History Main / HarmlessFreezing

%%* ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'': Played straight with Gru's FreezeRay.

* ''Film/Iceman1984'': The titular character is a primitive man who is frozen for many thousands of years in a glacier. He is revived without much in the way of complications.

-> "CHRIST! I was ''frozen'' today!"
-->-- '''[[Creator/ChristopherLloyd Charlie Wilcox]]''', ''Film/SuburbanCommando''

** Lampshaded in Creator/PeterWatts' short story ''The Things''. After its initial crash-landing, the Thing has just enough time to create anti-freeze to stop its cells from bursting before falling unconscious.

This trope is closely related to ExposedToTheElements and FrigidWaterIsHarmless. For the lethal inversion of this trope, see KillItWithIce; for ''combining'' the two, see LiterallyShatteredLives. Could lead to HarmlessLiquefaction if the frozen character is melted along with the ice. For this trope's electrical counterpart, see HarmlessElectrocution. For breathing without problems in other hostile environments, see BatmanCanBreatheInSpace and SuperNotDrowningSkills.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-326 SCP-326 ("A Chinese Peasant")]]. SCP-326 was a HumanPopsicle for more than fifty years. She not only survived but revived on her own without assistance.

* ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' inverts this with Frank Palicky, who's encased in ice and shattered in the pilot episode.
** Only to ''thoroughly'' avert it much later in Season 6's "Solaricks" where it's revealed that, when the original Smiths of Main Morty's home dimensions, the Cronenburg World, were frozen by the Citadel Ricks, while Hermit Jerry was thawed out by a Cronenburg licking him free, [[spoiler:Beth died from contracting a fatal disease, though whether that was from the freezing or the monster licking at her was not made clear, whereas Summer simply "didn't thaw right" according to Jerry. But both ended up dead and leaving him the last unmutated human on his world, though even that was finished by Rick Prime killing Hermit Jerry by the episode's end.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/RickandMorty'' inverts this with Frank Palicky, who's encased in ice and shattered in the pilot episode.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'': Zig-zagged. In [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventurePhantomBlood Part 1]], Dio has the vampiric ability to [[AnIcePerson instantly freeze]] anything he touches. You arguably have as many examples of extremely harmful freezing going up to LiterallyShatteredLives, as examples of harmless thawing (or, far more "harmless" than they should be given how serious the frostbite was depicted to be).

* Zig-zagged in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond''. In "Heroes", one of the superpowered trio in that episode freezes multiple people to no apparent ill-effect. Averted with Mr. Freeze, who actually killed one person and only failed to kill Derek Powers because he's living radiation. His cold gun from ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'' also shows up when it is used against Inque. Even though she survived, being a BlobMonster, it still significantly damaged her form and it only took the one shot to put her out for the count. A later attempt to freeze her failed when she compressed herself into a ball, keeping the majority of her body mass safe from harm.

** The first Spider-Man series, "Cold Comfort", has Spidey frozen for 24 hours in a nuclear freezer, and, save for [[MakesSenseinContext a really trippy hallucination of waking up in a dystopian world populated by caveman hippies]], was pretty much fine when the Iceman came to save him.

** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_bath ice bath]], and its more extreme cousin, cryotherapy, are used in sports medicine to help heal sore muscles after intense exercise. While some swear by them, their effectiveness and safety have been debated by medical professionals.

* North American painted turtles are actually capable of this, throughout several ''months''! See [[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0060vdd here]].

A character is frozen solid by superpowers or [[FreezeRay some sort of futuristic weapon]]. This can be in the form of encasing the character in a [[InstantIceJustAddCold giant ice cube]] 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 "[[YouKeepUsingThatWord cryogenics,]]"[[note]][[HumanPopsicle Suspended animation via extremely low temperatures is actually called "cryonics";]] "cryogenics" is the study of the creation of extremely low temperatures and their effects on materials.[[/note]] which must mean that you can freeze and thaw people out with no problem.

* The premise of the series ''Series/SecondHundredYears'' is that a man frozen during the Alaskan gold rush of 1900 is revived in 1967. He has a square {{Identical Grandson}}.

* Played with in ''Videogame/Borderlands3''. Cryo weapons freeze enemies on multiple hits, and while they can survive the process, they take damage over time while frozen. In addition, [[LiterallyShatteredLives they take bonus damage when hit by melee weapons while frozen.]]

* Inverted in ''[[Videogame/InFamous2 InFAMOUS 2]]'' where freezing enemies or civilians is an insta-kill. It's actually one of the more destructive attacks in the game (Yes, even more than explosions or lightning). This is played straight, however, with Cole himself, who can survive most freezing attacks with no lasting consequences. Given his HealingFactor, though, it's possibly justified.

* Nintendo seems to love this one. ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Melee'' has the Freezie item, which does just that: encase the target in a block of ice. They do take damage, but have no lasting effects afterwards. Some fighters also have moves that momentarily freeze opponents, such as Mr. Game & Watch's Judge (if you get an 8), Lucas' PK Freeze, and the Ice Climbers' Blizzard (when used on opponents with high percent damage). Some of the Pokémon such as Articuno, Suicune, and Togepi can freeze fighters, as well.

* Played straight in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'', where Cirno, [[AnIcePerson an ice fairy]], enjoys freezing frogs as a hobby and a test of power. The frogs defrost harmlessly most of the time, though one in every three will shatter (which is why Suwako the frog goddess is often seen in fandom looming behind her, eyes aglow).

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The happens twice to Lincoln in ''WesternAnimation/{{The Loud House}}'' episode "Schooled".

* This is how WesternAnimation/RockyAndBullwinkle capture Baby Face Braunschweiger (a.k.a. Boris Badenov) in the "Picayune Pot" story arc. Rocky blocks a door from baby Face, who pushes him aside and enters. The door leads to an ice house. On the other side, Rocky deposits two coins -- the first deposits Baby Face's stolen money in a block of ice (Bullwinkle: "Well, whaddaya know? [[IncrediblyLamePun Frozen assets!]]"), the second Baby Face himself, also in a block of ice.

* Justified in ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice''. The one getting frozen is Miss Martian, whose homeworld is extremely cold. Even so, Icicle Jr. tells Superboy he could shatter her if he hits the ice cube she's in.

* ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'': Two examples from the DC run:

* ''Fanfic/{{Discovery}}'': {{Averted}}. The doctor at the New Jedi Temple is very concerned about the effects of long-term carbon freezing on [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Ahsoka]] and the clones. [[spoiler: And one of the clones perishes right after being unfrozen.]]

* Zig-zagged in the ''WesternAnimation/AroundTheWorldWithWillyFog'' episode "Below Zero". While Fog and his companions are sailing through a blizzard in an ice boat, Romy notices that "something's wrong with Tico", who is seen to have frost forming on his fur and whiskers. Fog says Tico "won't last the journey" if they don't get him out of the cold. Indeed, by the time the travellers find shelter, Tico is frozen solid and could already be dead. However, he's still alive when he's thawed out, though he collapses with a fever seconds later. At first, it looks as though Tico's illness could be fatal, or at least that it could cause the travellers to be delayed for so long that it will be impossible for Fog to win his wager, but it only takes Tico a single day to recover sufficiently to travel again and he's completely healthy by the end of the episode.

** [[http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/03/us/dakota-teen-ager-recovers-after-being-frozen-stiff.html Jean Hillard.]]