Knife Outline: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

Either by accident or design, a [[Flechette Storm|swarm of sharp objects]] (such as knives, [[Rain of Arrows|arrows]] or axes) are hurtling toward the character. They somehow pin the character to the wall [[Never Bring a Knife to A Fist Fight|without actually cutting the character]] (one by each side, arm, leg, etc.), with one final object disturbingly close to the head (or [[Groin Attack|crotch]], depending on the character's gender and/or show's maturity level). Sometimes, especially in animated versions, the character has to go through increasingly complex contortions to make sure they didn't get hit.

 

 

{{examples}}

* The above picture is from the fifth season of ''[[Ranma ½]]''.

** Mousse also does this with knives to a patron flirting with Shampoo in another episode of the anime.

** there is a serious [[Mood Whiplash]] in the scene as the same [[Rain of Arrows]] wipes out all nearby civillians.

* In episode 6 of ''[[Pani Poni Dash!]]'', after irritating Becky one too many times with her opening and closing of the door to her private lab without saying anything, Akira Miyata gets this treatment with a bunch of pens, although in her case the pens blow past her and cut a perfect outline on the wall behind her.

* In ''[[CLAMP School Detectives]]'', during a kidnapping situation, [[The Stoic|Suoh]] does this to a mook with some kunai, in order to find out where [[Great Detective|Nokoru]] is. His last hit manages to break the mook's glasses in half, ''without even scratching his face.''

* During one incident in ''[[Samurai Deeper Kyo]]'', the villain does this to Kyoshiro, who plays dead. Then his stomach rumbles.

* Part of Catherine's and Trowa's circus act in ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' involves this (Trowa is pinned, Catherine throws the knives). In this case it's used to show just how fearless Trowa is, as when Catherine accidentally throws a knife close enough to draw blood, he doesn't flinch in the slightest. Heck, he doesn't even ''blink''.

 

* DC Comics [[Green Arrow]] & Speedy have been known to catch crooks with arrow outlines.

* One [[Charles Addams]] comic (the man who went on to create ''[[The Addams Family]]'') involved a nice couple in a hotel room, noticing (with understandable concern) the tips of knives protruding through their wall in a human shape. The suggestion was that this trope had occurred in the next room.

* ''[[Batman]]: [[The Long Halloween]]'' had this with bullets leaving an outline around the Riddler. Approximately five times as many bullets as the weapon in question could actually hold. And no explanation of why the Riddler wouldn't run away while the shooter was reloading. (Except the [[Rule of Cool]]).

* In the ''[[Lucky Luke]]'' episode "The Rivals of Painful Gulch", there is a [[Family Feud]] between two clans. The fact that all of them are very lousy marksmen is hilariously underlined by a bullet outline which has a form of a typical member of one of these clans.

 

* Modern use, but inspired by classical cartoons, in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]'', this time with crotch near-miss.

* Appears in Disney's ''Hercules'', when the hero tries throwing knives and nearly hits Phil:

* In ''[[The Rescuers Down Under]]'', one of McLeach's attempts to break Cody is to deliberately make one of these around him.

* Sort of half-humorous example in [[Hayao Miyazaki|Hayao Miyazaki's]] ''[[The Cat Returns]]''. The darts cut the cat's "bra" straps (even though most other cats wear no clothing at all) and the guy throwing them gets defenestrated.

* This poster for ''[[Ratatouille]]''.

* During the final battle from ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'', just right before he even [[One-Winged Angel|he turns into]] [[Scaled Up|a snake,]] [[Big Bad|Jafar]] actually sends an entire barrage of knives he created from his own magic at Aladdin while mocking him, [[Hurricane of Puns|"Get the Point?!"]]

 

== Films -- Live Action ==

* A character in the Chinese martial-arts comedy ''The Duel'' accidentally fires off a knife-launching device; another character is somehow pinned to the nearest wall ''five feet off the floor'', with one knife caught in his teeth.

* Realistic film example: Not quite an outline, but [[James Bond (film)|James Bond]] ends up pinned to a door thanks to a couple of thrown knives in ''[[Octopussy]]''. [[Justified Trope|In fairness though]], the guy who did this was a circus knife-thrower.

* Terrifying live action example in [[Martin Scorsese]]'s ''[[Gangs of New York]]''. "Whoopsy-daisy!"

* Played straight as an <ahem> arrow in ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtgcJBXD4sA Bedknobs and Broomsticks]'' (at 7:00).

** Somewhat off-kilter, in a way-they didn't throw the spears, merely pinned him while still holding them and forced him to demonstrate calmness under pressure. If he didn't kiss well enough, they moved the spears a bit.

** Birgitte does this to Nynaeve as a circus act. With arrows shot from 100 paces.

"Fuck the spear work," growled Valentinian. "The kid never even blinked! ''That's'' amazing. I may never fuck again, just from watching." }}

* In [[Garry Kilworth]]'s ''The Silver Claw'', a knife-thrower is on the list of murder suspects. At the beginning of his act he does a Knife Outline on another suspect's arm. The victim reacts with anger and is booed offstage. The detective hero then observes the knifethrower during his act and sees that, when challenged to hit the centre of a playing card pinned to the wall, he simply outlines it and can't hit the centre, because "he has trained all his life to ''miss'' things, not to hit them."

 

== Live Action TV ==

== Tabletop Games ==

* In the superhero [[Tabletop RPG]] ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'', a feat (Ranged Pin) can be taken that allows this trope. Note that it only works on one attack. I'm pretty sure there's some special action you can take to allow an outline, though...

 

 

 

== Web Animation ==

 

 

* Also showed up often in ''[[Looney Tunes]]''.

* This is Mai's specialty on ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''.

** Katara and other water-benders pull it off on occasion by bending water into ice-knives. Pakku once did it to Katara with a bunch of icicles, which the [[DVD Commentary]] noted was a [[Shout-Out]] to a similar scene in ''[[House of Flying Daggers]]'' involving large stalks of bamboo.

* In an episode of ''[[The Simpsons]]'', Maggie pins Homer to a wall with a staple gun. She even went as far as to pin his ears.

** Actually a subversion of this trope, because she pins him to the wall with a '''Nail Gun'''. ''By the palms of his hands'', and ''then'' both his ears.

* Gosalyn does this to Negaduck in the ''[[Darkwing Duck]]'' episode "Quiverwing Quack". Negaduck ends up pinned to a wall in his costume with arrows, but somehow escapes when Darkwing isn't looking.

* Valerie does this to Vlad Plasmius in ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' with large needles. He phases out of them. Better luck next time.

* ''[[King of the Hill]]''. Dale Gribble has gone further around the bend this time and has arranged traps to catch a rogue singer (no, really). Hank gets a mess of arrows shot around him, then is pulled to the floor and one final arrow hits where his forehead was a second ago. {{spoiler|It turns out later that Dale was completely right.}}

* Parodied three time in the ''[[Stroker and Hoop]]'' episode "Ninja Worrier": first when a female ninja shows off by doing this to Hoop with ninja stars, including one on his crotch which actually nicked his testicle because "that one leans left". When she shows him again and he's luckily wearing a crotch guard. Then he practices it on her, and misses several times, though she thought this was funny.

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Animation Tropes]]

[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]