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The Lady Amalthea fell as irrevocably as a flower breaks.
Any minor obstacle which causes a fleeing victim to fall or become slowed to allow a pursuer a better chance to catch up — a broken shoe heel, a tree root, a twisted ankle, a car that won't start, etc.
This trope dates back to the early days of movie-making and more often involves female characters, although males also had to be slowed down for some monsters. Frankenstein and the '40s-era mummy movies both featured monstrous characters unable to move faster than a walking pace. The Frankenstein movies were usually well-made enough so that the inability of human characters to run away from the monster might not be noticed. There were often scenes in films in which characters would run, run a bit more, and even enter a building and lock doors, and still inexplicably find the creature following right behind them and able to throttle them before they could sound an alarm or make a phone call.
In movies of the '20s and '30s, the Distressed Damsel could simply simper, act dizzy, and faint to let monsters catch up. The '50s were the heyday of wearing narrow-hemmed long skirts with spike heels. In these situations, moving over anything but smooth floors was difficult for the actress, so having her stumble, stagger, and trip over outdoor terrain made sense. Unless, of course, you asked why on Earth she would dress like that while investigating a potentially dangerous situation out of doors.
In modern horror films, "broken heel" situations tend to stand out more, as they have to be coupled with a communications blackout. That is, to be isolated enough for the monster to prey on them, the hapless quasi-teens have to be kept from running away, calling out on their cell phones, or flagging down a ride. In movies following the Friday the 13th stereotype, very often most of the plot beyond that of the monster's killing attacks involves explaining the victim's isolation or watching the victim's attempts to break it in some manner. When the scriptwriter is desperate enough, Jason, Pumpkinhead, etc., will often just show up in front of the character for no reason other than that destiny (or the plot) demands it. This will even happen to a character who has been running directly away from the killer for several minutes.
Specific variations: Twisted Ankle, My Car Hates Me, Dramatic Slip.
See also: Offscreen Teleportation
Unrelated to Heel or Villainous Breakdown.
Examples
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Advertising
- Nike averted this trope in a commercial once (an athlete escapes chainsaw-wielding killer by outrunning him), and Moral Guardians complained because the girl was in her underwear.
Comic Books
- There's a story where The Joker is well ahead of Batman as he runs from his abandoned Evil Lair, but a previous plot point has established that the beach onto which they're running is covered in oil. The Joker overcomes this, despite slipping a few times, and makes it to the Batmobile, planning to escape Batman in his own car. The car, however- won't start, and Batman catches up. Once he has the Joker in custody, Batman reveals that there's a hidden mechanism involved in starting the thing- there's some sort of mechanism attached to the radio which has to be set to read "BATMAN" before the car will start. Clearly this was something he put in before this one story before dismissing it as too impractical, because how else would he start the damn thing so quickly in other stories?
Film
Literature
- Played with in the Discworld book Lords and Ladies, when Nanny Ogg remembers her youth, when she and Granny Weatherwax were being chased by men with... uh... "romantic" intentions across the fields: "She could outrun any man. Now me, I just tripped over the first old branch I came up to. Took me ages to find one, sometimes."
- Subverted in the novel Shadowman where, when female lead Lissa breaks her heel walking through a marsh, she simply throws them away (we then get a brief, but...uh, detailed description of how the marsh feels on her bare feet.
Newspaper Comics
- A couple of Mother Goose And Grimm comics had Grimm musing to Atilla about how women keep falling over him then Atilla holds out a broken shoe heel and tells Grimm that it's because he kept chewing the heels off their shoes.
Live Action TV
- Inverted and spoofed in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Buffy is retreating from Glory, an enemy who is stronger than Buffy and yet looks like a fashionable young woman. Glory breaks a heel, thus allowing Buffy to escape. (And, in her annoyance at this development, Glory stamps her foot—and shakes the foundation of the building she is in.)
- Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter in Doctor Who has this happen to her a lot. Apparently the Gallifreyian superior physiology doesn't include the ankles.
- A Kids in the Hall sketch featured some teenagers who were attempting to run from some slow, lurching zombies where the female kept breaking her heel at inappropriate moments, removing the offending shoe, and then breaking a magically reappearing shoe again moments later.
- Land of the Lost: Vital dropped items that had to be gone back for, unexpected bottomless pits, and the occasional Twisted Ankle were used to try to make the Sleestaks seem menacing, despite their clumsy motions and slow, tottering walk.
Video Games
- Lucas in Super Smash Bros. Brawl's "Subspace Emissary". Where he trips on a root while running away from the Pig King Statue, somehow managing to get his leg caught underneath it, but is saved in a Big Damn Heroes Moment by Ness.
- Jesse of Avalanche in Final Fantasy VII trips and gets her foot stuck while trying to escape from the exploding reactor. Cloud stops to help her and they make it out right as the reactor explodes, even if the timer has not run out yet.
- In Valkyria Chronicles, Welken and Alicia have to jump off a cliff in order to avoid an enemy squad. Surprisingly, Alicia lands hard, thus pretty much breaking her heel. They then have to move along, avoiding enemy lookouts while welken shows that he is good at finding healing herbs that happen to help reduce the pain of an injured foot/leg. At the end of the level they find an empty cabin, and, hey, there happens to be the actual cure in 10 minutes herb growing right by the place.
- The Pokémon move Grass Knot Invokes this. It uses grass to trip the opponent. The amount of damage depends on the opponent's weight.
Web Comics
Western Animation
Real Life
- Rings were issued to spies which had a small sharp hook for slashing tires. You presumably wouldn't have time to slash more than one if you were being chased, but it would buy time.
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