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Water Is Air: Difference between revisions
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** This may allude to Lewis' ''Perelandra,'' the second book of his [[Space Trilogy]], in which, during the long chase/fight scene between Ransom and the [[Demonic Possession|Un]][[Satan|-]][[Omnicidal Maniac|Man]], Ransom briefly encounters humanoid faces in the water and speculates that [[Evolutionary Levels|the Perelandrans may have been amphibious]].
** In fact, when Lucy sees them, she expects them to be able to surface, because her coronation apparently featured singing mermaids that could breathe air. Drinian explains that those mermaids must have been a different sort.
* An interesting aversion in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--when Harry goes to "blast" the Grindylows during the second task, a jet of hot water comes out of his wand.
* James Blish's novella ''Surface Tension'' averts this trope very nicely. Blish's microscopic water-dwellers live in a "universe" with three "surfaces": the bottom, where the water ends; the "sky", the top of the water, which (as the title suggests) they cannot penetrate; and between these, the thermocline, the division between the sunwarmed upper layers and the cold deeps.
** The idea of microscopic brains still having enough neurons available for humanlike intelligence is [[You Fail Biology Forever|a separate trope]].
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* In the ''[[Book of Amber]]'', the water in the undersea city of [[Sdrawkcab Name|Rebma]] works like this, but the trope is justified as it's explicitly a magical effect, and people are able to breathe the water within the city as well. In fact, if you fall off the underwater stairway leading to the city, you'll drown.
* Massively averted in [[Hal Clement|Hal Clement's]] books, since they are the hardest of hard scifi. In one case, a colony of humans is established on the ocean floor, using geothermal power to provide light and a specially-made oxygen-carrying dive fluid in place of air. But since the dive fluid is denser than water, the humans have to wear weights if they want to stay on the bottom or even have neutral buoyancy (their bones were denser than the fluid and their lungs were filled with it, but the rest of their bodies were less dense and the net effect was a slight positive bouyancy). They sleep tied to the ceilings of their buildings.
* In the children's fantasy novel ''Lundon's Bridge and the Three Keys'', common examples of this trope appear (some, such as humans and insects breathing underwater and having no problems with pressure, are handwaved as the result of magic) -- and then there's the crisis that kicks things off. The world's oceans are gradually being overtaken by "The Decayed Sea", polluted waters that mutate plants into carnivorous monsters. Decayed Sea areas are the aquatic equivalent of "forbidden forests" in land-based fantasy works; one can enter (more often, be pulled into) and exit them, and the monsters cannot survive in the clean water beyond them. This shows a gross misunderstanding of how water and contaminants work, but correcting it would require a thorough rewrite of the plot. (For more specifics, read the opening pages of the book via the "Look Inside" feature at Amazon.com.)
== [[Newspaper Comics]] ==
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== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star
** ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star
** [[All There in the Manual|the official strategy guide]] implies that the "bioweapon" in question, Baccoon, was actually an entity from several millenia prior whose envy of the surface dwellers resulted in him sending explosive starfish to blow up the icecaps and melt them resulting in Aquas becoming the 100% ocean planet that it is in the game, or at least was named after that entity.
* ''[[X-COM]]'' supplement ''Terror of the Deep'' features humans fighting aliens in an underwater world. Unfortunately, the game system was directly adapted from the original with no changes, so the characters are able to do ridiculous things like ''throwing grenades underwater.''
* ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'': Blitzball is a cross between hockey and rugby (or soccer, rugby and diving, depending on where you live) played by two teams of 6 (five players plus a goalie) played entirely underwater in five minute rounds. It is stated that the characters have learned to hold their breath while doing incredibly strenuous activity for this amount of time to become players. The fact that the water itself is specifically designed to help improve breathing duration (apparently due to pyreflies saturating the water) also helps.
** ''[[8-Bit Theater
** There's also the fact that all of the players move exclusively in two dimensions, as though they were playing on land, despite the fact that the "playing field" is literally a large sphere of water. Although earlier cutscenes show the players making use of the entire volume of water, with Tidus making a spectacular leap outside the sphere at one point, [[Gameplay and Story Segregation|the only time Blitzball gameplay makes use of the third dimension]] is during Tidus' Jecht Shot where he swims ''up'' to make the kick.
** They can ''throw a ball underwater'' as if there was no water in the first place. Especially notable since Blitzballs are shown to be light enough to float on the surface of the water, and have the dynamics of soccer balls when handled in dry land.
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** In few episodes, the characters go to Goo Lagoon complete with a beach and lifeguards. The Goo is not very gooey but it could reasonably be heavier than water.
** SpongeBob takes a bath in a bathtub. Filled with water. (Apparently some water is wetter than other water...or maybe saltwater and freshwater don't mix?)
** Patchy the Pirate sends letters down to SpongeBob and Patrick inviting them to his party. The ink of course runs. SpongeBob and Patrick go on to mention that the person who sent the letters obviously had no understanding of the limitations of living underwater, and then proceed to dispose of the letters IN A FIRE.
** Don't forget the episode where Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob think they've killed the health inspector: when they're disposing of the body, SpongeBob at first leaves the guy's head unburied because he thought that "he might need some air."
** Hilariously lampshaded in one episode where [[SpongeBob]] has to go on dry land for one minute, Mr. Krabs stops him first, takes a glass but doesn't fill it with water, saying that [[SpongeBob]] should make it last. [[SpongeBob]] just drinks out of the glass, because, well, he didn't need to fill it with water, ''cause it's all around them.''
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[[Category:Rule of Funny]]
[[Category:Water Is Air]]
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