History Main / SurprisinglySuperToughThing

* In ''Film/IndependenceDay'' the US military launches a nuclear missile at a city-sized alien spacecraft. The ship's deflector shields repulsed normal missiles from jet fighters earlier, but everyone is truly demoralized when the intense fireball explosion subsides, only to reveal that the alien craft hasn't even suffered a single scratch.

* ''Literature/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Accelerator, in a fit of rage, once attempted to destroy the Windowless Building which houses Academy City's leadership. He did this by throwing an entire skyscraper at it at multiple times the speed of sound. Result? Not a scratch (though the thrown building was totally pulverized). Later novels note that the Windowless Building is made out of some kind of self-aware material named "Calculate Fortress", which is able to alter its composition and vibration properties to withstand any amount of force. The only way to break it is to exploit logical weaknesses in its self-altering procedures.

* ''Film/{{Dune|1984}}'' (1984): Paul tells the Fremen about an obelisk "cut from your hardest rock." He has them kick it, yell at it and cut it with a laser. Nothing. Then he blasts it with the [[{{BFG}} weirding module]] and shatters it.

* Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse:
** In ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'', Thor tries to break out of a containment cell built for the Hulk. He's surprised when it actually holds against his first hammer hit. After he's been dumped with the cell into free-fall, he adjusts his technique and flies straight at the crack he made with the first hit, breaking through.

* In ''Literature/{{Magic20}}'', Phillip used magic to make his Pontiac Fiero indestructible and gave it a magically powerful engine too. When a thief steals it, it plows straight through a brick wall without a scratch on it, forcing Phillip to flee before the authorities discover he's a wizard.

* The "Droplet" probe in ''[[Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem The Dark Forest]].'' It's able to annihilate [[spoiler:mankind's ENTIRE space fleet by ramming through every ship at relativistic speed]] without so much as a dent. This is because its surface is made of [[MadeOfIndestructium exotic "strong-interaction material"]] contained in a force field, making it effectively indestructible. Another droplet is later destroyed when its force field loses power, reverting it to ordinary metal.

* ''Series/TheGoldbergs'': In the episode "Kara-Te", Barry signs up for a school talent show. Onstage, he attempts to break a wooden board with his martial arts skills, but it fails hilariously with the board not even cracking.
* ''Series/TheGoodies'': One of their {{Parody Commercial}}s appears to be demonstrating the fuel efficiency of a car, up until it crashes into a paper banner stretched across the road reading "20 Miles".

* In the ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'' episode "My Best Laid Plans" Turk's phone withstands, unharmed, J.D. hurling it to the floor then stamping repeatedly on it, and being thrown from a fourth-story window.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E126LivingDoll Living Doll]]", a father finds that his daughter's "Talky Tina" doll can't be destroyed by any of the power tools in his basement, which include a rotating saw blade and a blowtorch.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' module ''Skarda's Mirror'' has a mirror of life trapping. The known method of smashing such mirrors didn't work, as it was really an Artifact that an Immortal created to be a gate into one of his personal planes.

* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', there are lanterns in towns that you can vandalize, and dynamite crates that blow up when shot. You can also shoot the "arms" off of cacti.
* In the text-based RPG ''Mobile Armored Marine'', your character must get past a heavily fortified door to continue the mission. One of your options is to try to blast it away with your weapons. That will fail, much to your described (remember, it's text-based) surprise. However, after that, you have the option of piling all your grenades against the door, which will work. The first plays this trope straight, but the latter part of this example inverts it.

** Throughout the first four games, the "Red/Blue devices" (Basically, switches in the form of a pedestal with an intricate circular object layered in its surface) can only be activated by the playable character's only means of interacting with the environment: attacking it. They won't break even if you use the character's strongest attack, though they'll activate faster if you do that.

* ''VideoGame/DeusEx'' has a notable example in door confusion. Most locked doors tell you whether or not they can be battered down or blasted open, and is shown as what is effectively a health bar. What isn't shown is how damaging a weapon it takes to actually damage it. This sometimes, but not always, corresponds with how much health it starts with. Sometimes you can crowbar your way into a door only to later find a door with the same amount of health that said weapon can't scratch. Likewise, after finding the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Dragons Tooth Sword]] and maxing out the low-tech weapons skill, many locked doors with finite durability can be destroyed with it. Then sometimes you encounter a fairly low-durability door that still shrugs off everything sort of explosives.

* A ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' cartoon, "WesternAnimation/MuchAdoAboutNutting", features a squirrel getting a hold of a coconut and finding it harder than normal to break open. This escalates until the coconut is dropped off the roof of a skyscraper and leaving only a crater in the street, before falling off of its stand and finally opening... revealing another coconut shell.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Grandpa complains that, unlike when he was growing up, toy soldiers today are cheaply made and break when stepped on. To his surprise, they are built better than he expected and security drags him from the store.
* In the WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants episode [[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS3E10WetPaintersKrustyKrabTrainingVideo "Wet Painters",]] Spongebob and Patrick's attempts to get some permanent paint off of Mr. Krab's [[NumberOneDime first dollar]] included using a belt sander and a fire hose, all of which don't affect the dollar or the paint on it one bit [[AmusingInjuries (it does affect Patrick though)]].
* The WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}} cartoon "The Three Little Pups" has Droopy's brick doghouse. While it obviously holds against the Wolf trying to blow it down, it also manages to survive against an axe, hammer, having its door rammed by a log, and enough explosives to level a town. Lampshaded by the Wolf in the cartoon.
-->'''Wolf:''' Now there's a well-built doghouse, man.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}}'': The Slappy Squirrel episode "Nutcracker Slappy" revolves around Slappy and Skippy trying to crack open a walnut with methods that start out normal and get increasingly over-the-top. By the end, it opens only to reveal it's empty inside, so Slappy complains about it to the director and stuffs him inside it.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAntAndTheAardvark'' by Creator/DePatieFrelengEnterprises has the aardvark encounter a tin can of chocolate-covered ants. Delighted by his find, he's blocked by not having a can opener handy. Aardvark tries a number of methods to crack open the can, but nothing works. Even the label remains intact. One method involves using a rubber mallet (a paneling tool), saying, "It can't hurt." The can is unharmed, but the blow rebounds the mallet into the aardvark's noggin. "I was wrong: it ''did'' hurt."
* The ''WesternAnimation/WhatACartoonShow'' short, "Yuckie Duck in Short Orders" has the title character serve a steak that absolutely refused to be cut not matter what tool he used.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': "The Vase" is about the kids attempting to destroy an ugly vase, only for it to turn to be seemingly indestructible. Placing it in the path of an oncoming truck results in the truck flipping over.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'': "Arthur's Birthday" has a nigh-indestructible clown piñata, to the point where the end of the episode shows Arthur's father attempting to use a ''chainsaw'' to try and cut it.

* In ''Series/BreakingBad'', Walt attempts to break a window in Ted's office building with a potted plant. The pot bounces off the thick glass and Walt is escorted out by security officers.
* ''Series/TheGoodies''. One of their {{Parody Commercial}}s appears to be demonstrating the fuel efficiency of a car, up until it crashes into a paper banner stretched across the road reading "20 Miles".

* In ''Series/TheGoldbergs'' episode "Kara-Te", Barry signs up for a school talent show. Onstage, he attempts to break a wooden board with his martial arts skills, but it fails hilariously with the board not even cracking.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' two-part episode "The Menagerie" has the throwback crew of the USS Enterprise unsuccessfully utilizing hand phasers and even ship-level phasers against a rock cave in order to try to blast through so that they can rescue Captain Pike, who is [[spoiler:being held captive inside by aliens]]. Subverted, in that [[spoiler:the telepathic aliens were just using mind control against the crew and giving them the illusion that the rock cave was still intact, when in reality they had already blasted through it.]]
* The ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekDeepSpaceNineS06E22Valiant Valiant]]" had the eponymous ''Defiant''-class fire a modified torpedo at a Jem'Hadar dreadnought, expecting it to disrupt the ship's antimatter containment system. Cue titanic explosion, only to have the dreadnought come out of the fireball with no apparent damage and blast the USS ''Valiant'' to pieces in minutes.

* In one episode of ''Series/{{Angel}}'', Doyle attempts to ram a gate in his car, but the gate holds.
-->'''Doyle:''' Damn, that's a good gate.
* In a famous episode of ''Series/{{The Twilight Zone|1959}}'', a father finds that his daughter's "Talky Tina" doll can't be destroyed by any of the power tools in his basement, which include a rotating saw blade and a blowtorch.

* The WesternAnimation/WhatACartoonShow short, "Yuckie Duck in Short Orders" has the title character serve a steak that absolutely refused to be cut not matter what tool he used.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball": "The Vase" is about the kids attempting to destroy an ugly vase, only for it to turn to be seemingly indestructible. Placing it in the path of an oncoming truck results in the truck flipping over.

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'': Accelerator, in a fit of rage, once attempted to destroy the Windowless Building which houses Academy City's leadership. He did this by throwing an entire skyscraper at it at multiple times the speed of sound. Result? Not a scratch (though the thrown building was totally pulverized). Later novels note that the Windowless Building is made out of some kind of self-aware material named "Calculate Fortress", which is able to alter its composition and vibration properties to withstand any amount of force. The only way to break it is to exploit logical weaknesses in its self-altering procedures.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU2i2wmxPVU A segment]] in the final episode of ''Manga/{{Nichijou}}'' features Mio and Yukko going to greater and greater extremes in the course of trying to break open a pumpkin.

# the object is attacked with very little to no effect. Be especially careful with #2; [[ShootingSuperman a character attacking something they know they can't destroy]] because of instinct, desperation, mind control, or spite does not count.

Regardless of the quality of their judgement, if the character in question believes they can harm or destroy the object in question, requirement 2 is fulfilled. Even if omnipotent gods have failed to destroy the MacGuffin, if Average Joe is stupid, arrogant, mentally ill, or intoxicated enough to think his mortal punches will crush it, then it counts.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' module ''Skarda's Mirror'' has a mirror of life trapping. The known method of smashing such mirrors didn't work, as it was really an Artifact that created an immortal to be a gate into one of his personal planes.

# the object is attacked with very little to no effect. Be especially careful with #2; a character attacking something they know they can't destroy because of instinct, desperation, mind control, or spite does not count.

However, the futility of the attack has nothing to do with the actual vulnerability of the object. The object can even be a vase made of paper thin glass; all things being relative, what's MadeOfIndestructium to an ant is MadeOfPlasticine to a human. The key word here is "surprisingly": this trope isn't about objects that are indestructible, it's about objects that are surprisingly so to an attacker who expects their destruction (or at least destruction from their initial attacks. If they change their weapon or adjust their technique which succeeds in destroying the object, then their failed first try still counts toward this trope).

* In ''Series/JustShootMe'', Dennis gets an ugly home-made vase Jack made in pottery class. Dennis tries to "accidentally" break it, but no matter how hard he drops it, the vase proves indestructible.

** The first encounter with a [[BossInMookClothing Kull warrior]] in "[[Recap/StargateSG1S7E11EvolutionPart1 Evolution, Part 1]]" has Teal'c and Bra'tac shoot at it with staff weapon and zat guns, since in this 'verse [[ArmorIsUseless armor is usually useless]]. The weapons have no effect, but luckily for them it keels over from unrelated cardiac arrest about five seconds later.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' module ''Skarda's Mirror'' has a mirror of life trapping. The known method of smashing such mirrors didn't work, as it was really an Artifact created an immortal to be a gate into one of his personal planes.

Since, as stated above, everything in a video game that doesn't have a damage model is invincible from the player's point of view, and there is at least one object in almost every video game that will invoke this trope on a destruction happy player, a list of straight examples would be too long to list. Please focus on aversions, inversions, subversions, lampshade hangings, and parodies.
* In ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption'', there are lanterns in towns which you can vandalize, and dynamite crates which blow up when shot. You can also shoot the "arms" off of cacti.
* In the text-based RPG ''Mobile Armored Marine'', your character must get past a heavily fortified door to continue the mission. One of your options is to try to blast it away with your weapons. That will fail, much to your described (remember, it's text-based) surprise. However, after that you have the option of piling all your grenades against the door, which will work. The first plays this trope straight, but the latter part of this example inverts it.

* There are several stories of people who get their plastic or wooden mailboxes repeatedly vandalized by people running them over with their cars. In many cases, they eventually replace them with deeply anchored metal-and-concrete poles and then HilarityEnsues.

* In ''Series/BreakingBad'', Walt attempts to break a window in Ted's office building with a plant decoration. He does not succeed and is escorted out by security officers.

* The "Droplet" probe in ''[[Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem The Dark Forest]].'' It's able to annihilate [[spoiler:mankind's ENTIRE space fleet by ramming through every ship at relativistic speed]] without so much as a dent.

** One strip has Gaston decide to take up karate, starting with [[BrickBreak a hardtack biscuit]] he found, emitting a {{Kiai}} before bringing his hand down.
-->'''Fantasio:''' I didn't know you had to yell afterwards as well.
:: The last panel has Gaston's hand in a cast and Fantasio wondering at the IndestructibleEdible.

* ''Film/Dune1984'': Paul tells the Fremen about an obelisk "cut from your hardest rock." He has them kick it, yell at it and cut it with a laser. Nothing. Then he blasts it with the [[{{BFG}} weirding module]] and shatters it.

-->'''Announcer''': Robinson's Paper. The ''strong'' one.

* In a famous episode of ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'', a father finds that his daughter's "Talky Tina" doll can't be destroyed by any of the power tools in his basement, which include a rotating saw blade and a blowtorch.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' module ''Skarda's Mirror'' had a mirror of life trapping. The known method of smashing such mirrors didn't work, as it was really an Artifact created an immortal to be a gate into one of his personal planes.

* In the text based RPG ''Mobile Armored Marine'', your character must get past a heavily fortified door to continue the mission. One of your options is to try to blast it away with your weapons. That will fail, much to your described (remember, it's text based) surprise. However, after that you have the option of piling all your grenades against the door, which will work. The first plays this trope straight, but the latter part of this example inverts it.

* The WesternAnimation/{{Droopy}} cartoon "The Three Little Pups" has Droopy’s brick doghouse. While it obviously holds against the Wolf trying to blow it down, it also manages to survive against an axe, hammer, having its door rammed by a log, and enough explosives to level a town. Lampshaded by the Wolf in the cartoon.
-->'''"Now there’s a well-built doghouse, man."'''
* In the HilariousOuttakes of ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory2'', Buzz and co [[UseYourHead use Rex's head]] as a battering ram to open a gas vent, and fail. (They succeed in the actual story.)

* 1967: Missouri Tigers football coach Dan Devine tried to motivate his team for the upcoming game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers by playing the Cornhuskers fight song over and over again, whose band played it every time they scored a touchdown. On game day he picked up the record and said "I never want to hear this song again!" and threw it down on the floor, expecting it to shatter. Instead it bounced up into the air. He tried the floor again and failed again. He picked it up and bent it, but it still wouldn't break. He hurled it against a wall and it bounced back again.

* During the Battle of Stalingrad, a 30-man platoon of Soviet soldiers were ordered to defend an apartment building and hold the surrounding blocks of the city. The Nazi forces, certain that this would be an easy victory, set out to capture or destroy the strategically-located building. What began with orderly assaults soon devolved into a 58-day-long ZergRush that threw entire divisions of troops, tanks, heavy artillery, and air raids at the structure. At the end, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavlov%27s_House Pavlov's House]] was battered but still standing and uncaptured as the Red Army's counter-offensive arrived to retake the city.

* The "Droplet" probe in ''[[Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem The Dark Forest]].'' It's able to annihilate [[spoiler: mankind's ENTIRE space fleet by ramming through every ship at relativistic speed]] without so much as a dent.

* The ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' two-part episode "The Menagerie" has the throwback crew of the USS Enterprise unsuccessfully utilizing hand phasers and even ship-level phasers against a rock cave in order to try to blast through so that they can rescue Captain Pike, who is [[spoiler: being held captive inside by aliens]]. Subverted, in that [[spoiler: the telepathic aliens were just using mind control against the crew and giving them the illusion that the rock cave was still intact, when in reality they had already blasted through it.]]

* Late in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', the legendary power of the Z Sword is tested against a brick of Katchin, the densest metal in the universe. Everyone think it will be short work because not only is it a legendary sword, but everything in the universe is MadeOfPlasticine around the ridiculous power of the heroes. They all get a nasty surprise, though, when it breaks the sword.

[[quoteright:350: [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/much_ado_about_nutting.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:[[WesternAnimation/MuchAdoAboutNutting That is literally one tough nut to crack.]]]]

* In the WesternAnimation/SpongebobSquarepants episode [[Recap/SpongeBobSquarePantsS3E10WetPaintersKrustyKrabTrainingVideo "Wet Painters",]] Spongebob and Patrick's attempts to get some permanent paint off of Mr. Krab's [[NumberOneDime first dollar]] included using a belt sander and a fire hose, all of which don't effect the dollar or the paint on it one bit [[AmusingInjuries (it does effect Patrick though)]].