Basic Trope: Very hot things are only dangerous if you touch them.
- Straight: Alice, Bob, and Carli stand three feet above lava pits without burning up.
- Exaggerated: Alice, Bob, and Carli stand three feet above the surface of the sun without burning up.
- Downplayed:
- Bob doesn't notice the radiator's on until he touches it.
- Bob, Carli, and Alice stand near the lava and suffer visible discomfort but no lasting effects.
- A visible shimmer makes it clear how close you can safely stand from the lava.
- Justified:
- The heroes have Applied Phlebotinum or are of a species that has natural resistance to heat, but only within certain limits. It's just too hot at or below the actual surface of the lava.
- The heroes are actually inside a deadly virtual-reality game that's only programmed to kill them if they touch the lava.
- The lava is magic.
- It's not the heat of the lava that kills them, it's sinking into thick liquid that drowns them.
- There's no convection medium (e.g.: air) and they are just out of range for the lava's radiant heat.
- Inverted:
- Lava radiates deadly amounts of heat, but submersion is perfectly safe.
- The heroes have Insulation Suits which let them touch lava without even feeling warm to the touch. However, they still need to be careful around large and hot volumes of it — they can still cook in their suits.
- Alice, Bob, and Carli walk through the snow with only light jackets but don't feel cold until one of them trips into it.
- Subverted:
- Alice, Bob, and Carli walk safely above lava pits, but they start to notice it's getting very hot...
- The 'lava' literally is boiling lemonade syrup, it's nowhere near as hot as the real thing.
- Double Subverted:
- However, while they do start to complain about the heat, they're treating it like a particularly nasty summer day, despite being within mere feet of molten stone.
- Someone points out that real lava would have cooked them by now — Emperor Evulz must really have surrounded his base with boiling Kool-Aid!
- Parodied: Alice, Bob, and Carli can't walk safely over the lava until they find the "convection" switch and turn it off.
- Zig-Zagged:
- Alice and Bob walk within three feet of open lava pits, but it's revealed that they have superpowers and can withstand the heat. Then in the next episode Bob reaches for a hot teakettle and burns his hand.
- Alice has Applied Phlebotinum that lets her handle the heat from the lava, Bob tries to handle the lava on his own but gets his clothes burned off for his trouble, and Carli just doesn't go near the lava.
- Averted: The characters are forced to stay well away from the lava pits due to amount of heat they radiate.
- Enforced: "The inside of a volcano would be a great place to have the Big Bad's stronghold, but what about the heat?" "Don't worry about it."
- Lampshaded: "I always thought that lava heated its surroundings. Guess I was wrong."
- Invoked: Emperor Evulz puts a decoy back entrance into his lair right over a lava pit, counting on the heroes not understanding that just jumping over it will be enough to do them a lot of harm.
- Exploited: Emperor Evulz is trying to stop the characters with a lava flow. But they just hover in the air and watch the lava flowing three feet below them, knowing the lava in this universe has no heat.
- Defied: "Were you going to try to jump over the lava? You Fool! MY lava is always RADIATING heat!"
- Discussed:Evulz: Anyone gives me a reason why that lava didn't kill you as soon as you got anywhere near it, I don't throw you in. Fair's fair.Alice: We don't understand convection?
- Conversed: "You know, if they were really that close to the lava, they'd promptly burst into flames."
- Deconstructed: Because nothing radiates heat at all, everything freezes to death.
- Reconstructed: ???
Back to Convection, Schmonvection
