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Line 1: {{trope}} [[File:burn-~~776142_jpg_2039~~776142 jpg 2039.jpg\|link=SpongeBob SquarePants\|frame\|Oh, look. Spongebob and Patrick are enjoying the subtle warmth of a nice fi... Wait a minute.<ref>They literally wrote this scene just so they could parody and Lampshade it</ref>.]] {{quote\|''"I was driving in downtown [[Atlantis]]'' ''My barracuda was in the shop'' ''So I was in a rented stingray'' ''and it was overheating"'' ~~\|Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream"}}~~ \|Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream"}} {{quote\|''" If we're under water, how come the beer stays in the mug?"''~~\|Inspector Gill, ''[[Fish Police (comics)\|Fish Police]]''}}~~ \|Inspector Gill, ''[[Fish Police (comics)\|Fish Police]]''}} 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. Line 40 ⟶ 41: 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 ~~itself --at~~itself—at the bottom of the ocean, ~~mind-- is~~mind—is a dry land above which the seas hang like a canopy. As a show of force, Seiya was once punched upwards so hard by Seahorse Baian that he crashed into the "ceiling" (namely, the bottom of the North Pacific Ocean,) was pushed up all the way to the ''surface'' by the strength of the blow, and then sank all the way back ''down'', unimpeded, and fell right back into the Sanctuary. But despite the entire depth of the ocean hanging above the temple, sunlight is as abundant there as though they were fighting in an above-water plaza. * ''[[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 ~~underwater -- which~~underwater—which was generally crystal-clear; and in the most outrageous use of this trope, his sole weapon was a folding ''boomerang'', which he threw at everything from bad guys to sea monsters to full-sized submarines! Being an "electro-boomerang", it zapped them all (and frequently more than one in a single "flight"), often causing mechanical enemies to blow up. * 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]] == * ''[[Aquaman]]'' and ''[[Sub-Mariner]]'' frequently fall victim to this. Comics reviewer Paul O'Brien has a regular rant about this, and praises "[http://ifdestroyed.blogspot.com/2009/09/x-axis-27-september-2009.html the remarkably few artists who'[[ve]] figured out that Atlanteans don't walk, they swim, and whose Atlantis is interesting to look at as a result]". * ''[[Fish Police (comics)\|Fish Police]]'' zig-zags the hell out of this trope, often lampshading it as well. A notable example is Inspector Gill asking, "If we're under water, how come the beer stays in the mug?" Line 60 ⟶ 61: ** 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 ~~Gepetto~~Geppetto underwater. The fact that Pinoch doesn't drown may be [[Hand Wave\|handwaved away]] by his being made of wood, but what about Jiminy? Well, he was in a bubble... briefly, until it filled up with water. I bet this gave many physicists headaches. 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]]? * Though that is technically possible (though improbable). 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]].▼ I always thought he hit his head or something, what with all those rocks. ▲ 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. *** He had a rock tied to his tail anyway so he couldn't have floated back up. (He was still in half-donkey form at the time.) * 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. Line 81 ⟶ 80: * Toward the end of ''[[Atlantis: The Lost Empire]]'', the villains actually blast a hole in the ceiling of what appears to be a system of underwater caves (one of which houses the titular Atlantis) so that they can escape with their blimp. Considering if said caves are located under the Atlantic Ocean, and that the Atlantic is directly above them... ** 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 [[Mystery Science Theater 3000]] they even ask "Why isn't it wet underwater?" and when a pigeon with a message reaches him in Neptune's kingdom they ask "How does ''that'' work?" == [[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 ~~Fire--when~~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]]. Line 100: == [[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 ~~and~~& Dragons]] have pages of rules detailing precisely how life underwater is not like life on land (and spells to remove some of these differences). * 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. Line 130: * In ''[[Metroid Prime]]'', Samus' Plasma Beam functions perfectly fine underwater. This sort of gets a [[Hand Wave]] because she's firing superheated plasma as opposed to ordinary fire, but it still doesn't explain how organic enemies can catch fire when completely submerged. ** 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 ~~trope -- for~~trope—for example, you can swim in 3D like in all other bodies of water, and the zone has a separate light source independent from the main ~~world -- the~~world—the [[Creator Provincialism]] is right there. Sea Legs must be a really diverse yet specific spell, given that it gives you not only the ability to breathe underwater, but also apparently negates the effects of pressure and corrosion, gives you perfect sight and hearing underwater, and gives you a 60% speed increase but only ''as long as your feet touch the seafloor''. 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]]. Line 148: 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 ~~it -- eliciting~~it—eliciting a cry of, "[[Voodoo Shark\|That just raises further questions!]]" ** Moreover, the Planet Express Ship somehow survives the crushing depth, despite the following conversation: {{quote\|'''Fry:''' How many atmospheres can the ship withstand?! Line 163: * 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 ~~Odd Parents~~OddParents]]'' uses fire to light candles in the goldfish bowl. {{quote\|'''Timmy''': Hey, guys, what's new? '''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 (animation)\|Fish Police]]'' would both follow and subvert this trope, mostly depending on which would better suit the [[Rule of Funny]]. As an example, in one episode one of the villain's henchmen was pushed out of a window from several stories up; when Inspector Gil found the henchman clinging to the window ledge by his fingers (fins?) calling for help, Gil reminded the henchman he was a fish and could just swim away. The henchman let go of the window ~~ledge -- only~~ledge—only for [[Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress\|gravity]] to promptly take over and cause the henchman to plummet to the ground, Wile E. Coyote-style. (Making this an inversion of Gravitational Cognizance, in that it's a case of a character falling because they're too dim to realize they shouldn't be.) * ''Sharky and George'' played the [[2-D Space]] aspect perfectly straight. Fish swam a few inches above the ground, or stood on their tail fins. In at least one episode, a fish fell through a trap door that opened in the floor six inches below where it was swimming. * 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.com\|Cracked]]'' calls this the [http://www.cracked.com/article_19557_the-5-most-mind-blowing-things-that-can-be-found-underwater.html #5 most mindblowing thing found underwater]. * While most birds (ignoring flightless birds) fly in air, penguins fly in water. {{reflist}} [[Category:~~Instant Index, Just Add Water~~{{PAGENAME}}]] [[Category:Did Not Do the Research]] [[Category:~~Settings~~Instant Index, Just Add Water]] [[Category:Rule of Funny]] [[Category:~~Water Is Air~~Settings]]