History Main / ShatterpointTap

* In ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'', Phil has a statue of Achilles which he uses to demonstrate the hero's [[AchillesHeel infamous weakness]]; he touches the statue on the heel, and it shatters.

* Ryōga Hibiki of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' can shatter rock with one finger-thrust using his Bakusai Tenketsu technique. While going through the training for the technique both he and Ranma ''thought'' that it worked on everything, including human flesh, [[OnlyFleshIsSafe but it turns out to only work on rocks]] (and rock-like materials like [[ThereWasADoor most of the walls Ryōga encounters]]). However, surviving the TrainingFromHell required to learn the technique (involving large boulders swinging your way. If you fail to find the point, it hits you. If you succeed, you get a boulder exploding in your face) does have the benefit of giving Ryōga SuperToughness.
** It's OnlyFleshIsSafe attribute is actually justified, it was originally developed by quarry workers in order to speed up mining.

* Ryōga Hibiki of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' can shatter rock with one finger-thrust using his Bakusai Tenketsu technique. While going through the training for the technique both he and Ranma ''thought'' that it worked on everything, including human flesh, [[OnlyFleshIsSafe but it turns out to only work on rocks]] (and rock-like materials like [[ThereWasADoor most of the walls Ryōga encounters]]). However, surviving the TrainingFromHell required to learn the technique (involving large boulders swinging your way. If you fail to find the point, it hits you. If you succeed, you get a boulder exploding in your face) does have the benefit of rendering Ryōga SuperTough.

** The ending of one episode has Eddy dressed in armor made out of an old-fashioned iron stove to keep himself from being beaten up by Kevin and Rolf. Rolf lays his tongue across the armor, and then hits it in a certain spot, which causes the armor to split apart.

* In the WesternAnimation/{{Pixar Short|s}} ''La Luna'', a large star falls on the moon while a boy, his father and his grandfather are cleaning it. While the father and grandfather fail to remove the star, the boy climbs up to the highest point and gives it a tap with his hammer, causing it to shatter into dozens of smaller stars.

* In ''LightNovel/KaraNoKyoukai'', which is also written by NASU, Ryougi Shiki has a version of the Eyes of Death that includes the RequiredSecondaryPowers that prevents her from suffering from side effects as severe as Tohno Shiki's when she uses them to destroy conceptual objects. It gets to the point where she [[NoSell can cut through the supernatural powers]] of some of her opponents.

* There is an entire ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' novel about this concept, titled ''Literature/{{Shatterpoint}}'' and starring Mace Windu, who is a master of this technique. Other Jedi show up with this power from time to time; for instance, in the ''Literature/LegacyOfTheForce'' series, Jaina learns the physical form to face off against her brother, who has fallen to the DarkSide (she needs it to break his otherwise lightsaber-proof Mandalorian Iron armor). In ''Literature/HandOfThrawn'' Mara Jade demonstrates a variant that works on walls or structures and can [[YouAreAlreadyDead cause them to collapse after a precise interval]] using [[DeathOfAThousandCuts multiple short separated cuts]]. Other characters master the mental form, which treats situations or conflicts this way, seeking out the vital points where those conflicts can be changed by the proverbial RightManInTheWrongPlace. What makes Mace special is he instinctively knows ''both'', and explicitly thinks of situations in terms of crystalline constructs that can be manipulated or broken.

* Ryōga Hibiki of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' does it with his Bakusai Tenketsu technique. While going through the training for the technique both he and Ranma ''thought'' that it worked on everything, including human flesh, but it turns out to only work on rocks (and rock-like materials like [[ThereWasADoor most of the walls Ryōga encounters]]). However, surviving the TrainingFromHell required to learn the technique (involving large boulders swinging your way. If you fail to find the point, it hits you. If you succeed, you get a boulder exploding in your face) does have the benefit of rendering Ryōga SuperTough.

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* Ryoga Hibiki of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' does it with his Bakusai Tenketsu technique. While going through the training for the technique both he and Ranma ''thought'' that it worked on everything, including human flesh, but it turned out to only work on rocks(and rock-like materials like [[ThereWasADoor most of the walls Ryoga encounters]]). However, surviving the TrainingFromHell required to learn the technique(inolving large boulders swinging your way. If you fail to find the point, it hits you. If you succeed, you get a boulder exploding in your face) did have the benefit of rendering Ryoga SuperTough.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* ComicBook/CastleWaiting has Tolly, a [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Hammerling]] "doorman", which means that he has the ability to sense the stresses and flaws in solid stone and make holes through walls with barely a tap - the resulting doors even have decorative flourishes.

[[folder: Films -- Animated ]]

[[folder: Films -- Live-Action ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* One Daemon Engine in the new ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' Chaos Space Marines Codex is described as "tapping along fortress walls, listening intently", and when it finds what it's looking for, it hits the wall once, causing it to collapse.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'' this took the form of the skill/talent/power Find Weakness. It halved the protection an object (or person) had, making it easier to damage them.
** Worth noting for being eventually removed in the course of an edition change for being a potential GameBreaker, although that was more a problem with the concrete ''implementation'' (notably, costing too few points for what it did for superheroic campaigns in particular and requiring its own special defense power to stop). The trope itself can still be implemented in the TabletopGame/HeroSystem, it's just that this specific broken mechanic is gone.

[[folder: Video Games ]]

[[folder: Visual Novels ]]

[[folder: Web Original ]]

* Faultline from ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has a variation of this power that lets her ''make'' her own shatterpoints.
** The Number Man, a thinker with the power to see the numerical measurements and values of ... well, ''everything'', threatens to do this to a superstrong parahuman's ''skull''. With a pen.

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

-->'''Bugs:''' "Yeah, but what if one of those little rocks at the bottom came loose? That could be di-sas-ter-ous!"
-->'''BJS:'''"You mean, like thees one?"
-->'''Bugs:''' "That's ''the'' one!"
-->'''BJS:''' "Thees is seely! What could happen by taking ''one'' leetle..."

* In the PixarShort ''La Luna'', a large star falls on the moon while a boy, his father and his grandfather are cleaning it. While the father and grandfather fail to remove the star, the boy climbs up to the highest point and gives it a tap with his hammer, causing it to shatter into dozens of smaller stars.

* The ending of one episode of ''WesternAnimation/EdEddnEddy'' has Eddy dressed in armor made out of an old-fashioned iron stove to keep himself from being beaten up by Kevin and Rolf. Rolf lays his tongue across the armor, and then hits it in a certain spot, which causes the armor to split apart.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* Tohno Shiki of ''VisualNovel/{{Tsukihime}}'' has the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. As the name implies, they allow him to perceive the "points of death" on anything, and if he stabs it right there, it dies. [[SwissArmySuperpower He uses this to pick locks, depower vampires, and cure poison.]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* Detective Dee from the eponymous wuxia movie ''Film/DetectiveDee'' could do this with his very sword-like Dragon Taming Mace.

* In ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'', Phil has a statue of Achilles which he uses to demonstrate the hero's [[AchillesHeel infamous weakness]]; he touches the statue on the heel, and it shatters.

* A RunningGag on the ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' films. Scrat's attempts to bury his acorn make cracks that spread through the ground, causing glaciers, mountains, even ''the Earth's crust'' to split apart.

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

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* Dove from ''Hawk & Dove'' #15 (1990). When the heroes find themselves stranded in Druspa Tau, a place of magic different from their superheroic world, Dove gets this as an upgrade to her [[OrderVersusChaos Order-based]] powers.
* Karnak of Marvel's ''ComicBook/TheInhumans'' developed this as a CharlesAtlasSuperpower.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* Detective Dee from the eponymous wuxia movie ''Film/DetectiveDee'' could do this with his very sword-like Dragon Taming Mace.

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]
* An accidental version occurs on ''Series/{{Life}}''. The opening of the season 2 episode "The Business of Miracles." Dan Auerbach was killed because someone swapped his oxygen tank with pure liquid nitrogen... he was frozen solid. While Crews and Reese are looking at the scene and conversing with the guy who owns the lab. Crews leans forward and gently pokes the corpse with a pen... and the corpse shatters into a thousand tiny frozen pieces! Which Reese follows by asking, "Do you have to touch everything?"
** "Forensics had to bag each piece individually. You might want to send them a bottle of something."
* The Series/MythBusters examined breaking safety glass by poking it. It didn't work.
* In ''Series/DrakeAndJosh'', after hearing his father's advice on how to open a pickle jar, Josh taps a jar of pickles and the whole jar breaks.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* One Daemon Engine in the new ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' Chaos Space Marines Codex is described as "tapping along fortress walls, listening intently", and when it finds what it's looking for, it hits the wall once, causing it to collapse.
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'' this took the form of the skill/talent/power Find Weakness. It halved the protection an object (or person) had, making it easier to damage them.

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* There are literal living walls blocking your paths in ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' that can only be destroyed with the celestial brush. When you approach them, you get a brief hint of where the weak points are in the enemy, then you have to use the brush to tap each of the weak points in the ''order that they appear'' to destroy it. If you miss even one, you have to start over. Quickly becomes ThatOneSidequest when you encounter one with ''eight'' such points.

[[AC:VisualNovels]]

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* Faultline from ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' has a variation of this power that lets her ''make'' her own shatterpoints.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=OFuZdMDJmhA#t=141s Wet Hare]]'' starring WesternAnimation/BugsBunny and featuring Blacque Jacque Shellac:
-->'''Bugs:''' "Yeah, but what if one of those little rocks at the bottom came loose? That could be di-sas-ter-ous!"
-->'''BJS:'''"You mean, like thees one?"
-->'''Bugs:''' "That's ''the'' one!"
-->'''BJS:''' "Thees is seely! What could happen by taking ''one'' leetle..."
* In ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'', Phil has a statue of Achilles which he uses to demonstrate the hero's [[AchillesHeel infamous weakness]]; he touches the statue on the heel, and it shatters.
* Parodied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/ChipNDaleRescueRangers'', where Gadget is seen tapping lightly on a pane of glass, claiming that she's trying to find its "harmonic weakness." Once she apparently finds it, she smashes the glass with a hammer.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert%27s_Drop Rupert's drops]] are specially prepared glass teardrops: The bulbous end can take a blow from a hammer without incident, but if you so much as scratch the thin end, the entire thing explodes.

** Worth noting for being eventually removed in the course of an edition change for being a potential GameBreaker, although that was more a problem with the concrete ''implementation'' (notably, costing too few points for what it did for superheroic campaigns in particular and requiring its own special defense power to stop). The trope itself can still be implemented in the HeroSystem, it's just that this specific broken mechanic is gone.

* ''{{Mousehunt}}'': The Master of the Cheese Claw's picture has her do this to a wooden pillar.

* Ryoga Hibiki of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' does it with his Bakusai Tenketsu technique. While going through the training for the technique both he and Ranma ''thought'' that it worked on everything, including human flesh, but it turned out to only work on rocks. However, surviving the TrainingFromHell required to learn the technique(inolving large boulders swinging your way. If you fail to find the point, it hits you. If you succeed, you get a boulder exploding in your face) did have the benefit of rendering Ryoga SuperTough.

* In the ''SwordOfTruth'' book "Faith of the Fallen", Richard carves a statue from a block of marble that has a flaw in it, taking care in his design to minimise the flaw. When the local ruler tries to destroy it, all his thugs can do is ineffectually hammer at it and leave a minor dent in the marble. He then orders Richard to destroy the statue; he hits it once in the weak spot with a sledgehammer and the entire statue crumbles at once.

* In the ''SwordOfTruth'' book "Faith of the Fallen", Richard carves a statue from a block of marble that has a flaw in it, taking care in his design to minimise the flaw. When ordered to destroy the statue, he hits it once in the weak spot with a sledgehammer and the entire statue crumbles at once.

* Ryoga Hibiki of ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' does it with his Bakusai Tenketsu technique. While going through the training for the technique both he and Ranma ''thought'' that it worked on everything, including human flesh, but it turned out to only work on rocks. However, surviving the TrainingFromHell required to learn the technique did have the benefit of rendering Ryoga SuperTough.

* In ''DrakeAndJosh'', after hearing his father's advice on how to open a pickle jar, Josh taps a jar of pickles and the whole jar breaks.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'', [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Flandre Scarlet]] has the ability to [[PersonOfMassDestruction destroy anything]]. She can see the 'eyes' in objects, and using her power she can move the 'eye' into the palm of her hand and crush it, destroying the object.

* In ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'', this is the first power of entropy (magic dedicated to fate and decay of things). A wizard can use it to see weak spots in everything, from people and objects (which allows him to hit them ForMassiveDamage) to finding an entry to a guarded building by spotting the flaw in security procedures.

* There is an entire StarWarsExpandedUniverse novel about this concept, titled ''Literature/{{Shatterpoint}}'' and starring Mace Windu, who is a master of this technique.
** Other Jedi show up with this power from time to time; for instance, in the LegacyOfTheForce series, Jaina learns the physical form to face off against her brother, who has fallen to the DarkSide (she needs it to break his otherwise lightsaber-proof Mandalorian Iron armor), whereas earlier Mara Jade demonstrated a variant that works on walls or structures and can [[YouAreAlreadyDead cause them to collapse after a precise interval]]. Other characters master the mental form, which treats situations or conflicts this way, seeking out the vital points where those conflicts can be changed by the proverbial RightManInTheWrongPlace. What makes Mace special is he knows ''both'', and explicitly thinks of situations in terms of crystalline constructs that can be manipulated or broken.