Harmless Freezing: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* Subverted at first in ''[[One Piece]]''. Initially freezing is treated as a very serious condition and Chopper made sure that the thawing would have to be a slow, gentle process with cold water so as to not to warm up the victims too quickly and crack the frozen tissue. Even after thawing, it still takes a few days for Luffy and Robin to recover. Later gets played straight during {{spoiler|the battle at Marine Headquarters, as Buggy}} gets frozen whole and then thawed from the equally deadly heat of hot magma and only looks a little beat up from the whole ordeal.

** Considering Buggy's devil fruit ability, he might be a special case.

* ''[[SHUFFLE!]]'' plays this straight and averts it on different occasions, depending on if it's a [[Played for Laughs|gag]] or [[Played for Drama|not]].

* In ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]'', the Freeze card entombs in ice the people at an ice skating rink. When Sakura seals the card, everyone is fine afterwards.

 

* Almost all ice-based superheroes. Superheroes have a [[Thou Shalt Not Kill]] rule, so it'd be very inconvenient if they froze someone solid and ended up killing them. Supervillains with ice powers sometimes avert this, since they have no problem with killing people.

** [[DC Comics|Captain Cold]] claims that he only kills on "special occasions" ... despite his completely indiscriminate freezing-to-absolute-zero of anyone who gets in his way, which should have resulted in him having a Joker-sized death tally. When he kills {{spoiler|the Top}} at the end of the Rogue War, he does so by freezing him first and then smashing the ice.

* Iron Man villain Blizzard confused things even more in his first appearance (at the time calling himself Jack Frost) by saying that the people he froze had enough oxygen within the ice to survive. What?

 

* In ''[[Calvin and Hobbes: The Series|Calvin and Hobbes The Series]]'', [[Mad Scientist|Dr.]] [[Harmless Villain|Brainstorm]] can even ''talk'' while frozen.

* In ''[[Undocumented Features]]'', [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|Princess Azula]] at some point was removed from prison by Zuko in order to search for their lost mother, but somehow ended up in the hands of slavers in the "outside" universe, put into cryosleep, and then lost in a glacier on Karafuto, a different Japanese colony world. There she was found in the early 24th century after inspiring a century or two's worth of local folklore.

 

* Captain America in ''[[Captain America: The First Avenger]]''.

** In the 1990 film Captain America was frozen in a block of ice in Alaska, when they dug him out, he breaks free from it on his own.

* The little squirrel from ''[[Ice Age]]'' got buried in an avalanche, stayed frozen for 30,000 years, and when he thawed in the present, he was running around as fast as he always did.

* Frozone from ''[[The Incredibles]]'' freezes cops... they are implied to be okay, just locked into position. Sometimes someone can be frozen, but [[Can Only Move the Eyes|their eyeballs will dart back and forth frantically]].

** [[Incredibly Lame Pun|Copsicles?]]

*** It's a superhero school. Orientation consists of throwing a car at someone to see if they have super strength, and gym class is the kids beating the hell out of each other with fireballs and potentially diving over a giant meat grinder. The freeze ray isn't so bad in comparison.

** If you listen you can hear the teacher tell another student to thaw out the one he froze. As for the guys at the beginning...I'm sure someone got them out of there eventually. And if I remember correctly they kind of had it coming.

* Horribly, horribly toyed with in Andrey Tarkovsky's version of ''Solaris''. Don't go drinking liquid oxygen kiddies, especially if you ''can't be killed that easily.''

* Happens to [[Christopher Lloyd]]'s character in ''[[Suburban Commando]]'' due to Shep's freeze ray; when he comes too, the only ill-effect is a bad headache. [[Large Ham|"I WAS FROZEN TODAYYY!"]]

* In ''[[The Fifth Element]]'' General Munro and two of his men were stuffed in the freezer by Korben Dallas to hide them from the cops. He freed them after a couple of minutes when they were already frozen still. But later on the General seems to be OK again.

* In ''[[The Mask (film)|The Mask]]'' the title character freezes himself (after being ordered to "Freeze!" by Lt. Kellaway), and thaws himself out seconds later with no ill effect. Justified in that he's basically a cartoon character.

* Played straight in ''[[Despicable Me]]'' with Gru's [[Freeze Ray]].

* Happened to the title character in ''Iceman'', a Neanderthal or other primitive man frozen for many thousands of years in a glacier. He is revived without much in the way of complications.

* ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]''. The original Thing was frozen for around 100,000 years. When it's thawed out it's completely fine.

* ''[[In Like Flint]]''. Flint's girlfriends are put in cryogenic freezers with no preparation. After he defrosts them they're completely O.K.

 

*** Corbett, the corpsicle-turned-starship pilot who is the main protagonist of ''Rammer'' and ''[[A World Out Of Time]]'' gets to the future this way

* Hinzelman of ''[[American Gods]]'' tells one of his tall tales about how, when it got cold enough, his great-grandfather would dig a trench and give his wife, children and hired help a drink of herbs, then freeze them and bury them in the trench and dig them up in spring.

* A short story titled "Whatever Gods May Be" (author unknown) subverted this: the main character volunteered to be left behind on Mars after an accident meant their ship didn't have the fuel to take off with the full crew. He told the other astronauts he'd freeze himself to wait for rescue, but in fact he ''knew'' there was no chance of survival—claiming to expect rescue was just his way of making sure this disaster wouldn't end space exploration.

** Justified, as almost nothing in Everworld works the way its supposed to.

 

* Part of the premise of the ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer" skits.

** Of course, the people who find him make a big fuss about how improbable it is that he was frozen under the exact conditions necessary for him to survive, and eventually conclude that he's a [[Time Travelers Are Spies|spy]].

* Somewhat subverted in an episode of ''[[H₂O: Just Add Water]]''. When Emma accidentally freezes Miriam, Cleo and Rikki spend the rest of the episode ''very'' carefully thawing her out.

** Episode "The Condemned Of Space". The Robinsons encounter an abandoned prison filled with inmates who served out their sentences while frozen. When their sentences were up, they were unfrozen and released.

 

* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''

** 1st edition adventure I6 ''Pharaoh''. One trap in the Sunken City of Pazar is a wall of absolute cold. Anyone touching it is frozen solid, but can be revived by either a slow thawing or being instantly defrosted by a Fireball or Flame Strike spell.

* Generic RPG supplement ''Booty and the Beasts''. The Cryogenic Jellyfish can freeze other creatures solid. If the frozen creature makes its constitution roll, it can be thawed out and be completely unharmed.

 

* In ''[[Bionicle]]'', all recorded cases of freezing have been harmless, unless the victim gets [[Literally Shattered Lives|smashed to pieces]] while they are frozen. Handwaved in that most of the characters are cyborgs with only a small amount of organic tissue.

 

* ''[[Freedom Force]]'' has Freezing as a status effect. It inflicts no harm (though the attack that inflicts it may cause damage), and can be dispelled by attacking the frozen hero. It's annoying for you, because it puts a hero out of action for a decent length of time unless you break them out, but at least the breakout attack inflicts no damage.

* Sub-Zero from ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' goes both ways; most of his moves hurt but don't cause lasting harm, but when it comes time to [[Finishing Move|"Finish Him"]]...

** Also, in ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', a few creatures (baby and adult Sheegoths, Thardus, as well as the first form of the titular Metroid Prime that you encounter) have attacks capable of freezing Samus; the remedy is of the "mash B until the ice breaks" type. She ''is'' wearing a Power Suit; whether this would help or hurt in real life is... debatable.

*** Uh, her power suit lets her survive lava, acid, and space. So long as her suit isn't breached, she'll be fine. And if Metroid Prime's death scenes are to be believed, 0 health is *when* her suit is breached.

** It also becomes a case of [[Smashing Survival]], where the player must button mash and/or rotate the analog stick in order to break Link free sooner, thus lessening the ice damage.

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker|The Wind Waker]]'', Link's ice arrows will freeze enemies solid, but they break out a few seconds later unless the damage was enough to kill them...or unless you smash them with a hammer.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|Twilight Princess]]'' has a partial subversion: if you get frozen while wearing the Zora Suit, you immediately suffer a [[Game Over]].

* Nintendo seems to love this one. ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Melee'' has the Freezie item, which does just that: encase the target in a block of ice. They do take damage, but no lasting effects afterwards.

* In ''[[Spyro the Dragon]] 3'', Spyro gains a freezing breath attack on a particular level. It encases NPCs in the classic cartoon ice cube, which thaws after a few seconds. Anyone frozen is, of course, completely fine. This ability comes in handy during a minigame, where you play a version of ice hockey that involves using frozen pink cats as gigantic cuboid pucks. ([http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=19ky1VujpK8 link]. Skip ahead to about 1:00, and try to ignore the narrator). You also use it to defend a figure skating polar bear named Nancy from hockey-playing rhinos.

** Somewhat justified. Anybody who you're not specifically meant to kill is invulnerable to anything. Fry them? They'll jump comedically. Headbutt them? They'll fly a short distance, land, shake their heads, and get up. In rare cases, you may even be able to supercharge them. Of course, then there are those times that you'd supercharge an NPC and bounce off harmlessly. Clearly "Harmless" is a relative term in the Spyroverse.

* The first ''[[Commander Keen]]'' game had this, and exploiting Harmless Freezing was necessary to access the [[Bonus Stage|secret level]].

* Played straight in ''[[Touhou]]'', where Cirno, [[An Ice Person|an ice fairy]], enjoys freezing frogs as a hobby and a test of power. The frogs defrost harmlessly most of the time, though one in every three will shatter.

** As seen below in "Real Life", [[Justified Trope]], as some frogs are capable of living through being frozen.

* ''[[Resident Evil]] 5'' has Nitrogen rounds which briefly freeze your enemy, allowing you to attack or run away, whichever your preference.

* ''[[Castlevania]]'' plays this straight in many games (whether with freezing or [[Taken for Granite|petrification]]) with the [[Button Mash]] to freedom variety. Certain enemies are vulnerable to both.

* ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' has the Frozen status effect which results in a [[One-Hit Kill]] if the frozen character then receives a physical attack. They can be thawed out with a fire-based attack too.

* ''[[Overlord|Overlord II]]'' has both the yeti and the young overlord frozen into blocks of ice. The former is hacked out with an axe while the later is thawed by a dragon.

* If you use the freeze powerup in ''[[Backyard Sports|Backyard Hockey]]'', the enemy will thaw out unharmed a few minutes later.

* The [[Shoot'Em Up]] ''[[In the Hunt]]'' had [[Freeze Ray|freeze rays]] attached to the bottom of icebergs in the first stage. They couldn't destroy the player's submarine, but they could immobilize it for a period of time, allowing enemies to kill you as soon as it defrosted. Interestingly, the [[Freeze Ray|freeze rays]] could also harmlessly freeze enemy submarines too.

* Your [[Freeze Ray]] in ''[[Purple]]'' can't do anything to mooks other than making them your temporal stepping stone. Inverted with special blocks and bosses, who take mere damage instead of freezing.

* In ''[[Odium]]'', freezing paralyzes the frozen party and makes them more vulnerable to attacks. No aftereffects though.

* In ''[[Exit Fate]]'', the status ailment "Freeze" freezes the target solid but does no harm, nor does it incapacitate them in any way you'd normally expect. It does however turn them into a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]] since taking any damage will cause them to ''shatter'' ([[Non-Lethal KO|temporarily]]).

* Inconsistently used in ''[[Batman: Arkham City]]''. Mr. Freeze's gun results levels of frostbite that requires several characters to take steps towards warming themselves back up. However, Batman later acquires a subweapon that can inflict this on opponents, and the Iceberg Lounge features a shark tank that's mostly iced over with a fairly active shark inhabiting it (which should've been seriously sickened, if not killed, by water cold enough to support a layer of ice that could hold up the 210-pound Batman).

* ''[[Monster Girl Quest Paradox]]'' has the Freeze status effect, which prevents the victim acting for several turns and has a low probability of being inflicted by any ice-elemental attack.

 

* In a two-panel sequence by Hugo-nominated artist Taral Wayne, [http://www.furaffinity.net/view/780982/ a furry alien girl gets frozen] when her more advanced (and practically indestructible) alien friend forgets to warn her about a planet's cryogenic environment until it's too late. The [http://www.furaffinity.net/view/780977/ second panel] demonstrates the sophistication of their thawing techniques. It's probably just as well they didn't visit a volcanic planet.

* Though played straight in the [[Chibi]] pages of the prologue of ''[[Drowtales]]'', it was brutally subverted in [[An Ice Person|Sillice's]] battle with {{spoiler|Vy'chriel/Yaeminira}}. Not only did the poor girl freeze to death, her fingers actually snapped apart right before the end!

* In ''[[Everyday Heroes]]'', Matt O'Morph's [[Rubber Man]] body is [http://www.webcomicsnation.com/eddurd/everydayheroes/series.php?view=single&ID=92146 vulnerable to extreme cold.]

* On ''[[8-Bit Theater]]'', Red Mage encases himself, Thief and Fighter in an ice block to turn away an ice dragon ("Huh, lousy jerks froze themselves. Takes all the fun of it"). [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2008/08/05/episode-1021-open-with-a-joke/ It's undone] in a [[Incredibly Lame Pun|groan-inducing way]].

* Kieri of ''[[Slightly Damned]]'' has ice powers along with her water magic, though mostly all she's done with them is [http://www.sdamned.com/2008/05/05122008/ pretty harmless]. [http://www.sdamned.com/2008/10/10112008/ The demon Lazuli, on the other hand...]

 

* In the web fiction serial ''[[Dimension Heroes]]'', Tami oftentimes encases her enemies in solid blocks of ice, though the attacks prove to be little more than minor distractions.

* In the ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' at the beginning of the first Boston Brawl. This one's probably justified, though; [[Mary Sue|Tennyo]] doesn't need to breathe and isn't terribly bothered by temperature extremes (she described being frozen in a block of ice as "a bit chilly"). [[Mary Sue|Lancer]] might've suffocated if [[Mary Sue|Tennyo]] hadn't been able to bust them out in time, but his PK field probably helped shield him from the cold.

 

* ''[[Yvon of the Yukon]]'' has this in its back-story - the eponymous Yvon is supposedly a French mariner from the 18th century preserved this way. Why he spends most of his new life in his underpants is less clear

* In ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'', Katara has encased a couple people in ice who seemed unharmed by it... possibly justified for the Firebenders, not so much for the civilians and Jet (though she at least didn't ''cover his face'', unlike with Zuko and some firebenders).

** And let's not forget Aang himself, who was a [[Human Popsicle]] for an entire century and suffered no ill effects because of it. But as Sokka would say, "[[A Wizard Did It|That's Avatar stuff; that doesn't count.]]" This is actually the stance taken by [[Word of God]].

*** He ''was'' in the [[Limit Break|Avatar State]], though. The full extent of Avatar State powers was never completely explored, and could conceivably include inhumanly controlled breathing. Or maybe he Airbended the carbon dioxide he exhaled into oxygen?

*** More than ice, it was the continuous use of the Avatar state with all that incredible energy in his body for so long that actually burned out a lot of his longevity. But even then, he technically lived for 166 years.

** Much like the wood frogs below, in one episode Sokka and Katara catch some manner of bizarre illness that leaves them extremely loopy. The most effective medicine? Some frogs which survive the winter by being frozen, and should be frozen right about this time of year. But they lose their medical properties if they thaw.

** In the ''Batman/Superman Hour'' episode "Freeze's Frozen Vikings", a number of Mr. Freeze's henchmen are frozen inside an iceberg. When he thaws them out they're perfectly fine.

** '[[The New Adventures of Superman]]'' episode "Prehistoric Pterodactyls". After millions of years frozen in Arctic ice, two pterodactyls are freed and immediately go on a rampage.

* Played straight and subverted in ''[[Batman Beyond]]''. In "Heroes", one of the superpowered trio in that episode freezes multiple people to no apparent ill-effect. Averted with Mr. Freeze, who actually killed one person and only failed to kill Derek Powers because he's living radiation. His cold gun from ''[[Batman: The Animated Series]]'' also shows up, when it is used against Inque. Even though she survived, being a [[Blob Monster]], it still significantly damaged her form and it only took the one shot to put her out for the count. A later attempt to freeze her failed when she compressed herself into a ball, keeping the majority of her bodymass safe from harm.

* On ''[[Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends]]'', heroine Firestar, because of her particular vulnerability to cold, was frozen by villains on more than one occasion.

* ''[[The Herculoids]]'' episode "Mekkor". Igoo is frozen into a giant ice cube by some robots. After Zok melts him out with his laser beams he's fine.

** Of course being a giant ape made of rock might have something to do with it as well.

* In the first ''[[Fairly Oddparents]]'' [[Christmas Episode]], Vicky once froze Timmy and his pals and sold them as ice sculptures. Despite her being the main villain, Timmy suffered no repercussions when he was shown to break free of the ice.

* In ''[[Ben 10: Ultimate Alien]]'', Gwen is encased in ice in "Perplexahedron" by simply being in a extremely cold room. She is thawed out by Swampfire with no problems.

* In the [[Superman Theatrical Cartoons]] ''The Arctic Giant", a Tyrannosaurus Rex frozen for millions of years is accidentally thawed out and goes on a rampage.

* All freezing will do to [[Transformers]] is put them in stasis lock, as Skyfire can attest.

* The AC in Phil's spy taxi in ''[[Yam Roll]]'' does this to Minamiko shortly before Yam Roll accidentally ejects her from the cab.

** {{spoiler|The freezing cold is actually caused by Windigos, spirits of hatred and winter. It is possible to infer from the show that the freezing is a way of keeping to ponies [[And I Must Scream|locked in a state of continual hatred]], upon which the spirits feed.}}

* Happened to at least one character in the ''[[The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes|Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes]]'' episode "The Casket of Ancient Winters."

* Happens to a ''lot'' of mooks in ''[[WITCH (animation)|WITCH]]''. Special mention to [[The Dragon|Cedric]], who gets this treatment repeatedly yet suffers no ill effects despite being a, presumably, cold blooded [[Snake People|giant snake monster]].

* Happens at least twice on ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]''.

** In another episode Phineas and Ferb thaw out a caveman from the conveniently local glacier.

* ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' had this happen to himself and Morgana, while Darkwing was thawed out, Negaduck shattered Morgana's encasing and yet there was no harm done.

* In the second season opener of the ''[[Harley Quinn]]'' cartoon, Harley is frozen by Mr. Freeze, who gives her to the Penguin to use as a decoration for the Iceberg Lounge. It takes ''two months'' for Harley's gang to break her out, and she's just fine when they do.

 

* The Wood Frog, a common sight in most of North America, can freeze solid, every winter, with no ill effects.

** In fact, nearly all aquatic and amphibious life in colder climates is capable of being frozen solid and then thawing out unharmed (though some species may be unable to do this as adults). This means that, yes, some people really ''do'' [[VG Cats|mine]] [[Memetic Mutation|for fish]].

* Certain humans have proven able to adapt to cold that would kill normal people, through extremely difficult training. An episode of ''The Real Superhumans'' covered one such man, who can be buried in ice without trouble and easily withstood cold that would have killed a normal human in under an hour with no ill effects.

 

 

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