History Main / TheHunterBecomesTheHunted

* In ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'', famed bounty hunter and general badass Samus Aran spends much of the game being hunted down by the SA-X, which has all of her old power-ups and abilities. In particular, the Ice Beam is especially deadly to her because of her infusion with Metroid DNA. Up to the very end, Samus has no choice but to run from any encounter with it.

* Videogame/DiabloIII: The Demon Hunter. Usually survivors from demonic invasions themselves, they're recruited by more experienced Hunters and devote their lives to chasing and killing the creatures of the burning hells, using a variety of ranged attacks and traps to accomplish their goals.

*** Hircine returns again to give a quest of this sort, where the player must hunt a SympatheticMurderer werewolf, who's trying to isolate himself to avoid any urges to hunt innocent people. The player can continue hunting and eventually kill the werewolf, or join forces with him and kill the other hunters that hoped to kill the werewolf first. Hircine is pleased either way, as you either successfully hunted the werewolf, or turned the tables in the spirit of this trope, which also pleases him.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'' episode "Hannibal the Hunter". The title villain lures Birdman to his island and traps him, then tries to have him [[FedToTheBeast fed to some lions]]. Birdman escapes and destroys Hannibal's base, freeing the captive wild animals held in it. While fleeing the animals Hannibal is captured by one of his own traps. Luckily this is a children's show, so Birdman captures Hannibal and saves him from the same fate he was trying to inflict.

* ''Terror Tale'' in Marvel Tales (1949 series ) #133 (April 1953) is about a man captured by vampires who turns into a werewolf and kills them.

* ''Fanfic/HarryAndTheShipgirls'' has [[Franchise/HarryPotter Fenrir Grayback]] attempting to hunt and turn the relatives of [[VideoGame/KanColle shipgirls]] as a means of proving himself dominant over these new magical creatures. Then a sting operation was set up to lure him into attempting to hunt young Hanna Hipper, the natural-born and only mostly awoken KMS Lutzow, while some airshipgirls were on standby to provide support. Needless to say, Grayback got a brief taste of what it's like on the other end before he met his demise.

** In "Hyde and Go Tweet", Tweety is turned into a giant, hideous monster after hiding in Dr. Jekyll's potion, and he proceeds to chase and terrify Sylvester.

[[quoteright:303:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/31_a6_haberzettl_jagd_web.jpg]]

* In ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy'' this trope applies to... well, anybody who tries to victimize Lisbeth Salander. The earliest example is advocate Nils Bjurman, her legal guardian, who is under impression that Lisbeth is a mentally retarded, helpless young woman whom he can assault whenever he can. Unfortunately for him, after he rapes her, she returns to his apartment with a taser, chains him to his bed, rapes him back, reveals she has a tape showing his rape on her, gives him a tattoo saying that he is a rapist and a scumbag, and proceeds to use blackmail to keep him in check until the end of his sorry life. Bjurman actually has an OhCrap moment, but it's too late.

* The song "The Rabbit" by Jimmie Wayne is about a woman killing her abusive husband. The song's chorus contains the line "Mark my words, it ain't gonna be fun when the rabbit gets the gun." The song end ends the line "[[WesternAnimation/BugsBunny What's up ''now'' doc?]]"

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Primal2019}}'': In "The Night Feeder", the titular monster is an unstoppable killing machine that slaughters anything in its territory during its nocturnal rampages. Spear and Fang nearly end up as its victims, but unwittingly drive it off when Spear strikes fire while flailing around in a panic. Realizing that they've found its weakness, the two of them herd the Night Feeder into a ring of trees which they set on fire, at which point Spear kills it by hurling a flaming javelin into its chest.

* In the first season of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'', Gohan was left in the wilderness by Piccolo as part of his TrainingFromHell. A ferocious T-rex like dinosaur tries to eat him. As Gohan becomes stronger, the tables get turned. Gohan eventually chases down the dinosaur ''every day'' and chops off a piece of its tail for breakfast. By the end, the dinosaur's tail is all but gone and it is ''terrified'' of Gohan.
* In earlier chapters of ''Manga/AirGear'', Sleeping Forest in inferred as this with normal people as prey, other Storm Riders as the hunters, and the team Sleeping Forest is the forest itself who hunts back the hunters, as implied in this poem:

* In ''Film/JuliaX'', The Stranger is a SerialKiller who preys on women he meets in online dating sites. He takes Julia on a date, intending to make her his next victim. However, Julia is one of a pair of SerialKillerKiller sisters, and The Stranger soon finds the tables turned on him.

* Likewise in another [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Arnie]] vehicle, ''TheRunningMan''. The villian even offers Richards a role as a Stalker, which he promptly refuses.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Firestar thinks of this after Brightpaw and Swiftpaw were attacked by a pack of vicious dogs, wondering if that scared feeling is how prey animals feel when hunts them. Cats are the top predator with their forest, with only threats being badgers and hawks when they're still young. They're not used to the feeling so paranoid and cornered.

* The song "When The Hunter Becomes The Hunted", by Tank, about a photographer who returns to Vietnam after the war.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the story behind ''Avacyn Restored'' set is basically this trope - after angel Avacyn is released from Helvault, humanity gains the power to drive back vampires, werewolves and zombies that were preying on them. Possibly shown best on [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=275712 Revenge of the Hunted]] card, which can turn an average human into somebody able to slay an average dragon and live.

** In Spellhold, Bodhi wants to play "cat and mouse" with you, because she finds more entertaining to hunt you down in the maze rather than simply killing you on the moment. After you escape and manage to return to Athkatla, your first main task is to catch her in her lair in order to retrieve a powerful artifact she stole. If your character class is a bounty hunter or a stalker, the trope is also directly enacted when she tells you of her plan.

* The entire premise of ''Videogame/DyingLight'' is built upon this trope. The gameplay is divided into two sections depending on the time of the day. During day time, you face weak shambling herds of zombies. They're slow, cumbersome, clumsy, and not very bright. Easy to lose, easy to bait into traps, easy to dispatch. As such, your character is an absolute badass at hunting the zombies like its nothing..... until nighttime arrives. At night, the roles reverse, with your character becoming the prey. Since at night, a special breed of super-zombie shows up, its only weakness is UV Light (which explains their absence in the day), these ones have insanely good sight, hearing, speed, strength, and intelligence. Fighting just one of them is completely brutal, but whenever they see you, they'll call a swarm of extra ones on you, and in raw speed, they're faster than you, only via liberal usage of parkour can you stand a chance to put some distance between them. At night, the only option is to hide or to run, fighting will only get you killed. ''All the time''. Not for nothing, the official tagline of the game is "Hunter by day, Prey by night".

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEbjUaGYsZw This animation]] involves a hungry caveman trying to crack open a large egg to eat. After much painful experiences for the caveman, the egg finally hatches into a baby dinosaur that grows huge and eats the caveman in one gulp.

** Also, there's a short in which Pepe Le Pew gets painted all black and his perennial harassment-victim, Penelope Pussycat, gets a head cold that blocks her sense of smell. Sure enough, she turns the tables and starts pursuing the suddenly terrified "big strong tomcat" Pepe.
--->'''Pepe:''' Why is it that whenever a man is captured by a woman, all he wish to do is get away?
** In "Hyde and go Tweet", Tweety is turned into a giant, hideous monster after drinking Dr. Jekyll's potion, and he proceeds to chase and terrify Sylvester.

* "WesternAnimation/TheWormTurns": The Courage Builder potion allows any creature it's used on to become brave and fearsome, allowing flies to turn on spiders, mice to beat up cats and cats to terrorize dogs.

See also EgomaniacHunter, EvilPoacher, HunterOfHisOwnKind, HuntingTheMostDangerousGame, and SerialKillerKiller. Not to be confused with TheKillerBecomesTheKilled.

The HunterOfMonsters in general lives by this trope in a supernatural context, since monsters, in general, are often portrayed as predators of human beings, and human beings tend not to like being prey.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1465330789016335900
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

* ''Film/{{Predator}}'' and ''Film/Predator2'' provide a ''perfect'' example, as the consummate trophy hunter/ProudWarriorRaceGuy alien stalks and kills dozens of dangerous, deadly men, only for one of his would-be victims to TakeALevelInBadass and begin to hunt him in exactly the same fashion.
* Likewise in another [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Arnie]] vehicle, ''TheRunningMan''. The villian even offers Richards a role as a Stalker, which he promptly refuses.
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' also provides a perfect example as Brody, Hooper and Quint set out together to hunt down the killer shark...only for the tables to turn when they don't have the means to beat this shark that defies everything they throw at it as it changes the hunt into a quest to survive.
* ''Film/{{Westworld}}''. The tourist being hunted by the gunslinger android eventually turns the tables on him and destroys him.
* ''Film/HalloweenH20TwentyYearsLater'': At the end, Laurie turns the tables on Michael Myers and starts hunting him down with an axe.

* The trope is a common staple in the films of Creator/FritzLang and Creator/AlfredHitchcock. Lang, for instance, played the trope straight in ''Film/{{M}}'' and the ''Dr. Mabuse'' films, while in ''Die Spinnen'' and ''Spione'' he used the inversion, as did Hitchcock e. g. in ''Film/NorthByNorthwest'' and ''Film/ToCatchAThief''.

* ''Film/{{Memento}}'' plays this for dark comedy in one scene where the protagonist Leonard, who has short-term memory loss, finds himself running in parallel with a man who is obviously angry at him. His internal monologue deduces that he must be in the middle of chasing after this guy. Suddenly the man starts charging right for him, and Leonard realizes that the man is chasing ''him.''
* In ''Film/JuliaX'', The Stranger is a SerialKiller who preys on women he meets in online dating sites. He takes Julia on a date, intending to make her his next victim. However, Julia is one of a pair of SerialKillerKiller sisters, and The Stranger soon finds the tables turned on him.
* ''Film/FairGame'': Happens to the trio of {{Evil Poacher}}s who choose Jessica as their prey when HuntingTheMostDangerousGame. After they rape her, Jessica returns and [[RapeAndRevenge starts hunting the three of them]].
%%* ''Film/TheRunningMan'': Ben Richards does this to several of his Stalkers.%%ZCE
* ''Film/Tremors7ShriekerIsland'': Bill's group of hunters intend to hunt down the graboids and shriekers on the dark island, but inevitably start being hunted themselves.

* ''Literature/WarriorCats'': Firestar thinks of this after Brightpaw and Swiftpaw were attacked by a pack of vicious dogs, wondering if that scared feeling is how prey animals feel when hunts them. Cats are the top predator with their forest, with only threats being badgers and hawks when they're still young. They're not used to the feeling so paranoid and cornered.

* In ''Literature/TheMillenniumTrilogy'' this trope applies to... well, anybody who tries to victimize Lisbeth Salander. The earliest example is advocate Nils Bjurman, her legal guardian, who is under impression that Lisbeth is a mentally retarded, helpless young woman whom he can assault whenever he can. Unfortunately for him, after he rapes her, she returns to his apartment with a taser, chains him to his bed, rapes him back, reveals she has a tape showing his rape on her, gives him a tattoo saying that he is a rapist and a scumbag, and proceeds to use blackmail to keep him in check until the end of his sorry life. Bjurman actually has an OhCrap moment, but it's too late.
* ''Literature/{{Savage}}'': Trevor Bentley trying to find and kill UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper.
* John Manifold's poem "The Griesly Wife" features a young and seemingly reluctant bride running off into the winter night, barefoot, to get away from her husband. He pursues her...[[spoiler:only to realize, too late, that she's a [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent were-dingo]].]]

* ''Franchise/StarTrek'':
** ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Obsession". Kirk has the ''Enterprise'' pursue the vampire cloud creature. Eventually, the creature gets fed up with this: it turns and attacks the ''Enterprise''.
--->'''Spock:''' May I suggest that we no longer belabor the question of whether or not we should have gone after the creature. The matter has now been rendered academic. The creature is now after us.
** ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Masks" has a ritual in which the Moon God (Korgano) chases the Sun God (Masaka) out of the sky, and then the roles are reversed, forever.
** ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' once has the crew give hologram technology to aliens called the Hirogen, so they can practice their hunting skills without killing people. [[NiceJobBreakingItHero The Hirogen make the holograms both sentient and capable of learning, so they can adapt and become better prey to hunt.]] As you've probably deduced, the holograms got sick of this, TurnedAgainstTheirMasters and eventually lured several Hirogen to a toxic planet to give them a taste of their own medicine. They also kidnap Voyager's holographic doctor, who is initially sympathetic but changes his mind quite rapidly when it becomes obvious that a FullCircleRevolution is going down, and the ringleader has started murdering innocent bystanders to boot.
* ''Series/CharliesAngels'' episode "Angel Hunt". A vengeful man lures the Angels to a deserted island to be hunted, but they start hunting him.

* In ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' episode "The Hunt", the plot involves an illegal android hunt. The androids are prevented by inhibitor chips from harming humans. That is until they find plans for their bodies in a shack and proceed to remove their inhibitors. They kill several hunters but are ultimately gunned down, except for one who manages to escape.

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}'': Matt Parkman goes after Emil Danko, a.k.a. The Hunter, who had abducted him and strapped him to a bomb - but only after Danko causes the death of [[spoiler:Matt's girlfriend Daphne Millbrook.]]

** In Spellhold, Bodhi wants to play "cat and mouse" with you, because she finds more entertaining to hunt you down in the maze rather than simply killing you on the moment. After you escape and manage to return to Athkatla, your first main task is to catch her in her lair in order to retrieve a powerful artifact she stole. If your character class is a bounty huner or a stalker, the trope is also directly enacted when she tells you of her plan.

* Videogame/PacMan, whenever he gets a power pellet.
* Videogame/DiabloIII: The Demon Hunter. Usually survivors from demonic invasions themselves, they're recruited by more experienced Hunters and devote their lives to chasing and killing the creatures of the burning hells, using a variety of ranged attacks and traps to accomplish their goals.

* The entire premise of ''Videogame/DyingLight'' is built upon this trope. The gameplay is divided into two sections depending on the time of the day. During day time, you face weak shambling herds of zombies. They're slow, cumbersome, clumsy, and not very bright. Easy to lose, easy to bait into traps, easy to dispatch. As such, your character is an absolute badass at hunting the zombies like its nothing..... until nighttime arrives. At night, the roles reverse, with your character becoming the prey. Since at night, a special breed of super-zombie shows up, its only weakness is UV Light (which explains their absence in the day), these ones have insanely good sight, hearing, speed, strength, and intelligence. Fighting just one of them is completely brutal, but whenever they see you, they'll call a swarm of extra ones on you, and in raw speed, they're faster than you, only via liberal usage of parkour can you stand a chance to put some distance between them. At night, the only option is to hide or to run, fighting will only get you killed. ''All the time''. Not for nothing, the official tagline of the game is "Hunter by day, Prey by night".
* In ''VideoGame/MetroidFusion'', famed bounty hunter and general badass Samus Aran spends much of the game being hunted down by the SA-X, which has all of her old power-ups and abilities. In particular, the Ice Beam is especially deadly to her because of her infusion with Metroid DNA. Up to the very end, Samus has no choice but to run from any encounter with it.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', it happens in every second, [[spoiler: especially when Djura or Eileen decided to hunt you.]]
* Occurs in various ''Franchise/AssassinsCreed'' games, such as ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag Black Flag]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey Odyssey]]'', which have their own specialized enemies who track you down if you cause any trouble. In ''Black Flag'' it's Pirate Hunter vessels who often carry lots of metal resources, as well as make great fleet recruits. In ''Odyssey'' it's Mercenaries who are often carrying gear that is either better than yours or if not can be broken down for resources or sold for a nice profit. Net result is that if you're going about your business and get wind of one of these nearby, you'll often seek them out intentionally.
* In ''Videogame/DarkestDungeon'', this is invoked when you fight the Collector, a nightmarish eldritch ''[[EldritchAbomination thing]]'' made up of [[BodyOfBodies a pile of severed heads wearing a yellow cloak.]] It has a chance to appear when your inventory is filled up past a certain point (when the party is battered and stressed from a long dungeon run) and apparently collects the heads of your slain party members to add to itself. However, you can in turn hunt the Collector for valuable gems and trinkets, and the [[{{Narrator}} Ancestor]] will invoke this trope if you kill it.
* Literally the point of ''VideoGame/DeerAvenger''.

* ''LetsPlay/{{Dream}}'', in almost all Manhunts where he's being hunted by the hunters. He manages to kill the hunters by outsmarting them, in various, creative ways. And most of the time, Dream's outnumbered.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' short "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Mouse", near the end, Tom finally drinks his own power potion which Jerry had been using throughout the short. Instead of growing stronger, however, it backfires, and Tom shrinks until he's as tall to Jerry as Jerry normally is to him. The short ends with Jerry chasing after Tom with a fly swatter.

* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'': In "Farmer Hunter, Farmer Hunted", a deer, tired of him and his family being hunted, goes off to hunt man. In this case, [[AssholeVictim Eustace]].
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Birdman}}'' episode "Hannibal the Hunter". The title villain lures Birdman to his island and traps him, then tries to have him [[FedToTheBeast fed to some lions]]. Birdman escapes and destroys Hannibal's base, freeing the captive wild animals held in it. While fleeing the animals Hannibal is captured by one of his own traps. Luckily this is a children's show, so Birdman captures Hannibal and saves him from the same fate he was trying to inflict.
* ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'': The trope is said almost word-for-word by Danny during his first encounter with Skulker upon learning that his battle suit could be overridden by Tucker's PDA.
* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'': In the ''Dial M for Monkey'' episode "Huntor", the episode's titular villain has hunted down the most fearsome creatures throughout the universe. [[HuntingTheMostDangerousGame His favorite prey is superheroes like Monkey]] and he has weapons that can counter Monkey's powers. Powers or no powers, Monkey still manages to fight back in an homage to ''Film/{{Predator}}'', using the resources around him to turn the tables and win. After he escapes, he drops Huntor onto a planet inhabited by giant hillbilly aliens, two of which chase after him with their laser shotguns.

* "WesternAnimation/GreetingsBait": A worm who has been trying to lure fish on a fisherman's hook has to run for it when a crab who knows about the hook trick tries to eat him.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Primal2019}}'': In "The Night Feeder", the titular monster is an unstoppable killing machine that slaughters anything in its territory during its nocturnal rampages. Spear and Fang nearly end up as its victims, but unwittingly drive it off when Spear strikes fire while flailing around in a panic. Realizing that they've found its weakness, the two of them herd the Night Feeder into a ring of trees which they set on fire, at which point Spear kills it by hurling a flaming javelin into its chest.

* ''Film/Jaws'' also provides a perfect example as Brody, Hooper and Quint set out together to hunt down the killer shark...only for the tables to turn when they don't have the means to beat this shark that defies everything they throw at it as it changes the hunt into a quest to survive.