Everything Trying to Kill You: Difference between revisions

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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.EverythingTryingToKillYou 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.EverythingTryingToKillYou, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license)
 
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{{quote|"''Did I just die by walking into the fucking ''door!?'' Yeah! Everything kills you, literally ''everything''.''"|'''[[The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)|The Angry Video Game Nerd]]''' on ''[[DragonsDragon's Lair (Video Game)|Dragon's Lair]]'' ([[NES]])}}
 
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Video games struggling for creativity will invent unlikely obstacles.
 
If a level in a [[Platformer]] takes place in a mountain, it's unrealistic you'd run into sequential [[Lava Pit|lava pits]], but there's a logic in that you want to avoid the obvious, skin-boiling danger (though you'll be okay if you just [[Convection Schmonvection|don't touch it]]). But in some games, you can be injured by the strangest things. Stumbling onto a flying ''soccer ball'' hurts just as much as being run over by a car. All manner of inanimate objects seem primed and ready to hurt you, especially if the setting doesn't allow for more extravagant opponents. In some cases, just to really hammer the point home that the game's creators are [[Killer Game Master|true bastards]], your character will be a [[One -Hit -Point Wonder]], and the slightest injury will make you [[Ludicrous Gibs|explode into a fountain of blood]].
 
You can usually blame [[Collision Damage]] for this.
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Is nothing safe? [[Deadly Walls|Walls]]? [[Super Mario Bros 3 (Video Game)|The sun]]? [[I Wanna Be the Guy|The moon]]? ''[[Advancing Wall of Doom|The boundary of the screen]]''?
 
While a common trope in the [[Nintendo Hard]] generation of games, this has more to do with old-style games than difficulty. Many older games were [[Platform Game|platform games]], where the objective is primarily to get from the beginning of the level to the end. Memory was at a premium, so pretty much anything added to the game needed a purpose. And in a platformer, most things should be either [[Power -Up|power ups]] or obstacles, things that make it a challenge (and thus fun) to get from Point A to Point B. [[Adventure Game]] designers, especially those at [[Sierra]], also delighted in finding [[The Many Deaths of You|new and interesting ways to kill the player character]]; with no quantified attributes, such a game's hero could only survive or not survive.
 
Some games that normally avoid this will design a deliberately ludicrous yet highly dangerous enemy/obstacle for [[Rule of Funny|comedic value]]. A [[Platform Hell]] game will often take this trope to ludicrous places for comedy. See also [[Malevolent Architecture]] and [[Death World]].
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Compare: [[Animals Hate Him]]; [[Super Persistent Predator]]; [[Damn Nature You Scary]]; and [[Books That Bite]].
 
{{examples|Examples}}
 
== [[Action Adventure]] ==
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* Besides cars, motorcycles, trucks, snakes and alligators trying to kill him, ''[[Frogger]]'' also demonstrates [[Super Drowning Skills]].
* ''[[Home Alone]] 2'' for the NES and SNES was ridiculous. Not only did every random stranger in the hotel try to get you, but so did vacuum cleaners, luggage, and mop buckets (both the moving mop and the inanimate bucket).
** The Infogrames staff must have played this game before coding ''[[Tintin (Comic Book)]] in Tibet''. In the hotel level alone, you could get [[Collision Damage]] (and lose one of your four hit points) from waiters carrying a platter, maids vacuuming the floor, luggage carelessly knocked over by said maids, and little dogs that don't bite. Oh, and the timer too.
** But then, the entire premise of ''[[Home Alone]]'' was that Kevin made his house/hotel room into a place where [[Everything Trying to Kill You|everything was trying to kill Harry and Marv.]] Turnabout's fair play.
* The ''[[Jurassic Park]]'' game on the Sega Genesis. Cute little lizards who take half your health, climbing ropes who are vertical poison ivies, Pteronodon carrying you back to the top at the cost of half your health... Also goes with [[Nintendo Hard]].
* This page would be remiss without a mention of a Sega Genesis ''[[X Men]]'' game whose first level started in [[Prehistoria|a jungle]]. And in this jungle, getting a lance thrown at you did damage, getting carried off by a [[Giant Flyer]] did damage... and ''having a dragonfly buzz past you'' did damage. The hell?
* ''[[Bomberman (Video Game)|Bomberman]]'' runs with this trope in every game since the beginning. The [[Big Bad]]'s [[Mooks]], bugs, statues, rocks, fish, robots, floor tiles, [[Hoist By His Own Petard|your own bombs]], [[Poison Mushroom|items]], and standard stage hazards. It really gets ridiculous though, with butterflies, snowflakes, penguins, clowns, [[Funny Animal]] mice holding balloons, panda/umbrella...[[Buffy -Speak|things]], snowmen, trees, and even wandering clouds who pour down ''raindrops''. No matter how cute and innocuous it looks, if it doesn't [[Whale Egg|hatch from a giant egg]], it will kill you (or [[Powerup Mount|your]] [[Kangaroos Represent Australia|kangaroo]]/[[EverythingsEverything's Better With Dinosaurs|dinosaur]]) on contact.
** Bosses, of course, jack this [[Up to Eleven]] ranging from typical dragons, [[Humongous Mecha|giant robots]], and vehicles to sphinx with rockets in its shoulders, a crystalline ice spider, a giant ''electrical'' catfish, and a crazy dominatrix [[Catgirl]].
* ''[[Time Gal]]'' on the Sega CD. That girl has no allies whatsoever. It seems that every era she gets transported to only serves the purpose of pitting her against something or another.
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== [[First -Person Shooter]] ==
* While not exactly ''everything'' trying to kill you, all of the killable characters in the PC game ''Vivisector: Beast Inside'' -- whether they're humans or [[Half -Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] -- attack you the moment you first load up the game, even after you switch from the former's side to the latter. There's an attempt at [[Hand Wave|handwaving]], dealing with some flimsy excuse of the humans not authorizing your presence in the game's setting and the hybrids being programmed to see humans as the enemy, but really, it's just an attempt to bring in [[Fake Difficulty]] to the game.
** Similarly, ''[[Shadow the Hedgehog]]'' has both good and evil enemies, and they'll all attack Shadow regardless of his [[Karma Meter]] (except when they're busy fighting each other!)
** Another example of this sort of thing can be found in ''[[Far Cry]] 2''. Ostensibly you are a mercenary working for one side in a civil war in Africa. They try to [[Hand Wave]] it in game by claiming you're a disposable asset that nobody knows about. In reality even when working a mission for one side you will be attacked by both sides. Constantly.
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*** Even the ''air'' tries to kill you in that game. I am not even joking. The ''air''.
*** ''Super [[Metroid]]'' has a grand total of four organisms that never try to kill you, and you can play through the whole game and never see any of them. The one exception to this are the living nests that will only send other organisms to kill you if you shoot them.
* Every moving thing in the ''[[Contra]]'' series. Of course, your muscular, strong, heavy weapon-carrying hero is nothing but a [[One -Hit -Point Wonder]].
* ''[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/422675 The Unfair Platformer]''. Yup, it's [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin]].
** Beware of message boxes!
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* The ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' NES game should qualify for this. During the game, Buster and his companions repeatedly get killed by rats, crabs, fish, pirates, hedgehogs, owls, squirrels, bees, dogs, cats, Sweetie Bird (isn't she supposed to be one of the ''good'' guys?!), slime, pails, footballs, eyeballs, pens, coins, and of course, [[Goddamned Bats]].
* In ''Pizza Pop'', everything, including cats, dogs, construction workers, ghosts and jack 'o lanterns are trying to kill the pizza deliverer.
* ''[[Terramex]]'' contains, among others: acid rain, dragons, snakes that pop up from the very rocks... and your character is a [[One -Hit -Point Wonder]].
* All ''[[Kid Niki]]'' games, especially the third one which had flying banana peels, flowers which shoot at you, statues shaking their private parts at you, hairy plant legs and so on.
* ''[[Back to The Future (Video Game)|Back to The Future]] II and III''. Enemies include giant snails, fish, mutant frogs, birds, bouncing balls, dinosaurs, bullet-shooting clouds, pipe monsters, ghosts, walking trashcans and in certain areas, books, test tubes, teddy bears, heart symbols, graduation hats and screwdrivers. The list goes on.
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** Solar systems. Every ''[[Dragon Quest (Video Game)|Dragon Quest]]'' game featured some bizarre enemies, it seems. ''[[Dragon Quest II (Video Game)|Dragon Quest II]]'' had robots, in a medieval fantasy. ''[[Dragon Quest III (Video Game)|Dragon Quest III]]'' had jewel bags, carnivorous treasure chests, and evil mushrooms. ''[[Dragon Quest VI (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VI]]'' had evil mirrors, castles, and waves.
* Similar to the ''[[Dragon Quest VIII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VIII]]'' example, one of the bosses in the second ''[[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]]'' game is called Cathedral. It is [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin]].
* Similar to those two examples above, Hell House from ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]''. It's a small house... that sprouts a head, arms and legs and tries to crush Cloud and co. Oh, and it fires out [[Nuke 'Em|nukes]] as an attack.
* So many [[RPG|RPGs]] employ the use of deadly walls as bosses that they may deserve their own subtrope. These come in the "passive" variety, which will stay put as they try to kill you (''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]''), and the "aggressive" variety, [[Advancing Wall of Doom|that advance either on a timer or over a set number of turns and crush the party]] for an instant game over (''Secret of Mana'') or an instant kill (''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]]''). Or the kind that advances to crush you on a timer AND attacking regularly (''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'').
* ''[[Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga (Video Game)|Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'' has the killer soda creature called the Chuckolator, which is exactly what it sounds like. It has a shield and sword, and is healed by bad jokes. There's also a yo-yo wielding Hammer Bro species.
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** ''[[Super Mario RPG (Video Game)|Super Mario RPG]]'' has a wedding cake as a ''boss'' at one point. You fight the chefs that made the cake and they flee when the cake comes to life. The cake's signature attack is Standstorm, which attacks the whole party and causes Fear, cutting your defense in half. The hard part was you can't kill it traditionally at first. You have to "blow" out the candles by attacking and it relights one candle when its turn comes up. Only after you get rid of the top layers that you can attack the bottom layer normally and when you do beat it, Booster comes in [[Just Eat Him|and swallows the cake whole.]] [[Big Lipped Alligator Moment|Mario and his crew then just move on as if nothing happened...]]
* In ''[[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]]'', the krogan homeworld Tuchanka ''IS'' this trope incarnate. The main reason the krogan were so dangerous was that anything the universe could throw at them paled in comparison to what was waiting to kill them in their sock drawer every morning. The Codex notes with a bit of amusement that it took the invention of gunpowder to make the krogan marginally more dangerous than the surrounding species thus making death by gunshot ''slightly'' more common than being eaten by wild animal.
** Just to put some numbers on this, the Genophage was a [[Depopulation Bomb|bioweapon]] released on the krogan which renders all but one in a thousand pregnancies non-viable. The net effect of this is to reduce krogan population growth to "pre-industrial levels". [[LaymansLayman's Terms|To translate]]: Tuchanka was so dangerous that ''99.9% of krogan died before they could reproduce''.
** On a somewhat less extreme note, the quarian race has... odd immune systems. In that, any foreign organism can and usually does trigger an allergic reaction that has the potential to be severe enough to be fatal. They have to wear pressurized suits at ''all'' times because on any given planet, space station, or ship, the act of ''breathing '''can get them killed'''''.
*** Quarians immune systems are so weak that - in case of war - they just bomb the shit out of everything from orbit. Quarian infantry is very well trained but extremely vulnerable, as a single suit breach (while not immediatly fatal, the suit can self repair and floods the users system with antibiotics) can severly hamper the ability of the marine to fight on.
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* While trekking across the desert in ''[[Secret of Evermore]]'', the player will be actively pursued by ''tumbleweeds'' trying to do him harm.
 
== [[Shoot 'Em Up]] ==
* The ''very premise'' of obscure NES shooter ''[[Gun Nac]]'' is that normally docile animals and even inanimate objects mysteriously come alive and start attacking... everything! Of course, it's up to our hero to find the cause of this madness.
* ''[[Geometry Wars]]'' is pretty much this trope, to the point where the only things NOT trying to kill you are the walls, and (ironically enough) the mines left by the spiked mine-layers. Which ''do'' kill you if you make contact with them.
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* In ''[[Silent Hill 1 (Video Game)|Silent Hill 1]]'', Harry must get a dagger off the door of a fridge. Simple, right? Not quite. If you don't use an item called "Ring of Contract" on the door and try to walk away from the fridge, a cutscene kicks in, which shows a ''huge tentacle that grabs onto Harry's leg and drags him off into the abyss''.
* The SNES horror game ''[[Clock Tower (Video Game)|Clock Tower]]''. If you look in the mirror in the bedroom your reflection might suddenly reach out ''and strangle you''.
** If you release the parrot from its cage (also in the bedroom) it will fly around the room screeching "[[I'll Kill You!|I'LL KILL YOU]]!" and repeatedly swoop down to claw at your face.
** Unlike many games on this list, in ''Clock Tower'' the heroine has the following survival skills to mitigate these dangers: Panic, Run Away, and Hide inside things ( {{spoiler|And if you're lucky, there won't be something inside those things that is ''also'' trying to kill you.}})
* In ''[[Alan Wake]]'', ninety percent of the locals will try and kill you. Tame enough -but also, darkness-possessed items ranging from crates, giant cable spools, tires and barrels will animate and fling themselves at you repeatedly. Oh, and ''vehicles'' will become possessed and try and run you over or otherwise murder you. Trees will suddenly snap and fall, bridges will collapse, flocks of angry crows will attack, boats and train cars will ''drop out of the sky'' to crush you... And sometimes not even the ''ground'' is safe, being littered with bear traps and puddles of evil black goo. Yeah, this game loves this trope.
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* [[New Horizon]]. Well, okay, it's more accurate to say ''almost'' everything is trying to kill you, and quite a few of those things are really freaking good at it. Tellingly, almost every major city has tall, thick walls...
* [[Warhammer 40000]] is an example where ''everything in the setting'' is trying to kill each other.
* If you're a [[Promethean: The Created|Promethean]], your very existence ''pisses off reality''. No, seriously - the universe quite literally hates Prometheans, and makes it impossible for them to live peacefully. Spend more than a few minutes around humans? [[Hate Plague|Good chance they'll try to kill you.]] Try to pet a dog? [[Evil -Detecting Dog|It tries to take your hand off.]] That odd-shaped rock? Good chance it's actually the results of your kind's generative act gone wrong, forced into dormancy and waiting to be awakened by your presence, and the only way it can survive is by eating your viscera. Stay in one place more than a day? ''[[Walking Wasteland|The land itself wants you dead.]]'' Hang around your own species? Some of them are okay, but others have decided that this whole "Pilgrimage" business is a waste of time, and they ''like'' the powers being a horrid excuse for a living being can bring, and they can gain more power by doing unspeakable things to you. The entire world and everything in it is out for the fluid that passes for blood in your veins. [[To Become Human|There's a way out.]] [[Earn Your Happy Ending|Good luck.]]
 
 
== [[Third -Person Shooter]] ==
* The ''[[Crusader (Video Game)|Crusader]]'' games, being set in a [[Dystopia|dystopic future]] run by a [[Mega Corp]] so obsessed with profit their attitude towards [[Bad Boss|things like worker safety]] makes China's human rights record look like they give dissenters pats on the backs for being good chaps, has a some less ridiculous variants of this. However, as the game progresses, the nearly-invisible traps, sensors, and hidden weapons of moderate destruction get so cramped you'll be surprised they have room for their [[Science Is Bad|immoral experiments]]. And then there's the vending machines that randomly dispense grenades instead of soda.
** It's not uncommon in certain parts of the game for random scientists to walk into a trap and blow themselves up the moment you enter the screen, often before they could even possibly be aware of your existence.
* Sera from ''[[Gears of War]]'' is one inhospitable place. Not only is there an invading army of monsters from below, but there's also the lethal Imulsion, the [[Goddamn Bats|Kryll, who will kill you if you so much as step in darkness]], and ''Razorhail'' which is [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin]].
** It's actually been speculated that this is due to Sera's messed up ecosystem after the COG implemented its scorched earth policy.
* [[Dead Space (Franchise)|Dead Space]] in any of its incarnations. Evil undead aliens? Check. [[No OSHA Compliance|Killer spaceship design?]] Check. Insane survivors? Par for the course. [[Spanner in The Works|Traitor in your team?]] But of course. Giant meteors pummeling the ship? Hell yes. No wonder the [[Kill 'Em All|death toll is so high.]]
 
 
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** Similarly, there's a couple of cheats for ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas]]'' where C.J. can jump really, really high, but the cheat does nothing for his ability to land. So basically you can jump two stories, but unless there's something a story high for you to land on, you're going to take damage when you land. Further, the cheat is only useful ''at all'' in the suburban areas or country towns. out in the country or parks, there's nothing to land on but the ground. In the city, everything's too high. So you can't jump on anything ''and'' you hurt when you land.
* In ''[[The Godfather (Video Game)|The Godfather]]: The Game'', it's possible to anger the police into going after you and at just over two out of five Vendetta "boxes" filled, enemy gangsters of the relevant Family will open fire as you get near enough, whether in a car or on foot. If you're spectacularly bloodthirsty, masochistic or unfortunate, you can be fired on by all four enemy Families and the police, making it very difficult to get anywhere. Combined with your character's near-realistic squishiness and you get this trope.
* ''[[STALKER]]'' is set in a nuclear wasteland where you never more the one hundred metres from a killer human, mutant, patch of radioactivity or anomaly that with decorate the countryside with your entrails. Its also one of the few [[First -Person Shooter|First Person Shooters]] where you can die of starvation.
* ''[[Spore]]'' and ''Galactic Adventures'', while at first glance isn't capable of this, is actually ''designed'' to embody this trope if the creator so wishes. Oh look at those cute and cuddly looking monkey things by that nest ove-NOOO!! [[Zerg Rush|They're everywhere!]]
** ''Adventures'' will really jack this one up simply because you can take advantage of all the creators to create some very dangerous enemies and obstacles. Soldiers, [[Space Marine|space marines]], angry tribe members, exploding trees, very explosive fuel storage containers, killer whoopie cushions, Clark & Stanley, space ships that look like gnomes, and whatever else you used to "create the universe"...
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== Web Comics ==
* In the faux-videogame [[Web Comic]] ''[[Kid Radd]]'', the eponymous hero sprite is damaged by apples and bazookas (and by touching [[The Goomba|Bogey]]). And he's damaged ''the same amount'' by each one. This is ''a major plot point''.
* Parodied (of course) in ''[[Adventurers (Webcomic)|Adventurers]]!''. The party encounters an [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0080.html Inanimate Chair] and somehow can't run away from it. An [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0343.html encounter] with [[Dancing Pants|evil pants]] is [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/0344.html immediately followed] by one with a [[Rock Me, Asmodeus|demonic boombox]]. As Ardam says when [http://adventurers.keenspot.com/d/20030113.html facing down a killer coffin], "It really says something about our lives that this doesn't seem at all weird."
* Castle Heterodyne in ''[[Girl Genius (Webcomic)|Girl Genius]]'', which also counts as [[Malevolent Architecture]]. {{spoiler|Since it recognizes Agatha as its master, the central AI won't hurt her. Or people she explicitly and unambiguously ordered not to. Everything ''not'' under its control will still try to kill her, and [[Everything Trying to Kill You]] still applies to everybody ''else'' in the castle}}.
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' has Annie [http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=875 joking] about various entities trying to end her story.
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== Western Animation ==
* The original ''[[My Little Pony]]'' series was filled with [[Vile Villain Saccharine Show|vile villains]], misplaced magical artifacts, and deadly wildlife.
** Mind you [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (Animation)|Friendship is Magic]] isn't slouching around in this department either; the Everfree Forest is filled with near Australia grade deadly wildlife and plants.
* ''[[Futurama]]'' loves this trope, what with being set in a [[Crap Saccharine World|Crapsaccharine]] future and all. "Ghost in the Machines" takes this to the logical extreme, with Bender possessing nearly every appliance that Fry interacts with.
{{quote| '''Fry:''' I was attacked in my bathroom, ''by'' my bathroom! }}
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== Live Action TV ==
* [[Deadliest Catch (TV)|Deadliest Catch]]: This show is loaded with lethal things. [[Giant Wall of Watery Doom|Ship crushing waves]], [[Kill It With Ice|icebergs and ice in the rigging]], [[Kill It With Water|falling overboard in near-freezing water]], boats have been [[Kill It With Fire|destroyed by fire]], and finally, most ironically, 1000 pound crab pots [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|swinging around like piñatas]].
 
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** Technically, it's only the largest ''surviving'' collection of large carnivores. Most of the world had an impressive selection during the Pleistocene.
** It should also be noted that, when people talk about the most poisonous/dangerous animals ''not'' from Australia, chances are they're from Africa.
** Even more among humans, there are [[Well -Intentioned Extremist|religious extremism]] in the North (like Egypt) and [[The Virus|AIDS]] in the Sub-Saharan regions.
* Anyplace that's had prolonged brushfire wars is likely to qualify, even if they're long since over. Two words: land mines. Now the freakin' ''ground'' is trying to kill you!
* [http://www.cracked.com/article_15816_5-most-horrifying-bugs-in-world.html Very relevant to this trope.] [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|But especially the Japanese giant hornets and Africanized bees.]]
* Mexico. If it ain't the cartel, the corrupt cops, or even some enterprising thug, it's the water (yeah it's true), the rattlesnakes, the wolves, the sharks, the coyotes...ay, let's just say that Mexico ain't a very friendly place.
* Florida could stand a mention. The natives or long-term residents love to freak out the newcomers by blandly discussing the many things that could kill you, and the 'survival skills' that make up an essential part of childhood education. (Such as The Stingray Shuffle, running Zig-Zag from gators, "Red and yellow kills a fellow. Red and black is safe for Jack"....)
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** Also, Angel's Landing, though not in Moab, about 100 or so miles south in Zion. The National Park Service recognizes five deaths on that trail. Have fun falling 1,200 feet to your death!
* And speaking of Utah, want some water from our largest lake? Yeah, it's four times saltier than the ocean. Located right next to a desert where the ground is made of salt. Have fun getting to California!
* Time. If you avoid all the things listed here and never visit Australia, even if you become a [[BraininaBrain In A Jar]] or [[Ascend to A Higher Plane of Existence]], something will kill you eventually. You might make it to [[Apocalypse How|the ultimate end of all reality]] if you're lucky, but even if there is no such thing and time is infinite, the nature of infinity means that if it is possible for you to die, you will eventually, no matter how unlikely.
 
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Truth in Television]]
[[Category:Everything Trying To Kill You]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]