39,327
edits
Acquired Poison Immunity: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 65:
== Literature ==
* The Battle of Wits scene in William Goldman's ''[[The Princess Bride]]''. The Man In Black has just tricked Vizzini into consuming poisoned wine, and reveals to Buttercup that the wine he'd consumed was also poisoned; [[Out
* The murderer in the [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novel ''Strong Poison'' builds up an immunity to arsenic in this way. This does ''not'' work in [[Real Life]]...though the reference books Lord Peter reads really do exist, and they really do [[Blatant Lies|claim it could work]].
* A [[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]] novel or two mentions a food-taster who has ingested so many poisons that he's not only immune to them but can recognise them by taste (very handy). He can also tarnish silver by breathing on it (not so handy).
Line 71:
* In ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (Literature)|The Count of Monte Cristo]]'', old Monsieur Noirtier survives a murder attempt using poison because he has been taking a medicine that contains the same compound, and has built up a resistance to it. Realizing that his granddaughter and heir Valentine is also a target, he starts giving her small doses of his medicine; this saves her life when the poisoner has a go at her. Of course the poisoner later tries again using a different poison, but by then Valentine's [[Love Interest]] Maximilien has called in his friend the Count of Monte Cristo, who saves the day in his own inimitable style.
* Poisoning is the de facto assassination method of the Nyissans in the ''[[Belgariad]]''. So much so that any government official who lives for very long (case in point: Sadi) has not only long since acquired immunity to some poisons, but is trained to recognize many more, and doses himself with antidotes frequently, just in case.
* In the [[Dashiell Hammett]] short story "Fly Paper" (1929) a woman wants to poison her abusive boyfriend, but is afraid he'll be suspicious if she gives him something without drinking it herself. After reading ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (Literature)|The Count of Monte Cristo]]'' she takes small doses of arsenic (extracted from fly paper) to build up an immunity, but instead fatally poisons herself. In discussing the case afterward the detectives reveal that [[Did Not Do the Research|the book is wrong]]; while some people have a natural resistance to arsenic, it's not possible to build up an immunity through controlled exposure. The poison of choice in ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (Literature)|The Count of Monte Cristo]]'' is in fact [
* The A. E. Housman poem ''[http://www.bartleby.com/123/62.html Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff"]'' tells about a king who over the course of his life ate small doses of poison in his food to slowly build an immunity to poisons and thus foil potential assassins. This story is used as an allegory; Housman's poem claims that the purpose of his poetry is to inoculate the reader against the evils of the world by describing them in palatable verse.
* Liz Williams' ''The Poison Master'' averts this: the Master Ari Ghairen modifies his own body with spider and snake genes to be both resistant and toxic, in an effort to keep up with the cold war in his Guild.
Line 91:
== Live Action TV ==
* In an episode of ''[[
* ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]'' TOS episode "The Jeopardy Room". A Soviet commissar tricks a defector into drinking wine mixed with a sleep drug by drinking first. He built up an immunity to the drug by repeatedly taking increasing doses over time.
* Christopher Walken's ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' [[Casanova Wannabe|smooth-talking ladies' man]] character "The Continental" has been maced so many times he's built up an immunity to it.
Line 181:
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
[[Category:Acquired Poison Immunity]]
| |||