"And now to defeat the evil villain once and for all, by throwing him carelessly in a random direction. Go, Millennium Frisbee!"
— Tristan Taylor before literally throwing away Yami Bakura's Millennium Ring, Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, Episode 18
So the heroes have finally defeated the villain and stripped him of the source of his power. All that is left is to make sure its power can never again be used for evil purposes. So obviously, at least to the heroes, the most effective means to accomplish this is by chucking the object off into the distance. ...Instead of just, ya'know, destroying it right then and there, keeping it with them or, if either proves hazardous, hiding it somewhere only the heroes could find it.
In many cases, especially within children's cartoons, the villain himself is disposed of this way. By doing this, the heroes ignore the glaring fact that the Made of Iron villain can and inevitably will just land somewhere, dust himself off, and try yet again another day. Might as well though, because the underage heroes probably aren't even allowed to kill their enemies, and if they somehow do, the foe will no doubt find some way to come back. As for jail, please, it won't hold him for five minutes.
All in all, the action deliberately leaves a wide open window for the villain to return, and thus, the status quo is maintained.
Not to be confused with "Blind Idiot" Translation.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Yu-Gi-Oh! has Honda/Tristan attempting to rid Bakura of his evil side by hurling his possessed Millennium Ring into a nearby forest. The Ring is a Clingy MacGuffin (which he didn't know about), and it's back on Bakura's neck by the end of the episode. Nobody notices.
- Pokémon: The Series's famous "LOOKS LIKE TEAM ROCKET'S BLASTING OFF AGAIN!!" cry as Pikachu knocks Team Rocket into the sky, followed by A Twinkle in the Sky. Team Rocket always manages to come back in the next episode.
- One Piece:
- Luffy disposes of a number of villains this way (especially in anime-only storylines). Subverted in that One Piece villains generally don't come back for revenge.
- Justified with Kuma, a Shinchibukai who, among the many other applications of his powers, can send people flying to any location of Earth for three days. With just a touch of his hand. They are "out of sight", but he knows damn well where he's sending them, and is only doing so to further someone's interests.
- In Ranma ½, the cast decide to help Pantyhose Taro get his name changed if he'll take Happosai (who named him) back with him to China, permanently. When he does, and takes Happosai away, everyone is ecstatic over the departure of the old pervert. But nevermind that Happosai refused to change Pantyhose Taro's name anyway, halfway across the Sea of Japan, but why exactly did Ranma et al think that he wouldn't come back on his own? (And he did.)
- At the end of nearly every episode of Sherlock Hound Professor Moriarty, George/Todd, and Smiley's hideout, vehicle, or flying machine would explode sending them flying off into the distance.
Comic Books
- Done hilariously in one issue of Cable & Deadpool. The latter is fighting Sabertooth, and it's more or less a standstill, until Cable intervenes with his telekinetic powers, and launches Sabertooth off the artificial island. Deadpool asks where Cable sent him, and Cable replies with, "Um...that way." Cut to Sabertooth splashing down miles away in the middle of the ocean.
- The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Ghostbusters ends with the immortal villain Chi-You sealed into a ghost trap. He was about to be kept by the Ghostbusters, until Winston felt uncomfortable with the idea, so he had Egon use a dimensional transporter to send him as far as possible before chucking the trap in the portal. Chi-You is back in the Turtles' universe... 4.2 light years away from Earth.
Film
- Subverted at the end of Disney's Aladdin, where it (briefly) looks like the Genie is just throwing the Sealed Evil in a Can out into the desert — and then the Can itself gets Sealed away in the Cave of Wonders. Nevertheless, it's back by the sequel.
- Played with in the Kingdom Hearts manga, where Genie winds up as if to throw the lamp, but instead buries it.
- Wreck-It Ralph: Ralph accidentally takes a Cy-Bug with him from Hero's Duty into Sugar Rush. After crashing in Sugar Rush, the pod's escape hatch activates, hurling Ralph and the Cy-Bug airborne. Ralph gets stuck in a tree while the Cy-Bug lands in a taffy pond and drowns, seemingly defeated. Ralph goes on retrieving his medal and later helping Vanellope, not knowing that the Cy-Bug survived and is breeding underneath Sugar Rush.
- Jeffrey from You and Your Stupid Mate always waits five days to open letters that might contain bad news, in case it blows over during that time. He refuses to open his letter from the unemployment office, although Philip opens his as soon as he's away from Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: It's like that time we got our E-12 results. See, you opened yours and were sad. I didn't open mine, and I had a fantastic time.
Philip: You failed everything, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, yes, I did, but I didn't know that I'd failed everything until five days later. See, that's five extra happy days that I had that you didn't have.
Literature
- Discussed and averted in The Fellowship of the Ring. One member of the council in Rivendell suggests chucking the Ring into the ocean (it'd be easier than taking it to Mount Doom). Elrond rules it out immediately because A) he apparently knows about plate tectonics (the line goes something like "the ocean may eventually become dry land") and B) it doesn't solve the problem of Sauron coming back.
- Played dead straight in Dark Apprentice. The New Republic attempts to dispose of the Sun Crusher, a shuttle-sized supernova-causing weapon, by dropping it into a gas giant. They explicitly knew that this wouldn't actually destroy the thing, but a) they couldn't figure out a more permanent solution because it was almost literally Made of Indestructium and b) one faction in the Senate thought it might come in handy some day. They come to regret this decision when Kyp Durron gets Drunk on the Dark Side, pulls it back out and goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Kyp eventually snaps out of it and shoves the thing past the event horizon of a black hole, which seems to have solved the problem permanently.
Live Action TV
- In an episode of The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Pete and Pete break the power of an evil bowling ball through the Power of Friendship, and Artie (the strongest man ... in the world) chucks it off into the distance.
Video Games
- At the end of Naruto: Uzumaki Chronicles 2, Naruto and crew decide that the best solution for getting rid of the Spirit Orbs is to chuck them into the ocean.
- Battalion Wars: So you defeated the villain's army and found a MacGuffin that uses the Power of the Sun to world shattering effect? Drop it off a cliff. Problem Solve- oh wait, the other villains are now looking for it. Oops.
- Once the heroes inevitably stop Lyric in Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric, Knuckles promptly tosses away his robotics control device and shuts down Lyric's army. Eggman finds it after the credits, and reactivates the damaged Metal Sonic while the cartoon implies he controls or powers his robots with it afterwards.
- At the end of The Great Circus Mystery, Baron Pete is sucked into a glass ball when you defeat him. To ensure he won't cause any more trouble, Mickey chucks the ball over a balcony and into a nearby forest.
- Happens repeatedly in Assassin's Creed. The Assassins keep stumbling onto Pieces of Eden, artifacts that can bend the fabric of reality, control minds, give supernatural powers, grant visions and resurrect people, and despite their entire ideology being thoroughly against the use of these artifacts to avoid tyranny, it seemingly never crossed their mind to just destroy the damn things. Instead, the artifacts are locked away in wooden boxes, put in convoluted dungeons, or simply thrown into the sea. The only cases of artifacts being destroyed are actually from the Templar Order misusing them, the people who vouch to use the Pieces of Eden to forward their plans.
- In Persona 4, Chie unleashes this trope in the form of the Galactic Punt. It's a One-Hit Kill to any downed Shadows, sending them off with A Twinkle in the Sky. Averted against bosses, for obvious reasons.
- This ability returns once again in Persona 4: Arena and Persona 4: Arena Ultimax acting as her Instant Kill.
Web Animation
- Infamously pulled in TOME's Season 1 Finale, when Nylocke tosses the Forbidden Power, which had been contained in a previously-set-up data absorbing item, in a random direction. The Forbidden Power ended up in the Sanctuary region, where it eventually battled the Dragon Bug, forced the entire population of TOME to evacuate, and allowed the villain to carry out his evil plan. Nice job breaking it, hero! This was, however, meant as a reference to the page quote, since Nylocke is voiced by the famous LittleKuriboh of Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series fame.
Western Animation
- Villains, especially Dr. Drakken, in Kim Possible occasionally are defeated this way.
- Almost as the icing on top of a Cliché Storm cake, the climax of the Made-for-TV Movie Ben 10: Secret of the Ominitrix has Ben using his newly acquired colossal alien form to callously toss Vilgax out into space pitcher-style.
- In Hercules: The Animated Series, the "grab, twirl, and toss" move became Herc's staple fighting style. What with the fact that Disney wouldn't let him actually use that sword he always carried around. Seriously, watch any episode.
- Jenny of My Life as a Teenage Robot, used the move just as frequently, on both giant robot and organic monsters alike. Usually had them back for more by the later half of the episode.
- Common episodes of Danny Phantom were resolved with Danny sucking the plot-relevant ghost into a thermos to be later sent through the Fenton Portal back into the Ghost Zone. All with the full knowledge that the portal did absolutely nothing to prevent the ghosts from returning. With this, Danny was easily able to work up a Rogues Gallery in no time.
- Keep in mind that they are ghost, so dropping them in human jail would't help much. There is a ghost jail, but the warden wants Danny's head on a stick so going there to drop them off isn't an option either.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983): He-Man would often defeat his opponents by throwing them just off-screen.
