History Main / SoftWater

* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'':
** In ''The Lightning Thief'', Percy Jackson is the son of Poseidon the sea god. When forced to jump through a hole in the St. Louis Arch to escape a fiery Chimera, he ends up plummeting straight down towards the Mississippi River. As he falls, the trope is subverted: he expects this trope to be averted, and the effect to be akin to smacking concrete. When he does hit the water, he is surprised at first that he is alive, and even more so, he isn't even injured in any way. He realizes that the water has healing effects on him and also seemed to become soft just for him.
** In ''The Last Olympian'', he pulls off another such jump -- but he knows the demigod with him died, because not being Poseidon's children, he was not immune to the reality.
** [[spoiler: Beckendorf]]'s death in ''The Last Olympian'' has less to do with Soft Water not applying and more to do with the fact that he was still on the ship when it exploded. [[spoiler: Luke/Kronos]] did survive both the explosion and the fall, but only because he was invulnerable. The book was very unclear on how exactly [[spoiler: Ethan]] survived, but it's indicated that the other demigods onboard were killed.
** Percy warns Ethan and the other demigods to get off the ship. Percy is immune to any harm from water -- he can breathe it, see through it, not be crushed by the pressure of it, not be injured falling into it... hell, he doesn't even get wet unless he wants to.
** Further averted in the same series: Percy and Thalia have an argument. Thalia hits Percy with a bolt of electricity, so he [[DisproportionateRetribution lifts up the entire river to hurl at her]]. Chiron shouts at him to stop what he was doing, implying he would have killed Thalia. He is distracted by the Oracle before he can throw the water.

* In one episode of the ''VideoGame/VirtuaFighter'' anime, [[TheHero Akira]], [[TheChick Pai]] and [[TagalongKid Leon]] are trapped by the bad guys on the roof of a speeding train, heading to a certain doom. As the train passes by the ocean, Leon suggests jumping off the roof and diving into the water. Akira, [[IdiotHero of all people]], tells him that this would be a terrible idea, as at the speed they're going, landing on water would be the same as landing on concrete.

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas''. You can get into a jet, go over a body of water at full screaming-engine speed and drop without a parachute and all you'll get will be wet clothes. Of course, previous games in the series [[SuperDrowningSkills lacked a swimming mechanic]], and so treated any body of water greater than waist-deep as a pool of instant death.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoV''. Falling from high enough will kill the character who hits the water. Unless you're [[InVehicleInvulnerability in a vehicle]].

* ''WesternAnimation/GuillermoDelTorosPinocchio'': In Pinocchio's final confrontation with Count Volpe, [[spoiler:both Volpe and Spazzatura fall off a cliff. Volpe lands on a rock just above the surface of the water and dies. Spazzatura falls into the water, almost the exact same height that Volpe fell, and survives]].

* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/HowToTrainYourDragonTheHiddenWorld'', in which [[spoiler:Hiccup detaches his own prosthetic leg to drop the villainous Grimmel the Gruesome]] into the water to his death while [[spoiler:the two are]] in free-fall.

* Played straight in ''VideoGame/TheSaboteur''. You can jump from the spire of the Eiffel Tower, fall 300 meters and land in a 2-metre deep pond and survive. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QEj30xfaj0#t=3m49s You even get an achievement for it.]]
** You should've been dead long before that since you [[spoiler: jumped from a burning zeppelin into water and were only knocked out for a short time]].

* ''VideoGame/MonsterHunter Tri'' treats water in this fashion when transferring from one zone to another; you're never knocked into the air enough to actually go into water. Even if a Rathian knocks you off a cliff, you have time in the zone change to adjust your trajectory so you don't break your back. Also, regardless of the height, you fell from, if you fall into water while carrying a wyvern egg, you always get the "egg sinks to the bottom" animation you get when you lose an egg by entering water, not the "egg shatters" animation you get from falling from a height.

* ''ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse''

* Justified in ''[[ComicBook/Supergirl1982 Supergirl vol. 2]]'' issue #20. Villain Parasite seals ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} in a flying metal coffin. Supergirl manages to rip it open, but she finds herself being one mile high and being unable to fly. So she glides downwards with her cloak, knowing her indestructible costume will take the brunt of her impact in the lake.
* In the thankfully short-lived Norwegian comic ''Dido'', the eponymous hero (yeah, his parents actually called him that) dives into a lake from what looks like about 100 feet. The BadGuy turns impatiently away declaring that no-one could have survived that fall, but moments later the kid emerges from the lake still in one piece with [[FridgeLogic no explanation whatsoever]] and no complaints other than "Ouch, that really hurt!" And that was only the last in a row of unlikely escapes...

* The ultimate example is shown in ''Film/{{Commando}},'' where Matrix jumps from the landing gear of an airliner just after take-off-- only to be saved by landing in about 18 inches of water (it even has ''reeds and cat-tails'' in it!). Even if the falling-distance itself wasn't far enough to be harmful, the velocity of the plane at take-off (175 knots plus) would cause him to be moving faster than terminal velocity, being certainly fatal. Likewise, the lateral motion from the plane would cause him to skip like a stone across the surface of the water, causing a certain fatality. But in the movie, he just falls in as if he had stepped off of a 5-foot platform. (Most jets climb at 250 knots, which is 287mph, after takeoff; while terminal velocity for a falling person is 120mph. So this would be ''instant death.'')

* The ultimate example is shown in ''Film/{{Commando}},'' where Matrix jumps from the landing gear of an airliner just after take-off-- only to be saved by landing in about 18 inches of water (it even has ''reeds and cat-tails'' in it!). Even if the falling-distance itself wasn't far enough to be harmful, the velocity of the plane at take-off (175 knots plus) would cause him to be moving faster than terminal velocity, being certainly fatal. Likewise, the lateral motion from the plane would cause him to skip like a stone across the surface of the water, causing a certain fatality. But in the movie, he just falls in as if he had stepped off of a 5-foot platform.

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This trope has resulted in a rather interesting side effect. Either believing this trope to be true, or being aware that a majority of the audience believes it to be true, writers know that they can't present a simple long drop into water as a threat, because the audience will assume it's survivable. Usually, in order to show that a potential fall into water would be dangerous, they'll [[RuleOfPerception show the water as turbulent with jagged rocks]]. Because that's somehow more fatal. Even though, you know, violently choppy water is actually safer to fall into, due to lacking surface tension. The rocks'll still hurt, though, because, y'know, rocks.

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** In one FMW in ''VideoGame/TombRaider'', Lara dives off a cliff to evade Natla's henchmen, and of course, survives unscathed. In the add-on to the first game, Unfinished Business, there is a huge drop in the first Atlantis level that involves Lara diving/jumping through a narrow shaft several floors deep before finally landing in a deep pool.

* ''Film/{{The Princess|2022}}'': The princess falls from many stories up out of a window off into the water below, and is none the worse upon surfacng.

* Given an early aversion in one of the ''Franchise/DocSavage'' stories from the pulp magazine of the 1930s. A woman is falling towards the ocean from a height of ''several hundred'' feet as Doc and one other person looks on helplessly. The person he's with blurts out that maybe hitting the water won't kill her. Doc has no such illusions; he knows that hitting the water after falling that far is the same as hitting concrete.

* ''VideoGame/Pikmin3'' has a truly absurd example [[UpToEleven even by this trope's standards]]. Alph, one of the playable captains in game, gets ejected out of his ship in the Pikmin planet's low orbit, falls all the way to said planet below, but is only slightly dazed from it because he lands in a pool of water. Granted, his fellow captains, Brittany and Charlie, also survive the fall by landing in piles of snow, so it's quite possible that Koppais are just {{made of iron}} in general. The fact that they're only a couple of centimeters tall and would have a very low terminal velocity probably helps too.

* In ''VideoGame/TheCave'' long falls with water pools often separate chapters, where you're not supposed to be able to backtrack. [[UpToEleven Especially]], when you first enter the cave.

* ''Film/ThePrincess'': The princess falls from many stories up out of a window off into the water below, and is none the worse upon surfacng.

* ''Film/BadBoys'':

* In ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'' [[ComicBook/{{Azrael}} Jean-Paul Valley's]] first encounter as Batman with Bane ends with him plunging towards the floor of a shopping center and unable to use his grappling hook to stop his fall. He pushes off the wall and tries to land in a fountain, but doesn't clear it all the way, hitting his leg on the edge of the fountain. JP is alive, but he limps away.
* Averted in the "Fatherland" arc of ''Comicbook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica''. The bad guys unleash a weapon known as the Darkness Engine, which [[PowerNullifier nullifies]] the powers of every superhero on the planet. [[Comicbook/GreenLantern Hal Jordan]] is flying above an ocean when the Engine negates his [[GreenLanternRing Power Ring]], which causes him to plummet to his death.
--> At enough velocity, impacting water is no different from impacting concrete. He didn't survive.

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* In one episode of the ''VideoGame/VirtuaFighter'' anime, [[TheHero Akira]], [[TheChick Pai]] and [[TagalongKid Leon]] are trapped by the bad guys on the roof of a speeding train, heading to a certain doom. As the train passes by the ocean, Leon suggests to jump off the roof and dive into the water. Akira, [[IdiotHero of all people]], tells him that this would be a terrible idea, as at the speed they're going, landing on water would be the same as landing on concrete.

* Averted with Gwen Stacy's death in ''Franchise/SpiderMan''; when she's thrown off a bridge, Spider-Man knows he has to catch her, otherwise she will die when she hits the water. He manages to catch her with his webbing, but [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou the sudden stop breaks her neck]].
* Interestingly, an issue of the ''Franchise/TombRaider'' comic had Lara dropping off a cliff, observing calmly that she will probably break every bone in her body if she hits the water, but that it was "better than kissing the rocks below". She falls into the water with such impact that her glasses shatter, bones are snapped and she falls instantly unconscious, possibly dead -- but since the drop was to get into the valley of Shangri-La, a legendary city of eternal health, she wakes up in a king-size bed fully healed.
* Averted in ''ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica'' #38, in which a device created by the Fourth Reich that nullifies superpowers turned off Green Lantern's ring while he was flying over water, killing him.
* Averted in the final chapter of the ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' storyline ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'', Bane is driven off by the Jean-Paul Valley Batman (still wearing the classic Batsuit) and JP attempts to save his own life after the rope snagged on his foot breaks and his grappling hook doesn't catch right. He kicks the wall and attempts to somersault into a mall fountain, but the cape causes too much drag and he barely makes it. Though he's alive, he's injured his arm and he ends up limping out of the mall, his leg ended up smacking into the edge of the fountain in the end.

* Rather graphically averted in the opening scene of ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars 2}}'' with one of the {{Mook}}s.

* Averted in ''Film/FinalDestination5'', as everyone on the crumbling bridge knows better than to try jumping into the comparably-placid water beneath them (even Sam and Peter when the alternative is skewering by construction supplies). However, also played straight by Olivia surviving her fall into the water seemingly unscathed ... [[HopeSpot until a car falls on her.]]

* Averted (horribly) in the (realistic) ''Film/ThePerfectStorm'' film, where one of the rescuers mistimes his jump and falls 80 feet onto hard water.

** Done twice in ''Film/AViewToAKill'', first is when one of the executives gets ThrownFromTheZeppelin, and second is the scene where Max Zorin falls off the Golden Gate Bridge. Though that's the last the audience sees of him (ie. no body), its pretty clear he is killed. Naturally, since many San Franciscans will tell you that simply falling from the street level is fatal (the body is immediately pulverized and the victim -- if still alive somehow -- drowns in their own blood); Max fell from the ''very top'' of one of the towers.

* Averted in ''Literature/RendezvousWithRama''; a character is stranded atop a 500 meter-high cliff over the mid-station toroidal lake. Much is made about the problem (no climbing gear, the one and only flier that got him there is now destroyed), and the sheer height of the fall. [[spoiler:Then a scientist back on Earth remembers that reduced gravity (okay inertia/centrifugal force) means reduced terminal velocity. Rescue then becomes a matter of him jumping off and staying vertical (they don't tell him this plan/theory until the rescue boat arrives at the bottom of the cliff, so he won't have time to worry). He also uses his shirt as an impromptu parachute]].

* Subverted in Scott Westerfeld's ''Literature/TheRisenEmpire'' (or ''Killing of Worlds'', depending on if you bought the book as a whole or in halves). While in free fall H_rd brakes her nose on a ridge of ice; the ice then breaks and she continues falling.

** ''Literature/{{Carpe Jugulum}}''. When Agnes is falling from the sky, she spots a lake off to one side and decides she should try and 'angle towards it'. However, Perdita (Agnes's other personality) points out that given how fast they're falling, hitting the water would be the same as hitting the ground.
** ''Literature/TheLastContinent''. When they're about to be hit by a tidal wave, the wizards blithely assure each other that water is soft. Ponder Stibbons remembers the other kids throwing him in the swimming hole, and realizes that no, it isn't.
* Given an early aversion in one of the ''Franchise/DocSavage'' stories from the pulp magazine of the 1930s. A woman is falling towards the ocean from a height of ''several hundred'' feet as Doc and one other person looks on helplessly. The person he's with blurts out that maybe hitting the water won't kill her. Doc has no such illusions, he knows hitting the water after falling that far is the same as hitting concrete.

* For a game that uses so many of the idioms you'd see in a typical action movie, ''[[VideoGame/JustCause Just Cause 2]]'' almost averts this. Rico can fall very far onto solid ground without getting hurt, and can even prevent fall damage by using his grappling hook to ''pull himself straight towards the ground'', but if a fall is high enough for him to take damage (indicated by him going into a skydiving position), belly-flopping in water will not negate it. However, diving headfirst in to the water will allow you to take no damage at all.

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* In the opening sequence to the ''[[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda Legend of Zelda]]'' cartoon, Link fires some [[SwordBeam blasts from his sword]] to break up the surface of the pond/moat into which he and Zelda are falling.

** Taken to extremes in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess''. To access the last dungeon, you need to shoot yourself into the ''sky'' with a cannon. Sure enough, you land in a small pool of water, but at least then you wouldn't be travelling that fast since you slow down when you came up. The real problem is, to get back on earth, you need to use another cannon that ''shoots you up even higher'', with Lake Hylia being the Soft Water.
** ''Twilight Princess'' does it even before that with the introduction to Lake Hylia. Wolf Link and Midna cross a bridge over it when some {{Mooks}} light the oil on the bridge on fire. Wolf Link climbs over the guard rail and jumps off the bridge, managing to fall into the remains of the lake, which is very little water. The distance between the bridge and the lake is "big city skyscraper" height, far enough that no matter ''how'' much water there is, hitting it should be little different from hitting concrete.
** Also done in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'', requisite-style. Like the Great Deku Tree, or the waterfalls at the Gerudo Valley and Zora's Domain that are even higher. It's worth noting that Link takes those dives ''head first''. Then again falling doesn't seem to be particularly dangerous in the ''Zelda'' Universe, even if impacting solid ground. There's a hidden area in The Fire Temple, which requires the Scarecrow's Song to reach, with a drop that is long enough that Link will stop yelling before he hits the bottom. The result? Landing in a crouch on both feet, grunting, and taking a couple hearts of damage. (In fact, for this franchise, a ''couple hearts'' is ''extreme.'' Usually, one quarter of a heart, sometimes half, is the penalty for distant falls.)
** In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', as long as the water is deep enough that you can't walk through it you don't lose any hearts no matter how far you fall. You can still drown if you don't have any stamina once you're in the drink, but the impact with the water itself isn't what's fatal.