History Main / HarmlessFreezing

* Averted hard in StanislawLem's Fiasco, where some giant mechas are trapped under a collapsing ice cave. They have an emergency freezing device turning the operators into {{human popsicle}}s but the process is [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel extremely brutal]]: tubes crush through the jaw to quickly and directly inject the freezing liquid into the brain, destroying most of the face and skull in the process. When they are eventually dug out, most of the victims cannot be revived at all, and even the protagonist needs extensive surgery and lengthy training to be able to function as a human being, and still has parts of his memory irreversibly lost.

* Aokiji of ''OnePiece'' has frozen people, who were OK as long as they had hot showers afterwards. At least they had the decency to treat being frozen as a very serious condition and if I recall correctly, Chopper made sure that the thawing would have to be a gentle process so as to not harm the frozen ones, who woke up in a pretty bad condition.

*** Uh, her power suit lets her survive lava, acid, and space. So long as her suit isn't breached, she'll be fine. And if Metroid Prime's death scenes are to be believed, 0 health is * when* her suit is breached.

** Some bosses can also freeze enemies, but unlike the player spells that deal no damage on their own, these effects tend to hurt quite a lot, possibly averting this trope. Ironically, there is also a boss that will turn random players into ice blocks ''which the others have to hide behind to avoid a deadly attack''. The victims suffer no damage whatsoever in this state.
*** The next boss after this one randomly freezes players in place, which is guaranteed fatal if you are not healed within four seconds of being hit.
*** A recent redux of the aforementioned ice blocking boss has a subversion: players frozen in ice blocks will quickly begin to asphyxiate if they are not freed from the block by other players.

** The manga has a slight subversion: [[spoiler:Red]] spends several weeks as a HumanPopsicle, but his entire body feels incredibly numb afterwards and he has to seek out a special spring to cure it.
*** I think it's just his wrists and ankles that went numb.

** Lorelei from ''PokemonSpecial''. Her Jynx's Ice Beam can make dolls of people. Simply by marking a limb of the ice doll she can create a cuff of ice on the actual person, which can then gradually spread across the body, encasing it completely. Red was completely trapped and should have died, but at least it wasn't completely played straight as he suffered from painful frostbite for a year. Sabrina, luckily, only got off with frostbite on her wrist. Somehow, in the FLRG arc, Sird/Storc managed to free herself before she was completely encased.

->" I was '''[[TheNostalgiaCritic frozen]]''' today!"

->"''[[TheNostalgiaCritic I was]] '''[[TheNostalgiaCritic frozen]]''' [[TheNostalgiaCritic today!]]''"

* The Paulie Shore movie ''EncinoMan'' was about a caveman who had been frozen solid at the onset of the Ice Age until he was discovered in the early 90's by two friends in California. This would be an example of HumanPopsicle, except that no explanation is given as to how he didn't freeze to death (or how his icy coffin never thawed in the Mojave Desert before the two boys stumbled across it).

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

* Dunno why ''{{Futurama}}'' wasn't the ''very first example,'' but it happens all the time there. The only problem people experience after being cryogenically preserved is needing to go to the bathroom, and then only as a one-time gag. Fry in particular has been frozen for 1000 years; not only as the premise of the series, but also happens ''again'' in one of the movies. The actual cryonics ''laboratory'' could be the least realistic of all, since everyone working there is kind of a goofball and the freezers can basically be used for anything at all, no questions asked.

->"''[[MemeticMutation I was]] '''[[TheNostalgiaCritic frozen]]''' [[SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfFunny today!]]''"

* Slightly averted in ''Game/MegaMan 10''- the Chill Spike will do one point of damage besides freezing the victim if it connects. The same goes for it when it is used on the player.

->''"I was '''frozen''' today!"''\\
-- [[ChristopherLloyd Charlie Wilcox]] in ''SuburbanCommando''

A character is frozen solid by superpowers or [[FreezeRay some sort of futuristic weapon]]. This can be in the form of forming a [[InstantIceJustAddCold giant ice cube]] around the character or simply freezing the person. Then shortly after, they thaw out, and they are mostly unharmed. Sure, they might shiver a bit, but they have absolutely no problems with hypothermia, frostbite, shock, or, with the covered in ice version, suffocation. After all, microwaving frozen food works! And there's all this buzz about "cryogenics" (sic), which must mean that you can freeze and thaw people out with no problem.

If the character's body itself is frozen, the situation is even more unrealistic. Unless you take special precautions when you freeze organic tissue (which can be [[HandWave assumed]] to be the case when making a HumanPopsicle, especially if AppliedPhlebotinum is involved), ice crystals will form and rip apart the cell membranes. When it thaws out, all of the soft tissue turns into mush. There are ways of minimizing ice damage to frozen organic tissue (usually by injecting it with special chemicals), though whether it will be of any help to future scientists that try to revive the person is a matter of debate.

** During [[spoiler:the battle at Marine Headquarters, Buggy]] gets frozen and then thawed '''with lava''', and emerges somewhat annoyed but mostly unharmed. [[spoiler:[[WorldsStrongestMan Whitebeard]] ]] manages to break out of being frozen after a few seconds with no harm done.
*** [[spoiler: Jozu seems to have lost an arm from it, though.]]

*** I think it's just his wrists and anckles that went numb.

* Happens in an episode of ''{{Fushigi Yuugi}}''. The spirits of two Genbu Seishi encase Miaka in a block of ice as a test to see is she's really the Priestess of Suzaku. [[spoiler:She is and is saved by what they claim is "Suzaku's Flames"]]. Could be considered Justified as both the freezing and 'thawing' was magic.
* During the FinalBattle with [[PersonOfMassDestruction Phoenix King Saffron]], Ranma from ''[[RanmaOneHalf Ranma 1/2]]'' turned the freezing power of the Gekkaja on himself. The weapon froze him solid, allowing him to survive through Saffron's mountain-vaporizing heat beam --which thawed him almost instantly afterwards. The art isn't very clear on how complete the freezing was, but consider this: the Gekkaja can turn multi-ton chunks of rock into solid ice just by touching the ground, and Ranma's clothes and hair were still covered in ice despite being hit head-on by the Imperial Annihilation.

** During the Legion storyline of ''{{X Men}}'', Iceman finally decides to end the fight by freezing every cell in Legion's body. It barely holds him for half a page.

* In a comic where [[SpiderMan Spider-Man]] is frozen by Iceman, he catches a cold afterwards. It's not quite catastrophic tissue damage, but it's a start!

** This became a {{crowning moment of awesome}} when Elijah met Dracula. Ol' Drac lunged at him, and Elijah froze him in place. Someone mentioned that while this would kill most people, Drac would soon thaw without dying. Elijah said he understood...and proceeded to smash Drac's crotch to bits. [[{{fate worse than death}} Leaving the rest of him intact.]]

* The little squirrel from ''IceAge'' got buried in an avalanche, stayed frozen for 30 thousand years, and when he thawed in the present, he was running around as fast as he always did.

* ''BatmanAndRobin''. Whoever Mr. Freeze freezes are perfectly fine as long as they are unfrozen within [[ExactTimeToFailure eleven minutes]].

** At one point, the science teacher decides to test the freezegun one of the students built... on another student who never agreed to such a thing and never saw it coming. Repeat, a student-built freezegun that could have had any number of dangerous flaws (although said teacher suspected the [[GadgeteerGenius technological genius]] had built it, which she had). Unless this trope is considered an established, universal truth, he'd risk going to jail for assault, reckless endangerment and probably more. (He probably still would; how would your school react if your teacher clubbed a student unconcious or injected them with sedative just to make a point?)

* Averted in {{The Last Airbender}}, when Zuko is frozen into a solid block of ice. While everyone else leaves, Ong -- er, ''Aang'' -- pauses long enough to unfreeze Zuko's head, and he's both drenched and shivering. Oh, and then they leave him there, in the abandoned house (shed? stock room? It wasn't quite clear...} and continue.

* Hinzelman of AmericanGods tells one of his tall tales about how, when it got cold enough, his great-grandfather would dig a trench and give his wife, children and hired help a drink of herbs, then freeze them and bury them in the trench and dig them up in spring.

* In Mercedes Lackey's _The Snow Queen_, the eponymous fairy godmother is surprised to find the frozen heroes still alive. She realizes that the attack by the Icehart was explicitly magical. Other deaths were simply caused by subzero temperatures and were irreversible.
* Averted hard in StanislawLem's Fiasco, where some giant mechas are trapped under a collapsing ice cave. They have an emergency freezing device turning the operators into [[HumanPopsicle human popsicles]] but the process is [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel extremely brutal]]: tubes crush through the jaw to quickly and directly inject the freezing liquid into the brain, destroying most of the face and skull in the process. When they are eventually digged out, most of the victims cannot be revived at all, and even the protagonist needs extensive surgery and lengthy training to be able to function as a human being, and still has parts of his memory irreversibly lost.

* A mild and realistic version occurs in ''{{House}}''. [[spoiler: After discovering that Amber is the mystery patient and in serious condition, Wilson and House drop her body temperature in order to prolong the time they have to make a diagnosis. It works but they explicitly mention the risks of doing so as well as that it means they can't revive her until they're absolutely sure they know what's wrong with her.]]

* ''DungeonsAndDragons'' adventure I6 ''Pharaoh''. One trap in the Sunken City of Pazar is a wall of absolute cold. Anyone touching it is frozen solid, but can be revived by either a slow thawing or being instantly defrosted by a Fireball or Flame Strike spell.

* In ''Pokémon'', pokémons can be frozen too (when they're hit by an ice attack or tri-attack). They can't attack during it, but they can thaw out quickly (but that doesn't have to be). They also thaw out when they use or get hit by a fire attack. Shaymin can't change formes when he's frozen however.

* ''{{Resident Evil}} 5'' has Nitrogen rounds which briefly freeze your enemy, allowing you to attack or run away, whichever your preference.

* Creepily done in ''Mystery Case Files: Dire Grove''. [[spoiler: Even more creepily combined with EyesOpen and MadnessMantra.]]

* Averted in ''{{Freefall}}'', when [[HumanPopsicle "cold sleep"]] involves life-preserving drugs so hard you need to wait ''five to seven years'' between two cold sleep periods.

* Though played straight in the {{chibi}} pages of the prologue of ''{{Drowtales}}'', it was brutally subverted in [[AnIcePerson Sillice's]] battle with [[spoiler: Vy'chriel/Yaeminira]]. Not only did the poor girl freeze to death, her fingers actually snapped apart right before the end!

* In ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'', Katara has encased a couple people in ice who seemed unharmed by it... possibly justified for the Firebenders, not so much for the civilians and Jet (though she at least didn't ''cover his face'', unlike with Zuko and some firebenders).

* Averted in ''BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''. Frozen victims of Mr. Freeze had to be carefully thawed out, and even then only if they were partially frozen. Everything on the show suggested that being encased in ice was certain death. (ie his [[spoiler:offscreen freezing of the scientist]] in his ''BatmanBeyond'' episode.) While not referred to again, it was treated like a death scene; gory discretion shot and all. Played straight in other episodes, however; in "Cold Comfort," a henchwoman of Mr. Freeze was partially frozen and merely seemed annoyed and inconvenienced by it.

* In an episode of ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', Green Arrow managed to use a ''[[TrickArrow buzzsaw arrow]]'' to break out of an ice block from Killer Frost. In an earlier episode, both Martian Manhunter and [[spoiler:Clayface]] survive getting frozen by her (although Flash's crappy quip about antifreeze nearly finishes J'onn off), but that could be justified by their biology. Otherwise, as her name implies, it seems to be fatal (although that makes her "you're a beautiful man, I think I'll keep you" to one of her victims even more improbably {{Squick}}y...).

** In fact, nearly all aquatic and amphibious life in colder climates is capable of being frozen solid and then thawing out unharmed (though some species may be unable to do this as adults.) This means that, yes, some people really ''do'' [[VGCats mine]] [[MemeticMutation for fish]].

Many VideoGames have freeze attacks that trap the player. Usually the player just has to do some ButtonMashing to break free and move at full speed/strength. The greater risk is from not being able to dodge instead of hypothermia or suffocation. Movies may also portray characters as awake while frozen, often by having their [[EyeAwaken eyes open]] and moving around.

->''[[PrecisionFStrike CHRIST!]] I was '''frozen''' today!''\\

* For all ''MermaidMelodyPichiPichiPitch'' is a great story, physics were never its strong suit. Maria freezing Hanon and her being fine fifteen minutes later is a bit of a glaring example.

[[SuburbanCommando http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/IWASFROZENTODAY_9604.jpg]]
[[caption-width:580:Don't worry, [[IGotBetter he gets better]], even though he was [[MemeticMutation FROZEN TODAY]].]]

-->''"I WAS '''FROZEN''' TODAY!"''
-->--'''ChristopherLloyd''' in ''SuburbanCommando'', courtesy of '''[[ThatGuyWithTheGlasses The Nostalgia Critic]]'''

For breathing without problems in other hostile environments, see BatmanCanBreatheInSpace and SuperNotDrowningSkills. For the lethal version of this trope see KillItWithIce. For this tropes electrical conterpart see HarmlessElectrocution.

* In ''SkyHigh'', a family-friendly superhero film made by Disney, several characters are frozen in various ways. It's treated lightly, but I can't think of any point where we've seen a frozen character unfrozen, and at one point we see two guys who were frozen quite a while earlier, still stuck there, entombed in ice... SoYeah. Possibly, horribly averted.

** To be fair, they can also shrug off bullets, hammers, falls off of cliffs, falls ''through'' cliffs, the occasional bus, and ''nuclear fucking weapons''. SoYeah.

A character is frozen solid by superpowers or [[FreezeRay some sort of futuristic weapon]]. This can be in the form of forming a [[InstantIceJustAddCold giant ice cube]] around the character or simply freezing the person. Then shortly after, they thaw out, and they are mostly unharmed. Sure, they might shiver a bit, but they have absolutely no problems with hypothermia, frostbite, shock, or, with the covered in ice version, suffocation. After all, microwaving frozen food works! And there's all this buzz about "cryogenics", which must mean that you can freeze and thaw people out with no problem.

* In "The Secret of the Dragon's Den," a [[ClassicDisneyShorts Donald Duck]] adventure story by Ron Fernandez and Patrick Block, a warrior, his beloved, and his dog are all thawed from a block of ice ''centuries'' after having been frozen there. They immediately come back to life with no ill effects; yes, it's unconvincing even by Duck comic logic.

* Averted hard in Stanislaw Lem's Fiasco, where some giant mechas are trapped under a collapsing ice cave. They have an emergency freezing device turning the operators into [[HumanPopsicle human popsicles]] but the process is [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel extremely brutal]]: tubes crush through the jaw to quickly and directly inject the freezing liquid into the brain, destroying most of the face and skull in the process. When they are eventually digged out, most of the victims cannot be revived at all, and even the protagonist needs extensive surgery and lengthy training to be able to function as a human being, and still has parts of his memory irreversibly lost.