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| 3 | %% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks! |
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| 6 | %% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1590272319070489500 |
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| 9 | [[quoteright:349:[[Webcomic/NerdRage https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nerd_rage_wailord.png]]]] |
| 10 | [[caption-width-right:349:So that's why it's called the "Float Whale" Franchise/{{Pokemon}}.]] |
| 11 | %% |
| 12 | ->''"54. Do you not realize how much gold actually weighs?"'' |
| 13 | -->-- ''[[http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/ The Fantasy Novelists Exam]]'' |
| 14 | |
| 15 | Writers frequently misapply, distort, or outright forget about the concept of density and its implications. This results in such oddities as most metals, including gold, being treated as weighing the same as an equivalent volume of iron or steel, with the possible exceptions of aluminum (famous for weighing less) and lead (famous for weighing a lot). The only thing typically treated as denser than lead is matter from a neutron star, by orders of magnitude -- there's apparently nothing in between. |
| 16 | |
| 17 | By the same token, anyone can lift as much of a "light" object, such as feathers, Styrofoam, or in the worst cases even ''stacked flat paper'', as can be made practical to carry (though, interestingly, if the paper is in another form, this doesn't seem to apply as much, as characters will frequently acknowledge that stacks of books or newspapers are heavy.) |
| 18 | |
| 19 | What's worse, even if the writers get it right, [[StyrofoamRocks sometimes the actors won't]], due to not compensating for the difference between the weight of the {{Prop}} and the weight of the object it's supposed to represent through acting. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Generally, the only exception to "people carrying around big gold ingots with ease" comes when the density of gold relative to other substances is itself a major plot point. Especially since gold is actually 70% more dense than lead. To say nothing of the fact that gold's status as a dense substance is rather well known; anyone who's ever worn a gold ring can tell that it's heavier than a silver one. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Sometimes an AcceptableBreakFromReality, sometimes not. It helps to be in a fantasy setting, and [[MagicAIsMagicA consistency is key]]. Keep in mind that sometimes reality can make something incredibly boring. (One of the most common house rules for most tabletop games is that gold is weightless because having a weight penalty for your character's money [[RuleOfFun would detract from the fun of the game]].) {{Balloonacy}} is a subtrope dealing with wild over- and under-estimations of the lifting capacity of Helium, Hydrogen or hot air. SoftWater follows this trope, and BriefcaseFullOfMoney is closely related. In video games, WalletOfHolding (in which a player character is carrying more money than he should be able to lift and/or fit in a reasonably sized purse) is a common invocation. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | ---- |
| 26 | !!Examples: |
| 27 | |
| 28 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 29 | |
| 30 | [[folder:Advertising]] |
| 31 | * In a case where density is exaggerated rather than underestimated, the Geico gecko accidentally steps in the cement for a starlet's new Hollywood Walk-of-Fame paving square. He leaves deep tracks in the wet cement, even though such a tiny reptile shouldn't even weigh enough to dimple the surface. |
| 32 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkB9OT2XVvA This DirectTV commercial]] has women casually holding gold busts out and lifting a gold tray with six gold bars on it. |
| 33 | [[/folder]] |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 36 | * In ''Manga/CaseClosed'' one episode has golden bricks which were covered in moss to make them look like old stone bricks, and the main character easily lifted them as if it were that light. |
| 37 | * Skipper from ''Manga/TheDaughterOfTwentyFaces'' must be one heck of a strong guy, since he manages to transport not one but ''two'' large cases of gold. The fact that he does it underwater only ''adds'' to the difficulty, since he has to wear a clumsy diving suit. Especially since gold weighs about 19 times as much as water, and the buoyant forces would make it weigh about 18 times as much. |
| 38 | * In ''Anime/TheFumaConspiracy'', Fujiko successfully smuggles a large shingle made of gold under her jacket and moves very quickly and agilely despite the presumed large weight. |
| 39 | * ''Anime/FuturePoliceUrashiman'' episode 22. Ryu, in an invasion of Necrime's fortress, fills his shirt with gold bars, which he has no trouble picking up. He's weighed down, but he can still walk and he can pick the bars up with one hand. |
| 40 | * ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' is a ''chaotic'' offender, using various types of fantastic metals to build the mechas. |
| 41 | ** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam00'' had it slightly realistic as the one made from average metal weighed up to 134 tons and [[MightyGlacier a walking brick]] to boot, these that are far lighter (around 60-70 tons) are stated to be made from E-carbon, a super-strong material that used in the construction of Space Elevator (theoretically, TruthInTelevision) and yet, they're [[NoodlePeople slender]], [[FragileSpeedster far from invincible and prefer to dodge instead]]. |
| 42 | ** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'' and sequel (''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEEDDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]''), the kingdom (Orb) has their MechaMooks (Astray & Murasame) far lighter than TheFederation (OMNI) and TheAlliance (ZAFT), and in a way of LampshadeHanging/ HandWave, is made of Foaming [[AppliedPhlebotinum Metal]]. |
| 43 | ** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' and the rest of the series of the Universal Century timeline (ie the original Gundam universe), by the advancement of technology, Mobile Weapons constantly decreased in gross weight (and to a lesser extent, size) while retaining same or more firepower yet much faster than the original. It's understandable that technology would go in this direction given that even in the original series weapons had become so powerful that armor was of limited use, and thus making the war machines fast and agile to dodge was a better form of protection. But ''how'' they made the mobile suits so light required AppliedPhlebotinum metals to be physically possible. |
| 44 | ** ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'' builds the titular Gundams from...well, [[{{Unobtainium}} Gundanium Alloy]], that would be a HandWave for them having 7-8 ton. Meanwhile, the 7.0 tons Leo are made from titanium alloy. |
| 45 | ** Throughout the various Universal Century series, [=OVAs=] and movies, people are presented with [[BriefcaseFullOfMoney briefcases filled with gold bullion]] as bribes or payments. People are somehow able to walk unencumbered while carrying them in one hand, despite the fact that you can fit more than 1200 pounds of gold in a briefcase, and nearly 700 pounds of gold in an attache case -- even if the case isn't full, it would still likely weigh more than the person carrying it. |
| 46 | * In ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', LCL has the density of water if someone is blowing bubbles in it, but has the density of air if someone is crying in it. The ways of the [[spoiler:blood of an EldritchAbomination]] are mysterious indeed. |
| 47 | * In ''Anime/NinjaScroll'', hordes of {{Ninja}}s are seen doing full-on {{Ninja Run}}s ''uphill'' (well, up inclined planks) onto ships, while carrying chests filled with gold, which are ''balanced on one shoulder''. Those are some damn strong Ninjas. |
| 48 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'' is not known for its realistic physics, but during the Skypeia Arc a group of average, non-powered townspeople collectively carried a chunk of gold the size of an apartment complex (and thus many, many times their collective size) with little difficulty, and were even able to ''run'' while carrying said gold. Of course, utterly ridiculous feats of strength are ''very'' common in the series. |
| 49 | * ''Anime/SamuraiChamploo'' ep. 13 opens with a group of pirates making a raid, at one point they effortlessly throw suitcases full of gold from ship to ship. |
| 50 | * In ''Anime/SherlockHound'', the density of gold varies according to the RuleOfDrama. If there is a need for someone to be slowed by carrying large amounts of treasure, it is heavy, if there is a need for someone to make off with a large amount of treasure to set the plot in motion, it is light. |
| 51 | * In ''Manga/TomoChanIsAGirl'', Carol gives Tomo three gold bars as a birthday present. They're smaller than the usual house brick-sized bars you see in fiction (small enough that she can carry all three bundled in a handkerchief like a ''bento'' box), but she's still a fairly ordinary high schooler and she still carries the bundle in one hand. Amusingly, the weight issue is brought up when Carol mistakes Tomo's shock for disappointment and explains that she went with smaller bars because bigger ones would weigh too much. Apparently Carol (who ''doesn't'' have SuperStrength like Tomo) is just inexplicably not bothered by carrying at least a dozen kilos of gold, [[RuleOfFunny because it's funny]]. |
| 52 | * In ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' episode 11, Rose puts a brick-sized gold bar into the bag of her nine-year old daughter Maria, who doesn't react even slightly to the weight that must be close to 60 pounds! However, just a bit later Rosa uses the same bag as a blunt weapon with extreme effectiveness -- consistency was just too much trouble, apparently. In the Visual Novel, the ingot is given an approximate weight of, I believe, around 11 kilograms; in addition, it's directly stated that what she carries is in a blanket which she later use as a weapon against the [[spoiler:goatmen attacking her and Maria]] |
| 53 | [[/folder]] |
| 54 | |
| 55 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 56 | * In ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}} [[Recap/AsterixAndTheCauldron and the Cauldron]]'', Asterix is given charge of a small cauldron that is filled to the brim with silver coins. Given the density of silver, the cauldron should weigh more than Asterix does. Despite that, he is able to carry the full cauldron without the aid of the magic potion. When the cauldron and its contents fall off a cliff and lands on Captain Redbeard, the captain is somehow uninjured. |
| 57 | * {{Subverted|Trope}} with one LampshadeHanging in ''ComicBook/{{Diabolik}}'': gold and other metals weigh as they should (in fact in one occasion a weight Diabolik used to break a bulletproof glass was a steel sphere filled with ''mercury''), with an early story having a foundry worker surprised by [[ItMakesSenseInContext the small size of the one-tonne gold ingots he was making]] and his co-worker pointing out that gold weighs a lot. |
| 58 | * ''Little Lotta'' often has Lotta's weight fluctuate depending on RuleOfFunny. According to one cover gag, a camel is unable to support her weight, but full-grown camels can carry up to 990 lbs., and she looks like she could be no heavier than 300 lbs. |
| 59 | * In Creator/DCComics's relaunched ''ComicBook/PhantomLady and Doll Man'' miniseries, Doll Man becomes tiny because his density is increased, while keeping his mass the same, thus making the fact that he can throw punches that full-sized people can actually feel plausible. Awesome, makes perfect sense. The miniseries also has scenes of Phantom Lady holding him in her hand, or on her shoulder -- so the issue of his mass is ignored during those instances. |
| 60 | * Mass Master from ''ComicBook/PowerPack'' has the power to change his density, which ''also'' changes his volume. His mass remains the same. Becoming denser shrinks the Mass Master, and becoming less dense makes him a cloud larger than his original body. |
| 61 | * In a ''ComicBook/SecretWarsII'' tie-in issue of ''[[ComicBook/HeroesForHire Power Man and Iron Fist]]'', the Beyonder turns a skyscraper (made of steel, concrete, glass, etc.) into solid gold (slightly denser than steel, much denser than the rest); it immediately collapses in on itself from the weight. |
| 62 | * The titular superhero of ''ComicBook/TheVision'' has the power to "control his density". This power is used often to become intangible, super-hard, and ''heavy.'' Changing density doesn't affect his volume, either. Presumably, the mass needed to increase or decrease his density comes/goes to another dimension; this is the standard HandWave for all ShapeshifterBaggage and similar issues in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse. |
| 63 | * ''ComicBook/WelcomeToTranquility'': Minxy builds a plane out of solid gold, and it is specifically mentioned that it will not fly[[labelnote:*]] In fact, even standing upright would be beyond the structural strength of such a device [[/labelnote]] because it is too soft and dense a metal. [[RuleOfCool It does anyway.]] |
| 64 | * ''ComicBook/XMen'': Piotr Rasputin a.k.a. Colossus has an official weight of 114 kg, and a height of 198 cm. When transforming into his [[ChromeChampion metal form]], his height becomes 226 cm, while his weight doubles to 228 kg. Assuming these numbers are correct, refers to him turning into metal instead of just gaining a metal coating, his human density is roughly equal to 1 kg/l, his metal form would have a density of 1.35 kg/l, or about half the density of aluminum. The kicker? The metal he transforms into is explicitly compared to osmium, the element with the highest density (22.6 kg/l, or exactly twice as dense as lead). If his metal form actually was osmium, Colossus would weigh 3826 kg. At other times it has been referred to as "omnium", a fictional metal that has no specified properties other than being really strong. (A few comics have suggested that Colossus is all or partly ''hollow'' in metal form, but that just raises new questions.) |
| 65 | [[/folder]] |
| 66 | |
| 67 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 68 | * Subverted in ''[[http://cartoon.adult-fanfiction.org/story.php?no=600094620&chapter=11 In the Light of Day: A Frozen Epic]]'' when [[WesternAnimation/Frozen2013 Anna]] accidentally bumps into a sealed coffer (a large jar completely full of gold coins) and nearly knocks it over. Afterwards she notes that if it's really full of gold, she shouldn't have been able to budge it at all, especially not from bumping into it. |
| 69 | [[/folder]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 72 | * In ''WesternAnimation/AllStarSuperman'', When Lois snarks that that the key to the Fortress of Solitude (an ordinary looking door key, with Superman's crest) isn't very secure, Superman challenges her to try the key herself, placing it on the ground. When Lois is unable to lift the key, he says it's made of dwarf star material and weighs "half a million tons." The issue here isn't Superman being able to casually handle something that heavy, as he'd recently had his powers boosted off the scales[[note]]Though the movie's timeline suggests he had the key made before the boost.[[/note]], but the fact that something that small and heavy should've disappeared beneath the ice the moment he put it down. |
| 73 | * In TheStinger at the end of ''WesternAnimation/FindingNemo'', the water in the fish bags floats completely above the water in the ocean despite the bags coming from a seawater aquarium and being at the surface of the ocean (where the water is least dense). |
| 74 | * ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'': Stitch is too dense to be able to swim, yet David and five-year-old Lilo are able to pick him up with no more effort than they might expend lifting a corgi. Oddly not as unrealistic as it looks, since the basset hound is a real-life example of a dog too dense to swim more than a very short distance. While a strong swimmer like David should be able to rescue him, Lilo's ability to carry him is a little more far-fetched (bassets weigh 35 to 50 pounds, nearly as much as Lilo herself should weigh). |
| 75 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', you can see the gold balls ''bounce around'' like rubber despite making metallic noises. Granted, the movie isn't realistic in the ''slightest'' bit (they don't even lose momentum!) but you'd assume that gold balls wouldn't bounce ''that'' effortlessly. Heck, due to gold's relative softness and low strength, if they fell on a hard surface hard enough to bounce they'd deform or dent instead. |
| 76 | * In the animated film of ''WesternAnimation/TheWaterBabies1978'', the heroes bombard an evil shark's castle by dropping giant snowballs and icicles from the iceberg floating above it. Granted, this ''is'' in a film where sea creatures speak, swordfish wear feathered hats, and the human protagonist and his dog both breathe water. But still, ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water. |
| 77 | [[/folder]] |
| 78 | |
| 79 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 80 | * ''Film/ArmyOfTheDead'', like a typical heist movie, treats money as lightweight and easy to transport. In reality $200 million in $100 bills would easily weigh 2000kg (4400lbs, or 2 tons), far too much for a small group of people to carry on their backs, and certainly too much for a single small helicopter to airlift. [[spoiler:Normally this would be a PlotHole, but when TheReveal comes in that the mission into zombie-infested Vegas was never actually about the money, it becomes {{Foreshadowing}} instead.]] |
| 81 | * The 1950s sci-fi film ''Film/AtomicSubmarine'' features the title boat dodging ice falling off the bottom of the Arctic icecap. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water. |
| 82 | * ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'' pretty much treats gold as weighing about as much as steel. It's hard to tell exactly, though, since the antagonists have an undefined level of super strength, and they're the ones most often seen handling gold. |
| 83 | * The case half the cast are after in ''Film/BulletTrain'' is stated to contain ten million dollars, which is evenly split between gold and hundred dollar bills. Given the value of gold during the film, the money would weigh about 135 kilograms or just under 300 lbs. Yet Ladybug has no trouble at all wielding the briefcase as an ImprovisedWeapon, even twirling it once or twice during a fight. |
| 84 | * In ''Theatre/CatOnAHotTinRoof'', [[CarryingACake Big Mama brings in Big Daddy's improbably huge birthday cake]] and carries it around effortlessly for the entire scene without setting it down. No matter how she tips and jostles, she never seems concerned with it sliding off the platter. (On the other hand, it's one of the rare instances of the CarryingACake trope that ends without incident.) |
| 85 | * An Creator/IrwinAllen movie, ''Film/CityBeneathTheSea'', invoked the density of gold when the titular undersea colony used ingots as shielding to separate samples of an [[{{Unobtanium}} ultra-fissionable material]] and prevent it from achieving critical mass. And then an idiot thought, "Gold! I'll steal some!" without considering that a) he might cause a nuclear explosion, and b) the gold he wanted to steal was being irradiated. [[FridgeLogic To be fair, the filmmaker didn't seem to consider the second point either]]. |
| 86 | * In ''Film/TheCallOfTheWild2020'', a dog (admittedly a huge St. Bernard) picks up a solid gold nugget in his jaws. The nugget has to weigh at least 10 pounds, but the dog doesn't seem to be struggling to keep his head erect with it in his mouth, and his master isn't surprised by its weight when the dog drops the nugget into his hand. |
| 87 | * In ''Film/TheCountOfMonteCristo2002'', the Spada treasure that Dantes finds on Monte Christo is stored in large chests that are filled to the brim with gold coins. Those chests would likely weigh hundreds of pounds each, but Edmund and his servant are able to get a dozen out of the hiding place to their boat by themselves without any tools. They then load the chests onto a small skiff without foundering it. |
| 88 | * In ''Film/DangerDiabolik'', the authorities melt 20 tons of gold into one huge bar to move it and entice the protagonist to try to steal it. That much gold would make a cube about 3.5 feet in each direction -- about the size of a small refrigerator -- but they make a bar nearly as long as a train car, several feet wide, and a few feet high -- at least 300 tons worth, at a rough estimate. To top that off, the protagonist crashes the train into a bay and then is able to float the gold container away with nothing more than a dozen party-sized balloons. |
| 89 | * In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'', the bank robbers toss duffel bags stuffed full of stacked money into the bus like they were bags of balloons. |
| 90 | * In ''Film/Deadpool2016'' the hero fills a duffel bag with a great many guns (mostly long arms) and what is stated to be 3000 rounds of ammunition. Unless composed entirely of puny .22's, the ammo alone would weigh closed to 100 pounds with the weapons themselves adding an equal amount. While this is nothing a SuperStrength character couldn't handle, the bag he puts it all in sits high up on his back as if it were filled with clothes. |
| 91 | * In ''Film/DieHardWithAVengeance'', [[spoiler:the trucks loaded with looted gold bullion would not have been able to drive at all. In 1995, 150 billion dollars worth of gold should have weighed over 9,000 tons. 13 trucks? 130 would have had trouble carrying that load.]] The producers admitted to just ignoring the issue. One thief ''tosses'' a gold bar to another thief. The way it hits him when he catches it, it should've ruptured a few organs. On the other hand, Zeus is ''very'' surprised at how heavy a single gold brick is. |
| 92 | * In ''Film/DirtyHarry'', the ransom Scorpio demands for his kidnap victim is $200,000 in tens and twenties. That amount of bills probably would fit in the bag that Harry puts it in. Said bag would weigh somewhere in the 20-40 pound range, depending on the ratio of tens to twenties, which is something a grown man could plausibly lift one handed if the bag is sturdy enough. But Harry being able to run around the hilly streets of San Francisco for an hour or more carrying that bag in one hand the whole time stretches plausibility. |
| 93 | * Plutonium in ''Film/TheExpendables2'' is contained in sealed containers that are easily carried by hand. Said containers are generally made of lead-lined steel and would weigh in at twenty kilos while plutonium itself is slightly denser than gold (and thus significantly denser than lead), and would be a challenge to carry at best. Real plutonium transport containers are also large "birdcages" designed to keep the plutonium well separated to avoid ever assembling a critical mass. |
| 94 | * Almost at the end of ''Film/TheFog'', when Father Malone picks up the gold cross, an object this size made of solid gold should have weighed at least 100 kilograms, 220 pounds, probably more. To the credit of the actor, you can see him struggling to carry all this weight, but he shouldn't have been able to carry it alone. Specially problematic is when he lifts the cross with only his arms to hand it to the ghost, and keeps it in this position for a non-trivial amount of time. |
| 95 | * In the 2002 film ''Film/GhostShip,'' two men can lug around ''crates'' of gold bricks that in real life would require very heavy machinery. |
| 96 | * ''Film/GIJoeTheRiseOfCobra'' features an underwater ice-fall in the finale, though the ice was filled with metal, so possibly more likely. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water. |
| 97 | * It's zig-zagged in the film version of ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}''. In the original book, as detailed below, Goldfinger's plan is simply to steal the gold reserve of Fort Knox. While Bond is Goldfinger's captive, he points out how impossible this is: Goldfinger would have hours, at most, to load thousands of tons of gold onto vehicles strong enough to carry it all, which he couldn't possibly have. Goldfinger then reveals that his plan is not to ''steal'' the gold at all. Later, though, Bond releases himself from a handcuff by using two gold bars as a makeshift hammer and anvil. He also throws a bar a respectable distance and hits [[TheDragon Oddjob]] with it, but [[NoSell doesn't do any damage]] since Oddjob is MadeOfIron. |
| 98 | * In ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheDeathlyHallowsPart2'', the trio are in a vault at Gringotts where thousands of gold items are cursed to multiply whenever someone unauthorized tries to move them. Harry swims through a growing avalanche of them when he should actually be pretty quickly crushed, or should at least break a lot of bones and be rendered immobile. However, since gold has been said to be one of the few non-transfigurable materials, the duplicated objects in the vault can't turn into real gold, just something that looks like it. |
| 99 | * In ''Film/{{Heat}}'', the bank robbers have to run from the police while carrying big duffel bags that are absolutely packed with paper currency. A full duffle would be able to hold enough stacked and bundled bills to weigh between 150 and 200 pounds. |
| 100 | * In ''Film/Hellboy2004'', Ilsa carries a briefcase full of NaziGold coins and even holds it out with one hand, but it should weigh hundreds of pounds. |
| 101 | * The plot of ''Film/TheHiddenFortress'' revolves around smuggling surviving princess of the Akizuki clan and her family's treasure across the territory of the enemy Yamana clan. This treasure is said to be made up of 200 Kan of gold. A Kan is a Japanese unit of measure equal to 3.75 kg (approx. 8.27 lbs.), meaning the whole treasure weights 750 kg (approx. 1,653.47 lbs.) or ''¾ of a metric ton''. After the wood concealing the gold and the cart are burned, the party has to carry the gold on backpacks, with general Rokurota carrying 40 Kan, peasants Tahei and Matashichi carrying 30 Kan each, the princess and the servant girl 20 Kan between them and two captured Yamana soldiers carrying the rest. This means Rokurota was supposed to be carrying 150 kg (330lbs) of gold on his back, Tahei and Matashichi 112.5 kg (248 lbs.) each and the women 37.5 kg (82.6 lbs.) each. None of them should've been able to walk with that kind of load, let alone climb a mountain, but only Tahei, Matashichi and the soldiers are shown to be staggering under the weight at all. |
| 102 | * In ''Film/InOldCaliente'' a payroll wagon loaded with gold coins kept getting held up by bandits on horseback, so the teamsters decided to melt down the gold into a heap of slag too large to move on horseback. When they were forced to retreat after being waylaid again, they lit the wagon on fire, rendering the gold immovable before the authorities could arrive. (In reality, the melting point of gold is 1,948 degrees Fahrenheit, so the teamsters never had the slightest chance of melting the coins unless they had thought to bring a blacksmith's forge with them.) |
| 103 | * In ''Film/IndependenceDay'', the aliens' hemispherical mothership is described as being over 550 kilometers in diameter and "In terms of mass, it's a quarter the size of the moon." This would give it an ''average'' density about 20 times that of solid lead. The shots of its interior near the end of the movie show that it's mostly hollow, so that means the material it's built out of would have to be at least the density of white dwarf matter, if not neutron star matter (neutronium). |
| 104 | * ''Film/TheItalianJob1969'' features several Mini Coopers that are packed full with gold bars, but it doesn't affect their maneuverability or speed as they zip around Italy. Charlie [[LampshadeHanging does question]] whether the Minis will be able to take the weight of the gold, suggesting that the writers were aware of the problem. |
| 105 | * ''Film/TheItalianJob2003'' packs the Coopers with gold, and it uses a HandWave by stating that they've beefed up the shocks to accommodate the extra weight, though this is unlikely to be sufficient in real life. |
| 106 | * In ''Film/KellysHeroes'', TheCaper involves a squad of Allied soldiers in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII stealing $16 million in [[NaziGold gold bars]] from a bank behind German lines. In the [=WW2=] era, the price of gold was fixed at $35 per troy ounce, so $16 million worth would weigh 15.67 U.S. short tons and have a volume of 26 cubic feet. It has been calculated that the writers grossly misrepresented the size and weight of that much gold given how much is visible in the movie and the means they use to carry it away. Boxes filled with bullion are also tossed around as if they were empty (which, of course, they are), when, given the size, they would weigh several hundred pounds. |
| 107 | * ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla''. At the beginning of the movie, a submarine traveling underwater passes by the iceberg Godzilla was trapped in at the end of ''Film/GodzillaRaidsAgain'' and chunks of ice begin breaking off as Godzilla starts to stir. Said ice chunks drop like stones around the submarine on a beeline to the seabed. [[RunningGag Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water]]; that, after all, is why icebergs are a thing in the first place! |
| 108 | * ''Film/TheLongShips'': A blatant example shows up in this 60s Viking movie. In it, the MacGuffin is a solid gold bell large enough to be mistaken for the roof of a small chapel. It is easily towed behind the Vikings' boat. No raft, no pontoons, just a solid gold bell floating effortlessly behind an oar-driven ship. Calculating the displacement, however, it might actually be possible if the bell had the right measurements and thickness. |
| 109 | * In ''Film/TheLordOfTheRingsTheReturnOfTheKing'' Gollum falls into a river of lava and sinks in it as if it's barely thicker than water. It may be molten, but it's still ''rock.'' The director has said that they know that shot is all wrong in terms of science but decided to just let the RuleOfCool reign. Not to mention that letting the audience see Gollum being incinerated and cooked on top of the lava would probably be too gruesome for the film. RealityIsUnrealistic probably also applies since many viewers probably think [[LavaIsBoilingKoolAid liquid is liquid]]. |
| 110 | * Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse |
| 111 | ** ''Film/IronMan1'': Despite recovering from recent open-heart surgery, Tony Stark carries a lead-acid car battery like it's an empty cardboard box while in the terrorist camp. A car battery weighs about 30-60 pounds, so while it's not impossible for the muscular Stark to be able to carry it, it would require more visible effort and affect his balance. |
| 112 | ** In the ''Film/AntMan1'' series, the Pym Particles are supposed to work by reducing the distance between atoms, causing objects and creatures to shrink down in size while retaining their mass. This stated mechanic is almost never applied, as characters repeatedly carry around vehicles and even buildings that have been shrunk down as though they weigh as much as their size would imply, even though they should have remained as heavy as an actual car/house/etc. |
| 113 | * ''Film/TheMummyTrilogy'': |
| 114 | ** ''Film/TheMummy1999'' has the ''Book of the Dead'' made of solid gold, yet characters are carrying it around as easily as a normal book that size. In the same film, there are horses loaded with sacks full of gold artifacts, but the beasts don't seem perturbed by the weight. But when a duffel bag full of guns and ammo is thrown into a river, it ''floats''. |
| 115 | ** ''Film/TheMummyReturns'': |
| 116 | *** There's a bracelet of the same material, which is carried ''by a child'' for most of the picture. Early in the film, when lugging around the bracelet in a box, he comments it weighs a lot. |
| 117 | *** Jonathan lifts the Diamond of Ahm Shere, probably about a cubic foot in volume. That's a big rock, and Jonathan's no muscle man, but it's not completely impossible. Just unlikely. |
| 118 | * ''[[Film/NationalTreasure National Treasure 2: The Book of Secrets]]'': In the City of Gold, Riley handles a gold brick that should weigh about 150 pounds as if it were some kind of lightweight prop. |
| 119 | * The movie ''Film/NightAtTheMuseum'' has one of the characters (a ten-year-old boy) effortlessly carry and run with a solid gold tablet. He should not have been able to even pick it up. It's even worse in the sequel, with the characters waving the supposedly solid gold tablet around as if it were a clipboard. |
| 120 | * In ''Film/OceansEleven'', eleven men steal $160 million in cash from a casino. Assuming it's all in C-notes to minimize the number of bills, that much money would weigh roughly a ton and a half. Unless the team was all into heavy-duty bodybuilding, there's no way they could have moved that much weight in one trip as was shown in the finale. Despite all the careful planning involved in the heist, the question of how to lift 300-pound duffel bags and carry them out of the casino without giving away that the bags are a lot heavier coming out than going in isn't mentioned. |
| 121 | * ''Film/OceansEight'' revolves around the plan to steal a necklace called "The Toussaint," which is explicitly said to contain so many diamonds it weighs 6 lbs (around 2.7 kilograms). But you wouldn't know it from the way most characters handle it on screen. Particularly egregious is the fact that [[spoiler:a busboy doesn't notice when 6 lbs of diamonds are casually dropped on his tray as part of the heist.]] |
| 122 | * A solid gold object the size of the idol at the start of ''Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk'' would weigh at least fifty pounds, far more than Indy's small bag of sand. When Indy looks at it, he actually ''removes'' sand from the bag to approximate its weight and later events even suggest that he guessed too low. While it's never explicitly stated that the idol is ''solid'' gold, even a hollow gold object that size would be much too heavy to be toted around as easily as it is. |
| 123 | * The [=MacGuffin=] of ''Film/RedNotice'' is a trio of jewel-encrusted 18K gold eggs, each of which is larger than a football. If the eggs are solid gold rather than hollow (it's never specified), they'd probably weigh at least 40-50 pounds each. Given how casually the things are tossed around for most of the film (the opening act features Booth doing an extended parkour sequence while carrying one of them), they probably weigh a tenth of that at best. |
| 124 | * Subverted in ''Film/SecondhandLions'': Walter correctly figures out that Garth couldn't have taken out the guards with all that gold weighing him down, leading him to admit "[[RetiredBadass Hub]] might have helped a little" and a cut to young Garth struggling to do anything. |
| 125 | * Played egregiously straight in ''Film/TowerHeist'', where a [[spoiler:car made of solid gold]] is handled as if it weighed less than one made of steel, and does not seem to weigh down neither the [[spoiler:scaffolding crane]] nor the [[spoiler:elevator]] that are used to transport it. |
| 126 | * Ice sinks in ''Film/VoyageToTheBottomOfTheSea''. Ice floats because it is less dense than liquid water. |
| 127 | * Referenced but still used in ''Film/TheWayOfTheGun''. The kidnappers demand $15 million in "small, unmarked bills," clearly expecting a BriefcaseFullOfMoney like in media. Taye Diggs' character yells back at them, "Do you know how much that will weigh? Try a couple hundred pounds!" In the director commentary, Christopher [=McQuarrie=] says this came about when Benicio Del Toro, during filming, actually asked how much $15 million would weigh. The money eventually comes in three huge and heavy dufflebags, each requiring a separate man to carry. Even then, the trope is in effect, since $15 million would still weigh more and take up even more space than that. |
| 128 | [[/folder]] |
| 129 | |
| 130 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 131 | * ''Literature/{{Biggles}}'': WE Johns fell into this trap in the novel ''Biggles and Co'', when a recently-demobbed Biggles was hired by a major bank who've been hit by a string of {{Armed Blag}}s and think air-freighting their gold bullion might help. It doesn't; the gang responsible get hold of a small stunt-plane and a few machine guns and turn SkyPirate... but Biggles put the real gold under a false floor in the aircraft's cargo hold, and the robbers drive off in triumphant possession of a large quantity of lead. Now, the author makes an effort at a HandWave by never quite specifying how much gold is being transported, stating only that the individual crates can be lifted comfortably by two men. But nevertheless, carrying a significant amount of gold ''and'' an equivalent number of crates full of lead would be an impressive feat indeed for the cutting edge of 1920s aerospace engineering! |
| 132 | * ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': In ''Literature/TheTruth'', Lord Vetinari is accused of trying to abscond with a large amount of gold supposedly stolen from the city's treasury. Commander Vimes and William de Worde both realise the story can't be true after they calculate how much that amount of money would actually weigh. |
| 133 | * ''Literature/EncyclopediaBrown'': Referenced in a story where a kid lifts up a brick of gold. Brown deduces that it's a fake, because no kid would be strong enough to lift a real brick of gold with one hand. |
| 134 | * In the first ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'' book, Lyra escapes her captors by shaking out a bag of flour in a kitchen with lit stoves, running out of the room, and then waiting for the flour to explode. First, a large bag of flour would be too heavy for someone Lyra's size to handle in that manner. Second, individual grains of flour are too heavy to drift in the air for that long a time. |
| 135 | * In the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' books it was initially played straight, despite Creator/DavidWeber [[ShownTheirWork getting quite a bit else right]]. Once fans started pointing out the absurdly low density (on par with cigar smoke) with the largest ships, the numbers were fixed. |
| 136 | * ''Literature/JamesBond'' |
| 137 | ** Subverted in the short story "[[Literature/OctopussyAndTheLivingDaylights Octopussy]]". The sheer exhaustion of carrying ''two bars'' of NaziGold[[note]]Which isn't even pure -- typical of the Third Reich, it's got a lot of lead mixed in[[/note]] through some hills almost drives the main character insane. Later, when he has to get it through customs, he carries the bars in a briefcase and takes amphetamines to be able to lift it easily enough to conceal its weight. |
| 138 | ** Played straight in ''Literature/{{Goldfinger}}''. Auric Goldfinger plans to rob Fort Knox that account for the weight when getting the gold out of town (a powerful train), but does not mention any intermediate steps to get the gold out of the vault and into the train. |
| 139 | * Invoked in ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'s Siege'' by Bernard Cornwell -- Sharpe and his Confederates are accused of stealing the Imperial Treasury of France (they didn't). [[TheLancer Captain]] [[TheCaptain Frederickson]] points out that the court is accusing them of removing four tons of gold, in small wooden boats, whilst under enemy fire. However, this defense doesn't work, because of the [[MilesGloriosus arrogant]], [[UpperClassTwit aristocratic]], [[GeneralFailure incompetent]], [[GungHolierThanThou pretentious]] and [[BlueBlood snobbish Colonel Wigram]] presiding over the [[KangarooCourt kangaroo court martial]]. |
| 140 | [[/folder]] |
| 141 | |
| 142 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 143 | * On ''Series/ThirtyRock'', Kenneth has an idea for a game show in which contestants guess which suitcase being carried by models is filled with gold. The show was discontinued for being too easy, as one had only to look for the model who had trouble holding up the suitcase. This perhaps qualifies as both a lampshade ''and'' a straight example of this trope: the briefcase is said to contain 1 million dollars worth of gold, and on the date the episode aired, the spot price of gold was US$ 632.23 per troy ounce, meaning the briefcase was supposed to hold approx. 1580 oz t. or 49 Kg. (108lbs), so you'd need to be a seriously ripped professional strongman to hold that briefcase with one hand. |
| 144 | * ''Series/NineOneOneLoneStar'' lampshades this when Judd explains the physics of a corn silo to the rest of the team. Corn in a silo is loose enough that a person can sink in it as if it was quicksand. However, it is also quite dense and a few cubic meters of corn surrounding the victim will exert a lot of pressure on the trapped person. If the firefighers just try to pull the victim straight out, they risk ripping his body in half. |
| 145 | * This appeared in an episode of ''Series/AmericanJustice'', discussing the case of a woman who had killed and dismembered and beheaded a man. The video of her statement has her comment on picking up the head and being surprised at how much it weighed. A detective who'd worked the case commented that's one of the reasons they were confident the confession was valid: unless you'd actually picked up a detached head, it's not the sort of thing someone would think about. |
| 146 | * In ''Series/BabylonBerlin'', the revelation that [[spoiler:the Sorokins' stash of gold was melted down and cast into a boiler car on a train]] makes little sense when you realize that [[spoiler:not only would it be much, much heavier than the rest of the cars (and thus more noticeable), but it would also be almost totally structurally unsound.]] |
| 147 | * ''Series/Batman1966'': Egghead pilfers a giant egg (maybe three feet long) made of solid gold. No one short of the Incredible Hulk should be able to lift that thing, but Egghead picks it up and carries it out, though he's straining with the effort and can't lift it above his waist. |
| 148 | * Subverted twice in ''Series/BreakingBad'': |
| 149 | ** In season 3, when Hank was helping Walt move out of his house, Walt sees his Duffel Bag O' Cash™ sitting on the driveway and moves to grab it before Hank does, who insists on grabbing it anyway. "Jesus, what've you got in there, cinder blocks?", to which Walt replies with a straight face "[[SarcasticConfession Half million in cash]]." Hank laughs it off as a joke. Subverted even further by the bag making an appropriately loud thud when it lands in Hank's trunk. |
| 150 | ** In season 4, when the amount of money that Walt brings in proves too much to launder through the car wash, Skyler tries to hide several hundred thousand dollars in cash by sticking the bills in vacuum bags between little-used clothes and hanging the bags in the closet. The bags weigh so much they break the closet's hang rod, so she stores the vacuum bags (clothes and all) under the floorboards instead. |
| 151 | * At the other end of the scale, one episode of ''Series/{{CSI}}'' has the team investigating a casino heist, supposedly of ten million dollars in cash. Grissom realizes the money would weigh around two hundred pounds -- far too much for one man (seen in security footage) to practically carry. (It isn't stated, but it would also be unfeasibly bulky). The 200 pounds (actually closer to 220) presumes it's all in $100 banknotes. A more normal mix of currency would about double this. A million US dollars in mixed currency fills a large suitcase, and one would probably have to pay overweight charges to fly with it. $250,000 (in $100 bills) fits carefully into an DiabolicalMastermind-style aluminum attaché case. Note, however, that having it all in $100s is not actually an unreasonable assumption for a casino heist, as the casino presumably sorts the cash, and a smart thief with limited resources would probably want to take his/her whole heist in the form of $100s if possible. |
| 152 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 153 | ** The living spaceship in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS8E3TheClawsOfAxos "The Claws of Axos"]] retains the same volume but has "variable mass", which the Doctor blandly remarks is "interesting". |
| 154 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E5WarriorsGate "Warriors' Gate"]], the hull of Rorvik's ship is made of dwarf star alloy, analogous to neutronium, so it should fall under the teaspoon-weighs-a-ton category. Romana and Adric heft it about [[StyrofoamRocks exactly as if it were made of Styrofoam]]. |
| 155 | ** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon "Kill The Moon"]] Clara protests that if the Moon were to shatter the fragments wouldn't do any harm because it's made of eggshell, not rock. The density of eggshell isn't that different from limestone, so a sufficiently big chunk of it would be just as devastating. |
| 156 | * In ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'' it's the relative densities of air and natural gas that are confused in "Social Engineering" when the gas is described as being heavier than air and thus filling the room from the bottom up; in reality natural gas is lighter than air, so it should be filling the room from the ceiling down. |
| 157 | * ZigZagged in an episode of ''Series/HogansHeroes'': The crew paints some gold bars red and some bricks yellow to swap them with each other, and they have to pretend that the regular bricks are really heavy when transporting them. But they make a set of stairs into Klink's office out of the gold bars which don't sink into the ground. |
| 158 | * In the [[MemeticMutation infamous]] "What's heavier?" sketch from ''Series/LimmysShow'', Limmy is [[EntertaininglyWrong humorously incapable]] of comprehending that a kilogram of steel would weigh the same as a kilogram of feathers -- even when other characters bring out a kilogram of both and put them on a scale -- because "Steel is heavier than feathers." |
| 159 | -->'''Limmy:''' [''pointing at feathers''] [[ComicallyMissingThePoint Look at the size of this, that's cheating]]! |
| 160 | * In ''Series/{{Merlin|2008}}'', a character uses alchemy to create a big lump of solid gold, which the characters lift and carry as easily as if it was polystyrene. |
| 161 | * ''Radio/OurMissBrooks'': In "The Jewel Robbery", Miss Brooks wrongly assumes Mr. Boynton robbed ''Frank's Jewelry Store'' and put the stolen jewels in a suitcase. What really is in the suitcase is Mr. Boynton's laundry, including his long-underwear. Miss Brooks fails to notice the suitcase is too light to have jewels when she has a student switch it with an identical suitcase owned by the cafeteria dishwasher. The dishwasher is the actual thief, and has the jewels stashed there! As it turned out, although Miss Brooks does not notice, Mr. Boynton immediately discovers the switch. |
| 162 | * A DVD commentary on ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' pointed out this trope to highlight actors John Schnieder's acting abilities. In a scene where Jonathan Kent and [[Franchise/{{Superman}} Clark Kent]] are moving bales of hay, Jonathan is visibly having a hard time carrying the prop hay. The production staff had forgotten real hay bales do weigh a lot and Schnieder, who had had some farm experience, decided to portray this right. The actor playing Clark Kent had no such experience, but given [[SuperStrength who he is]], it actually helped to make the two characters believable. |
| 163 | * Played with in [[Recap/SharpeS1E1SharpesRifles the first episode]] of ''Series/{{Sharpe}}''. Sharpe is assigned to escort a party carrying a box that, to allay suspicion, they claim is full of old papers and documents. However, they lift the box around with ease invoking this trope. After Sharpe (and the audience) have accepted that, Harper conversationally points out that they are being hoodwinked because paper weighs ''a lot'' and whatever the box contains is very light. [[spoiler:It is actually a flag that is a cultural treasure and propaganda rallying point]]. |
| 164 | * In the series finale of ''Series/PersonOfInterest'', Reese clubs an opponent unconscious with a gold brick. Gold bricks such as those found in a major gold repository weigh about 25 pounds, give or take, so hitting somebody with one would stand a good chance of knocking them out. However, the same factor means that most people would not be able to grip, lift and swing said brick one-handed. At least not while reaching behind oneself while bent over backwards. |
| 165 | * One episode of ''Series/{{NCIS}}'' had the villain acquiring $108,000 in one-dollar bills, treating them with a contact poison, and then distributing them (Some dropped, some left in charity donation containers, some spent...) all over town as an act of terrorism. The money is shown to be coming out of a duffel bag, which would be accurate for the volume needed, but at no point does it look like the bag weighs about as much as the person carrying it (108,000 bills would weigh roughly 200 pounds). |
| 166 | * The trope appears at the end of a ''Series/SesameStreet'' Muppet and Kid Moment, in which Ernie and Bert teach Shola Lynch about the relative sizes of balls. After showing her a basketball and two smaller balls, Ernie shows Shola a ball bearing (she calls it a "baby ball"). Ernie then throws the ball bearing to Bert, but it flies off-screen, followed by the sound of breaking glass. |
| 167 | * Played with in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', with the super-strong android Data attempting to pass himself off as human.. and casually picking up a large iron anvil with one hand. When a witness questions this, he deliberately drops it (THUD!) and makes a game attempt at faking an injury. |
| 168 | * In ''Series/TerminatorTheSarahConnorChronicles'', Charley still has trouble believing Cameron is a "big scary robot", until she casually picks up a corpse for disposal. As a paramedic, he'd know just how much a body weighed. |
| 169 | * ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" plays this straight when some gangsters steal a truck full of gold and hide out in a cave where they hibernate for many years. When they wake up, they crash the truck trying to get back to town, and hike back to town instead, carrying backpacks full of dozens of gold ingots each. Later on, one man drops his canteen and the other offers him a drink for a bar of gold -- he eventually ends up with both their shares of gold on his back, but doesn't even slow down. |
| 170 | * In ''Series/WhiteCollar'', a briefcase full of Krugerrands was quite easily passed around, while in reality that much gold would have weighed about a hundred pounds. |
| 171 | [[/folder]] |
| 172 | |
| 173 | [[folder:Myths & Religion]] |
| 174 | * Detractors of the Mormon faith have often derided the idea of the Book of Mormon having been translated from solid gold plates -- particularly the idea that Joseph Smith says he had to run about a mile with the plates when he first recovered them. If the plates were solid gold they would have been very heavy, but if they were a copper-gold alloy (which is more likely) they may have weighed only around 60-70 pounds, a more reasonable figure for Smith, up to that point a manual laborer noted for his strength, to run with.[[/folder]] |
| 175 | |
| 176 | [[folder:Puppet Shows]] |
| 177 | * ''Series/TheMuppetShow:'' The Shirley Bassey episode plays with this one as dictated by what's funniest. Beaker tries lifting one solid gold bar, and has a lot of difficulty carrying it, while Scooter manages to carry a small amount of gold (which had moments prior been cottage cheese) with no difficulty until it falls on his foot. Meanwhile, Link Hogthrob and a gang of pigs manage to quietly abscond with several million dollars worth in gold bars, and no problems whatsoever. |
| 178 | |
| 179 | [[/folder]] |
| 180 | |
| 181 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 182 | * Classic ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' rated HumongousMecha by their total mass. Typically, 'Mechs are not given canon heights beyond saying that [=BattleMechs=] typical range between eight and fourteen meters tall, but some authors have tried to assign heights to specific mechs, apparently by comparing the miniatures of different mechs and assuming that they're to scale (prior to 2018, the minis were absolutely ''not'' to scale with each other). |
| 183 | ** It gets worse with [=DropShips=]. A large Dropship weighs ten thousand tons and is protected by 30 tons of armor. Considering it's a hundred meter sphere, it comes to the ship being about fifteen times as dense as air, and the armor being ''paper thin''. |
| 184 | ** Additionally, some mechs have pencil-thin feet that would sink through even paved surfaces. |
| 185 | ** On the other side of the scale, the Star League-era Rotunda scout car, which is disguised as a luxury sports car and armed with a Large Laser, is listed with a weight of ''twenty tons''. Light for a combat vehicle, but about ten times the weight of a typical sports car. |
| 186 | * First Edition ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons Advanced Dungeons and Dragons]]'' went too far in the ''opposite'' direction than usual: all coins were assumed to weigh a whopping 1/10 of a pound each. This would make one gold piece bigger and heavier than almost any gold coin known to exist in real-world history. Back then, the logistics of getting your treasure ''out'' of the dungeon were very much intended -- [[GuideDangIt if not always spelled out as such]] -- to be part of the challenge. Later editions ignored or downplayed this aspect. |
| 187 | ** In First Edition, those values given weren't actually straight weight, they were ''Encumbrance,'' IE a measure of how difficult items were to carry based on weight ''and volume'' as compared to a number of gold pieces, making the values actually pretty reasonable. However, when Second Edition came along the writers decided to just take those 1E ''Encumbrance'' values and divide by ten to turn them into straight weight values, apparently not realizing exactly what the original values were supposed to be measuring. Thus we ended up with such absurdities as 15 pound swords. |
| 188 | * Although ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' acknowledges that gold is ill-suited to adventuring gear, ''Ultimate Equipment'' states that weapons and armor made of solid gold weigh 50% more than normal. That number would more accurately be 2.4 times heavier. |
| 189 | [[/folder]] |
| 190 | |
| 191 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 192 | * ''[[VideoGame/AncientDomainsOfMystery Adom]]'' assigns weight to gold pieces. It's quite possible to get crushed under the weight the gold you are carrying if your magic fails you. With normal in-game methods you can accumulate hundreds of kilos of gold. Abusing a bug you can get hundred thousand kilos. |
| 193 | * ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'': Elaine is turned into what Guybrush describes as solid gold. While we don't actually see anyone pick up the statue, over the course of the game Elaine is stolen twice, buried, dug up again, and finally stored in the crow's nest of Guybrush's ship, suggesting that the statue doesn't weigh much more than the flesh-and-blood version. In fact, using a little back-of-the-treasure-map math, converting even a small woman's body into pure gold [[note]] On balance, human beings are roughly the same weight per litre as water; gold is nearly twenty times heavier than water, so multiply the original weight by twenty and you'd be in the ballpark[[/note]] would result in a statue weighing close to a metric ''tonne''. |
| 194 | * At one point in ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'', Bernard gets $876,600 in quarters from a vending machine. That much change would weigh just under 20 tons. And Bernard lacks sufficient upper-body strength to pick up a bowling ball. |
| 195 | * ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' |
| 196 | ** Throughout most of the series, [[CheapGoldCoins gold coins]] do not have a weight. Thanks to all of the series plentiful MoneyForNothing, it isn't unusual to see players running around with ''tens of thousands'' of gold coins, yet not be slowed in the slightest. |
| 197 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIDaggerfall Daggerfall]]'' provides an exception to the above gold coin example. Gold coins do have weight (400 gold = 1kg), however, this is still in line with the trope, being far less than 400 similarly sized gold coins would weigh in real life. You can also deposit gold in various regional banks, who will give you a nondescript "letter of credit" which only weighs 0.25kg. Banks do have an "administrative charge" equal to 1% of the amount you are requesting. It may feel harsh to lose 1000 gold, but it is well worth it to give a 0.25kg piece of paper worth 100,000 gold (which would weigh 250kg in actual gold). |
| 198 | ** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]'', everything has a rather realistic weight to it, however, your character can still lift an insane amount without being slowed down. Humorously, this means oftentimes it's more practical to steal/loot cheaper stuff (like clothes) than heavy weapons and armor because its value:weight ratio is higher and thus you can walk away with more of it. |
| 199 | ** ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'': |
| 200 | *** All ingots of metal weigh the same (1 unit). This includes gold, which would obviously be much denser than an iron or steel ingot of the same dimensions. |
| 201 | *** The crafting system leads to some amusing math as well. For example, a 3-pound bear pelt yields 4 pounds of leather. |
| 202 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' expansion ''The Pitt'' you are sent on a quest to collect 10 steel ingots out of a possible 100. Each steel ingot weighs 1 pound. If you collect them all before turning in the quest, [[AntiFrustrationFeatures their weight won't count against your carry limit]]. If you collect some, complete the quest, and then go back for the rest, the remaining ingots will each weigh their full amount. |
| 203 | * The first expansion for ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', ''Dead Money'', subverts this at the end when the player finds a vault with 37 gold bars. Each bar is worth 10,439 caps, a ridiculously large amount, but each bar also weighs 35 pounds. You're under a strict time limit to escape with whatever you can carry, and if you carry more than your encumbrance limit, you move far too slowly to make it out. If a player wanted to take all the bars —- a total of 382,913 caps, enough that you'd basically never need money again —- they would be carrying 1,295 pounds. The highest possible carry weight a player could have (i.e. max Strength and various Perks) is 375 pounds, so a player could only carry 10 of the bars at most without being over-encumbered, and they'd have to drop everything they were already carrying. To make this all sillier, no vendor in the game ever has more than 8,000 caps. It's impossible to sell even a single bar for its total value. Some have speculated that this is meant to tie into a theme of letting greed go, as the inability to even find enough caps in the whole wasteland to make gathering all those bars worth it kind of makes the bars...[[TitleDrop Dead Money]] (the natural progression is to take out some in trade, but even then it is difficult to find a vendor with that much to spare). |
| 204 | ** It's entirely possible to leave the vault with every single bar through clever use of the game world, such as [[GoodBadBugs by loading the gold into a dead body, decapitating it and carrying the head manually]]. Even without exploits, it's possible to take a shortcut by sneaking past a very alert NPC, avoiding the timed-run and giving the player plenty of time to escape with all the bars, as the player character can still walk at a waddling pace even if they're carrying over half a ton of gold. |
| 205 | ** ''New Vegas'' also features a [[DownplayedTrope whitewash]] with [[HarderThanHard "Hardcore Mode"]] -- where (among other things) ammo has weight. At first, it doesn't make much of a difference when individual bullets weigh 1/15 to 1/10 of a pound -- but when players start acquiring automatic weapons that eat bullets like candy, or come across rocket launchers whose individual rockets weigh two pounds apiece, it really starts to cut down on what you can carry compared to normal mode. (Though even in hardcore, there are many completely weightless items -- including gunpowder and shell casings.) This is made more annoying by many junk items used for crafting being exactly 1 pound, an apparent default value, even if it makes no sense. Somehow a scalpel, forceps, and a ''single tin can'' all weigh a whole pound each. |
| 206 | ** Both ''Fallout 3'' and ''New Vegas'' have an ItemCrafting component called a fission battery. They're the size and shape of 9-volt batteries, yet weigh ''10 pounds'' in ''Fallout 3'' and 6 pounds in ''New Vegas''. A portable fission battery would be denser than a regular battery since nuclear fuel and shielding are both heavy, but a 10-pound object that size would be ten times the density of ''pure uranium.'' |
| 207 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' usually gives Link an entire arsenal that rarely seems to encumber him, with only the explicitly very heavy items having any effect, and even then only when he's holding them in his hands -- everything in his bag becomes weightless. |
| 208 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'': Link can swing his giant hammer almost as well as his sword, and the Iron Boots only make him sink if he's wearing them -- not while he has them stored inside his other boots (or wherever it is that they go). |
| 209 | ** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' Link carries around with him, on top of the usual armor of shield, sword, bombs, arrows, etc, an entire raft and a ladder big enough to bridge small streams and gaps with. |
| 210 | * Not sure if it's a subversion or what, but in ''VideoGame/MafiaII'', one level has you giving the Chinese Mafia money in exchange for heroin. One of the head guy's bodyguards hefts the briefcase then tips it out, stating the denomination of the bills, their weight and how much that weight equals in money. |
| 211 | * In ''VideoGame/MechCommander'', there is a mech called a Cougar, which is a 35-ton mech. The Weapon variant can fit 34 tons of weapons, which means the empty chassis is only 1 ton. |
| 212 | * The ''VideoGame/MechWarrior'' series, based on ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'', likewise rates its HumongousMecha by metric tonnage. The issue of silly tonnages and densities is exacerbated by the mechs being largely to-scale with each other and the environment unlike the often out-of-scale sourcebook art from ''Battletech''. The Atlas in ''[=MechWarrior=] 4'' is taller than a 6 story building and its feet are as large as a small tank, but it's only 100 tons, twice the weight of an M1 Abrams. Later games are slightly better in this regard. Amusingly, in ''[=MechWarrior=]: Living Legends'', mechs will spontaneously ''become buoyant'' if they are ragdolled from leg damage while underwater; just about every mech would naturally be about as dense as Styrofoam or plywood. |
| 213 | * ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'''s backpack inventory system lets Big Boss carry an RPG, two rifles, and an assortment of pistol sized weapons, along with medical supplies, rations, and any critter you caught, without getting weighed down. They only become weighty when equipped on his person. |
| 214 | * In ''Videogame/{{Minecraft}} '', although gold is a very dense material, the player character can carry a cubic meter just as easily as a cubic meter of wood. |
| 215 | * ''VideoGame/Payday2'': characters can throw bags of gold effortlessly, making it faster to constantly throw a bag of gold forward then pick it up as opposed to simply carrying it. (The developers noticed this as well, and with tongue-in-cheek referred to their game as a "bag throwing simulator.") |
| 216 | * The info in the Pokédex in ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' frequently applies this to living things, giving weights that are often ridiculously heavy or light: Wailord is 14.5 m long, yet only weighs about 400 kg. |
| 217 | ** Apparently some Pokémon are ''less dense than hydrogen.'' |
| 218 | ** The whale family is at least called "float whale Pokémon," as Wailord is likely based on a blimp and its original form, Wailmer, seems to be based on a beach ball. However, how they manage to dive is the real question. |
| 219 | ** Also, sometimes in the anime, people are shown carrying Pokémon whose Pokédex entry gives them a considerable weight with more ease than the average parent holding a baby for extended periods. Ash's Larvitar is probably the most infamous example since the average Larvitar weighs 158.7 lbs (72.0 kg, i.e. something you would expect from an average adult), but because it's only 2 feet tall (just slightly more than a newborn baby), the animators assumed 10-year old Ash Ketchum would have no problem carrying it around. |
| 220 | ** This is one of the reasons for the {{Fanon}} theory that the ten-year-old player character in the games is the one writing the Pokédex entries. He/she is just making up numbers that sound right to them and wildly over/underestimating everything in the process. |
| 221 | * ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', with the Attache case. Never mind an RPG weighs a lot, or that a fully loaded case would probably be too heavy to lift. And how does the Merchant hide that in his coat? |
| 222 | * Lampshaded in the ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' fan novel [[RPGEpisode "Witches and Woodlands."]] Those who wager their weight in gold in [[{{Greed}} Mammon's]] trial and lose are [[TakenForGranite turned into gold statues]] to pay the debt. George protests that the density of gold means that the statues would weigh more than the living victims. [[GameMaster Beatrice]] hastily handwaves it by saying that the statues are hollow before muttering, "Damn, [[ScienceDestroysMagic I hate science! Always messing with my magic.]]" |
| 223 | * In ''VideoGame/UnchartedDrakesFortune'', Nate realizes the golden statue they're looking for was brought to the island when he looks at some old freight logs and notices something weighing "about 500 pounds". A cube of gold that weighed 500 pounds would have about 8.94 inches (22.7 cm) to a side. The statue they find looks like it should weigh several ''tons'' at least. But then, [[spoiler:the statue isn't solid]]. |
| 224 | [[/folder]] |
| 225 | |
| 226 | |
| 227 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 228 | * [[http://www.nerdragecomic.com/index.php?date=2013-05-03 This]] installment of ''Webcomic/NerdRage'' points out some major inconsistencies in the [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Pokedex]], starting with how Wailord is '''absurdly''' light for its size.[[note]]For those who use metric, Wailord is roughly 14.5 meters long and weighs 398 kilograms (about the size of a city bus, yet as heavy as a horse). That would potentially give it a density of less than 1 kg/m[[superscript:3]] (air density is 1.225 kg/m[[superscript:3]]).[[/note]] |
| 229 | * PlayedWith in ''WebComic/SchlockMercenary'': [[ActionGirl Elf]] carrying three large cylinders evidently made of solid gold is not a problem, as she is in strength-enhancing PowerArmor. However, she declines Kevyn's suggestion of leaning them against a bulkhead: |
| 230 | -->'''Elf:''' They weigh about a half-ton each. I'm not leaning them against '''anything.''' |
| 231 | * [[http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20070506 These]] two [[http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20070513 pages]] of ''ComicStrip/WhatsNewWithPhilAndDixie'' feature exercises for ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' players to get a feel of what they put their characters through without a second thought. Number 1 is acquiring treasure, demonstrated with bowling balls. |
| 232 | ** The strips however fall into the trap of assuming plate armor and swords are too heavy for an average person to use easily. In reality, medieval knights' plate armor was light enough to cartwheel and swim in, and a large sword weighed about 2 pounds. |
| 233 | [[/folder]] |
| 234 | |
| 235 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 236 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'', the Joker once stole Bane's muscle inflation device, and used it to become super-strong and grow at least fifteen feet tall. He later uses this SuperStrength to lift a solid gold globe, but the thing's shape isn't changed by doing this. Weight aside, gold is fairly soft; trying to lift a huge globe of solid gold (or worse a hollow sphere of gold) would result in a Joker-shaped dent on the underside. |
| 237 | * ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'': |
| 238 | ** "Read My Lips" has a scene where Scarface and his men are stealing a load of platinum. They unload the ingots one at a time and it's shown that of the three, only Rhino, who's twice the size of Batman, can lift an ingot with no problem. Batman is captured in the ensuing fight when Rhino tips what should be several tons of the stuff over. Surprisingly, Batman is only knocked out for a few hours with no noticeable injuries. |
| 239 | ** In "Deep Freeze", Mr. Freeze zaps Grant Walker with his FreezeRay and traps him in ice. Walker falls into the ocean and sinks like a stone, even though ice floats. |
| 240 | * ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987'': |
| 241 | ** Scrooge [=McDuck=] can ''dive into the gold and swim in it''. However, when the triplets try to do that, they get hurt and [[LampshadeHanging wonder how does he do that]]. Maybe the gold likes ''him'', too, and just wouldn't hurt him? |
| 242 | *** Comics from Creator/DonRosa [[LampshadeHanging lampshade this]]: in ''Comicbook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'', Scrooge himself was extremely surprised when a Bedouin tried to ''murder'' him by throwing him in a train wagon filled with cash and he managed to swim in it, and when Donald first saw him diving in his money he believed he was killing himself until he started swimming (the nephews and him could barely believe their own eyes). |
| 243 | ** The same thing happens to the Beagle Boys in one of the comics, and to [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy Peter Griffin]] in one of their cutaways. |
| 244 | ** Similarly, in ''WesternAnimation/Ducktales2017'', Scrooge has to physically restrain Louie once from doing a swan dive into the Bin, remarking that Louie would be seriously hurt, if [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome not outright killed]] in the attempt. When Louie asks Scrooge how ''he'' does it, Scrooge remarks that he was able to master the skill only after years of practice. Further on in the episode, when Louie has to go hunting in the bin for Scrooge's NumberOneDime, he is shown pushing, waist-deep, through the coins with great difficulty. |
| 245 | ** A later episode [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the danger when Dewey decides to go for a swim and Huey and Louie flat out state that it's probably a bad idea but too cool not to watch anyway. |
| 246 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' |
| 247 | ** Parodied; starship fuel (dark matter) is so dense that "a single pound of it weighs ten thousand pounds." In one case, Fry refers to a ball of this fuel, which has previously been shown on rare occasions to be lift-able by a human, as "weighing as much as a thousand suns." The episode "The Game" throws the dark matter's weight out the window by having the characters pushing ''wheelbarrows filled with it''. On the Sun. |
| 248 | ** [[LampshadeHanging A lampshade]] gets hung on this when Fry and Leela are going to have a fiddle contest with the Robot Devil where the prizes are Bender's soul and a solid gold fiddle. When Fry ([[SmartBall of all people]]) asks "Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound crummy?", the Robot Devil admits that it's mostly for show. Nevertheless, Leela picks the fiddle up and attempts to play it moments later, and it seems to be an ordinary fiddle. The fiddle later proves to be so heavy that they have to drop it before flying out of Robot Hell. |
| 249 | ** There was also an episode where they go to a planet where the gravity is extremely heavy (as the professor says "You'd be crushed by the weight of your own hair"). Pillows weigh hundreds of pounds and raindrops can knock someone down. The crew tried lifting all the pillows at once and the dolly they were using fell apart almost instantly, as did Zapp Brannigan's girdle. |
| 250 | * ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': In "Bullies", Valmont uses the dragon talisman, which has the power of combustion, to rob Fort Knox. Jackie follows him there, and along with Uncle, each easily hold individual gold bricks. Uncle uses one to block a Dark Hand mook's punch ([[BondOneLiner "Respect your elders!"]]), and Jackie tosses gold bricks overboard [[IShallTauntYou in a mocking attempt to push]] Valmont's BerserkButton. |
| 251 | * Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' episode "Spanakopita!" While Dr. Venture is ranting to his friends about how his vacation is being ruined by a rival cheating at the "Spanakopita games", he paces the room brandishing a rock the size of his torso. |
| 252 | -->'''Billy:''' All right, just stop waving that huge rock at me!\ |
| 253 | '''Pete:''' How are you even doing that?\ |
| 254 | '''Dr. Venture:''' It's pumice[[note]]extremely porous volcanic rock, about one quarter the density of water[[/note]]. For the pumice-carving competition. |
| 255 | * The mecha tanks in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' are made of pure platinum so they won't be affected by metalbenders. Platinum is even denser than gold and is almost as soft; they shouldn't be able to stand under their own weight. |
| 256 | * One episode of ''WesternAnimation/MummiesAlive'' featured the ghosts of Gold Rush prospectors as villains, and they went around stealing every bit of gold they could find. Including BigGuy Armon's golden arm. Now, being the BigGuy it's not such a strain that he can make use of an arm made of gold, but their twelve-year-old friend Presley can lift it as easily as if it was made of cardboard. |
| 257 | ** In ''Who's who'' however when Rath and Armon have their minds switched, Rath is unable to properly use Armon's golden arm as even with Armon's muscles and size, he isn't used to carrying such a large weight. |
| 258 | * They carry stuff made out of solid gold rather effortlessly in ''Anime/TheMysteriousCitiesOfGold''. |
| 259 | ** To say nothing of the Golden Condor, ''an airplane made out of solid gold''. |
| 260 | * Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'': Their very first caper was to break into Fort Knox and steal all the nation's gold. The two broke in, then realized they couldn't pick up even one brick. |
| 261 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 262 | ** In "The Seemingly Never-Ending Story", Marge effortlessly lifts a huge bag of gold coins with ''one hand''. |
| 263 | ** In "Homer's Phobia," a steel mill worker carries, unaided and at arm's length, a vat of what's implied to be molten steel. Given the vat's dimensions, it should weigh multiple tons. |
| 264 | * Possibly played for laughs in ''WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants'', where is never terribly consistent about whether the characters are in a water-like medium or an air-like medium. |
| 265 | |
| 266 | [[/folder]] |
| 267 | |
| 268 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 269 | * At some old gold mines in Canada, one gag played on new miners (and visitors) was to tell them that if they could lift a brick of gold off the table with one hand gripping it from the top, they could have it. The joke worked because of the density (something about the size of an ordinary brick weighs about thirty kilograms), shape of the brick, and smoothness of the metal, making it impossible to get a grip strong enough to lift it. This was demonstrated in that exact fashion on an episode of the Canadian documentary series ''Ed's Up,'' which stars Music/BarenakedLadies' Ed Robertson. While he was working at a facility that produces gold bricks, the employees told him if he could pick up the gold brick (the size of an ordinary brick) and carry it out without assistance, it was his to keep. The best he could was turn it on its side, after a great deal of effort. There was a slight lip on the brick after it had been stamped on the top, which he thought might help, but it was of no avail. |
| 270 | * There is a story about an 18th-century nobleman trying to pick up a platinum ingot about 10 cm across. He then complained gluing the metal to the table wasn't funny. Platinum is 11% denser than gold and 89% denser than lead. |
| 271 | * Depleted uranium metal has a density of 19.1 g/cm[[superscript:3]], very nearly the same as gold and much denser than lead. It is used for ballast weights in some aviation and nautical applications where lead weights would be inconveniently large. |
| 272 | * Anyone who ever found some iron pyrite, picked it up easily, and still thought it was gold instead of fool's gold has fallen victim to this trope.[[note]]The density of pyrite is about 5 g/cm[[superscript:3]]; the density of gold is 19.3 g/cm[[superscript:3]]. This means that a chunk of gold weighs about four times more than a chunk of pyrite the same size.[[/note]] |
| 273 | * One classic trick used in lectures on muscle physiology is to fill two identical small containers, one with lightweight material and the other with lead. The lightweight container is set on display, and a student volunteer called up to lift it one-handed. After a few demonstrations of arm movements with the lighter container, the instructor switches it out for the heavy one behind the volunteer's back. When the volunteer is asked to lift it again, it either slips through their grasp or sets them off-balance, because the weight is suddenly ''much'' heavier and their muscles' grip and/or stance were calibrated for the lighter burden. |
| 274 | * An Australian kidnapping case involved the ransom being dropped at the end of a jetty, where the kidnapper planned to swim in and collect it under the nose of police who would be looking for a boat. However he underestimated the weight of the ransom and had to hold onto a jetty pylon to catch his breath before he'd gone too far, where he was spotted by a plainclothes police officer staking out the jetty. |
| 275 | [[/folder]] |
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