History Main / LikeCannotCutLike

** The franchise plays this completely straight but then subverts, and [[TakesOneToKillOne inverts]] this in its ElementalRockPaperScissors. Of all the ''eighteen'' current types, nine types (Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Poison, Psychic, Dark, and Steel) are resistant to their own attacks, two of them are ''weak'' to their own attacks (Ghost and Dragon), and the rest only take normal damage from their own attacks. Because of this, certain dual-typed Pokemon can be either weak or resistant to their own types (A Ground/Steel typed Pokemon resists Steel-Type moves, but takes double damage from Ground-Type attacks[[note]]Ground normally doesn't resist itself, but the Steel-type is weak to the Ground-type, adding a weakness[[/note]].)

** And then there was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hampton_Roads the Battle of Hampton Roads]] during the UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar, the highlight of which was the shootout between the ironclad warships CSS ''Virginia'' (formerly the USS ''Merrimack'') and the USS ''Monitor''. After three hours of shooting at each other, neither ship could seriously damage the other and both ships withdrew.

* Played with in Creator/MichaelMoorcock's ''[[Literature/TheElricSaga Melnibone]]'' series; early on, Elric, armed with the runeblade Stormbringer, faces his cousin Yyrkoon, armed with Stormbringer's "sister" Mournblade. True to the trope, Stormbringer--which can cut through just about anything else it comes across--can't do that to its twin blade, and the cousins have an old-fashioned swordfight. As the battle progresses, Elric slowly masters Stormbringer, which has a will of its own; conversely, Yyrkoon allows himself to fall under Mournblade's control, with the result that Stormbringer and Elric neatly overpower Yyrkoon and Mournblade... casting Mournblade into hell, or at least another plane. That part's never really explained clearly.

* Beam sabers in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' are made up of a superheated [[MinovskyPhysics Minovsky Particle]] plasma encased in [[SomeKindOfForceField I-Fields]]. I-fields cannot block regular matter, so what allows beam sabers to cut through almost anything is the fact that hitting something with your saber is literally letting the plasma of the saber eat through whatever you're trying to cut. When two beam sabers make contact, the I-Fields from both swords are repelling the plasma of the other.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' plays this completely straight but then subverts, and [[TakesOneToKillOne inverts]] this in its ElementalRockPaperScissors. Of all the ''eighteen'' current types, nine types (Fire, Water, Electric, Grass, Ice, Poison, Psychic, Dark, and Steel) are resistant to their own attacks, two of them are ''weak'' to their own attacks (Ghost and Dragon), and the rest only take normal damage from their own attacks. Because of this, certain dual-typed Pokemon can be either weak or resistant to their own types (A Ground/Steel typed Pokemon resists Steel-Type moves, but takes double damage from Ground-Type attacks[[note]]Ground normally doesn't resist itself, but the Steel-type is weak to the Ground-type, adding a weakness[[/note]].)

-->'''Tesla Trooper:''' Insulation won't help!

* One of the rules of magic in ''FanFic/TheApprenticeTheStudentAndTheCharlatan'':

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'': In 3.5, Adamantine weapons have the ability to bypass hardness when trying to damage weapons or objects if the material it is made out of has a hardness of less than 20. In turn, Adamantine is the only material (in the core books; supplements added a few others) that has a hardness of 20.

* Gourry's energy blade sword in ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' is eventually tested against another weapon that was created by the same people. When the two energy blades meet, they ''shriek.'' They then actually began to fuse together, and the energy released began to open a door to another dimension, [[SealedEvilInACan wherein dwelt]] the god-killing [[EldritchAbomination Dark Star]].

* ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'': [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Incarnate Abilities]] are this. Only another Incarnate Ability can block them as they'll cut through anything else like butter. This is because while normal attacks are designed by the system, Incarnate Abilities are created by the players' will, essentially futzing with the system parameters until you break 'em. By order of the Kings, they're illegal to use in Brain Burst unless you're attacked by one first. Of course it's also illegal to actually TEACH these techniques to other players, which means when [[ArcVillain Noumi]] breaks out his to devastate Cyan Pile, the heroes are stuck having to rely on cryptic advice and vague hints from their friends in order to counter it.

* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'', one of the very few things that can stop Sanger Zonvolt's Colossal Blade is another Colossal Blade, wielded

* ''Fanfic/JWITCHSeason1'': The Samurai Khan's shadow katanas can cut through everything, except [[spoiler: Jade's weapons she creates through her [[CastingAShadow shadow magic]].]]