History Main / TheWorfEffect

* Epic from ''Disgaea: Jewel of the gods'' is an example. He's introduced by taking out an immortal, giant enemy that Laharl, Adell, and Mao couldn't beat. After that he get's dominated by Etna, a reaper, Baal's minions,Fried, Baal's right hand man, and Baal, mixing in some ButtMonkey status along the way.

** Subverted in ''Film/RebuildOfEvangelion'', where Asuka makes her entrance by ''[[OneHitKill one shotting the new attacking Angel]]'', just to throw this out the window and show us ''why'' she's considered an AcePilot to begin with. She ''does'' require help defeating the 8th Angel (Sahaquiel in this one), but teamwork between the three pilots was kind of the point of that fight even the original. [[spoiler: And she ''can't'' be held accountable for being absent during the next two Angel battles.]] It remains to be seen how she will fare in the coming fights, but this ''is'' [[{{Deconstruction}} Evangelion]] we're talking about here...

** The comics have a powerful demon easily rip off Angel's hands and feet ''with his bare hands.''

** The comics have a powerful demon easily rip off Angel's hands and feet ''with his bare hands.''

* In one of the many odd plot choices made in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil:CodeVeronica" the series biggest major antagonist, Albert Wesker shows up after his supposed death in the first game in the series, only now with superhuman physical abilities. The first thing he does is get his ass handed to him by that game's main villain, Alexia Ashford, in a show-off of their superpowers and then run away, leaving Chris Redfield to fight her instead. What follows is usually considered to be a ''laughably easy'' boss fight, as Alexia is extremely slow, easy to hit, with attacks that while damaging are easy to avoid, and takes exactly three shots of the magnum to put down. One wonders why Wesker didn't try that himself.

* In one of the many odd plot choices made in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil:CodeVeronica", the series biggest major antagonist, Albert Wesker shows up after his supposed "death' in the first game in the series, only now with superhuman physical abilities. The first thing he does is get his ass handed to him by that game's main villain, Alexia Ashford, in a show-off of their superpowers and then run away, leaving Chris Redfield to fight her instead. What follows is usually considered to be a ''laughably easy'' boss fight, as Alexia is extremely slow, easy to hit, with attacks that while damaging are easy to avoid, and takes exactly three shots of the magnum to put down. One wonders why Wesker didn't try that himself.

* Nearly every Robin Hood Child Ballad is a variation on the plot of a stranger defeating Robin in combat and thus earning his respect and being invited to join his merry band of outlaws. Read or listened to all at once, they become one long catalog of failure, with the great Hood getting his ass handed to him over and over and over. He even looses to Maid Marian.

* In the later novels of AlanDeanFoster's ''[[HumanxCommonwealth Flinx and Pip]]'' series, [[ABoyAndHisX Pip]] suffers from this trope. Any time a serious threat to Flinx presents itself, the very first thing it does is restrain or otherwise deal with his minidrag.

** Finally subverted ''hard'' when Worf kills Chancellor Gowron near the end of ''StarTrekDeepSpaceNine''.

Named for the tendency in ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' and ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' for hostile creatures [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXrlhN9rPoc to do that very thing to Worf.]]

** The most notable examples for Wolverine is Gambit. Short after he joined the team, he got a chance at fighting (and winning) against Wolverine in the Danger Room in order to show "how badass the new guy is".

* If [[SuperMarioBros Mario]] fights in the opening of a game, he's getting a Worfing. A particular example is at the start of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'', when he doesn't even get in striking range of Bowser before getting blasted by Kamek. This despite Magikoopas being fairly minor enemies in their previous appearances.
** And, to tie it to an above example, in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl]]'', the first fight is a quick slobberknocker between Mario and Kirby. Then, the two of them hold off incoming waves of Primids and such. Then...Mario's promptly shot by a cannonball. Just...blam, the most iconic video game character of all time, blasted off like [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Team Rocket]] to show that whoever the antagonist of the story is, they're ''serious''. This becomes the standard in any subsequent appearances Mario makes in any given cutscene...while VideoGame/{{Kirby}} and co. [[AuthorAppeal proceed to]] [[SpotlightStealingSquad steal the spotlight]] whenever possible.[[note]]Though it needs to be pointed out that this appears to be to make up for the lack of attention Sakurai gave to his own franchise in the previous games, as both Dedede and Metaknight were intended to be included right from the start, but were always the first things to be cut for either development time or game space. Not to mention Kirby being {{Nerf}}ed [[TierInducedScrappy horribly]] in ''Melee''.[[/note]]

* Gandalf in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' is a powerful wizard, respected and feared by all. It is thus a very big deal when he is terrified of the [[spoiler:Balrog in Moria]] and showcases the [[spoiler:Balrog's power and the tragedy of Gandalf's defeat]].

* Original-creation and self-insertion characters in ''[[RanmaOneHalf Ranma 1/2]]'' fanfiction are obligated to prove their worth by making mush out of Kuno when they first meet him.
** Although Kuno is more of an IronButtmonkey rather than a Worf.

** In the Hour of Twilight 5-man dungeon, during the final gauntlet before the last boss [[spoiler: Archbishop Benedictus]], if you look closely you can see various Earthen Ring NPCs the player met while questing in ''Cataclysm'' being killed off by generic trash mobs. This was presumably done to add a sense of urgency to the dungeon, but since the game does nothing to draw your attention to them, many players didn't even notice.

* Vegeta is doomed to this role for most of the ''Manga/DragonBall'' series. After his HeelFaceTurn, his place in the plot is "lose to Recoome, almost lose to Frieza, lose to Frieza's final form, get killed by Frieza, lose to Android 18, lose to Perfect Cell, almost lose to Cell Jr, lose to Buu, and get the crap kicked out of him by Buu while someone else wins the fight.

** Yamcha seemed to be the caretaker of this role long before Vegeta showed up, especially in the tournaments, where he was always paired up in the first round against a then-unknown opponent whom everyone expected would be dispatched easily but would end up either winning the tournament (Jackie Chun, Tenshinhan) or being, well, God. Every instance ended with the other main characters in shock that someone like Yamcha was beaten. Unfortunately, this happened so often without giving him enough chance to win fights that, by the time the Z-era began, he had long since lost all credibility.

* DoctorDoom occasionally suffers this, whether from {{Dazzler}} and other new heroes, or to show how tough a new villain is (I.E. Millar's promise of a "Master of Doom"). Thank Kirby for [[ActuallyADoombot Doombots]], eh?

** And, to tie it to an above example, in ''[[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Brawl]]'', the first fight is a quick slobberknocker between Mario and Kirby. Then, the two of them hold off incoming waves of Primids and such. Then...Mario's promptly shot by a cannonball. Just...blam, the most iconic video game character of all time, blasted off like [[Anime/{{Pokemon}} Team Rocket]] to show that whoever the antagonist of the story is, they're ''serious''. This becomes the standard in any subsequent appearances Mario makes in any given cutscene...while VideoGame/{{Kirby}} and co. [[AuthorAppeal proceed to]] [[SpotlightStealingSquad steal the spotlight]] whenever possible.

** Kenpachi has been worfed to establish new threat levels as well. [[spoiler: he was swiftly defeated off-screen in the first conflict of the final arc to introduce the audience to Juhabach's power level.]]
** Finally, [[spoiler:Yamamoto]] is worfed and killed in the final arc by the new BigBad shortly after revealing his Bankai.

** Likewise, Sailor Jupiter is almost always killed first in the episodes, or at least the first knocked out, because she's the strongest out of the Inner Senshi. The fact that she's usually the first ''into'' the fight doesn't help.