Guns Are Worthless: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Elie, the main female in ''[[Rave Master]]'', wields two guns with exploding ammo. They win her all of one fight and are only of notable aid once. They hammer this home by having the [[Big Bad]] catch one of her bullets in his teeth when fired from too short a range to dodge.

* [[Neon Genesis Evangelion]] occasionally has the Evangelions fight the angels with firearms, ranging from pistols to multi-shot bazookas and ''really'' huge sniper rifles. The shell casings from the Evangelions' weapons can crush cars, but the actual rounds do nearly nothing against the Angels. The Evas' [[Vibroweapon|Progressive Knives]] have killed more Angels than the skyscraper-sized rifles.

 

== Films ==

* Ranged weapons in ''[[Star Wars]]'' vary depending on the target. Against most of the universe, the commonality of blasters makes guns very useful to have at your side, since the only defense against them is some good armor or solid cover. Against Jedi, blasters are useless unless present in large amounts, since enough shots can overwhelm Jedi by the sheer number of blasters to block or deflect. Averted with the much rarer real guns, called ''slugthrowers'' in-universe, that are nearly impossible to block by Jedi - they can sense them, but the lightsaber can't deflect it as it can a blaster bolt. Lightsabers cut through stuff by melting it apart. A bullet would also be melted by a lightsaber, but that doesn't make it any less aimed at your face. Instead of a blocked bullet, you get a superheated blob of liquid metal, ''retaining the same amount of kinetic energy'', that probably still hits hard enough to get into your flesh. Where it's still liquid metal. Really, it's just a bad idea.

** In star wars lightsabers have a very short list of things they can't instantly cut through the most famous being Mandalorian iron used by Boba Fett. Even so it only resists lightsabers, if you keep hitting it will eventually give out. However almost all the substances that can block, short out or defend against a lightsaber are rare or expensive to make and as such are used to explain the lack of them in every story.

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Dune]]'' goes out of its way to make ranged weapons useless through personal shields, which make the wearer immune to all damage (except lasers, but that ends with both laser and shield going nuclear)--except, in order to allow air through, the shields have to be set to allow anything moving below a certain speed threshold to pass through. This means that soldiers and assassins are trained to slow their strike at the precise moment just enough to get through the shield.

** Averted in the open desert on the planet Arrakis (Dune) itself, however: shields are one of the surest ways to call a sandworm. Consequently, the Fremen do not wear shields, and battles in the desert use traditional artillery and firearms.

** In the second novel, the protagonist creates a gun that works despite the use of neutralizing fields. It uses compressed air to launch a small disc whose edges are also [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]]s. These projectiles also act as hollow-point bullets and bounce around in the target's body, [[Nightmare Fuel|shredding his organs]].

** Since air guns work fine, one wonders why nobody is using bows and crossbows, with ammo tipped with an [[Absurdly Sharp Blade]].

* ''The Trigger'' invokes an accidental invention of a device that sets off all explosives within its radius, allowing for creating zones where it is impossible to bring in guns and where incoming explosives would blow up before reaching the target at the center. Criminals quickly find ways to exploit this behavior, so further scientific developments create a field where the explosive reactions cannot happen at all. Criminals proceed to use conventional missile weapons. {{spoiler|Then, the scientists realize that they've been misunderstanding how the device works the entire time, and it can be used to prevent any specific chemical reaction including the metabolism of a target with specific DNA. The book closes on their horror at realizing they've created the ultimate murder weapon.}}

* In the ''[[Dresden Files]]'' novel ''Proven Guilty'', Harry advises against bringing guns on their expedition into Faerie because there are [[Eldritch Location|parts of Faerie]] where gunpowder is inert. Murphy and Thomas both bring guns into Faerie anyway and also carry melee weapons as well, and it turns out that firearms work just fine around Arctis Tor.

** The [[The Dresden Files (game)|RPG]] goes on at some length about how guns will get the attention of even the supernaturals when they're brought out. While it might not have the flash of a fireball, or the power of a troll's fists, the description notes that few things convey the idea that someone is deadly serious like pulling out a gun.

* In the ''[[Book of Amber|Chronicles of Amber]]'', it's not so much that guns don't work as gunpowder doesn't ignite in Amber. Corwin gets around this by finding a powder which does ignite, after which the weapons work just fine.

* L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Recluce novels have fairly good reasons why any weapon using gunpowder is useless. Chaos mages can set off gunpowder from a distance (typically somewhere outside the maximum effective range of the average firearm), or else make themselves invisible so as to get close enough otherwise. It isn't until late in the series chronology that we see firearms deployed to any great effect by any considerable force, and then it's essentially because shell casings have been invented (the shells prevent a chaos mage from tampering with the powder). Until this happens, arrows (particularly iron arrows, because chaos mages have a rough time with iron) are nearly the only reliable projectile weapons in the series.

* In Edgar Rice Burroughs's "John Carter of Mars" novels the Martians have absurdly powerful firearms, but a nearly unbreakable cultural taboo against fighting a foe with "unequal weapons." So when an army of troops with radium rifles face swordsman John Carter, they instantly draw their own blades instead of gunning him down.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' is a definite example of this. One episode even has Buffy picking up a gun and saying "These things. Never useful."

** That's about fighting vampires, 'cause bullets hurt but don't kill them. Against Buffy herself... There is an early episode where Buffy was HELPLESS against a gun-wielding vampire, and survived only because Angel, shot early by the same vampire, rose and staked the attacker. Another episode where Buffy faced against a powerful demon named The Judge that no weapon forged could destroy. So her usual arsenal of blade weapons wouldn't harm him. She then blows him up with a rocket launcher.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* Guns in ''[[Feng Shui]]'' are funny things. Because of the rules, a single bullet can put down a [[Mooks|Mook]] with little problem, but named heroes and villains alike get the benefit of [[Almost-Lethal Weapons]] when dealing with guns—against named characters, your average pistol is only going to cause as much damage as a kung fu warrior's punch or kick, and when fighting a high-Toughness character like a Big Bruiser, something like a dinky .38 snub revolver isn't going to do much to him except piss him off unless it's a signature weapon. Still, heroes and villains alike in the [[Heroic Bloodshed]] movies that the gun rules try to emulate are known for [[Made of Iron|taking serious amounts of punishment]], sometimes to [[Normally I Would Be Dead Now]] levels, so this may be reflective of genre.

** It is explicitly stated that game tries to capture Hong Kong action movies atmosphere and doesn't even try to imitate reality.

 

== Video Games ==

* In [[The Matrix|The Matrix: Path of Neo]], guns are useless against agents, so Neo is forced to take a more hands on approach with them.

* ''[[Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura]]'' was criticised for having all firearms be severely underpowered compared to melee weaponry. This was especially odd given that the background mentioned a war between two of the kingdoms of Arcanum in which the elite knights of the more backward one had been easily slaughtered by volley fire from poorly trained Tarantian conscripts.

* In the Sam and Max games, both Sam and Max have guns you can use at any time, but they are useless as weapons. The guns are used more like remote controls to hit buttons, bells etc., that you are physically unable to reach. This becomes a running gag through the series.

* ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'' has guns as a weapon type, and as a general rule they do less damage than other weapons. They are somewhat useful against enemies with high evasion, like harpies.

 

== Web Comics ==

 

== Real Life ==

* Let's not forget that the modern firearm is a ''vast'' improvement over the early models when it comes to aiming and reliability. When your projectile-thrower will be more useful as a club if the weather gets a bit too damp for it, it better be a really ''good'' club. Consider, too, the problems that'd be caused if your enemy does not helpfully clump together and the best your guns do for aiming is 'point in general direction of the enemy.' Long story short, what we're saying is that [[Truth in Television|there was in fact an early period of time]] when guns ''were'' worthless. The problem is, people are never seen ''using'' those early worthless models.

** "In effect, rather than making plate armour obsolete, the use of firearms stimulated the development of plate armour into its later stages. For most of that period, it allowed horsemen to fight while being the targets of defending arquebuseers without being easily killed. Full suits of armour were actually worn by generals and princely commanders right up to the second decade of the 18th century. It was the only way they could be mounted and survey the overall battlefield with safety from distant musket fire." [[wikipedia:Armor#Early|- Wikipedia]]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:Reality Is Unrealistic]]

[[Category:This Index Is Useless]]

[[Category:CRPG Tropes]]