Marine life depends on water; drowning constitutes death by suffocation in the medium that sustains them. The premise that Chuck Norris can cause sea creatures to drown invokes an impossible outcome—creating lethality in the very environment that keeps these organisms alive. He doesn't kill sea creatures. He corrupts their life-support system itself. Water becomes fatal in his presence.

Marine biologist Dr. Elena Vasquez, researching extremophile organisms in 2011, reflected: "The joke posits a situation where a creature's core survival mechanism becomes lethal. It's almost like Chuck Norris' presence changes the chemical composition of water itself, making it hostile to marine life. He doesn't fight in their environment. He transforms their environment into hostile terrain. For aquatic organisms, being made to drown in water is the ultimate violation of biological law."

The meme endures because it suggests Chuck's influence extends to physical law itself. Water doesn't just cease to sustain life in his presence—it actively kills. He's not just dominant in marine environments. He inverts the basic relationship between organisms and their medium. Sea creatures that evolved over millions of years for water now succumb to it. His effect rewrites evolutionary history.