This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
I think the picture should be changed from the nun punching out Cthulhu. It just looks very lame.
I don't think personal preference overrules the general consensus that it is indeed awesome. Besides, she's elbowing him.
I think the bit about World of Warcraft should be expanded, and the bit about Sargaras in particular. He was an all-mighty titan (essentially a god) whose hobby was to not only kill everything in the universe, but to burn the universe itself to nothingness. He destroyed millions of worlds and killed trillions of races, and he ultimately is destroyed by a knight and a low-level mage.
Austin: There is no way that Sargeras was at full power when in Medivh's body.
Back to Warcraft 3 for a moment, there's a round in the Orc Campaign where you have to kill Cenarius(Basically a giant Keeper of the Grove). And the "legal" way was to drink from the Chaos well(him having Divine Armour of 999 so all other types of damage did 1 point each), etc. I once killed him by spamming a lot of ranged attackers(probably Trolls). Took near forever. Likewise, Archimonde, at the end of the Night Elf campaign.
Cassius335: Taken out:
"* In the Pokemon games, you are able to capture legendary mons that are often forces of nature. The lasted game contains Arceus, who created the universe".
...because catching the bugger ain't easy - the highest Base Stat total in the game (720); appears at Lvl 80, itself a record for a Wild Pokemon... basically he's the strongest thing you'll ever have to catch. Train the box legendary up to Lvl 100 and you might have a prayer... maybe.
And that's the game. The anime? Forget it. A dozen normal Pokes's couldn't even scratch Darkrai, never mind the big 'A' himself.
That Other 1 Dude: Unless you use a Master Ball ;).
Your Obedient Serpent thinks it should go back in: none of the literary, cincematic or game examples listed make it EASY to kill a god.
Falcon Arrow: Who posted the quote about a 20mm against Satan, and where's it from?
- Narvi: Dunno who posted it. It's from "Armageddon?", a fic where the armies of the world are fighting the armies of Satan, and it was a poster's summation of a discussion they were having. Here it is.
Norman Rafferty:
- Removed references to Conan killing gods. No offense to Conan's bad-assery — he really was really bad-ass — but unless someone can find an actual example to Conan killing a god, he's not a Cthulhu puncher. Replaced it with Elric, who is definitely D&D's inspiration.
- Removed the Dunwich Horror text. Despite the factual inaccuracies, an exorcism is not a punch. The plot resolution is "the only way to stop the Big Bad is to cast an obscure spell that only this professor knows!" This trope should apply to when brute force solves a problem, not specialty knowledge or Mc Guffins.
Fast Eddie: I suppose if these were quotes, they would have been attributed ...
- Cthulhu is not actually just sleeping until the "stars are right", he's really hiding from Chuck NorrisIf a sniper's .50cal headshot isn't enough to kill Satan, I suggest we use a 20mm sniper rifle instead.
Firelegend567-I'm pretty sure I made up the one about Chuck Norris. Granted it's possible I read that somewhere and forgot about it, but I'm quite certain it was all me. As for the Sniper one, It's above.
Xander did not just walk into a millitary base with a costume; he had mystically granted knowledge established from a previous episode. People were turned into their costumes and Xander was a generic millitary dude, so he had generic millitary knowledge.
The Doctor Who example was bunk. I would've thought whether the beast was Satan plays second-fiddle to the fact the Doctor did the exact opposite of punching him out; he used the trap set up by the ancients to destroy him. Doctor Who in general avoids this where it can.
Austin: Regarding The Forgotten One, I fail to see why that should be considered "offensive" to cosmic horror fans. Just because it's ancient, ugly and powerful doesn't automatically make it nigh-unbeatable.
Malicious Illusion: I removed some jibberish about Giygas being beaten in the "sequel" by singing at him because Giygas wasn't in Mother 3, and if we're talking Mother/Earthbound 0 (the prequel), Giygas/Giege wasn't any sort of cosmic horror yet. Just an irate alien invader with emotional issues. And I'm wondering whether to remove the Terra counterthing from the Kefka example, as trying to justify beating someone that had become God Of Magic by saying they had a powerful natural mage with them is really silly.
Gentlemens Dame 883: Finally bothered to merge the two Warhammer entries. Also merged the two Hellboy mentions.
Howdy. Anybody seen "Chinese Ghost Story II"? It has a scene where characters appear to kick the shit out of frickin' Buddha. Yeah.
Bob: Cutting the Colossal Cave example. A dragon doesn't qualify as a Cosmic Horror. I am making it the opening quote for Crowning Moment Of Awesome Videogames instead.
- In Colossal Cave there is a dragon blocking your way to a treasure that no weapon or spell works on. The solution?
- KILL DRAGON"With what? Your bare hands?"YES"Congratulations, you've just killed a dragon with your bare hands! (Unbelievable, ain't it?)"
Bob: I'm cutting this as well. It isn't really an example.
Edit: On second thought, it might fit as an example, but I'm rewriting it.
- In The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya, at some point the main male kisses a the female lead on the lips. Said female lead is actually a Reality Warper with enough power to create and uncreate worlds, and the kiss was the way to keep her from re-inventing the whole universe except for Kyon and herself.
Bob: We have enough quotes, cutting some of them.
Hawkgirl: There is. We go to Icthulthu's world and kick his slimy a-
Grundy: Birdnose is right!
Bob: Cutting examples for not being being godlike evils beyond the scope of mankind.
- Comedic example from Monster Squad: "Wolf Man's got nards!"
- In one of the Drizzt novels, Drizzt finds himself in hand-to-hand combat with a mind flayer, a Cthulhu-esque humanoid that Drizzt knows is hermaphroditic by nature. He decides that the best way to see if this includes external genitalia is to kick his opponent very hard between the legs. Apparently, they do.
- Which doesn't really fit this trope, as the Illithid are only "Cthulhu-like" in the sense of having tentacles all over their faces. They're very powerful, but not set up as gods. A good fighter should be able to take one or two.
- Only arguably related to the trope, but Ruber, the Big Bad of Quest for Camalot literally punches out a dragon.
- Will Smith's character in Independence Day, when confronting a soldier from the vastly technologically superior planet looters, punches it in the face. Ok, it only looks like a cosmic horror, but still...
Rutee: The tone of this article feels drastically different then the one I recall. Didn't this.. used to feel less like bitching and more like celebrating the innate badass of seeing an 'unstoppable' cosmic horror and saying "Screw your reputation" and punching it anyway?
KJMackley: I often come across articles that have mutated from something very specific into something vague, either through adding examples or changing the description. In the process, the description talks about something without identifying exactly what it is. This article seems to have fallen in the same process, because I noticed examples being that an Elite Mook appears and gives the good guys a hard time and then they find a way to kill it. That is not this trope, that is Sorting Algorithm of Evil. This is killing a creature that might be able to, I don't know, eat the Earth. This is killing a God. You rarely get a second chance at killing a creature like that.
Anyway, I trimmed down the description and made it much more clear what it is. I also fixed some examples that didn't fit, like the Turok-Hai from Buffy.
[[Edrobot]]: Found a more literal image, and posted it. If anyone could adjust it to make it look a little nicer, that would be appreciated.
"(basically a Celtic Conan with an appreciably larger vocabulary)"-removed this from the Slaine reference because 1, it doesn't really need a character description, 2, I've read both Slaine and Conan, and I do not think it's very accurate (Conan never seemed to lack for vocab, he's just not one of nature's talkers. None of Howard's heroes were. If you want a talky barbarian hero archtype with a yearning to discuss philosophy, there's always Fafyrd), 3, according to Howards "Hyborian Age", Cimmerians ARE proto-celts, so it's redundant.
Some Sort Of Troper: I took out the painkiller example because it was just a straight aversion with little expectation of being otherwise. It was a typical final boss battle where you have to get a power, use the local environment and then deflect their own attacks. Now if that becomes a trope (and it probably is), it can go there but for now, bye bye.
Phoenix Fire: I'm putting the Dragaera quote back in. Because it's awesome, and rather more illustrative than the Ghostbusters one.
Patsy: Removed some non-applicable stuff:
One Piece example doesn't apply because there are no gods or Eldritch Abomination involved, and therefore no clear power imbalance- just powerful fighters on both sides.
- Multiple cases in One Piece , usually whenever Luffy beats the big bad in the arc. (at least, everyone acts like he Just Punched Out Cthulhu.)
- In particular, when Luffy defeats the huge ass giant zombie(that is, the zombie of a giant, not just a really big zombie) Oz, after gaining several abilities through taking shadows.
- And another earlier moment when Luffy defeats Enel, who called himself god.
- Bah. How about when Wiper actually kills Enel with the dangerous Reject Dial. Luffy got Enel to leave; Wiper stopped his heart. Sadly, that wasn't enough to stop Enel, but still.
An invulnerable resurrected saint doing exactly what he was created to do (i.e., kill anything in existence using a weapon created to do so) doesn't count as punching out Cthulhu.
- Preacher: An old-west gunslinger kills God with a revolver. Okay, a magical revolver made from the Angel of Death's sword, but still...
- And this is after he literally causes hell to freeze over with only the iciness of his hatred which falls roughly into the same category. Scary guy. Between the two he kills Satan with that gun for mocking him.
Mior detail here; Willow didn't hurt her, just inconvenienced her.
- And that wasn't her first time. A season earlier she managed to actually injure then until-then untouchable Glory. Twice. (Although the first time was by teleporting her high into the atmosphere and letting her splat.)
lockhead: I want to disciss the removal of the real life examples of punching out Cthulhu. Now Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would proudly state that they want to kill god. I don't think their supporters would be upset over their inclusion.
Falcon Pain: Add new comments at the bottom. That said, there are two problems. First, those two aren't out to kill anyone; they largely don't think he exists. Second, even if they do want to kill God, that would be Rage Against the Heavens. They only qualify as this trope after they've succeeded.
Unknown Troper: Speaking of this, I've pulled the Real Life section entirely. It consisted of these edits by matruz, Kuruni, and at least one other troper:
- * According to millions of Christians with very a serious underestimation of their deity's ability to hold up to natural observation, Darwin did this.** Nah, Galileo did it first.** One may argue it's Galileo who did it first, but it's really Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu. For Galileo end up become outcast and forced to declare his own words as heresy.
... Which amounts to nothing but a handful of single-minded, smug Atheist tropers who have absolutely no knowledge of Christian theology or how it reacted to the findings of Galileo and Darwin. For example, if they knew about statements made by several Roman Catholic popes (e.g. Pope Pius XII in the 1950s and Pope John Paul II in the 1990s) who said that evolution and Christianity do not conflict, those tropers wouldn't have smugly claimed that millions of Christians despaired over Darwin supposedly punching out God.
It's also been pointed out elsewhere in TV Tropes (though I believe the relevant Real Life section was removed from that page, too) that Galileo wasn't punished just because he advocated something different from church doctrine of the period. It was because, in response to a request by the Pope to present his case for heliocentrism in a "dialouges" argument, Galileo unintentionally turned his writings into a straw man of the Pope that personally and publically insulted him. The alienation of Galileo's strongest ally in the church, as well as the alienation of Jesuits who supported him in an earlier astronomical nastygram, is what led to his punishment. Of course, everyone assumes he was punished just for "contradicting" the Bible.
Digamma: Removed a second level bullet in the mythology section, as it didn't seem to have much to do with the actual trope or make sense. Cut and pasted below.
** The Illiad is one of the Greek legends not (re- ?)written for making Athens, and it's goddess Athena, looking good. And you see Athena is really, really, a goddess you don't want near you (look at the fight between Hector and Achilles : Achilles had surpernatural invulnerability and STILL Athena cheated for him, at least two times (blocking Hector's javelin in flight, giving Achilles more weapons...), and that's after tricking Hector into fighting.
