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* ''[[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 final episode of the first season of ''[[Afro Samurai]]'', the titular character is saved from being decaptiated by the [[Big Bad]]'s {{spoiler|third arm}} by a comb he kept as a memento of a [[Girl of the Week]] from [[Chekhov's Gun|episode 2]].
* In the first episode of ''[[RODR.O.D 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.]]
* Played glaringly straight in and episode of ''[[Black Jack|Black Jack 21]]'' when a single [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|ace of spades]] and his [[Orphan's Plot Trinket|mother's pendant]] stopped a bullet from piercing his left lung.
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* 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
* ''[[Sleepy Hollow (Film)|Sleepy Hollow]]'': Ichabod is saved from Lady Van Tassel's shot by Katrina's book in his jacket.
* 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.}}
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* In ''The Bad Bunch'' by [[J. T. Edson]], Dusty Fog's life is saved when a bullet from a derringer strikes his bely buckle. The impact is still enough to lay him out in bed for several days.
* [[The Bible]] version happens ''again'' in [[Matthew Riley]] 's [[Temple]]. [[Justified]] in that the shot was from a flintlock.
* [[H. Beam Piper]]'s ''Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen'' got shot in the chest, and the [[Action Girl]] who fired the shot didn't load her pistols lightly -- but his Pennsylvania State Police badge absorbed enough of the impact to save his life. She was glad, because when she shot him, she hadn't known they were on the same side....
 
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
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* In ''[[Chuck]]'' (2007), the titular character gets shot in his nerdy pocket protector, and the shot doesn't go through it. Luckily, it was only a tranquilizer dart.
* [[Inverted Trope|Inverted]] nonsensically in the pilot of ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'', in which Fry shows the undamaged cigarette case his grandfather carried into battle in World War II. His grandfather was shot in the wrong spot for the case to save him. "Had he been wearing the case on his temple," notes Fry, "it would have a nasty dent in it and I'd be alive today."
* The ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]'' 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.
* In ''[[The Magnificent Seven (TV series)|The Magnificent Seven]]'' TV series, Ezra Standish pulls this in two consecutive episodes. In one, the bullet hits a diamond he had in his shirt pocket (to his great distress), and in the other, it fails to penetrate a satchel of money he had under his coat.
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* In [[Ryu ga Gotoku|Yakuza 4]], in the finale, {{spoiler|the defeated Munakata, in an angry fit after understanding Date's newspaper will ruin him, picks up Arai's weapon from the ground and shoots Akiyama in the chest. Akiyama falls down with all the drama necessary to the scene, and after a few seconds, pats his chest pocket, finding the bullet completely lodged inside a stack of dozens of yen bills. Money saves lives indeed.}}
* ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'' can have this at some point, depending on a choice made earlier in the game: at one point, Lloyd maneuvers through a hallway full of arrows, dodging them all. At the end, one last arrow shoots straight at Lloyd, and either this happens (with a key item given to Lloyd by the character you chose earlier) or Lloyd just dodges it.
* The ''Mother''/''[[EarthboundEarthBound]]'' series had the [[Attack Reflector|Franklin Badge]] which would deflect, respectively, a certain instant-kill attack and all lightning attacks just by having it in your inventory. In the [[MOTHER 1|first]] [[EarthboundEarthBound|two]] games, it took up an inventory slot of the character you chose to equip it to, while, in ''[[Mother 3]]'', it's classified as a key item, and is always equipped to Lucas once you acquire it. The badge returned in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]] Brawl''. When worn, it deflects projectiles for a set period of time.
* 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."
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* London's Imperial War Museum has a pile of dummies showing off different nationalities uniforms during the two wars. The [[World War OneI]] soldier showcase a pocket Bible... with the bottom right quarter blown off and the rest drowned in blood...
** Many of the pocket Bibles carried by soldiers in World War II had metal-backed covers. As a consequence, even Jews, Atheists, and other non-Christians would carry them, and they did have the potential to stop a bullet. Many of the stories of Bibles stopping bullets come from this era, though with the storyteller [[Gossip Evolution|forgetting to mention the composition of the cover]].
*** [[Pulp Fiction|We just witnessed a miracle, and I want you to fucking acknowledge it!]]
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* This trope is explored at [http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot31.htm the Box o' Truth,] where the site owner empties a lot of bullets into a stack of books.
* Very recently, a woman survived being shot in the head when the bullet got tangled up in her ''hair weave''. Story [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090220/ap_on_fe_st/odd_bullet_hair_weave here], for now.
** Thoroughly disproved by ''[[Myth BustersMythBusters]]'' - at best, a bullet probably ricocheted & then got caught in the weave.
*** 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.]
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[[Category:Guns and Gunplay Tropes]]
[[Category:Tropes in Shining Armor]]
[[Category:Pocket Protector]]▼
[[Category:Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters]]
[[Category:Alliterative Trope Titles]]
▲[[Category:Pocket Protector{{PAGENAME}}]]
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