Me: I hope you step on a LEGO in the dark.
Friend: (gasps) Take that back!
Eyes, teeth, tongues, genitalia, and fingers are all extremely sensitive and fragile body parts... and so are our feet and toes. Just like our other appendages and digits, both the feet and their toes are full of nerve endings and blood vessels, and as such are highly vulnerable to painful things happening to them.
This trope occurs if something painful happens to your characters' toe, toes, foot, or feet, and the situation is used as a dramatic device or a plot point. It's usually Played for Drama and/or for horror or dark comedy. Audience will instantly sympathize with any characters that fall victim to this trope.
Can come about in two ways:
- Accident: The character accidentally steps on something, accidentally kicks something hard, or somebody accidentally drops something on their feet or toes. Or the character has no choice and must walk barefoot for a long time in extreme conditions. And stuff like that.
- Deliberate: Another person/entity deliberately causes pain on somebody's toes or feet as cruel discipline or torture.
What can happen:
- Toes broken (one by one for extra effect);
- A character hits something hard or heavy with their toe, stubbing it;
- Toes cut off, shot off, bitten off, ripped out, or eaten;
- Toenails torn off, pulled out, or spiked with long sharp objects;
- Toes or feet injured by broken glass or other sharp objects;
- Toes or feet exposed to frost, extreme heat, or dangerous chemicals;
- Toes or feet crushed between heavy objects or machine parts (bones get crushed and flesh gets mangled);
- Foot whipping
/beating (hitting bare feet as torture or punishment);
- A Period Piece set in Imperial China may reference the status symbol of binding girls' feet to make them grow into hooflike shapes
;
- All Women Love Shoes but damn, they hurt badly if they're too small or too tight (especially heels);
- A toenail is broken;
- STEPPING ON A LEGO BRICK.
Makes you wince, doesn't it?
Most people in real life can relate to foot and toe injuries since they tend to be very common in everyday life. This makes toenail, toe, or foot severing very hard to watch or read about because it effectively makes viewers feel the character's pain. Also — loss of toes is nastier than people might generally assume, as losing even minor toes can cause serious damage to our ability to balance and walk.
Sometimes the toes or feet can be comedically throbbing. High Heel Hurt is a common sub-trope. Compare An Arm and a Leg, where an entire limb is lost; and Impaled Palm, where the hand palm is pierced by some object. May overlap with Twisted Ankle (any injury which causes a fleeing victim to become slowed, giving his pursuer a better chance to catch up). See also Cold-Blooded Torture, Mutilation Interrogation, and A Taste of the Lash. May result in a Hurt Foot Hop. See Cruelty by Feet for the inversion of this trope.
This happens far too often in Real Life, so No Real Life Examples, Please!
(The trope name is a play on the famous slogan of Wide World Of Sports: "The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.'')
Example subpages
- A 1989 Cheetos commercial had mascot Chester Cheetah run into problems while crossing the street to get some cheese snacks. He remembers to Look Both Ways, but the second he steps onto the pavement, his foot is utterly flattened by a truck, a double-decker bus, and a steam roller.
- In a Claude the Cat video, Claude puts his paw on part of an electric blanket that is too hot, and smoke comes off the paw.
- This makes up most of the ire of Grumble from the Freakies. He's grumpy because he has big feet. Having big feet means they always hurt, and the other Freakies always step on them. Most of the time, it's pure accident due to his foot size, though Goody-Goody is the only one to purposefully step on them.
- In the work safety PSA Will You Be Here Tomorrow?
, a woman has her foot run over by a forklift.
- One Albertsons commercial, featuring Patricia Heaton, shows her going downstairs in her bare feet and stepping on her child's dinosaur toy. This causes her to painfully hop around on one foot, until she sees some Albertsons coupons on a nearby coffee table and sits down to look them over, having seemingly forgotten all about her pain.
- Mechamato: When Mechamato un-mechanises with a fire hydrant, MechaBot can only hold it briefly before dropping it due to its weight. However, once he does, Amato winces, looks down at his foot under the fire hydrant and screams.
- Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: In Flying Island: The Sky Adventure episode 44, one of the Elder Stars has a ball and chain as a possible prop for the Elder Stars' show, and he spins it around. The spiky ball on the chain detaches and lands on Wolffy's foot, causing him great pain that he's able to keep under control somehow.
- During a battle in The Princess Thieves, Robin ends up without shoes and winds up cutting his feet up badly and has them stamped on by an opponent.
- Josh Widdicombe has a joke about the cabin bed he had as a child, which had a ladder that was painful to walk down.
Josh: Would you like to go to bed? No, I'd like to keep my feet!
- Asterix: According to Asterix the Gaul, Gaulish chieftain Vercingetorix surrendered to Julius Caesar not by throwing his weapons at Caesar's feet, but on them. Asterix and the Chieftain's Shield expanded on this scene by showing Caesar hopping away on one foot in obvious pain. Asterix and the Chieftain's Daughter further expand on the flashback by showing Caesar getting his foot bandaged by a medicus.
- Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire: This happens to the title character, after a fork to the foot. He shouldn't have called his uncle Frakkus an "Old Timer".
- Dance Class: This happens on occasion since obviously feet are needed for dancing. One strip had two of the lead have to break off from dancing at a party to rub their feet due to the fact the boys there didn't know how to slow dance properly and kept stepping on the girls' feet by accident.
- Disney Ducks Comic Universe: The Scrooge McDuck story "The Pauper's Glass" has the Duck nephews chasing an amnesiac Scrooge through a balloon factory. After bedeviling them with ball balloons, Scrooge rolls an actual bowling ball at his pursuers. Donald assumes it's just another balloon, and gets a painful surprise when the ball lands on his foot.
- DuckTales: Overjoyed at seeing Scrooge and the boys alive and well after apparently seeing their ghosts, Launchpad forgets to be careful when trying to demonstrate how he could pass his hand right through them and pokes Scrooge hard in the stomach. A few minutes later, Scrooge says, "Well, I assure you, I'm all here now!" and drives his heel into Launchpad's instep, causing him a lot of pain (which was probably intentional).
- Empowered: In the first book, a fat nerd who steals Emp's hypermembrane first tests his new "superpowers" by giving a high-kick to a concrete pillar. Unfortunately for him, the super-suit only works for Empowered, and lot of pain ensues.
- Legends: The villain Sunspot uses his power blast to get out of the ankle cuff that Guy Gardner holds him upside-down by, but in the process he accidentally blasts off his right foot. Guy tends to Sunspot's injury, but threatens to cut off the villain's left hand if he uses his power blast again.
- MAD: The page image comes from a one-page comic drawn by Tom Bunk and written by Michael Gallagher (yes, the same Michael Gallagher who wrote the early issues of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics)). A man buys magnetic insoles for his shoes, but they end up being so powerful that they pull an entire drawer full of sharp knives down, causing every knife to impale itself through his feet. Followed immediately by the fridge crashing down on him.
- Mickey Mouse Comic Universe: In a scene from "Mickey Mouse in Death Valley" (that was written by Walt Disney himself), Peg-Leg Pete tries to attack Mickey from behind with an axe. However, a mysterious figure known as "The Fox" lops off the blade with scissors, causing Pete to instead hit himself on the toe with the handle.
- Mortadelo y Filemón: This is a fairly common gag. Generally, the guy's foot gets really swollen, too.
- The Smurfs: In the comic book version of "The Smurfs and the Howlibird", one Smurf calls upon another to hand him a stone in order to fix the village well that the Howlibird had destroyed, but when carrying the stone, that Smurf is distracted by Papa Smurf calling out while reentering the village, dropping the stone on the first Smurf's foot and causing him agony.
- Titeuf:
- Titeuf steps on someone's foot when he's trying to uses stilts.
- One gag has Titeuf having trouble to go to the toilet in the middle of the night without stepping on his little sister's toys. He's glad that it also happens to his parents.
- Wacky Races: A one-pager (seen in Hanna-Barbera Fun-In #5) was of Dick Dastardly pushing the out-of-gas Mean Machine across the finish line after Muttley bails on him. He uses the trophy to soak his feet in hot water.
- Herman: The "too-small shoes" variant is used in a strip, showing a man with his feet in a bucket of water being told "I told you not to buy size ten!" by his wife.
- Calvin and Hobbes:
- On one Christmas Eve strip, Calvin and Hobbes hear a loud thump from downstairs and the latter thinks it's Santa coming down the chimney. The last panel reveals the sound came from Calvin's father who dropped a huge present for Calvin on his foot.
Dad: Slippin-rippin-dang-fang-rotten-zarg-barg-a-ding-dong!
Mom: Quiet, dear! Calvin will hear you! - In another strip, Calvin is trying to kick a football to Hobbes, but hurts his foot instead. He retaliates by letting all the air out of the football, to Hobbes' confusion.
- On one Christmas Eve strip, Calvin and Hobbes hear a loud thump from downstairs and the latter thinks it's Santa coming down the chimney. The last panel reveals the sound came from Calvin's father who dropped a huge present for Calvin on his foot.
- In Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "King Goldenlocks", the main character joins a battle as an anonymous soldier and gets wounded in the foot. Later, the king notices his injury and realizes that he is the nameless knight who saved his life.
- The Accidental Warlord and His Pack: After being betrothed to the King's uncle, who has raped and beaten several wives to death already, Oliwia steals the only pair of shoes she's able to get hold of while being kept in preparation for her marriage and flees the country. Her feet are a bleeding blistered mess by the time she finds a Witcher to beg aid from in the neighboring country.
- In Atonement, it's only a minor example, but Toph can't stay outside at the Northern Air Temple for long, since the cold floor is pure agony for her sensitive feet.
- Bandit's Belt:
- Trixie runs over Bandit’s foot in her wheelchair.
- When the younger Wendy is being the servant, her feet hurt from walking too much.
- In Blessed with a Hero's Heart, Aqua gets angry when one of Izuku's slave girls, Liza, calls her "dummy", so she replies by trying to kick her in the leg. For context, Liza is a Gator-girl whose limbs are reptilian and covered in scales harder than stone, so all Aqua gets for her trouble is hurting her foot.
- Cabin Fever (Southern Hearts): After escaping the Fire Nation's waterbender prison, Katara's bare feet ache from walking on rough terrain — not helped by her malnourished state and the fact that she has been locked up in a cage for years.
- In Ditzy Doos Dismally Derpy Day, Ditzy is kicking clumps of dirt and mistakes a half-buried rock for one. She cracks a hoof up to the quick.
- Dirty Sympathy: Machi tries to get Klavier to release his arm by stomping on the man's foot. It doesn't work as Klavier is wearing motorcycle boots and ends up hurting his own feet.
- Fate: Kill: Akame gets injured in battle and later wakes up in bed. When Selka and Elaine imply Shirou was injured, Akame frantically jumps out of bed and runs around town looking for him, forgetting to put her shoes on (or any other clothes besides the hospital gown she woke up in). By the time she finds Shirou, her feet are dirty and have blisters. Fortunately, Shirou quickly heals her.
- In Gibraltoe
, Spain accidentally discovers that his little toe represents Gibraltar
, a territory currently owned by the UK. So whenever he injures that toe, the pain goes to England instead of him. Spain takes great delight in stubbing his toe into every surface he can, knowing that England gets hurt instead of him.
- In Hatch Ya Later Mepple stomps on Kabaton's foot for stealing his egg.
- There's an old Hetalia: Axis Powers fanon that has Taiwan subjected to foot binding
during the time she lived with Imperial China. It has sometimes popped up in fan fiction
and fan art
.
- Here Comes the New Boss:
- Alabaster pours out a bottle of oil to trip up Velocity so that Kaiser can stick a large blade up through his foot.
Alabaster shook a few drops of oil out of the empty bottle he was holding, then swung a kick into the speedster’s jaw. Velocity rocked sideways with another scream- the movement must have made his foot move against the blade.
- Elpis' axe head has a spike that she drives through Gregor the Snail's foot into the ground. She then headbutts him, making the spike shift in the wound.
- Alabaster pours out a bottle of oil to trip up Velocity so that Kaiser can stick a large blade up through his foot.
- Heroes of the New World; early in the North Blue/Germa arc, Yamato goes to play in some tide pools and ends up stepping on a stonefish
. Had Vinsmoke Reiju not been spying on her and broke cover to Suck Out the Poison, Yamato would have died within hours.
- In Pursuit of a Single Ideal: In his fight with Diarmuid, Shirou stomps on his foot hard enough to break it.
- This is a running gag in fan comics of Jana of the Jungle by the DeviantArt user YiYo666.
- Junior Officers: Captain Barnacles slams his cane into Humphrey's hoof to keep him away from Deborah.
- Asuka ends up getting shot in the foot in Advice and Trust, and it's mentioned that she might end up losing a toe. She doesn't particularly care since she's more concerned with the fact that her boyfriend and most of their friends were hospitalized during the same incident.
- Discussed in The Loud House fanfiction A Load of Bulk when Lynn notes that because Lana has grown really beefy, the only way she could hurt herself with the weights is if she dropped one on her foot.
- Pokémon Wack: The Plastic-type move Lego Trap involves setting up the titular product on the opposite side of the field as an entry hazard, hurting all non-airborne Pokemon when they switch in. This is a nod to how painful stepping on Lego is in real life.
- Rise of the Minisukas: When someone annoys one Minisuka, she summons her mini-lance and aims for the shin or the ankle.
- The Simpsons Dinner has Homer injure his feet twice, first when he drops a hammer on them and later when he slams the foot on them when going home.
Homer: Not again on my foot.
- Stay Tuned
: Ratchet's captors force him to walk on a red-hot grill in one of their videos to Optimus.
- There and Back Again (NaerysBlackfyre90): Daenerys Targaryen learns the hard way that she's been Brought Down to Normal from being brought back when she steps into boiling water and scalds her foot where she was previously able to do so without hurting herself.
- This Bites!: After Wapol ate himself until only his chin remained, Cross gets the idea to kick the helpless Wapol like a football. Unfortunately for Cross, the compressed Wapol still weighs as much as the real Wapol, meaning Cross only managed to hurt his own foot.
- Under the Sea (2023): To a lesser extent than in the original Fairy Tale by Hans Christian Andersen. Caesura’s first steps are agonizing, but the pain lessens with each step.
- Vow of Nudity:
- After the Star King knocks out one of Haara's teeth, she later tricks him into stepping on the tooth, leading to his bare foot getting a cut.
- It is briefly mentioned that since the curse that prevents Spectra from wearing clothes also prevents her from wearing shoes, she sometimes hurts her feet and her feet are covered with calluses after she walks through the woods. It happens again when she gets teleported to the desert and burns her feet on the hot sands.
- Vow of the King:
- During their fight, Ichigo uses Yūrei no Ken to nail Rukia's feet to the ground, only to then hit her hard enough for her feet to be torn free.
- During their fight, Renji stomps on Ichigo's foot and breaks it. After he wins, Ichigo pays him back by stomping on both of his feet and breaking them.
- There's a real lovely moment in Warbound Widow where Jane Crocker gets all the flesh on the sole of her feet melted off while being subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture.
- Wed Locked: While learning to dance, Marinette accidentally repeatedly steps on the feet of her dancing instructor.
- What If Goku Won Against Master Roshi?: When Goku and Jackie Chun have their climatic Cross Counter, Goku bites Chun's foot, lessening the force of his kick. Consequently, Goku remains conscious long enough to declare victory.
- World Savers: In Dance, Interrupted, Buffy's opening attack towards the ruffians threatening the dance-goers is to stomp one of their feet with her heeled boot.
- The Wrath of Avelina: After putting her curse on him, Avelina steps on Camilo's foot on purpose while fleeing.
- Aladdin (1992, Disney): During the "One Jump Ahead" chase scene, Aladdin vaults over a bed of coals. The pursuing guards hop and scream in pain as they run across the hot coals, but once they're on the far side, go right back to chasing Aladdin as if nothing happened. Surprisingly averted with Aladdin, who is perpetually barefoot while living as a street-urchin, until the final film in the franchise where he finally gains a pair of shoes.
- Lampshaded in Animalympics (1980). As the narrator waxes philosophical on "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat", the last phrase comes out just as the polar bear carrying the torch through a desert starts hopping and blowing on his poor, sand-scorched feet.
- In Big Hero 6, Hiro awakens Baymax when he inadvertently hurts his foot dropping one of his microbots on it.
- Brave:
- During a caber-tossing game, a man has a caber land on his foot, making him scream in pain.
- Also, just as King Fergus has restored order during the brawl between Clans MacGuffin, Macintosh and Dingwall, the boys drop a mace on Lord Dingwall's foot and his scream of pain starts the whole bloody thing up again.
- Anastasia steps on the Prince's feet during every few seconds of their dance in Cinderella III: A Twist in Time.
- In Dot and the Kangaroo, the titular little girl is perpetually barefoot and briefly steps on something sharp, prompting the titular kangaroo to carry her in her pouch.
- In Dot and the Bunny, Dot narrowly avoids stepping on an echidna and Funny-Bunny gets his hind feet bitten by crocodiles.
- In Dot and the Whale, Dot steps on live coral and gets a venomous barb lodged in the sole of her foot. She is saved by an octopus.
- In Dot in Space, Dot is captured by bubble-shaped aliens, one of whom, Professor Globus, is tasked with examining her for her roundness (or lack thereof) and, unable to defend herself because she's Bound and Gagged, she stamps hard on his foot. Whyka the Russian dog, whom Dot was trying to rescue from being trapped in orbit, bites the Roundy Sergeant and his soldiers on their feet and hands while they are trying to capture her as well as Dot.
- Frozen: The Duke of Weselton repeatedly steps on Anna's feet while they're dancing.
Queen Elsa: Well, he was sprightly.
Princess Anna: Ah! Especially for a man in heels! - On The Great Mouse Detective, Olivia stomps on Fidget's good foot, eliciting cries of, "Ow, my foot! My only foot!"
- In Happily N'Ever After, when Frieda the Wicked Stepmother puts Ella in a chokehold, Ella escapes by stepping on her foot.
- Ice Age: Continental Drift: Louis slams a heavy ice chunk on Captain Gutt's foot, making him release Peaches.
- During one of the live-action sequences in The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part, this happens to Finn and Bianca's mom, twice, with Lego bricks. She ranks the pain as just below that of childbirth.
- In The Little Mermaid (1968), every step is painful for the poor Mermaid once she has human legs.
- The Little Mermaid (1989): As Sebastian is trying to get away from Chef Louis, he drops a frying pan on Louis' foot.
- In Madagascar 1, Alex stubs his toe on a rock while running through the jungle, and then hurts his other foot on a thorny vine.
- Moana:
- Moana gets her foot stuck in coral underwater, and after breaking free, she has a large bruise.
- Maui has a hotfoot when running across Te Kā's body in lizard form. Also when he's fighting Tamatoa and crawling toward his fishhook, the crab stabs his claw into Maui's foot to drag him away.
- In Monsters vs. Aliens, when Susan gets shot with a giant hypodermic needle and angrily rips it out and tosses it aside, it impales some poor soldier's foot and he screams in pain.
- My Sweet Monster: Barbara steps on something, while walking barefoot in the woods, causing her to fall and rub her foot in pain.
- Pinocchio (1940): When Jiminy Cricket is scolding Pinocchio in the pool hall on Pleasure Island, he furiously kicks an 8-ball, which doesn't move, causing him to hop up and down in pain.
Jiminy: Look at yourself! Smoking! Playing pool! (kicks the 8-ball) OWW! You're coming right home with me this minute!
- During his self-exile in the desert, Moses from The Prince of Egypt trips on a sharp rock, scraping his foot and tearing off his sandal. In frustration, he takes the sandal off and proceeds to remove his prince clothes, except for the ring Rameses gave him.
- The Princess and the Goblin (1992): The goblins bodies are much more durable than humans, except for their feet, making their feet their weak spot. Along with their aversion to singing, it is one of the only ways to easily defeat them. Only the Goblin Queen is sensible enough to wear shoes to protect against attacks aimed at her feet.
- Patou the dog from Rock-A-Doodle bites the evil owl's foot in order to save Edmund (who was turned into a cat by the owl's magic) from being eaten.
- Near the midpoint of The Rugrats Movie, Angelica hurts her foot trying to kick the Reptar Wagon, and the babies with it, out the front door.
- In Rugrats Go Wild!, Angelica kicks a rock with her bare foot and recoils once she feels the pain.
- What ultimately causes Zigzag in The Thief and the Cobbler to hate Tack so much - the Thief tries to steal from Tack, who sewed their clothes together and in the struggle, accidentally dropped tacks and sewing supplies into the streets where Zigzag was walking. This also proves to be Zigzag's downfall in the theatrical cuts and the Recobbled Cut - having had his sleeves sewed together by Tack, Zigzag attempts to flee from the ensuing chaos on the One-Eyes' end... only to step on another tack and fall into a pit swarming with the hungry alligators he forgot to feed.
- The 3 Little Pigs: The Movie: Felix jumps on the exhaust pipe of Rublad’s motorcycle as he drives away with Wally & Beemo, resulting in a brief Hurt Foot Hop from the pain of standing on hot metal.
- Thumbelina in Thumbelina, when Mrs. Toad (an anthropomorphic toad wearing high heels) steps on her foot.
- Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure: A frustrated Tinker Bell kicks a compass, which results in her hopping up and down holding her foot in pain.
- A classic example is Starscream in The Transformers: The Movie. As Autobot City transforms, he gets his foot stuck in a closing door. He has to blast it (and his foot) to get out, leading to the classic whine, "Owww, my foot!"
- Up: Carl slams his front door on Russell's foot, producing an "Ow!"
- Wreck-It Ralph: On Vanellope's first attempt at driving her brand-new car, she bumps into Ralph's foot, who gets to hop for a bit. Moments later, she knocks some Mentos into Diet Cola Hot Springs, and the spatter singes his feet, making him hop around some more.
- In GrailQuest 4: Voyage of Terror, when Pip is given the option to pick a lock or kicking the door open, kicking is a bad choice:
That hasn't done your foot any good. Didn't you remember you were only wearing light little sandals? Deduct 3 from your current LIFE POINTS and limp a little.
- In the last verse of Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville", the singer steps on a discarded pop-top pull tab, having previously damaged and discarded his flip-flop footwear. His heel is cut, and he returns home to drink more margaritas.
- In Edwin Starr’s “Twenty-Five Miles,” the singer complains that “my feet are hurting mighty bad.”
- Although it can't be seen in the finished video, the behind-the-scenes for Lindsey Stirling's "Elements
" shows it was rather painful to make; she wore thin sandals in a forest full of prickly plants, and had to dance and spin barefoot on a salt flat.
- Seen in the Reagan / Chernyenko bout in Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Two Tribes."
- Duran Duran burned their feet while recording the "Save a Prayer" music video since they couldn't wear shoes while visiting the Buddhist shrine. They managed to hide their pain in the final video.
- In the video clip of "In Time to Voices" (Blood Red Shoes), the singer is arm wrestling with a barefoot man and she stomps on his instep with her heel and digs a hole in his foot, winning the competition.
- White Water has the Bigfoot Hot Foot, where a lit match between Bigfoot's toes is used to distract him, allowing the player to sneak into his cave.
- In the Myths and Legends episode on Mulan, Jason describes foot binding in China is akin to this.
- Near the end of season 3 of The White Vault, Simon falls back from being punched and impales his ankle on a guanaco bone. Eva pulls out the bone and is able to perform some degree of first aid, but shortly afterwards, he is trapped alone in the antechamber cave for about a week. By the time he is rescued and brought back to where he can receive medical help, the wound has become so infected that his foot has to be amputated.
- In February 1995, there was a battle royal on WWF TV. During the match, Jerry Lawler went over the top rope and landed on one foot (the rule is a wrestler has to go over the top rope and have both feet touch the ground to be eliminated). Lawler hopped around ringside on one foot avoiding the other wrestlers until Bret Hart came down to ringside and stomped on Lawler's foot, causing him to put his other foot down and officially be eliminated. For weeks afterwards, when Lawler was appearing on commentary, he was shown with his one foot bandaged.
- On Saturday Nights Main Event, Jake Roberts faced Kamala. During the match, Jake repeatedly stomped on Kamala's bare feet.
- A quick comedic moment came on the third Ring of Honor show Low Ki and then-newcomer AJ Styles tried to kick each other at the same time and instead sent each other's ankles together, causing them both to stagger.
- "A barefoot match" is a rare gimmick match usually played for laughs. LLF Noche Extrema Vol. 8, which featured a tag team extreme rules barefoot match was played a bit more seriously though.
- In a 2005 match, Jushin Thunder Liger tried a Vertical Suplex on Samoa Joe, but seemingly couldn't lift him. Then Liger stomps on Joe's foot, and when Joe jumps up in pain, Liger uses that momentum to lift him for the suplex.
- Stomps and punches to the toes are calling cards of Fred Yehi, who spends most of his matches attacking the very weakest parts of the body. If the promotion in question doesn't slap him for small joint manipulation anyway.
- In a 2014 match, Joey Ryan pulled off Matt Jackson's shoe and then dropped him onto a pile of thumbtacks.
- One time, Randy Orton dropped a sledgehammer on Eric Bischoff's foot.
- At Mystery Vortex IV, The Young Bucks stomped on Matt Riddle's bare feet, and even Superkicked his foot. The damage made Matt hurt himself when he tried to kick them. In other matches, pragmatic opponents will often attack his feet. One time, Marty Scurll snapped his toe.
- Fallah Bahh wrestles barefoot, so his opponents will often stomp on his feet, and Sami Callihan even bit his foot.
- At Fyter Fest 2019, Jon Moxley pulled off Joey Janela's shoes and socks and then dropped him onto a pile of thumbtacks.
- At WrestleMania 41, El Grande Americano snuck a piece of metal into his mask, then when his opponent Rey Fenix tried to kick him the face, he only hurt his foot.
- In Bleak Expectations: Protagonist Pip Bin is meeting with the King of England and having a nice conversation when the king suddenly yells out in pain. It's his foot... Actually, it's both of them.
King: Arrgghh, the pain, the damnable pain! Sorry, it's just this gout, it feels exactly like a child stabbing me in the foot with a fork.
Pip Bin: Umm... Sire, you do have a small child stabbing you in the foot with a fork.
King: Yes, I know that. The gout is in the other foot. The child is to equalize the pain across both feet.
King: Arrrgggh, the pain, the damnable pain! Sorry, it's just this child stabbing me in the foot with a fork. Feels just like gout. Aaaaggghhhh, the gout! Aaagggh the child! - The Suspense! episode "Too Hot to Live"note follows the ex-soldier Jefferson, who gets falsely accused of murder on a scorching summer day. Having earlier dropped off his worn-out shoes at a repair shop, his runs from the law subject his feet to burns from the pavement, and cuts from jagged rocks. Jefferson's narration provides first-person descriptions of the pain.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- In addition to caltrops, several spells have the ability to turn the ground spiky, making the terrain difficult to travel through (unless, of course, you can fly) and do damage. These include spike growth (makes plants spiky) and stone spikes. Then there's the exceedingly hilarious transmute rock to lava.
- Also, it's canon in-game that when Dwarves and Gnomes fight giants, they smack them on the toes with their melee weapons unless they're using polearms, in which case they aim a bit higher.
- The opening number of The Most Happy Fella is waitress Cleo loudly complaining— in graphic detail— about her aching peds ("Ooh My Feet").
- Played for Drama despite the semi-comic singing of the scene in The Magic Flute. Monastatos brags about having captured Papageno and Tamina, as they were escaping, and Sarastro "rewards" him with "only seventy-seven strokes on the soles" (a reference to foot-whipping, a real-life torture practice).
- Highway Blossoms: After their arrival at the Grand Canyon, Amber tells Mariah the size of the canyon that they'd have to search to find the gold, which causes Mariah to drop all the tools she's holding right onto Joesph's foot.
- Slay the Princess: The Tower is a Giant Woman with a Compelling Voice who considers herself to be an unbeatable god, and at least one of the voices in your head is inclined to agree. If you manage to get past all that and slay her anyway, it's through this trope; you begin your attack against her by stabbing her in the ankle and cutting her Achilles tendon, forcing her to her knees and bringing her heart close enough for you to strike a deathblow.
- AstroLOLogy:
- In "Pinheads", Gemini disguise themselves as a woman to mess up Taurus while he's about to bowl, causing him to drop the ball on his foot.
- In "Hot Christmas", Scorpio hides mousetraps in the snow to catch whoever keeps rebuilding his snowman. The next day, he sees that they still did and he ends up stepping on a mousetrap himself, falling over and onto the others.
- In "Leo's Many Faces", Leo's training involves stepping on hot coals.
- Another Scorpio example in "You Won't Like Scorpio When He's Mad", where he Hulks Out after stepping on a plastic brick.
- Happy Tree Friends: In "Happy Trails Part 2", Giggles gets stung by a jellyfish while spearfishing. This causes her foot to swell up to four times her size, killing her from infection.
- In "Ski Ya, Wouldn't Wanna Be Ya!", Flaky steps on a wooden board with an exposed nail that impales her foot and splits it in half. When chased by an incoming avalanche, she is forced to impale her second foot on the board in order to escape.
- Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "the process", the Cheat not only gives Bubs a hotfoot ("Ooh! Hot mama!"), he sticks Bubs' other foot in a nest of angry bees. ("Yeow! Hot bees!")
- In the My Little Pony: Equestria Girls Digital Series short "Too Hot to Handle", Pinkie Pie tries to bring snow cones to her friends at the beach. As she does, she runs into many obstacles along the way. One of which being to figure out how to cross the hot sand while barefoot.
- In the premiere of DEATH BATTLE! season 6, Boomstick gets stabbed in the foot with the Trident of Neptune by Wiz after quoting Bane. What makes this even more callous from Wiz is that Boomstick only has one foot.
- Adventurers!: Why telepathy is preferable to whispering in the dark
.
- This is largely averted in Dreamwalker, despite most of its main cast being barefoot all the time. By using mana to enhance their feet, they can avoid injury when walking on dangerous terrain.
- Freefall: In this strip
, Sam tells Helix to put down a satellite. Helix does so. Right on Sam's foot.
- In Leftover Soup, part of Maxine's backstory involves shooting herself in the foot to put an end to a hunting trip with her father.
The Rant: To be fair, her father's exact words were "this hunting trip isn't over until you've shot something".
- Molly's Future Mishaps: In Chapter 29, Jo accidentally shoots himself in the foot with the tardigrade's gun, which puts him out of commission for two weeks while it regenerates.
- Ozy and Millie: Millie, who is a Barefoot Cartoon Animal, steps on a bee.
- Happens in The Packrat's August 2005
◊ strip. Packrat accidentally dropped a 220-pound Yamaha CS-80
synthesizer on his feet.
- SideQuested: When Leopold is startled and stops playing music, causing him to stop floating, he lands on Charlie's foot, causing her to shout and tear up.
- Unsounded:
- Bastion can't bring anything but his body (and the torque wound into it) along when offsetting, so he's almost always barefoot. He ends up having to stop and yank long needles of First Silver out of his feet when he steps on the sharp pieces.
- Gefendur tradition states that Tirna's feet were cut by blades of grass when her siblings cast her to the physical world as punishment.
- Wonderlab: The Penitent Girl, the Aberration of The Red Shoes, causes those she possesses to chop off their own feet, leading the victim to bleed to death from the injuries.
- Happens in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic to the Orc God Gruumsh
from a sword through the foot. You'd think very few would be crazy enough to try this on a god, but Jone Half-Orc certainly is.
- Both Marcus and Yue in Between Two Worlds step on sharp things in the water. There is blood.
- Fishing Fanatic Copypasta: Stepping on hooks is common injury in main hero's home because of fishing hooks lying everywhere, to the point that people at the doctor's instantly assume he's in for surgical help whenever the protagonist shows up.
- In chapter 5 of Scrambled Egg, Snorrv bludgeons Trellorv's left foot with a spiked club. This causes Trellorv to drop the boulder he's carrying on his right foot, breaking his toes.
- In Worm, Skitter cuts off several of Bakuda's toes, as she was using toe rings to set off her bombs.
- Skipjack has Captain Jackie step on her glasses and get her heel pierced by an intact lens, making her the only casualty from what should've been a devastating depressurization incident.
- An online T-shirt company at one time had a Fun T-Shirt featuring soldiers shoving a giant LEGO brick under the bare foot of Godzilla.
- The Atari 5200 episode in The Angry Video Game Nerd has James picking up an old TV. The cord for the plug gets caught in the radiator valve and as soon as he pulls it away from the window...
James: AHHHHHHHHHH!!! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!
- One episode of Critical Role has Vax fall unconscious with his foot submerged in molten lava, which burns off several toes and requires many rounds of daily healing from the party cleric before it's functional again.
- In LOLNEIN's song "Battle of the Shampoo Bottles", the titular shampoo bottles seem hellbent on targeting showerers' toes when they fall. This is in turn based on an earlier comic he did with the same concept.
- Pirates SMP: A deliberate but sympathetic variation occurs on Day 62 of the SMP; when Martyn starts dozing off from the effects of some cursed gold he collected on a quest, one of the rats he keeps in his boots (i.e. his stream chat) bites him hard enough to wake him up and keep him conscious for the rest of the voyage back to the Faction Isles. It's invoked on the rats' part, who'd rather their Captain not succumb to the curse's effects and become a zombie.
- In Smosh "Playing With Guns" Ian shoots Anthony's foot by accident, Ian tries to stop the bleeding by hammering it with a chisel. Then the whole thing was just a theoretical tale by Anthony to which he would only let Ian give him a piggyback ride if it happened. Ian then does it.
- Shawna Howson, AKA Nanalew, likes going barefoot and eschewing footwear. Unfortunately, on the first of a trip to the Bahamas with her friend Naomi, where they walked barefoot across a beach and the nearby crags, Shawna slipped while standing atop one of the rocks bordering the ocean and it cut the bottom of her foot. The two had to go to a nearby drugstore and find the closest thing to disinfectant, rubbing alcohol, so Shawna's cut wouldn't be infected. Surprisingly, the rubbing alcohol didn't sting or burn when she swabbed the cut. Shawna's cut did not stop her from enjoying a proper walk across pleasantly soft sand later on the trip, and she updated viewers that it was healing well. Ironically, in this follow-up video, Naomi kicked off her uncomfortable sandals on the path to a second beach and complained that she wore the wrong shoes for the walk and removed them earlier than planned on the beach, where Shawna removed hers to enjoy the sand and do some gentle rock climbing. Of course, Shawna and Naomi later used common sense and donned protective sneakers for a beach made out of glass.

