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{{trope}}
[[File:burn-
{{quote|''"I was driving in downtown [[Atlantis]]''
|Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream"}}
{{quote|''"
|Inspector Gill, ''[[Fish Police (comics)|Fish Police]]''}}
▲''My barracuda was in the shop''<br />
▲''So I was in a rented stingray''<br />
▲''and it was overheating"'' |Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream"}}
Living underwater sounds like it would be [[Rule of Cool|so cool]], doesn't it? Actually, in fiction, it isn't that big a deal because life at the bottom of the ocean is conducted impossibly similarly to life on land. Whether your characters are [[Our Mermaids Are Different|mermaids]], [[Fish People]], or [[Talking Animal|talking, sentient fish and other sea creatures]], you'll find their underwater lifestyles have a lot in common with humans' above-land lifestyle. [[Most Writers Are Human]], and they must want to give the viewers or readers a portrayal they are familiar with.
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* Characters (who can swim) are worried about ''falling'' into trenches and off cliffs.
* Surface dwellers can all [[See Water|see perfectly clearly underwater and vice versa]].
* All forms of combat can be executed as if on dry land. Projectiles, [[Never Bring a Knife
The problems with viewers being able to understand the characters can sometimes be [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] with the [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]].
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Not to be confused with [[Super Not-Drowning Skills]], when characters are given an unexplained ability to survive underwater for an infinite time, mostly due to video game programming limits.
{{examples}}▼
▲{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch]]'': Will someone please explain the existence of working hot tubs and fountains?
* ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'' did this in "Shibumi Speaks". As long as they ''believe'' they won't drown/get wet/etc, it won't happen to them.
** Justified in that the Digital World functions under vastly different rules than the real one.
* In ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'', LCL has the consistency (and, presumably, composition) of amniotic fluid, and characters breathe it while sitting in the Entry Plugs. Fair enough, but they also speak and yell without any sort of difficulty or distortion. Sweat, blood, and tears also behave as though LCL had air-like density. There have been [[Epileptic Trees|attempts]] [[Fan Wank|to explain away]] the unimpeded-speech issue, but the tears that fall freely on a character's lap remain inexplicable.
* A very odd example in ''[[Saint Seiya]]''. The Seven Pillars of Poseidon's Sanctuary are connected to, and hold up, the Seven Seas, so the temple
* ''[[Marine Boy]]'' was all over the place with this trope. The Ocean Patrol craft certainly moved in 3D, and required engines to do so. While underwater, the characters never walked, and the resident mermaid had, at times, to cope with not having legs, though we never really saw her much away from the humans. On the other hand, the [[Non-Human Sidekick]] (a dolphin) never needed to breathe (and it's doubtful that he could chew the "oxygen gum" that the eponymous hero used); the hero's uniform had no visor or goggles, yet he had no difficulties seeing or talking
* Inverted in an episode of ''[[Doraemon]]'', where the gadget-of-the-week permitted the protagonists to treat air as water, for recreational purposes.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Fish Police (
== [[Film]] ==
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** One of the most brilliant moments in the movie is when Marlin is shouting after Nemo, who was fishnapped by the dentist. He yells for a while, then goes down, takes a "breath" of water, and goes up and yells after him some more.
* ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]'' includes a scene where airplanes fly underwater. The airplane's control surfaces allow it to function almost identically to how it would fly through the air.
* In ''[[Pinocchio (Disney film)|Pinocchio]]'', Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket go looking for
** It may be handwaved away until he LATER DROWNS.
*** Head injury due to all those rocks? Became a real boy at the worst possible moment, while under water? Waiting for someone who took [[Honey, I Shrunk the Kids|French class]]?
** Wait a minute. Pinocchio is made of wood. Wood floats. So Pinocchio should be stuck floating at the surface, fighting with the water as if it were some kind of forcefield. In the film he had to tie a rock to his donkey tail so he couldn't have floated back up. Likewise, in the video game, he had to collect rocks in order keep himself (and the controls) [[Interface Screw|not inverted]].▼
* Disney's ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' film and [[Recycled:
▲** Wait a minute. Pinocchio is made of wood. Wood floats. So Pinocchio should be stuck floating at the surface, fighting with the water as if it were some kind of forcefield.
▲* Disney's ''[[The Little Mermaid]]'' film and [[Recycled: The Series|its TV adaptation]] particularly suffer the problems of architecture (although granted, there were some fauna that primarily walk on the Ocean Floor, so the inclusion of something like "stairs" is excusable), coral=plants, and burning fire (usually blasts from Triton's trident), although long hair moved slower and tended to float (but still never gets in the way aside from surfacing). On the other hand, the writers did attempt to replicate the physics of water as realistically as possible in the original film.
** Ariel specifically mentions that she doesn't know what fire is in one of her songs.
** In the [[Prequel]], Ariel sees something she wants to check out from her bedroom window... and instead of swimming out the window to check it out, she goes ''all the way downstairs through the castle'' to get outside. partially Justified in that she was sneaking out and needed to stay hidden.
* [[Disney]]'s ''Bedknobs and Broomsticks'', during the animated sequence after the bed and its passengers crash in the Island of Naboombu's lagoon and sink to the bottom.
** They did most likely ended up inside a children's book (that spell didn't specify that [[Fridge Brilliance|it can only go to 'real places' after all)]], which has a different kind of logic.
* In ''[[G.I. Joe:
** There's also the ''[[You Fail Physics Forever|falling icebergs]]'' towards the end of the movie, something a fair number of critics picked up on as being physically impossible.
*** Because it's not like the tons of structural engineering that comprised the collapsing Cobra base would be heavy enough to sink the ice it was built in.
** Falling ice, snowballs, and icicles feature in the undersea battle at the end of ''Water Babies'', although they're somewhat more plausible in a children's cartoon fantasy.
* ''[[Shark Tale]]'' lampshades this when the race seahorse that Oscar bet on trips right before the finish line:
{{quote|
* One of the hallways that make up the Lost Boys' treehouse hideout from Disney's ''[[Peter Pan (Disney film)|Peter Pan]]'' for some reason, has a pond on its ''ceiling''.
** No, that's just [[Rule of Cool]]. It's Never Land, what did you expect?
* Toward the end of ''[[Atlantis:
** To be fair, only the entrance is definitely below sea level. After that there is a lengthy journey through the cave network. That particular cavern is also a volcano and has a very high ceiling, so theoretically it could end up as an island. Of course, it's not explained how, or indeed if, they know this to be the case...
* In [[The City of Lost Children]] one of the main characters, the [[Mad Scientist]] lost his mind ([[Amnesia (fangame)|Amnesia]]), and as a deep sea diver permanently lived on the bottom of the sea, collecting marine debris.
* In "The Magic Voyage of Sinbad" the title character throws himself into the sea to appease Neptune. On [[
== [[Literature]] ==
* ''[[Narnia|Voyage of the Dawn Treader]]'' addresses this briefly when Lucy sees mermaids through the preternaturally clear sea-water. Among other things, C. S. Lewis compares the deep water to dangerous mountains, and the shallows to sunny, habitable valleys. In addition, even though mermaids are usually depicted in media as being able to poke their heads above water and converse and breathe in air, Drinian explains that these merpeople cannot come up and examine the ''Dawn Treader'' or talk with them because... they cannot breathe air!
** 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
* 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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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* The Basic D&D supplement ''The Sea Peoples'' averts this trope, mentioning such issues as light levels, water clarity, and triton architects' channeling water currents through homes so that oxygen-depleted water is carried away efficiently. (The last chamber that such disposal-currents pass through is even designated as a latrine.)
** Later editions of [[Dungeons
* In ''[[Exalted]]'', a few bits of artifact equipment and the anima power of the [[Elemental Powers|Water Aspect Dragon-Blooded]] allow them to treat water according to this trope.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Star Fox (
** ''[[Star Fox (
** [[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.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' averts this trope slightly, as a diving helmet is needed to access the [[Minecart Madness|ocean path]]. Then again, only one is needed (or found), and no explanation is given of its functionality without other supporting equipment.
* In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' you can go underwater in a submarine. Fair enough, except that you can fight [[Bonus Boss|Emerald Weapon]] while standing on the bottom of the sea, with no lighting or pressure-related problems. The air isn't breathable without the Underwater Materia, but the characters apparently can hold their breath for ''twenty'' whole minutes. (Eat your heart out, [[Monkey Island|Guybrush Threepwood]]!)
* While the previous game (and other levels in the same game) avert this, the ocean section in ''[[Alice: Madness Returns]]'' is something like this. Sea creatures can swim, but Alice walks and breathes as she would normally. Then again [[World of Chaos|it is Wonderland.]]
* ''Sharkie and George'' portrayed the underwater world like this. Real air was deadly poisonous. In one episode, George took some 'compressed water' to survive in an air-filled area.
* ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'' Mario could actually throw fireballs underwater, light fires underwater and in a [[
** Somewhat averted in ''[[
*** It also doesn't matter where his head is - so long as even just part of his shoe is sticking out of the water, he can breathe just fine.
* Generally averted in [[Elder Scrolls]] games, visibility is quite limited in water with light and night vision spells having little effect. Torches are extinguished when entering water. Pressure/depth issues are ignored.
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* The ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' series has a lot of fun with this: In ''Soul Reaver'', Raziel can be initially burned to death by water, and in the spectral realm ([[Layered World|the dimension inhabited by spirits, as opposed to the material realm]]) water has no heft nor lift and literally behaves exactly like air, which is an important puzzle element in some areas.
* Played straight in the [[Atari Lynx]] video game ''Turbo Sub''. The player's aquatic jet maneuvers equally well under the ocean as it does over it; underwater enemies might ''look'' different, but their attacks and movement are the same as their airborne counterparts.
* Averted in the first ''[[
** Similarly, Burner Man's ''Wave Burner'' from ''[[
** Also averted in ''X2'', where if one uses Speed Burner underwater, only two pods come out (supposedly what carries the flame).
** And in ''X3'', the Acid Burst dissolves in the water (only a few bubbles come out), making it useless.
* In ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', Samus' Plasma Beam functions perfectly fine underwater. This sort of gets a [[Hand Wave
** Mildly averted by the fact that her flamethrower Charge Combo won't work underwater.
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'': Vashj'ir. Full stop. While it avoids some of the more [[Egregious]] aspects of this
** Eh? Sea Legs is active full-time, regardless if your feet are touching the seafloor. You always have the underwater breathing and other effects, you gain a swim speed increase full-time, but you ''also'' get the ability to "run" underwater as long as your feet are touching a solid surface (doesn't have to be the sea floor, ruins, coral, shipwrecks, etc will work too). Also, the corrosion resistance, pressure negation, etc are present ''without'' Sea Legs anywhere in [[WoW]], too. The only thing Sea Legs gives you is permanent water breathing and the increase to swim speed and the ability to run on solid surfaces.
** Sometimes you can glitch out on a flying mount and appear to be swimming in mid-air ''for quite some time''. Thus making this trope Air Is Water Is Air and [[Your Head Asplode]].
* Averted In [[Kingdom of Loathing]]. The Undersea area requires one to obtain SCUBA gear in the [[Final Dungeon]] and a Bathysphere for one's pet beastie. All tasks use up two Adventures, and weapon damage is nerfed due to water resistance.
* Almost every [[
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* Certain trolls in ''[[
** But then things get subverted when [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004354 physics strike]
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[
** 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.
** 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.''
** To make a long story short, it's Zig-Zagged depending on what's [[Rule of Funny|funnier]] and more convenient.
* In the ''[[Futurama]]'' episode "The Deep South", Zoidberg's house burns to the ground... underwater. Zoidberg wails, "How could this have happened?" and Hermes notes, "That's a very good question." Implicitly claiming responsibility, Bender picks his still-lit cigar out of the ruins and puffs on
** Moreover, the Planet Express Ship somehow survives the crushing depth, despite the following conversation:
{{quote|
'''Prof. Farnsworth:''' Well, it's a ''spaceship'', so I would say anywhere between 0 and 1. }}
▲*** They once made a delivery to a planet where [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Brannigan,_Begin_Again the gravity was extreme enough to make pillows heavy] and it occurred before [[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Deep_South_<!-- 28Futurama29 this episode]]. I guess you just have to chalk it up to Professor Farnsworth being a few cards shy of a full deck. -->
** Bender tries to pour a bottle of booze he found in a sunken ship into his mouth, only to have it drift out and diffuse into the water.
{{quote|
** It overall seems to be [[Playing
* ''[[The Snorks]]'' featured this problem a lot.
** At least they were smart enough to substitute geothermal vents for fire as their main heat source.
* ''[[Justice League]]'' features this with Aquaman and the city of Atlantis. It helps that the Atlanteans are amphibious humans who live in a sealed city, and so need things like stairs, but it still doesn't answer this question: If you're amphibious, why have an ''entirely'' sealed city? Why not some places in water, and some places with air? And how do you enter the city without getting the carpet wet? And...
** Atlantis had a death trap consisting of a room that filled with water... underwater in a city filled with water-breathing citizens. One would guess just [[Thrown Out the Airlock|shoving them out of an airlock]] was too much trouble.
** Averted in ''[[Teen Titans (
* A particularly bad example is ''[[The Perils of Penelope Pitstop]]'', episode "Bad Fortune in a Chinese Fortune Cookie". Not only do the mobsters hold a conversation underwater while rescuing Penelope, but it's implied that the Hooded Claw, still in his boat, heard Dum Dum's joke through the water.
** But it was [[Rule of Funny|that kind of show]].
* Cosmo in ''[[The Fairly
{{quote|
'''Wanda''': Uh, the laws of physics? }}
* In the ''[[Super Mario Bros Super Show|Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3]]'' episode "The Ugly Mermaid", Mario and friends have to protect an underwater kingdom called Mertropolis when Bowser invades it. Confusingly, Mertropolis is in an airdome but is populated by human-legged fish who need to wear fishbowls on their heads in order to survive. As if that's not enough, Bowser tries to submit the Mertropolis citizens into submission by flooding the place with water, which somehow causes them to flee in terror.
** In the famous episode "Mama Luigi", Luigi GASPS underwater.
* Like its source material, the short-lived cartoon ''[[Fish Police (
* ''Sharky and George'' played the [[2-D Space]] aspect perfectly straight. Fish swam a few inches above the ground
* In the TV series' [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[Dumb and Dumber]]'', one robot operates a blowtorch and fire is emitted from the blowtorch, ''even underwater!''
* In the episode called "Who's Minding the Ed?" from ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'', Ed fills up his room with water around Edd, Eddy, and the animals were inside. When Sarah opens Ed's door, she sees the room completely filled with water. Ed is just standing on the ground, while Eddy and Edd float around with the latter holding his breath. Cue [[Opening the Flood Gates]].
== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Truth in Television]] (sort of) - behold the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnkHRtpTztc UNDERWATER LAKE!] ''[[Cracked
* While most birds (ignoring flightless birds) fly in air, penguins fly in water.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Rule of Funny]]
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