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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"[[Lois Lane]] is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of thirty-two feet per second per second. [[Superman]] swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Miss Lane, who is now traveling at approximately one hundred twenty miles an hour, hits them, and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces.''"|'''Sheldon''', ''[[
It's '''not the fall that kills you'''... it's the sudden stop at the end.▼
▲It's not the fall that kills you... it's the sudden stop at the end.
One must specifically hit the ground to get killed in a fall. [[Literal Cliff Hanger|Grabbed a ledge]]? Hooked an outcropping with your [[Grappling Hook Pistol]]? [[Catch a Falling Star|Got caught out of midair?]] [[Giant Robot Hands Save Lives|(By a giant robot?)]] [[Soft Water|Hit water instead of ground?]] [[Goomba Springboard|Landed on an enemy?]] [[Trash Landing|Fall in a dumpster?]] Congratulations, you're completely uninjured, no matter how far you fell beforehand. Some characters can fall dozens of stories or even out of aircraft, and survive more or less unrumpled as long as they ''fall through trees'' before encountering the ground.
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This can happen in video games via [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]]. All bets are off if you have [[Nigh Invulnerability]].
Subtropes of this include [[Soft Water]] and [[Giant Robot Hands Save Lives]], among all the other tropes [[
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime
* Kinda subverted in ''[[Kaleido Star]]'': while in the trapeze, Leon drops May off, lets her fall a bit and then catches her by the hand, but the pull dislocates her shoulder. Later he does the same thing to Sora, but this time she's not injured because she was expecting it, and used her own strength to help Leon lift her.
* Mokuba tries to rappel his way down a tower using [[Bedsheet Ladder|rope tied together from old bedsheets]] in ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]''. The rope isn't nearly long enough and comes loose, and he falls a ''long distance'' down... into some bushes, which saves him.
** The [[Yu-Gi-Oh!:
* An early episode of ''[[Macross]]'' averts this. Our hero saves the female lead from a high altitude fall not by catching her in the opened cockpit of his fighter, but by matching her descent before sort of scooping her up. Still pretty crazy, but it ''had'' been established that he was a skilled stunt pilot before going military.
* This pops up all the time in ''[[Immortal Rain]]'': when the only way out of trouble is a long way down, Rain scoops up Machika, tucks her under his arm, and jumps. In one scene they escape bounty hunters by {{spoiler|jumping out of an upper storey of a skyscraper to the city street below}}; in another, {{spoiler|a train bridge has been destroyed and they jump from the falling train to the canyon floor}}. The implication is that since Rain is [[Immortality|perfectly]] [[Nigh Invulnerable|capable]] of surviving that fall, anyone cradled in his arms would be safe as well.
* The characters of ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' use a [[Time Machine]] to [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]], not fully knowing how to set the spatial coordinates and thus appearing ten days earlier at several hundred feet in the air. Before hitting the ground, lead wizard Negi used his [[Blow You Away|Wind Magic]] to both push the group off the ground and create a cushion of air as well, leaving every character without a scratch. This might have made sense if it were done in a slow descent if not for the fact that it was done at the last second only a dozen metres above ground. On a related note, the two heavy-hitters in the group, Kaede and Setsuna were able to survive the fall on their own abilities (they basically landed on their feet). Problematically in Setsuna's case, she decided to take actions to save Konoka herself, [[Bridal Carry
** Similarly, when [[School Newspaper Newshound]] Kazumi Asakura tried to expose the same wizard's magic, that atop his already-built stress at the other events surrounding him at the time caused his Wind abilities to explode through his voice. This sent Asakura into the air, to which Negi flew upward on his staff to catch her by the arm. Maybe justified in that he caught her before she actually started falling, but the strength of lift-off was enough to crack and break her cellphone.
*** [[A Wizard Did It]]. Literally.
* Parodied in ''[[Cyborg Jiichan G]]'', where the titular cyborg sees the old lady from the tobacco store in the path of a bus, and rushes over to push her out of the way. After he does so, he says, "Whew! That's great that my body can reach Mach two! If I was one second slower, she'd have been hit by that 30 km/h bus!" The old lady has, of course, been smashed to bits to the point where he has to rebuild her body as a cyborg like him...
* In the ''[[Pokémon (
** At the climax of ''[[Pokémon
** [[Running Gag|"Looks like Team Rocket's Blasting Off Again!!!"]]
** Dawn's Buneary has been known to use her twelve-pound body to catch things several hundred times her weight like it doesn't matter how fast they're going.
** It even happens in the [[Pokémon Special|manga]] from time to time. A particularly egregious case is Sapphire's dismount from her Tropius to catch a falling tree limb - and she survives not just the velocity of the fall (she was dropping from a higher altitude), but also ''the weight of the limb and the person and pokmeon which she catches on landing''! [[Badass Normal]], ''no kidding''!
* Played straight during [[
* In ''[[
* The speedster version is explicitly mentioned in ''[[Cyborg 009]]''. The 00 cyborgs can survive being transported by 009's acceleration mode because they are cyborgs, who have been enhanced to be more durable than regular humans. Any normal human who comes into contact with 009 while he's in acceleration mode would be killed instantly.
* In ''[[Ranma
** In one episode of the anime, Akane gets knocked off the side of a cliff. Ranma runs down the side, gets to the bottom before she does, then catches her in his arms. She's perfectly fine afterwards. This is [[Ranma
* In episode 22 of ''[[Fairy Tail]]'', Lucy jumps out of a jail cell that is at least a skyscraper in height off the ground and Natsu catches her. Amusingly, Lucy (who is a normal human besides her [[Summon Magic]]) is unharmed, while Natsu (who has [[Super Strength]] and is [[Made of Iron]]) is briefly knocked silly.
* Used scientifically in ''[[Gamble Fish]]'', Tomu was able to survive the fall by making sure he hit the branches to slow down and the fact that there was a large amount of fresh snow at the bottom to land on. However he did ad the fact this only gave him a 1/10 chances of actually surviving the fall compared to the slim chance if he didn't. He is a gambler after all.
* In [[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* Kagura in ''[[
== Comic Books ==
* ''[[Superman]]'' regularly [[Catch a Falling Star|snatches Lois Lane out of the sky]]. He'll sometimes justify it by thinking something to the effect of "I've got to time this right: match my velocity to hers and then gradually slow us," but that doesn't work when they were only seconds from hitting the ground.
** Also, he fairly often knocks or grabs people at super speed, making that hilarious effect where whatever they were holding at the time would suddenly be suspended in the air as they disappear between panels. Lampshaded in ''Emperor Joker,'' where he accidentally kills Lois this way. She gets better. [[Kill
** Not surprisingly, most [[
** In Superman's case, this was one of the main justifications for the [[Post
* Same goes for ''[[The Flash]]'', who would certainly be giving high G-load injuries to the people he picks up and rushes off with at super-speed, as his acceleration is depicted as nearly instantaneous. Indeed, the [[Meta Origin|Speed Force]] was invented largely to "[[Magic
** In one issue of the [[Justice League of America]], he saves the population of an entire North Korean town from a nuclear meltdown in about 12 seconds. The speeds he would have needed to achieve this should have turned everyone he touched, carried, or simply ''ran past'' into chunky red jello.
** Subverted in the Marvel Comics Eternals, where their Speeder, even when trying his hardest not to kill terrorists while disarming them, and moving at half the speed of light, still breaks their arms.
*** [[Ultimate Universe]] Quicksilver did something similar, killing a lesser speedster by grabbing hold of her and accelerating so fast that her body was completely shredded.
* Originally subverted with ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]''. He attempted to catch Gwen Stacy with his webbing after the Green Goblin tossed her off a bridge, but the sudden stop snapped her neck. [[Marvel Comics]] later tried to [[Retcon|reverse course]] on this, saying that it, indeed, ''was'' the fall that killed her; that the shock caused her to have a heart attack and die. They've even gone so far as to edit the prominent [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e3/Spider-Man_Death-of-Gwen-Stacy.jpg "SNAP!"] sound effect out of the panel where Spidey catches Gwen in reprints.
** After the "shock of the fall" line (originated by [[Stan Lee]]) was discredited, the current line of [[Word of God]] thinking is that since [[Soft Water]] doesn't really exist, ''nothing'' Spidey could reasonably have done at the time could have saved her. Catch her, she snaps. Don't catch her, she splats. In universe, Spidey's [[Defied Trope|learned from his mistakes]]. In a scenario years later where Mary Jane is sent plummeting, he knows to fire his webbing at multiple points, stopping Mary-Jane from getting lethal whiplash. And in ''[[
* Averted in ''[[Batman]]: Hush'', where Batman, after his [[Grappling Hook Gun]] line is mysteriously broken, attempts to grab onto a ledge, and immediately breaks several bones in his arms, falls further, and breaks the rest of his bones (there was even a bone chip in his skull). Ouch. Thank goodness a friendly brain surgeon was nearby.
* Averted in ''[[Batgirl]]: Year One'', when Barbara Gordon's jumpline, made of normal rope, is cut by Batman before she can hurt herself with the sudden deceleration. She is later given some of the special 'batrope' to use with the explanation that it is elastic and extends/contracts in order to prevent the shock of an instant stop.
* Subverted in [[Alan Moore]]'s ''[[
* In ''[[Runaways]]'', Victor stops Gert from falling using a steel fire escape, and references this trope, specifically the "matching speeds" angle.
* In ''Astonishing [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'', Hisako catches a plummeting classmate with her mutant armour up. He lives, but he's a mess.
* In a ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'' issue, Cap is flung off a building. He doesn't catch a flagpole, he slams shield first into the cold, hard cement. His [[Handwavium|Vibranium-steel alloy]] shield absorbs ninety-five percent of the impact but it's the five percent that bothers the hell out of him. The same shield Shield can disperse enough force that a punch from the [[
* There's a scene in the ''[[Elf Quest]]: Shards'' storyline (''link pending'') where Strongbow the archer is falling to his certain death - until the human Shuna reaches out an arm so that he can use her ''hand'' as a target for an arrow with a rope attached. The other elves then grab the rope to break his fall before his weight can rip her arm off. Now in order to pull this off both Strongbow and Shuna would need to have incredibly fast reflexes, and one suspects his momentum would drag everyone else over the edge anyway.
* In one issue of ''[[Doom Patrol]]'', the writer carefully averts this trope. Elasti-Girl grows to giant size to catch a plane coming in for a crash landing, by running alongside it and taking hold of the fuselage. Robotman specifically notes that simply standing still and catching it by the wings would have ripped the plane apart.
* Subverted in ''[[
* Subverted in a ''[[Marshal Law]]'' comic where insane [[Expy|Expies]] of Marvel heroes are fleeing a burning asylum and falling to their deaths. The Daredevil clone tries breaking his fall by latching onto a flagpole... and promptly tears his arms off.
* [[Subverted]] in ''[[Nikolai Dante]]'': When {{spoiler|Dmitri/Arkady}} throws {{spoiler|Galya}} out a high window, Viktor dives to save her in his eagle form. He succeeds, but the force of the impact still kills her.
* [[Supergirl]] saves a guy from a 29,000 feet fall [http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/1372875.html?#cutid1 here]. It has a happy ending, so he should be fine.
* In a ''[[Cloak and Dagger (
▲== Film - Animated ==
* In ''[[The Incredibles]]'', when a man jumps from the top of a building to kill himself, Mr. Incredible, who is in the top of a much lower building, jumps across the street, grabs the man in mid-air and lands in a lower floor of the building from which the man had jumped. The man ends up with serious injuries. And ends up suing Mr. Incredible.
** Averted at the end, when Helen/Elastigirl is thrown into the air to catch the
* Used in ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' when Quasimodo falls from a parapet of the cathedral only to be caught under the armpits by Phoebus who happened to be on a lower level. Not only does Quasi not die, not only do Phoebus's arms not get completely ripped out of their sockets, but everyone {{spoiler|lives happily ever after}}.
* During the final battle in ''[[How to Train Your Dragon (
* Lampshaded in the CG film ''Doogle'', when one of the characters remarks after falling a great distance: "I'm fine: I broke the fall with my face."
* ''[[Star Trek V:
* In the new ''[[Star Trek (
== Film - Live-Action ==▼
** The same problem exists when the Enterprise herself is attacked or grabbed by the [[Negative Space Wedgie|explosion or monster of the week]], causing it to decelerate quickly enough to overcome the artificial gravity and throw people around the room. These people look like they are reacting to a change in velocity of a few feet per second, when just unexpectedly dropping out of Warp 1 to sub-light speed involves deceleration on the order of [[Sci
▲* ''[[Star Trek V the Final Frontier (Film)|Star Trek V the Final Frontier]]'': Kirk falls off a cliff. Spock (wearing rocket boots) races after him and grabs him by one ankle right before impact, arresting his fall inches above the ground with no ill effects whatsoever. Obviously the boots have [[Applied Phlebotinum|Intertial Dampeners]]
* ''[[The Matrix Reloaded]]'': Neo flies very low to the ground, at a velocity that's ''[[Foe
▲* The "arrested fall" version also occurs in ''[[Quantum of Solace (Film)|Quantum of Solace]]''.
* While not a fall, the physics-defying properties of this trope are subverted in the ''[[Blade (
▲* In the new ''[[Star Trek (Film)|Star Trek]]'' movie, this also happens when Chekov manages to beam Kirk and Sulu back onto the Enterprise while they were falling towards the planet's surface; he manages to catch them ''just'' before they hit the ground. This is completely in keeping with how a transporter would have to work, since by re-materializing the person the forces applied to the object/person before dematerialization no longer exist, while a new set of forces are applied (consistent with the space-ship's current movement through space-time) on rematerialization.
▲** The same problem exists when the Enterprise herself is attacked or grabbed by the [[Negative Space Wedgie|explosion or monster of the week]], causing it to decelerate quickly enough to overcome the artificial gravity and throw people around the room. These people look like they are reacting to a change in velocity of a few feet per second, when just unexpectedly dropping out of Warp 1 to sub-light speed involves deceleration on the order of [[Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|hundreds of thousands of feet per second in a very few seconds]]. Even if the artificial gravity takes away 99% of the problem, you still end up with strawberry jam on the bulkheads, if the entire ship doesn't fall apart concurrently. They have [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Inertial_damper inertial dampers] for whenever a starship transits from warp to sub-light speeds. Otherwise the ship itself wouldn't survive.
▲* ''[[The Matrix Reloaded]]'': Neo flies very low to the ground, at a velocity that's ''[[Foe Tossing Charge|knocking cars aside]]'' in its wake, and catches Trinity out of the air. Between the sudden vertical stop and the sudden horizontal acceleration, Trinity should have been splattered all over his sunglasses. Earlier in the same movie, Neo rescues a couple of people from a roof of a crashed and exploding truck by flying onto the scene, grabbing them by their collars, and pulling them straight up while ''[[Outrun the Fireball|Out-Flying the fireball]]''. While the world of the Matrix does have rules, one of Neo's powers is explicitly being able to bend and break them, so this is justified.
▲* While not a fall, the physics-defying properties of this trope are subverted in the ''[[Blade (Film)|Blade]]'' movies, where the titular super-human grabs a hold of the back of a speeding train and painfully dislocates his shoulder. If he hadn't already being superman, otherwise he would have simply ''lost'' his shoulder.
** Dracula throws a baby at him, and he catches it like it's a football or something. [[Infant Immortality|The baby is implied to be unharmed.]]
* Subverted in ''[[Enchanted]]'', where Giselle, the cartoon princess now a real person in New York expects to be caught when she falls, but ends up hurting both herself, and the man trying to catch her when reality doesn't live up to cartoon physics.
* [[Last Action Hero
* Handled relatively reasonably in the ''[[Iron Man (
** And when he first escapes from the terrorists in his Mk.1 suit, Tony falls from several hundred feet in the air into a sand dune, and suffers nothing worse than momentary dizziness, making this an example of [[Sand Is Water]].
** In the sequel, it's also averted as Tony visibly drops his speed significantly before {{spoiler|grabbing Pepper and flying her away from the exploding Hammeroid.}}
* John McClane falls down a shaft in ''[[
* In the 1989 ''[[Batman (
* In ''[[Underworld (
* Averted in ''[[
** Played straight in ''[[The Dark Knight Saga]]'', where Batman uses a grapple gun to snag the plummeting Joker. By all rights, the Joker's leg should have been torn out of its socket by the force of his sudden deceleration, but instead, he simply stops and Batman hauls him back up.
** In the same movie - just because you've jumped out of a window and grabbed your girlfriend, doesn't mean that you both won't be severely injured when you land on a taxi's hood.
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* ''[[Hancock]]'' shows the [[Flying Brick]] titular hero grabbing a [[Jerkass]] kid, flying him high up into the air, zooming back down, and catching him by ''sticking his arm out''. Even leaving aside the deceleration, he hit someone who can shrug off bullets and is ''harder'' than pavement.
** He also tosses a whale by its tail (it rhymes!) without ripping its flukes off.
* In contrast to Gwen Stacy above, Spider-Man successfully catches Aunt May with his webbing in [[Spider-Man (
** Painfully obvious in the original ''Spider-Man'' movie, where Mary Jane is over water and in danger of falling; she does fall, but after about 40 feet she grabs onto a metal pipe. Her arms are not ripped out of their sockets.
* Averted in the 1978 ''[[Superman (
** Also averted in ''[[Superman Returns]]'' where Supes catches a falling plane and has to decelerate gradually while the plane falls to pieces due to the conflict of forces (even having a wing torn off because he grabs it)
* Subverted and played straight in the same scene in the 1999 movie ''[[Wing Commander (
* In ''[[Avatar (
* In the French film ''La Haine'', there is a recurring motif of the man who falls from the top of a four storey building. As he falls, he repeats, "''Jusqu'ici, tout va bien''" ("So far, so good", or literally "Up to here, all goes well"). ''Mais ce n'est pas la chute, c'est l'atterrissage''.
* Subverted hard in ''[[The Other Guys]]'', where the two [[Decoy Protagonist
* Both averted and played straight at the start of ''[[Attack of the Clones]]''. When Obi-Wan falls several stories, Anakin catches up in a speeder and descends with him, matching his speed and slowing down gradually once he's on board. Not long after, Anakin flings himself out of the speeder, falls several stories himself and catches the canopy of another speeder going ''very'' fast. And yet he doesn't lose his arm. Not yet anyway...
* Averted in ''[[The Rock]]''. [[James Bond|British spy]] [[Expy|John Mason]] offers to shake hands with FBI Director Womack, and slides a slipknot over the latter's wrist. He immediately pulls Womack over the railing of a hotel balcony, and the man is left dangling by the cord; both the sudden stop and the effort to pull him back up dislocate his shoulder and he has to carry his arm in a sling afterwards.
* ''[[The Return of Hanuman]]'' has a boy surviving after crushing through walls and even a guy falling off the road while driving his truck. Seems like Maruti the [[God in Human Form|reincarnation of Hanuman]] isn't the only one who's [[Nigh Invulnerable]].
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' plays with this; in the second film Jack Sparrow falls off a fairly high cliff and hits the ground - and not only survives, but he's in good enough shape to run in blind terror from the group of cannibals chasing him. However, he did smash through several rope bridges on the way down as well, thus decreasing his speed a little and rendering this...slightly less implausible, ''Slightly.''
* ''[[
* In the 2009 B-movie ''Infestation'', a giant wasp grabs a guy and flies away. A policeman patiently waits until the pair are above a roof before shooting the wasp. Unfortunately, the victim lands on the roof headfirst and dies anyway.
* Averted in ''[[The Avengers (
== Literature ==
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* Averted in ''[[Matthew Reilly|Area 7]]'', when Scarecrow does the 'Sydney Harbour Bridge' (two Maghooks connecting in midair) with Gant, thus stopping his fall. IIRC, it's described as 'one hell of a jolt' and it hurts him a lot.
** This trope (and the stock phase) is the syllabus of ''The Five Greatest Warriors''. {{spoiler|Jack's falling into a bottomless pit, and stops his fall with a Maghook. It still hurts, but not as much as it should after falling over 1000 meters.}}
* Subverted in ''Specials'' when [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass|Tally]], running away, jumps off a cliff while escaping Fausto with seemingly nothing to save her (no bungee jacket or hoverboard) says before jumping, 'Hey, Fausto, how's this for crazy? ''Crash bracelets''', and states that since crash bracelets weren't designed for anything like a jump off a cliff, she almost passed out from simply raising her arms to shoulder height.
* Averted nicely in ''[[Dragonriders of Pern|Dragonquest.]]'' {{spoiler|F'nor and Canth}} are dropping from a great height at what's explicitly stated as terminal velocity. The other dragonriders don't just stop them short- they form a ''ramp'' to slow them down gradually.
* ''[[The
** In the same arc Marvin falls from the same altitude and has his fall arrested by only the rocky ground below. {{spoiler|He survives, but did decelerate for a whole mile through the rock}}. And he wasn't very happy about it.
* In a strange subversion, in any given
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[
** Rincewind himself abides by a variation of the trope. He claims he is not afraid of heights but of ''grounds'': rightly recognizing that the ground is the actual instrument of death in a fatal fall. Also, his own life experience (and the fact that he's a just-barely-Wizard) show him multiple times that he can survive falls...provided someone or something intervenes on his behalf.
* ''Rapunzel: The One With All The Hair'' Prince Benjamin falls from Rapunzel's tower and has his fall "broken" when he lands on his horse, unharmed.
* In ''[[Percy Jackson
* In the last of the ''[[Lensman]]'' books, Kim Kinnison's daughter Constance is described as having formed a close friendship with Worsel, the flying dragon Lensman, to the point where she ''rides him like a horse'' (and has done so since she was big enough to climb on). One of her sisters describes how he "pretty nearly split her in two with an eleven-gee pull-up", for which she kicked him. Smith, who cranked so much up to eleven for so long, was known for getting little things like this right.
* At least some works of [[Robert Heinlein]] avert this.
** ''Star Lift'' centers around two pilots who have to speed nine days with the constant 3.5''g'' acceleration/deceleration. One of them dies halfway, other is left with his body irrepairably worn-out, causing [[Rapid Aging]].{{verify|reason=This Mod cannot find any story by this name, by Heinlein or anyone else. Does it exist?}}
** In ''[[Double Star]]'', a pilot tells about his strong, but dumb and stubborn passenger, who managed to walk under 5''g''... and who never walked again afterwards.
** "Slow" Free Trader starships in ''[[Citizen of the Galaxy]]'' accelerate at somewhat one km/s per second. It is stated that if the artificial gravity onboard fails for a split-second, all the crew will be instantly splattered into strawberry jam by ''100g'' acceleration.
* Both the Dragon Boat and Simon Heap easily survive their falls in ''[[
* Averted in ''Dragon Keeper: Garden Of The Purple Dragon''. Ping jumps off a burning balcony, hits a tree on the way down, then lands in a pool. However, hitting the tree and water are both seperately described as being ''very painful'', and Ping breaks a rib or two in the process.
* Averted in ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' when Nathan saves {{spoiler|Tracy}} as soon as she jumps off the bridge before she has time to build up velocity and what not.▼
* Completely and [[Applied Phlebotinum|technologically]] averted in ''[[
▲* Averted in ''[[Heroes (TV)|Heroes]]'' when Nathan saves {{spoiler|Tracy}} as soon as she jumps off the bridge before she has time to build up velocity and what not.
* Averted in ''[[Sanctuary]]'', where a guy with the ability to fly catches a guy jumping out of a high rise building. Having descended maybe 10 to 20 stories, coupled with the would-be rescuer hitting him sideways at what would appear to be about 5
▲* Completely and [[Applied Phlebotinum|technologically]] averted in ''[[Crusade (TV)|Crusade]]'', when Lochley's Starfury is heading into the hangar bay at ~1/2 of the ''Excalibur'''s cruising speed. Gravity traps slow the fighter so it doesn't splat on the back of the bay.
▲* Averted in ''[[Sanctuary]]'', where a guy with the ability to fly catches a guy jumping out of a high rise building. Having descended maybe 10 to 20 stories, coupled with the would-be rescuer hitting him sideways at what would appear to be about 5 mph, the man ends up with four cracked ribs. Such an impact probably should have caused even more damage, though.
* A Hercules/Xena crossover (can't remember which show) where Xena is in the clutches of a flying monster hundreds of feet in the air and decides to [[Too Dumb to Live|stab it.]] She plummets down to earth and Hercules catches her in his arms. She's fine, of course.
** In one episode of ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'', a baby is flying through the air and he catches it by diving to the ground and holding his hands out, which are ''sitting stationary on the ground'' when the baby lands on them unharmed.
* [[Doctor Who
** The Fourth Doctor wasn't quite as lucky, or durable - he dies from a much shorter fall.
* [[Discussed Trope]] in ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]''.
{{quote|
'''Leonard, Sheldon, Wolowitz''': One. {{[[[The Voiceless]] Raj}} holds up one finger]
'''Sheldon''': You do know that scene was rife with scientific inaccuracy?
'''Penny''': Yes, I know men can't fly.
'''Sheldon''': No, no, let's assume that they can! Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of thirty-two feet per second per second. Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Miss Lane, who is now traveling at approximately one hundred twenty miles an hour, hits them, and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces.
'''Leonard''': ''Unless'' Superman matches her speed and decelerates.
'''Sheldon''': In what space, sir, in what space? She's two feet above the ground. Frankly, if he really loved her, he'd let her hit the pavement. It'd be a more merciful death. }}
* In ''
== Tabletop Games ==
* At least three editions of the [[Champions|Hero System]] rules have used some variant of the following line to open the rules on falling damage:
{{quote|
* In ''[[Exalted]]'', Perfect Defences allow you to take no damage from anything, falling damage included. This makes sense for the ones that turn your skin to iron or even allow you to block attacks but how in Creation do you dodge the ground? It's not by "throwing yourself at the ground and missing", because Arthur Dent already tried that.
** You can't dodge or parry the ground, even with a perfect
* ''Ninjas & Superspies'' had two martial arts powers that allowed a character to survive extremely long falls with minimal damage.
* The monk class in most editions of ''[[Dungeons
** Pretty much any high level character can survive. You suffer 1d6 damage per 10 feet up to 20d6 damage, or generally between 60 and 80 points. You also have to roll versus death from massive damage but pretty much anyone capable of surviving the damage will make the save. Of course, by the time you're high level, you probably have other means of surviving a fall anyway.
* ''[[
== Video Games ==
* In cutscenes in ''[[
* In the game, ''[[Odin Sphere]]'', after a boss fight in the sky, Gwendolyn laments her impending death and converses with the spirit of her dead sister. This goes on for several minutes and another cutscene plays in the middle of it. After falling long enough for a bathroom break, {{spoiler|her lover, Oswald, saves her by making a quick jump from somewhere below and catching her}}.
** Possibly subverted, since {{spoiler|Gwendolyn is unconscious and Oswald is barely standing afterwards, but this may be because of their previous fights and Oswald's use of his dark power to reach Gwendolyn before she hit the ground}}.
* In ''Rune'', the multiplayer death message may state death by deceleration trauma.
* ''[[Space Quest]]'' quotes the trope word for word for one of their [[The Many Deaths of You]] snarky comments.
* [[Sonic the Hedgehog]] might be the largest offender of this trope, since his ability has always been to run really really fast. [[Required Secondary Powers|Not necessarily stop super fast.]] (Likewise, he doesn't suffer fall damage.)
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* In the ''[[Halo]]'' novel ''First Strike'', a collection of Spartans make a similar freefall from an approaching shuttle in low orbit and nearly all suffer severe injury or death. However, these Spartans are wearing "Mark V" armor(the armor MC has in Halo 1) rather than the "Mark VI" that the MC wears in Halo 2 and 3. This is all justified in ''The Fall of Reach'' where the SPARTAN-IIs were all modified to have steel coated bones, super strength, and other modifications. They also tested the armor on normal humans. The armor moved too fast for them, and liquefied what tried to move. Then they convulsed in pain and were turned to 100% liquid. Basically, Master Chief and the other SPARTANs can only use it due to extensive modification, which is amplified by the suit.
** In the ''[[Halo 3]]'' beta if you turned up the movement speed as high as it could go, players could die by simply running into each other fast enough.
** ''[[Halo: Reach]]'' has your character thrown off a doomed Covenant Corvette, and you survive, despite the (relatively) old armor you have access to. How do they explain this? If you look closely enough at the thing on your back, you can see the words "REENTRY PACK" stamped on the side of it. It's [[Informed Ability|(apparently)]] able to lock the Spartan's armor like what Master Chief did in Halo 2/3 and/or augment the energy shield to better withstand the re-entry.
***Reach specifically includes the achievement "If They Came to Hear Me Beg", which requires the player to trigger an assassination animation against a Sangheili to "survive a fall that would’ve been fatal."
** In most gameplay situations, you automatically die in midair after falling about 30 feet.
* Averted with the summoning stones introduced in ''[[World of Warcraft|Burning Crusade]]'', where if someone is falling off a cliff and is summoned to the dungeon, they hit the ground with all the force they should Of course, this would require rather careful timing. When Wrath of the Lich King introduced a dungeon finder that allowed you to teleport to dungeons at will, they made the caveat that teleportation was not possible while falling.
* This is averted in ''[[Wallace and Gromit]]: Project Zoo''. A fall over a certain height will injure or even kill Gromit no matter what is done.
* ''[[Portal (
** Portal is notable in that its unique conservation of momentum allows terminal velocity to be reached over short distances and vertical acceleration can quickly become horizontal. Yet you always land on your feet, completely upright. And if you construct your portals a certain way (both on the floor but "aligned" improperly) and bounce between them over and over, you can quickly get turned upside-down, though Chell is always capable of righting herself.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX9Sc88qreg The final promo for the sequel] shows that Chell now has special boots instead of just the springs. The narrator Cave Johnson claims they prevent her from landing anywhere except on her feet (there is no evidence to support this, as all of Chell's flips are of her own accord). Note that this is ''not'' mentioned in the game proper although it is commented on by [[
* ''[[Half-Life]]'' itself ''does'' have falling damage, but if the player character can catch hold of a ladder (or rope, in some sequels) on the way down, all that momentum dissipates like magic. Additionally, [[Soft Water]] is in full effect, such that a few ''inches'' of water will cancel the momentum of the player character.
* Entirely averted in the ''[[Banjo-Kazooie]]'' series: after about two stories' worth of falling, Banjo loses control and can no longer grab anything or use any ability similar to a double jump, which he has several of. You can also perform his and Kazooie's version of the [[Ground Pound]] while falling like that, and if you're close enough to the ground when you do it, you won't take damage.
* Averted in ''[[Crysis (
* In ''[[
** As other classes (or a Scout, if not double-jumping), you take falling damage if you drop more than twice your height, approximately. If your health is low, this kills you, complete with a [[Have a Nice Death|notification on your clumsy, painful death]].
* In ''[[Super Smash Bros
* Averted in the latter two of the ''[[Creatures]]'' trilogy, in which you can injure Norns by picking them up and throwing them against walls. However, provided a fall is enough to injure the Norn at all, it injures them just as badly no matter how far they fall. (Although this is partially [[Truth in Television]].)
* Inverted in ''[[Spelunker]]'', especially NES version. Falling by knee-height in NES version kills you mid-air.
* Also inverted in many ''[[Action 52]]'' platformers where the main character is killed mid-air too, if the fall lasts too long.
* Averted in ''[[Fallout 3]]''. Falling from a too large height will damage you, and once you've passed the damaging height limit, you don't need to go much higher to kill yourself. There's also a cheat that increases the size of your character model... but it doesn't scale physics interactions with it. So it is entirely possible to turn yourself into a giant, only to die from a knee-height fall.
* In ''[[Devil May Cry|Devil May Cry 3]]'', [[Badass Normal|Lady]] is thrown off the side of the Temen-ni-Gru by Arkham. She falls for at least 8 seconds before Dante catches her. ''By her ankle.'' [[Made of Iron|Lady takes worse later on.]]
** While it hasn't been explicitly stated, it seems that Dante -and of course Vergil- are just immune to falling harm. Both of them just jump from the freaking top of the Temen-ni-Gru tower to get down. They do have an immense [[Healing Factor]], though (we're talking "getting shot in the forehead in a cutscene is merely annoying" immense.)
* In ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' players that get knocked off a ledge will go into a "perilously clinging" state where they must be rescued by another player. If no one pulls them up after a certain amount of time, they fall and the game registers them as dead. Annoyingly, there was a bug in early versions where players could get stuck in this animation and then "die" from a fall of a few feet.
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* In ''[[Aion]]'', even though you can fall from ridiculous heights, hitting the ground kills you instantly (from more than something like 10m or so). You can spread your wings just above the ground to save yourself though, but that's not necessarily that unrealistic (apart from the spreading your wings part :) ) - you only accelerate for a while, after that the air resistance counter acts the pull of gravity and after you spread the wings, you don't just stop immediately - you glide a bit, giving you much more time to dissipate the speed than simply splatting into the ground. Also, the world Aion is set in appears to have very strange gravitational properties (mainly to the Aether, which apparently acts as a kind of antigravitational [[Applied Phlebotinum]] and also thanks to the fact, that the planet is eaten from inside, thus having much smaller gravity... everyone moves like on Earth more or less though... Aether did it?)
** In newer versions, Aion will actually kill you simply from falling. It takes somewhere between 5 to 10 seconds of unrestricted free-falling to instantly kill you without waiting for you to hit any surface whatsoever. Particularly noticeable if you try to free-fall from the upper abyss to the lower, and catch yourself near the end of the fall. This was probably implemented to counter the common abuse which allowed you to save quite a few seconds of flight time by doing this trick. Between Abyss levels this almost the same behaviour as before.
* ''[[Prototype (
* Early subversion in ''[[Legacy of the Wizard]]''. If you fall from higher than the character's maximum jump height, it's gonna hurt. Not a total aversion, because the damage is the same no matter how high you fall from.
* In the ''[[Ghost in
* ''[[
* ''[[No More Heroes]] 2'' has a completely insane example in the ending. After finishing off the final boss, Travis plummets several hundred feet to the pavement, and Sylvia catches him...out of the air with one hand, while he's literally an ''inch'' from hitting the pavement, and slings him onto the back of her motorcycle.
** At the aforementioned event, getting shot out of a tower, you also hit several ledges on the way down. Your bones are practically all broken, but the narrator, Theresa, also [[Hand Wave|says]] that "Sometimes the grief is so great, even Death keeps his distance."
* In ''[[Jet Set Radio
* Painfully inverted in ''[[Battlefield (
** This also has an interesting effect when combined with the parachute. Some attacks (grenades, tank shells, aircraft splash damage, etc) blow you up into the air if they don't kill you outright. If you hit your parachute (or land on something even slightly higher than the ground you started from) you'll live. The parachute will nullify all fall damage regardless of how long it has been deployed, with the caveat that you can only deploy it once you've already fallen further than your starting height, making it tricky to deploy in time (due to reflexes and lag) if you're being abused by shoddy map geometry.
* Partially averted and partially played straight in ''[[Just Cause (
** Also, even if falling from terminal velocity, wait to deploy your parachute at the last possible second and see what happens. That's right! All that will happen is that Rico falls down, says something along the lines of "sheesh" or "Whoa... To close for comfort." and have absolutely no damage.
** Worse than all of the above examples is you can bail out of a flaming out of control jet and come out about a foot off the ground and land because you were so close to the ground that the game never has you freefalling and the speed is negated when you jump out of the jet so you're perfectly fine.
* Flint in ''[[Alundra 2:
* In ''[[Dead Rising]]'', Frank West takes roughly normal (in video game terms) falling damage, unless he does a knee drop. That's right, landing on your feet hurts, but directing all the force ''into your kneecap'' is a perfect solution.
* Kratos in ''[[God of War]]'', being a demi-god, is rather good at surviving falls, unless it's into a [[Bottomless Pits]] of some kind. One particularly noteworthy example in the second game, when he performs a [[Literal Cliff Hanger]] with his chainblades after leaping off the back of a Griffin. Another occurs in the third, when he leaps from the Labyrinth inside Mount Olympus all the way into the Underworld.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]'' - Link would always take damage falling into [[Bottomless Pits]] or [[Super Drowning Skills|deep water]], but the 3D titles also added falling damage from a sufficient enough height. In later games, if you fall too far the roll move will no longer save you from damage.
* Ditto the ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' series, though a [[Ground Pound]] will negate any falling damage if it's initiated from a low enough height.
** Slightly subverted with [[Super Mario Sunshine]] - falling for too long will make Mario flail around unable to do anything until his splat on the floor, but if you do a [[Ground Pound]] before that, then as long as there's ground underneath, you won't take any damage. Not even if you fall until Mario begins to ''light on fire from falling so far.''
* ''[[
* In the [[Game Boy]] versions of ''[[Turok (
* In the ''[[
** In ''Brotherhood'', Ezio can acquire Parachutes (after {{spoiler|completing all four of the War Machine missions}}; he's granted five to start and can buy more from tailors, carrying up to fifteen at once) which can be triggered during a fall to avert fall damage.
** The series also features Leaps of Faith, including some [[Rule of Cool|ridiculously cool]] jumps from the tallest towers in each game. The character will survive these leaps just fine, because the landing is softened by a haystack, a pile of leaves or in the latest installment, a ''bush of flowers''.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkJ8ILmGOT0 This] is the ending of ''[[Haunted Castle (
* In the first ''[[Ratchet and Clank]]'' game {{spoiler|Ratchet and Clank wind up falling from the platform where they fight and defeat Chairman Drek. Ratchet even looks down and you literally can't see the ground from how high up they are. And yet, Clank, changing to his Thruster Pack mode, and propelling himself against Ratchet literally seconds before hitting the ground is enough for the pair to just skid against the ground a bit. The only injury sustained by either of them is Clank's broken servos in his arm, which were from the force of holding up Ratchet's weight BEFORE they fell.}}
* In ''[[Minecraft]]'' falling into water more than two blocks deep will prevent any fall damage. The same applies when catching a ladder.
** This actually plats into several useful constructs most notably the Water Brake(tm). Dont want to climb all the way down your mineshaft? Just toss a [[Floating Island|water block on top of a sign]], [[Blatant Lies|and you need not worry about long climbs ever again!]]
* In ''[[
* In the ''Spider-Man 2'' game, it's possible to save yourself from a long fall by shooting off a web zip-line, which Spidey uses to sharply pull himself horizontally. It's quite possible to jump off the Empire State Building and then suddenly jerk to the side inches from the ground.
* ''[[Bug
* One of the patches to ''[[Unreal Tournament 2004
* At the end of the manor house level in ''[[Medal of Honor]]: Frontline'', you and Geritt escape by jumping off a several story high balcony into a hay wagon. He hits the ground and survives, but you die if you miss the wagon.
* In the ''[[Syphon Filter]]'' series, falling more than 10 or so feet in-game is fatal, although Logan survives falls much further than this [[Cutscene Power to
* At the end of the first ''[[
** Sheba is a wind adept, she manipulated the winds to slow their fall, which is what caused the water to appear to rise up. Theorized by Kraden after Sheba's wind adept status is confirmed.
* Played straight initially in ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution
** That would be the appropriately-named Icarus Landing System. It is described with the following technobabble: "A discreet augmentation surgically implanted in the user's lower back, slightly above the coccyx at the base of the vertebral column. The device has an acceleration descent sensor built in; in free fall, the unit will automatically activate the patented High-Fall Safeguard System, an EMF decelerator generating a fixed-focus electromagnetic lensing field, projected downward along the plane of the drop. This field pushes against the Earth's magnetosphere and slows the user's descent to a manageable velocity, allowing him to fall from almost any height (within reason) to a relatively soft landing."
* In ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'', Wander can successfully break any fall if he grabs onto something before hitting the ground. This is particularly amusing to witness during the battle with the last colossus, where Wander can plummet ''several stories'' and still emerged unharmed as long as he catches a ledge on his way down. Up to a certain height, hitting the ground will only do damage, and not an enormous amount. Once you pass that height, you die on impact, even if a slightly shorter fall would barely inconvenience Wander with a maxed life bar.
* ''[[Batman: Arkham Asylum]]'' attempted to justify this by means of Batman's glider cape: if he is falling towards the ground, the cape will automatically open a few feet before the ground, slowing his descent somewhat. However, it's played completely straight in the [[Batman: Arkham City|sequel]], in which Batman gains a new move which allows him to dive vertically (without his cape opening) and still hit the ground unharmed. Additionally, Catwoman is able to jump huge vertical distances and not take any damage when hitting the ground (it's occasionally [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] by having her perform a combat roll when landing). Finally, in both games it's played straight in another instance, as Batman and Catwoman are able to throw mooks off of very tall buildings, but when their bodies are scanned after the fact they are invariably described as "Unconscious", even if the falls are long enough to realistically kill even a very strong person.
* In ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', fall damage is quite lethal (except for the [[Soft Water]]), but a warrior (or druid in bear form) can use their Charge ability on an enemy, which causes them to rush up to that foe. However, the scripted movement for the Charge overrides the fact that they're currently falling, so they end up on the ground having suffered no damage. Also, casting Slow Fall or Levitate will instantly reduce a falling character's speed, to no ill effect, and they will suffer no damage when they hit the ground - regardless of how far they fell prior to that point.
* ''[[
* [[
* [[Final Fantasy Tactics]] has characters take fall damage if they fall a greater distance than their jump rating (4 for most classes), at a rate of 10% of Max HP per height level. A fall of 10 or more over the character's jump rating is always fatal. Given the scale of the game, this isn't actually all that high (roughly ten yards).
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Anybody else remember [[The Order of the Stick
* Done pretty reasonably in ''[[
* ''[[
** Even his Honda can stick a [https://web.archive.org/web/20091205084627/http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=39&issue=8 pretty deft landing].
* In ''[[
** In another strip this is averted when the main characters are falling at a fast speed from hundreds of feet in the air. Even though they are teleported to the ground, that doesn't stop the acceleration from the fall. Bloody mess.
** And in [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/09/08/episode-1170-happy-landings/ yet another strip], well...
{{quote|
'''Thief:''' You blocked the Earth.
'''Fighter:''' Why not? I can block magic and fire and all kinds of stuff.
'''Thief:''' I hate it when the things he says that don't make sense ''make'' sense. }}
* Parodied in [http://www.mezzacotta.net/owls/?comic=29 this] strip from [[Mezzacotta|Lightning Made of Owls]].
* [[Zig
* After dropping ''[[Buck Godot]]'' from a great height and allowing him some time to panic, the elusive Teleporter proceeds to gradually [https://web.archive.org/web/20150409232406/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20070403 break his fall] by repeatedly punching him in the stomach. Ouch.
* ''[[Bug
* Simultaneously averted and somewhat played straight in ''[[
* Various methods of doing this in ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' are explored in [http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=050409 this] ''[[
== Web Original ==
* In [http://fartago.blogspot.com/2009/02/chapter-2-how-tago-got-his-limp.html Chapter 2] of the blog novel ''Fartago'', the character Tago jumps off a cliff but survives it by landing in a pile of dung. [[Hand Wave|Handwaved]] in that [[Word of God|the author]], Tony Caroselli, has said he stuck with the almost exclusively dialogue-only writing style specifically because [[MST3K Mantra|a third-person narrator would be more likely to explain specific details]], like where [[Misplaced Vegetation|the lead characters are getting all those grapes and wheat]] to make their seemingly endless supply of booze ([[You Fail Biology Forever|which ferments within hours]]), even when that would get [[Rule of Funny|in the way of the joke]] or of the novel's [[Insane Troll Logic|intentionally nonsensical story]]. Presumably, this also applies to how high the cliff Tago jumps from is. Also averted, in that Tago does not escape unscathed, but in an important plot point, breaks his leg from the fall. (The chapter is entitled, "How Tago Got His Limp.")
* In ''[[
** Of course, you actually die of dehydration.
* Every super-strong or super-fast hero in the ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' falls under this trope. Momentum and kinetic energy just never seem to enter into any rescue catches or super-speed evacuations.
* [[Played for Laughs]]/[[Rule of Funny]] recently in ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', with {{spoiler|Richard Han}}'s death. He falls off a mountain, and screams as he falls... only for him to enter another thread as he falls, apparently screaming the entire time and only stopping when he hits the ground and dies. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|It's actually pretty funny as hell]].
* Subverted or deconstructed every time in the [[Whateley Universe]], where the powers aren't as big and the physics seems to matter more. In "Ayla and the Birthday Brawl", Elite League are running through a holographic simulation. When the [[Squishy Wizard]] Spellbinder gets blasted into the air by a magical trap and [[Flying Brick]] Bombshell flies forward to catch her, the impact knocks Spellbinder out and injures her.
== Western Animation ==
* This is pretty prevalent in most cartoons (a fall that was meant to kill [[Darkwing Duck (
* On ''[[
** Also justified several times with Aang, who can bend the air around him to slow himself down before landing.
* Parodied in an episode of ''[[
* [[Danny Phantom]] in human form falls dozens of feet from the air and managed to grab onto a flagpole harmlessly. The flagpole later snaps and he falls another dozen or so, bounces off a sheet attached to a building, and into bags of garbage without taking any injury, but hey.
{{quote|
** Incidentally, [[Skulk Tech]] ([[It Makes Sense in Context|long story]]) tries to do the same thing. It doesn't work.
{{quote|
** [[The Chick|Sam]] and [[Black Best Friend|Tucker]] are dropped from the top of a building into a dumpster. They just get grossed out.
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[
* Happened in the ''[[
* Happened in the [[DCAU|Batman/Superman]] movie "World's Finest." Similar to what happened in Hush, Bruce Wayne tries to catch himself with his arms while falling off a building. He visibly falls at least 10 stories if not more, and is able to catch himself without ripping his arms off or breaking any bones.
* Done in ''[[Once Upon a Forest]]'' when Abigail falls off the flapper-wingamathing while trying to retrieve lungwort from the side of a very tall cliff, but is saved by grabbing onto the wing after Russel swoops the flying machine down to catch her.
* The ''[[Super Mario World (
* Averted quite brutally in the ''[[Happy Tree Friends]]'' episode "Better Off Bread", in which Giggles falls off a cliff and is rescued in mid-air by Splendid the flying squirrel....and the impact ''snaps her spine!''
** [[It Got Worse|It gets worse]]. Splendid's constant acceleration and deceleration repeatedly breaks her spine, each time with a sickly "Crush" sound.
* ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'': "Aha! I'll bounce off that flagpole and flip to safety!" *snap* "Uh-heh! I'll bounce off that... broad, flat surface and be in a lot of pain!"]] '''CRASH!!!''' '''"AAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!"''' "[[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress]]..."
** In case you were wondering, ''[[The Tick (animation)]]'' averts this trope. The main character is [[Nigh Invulnerable]], however, and escapes unharmed. The pavement got a small dent in it, though.
* Happens in the ''[[Bamse]]'' TV series, in the episode with the volcano. Bamse falls off the volcano, but Skalman manages to grab hold of his belt from the helicopter moments before Bamse would have hit the ground. Instead of going from terminal velocity to zero, he's going from terminal velocity downwards to a not insignificant speed upwards. Yeah.
* Parodied in an episode of ''[[The Simpsons (
* In an episode of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
** This happens again in Secret of My Excess; Spike and Rarity fall for around 30 seconds before Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy save them using only a piece of cloth.
** In [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
* In a 2-part ''[[King of the Hill]]'' episode, Hank and Peggy go skydiving, but Peggy's parachute ([[Failsafe Failure|and emergency chute]]) fail to deploy. Everyone fears her dead, and it's [[Lampshaded]] just how miraculous a survival from that height is. She ends up in a [[Bandage Mummy|full body cast]], goes through a psychological roller coaster, and for a few episodes is still going through physical therapy just to walk again.
* In the [[Five Episode Pilot]] of ''[[
* Speaking of which, this was lampshaded in an episode of ''[[
** In ''[[Batman:
{{quote|
* Happens quite sometime in [[Star Wars:
== Real Life ==
* The examples are the surprising Subversions of this trope; where extraordinarily lucky circumstances allowed something (or several somethings) to break the fall. The list of people who play it straight, so to speak, is much, much longer.
** [
** [
** [
** [
** More recently, skydiver [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-435377/The-man-fell-12-000-ft---survived.html Michael Holmes] survived a 12,000 foot (3657 meter) fall when his parachute failed.
* Inverted with [
* The Peregrine Falcon doesn't hit the ground, but can turn out of a stoop at such speed that it pulls Gs that would easily kill a human.
* Aversion in some instances as well; the shock and fear of falling can be enough to send someone into cardiac arrest, killing them or at least making them pass out before they hit ground.
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[[Category:Television Is Trying to Kill Us]]
[[Category:Artistic License Physics]]
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[[Category:Video Game Physics]]
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