Convection, Schmonvection: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Lava: primal force, essence of destruction that leaves behind fertile land; ''really, '''really''' hot''.

** The poor sap who gets lowered before her ''does'' burst into flames.

** The [[Novelization]] goes into full detail of how excruciating the experience was for poor Willie. At one point it even explicitly says that her eyelashes singe and her dress starts smoking, and she eventually passes out from the high temperature.

** The other characters had to walk around the edge of the area to meet back up with him. This could be due to the fact that, as mentioned in many other pages, Goku is a super-powered alien and survived something like this in the original anime more than once. Or it could be due to the fact that this incarnation of [[Idiot Hero|Goku]] is ''incredibly'' dumb and completely missed the safer, cooler path around the pit.

* The destruction of the Cave of Wonders in ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]''.

* The ending to ''[[Godzilla]] 1985'' has the monster being trapped in a volcano. Not surprisingly, he's not affected at all by either the lava itself or any of the intense heat. Of course, he ''is'' Godzilla.

* In the movie ''[[Danger: Diabolik]]'', most famous for being the subject of the final episode of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', the eponymous character dons a protective suit near the end to keep him safe as he melts down a large bar of gold. He claims that in such a suit he could swim through the sun (though he doesn't say so, he presumably means he could survive the ordeal as well). While this itself is fairly stupid, one has to take notice that there is a noticeable gap between the bottom of the visor and his helmet, as if he didn't shut it properly. Although this does not appear to present a problem when he is later sprayed with molten gold and survives.

'''Cassie:''' (narrating) ''Sometimes I think hanging around Marco so much has given Ax a totally twisted sense of humour. Very un-Andalite.'' }}

** The same joke is used again (or before?) in the ''Hork Bajir Chronicles".

* Brutally and repeatedly averted in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', where fire magic almost always heats the air and sets nearby objects ablaze. In one case, a vampire used a flamethrower on Harry in a tight corridor, and he used his shield bracelet to deflect the napalm - but the bracelet only stopped the napalm jelly, while the ''heat'' from the jelly proceeded to roast his hand to the point that even with his wizardly [[Healing Factor]], it's still somewhat limited in use and covered in scar tissue for the rest of the series so far. Harry mentions on several occasions that summoning and directing fire requires a ''lot'' of force in order to make sure everything that's not the target doesn't get incinerated, and once that force is released, you'll still have to deal with the convection issue.

* In the ''[[Jedi Academy Trilogy]]'', Luke once walks through lava to impress a prospective student. He's stated to be using the Force to direct the heat away from his feet, so it's not much of a stretch to assume that he includes the rest of his body.

* Averted in French Sci Fi novel ''[[Malevil]]''. The cast is celebrating in a cool 55º Fahrenheit castle cellar when [[World War III]] occurs. Within a minute the cellar is an incredible 150 °F. Emmanuel is struggling to breathe and strip off his clothes when he realizes the flagstones he's lying on are burning hot. He realizes with horror that the stone cellar may soon function as a stone ''oven'' and broil them all alive, it doesn't occur to him to consider what temperatures ''outside'' the insulated underground chamber must be like.

* Averted in ''Low Red Moon'' by [[Caitlin R Kiernan]], where a character magically creates [[Light the Way|an orb of light]] above his palm. The main character notices that his companion's hand is blistering and burning as he continues to maintain the light. Yes, children, light creates heat.

 

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** Also, when they went to Iceland to start their trip to the North Pole, James had a hard time standing within ten feet of a ''coagulated'' lava flow. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7rffcRFwD0&feature=relmfu\]

* Subverted on ''[[MacGyver]]''. In the episode "Flame's End", the villain has [[Death Trap|locked him and a companion in a room]] at a nuclear power plant and he plans to flood it with the reactor's coolant water. Mac's companion points out that convection alone is going to kill them long before they have a chance to drown, scald, or be irradiated to death.

** The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' series finale includes a scene where [[The Omnipotent|Q]] takes Picard back to primeval Earth. There are flaming pools of lava all around them, but Picard doesn't even seem to sweat. (Maybe Q shielded them from it?)

* In an episode of the original ''[[Knight Rider]]'', the car runs over a lava spillage not once, but ''twice''. The tires are a little melted, but the Magical Impregnable Alloy protecting KITT is just a little dirty. [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=brOfsNAQfU8 You can see it here in all its... glory?]

** It's a favorite trick of "life coaches" to demonstrate firewalking over wood or charcoal. Ask them to repeat the feat with a comparatively ''cooler'' metal plate.

* An episode of ''[[Eureka]]'' deals with a miniature sun springing into being over the title city, creating an unending, superhot day. It keeps growing and getting hotter until it collapses a silo, melts the tires on a Jeep and fries the circuitry on a rocket. No people suffer any ill effects worse than sweating, and the idea that a small sun might cause a fire in the forest it's hovering over is never even mentioned.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** Not only that, but the game includes rules for related things like hypothermia, sunstroke, sandstorms and forest fires. Notable in that you ''can't'' outrun a forest fire, and smoke inhalation from a fire (or lava or volcanic vent) at first damages you, and then is quite capable of killing you. You don't even want to consider attempting to assault the [[Lethal Lava Land|red dragon's volcano lair]] without magical protections against the heat effects, or else the superheated air will kill off a party long before even seeing said dragon.

** Played straight however with certain spells. If a wizard casts a fireball spell and you are 20 feet away expect to take up to 10d6 damage, more than you'd get from sticking a foot in lava. If you are 20 feet and 1 inch away? You're fine. Possibly justified as being intentionally designed that way by whoever invented the spell, allowing you to roast enemies while not harming your allies. It ''is'' [[A Wizard Did It|magic]] after all.

*** Anyone level 6 or up in D&D 3.5 is literally superhuman. (Anyone level 11 or up is literally legendary enough that magic itself takes note of them.) How is surviving a swim in lava at an appropriately high level an issue? D&D is not meant to simulate real world human abilities at all, except at very low levels. Sufficiently high skill checks are explicitly stated to allow you to rape physics out of sheer skill.

*** The latest edition's rules for falling into lava are simpler. [[Chunky Salsa Rule|You die]]. Well, except when they're not: in several published adventures, lava simply deals 10-20 points of damage per round, which is survivably even for a first-level character.

* Averted and played straight in the various versions of [[GURPS]]. There is a spell, "Heat", that raises the temperature of an object or area by 20F per minute. Averted in the spell note that the heat radiates away normally, so "if you were in a jail, you might melt your way through the bars, but the radiated heat would probably broil you first"... then played straight in that [[Game Master]]s are explicitly told [[Rule of Cool|not to turn the spell into a physics exercise]].

* Played painfully straight with the [[Hero Clix]] Muspelheim map. It includes special rules for squares containing lava, which basically allow a character to walk over it in complete safety, just so long as they don't end up standing in a lava square at the end of a turn, which will deal a pittance of damage. Admittedly, it is based on the superhero genre, so it's not like accurate physics was its top priority.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

*** Also in Sonic 3, the fire shield is an item that grants the player this as an ability, taken to an extreme - no fire/lava/magma in the game hurts if you have it, but it goes away if you touch water. Naturally, this makes many bosses (which have flames of some sort protecting the underside, and a couple of which use fireballs to attack), as well as Lava Reef much easier. Sadly, it only appeared in Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

** ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'' takes it to a very silly level as the entirety of the endgame takes place within the planet's mantle with absolutely no indication that such heat has any impact on the characters or structures at all.

** As does ''[[Sonic Rush Series|Sonic Rush Adventure]]'', whose final level also takes place deep underground.

* Exception: The ''[[Metroid]]'' series, where you'll incur constant, significant damage from being in a hot area without the Varia armor upgrade. In the ''[[Metroid Prime|Prime]]'' series, your HUD will also warn you that your life-support system is in danger of failing due to overheating.

* ''[[Quake (series)|Quake]]'' and its sequels have plenty of lava which is completely safe... until you touch it. Then it's ''very'' lethal.

* Justified in ''[[American McGee's Alice]]'', as Wonderland is entirely inside the heroine's own mind.

* Taken to ridiculous extremes in the last two levels of the eleventh ''[[Touhou]]'' game, Subterranean Animism. In the fifth level, you fly amidst the fires of Hell, which are portrayed as an endless sea of towering flames that seem to be just below you the entire time. Naturally, being right above them doesn't burn or affect either of the playable characters at all. The final level is even more ridiculous, as the heroines fly through the corona of a ''second sun'' created by the game's final boss. Said final boss plans to use her power over nuclear fusion to melt the entire Earth away, yet when you fight her, you can get mere millimeters from the miniature suns and nuclear explosions she produces without even getting singed.

** That said, the trope is also [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in the same game: in the composer's notes for the track to the sixth level, ZUN talks about how lava levels are pretty common in shooters, and then states, "I guess it's normal for shrine maidens to fly above lava. Crows also."

* Arachnia in ''[[Bug!]]!''. Bug can be perfectly fine even when he is on a rock floating on a sea of lava. But once he [[Ash Face|touches]] [[One-Hit Kill|the]] [[I'm Melting|lava]]...

* ''Color Dark Castle'', the [[Video Game Remake|remake]] of the first ''[[Dark Castle]]'', replaced the log platforms floating in water with log platforms floating in ''lava'', essentially replacing [[Super Drowning Skills]] with this trope.

{{quote|'''Lava Flow Miner Dwarf''': Logically, convection should make the air in this chamber hotter than an oven, and we'd all roast alive. But for some reason that doesn't happen!}}

* ''[[Heretic]]''. Episode 2, Level 4 is "The Ice Grotto". On this level, there are stretches of ice, ''right next to lava pits''. Obviously, [[A Wizard Did It|D'Sparil did it.]]

* Taken to it's obvious extreme in [[Futurama]]: The Game. The crew lands ''in the sun'' and they're just fine... as long as they don't touch the lava "floor".

* Averted in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NUL89jx7CDE#t=210s this] volcanic level of [[Bomberman]] Hero, where the player steadily loses health due to the heat of the lava below and must heal by entering "cooling rooms" conveniently placed inside the volcano.

* ''[[Vessel]]'' plays this completely straight. You can even run through lava splashes if you are fast enough. Though lava doesn't seem ''that'' hot in this game, as water cools it down pretty easily.

* Twice ([[Timey-Wimey Ball|well, sort of twice]]) during Season Two of ''[[Sam and Max Freelance Police]]'', the duo wind up stranded on a small rock outcropping surrounded by lava. As you learn when you revisit the scene later, though, {{spoiler|it's Hell, and physics may not apply}}.

 

 

* Mounty Oum's CG [[Fan Film]] series ''[[Dead Fantasy]]'' probably takes this to its most extreme. During part II, the fighters end up on a stone raft floating down a river of lava. The raft is less than a foot thick, but does not melt or overheat. Similarly the girls suffer no problems from heat and toxic gas. Sounds pretty standard so far. Then Tifa gets knocked off of the raft. Yuna shoots Tifa to knock her onto the rocky ledge rather than into the lava, implies that falling in the lava would be a bad thing. But Tifa then proceeds to RUN ACROSS the lava, suffering no more than ignited shoes, used to deliver a fiery dropkick.

** Used again with Tifa and Hitomi's [[Battle Amongst the Flames]]. The whole church is on fire? No problem, it just makes an awesome backdrop to the fight.

* [http://wayofthemetagamer.thecomicseries.com/comics/pl/34423 Lampshaded in] ''[[The Way of the Metagamer]]''.

* [[Averted Trope|Averted]] and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the [[Whateley Universe]]. Team Kimba is in a holographic simulation of an evil lair inside a volcanic mountain, complete with a huge gap across molten lava to get to the [[Big Bad]]. [[The Smart Guy]] points out that even the toughest supers on the team wouldn't survive flying above the magma, and snarks that it isn't some stupid video game. But they have other resources.

** Likewise, in "Volcano" Lois is right next to molten lava and is completely unaffected, even doing a hand-over-hand climb over a field of lava without being even singed.

** This is amended in later episodes, where Lois Lane is imperiled by fire, and passes out or is burned outright by the heat.

* An episode of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' involves Bruce Wayne battling a ninja rival on an erupting volcano. The climax of the fight comes when they are separated on the rocks and Wayne [[Save the Villain|throws a rope for the ninja to catch, thinking that if he jumps while he pulls he could make it.]] The ninja kicks the rope away, but not before giving a look that both says "I don't want your help" and almost looks as though he is thinking "Please, don't be so stupid."

* The trope is treated as a game of ping pong in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. In "The Awakening," Aang stands on top of solid but still-glowing lava rock in bare feet without getting burned. Curiously there is a subversion in the same scene, as his wooden glider caught on fire by just being next to a lava stream that Aang had just stepped by. In a later episode, Aang, Sokka, and Toph are running through tunnels within a dormant volcano with no problem running over the rock crust that has formed over a river of magma or soaring over an underground lake of the stuff. Strangely enough, in "The Avatar and the Firelord," a major character actually dies from the toxic gases released by an erupting volcano.

* ''[[American Dad]]'' episode "Magnificent Steven", they find lava deep beneath a certain Washington landmark and play it straight by featuring a bridge a couple feet above it while mocking it all the while:

{{quote|'''Steve:''' ''I can't believe there's lava under Washington, D.C.!''

* ''[[Ben 10: Omniverse]]'' episode "Hot Stretch". Aliens use a stolen fusion device to unleash lava on the surface. The lava flows in rivers down city streets without setting anything on fire and people stand next to it with no harm (although the heroes do sweat a lot, which is more than seen in many shows).

 

== Real Life ==

** [http://xkcd.com/735/ This] ''[[Xkcd]]'' comic sums it up well.

* Subverted a bit by [http://youtube.com/watch?v=4b6n8riJaFo the Discovery Channel].

*** Kind of brings a whole new layer of meaning to "flares", that does:)

* Played pretty darn straight by the experience of Heimaey, Iceland, in the Vestmannaeyjar islands. In 1973, a nearby mountain erupted, sending, literally, acres of lava towards the town - and, from the inhabitants' perspective, more importantly, the harbor. In a desperate attempt to save the harbor from being filled by lava, the inhabitants, the government of Iceland, and, eventually, even the U.S. Navy, started pouring water directly on the lava to try and solidify the leading edge, hopefully sending the remaining lava ''somewhere else''. This took weeks, if not months, and for most of that time, not only were people walking directly on top of the lava, they were separated from actual liquid rock by, at times, ''nothing but ash'', but they were running hoses along it, and even driving ''bulldozers'' around on top of it. The treads of the bulldozers blued from the heat over time, and the soles of boots tended to melt when people stood, but for a significant amount of time, people were not only running near lava, they were working on top of it for twenty-hour-a-day stretches. Icelanders are hardcore.

[[Category:Lava Tropes]]

[[Category:Sublime Rhyme]]

[[Category:Heat Index]]