History Main / CoincidentalDodge

* The climax of ''Film/TheDayOfTheJackal'': [[spoiler:General De Gaulle escape the first shot by leaning to give an accolade, a French tradition the foreign killer isn't familiar with]]. The entire rest of the film focuses on the assassin's build-up to the attempt. Same goes for the Book on which the Film is based on.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'': Hobbes, as is his imaginary tiger nature, would have pounced on Calvin from behind if Calvin didn't bend down at the last moment to pick up a dime.

* In ''Anime/DanganRonpa3'', as the 78th Class students are locking themselves inside Hope's Peak Academy, Junko Enoshima throws a large wrench at Makoto Naegi's head, but, being the [[BornLucky Ultimate Lucky Student]], he slips on a piece of paper and falls on his ass, not even noticing the wrench as it sails over his head and embeds itself into the wall.

* ''WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle'': In "Goof Gas Attack", Boris watches Rocky and Bullwinkle go into their house. He stretches a rope across the door and ties one end to the trigger of a shotgun, reasoning that when Bullwinkle opens the door, the gun will fire and do him in.

'''Boris:''' Not quite.

* Happens to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neRUS67xluM#t=00m15s this player]] of ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''. Given that he was moving from cover, he was probably intentionally trying to make himself hard to hit. But the timing of his crouch is just too perfect to not be the result of either luck or clairvoyance.

A very, very common variation is for the intended attack to miss the target and [[MurderByMistake instead kill another person]], thus forcing the murderer to cover up his tracks for a murder he didn't want to commit. Very well known for throwing off even the greatest detectives (at least until the end of the episode).

* In ''[[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheRecollection Red vs. Blue: Recreation]]'', [[TheDitz Donut]] meets [[TheDreaded The Meta]], but has no idea how dangerous the latter is. The Meta keeps trying to attack Donut, but Donut ends up ducking and moving to the side at the last moment, completely oblivious to the Freelancer's murder attempts.

* In ''[[WebAnimation/RedVsBlueTheRecollection Red vs. Blue: Recreation]]'', [[TheDitz Donut]] meets [[TheDreaded The Meta]], but has no idea how dangerous the latter is. The Meta keeps trying to attack Donut, but Donut ends up ducking and moving to the side at the last moment, completely oblivious to the Freelancer's murder attempts.

* In the ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'' episode "[[Recap/HTFPitchinImpossible Pitchin' Impossible]]", a non-assassination attempt example occurs. The Mole leaning down to get the ball he accidentally knocked to the ground allows him to dodge the falling booth window caused by his ricocheting previous ball which cuts Petunia's head in half.

* In ''[[Machinima/RedVsBlueTheRecollection Red vs. Blue: Recreation]]'', [[TheDitz Donut]] meets [[TheDreaded The Meta]], but has no idea how dangerous the latter is. The Meta keeps trying to attack Donut, but Donut ends up ducking and moving to the side at the last moment, completely oblivious to the Freelancer's murder attempts.

* In ''[[Machinima/RedVsBlueTheRecollection Red Vs Blue: The Recreation]]'', [[TheDitz Donut]] meets [[TheDreaded The Meta]], but has no idea how dangerous the latter is. The Meta keeps trying to attack Donut, but Donut ends up ducking and moving to the side at the last moment, completely oblivious to the Freelancer's murder attempts.

* ''Manga/ShonanJunaiGumi'': When [[spoiler:Nanno]] tries to bash Eikichi's head in with a [[BatterUp baseball bat]], he misses because Eikichi noticed a 10,000 yen bill on the ground and bent over to pick it up.

* Grandpa Smedry in the Literature/AlcatrazSeries does this consistently; he has the [[CursedWithAwesome power to always be late]] which effectively makes him invincible as he always arrives late to his own death, such as bullets always missing him because he was too late to enter their path.

[[folder:Web Comics]]