to the [question]...or a random answer. That's why you must first find out who is not random.


- Alex (20 Oct 2013)

Author's solution does work because he did not include the loophole your red tries to take: The man did not ask who blonde was NOT, just who he was. Therefore, red could only answer with true or false statement of who blonde was. Blonde was also not the Queen of Sheba. Or Chuck Norris, for that matter...
- QuezaraT (19 Dec 2013)

The knight of life is the red head because his answer was "knight of THE life" meaning life in the Dungeon. So the second one is death and the 3rd is dungeon.
- Angelia Johnson (19 Feb 2014)

I didn't answer the proposed answer. But the questions were great.

The red haired said life, the black haired said death, and the blond said dungeon. Red can't have said the truth, because otherwise blond would have to have said dungeon. So blond was lying, and red was lying. So black said the truth. Thus, blond is death. If red said life, then he lied too, so he must be dungeon. And black, who said the truth, is life.
- Eduardo (9 May 2014)

If he asked each knight their own name, the knight of life would tell the truth and say he was life, making it much simpler.
- (29 May 2014)

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