History Main / HarmlessFreezing

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption.'' Upon reaching Bryyo, Samus finds several creatures frozen solid, the handiwork of Rundas, who arrived earlier. Samus can unfreeze them, but they're quite dead.

* ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' has Nitrogen rounds that briefly freeze your enemy, allowing you to attack or run away, whichever your preference.

* ''Manga/TimeStopBrave'': A witch instantly freezes Kuzuno Sekai in ice. He breaks free, but is in a lot of pain and says if he didn't have a HealingFactor, that would have killed him.

** {{Justified|Trope}} in Creator/PeterWatts' short story ''Literature/TheThings''. After its initial crash-landing, the Thing has just enough time to create anti-freeze to stop its cells from bursting before falling unconscious.

* In ''VideoGame/Subnautica: Below Zero'', the Brinewing can spit a jet of supercooled saltwater, which it uses to freeze prey in a solid block of ice. As noted in the in-game encyclopedia, this surprisingly doesn't actually harm the victim, but instead it prevents them from moving so the Brinewing can take a bite. If this happens to the player, it puts them at risk of being bitten by the Brinewing, attacked by another carnivore, or drowning.

* ''Videogame/SubnauticaBelowZero:'' The Brinewing can spit a jet of supercooled saltwater, which it uses to freeze prey in a solid block of ice. As noted in the in-game encyclopedia, this surprisingly doesn't actually harm the victim, but instead it prevents them from moving so the Brinewing can take a bite. If this happens to the player, it puts them at risk of being bitten by the Brinewing, attacked by another carnivore, or drowning.

* ''VideoGame/{{Blazblue}}'''s Jin freezes people with a variety of ice powers that hurt no more than a normal hit (and considering the attacks involve giant wolf heads, swords, and some kind of weird flying surfboard...)
** Semi-subverted due to the fact that while it's possible to break out of the ice, the ice has the power to erode life.

*** In ''ComicBook/BlackestNight'', Batman ([[ComicBook/{{Nightwing}} Dick Grayson]]) freezes himself and Robin ([[ComicBook/RobinSeries Tim Drake]]) in order to get away from the [[ZombieApocalypse Black Lanterns]] (since the zombies are attracted to beating hearts). To thaw out, Deadman possesses them and uses his increased strength to break out. However, he has barely ten seconds to do this before they die.

-> ''"CHRIST! I was ''frozen'' today!"''

* When the Peach loses course and gets lost in the Arctic in ''Film/JamesAndTheGiantPeach'', the seagulls who keep the Peach airborne suffer from a small case of freezing. While not completely frozen, icicles are seen on their wings, and their movement is heavily slowed. Later on when they resume course to New York, Centipede just shakes the lines each are attached to, the ice breaks off, and it's business as usual.

* ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons'': In "The Arctic Giant", a ''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex'' is thawed out of a block of ice and goes on a rampage. Of course, this being the 1940s, it looks more like Franchise/{{Godzilla}} than an actual ''T. rex''.

** Subverted and deconstructed in the Season 2 finale where Princess Bubblegum, while possessed by the Lich King is frozen and accidentally SHATTERED. Thanks to being a candy person she makes it, but not after a trip to the emergency and undergoing some severe operations which even then ends up not entirely restoring her.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingSpiez'' episode "Operation: Twins of Trouble". The Spiez' parents are frozen by the Twins but thaw out just fine.

** Katara has encased a couple of 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).
*** She even [[spoiler: froze herself once, in mid-battle to prevent Azula from striking her with lightning. Katara simply thawed herself out when it was safe to do so]].

* Happened to several people in the ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'' episode "The Casket of Ancient Winters."
** Just like the comics, Captain America froze in the Arctic Ocean and is reawakened in modern times. [[spoiler:Cap later uses the Cosmic Cube to make the same happen to ComicBook/BuckyBarnes, who would otherwise have died prematurely in an explosion caused by ComicBook/RedSkull]].
* Mr. Freezes freeze gun has been used to freeze many people, non-fataly. Notably, no characters' head is ever encased in ice.
* 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 several people by freezing them, 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.
* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10UltimateAlien'', Gwen is encased in ice in "Perplexahedron" by simply being in an extremely cold room. She is thawed out by Swampfire with no problems.

** "Versus Cumulus, the Storm King".

** "Versus Dr. Freezoids". Birdman, Avenger, Falcon 7, and the occupants of an entire city are all frozen and then safely defrosted by Birdman's solar rays.
** "Train Trek". A villain uses "Ice Fumes" to freeze Birdman in a block of ice. After it's shattered against a metal beam he's fine.
** "The Empress of Evil". Birdman uses his "Solar Desensitizer" beam to freeze some giant Amazon women without harming them.
** "Skon of Space". Skon freezes Birdman, but he immediately uses his solar power to melt himself out.
** "The Pirate Plot"
*** In the BackStory, when Captain Kidd's pirate ship was sunk in ice-filled seas the intense cold preserved not only the ship but him and his first mate as well. In modern times they were unfrozen and took up pirating again.

* ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' had this happen to himself and Morgana, while Darkwing was thawed out, Negaduck shattered Morgana's encasing, and yet there was no harm done.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheDickTracyShow'' had two examples. "Cooked Crooks" had Joe Jitsu encasing Stooge Viller and Mumbles in blocks of ice in a restaurant freezer ("These are crooksicles. Ask for by name at your neighborhood store"), while Go-Go Gomez captured Prunceface and Itchy in blocks of ice after driving their snowmobile into a frozen lake in "Snow Job."
* In the first ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' ChristmasEpisode, Vicky once froze Timmy and his pals and sold them as ice sculptures. Despite her being the main villain, Timmy suffered no repercussions when he was shown to break free of the ice.
* 1960's {{Creator/Filmation}}:

* The ''WesternAnimation/HellboyAnimated'' film ''Sword of Storms'' features this as a gag early on. When the BPRD confirms that they cannot locate Hellboy, Corrigan casually announces, "He's not on the planet." A surprised new BPRD member asks, "This has happened before?" The rest of the veteran control room team rattle off several previous times this has apparently happened, with the final one having Hellboy show back up frozen in a block of ice, complete with picture. Hellboy wasn't too happy when he thawed out.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheHerculoids'' episode "Mekkor". Igoo is frozen into a giant ice cube by some robots. After Zok melts him out with his laser beams he's fine. Of course being a giant ape made of rock might have something to do with it as well.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/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...)
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': [[spoiler:[[NotSoHarmlessVillain Olaf]]]] does this to [[spoiler:Kaeloo and Mr. Cat in Episode 104, and puts them in PeopleJars]]. They can even ''talk'' while they're still frozen. All it takes to unfreeze them is to blow a hairdryer over them, with no ill effects whatsoever.
* The 1979 ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' Road Runner short "Freeze Frame" (a feature on Bugs Bunny's Christmas special) had the Coyote tricking the Road Runner into venturing into a frozen land (where as a book notes Road Runners hate) and onto a frozen lake surface. The Coyote puts on ice skates and tries to cut a circle around the Road Runner. [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Guess who gets frozen in a block of ice.]]
* The happens twice to Lincoln in ''WesternAnimation/TheLoudHouse'' episode "Schooled".
* On ''WesternAnimation/TheMagicSchoolBus'', Arnold took off his helmet on Pluto [[SpaceIsCold and froze]]. When they got him back to Earth, he had a cold. The ludicrous nature of this was actually pointed out in the AndKnowingIsHalfTheBattle-type ending that usually gets cut out in syndication. The writers know he should end up with a lot worse than a cold, but killing off a main character isn't very kid-friendly.
* ''WesternAnimation/MightyMouse'': "Law and Order" had some sinister cats with the modus operandi making "mousesicles" -- capturing mice and encasing them in cubes of flavored ice. The mice manage to escape, break out of their cubes and call the police.
* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', "Hearth's Warming Eve": In the pageant, the bickering of the three pony tribe leaders causes the winter to worsen until the three of them are frozen solid. They're perfectly fine after being thawed out with ThePowerOfFriendship. The freezing cold is actually caused by [[spoiler:Windigos, spirits of hatred and winter]]. It is possible to infer from the show that the freezing is a way of keeping ponies [[spoiler:[[AndIMustScream locked in a state of continual hatred, upon which the spirits feed]]]].
* ''WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatiansTheSeries'':
** Occurs in the episode "Close But Not Cigar" when the main puppies and Spot get frozen inside an ice truck.
** Also happens in "Jurassic Bark" when Lucky finds a "cave pup" frozen underground.

** In the episode "S'Winter", Candace ends up falling in ice-cold water and is fished out encased in a block of ice. When she overhears Jeremy complimenting Dee Dee's skiing skills, she gets so angry that she heats up and melts the ice block she's trapped in.
** In another episode, Phineas and Ferb thaw out a caveman from the conveniently local glacier.

** In "Night Owl", a greedy radio host freezes Mordecai, Rigby, Muscle Man, and High Five Ghost in liquid nitrogen. A few thousand years later, they unfreeze and find themselves in a futuristic museum, though fortunately they escape by using a time machine.

** Inverted in the pilot with school bully, Frank Palicky, who's encased in ice by Rick and shattered. He is confirmed to be dead later in the episode by Summer and the school's principal.
** Mostly averted 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 and is not shown to suffer any ill effects, [[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.]]

* Happens in the episode "[[PunBasedTitle That's Snow Ghost]]" of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooWhereAreYou'' after Shaggy and Scooby flee from the Snow Ghost on snowmobiles, and end up briefly falling into a frozen river. Upon emerging, their bodies are encased up to their necks in ice[[note]]Aside from their arms... try figuring that one out[[/note]]. The rest of the gang chisel them out of the ice upon finding them, with everyone in high spirits, and no worries to be found.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' had an episode where Jasper, a senior citizen, got stuck in a freezer at Apu's Kwik-E-Mart. Apu becomes more successful by promoting the Incredible Frozen Man as a tourist attraction.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark''
** In one episode a human male is discovered frozen in a block of ice, dating from... a few years ago. He's totally fine once he's thawed, but he has some trouble returning to his former life after his unexplained absence.
** [[DoubleSubversion Double-subverted]] in another two-part episode. When Cartman wants to freeze himself in the snow outside of the town so that he doesn't have to wait for the Nintendo Wii to come out, Kyle sensibly points out that this will kill him. Nevertheless, when he does get frozen (and an avalanche renders it impossible for his body to be found) he actually ''is'' unfrozen several centuries later, with no apparent ill effects (which could be due to 26th-century medicine).

* On ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManAndHisAmazingFriends'', heroine Firestar, because of her particular vulnerability to cold, was frozen by villains on more than one occasion.
** The "WesternAnimation/SpiderMan1967" episode, "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.

** In the episode "SB-129", Squidward gets trapped in the Krusty Krab freezer for a few thousand years. After he unfreezes and sees the shiny new future, he has to take a time machine to try and return to his own time.
** It also happens to Man Ray, a SuperVillain from ''[[ShowWithinAShow Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy]]''. He was frozen in a solid block of ''tartar sauce'' until Spongebob and Patrick freed him in "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III".
** Among the extreme sports Sandy makes [=SpongeBob=] take part in during "Prehibernation Week" is diving into a frigid lake, from which both [=SpongeBob=] and Sandy emerge from frozen in ice blocks. [=SpongeBob=] merely shivers while Sandy seems perfectly happy.
** Squidward would also later spend half of "Frozen Face-Off" being frozen.
** [[MrAltDisney Hieronymus Glove]] from "Escape From Beneath Glove World", the founder of the glove-themed amusement park. Despite being frozen in a block of ice, he's completely lucid and can still run the park, and thanks to a speaker on the edge of the ice, can still speak.
* Justified in ''WesternAnimation/SupermanDoomsday'' -- Superman briefly freezes Doomsday into a block of ice with his super-breath, but since this is ''Doomsday'' we're talking about, he shrugs it off with no lasting effects.
* In the WesternAnimation/{{Superman Theatrical Cartoon|s}} ''The Arctic Giant", a Tyrannosaurus Rex frozen for millions of years is accidentally thawed out and goes on a rampage.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'' episode "Trial of the Monarch", a Guild team freezes everyone in a courtroom for a matter of minutes, and when they thaw, they're not even aware anything happened.

* Iceman does this a few times on ''WesternAnimation/WolverineAndTheXMen2009''.
** Iceman does it more than a few times in everything he's in. But he usually makes sure to leave heads uncovered.
* In ''WesternAnimation/XiaolinShowdown,'' there's a water [[MacGuffin Shen Gong Wu]] that can also freeze. Omi -- ''more than once'' -- travels to the future by setting up a recording device to play back his voice (saying the Wu's name, thus turning it off) to deactivate it after thousands of years pass.

* ''WesternAnimation/YvonOfTheYukon'' has this in its back-story -- the eponymous Yvon is supposedly a French mariner from the 18th century preserved this way. Why he spends most of his new life in his underpants is less clear

* Provides a key plot element in the novel ''Blood & Ice'' by Robert Masello; vampires Eleanor Ames and Sinclair Copley are thrown off a ship in 1816 while it travels through the Antarctic seas, but although they are frozen in an iceberg for around two hundred years, their vampiric constitutions allow them to survive the experience. When they are discovered in the present day and brought to an Antarctic research base, after they are gradually defrosted, they are able to think, move, and take action as though nothing had ever happened to them.

* Provides a key plot element in the novel ''Literature/BloodAndIce'' by Robert Masello; vampires Eleanor Ames and Sinclair Copley are thrown off a ship in 1816 while it travels through the Antarctic seas, but although they are frozen in an iceberg for around two hundred years, their vampiric constitutions allow them to survive the experience. When they are discovered in the present day and brought to an Antarctic research base, after they are gradually defrosted, they are able to think, move, and take action as though nothing had ever happened to them.

* Provides a key plot element in the novel ''Blood & Ice'' by Robert Masello; vampires Eleanor Ames and Sinclair Copley are thrown off a ship in 1816 while it travels through the Antarctic seas, but although they are frozen in an iceberg for around two hundred years, their vampiric constitutions allow them to survive the experience. When they are discovered in the present day and brought to an Antarctic research base, after they are gradually defrosted, they are able to think, move, and take action as though nothing had ever happened to them.

** Though shooting one soldier with more than one cryobeam will make him explode.
** The allies also have Cryoshot abilities, which does the same thing in a small area. Both effects deal no damage on their own but make the frozen targets more vulnerable to attacks (even buildings).

* [[{{LightNovel/Slayers}} Lina's]] [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Van Rehl/Van Rail]] and [[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs Hayate's]] [[GratuitousGerman Atem des Eis]] in ''VideoGame/MagicalBattleArena'', which does damage when the spell hits, but none while their target is frozen. There's also the Freeze Arrow spell of the ''{{LightNovel/Slayers}}'' characters, which they use to encase their target in ice for their {{Desperation Attack}}s but deals no damage on its own.

-->'''Dastardly:''' No, General, I ''am'' on vacation and I'm not interfering with the boys. I'm having a [[IncrediblyLamePun real cool time.]]

** Scrat, the little squirrel, gets buried in an avalanche at the end of the first movie. He stays frozen for 30,000 years, and when he thaws in the present he's running around as fast as he always does.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'': Frozone freezes cops, yet they are implied to be okay, just locked into position. Sometimes, someone can be frozen, but [[CanOnlyMoveTheEyes their eyeballs will dart back and forth frantically]]. This seems to bring to mind the "ice sheath" technique Iceman uses in the X-Men comics, as mentioned above.

* In ''Webcomic/EverydayHeroes'', Matt O'Morph's RubberMan body is [[http://eheroes.smackjeeves.com/comics/1895758/chilling-out/ vulnerable to extreme cold.]]

** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess'': When Link reaches Zora's Domain while it's frozen, he and Midna can see an absolute ''plethora'' of Zoras frozen beneath the water; and none are harmed by the freezing itself, being instead popsicles who'll return to normal when the waters' temperature lowers. This doesn ''not'' apply to Link himself when using the Zora armor: If he falls under cold water or is hit by a Freezard's ice breath, it'll be a OneHitKill for him.

* Andean flamingo chicks, though they don't actually freeze ''solid'', sometimes become trapped from the belly down in ice when the montane lakes where they reside freeze overnight.

** ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'':

** Captain Cold claims that he only kills on "special occasions"... despite his completely indiscriminate freezing-to-absolute-zero of anyone who gets in his way, which should have resulted in him having a Joker-sized death tally. When he kills [[spoiler:the Top]] at the end of the Rogue War, he does so by freezing him first and then smashing the ice.
** ''ComicBook/TheFlash'': In one issue, Wally West is invited to the reading of a will for a former foe of Barry Allen, The Icicle. Predictably, the heirs start getting bumped off, and one girl being encased in a block of ice. It ends up Harmless Freezing only because Wally was there to thaw her out quickly. He strongly suggests that if he didn't use his super-speed to melt the ice, she'd have frozen to death and/or suffocated quickly. In this case, it helps that Wally found her mere moments after she was hit with the ice gun.
** Mr. Freeze will often avert this trope. Many of the people who survive his freezing beam (which is quite a lot, given his AntiVillain status) only do so if they're thawed out immediately and receive medical attention. The comics do stay sketchy about how serious it can be, though. During ComicBook/BatmanNoMansLand, Freeze was able to encase Batman in ice and gloated that he'd die in a moment once his soft tissues crystallized. However, remember that Mr. Freeze's freezing technology was originally [[JustifiedTrope designed specifically to ''preserve'' human tissue]] (like his wife's). As for how? ''He's just that '''smart.''' (Hush once compared one of his non-freezing pieces of tech to the levels of ''Kryptonian'' technology or even that of '''Apokolips.''') [[CutLexLuthorACheck The man is just that good.]]

** ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'': In the '90s run, Tempest freezes Dr. Light's eyeballs during a fight, which should logically blind him- but he's fine.

* In ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'' [[spoiler:after nearly losing his challenge from Erik Killmonger and getting tossed over a waterfall]], T'Challa is found in cold, wintry Jabari territory, with the ice he's kept under keeping him alive. He wakes up after consuming some Heart-Shaped Herb no worse for wear.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': In the 1940s short ''The Arctic Giant'', a ''UsefulNotes/TyrannosaurusRex'' is thawed out of a block of ice and goes on a rampage. Of course, this being the '40s, it looks more like Franchise/{{Godzilla}} than an actual ''T. rex''.

* 1960's ''Series/Batman1966'' series:

* In the first episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', Q froze two people who annoyed him. The first time, the guy was OK after being rushed to sick bay (advanced medical attention straight away). The second time, they were in Q's fantasy court and expressed distress that they wouldn't be able to get the frozen crew member to sick bay. Q, being omnipotent, reversed the freezing.

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