History Main / BiggerStick

* ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'': Gilgamesh is practically the personification of this trope. Most Servants usually possess one to three Noble Phantasms, with very few having more than that. Gil, on the other hand, has the Gate of Babylon, which gives him access to an ''infinite'' number of them. Compared to most other Servants, he's much less skilled in direct combat. However, since his primary method of fighting involves simply sitting back and overwhelming his opponents with a [[StormOfBlades countless number of weapons]], his lack of skill is rarely ever a factor.

Compare UselessWithoutPowers, character who rely on inherent abilities for success. Contrast TheManMakesTheWeapon, where someone demonstrates skill by defeating a much better-armed opponent.

** Poor, poor [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain Viral.]] He's WeakButSkilled in a ''SuperRobot'' show, which dooms him to DiminishingVillainThreat when Team Gurren (unwittingly) discover Spiral Power.

** Poor, poor [[IneffectualSympatheticVillain Viral.]] He's WeakButSkilled in a ''SuperRobot'' show, which dooms him to DiminishingVillainThreat when the protagonists (unwittingly) discover Spiral Power.

* Kuromorimine Women's College in ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' has very powerful and well-built German tanks, and a lot of them, making their school the most powerful force in tankery. Their tactics are designed to synergize with this advantage through superior discipline and [[AttackAttackAttack refusal to retreat]] that allow them to make full use of their tanks' power, but the combination is vulnerable to the protagonists' ConfusionFu techniques with a mishmash of weaker tanks.

If TheRival captures {{the Hero}}es' Stick and tries to use it against them it will fail. Sticks are typically [[UnusableEnemyEquipment user-locked or otherwise protected]] to prevent this from happening. WeakButSkilled is the exact opposite. The UnskilledButStrong often seek this. Wielders of smaller sticks may note that they're GonnaNeedMoreX.

* Appropriately enough, the Imperial Guard in ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' works like this. You have two options: go for Strength in Numbers (which is risky and actually works best with lots of upgrades, leaving it to the late-game), or try to quickly roll out a [[TankGoodness Baneblade]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout4}}'' brings back the Brotherhood's big stick, Liberty Prime Mk. II. Being one of the most technologically advanced factions in the Boston Wasteland, similar to how the Enclave were a mere 10 years prior, Liberty Prime is a Super Sledge when compared to everyone else's dried twigs, figuratively speaking.

* ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' takes the Bigger Stick trope very literally, substituting upgrades and power-ups with [[SerialEscalation increasingly humongous]] HumongousMecha, eventually culminating in the titular mech which uses ''[[AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit galaxies]]'' [[RuleOfCool stepping stones and shurikens]]''.

* Creator/DrSeuss's ''The Butter Battle Book'' featured two separated races, the Yooks and the Zooks, building bigger and bigger weapons to go against each other, each time with the Zooks ahead in the arms race. In the end both sides develop a weapon capable of obliterating the other side, resulting in both wielders of the weapons staring down each other in a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything life-or-death]] [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar stalemate]] -- all because they were [[Anvilicious arguing]] over [[SeriousBusiness which side of a slice of bread should be buttered]].

* [[AvertedTrope Averted]] in ''Franchise/HarryPotter'', where, according to WordOfGod, long wands "tend to be drawn to bigger personalities, and those of a more spacious and dramatic style of magic"[[https://www.pottermore.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/wand-lengths-and-flexibilit]],rather than how powerful the wand or its master is.

Although this trope is not inherently [[FreudWasRight Freudian]], a large majority of its examples are. The Bigger Stick is probably going to end up being a {{BFS}} or {{BFG}}. Mostly unrelated to CarryABigStick.

* ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'':
** In the second season, after being soundly defeated by the new villain group with shiny NitroBoost equipped weapons and with their own weapons suffering heavy damage, Nanoha and Fate's weapons are repaired and upgraded with the same nitro boost systems. They fight the villains a second time with the upgraded weapons, but this time to a standstill and forces them to retreat.
** And in Season 3, they get even bigger sticks, culminating with a DungeonBypass through an entire warship with a single shot.
** And in Force (the sequel), They continue to get more bigger stick, after they found out the antagnoists' weapons are [[AntiMagic immune to magic]].

* Generally the M.O. of ''[[VideoGame/XCom X-COM]]'', where Earth's defenders are woefully underequipped to fight the alien menace, who have much bigger sticks. Grinding through casualties to scratch out victories allows X-COM to acquire those big sticks, research them, and turn them on their masters. In some games, X-COM actually ''improves'' on the designs, which ends up as a problem for the aliens, who are unable to do the same.

Although this trope is not inherently [[FreudWasRight Freudian]], a large majority of its examples are. The BiggerStick is probably going to end up being a {{BFS}} or {{BFG}}. Mostly unrelated to CarryABigStick.

** The events of ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeed Gundam SEED]]'' are touched off by the Earth Alliance's attempt at building a BiggerStick with which to fight the more physically-abled Coordinators of ZAFT, and ZAFT's theft of all but one of those {{Bigger Stick}}s. Then the protagonist and TheRival get even ''bigger'' sticks halfway through the series, which only the BigBad in the Biggest Stick yet succeeds in being an actual threat to... The only exception is AcePilot Mu La Flaga, who manages to hold his own against Coordinators in cutting-edge HumongousMecha while he is piloting a much less powerful mobile armor and, in some cases, only a fighter jet. Nevertheless, in ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamSeedDestiny Gundam SEED Destiny]]'', even Mu gets a BiggerStick. And then there's cases where you want your BiggerStick to literally be much bigger. Cue [[OhCrap Destroy Gundam.]]

* New!Chaos in ''FanFic/TheOpenDoor'' owes a lot of their [[CurbStompBattle Curb Stomping]] to the [[TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} canon!40k]] technology they inherited. If there is one thing those who criticize them as being {{God Mode Sue}}s tend to miss, it is that they win easily also because they are deliberately avoiding the universes with ''even {{Bigger Stick}}s'', such as ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann''.

* Most players in ''SurvivalOfTheFittest'' tend to be concerned more with getting better weapons than everyone else had, rather than actually ''surviving''. This gets a lot of them [[TooDumbToLive killed]].

* The High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center "Dreamland" from DaleBrown's books exists to create and test bleeding-edge technology, so it is unsurprising that they come up with a lot of potent high-tech stuff. The Americans are not the only ones with new toys, though.

* ''CodeGeass'': [[TheEmpire Britannia]] initially has this advantage over any resistance groups in spades, via their [[HumongousMecha Knightmares]], particularly [[SuperPrototype the Lancelot]]. That is, until [[LaResistance the Black Knights]] acquire their own SuperPrototype, the Guren, and later, the inventor of said machine into their ranks, [[BollywoodNerd Rakshata Chawla]]. From then on, the show becomes one giant LensmanArmsRace.

* A series of Creator/PiersAnthony's had a pathetic hero who only won because he had magic gloves (and later magic shoes) that did all the work for him.

* Rando of ''YuYuHakusho'' has about a hundred different powerful spiritual techniques, but he's not very strong without them, doesn't use them very well, and doesn't even completely understand how they work. He's ultimately defeated when [[HoistByHisOwnPetard one of his own spells backfires]] as a result of him not understanding its weakness.

* ''TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' takes the Bigger Stick trope very literally, substituting upgrades and power-ups with [[SerialEscalation increasingly humongous]] HumongousMecha, eventually culminating in the titular mech which uses ''[[AbusingTheKardashevScaleForFunAndProfit galaxies]]'' [[RuleOfCool stepping stones and shurikens]]''.