Unstoppable Mailman

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"I'll deliver these letters, even if it means I have to waterproof 'em and scuba-dive down to the damn box!"

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. —Greek historian Herodotus on the Persian mounted postal couriers. Adapted into the unofficial motto of the United States Postal Service.

Fiction has a tendency to treat the mailman as an unstoppable force. Come downpour, blizzard, flood, end of the world, or big, friendly dogs, your mail will still be delivered. Sometimes this is even exaggerated to the point where the mailman will find you and deliver the letter no matter where you are in the world.

Keep in mind that this is not merely about unstoppable characters who happen to be mailmen. This is about mailmen who display impossible persistence in the process of delivering the mail.

The source of the page quote itself is nearly a direct quotation from the description of the Persian messenger system in The Histories of Herodotus written between 450 and 420 BC.

Compare the Non-Giving-Up-School Guy who is ridiculously persistent in giving you an education rather than delivering your mail, the Determinator who is merely ridiculously persistent in general, and the Implacable Man who is just not playing fair. See also: Courier.

Examples of Unstoppable Mailman include:

Advertising

• In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, the United States Post Office released a commercial reassuring the nation that, despite everything that had happened, the people of the United States could still count on them. It's actually pretty heartwarming, and its message fits this trope:

"We are mothers and fathers and sons and daughters who every day go about our lives with duty, honor, and pride. And neither rain, nor snow, nor heat, nor gloom of night, not the winds of change, nor a nation challenged will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever."

• A variant: From the 80s, Ice Cream Jones, an unstoppable ice cream man. Although, he needed help at least once.

Anime and Manga

• The Letter Bees from Tegami Bachi are given a companion and told to deliver their mail no matter what monster tries to stop them. There are often many complications with the letters themselves, such as the intended recipient having moved or being in a difficult area to reach.
• In a filler episode of Naruto, Jiraiya's newest novel draft gets mixed up with a diplomatic message from one kingdom to another, and Naruto desperately tries to chase the mailman down, despite his adamant refusal to listen to what Naruto is saying. In the end, Naruto fails, but the daimyo likes Jiraiya's work, so things turn out well.
• In Cells at Work!, the red blood cells are depicted as energetic busybodies, always rushing to make their deliveries. While the same is true of the female protagonist of the series (referred to as "Red Blood Cell" or AE3803) she's something of a novice and scatterbrain who tends to get lost a lot.

Comic Books

• In the Carl Barks comic story "The Persistent Postman," Donald Duck is a persistent postman who delivers the mail on a nearly impossible route. He buys a helicopter to try and make the route go faster, and gets into a fight with a giant eagle who steals his sack of mail, but in the end still manages to deliver everything.
• In another Carl Barks story, "My Lucky Valentine", Donald gets a job as a mailman and has to deliver a valentine by walking miles in a blizzard. When he realizes the valentine is addressed to Daisy from his "dirtiest rival," Gladstone Gander, he throws it away, but then feels guilty and goes through all kinds of trouble to get it back and deliver it.
• And in a story by Don Rosa, Scrooge gets a telegram from the Tsar of Russia. While he (Scrooge, not the Tsar) is in the middle of the polar waste, near the North Pole. (The delivery man gets no tip from Scrooge, though. Cheapskate!)
• In the DC Comics Crisis Crossover Final Night, at least one Metropolis mailman is still on his rounds when everyone is certain that the world is about to end.
• Similarly, during Marvel Comics' Onslaught mega-crossover, Hulk and Onslaught are slinging punches hard enough to shatter windows of buildings across the city. A mailman (one who appears in the Fantastic Four once in a while) tries to push through the crowd and begins to deliver the famous passage... but even he gives pause as the two behemoths battle.
• Finder with X-Ray's Couriers (slogan: "We get through"). Jaeger while working for them took the more hopeless cases, resulting in various crazy situations.

clerk (signing for a package, but still freaked out) I gotta ask. Is this level of effort worth what they must be paying you? Jaeger: (hanging from a windowsill on 120th floor or so) At this point in my life I think it's important to be happy.

Film

• The Western Union Man in Back to The Future Part II is able to deliver a letter at the exact minute specified despite a thunder storm and an obscure delivery site.
  • Although that's more of a special case. The telegram was dropped off by Doc Brown, in 1885, and had been sitting with them ever since. According to the Western Union Man, the telegram was the subject of a lot of speculation, along with bets as to whether or not Marty would actually have been there to receive it.
• Sinbad from Jingle All the Way.
• Cast Away: FedEx manager Tom Hanks leaves one of the packages that wash up on the island with him unopened. After five years, he escapes the island and delivers the package.
  • He also kept track of the addressees for the packages he opened, and bought replacements for many of the items he used, that he was delivering to their intended recipients at the end.
• Independence Day - Will Smith's character notes that his mail was still delivered despite an Alien Invasion.
• A non-Postal Service example in Overnight Delivery. The main character sends a breakup letter by 24-hour parcel service, then changes his mind and tries to get it back. The driver absolutely will not give up on getting his packages delivered.

Literature

• The golem mail carrier from Going Postal. In addition, the book features a slightly damaged version of the page quote: "Neither rain nor snow nor gl om of ni t will stay these mes engers abo t their duty." It had been complete once, but some of the letters were stolen.
  • Specifically, the golem failed to deliver a message to a king before the kingdom was destroyed. Roughly 10 thousand years later, he still carries the message in the belief that time is cyclical and he'll eventually get another chance to deliver his message.
    • His personal version of the motto is "Neither Deluge Nor Ice Storm Nor The Black Silence Of The Netherhells Shall Stay These Messengers About Their Sacred Business."
• The Postman is about this trope: After the End Of The World As We Know It, some guy puts on a postman's uniform, and reconnects the world that fell apart.
• In Harry Potter, no matter where you are an owl with a letter for you will find you, even if you've moved (like Harry in the first book) or are deep in hiding (Sirius). The letter will even have the correct address.
  • Even parrots get super-navigational skills if used as post-birds (as seen in Goblet Of Fire). And owls are dedicated to delivering your mail, even if they're getting way too old for it, like Ron's first owl, Errol or the package/letter being delivered is bigger than the owl itself, as if often the case with Pigwidgeon, Ron's second owl.
• In Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, the same mailman finds the four horsemen of Apocalypse anywhere they are (from an African country torn by civil war to good old England) to hand them their symbols/weapons of power. He even kills himself to meet Death and deliver him his package. Note that he is a regular guy, with no powers or special skills.
• A delivery man in the Knight and Rogue Series carries a letter meant for Fisk for three months, and devises a method to track him through a number of towns to deliever the darn thing.
• Mr. Rush from the Mr. Men books. After failing as a waiter and a bus driver (because he's always rushing things) he finds his calling as a postman - where being in a rush is a benefit.

Poetry

• Rudyard Kipling's "The Overland Mail":

Is the torrent in spate? He must ford it or swim. Has the rain wrecked the road? He must climb by the cliff. Does the tempest cry "Halt"? What are tempests to him? The service admits not a "but" or an "if." While the breath's in his mouth, he must bear without fail, In the name of the Empress, the Overland-Mail.

• • As if that weren't Badass enough, the earlier part of the poem establishes that he's doing all this at night, in the Indian wilderness ("Let the robber retreat, let the tiger turn tail"), UPHILL....

Live-Action TV

• The episode of Seinfeld where Jerry takes over Newman's route for a while. He loves the job, as exhibited in a "friendly mailman" montage, leading to this exchange:

Newman: They knew it wasn't me doing my route! Jerry: How did they know? Newman: Too many people got their mail! Close to eighty percent! Nobody from the post office has ever cracked the fifty-percent barrier! It's like the three-minute mile! Jerry: I tried my best! Newman: Exactly. You're a disgrace to the uniform. [pulls the hat off Jerry's head and the Postal Service patch off his chest] Jerry: You know, this is your coat. Newman: [looks at the patch in his hand] Damn.

Manhwa

• Banya from Banya The Explosive Delivery Man fits the trope, as one might expect from the title. Nothing stops this guy. And he doesn't exactly have it as easy as mailmen in our world have it, either.

Video Games

• The postman from the Zelda games is of the track-you-down-anywhere variety. This is most noticeable in The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, where he becomes an Implacable Man who can't even be deterred by the twilight that is gradually reducing everyone else to spirit form.
  • Majora's Mask deconstructs this trope with a mailman who can't stop, no matter how much he wants to. In the face of the impending apocalypse, he just keeps delivering the mail.
• The mailman Psychopath in Dead Rising 2. Even a Zombie Apocalypse isn't enough to keep him from his appointed rounds - or from demanding a signature on delivery. When he finds out who you are (that is, the guy who's been framed for starting the zombie outbreak), he attacks you - not for causing the death of thousands of innocent people, but for screwing up his schedule.
• Final Fantasy IX has you being the Unstoppable Mailman for the Moogles, who are save points. While you rarely have to go out of your way to deliver their letters, you have to wonder just for what reason the Moogles are hanging around in deadly dungeons.
• The much-revered Mailer Daemon in Nethack. If properly set up in a UNIX system, he/she/it can deliver actual e-mails from your mailbox. Normally invincible, people have devised creative and exciting ways to kill him.
• The Courier, the Player Character from Fallout: New Vegas. The game starts with you tied up, getting shot in the head and the package stolen. The first half of the game involves you tracking your would-be murderer across the Mojave to take it back. You still deliver the package.
• The nameless courier(s) in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim WILL deliver that museum pamphlet to you. Typically he'll find you in a town (even if a dragon is attacking), but on occasion he will cheerfully track you down at a remote and hazardous ancient ruin. Even if bandits have taken all of his clothes, he'll still get that letter to you, pants be damned.
• In one Final Fantasy Tactics Advance mission, you must intercept a Bangaa postman before he can deliver a message to a place it should not be going. He will end up fighting your clan over the mission, and while he is not especially difficult, he puts up a fight.
• World of Warcraft; leave something behind in a dungeon or raid? Maybe because of a full inventory or haste to leave a bad group? Rest assured, it will be in your character's mailbox when he gets back into town, courtesy of the Postmaster. One "secret" quest in Legion actually puts a face on this mysterious wizard who, despite being stressed and backlogged, shows incredible dedication towards getting the mail through.
• In Earthbound, Escargot Express. Despite its name, calling them to bring Ness an item that he has in storage will get them to show up instantly with said item. And only costs $18 of in-game currency.
  • Slower but still unstoppable is Mach Pizza. Once Ness learns the phone number, they will deliver to nearly anywhere in Eagleland, FoggyLand and Chommo in only 3 minutes (real time).

Web Comics

• Looking for Group once featured a mailman who was able to deliver a letter to Cale even though he was in the middle of the woods.
• Wapsi Square once featured a mailman who was still able to deliver the mail despite a snowstorm of the worst variety.
• In Homestuck, the Parcel Mistress goes to incredible lengths to retrieve a package she's supposed to deliver when it falls into the hands of an official on the opposite side of the war her people are fighting. She also survived the destruction of her home, wandered for untold number of years in a wasteland, duty bound to deliver the mail to long gone people. Then her friends are killed through time shenanigans and she decides to open a can of whoop ass on the dog-headed Jack Noir.
• Sysadmins, according to xkcd.

Western Animation

• The Little Man From the Draft Board from the Looney Tunes short "Draftee Daffy", who will stop at nothing to give Daffy Duck his conscription notice, even follow him all the way to Hell.
• Parodied on Jimmy Two-Shoes, when Heloise wakes up to find Beezy in her bedroom, now a mailman, to deliver her a package. The joke being that Beezy's sloth is legendary.
• One episode of The Simpsons briefly shows a mural on the wall of the Post Office depicting a mailman delivering a letter despite being struck by lightning and attacked by dogs in a blizzard.
• The title character of SpongeBob SquarePants (and Squidward) for an episode, assuming you replace Unstoppable Mailman with Unstoppable Pizza guy.
• "Telegram, telegram for Lucky Luke!"
• One episode of Duck Tales features a mailman whose customers includes the Creature from the Black Lagoon (well, maybe an Expy of him) and carries scuba gear in his bag for that specific house.

Real Life

• The Pony Express (as noted on the Briefer Than They Think page, it only lasted a year and a half, but during that time it was vitally important).
• Not the mail but close enough: the NY Times let it be known that no matter what happened during Hurricane Irene, they still would deliver. The fact that Irene ended up not being as bad as thought does not change how insanely badass that is.
• An active attempt to subvert this was made by United States Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in the months leading up the 2020 American Presidential election. A Donald Trump appointee, DeJoy shut down distribution centers and ordered brand-new sorting machines be trashed in order to cripple mail-in voting (expanded due to the COVID-19 pandemic) that was expected to skew strongly Democratic. (And, as more cynical observers noted, to force voters to physical polls, where they could be effectively intimidated out of casting their ballots.) While his efforts ultimately did not prevent the election of Joe Biden as President, they did result in a Postal Service unable to keep up with the demand of holiday gift mailing starting a month later.