39,327
edits
The Man They Couldn't Hang: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 4:
[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|A character who has survived a hanging]]. They will frequently sport a scarred or deformed neck as a result. This may just indicate that he is a [[Determinator|real hard case]] and [[Rasputinian Death|too tough to kill easily]], or it may be used to show what a [[Mysterious Past|bad life he has led]] and to explain his hatred of the world. A [[Bungled Suicide]] may also be involved.
If he survived [[Rule of Three|three attempts]], a sporting (or superstitious) executioner may have let him go. Probably because it's best to keep on the good side of a [[Badass]] like that.
[[Shoot the Rope]] may be used to explain their survival.
Not to be confused with men who are [[Gag Penis|well]] [[Bigger Is Better in Bed|hung]].
{{examples}}
Line 30:
* The eponymous villain in ''[[Madman]]'', who survived being hanged by angry villagers and now carries the noose as his secondary weapon.
* Richard O'Connell is hanged in ''[[The Mummy Trilogy|The Mummy 1999]]''. His neck is strong enough that it doesn't break, and Evelyn negotiates his release before he strangles to death.
** Brendan Fraser himself fits this trope. He was ''actually being hanged'' in that scene due to a prop failure.
* [[Boris Karloff]] starred as Dr. Henryk Savaard, who is executed but brought back to life in a 1939 [[Columbia Pictures]] thriller titled (you guessed it), ''The Man They Could Not Hang.''
** Although in this movie, {{spoiler|he really does die, and is brought back to life with science... he had it all planned out ahead of time though.}}
Line 43:
** And, on the other side of the moral divide, Thomas of Hookton from the same author's ''[[Grail Quest]]'' novels.
* In one of the war novels by [[Sven Hassel]], [[Unreliable Narrator|Porta]] tells the story of a sailor who can't be hanged because he virtually has no neck. In the end the hangman goes insane with frustration and demonstrates that his rope works perfectly on himself.
* Half Cocked Jack of [[Neal Stephenson]]'s ''[[The Baroque Cycle]]'' {{spoiler|survives a hanging by being pulled down by an angry mob.}}
* And, as Skeeve learned in the ''[[Myth Adventures]]'' series by Robert Asprin, never try to {{spoiler|hang a Pervect by the neck.}}
** They've tried to {{spoiler|hang Skeeve too, but being a wizard, he just levitated}}. Of course, Aahz is a wizard as well, {{spoiler|but he was depowered at the time, so he survived because Pervects have extremely strong neck muscles}}.
Line 52:
* You can hang a [[Hoka]], but it won't hurt him (they have unusually strong neck muscles), and he'll consider it all part of whatever fiction is currently being lived out.
* Juliette, from the [[Doctor Who]] [[Eighth Doctor Adventures]] novel ''The Adventuress of Henrietta Street'', is an unusually young example; [[Troubling Unchildlike Behavior|she's only thirteen]]. It's implied she'd [[Bungled Suicide|attempted]] to hang [[Driven to Suicide|herself]], but not only did she not do it properly, [[Interrupted Suicide|the Doctor showed up to rescue her]].
* In ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' one of Beric Dondarrion's numerous rumored deaths is being hanged. As it turns out, he was, and died. He just came back after.
* [[Sharpe]]'s nemesis Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill survived a hanging, and claimed that this meant that God had chosen him to be spared and therefore he couldn't be killed. The firing squad proved him wrong on that count later on, though.
Line 90:
*** He's back in the newest DLC, Honest Hearts. He's also...slightly miffed about the whole 'being covered in pitch and thrown in the Grand Canyon whilst aflame' thing.
**** In said DLC, to reflect his truly insanely hard to kill nature, he has an Endurance stat of 10, and the highest DT of any creature in the game at 50, placing him on higher damage threshold than most ''armor piercing rounds'' can penetrate. Additionally, he's one of two NPCs in the game with a unique "title" in the GECK - [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Destroying Angel]].
* In the game ''[[
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPP-63XlhkM Then of course, there's Morshu.]
* Mr. Black's assistant Mr. Lynch in ''[[Red Dead Revolver]]'' survived being hanged. It shows, as he has hard time keeping his neck straight during his pre-duel scene.
| |||