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From YKTTW
Would the Saint of Killers from Preacher warrant mention here, since his Instant Death Bullets are Instant Death above and beyond the usual implementation of the trope? Po8: I haven't seen Preacher, but I would think not so much, since the eponymous instant death presumably has a justification in this case... Adam850: Now if your Improbable Aiming Skills allow you to sever the spinal cord, then movement will be halted on the victim's part. Po8: Or the medulla oblongata. Shooting someone in the hip or knee will likely cause them to fall over instantly, and a shattered hip will likely kill them relatively quickly through blood loss. But I can't recall any instances of these in TV or movies. When spinal cords are severed on TV, it's usually through an impact of some sort, I think. Meta4: Does this apply to arrows? If so, Boromir from Lord Of The Rings is definitely an exception. In the book, he survives long enough to tell Aragorn that Merry and Pippen had been captured; in the movie, he was able to get back on his feet and kill several more orcs before that. Po8: Actually, a hunting arrow with a broad steel tip is much more likely to have quick stopping power than even a strong rifle: it makes a huge wound with lots of blood loss. Nonetheless, folks think of arrows as "primitive", so they don't expect them to kill someone instantly. I'd venture to say that the more common arrow trope is the arrow that is pulled back out, or can't be pulled out and must be pushed through, at which point the victim is essentially cured of the arrow wound. The only instantly deadly arrows I can think of in TV and movies are poison arrows and dynamite-loaded arrows, and those don't count for obvious reasons. I just watched a Monty Python sketch where a guy was killed instantly (offstage) by an arrow through the neck. Quite aside from the comedic effect, I thought the neck was a nice touch; makes way more sense than through the hard skull. I have to admit that I'm creeping myself out now, though. IRL I'm not a death-obsessed weapons freak. Honest Kizor: Discussion restored from Google cache after The Great Crash. YKTTW lost. Wanders Nowhere: Would anyone mind if I launched a sword/melee weapons 'sister trope' of this trope? Perhaps Instant Death Sword, Die By The Sword..Instantly or Sworded? This trope crops up a LOT in medieval and fantasy films, especially those with Bloodless Carnage. Every Mook hit by any part of a bladed weapon to any part of their torso will instantly fall over dead. Po8: Wanders Nowhere, go for it! YKTTW it if you want, but I'm not sure it's necessary. I think Instant Death Sword is clear and unobjectionable and preserves the relationship. masterzora: Whoa whoa whoa. What's this about Dobson in the article? Is someone confusing Dobson and Stitch or am I missing a joke somewhere? Po8: In the examples? I'm not enough up on my Firefly to properly comment. If you are sure it's borken, fix it or put a comment on it. Po8: Replaced the discussion below with something more concise, up at the top paragraph where it fits better. Please revert if you think this was wrong. "It IS possible for someone to be incapacitated by a bullet more or less instantly, but this does not depend on anything more than physical shock and pain. Some police officers have shot suspects in the hands or feet and from the sheer stress of being shot at the suspects have fallen unconscious instantly. Even if they manage to stay conscious, they can easily fall down and be disabled simply through pain. At the same time, however, enough adrenaline and physical endurance, with a bit of luck, will mean almost no pain at all. Adrenaline is a funny thing. On the other side, police reports show a small but significant number of suspects fainting after a missed shot, out of the expectation of pain." Pro-Mole: Can we even have a Real Life aversion(50 cent)? Isn't the point of the trope that it doesn't occurs in real life?
Tunod: Is it just me, or are there more aversions on this page than there are straight examples? Grimace: Probably because the aversions are the only ones worth mentioning. Think of the hundreds of movies/games where people more or less "switch off" the instant a bullet so much as grazes them: "Played straight in X, where Y dies instantly when shot." |
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