History Main / ThisIsNotAFloor

* Used a couple of times in the ''SilentHill'' series, and at least once in TheMovie.

* While he occasionally does the opposite, Wile E. Coyote is known for his painting of a bridge in front of a chasm. The road runner takes the bridge, Coyote tries to chase it, rips through the picture and falls.

* The ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' games occasionally use this trick. Two examples that stand out are ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', where they can be detected by a weapon that follows the ground, the Bubble Lead, and '9'', where there are actual enemies that fly by to create holographic platforms over pits right by the real ones.

* Peters of ''EventHorizon'' was killed in this fashion when the evil ship created an illusion in her mind of a bridge across an open shaft with her son on the other side, resulting in her falling to her death on the gravity chamber floor.

* In ''BatmanBeyond'', Spellbinder uses an illusion to nearly trick Terry into walking off a cliff. He has also tricked Terry into diving off of a building by projecting a waterfall over it.

* [[spoiler: Lasciel]] in the [[TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]] book ''Dead Beat'' pulls this on Harry, filling an apartment with illusionary [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes flame]] and putting an illusionary fire escape outside the window before breaking the illusion to show that it ''could'' easily kill Harry, but doesn't want to.

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* In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'': A Novel of {{Discworld}}, this happens to unsatisfactory postmasters (and, very nearly, Moist.)

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...[[TheTreacheryOfImages It is the image of a floor.]]

When you have a MasterOfIllusion or a LotusEaterMachine, why bother bloodying your hands or risking the victim fighting back, when you can trick them into walking across empty air? A perfect plot (bar necromancy or mind-reading) when the only evidence that points toward you, or even murder at all, rests in the mind of the deceased. Often, another character will call attention to the character's actions and unknowingly break the illusion, or the illusionist will break the illusion himself at the last instant to [[ManipulativeBastard play with the victim's mind]] [[SmugSnake just to show]] how [[TheChessmaster in control]] he is.

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!!Examples:

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* [[spoiler: Lasciel]] in the [[TheDresdenFiles Dresden Files]] book ''Dead Beat'' pulls this on Harry, filling an apartment with illusionary [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes flame]] and putting an illusionary fire escape outside the window before breaking the illusion to show that it ''could'' easily kill Harry, but doesn't want to.

* In ''Point Blank'', the second book in Anthony Horowitz' ''Literature/AlexRider'' series, a murder is set up by putting a holographic elevator into an out-of-order elevator shaft.
* In ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'', Iris has the power of illusions, and this is one of the things she can do.

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* ''HouseMD'' uses this a lot, in the "patient of the week is hallucinating" form.
** ''RoyalPains'' does a similar version, where a "haunted" client can't tell the difference between a floor three inches below or thirty feet below.

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* Used a couple of times in the ''SilentHill'' series, and at least once in TheMovie.
* Used to great annoyance in some ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games, most egregiously the 3D ones, in dungeons that use the [[SeeThruSpecs Lens Of Truth]] or local equivalent.

* The ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' games occasionally use this trick. Two examples that stand out are ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', where they can be detected by a weapon that follows the ground, the Bubble Lead, and '9'', where there are actual enemies that fly by to create holographic platforms over pits right by the real ones.

* Used to great annoyance in some ''LegendOfZelda'' games, most egregiously the 3D ones, in dungeons that use the [[SeeThruSpecs Lens Of Truth]] or local equivalent.

* The Game/MegaMan games occasionally use this trick. Two examples that stand out are ''2'', where they can be detected by a weapon that follows the ground, the Bubble Lead, and '9'', where there are actual enemies that fly by to create holographic platforms over pits right by the real ones.

* In ''TheThiefAndTheCobbler'', one of the op-art tile patterns in the palace turns out to be a pit.

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* In ''BatmanBeyond'', Spellbinder uses an illusion to nearly trick Terry into walking off a cliff.

* A variant occurs in one manga of ''ReadOrDie'', where the floor is in fact a lot of paper being held rigid by Yomiko's will. The building was under construction at the time.

* In ''Point Blank'', the second book in Anthony Horowitz' AlexRider series, a murder is set up by putting a holographic elevator into an out-of-order elevator shaft.

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* In ''{{Xanth}}'', Iris has the power of illusions, and this is one of the things she can do.

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<<|MindManipulation|>>

...It is the ''image'' of a floor.

* ''[[{{Needless}} NEEDLESS]]'' inverts this with a character who can turn things invisible - large projectiles, most of the floor except the small patch on which the heroes are standing, the wall between him and them...the trick is to keep them from realizing what he's doing.

* Inverted in the Bleach Anime filler arc: The trapfloor is solid BECAUSE THE TRAPS BLOCK THE "CORRECT" EXITS.

* ''[[{{Needless}} NEEDLESS]]'' inverts this with a character who can turn things invisible — large projectiles, most of the floor except the small patch on which the heroes are standing, the wall between him and them...the trick is to keep them from realizing what he's doing.

* Shows up twice in ''{{Paprika}}'', first from the outside, as a character rants about "[[WordSalad the fifth grade class with the photographic zoom lens]]" and runs through a full-length window, then from the inside, with the main character snapping out of it just in time to avoid going over a balcony.

* Peters of ''EventHorizon'' was killed in this fashion, when the evil ship created an illusion in her mind of a bridge across an open shaft with her son on the other side, resulting in her falling to her death on the gravity chamber floor.

* This is part of Mysterio's M.O. in ''{{Spider-Man}}'' comics and cartoons.

* In ''Discworld/GoingPostal'': A Novel of {{Discworld}}, this happens to unsatisfactory postmasters (and [[YouShouldKnowThisAlready very nearly]] Moist.)

* The MegaMan games occasionally use this trick. Two examples that stand out are Mega Man 2, where they can be detected by a weapon that follows the ground, the Bubble Lead, and Mega Man 9, where there are actual enemies that fly by to create holographic platforms over pits right by the real ones.

* Old gamers of the ''{{Castlevania}}'' series may remember ''Simon's Quest'' and its annoying fake floors, which can only be detected if you fell through them or if you made obssessive use of Holy Water to figure out which floors aren't fake.