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{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Buttercup:''' And to think...all this time [[Poisoned Chalice Switcheroo|it was your cup that was poisoned]].<br />
'''The Man in Black:''' [[Take a Third Option|They were both poisoned.]] [[Crazy Prepared|I spent the last few years]] building up an immunity to iocane powder. |''[[The Princess Bride (
{{quote|He gathered all the springs to birth<br />
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This can be [[Truth in Television]], or not, depending on the poison in question. For some poisons, the body produces antibodies to clear them from the system; so, with repeated exposure to small amounts, you can build up a level of circulating antibody that grants immunity to a typical dose. However, there are plenty of other poisons that ''don't'' get cleared from the system and simply build up in your tissues until you reach a lethal dose.
This trope is officially named Mithridatism, after a king who made use of the effect. It backfired when he was defeated and [[Driven to Suicide|tried to commit suicide]]; his immunity to poison [[Gone Horribly Right|worked so well]] that he ended up needing to [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|hire a mercenary]] to [[Impaled
{{examples}}
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* Killua from ''[[Hunter X Hunter]]'' is immune to virtually all forms of poison due to his family's [[Training From Hell]], and is seen happily downing five cans of laxative-laced juice before the Hunter Exam starts.
** He's also "immune" to electricity, eventually making various forms of lightning punches, lightning bolts, and literal lightning reflexes part of his powers.
* In ''[[Ninja Scroll]]'', the character Kagero is a poison taster for her master and has become totally immune to poison. It also means that her bodily fluids are highly toxic, which is good for assassination - [[Blessed
* In ''[[Apothecarius Argentum]]'', Argent was fed a number of poisons at a young age so he could be sold as a food taster/assassin. As a side effect, they also turned his blood into some kind of killer acid, and just touching him is enough to make his love interest, the princess faint.
* Assassin Shao Li from ''[[Noir (
* Shi Ryuuki in ''[[Saiunkoku Monogatari]]'' built up a resistance to various poisons mostly thanks to growing up as [[The Unfavorite]] at the bottom of a pecking order of six princes and their mothers. Sa Sakujun in the same series built up a similar resistance through bored experimentation, not that it does him a lot of good in the end.
* Most of the Gourmet Hunters in ''[[Toriko]]'' have resistance to various poisons due to incidental or deliberate exposure. Coco is an extreme example, having been exposed to so many toxins that he's able to synthesize them within his body, and on the rare occasion that he's hit with a poison that he ISN'T immune to, he can adjust his immune system within seconds.
* Played for laughs in ''[[
** Speaking of Magellan, after he nearly kills Luffy with a cocktail of extremely deadly poisons, Luffy proves resistant to one of those poisons when it's used on him again in a different story arc.
* In ''[[Pokémon (
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* Spoofed in ''[[The Tick]]'', with a minor character [[It Runs On Nonsenseoleum|who claims to have been building up an immunity to bullets this way.]]
* Also spoofed in the [[Newspaper Comic]] ''[[Close to Home]]'', where a golfer subjects himself to gradually stronger shocks of electricity to build immunity to lightning strikes.
* An issue of [[
** On the topic of Dr Crane, [[Blackest Night|apparently]] he's gassed himself so often he's developed an acquired immunity to ''fear itself''.
** The Joker has built up immunity to his trademark poison to the point that mosquitoes ''writhe in pain'' after sucking his tainted blood.
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== Fanfiction ==
* ''[[
* The titular badger in ''[[The Urthblood Saga]]'', [[Badass Abnormal|among his other powers]], has built up an immunity to all but the strongest poisons from this method. One poor ferret who tried to poison him and take over his army learned this the [[Cruel and Unusual Death|hard way...]]
== Film ==
* ''[[The Princess Bride (
* ''[[Under Siege|Under Siege 2: Dark Territory]]'' has a thug who has been pepper-sprayed so many times, all it does is clear out his sinuses.
** And then he proves it by [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|using it as a breath freshener]].
* In [[Woody Allen]]'s ''[[Bananas]]'', Gen. Vargas has a servant on hand to taste his meals in case they are poisoned. One meal does turn out to be poisoned, but the General eats it, anyway, claiming that he's been poisoned so many times to have developed immunity.
* In ''[[Thank You for Smoking]]'', terrorists {{spoiler|try to kill the main character by covering him in nicotine patches, which would overwhelm any normal person, and leaving him naked on the lap of the Lincoln Memorial}}. He survives, and recovers fairly quickly, because he'd been chain smoking for years and had built up a [[Blessed
* In the 2008 movie ''[[Get Smart (
* Pat Morita's character in ''King Cobra'' is a snake handler who regularly injects himself with doses of snake venom to develop immunity. He's able to shrug off getting bitten by the giant snake once, but after getting bitten a few more times, he weakens and dies.
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* The Battle of Wits scene in William Goldman's ''[[The Princess Bride]]''. The Man In Black has just tricked Vizzini into consuming poisoned wine, and reveals to Buttercup that the wine he'd consumed was also poisoned; [[Out-Gambitted|he had developed immunity to the poison via this method]].
* The murderer in the [[Lord Peter Wimsey]] novel ''Strong Poison'' builds up an immunity to arsenic in this way. This does ''not'' work in [[Real Life]]...though the reference books Lord Peter reads really do exist, and they really do [[Blatant Lies|claim it could work]].
* A [[
** The [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampires]] in ''[[Discworld
* In ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (
* Poisoning is the de facto assassination method of the Nyissans in the ''[[Belgariad]]''. So much so that any government official who lives for very long (case in point: Sadi) has not only long since acquired immunity to some poisons, but is trained to recognize many more, and doses himself with antidotes frequently, just in case.
* In the [[Dashiell Hammett]] short story "Fly Paper" (1929) a woman wants to poison her abusive boyfriend, but is afraid he'll be suspicious if she gives him something without drinking it herself. After reading ''[[The Count of Monte Cristo (
* The A. E. Housman poem ''[http://www.bartleby.com/123/62.html Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff"]'' tells about a king who over the course of his life ate small doses of poison in his food to slowly build an immunity to poisons and thus foil potential assassins. This story is used as an allegory; Housman's poem claims that the purpose of his poetry is to inoculate the reader against the evils of the world by describing them in palatable verse.
* Liz Williams' ''The Poison Master'' averts this: the Master Ari Ghairen modifies his own body with spider and snake genes to be both resistant and toxic, in an effort to keep up with the cold war in his Guild.
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* This is a plot point in [[Bimbos of the Death Sun|Sharyn McCrumb's]] novel ''If I'd Killed Him When I First Met Him''.
* Harnrim Starangh, a Red Wizard from ''[[Forgotten Realms|Elminster's Daughter]]''. "It had taken two years of retching weakness to build up a resistance to killing doses of staeradder", but being able to use a fast-acting poison freely was worth it, since his most dangerous foes were other wizards whom he couldn't expect to quickly defeat by magic.
* In ''[[The Hunger Games (
* In 'The Journey of The Catechist" Etjole Ehomba can talk to animals, and a snake puts a very slight poison into his waterskin due to his politeness. He then shrugs off a poisoned dart after having built up an immunity. At which point the dart shooter decides to switch to much more effective magic, and kills Etjole outright.
* The [[Disgaea]] [[Disgaea Novels|novels]] gives an explanation as to why [[Disgaea Hour of Darkness
* In ''[[Best Served Cold (
* In the ''[[
* Sam of ''[[Villains
* [[Malus Darkblade]] develops dermal immunity to poison after years of smearing himself with venomous slime of the huge fearsome lizard he uses as a mount, which he'd been doing so that the beast would allow him near it.
* In [[
== Live Action TV ==
* In an episode of ''[[Babylon 5]]'', "Intersections in Real Time", Sheridan is being held prisoner by EarthGov and subjected to interrogation. At one point, the interrogator is eating a sandwich with delight and offers it to Sheridan, pointing out that he's eating it with no ill effects. It's only after Sheridan finishes eating that the interrogator mentions that it contained a powerful toxin that the latter has built an immunity to. The toxin doesn't kill Sheridan, but makes him ''very'' sick, as intended.
* ''[[
* Christopher Walken's ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' [[Casanova Wannabe|smooth-talking ladies' man]] character "The Continental" has been maced so many times he's built up an immunity to it.
* In ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' Katherine has built up an immunity to vervain, she can still get disabled by it if taken by surprise by a large enough dose but she gets over it much faster. Stefan uses this technique to get over his addiction to human blood.
* In the ''[[
* In the ''[[Psych]]'' episode "This Episode Sucks", Lassiter is put to sleep with chloroform and then wakes up saying he's been building up an immunity to chloroform over the years.
* ''[[The Cape (TV series)|The Cape]]'', a 2010-2011 series, used it when the titular character, learning he was dealing with a poisoner, took it upon himself to work up an immunity to everything the guy was likely to utilize. {{spoiler|We didn't get to see if the immunities actually HELD, [[Subverted Trope|because the guy just tried to run him through.]] }}
* ''[[Law
== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[Warhammer
* In the Pulp RPG ''[[Spirit of the Century]]'' there is an endurance stunt called Developed Immunities that gives a + 2 to resist any poison the character hasn't previously ingested, and + 6 to any he or she has. This makes the character immune to all but the worst of poisons and unluckiest of rolls.
* Of course, ''[[
** 2nd Edition
*** ''Drow of the Underdark''. During their training, drow have successively larger doses of drow sleep poison and various spider venoms administered to them. This gives them poison resistance ranging from +4 vs. random ingested poisons to +7 vs. spiders' and their own sleep poison.
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* In ''[[Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles]]'', you meet the Selkie De Nam, who decides that the best way to deal with the deadly Miasma is to try to build up a resistance to it by drinking water with miasma mixed in. {{spoiler|It doesn't end well}}.
* In ''[[Lost Souls MUD]]'', once you have any degree of poison resistance, exposure to poison will develop it further.
* ''[[
* There's a [[
* The next version of ''[[
* One ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' Horde quest has the player fight venomhide ravasaurs (basically venomous raptors) and get splashed with their toxic blood in order to become immune. This is the first step to getting a [[Bragging Rights Reward|venomhide ravasaur mount]].
* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' gives you increased resistance to broken limbs if you've already broken them 50 times. Somehow. It's best not to think about it when the cure for a broken limb is often "sleep it off".
* In ''[[Rune Factory 3]]'', your protagonist has a "Poison" skill that goes up whenever he is poisoned by the enemy, or whenever he succesfully poisons one of them with an attack. One of the benefits of raising it is it makes you harder to be poisoned.
* In ''[[Dragon Age]]'' Oghren has spent so many years mistreating alcohol, that he no longer suffers any negative effects from whatever he drinks. Taken further in ''Awakening'' where during the Joining ceremony, upon drinking the darkspawn blood, which typically renders the new Warden's unconscious, he merely ''burps''.
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== Webcomics ==
* In ''[[Something Positive]]'', Kharisma tries to kill Avagadro with cyanide, which he has built up an immunity to after being poisoned by so many people over so many years. He says that he has grown accustomed to the taste, and now puts it on his cereal.
* Gilgamesh Wulfenbach of ''[[
* Lifolei of ''[[Juathuur]]''... a scary, scary woman.
* ''[[Keychain of Creation]]'': Besides disturbing quantities of alcohol, Ten Winds has reportedly been exposed to toxins, drugs and pharmaceuticals of all kinds and quantities from across [[Exalted|Creation]] over his multi-century lifespan. Stack that on top of his already supernatural Exalted metabolism and you have someone who is ''very'' hard to poison.
** As illustrated [http://keychain.patternspider.net/archive/koc0144.html here].
* ''[[Spacetrawler]]'': Dmitri believes that a person can become immune to stun guns, and has started shooting himself repeatedly in order to acquire it. Results: {{spoiler|he acquires a taste for stun-gun shots. And immunity. In that order.}}
* ''[[
* ''[[
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* Similar to the SNL example above, [[Family Guy|Quagmire]] has also built up [[Black Comedy Rape|an immunity to mace]] after being pepper-sprayed so many times.
* In ''[[Metalocalypse]]'', Pickles is immune to the mind-erasing effects of Totally Awesome Sweet Alabama Liquid Snake, and pretty much every other drug as well, as the result of doing "government weed" daily since the age of 6.
* Snake Eyes in ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]'' takes multiple hits from poison darts thanks to a built up immunity. They're still enough to weaken him though.
* In one segment of [[Rocky and Bullwinkle|Peabody and Sherman]], Mr. Peabody used this trope to help the husband of Lucrezia Borgia.
* In ''[[Young Justice (
* Dan from ''[[Dan Vs.]]'' has been hit with tear gas and pepper spray so many times that he doesn't feel their effects anymore. He can even tell the differences.
* Nigel Thornberry claims in ''[[The Wild Thornberrys]]'' that he's developed an immunity to poisonous plants by rubbing their juices all over his body.
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