This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
((Wodan46)): This troper has always presumed that for most fire based powers, the reason for this trope is that the fire is contained by their abilities. Any kinetic energy that would disperse/move away from the containment area is simply directed back inwards, or in a swirly circle if need be. If it was spewing heat every which way, it would waste energy, fry the user, and not be as intense.
Amethyst: Another exception to this rule oocurs in Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time—there are certain places that are too hot for Link to enter without losing health, until he gets his hands on the red Goron tunic...
Seth: Then example it?
Phartman: Done.
(random passer-by): Convection would be part of the heat transfer mechanism in this case, but I would think that at the close ranges this implies, radiated heat would be at least as likely to harm our protagonist. Then again, many years ago, I saw something on television (this would have been in the early or mid 1980s) about an artist in Hawaii who would go out during eruptions of Mauna Loa, walk to fresh lava flows, stand a few feet back, and use some iron tools to make lava sculptures which he then sold to tourists. I can recall no specifics, and I'm thinking that there would be other dangers connected with lava in an enclosed space. For instance, where lava is present, toxic gases are often coming out of the ground at the same time a few feet away or even bubbling out of the lava. So... I am left with the impression that lava is indeed much more dangerous than on television, but maybe not always, or something. And those solid rocks visible in the lava would likely be nearly as hot as the lava around them, come to think of it. Anyway, I'm going to think about this some more.
Seth: The point is this trope disregards physics for coolness - also we are talking about molten pools of lava not fresh flow which has cooled a lot. The trope is simple so that any passer by can understand it, you just described in long hand what the trope already says.
Random832: "Convection, the process by which a hot thing makes other things hot by being near it" Unfortunately, this description fits heat radiation [also eliminated to some extent by this trope, but the trope name says convection] better. Convection is specifically how air circulation causes things _above_ the really hot thing to heat up more. I can't think of a better way to word it though so I just thought I'd throw that out there.
Seth: The idea is that that line is a super simplified explanation of the process. Its like saying Weather: The process by which the sky changes colour or Murder: The process by which people stop breathing. There is more to it but the comedic point gets across.
Seven Seals: I missed the discussion on this, but surely it's Convection, Schmonvection?
Seth: Does it really matter? They are both made up words.
Phartman: ''Convection' is a made up word? Uh oh, I think my dictionary is lying to me.
- I was under the impression smo and schmo were both nonsense suffixes added to say unimportant, turns schmo has an actual meaning.
Tzintzuntzan: The "Schmo" isn't chosen at random — it's the standard Yiddish way of saying you don't think something's important (based on the fact that so many derogatory Yiddish words open with that sound). Hence the book "Cancer Schmancer" by Fran Drescher.
Seth: Then invoking that most evil of tools and renaming it?
Seven Seals: I would have without asking if I knew how to. The help is too inaccessible for me to find out (if it takes more than 20 seconds to find out how to do something, I let someone else do it).
Seth:Done
Travis Wells: I don't think single images are really wiki material, but here's an example in the form of a catmacro
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Medinoc: Am I the only one disturbed by the Mac Gyver example ?
- Mac Gyver, of all shows, played this one straight. In the episode "Flame's End", the villain has locked him and a companion in a room at a nuclear power plant and he plans to flood it with the reactor's coolant water. Mac's companion points out that convection alone is going to kill them long before they have a chance to drown, scald, or be irradiated to death.
Zeke: Good point. Looks like a subversion to me, so I've edited to that effect.
Lale: Moved that part of the Evangelion paragraph that, well, had nothing to do with Convection, Schmonvection, to A Wizard Did It.
Seth@ Okay i'll leave it in for now but who is it that keeps adding Justifying Edit's to the Star Wars bit — it has been reverted like six times by different people yet it comes back.
Blork: removed this from the Super Mario 64 example because it's simply not true. Lethal Lava Land confirms to this trope exactly with the lava only being dangerous if you actually touch it:
- Exception: However, there IS a Lethal Lava Land level which you (slowly) lose health just for being in.
Seems to me that the LOTR example could be cleaned up. Do we really need to see a debate on the main page? Shouldn't that be on the discussion page?
Ophicius: Conversation In The Main Page:
- In the Fourth new series The Doctor and Donna walk around in the crater of a semi active volcano without even seeming to get hot. They then get very warm whilst a lava monster is breathing on the rock they are inside. But the lava, not so much.
- Someone wasn't paying attention, the Pyroviles (lava monsters) were absorbing the heat hence the Doctor and Donna being able to walk around inside Vesuvius. As episode writer James Moran points out in one of his blog entries
: I'm no scientist, but I am aware that people can't survive inside active volcanoes, cheers.
- Someone wasn't paying attention, the Pyroviles (lava monsters) were absorbing the heat hence the Doctor and Donna being able to walk around inside Vesuvius. As episode writer James Moran points out in one of his blog entries
- In the Fourth new series The Doctor and Donna walk around in the crater of a semi active volcano without even seeming to get hot. They then get very warm whilst a lava monster is breathing on the rock they are inside. But the lava, not so much.
Gracie Lizzie: No, it's just a Justifying Edit + me being in a bad mood so I'm being a bit snarkier than usual.
Fire Walk: Cut the Fan Wank and Justify Edit iness on the Lord Of The Rings discussion:
- The superheated air alone should have burned the hobbits' lungs. Let's blame this on the original novel by Tolkien, though.
- Also slips up when Gollum and The One Ring fall into the Crack of Doom. Neither exhibit flames upon their surfaces while falling into the lava, and Gollum is able to be completely submerged without burning at any point.
- Since The Lord Of The Rings is Epic Heroic Fantasy, would the audience really have wanted to see a realistically burning screaming Gollum? Probably not. He probably fell too fast to catch fire on the way down, too. Hairless skin does not catch fire that quickly. And perhaps Gollum could only truly die after the magical One Ring that had made Gollum immortal finally succumbed to the fires it had been forged in.
- Regardless, Gollum should still have floated (burning, probably) on the lava rather than sinking, as he would be considerably less dense than molten rock.
- Rule of Cool, man, Rule of Cool.
- Sauron / Gandalf did it.
- He was holding the Ring, which was unnaturally heavy. (That heavy? Well, yeah, maybe...)
Lale: "Also, one should note the reverse... for some reason, people aren't all that concerned about completely encasing people in ice even though they aren't even wearing winter clothes" is Harmless Freezing, which already has an Avatar entry..
This troper fails to see how the Captain Planet example is a case of this trope
Seven Seals: Removed this:
- In one of the last Justice League Unlimited episodes, Superman and Doomsday do battle inside an active, erupting volcano, and on the lava itself. Not only are they completely uninjured, but they suffers no effects from toxic gas and not even their clothes are burned. Granted they are Superman and Doomsday.
Haven: Removed this EVA entry for similar reasons, but also, as they were inside the magma, I'm not sure convection is the issue.
- The Neon Genesis Evangelion episode "Magmadiver" involves Asuka's Humongous Mecha actually diving into the caldera of an active volcano. Her EVA is wearing the magma equivalent of a diving suit, but later on Shinji's unprotected EVA reaches into the magma to rescue her from sinking to the bottom, although this does cause severe damage to his arm in the process. This one is somewhat debatable, as the EVA are extremely durable and the angel manages to actually live down there.
- Again played as a game of ping pong in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith. The climactic fight between Obiwan and Anakin above a lake of molten lava. They spend most of the fight floating above the lava on platforms with no ill effect from the heat. Multiple Techno Babble and handwave explanations exist, but mostly people don't care because it is pretty awesome. But then the trope is averted when Anakin suffers horrible burns when not touching the lava later. These inconsistencies and the confusion surrounding them has kicked off more than a few flame wars.
- Ugh, drop me into lava after that pun.
- I lava good joke, but that was horrible.
- Indeed. The perpetrator cannot be adequately pumiced for his transgressions.
- Shut up, all of you.
- Yeah, this is no place for such a heated discussion.
- Oooh, you just got burned.
- Alright, I'll do it your way: Shut the hell up!
- My heart has been set afire for all of you!
- Ugh, drop me into lava after that pun.
- Somebody wrote that Metroid Zero Mission plays this trope straight. However, my understanding is that in the rooms where you supposedly only get hurt if you touch the lava, that liquid is actually acid, as borne out by the fact that it's a different color and that, when you get the Varia suit, your computer says it "protects you from heat and acid". (If you have the Varia suit and fall in these acid pools, you'll be fine. If you have the Varia suit and fall in lava, you start losing hit points.) However, I'm unsure how to address this in the page, except by excising the example wholesale or adding a dreading "Actually, ..." reply. Any thoughts?
- Maybe say that at first glance, it appears to play the trope straight, but in reality it...
ccoa: I think this can be expanded to include any time convection is ignored. Such as when someone is standing next to a raging inferno. Leaving aside that it would be pretty hard to breath next to a really big fire, it would also be very, very hot. There's actually a YKTTW about fights that take place in and among flames, and this trope immediately sprung to mind.
EDIT: Went ahead and did it, since there were no objections.
