Quicksand Sucks: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"What is it that's not exactly water, and it ain't exactly earth?"''
|'''Bart''', ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''}}
Quicksand is a common and deadly element of jungle and desert terrain, and its most dangerous feature is its ability to suck people and animals down and drown them in a malevolent blend of sand and water. Although most victims blunder blindly into quicksand, it sometimes seems that the merest touch of an extremity is enough to pull the unwary into its muddy and all-consuming depths like iron filings to a magnet.
In truth, quicksand (while real) isn't terribly common, and exerts none of its movie counterpart's mythical "sucking" power. In fact, real quicksand is so dense that you ''can't'' sink in it; the usual advice for someone who finds themselves caught in deep quicksand is to simply relax and float on their back. While animals and people ''do'' die in quicksand, it's almost never from the sand or
Okay, if you are weighed down by something you can't remove, you could sink, but that would even happen in boring, old regular water.
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Originally a movie serial and B-film device, this trope has been carried over to television by way of programs that mimicked or paid homage to those films, or to pulp fiction in general. Then it also moved to [[Video Games]]. This trope is pretty much a [[Discredited Trope]] nowadays, although the [[Shifting Sand Land]] of video games is [[Grandfather Clause|still allowed]] to [[Undead Horse Trope|play it straight]], as a gameplay challenge if nothing else.
See also [[Sand Is Water]], [[Mucking in
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== Anime
* Mikan and a friend of hers encounter this in episode 3 of ''Gakuen Alice''.
* A scene of this happens in episode 5 of ''[[Deltora Quest]]''.
* A scene of this happens in episode 8 of a forgotten anime known as ''[[Fortune Quest L]]''.
* Sir Crocodile's "Desert Girasole" attack in ''[[One Piece]]'' involves him using his sand-controlling powers to create a giant whirlpool of quicksand. He does explain, however, that he's tapping into an underground water source to do this, and he's never seen doing it outside of a desert.
==
* In one [[
== Fan
* One entry into a Miniatures forum about what to do when you have nothing but standard bearers in your army is to plant the standards in a sandtrap; the enemy will waste a lot of time to "avoid the quicksand".
== Film ==
* Fondly parodied in the book and movie ''[[The Princess Bride (
** At least as dangerous (in the novel, at any rate) is the way the stuff gets into your lungs.
* While it may be a magical plant rather than quicksand, the devil's snare in the film version of ''[[Harry Potter
* The live-action film version of ''[[The Jungle Book (
* In ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy]]'', a biplane sinks into a pit of quicksand... in the middle of a desert. The protagonists stand atop a dune and solemnly watch it sink. The sequence takes so long that it's hard to tell if it's [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshading]] its own absurdity or just deathly oblivious to it.
** The same thing happened in [[Mad Max]]: Beyond Thunderdome, at least the desert-quicksand part.
*** It wasn't really quicksand, more of a sand pit, but it still sucked them in.
*** It's supposed to be a pothole with sand packed on top of it.
* ''[[Indiana Jones and
* ''[[Tank Girl]]''. A non-liquid version: the dust/sand covering the Rippers' subgates.
* In the film ''[[Lawrence of Arabia]]'', Lawrence has two young servant boys, Daud and Farraj. Daud falls into quicksand, and Lawrence and Farraj try to save him, but fail. In real life, Daud died of hypothermia.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120225175559/http://telawrence.net/telawrencenet/works/spw/sp_08_092.htm
** Hypothermia in Arabia, no less. Desert nights are very, very, very cold.
* In [[Pure Luck]], Martin Short's extremely unlucky character manages to walk into a quicksand pit in the California desert.
* In ''[[The Brave Little Toaster]]'', Kirby and the others trying to pull him out get sucked into a mud pit in a [[Swamps Are Evil|swamp]] that acts much the same way.
* ''[[The Neverending Story (
* A cave in ''[[The Scorpion King]]'' featured this.
* One of the policemen in ''Kekexili: Mountain Patrol'' dies from this.
* In the climax of ''[[House of Frankenstein (
* One of the Sheriff's attempted duels in ''[[Hot Lead and Cold Feet]]'' ends with him sinking in quicksand brought about by heavy rains.
* ''[[The Hallelujah Trail]]:'' The opening narration tells you that there is going to be a ''disaster'' at Quicksand Bottoms.
* A pit appears early in ''[[Blazing Saddles]]''; other than the fact that it shows up in the middle of an arid desert, it's actually a pretty accurate representation.
* Averted in ''[[Once Upon a Forest]]''. The quail firmly belive this trope, leaving one poor bastard who gets stuck in the mud to die. Luckily for him, the party comes through and the [[Smart Guy]] has them build a lever device to pry him out.
== Literature ==
* Nick Cave's novel ''And The Ass Saw The Angel'' uses this as a framing device. The narrator recounts his story while sinking into a bog. The unlikelihood of this contingency is easy to swallow compared to some of the other stuff we're [[Magic Realism|asked to believe]], or [[Through the Eyes of Madness|asked not to believe]].
* During a stint of being [[Reassigned to Antarctica]] [[Vorkosigan Saga|Miles Vorkosigan]] runs across a nasty arctic version called a "Permofrost Inversion Zone"; this appears to be solid ground, but has the potentially lethal property of unexpectedly thawing into a gooey sea of mud. Miles manages to sink an entire "scat-cat" (a kind of arctic all-terrain jeep) in one after he parks on top of it rather than try to drive back to base at night, and very nearly dies because he chained his tent to it.
* In the [[Known Space]] stories of [[Larry Niven]] some areas of Mars have sand that is so fine that it essentially is a liquid and people can sink in it.
* Many older science fiction stories portrayed the Moon as having areas very fine dust that functioned like quicksand, ''A Fall of Moondust'' by [[Arthur C. Clarke
* In ''The Takers'' (a modern [[Two Fisted Tale]]-homage by Jerry Ahern) the protagonist and his [[Plucky Girl]] get caught in quicksand while wading through a swamp on a Caribbean island.
* Occurs in Book 7 of ''[[The Hardy Boys]] Casefiles'', ''Deathgame''. Joe starts sinking in the quicksand and knows enough to float on it, but then has to force himself to sink below the surface to hide from his attacker. The caked mud later serves him as improvised camouflage.
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes|The Hound of the Baskervilles]]'' uses the swamp version, which is dangerous to enter if if you know the way, and nigh impossible to traverse without a guide.
* In one of the [[Guilty Pleasure|smaller, chapter]] ''[[Dinotopia]]'' books, Magnolia and Paddlefoot, her dinosaur companion, get mired in quicksand. However, the author has done their
* The Shivering Sand in ''[[The Moonstone]]'' by Wilkie Collins. Dangerous, but not an impossible trap. It's used by a certain character to {{spoiler|hide an incriminating piece of evidence, using a locked box and a chain, and to commit suicide}}.
* ''[[The Neverending Story (
* In ''Dream Park'', when Griffin enters the South Seas Treasure Game as an alternate, the party finds him trapped waist-deep in quicksand.
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== Live-Action TV ==
* ''[[Tales of the Gold Monkey]]''
* This trope has been [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BhVebTMiiY disproved] by the ''[[
** And disproved earlier by ''[[Bill Nye the Science Guy]]''.
* Even [[Power Rangers]] has used this, a couple times over the years. "Ninja Quest" in season three, and "Fire Heart" in Mystic Force.
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* Larry and Balki get trapped in quicksand on an episode of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrEHldi1VwE Perfect Strangers].
* In ''[[Man vs. Wild]]'', Bear Grylls demonstrates how to escape from a quicksand in the middle of the Sahara Desert and prevent health problems as a result from having clay on your skin.
* In an episode of ''[[Lassie (TV series)|Lassie]]'', Timmy gets stuck in the swamp version of this.
* In ''[[Sea Patrol]]'' 2Dads sinks into a pit, briefly going under before he's fished out by a team member. It's described as 'swamp', not quicksand, but it works the same way and when he falls in he's immediately buried up to his chest.
* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Magnum,
* The [[Big Bad]] in ''[[The Wild Wild West]]'''s "The Night of the Bottomless Pit," who absolutely hates muck, [[Death
* Averted in, of all places, the campy ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' series, where the Riddler's [[Death Trap]] involves tricking the Dynamic Duo into posing for a picture on a giant cake which is made of quicksand (long story). Batman warns Robin that the key to surviving quicksand is not to panic, and once this advice help them stay buoyant, he is able to use a rocket-device on their belts to propel them upward and escape.
== Music ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* ''[[Dungeons
** Supplement I13 ''Adventure Pack I'', adventure "The Weird Woods of Baron Orchid". Several patches occur near a lake.
** Adventure Q1 ''Queen of the Demonweb Pits''. One of the rooms in Lolth's spider ship has a quicksand floor to trap unwary party members.
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** Adventure OA7 ''Test of the Samurai'' has several patches in the other-dimensional plane of Qui.
* Several Classic ''[[Traveller]]'' adventures have this as a possible encounter on alien planets.
** ''Twilight's Peak'' has quicksand as a possible encounter in wetlands on the planet Fulacin. If [[PC
** In the Double Adventure ''Marooned/Marooned Alone'', [[PC
== Videogames ==
* In the 2D ''[[Prince of Persia]] 2'', an early puzzle required you to jump between a set of stone platforms in a displayed but randomly-selected order. Quicksand comes in because the platforms are suspended in it, and if you miss a jump, or jump onto a platform not in the sequence, you're sucked in.
* ''[[
** There's also a middle type that sucks Mario in quickly but not instantly. It's the most common type.
** Of course, quicksand first appeared in the Mario series in ''Mario 2'', probably one of the elements borrowed from its source material ''Doki Doki Panic''. At least one hidden area involved going through quicksand.
** And again in ''[[
** Subverted in ''Mario Teaches Typing 2.'' During a cutscene, Mario and Luigi fall through a hole in a bridge and are saved by a pool of quicksand below.
* ''Super [[Metroid]]'''s many quicksand pools present no danger at all, because Samus wears a sealed space suit and can't drown. If you don't feel like jumping out, you can sink all the way in and walk around on the bottom. In a few places this allows access to new areas.
*
** The Arbiter Grounds in ''[[Twilight Princess]]'' has quicksand, including the instant-death type, as a frequent and dangerous obstacle.
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda:
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks|Spirit Tracks]]'' has quicksand pits in the Sand Temple and parts of the Tower of Spirits.
** You fight a Moldorm in a pit of quicksand in ''[[Links Awakening]]''. You only get sucked downward (to a cave you must traverse to get back to the surface) if you get put in the center of the pit; the rest of the quicksand simply pulls you toward that center.
** In ''[[Skyward Sword]]'', Link can keep from getting sucked into the quicksand of Lanayru Desert if he [[Videogame Dashing|sprints across it]]. Also, the Timeshift Stones can change it back into the solid, grass-covered ground it once was [[Before the Dark Times]].
** A variation is the Bottomless Bogs in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild|Breath of the Wild]]'' and ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom|Tears of the Kingdom]]'', a mire that can cause Link to drown almost instantly.
* Subverted in ''[[Banjo
* Used in an absolutely laughable manner in the [[Sonic the Hedgehog (2006
* Appears in ''[[Toejam and
* Used rather realistically (given the medium) in ''[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Mega Man (
** ''4'' has it as well.
* [[Ratchet and Clank]] has the planet Aridia, a desert planet with massive LAKES of quicksand. You can hop out, but only three times before you sink, for whatever reason.
* It doesn't pose a direct hazard to your player characters, but [[Final Fantasy VII|Corel Prison]] is described as "a natural prison in the middle of the desert... surrounded entirely by quicksand."
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* The Nintedo DS game ''Summon Night: Twin Age'' has around 60% of different sinky stuff in the game, like "Poison Marshes" and "Desert Quicksand"...
* There are floors in Hades' Underworld lair (Ancient Greece) and the [[Swamps Are Evil|Medieval Swamp]] (Medieval Times) that can make you sink down like quicksand and swallow you up if you stay on the floor for too long in the NES game ''Day Dreamin' Davey''.
* The Death Marshes in ''[[Turok (
* Averted in ''[[
* ''[[
== Web Originals ==
* Shows up in ''[[Survival of the Fittest]]'', where it's used to kill both {{spoiler|Melina Frost}} and {{spoiler|Beth Vandelinder}}, one getting stuck in the sand long enough to be stabbed, the other being pulled in head first and drowned.
* [
* [[Ninjai:
== Western Animation ==
* Duke falls into a pit of quicksand while escaping from Cobra in an episode of ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' and goes in over his head in a matter of seconds.
* Happens in the form of dry desert quicksand ''[[The Transformers (
* Happened to the whole cast of [[
** The ending of the episode implied it was [[All Just a Dream]], with the whole camping trip being imaginary, but, possibly, [[Your Mind Makes It Real]]. Not that that makes it any less perplexing, as imagination, despite its life-giving powers in the setting, was never shown to have power to that degree before or since.
* ''[[Max Steel]]'' both plays this straight and partially subverts it. In season two, Max and Berto walk in to quicksand and start sinking, having to use a vine to pull themselves out. In season three, Berto and Kat walk in to quicksand; however, Berto says that the human body is lighter and they manage to swim out of it.
* Happens two different times in [[Totally Spies!]].
* Crossing the line between [[Did Not Do the Research]] and [[Rule of Cool]], the [[Recycled:
* Catwoman leaves [[Batman]] and Robin in a quicksand [[Death Trap]] in the Filmation series episode "The Nine Lives of Batman".
* Happens with Shareena and Gug in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQaWUjY6dxo this clip] from a ''[[Detention]]'' episode. Actually, the "quicksand" is just a sinkhole.
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* ''[[The Wild Thornberrys]]'' subverts this completely, as the "evil swamp" Darwin was so worried about was only about two inches deep. Eliza still lost a shoe, though.
* The mice run into this a couple of times in the ''[[Pinky and The Brain]]'' episode "Welcome to the Jungle."
* Heloise throws a bunch of [[Pandaing to
* A ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' sketch has a giraffe step into quicksand and, because its tall body takes so long to go down, goes through the five stages of grief as it sinks. {{spoiler|The giraffe's life is saved when its feet hit bottom!}}
* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] harshly in ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy|Ed Edd & Eddy's Big Picture Show]]''. Ed and Eddy at first appear to be sinking in quicksand, and appear to die as Edd attempts to save them. However, as Edd mourns their deaths, it turns out it was [[Kick the Dog|just a joke that Ed and Eddy played on him.]] Naturally, Edd gets [[Screw This, I'm Outta Here|pissed off at the two and immediately leaves them to return to the cul-de-sac,]] [[Lesser of Two Evils|preferring to be punished by the kids for]] [[Noodle Incident|the scam that backfired and sent them on the run in to first place]] rather then continue on the journey with [[Jerkass|Ed and Eddy]].
* Mozenrath's Black Sand in the [[Aladdin (Disney film)|
* In ''[[Scooby
* ''[[Johnny Bravo]]'': Johnny Bravo ends up stuck in quicksand while marooned on an island. Fortunately, he keeps his shirt on in the situation... so to speak. It was smart of him to call for help though. No point in allowing himself to go under.
== Real Life ==
* Interesting counterpoint: Water with a great deal of gas bubbling through it behaves suitably, in that a human would sink like a rock in it, and subsequently drown. This isn't encountered very often, however, which probably comes down to most writers [[Did Not Do the Research|not doing the research]]... the only example this contributor can come up with is a pool of this in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'', where its dangers are carefully described by Vamp. Who then, seconds later, starts swimming through it with ease (He does have superpowers). This has been implicated in the loss of ships at sea, because of a subsidence or other event on the seabed which causes a dramatic release of gas. ''Mythbusters'' did this one, too, and in Code Geass R2 episode 7, the Black Knights take advantage of this.
** An example in real life which has taken many lives: The Niagra Falls massive amount of fallen water has the same effect of the aerated water of ''Metal Gear Solid 2'' and has resulted in many people drowning.
** Another take on this version appeared in an episode of ''[[
* Real life example: Rodolfo Fierro, a General at the service of Francisco Villa died this way. He fell along with his horse and fell to the bottom because of the weight he has carrying (it's said it was gold). He was very well known as a sadistic bastard so his death could be a [[Karmic Death]].
* The effects of ''[[The Princess Bride (
** This effect was used in one of the 'reality' shows on Discovery a while back. They put an area of sand with perforated pipes in front of a bank door, with brick pavers over the top and a similar larger and deeper one at the exit to the parking lot. When the simulated bank was simulatedly robbed, the air was turned on, he sank to above his knees and was trapped when the air was turned off; the driver of the getaway SUV was sunk in the other one to the point where he couldn't open the door.
* Large heaps of loose sand can stop a vehicle. In the rare situations this is life or death (when a stranded car in the desert means a stranded driver for instance) and it can be fatal. And in any case, it probably isn't something you wish to explain to your insurance agent.
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*** That's why gravel traps are so common at racing circuits. No matter if a car that goes screaming off the tarmac is doing it forwards, backwards or sideways, loose sand and gravel stop it up since the vehicle digs into the gravel, pulling itself in and creating resistance. However, since this also tends to ruin the underbody and wheels of a car, another option that's become popular in recent years is to create a large tarmac runoff area so a driver can recover from a loss of control or error in judgment and quickly rejoin the race. On cars with slicks, especially light ones such as [[Formula One]] cars, they're so grippy that gravel traps actually cause ''more'' slippage in comparison.
* An interesting article on the rise and fall of this trope (it's now [[Discredited Trope|discredited]]) can be found [http://www.slate.com/id/2264312/ here].
** Alan Davies, incidentally, laments the decline of quicksand in a recent episode of
* Non-Newtonian fluids behave in a similar way; they are so viscous that if a great deal of force is applied to them in a brief time, they behave like solids, but if the same force is applied slower it will allow it to pass through. It can be very difficult to get something out from being trapped in a pool of a non-Newtonian fluid.
* Soil liquefaction, a rare phenomenon associated with earthquakes, can cause water-saturated sandy ground to temporarily turn so slippery and unstable that it becomes too weak to support buildings' foundations.
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[[Category:The Ground Beneath Our Feet]]
[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]
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