Lava Is Boiling Kool-Aid: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''Using Surf to cross ''lava''?!''|'''Lance''', ''[[Pokémon Special]]''}}
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Real Life lava is molten rock. (The subterranean version is called magma.) Imagine an entire lake of electric-stove heating elements, all glowing red-hot. Its viscosity ranges from water-like fluidity to 100,000 times greater. It is an opaque emitter of reddish-yellow light. Its temperature is typically 700-1200 degrees C; coming within a dozen yards of it can inflict fatal burns.
In fiction,
Lava's animation is likely to be just as bad, especially in works where the technology and artistic technique to draw bubbling and flowing are limited. (Games are the worst offenders here, since the CPU power necessary to plausibly model fluid dynamics is often more than it would take to run the entire game, minus the fluid-dynamics model.) Lava will look like someone tipped a barrel of red Kool-Aid in a lake; if something falls in, it will still be visible, through the red tint of cherry flavor.
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== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Mazinger Z]]'': Several times Kouji fought near flowing lava. Since he always was inside his [[Humongous Mecha]] it is [[Hand Wave
** [[Mazinkaiser]] paid homage to that episode with one scene where the titular [[Humongous Mecha]] was tossed into the crater of Mount Fuji. The lava also seems less dangerous than it should be in this instance. However, given what kind of punishment Mazinkaiser shrugs off throughout the series, withstanding a lava bath seems almost trivial.
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' has an example where Asuka needs to dive into a volcano. While the story makes a point to show how both she and her Eva need special equipment to even ''enter'' the caldera (though [[Super Prototype|Eva-01]] doesn't, [[Hand Wave
** In a related instance, she has to wear a plugsuit specially modified to beat the heat of the volcano, suffering great embarrassment over how it inflates and makes her look morbidly
** Then again, neither should the 8th Angel that just happens to look like a Lava Fish. When in doubt, an AT Field did it. Weirder things have been done by AT Fields anyway...it seems to actually alter reality around the Angel when used.
** ''[[Shinji and Warhammer40K|Shinji and Warhammer 40 K]]'' handwaves the vision as some kind of [[Everything Sensor]], which might have been lifted from [[All There in the Manual|the manual]].
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*** Of course, the movie may have been a lot more interesting if they didn't have any outside views, and we were limited to the same visual detectors as the crew.
* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'' {{spoiler|Gollum and the Ring tumble into the magma within Mount Doom. Gollum splashes around and sinks, and the ring stays afloat. The rock slowly melts, and the ring melts instantly upon hitting the rock.}} Chalk it up to some combination of [[Rule of Cool]], [[Artistic License]] and [[A Wizard Did It]].
** Although interestingly, when the Ring hits the lava it quickly flashes up its fire-
** Furthermore, in one of the interviews for the appendices of the Extended Edition, the creators of the film note that they wanted to have one last moment of suspense before the ring ultimately
* Averted in ''[[Spy Kids|Spy Kids 3D: Game Over.]]'' The "lava" is a bunch of computer pixels, so they have no effect on the player.
* In ''[[The Terminator|Terminator 2: Judgement Day]]'' the T1000 falls into molten metal<ref>(Okay, not lava but close enough.)</ref> that mysteriously splashes just like coloured water.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In the story ''[http://www.gamebooks.org/show_item.php?id=913 Under Dragon's Wing]'', the [[
* Strangely enough, ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' 3.5 plays this trope straight but averts [[Convection, Schmonvection]] - there are rules for ongoing damage just for being ''near'' lava, but swimming in lava is perfectly possible as long as you can survive the damage received per round.
** It also a type of shark that lived in molten lava.
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* In the original ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|The Legend of Zelda]]'', it not only was a cheap recolor of dungeon water, but also completely invisible in the dark.
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening]]'': Why is the lava darker than the water?
** ''[[Ocarina of Time]],'' however, has denser lava. Mind you that, by ''denser'', we mean ''you can walk on it''.<ref>There are places where falling on the lava, such as Death Mountain Crater, counts as falling into a [[Bottomless Pit]] due to the player's inability to get out (no climbable walls and too much flinching to aim the Hookshot if Link has it), but we can assume Link somehow climbs back up</ref>
** Death by falling into lava in ''[[Twilight Princess]]'' uses the same animation for [[Quicksand Sucks|drowning in quicksand]]. You can also ''fish'' in the lava (you won't catch anything, of course), indicating that the game simply thinks of it as retextured water with an added [[Super Drowning Skills|contact penalty]].
* Believe it or not, the [[The Moral Substitute|Christian-themed]] ''Zelda'' clone ''Spiritual Warfare'' partially averted this by showing lava in the demon stronghold seethe and bubble compared to the two different animations for water textures; it's harmfulness is irrelevant since you can't walk into it. It had its own recoloring in the form of boiling green slime.
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** Most likely the case, as lava in [[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind|Morrowind]] is treated fairly realistically (you don't sink when you step on it, you can't swim in it, and it doesn't flow like water). Can stand next to it all day without minding, though. Cryodiil doesn't have much in the way of active tectonic activity, where Morrowind is set on a large volcanic island.
* Most of the lava in ''[[Donkey Kong Country]] 2'' is treated as a [[Bottomless Pit]]. However in one level you can cool the lava down in order to swim through it.
** [[Justified Trope]] because it actually ''is'' boiling hot water which you have to cool down in order to be able to swim through it and only years of [[Genre Savvy
*** The reason in this case is because the level in the screenshot is a [[Palette Swap]] of the Sunken Ship level type, with the "lava" being a unique twist to it for the [[Lethal Lava Land]] world.
*** Or how jumping on a seal's back allows him to cool it down. (Though at least that remains [[Magic A Is Magic A|internally consistent]]; you later use the same seals again for a [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]]).
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