Soft Water: Difference between revisions

[['''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 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  mph (55  m/s) wind, just imagine if the air was 800 times as thick to get an idea of hitting water at that speed. To make matters worse, entering a diving posture in preparation for entering the water will increase a person's terminal velocity, meaning they will be going even ''faster'' when they enter the water.

There's also the issue of one's [[Super Drowning Skills|swimming ability]] -- many—many people who ''are'' fortunate enough to survive the fall itself will often drown because of poor swimming ability or injuries will make them unable to keep their head above the water (particularly if knocked unconscious). Then there's the issue of exhaustion, as even the fittest and most skilled swimmers simply cannot tread water forever. Or, if the water is sufficiently cold, often they will just succumb to hypothermia and drown before help can reach them. Not to mention the possibility of being knocked out by the impact...

In short, a fall into the drink from 200 feet or more will pretty much ''always'' be fatal -- whereasfatal—whereas a fall even onto "solid" ground may not!

Note: "Soft water" also won't stop bullets, which visibly penetrate water quite deep with prominent "bullet-streaks" and fatal strikes. However, ''[[Myth Busters]]'' demonstrated that no supersonic bullet can penetrate more than ''14 inches'' (35  cm) of water. Subsonic pistol rounds do better, penetrating a few feet. And any other bullet's trajectory will be thrown off in a large body of water. A target is unlikely to be hit anyway, since light-diffraction from the water makes their location appear slightly off, disrupting a gunner's aim and the impact of the bullet at the water's surface will likely change the bullet's trajectory to some degree.

''[[Myth Busters]]'' also demonstrated that even at very high velocities, water is significantly softer than concrete -- fallsconcrete—falls that would be fatal on land become survivable in water. (Assuming the impact doesn't make you breathe in water, that you can swim to the surface, or pass out as your brain whiplashes in your skull from the sudden change in velocity, etc.)

No relation to the stuff that comes out of a household water softener -- whichsoftener—which isn't any gentler to land on from a great height than hard water.

* Used in ''[[Sonic X]]'', where Sonic makes an incredibly large leap... only to start falling -- andfalling—and then ''land in a pool''! Subverted in the next moment though, because [[Super Drowning Skills|this being Sonic]], he sinks to the bottom and has to be fished out.

** Near the beginning, Ranma takes his fight with Kunô outdoors -- byoutdoors—by jumping out the third floor window. Even though there's a pool below, Kunô is horrified; Ranma panics only because the water will [[Gender Bender|trigger his change]] and possibly reveal it to the school at large. True enough: when they hit, [[Made of Iron|Ranma]] is perfectly fine and tries to swim away. Kunô, however, is knocked out, and only wakes up while she is dragging him to safety.

** 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 justified -- hejustified—he's virtually immune to blunt impact -- andimpact—and a few of the other characters have similar excuses, but at least half of them should have died. On the other hand, most of them are still [[Made of Iron]] when not directly [[Made of Diamond]]. {{spoiler|We're still talking about former Impel Down prisoners, who endured ghastly tortures for a long period of time}}.

** 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 understandable -- butunderstandable—but not if it's coins, obviously.

** Aragorn also survived a fall off a cliff with a Warg into the river. Aragorn fell only a relatively short distance -- butdistance—but was still knocked unconscious, and was severely weakened afterward; he was only rescued by a super-intelligent horse of Rohan.

* 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 heights -- andheights—and likewise knowing that Jedi carry compact SCUBA equipment (both of which Obi-wan in fact uses to escape).

* The ultimate example is shown in ''[[Commando (film)|Commando]],'' where Matrix jumps from the landing-gear of an airliner just after take-off-- onlyoff—only to be saved by landing in about 18 inches of water (it even has ''reeds and cat-tails'' in it!). Even if the falling-distance itself wasn't far enough to be harmful, the velocity of the plane at take-off (175 knots plus) would cause him to be moving faster than terminal velocity, being certainly fatal. Likewise, the lateral motion from the plane would cause him to skip like a stone across the surface of the water, causing a certain fatality. But in the movie, he just falls in as if he had stepped off of a 5-foot platform.

* Used at the climax of ''[[Death Becomes Her]]'' -- Ernest—Ernest Menville falls off an enormous mansion, smashes through a ''stained-glass skylight'', and lands in an indoor pool, with only a nasty-looking (but utterly unthreatening) cut on his arm and a wet tuxedo for it. Cheap but forgivable on its own, until one considers the ''entire movie'' has been focusing on ways in which a body can be horribly mangled and [[Dead Baby Comedy|playing them for laughs]]. Unless the mansion was over 100 feet high, then this is easily do-able; and the skylight would actually ''slow'' his fall; glass can't cut you if you hit it sideways. Finally, the water could ''protect'' him from the falling glass, as long as he was under it when it hit.

** Elizabeth Swann faints from her corset being too tight, and falls off a cliff into some [[Soft Water]]. She ''is'' in danger of dying, but it's from drowning; the impact seems to have not hurt her at all.

* Unlike the movie version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', it's uncertain in the book whether Gandalf and the Balrog fell into Soft Water, or the fall was simply a shorter distance than it looked. While Gandalf and the Balrog aren't ordinary humans, the story elsewhere made clear that both Gandalf and Balrogs could be killed by falling -- earlierfalling—earlier, for example Gandalf had been imprisoned on top of Orthanc solely by the 500' drop, while in ''The Hobbit'' Gandalf almost jumped from the top of a fir-tree, and Tolkien said "that would have been the end of him." Likewise, in ''The Silmarillion'' a Balrog fell to its death. In ''crafting the Lord of the Rings,'' Tolkien wrote in his notes that since Gandalf had to survive the fall, then "The gulf was not deep (only a kind of moat and was full of silent water)"; however this may or may not have been used, since in the story Gandalf later says "little had I guessed the abyss that was spanned by Durin's bridge." Gimli said that no plummet had ever found the bottom; however stone plummets sink into water, and so the water could have been miles deep, but only 100 feet below the surface. While Gandalf said "long time I fell," seven seconds can seem a long time while falling. Likewise, Gandalf also said "his (the balrog's) fire was all about me, I was burned;" however again, Gandalf wasn't burned too badly to fight (and kill) the balrog after chasing it for days through tunnels and up miles of stairs, so its fire couldn't have been "all about him" for more than a few seconds.

** 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 jump -- butjump—but he knows the demigod with him died, because not being Poseidon's children, he was not immune to the reality.

** {{spoiler|Beckendorf}}'s death in ''The Last Olympian'' has less to do with [[Soft Water]] not applying and more to do with the fact that he was still on the ship when it exploded. {{spoiler|Luke/Kronos}} did survive both the explosion and the fall, but only because he was invulnerable. The book was very unclear on how exactly {{spoiler|Ethan}} survived, but it's indicated that the other demigods onboard were killed.

** Percy warns Ethan and the other demigods to get off the ship. Percy is immune to any harm from water -- hewater—he can breathe it, see through it, not be crushed by the pressure of it, not be injured falling into it... hell, he doesn't even get wet unless he wants to.

* In [[Michael Flynn]]'s ''[[Spiral Arm|The January Dancer]]'', even gas is not soft -- asoft—a man observes that at the rate a ship is going, hitting a star would be like hitting a brick wall, even though it's all gas.

* In ''[[Minecraft]]'' even if you build a tower to the top of the world, and have a hole at the bottom of the world, if there is water that is at least two blocks high -- youhigh—you'll survive.

** 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 ''[[Counter-Strike]]'' map Aztec has a ''slightly'' flooded canal flowing below a bridge -- playersbridge—players can jump off the bridge and aim for the ''ankle-deep'' water to make a strategic shortcut if necessary. Most levels in ''HL2'' with significantly high falls into water avoid this trope by placing an instant-death trigger at the water level (most notably in the bridge level).

** In one of the games, Lara is dropped down a shaft into the longest drop in the game -- hergame—her death-scream, an indicator she will die if she hits the bottom, loops several times -- andtimes—and she is saved by a pool of water, just like in every other jump into water in the games.

** An interesting bug in ''[[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind|Morrowind]]'': you can fall into water from any height and survive -- untilsurvive—until the instant you touch land, at which point you go splat. If you have a spell granting water-walking active, water behaves ''exactly'' like land.

** 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'' -- hay—hay is ''hard''. A pile of it would soften the fall, but would quite possibly stab the faller to death. (There's a ''reason'' it's supposed to be difficult to find a needle in a haystack.) [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in Lucy Stillman's notes where she states that she programmed the haystacks into the animus to make navigation easier. [[Lampshade Hanging|Also lampshaded]] at the start of the first game, when you and two other assassins do [[Leap of Faith|Leaps Of Faith]] into hay bales. Two of you do it fine, but the third does it wrong and breaks his leg.

* In ''[[Alone in The Dark]]'', shortly before the dark maze and final boss room, there is a large room with a maze of catwalks over a pool of water. Although it's only about a 10-2010–20 foot drop, falling in the water causes instant death, no matter what your health. At least until you destroy Pregzt, after which it strangely becomes Soft Water. Definitely not toxic water, either, since going in the water in other parts of the caverns (which connect to this room) doesn't kill you.

* ''[[Metroid]]'' deserves a special mention here due to the ''[[Myth Busters]]'' subversion -- despitesubversion—despite Samus not taking damage from any fall, water or otherwise, short of a [[Bottomless Pit]]. Samus can only shoot out of water in the Prime games, not into it. If you need to bag an underwater enemy, you better hop in first.

* 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 you -- thereyou—there's even a second achievement ("Base Jumper") for doing exactly that.

* Near the end of ''[[Kingdom Hearts II]]'', after leaving {{spoiler|that mysterious island encountered after defeating Xemnas}}, Sora and Riku are shot headfirst into a body of water from pretty high up in the sky. Not even their hair is damaged. This specific method of travel is common for those traversing the worlds without a ship -- inship—in fact, {{spoiler|Kairi}} first arrived on the world you find her on in this exact fashion.

* In the fifth case of ''[[Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney|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 -- hethough—he gets a cold. It's also mentioned that his back was badly bruised.

* 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 dead -- butdead—but since the drop was to get into the valley of Shangri-La, a legendary city of eternal health, she wakes up in a king-size bed fully healed.

* 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 30-5030–50 feet up, and visibly only assumes a "diving" position about halfway down. It's implied the subsequent five mile swim to shore was more life-threatening, as he did it fully clothed.

* 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 shown -- theshown—the screen just [[Fade to Black|fades to black]], the "Mission Failed" message is shown, and you're brought back to your last [[Check Point]].

* ''[[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, and -- asand—as we know they're not going to die yet -- ityet—it seems like there'll be a Soft Water save. Instead, they're sucked back up into a different part of the fortress, and we never find out if they'd have survived the fall; although, if their reactions to the situation are any indication, they wouldn't have.

* Averted in the ''[[Code Lyoko]]'' episode "Marabounta". Ulrich tries to show off at the pool by diving from the highest platform -- whichplatform—which is a very bad idea since he's suffering from vertigo. He panics and ends up belly-flopping and knocking himself out, having to be rescued by William and [[Kiss of Life|given CPR]] by Jim.

* It wasn't the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger's fuel tank that killed the crew -- thatcrew—that only threw the shuttle off-kilter, and the resulting supersonic aerodynamic stresses tore the orbiter apart. It was't the disintegration of the orbiter that killed the crew, either -- theeither—the crew module survived the midair breakup intact. What ''did'' kill them was falling a hundred thousand feet and landing in the ocean at 200 miles per hour.