History Main / Kevlard

* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' plays with this trope in a very literal way with Roadhog: He's a [[BalloonBelly comically oversized]] guy who only wears shoulder armor. Despite this, he's tied with a ''MiniMecha'' for highest innate health at 600. The other Tanks, men, women and [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys gorillas]] in PoweredArmor, have about 500 health that's supplanted by [[RegeneratingShieldStaticHealth Shields]] (which regenerate when out of combat) or [[ArmorAsHitPoints Armor]] (which has damage mitigation).

* Weaponized by Fat Gum in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': Attacks and weaponry that impact his tremendous belly are nullified by the fat and absorbed into it as he wills it. Presumably, he can suffocate people in there, but he's too much of a NiceGuy to do it and uses his powers strictly to disarm or neutralize his enemies.

It's important to make the distinction between this and MightyGlacier: Mighty Glacier characters are simply those who are strong and slow, and it more often applies to huge, muscled characters. Kevlard, however, specifically refers to the body armor properties of pure lard, not muscle. Regardless, a Kevlard has a high probability of ending up as a Mighty Glacier or a StoneWall anyway, as it is difficult to envision the character as [[FragileSpeedster fast or fragile]].

Is TruthInTelevision but not to the extent that fiction portrays it. 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. However, characters with Kevlard seem to bypass this downside entirely.

* Sawbuck of the Felt from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'' can take a lot of damage, and hops through time every time he's hit by something.

* ''ComicBook/Captainamerica'': * Another obese Marvel villain is the Slug. Like the Blob, his fat makes him hard to hurt through attacks to the stomach (though attacks to the head will do just fine). Unlike the Blob, he is unable to move without technical aid and his fighting skill is absolutely pathetic, so he's a StoneWall at best. He can actually [[CruelAndUnusualDeath suffocate people using the folds of fat on his body]].

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* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', fat realistically serves as a layers of tissue that may take damage from an attack instead of a more important body part. More bizarrely, in Adventure Mode you can repeatedly ''[[ViolationOfCommonSense set yourself on fire]]'' and put it out after a while to remove all the fat in your body. If you survive you become effectively fireproof because [[GoodBadBugs heat does not kill you through burning, it kills you by melting tissue (which except at very high temperatures is usually fat) to make you bleed to death.]]
* Temperance (a morbidly obese zombie) from ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead 4''. Even though you could actually stop him from attacking you by shooting his head, it was impossible to do any real damage to him via your bullets. You had to drop a clock on his head to beat him.
* ''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'' health. Pretty much justified by the fact that he serves as the suicide bomber of the group, deals the most claw damage, and is mostly combustable gas under all that fat.

* ''Super VideoGame/PunchOut'' (arcade) introduces Bear Hugger, a fat boxer who is immune to body blows; punching him in the stomach will just cause him to stick his tongue out at you, and you have to take him down with punches to the head.
** In the SNES version, Bear Hugger is vulnerable in the midsection when he taunts you; hitting him at the right time will stun him. Mad Clown in the SNES version is another fat boxer who plays similarly to Bear Hugger. They'll both shrug off body blows in most cases.
** In the Wii version, Bear Hugger actually takes some slight damage when punched in the belly, but it's still a better strategy to go for the face.
** Inverted with King Hippo in the NES and Wii games as his big belly is his weak spot. In the Wii game's Title Defense mode, he even tapes a manhole cover over it.
* Bob from ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' purposely gained weight so he could have this advantage.
* There are enemies in ''[[VideoGame/ScottPilgrim Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Video Game]]'' that repel attacks using their prodigious girth.


* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'': Downplayed: the Heavy Weapons Guy has both the biggest girth and the most hit points of the nine classes, but he's ''also'' one of the only two classes wearing body armor in-game.
* In the second and third ''VideoGame/WhatDidIDoToDeserveThisMyLord'' games, "Fat" monsters can evolve if you starve some of your monsters to death. Fat Lizardmen, in particular, are incredibly durable compared to the garden variety lizardmen, with nearly double the amount of hit points and defense.

* This is how Bear Druids, in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', fulfill their tanking role. Other tanks have shields and weapons to block and parry oncoming attacks. Bear Druids have neither, but have substantially more armor rating (especially through talents like "Thick Hide") and health points in order to simply soak up the damage. Oh, and to do this, they literally become bears.

* The Lard powerup in ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' makes Isaac fat, and raises his maximum HP. In addition, the variants of the "Fatty" enemy have large health pools compared to other enemies found on their floors, and Fat Bats are much tankier than the standard bats. The bosses Mega Fatty, The Cage, and Sisters Vis have [[DamageSpongeBoss tremendous amounts of health]] compared to other bosses of similar difficulty, and are all morbidly obese.
* Black Bull in ''VideoGame/ShadowTheHedgehog'' is an enormous, flying beast with one eye and several layers of blubbery fat. Attacking its eye is the surest way to bring it down, as its fat makes it mostly impervious to damage. (''Mostly'' because attacking its body still causes damage, but at a slower rate than attacking its eye.)

* In ''VideoGame/DungeonKeeper'', Bile Demons are so obese they're spherical, in the sequel take up 4 tiles in a Lair where most creatures take one, eat a lot, and are very slow. However their health is miles beyond any other creature you can access without advanced buildings, and they're immune to slap damage.
* The Large Body and Fat Bandit heartless in the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series are immune to most physical attacks from the front because of their belly fat.
* One of the effects you can get in ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' via a Crimbo skill is "A Few Extra Pounds", which adds extra HP depending on your level.
* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' has "The Stone Gullet of L'Phall The Gross" - which has the backstory that L'Phall was a respected, but obese professor. At a banquet, some folks decided to play a practical joke on him by slipping some Flesh to Stone potion in his wine, intending to turn him back after they had a good laugh. Hours later, L'Phall complained of stomach pain - it turned out that he ate so much at the banquet that it diluted the potion, and only turned his stomach to stone. He lived for many years after that, and his stone gullet was removed after his death as a curiousity. The Nameless One can eat it (it has the consistency of stale bread) to gain some resistance to (stomach) acid.
* ''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]].
* [[DeadWeight Fat zombies]] in ''VideoGame/TheLastStand: Union City'' are three to four times as tough as regular zombies. It makes no difference on how fast they can run either.
* The ''VideoGame/FatalFury'' series has Cheng Sinzan, who blocks attacks with his large belly.
* In ''VideoGame/ForHonor'', the samurai Heavy class, the [[MightyGlacier Shugoki]], is a massive sumo-style warrior who is noticeably overweight. The Shugoki's defensive bonus manifests in the form of an Uninterruptable Stance: the first hit a Shugoki takes doesn't stagger him the way other characters are outside of certain special moves or combos, which allows them to punish overly aggressive opponents with a mighty strike from their spiked kanabo. However, subsequent hits while this "hyperarmor" is down deal increased damage, forcing the Shugoki to time their slow attacks with it. While his Uninterruptible Stance is up, the Shugoki also takes a 90% damage reduction, meaning that they can [[StoneWall shrug off attacks that would kill literally any other character in the game]], including direct hits from ''catapults''.

* The Slobbers in ''VideoGame/EpicMickey'' have this immunity; physically hitting them in their guts simply bounces you away while they laugh.
* Chuchus in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' are the game's resident BlobMonster enemy, and are fairly weak and easy to defeat. However, they absorb blunt impacts from Goron Link's fists and can't be hurt from his punches.
* The "Big Ben" class of enemies in ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' have big beer bellies and can knock you down with a big backhanded slap or curling into a ball and rolling into you. Because they're so fat, they have more health than most average mooks.
* Klumps in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' are fat Kremlings that have a big gut and cannot be defeated with a GoombaStomp by Diddy Kong due to him being too light to do so. Donkey Kong can stomp on them with no trouble since he's heavier and stronger than Diddy.
* One of the heroic abilities your best commanders may receive in ''VideoGame/{{Dominions}}'' is Unequaled Obesity, which raises the commander's hitpoints with no evident downsides. How that commander spontaneously develops said obesity within a month following undisclosed heroic actions, is left as an exercise to the player.

* In ''Webcomic/TheBeastLegion'', Sglutton posses the ability to [[http://www.thebeastlegion.com/issue-08-page-06-sgluttons-ability/ expand his body]] to absorb & repel attacks although limited.

** And in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E17HomerTheSmithers Homer the Smithers]]" when the two titular characters get into a fistfight, Smithers' fist gets stuck in Homer's stomach, which prompts Homer to laugh and push Smithers' head. Until he gets angry and bites, at which point they both separate.

* ''WesternAnimation/SheZow'': [=SheZow=] temporarily develops this power when she becomes overweight in "She Phat"; being able to bounce Señor Yo-Yo's yo-yos off her fat.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheBatman'': Cluemaster, an extremely obese BasementDweller in this version, [[NoSell shrugs off]] a flying kick from Batman, whose leg gets stuck in the flab.
* In ''WesternAnimation/CelebrityDeathmatch'', Music/FionaApple was pitted against [[Music/BluesTraveler John Popper]]. Not only did John Popper's fat protect him from Fiona's punches, it caused her limbs to shatter upon impact. He ultimately won when he rolled over on top of her, [[SquashedFlat squashing her flat.]]

* In ''Manga/OnePiece'':
** During the Black Cat Pirates arc, the Meowban Brothers are hit with the swordsman Zoro's FinishingMove. It nearly slices the skinny one in two, but the fat one survives.
--->'''Zoro:''' ''"All that blubber saved him..."''
** Trébol gives off this appearance as well, with objects or attacks thrown at him having no effect, as they just get stuck on his body, but it's actually because of his Stick-Stick Fruit powers, which allows him to generate adhesives from his body. [[spoiler:He's not actually fat at all, but is actually covered in a thick coat of sticky goop that he shaped into something resembling a fat body, which allows him to withstand devastating attacks--his goop takes the damage for him.]]

* Kurita of ''Manga/Eyeshield21'' has this mildly. The average high schooler can't really hurt him, but a lot of the linemen he plays against are around his size and can do plenty of damage.

* Thor from ''Manga/KenichiTheMightiestDisciple'' claims this as a sumo wrestler's advantage, and indeed, Kenichi seems unable to harm him to any great degree, despite his surprisingly impressive physical strength. Kenichi ends up having to win the fight via ring-out.

* Weaponized by Fat Gum in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'': Attacks and weaponry that impact his tremendous belly are nullified by the fat and absorbed into it as he wills it. Presumably, he can suffocate people in there, but he's too much of a NiceGuy to do it and uses his powers strictly to disarm or neutralize his enemies.
* 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.

* The Blob from ''ComicBook/XMen'', pictured above, has this as his superpower -- he's NighInvulnerable FatBastard who can make himself literally immovable (more to do with manipulation of his mass than any idea that being fat is itself a superpower.) How tough is he? At least once, he was ''[[NoSell totally unfazed]] by Cyclops' power beam!''

* Another obese Marvel villain is the Slug. Like the Blob, his fat makes him hard to hurt through attacks to the stomach (though attacks to the head will do just fine). Unlike the Blob, he is unable to move without technical aid and his fighting skill is absolutely pathetic, so he's a StoneWall at best. He can actually [[CruelAndUnusualDeath suffocate people using the folds of fat on his body]].

* In ''Film/{{Pet}}'', Seth distracts Nate and stabs him in the gut. Though it bleeds, Nate is so fat that he doesn't even ''notice'' until he looks down. Then he gets angry and throws Seth across the room.

* In ''Film/{{Stiletto}}'', Virgil survives Raina's first attack on him because he he is overweight and her blade fails to penetrate far enough to hit any vital organs. He later tells Beck that if he had been a 100 lb weakling, he would be dead.
* Downplayed in ''Film/{{Polar}}'' when a [[ProfessionalKiller member of the A-Team]] shoots an overweight victim five times with a pistol, only to find to everyone's surprise that he's still alive, so the [[NoKillLikeOverKill entire team open up on him with automatic weapons]].

* In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' Sergeant Jackrum claims his fat is like armor, and that a man once stuck a sword in it up to the hilt, and was very surprised when he got [[UseYourHead nutted]] in response. Of course, Jackrum said that to reassure the troops about attacking the enemy keep.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Darksiders}}: The Abomination Vault'', Death and War fight a demon that is so fat that even if their weapons cut into it, they cannot hurt it. The solution? One grabs the upper jaw, another grabs the lower, then they twist it inside out.
* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'':
** Lord Wyman Manderley, a highly rotund northern lord, survives a throat slash because of his corpulence. He sustains the injury after reveling a bit too much in his subtle punishment to the Freys.
** There's also [[StoutStrength Strong Belwas]], who, when fighting, lets 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 one of ''Literature/TheDestroyer'' books, Chiun relates to Remo the legend of how the sumo came to be: as a bodyguard group for somebody who expected a Master of Sinanju to come after him, with the fat a specific defense against the art's ludicrously powerful PressurePoint techniques. Not that it did him any good, but as a remembrance one part of the test for mastery in Sinanju requires the student to defeat a sumo in a ritual match. Remo is undergoing such a match while Chiun tells him the story (interspersed with telling him the ''rules'' of a sumo match, which happen to negate all of the easy ways Remo could win it).

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Manswers}}'' revealed you need to be over 1000lbs for your fat to be able to stop a bullet from killing you.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' gives us a feat aptly called 'Obese' in the BookOfVileDarkness. It increases constitution by 2 at the expense of dexterity, thus increasing your hit points.
* A disadvantage of same name in ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'' gives you notable amounts of all-important stamina at the cost of movement speed. Some builds can really abuse that.
* The Grael from ''TabletopGame/FiftyFathoms'', being a race of seal-people, have a natural layer of blubber, which is thick enough to act as armour.

* [[DeadWeight Fatty zombies]] in ''TabletopGame/{{Zombicide}}'' are zombies who, by virtue of being fat, take much more punishment than your average walker or runner zombie.

* Played with in the Polish RPG "Afterbomb Madness", one of the playable races, the Flaccids are humans with a mutation that gives them extremely loose skin that looks like [[TheGrotesque it could fit on someone three times their size, they get around this by wrapping it around their limbs and using staples, piercings and the like to hold it in place]], on the plus side [[CursedWithAwesome their skin can, among other things, heal superficial wounds quickly and act as natural armor]]. The gamebook actually lampshades the fact that people who never saw a Flaccid before assume "loose skin" and "resistance to injury" means they play this trope straight.
* [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in TabletopGame/WorldTreeRPG. In that universe, the ability to keep living is based on your spirit's grip on your flesh. This can be increased either by taking damage on a regular basis (thus increasing your "grip strength") or by adding more flesh (giving the spirit more to hang on to).

* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', fat realistically serves as a layers of tissue that may take damage from an attack instead of a more important body part. More bizarrely, in Adventure Mode you can repeatedly ''[[ViolationOfCommonSense set yourself on fire]]'' and put it out after a while to remove all the fat in your body. If you survive you become effectively fireproof because [[GoodBadBugs heat does not kill you through burning, it kills you by melting tissue (which except at very high temperatures is usually fat) to make you bleed to death.]]
* Temperance (a morbidly obese zombie) from ''VideoGame/HouseOfTheDead 4''. Even though you could actually stop him from attacking you by shooting his head, it was impossible to do any real damage to him via your bullets. You had to drop a clock on his head to beat him.

* Po in ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda'' is an average fighter overall, but his secret technique relies on his sheer mass to absorb attacks. By the end of the movie, it becomes a ChekhovsSkill [[spoiler:as it renders him immune to Tai Lung's paralyzing nerve strikes]].
* In ''WesternAnimation/KungFuPanda2'', Mr. Ping points out that Po has lost weight. He also seems to be less able to take a hit.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E24Homerpalooza Homerpalooza]]": Homer Simpson uses his body fat to stop cannonballs when performing in a freak show. [[RealityEnsues His body still accumulates damage over doing this repeatedly]], which would have inevitably killed him if he continued.

* Downplayed in ''Film/{{Polar}}'' when a [[ProfessionalKiller member of the A-Team]] shoots an overweight victim five times with a pistol, only to find to their surprise that he's still alive, so the [[NoKillLikeOverKill entire team open up on him with automatic weapons]].

* Mister Heart is one famous example from ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. He was, in fact, the first enemy shown that Ken couldn't simply kill in one blow; his body fat protected him from Ken's fatal FingerPokeOfDoom. Ken had to resort [[CrazyPrepared a kicking attack made specifically to fight this kind of opponent and force the fat out of the way before striking forward with his killing blow]]. Shin, on the other hand, says that he would have had no problems with him as his Nanto piercing and slicing techniques would gone through his fat as easily as any other flesh -- and proves it by casually cutting his cheek without even touching him. In the anime, Ken was travelling with Rei at the time. Rei, also a Nanto practitioner, offered to fight on Ken's behalf, but Ken refused simply because he wanted to prove his style wouldn't be shut down by blubber.

* ''Webcomic/FairyDust'''s trolls often survive gunfights because it's hard to aim for one's center of mass when one's mass is all over the place.

** During the Sannin arc, Kabuto fails at a lethal strike aimed at Tsunade’s heart. He finds himself wondering if her enormous breasts blocked the attack.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': Servants of Nurgle tend towards this, their bodies growing massively obese and filled with cancerous growths that block damage and even regenerate their wounds. Although in their case the fat is practically incidental; their resilience comes from the difficulty of doing enough damage to them for it to actually be worse than their usual rotting-alive state.

* Subversion: In the Marvel Universe, ComicBook/TheKingpin appears to be a monstrously obese man who appears to harness the power of Kevlard. However, once he actually takes off his shirt and starts fighting, it's apparent he is ripped as hell, thus making him a MightyGlacier instead.

* In ''{{Stiletto}}'', Virgil survives Raina's first attack on him because he he is overweight and her blade fails to penetrate far enough to hit any vital organs. He later tells Beck that if he had been a 100 lb weakling, he would be dead.

* [[VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry King K. Rool]] in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' has a counterattack move that involves using his gut to bounce the opponent's attack back at them.

* ''VideoGame/{{Overwatch}}'' plays with this trope in a very literal way with Roadhog: He's a [[BalloonBelly comically oversized]] guy who only wears shoulder armor. Despite this, he's tied with a ''MiniMecha'' for highest innate health at 600. The other Tanks, men, women and [[EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys gorillas]] in PoweredArmor, have about 500 health that's supplanted by [[RegeneratingShieldStaticHealth Shields]] (which regenerate when out of combat) or [[ArmorAsHealth Armor]] (which has damage mitigation).

* Mister Heart is one famous example from ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. He was, in fact, the first enemy shown that Ken couldn't simply kill in one blow; his body fat protected him from Ken's fatal FingerPokeOfDoom. Ken had to resort [[CrazyPrepared a kicking attack made specifically to fight this kind of opponent and force the fat out of the way before striking forward with his killing blow]]. Shin, on the other hand, says that he would have had no problems with him as his Nanto piercing and slicing techniques would have pierced and sliced him, fat and all -- and proves it by casually cutting his cheek without even touching him. In the anime, Ken was travelling with Rei at the time. Rei, also a Nanto practitioner, offered to fight on Ken's behalf, but Ken refused simply because he wanted to prove his style wouldn't be shut down by blubber.

* Mister Heart is one famous example from ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar''. He was, in fact, the first enemy shown that Ken couldn't simply kill in one blow; his body fat protected him from Ken's fatal FingerPokeOfDoom. Ken had to resort [[CrazyPrepared a kicking attack made specifically to fight this kind of opponents and force the fat out of the way before striking forward with his killing blow]]. Shin, on the other hand, says that he would have had no problems with him as his Nanto piercing and slicing techniques would have pierced and sliced him, fat and all -- and proves it by casually cutting his cheek without even touching him.

** Buyon, the MonsterOfTheWeek from Episode 40 of the original ''Manga/DragonBall'' series, was the first monster to deflect Goku's Kamehameha without taking even a scratch and could only be defeated by [[WeaksauceWeaknes}} freezing]] [[BossArenaIdiocy him]].