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| 10 | [[quoteright:300:[[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/capture1_93.PNG]]]] |
| 11 | [-[[caption-width-right:300:[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders 1989]]: strong, and on a quest to save his daughter.\ |
| 12 | [[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable 1999]]: weaker, and on a quest to buy baby items.]]-] |
| 13 | %% |
| 14 | ->''"I was once a badass vampire. But love, and a pesky curse, defanged me. Now I'm just a big fluffy puppy with bad teeth."'' |
| 15 | -->-- '''[[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Spike]]''', ''Series/{{Angel}}'' [[note]]Speaking of Angel [[HilariousInHindsight in an inadvertent prophecy of what was to become of him]] later on down the road[[/note]] |
| 16 | |
| 17 | [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The process by which a badass becomes less of a badass.]] This can result in them simply losing more times than they win, being overshadowed by other characters who were once weaker than them, or have less and less opportunities to display their powers due to the changing nature and circumstances of the story, perhaps placing them in situations where their strengths are of little to no use. |
| 18 | |
| 19 | Compare with MenaceDecay, MotiveDecay, NotBadassEnoughForFans, VillainDecay, and TheWorfEffect. Compare and contrast BaitTheDog and MoralEventHorizon, where a Badass character loses their cool as a result of [[KickTheDog dog kicking]]. |
| 20 | |
| 21 | {{Chickification}} is a gender-specific variant. {{Ukefication}} is a YaoiGenre and {{Slash|Fic}} specific variant. Someone who undergoes ''[[DentedIron physical]]'' Badass Decay may become a PerilousOldFool. {{Nerf}} is when this happens due to changes in gameplay mechanics. |
| 22 | |
| 23 | Also note that this trope applies when a badass decays within a single continuity. If an absolute badass in your favorite book is portrayed as somewhat less awesome in TheFilmOfTheBook, that's not this trope, it's AdaptationalWimp. |
| 24 | |
| 25 | This is a YMMV item for subjective examples of when a character comes across as less "badass" due to CharacterDevelopment (or [[CharacterDerailment Derailment]]). When it's an explicit ''plot point'' that a character becomes weaker than they were, you're looking at an {{inver|tedTrope}}sion of TookALevelInBadass. See also TheTamingOfTheGrue. |
| 26 | ---- |
| 27 | !!Subpages: |
| 28 | [[index]] |
| 29 | * BadassDecay/LiveActionTV |
| 30 | ** ''BadassDecay/HellsKitchen'' |
| 31 | [[/index]] |
| 32 | ---- |
| 33 | !!Other Examples: |
| 34 | |
| 35 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 36 | |
| 37 | [[folder:Anime & Manga]] |
| 38 | * A rare "objective" take on this in ''Manga/AngelDensetsu'': Ogisu ''thinks'' he's suffering from this. Essentially he doubts if he is Badass because he keeps being defeated in battle once he transfers into a new school despite being undefeated previously. He ''is'' Badass but Ogisu is simply being OvershadowedByAwesome. |
| 39 | * ''Manga/AssassinationClassroom'': |
| 40 | ** [[spoiler: The God-of-Death]] loses a lot of his badass aura as the chapters moved along with TheReveal that [[spoiler: both people he "killed" on-panel turned out to be alive and well]]. Chapter 133 [[JustifiedTrope offers an explanation]]: [[spoiler: it turns out he wasn't the real deal that Lovro spoke of. The true God of Death was Koro-sensei]]. |
| 41 | ** [[spoiler: Kayano]] being taken out early in the early stages of the class civil war (chapter 145 to be more precise) can be considered this. However, given the fact that she had just recently recovered from the side effects of the tentacles, this can be considered a JustifiedTrope. |
| 42 | * ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': |
| 43 | ** Kon was introduced as a genuine problem and was actually considered a threat to the main characters. After the end of that storyline, he was quickly reduced to a JokeCharacter ever after. |
| 44 | ** Even Ichigo went through this, though it tends to zigzag. He ends the Soul Society arc being able to beat Captains and he blocks Yami's punch by holding up his sword, then slicing clean through his arm. Mere episodes later he can't even defeat a {{mook|s}}. Then he gets better and ends up being able to destroy the strongest Espada. He then manages to only scratch another Espada with his strongest attack. However, Ichigo's case is rather justified because his power fluctuates greatly (it goes to Hero to Zero and back), and it's based on how focused he is and how seriously he's taking the situation. |
| 45 | * ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'': Syaoran Li was equal to, if not stronger than, Sakura when introduced and could handle threats almost single handed, having a much larger knowledge of the Clow cards. The anime actually adds to this by making him able to catch quite a few cards, including Dream, Freeze, Sand and Time. During the second part though, Syaoran loses the cards he collected and Sakura has all of them now, the threats faced by the group were now specifically designed by the [[spoiler: not-actual]] BigBad to be only subdued if Sakura, specifically, uses the cards, leaving Syaoran to periodically become a DudeInDistress, usually only handy when Sakura needed protecting as she dealt with things. This, however, [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools was generally seen as a good thing by fans]], as it led to Syaoran's CharacterDevelopment and his romantic arc with Sakura and is considered justified, given the nature of the second half of the series. |
| 46 | * ''Manga/CaseClosed'': |
| 47 | ** The Black Organization can come off as this as of late, due to the revelation that [[spoiler:Bourbon]] is actually a spy. While this advances the character beyond the Evil Henchman role, it ''does'' come off as if majority of the Organization was, and might likely still be, filled with nothing but spies, people who were [[NeverFoundTheBody presumed dead]] and others who aren't as evil as one would think of them, including Vermouth who seems to have a real soft-spot for Conan. The only real threat that still seems to remain in the Organization is Gin, who is getting close to the VillainSue category. |
| 48 | ** Jodie was vital in the battle of wits against Vermouth during her arc. Later, when Akai becomes a series regular, Jodie is just another FBI agent who along with the rest of them get fooled by the Black Organization before Conan and Akai clean up their mess. |
| 49 | * In ''Anime/Danganronpa3'', a lot of people complain about this towards the BigBad of the franchise who was supposed to be portrayed as a ManipulativeBastard and a DarkMessiah. However, after it was revealed that [[spoiler:the Remnants of Despair fell into despair via brainwashing]], a lot of people went on to believe this. [[spoiler:She makes up for it slightly by talking Juzo down and leading Nanami and Class 77 - B into inescapable traps, but she still uses the brainwashing in the Class' case.]] |
| 50 | * ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'': |
| 51 | ** In the first season of ''{{Anime/Digimon|Adventure}}'', Angemon was easily the most powerful fighter on the hero's side, able to take on enemies who were a level above him in his Champion and Ultimate levels. But in most later Digimon media, Angemon, while still a powerhouse, is only slightly stronger than the average Champion level. |
| 52 | ** Zigzagged In Digimon Adventure 02. He makes a brief appearance to one-hit several Champion levels and at the same time showing off to one of the newcomers how far behind his league he was, but afterwards is shown no stronger than the rest of his teammates. Later on when Angemon temporarily Digivolves into his previous Ultimate level, he manages to hold his own against Blackwargreymon until he was forced to De-Digivolve, but later gains a new Ultimate level and became the first to critically injure him in his debut, but further appearances have them both no stronger than the other Ultimates. |
| 53 | ** Tailmon/Gatomon. In her first appearance, not only has she managed to convince a bunch of Ultimate Digimon to join Vamdemon/Myotismon’s forces, but she also fights Greymon, Garurumon, Kabuterimon, Togemon and Ikkakumon ''at the same time'', all of whom were larger than her, toying with them and not even breaking a sweat. In later fights however, all of the fights she does in her Champion form are against Digimon relatively the same size as her or slightly taller; Zero Two puts this into full effect where she loses her Tail Ring, decreasing her powers to that of a Rookie level Digimon, and doesn't regain her strength until the very last episode of the series. |
| 54 | ** In the first ''Digimon'' movie, Omnimon wipes out an army of Diaboromon. In the second ''Digimon'' movie, Omnimon can't handle a swarm of Kuramon. Not only is Kuramon Diaboromon's weaker, [[EvolutionPowerup unevolved form]], there were fewer Kuramon than there were Diaboromon. |
| 55 | * ''Franchise/DragonBall'': |
| 56 | ** Vegeta starts out in ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' as an evil and downright sadistic badass, but as time went on and his number of friends increased, so did his overall morality. Even Vegeta himself seemed to realize he'd been defanged and had made a much better villain than a hero, and purposefully had one of the later villains try to turn him evil again. It didn't seem to quite take; after killing a nameless crowd and brawling a little with Goku, he was back to fighting baddies [[spoiler:and topped it off with a HeroicSacrifice. He got better]]. |
| 57 | ** This is actually evident with many reformed villains in [[ShonenDemographic Shōnen]] series. Sticking with ''Manga/DragonBall'', Yamcha was once a feared bandit who rivaled Goku in martial arts prowess. He then spends the rest of the series doing absolutely nothing of importance. Unlike the other heroes below, Yamcha actually up and retires after getting a hole in his chest courtesy of Android #20/Dr. Gero. This is telling that, by ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', he's become a baseball player full-time and is the only Z Fighter alongside Chiaotzu not to participate in the Universal Survival arc, replaced by Android #17. The manga of ''Super'' shocking averted this at long last with Yamcha curb stomping three prisoners Moro himself had empowered with Goku and Vegeta’s ki. Yamcha reveals he has been training in secret and states to the bewildered and humiliated aliens that he is one of the strongest beings in universe and they should damn well respect that. |
| 58 | ** In Piccolo's introduction to the series, he easily wipes the floor with Goku while in the weakest state he is ever in. He also nearly manages to take over/destroy the world. By the end of DBZ, he is relegated to teaching small children a magical dance, and later plays the StraightMan in a comic duo (him and Gotenks). ''Anime/DragonBallSuperSuperHero'' [[spoiler:averts this as Piccolo gets a new form which easily defeats Gamma 2 who Piccolo believes to be around the same power as Goku and Vegeta]]. |
| 59 | ** Tenshinhan [[PlayingWithATrope played with]] this trope before it was [[PlayingWithATrope Played Straight]]. He was once one of the most powerful characters in the early part of ''Dragon Ball'' and was one of the few humans who could match Goku in combat. While he does lose to Nappa (and is DemotedToExtra after), it's acknowledged if Nappa didn't dodge his Kikoho he could've died, and he still managed to slightly stand his ground against him. Later, while he is rendered largely useless compared to the Super Saiyans and Piccolo, him holding down Semi-Perfect Cell is something of a SignatureScene for his character for how brave and unexpectedly awesome it was, and in the Bojack Movie, while he gets stomped when Trunks goes Super Saiyan, the fight before then is pretty evenly matched, showing Tien is still a badass in his own right. Lastly, while he couldn't do any lasting damage, he still managed to briefly hold his own against Buutenks and save Dende. Given all of these opponents he faced were far more powerful than Tien (and the other humans did far worst against them), it made Tenshinhan come off as ''more'' badass to some despite being lower on the JustForFun/SuperWeight scale than Goku, Vegeta, Gohan or the other villains. However, come ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', Tien gets hit with this ''hard'', having no character focus or awesome moments. Like with Yamcha, Tien does at least get to kick ass again in the Moro arc though. |
| 60 | ** Even ''Gohan'' suffers this, although not in as direct a path as Vegeta. At the beginning of ''Dragon Ball Z'', he's implied to have great 'hidden power' and this is shown repeatedly throughout the Saiyan and Namek sagas, with him injuring or even fighting evenly with much more powerful opponents for short times. He fades from prominence in the Android and Cell sagas, but all the buildup eventually culminates in him becoming the most powerful character in the series in the Cell Games. By the time the Buu saga rolls around, however, he's a glorified punching bag, and though he eventually makes an attempted return to glory, it lasts about three episodes before he goes back to getting thoroughly destroyed. Kid just could not fill the old man's shoes. Possibly justified in Gohan's case in that he doesn't really ''want'' to be [[IAmNotMyFather like Goku]] and [[IJustWantToBeNormal really just wants to study and be a scholar]] like [[EducationMama Chi-Chi]] [[MommasBoy wanted.]] This is taken to its logical extreme come ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', when he cannot even hold a basic Super Saiyan form due to neglecting his training for so long. [[spoiler:However, after the events of the ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' adaptation, which had Frieza kill Piccolo because his stagnation forced the Namekian to save his life, Gohan has decided to get back into training, so it seems that this trope might be subverted for him.]] In ''Anime/DragonBallSuperSuperHero'', [[spoiler:this trope has been very much averted where he gains the exclusive "Gohan Beast" transformation and kills BigBad Cell Max]]. |
| 61 | ** The character who suffers from this the most is without a doubt Uub in ''Anime/DragonBallGT''. ''Dragon Ball Z'' ends with him being built up to being the one to take Goku's place as protector of Earth. He even merges with Buu to regain the full power of Majin Buu, the strongest villain in the previous series, and yet after all that still fails to beat Baby Vegeta. In the end his greatest achievement was killing a few undead Saibaiman and a revived General Rildo. |
| 62 | ** Master Roshi suffers from this in the original ''Dragon Ball'' anime. At the start of the series he is one of the strongest people on the planet, even stronger than the protagonist Goku. By the Piccolo Jr. arc he is little more than comic relief. Justified as he admitted his mentor role was over when the new generation surpassed him so he retired. He still gets his badass moments, such as taking on Frieza's army in ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' and its ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' adaptation, and in the latter, joins the Tournament of Power and does well, taking out a number of dangerous opponents. |
| 63 | ** Frieza and Cell suffered this in the anime. Though the original manga never featured them again after their deaths, {{filler}} between the Cell and Buu Sagas had both once seemly-unbeatable foes get casually beaten by Goku and Pikkon. Then, in ''Anime/DragonBallGT'', they team up to get revenge on Goku and then are both [[CurbStompBattle quickly beaten by him in under five mintues]] -- in his base form while de-aged into a child, no less. Frieza got better in ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' and ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', where he is actually portrayed as competent, but still is nowhere near the menacing threat he was in his own saga. [[spoiler:As of the manga, Frieza's new form averts this trope as he defeats ''True Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta'' in one blow]]. |
| 64 | * ''Manga/FairyTail'': |
| 65 | ** Minerva is usually accused to have suffered from this by the time of her reintroduction during the ''Sun Village'' arc. What started off as a fun, despicable, {{Jerkass}} AntiHero during the ''Grand Magic Games'' arc, has resorted to joining a Dark Guild for, among other things, the purpose of getting revenge on Erza for humiliating her during their tournament duel. The humiliation was bad enough, but by joining a Dark Guild with vague motivations at best, it ended up destroying what previously made her an interesting character. In addition, Chapter 388 possibly made this worse. [[spoiler: Fans (for the most part) seem fine with Minerva's past, but think that her character wasn't explored enough to make her sudden change from revenge obsessed to self-loathing for being weak enough to fall to darkness convincing. As a result fans seem to think the character lost everything that made her interesting as a character to begin with.]] |
| 66 | ** Name almost any character from a Dark Guild and you'll have people making this claim about them due to never living up to the badass hype Mashima develops for them at the start of their story arcs. |
| 67 | * ''Manga/FlameOfRecca:'' This possibly happened to Tokiya Mikagami, who was at first a completely ruthless man driven for revenge, and in the Ura Butou Satsujin, he manages to give out many great performances. Come to the latter arcs of the manga, however, although time by time, he did ''awesomely'', he also often became the recipient of DistressBall, turning into him into the DistressedDude TWICE. |
| 68 | * In-Universe example: The center theme of one episode of ''Anime/GundamEvolve'' is [[Anime/MobileSuitGundam Char Aznable]], after having used his "Quattro Bajeena" alias for a while, beginning to realize he's lost his edge. He has this realization during a training mission where his top-of-the-line, fully loaded Rick Dias is defeated handily by combat data of his old self in a Zaku II armed with ''just a Heat Hawk''. This episode addresses the fact that Quattro in ''Anime/MobileSuitZetaGundam'' isn't pulling off insane tricks and inducing pants-wetting at the mere mention of his name like he did in the original series. Probably has something to do with RedemptionDemotion. |
| 69 | * Quite a few members of the ''Manga/IkkiTousen'' cast display this over the period of the third Great Guardians season. Most notably Kan'u Unchou suffers from {{Flanderization}} so badly that it cripples her badass status and she becomes mostly unrecognizable for the first few episodes. See also [[spoiler:Ryofu Housen]]'s display of this through LossOfIdentity. Thankfully they "get better" later in the season. |
| 70 | * Joseph Joestar from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', the protagonist of [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Part 2]]. In his late teens he was a fearsome and competent Hamon user, but by the time of [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders Part 3]] where he was almost seventy, he was out of practice in Hamon, but had since gained a Stand, Hermit Purple, though it was one of the weakest in the franchise and Joseph didn't use his Hamon much. While Joseph himself was OutOfFocus in combat, he still had some awesome moments to shine, but was generally outclassed physically and in the case of his game with Daniel D'Arby, mentally as well. Ten years later in [[Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureDiamondIsUnbreakable Part 4]], he's been reduced to [[ScatterbrainedSenior a senile, absent-minded elder]], though it's been speculated that [[ObfuscatingStupidity he's putting a bit of that on]]. He's simply too old to reclaim his former glory in Part 4, as he's pushing 80 years old. That said, he shows that even when he's worn down by old age, he's still a Joestar and has his badass moments. |
| 71 | * Lampshaded in ''Anime/JubeiChan'' season 2, with [[spoiler:Shiro]] pointing out that in the first season that he could hold his own again jiyu's enemies to some new ones, who promptly mop the floor with him. |
| 72 | * ''Anime/KillLaKill'': Tsumugu was a BadassNormal in his first appearance, being able to defeat and subdue the Life Fiber-empowered Ryuko mostly through strategy. In the following episodes he became more and more useless, not being able to defeat anybody even with the use of superior technology, until he barely had any screen time or lines in the final episodes. |
| 73 | * ''Manga/MagicalRecordLyricalNanohaForce'' does this rather early on to LadyOfWar Signum, regarded as one of the more badass characters in the series. Cypha of Huckebein became the first to decisively defeat her, and gave a rather brutal finishing to boot. It's a bit early to say whether this trope is really in effect currently as Signum has not really been seen since and the incident could be a sort of DarkerAndEdgier version of Nanoha and Fate being defeated (and having their Linker Cores stolen) in A's. Signum has finally shown up again waking up at the hospital with Hayate, Rein, and Agito worried about her and generally [[{{Moe}} having a sweet reunion with Hayate telling Signum that it's too early to join Reinforce Eins in heaven]]. While it's not the badass reappearance that many fans probably wanted, Signum still retains her credentials as she completely thrashed Cypha before she [[StoryBreakerPower "Reacted"]] and the rest of the cast was defeated far worse (Nanoha and Fate were largely unscathed but poor Hayate was impaled completely out of nowhere by Huckebein's leader, who hadn't been seen until then, before she one-shotted Erio and Vita). It seems like a case of this for the main cast combined with absurdly broken villains and faulty new weapons...though there are now hints of a conspiracy involving the company that made those weapons so things are likely more than they seem for now. |
| 74 | * ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': |
| 75 | ** Sakura Haruno starts off the TimeSkip as the first member of Team 7 to go up against an Akatsuki, Sasori. She was hailed as the second coming of Tsunade, who'd she'd eventually surpass with her talent. Come next arc...she's knocked out at the starting bell after Four-Tailed Naruto smacks her hard enough that he almost kills her. |
| 76 | ** Sasuke Uchiha at the start of Part II. He was on another level than Naruto, Sakura, and Sai together, and he took over Orochimaru's consciousness when [[GrandTheftMe he tried to transfer his mind into his]], battles the powerful Akatsuki member Deidara one on one and wins, (AssPull escape notwithstanding) and then fights Itachi and manages to impress him and ''force'' him to use his trump card, [[PoweredArmor Susano'o]] to survive his [[ShockAndAwe Kirin]]. Then he faces killer bee and...gets pwned even with his full team AND is humiliated when he takes a tentacle of Killer Bee back to the Akatsuki. Then he faces the Kages, and puts up an impressive but futile fight against [[FourStarBadass the Raikage, A]] before Gaara needed to [[SaveTheVillain save him]]. He fights Gaara, who blocks all of his Amaterasu strikes without even moving while simultaneously protecting his siblings and Darui. He is then nearly killed by [[LadyOfWar Mei Terumi]] despite having a higher level of Susano'o available, needing White Zetsu to save him. And then [[BigBad Obito, while pretending to be Madara]], had to save him from being atomized by Onoki. He managed to get some badass credentials back when he fought and beat [[WellIntentionedExtremist Danzo Shimura]] despite Danzo holding back, the very fact he could hold out against [[RealityWarper Izanagi spam]] even Itachi complimented on. Then come Kakashi...he loses his sight fighting him when he gets Susano'o's final armor and before that is nearly stabbed by Sakura in the back. Then in the [[WarArc Fourth Shinobi World War Arc]] he takes down all Zetsus alone but is limited from fighting Kabuto with all of his power by Itachi. |
| 77 | * ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': |
| 78 | ** Manga Gendo makes for a debatable case, as he's much more emo and pathetic compared to his anime version but also much more cynical, cruel and insane. The same charge has been laid over his confession that he's a pile of self-hate with a social phobia in the end. |
| 79 | ** Some view Asuka's descent into madness as Badass Decay too, as she was established as an incredibly assertive and combative character, but then again, it also helped make her one of the show's biggest [[TheWoobie Woobies]]. |
| 80 | * ''Manga/{{Nononono}}'': Nono starts as a BadassAdorable KickChick who can throw heavy weights easily, but suddenly she becomes a DamselInDistress who can't defend herself [[AttemptedRape from]] a disgusting man, and a friend has to save her. After him saving her, she runs out and [[SayMyName cries out his name]] again and again rather than helping him taking the creep down while he stabs her friend… even though it's shown early in the series that she's more than capable to do so. Sure she was nude, but there was fabrics hanging around she could've covered herself with… and giving the TrainingFromHell she gave herself, she would've been able to fight the man herself with instincts and reflexes alone. |
| 81 | * ''Manga/OnePiece'': |
| 82 | ** Monster Chopper gets an aesthetic downgrade in badassery, because Chopper learned how to control this form. This means that instead of a rampaging murderous beast, you still have the adorable Chopper (in terms of personality, not appearance). Usopp even mentions how awkward this is. |
| 83 | ** Sanji, at least early on in the New World was subject to this. Largely thanks to a combination of {{Flanderization}} of his horniness and being frequently prone to TheWorfEffect. Pre-TimeSkip Sanji was consistently a GeniusBruiser badass easily as cool as Luffy and Zoro, could outsmart the likes of Crocodile, wreck various villains, save his entire crew from certain death multiple times and even when beaten like when fried by Enel’s God Juggernaut — could turn the defeat into a SugarWiki/CrowningMomentOfAwesome MadeOfIron HeroicSacrifice to save Usopp and Nami, similar to Zoro taking Luffy’s pain. However starting with Sanji’s PlayedForLaughs HumiliationConga in Momoiro Island, Sanji became more of TheChewToy and much less badass. The Fishman Island arc would exceedingly play up Sanji’s perverted qualities, with him almost dying from a NoseBleed over mermaid bosom, while downplaying his cooler traits [[OvershadowedByAwesome compared]] to Luffy and Zoro. Sanji at this point would also be repeatedly used to make the villains look intimidating such as Vergo who could crack Sanji’s tibia and Domflamingo who blocked Sanji’s attacks and almost killed him. Thankfully Whole Cake Island would give Sanji CharacterRerailment downplaying his pervertedness and while he is beaten up a fair amount he’s still able grow as a person and even help Luffy block a strike from Yonko Big Mom herself. Wano continues [[TookALevelInBadass inverting]] the decay having Sanji beat Kaido’s lieutenant Queen and get a NextTierPowerUp (as well as fight King and Queen simultaneously in the anime). [[spoiler: While Egghead sees Sanji at ground zero alongside Luffy blocking attacks from Elder Star Saturn and even making goddamn Admiral Kizaru have a OhCrap after kicking his laser beam away.]] |
| 84 | ** Robin, even more so than Sanji gets a lot of this in New World; until Wano managed to undo the damage after many, many chapters. Pre-Time Skip Robin was easily one of the most badass women in the series and nigh-unbeatable in the Alabasta Saga as she effortlessly took down Pell, Vivi and Tashigi. She was no less competent joining the crew either with Skypeia having her curb stomp TheBrute Yama all by herself. Nami and Usopp outright considered Robin just as much a superhuman freak of nature as each of the Monster Trio, whom she would frequently fight alongside (soon joined by Franky). While Robin did spend Water 7 and Enies Lobby captured, it was mostly under her own volition plus she was de-powered with [[KryptoniteFactor Seastone handcuffs]] and after breaking out Robin snapped the spine Spandam whom was kidnapping her. Post-Time Skip however, Robin would be subject to {{Chickification}} as her role as MsExposition took precedence over her combat badassery. The lowest point is certainly Dressrosa where Robin is turned into a toy by Sugar and then even after getting turned back spends the rest of the arc’s climax babysitting Rebecca rather than having a one-on-one fight like Luffy, Zoro and Franky. Not helping Robin either was the [[NonSerialMovie movies]] such as ''Strong World'', ''Film Z'', ''Film Gold'' and ''Stampede'' wherein Robin is treated more like Nami i.e needing to be rescued frequently with Sanji, Brook, Franky and Law all saving Robin’s bacon and carry her around like she’s luggage. Fortunately Wano arc would finally avert this with Robin saving Sanji from Black Maria and having a full on fight with the spider-woman, who even underlines Robin’s damsel qualities — only for Robin to gloriously prove her wrong by snapping Maria’s spine with an awesome new SuperMode. |
| 85 | ** Before the TimeSkip, Smoker was an [[HopelessBossFight undefeatable]] KnightOfCerebus to Luffy, thanks to his [[SuperSmoke Smoke Smoke Fruit]] powers. Luffy would try to exploit the elemental weakness of [[ElementalPowers Logia]]-type Devil Fruit users, as seen with [[DishingOutDirt Crocodile]] and [[ShockAndAwe Enel]], but he just couldn't figure out how to defeat Smoker. However, Smoker goes through a HumiliationConga during the Punk Hazard arc after the Time Skip. Punk Hazard itself is a part of the [[DeathWorld New World]], where having [[KiManipulation Haki]] proficiency is ''vital''[[labelnote:*]]Keep in mind that attacks infused with a type of Haki known as "Armament Haki" can bypass Logia users' elemental defenses and actually harm them[[/labelnote]]. He [[{{Jobber}} jobs]] nearly every fight he gets into because his opponents were better at using Haki than him and he relied too much on his [[NighInvulnerability smoke intangibility]]. Strangely enough, Smoker never fights Luffy at all during their time at Punk Hazard, although the latter would definitely hold his own now as [[TookALevelInBadass he also learned to use Haki]]. |
| 86 | ** Many Logia users in general are this after the Time Skip, because they tend to rely heavily on their respective elemental defenses. They were once seen as nearly invincible, but now, they come across as [[SquishyWizard Squishy Wizards]] in the face of ''novice'' Haki users. However, Logia users such as [[AnIcePerson Kuzan]] (AKA [[spoiler:former]] Admiral Aokiji), [[LightEmUp Kizaru]], [[MagmaMan Fleet Admiral Akainu]], and [[CastingAShadow Blackbeard]] avert this trope, as they are each viewed as TheDreaded. Aramaki aka Green Bull is initially an exception as well [[spoiler: as he’s introduced by effortlessly taking down Kaido’s CoDragons King and Queen… but unfortunately for Green Bull Shanks is also present at Wano and is able to make Green Bull surrender in groveling fashion with a blast of Conqueror’s Haki.]] |
| 87 | ** Gecko Moria, a former Shichibukai/Warlord of the Sea is acknowledged InUniverse example of this. In his prime during his youth (where he was a muscly gothic hot shot rather than he gonkishly overweight Halloween monster we see in Thriller Bark) he explicitly rivalled Kaido, one of the top tier strongest beings in the series whom Luffy needed multiple attempts and a NextTierPowerUp to defeat. While Moria did lose that fight in the past, he’s still displayed as a formidable threat when first introduced as he easily immobilises Luffy, Zoro and Sanji and takes their shadows. He’s also one of the few antagonists who comes closest to killing Luffy and co, as it’s only through good luck that Luffy able to make Moria spew up all the shadows which return to their owners before the sun evaporates everyone without one. Come Marineford however and Moria is considered an outright ButtMonkey by the Marines and fellow Shichibukai as he’s unceremoniously beaten up by Jinbei and almost killed by Domflamingo who declares he’s too weak to continue being a Warlord. Moria’s luck only goes further down hill when he goes to Blackbeard’s IslandBase to rescue Absalom, only to discover his crewmate is dead and he’s quickly defeated and imprisoned. |
| 88 | * ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': |
| 89 | ** Ash is often accused of this himself somewhat in BW. At the end of each region or so, then at the top of his game, taking down fully evolved Pokémon with ease, and in the case of DP, taking on [[OlympusMons a Mythical Pokémon]] with Pikachu and fighting it to a draw. Then when Ash travels to Unova and Pikachu has his strength drained by Zekrom, he has a hard time dealing with a starter Pokémon in his battle of the season. Ironically, BW is where Ash had one of his better win records, being his third-best overall. |
| 90 | ** In XY, Ash returns to form within the first two episodes. By the second episode of XY he took on (and successfully tamed) a rampaging Garchomp with just himself, his Pikachu, and his Froakie. |
| 91 | ** Ash's Buizel started out being able to take out Dawn's Piplup, Zoey's Glameow, and Ash's Pikachu one after the other, and showing a sort of joy in beating them. Now, it's a run-of-the-mill LightningBruiser that, while still enjoying a good scrap, doesn't seem anywhere near as strong as it did in its debut episode. |
| 92 | ** Downplayed with Brock. When introduced, he was a Gym Leader and a genuine threat. After joining Ash and Misty, his character became more and more softened and his battling became less and less frequent until DP, with the addition of his Crogunk and Sudowoodo. |
| 93 | ** Team Rocket also qualifies. In the second episode, they were a viable threat, and were even wanted by the police. But as the series progressed, they became less and less of a threat…As of ''Black and White'', however, [[TookALevelInBadass they've taken a level in badass]], and have again become a viable threat. But then in ''X and Y'', their badassery was still there, but overshadowed by their return to comic-relief. |
| 94 | ** Jessie's Lickitung. It started out as one of the most powerful Pokémon they ever owned; it easily defeated Ash's Bulbasaur, Brock's Vulpix, and Pikachu, before it was eventually defeated by Misty's Psyduck. In later appearances it was defeated easily by Ash's Pokémon, especially Pikachu, who previously couldn't even harm it. The only time it came close to the power of it's original appearance was when it took down a Nidoking (Though it needed Team Rocket's other Pokémon to slow it down first). |
| 95 | ** Though they're rarely individual characters, Legendary Pokémon often fall victim to this [[UniquenessDecay as weaker/less-impressive iterations appear later on]] (expect this to happen with [[SoLastSeason older Legendaries]]). Case in point, Lugia: [[Anime/Pokemon2000 first introduced]] as a powerful and intelligent being capable of calming {{Physical God}}s, the Johto series goes on to show a ''family'' of Lugia, none of which are as intelligent or even come close to matching the original's majesty and power. And the physical gods it calmed? They pop up a lot too, Zapdos in particular tends to get TheWorfEffect as showcased in both ''Anime/PokemonTheSeriesXY'' and ''Anime/PokemonJourneysTheSeries'' where Zapdos in both instances is almost easily beaten by Pokemon who had just recently evolved or aren't really experienced enough to take on Legendaries. |
| 96 | ** Alain stands out as the only rival Ash never beat at any point, and is, fittingly, one of the trainers in the Masters 8. Sadly, his match with Leon proves just how outclassed he is by the other characters (all but him are Champions), as Leon completely destroys his team, including his seemingly invincible Mega Charizard X, without much of a problem. He doesn’t even have to use Dynamax to defeat his Charizard! |
| 97 | * Nanael from ''Anime/QueensBlade'' seems to have gotten this treatment. Ever TheDitz, she one time surprisingly decides to take on three major demons all by herself, easily defeating them. Later she loses all too easily against ''one'' of them in battle. When entering the tournament she was given a bottle of milk by the head angel that would drain her of power if spilled. [[TheDitz She quickly ends up spilling most of it.]] |
| 98 | * ''Franchise/SailorMoon'': |
| 99 | ** Tuxedo Mask also has this problem, but mostly in the anime. In the first season he starts out as Sailor Moon's personal DeusExMachina, but as the Sailor Team gathers and begins to grow stronger, he starts to fall under this trope, being the only one not to receive power-ups on a regular basis. His [[Manga/SailorMoon manga]] self, on the other hand, performs the inverse, as in that continuity he starts out with no real powers, but manages to get a normal semi-powerful attack spell during the second series. |
| 100 | ** Kunzite is a particularly menacing and dangerous presence in the Dark Kingdom arc of the anime, forming shrewd plans to deal with his enemies and providing a more seasoned and experienced source of aid to his younger partner, Zoisite. After Zoisite dies, he attacks the Sailor Senshi and they just barely survive his onslaught. Then ''directly'' after this happens, Kunzite suddenly becomes the "main villain" for an arc and all this goes out the window. He comes up with particularly brainless plans to root out Sailor Moon's identity, all of which target seemingly random traits of women that naturally just cause him to zero in on the ''wrong girl''. He also frequently gets outshone by the evil Endymion/Tuxedo Mask (''and that is saying something''). Though he ''does'' return to being competent for a few episodes once Endymion is put out of commission. |
| 101 | * ''Manga/SgtFrog'': |
| 102 | ** Giroro. Although Giroro still the only one who seems genuinely militaristic in the platoon, and is not afraid to terminate with extreme prejudice when irritated. (Fortunately Keronians are MadeOfIron.) This is a show where ''all'' male characters inherently far weaker than their female counterparts, after all. |
| 103 | ** Viper. The first Viper is treated by the Keroro Platoon as a deadly serious threat, who easily captures one and brings the rest to their knees. From that point on, they seem to be a steadily decreasing threat, ''despite'' each successive Viper tending to 'upgrade' in some way. |
| 104 | ** Keroro in Tamama's eyes who laments that the legendary Gunsou san he's heard in stories is just a silly man child. Of course in that particular episode/chapter (episode 336 and chapter 140) the readers [[spoiler:and Zoruru]] see a glimpse of [[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass Keroro we've never seen before]]. |
| 105 | * ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'': |
| 106 | ** Lina's three allies seem to get progressively weaker in later seasons of the anime, whereas she maintains her relatively powerful SquishyWizard status. Zelgadis is the worst offender, having [[MagicKnight balanced magic and swordplay]] combined with [[StoneWall stone skin]]; he's usually the one [[TheWorfEffect who gets taken down or brushed off first]] later on; earlier he was genuinely threatening. Gourry the swordsman could provide in a pinch before; later on he becomes more or less [[MacGuffin a plot coupon]] because he happens to be wielding a very powerful ForgottenSuperWeapon. The novels avert Gourry's decay by giving him a new sword and maintaining his BadassNormal status, however. |
| 107 | ** Amelia was always weaker than her companions, but she went [[TookALevelInBadass the other way]], surprisingly; so did [[TheMedic healer]] Sylphiel. |
| 108 | * Nearly the entire cast of ''Anime/YuGiOh'' suffered from this in the transition from manga into the anime. |
| 109 | ** In the original seven volumes of the manga, Jonouchi/Joey and Honda/Tristan being former gang members was a lot more obvious and only slightly less so later on, as they delivered quite a few beatings to kids their age and full-grown adults. For example, in the original manga, Jonouchi was an adept fighter, even though he wasn't a great gamer, due to living his early teen years as a gang member that had to fight to survive. He beats Bandit Keith up during Duelist Kingdom for trying to steal his cards. In the anime, Bandit Keith beats HIM up and he usually ends up looking like a wannabe thug. Dark Yugi himself was not someone to mess with, as he previously had a tendency to play Shadow Games with anyone who pissed him off, which usually ended with the loser insane, grievously hurt, or dead, that lasted until the end of Duelist Kingdom. Even Anzu/Téa could throw an BitchSlap once in a while, and not just for dramatic effect, either. Then the anime and real life card game rolled around, and suddenly Yugi and Jonouchi are settling all their problems with Duel Monsters, while Honda and Anzu are reduced to cheerleaders. |
| 110 | ** Kaiba was also somewhat reduced in badassery during his transition from manga to anime, where he spends more time standing around being TheStoic. He does have a few [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome good moments]] in the first season and in the occasional anime arcs that focus on him, but even those were a step down from trapping Yugi and his friends in a theme park designed specifically to make them die horrific deaths. |
| 111 | ** Mokuba. Again, the franchise from before and after the universe revolved around Duel Monsters can be considered two different series with [[InNameOnly curious name similarities]]. The ''old'' Mokuba was an EnfantTerrible and wanted to kill Yugi, being one of the better villains in the series, being a '''KnightOfCerebus''' in the manga. In the ''Duel Monsters anime'', he mostly exists as a MoralityPet to Kaiba. |
| 112 | ** Insector Haga (Weevil Underwood) and Dinosaur Ryuzaki (Rex Raptor) were once lauded as regional champions, and to be feared. However, after their defeats at the hands of the protagonists, they became nothing more than comic relief. That is, until they got the superpowered Seal... |
| 113 | ** Jun Manjoume in ''Anime/YuGiOhGX'' suffers from this in Season 3, but gets better in Season 4. |
| 114 | [[/folder]] |
| 115 | |
| 116 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 117 | * ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': |
| 118 | ** [[Characters/BatmanBane Bane]] went through a lot of this. After ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'', he went from defeating Characters/{{Batman|TheCharacter}} to losing to everyone from Azrael to Judomaster's SON. Most significantly, his SuperSerum venom quickly shifted to a WeaksauceWeakness where he was almost instantly disabled without a constant supply; beforehand, he was shown to [[BroughtDownToBadass still be very competent and dangerous without it]]. Creator/GailSimone has been reversing most of this in ''ComicBook/SecretSix''. |
| 119 | ** [[Characters/BatmanJasonTodd Jason Todd]]'s character progression goes up and down more times than a roller coaster; he had a rough start both in universe and out. Replacing the vastly more popular [[Characters/NightwingDickGrayson Dick Grayson]] in addition to disobeying and antagonizing Batman caused thousands of fans [[TheScrappy to hate Jason's guts]] to the point where fans eventually voted for him [[ComicBook/BatmanADeathInTheFamily to be killed by the Joker]], though the vote was close and some fans were [[AlasPoorScrappy upset]] by Jason's demise. DC brought Jason back as the morally unstable [[GunsAkimbo gun toting]] inconstant AntiHero[=/=]AntiVillain serial killing psychopath Red Hood who won over fans with his troubled backstory and the strain fighting him puts on the Bats. Alas when the DCU [[ContinuityReboot rebooted]] again Todd stopped being a violent Punisher-pastiche and rejoined the [[BadassFamily Bat-family]]. He changed his stance on killing criminals and was accepted with open arms despite maintaining his history as a serial killer who has made multiple attempts on his little brothers' lives. |
| 120 | ** Probably the worst case of this in comics comes from Killer Moth. When he was created, he was built up to be the "anti-Batman" and he was genuinely a credible threat to the Caped Crusader. However, his threat level fell apart when he became the target for Characters/{{Batgirl}}'s first appearance. After that, he was considered a joke and not even his transformation into Charaxas during ''ComicBook/UnderworldUnleashed'' could help save him. About the closest Killer Moth had been in any media to being a credible threat was during ''WesternAnimation/{{Teen Titans|2003}}'', and even then he got pushed around by his BrattyTeenageDaughter Kitten. |
| 121 | * ''ComicBook/{{Deadpool}}'': [[Characters/MarvelComicsDeadpool Deadpool]] in a lot of crossovers or being a RoguesGalleryTransplant partly for publicity but also his villains fell from grace a while ago. Notable during the Daniel Way run where Deadpool took care of almost all of them without healing factor with ridiculous ease (particularly Slayback and T-Ray, the former giving Deadpool a mental breakdown when he saw him and the latter being his nemesis for a long time, being blown up despite healing factors as good as Deadpool's). |
| 122 | * ''ComicBook/DoctorStrange'': The MultiversalConqueror [[Characters/DoctorStrangeEnemies Dormammu]] has been subjected to this to a more ridiculous degree than any other Marvel character over the years. In the old days he was able to one-shot the [[ComicBook/XMen Phoenix Force]], absorb many universes into his own realm that he rules as a [[DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans god-tyrant]], defeat the multiversal incarnation of [[CosmicEntity Eternity]] (with help from his sister Umar), and likely killed [[EldritchAbomination The Trinity of Ashes and Slorioth]], who threatened Eternity just by existing. He was also more than a match for several [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Hell-lords]] combined during a campaign to conquer their realms, and they had to use a specific weakness of his as a cheat in order to prevail. All of this outside of his own realm, wherein he is far more powerful. However from 2007 or so and onwards, he has been treated as a pushover that has been defeated or severely damaged by objectively enormously less powerful characters, such as [[WeakButSkilled Cyclops and the Howling Commandos]]. |
| 123 | * ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'': A rather insignificant example of this is when it turns out Abe Sapien gets seasick in ''Drums of the Dead''. Abe remarks, "Being in the water is different from being on the water" or somesuch. |
| 124 | * ''ComicBook/LenoreTheCuteLittleDeadGirl'': Ragamuffin is shown to eat a woman ''[[HorrorHunger alive]]'' in the first issue. Due [[SealedEvilInATeddyBear to his transformation in a rag doll]], he dropped from a {{Magnificent|Bastard}} [[OurVampiresAreDifferent Vampire]] to a cuddly toy, used to entertain Lenore. After he reverts back to his vampire form in issue 12, he is devoted to [[TheNotLoveInterest her]] and [[KnightTemplarParent his sole purpose is her protection]]. |
| 125 | * ''Franchise/MarvelUniverse'': Happens on the cosmic scale as well, [[Characters/MarvelComicsGalactus Galactus]] and the Celestials have lost A LOT of their aura of invincibility over the decades. Galactus gets trussed up like a turkey and used as fuel for a bomb in ComicBook/{{Annihilation}} and in ''ComicBook/JLAAvengers'' was not only killed by the story's BigBad but ''hollowed out and used as the Big Bad's fortress''. Meanwhile Celestials have died from being eaten from the inside out by Many-Angled Ones during Annihilation and space bugs in the ComicBook/TheAvengers 2018 edition, Celestials have also died from a single chop done by Thor's [[ComicBook/UncannyAvengers cursed axe]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsApocalypse Apocalypse]] was even allowed to kill one OFFSCREEN. The cosmic hero [[Characters/Warlock1967 Adam Warlock]] has degenerated from the Marvel U's [[MessianicArchetype version of Jesus]] to just another space guy with a SuperpoweredEvilSide, and [[ComicBook/XMen Gladiator]] has fallen from the preeminent SupermanSubstitute of Marvel to one of the patron saints of TheWorfEffect. |
| 126 | * ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'': Nicky Cavella's first introduction in ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'' paints him as a suave, AffablyEvil badass who smooth talks his partners and generally acts like a pretty decent guy (until he gets down to business), yet the mobsters of New York are [[BewareTheNiceOnes terrified of him]] and he's done ''something'' to put him in charge of the two most [[AxCrazy dangerously]] {{psycho|ForHire}}tic killers in the mob. When his plans come crashing down around him, he isn't so cocky and smooth anymore and runs away while using the man he conned into helping him as a meat shield. Even so, he still seems like a pretty dangerous and effective villain (not least because he subverted BondVillainStupidity). But in his next (and last) appearance, he is the complete opposite of everything that he was in the first comic. He's whiny, stupid, {{smug|Snake}} and just [[DepravedBisexual creepy]] and [[EnfantTerrible weird]]. Readers do get to see his origin story, and one part of it is horrifyingly [[EvilIsCool cool]], but overall his badass credentials seem to have been left in his other pair of pants. |
| 127 | * ''ComicBook/Robin1993'': Johnny Warren starts out as a truly terrifying mob enforcer who first runs into Robin after spending a day torturing a woman out of boredom while hoping the woman's boyfriend, who stole from his boss, shows up so he can torture and kill him too. He loses a hand in an explosion then gains immense magical power and becomes a LifeDrinker after being possessed by a demonic object, and goes on a killing spree where he murders his family, bosses and a bunch of cops. Since he was by this point powerful enough to tank a kryptonian level threat and Robin would have no chance against him he ends up being unable to get over the pain of once losing his hand in a fight with Robin, causing his powers to hurt himself when he fights him rather than Tim. He then flees Gotham and sends minions after Robin before fading into obscurity. |
| 128 | * ''ComicBook/RoseAndThorn'': Thorn started off as a pretty badass (if gimmicky) feminist vigilante who went around kicking ass and teaming up with the likes of [[Characters/SupermanLoisLane Lois Lane]] and ComicBook/GreenArrow. By the time the year 2000 rolled in, she had become an ineffectual joke who appeared as a recurring thorn in the side (pun intended) to [[ComicBook/GothamCitySirens Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy]]. It became something of a running joke where the duo would be attacked by Thorn while committing a crime, only to easily defeat her and leave her BoundAndGagged. A couple years later Creator/GailSimone revived the character and made her into a cunning antiheroine who fought the ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey. |
| 129 | * ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'': This happened with Metal Sonic. The "Version 3.0" had started out as something of a big threat. However, in the span of about 75 issues, that threat level disappeared quickly, becoming something of a joke. The fans, Sega and ultimately writer Creator/IanFlynn got tired of that, though. |
| 130 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 131 | ** [[Characters/SupermanTheCharacter The title character]] is a complicated case. At the very start of [[MediaNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks the Golden Age]], Superman was a smug, hot-headed vigilante who bullied crooks and corrupt authority constantly. Gradually, though, his attitude mellowed down -he was nicer but was still a paranoid jerkass- as his powers increased steadily until becoming a planet-destroyer before the beginning of [[MediaNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks the Silver Age]]. Then, the 1986 reboot both nerfed his powers and softened his personality until turning him into Mr. Nice Guy. |
| 132 | ** Pre-Crisis Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} was one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, as well as mature, experienced and self-assured hero because she was allowed to grow up. Then DC [[ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths killed her off]], and when [[ComicBook/TheSupergirlFromKrypton2004 she was reinstated in the main continuity]], [[ComicBook/Supergirl2005 Kara was an insecure teenager girl]] who was definitely less powerful than her previous, godlike incarnation. |
| 133 | ** Golden Age [[Characters/SupermanLoisLane Lois Lane]] was an intelligent IntrepidReporter who was often able to [[DamselOutOfDistress save herself]] -- though she (understandably) often needed Superman's help when dealing with superhuman-level problems and other things a normal human couldn't be expected to deal with single-handedly. In the Silver Age, she was watered down into a reckless, somewhat ditzy woman who frequently needed to be rescued and was obsessed with getting Superman to marry her. However, the Bronze Age mostly restored her old badassery. |
| 134 | ** During the earliest stories of his series ''ComicBook/SupermansPalJimmyOlsen'', the main character was a competent detective and PintsizedPowerhouse who might get a head start on beating up the bad guys before Superman got there and who, if captured, often found some way to alert Superman with or without his signal watch. As the stories progressed, he became more and more TheLoad. While this has been reversed over time, his reputation as extra baggage who largely exists as a WeirdnessMagnet remains. |
| 135 | ** [[Characters/SupermanDoomsdayCharacter Doomsday]] was [[GenericDoomsdayVillain a villain created with the sole purpose of defeating the hero]] to raise sales. The problem with this kind of villain is that the fans will want to get more stories with him, and writers have to depower him so that the stories are not prone to FridgeLogic (if he could kill Superman once, why can't he do it again?) |
| 136 | * ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'': In his original appearance, Roberto Rastapopoulos was portrayed as an actually threatening villain, being a MagnificentBastard who led a whole drug traffic in the first story arc in the whole series, almost succeeded in killing Tintin at several points. In ''Fly 714 for Sydney'', he is turned into a comical villain who ends up accidentally revealing his whole plan under the effect of a truth serum and get heavily ridiculed, even failing to crush a ''spider''. Might be intentional, however, as Hergé's purpose when writing this book was to {{deconstruct|ion}} the adventure genre. |
| 137 | * ''ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel'': The series solidified the idea of [[MerchandiseDriven "to sell toys"]] in the fanbase, due to its heavy use of this. In general, when a character with a new toy debuts, they are treated as extremely dangerous and powerful and receive a fair bit of focus. Once their toy is off the shelves, they fall OutOfFocus and their performance becomes a joke. The most famous such instance was Omega Supreme: in his first appearance, he was so big that other characters came up to his knee, and was strong enough that he fought all of Earth's Decepticons and completely curbstomped them. About thirty issues later, he was maybe a head taller than Blaster, and got taken down offhandedly in a single panel by Buzzsaw, who is about a tenth his size and was actually one of the Decepticons that Omega easily crushed in his first outing. |
| 138 | * ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: [[Characters/WonderWomanAllies Etta Candy]] was hit hard by the death of her creator. Wondy's human pal had started out as a plucky, cheerful take no-nonsense, genuinely excellent fighter and leader who had a great sense of humor that tended to catch others off guard, but writers after Marston slimmed her down, [[ProgressivelyPrettier prettied her up]] and made her generic and helpless. She recovered a little bit in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'' where she was reimagined as a member of the Air Force but was rather serious and not nearly as excited about or good at fighting. Her ''ComicBook/WonderWomanRebirth'' and other modern takes are generally a fine return to form for the leader of the Holiday Girls. |
| 139 | * ''ComicBook/XMen'': |
| 140 | ** For the first three decades of publication history, the Characters/{{Juggernaut|MarvelComics}} was a physically unstoppable villain empowered by the deity Cyttorak. Some of the notable feats include withstanding [[Characters/MarvelComicsThorOdinson Thor's]] "godforce" unharmed, an attack that was earlier shown capable of severely injuring [[Characters/MarvelComicsGalactus Galactus]]. Then during ''ComicBook/{{Onslaught}}'' the Juggernaut gets a taste of TheWorfEffect, as he is knocked clean across two states and ends up comatose for several days just to show how badass Onslaught is. [[RedemptionDemotion Things went further downhill]] as Creator/ChuckAusten wrote him as part of the ComicBook/XMen. Juggernaut, who before had been capable of going for weeks if not years without air, food, or water, can suddenly drown in Austen's first story featuring him. There was absolutely no explanation for why the Juggernaut was suddenly very stoppable, and later authors have scrambled for a {{retcon}} to explain that. The latest line comes from ''ComicBook/FearItself: The Worthy'', which says that Juggernaut's power goes "up and down on Cyttorak's whim". [[VoodooShark That is something that has never happened before]], even when the Juggernaut went dimension-hopping with ComicBook/DoctorStrange and tried to kill Cyttorak when coming face to face with him.[[note]]Though in the latter case Cyttorak might've just been [[VillainRespect impressed enough with Juggy having the balls to fight him]] to not punish him with a depower.[[/note]] Or when the Juggernaut screwed up a bet between Cyttorak and other deities in ''The Eighth Day'', he was confirmed to still possess unstoppable strength from Cyttorak's enchantments in the follow-up story The Ninth Day. |
| 141 | ** [[Characters/MarvelComicsExodus Exodus]] was originally created to be [[Characters/MarvelComicsMagneto Magneto]]'s successor as the top mutant threat to the X-Men and throughout the first half of the '90s he more than lived up to his lofty claim of being "[[BadassBoast Magneto's heir in spirit and in power]]", flattening all of X-Force in just his second appearance before starring as the BigBad of the ''ComicBook/{{Blood Ties|MarvelComics}}'' crossover in which he effortlessly defeated a fully-armored War Machine, matched and overcame [[ComicBook/TheEternals the Eternal]] Sersi, and in the story's climax fought off virtually the entirety of both the Avengers and X-Men teams singlehandedly while ''also'' crushing the entire island of Genosha beneath the force of his telekinesis. Then he succumbed to OrcusOnHisThrone and spent a few years just sort of sitting around, until the ''ComicBook/AgeOfApocalypse'' villain Holocaust was transported over to the regular timeline and the decision was made to have him fight Exodus sans his PoweredArmor to [[TheWorfEffect show how strong he was]] (despite Exodus logically being able to defeat him with his telepathy [[ForgotAboutHisPowers if he'd just bothered to use it]]). Much like Juggernaut above, Exodus would be further dragged downhill by Chuck Austen, who wrote him as a very generic sort of baddie who struggled to match Havok and got told off by one of his own lackies, a teenage elephant boy. Unlike Juggernaut, this bizarre dip in competence has never been addressed, and later appearances only dragged him down further, with ''Messiah Complex'' using him as a victim of TheWorfEffect (again) to build up [[Characters/MarvelComicsNightcrawler Nightcrawler]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsEmmaFrost Emma Frost]]. He's been handled with more respect since then, but is still written as being below Magneto in power, despite ''Blood Ties'' establishing him as Magneto's equal if not superior. |
| 142 | ** Surpassing both Juggernaut and Exodus in the Badass Decay awards is [[Characters/MarvelComicsSabretooth Sabretooth]]. Originally TheDreaded to [[Characters/MarvelComicsLogan Wolverine]], Sabretooth first started falling from grace in the mid '90s when Wolvie gave him a forcible {{lobotomy}}. He spent some time in the X-Men's care due to this before regaining his original bloodthirsty personality, but the Sabretooth who was AlwaysSomeoneBetter to Logan was effectively gone. His next appearance had him being pitted against Wolverine by [[Characters/MarvelComicsApocalypse Apocalypse]] to see which of them was more fit to be his horseman and being decisively beaten. But then along came (you guessed it) ''Chuck Austen'', who dragged Sabretooth down further into the depths of HarmlessVillain territory. How harmless? Wolverine and the X-Men ''laugh at him'' when he invades the X-Mansion alongside Exodus and Juggernaut above, and a teenage mutant girl with no SuperStrength at all punches him out. For whatever reason, Chuck Austen seemed to be set on dragging as many Badass X-Men villains down into this as he could before leaving the X-books. |
| 143 | [[/folder]] |
| 144 | |
| 145 | [[folder:Comic Strips]] |
| 146 | * ''ComicStrip/{{Peanuts}}'': Lucy van Pelt went from an ebullient ball of aggressive energy to a rather neutered figure in the later years. The biography ''Schulz and Peanuts'' claims that Lucy was largely based on the author's first wife Joyce; after they divorced, Lucy lost her powers. |
| 147 | [[/folder]] |
| 148 | |
| 149 | [[folder:Fan Works]] |
| 150 | * ''Fanfic/InfinityCrisis'' features an In-Universe example, set in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse, where the Red Skull, upon returning to Earth through his new alliance with Thanos, notes how how HYDRA has gone from an army ready to conquer the world to the equivalent of an American corporation doing board meetings on plans they never follow through on. |
| 151 | * Happens In-Universe with Tucker in ''Fanfic/MurderersRow''. At the beginning of the story, he's a feared and powerful inmate and an expert con man imprisoned for having gone PapaWolf on the people who kidnapped his son. However, his injuries gradually catch up to him, [[spoiler:and by Volume 3 he's a blind, weak old man unable to defend himself]]. He lampshades it, lamenting that he is no longer a badass. |
| 152 | * In "[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/16840177/chapters/39532987 Far From Home]]" from the ''Fanfic/RoseRedemptionAU'' series, Rose regains a new body by possessing a forming quartz. She lacks her old strength as well as many of her original abilities. This is justified, considering that she was originally a diamond and is now inhabiting the body of a quartz. |
| 153 | [[/folder]] |
| 154 | |
| 155 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 156 | * While calling her badass might be a bit of a stretch, Belle from ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast'' was shown to be an assertive young woman who isn't willing to take shit from JerkAss guys like Gaston. In fact, she's the main reason why Beast TookALevelInKindness to begin with. In the [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeastTheEnchantedChristmas direct-to-video]] [[WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeastBellesMagicalWorld midquels]], however, she's portrayed as an air-headed ExtremeDoormat who has to ''apologize'' for telling Beast that his bad behavior isn't acceptable. |
| 157 | * [[EnfantTerrible Louise]] isn't nearly as courageous in ''WesternAnimation/TheBobsBurgersMovie'' as she is in [[WesternAnimation/BobsBurgers the show]], with an entire arc about needing to face her fears and become braver. When Chloe calls her a baby, Louise's response is to mope about it, when the Louise from the earlier seasons would have likely concocted an elaborate revenge plan (such as in "Ear-sy Rider", where she tried to have a biker gang cut off Logan Bush's ears after the latter stole her hat). |
| 158 | * In ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Phoebus was at least of average intelligence and is reasonable in his attitude towards outcasts once he has some experience with them. In [[WesternAnimation/TheHunchbackOfNotreDameII the sequel]], he is easily hoodwinked, displays a worse attitude towards the circus folk than toward the Romani in the original film, and generally gets in the way more than he helps. |
| 159 | * Diego from ''WesternAnimation/IceAge'' started off as with being a badass being his defining trait to getting his ass kicked repeatedly in the fourth movie. |
| 160 | * Captain Gantu from ''WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitch'' suffers from this. In the original movie, Gantu was a respected captain in the [[TheFederation Galactic Federation]]. He stood 20 feet tall and was trained well in alien martial arts (and to a lesser extent, hula-dancing). Although he ultimately failed his mission to bring Stitch back to the Federation, he came particularly close, and generally left us with the impression that he was an overall competent, and badass character. Fast forward to [[WesternAnimation/StitchTheMovie later]] [[WesternAnimation/LeroyAndStitch sequels]] and [[WesternAnimation/LiloAndStitchTheSeries the cartoon series]], where he becomes a one-man Team Rocket. Gantu has since been cashiered out of the Federation military, works under the employ of ''an anthropomorphic hamster'', and is foiled on repeated occasions by the titular duo. On one occasion, he failed to succeed in an episode's mission when Stitch was incapacitated. He was foiled by '''a 6-year-old child'''. The anime ''Anime/{{Stitch}}'' took him down even further than ''The Series'' did. He was indeed rather comedic and most often failed, but he was at least dedicated to his duty of capturing experiments, and he would rather spend time attacking his enemies than eating sandwiches. In ''Stitch!'', his first 'formula episode' appearance has him arguing with Reuben over flavours of sandwich, he cries uncontrollably after a sad moment in a television show (and is upset when Hämsterviel switches it off so that he can try to get Gantu to do something), and can hardly ever be said to attack. He doesn't even use his blaster even with it in the holster. But here's the doom sign; when Hämsterviel is the one who's reprimanding Reuben all the time, you know you've fallen pretty dang hard. |
| 161 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'': Scar's competence is noticeably diminished after he actually becomes King of the Pridelands. Gone is the charismatic, brilliant manipulator of the story's first half, replaced in the final half with a far less intelligent, spoiled brat of a tyrant instead. His laziness and self-indulgence alienated any potential followers, and his taunting of Simba during the final battle leads to him confessing to Mufasa's murder, giving his nephew and the lionesses the determination needed to turn the tables on him. |
| 162 | * Prince Eric from ''WesternAnimation/{{The Little Mermaid|1989}}'' goes from so badass that he does almost all of the action scenes in the first movie, to not even bothering to lift a sword in [[WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea the direct-to-video sequel]] to rescue his infant child. [[TookALevelInBadass Inversely]], Ariel goes from being mostly a DamselInDistress to taking Eric's sword off his belt ''while he's wearing it'' and rescuing said infant daughter while Eric stands back dumb-founded. Apparently it's impossible for both of them to be competent at the same time. |
| 163 | * In ''WesternAnimation/PenguinsOfMadagascar'', the North Wind is introduced giving a CurbStompBattle to several mooks that had been giving the penguins trouble. They never do anything equally impressive after that. Though this can be partially attributed to their rivalry with the penguins impeding their effectiveness, even after they decide to cooperate with the penguins, they are quickly taken out of the fight in the final battle. |
| 164 | [[/folder]] |
| 165 | |
| 166 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 167 | * The Xenomorph from the ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' series. Originally it was described as the unstoppable "Perfect Organism"... then in ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' it was shown that Xenomorphs can actually be dealt with enough firepower and the powerful HollywoodAcid blood is now greatly weakened from being able to melt through various levels of a ship to now just scarring human skin... by the time ''Film/AlienResurrection'' and ''Film/AliensVsPredatorRequiem'' came along the Xenomorphs pretty much became {{Glass Cannon}}s that can be killed with a [[BoomHeadshot single headshot]] even by a lowly pizza delivery guy. |
| 168 | * Alison Drake's (Ruth Chatterton) character towards the end of ''Film/{{Female}}'' (1933). Sadly, this is a common set-up for pre-Code films, mostly those featuring strong or amoral female characters. Another example would be Lily Powers in ''Film/BabyFace'' (1933). |
| 169 | * ''Franchise/StarWars'': |
| 170 | ** The prequel trilogy did this to Darth Vader... sort of. He only shows up properly at the very end of ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith'', once "Anakin Skywalker" is done and over with, but the one time he's there features [[BigNo one of the most infamous]] {{Narm}} [[BigNo moments ever]] that really makes him seem less impressive. However, ''Film/RogueOne'' undoes this, with a MookHorrorShow that reminds the audience just why he's TheDreaded as he slices through a whole corridor of random rebel soldiers. |
| 171 | ** General Grievous gets this in an odd way. In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'' he was a badass unstoppable Jedi killer. However, at the end of the series, his few remaining internal organs were severely mangled by Mace Windu, resulting in him gaining a chronic cough and seeming much weaker in ''Revenge of the Sith'', as he was intended to become a FallenHero and a precursor of sorts to Vader. |
| 172 | ** InUniverse the Jedi Order suffered this, in ancient times they were pretty much gods who could create and shape life with the force and only their rivals the Sith and to lesser extent the Mandalorians could give them any trouble. By the time of the Republic in the Prequel Trilogy however they’ve become ineffectual and pompous wizard cops with laser swords who can be killed in droves by battle droids and as Luke in ''The Last Jedi'' points out easy prey for Palpatine’s AssimilationPlot. In fact one of the reasons Qui-Gon banked so much on TheChosenOne Anakin is because he felt Anakin could restore their decaying order. Averted in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'' which depicts the Jedi as absolute powerhouses that lay waste to foes and whom only the likes Grevious and Ventress can match. |
| 173 | ** [[MemeticMutation Han shot first!]] Han Solo suffers from a rare case of ''retroactive'' Badass Decay, as [[{{Bowdlerise}} the controversial bowdlerisation]] occurred in the 1997 re-release of the original trilogy. To expound in the original ''Film/ANewHope'' Han mercilessly shoots Greedo in their confrontation at the Cabtina, illustrating how the Smuggler is not to be messed with. In the re-release Greedo shoots first (missing) with Han’s own shoot that kills Greedo being retaliation. While Lucas made the change to make Han look more heroic, most fans prefer the original scene with the edit’s sheer wonkiness to make Han’s head dodge Greedo’s shot only aiding this sentiment. |
| 174 | ** The Empire in general, barring Vader and the Emperor get this by the end in the original trilogy. In the first film ''Film/ANewHope'', they’re an overwhelming nigh-unstoppable force who always have the heroes on the back foot and only lost to Luke and co by a hair’s breadth due to combination of good luck, timing and the AchillesHeel in the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port. In ''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' as the title suggests force they have the Rebels on the run and the film ends with the good guys defeated, Han frozen in Carbonite and Luke getting his hand lopped off. In ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'' however they unable to take out one fleet of Rebels even with a fully functional (albeit more vulnerable) Death Star and on Endor their forces are embarrassingly defeated by the cute little teddy bears that are the Ewoks. ''Film/RogueOne'' and ''Series/{{Andor}}'' however go to great lengths re-establishing the Empire as almost a metaphorical force of unbeatable galactic evil. |
| 175 | ** Specifically highlighted and then subverted by Kylo Ren in ''Film/TheLastJedi''. [[BadBoss Snoke]] mocks him for this early on for almost losing a fight to ''two'' untrained Force users and even tells him to [[PretenderDiss take off the mask because he's no Vader]]. Kylo Ren's self-consciousness of his own badass decay forms a large part of his motivation throughout the film. By the end of the movie, [[spoiler: Kylo [[TookALevelInBadasss has successfully killed]] Snoke ''and'' his entire PraetorianGuard (with Rey's help)]]. |
| 176 | ** Luke Skywalker himself got a fair amount of this in the Sequel Trilogy compared the Original Trilogy (not to mention Legends). By ''Return of the Jedi'' Luke was an awesome Jedi Knight who sweep through numerous foes and when enraged could even overpower his father TheDreaded Vader. In the SequelSeries however Luke suffers from NotAsYouKnowThem as sensing evil within his nephew Ben and in a MomentOfWeakness contemplates killing him leading to Ben attacking him and destroying the new Jedi Order he had built. By the time we see Luke again in ''Film/TheLastJedi'' he’s a bitter old man whom even newbie Force Sensitive Rey can push around. This is ultimately averted by the climax, where Luke saves the Rebellion from being destroyed by Kylo [[spoiler:force projecting his image across the galaxy to face/distract Kylo]]. ''Series/TheMandalorian'' and ''Series/TheBookOfBobaFett'' mitigate this damage to Luke’s character affirming he was in his prime colossally powerful, just age and misfortune caught up with him by the time of the Sequel Trilogy. |
| 177 | * The Yautja from the ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' series as a species, similar to the Xenomorphs got this overtime. In the first movie the Predator Jungle Hunter alone could effortlessly take down Wrestling/JesseVentura’s Blain, Creator/CarlWeathers and beat the shit out of [[Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger Arnie]]’s Dutch in a fist fight. Hell, Dutch only won through ingenuity and preparation like a musclebound Kevin Mac Allister. In ''Film/Predator2'' however the City Hunter struggles with a few cops, is nearly killed by Creator/GaryBusey and is maimed, flees from and ultimately killed by “I’m too old for this shit” Creator/DannyGlover’s Lieutenant Mike who the Predator with his own weapon. In ''Film/AlienVsPredator'' zigzags this as the “hero” Predator Scar is pretty badass killings multiple humans and Xenomorphs before slaying the Xenomorph Queen herself; the other two Predators however drop like flies. In ''Film/AliensVsPredatorRequiem'' an entire spaceship of Yautja is annihilated by the Predalien, aided by plain o’l stupidity. In both ''Film/{{Predators}}'' and ''Film/ThePredator'' the classic Predator get reduced to chop liver to big up the Super Predators and Upgrade Predator respectively. Finally averted in ''Film/Prey2022'' where the Feral Predator is portrayed as TheJuggernaut and impossible to beat hand to hand forcing the Comanche heroine to have play smart to kill it (not to mention the Predator in this film was nerfed by the removal of the plasma caster). The biggest factor in this decay, which only ''Prey'' amended is that the first film showed humans cannot defeat the Predator in a straight fight necessitating [[BoobyTrap traps]] and pragmatism. Later films however even good ones like ''Predators'' have the human heroes able to kill the Yautja in close quarters with weapons. Significantly dampening their unstoppable menace. |
| 178 | * Film/JamesBond tends to attract this accusation depending on actor and audience interpretation. Let's just leave it at that. |
| 179 | * Franchise/{{Godzilla}}: |
| 180 | ** The eponymous Kaiju went from an unstoppable force of sheer destruction who had no equals to being beaten by King Kong, Mothra, and the newly introduced King Ghidorah... That said, Godzilla's track record remained quite high excluding those losses and would usually defeat his opponents in the end. Most modern interpretations try to split the difference, making Godzilla a JerkWithAHeartOfGold. For the most part, he's content to remain in the sea or on Monster Island if left alone. [[AwakeningTheSleepingGiant If humans piss him off, he will fuck up a few cities]]. If more hostile monsters step up, though, he'll gladly stomp their face into a few mountains. He's just like ComicBook/TheIncredibleHulk, but bigger and charcoal gray instead of green (Though, Godzilla is ''sometimes'' green in a few depictions). |
| 181 | ** King Ghidorah went from being the ultimate evil in his film debut (''Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster'') to being TheDragon in the very [[Film/InvasionOfAstroMonster next film]]. Also, he went from being a threat that took three monsters to defeat and over six to kill in the Showa era to being dispatched by Godzilla alone in ''Film/GodzillaVsKingGhidorah''. |
| 182 | ** The version of Godzilla from ''Film/Godzilla1998'' was a devastating threat that terrorised UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity, then in ''Film/GodzillaFinalWars'' it came up against the Toho Godzilla and lasted, ooh, a whole 13 seconds before being thrown through the Sydney Opera House and toasted with atomic breath. A deliberate example, since the makers of ''Final Wars'' didn't particularly like the 1998 movie and the scene of its destruction is even called "Pretender to the Throne". |
| 183 | * ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'': |
| 184 | ** Pintel and Ragetti. While they were always comic relief, they had no problem with murder and IHaveYouNowMyPretty to Elizabeth in [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanTheCurseOfTheBlackPearl the first film]]. In the [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest two]] [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd sequels]] they are just mischievous at worst. This is even given an in-story justification: After losing their immortality at the end of the first film, they are deliberately trying to avoid provoking people into doing things like shooting them. Also, Ragetti has become religious and is worried about his eventual fate. |
| 185 | ** Barbossa, very much so. In the first film he’s a chilling and formidable villain who only lost due to Will breaking the immortality curse JustInTime. Upon his resurrection in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'' as an AloofAlly, he’s less sinister and more goofy but still pretty badass. In ''[[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides On Stranger Tides]]'' and ''[[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMenTellNoTales Dead Men Tell No Tales]]'' he’s far more foppish and in the latter pretty much a HarmlessVillain. |
| 186 | * Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse: |
| 187 | ** [[Characters/MCULokiLaufeyson Loki]], the Avengers’s first villain probably suffered the biggest decay in the Infinity Saga. In ''Film/{{Thor}}'' he’s TheChessmaster who gains control of Asgard, almost kills his brother Thor and later wielding Gungnir is able to match Thor in a fight. In ''Film/TheAvengers2012'' he’s even more badass wrecking SHIELD, kicking the crap out of Captain America in a fight and injures Thor with a knife. While he does get beat around a fair amount, it’s not until he pisses off the Hulk is Loki beaten outright and the rest of the time he was in control of the situation. In ''Film/ThorTheDarkWorld'' he spends most of the movie imprisoned but is still treated as a great threat and he’s able to help Thor defeat Kurse to avenge their mother and the ending of the film reveals Loki has taken Odin’s place on the throne. In ''Film/ThorRagnarok'' Loki is more of a SmugSnake ButtMonkey who is constantly getting pushed around and punished for his sneakiness by the heroes, especially by Thor (Who TookALevelInBadass) with none of Loki’s tricks able to fool his brother anymore. He does get some pretty cool moments in the FinalBattle though and is technically the one who defeats Hela by [[SummonBiggerFish unleashing Surtur]] upon her. In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'', Loki is choked to death by Thanos only a few minutes into the movie just to highlight Titan’s menace show AnyoneCanDie. In ''Series/Loki2021'' Season 1 Loki is humiliated by the TVA, pushed out a window by {{mooks}} and outwitted by his female AlternateSelf Sylvie. Averted greatly in the second series however, where Loki fully develops his magic and becomes a TimeMaster. |
| 188 | ** Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier was hit with this over time. Upon his CameBackStrong in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheWinterSoldier'' he was significantly more badass than he was in ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'', going from overshadowed sniper to ImplacableMan with a powerful cyborg arm who the likes Natasha, Sam and Fury cannot hope to beat and who only Cap can match in a fight (despite being the least willing due to Bucky being his dearest friend). In ''Film/CaptainAmericaCivilWar'' Bucky is still formidable but unfortunately for him there’s several characters he fights in the film who are much more superhuman and subsequently Bucky’s unstoppable status from his previous film gets greatly upended at the hands of Black Panther and Spider-Man, the latter of whom is able do a PunchCatch to his cybernetic arm which gave Cap, Widow and Falcon so much trouble in ''The Winter Soldier''. By the end of the movie he’s gotten his robot arm blown off and is almost killed by Tony. In ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar'' and ''Film/AvengersEndgame'' Bucky is regulated to cover support and MoreDakka with Rocket, he takes down a few Outriders but is completely ineffectual against Thanos (not to mention getting turned to dust in former film). In ''Series/TheFalconAndTheWinterSoldier'' Bucky dips far harder as Karli and the Flagsmashers despite being much less strong than what Bucky has faced previously, all capable of knocking Bucky’s ass around and the unstable John Walker can overpower him as well. Granted it is inferred Bucky’s rehabilitation involves him being less aggressive but even then he’s still a far cry from the TheDreaded OneManArmy he once was in ''The Winter Soldier''. |
| 189 | ** ''Film/AvengersEndgame'': |
| 190 | *** Thanos, Mad Titan and galactic conqueror, swiftly proves that the ending of ''Infinity War'' has taken its toll. [[spoiler:He goes from an unstoppable HeroKiller who pulled off a TheBadGuyWins to a crippled farmer who gets rolled over by what's left of the Avengers, and is summarily [[AnArmAndALeg disarmed]] and [[OffWithHisHead decapitated]].]] |
| 191 | *** After the five-year timeskip, Thor spirals into a bout of depression, alcoholism, junk food, and lack of exercise. By the time the heroes recruit him for their mission, [[FormerlyFit he's developed a giant beer gut]], and Tony doesn't believe he can wield [[spoiler:their new Infinity Gauntlet]] in his current state. ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'' returns him to his hunky badass status. |
| 192 | * Kevin Flynn in ''Film/TronLegacy'' is noticeably less proactive when compared with his incarnation in the first ''Film/{{Tron}}'' movie. This is mostly the result of having spent a prolonged period waging a HopelessWar against his own creation Clu, which has left him jaded, burnt-out, and despairing. Later in the movie, however, Kevin steps back up and exhibits some of the old badassery that characterized him in the first film. |
| 193 | * ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'': Megatron started to suffer from this in ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'', where he became less of a threat than in ''Film/Transformers2007'' and was shown to be slavishly following orders from [[TheManBehindTheMan The Fallen]]. [[note]]the comics and video game explain this quite well, and have Megatron turn against his master at the end.[[/note]] Also {{invoked|Trope}} in the sequel, ''[[Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon Dark of the Moon]]''. Megatron sustains his brutal injuries from the previous film's final battle, resulting in him being in a weakened state (both physically and psychologically). He hardly fights at all (instead commanding his {{Mooks}} and trying to find peace), and when he ''does'' fight, [[spoiler:it's because ''a human girl'' manages to [[BreakThemByTalking strike a blow to his ego]], and while he ''does'' play a part in defeating [[GreaterScopeVillain Sentinel]], [[CurbStompBattle Optimus rips Megs' head out in a matter of seconds]]]]. This is averted in the [[AdaptationDistillation novelizations for both sequels]], where he remains a legitimate threat with his own motives and (in ''DOTM'') [[spoiler:[[HeelFaceTurn a worthwhile ally for Optimus in the final battle]]]]. |
| 194 | * In ''Film/IpMan'' the title character was nearly untouchable; only the FourStarBadass BigBad landed any real blows. Not so much in the sequel. That the OldMaster could fight him to a draw, fans could accept. A boxer punk managing to knock him down multiple times didn't get accepted as readily. It's {{justified|Trope}}, though, for people who do their homework; boxing doesn't look as flashy for the cameras, but it ''is'' still a disciplined martial art, and even if The Twister was merely a "punk" rather than the toughest, fastest boxer to come over from Britain, it's explicitly shown that the people in charge of the match [[MovingTheGoalposts kept changing the rules to put Ip at a disadvantage]], and that Ip was forced to improvise when he couldn't rely on his prior training. In the third film the objective of his fight with a boxer wasn't to win but last a round which was easier to accept since it was Creator/MikeTyson. |
| 195 | * This happens to the hitman Vincent in ''Film/{{Collateral}}''. He goes through most of the movie as a cold blooded killer who shoots down enemies in seconds. When it comes time for the climax, [[spoiler:he is gunned down by the cabbie hero who had never picked up a gun in his life]]. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d after a fashion and probably justified: [[spoiler:His last words are [[TemptingFate to taunt the hero with how much better at this stuff he is]]]]. |
| 196 | * A species example with the ''T. rex'' in ''Film/JurassicParkIII''. A subadult male is [[TheWorfEffect easily defeated]] by the ''Spinosaurus'' and gets no screen time other than their fight, essentially being replaced by the ''Spinosaurus''. The film's consulting palaeontologist, Jack Horner, believed that the ''T. rex'' was a scavenger and the ''Spinosaurus'' was really the predatory animal. The idea has [[ScienceMarchesOn since been rejected by the palaeontological community at large]], with a growing body of evidence that ''T.rex'' was an active hunter. Meanwhile, the ''Spinosaurus'', whilst indeed a very large predatory animal, is now believed to have been more of a fish-eater that wasn't particularly suited for fighting other large land predators. |
| 197 | * ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'': |
| 198 | ** The Scarecrow starts off as the BigBad of [[Film/BatmanBegins the first movie]], only to be quickly [[DemotedToDragon demoted]] to TheDragon once the real villain shows up. That's not all that bad except [[spoiler:the climax of the first movie sees him getting tasered by the main character's love interest within seconds of showing up. [[Film/TheDarkKnight The next movie]] begins with him as a lowly drug dealer where he is taken down in the BatmanColdOpen. The final nail in the coffin is his appearance in ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', where he doesn’t even bother to try another [[EvilPlan plan of his own]] or enter a combat situation or do much of anything at all, seeming content to just be a {{Troll}} to the protagonists by acting as a judge at Bane’s KangarooCourt, sentencing each law enforcement officer to walk out on the ice and probably die regardless of what they say. He was at least some level of threat in the Dark Knight, albeit a very small one. By the final movie he doesn’t even have the influence to affect the plot in any way, because his role as a judge is completely superfluous and Bane’s plan would play out the exact same way with any random unskilled {{Mook|s}} in Scarecrow’s place]]. It makes some sense, though; he's a scrawny little psychologist with no physical prowess or weapon skills. In the beginning of the first movie, all he really has are connections, fear gas (which he only obtained in part through those connections), and a lack of morality ([[CrapsackWorld which isn't exactly rare in the Batman universe]]). When the League of Shadows and the mob went down and he lost his position at the Asylum, he lost most of what made him a threat in the first place. |
| 199 | ** In ''Film/TheDarkKnightRises'', Bruce's deteriorating health and a prolonged retirement from super heroics really hurt his efficiency when he shoulders the mantle again. The fact that Batman isn't as effective a fighter as he was is constantly discussed in-universe. |
| 200 | * The basic premise of ''Film/{{Hook}}'', where Peter Pan has left Neverland for so long that he's no longer the badass he was and has to relearn everything to save his children. |
| 201 | [[/folder]] |
| 202 | |
| 203 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 204 | * In ''Literature/TheAntithesis'' Qaira Eltruan begins Arc II as a genuine 'badass', who is cold and ruthless and devoid of all mercy and feelings. As the story goes on it is shown that he does have a heart, and his disguise as a ruthless unmerciful bastard is the result of terrible past experiences involving the death of his mother and other traumatic things he was forced to do as a militant leader. With Leid's help, Qaira slowly begins to feel compassion again, hence the decay of his badassness. |
| 205 | * ''Literature/ACourtOfThornsAndRoses'': |
| 206 | ** Happens to Feyre over the series. She starts out as a BadassNormal who can hold her own against faeries and other magical creatures; she is often physically outmatched but either thinks her way out of problems or holds out until help arrives. After becoming a High Fae she gains all their abilities and extra powers too, but she barely uses them of her own volition in the second book and spends a lot of the story in a HeroicBSOD; it's at least justified in this case because she's traumatized and not getting the help she needs. She recovers and gets better control of her powers by the third book, only for the decay to fully set in by the novella, where she becomes little more than a passive trophy wife who lounges around her mansions while everyone else does important things and lets her mate make decisions for her. Some readers have lamented that despite gaining faerie powers, Feyre actually comes off as far ''less'' badass than when she was 'just' a human. |
| 207 | ** Tamlin. ''Hoo'' boy. Even without his full powers in the first book he's capable of fighting off multiple enemies at once and shapeshifting into an intimidating beast form. He's a BadassInDistress in the third act because of the curse, though the moment the curse is broken he completely curb-stomps Amarantha. It's all downhill from there though, due to his deteriorating mental state and manipulation from other characters, culminating in his girlfriend starting a civil war that leaves his court in ruins and running off with his rival. As of the latest book, Tamlin spends most of his time patrolling his largely empty estate in his beast form or wallowing in misery, his house falling into disrepair. |
| 208 | * Invoked in ''Literature/TheHellequinChronicles'' when the main character loses a bit of his step, largely due to a knock or two to his confidence and the loss of a set of powers that he'd come to rely on. After it's invoked, it's reversed. |
| 209 | * ''Literature/JourneyToTheWest'': At his height, defending Flower Fruit Mountain from heaven with his army, Sun Wukong was unstoppable, even in solo battles against many combatants. After spending 500 years under a different mountain, he loses against demons easily and often has to go to heaven for help. |
| 210 | * Happened to Hannibal Lecter in ''[[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal]]'' and ''[[Literature/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Rising]]''. It has been observed that he "wins" in ''[=Hannibal=]'', and [[BrainFood eats that one guy's brain]], but he also falls in love and {{wangst}}s over his newly added FreudianExcuse in the form of a dead little sister. |
| 211 | * The title character of ''Literature/ArtemisFowl''. Although thankfully this one has not yet fallen into {{wangst}}. Fowl has, however, kept what badassery he did have, and has yet to be as {{anvilicious}} as any of our heroes. The elves were parodies of other rather more anvilicious interpretations of the fairy folk. Spoofed in a later book, in which he travels back in time to match wits with... well.... himself. One exchange later and he's left stranded on a telephone pole with nothing more than the line "I hate me." |
| 212 | * ''Literature/ASeriesOfUnfortunateEvents'': Count Olaf, although not [[TheWoobie woobie]]-fied, is less and less scary as the books go on, and more and more ludicrous. How much of this was deliberate is unknown. |
| 213 | * [[OurElvesAreDifferent Elves]] have fallen into this over the ages. Norse mythology described them as peerless demigodly creatures, living in a world of their own. In Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium, they were a race of infinitely living people that surpassed every other race both physically and mystically while also by and large being genuinely good people. They had some spectacular screwups, but still firmly remained the BigGood of Middle-Earth. They left the world to humanity of their own will as they still had their own heavenly realm to leave for. Oh, and they were pretty much the most badass warriors of the world, fighting armies of not just orcs and trolls but dragons and demons. One of them even crippled the resident GodOfEvil in single combat, to the point where he was afraid to even leave his citadel afterwards. These days, elves usually portrayed as a good-looking and long-lived but frail and often physically weak DyingRace of [[SmugSnake delusionaly arrogant]] {{pretty boy}}s and scantily clad girls, clinging to their past, obsessed with nature and being outshined by evolving humanity. Their divine connection became pretty much non-existent - video games, in particular, pretty much always assoсiate themes of angels and/or THE God with humans while elves worship nature or some kind of lesser vaguely pagan deities. In strategy games, they are also known to depend on various allies and fantastic creatures to fight for them, with actual elves being support and commanders. |
| 214 | * Kisten from ''Literature/TheHollows'' novels suffers from a classic example of this. First presented as the scion of the most powerful vampire in Cincinnati bent on dangerously seducing the main character, he decays Spike-style over the series to becoming simply her romantic interest [[spoiler:and then he suffers RedemptionEqualsDeath]]. |
| 215 | * ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'': |
| 216 | ** Some fans insist that this is what happened to [[LovableRogue Han Solo]]. Although that may be a failure to realize that he still does as much (if not more) than he does in the movies, but he's occasionally useless compared to his wife, children, and brother-in-law, all of who are extremely gifted in the Force. It would probably be more accurate to say that they all TookALevelInBadass while he did not. |
| 217 | ** Mara Jade gets this too. There are some who didn’t like her going from DarkActionGirl ex-assassin wanting to kill Luke to being a Jedi Master and marrying Luke. |
| 218 | * Kannwar, the immortal GodEmperor of a continent and the BigBad of the ''Literature/RightHandOfGod'' trilogy, gets this big time in the sequel trilogy. At the conclusion of the first trilogy he is only stopped in his war of conquest when [[spoiler:the creator of the Universe personally intervenes, shooting off his remaining hand with an arrow]]. By the end of the second trilogy he's spent a lot of time {{wangst}}ing with [[spoiler:the girl he turned immortal in the first trilogy]] and been blown up and revived several times, more or less for laughs. |
| 219 | * ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': |
| 220 | ** The books have this happen to the Kingsguard. Once looked up to as shining examples of knighthood and the best fighters in the kingdom, they're now a joke, with all of them put in for political reasons rather than for fighting skill. |
| 221 | ** The Night Watch has a similar problem, it used to be a largely volunteer force with criminals conscripted for sheer numbers. Now there are almost no volunteers, even fewer knights, and numbers are so small they've abandoned most of their fortresses. |
| 222 | ** Cersei is a specific example as well. She was the primary villain in the first book, and was a noted schemer. Her plot to kill Robert Baratheon was very clever in how [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident it came off as an accident]]. As the books go on, she's presented as more and more incompetent. At least Book 3 has her successfully twisting peoples' arms to testify against Tyrion at his trial. However, when Book 4 comes and presents her perspective, she's shown as a complete moron time and time again. Not only is she seeming to be more pathetic as a plotter, she actually comes off as ''less'' sympathetic when you see her point of view. In the past she was at least considered a devoted mother, but in Book 4 she seems awfully indifferent about her children except for how it impacts her. In fact, it's presented that since there was a prophecy that said all of her children would die before her, her concern for her children's well-being could have a much more selfish bent. In-Universe, other characters seem to note how awful she's become. Littlefinger predicted that she would ruin the realm, but not nearly as fast as she actually did. Her brother Jaime begins to wonder why he ever felt attracted to her once he realizes how pathetic and evil she is. |
| 223 | ** Robert Baratheon was, before the events of ''Game of Thrones'', considered to be one of the finest warriors. By the time the series begins Robert has became a fat pathetic man who eats and drinks too much and is also a terrible king. The former led to the latter, as he knew he had to take the throne no matter how much he hated it to keep it away from worse hands, and trying to eat, drink and fuck the [[TheLostLenore various]] [[ShellShockedVeteran pains]] he had away rather than do anything kingly brought him down to a shadow of what he once was. |
| 224 | * Deconstructed in ''The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea'' by Japanese author Creator/YukioMishima, known for his intense prose. When Noburo's widowed mother falls in love with the Badass Sailor Ryuji, the smart yet emotionally detached Noburo declares him his supreme idol. What could be a beautiful romance [[DarkerAndEdgier takes a dark turn]] when Noburo's [[IWantToBeARealMan desire to be a real man]] mixes [[KidsAreCruel with his gang's sociopathic and sadistic tendencies]]. Ryuji is far from being anything like the {{Ubermensch}} Noburo wants him to be; in fact he is an UnderstandingBoyfriend, and even makes a slight CharacterDevelopment towards a full-fledged NiceGuy, even bordering on MartyStu territory. He even quits his job for his new love and turns out to be a worthy follow-up to his mother's late husband. In Noburo's eyes, this is unforgivable Badass Decay. He and his gang treat it as SeriousBusiness, eventually [[spoiler:plotting to ''kill him'' to restore his honor]]. |
| 225 | * Happened to the entire Tribe of Rushing Water by the third arc of ''Literature/WarriorCats''. In their first appearance, they were portrayed as powerful fighters who easily took down the warriors who wandered into their territory, only beaten by the mountain lion, Sharptooth. By arc three, they needed the Clans' help to deal with a group of intruders that none of their cave-guards could defeat. |
| 226 | * Dudley Smith, the AffablyEvil MagnificentBastard from Creator/JamesEllroy's LA Quartet, bedeviled the protagonists of those books with his brilliance and brutality in pursuit of his ultimate goal: gaining complete control of organized crime in Los Angeles with an eye toward systematically narcotizing LA's black population. When he shows up as a VillainProtagonist in Ellroy's second LA Quartet (specifically, the novels ''Literature/{{Perfidia}}'' and ''Literature/ThisStorm''), he's much less impressive -- still a brutal schemer, but frequently high off his gourd on opium and out-maneuvered by his opposition. He even gets a HumiliationConga in the second book. The second Quartet is actually a prequel to the first, so Dudley's not at his peak [[TheChessmaster Chessmaster]] powers quite yet. |
| 227 | * Drizzt Do'Urden goes through this during the ''Literature/TheLegendOfDrizzt'' books around ''Literature/{{Transitions}}'' and ''Literature/TheNeverwinterSaga'' with him no longer able to score epic victories over every opponent, frequently running away, and often achieving only a BittersweetEnding or even outright failure. No reason has been given for this, though readers might infer it's due to the immense internal struggle he's undergoing due to the death of friends as well as CrapsackWorld nature of the post-Spellplague Realms. |
| 228 | [[/folder]] |
| 229 | |
| 230 | [[folder:Music]] |
| 231 | * Music/RogerWaters was one of the major components of one of the greatest/scariest/craziest [[Music/PinkFloyd bands]] of all time. In the 12/12/12 concert, he spent the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI2zEN7gbbA entire first song]] [[LargeHam clapping]] his hands over his head and playing for the audience. He also had a bunch of preppy, ''smiling'' girls singing the second verse of "Another Brick in the Wall: Part II," and they weren't even supposed to be ironic. |
| 232 | * Music/RiseAgainst, one of the most hard-edged, rage filled bands [[spoiler:made entirely of vegan socialists]] working today, {{cover|Version}}ing "Making Christmas" from ''WesternAnimation/TheNightmareBeforeChristmas''. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCET4j8W_fU Oh so hilarious.]] |
| 233 | * Music/{{Metallica}} was generally accused of this starting with ''The Black Album'', although it wasn't very common until ''St. Anger'' -- it was even complete with a documentary showing the previously badass kings of heavy metal going into therapy, and trying to bury the hatchet with their BigBad. (But many, if not all, considered ''Death Magnetic'' a return to form) |
| 234 | * Similarly, Music/{{Megadeth}} began as a brutal {{Thrash|Metal}} band, spending the '80s making fast, heavy songs based on anger, [[ForHappiness hedonism]], violence and horror. At the beginning of the following decade, Dave Mustaine purged himself of the drug habits the influenced the band's earlier music, and took their thrash sound in a more progressive and accessible direction with ''Rust in Peace'' and ''Countdown to Extinction'', which brought the band commercial success and shifted lyrically to weighty political and personal issues. A different, more mature sort of Badass. \ |
| 235 | \ |
| 236 | It was after the more somber and introspective ''Youthanasia'' that the Decay began to set in; ''Cryptic Writings'', unlike the albums before it, distilled everything about the band into a LighterAndSofter, dumbed-down product. The lyrics went from cerebral to childish, the music stripped of its intensity and reduced to simplistic radio fodder. The [[TheScrappy nadir]] was the disastrous ''Risk'', a clumsy attempt at dated pop music that went in all kinds of failed directions. 2001's ''The World Needs A Hero'' showed the band attempting to steer themselves back on track but ultimately flopped with both fans and critics. And while the post-TenMinuteRetirement album ''The System Has Failed'' did manage to [[WinBackTheCrowd Win Back some of The Crowd]], their best days are still far behind them, as each following release [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks merely repeated]] the same "autopilot" sound of the band banking on their glory days with less creativity and energy. |
| 237 | * Similarly to Rise Against above, Music/TwistedSister of 80s hair metal fame went from being the bane of concerned parents everywhere [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome and their lead singer delivering an eloquent and effective speech to the United States Congress while still in the clothes he wore after that previous night's concert, reading it from a piece of paper he folded up and put in his pocket]], to making [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YV-SpT69IZ8&fmt=22 a Christmas album.]] |
| 238 | * Any hip-hop artist who started as a badass gangsta rapper and transitioned into mainstream film & TV work gets accused of this, whether accurate or not. |
| 239 | -->'''Gangstalicious:''' You know who my favorite rapper was when I was your age? Ice Cube.\ |
| 240 | '''Riley:''' The dude that makes family movies? He was a gangsta rapper?\ |
| 241 | '''Gangstalicious:''' He was so gangsta. I used to have dreams that Ice Cube came to my house and killed my whole family.\ |
| 242 | -- ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' |
| 243 | * Music/TheMisfits went from singing songs called "Die, Die My Darling" and "Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight?" to covering songs by 50s teen idol Paul Anka and 60s soul band The Drifters. |
| 244 | * In 1967, this person was part of a [[Music/BlackSabbath certain band]] that, according to many, was one of the pioneers of HeavyMetal. In the eighties, he started out a solo career and was called "The Prince Of Darkness". But, somehow, he ended up in the ScaryMusicianHarmlessMusic page, starring as a HenpeckedHusband in his own RealityTV show. That man is Music/OzzyOsbourne. |
| 245 | * Music/MotleyCrue sadly went from being hedonistic icons of the 80s heavy metal scene and one of the most memorable HairMetal bands ever to the butt of jokes as the 2010s hit due to Vince Neil gradually losing his spark over the years, leading to the infamous 2015 Rock in Rio performance. |
| 246 | [[/folder]] |
| 247 | |
| 248 | [[folder:Pro Wrestling]] |
| 249 | * ProfessionalWrestling itself is an example. Back in the mid-1800s professional wrestling was a real competitive sport, and by the 1900s the highest ranked wrestlers had about the same amount of prestige that boxing and MMA champions have today. Real professional wrestling matches tended to be very slow-paced, however, and the sport slowly worked its way towards being more of a performance art when promoters started making rules to ban long static displays from matches. Promoters then discovered that the best wrestlers weren't necessarily the most marketable, and began fixing matches. By the 1950s, wrestling was more or less entirely predetermined. By the 1990s, wrestlers couldn't even claim prestige, or get endorsements, save a few in national promotions, (WWF Wrestling/{{Stone Cold|SteveAustin}}, Wrestling/{{WCW}} Wrestling/{{Goldberg}}) and by the 2000s most champions of national promotions are largely ignored by the general populace, except maybe in their home countries. |
| 250 | * American wrestlers were probably never thought of the best on the mat or at chain wrestling but used to be held up for great conditioning and work rate. Politically, the region also had a lot of say so in how bookings were done in the rest of the world thanks to the Wrestling/NationalWrestlingAlliance being stationed there. By the 1990s, wrestlers in the region were instead known best as showmen, the superior work rates thought to be in Japan and while the NWA remained respected in a few regions, it retained little authority. |
| 251 | * In the 1930s and 40s, the top women wrestlers in the US were considered equals to the top men. Badass decay started in the 1950s but American based WWWA and AGWA remained the world women's standard. By the mid 1990s, the women wrestlers often had to leave the the US and Americas altogether just to wrestle on the under card and by 2001, promoters looked to Japan to try and get life flowing back. Joshi was inspired by the American scene, but it flipped to Japan having little need for foreigners and Americans wanting to be Joshi. |
| 252 | * Rip Oliver was the top heel of Oregon during his prime. Across the NWA territories he was known as [[RedBaron The Crippler]] for being hired to hurt baby faces and cemented his reputation when he was banned from Texas after breaking the hand of Mike Wrestling/{{Von Erich|Family}} by dragging him out of the arena and slamming it in a door. The WWF decided the proper way to use him in ''their'' territory was as a {{jobber}}. He was buried so throughouly that no promoter ever managed to build him back up to his fomer glory. |
| 253 | * Wrestling/TheUndertaker lost a lot of his aura after his feuds with Wrestling/UltimateWarrior, Wrestling/HulkHogan, Wrestling/RandySavage, and Wrestling/JakeRoberts. He next feuded with nothing but sloppy big men such as Wrestling/{{Kamala}}, Wrestling/GiantGonzalez, [[Wrestling/CharlesWright Kama the Supreme Fighting Machine]], and King Mabel. It took both [[Wrestling/KevinNash Diesel]] and [[Wrestling/MickFoley Mankind]] beating some badass back into 'Taker to finally get that back. |
| 254 | * Speaking of Kamala, he's a great example of this. Before his WWF run he was one of the few men to ever bodyslam Wrestling/AndreTheGiant, and when he first debuted in WWF he was a genuinely frightening monster. In the long run he never won any of his feuds (allegedly because Wrestling/VinceMcMahon disliked him) and his threat level diminished. Then he got turned face and teamed up with Slick, and that was the end of Kamala being scary. |
| 255 | * Wrestling/{{WCW}} mid-2000. Wrestling/HulkHogan was put in a feud with midcard wrestler Wrestling/BillyKidman. Their matches usually consisted of Hogan whaling on Kidman to the point that it resembled child abuse, then something happening to enable Kidman to pick up a fluke win. This was badass decay for BOTH men. Kidman previously was a very popular midcard wrestler, and Hogan was Hogan. Now Kidman resembled a whipping boy, and the Boring Invincible Hero Hogan became a boring almost invincible hero. |
| 256 | * Without a doubt, Wrestling/{{Kane}} from Wrestling/{{WWE}}. From the very beginning, Kane made his debut in the then-WWF as an unstoppable monster who destroyed everyone in his path. His badass decay began in the early 2000s when the writers tried to lighten his character up a bit by having him do comical imitations of other wrestlers like Wrestling/HulkHogan and Wrestling/BookerT. His character became considerably lightened up when he tag-teamed with the likes of the [[Wrestling/GregoryHelms Hurricane]] and Wrestling/RobVanDam. Lightening up a wrestler in itself should not destroy their career but Kane's decline was more of a gradual process than something that happened overnight. He soon began jobbing to newly debuting monster heels like Wrestling/{{Batista}} and losing some of the menace that once made him a force to be reckoned with. Despite that, Kane still carried on as a high-ranking mid-card wrestler at worst, a powerful entity very few wrestlers could defeat without some sort of cheating tactic. Then the shit hit the fan when Triple H accused Kane of being a murderer and a necrophiliac, leading to an awkward and disgusting storyline involving Triple H in a Kane mask having sex with a mannequin corpse in a funeral home. Eventually, Kane was made to finally unmask on live-television in a second feud with Triple H and Wrestling/{{Evolution}}. It was downhill from there. Nowadays, Kane can be seen jobbing to various wrestlers that he would've demolished back in his masked Big Red Machine days (Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}}, Wrestling/RandyOrton, Wrestling/MarkHenry, Wrestling/{{Rey Mysterio|Jr}}, etc.)\ |
| 257 | \ |
| 258 | Kane started to get better. In a 2010 angle where someone put Wrestling/TheUndertaker in a vegetative state and Kane going out for revenge, he demolished main eventers on a weekly basis; beating Wrestling/JackSwagger (heavyweight champ at the time), Wrestling/BigShow, Mysterio, and Wrestling/CMPunk. This included taking on Punk's entire stable, the Straight Edge Society, three on one, and dominating them, and sending Punk running from the arena. All of this without Kane being directly involved in the title picture. Then he won the World Heavyweight Championship from Rey Mysterio out of nowhere. ''Then'' it was revealed that ''he'' was the one who put Wrestling/TheUndertaker in a vegetative state out of bitterness at being in his brother's shadow all his career. '''''Then''''' he would respond to his brother's return by Tombstone Piledriving him and getting the best of him at every opportunity. '''''Then''''' he would pin Wrestling/TheUndertaker easily at Night of Champions. '''''Then''''' he would do it ''again'' in a Hell In A Cell match, setting up Wrestling/PaulBearer to backstab him in the process. '''''Then''''', he buried him a month later at Bragging Rights!\ |
| 259 | \ |
| 260 | After his remasking in late 2011, he completely got better. For a few months. He gave a NoHoldsBarredBeatdown to Wrestling/ZackRyder on several occasions and got in brutal feuds with Cena and Orton, even defeating Orton cleanly at Wrestlemania. Then decay quickly set in again. A plot involving a crush on Wrestling/AJLee ensured that he lost any credibility that he had got back by remasking. He lost at No Way Out, failed to win at Money in the Bank, and was defeated by [[Wrestling/BryanDanielson Daniel Bryan]] at Summerslam. He was next used for comedy purposes, attending anger management and eventually partnering up with the ''mega over'' Daniel Bryan to form [[Wrestling/TeamHellNo one of the most memorable tag teams]] in years. |
| 261 | * Wrestling/{{Tazz}} (or Taz). Initially one of the toughest, most brutal wrestlers in ECW, Tazz made his debut in the then-WWF by giving Wrestling/KurtAngle his first ever loss. Very soon, however, Tazz's badass decay began when he began feuding with the announcers, Wrestling/JimRoss and Wrestling/JerryLawler. After that was over, he became a glorified jobber. Though he did make a small comeback later on by winning the tag team titles with Spike Dudley, it was a little too late by then. After losing the tag team titles, Tazz stopped wrestling and joined the announce team with Wrestling/MichaelCole. Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin mentioned in interviews that his talking down to Tazz wasn't right, but Tazz's decline was otherwise justified in that he ''did'' have a jacked-up neck that was getting worse over the years; after all he was part of the original Wrestling/{{ECW}}. |
| 262 | * Wrestling/{{Goldust}} came into the WWF in 1995 as a bizarre, effeminate, gold-painted man who would psych people out and trick them to win his matches. When management decided in early 1997 to turn him face, they did so by showing that Goldust was just a character and the man behind him, Dustin Runnels was actually a caring family man. This breaking of the fourth wall turned fans off, and it didn't help that he stopped doing all the weird stuff that made people like him in the first place. Eventually, he reverted back to his old self (after some [[http://i.imgur.com/YWJF5T9.jpg speed]] [[http://i.imgur.com/Au7AfEf.jpg bumps]]) but never had the original success he had as Goldust. |
| 263 | * Wrestling/ChrisJericho has undergone a lot of badass decay over the years. One may not notice nowadays with Jericho being pinned left and right by a number of younger generation superstars, but there used to be a time when Jericho was one of the most dominant wrestlers in the WWE who could take down any wrestler who stood in his path, only coming up short against the really big superstars such as The Rock, Wrestling/TheUndertaker, Kane, and Wrestling/TripleH. During the Attitude Era, he was known for his incredible mic skills and memorable feuds against Triple H, Wrestling/StephanieMcMahon, The Rock, Wrestling/ChrisBenoit, and Wrestling/KurtAngle. His badass decay most likely began after Triple H defeated him and took the Undisputed Championship away from him. These days Jericho has been toned down incredibly by both the PG Era and restrictive ringwork by the injury-conscious WWE. Even wrestlers he could defeat with no problem in the past such as Wrestling/{{Edge|Wrestler}} or Wrestling/{{Christian}} are now pinning him cleanly and making him look like a chump. True he's won the world title a few more times in later years but it just doesn't feel like it's as big of a deal now as opposed to if he had won them during the height of his career from 1999 to 2001. |
| 264 | * Doug Basham and The Damaja greatly benefitted from being the favorites of Danny Davis. They had a great look full of [[HellBentForLeather leather]] and {{spikes|ofvillainy}}, as well as plenty of promo time where Doug Basham's talent shown through. Also, many women [[AllGirlsWantBadBoys fawned over them]] and wanted to be their valets. But they didn't just have favoritism going for them; they were legitimately talented and Damaja had some of the best cardio in the business. Doug Bashama's charisma wasn't just on the mic or in his mouth but physically throughout his entire body. They thrashed and out wrestled opponents; beating them meant something. Then WWE made them TagTeamTwins, erasing their distinct look as a TagTeam. Then came scripted promos, cutting into their charisma. Then they were made into the lapdogs of a {{dominatrix}}. The Basham Brothers were still a talented tag team, but against any other team with any credibility copious cheating was the only way they could gain an advantage, much less win a match, and they cared more about their mistress than title belts (heels [[DickDastardlyStopsToCheat cheat to win]], and are [[EvilIsPetty petty by nature]], but most need to display ''some'' redeeming quality to get over. Everyone can't be the pyschophantic cowardly {{slimeball}}). Doug Basham tried going back to his old gimmick after the tag team was inevitably broken up but no amount of jobber {{squash|match}}es could get fans to take him seriously again. |
| 265 | * ProfessionalWrestling has a most bizarre example in Wrestling/JohnCena. In 2004, he was a street-wise thug (who happened to be a white rapper) who never backed down from a challenge, and fought rich bastard Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield while espousing "battle raps" which mocked anyone in a 15-mile radius. In 2005 and 2006, his overwhelming popularity led the writers to turn him into a Hoganesque superhuman with an inferiority complex who openly admitted he was inferior as a technical wrestler, therefore taking away [[DarkerAndEdgier everything that made him popular in the first place]]. It eventually got to the point where fans would [[XPacHeat cheer his opponent out of spite, no matter how evil that person was]]. Fortunately, the release of his movie ''Film/TheMarine'' allowed him to get back his never-say-die attitude, and he appears to be recovering from the setback. Slowly. The fact that Wrestling/{{WWE}} seems to be implying that he really is a marine based on his role in the movie doesn't help matters. In fact, most heels who became anti-heroic faces in the Wrestling/AttitudeEra generally fall under this trope. More so when you consider said anti-heroes tended to have their most popular traits exaggerated when they become faces (Wrestling/StoneColdSteveAustin wasn't a full-blown redneck until his turn, and [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson The Rock]] didn't rely as much on his "sing-along" catchphrases). Cena's SelfDeprecation was largely a very mishandled attempt to appeal to the fans who had turned on him; additionally, it was mostly during his feud with Wrestling/TripleH, who [[ExecutiveMeddling is the head writer's husband]] and has had many feuds in which his opponent has [[CreatorsPet sung his praises]]. Thankfully, this aspect of his character was dropped after Cena was given a clean victory over Trips. |
| 266 | * The Sheepherders were vicious, savage brutes who terrorised wrestling promotions all over the world with bloody, violent hardcore matches. When [[Wrestling/VinceMcMahon Vince]] got ahold of them, he turned them into Wrestling/TheBushwhackers, a pair of happy-go-lucky loveable idiots with a trademark silly walk and habit of licking people. However, this was the run which they are best known and fondly remembered for. |
| 267 | * As a general trend, the WWE's decision to rebrand their TV shows from TV-14 to PG [[LighterAndSofter in order to add family appeal]] has unfortunately resulted in some of this. In order to reach a PG rating, the WWE had to cut back on mature content: scanty clothing, innuendo, weapon use, blood, and especially swearing. Since there are fewer options available for faces and heels to emphasize badass characteristics during a feud, decay is more likely to happen across the board. |
| 268 | * A peculiar example is Joey Abs of the Mean Street Posse. The Posse (Pete Gas and Rodney) were introduced as childhood friends of Wrestling/{{Shane McMahon}}, but quickly became utilized as comedy jobbers - they were somewhat smaller than most of their fellow wrestlers and they wore dorky sweater vests and khakis. After a couple months, Joey Abs was introduced as their [[TheHeavy heavy]]. He was pretty big, actually looked intimidating, and for his first couple appearances was treated like a genuine threat in the ring. For some reason the company soured on Abs quickly, and in short order he became portrayed as hapless as Pete Gas and Rodney. To this day, WWE often references Joey Abs in self-deprecating, "what were we thinking?" spots. |
| 269 | * In [[Wrestling/TotalNonstopActionWrestling TNA]], this is very common: |
| 270 | ** Wrestling/{{Abyss}} has gone from [[CaptainErsatz Kane clone]], to a hybrid of Kane and Mankind, to a geek who asks if having Wrestling/{{Jacqueline}} on his lap makes him not a virgin anymore, back to indestructible badass, and now he's a 6'8" 300+ version of Dave Sullivan. |
| 271 | ** Wrestling/SamoaJoe, twice. The first was after losing to Wrestling/KurtAngle at Hard Justice 2007 when Karen Angle predictably turned on Joe. The fans saw that turn two miles away, so they cheered for Kurt and Karen and booed Joe. The real damage didn't come until Joe cut a promo on Wrestling/ScottHall at Turning Point, leading to his rebellion against TNA management. Unfortunately, he came off as whiny, leading the fans to boo him even more. He was losing left and right. Eventually, at Lockdown 2008, he got his badass cred back after beating Angle for the TNA Title.\ |
| 272 | \ |
| 273 | Alas, that didn't last long, did it? After losing the title to Wrestling/{{Sting}} (when Nash turned on him), Joe formed the TNA Front Line along with Wrestling/AJStyles to counter Sting's new group: the Main Event Mafia. During that feud, the Front Line lost nearly EVERY SINGLE MATCH against the Mafia, with the exception of Lethal Lockdown. It was also during this feud where Joe became a member of the "Nation of Violence," which saw him sporting a tribal phallic symbol on his face, torture [[Wrestling/ShawnDaivari Sheik Abdul Bashir]] for no reason whatsoever and threaten to kill Wrestling/ScottSteiner. Again, the fans looked at Joe as a complete psychopath, and not the badass he once was, and Steiner's constant fat-shaming of Joe made it even harder to take Joe seriously. Then, he turned on the Front Line and became just another lackey for Wrestling/KurtAngle. |
| 274 | ** Wrestling/JayLethal had a stretch where he pinned TNA Champion Wrestling/KurtAngle clean, won the X-Division Title, and saved the aforementioned X-Division from [[Wrestling/TheDudleyBoys Team 3D]]. The latter, he did ALL BY HIMSELF. During all of this, he was getting the attention of So Cal Val. Immediately after he got the girl, saved the X-Division, and got his title back, Sonjay Dutt wooed Val away from him. That was the beginning. Val remained undecided on who to shack up with, until she turned on Lethal, killing him for good. |
| 275 | ** The X-Division, whose title belt ranged from almost as to just as important as the Wrestling/{{N|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA World title (a belt which also deserves its own entry) as a division with no limits that anyone could compete in if they could go hard enough, to flippy wrestlers with a weight limit. Basically top of the card to glorified cruiserweights banished from the main event and Impact altogether to the {{B show}} Xplosion. Wrestling/AustinAries brought back some prestige, as he turned it from "not even worth mentioning in the same angle regarding the world title" to "glorified contract for a world title match". Seiya Sanada's run with the belt in the Japanese [=Wrestle1=] Promotion, Samoa Joe getting the belt back and being treated as an equal to the World Champion and title defenses occurring in the main event again greatly improved the X Division's image. |
| 276 | ** Just like Abyss and Kane, Wrestling/AJStyles goes up and down the badass roller coaster frequently. With him playing second fiddle to the retired Wrestling/RicFlair, AS THE WORLD CHAMPION, NO LESS, it's safe to say he's on the down slope. |
| 277 | ** While it's rare to see this happen to so many people at once, the Knockouts Division had this happen to them. While they started out as huge ratings draws, being a bunch of badass {{Action Girl}}s who could actually wrestle, which was a rarity on the wrestling scene, [[ExecutiveMeddling the corporate changes at TNA focused less on their abilities,]] and used them as {{Fanservice}} more and more often. [[RealLifeWritesThePlot Several incidents happened, ultimately leading up to many Knockouts leaving the company,]] leading to fewer actual wrestlers in the Division, which became the poor man's WWE Divas. The returns of Wrestling/MickieJames and Wrestling/GailKim and new acquisitions such as Havok and Wrestling/{{Rosemary}} got the Knockouts their own pay per view event, "[[CrowdChant Better than the divas!]]" chants in New York and back into Impact's main event on occasion. |
| 278 | ** Wrestling/NigelMcGuinness was a force to be reckoned with in Wrestling/RingOfHonor, the biggest complaint against him being his first baby face champion run relying ''too much'' on [[{{Determinator}} fighting spirit]]. Then his stint as Desmond Wolfe in TNA - after a very promising start in which he brutalized Angle - led to one humiliation after the other. This case was particularly harsh, as TNA started burying him after [[TakeThatAudience the fans voted him as the person they most wanted to see as their World Champion.]] |
| 279 | * Wrestling/RingOfHonor had a rather abominable case of this with BJ Whitmer. He spent 2006 on the cusp of stardom, proving himself as a badass {{Determinator}} who bled for ROH against the invading Wrestling/{{CZW}} and stood victorious after a barbed wire match with the infamous Wrestling/NecroButcher. But then, after losing to his longtime archenemy Wrestling/JimmyJacobs, Whitmer went on a losing streak that completely nullified the entire year of Badass cred that he had acquired. It didn't help that he came out of the losing streak by aligning with SmugSnake Adam Pearce, who nobody bought as a major threat; thus, Whitmer went from an independent and awesome hero to the thug of a weak and cowardly villain. |
| 280 | * Jimmy Jacobs and his Age of the Fall stable had this kick in very quickly. They debuted by [[MoralEventHorizon hanging Jay Briscoe upside down and letting his blood rain on the ring]], but were quickly reduced to {{Dirty Coward}}s in subsequent confrontations with the Briscoe Brothers. They constantly ping-ponged between pathetic cowards and evil {{Determinator}}s, but they completely lost their credibility in many fans' eyes when they began making ContemplateOurNavels {{Wangst}} video segments. |
| 281 | * There was a case with Davey Richards. As soon as Rocky Romero joined the No Remorse Corps, Richards became the ass of many jokes between Romero and Wrestling/RoderickStrong. He'd have to leave and get training from Wrestling/DanSevern to regain his credibility. |
| 282 | * Wrestling/{{Batista}}'s badass decay ultimately turned him into the poster child for [[Memes/ProfessionalWrestling memes]] in professional wrestling. There's too many to mention here, so you can see the respective pages. |
| 283 | * Wrestling/MickieJames' badass decay started when she lost ''her'' WWE Women's Championship to Wrestling/{{Lita}} in late August 2006, who would then lose it to a retiring Wrestling/TrishStratus. Once Trish retired, Mickie was eventually given Trish's character, thus losing her LoonyFan[=/=]PsychoLesbian[=/=]{{Ascended Fan|boy}}girl character in the process. |
| 284 | * Wrestling/MickFoley lampshaded in his autobiography how his Mankind gimmick went from insane pain-lover to doofy goofball in near-record time. He didn't mind as both interpretations were wildly popular, but he had to admit it ended up a lot different that he envisioned. |
| 285 | * Almost everyone from The Wrestling/MinistryOfDarkness bar Wrestling/TheUndertaker and Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield. |
| 286 | ** Dennis Knight went from the deranged Mideon to the comedic Naked Mideon and "Bogus Mankind"; Nelson Frazier Jr. went from Mabel, King of the Ring, to Viscera, servant of Wrestling/TheUndertaker, to Viscera, "The World's Largest Love Machine;" Wrestling/RonSimmons went from tough world heavyweight champion (in WCW) to leader of the Nation of Domination to tag-team champion with JBL in the Acolytes, to beer-drinking redneck in APA, to some guy that walks around saying "Damn!" Viscera did come back with the terrifying new image of Big Daddy V. He now let most of his tattoos show and was unstoppable for a little. You also had his much clearer JigglePhysics in this persona. |
| 287 | ** The Acolytes/APA were actually pretty over as Stone Cold-like tough guy {{face}}s and were usually on the fringes of the top feuds at any given time in 1999 and 2000. Mideon might not really count since he was a joke from the start. |
| 288 | * The Wrestling/HellInACell match was once ''the'' {{Gimmick Match|es}} where the most vicious of feuds went to end in a bang. However, around 2006, the Cell was built to be bigger, ensuring nobody was to try the spots on the top of the Cell such as the ones in [[Wrestling/ShawnMichaels HBK]] vs Undertaker, Mankind vs Undertaker, or Cactus Jack vs Wrestling/TripleH. The matches nonetheless remained intense and bloody until the ''Hell in a Cell'' PPV was created in 2009. This not only meant that the feuds in a Hell in a Cell match usually now lacked the history of intensity of past matches but that the new PG rating meant that all the viciousness of past matches would be gone, essentially just making the match a standard no-DQ match with a big cage obstructing the audience's view. While Hell in a Cell used to be a truly special match used maybe once or twice a year to cap off a really big feud, it's since become just another gimmick match with no real specialness to it. |
| 289 | * After a promising start, this ended up happening to pretty much every member of Wrestling/DieBruderschaftDesKreuzes except Lince Dorado, who was {{rescued from the scrappy heap}}, and even then not really as though he earned respect from Wrestling/{{Chikara}} fans he still went from a super face to just another guy in a group who was often not included in their biggest matches. This was used most dramatically with Wrestling/ClaudioCastagnoli, who got frustrated and quit the promotion altogether but perhaps most ironically with Wrestling/DaizeeHaze and Wrestling/SaraDelRey, who joined Die Bruderschaft for the purpose of defying {{chickification}} but ended up being knocked off in rapid succession by Wrestling/EddieKingston. Del Rey would regain most of her bad ass aura at the BDK's expense after a HeelFaceTurn in fact. |
| 290 | * Wrestling/{{Sheamus}} went through this after awhile. After starting off strong, and winning the WWE championship in his first PPV match, he went down the card a little, but was still badass and netted another (albeit short), championship reign. Then came the 2010 ''King of the Ring'' tournament; despite winning said tourney, after becoming "King Sheamus" he started losing frequently (although to guys like Wrestling/RandyOrton & Wrestling/JohnMorrison, but still). Fortunately, he dumped the king regalia [[note]] at a house show where he was scheduled to face Wrestling/YoshiTatsu, he attacked him from behind, dropped him with a High Cross, and said "King Sheamus is dead. Long live the Celtic Warrior!" OrSoIHeard[[/note]] and has gotten much better. Since [[HeelFaceTurn turning face]] in the summer of 2011, though, he's becoming even more bad-ass, going on a roll from that point on[[note]]He's looked strong, keeps winning cleanly on a regular basis, and has even won the 2012 Royal Rumble and the championship at Wrestling/{{WrestleMania}} ''in 18 seconds''[[/note]].\ |
| 291 | \ |
| 292 | Sadly, he fell into this again in 2015, which got even worse when he won the Wrestling/MoneyInTheBank briefcase. He was basically losing all his feuds, had no storyline direction, and was jobbing to midcard matches in some vein hope that the fans would forget about him to make his cash-in more shocking (instead, all it did was make them actively dread it). This was one of the main arguments the IWC made against Sheamus being champion in the first place, especially in comparison to Reigns, who's been booked like he's the second coming of Wrestling/JohnCena. Sheamus has lost so much credibility that the fans have a hard time taking him as a serious threat to Reigns, while Reigns' character is bland and stale; there's effectively no reason to care about this feud at all. |
| 293 | * In a slightly tragic real life example, Wrestling/KenShamrock went through this. The first UsefulNotes/{{U|ltimateFightingChampionship}}FC Superfight (now Heavyweight) champion, Shamrock was once known as "The Worlds Most Dangerous Man", and was signed to the then-WWF, where among other things, [[WhatCouldHaveBeen he was at one point considered as a candidate to win the WWF Championship]] from the departing Wrestling/BretHart, defeated Wrestling/TheRock at Wrestling/WrestleMania to win the Intercontinental Championship (the decision would be reversed when Shamrock refused to release the Ankle Lock) and won the prestigious King Of The Ring tournament. However, he would go on to sustain a serious neck injury at the hands of a debuting Wrestling/ChrisJericho, and was never the same. He would try to return to MMA, and while his old self briefly shined through, he just didn't have it any more. To this day he has refused to retire, despite the heavy toll steroids have taken on his body and losing far more matches than he's won (and on one of those occasions where he won, it was overturned afterwards when he tested positive for steroids after the match), and usually ending the fights as a bloody mess, a mere shell of the man he once was. |
| 294 | * When [[Wrestling/MattBloom Albert/A-Train]] returned to the WWE as Lord Tensai he was a mysterious and intimidating monster heel. It only took a few months before he was dancing the robot in a basque and thong... |
| 295 | * Wrestling/VelvetSky after her HeelFaceTurn lost all of the ruthlessness and AwesomeEgo that made her so entertaining in the first place. Lampshaded when her former tag team partner, Wrestling/AngelinaLove, returned to tell her that Velvet had gotten "vanilla" and boring. After she returned in late 2012, she became more badass. |
| 296 | * While many had dismissed WWE's "Championships" already after Wrestling/TheGreatKhali's reign, 2011 was a particular bad year when ''The'' WWE Championship belt changed hands nine times in the span of seven months, also resulting in instant badass decay for Wrestling/ReyMysterioJr and Wrestling/CMPunk, who each enjoyed zero day reigns during this stretch. It almost halted all the momentum built up by duplicating the ROH Summer Of Punk angle when drama over Wrestling/KevinNash and Wrestling/TripleH text messages were deemed more important that the title picture. Thankfully, Punk would turn things around for himself and the belt, going on to have the longest reign of the modern era after decisively knocking Wrestling/AlbertoDelRio and all other distractions away. The reign was [[ThreeMonthRule long enough]] to [[VindicatedByHistory outlast]] the reputation flattening of Wrestling/{{Ryback}} and give the champion importance again. |
| 297 | * In Wrestling/{{SHIMMER}}, Madison Eagles slowly progressed from [[PaperTiger over sized jobber]] to [[TheDreaded towering madwoman who meticulously broke down challengers]] to straightforward [[TheAce technician of overwhelming power]]. In SHINE, she came in with much fanfare but started to be taken a lot less seriously due to losing three times in a row, getting half of her victories through luck as she couldn't even cheat effectively. Her SHIMMER run didn't slow, though, making this overlap with TheWorfEffect. It also helped that after show eleven or so SHINE and SHIMMER were no longer in continuity with each other. |
| 298 | * Any semblance of Wrestling/CMPunk being viewed as a legit badass was destroyed after his fight with Mickey Gall in the UFC, where Punk threw one punch, was taken down, [[CurbStompBattle and quickly beaten with virtually no resistance.]] It didn't help [[DidntThinkThisThrough that the UFC started promoting Punk as their next big thing before even announcing an opponent]]. After two injuries during training delayed his debut, by the time the long awaited fight actually took place many people had grown sick of CM Punk and where immensely underwhelmed by his less than stellar performance. |
| 299 | * You'd be hard-pressed to find a more prolonged, wasteful and easily-avoidable case than Wrestling/BrayWyatt. When he debuted as the head of Wrestling/TheWyattFamily, Bray was ''terrifying'' despite not being a physically-imposing WrestlingMonster (although he commanded two in Wrestling/LukeHarper and Wrestling/ErickRowan)- he was simply the scariest ''character'' WWE had created since Wrestling/TheUndertaker was at his peak. Despite a terrible debut match against Kane, Bray and his family got ''massively'' over with the fans, with Bray managing to get cheered against not only divisive characters like Wrestling/JohnCena, but even crowd favorites like ''Wrestling/DanielBryan,'' and the Family's popularity probably peaked during their epic 2014 feud against Wrestling/TheShield. Unfortunately, what WWE seemed to take away from this was that Bray was so popular that he could be used to put over ''anyone'' and it wouldn't negatively affect him, and eventually people started to notice that, for all his threatening talk, Bray ''loses all the time.'' He has a lamentable 0-4 record at Wrestling/WrestleMania and has lost effectively ''every'' feud he's ever had. Even winning the WWE Championship at ''Elimination Chamber 2017'' didn't help because this only set up his betrayal by his then-acolyte Wrestling/RandyOrton, leading to an utterly ''[[{{Narm}} ridiculous]]'' Wrestling/WrestleMania match where he summoned [=PowerPoint=] projections of maggots and centipedes onto the ring before losing to an RKO. Subsequent feuds with stars like [[Wrestling/FergalDevitt Finn Bállor]] and even Wrestling/MattHardy have done nothing to elevate Bray, with most fans considering them to only be dragging down the other guy. Nobody is ''interested'' in the once-terrifying leader of the Wyatt Family any more because everyone knows he's ''always'' going to lose, because WWE [[HarmlessVillain just won't let him have any credibility!]] |
| 300 | * Remember when Finn Bállor came to the ring in full demon body-paint and was the first ever Universal Champion? Now he smiles *constantly*, and tweets out pictures of himself rubbing butter on his abs or standing in a children's playhouse. The Demon hasn't even been seen for the better part of a year. |
| 301 | * A company-wide one has been noticed by fans who observe the patterns- while development show Wrestling/{{WWE NXT}} (run by Wrestling/TripleH) has become THE premiere product that WWE produces, the company has a massive and obvious track record of promoting the top stars of NXT to the main roster then ''ruining them.'' The main roster is ''littered'' with the corpses of men and women who were incredibly over badass champions in NXT who have since been reduced to [[JokeCharacter jokes]], {{Jobber}}s or at ''best'' stuck in midcard hell, including many already mentioned here. Wrestling/BoDallas, Wrestling/BrayWyatt, Wrestling/TylerBreeze, Finn Bállor, Wrestling/KevinOwens, Wrestling/SamiZayn, Wrestling/ShinsukeNakamura, Wrestling/AndradeCienAlmas, Wrestling/{{Bayley}}, Wrestling/SashaBanks, [[Wrestling/KanakoUrai Asuka]]... the list just goes on and on and on. Tag teams have it the worst- despite NXT presiding over a ''renaissance'' of the art of tag team wrestling in the WWE, ''every'' tag team that comes up to the main roster ends up reduced to jobbing for Wrestling/TheNewDay or Wrestling/TheUsos or Wrestling/TheBar or whichever two unaffiliated singles stars are [[TeethClenchedTeamwork being forced to tag together this week for some reason]]. Wrestling/TheAscension, [[Wrestling/DrewHankinson Gallows]] and [[Wrestling/KarlAnderson Anderson]], Wrestling/AmericanAlpha, Wrestling/TheRevival, Wrestling/{{Sanity}}, the Authors of Pain, the Vaudevillains, ''no'' tag team has come up from NXT to have any credibility on the main roster scene (widely believed to be because Vince simply doesn't care about tag team wrestling at all).\ |
| 302 | \ |
| 303 | The consequence of all this is that NXT fans, while loving the product, greet every announcement of a popular star being called up from developmental to the main roster with ''dread,'' not excitement, predicting certain doom for performers who, while they put on some of the best wrestling in the world in NXT, they're fully aware Vince will just not know what to do with or be bothered treating with any respect once they're out of Trips' booking control. Wrestling/TheVelveteenDream is probably the foremost example of a top-level NXT star who the fans are absolutely ''deadset'' against being forced up to the main roster, because they just ''know'' he'll be turned first into a CampGay stereotype, then into a {{Jobber}}. |
| 304 | * Crossed with AudienceAlienatingEra. [[Wrestling/RubyRiott Heidi Lovelace]] was a Champion and main eventer in several promotions. Ruby Riott is lucky if she wins a match. |
| 305 | * Crossed with RedemptionDemotion: Wrestling/TheOddities went through this at the end of 1998 to the beginning of 1999, as they became a low midcard comedy act without a push. |
| 306 | ** [[Wrestling/DonCallis The Jackyl]] put together [[Wrestling/RonSimmons the]] [[Wrestling/JohnBradshawLayfield Acolytes]], who, of course, joined Wrestling/TheUndertaker's Wrestling/MinistryOfDarkness, on his way out of the company. |
| 307 | ** Wrestling/{{Sable}}, Wrestling/LunaVachon and Music/InsaneClownPosse all abandoned the group, thus depriving the Oddities (by now [[Wrestling/JohnTenta Golga]], Wrestling/{{Kurrgan}}, [[Wrestling/GiantSilva the Giant Silva]] and [[Wrestling/GeorgeSteele George "The Animal" Steele]]) of anyone who could cut promos for them. |
| 308 | ** They got stuck on the weekend {{B Show}}s, ''Jakked[=/=]Metal'' and ''Sunday Night Heat'', in an endless feud with Wrestling/TheHeadbangers before going into an even more directionless one against [[Characters/WWETagTeams Too Much (Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor) and the DOA (8-Ball and Skull)]]. With nobody cutting promos and no explanation given for why they were feuding in the first place, the Oddities were essentially being buried on their way out the door. Also, as the product grew darker and harsher via Wrestling/VinceRusso, the Oddities looked, well, even more out of place than they had before. |
| 309 | ** On the January 25, 1999 ''Raw,'' the Oddities were in the ring and the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wwe/wwe-h.html WWE World Heavyweight Champion]] [[Wrestling/DwayneJohnson the Rock]] came out and threatened all four guys at once. Granted, it's the Rock, but, ''still'', ONLY in pro wrestling would you see a situation where one regular sized guy on his own could threaten four guys whose combined weight was close to 1 1/2 TONS, and the ''four guys'' would be the ones at the disadvantage. |
| 310 | ** The Oddities were there for Steele's match against Droz, which Droz won after [[HoistByHisOwnPetard ramming Steele's head into the exposed turnbuckle]] in 48 seconds. Droz defeated Kurrgan a week later after a broomstick shot to the throat from the outside in 1:53. Giant Silva never faced him in the ring, but he was attacked by Droz and beaten down with a chair. |
| 311 | * Wrestling/AhmedJohnson. So, so much. Before his injury, he was seriously over and looked like he might be the first African-American wrestler to win the [[http://www.wrestling-titles.com/wwe/wwe-h.html WWE World Heavyweight Championship]]. He was at [[Wrestling/{{Goldberg}} Goldberg]]-like levels of popularity. His frequent injuries, a terrible heel turn, and a reported bad attitude backstage led to WWE releasing him in February 1998, and he never recovered. |
| 312 | * This concept formed the basis of the feud that Wrestling/{{Edge}} had with Wrestling/TheUndertaker in 2008. After a few losses to Taker earlier in the year -- including one in the main event of Wrestlemania, natch -- Edge was in a low rut, with the days of TLC and the Ultimate Opportunist looking far behind him as (kayfabe) marital problems with Wrestling/VickieGuerrero clouded his mind. A couple of weeks before his [=SummerSlam=] rematch with 'Taker, Wrestling/MickFoley rips him a new one, and from there, Edge has never looked back: |
| 313 | -->'''Mick Foley''': If you bring this Edge and the Undertaker will ''tear you apart''! Am I understood? |
| 314 | -->''[long beat]'' |
| 315 | -->'''Edge''': I understand. |
| 316 | [[/folder]] |
| 317 | |
| 318 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 319 | * This inevitably happens in many card games due to a phenomenon known as "PowerCreep," where R&D overpowers their new cards so much that older sets become laughably weak in comparison. Remember how powerful Base Set Charizard was in the ''TabletopGame/{{Pokemon}}'' TCG? Nowhere near the title holder for HP or damage output now. |
| 320 | * The entire drow race in the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms setting. |
| 321 | ** First they were [[MsFanservice sexy]], intelligent, [[{{Matriarchy}} heavily matriarchal]], and AlwaysChaoticEvil insane badasses with a small pantheon. Then we got the hero Drizzt (a fugitive from his culture). Due to the Dungeons and Dragons rules discouraging evil players, some players want to be drow because they're cool... but good-aligned and without the severe social stigma, despite drow being nearly always evil and Drizzt being a considerably-developed unique example of a good-aligned drow. Then we got the good aligned deity Eilistraee, and her entire clutch of (mostly) female drow worshippers who, naturally, danced naked at night. (Their chief priestess, Qilue, has a magic dress of invisibility. |
| 322 | ** Drizzt himself in the 2nd edition had rules written solely to make him more dangerous, such as, despite being in a {{Hit Point|s}}[=/=]CriticalExistenceFailure based combat system, having a flat chance of killing anyone in a single shot. It was a low chance, but he had a better chance of killing someone with a normal attack than he did of scoring a critical hit. In 3rd edition, he is a less than optimal build with very few special rules. This [[CreatorsPet may]] or [[EnsembleDarkhorse may not]] be a good thing. |
| 323 | ** Drow are a slightly odd case because they started off as a society of mostly-neutral people oppressed and managed by their massively evil and Machiavellian rulers and priestesses under the aegis of their malevolent goddess Lolth. One of the first sources to deal with them, ''The Vault of the Drow'', described a lot about the Vault and the city therein, and they were a functioning if troubled society. Later sources ''removed'' nuance by [[AdaptationalVillainy promoting their entire society to]] AlwaysChaoticEvil [[AdaptationalVillainy dark elf badasses]], until eventually different interpretations were built up again. |
| 324 | * Another TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms example: the Red Wizards of Thay. They used to be an extremely powerful and influential organization of (mostly) amoral/evil wizards. Now they are band of loosely connected merchant arcanists who make a, admittedly profitable, living trading magical items. This is a justified case: their ''own leader'' launched a coup in their homeland of Thay that his lieutenants the zulkirs did not want. When they rebelled against him he unleashed the Spellplague against his own followers. The last of the zulkirs then sacrificed themselves to prevent their treacherous leader's ascension to godhood. Without their leaders, and beset on all sides by their many enemies, the Red Wizards were forced to disband their once powerful organization and focus solely on their front business of magical item trading to survive. |
| 325 | * ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'': |
| 326 | ** The Necrons and their C'Tan gods began as a supremely enigmatic group of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s with ultimately unknown designs for the galaxy in general and mankind in particular. They had few unit selections and no real characters because the vast majority of their forces simply had not awakened yet, or at least had left no survivors to report their existence, and ended up with a reputation for being [[CreatorsPet Creator's Pets]] due to their implication of being ultimately unstoppable, despite two other major factions being just as doomsday-ish. Then, starting with the Fifth Edition, they started getting development and have been subjected to a nonstop [[TheWorfEffect Worf effect]] by everyone with no end in sight. By 4th Edition, some parts of the fluff were just [[ButtMonkey merciless]] and [[CurbStompBattle humiliating]] for the Eldar. 7th Edition reversed a lot of the damage and made them top tier to boot. |
| 327 | ** The Avatar of Khaine. A physical manifestation of the AxCrazy Eldar god of war. He used to be a nigh-unstoppable close-combat beatstick for the army, yet later fluff has it constantly being beaten and overwhelmed to [[TheWorfEffect make another character look more badass]]. |
| 328 | ** The God Emperor went through this after the Horus Heresy, rather understandably. Before that whole mess, he was the greatest psyker in the galaxy, a mighty warrior, a genius scientist and ruled over an impossibly vast interstellar empire. You could've called him a God without being accused of hyperbole or exaggeration. However, after he was wounded by Horus and had to go on life support... Well... Here's [[http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/5/50/EmperorsWisdom.jpg before]] and [[http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/2/25/Emperor_Upon_Throne.jpg after]]. |
| 329 | ** ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'': [[OmnicidalManiac Nagash]], arguably the most terrifying villain in Warhammer Fantasy bar [[GreaterScopeVillain Chaos Gods]] is currently suffering from a hard case of this in Age of Sigmar. |
| 330 | ** Any army with a Codex or Army Book designed in a previous edition will end up undergoing this as time marches on and they become less and less effective, to the point of being unusable, on the tabletop. |
| 331 | * From ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', we get the Sabbat. Initially portrayed as something like Film/TheLostBoys, they get watered down slightly in that, indeed, they do have their own rules after all. An odd case, though, goes to the Tzimisce, the resident BodyHorror masters. A poorly-received book posited that their powers were really an EldritchAbomination plague, and this actually made them less awesome somehow. Later books ignored this in general. |
| 332 | * This trope is inherent to [[LordBritishPostulate virtually any campaign that actually gives stats to its gods.]] Some settings avert this by having enemies above a certain power level being unstatted, but killable if the players come up with a plausible means to do so. Others do their level best to spend five hundred to a thousand words saying "You lose" in attribute and skill form. Justifiable in some settings more than others -- TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms and TabletopGame/{{Greyhawk}} have gods dying to mortals be rare, but not unheard of events, but there's no excuse for statting up Cthulhu in D&D. |
| 333 | [[/folder]] |
| 334 | |
| 335 | [[folder:Theatre]] |
| 336 | * ''Theatre/GettinDownInYourTown'': |
| 337 | ** While the Turtles were hit with AdaptationalWimp already, in ''Theatre/ComingOutOfTheirShells'' they actually got ''one'' fight scene and were able to save the day. In ''Gettin' Down in Your Town'' there is only one fight scene... and they have Casey fight for them. |
| 338 | ** Most versions of the Shredder are skilled fighters who take coordinated attacks from multiple fighters (even when {{Flanderization}} makes him goofier and less competent) to pose enough of a threat to him. Even in ''Theatre/ComingOutOfTheirShells'', it took all four of the Turtles working together to banish Shredder to a PrisonDimension. Here though, Casey Jones manages to win in a fight against him ''barehanded.'' |
| 339 | [[/folder]] |
| 340 | |
| 341 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 342 | * ''VideoGame/TheKingOfFighters'': Terry Bogard, Ryo Sakazaki, and Robert Garcia were once the heroes of South Town in ''VideoGame/FatalFury'' and ''VideoGame/ArtOfFighting'' respectively. But they've steadily been pushed further [[DemotedToExtra into the background]] and reduced to comic relief ever since joining the KOF roster. |
| 343 | * In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'', Naesala takes advantage of the Begnion senators' greed by looting their ships and selling the swag to the others. He also ''[[MagnificentBastard sells his best friend]]'' for a nice sum. Whether or not he's being truthful when he says he planned to rescue him is up to you. In the sequel ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'', it turns out Naesala is just the poor [[TheWoobie victim]] of [[spoiler:the [[MacGuffin blood pact]]. It is never explained how he was able to swindle the senators while being forced to obey their will]]. Notably, he gets ordered around by a thirteen-year-old girl. |
| 344 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': |
| 345 | ** Bowser goes back and forth between this and [[TookALevelInBadass taking a level in badass]]. He varies between a genuine threat to the Mushroom Kingdom and a BigBadWannabe that pines for Peach's love or a harmless villain that [[GoKartingWithBowser go-karts with Mario]]. Generally, the main platformer series portray him as the former, while the spinoffs portray him as the latter. The two RPG series play with this as well, despite him overall being somewhere in the middle in terms of ''Super Mario'' as a whole (less competent than in the platformers, but more competent than in other spin-off series). He had a massive downgrade between the first ''Paper Mario'' and its sequel ''The Thousand Year Door'', where he was the BigBad of the former and a complete joke in the latter, constantly having his cluelessness and tendency to always be two steps behind Mario PlayedForLaughs. [[FromBadToWorse He then gets even less threatening]] in ''Super Paper Mario''. Despite the previous game treating him as a joke in terms of personality, it did at least give him a boss fight that established him as a combat threat on the level of the game’s main villains. ''Super Paper Mario'', meanwhile, has him get defeated rather easily early on and then [[DefeatMeansFriendship join Mario’s team for the rest of the game]]. He even carries over his more comedic and less threatening personality to boot. The ''Mario & Luigi'' games mostly [[InvertedTrope invert it]], where he goes from being an IneffectualSympatheticVillain [[spoiler:and then possessed by the actual BigBad]] in the first two games, then gets PromotedToPlayable and becomes somewhat more competent in ''Bowser’s Inside Story'', and then [[spoiler:successfully outwits the villain and takes over as the real BigBad]] in ''Dream Team''. |
| 346 | ** The Koopa Troopas. In every 3D platform game, they're significantly less threatening than they are in the 2D Mario games, even being completely unable to hurt Mario in ''Videogame/SuperMario64''. [[TheGoomba Goombas]], [[TookALevelInBadass on the other hand...]] |
| 347 | ** Chargin' Chucks from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' in particular get hit with this hard. In their debut game, they were one of the most fearsome enemies in the game. They could chuck baseballs, footballs, dig up rocks, split themselves into three, leap high and forward, and took up to ''six'' hits to defeat. When they finally make their 3D Mario game debut in ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'', all they can do is, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin charge]] and only take two hits to defeat. It's easy to say they got rusty over the years. |
| 348 | * Axel and Riku from the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts'' series. Many suspect that the popularity of these characters and their expanded roles as a result are chiefly to blame for this. |
| 349 | ** In the first game his ambition, Riku's independence and pro-activity firmly cast him as an awesome AntiHero/[[AntiVillain Villain]] dedicated to [[LoveMakesYouEvil saving Kairi]] no matter [[ThisIsYourBrainOnEvil what the cost]]. That [[DemonicPossession doesn't really work out]]. Thanks also in due part by the Reverse/Rebirth mode of ''Chain of Memories'', in which he is pressured by an enigmatic and morally ambiguous StealthMentor into accepting the darkness in his heart which makes him more powerful but much less determined and proactive as a result, his independent spirit is all but absent in the sequel, where for the vast majority of the game he is content to play the role of the BlackCloak-wearing MysteriousProtector and wait for Sora to do the ''real'' hero work. Even in ''III'' despite being named the Keyblade Master by Yen Sid, he gets constantly overwhelmed by the Demon Tower even though Aqua previously defeated them, requiring Sora to save him. |
| 350 | ** Axel was a cocky {{Manipulative|Bastard}}, MagnificentBastard in ''Chain of Memories'' and in ''Kingdom Hearts II'', became a wimp who got his ass handed to him easily, failed to really think things through despite previously showcased to be capable of [[GambitRoulette extensive planning]], and had an unhealthy obsession with a fifteen-year-old boy. Hell in ''III'' despite becoming a Keyblade wielder, his performance was even worse than the previous games as he was easily dispatched by Terranort and lost to Saix & Xion before Xemnas destroys his Keyblade, requiring Sora to save him. |
| 351 | * In the original ''VideoGame/BackyardSports'' games, Pete Wheeler could master everything with his ''blazing speed''. He eventually degraded into being the same as the other characters, thanks to [[SpotlightStealingSquad the pros]]. He also TookALevelInDumbass. |
| 352 | * ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'': |
| 353 | ** The series accidentally did this in reverse to Rebecca Chambers, by giving her a badass upgrade in the ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil0 prequel]]'', where she's a player character and therefore pretty competent. Some time between then and running into Chris in [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil1 the original game]], she apparently snapped from the sheer horror around her and lost all her zombie-killing skills. It's played straight in ''The Stage'' and ''[[Anime/ResidentEvilVendetta Vendetta]]'', where she goes from part of an elite team of cops to a university professor. In ''The Stage'', she is completely unable to shoot her former (now zombified) acquaintances, and is held hostage twice, with the villain {{lampshad|eHanging}}ing it to boot. In ''[[Anime/ResidentEvilVendetta Vendetta]]'', the trailer even spoils she'll be held hostage again in an IHaveYouNowMyPretty way. |
| 354 | ** Chris Redfield also had it bad for good time, despite being the frigging TheHero of franchise, when ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' introduced Leon S. Kennedy as the new protagonist Chris seriously degraded in popularity. Though Leon being a rookie cop and Chris being a trained veteran you’d think would seemly qualify Leon for TheScrappy inferior status, thanks the sheer coolness of Leon and quality of the games he stared in (''Resident Evil 2'' and the record breaking ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'') Leon [[BreakoutCharacter far surpassed]] Chris, who was left looking like a stock extra in ''[[WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero G.I. Joe]]'' in comparison. |
| 355 | ** ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' did its best to inject life and coolness back into Chris, having him pull some pretty outrageously badass moves like matching [[SuperSoldier Wesker]] in combat and literally [[SuperStrength punching boulders apart]] but despite this display Chris still lacked the quick wit and suaveness that the fans adored about Leon. ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil6'' is his lowest point becoming a violent angsty [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] with amnesia after the death of his men who has to be talked back into action by his stock partner [[SideKick Piers]]. To be fair to Chris, Leon also goes through some emo funk in the same game and even some suicidal inclinations not remotely present before. Even in the ''Resident Evil'' CG movies, Chris draws the short straw only appearing just recently in ''Anime/ResidentEvilVendetta'', when Leon [[SpotlightStealingSquad rocked]] the previous two movies and Chris is forced to share spotlight with Leon whom even saves Chris’s life during a BigDamnHeroes moment in the climax. |
| 356 | ** You can make a good argument for Jill Valentine succumbing to this. Like Chris, she’s an absolute badass in the first game and even more so in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis'', where she’s a OneWomanArmy who defeats TheDreaded ImplacableMan all by herself. In the following games she’s regulated to being just Chris’s hot partner such as ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilRevelations'' where she eventually gets captured and worse still in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' she seemingly killed off in a FlashBack before the game even starts and used as source of {{Angst}} for Chris and replaced with Sheva. [[spoiler: TheReveal that’s she the puppet of Wesker in what basically is a HypnotizeTheCaptive situation and has to be saved by Chris again isn’t satisfying in the slightest nor the fact she doesn’t get to kill Wesker alongside Chris and is only playable in the DLC.]] Even ''[=RE3=]'' [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Remake remake]] had Jill [[AdaptationalWimp get clobbered around]] by Nemesis in cutscenes for the sake of drama forcing Carlos to save her butt ''five times'' unlike the 1999 version, where she’s the one who saved Carlos (while infected) and only succumbed her wound after kicking Nemesis’s ass. Creator/{{Capcom}} putting Jill OutOfFocus in the series after ''[=RE5=]'' also didn’t help matters. |
| 357 | * There is a particularly ridiculous and instantaneous example of this in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaPhantomHourglass''. In ''The Wind Waker'', Tetra is a badass pirate who can certainly take care of herself and [[spoiler:is secretly Princess Zelda, who fights alongside Link in the final battle against Ganon]]. In the sequel, she is put out of commission at the ''very start'' of the game, and at the end when she's freed, does ''nothing'' to contribute to the final battle. |
| 358 | * Justified in the ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'' series: Crunch Bandicoot made his debut as a gruff and cocky villain working under [[BigBad Doctor Cortex]]. After being knocked out of Doctor Cortex's control and joining the Bandicoot family, Crunch became TheAtoner and softened his ways considerably in an attempt to be a positive role model to children. |
| 359 | * Cobra from ''VideoGame/SilentScope'' fell hard in just two games. In the first, you had to kill him while chasing him in a moving vehicle, with his hostage just inches away...whereupon he ''hijacks a trailer'' and comes after you again. (The only way to avoid this was to take him down in the stadium, which itself is at least the second hardest boss fight in the game.) In the second game, while he's still a tough nut, you only need to kill him once, and he's an absolute coward who hides behind a hostage the entire battle (mitigated...''slightly''...by the fact that he's fighting two guys at once). In the third game, he's nothing but an afterthought you obliterate in the first mission. |
| 360 | * A common criticism of ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' is that this happens to [[spoiler:the Queen of Blades herself]] at the ending. Dropping from one of the most powerful characters and [[spoiler:''queen bitch of'' the universe]] to a DamselInDistress in one scene? The fans did not enjoy this at all. Reversed in the next part of the game, though. |
| 361 | * Poor Mr. Cash. Not only a total {{badass|Normal}}, but the [[KnightInSourArmor triumphant hero]] of ''ComicBook/ArkhamAsylumLivingHell''. Then the ''[[VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum Arkham Asylum]]'' video game came along and turned Aaron into little more than a foul mouthed DistressedDude... Though this mainly because the game focuses on Batman. But since Cash is one of the few survivors of what happened, any of his actions were an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome. |
| 362 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' with Alastor. In both games he starts out relatively badass, [[TooCoolToLive dying in some tragic way by the end of his appearance]]...and then after that he'll start whining and complaining about his part being over already and begging to be given more screentime. |
| 363 | * In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'', we first meet Ellie [[ActionGirl holding her own against a horde of Necromorphs]], she protects [[TheLoad Stross]] while Isaac is working on objectives in other areas of the Sprawl, and when Stross loses his mind and ''gouges out her eye with a screwdriver'', her response is to find a length of pipe and bludgeon him. In ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'', [[spoiler:she's the point of a [[RomanticPlotTumor love triangle subplot]], spends the entire game unarmed, and [[HostageForMacGuffin Danik eventually uses her to get the Codex]]]]. |
| 364 | * PlayedForLaughs in ''VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaV'' when Neptune complains that she went from level 99 all the way [[BagOfSpilling back to level one]] ([[BreakingTheFourthWall and yes, she really says it like that]]) while Nepgear, the protagonist of [[VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaMk2 the previous game]], is the CrutchCharacter but still at a low level. |
| 365 | * In ''VideoGame/FZeroGX'', Black Shadow gets hit hard with this. His status as feared villain goes right out the window in the first cutscene of the story mode with the arrival of [[BigBad Deathborn]]. |
| 366 | * In ''VideoGame/RuneScape'', we have a trio of ''gods'' getting hit with this. Guthix, Saradomin and Zamorak were originally capital-G Gods with presumed near-omnipotence, the latter two only held in check by the former's threat to nuke the world if they intervened directly. They were also the source of the Protection Prayers, which are GameBreaker abilities requiring bosses to have ''mechanics specifically to counter them'' in order to be ''a challenge at all''. Now, Guthix is dead, and Saradomin and Zamorak are fighting in surprisingly small physical bodies (only the size of the game's largest bosses) with a surprisingly small and weak-looking BeamOWar. Considering these were the guys who made the [[{{Mordor}} Wilderness]] by fighting at full power, you'd expect their BeamOWar to at least level Lumbridge, if not create a WorldWreckingWave, and cover whole map in blinding light. |
| 367 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': |
| 368 | ** Miles "Tails" Prower, Sonic's right-hand man. In the Classic games he was a standard TagalongKid {{Sidekick}} but he could definitely keep up with Sonic and was just as capable as him taking on Eggman. In the [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure Adventure]] [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 series]] he undergoes major CharacterDevelopment to stop relying on Sonic to always have his back and the result is him beating Eggman and saving Station Square by himself, and then going on to come up with a clever plan to disable one of the most dangerous superweapons in the Sonic universe. Nowadays he hardly fights and is more than content with just standing on the sidelines while Sonic handles all of the work; tellingly he's easily frightened by some Nightmares in ''Unleashed'' when he's done far greater feats in the past. What's more, in ''Sonic Adventure'' he's fully capable of defeating the dark god Chaos after it's already absorbed four Chaos Emeralds, but in ''Sonic Forces'', he is utterly terrified of its most basic form. This is actually discussed in ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'' as [[spoiler:Tails comes to realize that being in Sonic's shadow negated those awesome moments and caused him to regress and he vows to step out and become a stronger person]]. |
| 369 | ** Once considered Sonic's equal and the respected guardian of a powerful artifact, Knuckles the Echidna has now devolved into a ButtMonkey who always gets tricked by an outside party and is the embodiment of DumbMuscle. [[DemotedToExtra He's hardly even an important character anymore]], either. The fandom was burnt out on playing multiple characters and wanted to go back to ''just'' Sonic. Tails has gotten better since ''VideoGame/SonicColors''; meanwhile, Knuckles is still a butt monkey, but ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'' turns him into the funniest and most likable character. Of course, he stills suffers from {{flanderization}} and [[AdaptationalDumbass became]] nothing more than a piece of DumbMuscle. |
| 370 | * Usually, the Ottoman Empire in ''VideoGame/VictoriaAnEmpireUnderTheSun''. It starts the game as a Great Power, up there with France, the United States and, of course, UsefulNotes/TheBritishEmpire. However, the highly illiterate, hidebound and theocratic society has a tendency to not advance forward like Western world does. By the later period of the game's timeframe, they're generally pushovers. Of course, a player character can avert this, but they're harder to play as than some other nations. |
| 371 | * The Borg and Species 8472 (here called the Undine) had a bouncing effect in terms of Decay in ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline''. When they're first brought in, they're shown to be a much greater threat than before. However, a lack of appearance from the Undine neuter their badassness while PowerCreep forces the Borg into this trope. The Undine later roared back in full force. |
| 372 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 373 | ** The [[PsychicPowers Psychic type]] has slowly been undergoing this over the years. In ''VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue'', Psychic-types had high Special stats, allowing them to dish out Special damage as well as take it, were often fast, and had practically no weaknesses.[[labelnote:*]][[CastingAShadow Ghost]] and [[BigCreepyCrawlies Bug]] were ''supposed'' to be their weaknesses, but due to a coding error, Ghost-type moves were [[NoSell completely useless on Psychics]], and what few Bug moves did damage were very weak. Plus, most Bug-types were also weak defensively and many were part-[[PoisonousPerson Poison]] (Poison-types are vulnerable to Psychic attacks), which meant Bug-types were often easily defeated by Psychic-types.[[/labelnote]] That the strongest Pokémon in the game, Mewtwo, was a Psychic also helped. ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'', however, not only split Special into two stats (elaborated on down below), but also introduced the [[CombatPragmatist Dark]] and [[ExtraOreDinary Steel]] types, both of which resist Psychic-types (the former being a weakness ''and'' being immune to them). The Physical/Special split of moves introduced in ''VideoGame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl'' also cut their effectiveness, making once viable moves now useless on them. Later generations added more and more powerful Ghost-, Dark- and Bug-type moves and Pokémon, giving them more threats to be wary of. While a few Psychic-types are still good, it's now mostly ''in spite of'' their type and not ''because'' of it, and they're nowhere near the {{Game Breaker}}s they were in Gen I. |
| 374 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver'' split the Special stat into two stats -- Special Attack and Special Defense. A Pokémon's old Special became one stat, while the other was brand new. For some, this cut their usefulness - Gyarados' Special Attack was reduced, Flareon couldn't use special moves to work around its poor physical movepool as effectively anymore, and many special {{Lightning Bruiser}}s (like the aforementioned Psychic-types) became {{Glass Cannon}}s. |
| 375 | ** Around Gen V, the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent Dragon]] type was initially regarded as the best type in the game thanks to standout Pokémon like Hydreigon, Garchomp and Salamence, all boasting great stats and good movepools. The type itself also resisted many common types and had only two weaknesses - [[TakesOneToKillOne itself]], and [[AnIcePerson Ice]]. Gen VI introduced the [[OurFairiesAreDifferent Fairy]] type, which was immune to Dragon-types while super effective against them. The Dragon-type's usefulness plummeted (especially poor Hydreigon, who ended up with a 4x weakness to it). |
| 376 | ** Some [[NonElemental Normal-types]] like Persian, Tauros and Snorlax were very good in the days of ''Red/Blue'', with access to a wide movepool for type coverage, hitting most types for at least neutral damage, all around good stats. As the games went on (with changing game mechanics[[labelnote:*]]like the Special stat split, the Physical/Special move split, and critical hits no longer being determined by Speed (this particularly hurt Persian bad)[[/labelnote]] and PowerCreep setting in with the introduction of more specialized Pokémon), most of those former {{Lightning Bruiser}}s ended up becoming more of a JackOfAllStats with their movepools reduced in usefulness from before. |
| 377 | ** In ''Diamond/Pearl'', Regigigas is fought at Level 70, making it a challenging battle. In ''Platinum'', for whatever reason, it was lowered to ''Level 1'', making it far less challenging to fight (but harder to capture... unless you have [[HPTo1 False Swipe]]). |
| 378 | ** Bronzong and Metagross were once very good, with only two weaknesses as Steel/Psychic-types (and Bronzong's abilities would cut that down to one, and the opponent wouldn't know which weakness was left). That changed with Gen VI, which removed Steel's resistance to Dark and Ghost. Subsequently, Bronzong and Metagross became easier to take down (and Metagross's Meteor Mash move had its power reduced). |
| 379 | ** Moves change in power, effect and accuracy across generations, potentially undergoing this. For example, in ''Red/Blue'', Blizzard had 120 power and 90% accuracy, and Hyper Beam didn't require a recharge turn if it defeated a Pokémon. In later games, Blizzard's accuracy became ''70%'' (and Gen VI made its power 110), and Hyper Beam now always requires a recharge turn after use. |
| 380 | ** Mewtwo, while not as extreme as other Pokémon, did undergo this for a while. Once the most powerful Pokémon, Mewtwo's ability to take special hits was cut by the Special stat split, the introduction of Dark-types, Steel-types, [[StoneWall Blissey]], and more Pokémon with similar or higher base stat totals made countering Mewtwo easier, and the physical/special split of moves made many once-good special moves become physical (which Mewtwo isn't as good with). [[TookALevelInBadass Then Gen V gave Mewtwo a]] SecretArt [[TookALevelInBadass that destroys Special Attack walls, and Gen VI gave it]] ''[[TookALevelInBadass two]]'' [[TookALevelInBadass Mega Evolutions with the highest base stats of any Pokémon]] (rivalled only by Mega Rayquaza). |
| 381 | ** Dark Void was once a true nightmare to face, being an 80% accurate move which [[StatusEffects puts all enemy Pokémon on the field to sleep]], and while normally only learnable by [[OlympusMons Darkrai]] (which can also inflict damage on sleeping Pokémon with its Ability, Bad Dreams), [[PowerCopying Smeargle]] can also learn it. ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'' nerfed it hard by not only making it fail if used by anything that's not Darkrai (or a {{Ditto|Fighter}}), but also dropping its accuracy to 50%, making it significantly less reliable. While Darkrai still has high Speed and Special Attack stats to remain a threat, it can't use its Ability as effectively as it once could (suffice to say, Smeargle feels the nerf hardest). |
| 382 | ** Many Pokémon from the [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue first]] [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver two]] generations had fairly balanced stats that let them serve as a JackOfAllStats, such as Golduck, Xatu, and Dewgong. As more games come out, many new Pokémon are more specialized and tend to reduce a lot of earlier Pokémon to MasterOfNone status. |
| 383 | * In ''VideoGame/SpyroYearOfTheDragon'' Bianca is a competent and rather powerful sorceress. In one of the handheld ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'' games she is instead a performance magician. |
| 384 | * ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'': |
| 385 | ** Cloud Strife of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', both in- and out-of-universe. In-universe, ''Anime/FinalFantasyVIIAdventChildren'' depicted Cloud as sullen, mopey and prepared to die compared to the confused but serious SuperSoldier he was in the original game, and his [[TookALevelInBadass regaining his confidence and strength]] by rediscovering himself was a key plot element, and one stated outright by Tifa. Despite this resolution, Cloud's EmoTeen-esque portrayal became more [[{{Flanderization}} flanderized]] with each of his subsequent appearances, and became a negative stereotype and major point of mockery of his character. Much later, Cloud's appearances in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'', ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy2015'' and ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' made a point of restoring his original characterization and badassitude. |
| 386 | ** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'' X-[=ATM092=] is a [[GoodThingYouCanHeal regenerating]] HopelessBossFight during it's first encounter that the party must run away from during the escape from Dollet, and difficult but possible to defeat in any other encounters during the escape but intended to be run away from before [[DeaderThanDead finally being taken down by Quisis with a heavy machine gun.]] Later, it's turned into a joke if the party returns to Dollet and challenges the Galbadian forces there, who call in several, all of which simply [[CutsceneIncompetence comically fall off the nearby cliff or flip over and block the party's path without even a fight]] in order to keep the player from being able to go back to the Dollet Communications Tower. |
| 387 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', the legendary hero Nagi slays the last head of the multi-headed dragon demon Orochi by himself, with the player character, the goddess Amaterasu, destroying the rest of the heads. [[HistoryRepeats His descendant Susano repeats this act against a reanimated Orochi a hundred years later.]] Unfortunately for Nagi, it is revealed in the sequel ''{{VideoGame/Okamiden}}'' that ''another god'' (the sequel's player character) slashed open the final head for him, negating much of his credit. To rub the salt in, '''Susano still manages to destroy Orochi's last head''' '''''without any player intervention.''''' |
| 388 | * HK-47 is one of the very few enemies in ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'' the player fights more than once if they do all the Flashpoints, and he suffers from this in his second battle. In the first fight he's pretty much a PuzzleBoss multistage battle with an endless army of mooks behind him and can cause massive damage on his own, during the second he fights you completely alone, has no tricks to aid him, and while he is as powerful as any Flashpoint enemy that fights on his own and can still cause large amounts of damage it's not anywhere near as much as the first fight which is justified as he doesn't have the resources of The Foundry behind him the second time. While the player's group will just barely manage to beat HK after a tense battle the second fight is near effortless in comparison. |
| 389 | * ''VideoGame/DarkSeed'': While Mike Dawson's no ActionHero in the first game, he's still a brave and intelligent man who handles the situation without too much trouble. In the sequel, however, he becomes a whiny, cowardly {{manchild}} who uses Dark World gadgets to cheat at carnival games because he can't win them legitimately. |
| 390 | * In ''VideoGame/TheLuckyDimeCaper'' starring WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck, Donald fought off bosses such as a bear and a lion and was armed with weapons such as [[CarryABigStick a hammer]] and [[DeadlyDisc a disc]]. In the sequel, ''VideoGame/DeepDuckTrouble'', Donald has neither of those weapons, so his basic method of attacking his enemies is kicking blocks at them or [[GoombaStomp jumping on them]]. He also flees from bosses such as a gorilla, a shark, and a falcon instead of directly fighting them. |
| 391 | [[/folder]] |
| 392 | |
| 393 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 394 | * An interesting case concerning various ''Platform/GoAnimate'' "[[YouAreGrounded Grounded]]" videos. The target of the groundings start off as badass, being able to pull off all of their little stunts no matter how harmless or heinous it is, but the second they are caught, the badassness evaporates -- once the red screen filter comes and the "OHOHOHOHOHOHOH!" starts flying, the person is helpless and they immediately run to their room to cry. |
| 395 | * ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue: Zero'' has Carolina, Washington, and Tucker, the most competent and badass members of the main cast, return just to get their asses kicked by Viper. Tucker and Washington spend the rest of the season hospitalized and not doing anything relevant, while Carolina is sidelined in a mentor role and, outside of a few badass moments, is still easily beaten by the villains. |
| 396 | [[/folder]] |
| 397 | |
| 398 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 399 | * ''Webcomic/KevinAndKell'': |
| 400 | ** Uber-wolf R.L. R.L. begins the strip as the most fearsome predator at Heard Thinners, Inc. He does not lose his hunting skills, but after his medical domestication and marriage to Kevin's ex-wife Angelique, R.L now allows his rabbit wife to keep him collared and leashed. He fears smelly retribution if he fails to be a good father to his twenty skunk step-children. |
| 401 | ** Later on, [[KarmaHoudiniWarranty he's arrested for crimes against sapience]], becomes a fugitive from the law, and as of 2019 spends his life holed up in a bunker, occasionally hunting like a beast for sport. A far cry from the CorruptCorporateExecutive ManipulativeBastard he once was. |
| 402 | [[/folder]] |
| 403 | |
| 404 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 405 | * The "Buff Doge vs. Cheems" meme often illustrates this trope in cases in which the "Buff Doge" shows the subject's more impressive past version and the "Cheems" shows the subject's current version after becoming weaker. |
| 406 | [[/folder]] |
| 407 | |
| 408 | [[folder:Web Videos]] |
| 409 | * Black Yoshi from ''WebVideo/SuperMarioLogan'' has suffered from this, going from a ruthless anti-hero gangster to a hilariously pathetic crybaby that constantly whines and begs for Mario to buy him the next ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' game. |
| 410 | [[/folder]] |
| 411 | |
| 412 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 413 | * In the ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' film trilogy, Marty [=McFly=] was breaking the time barrier and facing off against terrorists and western gunmen. In the [[WesternAnimation/BackToTheFuture animated series]], he needs constant supervision from at least one of the Browns. |
| 414 | * Rampage of ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'', who starts out as a psychotic MightyGlacier who Megatron barely keeps under control, due to being (among other things) unkillable. He is progressively nerfed after this, becoming one of the Predacon troops (if still psychotic) and gets knocked around by [[TheLancer Depth Charge]]. He even loses his invincibility in the last episode for no apparent reason. That could have something to do with the Energon blades/spikes they were using still being in their raw, unstable state. |
| 415 | * ''WesternAnimation/Ben10'': |
| 416 | ** The titular hero's nemesis and EvilCounterpart Kevin 11 suffers this through a toned down version of RedemptionDemotion; in the original series, he was an 11-year-old AxCrazy CreepyChild who could actually stand against Ben of his own. The sequel ''WesternAnimation/Ben10AlienForce'', taking place after a 5-year TimeSkip, has him going through a HeelFaceTurn and becoming an AntiHero. While he remained useful, he was now unable to fully use his abilities [[spoiler:which was later explained by the fact it was his powers that caused him to go psychotic when he abused them]], resulting in him becoming ridiculously weak compared to before (just before his HeelFaceTurn, he fights Ben and is easily defeated). To sum up, he went from Ben's second most dangerous arc-foe to the weakest of the protagonists. |
| 417 | ** The protagonist himself went through this when the writers attempt to do a CharacterRerailment on him in ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse''. Sadly, this had the side effect to remove all the badassery he had gained over the course of the AUF era, making him an immature, clumsy, bumbling IdiotHero who can't use the Omnitrix right even after all those years. |
| 418 | * Gorgonzola from ''WesternAnimation/{{Chowder}}''. At the beginning, he was more sarcastic and intimidating (to Chowder at least). Now he's a bit of a punching bag for the other characters, frequently getting his ass handed to him. People have said this happened when his master, Stilton, was introduced. To be fair, he wasn't seen in many episodes before that point. |
| 419 | * ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': |
| 420 | ** Number 4 started out as a competent badass who enjoyed a good fight every now and then and had some brilliant tactics to his plans, in later episodes he became very whiny, [[TookALevelInDumbass a lot less intelligent]], and lost nearly every fight he was involved in. |
| 421 | ** Father lost a lot of his credibility after "Operation G.R.A.D.U.A.T.I.O.N", and lost it completely when his role as the sinister main villain was taken away from him by Grandfather in "Operation Z.E.R.O". Even after Grandfather was defeated, Father never fully recovered. Also qualifies as VillainDecay. |
| 422 | * Skulker in ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom'' (Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter) is able to take down nearly any ghostly beast--big or small--without any fear. He hunts for sport and Danny Phantom is his only real challenge; otherwise, he's competent. Then by the last season, in one episode, it's spurred away: his motivation to hunt Danny is just to impress his one-time girlfriend (who points out how horrible he does said job despite no evidence of such), and despite handling a giant ghost monster in the same episode, is unable to fight back against a ''regular teeny bird!'' A later episode had him running away from mutant unicorns instead of combating. Other episodes seem to depict him back to his badass self, but they're often minor. |
| 423 | * ''WesternAnimation/DogCity'': Rosie O'Gravy, dedicated cop and a true badass in her own right, suffered from this horribly as she got downsized into starring in segments featuring her niece Dot, cutting her out of the major stories. |
| 424 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheDreamstone'': |
| 425 | ** Within the duration between the first and second season premieres, Rufus devolved from a CloudCuckooLander BadassAdorable with a sword to a [[TheEveryman generic]] [[TheMeddlingKidsAreUseless Useless Meddling Kid]]. Amberley ended up [[DistaffCounterpart the same]], most episodes ending with them getting OvershadowedByAwesome with the Dream Maker or the Wuts. They gradually reverted back in Seasons Three and Four, though still had fluctuations. |
| 426 | ** In the pilot and occasions in Season One, Zordrak was an effective BigBad, often plotting schemes competently and sometimes taking control of the situation himself, generally only losing due to his Urpney minions' bumbling and cowardice when left to their own devices. By Season Two he is a complete OrcusOnHisThrone, relying on Urpgor for any brainpower and contributing little besides growling at the Urpneys to hurry up and get the stone. |
| 427 | * ''WesternAnimation/DuckTales2017'': |
| 428 | ** Scrooge [=McDuck=] was once the poster child for CoolOldGuy, a worldwide adventurer who tackled any danger in both the [[ComicBook/DisneyDucksComicUniverse original comics]] and the [[WesternAnimation/DuckTales1987 first cartoon]]. Even in the reboot series in the pilot he notably outsmarted a ghost, singlehandedly took on a dragon and led the family through Atlantis. After that, thanks to a combination of the show's DenserAndWackier tone and the focus shifting to the children characters, he's mainly relegated to either sitting out while everyone else handles the adventure or constantly [[DistressedDude needing to be rescued]] by the kids. Occasionally a moment comes up that shows he still has his old skills, but they occur much more sparingly here. |
| 429 | ** In the original show, [[AcePilot Launchpad McQuack]] is one of the most dangerous members of the cast besides Scrooge himself. During the first season alone, he saves the triplets from hostile aliens, pulls off a [[BeyondTheImpossible supposedly impossible]] maneuver to rescue Scrooge during an aerial battle with the Beagle Boys, and successfully substitutes for a spy. The reboot version gets sidelined or becomes useless in a fight quite a bit more frequently, especially because he's also much ditzier. |
| 430 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 431 | ** Stewie started the series [[EnfantTerrible as an aggressive, psychotic, evil genius plotting to take over the world and kill his mother]], but [[UnCanceled by the fourth season]], he became much more [[AmbiguouslyGay effeminate]], petty, [[PingPongNaivete occasionally overly naive]], and immature, seemingly abandoning his evil ways. Now his evil-ness is only occasionally mentioned, usually for a quick joke. Though this is unlike most examples, as this was probably because they didn't think it would be funny for much longer (on the other hand, many fans think that reducing him to a walking gay joke is even ''less'' funny.) The two-parter "Stewie Kills Lois"/"Lois Kills Stewie" addresses this FailureIsTheOnlyOption issue. The ending reveals most of it was [[spoiler:a virtual reality simulation he was viewing to see what things would be like if he ''did'' decide to commit himself to his ambitions right now. It turns out that though he ''could'' pull off world domination, in the end he'd be killed]]. (There's some funny LampshadeHanging with Brian's comments on this story thus being a big tease.) |
| 432 | ** Joe Swanson has also suffered from this. In the beginning, while the show occasionally made jokes about his disability, he was a competent police officer who could hold his own in a fight [[HandicappedBadass despite being handicapped]]. After the show was uncancelled, while he still has moments of badassery, he is made fun of for his disability all the time and is often seen as being weak for it, to the point where the show outright said he wore diapers! |
| 433 | * Hoss Delgado and Grim from ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' fit this trope. Grim's first appearance in the first episode shows him as a terrifying spirit that collects people when it's their time to die. Starting in his very next appearance, he obeys the every command of Billy and Mandy, and things only get worse from then on. Hoss is more or less a competent badass in his first appearance, but in the TV spin-off ''Underfist'', he lives with his mom in a trailer, is forced to work with several monsters just because Mandy says so, and he also gets beaten up possibly more than any other character in the story. He even admits that he has been wetting his bed for the last thirty years and a marshmallow bunny is the reason he hates monsters so much. A far cry from what he once was. |
| 434 | * Skeletor from ''WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse1983'', a classic two-dimensional villain with no previous redeeming qualities whatsoever, abruptly turns good for no apparent reason other than "the Spirit of Christmas" in the ''He-Man and [[WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower She-Ra]] Holiday Special''. This had no bearing on later evil; it was just something the eighties did, apparently. Three words: Staff Child Psychologist. |
| 435 | * ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'': The title character started out with about average intelligence, and was a skilled enough martial artist to subdue a crocodile with his bare hands. While he was overconfident, reckless and socially inept, he was far from a complete punching bag. But in later seasons, he degenerated into a stupid, sexist, immature loser meathead who got repeatedly humiliated by six-year-olds. The final season, however, would make efforts to return him to his earlier characterization, undoing some of the decay he suffered. |
| 436 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'': The seventy-year gap between its predecessor ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' and ''Korra'''s present-day has seen [[TheOrder The Order of the White Lotus]] change from a tight-knit elite group of {{Old Master}}s to a much more diluted HeroSecretService charged with protecting Avatar Korra, who spends much of her time chafing under their limits and conspiring ways to DitchTheBodyguards, often [[TheGuardsMustBeCrazy successfully]]. It ''is'', however, justified in that those {{Old Master}}s are implied to be dead and that Korra is getting assistance in evading them from {{Reasonable Authority Figure}}s Katara and Tenzin. Plus, the guys from the original series were the leaders of the White Lotus, while in ''Korra'' we mostly see the lower-tier members. This is even acknowledged in Book 3 by the villains. |
| 437 | * Nala in ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard'', probably in order to make the protagonists look better. She fought off a group of hyenas easily in [[WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994 the first film]], but needed her son Kion to save her from three hyenas in the show. |
| 438 | * Megan from ''Franchise/MyLittlePony'' in the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTVSpecials first special]] was a rough cowgirl, with a bulky frame (for a 12-year-old girl, that is) and wasn't afraid of fighting barehanded against monsters or diving downstream to rescue a friend, without mentioning how at the end of the first TV special, [[spoiler:she kills Tirac]]. Her second TV special turned her into a feminine Bishoujo girl and her Movie/[[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyAndFriends TV series]] final redesign turned her into a boney girl who kept being overpowered by dumb enemies or falling for the dumbest traps and was nowhere as tough or competent as the original Megan. |
| 439 | * ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': |
| 440 | ** Shining Armor went from a Captain of the Royal Guard to getting his butt constantly handed to him by the BigBad and making a fool of himself in front of the main cast. It's actually gotten to the point where he cries at least once an appearance in later episodes. Ever since Flurry Heart was born he doesn't even ''try'' anymore, having gone from a character who would charge the likes of King Sombra and Lord Tirek despite knowing he was vastly outmatched to submitting and kneeling to Sombra without a fight, cowering in the face of a winterchilla (a giant rabbit) while his sister has to throw up a barrier instead, and outright being told to sit out the final battle against the Legion of Doom. |
| 441 | ** [[BigGood Princess Celestia]] also gets increasingly hit by this trope in later seasons. As a millenia-old PhysicalGod, [[TheGoodKing ruler of her own nation,]] and [[FamedInStory universally renowned]] hero with numerous EldritchAbomination battle victories under her belt, you would expect her to effortlessly dominate virtually all threats the show's protagonists face. In the show's early run, she almost always had a good reason for why she didn't. Later on, however, she starts getting defeated for increasingly less convincing reasons -- after all, [[StupidityIsTheOnlyOption there wouldn't be much of a story if she solved all of their problems effortlessly]]. This reached its head in [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie2017 the movie]] where [[spoiler:she seems to just stand there and let herself get turned to stone whereas Cadance and Luna at least make attempts to fight back]]. |
| 442 | ** The Mane Six also go through this in the movie. While it's excusable for Rarity due to her being a unicorn against anti-magic armor, [[SuperStrength Applejack]] and [[FastestThingAlive Rainbow Dash]] in the beginning forget that they can fight off the bad guys, and even during the big fight all Applejack does is tie a rope around some {{mooks}}. [[CowardlyLion Fluttershy]] also goes through this, despite being previously hinted at having just as much flying potential as Rainbow Dash. The most egregious of it happens to [[TheHero Twilight Sparkle]] in that she's rarely shown using any of the advanced magical techniques shown throughout the series, instead opting for basic levitation and magic blasts. [[spoiler:When she's captured by Tempest Shadow, she doesn't think to teleport or at least turn herself into a small creature like a Breezy to escape, instead opting to blast at the cage she's in despite learning the hard way early on that the enemies' technology is resistant to magic. After Tempest's VillainSong, the most she does until her friends come to rescue her is sit around moping while her magic is taken, and after that the only thing she does by herself is save Tempest Shadow when the Storm King betrays her. In essence, she's reduced to a DamselInDistress until she remembers she's the Princess of Friendship.]] |
| 443 | * The Handyman Ninja from ''WesternAnimation/PlanetSketch'' suffers this in the second season, as a negative case of changing up the general formula of his sketches. Normally, he [[MundaneMadeAwesome arrives dynamically when a family has trouble solving a regular everyday problem]], and solves it with whatever he has on hand. The second season makes him useless and TooIncompetentToOperateABlanket, which often makes it a simple task for the ''second'' Handyman Ninja [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter to show him up]]. |
| 444 | * The animated incarnation of ComicStrip/{{Popeye}} goes through this something awful. In the Creator/MaxAndDaveFleischer cartoons, he's truly [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] like his comic strip counterpart, to the point where bullets will ''bounce off him'' (''without having eaten spinach first''). By the time Creator/FamousStudios starts making the cartoons, Popeye requires spinach to perform even the most mundane feats of strength. |
| 445 | * ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls2016'': |
| 446 | ** The girls have taken a huge blow to their power due to the emphasis on comedy and the lower violence levels compared to [[WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls1998 original cartoon]]. Bubbles has gotten her arm easily broken and her eye bruised by things that wouldn't even scratch her in the original continuity. The girls in general also tend to get more overwhelmed than before during fights and even get defeated by stuff they originally could beat more easily. |
| 447 | ** All of Mojo Jojo's threatening side seems to have been eliminated in the reboot. He is comedic relief at best. |
| 448 | * It says something when you were more badass as a ''baby'' than you are after hitting puberty, as is the case with Tommy Pickles of ''WesternAnimation/{{Rugrats}}''. With a [[BadassCreed declaration of "A baby's got to do what a baby's got to do,"]] even when he was ''aware'' [[TheFool of the danger]] such as dealing with [[TheDreaded "The Junkfood Kid,"]] he never failed to pull out his trusty screwdriver and lead [[TrueCompanions his fellow babies]] to fun and adventure. Then came ''WesternAnimation/AllGrownUp'' where he's now just another kid with crippling fears, awkwardness and just being well, [[BroughtDownToNormal normal.]] Of course Tommy is no longer protected by AchievementsInIgnorance and ImprobableInfantSurvival. |
| 449 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 450 | ** An InUniverse example occurs in one episode where a TV character who Homer shares his name with is downgraded from competent badass to blithering idiot, much to Homer's dismay. |
| 451 | ** Skinner. Early on his characterization revolves heavily around the fact that he's a veteran. He's seen being the {{Determinator}} NonGivingUpSchoolGuy pursuing Bart. He also intimidates and then beats up two lawyers sent by Disney to close a fair at the school. Modern day Skinner is mostly defined by how he's bossed around by [[MyBelovedSmother his mom]], as well as his boring outlook on life. |
| 452 | * One of the reasons why the ''WesternAnimation/SonicPrime'' incarnation of Sonic is divisive is because he makes numerous mistakes with disastrous consequences (the entire premise gets started because he accidentally destroyed the Prism Shard despite his friends' warnings) and [[AdaptationalDumbass is much less smart]], often needing others (namely Shadow) to ring him in. Not helping matters is that the producers of ''Prime'' have stated that the series is canon to the games; the latest that came out during the show's production, ''VideoGame/SonicFrontiers'', had Sonic at arguably his most empathetic and most competent. |
| 453 | * Plankton from ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' went from a menacing threat that always came close to getting the Krabby Patty formula (and actually succeeds in TheMovie) to an IneffectualSympatheticVillain in the later seasons. At least part of this however is PlayedForLaughs as a result of amping up the negative qualities of the "heroes", especially his ArchEnemy Mr. Krabs, often conveying them as EvilerThanThou (or at least more insufferable) to the point Plankton himself seems placid and down to earth. |
| 454 | * In ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars'': |
| 455 | ** General Grievous went from being the [[TheJuggernaut unstoppably]] badass [[HeroKiller Jedi killer]] introduced in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsCloneWars'' to the moderately badass DirtyCoward he was in ''Film/RevengeOfTheSith''. He tries to make up for it with becoming a CombatPragmatist instead, with more-or-less success. |
| 456 | ** Savage Opress. During the Nightsisters and Brothers arc, he is initially capable of fighting Obi-Wan and Anakin at the same time, and even choking Dooku and Ventress in a moment of blind rage. In his subsequent appearances, Savage is usually no match for Obi-Wan or Maul, he is even humiliated by Obi-Wan despite having the help of his brother. |
| 457 | * Brother Blood of ''WesternAnimation/{{Teen Titans|2003}}'' is introduced as the suave, charismatic headmaster of the HIVE ([[AcademyOfEvil a supervillain training center]]) using a combination of MindControl and force of personality to make his "students" fanatically loyal and takes his defeat in stride. In his next appearance, he's making sloppy mistakes, cornball puns, and goes into petulant rages at the top of a hat- and now it seems he's also so cruel that no one would willingly work for him ''without'' MindControl. Oddly, he also got to show off new powers and his amazing martial arts skills, so his fighting ability went ''up'' even as his competence and cool factor went ''down''. |
| 458 | * ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'': |
| 459 | ** Duncan started out as a bad boy {{jerkass}} from juvie who was able to intimidate most of the other campers. Come the next two seasons, possibly due to a RelationshipUpgrade with [[spoiler:Courtney]], he starts to lose the intimidating aspect of him and occasionally gets his ass handed to him by some of the other campers. Two of which happen to Harold and Cody, the two nerdiest characters in the show. Although Duncan does get some of his badassery back late Season 3, when he teams up with [[BigBad Alejandro]] and starts acting like a ManipulativeBastard...but he fails at even that in the end. Season 5 builds an entire subplot around Duncan's badass decay. After being placed on the Heroic Hamsters team, he gradually gets "sucked into their niceness" and becomes a huge sweetheart, to his horror and everyone else's amusement. His desperation to prove that he is still bad leads to him [[spoiler:blowing up Chris' cottage, resulting in his subsequent arrest and removal from the competition]]. At least his badass nature has been restored. |
| 460 | ** Scott started off as a devious, street-smart badass who [[LackofEmpathy viewed all of the contestants as objects]] to the point that he seemed like a genuine [[TheSociopath sociopath]]. A few episodes into season five, his tendency to be BookDumb was Flanderized into [[TooDumbToLive full-blown idiocy]], with all of his evil traits totally forgotten. Oddly enough, like Duncan, none of this happened until [[spoiler:he got a crush on]] Courtney. |
| 461 | * Starscream of ''WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime'', so very, very much. In the pilot, he was a genuinely frightening, comparatively cool-headed bastardly second in command unrivaled by any other Starscream to date [[spoiler:as Cliffjumper found out]]. Later episodes have seen him as a [[DirtyCoward sniveling coward]] whose fighting style is roughly 90% cheap shots and beating up badly weakened opponents, when he's not getting his ass kicked. Also, he's consistently upstaged and humiliated by Airachnid, and ruined in "Rock Bottom". Though to be fair [[spoiler:he does pretty well in the second half of "Partners," the episode detailing his desertion. He plays Arcee so she doesn't consider him a threat before beating the scrap out of her. Too bad for him she got a HeroicSecondWind]]. Cementing his downfall, seasons 2 and 3 rather consistently portray him as bumbling comic relief. Although he does get very brief moments to shine, when RuleOfCool calls for it, these happen rarely and he tends to get outdone quickly. In one episode, even his own men call him out briefly on his cowardly attitude. |
| 462 | * In ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBros'', Brock Samson's love interest accuses him of going through this when he displays uncharacteristic interest in taking care of the kids rather than just guarding them. He is, however, still plenty badass. |
| 463 | * Valtor (or Baltor, depending on the version you get), from season 3 of ''WesternAnimation/WinxClub'', was a magnitude better BigBad than his ridiculous predecessor Lord Darkar. Suave, fascinating, cool, powerful, and when he didn't use MindControl for his deeds, he fought the heroines in first person (also since the Trix were [[VillainDecay quite ineffective]]). He blinded Layla, transformed Faragonda into a tree, made Tecna disappear in a black hole - even if all these events were resolved after a few episodes, they showed he was serious menace. At some point, the authors must have realized he was ''too'' powerful, and the fairies had to defeat him sooner or later; so, in the last episodes he became an increasingly stupid cardboard villain and, finally, his handsome appearance was revealed to be the disguise of his true form, a big ugly demon. One of the many [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot wasted opportunities]] of season 3. |
| 464 | [[/folder]] |
| 465 |
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