Remote Yet Vulnerable

I'm using a spell that makes it so a fairy version of myself takes physical form near a person I want to communicate with, only with a small margin of error, which explains why I didn't appear right by you. My real body is back at the anime martial arts school. If anything happens to this body, I'll feel it, but I won't actually be hurt. No matter how the spell ends, either by choice, or by something bad enough happening to the fairy avatar, I'll simply awaken in my real body. In the meantime, I'm unaware of anything that happens with my real body.

—Nanase, from El Goonish Shive.

Suppose your main body is distanced from the means by which you conduct an otherwise dangerous mission; this means you're safe, right?

WRONG!

This is for cases where someone's body is distanced from what they're doing but their body happens to be in danger anyway, whether for related or for separate reasons.

Note that this is distinct from Your Mind Makes It Real. In that trope, anything that happens to your remotely-controlled self also happens to your real self. In this trope, your physical self is being directly threatened while you are currently out of your body; thus, you might not be aware of the danger, or even if you are, you might not be able to stop it.

See also Actually a Doombot, Body Surf, Decoy Getaway, Demonic Possession, Enemy Without, Keystone Army, Myself, My Avatar, Remote Body, Robot Me, and Soul Jar.

Examples of Remote Yet Vulnerable include:

Anime and Manga

• In Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, something like this happens in a particularly spoileriffic manner: Kuze, the Major, and Batou are pinned down in an abandoned building on a small island. A nuclear missile has been fired on the island. Meanwhile, the Tachikomas discover that their bodies are actually being controlled by a spacecraft in Earth's orbit and decide to attempt to hack the satellite. when the Tachkomas become aware of the full situation, they order the satellite to block the missile in order to save their beloved Mr. Batou, knowing full well the consequences.
• Common problem for the Yamanaka clan in Naruto - many of their techniques involve body theft and they rely on their teammates to keep them safe.
• The team witch in Berserk relies on her teammates to guard her during astral travel.

Comic Books

• Regularly guarded against in Doctor Strange comics. While Dr. Strange is engaging in Astral Projection, his manservant Wong stands guard over Strange's body to make sure nothing happens to him while he's "gone."

Film

• Avatar involves Jake Sully working through a Na'vi body remotely controlled by his human form; and then seeing while in Na'vi form that his human body is in danger.
• Inception involves major characters assuming that dying in a dream would wake them up, only to find out that it doesn't work when they're sedated, and that they risk going into uncontrolled dream space.
• From The Matrix, when Cypher pulls his Face Heel Turn, he starts killing off other members of the crew by disconnecting them forcefully one by one.

Literature

• How To Build A Robot Army warns that if you use remote robots to explore a pyramid, any curses you incur will probably still attach to the operator rather than the 'bot.
• In War of the Spider Queen, where the Villain Protagonist party goes to an astral journey, they leave their half-deamon psycho awake to guard their bodies (and to kill their guide's body , if he tries anything funny. He does).

Tabletop Games

• In Shadowrun, Netrunners are vunerable in a similar manner to The Matrix example while they're plugged in.
  • When a mage projects himself into astral space, he leaves his body behind on the physical plane.
    • If the body is moved, the mage might might not be able to find his way back to it.
    • If an astral opponent hits the body with a spell, the spell will take effect on the physical plane at that location, possibly affecting the people guarding the mage's body.
  • Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG has an entry based on the Shadowrun example.

59. Not allowed to pose the Netrunner in embarrassing positions when he's on a run.

• Dungeons & Dragons.
  • When a wizard uses an Astral Spell and enters the Astral Plane, they leave their body behind where they can't protect it.

Video Games

• In Star Wars Battlefront II, you are killed if the turret you are remote controlling from the bridge on a capital ship is destroyed in a space battle. Something about the control panel feeding back.
• On Mega Man 5 Stone Man's atack is quite impresice and it takes a long time to dissapear from screen, time during wich you can't atack again, so if you use it you'll left yourself open and will fail to atack anyways
• On Mega Man X 4, you get the special ability "Soul Body" wich is basically a hologram of X that does damage, however if the real X is damaged the hologram disappears also if you charge the hability you creat a Hard Light clone of X (withouth any armor parts or hability to charge though), however the real X get's freezed whenever he was when he summoned it,and loses any mommentum he had previously, meaning that if you summoned him somewhere where the terrain could be destroyed or moved you are in danger of dying after the clone dissapears, Zero also get's his ability Raijingeki, a powerful middle range atack, that can't be interrupted once started, meaing that any opnonent can atack him from any angle that is not directly in fron of him
  • In X5, Zero gets the ability Twin Dream, wich is basically the same as X's Soul Body, and the W-shredder, which is also similar to the other, but his drawback is the one of the Raijingeki. X meanwhile gets the F-Laser, a remote control atack that has the combined drawback of both uncharged and charged Soul Body (freezes X, and can be hurt while using it)...however when charged it is a bit of a Game Breaker. Another weapon is the Tri-Thunder, while used normally is a good weapon that fires in 3 directions dealling a descent amoung of damage, when charged a lot of lightning bolts appear on screen for a few seconds...randomly, meaning that you can't aim it at your oponent leaving you open for an attack (you still having your regular buster, though).
  • In X8, X get's the Bamboo Missile, used normaly it's well...a missile...but when charged he launches a big missile that later falls and explodes all over the ground but in the meantime you can't use regular missiles while you wait for them to fall.
• The boss "Judgement" from the second House of the Dead game consist in a tiny petulant imp controlling a huge axe-wielding suit of armor. The armor itself is invincible, and the only way to stop it is to shot the imp instead.
• Battle Tanx subverts with the Guided Missiles. If the player's tank is destroyed while it is using Guided Missiles, the player will continue to control the missile until it hits something.
• Grand Theft Auto II double-subverts this with remotely operated vehicles; yes, the game is designed such that the player character is unlikely to be attacked while the camera perspective focuses on the remotely operated vehicle. But that won't protect you if you're standing next to a burning car when the remotely operated part starts, and if said burning car explodes before said remotely operated part is over.
• The second-to-last boss of Geist can be difficult due to this. The best way to defeat him is to leave your body, possess the missiles he fires at you, and pilot them back at him. But you have to be careful, as enemy ghosts are prone to jumping into your body and running into a One-Hit Kill furnace if you aren't there to resist it.
• The team's commander in Battlefield 2 primarily does his job from a top-down, RTS-like view, but still has a physical presence on the map. As such, it's generally a good idea to hide in some distant and unpopulated area, preferably inside of some kind of structure to prevent the enemy commander from lobbing artillery at you.

Web Comics

• El Goonish Shive had some fun with Nanase and "Fairy Doll" spell. Played for Laughs when her friend got a habit of braiding her hair while she's out. Other than that, Nanase had to ensure she's in a safe place and later acquired the ability to scry on her body's environs while in fairy dolls.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: Aang's body is vunerable to attack whenever he crosses over to the spirit realm. Because of this, someone has to keep watch while he's projecting. This was seen in the 'Siege of the North' part 1, where Katara elects to stand guard while Aang crosses over to seek council with Koh, the Face Stealer. An act which left him vunerable to be kidnapped by Zuko, after he defeated Katara.
• Jackie Chan Adventures: the sheep talisman allows the user to astral project their spirit but this leaves their body limp and essentially comatose. Not only does this make it vulnerable to physical attack but is can also then be taken over by another spirit.
• The Venture Brothers: Dr. Orphius once returned from astral projecting to find Hank and Dean had T.P.ed his corporal form.

Other

• Bionicle: the Kanohi Iden allows the user to separate their spirit from their body, which is limp and vulnerable.