Bottled Heroic Resolve: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:ggmain20080502 2952.jpg|link=Girl Genius|frame|Slightly Better Than Death!]]

 

Your [[Heroic Resolve|will]] is still unyielding, but your body is not up to the task. You'd say [[I Can Still Fight]]. You'd say you can [[Bring News Back]]. You'd be lying; [[You Can Barely Stand]], no matter how desperately you need to.

 

{{examples}}

 

* In ''[[One Piece]]'', Chopper will occasionally use a Rumble Ball to increase his strength. If he takes three of these within a six hour time limit, though, he will turn into a monstrous form with incredible strength but little to no control. It causes his body to tear itself apart, and afterwords he will find it impossible to move. There's a reason he's only resorted to this twice thus far.

* Strongly averted in ''[[Iron Man]]'' issue 169. After having a couple of drinks, Tony battled Magma but is beaten. So, he retreated and went to get fortified by drinking some more. He ended up passing out.

 

 

* A not-quite-heroic example: Nod fanatics in ''[[Tiberium Wars]]'' tend to employ a very potent drug that can, among other things, keep their blood oxygenated for at least a full minute after ''their heart has stopped'' and they're clinically ''dead.'' The drug and its use are based on real-life accounts from US military personnel who fought militia and insurgents using similar drugs (primarily [[wikipedia:Epinephrine|epinephrine]]).

* The ''[[Max Payne (film)|Max Payne]]'' film's climax begins with Max taking a dosage of [[Psycho Serum|Valkyr]] to keep himself from freezing to death. He then goes on a mook-slaughtering acid trip.

* In ''[[Universal Soldier]]'', Van Damme is only able to defeat Dolph Lungren after he takes a dose of supersoldier serum.

 

== Literature ==

 

** In Lee Lightner's ''Sons of Fenris'', when Jeremiah has [[I Gave My Word|given his word]] to Ragnar, he revives his fellow Dark Angels with such shots. One of them is seriously enough wounded for him to ask about the injuries; he answers [[I Can Still Fight]].

* [[Robert Heinlein]]:

* [[Andre Norton]]'s ''Lord of Thunder'', sequel to ''The Beastmaster''.

* A number of ''[[The Stainless Steel Rat|Stainless Steel Rat]]'' stories include Bottled Heroic Resolve. In ''The Stainless Steel Rat Saves The World'', Slippery Jim's nerve fails him outside the [[Big Bad]]'s base. No sane man would walk in there, not to certain death. So he pops a pill that kills sanity stone dead: grinning sociopathy in a capsule, live wire applied directly to the Id.

* The doctors in the ''[[Medstar Duology]]'', a bit of the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] which serves as medical drama, do all kinds of things to keep themselves going when they get endless waves of patients. A device is mentioned that stimulates certain kinds of brainwaves, allowing the equivalent of eight hours of sleep in ten minutes, but it's not actually as good as real sleep, and they start making mistakes anyway. When there aren't any patients, they tend to get drunk.

* In ''Red Fury'', also by [[James Swallow]], Rafen knows of such drugs, though the Blood Angels prefer not to use them—but his foes are injecting themselves and [[Super Serum|getting results far beyond them]].

* The entire point of the nationalistic poem "Döbeln at Jutas", by J L Runeberg. Severely wounded officer Döbeln begs his doctor for a medicine that will let him out of bed for just one day, so he can lead his troops in the battle at Jutas.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]],'' Harry takes a recharge potion, but feeling like you have an inexhaustible power supply and actually having one are two different things. {{spoiler|While he doesn't fall on his face, he runs out of juice and has no powers at a time you ''really'' don't want to have that happen.}}

* In ''[[Agatha H and The Clockwork Princess]]'', Lucrezia, back in a body that needs sleep, resorts to drugs to keep going. Lots and lots of drugs.

* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|In the Lion's Mouth]]'', a [[Good Samaritan]] gives Dominic Tight "booster" after the ambush injured him.

 

 

* ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'':

** "The Immunity Syndrome": While opposing a monster that drains life force, the crew starts to collapse and is given stimulants to keep them on their feet. At one point Kirk asks McCoy for another shot and Bones warns him that if he keeps on taking it it will blow him apart.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'':

** Captain Janeway orders the Doctor to dose her up under similar circumstances in the two-parter "Year of Hell." He agrees, but not before threatening to remove her from command if she doesn't schedule herself a rest interval.

* In an episode of ''[[Smallville]]'' called Rage, Green Arrow took a drug to give him a [[Healing Factor]]. Unfortunately, it had the side effect of [[Psycho Serum|giving him RAGE]].

* In ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' episode "Morpheus," the team (plus some [[Red Shirts]]) are infected with a parasite that makes them want to sleep. Once they are asleep, it then eats their brains to death. Naturally, nobody wants to have that happen, so they have to stay awake for a few days while trying to find a cure. At one point they resort to caffeine pills and other chemical stimulants, but have to stop when the drugs cause one [[Red Shirt]] to have a heart attack and die.

* Like the medical example in Real Life, Dr. Franklin of ''[[Babylon 5]]'' develops a stims habit to cope with the demands of his job.

** This seems to be a common pitfall among doctors in the B5 universe. In "The Quality of Mercy," it's mentioned that Dr. Rosen lost her medical license over stims use, and in "Hunter, Prey," Dr. Jacobs uses stims to keep himself awake while he runs from the law. Granted, the second example isn't a sign of an addiction to the drugs, but doctors seem to reach for them whenever they're in a tight spot.

* Not so much heroic, but there is an episode of [[Law and Order SVU]] where a 10-year-old girl at an exclusive private school has to keep using stimulants to stay awake and study so she can keep up with everyone else. She ends up going a little psycho as a result of the meds and killing her roommate.

 

 

* ''[[Metal Gear Solid]] 4'': Snake injects himself with nanomachines several times to keep himself on his feet throughout the second half of the story.

* In the game ''[[Battlefield: Bad Company]]'', Private Marlowe is given a hypodermic needle (full of adrenaline, presumably) that he can use to keep himself alive near the start of the story.

* ''[[Hitman]]'' uses this at least once. Blood Money has two healing items: A syringe full of adrenaline, and a bottle of painkillers whose flavor text states they're currently being tested for use on ''horses''.

** Similarly, [[Max Payne (series)|Max Payne]] crunches through painkillers like a Soviet icebreaker delivering a nuclear missile through polar icecap. A nuclear missile of revenge.

== Web Comics ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

** Military pilots call them "go pills" and they also have "stop pills" for when the need to stay alert has passed. The latter being basically sedatives. Both are passed out by doctors if requested. An over-reliance on these drugs is somewhat controversial though, since they may also have negative effects on things like alertness, situational awareness, judgment, etc.

** Drug-addled pilots have been implicated in [[Friend or Foe|friendly fire]] incidents, most notably that of an American pilot dropping a 500-lb bomb on a Canadian platoon in Afghanistan in 2002.

** The Red Army during WWII famously used shots of vodka (called "the Peoples' Commissar's 100 grams") to bolster morale.

* In a [[Fridge Horror|somewhat disturbing]] [http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=1447 blog post], [[Blindsight|Peter Watts]] suggested a version: ''"Isolate the neurochemical factors that come into play when [[Mama Bear|a mother sees her children being threatened]]; synthesise them; dose every female soldier with an aerosol of the stuff before you send her into the field. If any of the boys complain about women in the military after ''that'', it’ll only be because they keep getting their asses kicked on performance reviews. Either that, or because they’re scared shitless."''

[[Category:This Is Your Index On Drugs]]

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

[[Category:Example as a Thesis]]