King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder

Real-time:
*) throw shoe at cat (chasing rat) -- hard
*) get locket in roc nest -- tricky
*) visiting temple -- tight, but not hard
*) carefully get the wand around the sleeping bandit -- easy
*) throw pie at yeti -- easy if it's the first thing you try
*) fight with Mordack -- easy if you know the spell sequence
*) play harp to charm wolves -- easy
*) play harp to distract harpies -- easy
*) leave harpie area before they return -- easy
*) throw peas at monster -- easy
*) hide behind temple oasis rock -- very easy

Most are easy if you know what to do. Unfortunately, the first time you meet
these situations you are not likely to know what to do (or even know there's
a dangerous time constraint) and will likely die.

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Reasonability:
Dangling dead ends:
*) Eat the pie. You can spend a long time before you get stuck, and the
   game doesn't seem to tell you -- you just can't proceed.
*) Fail to throw the shoe at the cat. You won't notice anything, but you'll be
   unable to escape the tavern.
*) Don't feed the eagle. You'll be stuck in the nest.

Why would I want to do that?:
*) Help a rat? Bees and ants, okay, but rats?
*) Throw jewels to glowing eyes. They could be rats, goblins, etc.
*) Use honey to catch elf. It's sticky, but not strong.
*) Why would Graham or the bear want the rotting dead fish?
*) Why would Graham want a beat-up old shoe?
*) Put cheese into the wand power transfer machine? Maybe I missed something.

Buddha's Way:
*) Cedric warns you against the desert, and it's very easy to die before you
   come to an oasis, so why would you persist? How do you map it?
*) The men riding up in the desert are bad guys to avoid, and they appear out
   of nowhere. You find out that you should have hid after you're dead.
*) It's reasonable to avoid talking to the thugs in the inn, and if you face
   them before you have acquired the necessary goods, you die. That's the way
   you find out what you need to escape them.
*) Swing the rope onto the tree branch. Oops.
*) Hopping the rocks across the chasm: dum luck aside, you have to figure this
   one by remembering what you did on earlier fatal attempts.
*) What's the hurry in the temple? Is there a non-fatal way to find out?
*) Why put the bees' wax into the boat? It doesn't mention a hole when you
   look at it. You find out after you drown the first time.
*) How do you know which sequence of spells to use to fight Mordack? The
   images presented aren't even discernable: I had to find out what the spells
   were by trying them first. If the book in the study didn't close so quickly
   it might have been possible to see what they were.
*) Do I use an iron rod or a crystal to drain the dragon-lightning? Both are
   likely candidates in fantasy.
*) Why not rub the lamp? It worked for Aladdin, why not me? It also worked in
   King's Quest II.

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Difficulty:
The reasonable challenges are generally easy, or result from simple
exploration. The sillier challenges force trial and error, but there are few
possibilities so they're quickly accomplished.