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[[Soft Water]] comes into play when a fall from any height at all can be rendered harmless or merely incapacitating if, at the end of the fall, the character meets a body of deep water (and sometimes, not even all that deep).
In the real world, falls into water from even moderate heights can be injurious if not done correctly, as anyone who's belly-flopped or back-smackered off a diving board can attest to. Falls from a sufficient height into water ''will'' be fatal ''regardless'' of whether or not it's done "correctly". A fall at eighty miles per hour into water is lethal; meanwhile the average human body falls at roughly ''120'' miles per hour, in as little as 10 seconds (from 200 feet).
In real life, a person who falls into ''very'' deep water and enters it in a dive may fare better than hitting ground because they are making a gradual rather than a sudden stop. However, there will still be a lot of force exerted on the person's body, given that water is about 800 times as dense as air. So if you've ever been hit by 120
There's also the issue of one's [[Super Drowning Skills|swimming ability]]
In short, a fall into the drink from 200 feet or more will pretty much ''always'' be
But in TV-world, after a moment or two of dramatic silence (and perhaps tears of shock and mourning from onlookers), the hero or heroine will emerge from the lake/ocean/pool none the worse for the wear, except being a bit wet. Which can be [[Wet Sari Scene|kinda cool]].
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See also [[Not the Fall That Kills You]], and [[Hollywood Density]].
Note: "Soft water" also won't stop bullets, which visibly penetrate water quite deep with prominent "bullet-streaks" and fatal strikes. However, ''[[
''[[
No relation to the stuff that comes out of a household water
{{examples|Examples}}▼
== Advertising ==▼
== Played straight ==
* A [[NSFW]] [http://dekku.nofatclips.com/2009/09/fleggaard-nude-skydive.html commercial] by Fleggaard shows nearly-naked female skydivers, one of which fails to open her parachute and lands in a pool from a height of several hundred meters. She climbs out completely unscathed and her biggest problem is that she is now completely naked among several visitors of a nearby party.▼
▲=== Advertising ===
▲* A [[NSFW]] [https://web.archive.org/web/20120905170521/http://dekku.nofatclips.com/2009/09/fleggaard-nude-skydive.html commercial] by Fleggaard shows nearly-naked female skydivers, one of which fails to open her parachute and lands in a pool from a height of several hundred meters. She climbs out completely unscathed and her biggest problem is that she is now completely naked among several visitors of a nearby party.
=== Anime & Manga ===
* In the end of ''[[
** In another, earlier episode, {{spoiler|Haruhi is pushed off of a cliff, into the water. Now, it looks like this trope will not be in effect, as Haruhi is noticably unconscious and appears to be drowning. So what does Tamaki do? He jumps in after her, in a diving position, hits the water, grabs Haruhi, and pulls them both out of the water, more or less completely safe.}}
* In ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (
* The title protagonists from ''[[
* Played straight in ''[[Black Cat (
** ''[[
* Used in ''[[
* ''[[Ranma
** Near the beginning, Ranma takes his fight with Kunô
** And near the end, Ranma has to dive over a cliff after his mother, saving her from falling into the raging waters below. Since they all fall into the water a few scenes later, from a ''much'' lower height, it's made clear that the danger didn't come from the ''rocks'' at the foot of the cliff, but from hitting the water from the top of the cliff.
** The anime version is somewhat inconsistent: the example with Kunô mentioned above merely stuns him for a few moments, and he grapples with Ranma while still in the pool. Also, in the first [[The Movie|movie]], after being tossed overboard from Kirin's flying boat, several hundred feet in the air, the whole cast (sans Ranma, Lychee, Happôsai, and the elephant Jasmine) splashes harmlessly into the water below.
** Averted in the [[Grand Theft Me|Cursed Doll]] storyline: a possessed Akane pulls Ranma down with her off a cliff overlooking the water; Ranma immediately pushes her around so [[Made of Iron|he]] hits the water first, shielding her from a direct impact. It's this action that convinces the doll's spirit that she had wrongfully blamed Ranma, and peacefully changes places with the real Akane again.
* In the ''[[
* ''[[
** Ginta is standing on a pillar to confront [[Anti
** In an example that crosses over between this and [[Giant Robot Hands Save Lives]], Snow saves herself from a fall which the watching characters clearly expect her to go ''splat'' from, she saves herself by calling on her giant snowman and landing safely in it's hand.
* In ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh (
* ''[[
** Luffy and a contingent of pirates of mostly Devil Fruit users (who are thus incapable of swimming) free their ship from being stuck at the top of a giant-sized frozen solid tidal wave, by breaking their ship out. What they weren't aware of is that they would fall into an equally frozen ''warzone''. Fortunately, they [[Contrived Coincidence|happen]] to land in a hole in the ice made when a giant-sized iceberg was torn out of the sea to be used as a [[Combat Pragmatist|projectile]]. All this landing on the water from a height of "so high it wasn't even in ''vision''" did not hurt any of them in the slightest, aside from momentary unconsciousness from [[Super Drowning Skills]]. Luffy is at least
** Sadly Averted earlier though, the hard landing from the group leaving Skypeia worsened the hull damage Belamy's crew caused to the ''Going Merry'', {{spoiler|this damage made it irrepairibly trashed, which led to them having to give it a burial at sea when it's not longer fit for sailing}}.
* In the "Night Baron Virus" case from ''[[
* In the ''[[
=== Comic Books ===
* Played totally straight in an issue of the ''[[
** Well, [[A Wizard Did It|it makes as much sense as being able to transmorgify conrete into water in the first place.]]
* ''[[Disney Ducks Comic Universe|Scrooge McDuck]]''
** Scrooge McDuck discovers his trademark ability to swim through cash like it was water when he's thrown off a cliff onto a moving train full of cash below. Naturally, he uses it as Soft Water to save his life. If it's paper-money then this is
** In one comic, Scrooge McDuck actually defeats the Beagle Boys this way, right after the Boys have succeeded in legally stealing Scrooge's entire fortune. Scrooge asks them for one last "swim," which the Boys magnanimously grant, though with the suspicion that their victory has left Scrooge so despondent that he plans to break his neck on his lost fortune. On seeing Scrooge dive into a pile of metal coins and surface not only completely unharmed, but swimming and jumping in and out of the money like a dolphin, they decide it looks so fun that they try it themselves... only to knock themselves cold on the hard surface from a much shorter dive. Scrooge's confused nephews ask Scrooge how he manages to swim through money like he does, but Scrooge only reveals that "there's a trick to it." The Boys are left in a coma for months, during which time Scrooge undoes all the legal maneuvering they performed to steal the McDuck fortune.
* In the thankfully short-lived Norwegian comic ''Dido'', the eponymous hero (yeah, his parents actually called him that) dives into a lake from what looks like about 100 feet. The [[Bad Guy]] turns impatiently away declaring that no-one could have survived that fall, but moments later the kid emerges from the lake still in one piece with [[Fridge Logic|no explanation whatsoever]] and no complaints other than "Ouch, that really hurt!" And that was only the last in a row of unlikely escapes...
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=== Comic Strips ===
* ''[[
=== Fan Works ===
* In ''[[
=== Films -- Animation ===
* [[Disney]]'s ''[[
=== Films -- Live-Action ===
* In the film version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
** Gandalf and the Balrog fall for a particularly long time, but are saved simply by landing in an underground lake. But then again, one is an angel and the other is a semi-legendary monster from the First Age. Gandalf and the Balrog, in the book, were ''both'' stated to be capable of falling to their deaths; however in the movie, they fell ''miles'' to the water, but still were none the worse for wear when they hit bottom.
** Aragorn also survived a fall off a cliff with a Warg into the river. Aragorn fell only a relatively short
* Ironically used in ''[[Star Wars]]: Revenge of the Sith'', where Obi-wan is believed dead after falling from a cliff into deep water from about 60 feet: in response, the clones say [[No One Could Survive That|"he couldn't have survived that fall"]], despite knowing full-well that Jedi are capable of falling safely from extreme
** In the novelisation, the clone commander insists that Obi-Wan isn't dead until they find the body. Naturally, Obi-Wan escapes.
* Used by the protagonist to escape arrest and [[Lampshade Hanging|pointed out]] by the antagonist in ''[[National Treasure]]'':
{{quote|
'''Ben:''' No, it was cool. [[Stealth Insult|You should try it some time]]. }}
:: Justified by the previous mention that Ben studied wreckage diving at the Naval Academy -- he would likely have learned how to dive from heights "correctly" to avoid worse injury. They even showed him diving the correct way: feet first with arms crossed.
* Played to the hilt in ''[[True Lies]]''. After a shootout in a mall, the main villain rides a motorcycle to the roof of a hotel, then drives it off the edge and splashes down in the pool on the roof of a building across the street. Considering his parabolic arc, the drop must have been at least a hundred feet, but he's uninjured and impaired only by a sopping wet trenchcoat. The horse that <s>Arnold</s> Harry Tasker rides in this chase makes this "you've GOT to be kidding me" look when Harry tries to make him follow and stops just short of the edge, pitching Harry out of his seat and causing him to dangle precariously.
* The ultimate example is shown in ''[[Commando (
* The eponymous protagonist himself in ''[[The Bourne Series (
* In ''[[
** ''[[
* Used at the climax of ''[[Death Becomes Her]]''
* Lampshaded and played straight in ''[[Face Off]]'' where the main character is on a prison oil rig with information that if you should attempt to swim away the fall with kill you. He jumps anyway, in shackles, and not only manages to survive the fall but somehow get back to mainland without too much of a problem.
* Somewhat subverted in ''Club Dread'': Before jumping off a cliff into water, Juan tells the others to close their legs, or else they'll die from the fall. However, what he says will happen [[Ass Shove|isn't exactly accurate]].
* Done by Riggs in the original ''[[
* Happens in ''House'', starring William Katt. In a scene where Katt is going down a rope into nothing but darkness, the rope is cut and Katt falls for several seconds, landing in water. He is not harmed by the landing.
* In ''[[Harley Davidson and
* ''[[The Fugitive (
* Happens to Plenty O'Toole in the ''[[James Bond]]'' film ''Diamonds Are Forever''.
* ''[[Resident Evil
* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]''
** Elizabeth Swann faints from her corset being too tight, and falls off a cliff into some
** In ''On Stranger Tides'', Blackbeard makes Jack Sparrow jump off a high cliff into a river to retrieve a [[MacGuffin]], though this time it's actually acknowledged that the fall could kill him (Hence Blackbeard sending Sparrow instead of one of his more trustworthy crewmen). Blackbeard's Quartermaster "solves" this by throwing a [[Hollywood Voodoo|Voodoo Doll]] of Jack into the river. Since the doll was undamaged, Sparrow himself was also able to make the jump unharmed. Or maybe he just got lucky.
* At the end of the first ''[[
* ''12 Rounds'': Two people fall out of a helicopter into a swimming pool and survive with no obvious injuries.
* ''[[Sherlock Holmes (
** Mary Watson is thrown from a moving train into water with little injury.
** {{spoiler|Near the end of the film, inspired by ''The Adventures of The Final Problem'', Holmes falls down a waterfall with Prof. Moriarty and is [[No One Could Survive That|presumed dead]] until the last scene.}}
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=== Literature ===
* Unlike the movie version of ''[[
** The danger for Gandalf in the hobbit was more due to the spears and weapons of the goblins than the fall, and he would have used more of his natural power fighting the balrog allowing him to survive the fall in moria, he also stepped into famirirs pyre to lift him out in the book, showing he has a resistance to fire, allowing him the battle the balrog for some time while falling.
** Actually, my take from the book was that Gandalf '''died'''. He was just brought back to life by the good forces as Gandalf the White in order to continue the fight against evil. And, of course, Gandalf is a semi-human wizard as well.
* ''[[Percy Jackson
** In Rick Riordan's ''The Lightning Thief'', Percy explicitly thinks of the falsity of this trope, that water would be no different from concrete, before risking it because he's Poseidon's son. Which does prove enough to help him. In ''The Last Olympian'', he pulls off another such
** {{spoiler|Beckendorf}}'s death in ''The Last Olympian'' has less to do with
** Percy warns Ethan and the other demigods to get off the ship. Percy is immune to any harm from
** Further averted in the same series: Percy and Thalia have an argument. Thalia hits Percy with a bolt of electricity, so he [[Disproportionate Retribution|lifts up the entire river to hurl at her]]. Chiron shouts at him to stop what he was doing, implying he would have killed Thalia. He is distracted by the Oracle before he can throw the water.
* In ''[[The Magic School Bus]] Inside a Hurricane'', Arnold (along with the talking radio) survives a fall from an airplane into the ocean, and is rescued by a fishing boat. The "letters" page after the story includes a note from the Coast Guard explaining that [[Don't Try This At Home|it would not have gone that way in real life]].
* Fang in ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' describes diving into the ocean from 500 feet up [[Lampshade Hanging|as equivalent to God punching his face]]. {{spoiler|He survives, though, completely unharmed and swimming back to shore in a matter of minutes.}}
* In ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo]]'', Edmond Dantes escapes the island fortress Chateau d'If by being thrown off a cliff into the sea. He emits a shout as he hits the water, but it's the sudden ''cold'' that causes it, rather than dropping just shy of a hundred feet. He swims away and is completely fine afterward.
* In ''[[Angels
** Averted in [[The Movie]], {{spoiler|where Langdon was never on the helicopter in the first place; only the Camerlengo, who in both versions used a parachute and landed near St. Peter's Square.}}
* Despite having not only been thrown into a deep-water-covered bog at high speed but also hit by a dragon's tail, Simon Heap in ''[[Septimus Heap
* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|The January Dancer]]'', even gas is not
=== Live-Action TV ===
* In the ''[[Lexx]]'' episode "The Beach", {{spoiler|Stanley Tweedle and Kai fall ''from the upper atmosphere of Water'' into the ocean below. Kai, being dead, merely sinks to the bottom (he can't float) but ''Stanley'' of course is perfectly fine. Making this even ''more'' stupid? ''Stanley later gets exhausted and drowns.'' (He got better, though.)}}
* Followed to a T in the ''[[Hornblower (TV series)|Hornblower]]'' TV movie ''Retribution'', when Hornblower, Kennedy and Bush decide to jump from a cliff to get back on their ship. We even get the choice quote: "It's only water! You won't break anything!"
** And then we get a ''[[Butch Cassidy and
* On ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]'', Sidney dives from a balcony into a pool from a height with dubious survivability.
* Done twice in the ''[[
* In an episode of ''[[
* In ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'', the Petrelli brothers were flying at some hundred miles an hour, when Nathan suddenly loses his power. No problem, they fall into a lake.
* Invoked in the ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'' live-action series, when {{spoiler|Catwoman}} takes a huge fall and then lands into a river, but Batman specifically says that she could have not made it because hitting the water from such a height would've caused enough killing harm. {{spoiler|Subverted, she actually ''did'' survive, but it's not clear if it was due to this trope being played straight or if she managed to avoid falling in the first place.}}
* ''[[
* [[House (TV series)|House]] once jumped off a hotel balcony several stories up into the pool below and suffered no visible injuries.
=== Tabletop Games ===
* In ''[[
=== Video Games ===
* In ''[[
* Particularly flagrant in ''[[Half-Life (
** Some maps in ''Half-Life'' and its mods even incorporate the "fall into a puddle of spilled coffee" game mechanic into their level design. For example, the ''[[
** There are at least two instances, one in ''HL1'' and one in ''HL2: Episode Two'', where [[Stupidity Is the Only Option|in order to proceed]] the player is required to fall an absurd amount of distance into a pool of water.
** The objective of ''Counter-Strike'' and ''[[
* Justified in ''[[Halo (
* ''[[Battlefield (
* ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]: [[Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas|San Andreas]]''. You can get into a jet, go over a body of water at full screaming-engine speed and drop without a parachute and all you'll get will be wet clothes. Of course, previous games in the series [[Super Drowning Skills|lacked a swimming mechanic]], and so treated any body of water greater than waist-deep as a pool of instant death.
* ''[[Tomb Raider]]''
** In one of the games, Lara is dropped down a shaft into the longest drop in the
** Similarly, the beginning of the Aldwych level in ''[[Tomb Raider]] III'', where you drop down from the bell tower into the sewers. The death scream doesn't loop here, though.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]''
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** Shamans used to have the power to avert this (and have a good laugh at their friends' expense) by casting the Water Walking spell on the falling person, which would cause them to smack into the water surface as though it was solid ground.
** In the new expansion, Death Knights have been given a similar skill, allowing them to run on water by freezing a path of ice. To add insult to injury, this spell is cancelled by damage, so that jumping into a lake with it on leads to 1) taking a massive amount of damage, and 2) plunging into the water anyway, probably by smashing your bones through a thick sheet of ice.
** At least two Northrend dungeons (Utgarde Keep and Azjol-Nerub) have some fun with this. In order to exit Utgarde Keep, [[Exactly What It Says
** Done again with the Trial of the Crusader, when Arthas breaks the ground beneath you and drops you to the last boss. You survive by landing in a conveniently-placed pool of water.
** One of the worst examples is the entrance to the mostly-hidden area "Naz'anak: The Forgotten Depths". It's an insanely long and totally vertical shaft, which takes maybe twenty seconds to fall down and a little more to fly, but as long as you land in the middle of the small pond at the bottom, you will be completely unharmed.
** One optional boss in Zul'Gurub, Gahz'rahka, tosses players into the air, and they must land in the water to avoid taking falling damage.
* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]''
** An interesting bug in ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
** Used and averted in ''[[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
** Also quite glaringly obvious in ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
* ''[[
** Altair has [[Super Drowning Skills]] but fortunately, the holy land is full of soft ''haystacks'' for all your 100-foot-plummeting needs. Which, as anyone who's worked on a farm knows, is ''total bull''
** And in ''[[
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]''
** Taken to extremes in ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
** Also done in ''Ocarina of Time'', requisite-style. Like the Great Deku Tree, or the waterfalls at the Gerudo Valley and Zora's Domain that are even higher.
*** Worth noting that Link takes those dives ''head first''.
** ''Twilight Princess'' does it again with the introduction to Lake Hylia. Wolf Link and Midna cross a bridge over it when some [[Mooks]] light the oil on the bridge on fire. Wolf Link climbs over the guard rail and jumps off the bridge, managing to fall into the remains of the lake, which is very little water.
** ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]]'' and its sequel ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom]]'' take this to an extreme. Link can survive ''any'' fall from ''any'' distance so long as it's over water. In fact, the sequel starts with him making a [[Leap of Faith]] from a temple floating ''miles'' above Hyrule, landing safely in water [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|with a dive worthy of Greg Louganis.]]
* ''[[
* ''[[Uncharted]]''
** Played completely straight twice in ''Uncharted 2''; Drake throws a guard into water a long way below after saying he doesn't want to kill anyone, leading to seeming [[Moral Dissonance]], but if you watch the water it turns out they are completely unharmed. Later, Drake and an ally jump into a river far down a large cliff and end up seemingly unharmed.
** In the first game, Drake and Elena drive a jeep backwards off a cliff to escape the bad guys, and fall over a hundred feet to the water below. They don't even get bruised.
* Oddly enough, ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'' parodies it like no other, as a pool of water that The Kid lands in after jumping from a great height not only cushions his fall, but also keeps him from burning up from the flames caused by his meteoric fall. This pool is one of the only things in ''IWBTG'' that ''doesn't'' [[One
* Water in ''[[Shadow of the Colossus]]'' will break your fall perfectly. There is, however, one particularly tall cliff with water below it that the player may be tempted to jump into, as a Colossus is nearby, but it turns out the water is only a few feet deep, and jumping in it is the same as jumping a thousand feet to solid ground that only LOOKS like a nice, deep lake.
* The classic SNES survival game ''[[SOS]]''. You can fall any distance, and as long as you land in water, you'll survive, even if the screen has already gone black before you cannonball
* In ''[[Alone in
* ''[[Far Cry]]''. The water has to be deep enough to trigger the swimming animation in order not to take any damage. However, if this condition is met, you won't take any damage, whether you've fallen ten feet or a thousand feet.
* The ''[[
** Lampshaded, as with many things, in ''[[The Last Days of Foxhound]]'' when Big Boss' ghost is called on the ridiculous drop, he responds with something like "I'm Big Boss and I'll do what the hell I feel like." Given that this is man who lost his eye by having it shot out one can feel a little sympathy with his not dying ever.
* ''[[
** In ''[[
** Said physics remain in ''[[
** [[Fridge Logic]]: in ''Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga'', Luigi knocks Fawful over the edge of the castle, falling a great distance down. However, ''Partners in Time'' reveals that he survived. The only exlanation is that he fell in water, which is likely given where Bowser's Castle falls once it's blown up.
* Played straight in ''[[
* Partly averted in fellow Build engine game ''[[Blood]]''. Although the water surface won't ever hurt you, if the pool isn't deep enough to slow you down you take damage on hitting the bottom.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[
* A later level in ''[[Jurassic Park]] [[Trespasser]]'' begins with an impressive view at the edge of a fifty metre high cliff, and a fifty metre jump into a small pond to continue. Hope you lined it up right!
* In ''[[Crackdown]]'', falling damage can seriously injure your character ([[Walk It Off|for a while, anyway]]) unless you aim for a river or the ocean. In fact, the fastest way to end the "High Flier" [[Cosmetic Award|achievement]] (climbing to the top of the Agency Tower) is to leap off and splash into the tiny pond explicitly placed there to catch
* In ''[[Mercenaries]]'' a long fall will ''almost'' kill your character (usually dropping you to 2% health) -- unless you fall into water, in which case you take no damage. Very useful to know when your helicopter is about to explode.
* There are several places in ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Tooie]]'' where you can do a high dive into water and suffer no falling damage, the most obvious being the "Dive of Death" in Witchyworld.
* Played straight in ''[[The Saboteur]]''. You can jump from the spire of the Eiffel Tower, fall 300 metres and land in a 2 metre deep pond and survive. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QEj30xfaj0#t=3m49s You even get an achievement for it.] He should've been dead long before that since he {{spoiler|jumped from a burning zeppelin into water and was only knocked out for a short time}}.
* Near the end of ''[[
* One ''[[
* ''[[
* Justified in ''[[
** It's even lampshaded before being played straight. {{spoiler|[[
* In ''[[
* In ''[[Subnautica]]'' you can dive into the water from practically any height with no ill effects. Given the "terrain" of the game, though, you need to build yourself something to leap off of if you want to test this for heights above a few dozen meters.
=== Visual Novels ===▼
* In the fifth case of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
▲== Visual Novels ==
▲* In the fifth case of ''[[Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (Visual Novel)|Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney]]: Trials and Tribulations'', Phoenix falls dozens of feet into a powerful river {{spoiler|after trying to run across a burning bridge to rescue Maya. Again.}} He's not completely unharmed though -- he gets a cold. It's also mentioned that his back was badly bruised.
** {{spoiler|Dahlia Hawthorne}} ''intentionally'' jumped into that same river in the fourth case's backstory and came out alive, though we don't know whether or not {{spoiler|Dahlia}} got injured at all.
* In ''[[
=== Web Comics ===
* An escape in ''[[The Dreamland Chronicles]]'' hinges on this. The fact that it's a three-hundred foot drop is briefly brought up, but ultimately, the impact is ignored, leaving drowning as the only apparent danger.
* ''[[
=== Web Original ===
* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] points out how [[Pocahontas]] diving off an epic cliff and jumping into the water ''really'' isn't possible.
=== Western Animation ===
* ''[[Batman:
** On one occasion, a character fell out of a ''moving aircraft'' to what should have been certain death. He instead landed unharmed in a rooftop penthouse's swimming pool. If the soft water didn't kill him, the speed he would have hit the water at should have ensured that upon hitting the bottom of the pool, he'd have broken both his legs.
** Also averted in one episode. The DCAU version of Count Vertigo dies by falling out of a castle window and into the moat.
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** Another scene involves a character being tossed off ''the Statue of Liberty'' and landing unharmed in the water below. However the original writer probably wanted the drop to be fatal, but was required to show the victim survive as censorship. Only a few seconds later a similar event occurs when the assassins responsible, as opposed to committing suicide, spray themselves with a mindwiping gas. Instead of dying from the drop, said character was in a coma and never appeared for the rest of the series.
** Averted when Clayface fell about 30 feet off a cliff and promptly disintegrated when he landed in Gotham River. This is a special case, though, because of his condition.
* ''[[
** Interestingly, they avert it in the series finale where after falling from a great height, Aang specifically bends water upwards to catch him and it flows downwards as it returns to sea level meaning he deliberately softened the water to make the landing safe.
* In the first episode of the second season of ''[[
* In the ''[[Static Shock]]'' episode "The New Kid", Static is being pursued by Specs and Trapper's kill-bot, and uses Edwin Alva, who has been funding the pair's research, to get them to stop shooting at him. When Daisy causes a power outage that disables the robot, Static drops Alva into his penthouse swimming pool below. Not only does Alva land headfirst into the water from very high up ''and'' emerge unharmed, the kill-bot had landed in the pool before him, and was visibly sparking before Static dropped him. And still, he's perfectly fine when he surfaces.
* In ''[[
=== Real Life ===
* It's rather difficult to determine the exact diving height from which lethality is guaranteed, but surviving from around 200 feet (60 metres) isn't unheard of. The current world record is 177 feet (without injury) by Oliver Favre, and suicide attempts from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge (220 feet) have been survived (over 90% aren't, however).
** 220 feet is only the ''average'' clearance above the water; this can vary with heavy rains etc. Likewise, a strong wind can slow a person's descent considerably by creating a "gliding" effect.
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=== Anime & Manga ===▼
* Subverted (sorta) in ''[[
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* Averted in ''[[
▲* Subverted (sorta) in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia (Manga)|Axis Powers Hetalia]]'', when Russia tries to pull this with snow, jumping off an airplane without a parachute. It... doesn't work.
* Miss Yukari from ''[[
▲* Averted in ''[[Code Geass (Anime)|Code Geass]]'': Kallen is in free fall in her Knightmare over the Pacific ocean and cannot eject, thus she expects death as the logical outcome. A [[Midair Repair]] saves her. Of course, later on Gino has a similar problem over solid ground, and not only does he not eject, he isn't even injured despite having no means of deceleration.
* While played straight most of the time in ''[[Excel Saga (
▲* Miss Yukari from ''[[Azumanga Daioh (Manga)|Azumanga Daioh]]'' proves that even a belly-flop at the pool can have dire consequences. In the anime, she challenges Nyamo to a swimming contest. While the Phys. Ed. teacher dives in expertly, Yukari SMACKS into the water hard enough to mark her entire front a pinkish-red hue (and with a slap loud enough to make everyone nearby wince). Then she does it ''[[Too Dumb to Live|again]]'', and she knocks herself out.
* Averted in ''[[
▲* While played straight most of the time in ''[[Excel Saga (Manga)|Excel Saga]]'', in the manga Iwata, who at this point is a cyborg, once again proves to be [[Too Dumb to Live]] while working on a skyscraper and falls with his safety line off. Although he lands in the ocean, he still breaks into many pieces, having Shiouji remark on why water doesn't work on a 50-story drop.
▲* Averted in ''[[Welcome to The NHK (Anime)|Welcome to The NHK]]'', in that the characters at {{spoiler|the offline party}} seriously expect to die.
* In ''[[Denpa Onna to Seishun Otoko]]'' this trope seems to be played straight When both Makoto and Erio appear unhurt after Makoto loses control of his bike going down a very steep hill that ends with a guardrail and a cliff, sending both him and Erio high into the sky before plummeting down into the ocean. This is subverted in the next episode when it's revealed that his arm broke when he hit the water and he had to spend two weeks in the hospital as a result. Erio did virtually the same thing by herself except off a bridge before the start of the series and it ended with a broken leg.
* A few ''[[Gundam]]'' characters have actually been killed this way, most notably Miharu, Kai's (very) short-lived love interest, of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', who's blown off the Gunperry when attempting to launch a missile in defense of the White Base and ends up hitting the water. Kai already knows she's dead and it ends up changing him.
=== Comic Books ===
* Averted with Gwen Stacy's death in ''[[Spider-Man]]''; when she's thrown off a bridge, Spider-Man knows he has to catch her, otherwise she will die when she hits the water. He manages to catch her with his webbing, but the sudden stop breaks her neck.
* Interestingly, an issue of the ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' comic had Lara dropping off a cliff, observing calmly that she will probably break every bone in her body if she hits the water, but that it was "better than kissing the rocks below". She falls into the water with such impact that her glasses shatter, bones are snapped and she falls instantly unconscious, possibly
* Averted in ''Justice Society of America'' #38, in which a device created by the Fourth Reich that nullifies superpowers turned off Green Lantern's ring while he was flying over water, killing him.
* Averted in the final chapter of the ''[[Batman]]'' storyline ''[[Knightfall]]'', Bane is driven off by the Jean-Paul Valley Batman (still wearing the classic Batsuit) and JP attempts to save his own life after the rope snagged on his foot breaks and his grappling hook doesn't catch right. He kicks the wall and attempts to somersault into a mall fountain, but the cape causes too much drag and he barely makes it. Though he's alive, he's injured his arm and he ends up limping out of the mall, his leg ended up smacking into the edge of the fountain in the end.
=== Comic Strips ===
* Subverted in one ''[[FoxTrot]]'' strip. Peter dives off a diving board, falls for [[Overly Long Gag|almost the entire strip]], turns so that his belly is facing the ground, violently collides with the pool, and comments "Forget chlorine- pools with high dives need to put
=== Films -- Animation ===
* Averted in ''[[The Incredibles]]''. While over the ocean, Elastigirl evacuates herself and her kids from an airplane and then flattens and spreads her torso to form a parachute. As they get near the ocean, she warns them, "Brace yourselves!"
* Subverted in ''[[Megamind]]''. Megamind realizes he's going to land in a fountain, but knows that it won't break his fall. {{spoiler|Double subverted when he uses his [[Chekhov's Gun|dehydrator gun]] to dehydrate himself, which ''does'' break his fall. He is rehydrated once he reaches the water.}}
=== Films -- Live-Action ===
* Averted in ''[[The
* Subverted in the first ''[[Rush Hour]]'' movie: the [[Big Bad]] falls from the roof of a convention center into a water fountain making an enormous splash, and the first thing said by Detective Carter is: "Ooh, you ''know'' he dead!" Carter's right: he's definitely dead.
* Played with in ''[[Butch Cassidy and
* Averted (horribly) in the (realistic) ''[[The Perfect Storm]]'' film, where one of the rescuers mistimes his jump and falls 80 feet onto hard water.
* Averted in ''[[
* Averted quite a few times in the ''[[James Bond (
** Halle Berry still manages to play this trope straight in ''[[
** Particularly notable in ''[[
** Another memorable instance is villain Max Zorin falling off the Golden Gate Bridge in ''[[A View to
* Averted in ''[[The Boat That Rocked]]''. The Count and Gavin play a game of Chicken that involves climbing the mast of the ship, and then jumping in the water. In the following scene, The Count is seen with a bruised and bandaged face, while Gavin appears relatively unscathed {{spoiler|until he stands up, and limps around on a cane}}.
* Averted in ''[[Terminator Salvation]]'', when Marcus Wright falls from a moving aircraft into a river, and goes skipping across the surface like a stone. {{spoiler|His not being killed is sort of justified because he's a cyborg.}}
* Averted in ''[[The Three Musketeers (1993
* Averted in ''[[Van Helsing]]'', where Prince Velkan gets tackled off of a cliff by a dying Werewolf and everyone immediately declares him to be dead. {{spoiler|His later survival is justified as he was bitten by the Werewolf beforehand, so falls that could kill a regular ''human'' no longer apply}}.
* In ''[[Alien Resurrection]]'' the guy from ''[[CSI]]'' apparently dies from a 20
=== Literature ===
* Averted in ''[[Rendezvous With Rama]]''; a character is stranded atop a 500 meter-high cliff over the mid-station toroidal lake. Much is made about the problem (no climbing gear, the one and only flier that got him there is now destroyed), and the sheer height of the fall. {{spoiler|Then a scientist back on Earth remembers that reduced gravity (okay inertia/centrifugal force) means reduced terminal velocity. Rescue then becomes a matter of him jumping off and staying vertical (they don't tell him this plan/theory until the rescue boat arrives at the bottom of the cliff, so he won't have time to worry). He also uses his shirt as an impromptu parachute}}.
* Averted in the [[Tom Swift]] book ''Monster Machine'', in which Tom and his friends are in a transformable vehicle (now a spacecraft) that is plummeting toward the Pacific Ocean from space. Of course, they survive, but during the descent, Tom muses that, even though it's "only" water they are falling toward, from this height, hitting it would be like hitting concrete.
* Subverted in [[Christopher Pike]]'s ''[[The Last Vampire]]'' series. When someone gets thrown off a 10-story(ish) building into a deep swimming pool, they die. Effectively being pulpified in fact. The thrower, apparently finding this amusing, proceeds to get rid of ''all'' her opposition in the same way. The main character only survives because she's a vampire, though she's still very badly injured.
* Subverted in Scott Westerfeld's ''[[The Risen Empire]]'' (or ''Killing of Worlds'', depending if you bought the book as a whole or in halves). While in free fall H_rd brakes her nose on a ridge of ice; the ice then breaks and she continues falling.
* One of the rare examples of Hard Water stopping bullets like it does in real life occurs in ''[[
* The bullet penetration error was also averted in ''[[Cryptonomicon]]'', where Goto Dengo (whose ship was just sunk) escapes machine-gun fire by diving. The bullets are stopped within "a meter or two" and then just sink.
* Averted in the ''[[Maximum Ride]]'' book "Saving The World And Other Extreme Sports", where Fang jets into the ocean at high speed and equates the impact of him hitting the water as slamming face-first into concrete. He does live, though.
=== Live-Action TV ===
* ''[[
* Averted in ''[[Dead Like Me]]'', when showing the death of one of the Reapers. Betty jumped off the side of a cliff assuming she'd be alright, only to die when she hit the water. She actually died from hitting the bottom (shallow enough), not the water, but close enough.
* In ''[[Burn Notice]]'', Michael breaks a fall into a swimming pool by throwing down a mattress first, but another person who is with him misses the mattress and breaks a leg instead. Averted in a previous episode, when he jumps from a helicopter at around
=== Mythology ===
* The tale of Icarus averts this and gets it right: he lands in the sea and dies.
=== Tabletop Games ===
* ''[[Dungeons
** Averted in 3.5 rules: for the first 20 feet you take no damage and for the next 20 you take reduced non-lethal damage, but beyond that you take falling damage as normal. Somewhat straight if you dive into the water, as if the water is deep enough you can make a Swim check and negate the damage no matter how high up you are. However, the DCs to make this dive grow pretty fast.
** 1st Edition rules (from the ''Dungeonneer's Survival Guide'') also took a water landing into account. On a successful Dexterity check, a character can dive and divide the damage by 10 as a result. On a failed check, though, the fall is just as damaging as against hard stone.
=== Video Games ===
* ''[[Call of Juarez]]'' is a rare exception to this rule, where falling into water exerts the same damage as falling onto solid ground.
* Notably averted in the ''[[Syphon Filter]]'' series starting with ''[[Dark Mirror]]'', where falling into the water from a sufficient height is ''definitely'' harmful. Judging the fatal height (for both water and solid landings) is also quite difficult thanks to ''[[Syphon Filter]]'''s health system, where characters are given a (literal) [[Bulletproof Vest]], but very little health. The earlier installments also sort of averted the trope, by virtue of ''not having any real bodies of water to speak of''. In ''[[Syphon Filter]] 2'', for example, a fatal fall from a bridge or a sheer cliff in an environment where a river at the bottom may be assumed to be present, are actually just well-disguised [[Bottomless Pits]]. If you fall in, the water is not
** In ''Omega Strain'', falling a height that would be fatal on land (only a few meters) also kills you if you land in water.
* ''[[Blue Dragon]]'' features a subversion by way of unexpectedly avoiding the issue entirely. Early on, the main characters are dropped out of a flying fortress over a large body of water,
* Averted at one point in ''[[Uncharted]]: Drake's Fortune''. Early in the game, you need to raise the water level in a pit to make it down safely, because it's still too far to fall without dying. It's played straight at other points and in the sequel though.
* Averted in ''[[
* For a game that uses so many of the idioms you'd see in a typical action movie, ''[[Just Cause (
* The game ''[[Crysis (
* Averted with the Windham Classics text adventure of ''[[Treasure Island]]''. Fall overboard during the storm or from any great height and instant death.
=== Web Animation ===
* ''[[The Lebrons (
=== Web Comics ===
* Subverted in [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2007/05/31/episode-852-its-just-basic-physics/ this strip] from ''[[
* In ''[[Fite!]]'' Lucco survives a long fall into a lake with no apparent injuries, but the landing causes him to hallucinate briefly (it takes him a moment to even realize he's in water).
* In ''[[Sinfest]]'', [
=== Western Animation ===
* One episode of ''[[
* Averted/Justified in one instance in ''[[
* Averted in ''[[
* Averted in the ''[[
* Averted in an episode of ''[[X-Men: Evolution
** It can be a case of [[Not the Fall That Kills You]]. Since he meant that they were travelling at supersonic speed. Teleporting out would mean that they would be out of the Jet... but still at supersonic speed!
* Averted on ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]''. In an [[Embarrassing Old Photo|embarrassing old movie]], Lucius falls from a high dive and hits the water like concrete before sinking. Luckily for him, he's on a show where [[Amusing Injuries]] is in effect.
* In an old Disney short featuring [[Donald Duck]], Donald was dragged through the air on the end of a rope. Eventually, he is swung with whip-like force downwards into a lake. But instead of splashing in softly as expected, he hits the water with a loud "WHACK", not even making a splash before he sinks. Of course, he survives, being a toon and all.
* One ''[[
* ''[[T Western Animation/The Amazing World Of Gumball|T Western Animation]]'': Gumball jumps from the high dive and lands flat on the surface of the water, leaving a huge red imprint on his face and stomach.
* Played with in ''[[Flushed Away]]'':
{{quote|
'''Spike:''' Keep your legs straight when you hit the water!\\''(Whitey lands safely in the water, while Spike hits a cement stone) }}
=== Real Life ===
* There was a woman skydiver whose parachute failed to deploy, and she fell into water, and survived. There was a catch, though; it wasn't exactly clean water. She fell into an [[Squick|open sewage receptacle]]. One guess what was keeping surface tension from forming.
** Non-aqueous fluids can also be considerably lighter than water, with oil being a prime example.
* Cliff divers, whose dives are usually about twice as high as platform divers, usually enter the water feet first: better to have a broken leg than a broken neck.
* ''[[
** "Bullet Proof Water" is confirmed, with the observation that high-caliber rifle rounds are easily stopped ([[Bigger Stick|more so for the .50 BMG]]), but smaller projectiles such as pistol rounds and 12-gauge shot can cut through to at least eight feet (ignoring problems of deflection). They also observe that the relative angle between shooter and target suggests that [[Everybody Hates Mathematics|a mere foot or two of depth]] can provide the needed protection.
** At least part of this is due to a bullet's center of gravity (especially long skinny pointy rifle bullets with a copper jacket and dense core) being located towards the rear. They exit the barrel flying in a tight spiral but tend to yaw or tumble when entering a denser medium (such as water, ballistic gel, or organic tissue). The increased surface area effectively turns an aerodynamic "dive" into a "belly flop"; the added resistance can cause the bullet to break apart given enough velocity. The same rifle bullets at a longer range (''[[
** In "Dive to Survive", they confirm the myth that you can [[Outrun the Fireball|survive an explosion]] by diving into shallow water. Although, they point out that water can only protect you from an explosion if the conditions are just right. You can be protected from say, gasoline, but water will not save you from more powerful high explosives. You would at the very least have to be submerged at least 50 feet away, and that's for the relatively weak dynamite.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fpl_hg9wDo 10 tonnes of water dumped on a car.]
* As noted, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge is the site of frequent suicide attempts, a few of which each year are invariably unsuccessful. In 2011, a teenage boy leaped from the bridge during a field trip (apparently convinced by this trope that he was in no real danger) and not only lived but sustained no injury more serious than bruising. There are a lot of variables that come into account in these falls, but it's usually the wind that saves you.
* It wasn't the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger's fuel tank that killed the
* While 30 feet is hardly significant in fiction, [http://www.history.com/shows/stan-lees-superhumans/videos/super-high-diver#super-high-diver free falling 30 feet into 12 inches of water and walking away with out any note worthy injuries] does deserve mention
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Instant Index, Just Add Water]]
[[Category:Television Is Trying to Kill Us]]
[[Category:Artistic License Physics]]
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[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]
[[Category:Rule of Perception]]
[[Category:Soft Water]]
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[[Category:Falling, Dropping, and Plummeting]]
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