Made of Iron: Difference between revisions

deleted new example -- this is the kind of thing the main text explicitly says *isn't* Made Of Iron
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(deleted new example -- this is the kind of thing the main text explicitly says *isn't* Made Of Iron)
Tag: Manual revert
 
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{{quote|''"It'll take more than being tied to a lit keg of explosives and tossed into a pit of acid filled with mutant, acid-resistant flying piranhas equipped with flamethrowers and battle axes while venomous, mechanical, missile-launching [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|Morris dancers]] armed with liquid hydrogen harpoon guns are overhead; riding giant rabid killer bees with side-mounted death rays to kill Othar Tryggvassen!"''|'''[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date{{=}}20090617 Othar Tryggvassen, GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!]''', ''[[Girl Genius]]''}}
 
Simply put, damage is done to characters that really, really should hurt them but is easily shaken off. Nobody ever breaks a rib or other bones unless [[Chekhov's Gun|that specific broken bone becomes important later on]]. Note, this isn't [[Super Toughness]] or [[Nigh Invulnerability]], where the character actually ''is'' supernaturally protected from harm. This'''Made of Iron''' is the ability to shrug off blows that would disintegrate a human body when you technically shouldn't be able to. So Robots, Mutants, Mages, [[Ki Attacks|Ki using Martial Artists]] ''do not count.'' Having a story-enabled reason for not being a bloody smear immediately takes one out of the running for this trope. It can also be argued that certain [[Required Secondary Powers]] may also induce this. (For example, how can someone whose sole power is [[Playing with Fire|throwing flame]] take being thrown off a multi-story building?) If someone does not literally have "increased strength and endurance" in their portfolio, then they count. The line really gets fuzzy between [[Badass Normal]] and [[Charles Atlas Superpower]] where somehow a "normal" person has become something that does not exist in [[Real Life]].
 
By extension, blunt damage, [[Hard Head|concussions]], and other side effects of "non-lethal" fights or a [[Tap on the Head]] never have unintended fatal consequences—death can only happen with intentionally-lethal weapons, like swords or guns. And even with [[Set Swords to Stun|normally-lethal weapons]], the hero may intentionally inflict [[Only a Flesh Wound|flesh wounds]] instead of shooting to kill.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] &and [[Manga]] ==
* Russia from ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''. England who is greatly annoyed with America {{spoiler|decides to take a Busby's Chair (a chair cursed to give whoever sits in it a quick and painful death which has also sent at least 60 men to death) and put it so that America may sit in it and die, however Russia shows up and accidentally sits in the chair, however instead of dying the spell rebounds off Russia and the chair is broken with a disappointed England taping it back together. It's implied that Russia being TOO evil for the chair had something to do with it}}
** The Nations in general can be described as this trope, though Sealand in particular takes the cake for being ''literally'' Made of Iron (its territory being an old British sea fort).
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** In one of the first story arcs, one of the antagonists had the power to literally turn his skin into ''iron''. He could have stayed made of flesh for all what that worked against Kenshiro, though.
* Randel Orland from ''[[Pumpkin Scissors]]''. Slightly subverted in that while he can ignore injuries that would incapacitate a normal man, he often ends up bedridden in the hospital after the fight's over. (But he's almost always back on duty in time for the next episode.)
* Given the amount of [[AbuseDouble IsStandard Okay When ItsAbuse (Female Onon Male)|abuse]] that Keitaro takes in ''[[Love Hina]]'', it's a good thing that he is seemingly [[Immortal Life Is Cheap|immortal]]. From the very day he entered Hinata-Sou, he's been at the receiving end of countless [[Megaton Punch|Naru Punches]] from Naru, [[Implausible Fencing Powers|Rock-Splitting Slashes]] from Motoko, [[Dynamic Entry|flying kicks to the head]] from Su. Not to mention attacks from turtle-based mecha (again from Su), kicks to the shin (Sara), and a Frying Pan to the head (Shinobu).
* Heero Yuy of ''[[Gundam Wing]]'' is most definitely made of iron. Among his greater feats are self-detonating his Gundam ''while standing just outside the cockpit'' and surviving, and falling down a cliff just to get up once he reached the ground. If memory serves, he actually broke his leg in the latter, but only had to push the bone back into place afterward.
** In an early episode, a doctor observing Heero comments that he has over 200 bruises and broken bones and yet was still walking around as a normal person would. (It should be noted that this was the same episode where he later fell down that cliff.)
** It should be noted that in ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]]'', Heero is also apparently one of the few people in the universe capable of remaining conscious after one of Kushua Mizuha's [[Gargle Blaster|Health Drinks]], which has been known to knock out ''androids''.
* The mages of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (anime)|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' evoke this appearance since they're frequently smashed through walls and perform [[It's Raining Men|hard drops from helicopters]]. However, they wear Barrier Jackets which, while appearing to be made of cloth, give off magical fields for protection. The one time that a non-[[Artificial Human]] character's Barrier Jacket was completely penetrated, it resulted with said character being hospitalized for nearly a year. The reason she was hospitalized for so long was due to both the injury and the fact that she had overstressed her magic.
* ''[[Berserk]]''. Guts is superhumanly tough, able to survive being impaled, carried off several hundred feet into the air, flown at the speed of sound without any protection, than falling hundreds of feet and still be able to fight. And given what he [[The Legions of Hell|has]] [[Eldritch Abomination|to]] [[The Juggernaut|face]], you better believe the guy needs it.
* Quite a few characters in ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'' can take inhuman amounts abuse with relatively little effect.
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* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' watchers may wonder why the hell isn't the freaking goal net destroyed as many of the shooting moves are at least half powerful as those in ''[[Dragonball Z]]''.
* [[Deconstructed]] in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''. {{spoiler|The reason why magical girls are made of iron is because they are really [[Empty Shell]]s. The true weak spot is their Soul Gems, which are more [[Soul Jar|meaningful in name]].}} This is also [[Invoked]] by Kyubey, the person who forms the contracts with the girls and knows full well what will happen {{spoiler|if their souls weren't in compact objects and are in their person at the time of their death.}}
* ''[[ToA AruCertain Majutsu noMagical Index]]'' has Touma, who's odd ability to keep going after taking wounds that would likely kill most people actually ''scares an enemy into insanity'' (of course there was a bit of acting involved with an epic [[Evil Laugh]].) Also to an extent Tsuchimikaido Motoharu, who, since he is somewhat of an esper, essentially starts self-destructing when he uses magic, yet can still stay alive since his esper power is level 0 auto-regeneration; just enough to keep him alive.
* ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]''
** Hinagiku hasn't been shown to be able to withstand things like some of the others on this page, but she was described by one of her friends as a Gundam, and there's no evidence to counter this belief, given that she has the strength and endurance to knock out title character Hayate, continually, who himself doesn't qualify for this trope because of [[Charles Atlas Superpower]].
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* Here's a fun [[Drinking Game]] for those up for it: Watch ''[[Guilty Crown]]'' and take a shot every time a character is inside the 'near-miss' zone (i.e. about five feet away from the impact site) of an explosion and comes out of it untouched. You'll be drunk after five minutes. You'll be pickled after two hours if you marathon episodes. At one point, someone ({{spoiler|it's Shuu, for those interested}}) gets their arm severed at the elbow without medical attention and doesn't even start bleeding, much less bleed out.
 
== [[Comic Books]] ==
 
== Comic Books ==
* It's actually pretty common that when comic book characters fight, characters with superpowers take superpowered hits without serious injury, ''even though their superpowers have nothing to do with superhuman strength or endurance''. I.E. a character whose ability is to shoot [[Eye Beams]] can be punched through a concrete wall, pick themselves back up, and continue fighting as though nothing happened.
* In one of the earlier issues of ''[[Superman]]'', Superman literally ''punches'' [[Lex Luthor]] through a ''three-foot thick brick wall''. Lex's only reply? "You can hit!" He was electrically charged at the time, so he had superhuman attributes (though not to the extent of Superman).
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* In ''Cruelty'', Reis Northcotte is bloodied by a punch and [[Groin Attack|kneed in the groin]], but shows no pain. {{spoiler|This tips off the school nurse that Reis is [[Functional Addict|drugged to the gills.]]}}
 
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Because of how the author of ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' chose to translate the mechanics of ''[[Villains and Vigilantes]]'' into a text narrative, its main character Doug Sangnoir is basically this. [[All There in the Manual|Supplementary material]] shows that Doug has nearly a hundred hit points in a game system where normals generally have no more than four or five, but at the same time has no invulnerability or other powers that make him hard to injure (in fact, he wears body armor for this very reason). At one point in one of the stories, Doug notes that being shot by a handgun would "hurt like hell" but not seriously inconvenience him.
 
== Films -- Animation[[Film]] ==
* Kent Mansley of ''[[The Iron Giant]]'' is always getting bashed into things but manages to pop back up again. Maybe he's just that serious about stopping the robot.
* Jack Skellington of ''[[The Nightmare Before Christmas]]'' manages to get shot down by ''anti-aircraft flak guns'' without being blown to pieces. This could be justified, however, by the coffin sleigh taking most of the blow. However, this does not explain how at least a ''mile-high fall onto a stone angel'' didn't break any of his bones (the impact from the fall ''did'' seem to be strong enough to knock off his jawbone, however). This all still could be justified by the fact that Jack's undead, so he would not feel pain, if it weren't for an earlier scene where [[Stalker with a Crush|Sally]] accidentally pokes Jack's finger with a needle, and he yelps in pain. [[Mind Screw|It's a little confusing]].
 
 
== Films -- Live-Action ==
* [[Indiana Jones]]. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuke%20the%20fridge Frigidaire should use him as a celebrity spokesman].
* {{spoiler|Luz}} from ''[[Machete]]''.
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* {{spoiler|Wang Fuming}} from ''[[Bodyguards And Assassin]]'' walks is only killed when he gets stabbed several times each by dozens of times by assassins. What really makes this made of iron is that {{spoiler|it happens ''twice'' and he walks away from it the first time}}.
 
== [[Literature]] ==
 
== Literature ==
* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'', the hero Richard ''rips out his evil half-brother's spine'', but he's [[You Can Barely Stand|still good for one last fight]]. It's played completely straight, and made even more ridiculous when it's revealed the character had no superhuman or magical abilities (though he did have some kind of funky acupuncture/acupressure technique that he somehow used on himself in order to keep going).
* In Steven Erikson's ''[[Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'', ultra [[Badass]] [[Heroic Sociopath]] Karsa Orlong has one of these. In ''[[The Bonehunters]]'' (book 6), he gets repeatedly mauled, cut, stabbed and bitten by a giant monster, and ultimately walks away with a slight wince and the scowl he always wears. This is somewhat justified by Karsa's being far more than a mortal human.
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** ''Quidditch Through The Ages'' mentions that quidditch's predecessor game, which involved trying to catch dropped boulders with bowls strapped to the tops of players' heads while riding on a broom at speed, was infamous for killing almost every player who attempted to play it. So while wizards may be [[Made of Iron]] there is apparently a sharp upper limit somewhere.
* It's a more minor example than most of these, but the [[Badass Crew|four Aurek Seven]] stormtroopers in ''[[Outbound Flight|Survivor's Quest]]'' should count. Two of them fight for and protect two unarmored officers against a large number of Vagaari armed with blasters and charrics. Their armor is good, the blasters are fifty years old and have a weak charge, and charrics aren't designed to pierce this armor, but there are a ''lot'' of Vagaari. By the time the other two show up it is mentioned that their chestplates aren't white anymore, they're having trouble standing and walking, the nonhuman stormtrooper is forgetting to translate his responses to commands into Basic, and the other isn't responding at all, and yet they're still shooting, still [[Taking the Bullet|taking the blaster bolt]]. That's how Zahn writes stormtroopers. They take a lot of damage, shoot well, and never give up.
* |Harry Dresden of ''[[The Dresden Files|Harry Dresden]]''. Seriously. In ''Fool Moon'' alone, he gets chin-decked, shot in the shoulder, pistol-whipped, beaten with a tire-iron, slammed into various walls, savaged by a werewolf, knocked out by overuse of magic, stomped to a pulp, duct-taped to a pillar from which he rips himself free, tossed over a wall, dropped out of a moving car on the Interstate, and tossed down into a 20-foot pit, yet still manages to use powerful magic, climb hand-over-hand up a 20-foot rope, and otherwise kick the living shit out of the bad guy by the end. His friend Murphy also somehow manages to climb up a rope and rapid-fire a .38 mere hours after sustaining a compound fracture to her right arm. And that's just in Book 2!
* Woodrow Lowe from ''Man of the Century'' by James Thayer. In the course of the book, Woodrow is whipped raw by dervishes, bloodied by a sadistic lover, knocked off a boat by an incoming boom, kicked by a horse, trampled by a bull, stabbed within an inch of his life more than once, shot multiple times, some very close to the head, has the snot beaten out of him by at least five famous 19th-century prizefighters, and is imprisoned for 368 days in a Chinese torture pit. He is a Dakotan cavalryman, a Rough Rider, an opium trader, the (deposed) ruler of China, an Amazonian sex slave, and the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. And he lives to tell about it all. [[Cool Old Guy|At the ripe old age of 108]].
* In R.A. Salvatore's novels, the [[Five-Man Band|Companions of the Hall]] sometimes seem to be made of iron. For example, in ''[[The Icewind Dale Trilogy|The Halfling's Gem]]'', the five of them take on an army of wererats, a hydra, get sent to Tartarus where they're swarmed by demons, Drizzt has the fight of his life against an opponent who is his equal... and when it's all said and done they have not only managed to beat all of the bad guys, not only managed to survive, but ''none of them are even seriously injured''. And even though they're kind of tired, you get the sense that they could have kept on fighting for another few hours if they had to.
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* Lampshaded in ''[[Garrett P.I.|Gilded Latten Bones]]'', with Morley Dotes' stab wounds. The healer who treats him is astounded by the fact that none of the attacker's strikes had damaged vital organs or major arteries. Subverted in that Morley is laid up far longer than Garrett anticipated; played straight in that by all logic, he should've been one dead half-elf.
 
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==
* ''[[Power Rangers]]''
** Commander Doggie "Boss" Kruger in ''[[Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]]'' was a bit inconsistent with this trope: During his first on-screen brush with death, he was shot in the chest and survived with nary a scratch (though he was wearing a [[Bulletproof Vest]]); much later, he attempts to stop an old friend of his gone mad and was hurt enough (even through his Dekamaster armor) to need a few days in bandaged hospital care. During the season finale, however, he's not only beaten and slashed with swords repeatedly (without his Dekamaster armor on), but ''slammed through at least three walls, one of which he was stuck in for a half-second'', but this only rendered him unconscious for a little while with little more than battle fatigue and a few somewhat minor scrapes.
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** The End of Time. {{spoiler|Never mind the fatal radiation poisoning, the fall from the Vinvocci ship should have had him ready for his next regeneration.}}
** Jack Harkness, who keeps dying and getting better. Whatever keeps him tethered to life is Made of Iron.
* ''[[Firefly (TV series)|Firefly]]'s'{{'}}s Malcolm Reynolds can take insane amounts of damage; in the episode "War Stories" he gets ''[[Cold-Blooded Torture|tortured to death]]'', only to be revived and then get up, stick the [[Hoist by His Own Petard|torturer with his own weapon]], and start beating up the [[Big Bad]].
* ''[[Farscape]]''
** The series has an entire ''race'' of Made of Iron's, the Scarrans. To drop just one takes [[More Dakka|a whole lot of firepower]]: God help you if you run into more than one of them.
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* A very common trope in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]''. Justified for Buffy, Faith, and the assorted vampires and demons and other beasties, who are supernaturally tough and can take insane amounts of punishment without blinking. However, Xander, Willow, and especially Giles should be quadriplegics several times over by now.
* Played somewhat inconsistently in ''[[Dollhouse]]''. Sometimes, people go down really fast. Other times, well, watch the fight between Boyd and Ballard (particularly the part where one bashes the other's head with a rock).
* In several occasions in ''[[Star Trek: TOSThe Original Series|Star Trek]]'' with Spock, whose Vulcan physiology was used as a kind of [[Plot Armor|armour]]. For example, in the Season 2 episode "The Apple" he is shot full of poisoned thorns and later struck full on by a bolt of lightning, both of which killed [[Red Shirt|Redshirts]] instantly. Not justified, as on many other occasions he is shown to be fairly vulnerable.
* Rick in ''[[The Walking Dead (TV series)|The Walking Dead]]'' has ''feet'' Made of Iron. He hobbles out of a hospital loading dock down metal mesh work stairs, wanders around a city, and rides a bike (pedals have some pretty big protrusions and ridges for traction) all completely barefoot. Granted, he probably has other things on his mind, but still... ow.
* Averted in ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]'' in the episode "Personal", Marty Deeks {{spoiler|is shot at the beginning of the ep and while he does manage to struggle out of his hospital bed near the end, he's bleeding through his bandages, and collapses once the danger is past}}.
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* Every single character on ''[[Smallville]]'' who isn't [[Superman|Clark]] suffers from this, easily recovering from beatings, gunshot wounds, and [[Hard Head|blows to the head]]. Jason Teague, [[The Dragon]] from Season 4 might be the best example though. He's shot by Lionel Luthor and falls off of a cliff and into a waterfall. [[Not Quite Dead|He somehow recovers enough to arrive at the Kent farmhouse, take them hostage, and then doesn't go down until he's been ''hit by a meteor''.]] Who'd he think he was, ''the Terminator''?
 
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
 
== Newspaper Comics ==
* Because he personifies most bruiser tropes, it's no surprise that [[Popeye (comic strip)|Popeye]] was Made of Iron back when he got his start on ''Thimble Theatre''. In his first few story arcs, Popeye takes some brutal beatings and manages to come out on top. When in one fight he takes several handgun rounds in the gut, he manages to still win the fight before passing out. In the hospital, in addition to the bullets that put him there, knife blades, tips of pool cues and many, many other indications that you should see the other guy.
 
== Pro[[Professional Wrestling]] ==
 
* [[ProfessionalPro Wrestling]] can wander into this when things go wrong and sometimes even when they go right, generally missed completely by the tendency for people to think "knowing how to fall" equates to "falls don't hurt." See [http://youtube.com/watch?v=0qFWaCoe78k Hell in the Cell,] where [[Mick Foley]] suffered a concussion, broken ribs, and a ''dislocated shoulder'' after falling from a twenty-foot height ''twice,'' and still finished the match.
== Pro Wrestling ==
* [[Professional Wrestling]] can wander into this when things go wrong and sometimes even when they go right, generally missed completely by the tendency for people to think "knowing how to fall" equates to "falls don't hurt." See [http://youtube.com/watch?v=0qFWaCoe78k Hell in the Cell,] where [[Mick Foley]] suffered a concussion, broken ribs, and a ''dislocated shoulder'' after falling from a twenty-foot height ''twice,'' and still finished the match.
* Another great example is [[Kurt Angle]]. For the uninitiated, he was in the summer Olympics with a broken neck. No, he didn't get it during the wrestling tournament, he had it before the tryouts. Not only did he convince them to let him compete, he won the gold medal. While he's at times injury prone, his neck at least is made of titanium. This is an understandably large point of pride both for his character and in real life.
{{quote|"I won an Olympic Gold Medal with a ''broken freakin' neck''."}}
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* [[Chris Jericho]] has only suffered two serious injuries to his body in his entire life. One was a broken arm caused by his own stupidity (practicing dives without a mat). The second was a herniated disk, which he suffered training during ''[[Dancing With the Stars]]''. Keep in mind he's been in more Elimination Chambers than anyone else, been in more than a few brutal TLC matches, worked for several promotions that specialized in [[Garbage Wrestling]], and works a hard-hitting, high-risk style in which several peers have destroyed their own bodies.
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
 
== Sports ==
* Olympic skier Hermann Maier's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu2kexdW3a8 spectacular crash] at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. High winds caused an unintentional ski jump. He flew through the air, hit the ground headfirst at 70 miles per hour, bounced, tumbled, and smashed through two wire-and-slat fences before coming to a stop. And then ''he picked himself up and walked back up the hill'', rubbing his shoulder (he also had a minor leg injury). A few days later, he won gold medals in two events. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/olympics1998/sport/alpine/articles/wilbon14.htm A news article about the event] began with the words, "The Tough Man contest is over. Forever. The winner is Hermann Maier." And he almost lost his leg after a traffic accident but continues to win—his nickname "Herminator" is well deserved.
* Hockey player Gordie Howe was said to get a goal, an assist, and a fight in every game. He continued playing in the NHL into his fifties, even through its notoriously violent era, long enough to play with his grown sons. After his retirement, he even suited up for a charity game in the minors, whereupon a local radio DJ offered a large cash prize to any player on the opposing team who fought Howe, by then in his seventies. No-one was stupid enough to take up the offer.
* In a similar vein, Toronto Maple Leaf Bobby Baun scored the game winning goal of game six of the 1963-1964 Stanley Cup finals after sustaining a broken ankle earlier in the game.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131105133700/http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/bloody.php This classical fencing article] discusses how unreliable a sword-inflicted wound could be in ending a duel.
* Jake Brown, 2007 X Games skateboard contender, lost control of his board and fell 45 feet to the deck below (clip is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q3PNj3tRW4 here]). After a dazed few minutes, he ''got up'' and was able to walk out under his own power.
* George Chuvalo, a former heavyweight boxer, was known to have one of the toughest chins in history. He faced some of the most devastating punchers in history and was never knocked down as a professional in 93 fights (his two technical knockout losses came when the referee stopped the fights). In fact in his fight against George Foreman (a man whose punch normally [[Megaton Punch|sends mere mortals to the moon]]), Chuvalo complained to the referee after the fight was stopped.
* Though both have become more vulnerable as they've aged, [[wikipedia:Mark Hunt|Mark Hunt]] and [[wikipedia:Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira|Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira]] were each known for this. Hunt was known for shrugging off life-threatening strikes as mere annoyances, while Nogueira was known for taking immense amounts of punishment, but still somehow managing to not only survive, but to ''win''.
* Bert Trautmann, football (soccer) goalkeeper active in the 1950s. During the 1956 FA Cup Final, he was injured in a collision with an opponent. With 17 minutes to go, and no substitutes allowed, he shook off the injury and continued. He saved several goals, preserving his team's lead and helping to win the match. The injury? Merely a broken neck.
* Jack Youngblood played the entire 1979 playoffs and Super Bowl, AND the meaningless Pro Bowl game with a broken tibula. Because of this, he was called “the John Wayne of football”.
* Steve Yzerman played on essentially on one leg due to having a blown out right knee during the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs.
* Donovan McNabb played on a broken ankle for most of a 2002 regular season game.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFvR7QRmow Fedor Emilianenko vs. Kevin Randleman]. Fedor got hit with possibly the most perfect suplex in history, impacting the mat with all of his own weight plus all of Randleman's weight directly onto his spinal column. He calmly turned around and made Randleman tap out.
 
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' can be intensely silly about this. Due to the highly ambiguous definition of [[Hit Points]], the characters therein can shrug off being shot, struck by lightning, or even terminal velocity impacts with no adverse effects but the loss of HP.
** How do you know you're Made of Iron in ''D&D''? When it becomes literally impossible for orbital reentry to kill you, you're a little bit too tough to exist. If you can then fly back out of the atmosphere and do it again for kicks? Now you've reached the level of absurdity. Some of the meanest things in the game can literally do this all day long, while on fire and immersed in acid.
** Specifically to avert this, 2nd Edition introduced a rule that required a saving roll to be made if a character took more than a certain (admittedly, quite high) amount of damage in a single attack.
* ''[[Traveller]]: The New Era'', especially compared to the more realistic wound rules in previous and subsequent editions. When you can take a blast from an [[BFGBig Freaking Gun|FGMP]] and have a fair chance of making a full recovery, ''something is wrong''.
* Some units and characters in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' have the special rule "Feel No Pain." They have a 50% (roll a 4 or more on a six sided dice) chance of ignoring any wounds inflicted that didn't kill them outright.
** Units aligned to the [[Cosmic Horror|Chaos]] [[God of Evil]] [[Plaguemaster|Nurgle]] almost invariably have this rule. [[Blessed with Suck|Blight]] [[Space Marine|Marines]], for example, who are already superhuman killing machines with [[Hyperactive Metabolism|basic regenerative powers]] that would make ''clerics'' jealous, are so bloated and disease-ravaged by their various maladies that not much can hurt them further. Also, they don't feel pain. At all.
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* The ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' series of ''[[Dark Heresy]]'', ''[[Rogue Trader]]'', ''[[Tabletop Game]]/Deathwatch'', and ''[[Black Crusade]]'' zig-zag this trope. Normal humans are absolutely squishy. Space Marines and many of the ''core monsters'', however, can be shot over and over by normal humans and ignore all damage that does not trigger the game's [[Critical Hit]] system, Righteous Fury. For a normal human, a weapon which does 4-13 damage is considered insanely lethal and able to tear arms off, while Space Marines typically wield armor piercing grenade launchers which do 7-25 damage. A typical Ork may ignore about 10 damage per hit, making them nearly unkillable with lasguns, while powerful Tyranid creatures can often ignore 12-18 damage from toughness plus another 6-10 from armor, meaning even bolters often can't even score [[Scratch Damage]] most of the time.
* ''[[GURPS]]'' suggests a lot of Ablative Damage Reduction to replicate this. Basically it acts just like [[Hit Points]] except that you won't flinch, won't bleed and won't be "really" hurt until it has been worn away by, say, getting hit by a truck and then shot several times.
* The ''[[Serenity Role Playing Game]]'' RPG turns Malcolm Reynolds' aforementioned toughness (see ''Live -Action TV'' above) into the character trait "Tough as Nails". It gives an HP bonus.
* ''[[Rifts]]'' Aftermath reintroduces readers to the character of Julian the First, the leader of the infamous ''Juicer Uprising'', some five years back. This is at least ''four'' years since Julian's body was ''supposed'' to have literally burnt out to a flaming (ultimately ''exploding'') skeleton as a side effect of the [[Psycho Serum]] he enhanced it with. True, his body is nowhere near his peak condition, but the sheer fact that he is still alive in the first place is nothing short of miraculous.
* Any character in ''[[Villains and Vigilantes]]'' with more than a normal's basic three to five hit points, while lacking any kind of invulnerability or regeneration: they can simply tank damage that would kill a normal. See the ''Fan Works'' section for a ''V&V'' character translated to text.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
 
== Video Games ==
* This can happen in many games due to glitches or unexpected game engine behavior, for example falling from a great height, but glancing off a vertical surface so the fall distance resets and the drop counts as much shorter.
* ''[[Final Fantasy]]''
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** Shepard [[Up to Eleven|turns this up to eleven]] in [[Mass Effect 3]] when {{spoiler|s/he is blasted by Harbinger's main gun on the way to the Citadel during the endgame. Bear in mind this is a gun that fires molten metal at near-lightspeed, and it has been shown to destroy dreadnoughts in other appearances. Shepard just gets up and keeps going, albeit with major injuries.}}
* ''[[Suikoden II]]'': Luca Blight ends up fighting eighteen heroes working in tandem, defeating at least twelve of them, and has to have half an army shoot him in order to weaken him enough to make a duel against him even remotely fair.
* ''[[Super Mario (franchise)|Super Mario Bros.]]'' Bowser, definitely. From being [[Super Mario Bros. (video game)|thrown]] [[Super Mario 64|into]] [[New Super Mario Bros. Wii|lava]], [[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story|crushed by two castles and a train]], and [[Super Mario Galaxy 2|knocked into a sun followed by a black hole]] among much more, the sheer amount of things he's survived with barely a scratch on him is amazing.
** ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'' lampshades this in his playable sections. He has literally infinite lives.
** Perhaps the Mario Brothers aren't the only ones who can benefit from One-up Mushrooms.
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* The player ship in the entire ''[[The Tale of Alltynex]]'' trilogy.
* ''[[Raptor: Call of the Shadows]]'' has a player ship that is like this too, and that's ''not'' counting in the extra shielding (which take the same amount of damage as the plane).
* ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'' dips into this in the 2011 [[ReContinuity BootReboot]]: each character has a special attack dubbed the X-Ray Move, in which they unleash such brutal attacks that it shatters bone and destroys organs, complete with (as the name suggests) a brief X-ray image of said destruction. Not only do these characters keep fighting after having their skulls cracked, spines broken, and livers frozen and shattered, but you can do it over and over again.
** ''[[Mortal Kombat 11]]'' has Lethal Blows, which take it to the point of absurdity. These moves often impale the victim (somethings through the head) or otherwise inflict damage that would be fatal, but unless the recipient's Life Bar is depleted as a result, they'll recover almost instantly.
** Usually, this Trope only [[Gameplay and Story Segregation| applies to actual fights and is averted in cutscenes]]. For example, when Kano is shot through the face in ''11'' during a cutscene, he is most definitely killed. ''However'', there's another scene in ''11'' where Cassie survives being shot ''with a chaingun'' for pete's sake, and is still able to stand and take cover. She's wounded, yes, but by all logic she should have been torn in half.
* ''[[Fate/stay night|Fate Stay Night]]'': Shirou-"My body is made of blades"-Emiya.[[Nightmare Fuel|Both literally]] [[Determinator|and figuratively]].
* ''[[Portal 2]]'': Chell can take far more punishment than one would expect. So can her Long Fall Boots, apparently.
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* Averted in ''Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare''. While Major Carmack, like every other Call of Duty NPC, can eat a nigh-infinite amount of bullets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner without feeling more than a need to stop and catch their breath every once in a while, during one level cutscene the [[Big Bad]] deliberately shoots him in the liver with a .45-caliber pistol while he's strapped to a table, noting that 'it should take you about twenty minutes to bleed to death' (which is an entirely realistic time estimate for that kind of injury). You spend the entire level desperately trying to carry him out of the enemy base and get him to a medical facility... and fail, with the transition cutscene to the next level being your party helplessly standing around and watching him bleed to death in the back of the truck. Approximately twenty minutes later.
 
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In ''[[Shortpacked]]'', [[Ronald Reagan|Ronnie]] [http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060125.html gets shot] by a robber, then [http://www.shortpacked.com/d/20060201.html takes out the criminal] using nothing but [[Patriotic Fervor]].
* ''[[RPG World]]'' often [http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20001201.html plays with] this trope.
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** Triple subversion! {{spoiler|His immortality is derived from some sort of magic which requires him to kill innocents and harvest their ashes.}}
* Among other things, Vane Black of ''[[Next Town Over]]'' has been shot through the hand and hanged, and the strongest reaction she has is frustration that John Henry Hunter is getting away because of such holdups.
* As part of being "The Gamer" -- a person with a video game interface to his life and the real world -- Han Jihan of the Korean web toon ''[[The Gamer]]'' possesses the power "The Gamer's Body", which turns any and all harm inflicted upon him into a simple deduction from his hit points, without any physical symptoms -- even [[Off with His Head|attempted decapitation]].
 
== [[Web Original]] ==
 
== Web Original ==
* Jacob Starr of ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'' is (in)famous for this trope, to the point of handlers referring to its use as "The Jacob Treatment". The character in question, over the course of his tenure on the island, was [[Annoying Arrows|hit by arrows]], burned, [[Only a Flesh Wound|shot]], cut and stabbed, all without seeming to flinch or even lose any mobility.
** V3's Rick Holeman also took an absurd amount of injuries before dying. These included getting shot in the chest while still being able to run right over to his attacker, knock her over and starting to beat her down. All the while being stabbed with a knife - then he survived long enough to deliver some last words before finally kicking the bucket.
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* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] can get her head exploded and only need happy pills to cure the minor headache she got.
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
 
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'', Robin (being the [[Badass Normal]]) is the only character to ever ''occasionally'' receive minor injuries, but even those were for the sake of the plot (such as the episode "Fractured") and were invariably [[Hollywood Healing|gone by the next episode]] (Raven has [[Healing Hands]], so maybe that part is justified). Other than that, despite having no superpowers whatsoever, he is just as Made of Iron as the rest of his superpowered teammates, sometimes rivaling that of the literally Made of Iron Cyborg.
* ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''
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** Just about all the main characters get blasted, smacked, slammed, falls, and runs through other notable dangerous hazards with nothing more then scrapes. Valerie's future self fell ''hundreds of feet from the sky and lives!''
** Danny himself, though partially justified through his ghost abilities. Still, given the number of times he gets shocked, blasted, slammed into walls or the ground and overall smacked around by every ghost EVER, he definitely falls into this trope.
* Everybody in the [[DCAU]], starting with ''[[Superman: The Animated Series|Superman the Animated Series]]''. The first seasons of ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'' were fairly tame, but starting with Superman and continuing through ''The New Batman Adventures,'' ''[[Batman Beyond]],'' and ''[[Justice League Unlimited]],'' supposedly human characters (and not just the [[Badass Normal]]s) routinely take abuse that should kill or cripple everybody involved.
* ''[[Duckman]]'' has Big Jack McBastard, who is trampled by a horse, eaten by vultures down to a skeleton, and then buried. At the end of the episode, he shows up to congratulate them on completing their job. When asked how he survived, he takes a drag on his cigar, and says "[[Noodle Incident|Long story]]."
* Pretty much any character from ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]''.
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* [[Evil Old Folks|Grandfather]] from ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' is an extreme example. He survives {{spoiler|''[[Nigh Invulnerable|getting a giant flaming metal treehouse dropped on him]]''}} and shrugs it off like it were no big deal. Naturally, it's [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]].
{{quote|"Did you honestly believe that a mere 39 gazillion tons of red hot metal and duct tape would crush me?"}}
* The Ponies in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' receive a lot of their respect among male fans by the constant demonstration that they're pretty much invulnerable. Pianos dropping on them, taking a full buffalo charge, getting hit by dragon breath, hitting a mountain at jet speed, nothing appears to even ''stun'' them for more than a few seconds. On an occasion where one character falls several hundred feet and is only just saved by what appears to be dumb luck people commented on Equestria's horrible health and safety regulations, only for someone else to point at that based on their demonstrated hardiness ponies could quite likely survive such falls. The first real injury in the series is quite clearly shown to be a compound fracture, which requires a ''[[Hollywood Healing|couple of days hospital stay and staying off the limb for a week]]''.
 
* The Ponies in ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]'' receive a lot of their respect among male fans by the constant demonstration that they're pretty much invulnerable. Pianos dropping on them, taking a full buffalo charge, getting hit by dragon breath, hitting a mountain at jet speed, nothing appears to even ''stun'' them for more than a few seconds. On an occasion where one character falls several hundred feet and is only just saved by what appears to be dumb luck people commented on Equestria's horrible health and safety regulations, only for someone else to point at that based on their demonstrated hardiness ponies could quite likely survive such falls. The first real injury in the series is quite clearly shown to be a compound fracture, which requires a ''[[Hollywood Healing|couple of days hospital stay and staying off the limb for a week]]''.
** Based on "Sonic Rainboom", ponies in this show can sustain ''over 1600 G-forces''. This is demonstrated by Rainbow Dash turning on a dime at Mach 1.
** And later we see a flashback where she does it as a young filly. She is a pegasus, and is implied that the earth ponies are the ones more physically able than the other races. If they have health/safety regulations, they are for other animals as the cows and donkeys they live with, because ponies surely doesn't need them.
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* [[Archer|Sterling Archer]] is virtually impervious to pain, most recently walking away from a space shuttle crash unscathed.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[wikipedia:Audie Murphy|Audie Murphy]]. There's no way to list the ways in which this man was made of Adamantium without repeating everything on the linked page.
** During the battle of Holtzwihr in France, Murphy's company (of which 19 out of the original 128 men remained in fighting condition) was attacked by tanks and infantry. He ordered his men to withdraw while he remained and directed artillery from his forward position. When the Germans got close, he climbed onto a still-burning tank destroyer and opened fire with its .50 caliber machine gun. Almost totally exposed to enemy fire, he nonetheless [[One-Man Army|single-handedly]] held off ''tanks and infantry'' -- '''''for an hour''''' (during which he was [[Immune to Bullets|shot in the leg]]) until the phone line connecting him with artillery got cut and he ran out of ammo. He then made his way back to his company, [[Only a Flesh Wound|refused medical attention]], and ''organized his company in a counterattack,'' which forced the Germans to withdraw. At the time he had just recovered from being shot in the arm and the day before had been hit by shrapnel from a nearby mortar strike that killed two members of his squad. He received a Medal of Honor for his actions during this battle, and this isn't even the most ridiculously [[Badass]] thing he did during WWII. Not bad for a guy who was 5'6" and 130 lbs and lied about his age to enlist.
* Shaolin monks practice a rigorous regimen known as "Iron Body Technique", allowing wooden clubs to be broken across their bodies, limbs and ''heads'' with little effect, as well as great resistance to piercing weapons. One of the most extreme examples involved a single monk bending two spears (with metal heads) almost double against his throat and having a baseball bat broken on his back at the same time.
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** And had sex. In space.
* Juliane Köpcke, the 17 year old schoolgirl who was the sole survivor when her plane broke up in mid-air above Peru. She fell more than two miles but only broke her collarbone. She then trekked for 9 days through the rainforest to find help. [[Survivor Guilt|Some scars remain though.]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120506012805/http://www.marines.mil/unit/imef/Pages/MarineabsorbsIEDblast,walksaway.aspx Cpl. Matt Garst] stepped on an IED, which blew up, sending him flying 15 feet. Immediately standing up, he yelled at his squad, "What the f-- are you looking at? Get on the cordon!"
* There was a newspaper article about a cute little kitten that liked to play in the laundry basket, hiding beneath the clothes. One day, it was laundry time and the kitten ended up inside the [[Nightmare Fuel|washer machine]]. The poor thing spend the whole cycle in there before its owner heard the screams and came to the rescue. What happened to the little kitten? Absolutely nothing, just the shock.
* In 2010 a Frenchman fell over 75 feet into the Grand Canyon but somehow survived.
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* Brett Michaels from ''Poison''. You don't survive an emergency appendectomy, a brain hemorrhage, '''AND''' a hole in the heart all within six weeks if you're not this.
* RAF pilot Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader lost both his legs in a fairly horrific aerobatics accident, but recovered and tried to return to work as a pilot on the grounds that his two tin legs were perfectly good for the job. He was retired on medical grounds, but returned to the service as a fighter pilot in [[World War II]], becoming a recognised fighter ace. When he was forced to bail out over occupied France and captured as a prisoner of war, he made so many escape attempts that the Germans actually threatened to take away his prosthetics unless he stopped. [[Won't Work On Me|He didn't stop]].
* British Airways Flight 5390 was going to be a routine flight for Timothy "Tim" Lancaster and his crew as they were bound for Málaga Airport in Spain. But shortly after takeoff, one of the BAC One-Eleven's windscreens separated from the plane, causing an explosive decompression which shot Lancaster partway out of the plane. His body was pinned against the window frame for twenty minutes while Alastair Atchison, the co-pilot, fought to get the plane to safety during whch his comrades held on to Tim's body. Three-hundred-mile-per-hour winds and frostbite battered Tim to a pulp, leading to his colleagues to assume that he was good as dead. They did contemplate pushing his body out of the way, but ruled it out as not only was throwing Tim's (seemingly-dead) body out a disservice to his relatives, his body would end up striking one of the engines, making the situation even worse. Atchison managed to land the plane with all of the passengers unharmed, but the crew were understandably sorry for whatever fate Tim had gone through. To the crew's surprise and relief, Tim had somehow managed to survive the ordeal of having to ride face-first into violent winds and sub-zero frost, with frostbite, bruising, shock, and fractures to his right arm, left thumb, and right wrist. And after less than five months of recuperating from his injuries, Tim went back to service, piloting until he retired in 2008.
* Olympic skier Hermann Maier's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu2kexdW3a8 spectacular crash] at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. High winds caused an unintentional ski jump. He flew through the air, hit the ground headfirst at 70 miles per hour, bounced, tumbled, and smashed through two wire-and-slat fences before coming to a stop. And then ''he picked himself up and walked back up the hill'', rubbing his shoulder (he also had a minor leg injury). A few days later, he won gold medals in two events. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/longterm/olympics1998/sport/alpine/articles/wilbon14.htm A news article about the event] began with the words, "The Tough Man contest is over. Forever. The winner is Hermann Maier." And he almost lost his leg after a traffic accident but continues to win—his nickname "Herminator" is well deserved.
* Hockey player Gordie Howe was said to get a goal, an assist, and a fight in every game. He continued playing in the NHL into his fifties, even through its notoriously violent era, long enough to play with his grown sons. After his retirement, he even suited up for a charity game in the minors, whereupon a local radio DJ offered a large cash prize to any player on the opposing team who fought Howe, by then in his seventies. No-one was stupid enough to take up the offer.
* In a similar vein, Toronto Maple Leaf Bobby Baun scored the game winning goal of game six of the 1963-1964 Stanley Cup finals after sustaining a broken ankle earlier in the game.
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131105133700/http://www.classicalfencing.com/articles/bloody.php This classical fencing article] discusses how unreliable a sword-inflicted wound could be in ending a duel.
* Jake Brown, 2007 X Games skateboard contender, lost control of his board and fell 45 feet to the deck below (clip is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q3PNj3tRW4 here]). After a dazed few minutes, he ''got up'' and was able to walk out under his own power.
* George Chuvalo, a former heavyweight boxer, was known to have one of the toughest chins in history. He faced some of the most devastating punchers in history and was never knocked down as a professional in 93 fights (his two technical knockout losses came when the referee stopped the fights). In fact in his fight against George Foreman (a man whose punch normally [[Megaton Punch|sends mere mortals to the moon]]), Chuvalo complained to the referee after the fight was stopped.
* Though both have become more vulnerable as they've aged, [[wikipedia:Mark Hunt|Mark Hunt]] and [[wikipedia:Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira|Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira]] were each known for this. Hunt was known for shrugging off life-threatening strikes as mere annoyances, while Nogueira was known for taking immense amounts of punishment, but still somehow managing to not only survive, but to ''win''.
* Bert Trautmann, football (soccer) goalkeeper active in the 1950s. During the 1956 FA Cup Final, he was injured in a collision with an opponent. With 17 minutes to go, and no substitutes allowed, he shook off the injury and continued. He saved several goals, preserving his team's lead and helping to win the match. The injury? Merely a broken neck.
* Jack Youngblood played the entire 1979 playoffs and Super Bowl, AND the meaningless Pro Bowl game with a broken tibula. Because of this, he was called “the John Wayne of football”.
* Steve Yzerman played on essentially on one leg due to having a blown out right knee during the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs.
* Donovan McNabb played on a broken ankle for most of a 2002 regular season game.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtFvR7QRmow Fedor Emilianenko vs. Kevin Randleman]. Fedor got hit with possibly the most perfect suplex in history, impacting the mat with all of his own weight plus all of Randleman's weight directly onto his spinal column. He calmly turned around and made Randleman tap out.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Made of Iron{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Injury Tropes]]
[[Category:Fight Scene]]
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[[Category:Rule of Perception]]
[[Category:Plot Armor]]
[[Category:Made of Iron]]