Basic Trope: A character fails to destroy something which demonstrates a surprising amount of resilience.
- Straight: Alice throws her laptop out of a moving car window. It is unharmed.
- Exaggerated: Alice throws her laptop off the Empire State Building and there's not even a scratch on it.
- Downplayed: Alice drops her laptop on the floor.
- Justified: The laptop that Alice bought was ruggedized and designed for use in harsh environments.
- Inverted: Alice clicks too hard and the touchpad comes off.
- Subverted: She picks it up, and the screen falls off its hinges...
- Double Subverted: ...but keeps playing a video she was watching.
- Parodied: Alice shoots her laptop into the sun, and it survives the sun's collapse and the heat death of the universe.
- Zig-Zagged: Alice throws the laptop out the window, and it survives. Frustrated, she throws it at a rock, and it breaks into pieces. All the internals still work and the laptop is glued back together, unsightly but functional... Until Alice hits it against a light post, forcing the laptop's hard drive to be moved into another machine, where it works just fine.
- Averted:
- No attempt to destroy anything is made
- Every attempt at destruction succeeds.
- Enforced:
- It's product placement for an outdoor laptop company.
- Rule of Funny
- Lampshaded: "What does it take to break this stupid thing?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: Hackers target these laptops so, if caught, the user can't just resort to violence to stop them
- Defied: ???
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: After seeing Alice throw the laptop out the car window, we cut to her using the same laptop, heavily scratched and dirty, but functional.
- Played for Laughs:
- Alice hits the laptop with a sledgehammer, and the metal shatters.
- Alice has to use a nuclear bomb to destroy the laptop.
I tried to sever the link to Surprisingly Super-Tough Thing with a blowtorch, but SOMEHOW it still works.
