Soft Glass: Difference between revisions

* ''[[Ghost in The Shell Stand Alone Complex]]'' has a few scenes where the Major either busts through or is tossed out a window without acquiring any serious injuries, but this is justified since she's a full-body cyborg. The trope is also averted when the Major has to track down "Angel Feathers", a terrorist who's infamous for bombing glass skyscrapers and causing heavy casualties from the glass shrapnel.

* During the Water 7 arc of ''[[One Piece]]'', Luffy breaks into Galley-La headquarters by slingshotting himself through a window, and is completely unharmed despite the many large, dangerously sharp-looking pieces of glass on-panel and him using only his bare arms to shield himself. That said, Luffy is made of rubber and has a fair resistance from cuts and piercing (blunt damage is totally negated).

* 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 (Anime)|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.

** Subverted in an earlier scene where RoboCop is [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|throwing his killer, Clarence Boddicker, through plate glass windows while reading him the Miranda Rights]]. RoboCop is strong enough to pull the feat off and Boddicker is cut and beaten badly.

* Both subverted and played straight for humor in the movie version of ''[[Lucky Luke]]'' starring [[Terence Hill]]. During a bar brawl, one of the mooks tries to smash a bottle against a table, and repeatedly fails to actually break it. Luke helps him out by grabbing the bottle and smashing it (successfully) against the mook's head.

* In ''[[Beethoven (Film)|Beethoven]]'', Charles Grodin enters the bad guys' headquarters through the skylight.

* Subverted brutally in the opening scenes of the Japanese movie ''[[Hypnosis]]'', where a character kills himself by jumping through a window. His corpse is later shown with the glass still embedded.

** 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.

** "Closing Time" - the Doctor jumps through a window to rescue Craig, and doesn't get so much as a scratch. ''Fixing'' the window before Craig's wife gets home is more of a problem (apparently, finding a glazer on a Sunday isn't easy even with a time machine.)

** Oddly averted in ''Partners In Crime''. Donna was even hitting that window with a wrench and nothing was happening. Maybe deadlocking windows to make them sonic screwdriver proof also strengthens the glass.

* Averted in the British police-drama ''[[Backup (TV)|Backup]]''. A policeman breaks a window and quickly enters a building through it. The next in line (the show is about an operational support unit who travel to incidents together) stands in front of the window and spends some time breaking the sharp fragments out of the frame with his baton.

* Also done in the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Conspiracy", where Riker fights an alien-possesed guy who slams him into a glass-topped table. It shatters, and Riker is completely uninjured. (This also raises the question of how stupid they have to be to put glass-topped tables in a spacecraft, rather than, say, transparent aluminum...)

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ustbf1lJXCI This Reporter] finds out the hard way.

* The season one midseason finale of ''[[White Collar]]'' has Neal Caffrey swinging into a locked room of an art museum this way. Well, technically the window was made of panes of glass separated by wood, which is what he actually breaks, but he should've gotten a few cuts at the very least.

** In a mall scene of ''Police Story'', the glass is made thicker than usual so it'll look more real. This had a rather unfortunate (or fortunate) side effect of visibly cutting the actors. In fact, Jackie has gone on record in his documentaries saying that his team uses real plate glass anytime it's possible, because fake glass looks too, well, fake. There's a very good reason his stunt team is considered some of the most badass people on the planet (and why they can't get insurance).

** There is a rumor that during the filming of the car window punching scene from ''Terminator'' Arnold broke his his hand punching out the wrong window, which hadn't been replaced by breakaway glass.

* [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205737/Man-killed-shards-glass-hurling-girlfriend-shop-window.html??88 An abusive man in England killed himself by accident] when he hurled his girlfriend into a plate glass window several times. A shard of this broken glass apparently impaled him and severed an artery. [[Laser-Guided Karma]], anyone? At least one internet forum reported this story with the thread title "[[A Worldwide Punomenon|Windows: Fatal Error]]".

* Before reinforced glass became common, there were quite a few instances of people not seeing glass sliding doors, walking into them, and the ensuing horrific consequences. Even now this can still happen, you just have to hit it extremely hard (usually by running).

* Deliberately done by the [[Useful Notes/National Hockey League|NHL]]. Because of the hard-hitting nature of ice hockey, panels of glass have shattered due to people being checked into it, pucks being shot at it and even somebody closing a door too hard. In order to minimize the chance of injury to players and spectators, the NHL contracts specially-made glass that "pebbles", meaning it sticks together and greatly reduces the number of sharp edges on each broken piece, essentially resulting in real-life Soft Glass.

[[Category:Tropes Examined By the Mythbusters]]

[[Category:Soft Glass]]