History Main / TakingTheBullet

[[folder:Toys]]
* [[spoiler:Lhikan]] for [[TheHero Vakama]], [[spoiler:Jaller]] for [[KidAppealCharacter Takua]] in ''Toys/{{Bionicle}}''.
[[/folder]]

[[quoteright:320:[[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/aputakesabullet.jpg]]]]

Compare GoThroughMe, JumpingOnAGrenade, TuckAndCover, LoadBearingHero, DrawAggro. HumanShield and BulletproofHumanShield are the unwilling versions that often happens in hostage situations. MisguidedMissile is when you do this with air-to-air weaponry.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'', Ben dies in a HeroicSacrifice shielding his AlternateUniverse counterpart [[ForWantOfANail No-Watch]] Ben from a [[ApocalypseHow Chronosapien Time Bomb]] intended to RetGone all versions of him from the multiverse. While his body is being erased his [[SuperWristGadget Omnitrix]] lands on the other Ben, allowing him to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong at the end of the arc.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'' has an episode where Kaeloo, Stumpy and Mr. Cat almost get impaled by a variety of sharp objects, but [[NighInvulnerable Quack Quack the indestructible duck]] jumps in front to save them. [[UngratefulBastard Mr. Cat responds by calling Quack Quack a show-off.]]

* The first episode of ''WesternAnimation/BlackDynamite'' [[ParodiedTrope parodies the trope]] by having Cream Corn take a bullet for [[spoiler: Music/MichaelJackson]]. He survived; his timing was a little early and the bullet [[AssShove got lodged in his rear]]. [[spoiler: Michael returned the favor towards the [[IncrediblyLamePun end]].]]

* A somewhat extreme example is Alexander Matrosov, a Red Army soldier during UsefulNotes/WorldWarTwo. During an assault on Chernushki village, the Soviets were held off by a German [[CoolGun MG 42]] (which is the [[MoreDakka fastest firing]] single barreled machine gun in history) firing from a pill-box. Matrosov threw himself in front of the massive amount of dakka, blocking the fire and allowing his unit to advance. He was posthumously awarded Hero of the Soviet Union, the highest honour that can be bestowed by the USSR.

* In addition to bringing back the "Shield Other" spell from ''Dungeons & Dragons'', ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' introduces the Oracle class, and one of the paths for this class allows the user to absorb damage that has afflicted their allies.
* In ''TabletopGame/InNomineSatanisMagnaVeritas'', Jean-Luc, Archangel of Protectors, grants his servants the power "ultimate sacrifice", allowing them to magically redirect any harm from a single target to themselves, with some damage reduction at high levels.
* There is also the "look out sir!" rule in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy Battles'' where a rank and file unit will do exactly this for a leader who is in the same formation.

** Then you've got the [[TheOgre Ogryn]] bodyguard Nork Deddog. Nork can take the bullet plus goes into a mad rage trying to protect his commander if Nork dies in close combat. The codex actually has IN HIS RULES "desperately attempts to 'smash dem wot is tyrin ta 'urt da kernul'... slumps to the floor asking his officer 'did we win?' before passing out form his wounds."
** In ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', the Crusader class can shield an Inquisitor from any attack if they are within range.

** As of Sixth Edition and Seventh Edition, Warhammer 40k has gotten a "Look Out, Sir!" rule similar to the rule in Warhammer Fantasy. In brief, when a character is hit, there is a die roll representing the chance for some sap in his unit to take the bullet. When protecting named characters, the mooks succeed with a 5 in 6 chance, while nameless squad leaders have a 1 in 2 chance of someone taking the hit for them. There are ways to alter the odds.

** In [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS5E13HomerAndApu Homer and Apu]], Apu takes a bullet for James Woods, only to find it [[PocketProtector bounced off]] ''another'' bullet that was still in him from a previous robbery.

** Apu takes a bullet for James Woods, only to find it [[PocketProtector bounced off]] ''another'' bullet that was still in him from a previous robbery.

Due to the [[DeathTropes nature of this trope]], '''spoilers are likely'''. You have been warned.

* The first ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' movie has Diego taking the blow for Manny during the battle with Soto after his HeelFaceTurn.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheIncredibles'' has Mirage trying to pull this on Syndrome when Mr. Incredible, consumed with grief with the possible death of his entire family, and enraged at Syndrome shooting down their plane, lunges at him while confined to energy wires. Syndrome repays her by daring Mr. Incredible to kill her when he claims that he could crush her like a toothpick.

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/{{Pocahontas}}'', John Smith does this [[spoiler:for Chief Powhatan, who was about to be shot by Governor Ratcliffe. Although the shot itself ends in BloodlessCarnage, John is injured badly enough to warrant his return to Europe if he wants to have a chance at survival, forever separating him from Pocahontas.]]

* WesternAnimation/SonOfBatman: Towards the end of the film, Talia takes a bullet meant for Damian.
* Something of a reversal in the 1986 ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformersTheMovie'': Optimus Prime has bested Megatron, and is about to finish him off with his gun. Megatron begs for mercy to buy time to try and get a nearby gun. Just as Optimus Prime is about to finally blast Megatron, Hot Rod [[UnwantedAssistance jumps in the way]] to stop Megatron getting to it. Megatron simply overpowers Hot Rod, gets the gun, and mortally wounds Optimus Prime.

* In the episode "You Made Me" in ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'', Finn takes a blow from Lemongrab's [[MusicalAssassin Sound Sword]] for Princess Bubblegum. The resulting attack knocks him out [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and tears apart his hat]].

** In the episode "Stannie Get Your Gun", Stan (paralyzed by a gun accident) took the bullet for Hayley when a fired gun mascot aimed a sniper at her upon singing an anti-gun song. The bullet helped cured his paralysis when it dislodged first bullet that hit him before.

* In the final battle against Azula from ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'', Zuko takes a full-on lightning blast (complete with a BigNo in Slow Mo) meant for Katara. He had been taught to redirect lightning, however, which meant that he was just badly injured instead of killed outright, since he couldn't fully redirect it in the middle of a DivingSave.

** In the episode "Enemy of My Frenemy", Kevin takes a blow for Gwen; he recovers.

* ''WesternAnimation/BigCityGreens'': In the climax of "Skunked", when Gloria slips on the floor and is cornered by the skunks ready to launch their stink, Cricket jumps right in front of her and takes the whiff.

** In a subverted example, Fry saves Leela by taking a giant space wasp sting meant for her. Fry ends up ''dying'' from this, and [[spoiler:Leela starts to have hallucinations of him telling her to wake up. Ultimately it is revealed that the space wasp's stinger pierced right through Fry and nicked Leela, thus injecting its venom into her instead of him. She's been in a coma ever since, and the hallucinations were the real, healed up, Fry. He's been at her bedside trying to wake her up.]] Quite touching, really.
** In "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences", Fry leaps in front of Leela and takes it when she was about to be shot by a vaporizer. [[spoiler:Subverted when everyone realizes it was actually a teleporter. Though at the time Fry was unaware of this.]]
* In ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'', in the episode "Society Of The Blind Eye", Old Man [=McGucket=] jumps in front of Dipper to protect him from getting his memories erased by the [[MemoryWipingCrew Society of the Blind Eye]]. Since [=McGucket=]'s already nuts from [[spoiler:having his memories erased so many times, nothing happens to him.]]
** To clarify, the Society used a [[LaserGuidedAmnesia memory-wiping gun]] to erase people's memories of anomalies in Gravity Falls. They were trying to make Dipper forget pretty much his entire summer, and were going to do the same to Mabel, Wendy, and Soos.
* In ''WesternAnimation/HouseOfMouse'' Timon and Pumbaa are both on stage when Pumbaa warns everyone that he has a [[{{Gasshole}} "rumbly in his tumbly"]]. Everyone runs for cover except for Sneezy, who due to his allergies, can’t smell anything anyway, and Donald, who proceeds to grab Pumbaa and make a mad dash for the door, taking the blast in the process. Pumbaa then calmly walks back inside, warning everyone not to go out there, he’s then followed by Donald, who definitely looks worse for wear.
* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', Superman takes a ball that apparently annihilated matter for his friends. Luckily for him, it turned out to only be a time travel portal.
** Then, in ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueUnlimited'', Batman says this verbatim when he chews out Superman for sending Doomsday to a PrisonDimension. Granted, it wasn't a literal bullet that he took for him. He actually saved Superman from a kryptonite-lined nuke and nearly died himself in the process. Effect's the same though.

* The climactic moment of the ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' series finale involves this with Korra [[spoiler: against the [[WaveMotionGun Spirit Ray Cannon]] to save [[SaveTheVillain Kuvira]] when the cannon [[PhlebotinumOverload goes awry]]... except that Korra has the (correct) notion that she can withstand the beam in the spur of the moment.]]
* The Ruby-Spears ''WesternAnimation/{{Mega Man|RubySpears}}'' cartoon sees Proto Man invoking this trope. Mega Man keeps dodging Proto Man's shots, so Proto Man [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI8RPO87vSc takes aim at the Lincoln Memorial instead.]] [[PatrioticFervor It works.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}''. At the end of "Klokblocked", the extremist faction Succuboso Explosion fires their electrically charged "loin extractor" at Nathan -- Murderface heroically dives in front of him and takes it full in the crotch.

* ''WesternAnimation/RockAndRule'' has Zip do this as a MookFaceTurn when the demon tries hurling a blast of... um, something at the heroes.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''

** Another episode had Homer attend bodyguard training, where he was tested for this. Attendants were marked on the effort put into their "[[BigNo Noooo!]]" among other things. The trainees were given melons with celebrity names on them to protect (Homer promptly ate his).
** And yet another episode had elderly Springfieldian Cornelius Chapman, who won an award for being Springfields oldest resident (well into his 100's). Among his accomplishments (building Springfields first log cabin and introducing the tooth brush), Chapman once took a bullet for Huey Long. Unfortunatly, he only took ONE bullet, as Long was shot several times and Chapman only caught the last one.

'''Flanders:''' ''(astonished)'' Homer, what did you just say?\\

** In "Saturdays of Thunder", [[ShowWithinAShow a McBain movie]] has [=McBain's=] sidekick Scoie protect [=McBain=] from an assassination attempt. This happens right after Scoie [[{{Retirony}} discusses his plans for retirement]]. It should be noted that this was a case of ACCIDENTLY taking the bullet, at Scoie was shot because he leaned in front of his partner to grab his wallet photo back, right when the assassin pulled the trigger.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants''. An interesting inversion of this was played when [=SpongeBob=] leapt in front of Patrick just as a speeding car was about to spatter mud all over him, protecting the ultra rare and super valuable Mermaid Man trading card he was holding in his hand.
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks'': "[[Recap/StarTrekLowerDecksS2E02KayshonHisEyesOpen Kayshon, His Eyes Open]]": When the holo-message is about to shoot a beam at Tendi and Siggi, Kayshon pushes them both out of the way and gets hit instead.

** Parodied in "Together Breakfast" when Steven takes a squirt gun blast for [[ItMakesSenseInContext a stack of waffles]].
** Parodied again, while also subverted, in "Shirt Club." When one of Major Dewey's bodyguards sees someone training a gun (well, shirt cannon) on him, he calls out, runs in front of his charge... and then [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere keeps right on running until he's out of sight]].

[[caption-width-right:320:[-[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h7OXlPeMQI The customer is always right in the line of fire.]]-]]]

* The TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' spell card [[https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/card_search.action?ope=2&cid=5675&request_locale=en "My Body as a Shield"]] enables the player to protect one of the monsters on their side of their field from a spell or trap effect, by giving up 1500 Life Points. The card depicts the Marauding Captain taking a blast from Blazing Inpachi to protect Gagagigo, as part of the in-game lore around the latter.

I'll give my life for you\\"

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'', [[http://scp-wiki.net/scp-999 SCP-999 ("The Tickle Monster")]]. SCP-999 loves all animals (including humans) so much that it will leap in front of a person to take a bullet fired at them.

* ''TabletopGame/SentinelsOfTheMultiverse'':
** Legacy has two abilities that work like this. Heroic Interception, where Legacy takes 3 points of damage and the rest of his team is immune to any damage (the art shows Legacy taking a missile headed for the White House in mid-air) and Lead From The Front, which allows him to redirect any damage his team take to himself. But don't worry, Legacy is a SuperHero with SuperToughness, so he can take it.
** In the lore, one of Absolute Zero's first truly heroic actions was to tank a DeathRay shot aimed at Legacy by his ArchEnemy Baron Blade. He survives because Blade's death ray drew its killing power from the target's molecular motion, but Absolute Zero's transformation means his molecules aren't ''in'' motion[[note]]this is scientifically absurd but [[MST3KMantra just go with it]][[/note]], so it [[NoSell has no effect on him]].

* In ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' Felix avoids the sacrifice part by use of an energy shield, but the first of several times he dives in front of a bullet for someone he gets shot in the leg. [[spoiler:He later lampshades how you'd need incredible reflexes to truly pull this trope off and reveals he staged the shootings, including his getting shot, to win the Reds and Blues' trust.]]