History Main / SuperDrowningSkills

* Nobita Nobi from ''Doraemon'' can drown in puddles.

** It should also be noted that humans are the only ones that have small swimming webs between their fingers and toes. Apes do not have these. This is another hint that swimming must have been at some point important to our species.
%% ** Another interesting detail: babies can swim the moment they leave the womb. They can even take the longest dive any human can ever do, because they are still connected to the placenta and thus do not need to breathe (just yet, anyway) for about 10-20 minutes, until the placenta stops working. Unless you cut the umbilical cord earlier to unnecessarily make birth a lot harder for the newborn.
%% *** That's actually a serious misunderstanding that's been passed around as truth. While there are some bits of truth to the idea that newborns can swim, it's really not the case at all: [[http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-are-born-with-the-ability-to-swim-and_10313062.bc]]

* Played with in ''Film/RobinHoodMenInTights''. Robin Hood and Little John duel on a log bridge and are down to just slapping what's left of their shattered staves as if they were pencils. Robin gets the upper hand and boots Little John... into an itsy-bitsy stream, causing the man to flail and panic as if he's drowning. Robin can't help but [[LeaningAgainstTheFourthWall look at the camera in disbelief]] before "helping" the man.

* ''OnePiece'':

* ''RanmaOneHalf'':

* ''SonicX'':

** Even better, in the ''SonicX'' episode "Sonic vs Knuckles", Sonic gets knocked into water by Knuckles. He instantly has a panic attack, splashing wildly and yelling. It takes him a few seconds to realise he's barely ankle deep, with Knuckles looking on at him with a wry smile.

* In SonicTheComic this is played straight with Sonic then subverted. Handwaved by Sonic as him having taken swimming lessons.

* ''LiloAndStitch'':

* In {{Smallville}}, [[DamselInDistress Lana]] manages to drown in less than 15 seconds. Don't worry, [[{{Superman}} Clark]] saves her with some mouth-to-mouth.
* On ''[[RupaulsDragRace Rupaul's Drag Race]]'', one challenge involved an underwater photoshoot, but not all the drag queens could swim. [[HilarityEnsues Hilarity ensued.]]
* In {{Lost}}, [[spoiler:Sayid]] manages to drown beyond resuscitation about 5 seconds after he stops struggling.

* The Bumble in ''RudolphTheRedNosedReindeer'' sinks like this.

* Gorillas cannot swim. This was even referenced in the remake of ''PlanetOfTheApes''.

->''This guy can go all over fighting hordes of evil monsters... but he can't even fucking swim!?''

** Anyone who has eaten a Devil Fruit gains a special power, at the cost of losing the ability to swim in the ocean. In fact, having at least half of their body submerged will not only prevent them from using any abilities granted by the fruit, but will drain all strength out of them to the point of near paralyzation, causing them to sink. This is inconvenient, since most of the characters are ''sea-faring pirates on a planet with even less landmass than the Earth''. Note that only actual submersion ''and'' seawater counts; rain is harmless and DF users can still take showers according to Word of God. A few people (mostly winners of the SuperpowerLottery) have Devil Fruit powers that at least partially negate this weakness. Aokiji for example, AnIcePerson , freezes the water just by coming into contact with it, giving him a ''massive'' advantage over other Devil Fruit users; also, Protagonist Monkey D. Luffy still has an [[RubberMan elastic body]] regardless of whether he's in water or not, so he can have somebody else stretch his head outside of the water (he'll still be paralyzed, but he will then be able to breathe, at least).

** The #16 [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_388_27-science-lessons-as-taught-by-famous-video-games/ Science Lesson As Taught by Famous Video Games]] is that Altair + H2O = death.

** The #16 [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_388_27-science-lessons-as-taught-by-famous-video-games/ Science Lesson As Taught by Famous Video Games]] is that Altair + H20 = death.

[[caption-width-right:284:Giving a whole new meaning to the [[{{Pun}} Dead Man's Float]].]]

Another solution is to put the main character in an environment suit, like in ''{{Halo}}''. Which doesn't explain why the apparently perfectly ordinary land vehicles don't suffer from hydrolock when submerged. Even then, some bodies of water may still act as BottomlessPits.

* The Bolton Strid in Yorkshire, England (as noted above in Web Originals). It may look like a gentle brook, but it holds the amount of water one would expect from an enormous, raging river. How? The river's ''really'' deep, and the flow's similarly intense below the surface. The result? It has a 100% lethality rate. Yes, that means falling inside is sure to kill you. You'll be lucky if the body even shows up downstream.

* In {{Lost}}, [[spoiler:Sayid]] manages to be non-resuscitatably drowned about 5 seconds after he stops struggling.

** [[http://www.cracked.com/article_19705_the-5-most-spectacular-landscapes-earth-that-murder-you.html Landscapes That Murder You]] all but names this trope when describing the Strid (see Real Life below):

* The Bolton Strid in Yorkshire, England. It may look like a gentle brook, but it holds the amount of water one would expect from an enormous, raging river. How? The river's ''really'' deep, and the flow's similarly intense below the surface. The result? It has a 100% lethality rate. Yes, that means falling inside is sure to kill you. You'll be lucky if the body even shows up downstream.

* The aforementioned Bolton Strid. It may look like a gentle brook, but it holds the amount of water one would expect from an enormous, raging river. How? The river's ''really'' deep, and the flow's similarly intense below the surface. The result? It has a 100% lethality rate. Yes, that means falling inside is sure to kill you. You'll be lucky if the body even shows up downstream.

** It should also be noted that humans are the only ones that have small swimming webs at their hands and feet. Apes do not have these. This is another hint that swimming must have been at some point important to our species.
** Another interesting detail: babies can swim the moment they leave the womb. They can even take the longest dive any human can ever do, because they are still connected to the placenta and thus do not need to breathe (just yet, anyway) for about 10-20 minutes, until the placenta stops working. Unless you cut the umbilical cord earlier to unnecessarily make birth a lot harder for the newborn.
*** That's actually a serious misunderstanding that's been passed around as truth. While there are some bits of truth to the idea that newborns can swim, it's really not the case at all: [[http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-true-that-babies-are-born-with-the-ability-to-swim-and_10313062.bc]]

* In at least one episode in WW2, light Russian tanks crossed frozen rivers, daring German pursuers to do the same. But a Tiger tank weighed in at fifty tons as opposed to twenty-two...

** This applies to pretty much all of the great ape species aside from humans. In addition to a more tall, thin body design (granting a more efficient stroke), humans have a higher percentage of body fat and larger lungs in proportion to mass than other large primates, giving them greater buoyancy. Still, humans are poorly equipped for swimming in comparison to many mammals, and very skinny humans often have trouble swimming efficiently because their legs and feet tend to sink.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'': Neither Spongebob nor Patrick know how to swim. Ironickly, they both live underwater.

** The worst part: at times, Tony Tony Chopper would jump in after Luffy if the latter ended up in trouble in the sea, ''forgetting he can't swim either''. Upon which Brook would jump in after Chopper, ''ALSO'' forgetting he can't swim.