A Glass in the Hand: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Next thing you know the character has clenched the glass (or other breakable object) so hard that it shatters in their hand. Depending on the mood, realism of the work and the thing that broke, there may be a cut to a dramatic closeup of blood dripping down from the hand that got cut on the shards. If the character is mad enough they're likely to not notice the bleeding, which might be a good sign that it's time to start running away really, really, fast.

 

 

This trope can be used to heighten drama or, in the case that the character breaking the glass is unscathed, played for comedy.

 

 

** Vegeta's scouter suffers this fate in the [[Memetic Mutation|infamous]] [[Power Levels|OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAND]] scene.

** Much later, Jeice does this to his scouter after reading ''Vegeta'''s [[Power Level]].

** Parodied in ''G Gundam the Abridged Series'' where he crushes the glass... and screams out in pain as we cut to the title.

** Crocodile snaps the handle of his tea cup after Mr. 3 admits that he never used his transponder snail on Little Garden, indicating that the Straw Hats are still alive.

** Boa Hancock does this while speaking with Granny Nyon.

** Duval crushes a glass of wine in his hand when he hears that the Straw Hats pirates, including the hated Sanji, are coming near his island.

** In the anime special "Mewtwo Returns", Giovanni did this once with a whiskey glass, and later again with a cellphone. The man must have incredible grip strength.

** Similarly, ''Pokémon Special'''s Koga does this to a Golbat-shaped viewing screen/communicator after being defeated by Green.

** In both anime and manga, when Akane has "traded" Ranma to Nabiki, she at one point hears what she thinks is Ranma entering Nabiki's room, which is right next door, and does the "listen through a glass against the wall" trick. Between the sounds she hears and her own imagination, the glass promptly shatters violently between her fingers as she sees in her mind's eye Ranma jumping a not-exactly-unwilling Nabiki for sex, whereupon Akane goes storming into Nabiki's room. {{spoiler|And gets even more pissed off when she finds out that Nabiki psyched her out; Ranma isn't there and never was there, and Nabiki was just messing with her to get her to pay Nabiki to break up with Ranma.}}

** An occurence from the last book of the manga: Mousse, Ryôga, the Jusenkyô guide and his daughter Plum are spying on Ranma and Shampoo through a wall, Mousse using the old trick of putting a glass against his ear. When he hears Ranma asking for Shampoo to take off her clothes (a ploy to steal some of the Phoenix people's magical eggs, but Mousse doesn't know this), the glass between Mousse's fingers cracks.

 

 

 

* Sutler in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' shatters a glass of warm milk as he sees a comedy sketch mocking his inability to stop V on television.

** [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Including a line mocking his fondness for warm milk, no less.]]

* ''[[Enter the Dragon]]'': After being defeated by taking that large kick by Bruce Lee's character, Oharra grabs a bottle and shatters it, intending to use it on Lee. Unfortunately for Oharra, this wasn't enough to prevent his death by being crushed underfoot by Lee.

* In ''[[Army of Darkness]]'', Ash crushes a pewter mug with his new gauntlet-hand.

 

** In one book, Dean crushes the glass in his hand after Harry kisses Ginny.

* In ''[[Lord Peter Wimsey|Five Red Herrings]]'', Peter is talking to a witness/suspect while playing with a tube of paint. When the witness innocently says something important to the case, Peter accidentally bursts the tube.

* Subverted in [[Tim Powers]]'s ''The Anubis Gates'': the protagonist ''tries'' to break a beer mug in his hand to show how tough he is and intimidate his way out of an awkward situation, but discovers, to his embarrassment and onlookers' amusement, that he isn't quite strong enough.

* In ''Magic Bleeds'', [[Kate Daniels]] is on the phone with a man who tried to seduce her away from her love interest. Said interest listens to their conversation with a blank face while slowly rolling his plate into a tube. His ''metal'' plate. Kate has to explain the screeching noise as "construction". When he finally sets it down, it's been compacted into a ball an inch across.

* In the [[Liaden Universe]] book ''Conflict of Honors'', Shan does this when he thinks {{spoiler|Priscilla}} might be dead.

 

** Buffy once crushes a glass bottle in her hand. Then again, she does have superpowers.

** In "Entropy", Spike breaks a bottle in his hand after having a flashback of his {{spoiler|[[Attempted Rape]] of Buffy.}}

* In the sitcom ''Sparks'', a judge is talking about a criminal at a party, unaware that said criminal is all spruced-up and standing right next to her. The wine glass he's holding breaks when she calls him "scum".

* ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'' parodies this in one of their "John and Peter" sketches, where the normally hard-drinking mid-level businessmen have been reduced to operating a public restroom and sipping instant coffee out of paper cups. John, as [[Large Ham|disproportionately passionate]] about their situation as ever, keeps crushing the empty cups in his hand, leading to the prematurely crushing of one that's still full of very hot coffee.

* ''Warehouse13'' has an episode where an artifact granted [[Super Strength]] The man using it threatened the agents by crushing a cup.

 

*** Same in ''[[Dawn of Sorrow]]'', when you fight Soma in Julius Mode.

** Elsewhere, in ''[[Portrait of Ruin]]'', Brauner gets angry enough before his boss fight that he presses his cane into the ground until it snaps.

 

** In the first game, when you break through {{spoiler|Dee Vaquez's}} alibis, {{spoiler|she crushes her pipette between her fingers.}}

 

* ''[[Walkyverse]]'': A frustrated Galasso demands something to crush. [[Jerkass|Mike]] gives him a glass. We never see the results, but it probably wasn't pretty, given the frantic cry for paper towels and a first aid kit in the very next panel.

 

* Whenever something needs juicing, squeezing or mashing on ''[[Regular Ordinary Swedish Meal Time]]'', it stands a fair chance of getting crushed to death in one hand.

 

 

* One of the challenges in designing prosthetic hands and grippers is avoiding this trope. It's funny when your manipulator's force feedback sensors fail and you squish a glass. It would be less funny if you were shaking someone's hand at the time.

 

[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:Hand Tropes]]