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{{trope}}
[[File:zabuza_dead_2258.jpg|link=Naruto (Manga)|frame|"...Okay, let's try a ''fifteenth'' stab wound. Is he dead yet? ...''[[Why Won't You Die?|Dammit!]]''"]]
 
{{quote|'''Travis Touchdown''': Pain in MY ass. ''Why aren't you dead yet?''<br />
'''Skelter Helter''': Such [[Genre Blind|blind arrogance]]! Like the naked emperor...<br />
'''Travis''': Seriously! ''I cut off your '''head'''''?!|''[[No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Video Game)|No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle]]''<ref>The decapitated head spun in the air for a couple of seconds, spilling blood everywhere, and landed back on his shoulders. [[Serial Escalation|A cleaning crew had come to get rid of the mess and Travis was mid-conversation before Skelter started moving and talking again.]]</ref>}}
 
Despite the prominence of [[Only a Flesh Wound]] in media, there are some things that even writers would concede as pretty fatal. For example, if a character gets shot in the head or stabbed in the chest, they're pretty much done for, hopefully with enough time to give a [[Final Speech]] before their death.
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Unless of course, if they're the [[Determinator]] or someone [[Good Thing You Can Heal|as tough]]. For them, that little hole where their heart was supposed to be is just another chance to show off how [[Badass]] they are. Even that is [[Only a Flesh Wound]], and the guy that injured them, likely to be pissing in his pants right now, is about to receive a world of hurt. When this occurs in a climactic battle, you often see a [[Heroic Second Wind]] sequence.
 
Killing the character after their display of [[Heroic Willpower]] for extra dramatic effect, or to show that the the wounds [[Living Onon Borrowed Time|were fatal after all, just not right away]], is optional.
 
Note that [[Normally I Would Be Dead Now]] applies only to things that would have killed a normal character even by Hollywood rules. If it is "merely" something like severe bleeding from the shoulder or leg, that is [[Only a Flesh Wound]]. Surprisingly, this is actually a case of [[Truth in Television]]. There are many real life examples of people who had things rammed through their chests and heads and still lived due to the foreign material miraculously missing vital organs. This means there is a fine line between this and mere [[Aversion]] of [[Instant Death Bullet]]. However, it is far more common in fiction than in [[Real Life]] and all of them were left incapacitated or unable to move, so [[Don't Try This At Home]].
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* Nuriko of ''[[Fushigi Yuugi]]'' was also stabbed through the chest. This didn't slow him down too much, as he proceeded to snap the neck of his opponent and lift the boulder blocking the cave containing the Shinzaho of Genbu. {{spoiler|Then he died.}}
* Neji Hyuga from ''[[Naruto]]'' was shot through the chest in the Sasuke retrieval arc, but still managed to kill his opponent with his ultimate technique before he collapsed. This was because he was able to deflect the huge arrow at the very last moment, making it perform a wound that, while fatal, wouldn't cause an instant kill since it avoided his vital organs. He still lived even after laying around for what must have been hours before [[The Cavalry]] came to pick up the survivors.
** Other examples were Zabuza (who is the page picture here), {{spoiler|Tsunade, and Jiraiya}}. All were fatally stabbed but, through sheer willpower, managed to stay alive long enough to finish what they were doing. {{spoiler|Tsunade}} even managed to put her [[Healing Factor]] into action and regenerate, while {{spoiler|Jiraiya}} was stabbed deeply and ''multiple times'' by a weapon that's able to paralyze people and his opponent thought he already heard his heart stopped before he [[Heroic Willpower|spontaneously]] regained consciousness. {{spoiler|Danzou}} stays alive enough time to pull a [[Taking You Withwith Me]] attempt against {{spoiler|Madara and Sasuke. It doesn't work}}.
* {{spoiler|Mustang}} has one of these moments in [[Fullmetal Alchemist]]. After having been {{spoiler|''impaled'' by Lust}}, he gets back up, performs first aid on himself and {{spoiler|Havoc}} via alchemy, then tracks {{spoiler|Lust}} down and {{spoiler|''burns her to death over and over''}} before finally collapsing, but retaining consciousness. His earlier comment to an unconscious {{spoiler|Havoc}} while they are both lying on the floor bleeding out - "{{spoiler|Havoc}}, I won't let you die before me!" - indicates that he basically hauled himself back from the brink by sheer force of will because he refused to allow any of the people he was with to die if he could help it.
* In ''[[Bleach]]'', pretty much every character who fights has been impaled or slashed up horribly at least once.
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* Spike Spiegel of ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'' took multiple bullets while getting to the final fight against Vicious. {{spoiler|He eventually died of those injuries and ones caused by Vicious. Maybe.}}
** What else has happened to him? In "Ballad of Fallen Angels", he got slashed in the face and thrown out a building. In "Jupiter Jazz Part 1", he got shot in the chest once and fell unconscious. He should have bled out but didn't. In [[The Movie]], he got beat down, shot and thrown out a ''moving monorail hovering above the water''.
* Negi of the ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]!'' manga puts up an admirable fight despite being ''impaled in the chest'' by a thick piece of stone, pulling out and gripping the stone in one hand and [[Mahou Sensei Negima (Manga)/Awesome|sucker-punching his opponent with it]]. You do ''not'' [[Badass Teacher|mess with his students]]. In a later incident, an enemy cuts off Negi's right arm. Negi's response? "I still have my left!"
** Slightly subverted for Negi. {{spoiler|As it's later revealed that his use of Magica Erebea has turned him into a vampire - like his master Evangeline. She did say her path had its price...}}
* Yuki Nagato of ''[[Suzumiya Haruhi]]'' takes four massive spear-like projectiles through the torso, then proceeds to kill the culprit -- her [[Uncanny Valley Girl|understudy]] -- without so much as a cry of pain or raised voice. Like Vita above, though, she's a [[Ridiculously Human Robot|Ridiculously Human Network Terminal]], but as she still bleeds and breathes, this had to have been pretty significant damage. She collapses afterward. Well, first she takes [http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/9526/yukispeard.jpg several iron spears to the chest] (and pulls one out of her and ''turns it into a desk''). Then she gets hit with [[Combat Tentacles|Ryoko's giant energy tentacles]], either through the upper torso or ''[[HSQ|through her]] [[Boom! Headshot!|head]]''.
* Kazuki of ''[[Busou Renkin]]'' uses this to his advantage to defend against his opponent, a kendo genius whose signature (and vaguely illegal) move involves a devastating wide strike to the ribs. When Kazuki fights him, he's using a katana, and to avoid being {{spoiler|sliced in half, Kazuki returns his weapon to it's passive state where it functions as his heart, actually blocking}} the strike.
* In ''[[Jo Jo's Bizarre Adventure (Manga)|Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure]]'', Jonathan Joestar's {{spoiler|final}} battle with Dio Brando incorporates this trope, as it starts out with him {{spoiler|getting two dime-sized holes blasted through his neck, including one right in the jugular}}. Additionally, this occurs several times during the battle between Jotaro and Dio in Stardust Crusaders, most notably when Dio famously drops a steamroller on Jotaro, whose Stand frantically attempts to keep it off of him while Dio's stand (which is faster and stronger) presses it down on him, pummeling the steam roller so hard that Jotaro ''can feel his blows though the steam roller itself as if it weren't there''. To complicate things, Dio ''stops time'' before dropping the steam roller, and Jotaro can only move for two seconds, whereas Dio pounds on him for a solid nine. After the steam roller is completely crushed, Dio gloats over his assumed victory, knowing that not even Jotaro could have survived the assault. When he finishes his evil monologue, he notices that {{spoiler|he cannot move, because Jotaro stopped time himself at the nine second mark, escaping from under the steam roller while Dio was gloating and assuming that the extended time stop duration was proof of his increasing power}}. Jotaro then proceeds to beat the carp (yes, the carp) out of him.
** ''Jojo'' is generally made of this trope, including a ''self-inflicted'' occurrence by {{spoiler|Bucciarati in Golden Wind}} to trick an opponent. ''Steel Ball Run'' has a doozy; Johnny is shot in the head by Ringo Roadagain and survives.
* In the third fight in ''[[Claymore]]'', a youma holds Raki hostage in order to force Clare to throw away her sword. She throws it some ways downhill, and the youma proceeds to impale her with its claws. Except then Clare grabs its arm, dives down the hill dragging it with her, retrieves her sword, and promptly kills it. It would not be fatal to a Claymore, who can self-regenerate. Also, Ophelia had her neck twisted and didn't die.
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** If this example isn't first for [[One Piece]], then it's a pretty close second. During the Whitebeard War Arc, {{spoiler|Whitebeard}} took a grand total of 267 slashes and stabs, 152 bullets, 46 cannonballs, and {{spoiler|half his goddamned face being melted off}}. And this is after laying down a well deserved beat down on {{spoiler|Blackbeard}}.
* Hiro Mashima ''loves'' this trope. Honestly, after reading a few volumes of ''[[Rave Master]]'' you'll realize that you can never be sure--no matter how much pounding, shooting, blasting, or [[Explosive Overclocking]] a character gets--whether they're seriously dead/about to die or [[Only Mostly Dead]]. Plue can stop bleeding and pain. But it does not explain Shuda surviving the loss of a limb and a 1000 foot fall, or Lucia being up and murderous after his beating from Haru, or the numerous times Sieg is kicking ass again after having a vital organ severely damaged.
* Hiro Mashima's ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' - There's also no explanation for how Gray took ''[[Impaled Withwith Extreme Prejudice|being impaled]]'' '''[http://www.mangareader.net/135-7154-20/fairy-tail/chapter-39.html through his stomach]''' without even slowing down while fighting {{spoiler|Leon}}. In fact all he apparently did to treat the wound was ''sealing it with ice'' (a seal which broke before the end of the fight), leaving no explanation for why he did not lose two or three vital organs. Just to makes this even more ridiculous, he then fights better against his opponent than he ever did uninjured and starts by beating the hell out of him with just his fists.
* ''[[Rosario to Vampire]]'' - Poor Tsukune suffers from this pretty badly, especially after he gets {{spoiler|his vampire powers.}} At one point he's hit in the head so hard it ''bounces off the pavement'', yet he's none the worse for wear. He does have a keepsake of his abuse; two big scars that reach across his chest, forming an X.
** He was also burned to a husk (while still human) by a four-tailed yoko. Ouch. {{spoiler|And it looks like he's about to have it happen again.}}
* ''[[Sengoku Basara]]'' - Played for laughs: Shingen punches Yukimura who flies through a shoji wall(?), across a courtyard and into a stone wall, which crumbles a bit from the impact. Sasuke comments mildly that this would kill a normal man. Yukimura, however, comes running right back into Shingen's fist so he can do it all over again, although he's in a slightly rotated position when he hits the stone wall the second time.
* Sven from ''[[Black Cat (Mangamanga)|Black Cat]]'' survives being stabbed through the chest by Eve's mutated knife-arm, because it "Eve intentionally avoided his vital organs", although it is unclear how a knife a little over half the size of his entire chest could avoid anything.
* Itou Komataro from ''[[Gintama (Manga)|Gintama]]'' was shot repeatedly, lost an arm, got a lot of sword wounds but hey, he died... eventually... after three episodes to which he was given an honorable death of being given the chance to defend himself from the Shinsengumi.
* Shi woon has even lampshaded this several times in ''[[The Breaker]]''. But his [[Determinator]] drive keeps him going long after he should have been knocked out cold
** In New Wave, he can now {{spoiler|heal from practically any wound in about half a day}}.
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== Films -- Animation ==
* The [[Trope Namer]] is the short "Den" from ''[[Heavy Metal (Animationanimation)|Heavy Metal]]''. The hero is teleported to a savage land and turned from a wimp into a musclebound hero. While rescuing a gorgeous woman from death (as one does), he swims an enormously long time underwater without breathing, and quotes the trope title in voiceover in disbelief.
 
 
== Films -- Live Action ==
* Renard, [[James Bond (Filmfilm)|James Bond's]] adversary in ''[[The World Is Not Enough (Film)|The World Is Not Enough]]'', survived being shot in the head. A partial subversion in that the bullet is slowly killing him as it drills further into his brain. A bad case of [[You Fail Biology Forever]] as the part of the brain the bullet is in does not control physical sensation. Further, even if it did, try walking with all your limbs numb some time. You might find it almost impossible to control what you cannot feel.
* The Captain in ''[[300 (Film)|Three Hundred]]'' {{spoiler|takes a spear through his chest. He pulls it deeper so he can hack the Persian wielding it to death.}} It takes a few more Persians to finally bring him down.
* In ''[[The FellowshipLord of the RingRings (Filmfilm)|The Fellowship of the Ring]]'', Boromir is shot in the chest with arrows multiple times before he stays down.
* The main character of ''[[Hero (Filmfilm)|Hero]]'' is revealed to be able to strike with surgical precision with a sword from a few steps away. This means that he's able to stab people apparently {{spoiler|fatally so he they can fake their deaths}} with many, many witnesses, and he can invoke this trope at will.
* In the ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' film at the end the titular character takes numerous {{spoiler|rounds from several fully automatic or large calibre weapons, and is still able to kill every one of his attackers before they are able to reload. He does die a short time after, and was shown to have been wearing a chest plate which would have slowed down (but not stopped) the bullets}}, but it still pushes beyond normal human capability.
* The Bride in ''[[Kill Bill (Film)|Kill Bill]]'' survived a vicious [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]] that most Special Forces Marines would not have. Plus that whole being shot in the [[Boom! Headshot!|head]] thing. Not only does she survive, but {{spoiler|so did the baby that she was carrying.}}
* ''[[Last Action Hero (Film)|Last Action Hero]]''. Fatal wounds simply are not anymore if one crosses over to the Hollywood-Reality.
* In the [[Film of the Book|film of the book]] of ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians]]'', Percy complains to Annabeth that she would've killed him if he were a normal person. Annabeth's only response is that he's ''not'' normal, and therefore alive.
* Spotted Horse in ''[[The Quick and Thethe Dead]]'' even boasts that he "cannot be killed by a bullet." {{spoiler|He survives the first shot (to the body) in his fight with Cort, but Cort gets him right through the temple with the reload. A prone Spotted Horse briefly raises his gun hand, then dies for good.}}
* One of the taglines used to promote ''[[Crank]] 2'', in praise of its too-tough-to-die antihero, was: "Anyone else would be ''so'' dead by now."
* Inigo Montoya in ''[[The Princess Bride]]'' takes a sword through the gut, gets [[Heroic Second Wind]] and kills his enemy. What's less credible is that an hour or so later he seems to have got all better.
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* In the Tamora Pierce novel ''[[Wild Magic]]'', the harpy/Stormwing Zhaneh Bitterclaws is shot through the eye. She pulls the arrow out, glares with her remaining eye at the protagonist, and flies off, swearing vengeance. Though, to be fair, Immortals are hardier than humans unless the wound is particularly lethal. Hence the name.
* Done to an over-the-top extent in one of Mark E Rodgers's ''[[Samurai Cat]]'' books, ''Samurai Cat Goes to the Movies''. The protagonist, samurai Miaowara Tomokato, ends up shot nearly to pieces by his enemies. The bullets are said to pass through the several places in his heart and brain where a bullet could pass through harmlessly. He (and his sidekick) are, if memory serves, 'millimetres more accurate' in their return fire.
* In ''[[Le Morte Darthur (Literature)d'Arthur|Le Morte Darthur]]'', King Arthur is impaled with a spear by his mortal enemy, then pulls himself down the shaft of the spear to break the enemy's head open with Excalibur.
* Edgar Freemantle and Wiseman in [[Stephen King|Stephen King's]] ''[[Duma Key]]'' both fit the example, and this condition is what opens them up to the key's... let's say environmental hazards.
* In ''[[The Girl Who Played With Fire]]'', [[Action Girl|Lisbeth Salander]] {{spoiler|is shot in the hip, in the back and in the head (the last bullet getting lodged in her brain), then [[Buried Alive|buried (barely) alive]],}} yet she still manages to not only {{spoiler|dig her way out and take axe revenge, but also survive all the way into and through the sequel}}.
* In the ''[[Battle TechBattleTech]]'' novel ''Grave Covenant'', during a fight with a trio of ninja, protagonist Prince Victor Steiner-Davion ends up ''nailed to the floor'' by a katana through the chest. [[Heroic Willpower]], [[The Power of Love|fear for the woman he loves]], and arguably a lot of dumb luck let him pull the thing back out inch by bloody inch and kill his attacker with it instead. He passes out shortly afterwards and very nearly does die -- thankfully, he's right in the capital city of the Draconis Combine as a guest of state and gets rushed to the hospital just in time.<br /><br />Played with in that for a little while he really does believe that he died then and there. While in the hospital he hallucinates his dead father appearing to him, telling him that he's dead, and offering to take Victor with him to the afterlife. His love's dead grandfather also appears and says that because he died heroically defending her, he's there to offer to take Victor to their afterlife (a different one, as the two families [[Feuding Families|were traditional enemies]] until the Clans forced an [[Enemy Mine]] between them). The two of them ask him to choose who to go with. As both options involve dying for good, he decides to [[Take a Third Option|take a third.]]
* In ''[[Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (Literature)|Sir Gawain and Thethe Green Knight]]'', (film also available) Sir Gawain of Arthur's Knights is challenged to a duel by the eponymous Green Knight. Given first blow Gawain decides to take advantage by chopping his opponent's head off and is somewhat put out when the headless body merely picks it up and slaps it back on again.
* In ''[[InkspellThe (Literature)Inkworld Trilogy|Inkspell]]'' {{spoiler|Mo}} survives having been {{spoiler|shot in the chest by The Magpie}} after he was transported to {{spoiler|the Inkworld}}.
* In ''[[Redwall|Mossflower]]'', Tsarmina is extremely unnerved by the fact that no matter how many times she seems to cut him down, Martin refuses to die and refuses to run.
** The Badger Lords often embody this, to a certain extent: while under [[Unstoppable Rage|Blood Wrath]], they will continue to fight, regardless of injuries, until they either drop dead or kill their enemy.
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== Live Action TV ==
* [[Twenty Four24]] Jack Bauer should have been dead several times but apparently was not willing to be pushed around by something as trifling as death when there were terrorists to fight.
* The ''[[Lost]]'' season 3 finale, "Through the Looking Glass," appears to do this with {{spoiler|Mikhail}}. As well as with {{spoiler|Locke}}, who survives his shooting two episodes prior due to having {{spoiler|donated the kidney}} that the bullet would otherwise have hit.
* ''[[Firefly]]'': {{spoiler|After being shot in the stomach on a ship with diminishing heat and oxygen, Mal not only staggers up and forces his attackers to leave, but then manages to get to the medical bay, inject himself with adrenaline, get to the ship's engine, repair the ship's engine by putting in the one busted crucial part, and get all the way up to the cockpit before he collapses. He wakes up to see his crew have returned and are treating him, though he barely survives the ordeal and has to get significant medical care}}. That's just how tough Mal is.
** "War Stories": Mal {{spoiler|gets captured by [[Cold-Blooded Torture|Adelai Niska]], tortured to the point where he has, in fact, clinically died. Later, when his torturers' backs are turned, he gets up off the table, takes out the torture assistant, and proceeds to [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|'introduce himself']] to Niska. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] too, for that matter.}}
* ''[[Without a Trace (TV)|Without a Trace]]'' sorta does this when FBI Head of Missing Persons is kidnapped himself by a somewhat unbalanced woman who thinks he's an assassin. She ''nailguns'' his hand to a chair and then in the chest. He even rips his hand out of the nail from the other end. End of the episode has him rescued, and all the paramedics do is bandage him up and he ''walks out of there'', commenting that he'll work on the paperwork. Not as [[Badass]] as other portrayals as he is weak and hurt by this, but no ''way'' the paramedics in real life wouldn't do their best to convince him to let them rush him to the hospital via stretcher at the very least.
* During [[Stephen Colbert]]'s appearance on ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'', his statements about Rosa Parks enrage Conan so much that he pulls a pistol and shoots him in the chest. Colbert falls back, apparently dead - then slowly sits up after a few seconds and continues his argument, completely unfazed. Conan complains, exasperated, "I shot you very near the heart!"
* On ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', Buffy receives a severe electric shock intended to kill her. She manages to escape without severe harm thanks to Slayer toughness, but Giles implies that a normal human would have been killed by the shock. In the series finale: "Mommy, this mortal wound itches." Then again, being impaled through the midsection is demonstrably not always fatal in the Buffyverse. Still, the First Evil seemed to think it would do her in, and the First is probably an expert in fatalities. We see that that impaling a Slayer does little to stop them.<br /><br />There is also Xander, who survived being smacked around with a hammer that injures dieties.
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* ''[[Doctor Who]]''; That second heart time-lords have comes in handy. How many times have the villains managed to stop one of them, not to realise he's got a second?
** Jack Harkness might have bits of this trope as well. Normally, he would be dead, but comes back anyway.
*** Jack gets it MUCH worse in ''[[Torchwood: Children of Earth (TV)|Children of Earth]]'': He gets blown up by a bomb '''inside his body'''. One of the villains observes later, having discovered that his remains are now a skeleton with shreds of bloody flesh, "This was a bag of bits!" Later he wakes up...some time before his skin is restored.
 
 
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* Any videogame. Just got machine-gunned in the chest from ten feet away? [[Hyperactive Metabolism|Take some painkillers and a herb you found in the flower garden in the lobby.]] You'll be fine.
* ''[[Mortal Kombat]]'', particularly the later games where you could have a sword lodged in your chest or forehead [[I Can Still Fight|yet still be able to fight!]]
* ''[[Max Payne (Video Gameseries)|Max Payne]]'' absolutely loves this trope, taking the [[Hollywood Healing]] approach to [[Action Hero|Action Heroes]]. By the end of the second game he has been shot through the chest and head, fallen twenty feet onto hard concrete and had the building he was in blown up, none of which slow him down much. Lampshaded in ''Max Payne 2''. When he is brought into the hospital after {{spoiler|Winters shoots him in the back}}. The doctors and nurses reference 'multiple gunshot wounds' 'severe head trauma' and use the phrase 'this guy is a trainwreck.'
* Several times in ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]''. Most notably, Cid leaps from the airship, presumably falling several ''miles'' onto either rocks or lava, ''with enough explosives strapped to his chest to seal off the route to the underworld to stop a pursuing fleet of airships'', which he sets off on-screen. And lives.<br /><br />Yang also survives the destruction of the robotic Giant of Babil, which he himself caused by ''jamming himself into its world-sundering laser cannon'' so it misfired. He shows up at the end of the game without a scratch.
* In a cutscene in ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' where Sephiroth stabs Cloud with his extremely long sword, whereupon Cloud pulls himself down the blade until he has enough leverage to shake Sephiroth off.
* [[Fallout: New Vegas]] begins with the player character getting shot in the head. However, after a few days (with help from a friendly robot that thinks he's a cowboy and a local doctor) you're back on your feet and good to go. Naturally, the people who shot you are [[Oh Crap|extremely freaked out when you catch up to them.]]
* This happens an incredible amount of times in the ''[[Trauma Center]]'' series. Rifle wound to the heart in the middle of a snowstorm when the hospital is ten minutes away? No problem, and that's just in the first chapter. Never mind the parasites that ''slash your internal organs apart.'' I'm not even going to touch the guy who has multiple brain aneurysms burst before you even open him up.
** In Trauma Team, there's a girl who {{spoiler|is holding a bomb when it explodes, yet survives.}} Did we mention that the same kind of {{spoiler|bomb}} has killed ''grown men'' in two different incidents?
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* ''[[Advent Rising]]''. In a cut-scene hero falls out of a walkway, hits the side of a building hard, slides down it for about thirty stories and slams into an observation platform. He just shakes it off. And this is ''before'' getting any superpowers.
* In ''[[Persona 3]]'', {{spoiler|the main character managed to live for a couple months after using all of his life energy to seal Nyx away from the world in order to fulfill a promise he made with the rest of SEES. Too bad he couldn't hold out for a couple more minutes...}}
* Zaeed Massani from ''[[Mass Effect 2 (Video Game)|Mass Effect 2]]'', when talking about his former colleague Vido Santiago, mentions that, twenty years ago, Vido paid six of Zaeed's men to restrain him while Vido held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger (which explains how Zaeed got the [[Badass]] [[Good Scars, Evil Scars|scar]]). When Commander Shepard acts surprised that he survived, Zaeed casually responds, "Yeah. And you survived {{spoiler|your ship getting disintegrated.<ref>Not technically true, because Shepard did, in fact, die. [[Back From the Dead|(S)he just recovered.]]</ref>}} A stubborn enough person can survive just about anything. Rage is a hell of an anesthetic."
* In ''[[Final Fantasy V]]'', [[Badass Grandpa|Galuf]] gets put down to '''0 HP''' by Ex-Death but stands his ground and keeps fighting anyways. {{spoiler|Unfortunately, as soon as the battle is over, he keels over and [[Deader Than Dead|dies for real.]]}}
* In ''[[Mabinogi Fantasy Life]]'' the deadly status is this as a gameplay element. The player character has 0 hp or less (in theory there is no lower limit, just try getting hit by a dragon) and somehow they're still standing. Should they get hit one more time in this state they die no matter how much damage it was. This mainly happens when you get hit for something that should kill you when you have more than half health, and for bonus points the chance of this actually happening is governed partially by [[Heroic Willpower|the character's will stat.]]
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== Visual Novels ==
* Shirou in ''[[Fate Stay Night|Fate/stay night]]''. Like with [[Tsukihime|Shiki]], it's practically his shtick that he can't pull off any impressive victories unless he's been rendered three-quarters dead first.
** Lancer and Berserker have the 'Battle Continuation' ability that allow them usage of this trope. In Unlimited Blade Works, {{spoiler|Lancer is ordered to kill himself with Gae Bolg by his master, which ''removes his heart from his body''. Keeping that in mind, he is still able to stay alive long enough to kill Kotomine in retaliation, stare down and wound Shinji, offer some [[Gallows Humor]], and use his runes to burn down the building before giving up the ghost.}}
** Archer, who in the same route, although having been nearly {{spoiler|killed by Lancer, master-less and near out of magical energy from ability overuse, manages to stay alive for another day to have an exhausting duel with Shirou. He gets run through, shot [[In the Back]] and skewered by half a dozen of Gilgamesh's swords (something which would kill most of the other servants several times over even at full health), and is still somehow alive a whole day later to rip apart half the holy grail, finish off Gilgamesh, and survive to see the end of the war.}} Good grief.
** {{spoiler|Kotomine}} in Heaven's Feel is {{spoiler|cut off from his source of life by Dark Sakura, which effectively stops his heart.}} Next day, he's still moving around and able to give Shirou a [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]].
* ''[[Tsukihime]]'': Shiki is impaled in the guts by a black deer, has some animals eating him and then gets up and starts fighting in a rather [[Badass]] fashion. After winning, he falls down and gets back to bleeding to death. Obviously, he doesn't but...
** Kohaku pulls off one of these in the doujin game [[Battle Moon Wars]], when she takes a blast from [[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight|Gilgamesh's]] [[Wave Motion Gun|Enuma Elish]]. Granted she was pretty goddamn torn up afterwards but the fact that she wasn't completely atomized makes this something of a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for her.
* ''[[Saya no Uta (Visual Novel)|Saya no Uta]]'': When {{spoiler|Dr. Tambo survives long enough to kill Saya after having her shoulder smashed and her left lung popped like a balloon by AN AXE.}} Sure, all she had to do was pull the trigger, but still. This is a game where humans are just human.
 
 
== Web Comics ==
* Dex Garritt in ''[[Dominic Deegan]]'' achieves this trope through the inversion of [[Redemption Equals Death]]. {{spoiler|Shortly after learning about his horrible past where he beat his girlfriend (only once, as he lamely defended himself) he gets into a fight where he is disemboweled and blown up with little to no chance of recovery.}} Since he is not forgiven for his past deeds, his survives on what seems to be sheer willpower.
* Parodied in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (Webcomic)|The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'', where after being absolutely riddled with bullets and brought to the point of death, he proceeds to argue with [[The Grim Reaper]] that every single bullet missed his vital organs, and are therefore [[Only a Flesh Wound|only... flresh wounds!]]. To add to the effect, he survives by {{spoiler|kicking [[The Grim Reaper]]'s ass... tag-team style..."tagging" with ''himself'' (his Ninja side and his Doctor side).}}
* ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' does this with many, many characters, including one instance where a certain [[Knight Templar]] gets stabbed through the chest. This is mainly done because the comic is a parody of ''D&D'', where it doesn't matter how much damage you take, if you have at least one [[Hit Point]] left you can fight on without penalty. It doesn't help that the characters appear at some times to literally be two-dimensional.
* ''[[A Miracle of Science]]'' has {{spoiler|Ben being shot through the torso with an energy weapon, after already having been shot and barely patched up. He manages to stay conscious just long enough get Haas to surrender before he finally collapses. He only survived because of Martian nanotech being able to stabilize him long enough to get replacements for the organs that got speared.}}
* The more extreme injuries Oasis and Kusari take in ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' are justified, since they seem to possess an as-yet unexplained ability to come back from the dead. However, Kusari ''did'' get stabbed through the chest four times and was still able to ask for someone to pry her off the wall she'd been stuck to. Oasis, meanwhile, managed to survive for several days with untreated knife wounds in her stomach.
* Used as a [[Running Gag]] in ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'', usually involving Red Mage. Every so often RM has something horribly fatal happening to him only for him to casually brush it off either by his [[Wrong Genre Savvy|irrational belief]] of him being in a [[Tabletop RPG]] suddenly working or by sheer delusion alone (an example of the former being him surviving a fatal fall by "forgetting to write down the damage" and an example of the latter being surviving having his ''skeleton removed'' by believing that skeletons are ''wholly vestigial''). In every case it's the [[Rule of Funny]] at work. His genius plan was to increase his melee damage by {{spoiler|willingly remaining on fire and casting healing spells on himself every few rounds.}}
* Used frequently in ''[[Girl Genius (Webcomic)|Girl Genius]]''. For instance, Higgs [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20101027\] manages to keep fighting despite what are realistically deadly wounds to the torso, and manages to (apparently) suffer no real ill effects only a few minutes later [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110126\]
 
 
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* ''[[Whateley Universe]]'' has several people who can pull this off. Tennyo and Jade, on Team Kimba's side, along with werewolves; Great Old Ones; other regenerators...there are a lot of people that you need to be really sure stay dead, if you think you've killed them. Tennyo periodically has chunks of her body blown off, and Jade's technically died {{spoiler|several times. In the same day.}}
* ''[[Red vs. Blue]]'' has the Meta. Just watch Chapter 19 and 20 and you'll see just how much he can take.
** [[Up Toto Eleven]] in season 9. several sniper rounds to the chest? No problem. Eight pistol bullets to the face and neck at extremely close range? Not an issue. Thrown off a moving truck into a HUGE semi truck going 50 miles per hour the opposite direction and falling off the freeway which shown later on is about 200 to 300 feet up? Who cares. Out of all of these wounds only a single pistol shot to the neck does damage by {{spoiler|hitting his vocal cords, rendering him [[The Voiceless]].}}
 
 
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