Made of Iron: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* 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).

* 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.

 

* 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).

* 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.]]}}

 

 

* 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]].

* [[Indiana Jones]]. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nuke%20the%20fridge Frigidaire should use him as a celebrity spokesman].

* {{spoiler|Luz}} from ''[[Machete]]''.

* {{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}}.

 

* 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.

** ''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.

* 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.

* 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.

 

* ''[[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.

** 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.

* ''[[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.

* 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''?

 

* 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.

 

* 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''."}}

* [[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.

 

* ''[[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.

* 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.

* ''[[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.

 

* 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]]''

* 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.

 

* 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.

** 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.

 

* 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.

* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] can get her head exploded and only need happy pills to cure the minor headache she got.

 

* 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]]''

** 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.

* ''[[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]]''.

* [[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?"}}

** 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.

* [[Archer|Sterling Archer]] is virtually impervious to pain, most recently walking away from a space shuttle crash unscathed.

 

** 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.

* 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.

 

{{reflist}}