Pocket Protector: Difference between revisions

'''Ned Flanders''': Whew, luckily I was wearing an extra large piece of the True Cross today. <br />

(Flanders notices that he doesn't have any other religious symbols with him)<br />

Oh no! [[The Hero]] is being shot at! Look, a bullet is heading right for his heart... but what's this? He has something in his pocket? It's stopped the bullet! He is saved!

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Gun X Sword]]'', a turtle (conveniently hanging around her chest) saves Wendy's life within the first 2 minutes of the first episode, and the damned thing shows up in every episode with that hole in its shell.

** The movie '' Money Wars'' has a more plausible example, with a bullet bouncing off of Lupin's gun. Unfortunately, the animators depict the bullet (in a slow-motion flashback) bouncing off at an angle that would have buried it in Lupin's head...

* The ''[[Gunsmith Cats]]'' manga has Rally surviving a bullet to the side thanks to a collapsible rifle stowed in her jacket. The rifle is left with a bullet hole in the barrel and stock, and Rally is left with broken ribs.

* In the ''[[Red River]]'' manga, Kail was saved from a fatal arrow strike, thanks to Yuri's letter to him being conveniently kept and shattered near his heart. This letter was a clay tablet, however, and he still had a nasty wound from it afterwards.

* In ''[[Outlaw Star]]'', Gene takes a surprise shot to the gut that fortunately only succeeds in ruining his rather bulky PDA.

** In the movie 'Curse of the Blood Rubies', Yamcha's history as a thief [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Za3hWHlC8s pays off.]

* In ''[[Detective Conan]]'' {{spoiler|A mahjong tile in Takagi's breast pocket (taken as evidence) stops a bullet. Shiratori even [[Lampshade|lampshades]] how cliche it is. OTOH, Takagi ''did'' get injured anyway and had to be hospitalized}}

** Also, {{spoiler|once Conan almost gets stabbed in the gut by a suspect. He had an amulet with a piece of metal in his pocket (which he borrowed from Heiji), which stopped the knife}}

** And {{spoiler|Megure's [[Nice Hat]] softens a blow to the head given to him with a metal pipe.}}

* ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' is forced to stab a [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] [[James Bondage|Mamoru]] in the chest, and she's so traumatized that she attempts suicide... except he lived because the sword was stopped by a pocket watch (a memento from [[Conveniently an Orphan|dead parents]]), and she did too because the crystalline [[MacGuffin]] decided to manifest itself on her chest.

* In the first episode of ''[[ROD the TV|ROD TV]]'', the paper sisters are flying alongside Nenene's plane, trying to save the author from an assassin. The youngest pokes her head out to look in windows, and we see the assassin shoot at the girl a few times, breaking windows of the airplane. The girl ducks back into the paper beast, readying her rescue attempt, and, after Nenene is saved, reveals the signed copy of Nenene's book, with a huge bullet hole through the cover, digging down through most of the book. She then says, "You need to write thicker books, my defense isn't so good..." Subverted as the Paper Sisters have control over the elemental powers of paper, and use loose sheets of paper to stop bombs exploding, amongst other things.

* Ichigo's Hollow mask saves him ''twice'' from otherwise fatal hits in ''[[Bleach]]', the second time being [[Clingy MacGuffin|after being taken from him and thrown into a sewer.]]

* In ''[[Katekyo Hitman Reborn]]'' while taking on [[Big Bad|Byakuran]], Tsuna was losing badly. An attack from Byakuran almost pierced Tsuna through the heart, only to be stopped by Lanchia's Ring, an object last seen 140 chapters earlier.

* In ''[[Princess Tutu]]'', Ahiru fends of a sword attack from Fakir ([[It Makes Sense in Context|don't ask]]) with a [[Paper Fan of Doom]].

* In ''[[Change 123]]'' a bullet shot into the back of a girl gets stopped by a (hidden) combat knife tucked into her belt.

* A bag of gold coins takes a bullet for Tetsuro early in ''[[Galaxy Express 999]].''

* In ''[[Maiden Rose]]'', the [[Memento MacGuffin|textbook Taki wrote in]] slows down the bullets that Klaus takes at point-blank range in Volume 2, causing the wounds to be non-fatal.

* In the ''[[Strontium Dog]]'' "Outlaw" story, Middenface's money belt saves him from Stix's blaster. Unfortunately, it costs him about 40,000 credits.

* Invoked in one [[Superman]] comic where Clark Kent has to explain why he is unharmed after apparently just being shot. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a silver dollar, denting it with his superstrength as he does so, and claims that the bullet deflected off the coin.

* In ''[[Batman]]: [[Grant Morrisons Batman|The Return of Bruce Wayne]]'', an amnesiac Bruce Wayne wakes up in hospital; his life apparently having been saved by Mordecai Wayne's journal he was carrying in his pocket.

* In a [[Story Within a Story|double-fictional]] version of ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'' called ''From the Mountain to the City'', Spider Jerusalem (here imagined as a grizzled, musclebound pacifist) is saved from a cop's stray fire this way. [[Stylistic Suck|Naturally, it's about as ham-handed as possible.]]

{{quote| '''Alt-Spider:''' ''The steel hypodermic syringe case [[Info Dump|my best friend Mitch Royce gave me]] as a thank-you gift for taking on the column to save his career! It stopped the bullet!''}}

* Happens in one early [[Batman]] story featuring Two-Face. Two-Face tosses his coin to decide if he should reform. The coin lands on its edge; stuck in a gap in the floorboards. Two-Face refuses to flip it again and puts the coin away in his breast pocket, saying it is now up to fate to determine if he should be good or evil. When a policeman shoots at Two-Face, the bullet deflects off the coin. When Two-Face looks at the coin, he sees that the bullet struck the scarred side of the coin. He takes this a sign that he is supposed to be a criminal.

* ''[[Jon Sable Freelance]]'': One of the [[Evil Poacher|Evil Poachers]] who killed Jon's family is saved from Jon's [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] by the AK-47 he was carrying at chest height. Jon's bullet hits the rifle and the impact is enough to knock the poacher out, leading Jon to assume he is dead.

* Used as the origin of the Marvel Noir-verse version of ''[[Luke Cage]]''. Unlike his mainline counterpart he's not really invulnerable, people just think he is because he survived being shot in the chest, which turned out to be the result of the bullets lodging in a flask he was carrying.

== [[Film]] ==

* In ''[[Problem Child]]'', John Ritter survives a bullet to the chest because it hits an old, dried prune he had in his shirt pocket.

{{quote| '''Ben:''' ''It's alright, officer... he got me in the prune.''}}

* Subverted in ''[[Kiss Kiss Bang Bang]]''. Robert Downey Jr is shot by the bad guy and collapses; the love interest is afraid that he's been killed, but wait! He sits up, and pulls out from his pocket that trashy detective novel from earlier in the movie, with a bullet hole in it! But then she realises that, wait a minute -- the bullet hole goes right through. He's been shot in the chest and is in dire need of an ambulance.

** Though the bullet may have been slowed down by passing through {{spoiler|his partner}} first

* Done straight in the [[Alfred Hitchcock]] film ''[[The Thirty-Nine Steps]]'' with a hymn-book (which is inside a coat that the hero has been covertly given, resulting in the giver receiving domestic abuse). Cue gag about some of the hymns being "awfully hard to get through".

* ''[[Hot Fuzz]]'', with Nicholas' trusty police notebook! In this case, the {{spoiler|knife wasn't blocked, but rather Danny faked stabbing Nicholas Angel and used the ketchup to make the deception more convincing.}}

{{quote| '''Danby Jr:''' Pa! Your teeth! They saved my life!<br />

'''Danby Sr:''' Always worryin' about YOUR life! What am I going to chew with now?! }}

* A similar sequence happens in ''[[Rush Hour]] 2'', where Carter is saved from a sword wound by a wad of counterfeit 100 dollar bills.

* The Spaghetti Western ''One Silver Dollar'' has the protagonist being saved by a bullet because of a... silver dollar in his pocket.

* Another Michael Keaton movie, ''[[Johnny Dangerously]]'', featured this trope, with Jack Dundee's cigarette case (which Johnny fills with chewing gum instead once Dundee gives it to him). It has a dent from an attempt on Dundee's life, and it later saves {{spoiler|Johnny's brother Tommy}} from an assassin's bullet as well.

* Parodied in ''[[Hot Shots]]: Part Deux:'' Ramada is saved by a locket, which upon examination still has the perfect condition, large caliber bullet lodged in it.

* Featured at the climax of a short film at a theme park (Disneyland?) A "please turn off your phone" ad plays, at which point an actor starts walking around talking loudly on his mobile. He's promptly punished by being pulled "into" the film, and cycles through several different genres. He ends up in a medieval battle and is only saved from death by arrow thanks to this trope.

* In ''[[Gettysburg]]'', Jeff Daniels' character (a Union colonel) is hit and knocked down by a musket ball, but when he gets up he discovers that it merely dented his (''very'' skinny) officers' scabbard (after which he merely comments, "I'll be damned."). This was loosely based on an actual incident which happened to the real Colonel Chamberlain

* Happens twice in ''[[Returner]]''. Miyamoto accidentally shoots Milly when she appears, but she's protected by a metal plate in her jacket. Justified by the fact that she's a time traveler from [[After the End]] and was probably wearing it for just such a reason. Later on, Miyamoto gets shot in the heart but is saved by {{spoiler|the same metal plate, which a further-future version of Milly put in his jacket. Again justified, because Milly knew exactly where and when he was going to get shot (presumably from looking up his coroner's report).}}

* A story along these lines is told near the end of ''[[Heist]]'': a soldier gets made fun of because he keeps a Bible near his heart, but when someone shoots him, it saves him from a bullet. They then subvert it when they say, "If he'd had a Bible in front of his face, he'd still be alive today."

* In ''[[Stranger Than Fiction]]'', the main character doesn't stop a bullet, but rather a ''bus''. The icing on the cake? It's with his ''watch''. Granted, they slammed on the brakes, but the metal shards from the watch jammed into his veins and stopped him from bleeding to death. This was an absolutely shameless in-universe [[Author's Saving Throw]].

* Happens twice in the Japanese film ''[[Branded To Kill]]''. The main character gets shot by his psycho wife and falls over, but he was hit in his large belt buckle. Later, he figures out that the assassin hired to kill him always hits his victims with a perfect headshot to the center of the forehead. Just before entering the final showdown, he puts his girlfriend's hairband over his forehead. As he steps out of hiding, he's immediately shot and falls over. As the assassin turns to leave, we see the broken hairband on the floor as the hero jumps up and shoots the assassin.

* A villan using this is in ''[[Plunkett and Macleane]]'' cheats death. {{spoiler|General Chance manages to survive a duel to the death with a Bible over his heart}}.

* ''[[The Golden Child]]''. When the demon tries to stab Chandler Jarrell with the Dagger it hits the medallion the old man/priest gave him.

* ''[[Predator]] 2''. Before going in to fight the Predator, Harrigan puts a metal plate in his shirt to protect against its attacks.

* Played straight in ''Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes'' (2010) with a tobacco box.

== [[Literature]] ==

* ''[[Peter Pan]]'': The arrow the Lost Boys shoot at Wendy doesn't kill her because it hits an acorn button Wendy was wearing around her neck after Peter gave it to her as a present.

* In ''The Secret Diary of [[Adrian Mole]], Aged 13¾'', Bert Baxter shows Adrian a pocket Bible with a bullet hole, which, he claims, saved his life in [[World War I]]. Adrian notices that the Bible was printed in 1956.

* In ''[[The Dark Tower (Literature)/The Drawing of the Three|The Drawing of the Three]],'' the second ''[[Dark Tower]]'' book, Jack Mort is saved from a bullet by his cigarette lighter; the lighter, however, shatters, and Mort's shirt catches fire. Five minutes later, Roland makes him jump in front of a train.

** [[Stephen King]] also used this in his early novel ''Rage'': the protagonist survives being shot by a police sniper because he dropped his locker-padlock into his breast pocket. He suffers shrapnel-damage and severe bruising.

* In [[Charles Stross]]'s ''Halting State'', Jack is saved from a stab wound by the foldup keyboard in his jacket. It later turns out that his jacket is practically ''lined'' with computer stuff, though.

* Spoofed in ''North'', where one character manages to convince another that he saved their life after accidently shooting them, merely by grabbing the nearest Bible, writing "To my friend" in it, shooting it, and then telling them at it must have softened the blow.

* Used first, then subverted in ''[[The Power of One]]'': Peekay's grandfather knew someone during the Boer War whose Bible blocked a bullet to the chest. He gave all the credit to having God in his pocket, then got shot in the head after underestimating the range of the Boer rifles.

* In ''[[Thursday Next|The Eyre Affair]]'', Thursday Next is saved from a bullet by a copy of Jane Eyre in her pocket. She still suffers serious injury, though, and received first aid from none other than Mr. Rochester himself.

* In the [[Ben Snow]] short story "The Trail of the Golden Cross", Ben is saved from being shot in the back when the bullet deflects of the eponymous golden cross, which he had concealed by hiding it in the small of his back under his shirt.

* In the [[Matthew Hawkwood]] novel ''Resurrectionist'' by James McGee, what should have been a killing thrust from Colonel Hyde's [[Sword Cane]] deflects of the tipstaff Hawkwood carries inside his coat. This buys Hawkwood enough time to draw the tipsatff and start defending himself properly.

* [[The Bible]] version happens ''again'' in [[Matthew Riley]] 's [[Temple]]. [[Justified]] in that the shot was from a flintlock.

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* ''[[NCIS]]'''s Gibbs keeps a silver flask with a bullet still embedded in the side.

** In the second season, there's a scene where Blackadder and Percy are practicing archery with a target held by Baldrick. Blackadder psyches out Percy, who slips and accidentally fires an arrow into Baldrick's groin. Baldrick comments fortunately his "willy" prevented the arrow from going into his body.

{{quote| '''Blackadder:''' Excellent, it can be your lucky willy.<br />

* The ''[[Myth Busters]]'' pretty much proved this trope was a myth, at least with modern firearms in mind. They tested normal everyday items like a book, a deck of cards, and a Zippo lighter and showed that they were all ineffective at stopping bullets. They also tested police/sheriff badges (outcome depends on how the badge is made -- they put holes in two test badges, but the third type stopped a handgun round). In another episode, they tried the same with knives. A book, or a thick pile of paper (eg. money) can save you. It takes about 60 or so sheets thick to stop the hardest hit the build team managed.

** In another episode, they tested urban legends involving stories of items that stopped bullets. A laptop computer wouldn't, unless the bullet hit the battery. A hair weave didn't even slow the thing down; if that story was close to true, the bullet probably ricocheted around inside the woman's car and then got caught in the weave once it was too slow to be dangerous. Three pepperoni pizzas in a deliveryman's warming bag blocked ''most'' of the pellets from a shotgun firing birdshot, so you might survive (as was claimed by a pizza delivery boy). Buckshot at the same range, however, punched through easily.

** He did again, with the same book and same quote, against a knife in the movie ''Get Smart Again!''.

* Inverted in an episode of the original live-action ''[[Superman]]'' series. The bad guys are holding Clark, Lois, and Jimmy hostage, and their boss insists Clark is Superman. The boss shoots Clark, who in turn reacts with surprise, and Lois and Jimmy are both convinced. Clark, however, reaches into his jacket and feels around thoughtfully. After the situation is resolved Clark pulls out a conveniently dented silver dollar and claims that it stopped the bullet.

* ''[[Only Fools and Horses]]'' episode "Homesick" has Grandad explain the sentimental value of a lighter which belonged to his grandfather who fought in the Boer War. He tells of how the lighter was placed over the man's heart, which protected him from a bullet. Subverted shortly afterwards, when Grandad reveals that it actually caused the bullet to ricochet upward, blowing his grandad's head off.

* Inverted on ''[[Lost]]'': Locke survives a shooting because of the kidney that ''isn't'' there.

* Averted in Episode 1x10 of ''[[Warehouse 13]]'' - A convict was apparently shot. The team pulls a Bible from his pocket; it's bloody. The bullet went right through it.

* ''[[Psychoville]]'' has one character get saved by a watermelon he was carrying.

* Standup comic [[Dead Baby Comedy|Anthony Jeselnik]] tells a story about this:

{{quote| "''Now, I'm not a religious man. But my Uncle Tom? Super-religious. And one day, during a walk, he was mugged and shot in the chest. Now, miraculously - and I mean miraculously - he always kept a Bible in his left front pocket. And he had something to read while he bled to death.''"}}

* Played with in one episode of ''[[Castle]]'': a character has a copy of ''Crime and Punishment'' in his coat pocket that stopped a bullet.

* In Episode 1, Short 2 of the [[Tenacious D]] television show Jack and Kyle have a falling out over a girl named Flarna. {{spoiler|Kyle jumps in front of a robber's bullet, but is saved by a huge friendship medallion that was under his shirt. They proceed to perform the song "Kyle Took A Bullet For Me."}}

* In the second episode of ''[[Alphas]]'', Marcus Ayers, whose [[Awesomeness By Analysis]] abilities have allowed him to set off [[Disaster Dominoes]] throughout the episode with as little as a single coin, is shot in the chest, but his body isn't found in the stream into which he fell. While the characters are searching, the camera pans down the side of the stream, where a shot of some pebbles reveals a coin like the one Ayers had been using, except now with a bullet-shaped dent.

* In an episode of ''[[McMillan and Wife]]'', Sgt. Enright is saved by the very thick hero sandwich, wrapped in aluminum foil, that he'd stuffed in his jacket pocket.

* In the ''[[White Collar]]'' episode "Book of Hours", Neal manages to block a gunshot from the villain of the week by holding up a Renaissance-vintage Bible (that he's spent the entire episode looking for).

== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==

* In the game ''[[Warzone]]'' one of the hero characters had a special rule that essentially boiled down to the fact he wore a locket as a memento of his dead family and therefore it might stop a bullet.

* In ''[[GURPS]]: Tactical Shooting'' disputes the realism of this, suggesting that the main factor is luck (angle of impact, incomplete burn, long range). However the steel magazines of the AK-47 give some real protection if they're hit.

* ''[[Call of Cthulhu]]'' campaign ''Masks of Nyarlathotep''. The [[NPC]] Jack "Brass" Brady has a magical metal plate that attracts attacks that can cause impaling, such as bullets.

* ''Time Lord'' RPG, based on ''[[Doctor Who]]''. A [[PC]] may trade in some of his initial ability scores for a pocket watch that will automatically stop the first bullet that hits the character.

== [[Video Games]] ==

* In ''[[Uncharted Drakes Fortune|Uncharted: Drake's Fortune]]'' {{spoiler|Sully gets a bullet to the chest early in the game then returns very much alive. It turns out he survived due to having Francis Drake's journal in his pocket. Nathan even lampshades the trope saying "I thought this only happened in the movies!"}}

* Spoofed and possibly lampshaded in ''[[Mercenaries]]'' when Fiona is telling Matthias about the PDA. When asked by Matthias if the "gadget" could stop a bullet, she responds by saying "No, but it can keep you from wandering around Korea like an idiot."

* In the climax of ''[[Bayonetta]]'', the titular witch unwittingly causes a [[Time Paradox]] by giving Cereza AKA {{spoiler|herself as a child}} her metallic makeup canister, this results in Jeanne {{spoiler|failing to fully seal Bayonetta away as her sword hits the canister, causing her to have all her memories in the present.}} [[Mind Screw|It's a little hard to follow.]]

* In ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'', Dwarven mothers often carry something of great sentimental value into battle which sometimes takes a blow that would have otherwise struck them. This being Dwarf Fortress, the 'object' in question is ''their baby''.

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* There's a non-canonical ''[[Goblins]]' strip in which Dies-Horribly is saved from a stray arrow by a very thick book.

*** However, they did find that a laptop battery will stop a bullet quite effectively.

* Behold the power of the brassiere. An older woman happened to be seen by fleeing burglars who had tried to break into the neighbor's house. One of them fired a round through her window, but the bullet was [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_fe_st/odd_bullet_stopping_bra deflected by the underwire of her bra.]

* Rudyard Kipling was sent a copy of his book ''Kim'', complete with bullethole stopping only at the last 20 pages, together with the Cross awarded the soldier who owned it. He later became said soldier's son's godfather.

** I wonder if Kipling ever thought about what would've happened had he decided to make that book shorter...