History Main / Kevlard

* Male elephant seals have thick layers of blubber and skin, especially on their necks. These protect them when they fight for dominance, where they viciously bite each other's head and neck region and try to angle themselves so the rival bites into an area of thicker blubbler.

Characters with a TrampolineTummy often also have Kevlard in order to protect their internal organs from damage.

* There are enemies in ''[[VideoGame/ScottPilgrim Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Video Game]]'' that repel attacks using their prodigious girth.

* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' provides a surpising subversion: while the heavily-muscled and aptly named Tank has the highest health, the next largest of the infected cast, the Boomer, has the ''lowest''. Justified by its size being pressurized bile rather than fat.

* The disadvantage 'Obese' in ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' gives you notable amounts of all-important stamina at the cost of movement speed. Some builds can really abuse that.

[[folder:Web Videos]]
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pO9fiMv73o&feature=youtu.be Zacharias Holmes]]. He is the epitome of this trope.
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* Po, the protagonist of ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'', is an average fighter overall, but his sheer mass allows him to absorb attacks that would incapacitate a less solidly built person. By the end of the movie, it becomes a ChekhovsSkill [[spoiler:as his adipose layers diffuse [[BigBad Tai Lung]]'s deadly PressurePoint attacks into tickles]]. In [[WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2 the sequel]], Mr. Ping points out that Po has lost weight, but while this makes him more agile than before, he also seems to be less able to take a hit.

* In ''LightNovel/ShakuganNoShana'', Shana once fought a minor mook who was so fat that she commented she had to use a lot of force so her sword could penetrate his flesh. This also made it difficult to find his core and permanently kill him.

* Bouncing Boy of the ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'' is NighInvulnerable in his inflated form and can rebound off of any surface, or resist any physical impact that hits him.

This ''is'' TruthInTelevision, but not to the extent that fiction portrays it. For humans it might add some cushioning against a punch or two,[[labelnote:*]]it also protects against cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight[[/labelnote]] but it does nothing against a bullet.[[labelnote:*]]To have enough body mass to stop, or at least ablate small arms fire, you'd need to be the size and build of a literal hippo.[[/labelnote]] When applied to fictional characters, the protective properties of fat tissue can be exaggerated to superhuman levels.

This ''is'' TruthInTelevision, but not to the extent that fiction portrays it. For humans it might add some cushioning against a punch or two,[[labelnote:note]]it also protects against cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight[[/labelnote]] but it does nothing against a bullet.[[labelnote:*]]To have enough body mass to stop, or at least ablate small arms fire, you'd need to be the size and build of a literal hippo.[[/labelnote]] When applied to fictional characters, the protective properties of fat tissue can be exaggerated to superhuman levels.

This ''is'' TruthInTelevision, but not to the extent that fiction portrays it. For humans it might add some cushioning against a punch or two[[labelnote:note]](it also protects against cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight)[[/labelnote]], but it does nothing against a bullet[[labelnote:*]]to have enough body mass to stop, or at least ablate small arms fire, you'd need to be the size and build of a literal hippo.[[/labelnote]]. When applied to fictional characters, the protective properties of fat tissue can be exaggerated to superhuman levels.

* Subversion: a ''Franchise/RoboCop'' comic book had a minor villain that appeared very fat. Lewis tries to drop him with a standard double-tap, just for the villain to shrug it off and casually gloat that what looked like fat was actually custom-made body armor made to look like fat. Lewis addresses this problem by [[spoiler: wrestling him to the ground and pressing the barrel of her sidearm square against the center of his forehead. "Wanna try that trick again?"]]

** There's also [[StoutStrength Strong Belwas]], an ex-gladiator whose signature was to let each enemy cut his massive, scar-covered belly once before killing them. His fat also sort of served him as a protection [[spoiler: when he ate a bowl of poisoned food intended for Daenerys. It would be lethal for a smaller person, but Belwas survived, though he became horribly ill and lost most of his weight. Fortunately, he is starting to recover]].

In fiction, body fat don’t need to be just an extra encumbrance: for certain people, it's body armor. A fat character will often be resistant or even completely impervious to damage because of their layers of blubber. The flesh will either act like a heap of dough to absorb the punches or like a rubber ball to bounce everything off (often with a comedic "BOING"), and in rare cases bullets or other projectiles will be negated. The character might even go out of their way to build up fat so they can fight more effectively.

In fiction, fat doesn't necessarily mean the character is out of shape -- it's body armor. A fat character will often be resistant or even entirely impervious to damage because of their layers of blubber. Punches will be absorbed or deflected, often with a comedic BOING, and in rare cases, bullets or other projectiles will be diverted. They might even go out of their way to build up fat so they can fight more effectively.

This ''is'' TruthInTelevision, but not to the extent that fiction portrays it. On human scales, it might add some cushioning against a punch or two[[labelnote:note]](it also protects against cut wounds and shields nerves and blood vessels in a fight)[[/labelnote]], but it does nothing against a bullet[[labelnote:*]]to have enough body mass to stop, or atleast ablate small arms fire, you'd need to be the size and build of a literal hippo.[[/labelnote]]. However, characters with Kevlard seem to bypass this downside entirely.

* ''Videogame/{{OFF}}'' has the third guardian, Enoch, who has thick enough fat to make attacking him straight on [[HopelessBossFight completely and utterly useless]], and even when you manage to find how to hurt him, he still has ridiculous health, losing only to the Queen and a BonusBoss in sheer [[MarathonBoss tankiness]].

** The Thugs [[DegradedBoss succeed the game's first boss]] from a few levels earlier before their introduction; said boss behaves almost the same way as them, the difference being that he can only be damaged with a shotgun.

** The game's main example of this is the Thugs, a type of mobster who are notably fatter than normal ones. They're immune to melee weapons and take a while to die from gunfire.

** Defied in "Homer Badman": Once ''Rock Bottom'' is forced to display a list of corrections to their many [[DanBrowned erroneous reports]], one of them is "Bullets do not bounce off of fat guys".

* In Literature/TheBible, Eglon, the king of Moab, gets stabbed by an Israelite in an assassination attempt. He's so fat that the Israelite pushes the sword into him, blade, hilt and all, and it doesn't come out the back. (Judges 3:12) [[SubvertedTrope He still dies, though]].

* In the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' episode [[Recap/PokemonS1E41WakeUpSnorlax "Wake Up Snorlax!"]], Ash tries to catch a Snorlax that fell asleep and is blocking a river ([[spoiler:actually, the riverbed was already dry because of an overgrown bramble thicket upstream from the Snorlax]]). The Snorlax's body fat causes the Pokéball to bounce off without triggering. [[spoiler:Though it's later revealed that this Snorlax actually already belonged to this episode's [[OneShotCHaracter character of the day]], so that might have also been a factor.]]