History Main / NotSoInvincibleAfterall

Many times, this trope is used in high drama where everyone's fighting and killing each other to bring the cast down to earth for long enough to realize that, hey, they may be powerful, but they're still human.

* In two alternate timelines of ''DragonBall Z'', Goku dies of a heart disease. In the normal timeline, he takes a medicine brought from one of those futures to treat it.

* In ''FateStayNight'' Berserker is a proud user of TheLawOfDiminishingDefensiveEffort, tanking seemingly every attack directed at him without injury. This illusion of invincibility lasts until Archer fights him.

* In ''{{Hellsing}}'', Father Alexander Anderson had for the most part seemed to be TheJuggernaut, regenerating from even headshots with explosive rounds. Then at the start of their last encounter, Alucard uses his Jackal HandCannon to blow off part of Alex's left arm, and Alex finds that he cannot regenerate the damage.

* ''{{Naruto}}'' gives us the example of Kimimaro, an extremely powerful member of the Sound Five, who nearly kills Gaara and Lee, only to succumb to his fatal illness.

* In ''OnePiece'', it is later revealed that [[spoiler:Gold Roger turned himself in to the World Government because he had an incurable illness that developed four years before his execution]].

* This trope is the reason why Makoto Shishio died on ''RurouniKenshin.'' It isn't because he was burned alive (though this incidentally was the cause), shot in the head, took a tremendously powerful blow to the head, took several more extremely powerful blows to the body, was shot through a wall, and was hit dead on by arguably the most powerful attack in the series but because he "surpassed his limit", which caused him to spontaneously combust due to all of his sweat glands being melted.

* In season 3 of ''SonicX'' when Yellow Zelkova tries to carry out his master's orders to kill Sonic and friends. His battle with them takes place on a Volcanic Planet as he viciously battles to the death with Knuckles [[spoiler:where not only does Zelkova's armor get destroyed, revealing his (and Dark Oak's) race's true appearance, but also is knocked off a cliff and slides into molten lava [[SonicTheHedgehogTheMovie in a VERY familiar scene]].]] Chris even acknowledges this trope in the english version of the series:

* Downplayed in Literature/TheZombieKnight. Just after he is first shown to be a good guy, he gets splashed in the face with [[HollywoodAcid soul-empowered hydrochloric acid]] and has his face melted off. He is useless for the rest of the fight because he can't see a thing without his glasses.
* One hallmark of the CosmicHorrorStory genre is that everything, even abominations like Cthulhu, is insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Even great Cthulhu is ultimately doomed to die, cold and alone, in the depths.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' was brought low by a bout of flu in "Killed by Death". [[ContrivedCoincidence Handily]], this gave her a reason to investigate a series of deaths in the local hospital.

When done poorly, may be regarded as a DroppedABridgeOnHim. Such a moment may occur when a user of TheLawOfDiminishingDefensiveEffort takes a hit from something that can go through his defence.

* Madame Souza of ''TheTripletsOfBelleville'' is a virtual ImplacableMan who crosses the Atlantic in a pedal boat and manages to wipe out the French Mafia with no more aid than three other elderly women and an incredibly fat dog. The ending implies that she died of old age sometime after the events of the film proper.

* In the movie ''TheMatrixReloaded'', after Neo stopped a hail of bullets, the Merovingian's mooks pick up swords and start fighting him. When Neo stops a sword with his outstretched hand, a drop of blood from his hand hits the floor. The Merovingian then says "See! He's just a man!" Cue Neo taking swords off the wall and defeating the mooks.

** In one version, he sat under it, told it that it was the only friend he had... and ''then'' it fell on his head and killed him.

* {{Warcraft}}3: Many boss characters are not only very powerful, and possess game breaking spells, but they also have Divine armor type which only receives 0.1% damage from all types, making them practically invincible. When the game requires the player to defeat them, a main quest will have them acquire one or more units that do Chaos damage, which completely ignores all armor types including Divine.

* In [[FanFic/MassFoundations Mass Foundations: Redemption in the Stars]], one of the antagonists is [[spoiler:The Collector-General is a hulking figure of solid and lava, able to unleash biotic barrages and with inhumanly durable barriers]]. When [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas The Courier]] ends up fighting it alone, the Broker’s guards consider him doomed and see no reason to intervene. After the creature gets brought to its knees, they finally fire at him … but too late.

* In ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', Izumi Curtis is the Elrics' teacher, a brilliant alchemist and one of the few people they're truly scared of. (Ed and Al often build up the courage to fight a villain with the line "He's not as scary as our teacher!") However, she also suffers from an IncurableCoughOfDeath. Van Hoenheim introduces himself to her by noting her alchemy-induced cough and cures her by ''[[spoiler:jabbing his hand into her midsection and rearranging her organs]]''.
** In [[Anime/FullmetalAlchemist the 2003 anime version's]] [[TheMovie movie]], [[spoiler:it's revealed that she finally succumbed to her illness.]]
* In ''OnePiece'', it is later revealed that [[spoiler:Gold Roger turned himself in to the World Government because he had an incurable illness that developed four years before his execution]].
** [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-zagged]] with Whitebeard versus the Marines, and later, [[spoiler:the Blackbeard Pirates]]. Very much as unstoppable as was claimed of him, [[spoiler:until his death. He ultimately [[RasputinianDeath received 267 bullets, 46 cannonballs, and 52 stab wounds, with half his face melted off]], until he finally [[DiedStandingUp died on his feet]]. However, the reason why they even got so far, was that his health was failing beforehand. This means in his prime, even ''that wouldn't be enough to kill him'']].
* In two alternate timelines of ''DragonBall Z'', Goku dies of a heart disease. In the normal timeline, he takes a medicine brought from one of those futures to treat it.
* This trope is one of the major plot points in ''GunslingerGirl''. While the main characters can destroy buildings full of soldiers and survive gunshots with almost no ill effects, none of them will live out of their teens due to damage done in making them killing machines.
** Their shortened lives are arguably for the best given the things that happen to them. Near the end of the series [[spoiler:Elsa]] finds the one weak point in their bullet resistance and commits suicide by shooting herself in the eye.
* In ''{{Hellsing}}'', Father Alexander Anderson had for the most part seemed to be TheJuggernaut, regenerating from even headshots with explosive rounds. Then at the start of their last encounter, Alucard uses his Jackal HandCannon to blow off part of Alex's left arm, and Alex finds that he cannot regenerate the damage.
** Alucard gets one of these when fighting [[spoiler: Alexander using the Nail of Helena.]]
* In ''FateStayNight'' Berserker is a proud user of TheLawOfDiminishingDefensiveEffort, tanking seemingly every attack directed at him without injury. This illusion of invincibility lasts until Archer fights him.
** To elaborate, Archer makes Berserker BLOCK with one of his fairly basic attacks. And goes on to kill Berserker about five times. [[spoiler: Too bad he has to be killed TWELVE TIMES in order to be permanently dead.]]
* ''{{Durarara}}'''s Shizuo Heiwajima is presented as pretty much damn near invincible for most of the series -- so when Horoda manages to demonstrate that he's not as immune to bullets as he is to blades, it comes as quite a shock. [[spoiler:It's then subverted in the following episode when Shizuo shows up at [[BackAlleyDoctor Shinra's]] place bloody and tremendously annoyed, but not particularly close to death.]]

* In DC's ''ComicBook/{{Hellblazer}}'', John Constantine is known for going up against all manner of demons, supernatural entities, and the Devil himself, and cheating death at every turn. One of the finest {{Story Arc}}s of the series, "Dangerous Habits", begins with John discovering he's got terminal lung cancer. Over the course of the storyline, he attempts to call in every favor he can think of, only to discover that the few beings he knows who have the power to help him don't like him enough to do so. He eventually [[KarmaHoudini weasels out of the situation]], in classic John Constantine style, by [[spoiler: selling his soul to ''all three'' of the Lords of Hell. Since, if John were to die, they would be forced to go to war over his soul (destroying Hell in the process), they are therefore forced to cure his cancer to keep him alive. Naturally, this pisses them off unbelievably, and has consequences later in the series]].
** In the movie he finally manages to redeem himself to void his earlier suicide which had damned his soul. Pissed at not getting Constantine's soul (John flipping him off as he was ascending to Heaven probably didn't help his mood), the Devil cures his cancer at the last moment, so he'll have time to sin again.

* CaptainBritain foe the Fury was killed by [[spoiler: Captain UK]]. This wouldn't be a good example compared to the rest if it wasn't [[TheJuggernaut Fury]], the same being who killed all of it's Universe's superheroes, survived the destruction of the said Universe and get toe-to-toe with one of the most powerful {{Reality Warper}}s in the history [[spoiler: and won]]. And yet, [[spoiler:the UnstoppableRage of one woman]] was enough to teach it the meaning of death and defeat.

* The death of the alien invaders in ''Literature/TheWarOfTheWorlds'' is a classic case, although not a very well foreshadowed one.
* In the DaleBrown book ''The Tin Man'', Patrick [=McLanahan=] is warned that the first version of the titular PoweredArmor he's using is vulnerable to knives, something that turns out to be a ChekhovsGun. [[spoiler: Hal Briggs]] gets this in ''Strike Force'' after running into a Russian trap.
* Porthos the giant member of our band in "The Three Musketeers" and "The Man in the Iron Mask" so big and strong that he can't even kill himself by hanging (though it does cure his impotence which is why he was doing it) is killed holding up a huge rock in "Thirty Years After."
* In ''{{Mistborn}}'', everyone regards [[EvilOverlord the Lord Ruler]] as a terrifying invincible god. Turns out that his power (or rather, a particularly significant part of it) comes from the mystically empowered bracelets he wears on his upper arms which provide him with a limitless supply of youth and vitality- when they get torn ''off'', he immediately begins to revert to his actual age of approximately ''one milennium''. Though he still has his other powers, he can't use them at all effectively while time is rapidly decaying his own body out from under him.

* Sarah Connor in ''[[TheSarahConnorChronicles Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles]]'' suffers from a unique version of this trope, when she learns that in her uninterrupted timeline, after she had fought to keep John alive and saved the world twice, she died from leukemia. She immediately heads to a hospital in an attempt to stop this.

* In an episode of ''{{Farscape}}'', the protagonists find the wreck of the ''Zelbinion'', a legendary Peacekeeper command carrier. Everybody is stunned, as the ship was believed to be indestructible. When they tell this to Crichton, he calmly tells them to talk to LeonardoDiCaprio about [[Film/{{Titanic}} indestructible ships]]. In a later episode, it's revealed that the ship was destroyed by the [[ScaryDogmaticAliens Nebari]], who claim not to have any warships. However, their civilian ships are fully capable of engaging any warship of a galactic power. It's implied that even the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans would have trouble dealing with the Nebari.

** In many Mario games as shown with SuperMarioBros3 and SuperMarioWorld, even while you're power-up with the [[InvincibilityPowerUp Invincibility Star]] you can still get [[DeathThrows death thrown]] by jumping into lava or being crushed by wall and platform.
* Same goes for ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' games, where while [[InvincibilityPowerUp invincible]] you will still be crushed by moving platforms and will still drown underwater.
** In ''[[VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles Sonic the Hedgehog 3]]'', Ice Cap Zone Act 1 has a Knuckles-exclusive area where you must glide from wall to wall and avoid [[SpikesOfDoom spiked balls]]. If you use debug mode or a glitch to get [[SuperMode Super Sonic]] into the area, the spiked balls will ''damage you anyway'', and since the damage knocks your ring count to 0, it ends your Super status. However, in ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'', this is corrected and the Super and Hyper characters can touch the spike balls with no repercussions.
* Ukyo Tachibana from the ''SamuraiShodown'' video game series was set up for this with his tuberculosis, but due to his popularity, SNK has never followed through, except in the obscure and disliked ''Warrior's Rage''.

* [[ThatOneBoss Beldr]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Immortal]] of ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'', who has before made a pact with the earth saying that nothing can hurt him. This makes him NighInvulnerable to every one of your attacks, unless you use the one thing that didn't make the pact: [[spoiler:the Devil's Fuge, or Mistletoe, which has been made into a cell phone strap.]] Not so immortal after all, huh?
* In ''VideoGame/{{Langrisser}}'' (''Warsong'' in North America), [[spoiler: Volkov/Baldarov]] [[KilledOffForReal permanently dies]] from a random arrow in a cutscene at the end of a battle, even though in-game you can take up to nine arrows at a time and still be as good as new after three turns of self-healing (or less, if someone casts a heal spell on you as well).
* Sgt. Johnson in ''{{Halo}} 3'', felled by 343 Guilty Spark at the end of the game.
* One of [[BadassBiker Francis's]] quotes in ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' reads [[TemptingFate "Good thing I'm indestructable."]]
* Tubba Blubba from ''PaperMario''. His invincibility is the plot point of the chapter: you know he has a weakness, you just don't know what it is or where to find it. [[spoiler: It's his heart, separated from his body, which is still very vulnerable. After defeating it, it flees and rejoins its owner, making him not only vulnerable but [[{{AntiClimaxBoss}} weak enough to take out in one turn.]] ]]
* {{Warcraft}}3: Many boss characters are not only very powerful, and possess game breaking spells, they also have Divine armor type which almost completely ignores all damage types, making them practically invincible. When the game requires the player to defeat them, a main quest will have them aquire one or more units that do Chaos damage, which completely ignores all armor types including Divine.
** To be completely precise, Divine Armor only ever gets on the order of 01% of damage dealt from non-Chaos attacks. There have been recorded instances when seemingly-invincible enemies (Chaos!Grom, Cenarius, and Archimonde) were notably damaged. The game, however, gleefully thwarts such an act, railroading the plot regardless.
* In a VideoGame/{{Borderlands}} {{DLC}} there is a mission that requires you to defeat a giant crayfish like enemy called Crawmerax the Invincible, and he is by far the hardest boss in the game. Once you defeat him, you can get an achievement called "Vincible"

* A RunningGag in ''CaptainSNES''. Anyone who says the phrase "I am invincible!", regardless of how powerful they are, will end up getting hurt in some way, even if they're only correcting someone else or quoting someone else who said it. In the world of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', an explosion threw a number of treasure boxes all over the world; every single one so far has landed on someone foolish enough to say "I am invincible!" And it happens every single time, without fai... * gets hit by a treasure chest from the sky

* In the opening of the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', Bruce Wayne hangs up the Bat-mantle after a bad heart [[TechnicalPacifist forces him to pull a gun on someone]].
* In the second ''CareBears'' movie the villain Darkheart falls out of a rowing boat and nearly drowns, needing to be rescued by his own reluctant minion. For reference, this is the same guy who at the beginning of the movie menaced the Care Bears on their boat in the middle of a storm-tossed ocean by taking the form of an enormous serpent, and possesses huge mystical powers. Who'd have guessed he'd be as vulnerable to the old "banana peel on the floor" trick as anyone?

* BugsBunny, one of Western Animation's most iconic {{Comically Invincible Hero}}s was occasionally granted a rather humiliating loss, often at the hands of underestimated foes such as Elmer Fudd or Cecil Turtle. Double points in that the usually unflappable Bugs was [[SoreLoser prone to temper tantrums]] in most of these instances.
** SpeedyGonzales, while not as commonly done, had similar moments. Being even more infallible than Bugs, his one true loss was at the hands of DaffyDuck hitting him on the head with a mallet.

** In ''VideoGame/Sonic3AndKnuckles'', Ice Cap Zone Act 1 has a Knuckles-exclusive area where you must glide from wall to wall and avoid [[SpikesOfDoom spiked balls]]. If you use debug mode to hack a character with [[SuperMode Super or Hyper Mode]] into the area, the spiked balls will ''damage you anyway'', and since the damage knocks your ring count to 0, it ends your Super/Hyper status.

** Same goes for Sonic games, where while [[InvincibilityPowerUp invincible]] you will still be crushed by moving platforms and will still drown underwater.

** Also, during an episode set on a planet of robots who believe humans are evil, a horror film ends with the heroes pontificating that a human was immune to their "most powerful electromagnetic fields," but could be killed by a simple pointy stick in the back.

* One of [[BadassBiker Francis's]] quotes in ''Left4Dead'' reads [[TemptingFate "Good thing I'm indestructable."]]

* Gai Yuuki/Black Condor in ''ChoujinSentaiJetman''. One full year of fighting Vyram, extraterrestrial invaders, and he survived them all! Cue 3 years later, a random mugger kills him with a mere stab.

* An interesting case would be in many Mario games as well as with any other games containing temporary '''invincibility''' power-ups. Even during when a player is powered-up with invincibility, he/she can usually still be killed by either falling into a bottomless pit, being crushed by wall or platform, and so forth. In SuperMarioBros3 and SuperMarioWorld, an invincible player can be killed also by jumping into lava. Same thing goes with Sonic games when even if powered-up invincibly you will get killed instantly by either falling bottomlessly, being crushed by platforms, and by drowning.

* An interesting case would be in many Mario games as well as with any other games containing temporary '''invincibility''' power-ups. Even during when a player is powered-up with invincibility, he/she can usually still be killed by either falling into a bottomless pit, being crushed by wall or platform, and so forth. In SuperMarioBros3 and SuperMarioWorld, an invincible player can be killed also by jumping into lava. Same thing goes with Sonic games when even if powered-up invincibly you will get killed instantly by either falling bottomlessly or being crushed by platforms.

* [[{{DCU}} DC's]] TheQuestion was never a "Big Gun," [[BadassNormal he had no super powers]] and his foes were street-level criminals and human organizations, but he was still reputably {{badass}} and [[MadeOfIron tough]]: the first issue of his Dennis O'Neil series ([[MyRealDaddy his most well-known series]]) ended with him defeated in a one-on-one fight by [[DarkActionGirl Lady Shiva]], then his body was viciously beaten by the gang she was working for, then he was shot in the head with an air-gun and ''then'' [[RasputinianDeath he was thrown into a frozen river and left for dead]]. Not only did he survive, pulled out of the water by Shiva, but he was then given martial arts training by Richard Dragon (Regarded as ''the'' premier martial artist of the DCU and one of the trainers of {{Batman}}, Bronze Tiger and the afore-mentioned Shiva) so he came back ''even tougher''... then, in ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', it is revealed that he has developed terminal lung cancer exacerbated by a lifetime of smoking. It has recently metastasized and now he is wasting away, physically and mentally. [[RealityEnsues There is no mystical cure and no advanced alien treatment, his cancer is untreatable]] [[{{Tearjerker}} and he dies outside the gates of Nanda Parbat]].

* In the opening of the first episode of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'', Bruce Wayne hangs up the [[IncrediblyLamePun Bat-mantle]] after a bad heart [[TechnicalPacifist forces him to pull a gun on someone]].

* In the Thriller Bark arc of ''OnePiece,'' Absalom is totally unfazed by a lightning attack from Nami, takes multiple hits from Sanji, and is nearly crushed by Oars. Then, when Nami tries zapping him again, he falls down unconscious. With a HandWave of "Must've tired himself out."
** It is later revealed that [[spoiler:Gold Roger turned himself in to the World Government because he had an incurable illness that developed four years before his execution]].

->''"I'm Invincible. Ugh. I've got to stop using that line right before I get the snot beaten out of me."''
-->--''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'' #42

[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/98_4_0398_442.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:320:And ''that's'' why we don't have Super-Pets.]]