Basic Trope: A character can stay underwater for an undefined period of time.
- Straight: Alice can swim and breathe underwater, the risk of drowning is non-existent.
- Exaggerated: Alice can dive to the deepest reach of the oceans, she can not only swim, but also walk and run on the ocean floor, and even talk underwater and hold conversations, to the point that to her, Water Is Air.
- Downplayed: Alice can hold her breath underwater for longer than average, but eventually she has to come out for air.
- Justified:
- Alice belongs to a race of amphibian people or some sort of fish-people who lives Under the Sea.
- Alice is a Magical Girl with water-based powers, and it's one of the Required Secondary Powers.
- Alice is a Robot Girl, and as such she has no need for air.
- Alice is wearing scuba gear.
- Inverted:
- Super Drowning Skills.
- Alternatively, Alice is a fish who can travel in open air without water for extended period of time.
- Alice can survive anywhere, even deep space and the Marianas Trench, but only as long as she can hold her breath.
- Subverted: At first it seems that Alice will be able to swim underwater as long as she wants, but then she realizes that, the deeper she dives, the harder she finds to hold her breathe, and she'll have to swim back to the surface for air.
- Double Subverted: But then Alice realizes that, in the deepest reaches, her ability to not drown is once again at full capacity.
- Parodied:
- See Lampshaded below: When Alice is asked how she can breathe underwater, she realizes that she shouldn't, and quickly races to the surface for air.
- Alice is a Fish out of Water (Literally).
- Zig Zagged: Whether Alice can survive underwater or not, probably depends on several factors such as temperature of water, pressure, height of the water body, concentration of O2, etc.
- Averted: Alice can only hold her breath for a very limited period of time (Such as one or two minutes, for example), after which she'll drown.
- Enforced:
- Programming an Oxygen Meter in a videogame is difficult and time-consuming, so the programmers opted to give Alice the ability to never drown.
- Alice is in a kids cartoon, and the producers don't want to show Alice in risk of drowning, because it's considered a Family-Unfriendly Death.
- Lampshaded: "Wait a minute. How are we breathing down here?".
- Invoked:
- Magical Girl Alice first activates her spell to breathe underwater, and then dives into the water.
- Alice finds a lake which is a great resource of Oxygenated Underwater Bubbles, so she's confident of going freediving there because the risk of drowning is minimal.
- Exploited: Knowing about Alice's ability, the Big Bad sets the underwater secret entrance of his evil lair with traps, so an unsuspecting Alice will get caught.
- Defied:
- Despite having the power to breathe underwater, Magical Girl Alice gives herself an edge, and goes freediving in her civilian form.
- The Big Bad takes away her power to not drown, and then throws Alice into a Drowning Pit
- Discussed: "The secret entrance to the Evil Lair is underwater. Alice, you can breathe underwater. Go infiltrate that entrance."
- Conversed: "The goal is deep under the sea. Luckily, they have someone in their team who can hold her breathe for long periods of time, like Alice."
- Implied: Alice's teammates have heard stories of her underwater abilities, which eventually led them to recruit her.
- Deconstructed: Alice realizes that her ability to never drown has little use compared to other kind of powers. So, she decides to definitely avoid underwater missions in favor of more active roles along with her teammates.
- Reconstructed: But then Alice notices that her ability to breathe underwater is more important than she thought at first; thanks to Alice, her team was able to shatter the plans of the Big Bad in multiple occasions.
- Played For Laughs:
- Continuing from the Exaggerated example, Alice even moves her house Under the Sea. Water Is Air indeed.
- Alice is an aquaphilic who doesn't waste any chance to show off her ability, be it in a lake, a swimming pool, or even the bathtub of her house.
- Played For Drama:
- Like Alice, Dark Magical Girl Marina is also able to breathe underwater, but unlike Alice, she takes advantage of this ability to drag her enemies into water bodies, where she drowns them.
- Marina is Alice's rival, and this rivalry eventually leads to an underwater Designated Girl Fight, where each girl is actively trying to take away the other's powers.
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