Soft Glass: Difference between revisions

== Anime and Manga ==

* In ''[[Ranma ½]]'', sending someone flying through a window is a favorite pastime of the characters (especially female ones). Akane's bedroom window, and the homeroom window at school, are the most common victims. Ironically, after Akane tossed Ranma through the ''open'' window one time, he tried to leap back up, only to smack firmly into the glass when she closed it.

* Subverted in the first episode of ''[[Welcome to The NHK]]'' where Satou tries to break a beer bottle with a karate chop and cuts open his hand doing it.

* Subaru of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' has a tendency to smash through windows both intentionally and unintentionally, though {{spoiler|being a [[Hollywood Cyborg|Combat Cyborg]]}} certainly helps the plausibility of her doing this. Also, she's wearing a Barrier Jacket (essentially clothing with magical [[Deflector Shields]]), which have been shown to withstand some seriously impressive impacts with no damage to the wearer at all.

* Somewhat averted in the ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' manga, in that when Kyo punches a school window in anger, it does break, but he also is visibly injured by it.

* In ''[[Darker than Black]]'', during Hei's training of Suou he blocks a punch of hers with his [[Drowning My Sorrows|liquor bottle]], it shatters, her hand has no visible injury, and she only seems mildly annoyed.

 

== Comic Books ==

* Averted in [[Jack London]]'s ''[[White Fang]]''. The title dog breaks through a window to reunite with his master and is badly cut up along his stomach for it.

* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]''

** Also averted several times in ''Witches Abroad'', as Granny Weatherwax smashes several mirrors during the course of the story, and almost gets killed by a shower of broken glass. (The ever-patient Nanny Ogg patches her up, lamenting, "Oh, Esme, you do take winning hard.")

** In Maskerade a panicked lady clobbers Nanny Ogg with a ''full'' bottle of champagne to try and knock her out so as to make an escape. The bottle doesn't break, but the book takes this moment to point out that somewhere in the Ogg family tree is a bit of dwarf, meaning Nanny has a skull you could break rocks with, so all getting hit really does is stun her momentarily.

 

 

* Subverted in an episode of ''[[Rawhide]]'', where Rowdy Yates goes through a pane of glass and is ''seriously'' cut up by it.

* ''[[MythBusters]]'' (partially) covered this one.

* Averted in [[Harper's Island]]. When Trish is trying to escape from {{spoiler|Wakefield}}, she looks as though she is about to punch a window, but then thinks twice and grabs a lamp and smashes it with very little effort. For anyone interested, {{spoiler|she does get away from Wakefield... only to be killed literally two minutes after this scene by the other killer.}}

* Averted in the ''[[Pushing Daisies]]'' episode "Pigeon": Bradan Caden is killed by glass shards upon crashing into a building.

** Carla has to get into Turk's car and brings fellow nurse Laverne along with her. The car's locked, so Laverne shouts a battle cry ("[[Leeroy Jenkins|Lavern Robaaaaaarts!]]") and punches out the window with nary a scratch. Carla is taken aback and cries "Laverne! I have the keys!"

** Averted in another episode, where J.D. tries to break a car window with a heavy object to prove a point. It takes him several minutes of repeated bashing before the glass eventually breaks.

** Near the end of the third season, J.D. and Elliot get [[Will They or Won't They?|back together]], then JD tells her he doesn't love her at the reception dinner. She shoves him onto the table, where he crushes several wine glasses. No injury occurs.

* Subverted in an episode of the original (black and white) ''[[Superman]]'' TV series. The Man'o'Steel has just deflected an asteroid and is feeling a bit woozy. Jimmy Olsen is over and thinks Clark is sick and puts him in the shower. We hear the crash of breaking glass as Clark falls through the shower door. Jimmy later comments on how lucky Clark was as "there wasn't a scratch on him."

** Averted when a woman is "attacked" by spiders in her shower... and in the flailing to get them off, puts her arm through the shower door and bleeds to death.

** Partly averted in another episode. Sam and Dean dive through the window of a church in order to flee from Alastair, and apparently manage to run away surprisingly quickly. However, a later scenes shows them taking care of their injuries; Sam [[Nausea Fuel|stitches up a pretty nasty cut on his arm]], while Dean sports a dislocated shoulder.

** Also averted when Castiel tries to "speak" to Dean in his angelic voice, shattering every window in the process. Dean tries to hide, but still can't avoid a few cuts. This was mirrored in Real Life. When the fake sugar glass being used didn't look visually stunning enough, real glass was used. [[Jensen Ackles]] received a cut as a result. In the same episode, Dean is shown to break into a deserted store, taking pains to wrap up his hand and sweep the frame to keep it from being turned into hamburger meat.

* Averted in ''[[True Blood]]''. Tara's mother hits her with an empty liquor bottle. It didn't break at all and in fact left a nasty wound on Tara's forehead.

* The [[The Daily Show|Stewart]]/[[The Colbert Report|Colbert]]/O'Brien [[Melee a Trois]] includes a scene where all three smash beer bottles over each other's heads—this is where the Stewart-Colbert alliance breaks up and it becomes a true [[Melee a Trois]], as Jon accidentally breaks a bottle over Stephen. The [[Hilarious Outtakes|blooper reel]] shows Conan going to hit Jon and hesitating at the last minute, disturbed by how real the sugar glass bottle looks, and the weight of it—sugar glass is usually much lighter than the real thing.

** Averted in episode "Noel". Josh, {{spoiler|suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after being shot, puts his hand through the window of his apartment}}; this results in a nasty cut that requires stitches. Doubly averted, as Josh tries to hide his injury as the result of accidentally putting a drinking glass down too hard on the table—and everyone knows that this isn't even vaguely plausible.

** Very much not averted when Will Bailey breaks the "glass" between his and Toby's office. The scene showcased the extent of his frustration, as Toby has never been able to break it with his rubber ball no matter how hard he threw it. Funny thing is, the ''thump'' of the ball against the window always sounded like plexiglass before this incident. Go figure.

* There were several instances in ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' where Richie crashed through a glass window. Justified at least once in that in the scene, he hit the glass at full speed on his motorcycle (though it's a surprise he wasn't cut, unless the motorcycle gear was heavy enough to protect him.)

** In the pilot, he averts the trope, cutting Mac's antique shop window with a glass cutter.

 

* For an angle in [[WCW]], Bill [[Goldberg]] was required to punch through a real glass window of a limousine. He was originally supposed to conceal a small piece of pipe in his hand to aid with the punching, but after the cameras started rolling he lost it and decided to punch through the window with his bare fist. A shard of glass caused a huge gash down his forearm and he was out of action for months. [http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3i5Ju0mhjAE Watch it here.] Watch for him checking his arm after smashing the third window and the subsequent splatter of blood when he pounds on the white hood.

** If you listen to the match commentary on the DVD with Shane and Kurt they talk about this, and proving that he's actually got a bit of badass in him, Shane apparently told Kurt once they were through the first one to just fling him head-first through the glass on the way out. He did, and it looked awesome.

* Sabu and [[Mick Foley|Cactus Jack]] had a match in [[ECW]] where they brawled through the crowd and backstage area. Sabu got hold of a bottle, which he proceeded to break over Jack's head. Except that it was a real, non-gimmicked bottle, and took several attempts...

* The set for Brutus Beefcake's [[Talk Show With Fists]], ''The Barber Shop'', has a big glass window that was just begging for someone to be thrown through it. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCljiGVZ5fE That someone was Marty Jannetty,] courtesy of his tag-team partner [[Shawn Michaels]], in a move that solidified Michaels's [[Face Heel Turn]] and launched his singles career. Note that in [[Real Life]], the window was not real glass, and Jannetty was applying the blood while he was draped over the windowsill and his face was out of sight. (Interestingly, many people misremember this as "Michaels superkicking Jannetty through the glass," when what actually happened was Michaels superkicking Jannetty to the floor, then picking him up and ''throwing'' him through the glass.)

* This happens a lot in Japanese and American "Death Match" or other [[Garbage Wrestling]] venues. The lucky ones work for a league that invests in prop beer mugs and break-away panes of glass that, like most pro wrestling, looks horrid but is relatively safe. The unlucky ones get dropped through actual, thin window panes, have actual glasses and bottles busted over their heads, and get hit with/thrown through actual fluorescent tubes. The latter of which, btw, shatter into countless razor-sharp shards, tend to [[Nausea Fuel|turn the upper layer of skin and flesh into hamburger]], and [[Too Dumb to Live|contain potentially carcinogenic chemicals]].

 

== Video Games ==

 

{{reflist}}

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

[[Category:Artistic License Physics]]

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

[[Category:Tropes Examined by the Mythbusters]]