Accidental Aiming Skills: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

We've all seen [[Improbable Aiming Skills|people hit impossible targets at great lengths under unbelievable circumstances]]. But occasionally, a hero will make a seemingly impossible shot, be congratulated on his awesomeness, and admit that he was aiming for ''something else entirely''.

 

Often used to subvert an awesome moment into a funny one. May be the result of the [[Pinball Projectile]]. Contrast [[Exactly What I Aimed At]].

Common when something needs to be hit by a character with legendarily lousy aim.

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Mihoshi of ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'' does this a lot, or at least enough fans associate her with this.

* ''[[Bleach]]''

* Sousuke Sagara uses this trope during ''[[Full Metal Panic!|Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu]]''. After firing a grenade at his opponent, which is subsequently dodged, the grenade lodges itself into a pillar and explodes. Debris from said explosion lands on and disables the opponent, who then praises Sousuke for analysing both his position after the dodge and calculating the trajectory of the debris. Sousuke then denies the action and states that he accidentally fired a live round instead of a practice one.

* In [[Pandora Hearts]], we get a variant of this: When Oz is kidnapped by the [[Nigh Invulnerable|Baskervilles]], [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold|Elliot]] [[Those Two Guys|and]] [[Megane|Leo]] come to rescue him. Toward the end of the ensuing battle, Leo fires his gun at [[Yandere|Lottie]] and manages to skim her arm and cause enough of a distraction for them to escape. Directly afterwards, he reveals that he is [http://www.mangareader.net/350-24655-13/pandora-hearts/chapter-26.html genuinely surprised that he actually managed to hit her], as, according to Elliot, he's "hopeless with guns and swords."

 

* ''[[Y: The Last Man]]''

** Hero shattering Toyota's sword with a bullet, and admits she was aiming for the head when complemented on it. (She ''was'' heavily tranqued up on painkillers at the time).

 

== Film ==

* [[Older Than Television]]: During one drawn-out scene in [[Charlie Chaplin]]'s ''[[The Gold Rush]]'', two people grapple over a shotgun. The entire time, the gun happens to be [[Crowning Moment of Funny|aimed squarely at the Little Tramp]], no matter how he squirrels about the shack.

* ''[[True Lies]]''; automatic weapon fired once, dropped down a staircase, [[Shur Fine Guns|firing randomly with every bounce]]. And it wipes out the bad guys.

'''Taggart:''' "Fuck Rambo." }}

* It helps ''[[Rango]]'' convince the people of Dirt that he killed seven people with one bullet when he accidentally kills a giant hawk with one.

* In ''[[I, Robot (film)|I Robot]]'', the doctor managed to kill two robots next to the hero with her eyes closed.

* Played with in a famous scene in the mostly bad sequel, [[Alien]] 4: Resurrection where the director wanted Sigourney Weaver's character to throw a basketball through a hoop while facing the opposite direction to display her new powers. Weaver trained for many days and managed to average one out of six shots, but the distance required for filming was farther than she had practiced. Determined to make the shot rather than insert it with CGI, Weaver made the basket on the very first take prompting a stunned and impressed "Oh my god!" from [[Ron Perlman]] breaking out of character (which was edited out during post-production) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOrTfA8QZyI.

 

== Literature ==

* [[Discworld]]:

*** Vimes and others within the series also have a tendency to make cracks about this trope, often warning the current antagonist about rookies; "You never know where it might hit..."

* The main character of ''[[Far Fetched Fiction|Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse]]'' threatens a cannibalistic farmer by shooting his ear off. He aimed for the man's knee, but the ear's better motivation.

* In The Hunger Games, Katniss threw a knife at a wall and it landed in the seam between two panels making her, in her words, "seem a lot better than she was" at knife throwing.

 

* In ''[[Jonathan Creek]]'', Jonathan flicks a playing card into the face of a man holding a gun to Madeline, stunning him.

{{quote|'''Madeline''': If you'd missed, he would have killed me!

'''Eliot''': [[Fridge Horror|Give me the gun, Hardison!]] }}

* In the second episode of ''[[Firefly]]'' ("The Train Job"), a half-doped Jayne Cobb gets complimented for shooting a villain in the leg, and says "I was aiming for the head."

* On one episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', while in a hostage crisis, Spencer Reid shoots the crook and mass murderer dead center of the forehead. Not only was he said to have failed his firearms qualification at the start of the episode, he claimed he'd been aiming for the guy's knee. At a distance of about six feet, that's a spectacularly bad shot. Given that it was established in the same scene that if Reid didn't kill him in one shot, they were probably all going to die (the words "Better be a head shot" were uttered) this was probably a joke on the character's part. It still, however, fulfills the trope.

* In ''[[F Troop]]'', Captain Wilton Parmenter is notorious for his inability to hit a target. Instead, he wins gunfights by accidentally making ludicrously complicated trick shots, followed by his men pretending they were deliberate. [[Accidental Hero|"Scourge of the West"]] Parmenter's gained quite the reputation as a sharpshooter.

* In an episode of ''[[Castle]]'', Rick Castle shoots a gun out of a serial killer's hand. When Beckett says that it was a "hell of a shot" Castle replies that he was aiming for his head (a reference to ''[[Firefly]]'', above).

* In ''[[Alphas]]'' Dr. Rosen shoots an enemy at close range in the head, firing through his cheek. Later Bill tells him that he should have shot at the center mass, especially as an inexperienced shooter, and Rosen admits that he was trying to.

* Decidedly ''not'' played for laughs in an episode of ''[[Spartacus: Blood and Sand|Spartacus: Vengeance]]''. Mira shoots someone right through the throat, in the rain, through a crowd of people. Her archery teacher congratulates her on the brilliant shot, only for Mira to tearfully admit she was trying to non-fatally wound her target.

 

== Machinima ==

* This is the only way that Church from ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' can hit a target. At one point, he fired a sniper shot, missed badly, set off a series of ricochets, and only then hit his intended target.

 

== Music ==

* In [[Jaga Jazzist]]'s "Airborne" music video, the protagonist is completely unaware that he's being pursued by a gun-wielding assassin. Just as the gunman is about the fire at him, he opens a champagne bottle. The cork flies off and hits the assassin's head, knocking him out.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

* A ''[[FoxTrot]]'' strip plays with this. Peter throws a baseball at an apparently far-off tin can sitting on a fence post. In the final panel, we see that he was actually aiming for Roger's much closer glove.

* There was a ''[[Shoe]]'' strip where the main character hits a golf ball past a seemingly impossible to get past tree. When asked how he did it, his answer was something along the lines of "I aimed for the tree."

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[Warbears]] Mission 2'', {{spoiler|throwing the rock at the target mook}} will cause Agent Kla to complain "I was trying to hit ''myself'' and play dead!"

* The AI players in the ''[[Worms]]'' franchise are notorious for making [[Artificial Stupidity|astoundingly stupid]] shots, failing to take into account things like intervening obstacles, bouncing of weapons, and the presence of their own teammates in the line of fire. Occasionally these will result in some hilariously spectacular shots, wiping out half the worms in the level or killing their entire team. Human players have been known to pull off some of these as well.

* On the higher difficulties on ''[[Sniper Elite]]'', when you don't take the wind into account, it's perfectly possible to aim for the man on the right and shoot the man on the left instead.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* In an episode of ''[[King of the Hill]]'', Dale having seen his father hold his wife's hand and remembering the time he kissed her on their wedding day, he throws a knife off screen and emphatically impaling it on a mannequin right next to his dad in what is actually a pretty dramatic and intimidating monent for Dale (Dude, he's ''throwing knivess'', it's [[Badass]]). He then yells something along the lines of, "[[Calling the Old Man Out|Watch yourself, old man]], or next time I'll aim for the mannequin and hit YOU!"

* A character like this appeared in one episode of ''[[Lucky Luke]]''. He ended accidentally defeating a famous villain. By firing in the ''opposite direction''. His aiming skills were so hilariously poor, at one point, he attempted to commit suicide by putting the gun to his head - and missed.

{{quote|'''Gwen:''' Nice shot.

'''Rath:''' I was kinda aimin' for her head! }}

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* This trope is the reason you have to call your shot when hitting the 8 ball in pool.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ABGIJwiGBc This man] shoots his earmuffs off with a .50 BMG rifle.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Television]]

[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]