Do Not Touch the Funnel Cloud: Difference between revisions

Is trying this in real life dangerous? [[Television Is Trying to Kill Us|You'd better believe it]]. No one can come nearly as close to a real tornado as characters do on TV without already having been sucked up into it -- orit—or bludgeoned by one of the big heavy objects circling in the air around it. In reality, if you're less than a mile away from the storm, you're in trouble. '''Big''' trouble.

Uses the same [[Rule of Perception|"scientific" principles]] as [[Convection, Schmonvection]], which basically state that so long as you don't touch it, it can't hurt you. See also [[Unrealistic Black HoleHoles Suck]], which is this trope {{smallcaps|[[Recycled in Space|In Space!]]}}

* In ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'', people and Pokémon can be seen narrowly dodging small funnel clouds -the result of the whirlwind attack--withoutattack—without coming to any harm. On the other hand, Pokémon do get sucked into whirlpools.

* Averted in ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]''. Tornadoes suck everything towards them in a very large radius.

* Interestingly enough, this is at least mildly averted in a particular side quest in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Legend of Zelda the Wind Waker]]'', where you meet Cyclos, the god of cyclones, and, even if you try to stop your boat, it continues to move closer to the cyclone the god creates, not to mention, your arrows which you are using to get him to notice you, are being thrown absolutely everywhere!

* Also barely averted in the Water dungeons of ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask|Majora's Mask]]'', in which Link can still be sucked into vortices even if he keeps a distance, particularly if he is swimming rather than walking underwater (this could have been justified/hand waved by the anchoring weight of the iron boots in ''Ocarina of Time'', and by Zora Magic in ''Majora's Mask''). The radius of the vortices, however, is still not as broad as in real life.

* Jumping into a tornado in ''[[Sonic Adventure]]'', perhaps ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' and ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog (video game)|Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' is encouraged. Not to mention the surrounding platforms are completely unharmed except for occasional flying debris. Possibly lampshaded in the latter; Knuckles shouts for help when sucked up, despite it being the only possible way forward for himself and Shadow.

** Averted in ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'': Part of the Crisis City stage involves Sonic running away from a whirlwind--whilewhirlwind—while he's a remarkably short distance away from it unaffected by the wind, he has his hands (actually feet) full dodging all the flying shrapnel around it.

* In ''[[Crysis (series)|Crysis]]'', there is a sequence towards the end where you have to weave your VTOL craft through some truly insane weather, including many tornadostornadoes. This is a partial subversion in that, yes, you don't have to actually touch the funnel cloud to be doomed, but you do have to get darn close to it before you begin suffering any ill effects.

* In ''[[Sim CitySimCity]]'', only the square touched by the tornado is ''directly'' harmed. (Of course, if it starts a fire, that may be a different story...)

* ''[[Diablo (series)|Diablo]] II''. The Druid class has a few egregious examples, but the most offensive is the Hurricane skill, which is one of the Level 30 tree's-end techniques. Plainly, it summons a ''frickin hurricane that you then walk around in.'' Not only are you completely unharmed by it, neither are your allies. Enemies are not sucked in; instead, anything that comes into contact takes significant damage and dies. The lore says the druid is unharmed because he is in the eye of the cyclone. Also interesting are the actual Tornado and especially Twister spells: the latter produces ''three'' tornadoes that are so tiny as to miss targets two druid lengths in front of you, and getting hit only stuns you for a fraction of a second. The former correctly deals damage around it, where '"around it'" is defined as the size of a large monster, and because it deals damage over time it cannot even interrupt monsters. This spell set goes nicely with the waist height volcano, but it is no surprise the sequel features Energy Twister, a tornado of [[Swirly Energy Thingy|whirling magic!]].

* ''[[Populous: theThe Beginning]]'' has tornadoes that aren't always under your control, you can tell them where they start but after that they can wander off. They are very destructive when cast right on top of a building as they stay in place for a while. Afterwards, the tornado will head off in a random direction, zigzagging on the way. Anything caught in the funnel will be sucked into the air, levitated for a while then launched into a random direction; the tornado itself doesn't do damage to people but the fall does.

* Played straight in the Genesis game ''[[ToeJam & Earl|Toejam and Earl]].'' [[Goddamned Bats|Yes, tornados can dump the protagonists off of the level or into a lake]], but they don't cause any damage. They can also be avoided by walking in a zig-zag pattern.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' uses this with a couple bosses which summon tornadoes. Even more egregious, some [[NPC|NPCs]]s can use tornadoes to imprison you, causing ''no damage whatsoever''. Shamans also get a swirly-whirlwind-twister-thing every time their Windfury Weapon spell activates, though it appears for less than three seconds.

* Shamal's Square attack in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha AsA's Portable]]: The Battle of Aces'' produces small tornadoes that slowly track the enemy. Naturally, they only deal damage to you when you touch them.

* Zigzagged in ''[[Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions|Spider Man Shattered Dimensions]]''. Although debris is thrown around by [[Dishing Out Dirt|Sandman's]] tornado, Spider-Man himself isn't affected unless he actually jumps into the funnel.

* ''[[Xkcdxkcd]]'' [[Rule of Fun|has some fun]] with [http://xkcd.com/640/ this]

* On March 28, 2000, [[DFW Metroplex|DFW, Texas]] was severely damaged after a particularly bad storm system spawned a number of tornadoes. One managed to beat the odds and run right through downtown Ft. Worth--someWorth—some buildings were destroyed outright, and a few skyline buildings had to be demolished later. That the tornado sucked up so much debris complicated the cleanup process. Since most of the highrise buildings in Ft. Worth and other major Sunbelt cities are faced entirely of reflective glass, to cut down on air conditioning costs, the tornado amounted to a funnel cloud made out of shards of broken glass. Downtown Ft. Worth was barricaded off for a few days after the storm, because large pieces of broken glass continued to fall out of the window frames.