Quotes • Headscratchers • Playing With • Useful Notes • Analysis • Image Links • Haiku • Laconic |
---|
So we will walk through the fire, And let it...burn! Let it burn! Let it burn! Let it burn!
—Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More With Feeling"
|
One level more Badass than the Smoke Shield. Basically, everything around someone just explodes and catches on fire. No One Could Survive That.
Cue Ominous Music...
Yes, yes they could. And they're slowly walking out, an Unflinching Walk, because the fire doesn't even bother them. We see their shadow first and only then do they emerge. This is your signal to run, run fast and run far. Frequently the end result of The Worf Barrage. If they're more powerful for it, you face Infernal Retaliation. Related is when we "cut" to inside the flames, or show the flames die down, with the victim unharmed. Usually performed by the Implacable Man.
A very old trope, to the point that "passing through the flames" and being unharmed/transformed is a classic metaphor.
Through the Fire and Flames has nothing to do with this trope, but could possibly be a cause of it.
See alse Outrun the Fireball, for the Not So Stoic version.
Anime and Manga[]
- Sho Shinjo from the OVA of Battle Arena Toshinden does this, after performing a melee attack against an attack helicopter, causing it to explode around him, the burning wreckage of which he emerges from.
- The titular character from Ergo Proxy invokes this once. The point of the scene is apparently to illustrate just how tough he is, especially the part where he steps in a pool of burning fuel barefoot without feeling it.
- Most of the villains of Dragonball Z have done this at least once, but Cell in particular seems pretty fond of it.
- The squishy sound his feet make as he walks inspires terror in all but the stoutest and most glow-y Super Saiyan!
- Bio Booster Armor Guyver has this happen to Sho after the battle with Enzyme II. A zoanoid throws a car containing an unconscious Sho into a light pole, who awakens in time to bioboost and walk out of the flames. His Guyver automatically de-equips shortly afterward as a result of his psychological trauma over having killed Enzyme II, who was really his father turned into a zoanoid.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
- All seven (so far) JoJos have survived injuries that should have killed them including losing hands, getting blown into near-space from a VOLCANO, getting stabbed in the lungs by wooden stakes, being shot in the back and left for dead, and having knives thrown at one of them by a time-stopping vampire that threw them in a way that seemed like they were all thrown at the same time. And yet there is no real equal to the moment leftmost in the picture above. He stopped time. This actually justifies exchanging the iconic steamroller for an oil tanker.
- In Fist of the North Star, Kenshiro is apparently able to remain completely unscathed, despite having fallen several foot into a pile of rubble, from a roof that he punched in because it had been set on fire, and then being hit repeatedly in the face with a huge stone collumn. This occurs mere seconds before he makes his shirt explode. Naturally.
- Nanoha of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha As. This scene is one of the reasons fans call her "The White Devil".
- Mayu of Goshuushou Sama Ninomiya Kun gets a similar scene after she sets off nearly every trap and then some on an island, also being called a devil. Though in this case, it was by the soldiers she was sending flying.
- Phoenix Ikki of the Saint Seiya anime, has his resurrection scene with the fire that was burning a forest and his brother, he appears out of the fire carrying his brother and extinguishes all the fire with his cosmos. Not surprising given his control over fire, and him generally being a Badass.
- Tetsuo Shima from Akira has a big scene where he faces down some tanks after doing this.
- Rock from Black Lagoon specifically mentions Roberta, who just blew up the bar he and the others were in, is probably going to do this and complains that they don't have Arnold Schwarzenegger to help them. They get out of there before she does, and the blatant references to the movie continue throughout the episode.
- Guts does this in the manga of Berserk while fighting a young girl turned-quasi-elf-monster-thing...and is just part of several scenes during that fight when he, a flesh-and-blood human (save for his artificial arm), is far more terrifying than the demon he seeks to kill. And he survives at least one of those fiery encounters by gutting the cocoons above him that held the abducted children the Apostle was turning into pseudo-elf Apostle spawns and letting the fluid that was suspending the half-creature inside drench him. Plenty of Squick moments in that arc.
- Alucard in the manga and OVA continuities of Hellsing, after he causes the plane he's flying in to nose-dive directly into the deck of a warship addition to showing off just how ridiculously Badass he is, just of crashing the plane is enough to kill several of the vampire soldiers on board.
- Shinji's Unit 01 does a nice version in an earlier Neon Genesis Evangelion episode. Its survival is slightly more understandable than most examples of this trope, since it is a Humongous Mecha after all. The inferno, on the other hand, is Tokyo. Sometimes being the center of the universe isn't such a great thing.
- The Angels really like doing this: Sachiel is hit with an N2 bomb in the very first episode, which does do some damage and sets everything within a half-mile radius on fire, but it quickly regenerates and starts moving again, to everyone's horror. Zeruel also does it when Rei shoves an N2 bomb in its face, and an absolutely massive explosion engulfs them both... cut to Zeruel completely unharmed, floating in the ash.
- Occurs in Gash Bell when a bookkeeper uses a flame spell, and Folgore emerges...though not completely unscathed: it burned his pants seat, showing his bare ass.
- Pokémon The First Movie had a variation with Ash in the final confrontation with Mewtwo, emerging through a cloud of smoke accompanied by about 25 Pokemon.
- Of course he did. There's always ash left after a fire.
- Ash has another moment in the TV series, where he walked out of the burning Celadon Gym with Erika's Gloom in his arms.
- In the Pokémon Special manga, Magma Admin Courtney/Marge of the Three Fires does this after Ruby attempts to hoist her by her own petard by dropping her right into her out of control flames, only to calmly emerge from the inferno with some burns and charred clothing after Ruby completes his escape.
- Zoids: Chaotic Century has Raven in his Zaber Fang striding out of the flaming ruin of a Republic base on Mt. Osa to battle Van during Prozen's invasion. This scene is shown in the opening theme of the anime.
- In the El-Hazard: The Magnificent World manga, there's two more Demon God androids than in the anime; the side characters come up with a plan for dealing with one that involves a concentrated attack to hit one of them (Jinnistacia) right before she fires her main attack; theoretically lowering shields to do so. The result was a tremendous explosion; which she walks out of, all it did was destroy her Nice Hat.
- In Cowboy Bebop's session #6, "Sympathy for the Devil", after Spike made Wen crash into a gas station that blew up as a result.
- Gundam Wing features several of these moments, notably after the Deathscythe Hell (which wasn't even finished at the time) takes a barrage of gunfire and seemingly explodes, causing the enemies to lower their guns. Afterward it steps out calmly and destroys them all in what this editor considers a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
- Another memorable one occurs during the series's final episode: A quarter fragment of the stupidly-huge space battleship Libra is falling towards Earth. Heero in the Wing Zero flies out ahead of it and turns around before attempting to line up a shot at it; the atmospheric reentry is literally peeling the armor off of the Wing Zero when he takes the shot, and Libra explodes and the screen goes out. A few seconds later a reasonably intact Wing Zero, transformed into its "Neo-Bird" flight mode, flies forward out of the explosion to general applause. Its awesomeness is only slightly reduced by Duo shouting out "He made it!" just before Zero appears.
- In Black Blood Brothers, when Zelman (a pyrokinetic) confronts some members of Kabun who'd been turned into Kowloon Children, he steps calmly out of a wall of flames, completely untouched, while his enemies are left writhing and screaming in pain behind him.
- Kittan from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann flies the King Kittan through the explosion that destroyed his Space Gunmen as a prelude to his Heroic Sacrifice.
- Also, Guame's Dai-Gundo emerging unscathed after having another Dai-Ganmen (which was on fire at the time) drop onto and explode in a massive mushroom cloud. And the thing is GRINNING the whole time with a creepy frozen box for a face.
- In a late episode of Code Geass R2, Lelouch walks out of the flames caused by his mind-controlled puppets' attacks as part of a scene that quickly became another notch on his Crowning Moment of Awesome belt.
- Much earlier in the series, Cornelia's first appearance saw her Gloucester walking out of the flames of the Middle Eastern base she and her men just flattened.
- In the second season of The Familiar of Zero, when Anies is attacked by a fire mage, she is engulfed in a fireball. The bad guys thinks he's won and of course is set to go on his merry way. However, Anies jumps out of the flames, the only thing missing is her cape, and proceeds to run that mage through with her sword.
- Played straight with Lina in the opening for season 1 of Slayers and with Duclis in season 4, but subverted with Phibbrizo. He staggers out with large pieces of his body missing and disintegrates one step in front of the heroes.
- Ryoko does this in the opening episode of Tenchi Muyo!. Her next line is, "Hey! That's no way to treat a lady!"
- Digimon Tamers presents the first version of this in the Digimon Series, executed by Dukemon/Gallantmon in episode 36. Notable since "the inferno" had been the collateral of an earlier attack of him. The scene is a mix of Gohan SSJ 2, and Knight in Shining Armor that moves like an Humongous Mecha with a Badass Cape that puts out the fire. Yes, that awesome.
- In Digimon Data Squad, ShineGreymon Burst Mode fights Belphemon/Kurata in the city. After easily dodging all of Belphemon/Kurata's attacks and causing great pain to them with his flame swords, ShineGreymon Burst Mode lights the whole street on fire and combines this with a slow walk toward Kurata and one of the most absolute hate filled Death Glares in Anime history, all to incite incredible fear in the horribly evil Mad Scientist before finally finishing him off. This is without a doubt a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
- Madlax does that in the first episode with an exploding tank.
- Anya attempted to do this in Mahou Sensei Negima when she reappeared before Negi. She was doing pretty well too, until she capped it off with a dramatic Flung Clothing that ended up with her robe catching on fire. Then when she tried to put it out, her hair caught on fire. Then when she ran around in a panic, her skirt caught on fire. See kids? This is why you shouldn't try this at home.
- Inverted by Johan of Monster. After setting fire to the book donation ceremony, Johan calmly watches everyone scurry around like ants until Tenma finds him and pulls a hand gun on him. He then calmly walks straight towards Tenma, past him, and into the sea of flames, a single finger on his forehead for Tenma to aim at. It's only when he's been completely obscured by smoke and flames that Tenma and Nina, who arrived while this was happening regain enough composure to shoot at him.
- In Yu Yu Hakusho, this occurs during the final match of the Dark Tournament between Yusuke and Toguro. Yusuke unleashes a Spirit Gun roughly 20 times larger and stronger than any other to that point. He hits Toguro with that blast, dead-on at point-blank range, the energy smashing a path through the stadium and hundreds of yards beyond. The area around Toguro's body is engulfed with flames, and it looks like he's done; as Kuwabara proclaims, "No one could have survived that!" We then see Toguro slowly get up and calmly walks back into the arena; aside from his busted shades, he suffered no damage. And when he returns, what does he say to the stunned Yusuke? "Is that all you got for me? I expected more from Genkai."
- The Goddamn Batman does it in the "Crossfire" episode of Batman: Gotham Knight
- One Piece gives us several examples:
- Portgas D. Ace does this during his confrontation with Blackbeard. Justified, since, well, he controls flames.
- At the end of the Little Garden arc, Nami, Vivi, and Zoro pull this off to take Mr. 5 and Miss Valentine, having been trapped on a wax construct for the past few episode that could only be destroyed when Ussop enveloped it in a massive inferno. Zoro, of course, combines this with Infernal Retaliation.
- In a flashback, Rob Lucci is bombarded with cannonfire by pirates, and responds by turning their captain into swiss cheese.
- Last episode of the Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer anime, Hikaru pulls this off, to everybody's joy.
- Konan from Naruto did this in the anime version of her fight with the Aburame clan. Apparently, she did this by saturating her body with water, so despite being made from paper she's was made less flammable than a regular person.
- Himura Kenshin, the legendary Hitokiri Battōsai (人斬り抜刀斎), was introduced in the first episode of Rurouni Kenshin handing out a can of whoop-ass to enemy swordsmen in a raging battlefield with fire.
- Fairy Tail OVA opening starts with Team Natsu, Wendy and Charle walking/flying through flames.
- Natsu kinda does this, except for the "walking out" portion. He eats the fire.
- Black Mage Zeref is introduced via flashback in the anime where he walks out of a blazing, destroyed city.
- Lady Kayura of Ronin Warriors (Yoroiden Samurai Troopers) does this a couple of times against Ryo of Wildfire.
- In To Aru Majutsu no Index, Touma pulls this against Stiyl Magnus. Later, Accelerator terrifies Itsuwa by causally walking through flames.
- In IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix, The Rocket crashes his mech in a flashback. He is then shown walking away from the burning mech like a bad ass.
- In D.Gray-man Arystar Krory does this after blowing his own castle before leaving to the order. Allen and Lavi think he killed himself by staying inside the explosion, until he appears from the flames, unfazed.
- Excel Saga: Some crooks kidnapped Hyatt. When she performed her daily "no breathing, no heartbeat" routine, they tried to cremate her. While the fire was still raging, she walked out, completely unharmed. Even her clothing survived :(
Comic Books[]
- Varied in Preacher (Comic Book), where the Saint of Killers takes a direct hit from a nuclear bomb that, we are later told, killed 800 people in the surrounding area almost immediately. Some scenes with the other characters later, cut to the Saint inside the inferno with still-spotless clothes. "Not enough gun."
- Played straight in "The Tarnished Angel" storyline of Kurt Busiek's Astro City.
- From Kingdom Come there's the scene where in the aftermath of the detonation of a horrendously powerful nuclear weapon when the smoke clears Superman is shown to be alive and virtually unharmed. His fellow heroes aren't so fortunate.
- But the trope is not quite averted in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Superman has just had a close encounter with a nuke and been slapped down hard in the middle of the desert. He blasts his way out of the puddle of radioactive glass but is seriously short of Yellow Sun power and is cut off from the source by an immense cloud of sand and a violent magnetic storm, which he doesn't have enough Up-Up-And-Away to get clear of. He survives only by sucking up a load of stored solar energy from several square miles of jungle, leaving him in a bad way but able to flee the conflagration.
- When Spider-Man first fought the Juggernaut, he ran a fuel tanker right into the villain, causing a massive explosion. Spider-Man is actually concerned that he killed the Juggernaut until ...
- The Hulk does this. A lot.
Film[]
- The Terminator series is very fond of this one, and definitely popularized it. In fact, the whole series exists because of this trope: James Cameron based the first film on a fever dream he once had, in which a robot skeleton strode out of an inferno after a fleeing woman.
- The first Out of the Inferno walk in the series was heavily damaged, unlike most of the others this case; the flames served to burn off his skin and clothes, revealing the metal skeleton underneath.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger is good at this trope in general. In Raw Deal he plays an ex-FBI agent turned sheriff who fakes his own death before going undercover as a mob hitman. He drives his squad car into an oil refinery, opens a few valves then blows it up with a flare pistol. Cue shot of Arnie riding out of the flames on a motorcycle.
- Done with V (or is it?) in V for Vendetta, utterly terrifying one of the few survivors.
- The father in the movie Cloak and Dagger does this out of a plane wreckage, for no reason other than to give the movie a Happy Ending. The scene could easily be read as in the imagination of Davey. It's quite intentionally left open to interpretation.
- Used in Highlander II the Quickening, when Connor MacLeod gets hit by a fuel truck. Fortunately, he's just regained both his youth and immortality, allowing him to stride out of the resulting fireball unharmed, dramatic music blaring, long coat blowing, sword clenched in his hand, Christopher Lambert doing his best "badass face" (okay, vacant stare, but it is Christopher Lambert). Sadly, that scene is just about the only cool thing in Highlander 2.
- The John Woo movie Hard Boiled has a big one of these near the end of the movie by the Big Bad Johnny Wong after the hospital is blown straight to hell. And to make matters even worse, he's taken Tequila's partner Alan hostage.
- The title character does this in the first RoboCop film. Robo calmly strides out of an exploding gas station, with only a minor amount of surface soot on his improbably shiny armor, and shoots out the back tire of Emil's motorbike as he tries to flee the scene.
- A scorched Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff emerging from his own plane wreckage. Plus it was a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
- Leland Gaunt does this in the movie version (though not the original novel) of Needful Things, after Dan Keaton realizes that Gaunt made him a pawn just as much as he'd imagined the rest of the town had been doing to him, and blows up the entire Needful Things shop, with himself and Gaunt in it. Of course, since Leland Gaunt is actually The Devil in disguise as a humble antique dealer, his immunity to fire is to be expected (indeed, it didn't surprise the protagonist at all).
- In the movie version of Casshern, the robot army incinerates a building. This prompts Casshern's badass walk right out of the building, girlfriend in his arms, and is the beginning of the single biggest robot ass kicking in the entire movie.
- Shows up in Batman Forever, after Two-Face blows up a gas main right on top of Bats.
- The Balrog revealed in The Lord of the Rings.
- Played with in Flesh + Blood: the castle is on fire and hero's party is getting the hell out when the antihero/villain wanders in from another direction, bloody and rather pissed. Then he has to jump back in a hurry as part of the roof collapses. He's later seen crawling out of the chimney, very scorched and extremely pissed.
- In Heroic Trio, the main characters blow up the Big Bad, only for his bloodied skeleton to emerge from the flames, ready to continue the fight.
- Return of the Jedi: The Millennium Falcon manages to make it out of the interior of the Death Star a split second after the explosion.
- In Battle Royale, as Mimura and friends are killed by Kiriyama, Mimura ends the battle by blowing up a massive propane tank bomb. The three heroes arrive on the scene, and it looks like everyone's dead...but then Kiriyama emerges out of the inferno, blinded, with Tears of Blood running down his face.
- The giant jumping spiders from Eight Legged Freaks do this somehow.
Literature[]
- Happens a few times in A Song of Ice and Fire:
- At the end of the first volume, after her husband has died, Daenerys Targaryen places him and her three dragon eggs onto a funeral pyre, and, distraught, purposefully allows herself to be caught in the blaze. However, when the fire burns out, she is standing there unharmed (relatively speaking; all her hair has been singed off), and holding three baby dragons hatched from eggs previously assumed to be petrified.
- Davos's escape from the flames at the Battle of King's Landing--which involved swimming out of an inlet full of Greek Fire and the wreckage of two fleets.
- Good Omens has Noble Demon Crowley walking unscathed out of a burning bookstore, just after the firefighters have started saying things like 'Poor guy. Horrible way to die.'
- Not as good as when he stops the Bentley to ask a random passer-by for directions. Said passer-by spends most of the conversation wondering whether it's a good idea to point out that the car is on fire.
- The zombies of World War Z do this at the Battle of Yonkers after the US Army and Air Force hit them with every big weapon they have. Watching the zombies do this crushes the morale of the soldiers watching.
I found myself staring into this cloud of black smoke where the horde had been. I vaguely remember other guys getting out of their holes, hatches opening on tanks and Bradleys, everyone just staring into the darkness. There was a quiet, a stillness that in my mind, lasted for hours. And then they came, right out of the smoke like a freakin' little kid's nightmare! Some were steaming, some were still burning... some were walking, some were crawling, some just dragging themselves along on their torn bellies... maybe one in twenty were still able to move, which left... shit... a couple thousand? And behind them mixing with their ranks and steadily pushing toward us, the remaining million the air strike hadn't even touched! And that was when the line collapsed. |
- The Ophidian Guard from the Warhammer 40000 novel Hammer of Daemons can march through the flames created by their master's Breath Weapon thanks to their armour. From the first novel, the Knights themselves ran through burning fuel without stopping or being affected.
- There's a point in Solo Command where the Wraiths are lured into a trap and dumped into an incinerator. They use explosives to create a hole. The Force-Sensitive member gets out with all the unscathed coolness that this trope calls for; the others, not so much. They are burned/on fire and not remotely dignified. Still, their furious determination as soon as everyone is present and accounted for fits the trope very well.
- Mandatory Discworld example: In Reaper Man Death (aka Bill Door) walks out of a burning house, a small girl in his arms, smouldering.
- a subversion in I Shall Wear Midnight uses this as a plot point in defeating the big bad.
- Flame Trooper Brostin manages this in one Gaunt's Ghosts novel, with the help of a large puddle of liquid fuel, a bottle of flame-retardant gel, a cigarette, and an acute case of pyromania. Notably, he refuses to get clear before blowing up himself and a whole bunch of bad guys despite knowing that the gel will probably save his life, but won't give him complete protection. He does it because he wants to look cool in front of his buddies. Oh, and because of the acute case of pyromania.
Live Action TV[]
- An interesting variation from the first season of Heroes: Claire stepped from the gutted remains of her home (after sedating Ted before he went critical and took out the neighborhood) covered in third-to-fourth-degree-burns, but by the time she made it into her father's arms halfway across the lawn she merely needed a shower and some clothes.
- In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, after Catherine Weaver kills all of the personnel at the secret warehouse in the desert, she blows it up while calmly walking away, and the fires engulf her body. Naturally, she walks out of the fireball without any damage.
- One Kull Warrior did this in Stargate SG-1. Since they are Nigh Invulnerable, it didn't bother that one too much.
- Turns up in, of all places, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, when Usagi/Sailor Moon is knocked into an explosion, and emerges from the resulting wall of fire as Princess Serenity. Since she's both a Person of Mass Destruction and a Super-Powered Evil Side, things start blowing up very quickly.
- Due to being Dangerously Genre Savvy, the Gokaigers frequently invoke Transformation Is a Free Action to protect themselves from incoming attack, leading to this. However, the most epic version is when Gokai Gallon falls under heavy fire and is engulfed in a massive explosion. Cue a completely transformed Gokai-Oh charging straight out of the flames and ready to kick some tail.
- In the Smallville episode "Hothead", Coach Walt Arnold engulfs Clark Kent in massive flames and thinks he's won, only for Clark to nonchalantly step out of them.
Music[]
- The Guy on the cover art of Disturbed's Indestructible album.
- Through the Fire and the Flames includes this trope. Nothing needs to be said about its awesomeness.
- The end of the video for "Lowlife" by Theory of a Deadman.
Religion[]
- From the Bible (Book of Daniel, chapter 3) we have Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, three of Daniel's friends, who refused to worship a golden image, were thrown into a blazing-hot furnace, and walked out unharmed, accompanied by "a son of God."
- In Islamic tradition, there's a story about King Nimrod burns Abraham alive. Turns out Allah tames the fire and lets Abraham walk out of it safely.
Tabletop Games[]
- Happens in Warhammer 40000 whenever a unit survives a flamer/heavy flamer/inferno cannon attack, meaning potentially anyone can do this, but its most notable with Space Marines and Necrons.
Video Games[]
- Cyberswine: Cyberswine and Zak cause the Cyberbird to crash into a fuel station, and it explodes. They think the Cyberbird is dead. They are wrong, because the Cyberbird walks out of the flames completely unharmed.
- Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII does a badass walk into the flames of Nibelheim. It's become his signature scene and has constantly been reproduced in other games.
- The first trailer for Dissidia Final Fantasy shows Sephiroth walking out from lava this way. It was followed by a characters in which all the Big Bads from the first ten games in the series do this--after which the lava turns into Chaos.
- Princess Peach gets a scene like this while holding her parasol, on the fight above the Halberd in the Subspace Emissary of Super Smash Bros Brawl. Later the four ships fly out of the explosion created when the Halberd was shot through by the Subspace Gunship.
- The Ancient Minister in ROB's reveal. Though that's not exactly walking out of the flames, and more fighting unhindered while on fire.
- Knights of the Old Republic 2 provides a few examples:
- Proud Warrior Race Guy Mandalore marches through the flames onto an enemy ship. Partly subverted, however, by the fact that Mandalore has opted to blow a hole in the wall not five feet from a door.
- HK-50 did this at the end of the prologue.
- Every character's full-darkside image in the character sheet gives a general impression of this.
- Played straight in the PC game "Advent Rising", in a cutscene, by the main character. Carrying the second female lead. Using a force shield bubble. And flying. The inferno in question is the self-destruct sequence of a base stationed on top of a volcano. To be fair, you (humans) being a deity is pretty much the point of the game. Screen
- Done with a slight variation in Skies of Arcadia. On two occasions, Ramirez ominously emerges from flames in order to confront the main characters. On both occasions, the flames are the aftermath of heavy bombardments against the defenceless, which he initiated. In both occasions, he's a Hopeless Boss Fight as well.
- The monster Mr. X had one of these in Resident Evil 2--he fell into a smelting vat and emerged later with his trenchcoat burned off and wiggling tentacles showed underneath. The monster Nemesis had one of these in Resident Evil 3 Nemesis-- he emerged from fire with his trenchcoat burned off and wiggling tentacles showed underneath. Of course, this is a notable exception from a company that's known for originality.
- Also, Bitores Mendez of Resident Evil 4. Leon ignites some gasoline by his feet setting off a 6 foot high explosion. Not only does Bitores survive, but he proceeds to grow 5 inch nails, grow 5 feet taller, and get 2 more limbs. The only thing Leon succeeded in doing was burning his coat.....
- Ganondorf gets one of these in Twilight Princess, only there it's more of an Out Of The Exploding Hyrule Castle.
- In Ocarina of Time, Link goes to the top of Ganon's eight story flying castle, defeats Ganondorf, and escapes with Zelda as the castle collapses. After Navi gives a sigh of relief, Ganondorf blasts out of the rubble, shows off his Triforce of Power and transforms into Ganon, a Giant Pig with two giant swords. Needless to say, it was awesome.
- The first run-in with Hunters in Prototype ends with a military base burning to the ground... and Alex Mercer standing unscathed in the ruins.
- In Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders, upon Regnier's first appearance you are told to lure him into a forest and proceed to light said forest on fire using your archer's fire arrows, followed with a comment of how the enemy have fallen along with some praise of a job well done. Cut to a scene of the fire with Regnier's entire unit marching out unaffected, as the music starts up.
- Shigi from Tenchu Z.
- Mokou in the Touhou fan video Blazing Heart. See 2:22.
- The Ring That Commands Fire in Conquests of the Longbow makes you immune to fire. At one point, Robin uses it to rescue Marian when the Abbot tries to burn her as a witch. This assumes that you remembered to put it on before plunging into the fire.
- Starscream pulls one off before his boss battle in the video game version of Transformers Armada.
- Baal does a variant at the end of Diablo II, where everything behind him is catching on fire after he passes it. Well, he is the Lord of Destruction...
- Team Fortress 2, Meet the Medic: The Heavy gets his first Ubercharge as he's facing down a dozen charging Soldiers. The first thing to emerge from the cloud is the Heavy's new Glowing Eyes of Doom.
Aaaaahahahahaha! I AM BOOLETPROOF! |
Web Comics[]
- Gunnerkrigg Court inverts this, with Antimony marching into a burning room. The boy inside sees her emerging, unscathed, from the flames all the same. (Granted, the fire was illusory, but it looked real enough that the fire walk required tremendous courage on Annie's part.)
- In El Goonish Shive, Grace's final showdown with Damien ends with him about to self destruct rather than taking up Grace's offer to redeem himself. Grace reluctantly decides to save herself, but is still caught in the explosion, and would have probably died (or not[1]), if not for the timely intervention of a character from the Alpha Universe who by sheer chance (or not[2]), happened to appear in the main universe in the same place and the same time to do an almost completely unrelated task.
- Homestuck: Rose and Dave literally rise out of the Green Sun, completely unharmed[3], possibly millennia after creating it themselves. It's unspeakably badass.
Web Original[]
- In the Whateley Universe introductory novel for Phase, Phase (the heroine) does this to the supervillain who has just tried to fireball her into a charcoal briquette. Lampshaded, as Phase is specifically thinking of the Terminator scene and trying to intimidate the villain. It doesn't work.
Western Animation[]
- Star Wars: Clone Wars does this twice. First Durge walks out of the flaming wreckage of his speeder bike, then Asajj Ventress emerges from the flaming wreckage of Anakin's starfighter.
- Though Asajj used the Force to clear the flames. Not sure whether that is less badass or more though.
- If fire isn't enough, try lava. Megatron of Beast Wars emerged from a pool of lava in a new body near the end of the series, and it was awesome.
- And in Beast Machines' final episode, Megatron (in a new body modeled after Optimus Primal's Optimal Optimus body from the third season of Beast Wars) is caught in a gigantic explosion caused by Optimus, which includes his severed-at-the-elbow arm flying out the of explosion.
- In the G2 Marvel comics, Megatron strolled through a cloud of the metal-eating Swarm. After falling from orbit.
- Subverted in Superman: The Animated Series. When Superman and Darkseid fight at the end of the series, Superman grabs Darkseid's face so his Omega Beams get set off point-blank. There's a tremendous explosion that sends both flying. Next we see Superman weakly pulling himself out from underneath some rubble, then the camera pans over to where smoke is obscuring Darkseid, except for his glowing red eyes and we think he's about to do this... then the smoke clears a little more and we see Darkseid is badly hurt and barely able to stand. In fact, all he can do is walk towards Supes and collapse at his feet.
- X-Men: Evolution gives a few examples:
- Apocalypse is running amok somewhere in Mexico, all other X-Men around have failed to dent him. Enter Magneto, who drops a few communication satellites on him, resulting in this trope.
- Also happens with Rogue when Mastermind possesses and forces her to acquire everyone's powers. Pyro sets her on fire and starts laughing, only to have her slow walk out of the flames courtesy of Colossus' powers. Complete with Clothing Damage too.
- Transformers Animated. Starscream, who has had a very bad day, is walking away with the Power Crystal and looking truly disgusted with the universe. He ignores the Autobots, who blast him from behind after he walks past. When the flames clear, the only change in Starscream is that he is now facing them, and looking every bit as pissed. He proceeds to open a serious can of whoop-skidplate.
- Danny Phantom. Whilst fighting Dark Danny, Danny slaps an anti-ghost belt onto him, weakening the villain considerably, he then punches him into a petrol truck. Dark Danny accidentally blows it up with his hair engulfing the area in flames. Danny floats down, looks at the fire, and walks away. Dark Danny then emerges from the fire, unscathed, and casually rips off the anti-ghost belt with one hand. He then proceeds to beat the crap out of Danny. Awesome.
- Lampshaded on The Simpsons when Bart portrays King David and Nelson is Goliath II. After Bart throws a lamp down Nelson's throat, there is an explosion.
Bart: Great news, everyone! Goliath is dead! Although I haven't seen his body, the blast that failed to kill me surely killed the giant. |
- Hilariously parodied in an episode where Moe's tavern is on fire (again), when Barney, coming out of the bathroom, notices both Homer and Moe passed out, as well as the beer being in danger. So he rescues...two kegs of beer first, then goes back in to rescue his friends, along with some more booze.
- On Family Guy Lois cuts the hoses on the flamethrower that Stewie is using and it blows up. He leaps out of the fire a minute later.
- In Justice League, this happens a lot since about half the cast are fireproof. In one instance, Lobo does this from an explosion he created by tossing a car on someone and stomping on it so it exploded.
- In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), the Shredder does this during his first fight with the turtles, causing Michelangelo to remark "he's like the Shreddernator or something".
Misc.[]
- Cool guys don't look at explosions.
- That's more of an Unflinching Walk. You can combine it with this trope by walking out of a fire that then explodes. Exploding fire.
- Actually fairly practical. Running fans the flames, a patient walk can drastically reduce burn damage. Only works if you're already on fire.
- Feast of Saint Anthony the Great involves riding on a horse through a big bonfire. That is, yes, some people get to do this every year.
- ↑ if you take into account her fireproof fur, perhaps only hurt
- ↑ if she was already monitoring the battle nearby since the target of her task was in the immediate area
- ↑ okay technically they were killed by its creation and just Came Back Strong