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{{trope}}
[[File:zoroblood.jpg|link=One Piece
]
{{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!]''', ''[[
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 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
By extension, blunt damage, [[Hard Head|concussions]], and other side effects of "non-lethal" fights or a [[Tap
This trope also allows our hero to take a bullet in some critical area (chest, shoulder, etc) and [[Just a Flesh Wound|continue to fight as though nothing had happened]], even if they should be [[Overdrawn At the Blood Bank]]. It also makes you wonder why, for all the supposed beatings they have received themselves over the course of a show, the hero/heroine never suffers any long-term scarring or lasting physical injury. See [[Hollywood Healing]] and [[Only a Flesh Wound]].
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== Anime & Manga ==
* Russia from ''[[
** 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).
* ''[[
** Towards the end of the manga, Integra gets {{spoiler|''shot in the eye'', nearly point blank}}. She barely even falters and moves forward to finish her task. She also got shot in the shoulder when she was twelve and it barely seemed to bother her. She was even able to pick up a gun and shoot it.
** [[Badass Normal|Pip]] [[Good Looking Privates|Bernadotte]] gets attacked again and again by Zorin and her mooks, including getting a load of shrapnel in the stomach. It takes {{spoiler|a few shots into his torso and being ''stabbed through the back'' by Zorin's scythe to finally bring him down}}, and even then he's able to light a cigarette and give {{spoiler|one last [[Rousing Speech]] before he kicks the bucket.}}.
* ''[[
** ''[[
* Kibagami Jubei of ''[[
* Subverted with Kazuma of ''[[
* ''[[
** Vash the Stampede always shoots only to cause [[Only a Flesh Wound|flesh wounds]]. The trope was subverted at one point, however, when he inflicted just such a wound... and then panicked and rushed to stop the bleeding -- the wound was far more serious than he'd intended.
** Not to mention Vash himself has taken ungodly amounts of damage, presumably due to his reluctance to kill aggressors. In two separate episodes, we are given a look at Vash's upper body, and he is patchwork of scars and metal.
* Almost every character in ''[[
* Spike Spiegel from ''[[
* Most of the cast of ''[[Ranma ½
** Ranma Saotome, specifically, hovers somewhere on the border between this and [[Nigh Invulnerable]]. He has survived massive [[Kamehame Hadoken]] [[Ki Attacks]], falls from fantastic heights, being blown up, and enough general physical abuse to turn a battleship into worthless scrap metal, and always manages to shrug it off and keep on going -- even before [[Healing Factor|simply healing the damage]]. Fans have theorized, after seeing him survive with mere fleshwounds against Ryû Kumon's [[Razor Wind|Vacuum Blade]] attacks (which, for comparison, cut a 10 meter tall solid bronze Buddha statue into pieces), that he is, for all practical purposes, bulletproof. Perhaps one of the best examples might be the Golden Pair story arc: when Ranma [[Disproportionate Retribution|attacks]] [[Handsome Lech|Mikado Sanzen'in]] for stealing [[Gender Bender|his]] [[First Kiss]], the resultant "battle" has Ranma headbutt the ice-rink so hard he buries himself in it up to his shoulders, pull himself out without even being fazed (which startles the hell out of his opponent), trip over when making an attack and skid across the length of the rink, ''on his face'', at such speed that he smashes through the rink-wall when he crashes into it, and finally getting pulled into Mikado's "Dance of Death", in which he is repeatedly pummeled on for several minutes straight before being ejected out at high speed and landing hard on his head. He still manages to somersault back onto his feet when asked to stand up, only to slip and fall back down again. By the time he's gotten home, he's fine save for an assortment of scrapes and bruises, needing just a bit of disinfectant and a few bandaids.
** When he first enters the series, Ryôga doesn't really seem to be much tougher then Ranma (though he does evidently have more stamina, courtesy of always having to spend days doing nothing but walk to [[No Sense of Direction|get to the fight]]), but then he learns the [[Nigh Invulnerable|Bakusai Tenketsu technique]]... in his first battle with it, Ranma's strongest punches have no effect on him, and it takes a focused burst of [[Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs]] to be able to hurt him at all. Though Ranma does subsequently train himself to be able to punch hard enough to get through Ryôga's defense, he remains the hardest opponent for Ranma to lay out with physical attacks afterward.
** It does not, however, explain [[Kid Samurai|Tatewaki]] [[Lord Error-Prone|Kunô]].
* ''[[
* Every character from ''[[
** One can mention Luffy, who was gored with a hook, thrown into a pit of quicksand and buried there for hours, but was still able to fight Sir Crocodile the next day. Only to have all the water in his body absorbed -- at least momentarily. Then he was poisoned.
** Let's not forget Zoro. He's taken a giant sword-slash to the chest, tried to ''cut off his own feet to escape some chains'', and, during Thriller Bark, {{spoiler|shows his badassery by taking all of Luffy's pain in attack form}}- with the bloody result shown in the page picture (not shown is the blood covered ground spread out several feet around him). Although all he needs to do to recover is put on a few bandages and take a nap. {{spoiler|This is averted after the aforementioned incident with Luffy's pain as Zoro still suffered from those injuries for several battles following it. }}
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** Blackbeard is a unique case of this. Because of his power, he absorbs much more pain then a normal person does, which results in him usually yelling in pain. But, as soon as he recovers, it's usually like nothing happened to him.
** ''One Piece'' sometimes [[Played for Laughs|plays this for laughs]]. When the Straw Hats crash through a wall with a train, a little girl, her pet rabbit and grandmother all comment that they have a nosebleed. Franky points out they should be more severely injured. Luffy comments that this was nothing and tells his crew to get up and they respond by stating "there is no way for a human being to stay uninjured" but when it comes to the "uninjured" part, they all shout it, standing up, completely unharmed.
* The characters from the ''[[
* Early on, Yasutora Sado from ''[[
** Rather cruelly subverted with {{spoiler|Chojiro Sasakibe}} short ago. {{spoiler|The old man takes a ''giant crossbow quarrel'' to the torso but manages to talk to Yamamoto and relay vital info to him while bleeding profusely, which gives a [[Hope Spot]] about his survival. But later we learn that he died shortly afterwards.}}
* The title character of ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* Pretty much everyone in ''''[[Pokémon (
** The Team Rocket trio would definitely qualify for this. It's a big part of their [[Joker Immunity]].
** Over the course of the anime and movies, Ash has been electrocuted, burned, had a chandelier dropped on him, [[Taken for Granite|petrified]] at least once, ''eaten by a tree'' (long story), and much more. The worst he ever gets is several cuts and bruises.
** In ''[[
** Amazingly enough, a ''villain'' beats Gold in this department. Sird took an explosion to the face, causing her to fall thousands of feet to the ground, crawled from somewhere around Viridian to Vermillion, and got her leg frozen by Lorelei's ice shackles. Despite all this and being battered and bleeding, she somehow manages to stay on her feet, break free of Lorelei's ice shackles on her own, {{spoiler|and turn five Dex Holders [[Taken for Granite|to stone]]}}. '''Damn'''.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** 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 ''[[
* Given the amount of [[Abuse Is Okay When Its Female On Male|abuse]] that Keitaro takes in ''[[
* 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]]'' 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.
* ''[[
* Quite a few characters in ''[[
** [[Big Bad]] Makoto Shishio is without a doubt, the most over the top example. During the final battle against him, he, despite having been shot in the head and burned alive, proves capable of, among other things, blocking the blows of the other superhumanly powerful swordsmen with his ''fingers'', taking a direct punch to the face from [[Charles Atlas Superpower|superhuman]] [[Badass Normal]] Sanosuke with no effect (''Sanosuke's'' hand shatters though), shrugging off a string of sword strikes from the main character, Kenshin that ends up shooting him through a brick wall, and taking a direct blow from Kenshin's ultimate attack (and probably the most powerful attack in the series) and still being able to stand. In the end, it is not these attacks that kill him but his own inhumanly high blood temperature, which causes him to spontaneously combust when he fights for too long. The other characters even assume that he is immortal from all the abuse he takes, although the ''iron plate'' in his head may have something to do with surviving a lot of [[Hard Head|cranial abuse.]]
** Jinchu arc [[Big Bad]] Yukishiro Enishi is also an extreme example. The characters remark that he's in such an advanced state of mind over matter that his brain doesn't even recognize pain anymore, to the point where he can even inflict massive pain upon himself and still get up for more.
* Everybody in ''[[
* ''[[
** Bean Bandit from. Some of it can be attributed to his subversion of [[Armor Is Useless]], but that can only go so far. He's been rammed by cars (in ''[[Riding Bean]]'' he rams one ''back''), mauled at close range with 12 gauge shotgun slugs, punched through walls, and ejected out of his car going over a hundred miles an hour on the highway. And in nearly every one of these case's he has been able to more or less shrug it off and keep fighting. In that last case he ''tried'' to go on, but quickly lost consciousness and needed medical attention. And then just kept going a couple of days later, although it's implied that he used drugs to block the pain until his job was done. He's also seen acting tough and dangerous, and then [[Post Dramatic Stress Disorder|almost collapsing as soon as he's gotten away the people he wanted to intimidate]].
** Gray is another good example, also qualifying as a [[Scary Black Man]]. He's muscular enough that he can effectively shield his head and vitals from handgun fire by shielding them with his arms. What does he do after his arms have been shot up? Pop the rounds out by flexing his muscles, and bandage up the arm.
* In ''[[
* Parodied in ''[[
* The title character in ''[[Kenichi:
* In ''[[
* ''[[
* Partially justified for Seiichirou Kitano in ''[[
* [[Sengoku Basara
* ''[[
* Jack Rakan from ''[[
* The main character of the boxing manga ''[[
* A lot of characters in the manga ''[[
* In ''[[
* The characters in ''[[
* Lunar's father in ''[[
* Kiichi from ''[[Shootfighter Tekken]]'' is essentially a Made of Iron [[Determinator]] who is able to pull off incredibly flexible grappling moves despite always getting hit first, and getting hit first hard enough to permanently incapacitate professional career wrestlers! A week or so after barely eking out a victory, he's back to normal with the standard handful of bandages.
* In the second ''[[
* '''Brutally''' averted in ''[[
* [[Playing
* University headmaster Grant Oldman from ''[[Battle Athletes Victory]]'' qualifies. After a botched hijacking attempt means a space shuttle carrying new students is going to crash into the University (it's in space) he simply orders the main training field cleared, steps out onto it, then catches the incoming shuttle and forces it to stop. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26UXoprWTD8 See this video] at the about 4:30 mark.
* In ''[[
** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] with the Third and Fourth Raikage. Mabui can only use her ability on inanimate objects and the Raikages because it will tear apart and kill anyone else.
* Characters in the ''[[
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (
** [[Yu-Gi-Oh!
** Joey/Jonouchi from the original series also counts, as he once managed to recover from a horrible beating and [[Electric Torture]] (before card games became the series focus). Also, he LITERALLY DIED as a result of his duel against Marik, but he recovered surprisingly quickly.
* ''[[
** Shizuo Heiwajima. {{spoiler|The man gets stabbed in both legs and remarks "Doesn't even hurt." Later, he is shot in the leg and side and ''thinks he slipped in the rain'' until he sees the blood. Afterwards he simply walks to Shinra's house, and is still unfazed by his normally life-threatening wounds.}} Shizuo's apparent superhuman endurance is acknowledged in canon: [[Back-Alley Doctor|Shinra]] ''hates'' treating Shizuo, because he never leaves an operation without destroying at least one of his best scalpels in the process. Shizuo's body isn't Made of Iron: ''it's harder than it''.
** Also the three kidnappers from the first episode. Celty hits one of them with her motorcycle and smashes another's face into a wall which leaves behind a huge mess, yet they show up later on no worse for wear. Plus anyone who [[Super Strength|Shizuo]] hits, throws, or punches. Special mention goes to Rokujo Chikage, who takes four steel-crushing punches to the face, [[Defiant to
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[Averted Trope]], and almost [[Subverted Trope]] in the [[Manhwa]] ''[[Veritas]]''. Through 14 issues, the main character has already suffered at least 5 broken arms, three broken legs and a concussion or two. Oddly, he seems to have done all of that on purpose.
* Everyone in the ''[[Panty
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[Deconstructed]] in ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
** 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]].
** Luca herself might lack the same physical strength of Hina, but having a serious head injury and still putting on a full show as a [[Idol Singer]], shows she has the endurance, also without the background to explain it away.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
** Shouma Takakura. The guy gets {{spoiler|hit by a car at full speed to [[Diving Save|save his friend Ringo]]'s life}} and ''barely suffers more than few bumps''.
** It's apparently genetic; his brother Kanba survived being dragged several miles by a speeding truck along asphalt, returning with only [[Clothing Damage|ripped clothes]] and some scrapes and bruises.
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== 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 ''[[
* Many characters in [[Frank Miller]]'s ''[[Sin City]]'' exhibit this trait to an incredible degree. Made of Iron is probably Miller's all-time favorite character trope for male protagonists. He just loves guys who can take an appalling level of punishment from vastly superior opponents through force of will, strength of character, or just innate badassery.
** Two characters who seem particularly adept at shrugging off damage are Manute and Marv, who require really extreme trauma to {{spoiler|be eventually killed: Manute in a hail of bullets courtesy of an army of prostitutes; Marv by being electrocuted in the electric chair - although notably, Marv doesn't die until the ''second time in a row'' he's electrocuted.}}
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** The animalistic Kevin is so good at ''avoiding'' damage that he doesn't get a chance to display his durability much, but the fact that he can survive being {{spoiler|dismembered, eaten alive by a wolf, and eventually disemboweled, without even making a sound, until he's finally killed by decapitation}} indicates that he's got a lot of iron in him as well.
* [[Batman]]
** This is sometimes subverted, as several older incarnations (''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'', ''[[Kingdom Come]]'', ''[[
** The more recent comic books (i.e. ''Hush'') tend to show Batman's upper body as pretty much a mass of scar tissue by this point.
** Cassandra Cain is at least as bad about this. She usually gets out of the way, but when obliged to take a bullet she can do so and not even flinch. It's mainly [[Training From Hell|practice]].
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== Films -- Animation ==
* 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 ''[[
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* {{spoiler|Luz}} from ''[[Machete]]''.
** {{spoiler|"What eye?"}}
* The ''[[
** John McClane fits the get-badly-hurt type to a tee. In the fourth film, he keeps taking enough damage to kill a man 3 or 4 times, yet he still wipes out an entire assault squad occupying a building, destroys a chopper with a police cruiser and a ramp, kills an enemy [[Action Girl]] with a Ford Explorer and an elevator pit, takes out a fighter plane with a big truck and an elevated highway, and {{spoiler|shoots himself in the shoulder to kill the [[Big Bad]] that was holding a gun against him}}. And all he needs to get patched up after all this is a calm ride in the ambulance.
** The [[Action Girl]] is also absurdly Made of Iron -- she survives being hit by the Explorer, being smashed through a few walls, and even being slammed between the Explorer and a solid concrete wall. She was still beating the crap out of John after all this.
** Although the first film was mainly designed as a subversion of the trope (so... [[Sequelitis|yeah]]), and got a lot of attention for how unlike a lot of popular action movies at the time, the hero picked up several injuries over the course of the film and looked like he'd been through a warzone at the end.
* Subversion: Matt Murdock in ''[[Daredevil (
* [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]] in the movie ''[[Unbreakable]]''. The character in question is the sole survivor of a wild train wreck. His super-fortitude is the basis for the plot.
* ''[[James Bond (
** Mild [[Lampshade Hanging]] in the film ''[[
** Much of the plot of ''[[The World Is Not Enough (Film)|The World Is Not Enough]]'' revolves around the fact that Bond gets a tough-to-heal-from injury early in the film. Doesn't stop him from kicking butt, he just winces manfully when the injury is smacked around.
** The Bond villain Jaws is an even better example, taking massive amounts of punishment in his appearances in ''[[
** In ''[[
* While the blows sustained by Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the ''[[Spider-Man (
* In ''[[Wild Wild West (
* ''[[Rocky (
** The worst offender may be ''Rocky II'', where in their climactic rematch, Apollo Creed gives him twenty consecutive, unanswered shots to the face. More than once.
** The sound of blows landing in ''Rocky III'' is dubbed in astonishingly loud, more akin to shotgun blasts than to fists; during their climactic fight, Rocky and Clubber Lang trade punches that seem like they would decapitate a normal human being.
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* [[Authority Equals Asskicking|Crime lord]] Bill takes this to ridiculous extremes in the film ''Beauty Investigators''. After being shot in the heart, he still manages to beat a ninja in a fight. Later, his leg is broken almost to the point of a compound fracture, and not five minutes later he's walking with a slight limp.
* ''[[Home Alone]]'': Harry and Marv should have been dead by the end of the second movie.
* ''[[
* The ''[[
* [[Jason Statham]] as Chev Cellios in ''[[
* ''[[Halloween (
* ''[[Transformers:
* The heroes in ''[[Watchmen (
* ''[[Charlie's Angels
* ''[[Urban Legend (
* ''[[Three Stooges]]'' Curly is famous for his harder-than-average head. In various shorts, Moe would use a saw or a pickaxe on Curly's cranium, only to find that the points of said tools bent afterward.
* Captain Kirk in the [[Star Trek (
** One might hand-wave this away with some off-screen future medical tech (which conveniently leaves the rugged bruises and abrasions alone).
* [[No Name Given|The Narrator]] in ''The Perfect Sleep''. Although he does get sliced and shot, mostly he just gets punched...''a lot'': He gets beaten to a bloody pulp five times during the course of one night by five different groups of highly motivated thugs, yet somehow remains functional enough to kill most of them and make it to the [[Final Battle]] with [[The Don|Nikolai]]. In the [[Shirtless Scene]], we see he has hundreds of horrific scars from years of abuse--as his drug-dosing doctor pal calls it, "the tapestry of pain". His ability to withstand pain and death is pretty much supernatural, as he admits himself:
{{quote| ''Walter's boys just gave me a beating that will have ''them'' waking up sore in the morning. I should be on death’s door. Walter thinks so. [[Breaking the Fourth Wall|And you probably think so too.]] ''}}
* The titular ''[[
* [[Colonel Badass|Colonel Quaritch]] from ''[[Avatar (
* [[Frankenstein's Monster]] (of course) in Universal's ''[[Frankenstein (1931
* [[Cats Have Nine Lives|Catwoman becomes this at the end of]] ''[[
* ''[[Iron Man (
** Obvious jokes aside, the recent movie version of Tony Stark appears to be able to shrug off blows that should render his head the consistency of [[Chunky Salsa Rule|chunky salsa]], both in and out of the power suit. The flight tests, for example. He also seems to ignore a {{spoiler|GAPING HOLE IN HIS RIBCAGE}}, that should make it impossible for him to breathe unassisted, let alone fight. While {{spoiler|escaping from the terrorists in the first act}}, he also falls in a "powered descent" (!) into a dune with enough force to destroy a solid-metal power suit, yet all his squishy meat and bones remain unharmed.
** Not to mention that Tony nails Rhodey in the head with a barbell and weights, the concussive force of which should have shattered every bone in War Machine's head even with the suit on.
* Spotted Horse in ''[[The Quick and
* ''Botany Bay''. This is an oldie loosely based on the sending of the First Fleet to Australia, and what the hero had to endure aboard ship should have turned him into shark-bait. Not just mercilessly flogged. but keelhauled ''twice over'', and then confined in a leaky brig with icy seawater constantly seeping in! To cap it off, the actor wasn't a big hulking man, but slightly built and delicate-featured Alan Ladd.
* ''[[Friday the 13th (
* Marv from ''[[Sin City]]''. Hit several times by a speeding car without a single broken bone.
** Hartigan also qualifies, [[Beat Still My Heart|except for a detail]].
{{quote| ''Hartigan'': Just one hour to go. My last day on the job. Early retirement. Not my idea. Doctor's orders. Heart condition. Angina, he calls it. }}
* Implied with Eric in ''[[Mystery Team]]'', who tells {{spoiler|Jason}} to shrug off a bullet wound, stating he had been shot three times. Keep in mind that Eric is seven.
* In Act III of ''[[
* Inigo Montoya at the climax of his story in ''[[The Princess Bride (
{{quote| '''Inigo:''' Offer me everything I ask for!<br />
'''Rugen:''' Anything you want!<br />
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* In ''[[Snatch]]'', Boris the Bullet-Dodger doesn't so much dodge bullets as absorb them. He also survives being trapped in a car trunk during an accident and being hit head-on by a van without even being noticeably slowed down.
* In ''[[Superman Returns]]'' Lois takes quite a beating throughout the film, such as being thrown about in a plane as it plummets, and having a heavy object fall on her, but the worse injury she seems to suffer is being knocked unconscious for a few minutes, and she recovers just in time to save Superman.
* Matsu in the ''[[
* {{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}}.
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* 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.
* In ''[[The Culture|Consider Phlebas]]'' by [[Iain Banks]], the Idirans are revealed to be incredibly resilient to damage. One member of the species is apparently killed, and a fairly [[Genre Savvy|sensible]] member of the protagonist's crew decides to make sure of it by putting the barrel of his laser rifle into the Idiran's eye and torching off a good portion of its head. Turns out that this isn't nearly enough to keep an Idiran down, leading to the book's eventual [[Downer Ending]].
* Quidditch, from ''[[Harry Potter (
* 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.
* [[The Dresden Files
* 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.
* ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]''
** In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s story "A Witch Shall Be Born", the witch survives exposure as a baby.
{{quote| ''But the life in me was stronger than the life in common folk, for it partakes of the essence of the forces that seethe in the black gulfs beyond mortal ken.''}}
** In the same story, Conan himself not only survives being crucified, but after his cross is chopped down (with him still nailed to it) he helps pull the nails out and rides 10 miles ''before'' his injuries are treated.
* [[Super Strength|Brutes]], Massives and/or people with [[Power Tattoo|kanji]] of durability in ''[[The Grimnoir Chronicles]]'' books.
* Subverted in [[Harald]]. The [[Badass Grandpa]] protagonist is on the run from [[Mooks|The King's Wolves]], and has been playing [[Guile Hero]] to try and avoid fighting them. They catch him while he's fleeing on horseback, he kills several of them, gets hit by a couple [[Annoying Arrows]] and shrugs them off - and then one of them whacks him in the head, he passes out, gets rescued by [[Those Two Guys]] [[Action Girl|Action Girls]] and spends months recovering from all of his injuries.
* Lampshaded in ''[[Garrett
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* ''[[Super Sentai]]'' is of course just as bad, if not worse. Unmorphed Rangers and bystanders are often seen simply sent flying by explosions and landing without a scratch, severe cuts heal far faster than they ought without special healing tech, etc.
* [[Kamen Rider|Kamen Riders]] are just as bad. Just ask Kamen Rider Ichigo, Nigo and Riderman, who survived ''nuclear explosions to the face'' and come back just in time to aid other Riders! Then there's [[Kamen Rider Fourze]], who, in his cameo in a [[Kamen Rider OOO]] movie, made his arrival by ''crash landing from low orbit'' '''HEAD-FIRST''', and just hopped up from the ground, dusted himself off and went to aid OOO. All he got out of that was a mild headache.
* ''[[24
** Day 1: Grazing bullet wound to the gut. Overall it's one of the more minor ones on this list. Also had to contend with [[You Should Know This Already|Nina]] after this.
** Day 2: Survives a plane crash in the first half of the season. Is later captured and tortured nearly to death.
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** Day 7: Infected by a biological weapon. Quite possibly the worst one.
** Day 8: Superficial knife wound early in the season. Serious stab wound in the final hours. Didn't seem too bad at first but as Jack walks away from the wall he's leaning on there is a very serious bloodstain on the wall. Shot in the final episode and even survives a serious car wreck before the end.
* A humorous example would be Tim Taylor from ''[[
* The companions on ''[[Doctor Who]]'', almost all of whom are human, are put through the physical and emotional wringer nearly every single time they step out of the TARDIS, yet are perfectly fine the moment they step back in. The Doctor himself partially justifies this by being a [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien]], but considering the things he's been through, it's amazing he can still walk.
** 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.
* ''[[
* ''[[
** 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.
** Ditto [[Magnificent Bastard|Scorpius]]: not only is he half-Scarran, but he also wears body armour for anything his body can't deal with. Add to that his own impressive willpower, and he's damn near unstoppable. And even if it looks like you've somehow managed to kill him, well, chances are he [[Crazy Prepared|planned ahead]] enough to be back again in a fortnight. Although there is [[Achilles Heel|his coolant system]], which has been attacked by both Crichton (who sabotaged it) and Emperor Staleek (who tore the whole mechanism out of Scorpy's skull with his bare hands). To their mutual annoyance, Scorpius survived both.
* The pilot episode of ''[[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]]'' features a comic relief [[Mook]] named Pete, who ends up getting shot. The producers liked the actor's performance so much that they brought him back, explaining that he had recovered after getting hit in the gut. Then they decided to just go with it and had him survive the likes of Chinese throwing star and pitchfork attacks.
* Ricky has been repeatedly shot on ''[[Trailer Park Boys]]'', often by accident, although always in a non-vital area. The worst damage he usually suffers is to his pride.
* The main characters on ''[[Married...
* Freddie on ''[[
* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': In "Born Under a Bad Sign", Dean got pistol-whipped, shot in the shoulder (and later had a thumb digging into his bullet wound. Ouch), nearly got beaten to death and was left to drown in icy water. And after all that, he still manages to drive? The boy is super-human!
* After the events of "House's Head"/"Wilson's Heart" especially, [[House (TV series)|House]] should be either be dead or suffering serious brain damage by now.
* A very common trope in ''[[
* 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 TOS|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}}.
* ''[[Fringe]]'': If there's anything that will take Olivia Dunham down for more than about half an episode, some very determined people haven't found it yet. Although when she was in a car accident caused by {{spoiler|William Bell pulling her into the Alternate Universe}}, she did take a few episodes to recover fully, even needing to walk with a cane for awhile.
* In one episode of ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', Aaron Hotchner ''gets blown up'' and is still together enough to attempt first aid on a severely wounded colleague and help get her to hospital even though no first responders will help him for fear of being the target of a second wave of attacks; he collapses briefly at the hospital, but is soon heard from fretfully demanding his clothes, after which he goes with the rest of his team to hunt down the bombers, even though he's still half-deaf from the first blast. The Reaper should have done a little research: if a bomb couldn't slow Hotch down for long, severe exhaustion plus a dozen or so stab wounds were never going to do more than keep him in bed for a few days...
* Every single character on ''[[Smallville]]'' who isn't [[Superman
== Newspaper Comics ==
* Because he personifies most bruiser tropes, it's no surprise that [[Popeye (
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[
** 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.
* ''[[
* Some units and characters in ''[[
** Units aligned to the [[Cosmic Horror|Chaos]] [[God of Evil]] [[Plaguemaster|Nurgle]] almost invariably have this rule. [[Blessed
** The fifth edition introduced a new special rule called "Eternal Warrior." An Eternal Warrior laughs at your Strength 10 attacks, taking a mere wound if he fails any applicable saves.
** Not to mention the Medallion Crimson of Imperial Guard, which allows any officer to survive an instant death attack. Lascannon to the face? Psychic weapon which rips the soul of a victim apart? I'm fine!
** The current ultimate example of this is Commissar Yarrik. All of the above, then, if you actually manage to get through all of his wounds, he has an ability that lets him ''ignore death'' two times out of three. Roll well and Yarrik will survive anything and everything. [[Determinator]] does not begin to describe it.
** Honorary mention to Captain Cortez of the Crimson Fists. If he was to tread on a land mine, that might fracture the last two remaining bones in his body that have never been broken. He once disarmed an Ork Warboss by trapping the weapon in his own ribcage, and has also fought for six weeks without supplies and led charges into the breach with a broken back. Even the Apothecaries of the Fists maintain that he's breaking the rules when it comes to how much damage a Space Marine can sustain. He's currently missing presumed dead, but they [[Never Found the Body]] and his Chapter Master flatly refuses to accept him being dead until such time as an actual corpse turns up.
* ''[[
* The ''[[
* ''[[
* The ''[[
* ''[[
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* 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]]''
** Too numerous to mention. Not merely in bosses, but also in the characters before health reaches a certain point. A good example is whenever ''[[
** The Turks from ''[[
** The trend continues in the movie sequel and remake ''Advent Children'' and ''Advent Children Complete'' when two Turks get captured and tortured by the villains (but still live to make an appearance near the end). Meanwhile the two remaining Turks (Reno and Rude) get beaten by the big bad, hit in the face by a metal rod, being pummeled by the henchmen (which included being thrown from the top of a building) and {{spoiler|falling a great distance from a crashing helicopter onto pavement}} but being appearing perfectly fine in the next scene to attempt a near-kamikaze moment with dynamite (which they also survive and appear at the end of the movie unharmed). The most injuries seen on the Turks were a few bandages, a small cut and a bloody nose (the two latter which were gone a few scenes later).
** Cloud Strife, the main protagonist can also be seen as made from iron seeing how he can survive several deadly falls with nothing more than skinned knees. {{spoiler|Not to mention being stabbed through the chest by Sephiroth.}}
** Basch fon Ronsenburg in ''[[
** Galuf from ''[[
* ''[[
** Liquid Snake. While not nigh invulnerable, he survives things which should kill your average tank. First he survives having his Hind-D shot out from under him. (It's implied he parachuted out, but ''still''...) Snake then blows up his giant mecha by throwing missiles directly ''into Liquid's lap in the open cockpit''. He then survives the giant mecha exploding, which knocked Snake out, despite having been ''inside it at the time'', and in fact wakes up early enough to strip down Snake to his pants, and drag him and his Love Interest up to the top of the five-story tall now-derelict mecha, for a personal ''fist fight'' {{spoiler|between brothers}}. Then, when Snake knocks him off the giant mecha, he survives the ''five-story fall'' and comes at him as Snake escapes in a Jeep, driving his own and firing its machine gun. He is still hardy enough, even after all this, to ''drive with one hand'' and ''shoot with the other''. Snake shoots him with his own machine gun. The ''bare-chested bastard shrugs it off''. Then, after all that, he survives the crash of both Jeeps, and comes at you with a machine gun in one hand, in all his bare-chested glory. You only survive because {{spoiler|he then dies of a bloody ''virus'' of all things. Damn FOXDIE}}. That doesn't stop him coming back in the sequel; after [[The Dragon]], who replaced his lost arm with Liquid's, ''gets possessed by Liquid from beyond the grave''. And he still thought Snake, who dies remarkably easily, got their clone-parent's dominant traits.
** The Gamecube port, ''The Twin Snakes'', steps this up. After Liquid {{spoiler|seemingly dies from FOXDIE, he picks himself up and ''tries to fight the virus off'' whilst attempting to grab Snake ''twice'', then gets up on his feet to have ''a staredown'' with him.}} ''Then'' he {{spoiler|succumbs to the FOXDIE.}}
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** All the playable characters are made of iron, though to a lesser extent than Liquid. Despite electroshock torture, repeated head trauma, poison gas exposure, and a scene where he's '''clearly shot through the chest prior to the second Sniper Wolf battle''', Snake manages to get through ''Metal Gear Solid''. Raiden gets knocked around a lot as well in part 2, and the abuse heaped upon Naked Snake in ''3'' is pretty ridiculous. In part 4 it's even mentioned that given all the abuse the now old Snake has endured, he shouldn't be able to stand, let alone save the world.
* Protagonist Nathan Drake of ''[[Uncharted]]'', master of Selective Gravity. In a freak twist, our leading man gleefully and frequently endures up to twelve cartridges of automatic ammo per hour (not to mention a grenade or missile here or there), always coming out on top through a simple tactic: ducking for cover to regenerate [[From a Single Cell]].
* Every character in the ''[[
* Ena from ''[[
** She can then die two more times in ''Radiant Dawn''. Note that the second example is part of a non-canonical [[Multiple Endings|Bad Ending]].
* ''[[
* In ''[[Black and White]]'' there's a particular guy who taunts you, and no matter what do you to him (which being a deity,it's a lot of possibilities) he will remain unscrached.
* Several examples in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'':
** Any racial leader (ex: Thrall for the Orcs) can take several (usually 15>) people whaling on him/her simultaneously with lighting bolts, flesh-eating zombie summons, fireballs, gunshots, etc.
** Raid bosses can take a ton of punishment as well. And even your own character could be used as an example of this trope, as you're pretty much invulnerable to low level mobs or characters after you hit level 80.
* Travis Touchdown in ''[[No More Heroes]]'' is an interesting case of ''[[Cutscene Power to
* ''[[City of Heroes]]''
** The eleventh official expansion to the MMORPG added a new powerset, Willpower, specifically designed to let players create characters who are Made of Iron.
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* Albert Wesker in the ''[[Resident Evil]]'' series. He gets slashed by Tyrant (he dies for real in all the endings of the original), but escapes and sets off the [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]], and even worse in ''Code Veronica'' he has superhuman ''Matrix''-style powers and survives having a stack of girders dropped on him, while the base is burning around him. And in ''RE 5'', he can catch rocket-propelled grenades.
** {{spoiler|Though much of this is handwaved by the supervirus he takes following the Tyrant incident; a forced overdose in ''RE 5'' removed said abilities, leading to his eventual defeat, and according to [[Word of God]], death.}}
** The player characters are pretty Made of Iron as well. Things you can survive in ''[[Resident Evil]] 4'' include a direct hit from a rocket launcher and [[Impaled
* The protagonist in ''[[Disaster: Day of Crisis]]'' qualifies, as does Evans... Jesus, that guy can take as much punishment as Liquid Snake. And he ''loves it''.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'': Link seems to get this. He gets battered about with swords ''as big as he is'' and just shrugs it off. If he takes enough damage, he acts tired when he stands still. That's the extent of the damage.
** [[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|King Bulblin]] is no slouch, either. For a humanoid mini-boss with no magical protection, he handles being repeatedly sliced, diced, and thrown off bridges pretty damn well.
* Dr. Wily's ''[[
** Being Made of Iron seems to be hereditary, as Wily's son, {{spoiler|Dr. Regal, manages to survive high-voltage electrocution and subsequent fall off of a very high roof}}. He goes on to survive the same explosion and eruption that Wily survived after having his mind and memories completely drained.
* Everything that ever lived in any ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' game. In the first games you have to shoot any human being for minutes for it to die, not because they are hard to hit. Every. Single. Shot. Is a hit. Count the amounts of bullets you have to put through each enemy (taking into account the player uses tow pistols at the same time. You'll be surprised how much stronger than 50 cent each little monkey in the jungle is.
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** Perhaps the best example is also the first example, the one and only [[Doom|Doomguy]], who manages to survive everything hell can throw at him.
*** On the subject of Doom, there's the Cyberdemon in the original games.
* Averted in First Person Shooters at the "realistic" end of [[Fackler Scale of FPS Realism|the scale]] -- such as ''[[Counter
* Not strictly an example, but: in Yuri and Estelle's [[Friendship Moment]] the night before the final battle in ''[[
* Captain Cross from ''[[Prototype (
* Every [[Fighting Game]] ever. ''[[Street Fighter]]''? Just as one example, the piledriver is capable of breaking necks in the real world when done in the somewhat controlled environment of [[Professional Wrestling]]; Zangief can perform one from effectively 20' in the air, and the victim can get up. Then there's ''[[Samurai Shodown]]'' and ''[[Soul Series|Soul Calibur]]'', where you can shrug off a sword aimed through the chest. Somewhat needed, though, otherwise these games could be very, very short.
** For the aversion, see ''[[Bushido Blade]]'': weapon-based fighter like the two above, but one clean hit kills you automatically.
*** There are other aversions, but in general, these are games where the [[One-Hit Kill]] is [[Game Breaker|much too easy]]. Exhibit A: ''[[Time Killers]]''.
** There are some ''ridiculous'' stage effects in the ''[[Dead or Alive]]'' series that can range from being thrown into explosive containers to literally dropping over 10 stories below. Worst that happens is a KO and otherwise everyone just gets up like nothing even happened.
* In ''[[
* An interesting example in ''[[Modern Warfare]]''. Most of the time in game, especially on Veteran and online this trope is averted; while you can take one to three shots standing without much issue, any more than that and you'll have just as much a chance of standing as the card tower you're trying to build before the hurricane hits, metaphorically. However, in the Campaign, this trope is played [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|awesomely straight]] when {{spoiler|your character, Soap, survives, in order, falling off of a waterfall, having his head bashed into the roof of a car, being stabbed in the chest, crawling to a gun with said knife in chest, being stomped on the face with a boot, and finally pulling the knife out of his chest and tossing it into the face of General Shepherd. ''Damn.''}}
* The hillbillies of Point Lookout in ''[[
** This has less to do with being Made of Iron than the [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|game being a cheating bastard]]. The Hillbillies' weapons (and most of the weapons in point Lookout for that matter) deal an extra 30-50 points of damage when used against the Lone Wanderer. They also happen to have raised health([[Word of God]] says this is because the developers wanted Point Lookout to be one of the hardest expansions).
** This is somewhat applicable to several high-end baddies added in the expansions, the probable reason being that by the end of the vanilla game the Lone Wanderer can deal IMMENSE amounts of damage, Sneak attack critical + sniper rifle + headshot = dead almost anything from the vanilla game.
** Also applicable to some of your followers in Broken Steel, namely Dogmeat, Fawkes, and Seargent RL-3. When the ability to level up companions was added, there was a glitch that made these three gain ''hundreds'' of hitpoints per level. By level 30, they couldn't be killed by anything less than three shots from the Mysterious Stranger's .44 Magnum, a gun you can only get by cheating that does over ''9,000 damage per shot!''
* Joshua Graham of ''[[Fallout
* ''[[Kikokugai]]'': Subverted by Gong Taoluo, even more so considering his specialized techniques do him lots of pain when he uses them too much.
* Steel-types in ''[[Pokémon]]'' are a literal example of this trope, with some of them (like Steelix) also living up to it.
** Shuckle is the epitome of Made of Iron. It has the highest Defense and Sp. Defense of any Pokémon, with both of them maxing out at ''614''. And it can also have the Sturdy ability, which protects it from 1-hit KO moves. The only reliable way to KO Shuckle is to use attacks that do set amounts of damage or poisoning/burning it.
** Subverted with Bastiodon, who is in the top ten for both defensive stats in the game and is ''literally'' Made of Iron, but still falls to a wayward hit because of its absolutely crippling weaknesses to Ground and Fighting-type attacks (they do ''four times the damage'' and are some of the most common attacks in the game). Aggron is a similar case, except it has much lower Special Defense but higher Defense.
* For a murder game, ''[[
** {{spoiler|Wocky Kitaki}} ''does'' get shot in the heart, and survives for over six months!
** [[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
*** He ate a poisoned ''glass'' necklace (and even mentions ''chewing'' it) without suffering any visible pain.
*** He was electrocuted by a stun gun and stood up again just a minute later, unharmed (whereas Maya still felt the aftereffects a day later).
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* From the same people, ''[[Ghost Trick]]'' has several characters who stretch the limits of survivability, even without the player character's death-reversing powers.
* In ''[[Ace Combat]] Zero'', the ADFX-02 Morgan certainly doesn't look or perform like the properly armoured A-10 Warthog/Thunderbolt II, but can take at least six missile hits to down when most enemy planes go down in two. Even then, it still manages to pull off a [[Single-Stroke Battle]]-like flypast on Cipher's plane before it finally explodes.
* In ''[[
* [[
* Wario in the ''[[
* In ''[[
** Krogan in-game are extremely hardy, with secondary and sometimes tertiary organ systems and regenerative abilities. Thane Krios, a superb assassin whose preferred techniques tend towards quick, low-fuss [[Neck Snap|neck snaps]] on most species, has a somewhat different style when killing krogan while [[Badass|unarmed]].
{{quote| [[Death From Above|Top approach]], [[Eye Scream|double-strike to eye ridge]], slide down between blinded target's rising arms, [[Pressure Point|precision nerve strike to throat]], secondary nerve strike to counter [[Unstoppable Rage|blood rage]], [[Groin Attack|quad-kick]] to bend target, grip each side of skull, running leaping spinning [[Neck Snap|neck-snap]]. Alternate: [[Stuff Blowing Up|Bomb]].}}
** Shepard [[Up to Eleven|turns this up to eleven]] in [[
* ''[[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 Bros.]]'' Bowser, definitely. From being [[Super Mario Bros.|thrown]] [[Super Mario 64
** ''[[
** Perhaps the Mario Brothers aren't the only ones who can benefit from One-up Mushrooms.
* ''[[
* King K Rool in ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]''. In the first game it's fairly standard punishment, but in the second, he gets his gun explode on him about ten times, gets punched out the window of an airship by a captured Donkey Kong, hits every single cliff face on the way down, torn apart by sharks, sinks into the ocean, has his gun explode AGAIN in the [[True Final Boss]] battle, flies into the island core, is presumably there when it sinks like Atlantis and sails away on his ship afterwards. Then, in the third game, he gets electrocuted like ten times from his mad science laboratory equipment, and has a giant egg dropped on his head by the freed Banana Bird queen... Then gets beaten up by all five Kongs in ''[[
* In ''[[
** [[Assassin's Creed II
*** Compounded in the extended trailer (and the second opening cutscene) of ''Revelations'', when Ezio freefalls from several stories high only to make a [[Three-Point Landing]] ''with no negative physical effects'', and all of his acrobatic abilities intact.
* Luka Redgrave in ''[[
* 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 [[Re Boot]]: 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.
* ''[[Fate/stay
* ''[[
** She can be shot or otherwise injured an unlimited number of times with no permanent effects, as long as she has a few seconds to rest after each hit. Faith of [[
* ''[[The Incredible Machine]]'''s [[Cosmic Plaything]] mini-human Mel Schlemming can withstand anything outside of getting eaten, though falling from a great height will knock him out.
* The players in ''[[EA Sports Street|NFL Street]]'' would be hit with tackles as hard as the average football game but without all the armor protecting them. Given that football in real life had commonly resulted in injuries even when wearing armor, the players must had been pretty tough.
* The snowboarders in ''[[
* Everyone in [[Scribblenauts]]. Especially Maxwell himself. With the dizzying array of weapons in the game, you'd think SOMETHING would cause a lasting injury. But nope. [[Critical Existence Failure]] only here.
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[
* ''[[RPG World]]'' often [http://rpgworldcomic.com/d/20001201.html plays with] this trope.
* O-Chul from ''[[
{{quote| '''O-Chul:''' [This is] Xykon's spell list. Or most of it, anyway.<br />
'''Roy:''' Are you kidding?!? How did you get this??<br />
'''O-Chul:''' One saving throw at a time. }}
* Steve from [[
* ''[[
** Bun-Bun has shrugged off attacks that would kill an ordinary human being, made all the more impressive by the fact that he's a ''rabbit''. At one point he was actually eaten alive by an alien, and simply burst his way out of the alien's stomach and proceeded to kick its butt. Bun-Bun has an origin even he is not clear about; he was bought from a Magical Store.
** Oasis might also count. She's been through many [[No One Could Survive That]] moments, including two explosions and a sniper bullet to the head. How she does this is not yet explained, and may or may not be a superpower she was given by Dr. Steve. Her "sister" Kusari has also survived being stabbed through the chest and even ''decapitated'', again by means unexplained.
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** One member managed to survive having '''Australia''' dropped on them. That one member? The '''''[[Squishy Wizard|SQUISHY FREAKING WIZARD]]'''''.
** Fighter himself has survived several stabs to the back of the head courtesy of black mage and it isn't likely he's ever felt a thing. Hell, he even had one used as a lightning rod to channel a Lightning Spell directly into his brain. That particular spell actually INCREASED his intelligence instead of dealing any damage whatsoever!
* ''[[
** Considering what he HAS survived, Othar Trygvassen (GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER!) is only boasting a little in the page quote.
** Also a defining characteristic of the [[Super Soldier|Jaegers]], along with their [[Funetik Aksent|thick Germanic accents]] and [[More Teeth Than the Osmond Family|teeth]]
** And coming completely out of left field is quiet, unassuming, [[Mauve Shirt]] Airman Third Class Axel Higgs. He gets slammed into a stone wall hard enough to leave a man-shaped dent, brushes it off, {{spoiler|then cuts the insane clank that did the slamming with a wrench [[One-Hit Kill|in a single swipe.]]}} Although we're starting to get hints that he's not quite what he seems...
* [[The Ace|Ms. Jones]] from ''[[
* [[
* The title character of ''[[
* ''[[
* {{spoiler|Richard}} in ''[[
** 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.
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== Web Original ==
* Jacob Starr of ''[[
** 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.
* Justified in ''[[Broken Saints]]'': Gabriel, {{spoiler|[[The Dragon]]}}, can handle the pain of his spear wound so easily because {{spoiler|he been genetically engineered to have enhanced physical endurance, among other attributes.}}
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** Infinity is amazingly hard to hurt as well because of her mutation. Her bones are made of metal and her musculature is far more dense than normal flesh. She gets hurt all the time, but it takes a lot to do it.
** Anvil is literally Made of Iron. Imagine Colossus of the X-Men, except permanently transformed and iron instead of steel.
* [[Darwin's Soldiers
** Pelvanida experiments are ''extremely'' hard to kill.
** [[Badass Normal|Alfred]] shrugged off at least two point blank gut shots from a pistol and continued engaging [[Scary Black Man|Marcus]] in a fist fight.
** Marcus is an ordinary human Dragonstorm agent. He was capable of taking on two beings with [[Super Strength]], even after he had been punched several times by them.
* Corbin from ''[[Splinter Cell Extinction]]'' gets surrounded by a SWAT team, sedated, takes a [[Magic Antidote]], his [[Mission Control]] provides him a distraction via [[Hollywood Hacking]] that leads to a [[Darkened Building Shootout]], Corbin gets shot in the chest while totally murdering everyone in the room, then beats the crap out of four more armed commandos and escapes.
* [[
== Western Animation ==
* In ''[[Teen Titans (
* ''[[
** Brock Sampson has, in various episodes, survived being beaten, stabbed, shot, exposed to the vacuum of space, hit with a bus and buried alive after receiving a supposedly lethal dose of knockout darts. When the Phantom Limb has to perform emergency surgery on Brock to save his life in the episode "Hate Floats" he runs down a litany of all the things he removed.
{{quote| "I have removed the bullet. And three others, a blowgun dart, two shark's teeth, a tip of a bayonet, a twisted paperclip, and a meager handful of buckshot. You may want to learn how to duck."}}
** To a lesser extent, Dr. Venture is also indestructible, having survived the loss of an arm (later reattached with no ill effects) and having an eye knocked out of its socket (he's forced to wear an eye patch for an episode, but next time we see him, [[Snap Back|all is well]]) and kidney removal. Both kidneys, by the way.
* Despite frequently being on the receiving end of, among other things, [[Elemental Powers|giant boulders and fire blasts]], the characters of ''[[
** A significant supporting character was [[Killed Off for Real]] with what by the show's standards was a relatively minor attack, simply because he was caught by surprise and wasn't able to brace himself for the hit.
** The only two people who actually had bones broken were the canyon guide in "The Gread Divide" after being attacked by some canyon crawlyers and {{spoiler|Sokka}} in the [[Grand Finale]] by awkwardly falling about ten metres onto a metal platform.
* ''[[The Simpsons (
** Played for laughs in an episode where it is revealed that Homer was born with an unusually thick skull and has an extra layer of protective fluid around his brain, so he can take severe, repeated blows to the head without suffering any real damage.
** And subverted in "Homerpalooza" when the doctor informs him that his cannonball-to-the-gut sideshow act is killing him.
* Double subverted in the episode "Bart the Daredevil," when he falls down the Springfield Gorge twice, surviving, but sustaining severe injuries.
* In [[The Movie]] of ''[[
* ''[[
** 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
* ''[[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]]''.
** Averted with {{spoiler|[[Complete Monster|Eddy's Brother]]. He delivered a pretty sickening [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] on Eddy and Eddy survived with bruises and marks. In his brother's case, one hit with a door and he was out cold.}}
** {{spoiler|[[Fridge Brilliance|Though Eddy must have built up resistance from the years of abuse.]] And [[Word of God]] said that [[Glass Cannon|his brother never took a hit in his life.]]}}
* Major Bludd in ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]'' is a fairly impressive example, taking about as much punishment in one episode as one could theoretically suffer in a kids show, and shrugging every bit of it off like nothing happened. To elaborate, he get punched, kicked, shuriken'd, knocked off a speeding truck ''through'' a billboard, smashed into crates, ''[[Forklift Fu|hit with a forklift]]'', buried under debris from a collapsing wall, and finally blown up with a shopping mall/ammo dump. Only after the last one [[Eye Scream|costs him an eye]] does he ''start'' to even [[It's Personal|hold a grudge]] against the Joes.
* [[Evil Old Folks|Grandfather]] from ''[[Codename
{{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
** 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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* Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. A brief autopsy after his defeat revealed that he had taken five bullets and over twenty sword wounds before he went down.
* [[Truth in Television]]: It's possible to survive being stabbed in a non-vital area because the damage is mostly localized, so first aid and adequate medical care can allow someone to live without any detrimental effects (beyond the time it takes to heal). Bullets which are not designed to expand upon impact also can be survived, since the wound cavity is only as large as the bullet is..
* In February 2008, British marine Matthew Croucher [[Jumping
** The USMC's Jacklyn Lucas smothered two grenades (one was a dud) with his body on Iwo Jima in 1945. The 17-year-old had no body armour. He died in 2008.
*** Lucas also survived jumping out of a plane when both his parachutes failed to open on a training exercise.
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