No One Could Survive That: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

{{quote|'''Tonk Fah''': You think he'll live?

 

Almost universally uttered after a character (usually a hero but sometimes a villain) [[Suicidal Gotcha|takes a wild leap into the unknown]] as a way to escape pursuit and otherwise-inevitable capture -- [[No Escape but Down|jumping off a high cliff]] or across a wide chasm, for instance. The pursuers then give up the chase, confident that their quarry has effectively committed suicide, and [[Never Found the Body|never go look for the body]] to make sure.

Also may be a result of [[The Worf Barrage]] or an attempt at [[Try and Follow]].

 

 

Along with [[Nothing Can Stop Us Now]] and [[What Could Possibly Go Wrong?]], this is one of the things a [[Genre Savvy]] character should '''[[Tempting Fate|never ever ever]]''' say. In fact, they should [[Dope Slap]] anyone who does...

 

{{examples}}

 

* ''[[Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin]]'' and its [[Ginga Densetsu Weed|sequel]] ''love'' this trope.

*** Another strike against DESTINY: The ending of the original SEED had Mwu's ''broken'' helmet floating through space to show that, yes, he was really dead. Fan demand had them ''edit out the helmet footage'' from the Special Edition to let them revive him. This didn't go down well with everyone, obviously.

** ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]'' features one of the most brilliant examples of this trope ever done in their treatment of the infamous "Immortal Colasour" in the final episodes. Showing how [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] they can be the writers played a half dozen tricks that had the audience saying this. To sum it up, in episode 23 of the second season, {{spoiler|[[Redemption Equals Death|he and his beloved Colonel switch sides in order to help Celestial Being Fight Against the Innovators.]] In the heat of battle, [[Heroic Sacrifice|he then throws himself in front of three kamikaze mobile suits to protect her]] [[Final Speech|while confessing his love for her at the top of his lungs.]] As this happens, Kati [[Say My Name|shouts his full name for the first time in the series.]] With all of these strikes against him, it seems that our beloved Patrick was down for the count and not coming back, especially since around this time in the series [[Kill'Em All|important characters had been dying by the bucketload.]] And yet, in the final episode, who should show up but Patrick, not only having survived without a scratch, but [[Happily Ever After|revealing that he was about to be married to Kati.]]}}

* In ''[[Sailor Moon]] S'', when Usagi is surprised to see Kaorinite again after she was frozen and thrown off a cliff, Artemis reminds her that they [[Never Found the Body]].

** During this same season, Neptune knowingly walks down a path lined with Machine guns that trigger each time she takes a step. She keeps going until the guns run out of ammo. No blood is shown but each time she takes a step it shows her getting filled with bullets each step (Albeit in silhouette). The villan who rigged the trap is confounded that she managed to make it over to her let alone live. She dies moments later from an entirely different source though.

** The ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Abridged Series|Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series]]'' quote at the top of the page parodies this.

** This also happens when Malik uses the Dragon of Ra to attack Joey, which should cause him so much pain that he should be vaporized. Thankfully, Joey's an anime character, so he manages to survive, and is up and walking around several episodes later.

** Late in the second season, {{spoiler|Princess Cornelia}} is gunned down by a machine gun turret. The next episode, {{spoiler|she}} is seen lying in a hospital bed, injured but recovering.

** C.C. may be the grand champion of "being able to survive anything". In the first episode she was shot in the head, and returned in episode five like nothing happened. Later, shrapnel ended up embedded in her chest but she was just fine a few hours later. {{spoiler|Not only that, but she was stabbed in the chest by the nun who gave her the Immortality Code which is the reason she survives all these things. This isn't even mentioning the stuff V.V. and later Charles pulls off.}} Then we have {{spoiler|Jeremiah Gottwald}} who returned in R2 {{spoiler|after seemingly sinking into the bottom of the ocean}}. What's more, back during the first season, he was supposed to be [[Killed Off for Real]] in a radiation attack by Kallen's hand (literally) but because he was already [[Ensemble Darkhorse|so popular]] the writers changed that, making him visibly eject and show up several episodes later {{spoiler|as a Cyborg}}.

* {{spoiler|Tomoe}} from ''[[Mai-Otome]]'' takes a thousand-or-more-feet drop from the sky (head first!) after her [[Phlebotinum Breakdown|armor was shattered]] during her final fight against Arika. Just as the castle guards discover her and prepare to pronounce her DOA, she springs back up from the gurney and yells at one of them, and then walks away as if she had simply fallen out of a tree.

** The same thing happens to {{spoiler|Arika and Nina}}, who survive their final battle after having their Robes break down ''in outer space''!

** In ''[[Magical Chronicle Lyrical Nanoha Force]]'' the mysterious people at the start claim that no human can survive their heat "sanitation". Later, {{spoiler|Cypha stabs Signum, saying that her death will serve as a warning for others. Turns out, Signum survived the attack}}.

* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' has the Homunculi. Just...the homunculi.

** Justified in that they're essentially glorified corpses. With magically enhanced endurance and stamina. So Yeah ...

** And in the first episode of ''ZERO'', both Hayato and Randoll survived (albeit with serious injuries) after Hayato's car went off the track banking, his car flew airborne and crashed into the ground.

* Zelgadis uses the line in ''[[Slayers|Slayers Next]]''.

* In ''[[Fate/Zero]]'', even [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] [[Mage Killer]] Kiritsugu falls for saying this when he {{spoiler|[[Dungeon Bypass|completely blows up the hotel that one of his enemies has turned into a fortress]]}} and confidently declares over a phone call that no magical defense could have saved him from ''that''. Sure enough, the first sign that the enemy Master survived was that his Servant's curse on Saber did not eventually disappear, as it should have.

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[Tintin]]: every time Tintin is involved in a gruesome car accident, the people trying to kill or capture him go check the burning wreckage in an unusual display of genre savviness. Unfortunately for them, Tintin always escapes those accidents by jumping from the car right before it goes off the road, so he generally ends up stealing his pursuers' car (and in one case ''tank'') while they're looking for his body.

** Also, every time Tintin gets shot, the bullet just ''happens'' to miss any major organs or merely grazes his skull. In one particularly [[egregious]] case, Tintin is sentenced to death by firing squad, but the guns were filled with blanks before hand and Tintin faked death - yet somehow, ''no one notices that he's not bleeding despite supposedly being riddled by bullets'', even though, given the secrecy of the whole thing, clearly not everybody was in on the conspiracy.

* This really happened to author of Persepolis 1 and 2 (Marjane Satrapi), which is depicted in Persepolis 2, "The Story of A Return". Suffering from deep depression, Satrapi takes all of her meds at once. This knocks her out cold a few days before subjecting her to hours of bizarre hallucinations... However, according to her then-psychiatrist, what she took was enough to kill a small elephant. Satrapi took this as a sign that she was not meant to die.

* During the first story arc of [[Grant Morrison]]'s JLA: the [[Monster of the Week|Villains of the month]] have shot down Batman's plane. They don't even bother to check the wreckage, since "[[Underestimating Badassery|He doesn't have any]] [[Badass Normal|powers."]] Somewhat justified in that {{spoiler|they turn out to be martians, who would be vulnerable to the fire coming off the crashed plane.}}

{{quote|'''Joker:''' Oh who cares? I've been blown up, thrown down smokestacks, fed to sharks; I'm the Joker! I ''always'' survive!}}

* Likely inspired by the above clown, the Painted Doll from ''[[Promethea]]'' presents an interesting twist on this trope: The Painted Doll keeps waking up in the river with fuzzy memories of another narrow escape no matter how seemingly sure the previous demise seemed. {{spoiler|When a large group of Painted Dolls revive at once it is finally revealed that the character is actually a series of automatons.}}

 

 

** {{spoiler|Done straight earlier in the same novel, with [[Action Mom|Mara Jade]] (in a [[Mama Bear]]/quasi [[Unstoppable Rage]] moment) stabbing Lumiya, only to be tripped and throttled by a sentient Sith ship and see Lumiya escape in it (both ladies end up severely injured, by the way).}}

** {{spoiler|Boba Fett has also escaped the Sarlaac pit in at least one short story.}}

** To be fair to the Baron Harkonnen, he immediately smacks his minion in the mouth for doing something so stupid as to assume his enemies are dead without actually seeing their bodies, and then sends his forces back out to find the bodies. Naturally, they don't. But he did at least try!

** This trope is discussed by Lady Fenring who brings up a Bene Gesserit saying: "Do not count a human dead until you see the body. And even then you can make a mistake."

* In [[Matthew Reilly]]'s books, [[Anyone Can Die]]. Gena "Mother" Newman of the ''Shane Schofield'' series appears to die once per book, but always manages to survive. After the third time, she declares herself "f*** ing indestructible".

** The protagonist in each of [[Matthew Reilly]]'s books always goes through this (at least) once per book.

* Subverted in ''[[Catch-22]]''. {{spoiler|Doc Daneeka doesn't like flying but is required to fly a certain number of hours so he gets people to put his name on the flight manifest. One of these flights he's not on crashes killing everyone on board and everyone refuses to believe he's alive after that despite his protestations to the contrary.}}

* In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' Pippin kills a large troll, only to be squashed under it when it goes down. Pippin did actually die, but CS Lewis complained to Tolkien that he couldn't kill him off, and Tolkien ended up letting Gimli save the Hobbit.

* In just about any book of the [[Discworld]] series where he appears, Rincewind is able to survive against impossible odds (like falling off the Disc, facing the Sourcerer, and going through Dungeon Dimensions AND Hell). Being the favourite (favourite [[Cosmic Plaything|plaything]], at least) of Lady Luck does help.

*** In fact, the supporting characters discuss this trope in brief right after it happens. One even starts theorizing ''how'' they could have survived. In the end, {{spoiler|it turns out they are dead. So they mug the Valkyries sent to collect them and steal their horses.}}

* Lampshaded in ''[[Warbreaker]]'', as demonstrated by the pagequote.

** The same thing is happening in the fanbase after book twelve, in which {{spoiler|Graendal}} essentially dies off-screen. Despite clear evidence that {{spoiler|she}} is dead, fans are not so sure.

*** {{spoiler|Book 13 reveals that she actually did survive, playing this trope straight}}

* Captain Jack of ''[[Torchwood]]'' has this happen to him a lot. He's been shot, electrocuted, and had the life drained out of him, only to keep coming back.

** This eventually leads to orders to have his corpse captured and held under guard, much to the confusion of the [[Mooks]]. {{spoiler|They eventually encase him in concrete, but his team breaks him out.}}

** This is likely explainable by assuming the Borg Queen ''does'' "die," or rather, get destroyed each time. She seems to be assembled at the start of each of her appearances so each one may be a newly constructed queen, likely with a download of the previous one's memories. Hence, thinking in such three-dimensional terms.

*** Given that the Borg Queen is the personification of an enormous [[Hive Mind]], it stands to reason that she cannot be "killed" so long as the Collective still exists. The destruction of her physical body would, then, hardly even count as a minor setback.

* Mikhael on ''[[Lost]]'' was thought to be killed by a sonic fence, and later a harpoon, but survived anyway. {{spoiler|Then, he ended up killing both himself and Charlie with a grenade underwater.}}

* In ''[[The Wire]]'' season 5, Omar escapes from a shootout by jumping of a 4th floor balcony. He breaks his leg, but is otherwise unharmed. There is never given any explanation to his miraculous survival.

* Big Smith, in ''[[The Adventures of Brisco County Jr]]'', falls a loooooong way from a train, and shows up in a later episode, alive. Handwaved by him falling out carrying the artifact.

** Their recurring enemy Apophis was also a master of this trope. After the last time, when he was last seen on a starship crashing into a planet at relativistic speeds, O'Neill declared he was "100 percent...[[[Beat]]]...99 percent sure" he was really dead.

* Used word-for-word by Chloe in the 6AM-7AM hour of ''[[24]]'''s last season, after a desperate villain drives his SUV off top floor of a parking structure. In a subversion, the driver actually ''does'' fail to survive that.

== Tabletop Games ==

 

** The ''lesser'' Tyranids need to burrow in. Certain variations of the Carnifex have [[Healing Factor|regenerative abilities]] and bodies that are even more resilient to damage than normal. In the 3rd/4th edition it mentions on one page that the guys examining a planet that had undergone Exterminatus found what looked like a strange rock formation; it was actually a Carnifex trying to heal the damage it had taken.

* [[Spirit of the Century]], with its focus on [[Two-Fisted Tales|pulp action narrative]], allows players to [[Invoked Trope]] this trope with the Death Defiance stunt. It allows any character who has it to avoid death if it happens "offscreen" (falling off a cliff, failing to escape the collapsing building, etc.) by spending half of their fate points and citing some explanation (including bizarre and improbable coincidences) of how they survived.

* Alex in the [[Golden Sun]] saga, between the second and the third game. In the ending of The Lost Age, the Wise One prevents him from gaining the full power of the Golden Sun and leaves him for dead.On top of a ''volcano that later erupts obliterating everything around it, and eventually collapses''.He appears without as much as a scratch twenty years later in Dark Dawn: when Kraden confronts him about that, he merely answers with a smirk.

* In ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]'', Calo Nord is [[Left for Dead]]. Buried under rubble. In a collapsing building. On a doomed planet undergoing heavy bombardment. With no chance to escape had he even not been buried, as the player has just stolen [[Cool Ship|the only possible means of escape]]. Later in the game, he emerges on the [[Big Bad]]'s flagship with barely a scratch; it is never explained how he survived, although they do [[Lampshade Hanging|hang a lampshade]] on this.

** Also possibly {{spoiler|Bastila and Darth Revan's}} presence on the bridge of {{spoiler|Revan's}} starship when it was blasted to smithereens by {{spoiler|Malak}} and still showing up for the rest of the game.

* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid]]'', main character Solid Snake shoots down [[Big Bad]] Liquid's Hind helicopter, in a boss battle on the top of a tower. The chopper plummets, Liquid screams, and Snake leans over the edge of the railing, stares into the flaming mass, and utters a [[Bond One-Liner]]. Snake gets slightly suspicious later on when finding a parachute caught in a tree ("No way, he'd be sliced up faster than an onion in an infomercial..."), and, sure enough...

** His nemesis from ''[[Mega Man Zero]]'', Dr. Weil, deserves a mention, seeing as he {{spoiler|was the target of ''a [[Kill Sat]] that completely leveled [[The Empire]] (!)''}}. [[The Reveal]] of {{spoiler|his being immortal}} [[Justified Trope|might have something to do with it]]...

** For that matter, in ''[[Mega Man Battle Network]] 2'', Lan is exposed to hundreds of thousands of rads of radiation. Even with a good radiation suit, that should have killed him, and quickly. Its so egregious that it crosses into [[You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever]], never mind [[Cosmic Lottery Winner]]. For reference, 1000 rads will kill you within a month or two, and 5000 will kill you in a few days.

** After shooting down {{spoiler|Mike Toreno}}s helicopter during one mission, you're told that "there's no way he could have survived that fireball" (bordering on [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]], as this is the only time you see such sort of a message after mission). Guess who you talk to later.

* This also happens in ''[[Super Robot Wars]] Original Generation'' saga. Lamia Loveless was forcefully pulled out from a Bartoll pod using Alt Eisen Riese's Revolving Bunker, all while naked, already damaged, and bound with the cables inside, anyone can say [[That's Gotta Hurt]] at that point. To make things worse, she got shot down while laying down in Alt Eisen Riese's arm without recovering from the previous damage, not by a mere gun, but with a dangerous [[Humongous Mecha]], all while NAKED AND DEFENSELESS. People think that she wouldn't survive at all... except that she survived just by a very small margin, because the game's [[The Dragon|Dragon]] made it in time to reprogram her and turn her against her allies. And the scene of her ultimate rescue was just as brutal, Axel uses his strongest attack only to plug her out of the machine that kept here, yet she still survives for the ultimate repair. If you call Code Kirin weaker than Revolving Bunker, well that's just ridiculous... But then again, she was in a bigger mecha so a way stronger attack may be necessary to plug her out.

** And it was actually PRECEDED, when she self destructs to save the team from the Shadow Mirror, and she got Lemon to haul her in the last minute and repair her and let her off...

** Axel Almer also adheres this trope fully, probably in a far more impossible odds than Lamia. Let's see... he got blasted into pieces, almost all limbs said to be broken, had his death speech and all, and his place of death was merged into an alien body (and supposedly his body too)... Banpresto's answer? Have a quirky mercenary squadron haul his machine remnants in the last minutes, JUST BEFORE THE MERGING, and have ANOTHER DEAD character (Alfimi) possess his soul briefly so he can wake up in the future time. And bear in mind that he has no body modifications before, he's just a human that [[Made of Iron|happens to be too tough for his own good]]. Maybe his [[Ensemble Darkhorse|popularity]] ever since he played the villain part ultimately causes this...

*** Kyosuke's abnormal Luck is actually one of the traits he's famous for. He ''routinely'' survives attacks that were supposed to kill him, and fans speculate that this luck is what allows Kyosuke to perform well in his Alteisen, which is, in all honesty, an outdated and [[Flawed Prototype|clumsy]] [[Real Robot Genre]] that really wants to be a [[Super Robot Genre]] when it grows up. Anyone else using the Alt would probably find themselves shot down pretty quickly.

** Oh, and Excellen Browning also got it a bit worse. She was supposedly dead at the plane crash with Kyosuke, but the Einst hauled her in the last minute so they can partially put their parts on her, and that ensured her survival.

** And then, {{spoiler|they come back with the wrecked carcass of the robot boss of the base as both shield and escape tool.}}

* ''[[Tekken]] 3'', Bryan Fury's ending. [http://youtube.com/watch?v=8q2OCza3O1A Nuff said].

** And in ''[[Tekken]] 5'', Heihachi Mishima takes this to a new level. Surrounded with robots, pinned down with no chance to escape, and all the robot self destructed, destroying him and the temple where he's located. An observer confirms ''"Heihachi Mishima is dead"''... Is it? Bzzt! Wrong! He [[Never Found the Body]]. So it turns out that Heihachi managed to survive the near-impossible odds, [[Badass Normal|being no ordinary man]].

* ''[[Counter-Strike]]'': I'm sure anyone who's played the game for a decent amount of time gets quite annoyed when they fired at the head of an opponent from long range with the AK47 only to see the guy at the other end not [[Blown Across the Room|fall/fly backwards]], assuming they've missed. Eventually they'll find out that they actually did hit... for 99 damage. Thankfully this is very long-range only, [[Million-to-One Chance|rare to begin with]], and easily rectified by just hitting one more shot or just getting a grenade close enough.

** Not to mention how Krauser actually seemed to have made it off Sadler's island before it exploded in ''RE4'', in spite of having been seemingly killed in single combat '''''twice''''' (once by Ada, once by Leon), judging by his "mission complete" screen in the Mercenaries minigame.

** This also happens to be HUNK's entire gimmick, too.

* ''[[Tales of the Abyss]]'' has one of its antagonists, {{spoiler|Dist}}, live up to the phrase 'tenacious as a cockroach.' Near the end of the game, {{spoiler|Dist, in a desperate attempt to kill the party, jumps on top of the damaged robot he sent to kill them and tries to blow it up along with him, only to be sent flying in the air by Luke along with the robot, where it explodes in midair.}} However in the Nebilim sidequest, {{spoiler|Dist comes back, unharmed with no explanation, only to get blasted by Nebilim's energy beam. After the battle, though, he's still alive.}} He is {{spoiler|the only God General to survive.}}

** The we have [[Nietzsche Wannabe|Sync]], who was ''thrown into a volcano''.

* ''[[Saints Row 2]]'' - The Ronin Leader is left, stabbed through with his own katana, on the deck of a burning junk ship that explodes when your character leaves. How much do you want to bet he'll be back for the sequel?

** The Boss him/herself might come under this trope {{spoiler|with the boat explotion from Saints Row 1}}. Or the average shenanigans of his/her day to day life.

* Every time before Bowser has to turn giant and fight a boss in ''[[Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story]]'', this is either explicitly said or at least somehow mentioned. Sure, he gets crushed under his own castle, a giant tower shaped like a person, a train and a castle gone [[Humongous Mecha]], but it's very definitely [[Tempting Fate]] here.

** Bowser has fallen into lava on multiple accounts, fallen into a bottomless pit at least once, been inside his castle when it exploded at least twice, been frozen solid and broken in two, had his flesh burned off... it's really no surprise at this point that he can also survive getting crushed.

** Also played with in ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', in which the bad guys blow up the Normandy and drop Shepard from orbit, actually killing him, and then go on a long race with [[Hot Scientist|Liara]] to recover his body. And then Shepard ''recovers''.

* In ''[[Soldier of Fortune]]: Payback'', you shoot down the Moor's helicopter, but you [[Never Found the Body]], so you can't verify his death. During the [[Cliff Hanger]] ending, he is revealed to be still alive.

* As a villainous example, one of Lazarevic's soldiers in ''[[Uncharted]] 2'' throws one out after forcing {{spoiler|Elena}} and Nate's truck off a cliff. Of course, being the heroes, the narrow escape after their pursuers drive off is requisite.

* In ''[[Record of Agarest War]]'' Leonhardt was finally able to kill the Black Knight by making him fall to his death from a high cliff. And then he actually comes back. {{spoiler|As Vashtor.}}

** The Krogoth in the [[Expansion Pack]] can survive ''seven''. It can also survive the Commander's [[One-Hit Kill|Disintegrator Gun]] if has veteran status.

* The shark in ''[[Jaws Unleashed]]'' is ruled out dead by the mayor after it causes an undersea facility to explode, citing this. Michael Brody and Craddock are still rightfully doubtful.

 

== Webcomics ==

* Satirized in [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=000528 This] ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' comic upon the seeming death of Oasis. "A dynamic character with the ability to survive certain death and a questionable death scene leaving no corpse? Face it, we'll never see HER again."

* [http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/081023.html This strip] from ''[[Real Life Comics]]'' details the various hazards to surviving the coming explosion of [[Evil Genius]] Tony's space station. The payoff is three strips later with {{spoiler|Tony crashing into Greg's front yard, brushing off the inevitable "How the hell did you survive?" with a simple "Don't ask stupid questions."}}

** Also from Mr. [[Contractual Genre Blindness]] [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2005/02/26/episode-520-a-cave-inn/ here]

{{quote|'''Garland:''' As villains, it's our '''job''' to haughtily assume our plucky rivals were defeated by mundane means without anyone to witness their demise.}}

 

* The villain Slade from ''[[Teen Titans (animation)|Teen Titans]]'' used this very same trope to return from ''[[Hell]]'':

'''Raven''': Apparently, Slade. }}

** There's another subversion in an earlier episode. In "Haunted" Robin spends the whole episode either worrying that he's come back or convinced he has. It turns out he really was dead.

** In the finale, after Darkseid dies ''again'', this time it's Superman who declares that he's really most sincerely dead, since "We saw it this time." The Flash is [[Genre Savvy]] to note, "You saw it last time, too."

** At least Batman's smarter this time: "I doubt either of them (Darkseid or Luthor) died. They'll be back."

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'':

{{quote|'''Azula''': The Avatar's dead... unless you think he somehow, miraculously... survived?

'''Zuko''': ''(lying)'' No. There's no way he could have survived. }}

** This is all the assurance [[Magnificent Bastard|Azula]] needs that he ''did'' survive. Good thing the [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]] has a contingency plan for this...

{{quote|'''Zuko:''' (watching Azula falling to her death) She's... not going to make it... (one miraculous escape for Azula and ten seconds later) Of ''course'' she did.}}

* This was a common trope in various cartoons of the 1980s:

** Mumm-Ra, of ''[[Thundercats]]'' fame, "died" with similar frequency. He's called The Ever-Living [[As Long as There Is Evil|for a reason]].

** In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (animation)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'', Venger didn't even need a major story as an excuse. Any building he walked into had about an even chance of collapsing on him, but you could always count on seeing his image rise forebodingly from the wreckage.

* [[Batman]] survived a similar incident in an episode of ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', in a scene that more than one viewer has admitted to believing for a moment that he had really died.

* ''[[Batman: The Animated Series|Batman the Animated Series]]'' had a moment like this for Batman, in the aptly-named episode "The Man Who Killed Batman".

** Same with [[Formula One]], there are wrecks that would have been fatal, had it not been for his helmet/quick emergency surgery/what have you.

*** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTQBVDV1E7s This crash] from Canada 2007 only caused a concussion and a sprained ankle. The driver passed medical with no ill effects, but still had to miss the next race so as not to risk two concussions in two weeks.

**** Not quite. He was hit with four times ''the force'' of a bullet, he obviously didn't suffer comparable ''damage'' to which one normally associates with [[Boom! Headshot!|catching a bullet with your face]]. The reason that bullets do so much damage with relatively little force is because that force is concentrated in a very small area, [[And Knowing Is Half the Battle|which is why rifle rounds are small and pointy]]. [[That's Gotta Hurt|I still wouldn't want to be the guy to catch that spring.]]

** Auto racing wrecks tend to look a lot worse than they actually are. The drivers wear a lot of protective gear, and the cars are designed to fall apart so as to direct the force of impact away from the driver. For example, there hasn't been a single fatality in Formula 1 racing since 1994.

* [[Rasputinian Death|The story of Rasputin]]. According to sources, he was poisoned, shot twice, curb-stomped, beaten with a metal cane, tied up, and thrown into a lake before he finally kicked the bucket. The ultimate cause of death was drowning, though not for lack of trying ''everything'' else.

* Rebel commander (and general badass) Hadji Murat flung himself over the edge of a narrow mountain pass to escape capture by the Russians. The Russians figured him for dead, but in reality the snow had broken his fall, and he lived to fight against the Russian Empire's absorption of the Caucasus.

* ''Touching the Void''. On their way down from the 21,000 foot Siula Grande peak, Simpson broke his leg in three places. He and Yates improvised a way to get down the mountain that went horribly wrong leaving Simpson dangling over a cliff edge and slowly dragging Yates after him. When Yates cut the rope Simpson couldn't possibly have survived either the fall or the return to civilisation with a broken leg. {{spoiler|He did though.}}

* Ever heard of ''World's Most Amazing Videos''? This trope appears many times per episode.

* [[wikipedia:Nick Alkemade|This guy]] bailed out parachuteless from 18,000 feet rather than burn to death. He survived in very near walk-away condition. And he doesn't even hold the altitude record.

** [[Keith Richards]]

* [[Metallica|James Hetfield]]. Montreal. 1992. Stage pyrotechnic gone wrong, for those not with me yet.

* [http://www.videovat.com/videos/2338/driver-crushed-by-truck-amazingly-cheats-death.aspx This guy] was in a car, crushed pretty much flat by an overturned truck. Not. Even. A. Scratch.

* [http://survival.wikia.com/wiki/Betty_Lou_Oliver Betty Lou Oliver]: Elevator operator, Empire State Building, 1940s. Not only survived the the injuries initial impact and fireball when a B-25 Bomber crashed into the side of the building, but then subsequently survived when the cables on the elevator she was in snapped, causing the car to plummet 79 stories (incidentally, one of the few real life examples of an elevator actually plummeting out of control after the cables breaking).

* On a related note, the 16 survivors who for the most part walked out of North Tower of the World Trade Center after the 110 story building literally fell to pieces on top of them, most of them were in stairway B (some had to be carried out with relatively minor injuries such as a broken leg)

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Stock Phrases]]

[[Category:Resurrection Tropes]]