Knock knock!
Force fields are a lot of fun in fiction. In sci-fi and fantasy settings, having a bubble of energy or magic to protect characters is so common that it's just an accepted concept. Some characters make it their defining trait. However, Rule of Drama dictates that there must be some kind of flaw that allows something to get past the shield, lest there be no sense of tension when the shield is used. This trope is one way to do it.
There are two ways for this trope to occur: penetration or circumvention. The former can apply to barriers of any shape or coverage, the latter can only apply to shields that defend the subject from all sides. Either way, these scenarios are meant to catch the ones using the barrier entirely off guard. They expected this barrier to protect them, only for it to just abruptly fail against this opponent.
As a rule, the force field in question has to be something that would be expected to deflect whatever penetrated or got around it. For example, if a force field is only able to block magical attacks but not physical ones, that doesn't qualify for this trope. But if someone is able to still land an attack with a magical attack, that does qualify.
For clarity, this trope is about active barriers reasonably believed In-Universe to be nearly impenetrable that are penetrated or bypassed. This means that for this trope to be in play, the bypassing has to come off as unexpected or at least something alarming. This is not the case for scenarios where the shield is established as potentially failing in the momentExamples. That being said, if the ability to weaken a shield to failure is a rarity in the setting, then it still qualifies.
See also Armor-Piercing Attack and Barrier-Busting Blow. Compare Anti-Armor for instances where a force field is nullified.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Cyberized individuals and androids must rely on Defense Barrier Maze programs to help protect their brain and their digitalized soul from being attacked by hackers. Invaders can experience severe pain to ward them out, or in worse cases, have their own barriers fried in retaliation. Hackers like Motoko and the other members of Section 9 are able to bypass the barrier layers one by one by finding the right moment to slip through. It's not uncommon for people to protect themselves with an external Dummy Barrier to add layers of protection and fry itself out if it gets triggered. Androids are easy enough to hack into — even the Tachikomas find it trivial. Super-A Class hackers like Motoko, the Laughing Man, or Kuze, are able to bypass dozens of barriers with minimal effort.
- Gundam:
- Mobile Suit Gundam: When it first appears, the Big Zam is all but unstoppable due to its I-Field. The I-Field is a concentration of Minovsky Particles so dense it basically disperses beam weaponry. Unfortunately for the Federation, beam weapons had become their main armament by that point in the war. The I-Field cannot stop solid ammunition like bullets, rockets and missiles, but it is large enough to tank most such attacks, and its heavy array of beam weapons mean most enemies don't last long enough to try. However, the I-Field has another big weakness: beam weapons will work from inside the I-Field, as demonstrated when the Gundam manages to get to melee range and attacks it with its beam saber.
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: The Planetary Defensors deployed by the Mercurius create a shield around it, making it almost impervious to damage. This is later utilised in the mass-produced Mobile Dolls Virgo and Virgo II. While something with the firepower of the Wing Gundam Zero can overwhelm the Planetary Defensors, against most foes they're almost invulnerable especially once they overlap their Defensors to strengthen their shields. However, despite being practically invulnerable to ranged attacks, close-range attacks (i.e. inside the range of the Defensors) can work.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: By the time of this series, the Earth Alliance has developed a special kind of barrier known as a Positron Reflector, a powerful beam shield that is strong enough to take a Positron Cannon (think very powerful beam cannon). However, thin beam blades and specially treated armor can penetrate the barrier, allowing others to attack the units hidden behind it.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2016): In their final battle, Zant seals both Link and himself in a barrier, using both darkness and illusions to hold Link back. Eventually, and much to Zant's shock, Link slashes through the barrier with the Master Sword.
Comic Books
- Thunderbolts: When Baron Zemo lets the cat out of the bag about the true nature of the Thunderbolts, that they are, in fact, the Masters of Evil, the team is assailed by a combination of the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. While fighting the Four, Sue Storm makes a remark about how nothing can get through her force field. Songbird notes that she can hear Sue, meaning that sound can penetrate the force field, allowing Songbird to create a solid sound structure inside the force field (in this case a giant mallet), to give Sue a Tap on the Head. However, Reed Richards, who is used to dealing with Klaw the Master of Sound, and can use his flexible body to smother sound, decides he wants a word with Songbird about what she just did to his wife.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: As seen in Chapter 190 or so, Adamantine formed into prisons are used to hold Keepers because the material's immune to anything they can do. When Ami manages to break out, no one believes it, because the requirement to break the material is that breaking out is approved by the gods that would usually want to keep her in.
Films — Animation
- Violet Parr in The Incredibles can create defensive force fields that are impenetrable against anything. However, one person is known to be able to penetrate them and another can bypass them entirely, both shown in Incredibles 2. The first is Jack-Jack Parr, her little brother, who has many powers including the ability to phase through things, including her shields. The other is Voyd, who can create portals. Voyd gets around Violet's barriers by creating a shield on the floor beneath her.
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: The Wishing Star is protected by a barrier designed to kill anyone who approaches it. The Wolf, however, walks right through it to challenge Puss. Of course, it helps that he's not technically alive.
- Superman vs. the Elite: Manchester Black has the ability to summon force fields as part of his psychic-based powerset, allowing him to survive otherwise lethal blows even if he's still knocked around. When Superman finally stops holding back in their last fight, he starts hitting the barrier so hard that it cracks and disintegrates under his fists.
- Titan A.E.: Cale manages to escape from a Drej Force Field Prison with walls that shock him by sticking two fingers into the field and pulling them apart to make a hole big enough for him to slip through.
Films — Live-Action
- D.E.B.S.: The D.E.B.S. house where the protagonists live is protected by a force field that keeps out intruders. Lucy Diamond cuts a hole in the force field with a high-tech gadget and just walks through it.
- Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: The spell Protego Diabolica generates a ring of black fire around the caster, with only people truly loyal to them able to pass through it. Anyone else who touches it gets incinerated. When Grindelwald uses this spell, Krall and other Aurors not loyal to him get burned up by it. Leta is able to pass it, but destroys his skull-hookah and gets herself burned up, buying time for Newt and Theseus to escape the Lestrange Cemetery.
- Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: This is an established ability of the Silver Surfer. When he and Susan Storm first meet, she puts up a barrier to shield herself. She's caught off guard when his head and shoulders go right through it. This comes up again later when she attempts and fails to protect the Silver Surfer from Dr. Doom (empowered by the Silver Surfer's board) throwing a spear at him, instead getting impaled herself.
- I, Robot: One application of nanomachines is a "security field" that acts as a barrier to anything. No OSHA Compliance means it disintegrates anything it touches, including robots. Sonny however can pierce it because his alloy is far denser than most other robots of his model, though it still visibly leaves damage after he does so.
- Star Trek: Generations: After capturing Geordi La Forge, Dr. Soran and the Duras Sisters are able to modify his VISOR so they can see what he sees on the Enterprise. Upon discovering the shield frequency, the sisters are able to modify their Bird of Prey's Disruptors to that frequency to pass through it and deal devastating damage to the Enterprise.
Literature
- Animorphs: In one book, the Animorphs morph into termites to sneak into a house surrounded by a force field and slip under a pine needle crossing the field.
- The Corellian Trilogy: In Showdown at Centerpoint, six prisoners — the Solo twins, their little brother Anakin, Chewbacca, Ebrihim the Drall and his aunt Marcha — are all confined within a force field on the orders of their cousin Thracken Sal-Solo. With help from Ebrihim's astromech droid Q9-X2 (who had been hiding nearby and out of sight, and is called to the scene once the captors are all asleep), Anakin is able to get the field's strength and intensity down to a lower level and then, backed by Jacen and Jaina, use the Force to slowly and carefully stretch the field's energy apart enough for the three of them to pass through it, much to Q9's shock and disbelief.
- Danger — Human! has a screen that will vaporize the contained human if he touches it, and it's only turned off for a few seconds in order to deliver food. Eldridge is still able to get past it, but no full explanation is given.
- In "The Double Shadow" by Clark Ashton Smith, the Ellipse of Oumor is a magical barrier that no demon or spirit may pass. As Avyctes and his apprentice find to their horror, it has no effect against the Living Shadow that they summoned.
- In the Enchanted Forest Chronicles book Searching For Dragons, the wizards who captured the dragon Kazul have her trapped in a force-bubble of magic — but the cats of Morwen the witch are able to freely get in and out. Cats are like that, and they won't explain how because they enjoy being mysterious.
- The House With a Clock in Its Walls: In The Doom of the Haunted Opera, Henry Vanderhelm performs a spell that seals off the town of New Zebedee from the outside world in a mystic fog, turning anyone back who tries to get through it from either side. Later, Rose Rita and Mrs. Jaeger manage to use Jonathan's Magic Mirror (which is attuned to him) to contact Jonathan and Mrs. Zimmermann in spite of the barrier and, by following their instructions, use one of Mrs. Zimmermann's amulets to create a light that pierces the fog long enough to let the pair drive through it and into the town.
- Johannes Cabal: The Evil Sorcerer of "A Long Spoon" has a personal Protective Charm that utterly negates any incoming source of harm. Johannes foils him with a healing spell that indirectly disrupts his magic as a side effect.
- In the Lensmen series, third-stage minds are able to bypass mechanical thought screens by thinking "above, below, or, by sufficient effort, straight through" them. This is how the Arisians are able to mentally deal with unwanted intruders even when those intruders are protected by thought screens. Thought screens capable of blocking third-level thought aren't developed until late in the final book.
- Old Kingdom: The Wall at the southern edge of the Old Kingdom is one of the most powerful enchantments in the world, guarding against magical entities that try to escape. In Abhorsen, The Dragon gets the Free Magic spirit Orannis the Destroyer through by flooding a border crossing with so many hundreds of Dead Hands that the Wall gets bogged down with destroying them, letting the spirit rush through the middle.
- Bella Swan in The Twilight Saga has a mental shield that prevents not just telepathy, but literally any illusory-based power like Jane's power of making someone think they're burning alive, or her twin brother's ability to rob people of their senses. So when her and Edward's surprise daughter Renesmee is able to bypass it, Bella and Edward are at first perplexed as to how. They speculate Renesmee inherited the inverse of their respective powers.
Live-Action TV
- Charmed (1998) features a handful of force fields and force field users so this naturally comes into play.
- Power Parasites can bypass shields by draining their magic, but this kind of power is not commonly seen. The Parasite Demons are the only ones so far shown to do this. The Hollow can do it to a greater degree by simply stripping the magic user of power.
- In Season 3, the sisters all collectively use an old magic ritual practice to create a defensive barrier around them while they help a woman safely give birth while they're trapped in colonial times (long story). While the horse riders after them can't get through, their bullets can. So Phoebe resorts to scaring them off by riding a broomstick like a Wicked Witch that she mocked earlier in the episode.
- Season 5 onwards has the character of Wyatt Halliwell who can create a force field (made out of Whitelighter orbs as established in the later comics) and it is very good at blocking almost anything. However, Gideon got around it in an effort to kill him, and to do so, used an athame specially cursed to do so. It works, but Wyatt uses his other powers to defend himself.
- Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman: The episode "Don't Tug On Superman's Cape" has Lois captured and put in a force field, which activates a bomb if touched. Tim and Amber Lake also capture Superman in the same type of force field, threatening to have Lois blown up if he doesn't comply. Superman is able to get through the sensor by vibrating his molecules at super-speed, which would have otherwise detonated the bomb underneath Lois.
- Star Trek:
- Star Trek: The Original Series: In the episode "Obsession", the cloud-creature goes through the Enterprise's shields like they weren't there. Spock hypothesizes that the creature can move Just One Second Out of Sync, so it's somewhere else at the instant that the shields should be stopping it.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Early in the Dominion War arc, the Dominion's big advantage over the Alpha Quadrant powers is that their weapons can bypass the shields of Alpha Quadrant ships, and their transporters also work through deflector shields, allowing them to effortlessly board the titular station in their debut appearance and even walk through a forcefield. It only lasts a couple of episodes before countermeasures are applied that make this null.
- Star Trek: Voyager: When the ship encounters a comet, they attempt to beam a sample of gas from inside the comet on board, and put a forcefield around the transporter pad to keep it contained. What materializes is a humanoid male who casually strolls through the forcefield and says "Hello. My name is Q".
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: "Through the Lens of Time": The Vezda possessing Ensign Gamble tricks the Red Shirt guarding his cell into approaching the Force Field door, and then casually reaches through the Force Field and kills him, before walking out and taking the man's phaser.note This presumably explains the design of The Alcatraz built to hold the Vezda: placing them Just One Second Out of Sync by manipulating spacetime is much harder to escape than more mundane types of prison.
- Teen Wolf: A barrier of Mountain Ash is thought to be impenetrable to supernatural creatures like werewolves, but there were a few examples of creatures bypassing such a barrier:
- In Season 3 Scott, through sheer willpower, is able to resist and break through the thin Mountain Ash barrier set by Jennifer, which reveals him as a True Alpha, a once-in-a-century phenomenon. Downplayed, since the act still nearly killed him, never doing it again during the show's run.
- Jordan Parrish, possessed by a Hellhound, has fire powers strong enough to burn the magic out of a Mountain Ash barrier enough to get through it.
- The Oni can break through a Mountain Ash barrier only if given time to find and exploit weaknesses in the barrier.
- Ghost Riders can totally bypass the barrier by teleporting in and out of a protected space.
- Ultra Series:
- Ultraman Orb: The kaiju Zeppandon, being partially made from the classic Ultraman monster Zetton, inherits Zetton's ability to summon barriers which it uses to deflect all of Ultraman Orb's attacks. Orb eventually regains his weapon, the Orb Calibur, with the Orb Calibur Earth summoning a circular ring of seismic explosions that goes under Zeppandon's barriers before damaging the monster, allowing Orb to defeat it.
- Ultraman Arc: Digelos is a beetle-like monster capable of summoning a barrier-like wall to deflect an Ultra's beam attacks. Ultraman Arc got around the issue at the episode's end by improvising — firing his Arc Finalizer at the monster like usual, but then turning his attack into a snake-like energy beam that slithers around Digelos' barrier and killing the monster.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: Almost every edition of this venerable pencil-and-paper RPG has had the arcane/wizard spell Wall of Force
. It creates a see-through barrier that the caster can sculpt into almost any shape. It is utterly impervious to any physical attack, magic can not pass through it, and it extends into the ethereal plane so ghosts and other creatures capable of becoming ethereal can't bypass it. It is a very powerful and versatile way to either protect the caster's party or corral enemies in a specific place. It's one weakness is that the arcane/wizard spell Disintegrate immediately destroys it.
Video Games
- Borderlands 2: A major mid-game mission involves storming Handsome Jack's bunker in order to claim the Vault Key, and the first major obstacle in everyone's path is the "Competitor Deterrence Field", a death wall that obliterates any non-Hyperion entity that attempts to pass through it. Fortunately, the friendly Claptrap in Sanctuary is a Hyperion robot, and after you get him a software upgrade, he becomes able to pass through the barrier and disable the field from the inside.
- Final Fantasy XIV: During the Siege of Rhalgar's Reach, we get to see how immensely powerful Zenos is when Y'Shtola throws herself in front of Lyse and throws up a barrier to block Zenos' blow, only for Zenos to slightly adjust and shatter the barrier and cut down Y'Shtola in one swing.
- Gihren's Greed: As in the source material, machines equipped with an I-Field are impervious to ranged beam attacks. However, close-quarters beam weapons like beam sabers work due to being used inside the I-Field. In addition, Funnels and Bits similarly work despite being beam weapons because they fly into the I-Field first before shooting.
- The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy-: Dhal'xia can just walk through the wall of undying flames that surrounds the school. He doesn't even register that it's meant to be a barrier. Therefore, he doesn't trigger the alarm that normally sounds when someone forces entry.
- Kid Icarus: Uprising: One of the many arcs within the story is the arc of the Chaos Kin, an abomination that devours souls. In this arc, Palutena is attacked and possessed by the Chaos Kin, which allows it to overtake Skyworld. Consequently, Palutena's Temple is enshrouded in a barrier that is incredibly strong and protects it in all directions, necessitating that Pit and Viridi obtain the Lightning Chariot, the only thing fast and powerful enough that can wreck the force field. It's shown shattering and dissolving when this occurs, and even the possessed Palutena is surprised by this.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: Ganondorf's underwater tower is protected by an invisible wall that knocks back anything that gets too close. With the fully empowered Master Sword, however, Link is able to destroy it.
- Marvel Rivals: In the Central Park - Convergence map, one group of players must rescue Ratatoskr from her imprisonment as her horn, forged from the World Tree Yggdrasil, is the only thing that can pierce the barrier protecting Dracula. If that team wins, we see Squirrel Girl riding on Ratatoskr, who smashes her horn on the barrier, destroying the barrier and Dracula as well.
- Mass Effect 3: At one point in the Omega DLC, Aria T'Loak uses her biotics to open a hole in a force field, something never seen before or since in the franchise. Somewhat downplayed: doing this is clearly strenuous, she's only able to open a hole large enough for a single person to jump through, and can only maintain it for a short time before the exertion is too much and the shield re-asserts itself.
- Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: The Shield Zombie has a force field that protects it from most of the plants' attacks. Only specific plants like Fume-shroom, Cactus (along with other plants here under Weakness) can attack through said force field.
- Pokémon:
- Z-Moves and Max Moves can bypass defensive moves like Protect that normally negate all damage, making the Pokemon on the receiving end suffer 25% of the damage they would've gotten otherwise.
- Feint can hit through a target that has used Protect or Detect, or another protection move like King's Shield or Mat Block.
- Urshifu's signature ability is Unseen Fist, which allows its contact moves to ignore protect.
- Skies of Arcadia: Galcian covers the whole resurfaced continent of Soltis in a shield that can not be passed by any means, when he is about to summon the Rains of Destruction. It takes a literal Colony Drop by the Elders of the Grand Silver Shrine to break it.
- Sonic Unleashed: The final battle with Perfect Dark Gaia has him setting up a large barrier, one strong enough to keep Super Sonic out. However, Chip is able to force the Gaia Colossus inside and fight Dark Gaia, distracting him while Sonic dispels the shield from the outside.
- A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: A Saecelium Shield can only be bypassed with a Saecelium Resonator, otherwise the shield must be turned off to let things beyond light in.
Web Animation
- Sunset Paradise: The Phoenix Egg is protected by a barrier that Only the Pure of Heart can cross, something Benedict Cumbersnatch and his minions can't brute-force their way through. Benedict finds a workaround by performing good deeds for the local children to acquire a pure heart. That is, the pure hearts of the children themselves. Then the villains brute-force their way through by using the children as battering rams.
Webcomics
- Alice Grove: One of the early hints at Alice's true power is when she punches straight through Gavia's nanite-generated force field, a feat that's flat-out impossible for a human.
- Unsounded: Sette is able to use her hands, which have strange claws that can touch ghosts, to temporarily push aside a pymaric shield barrier during a khert fire, allowing Jivi and Mathis to escape the place where they had become trapped.
Western Animation
- Castlevania (2017): Varney not only steps over a river of Holy Water (though calls it "nasty stuff") but later passes through Count de Saint Germain's magic barrier with no problem after it was shown to repel other vampires. Because Varney is not a regular vampire.
- Danny Phantom: In "Prisoners of Love", Danny gets trapped in Walker's impenetrable prison in the Ghost Zone while in his ghost form. Once Sam and Tucker come to bust him out, he discovers that humans in the Ghost Zone have the same Intangibility as ghosts do on Earth, switches to his own human form and just walks out of jail. Since Danny is one of only two human-ghost hybrids in existence, Walker was not expecting Danny to be able to do this.
- Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai: In "Never Squeeze a Fox", the goddess Nuwa uses a magic forcefield to keep Riley Greene and his gang of Gremlins away from Sam, Elle and Gizmo as the latter are trying to enter the Valley of Jade. However, the Gremlin Noggin is wearing a ring that protects the wearer against all magic, which allows him to walk through the forcefield and attack Nuwa.
- The Owl House: In the first episode "A Lying Witch and a Warden", Luz helps Eda and King break into a prison and retrieve King's Crown of Power that's locked behind a magic barrier that only a human can get through.
- Steven Universe: In "Jail Break", Peridot's spaceship contains cells with force field doors, made to prevent Gems (who have Hard Light bodies) from getting out. Steven can bypass the doors because they weren't made with organic beings like him in mind.
- The Venture Bros.: In the episode "Guess Who's Coming to State Dinner?", Rusty's invention, a force field, traps him, Brock, and several other people inside, including the President of the United States. Rusty says it will take years for the force field to turn off. Dean, possessed by Abraham Lincoln's ghost, tries to break through, but Dean is repelled and even though he gets inside, Lincoln can't be seen or heard by anyone in the room. Noticing that a penny also passed through, the boys cover Lincoln in 5-dollar bills, since he can manipulate things with his image. This time, he gets the President's attention.
