Major Injury Underreactions in Video Games.
- American McGee's Alice has the Dormouse and the March Hare who have gone under some serious Body Horror. They barely react to that fact, simply asking for tea. The Dormouse is the extreme example, though.
- The Dormouse is arguably justified, given the implication that he's being drugged as well as undergone physical experiments. Of course, the Griffin also claims that their failure to comprehend their situations are because "they're blithering idiots".
- If it's an Arc System Works Fighting Game and the character is broken from a narrative perspective, there's a good chance at least one of them will have a "downed" sprite/animation where they appear to be actually relaxing, as if giving the impression of "Look at how much of a damn I give." Even if they've already taken a good beating. Examples include Slayer, Nagoriyuki, Rachel Alucard, Nine the Phantom, Izanami, Elizabeth, Margaret and Belial, with many of the aforementioned characters abiding by Willfully Weak and/or I Let You Win.
- Baldur's Gate II: For a variation, if Edwin is in the party when you first transform into the Slayer, you can deal with a serious spiritual injury, namely the loss of your soul and the increasing encroachment of the influence of the dead god of murder, by snapping at him with, "If you don't mind, I'm having a bit of a crisis here!"
- In Blue's Journey, the penultimate boss, Dark Mantis, says they are not hurt right before blowing up.
- Cultists in the original Dawn of War have the tendency to announce "Oh! My spleen!" after being slammed by a Space Marine (as in, 7 feet of equal parts cybernetics, genetic engineering, and extreme prejudice, with power armor overlaying the whole mix) hard enough to land a good thirty feet away.
- In Dead Space 2, Ellie gets her Eyeball gouged out with a screwdriver by Stross, who has completely lost his marbles. Seconds later, Stross confronts Isaac, holding up the screwdriver with the eye still in it... Ellie then clubs him with a length of metal pipe, glares at Isaac, and tells him "You owe me an eye, you bastard!".
- Devil May Cry:
- In cutscenes, Dante is impaled with a sword or a bladed weapon (sometimes his own, sometimes not, sometimes not yet) on a regular basis, nearly Once per Episode in the series. He barely flinches. In fact, he barely reacts to any damage at all. A good example happens during one of the first cutscenes in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening where several demon Mooks slash and skewer Dante with scythes. Some of the scythe blades break off and are stuck in his body... yet he shrugs it off as he casually walks over to his jukebox to turn on some music! During his stroll, he picks up a slice of pizza and pulls a blade out of his chest without even flinching! He then turns the music on and proceeds to slaughter the mooks effortlessly, at times even using the broken-off scythe blades sticking out of his arms to parry their attacks.
- Then there's Nico's reaction to Nero getting his arm ripped off in Devil May Cry 5, where she asks him what happened in a tone that sounded like he backed the van through the garage door.Nico: I leave you alone for two minutes! What the hell happened!?
- In Dwarf Fortress, dwarves tend not to notice that they've caught on fire. This can be troublesome, as fire will eventually kill them, and they can easily spread it as they go about their business. When they do notice, very often this will take the form of them deciding they're a little tired and need a lie-down... on their flammable wooden bed... Or that they're awfully thirsty and would like a drink... from the booze stockpile.note
- In Far Cry Primal, Urki, the Southern-accented ditzy caveman who protagonist Takkar The Beastmaster has carried out a Fetch Quest for, has had an Offscreen Moment of Awesome when Takkar next visits his tent to find him standing over one of the Udam who broke into his tent and attacked. When Urki walks towards Takkar to proudly boast of beating the Udam to death with a Boulder Bludgeon, Takkar points out that the Udam stuck a spear in Urki before he died. Urki's only response to that? "Dang!" And then after Takkar pulls the spear out, Urki is more concerned about Takkar going on another Fetch Quest than sewing up his stomach wound. Granted, he's somehow healed again by the time Takkar reunites with him, but still...
- Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, there is a support conversation between Kieran and Rhys, who notices that Kieran has an axe lodged in his head.Kieran: Hey, Rhys! Nice day, isn't it.
Rhys: Oh, hello, Kier... Yaaaa! What happened to you!?
Kieran: Huh? What is it?
Rhys: Th-there's blood gushing down the side of your head!
Kieran: Hm? Why, so there is... Isn't that odd?
Rhys: Odd? Please, hold still! Just stay there! Let me get my heal staff.
Kieran: Heal staff? Bah! I'm fine. A scratch like this will heal itself! You should have seen the time I fought the Giant Scorpions of... - In Fire Emblem: Awakening, Henry barely seems to notice when he's injured in battle. Maribelle once finds him bleeding all over and almost freaks out, but he laughs it off.
- Also in Awakening, at one point, Gregor is completely indifferent to an injury that, according to Olivia, left his bone exposed. As Olivia is patching him up, he calmly recounts an occasion where he lost a leg and just sewed it back on.
- In Fire Emblem Fates, the local Iron Butt-Monkey Arthur is so used to getting lots of Amusing Injuries that he's seen talking about them as if they were just scratches.
- In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, at the end of the Blue Lions route, the defeated main antagonist throws a dagger at Dimitri, hitting him in the shoulder. After impaling his attacker on his spear, Dimitri simply pulls the dagger out, throws it away, and leaves with Byleth, more affected emotionally by the fact that Edelgard didn't take his offer of mercy.
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, there is a support conversation between Kieran and Rhys, who notices that Kieran has an axe lodged in his head.
- In For Honor, during the third mission of the Knights storyline, Apollyon is stabbed in the stomach with a massive knife by a Peacekeeper. She completely ignores the knife in her gut for the rest of the fight, and only nonchalantly pulls it free when the battle is over. Later on, when the warmonger hero was released, she would get a signature at the end of a match which called back to this scene, where she would casually pull a knife out of her side and toss it away.
- Phil Cassidy in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City accidentally detonates a bomb while standing right next to it, and the resulting explosion ends up blowing his arm off. Phil reacts with an amused "Aw, damn!" before he falls down laughing on the floor, too drunk to feel the pain.
- Probably a case of the developer not being realistic, but during the "Paleto Bay Score" heist in Grand Theft Auto V, Franklin is required to drive a bulldozer down the street. Of course there are police in the way. If you simply knock them down and roll over their legs, they will stand up again & keep shooting, despite two or three tons of metal having slowly passed over them.
- In Hellgate: London, the ending involves Murmur revealing his purpose in the storyline, and thanking you for your help. During the whole speech, however, he is literally torn apart with gaping graphic wounds.
- Xefros in Hiveswap spends quite a while idly chatting over IRC while being crushed nearly to death, including nonchalant references to passing out from blood loss. When Joey tells him to try not to move and to apply pressure to the bleeding, he tells her, in apparent seriousness, that this will be easy, since the rubble is both holding him immobile and applying plenty of pressure!
- In Honkai: Star Rail, Luka is remarkably blase about the loss of his right arm. He claims he can't even recall when he lost it outside of how it was during a defense campaign. But according to him, losing his arm and the subsequent danger that came from it helped him feel truly alive for the first time. In fact, it was the first time Luka, who had been sullen and withdrawn up to that point, had ever smiled in front of Oleg.
- At the end of Hunt Down the Freeman, Mitchell chases down Adam, who turns out to be the one who "fucked up (Mitchell's) face" and shoots him in the ankle with a revolver, fires four more shots into his abdomen, then finishes him off with a headshot. Thanks to the poor voice acting, Adam merely groans in what sounds like mild discomfort at best.
- In Left 4 Dead, a survivor's response to friendly fire is usually just an irate "Quit shooting me!" scolding at most. The most fitting reactions, however, are the ones where a survivor can still quip a deadpan and sarcastic remark at the person's shooting abilities immediately after just getting shot.Nick: [after being shot point-blank with a shotgun] Well thank you for ventilating my suit!
- While he does flinch, Crow from The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II claims that he was fine and that the impalement to his heart was just nothing more than a scratch. He dies later but still manages to talk with Class VII, Sara, and Vita for a few more minutes before he passes away.
- In LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, right before his death in Revenge of the Sith, Mace reacts only with mild annoyance when Anakin cuts off his hand.
- Zaeed Massani of Mass Effect fame survived being shot in the head. He put it down to his own inherent badassitude. Granted, he's on a team with Garrus Vakarian (who survived taking a fighter jet's missile to the face) and Commander Shepard (who, by the time of conversation, has just bounced back from being dead for two years), so maybe a mere bullet doesn't deserve that much of a reaction.
- In Mega Man & Bass, King chops Proto Man in half. His reaction? "It's just a scratch..." Justified in that he's a robot and has a shiny new pair of legs by the end of the game, but his reaction is still eyebrow-raisingly blasé.
- Metal Gear:
- During the events of Metal Gear Solid 4, resident Depraved Bisexual Vamp gets shot in the head while on the phone. He then pirouettes on the spot throwing his phone into the air, catches it, finishes the conversation and hangs up, gives some orders to his troops, then finally says that he'll "be taking a nap" before collapsing. It should be noted that Vamp has a crazy powerful Healing Factor.
- In the first mission of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Raiden meets Jetstream Sam, who then proceeds to trounce him in a Hopeless Boss Fight. During a cutscene after all your health runs out, Raiden gets his left eye slashed out shortly before losing an arm. His reaction? An irritated "Shit! Not again!" Justified in that he has Nanomachines coursing through his body that prevent him from feeling pain. And because he's a cyborg.
- There are a lot of underreactions in Rising, with bosses often talking about anything other than the fact that they've just been cut to shreds, and Mooks reacting to leg slices with almost funny lines.Enemy: My legs! You fuck!
Enemy: I'll still kick your ass!
- In Metal Wolf Chaos, when the player takes a lot of damage, Jody seems more annoyed (in a "You scratched the paint on my car!" sense) than worried about the fact that her boss, the President of the United States, is about to die.
- Seems to be something of an odd recurring trend with the games of NetherRealm Studios. Both the later Mortal Kombat games (starting with MK9) and Injustice feature super moves that explicitly show characters with broken bones or destroyed organs — but given the balancing issues inherent to adding an injury system, apparently having your spine snapped in half is no object to doing seven backflips (until the health bar runs out, anyway). In the case of Mortal Kombat X, one of Jason Voorhees's intro animations sees him pull a knife that was stabbed into his jugular with the wound even staying there.
- No More Heroes:
- Upon being brutally sliced in half, Mooks will sometimes scream "My spleen!" Another possible line is "I don't feel shit."
- The 51st ranked assassin from the second game reacts to being decapitated by waiting silently for several minutes before giving a speech.
- In Pokémon Sun and Moon it's stated that Mega Glalie's transformation breaks its jaw and forces it open, although it doesn't cause it any pain. Instead it's more annoyed that it can't eat properly while transformed.
- Quake IV: An overheard radio conversion (paraphrased)[Marine requests medical evac]
Radio operator: Who is this? I can't get a read on your ID chip.
Marine: My chip was damaged.
Radio operator: What? those chips are implanted near your heart.
Marine: I know, I'm looking at it. - In The Quarry, there's a moment where one player character, Ryan, can find himself cornered by Bobby, one of the apparent hunters menacing the protagonist group, and he can stab him with a knife to try to ward him off. This results in Bobby standing there in what comes across as a surprisingly mundane and awkward mix of astonishment and confusion as to what to do next, remarking that he's never been stabbed before and that "ow, it really hurts!" before he finally trudges off to ask his dad Jedediah for help.
- The Baker clan from Resident Evil 7 possess a Healing Factor that allows them a few moments of this; when patriarch Jack hacks his son Lucas's forearm off with a kitchen knife for throwing his food at the dinner table, the latter's reaction is to whine "dammit, old man, not again!", and a post-it note in the family's kitchen written by Jack reads "Where's my mower?!?" with, in smaller script, "Has anyone seen my leg?" in the corner.
- Agro, the horse from Shadow of the Colossus, could be counted. If she's hit with an exploding arrow, falls from a low cliff (which could permanently cripple a real horse), or gets shot by Basaran, the most she'll do is limp for a while — and she'll even stop early if you jump on her back.
- Yuri Hyuga in the first Shadow Hearts game has his arm sliced off by a minion. He doesn't flinch, instead he crushes the imp with his remaining hand, and just reattaches his own arm.
- Somewhat of a running joke in Silent Hill 4. Richard Braintree's first meeting with Henry has him falling off of at least a thirty-foot drop, to which his reaction is "Ouch! Dammit!" before promptly getting up and pointing a gun at Henry. The Gum Heads show just as little reaction to falling out of the sky, and later, near the end of the game, it's done again, this time with Richard as a ghost, and the only one that can't fly or float around.
- Morgan Freeman is a secret boss in South Park: The Fractured but Whole, and reacts to any and all forms of damage inflicted on him with a quiet "Ow."
- Near the beginning of Tales of Arise, Alphen, who can Feel No Pain, reacts to magic fire searing his arms with a bemused, "Oh, yeah. How about that?"
- Team Fortress 2:
- Quoth the Spy: "I appear to have burst into flames./I do believe I am on fire." This is made only more funny by the Spy's third reaction being the complete opposite, panicked like all the others ("Fire, fire, fire!"). As he's running around burning to death, he'll mix them. "I do believe I'm on fire. ...FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!!!"
- Likewise, most of the Heavy's reactions to fire are suitably loud, except one which is just him saying "Ooh!" as if he stubbed his toe or something.
- "You call that breaking my spine? You RED team ladies wouldn't know how to break a spine if- (crack) AAAAAAHHHHH MY SPINE!!!"
- Because of the way the game assigns vocal responses, players can die with varying levels of noisiness... but it's hard not to chuckle a little at the Demoman's quiet, hissed "Oh, that smarts!" even as he's being blown into a dozen bloody pieces by a rocket. Given that Death Is Cheap though, this is more comical than morbid. Primarily due to the fact that being gibbed produces the soft pain sound rather than the louder pain sounds or the scream of bloody murder if one dies to a Critical Hit.
- The Soldier could be considered a variation on the trope; since he says pretty much everything in the same deranged bellow, it's hard to tell when he's shouting because he's been hit and when he's shouting because that's just the noise he makes when things happen.
- Near the end of the "Meet the Medic" video, the Scout steps out after having undergone extensive heart surgery (including, as it is revealed, accidentally having a live pigeon inserted) and cheerfully announces to his allies, "You would not believe... how much this hurts."
- With the addition of Pyrovision, any time a player is hurt (or even killed) all voice responses are replaced with laughter.
- The comic Ring of Fired
includes Pyro cutting off Soldier's hand, and Soldier complaining to Miss Pauling in the manner of a child tattling about a sibling. Miss Pauling's response is just as nonchalant. Soldier even thanks the (very perturbed) veterinarian for sewing his hand back on with the hand that was cut off. Later in Old Wounds it comes up once more, after having been subjected to some excruciating tooth torture that actually made him scream, and he's quite happily showing off the fix during recovery:Soldier: See? Good as new!
[hand flops loosely, as if boneless]
Soldier: Normally that is excruciating. Luckily all my body's pain receptors are busy in my mouth right now. - Similarly, in Old Wounds, Zhanna's response to having to cut off her own hand to escape is to comment that her thumb doesn't hurt anymore, which makes Soldier proud. Later on, when Heavy - her brother - sees her hand is missing, he simply nods at her explanation... and then notices she's wearing a necklace made of ears, which is the Soldier equivalent of an engagement ring, and then Heavy starts freaking out.
- In the Bonus Stage of Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night, Mokou's reaction to being repeatedly killed and resurrected is "Ow, it hurts!". Thank you Mokou, we never would have known otherwise. This is hinted to be due to doing the same thing with Kaguya nearly every single day for several centuries, which would certainly build one's tolerance for pain.
- Most people (including the player character) in The Town with No Name are simply annoyed by getting shot in the chest. They still fall over and die, however.
- In Undertale, the Large Ham Papyrus delivers one if he's betrayed and decapitated:Papyrus: Alas, poor Papyrus! [Papyrus' body disintegrates] Well, at least I still have my head! [Beat] [Papyrus' head disintegrates]
- In The Walking Dead, a certain character fails to realize that he has been fatally impaled on a fence spike after falling off a balcony, thinking he has only hurt his leg. It's Ben.
- In Welcome to Bummertown, Mayor Agnes has some kind of programming update seizure wherein she completely glitches out and her eyeballs turn glowing white. She claims she had an "itchy ear."
