Torso with a View

"I mean, crap, man, look at that! That's, like, his stomach plug on the ground back there. Tch. You don't see that every day."

"I could feel my spine shatter.
It hurt.
...A lot."

— Male superhero, Calvin and Hobbes for February 20, 1994

Have you ever had one of those days when you're just walking along and then suddenly something bites you in the ass? Or the stomach? It eats your partially digested breakfast, a few major organs, and maybe a good chunk of your spine. Now you have a massive hole running through your body and your day is decisively ruined. What else can you do but to keep walking and ignore it?

Fortunately, as you are a fictional character, you do not fall down due to your loss of support structure. Nor do you die before you hit the ground because your organs just got ripped out. However, most real-life living bodies have a very specific anatomy, with most vital systems in the torso and the head. If a hole ever got punched through any of that, you would crumple over. And die. Yes, very specific.

This trope is about bodily integrity. For this trope to work, the character does not necessarily have to survive, nor does it have to be the torso. A multi-inch or more hole running through any vitally important part of the body will do. The most important factor is that their body remains stable as if nothing happened.

This trope works for — or against — either Made of Iron or Made of Plasticine, Depending on the Writer. Similar to a bigger version of Invisible Holes. Sometimes paired with Made of Explodium for whatever reason, and frequently caused by Impaled with Extreme Prejudice or an Impact Silhouette. Often you can expect the interior surface of the hole to be Made of Bologna. May also result in Bloody Hilarious.

Not to be confused with Totem Pole Trench where the bottom person looks through the coat.

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Examples:

Advertising

• A Sidekicks Pediasure TV commercial ends with the Aesop "Kids are what they eat." Then it shows a donut-girl.

Anime & Manga

• Mine from Akame ga Kill! carries the Imperial Arm "Pumpkin", a large energy rifle that gets more powerful the more danger she's in. When we see Pumpkin used early in the series on one of the Empire's guards, the laser bores a clean, cauterized, baseball-sized hole in his chest. And that's at low power... when at its greatest strength, it tends to utterly vaporize its opponents.
• Ayakashi Triangle:
  • Sosuke's Vampiric Draining does no physical damage to humans, but its effect on their bodies is visualized as erasing chunks of their flesh, conveying they cannot move or feel at all. When Matsuri is nearly killed by him, their body is almost half gone, including their buttock, breast, and crotch.
  • Ayakashi, on the other hand, are made of Life Energy, so Sosuke's attack really does bite pieces of them off. They apparently don't have organs anything like corporeal life forms, as Shirogane lost half of his head without even losing consciousness.
• Black Clover:
  • Rhya gets a hole put in his chest by Ronne, who is possessed by Zagred.
  • While fighting Dante, Yami uses a new technique to disintegrate his torso. Unfortunately, Dante's Body Magic allows him to quickly regenerate.
• Bleach: Most of the villain characters have holes going clear through very important parts of their body. Justified in that Hollows and Arrancar are spiritual beings without actual physical form, so theoretically the laws of biology don't apply (although many apparently still do). Most have gone through the middle of their chests where the heart is because the process of Hollowfication transforms the heart into a Hollow's mask. Even when Arrancarisation shatters most of the mask, the hole does not reform.
  • Luppi has a Hollow hole somewhere, though it is never revealed. It definitely is not in the spot where Grimmjow shoves his hand clear through Luppi's stomach, giving him a second and decidedly more painful hole.
  • Aaroniero's Hollow hole is located on his left thigh. Pretty important bone right there, probably some major veins as well. Has no problems, though considering what his head and zanpakuto look like, his body underneath his clothing probably isn't that humanoid anyways.
  • Grimmjow, in particular, has one taking up most of the space between his ribcage and his pelvis.
  • Nnoitra has a hole through his brain. The difference between a Hollow hole and a regular hole is emphasized when Kenpachi stabs through Nnoitra's eyepatch, leading to the reveal of his Hollow hole and causing Nnoitra to comment something along the lines of, "you're right, no one could survive a stab to the head. But your sword didn't stab me, it passed right through!"
  • Ulquiorra's hole is an interesting case, as it starts in his neck before migrating down over the course of the story. His usage of the trope is mildly lampshaded in the story as Ulquiorra tends to punch a hole in his enemies exactly where his own hollow hole is located (and when he does it to Ichigo, Ichigo almost dies).
  • When Ulquiorra blasts a hole through Ichigo's chest with a point-blank cero, the anime has a nice slow pan across the area so you can see the landscape through it.
  • Played two different ways with Aizen. During his and Ichigo's final battle, Aizen has three (presumably Hollow) holes in his torso. He's no more affected by these than any other Hollow, but his body slumps over earlier on when Gin's poison eats a hole out of the majority of his torso.
  • One of the most stretching moments has Byakuya Kuchiki blowing a baseball-sized hole clean through Tsukishima's chest and back, (which had to take segments of his spine, lungs, and heart, etc.), and outside of his Fullbring, Tsukishima is a normal human. Rather than it being an insta-kill, Tsukishima's co-conspirator points out that he'll die in "ten minutes",^*somehow sensing him from a different pocket dimension, during which he's still able to get up, try to sneak attack Ichigo, and afterward endure a massive Villainous Breakdown. Later chapters reveal that he did indeed die from the wound, but you gotta give him credit.
  • White is a notable aversion, whose Hollow hole has been filled with a veiny substance. However, Masaki starts growing one when she inadvertently assimilates him.
  • Rose gets a star-shaped one courtesy of Mask de Masculine's Star Flash attack.
  • Komamura gets one of these when he cuts out his heart to gain a more powerful human form. It's only visible when an attack scorches the skin off his chest, however. The sight of it is enough to unnerve his otherwise overconfident opponent.
  • Nimaiya gets this courtesy of Lille Barro shooting him in the chest. Senjumaru swiftly patches him up in the anime.
  • Izuru Kira takes the cake with his reintroduction to the series. Subverted in that his hole is reinforced.
• In an early chapter of Claymore, Clare gets a hole punched in her stomach by a yoma. She does something (not clear what) to stop the bleeding, then finishes off her opponent.
• In the first episode of Cowboy Bebop, a potential red-eye buyer is shot in the head, and his assailants are shown through the hole.
• Daitarn 3: Used after Daitarn 3 uses a Sun Attack on a megaborg and crashes through them, leaving a massive hole in their body before exploding. The penultimate episode poked fun at this by using a scatter attack version, literally filling Nendol (the Monster Of The Week in the episode) with holes before exploding.
• In Darker than Black, when Wei blasted holes in people, one ended up like this. Bonus points for having this right over a peephole viewed from another side.
• Nagi in Deadman Wonderland dies from one of these, but manages to hold down The Dragon so that the protagonists can kill him.
• In the penultimate episode of Digimon Ghost Game, Regulusmon mortally wounds Siriusmon by blowing a hole through the latter's torso with a powerful laser. Siriusmon, after getting better through the power of friendship, returns the favor by punching a hole through Regulusmon.
• Happens in Digimon Tamers when the Tamers are attacked by Beelzebumon. Leomon stops Beelzebumon from attacking another Digimon and taunts him, but gets Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Beelzebumon's claws, leaving a big hole in his abdomen before ultimately perishing. This death causes his Tamer, Juri, to descend into despair, which the Big Bad uses to their advantage.
• In Dragon Ball, this is how Goku finally kills Demon King Piccolo. Goku blasts a hole in Piccolo big enough for him to fly through. King Piccolo gets to say a few lines, spit an egg far away, and say a few more words about it. All while still flying. Then he explodes.
  • Then Piccolo Junior later blasts a hole through the right side of Goku's chest. Goku still manages to win.
  • Happens again in Dragon Ball Z after Raditz and Goku get drilled through the stomach by Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon. Both of them manage to linger for a little while before dying.
  • Future Trunks has both done this to people and been on the receiving end of it. As the one doing the deed, he blows a hole through King Cold with a God Breaker blast, leaving the tyrant alive long enough to beg for his life, only to blow him to pieces with another blast. As the one on the receiving end, he gets blasted through the chest by Cell after he comes back from his near-death experience. By the text, Trunks doesn't die right away, but he isn't conscious either.
  • Vegeta also gets a hole blasted in his chest by Krillin in a gamble to get Dende to heal him so he'll become strong enough to beat Frieza. In the manga, he's literally seen walking with a hole where his spine should be. In the anime, however, he is simply left with a sizeable wound in his gut.
• Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA: When Shinji Matou Installs the Assassin Class Card, he gains the Noble Phantasm, Zabaniya: Dead Heartbeat Melody, which lets him somehow punch three-leaf clover-shaped holes in people to kill them.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Over the course of the series, Alphonse Elric gets bits and chunks removed from his body, some with very nice rounded edges. Justified in that he's a magically animated suit of armor. At one point he does crumple over.
    Alphonse: Oh, great! Now my arm's come off!! This is a terrible day!
  • Edward leaves Father with one after he punches a hole through his chest. Ed manages to destroy Father's Philosopher's Stone with said punch, giving a hole for all the souls that made the Stone up to escape through. This is what ultimately leads to Father's final demise.
• Hellsing's Alucard frequently lets this happen to him. Alucard being Alucard, he doesn't really care. Otherwise one of the more realistic portrayals of this trope, as pieces will fall off of him.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: If Bleach is the king of this trope, then JoJo is the queen, with many characters suffering this both lethally and nonlethally, particularly when a user has a Close Range Power Type Stand. The fandom refers to these injuries as "donuts".
  • The first one is Dio Brando during his penultimate fight with Jonathan, who manages to punch right through his chest with a Hamon-infused blow. This destroys Dio's vampiric body, but not his head, which lives on long enough to pull a Grand Theft Me on Jonathan's own body, allowing Dio to survive for another 100 years.
  • The second one is Wamuu, when Joseph manages to ricochet an iron crossbow shot through his chest. Wamuu is powerful enough that this doesn't kill him outright, but it weakens him to the point he's prepared to use his most powerful attack even though he knows it will tear his own body apart.
  • The next is Kakyoin, who gets punched through the stomach and spine by DIO, killing him. Later in the fight, Jotaro does the same to DIO.
  • The next is a robber by Josuke, but he doesn't die and instead gets a knife through his stomach thanks to Josuke's ability.
  • Josuke once saves his mother Tomoko's life by punching all the way through her stomach—it keeps her from ingesting the liquid stand Aqua Necklace, which Josuke promptly traps in a bottle, and Crazy Diamond immediately fixes the injury. As she's not a Stand user and therefore can't see Stands, Tomoko doesn't even notice anything happened.
  • Kira also does it to Koichi, but Koichi survives thanks to Josuke's healing ability.
  • Diavolo's Stand, King Crimson, does this a lot, most notably on Bucciarati, Abbacchio, and Polnareff. They all die due to these injuries, though Bucciarati turns into a zombie and Polnareff lives on as a ghost inside Mr. President.
  • The final one is delivered to Anasui. Pucci uses Made In Heaven to grab Jolyne's Stand, Stone Free, and jab its hand at blinding speeds through Anasui's chest, causing him to fall into the ocean and perish.
• The main character in Kaiba has a large, permanent hole right through his chest, which is eventually revealed to have been caused by acidic poison.
• Naruto:
  • During his fight with Kidoumaru, Neji has a hole blasted through one of his shoulders. Though it obviously causes him a lot of pain, he is able to continue fighting, even when he takes another similar blow to his side.
  • Later in the same arc, Sasuke puts his Chidori right through Naruto's chest next to his right shoulder, with only Naruto's last-second deflection keeping it from tearing out his heart. Fortunately for Naruto, the catastrophic damage provokes him to start using the Kyuubi's chakra, allowing him to heal the wound within seconds without a trace.
    • This is the ultimate fate of anyone pierced with a Raikiri. Naruto (healed it with the Nine Tails chakra), Haku (died instantly), Kakuzu (it only costs him one of his hearts. He had four more), Rin (fatally injured), and ultimately Obito (intentionally let Kakashi run him through the heart to remove Madara's special seal, but was quickly dying and only barely managed to perform the jutsu to seal the Ten Tails inside of him to heal up).
• One Piece:
  • Minor character Farafra is introduced in the Alabasta arc. He's missing so much of his shoulder that his arm shouldn't be attached anymore.
  • Whitebeard gets two holes punched in his gut and half his head blasted off before dying, and it's not even what kills him!
  • Portgas D. Ace gets an arm through his chest, leaving a fist-sized hole, and is able to briefly stand before falling over and then talking for a while before dying.
  • Several characters in the Punk Hazard arc have their hearts removed by Trafalgar Law, leaving a fist-sized square-shaped hole in their chests. The only reason they don't immediately keel over and die is because of Law's Devil Fruit power sustaining the heart and its functions.
• Punctures by Shintaro Kago uses this in its main plot, where people puncture items or even themselves to solve various daily issues. In the series, people have dug holes through their hands, their chests, or even straight through their face, but can still seem to function completely normally.
• Samurai Deeper Kyo has Benitora kill Genma with his spear in this fashion, Genma doesn't realize he's been stabbed until a few moments later.
• Soul Eater:
  • Shinigami gets part of his head blasted off during his battle with the Kishin. He's fine.
  • Sid has one of these going through his head. He's a zombie, so it's presumably how he died.
• When Simon defeats Lordgenome in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, he blows a round hole through his chest. There's no blood or guts or anything... just a cylindrical void where his guts should be. Which doesn't stop Lordgenome from making a long-winded Final Speech without his lungs. He gets better. Sort of.
• The monster Zanba from The☆Ultraman was eventually defeated when Ultraman Joneus, spinning himself like a corkscrew, rips a hole in its midsection, large enough for Joneus himself to fly through.

Arts

• Dali's Homage to Newton◊, in Plaza, Singapore, has holes in the torso and head. They represent open-heartedness and open-mindedness, respectively.
• The surrealistic classic The Madonna of Port Lligat by Salvador Dali features Saint Mary and Baby Jesus... both with holes in their bodies that don't seem to be hampering them at all.
• Another statue, titled "Melancholy", has NOTHING in its torso. A football can literally fit through the space in the middle of the statue. As it turns out this work of art is a portrayal of the void that grief leaves behind in those who were mourning.

Comic Books

• Anderson: Psi-Division: In "Half-Life", Sandra/Cassandra Anderson does this to Judge Death by blasting a hole in his rib cage after the witches Phobia and Nausea completed their ritual on him. As he's already achieved immortality by that point, he reminds her of his Catchphrase: You cannot kill what doesss not live...
• Batman villainess Una Nemo AKA "The Absence", currently the trope picture on the Who Even Needs a Brain? page. Una was shot in the head by gangsters and now has an enormous hole in her forehead extending all the way through, with no visible brain, yet functions just fine, and may be smarter than before the hole happened. It appears to be a combination of a previously undiagnosed freak medical condition (which resulted in the brain lining the skull rather than sitting in the middle of it) and Gotham City's water supply being seriously tainted.
• In The Fire Never Goes Out, ND Stevenson makes drawings of himself with an enormous hole in his chest to represent feelings of emptiness and longing.
• The zombies in the graphic novel series FUBAR sometimes get this. A notable example has a big hole in its torso with its skeleton showing, with a vertebrate missing for good measure.
• Issue #3 of Immortal Hulk has the Hulk suffering this, as seen in the cover. Then again, he always recovers.
• Judge Dredd: Batman tried blasting through Judge Mortis's chest in a crossover comic, but he still kept coming.
• In the meta-parody of Julius Caesar from MAD #17, Caesar's assassins have to repeatedly blast "huge, round, clean-cut holes" in him with "38 cal. swords" before he, having more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese, finally says "then fall, Caesar" and topples over.
• In Mr. and Mrs. X Issue #3, Deadpool helps Gambit board a Shi'ar ship and gets a hole blown through his stomach by Deathbird. Wade's healing factor means he immediately starts making jokes about it and asking for a "space band-aid" to patch the wound.
• In Nightwing #62 one of the Jokerized criminals in the Slab shoots a large hole in another who is not overly hindered by it while they're fighting Nightwing.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Gargonn the Hutt, who had half his head eaten off. You can see his brain.
  • The Adarian, a species of aliens with a large, naturally occurring hole in their head.
• In Supreme Power Nighthawk #6: Whiteface has this after Nighthawk disembowels him with a grappling hook.
• Superion actually does this deliberately in The Transformers: Combiner Wars. When Menasor tries to stab him, he simply unfolds the panels in his chest and allows Menasor's arm to pass harmlessly through him. Then he casually shoots Menasor in the face.

Comic Strips

• Calvin and Hobbes:
  • This happens in a spoof of violent comic books. Even Calvin is a bit traumatized by it, not helped by his oblivious mother.
  • Another had Calvin imagine a baseball doing this to him when Hobbes throws it too hard.
  • One of Calvin's snowmen is shown as having been shot in the back by a snow cannon and is posed staring at the big hole in its chest.
• In Li'l Abner, Fearless Fosdick (the hero of the Comic Strip Within a Comic Strip) was portrayed as blasting large, round, clean holes (far larger than the calibre of his gun) through the torsos of whoever he shot.

Fan Works

• All Assorted Animorphs AUs: In "What if Tom was infested by a member of the Yeerk Peace Movement?", Rachel shoots Visser One-in-Eva through the chest with a Dracon beam. Her target dies on the spot.
• All For Luz:
  • In chapter 10, Johnny gets hit by an ice shard that leaves a giant hole blasted through his body by one of the enemy team members. He's killed almost instantly.
  • In chapter 17, Luz receives one of these from Millie the Witch's magic laser beam. Fortunately, it's nothing her Healing Factor can't fix, albeit with some scarring on her stomach.
• In Journey to Raftel, Nami does this to Don Krieg, in a similar manner to what happened to Ace in canon. He dies on the spot.
• Star Wars Vs Warhammer 40 K:
  • Ripper Rifles, archaic weapons from the Last Sith/Jedi War over 4,000 years ago, are shown to be capable of blowing a hole clean through a Bullgryn — an ogryn outfitted with Powered Armor and an energized shield with the intent of serving as a living fortification.
  • A Jedi strike force brings down the Chief Epistolary of the Crimson Razors, a Super-Soldier with both Powered Armor and Psychic Powers, with an archaic Jedi rifle that literally bores a hole clean through the Space Marine's armored torso, obliterating all three lungs and both hearts.
• Your Heart a Haven of Thorns (Naruto): During the Chuunin Exams, Sakura accidentally inflicts this upon Kabuto. She wasn't even intending to harm them at the time, just flare her chakra... but thanks to Kakashi's rather hands-off teaching methods, her attempt went horribly wrong.

Films — Animation

• In Adolescence of Utena, it's implied by silhouette that Akio stabbing Anthy left a huge gaping hole in her chest. How she survived and why the wound is visibly absent later is one of many unexplained things.
• The goose in Charlotte's Web warns Templeton the rat that if Wilbur is killed, then Templeton, without getting any of his food scraps, "will grow so thin we'll be able to look right through your stomach and see objects on the other side."
• The Incredibles: This is how the Omnidroid V10 was killed in the final battle, by its own spinning claw no less. The movie delivers what is arguably the most awesome shot, firstly showing the audience Mr. Incredible and his family, and then pans out — through the hole on the Omnidroid — revealing it's been defeated.
• Mulan: During the "A Girl Worth Fighting For" number, Yao's line is about how his girlfriend will tend his battle scars. The accompanying visual is of the girlfriend peeking through a hole in Yao's chest.
• Night of the Animated Dead: When the gun gets brought out, undead get holes blown through their bodies big enough to see through them.
• In Osmosis Jones, Thrax tries to jab a prone Jones in the chest with his lethal-touch fingers, only to find he's stuck his nails into the floor underneath him. As a white blood cell, Osmosis has a mutable body and made a hole through his own torso for Thrax's hand to pass harmlessly through.
• In Space Jam, Marvin as the referee accidentally fires his starter gun through Sylvester. Tweety flies through the hole and comments "Holey putty tat!"
• In Wreck-It Ralph, one of Sugar Rush's candy-themed denizens is a cop named Duncan. He's a donut.

Films — Live-Action

• Deadpool (2016): The protagonist's Healing Factor is demonstrated to the audience by Deadpool getting shot through the arm, and looking through the hole as it shrinks closed again at the person who did it (though first he pushed his finger through).
• Death Becomes Her plays this for laughs with Goldie Hawn's character Helen, and it's featured in the film's poster, which shows Bruce Willis' arm holding a candelabra through the opening.
  Madeline: You're a fraud, Helen! You're a walking lie, and I can see right through you!
• In The Dukes of Hazzard film, Bo Duke is shown a turkey that has a nice hole blown through it.
• Final Destination 4: The fourth survivor to be killed is blown into a chain-link fence strong enough that his torso is torn into pieces. Complete with a quick Reaction Shot from the POV of the now-hollow torso, showing the other characters' horrified reaction.
• Fortress (1992) demonstrates the power of the prison's security turrets by killing an unruly inmate this way. During the escape the warden orders its computer to do the same to the protagonists, but it can't get a lock on them without their Tracking Chips.
• From Dusk Till Dawn: Richard Gecko (Quentin Tarantino) gets shot in the hand during the robbery at the beginning of the film. During the drive to Mexico, he holds up his hand and peers at his brother through it, then wraps it up with duct tape.
• This poster for the Indian zombie movie, Go Goa Gone, depicts the hero about to shoot the audience... through a zombie's torso-hole.
• In the 2015 adaptation of Goosebumps, the abominable snowman (the first monster to be sucked back into R.L. Stine's manuscripts) gets absorbed torso-first, where the characters realize their hypothesized plan to reseal the monsters worked after seeing Stine opening the book through the monster's midsection.
• A Kid From Tibet: The Sorceror's sister-slash-Dark Action Girl henchwoman dies in this manner when a beam of light goes through her midsection, and audience can catch a clear view of the cavern wall behind her through her torso as she collapses.
• Near the beginning of Kung Pow! Enter the Fist, the protagonist punches a clean hole straight through a mook's stomach, leaving a solid, cylindrical "stomach plug" lying on the ground, to the Narrator's astonishment. The mook makes a reappearance during the Sequel Hook, swinging the plug as a weapon from a chain connecting it to his body.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • In Iron Man, Tony Stark is only alive because of the hole in his chest (and what he put in it).
  • And Iron Man 3, he finishes off an extremely resilient Elite Mook by overpenetrating his chest with the Unibeam, punching through the guy and the wall behind him.
  Tony: Walk away from that, you son of a bitch.
• Happens to Freddy (via a laser beam shot by Alice) in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. He fixes himself up with just a wave of his hand.
• The crew of the Silent Mary in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales are all missing bits and pieces of their bodies due to having died in an explosion. Officer Santos has a hole through most of his torso, with a stub of exposed spine.
• Blaine from Predator gets blasted by the Predator's superweapon. He doesn't survive, but his body doesn't seem to notice it's no longer with spine.
• During the climax of The Quick and the Dead, Gene Hackman's character doesn't think he's been shot until he sees the hole in his shadow.
• In the movie adaptation of Ready Player One, I-R0k's OASIS avatar has a see-through torso in the shape of a vaguely human skull forged from some silvery metal. A completely justified example, considering he's a virtual character in a world where the laws of physics and anatomy tend to cry lonely under their beds.
• In Shaun of the Dead Shaun and Ed encounter a zombie woman in their yard, they only realize she's a zombie after they knock her onto a pipe impaling her through the midsection, she then gets up and pulls it out of her and we get a view of them looking through the hole.
• The penultimate finale of Shoot 'Em Up ends with Smith blowing a hole through Hertz's torso, which audiences can see through, guts and all.
• The finale in the steel mill battle in Terminator 2: Judgment Day has a scene where Sarah blasts a hole through the T1000's torso, where the audience can see Sarah through the torso-hole... right before it reseals itself a few seconds later.
• Thinner: Billy gets shot through the hand in one scene, and it's big enough for Tadzu to peer through when he goes to see him about the pie that will lift his curse.
• The Thunderbolt Fist: The main villain, Takashi, is killed in this way... by a kick!
• At the beginning of Van Helsing, the title character and Mr. Hyde are conversing about their previous encounter, particularly the hole in Hyde's arm courtesy of Helsing.
• Venom: Let There Be Carnage: Carnage demonstrates the ability to voluntarily open a see-through hole in his midsection during the escape scene and later in the final battle.
• Iceman in X-Men: Days of Future Past, by three Sentinels in the climax.

Literature

• In Carnage in New York, when Carnage attacks the "Feed 'Em All" fundraiser party, an artist throws a metal statue of a nude woman at him. Cletus throws it back, punching a hole clean through the artist's stomach.
• The Dresden Files: After Tessa critically injures Michael, infuriated Harry burns her through with a gargantuan blowtorch of anger-fueled magical fire. Being a fallen angel, she survives, but only barely.
• At one point in Eden Green, Tedrin has horrifying injuries to his torso, and Eden notices that she can see right through in one spot.
• In Aimee Bender's book "The Girl in the Flammable Skirt", the short story Marzipan begins with this lovely image:
  One week after his father died, my father woke up with a hole in his stomach. It wasn't a small hole, some kind of mild break in the skin, it was a hole the size of a soccer ball and it went all the way through. You could now see behind him like he was an enlarged peephole.
• Played with in Harry Potter. Nearly-Headless Nick was decapitated, but not all the skin got cut. The remaining skin should tear apart from the weight of his head but instead acts as a very sturdy hinge. Justified since he's a ghost and his head doesn't actually have any weight.
  • Averted as much as possible in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, when Harry has the bones in his forearm magically removed. It doesn't leave a hole, but his forearm goes all Gumby, and he can't use his hand because the muscles aren't attached to anything.
• In the Star Wars Dark Nest Trilogy, R2-D2 starts complaining about damage he suffered during a firefight. When Han and Luke inspect him, they discover a hole in his dome that they can see each other through.

Live-Action TV

• An elaborate magic trick sometimes performed where the magician's assistant will be run through with a large 12"+ diameter drill. The drill is removed and they're fine! Averted magically!
• Charmed (1998): In "Styx Feet Under", Paige decides to cast a protection spell on a chaplain the sisters are trying to protect from demons. The spell prevents him from dying but leaves him with a giant hole through his abdomen. The Angel of Death makes it clear that the man is doomed and all the spell is doing is preventing his spirit from moving on.
• In Community, Jeff meets one of his old law associates, played by Drew Carey, who has a hole through the palm of his hand due to a childhood accident.
• Don Flack in CSI: NY, when a bomb drove debris into his torso. Played realistically that time, though, as Mac had to use his combat first aid skills to keep him from bleeding to death before they were rescued.
• Doctor Who:
  • In "The Time of the Doctor", the Doctor tricks a wooden Cyberman to turn its flamethrower onto itself and fire. Torso hole happens.
  • Played for Drama in "World Enough and Time" when this happens to the Doctor's companion, Bill. She survives, but only at the cost of being converted into a Cyberman. It's a Wham Shot to show the audience that this is one crisis the Doctor is not going to resolve easily.
• Mentioned in the Firefly episode "Safe", when Shepherd Book is shot. Zoe talks about a soldier she knew in the war who had a hole shot clean through his shoulder that "used to keep a spare hanky in there."
• In Kamen Rider Gaim, the Pine Arms' Finishing Move is to perform a Diving Kick. When Gaim uses this on a giant Monster of the Week in episode 2, he goes straight through, leaving behind an energy projection of a pineapple ring around the wound, followed by Defeat Equals Explosion.
• In Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the Dragon Zord Fighting Mode's Finishing Move is to use its staff — tipped with the Dragonzord's tail drill — to stab straight through the Monster of the Week. We get a view of the Zord as if you were looking through the hole from behind the monster until it falls over and only then does Defeat Means Explosion kick in. The hole shows no sign of the monster having organs or bone or being anything but solid straight through. The monsters are, of course, clay figures brought to life, so they kinda aren't supposed to have organs.
  • Happens to the zords themselves sometimes. One notable instance was in Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue, where Diabolico shoots a beam from his chest and pierces through the Supertrain Megazord.
• Stargirl, in the season 2 finale, Solomon Grundy is blasted by Eclipso and gets a huge hole in his chest, dropping dead instantly.
• Happens to a villain in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. His species had a highly decentralized internal body structure that granted them this ability, resulting in a rare use of a phaser set to "disintegrate" by the heroes on that series. The CGI and Chroma Key needed to accomplish the effect looked pretty impressive for the era.
• Ultra Series:
  • In Ultraman Ace, Ace manages to defeat Doragory by punching a hole through his stomach, leaving the monster incapacitated in pain and allowing Ace to finish him off with a swift decapitation.
  • On Ultraman Taro, Taro does something very similar to what Ace did against Alien Mefilas II, although he follows it up by blowing the alien up with his Storium Ray as well.
  • Ultraman Leo: The fight between Leo and Alien Northsatan concludes with Leo's fist through Northsatan's torso, killing him.
  • Ultraman Dyna sees Dyna doing this to the monster Neosaurus, leaving a giant hole in its chest when he uses his Finishing Move against it rather than the traditional Defeat Equals Explosion most monsters hit by it go through.
  • Ultraman Mebius: The episode featuring Mebius and Leo teaming up against Alien Reflect ends with Leo and Mebius, the latter modifying his Ultra Kick into a spinning drill, using their combined powers to rip a hole through Reflect's midsection, killing him.
  • Ultraman X: The episode guest-starring Ultraman Zero which has Ultraman X assisting Zero in the battle against Black King and Alien Nackle ends with Zero and Nackle blasting each other at the same time, respectively with the Zero Sluggers and Nackle's pistol. In a Shout-Out to Gene Hackman's fate from The Quick and the Dead, Nackle then sees the holes in his shadow, moments before he gets finished off by Zero.
  • Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes: The Big Bad of the series, Ultra Dark-Killer, eventually dies when the New Generation Ultras combines all their energies into Ultraman Ginga's Taro armour, allowing Ginga to unleash the combined force of all ten of the Ultras, effectively tearing a hole through Dark-Killer's torso and finally finishing him off for good.
  • Ultraman Trigger: New Generation Tiga have this as the fate of Darrgon as part of his Heel–Face Door-Slam; shortly after his reformation, he then gets an empowered Nursedessei tunneling through his midsection.

Music

• AltJ. In the music video for "Something Good", a matador is impaled through the chest with a horn by the bull he's fighting but manages to cut off its head. At the end of the video, there's a shot of a headless bull with blood gushing from its neck and as the camera zooms out, we can see that the animal is viewed through a big, circular hole in the matador's chest.
• Project 86: The cover of their album Songs to Burn Your Bridges By features a man in a suit with a gaping hole through his chest, holding a knife behind his back so the blade is visible through the hole. Then their music video for "The Spy Hunter" (the first track of that album) ended with vocalist Andrew Schwab getting shot with a cannon and reenacting the album cover pose. Then their video for "My Will Be a Dead Man" was a sequel and showed Andrew making a full recovery.

Religion

• In The Bible, after Jesus is resurrected, Thomas says he won't believe it until he sees Jesus standing before him. A little while later, Jesus does appear and tells Thomas to feel his hands where the nails had been and to reach into his side that had been pierced with a spear, to prove that it was really him in the flesh.

Tabletop Games

• Paranoia. A picture in an early edition book showed a Troubleshooter with a huge hole in his body calmly walking around. It was jokingly said to be an example of someone with a large Macho Bonus (ability to withstand injury).

Video Games

• Commandant Steele dies from a huge tentacle through the chest in the main campaign of Borderlands. When she's brought back for the final Downloadable Content, the resulting hole in her torso is still there but doesn't seem to slow her down. It does, however, confuse the hell out of her.
  "Wait, where am I? What happened to the vault? WHY IS THIS HOLE HERE?!"
• The Tenaj enemies from Corridor 7: Alien Invasion will have a torso-hole forming on their chest by default when killed.
• In Crash Tag Team Racing, one of the Die-O-Rama clips depicts a pirate ship sending a cannonball through Crash's torso, causing him to fall into the water behind him.
• The Blood Sport-themed game Dead Ball Zone depicts your player killing another by throwing a spiked ball through his midsection on the game's cover and promotional posters. The actual game itself isn't as gory as the cover though.
• Arcade game Dynamite Duke features a strange gameplay-oriented variation. The player character doesn't actually have a gaping hole in their torso, but the player sees him having one in order to prevent the character sprite from blocking potential targets from view.
• Friday the 13th: The Game sees this with the "Heart Punch" grab kill. Jason/Roy will even look through the hole in his victim's torso after performing it.
• Near the beginning of God of War II, Kratos is impaled through the midriff by a huge sword wielded by Zeus and is dragged down to Hades. When Gaea restores him to life for her own task, we get a lovely view through the ragged hole clean through his torso as it heals up.
• House of the Dead 3 have this happening occasionally, thanks to your default firearm being your trusty shotgun capable of blowing gaping holes through zombies. It's not uncommon to see Fat zombies lumbering towards you with a see-through shotgun hole in their stomach.
• Isle of the Dead have the default death scenes of the zombie-women, whose stomach caves in and reveals a see-through hole when killed. Even if you're NOT using a firearm of any sort.
• Katamari Damacy: In the original game, Royal Cousin Opeo has a hole straight through the middle of his chest. While it healed up in time for We ♥ Katamari, the injury returned in Touch My Katamari, and also appears in the REROLL versions of the first two games.
• Several Heartless (like Darkside, for example) in Kingdom Hearts have this motif, with the hole obviously being heart-shaped. Since they're creatures made from the darkness in people's hearts, they likely don't have any real organs in there, anyway.
• One cutscene in Loopmancer has a cranium with a view after a robot mook delivers a Boom, Headshot! to one of Tompson Tech's staff. You even see the robot through the victim's forehead hole.
• Mad Rat Dead: Mad Rat has little problem moving around with a gaping hole in his chest due to being brought Back from the Dead. It also doubles as a little alcove that Heart can rest in.
• In Mass Effect 2, the Geth platform dubbed "Legion" has a gaping wound in its torso, which it partially patched up with a salvaged piece of Shepard's N7 armour. Legion explains this wound was acquired whilst traveling to worlds visited by Shepard in the first game when it failed to take into account that after the attack on Eden Prime by Saren's Geth, the colonists would not take too kindly to seeing another Geth platform wandering around.
• While mooks and bosses in the Mega Man Zero and Mega Man ZX series could be sliced in half if a saber is used for the finishing blow, there was no projectile equivalent until ZX Advent, where dealing a deathblow with a charge shot blows a hole clean through the mook or boss, with lots of red lines along the inside to show off their cauterized robot innards. In the case of the mooks, depending on how big they were the attack could take the entire upper half of their bodies away. Just like with the saber death, the bosses are still able to get out an entire death speech before they explode.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Mortal Kombat X was the first of the series to be made for the Xbox One/PS4 generation, and it shows. Netherrealm Studios developed an intensely detailed model system for the Kombatants' bodies, and then applied Mortal Kombat's trademark Fatality system to it, leading in LOTS of excruciatingly detailed examples of this trope, among others.
    Johnny Cage: Heeeeere's Johnny!
  • One of The Joker's Fatalities in his Guest Fighter appearance in Mortal Kombat 11 has him punch a large hole in his victim's chest with an Extendo Boxing Glove. Then, he places a jack-in-the-box in their chest cavity, to spring their head far off of their body.
• In Team Fortress 2's "Meet The Pyro", the ending shows the BLU Soldier having a gaping hole in his chest and dying in the aftermath of the Pyro's visit. Ouch.
  • He is even clutching his organs in his hands.
  • In-game, the Voodoo-Cursed Soldier Soul cosmetic turns the Soldier into a zombie, complete with a hole in his torso modeled after the one from the above-mentioned Meet The Pyro.
• Prime Target have animations for mooks killed by large-bore weapons like the shotgun or magnum, resulting in a torso-hole providing a clear view of their ribcage and internal organs. It's not exactly a see-through hole, however.
• Exaggerated with the floating zombies from Remorse: The List, who doesn't even have a torso. Said monster is a deformed head, two limbs, and two legs, forming a humanoid shape and floating everywhere to attack you. Oddly enough, shooting the blank space where their torso should be can hurt them.
• Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew: Gaëlle is an undead pirate with a large hole through the middle of her body.
• Sonic CD Alternative Ending: In Scrap Brain Zone in the Knuckles Route, as a result of the events of the game, Sonic causes a hole in Eggman's stomach with his Spin Dash.
• Steel Harbinger have this happening to Victim Zero of the alien pod infestation in the opening cutscene. A random civilian, curiously trying to get a closer look at a dropped pod in the middle of California, is suddenly skewered through the midsection by the pod's tentacles, and as said victim turns around to reveal the see-through hole in his guts, it's suddenly filled with metal as the victim becomes a human-machine convert.
• Mines in Total Carnage are able to bore holes through the heroes' chests when they get stepped on.
• In Warframe killing an enemy with Puncture damage inflicts this on whatever body part the attack went through, be it the head, chest, or legs.
• Wild ARMs 5: After being defeated by the heroes and then in a duel by Greg, Kartikeya blows a hole through his torso to deny Greg the satisfaction of killing the responsible for the death of his family. Greg calls him an idiot, saying that his vendetta against the demon is no longer his main objective but "just a point to pass along the way". Realizing that he essentially killed himself for nothing, Kartikeya can only mutter an utterly confused "w-what!?" before falling down dead.
• Halfway through Zombie Raid, Charles is shot by a shotgun-wielding mook. He gets back up with a gaping hole in his torso and crows about the power he's received from the Big Bad before transforming into a hideous beast.

Visual Novels

• Your Turn to Die
  • This can potentially become the fate of Alice depending upon your choices. They aren't aware of the danger they're in until the item they're holding blows up, ripping a hole in their chest that's wide enough for the player to see the other occupants of the room through.
  • In the first part third chapter, Kuramuda will inevitably end up with one, though thanks to being a doll, he is able to stay alive, though he does also need to spend some time hooked up to a charging station. Depending on the player’s performance in the fight before this happens, Kuramuda may succumb to the wound shortly before the part’s finale, or live long enough to appear in that finale, where he may survive, or get Impaled with Extreme Prejudice.

Webcomics

• In Homestuck, Kanaya gets a huge hole punched through her torso, which she dies of — temporarily. After coming back, she retains the hole, and is able to walk around with it quite happily. Perhaps justified as her species is implicitly invertebrate (Gamzee calls Karkat his 'iNvErTiBrOtHeR').
  • Also possibly justified by the fact that she's now a rainbow drinker and kept upright by some means related to that.
  • Trolls are shown to have endoskeletons through X-Ray Sparks but are also implied to have exoskeletons (which they use in place of the word 'backbone').
• In Monster Pulse, the Arma spirit that plunges through the main character's body not only transforms her heart into an independent and sentient creature but leaves her with a glowing hole in her chest where the organ once was. Mainly she keeps her jackets zipped up high and hopes for the best.
• Penny Arcade: Fueled by The Power of Hate, Tycho kicks a kickball so hard it pierces a hole through Gabe's waist. An intestine dangles from the hole.
  Gabe: All my pieces...my pieces...go back in...go back in...
• Done in Romantically Apocalyptic. Snipey is not only fine but also (apparently) the only one to survive the scene. The only things that get mentioned are that "it hurts a lot", and that he no longer makes a suitable human raft.
• In Stormbow, the white bird creature in Limbo somehow gains one over the course of chapter 2. She doesn't even notice until The Adventurer points it out.
• In Warrior U. Finn has a gaping hole in his chest as the result of a unicorn attack.
• In Welcome to Hell, the main character Sock has a hole through his stomach from where he stabbed himself before turning into a demon.

Web Original

• Alphabet: P's and F's deaths via an oversized bullet and a beam leave giant holes in their bodies. Justified, as they're respectively made out of bubblegum and black goop.
• DEATH BATTLE!:
  • In "Batman Beyond vs. Spider-Man 2099", this is the fate of Miguel O'Hara, thanks to getting three explosive Batarangs strapped to his chest and is unable to remove them before they blow a clean hole in it.
  • Shao Kahn suffers a repeat of getting a hole punching in his torso from Mortal Kombat 9 during his battle with Akuma — only to immediately (unlike 9, where he was in pain and content to fake his death) get up and resume fighting Akuma. Ironically, he proclaims "Flawless Victory" when he defeats Akuma, even though in the games, that's said when a character wins a round without taking damage — and right before his final blows to Akuma, Akuma was pummeling him and Shao still had the damn hole in his torso.
  • The Mask shoots a hole through Deadpool, but thanks to Deadpool's healing factor he's perfectly fine.
  • Omni-Man punches Homelander's heart out through his back before holding it in front of him, stuffing it into his broken jaw, and then smashing Homelander's head into chunky salsa.
• Mentioned in Epic Rap Battles of History in the Shakespeare vs Doctor Seuss battle, where Shakespeare drops this line:
  Shakespeare: I'll put a slug between your shoulder blades / Then ask what light through yonder poser breaks?
• In the final episode of France Five, minor villain Succulard gets a hole through the torso after Wargarine fires a BFG at him.
• In an episode of Good Mythical Morning, when both hosts of the program try out the combination of Pop Rocks and soda to prove or dispel the myth of what it does to your body, one of the hosts pulls up his shirt and reveals that there is now a hole in his belly that the other host could see through.
• Just like the original, Hellsing Ultimate Abridged has this happen when people are shot.

Western Animation

• In the sequel episode to their James Bond spoof, American Dad! suddenly kills off Francine's character by having her being shot to death. She gets a perfect circle shot into her torso, with the middle falling out and her body ending up wrapped around Stan's body as he tries to shoot her assailant.
• In the The Boys: Diabolical episode "Laser Baby's Day Out", Laser Baby does this to a security guard.
• In The Crumpets episode "My Family's Full Of Losers", Pfff receives three holes through his body. He is the only one of Ohoh's game show round targets to not escape to the ceiling, as well as being the only one shot by his machine gun. He reacts with his usual tranquility.
  Pfff: (inserts arm and points finger through one hole) That's child abuse.
• In one episode of Ed, Edd n Eddy the Eds are playing with one of Ed's robot toys. It accidentally collides with Eddy and chews a huge hole in his stomach.
  Eddy: Ed! Your stupid toy ate my breakfast!
  • In Ed, Edd n Eddy's Big Picture Show, the cul-de-sac kids have Amusing Injuries from the big scam that happened before the movie. Rolf, in particular, has a huge bite taken off the side of his torso.
  • Inverted when Eddy removes Jimmy's outline in "One Plus One Equals Ed".
• Family Guy has one-time "historical" gag character Sir Henry "Giant Hole in the Torso" Wickenshire, a man who has this as his default living anatomy and is shown to be very effective in a gun duel as a result, especially compared to his onscreen opponent, the equally aptly named Sir Joseph Broadfront.
• In the Flip the Frog cartoon "The Cuckoo Murder Case", a cuckoo clock cuckoo is shot, and it briefly looks at the neat hole left by the bullet before keeling over. Justified in that it's a wooden bird.
• Futurama:
  • In the episode "Parasites Lost" Fry gets impaled through the midsection by a pipe after the furnace exploded. After it's removed, we get a view of the hole as the damage is repaired by the tapeworms that he had eaten earlier.
  • In "The Sting", after Fry is killed by a giant space bee, he visits Leela in her dream. To prove it's really him he sticks his hand through the hole. Justified because, well, it's a dream. In reality, this did happen and he survived the impalement, but had to get medical attention and has a large bandage over it the hole.
  • A side variant occurs in "Fry and the Slurm Factory" where Bender is saved from becoming over a hundred slurm cans...but not fast enough to have a hole punched through his side. Justified, since he's a robot.
• In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, General Skarr is shown to have acquired a hole in his torso that he doesn't remember getting, which seems to disappear partway during his escape from the Grim Reaper, who was chasing Skarr for the very fact that he shouldn't have survived the experience. After escaping, he ponders one of the buttons on his car, which blasts a laser from the steering wheel, bringing the hole back.
  General Skarr: Oh, now I remember.
• Gravity Falls:
  • Happens to Dipper in "Dreamscaperers", though justified because he, Mabel, and Soos were inside Grunkle Stan's head trying to stop a mind-invading demon from stealing the combination to Stan's safe.
  • In "Weirdmaggedon", Ford tries to take out Bill Cipher, who's manifested a body after escaping the Nightmare Realm, with a Wave-Motion Gun but just narrowly misses. The shot hits Bill's hat, which turns out to be part of his body, briefly revealing a hole full of fleshy innards before the wound closes up.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: In the first Season Finale, Jackie uses Shendu's own Dragon Talisman to blow a hole straight through his chest. Unfortunately, Shendu still has the Horse Talisman, allowing him to heal the damage in seconds.
• Looney Tunes: In Porky's Tire Trouble, Porky works for a tire factory, making tires with what looks like a giant waffle iron that liquid rubber is poured onto and then squeezed to make a tire. Porky's extremely stupid dog gets into the factory and starts wreaking havoc, much to the dismay of Porky's boss, who starts chasing the dog around the factory. The boss accidentally ends up falling into the tire press and emerges from it with a torso that is a tire, complete with a hole in the middle.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The Changelings have this as their default anatomy.
• Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero: The Milkman has a body that's entirely made up of milk, making it virtually impossible to harm him. When he gets shot at, his abdomen simply splits to allow the ammunition to pass through and when Penn punches him, his arm ends up going right through his torso.
  Milkman: Didn't your mother ever tell you not to put your fist inside someone's chest?
• The Pink Panther: In one cartoon, the Panther is ironing his fur when the phone rings, and as he answers it the iron burns through his body, leaving an iron-shaped hole. He tries to cover it up by putting a clock that matches the shape perfectly.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "A Tale of Two Springfields", Homer gets his guts ripped out by a badger. He's fine.
  • In "Treehouse of Horror X", Bart, a.k.a. "Stretch Dude", created a hole in his stomach using his rubber powers to dodge The Collector's phasers.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • In one episode, SpongeBob is trying to get paint off Mr. Krabs' first dollar by blasting it with water as Patrick holds it. The water leaves a hole through Patrick, and as he lifts it up to see the dollar, we see that the area covered by the dollar and his hands are left intact.
  • SpongeBob himself. This is part of his natural anatomy, so it's justified.
  • When Barnacle Boy teams up with Man Ray and The Dirty Bubble, they pose as ice cream salesmen and give Mermaid Man a scoop of prune-flavored ice cream which is actually a bomb. It blows a hole clean through his torso.
    Mermaid Man: Goes right through me every time.
  • In the episode "Pranks a Lot" SpongeBob and Patrick argue over who should use the invisible spray paint for their next prank; in a fit of rage, they take turns spraying each other turning their body parts invisible. SpongeBob's first spray on Patrick leaves him with a big hole where his stomach is.
• Squidbillies. Zigzagged, as one episode shows the Sheriff with a large chunk bitten out of his torso. When he unbuttons his shirt to show the wound, his torso promptly begins to sink, but he seems to be unhindered by the wound as soon as he rebuttons his shirt.
• Teen Titans (2003):
  • This happens to Raven in one issue of Teen Titans Go!. It's partially justified as Larry had turned her into paper beforehand, but there was little enough holding her together that she still should have ripped.
  • Happens to Brushogun's Godzilla-monster in The Movie. It's made of ink, so it grows back.
• Tex Avery: This is a common visual gag, as seen in shorts such as The Chump Champ.
• Timon & Pumbaa: Banzai the hyena was once so hungry he said he felt like he had a hole in his stomach. Then he illustrated it by literally pulling his belly into a donut shape.
• Transformers: War for Cybertron Trilogy: Ultra Magnus is shot clean through the torso by Megatron.
• Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner: In one cartoon, Wile E. tries to stop the Road Runner by holding a "triple-strength battleship steel armor plate" in front of him. The Road Runner just rips through the plate, leaving a Road Runner-shaped hole through it... and presumably through Wile E.'s body as well. Wile E. looks down in shock and tiptoes out of frame.
  • Possibly a lampshade since Wile E. seems to realize that this isn't how anatomy is supposed to work.

Real Life

• It is possible for a gunshot wound to heal this way, assuming the bullet was high enough caliber. One photograph of a Civil War soldier shows the soldier sticking a ramrod through a bullet wound that healed as a hole.
• Vietnam veteran John Musgrave, interviewed in Ken Burns' The Vietnam War, described how he was shot at close range by a burst of machinegun fire that tore a fist-sized hole through his upper chest. He was triaged as terminal several times in succession by the first medical personnel to evaluate him but ultimately survived to tell the story decades later.
• In some cattle farms, the caretakers will surgically install a porthole in the side of the cow to allow them to monitor its digestion.
• Body piercings can be stretched to a large degree, leading to the infamous saucer-in-the-ear look.
• The curious case of Alexis St. Martin (1798-1880), whose stomach was ventilated by a musket ball at close range. Surprisingly, he survived some forty years after his accident, and his perforated guts allowed surgeon Dr. William Beaumont to study the mechanics of human digestion firsthand, by dangling food into the abdominal fistula on the end of a piece of cord and observing the stomach acids at work.
• Around 1895, this picture◊ was taken of Revered Eavens of Fredrick, Maryland. He is shown with a hole in the left side of his chest about the diameter of a golf ball.
• A horse on Animal Cops: Houston, which survived mostly unaffected with a hole completely through its neck, possibly resulting from a dominance fight with another stallion (it was not deemed abuse-caused as is the norm on these shows).
  • This horse somehow survived either a similar injury or an infection that punched a hole straight through its neck, missing both its spine and its trachea and oesophagus. The edges of the hole then healed over, making it look like someone took a hole puncher to the horse.
• A soldier's cuirass from the Battle of Waterloo has a cannonball hole going through both front and back plates. Despite the obviously fatal injury this would have caused, several news outlets described the soldier as merely "wounded".

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