History Main / PortalCut

* In ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'', Jack uses this to screw with a bunch of spellcasters; he's looking through the portal when suddenly it fizzles out, decapitating him instantly. Two panels later he drops the illusion spell to show both he and the portal are perfectly fine.

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': One episode has the ''Enterprise'' crew discover a PortalNetwork created by the [[{{Precursors}} Ionians]]. The away team observes the portals cycling through various target destinations. At one point Data decides to stick his arm through a portal only for Captain Picard to pull his arm back and chastise him for doing that, as his arm could have been severed if he had it in there when another destination change happened.

* ''Manga/InuYasha'''s Meidou Zangetsu and, even more explicitly, his Cutting Meidou do this all the time. In the latter's case, even to things that are outright immune to the former.

** ''Manga/StardustCrusaders'': Vanilla Ice's Stand; Cream is capable of this -- and indeed does wind up doing this to [[spoiler:Avdol, leaving only his hands. He attempts this on Polnareff as well, managing to get his heels but ultimately failing to land the killshot. It pretty much kills Iggy in the 1993 OVA, though.]]
** ''Manga/DiamondIsUnbreakable'': Okuyasu has a similar power, but localized in his Stand's right hand, allowing him to tear scoop-shaped holes in anything around him, and can even ''[[ExaggeratedTrope erase the distance between him and something else]]''. The only reason it's not the single most powerful ability in a series already replete with [[StoryBreakerPower Story-Breaker Powers]] is because it's being used by [[DumbMuscle Okuyasu]].
** ''Manga/GoldenWind'': Illuso ends up doing this. Specifically, he [[spoiler:gets infected by Purple Haze. So, he escapes through a mirror but orders his Stand to leave the virus behind. This causes his infected hand to be forcibly removed]].

* ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRequiemOfTheWreckers'' has them finally defeat [[TheDreaded Overlord]] by taking advantage of the fact that he transforms into two separate vehicles. Springer and Verity manage to trick one half of him into the distant past (described as 'primordial,' as in not even ''stars'' had formed yet) while the other half was cast into the distant future at the heat death of the universe. They then shut the portal off, 'cutting' Overlord's experience of the time stream from a single experience into two separate ones. This leaves his body parts stranded across hundreds of billions of years in time. Without both his halves, Overlord cannot return to his robot form and full mind, and must essentialy GoMadFromTheIsolation from ''himself''.

* In Creator/TerryBisson's ''Numbers Don't Lie'', [[spoiler: a lunar rover is cut in half when it stays part-way through the portal too long]].

* In Creator/AleksandrZarevin's ''Lonely Gods of the Universe'', the protagonist invents a device that allows him to open a portal to anywhere at any time. He uses it to go see his long-dead mentor and set off yet another in a series of {{Stable Time Loop}}s. After spending several hours in the past, he starts climbing into the portal "window", only for the diesel-powered generator to fail, causing the portal to close and cut off the guy's legs. Luckily, his friend is nearby, and he survives the shock and massive blood loss. [[UnexplainedRecovery He gets better]], though. They also use a more reliable power source in the future. ([[WhatHappenedToTheMouse Strangely]], his mentor never mentioned a bloodied pair of legs he must have found outside his place.)

* In Creator/VernorVinge's ''Across Realtime'' series, the "bobbles", spherical fields that place anyone and anything within in temporal stasis, cut through anything intersecting the field's boundary when they activate.

* In the unofficial ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' [[GameMod expansion/conversion]] ''Travail'', this is how [[spoiler: Azoth]] dies: after you do enough damage to him he [[DirtyCoward tries to flee by opening a portal in the sky and flying through it]] only for it to close when he's mid way through and [[HalfTheManHeUsedToBe cut him half.]]

* In Creator/PhilipJoseFarmer's ''Literature/WorldOfTiers'' novels, one kind of interdimensional teleport trap used this method to dismember intruders.

* Langris Vaude from ''Manga/BlackClover''. His offensive Spatial Magic teleports and erases matter altogether. Its destructive capabilities made his parents favor him over older half-brother Finral, who is unable to use this because of his kind, cowardly personality.
* Hachigen Ushouda from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' uses a similar procedure to this using barriers to behead several Menos Grandes during the fight for Karakura when Aizen and his troops invade the Living World.

* Doctor Finitevus references this in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' when a character jumps at him, only to be redirected by a portal created by Doctor Finitevus. While that character is going through, Doctor Finitevus "wonders" what would happen if the portal were closed while someone were in it.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

* Occurs in ''Fanfic/ShinjiAndWarhammer40k'' during the fight against Leliel, when the opening to the Dirac sea closes on something, "cutting away at it with the universe's sharpest possible edge".
* In ''FanFic/SleepingWithTheGirls'' the MC is repeatedly warned about this happening with his HammerSpace device. That big of a ChekhovsGun hasn't fired quite yet but it eventually will. He also takes great pain to not hit anything or anyone important with it.

* In ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'':

* Done with a ''time'' portal on a character who can ''deliberately'' separate his body parts [[DetachmentCombat as a means to attack]]: ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRequiemOfTheWreckers'' has them ''finally'' defeat [[TheDreaded Overlord]] by taking advantage of the fact that he transforms into two separate vehicles. Springer and Verity manage to trick one half of him into the distant past (described as 'primordial,' as in not even ''stars'' had formed yet) while the other half was cast into the distant future at the heat death of the universe. They then shut the portal off, 'cutting' Overlord's experience of the time stream from a single experience into two separate ones. This leaves his body parts stranded across hundreds of billions of years in time. Without both his halves, Overlord cannot return to his robot form and full mind, and must essentialy GoMadFromTheIsolation from ''himself''.

** This is the power of the X-Men member Blink. She (well, an AlternateUniverse version of her) later refines this into actual full-body teleportation. The AU version is quite capable of slicing up what she teleports too, but the mainstream Franchise/MarvelUniverse version could ''only'' do that because of her [[HowDoIShotWeb limited of control of her powers]].

* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': One episode has the ''Enterprise'' crew discover a PortalNetwork created by the [[{{Precursors}}]] Ionians]]. The away team observes the portals cycling through various target destinations. At one point Data decides to stick his arm through a portal only for Captain Picard to pull his arm back and chastise him for doing that, as his arm could have been severed if he had it in there when another destination change happened.

* ''Series/{{The Sandman|2022}}'', "[[Recap/TheSandman2022S01E03DreamALittleDreamOfMe Dream a Little Dream of Me]]": Johanna Constantine has a FlashbackNightmare of a past case that ended badly when her friend Astra ignored her warnings and came too close while Johanna was trying to close a portal to Hell. Astra was dragged into the closing portal; Johanna caught her hand and tried to pull her out, and was left holding ''just'' her hand when the portal closed on her arm, neatly severing it and leaving the rest of Astra trapped in Hell.

* Done with a ''time'' portal on a character who can ''deliberately'' separate his body parts [[DetachmentCombat as a means to attack]]: ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRequiemOfTheWreckers'' has them ''finally'' defeat [[TheDreaded Overlord]] by taking advantage of the fact that he transforms into two separate vehicles. Springer and Verity manage to trick one half of him into the distant past (described as 'primordial,' as in not even ''stars'' had formed yet) while the other half was cast into the distant future at the heat death of the universe. They then shut the portal off, 'cutting' Overlord's experience of the time stream from a single experience into two separate ones. This leaves his body parts stranded across hundreds of billions of years in time. Without both his halves, Overlord cannot return to his robot form and full mind, and must essentialy GoMadFromTheIsolation from ''himself''.

* Done with a ''time'' portal on a character who can ''deliberately'' separate his body parts [[DetachmentCombat as a means to attack]]: ''ComicBook/TheTransformersRequiemOfTheWreckers'' has them ''finally'' defeat [[TheDreaded Overlord]] by taking advantage of the fact that he transforms into two separate vehicles. Springer and Verity manage to trick one half of him into the distant past (described as 'primordial,' as in not even ''stars'' had formed yet) while the other half was cast into the distant future at the heat death of the universe. This leaves his body parts stranded across hundreds of billions of years in time. Without both his halves, Overlord cannot return to his robot form and full mind, and must essentialy GoMadFromTheIsolation from ''himself''.

** Weaponized by the time of ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' with Fold Bombs -- overloaded Fold reactors which, when detonated, create [[SphereOfDestruction spherical portals]] that take everything within range into [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Fold space]], [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace which annihilates any unprotected target]] (hence the page image in SphereOfDestruction). They also have a bonus: matter teleported away by a Fold Bomb will leave a vacuum when it's gone, so activating one of these within an atmosphere will [[TeleFrag wreak further destruction on whatever is left behind]].

* One of the possible endings of ''Inside UFO 54-40'' in the ''Literature/ChooseYourOwnAdventure'' series of books, as well as the current page image.

* ''[[VideoGame/CorpseParty Corpse Party: Tortured Souls]]'', Happens to [[spoiler: Satoshi Mochida]] as the main characters escape the [[DarkWorld Heavenly Host Elementary School]]. The procedure requires them to have correct pieces of scrapped paper to invoke a teleportation chant. [[spoiler: The guy doesn't, and only his arms make it back to the real world as they have been locked by two friends who have the correct paper. His body is nowhere to be found.]]

** This also happens to Frank Archer in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime]], who just happens to be standing on the border of the philosopher's stone's transmutation circle when it activates. He has a large part of his body, including half of his face, become part of the stone and [[TwoFaced has it replaced with automail]].

* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** Vanilla Ice's stand Cream is capable of this -- and indeed does wind up doing this to [[spoiler:Avdol, leaving only his hands. He attempts this on Polnareff as well, managing to get his heels but ultimately failing to land the killshot. It pretty much kills Iggy in the 1993 OVA, though.]]
** Also, Okuyasu has a similar power, but localized in his stand's right hand, allowing him to tear scoop-shaped holes in anything around him, and can even ''[[UpToEleven erase the distance between him and something else]]''. The only reason it's not the single most powerful ability in a series already replete with [[StoryBreakerPower Story-Breaker Powers]] is because it's being used by [[DumbMuscle Okuyasu]].
** Illuso ends up doing this in part 5. Specifically, he [[spoiler:gets infected by Purple Haze. So, he escapes through a mirror but orders his Stand to leave the virus behind. This causes his infected hand to be forcibly removed]].

* In ''VideoGame/AnotherWorld'', This happens to Lester's lab in the intro. The particle experiment goes awry, taking Lester and a sphere of space around him to a distant planet. This leaves exposed piping and missing wall and floor in his lab.

* The manual for ''Final VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' says this happens to a cyberdemon after a portal from hell is shut down with a "quantum accelerator."

* Specifically [[AvertedTrope averted]] in ''VideoGame/{{Portal}}''. According to the [[WordOfGod developer commentary]], they wanted players to feel safe when standing in portals, so they made sure that if a portal ever closed while the player, or an object, was inside of it, said player or object would be pushed or teleported out of the portal unharmed. The player can only harm themself with a closing portal by exploiting a glitch[[labelnote:*]]Shortly after [[spoiler:[=GLaDOS=] tries to kill you in the incinerator]], there's a large block-shaped piece of equipment with a small gap you can only get under by crouching. Crawl under it, make a portal on the bottom, make a second somewhere else, stand up while below the first portal, and move the first portal somewhere else. However, it doesn't kill you, as the game engine is not capable of slicing the player, your legs are transported inside the wall (or floor), and you're stuck until you load a new save.[[/labelnote]], although they can open portals on surfaces with cameras or ladder steps attached to sever them.

* Used in concept in ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein 2009}}''. There are certain walls with a specific symbol on them indicating that you can pass through them by entering the Veil. Exit the Veil halfway through one of these walls and you instantly die. The game does have a hint warning you of this, but decides [[NowYouTellMe the right time to tell you so is right as you have already deliberately killed yourself in this manner trying to determine what happens]].

** In an early episode of ''Series/StargateSG1'', a person is partially decapitated after having their head held part-way through Earth's gate while it's deliberately shut down. It's worth noting that Earth's Stargate was jury-rigged with local computer hardware and software in place of a vital component, which probably voided the warranty on the safety systems.

* ''Anime/{{Macross}}'':
** In ''Anime/SuperDimensionFortressMacross'', this [[MassTeleportation is what happens to South Ataria Island and a good amount of the '' environment'' around it]]. The [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum Fold Engines]] on the Macross generate a [[SphereOfDestruction spherical field]] around the ship, engulfing part of the island and neatly cutting it off the Earth. The other end of the Fold gate, on the orbit of Pluto, shows a perfect sphere of land, sea, air, clouds, ''and sunlight'', instants before dissipating.... which [[SpaceIsCold flash-freezes]] the teleported mass.
** Weaponized by the time of ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' with Fold Bombs -- overloaded Fold reactors which, when detonated, create [[SphereOfDestruction spherical portals]] that take everything within range into [[OurWormholesAreDifferent Fold space]], [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace which annihilates any unprotected target]] (hence the page image in SphereOfDestruction). They also have a bonus: matter teleported away by a Fold Bomb will leave a vacuum when it's gone, so activating one of these within an atmosphere will [[TeleFrag wreak further destruction on whatever is left behind]].

* A man in ''Manga/OPartsHunter'' has an O-Part that consists of two rings which can become portals between each other, and he can close the portal while something is going through to cut it apart (he does this to Jio's boomerang).

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'':
** Gluttony's ''mouth'' does this to Envy's upper torso (accidentally) and [[AnimatedArmor Alphonse's hand]] while attempting to "eat" Roy Mustang. [[spoiler:Since the upper torso contained the philosopher's stone, it was the part that regenerated inside Gluttony's StomachOfHolding]].
** This also happens to Frank Archer in [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime]], who just happens to be standing on the border of the philosopher's stone's transmutation circle when it activates. He has a large part of his body, including half of his face, become part of the stone and [[TwoFaced has it replaced with automail]].
* Two Contractors with different kinds of teleportation powers in ''Anime/DarkerThanBlack'' use them offensively:
** The first could {{Swap Teleport|ation}} two objects, and would often switch an opponent's [[BeatStillMyHeart vital organs]] with some random object.
** The second could teleport things covered by [[BloodyMurder his blood]], so he would take a knife and fling bits of his blood all over people before teleporting the sections of their body the blood covers... somewhere else.
* In ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'', Koemushi does this when a character points a gun at him. He retaliates teleporting him away, leaving the gun with the guy's hand still holding it. "[[JerkAss Have a nice trip]]", indeed.
* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** Vanilla Ice's stand Cream is capable of this -- and indeed does wind up doing this to [[spoiler:Avdol, leaving only his hands. He attempts this on Polnareff as well, managing to get his heels but ultimately failing to land the killshot. It pretty much kills Iggy in the 1993 OVA, though.]]
** Also, Okuyasu has a similar power, but localized in his stand's right hand, allowing him to tear scoop-shaped holes in anything around him, and can even ''[[UpToEleven erase the distance between him and something else]]''. The only reason it's not the single most powerful ability in a series already replete with [[StoryBreakerPower Story-Breaker Powers]] is because it's being used by [[DumbMuscle Okuyasu]].
** Illuso ends up doing this in part 5. Specifically, he [[spoiler:gets infected by Purple Haze. So, he escapes through a mirror but orders his Stand to leave the virus behind. This causes his infected hand to be forcibly removed]].
* ''Manga/InuYasha'''s Meidou Zangetsu and, even more explicitly, his Cutting Meidou do this all the time. In the latter's case, even to things that are outright immune to the former.
* Hachigen Ushouda from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' uses a similar procedure to this using barriers to behead several Menos Grandes during the fight for Karakura when Aizen and his troops invade the Living World.

* ''[[VideoGame/CorpseParty Corpse Party: Tortured Souls]]'', Happens to [[spoiler: Satoshi Mochida]] as the main characters escape the [[DarkWorld Heavenly Host Elementary School]]. The procedure requires them to have correct pieces of scrapped paper to invoke a teleportation chant. [[spoiler: The guy doesn't, and only his arms make it back to the real world as they have been locked by two friends who have the correct paper. His body is nowhere to be found.]]
* An early plot in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' features villains attempting to kill [[MadeOfIron All Might]] by having their strongest member pull him halfway through a portal while a team-mate closes it. It fails when Bakugo pounces on the one controlling the portal and breaks his concentration while Todoroki freezes the other, giving All Might a chance to escape.

* This is the power of the Franchise/XMen member Blink. She (well, an AlternateUniverse version of her) later refines this into actual full-body teleportation. The [=AU=] version is quite capable of slicing up what she teleports too, but the mainstream Franchise/MarvelUniverse version could ''only'' do that because of her [[HowDoIShotWeb limited of control of her powers]].
* Another X-Men mutant, Locus (this one a villain) likes to do this, or at least threatens to do it a lot (not sure if she's ever done so "onscreen").
* In Marvel's ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse storyline [[spoiler:the alternate-reality version of Nightcrawler teleports a villain's head off]].

* ''ComicBook/XMen'' villain Fitzroy [[spoiler: met his end this way, as he tried to head through one of his portals [[GodhoodSeeker to merge with time itself]]. He got halfway in, but a shot from Bishop distracted him long enough that the other half didn't before it closed.]]
* This is how Manhunter killed [[spoiler: her supervillain father]].

* During Liefeld's tenure on ComicBook/XFactor, the Mutant Liberation Front's member Reaper had his leg cut off that way when teammate Zero closes his portal a second too soon.

* Doctor Finitevus references this in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' when a character jumps at him, only to be redirected by a portal created by Doctor Finitevus. While that character is going through, Doctor Finitevus "wonders" what would happen if the portal were closed while someone were in it.
* Qubit did this on a massive scale to an invading Vespan fleet in ''ComicBook/{{Irredeemable}}'' when he shut down a warp gate based on his designs while a gigantic spaceship was half way through it.
* This led to the demise of the obscure 90's heroine and ComicBook/YoungJustice ally Anima. She chased after Prometheus through his escape portal, only for it to close while she was only halfway through it. The next time we see her, it's as a severed torso floating aimlessly in the void.

* ''Fanfic/ACrownOfStars'': When the Avalon army is transporting troops from their homeworld to the "Evangelion" Earth through a dimensional portal, [[spoiler:Rei]] collapses the gate just when an HumongousMecha was stepping through it, cutting it in two.
-->There was simultaneously a tremendous CRACK and rumble like thunder in the air over their heads and seconds later a chunk of shallow-curved metal the size of a garage door slammed to the earth near them, every line on the inside of the slice glowing orange-red with heat. Asuka didn’t jump too badly at the impact; it was too much like things she’d seen before involving chunks of Angel or buildings in her past battles. But she knew instantly something was very much not right. That was the front two meters of the Black Knight that had been coming through the portal. ‘Where is the rest of it?!’
* Occurs in ''FanFic/ShinjiAndWarhammer40k'' during the fight against Leliel, when the opening to the Dirac sea closes on something, "cutting away at it with the universe's sharpest possible edge".
* In ''FanFic/SleepingWithTheGirls'' the MC is repeatedly warned about this happening with his HammerSpace device. That big of a ChekhovsGun hasn't fired quite yet but it eventually will. He also takes great pain to not hit anything or anyone important with it.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5727578/1/Monkey-D-Haru-and-the-Philosophers-Stone Monkey D Haru and the Philosophers Stone]]'', Haru (Harry) uses his [[ThinkingUpPortals Portal Portal Fruit]] powers in this way to cut off the club hand of the troll that was attacking Hermione.

* The time travel machine in the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise creates a perfectly spherical bubble for the traveler, cutting out any matter that happens to be in the way of the destination.
* Time travel in the movie ''Film/{{Timeline}}'' causes an odd variation. It's described as being, essentially, a fax machine in 3D. Send a person through enough times and the copy distorts. This results in one unfortunate traveler not only being dumped in the desert, but his organs/veins/bones/etc. being joined together about a 1/2 inch off, causing massive hemorrhages and most likely a painful death.
* When they activate the magic key in ''Film/MastersOfTheUniverse'', a good portion of earth gets teleported into the throne room. Along with a car and a part of the adjacent wall.
* The ''Film/{{Stargate}}'' film had this happen to Ra's [[TheDragon Dragon]] when his head is inside the ring teleporter, but the rest of his body isn't.
-->'''O'Neil:''' ''[[PreMortemOneLiner Give my regards to King Tut, asshole!]]''
* This happens to the Tall Man in ''Film/PhantasmIIILordOfTheDead'', but he's still able to [[HelpingHands lend a hand]] afterwards.

* In ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'', Blink takes off a Sentinel's arm when one of her portals closes on it. Unfortunately, it closed because said arm had just stabbed her.

-->'''Skurge:''' ''[annoyed]'' Well, well, look who decided to pop in. Thanks for scaring away my company and drenching my workplace in brains.

* ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' novel ''[[http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Elfshadow Elfshadow]]'' shows a strike team trying to jump through opened portal while mage tries to move it into more defended location to prevent such attacks. By the end of the spell, one of attackers was about halfway through.
* In ''Literature/ConSentiency'', temporary portals are the main transportation method, so these accidents happen, especially in hasty action (''Whipping Star'' [[spoiler:weaponises this, with the villains deliberately covering just the victim's head with a portal, then switching it off]]).
* In ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series, [[ThinkingUpPortals gateways]] cause Portal Cuts when they open and close. This is weaponized in the "Deathgate" weave, which sends fluctuating gateways zooming through the battlefield[[labelnote:*]]And, more importantly, killing any Shadowspawn that pass through the gates.[[/labelnote]]. Meanwhile, one character particularly adept with Gateways [[MundaneUtility uses tiny ones as perfectly precise knives]] for leathercrafting.
* The ''Literature/CrossTimeEngineer'' series employs Portal Cuts for many purposes, including [[CoolSword embedding a super-thin layer of diamond in the center of a sword to make the edge]].

* In the Creator/RobertAHeinlein short story "Literature/ByHisBootstraps", the time gate has an unusual form of this. The edge of the portal has no physical solidity, so if an object won't fit through the gate, the part that fits through the time gate does so, while the rest of it just keeps on moving in its original space-time and gets left behind. The result is something like being sheared with an infinitely sharp knife. [[spoiler: Fortunately, nothing more important than a printing of {{UsefulNotes/Adolf Hitler}}'s autobiography ''Mein Kampf'' is destroyed due to this.]]

* In Creator/DanSimmons' ''[[Literature/HyperionCantos The Fall of Hyperion]]'', a PortalNetwork links hundreds of worlds. At the end of the book, [[spoiler:the network was shut off without warning, and thousands of people simultaneously die in this manner.]]
* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's stories:
** ''Literature/ItsSuchABeautifulDay'': Richard Hanshaw's reluctance to use the [[PortalDoor Door to teleport to school]] is briefly attributed to the fear that the Door could break down when he was half-way through, prompted by the actual breakdown of the door. The real reason is that, [[spoiler:after being forced to walk to school when the portal was out of order, he prefers to go outside]].
** ''Literature/PebbleInTheSky'': Joseph Schwartz is suddenly [[TimeTravel transported into the far-future]]. He loses the toe of a shoe and only half of a doll that was lying on the ground is carried along with him.
* In Creator/MercedesLackey's ''[[Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar Owl]]'' trilogy, the protagonist Darian loses his parents to WildMagic. Years later, he tracks down their campsite and finds a nearly perfect granite sphere, with the buried bones of a foot pressed against it. Using the bones in a SympatheticMagic spell, he finds that the magic swapped his parents' campsite with a mountainside to the far north, with his father's foot outside the area of effect.
* In Creator/AleksandrZarevin's ''Lonely Gods of the Universe'', the protagonist invents a device that allows him to open a portal to anywhere at any time. He uses it to go see his long-dead mentor and set off yet another in a series of {{Stable Time Loop}}s. After spending several hours in the past, he starts climbing into the portal "window", only for the diesel-powered generator to fail, causing the portal to close and cut off the guy's legs. Luckily, his friend is nearby, and he survives the shock and massive blood loss. [[UnexplainedRecovery He gets better]], though. They also use a more reliable power source in the future. ([[WhatHappenedToTheMouse Strangely]], his mentor never mentioned a bloodied pair of legs he must have found outside his place.)
* In ''The Tomorrow War'' setting by Alexander Zorich the volume moved by an {{FTL}} drive is effectively limited (the cost becomes prohibitive), so big ships have to use several. When some malfunction causes them to jump ever so slightly out of sync, this can't end well.
* The climax of the novel ''Film/ThePrestige'' by Christopher Priest features a version of this: [[spoiler: Borden turns off Tesla's copy/teleportation machine in the middle of its cycle while Angier's in it. This splits Angier's total body mass between the two locations. One ends up being a sort of ghost who can push through walls and the other simply deteriorates through a series of unnatural afflictions before dying some months later.]]
* This happens to the landscape as a side effect of the Ring of Fire event in ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo''.
* In Creator/VernorVinge's ''Across Realtime'' series, the "bobbles", spherical fields that place anyone and anything within in temporal stasis, cut through anything intersecting the field's boundary when they activate.
** ''Literature/ThePeaceWar'': When Vandenberg Air Force Base was bobbled during the War, an aircraft was on the edge of the volume of effect and one wing was sliced off by the boundary. Later in the book, one of the protagonists is trying to escape a secret hideout before the villains bobble it, and ''nearly'' makes it; his friends, searching for him, find the tips of two of his fingers, the only part of him that was outside the bobble when it formed.
** ''Literature/MaroonedInRealtime'': Marta Korolev's robot bodyguard Fred is sliced in half when a bobble unexpectedly forms; it's likely, though not explicitly confirmed, that the villain of the novel deliberately timed the formation of the bobble so that its boundary would cut through Fred. In another incident, the protagonist is bobbled as an emergency protective measure while he's inside his house, then the bobble is removed from the house; when he returns later, he finds a curved slice taken out of the walls (those that weren't demolished to get the bobble out) and floor.
* In ''Literature/ShadowOps'', protagonist Britton discovers that this is one of the deadlier applications of his inherent gate magic. The gates he can create instantly slice through any material when opening or closing, and Britton puts it to devastating use once he learns how to rapidly open and close them.
* In Creator/JohnBirmingham's ''Literature/AxisOfTime'' trilogy, the [[TimeTravel Transition]] only takes a part of a British helicopter carrier to 1942. The rest remains in 2021. The ship's reactor promptly blows up. There are also cases of TeleFrag as the USS ''Leyte Gulf'' from 2021 gets "spliced" with USS ''Astoria'' from 1942.
* Vorpal swords in ''[[Literature/{{Accelerando}} Glasshouse]]'' work this way; they use millimetres-across [[PortalDoor T-]][[OurWormholesAreDifferent Gates]] situated around the edge of a dull strip of steel to simply send the matter within the kerf to wherever the gates lead, while the rest of the person or object on each side of the "edge" gets left behind. T-gates used for travel are usually built into a frame or tunnel to prevent things like this happening.
* In the ''Literature/KronikiDrugiegoKregu'' series a mage caste called Wanderers has teleportation abilities and can use them to cut objects in half. This power was widely used to kill enemy soldiers during the last war and made Wanderers one of the most feared mage castes.
* In Creator/DonaldWismer's ''Literature/{{Starluck}}'', the Matter Transmitter a.k.a. "M.T." (and colloquially "empty", as they appeared) is any matched pair of gray screens which were eventually perfected by the protagonists and made into [[Main/WeaponizedTeleportation shields for starships and personal assault equipment.]] During a revolt, [[spoiler: the Emperor was assassinated this way by the main character, Paul.]]

* In the ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novel of the "Invasion" set, the ''Weatherlight'' manages to cut an attacking Phyrexian warship in half using this tactic. Notably, rather than doing something as simple as cutting the juice, they blew up one of the Phyrexian ships maintaining the portal, taking out the whole mess with one volley. (And trapping them on the wrong side of the portal, but that's exactly where they need to be.)
* In ''Literature/PastwatchTheRedemptionOfChristopherColumbus'', the temporal displacement field forms a perfect sphere, cutting off anything that crosses it. They deliberately avert this trope by placing the travelers in a metal vessel just slightly smaller than the field. That means the inner layer of the vessel is transported with them, but it's thin enough to tear through pretty easily.

** The Shadows have a weapon that can destabilise a jump point as a ship is emerging. We are thankfully spared seeing what this does to the crews of the emerging ships, but it's definitely fatal.

* ''Series/{{Primeval}}'' features this when an anomal closes on a [[MonsterOfTheWeek Raptor]] that had been sent back to its time by it after a fight with the protagonists, and severs its head when it attempts to attack the protagonists by surprise.
* In ''Series/{{Fringe}}'':
** The first season finale has this in several instances as Mr. Jones tries to cut his way through to the parallel universe [[spoiler: where William Bell is hiding]]. First time he takes the rear axle off a truck that's passing through the gate; second time, he cuts a soccer player in half as the gate collapses. [[spoiler:He gets his comeuppance when Peter shuts down the portal as he's trying to pass through it]].
** This trope is also the real reason [[spoiler:Nina lost her arm.]]
** This happens again in season four when Olivia tries to follow a fugitive through a portal. She is fine but the car she is driving has a large chunk of its front cut off.
* In ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "Little Girl Lost", after pulling everyone out of the other dimension with moments to spare, someone observes, "Another few seconds, and half of you would've been here, and the other half..."
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS10E1TheThreeDoctors The Three Doctors]]", a green blob teleports the Doctor and part of the building he's in through a black hole, and later the rest of the building. The two parts of the building arrive in different locations. At the end, when everything is sent back to "where it came from", the two parts of the building are re-assembled, apparently without any permanent damage.
** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E5TimeHeist Time Heist]]", the bomb left for the team is a dimensional shift bomb, displacing a roughly cube-shaped section of floor for the team to escape through, which then returns to normal space about a minute later, leaving no trace behind.
** "[[Recap/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong The Husbands of River Song]]" reveals that the TARDIS has a safeguard in place to avert this by preventing the doors from engaging and the TARDIS dematerializing if it detects a lifeform as being inside the TARDIS and outside at the same time. This prevents River and the Doctor's immediate getaway until Hydroflax's body enters the TARDIS.

* Used offensively by the Minbari in the ''Series/BabylonFive'' backstory during their war with humans. Being a HigherTechSpecies, they can open their jump points with a surgical precision, especially if they lay an ambush. An [=EarthForce=] task force is obliterated when the humans are lured into an ambush, followed by jump points slicing open ships. The Minbari complete the destruction with their weapons, although Sheridan's ship survives.
* One BodyOfTheWeek in ''Series/TheDresdenFiles'' got cut in half when a hole made through a bank wall with a HandOfGlory snapped shut prematurely.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' when the Traveler attempts to run through a closing portal in the ''We Will Be Reunited'' quest, as the portal's closure obviously leaves them unharmed.

** It's also done deliberately in ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' [[spoiler:to a Covenant Supercarrier. Noble Team converts the slipspace drive from a UNSC Frigate into a "slipspace bomb" and sets it off inside the supercarrier. The circular portal leaves the severed nose and tail of the ship drifting dead in space while most of the ship - [[HeroicSacrifice and Jorge]] - is portal'd out and presumably annihilated]].

* In one end of ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' the CosmicHorror Ulyaoth [[CurbStompBattle fights]] Chattur'gha using these.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Starlancer}}'', destroying an enemy cruiser in this manner is a bonus objective in one mission. You have to watch your timing to accomplish it, though.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Runescape}}'', This is the fate of one of the boss creatures in Dungeoneering. The boss, simply called Stomp, is a behemoth, much like the other ones... except for that it's too large to get through, so only its head sticks out of a portal... that calls down rocks in the fight. After the portal gets weakened several times, at the end of the fight the portal snaps shut, resulting in a surprisingly graphic death - The wall where the portal was gets rather bloodstained, and the monster flails, then shudders to its death. It would be almost sympathetic if the boss [[ThatOneBoss weren't so irritating]] due to a huge amount of FakeDifficulty.
* Sargeras, the BigBad of ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}}'', lost his physical body in ''Literature/TheWarOfTheAncients'' when the portal bringing him into Azeroth closed shut. But he isn't gone, and has created Avatars and possessed Medivh since then.

* In ''VideoGame/AnotherWorld'', This happens to Lester's lab in the intro. The particle experiment goes awry, taking Lester and a sphere of space around him to a distant planet. This leaves exposed piping and missing wall and floor in his lab.
* The manual for ''Final VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' says this happens to a cyberdemon after a portal from hell is shut down with a "quantum accelerator."
* In ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'':
** This can happen when traveling through a Tear (a portal to an AlternateUniverse), which is how [[spoiler:Elizabeth lost her pinky finger, which is what gave her the power to open even more Tears: since a part of her (the pinky) remained in another world, she eventually grew up into a LiminalBeing stretched across all possible timelines and universes]].
** And in ''[[DownloadableContent Burial at Sea]]'', [[spoiler:you see the portal scene from an alternate universe Comstock's point of view, where he was unable to bring Elizabeth all the way through. But instead of her pinky, ''she loses her head''. This breaks his ambitions for Columbia and he sought escape by going to [[VideoGame/BioShock1 Rapture]], leading to the DLC story.]]
* In ''VisualNovel/LorenTheAmazonPrincess'', [[spoiler:the goblin Grob]] is ultimately killed in this manner. An attempt to escape via teleportation is interrupted by the PlayerCharacter, causing only half of his body to be teleported.
* Used in concept in ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein 2009}}''. There are certain walls with a specific symbol on them indicating that you can pass through them by entering the Veil. Exit the Veil halfway through one of these walls and you instantly die. The game does have a hint warning you of this, but decides [[NowYouTellMe the right time to tell you so is right as you have already deliberately killed yourself in this manner trying to determine what happens]].

* This is what happens if you unplug a window while halfway through it in ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth''. It is the method of attack used to slay [[spoiler:Flthulu]].
* Later in ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', [[spoiler:Dirk]] purposefully sticks his own head in a microwave-sized sendificator, sending his head to the destination and leaving his decapitated corpse behind [[ThanatosGambit as part of his plan]].
* In ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' Riff tried to use this to pull off the SawAWomanInHalf trick. There were a [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=070813 couple]] [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=070815 complications]]. It also cuts [[http://www.sluggy.com/comics/archives/daily/20040824 chains]].
* In ''Webcomic/HitmenForDestiny'', an otherwise apparently invulnerable assassin is killed by portal-cutting his lower body off. His dead upper body shows up at several points later on, apparently still invulnerable as it shows no signs of decay.

* Happens to a Golden Sand Dragon in [[http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/467 this page of]] ''Webcomic/LookingForGroup''- specifically, the one Cale was riding, resulting in the Dragon being cleanly split in half, which was so gross that even one of the Portal Mages had to remark "Dude. Sick."
* In ''Webcomic/{{Erfworld}}'', Jack uses this to screw with a bunch of spellcasters; he's looking through the portal when suddenly it fizzles out, decapitating him instantly. Two panels later he drops the illusion spell to show both he and the portal are perfectly fine.
* Mentioned in ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'' [[http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2012-02-03 here]], where a new teleportation device is first tested on Schlock, who can survive dismemberment since he is an amorphous blob of carbosilicate.
* In one ''Webcomic/{{Nodwick}}'' comic the author is showing fans at a con that he got his ideas from simply looking through an interdimensional portal by pulling Nodwick halfway through. Then guest of honor William Shatner insists they "divert all power to the deflector shields" and the con staff decided to humor him.

%%* Implied to have happened to Eva in ''Literature/VoidDomain''.

* ''WesternAnimation/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' has an odd example. In "Brain Drain," an unstable transmatter gate nicknamed "Old Chompy" apparently has a tendency to not only short out, but to randomly switch destinations, sending Brainiac 5's [[LosingYourHead head to one planet and his body to another]]. Incidentally, the gates had a ''very'' strong resemblance to Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}s. However, in the Live-Action TV section, you'll see that the real thing has safeguards that make it better at avoiding such things.
* After hastily trying to get a teleporter to work, Dr. Venture in ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' ends up teleporting his body into various places, including an arm that appeared outside of a prison miles away. The body parts still function as if they were attached, as evident when Venture observes that when one of his nipples feels cold, they both shrivel ([[TooMuchInformation which Brock really didn't want to hear about]]).
** In the Season 7 episode "The Unicorn in Captivity", one-shot villain Ramburglar gets on the bad end of one of these when, after being injured in a fight with Brock, falls on top of an experimental teleporter that Rusty had recently invented. Unfortunately for him, only his head lands on it and is teleported away from his body, decapitating him.
* This happens in ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'' when one of Bob's time-locked portals closed when a guardian ship was passing through it.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'', the Hobgoblin acquires the portal-opening Time Dilation Accelerator and goes on a crime spree. Then he loses a part of his cape this way, [[OhCrap making him realize]] that he ''really'' needs to find a battery for the device that's ''not'' about to go dead.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/MartinMystery'', the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Sandman]] tried to get into to the waking world through a portal in a computer screen, managing to get an arm through before Martin turned off the power. Instead of acting like a guillotine though, the closed portal was more along the lines of a slammed window, pinning the Sandman's arm and trapping him.
* Combined with a TeleFrag in the second season of ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty''. When Morty is being threatened by a hostile alien, Rick comes to his rescue, arriving via portal. The portal opens up ''inside'' the alien, cleanly slicing it in half, before Rick steps out of the portal.
* PlayedForLaughs in an episode of ''Franchise/ScoobyDoo'', where the bumbling apprentice genie Babu tries to make himself disappear in response to the MonsterOfTheWeek appearing. Only his top half does so, causing his lower half to run off without him. It doesn't hurt him, but it's rather embarrassing.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{DuckTales|2017}}'' has Scrooge and the gang teleported to another dimension by a druid circle similar to Stonehenge during a game of golf. Launchpad and Huey are in a golf cart which is stuck between two of the stones at the time the portal (outlined by the stone circle) activates. The back half of the cart still outside the circle is severed and they spend most of the rest of the episode comically carrying around the front half as if nothing happened.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' CouchGag for "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS26E17WaitingForDuffman Waiting for Duffman]]", the family sit on the couch and keep getting sucked into a portal above them. Eventually, one of the Barts gets off the couch and uses a nearby remote to close the portal, then notices that one of the Homers lost his head.
* ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex'': Played literally with Breach, who can throw portals she creates vertically like round FuumaShuriken.
* ''WesternAnimation/HotwheelsAcceleracers'': Vert Wheeler finishes the Storm Realm by the time the portal closes after the time is up, resulting the Deora II being cut in half and destroyed. This also happens with Taro, after he accidentally gets into the Racing Drones HQ and has to start the Water Realm over, finishing nearly at the same time but with the very back of the Riveted cut off and the car surviving for the next Realm.

** Also, Okuyasu has a similar power, but localized in his stand's right hand, allowing him to tear scoop-shaped holes in anything around him, and can even ''[[UpToEleven erase the distance between him and something else]]''. The only reason it's not the single most powerful ability in a series already replete with [[StoryBreakerPowers Story-Breaker Powers]] is because it's being used by [[DumbMuscle Okuyasu]].

** Also, Okuyasu has a similar power, but localized in his stand's right hand, allowing him to tear scoop-shaped holes in anything around him, and can even ''[[UpToEleven erase the distance between him and something else]]''. The only reason it's not [[StoryBreakerPower the single most powerful ability in the series]] is because it's being used by [[DumbMuscle Okuyasu]].

** Also, Okuyasu has a similar power, but localized in his stand's right hand, allowing him to tear scoop-shaped holes in anything around him, and can even ''[[UpToEleven erase the distance between him and something else]]''. The only reason it's not the most powerful ability in the series is because it's being used [[IdiotHero by Okuyasu]].