Water Is Air: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
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''and it was overheating"'' |Kip Adotta, "Wet Dream"}}
{{quote|''" If we're under water, how come the beer stays in the mug?"''|Inspector Gill, ''[[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.
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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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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[Aquaman (Comic Book)|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 (
== [[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 Gepetto 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.
*** Though that is technically possible (though improbable).
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** 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:
** 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.
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* ''[[Shark Tale]]'' lampshades this when the race seahorse that Oscar bet on trips right before the finish line:
{{quote| '''Oscar''': He trips underwater? Now who in the halibut ''trips'' underwater? And, by the way... ''on what''?}}
* 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]]), 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!
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== [[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.''
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* ''[[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 [[Mario and Luigi
** 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 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 [[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''.
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** 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?)
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** 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| '''Bender:''' Arrr, the laws of science be a harsh mistress.}}
** 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]].
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* 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, 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!''
== [[Real Life]] ==
* [[Truth in Television]] (sort of) - behold the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnkHRtpTztc UNDERWATER LAKE!] ''[[Cracked
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