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Cool guys don't look at explosions They blow things up, then walk away Who's got time to watch an explosion? There's cool guy errands that they have to walk to
When just blowing something up isn't enough, proof of one's apparent badass bombing technique can be seen when the bomber leaves himself barely enough time to escape the blast radius, usually just enough so that as he's walking away, he's silhouetted by the explosion itself. The exploding object can be anything: a building, a car, a space ship...anything large enough with plot-relevance that must simply, absolutely be erased in a fireball. Bonus points if the target's not the object detonated itself, but the person or people inside. One has to really want someone dead to bother setting up such a considerable kaboom when several bullets to the head would do just as well. Regardless of the explosion's size, badasses of this stamp will rarely need to worry about shrapnel, flying masonry, or getting blasted off their feet by shock waves. The shock waves can be useful for blowing about that cool cloak or longcoat the badass may be wearing..
While this tends to happen in isolated locations, with the bomber slipping away into the crowd the explosion attracts, there are some true Rule Of Cool situations where the bomber can exit the target just before it explodes, and no one will notice the fact he's the only one not rushing towards or even reacting to explosion.
Can be combined with a Power Walk (as in the Smallville picture in the Power Walk trope) for extra badassitude.
When the character was in the fireball, and still pulls this off, that's usually a sign that they're an Implacable Man or The Juggernaut.
The opposite of the Unflinching Walk is when the hero stands completely still and has Unflinching Faith In The Brakes.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Pip, The Good Captain from Hellsing does this in the OVA, casually lighting up a cigarette as the communications tent (and the Millenium dupes inside) go up in a fireball.
- While nothing explodes, Kenshiro of Fist Of The North Star has the most overexaggerated example of the Unflinching Walk ever. He walks through a skyscraper that falls on his head without even seeming to notice it.
- Vash and Wolfwood walk unflinchingly through a hail of bullets in the Trigun anime episode Goodbye for Now.
- Cinque of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha calmly walks away as a raging inferno starts behind her after she blows up one of the Ground Forces HQ's shield generators.
- Lelouch gets one in Code Geass R2 episode 20 when, after all the horrible things that have happened to him and his loved ones, he finally starts acting like the demon everyone seems to think he is and turns what most people would consider Wangst into a Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Vincent does one of these after setting off a biological weapon near the start of the Cowboy Bebop movie. It makes for a rather effective introduction.
- Done several times in Monster, usually by the extraordinarily calm Johan, but once or twice by other characters.
- Of note because it's unexpected for the character, Eva does this after setting her own mansion ablaze in a rage.
- Dekoppa here
from Majin Devildoes one with a bundle of pipes while striding towards an ancient devil who produces soundwaves that reduces concrete down to its very atoms.He is also a Badass Bookworm.
Comic Books
- In the Transformers fandom, there is an infamous picture of Pat Lee and the other Dreamwave founders doing this while walking away from an explosion. Dreamwave imploded after not paying its employees. On many sites, the mere mention of Pat Lee or Dreamwave will cause the picture to be posted.
- Warren Ellis loves this trope (see Thunderbolts) and loves subverting it (see Nextwave).
Film
- A classic example of this would be Connor MacLeod's regeneration at the beginning of Highlander II - The Quickening.
- Frank Castle, better known as the Punisher, did this twice in the live action movie of the same name. The first time is when he leaves a tripwire mine with the wire stretched tight in the hand of a mafia boss's son, with the implication that eventually he'll drop the heavy explosive, and sure enough it happens just in time to frame Frank's exit. The second time is even more over the top as Frank kills the mafia boss responsible for the death of his family by detonating car fuel tanks in a pre-programmed sequence, all of which light up behind him as he walks away. As if this weren't enough, the burning wrecks trace out his trademark skull logo when viewed from the air.
- The Transporter.
- Parodied in Windstruck. As the heroine drags a criminal from an overturned car, her partner just happens to drop his lit cigarette into the leaking gasoline. Cue explosion as she poses on the criminal Captain Morgan style.
- Hot Fuzz parodied this twice: the poster and DVD cover featured Danny and Nick calmly walking away from an explosion (which didn't happen). The movie itself subverts it: they run away from what they think will explode and leap through the air dramatically, only to discover it doesn't go off. But it does later.
- Less of an Unflinching Walk so much as an unflinching-sitting-at-the-bar-sipping-his-martini: The pre-credits sequence of the James Bond film Goldfinger, where Bond is the only one at the bar not to react to the huge explosion he planted earlier.
- Anton Chigurh does this after casually blowing up a car in No Country For Old Men.
- Subverted by the hypothetical 2063 sequel to Jackass: The Movie: Son of Jackass
.
- Also subverted in The Dark Knight: The Joker does something like an unflinching walk out of the hospital, then stops as the explosion peters out. He then stands there fiddling with the detonator until the rest of the bombs go off, visibly startling him, and he hightails it out of there (all of which, it should be noted, were adlibbed by Ledger after a special effects failure).
- In the trailers
to the film Iron Man (retained in the film itself). Iron Man dodges a tank shell and then fires a rocket at the tank. He doesn't even wait for the rocket to explode before turning around to begin his Unflinching Walk. Combine that imagery with the opening riff of the Black Sabbath song of the same name and you have the ultimate in superhero badassery.
- The same trailer also shows an "Unflinching Stand" when Stark casually addresses a crowd with his back to the oncoming shockwave of a cluster bomb explosion.
- Used and averted in Con Air. After setting up an explosion by lighting a pool of gasoline leading back to a gas station, Cyrus and his buddies walk off. Once the explosion happens, all of them are framed by the blast, but the only one who doesn't react is Cyrus.
- Accidentally subverted during the big mansion shootout from the finale of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow 2. Chow Yun Fat's character, Ken Gor, tosses a grenade into the mansion and turns to nonchalantly stand in front of the ensuing explosion. But Chow was standing a few inches too close to the pyrotechnics when they went off, and he flinched away as his hair was singed. Seen here at the 1:20 mark
.
- Slightly subverted in From Dusk Till Dawn. Seth and Richie Gecko are bickering with each other while walking out of the exploding store. Richie had been shot in the hand, and Seth is annoyed that Richie is unable to keep a "low profile." Neither plays attention to the store they just blew up.
- Evil-possessed Spider-Man does it in the third movie, after throwing one of Harry's pumpkin bombs back at him.
- The villain The Tall Man does this in one of the Phantasm movies.
- Used in Black Hawk Down; every time Mc Knight's convoy stops, he gets out of his truck and strolls around, apparently oblivious to the bullets/RP Gs flying all around him, to find out what's going on.
- Shown in some of the print ads for the DVD of Hancock, with the title character looking all badass with his love interest beside him, whose super powers are supposed to be part of The Reveal. Good going Wal*Mart/Red Box.
- In X-Men Origins: Wolverine Wolverine does this away from an exploding helicopter.
- Stephen Colbert included in a list of Wolverine's powers the ability to "Make things explode behind him"
- In Desperado El Mariachi and Carolina toss a couple of grenades into the bookstore, then stride away. An impressive calm for an unremarkable bookstore owner.
- In Law Abiding Citizen, Jamie Foxx doesn't even glance at the huge explosion he helps set up.
- Tony Anthony's character does this in the barely-a-western Get Mean.
Live Action TV
Music
- This is the subject of the song "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions".
- Mentioned in the chorus of Lemon Demon's song "Action Movie Hero Boy"
Hey, look at me, casually
Walking away like Action Movie Hero Boy
In slow-mo, everything glowing
And blowing to bits right behind me
- The video for "Prayer" by Disturbed has the singer continue walking slowly and speaking with God while explosions and car accidents happen all around him.
Real Life
- Ludmilla Tourischeva, galactically successful Soviet gymnast in the early-mid '70s, executing her uneven bars routine for the World Cup in 1975. As she is wrapping it up and just about to dismount, the bars suddenly start collapsing. She flies off the apparatus and hits her dismount as the bars collapse completely. Tourischeva salutes the judges and strolls away without batting an eyelid or looking behind her. And then goes on to sweep the All-Around and all four event finals.
- During an attack by pro-fascist snipers following the liberation of Paris, witnesses recalled seeing General Charles De Gaulle striding unflinchingly through a hail of bullets "as if he led a charmed life."
- Audie fricking Murphy
.
Video Games
- One of these happens after every major boss in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption.
- Another occurs on Elysia, where you can drop a bridge out from under a crowd of Tinbots by grappling out the support gates. As the bridge collapses, the camera focuses on Samus' back as she calmly walks away. The whole sequence earns you a "Stylish Kill" token voucher.
- Subverted in the first Metal Gear Solid, when Snake starts to do this after blowing up a helicopter he was fighting, but then turns around and runs to the railing to watch the explosion. He then walks away once the explosion is over, followed up with "Looks like I don't have to worry about the cremation".
- Mega Man does this as Wily's fortress explodes (again) at the end of Megaman 7.
- Of all people, Princess Peach does this in the Subspace Emissary mode (one-player story mode) of Super Smash Bros Brawl. Fox is up on his Arwing, blowing up the deck of the Halberd (on which Peach and Sheik are standing) and the glorious explosions blooming behind her seem to affect her as much as a warm breeze.
- DK and Diddy Kong get one in their introduction. The last Bullet Bill goes off with the two of them standing between it and the camera striking an Ass Kicking Pose.
- In Red Faction: Guerilla, this can be done to ludicrous extremes combined with actual cool building destruction.
- In Call Of Duty 4, during the mission "One Shot, One Kill" Captain MacMillian and then-Lieutenant Price take down a Hind helicopter with their sniper rifles. The Captain then turns away fromt he crashing helicopter, quips "Good night, ya bastard," and does an Unflinching Walk away from it as it crashes. On top of him. Price has to carry the Captain all the way to the extraction point. But the Bad Ass-ness of that scene was so worth it.
- Sonic got one or two of these in Sonic X.
- Done in one of the trailers (''Deceived''
) for the new Star Wars Knights Of The Old Republic MMO, The Old Republic. Unflinching Walks appear to be a Sith trademark.
- At the end of Jak X, Jak shoots the car being driven by crime boss Mizo, who's been out to get him for the whole game, and takes the poison antidote from him. They exchange a short chat, then Jak just walks away as Mizo's car is reduced to smoking wreckage, with Mizo still inside.
- Every game in the Hitman series allows the player to do this, and it is unimaginably satisfying.
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Parodied on Home Movies when Melissa sets fire to the "Little Fairy Princesses" building so she could escape.
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