Pinball Projectile: Difference between revisions

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(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.PinballProjectile 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.PinballProjectile, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license)
 
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A variant of [[Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics]], where a bullet, arrow, stone, whatever, ricochets off several objects before finally hitting its target. Can be either [[Accidental Aiming Skills|accidental]] or just a sign of the shooter's [[Improbable Aiming Skills|skill]].
 
To pull this off intentionally means you're either [[The Gunslinger]] or [[The Archer]]; pulling it off accidentally makes you [[Born Lucky|incredibly lucky]]. This is often a characteristic of the [[Precision -Guided Boomerang]], though returning to the wielder is not necessary. You may find one in a [[Trick Shot Puzzle]].
 
A sister-trope, [[Hyper -Destructive Bouncing Ball]], describes instances when an item ricochets, causing random damage. That is not this trope; this always has a definite target. However, both tropes are [[Artistic License Physics]] at its finest. Ballistic projectiles lose energy when ricocheting (the same reason a bouncing ball never goes as high as its first bounce), meaning the last target hit by the projectile should take far less damage than the first.
 
Compare [[Reflecting Laser]].
{{examples|Examples}}
 
== Advertising ==
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** And all [[Fan Service]].
* [[Pokémon Special]]: Gold always carries a billard cue with him and frequently uses it to launch his Pokeballs to a tactically advantageous postion, often ricocheting them off of surfaces to get there.
* In ''[[Ranma One Half]]'' the detachable [[Rings of Death|blade ring]] of the [[Blade On a Stick|Kinjakan]] is ''meant'' to be used like this. When Ranma steals it from the Phoenix people and tries to use it acts like a [[Hyper -Destructive Bouncing Ball]], and a Phoenix woman tells him that it takes years of training to use the weapon properly. Then Ranma immediately uses it a ''second'' time, the ring bounces exactly where he wants it to go, and Ranma gives a smug smirk.
 
 
== Comics ==
* [[Captain America]]'s shield. Due to its unique construction and ''lots'' of practice, for the most part - others who have stepped into the role, like John Walker, never really got the hang of it like the original did.
* Cyclops of the [[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]] has repeatedly demonstrated the ability to cause his optic blasts to ricochet or reflect off of objects in a trajectory to his liking. He's reflected a single blast off of over a dozen objects before. How the objects [[Selectively -Lethal Weapon|aren't simply destroyed from the force]] is never explained, but it's one of his niftiest tricks.
** Predicting ricochets is an intuitive secondary power of his. If you play pool against him, play for fun, not money.
*** One has to wonder who would win in a pool game between him and Cap. Probably whoever went first, as Cyclops at least has shown the ability to clear the entire table in one shot.
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== Live Action TV ==
* [[Xena: Warrior Princess|Xena]]'s chakram, which bounces off rocks, pillars, and [[Mooks]]' heads before [[Precision -Guided Boomerang|returning to her hand]].
** Exaggerated in an episode featuring a [[Groundhog Day Loop]]. To break the loop, Xena had to (among other things) stop a young noblewoman from committing suicide with a vial of poison. However, the distance from where Xena wakes up every morning to where the girl does the deed is too far to reach in the time allowed, in addition to stopping everything else going wrong that day. So she spends at least one day ignoring everything else to take measurements, angles, and distances. So that when she wakes up again, the first thing she does is go outside, gauge the wind, and throw her chakram across, through, above and between several city blocks in order to be exactly where the poison vial will be when it gets there, as well as putting a stop to everything else along the way. And it returns to her hand afterwards.
* Seen in ''[[Red Dwarf (TV)|Red Dwarf]]''. In the famous "Gunmen of the Apocalypse'' episode set in a computer-simulated Western town, The Cat pulls off non-lethal trick shots in this manner.
* [[Doctor Who (TV)|The Doctor]] pulled this off at one point. He threw a cricket ball, and it bounced around all over the place. Admittedly the effect bordered on a Rube Goldberg device instead of this trope, but it probably still counts. Not only that, but he did it while his Time Lord mind was entirely suppressed and he believed that he was human.
* Tested by the ''[[Myth Busters]]'' with firearms. For the record, bullets lose a lot of energy when they ricochet. The "three ricochets and kills the firer" myth they were working on was solidly Busted.
* Pretty much the only possible way [[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Warren Mears could've hit Tara Maclay]] with that stray shot.
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[[Category:Weapons and Wielding Tropes]]
[[Category:Pinball Projectile]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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