Follow TV Tropes

Following

Unflinching Walk

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_explosion_iamnumber4_2677.jpg
So I did leave the oven on.

"Cool guys don't look at explosions
They blow things up and then walk away
Who's got time to watch an explosion?
There's cool guy errands that they have to walk to"

When just blowing something up isn't enough, proof of one's apparent badass bombing technique can be seen when the bomber leaves himself barely enough time to escape the blast radius, usually just enough so that as he's walking away, he's silhouetted by the explosion itself.

While explosions are the most common thing to walk away from without looking or reacting to, any sufficiently spectacular or violent event (such as a battle, a vehicle crash, a building collapsing, etc.) can also count, as long as the one walking away was connected to the event and the event is something that they would be expected to pay attention to, or at least attempt to take cover from.

Besides making the character look awesome, this usually also implies they were directly involved in the disaster — after all, why else would they casually ignore something that spectacular unless they knew it would happen? Also, as noted in the Real Life section, turning away from an explosion actually has a practical reason, in that even if explosion does hit the body, backside is much safer compared to face and other important human parts that are on front. (But although there's a practical side in facing the other way, there's nothing practical about allowing yourself to be so close to the explosion in the first place. That part is pure Rule of Cool.)

Can be combined with a Team Power Walk for extra badassitude. Likely requires Convection, Schmonvection, or there is convection, and the fact that the character is still unflinching further confirms badassitude. When the character was in the fireball, and still pulls this off, that's usually a sign that they're an Implacable Man or The Juggernaut.

Compare Outrun the Fireball (when this is done running), Strolling Through the Chaos. Contrast it with The Slow Walk, where the character is walking towards danger (in order to lay a major beat down) and Team Power Walk, where multiple characters walk towards the camera while giving off an air of determination. Contrast Unflinching Faith in the Brakes.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • This Call of Duty: Black Ops commercial.
  • A commercial for Extra's line of dessert flavored gum has a stick of gum unflinchingly walk away from an exploding strawberry shortcake. Yeah.
  • An ad for Golden Corral invokes the trope with four typical action heroes slow-walking from a burning car to the restaurant while Heavy by Collective Soul plays.

    Anime & Manga 
  • Lelouch gets one in Code Geass R2 episode 20 when, after all the horrible things that have happened to him and his loved ones, he finally starts acting like the demon everyone seems to think he is.
  • ShineGreymon from Digimon Data Squad gets an absolutely EPIC one after assuming Burst Mode and shrugging off an attack from Kurata's One-Winged Angel form like it was nothing, in the process surrounding himself and Kurata in huge flames. He proceeds to walk slowly towards Kurata without paying attention to the several story high flames he'd just created. This combined with the absolutely hate filled Death Glare he's shooting Kurata while doing it makes it rather clear the reason he's not looking at the flames because the only thing on his mind is giving Kurata exactly what he has coming to him.
  • While nothing explodes, Kenshiro of Fist of the North Star has the most overexaggerated example of the Unflinching Walk ever. He walks through a skyscraper that falls on his head without even seeming to notice it. And in a filler episode, Kenshiro blows up a tank with his bare fists and walks away from the explosion calmly.
  • The Heavy Object anime's second opening depicts Qwenthur and Havia doing this as an Object explodes behind them. Averted in-story, where they'll typically be sprinting away from whatever's about to explode and are likely to be blown off their feet anyway.
  • Pip, The Good Captain from Hellsing does this in the OVA, casually lighting up a cigarette as the communications tent (and the Millenium dupes inside) go up in a fireball.
  • Zeno from Hunter × Hunter plays with this in the Chimera Ant arc. After being challenged by Cheetu, Zeno advises him to Look Behind You and walks away—right as his son Silva falls out the sky and crushes Cheetu like an ant, complete with a huge explosion and crater. Bonus points for casually dodging the flying debris without even looking, and for apparently walking a few steps away just to invoke this trope, as he was waiting for Silva to show up in the first place.
  • Inazuma Eleven: Gouenji is memetic for this. During the match against Epsilon Remastered, Desarm prepares Drill Smasher; and Gouenji shoots Bakuretsu Storm afterwards casually looking back as Desarm is overwhelmed by it.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, when Jotaro finally encounters Dio on the streets of Cairo, in the face of seeing the effects of Dio's stand, he simply ignores the advice to run for his life and walks unwaveringly toward Dio for the final showdown.
  • Kenichi from Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple preforms an EPIC one when a stadium is collapsing around him and he just calmly walks towards his enemy.
  • Cinque of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS calmly walks away as a raging inferno starts behind her after she blows up one of the Ground Forces HQ's shield generators.
  • Dekoppa from Majin Devil does one with a bundle of pipes while striding towards an ancient devil who produces soundwaves that reduces concrete down to its very atoms. He is also a Badass Bookworm.
  • Done several times in Monster, usually by the extraordinarily calm Johan, but once or twice by other characters. Of note because it's unexpected for the character, Eva does this after setting her own mansion ablaze in a rage.
  • Moriarty the Patriot: Sherlock Holmes in The Two Criminals casually strides away from Milverton's estate, where he just murdered a man and set the scene on fire, only to immediately confess to the crime to the police and allow himself to be arrested.
  • Neon Genesis Evangelion: In the second episode, after Unit 01 goes berserk, nearly kills the Third Angel and it self-destructs, Unit 01 can then be seen casually walking away from the epicenter of the explosion that leveled a city block, yet there is no visible damage on Unit 01 that resulted from the explosion. The same shot is used in the first Rebuild of Evangelion film.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Homura is a total badass and fond of explosives. This happens semi-frequently, with the fight against Roberta in episode 10 being the best example. She eventually performs the Unflinching Walk... backwards through time.
  • While arguably conflicting with manga Canon, Kenshin Himura in the Rurouni Kenshin OVA Tsuiokuhen has him walking away from the blazing hut that was once his home where he left the corpse of his wife Tomoe Yukishiro whom he accidentally killed in his final showdown with the Big Bad.
  • Sonic gets one or two of these in Sonic X.
  • Cure Rhythm from Suite Pretty Cure ♪, when she purifies a Negatone with her Music Rondo, she just walks away like an elegant lady before and when it explodes. And she doesn't pay attention.
  • Vash and Wolfwood walk unflinchingly through a hail of bullets in the Trigun anime episode "Goodbye for Now".
  • A comedic example occurs in Whispered Words at the Beach Episode with Tomoe Hachisuka. Courtesy of her totaled car.
  • Saki in Zombieland Saga does one away from a motorcycle crash off of a cliff that HAS killed people before. Justified in that she's a zombie, and has already done that stunt once. (And died doing it.)

    Asian Animation 
  • BoBoiBoy: In episode 2, BoBoiBoy sends several Lightning Bolts towards Adu Du's barrage of missiles, causing a dust cloud of an explosion. As the dust cloud fades away, BoBoiBoy walks out of it and towards the alien enemies with a determined expression. This scene later became part of the intro sequence.

    Comic Books 
  • In the Transformers fandom, there is an infamous picture of Pat Lee and the other Dreamwave founders doing this while walking away from an explosion. Dreamwave imploded after not paying its employees. On many sites, the mere mention of Pat Lee or Dreamwave will cause the picture to be posted.
  • At the end of Innocence Lost, X-23 casually strolls out of the Facility's base seconds ahead of it exploding from the charges she planted, and walks away as it blows up behind her. Made even more awesome because she's thirteen. Funnily enough, Laura actually would not have even needed to make a dramatic exit, but rather than killing Zander Rice quickly she spent ten minutes beating the shit out of him as payback for essentially torturing her for thirteen years first.

    Comic Strips 
  • In a Twisted Toyfare Theatre strip about Sam Worthington (star of Avatar) infiltrating the Manly Men of Action at James Cameron's behest, this is part of his training. "Ow! Mr. Willis, the explosion singed off my back hair!" "That's good! Manly men don't have body hair. Now keep walking all slow!"

    Fan Works 
  • Faren Brosca in Dragon Age: The Crown of Thorns calmly walks away from the center of the proving arena and towards the exit after beating Seweryn and the twins, respectively. Both were curbstomp battles made particularly awesome by the fact that he was undercover, wearing his Dark Wolf attire. Said attire consists of a dark leather armor suit, a black cloak, which is more of an All-Encompassing Mantle, a black scarf (covered his nose and lower face) whose ends flowed through the air behind him and an equally black headband that doubled as a mask (covered his upper face but had eye holes), also with the bands tying it in place billowing behind him in a dramatic breeze. All the while, the crown was either staring in awe or cheering... and he's not even the protagonist.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami: The Avatar Restored goes on one after regaining his true shape. Previous to this event, he was a transformed female troll, and had undergone fifteen years of desperate survival against a continent of undead. This, in turn, was following his witness of the slaughter of his entire family, and all the survivors of the war; men, women, and children alike. Not to mention his possible rape, transformed, remember? He was the 'troll' at the end of Dungeon Keeper... Having regained his old form and power, he is understandably eager to vent his frustrations on Ami, as she is a keeper- in his anger he doesn't particularly care that she's essentially a heroine acting in an ambiguously villainous manner so that her minions don't rebel. Ami is understandably reluctant to attack him, but resorts to more and more desperate measures. Eventually blasting him with every spell she knows, sending waves of golems at him, channeling the might of Mettalia to turn the floor into a mass of living hands to encumber him, dropping the ceiling on him, and glamoring more powerful minions into weaker ones to mount surprise attacks. The Avatar weathers them all, until... she attempts an indirect assault, and sticks him to the wall with a gigantic electro-magnet.
  • Light and Matt in Point of Succession when they stoically make their way through Beyond Birthday's villain lair that has been booby-trapped with all kinds of explosives.
  • Renegade: Spectre Garrus Vakarian would like to do one of these, but usually abstains because he doesn't think it's professional. The one time Garrus performs an unflinching walk, he walks towards a Scrin Battlemind. And if that wasn't badass enough, he's walking towards the Battlemind as it is throwing aircars at him.

    Film — Animated 
  • Brave: Elinor does this in the middle of a massive fight in the throne room between the four patriarchs and single-handedly stops the fight without raising her voice. She does this again when Merida interrupts the archery contest, though she is less calm.
    • Merida learns the trick near the climax of the film, using the same technique to stop a similar brawl dead in its tracks.
  • Vincent does one of these after setting off a biological weapon near the start of Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door. It makes for a rather effective introduction.
  • Astrid from How To Train Your Dragon, the Love Interest, is first seen walking out of a huge explosion, almost model-like (complete with Hair Flip!)
  • The Lion King (1994): Sarabi is summoned by Scar to deal with the food shortage in the Pride Lands, and must walk through a crowd of furious hyenas growling and snapping at her, demanding more food. But she holds her head up high and casts a cold sideways glance at them. She's The High Queen indeed.
    • In the remake, the hyenas don't bark nor attempt to attack her, but nonetheless give her a collective Death Glare and growl ominously, both of which Sarabi serenely rejects.
  • Megamind tries to do this, but unfortunately for him he underestimates just how big the explosion is and how much debris is flying through the air, with the end result that he just ends up scurrying in away in complete terror:
    Megamind: Oh, I'm too close! I'm genuinely scared right now! I hope no one can see this!
  • During the climax of Moana, when Te Kā is running towards her, Moana calmly walks towards the wrathful goddess while singing her song.
  • The Mitchells vs. the Machines: Katie asks her father Rick if they can do one while exiting the Mall. Rick says that it's a complete waste of time. They proceed to do it anyway.
  • Penguins of Madagascar:
    • Lampshaded. Classified's plan for infiltrating Dave's submarine/base includes a simulated graphic of the team walking away without looking behind as the base explodes.
    • Later subverted; when the submarine explodes, the North Wind indeed walk away without looking behind... only to get hit by a truck crossing their path.
      Short Fuse: "Oh, that's why you don't look back at the explosion."
  • In Waltz with Bashir, Intrepid Reporter Ron Ben-Yishai does this while covering combat in Beirut, walking slowly and upright through a firefight while everyone else (including his cameraman) tries to keep low or take cover. This is made even more badass because Ben-Yishai actually did this in Real Life!

    Film — Live-Action 
  • In Adopting Terror, Fay does an Unflinching Walk away from the car she's just set on fire, seemingly unperturbed as it explodes.
  • Surprisingly, subverted in the 2010 A-Team movie - when the container with the plates explodes, the blastwave knocks the entire team off their feet.
  • Colonel Quaritch, the villain of Avatar, walks off this way after jumping out from his falling flaming dropship. In a Humongous Mecha.
  • Accidentally subverted during the big mansion shootout from the finale of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow 2. Chow Yun Fat's character, Ken Gor, tosses a grenade into the mansion and turns to nonchalantly stand in front of the ensuing explosion. But Chow was standing a few inches too close to the pyrotechnics when they went off, and he flinched away as his hair was singed. Seen here at the 1:20 mark.
  • Used in Black Hawk Down; every time McKnight's convoy stops, he gets out of his truck and strolls around, apparently oblivious to the bullets/RPGs flying all around him, to find out what's going on. Kind of justified, as you can't see bullets, and usually won't see the RPGs, so stopping to look just wastes time and makes you a target.
  • In The Blues Brothers, the gas station where Jake and Elwood have to stop to refuel the Bluesmobile blows up spectacularly immediately when they leave again due to spilled gasoline. The Blues Brothers don't care for the fireball behind them. Then again, this isn't the first explosion in the film they pretty much shrug off, and this time, things don't explode around them for a change. The scene was cut from the theatrical release, but reintroduced in the extended cut.
  • Accidentally subverted in Blue Thunder: Murphy flinches when the helicopter blows up behind him. (Director John Badham says he "didn't think Roy Scheider expected the explosion to be as loud and as big as it was.")
  • In Carrie (1976), Carrie walks out of the gym, while drenched in blood, as she sets it on fire and kills everyone inside. This is an interesting example because it's actually subverted in the book, as Carrie flees the gym prior to the fire and is actually tripped by one of the students.
  • Con Air:
    • Played with when, after setting up an explosion by lighting a pool of gasoline leading back to a gas station, Cyrus and his buddies walk off. Once the explosion happens, Cyrus keeps walking without reacting; everyone else, however, flinches or turns around to look.
    • Later in the movie Cyrus gets Poe at gunpoint and fires, hitting Poe in the shoulder. Poe keeps walking forward, doesn't even flinch from the hit, and begins fighting Cyrus. You do NOT threaten this man's daughter.
  • The Dark Crystal: At the finale, Aughra casually walks through the Skeksis Castle as it is falling to pieces around her.
  • Subverted in The Dark Knight: The Joker does something like an unflinching walk out of the hospital, then stops as the explosion peters out. He then stands there fiddling with the detonator until the rest of the bombs go off, visibly startling him, and he hightails it out of there. In the DVD commentary, the filmmakers expressed their amazement that Heath Ledger didn't even look back at the exploding building (which was not faked) when he entered the getaway bus, making it something of a meta example as well.
  • In Desperado El Mariachi tosses a couple of grenades down into the alley by Carolina’s bookstore to dispatch a couple of mooks, then Carolina and him stride away looking cool with the explosion in the background. An impressive calm for an unremarkable bookstore owner.
  • The final shootout of D-Day, where the hero Ivan walks unflinchingly while gunning down plenty of mooks left and right as oil drums, buildings, and vehicles explodes en masse behind him.
  • Guerrero, Red and Washington perform one as the walk away from the exploding bank in Dead in Tombstone.
  • Warren Beatty pulls off one of these in the Dick Tracy movie, although he's not walking but wearing a deadpan expression while firing a Tommy gun as a car explodes behind him.
    • Notable in that there are two tropes at work here; the More Dakka of the tommy gun masked the explosion to the point where Warren Beatty didn't even hear it, which is how he was able to pull it off.
  • Inverted in Django Unchained. Django turns back, puts his shades on and takes a good stare to the explosion.
  • Earth Girls Are Easy - Geena Davis has one as she sings a breakup song while trashing her ex's stuff, here with his prize football in a microwave.
  • In The Equalizer, Robert McCall does this when he blows up Vladimir Pushkin's container ships at the docks.
  • The Stinger ending to Fast & Furious 6 features an Establishing Character Moment of Deckard Shaw killing Han by blowing up his car in Tokyo. Not only does Deckard walk away while the car explodes, he even calls Dom during the explosion to let him know who he's dealing with.
    Deckard: (on the phone) Dominic Toretto, you don't know me. (car explodes) You're about to.
  • In The Fifth Element, Zorg casually takes a drag from a cigarette as an explosion bursts behind him. Made a bit more cool by the fact that the explosion was the result of Schmuck Bait, so he couldn't even be sure it would happen.
  • When Forrest Gump carries a wounded Bubba during the ambush in Vietnam, a large explosion is seen behind him. Forrest's only reaction is a slight increase in walking speed towards the end of the scene.
  • In From Dusk Till Dawn, Seth and Richie Gecko are bickering with each other while walking out of the exploding store. Richie had been shot in the hand, and Seth is annoyed that Richie is unable to keep a "low profile." Neither pays the slightest bit of attention to the store they just blew up.
  • Tony Anthony's character does this in the 1970s barely-a-western Get Mean. Clip of the scene.
  • Sheriff Clay performs one in Ghost Rock when he returns to town in time to aid the heroes in the final showdown after being run out of town earlier. He lights a stick of dynamite, tosses it into a building, and then continues his slow march into town as the building explodes behind him.
  • Subverted in God Bless America, where the main character lights a fuse on a car and walks away taking a drag of a cigarette as badass music swells... only to realize that the fuse has blown away. He awkwardly tries to snatch up the burning fuse but just singes his hand before giving up.
  • Shown in some of the print ads for the DVD of Hancock, with the title character looking all badass with his love interest beside him, whose super powers are supposed to be part of The Reveal. Good going Wal*Mart/Red Box.
  • A classic example of this would be Connor MacLeod's regeneration at the beginning of Highlander II: The Quickening.
  • In The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, after finding out his stepfather Bryce Sr. turned his back on him, Bryce blows up his Jaguar before waking away in this manner.
  • In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Thorin does this, in slow motion, fire all around, to face his enemy Azog. The warg-riding orc proceeds to completely trounce him.
  • Nam-Joo from The Host (2006) shoots the creature in the eye, then turns around and walks away without even bothering to watch as the creature bursts into flames.
  • Hot Fuzz: the poster and DVD cover featured Danny and Nick calmly walking away from an explosion (which didn't happen). The movie itself adverts it: they do run away from what they think will explode and leap through the air dramatically, only to discover it doesn't go off. But it does later, and they don't have time to run.
  • I Am Number Four as shown above. Bonus points for the fact that the flames actually consume her, but she has a shield that protects her from it leading to an Out of the Inferno moment.
  • Subverted in the fake trailer stinger of Jackass: The Movie: the elderly versions of the cast freak out and start running from the explosion and it spirals out of control from there.
  • James Bond:
  • In John Carpenter's Vampires James Woods gets one of these after the Big Bad attacks and slaughters his vampire hunting team at a post vamp-kill party. More badass points for this since the reason he is blowing up the motel is NOT to avenge his friends and kill anybody, but rather because he feels that it's the best way to hide any evidence.
  • In Joker (2019), the Joker does a sassy one when leaving the two police detectives to get badly beaten by rioters in the subway. He's even smoking a cigarette for extra flair.
  • In Jurassic World, ACU Trooper Miller essentially flips off the I. rex by standing his ground and firing his shotgun repeatedly at it. He got eaten, but by doing so, the last three soldiers — one of them severely injured — survived the attack and escaped I. rex pursuit, all thanks to his badassery. And to top it off, he's not just holding his ground; he's calmly striding towards the damn thing as it's charging right at him.
  • Used in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist after Master Pain set the Chosen One's house on fire.
  • In Law Abiding Citizen, Jamie Foxx doesn't even glance at the huge explosion he helps set up.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers has one instance, performed by - of all things - an Ent. After one of the Ents busts up Isengard's dam, he casually walks away as the torrential water eruption breaks through and floods the basin. "Don't be hasty" indeed.
  • Humorously subverted in Malavita; Maggie tries to pull this off, but when the explosion goes off, she jumps.
  • In Man on Fire, Creasy does one of these after he blows up the police chief.
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Iron Man:
      • In the trailers to the film (retained in the film itself). Iron Man dodges a tank shell and then fires a tiny, wrist-mounted rocket at the tank. He doesn't even wait for the rocket to explode before turning around to begin his Unflinching Walk. Combine that imagery with the opening riff of the Black Sabbath song of the same name and you have the ultimate in superhero badassery. The same trailer also shows an "Unflinching Stand" when Stark casually addresses a crowd with his back to the oncoming shockwave of a cluster bomb explosion.
      • Near the end of the film, the SHIELD team has to blow a door to gain access to Stane's facility. While the rest of the team takes cover, Coulson simply turns his back, crosses his arms and hunches up a little. Given that it's a door-breaching charge, the explosion is small and directed, but still... He repeats the move in an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode.
    • Iron Man 2: Whiplash does the unflinching walk twice. The first time is when he walks out of prison with a (diversionary) bomb going off behind him. The second is when he's walking through oncoming traffic on the Monaco racetrack, looking for Tony Stark's racecar.
    • Captain America: The Winter Soldier: The titular Winter Soldier is a master of this. In his introduction he just steps backwards to avoid the car he just detonated.
  • At the end of The Mask of Zorro, Zorro and Elena and many refugees walk away from the collapsing scaffolding of the mine that Don Montero was going to blow up, leaving the enslaved Indian slaves inside.
  • Reality TV show Next Action Star concluded with a 2-hour film. In one scene, the villain did such a walk in the middle of the gunfight, knowing that he would not be attacked (neither by his lackeys, nor the hero). He was about to enter the hero's car, only for it to speed off when he reached for the handle.
  • Used in The New Guy when Dizzy/Gil walks away from the girls who invited him to a party. He looks back and gets an Oh, Crap! expression on his face because he just set the school statue on fire.
  • Anton Chigurh does this after blowing up a car in No Country for Old Men. He blows it up as a distraction, so everyone else reacts while he casually steals some drugs.
  • On Deadly Ground, Steven Seagal stares down his Corrupt Corporate Executive boss as he sets off a massive explosion to put out an oil well fire just behind him while the oil workers all dive for cover. Neither of them flinch or blink.
  • Subverted and satirized in The Other Guys. "How do they walk away in movies without flinching when it explodes behind them!!? There's no way!! The movie industry is completely irresponsible for the way they portray explosions!!"
  • Pain & Gain: When they blow up Victor's car, thinking they killed him this time (still doesn't work). However, Paul slightly flinches and Daniel looks at him when it happens.
  • In Paths of Glory (1957) by Stanley Kubrick, there is a scene where, prior to a deadly battle, colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) walks through the trenches, while bombs land on the surrounding terrain. The soldiers all flinch; but Dax does not react at all. If the film were made today, the sequence would have been in slow motion with muted sound, and with a slow sad song playing in the background.
  • The villain The Tall Man does this in one of the Phantasm movies.
  • Discussed in the audio commentary of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl: the actor who plays Norrington comments that he wanted a moment like this at the part where Norrington tells the governor to barricade himself in an office during the pirate attack, but unfortunately he blinked when the explosion went off behind him.
  • Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, during the climax, Lord Beckett walks across the deck of his ship while it's being pummeled and sporting a Villainous BSoD. He should be tossed about by shockwaves and debris, but doesn't flinch until consumed by a final explosion.
  • Predators: A Predator sets his hijacked ship to explode from his wrist-mounted computer, then turns and walks away before it does.
  • Frank Castle, better known as The Punisher, did this twice in the second live action movie of the same name. The first time is when he leaves a tripwire mine with the wire stretched tight in the hand of a mafia boss's son, with the implication that eventually he'll drop the heavy explosive, and sure enough it happens just in time to frame Frank's exit. The second time is even more over the top as Frank kills the mafia boss responsible for the death of his family by detonating car fuel tanks in a pre-programmed sequence, all of which light up behind him as he walks away. As if this weren't enough, the burning wrecks trace out his trademark skull logo when viewed from the air.
  • The Mad Bomber does this in Quick when he walks away from the car he has rigged to blow with the Yakuza bosses inside.
  • A early example is seen in Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins (1985) after Remo (Fred Ward) blows up a jeep. Here's a clip.
  • In Rogue One, K-2SO catches a thrown grenade, then blithely tosses it over his shoulder to blow up a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers, all the time walking towards Jyn and Cassian while bitching about being left behind with the ship. Granted, he's a droid and could probably calculate the risks a lot faster than a human could, but it's still pretty awesome.
  • During Scream 2, Sidney shakes off the reporters and confidently walks through the college campus as the film ends.
  • Occurs at the end of Shooter, when Bob Lee Swagger kills the Big Bads as well as their men in their own private house then blows up the house along with them.
  • The ending of Sorority Row - the three final girls all walk away from the burning sorority house with confidence written across their faces, in time with each other and (to top it all off) in slow motion.
  • Evil-possessed Spider-Man does it in Spider-Man 3, after throwing one of Harry's pumpkin bombs back at him.
  • In the B-Movie Spiders, a space shuttle which had been carrying a secret military experiment makes a crash landing somewhere in the Nevada desert. The military shows up not long afterwards, and to cover it up, the Big Bad plants the explosives himself, and walks away. When the shuttle explodes a few moments later, the Big Bad walks away unflinching, while his fretful second-in-command, walking right beside him, cowers and covers his head. Bonus points for the Big Bad doing this while in a suit.
  • In Takers, after the first heist, the gang walks away from the helicopter they stole which blows up, Everybody except AJ(Hayden Christensen) flinches.
  • In Ten Dead Men, Ryan does one away from Hart's exploding car.
  • In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the T1000 does one of these after being INSIDE the truck that exploded. It walks, in silvery form, calmly and casually out of the fireball, and just as calmly recomposes its camouflage form and walks on.
  • In Unknown (2006), "Jean Jacket Guy" casually walks away from a pit of gasoline that he's set on fire as it explodes behind him.
  • Angela Bassett's character in Waiting to Exhale, of all movies. She piles her cheating husband's belongings into his car, sets them all on fire, unflinchingly walks away as the inferno burns... and then the scene turns into a painful subversion as she has a nervous breakdown.
  • Parodied in Windstruck. As the heroine drags a criminal from an overturned car, her partner just happens to drop his lit cigarette into the leaking gasoline. Cue explosion as she poses on the criminal Captain Morgan style.
  • Storm, quietly advancing on Toad in X-Men.
  • In X-Men Origins: Wolverine Wolverine does this away from an exploding helicopter.

    Literature 

    Live-Action TV 
  • In the Spanish series Acusados there's a scene where the main antagonist is warned by the main protagonist of a bomb in his car. Calmly, he hands his car's keys to his backstabbing lawyer / friend who he had to get rid of to advance his political goals, tells him to borrow his car and return it later when he can, and unflinchly walks off as his friend proceeds to fry himself. In a subterranean garage. You just have to see it. It's too cool.
  • The A-Team has a truly epic variation in the season two episode "Deadly Maneuvers". The explosion is timed to the flick of Hannibal placidly lighting his cigar. Hannibal isn't doing a walk away from it (he's already satisfied with the distance), but it has the "no reaction" part down pat.
  • The finale of Battlestar Galactica (2003) had Cavil doing this, followed by a horde of Centurions as he walked through Galactica's hallways while a battle was going on around him.
  • Better Call Saul: Done by Gus Fring when he destroys one of his restaurants to maintain the cover of his mole Nacho, who was instructed to do it: after setting up a gas explosion with a fryer full of boiling oil and a frozen chicken, it occurs as Gus is walking back to his car.
  • Breaking Bad
    • Mr. White pulls one of these in "Cancer Man" when he loses his patience with a rude, obnoxious businessman and puts a squeegee on his car battery, shorting it out. At first the viewer is amazed at how much White's morals have slipped as he walks away, AND THEN THE CAR EXPLODES. Mr. White, of course, does not flinch.
    • This happens again in the third season premiere when the two mysterious bald Mexican gangsters murder everyone in the truck they are using to cross the border into Texas, after which they set fire to the aforementioned vehicle.
      • This had to be done in one take, and Bryan Cranston, who directed the episode, basically threatened the actors into not flinching, and also suggested a casual cigarette-drag as they walked away. It worked.
    • Mr. White tries an unflinching walk again after totaling his car, then leaving a flaming newspaper in the gas tank as a fuse. But the fuse is too long, so after he reaches a comfortable distance he takes a seat on the asphalt and waits for it to explode.
    • In "Bug", Gus Fring walked out in the open while a Cartel sniper was firing at him the whole time. Gus figured that the Cartel needed him alive more than dead and that they were only trying to bluff and scare him. He was right.
    • Mr. White, taking his final form as Heisenberg, does a spectacular one in the Season 4 finale when he and Jesse blow up the super meth lab under the laundry. After Walt shouts "Vamonos!" and the employees scatter, they walk away nonchalantly as the conflagration resonates and the hidden entrance erupts in smoke in the background.
  • Used on Burn Notice in the Season 1 finale, when Michael and Sam were running off a boat, After Mike rescues Sam, they cross the gangplank Mike rigged with a bomb, and kept on running as the gangplank exploded. Michael had the unflinching...er...run, but Sam, having not been told about the bomb, was freaking out in glorious slow motion. And they put it in the opening sequence.
    • Also played with in an earlier episode, when Michael demonstrates the C4 that he is trying to sell (of course, the rest of it is fake). He walks slowly away, waits until after he is outside the blast radius, stops, and then detonates it. He never flinches; just says "Are we in business?"
  • In one episode of CSI: Miami, badass CSI agent Horatio Caine finds a bomb in a car they have impounded. Realizing he has only minutes until it detonates, he jumps in, drives the car out of the garage, through the streets of Miami (with appropriate roaring engine noises, weaving in and out of traffic, etc.) and races to a deserted stretch of beach. He then calmly takes his sunglasses off, gets out of the car, puts his sunglasses back on and executes an Unflinching Walk, complete with badass black clothes and sunglasses.
    Horatio Caine: Burn baby burn.
  • Doctor Who:
    • "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy": Here.
      • Though it's worth noting that Sylvester McCoy didn't actually get quite far enough and was slightly caught in the heat blast. Fortunately, his earliest stage days had involved a lot of "don't try this at home" high-jinks with pyrotechnics.
      • In fact, he was told not to expect a massive explosion, and that most of it would be put in with special effects afterwards. When the whole tent set exploded behind him, he ended up having to do the Unflinching Walk for real, because he knew they couldn't afford a second take.
    • "Voyage of the Damned": The Tenth Doctor does this after Astrid and Capricorn's deaths.
      • And again in "The Poison Sky". Desperate boy points gun at him? He just wrenches it out of his hands, tosses it aside, and grumbles, all without slowing his stride.
    • Rose Tyler in "The Stolen Earth", while toting a BFG.
    • "The End of Time": When the Doctor is finally able to speak to the Master. The Master is able to fire lightning from his hands. He misses twice, and not only does the Doctor not stop or even slow down, he doesn't even change his facial expression. Promptly subverted, though, when said lightning-flinger actually manages to hit him, and he's reduced to writhing on the ground in pain.
    • Companion Rory Williams caps his ascension from Butt-Monkey to Badass in the opening of "A Good Man Goes to War". An entire Cyber-fleet is blowing up behind him, and he merely stares at the Cybermen in front of him, and says, "Would you like me to repeat the question?" (Alas, no walk, but it definitely falls under the "not looking at the explosion" heading.)
    • Tripled in awesomeness in "The Day of the Doctor", where Ten, Eleven, and War all walk out of the Gallifreyan painting after blasting their way in with a Dalek. Clara outright calls it "showing off".
      War Doctor: Hello...
      Tenth Doctor: ...I'm the Doctor...
      Eleventh Doctor: ...Sorry about the Dalek.
    • Yasmin Khan does this in "The Power of the Doctor," carrying a dying Thirteen in a determined walk to the TARDIS as an entire planet crumbles all around them.
  • Ronald Sandoval from Earth: Final Conflict was fond of this trope, with much evidence regarding his undercover dirty work for the Taelons vanishing in appropriately timed fireballs. He even liked it so much he did it AFTER leaving their employ.
  • In Good Omens (2019), War's introductory scene ends with her walking off with gunfire and explosions going off behind her, after she succeeds in turning a peace talk into a reignition of the conflict.
  • Heroes: After a corrupt cop kills another evolved human, Magneto-esque Volume 5 Big Bad Samuel gets his revenge by using his earth controlling powers to destroy the police station. As the station crumbles to the ground (complete with mushroom cloud-like plume of smoke), Samuel walks away with arguably one of the most badass faces ever seen.
  • In Human Target, Guerrero gets a great one of these, blowing up the CIA agent who threatened his kid.
    Guerrero: He's my world. You understand? That's my kid.
  • Performed by the protagonists of Human Wrecking Balls in the first episode as the car they smashed up explodes in the background.
  • JAG: In "Boot", Staff Sergeant Carrington and Sergeant Gonzalez slowly pace up and down the length of a gas chamber full of tear gas, singing the Marine Corps Hymn while the recruits are hardly able to breathe.
  • Kamen Rider rarely subverts this (or at least follows the Super Sentai samples below), with the most egregious being Kamen Rider BLACK RX and, for a more contemporary example, Kamen Rider Hibiki in its Non-Serial Movie entitled The Seven Senki.
    • This was parodied in a great scene on the Kamen Rider Decade special features, where various Kamen Riders hold a footrace to see who has the fastest landspeed. Most of the other Riders make a show of it, but Black just does an Unflinching Walk around the track, slow-mo and all. The other Kamen Riders proceed to reset the finishing line tape for him and declare him the winner when he finally gets to the end.
  • Played with in the opening credits of comedy show The Last Leg. Adam Hills and Alex Brooker pull off an amazing one as they walk away from an explosion, but Josh Widecombe flinches massively and looks around.
  • LEGO Masters had a destruction challenge where the contestants had to build an action scene in this style, with a minifigure in front and a bigger model that would get blown up behind them. In one team's build, the explosion knocked over the minifigure and the build was criticized for failing the "unflinching" part, but the team managed to avoid being eliminated.
  • In Lethal Weapon (2016) Riggs does this after blowing up a van attempting to run down Rachel in Episode 6, "Ties that Bind".
  • Referenced in MacGyver (2016) season 5 episode 3, 'Eclipse + USMC-1856707 + Step Potential + Chain Lock + Ma' - at the end of the intro, a car blows up behind the team. Everyone gets thrown forward and collapses, except Desi, the team’s hitter, who continues walking towards the camera, grinning, and says, "You guys always mess that up."
  • Marvel Cinematic Universe:
    • Frank Castle does this when he blows up his old house in the Season 2 finale of Daredevil (2015).
    • And Billy Russo does the same after blowing up a building in The Punisher (2017).
  • Stationary variant: On Monster Garage, Jesse James stays completely still and unflinching in the foreground as the show's first failed creation, a car-crushing hearse, is itself fed into a car crusher, then blown up spectacularly due to a jug of propane planted in it by the crew.
  • Not really a "walk", but when the MythBusters were replicating the results of the Dynamite Dog myth (dynamite sinking a car on the ice), Jamie had his back to the explosion and didn't look at it as he himself recited the countdown and set it off. Adam, on the other hand, watched the whole thing.
  • NCIS:
    • In a variant, Gibbs stomped out of a room as a huge real-time explosion took place on a screen behind him. He was disgusted by his superiors' refusal to call back some marines who were headed for the a ship with a bomber on it — and with good evidence the bomber was the radio operator who had been intercepting all messages directed at the ship — and wasn't going to linger and watch good men die unnecessarily. So disgusted, in fact, that he quit entirely. The episode was the "Hiatus" two-parter. More on the NCIS wiki.
    • In one of the earlier seasons, he calmly puts his shades into his coat as a trailer explodes in a field behind him. Tony and Kate both crouch and cover.
      Gibbs: You might want to-
      [trailer explodes, Tony and Kate duck]
      Gibbs: [smiling] Cover your ears.
      • This was eventually put into the opening sequence.
  • In Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Princess Moon throws around fireballs, igniting the scenery, with nothing but a cold glare on her face and a cool walk towards her enemy.
  • Smallville, in the aptly-titled episode "Justice", the proto-Justice League did this. This is both an example of the Team Power Walk subset and a Shout-Out to the Justice League series's original opening.
    • A villainous version when Warp blows up a anti-vigilante office to frame the good guys.
  • In the pilot episode of Smith, although the protagonists are doing an Unflinching Walk away from their exploding getaway boat, the scene is rendered decidedly more depressing than Badass by the choice of background music (Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek") and the fact that the boat contained the corpse of a colleague who didn't survive the heist.
  • Averted in the pilot of Sons of Anarchy: when the Sons blow up the Mayan's warehouse, they both run away and look back at the explosion.
  • Subverted in Spooks. In the first episode of the seventh series lead character Adam is speeding through the streets of London in car set to explode. Just as he finds a sufficiently empty spot and gets out of the car for what you expect to be an awesome unflinching walk away, the bomb goes off taking him with it.
    • Spooks averts a lot of tropes with its rule that literally any character can be killed at any time. And, yes, that includes the top-billed leads.
  • Stargate:
    • In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Talion", Teal'c, who is in full Roaring Rampage of Revenge mode, walks away from a Jaffa traitor, who he's tied to a tree and has placed a bomb inside him.
      Traitor: Where are you going?
      Teal'c: I am leaving. You are about to explode.
    • In the Stargate Atlantis episode "Sateda", Ronon Dex is forced to fight several enemies. In one case he casually turns away from a foe who is down but not out, as well as a Wraith tracking drone. He then tosses a grenade over his shoulder without breaking stride.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine scaled this up to entire spaceships. The Defiant was always flying away from explosions at the last minute, showing no concern for the mayhem behind it. Even if someone else had to blow something up to make it happen. Particularly notable examples in Tears of the Prophets (the power system for the weapons platforms) and Sacrifice of Angels (a Cardassian warship which serves no purpose except to blow up section by section after the Defiant flies past).
  • In Strange Empire Marshall Mercedi pulls one of these off in "The Whiskey Trader", blowing up an entire wagon of dynamite.
  • Castiel's first appearance on Supernatural, in which the entire building shakes, the door bursts open (it was barred), and he walks in amid showers of sparks from bursting lightbulbs, completely ignoring said sparks, the many protective symbols covering the walls, four shotgun blasts, and a frickin' magic knife to the chest. Well, OK, he doesn't ignore the knife. He glances at it, pulls it out, and casually drops it.
  • While they don't exactly walk away, Super Sentai and Power Rangers often wrap up roll calls with an explosion of flame and/or colored smoke going off behind the team while they strike an Ass Kicking Pose or "Super Sentai" Stance. These scenes are known in some fan communities as the "Exploding Fart Shot". They and their Humongous Mecha would also often turn away from their enemies just having dealt the killing blow, which would result in an explosion behind them.
    • In one memorable instance, the heroes of Power Rangers: Dino Thunder turn around for the Victory Pose... but the monster was Not Quite Dead, and blasts them while their backs are turned. Later on during Power Rangers Samurai, defeated monsters would discuss how they find the Rangers turning their backs like that insulting:
      Rhinosnorus: It was so humiliating. And then they did that thing they do when they turn around and let us explode behind them.
    • The Turbo Megazord in Power Rangers Turbo/RV Robo in Gekisou Sentai Carranger actually had a special pose - on the left knee, sword pointed towards the camera, BOOM in the background. Actually not so surprising, given that the attack in question involves a lot of spinning. (It got old fast, though, because this part was Stock Footage; for a good chunk of Turbo, you never got to see the monster actually blow up. Feels less real when the monster's destruction is the same stock shot.)
      • In Power Rangers' 10th Anniversary Reunion Show, "Forever Red", the Red Turbo Ranger finishes off one of the villains with a spinning attack with his sword, and lands in the very same pose as the Turbo Megazord as the enemy goes 'boom' in the background.
    • Subverted in one episode of Gogo Sentai Boukenger where the Red Ranger was afflicted with bad luck, so wore various lucky charms into battle. The Exploding Fart set the charms on fire, and the other Rangers had to take a minute to put Red out while the villains laughed their asses off. (Pity the scene wasn't carried over into Power Rangers Operation Overdrive; the villains had to make do with laughing their asses off at the ridiculous charms.)
    • But Power Rangers RPM makes up for it. Not only does one episode lampshade such explosions, but the Blue Ranger's attempt at fixing a glitch in his morpher runs the risk of cranking the blast up... so he aims the Exploding Fart at The Dragon and her Mooks and fires away. Needless to say, the bad guys aren't so unflinching.
    • Occasionally, a Megazord will walk into the explosions that are being launched at them. When a Megazord does walk through an enemy's attack like that, monster ass is about to get kicked.
    • In Juken Sentai Gekiranger, the heroes' first fight using their new Super Mode ends with Jan kicking Rio's ass, then walking away as Rio collapses amidst explosions.
    • Choujuu Sentai Liveman had Red Falcon, realizing that Baron Ashura's Fatal Flaw was that he had lost the ability to comprehend emotions, pull an unflinching walk towards the villain, ignoring enemy attacks that hit him, knocking Hacker-Brain out of his path with a roundhouse kick, until he was able to pull a Punch Catch on Ashura and nail him right in the kisser.
    • Samurai Sentai Shinkenger had an awe-inspiring scene in the Final Battle. After just barely beating Chimatsuri Doukoku's first life, the Shinkengers responded to his second life by forming Zen Samurai Gattai SamuraiHaoh before they slowly advanced on Doukoku, purging Origami as they got too badly damaged until they were reduced to the base Samurai Gattai Shinken-Oh. All of this so the Shinkengers could conserve their remaining Mojikara for one final Samurai Slash.
  • Doubly subverted in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Corrupt Corporate Executive Catherine Weaver unflinchingly walks away from an exploding warehouse, is engulfed in flames, and unflinchingly walks out.
    • Also, Summer Glau turns her robot badassey up this scene when she drives a truck off a cliff and walks away over the top of it. She does turn to look at the crash afterwards, though.
  • In the pilot episode of The Visitor (1997), The hero Adam McArthur does that after self-destructing his crashed stolen spaceship.
  • Professor Brian Cox, in keeping with his extremely cool image, walks nonchalantly away from a collapsing prison in Wonders of the Universe. For added awesome, the destruction represents the collapse of a giant star - metaphorically, he's walking away from one of the biggest explosions in the universe.
  • Somewhat parodied in the trailer for the Horne and Corden comedy thriller The Wrong Mans. The duo casually stroll through a burning building, random explosions happening around them, looking completely unfazed...until Corden stops, remembers he's forgotten his phone, and they quickly head back inside to retrieve it.
  • The X-Files, episode "731": Mr X. outwalked the fireball carrying Mulder.

    Music 
  • "Whistle Wihle I Work It" by Chester See (feat. Toby Turner and Wayne Brady) either plays it straight or subverts it, depending on which version of the music video you watch. In the latter case, the explosion causes the guys to drop the ground and grip their ears in pain.
  • The video for "Prayer" by Disturbed has the singer continue walking slowly and speaking with God while explosions and car accidents happen all around him.
  • Hilariously enough, Kesha, of all people, does this right at the beginning of her We R Who We R video. There's a huge fireball/explosion behind her and her girl posse...and after ignoring it and walking away, they start to party.
  • In 'I'M ON CRACK' by The Left-Rights, the Josh Harraway launches Mike Diva's car into space, where it comes back down. As Josh walks away, the car crashes into the ground behind him and creates a huge explosion, and all Josh does is pull out a pair of sunglasses and put them on.
  • Deconstructed in Lemon Demon's song "Action Movie Hero Boy". There's a reason they use pyrotechnic experts with remote switches instead of just measuring tape and grenades.
    Hey, look at me, casually
    Walking away Stumbling down like Action Movie Hero Boy Blooper Reel
    In slow-mo, everything glowing
    And blowing to bits right behind including me!
  • This is the subject of The Lonely Island's song "Cool Guys Don't Look At Explosions".
    • In the music video for this, it is subverted in the end when the characters attempted to do this.
  • The cover art of English big-beat duo Propellerheads's first (and only) album Decksanddrumsandrockandroll depicts the members of the group silhouetted and walking away from a fiery blast.
  • In the beginning of "Gangnam Style", PSY and two women walk while an excessive amount of wind blows debris and unknown sticky white particles at them. The women wind up covering their faces, but PSY just keeps on singing.
    • There's also an explosion just before the first chorus starts, which PSY also ignores.
  • During the music video for "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down" by Puff Daddy and Mase, the due get in their car in matching outfits, for no explained reason, drive out into the desert, for no explained reason, and dramatically walk away from their car as it explodes behind them, for no explained reason.
  • The last ten seconds of Rammstein's video for "Du Hast" has the band doing a Team Power Walk across a field with a massive bomb explosion behind them. It's awesome.
  • The music video for the Taylor Swift song "Bad Blood" features Taylor and several other women walking away from an explosion.
  • Xzibit's 1998 music video "What U See Is What U Get" features the rapper walking to the store and back home through the streets of Los Angeles, where a numerous of chaotic incidents, such as carjacking, bombing, shooting, and store looting, is happening around him, all of which he is oblivious to while walking.
  • In the animated video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's "CNR", Charles Nelson Reilly is seen doing it as he blows up the secret of cold fusion which he just discovered.

    Pinball 
  • The Mandalorian: The Premium version's backglass artwork depicts the Mandalorian casually walking towards the viewer while several explosions go off behind him.

    Podcasts 
  • In Jemjammer, Cacophony does this as she sets the neogi ship to explode, though rather than a walk it's a slow-motion run. While the others run at normal speed.

    Video Games 
  • Michael Thorton walks away from the exploding Roman Ruins in Alpha Protocol.
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has Unflinching Leaps of Faith: After setting up the explosives to destroy a Borgia Tower, Ezio calmly throws a torch to set them off, then strolls onto a protrusion and executes a Leap of Faith without any apparent concern for the Stuff Blowing Up.
    • Igniting a fort's powder store in Assassin's Creed III gives the player just enough time to pull of such a walk themselves.
  • Even The Battle for Middle-earth has one instance, performed by - of all people - Treebeard. After he busts up Isengard's dam, he casually walks away as the torrential water eruption breaks through and floods the basin. "Don't be hasty" indeed. (Based on a similar scene in the film, above.)
  • Invoked in Borderlands 2. The Slab King sends you on a mission to steal some explosives, and in the process you need to lure a bandit leader out by blowing up his favorite Buzzard aircraft. You're given an optional objective to not look at the explosion and just walk away, and if you do, the bandit leader comes in over the radio babbling about how terrifyingly badass you are.
    "That Slab just blew up my buzzard without even looking at the explosion! But I...I aint scared..."
  • In Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, during the mission "One Shot, One Kill" Captain MacMillian and then-Lieutenant Price take down a Hind helicopter with their sniper rifles. The Captain then turns away from the crashing helicopter, quips "Good night, ya bastard," and does an Unflinching Walk away from it as it crashes. On top of him. Price has to carry the Captain all the way to the extraction point. But the Badass-ness of that scene was so worth it.
    • In Modern Warfare 3, Price and Yuri perform this towards Makarov's safehouse in the final level, machine gunning Makarov's troops without hesitation while wearing full Juggernaut suits, rendering them almost impervious to the incoming gunfire. The sheer levels of badass in that level are astounding.
  • CLANNAD has Tomoyo's first appearance, when she easily dispatches the bullies from a rival school. She doesn't look back when they're flying in the air.
  • After defeating the psychopath Seymour in Dead Rising 2 and watching him fall to his demise on a table saw, Chuck walks past, only dryly remarking "I saw what you did there."
  • At the end of Deadly Premonition, York walks away as the Final Boss explodes into chunky gibs behind him in slow motion.
  • Vincent in Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII loves this trope.
  • Thanks to the sheer amount of highly explosive nuclear powered cars, trucks and motorcycles scattered around The Capital Wasteland and The D.C. Ruins in Fallout 3, you can do this to your little heart's content.
    • When leaving the Raven Rock complex, after setting President Eden to self destruct, you will quite possibly have to do an unflinching walk, since all the soldiers therein carry so much valuable loot (we're talking really high-end stuff) you will probably have amassed ten or fifteen times your maximum run weight limit before you even leave. Of course, you can always do it intentionally anyway.
    • With the addition of C4 plastic explosive in Fallout: New Vegas (which can be remotely detonated), you can walk away from massive explosions anytime, anywhere. It's also demonstrated at the end of the teaser trailer.
  • In For Honor, one of the Aramusha's executions involves smashing a jar of oil or alcohol on his opponent's chest and then flicking a match over his shoulder as he walks away, ignoring the ensuing explosion.
  • Noticeably averted in Gears of War 3, when Dom sacrifices himself, Marcus runs behind cover and crawls into a ball, and everyone else jumps behind cover, too.
  • In the Nintendo 64 Goldeneye 007, James Bond struts off casually at the end of the Streets level as the jeep behind him blows up for no apparent reason.
  • This is without a doubt the most fun way to use the remote plastic explosive in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and with the Free Rotating Camera you can make sure you've got the best possible viewpoint.
    • In Grand Theft Auto V, Trevor Phillips raids the O'Neil Brother's house, kills them all, and torches the place. He walks away unfazed as the house explodes.
    • GTA Online pulls this off as of the Heists Update during the Humane Labs Raide where your crew ends up does this after blowing up their helicopter they used in the Heist.
  • Every game in the Hitman series allows the player to do this, and it is unimaginably satisfying.
  • A lot of characters utilize this trope in Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory II though this is most prominent in the Combination Attack of The Gold Third when they join your party.
  • Happens in Jak X: Combat Racing, after Jak causes his opponent's car to crash. They exchange a short chat, then Jak just walks away as the car is reduced to smoking wreckage, with the guy still inside.
  • If Josuke Higashikata (4) successfully pulls off his counter-taunt in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle and gets his opponent to mock his hair, he'll start stomping towards the opponent, gaining a small buff to his attack power and immunity to flinching. The only downside is that the only control the player has over Josuke's movement during this buff is jumping: he'll always march towards the opponent until the buff expires.
  • Oscar in Jurassic Park: The Game. One of many ways he shows this off is when Nima aims a gun at him. He just walks right up to her and snatches it from her hand, without flinching or hesitating or even blinking.
  • Rico can do this in Just Cause, but if you're too close to it, it can still damage you.
  • Done by Sephiroth in Kingdom Hearts to terrifying effect.
  • Weaponized in Kingdom of Loathing by the Avatar of Sneaky Pete, with the skill "Walk Away From Explosion", which One Hit Kills the target (unless it can't) and banishes it for 30 adventures.
  • With Link's remote-controlled bombs, the enemies' tendency to keep barrels of explosives around their lairs and the fully-adjustable camera angle, it's fully possible to do this in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Just be really sure Link actually is far enough away before setting it off though, or he will be needing Mipha's Grace...
  • Six in the ending of Little Nightmares as she kills every single guest on her way out of The Maw.
  • Mass Effect 2: "Fry, you son of a bitch," courtesy of gun for hire, Zaeed.
    • A less explosion-related example, Shepard's calm stroll out of Cathka's workshop as the Batarian writhes on the floor in pain from the severe electrical shock Shepard just dealt him.
    • And subverted in Project Overlord: Shepard's Unflinching Walk from a giant collapsing radio antenna is cut short when a very large piece of the antenna nearly pancakes the whole party, followed by Shepard and company running like hell when they realize the whole thing is about to collapse on top of them.
    • Entirely doable any time a YMIR mech shows up in gameplay. If the killshot takes off its head, the mech will explode with a huge amount of force and a small mushroom cloud, letting Shepard pull an Unflinching Walk away from a nuclear explosion.
  • Mega Man does this as Wily's fortress explodes (again) at the end of Mega Man 7.
  • Metal Gear Solid:
    • Subverted when Snake starts to do this after blowing up a helicopter he was fighting, but then turns around and runs to the railing to watch the explosion. He then walks away once the explosion is over, followed up with "That takes care of the cremation".
    • Played straight in Twin Snakes: Snake looks off the building as the helicopter falls, says "See you in hell, Liquid", then walks away as the helicopter blows up.
  • Metroid Prime Trilogy:
    • Metroid Prime: Happens after defeating Thardus (the rock monster). All of the rocks explode outward and Samus just casually strolls away. One of the smaller rocks actually dings off her helmet, but she just looks annoyed that it messed up her Unflinching Walk.
    • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes: Happens after finishing off Quadraxis. The core unit starts shaking, Samus hops off the unit and glides down to the ground, and strikes a pose as Quadraxis' head flies past her exploding, all while she then slowly gets up, doesn't spare a glace, and walks away.
    • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption:
      • One of these happens after every major boss. Samus casually strolls away while the Phazon Core she just gave a Phlebotinum Overload comes crashing down behind her and starts exploding. Made extra badass because each of these events also increases her corruption level, and yet she continues like nothing happened.
      • Happens on Elysia, where you can drop a bridge out from under a crowd of Tinbots by grappling out the support gates. As the bridge collapses, the camera focuses on Samus' back as she calmly walks away. The whole sequence earns you a "Stylish Kill" token voucher.
  • In Monday Night Combat and its sequel, every class has a taunt which is exactly this, with a few variations: Captain Spark uses his Jet Pack to fly forward, Megabeth does a sick jump, and the Sniper gets caught in the blast, trips and drops his rifle.
  • The opening movie of Neo Contra ends with Bill Rizer and Jaguar walking Out of the Inferno then shooting at the screen.
  • In Overwatch one of D'Va's play of the game clips has her ejecting from her self destructing mech and then stopping to take a selfie with the explosion.
  • In Red Faction: Guerrilla, this can be done to ludicrous extremes combined with actual cool building destruction.
  • Ruphand: An Apothecary's Adventure: When Brill talks to a student who heard about her exploits in the Arkenvali Subterrane, and not looking at an explosion is part of the tale:
    Student: Is it really true that you [...] shoved an Ice Formula down its throat before [...] looking away from the explosion?
  • Samurai Warriors has Ujiyasu Hojo, a Cool Old Guy and leader of the Hojo clan. His Ultimate Musou has him reach into his coat, withdraw a large iron bomb with its fuse already lit, and casually chuck it over his shoulder without a second glance while nonchalantly swaggering away, leaving everyone behind him to explode and burn.
  • In the Death Egg Boss fight of Sonic Generations, Classic Sonic lands and strikes a pose after Metal Sonic is destroyed, complete with small explosions. Subverted seconds later when he does flinch from the explosions.
  • In Star Fox 64, if you defeat the Macbeth boss by flipping all eight switches and sending him down the wrong track, he goes racing out of control straight into a weapons factory. The next shot is of Fox calmly driving away from a massive explosion in the Land Master.
  • Artanis in StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void ends up doing this in the cinematic 'Alone', where at the end of it, he proceeds to Unflinching Warp away from a planet-destroying explosion after standing his ground against a large number of Zerg right after he had set Shakuras's Xel'Naga temple on overload.
  • Malgus of Star Wars: The Old Republic fame does one towards danger in the Return trailer. Having just grabbed his master's lightsaber, he walks toward a Jedi master while effortlessly slicing apart the various debris thrown at him until he finally leaps through an exploding turbine. Also done in the Deceived trailer. Unflinching Walks appear to be a Sith trademark.
  • As her first V-Trigger in Street Fighter V is a bomb with a big explosion that doesn't affect her, Ibuki could potentially do this as her opponent is blown up and KO'd.
  • Of all people, Princess Peach does this in the Subspace Emissary mode (one-player story mode) of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Fox is up on his Arwing, blowing up the deck of the Halberd (on which Peach and Sheik are standing) and the glorious explosions blooming behind her seem to affect her as much as a warm breeze.
    • DK and Diddy Kong get one in their introduction. The last Bullet Bill goes off with the two of them standing between it and the camera striking an Ass Kicking Pose.
  • After defeating the flamethrower wielding maniac Girdeux in Syphon Filter Logan calmly walks away as he burns alive, shrieking in pain.
  • Rex does this at the end of Target Earth.
  • Time Crisis 3 ends with Alan and Wesley walking out of the destruction of the Zagorian base after killing Giorgio Zott and stopping the missiles in the process.
  • The PC does this in two endings of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. Your PC calmly strides away from the ruins of LaCroix's building as bits of flaming debris come hurling into the ground next to them.
  • WET: after a wild car chase Rubi manages to crash Simmons' car. He yells at that he can't feel his legs, begs for her to help him and calls her a bitch when she doesn't. Rubi tells him he should have stopped at "I can't feel my legs", throws a lighter into the leaked gasoline and calmly walks away as the car explodes.
  • World of Warcraft has Garrosh Hellscream do this in the Siege of Orgrimmar patch trailer.
    • At the end of one questline in "Battle for Azeroth", Jaina Proudmoore and the player character both pull this one off. It's even lampshaded by an achievement— "Kul Tirans Don't Look At Explosions".

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • Lampshaded in The Angry Joe Show review of Just Cause 2 when Rico jumps out of a building that explodes behind him. "Cool guys don't look at explosions!" comes up in the subtitles.
  • The entire point of this Facebook page: [1]
  • In Glove and Boots, Mario blows up the porta-potty they rode down a mountain in.
  • Jacksfilms parodies this trope in two of his YIAY episodes, where he asks his viewers for "cool" things to say while walking away from an explosion.
  • Know Your Meme website summarized late 2010s series of memes as People Standing In Front Of Things They Destroyed. They depict the above-mentioned film scenes of Iron Man, Wolverine and Jocker walking from explosions, plus a real person, who supposedly destroyed somethnig. Usually it's a politician, implying he hurt a country or its economy, or a Franchise Killer director. Among less Take That! examples is a huge porn actor with his small partner.
  • In Linkara and ERod's crossover review of Batman: The Movie, the two do this after "getting rid of the bomb".
  • Red vs. Blue: During Viper's raid on Falcon Base in the first episode, Zero enters shortly after Diesel and Phase mop up most of the security forces inside, while a few remnants appear in an attempt to stop him, he easily takes care of them, finishing off the last one off in this style.
  • In RWBY Chibi parodies this during a segment with some of the characters arguing over what movie they should watch. Sun suggests an action movie and, at one scene, he and Neptune walk away slowly from a building. Neptune asks why they're doing so, only for Sun to grab his shades and put them on as a building explodes behind them.
    Sun: That's why.
  • Stupid Kids: Parodied in Towner örökség (Towner legacy), after Jason Towner escapes from a building, he does an unflinching standing right when the building blows up behind him. Then turns out he stood too close to the explosion and his entire back is on fire.
  • Survival Tips for S.H.I.E.L.D. Recruits cautions against this trope.
    Tip #234: Walking away from an explosion without looking at it is generally considered ‘cool’. Less cool is ending up in the hospital for months because you didn’t see a piece of shrapnel flying in your direction. Bear this in mind.
  • Done by Tom Scott at the end of his video explaining the differences between "real" explosions (engineered with powerful explosives, meant to induce severe damage) and "movie" explosions (engineered for visual flair, but causing minimal damage). Tom grins cheerfully as he detonates the explosives for the "movie" version, staring unflinchingly at the camera as a massive ball of fire forms behind him.
  • In Video Game High School Brian D. does this after taking down The Law at the end of season 1.

    Western Animation 
  • Parodied in the ISARTS Digital short Creature from the Lake. Shelby tries to do this while filming herself using dynamite to blow up the lake monster that ate her boss, but the shockwave from the explosion causes her to stumble and fall over.
  • Futurama has an example of this in the episode "Lethal Inspection", with Hermes limbo-ing out of a demolished building and then walking away as it explodes. Lampshaded by Bender.
    "He did it! And he's not looking back at that cool explosion, he's a hero!"
  • Parodied on Home Movies when Melissa sets fire to the "Little Fairy Princesses" building so she could escape.
  • The Legend of Korra: Korra blowing a giant fireball into Big Bad Amon's airship barely makes him break his stride. His minions, meanwhile, are blown away. This is especially impressive if his backstory, in which his parents were murdered and his face burned away by a firebender, is true. It is not.
  • The Patrick Star Show: During his stunt at the beginning of "Stuntin'", Patrick rides past a giant fireball caused from a man lighting his barbecue grill. He looks at the audience and says, "Cool as ice!"
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Potato Puff", SpongeBob drives away from a dynamite factory exploding. As a giant explosion happens behind him, he puts on some sunglasses, not turning back.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In the Season 7 premiere, the overgrown clone Wrecker lifts a burning gunship off of Commander Cody, and even says "Boom" as it explodes while walking away with Cody over his shoulder.
  • In the Steven Universe episode "The Test," the Gems set up a test for Steven, filled with thing like swinging blades and fire pillars, but Steven eventually discovers the obsticles are harmless and the entire test was just to boost his confidence. However, after overhearing the Gems question their ability to train Steven, he does an unflinching walk through all the obsticles, to arrive at the end and pretend that he didn't make either discovery, to give the Gems the impression the test worked as intended, to boost their confidence.

    Real Life 
  • Ludmilla Tourischeva, galactically successful Soviet gymnast in the early-mid '70s, executing her uneven bars routine for the World Cup in 1975. As she is wrapping it up and just about to dismount, the bars suddenly start collapsing. She flies off the apparatus and hits her dismount as the bars collapse completely. Tourischeva salutes the judges and strolls away without batting an eyelid or looking behind her. And then goes on to sweep the All-Around and all four event finals.
  • French resistance leader Charles DeGaulle was famous for this:
    • During an attack by pro-fascist snipers following the liberation of Paris, witnesses recalled seeing General Charles de Gaulle striding unflinchingly through a hail of bullets "as if he led a charmed life."
    • Later, in the early 60s, an assassination attempt was made against DeGaulle by the reactionary OAS (Secret Army Organization) in an effort to prevent him from abandoning Algeria. A napalm bomb was set off in front of his limo, and De Gaulle, assuming that an ambush has been set up and the car would be raked by gunfire if it stopped, leaned forward and ordered the driver to drive through the flames at top speed. It tore through the explosion scarcely even being singed. Most badass leader of the 20th century, hands down.
  • Audie Murphy actually did this after manning a machine gun nest that was about to blow.
  • This EOD guy. After dancing in front of the bomb. With Guns Akimbo.
  • These two soldiers.
  • The Boston Bombers reportedly stuck out in the aftermath of the bombing because of their non-reaction to the bombing:
"But unlike everyone around him, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev bears no sign of alarm. He walks away, seconds before a second explosion erupts where he had set down his backpack."
  • Firefighter demonstrates why it's dangerous to cook a turkey in an overflowing oil cooker by dunking one in and calmly walking away as the whole thing blows up.
  • Truth in Television: Many experienced demolitionists turn their backs on their detonations. After years in the business they've seen plenty of stuff blow up and they'd rather protect their eyes and hearing and reduce their exposure to flying debris.
  • During the Revolutionary War, George Washington had a disturbing habit of riding his horse out in front of his lines during pitched battles. While he was never struck by a bullet he had a few close calls and found bullet holes in his clothing on a couple of occasions.
  • This instance of Stephen Curry running back on defense while his long range three-point shot is still in the air.
  • Coach Jay reaction to his 2016 Villanova Wildcats 3-point buzzer beater to win the NCAA National Championship.
  • Arguably invoked for any orchestra playing Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. About half of rehearsals on it are actually learning the piece, and the other half is learning to ignore the cannon shots in the end. It takes quite a bit of time to learn to ignore.
  • When doing an interview during filming for Michael Bay's 6 Underground, Ryan Reynolds said he most appreciated the quiet moments in Bay's films. As soon as he said that, a car cartwheeled over a truck in the background, to which Reynolds didn't react in the slightest.


Keep walking, keep shining
Don't look back, keep on walking
Keep strutting, slow motion
The more you ignore it, the cooler you look!

Alternative Title(s): Walking Away From The Explosion

Top

Missing the Cool Explosion

Evil Morty walks away at the end not watching the explosion of Rick Prime's Omega Device after removing the core.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (6 votes)

Example of:

Main / UnflinchingWalk

Media sources:

Report