Harpoon Gun

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Sometimes, a bow and a quiver of arrows aren't big enough to finish the job; you'll need spear-sized arrows. Thankfully, there's the Harpoon Gun for that.

Harpoon guns are used by divers. In fact, any firearm designed for underwater use is basically a miniature harpoon gun (normal guns simply won't work). Some can reel in anything the harpoon latches onto, thus working like a Grappling Hook Pistol.

Examples of Harpoon Gun include:


Comic Books

Film

  • The final fight of Face Off involves a harpoon gun.
  • Star Trek IV the Voyage Home: at the end of the movie, some whalers shoot a Harpoon Gun at the rescued whales.
    • Their expression is priceless when it bounces off a cloaked Bird-of-Prey, which then proceeds to decloak.
  • Jeepers Creepers 2: Jack Sr hunts the Creeper using a homemade harpoon gun.
  • In the third Friday the 13 th film, Jason uses harpoon gun to kill Vera, namely shooting her in the eye.
    • In the next film he uses a harpoon gun to kill one of the men. By stabbing him into the groin and finishing it by pulling the trigger.
    • In Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason uses one of these to kill a teenager on the boat - but since he doesn't have the coordination to pull back the bungees, the unlucky schlub gets stabbed with the whole harpoon gun.
  • And, of course, in The Dead Pool.
  • The killer in Happy Hell Night gets harpooned when he is stalking the protagonists in the attic.
  • The climactic battle in Thunderball is fought by at least fifty men armed with harpoon guns. And the use of a harpoon gun on a mook led to the immortal line, “I think he got the point.”
  • Frequently used as weapons in Into The Blue.

Literature

  • A Series of Unfortunate Events involves a harpoon gun in the twelfth book, even lampshading its status as a Chekhov's Gun. Dewey Denouement is accidentally killed with it. Esme also whips one out in the seventh book, failing to pop the balloons of Hector's flying house but succeeding at destroying Duncan and Isadora's notebooks full of secrets. It's also a major point of suspense in the final book as to when the last spear will be fired, and it finally does, mortally wounding Count Olaf.
  • Terry Pratchett uses "bow-gonne" harpoon guns in the Discworld book Undead; the gonne (gun) is central to the plot in Men At Arms.

Live Action TV

  • Used several times by Mike Nelson in Sea Hunt, and in the similar shows The Aquanauts and Malibu Run.
  • In an episode of Gilligans Island, it's revealed that a man the passengers of the Minnow all had reason to hate was killed with one of these just before the boat left on its "three-hour tour." In the end, we learn that the man was killed by accident, and not murdered.

Tabletop Games

  • The early harpoon gun (cannon actually) in GURPS: High-Tech comes with two caplocks and a brass cover for them due to it being used on ships where the spray was likely to prevent the simple caplock mechanism from working.
  • Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, unsurprisingly, has some, if only for sheer brutality.
    • Dark Heresy has rules in The Inquisitor's Handbook for DIY version dubbed Impaler.
    • Rogue Trader books have Harpoon Gun and its lighter variant Void Speargun occasionally used in boarding action, as they tear void suits that aren't heavily armored, and a heavier version is mounted on an air yacht built for safari.
    • Black Crusade (core) has heavy harpoon gun.
  • Unsurprisingly, 7th Sea has harpoons, harpoons guns, grappling pistols, and a Swordsman school or two based around using them.

Toys

  • Bionicle: Vezok's Water Harpoon and Hahli Inika's Laser Harpoon

Video Games

  • Harpoon Guns are one of your starting weapons in X-COM: Terror of the Deep. They quickly become obsolete.
  • The harpoon gun in the first Devil May Cry. Entering water with it caused an Unexpected Genre Change to FPS since it was the only weapon you could use.
  • BioShock 2: the Spear Gun, with uses normal spears, rocket spears, and trap spears.
  • In Half-Life 2, picking up a harpoon with the gravity gun automatically orients it in a "impale whatever I launch this at" position, making it into a makeshift harpoon gun (rather than the usual "large heavy objects" or sawblade gun).
    • The harpoons seem to be surprisingly glitchy (it can kill friendly NPCs, for instance). See this forum thread (go to "Appendix 1") for details.
  • More than one quest in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King involves shooting down proto-drakes with a harpoon gun. Most notable is the boss Skadi the Ruthless, who has to be shot down before your party can properly fight him on the ground.
  • Your first ship in Skies of Arcadia has one.
  • Used in God of War 3 in a puzzle.
  • Time Splitters: Future Perfect has a harpoon gun with retrievable ammo.
  • Crackdown had one as DLC. You could stick thugs to walls to use as stepping stones, or stick them to cars for an achievement.
  • A few of the early Tomb Raider games have this as one of the many weapons you can get. Naturally, this was the only weapon you could use while swimming in the water, but it was as weak as the default pistols.
  • Dead Space 2: the Javelin Gun, and its secondary fire electrocutes whatever was punctured by the javelin.
  • Your main weapon in the NES Jaws game.
  • Sly Cooper: used by Dimitri Lousteau in the third game.
  • Bubble Man from Rockman No Constancy uses a Harpoon Arm Cannon.
  • Arcanum's insanely powerful, armor class ignoring Blade Launcher.
  • Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines gives one to the Marine. It silently kills enemies at short range.

Web Comics

  • In Homestuck, Jade Harley owns one of these and uses it as a Grappling Hook Pistol. Additionally, Eridan Ampora (and later Liv Tyler) wields a legendary harpoon gun called Ahab's Crosshairs, which fires lightning.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Harpoon_Gun?oldid=1636076"