History Main / HowMuchMoreCanHeTake

** THose wings should not have let him fly to begin with since he never flaps them for flight, he just uses his magic flight to go through. The wings are likely jsut for steering.

* Happens between Shirou and [[spoiler:Kotomine Kirei]] in the finale of the Heaven's Feel route of ''FateStayNight'', while both of them are virtually dead, nonetheless - [[spoiler:Kirei's heart was destroyed by Sakura ''two days'' ago,]] and Shirou [[spoiler:is all but overtaken/corrupted by Archer's arm, which is quite literally ''turning his body into swords'' because he used its projection capacities]]. The fight is basically two walking corpses brutally beating each other to death. [[spoiler:Shirou wins, but only because Kirei's time runs out first, just as he's about to kill him. Shirou ([[RoadCone possibly]]) follows suit under a minute later, though, and the TearJerker ending [[KilledOffForReal expands on this concept...]]]]

** ''{{Champions}}'' uses two stats; Body and Stun. An attack that inflicts Body damage has actually injured the character, enough injury results in the character's death. Stun damage can leave the character dazed (lose an action) or result in the character becoming unconscious.

* The [[MostTriumphantExample grand champion representation]] of this is in ''HeroicAge''. It's essentially about super-huge reptilian monster things called Nodos that can (and do) destroy small moons with a single attack. This overwhelming power really makes itself apparent when two Nodos are engaged in battle for ''over 300 hours.'' That's nearly two weeks of pummeling each other over and over again with enough force to rend a small celestial body in half. And near the climax of the fight, neither one seems any worse for the wear.

* In ''YuYuHakusho'', Yusuke and Chu have one. This is after spending all their spirit energy on various attacks and utterly pulverizing each other with energy attacks and such, and they can't even use their spirit attacks anymore. There's also a catch: Not only can they not move at all or they agree to forfeit, but they're back heel is resting against a knife. Every hit that they each take knocks their foot into the knife, causing immense pain. Eventually [[spoiler: Yusuke wins after Chu tries to finish him with a mammoth headbutt. Yusuke intentionally just takes the attack and Chu is knocked out.]]

* Jango Fett's backstory/tribute comic ends with him and his [[CycleOfRevenge lifelong archnemesis]] brutally beating each other down on a spaceship and then on the planet below. This fight mostly refrains from the "two supercharged beings no discernible damage" part of the trope listed above: both of them take a beating and show it (especially after Fett slashes Vizsla's belly open).

** Another boxing example: Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward beat the everloving bejesus out of each other, both sustaining incredible amounts of punishment. They ended up fighting [[WasntThatFun three times]], producing much of the same excitement. (A writer for the ''Boston Globe'' described all three fights as "like a Popeye cartoon, only more eventful.")

* ''TheChroniclesOfRiddick'', in the final duel; except that rather than showing no signs of weakening, Riddick kept seeming to leap back from YouCanBarelyStand to full strength. This may be justified, as it happens right after [[spoiler:he sees his daughter-figure murdered, and it was established in ''Pitch Black'' that things like this make him a little psychotic (like the death of Carolyn.)]]

*** Which would indicate that Captain Atom is about as strong as Superman, who was handing Darkseid his own keister in ''Destroyer.'' If the creators hadn't been so determined to divide the League up by [[spoiler:character creator]], the story might have ended without using [[spoiler:Luthor to save the world]] or [[spoiler:Darkseid getting what he wanted]].

** ''OnePiece'' has fallen into this recently thanks to its "pirates VS marines" BattleRoyaleWithCheese: when a large quantity of characters have been shot, stabbed and still getup, and each of these characters have unique superpowers you need to pay attention to it's really difficult to decide which side is winning.

[[AC:{{Film}}]]
* {{Superman}} versus the agents of Zod in ''Superman 2''. Exactly how much does being punched through a skyscraper hurt Superman?
** This is why the tense moment at the end of that fight when Superman is believed to be dead completely fails to fool the audience. Sure, he got crushed by a bus, but he's ''Superman'', for goodness sake. You'd have a hard time convincing us that that'd even knock the wind out of him.
* This can even happen in movies about supposedly normal mortals:
** [[JamesBond Bond]] and Trevelyn's fight at the end of ''{{Goldeneye}}''.
** ''{{Rocky}}'' tends to fall into this trap, getting worse as time goes on; ''V'' is probably the worst offender.
*** ''{{Rocky}} IV'' is bad, too. Ivan Drago managed to ''kill'' Apollo Creed with one of his punches, and Rocky is still able to hold him off for ten minutes screen time before his "come-from-behind" win.
** ''FaceOff'': You would think that getting stabbed by a butterfly knife (and twist to make sure the wound won't close) would end a fight. No? How about a Harpoon to the gut? Still going? These guys didn't even slow down despite receiving wounds that at the very least should have made them limp.
* ''TheChroniclesOfRiddick'', in the final duel; except that rather than showing no signs of weakening, Riddick kept seeming to leap back from YouCanBarelyStand to full strength. This may be justified, as it happens right after [[spoiler:he sees his daughter-figure murdered, and it was established in ''Pitch Black'' that things like this make him a little psychotic (like the death of Carolyn.)]]

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* Superman versus Captain Marvel in ''JusticeLeagueUnlimited''. Superman eventually won by forcing Captain Marvel to [[ByThePowerOfGreyskull revert to his eight-year-old form]].
** Taken to the extreme in the GrandFinale, where the fight between Superman and Darkseid goes on for far too long, and is mostly Darkseid smacking the crap out of Superman, with several blows that look like they ''should'' be devastating - one looks like it'd break Superman's back! - but don't noticeably affect his ability to fight in any way. What makes this even crazier is that it seems like ''Batman'' - yes, ''Batman'' - tries to mix it up with Darkseid, and because of this trope, it seems like his jump-kick is about as effective as Superman. And after enduring this horrific, brutal abuse from a stronger-than-ever Darkseid for the ''entire episode'', Superman gets up, shrugs it off, comes up with the WorldOfCardboardSpeech and a CrowningMomentOfAwesome...but the comeback doesn't even last as long as it took him to ''get through'' the speech, when he's interrupted by a device that ''puts him in as much pain as is physically possible'', and ''that'' ends the fight.
** On the other hand, decently averted in the episode "Flash Point", in a brawl between CaptainAtom and Superman - the two of them (particularly the Captain) visibly take damage and slow down as the fight goes on.
*** Which would indicate that Captain Atom is about as strong as Superman, who was handing Darkseid his own keister in ''Destroyer.'' If the creators hadn't been so determined to divide the League up by [[spoiler:character creator]], the story might have ended without using [[spoiler:Luthor to save the world]] or [[spoiler:Darkseid getting what he wanted]].
** On a similar note: SupermanDoomsday. The titular characters go at it in Metropolis, [[NoHoldsBarredBeatDown relentlessly beating on each other]], though Superman seems to get the worst of it until the end.
* How ''FamilyGuy'''s Peter vs. Giant Chicken fights tend to go, although they accumulate at least cosmetic injuries over the course of the fight. It helps that they're all [[RuleOfFunny played for laughs]] and pretty much happening for no reason anyway.
* ''{{Transformers}}'' often faces this problem and ''BeastWars'' especially: the Predacons (most commonly [[TheChewToy Waspinator]]) are frequently blown into pieces, and often survive without even going into the "safety lock" emergency state, yet [[spoiler:Dinobot]] died while largely intact. The shows offers the (surprisingly consistent) justification that it doesn't matter how much they're torn apart, as long as their [[OurSoulsAreDifferent Spark]] has energon supplied to it they can be put back together. Thus [[spoiler:Dinobot]] died not from injuries, but because he kept fighting long after his system told him to shut-down.
** Waspinator's spark is also located within his head, allowing him to survive attacks and mishaps that blow him to pieces. This spark placement is meant to be very unusual.
* ''TheSpectacularSpiderMan'''s fights, while indeed fitting the "spectacular" label, tend to fall into this - Spidey will get thrashed around for most of the battle, and only finally start to visibly slow down when it's time for the climax.

[[AC:WebOriginal]]
* Mounty Oum's ''{{Haloid}}'' had somewhat realistic levels of combat, given that the two combatants were wearing armor that would rival a 50-ton tank. However, his follow up series ''DeadFantasy'' has characters taking insane amounts of damage and just getting up for more. In addition to the random pummeling and slashing, the most notable moments so far were Kasumi taking a bullet to the chest and just getting knocked down for a bit and Tifa taking an axe to her exposed midriff and not even flinching (although she did get knocked back about twenty feet).
* Of course, seeing as it's based off ''DragonballZ'', ''SuperMarioBrosZ'' is a big offender. The worst was probably the Team Mario/Axem Rangers/KoopaBros melee. Can anyone truly say that Axem Yellow's hammer attack he performed on Sonic, should have left Sonic with no problem? That still does not stop the fights from being FREAKING AWESOME.
** What about Axem Red slashing the shit out of Mario with his axe (doing seemingly little damage, if any at all) while [[spoiler: both Green and Black were killed by a single axe swipe]] later? Not to mention Mecha Sonic being able to soak up a ton of attacks from various sources, yet being knocked out of his NighInvulnerable SuperMode by [[spoiler: CollisionDamage Mario and Sonic ''sharing'' a star?]]
*** Sharing a [[spoiler:'''''SuperStar''''']]
* Tennyo vs. the Arch-Fiend, in the story ''Boston Brawl'' of the WhateleyUniverse. It just keeps escalating, and they just keep healing up, all the way until a building falls on them. They both get up from it [[spoiler: but the Arch-Fiend is out of energy, and Tennyo is just pissed off.]]
** Averted with Sara, who has similar regeneration abilities. Getting cut in half meant she was pretty much doomed, and needed to eat FAST. Fortunately, some minions are nearby.

[[AC:ComicBooks]]
* In one of the later ''ElfQuest'' stories there's an entire chapter in which Cutter and Rayek settle their ancient grudge by beating the crap out of each other in the troll caverns. At first they're just using fists and feet, but as the fight goes on it escalates to the point where they're bashing each other with huge chunks of rock. Even when Rayek is half-dead from all the punishment he refuses to give up, telling Cutter that he "hasn't had enough". [[spoiler:Actually there's method in his madness - what Rayek means is that Cutter hasn't had enough ''revenge'' yet. He knows the only way he can ever settle the quarrel once and for all is by letting Cutter almost kill him.]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* In ''MetalGearSolid4'', the final fight between Ocelot and Snake is this. Both beat eachother down time after time after time and yet both of them keep getting back on their feet.
** This is also sort of a callback to ''MetalGearSolid'' (the first with the word "Solid" in the title), where [[spoiler:Liquid Snake, who Liquid Ocelot is a doppleganger of, simply ''won't '''die'''.'' You actually fight him a total of ''four'' times - ''five'' if you're counting both halves of the REX battle]].
* ''{{Dissidia}}'' features leads and antagonists of most of the ''FinalFantasy'' series duking it out with Brave attacks (that merely strengthen the attacker's next attack and weaken the opponent's) and HP ones (that actually deal damage), both featuring sharp weaponry and explosive magic. While all of the characters involved are inhumanly tough, strong and agile, there is no [[GameplayAndStorySegregation in-game explanation]] ''why'' one kind of a seemingly deadly charging slash can wound, while another just discourages the enemy.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]

* The almost unknown RPG "AMMO" (only published in Italy) uses 16 different stats for a character. Half of this are used both as normal stats (like Strenght for damage, or Agility for dodges) and as life points: damages are randomly distributed amongst stats, reducing them. A very wounded character is highly inefficient, expect for magic users that have little use for physical stats anyway.

[[AC:WebComics]]

[[AC:RealLife]]

**Another boxing example: Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward beat the everloving bejesus out of each other, both sustaining incredible amounts of punishment. They ended up fighting [[WasntThatFun three times]], producing much of the same excitement.

* The [[MostTriumphantExample grand champion representation'' of this is in ''HeroicAge''. It's essentially about super-huge reptilian monster things called Nodos that can (and do) destroy small moons with a single attack. This overwhelming power really makes itself apparent when two Nodos are engaged in battle for ''over 300 hours.'' That's nearly two weeks of pummeling each other over and over again with enough force to rend a small celestial body in half. And near the climax of the fight, neither one seems any worse for the wear.

* The grand champion representation of this is in Heroic Age. It's essentially about super-huge reptilian monster things called Nodos that can (and do) destroy small moons with a single attack. This overwhelming power really makes itself apparent when two Nodos are engaged in battle for ''over 300 hours.'' That's nearly two weeks of pummeling each other over and over again with enough force to rend a small celestial body in half. And near the climax of the fight, neither one seems any worse for the wear.