Could Have Been Messy: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Know what's [[Rule of Cool|cool?]] [[Good Old Fisticuffs|Fist fights]], [[Gun Kata|shoot-em-ups]], [[Sword Fight|sword fights]], [[Elemental Powers|fireballs]] and [[Stuff Blowing Up|explosions!]]

Yep, any good cartoon, action movie, or tv series has to have at least one of the above, forget all that "[[True Art Is Incomprehensible]]" junk -- and any series with all of them will be bloodless beyond belief.

 

 

 

Taken to extremes, these shows often have to take a time out for a [[Very Special Episode]] to prove that, in fact, those [[Color Coded for Your Convenience|red lasers]], swords, or (censors forbid) ''guns'' are not in fact toys, and can kill people. Our heroes will learn a valuable lesson about not running with atomic powered scissors, and they'll use their weapons or powers with more restraint. [[Reset Button|Until tomorrow's episode.]]

* [[Minor Injury Overreaction]]

* [[Near Misses]]

* [[Non-Fatal Explosions]]

* [[Non-Lethal Warfare]]

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' provides an especially intriguing example. While the Elric brothers' attempts to avoid killing people drag out fights to near typical [[Shonen]] lengths, whenever anyone else, like say the bloodthirsty, revenge-driven anti-hero Scar, joins a fight, blood-soaked bodies begin littering the ground within seconds.

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' does this a lot, especially early on. Later in the series, it's averted, although [[Beauty Is Never Tarnished|mostly in regard to male characters]]. The idea is even directly referenced when Jack Rakan {{spoiler|copies the ultimate Shinmeiryu technique, which bypasses all of Negi's barriers and obliterates a bunch of stuff behind him, also nicking Negi on the forehead.}} Jack admits that if he had been off by an inch or so, Negi's head would have been split in half.

** It comes back with during most battles with the [[Fan Nickname|Fatettes]] (not counting Tsukuyomi/Setsuna where it's kinda justified), where lethal force is regularly exchanged: [[Razor Wind]], explosive fire, etc. Even in the "final" battle against them, it's hard to remember Fate issued a no-kill order when one sees how [[Pyromaniac|Homura]] fights.

 

== Comic Books ==

** Even in the movies, where he is allowed to cut loose, there's a surprising lack of blood. Perhaps most notable is an instance in the first movie where he accidentally stabs Rogue in the chest. From her back, you can see the exit wounds, but when you see her from the front next, the front of her shirt is still entirely intact, and there isn't so much as a blood stain on her or the shirt.

*** Averted in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Uncaged edition) where Wolverines claws do exactly what you always wanted them to. Very, very messily.

* [[Captain America]]'s shield seems to have the same "selective edge" than the Batarangs mentioned above. That's very good for Cap, who values everybody's life. Justified in Black Knight ([[Legacy Character|Dane Withman]])'s case, whose sword REALLY has a selective edge due to magic.

 

 

== Film ==

* ''[[The Terminator]]'' does this to a bunch of cops with a ''[[More Dakka|Gatling Gun]]'' to prove he's not a bad guy anymore. After shooting up squad cars with the minigun ''and'' a grenade launcher, his HUD notes "0.0 Casualties."

* Batman seems to realize he can use all the [[BFG|lethal force]] he wants because the writers are just going to make everyone miraculously survive, keeping his [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|code]] intact.

** [[Hand Wave|"It's a miracle no one was killed!"]] Yes it is, Alfred. Yes it is.

 

== Live Action TV ==

 

 

== Webcomics ==

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* All of the Saturday Morning Cartoons we grew up on. All of them.

** Transformers regularly shows giant robots fighting each other with massive laser cannons - while normal Human folk fight right alongside. Nobody ever gets squished. Not until the traumatoriffic The Movie did any Transformer actually DIE from a laser blast. Interestingly, the bio cards that came with the Transformers toys often revealed decidedly non-lethal weaponry - that thirty-foot steel warmachine's fifteen-foot-long 'laser cannon'? Yeah... more often than not, they were listed as being something like an EMP pulse cannon, that would disable robot targets but not, for some reason, blow them the hell up. (This is the older toys, from 25 years ago, I don't know what the current toys say about their guns.)

** GI Joe. Two massive, well-armed military organizations firing what appear to be fully automatic laser assault rifles at each other, with approximately zero accuracy. Again, almost all of the actual casualties come from face punches.

*** Let's not forget the aerial combat where every exploding Cobra plane was accompanied by a mook in a parachute.

** It's the same thing with ''[[Samurai Jack]]''. He only uses his sword to its full potential against robots and Aku, who seems to be [[Made of Evil|made of pure evil]] and therefore has no blood. Whenever he fights a living being (not often) he somehow finds a way to not actually cut them, if he even uses his sword at all.

** ''[[Samurai Jack]]'' does at least deconstruct the hell out of it: it ''is'' messy. Very, very messy. Honestly, the way robots come apart, oil spurts like blood and internal workings spill out akin to disembowelment. If it ''were'' living beings, it'd be [[Gorn]].

*** And that was the point. They weren't allowed to have actual blood, so they replace it with oil from robots.

* The ''[[Rambo]]'' cartoon series. [[What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?|What do you mean, it's not for kids?]] Pssh. Let's just have wars where nobody dies. At least the main character is somewhat [[Technical Pacifist|consistent with his portrayal in the first movie]].