Accidental Aiming Skills: Difference between revisions

Common when something needs to be hit by a character with legendarily lousy aim.

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

*** Vimes and others within the series also have a tendency to make cracks about this trope, often warning the current antagonist about rookies; "You never know where it might hit..."

* The main character of ''[[Far Fetched Fiction|Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse]]'' threatens a cannibalistic farmer by shooting his ear off. He aimed for the man's knee, but the ear's better motivation.

* Kip in ''[[The Lightbringer Trilogy|The Black Prism]]'' fires a flintlock at a musketeer at the bow of a ship, only to snipe ''the captain'' off the wheel at the ''stern''. Bonus points as his reply when asked is "Aiming?"

* In the ''[[Harry Potter (Literature)|Harry Potter]]'' series, Ron is praised for beautifully stopping a Quaffle from hitting a Quidditch goal with some kind of airborn barrel roll... except he later reveals that was a complete accident, and Ron himself believes that he's a horrible Keeper. He kicks the Quaffle [[Golden Snitch|(not that Quaffles really matter, but whatever)]] while dangling from his broom. In truth, he'd fallen off and was climbing back onto his broom - the ball happened to fly into his foot.

* In a Season 2 episode of ''[[Sledge Hammer]]'' a drugged-up Sledge is complimented by his captain for disabling the criminal, and says "I was aiming for his head."

* On one episode of ''[[Criminal Minds (TV)|Criminal Minds]]'', while in a hostage crisis, Spencer Reid shoots the crook and mass murderer dead center of the forehead. Not only was he said to have failed his firearms qualification at the start of the episode, he claimed he'd been aiming for the guy's knee. At a distance of about six feet, that's a spectacularly bad shot. Given that it was established in the same scene that if Reid didn't kill him in one shot, they were probably all going to die (the words "Better be a head shot" were uttered) this was probably a joke on the character's part. It still, however, fulfills the trope.

* In ''[[F Troop]]'', Captain Wilton Parmenter is notorious for his inability to hit a target. Instead, he wins gunfights by accidentally making ludicrously complicated trick shots, followed by his men pretending they were deliberate. [[Accidental Hero|"Scourge of the West"]] Parmenter's gained quite the reputation as a sharpshooter.

* In an episode of ''[[Castle (TV)|Castle]]'', Rick Castle shoots a gun out of a serial killer's hand. When Beckett says that it was a "hell of a shot" Castle replies that he was aiming for his head (a reference to ''[[Firefly (TV)|Firefly]]'', above).

* In the old [[Text Parser]] [[Adventure Game]] ''Hugo 2: Whuddonit'', one of the items you [[Kleptomaniac Hero|collect]] is a handgun. Whatever you try to use it on, you get the message "Sheesh, you missed." However, during a sequence when you mysteriously teleport into an episode of ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'', you're supposed to use it on a Dalek (who are [[Immune to Bullets]]). Doing so results in the message "Sheesh, you missed... no wait, the bullet rebounded off a rock and hit the only vulnerable spot on the robot! It explodes!"

* Gameplay example only. In ''[[Halo Reach]]'', the sniper rifle rounds will deflect off surfaces, even multiple times, if the angle of incidence is large enough. Some videos show that that the angle can even be around 35 degrees and still work.

* On the higher difficulties on ''[[Sniper Elite]]'', when you don't take the wind into account, it's perfectly possible to aim for the man on the right and shoot the man on the left instead.

 

[[Category:Older Than Television]]

[[Category:Accidental Aiming Skills]]