"Beware of fainting-fits; though at the time they may be refreshing and agreeable, yet believe me: they will, in the end, if too often repeated and at improper seasons, prove destructive to your constitution."
Some characters are naturally calm in highly emotional situations. Others keep a Stiff Upper Lip. And some... faint dead away!
Older works sometimes call this "Swooning". Romance period novels and Gothic Horror provide plenty of examples of feminine women or girls doing this, even if they are not a Hysterical Woman. If a man faints in such works, he might be painted as cowardly or weak. '50s era monster films loved to have the pretty young heroine to faint upon seeing whatever horror the filmmakers decided to unleash upon her. In Opera, it's less often a sign of weakness: Many strong, assertive characters, both men and women, faint in their moments of greatest stress.
More recent works tend to play the stereotypes for laughs. Sometimes induced in characters by a well-executed Jump Scare. note More serious treatments will generally have a truly traumatic event to justify it, if not an outright Trauma Conga Line.
Partly Truth in Television: doctors tell you to sit down when they need to discuss bad news because your body's Fight-or-Flight response can overreact and reduce blood flow to your brain. This happens more often in fiction than in real life. The more stereotypical the circumstances, the longer the faint can last: Monster movie heroines sometimes remain unconscious for hours.note
A downplayed similar reaction is Dramatic Sit-Down. Compare and contrast Fake Faint, where a character tries to make others think that this has happened.
Don't confuse with the hero falling over exhausted after battle. That's Post-Victory Collapse. A character with some vague medical condition such as "Anemia" or "Consumption" may be more susceptible to this trope, but more likely just faint due to their illness. Not a character fainting because of pregnancy either — unless the faint is due to the shock of finding out that they are pregnant! Compare Angst Coma.
Examples:
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Advertising
- Played for Comedy in a Christmastime television commercial for M&M's candies. While Red and Yellow discuss Santa Claus in someone's living room, they suddenly come upon the man himself. Red exclaims, "He does exist!" and faints from shock. Santa Claus also burbles, "They do exist!" and topples over supine. Poor Yellow is left to inquire "Santa?" uncomfortably.
- A commercial in the late 1980s/early 1990s advertised a spread called Polaner All-Fruit, and featured a well-to-do family passing the jar back and forth between themselves on a silver platter. They repeatedly asked one another to "pass the All-Fruit." Finally, a more Country Mouse relation sitting at the table politely asked, "Would you please pass the jelly?" Cue the wealthy family reacting in horror, including the matriarch fainting dead away at the horror of the All-Fruit being mistaken for common jelly!
Animation
- Lamput:
- Slim Doc faints upon seeing a muscular Fat Doc in "Diet Doc".
- At the end of "Sleepwalking", Slim Doc and Lamput both faint after seeing a fainted Fat Doc with a drink resembling blood spilled all over him.
- Mechamato: In episode 3, the scarecrow robot is shown to have been going around scaring people, having caused at least Pian and a woman to faint that way.
- In Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 15, some toys come to life in the middle of the night to save Tibbie from being cooked by Wolffy. As the toys leave their owners' houses, one crocodile kid sees his toy car moving on its own and faints a few seconds later.
Audio Plays
- Big Finish Doctor Who: In Destiny of the Doctor 8: Enemy Aliens", several members of the BBC faint when the Doctor, Charley and an eight foot tall glowing green alien enter the premises.
Comic Books
- In Black Science Sara faints when she is informed that Grant, blamed for multiple murders and kidnapping her children, was seen outside chasing her daughter Pia mere moments ago.
- In Don Rosa's The Last Lord of El Dorado, when Scrooge (And the eavesdropping Glomgold) hear that the treasure hunt du jour is to to El Dorado, they both keel over, something the triplets anticipate and try to steady their great-uncle before telling him. Glomgold is so shocked that the plate of pretzels he's holding straighten out!
- Paperinik New Adventures: Donald faints when Kaplan's vague description of what attacked his boat triggers some memories and a flashback of his encounter with Davy Jones in "The Ulysses Syndrome".
- The Simpsons Futurama Crossover Crisis: Ned Flanders does this upon seeing Bender having sex with his jukebox.
- The Smurfs: Papa Smurf in "The Smurfs And The Book That Tells Everything" gets so frustrated with his little Smurfs being so dependent on the titular book that he stamps his feet in anger collapses in a faint.
- Superman:
- In Action Comics #1, a would-be tough guy faints after he attempts to stab Superman and his knife shatters on impact leaving Superman unscratched.
- Supergirl story arc "The Super-Steed of Steel": Supergirl is about to have a drink offered by a sorcerer called Nomed when an arrow knocks the cup off her hand, splashing its contents all over him. Kara faints when she sees Nomed transforming into a gold statue because of the potion she was almost tricked into drinking.
- Tintin: In The Castafiore Emerald, Bianca Castafiore and her assistant Irma faint when they hear that her jewels have been stolen.
- Uncanny X-Men:
- Played painfully straight in issue 148, when Kitty Pryde (thirteen years old if even that at the time) faints when kidnapped by Caliban in his first appearance. He's much creepier than his later appearances would make him, but still...
- Even more painful in issue 11, where after The Stranger walks on air and through a wall, someone utters these gentlemanish words:
"Someone get a doctor! Women are faintin' like flies over here!!"
- In Violine, Violine faints when hearing that Muller is Marushka's brother, and her "mother" is actually Marushka, her father's former governess.
- At the end of the Lucky Luke album Nitroglycerine, Joe Dalton faints in shock when Luke explains to him that the crate he has been chasing for the entire album, which he assumed contained a gold shipment to a town called "Nitro", actually contained the Hair-Trigger Explosive from the album's title.
Comic Strips
- Curtis decides to prank his class one day for Show-And-Tell by bringing in a bag of "zombie brains". The things certainly look like brains, because they are. Curtis soon admits that they're just cow brains left over from a meat-packing plant. Then Curtis discovers that his teacher, Mrs. Nelson, is lying prone. Curtis doesn't wait for her to regain consciousness, instead taking himself to the principal's office.
- Garfield:
- In one strip, Garfield passes out when Jon suggests that maybe he should go on a diet. Jon's response is to clap sarcastically.
- In this strip
, Jon wonders if he could've been a doctor. Garfield shows him a splinter in his finger, causing Jon to faint.
Garfield: When you're done fainting, I'd like to know where you keep the tweezers, doc. - Garfield and Odie go outside during a snowy day. Snow falls off the roof and lands on them, making snowmen outlines of themselves. Odie goes back inside, unbeknownst to Garfield. The snowman of Odie falls apart, and Garfield screams and faints.
Jon: Wimp.
- In this strip, Garfield is talking about how cats get red eyes, longer claws, sharper teeth, and frizzy fur on Halloween night. He then looks in a mirror, turns white, screams, and faints.
- Garfield passes out after Jon accidentally saws a button off his shirt in this comic◊.
- In this comic◊, Garfield is about to whack a spider with a newspaper, only for the spider to pass out before he can do so.
- Madam & Eve: Eric does this twice when he runs into his mother◊ and grandmother◊ at an underground rave.
- Peanuts:
- After the Little Red-Haired Girl moves away, Charlie Brown is devastated and faints... while still standing up.
Charlie Brown: I just passed out. I'm still standing, but I've passed out.
- In one strip, Charlie Brown is about to tell Snoopy who won the Daisy Hill Puppy Cup, leading to this:
Snoopy: I think I'm going to faint...
Charlie Brown: Don't faint!
[Snoopy does exactly that]
Charlie Brown: Didn't you hear me?
Snoopy: Quiet, please! Never interrupt a good faint! - Snoopy passes out after he receives a letter from the Head Beagle. He even says that one always faints when they get a letter from the Head Beagle.
- Linus tends to feel faint whenever his Security Blanket is lost. During the story arc where he agrees to give up his blanket if his grandmother gives up smoking, he faints several times on his way to school and ends up arriving late.
- In another strip, Linus asks Charlie Brown if he's ready to hear shocking news, and Charlie Brown passes out before he even has a chance to give him the news.
Linus: He wasn't ready for a shock...
- After the Little Red-Haired Girl moves away, Charlie Brown is devastated and faints... while still standing up.
- A Witney Darrow cartoon for The New Yorker depicts a woman sprawled unconscious on her floor after receiving some stunning/horrific news via phone. Meanwhile, the voice at the other end is saying "...And that's not the half of it! Wait until you hear this!"
Films — Animated
- The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad: McBadger does this twice: first when he learns that Toad has traded Toad Hall to weasels for a motor car and again at the end when Toad has gained a new mania: airplanes.
- Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman: Brittany faints when she encounters the Wolfman.
- Charlotte's Web: Wilbur is even more prone to this than in the book:
- He faints when Lurvey force-feeds him a sulphur-and-molasses tonic
- When he first learns that the humans are planning to kill him for meat, and then again when he overhears them talking about it.
- He almost faints again at the mention of "crunchy bacon," but Charlotte stops it by saying, "Wilbur, I forbid you to faint!"
- Coco: When Miguel sees his finger fade into bone and realizes that he's becoming a skeleton, he almost faints at the shock before his family catches him.
- Frosty the Snowman: A random orange-haired woman faints when she sees Frosty and the kids marching to the North Pole.
- A Goofy Movie: Max passes out when he realizes that Goofy is going to take him on vacation.
- How to Train Your Dragon (2010):
- After Hiccup gives up trying to kill the Night Fury, freeing him instead, the dragon slams him to the ground and roars into his face. He spares the boy, however, and flies away. Hiccup then takes two steps, groans and passes out from the fright.
- Dawn of the Dragon Racers: The black sheep, upon seeing Hookfang and Stormfly bearing down on it, starts screaming like a goat before fainting.
- Inside Out:
- Fear faints when Jangles shows up while he's on late-night duties.
- Fear also faints in the promo short "An Emotional Moment with Fear" when trying to watch a nature show.
- Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius: Carl faints at a Jump Scare in Nick's campfire story
- Los Trotamúsicos: In this adaptation of The Bremen Town Musicians, the mayor's wife usually faints whenever a situation becomes too much for her, complete with her falling into the arms of her husband.
- A Monster in Paris: Lucille faints when she first sees Francœurnote .
- Monsters, Inc.: When Sulley watches (what he thinks is) Boo getting crushed in the trash compactor, he faints four times as a Shout-Out to "Feed the Kitty".
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: In The Stinger, upon seeing Pinkie Pie blow up the just-finished, brand-new dock, the girls are frozen in shock, except for Rarity who's so shaken she faints.
- The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists: One lady in the audience passes out in shock when she sees that the pirates and scientists have found a living dodo. In fact, one of the settings on the applause meter is "Ladies Fainting".
- Sausage Party: Some of the hot dog buns fall to the floor when they see a human woman eating the (sapient) baby carrots.
- Scooby-Doo! and the Goblin King: Velma faints after seeing the supernatural maelstrom the Great Krudsky had created.
- Shrek:
- Donkey faints at the sight of blood after Fiona removes an arrow stuck in Shrek's buttock.
- A lady in the audience faints when Fiona reveals to Shrek that she turns into an ogre at sunset.
- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: Miles' Muggle roommate Ganke Lee faints when he looks up to find six Alternate Universe versions of Spider-Man, one of them a Talking Animal, clinging to the ceiling of his dorm. Miles tucks him into bed before leaving.
- The Super Mario Bros. Movie: A background Toad faints when the Toad official mentions the Mushroom Kingdom potentially being doomed if Bowser isn't defeated.
- Trolls World Tour: A trio of flowers watching the dance off between the K-Pop and Reggaeton trolls faint from excitement watching the Reggaetons get down.
- Turning Red: Tyler briefly faints when he is startled by Mei's panda form suddenly showing up behind him.
- Ugly Dolls: A Perfection citizen faints when Lucky Bat screams at her —Lucky believes that screaming in terror is how the Perfection citizens greet each other.
Manhwa
- Redrum 327: Jueun faints when they find Jeongun's bloodied corpse.
Podcasts
- Film Reroll: In "JurassicPark", Gennaro faints a bit preemptively when the main gate opens and he expects to meet a T-Rex. In actuality, it's just the rest of the group coming back. Muldoon ends up taking care of the unconscious lawyer.
Puppet Shows
- Dinosaurs: In "Nature Calls", Roy passes out at the sight of Baby's soiled diaper while he and Earl are changing him.
- The Muppet Show:
- Miss Piggy faints after knocking out Kermit and then seeing a robot Kermit standing right there. Fortunately, there's a squishy frog to break her fall.
- Kermit faints in the John Cleese episode, after nearly being hit by two heavy weights falling from the rafters.
- Muppets Tonight: Clifford faints early in the first episode when he's told he's going to get the job of hosting a show and he has to be ready in 30 seconds.
Clifford: [on the phone] I'll call you later. [faints]
- Sesame Street: Grover, Bert, and Mr. Johnson have a tendency to keel over as if they were passing out (though it's hard to tell since, being played by puppets, their eyes remain open) when frustrated. For example, when Ernie had finished a pretend doctor examination on Bert, Bert wanted to know if he was healthy. Ernie couldn't tell him because he had 23 years of education before becoming a real doctor.
Ernie: [to the audience] Gee, Bert fainted. Is there a doctor in the house?
- St. Bear's Dolls Hospital: In "The Forgetful Elephant", when the titular elephant (who thinks he's a rabbit), is told he's an elephant, he faints.
Roleplay
- Astral Cabal:
- In Astral Blue a combination of guilt and not sleeping for over a day causes Elara to faint after chapter 1's trial.
- The aftermath of Astral Acedamia chapter 2's trial is too much for Jaz, so she faints.
- Masayoshi faints after the culprit's execution in Astral Academia chapter 4, shouting to the class that this happened because they weren't willing to trust each other.
- CDT University: Maxwell faints after reading a graphic page in a Yaoi Book.
- Dangan Roleplay Round Two: Sycamore faints when he sees Lysandre fake his death.
- It's Curtains: Eliza faints at the first body discovery.
- Roulette Rampage: In Chapter 3, Etsuko Reiki faints when she opens the bag with the very much dead Oten Kouei inside that she was supposed to bring into the Cathedral.
- Trustfell Round One: Blue faints when she finds the gory second crime scene.
Tabletop Games
- Castle Falkenstein, being a game of Victorian period adventure, has rules for fainting from shock, paralleling those for damage from combat or magic, but with less long-term effects.
- GURPS has a "Fright Check" system to represent the effect on people of overwhelmingly horrible experiences, and some of the results on the Fright Check Table do involve fainting dead away. The third edition supplement GURPS Screampunk and the fourth edition update supplement GURPS Steampunk 1 augment this with a secondary system of fright checks in response to horrifying revelations of social inappropriateness, to suit the 19th century, Victorian milieu that both cover. Both note that actual period fiction might make the sexist assumption that only ladies will faint away in shock, but modern games don't have to follow this.
- In Gamelords Ltd.'s Thieves' Guild 8 adventure "Rescue from the Trolls' Hole", when the Player Characters show up to rescue the girl Constance from the trolls, she will faint from the relief of seeing them.
- Trail of Cthulhu actually creates an incentive for characters to faint occasionally, in best gothic horror fashion. Adventurers are prone to suffer a prolonged process of sanity loss as the Cosmic Horror of reality presses on them, but those who faint dead away as a result of specific shocks may at least avoid even worse sights that could destroy their minds.
Theatre
- In Can-Can, hot-tempered but cowardly artist Boris is egged on by his friends to challenge the art critic Jussac to a duel after Jussac steals his girlfriend and writes a review trashing Boris's work. The moment the referee announces the beginning of the duel, he faints dead away. Theophile, the friend who had been most enthusiastic in egging him on, is informed that as Boris's second it is now his duty to pick up Boris's sword and fight in his place — and he faints too.
- The Cat and the Canary:
- Annabelle faints after being molested by the hand.
- Annabelle faints a second time after discovering the corpse of the lawyer.
- Santuzza and Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana, when Turridu's death is announced.
- Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, when she finds her father's corpse.
- Fairview: Hearing that the birthday cake has burned causes Beverly to freak out and faint. This is when the comedy of Act One starts turning to something darker.
- Faust: First Part of the Tragedy: Gretchen attempts to seek solace and forgiveness, but when confronted with the severity of her sins, she eventually cannot bear it any longer and faints dead away.
- In The Magic Flute:
- Tamino faints when chased by a giant snake in the opening scene.
- Pamina as Monostatos is harassing her, paralleling her love interest Tamino's earlier incident with the snake.
- Des Grieux in Manon When Manon dies in his arms.
- Mom's Gift: Trish faints at the end of the first act when she accidentally overhears Dad telling his daughters that he wants to ask Trish to marry him. Mom faints at the same time.
- Much Ado About Nothing sees Hero faint when she's falsely accused of unfaithfulness and publicly denounced and humiliated at her own wedding. She faints so deeply that others at the scene believe her to have died.
- My Fair Lady: At the horse race, one lady faints after hearing Eliza shout "Come on Dover! Move yer bloomin' arse!"
- The Phantom of the Opera. At the conclusion of "The Music Of The Night" number, Christine becomes completely overwhelmed by everything the Phantom has put her through, including presenting her with a mannequin replica of her wearing a wedding dress, and finally collapses.
- A Raisin in the Sun: Ruth faints from stress in the first scene. [[spoiler:Her pregnancy also contributes.
- The title character in Rigoletto, when he realizes his daughter has been kidnapped, and again in the end, after she dies in his arms. Although, for the latter event, whether Rigoletto faints or breaks down into Inelegant Blubbering depends on the baritone portraying him.
- Faninal in Der Rosenkavalier, when he realizes Baron Och's true character. (He was mentioned early on to be in frail health).
- Leonora in Il trovatore, when Manrico rushes off to risk his life trying to save his mother.
- Violetta in La Traviata, when Alfredo publicly insults her. (Understandable, since she's sick with tuberculosis).
- Isolde in Tristan & Isolde after Tristan dies in her arms.
- Sieglinde in Die Wälkure, first in guilt and fear over her Twincest with her brother Siegmund, and again after Siegmund is killed.
- In some productions of The Rocky Horror Show, Frank faints at the sight of Rocky and Janet having sex. This was not in the original script, was seemingly introduced for the Roxy production, and became a fixture of the show in the 90s, but is not present in the current production. Normally, either Riff Raff catches him, or Frank orders him to catch him but Riff instead lets him fall on purpose. The scene is not in the film.
- Charlotte in Werther When Werther dies in her arms.
- The Yeomen of the Guard:
- In the course of the first act, Elsie Maynard is thoroughly justified in fainting:
- She's been forced to marry a condemned criminal to buy medicine to save her mother. note
- She witnesses the highly-charged leadup to his execution by beheading.
- She then finds out he's escaped, meaning she, as a poor woman in Tudor times, is now permanently a criminal's wife.
- Being a moral woman, love is now forbidden to her, because loving anyone else would be adultery. It is at this point she faints.
- At the end of Act II, the jester Jack Point, who is in love with Elsie Maynard, faints because Fairfax is pardoned and is married to Elsie.
- In the course of the first act, Elsie Maynard is thoroughly justified in fainting:
- In Zone, Ciboulette faints during her interrogation when told that an American border patrol officer was killed, as she is afraid it was Tarzan who killed him.
- In George Balanchine's classic choreography of The Nutcracker, Marie faints onto the Nutcracker's doll bed at the sight of the Nutcracker killing the Mouse King. The bed proceeds to magically fly out the window with Marie on it, and Marie revives to find herself in snow-covered forest, with the Nutcracker Prince standing before her, now changed back into human form.
Video Games
- Borrowed Time: Bruce Light, being a very fragile man, flops unconscious to the floor from fear due to questioning.
- Conker's Bad Fur Day: When Conker sees how huge Jugga's breasts are, he passes out.
Conker: [gasps] Paradise...
- In the Ork ending of Dawn of War II: Retribution, Kaptin Bluddflagg catches Inquisitor Adrastia and she loses consciousness as he swings his massive fist at her — but he stops short of actually hitting and killing her, since he prefers to leave her alive and with a grudge. She'll wake up without her nice hat.
- Dark Tales: The player character's initial reaction to seeing the violent ghost in the graveyard is to faint.
- Densetsu no Stafy: Moe faints when Dolfy (who he thought was a ghost) scares him in the Sunken Ship.
- Densetsu no Stafy 4:
- Moe faints when Akureima announces that he's captured and hidden away Ruby.
- Moe also faints when the Mirage Fairy reveals her true form.
- Fabulous:
- Principal Morgan faints at the end of level 40 when it's revealed that Janet is pregnant.
- The Warden of Snuggford Prison (Same person as Principal Morgan) when he finds out that his own daughter is a prisoner!
- Forget Me Not: My Organic Garden: At the cutscene that ends Chapter 4, Irene thinks that Hamomoru would faint at seeing the bodiless organs at her shop.
- Fiona in Haunting Ground upon learning that her pursuer, Riccardo, and her father, Ugo, are clones of the game's main antagonist and that Riccardo killed her father.
- Killed Until Dead: Agatha faints if you correctly accuse her.
- King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella: When Rosella is forced to marry Edgar, she faints after kissing him. The thought of Rosella's father dying, failing to save Genesta, being stranded in Tamir, being forcibly married to an ugly hunchback, having Lolotte as her mother-in-law and dooming the world by giving Lolotte Pandora's box probably took its emotional toll on the poor girl.
- Living Books: Discussed in "The Cat in the Hat", when the boy says, "Mom would faint at this mess!".
- Jennifer, the protagonist of Rule of Rose keeps fainting at the slightest provocation during the early cutscenes; they actually tend to mark the borders between chapters. But when she finds her inner courage in the last chapter, she can watch far more traumatizing sights than all the previous ones put together and keep her consciousness.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic: Upon a Sith Warrior player saying they'll kill every man under Grimmauld's command, a trooper does this.
- Mario:
- Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time: Luigi faints on seeing a purple mushroom covering Princess Peach's face. Seemingly Peach faints as well, but this is likely more of a Fake Faint as she is really Princess Shroob in disguise. Peach faints for real on seeing Elder Princess Shroob's One-Winged Angel form for the first time.
- In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Luigi mentions fainting at the sight of Hizza and the second head on his tail. The book adaptation misinterprets this (or else Luigi told it differently) by saying he feinted.
- Trails Series: Alfin Riese Arnor ends up fainting twice in Cold Steel III. The first time happens when Ash shoots her father and the second time happens when the Courageous explodes in the sky just a day later.
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines: If the player is a Nosferatu, the old lady running the Surfside Diner will pass out if they try to talk to her. Because the player needs to talk to her in the sidequest to find Lily, this requires the Nosferatu to dig through her pockets while she's unconscious to find the clues to Lily's whereabouts, as they won't get a word out of her otherwise.
- Xenosaga, when Albedo intimidates the young Momo.
- Yes, Your Grace: King Eryk has to deal with The Chains of Commanding on a daily basis. There are a few moments in the game where he gets really bad news on top of this. Those moments consistently knock him out.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney:
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
- In the case "Turnabout Sisters," Phoenix faints once he sees Mia, who is dead and is the victim in the case. It's really Maya channeling Mia for the first time. Upon waking up and seeing her once more, he faints again. Lampshaded by Mia: "'GACK?!' Is that any way to treat your boss, Nick?"
- Miles Edgeworth loses consciousness a few times due to his extreme seismophobia. He developed a fear of earthquakes after a traumatic experience in his past that resulted in the murder of his father.
- Happens twice to Ema Skye, once as she witnessed what she thought was a Serial Killer stabbing another man, and then two years later, when she realizes that she may have accidentally killed the aforementioned man.
- In the final case of Spirit of Justice, Rayfa faints while trying to perform the Divination Séance to show her adoptive father Inga's final moments.
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
- Aoi Shiro: During Yasumi's route, Kohaku thinks Yasumi fainted out of fear. Turns out Yasumi was merely sending out her soul to save Syouko.
- Blessing of the Campanella:
- Carina faints in Episode 1 after Leicester holds her hand to "make up" for not being able to fulfill her earlier fetishes.
- Carina in Episode 4 after everyone sees her in Funbag Airbag position with Leicester and she frantically tries to explain that it was Not What It Looks Like.
- Muv-Luv Unlimited: After Takeru truly realizes that there's a serious possibility of him dying in combat against the BETA, he faints in relief upon learning that the BETA are not going to attack the base he's stationed at. He takes it as further proof of his weakness in comparison to the rest of his squad, and beats himself up over it. However, none of the military cast holds it against him. His Sergeant is uncharacteristically kind and supportive, stating that breakdowns like that are a very common reaction among recruits and no one blames him for it.
- In Your Turn to Die, right before participating in the Main Game in chapter one part two, Sara comments that there is the sound of somebody fainting in a different room. Given the circumstances, this would likely be either Joe or Kai, who have at this point learned that the cards they received, the Sacrifice and Sage respectively, are likely to result in their deaths.
- In Misericorde, upon learning that the reason James the stableboy claims Sister Katherine can vouch for him not being the one who murdered Sister Catherine was because James and Katherine were fucking that night, Sister Hedwig is so scandalized that she faints dead away.
Web Animation
- Happy Tree Friends: In "From A to Zoo", after Flaky gets traumatized by her friends dying at the zoo, Lumpy makes her a balloon animal to comfort her. When she realizes that the balloon is actually Cuddles's eye, she screams and faints.
- My Story Animated: The unfortunate nurse in "A Spider Has Been Living In My Ear For Years" hits the floor when she realizes that there's a spider inside the narrator's ear.
- Simmons in Red vs. Blue: The Blood Gulch Chronicles Episode 12, upon seeing a teammate's head blow up. He fervently denies this, but a later flashback confirms it.
Simmons: Eek! I'm gonna faint!
- RWBY: When Team RWBY reunite in Volume 9, Weiss must update her team-mates on what they missed in the Central Location. As it becomes clear just what she's saying, her voice fades away into the background and the screen fades to black as Ruby sways and collapses. The news that Penny was killed after Ruby had gone to so much effort to save her is too much for Ruby to handle in that moment, so she faints from the shock of it. Volume 9 is a Mental Health Recovery Arc for both Ruby and Jaune in the aftermath of Penny's death and Cinder's victory.
- Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: Meggy faints when she sees Heavy Weapons Guy dressed as a "pretty princess" in the episode "The Melancholy of Fishy Boopkins".
- In "SMG3 & SMG4 Are Forced to Hold Hands", The Reveal that the thing keeping SMG4 and SMG3's hands stuck together was not a spell cast by SMG1 and SMG2 but Mario's misplaced gum is enough to make SMG1 faint.
- Zatanna Trial Of The Crystal Wand: The rabbit faints when he sees Zatanna fall from the pole supporting her escapeology act.
Webcomics
- Furry Experience: As part of a "walk a mile" experiment, Kat and Ronnie change places and assignments at college. When Ronnie reports that she skipped out on Figure Drawing class because it had a live nude model, Kat faints in strip #137. Kat's teacher subtracts a grade for each missed class, which will gank her grade average. Any grade below 3.5 means Kat's parents will stop subsidizing Kat's tuition.
- Fur Will Fly: Tammy faints on Brad's first night in the apartment when he pops his shoes off. She seems to think that he's removed part of his body, because this is a wold of Barefoot Cartoon Animals that has apparently never invented footwear.
- Happens quite frequently in Ménage à 3—characters often faint due to sheer embarrassment, sheer pleasure, or for other reasons.
- Negative One: Meri Lin tends to faint when she's upset.
- The Night Belongs to Us: Hank is prone to fainting when under a lot of stress (like faced with a werewolf who attacked her or vampires that attacked Ada).
- Ozzie the Vampire: Kim faints when she first meets Grimsley, the talking book. The Jump Scare from the skeleton that he's forgotten to warn her about doesn't help.
- Peanuts Untold: Charlie Brown faints for joy when Lila gives him a kiss for Valentine's Day.
- Pinkie Pie Reads Cupcakes:
- Rarity only makes it through two pages before fainting. Pinkie, Twilight and Applejack think that this is a mercy.
- Fluttershy doesn't even open the book. The others stop her with a made-up alternate story line that is still too much for her:
Twilight: um... Pinkie steps on a caterpillar. And kills it, I guess.Fluttershy: Wh.. What?? B-B-But who could write something so.. so.. !! [next frame: thud] - Roomies!, It's Walky!, Joyce and Walky!: Danny and Billie both faint when faced with the reality of D.J.'s existence for the first time.
- Mr. Cake from Slice of Life faints periodically.
Mrs. Cake: You get used to it, dear.
- Selkie: When Amanda's mom comes to retrieve her from the orphanage, the sheer amount of emotion causes Amanda to faint. Turns out it's not just negative emotions that can lead to unconsciousness.
- In a side story in Tales of the Questor, Arlen the biomancer suffers this when he discovers one field of his bauxite-purging plants is growing rubies and sapphires.
- I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space!!!: The first time anyone points a stun gun at Susie she just faints dead away, to the bemusement of the woman intending to achieve the same result by force.
- Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic: Lucas drops like an empty armor the day he learns that he's not the baron's son, but the blacksmith's.
- Zoophobia: Cameron faints very soon after arriving in Safe Haven. Admittedly, leaning back to find that you are being loomed over by giant cheetah in the previous frame could be traumatic. Luckily, Zech means her no harm.
Web Videos
- Kid Farm: Downplayed BJ is so nervous after proposing to Lizzy, that he nearly faints. Jean catches him before he can.
- TheNostalgiaCritic, in his review of Judge Dredd: Parodied. The Critic pretends to do a whole overwrought, nail-biting reaction to the tension at the Judge's trial. When the verdict is read, he throws his hand up to his forehead, and collapses face down.
- The Sanders Sides episode "Crofter's - The MUSICAL!" has Logic of all people doing this when he sees that there's a new flavor of Crofter's jam named after him.
- SuperMarioLogan: Mario in "Jeffy's Sister!", over the stress of both Jeffy and his sister Feebee losing his house.
Wrestling
- Bobby Lashley: He faints out of fear when confronted by Boogeyman.
- Mark Henry: He fainted when Chyna proposed that he get into a three-way with her and her friend Sammy who ended up not being exactly what she looked like.
