History Main / GodDamnedBats

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[[MemeticMutation This is Zubat country]].]]

* The flocks of birds in both the book and film of ''Literature/LordOfTheRings''. Specifically the ''crebain'', used by Saruman as his eyes and ears to track down the Fellowship in the high mountains. In both portrayals, Aragorn realises the danger of the flocking crows and has the fellowship stamp out fires and go to cover. (In the film, the crebain detect the fellowship and give Saruman the information he needs to turn the mountain passes against them).

* This trope is more or less the plot of LightNovel/GoblinSlayer: Goblins are the weakest monsters in this world, and mainly appear in quests meant for rookies. With the size and strength (and, apparently, the brain) of a child, they would be no problem for new, inexperienced adventurers at all... if there weren't so damn many of them! Problem is, these beasts [[ExplosiveBreeder multiply like crazy]], and being able to kill them with one or two hits doesn't help much if every fallen goblin is replaced by two others. That's why the [[CharacterTitle titular]] [[HisNameReallyIsBarkeep Goblin Slayer]] seeks to kill every single goblin he can find.

* A [[GeorgeOfTheJungle Tom Slick]] cartoon had Tom in Transylvanian race and he quips "Oh, rats! Bats!" upon beeing attacked by the winged creatures.

The TropeNamer is, well, [[BatOutOfHell actual video game bats]]. Bats in video games tend to have many the aforementioned traits; ''very'' common in caves and other dark areas yet are individulally easy to defeat, their small size and fast movement makes them difficult to hit in real-time games (and turn-based games reflect this by giving them high evade rates), and since they fly the player is usually unable to hit them with melee attacks.

The TropeNamer is, well, [[BatOutOfHell actual video game bats]]. Bats in video games tend to have the aforementioned traits; ''very'' common in caves and other dark areas yet easy to defeat, their small size and fast movement makes them difficult to hit in real-time games (and turn-based games reflect this by giving them high evade rates), and since they fly the player is usually unable to hit them with melee attacks.

* Player having relatively large health bar, reducing the enemies' relative threat (and thus the need to exterminate them quickly) - even if it's just ScratchDamage, [[DeathOfAThousandCuts enduring repeated hits adds up]].

* The enemy can [[BanditMook steal players items]].

* If the player has a weapon with limited attack range or [[DenialOfDiagonalAttack can't shoot vertically or diagonally]], making it difficult to engage the bats.

* ''{{Webcomic/Homestuck}}'' has [[http://mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004566 imps]], [[FromBadToWorse which become]] [[spoiler:[[BossInMooksClothing Bosses in Mooks Clothing]] after Jade prototypes her kernelsprite]].

-->-- ''Website/{{Cracked}}'', "[[http://www.cracked.com/article_16196_the-7-commandments-all-video-games-should-obey.html The 7 Commandments All Video Games Should Obey]]"

-->-- '''David Wong''', ''[[{{Website/Cracked}} Cracked.com]]''

The TropeNamer is, well, [[BatOutOfHell actual video game bats]]. Bats in video games tend to have the aforementioned traits (''very'' common in caves, easy to defeat, flies out of melee range with erratic movement, etc).

The TropeNamer is, well, actual video game bats. Bats in video games tend to have the aforementioned traits (''very'' common in caves, easy to defeat, flies out of melee range with erratic movement, etc).

* The enemy is very fast or small and hard to hit.

[[caption-width-right:270: [[Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas We can't stop here. \\
This is Zubat country]].]]

They don't have to be bats. The best definition of the Goddamned Bats trope is that they are not only common enemies that will swarm you, and they are not only pathetically easy to kill on their own, but they take no skill to defeat, in [[RolePlayingGames RPGs]] they don't provide much (if any) experience or gold when beaten, and are sometimes flat-out annoying. A famous example of this is Zubat in the Pokemon series which were found in nearly every cave in the first 4 games and liked to inflict various StandardStatusEffects on the player before going down.

Note that this designation applies to ''any'' type of ''non-threatening enemy'' whose purpose is to stall and harass the player. [=Goddamned=] Bats are common in {{Platformer}}s, where they enjoy disturbing precision jumping.