Blinded by the Light: Difference between revisions

An example of [[Truth in Television]], since the use of flashbang grenades is highly prevalent in modern police forces and armies have been using natural light in various ways to blind and hinder their enemies for centuries.<ref>The modern flashbang emits approximately two million candlepower when it goes off. By comparison, a 25 watt light bulb emits 1700. This is exactly as devastating to your eyes as it sounds</ref>

 

{{examples}}

 

** [[Warrior Prince|Ling Yao]] uses a flash grenade while fighting Wrath to blind his one working eye. Too bad about the ''[[Red Right Hand|other]]'' one though. {{spoiler|This is later Wrath's undoing. While fighting Scar, Wrath is temporarily blinded by the sun emerging from the solar eclipse, long enough for Scar to rip his arms off.}}

** Fu also uses a flash grenade to {{spoiler|temporarily stun Pride. He had been helpless in the dark until the villagers turned the lights back on, but with the extra light from the flash grenade he can't use his shadows either.}}

** Parodied during the Skypiea Arc. Zoro found himself in a swords vs. guns battle with a Shandian, who used pistols that were equipped with Flash Dials as to blind the opponent anytime he shot at them. Zoro realized he can combat this with his goggles, but unfortunately, [[The Goggles Do Nothing]] since they're not tinted at all.

** The Flash Dial comes back during Luffy's fight with Usopp, which he uses after making Luffy hesitate with a cough of fake blood.

** During the first episode, [[Ace Pilot]] Eika got defeated by a new, Sonic Diver-piloting test pilot when her target [[Transforming Mecha|transformed]] and attacked from the direction of the sun. Granted, she is using a conventional fighter jet at the time and her opponent is ''very'' nimble.

** In a true show of piloting ability, Eika used the exact same tactic combined with careful maneuvering against a [[Teen Genius]] who very nearly beat her through sheer talent later in the series.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' sports the Dazzle power which can do this for any sense.

* In ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'', this is often used by users of [[White Magic]], specially [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205219 these] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83007 two].

* ''[[Heroes of Might and Magic]]'': Most iterations of the series have a spell called "Blind" that effectively works this way.

* ''[[Luigi's Mansion|Luigis Mansion]]'': Luigi must use his flashlight to shock ghosts so that he may inhale them into his vaccuum.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'': [[Player Character|PCs]] and [[Big Bad|bosses]] have abilities that can use light to completely incapacitate or at least hinder accuracy. A recurring element with bosses is the need to turn characters so they're facing away from the boss to avoid being blinded by the flash.

* ''[[God of War (series)|God of War]]'':

== Real Life ==

* There was a biblical battle that took place and overall the terrain was consistent no matter which direction you would attack from. So the attacker came around dawn from the east so the sun would be at his mens back and in the eyes of the enemy. This is actually a very valid tactic: if you can use it do so.

* During the age while armies still utilized campfires at night, it was not uncommon for those to be used as a means of deception. Merely looking at a light source at night temporarily ruins the eye's low light adjustments, meaning that while looking at such a campfire (or for that matter any other light source at night), it was impossible to actually see the people (if any) that existed around it; only the light source would be visible. Armies got pretty creative with this back in the day, from setting up false camps (the enemy won't know theres no one by the fire until its too late), to lighting a minimal number of fires to hide their number (sometimes going as far as just one big fire; good luck guessing how many people are sharing it), to ordering the camp to make several times its number in flames. A cunning general may even combine the various methods, essentially rendering the enemy's attempts to scout his position at night futile or downright counterproductive. Even in warfare, there are [[Subverted Trope|uses for fire]] [[Kill It with Fire|other than killing]].

* One of the armored vehicles used in the Normandy landings in [[World War Two]] was essentially an outdated tank with the gun replaced with a very high intensity lamp, entirely encased in the turret save for a narrow vertical slit. The turret would pan back and forth, perodically painting the German defenses with blinding light to make it impossible for them to see the troops on the beaches. They also had various filters they could put onto the light while in action, so as to make it harder to determine how far away the vehicle was if you wanted to [[Pun|put its lights out]].

Eventually, a chain of twenty-one searchlights covered the Suez Canal for its entire length. When illuminated, they created a curtain of swirling light over more than a hundred miles of Egyptian sky. In the following months enemy aircraft made a number of attempts to penetrate the curtain, and failed, and the canal remained open to Allied shipping throughout the war.

* The LED Incapacitator, a rather recent non-lethal weapon which works by creating a bright pulsing light with continously changing colours to dazzle and disorient an opponent when violence is not permitted. Again a very valid self defense tactic, very bright hand held torches might be expensive but stun\flash grenades operate on the same principle, making them worth every penny.

** Similar to the above, go out some night to visit a group of stargazers out doing their thing, and you will quickly learn that they do ''not'' like it when folks use any bright or white light near where they are stargazing. Stars are bright, but they are not ''that'' bright compared to closer light sources on Earth. The use of red-filtered light is common as it does not have the same negative effect on human night vision.<ref>Red light is not typically used for illumination in airplane cockpits, however, because under a red light, you wouldn't be able to see any of the red warning indicators in the cockpit.</ref>