Only a Flesh Wound: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

On television, as well as in movies, there seems to be this general idea that if someone is shot in the shoulder, or in the leg, then the worst that happens will be that the person will grimace and go on with what he was doing before he was shot. Getting shot in the leg may cause him to hobble around a bit, but no worse than a knee sprain. A "good guy" will sometimes shoot someone in the leg or shoulder, "just to stop him," and in television and movies, this is almost always nonlethal.

In reality, there's no "safe" place to shoot a person, not even in a seemingly non-vital extremity like a leg or arm. There are ''huge'' blood vessels in a human being's shoulder as well as lots of very delicate nerves and a very complex ball-and-socket joint that no surgeon on Earth can put back together once it's smashed by a bullet. There are ''huge'' blood vessels in a human being's legs too, a shot that nicks the femoral artery will cause a fatal loss of blood in only a few minutes. And this is all assuming a "clean" through-and-through wound, disregarding the possibility of the bullet glancing off a bone or joint and deflecting or fragmenting into pieces which then ''can'' hit something else inside. In short, there's no way for anyone, good or bad, to shoot someone and ''know'' that they will survive the wound. As they say, if you're shooting at all, you're shooting to kill.

 

 

 

When the character insists on this, regardless of evidence to the contrary, he is saying [[I Can Still Fight]]. (Which he does not, in fact, have to survive.)

 

See also [[Major Injury Underreaction]], [[Hollywood Healing]], [[Critical Existence Failure]], [[Didn't Need Those Anyway]], [[Unexplained Recovery]], and [['Tis Only a Bullet in the Brain]]. Compare with [[Instant Death Bullet]].

 

== Advertising ==

* During the [[Compare the Meerkat]] advert, "Battle Of Fearlessness", Alexandr's grandfather is wounded and Sergei's grandfather holds him and screams to the sky. Alexandr's grandfather sits up and says:

 

 

* ''[[Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex]]'' also plays it realistically with gunshot wounds, at least on non-cyborged individuals. In one episode, a soldier is shot in his upper-thigh by a sniper and bleeds to death on the ground while his squadmates are pinned down.

** Quite nicely, there is also an episode that plays with the concept in ''2ndGiG''. Togusa, while off duty, stumbles upon a violent domestic dispute. The attacker is a cyborg who turned off his pain receptors, and, despite Togusa just wanting the guy to calm/stand down, requires multiple shots of small arms fire to immobilize. In the farce of a preliminary examination that follows, he is forced to justify the number of times he shot by the resilience of cyborgs and the lawyer from the other side tries to turn that argument against him as prejudice towards cyborgs.

*** That fist time against Ulquiorra, Ichigo {{spoiler|wasn't lying there merely injured. He was dead.}}

**** {{spoiler|And then Orihime played her [[I Reject Your Reality|"I Reject Your Reality And Substitute My Own"]] card and resurrects Ichigo.}}

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in nisinator1's [[Abridged Series|"''Bleach'' Ridiculously Abridged"]]

** ->"X (injury) is not enough to kill a ''Bleach'' character!"

** Note that Seras and Alucard are both vampires, Alucard in particular has no trouble healing himself after being chopped into dozens of pieces, decapitated etc.

** Also, even if he was just aiming to incapacitate, he has no particular reason to care if she ''does'' get permanently destroyed, since his mission is to obliterate her eventually anyway.

** On the other hand, Johan gets shot in the head and survives (though only after intense surgery; the bullet was low-calibre and got lodged in his brain). {{spoiler|He later has the same thing happen to him ''again'' and survives}}.

* In the finale of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', Amuro is stabbed clean through the arm with a rapier. It doesn't seem to affect his piloting skills at all when he resurfaces in seven years later [[Zeta Gundam]] (although, to be fair, he is slightly superhuman & medical technology is presumably more advanced in the Universal Century).

* Averted many times in ''[[Legend of Galactic Heroes]]'': characters who get wounded in a limb either lose said limb or die, sometimes even after having received futuristic medical treatment. This is played in a very cruel way with one of the main characters, especially since the WHOLE episode of his death was made in a way that lead many viewers to believe he would still get out of this alive and keep playing a large role in the next season.

** They play with it even further near the end of the show, blending it with [[The Determinator]] and [[I Can Still Fight]] to good effect. Another main character is impaled through the chest with a massive sliver of glass, yet calmly pulls it out and tells his subordinate to stop shouting. Minutes later, it turns out the spike actually severed an artery between a lung and his heart, and even though the doctors can stop the bleeding he will die without surgery and will probably die regardless. He ignores his doctors and keeps going in order to manage a withdrawal from a disastrous battle with such steely composure it seems he won't die, and then waits almost a whole day for his friend to return with such steely composure it seems he'll be fine, until he dies less than an hour before his friend arrives.

** Used a second time with {{spoiler|Cornelia}}, who was shot multiple times in the leg.

** Averted with Nunnally, though. She was crippled for life due to nerve damage to her legs from submachinegun fire. {{spoiler|Or so it was set up to seem.}}

* During Genesis' assault on Trident in the ''[[Air Gear]]'' manga, Benkei cuts off her own leg at the thigh. She later explains that she's not losing much blood because of her vegetarianism, and that she needed to lose some blood to lower her blood pressure anyways.

* Hit and miss in ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]''. The really nasty wounds received are generally portrayed as such, but they're not very incapacitating once heroic resolve enters the equation. It's occasionally outright averted, however, such as when {{spoiler|Fate spears Negi through the shoulder with a rock lance, and he instantly collapses into a bleeding pile. Then hits Fate with it and passes out again. The next 'three minutes' are a race against time to get Konoka's artifact out so he doesn't bleed to death while a semiconscious Negi holds himself together with what magic he can.}}

* ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]'''s Spike usually only averts this if he's shot in the arms while [[Guns Akimbo|using two guns at once]]. Any other time, he's more likely to play it straight.

* In ''[[Change 123]]'', there is a scene where one [[Ninja|kunoichi]] threatens to another by stabbing her in the chest with a scalpel. It's a surgically precise stab done so that the scalpel, while not doing any critical damage, goes so near the heart that it's on the very edge of stabbing it. [[Justified Trope|Justified]] by the fact that the kunoichi who does the stabbing has a formal training in medicine.

* Averted in ''[[Gun X Sword]]'' - {{spoiler|Michael takes a bullet to the arm, and despite pulling his sleeve tighter to stop the blood flow, collapses from blood loss, possibly dying in Fasalina's arms.}}

** However, all bets are off when it comes to the resident [[Badass]], Hei. He once limped about halfway across town after being shot through the leg (unsurprisingly, [[Berserk Button|Amber was involved]]), and in the [[Interquel]] OVAs isn't even slowed down when he gets a foot-long shard of wood through his shoulder. He just pulls it out and walks off. Oh, and he managed to do a [[Ceiling Cling]] with a knife embedded in his arm.

* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' manga there is a scene of Mustang's crew going out of their way to avoid shooting soldiers in vital areas, but still shooting them just the same. You'd think being soldiers they'd know better.

** In the first anime, Scar gets both of his arms severed through alchemy. Globs of blood splash down for a few seconds, then the bleeding miraculously stops.

** Subverted in the FMA ''Brotherhood'' anime, during the fight between Ed and Kimblee. {{spoiler|Kimblee blows up the building they're fighting in, and Ed gets blasted thirty feet down the shaft.}}

{{spoiler|''Ed (eyes widen)'': Y-you're kidding… No!… *collapses*}} }}

** Ed's arm and leg are both severed from his body, but he still manages to live long enough for the machine replacements to be attached.

* In [[Those Who Hunt Elves]], an inconclusive fight scene between Junpei and an elf ends with Junpei's arm bleeding. The English dub has him blow it off as "just a flesh wound".

* Used in fights in ''[[Soul Eater]]'' on characters lacking the advantage of the black blood. Black Star in every encounter with Mifune, Stein with Medusa (at one point I'm pretty sure she ''drills a hole in him'' or at least stabs him badly). Avoided somewhat when Mosquito cuts Kid's arm off. He's noticeably shocked (about the [[Completely Missing the Point|lack of symmetry]]), bleeding a lot, and unable to stop Mosquito injuring him further until Brew kicks in. When it does, marginally reasonable responses no longer apply - Rule of Cool and CMOA do.

* In [[Dragon Ball|Goku's]] fight with Piccolo, he was shot by a ki blast that punched clean through his shoulder. He got back up, much to Piccolo's shock, saying that he missed his vital organs. He was also shot in his other limbs, and suffering from heavy blood loss. One senzu bean later and Goku is perfectly healed. He takes a similar beating from Vegeta, and until he gets another senzu, he's stuck in the hospital.

** Freeza has it as an ability: he is able to survive and function in the most horrible conditions: He got his tail chopped off twice, got vivisected and lost his left arm, then was caught in the explosion of the planet he was in, resulting in the loss of half his head. When he was found floating among the debris, he was conscious. Gets really nasty when the next major villain combines that power with regeneration, and the ability to get stronger from being near death: [[From a Single Cell|Ce]][[Meaningful Name|ll]] survives getting half of his torso and his full upper body blown up, and HIS OWN SELFDESTRUCTION as well.

* In ''[[Guilty Crown]]'', {{spoiler|Shuu at one point}} gets the arm severed clean off at the elbow, and instead of bleeding out or dying instantly merely sits and stares at it in shock, [[Bloodless Carnage|without so much as bleeding]].

 

== Comic Books ==

* In the otherwise classic ''[[Popeye]]'' Wild West continuity "Skullyville", a gang of more than ''two dozen'' bandits are each shot in the shoulder and together dumped in a basement, the stated intent being to put them out of action without really hurting them.

* Averted in one of the last ''[[Batman: No Man's Land]]'' comics. The Joker once paralysed Barbara Gordon (turning her into the Oracle), and has just shot and killed Commissioner Gordon's wife, and is facing down a furious Gordon with a gun. Commissioner Gordon shoots him in the knee. Unlike Barbara the Joker was walking around without ''any'' problems in later appearances. Of course, comics being still frames, he might have a limp we aren't seeing.

** There was a later issue where someone visits him in Arkham and he's wearing a leg brace and walking with a cane. He may have recovered completely, but it wasn't immediate.

* There's a [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] Batman story that averts this trope. Batman takes a round in the shoulder; it missed his [[Bulletproof Vest|vest]] and he drops like a rock and is thought dead. He survives, obviously, but needs to break off from the fight to get immediate medical attention. Oh and for those wondering, [[Beware the Nice Ones|Robin]] did not take Batman's "death" [[Unstoppable Rage|well.]]

* Sometimes subverted in ''[[Ultimate Spider-Man]]''. When Peter was shot in the shoulder, while he does possess super strength and resilience so it's not as bad as it should be, it's still treated as a very serious injury that may have been slowly killing him. But in a later story, Ox, who does not have any super powers, is shot in what seems to be his Achilles tendon and is still able to ''walk''. Holy smokes.

* [[Atop the Fourth Wall|Linkara]] fell into this trope in his review of Athena #1, where he claimed that Athena being shot in the arm isn't worth serious medical attention. While this is, well, ''[[Greek Mythology|Athena]]'', at the time none of the cast actually knew this. Granted the bullet seemed to just graze her, explaining his objection, but women ''do'' typically have less muscle mass than men, so take it how you will.

* Averted in an issue of ''The Mysterious [[Darkhawk]]''; the hero Chris Powell is shot in the leg and passes out from loss of blood and has to go to the hospital. He's later told that it was in fact just a flesh wound.

* In ''[[Sin City]]'', Marv is clipped by a barrage of gunfire while escaping from a hotel. He only needs a few band-aids and he's fine. In a later story, {{spoiler|1=Dwight McCarthy}} is shot in the face and chest. While he has to be rushed to Old Town to receive emergency aid, including reconstructive surgery, he remains conscious and doesn't receive any long-lasting injuries. Likewise, John Hartigan, an old man suffering from heart problems, is shot many times in the beginning of ''That Yellow Bastard'' but it takes a while for him to go down. A brief stay in the hospital and he's fine.

 

== Film ==

** It is likely, however, that Python stole it from ''[[The Goon Show]]'', which they have freely confessed to being influenced by; the line appears in an episode of the show entitled ''[http://www.thegoonshow.net/scripts_show.asp?title=svge04_the_giant_bombardon The Giant Bombardon]''.

** [[Older Than They Think|It's older than that]]. In the ''[[Li'l Abner]]'' comic within a comic, police detective Fearless Fosdick would regularly come out of shootouts looking like Swiss cheese, and declare "It's only a flesh wound."

** Averted? Elektra wasn't actively trying to kill him yet and had been trained for years so she knew EXACTLY where to stab him where it would incapacitate him but not kill him. Also the fight with Bullseye is after {{spoiler|he's killed Elektra (stabbing her with her own sai, she's dead in minutes) and Matt is running on [[Unstoppable Rage]].}} In his battle with the Kingpin afterwards he's clearly worse for the wear and is getting his ass handed to him; Kingpin even lampshades the fact his foe should be able to beat him easily.

* Averted heavily and brutally in the original ''[[Day of the Dead]]'', Rhodes is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZxpKHm5Las shot in the right shoulder] and unable to do anything with that side of his torso (especially when he tries to open a door with that arm). Then he's shot in the left leg and essentially gets crippled.

* The ''[[Die Hard]]'' franchise can't seem to decide how it feels about this trope, and will play it straight and avert it sometimes within the same movie. A gunshot to the leg is treated as horribly painful and keeping the character from being able to stand without leaning heavily on something, but blood loss also doesn't seem to be a problem for him. At the same time, when a character is shot in the shoulder, he hits the floor and can't move, and has to be dragged to his feet and held up by another character.

* Averted in the classic ''[[Film Noir|noir]]'' flick ''[[Double Indemnity]]'', which opens as the lead character has just been shot in the shoulder/upper arm area. While he doesn't pass out for an implied hour or so at least - long enough to narrate the rest of the film in flashback, anyway - he ''is'' shown staggering, bleeding and otherwise in steadily increasing distress from then on, even while seated. When he jumps up and tries to escape at the end of the movie (despite being told "You'll never make it!") he collapses almost immediately.

* Taken to absurd heights in the 1994 film ''Gunmen'' where the running gag between the [[Strange Bedfellows]] will have one trying to convince the other on a course of action, the other refusing, and the first shooting him in the arm or leg and tossing him the first aid kit, then demanding he "try and keep up".

** To be fair, only a few of the characters got shot. {{spoiler|The Reverend Shooter (received a shotgun blast to the centre of the shoulder at close range, which is probably the most far-fetched survival), Dr. Hatcher (foot blown off, while a shot in the foot is relatively safe compared to other shots, he still should probably have suffered from blood lost, shock and possibly infection), the Prossers (shot at mid-range in the centre of the shoulder) and Nicholas himself (shot in the upper arm by the [[Evil Teacher]] and shot in the chest by Shooter, and then carries on as normal. His chest was protected though.}} Most of the others were incapacitated via environmental or other means.

* In ''[[Last Action Hero]]'', a character who's been realistically shot and is dying is relocated into the movie universe where, as Danny notes, "that'd just be a flesh wound" and not anything to worry about. The instant the victim swaps realities, a doctor scoffs at the flesh wound and he's healthy again.

* Subverted in ''[[The Proposition]]'': Charlie gets a spear through the shoulder ("How extraordinarily quaint!"), and spends several days in the care of [[Bedouin Rescue Service|a very talented healer]] before he can any more, and even then, he's crippled for the rest of the movie.

* In ''[[Pulp Fiction]]'', by the way Marsellus says what specific time period he's going to get on the ass of the guy that just raped him, you get the impression that the guy would live to face it. This despite the fact that he just shot him ''twice''... in his leg and '''his [[Groin Attack|crotch]]'''...'''''with a SHOTGUN!''''' Though he might have just been [[To the Pain|indulging in the concept]].

** It's also possible that Marcellus was planning on bringing in a doctor ''just to keep the guy alive longer'' - he was '''really''' pissed off.

* In ''[[Raiders of the Lost Ark]]'', [[Indiana Jones]] cheerfully disregards a bullet in his arm that could hardly have avoided breaking the bone.

* Averted in the movie ''[[Man on Fire]]''. Creasy shoots a couple of corrupt cops in the legs. One lives long enough to shot Creasy then receives two to the chest.

* In the film version of ''[[Forrest Gump]]'', the titular character is lucky enough to be shot in the buttocks during the early part of the Vietnam War, ensuring that he'll be given medical leave for the rest of the fighting while still being able to make a full and relatively painless recovery.

* In the movie ''Grozovye Vorota'' (''Thunder Gate''), 1st Lt. Doronin is shot in the lower abdomen (most probably with a bullet from an assault rifle) yet he is able to dress the wound, walk and give the rallying speech to his soldiers (he may be using combat analgesics though). However, when Pvt. Vyetrov is shot in the thigh, he is forced to hobble leaning heavily on the stick and when Pvt. Gorshkov is shot in the arm, he loses control over the injured limb what renders him unable to reload his machine gun. Moreover, {{spoiler|all wounded protagonists are still crippled when shown in hospital.}}

* The classic scene from ''[[Predator]]'' with Blain:

I an't got time to bleed. }}

** Dutch is also wounded by gun shrapnel from his M16 when it's struck by the Predator's plasmacaster. As in ''Commando'' the impairment to the arm is only temporary, later allowing Dutch to make and use a ''longbow.''

* Both averted, and played straight in the classic western ''[[El Dorado]]''. [[John Wayne]]'s character, Cole Thornton is shot in the back, and while survives, suffers periodic attacks of paralysis. Later when Robert Mitchum's character is shot in the leg, the doctor tells him it's just a flesh wound, and he walks pretty well with a crutch, sometimes even switching sides. (lampshaded in the film itself)

* In ''[[Taken (film)|Taken]]'', Brian [[It Works Better with Bullets|disarms]] a corrupt cop before casually shooting the man's wife in the arm to demonstrate how serious he is about recovering his kidnapped daughter.

* ''[[Angels Revenge]]'': While she's clearly affected by being shot, Trish is shown caring more about whether her actions earn her a spot among the Angels.

* In ''[[Cars]]'', a totaled racecar insists that he can still race as he's being towed away.

* In the 2010 version of ''[[True Grit]]'', LaBoeuf is shot straight through the shoulder but is unhindered by it for the rest of the film. The only reason we even remember him getting shot are the bloodless holes on the front and back of his coat.

* Parodied (of course) in the ''[[Hot Shots]]'' franchise with Lloyd Bridges' character, "Tug" Benson. He's an old military man who's taken so many flesh wounds that he's practically artificial.

'''Admiral Benson:''' I don't have a clue what you're talkin' about, Phil. Not a fucking clue. I have a shell the size of a fist in my head. Pork Chop Hill. The only way I can make this goddamn toupee to stay on is by magnetizing the entire upper left quadrant of my skull, so you just go ahead and do what you do. }}

* Averted in ''[[The Crow]]''. After getting shot in the leg with a .357 Magnum, Fun boy passes out almost instantly from the pain and shock. Eric doesn't seem bothered by gunshots but that probably comes from being an undead superhero with an accelerated healing ability.

* In ''[[Halloween (film)|Halloween]] H20'', LL Cool J can survive getting shot in the head. It was only a flesh wound, after all.

* In ''X-Men First Class'' {{spoiler|Professor X is shot in the back}} and remain conscious for about ten minutes silently in the background. He is permanently injured though.

* In the final game of ''[[Happy Gilmore]]'', Happy is hit with a car. The only loss he suffers is his ability to hit the long drive; he soon shrugs off his injuries and is able to win the tournament.

* At the end of ''[[Night Train to Munich]],'' Randall is shot in the shoulder and it doesn't even slow him down

* Averted in ''No Country For Old Men''. Chigurh is shot in the leg and its clearly a very serious, nasty-looking wound. His complete indifference to its seriousness is merely a part of his character and clearly something no one else would have.

 

 

* Averted yet somewhat handwaved in Charlie Brooks' novel ''Reality Check''. Multiple characters get shot, with all of them being fatal except for one. The one exception comes when Greg Crispin, the novel's protagonist, is shot in the leg. He passes out from blood loss, but is soon up and walking again thanks to some futuristic medical attention.

** Actually, late in the story, Crispin shoots Mannus repeatedly without killing him, although it is suggested that medical attention arrives before he dies of blood loss.

** Necrons do...

*** Not all of them. even though it may not be THEIR flesh it still hit someone's flesh.

* ''[[Dave Barry]]'s Guide To Guys'' has this anecdote about the co-founder of the World Famous Lawn Rangers Precision Lawnmower Drill Team of Arcola, Illinois and his manly attitude toward serious personal injury:

* Subverted in Jim Butcher's ''[[The Dresden Files|Fool Moon]]'', when Dresden is shot in the shoulder. The werewolf notes that he was shot in the shoulder instead of the leg, and that the only advantage in this is that he can still run. He bleeds severely until finally passing out from blood loss. When he wakes and finds that the werewolf has dressed his wound, she notes that he was ''very'' lucky that the bullet passed right through muscle while missing both the bone and artery. The injury troubles him for the remainder of the book.

** Also defied in ''Turn Coat''. On the third time Harry shows up to find {{spoiler|Molly, Mouse, and Morgan in a [[Mexican Standoff]]}}, he finds that {{spoiler|Mouse}} had been wounded with a small caliber pistol {{spoiler|Morgan}} had somehow hidden from him, taking the bullet for {{spoiler|Molly}}. Harry's companion (can't recall if it was Murphy or Butters) says that {{spoiler|Morgan}} using such a small caliber meant he didn't ''really'' mean to kill {{spoiler|Molly}} with the shot. Harry immediately shoots this down, saying the only reason he used a small gun was because it was the only one he had on him, and he was ''certainly'' shooting to kill.

* Subverted in [[His Dark Materials|''The Subtle Knife'']], in which a character ''tries'' to inflict a non-fatal leg injury on his enemy only to nick an artery and end up killing him anyway.

* Nelson DeMille's "Plum Island, wherein the antagonist is slashed through the abdomen, allowing his guts to spill out. This gives the protagonist enough time to pull some of the guts, place them on the antagonist's face and quip "Your guts." Later on we find out that the antagonist survived and is on trial. Nelson DeMille fails to understand things such as blood loss, infection (as this happens in a dark, underground, abandoned barrack near a disease research facility), the excruciating pain that would have caused the antagonist to pass out immediately.

** Fanon says he was shot in the buttocks and was too embarrassed to say, hence it's less the creator jumping between leg and arm, it's Watson himself.

* Averted in [[Ellis Peters]]' [[Felse Investigates|George Felse]] novel ''The Knocker on Death's Door''. One character is shot through the shoulder in the final showdown with the murderer. He is rushed to hospital, and one of the surgeons spends most of the night getting the bullet "out of the wreckage of his left shoulder". He's expected to be in hospital (and later, physical therapy) for months afterward, but to make at least an 80 percent recovery eventually.

** Heroes getting shot in the shoulder is also a recurring plot point throughout her novels.

* Averted in ''Battleground,'' by W.E.B. Griffin:

Dillon:"I know that, you know that, civilians don't know that." }}

* In the [[Discworld]] novel Men at Arms, [[Magnificent Bastard|Lord Vetinari]] attempts to [[Invoked Trope]] this trope when he is shot in the leg. He [[Subverted Trope|fails]].

The leg collapsed under him. }}

** Subverted further in that future books have Vetinari walking with a cane.

* Averted in ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'': Over the course of the story Rand and Perrin get impaled in the side by a Trolloc arrow and Ishamael's fighting staff respectively. Tinkers treat Perrin's wound provisionally but still the ride to safety the next day very nearly kills him. He wouldn't even have survived the day if not for Aes Sedai [[Healing Hands]]. Rand passes out upon being wounded and only survives long enough to be Healed because the wound is cauterized immediately. Even so it takes five days before he even regains consciousness...

* In the Chris Ryan novel "The Increment", Ryan describes a tactic supposedly used by UK forces in Northern Ireland (and by the SAS's elite assassination squad, "the Incerement", when killing a Bosnian war criminal in the novel) called a "fight-back", in a suspect is assasinated in cold blood, but in such a way as to make it seem like they resisted capture and had to be killed. This involved not only barring any "clean" shots to the suspect's heart, with them having to be allowed to bleed to death from leg wounds and chest wounds (averting the trope), but also requires the "clipping" of an Increment team member with a deliberate flesh wound to the calf by his own side after the mission, in order to make it appear that the suspect fired back and resisted (perhaps playing the trope straight, though given Ryan's military background, this may be Truth in Fiction for all we know)

* In ''[[The Three Musketeers (novel)|The Three Musketeers]]'', wounds are usually enough of a problem to still hurt people after several weeks (D'Artagnan ramming Athos in his already-injured shoulder in a [[Crash Into Hello]] is the base for the duel that ends up sealing their friendship), but some injuries to D'Artagnan definitely fall in this category and are [[Handwaved]] away by claiming that they closed very quickly due to the weapon used. Since all the protagonists like to put on a [[Made of Iron]] persona, they still occur to shrug off stab wounds to in-universe spectators.

* Averted in ''[[Animorphs]]'' because of the [[Phlebotinum]] of the morphing ability. Marco does once go into shoc, after his dolphin body is sliced in two, but the others are able to coax him to demorph in time to save himself.

* Averted in ''[[Septimus Heap]]'', when the Boggart is shot in the belly he only barely gets back to Keeper's hut and survives.

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

** Played straight in the D-Day episode. During the assault on the guns at Brecourt Manor, Private 'Popeye' Wynn gets a true flesh wound as he is shot in the ass, and has to make his own way back to HQ to receive treatment. He doesn't appear <s> again</s> standing up until the Arnhem drop, having been recovering in hospital during this time.

*** Repeated during the Arnhem invasion, where Buck Compton is also shot in the buttocks (lengthwise). He survives and recovers, but has to be dragged off the battlefield (and seems only semi-conscious). One soldier later [[Deadpan Snarker|comments]] to a [[New Meat|replacement]] that getting "shot in the ass" is an Easy Company tradition.

** (This was a plot device used to allow actor Richard Dean Anderson to bow out of part of the episode so that he could attend the birth of his daughter. So they clearly needed a wound that would fully incapacitate O'Neill temporarily, but would allow him to be moving around later.)

** Also averted in the episode "Desperate Measures" - O'Neill is shot with a pistol twice from behind {{spoiler|by Simmons}}; he falls down immediately, and seems to lose consciousness, {{spoiler|allowing the bad guys to get away}}. (He also does not answer attempts to contact him by radio.) By the time Carter finds him, he seems to be just coming around. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest (which he was shown putting on earlier in the episode), which stopped the shot to his torso, but the second shot went through his upper right arm. A later scene shows him in a bed in the infirmary.

'''O'Neill:''' I'm not kidding. They should put sleeves on these things. }}

** Also done yet again in "Lockdown" - Jack shoots Daniel {{spoiler|(who, unknown to all, is possessed by Anubis)}} in the shoulder to stop him from escaping through the Stargate, and he passes out almost immediately from the pain. In the next scene, he's still unconscious, and the doctor is reassuring the rest of SG-1 that "he's a lost a lot of blood, but his life is no longer in immediate danger," implying not only that the shoulder wound would have been fatal without treatment, but that there remains a possibility that complications can still do him in.

* Spoofed on ''[[Chappelle's Show]]''. One of the sketches was mock ESPN coverage of guys shooting dice in an alley, interrupted by gang members robbing them. When Dave's character talks back, the gangster shoots him in the leg. The "analysts" replay the shooting in slow motion with a football-style telestrator and comment "Smart play by the young man, shooting him below the waist, that is not attempted murder. This man knows the law."

* Averted on ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]''. In the pilot, Archer is shot in the leg, and requires serious medical attention.

* In the ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' episode 'The Killing Game', Captain Janeway was shot in the thigh by a 1940's-era handgun and still able to run/hobble-at-a-ludicrous-speed.

** In one episode, Bela shoots Sam in the shoulder to get Dean to give her something. When Dean freaks out (understandably) she says "I shot him in the ''shoulder''. I know how to ''aim''."

** It's even more annoying when you consider how unevenly it's applied; in a recent episode, {{spoiler|Pamela}} was killed by a knife to the stomach, a wound that both of the boys had suffered and survived over the course of the show. I love the show, but jeez, have a little consistency, will ya, Kripke?

** A later episode has Agent Bly get shot in the shoulder during a bank robbery, and is played fairly realistically; Bly is shown to be in danger of bleeding to death, and though he manages to disable two of the bank robbers later, he uses his other arm. He has his arm in a sling at the end of the episode.

** In the series pilot, Michael finally deals with an annoying drug pusher by ambushing him and shooting him in the leg. He hands him some bandages and says if he binds the wound and calls an ambulance ''immediately'', he stands a good chance of survival. The pusher is writhing on the floor in pain and obviously is unable to do much of anything but comply. He's fine the next time we see him, a month or two later, he's fine.

*** During one of the season 4 episodes Jesse is forced to {{spoiler|shoot a guard who had Micheal in a death grip and in the process it hits Micheal in the shoulder.}} {{spoiler|Micheal}} realistically bleeds out within a few minutes and loses consciousness and later on takes several weeks to heal from the wound in a hospital.

* On ''[[In Plain Sight]]'': Marshall gets shot in the lung, and promptly falls down. He manages to get up long enough to drive the bad guys off, then collapses and is incapacitated for the rest of the episode. He wears a sling for the next few episodes.

** And in the Season 2 finale {{spoiler|Mary is shot in the gut, arrives at the hospital without a heartbeat, and as the episode closes, it's still not clear if she'll survive.}}

*** {{spoiler|She does. ''And'' She makes a full recovery, though admittedly after a bit of time has passed. One scene during her taking-it-easy period has Marshal cracking a joke about her hobbling after a bad guy who is rather morbidly obese.}}

** But you've really gotta take special note of the character in Season 3 who is shot at close range in the back of the neck and not only lives, but is out of surgery, conscious, released from the hospital, and ''back at work'' a few hours later.

* Mostly averted in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'' where, except for Giles' ability to be repeatedly [[Tap on the Head|knocked unconscious without ill effect]], people who are severely injured will be hospitalized and frequently been shown recovering in later episodes. And justified in the case of vampires, where pretty much anything that doesn't kill them outright can reasonably recovered from. But present in the finale, where Buffy is ''impaled with a sword'' and shrugs it off, when similar wounds to Slayers earlier in the series have required medical attention.

** Played with in 'Fragments'. Jack actually says "Its just a flesh wound", in reference to the giant hole in his stomach. Suffice to say, early Torchwood are ''not'' fooled.

* Heavily averted in ''[[Criminal Minds]]'', where during one episode early in the fifth season, {{spoiler|Dr. Reid}} takes a bullet in the leg. Although the wound is not immediately life-threatening, he needs medical care, and is still using a cane many episodes later.

* Averted in the ''[[Farscape]]'' arc "Look At The Princess". {{spoiler|Braca}} is threatening John to get him to cooperate, and says that while he can't kill him, he can shoot him in the leg. John points out that as he's human and not Sebacean, doing this will likely cause him to bleed out.

** Done straight with Chiana being shot by Durka in "Durka Returns", although slightly justified by her survival being a hasty rewrite so that she could be made a regular character instead of dying as originally intended.

** Although it is perhaps worth noting that, not infrequently, this trope is only properly averted when it appears crucial to the plot for Arthur to be out cold and consequently oblivious to whatever plot exposition happens to be going on at the time. Case in point: ''The Last Dragonlord'', where a fairly vicious-looking blow from a rampaging dragon seems to cause him very little obvious pain and still leaves him able to eat, sleep, ride a horse for miles and attack a would-be-burglar until over a day later, when he is suddenly struck with a frankly unprompted attack of the faints to allow Merlin to do some serious wizard plot-expo without being overheard.

* The trope was particular averted in the short lived [[Rescue]] show, ''[[Trauma Center]]''. In that series, of all the injuries that happen in the stories, gunshot wounds are always considered ''major'' medical emergency and the paramedics and medical staff characters have to go full bore to save the patient's life.

* Averted, then played straight on ''[[Prison Break]]'' when Nick Savrinn got shot in the shoulder. After he got shot, he tried to lift piece of lumber to hit his captor with, but he couldn't because it ''felt like his arm was ripping out of it's socket''. He also had to be helped to the escape car because could barely move after the blood loss he suffered. Fast forward to after the hiatus (which was a week max in their time), he's in the courtroom no worse for the wear and his gunshot wound is never mentioned again.

* Generally averted on ''[[The Wire]]''. Just in Season 1 - Prez pistol whips a teenager in the projects, who we later learn lost his eye as a result. While robbing the Barksdale crew, Omar Little shoots Sterling in the knee. Sterling limps and uses a cane for subsequent episodes. Omar later shoots Wee-Bey in the leg, who also is seen limping and using a cane for several episodes.

* Taken to extremes in an episode of ''[[Human Target]]'' where a Russian spy shoots her husband in the '''middle of the chest''', "an inch from his heart", to make it look like she's trying to kill him without actually doing any damage. Chance repays the favor a few minutes later by doing the same to her. Both man & wife are shown to be fine in the last scene, although both have one arm in a sling.

* A truly ludicrous example shows up in ''[[CSI: Miami]]'': In one episode, {{spoiler|Delko}} is shot '''in the head''' with a nail gun. In the very next episode, stated to be some '''six weeks''' later, {{spoiler|he}} is back at work with a shaved head and some minor memory problems.

* Played straight repeatedly on ''[[Person of Interest]]'': Reese is constantly shooting people in the thighs or extremities as a "nonlethal" takedown. Slightly averted when he advises that the people he shoots should get prompt medical attention.

* ''[[Psych]]'' Season 4, Ep 9 involves Shawn texting, using a crow bar to pry open a trunk, running through the woods, sitting around talking through the logistics of a robbery, scooting around on a garage dolly braced on his shoudler and holding onto the hood of a car in a high speed chase, all with a gun shot wound to the shoulder and a magically clean and blood free shirt. He makes it through the whole night and the next day without any medical attention other than a chamois and some duct tape.

== Music ==

* ''Trapped in the Closet'', Part 7

''Twan says "No, I'm okay. It's just my shoulder. All I need is a bathroom."'' }}

* ''Rocky Raccoon'' by [[The Beatles]]

''I'll be better Doc, as soon as I am able'' }}

* ''Trigger Happy'' by [["Weird Al" Yankovic]]

''You know I'm trigger happy, trigger happy every day'' }}

 

* ''[[Assassin's Creed]]'' invokes this trope when dealing with the main targets. After Altair delivers mortal damage to his targets, he then stabs them in the throat - ''whereupon every single target goes into a [[Hannibal Lecture]]''. Granted, they do die within a couple of minutes, but exactly how can you give a (not even remotely rasping) speech immediately after being stabbed in the throat?

** ''Possibly'' justified by the implication that the Animus is reconstructing memories based on what actually happened, with the player's actions only affecting how they're reached. All the speeches take place in a blue background, and if you press a button when the screen glitches, you see the men walking around as though nothing happened. So it's very possible that the men simply hadn't been stabbed yet when Altair actually encountered them.

* ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'' subverts this trope. During one scene in which the USMC and SAS are attempting to capture a young Russian man that is vital to their efforts to stop the game's antagonist, a standoff ensues. The commander orders the Russian man to put his weapon down, but the language barrier prevents him from understanding. Frustrated, the commander orders the player to disarm him, but not before Sergeant Griggs, a Marine support gunner, offers to shoot the Russian in the leg. That prompts a quick and sharp reply from the commander: "No, we can't risk it!"

** However, it's played fairly straight in actual gameplay, where enemies hit in their legs will often stumble and stand back up (although they will die if shot multiple times). [[Acceptable Break From Reality|Also, the player character regains his health within seconds after being shot, if the shot wasn't immediately fatal.]]

* Averted in ''Delta Force''. You can survive three bullet hits '''maximum''', and there are no instant heals

* The trope is averted in the game ''[[Deus Ex]]''. Any damage done to the player is seen in a display showing damage readouts to the various parts of your body. If the player's legs are injured severely, they won't be able to move quickly, and if damaged badly enough will have to crawl along the ground instead. The lack of death from blood loss can be explained by the fact that the lead player is a nano-augmented superagent.

** Also played straight in that shooting enemies in the arm often makes them drop their weapons and flee.

** Subverted in that it's possible to kill an enemy by shooting exclusively in his legs.

* ''[[Dino Crisis]]'' has a damage system similar to ''[[Resident Evil 2]]'', where the protagonist's mobility is impaired the more they are injured, ie broken ribs, limping. In addition, you can start losing blood and eventually bleed to death without treatment.

* ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' averts this. It has an absurdly detailed wound mechanism, so it's quite possible to bleed to death from a large wound, to pass out from pain, or to go into shock.

* Two examples in ''[[Fire Emblem Tellius]]'': First, Micaiah takes a full force knife wound to the upper chest and continues to stand, and only falls down after she tells Pelleas (who was being given euthanasia) not to kill himself. Also, when {{spoiler|Deghinsea is defeated,}} he shrugs his wounds off as nothing, {{spoiler|and dies after everyone leaves}}. But of course, all your units in the entire series can take so much damage as to be on 1HP, and still fight at full ability.

* Averted in the ''[[Jagged Alliance]]'' games, where you can bleed to death from any unbandaged wound, become considerably less effective after even a minor injury due to stamina (and therefore action point) loss, and can be crippled by permanent stat decrease that remains even after the wound has healed. Healing also requires time and close medical attention - or a couple of weeks of bed rest.

** Made particularly hilarious due to the fact it's possible to treat a bolt wound without removing the bolt itself, and letting the last bit of health damage heal 'naturally', leaving Snake running around with a number of crossbow bolts lodged in his body that cannot be removed.

** And the ability to use electricity as a weapon, somehow.

* ''[[No More Heroes]]'' is well known for the killings of each boss. The first boss, Death Metal, gets his arms cut off while in mid-swing of his giant sword which would get stuck in the ceiling. Death Metal then has time to talk to Travis, but is later decapitated. Another example is Shinobu. Travis, unable to kill a girl at this point, simply cuts off her arm. An even better example would be Bad Girl's death. Travis completely pushed his light saber through her back and even twists it. Bad Girl turns around, whacks Travis across the head, and continues to pummel him while on the ground so hard that Travis actually ''gives up,'' luckily, Bad Girl dies seconds later on top of Travis.

** Also in ''No More Heroes'', during the second-to-last boss battle, {{spoiler|Jeane punches Travis through the heart. Travis doesn't die, or show any pain, and instead is able to land the finishing blows on Jeane.}}

* ''[[Silent Hill Homecoming]]'' plays this one so straight it'll make you go "Wait, what?" Alex has no trouble walking or running after {{spoiler|Judge Halloway}} ''shoves a spinning power drill through his leg.'' It's [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] at its finest, too, because he limps heavily during a later cutscene.

* Subverted in the first two ''[[Soldier of Fortune]]'' games, where severing an enemy's limb causes instant death, but in the third game, they can sometimes fight back after losing an arm or leg.

* {{spoiler|Surt}} from ''[[Treasure of the Rudra]]'' loses the lower half of his left arm at the start of Sion's Scenario and returns later with a claw replacing the severed arm.

* Taken to extremes on ''Truce Crime''. After levelling up your shooting skills, you gain good cop points by shooting criminals in the legs, thereby disabling them to be arrested safely. You gain bad cop points by taking lethal blows to the head or torso. This ability carries over to include the trope [[Every Car Is a Pinto]].

** Note that the best armor you get in the original game is a huge powered flying superthick shell impervious to all damage... wait, what did I say? Yeah, a pistol shot can still kill you (it does make you essentially immune to early human weaponry, but even the weakest alien weapon can kill the by-that-time superhuman soldiers in two shots. And since every shot has a chance to damage the armor, reducing it's effectiveness, it is still possible to get killed by a human pistol). The best way to survive is not to get shot. The best way not to get shot is to shoot (and kill) first. Even with extreme caution, you are likely to get gruesome casualties on the early missions. Once you get armor (the default one is a kevlar vest, which gives you near nil chance of survival if shot), it gets very slightly better - mostly, singular wounds will not be fatal. It still means a few weeks in infirmary though. And you can bleed out if you don't finish the fight soon enough or have medkits.

*** In the third game, Apocalypse, you start with armor pretty much on the level of the power armor from the first game. It means your soldiers rarely die if you're cautious enough. If you don't even have this basic armor, good luck - singular hits are very dangerous again and you are often caught in autofire. So you're comfy in your suit of armor, only giving in to heavy fire or heavy weaponry (rocket launchers and mines tend to mess up your day). Then, the aliens bring devastator cannons - a gun on the level of a human rifle. It just goes right through the armor, often incapacitating or killing with a single hit, possessing deadly accuracy and recharging ammo and autofire. On the other hand, your soldiers heal very quickly (using nanotechnology healing machines) - the worst non-killing injuries just mean a few days of healing. However, since the time scope of the game changed quite a bit since the original game, having realistic (without the nanomachines) healing times would mean you'd have to hire a replacement for the soldier anyway, since there are going to be hundreds of incidents in the time of his healing. Actually, even with this rate of healing you often send wounded soldiers to battle. And when it's base defense time, you sometimes have blood soaked soldiers trying to hold the base, easy to kill with single shots and having their stamina, accuracy etc. severely impaired by their wounds. ''[[X-COM]]'' is serious about wounds.

* Averted in ''[[Ever 17]]''. We're used to injuries to the legs and arms not being very serious, so when Tsugumi gets stabbed in the leg by a falling pole you might not think it's that serious. However, it's noted that it ought to require months of hospitalization before she can walk again and she nearly dies of blood loss. [[Good Thing You Can Heal|Of course, the fact that]] ''[[Healing Factor|Tsugumi]]'' [[Immortality|is the one hit is kind of important.]]

* Averted in ''[[Saints Row]]''. In the first game, [[Heroic Sociopath|Johnny Gat]] gets shot in the leg with a shotgun and needs to walk with a leg brace. In the sequel, he gets stabbed in the stomach with a sword and needs to be rushed to a hospital before he bleeds out. He's out of action for the next few missions.

* In the little-known [[Fighting Game]] ''[[Time Killers]]'', it is possible to slice the opponent's arms off in the middle of a battle. Its [[Spiritual Successor|semi-sequel]], ''Bloodstorm'', not only retains this but introduces the sunder, which, if performed at the right time, will destroy the opponent's legs. Neither technique stops the fight, and in addition, players will actually be rewarded if they win with missing limbs.

* [[Namco Bandai]]'s ''[[Soul Series]]'', massively. Any of the complicated throws, stabs, etc. would easily kill a normal human being. Yet no matter if the fighters are guillotined, skewered, shish-kebabbed and then dragged across the floor, they stand right back up, unscathed, ready for the next hit. And the game's bloodless. The irony can be summed up by one of Siegfried's victory lines: "I avoided your vitals. You'll live."

* In ''[[Uncharted]] 2'', Chloe takes a bullet to the shoulder from an AK-47 while rescuing Drake and Sully. She almost completely ignores it, and it barely bleeds.

* In ''[[Mass Effect]]'', shots to the legs will slow down organic enemies and make them stagger. That's the extent of it, though; there's no persistent bleeding, and they don't even fall to the ground. Partially justified with the built-in medical systems in everybody's armor. Also, it can be seen as an [[Acceptable Break From Reality]] in a game where enemies have health bars rather than simply dying when shot - if the ''killing'' shot is to the leg, enemies will collapse clutching their leg, dying seconds later.

** It's also a well-known racial ability of krogan; each of their vital organs have backups, some of ''those'' have backups, and their [[Hyperactive Metabolism]] draws nutrients from the hump on their back so they can just [[Walk It Off]].

** Also averted in Garrus's and Zaeed's loyalty missions - if you don't pick the Paragon interrupt {{spoiler|to stop Garrus shooting Harkin, Garrus will shoot him in the leg. Harkin}} is visibly in pain and unable to move faster than crawling. In Zaeed's loyalty mission, {{spoiler|taking the Renegade option results in Zaeed catching Vido, who is already limping from light injuries from an explosion}}. Again, a leg shot results in the target going down and staying down. In this instance, the shot man even points out that he will die from his wounds in a few moments. {{spoiler|He dies, but in a rather nastier way. Zaeed burns him to death in a pool of spent fuel}}

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in Mass Effect 3:

'''Garrus:''' ''"Just the usual minor fleshwounds."'' }}

* For a murder game, a surprisingly large number of people survive their injuries in ''[[Ace Attorney]]''.

* In ''[[Transformers: War for Cybertron]]'', there is a Multiplayer XP award named after this trope, for when you successfully kill another player despite being near death.

* ''[[Mortal Kombat 9]]'''s X-Ray attacks, which let you watch as your blows shatter opponents bones and/or rupture their internal organs, but don't impede their ability to fight once the attack has ended.

 

== Web Comic ==

* [[Invoked Trope|Forcibly played straight]] in ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]''. Doc is shot multiple times, passes out, and nearly dies of blood loss. He avoids death by convincing the Grim Reaper that none of his wounds are fatal and missed all his vital organs (and then immediately drags himself back to the clinic for stitches and a quick blood transfusion). When Death mentions his arteries, the good Doctor responds by ripping off his head and batting it away with his body.

* ''[[Concerned]]''. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in that Gordon Frohman survived a ''ton'' of abuse and injury because {{spoiler|he was inadvertently using a cheat code that prevented his health from going below one.}}

* Averted in ''[[Get Medieval]]'': Asher suffers a shoulder wound and is reduced to talking status for a while.

* This was BLU Engineer's reaction {{spoiler|when the new RED Spy cut his hand off}} in ''[[Cuanta Vida]]''.

'''BLU Engineer''': {{spoiler|[[Artificial Limbs|I'll build a new one]].}} }}

* In the ''Little Worlds'' comic named [http://www.rockpapercynic.com/littleworlds/index.php?date=2010-01-05 "Breaking In,"] Derby incredulously asks Eightball, "Aren't you supposed to be SHOT?" to which Eightball replies, "It didn't take." Apparently, a bullet wound ''ain't no thang.''

** In most cases, this is just [[Rule of Funny]], although sometimes it's played a little more seriously. During ''Reconstruction'', Caboose shoots Agent South Dakota. After a few minutes of battle, they approach her. She says she can't walk on her own, but appears to be perfectly capable of standing (though to be fair, that's partly due to the limitations of machinima).

* ''[[Naruto the Abridged Series]]'' spoofs this in the first episode where Iruka-sensei gets stabbed by a gigantic shuriken:

'''Iruka:''' Eh. [[Major Injury Underreaction|I've had worse]]. }}

 

* Spoofed in ''[[Futurama]]'': the Robot Mafia guns down a fellow robot in cold blood. The robot then gets up, and the Donbot tells him that's a warning. (Robots can't bleed to death, of course.)

** Also:

'''Zoidberg:''' That's normal. Next patient! }}

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Static Shock]]'' where a single bullet to the [[Smart Guy]]'s thigh sends him to the hospital in agony to [[An Aesop|teach the audience a lesson]].

* In the first ''[[Shrek]]'', Shrek is shot in the ass with an arrow. After Fiona pulls it out, without any other first aid, he's totally fine.

** To be fair though, he didn't know it was even there until Fiona pointed it out.

 

== Real Life ==

* Possibly one of the most famous real-life examples of this trope involved [[Rasputinian Death|Grigori Rasputin, a Russian mystic famous for being able to survive deadly wounds]]. After surviving an assassination involving a stabbing, Rasputin's killers then sent cake and wine containing poison to a recovering Rasputin in a further attempt to kill him. After poison failed to kill him, he was then found and shot in the back and left bleeding to death on the floor; however, when the assassins returned to the scene to collect a coat left behind, Rasputin attempted to strangle one of his assailants, and was promptly shot in the back three more times, before Rasputin's killers attempted to pummel him to death when he survived the additional shots. After this then failed, Rasputin's killers eventually tied him in several sheets and threw him into a lake; Rasputin was found near the lake several days later, wrapped in sheets he had managed to partially claw his way out of, dead from hypothermia.

* Many warrior cultures have existed throughout the ages, with numbers of tough men from Spartans to Samurai gracing this trope. However, honourable mention must be made for the Viking Berserker, a class of warrior repeatedly mentioned in historical accounts of friends and foes alike for never feeling pain and continuing to fight despite incurring mortal wounds. They were also extremely dangerous with such strong bloodlust that they could turn on their own men in battle, leading to eventual outlawing across the Norse world. Explanations from modern experts have ranged from them getting too drunk to reason or feel pain to using psychoactive mushrooms to a bizarre form of functional and conscious epilepsy. Whatever the cause, the effect was clear - they treated everything as just a flesh wound.

* The venerable Colt M1911 .45 was adopted by the US military because the Moro warriors of the Philippines were apparently shrugging off the smaller .38 Long Colt.

** As one historian put it, "You shoot a man with a .38, and he'll be bloody angry at you. You shoot him with a .45, and he'll be angry on his back." Note that there is still some debate over the legitimacy of this argument; hit a man in the right place with a .38, and he'll go down same as with a .45.

*** There is more at play in this particular case. .38 Long Colt was notoriously underpowered as a result of some quirks regarding the bullet diameter compared to the chamber throat. The bullet was supposed to expand in the throat and then be swaged down as it entered the barrel. However, expansion was uneven, resulting in very poor accuracy and terminal performance. Without accuracy, it became understandably more difficult to get good shot placement. See also Antonio Caspi's attempted prison escape for another example of .38 Long Colt failing to be an effective stopper.

** Andrew Jackson actually had ''several'' bullets and a ''bayonet tip'' lodged in his body, one of his secretaries wrote that he "Rattled like a bag of marbles" when he walked.

** Another American president, James Garfield, was shot with a pistol, and the best medical minds came together to operate on him and extract the bullet (Alexander Graham Bell even tried to help find the bullet with a primitive metal detector; it didn't help because Garfield was lying on a metal-spring mattress). The massive wound left by the operations, coupled with infection, caused Garfield to die in agony, [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|only for the autopsy to reveal that the bullet wouldn't even have come close to killing him.]]

* Joseph Cialella shot a man in the arm after a fight in the cinema - unusually, he ''did'' essentially recover fully, and Cialella's lawyer is fighting an attempted murder charge by arguing that, as a marksman, [[If I Wanted You Dead...|if he'd wanted the man dead, he'd be dead]], desperately trying to ignore the fact that, as a marksman, he should have known better.

** He should know better than to make that argument anyway. It's commonly believed among firearm enthusiasts that, if you tell a judge that you were aiming to wound, then you lose any claim of self defense, since having the presence of mind to make that sort of call automatically means that you weren't in fear of your life.

* [http://newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/sandwich_first_gunshot_wounds_later/id_31146 This guy] walked out of a sandwich shop, got shot twice, and instead of going straight to the hospital, he decided to go home and eat his sandwich first. Bullets in the leg and groin? Psh! I've got a sandwich to eat, fool!

** Those must have been some ''great'' sandwiches.

** Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston, commanding at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, foolishly led a charge against the Union army. He rode out of the shooting apparently unaware that a bullet had struck him in the back of the knee, nicking an artery that was bleeding profusely. No one knew that Johnston was wounded until he swayed in the saddle, at the point of passing out. His staff set Johnston down next to a tree, where he promptly bled to death. He was the highest-ranking officer to be killed in combat in the war.

** British naval hero Lord Nelson lost an arm, sight in one eye, and finally died, quite slowly and painfully, to a musket ball in the shoulder: it drove inwards and broke his spine. Even with modern treatment, none of his injuries would be treatable. He might have been able to survive his last fatal shot, but he would have never been able to walk again.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]

[[Category:Television Is Trying to Kill Us]]

[[Category:Guns Do Not Work That Way]]

[[Category:Artistic License Biology]]