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2%% The examples on this page have been put into alphabetical order.
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4%% Please add new examples in the correct order.
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7[[quoteright:350:[[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screen_shot_2020_02_01_at_213455_2.png]]]]
8[[caption-width-right:350:[[LampshadeHanging Well, that's convenient!]]]]
9
10->'''Robin:''' Casualties?\
11'''John:''' None, so far. But we've never actually found a casualty at a Hulk site before, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised.\
12'''Robin:''' No deaths? Incredible.\
13'''John:''' I've always felt it's best not to dwell on these things.
14-->-- ''ComicBook/DamageControl'' on the ''lack'' of fatalities in ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk's rampages
15
16[[StuffBlowingUp Explosions are cool]]. So are giant objects. Therefore, [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs giant objects exploding]] are [[RuleOfCool extremely cool]], [[FridgeLogic but let's think about this for a moment]]. Halt the AttackOfThe50FootWhatever in a major city by blowing it up. Or just kill it and let it fall over, for that matter. That's going to do some [[StealthPun monstrous]] damage to the city. {{Space Battle}}s are another common offender: many SpaceOpera settings use {{antimatter}} as starship fuel, which means that a spaceship exploding near an inhabited planet probably ought to be [[ApocalypseHow an extinction-level event]].
17
18Yet any collateral damage or casualties are depicted as minimal. Either we cut to credits before we see any aftermath, or (more blatantly) we see that there was no collateral effect at all. If there are, they are just {{Conveniently Empty Building}}s.
19
20Why? You can't have the heroes take down the alien spacecraft ForGreatJustice, only to look sheepish when the [[NiceJobBreakingItHero flaming debris flattens the city]]. Not in any show on [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism the idealism end of the scale]], anyway. Maybe they have a brilliant [[ThePlan plan]] to lure it somewhere uninhabited before they blow it to rubble, but surprisingly often, it's just not something the writers concern themselves with, leading viewers to notice the InferredHolocaust.
21
22If you're a hero, you needn't worry about this. Even if there is collateral damage, your HeroInsurance is going to cover it. If not, then HilaritySues.
23
24See ColonyDrop for when a large artifical object is ''deliberately'' dropped on a planet to cause a massive, destructive impact. The {{Trope Namer|s}} is the fan theory about the destruction of Endor as a result of the detonation of the Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' (see Film section below). (And [[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant not]] the [[Literature/EndersGame Ender Holocaust]], which is about the opposite.)
25
26Compare ThereAreNoGlobalConsequences and NeverSayDie. InferredHolocaust is when you realize the MonsterOfTheWeek might be dead but chances of survival are grim after the extensive damage.
27
28As potentially mass-death-causing events tend to happen during pivotal plot points, '''expect spoilers.'''
29----
30!!Examples:
31[[foldercontrol]]
32
33[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
34* This is the main point of any ''kekkai'' (barrier field) or PhantomZone in numerous shows, as besides [[{{Masquerade}} keeping the supernatural secret]] and sometimes showing off [[AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield cool art]] this lets the heroes never have to worry about collateral damage.
35* Downplayed in ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'' when Korosensei blows up most of the Moon. This does not affect life on Earth in any way, but [[FreezeFrameBonus newspaper early on]] mentions the problems coming from the moon and in the finale [[spoiler:things finally begin to settle as the moon collapses and becomes closer to Earth, eventually making the Earth's system return to normal]].
36* Virtually every single episode of ''Anime/TheBigO'' simply ''begins'' with the eponymous robot exploding up from underground, taking streets, cars, and skyscrapers, and one can only presume people along with them. And yet the chief of police is good friends with its pilot and never bitches him out for mass slaughter.
37** [[spoiler:{{Hand Wave}}d when the GainaxEnding reveals that the entire two seasons were some sort of simulation or theatrical piece on a massive sound stage. There are lots of such headscratchers in real fiction too.]]
38* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
39** Hollow incidents in the early part of the story can cause collateral damage in the real world: for example, the anime adaptation of the first chapter shows Fishbone-D causing what the residents of Karakura Town take to be a gas explosion while feeding. No significant casualties are mentioned and this is largely dropped after the first chapter/episode.
40** {{Defied|Trope}} during Aizen's invasion of Karakura Town, as the Shinigami replace it with a fake, uninhabited city in order to prevent their destructive abilities from killing everyone and conceal the real city inside the Soul Society. By the time Aizen makes it to the real Karakura Town, only Ichigo is left to stop him, though the two of them alone are sufficiently powerful enough that Ichigo throws Aizen all the way into a massive faraway field for their final battle.
41** Most of the fighting in The Thousand-Year Blood War Arc takes place in cities, and initially it's averted as it's mentioned that thousands of people were killed during the destruction of the Seireitei. However, the trope's later played straight when the battles move toward the Quincies' domain, as even though buildings are still leveled, no one seems to be living in them.
42* Averted in ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'', where the giant robot fights are shown quite explicitly to cause utter devastation to the area/city they are fighting in, with reports afterward, [[spoiler:if it was a "home" battle,]] mentioning the hundreds if not thousands of dead and injured and (hundreds of) millions of dollars' worth of damage. This is even [[LampshadeHanging brought to our attention]] during Kodaka Masaru's battle, where one of the characters observes that the "enemy" robot is going out of its way to cause as little damage as possible; Kodaka's response to this was to state that he couldn't care less and proceeds to move carelessly, trashing the city... [[spoiler: and ends up crushing his dad's car (with his dad inside it) in the process]]. Cue BSOD when he realizes this.
43* ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex''[=/=]''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'': The city has enough large, empty areas undergoing construction that whenever a big fight breaks out, there's generally a mention of steering the damage somewhere without people. Played for laughs in the Doppleganger arc of ''Railgun'', where the Scavenger team convinces Mikoto to point the monster in a specific direction because "there's nothing but a bunch of [[JapaneseDelinquents Skill-Outs]] squatting there." Mikoto tells them she'll leave the evacuation to them, and they remember that since they're [[ImpersonatingAnOfficer pretending to be with Judgment]], they're supposed to care about civilians. There's a few short scenes of them tricking the criminals into leaving.
44* Completely averted in ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', where even a single [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Devil's]] appearance for a few hours, minutes or even seconds can have consequences that last for ''years''. The Gun Devil's big attack before the story lasted only five minutes, yet it managed to kill over a million people worldwide. Likewise, the Falling Devil's appearance in Part 2 lasted twelve minutes, yet over 2000 people died and the resulting gravitational shockwaves triggered landslides and cave-ins globally.
45* In ''Anime/CodeGeass Nightmare of Nunnally'', unlike in the main series, the consequences of triggering an avalanche on Narita are largely unexplored, given that the plot quickly moves on.
46** The [[Anime/CodeGeass main series]] also plays this straight later on [[spoiler:when Lelouch sets off Mount Fuji. No mention of an evacuation of all the towns surrounding the mountain for about 100 miles, which should include much of the Tokyo metropolitan area, is ever made]]. This is mitigated by the fact that [[spoiler:Tokyo Settlement was the site of a nuke-equivalent explosion a few episodes earlier, causing millions of casualties and several HeroicBSOD]] and further mitigated by the fact that [[spoiler:Lelouch is going for a ZeroApprovalGambit (haha) at this point, so several hundred thousand casualties do more to advance his plans than anything else]].
47* Parodied in ''Literature/DirtyPair Flash'': After one of their little "accidents" involving a space station, Kei and Yuri are ordered to send a hand-written letter of apology to each one of the 300,000 survivors.
48* In ''[[VideoGame/ZoneOfTheEnders Dolores, i]]'', the eponymous HumongousMecha[=/=]RobotGirl causes a massive wave after falling to earth at hypersonic speeds, inundating a city up to at least the second floor. Although the damage is blamed on the heroes, there are oddly no fatalities mentioned.
49* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':
50** ''Anime/DragonBallZ'': Piccolo ''[[DetonationMoon blew up the moon]]'' to stop a monkey from rampaging in a forest. ''WebVideo/DragonBallAbridged'' has [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=ys7pLfOVZDE&t=7m42s something to say about this.]]
51** Jackie Chun beat him to it in the original ''Manga/DragonBall''... but played with when the announcer for the tournament chews him out for it. Notably, they fixed it by having Kami make another one after Goku removed his tail... which didn't happen in the ''DBZ'' example.
52** In addition, the opening animated sequence of ''DBZ Budokai 2'' has Goku slice the moon in half with a Kamehamaha. ''Dragon Ball'' just seems to have it in for the moon.
53** The series also generally falls under this when it comes to [[EarthShatteringKaboom especially destructive]] [[KiManipulation Ki Attacks]]. Apparently something that is strong enough to blow a planet apart is no danger as long as it's not pointing down, even though that kind of thing should have sucked the atmosphere right off of Earth. An especially bad case was Vegeta's "Final Flash" attack against Perfect Cell, which made it into space despite being fired ''horizontally'' and apparently taking a ''continent's'' worth of land with it.
54** The series often averts this trope as well, especially in the beginning. The protagonists will often force the fight away from civilization, as to avoid any innocent casualties during the explosive battles. Additionally, the protagonists frequently use the Dragon Balls to wish that the destruction they cause be reversed, including bringing people back to life if necessary. When Dende recreates Shenron after taking over as Earth's guardian, the team even asks him specifically if they can make it so multiple people can be brought back from the dead as well as letting the same person be wished back multiple times, since these were limitations the original incarnation of Shenron wasn't able to grant.
55** In ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', Earth is so lucky this universe ignores physics. For one thing, it would be bombarded with the remnants of... itself, from the last two times it exploded. For another thing, if a planet were as close as the restored Planet Plant in real life, the gravity of the two would first pull them to the point where they'd be slightly elongated. Second, their gravity would pull them towards each other. The two would then collide, doing massive damage to both. A very popular theory these days is the Giant-impact hypothesis which posits that early Earth was hit by a Mars-sized planet referred to as Theia. The impact was strong enough to melt the surface of Earth with the ejecta of this collision forming the moon.
56* The first ''Anime/{{El|HazardTheMagnificentWorld}}-Hazard'' OVA features this. When an AttackAnimal is awakened, one of the villains ''immediately'' orders her to destroy an ''entire city'', which she goes about efficiently and brutally. Fortunately this is an unimportant city, and throughout the continuity said villain never faces any consequences for ordering this destruction. The main cast even confronts him in the sequel OVA and nobody even brings up the subject. This also holds true for the living weapon herself, although she technically had no choice in the matter.
57* Averted in ''Anime/GaoGaiGar'' with 2 different pieces of technology. The heroes knew that HumongousMecha battles in cities were destructive. So they invented the Dividing Driver, which used Space Warping technology to create pocket dimensions for them to fight in. Later the enemies started exploding so violently when defeated that they became larger than the folded space. Enter the Eraser Head, which absorbed and redirected explosions straight upward, harmlessly into space.
58* Averted in ''Anime/GunBuster'', the massive battles towards the end of the show explicitly cause damage to Earth. Notably, after [[CoolSpaceship the Excelion]] is detonated, it causes shockwaves that raze entire cities to the ground. Played straight in the finale, when the titular mecha ignites a bomb that ''[[spoiler:destroys the entire galaxy]]'', and yet the Earth is fine [[spoiler:12,000 years later]].
59* In ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'', Millennium's attack on London results in millions of civilian deaths and large sections of the city are levelled and/or burned. Nevertheless, Integra talks as though it wouldn't be a major blow to the nation and could be written off as an unusually large terrorist attack.
60* Played straight in ''Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs'', which is a MagicalGirl show with lots of StuffBlowingUp. Each battle takes place in a PhantomZone that removes non-magicians, but static structures remain. At one point, the title character is sent crashing down into a building. At another point, a character forcefully enters the PhantomZone and, upon landing, makes a crater on a building's rooftop. Some dialogue implies that the [[TheFederation The Bureau]] has to fix the damaged areas before they can drop the PhantomZone effect. Due to some internal LampshadeHanging within the production company, the majority of fights in [[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikers the third season]] avert this by having the fights taking place in the abandoned part of a city the protagonists are stationed in. That way, they can blow up as much stuff as possible and nobody would care since the infrastructure was abandoned anyway.
61* ''Anime/MazingerZ'' partially averts it. The show constantly shows how much death and destruction would cause a humongous war mecha rampaging through the land or a battle between giant robots in a highly-populated city, and the heroes often have to suffer the consequences of it. Episode 7 gave an example when mobs of people -- sick of people getting killed and homes getting demolished due to several HumongousMecha battling -- threw stones at the heroes and besieged the Institute and Kouji's house. Still, the series does not go into that topic in as much depth as it could. The sequels -- ''Anime/GreatMazinger'' and ''Anime/UFORoboGrendizer'' -- dealt with the trope in similar fashion.
62* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' makes it abundantly clear that it intends to avert this from quite early on, not only showing how much damage is caused by Angel/Eva scraps but that people can and will get hurt or [[AnyoneCanDie killed]], the first case being [[spoiler: Touji's sister]], who is mentioned to have been hospitalised after a building collapsed on her. It carries this on in later episodes, as big chunks of Tokyo 3 get turned into craters, eventually culminating in [[spoiler: TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt]].
63** There are even numerous occasions where this is {{lampshade|Hanging}}d, mostly by NERV and SEELE personnel.
64** The designers of Tokyo 3 knew it would become a battlefield for Angels and Evas. At first it seems CrazyPrepared. Apparently, not enough.
65** ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion'', like its base mythos, intends to avert this trope, showing in great detail the devastation a massive tidal wave of liquified Angel can wreak on a Japanese city. Mostly, it succeeds in conveying the reality that people will die because of the Angel Attacks by announcing over loudspeakers the transference of all civilians to shelters and the retraction of large buildings -- now unoccupied -- below the surface roofing the Geofront. The trope isn't completely straight though, as, on several occasions, the military suffer dozens to hundreds of fatalities without acknowledgement: at least once, an ''entire tank battalion'' was sent to its death without so much as a shrug from our favourite bridge crew or child pilots.
66* ''Manga/OnePiece'':
67** Pell saved Alubarna by flying the giant bomb (designed to annihilate the whole city and its inhabitants) straight up for a few seconds. [[spoiler:And he also survived the blast, even though he was clutching onto the bomb. Hey, [[DisneyDeath unless it's a flashback, nobody dies]] in ''One Piece''.]]
68** While it is implied that citizens die when Doflamingo has his Birdcage, an AdvancingWallOfDoom, converge on the island, the battle between Doflamingo and Luffy creates just as much destruction yet no one seems to be in danger, not even when Luffy actually splits the island in half. Also invoked when Pica becomes a giant golem whose steps can crush several buildings at a time, yet no one seems to be threatened by him except for the people he's personally targeting. Despite 90% of the island being turned into rubble by the end, everyone seems to be living normal lives and there seems to be an abundance of intact buildings a few days later.
69* Averted in ''Webcomic/OnePunchMan''. [[spoiler:Saitama shattered a meteorite about to wipe about several cities, but the debris created by destroying such meteorite devastated Z-City.]] Of course, the damage would've been much worse had he stood still. The trope is still played straight in that Z-City is said to have suffered no deaths despite being all but destroyed.
70* In ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'', there's one episode where a coastal city is [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever attacked by a giant Tentacruel]]. The place is flooded within seconds and several large buildings are destroyed, yet there's never any mention of injuries or deaths. That's to be expected, though, considering the show's place on the [[SlidingScaleofIdealismVersusCynicism Sliding Scale]].
71* Averted in ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica''. Homura says that Walpurgisnacht [[spoiler:(that thing that was juggling ripped-up buildings in Madoka's dream)]] will probably kill thousands of people even if they manage to defeat it. The muggles interpret it as a destructive superstorm. [[spoiler:But Madoka ends up [[RetGone erasing it from existence entirely]], so this doesn't happen.]]
72* Played with in ''Anime/ReCreators''. As characters from anime and manga have been summoned into our world, the [[MagicalGirl magical girl]] character is quite distraught to find that her heart-shaped, power of friendship-powered explosions now result in massive collateral damage and injuries.
73* In ''Manga/SaintSeiya'', when [[{{Filler}} Princess Hilda of Asgard]] or [[AGodAmI Poseidon]] flood the Earth by melting the ice caps, the series goes out of its way to show the devastation from tidal waves and superstorms even in spite of [[BarrierMaiden Athena's]] attempts to hold the waters back. When the villain du jour is defeated, though, it's considered a victory for mankind, and no mention is made of the millions of lives lost while the Saints battled. Likewise, the Gold Cloth Saga actually showed a very violent war breaking out, but it never reached the heroes and was never brought up before or after the BigBad's defeat.
74* ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'' often avoids this, but it's played straight when Lina [[spoiler:uses a Dragon Slave to blow up an enormous rock that threatened to fall on Seyruun. The spell accidentally destroys a sizable chunk of the city, and presumably kills hundreds of people]]. However, people react more or less like they normally do when Lina Dragon Slaves stuff, as described above.
75* In the ''Anime/SonicX'' adaptation of the plot of ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'', it's stated that no one died when Chaos flooded downtown Station Square because everyone evacuated in time. They also blew up the moon at one point. For the former, 4Kids Entertainment didn't think that the implied details were good enough, so they had one of their developers state in the middle of the climax's episode that everyone (including those harmed in explosions and falls) were perfectly okay.
76* The series finale of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' has the entire cast fighting for the universe... in a robot large enough to use galaxies as weapons, which they do quite often. It's implied that the universe they fought in may have been created by their own warping power, and so nobody was actually in trouble. It may also be a pocket dimension that serves as the Anti-Spiral's home universe.
77** ''[[TheMovie Lagann-hen]]'' takes it one step further and ''explicitly'' destroys the universe they were fighting in. The only way that scene makes sense is if they were in a pocket universe.
78* Subverted in the anime version of ''Manga/{{Trigun}}'', where, as part of an explicit PacifismBackfire event, Vash is told of what happened to a city he accidentally blew up. Vash himself managed to avoid killing anyone... but the now-homeless people were forced to trek out into the desert in a desperate hope for survival, and most if not all of them explicitly died of starvation and thirst. As tends to happen when random civilians are forced to flee into the desert by the destruction of their hometown.
79* ''Manga/UFOPrincessValkyrie'' has a huge UFO crash-landing in the middle of a bathhouse, still filled with visitors, with exactly one casualty -- which is [[FirstEpisodeResurrection instantly rectified]]. Somewhat later, a destructive fight between a crazy {{catgirl}} [[GirlWithPsychoWeapon With Psycho Weapons]] and a KamehameHadoken-throwing space-princess leaves several large chasms blasted through the entire cityscape. Neither the potentially-astronomical casualties nor the damage to the city is mentioned again. But the catgirl apologized, so it's cool...
80* ''Manga/{{X 1999}}'' averts this where the Dragons of Heaven knew that their battles against the Dragons of Earth caused a lot of collateral damages and many casualties. This gave them the ability to create a ''kekkai'' (barrier field) where it protects the area and the civilians from being damaged. When a Dragon of Heaven dies, their barrier field gets destroyed along with the area and the people in it. The only Dragon of Heaven who can't create a barrier field is Kamui and he's aware of it ''painfully'' which is why he's hopeless in stopping Fuuma from destroying much of Tokyo.
81[[/folder]]
82
83[[folder:Comic Books]]
84* Played straight for the most part in ''ComicBook/AstroCity''. The city is frequently attacked by hundred-foot-tall monsters or rampaging gods, but most collateral damage either occurs off-screen or with scenes showing heroes rescuing civilians. Most aftermath is limited to broken windows and litter in the streets, and the residents take this all in stride, praising the city's robust public works services. Generally averted in stories set in the late '70s/early '80s (Astro City's version of MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks), though.
85* Lampooned by Creator/ScottMcCloud's ''Destroy!!'', in which two quarreling superheroes demolish most, and finally '''all''', of Manhattan. The punchline: [[spoiler:"Well, at least no one was hurt."]]
86* ''ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk'':
87** The Hulk can go a long way without killing anyone during his rampages. Hulk's buddy, Amadeus Cho, tries to explain this by suggesting that the Hulk is amazingly gifted, doing math to know exactly where every chunk of debris he creates will fall.
88** At least during The Hulk and Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}}'s bout in ''ComicBook/MarvelVersusDC'', they were teleported to the Grand Canyon, where Superman {{lampshade|Hanging}}s that it would be one place they wouldn't hurt anyone collaterally.
89** Averted in ''Banner,'' where the plot involves testing The Hulk as a WeaponOfMassDestruction by repeatedly dropping him in populated areas where he wakes up to find entire square city blocks leveled, complete with strewn body parts.
90** Taken to its logical conclusion in The ''ComicBook/ImmortalHulk'', where the lack of victims in his rampages is used [[ItCanThink to show how NOT mindless his rampages must be, instead being highly, scarily calculated acts]].
91* ''ComicBook/InfinityWars2018: Secret Warps'': In Weapon Hex's back-up story, she has her little sister evacuate the diner she and Greer Baptiste are about to fight in, to prevent anyone getting caught between them. Not that it's a very [[CurbStompBattle long fight]] - Laura defeats Baptiste in one stab.
92* ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' averts this trope, along with several other common comic book tropes. Whenever there's a big, city-leveling battle between superheroes and supervillains, innocent people die. The first time this happened was when [[FirstEpisodeTwist Invincible's father was revealed to be a bad guy]]. Later issues revealed that ''thousands'' had died as they fought.
93* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'': Lampshaded at the end of the ''JLA: Trial by Fire'' arc, when [[spoiler:Plastic Man]], fighting Fernus, a.k.a. [[spoiler:Martian Manhunter]], throws him through three buildings while saying "Thank god... for this crummy economy... or we'd never have abandoned buildings... to smash!" Afterwards, it's noted that the League rebuilt the city (it could've referred to that city in Russia, not [[BigApplesauce New York]]).
94* ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'':
95** In his 30-odd years of punishing (racking up something in the order of 2000+ bodies, it's estimated) has never killed an innocent. It's reasoned that Frank's whole schtick is that he's a phenomenally well-trained, extremely diligent US Marine, who makes damn sure everything's in place before he starts his "work".
96** In ''ComicBook/ThePunisherWelcomeBackFrank'' Trade Paperback, he actually kills a copycat vigilante for not taking the same precautions and accidentally killing an innocent.
97** That's really a case of DependingOnTheWriter. Even discarding the cases where he was arguably insane or under MindControl, the Punisher already shot innocents. In his very first appearance, he goes after Spider-Man who was framed by the Jackal. He shot Steve Rogers in the chest in ''Punisher/Captain America: Blood & Glory'', almost killing him. A stray bullet also hits a vagrant while Frank Castle is shooting at Daredevil in ''Daredevil vs The Punisher''.
98* Averted in the ''VideoGame/SuperAdventureRockman'' adaptation of ''ComicBook/MegaManArchieComics''. When Ra Moon shuts down all tech on Earth, we get shots of cars crashing, planes falling out of the sky, and power going out in the middle of a surgery. While an exact death toll isn't given, it's stated that "countless lives" were lost as a result after just two weeks.
99* ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'':
100** Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} does her best to avoid and prevent collateral damage and civilian casualties, but being a younger and less experienced hero than her cousin, she sometimes fails. Every time it happens, she feels horribly guilty.
101** In ''ComicBook/SupermanSupergirlMaelstrom'', Kara was unable to stop a [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]] minion from bringing a hospital down.
102** In ''ComicBook/RedDaughterOfKrypton'', two villains deliberately choose to fight her in a populated city at different times, knowing that she would hold back not to hurt people.
103* ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'':
104** Superman is known to go to great lengths to enforce this trope, but he does fail from time to time.
105** In ''ComicBook/SupermanVsTheAmazingSpiderMan'', Superman fights a HumongousMecha in Metropolis's West Side. Later a newscaster informs that most of the demolished buildings were empty.
106** "ComicBook/ThePhantomSuperboy": When Superboy tests a Kryptonian weapon on a mountain, the story acts as if melting one mountain away did not just cause an enviromental disaster, as well as a huge loss of animal and plant life. It is made even more dissonant because only one page later Clark will feel guilty about accidentally causing a lizard's demise.
107** ''ComicBook/TheLegionOfSuperHeroes'': When a tourist spaceship crashes into a forest, Cosmic Boy -and the artist- make immediately clear that the passengers managed to escape in time thanks to emergency jet packs.
108[[/folder]]
109
110[[folder:Comic Strips]]
111* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': Parodied in one panel depicting the aftermath of ''Film/KingKong1933'' with a ChalkOutline of King Kong on the street. Inside the outline of Kong are lots of outlines of people apparently flattened when he fell off the Empire State Building. Two others have the end of a dog leash coming out from under him, implying he crushed a dog, and a squashed shopping bag with a woman lamenting, "Well, there go my tomatoes."
112[[/folder]]
113
114[[folder:Fan Works]]
115* Averted in ''Fanfic/AshesOfThePast'': Looking at how all the other Legendary Pokemon have duties to fulfill to ensure the continued functioning of the world, Mewtwo decides that his job will be to contain the inevitable collateral damage from Ash Ketchum's repeated saving the world, leading to many an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome during the events of the movies.
116* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'': Referenced and sometimes averted, sometimes Played Straight -- the Avengers go to every possible length to try and keep their battles free of collateral damage, as do other heroic characters, taking them to emptier locations if possible. Additionally, where possible, Doctor Strange (a {{Seer|s}} who knows when the excrement is about to hit the rotating device) evacuates local populations in advance. However, it's made abundantly clear that the Battle of New York claimed dozens of lives, and the Battle of London had casualties too - because while measures were taken to clear Central London of civilians as far as possible, London is still an enormous and densely populated city, and the battle quickly went global.
117** An aversion of this, crossing over with an aversion of ThereAreNoGlobalConsequences, becomes a plot point in the sequel when the side-effects of Harry's well-intentioned but poorly judged plan of sending a 'here I am' message across dimensions by luring an even more enormously powerful psychic into a duel are addressed. That is to say, the plan works, but it leads to painful headaches across the world for even ordinary humans, increasing levels of psychic agony for those who are more powerful, and in at least one case, violently activates a young {{Seer|s}}'s powers, breaking them in the process, resulting in her becoming a mild case of a MadOracle. When confronted with the last case in particular, Harry [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone is unsurprisingly horrified]], and seeks to fix the problem.
118* Averted in ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfAnElderGod''. The body count in some battles is pretty high, even if the main characters aren't fighting with their giant robots. At the end of episode nine, after defeating "[[EldritchAbomination The King of Yellow]]", Misato looks over the devastation and thinks:
119-->Medics and police covered the auditorium, checking on the wounded of body and soul. Misato looked at the devastation with sadness.\
120They were at war, and every war has its casualties.
121* ''Fanfic/{{Contraptionology}}'': At the end of the story, while the Contraption War and the supernatural slugging match that follow leveled Ponyville almost to the ground, nobody actually died and only Twilight required hospital time. Justified, since [[spoiler:Discord]] wants live ponies to play with and consequently specifically set things up so that nobody would die.
122%%* ''FanFic/TheConversionBureauTheOtherSideOfTheSpectrum'': Twilight Sparkle, being the genius that she is, helps give an incredibly in-depth and {{Troperiffic}} monologue on the scientific problems of the ''Fanfic/TheConversionBureau'' universe.%%Quotes are not acceptable context. Synthesize.
123%%-->'''Twilight''': "[[LetMeGetThisStraight Is that what you're saying?]] That somepony popped Equestria out of our reality and [[WhenDimensionsCollide crashed it onto his]]? How's that even meant to work? [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale Several trillion tons of continent]] [[ColonyDrop does not make a gentle impact on another world]], not without [[GiantWallOfWateryDoom mega-tsunamis]] and earthquakes that would level entire cities, followed by a dust cloud that would blanket the world in an artificial winter lasting decades! [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse And what about the world we leave behind, what about Equus?]] Would it just carry on spinning without a care, despite having a hole several thousand miles across gouged out of the planet's crust? Even if you didn't breach the mantle, creating a supervolcano that would pull the planet inside-out, the change in mass and absence of the Princesses would throw the sun and moon out of their orbits, causing them to collide, or even worse, [[ColonyDrop to impact with Equus itself!]] [[FridgeHorror Anypony, no, anything, left behind would die, horribly!]] Every griffon, every dragon, zebra, reindeer, whatever!"
124%%** [[spoiler: [[FantasticRacism Not that the last part matters much now...]]. It's also implied that there's some property to the Barrier that may be more sinister.]]
125* In ''ComicBook/{{Supergirl}}'' story ''Fanfic/HellsisterTrilogy'', the narrator makes sure to mention that Supergirl and Satan Girl's final battle happens in an uninhabited solar system.
126-->The dark and light half of Kara were smashing each other across the unfamiliar solar system they now occupied.
127* FanFic/TheNegotiationsVerse points out something that Conversion Bureau fics tend to gloss over. Namely, if the sun and moon are moved by their leaders, what happens when those leaders go away to conquer another planet? Answer: the sun and moon stop moving, leaving the planet to bake to death on one half and freeze to death on the other while what little habitable land eventually is used up and the populace dies out.
128* ''Fanfic/OnceMoreWithFeeling'' averted this. The narration frequently informs how many people die during the battles among giant robots and robeasts and how much destruction they caused.
129* A justified example in ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/8460325/chapters/19381114 Path Of The Jedi]]'': The work ends with the [[BigBad Big Bad's]] huge starship getting destroyed and sent crashing into Coruscant, but it's stated to have crashed within an abandoned factory district, meaning few if any fatalities.
130* Surprisingly averted in ''Fanfic/SonicXDarkChaos'' despite the fact that it is quite soft science fiction. Episode 66 has a space battle above a planet -- and the planet below is quickly annihilated by the millions of disabled ships crashing into it.
131** In Episode 67, it's specifically stated that the Galaxy Crusher -- a Demon battlestation the size of a ''red giant'' -- cannot be deployed anywhere near planets or stars. Its sheer size messes up gravity so much that being anywhere near it destroys planets.
132** The birth of [[EldritchAbomination Dark Tails]] in Episode 75 causes nearby stars to literally burn out and moons to turn into clouds of blood. [[NightmareFuel The results are not pretty]].
133* Played straight or downplayed in many ''Fanfic/TheWarOfTheMasters'' stories, which show antimatter-fueled starships exploding near planets or even inside planetary atmospheres with little collateral damage. Some stories do show at least ''some'' damage, such as in ''Fanfic/ForWeShouldGrowTooFondOfIt'' where a Klingon carrier has its reactor holed by AntiAir defenses over a city; the resulting shockwave shatters every window around.
134* Near the climax of ''Fanfic/YuGiOhTheThousandYearDoor, Redux'', Andy and the Queen's duel causes Exor, who is described as being the size of a skyscraper, to crash into the center of the mountain palace. By all rights, this should have sunk Arcadia into the ocean, but all it does is knock out the power and cause some minimal damage. Most remarkably, the protagonists and the Queen herself, who are ''at the point of impact'' survive, even though it leaves a huge crater. (Possibly justified. It's suggested that her magic was protecting them, as she wanted to see the battle to its conclusion.)
135[[/folder]]
136
137[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
138* ''WesternAnimation/BackToTheOutback'': [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] in regards to Maddie releasing a mated pair of cane toads, which are an invasive species in Australia and wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. Zoe tries to convince Maddie that there ''might'' be a good reason that the two animals in particular are in captivity in separate cages after noticing warning posters about cane toads, but ultimately nothing much comes from it, aside from the two having had '''[[ExplosiveBreeder lots]]''' of children by the end of the film, which admittedly ''is part of the problem.''
139* In ''WesternAnimation/BigHero6'', there are two instances of this -- when the showcase building explodes and the only two people seen being mourned are [[spoiler: Tadashi and Callaghan -- and Callaghan turns out to not have died]] and again (although partly averted) when Yokai [[spoiler: sets the portal above the new Kreitech building]]. The second time, it's reported as "what could have been a major catastrophe", but there are no reported deaths. The second example was in the middle of its opening ceremony, so it makes sense that it would be unoccupied. To a much lesser extent, [[spoiler: many people may have lost their jobs when the building was destroyed]].
140* In the ''Anime/CuteyHoney'' movie, Panther Claw have this giant drill-like tower underneath ''Tokyo Tower''. Meaning: If you work in the area (which is a central business district in RealLife), don't bother coming in. Then, Scarlet Claw blows up three buildings. They all remain largely intact, save for a giant hole in the middle. One of them, hilariously, is Cutie Honey's former office, and the only reaction this gets is a dazed "what the...?" from the boss. And finally, the tower ''explodes''. If you're in Tokyo when this kind of thing is happening, ''get out of the city''. The only things we see? A traffic jam and other people not caring. FridgeHorror kicks in once you realize that there are also scads of women who have just been released from said structure. The fact that this was a ''mass kidnapping'' notwithstanding, these women would be effectively ''screwed''.
141* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Frozen|2013}}'', despite accidentally plunging Arendelle into an EndlessWinter for three days including a giant snowstorm during the last segments, nobody is seemingly reported to have either died from frostbite or even suffered a famine as a result of their food supply being frozen. Indeed, as soon as Elsa thawed out the kingdom, everyone is seemingly happy and completely look up to their queen in spite of doing nothing (in their own eyes) to alleviate the whole Eternal Winter incident.
142* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles1'':
143** When [[spoiler:the Omnidroid]] is finally defeated, [[spoiler:it]] falls into a lake and [[DefeatEqualsExplosion explodes into oblivion]]. Needless to say, an explosion big enough to [[spoiler:disintegrate a robot of that size and strength]] would have resulted in catastrophic damage and casualties.
144** The whole reason that the various Supers were forced out of the heroing business is that society got tired of all the collateral damage and interference. (And because people figured out that lawsuits can be used on Supers.) However, at the very end, Violet is shown putting up a force-field when some wreckage from the explosion comes by, but no one seems concerned about anyone else being injured and you even see the neighbor kid from before standing just a couple dozen feet away a minute later completely unharmed.
145* In ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'', there is no mention of the lasting effects of parts of Long Term Memory crumbling and of Sadness "corrupting" some of the memories stored there that were once a different emotion. Especially notable because the movie does show that the Islands of Personality were eventually repaired/replaced/expanded after initially collapsing earlier in the film.
146* ''WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'': It seems like Megamind and Metro Man have an unwritten rule about damage, but when [[spoiler:Titan/Tighten]] goes on a rampage -- even [[spoiler:tossing an entire ''skyscraper'' at Megamind]] -- the trope is subverted, as [[spoiler:Megamind's Brain Bots]] are repairing the city after the day has been won.
147* ''Anime/PonyoOnTheCliffByTheSea'' gives us a non-explosion version, where the main character causes sea levels to rise drastically, but no one ever points out that logically she could have killed millions of people.
148* In ''WesternAnimation/RatchetAndClank2016'' it isn't just featured, [[{{Narm}} it's outright played straight]] with the evacuation of Novalis shortly before [[EarthShatteringKaboom it's destroyed]]; while the populace lost their homes, not one of the 46 million people living there is killed or even injured. Aside from Ratchet feeling guilt over it, the film doesn't even acknowledge the inconvenience of having one's homeworld destroyed.
149* In ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed'', there is no mention of anyone getting injured or killed in the climax with [[spoiler:Ming's rampage]] through Toronto and the damaging of the [[spoiler[=SkyDome=]]], even though the incident apparently went down in infamy as [[spoiler:"Pandapocalypse 2002"]].
150* After test audiences left ''WesternAnimation/WallE'' thinking that the ending of the movie left [[InferredHolocaust humanity doomed]], the credits sequence was specifically designed to let people know they survived quite handily. This one is justified: humankind may now be living on a nearly-uninhabitable Earth, but they're not stranded -- they still have a fully-functioning cruise ship capable of meeting all their needs, and hundreds of friendly robots with various skills.
151* In ''Anime/WeatheringWithYou'', Hodaka chooses to [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl save Hina]] even if it means the extreme weather the city has been going through will continue. This turns out to be the case, and in fact, it rains continually for three years afterwards with no sign of stopping, flooding Tokyo and rendering much of it uninhabitable. Hodaka meets an old woman who lost her house as a result, but we never hear about anyone being injured or killed (which even minor floods can cause in the real world), and the whole thing is waved off as being not ''really'' that big a deal because humans were arrogant for trying to live out of harmony with nature anyway.
152[[/folder]]
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154[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
155* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
156** The trope is named after a [[http://www.theforce.net/swtc/holocaust.html theory]] arguing that the destruction of the second Death Star in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' turned the Ewoks' homeworld of Endor into a smoking wasteland, as the destruction of such a large object so close to the planet (well, moon really) would have catastrophic atmospheric effects and create a hail of very dangerous debris. This would have given the heroes' actions a very nasty turn indeed. [[WordOfGod Canonically]], this did not happen (outside of Imperial propaganda), and Wookieepedia has a whole [[https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Endor_Holocaust article]] about why not, but among the fans the exact reason remains disputed. Among the several {{Hand Wave}}s about this:
157*** It heavily depend on Death Star actual orbit and force of explosion. While "Star Wars" aren't exactly noted for scientific accuracy, it seems that Death Star was on stationary orbit around Endor and explosion was relatively weak (looks like it mainly burst from overpressure, not from shockwave). So the majority of fragments most likely were too slow to reduce their orbital velocity significantly and fell into Endor gravity well. Instead they probably formed a slowly-expanding cloud, which then stretched into a ring around planet.
158*** It couldn't logically have happened, because if there were such devastation, it would have started to manifest before nightfall on Endor -- which, in the film, is when we see the Ewoks have that epic DancePartyEnding. No theory needed; just not any room to fit a "holocaust" one. (This is disputed, though; the explosion we see is pretty darn slow, and much of the debris would form a ring around Endor and cause its cataclysmic effects like [[EndlessWinter a nuclear winter]].)
159*** It couldn't happen because the Death Star isn't that big. While it's plenty nasty, the theory grossly overestimates the size of the thing.
160*** It ''could'' happen, but it didn't, because the [[Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse Expanded Universe]] says the Death Star, equipped with {{F|asterThanLightTravel}}TL capabilities, was sucked into a wormhole as it was destroyed, sending the debris into parts unknown (including the infamous [[Literature/TheGloveOfDarthVader Glove of Darth Vader]]); any dangerous leftovers were caught by Rebel tractor beams.
161*** It could happen, but it didn't because ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'' shows that most of the debris missed Endor entirely and instead landed on the nearby and apparently uninhabited moon named Kef Bir.
162** ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'' features a sequence where Obi-Wan and Anakin try to pilot General Grievous' flagship, the ''Invisible Hand'', to an emergency runway on [[CityPlanet Coruscant]] after the engines suffer irreparable damage. On their way down, the ship splits in two, with the back half flying off behind them, undeniably hitting a section of the planet with the potential of killing tens of thousands of people. All this gets is an off-handed quip from Anakin ("We lost something") and Obi-Wan ("We're still flying ''half'' a ship"). However, no real damage to the population seems to occur, and in the ''TabletopGame/StarWarsRoleplayingGame'' a cantina names itself after the ship while putting pieces of its hull on display with no complaints.
163* In ''Film/TwoThousandTwelve'', the world experiences a myriad of geological calamities, including continent-cracking earthquakes, Yellowstone and all other volcanoes on the planet erupting, tsunamis tall enough to sweep into the Tibetan plateau, and ''the entire earth's crust'' shifting by twenty-three degrees to the southwest. Despite all of this, within less than a month, the skies are clear, the waters are receding and the survivors are on their way to Africa, which has inexplicably risen tall enough to escape the flooding.
164* ''Film/AlienResurrection'' ends with the good guys destroying the aliens on the research ship by crashing it into Earth's surface. We get a view from space as it crashes into what appears to be the east coast of either Africa or India, producing an ''enormous'' explosion that realistically would undoubtedly have killed millions... ''maybe'' more than a xenomorph infestation. In this case, it is implied that Earth was already a devastated wasteland ("Earth. What a shithole."). The Special Edition contains an alternate ending with the protagonists in the ruins of Paris, which appears to be a wasteland. There's also a scene where Call says she re-calibrated ground level -- ensuring the ship would crash in an uninhabited quadrant.
165** The novelization says that Earth is mostly abandoned at this point with people either living on space stations or colony planets.
166** The ''[[Literature/AlienOutOfTheShadows Sea of Sorrows]]'' novel said that [[MegaCorp Weyland Yutani]] came back into power by using {{Terraforming}} technology to fix the damage done by the Auriga.
167** The ''Original Sin'' novel plays the trope straight by being an ImmediateSequel that starts with The Betty landing on an overcrowded Earth with no mention of the Auriga landing.
168* In ''Film/BattlefieldEarth'', most of the aliens live inside a large artificial dome that was constructed over the city of Denver, along with thousands of human slaves and lots of old human buildings that have been repurposed for Psychlo rule. The heroes plan to shatter the dome to suffocate most of the Psychlos since many of them will not be wearing their protective masks; very little time is given to the incredible collateral damage of shattering foot-thick glass all over the tops of everyone, humans included.
169* Averted in two fifties era giant monster movies, ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms'' and ''Film/TheGiantBehemoth''. In both of these films, disposing of the titular monster's corpse is a major concern for the heroes because of an extremely virulent germ contained in the blood of the former and the overwhelming radioactivity of the latter preclude destruction with more conventional weapons, which would scatter pieces of the monsters' corpses thus contaminating a large area.
170* ''Film/BlueThunder'' pulls an interesting one in having the big aerial battle sequences occur over a major city (presumably Los Angeles). In the course of the battle, {{Misguided Missile}}s hit a Japanese barbecue shop and a skyscraper, and a jet aircraft is shot down. While the people in charge do express dismay over these events, nowhere is it implied that anyone got killed, and the news voiceover that closes the film seems more concerned with the fate of the helicopter than with the flaming debris raining down over the city.
171** It was a Sunday, so the skyscraper was empty. And the F-16's velocity took it out to the sea where it crashed harmlessly.
172* Franchise/{{Batman}} may have [[ThouShaltNotKill "one rule"]] in ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'', but he causes a lot of incidental destruction:
173** ''Film/BatmanBegins'':
174*** Pointed out by an exasperated Alfred after the Tumbler chase, in which Bruce causes a lot of structural damage across the city and smashing into police cars. [[WhatTheHellHero Alfred calls him out on his recklessness]] and emphasizes that it was [[HandWave a miracle that no one was killed.]]
175*** Bruce's actions set off a chain reaction, leading to the complete destruction of the ninja-monastery he was training at. It's rather unrealistic to think everyone made it out alive, especially the ''shackled prisoners''. The extra irony is that Bruce rebelled in the first place because he had been ordered to kill one of said criminals. Sure, he went out of his way to ensure that Ducard didn't die, but [[NiceJobBreakingItHero even that didn't turn out to be such a good idea]]. While Batman doesn't kill, ''Bruce'' did, and probably had to do it more than once while travelling the world.
176** In ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' he was [[CouldHaveBeenMessy tremendously lucky]] that there was no one ''in'' any of those cars he blew up (we even see two kids playing in a car ''one row over''), or that no shrapnel from the Batmobile's "intimidate" setting hit those vagrants, and that when he went barreling on a very large, fast, heavy motorbike-thing through a shopping centre all the people in his way were agile enough to leap out of it. What if they'd chanced to be disabled, or obese, or if they'd simply frozen in shock?
177** In the third act of ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', [[spoiler:Batman shoots at Bane's Tumblers with the Batwing. One could argue that he knew exactly how to disable them from when he had one, being CrazyPrepared and all, he doesn't know what modifications Lucius and/or Bane did, and machine guns aren't exactly precision instruments. During the climactic chase, he's shown firing on Bane's men, and DeadlyDodging a missile into one of those same Tumblers. Then he fires on the truck carrying the bomb to stop it, which kills Talia, and several tall buildings explode while he tries to take the bomb out of the city, with the implication that he blew them up, killing anyone in them or near them. What does it take to get Batman to break his one rule? A [[GodzillaThreshold nuclear bomb]], apparently]].
178* The 2008 remake of ''[[Film/TheDayTheEarthStoodStill2008 The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' ends with Klaatu causing his ship to emit a massive EMP wave that shuts down all the GORT [[GreyGoo nanites]]. It also shuts down every piece of technology on the planet, even things that should not be affected by EMP, such as analog watches. This means millions dead in hospitals, planes falling out of the sky, no way to get food or water to starving masses, etc. And billions of dead silicon-based nanites covering the landscape. Good luck making use of that land. Yes, Klaatu mentions our way of life will have to change. He just didn't mention most of us would die, while he happily flies off home, mission complete.\
179\
180It is possible that ''was'' his intention. Reduce the human population, take away our ability to mess up our planet. Perhaps, as he may have reasoned, this might give us the chance to start over, be more green, especially with fewer mouths to feed. [[CluelessAesop This ignores the mass environmental destruction such an act would cause]], as per capita, iron age living is far more environmentally destructive than industrialized life (Roman Italy and Renaissance England has massive shortages of wood due to the mass deforestation and horrid pollution due to the inefficiencies in combustion). The land simply cannot support 6 billion people without industry, so every living creature would be killed for food and every available acre cleared and tilled. The death toll, and environmental toll, would be apocalyptic.
181* Franchise/DCExtendedUniverse:
182** ''Film/ManOfSteel'': The climax with [[HostileTerraforming Zod's ship]] pancakes a major section of Metropolis with thousands of people dead, while the World Engine takes out an untold number more when it lands in the Indian Ocean just off the coast of South-East Asia to serve as its counterpart. This is in addition to a smaller super-powered fight between Superman and Zod that undoubtedly killed even more people, and [[ActionInsuranceGag made insurance companies the world over scream in terror]]. The very last scene (taking place an unknown time later) has the Daily Planet running again - previously evacuated because of the terraforming - and seemingly in okay condition. The whole scene is rather upbeat. This was one of the major complaints levied towards the movie -- [[WordOfGod although it was stated that this was intentional]], and the fact that the death and destruction that occurred is something [[MyGreatestFailure even Superman couldn't stop]] and will factor into later installments.
183** ''Film/BatmanVSupermanDawnOfJustice'' dives headfirst into this discrepancy, showing that while much of the world reveres him for what he can do there are a lot of public figures calling for him to be held accountable, not just for Metropolis but other isolated incidents where him just showing up to high tension situations cost lives. The opening scene of the film delves into Bruce Wayne being in Metropolis, seeing the fear and chaos of the event firsthand. Protesters at a [[HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee Senate Hearing]] hold up signs attacking him for what happened, one mockingly featuring the phrase "[[SarcasmMode Great job!]]" over a picture of a destroyed skyline. In the final action sequence of this film, the heroes make the effort to limit the destruction: Superman throws Doomsday into space so he can be nuked, and when the monster comes back on Earth, Batman lures him into the practically-deserted wharf district of Gotham City (the battle is at night; people tend to not hang around wharves at night).
184* Near the end of ''Film/DeepImpact'', the crew of the spaceship sent to knock the comet off of its collision course with the Earth (they failed to do this) essentially turns their ship into a missile and flies straight at the comet ''as it's entering Earth's atmosphere''. We are treated to a nice light show. In reality, this would be the equivalent of detonating a massive bomb in Earth's upper atmosphere. Amazingly, despite making liberal use of HollywoodScience, [[DuelingWorks/{{Film}} rival movie]] ''Film/Armageddon1998'' averts this trope as it's used to explain why they can't just Nuke the Killer Asteroid. [[spoiler: Played straight at the end, however.]]
185* Closely related is the climax of ''[[{{Literature/Divergent}} The Divergent Series: Allegiant]]'' where a gas is released in the city that will wipe everyone's memories. Tris shuts down the mechanism before the city gets the full blast -- but some gas is still seen being released, and Edgar was seen getting wiped with it. Presumably ''The Divergent Series: Ascendant'' will show the aftermath.
186* Inverted in ''{{Film/Elizabeth}}: The Golden Age'' showing the Spanish Armada. There are lines referencing English ships being destroyed. However in real life [[RealityIsUnrealistic the English didn't lose a single ship]].
187* Played completely straight in ''Film/FantasticFourRiseOfTheSilverSurfer'' with Galactus (a huge sentient cloud-thing ''several'' times the size of earth) being completely '''obliterated''' as he hovers above the planet, having a snack. This would at least strip away Earth's atmosphere with the shock wave or, far more likely, just disintegrate Earth entirely. But no, the Richards/Storm wedding goes off as planned.
188* While not an explosion, the climax to ''Film/FastFive'' entails a chase where two muscle cars are dragging a vault filled with 100 million dollars through the streets of Rio. As they weave and turn the vault naturally does a lot of collateral damage to property, including going through a bank window in the middle of the day. We even see a woman standing right in front of the bank in the cut before the vault hits it.
189* In the 1980 adaptation of ''Film/{{Flash Gordon|1980}}'', the moon is hurtling towards the Earth, causing natural catastrophes. Flash "saves" the world just in time, but... er... forget it. Granted, given the complexity of steering objects in space, and given that the moon seemed to need constant guidance, the Moon and the Earth presumably did not collide, but the tidal stress on both bodies from the close approach would be utterly appalling, enough to flood every coastline, trigger every dormant volcano, start record-setting earthquakes, and that's barely the start of it. Not to mention the long-term effects of a drastically more erratic lunar orbit...
190* The ''Franchise/{{Ghostbusters}}'' movies play this trope both ways. It's averted between the two films: The death of [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever the giant Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man]] in [[Film/{{Ghostbusters 1984}} the original]] rained splodge over most of the city (and its inhabitants, and cars) and resulted in the devastation and demolition of several buildings; by the beginning of [[Film/GhostbustersII the second film]], the Ghostbusters had been bankrupted by the subsequent lawsuits. But then it's played straight elsewhere in the films -- at no point in either of the films (or [[VideoGame/GhostbustersTheVideoGame the 2009 video game]]) is it confirmed that ''anyone'' has died from an encounter with a ghost. Considering some of the things we've seen the ghosts do (such as ghosts driving vehicles -- poorly), human casualties were a very real possibility.
191* ''Film/GlassOnion'': [[spoiler:Helen]] blows up the entire [[spoiler:Glass Onion complex with [[MadeOfExplodium Klear]]]]. The destruction is absolute, everything is on fire, and [[spoiler:Miles' [[CoolCar "Baby Blue" car]]]] even crashes down through the roof! Yet the [[spoiler:Disruptors, Helen, Peg and Whiskey]] all conveniently survive without being maimed or killed.
192* ''Film/{{Hulk}}'' went out of its way to show that no one died during the Hulk's rampages. Although in the final fight scene of the movie a helicopter-borne minigun fires a 20-second stream of bullets into a number of city buildings.
193* ''Film/IndependenceDay'' initially looks like it's going to [[AvertedTrope avert]] the trope with the considerable concern about the collateral damage which would be caused by staging a nuclear attack on one of the alien ships, but then plays it straight anyway in the climax:
194** The destroyed battleship was directly over the Area 51 bunker when it was destroyed (from beneath and in the center), yet it goes flying to one side until it's completely clear before crashing into the desert. How convenient; if it had gone straight down, it would have buried the bunker entrance and trapped everyone inside.
195** The mothership was destroyed with a nuclear warhead that apparently made its reactor explode. See that debris burning up in the skies? That's nuclear fallout irradiating the atmosphere of the entire hemisphere. There's also the issue of 18.4 quintillion tons of alien mothership rubble falling out of orbit... or not. If it stays up there then [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome space is now an unusable cluttered junkyard]]. If it falls in big chunks it's the end of life on Earth. If it falls in small chunks the heat of friction as it burns up will likely render the Earth uninhabitable.
196** Nothing of the sort is mentioned in the [[Film/IndependenceDayResurgence sequel]]. While many people (over 3 billion = half the population of the world at the time) were killed during the attacks on cities, those cities were eventually rebuilt (except Vegas, which became a memorial). Two decades later, not only has humanity rebuilt, but we also have several bases throughout the Solar System. As pointed out by a number of people doing basic calculations, the more likely result of losing most major cities and half the population (especially in the industrial countries) would be a complete collapse of global society and the inability to restore it for centuries, if ever. People would be struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world instead of rebuilding everything as it was and building bases on the Moon.
197** The damage from the events of the sequel should be even worse, but the SequelHook ending makes no indication that Earth is doomed. The Super Mothership that arrives is so massive it appears to have more gravity than the moon, and when it lands on the surface of the Earth it covers roughly 1/4 of the surface. An object with that much mass that close to Earth would affect its orbit and fracture the crust. To say nothing of having rammed the moon on the way in, likely knocking it out of orbit, or the mile-wide hole it vaporized through the crust (and probably enough water to lower sea levels hundreds of feet) to within mere feet of the mantle.
198* ...and Franchise/KingKong didn't land on anyone when he fell off that skyscraper. In fairness, surely the first thing any sane person would do if they saw a giant ape climbing the Empire State Building being attacked by fighters would be to get out of Dodge. Those airplanes didn't hit Kong with every bullet; they had to land somewhere.
199* In ''Film/KingsmanTheSecretService'', while little is shown, it seems almost every world leader getting their heads blown off, along with many government officials and corporate figures, and millions killed across the globe as a result of Valentine's SIM cards driving everyone insane with rage, seemed to do little to affect everyday life. Though that being said, the ones locked up by Valentine like the Swedish princess are likely to have taken the place of those whose heads were just blown off. The movie also ends mere minutes after Valentine is defeated, so there wasn't time to explore the possible long-term side effects of his partially implemented evil plan.
200* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
201** ''Film/IronMan2'' features more collateral damage than you can shake an explosion at, including a swarm of combat drones going amok among a crowd of people, and not a single bystander is shown with so much as a scratch. Even the test pilot being shown having his ''spine'' snapped ([[BloodlessCarnage bloodlessly]]) is pointed out to have survived albeit by an individual of extremely dubious trustworthiness (though a throwaway line from ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'' seems to confirm this).
202** Averted in ''Film/TheAvengers2012'', but in a subtle way. While no bodies or civilian deaths are seen in the FinalBattle, and Cap specifically tells the cops to get the civvies to safety, a news report afterwards shows a bunch of grieving people in front of a wall covered in memorials for innocents killed by the Chitauri, and a senator demanding that the Avengers pay for the massive amount of damage to the city.
203** Leviathans are also shown crashing into buildings when killed, and [[spoiler:the Avengers shut down the portal to prevent the nuclear explosion from coming back to Earth]].
204** Director Creator/JossWhedon also didn't want any of the jets to fall off the Helicarrier when it is attacked. He commented that it would kill innocent people, and he didn't want viewers blaming the Avengers or SHIELD for that. Prior to take off workers are shown strapping the jets down, as the explanation for why they didn't fall off.
205** The Netflix shows leading into ''Series/TheDefenders2017'' have to deal with the topic of how the invasion affects New York City life:
206*** ''Series/{{Daredevil 2015}}'' sees [[Characters/MCUWilsonFisk Wilson Fisk]] gain a stronghold in Hell's Kitchen by skimming on reconstruction contracts. His construction company Union Allied is able to secure numerous reconstruction contracts, at least until [[Characters/MCUKarenPage Karen Page]] exposes their numbers games. At one point, [[Creator/BobGunton Leland Owlsley]] says "[[OpportunisticBastard Heroes and their consequences are why we have our current opportunities]]" referring to the damage caused by the battle. Elsewhere, Matt says to Karen that "the world watched half of New York get destroyed", though this appears to be hyperbole since the Chitauri appeared to confine the battle to Midtown Manhattan and didn't go into any of the other boroughs or Jersey City. It's also mentioned that the battle caused real-estate values in Hell's Kitchen to drop dramatically, and this is the reason Matt and Foggy can afford the office space in which they set up Nelson & Murdock. One of the framed ''Bulletin'' front pages on the wall in Ben Urich's office (which later becomes Karen's office after she gets hired by Ellison towards the end of season 2) is about the invasion and says hundreds were killed.
207*** ''Series/{{Jessica Jones|2015}}'' showed there's a lot of fear and hate towards "gifted" people over this. One woman tries to kill Jessica in revenge for her mother dying as a result of the Chitauri invasion, even though she wasn't involved.
208*** ''Series/LukeCage2016'' shows that alien metal has been salvaged by Hammer Industries and transformed into something Diamondback calls the Judas bullet.
209*** ''Series/IronFist2017'' reveals that Bakuto has inducted a number of youth orphaned in the Incident and made them Hand soldiers.
210** Much of ''Film/IronMan3'' and ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'' is dedicated to showing the aftermath of "The Battle of New York," and what kind of effects the death toll and the knowledge there are other lifeforms in the universe have on the world.
211** Averted in ''Film/AvengersAgeOfUltron'', where the various battles in the movie devastate several cities, with most of the Avengers' time being spent trying to minimize civilian casualties. The widespread destruction caused by the film also leads directly to the worldwide SuperheroRegistrationAct of ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar''. Ultron's EvilPlan also averts this trope as [[spoiler: he plans to levitate a several-mile-wide chunk of the Earth's surface into the upper atmosphere, then accelerate it back onto the Earth, causing an extinction level event similar to the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. One of the reasons he chooses this method is because it's a XanatosGambit; Ultron lampshades this trope, and points out dropping the city early (the heroes hope to destroy the repulsors lifting the city before it can gain any real altitude, and drop it into a lake below) ''should'' still do serious damage. Thus it's left an exercise to the viewer why that didn't happen]]. Furthering the aversion is the Sokovia Accords being created in direct response to the damage they did, with the implication that not only were there casualties and property damage costs shown for the final battles of the ''Avengers'' films and ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'', [[spoiler: but part of the main villain's motivation is that his family was killed during the battle of Sokovia and he holds the Avengers responsible for what happened, trying to tear their team apart from the inside]].
212** Averted in ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. TheStinger [[spoiler:shows cars and a helicopter crashing as a result of drivers being disintegrated by Thanos' BadassFingerSnap. So casualties were presumably ''even higher'' than '''half the planet's population''' as a result]]. However, ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' goes back to playing this trope straight, [[spoiler:once the Hulk brings back the people "finger snapped away" [[UnPaused back to where there were, unaware of any change in time]]]]. While some fans worried that this could mean that [[spoiler:people would reappear in mid-air or the middle of roads, and die again]], the creators involved stated that [[spoiler:Hulk thought of that before resurrecting everyone, and that those who would be affected by that kind of displacement were placed in safe locations when their lives were restored]].
213** Also on the above point, half of people were brought back ''five years'' later. By then society would have settled into a new status quo where the necessities for living such as clean water, food and healthcare services would be produced to half the demand there used to be. Suddenly having to provide for twice the population would cause a mass shortage on everything, and this should by all logic lead to mass death and possibly widespread societal collapse. However, outside ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'', there is no indication any such things happened.
214*** The aforementioned series is an exception, as it's a plot point that there was a ''real estate'' crisis as a result of the homes of those that had disappeared being resold to those that hadn't.
215** ''Film/{{Black Widow|2021}}'': One hopes Black Widow's safehouse is in an otherwise abandoned building, otherwise countless neighbors died from stray fire then her fellow Widows launched a SWAT-like operation against her; she also condemns a prison's worth of inmates and guards to death in breaking out her father; the Red Room might have crashed in an unpopulated area, but who knows how many {{Mooks}} (many of whom were implied to have been brainwashed) died when Natashia and her family cut a path of destruction through it.
216* In the ''Film/OceansEleven'' remake, Danny's crew uses an electromagnetic device to shut off all electricity in Las Vegas for 30 seconds. Realistically, we should be looking at pacemakers going haywire, car crashes in the thousands, hospital equipment failing, and God help them if any planes were flying low over the city when it happened. Yet the sequels still only refer to them as thieves, not as the most successful and high-tech terrorists of all time. [[note]] It's possible that the device was set up such that it would cause an electrical disturbance that would upset the Las Vegas power grid. Most electrical grids are set up to shut down when it detects anomalies to save itself. Case in point, the blackout of Southern California/Northern Mexico in 2011 was caused by a problem with one of the distribution hubs... in Arizona.[[/note]]
217** They follow it up by causing a localized ''earthquake'' in the heart of the Strip for ''Ocean's Thirteen'', severe enough to send the Bank's clients and employees scrambling for the exits. Not a safe bet to say nobody got trampled during the evacuation, especially since the "quake" lasted longer and was more intense than they'd initially intended.
218* Directly invoked in ''Film/PacificRim''. Creator/GuillermoDelToro, a famed pacifist, specifically included scenes making it clear that cities are evacuated before battles so that the HumongousMecha and {{Kaiju}} can smash everything up without FridgeHorror about innocents dying (when the battles even make it to cities at all--most happen in the middle of the ocean), and the few times that civilians ''are'' put in danger, the aforementioned mechas swiftly move to get the monsters away with no harm done. Essentially, you get all the juicy {{Sentai}} action [[JustHereForGodzilla you came to see]] with none of the downer implications, so it's "guiltless" and keeps the film's tone appropriately upbeat.
219* Taken to ridiculous extreme in ''Film/{{RIPD}}''. In the final battle, the magic MacGuffin used by the BigBad causes mass destruction in Boston, including several buildings being ruined. And guess what, by the end of the film the {{muggle|s}} world ''still'' doesn't know the existence of R.I.P.D. and ghosts
220* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
221** ''Film/StarTrek2009'': The BigBad is stopped from destroying Earth, while he was drilling a big hole into Earth's crust to reach the core in the San Francisco Bay. Everybody is happy, but there is still a big hole in the bay, which can lead to all sorts of bad things for San Francisco and Starfleet (whose HQ and academy are in the city). Additionally, the film fails to mention that Starfleet is now in a bad shape, thanks to the loss of the majority of the graduating class and 6 top-of-the-line starships. There is also the loss of one of the founding member worlds of the Federation. There is also the threat of another war with the Romulans. Good luck convincing people that Nero was not associated with the Empire. Another point is that the drill was stopped from ''drilling'', but not from ''falling''. Something this large falling down to Earth from this height would have quite an impact.
222** In ''Film/StarTrekIntoDarkness'', the question of the militarization of Starfleet and destabilization of the galaxy due to the destruction of Vulcan is a major plot point. In the film's climax, [[spoiler:a starship crashes into San Fran. Though we don't see any bodies, the ship plows through multiple blocks of clearly-occupied buildings. The final scene takes place one year after that event, and they're still rebuilding]]. On the other hand, people mere blocks away from the crash seem to be completely ignoring it: you'd think there would be mass panic.
223* In spite of the spectacular crashes featured in ''Film/StrokerAce'', no comment is made as to whether any of the drivers are hurt or even killed or if any of the debris caused spectator injury ([[RealityIsUnrealistic spectator death simply doesn't happen in NASCAR, not even to the present day]]).
224* In ''Film/{{Surrogates}}'' widespread use of robot avatars may justify a lack of casualties in a car pileup but [[spoiler: at the end, every surrogate, which 98% of people use, is forcefully shut down. We are told this caused no casualties, which is incredibly implausible when you think of all the pilots, drivers, surgeons, and others who would have been interrupted in the course of vital tasks]].
225* In ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'', the Terminator on the protagonists' side promises not to kill anyone. A readout on his display confirms that his minigun antics at the Cyberdyne facility resulted in no casualties, but even without hitting anyone directly, he could have easily accidentally killed multiple people thanks to exploding grenades, errant shards of glass, etc. To explain this, he is shown taking his time aiming his weapon so that the police have time to run away, and being a robot does give you some precise aim. He also kneecaps people, which makes him a TechnicalPacifist.
226-->He'll live.
227* ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'':
228** The [[Film/Transformers2007 first movie]]. Very strange logic on the part of the army to take the Allspark into the middle of downtown Los Angeles when a horde of psychotic giant alien robots plus the good guys' jet fighter air support, was destined to converge on its location. The ensuing battle destroys a huge number of buildings and who knows how many innocent bystanders.
229** ''Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon'': has [[spoiler:Cybertron itself in the process of being teleported to Earth's orbit. Cybertron is a massive, metallic world much larger than Earth, yet no effects on the tides and earthquakes are mentioned]]. Especially considering that one of Megatron's plots in the Generation One cartoon was to bring Cybertron close to Earth specifically to ''cause'' said tidal waves and earthquakes, and then harvest the energy from them. The movie's novelization ''does'' in fact mention this as a concern. Gen 1 ended with Cybertron either in Earth's orbit or between Earth and Mars with no problems.
230** [[spoiler:Sentinel]] does [[{{handwave}} mention]] the Space Bridge warps our laws of physics, though. Plus, they wouldn't care about damage to the Earth anyway, and the heroes were too busy trying to win the war to focus on that.
231** ''Film/TransformersTheLastKnight'' has [[spoiler: Cybertron]] return to Earth without the use of a Space Bridge. While It is implied that there were of people who died from the various chunks of [[spoiler: alien planet]] scraping all over the planet with in particular seen about to hit Hong Kong. Like with ''Dark Of The Moon'', no mentions are given to tidal waves, earthquakes, or the potential influence [[spoiler: Cybertron]] being right on top of Earth could have the crust or gravity.
232* ''Film/TrueLies'': The heroic couple kiss passionately as a nuke goes off in the background. Never mind that a huge area in the Florida Keys will now be completely uninhabitable for many many years, with the entire South Florida marine ecosystem completely compromised and likely to contaminate the entire Gulf of Mexico if not the Everglades or Eastern Seaboard. None of this is addressed in the film after the nuke goes off.
233* At the climax of the ''Film/VForVendetta'', [[spoiler:the Houses of Parliament are destroyed by a massive bomb on a tube train beneath them]]. An explosion of such size would devastate a wide area around it, but miraculously the [[spoiler:thousands of be-masked V supporters]] watching the show from only a few metres away are completely unharmed, rather than being shredded by flying debris. ''Possibly'' justified, as there is a shot of the Army successfully holding back the crowd behind barricades in places, so it's unlikely [[spoiler:those Vs]] would have been standing immediately adjacent to the structure. Also, they all knew it was going to explode, they probably stood well back.
234* In the climax of ''Film/X2XMenUnited'', Xavier, connected to Cerebro, is mind controlled first to kill all mutants and then to kill all humans. While he's stopped both times, his attempts cause extremely painful seizures in those he's targeting and cause mutant powers to go out of control (Mystique can't control her shapeshifting, Cyclops fires his EyeBeams). Logically, millions should be dead from suffering seizures while driving, swimming, or even simply taking a bath. Instead, the whole thing is pretty much brushed off by everyone.
235[[/folder]]
236
237[[folder:Literature]]
238* Partly averted in Creator/VladimirVasilyev and Creator/AlexanderGromov's novel ''Antarctic-online'', in which the titular continent inexplicably finds itself in Central Pacific, while the islands that used to occupy the area find themselves near the South Pole. While the novel largely focuses on the political consequences of a continent that nobody wants suddenly becoming prime real estate, there is plenty of talk about the ecological consequences, such as many coastal cities being flooded in the near future as the result of the melting Antarctic ice cap (this is handled, more or less, realistically -- it's stated that the process will last for millennia given the sheer amount of ice). There are immediate effects, though, such as tidal waves hitting the coasts from the sudden shift, and the numerous Polynesian islands, stuck in the Antarctic Circle, to evacuate. The world's nations wish to blame somebody, and the blame falls on the newly-declared sovereign Antarctic nation. Many nations demand reparations from Antarctic representatives, even though the continental "jump" was not their fault ([[spoiler:actually, the ending reveals that it was accidentally caused by one of them, who had found a strange-looking orb and dropped it. He later uses it intentionally to send an American destroyer into orbit in order to stop the invasion of the Antarctic by the US]]).
239* ''Defied'' in ''[[Literature/DreamPark The Barsoom Project]]'', in which two bitterly-hostile diplomats are invited to play out their enmity in the [[HumongousMecha War-Bots]] simulation. The simulation pits them against one another in gargantuan battle-robots in the middle of a London suburb ... and ''completely'' averts this trope, with simulated tiny people fleeing in terror, being crushed by every robotic footstep, buried alive by every crumbled building, or flash-fried in seconds when a mecha's foot punches through the ground into a busy subway tunnel. The diplomats' ears are regaled by ever-increasing numbers of agonized screams as the collateral damage piles up; by the time their fight ends, both men are ''near tears'' at the destruction of tiny innocents, and ''frantic'' to go back to negotiating peacefully. Which is ''exactly'' what [[ManipulativeBastard Dr. Vail, Dream Park's chief psychiatrist,]] designed the War-Bots scenario to do to would-be warmongers.
240* Commented upon in a ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'' novel where a commander berates a subordinate about firing indiscriminately in a crowded city in order to get to him. So it was a simulator fight, but it was still reckless behavior. The novels nonetheless show plenty of instances of combat in an urban setting. The presumably resulting civilian casualties are rarely even mentioned in passing unless it's explicitly a plot point (like the Smoke Jaguars' orbital bombardment and resulting total destruction of Edo, which was in fact considered over the top by even their allies and a genuine war crime by most everybody else). The Jade Falcons repeat the orbital bombardment in the animated series, but it's explicitly stated that the city's population was evacuated prior to the bombardment. A sourcebook for the series goes into further detail, comparing the two incidents, and bringing up the question of what the Falcons did with the people afterwards.
241** In ''[=BattleTech=]'', it's considered a fact that if you fight in a city, there ''will'' be civilian casualties. However, this trope is played straight in that the fusion reactors that power Battlemechs, if ruptured, would spread radioactive products[[note]]most notably tritiated water[[/note]] over a decent radius, but cities are never rendered even temporarily irradiated from this happening despite centuries of warfare. {{Justified|Trope}} in that tritiated water is only a weak beta emitter, carries no adverse health effects from external exposure, and is only an extremely mild radiation hazard when ingested.
242* Averted in Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''[[Literature/LineOfDelirium Emperors of Illusions]]''. A former Imperial planet once attempted to secede from TheEmpire, asking the [[BirdPeople Alkari]] for help. TheEmperor sends a fleet to pacify the colony, which engages the fleet sent by the Alkari in the vicinity of the planet. This vicious battle results in debris continuing to fall from orbit for decades. Not that the colonists mind, as nearly all of them were massacred by mercenary squads sent ahead of the Imperial fleet as punishment.
243* Deconstructed and averted in ''[[Literature/NightWatchSeries Final Watch]]''. As explained there is a fundamental difference between Mass Sleep spells used by the Light Ones and the Dark Ones. The Light version allows the victim a few moments of consciousness to put whatever he's doing to a halt and make himself comfortable. The Dark one simply knocks everybody out. After the Dark spell is used the characters enter the area of effect and register numerous crashed cars, starting fires and other unpleasantries. This is also why no one is keen on resurrecting a mad ancient dragon mage in an earlier novel, as he would then rampage across Europe, unaware of the Grand Treaty (and not caring in the least). Sure, humans would eventually put him down with modern weaponry, but untold millions would still die.
244* Averted in ''Literature/HonorHarrington: Mission of Honor''. [[spoiler:The destruction of space stations orbiting the Manticoran system worlds]] causes a great deal of collateral damage from debris striking the planets below, including the complete destruction of a city, and [[spoiler:a treecat clan being wiped out]].
245* Averted in Creator/MikhailAkhmanov's novel ''[[Literature/ArrivalsFromTheDark Invasion]]'', where the destruction of the alien mothership's computer causes its autonomous modules to crash and explode, while they were suspended above Earth's major cities, destroying countless historical artifacts and killing millions of people. However, this is still viewed as a victory, as the aliens were planning on enslaving humanity. This also serves to drive humanity to the stars in the later novels of the series. In all fairness, though, 40 million people is still a little low, given that these modules were filled with {{Antimatter}}. The only HandWave we get is a mention that the explosions were surprisingly small and were mainly limited to several miles in diameter.
246* Averted and zig-zagged in the ''Lensman'' universe.
247** Averted in the Nevian War (''Triplanetary''): the Nevian ship sent to Earth attacks Pittsburgh and then wipes out the Triplanetary Patrol fleet that comes to defend it, the ruined ships falling on what's left of the city.
248** Zig-Zagged in ''Grey Lensman'', in which Boskonian planetary coordinator Prellin has built his heavily-shielded base in a skyscraper right in the central business district of a major city, rationalizing that the Patrol wouldn't raze the city in order to destroy him. The Patrol decides to send a message, quietly evacuating all the civilians and then abruptly calling Prellin's bluff.
249* Mostly played straight in ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress''. The rocks are carefully guided to cause minimum casualties (in the hundreds or maybe thousands at most), and in fact, many were aimed at completely unpopulated areas as a show of force. However, some were aimed near heavily populated areas and if they were intercepted they were knocked off their intended course and caused a lot more damage. In addition, the ones aimed at unpopulated areas? Some people decided to mock the aim of the Lunar residents and ''picnic'' in some of those places. A textbook example of TooDumbToLive.
250** In fairness, those "heavily populated areas" were next door to the military bases and spaceports the Moonies were trying to bomb in the first place, not the actual targets themselves. And only one or two are mentioned as having been knocked off course in such a manner. (They specifically avoided targeting the headquarters of the government they were revolting against since it happened to be dangerously close to the Taj Mahal. Quite apart from the PR implications of destroying the Taj Mahal, it was the favorite building of the revolutionary prime minister.)
251* In the novel ''Literature/NuklearAge'', this is parodied to an extent; a GiantEnemyCrab rampages through the city, destroying entire buildings, but no one is harmed because everyone happens to be out on a lunch break. Later, when a city block is nuked, casualties are handwaved by the fact that the people of the city had already been sent off to work in warehouses and construction zones, to build an invasion fleet for their new hypnotic master; and, towards the end, the trope is subverted with a quite vivid description of casualties.
252* ''Literature/ReignOfTheSevenSpellblades'': In volume 1, despite multiple students getting disemboweled by the garuda, the cast members specifically note that nobody actually died because [[SuperToughness mages are just made of tougher stuff than normal humans]]. The corresponding anime episode "[[Recap/ReignOfTheSevenSpellbladesS1E05Glare Glare]]" included the assurance that nobody died but [[AdaptationExplanationExtrication omitted the reason]], causing some commentators to [[InferredHolocaust infer dozens of student deaths]]--which in all fairness [[AcademyOfAdventure wouldn't exactly be out of character for Kimberly]] (the canonical death toll for that school year was 17 across all seven grade years, which is actually less than usual).
253* ''Literature/StarTrekEnterpriseRelaunch'': In ''Beneath the Raptor's Wing'', several starships carrying antimatter explode in orbit over Andoria. The planet is fine but characters do note that had the explosions been a certain degree more powerful, the atmosphere ''could'' have been stripped away.
254* Averted with extreme prejudice in ''Literature/StarWarped'', a ''Star Wars'' parody by British comedy writer Adam Roberts who appears to ''hate'' the Ewoks as much as casual adult ''Star Wars'' fans, to the point where it borders on a TakeThat Not only does the section based on ''Return of the Jedi'' sees the Ewok expies (called "[[PunnyName Teddhibears]]" here) getting absolutely massacred by the Empire, but after the Death Star expy (called the "Death Spa", just go with it) collapses the text goes on an impossibly detailed, graphic description on how the Death Spa's ruins proceeds to incinerate every remaining inch of the Teddhibears' forest world, with ''all'' remaining Teddhibears who escaped massacre getting immolated alive by the flames. To hit the nail in even harder, Adam Roberts specifically wrote "Apocalyptic Firestorm" somewhere on that very page!
255[[/folder]]
256
257[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
258* In the season 4 finale of ''Series/TwentyFour'', a military-grade nuclear missile is intercepted and destroyed just above downtown LA seconds before it was to detonate. While this should have spread several kilos of plutonium across the city in a "dirty bomb" effect, nobody seems to be concerned about this aside from a HandWave about NEST cleaning up the scene. Although the plutonium would only be particularly dangerous if inhaled or eaten, as the alpha radiation it emits wouldn't penetrate your skin. There was some handwave about prevailing winds blowing it away from the city. This is however still much better than the bomb actually going off, though.
259** A nuclear bomb core is a small dense ball. It would likely remain intact if hit by a conventional anti-missile explosion. At worst, it would be broken into a few large chunks.
260** Plutonium itself is much less radioactive than its fission products, which would be produced by nuclear explosion.
261** ''24'' largely averts this trope otherwise. In Season 2, they have to fly a nuclear bomb out of LA to have it detonate elsewhere. The short and long-term effects of it detonating in the Pacific Ocean and the desert are both discussed. The only real concern for the desert is the fallout, but the ocean has a whole mess of problems. The characters routinely state they can't shoot down aircraft over populated areas, as the debris would result in fatalities. In a possible nod to Season 4 above, in Season 6 they stop a suitcase nuke from going off but there is a radiation leak. It is contained quickly, but it's pointed out that there will still be consequences from it.
262* ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|2003}}'': At the climax of "[[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S01E0133 33]]", Apollo and Starbuck are ordered to destroy one of the Fleet's own civilian ships, the ''Olympic Carrier'', based on the suspicion that the Cylons are using it to track the Fleet (realized after both it and the Cylons catch up with the Fleet ''after'' the eponymous 33-minute interval) and the fact it's pinging the radiological alarms as it approaches. The original script called for the ''Olympic Carrier'' to be fully manned, [[ShootTheDog forcing them to knowingly kill their own people]], but [[ExecutiveMeddling the network vetoed this]] and the episode went to air with [[GhostShip the ship visibly empty]].[[note]]Though an attentive observer may notice a few [[FreezeFrameBonus very brief]] flickers in the light coming out from some of the windows, hinting that there are still people moving around inside.[[/note]] WordOfGod is still that there were definitely people onboard, however, as the showrunners say in their podcast commentary for the later episode [[Recap/BattlestarGalactica2003S02E10Pegasus "Pegasus"]] over a scene where Tigh insists to Adama that they don't know there was anyone on the ship.[[invoked]]
263* ''Series/BreakingBad'': The last episode of Season 2 has [[spoiler:a commercial airliner and a charter plane suffer a catastrophic midair collision]] as an indirect result of Walt's actions, causing [[spoiler:flaming debris to rain down]] over a heavily populated suburb. However, in the first episode of Season 3, it's mentioned (and lampshaded) that there were miraculously no fatalities on the ground.
264* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has plenty of examples of this:
265** [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]]: Torchwood blows up the Sycorax's ship with no ill effects, when just earlier the ship's entry into the atmosphere shattered windows. This is justified because we see the beam pass by the Moon before it strikes the ship. So, we should be able to assume the ship is more than 300,000km away from the planet and still fleeing, which momentum would be preserved by the debris. Earth's atmosphere stops at around 100km for all practical purposes, and there aren't many particles in the exosphere. Yes, parts of the ship reach the Mesosphere, burning like meteors into ash. Really, the [[RuleOfCool explosion shouldn't have been that large on screen]].
266** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E5ThePoisonSky "The Poison Sky"]], the Doctor sets the ''entire atmosphere'' of Earth ablaze to eliminate all the poisonous gas the Sontarans have released, and nothing even gets SINGED. Plus, there's plenty of oxygen left afterwards, and no excess [=CO=][[subscript:2]].
267*** A solar flare similarly sets the atmosphere ablaze in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E10InTheForestOfTheNight "In the Forest of the Night"]], with [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext mysteriously-sprouted new trees absorbing all the energy]].
268** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]]: The Earth is towed halfway across the universe at FTL speeds to return it to its proper position in space. The only trouble seen is the ground shaking in London, despite the fact that, even if we assume the TARDIS (which was doing the towing) imparted some InertialDampening, there should have been avalanches and landslides in other regions.
269** Defied in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E14TheNextDoctor "The Next Doctor"]], where after defeating the local [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever 50-Foot Whatever]], the Doctor makes sure to teleport it away before it falls over and crushes London. Even the Doctor finds it odd that the event isn't recorded in history (the story being set in Victorian times); this is justified in a later episode by the whole event being [[{{Retgone}} sucked into a crack in time]].
270** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E1TheEleventhHour "The Eleventh Hour"]]: The Doctor writes a computer virus, which is propagated worldwide, that resets all numbers to zero in order to get the Atraxi's attention. Millennium Bug aside, that would royally mess up a ''lot'' of society's critical computer systems.
271** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E7TheRingsOfAkhaten "The Rings of Akhaten"]], the day is saved by the destruction of a "parasite planet". Fans incorrectly pointed out that this left nothing for the seven moons to orbit, nor any energy source for them, before it was pointed out to them that the planet wasn't actually destroyed and just went to sleep; it's still there and still radiates heat.
272** The destruction of the Moon in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon "Kill the Moon"]] as it hatched its space dragon embryo probably should've had some sort of effect on Earth, given the sheer amount of debris that would generate. Possibly justified by the Moon actually being a rocky eggshell, and most of its mass flying away in space, but nonetheless unlikely.
273* ''Series/FlashForward2009'' averts it in the pilot. When [[spoiler:almost]] everybody on Earth falls asleep for two minutes, there aren't exactly exemptions for drivers, pilots, or train conductors. Invoked though later, as while they keep showing residual damage on skyscrapers, all the cars are dent-free and the streets show no lingering, unfixed damage. What a public works department the USA must have!
274** Played straight in the series finale, however. [[spoiler: The good guys manage to figure out that the next blackout will happen within a couple of minutes. Authorities and media are alerted, and then we get a montage of the blackout in which everyone seems prepared and dramatic casualties appear to have been avoided. Except that '''two minutes''' are a rather shitty forewarning for such a global event. It's better than nothing but not much notice. Commercial planes have fly-by-wire. They can do the entire flight autonomously from taking off to landing without the need for human input. Airline pilots right now are more observers than controllers.]]
275* The ''Series/HoneyWest'' episode "Whatever Lola Wants..." ends with the explosion of a mansion that had just been hosting a party. The only reaction this gets is a OneLiner from Honey, with no mention of whether the guests got out okay.
276* In ''Series/OrphanBlack'' many audience members were worried that Helena had killed a large number of innocent people when she [[spoiler:set fire to the cult's compound after killing Johanssen]]. John Fawcett explained via WordOfGod that [[spoiler:she raised the alarm and helped everyone get out]], and all the named characters who might have been involved were explicitly shown alive in the third season.
277* In ''Franchise/PowerRangers'', the MonsterOfTheWeek's energy blasts regularly hit the Zords and they fall back and ''through'' a building. Nobody ever talks about the implications of that... The later [[HandWave dodge]] of many fights happening in an AbandonedWarehouseDistrict is an [[VoodooShark inelegant solution]] to say the least.
278** In the first season, a news reporter almost always assured us that amazingly, no one was seriously hurt in the day's monster rampage.
279** This was lampshaded in an episode of ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'' (though not intentionally) with the line "Thank goodness no one was in that building!" The Ranger saying it ''really'' had no way of checking, too. In another episode, a MonsterOfTheWeek says "I hate empty buildings!" before smashing one (''not,'' by the way, the more menacing line used in the trailer.)
280** A LampshadeHanging in ''Series/TokumeiSentaiGobusters'': In one episode, the heroes kablooify the MonsterOfTheWeek, and then reduce an enemy HumongousMecha to scrap, in the good ol' ''Franchise/PowerRangers[=/=]Franchise/SuperSentai'' tradition. Then, the next episode begins with them having to clean up the wreckage of the enemy robot. The same thing happens in ''Series/PowerRangersSPD'', where the B-Squad Rangers had to clean up debris after the A-Squad's mecha battle.
281* ''Series/TheSarahJaneAdventures'':
282** Discussed and averted in the Series 4 story "[[Recap/TheSarahJaneAdventuresS4E7E8TheEmptyPlanet The Empty Planet]]". After almost all humans are briefly taken away, Clyde and Rani notice that the streets are surprisingly clean and unwrecked. This was deliberate on the part of the aliens; they phase-shifted all the moving vehicles away along with the people so that there would be no crashes, leaving behind only the parked ones.
283** In the final story of Series 4, "[[Recap/TheSarahJaneAdventuresS4E11E12GoodbyeSarahJaneSmith Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith]]", however, our heroes defeat Ruby White by projecting a hologram of a meteor shower all over the world to overwhelm her with the human race's panic. The fact that this would logically result in crashes and heart attacks is never mentioned. We could assume that it was worth it to stop her from becoming powerful enough to destroy the world, but no one even brings it up.
284** "[[Recap/TheSarahJaneAdventuresS4E5E6DeathOfTheDoctor Death of the Doctor]]" does a single-character version of this by making it clear that Barbara Wright is still alive off-screen, contradicting the common dark fanon that gave her the real-life early death from cancer of her actor Jacqueline Hill, and blamed it on her irradiation on Skaro.
285* ''Series/StargateAtlantis'':
286** Huge sections of Atlantis are regularly demolished by alien invaders, natural disasters, and our heroes -- yet this seems to have very little overall impact on the city as a whole and the population, which appears to stay remarkably steady in numbers. Although the latter could be explained after contact is re-established with Earth as new personnel arrives to fill the gaps. Still, all in all, Atlantis is a ''gigantic'' city with some self-repairing ability. Over 90% of it is uninhabited; the expedition (numbering a couple thousand at most) stays almost exclusively in the central tower, while the Athosians live in colonies on the mainland.
287** In "Adrift", a huge section of the city is taken out by an asteroid -- Sheppard and Zelenka have to hop it in zero-g. No mention is ever made of the missing chunk again, nor can it be seen in the [[EstablishingShot establishing shots]].
288** In "Enemy at the Gate", a larger-than-normal Wraith hive ship blows up in low Earth orbit. In fact, the nuclear blast appears to vaporize the ship. There is an incredibly bright flash, and then nothing. Then there's a giant Ancient city-ship crash-landing in the San Francisco Bay. There actually ''were'' meant to be consequences for this, among them the public exposure of the stargate program, but the finale movie where this would have taken place was cancelled and ''Series/StargateUniverse'' ignored it.
289* ''Series/StargateSG1'': In an example strikingly similar to the [[Film/ReturnoftheJedi the trope namer]], the planet Delmak in "[[Recap/StargateSG1S3E13TheDevilYouKnow The Devil You Know]]" is apparently unharmed after its moon explodes.
290* ''Series/StrangerThings'': There is no fallout to the Soviet Union having an illegal base in the United States. As well as both performing illegal experimentation on and even committing the murder of American citizens, done by ''uniformed'' soviet soldiers no less; nothing ever comes of it. It's not like it was covered up either, and everything was exposed to the American public at the end of Season 3. Keep in mind the president at the time -- UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan -- was the guy who committed high treason, invaded several countries, and spent hundreds of millions of dollars on defeating the Soviet Union. Guess it happened on one of his good days.
291* An EMP problem ensued in an episode of the short-lived alien invasion drama ''Series/{{Threshold}}'', where an EMP is unleashed in Miami to keep an alien signal from spreading. They know that it will cause a panic and result in various damages. There are injuries from it and the leader is told that there are no casualties ''so far''. Caffrey also points out that the simple truth is they have stopped the alien signal from getting out, regardless of collateral damage.
292** To the show's credit, they take another two steps. A minimum safe distance is cleared around the device, so no one is killed by the EMP itself; and they make no planes (and presumably helicopters) are in the blast radius when it goes off.
293** A less lethal example; A character smugly points out that anyone losing data because of the EMP have only themselves to blame for not backing up, completely ignoring the many perfectly responsible backup schemes that don't go as far as storing the backed up data somewhere outside of your city (and this is before cloud backup became a widespread option too).
294* ''Series/TorchwoodMiracleDay'' averts this ''hardcore'' at first while examining the effects of everyone on Earth becoming immortal - Not only has the entire political climate changed, a complete overhaul of the medical care system is in the works since the very definition of life has changed. If anything, the global changes may be happening faster than they would in reality, sometimes dipping into ArtisticLicense. However, while there are some consequences that persist once the event ends, the draconian PopulationControl measures, martial law, and Second Great Depression all seem to vanish with no lasting ramifications.
295* Deconstructed in the first episode of ''Series/UltramanMebius''. After a big, flashy, ''Ultraman''-standard fight with the first MonsterOfTheWeek is all over, a victorious Mebius suddenly finds himself [[WhatTheHellHero getting chewed out]] by an enraged Ryu for not paying attention to the CollateralDamage he was causing by kicking the crap out of the kaiju right in the middle of a city. The camera then pans over the cityscape, calling attention to all the smashed buildings and decimated streets, and while evacuations were underway from the moment the kaiju appeared, it's also pretty obvious that a whole lot of people probably died in the chaos (the original GUYS team ''definitely'' did) and the massive amounts of property damage done will be costly. Mebius is ''significantly'' more careful and conscious about this sort of thing from then on.
296* Inverted in the final season of ''Series/{{Westworld}}''. [[spoiler:In the finale, we are told that the extinction of humans and hosts outside of the Sublime is now inevitable, but since the victims of the HatePlague are not coordinated and are hostile to each other as well, it is in fact very unlikely they would be able to overcome the organized settlements of outliers, as only one person would attack at a time]].
297[[/folder]]
298
299[[folder:Video Games]]
300* ''VideoGame/AceCombat'':
301** Explicitly lampshade-hung in ''VideoGame/AceCombatXSkiesOfDeception'', where it's noted that the raining debris from the Gleipnir somehow never caused any casualties. As if in acknowledgement of this trope, however, earlier on we had Crux pleading for the Gleipnir Captain not to crash the airborne fortress into Santa Elva.
302** The last mission of ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'' involves shooting down a satellite aimed to [[ColonyDrop fall on the Osean capital city]], and explicitly carrying a nuclear bomb. It explodes less than twenty miles off the coast and rains debris over the city. No indication of any damage is given.
303** The last DLC mission of ''VideoGame/AceCombat7SkiesUnknown'' involves preventing a [[{{BFG}} giant rail cannon]] from firing a [[NukeEm nuclear shell]] at the same city as above. When the antagonists manage to get off a single shot, [[PlayerCharacter Trigger]] knocks the cannon's aim off at the last second and MissionControl explicitly states that it's not going to hit the city... but no mention is made whatsoever about what that shot ''did'' eventually hit.
304* One between-levels cutscene in ''VideoGame/{{Afterburner}} Climax'' passes you orders to hunt down a nuke-bearing bomber, and explicitly tells you not to worry about the "sympathetic detonation" of the nuclear device.
305* ''VideoGame/AirForceDelta Strike'' sends the squadron to destroy a space elevator located in the center of a city, then in the immediate next mission, ''you'' have to destroy the falling debris to prevent the [[InferredHolocaust Endor Holocaust]].
306* Occurs in the ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'' demo. [[spoiler:PhysicalGod Wyzen assumes a form that is apparently larger than the planet the game is set on and attempts to crush Asura with a mountain-sized index finger, but he is destroyed. The following cutscene shows an even ''larger'' explosion that should have shattered the planet as well. The gravitational effects of having such a vast entity suddenly materialize just outside the atmosphere are also absent.]]
307** ''Asura's Wrath'' proper never lets the collateral damage hit ''anywhere'' [[ApocalypseHow near the scale it actually would]]. [[spoiler: Yes, we're shown that humans have become slavishly loyal to [[GodGuise The Seven Deities]] to the detriment of society and that the Ghoma [[DoomedHometown burn villages left and right]]. However, the greater ecological effects, such as Wyzen's transformation, the [[KillSat Brahmastra's]] laser, or even Vlitra (an eight-headed snake growing out from the planet's core), are never addressed. By all accounts, Earth should have been space dust ''aeons'' ago.]]
308* Averted in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare2''. [[spoiler:When the second nuke goes off, Starfish Prime style, the ensuing EMP blast over D.C. knocks out aerial vehicles (despite their military-grade electronics shielding), sending them crashing to the ground and killing fellow soldiers]], as well as [[BigBlackout disabling the power grid on most of the east coast]] and [[MadeOfExplodium destroying the International Space Station]].
309* Averted in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. Near the end of the game, when [[spoiler:Lavos]] goes out of control, the entire floating continent [[spoiler:Zeal]] which used him as a power source crashes down to earth, bringing significant climactic change and death along with it.
310* Notably [[Administrivia/NotASubversion averted]] in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes''. The Rikti invasion included an enormous mother ship that hovered over Paragon City. When it was eventually defeated by a huge gathering of heroes (many of which died in the battle), the ship crashed into a section of the city now known as the "Rikti Crash Site," which is walled off from the rest of the town and considered extremely dangerous for all but the most powerful and experienced heroes. It's also a quite sizable game map of what one would expect a cityscape to look like after a gigantic alien battleship fell on it. The back-story indicates that the heroes saw the damage they were doing when they took down the ships, so they then started tossing them into the ocean instead, which is why there's even a city left standing at all.
311* Near the beginning of ''VideoGame/CosmicStarHeroine'', the protagonist Alyssa hops into a giant mecha (Whose parts she and her allies just ''wrecked''. Don't ask.) to battle a giant monster in the middle of the city. No mention of any collateral damage is made, even after Alyssa activates the mecha's SelfDestructMechanism in a CoupDeGraceCutscene. Then again, it looks like the mechanism makes the mecha and whatever its LaserBlade was lodged into simply evaporate without sending any shockwave. [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment That incident doesn't appear to carry much consequence]], except maybe that Alyssa was declared dead.
312* ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2'' has Yamato plan to shoot the airborne Alioth down, meaning it would land in Sapporo. Several of the party members are concerned about this trope and ask if that isn't going to endanger anyone still living there, wanting to evacuate first. Yamato soothes any worries by claiming that it won't be a problem[[spoiler:, since Sapporo is already devoid of human life]]. A later scene does avert this[[spoiler:, with Makoto mentioning to Yamato that she had heard that there were still survivors. Yamato sees no problem with that. [[MetaphoricallyTrue Any person who wasn't crushed by Alioth would be dying due to the Septentrione's toxin in the area, anyway]]]].
313* Averted in ''VideoGame/EveOnline: The Empyrean Age''. The falling wreckage from the Minmatar and Amarr fleets fighting over Mekhios were more destructive than any orbital bombardment could have been.
314* Zig-zagged several times in ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder''.
315** Early on, it is hypothesized that anyone killed in a Singularity is un-killed when the Singularity is resolved. Eventually you learn that the circumstances of their death are changed to something fitting the corrected history, but they're still dead.
316** Played straight with the destruction of humanity in the first arc: by thwarting the BigBad's attempts to retroactively destroy human history, you un-destroy humanity. [[spoiler: However, it takes a year to do so... [[SubvertedTrope and all of humanity is aware of the year they were extinct]], the paradoxical existence of Chaldea, etc. The consequences of ''that'' are planned to set up the story of the second arc.]]
317** [[spoiler: Painfully subverted during the second arc "Cosmos in the Lostbelt". Humanity is destroyed, the Earth is wiped clean and there are 7 "Lostbelts", alternate timelines that diverged too far from proper history. Initially, the story paints this as if it was just a normal singularity that will go back to normal once you resolve it. However, at the end of the first Lostbelt, the game explains in clear terms that if you wish to save humanity, everyone in the Lostbelts will have to die.]]
318* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
319** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'' features a couple instances. The Tower of Zot, a huge flying structure that falls apart moments after you leave it, never crashes anywhere. The Tower of Babil is perfectly fine (and is totally structurally intact, according to the sequels) after the Giant of Babil seemingly walks out of it. Similarly, in the sequels, there are almost no changes to the world map (not even changes to local climates, tides, or sea lanes) after one of the planet's moons flies off into deep space, never to return.
320*** Certain developments in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'' lead many players to assume that the planets on which the ''other'' ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games take place were blown up as "failed experiments" by {{God}}, [[spoiler:who is actually a SufficientlyAdvancedAlien EvilutionaryBiologist]]. WordOfGod assures us this did not happen.
321** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' seems to play this straight with the Reactor Bombings at the start of the game. However, late in the story Cait Sith[[spoiler: Actually Shinra employee Reeve]] makes it clear that the Trope was ''not'' in effect. A lot of people were either hurt or killed when the reactors blew, either from the explosion itself or by falling debris.
322--> "I've been itching to say this to you [Barret] for a while now! When you blew up the Sector 1 Reactor, how many do you think died?"
323** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', the Lunar Cry causes monsters to rain down from the Moon. The last time this happened, it destroyed the [[{{Precursors}} Centra civilization]] and reduced most of a continent to a crater (plainly visible on the World Map). When it happens in the game, it even tints Esthar's sky red and infests the country-sized city with incredibly strong monsters. It is implied that despite the damage of the monster assault, the Estharian military is able to contain the situation because they were prepared for it. So it makes sense they had plans for the next lunar cry.
324** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'', when you first fight [[EldritchAbomination Sin]], you're treated to a couple cutscenes showing you ''exactly'' what you're about to fight. The attack shown is strong enough to pull the moon, and absolutely tear up the geography, leaving behind a series of tunnels and canyons filled with fire and rubble. After you beat Sin, you can go and visit the rest of Spira, and at no point did you see any collateral damage. Considering what happened at [[CurbStompBattle Djose]], you'd think that thousands of people had died in those blasts. Nope. All the places are intact, and no one mentions dying in the attacks.
325*** Invoked in the Calm Lands, where battles are staged specifically to avoid collateral damage.
326*** It is mentioned in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' that Sin fell on Bevelle during the final battle and did cause some damage to the lower districts, all of which seems to have been repaired in the two years between the two games.
327* The ending of ''VideoGame/{{Freespace}}'' is, while {{bittersweet|Ending}}, is still treated as a triumph, but let's look at what actually happened. Yes, the human and Vasudan colonies have survived, as shown by the ExpansionPack and the sequel, and have even prospered. But what about Earth? It has been cut off from the rest of the galaxy, meaning it's probably overpopulated, low on resources, and had just lost the ability to trade with other worlds, meaning planetary economy will be in ruins. Neither the ExpansionPack nor the sequel shows what happens to Earth after the collapse of the wormhole. If ''Freespace 3'' is ever made, it should be about pissed-off descendants coming back into the galactic community to "thank" everybody for cutting off their only link to the rest of the galaxy.
328** Yes, Earth was saved from being turned into an uninhabitable wasteland by the ''Lucifer'', no one had any idea that blowing up a giant ship in subspace would destroy the subspace node it was done in and the ones who did it were stuck on the Earth side of the node, but humans tend to have short memory for good things and long memory for bad. The descendants will definitely blame their colonies and will probably think they caused this intentionally to gain independence. Assuming there ''are'' technologically proficient survivors[[note]]Alpha Centauri is in Vasudan/GTVA space, so sending and receiving messages at light-speed isn't actually all that much of an issue, given that Freespace 2 takes place thirty-two years after the first game, yet no-one in the GTVA knows what is happening in the Sol system[[/note]].
329** This is addressed by numerous fan-made sequels, which often feature a war breaking out when the GTVA repairs the node and re-opens passage to Earth. There are also some fan-made stories taking place within the Sol system after the cutoff, generally showing the fragmentation of society, civil wars, and (usually) eventual reunification under a new government. None of this is actually canon.
330* In the final game of the ''VideoGame/GalaxyAngelII'' trilogy, Tact Mayers and the Moon Angel Wing are forced to sacrifice the Elsior to save the Valfask's homeworld. While the entire human crew had explicitly evacuated the ship per Tact's orders, a free roam segment has Kazuya meeting with Kuromie, the Elsior's animal caretaker, who eases his concerns about the animals by informing him they had been taken out prior to the battle during the celebration, and the Space Whale itself had been set free on the sea.
331* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
332** In ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', Magnetic Accelerator Cannons, one of them a "Super" MAC, are twice fired at targets not far off the ground, destroying them neatly. In the books, Super [=MACs=] in particular are described as so powerful that they fire at 0.04% the speed of light, which in real life would cause ecological disaster on the scale of the meteor that killed the dinosaurs, nevermind that the shockwave alone actually has the potential to ''rend continents and set the atmosphere itself on fire''. The seemingly careless use of them near the ground in ''Reach'' is lampshaded by one character, who expresses surprise that a mere ''regular'' (i.e. non-"Super") MAC cannon being used in-atmosphere. His commander's remark "One way to get [the Covenant]'s attention" suggests it's because they've passed the GodzillaThreshold. The general consensus among fans is that the [=MAC=] firings seen were fired at a slower speed to reduce their collateral damage.
333** Also occurs in ''VideoGame/HaloWars'', where Captain Cutter's special ability is to fire MAC rounds from orbit to ground targets. Once again, no collateral damage. Although it should be noted that the Mac rounds being used in Halo Wars are stated in expanded material to not be large ship guns but rather smaller Mass Drivers mounted on the ship's outer hull, similar to the Mass Driver that is used in the last level of Halo Reach. The guns can be seen during the missions "Cleansing" and "Repairs", where you are moving about the dorsal surface of the ship, along with the cutscene that plays just before the latter mission that depicts the ship engaging a covenant vessel.
334* ''VideoGame/IntoTheBreach'': While the game takes its time to show the consequences of the collateral damage that mechs can do, setting buildings ablaze does no damage to them, meaning that a region can be completely on fire and be no worse for wear.
335* In ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'', in May of 2011 a skeletal version of the Death Star was being built to [[RageAgainstTheHeavens destroy]] [[FluffyCloudHeaven Valhalla]] (the afterlife). The player base eventually blew it up. This trope was very much ''not'' in effect.[[note]]Although the trope was {{Double Subver|sion}}ted in that the thousand-year reconstruction took only a day as far as the players could tell, due to [[YearInsideHourOutside the flow of time being different in Valhalla]][[/note]].
336* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'':
337** The moon [[spoiler:falls close enough to the planet for the HumongousMecha-sized Four Giants to catch it, and is later disintegrated, all without harm to the surrounding area. The scenes with the moon in the atmosphere make the moon look a ''lot'' smaller than it does in the sky..]].
338** Averted when it does hit -- rather than just crushing the city like it might do, it catches fire in the low atmosphere and causes a planet-wide flaming shockwave that kills all living creatures. It also fucks up the planet's gravity fairly dramatically.
339* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'' starts with the Upheaval, a major event that sees ancient ruins falling from the sky all over the country. Kakariko Village in particular appears to be the epicenter, with utterly massive structures crashing around the whole region. Known casualties: half a house and a chicken pen. (Not the chicken, though. ''Zelda'' poultry is notoriously indestructible.) Even if Hyrule is post-apocalyptic and very sparsely populated by that point, the results were so lucky that even the characters themselves can't help but acknowledge it as a miracle.
340* ''Franchise/MassEffect'' has a few examples:
341** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLpgxry542M a Gunnery Sergeant is shouting at his troops]] that if you fire a gun in space that projectile keeps on going and will eventually hit something. When using a weapon that strikes with the impact of a city-buster, this is a very bad thing, so under no circumstances are you to "eyeball" it.
342-->'''Sergeant''': "It keeps going until it hits something! That can be the ship, or the planet behind the ship! It may keep going into deep space, and hit someone else in ten thousand years! If you pull the trigger on this, you are ruining ''somebody's'' day, somewhere and sometime!"
343** Sovereign's destruction at the end of the first game seemed to play this straight, except for the one piece that landed on the Citadel Tower. The sequel (set two years later) reveals that at ''least'' tens of thousands were killed by falling debris, and they're ''still'' clearing out debris and making repairs and are expected to continue for at least five years (five years more or five in total, it isn't clear). From the destruction of '''one''' 2 KM ship.
344** Subverted in ''Arrival''. In order to stop an imminent Reaper invasion, Shepard is forced to [[spoiler: cause the destruction of a Mass Relay, wiping out an entire star system along with a colony filled with 300,000 Batarians]]. The third game opens with Shepard in custody over this very incident, before he is released and free of all charges when the Reapers finally show up to invade Earth.
345** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', the Extended Cut DLC changed the ending to make it clear that [[spoiler: the Normandy's crew survived their crash, the mass relays were repaired and therefore averted the stranding of millions of aliens on Earth, and that galactic civilization rebuilt itself. The original ending before the extended cut involved exploding mass relays, some of which were located in rather populated star systems, including Earth's. Add to that the fact that according to the aforementioned ''Arrival'' DLC, an exploding relay has the power to destroy an entire star system, and you might realize that humanity would have gone extinct. The extended cut, however, changed it into the relays simply falling apart, causing a LOT less damage.]]
346** [[spoiler: Averted by the "Destroy" extended ending with low EMS, which can be summed up as a galaxy-wide extinction event for all organic life above microbes, whether involved in the war or not. There are barely any survivors and the narrator doesn't express much hope for their future.]]
347* In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne3'', the title character at one point is in a favela in Sao Paulo, where he comes across a drug lab belonging to a gang that is out to kill him. He decides to destroy the lab by setting fire to it using fireworks and explosives that also happen to be inside. Thing is, this being a favela where shoddily-built buildings are tightly packed together, the fire should have spread uncontrollably and destroyed a huge number of homes, but none of this appears to happen as the fire is contained only in that building.
348* Averted in ''VideoGame/MegaManX''. The post-''[[VideoGame/MegaManX5 X5]]'' games show that, if anything, the collateral damage caused by the pieces of Eurasia falling to Earth was ''even worse'' than what the damage would have been if simply the colony itself had fallen.
349* All three ''Parasite Eve'' games avert this pretty hard.
350** In [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve the first game]], casualties are kept to a minimum by evacuating the entire population as soon as a clear threat is identified, but Eve is still explicitly shown killing at least two concert halls full of people.
351** Near the end of [[VideoGame/ParasiteEve2 the second game]], it's revealed that most of the monsters you've been fighting [[WasOnceAMan used to be human]].
352** [[VideoGame/The3rdBirthday The third game]] shows several people being killed during the Twisted's initial attack (both by the Twisted themselves and as a result of the city-wide panic). [[AllThereInTheManual In-game files]] put the global death toll between 5.5 million and 335 million [[TimeyWimeyBall depending on the point in the game you're at]].
353* In ''VideoGame/RatchetAndClank2016'', late in the game, [[spoiler:Novalis gets blown up by the Deplanetizer]]. However, Clank tells Ratchet that ''everyone'' was evacuated before it happened.
354* At one point in ''VideoGame/RideToHellRetribution'', you blow up a power plant to [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext shut off an electric fence]]. Such a catastrophic event should at the very least deprive the city of electricity, yet whenever you go back into town the power appears to be working just fine.
355* Occurs in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'', when STAG brings in a giant ''flying aircraft carrier'' to bomb Steelport. It eventually gets blown up, but the city miraculously does not get flattened by the falling debris.
356** Averted with an earlier cargo plane the player infiltrates and brings down, however -- it crashes into canisters carrying [[TheVirus a zombie-creating virus]] [[ContinuityNod from the previous game's DLC]], and for the rest of the game the only people you find in that specific part of the city are zombies.
357* Despite the series already having [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure a major metropolitan area and a military island base]] among its human casualties, and despite ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' being a DarkerAndEdgier spinoff, the game makes note that all civilians evacuated the capital city before [[MultipleEndings it was destroyed by a giant space laser or overrun with alien forces]]. A slightly more justifiable example from the same game occurs during the final boss, where the heroic [=NPCs=] comment that they were able to escape the aliens' comet/organic spaceship, freeing the protagonist to not worry about destroying the thing. This is also averted: the main villain is spreading a paralyzing gas over the Earth, and though you don't see it since you're fighting in the sky you can hear the [=NPCs=] choking and passing out over the radio as the fight goes on.
358** In the opening cutscene of ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'', Eggman cracks open the planet but no attention is given to the extremely high probability that he just slaughtered billions of people.
359* ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefront2015'' partially averts the ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' example: one of the maps takes place in a burning Ewok village, damaged by fallen space debris.
360* Pick a cinematic attack in the game ''VideoGame/TouhouSoccer 2''. There's no way the audience could have survived this. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u823w5GI24 Rising Game]] ''starts'' with the world [[EarthShatteringKaboom blowing up]]. And then Sakuya and Eirin send knives and arrows flying in every direction. If the explosion didn't kill the audience, all those pointy implements would've skewered them!
361* Speaking of ''Franchise/TouhouProject'', the actual games raise some questions about the collateral damage from [[BulletHell danmaku]]. ZUN is [[ShrugOfGod expectedly obtuse on the matter]], and interpretations range from it being only dangerous to the intended target, only dangerous to people and not the surroundings (''[[AllThereInTheManual Perfect Memento]]'' mentions that while danmaku duels are pretty, a safe distance is advised), to potentially damaging everything it impacts but most people and things in Gensoukyou are resilient enough to avoid lasting damage.
362* Averted (slightly) at the end of the [[spoiler:Ghirlandaio]] mission in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles''. [[spoiler:The explosion that Selvaria causes is explicitly stated to have vaporized the entire army and demolished the fortress, but this has no impact on the player or Squad 7 because the army is painted as an unsympathetic hindrance to the militia.]]
363** [[spoiler:By that point, most of the Imperial army was defeated so the militia can handle their remnants. And if the Universal Conscription is anything to go by, I'm guessing that the bulk of Gallia's military might is in their militia anyway, which explains why the regular army doesn't get anywhere much while the militia does the heavy lifting.]]
364* At the end of ''Videogame/UltimaUnderworld I'', the volcano erupts, destroying the entire civilisation within... but then in the very last cutscene, Garamon appears to the Avatar in a dream and explains that he was able to open a portal to send everyone to Destard.
365* The second act of ''VideoGame/{{Warzone 2100}}'''s single-player campaign appears to dodge this one at first, as it takes place in the ruins of a city that had a nuclear warhead dropped on it. Then comes a mission where you have to prevent the opposing faction flying a large number of civilians out of the area. The realisation that those half-wrecked apartment buildings (which some players had probably shot at just to see the rather cool collapse animation) might have had people inside them made this mission something of a WhamEpisode.
366* The last act of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'' has players witness no less than [[spoiler:the Bionis and Mechonis, the HumongousMecha/continents the game's characters live on, '''coming to life and engaging in mortal combat.''' ''No'' one is shown dying or being injured, even though the simple act of the Bionis moving its leg should have ended at least 3 civilizations. We are told that Kallian evacuated Sword Valley and that "casualties were kept to a minimum", but the cutscene still shows ''thousands'' of people falling from Mechonis' sword, far more than could possibly have been saved by the aircraft in the area. Egil does speculate that he's probably killed thousands of Homs in a single strike when he first starts the fight and that was from a relatively weak attack. So a crap ton of deaths probably are happening, just not the extinction level events that logically would occur]].
367[[/folder]]
368
369[[folder:Web Animation]]
370* Apparently, ''WebVideo/TheMercuryMen'' universe never heard of the Roche Limit; the Moon gets so close to the Earth that it's affecting the cloud cover. Possibly justified, however, as we don't really know how the Gravity Engine works.
371* ''WebAnimation/HowItShouldHaveEnded'''s take on ''Franchise/StarWars: Film/ANewHope'' involved Grand Moff Tarkin deciding to expedite victory and destroy the planet around which the rebel base was in orbit. [[RuleofFunny The base remains intact.]]
372* In Episode 4 of ''WebAnimation/MurderDrones'', when Uzi examines a dog-themed calendar in an abandoned building, it's revealed that all of the planet's dogs were evacuated from the planet before something bad (in this case the core rupturing) happened, with a note explicitly stating that it's [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall canon]]. Also, thanks to the power of science, [[ExaggeratedTrope all dogs are now immortal]].
373[[/folder]]
374
375[[folder:Webcomics]]
376* ''Webcomic/{{Adventurers}}'' subverts this, ending with the heroes desperately trying to stop the BigBad's [[LoadBearingBoss collapsing]] flying fortress from crushing a city. when they solve it [[https://web.archive.org/web/20060708064625/http://www.adventurers-comic.com/d/20060623.html in their usual manner]], there is, indeed, No Endor Holocaust. The fact that there isn't one when there logically should've been is what forces Ardam to give up his attempts to surrender to irrationality.
377* ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'': Magus blows up a castle out of frustration when he learns about warp zones. At first, Bowser vows he will avenge the deaths of all the soldiers he had stationed there, only to find out that almost all of them had deserted their posts for various reasons. The only member of the Koopa Troop that was still there was Elwin the Boo Janitor. Who was already dead.
378* Lampshaded in ''Webcomic/{{Collar 6}}'' when one bad guy's plan involved pulling the consciousness of all the world's population into Subspace. Sixx actually points out how many people that will kill, only to be explained away as their physical bodies running on subconscious instincts.
379[[/folder]]
380
381[[folder:Western Animation]]
382* The ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' episode "King Worm" ends with what looks like BookEnds to "Evicted!", with Finn and Jake looking to be in the same exact situation they were in at the end of the latter episode. However, because there were allusions to events that occurred over the last four seasons, fan forums were afraid that everything that happened between "Evicted!" and "King Worm" was AllJustADream, with the episode's writers having to [[WordOfGod confirm otherwise]] to settle everybody down.
383* In the [[GrandFinale Grand Finale]] of ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'', [[spoiler: Anne Boonchuy pulls a [[HeroicSacrifice Heroic Sacrifice]] to destroy Amphibia's moon so she could prevent [[BigBad The Core]] from using it to [[ColonyDrop crash into Amphibia's surface]]. In the epilogue, it seems that there were no actual consequences for the planet despite the moon's destruction]].
384** [[spoiler: King Andrias's invasion of Los Angeles]] has shades of this too. We see [[spoiler: buildings and cars getting blown up all over the city]], but the epilogue contains absolutely no mention of any casualties.
385* One ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'' episode has ''lava'' flooding Bellwood, toppling buildings, and engulfing cars (including some in traffic -- we see some drivers get out but most cars have their doors still closed when the lava reaches them). Absolutely no mention is made of even the physical damage.
386* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'':
387** [[{{Parody}} Spoofed]] in a WhatIf episode. When the characters see what it would be like if Bender was a giant, he goes around destroying New New York. A newspaper headline reads "Giant Robot on the Rampage. Thousands Dead. None Injured."
388** Further spoofed in the superhero episode: "Thank you, mysterious heroes. The value of the Gemerald you saved is slightly greater than the cost of the damage you caused to this museum. A net gain for our great city!"
389** Also parodied in the episode "Love and Rocket".
390--->'''Zoidberg''': As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wondrous thing happened, why not. They vaporized into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets, including [[PlanetOfHats two gangster planets and a cowboy world]]. But one planet was exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays but not be destroyed by them: Earth. So all over the world couples stood together in joy. [[MyFriendsAndZoidberg And me, Zoidberg]]. And no one could have been happier unless it would have also been Valentine's Day. What? ''It was?'' Hooray!
391* ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'':
392** In the "City of Stone" arc, Demona casts a spell that turns the large majority of Manhattan's population (everyone who was watching TV when she made her broadcast) into stone during the night hours. Leaving aside all the physical damage that is likely to have occurred, the fact that Manhattan in effect stops working from dusk to dawn (which, given the fact that the story takes place in early November, would be from roughly 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.) for two consecutive days should have caused nationwide panic and had a notable economic impact. One of the episode cliffhangers is David Xanatos stuck in a helicopter with a TakenForGranite pilot. He doesn't watch TV, as [[TropeNamers he's too busy planning stuff.]] Then there's that woman whose arm Demona casually broke off. What do you think happened when the curse was lifted?
393*** WordOfGod says this is averted, but unable to be shown due to Disney's censorship practices. The woman remains an amputee. The piles of rubble are rather disturbing come morning. The economy's not mentioned, but this was otherwise going to be referenced as a major aspect of the origin of the Quarrymen in season 3. Naturally, ExecutiveMeddling killed off this and other storylines.
394** There's a similar instance in "The Gathering" when Oberon put every human in New York to sleep, except for Xanatos and Fox. We do see a bunch of cars crashing, but no mention of anybody dying. Even though Oberon likely killed more people in that one episode than every other villain in the series combined, nobody seems to hold it against him. WordOfGod is again that people ''did'' die.
395** Also averted offscreen in "Grief". After Jackal merges with the god Anubis, he uses Anubis's powers to casually wipe out life in the nearby area -- including laying an entire ''city'' to waste. By the time the Emir has become Anubis's avatar, he says, "What is dead and gone cannot be restored, but the stolen energies can be rechanneled." In other words, the Emir only reverses Jackal's ageing tricks played on the heroes, Hyena and Wolf, while said city remains dead (WordOfGod).
396* Like [[ComicBook/{{Invincible}} the comic]] it is based on, ''WesternAnimation/Invincible2021'' averts this trope. The huge, city-destroying events like [[AlienInvasion alien invasions]] or [[spoiler:the SupermanSubstitute turning on humanity]] are explicitly shown to kill ''a lot'' of innocent people -- the latter case being a deliberate [[DefiedTrope defiance]] of the trope intended to force the idealistic Invincible to [[ARealManIsAKiller toughen up]]. One episode even has Black Samson bring up and deconstruct this trope, chiding the rookie Guardians of the Globe for not paying more attention to CollateralDamage after a relatively minor incident involving some [[HarmlessVillain C-List street villains]] ''still'' leaves about a dozen bystanders in the hospital.
397* In the final StoryArc of ''WesternAnimation/IronManTheAnimatedSeries'', the Mandarin uses AppliedPhlebotinum to cut off all electrical power in New York City, and, later, several other cities. It's explicitly stated that this applies to ''all'' "electrical and mechanical" devices, not just the main power grid. Both Tony and MODOK have a hard time muddling through without their life-support technology, but they do survive. Nothing is said of the thousands of other people who would have surely been killed by these power outages. Tony isn't the only person on artificial life support, and some of the others couldn't survive without it nearly as long as he did...
398* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/JimmyTwoShoes'', Lucius casually orders one of Miseryville's [[AlienSky three suns]] to be destroyed. Something like that is bound to have consequences, but none occur[[note]]in fact, due to NegativeContinuity, later episodes have three suns again instead of just two[[/note]]. RuleOfFunny likely applies here, but also consider that WordOfGod is Lucius is a RealityWarper.
399* ''WesternAnimation/KidCosmic'': In "[[Recap/KidCosmicS2E8KidCosmicAndTheWorldIsSaved Kid Cosmic and the World Is Saved]]", [[spoiler: Erodius the Planet Killer]] explodes dangerously close to Earth. Everyone seems fine after the fact. However, countless Stones of Power do rain down on Earth, and the third season involves the Local Heroes fighting a bunch of villains using them for evil. Several battles in the middle of a crowded city ensue. Again, the population at large seems fine. [[spoiler: Then it gets justified when it turns out that all that was an illusion, part of [[LotusEaterMachine a perfect dream world that Fantos trapped the heroes in.]] Erodius has not been destroyed yet, and the Earth is still in danger.]]
400* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'' had [[AllUpToYou Ron]] stopping a balloon filled with extremely smelly gas that would cause the victim to stink for years exploding in the conference hall by pushing the balloon out of the building. Later it did some LaserGuidedKarma to some bad executives. AllIsWellThatEndsWell, until you think about a balloon with extremely stinky gas infecting the entire town with bad smell.
401* The finale for ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' takes place in a very empty Republic City, which was evacuated prior. Good thing too, because [[spoiler:[[ArcVillain Kuvira's]] [[HumongousMecha Colossus]] and its [[WaveMotionGun Spirit Ray Cannon]]]] do quite a number on the city (and so do Our Heroes to [[GodzillaThreshold combat it]]), especially after [[spoiler:the cannon [[FantasticNuke explodes]]]].
402* ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'' ran into this once, with the episode in question being about asteroids and comets. The class realizes that an asteroid is about to hit their school and decide to deflect it. They do this by ''causing the bus to grow to the size of the moon'', so its gravity will pull the asteroid off-course. Now think for a moment about what the effects of an object the size of the moon appearing suddenly in Earth's orbit would be. . .
403* {{Parodied|Trope}} in ''WesternAnimation/MegasXLR''. New Jersey is utterly destroyed by the end of several episodes, but is always [[SnapBack fixed by the next one]]. Subverted in the episode where [[DetonationMoon Coop accidentally blew up part of the moon]]: Earth was hit with severe and deadly climate change, at least until Coop flew back up and put the moon pieces back.
404* In the ''WesternAnimation/MenInBlackTheSeries'' episode "The Little Big Man Syndrome", the MIB turn the Fmeks' death ray, [[FantasticRacism intended for the planet Arquillia]], [[HoistByHisOwnPetard back to their homeworld Fmoo]], and we see Fmeks signal a planet-wide evacuation, and Zed tells everyone that they all managed to evacuate in time.
405* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/MightyMax,'' probably most harshly in "[=CyberSkull=] II: The Next Level." The villains force his pawn to channel all the electricity in the world into a machine meant to free him from the Internet. The episode itself doesn't show it, but Max points out that hospitals and other places need that power, and we're left to assume a lot of people are dead by the time Max and his buddies get things back to normal.
406* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'':
407** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS1E16SonicRainboom Sonic Rainboom]]" has two; a construction worker lets his jackhammer get away from him while [[ConstructionCatcalls mackin' on Rarity]]; it bores through the cloud he's working on and probably spoiled someone's day when it landed; and [[TitleDrop the event the episode derives its name from]] is a hypersonic shockwave that causes a rainbow. Performed as it was about 10 feet off the ground -- it would have the destructive potential of a [[NukeEm nuclear blast]]. In [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E3LessonZero a subsequent episode]], it is shown to do just that, complete with [[EverythingMakesAMushroom mushroom cloud]].
408** Subverted in "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E19CrusadersOfTheLostMark Crusaders of the Lost Mark]]", in Season 5, where there is mention of the schoolhouse and playground being destroyed in the [[ContinuityNod battle with Tirek]] in the Season 4 finale.
409** "[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS5E5TanksForTheMemories Tanks for the Memories]]" has the entire Weather Factory be blown up and bury all of Ponyville in snow, {{Hand Wave}}d as it happening during "lunch hour" so all the workers were out eating when it happened. Even if we're to assume nobody stayed in to eat, or was on the can, or backlogged and working through lunch, or napping during their break, it's still very unlikely burying all of Ponyville in an avalanche didn't give a few ponies a very bad time.
410** A ''massive'' portion of Canterlot is blown to smithereens in the SeriesFinale. Though some of the guards were dumped in the moat by Cozy Glow prior, previous episodes have shown there to be many more guards and civilian staff in the palace who hopefully had some life insurance, to say nothing of the flying debris that probably ruined the day of more than a few ponies. This all passes without mention, with Twilight Sparkle only mentioning that she's going to rebuild.
411* Averted rather horrifyingly with ''{{WesternAnimation/Ninjago}}'' where the Great Devourer's rampage, although played straight at first, is revealed in [[DarkerAndEdgier Season 8]] to have killed people in her rampage. Among them were [[spoiler: Harumi's]] parents whose deaths led to her StartOfDarkness and transition into the BigBad of the season.
412* Justified in the GrandFinale of ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse''. [[spoiler:Belos possesses the corpse of [[GiantCorpseWorld the Titan that makes up the Boiling Isles]] in attempt to enact genocide on the population, even managing to lift one of its arms (which contains multiple towns) straight into the air before he's finally stopped. However, over 99% of the population had already been [[PuppetPermutation turned into puppets]] by the Collector and stored in his floating castle over the course of the prior three episodes, so the only actual casualty of his rampage was Luz ([[DisneyDeath and her death didn't even stick]]).]]
413* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'': A lot of their inventions would have ramifications that are never explored, but the best example is from ''Phineas and Ferb Save Summer'' where Doofenshmirtz pulls the Earth slightly further out in its orbit, causing temperatures to drop, trees to lose their leaves, and more. Even though Phineas and Ferb [[GondorCallsForAid (and similar geniuses from around the world)]] put the Earth back in a matter of hours, the damage it should have caused would be catastrophic to ecosystems around the world. But it shows that everything is fine afterwards (even the trees have their leaves back).
414* Both ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998'' and ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'' have enormous sections of the city annihilated, which one may realize by FridgeHorror that THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ARE DEAD, but the few times that the actual damage is addressed, only the damage to property is mentioned, often by an official. In the latter case, it is all but stated that lots of people died, and the show does often show people and monsters dying.
415* Yet another blunder from ''WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}}''. "Kairu", the [[Franchise/StarWars Life-energy of the universe]], is regularly made off with by the heroes. However, the presence of the energy generates prosperity with the surrounding wildlife. The heroes realize this in one episode when they find some of the energy on a farm where one of them grew up. They decide to leave the energy where it was in this case, ''but what happened to the places that they have taken the energy from before and since?!''
416* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken Star Wars Episode 2'' directly parodies the {{Trope Namer|s}} by having large chunks of the destroyed Death Star II raining down and massacring Ewoks.
417* Averted in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SabrinaTheAnimatedSeries'' she casts a spell that accidentally destroys the town's dam, causing a massive flood. She runs through the town warning everyone and everyone is apparently able to make it to safety -- afterwards one character says "it's a miracle nobody was killed". Though in a touch of realism, Sabrina is still extremely upset about flooding the town. Also time rewinds itself so that the flooding never happens.
418* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'':
419** Spoofed/Subverted in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsonsMovie'' which ends with [[spoiler:the bomb destroying the thick glass bubble that has encased Springfield]]. The huge car-sized pieces of jagged falling glass have a suspiciously small effect on the town and its citizens, with the sole exception of [[spoiler:Dr. Nick, who dies horribly]]. Ultimately, however, this is actually a DoubleSubversion: later episodes show that [[spoiler:Dr. Nick]] is still alive, and per WordOfGod, "he just fainted".
420--->'''[[spoiler:Dr. Nick Rivera]]''': Bye, everybody!
421** Spoofed in "The Otto Show" episode, after Otto causes a massive bus crash.
422--->'''Principal Skinner''': It's a miracle no one was hurt!\
423'''Otto''': Hey, I stand by my record -- fifteen crashes and not a single fatality!
424* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSpectacularSpiderMan'', Sandman tries to help the mob jack crude from a tanker. Spidey shows up, and they do what superheroes and villains have done for ages...only now they do it on an oil tanker. In New York harbor. At least the ''Valdez'' wasn't anywhere near a human port of millions of people, though presumably that was cold comfort to the wildlife.
425* The last episode of ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'' features [[spoiler:Star destroying all magic in the multiverse, causing the deaths of all magical beings. Many fans wondered if that also meant she killed the laser puppies that were created from her magic in the first episode. WordOfGod says that they just lost their ability to shoot lasers. Still doesn't address whether or not all of her sentient spells were killed. There's also the fact that Earth and Mewni became a MergedReality; all the implications that has are just [[ShrugOfGod shrugged off]] beyond the creator clarifying that the merge was limited to Echo Creek and the surrounding area rather than affecting the entire planet]].
426* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'':
427** In [[Recap/StevenUniverseS1E2LaserLightCannon "Laser Light Cannon"]], the destruction of the Red Eye causes quite a bit of property damage around town, but none of the citizens get seriously hurt. Then again, Beach City's permanent populace seems to consist of [[ThrivingGhostTown only a dozen or so regular characters]].
428--->'''Amethyst:''' Steven, you just saved ''most'' of Beach City!
429** In [[Recap/StevenUniverseS1E26OceanGem "Ocean Gem"]], Lapis Lazuli makes a huge tower out of the ocean's water but it doesn't cause mass extinction of the fishes. This might be intentional on her part though, as there are fish swimming around in the tower and they seem to be perfectly happy. The tower pretty abruptly collapses when Lapis leaves Earth, and this doesn't seem to cause any problems for the fish either, or for anyone else when all this water crashes back into the Earth at a high speed.
430** Happens again in [[Recap/StevenUniverseS1E48TheReturn "The Return"]]/[[Recap/StevenUniverseS1E49JailBreak "Jail Break"]]. [[spoiler: Peridot's]] attack on the Crystal Gems' temple forces the citizens of Beach City to evacuate, and the subsequent destruction of their ship causes even more property damage to the town. A few later episodes are focused on picking up the pieces.
431* Technically, the entire series ''WesternAnimation/ThundarrTheBarbarian'' could be considered an aversion to this trope, as civilization's collapse was a result of a comet passing between Earth and the Moon. Although a [[ColonyDrop direct collision]] by this comet is narrowly avoided, humanity is still knocked back to the Stone-Age-plus-cheesy-magic by the gravitational havoc it wreaks.
432* ''WesternAnimation/TotallySpies'' regularly features villain plots that, by all rights, should cause massive death and destruction. Special mention goes to several episodes featuring such disasters as the entire world flooding, the world freezing over completely, all the water being evaporated into space, and the continents being dragged out of alignment. Those are all events worthy of a Roland Emerich disaster movie, yet no one dies and the world is back to normal the next episode.
433* In ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'', Primus' vehicle mode [[GeniusLoci is the planet Cybertron itself]]. Transforming into his robot mode does ''not'' follow this trope, which is the main reason he doesn't do it.
434** This is taken further in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'': not only does Primus' body make up Cybertron, but [[spoiler:Earth is actually a dormant Unicron. When Unicron begins to wake up, it causes massive worldwide environmental havoc. Not only that, but he can also [[GeniusLoci control the surface of the Earth]], making "mini" clones of himself out of mountainsides]]. The Autobots [[EnemyMine and Megatron]] team up to shut him back down before he actually destroys the planet and to prevent this trope. However, it's ultimately played straight, as, despite the environmental damage, there are no reports of lives lost during [[spoiler:Unicron's]] "morning stretch".
435** In ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'' Bulkhead warps an about-to-explode burning oil tower into the middle of the lake. Better than the alternative, sure, but what about the pollution from the oil? Though near [[PlaceWorseThanDeath Detroit]], who'd notice?
436** Played straight in ''Anime/TransformersHeadmasters'': Scorponok plans to blow up UsefulNotes/{{Mars}} and harvest the energy. The Autobots are motivated to stop him primarily to prevent Earth being bombarded with billions of asteroids. However, after Mars does explode, no mention is ever made of Earth being damaged.
437** ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'': The planet the show takes place on is prehistoric Earth, and in the series finale Megatron, while onboard a working spaceship, with a weapon that outright killed the near-god-like Tigerhawk, opens fire on a tribe of protohumans. It's outright shown at the end of the episode that all or most of them are alive and well, without so much as minor injuries.
438* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Young Justice|2010}}'' episode "Misplaced", a spell is cast to split the world in two, one with everyone 18 and over in it, and one with everyone under 18. While the spell only lasts a few hours, the death toll among the children would have been catastrophic, as drivers, pilots, and doctors suddenly disappeared, and only a dozen teenage heroes were around to save them. It's never discussed, implying that no one died.
439[[/folder]]
440
441[[folder:Real Life]]
442* Self-proclaimed "alternative historians" who advocate the hypothesis of a global diaspora from {{Atlantis}} are quick to invoke this trope, if asked how such an ancient sea-spanning trade empire managed to avoid spreading hundreds of [[ThePlague virulent epidemic diseases]] and [[ExplosiveBreeder invasive species]] across the globe, along with their pyramid-building techniques.
443* It's just as well that the prevailing winds were not blowing when {{UsefulNotes/Chernobyl}} exploded. If they had been, the radiation would have blown south over Kiev, making that city uninhabitable. Although the explosion ruined large swathes of Belarusian and Ukrainian countryside, caused the abandonment of one town, Pripyat, and has caused cancer in many people, the city escaped largely unharmed. The danger is still present, though, as large wooded areas were likewise irradiated. Most of those trees are now dead and dry. Forest fires are now a real threat, once again raising the possibility of radioactive smoke blowing into a populated area.
444* Many contemporary and not-so-contemporary sources have stated that the 1666 Great Fire of UsefulNotes/{{London}}, an infamous disaster that leveled about 90% of the city and even managed to purge it from the last great plague epidemic, killed no more than ''eight'' to ''twenty'' people, in ''total''. Some have attributed it to things such as Stuart-era London's above-average fire alert system, but even then, this death toll seems to be an extraordinarily generous understatement for a Renaissance city of 200,000.
445* [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Train_wreck_at_Montparnasse_1895.jpg This train wreck]] where a train crashed through the second storey of a building only killed one person, and that was because of falling masonry.
446* A discussion on a professional military historians' bulletin board tried to ascertain the existence of any statistics for civilian deaths caused by bullets, shrapnel, and aircraft parts falling out of the sky during a dogfight. While no contributor could answer the question, many observed that the Japanese and Germans used to collect aluminum from crashed aircraft and steel splinters from flak shells for recycling. The Americans used drop tanks (external fuel tanks for the extra range that could be jettisoned before combat to increase maneuverability) made out of paper after they realized the Germans were collecting the original metal tanks to ease their shortages.
447* Floods and other consequences of the infamous UsefulNotes/BritishWeather tend to invoke this effect; property damage always ends up running into the hundreds of millions but actual ''deaths'' tend to be in the single digits, usually boat-owners or motorists with more valour than discretion or some unlucky soul who has a tree fall on their car. It helps that we have the tax base for effective disaster relief.
448* The Chelyabinsk meteor impact in Russia in 2013. The town was devastated, and over 1000 people were injured, but nobody was actually ''killed.'' And none of the injuries were directly due to the meteor or its debris, but rather things like glass breaking from the shockwave of the explosion. Dumb luck.
449* TheTunguskaEvent, also in Russia, in 1908, was a crazy large explosion that leveled 2000 square kilometres of forest, yet didn't cause a single human casualty.
450* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Virginia_Beach_F/A-18_crash In 2012]], a malfunction during a test flight required the pilots to eject from their [=F/A-18=] which then crashed into an apartment complex. Amazingly, there were no fatalities. There were a few unaccounted residents for a few days, who turned out to have been out of town. The Navy paid for the lodging and relocation of the residents of the 40 units that were rendered uninhabitable within two days.
451* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549 US Airways Flight 1549]] hit a flock of migrating Canadian geese shortly after takeoff from [=LaGuardia Airport=] in January of 2009, destroying the plane's engines. Due to the low altitude the plane was at, and the surrounding skyline of New York City, the plane's pilots were forced to make an emergency water landing in the Hudson river. Fortunately, the plane somehow touched down on the water in just the right way, turning an extremely risky last resort option into the "Miracle on the Hudson"; a few serious injuries occurred, but everyone on board the plane - all 155 passengers and crew - survived thanks to the most successful emergency water landing in aviation history, and the immediate rescue response by every civilian ship and ferry in the Hudson at the time preventing anyone from drowning before official first responders could arrive on the scene.
452[[/folder]]
453----
454->''"I was worried for a second that it'd be one of those sad stories that you have to pull some sort of depressing meaning out of. [[VideoGame/TalesFromTheBorderlands No thank you!]]''"

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