Convection Schmonvection / Western Animation

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• An episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 has the Koopalings trap the Mario Bros. in a cave that they then proceed to fill with lava. But Mario manages to chisel a way out through the wall so he and Luigi can climb out. Right before Mario climbs out, though, this trope is taken to the extreme by having the lava actually seem to already be up to Mario's waist before he jumps out.
  • For that matter, in the first Super Mario cartoon series, one episode had them riding a lava boat. A lava boat! No explanations on how, it's just an ordinary boat that could somehow survive lava.
  • In the later Super Mario World series, in the "Mama Luigi" episode, Luigi nearly lands in "boiling lava" after he falls for hours. Luckily he happens to land on a skull raft, and despite the long fall is uninjured, and unaffected by the heat, which should already have vaporized the raft. Later on we see dinosaurs actually swimming in lava. This does follow the in-game physics though.
  • Another Super Mario World example is the end of the episode, A Little Learning, where Mario floods Bowser's bedroom with lava, using the pipes from Hip and Hop's volcano project. Bowser is standing atop of his bed, screaming for Hip and Hop to help him, but his bed neither collapses nor combusts.
• In the Adventures of the Gummi Bears episode where Augustus is introduced, Gruffi and Tummi find him living in an active volcano, where he has spent years carving it into the shape of a dragon, waiting for the day it erupts in a spectacle where it breathes fire. There's even a scene in the cartoon where Tummi is mere feet from the boiling lava, worried that this might happen sooner than Augustus thinks. (He's wrong, it happens even sooner.)
• Adventure Time: This comes up with Flame Princess, a being of living fire, fairly often.
  • Flame Princess melting into the ground would not have happened the way it did. Ground is denser than air, and therefore air would heat up much faster. Any flame that would melt a mile of earth would incinerate miles of space above ground (meaning there wouldn't even be ashes left of Finn, Jake, or Princess Bubblegum). Convection means that fire radiates heat in all directions, obviously, so any flame hot enough to melt into the ground would not leave a straight tunnel down but a huge rounded crater or cavern.
  • Then there is Finn being around Flame Princess. He seems to be able to get close to her but only burns when he touches her. Though she does seem to be able to control this to some degree which could explain it.
  • From what that particular episode shows magic fire still needs oxygen, so it's safe to assume the other two points of the fire triangle still apply. Where would all the fuel to support such a hot flame come from?
    • Averted in the Fire Kingdom, which is stated, and ever shown, to be so hot that only can be entered if you first get a fire-proof spell on you.
    • The most egregious example is the episode Jake Suit, in which Finn and Jake touch volcano lava and only Finn's hat gets burnt. That is, until Finn drops them into it. Next time we see them, they're covered in bandages.
• American Dad!: "The Magnificent Steven", they find lava deep beneath a certain Washington landmark and play it straight by featuring a bridge a couple feet above it while mocking it all the while:
  Steve: I can't believe there's lava under Washington, D.C.!
  Stan: Where do you think all the hot air comes from?
• In an episode of American Dragon: Jake Long, Jake, in order to get ahead in a race against other dragons, utilized his experiences as a boarder and used a piece of rock to ride a lava flow, and he wasn't hurt a bit — as long as he didn't touch the lava. (Perhaps justified or handwaved due to him being a dragon (and in dragon form at the time), particularly one whose inherent element was fire, but still.
• Amphibia: Zig-zagged in "The Third Temple"; while Anne, Marcy, and Sasha aren't too bothered by the heat of the volcano, Grime and the Plantars are severely dehydrated.
• Angel Wars: Swift flew inches above an active lava flow while battling a demonic Sorcerous Overlord and his minions, unharmed by the lava's searing heat. Justified in that he's a spirit, generally not conforming to the laws of physics because he's not physical.
• Animaniacs (2020): In the Pinky and the Brain segment "Reichenbrain Falls", Julia stands on the edge of a sizzling fondue pot, and when Brain actually falls in, the heat melts his spacesuit off. Neither of them suffer any injuries or even discomfort.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The trope is treated as a game of ping pong.
  • So long as firebenders and their opponents do not actually touch the plumes of flame shooting out of their hands and feet, they're uninjured (though their clothing has been singed a time or two).
  • In "The Awakening", Aang stands on top of solid but still-glowing lava rock in bare feet without getting burned. Curiously there is a subversion in the same scene, as his wooden glider caught on fire by just being next to a lava stream that Aang had just stepped by. In a later episode, Aang, Sokka, and Toph are running through tunnels within a dormant volcano with no problem running over the rock crust that has formed over a river of magma or soaring over an underground lake of the stuff. Strangely enough, in "The Avatar and the Firelord," a major character actually dies from the toxic gases released by an erupting volcano.
  • Subverted in "Sozin's Comet". The Gaang is riding in a stolen airship while the other ships burn everything below. Toph, a blind girl, feels the heat radiating from below and comments that "that's a lot of fire, isn't it?". Later, Aang hides in a sphere of rock while the Big Bad pummels the sphere with fireblasts. A cut to Aang shows him visibly sweating inside.
  • "The Boiling Rock" is just straight up schizophrenic: the titular Boiling Rock is a prison on an island in the middle of a boiling lake in the crater of a volcano. It should be like a constant sauna in there since it's hot enough that a hot air balloon can't keep in the air, yet it doesn't seem to be a real problem. However, there is conduction, as regular ships can't get across the lake without getting so hot as to burn the travels: they tried an insulated boat, and the prison uses a gondola on a high rope.
  • In the Avatarverse, lava is created by superheating rock. Simple enough, except that certain individuals have such mastery over it that they can do this themselves with their mind alone. Next is the applications of lavabending: one of the Red Lotus in The Legend of Korra, Ghazan, is imprisoned on a wooden prison in the middle of the ocean, so no earthbending for him for almost 13 years. He gets a few pebbles thrown into his cage, and creates a lava shuriken. Said shuriken is able to slice through wood like a lightsaber yet doesn't burn it, and doesn't seem to burn anyone it hits or is near. In later episodes, Ghazan forms a lava moat around an island when the Red Lotus are under attack; destroys an entire mountain (air temple included) and almost roasts the Krew alive. If the Boiling Rock represents schizophrenia, lavabending must be bipolar.
  • The Red Lotus prisons themselves. One is in the middle of a dormant volcano, and houses a master (and psychotic) waterbender, Ming Hua. Played straight as the heat of the volcano means that there is no natural water, and has to be brought in with barrels. On the flipside of this is the prison created for P'Li, a combustionbender. Her prison is located in the North Pole, hundreds of feet in the ice. It is so cold that she cannot generate the energy necessary to light a finger on fire, much less launch an attack. Get hit by a fire blast once she escapes though, and she is back in business.
• Batman: The Animated Series: "Day of the Samurai" involves Bruce Wayne battling a ninja rival, Kyodai Ken, on an erupting volcano. The climax of the fight comes when they are separated on the rocks, and Bruce throws a rope for the ninja to catch, thinking that if Ken jumps while Bruce pulls, Ken could make it. The ninja kicks the rope away, but not before giving a look that both says, "I don't want your help," and almost looks as though he is thinking, "Please, don't be so stupid."
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The Musical Episode has heroes and villains forced to dance toward a launching rocket's exhaust to distract Batman; they would be getting toasted pretty well before they reached the actual flames.
• In the Ben 10: Omniverse episode "Hot Stretch", aliens use a stolen fusion device to unleash lava on the surface. The lava flows in rivers down city streets without setting anything on fire and people stand next to it with no harm (although the heroes do sweat a lot, which is more than seen in many shows).
• Completely averted in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command of all things. One episode has the team chasing Buzz's evil alternate universe counterpart to the sun, only for the heat to force them to back off. Buzz and Mira return in ships and suits specifically designed for such extreme heats (presumably the evil Buzz's ship had similar protection). A station orbiting the sun is explicitly said to be made a special material to prevent it from melting, and have a unique cooling system to protect inhabitants. The evil Buzz eventually has Buzz and Mira Thrown Out the Airlock, leaving them hanging directly over the sun, with Mira slightly closer to the sun than Buzz; and her boots begin to melt. That's some incredibly detailed aversions right there.
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers:
  • Justified by Captain Planet, who can not only swim through molten lava and be completely unharmed, but can also use it to heal himself. As dangerous as they are to humans, lava flows and volcanoes are still part of the Earth's natural ecosystem, of which Captain Planet is a Physical Avatar. The Planeteers themselves, however, have no such excuse.
  • In the episode "Volcano's Wrath", Linka and a local woman named Lanai accidentally get very close to the center of the volcano, full of hot magma. Normally, the heat should kill them or at least cause them to faint, but neither of this happens; instead, they get saved by Captain Planet.
• In Cow and Chicken Red accidentally falls into a river of lava. Then notices it's not as hot as he had thought (he's the Devil, though).
• Darkwing Duck, his daughter, and her best friend all end up in a volcano in one episode of his series. Gosalyn and Honker get within what seems to be a few FEET of the bubbling lava while stretching a balloon for a slingshot. Handwaved only slightly later on when Darkwing carries them across a lava stream; he cites an ability he picked up from somewhere to do that without burning his feet off. And then soaks them in the water.
• Dexter's Laboratory:
  • Parodied in "Mock 5"^note Which was itself a parody of Speed Racer, in which no one seems to really care about the raging river of lava following a group of soapbox racers. At the very end of the race when everything is said and done, Monkey scoops some of the lava in his hand and EATS IT. What makes this even worse is that he doesn't react (and it isn't an appropriate reaction) until Dexter speaks up about it. His superpowers might have something to do with it, as he HAS been seen touching lava (and lulling a monster made of it to sleep).
  • Played straight in one of the "Monkey" shorts, where lava bubbling out of the ground starts pouring over an unlucky bystander's feet with no apparent reaction aside from a disturbed look on said bystander's face.
• Dino-Riders has one episode featuring a Plesiosaurus swimming in lava. Made worse by the fact that this series was otherwise depicting dinosaurs fairly accurate (by the 80's state of research), and not as dragons.
• Dragon Flyz: The Earth's surface is a Lethal Lava Land, yet it still has thriving trees that never catch on fire.
• The Dragon Prince:
  • Zig-Zagged with the enchanted fire dagger. Rayla remarks that the sheath has to be specially made, otherwise the blade will burn the wielder, but people who hold it close to their bodies apparently have no problems. It does hurt Rayla just by holding it too close to her arm.
  • Played straight with the Moonstone Path. Despite it being made or rocks floating on a river of molten rock, Callum and Rayla cross without even mentioning the heat. Likewise, the rocks themselves do not appear to share any of the heat of the lava they are floating in, whereas realistically they would have been rendered hot enough to burn skin on contact.
  • Amaya and a sunfire elf battle near a literal waterfall of lava. The only time heat becomes a factor is when the elf introduces it.
  • After the Magma Titan is killed, characters have to have it pointed out to them that the molten rock its blood consists of is about to run over their feet before they notice it. Even then, King Harrow and a soldier stand with their feet centimeters away from the lava pouring from the magma titan's corpse and suffer no ill effects.
• Ewoks: Subverted in the first episode, where Morag has sparked a massive forest fire and dammed the river to hamper the Ewoks' attempt to fight it. Wicket suggest using Master Logray's big supply of fire foam and airdrop bags of it from their gliders. Chief Cherpa nixes that idea since the wild winds caused by the massive fire's convection currents would cause the gliders to crash into the flames. However, that complication is solved by the small winged whisties who volunteer to guide the gliders safely around the currents while still getting to the best areas to bomb.
• Fangbone!: In "The Shadow of Bill", Fangbone, Bill and Cid escape from the dire razorworm by rafting along a lava flow.
• Futurama:
  • In "Jurassic Bark", the entire crew is in a room full of lava and nobody complains about how hot it is. In fact, Fry almost jumps in without the heat obliterating him — so long as he doesn't actually touch it, he's fine. Worse, the lava pit in question isn't just some one-off place they visit. It's in the basement of the Planet Express building. It goes right down to the mantle. And there isn't even a lid for it. Never mind the people, there's no way the building could survive having a volcano in the basement, even if it doesn't erupt.
    "PROFESSOR! LAVA! HOT!"
  • Then there's this gem from a commercial off-screen:
    Announcer: Next Up: The Real World: The Sun.
    Participant: Ahhh! I'm burning to death!
  • In "The Butterjunk Effect", Leela and Amy, as they compete in the Butterfly Derby, they and the Opposing Sports Team fly within inches of a Lava Pit; in their wingsuits with no apparent ill effects.
• Gargoyles: In a fight with Oberon, Goliath, Angela, and Gabriel are able to fly just a couple of metres above the lava in an active volcanic crater with no ill effects. That said, the Gargoyles themselves are often shown to be made of much tougher stuff than most other living creatures, and they do turn to stone during the day. Oberon is a god, and Avalon is prevented from harming him.
• Hotwheels World Race: Scorchers cars are capable of crossing the lava. The protection is only at frontside (called lava plow) and wheels
• An episode of I Am Weasel had Weasel refusing NASA's request to be the first astronaut on the sun. So naturally, I.R. Baboon volunteers.
• Inhumanoids takes place mostly Beneath the Earth, with a Big Bad that apparently has lava for bodily fluids. Hand Waved due to the Power Armor worn by the heroes, whether they are wearing their helmets or not.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: Averted in one episode. Jackie escapes an incoming wave of lava, but gets most of his clothes burnt off by the heat. He was very close to the lava, as well, but it wasn't there long enough for the air to heat up.
• Jimmy Two-Shoes: Exactly how much the trope applies here largely depends on whatever's needed for the joke. Sometimes lava will burn up people floating on it, other times the characters swim in it to cool off.
• Kid vs. Kat: In "Mind Games", Coop gets suspended a few inches above the molten magma in an active volcano with no ill effects.
• In the episode "Exchange" of Kim Possible, not only are Ron and Yori trapped in a metal cage and lowered into a river of lava, the lava actually spills into the cage and sets Ron's shoe on fire by contact. Ron and Yori then survive by hanging onto the tops of the cage's bar while the entire lower half of the cage melts away until they are saved. Apparently metal has to be immersed in lava to actually heat up. This also leads to the idea that heat doesn't conduct through metal. To get a steel bar hot enough to melt one end would make the other end way too hot to hold. (This is more an example of Conduction Schmonduction.)
• The Land Before Time animated series episode "The Canyon of Shiny Stones" is all about this trope (although they do, at least, remember that volcanoes produce choking smoke).
• The Legend of Tarzan: Played straight and lampshaded . The heroes and Jane's father escape from inside an erupting volcano, by surfing the rising lava on a piece of rock. The lampshade is hung by one of the characters asking: "Should this even be possible?" to which another answers "Who cares, as long as it's working?".
• The Legend of Zelda (1989): Link is able to survive fire blasts from dragons and a Lethal Lava Land simply by blocking it with his shield. But in the episode "Underworld Connections," while Link is able to harmlessly traverse said Lethal Lava Land, the Triforce piece absorbed the place's heat just by sitting on a platform in that area.
• All the scenes with the spirit of Scar in the volcano The Lion Guard. The hyenas and Kion as well as Scar’s army spend a lot of time there without any damage at all. In “Battle for the Pride Lands”, Bunga falls into the volcano and Ono dives after to save him. Ushari the cobra, who fell with Bunga, dies, but Bunga is unharmed and Ono only damages his eyes. Bunga was playing around the volcano in another episode too, thinking he was immune.
• The Magic School Bus: In one episode, the class goes inside a volcano to learn how islands are made and go underneath the lava. That said, the Bus has endured all manner of extreme conditions with no ill effect so long as the engine is turned on. It is the Magic School Bus after all.
• The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack: In "Off With His Hat", the anthropologist falls into an active volcano, but is fine because she lands on a floating chunk of rock. She then then gets erupted out of the volcano.
• Max Steel: Played with in an episode where Max and Kat are sent in to a volcano to collect a crystal and are given heat-resistant kevlar suits, along with helmets and (possibly) an air supply. They're warned that they'd only have a couple of minutes, and do avoid the lava if possible... yet there's a layer of solid rock where they land, and handily-placed rocks in the lava leading to where the crystal is.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends: Zig-zagged in "The Magic Coins, Part 3". The lava of Fire Mountain does produce strong thermal updrafts, which interfere with flying, but these act as perfectly regular wind otherwise. Wind Whistler and Megan experience no heat-related discomfort at all, either when buffeted by the air rising directly from the lava or when almost falling directly into the stuff.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • In "Read It and Weep", this trope is played straight by Daring Do in her book, in which she removes the statue from its resting place á la Raiders of the Lost Ark, triggering a trap that causes the floor to melt away and be replaced entirely by a rising lava flow. Aside from visibly sweating, Daring shows no ill effects from being in such close proximity to the lava.
    • "Dragon Quest" has this in spades. Spike jumps into a Lava Pit, submerges and then spits out some lava from his mouth as if it were a swimming pool, which, for the teenage dragons that he is hanging out with, is. It's well established by now that Equestrian dragons are as good as totally immune to harmful heat.
    • "Sweet and Smoky" continues to portray dragons as effectively immune to the harmful effects of volcanic heat, but goes further in portraying Fluttershy — a perfectly normal pegasus in most respects — as able to stand next to open lava flows with no visible discomfort. When she dodges a ball of lava, she has no issues with it splattering inches from her hooves — molten rock can be as close to your skin as you please as long as it doesn't touch you, apparently.
• The New Adventures of Superman: In "The Wisp of Wickedness", a man possessed by the wisp attempts to dump molten iron on Superman and two civilians. Superman protects the civilians by covering them with his cape so they are not splattered with the iron. However, the heat from the molten iron should have been enough to kill them.
• Phineas and Ferb roast weiners on a passing lava flow in "Candace Loses Her Head".
• The Powerpuff Girls (1998): Notably averted in an episode where a giant fire meteor threatens to strike Townsville. For most of the episode, the citizens suffer from a severe heat wave. Bubbles and Buttercup fly towards the incoming meteor to destroy it, but the intense heat simply forces them to flee (yes, not even they can stand the heat) and to search for Blossom, whose current Heroic BSoD forbids her from using her newly-gained ice breath.
• Rocket Power: The Grand Finale has the kids jumping over lava. This trope is also lampshaded when Tito mentions that. when he grew up in Hawaii, he lost a hopscotch competition to his cousin because he stepped on a piece of lava.
• Scooby-Doo:
  • Aloha, Scooby-Doo! features a chase through the bad guy's lair, which is inside a volcano. They run all around and across the lava and, as as always, are fine so long as they don't actually touch it.
  • Scooby-Doo! and the Samurai Sword is even worse, with an extended lava-surfing sequence on a rock.
• The Secret Saturdays: Displayed throughout the episode "Twelve Hundred Degrees Fahrenheit". Taken to a ridiculous extent when both Argost and Drew swim through the volcano (wearing fireproof lizard-skin and a heatproof suit, respectively, but still!). Particularly egregious in Argost's case, as the lava should have seeped in through the openings in the skin (eyes, mouth).
• The Simpsons:
  • The trope image comes from "Bart vs. Australia". In this instance, the pay phone has already rung, suggesting it works fine, while the person responding isn't burned until he falls into the lava from not letting go of the phone.
  • Subverted in "Thirty Minutes over Tokyo", when the family goes to Japan and falls in the lava on a game show. It turns out to be only Orangeade, yet Homer continues to scream "It burns!" because (as Wink mentions afterward), it's "loaded with wasabi" (and orange concentrate in your eyes would burn anyway).
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: Played dead straight. Not only does a whole warehouse full of lava seem to do no harm to Spidey, Green Goblin, or Tombstone, but Hammerhead is precariously dangled inches from a vat of the stuff without even the soles of his shoes melting.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • On Pie Island, there is a bakery inside an active volcano, wooden bridges can survive inches above the surface, and one man is knocked into the lava without screaming in pain. Subverted when Foolduke reveals that it's not lava, it's "lukewarm tomato juice."
    Foolduke: [flatly] I hate this place.
  • Played straight when Star goes to Tom's beach house in the Underworld, with the ocean of lava. She wears a protective suit while surfing, but only for in case she falls in. Later she's fine surfing over boiling-hot rock, her only worry being that the sea is rough.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
  • One episode visits a planet that is apparently half lava. We don't know what took half the planet's crust off. What we do know is that you can walk within inches of pools of lava... in a cavern that would logically be like an oven with that much lava and nowhere for the heat to go. However, anything thrown into lava catches fire before it hits, a nice bit of realism... if the aforementioned oven-cave hadn't been mere seconds earlier. If the characters didn't have to cross the lava on a rope that's only a few feet above the surface and do so without harm mere seconds later. Perhaps it's production values, but in none of the episode's more ridiculous examples of this trope did anyone even sweat. Going back and forth on it like that made it crazier than anything you've ever seen play the trope straight from beginning to end.
  • Averted in another episode; things are seen catching on fire before making contact with lava.
  • This extends to the Jedi lightsabers as well. Quite often the Jedi will use their lightsabers to create passages via cutting holes through walls, floors and ceilings, leaving a smoldering hot ring of molten material around the cut. Often characters will hop right through these holes, sometimes even touching the edges with no ill effects.
• Storm Hawks:
  • A volcano goes off in one episode, and our heroes try to escape the lava flow, but their bikes are melted. Fortunately, they find a safe spot just a few feet up off of the lava. No one seems to be suffering from the heat, although one of them does use it to cook hot dogs.
  • In "A Colonel of Truth", a tiny flying fox type creature falls into a lava flow, only to safely land on a floating rock.
• Stroker and Hoop: Unexpected aversion in one episode, where Stroker (and son) are forced to toss some items into a fiercely burning car...and do it standing several feet away, flinching and shielding their faces from the heat.
• Superman Theatrical Cartoons:
  • In "The Mechanical Monsters", a villain with his own foundry tries to make Lois Lane talk by slowly lowering her into a giant vat of molten iron. She shows no signs of distress, even when she falls and Superman has to grab her mere inches above the surface of the vat. (For reference, iron has a melting point of 1538 °C/2800 °F.)
  • Likewise, in "Volcano", Lois is right next to molten lava and is completely unaffected, even doing a hand-over-hand climb over a field of lava without being even singed.
  • This is amended in later episodes in which Lois Lane is imperiled by fire and passes out or is burned outright by the heat.
• SWAT Kats: Zig-zagged in "Volcanus Erupts". Razor needs a heat suit to get close enough to the titular fire demon to plant a bomb in his weak spot. However, when Volcanus grabs Commander Feral's helicopter, the aircraft doesn't melt, and Feral is able to climb out through the smashed windshield and grab a lifeline the SWAT Kats drop him, with no ill effects from the heat that must be pouring off of the hand holding his copter.
• Sym-Bionic Titan: The first episode has the trio fighting a fire monster, in which they do respond to its heat in battle. They end up leading it to the water/lake to extinguish it.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987):
  • The Technodrome regularly travels within the crust and mantle of the Earth, releasing plumes of lava as it surfaces. This highly destructive substance causes weak burns to the Turtles' feet.
  • Perhaps at its worst in the Michelangelo birthday episode. Shredder is standing near a lava pool with Krang, complaining about the heat, then reaches directly into the lava to pull out a strange substance with his bare hands.
• A Thousand and One... Americas: Played with. While the lava erupting from the volcano in the third episode is accurately shown putting the local huts' walls and ceilings in flames even without directly touching them (since the lava's heat is that hot), somehow the kid who is being transported through a large clay bowl by the lava is still alive (realistically, both he and the bowl should have been incinerated). The characters who try to rescue the kind (for which they have to run between the ceilings of the huts) don't get incinerated either. Since the whole thing turns out to be All Just a Dream for Chris, the inaccuracies can be attributed to that.
• Totally Spies!: In one episode, the girls can't feel the heat coming from lava... But it is really marinara sauce, as they are being tested. But later on the actual lava comes on, and the team makes a hot air balloon out of a parachute.
• Transformers:
  • The characters in this series and lava... don't go there. Just don't. Some of them have actually survived a dip in the lava itself, despite it being fatal to others. Officially? Not so much as a Lampshade Hanging on this. Attempts by fans to explain this are doomed from the start.
  • Transformers: Animated had Sari spraying enough boiling water in an enclosed room to kill some Space Barnacles, but wasn't scalded by the steam that filled the room or the water that would've logically splashed her. Apparently, robots can't get scalded in Animated, thus why Sari was safe.
  • Beast Wars in general seems inconsistent about lava. In the first episode of Season 2, Terroraur and Scorponok died when the surge caused them to collide their hovering platforms and they fell into the lava. However, near the end of the series, Megatron falls into the lava after being betrayed by Quickstrike, but reappears later completely unharmed. Though, seeing as how Megatron had just absorbed the spark of G1 Megatron, he may have gained some extra durability, potentially justifying this trope. Then again, he hadn't morphed into his dragon form just yet by the time he hit the lava, so maybe it should have killed him.
    • In the same episode as Megatron, it seems like Tarantulas survives a dip in the lava too. It may have something to do with Transmetal bodies being more durable; although Terrorsaur and Scorponok were starting to change into Transmetals when they fell in, they were still in their original forms.
    • And in the Season 1 episode, "Double Dinobot" a clone of Dinobot kicks a tree that Rattrap is on into a lava filled trench. The tree gets wedged high above the lava but bursts into flames from the heat, as it rightfully should. However, Rattap floats around on a rock inches above the lava and suffers no ill effect from doing so.
  • Conversely, the 2007 movie gets convection mostly right, but was criticized by fans who did not fully understand that while space is infinitely cold, the lack of convection in space means that a body in space will cool very, very slowly — much more slowly than a superheated body falling into the Arctic Ocean. In fact, the TF Wiki links to our Space Is Cold page to explain why that's not an error. See, this stuff is educational! (Not only does "infinitely cold" not exist (there is a lowest possible temperature), but space is several degrees warmer than absolute zero. Specifically, it's about 3 Kelvin, or -270 degrees Celsius (0 Kelvin is absolute zero). Furthermore, unless there is evaporation going on, a body in space that is in view of the Sun tends to heat up unless it's already hotter than the Sun's surface, 6000K. If it is not in view of the sun, it tends to cool down to that 3K I mentioned, but it happens very slowly because neither conduction nor convection are possible, only radiation, and things at "normal" temperatures tend to radiate very very slowly.)
  • Curiously, Transformers: Prime plays it right in one scene, as after Bulkhead gets hit by Predaking's fire breath, he seems more or less alright, but he cautions Miko to stay away from him as he may be hot to the touch.
• In Trollz, this is zig-zagged. Amethyst is close to the center of an active volcano and comes out fine... though Ruby's hair doesn't, and is frizzed and burnt from being near it.
• In the Ultimate Spider-Man (2012) episode "The Parent Trap", this trope gets zig-zagged all over the place. Power Man gets tossed into a volcano and the only danger he faces is the possibility of drowning in the lava. While in and of itself this is justified since Power Man is nigh invulnerable, there's no similar justification for his costume being unharmed. Later, when Spidey shoots some webbing down to pull Power Man up, the heat from the lava incinerates the webbing before it reaches him. As well it should. But when he uses Applied Phlebotinum to induce a "mini-eruption" and launch Power Man to safety, Spidey is standing what should be perilously close to the magma himself without taking any damage.
• In the ''Uncle Grandpa episode "Vacation", he swims in a lava inside of an active volcano, yet he's covered in ashes.
• Wakfu: The city of Brâkmar is built on volcanic ground, with lava rivers flowing below several parts of the town, which should make the whole city too hot to be livable. The Gobbowl Stadium itself is above a lava lake.
• Young Justice (2010):
  • In "Denial", the team falls into a pit, at the bottom of which is a pool of lava. A trap door closes over the lava in time to catch them (though not before taking out Superboy's boots), and while Aqualad notes that the floor should be burning hot and Kid Flash warns him that if he pulls open the trap door, the backdraft from the lava will roast them alive, neither are true. This is all because they're in Dr. Fate's tower, and reality warped itself to their benefit after they convinced the tower they had legitimate reasons for breaking and entering. Played straight in that they should have been roasted alive when they were dropped into the chimney. Except Superboy. But then, it is Doctor Fate's house.
  • Played straight in "Humanity", where the entire team is standing next to the supervolcano that Red Volcano is attempting to set off, and show no ill-effects from the heat. Not even Miss Martian or Aqualad, who are both explicitly weak to high temperature.

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