One of the biggest surprises of the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 reveal trailer was the appearance of Sergeant Frank Woods as an old man in the year 2025. It was a surprise because I was pretty sure I remembered him getting blown to bits at the end of the first Black Ops.
So I checked and - yeah - pretty much he gets blown to bits. Although the whole gory mess of Frank Woods getting blown to bits actually happens off-screen. Regardless, I still can't see how Woods could have possibly survived. See for yourself, this is that bit in Call of Duty: Black Ops when Frank Woods 'dies':
To me that's pretty conclusive. But let's go over it again.
The man that Woods goes crashing through the window with, Kravchenko, has five fragmentation explosive devices strapped to him:
Kravchenko pulls the safety pins of all five fragmentation explosive devices:
The two men dive through a window:
A second later it is strongly suggested via the medium of a large explosion that all five of the fragmentation explosive devices detonate successfully:
Hmmm.
When you consider that frag grenades most commonly used during the period in which the first Black Ops is set have a casualty radius of 15 metres and a fatality radius of 5 metres, Woods' chance of surviving not just one but FIVE grenades exploding simultaneously and at such close proximity would be zero. He would be completely dead.
Here's a pie-chart that shows the chances of Frank Woods surviving five grenades exploding simultaneously at close proximity:
Yet despite all of this conclusive evidence, Frank Woods isn't dead. For anyone that cared to look deep enough, this miraculous death-defying revelation was actually buried as intel in the first Black Ops:
Above: Notice how the message neglects to explain anything about how Woods survived being blown up in a big explosion. How very convenient
So apart from looking old, which is to be expected seeing as though it's like 50 years later and he is old, Woods doesn't look half bad given that he took the full explosive brunt of FIVE fragmentation grenades going off pretty much right in his face. Seriously. If he was any closer to those grenades they would have been inside him. Actually inside his body. Exploding him from the inside out. But I suppose he would have survived that as well.
Above: All things considered, he looks pretty good for a man that got exploded by FIVE grenades
I understand we are dealing with a work of fiction and should engage the suspension of disbelief principle and not rely on such abstract concepts as logic when jumping to conclusions. But I really hope Black Ops 2 reveals how Frank Woods survived something so blatantly unsurviveable. Because it'll have to be completely and utterly and totally implausibly ludicrous. And those are always the best explanations.
Can you explain how Frank Woods might have survived being exploded by five fragmentation explosive devices? Perhaps they rebuilt him piece by itty-bitty piece. Or perhaps the grenades didn't actually explode and the explosion was actually just part of a nearby pyrotechnics display. I don't know. Do you have a better explanation? Get it in the comments...
