Robert: Is this a habit of yours, falling off of stuff?
Giselle: Well, usually someone catches me.
A woman
literally falls into a man's arms. It's a dramatic and romantic scene, so it's naturally a common setup for
Meet Cute.
It's also such an old trope that it has standard subversions and parodies. Played straight, it's almost always a man successfully catching a woman. It can be subverted by having the falling woman squash her would-be hero, or by having her miss him entirely, especially with animation's
Amusing Injuries or if the girl was deliberately trying to invoke this trope by pretending to faint or something.
Because
Falling Into His Arms is so romantic, it can be easily parodied by having a
man fall into a man's arms, for a bit of comedic
Ho Yay. That can also be combined with one of the standard subversions.
Another old variation is for a man to be the waiting arms beneath the windows of a burning building, when a mom decides that her baby would have a better chance of surviving if she tossed it. More intense drama, no romance (unless the mom survives, is single, and is sufficiently impressed).
The baby
Falling Into His Arms has two standard subversions too. One is for the man to miss the catch, and the other is for it to turn out to be something else wrapped up in swaddling clothes, such as an ugly pet. Or an ugly baby, for that matter. Maybe he wouldn't have gone to the trouble to save that face.
A standard parody of the baby toss is for the woman to toss an ever-growing number of increasingly large and heavy objects into her hero's waiting arms, until eventually — wait for it —
he gets squashed.
Because it's funny!
In all such cases, it's
Not the Fall That Kills You.
Compare
Catch a Falling Star and
Diving Save.
Examples of falling adults:
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Anime & Manga
Film
- Life is Beautiful, though it was a short fall into hay and she probably would have been fine without him.
- Played straight AND subverted to good effect in the movie Enchanted — in the fairy tale world Prince Edward easily catches Princess Giselle in his arms in a straightforward fashion. Later, in "real world" New York, Princess Giselle falls on Robert and knocks him over. (Which is probably what would really happen if a woman fell on a man.)
- If you've seen the ending of the film, this trope gets inverted! After Robert wakes Giselle with True Love's Kiss, Narissa transforms into a dragon, kidnaps Robert and goes to the top of the Woolworth Building. Later, she falls down to her death, and Giselle, who chased after Narissa, catches Robert and both managed to stay on the roof, away from sure death. To add effect to the scenes, they pulled an ironic echo of the "Is this a big habit of yours, falling off stuff?" question.
- Done for laughs in the in the live-action film of Little Women with Winona Ryder. Meg, Jo, Laurie and John Brooke return from an evening at the theater, and as they exit the carriage, Jo raves about the lead actress being "a wonderful swooner."
Jo: If only I were the swooning type! [dramatically falling from the carriage]
Laurie: [sardonically, watching her fall] If only I were the catching type.
Live Action TV
- Variation on Pushing Daisies: Due to Ned being Blessed with Suck, when his love interest trips right in front of him he has to step out of the way to avoid touching her, leaving room for someone else to swoop in and be the hero. He gets the girl anyway, but not before he nurses his inferiority complex for a while.
- In Once Upon a Time, Rumpelstiltskin catches Belle when she falls ripping down curtains. 'Cause they're falling in love.
Video Games
- In Final Fantasy XII, the main character catches Amalia in just this fashion.
- The dramatic version is also used in FFVIII when the team stages a commando raid on the facility about to freeze the love interest. Squall smashes the tank and Rinoa falls forward into his arms.
- Somewhat subverted in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, when Luigi's parachute gives, and the shiny bishounen Prince Peasley holds his arms out to catch him... only to have Luigi knock him aside and the two to hit the ground anyway.
- Scratch invokes this trope in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, when after he dresses to seduce Sonic, he deliberately trips and lands in Sonic's arms.
- In Psychonauts one of Milla's Memory Reels shows this happening with her and Sasha (that's a guy with an arguably Gender Blender Name, for the record).
- In Fire Emblem, Florina the Pegasus Knight with a crippling phobia of men falls out of the sky and lands on Lord Hector of Ostia. Played for laughs when it is revealed that her Pegasus landed on him also.
Webcomics
- In this strip
of Mystic Revolution, a catgirl falls off a cliff into a mighty summoner's arms, complete with a "Hello, beautiful."
- The webcomic College Roomies from Hell!!!... repeatedly. People fall out of that building a lot. Sometimes wearing a bungee jumping cord.
- Well, the page title IS "A webcomic about defenestration," so...probably justified?
- Occurs in Questionable Content here with appropriate Lampshade Hanging.
- Occurs after a biking accident in Wapsi Square here. However, in this case, it is purely comedy, and it is not played for romance in any way.
Western Animation
Examples of tossed babies:
Live Action TV
- Parodied (in a skit based on an old joke) on Benny Hill. Benny played a soccer goalie who assures the woman in the burning building that he can easily catch her baby. Which he does. And then, ever the goalie, he follows up by kicking the baby into the crowd.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Spoofed in the Ren and Stimpy cartoon "Firedogs!", where a fat, middle-aged housewife in a burning building tosses various heavy objects onto Ren, including a comically oversized baby ("Save my baby! Save my horse! Save my walrus! Save my elephant!"), then shrieks "Save me!" as Stimpy sends Ren up the fire truck ladder at high speed.
