History Main / CollapsingLair

* Happens quite frequently to TheLonelyWinds, usually as a result of Marc doing something stupid. {{Lampshade}}d by Nails in ''The Absolution'': "...why does ''every single fight'' we get into end with something ''on fire''?"

* In and episode of ''Series/MissionImpossible'', third-party killer Ventlos rearranges a fuel mix to destroy the enemy bunker.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode ''[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesTheClockKing The Clock King]]'', Fugate's clock tower begins collapsing at the end of the episode.
* In ''[[WesternAnimation/TheSmurfsAChristmasCarol The Smurfs: A Christmas Carol]]'', Grouchy deals with a collapsing bookshelf in Gargamel's lair when Azrael chases after him.

!!Examples:

[[folder:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[folder:Fanfiction]]

[[folder:Film]]

* In the horror film ''{{Suspiria}}'', after the head witch stabbed, not only are all the other witches seen rolling around on the floor clutching at invisible neck wounds, but the whole ballet school tears itself apart, with furniture flinging itself through windows, walls cracking, beams falling and unlikely objects, such as statues and door knobs, simply exploding for no good reason. When Susan walks away at the end, the whole place is on fire.

* ''Disney/TheJungleBook'' features this occurance when Baloo & Bagheera fight the band of monkeys over Mowgli. Justified because of all the damage the ruined city endures during the squabble, with several pillars being destroyed.
* The end of ''Film/{{Congo}}'' results in the convenient destruction of the "evil" gorillas' lair via volcanic eruption...despite the fact that it had been standing for hundreds of years before the protagonists got there.

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* The Dungeon of Dorukan collapses after ''[[Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick Order of the Stick]]'' defeats Xykon and [[spoiler: Elan activates the [[SelfDestructMechanism self destruct rune]]]].
* In ''Webcomic/EightBitTheater'', this occurs twice: once when the fiend of fire, Kary,[[spoiler: is defeated, Red Mage yells that they have to get out because the main villian's base explodes. Black Mage laughs it off, then the volcano explodes. He then says he's "brave enough to chalk that up to coincidence."]] Then, right after [[spoiler: Muffin is defeated, Black Mage and Fighter remove the air orb, causing the floating castle to collapse.]] A possible third time occurs in the final boss fight when [[spoiler: Black Mage shoots his super-evil at Sarda. Technically they weren't inside for it and the main villian's defeat wasn't until later but the place still collapsed.]]
* Happens in ''{{Panthera}}'' when [[spoiler: Oosterhuis]] destroys the load-bearing columns of the underground facility when he loses his alias and his support, leaving Panthera [[spoiler: and several FBI agents]] in the collapsing room.
* In DragonMango, [[http://dragon-mango.com/comic/chapter02/dm02-69.htm they make it out only because of the hippogryff.]]
* Lord Milligan from CaseyAndAndey has set up a device to register his heartbeat and, if it's absent, will trigger explosives in his base.

[[folder:Web Games]]
* The Nui-Jaga scorpion nest containing the infected Comet balls in the ''[[Franchise/{{Bionicle}} Mata Nui On-Line Game]]''. Toa Pohatu and the player only escape thanks to the [[MaskOfPower Mask of Speed]].
[[/folder]]

-->-- '''Kim''', ''KimPossible''

* Whenever Dracula is defeated, {{Castlevania}} will collapse, leaving only ruins. The protagonist, especially if he is a Belmont, will usually watch this from a cliff.

* ''[[SlyCooper Sly]] 3: Honor Among Thieves''
* ''VideoGame/{{Ico}}''

* In C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, the witch has spells to collapse her realm once she is dead. This is in some ways a good thing, [[spoiler:as the collapse allows her captive minions to return to Bism, which is even farther underground than the caverns.]] The protagonists figure that she purposely wove these spells into the cavern so that nobody could kill her without likely meeting their own demise soon afterward.
* OlderThanRadio: The collapse of the titular house at the climax of Poe's 1839 story ''The Fall of the House of Usher''.

* In ''CaptainUnderpants'', the spaceship self-destructs.
* In the [[ConanTheBarbarian Conan]] story "Literature/TheTowerOfTheElephant," when Yag-kosha takes his revenge upon the sorcerer Yara by way of Conan, the titular tower, which Yag-kosha built for him in a single night, shatters into a million pieces after Conan escapes.
* In Creator/StephenKing's ''{{It}}'' this happens on a rather large scale. [[spoiler:When It dies, so does the magic that's apparently held up a lot of Derry's structure. It appears as if It was part of the town's very foundation. The weather goes crazy, the river turns into a flood and much of the city collapses into the ground.]]

* In TadWilliams' ''MemorySorrowAndThorn'' series, the shock of the [[BigBad Storm King's]] destruction causes Green Angel Tower to collapse with the protagonists inside, naturally prompting an escape scene. [[AnyoneCanDie Some make it out, some don't.]] The story makes it somewhat ambiguous whether this is a case of NoOntologicalInertia or the aftereffects of the spell that summoned him, but it's striking that Green Angel Tower was the sole remaining [[TheFairFolk Sithi]] structure in the Hayholt and the exact place where Ineluki killed himself 500 years prior, becoming the Storm King. [[JustifiedTrope To be fair]], the series' FunctionalMagic is explicitly stated to work on the principle of NoOntologicalInertia.
* This trope turns nasty in ''Guard Against Dishonor'', from SimonRGreen's HawkAndFisher series. As per tradition, the pocket dimension in which a deadly new drug is being prepared fails when the sorcerer that created it is killed by the Watch; untraditionally, this has worse consequences than just a dramatic race for the exit, as the pocket's collapse takes a crowded city tenement down with it, causing hundreds of civilian casualties. [[spoiler: This was deliberately planned by the drug lord who'd had the pocket dimension created, to discredit the Watch and make it easier to escape with the drugs in the midst of a disaster.]]

* There are ''three'' of these in the PrydainChronicles.

** This also happens in ''Literature/{{Swellhead}}'' by KimNewman.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'': VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}} had two cases of bases with nuclear self destruct devices (I guess the megalomaniacal bad guys wanted to make sure their plans would fail if they happened to die?). VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}} had at least one, sabotaging the computer that keeps the nuclear reactor from exploding. VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}} has a base that can be convinced to blow itself up, and in a DLC a mobile base that controls a KillSat that can command the kill sat to target the base itself.

* ''HalfLife 2'': Episode 1 is sorta this. In a nutshell it involves going into the citadel to slow the timer(conveniently sped up by the combine) then getting the hell out of dodge before it does, making all of C-17 the CollapsingLair.

* Pretty much standard for PhineasAndFerb's BStory involving Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Perry the Platypus.

* At the ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' episode ''[[Recap/BatmanTheAnimatedSeriesTheClockKing The Clock King]]'' this trope is justified: The ClockKing throws his sword into the ClockworksArea cogs of the ClockTower. This not only stops the DeathTrap he set JustInTime, but converts the ClockTower into a CollapsingLair, because Fugate is a CosmicPlaything and being a villain he has used the IndyPloy, so the [[{{Franchise/DCAU}} Universe itself]] punish him with FinaglesLaw forcing the NoOntologicalInertia at the ClockworksArea.

** Also done straight in ''Discworld/TheColourOfMagic''.

* In ''[[TheAdversaryCycle Nightworld]]'' this is explained as being due to the BigBad using his magic to counteract the laws of physics. When he dies, nature reasserts itself and the underground cavern starts to collapse due to the weight of the ground above.

* The Allied saboteurs trick the Germans into blowing up their own base (and the title weapons) in ''TheGunsOfNavarone''.

* Barad-dûr or The Dark Tower from the ''LordOfTheRings'' was over two thousand feet tall (some sources suggest over 4000!) and was held up by [[LoadBearingBoss Sauron's disregard of structural physics]]. Naturally, with the destruction of The One Ring and Sauron's demise, the tower came toppling down, as well as the Black Gate, which had been built with the same power.
** Taken to extremes in [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings the film adaptation]], where a huge portion of Mordor actually caves in, taking much of Sauron's army with it.
* In C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair, the witch has spells to collapse her realm once she is dead. This is in some ways a good thing, [[spoiler:as the collapse allows her captive minions to return to Bism, which is even farther underground than the caverns.]]
** It's implied that she purposely wove these spells into the cavern so that nobody could kill her without likely meeting their own demise soon afterward.
* The collapse of the titular house at the climax of Poe's 1839 story ''The Fall of the House of Usher'' makes this OlderThanRadio.

** One of the mandatory objectives in the Legion questline from ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' (and an optional one in the Mr. House and Yes Man branches) is to self-destruct the Brotherhood of Steel's bunker. You can also blow up the Powder Gangers' vault.

** At the end of ''Dead Money'', the Sierra Madre's vault starts exploding after Elijah's death. As if that weren't enough, it also triggers your explosive collar's timer.