Interesting article "Sneeze of Doom"

[Daphine]

I don't know if this article has been posted already, probably.

I found it interesting, still I can't believe that Scooby Doo wasn't mentioned

make a to do send a pm add to watchlist drop watch go to watchlistSneeze Of Doom

The sneeze is one of the most disastrous and powerful forces in the universe, up there with gravitation, electro-magnetism, the strong and the weak nuclear forces, the color force, Love, Friendship, Music, and Hot Blood. It always happens at the most unfortunate moments, usually when everything is going so well. Have you managed to sneak into the Big Bad's fortress and you're now listening as he explains his evil plan? Atchoo! All the guards are after you now. Have you created a very convincing Totem Pole Trench and fooled everyone? Atchoo! You're in a world of trouble now, matey.

The Sneeze of Doom rarely comes without warning - usually the unlucky sneezer will be shown inhaling air a few seconds before it happens. A Dead Horse Trope would be holding one's finger under one's nose to "stop it." ...it might, for a few seconds. Still, it's not much help — once this starts, a Sneeze of Doom cannot be stopped by any means known to man.

And that's not counting the rare cases where a character, for whatever reason, has the kind of sneezes that should come with their own hurricane warnings.

Often caused by an allergy to the rarest substance known to man to which you will be exposed only at such a time, or something completely uncanny tickling your nostrils.

See Pepper Sneeze. Sometimes the reason the sneeze is dangerous is because of Involuntary Transformation or Malfunction Malady. Not related to Incurable Cough Of Death.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

The evening that Akane and Ranma are watching the house together alone is the evening when Ranma is cursed to hug anyone who sneezes, and Akane comes down with a cold. And wouldn't you know it, it's also the day she is given her first Hyperspace Mallet.

When Ranma himself comes down with a fever, he catches it so badly he can instantly boil any water that comes in contact with his skin. Later on, the fever mutates into a head cold, and his sneezes freeze the humidity in the air into solid ice chunks.

In the Dragon Ball manga, one sneeze is enough to transform sweet, innocent and black-haired Lunch into her blonde, violent and gun-wielding alter-ego, dubbed "Kushami" by fans. Fortunately, this is reversed with another sneeze. This one is played for laughs, as Master Roshi and his students are scared as hell of "Kushami" and take cover when Lunch looks like she's about to sneeze. This is subverted at one point when what looks to be a coming sneeze turns out to be a yawn.

Invoked deliberately on occasion by other characters, whenever they require help against terrorists or need someone to clear a path to the tournament front seats.

Being a specialist in wind-magic, Negi Springfield's sneezes have a lot of punch... and exquisite taste. Anytime he sneezes, it will, at the very least, blow up several skirts - and at most, shred clothes, underwear or both.

Played with in Kamichu. When the Mikos attempt a ritual to figure out Yurie's power, she sneezes strongly enough to knock them over.

To Love Ru has Ren, who changes into a girl named Run whenever he sneezes.

Comic Books

Variation from the Silver Age of comics: Superboy's sneezes were so powerful that he had to travel to a dead universe to actually let them loose, or they'd demolish galaxies. Keep in mind, the current Superboy in the DCU is an insane version of this one who isn't affected by kryptonite.

Fan Fic

There is a fanfic where Magneto has a cold and goes to a corner store. The results call the X-Men in... and a sneeze promptly wrecks their jet, too.

Film

In the Thunderbirds film, Fermat gives them away by sneezing, but the children escape to the Thunderbird launch bays.

This trope is extremely old, appearing in the silent 1927 film The General.

In the first Mission Impossible remake movie, everything is going smoothly, too smoothly. Right on cue, the character acting as support has his allergies messed with by nature.

In Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, during the Silly Song segment, Dopey and Sneezy did a Totem Pole Trench to dance with Snow White, but at one point, Sneezy starts at it (the dwarves duck and cover), and when everyone thought it was over. ACHOOO! And Dopey goes flying.

In The Matrix, the Gang is given away by Cypher while descending the wetwall to escape the agents. (May be a lampshade though as he intended to give them away.)

Well, technically, this was a cough of doom, not a sneeze of doom.

Done with a fly landing on Bob Hope's face in The Road to Morocco.

Literature

In Jurassic Park (the novel), Lex's sneezing causes a second T-Rex chase at the river.

Coughing, actually.

The children's book Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!. Chaos theory for kids.

The Goosebumps book Be Afraid: Be Very Afraid! features this. When Connor and his friends are hiding in a haystack from monsters, the three are quickly swarmed by bugs, seemingly intent on forcing them out of their hiding place. When one crawls up Connor's nose, he sneezes and gives them away.

This is the whole premise of A Malady of Magicks. The wizard Ebenezum becomes violently allergic to magic in all its forms, and being a great wizard produces great wizardly sneezes.

The book Magic by the Lake actually acknowledges this trope when the children are hiding from pirates. "Katherine, like so many heroines in other stories, chose this time to sneeze".

Live Action TV

In the Charmed episode "Ms. Hellfire", Phoebe's sneeze gives them away.

And in a later episode, Paige begins to orb every time she sneezes after catching a cold.

Subverted on Even Stevens. After Ren ruins one school picture, she nearly sneezes during her retake photo, but this time the finger under the nose works.

Subverted in Doctor Who, when Vicki does indeed sneeze at the wrong moment—but it turns out not to matter, as nobody can see or hear them anyway.

In Smallville, Clark catches a cold and discovers his super-breath power, when he sneezes the barn door down the road.

In the old TV series Rentaghost, one of the ghosts for hire had the power to teleport when she wrinkled her nose. Consequently, there was a Running Gag was that she vanished elsewhere any time she sneezed...

Used on MST3K: when Frank was having difficulty sneezing into his "Nothing to sneeze at" tissue, Dr. F gives him fresh pepper. The resulting sneezing fit is "in Sen Surround," causing the screen to shake and debris to fall from the ceiling.

Surprisingly averted in Stargate SG 1 for several seasons while Daniel's allergies were a major reoccurring theme.

Mr. Conklin's sneezes in Our Miss Brooks, also from the radio comedy series.

Theatre

At the very end of Guys And Dolls, Nathan, all set to marry Adelaide, loudly demonstrates that there's more than one way a person can develop a cold.

Video Games

In the first level of Metal Gear Solid 2, if you stay out in the rain too long before finding your way inside (or, once inside, you hang around in a cloud of fire extinguisher dust or flour), you'll catch a cold and will sneeze at the worst possible times. Right near the end, when you're naked inside a specially cooled room, you can also catch a cold - but, to add some variation, it's a hacking cough.

This was actually parodied in a trailer for the game, where Snake has the misfortune of sneezing while sneaking behind several dozen soldiers. "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" ...

Hell, in the first game, Snake gets a cold from the guard after his time in the Maximum Fun Chamber, and any sneezes will instantly alert the guards (good thing we have the box). For funny bonus points, even his voice changes to a very miserable-sounding, stuffed up sniffly tone until you get the cold medicine.

Dante's sneeze in the Mission 2 cinematic of Devil May Cry 3 actually is so powerful that it wrecks what's left of his shop. He isn't even facing the direction of his shop.

To be fair, this is far more of an example of the straw that broke the camels back, the store had just gotten the crap kicked out of it, it would likely have fallen over with or without Dante's help. Of course due to extreme Gameplay And Story Segregation, it's not unreasonable that Dante possesses a gale force sneeze.

In the second Ratchet And Clank game, Angela sneezes while sneaking around the Thugs-4-Less ship, getting herself captured and necessitating a rescue mission (she also attempts to pass her sneeze off as a cat, but this doesn't work, even if she does bear a resemblance to one).

In Final Fantasy VI, the hideous pink puff Chupon (Typhon in the new translations,) Brachosaurs, and the Great Malboros have a skill named "Snort," an unblockable sneeze attack which will instantly eject a character from the battlefield regardless of HP or defenses. Although it can be useful at times (a character that has been Snorted away is still, technically, alive, so you'll only be returned to the world map if the other characters are killed) the enemies tend to use it on your most powerful character.

Viki from Suikoden is a powerful teleportess (a very rare skill in the Suikoden world) but an extremely clumsy one. She has successfully teleported herself across time and space by the simple act of sneezing. On one memorable occasion she managed to teleport in another version of herself from the past (or future, we’re not really sure). People who know her tend to run the moment her nose twitches.

In The Last Blade 2, Juzoh has a special attack in which he sneezes. Not only does it knock his opponent over, it deals damage. Yes, you could be defeated by getting sneezed on.

Psychonauts: NPCs sneeze their brains out.

While Jak And Daxter are eavesdropping on a conversation between Erol and Baron Praxis in the second game, Daxter sneezes.

Webcomics

While it isn't quite the sneeze itself, the one Ellen lets loose in this El Goonish Shive strip ends up having hilarious repercussions.

In this Wapsi Square, Monica sneezes her bra off (without destroying her shirt, no less).

Chloe in Eerie Cuties unleashes one that covers the whole school in succubus pheromones.

Western Animation

Subverted in the Teen Titans episode "Apprentice: Part 1". Cyborg is trying to delicately defuse a bomb when Starfire starts to sneeze, then Raven makes a force field around Starfire's head, making the sneeze harmless.

Sort of harmless anyway...since Starfire's sneezes in this case tend to be explosive.

Doubly subverted when Starfire happens to be allergic to a rare mineral the bomb is made out of and is used to find its location.

Yeah.. Completely harmless.. Just leaving Starfire herself to have frizzled hair as a result of her sneeze being entrapped and forced back at her...

Sneezer in Tiny Toon Adventures; a cute little toddler mouse who's sneezes produce hurricane-force winds.

In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Frigid Hare, Bugs and an Eskimo are stuck in an ice ledge that breaks with every noise they make. At one point the Eskimo starts to sneeze, and Bugs stifles it just in time... but then sneezes himself, sending the ledge completely vertical and on the brink of plummeting.

This is how a cold bug got around the cast in the aptly named Kim Possible episode "Sick Day".

A subversion occurs in Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command. A character hiding rather transparently in a villainess' fortress sneezes on purpose to create a diversion.

In Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kids, the sneezes of Mr Socrates, a computer who was allergic to dogs, were powerful enough to blow the team out of the lair.

Junko from Storm Hawks is allergic to Murk Raiders. Who just so happen to use incredibly sensitive sound detecting equipment to hunt their prey.

In the animated TV version of Dilbert, Loud Howard's sneezes are capable of stripping all the flesh from a person's body. The rest of the team use this to get rid of people in marketing.

In Monster By Mistake, Warren Patterson is accidentally cursed to transform into a monster and back whenever he sneezes. Naturally, he has really bad allergies.

Mid-1970s Hanna-Barbera character Great Grape Ape had such a disastrous allegy to grapes. It used to be a major plot point in early episodes, but may have been forgotten later on.

Real Life

I hope this isn't too depressing: this troper's grandfather had a stroke after a particularly big sneeze dislodged a blood clot. He made it from the patio to the living room, and said "Anne... stroke" before collapsing. He died a few days later.

[Demosthenes]

I assume this is the usual TVTropes article (great site; I waste hours there...).

Here's the actual link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SneezeOfDoom

There's also an article on "Pepper Sneeze" concerning how in cartoons and TV pepper will always make you sneeze:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PepperSneeze

[BikermousefromMars]

good site ^^ i've seen it around

[Saimou]

On 5/22/2010 at 1:29 AM, Daphine said:

I don't know if this article has been posted already, probably.

I found it interesting, still I can't believe that Scooby Doo wasn't mentioned

make a to do send a pm add to watchlist drop watch go to watchlistSneeze Of Doom

The sneeze is one of the most disastrous and powerful forces in the universe, up there with gravitation, electro-magnetism, the strong and the weak nuclear forces, the color force, Love, Friendship, Music, and Hot Blood. It always happens at the most unfortunate moments, usually when everything is going so well. Have you managed to sneak into the Big Bad's fortress and you're now listening as he explains his evil plan? Atchoo! All the guards are after you now. Have you created a very convincing Totem Pole Trench and fooled everyone? Atchoo! You're in a world of trouble now, matey.

The Sneeze of Doom rarely comes without warning - usually the unlucky sneezer will be shown inhaling air a few seconds before it happens. A Dead Horse Trope would be holding one's finger under one's nose to "stop it." ...it might, for a few seconds. Still, it's not much help — once this starts, a Sneeze of Doom cannot be stopped by any means known to man.

And that's not counting the rare cases where a character, for whatever reason, has the kind of sneezes that should come with their own hurricane warnings.

Often caused by an allergy to the rarest substance known to man to which you will be exposed only at such a time, or something completely uncanny tickling your nostrils.

See Pepper Sneeze. Sometimes the reason the sneeze is dangerous is because of Involuntary Transformation or Malfunction Malady. Not related to Incurable Cough Of Death.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

The evening that Akane and Ranma are watching the house together alone is the evening when Ranma is cursed to hug anyone who sneezes, and Akane comes down with a cold. And wouldn't you know it, it's also the day she is given her first Hyperspace Mallet.

When Ranma himself comes down with a fever, he catches it so badly he can instantly boil any water that comes in contact with his skin. Later on, the fever mutates into a head cold, and his sneezes freeze the humidity in the air into solid ice chunks.

In the Dragon Ball manga, one sneeze is enough to transform sweet, innocent and black-haired Lunch into her blonde, violent and gun-wielding alter-ego, dubbed "Kushami" by fans. Fortunately, this is reversed with another sneeze. This one is played for laughs, as Master Roshi and his students are scared as hell of "Kushami" and take cover when Lunch looks like she's about to sneeze. This is subverted at one point when what looks to be a coming sneeze turns out to be a yawn.

Invoked deliberately on occasion by other characters, whenever they require help against terrorists or need someone to clear a path to the tournament front seats.

Being a specialist in wind-magic, Negi Springfield's sneezes have a lot of punch... and exquisite taste. Anytime he sneezes, it will, at the very least, blow up several skirts - and at most, shred clothes, underwear or both.

Played with in Kamichu. When the Mikos attempt a ritual to figure out Yurie's power, she sneezes strongly enough to knock them over.

To Love Ru has Ren, who changes into a girl named Run whenever he sneezes.

Comic Books

Variation from the Silver Age of comics: Superboy's sneezes were so powerful that he had to travel to a dead universe to actually let them loose, or they'd demolish galaxies. Keep in mind, the current Superboy in the DCU is an insane version of this one who isn't affected by kryptonite.

Fan Fic

There is a fanfic where Magneto has a cold and goes to a corner store. The results call the X-Men in... and a sneeze promptly wrecks their jet, too.

Film

In the Thunderbirds film, Fermat gives them away by sneezing, but the children escape to the Thunderbird launch bays.

This trope is extremely old, appearing in the silent 1927 film The General.

In the first Mission Impossible remake movie, everything is going smoothly, too smoothly. Right on cue, the character acting as support has his allergies messed with by nature.

In Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, during the Silly Song segment, Dopey and Sneezy did a Totem Pole Trench to dance with Snow White, but at one point, Sneezy starts at it (the dwarves duck and cover), and when everyone thought it was over. ACHOOO! And Dopey goes flying.

In The Matrix, the Gang is given away by Cypher while descending the wetwall to escape the agents. (May be a lampshade though as he intended to give them away.)

Well, technically, this was a cough of doom, not a sneeze of doom.

Done with a fly landing on Bob Hope's face in The Road to Morocco.

Literature

In Jurassic Park (the novel), Lex's sneezing causes a second T-Rex chase at the river.

Coughing, actually.

The children's book Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!. Chaos theory for kids.

The Goosebumps book Be Afraid: Be Very Afraid! features this. When Connor and his friends are hiding in a haystack from monsters, the three are quickly swarmed by bugs, seemingly intent on forcing them out of their hiding place. When one crawls up Connor's nose, he sneezes and gives them away.

This is the whole premise of A Malady of Magicks. The wizard Ebenezum becomes violently allergic to magic in all its forms, and being a great wizard produces great wizardly sneezes.

The book Magic by the Lake actually acknowledges this trope when the children are hiding from pirates. "Katherine, like so many heroines in other stories, chose this time to sneeze".

Live Action TV

In the Charmed episode "Ms. Hellfire", Phoebe's sneeze gives them away.

And in a later episode, Paige begins to orb every time she sneezes after catching a cold.

Subverted on Even Stevens. After Ren ruins one school picture, she nearly sneezes during her retake photo, but this time the finger under the nose works.

Subverted in Doctor Who, when Vicki does indeed sneeze at the wrong moment—but it turns out not to matter, as nobody can see or hear them anyway.

In Smallville, Clark catches a cold and discovers his super-breath power, when he sneezes the barn door down the road.

In the old TV series Rentaghost, one of the ghosts for hire had the power to teleport when she wrinkled her nose. Consequently, there was a Running Gag was that she vanished elsewhere any time she sneezed...

Used on MST3K: when Frank was having difficulty sneezing into his "Nothing to sneeze at" tissue, Dr. F gives him fresh pepper. The resulting sneezing fit is "in Sen Surround," causing the screen to shake and debris to fall from the ceiling.

Surprisingly averted in Stargate SG 1 for several seasons while Daniel's allergies were a major reoccurring theme.

Mr. Conklin's sneezes in Our Miss Brooks, also from the radio comedy series.

Theatre

At the very end of Guys And Dolls, Nathan, all set to marry Adelaide, loudly demonstrates that there's more than one way a person can develop a cold.

Video Games

In the first level of Metal Gear Solid 2, if you stay out in the rain too long before finding your way inside (or, once inside, you hang around in a cloud of fire extinguisher dust or flour), you'll catch a cold and will sneeze at the worst possible times. Right near the end, when you're naked inside a specially cooled room, you can also catch a cold - but, to add some variation, it's a hacking cough.

This was actually parodied in a trailer for the game, where Snake has the misfortune of sneezing while sneaking behind several dozen soldiers. "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" "!" ...

Hell, in the first game, Snake gets a cold from the guard after his time in the Maximum Fun Chamber, and any sneezes will instantly alert the guards (good thing we have the box). For funny bonus points, even his voice changes to a very miserable-sounding, stuffed up sniffly tone until you get the cold medicine.

Dante's sneeze in the Mission 2 cinematic of Devil May Cry 3 actually is so powerful that it wrecks what's left of his shop. He isn't even facing the direction of his shop.

To be fair, this is far more of an example of the straw that broke the camels back, the store had just gotten the crap kicked out of it, it would likely have fallen over with or without Dante's help. Of course due to extreme Gameplay And Story Segregation, it's not unreasonable that Dante possesses a gale force sneeze.

In the second Ratchet And Clank game, Angela sneezes while sneaking around the Thugs-4-Less ship, getting herself captured and necessitating a rescue mission (she also attempts to pass her sneeze off as a cat, but this doesn't work, even if she does bear a resemblance to one).

In Final Fantasy VI, the hideous pink puff Chupon (Typhon in the new translations,) Brachosaurs, and the Great Malboros have a skill named "Snort," an unblockable sneeze attack which will instantly eject a character from the battlefield regardless of HP or defenses. Although it can be useful at times (a character that has been Snorted away is still, technically, alive, so you'll only be returned to the world map if the other characters are killed) the enemies tend to use it on your most powerful character.

Viki from Suikoden is a powerful teleportess (a very rare skill in the Suikoden world) but an extremely clumsy one. She has successfully teleported herself across time and space by the simple act of sneezing. On one memorable occasion she managed to teleport in another version of herself from the past (or future, we’re not really sure). People who know her tend to run the moment her nose twitches.

In The Last Blade 2, Juzoh has a special attack in which he sneezes. Not only does it knock his opponent over, it deals damage. Yes, you could be defeated by getting sneezed on.

Psychonauts: NPCs sneeze their brains out.

While Jak And Daxter are eavesdropping on a conversation between Erol and Baron Praxis in the second game, Daxter sneezes.

Webcomics

While it isn't quite the sneeze itself, the one Ellen lets loose in this El Goonish Shive strip ends up having hilarious repercussions.

In this Wapsi Square, Monica sneezes her bra off (without destroying her shirt, no less).

Chloe in Eerie Cuties unleashes one that covers the whole school in succubus pheromones.

Western Animation

Subverted in the Teen Titans episode "Apprentice: Part 1". Cyborg is trying to delicately defuse a bomb when Starfire starts to sneeze, then Raven makes a force field around Starfire's head, making the sneeze harmless.

Sort of harmless anyway...since Starfire's sneezes in this case tend to be explosive.

Doubly subverted when Starfire happens to be allergic to a rare mineral the bomb is made out of and is used to find its location.

Yeah.. Completely harmless.. Just leaving Starfire herself to have frizzled hair as a result of her sneeze being entrapped and forced back at her...

Sneezer in Tiny Toon Adventures; a cute little toddler mouse who's sneezes produce hurricane-force winds.

In the Bugs Bunny cartoon Frigid Hare, Bugs and an Eskimo are stuck in an ice ledge that breaks with every noise they make. At one point the Eskimo starts to sneeze, and Bugs stifles it just in time... but then sneezes himself, sending the ledge completely vertical and on the brink of plummeting.

This is how a cold bug got around the cast in the aptly named Kim Possible episode "Sick Day".

A subversion occurs in Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command. A character hiding rather transparently in a villainess' fortress sneezes on purpose to create a diversion.

In Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kids, the sneezes of Mr Socrates, a computer who was allergic to dogs, were powerful enough to blow the team out of the lair.

Junko from Storm Hawks is allergic to Murk Raiders. Who just so happen to use incredibly sensitive sound detecting equipment to hunt their prey.

In the animated TV version of Dilbert, Loud Howard's sneezes are capable of stripping all the flesh from a person's body. The rest of the team use this to get rid of people in marketing.

In Monster By Mistake, Warren Patterson is accidentally cursed to transform into a monster and back whenever he sneezes. Naturally, he has really bad allergies.

Mid-1970s Hanna-Barbera character Great Grape Ape had such a disastrous allegy to grapes. It used to be a major plot point in early episodes, but may have been forgotten later on.

Real Life

I hope this isn't too depressing: this troper's grandfather had a stroke after a particularly big sneeze dislodged a blood clot. He made it from the patio to the living room, and said "Anne... stroke" before collapsing. He died a few days later.

 

On 5/25/2010 at 5:32 AM, Demosthenes said:

I assume this is the usual TVTropes article (great site; I waste hours there...).

Here's the actual link:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SneezeOfDoom

There's also an article on "Pepper Sneeze" concerning how in cartoons and TV pepper will always make you sneeze:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PepperSneeze

 

On 5/25/2010 at 7:52 AM, BikermousefromMars said:

good site ^^ i've seen it around

I was pretty sure, myself, that it was the TVTropes article, as I’ve read many of them (including this one) quite a few times. I have to agree, though, good site. I’ve also spent hours there .