History Main / NotTheFallThatKillsYou

* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' might be the largest offender of this trope since his ability has always been to run really really fast. [[RequiredSecondaryPowers Not necessarily stop super fast.]] Likewise, he doesn't suffer fall damage (though he is still vulnerable to falling into any {{Bottomless Pit|s}}). The closest the games get to depicting wall crash damage is to make him flatten against the wall, fall on the ground, and promptly spring back up, Disney-style (this was to be depicted in ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 Sonic 2]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/SonicGenerations Generations]]'', but cut out; it only appears in other 3D games like ''VideoGame/SonicUnleashed'' ([=Wii/PS2=])).

* In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tH4dyOPZnY Minecraft Speedrunner VS 3 Hunters]], LetsPlay/{{Dream}}, LetsPlay/GeorgeNotFound, LetsPlay/{{Sapnap}}, and [=BadBoyHalo=] are falling down a ravine, with Dream trying to escape from the other three who are hunting him. He falls in water which prevents him from taking fall damage and then he covers the water with wood and the other three die once they fall onto it.

** Specifically, InertialDampening is a whole thing. It's the reason accelerating to ''or'' decelerating from warp doesn't reduce everyone to paste on the walls. In the [=DS9=] episode "The Ship," a Jem'Hadar ship's entire crew is dead specifically because the inertial dampers failed and everyone went "squish." (Too bad our heroes must still contend with the Changeling leading them; their natural form is liquid so going "squish" doesn't hurt them.) However, outside impacts can't be predicted so the inertial dampers take a moment to compensate for the unexpected change in motion, hence the [[ScreenShake Star Trek Shake]] that would still be ''much worse'' without them.

* In the French film ''Film/LaHaine'', there is a recurring motif of the man who falls from the top of a four storey building. As he falls, he repeats, "''Jusqu'ici, tout va bien''" ("So far, so good", or "Up to here, all goes well"). ''Mais l'important n'est pas la chute... c'est l'atterrissage''.

* Subverted in ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'''s ''Chopper'': A {{sky surf|ing}}er catches a young child falling from a high-rise building, but despite the surfer's efforts to cushion the fall, the child dies from the sudden stop.
* In ''ComicBook/AstonishingXMen'', Hisako catches a plummeting classmate with her mutant armour up. He lives, but he's a mess.
* ''ComicBook/BatgirlYearOne'': Averted when Barbara Gordon's jumpline, made of normal rope, is cut by Batman before she can hurt herself with the sudden deceleration. Characters/{{Batgirl}} is later given some of the special 'batrope' to use with the explanation that it is elastic and extends/contracts in order to prevent the shock of an instant stop.
* Averted in ''ComicBook/BatmanHush'', where Batman, after his GrapplingHookGun line is mysteriously broken, attempts to grab onto a ledge, and immediately breaks several bones in his arms, falls further, and breaks the rest of his bones (there was even a bone chip in his skull). Ouch. Thank goodness a friendly brain surgeon was nearby.
* Acknowledged in the ''ComicBook/{{Bloodties}}'' crossover between the ComicBook/XMen and ComicBook/TheAvengers. At one point, [[Characters/IronManHeroes War Machine]] plummets from the sky after his armor is shut down, and [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]] swoops in to save him. She manages to catch him, but the act causes her immense pain, and she notes that it nearly tore her arm out of its socket.
* In a ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' issue, Cap is flung off a building. He doesn't catch a flagpole, he slams shield first into the cold, hard cement. His [[AppliedPhlebotinum Vibranium-steel alloy]] shield absorbs ninety-five percent of the impact but it's the five percent that bothers him. The same shield can disperse enough force that a punch from [[Characters/MarvelComicsBruceBanner the Hulk]] (who bench-presses MOUNTAINS) stops, instead of nailing you into the ground like a tent peg, and is explicitly the hardest thing in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse.
* In a ''ComicBook/{{Cloak and Dagger|MarvelComics}}'' story where Dagger is thrown out of a plane, Cloak saves her by enclosing her in the dark dimension of his cloak... but she still has all the momentum of the fall. So he repeatedly releases her over water for a second at a time, gradually slowing her down and leaving her extremely bruised but alive.
* In one issue of ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'', the writer carefully averts this trope. Elasti-Girl grows to giant size to catch a plane coming in for a crash landing, by running alongside it and taking hold of the fuselage. Robotman specifically notes that simply standing still and catching it by the wings would have ripped the plane apart.
* There's a scene in the ''ComicBook/ElfQuest: Shards'' storyline (''[[http://www.elfquest.com/comic_viewer.php?fd=/gallery/OnlineComics/SH/SH13/_Shards%20-%2013_page=1#_20# Issue 13]]'') where Strongbow the archer is falling to his certain death -- until the human Shuna reaches out an arm so that he can use her ''hand'' as a target for an arrow with a rope attached. The other elves then grab the rope to break his fall before his weight can rip her arm off. Now in order to pull this off both Strongbow and Shuna would need to have incredibly fast reflexes, and one suspects his momentum would drag everyone else over the edge anyway. ([[http://www.elfquest.com/gallery/OnlineComics3.html Link to all the comics]])
* Same goes for ''ComicBook/TheFlash'', who would certainly be giving high G-load injuries to the people he picks up and rushes off with at super-speed, as his acceleration is depicted as nearly instantaneous. Indeed, the [[MetaOrigin Speed Force]] was invented largely to "[[HandWave explain]]" these kinds of mechanics.

** Subverted with Makkari from ''Comicbook/TheEternals'', who, even when trying his hardest not to kill some terrorists while disarming them at half the speed of light, still broke their arms.
*** ComicBook/UltimateMarvel [[Characters/MarvelComicsQuicksilver Quicksilver]] did something similar, killing a lesser speedster by grabbing hold of her and accelerating so fast that her body was completely shredded.
* ''ComicBook/{{Fray}}'' opens with the [[BatmanColdOpen heroine being tossed off a building]] and breaking her fall by grabbing hold of (or falling on top of) various objects or {{flying car}}s, turning one fall into a series of lesser falls. She assumes this technique (standard for her as she's a professional cat burglar) is why she survived even if such a fall [[MadeOfIron would have crippled anyone else]]. The actual reason is her Slayer powers which give her SpiderSense and HealingFactor.
* Subverted in a ''ComicBook/MarshalLaw'' comic where insane {{exp|y}}ies of Marvel heroes are fleeing a burning asylum and falling to their deaths. The Daredevil clone tries breaking his fall by latching onto a flagpole... and promptly tears his arms off.
* Subverted in Creator/AlanMoore's ''ComicBook/{{Miracleman}}'' series. In one issue, the villain hurls an innocent bystander towards a building. Miracleman catches the lad, saving the child's life but breaking a few ribs in the process. In the same scene, the acceleration when the villain threw him should have had the exact same effect -- snapping most of his limbs and his neck, because the villain sure didn't bother about whiplash and such.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'', Victor Mancha stops Gert from falling using a steel fire escape, and references this trope, specifically the "matching speeds" angle.
* In ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogMegaManWorldsCollide'', Shadow catches [[CatchAFallingStar a falling]] [[spoiler:Dr. Light after he was thrown out of Eggman and Wily's floating base]].

** After the "shock of the fall" line (originated by Creator/StanLee) was discredited, the current line of WordOfGod thinking is that since SoftWater doesn't really exist, ''nothing'' Spidey could reasonably have done at the time could have saved her. Catch her, she snaps. Don't catch her, she splats. In-universe, Spidey's [[DefiedTrope learned from his mistakes]]. In a scenario years later where Mary Jane is sent plummeting, he knows to fire his webbing at multiple points, stopping Mary-Jane from getting lethal whiplash. At the end of ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'', Spidey repeats the feat again with Anna Maria Marconi, claiming that he has practiced it so much that now "he can do it in his sleep". And in ''ComicBook/NewAvengers'' (Vol. 2) #21, he catches falling teammates in a soft net of web instead of snaring them with a single line. There's also a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' issue where Spidey manages to save Gwen in this manner, and in a time travel storyline in ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl'', the younger webslinger tells Peter to stop, jumps past him, embraces Gwen and then uses webbing to slow both of them at the same time, more gently and protecting her neck as they go. She specifically states that Peter spent most of her childhood explaining to her what he wished [[MyGreatestFailure he could have done differently,]] so she knew ''exactly'' how to save Gwen this time.

* In ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'', minor hero The Net Prophet saves a suicidal Thor worshipper (it makes sense in context) from death by teleporting him from mid-plummet to under the surface of the nearby Atlantic Ocean, allowing the denser medium of the water to slow his velocity without the trauma of impacting the surface.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Subverted in ''Anime/KaleidoStar'': while in the trapeze, Leon drops May off, lets her fall a bit and then catches her by the hand, but the pull dislocates her shoulder. Later he does the same thing to Sora, but this time she's not injured because she was expecting it, and used her own strength to help Leon lift her.

* ''VideoGame/{{Bug|1995}}'' You only die if you fell off the terrain itself (each level is a huge floating 3D terrain). As long as Bug lands on a platform, he'll be safe.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

** When a man jumps from the top of a building to kill himself, Mr. Incredible, who is in the top of a much lower building, jumps across the street, grabs the man in mid-air and lands in a lower floor of the building from which the man had jumped. The man ends up with serious injuries and ends up suing Mr. Incredible.

** ''VideoGame/{{Halo Infinite}}'' notably averts this trope, as Master Chief can jump down from the tallest mountain in the game without taking any damage at all.

* Acknowledged in the ''Bloodties'' crossover between the ComicBook/XMen and ComicBook/TheAvengers. At one point, [[Characters/IronManHeroes War Machine]] plummets from the sky after his armor is shut down, and [[Characters/MarvelComicsStorm Storm]] swoops in to save him. She manages to catch him, but the act causes her immense pain, and she notes that it nearly tore her arm out of its socket.
* In a ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' issue, Cap is flung off a building. He doesn't catch a flagpole, he slams shield first into the cold, hard cement. His [[AppliedPhlebotinum Vibranium-steel alloy]] shield absorbs ninety-five percent of the impact but it's the five percent that bothers him. The same shield can disperse enough force that a punch from the Characters/{{Incredible Hulk|BruceBanner}} (who bench-presses MOUNTAINS) stops, instead of nailing you into the ground like a tent peg, and is explicitly the hardest thing in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse.

*** Handled relatively reasonably at one point: Instead of trying to catch the pilot who's falling because his ejection seat's parachute isn't opening, Tony Stark goes for the mechanism to trigger the parachute instead. Incidentally, that helps to illuminate the fact that people can be decelerated from terminal velocity pretty dang fast and still survive, just not ''instantaneously''; otherwise parachutes would be useless.

*** Later on, Tony gets blasted out of the sky by a tank, and slams hard into the ground, making a large crater. He then crawls out, damaged but alive. This contrasts heavily with [[Characters/IronManHeroes Rhodey]]'s fate in ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'', where the War Machine suit's reactor is blasted off at cruising altitude, and the now-inert armor is basically a metal coffin as it plummets to the ground -- explicitly stating that Tony's various suits ''need'' the gigantic amounts of power from their Arc reactors to actively cushion the squishy human inside from kinetic blows just as much as they do to fire repulsor beams or fly.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has players suffering fall damage if they jump off a cliff that is too high. However, you can't die from fall damage, only be reduced to 1 HP... as long as you're not currently in battle. If you are, you ''will'' die from falling too far. The game also ignores SoftWater by treating deep pools of water as solid ground if you fall into it from a great height. Fall damage inside dungeons is completely ignored for the sake of convenience.

* ''VideoGame/GarrysMod'' is even worse than the above ''Half-Life 2'' in this regard -- no matter how far you fall, unless you have some addon that ''makes'' falls more realistically painful, at most you will suffer ''ten damage'' (which, by the way, can be easily and immediately regained by spawning and using a pair of one of the default entities that comes with Garry's Mod). As stated, some add-ons make this more realistic, like the "Perfected Climb SWEP". Given the nature of Garry's Mod, however, the default behavior is likely a safety to help keep you from hurting yourself while world-building. The fact that realistic damage add-ons exist and can be activated means the choice (as in most things in Garry's Mod) is up to the world-builder.

->''"Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of thirty-two feet per second per second. Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Miss Lane, who is now traveling at approximately a hundred and twenty miles an hour, hits them, and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces."''
-->-- '''Sheldon''', ''Series/TheBigBangTheory''

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' featured minor fall damage that fit this trope, but ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands 2}}'' removed fall damage altogether. In fact, at one point, one of the characters tells you that while you're standing on an easily 200 foot skyscraper to jump off, if you do so he remarks how badass you are. Of course the player will do so because there's absolutely no punishment to doing it other than being praised for it.
* ''VideoGame/{{Bug}}'' You only die if you fell off the terrain itself (each level is a huge floating 3D terrain). As long as Bug lands on a platform, he'll be safe.

* Occasionally subverted with ''Franchise/SpiderMan'', with the most well-known case of said subversion being when he attempted to [[ComicBook/TheNightGwenStacyDied catch Gwen Stacy]] with his webbing after the Green Goblin tossed her off a bridge, but the sudden stop snapped her neck. Creator/MarvelComics briefly tried to [[RetCon reverse course]] on this, saying that it, indeed, ''was'' the fall that killed her; that [[ReEntryScare the shock caused her to have a heart attack and die]].
** After the "shock of the fall" line (originated by Creator/StanLee) was discredited, the current line of WordOfGod thinking is that since SoftWater doesn't really exist, ''nothing'' Spidey could reasonably have done at the time could have saved her. Catch her, she snaps. Don't catch her, she splats. In-universe, Spidey's [[DefiedTrope learned from his mistakes]]. In a scenario years later where Mary Jane is sent plummeting, he knows to fire his webbing at multiple points, stopping Mary-Jane from getting lethal whiplash. At the end of ''ComicBook/SuperiorSpiderMan'', Spidey repeats the feat again with Ana Maria, claiming that he has practiced it so much that now "he can do it in his sleep". And in ''ComicBook/NewAvengers'' (Vol. 2) #21, he catches falling teammates in a soft net of web instead of snaring them with a single line. There's also a ''ComicBook/WhatIf'' issue where Spidey manages to save Gwen in this manner, and in a time travel storyline in ''ComicBook/SpiderGirl'', the younger webslinger tells Peter to stop, jumps past him, embraces Gwen and then uses webbing to slow both of them at the same time, more gently and protecting her neck as they go. She specifically states that Peter spent most of her childhood explaining to her what he wished [[MyGreatestFailure he could have done differently,]] so she knew ''exactly'' how to save Gwen this time.
** In an old issue of ''Marvel Team-Up'', ComicBook/BlackPanther tried to catch Spider-Man after he was knocked from a great height. Panther noted that if he didn't time the catch exactly right, it would likely break both of their necks.

* ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragon'':
** During the final battle in the first movie, Astrid gets thrown from her dragon and goes tumbling through the air. Hiccup and Toothless fly in and catch her right before she splats. Hiccup asks Toothless if he caught her, Toothless makes sure he did and Astrid smiles rather happily considering that that catch probably should have broken her legs or spine. And in the same battle, [[spoiler:Hiccup and Toothless (without flight control) should probably be splats on the ground at the end (though we don't actually see how they hit the ground), and the only injury ends up being a leg needing to be replaced]], so that should probably be chalked up to [[NighInvulnerability barbarian hardiness and cartoon physics.]]

** In contrast to Gwen Stacy above, Spider-Man successfully catches Aunt May with his webbing in [[Film/SpiderMan2 his second movie]]. This movie's webbing is shown to be very elastic, but that doesn't stop the Podcast/RiffTrax from [[LampshadeHanging hanging a lampshade]]: "And her entire skeletal system was pulverized." If ''anyone'' was going to have a heart attack from the shock, it would be May.

...It's [[InertiaIsACruelMistress the landing]].

* Occasionally subverted with ''Franchise/SpiderMan'', with the most well-known case of said subversion being when he attempted to [[ComicBook/TheNightGwenStacyDied catch Gwen Stacy]] with his webbing after the Green Goblin tossed her off a bridge, but the sudden stop snapped her neck. Creator/MarvelComics briefly tried to [[RetCon reverse course]] on this, saying that it, indeed, [[ReEntryScare ''was'']] [[ReEntryScare the fall that killed her; that the shock caused her to have a heart attack and die]].

Due to this slightly misleading saying though, most writers (and admittedly, most people) tend to forget that it's not specifically hitting the ground that kills you either, but rather the sudden stop, whether it's grass, concrete, a car, a building, or somebody's arms. Thus, perhaps a more appropriate saying would be "Your velocity can't hurt you, until you try to ''change'' it."

This can happen in video games via GameplayAndStorySegregation. On the other hand, video games also sometimes invert this, so it is, in fact, the fall that kills you... in mid-air. All bets are off if you have NighInvulnerability.

* Occasionally subverted with ''Franchise/SpiderMan'', with the most well-known case of said subversion being when he attempted to [[ComicBook/TheNightGwenStacyDied catch Gwen Stacy]] with his webbing after the Green Goblin tossed her off a bridge, but the sudden stop snapped her neck. Creator/MarvelComics briefly tried to [[RetCon reverse course]] on this, saying that it, indeed, ''was'' the fall that killed her; that the shock caused her to have a heart attack and die.

...It's the landing.

Due to this slightly misleading saying though, most writers (and admittedly, most people) tend to forget that it's not specifically hitting the ground that kills you either, but rather the sudden stop, whether it's grass, concrete, a car, a building, or somebody's arms. Thus, perhaps a more appropiate saying would be "Your velocity can't hurt you, until you try to ''change'' it."

In fiction, however, one must specifically hit the ground to get killed in a fall. [[LiteralCliffhanger Grabbed a ledge?]] [[ImprobableFallingSave Grabbed by someone?]] [[CatchAFallingStar Got caught out of midair?]] ([[GiantRobotHandsSaveLives By a giant robot?]]) [[SoftWater Hit water instead of ground?]] [[GoombaSpringboard Landed on an enemy?]] [[CarCushion On a car?]] [[TrashLanding Fall in a dumpster?]] On a tree? Congratulations, you're completely uninjured, no matter how far you fell beforehand! [[VariableTerminalVelocity Someone taking a plunge from a great height]] is probably the most frequent offender.

* Parodied in ''Manga/CyborgGrandpaG'', where the titular cyborg sees the old lady from the tobacco store in the path of a bus and rushes over to push her out of the way. After he does so, he says, "Whew! That's great that my body can reach Mach two! If I was one second slower, she'd have been hit by that 30 km/h bus!" The old lady has been smashed to bits to the point where he has to rebuild her body as a cyborg like him...

* Similarly, in the ''Manga/{{Hellsing}}'' manga and OVA, the Major's elite commander makes a CommandingCoolness entrance by falling several hundred feet from a zeppelin and landing in a cloud of dust no worse for wear. [[spoiler:He's a genuine tough-as-nails badass: a seasoned veteran and a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolf]] to boot.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'': Gothel's DisneyVillainDeath happens when she's already rapidly aging. She dies on the way down, and turns to dust, which scatters at the bottom of the forest.
* ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'': Happens at two situations:

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'':