Die or Fly: Difference between revisions

* In the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' series, people infected with a latent version of the wild card virus often "turn their cards" after a near-death experience. Examples include Will-O'-Wisp (stepped on a power line, gained electrical powers), Stuntman (botched a stunt during a student film and fell several hundreds of feet onto solid ground, gained the ability to regenerate from any injury), and the Harlem Hammer (exposed to nuclear waste, gained superstrength and invulnerability but needs to consume heavy metal salts to survive).

* This is exactly how ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Arthur Dent]]'' manages to fly, after reading from the guide that flying is the art of "throwing oneself at the ground and missing" - he has to completely focus his attention on something else (typically something immensely banal, as per the themes of [[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]) or simply ''forget'' that he's supposed to be falling. Once achieved, he simply hovers there and can move around at will... but he has to be careful not to think too hard about what's going on.

* A [[Prophetic Dreams|prophetic dream]] from ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'':

* In the world of ''[[The Belgariad]]'' and ''[[The Malloreon]]'', [[David Eddings]] uses this trope straight for sorcerers, who usually discover their power by accident, in a fit of anger or frustration. Since the one unbreakable rule of the universe is "you can't unmake something with sorcery, and if you try, the universe unmakes''you''", most potential sorcerers don't survive the discovery of their powers.

* This trope is played [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|literally straight]] in ''Priestess of the White''--the heroine is knocked off a cliff and manages to use magic to stop herself before hitting the ground.