Stationary Wings

"Listen. In order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second, right?"

— Soldier with keen interest in birds, Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Wings themselves have a particular pattern during flight, and once you give them to creatures who really aren't built for them, the motions just don't jibe. It can also be visually distracting, meaning simply being able to hover requires an intrusion to the viewing angle. This is also hard to do mechanically in live-action without looking fake, as well as requiring added motion in animation.

So there's a fair number of characters with wings who don't even actually seem to move them, aside from the initial 'takeoff' that seems more like someone opening an umbrella.

This can even apply to fairies, who really seem to float about despite it being somewhat easier to draw the insect-like blur of wings. In fact, 'energy wings' are done much in the same vein, as wings that don't physically exist naturally don't have to move anyway.

If you do see a character who does flap their wings, rest assured it's someone cute, as motionless soaring is always seen as cooler.

See also Wings Do Nothing.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Averted in BirdMen, you need to flap, constantly.
• Sometimes occurs in Blood+. Haji and Solomon flap their wings when flying vividly. Otherwise, they're just stationary.
• In Cardcaptor Sakura, neither Yue or Kero move their wings while in flight. They will sometimes flap to take off from the ground, but the wings remain stationary once they are in the air.
• Flying Knightmares in Code Geass have energy wings that don't flap. The Lancelot's wings also double as laser guns.
• Devilman: Neither Akira, nor Sirene bother to flap their wings.
  • This could be chalked up to the limited animation of the 70s.
  • The angels in the OVAs don’t flap their wings either, justified because of their nature.
• In the Digimon series, most Digimon with wings don't flap them in order to fly. The primary exceptions to this are Digimon like Lilymon and Flymon, who are of the "Nature Spirits" type of Digimon. This trope is most obvious on the angel-based digimon, some of which are bristling with wings (e.g. Angemon has six, Angewomon has eight and Lucemon has twelve).
  • Digimon Tamers justifies this trope in continuity, possibly for the entire franchise; Basically, in a close up of Grani taking off we are shown air being accelerated along the surface, which explains why digimon without wings can fly; whatever their shape may be, and provided the have enough power they can simply create thrust by using their skin (of sorts) to accelerate the air around them! This not only justifies why some digimon have many wings (more wings = more surface area = better thrust = quicker and better flying ability), it enter Fridge Brilliance considering that in this series the titular mons live in a digital world with gravity; the simplest way to instruct movement in something is to have it literally move the world around it, with or without direct physical contact.
• Dark from the D.N.Angel anime usually doesn't have to flap.
• Cell from Dragon Ball Z possesses wings, but does not move them even when flying. Given that most of the cast flies despite lacking wings, this is unsurprising.
• Shin Getter Robo, one of the few Humongous Mecha with wings, is guilty of doing this. It'll flap its wings at least to lift off, but after that, no flapping.
• Sugar and her fairy pals in A Little Snow Fairy Sugar rarely ever flap their wings. They seem to fly because they want to, their wings are decorative.
• Reinforce and Hayate's black wings and Nanoha's Flier Fins in Lyrical Nanoha rarely ever move even in flight. Considering how every other mage flies without wings, these seem to be purely decorative.
• Inexplicably averted with the movie version of Wing Zero, which actually does flap it wings, which just makes it even sillier, since not only is it a giant robot, but most of the time it's in space.
  • The larger wings are shown to be lined with thrusters, hence "flapping" is a form of thrust vectoring. The sub-wings on the middle of the back stay stationary and provide the main thrust, however.
• Pokémon: The Series: In a case of inconsistency, flying Pokémon in the anime are sometimes shown flying by flapping their wings and other times are shown flying without moving their wings at all.
• Sailor Moon falls slightly into this trope. In her final Senshi form she gains a back bow in the form of two pairs of wings shaped like one. While they never move she has flown in a few episodes while in this form.
• In the Sands of Destruction manga, the Destruct's wings are never shown to move. Rhi'a may or may not move hers, depending on the scene (they always seem to be drawn the same way, but sometimes have lines or sound effects implying she might flap them). In the anime, Rhi'a rarely flies (and thus rarely has her wings), and when she does it often appears to be more of a "big jump" than actual flight, but her wings are mostly unused.
• All of Amu's character transformations in Shugo Chara! seem capable of limited flight but her character transformation with Diamond gives her what appear to be wings as part of her dress. Both she and Utau fly without flapping much at all when Utau is transformed with El.
• That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Most of the time Rimuru uses his wings, he only flaps them once or twice through his entire flight and often hovers midair.

Comic Books

• Hawkman: The flight mechanics of the various Hawkmen and Hawkwomen are a case of Depending on the Writer, as Hawkman and co. have been subjected to many RetCons and changes over the years on whether their wings and flight ability are organic or not. In cases where they are not organic, their flight ability is explained as being a result of using Anti-Gravity technology for propulsion, with their wings being non-organic devices that are used to steer while in flight.

Fan Works

• A Crown of Stars: Avaloni people are winged humanoid aliens. When they fly, their wings only flap during the take-off and the landing.

Films — Animated

• In Turning Red, when Mei sees 4*Town sprout wings and fly, their wings only flutter slightly. Justified because they are actually hanging on wires and the wings are fake. Mei only imagined them with real wings.

Films — Live-Action

• This is a common problem in Kaiju movies. When the wings flap at all, it is generally done very slowly as a result of the difficulty of making wings on such large puppets move quickly, as well as the method of filming, whereby the footage is slowed down to aid in the illusion of size. Mothra is a well known offender with the most notorious example of this is likely found in 1992's Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth. Rodan is another example of a famous flying Kaiju who almost never moves his wings at all in flight. This is especially the case whenever he is shown flying around at high speeds.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Despite having birdlike wings in his flight suit, Falcon doesn't actually flap his wings to fly. This is justified because his flight comes from the propulsion of his Jetpack, while the wings are mechanical and are only used to help him steer during flight.

Literature

• Accel World: Silver Crow's wings are depicted as fins which fan out from his back, which are inflexible but can be tilted somewhat like rudders. His "Light Speed" Incarnate technique averts this by transforming them into realistic bird wings of Pure Energy, doubling his speed. The Animated Adaptation leans more into this by redesigning his wings into completely static sheets of High-Tech Hexagons, even while using Light Speed (which is reduced to a simple Battle Aura around his body).
• In the Discworld book Guards! Guards!, a dragon is able to fly gracefully with the barest flap of its wings despite being a house-sized behemoth. It turns out that copious amounts of magic are required to make this work, and even the ability of flight itself is magic-based, as it is explained in some detail that simply making things bigger without altering the proportions wouldn't work.
• Similarly in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, although gryphons' wings are large and powerful, they aren't *quite* powerful enough to allow such a large animal to fly; fortunately, gryphons all—even those who aren't really mages—have enough magic to help. Gryphons who blunder into areas where there is little or no magical energy, however, will crash.

Live Action TV

• Super Sentai/Power Rangers: Pretty much any time a winged Mecha is used as a Mecha Expansion Pack, due to the limitations of the props/suit similar to other Toku shows.
• Almost every winged character in a Tokusatsu show has this. Since most characters are portrayed by People in Rubber Suits, it's hard to portray realistic moving wings. Especially with the low budget these shows normally receive.
• Angels in Wizards of Waverly Place have wings that don't move.

Video Games

• Baten Kaitos plays this straight all the way through. At some points in Origins, you can see people take off without ever flapping their wings. As the wings in question are "Wings of the Heart", which appear to be only partly physical, it's an open question as to whether they actually work the same way as ordinary wings.
• Battle for Wesnoth is a mixed bag; units such as the Winged Humanoid Elvish Shyde and Sylph have more stationary, insectoid wings. Justified Trope in those cases by them mainly flying using magic.
• In an amusing inversion, you can give your characters wings in DC Universe Online. They'll flap when flying or hovering, but they'll also flap when gliding, when one'd expect them to be outstretched and still.
• In Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, Sephiroth has no trouble staying aloft with one stationary wing. The mind boggles.
  • In the fight before that, he flew around without a wing.
  • Similarly with Genesis and Angeal in Crisis Core.
    • The three of them are capable of unaided flight. the Wings are purely decorative. So more a case of Wings Do Nothing.
• The energy wings of the Winglies in The Legend of Dragoon are completely stationary.
• In Mega Man X DiVE, the DiVE Armor variants of X, Zero and Axl all project holographic wings shaped as their respective letters from their backs. Their purpose seems to just make them look cool.
• Ōkamiden uses this trope. Kurow's pink feather wings don't move at all when he's flying, although they very rarely beat once or twice if he's hovering near the ground.
• Pokémon:
  • Flying Pokémon are sometimes subject to this when it comes to games that use 3D models. Some Pokémon like Salamence, Xatu, and Swellow don't move their wings at all, while other Pokémon actually do flap their wings.
  • One of the most egregious examples can be found in the 3D consoles games Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Colosseum, and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. During the turn in which a flying Pokémon is using the move "Fly", some Pokémon models, such as Swellow and Skarmory, can be seen hovering high up in the air with the Pokémon's wings completely folded and not moving.
  • Togetic's Silver and Crystal Version dex entries specifically states that Togetic floats without flapping its wings, even in the games' canon. This makes Togetic an odd inversion of the trope, since it doesn't have to flap its wings to fly but it does in the Pokémon Black and White sprites.
• While most characters with wings in Tales of Symphonia do flap, Yuan, Kratos and Zelos all have wings that don't.
• Touhou Project: Given that absolutely everyone can fly anyway, this isn't that much of a problem.
• In World of Warcraft a flying mount chooses when to flap its wings seemingly at random. You can go up, do loops, turns or anything without the wings so much as twitching, and then you pitch down and suddenly the wings go FLAP FLAP. Oh, and the wings only go up and down. They don't actually appear to pull you along. Acceptable break there, wing animations are never really done accurately.

Webcomics

• Fenton in Kevin & Kell is always shown with his wings at full extension in flight. Somehow, Lindesfarne can hitch a ride by holding the edge of a wing without interfering with his flying.

Western Animation

• Iago in Aladdin: The Series. So much that he can gesticulate with his wings while "flying."
• Almost no winged character in The Fairly Oddparents ever flaps their wings, even if removing their wings means they can no longer fly. Justified, obviously, because they're magic.
• Avoided in Gargoyles, where the titular characters mention not a few times that don't fly so much as glide on wind currents. This has the added bonus of including an element of danger, since they can get in trouble if they can't escape to higher ground for a takeoff. Now and again they do beat their wings, and when Goliath is briefly changed by Odin's eye, he hovers in place, wings flapping slowly.
  • The Mutates can supposedly actually fly unlike the gargoyles, but only one scene in the series features enough of an Animation Bump to really demonstrate that there's a difference.
• Hawkgirl in Justice League never needed to flap her wings, and she was frequently seen hovering in the air with her wings just lazily swaying back and forth. This is despite the fact that she's just supposed to be a winged alien with no supernatural powers.
  • She does a decent amount of flapping in the first few episodes, then it seems the animators got lazy. (Compare Secret Origins to, say, the scene with her and Copperhead from Only a Dream.)
• Stanley and Stella in: Breaking the Ice: Mostly averted, as the birds and fish move realistically. The one time it's played straight is after Stanley breaks the ice. Stanley appears to be able to maintain his position with minimal wing movement. Though it's not clear if he is suspended in air or water.
• Averted in the Winx Club series. The fairies' wings flutter like a hummingbird's wings do. And yes, it can be distracting.
  • Played straight, however, in the CG movies, where the girls' wings occasionally flap (not flutter), but it's only for visual appeal and clearly has nothing to do with their ability to fly.
• Same case with the W.I.T.C.H. girls, though one might argue that the Guardians' wings don't lend well to a fluttering animation, and so they're drawn as blurs.

Real Life

• Airplane wings don't move at all during flight.^note  Not counting the Ailerons This is justified by the fact that the Aerodynamic Thrust of an Airplane is provided by the engines, whether it's a propeller engine or a jet engine, and the wings only provide Lift. This is in contrast to flying animals, where the wings provide Lift and also provide Thrust via the animal flapping its wings.

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