| 1 | %%% |
| 2 | %% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thanks! |
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| 4 | |
| 5 | ->''"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."'' |
| 6 | -->-- '''Desiderius Erasmus,''' Dutch Philosopher (1466-1536), and paraphrased by many others |
| 7 | |
| 8 | A character who, in their own reality/universe, is fairly normal, if not underpowered. They'd be a {{Mook|s}} or RedShirt back home, or someone fairly low key. Or maybe back home they're weak because [[OvershadowedByAwesome they have to measure up to god-level opponents]] or {{Eldritch Abomination}}s. Whatever the reason, they're not considered strong. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | However, due to the nature of the world they are dropped into, they are unbelievably powerful. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | This trope is about when PowerCreepPowerSeep ''does not'' come into play. To be a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond, you must be much more powerful than the locals, without gaining anything you didn't have before. At a certain point, [[http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/alientech.php#id--Alien_Tech_Level--Technology_Level the stuff in your pockets]] makes you a god to those who lack it; as civilizations technologically advance, members of that civilization have access to increasing amounts of energy. For example, your average medieval peasant could never hope to own something as destructive as an AK-47 automatic rifle or a few drums of fuel oil mixed with ammonium nitrate. |
| 13 | |
| 14 | Compare LikeADuckTakesToWater where the individuals transplanted have some unique gifts or knowledge, and NotRareOverThere when it comes to resources. This one is just a normal guy or person in their universe, but is special in another. FishOutOfWater goes hand-in-hand with this trope. This is a staple of comic book alien supers, whose “powers” consist primarily of “being a member of their species” on a planet where the dominant species isn’t as powerful, whereas on their homeworld they would be considered merely a BadassNormal. {{Invoked|Trope}} for SummonEverymanHero. See also ThoseWereOnlyTheirScouts. Contrast OutsideContextProblem. Compare and contrast MightyWhitey. LargeRunt is a SisterTrope purely about physical size, not general ability. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | ---- |
| 17 | !!Examples: |
| 18 | [[index]] |
| 19 | * [[NormalFishInATinyPond/AnimeAndManga Anime and Manga]] |
| 20 | * [[NormalFishInATinyPond/FanWorks Fan Works]] |
| 21 | [[/index]] |
| 22 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 23 | [[folder:Comic Books]] |
| 24 | * ''ComicBook/{{Aquaman}}'': Part of the driving force behind Aquaman's ascent from [[WhatKindOfLamePowerIsHeartAnyway maligned third-stringer]] to [[HeartIsAnAwesomePower one of DC's heaviest hitters]] (literally!) was people realising that the RequiredSecondaryPowers that enable him to swim at high speeds and throw a worthwhile punch under several hundred atmospheres of pressure would turn him into a standout example of this trope, granting the kind of SuperStrength and SuperToughness that puts him in the same league as ''Kryptonians and Themiscyrans'' when he's on the surface. |
| 25 | * ''ComicBook/BoosterGold'': Booster Gold was originally ''less'' than a muggle, he was a total loser: an ex-football player from the 25th century disgraced by betting on his own games, who ends up as the security guard of a museum. He steals a [[TimeTravel time travel device,]] a [[DeflectorShields Force Field]], a [[ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes Legion Flight Ring,]] and a RobotBuddy and transports himself to present day...[[CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass and has surprisingly become a great hero despite himself.]] |
| 26 | * ''ComicBook/CaptainAtom'': Captain Atom is generally considered a second-tier hero at best in the mainstream DC Universe, however, in ''ComicBook/CaptainAtomArmageddon'', when he is transported to the ''Creator/{{Wildstorm}}'' universe, he proves to be almost unstoppable, all but casually walking through ComicBook/TheAuthority, that world's mightiest [[NinetiesAntiHero "heroes"]]. Of course, part of this is that Captain Atom [[WillfullyWeak holds back]] a ''lot''. |
| 27 | * ''ComicBook/GothamCentral'': This effect is used to great extent in the series, which typically has normal Gotham cops going against normal Gotham crooks. Even D-List Batman villains are a big deal whenever they appear, and when a true A-lister like [[Characters/BatmanMrFreeze Mr. Freeze]] or [[Characters/BatmanTheJoker The Joker]] appear, they are story-arc villains that the police are as powerless to stop as if they were Cthulhu. |
| 28 | * ''ComicBook/{{Grendel}}'': Inverted with Hunter Rose, the GeniusBruiser DiabolicalMastermind who is the original Grendel. In his own universe, he's so powerful a BadassNormal that only a superstrong werewolf has a chance of beating him. However, in the crossover series with ComicBook/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/TheShadow, he provides a decent challenge to both of them but ends up getting his ass kicked both times, as they're used to fighting high-grade BadassNormal costumed villains. |
| 29 | * ''ComicBook/{{Invincible}}'': |
| 30 | ** Mark Grayson AKA Invincible is one of the most powerful superhumans on Earth thanks to his [[FlyingBrick Viltrumite]] heritage. However, he is ''only'' special by the standards of Earth; by the standards of Viltrumites as a species, he's indicated to [[MasterOfNone not really be anything special in terms of strength, durability, or speed]], and he furthermore learns that cosmic superheroes and villains in general tend to be on a power-level equal to or greater than him. In solo fights with his fellow Viltrumites and other alien heroes and villains, he tends to lose the natural advantages he has on Earth and have a ''much'' harder time as a result. Later on, as he gets OlderAndWiser, he begins developing ways of offsetting this problem by fighting more [[CombatPragmatist tactically and pragmatically]] while also becoming a better team player who isn't afraid to rely on backup. |
| 31 | ** At the start of the comic, Titan is one of Invincible's most powerful villains and a formidable warrior whose super strength and rocky exterior make him a nightmare on the streets. But as the series progresses and Titan climbs [[SortingAlgorithmOfEvil the supervillain food chain]] it becomes apparent that this is only true at a low street level, and by the standards of the wider superhuman population, Titan is on the weaker end of the spectrum and is outstripped by pretty much everybody above a certain point. He's still very strong and tough by the standards of normal people, but as the power-levels of his enemies increases, Titan increasingly has to rely on his [[GeniusBruiser intellect and cunning]] to stay ahead. |
| 32 | ** The Immortal and Angstrom Levy both suffer a similar problem. They're strong to be sure and could wipe the floor with most normal people and lower level supers — the former because of being an nigh-unkillable FlyingBrick himself, the latter because of cybernetic enhancements — but neither is at the same level as Invincible and people like him. In Immortal's case, this ends up fueling an InferioritySuperiorityComplex towards [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter Mark]] that drives a wedge between the two for much of the series, as ''he'' used to be Earth's strongest hero. Angstrom, meanwhile, [[spoiler:nearly gets killed in one of his first fights with Mark because the latter mistakenly presumes he can take the sort of hits Mark usually throws and hits with all his strength. The results are... [[{{Gorn}} not good]]]]. |
| 33 | -->"I... I thought you were stronger..." |
| 34 | * ''ComicBook/JustImagineStanLeeCreatingTheDCUniverse'': The "Superman" adaptation was an alien cop named Saldan, a normal guy who ended up chasing a serial killer into an experimental spacecraft and ending up on Earth. Saldan discovered Earth's gravity was absurdly weak and human language was childishly simple, allowing him to settle in pretty effortlessly as a popular superhero. Solar energy wasn't a factor -- like Siegel and Shuster's early concept of Superman, Saldan was just built for a much harsher world in which he was considered normal. |
| 35 | * ''ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes'': |
| 36 | ** In the 2004 reboot, at first glance Colossal Boy has the power to grow to gigantic sizes, but in reality he’s a member of a race of [[OurGiantsAreBigger giants]] who live in an isolated city in Antarctica, and his actual power is the ability to shrink to a "mere" six feet tall. Back home they call him Micro Lad. |
| 37 | ** In ''ComicBook/TheLegionOfSuperHeroes'', when ComicBook/{{Superboy}} visits the 30th century, he expresses amazement at his tiny town Smallville becoming a big city after ten centuries. Cosmic Boy says it is still just a town, and he should wait to see the actual big cities. |
| 38 | * ''ComicBook/MartianManhunter'': J'onn J'onzz is a completely normal Martian... which means he's a shapeshifting psychic who's as strong as ComicBook/{{Superman}}. |
| 39 | * ''ComicBook/Marvel1985'': This is essentially the premise for the series, in which Marvel supervillains begin appearing in our world—but no heroes. In a world without super-powers or super-science, even a guy like Stilt-Man can be a terror. |
| 40 | * ''ComicBook/MsMarvel'': ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'' villain Shocker attempts to invoke this in ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014'' when he moves to New Jersey, reasoning that while he is not high on the totem pole in New York, which is filled with superheroes and villains, in Jersey there is so little of either he will easily become king of the hill. However, when he fights Ms. Marvel, he fares little better than a normal [[MonsterOfTheWeek Villain of the Week]], and Kamala struggles more with her powers going on the fritz at the time. |
| 41 | * ''ComicBook/NemesisTheWarlock'': Nemesis is well-respected among his race, but is not portrayed as being extraordinarily powerful. In fact, his crazy uncle Baal is said to have much greater power than him and he can be put on a spell even by young and inexperienced female Warlock (as they are by default more powerful than males) and the only thing that makes him special is being in the possession of the Sword Sinister, through it's unexplained why. Compared to humans and other races he is however seen almost as a godlike being and Galaxy's only hope against the Termight Empire. |
| 42 | * ''ComicBook/NewGods'': Mister Miracle is generally depicted as a GadgeteerGenius and TechnicalPacifist GuileHero. He’s nowhere near as strong as more martially-oriented New Gods like his wife Barda, Kalibak or Orion, all of whom can take Characters/{{Superman|TheCharacter}} and Characters/{{Wonder Woman|TheCharacter}} in a straight fight. Nor does he (usually) have the flashy energy powers some New Gods have, physically he’s just an average New God. Which means he could rip the average human apart like damp cardboard if he wanted to. |
| 43 | * ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'': [[Characters/MarvelComicsFrankCastle Frank Castle]] has a huge bodycount for a non-powered hero. However, this is mostly because he deals with street-level criminals, non-powered ones and low-powered ones-- they have just enough guns and muscles to intimidate civilians and run rackets, but are completely out of their depth against a trained soldier who hates them personally. This applies to both the superhumans he kills (e.g. one of the Vultures, who was strong but ''not'' ImmuneToBullets... or knives) and the regular thugs (who are unarmored, usually only carrying handguns, and have no combat training or relevant experience). When higher level superheroes/villains get on his case, his plan almost always involves distracting/hobbling them so he can run away, having no chance against them (though he does try to kill the villainous ones). That said, ''ComicBook/ThePunisherKillsTheMarvelUniverse'' exists... |
| 44 | ** "The Slavers" arc from ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'' is a good example -- having just dumped his latest victims' automatic weapons into a lake, he's nearly defenseless when a bunch of Bosnian Serb (war) criminals show up. Where gang bangers and mobsters start shooting at random with their handguns GangstaStyle, these guys just slip back into the habits that kept them alive and victorious in the Balkans, forcing Frank to flee. |
| 45 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan2099'': This is how Lyla describes herself. In 2099, she is commonplace, but in 2015 she is beyond cutting edge and can hack absolutely anything. |
| 46 | * ''ComicBook/SpiderMan'': For Marvel world standards, [[Characters/MarvelComicsPeterParker Spider-Man]] is not that special, being overshadowed by many superheroes like [[Characters/MarvelComicsThorOdinson Thor]], [[ComicBook/TheIncredibleHercules Hercules]] or [[Characters/MarvelComicsBruceBanner The Incredible Hulk]]. But by street-level standards, Spider-Man is one of the most powerful heroes, being a LightningBruiser capable of lifting tanks and surprising [[Characters/MarvelComicsMattMurdock Daredevil]] with his speed. |
| 47 | * ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'': |
| 48 | ** The Man of Steel himself looks at first sight like a prime example. He's a completely normal [[HumanAliens Kryptonian,]] but the completely normal ability of Kryptonians to absorb solar energy makes him on Earth, well, Superman. Then {{averted|Trope}} in the (many) instances when he loses his powers or fights against other Kryptonians or [[PhysicalGod overwhelmingly god-like beings,]] showing [[BroughtDownToBadass him to be]] a [[ActionSurvivor resourceful,]] [[GuileHero intelligent]] [[{{Determinator}} and absolutely relentless]] [[BoxingLessonsForSuperman highly trained warrior]] and leader ready to face [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt the apocalypse]] and [[HopeBringer save the world]] no matter what. By Kryptonian standards, Clark is a more emotive Batman. |
| 49 | ** Back in MediaNotes/{{the Golden Age|OfComicBooks}} the ultimate source of his powers was that he had [[HeavyWorlder the body of a man meant to live on a high-gravity world]] like Krypton while actually living on the relatively low-gravity world of Earth. |
| 50 | ** The same principle was used in [[ComicBook/JustImagineStanLeeCreatingTheDCUniverse Stan Lee's version]] of Superman. |
| 51 | ** Characters/{{Supergirl|TheCharacter}} comes across as a PhysicalGod as well as a super-genius to Earth people, but back in Argo City, she was a normal, ordinary Kryptonian girl. The only thing remarkable about her were her parents (or, depending on the version, only her father). |
| 52 | ** One story in MediaNotes/{{the Silver Age|of Comic Books}} had [[Characters/SupermanJimmyOlsen Jimmy Olsen]] go to another world, where the low gravity meant he had the equivalent of Superman-level abilities. |
| 53 | ** [[Characters/SupermanMisterMxyzptlk Mr. Mxyzptlk]], the imp who occasionally pops over from the Fifth Dimension to bug Superman, was said in his first appearance to be a nobody in his home dimension, where his powers are nothing out of the ordinary. |
| 54 | ** In the ''ComicBook/SupermanBatman'' story "Torment", [[Characters/BatmanTheScarecrow The Scarecrow]] betrays Desaad and sprays him with fear toxin, but [[NoSell it has no effect]]. Desaad angrily points out that just because he's a wimp compared to most superheroes and supervillains doesn't change the fact that he's a ''god''. He proceeds to beat the crap out of Scarecrow and strap him to a table for torment. |
| 55 | ** [[Characters/SupermanSuperboyPrime Superboy-Prime]] is an interesting example. Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths, he was just one among the many versions of Superman across the multiverse (all of them with Silver Age-level power - through, Prime had no weakness to Kryptonite and magic). But, when he emerged into the DC Post-Crisis universe in ''ComicBook/InfiniteCrisis'', he effectively became the strongest Superman of them all, since he retained his pre-Crisis power level - whereas the newer versions of Superman could withstand supernovas, Superboy Prime could withstand Big Bangs. |
| 56 | ** In a single story back in the Golden Age, Superman encountered an earthman named Regor who was accidentally blasted into space when he was a baby and landed on the planet Uuz, which had a significantly [[{{Lightworlder}} lower gravity]] than Earth. On Uuz, Regor had FlyingBrick powers similar to Superman. He could also see through walls because buildings on Uuz were all made of glass, which Uuzians can't see through. |
| 57 | * ''ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}}'': |
| 58 | ** [[Characters/CaptainAmericaCentralRoguesGallery Baron Zemo]], who has no superpowers, ended up being on both sides of this during the comic's run. Early on, as Citizen V, he was shown being a great fighter, despite having always been more of TheChessmaster and lacking in combat prowess; Creator/KurtBusiek answered inquiring readers that being good enough to last a few minutes against [[Characters/MarvelComicsSteveRogers Captain America]] ought to mean you can wipe the floor with most other people. However, later down the line, it became a running theme Zemo would lose any actual fight he got into, even when fighting with his chosen weapon, the sword. Zemo might be decent in a fight by most standards but he's not the WorldsGreatestWarrior, and anyone who's actually got genuine talent with swords is going to easily school him, nevermind anyone with actual superpowers. Zemo's weapon is his intellect and charisma, above everything, so while he can dispatch mooks, even B-listers like Andreas Strucker will best him. |
| 59 | ** Moonstone has also faced this over time. Though among the Thunderbolts themselves she's one of their most powerful members, being a FlyingBrick with energy beams and density control, but she's far from the only or even the most powerful FlyingBrick super there is; once, she straight up ''fled'' from Monica Rambeau, while other times, her antagonism towards Carol Danvers has generally been treated as a SmugSnake picking a fight with a woman who is ''really'' holding back. |
| 60 | ** During the Busiek-Nicieza era, the team as a whole were presented as a RagtagBunchOfMisfits, first intentionally as part of Zemo's plan to cast them as more sympathetic idealists, but then for real when the ruse was exposed and the whole world was gunning for them. Even at their best, they were far from on-par with the Avengers or Fantastic Four, and at their worst, they were almost bullied into giving up their HeelFaceTurn and joining Crimson Cowl's Masters Of Evil. Then they got trapped on Counter Earth, and ended up basically becoming both ''the'' biggest superhero team on the planet but also its de-facto rulers, as the world was in shambles. They were so good at this that Zemo even contemplated letting the actual earth perish and was content to just remain on Counter-Earth as its heroes/dictators, but then his own long-awaited HeelFaceTurn kicked in. |
| 61 | ** The Creator/WarrenEllis run of the comic had [[Characters/DaredevilCentralRoguesGallery Bullseye]] be treated as TheDreaded for a while--[[CurbStompBattle until he went up against American Eagle]]. As Eagle points out, Bullseye may be a very dangerous foe by the standards of a BadassNormal thanks to his ImprobableAimingSkills, but he's ''nothing'' compared to people who have actual offensive superpowers. Eagle isn't an especially dangerous superhero--in fact, prior to that story, he was deep in the CListFodder ranks--but just having any form of SuperStrength and enhanced reflexes leaves him so far above Bullseye that the latter can't even touch him in a fight, and being ImmuneToBullets means that it wouldn't matter anyway. |
| 62 | * ''ComicBook/TechJacket'': Zack's strength level with his Geldarian armor is far above average due to humans being stronger than Geldarians at base. |
| 63 | * Inverted in [[http://swords-and-veeblefetzers.blogspot.com/2010/11/monster-menace-1-terror-of-tim-boo-ba.html Tim Boo Ba]], a pre-Fantastic Four monster story from Creator/StanLee and Creator/SteveDitko. TBB is the absolute monarch of his world, brought down by a drop of water spilled by a preteen boy on the model world he lives in. |
| 64 | * In the alternate-history WWII of ''ComicBook/{{Uber}}'', this trope is in play with the various classes of superhumans. Normal humans are completely outclassed by the lowest class of superhuman, a tank-man; a single enhanced human is impervious to bullets and can tear a person apart bare-handed. However, the tank-men are themselves outclassed by the higher levels of Übers: at the Second Battle of Kursk, ninety tank-men attack a single Battleship-class Über. Eighty-one of them are disabled, and the Battleship loses an arm. As the war goes on, it is increasingly fought only between the most powerful Übers. |
| 65 | * ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'': In Vampirella's Warren years she was an inhabitant of the planet Drakulon and never said to be particularly powerful for one of them. That still made her superpowered compared to humans. |
| 66 | * ''ComicBook/{{Venom}}'': |
| 67 | ** As [[Characters/MarvelComicsVenom Venom]], [[Characters/MarvelComicsEddieBrock Eddie Brock]] never fared that well when he branched out and fought other heroes (Characters/{{Darkhawk}}, Daredevil, ComicBook/IronMan, ComicBook/{{Quasar}}, etc.) besides Spider-Man, who he was a nightmare for due to being more powerful, knowing his secret identity, and being immune to his Spider Sense. ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' #317 includes a scene where Eddie visits an oblivious Aunt May as a means of intimidating Pete into no longer asking for help from any of his superfriends like the Fantastic Four, making it clear that if Pete won't keep their feud just between the two of them, then he won't either. Averted during his stints as Toxin and Anti-Venom, where he can kick a lot of ass. [[Characters/MarvelComicsMacGargan Mac Gargan]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsFlashThompson Flash Thompson]] also never ran into this problem, presumably because they already were an experienced supervillain and soldier, respectively. In his second stint as Venom, he has so far not really run into this problem, presumably owing to the Symbiote being more powerful and Brock being more experienced. |
| 68 | ** Lampshaded in ''Venom'' Annual #1, where a group of villains at the Bar with No Name tell each other Venom stories. Black Cat speaks of how she once got the jump on him and kicked him into an exploding car, the bartender speaks of how Venom once fought Wolverine, who mocked him for picking only on Spider-Man and got the better of him in that particular bout, and lastly a third patron speaks of how Venom once went toe-to-toe with Juggernaut - while claiming the entire time that Venom was out of his depth and got curb-stomped, although the actual flashback shows Venom fending him off. Mac Gargan — who once was Venom himself, mind you — starts outright mocking Venom and asking why anything he just heard should give him the scares. Then it turns out the third patron was Venom in disguise and he sends the bar's entire patronage running for their lives. Mac Gargan is not amongst the lucky ones, with the ending of the issue implying that Venom ate him, though later it would be revealed that he survived. |
| 69 | [[/folder]] |
| 70 | |
| 71 | [[folder:Films -- Animation]] |
| 72 | * The bird in ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' is a comparatively small songbird that humans wouldn't consider a predator or even a carnivore when next to the rest of the raptor species. To literal bugs, it's a ''T. rex'' with wings, [[spoiler:and when confronted with it, BigBad Hopper is snatched up in seconds and EatenAlive by the chicks]]. Even better, a bird enthusiast would tell you that the bird's yellow and red plumage is actually indicative of a juvenile. It's basically a housesitting teenager. |
| 73 | * In ''WesternAnimation/HulkVsThor'', [[Characters/MarvelComicsLoki Loki]] is an EvilSorceror and not a warrior like Thor. Physical combat is not his strong suit. Nonetheless, he's still a PhysicalGod. When he kidnaps Bruce Banner and casually swats him around a room to make him transform into the Hulk, Loki casually remarks that he forgot how fragile mortals are. |
| 74 | * The world of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls'' has no magic, leaving them defenseless against the likes of Sunset Shimmer or the Dazzlings, who are somewhere above average compared to the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic usual threats the heroes have to face in Equestria]] (at least until they go OneWingedAngel). When the alternate versions of the Mane Six gain Equestrian magic, they become strong enough to match them, and it makes them immune to the sirens' HatePlague. [[spoiler:Midnight Sparkle, on the other hand, is a {{subver|tedTrope}}sion; her [[RealityBleed powers]] are a sufficient threat to endanger both worlds and are on par with the likes of Discord and Tirek in destructive potential.]] |
| 75 | * The eponymous ogre of ''Franchise/{{Shrek}}'' is pretty standard for his kind. He still manages to fight off a dozen armed guards and take on a dragon, and he regularly sends thugs running. The fourth film shows he isn't a particularly strong, large or well-trained ogre -- in fact he's actually smaller than most. He is, however, a great deal more intelligent than any ogre in the movie [[spoiler:except Fiona]], who are almost all depicted as DumbMuscle. The second movie has shown Shrek having more up his sleeves than just his race. After turning into a human, he still shows to be intelligent, resourceful and determined, and the transformation only manages to [[BroughtDownToBadass bring him down to badass.]] |
| 76 | [[/folder]] |
| 77 | |
| 78 | [[folder:Films -- Live-Action]] |
| 79 | * In the original ''Film/{{Alien}}'', the titular xenomorph is a nigh-unstoppable murder monster... to the civilian crew of the ''Nostromo''. It's actually just a basic drone, hatched from one of the many eggs the crew found in a derelict spacecraft. ''Film/{{Aliens}}'' shows that not only are professional soldiers able to blow away such drones in a single burst of pulse rifle fire, but those basic aliens pale in comparison to the threat of their species' queens. |
| 80 | * Vector from ''Film/AlitaBattleAngel'' is the supervisor of the Factory and the Motorball tournament, effectively making him the ruler of Iron City... but he’s just a low-level crime boss at best, a glorified PuppetKing at worst. He’s only a big deal because Iron City is a [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] ScavengerWorld where anybody with significant resources is a major player by default, and he only has those resources to begin with because of [[BigBad Nova’s]] backing. Vector actually {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this and reveals it’s partly why he’s never tried to get to [[FloatingContinent Zalem]]; up there, where society actually approaches a semblance of what it was like before [[ApocalypseHow the Fall]], he’d be at [[HarmlessVillain the bottom of the food chain]]. In Iron City, he can be a king, or at least pretend to be one. [[spoiler:Just to drive it home, once Alita cuts through all his {{Mooks}}, she finds that [[AntiClimaxBoss Vector himself is just a normal guy who she cuts down with one hit]]; Nova manages to be a far bigger threat without even physically being in the city.]] |
| 81 | * ''Film/Barbie2023'': The Barbies and Kens have absolutely no concept of conflict outside barely planned Beach Offs. So when Beach Ken, who has no skills beyond being good looking at the beach, not even going into the water, comes back with ideas of patriarchy he takes over Barbieland and creates the Kendom. Overturning him amounts to little more than waking up the Barbies to thinking on their own and getting the Kens to bicker among themselves. |
| 82 | * In the Creator/RobinWilliams and Creator/KurtRussell movie ''Film/TheBestOfTimes'' Reno (Russell) is considered a legendary Quarterback by the townspeople. However he knows that he was pretty good at best, he just happened to be the best that ever played in their small town. |
| 83 | * PlayedForDrama during the surrender in ''Literature/CaptainCorellisMandolin'' where the Greek cabinet in-charge of the small island of Cephalonia refuse to surrender to the invading Italians and list in their demands to "surrender to a German Officer of significant rank" instead. The Italians then bring in Günther Weber: a mere Captain. |
| 84 | -->'''Mayor:''' Captain is not what we would call a "significant rank".\ |
| 85 | '''Antonio:''' There are only 200 Germans on the island, and Captain Weber is the highest-ranking officer amongst them. |
| 86 | * ''Film/{{Cloverfield}}'': According to the directors, the monster rampaging through New York that an entire army can't even put a dent in is actually just a lost child. The film was also cut in a way that very little of its actions actually look intentionally malicious until the end when bombers actually hurt it a bit. ''Film/TheCloverfieldParadox'' adds to this [[spoiler:by showing another of its kind so large its head sticks out above the clouds while roaring in likely grief at the younger one's death]]. |
| 87 | * ''Film/DemolitionMan'': Simon Phoenix, already a dangerous lunatic in the 1990s, becomes unstoppable in the future year of 2032, where society has become so passive that graffiti is considered scandalous. Likewise, Edgar Friendly is set up to be a violent resistance fighter and his Scraps as a major threat to Los Angeles, but he turns out to be a reasonable (if a little foul-mouthed and red-blooded) anarchist-kinda guy and the Scraps turn out to be moderately-armed hobos who [[WeaponForIntimidation use their guns to conduct harmless food robberies]]. |
| 88 | * ''Film/{{Elf}}'': Buddy (Creator/WillFerrell) was an orphan baby who crawled into Santa's bag of toys and accidentally got taken back to the North Pole, and taking pity on him, they decided to keep him and raise him as an elf. As an adult, he's the least productive worker in Santa's workshop - because elves are magic, they can work faster than it is physically possible for any human to ever be. Buddy is ashamed that he is ''only'' capable of making 85 Etch-a-Sketches by hand in a ''single day'', when the normal quota for a (real) elf is one thousand a day. Nonetheless, all of the training Buddy got from the elves made him the best ''human'' toymaker on the planet: when he travels back to Manhattan, everyone is stunned by his near-superhuman skill level (able to decorate an entire department store into a winter wonderland in a matter of hours with nothing but scissors, tape, and construction paper). |
| 89 | * Essentially the premise of ''Film/{{Idiocracy}}'': The soldier who was frozen was chosen specifically for being perfectly average in every way, but humanity "evolved" to be stupider, so when he [[HumanPopsicle wakes up]], he's the smartest man alive, and the person who was frozen with him is the smartest woman alive. [[spoiler:And at the end the smartest pimp alive wakes up.]] |
| 90 | * ''Film/JohnCarter'' has this as a plot point: as Earth's gravity is stronger than that of Mars', John can make incredible leaps and bounds, giving him an advantage over his enemies. He's also physically stronger and tougher, due to his body and bone structure being adapted to, from a Martian standpoint, a [[HeavyWorlder heavy-gravity world]]. |
| 91 | * In ''Film/KongSkullIsland'' all the extraordinary and near invulnerable lifeforms may be daunting to all the humans on it, compared to the titans in the other Monsterverse movies they are unimpressive in comparison. [[spoiler:A skullcrawler, the biggest, most dangerous creatures on the island save Kong, even larger then Ramarack shows up in ''Film/GodzillaVsKong''. It's killed in seconds at the hands of Mechagodzilla while it is still underpowered.]] |
| 92 | * ''Film/TheLegendOfTarzan'': As a result of being raised in the jungle by apes, Tarzan is much stronger and faster than ordinary humans and easily beats up dozens of soldiers even though they were armed with guns. However his strength and speed is nothing compared to an ape, and his ape brother, Akut, beats the shit out of him when they fight. |
| 93 | * In ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lottery_Ticket_(2010_film) Lottery Ticket]]'', [[CoolOldGuy old]] "Thump" Washington is a no-name ex-boxer. He sparred for money, but had no real matches. [[note]]"They called me 'Thump' because I hit the canvas hard," he explains.[[/note]] So when the old-timer fights the fearsome [[BigBad bully]] [[ImplacableMan Lorenzo]] who's [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown wasted]] countless others... he [[OneHitKill knocks him into next week]]. No-name or not, Thump was a trained fighter. |
| 94 | * ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse'': |
| 95 | ** Loki from ''Film/{{Thor}}'' [[ZigZaggingTrope Zig-Zags]] this trope. He actually is a formidable physical combatant even to the standards of other Asgardians, but since he is a member of the Royal Family he always finds himself overshadowed by Thor, which is a large part of the reason he has an InferioritySuperiorityComplex and focuses on magic and deceit instead. Conversely, while a SquishyWizard compared to Thor, Loki is more than capable of slapping mortal superheroes of Captain America's level around with ease. |
| 96 | ** In ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'', Mysterio is ultimately a con man looking to capitalize on a world without the Avengers or Tony Stark, and the main reason he's a threat at all is because he's going up against a naive teenager and the big time superheroes are either dead or too preoccupied. |
| 97 | ** Characters in ''Film/SpiderManNoWayHome'' are actually inverted examples of this trope since the villains and alternate Spider-Men from the ''Film/SpiderManTrilogy'' and ''Film/TheAmazingSpiderManSeries'' continuities come from more grounded worlds: |
| 98 | *** Although Spider-Man has a wide variety of powers, by [[ComicBook/TheAvengers Avengers]] standards, he is overshadowed by guys like Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and [[Characters/MCUStephenStrange Doctor Strange]]. By street level standards he is a powerful LightningBruiser. As he gets older and more experienced, he grows out of it, and even manages to hold his own quite well in a LetsYouAndHimFight with Doctor Strange in ''No Way Home''. |
| 99 | *** When Doctor Octopus (from ''Film/SpiderMan2'') is carried over into the MCU, he suffers a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] intellectual version of this. While still highly brilliant by the standards of the MCU, Otto in his home series was arguably the most outright accomplished scientist in the world, developing AI, creating advanced robotics in the form of his tentacles, and being on the cusp of perfecting clean nuclear energy. However, he still came from a more mundane and grounded world and he in particular got pulled from two decades in the past. As such, the new world he finds himself in is rife with technology capable of matching and surpassing his own- his arms are easily overtaken by the Iron Spider Suit's nanites, and the Arc Reactor is essentially a safer, completed alternative to his own nuclear fusion machine. |
| 100 | *** Like Doctor Octopus all the villains are affected by this to some extent; while still formidable threats, they were some of the only superhumans in their own world, whereas the MCU has plenty of superhumans, gods, and sorcerers running about. Electro and Sandman, however, still seem to be very formidable even to the standards of the MCU. In the formers' case it helps that he TookALevelInBadass ''twice'' over the course of the movie. |
| 101 | *** The alternate Spider-Men are also affected to a lesser degree, since in their worlds they are the only confimed superheroes and deal with more grounded threats. This means they are completely unprepared for the existence of magic, the multiverse and more fantastical adventures their MCU self has experiened. |
| 102 | * ''Film/TheMeg'' is really a simple Megalodon from another age that the oceans of today are not equipped to handle. Unfortunately, that makes it a massive megafauna that modern anti-shark measures have no chance against. [[spoiler:Shown when a massive undertaking to take it down uses a massive shark cage, neuro toxins and a mid-sized yacht barely takes one down and it is shown to be a smaller one compared to the big one that initially attacked.]] |
| 103 | * The ''Franchise/MenInBlack'' series. Our race is considered to be extraordinarily weak compared to some alien races, and extraordinarily strong compared to others. |
| 104 | ** In ''Film/MenInBlack'', an entire galaxy of intelligent beings is so small that on our world it is a pendant on a cat's collar. At the end of the movie, however, a pan-out sequence reveals that our own galaxy fits into a mere marble that is used for games by aliens with a similar difference in size. |
| 105 | ** In ''Film/MenInBlackII'', an entire species of aliens fits into a train station locker. They revere the main characters as gods; they see a light-up watch in the locker as a holy light, and they consider a business card that was put in there to be a religious text. As in the first film, this situation is turned around, as it is revealed at the end of the movie that an entrance to our world leads to another processing station... for aliens as big as skyscrapers. The second film also contains this exchange: |
| 106 | --->'''J:''' While you were licking stamps, I saved the world from a Kreelon invasion.\ |
| 107 | '''K:''' The Kreelons are the Backstreet Boys of the universe. What'd they do, throw snowballs? |
| 108 | * Dick and Marge from ''Film/MomAndDadSaveTheWorld'' are completely unremarkable suburbanites. However, on a planet full of idiots, their common sense becomes a game-breaking weapon. |
| 109 | * The titular Predators from ''Franchise/{{Predator}}'' are all regular members of their species that quite literally consider HuntingTheMostDangerousGame a way of life. Creepily shown in the first movie when a spaceship drops off the Predator in the rainforest. This guy is a big game hunter tourist at most and he still slaughters the most well trained and equipped soldiers around like it's nothing. |
| 110 | * In the ''Film/StarTrek2009'' reboot, Nero's ship, the ''Narada'', is simply a mining vessel in his own time. 100+ years in the past, however, and it's TheJuggernaut, capable of laying waste to anything the Federation or the Klingons can throw at it. |
| 111 | * The T-800 series Terminator from the ''Franchise/{{Terminator}}'' franchise is a mass-produced infiltration unit that, while dangerous, the human resistance fighters of the post-apocalyptic future have grown adept at detecting and destroying. But in the decades ''[[TimeTravel before]]'' Judgment Day, where there's no such thing as a "phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range," just a single Terminator is a [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] ImplacableMan that in the [[Film/TheTerminator first movie]] marches effortlessly through an entire police station and murders 17 armed officers without even slowing down. |
| 112 | -->'''Sarah:''' Can you stop it?\ |
| 113 | '''Reese:''' I don't know. With these weapons... I don't know. |
| 114 | * ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'': The titular Tranformers are nearly indestructible and possess firepower significantly greater then any human military. Even the relatively low ranking members of either faction are almost unstoppable on Earth. ''Film/{{Bumblebee}}'' uses this for drama, as Bumblebee is a scout and the antagonists are three relatively unimportant Decepticons. |
| 115 | * In ''Film/Venom2018'', the titular symbiote tells Eddie that he was a loser compared to other members of his race, but he is a badass killing machine on Earth. One of the reasons he chooses to remain on Earth and stop [[BigBad Riot]] from attracting more symbiotes is because he feels unique here rather than on his home world. |
| 116 | * At the end of ''Film/{{Waiting}}'' when Mitch [[RageBreakingPoint finally snaps]] and delivers his fierce minutes-long TheReasonYouSuckSpeech to each and every employee at the restaurant, he reserves special criticism for Monty's attempts at acting to suave and cool... by pointing out there is a ''vast'' difference between someone who is actually cool, and the "cool" guy who works at a BurgerFool. |
| 117 | --> '''Mitch:''' So edgy and cool, yeah! You're the coolest fucking guy ''at Shenanigans!'' [[CrossingTheLineTwice That's like being the smartest kid with Downs Syndrome!]] You know, fuck this. You all suck, I quit. |
| 118 | * ''Film/TheWomanKing'': One of the pillars of Oyo dominance in the region is their cavalry. In Eurasia, cavalry has been a vital fixture of warfare for centuries, but in sub-Saharan Africa many tribes simply do not have the breeding base nor horsemanship expertise to field them. The Oyo trade slaves for European muskets and horses and their cavalry wouldn't even be particularly impressive compared to the cavalry common in Europe at the time, but the fact they ''have'' cavalry gives them a large martial advantage over all their neighbours. |
| 119 | * ''Film/{{Yojimbo}}'': Despite not being especially competent, Unosuke is by far the most dangerous opponent Sanjuro faces in the movie, simply by virtue of being a gunslinger at a time when repeating firearms were still new and rare in Japan. |
| 120 | [[/folder]] |
| 121 | |
| 122 | [[folder:Literature]] |
| 123 | * It's the Basic premise of the ''Literature/SixteenThirtyTwo'' series. An unremarkable Appalachian town is sent back in time nearly 400 years. This goes about as smoothly as one would expect. |
| 124 | * In the Creator/RobertSheckley short story "All the Things You Are", a human expedition visits an alien planet, only to discover to their horror that bizarre and unpleasant maladies are inflicted on the natives every time the humans interact with the environment, to the point that even breathing causes problems. |
| 125 | * In ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', though the heroes are technically super-powered with alien technology, in morph they're only as powerful as whatever they're transformed into. |
| 126 | ** When the heroes go to Leera and morph into hammerhead sharks (the Yeerks had previously planned to infest hammerheads and use them as shock troops on Leera), they turn out to be this. The Leeran Controllers shoot them with "deadly" spears... that are mere pinpricks to dolphins and sharks. Turns out Leera never evolved the concept of predation, so their life forms are much more fragile than Earth's. |
| 127 | ** When Elfangor decided to live the rest of his life as a human, he found it hard to pretend not to know the subject matter of his college lectures better than the professors. He had to pretend to struggle with concepts he'd learned and memorized since childhood (standard Andalite education). Both he and his younger brother have this problem, and they are implied to be bright, but not overly so by Andalite standards. |
| 128 | * A technological version of this drives the plot of ''Literature/ArtemisFowl: The Eternity Code''. Artemis has constructed a minicomputer from technology he stole from the People [[ContinuityNod back in the first book]], which is decades out of date by their standards, but at least fifty years ahead of human technology. He tries to blackmail the book's BigBad with this, but gets OutGambitted and the computer is stolen -- which is a major problem, as even this outdated fairy technology can completely ignore the People's defenses against exposure to humans. And Artemis just let it fall into the hands of possibly the single greediest human on the planet. |
| 129 | * In Creator/IsaacAsimov's "Azazel" stories, it is implied that the title character, a demon, is comparatively weak and unimportant in his own plane of existence, which is why he likes to entertain himself by granting wishes for people on Earth. It's also suggested that the way one becomes more important and powerful in his plane is by helping others -- another reason he grants wishes -- and the fact that a combination of his own vague-at-best understanding of humanity and his incompetent intermediary leads to his "boons" only causing trouble ensures he'll stay weak and unimportant for a long time. |
| 130 | * Lorcan in ''Literature/BrimstoneAngels'' is introduced as the enigmatic, manipulative, powerful devil who convinces heroine Farideh into entering a [[DealWithTheDevil pact]] with him to acquire magical power. All around, he comes off as an extremely impressive, charismatic, frightening guy. ''Then'' we see what his home life in Hell is like, and it turns out he's the youngest and weakest of his family and pretty much a complete nobody as far as the cutthroat devil hierarchy cares- to inexperienced mortals he may be a big deal, but at home, he's near the bottom of the food chain and is painfully aware of that fact. |
| 131 | * The unnamed protagonist of ''Literature/BewareOfChicken'' [[TrappedInAnotherWorld is transported into the body]] of [[KiManipulation cultivator]] Jin Rou as he is being beaten within an inch of his life by members of [[SpiritCultivationGenre his own cultivator sect]], of which he was a comparatively weak outer disciple. When he recovers from his injuries, he decides to get away from that life by moving away to the most remote village in the weakest and most boring province he can find, the Azure Hills, and becomes a farmer. Unbeknownst to him, however, the Cloudy Sword Sect that he left behind is one of the most powerful in the world, and even the lowliest of its outer disciples is more than a match for an ''elder'' of any of the Azure Hills sects; Jin's accidentally made himself the strongest person person in the province, even before [[AchievementsInIgnorance it proves that absorbing oneself in farmwork makes surprisingly good moving meditation for further cultivation]]. |
| 132 | * Felix Cortez from ''Literature/ClearAndPresentDanger'' is a borderline example. A Cuban intelligence agent now employed by Colombia's [[TheCartel Medellin Cartel]], he's surrounded, to his chagrin, by drug lords who aren't exactly stupid, but are still far below what he as a KGB-trained officer is capable of. This helps him to play the drug lords against each other with an eye to eventually taking over the entire Cartel himself, which he very nearly succeeds at (and would have if not for the intervention of Jack Ryan and John Clark). Downplayed in that his American enemies admit that he's a very ''good'' spy, a capable enemy not only for untrained drug dealers but even for his fellow intelligence professionals. |
| 133 | * Averted in ''The Country of the Blind'' by Creator/HGWells. Wells took the Erasmus quote and completely flipped it around. In this case, a sighted man stumbles into a society composed solely of blind people (their blindness is congenital and the society has completely forgotten what sight is). The sighted man expects to be able to awe the blind natives and rule over them, unfortunately, in a society built by and for blind people, sight is actually a ''disadvantage'' (everyone works at night and houses have no windows, for starters). The sighted man is shunned until he considers blinding himself to better fit in. |
| 134 | * Taylor Anderson's ''Literature/{{Destroyermen}}'' starts with the USS ''Walker'', a UsefulNotes/WorldWarI-era destroyer, running away from the powerful Japanese fleet at the height of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Even the US Navy considers destroyers of her class little more than CannonFodder. Then a [[NegativeSpaceWedgie freak squall]] takes the ''Walker'' to an alternate Earth where evolution took a different path and end up fighting ships straight out of WoodenShipsAndIronMen. Suddenly, the ''Walker'' is not only the most powerful ship in the world but also able to run circles around any other ship ([[spoiler:until the Japanese battlecruiser ''Amagi'' shows up]]). |
| 135 | * Donal Graeme, the protagonist of ''Literature/{{Dorsai}}'', grew up among people who had selectively bred as warriors for generations, ending up with the average man a seven-foot hulk with a powerlifter's build. Donal, being only half-breed Dorsai, spent his youth focusing on his strategic and marksmanship skills, because he couldn't compete in strength or toughness. Then he ventured out into the wider galaxy, where he discovered that his one failing -- his "puny" physique -- was still exceptional among the non-Dorsai masses. |
| 136 | * ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'': [[spoiler: The Dragon Overlords of the War of Souls trilogy, dragons hundreds of feet in length, came from a world near where [[ItMakesSenseInContext Takhisis moved Krynn to so she could be the dominant goddess.]] They came to Krynn because they were weaklings on their planet of dragons. Scary place]]. |
| 137 | * ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'': Harry has power that to humans seems amazing, but as wizards go he's fairly young and not considered particularly powerful by the white council, with Harry himself admitting he'd be outright no match for Morgan, to say nothing of the senior council members. |
| 138 | ** On top of this there's fairies and other supernatural creatures whose innate power is beyond (presumably) any wizards. |
| 139 | *** To elaborate, there's Mother Summer and Mother Winter, the latter of which has magic powerful enough to craft a spell the ''entire white council combined'' couldn't create, even when she was at her weakest, and with no effort. There's Mab and Titania whose true forms nearly broke Harry's mind (and he himself called his power a speck of dust compared to theirs), there's Odin and the Erlking who are on par with Mab and Titania, there's the Eldest Gruff who has killed at least 3 senior council members, and that's just the Fairy Courts. There's also the [[BigfootSasquatchAndYeti forest people]], one of which compares human wizards to "children waving around handguns", Ferrovax, a Dragon whose will alone crushed Harry into the ground with no effort, and the archangel Uriel who apparently has the power to destroy ''galaxies''! Overall Harry spends most of his time in over his head power wise, and has to rely on his clever plans to succeed more than his magic. |
| 140 | * In ''{{Literature/Flatland}}'', this is how higher-dimensional beings appear to lower-dimensional ones. From the eyes of the 2-D main character, the 3-D sphere appears like a sorcerer, able to phase in and out, change shape, and see everyone's internal organs. The sphere is not particularly special in his own world, but his ability to intersect himself with Flatland quite easily makes him a god there. It's taken up (or perhaps down) to its [[ExaggeratedTrope logical extreme]] in the 0th dimension: It's infinitesimally small, so the Point is the only being that can fit in it. Such that the Point has no concept of other beings than itself, so they can't even communicate with it-- anything it hears from other beings, the Point thinks it's hearing itself. |
| 141 | * There is a story titled "Gift of a Useless Man," written by Creator/AlanDeanFoster for the ''...Who Needs Enemies'' anthology, where a low criminal crashlands on a planet inhabited by sentient roach-like creatures stuck in Ancient Ages. He teaches them agriculture and basic craftsmanship and essentially uplifts their society, so that 100 years later, they already have industry. |
| 142 | * OlderThanRadio: In ''Literature/GulliversTravels'', the title character is a classic example among the Lilliputians: Gulliver is a fairly normal human, but because the Lilliputians are about six inches tall he becomes like a OneManArmy (or more accurately Navy) for them. |
| 143 | * ''Literature/TheGunsOfTheSouth'': Though the AK-47 is still a respectable rifle in its own right, especially given the age of its design, there are definitely deadlier weapons of war available by 2013. But it's cheap to produce and easy to maintain, and when supplied to a Civil War era army, is enough to overwhelm all opposition of the time period. |
| 144 | * ''Literature/HarryPotter'': |
| 145 | ** Hagrid's full giant half-brother Grawp is much larger than Hagrid and is pretty much the biggest thing in the Forbidden Forest. In the giants' homeland he's a runt among the other giants. In the final book, Harry finally sees a full-sized giant and realizes that there's big and there's ''big''. |
| 146 | ** Hagrid himself is much bigger than any human, impervious to most spells, and has borderline super strength... but he's even smaller than Grawp, let alone a true giant. |
| 147 | ** This is presumably why young students are forbidden from doing magic outside of school, as even a young and untrained wizard would still be incredibly dangerous to a ordinary person, especially when they don't yet know how to fully control their spells. |
| 148 | * Discussed in ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'', where Bree (a horse with human speech and intelligence) has an overinflated opinion of his own importance and intelligence after growing up surrounded by ordinary Calormene horses. Several characters remind him that when they finally return to Narnia, he'll be just like all the other Talking Animals who live there. |
| 149 | * Maxim Kammerer in "Literature/InhabitedIsland" (Aka "Prisoners of Power") by Creator/StrugatskyBrothers. For Earth, he is ordinary, but on Saraksh, his BulletTime capabilities and ability to survive heavy wounds make him very powerful. Even more important, however, is that being a non-native, he [[spoiler: is immune to the mind-control beams..]]. |
| 150 | * ''Literature/TheJenkinsverse'': Due to Earth being a high-level {{Deathworld}}, an average human has a pretty good chance of being the single most dangerous thing on any planet, spaceship, or space station. The series kicks off when an unarmed human bartender with no combat training and suffering from muscle degeneration from months in low gravity easily slaughters the most dangerous aliens in the galaxy. This terrifies the rest of the aliens so much that they almost [[ColonyDrop hit Earth with a kinetic bombardment]] right then and there. A nameless human who claims his only skill is winning {{Drinking Contest}}s (and he was abducted after he lost one of those) becomes a OneManArmy in the Dominion-Alliance War while revolutionizing their strategic thinking, a random IT tech becomes a badass pirate queen, and one man broke out of his cell in order to help his captors with their experiments because he decided they weren't imaginative enough. Even the weakest diseases from Earth are stronger than the most horrifying bio-engineered plagues the rest of the galaxy has ever cooked up; any human in the broader galaxy has to have an immuno-suppressor implant just to keep from killing everyone on the planet. |
| 151 | * In ''Literature/JohnCarterOfMars'', the main character is a random American soldier [[note]]Well, a random American soldier who ''doesn't age'', but has no superpowers beyond that[[/note]]... who ends up one of the strongest guys around on Mars because of that planet's lower gravity. |
| 152 | * In ''[[Literature/TheJungleBook The Jungle Book]]'', the WildChild Mowgli is no match for most jungle creatures. For instance, when Bagheera [[CorporalPunishment punishes him]], swipes that "would have barely waked [panther] cubs" are agonizing to the Man Cub. And yet, when Mowgli moves to a human village, he finds the other children terribly fragile and slow; his upbringing has made him as hardy as the strongest men there. |
| 153 | * ''Literature/TheLostFleet'': In his own time, Commander John Geary is an average cruiser commander in a fairly peaceful 'verse. Then the convoy he's escorting ends up being ambushed by the [[OneNationUnderCopyright Syndics]]. He ends up pulling a DelayingAction to allow the convoy to escape, and puts himself into [[HumanPopsicle cryosleep]], after the cruiser has been pounded into scrap. A century later, he's discovered and awakened by TheAlliance, who has been engaged in a nonstop war with the Syndics since that day. With the horrendous attrition rate among the fleet officers, all the knowledge of fleet tactics has been lost, and concepts like honor have degraded into an unrecognizable state. Modern ship commanders [[AttackAttackAttack rush into battle]] individually, relying on their "fighting spirit" to win the day. Admirals have little authority and mostly play politics to get their way, while scheming to topple the Alliance government. Now, Geary (promoted to Captain after his "death") turns out to be the best tactician alive by virtue of no one else knowing how to properly fight with a fleet and also remembering what honorable behavior should be. |
| 154 | * The German SF series ''Literature/{{Maddrax}}'' shows the [[RatMen taratze king]] Groooar. Through a journey through time, he gets from the post-apocalyptic year 2549 to the year 1947 (actually it is more of a journey into a [[AlternateUniverse parallel world]], which only resembles the real year 1947 almost exactly). While Groooar was quite strong for a member of his species, he was no comparison to the other mutant creatures (six-meter-tall mutated owls, four-meter-tall crossbreeds of shark and snail, and so on) pretty much at the lower level of threat. In a world in 1947, however, he's an almost unstoppable [[SuperPersistentPredator Alpha Predator]]. |
| 155 | * In ''Literature/TheMagicians'', Josh is undeniably the comic relief of the Physical Kids, an IneptMage and a DitzyGenius; though his spells are incredibly powerful, he has trouble getting them to work consistently and he barely managed to graduate from [[WizardingSchool Brakebills]]. In ''[[Literature/TheMagicians The Magician King]]'', Josh turns up as a very important figure among the hedge magicians living outside legitimate magical society, for though he's still on the bottom of the Brakebills food chain, his comprehensive education at Brakebills has made him more powerful and more knowledgeable than most of the underground community put together. |
| 156 | * In ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', demigods in general are stronger or more skilled than regular humans, such as children of Athena being incredibly smart or children of Apollo being great healers and/or archers. However with few exceptions, most children of a particular god are no stronger or weaker than their siblings and almost all of them are weak when compared to children of Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, who can hold their own against even some Olympian gods. |
| 157 | ** In the SequelSeries, ''Literature/TheHeroesOfOlympus'', Percy is easily defeated by (fellow Poseidon son) Chrysaor during a sword battle despite Percy up until that point being considered one of the best swordsmen in the past hundred years. |
| 158 | * The phenomenon mentioned below under Sports also shows up in ''Literature/PlayingForPizza'' by Creator/JohnGrisham. The protagonist, a has-been NFL washout Quarterback who as a third string replacement who "wasn't even supposed to be on the game" lost an important game for the Cleveland Browns ([[ButtMonkey naturally]]) comes to play in Italy in a league where most players play for the love of the game and for the titular pizza and he quickly shows that there is some talent in him, after all and while he may not be worth NFL money, he clearly earns all of the couple thousand dollars his team pays. |
| 159 | * The thirteenth ''Literature/SkulduggeryPleasant'' begins with a Satanist cult, led by a man called "The Master", preparing to sacrifice a young girl to Satan. The Master has the ability to summon fire with a snap of his finger, and move objects without touching them, which greatly impresses his followers - until the girl they're sacrificing reveals that The Master is just an ordinary low-level sorceror, and there's a whole hidden civilization of people with similar powers. |
| 160 | * ''Literature/{{Skyward}}'': [[spoiler: M-Bot was a more or less normal design for pre-war humanity, but compared to the centuries-old Defiant tech and the reverse-engineered Krell ships, he is almost godlike in his capabilities]]. |
| 161 | * In ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'': |
| 162 | ** The backstory explains that the Targaryens, the legendary house of dragonriders from Old Valyria with magic in their veins, were a mere minor noble house in Valyria (they were one of the forty dragonlords, but far from the most powerful). They just happened to be the only ones lucky enough to escape the Doom of Valyria. Fortunately for Aegon and his siblings, the people of Westeros were totally unprepared to face the family dragons. This also applies to their ancestral seat of Dragonstone. Before the Doom, it was a backwater colony in a distant land, basically a PlaceWorseThanDeath. Afterwards, however, it became an important fortress and refuge, and was used as a launching point for Aegon's Conquest. |
| 163 | ** Daenerys Targaryen's capture of the Slaver Cities invokes this as well. While the Old Ghiscari Empire eventually yielded to Valyria's might, it took five wars to bring them to their knees, even with the help of many dragons, since they were commonplace at the time. In the present, however, dragons have not been seen for over a century. People became complacent, and they have no preparations whatsoever when an aspiring conqueror with three small dragons come roaring out of the gate to attack them. In less than a year, all three Slaver Cities yield to Daenerys. |
| 164 | * The protagonist of the first three books of the ''Spellsong Cycle'' is an opera singer TrappedInAnotherWorld in which music is literally magic -- sing something, and it happens. Because being a musician in that world makes you a PersonOfMassDestruction, knowledge of music ''theory'' never got very far and much of the world is locked in MedievalStasis. Her [[GivingRadioToTheRomans real-world education]] ends up making her an extremely dangerous and powerful individual. |
| 165 | * In Cixin Liu's hard sci-fi ''Literature/TheThreeBodyProblem'', the alien Trisolarans have an immense technological advantage over 1970s Earth, but their invasion fleet will take 450 years to arrive -- and considering humanity's rapid rate of scientific progress, Trisolaris fears that Earth will have [[CurbStompBattle far surpassed them by then]]. So to enforce Earth's status as a tiny pond, they send sophons to disrupt all research into subatomic physics, preventing humanity from ever attaining Trisolaris's [[TechnologyLevels level of technology]]. [[spoiler:And, true to this trope, later books reveal that Trisolaris is a tiny blip in a big galaxy, and deathly terrified of being noticed by the galaxy's ''real'' heavyweights, who routinely annihilate civilizations like theirs offhandedly.]] |
| 166 | * ''Franchise/TolkiensLegendarium'': |
| 167 | ** The biggest powerhouses - Sauron, Sauruman, Gandalf, Smaug, and the Balrog - all fit this trope. As Maiar (lesser angels) and a Dragon, they are relics of the First Age, which fielded armies of Balrogs and Dragons and where Sauron was merely a servant of the Valar (Archangel) Melkor (who was renamed "Morgoth" when his evil nature was fully revealed). While they would have been significant, powerful players in the First Age, in the Third Age, the Balrog alone was able to drive out an entire kingdom of Dwarfs on its own. And would have easily defeated the rest of the Fellowship, a hand-picked group of the greatest heroes Middle Earth could muster, and Sauron managed to maintain his position as the BigBad despite being severely weakened due to the loss of the One Ring and destruction of his physical body. |
| 168 | ** Shelob the GiantSpider, who acts like Sauron's uncontrollable pet, is just one of the [[MotherOfAThousandYoung countless]] offspring of [[MonsterProgenitor Ungoliant]], an AnimalisticAbomination that looks like a GiantSpider who mated with many spider creatures of Ered Gorgoroth ([[ParentalIncest including her own offspring]]). Compared to her AnimalisticAbomination mother, Shelob is "only" a half-demon/demigod, as her father is just an "ordinary" GiantSpider. But after many of Ungoliant's other spawn and descendants either died or disappeared [[TimeAbyss over the ages]], while Ungoliant herself disappeared elsewhere and never to be seen again, Shelob becomes a more serious threat in the Third Age. Shelob herself produces many progeny that are smaller and weaker than her, though just as nasty as their mother and grandmother. |
| 169 | ** The hobbits show this upon returning to the Shire. Even with a year of training and travel, and their service in the War of the Ring, they are nothing particularly special from a pure soldierly perspective (though they are still held in high regard for their actions in the war). However, when they return to the Shire, they are likely some of the most dangerous warriors for miles around: they have full combat gear and equipment of the sort normally seen in the hands of nobility, along with the knowledge and grit that comes from very real battlefield and adventuring experience. By contrast, the other hobbits have seen no combat to speak of and carry only improvised weapons and hunting bows, and the Chief's Men trying to oppress them are little more than a street gang armed with clubs and knives. Merry and Pippin are even literal examples of this: having drunken ent-draughts, they have grown to be over four and a half feet tall, which leaves them on par with a ten-year-old by human standards, but is a record-breaking height for hobbits. In the ensuing battle, they end up being remembered as the greatest heroes in the Shire's history. |
| 170 | * Several of The Forsaken from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series have shades of this. In their native Age of Legends they were fairly common channelers in terms of power and talents, but in the Third Age, after millenias of decline, they are easily more powerful and knowledgeable than anyone. Subverted in the end, as main characters realize that old techniques can be rediscovered and Forsaken is actually nowhere near evil demigod they were believed to be. |
| 171 | * In the William Barton military science-fiction novel ''When Heaven Fell'', [[AIIsACrapshoot The Master Race]] have conquered almost the entire galaxy (including Earth) in a series of [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomp battles]] using only [[PoweredArmor their second-string technology]] and [[HumansAreWarriors slave races]]; in fact, they only have to bring out [[{{BFG}} their most advanced weaponry]] when [[SpiderPeople the Hu]] start causing trouble. At the end of the book it's revealed [[spoiler:the Masters came to the Milky Way while running away from an even more powerful adversary from Andromeda, and [[OhCrap they've caught up with them and begun to take apart their own empire just as easily]]]]. |
| 172 | * There's a variant in the ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse''-- Whateley Academy is a school full of Exemplars, impossibly beautiful people who look hotter than supermodels and actors put together. However, compared to the Exemplars, the normal students are hideous, and many develop severe problems with their self-image and self-esteem as a result. However, once they ''leave'' the campus, whether it's for holidays or when they graduate, they're often quite surprised to find that other people think they're legitimately attractive. |
| 173 | * In the ''Literature/AWizardInRhyme'' novels by Creator/ChristopherStasheff, the hero Matthew Mantrell is, in his original reality, simply a man who has made an extensive study of English literature. After he is transported to a reality where poetry literally works magic, he becomes a RealityWarper. |
| 174 | [[/folder]] |
| 175 | |
| 176 | [[folder:Live-Action TV]] |
| 177 | * ''Series/ThirdRockFromTheSun'': Dick Solomon is quite average intellectually by the standards of his own family, but by Earth's standards his physics and mathematics knowledge is genius level. All of the Solomons appear to speak several languages fluently. |
| 178 | * The TV side of the [[Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse MCU]] contains multiple examples: |
| 179 | ** ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': |
| 180 | *** The inhumans are also this. They're a major threat to the (mostly human) S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but even the strongest -- i.e. Hive and Lash -- don't have near the power of, say, Thor or The Hulk. This becomes fairly obvious when Ghost Rider is introduced and [[CurbStompBattle curb stomps]] both Quake and Hellfire. |
| 181 | *** Kasius in Season 5 has elements of this. To the remnants of humanity, he's their untouchable EvilOverlord. To the galaxy at large, he's TheUnfavourite BlackSheep of his family who's been [[ReassignedToAntarctica shipped off]] to oversee operations on an InsignificantLittleBluePlanet. |
| 182 | ** ''Series/JessicaJones2015'': |
| 183 | *** [[Characters/MCUJessicaJones Jessica]] and [[Characters/MCULukeCage Luke Cage]] are good examples. Compared to normal people they're complete powerhouses, being able to lift cars and in Luke's case shrug off bullets. But since they share a universe with the likes of ComicBook/TheAvengers, they're relatively low on the superhuman totem pole. For reference, their powers are basically the same as The Hulk, but they're leagues below the Jade Giant in terms of power. Considering the rest of the Avengers include PoweredArmor users and a PhysicalGod, it's safe to say their powers aren't a big draw. Even SuperSoldier [[Characters/MCUSteveRogers Captain America]] and BadassNormal [[Characters/MCUNatashaRomanoff Black Widow]] and [[Characters/MCUClintBarton Hawkeye]] have fighting skills that make them much more effective than UnskilledButStrong Jess and Luke (although Luke is shown to be a capable fighter in his own series but living in a [[AfraidOfTheirOwnStrength World of Cardboard]] causes him to focus too much on not killing to combine his strength and skill effectively). |
| 184 | *** [[Characters/MCUKevinThompson Kilgrave]] also counts; his powers in this series are borderline StoryBreakerPower, but like his comic counterpart he's not exactly an Avengers level threat. Particularly since many Avengers can NoSell his virus based powers ([[Characters/MCUVision The Vision]] isn't human, [[Characters/MCUThorOdinson Thor]] is immune to earthly viruses, [[Characters/MCUBruceBanner The Incredible Hulk]] has a healing factor, [[Characters/MCUTonyStark Iron Man]]'s suit can filter the virus out, Hawkeye is immune to mind control after the first movie, and Captain America can [at least in the comics] resist him through sheer willpower) and [[WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer he's something of a one trick pony who doesn't have any additional fighting skills or powers to fall back on]]. |
| 185 | * ''Series/AshVsEvilDead'': In "Books From Beyond," Eligos is explicitly mentioned to be the weakest demon that Lionel could find to summon in the Necronomicon, and he still proves to be too much for Ash to handle, using TeleportSpam and nearly killing him. |
| 186 | * The ''Series/BattlestarGalactica1978'' episode "The Lost Warrior" features a Cylon Centurion named Red-Eye. He's only a mere {{Mook|s}}, but on the planet Equellus, whose technology is akin to Earth's TheWildWest, his armor makes him [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]]. |
| 187 | * One episode of ''Series/BuckRogersInTheTwentyFifthCentury'' features a assassin with super strength due to his homeworld having different environmental conditions compared to most human-adapted worlds. He was, in fact, a cripple by his own people's standards, and decided to make a better life for himself off-world rather than get a job as a librarian. |
| 188 | * In the ''Series/DinosaurPlanet'' episode "Pod's Travels" a normal-sized raptor washed out to sea ends up on an island of dwarf dinosaurs where he is the same size as the dwarf allosaurus, the island's alpha predator. Due to his experience and speed giving him an edge over the allosaurus, he becomes the new alpha predator. |
| 189 | * ''Series/DoctorWho'': |
| 190 | ** The Doctor is unique amongst their species in terms of their eccentric political opinions and the breadth of life experiences they obtained as a result of those, but they also [[BookDumb struggled in school]] and their powers (regeneration, some PsychicPowers, two hearts, physical resilience, a "respiratory bypass system", "time sense" and slowed aging to name just a handful) are either standard-issue Gallifreyan or just part of the "Time Lord" ruling class. However, amongst humans and most other species, the Doctor comes off as an ImpossibleGenius and their powers range anywhere from unusual gifts to utterly godlike. |
| 191 | *** This is, however, subverted the longer the series goes on. The third regeneration, through his confrontations with the Master, managed to outwit particularly clever and nasty Time Lords. Then he gradually ascends among the ranks of their society and proves to be an exceptional individual among Time Lords, facing (and defeating) universe-level threats and [[PhysicalGod physical gods]]. The revival series ramps it even higher, showing the Doctor being considered a mythical figure around the universe, to the point that he can convince ''entire armies'' to stand out for fear of his reputation alone. [[spoiler: And then the twelfth season reveals that the Doctor wasn't a simple Time Lord at all, but an exceptional and mysterious being that the entire Time Lord race descends from.]] |
| 192 | ** The same goes for the Doctor's TARDIS, a BiggerOnTheInside time machine that comes off as the "technology of the gods" to most of the universe. Back on Gallifrey, it was already an obsolete piece of junk gathering dust as a museum piece when the Doctor stole it. |
| 193 | * ''Series/TheDukesOfHazzard'': Compared to most gangsters and corrupt officials or businessmen, Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg is a piker. This is true even in the show's universe, and more than once the Dukes have had to bail him out when he gets involved in a scheme with some outside criminals and ends up in over his head. By the standards of Hazzard County, however, he's still a talented enough schemer to have reached the point where he's effectively owner, employer, landlord, mayor, judge, and otherwise sole authority over the entire population. (Not bad for someone we're told was born "on the dirt floor of a sharecropper's shack"). It doesn't hurt that Hazzard County is considered not much to look at even by rural Georgian standards, which means most bigger and meaner crooks would have little to gain by muscling in on Hogg's turf. |
| 194 | * ''Series/EmeraldCity'': Well, both characters are slightly above-normal in intelligence, but they still fit. |
| 195 | ** The Wizard was a shy lab tech named Frank Morgan in our world, who hadn't achieved anything in his life. After his clumsy attempts to impress his superiors result in the death of Dorothy's father, and when Frank, Karen, and Jane end up in Oz, he sees a golden opportunity for himself to impress the locals with his science and refuses to go back to Earth. |
| 196 | ** However, fast-forward a few decades, and the city of Ev appears to have tech that's even more advanced than what the Wizard has. This is implied to be because Jane, the inventor who created all of Langwidere's masks and devices, was one of the lead scientists of the project Frank was working on. |
| 197 | * An early 1980s made-for-TV movie, ''Film/TheFinalCountdown'', involves the USS ''Nimitz'', a post-Vietnam supercarrier, being transported to December 6, 1941. While far from a RedShirt in its own time, neither is it some particularly spectacular SuperPrototype, especially without the battlegroup that normally defends it. Nevertheless, its combat power is depicted as being such a huge spoiler that the crew considers it no particular challenge to destroy the entire Japanese attack fleet targeting Pearl Harbor, and the only debate concerns the ethics of changing history. |
| 198 | * ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'': Reese was the most [[TheBully dominant bully]] in his and Malcolm's middle school during the first couple season. With an EvilPowerVacuum even forming between every wannabe-tough guy in school, when he briefly tried to give it up. But when he (and later Malcolm) gets to highschool, it's made clear what a nobody Reese is in the grand scheme of things when he's not the toughest kid in the yard, as he lacks the social skills to make regular friends and doesn't have [[BookSmart Malcolm]] or [[ManipulativeBastard Dewey's]] smarts to fall back on when he can no longer just push everyone around. |
| 199 | * ''Series/TheMandalorian'': |
| 200 | ** Imperial AT-ST walkers are light scout tanks, designed to support a larger and more impressive mechanized force. To any competent military, they are simply not a real threat. To a peaceful farming village that can barely scrounge up a couple of blasters, even an old and run-down AT-ST is an invincible juggernaut that they are only able to defeat with a great deal of luck and preparation. |
| 201 | ** TIE fighters are probably the smallest and most fragile {{Space Fighter}}s in the 'verse, but against a group on the ground with no anti-aircraft weaponry, just one is terrifying. |
| 202 | * ''Series/TheOrville'': Xelayan Lieutenant Alara Kitan is a CuteBruiser who can tear airlock doors off their hinges and crush blocks of steel with her bare hands, thanks to [[{{Heavyworlder}} coming from a high-gravity planet]]. She's actually not very outstanding among her people, who tend to go into academics and the arts; her parents consider her a bit of a disappointment who never realized her real potential. Nevertheless, the rest of the crew are very much impressed with her abilities, and when she leaves the crew, Mercer requests another Xelayan as replacement (Lieutenant Talla Keyali, who is similarly gifted). |
| 203 | %% this is a zero context example. Please do not unhide until further context has been added. * Parodied in ''Series/SexAndTheCity''; among her old sorority sisters, [[AcceptableFeminineGoalsAndTraits Charlotte]] fills the same kind of role that [[LovableSexManiac Samantha]] fills in the main group. |
| 204 | * ''Series/TheSopranos'': [[TheDon Tony Soprano's]] crime family, [[TheMafia the DiMeos]], rules the New Jersey criminal underworld with an iron fist and any other criminal organization that even attempts to challenge their hold or gets in the way of their business dealings gets [[CurbStompBattle swiftly annihilated]]. However, they are small potatoes at best compared to the Five Families across the river in New York. This specifically applies to the Lupertazzi crime family, who often use their overwhelming power as leverage in business negotiations. Their don even refers to them as a "glorified crew" and only tries to do business in good faith out of sheer pragmatism. |
| 205 | * ''Series/SpartacusBloodAndSand'': |
| 206 | ** In his first episode, Spartacus seemed to be an elite warrior when defending his village against raiders and then holding his own in the gladiator arena. Then he is cruelly lectured by his trainer and fellow gladiators that the only reason why he looked so strong was that his fellow villagers, the raiders, and his handpicked opponents were weak, and he is shown his place in the pecking order by Crixus beating the snot out of him. Spartacus slowly improves his strength and skill through grueling training and experience in the arena, until he is no longer this trope and is truly an elite warrior. |
| 207 | ** When Ashur joins the Romans, he proves a point about the Romans underestimating the Rebels by admitting that he was mocked as the weakest of the gladiators, yet he is able to beat four Roman soldiers to near death. |
| 208 | * Both the main protagonists and antagonists of ''Series/StargateSG1'' fit this trope in their own way: |
| 209 | ** The Goa'uld, the main villains for most of the show, are largely [[WastelandWarlord Wasteland Warlords]] living in the ruins of more sophisticated civilizations: even in the present day, most of the alien factions we encounter are far more advanced than they are and entirely capable of cleaning their clocks in battle. However, these factions are either in other galaxies and unaware of the Goa'uld (the Replicators, the Wraith, the Ori), isolationists with no interest in anything beyond their own planet (the Tollan, the Nox), or otherwise occupied (the Asgard, who ''do'' sometimes hold the Goa'uld in check but, unknown to them, are too busy fighting a war in their own galaxy to fight another one in the Milky Way). As a result, the vast majority of the Milky Way is wide open for the Goa'uld, who rule it for 10,000 years largely by default because no one else has chosen to challenge them for it. |
| 210 | ** The Earth, having been completely cut off from the broader galaxy until the Stargate was put back into service in the 1990s, is similarly viewed as a primitive backwater by people whose societies have been starfaring for centuries. However, it's also a modern society with an industrialized economy, a massive population, and a very sophisticated scientific and engineering community, which means that it's quickly able to get up to speed once exposed to the broader galaxy, and ends up being more than a match for the feudal and stagnant Goa'uld societies. |
| 211 | * In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "[[Recap/StarTrekEnterpriseS04E18InAMirrorDarkly In A Mirror, Darkly]]" the USS ''Defiant'', which had originally disappeared in the Original Series episode "[[Recap/StarTrekS3E9TheTholianWeb The Tholian Web]]", is in its own time and universe just one of several ''Constitution''-class ships, much like the Original Series ''Enterprise''. In the 22nd-century Mirror Universe, though, it's a unique superweapon capable of curb-stomping an entire Empire into submission, and a prize worth killing for. |
| 212 | * In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', the angel Castiel is powerful enough that he's often [[DeusExitMachina sent on a mission]] during MonsterOfTheWeek episodes so as not to be available to solve all the Winchesters' problems with his scale busting angelic powers. He's far more powerful than the brothers are, and can easily kill humans, demons, and monsters alike, but he's actually evenly-matched if not low powered when compared to his fellow angels, particularly the archangels, who have killed him on more than one occasion by exploding his vessel with a snap of their fingers. |
| 213 | * On ''Series/TedLasso'', Jamie Tartt is quite obviously the most talented player in AFC Richmond's submediocre roster, and he both acts like and is treated like their star. However, he was sent there on loan from Manchester City, because they don't consider him good enough to start for their own squad, and when he returns to them after his loan expires, he spends most of his time on the bench. |
| 214 | [[/folder]] |
| 215 | |
| 216 | [[folder:Radio]] |
| 217 | * In ''Radio/TheAdventuresOfSuperman'', his abilities ''were'' the norm on Krypton, even though since it was the golden age, that's just superstrength and limited invulnerability-- no heat/x-ray vision, and technically no flight (but they could "[[Webcomic/TheNonAdventuresOfWonderella jump hella high]]"). One of the first scenes is Lara and Jor-El marveling that humans have to take hundreds of steps to get around. |
| 218 | [[/folder]] |
| 219 | |
| 220 | [[folder:Roleplay]] |
| 221 | * ''Roleplay/PanopticonQuest'': |
| 222 | ** The stuff used by [[spoiler:the Iteration X personnel from 1999]] is incredibly potent compared to Earthside [[spoiler:post-1999]]. When looking at what the former consider a hostile environment suit only rated for backblast, Serafina remarks that it's stuff that Progenitors would regard as full combat gear. |
| 223 | ** Technocracy stuff in general compared to what Sleepers have. Partway through, Jamelia and co investigate several companies that used to be Technocratic assets but were left out in the cold, reduced to working with stuff behind the curve. Even 70s or 80s Technocracy hypertech is still comfortably beyond what 2010s Sleepers have access to. |
| 224 | ** The SPD forces guarding [=LaCroix=]'s hideout get shredded by Juliet and Rose, who are merely medium-high end combatants, but they themselves are more than potent enough to deal with werewolf raids or stomp Sleeper special forces. |
| 225 | ** Anathema-class Aspects are stealth and infiltration rather than dedicated combat platforms, "only" the second smallest and weakest of the classes of Aspects. That still leaves them resistant to anti-tank weapons and magic, tank killers both at range and in melee, superhumanly intelligent... and that's before they start throwing around Enlightened Science procedures. A grand total of one appears onscreen in the story and is still a massive threat anytime it's in the picture. One shudders to imagine what kind of PersonOfMassDestruction the top-class dedicated combat Aspects are like. |
| 226 | [[/folder]] |
| 227 | |
| 228 | [[folder:Sports]] |
| 229 | * Sports which have a notable "diaspora" often have this. From "has been" European soccer stars who still draw crowds and play at least okay compared to the MLS fare (though US talent is catching up), to American Football players who went through the UsefulNotes/{{NCAA}} [[UsefulNotes/CollegiateAmericanFootball college football]] system and come to play in Europe, to Handball players outside Europe. A middling player at a small time program on one side of the pond might be a first division allstar and GameBreaker on the other. |
| 230 | ** To give just one example, Trevar Deed, formerly of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_State_Statesmen_and_Lady_Statesmen Delta State]] — an ''NCAA Division II'' program in Mississippi, making it the ''third'' level of NCAA football[[note]]While the NCAA as a whole is split into three divisions, Division I is split into two levels for football only. See our page on the NCAA for more details.[[/note]] — came to play in the German Football League after his college career, and in the 2013 season alone, he racked up ''3623'' yards rushing in 17 games (playoffs and regular season combined), which gives an average of over 210 yards per game and over nine yards per attempt. He also scored 57 Touchdowns (53 by running) for over 20 points per game. GameBreaker indeed. |
| 231 | * At the team level, the champion of a league division is the team with the best record in that division. But depending on the overall quality of the division, best in the division could be well below average by the standards of the league as a whole. The reason wild cards were introduced to playoffs was to address the unfairness of a great team potentially being denied a playoff slot because someone else in their division was even better, when a mediocre team in a different division got a slot because everyone else in the division was awful. |
| 232 | * In sports that use a promotion/relegation system (particularly soccer), a team that performs extraordinarily well at a lower division will often find themselves struggling once they are promoted to a higher division where the teams are at a minimum equally as talented. Such clubs are often referred to as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yo-yo_club Yo-yo Clubs or Lift Clubs]]. |
| 233 | * In UsefulNotes/{{association football}} it's very common that the best squad of a low-ranked European national league, say, the winners of the Swedish or Greek championships, could enter the continental competition UsefulNotes/UEFAChampionsLeague only to at best struggle against the fourth placed teams of much more competitive championships like the Italian, Spanish and English ones (at worst they are no match quickly kicked out of the tournament). In fact, there are several Champions League winners that were not champions of their national league, but qualified anyway; the first case was Manchester United in 1999. |
| 234 | ** This was not the case before this format was introduced in 1999. Previously, the competition only saw the national champions competing for the European Cup until 1992 and then the Champions League. Occasionally, teams from minor leagues could defeat the theoretically better teams, and even end up to win the tournament. The thing is, if you defeated Real Madrid, Liverpool, Bayern Munich or Juventus (and chances were that they already kicked out each other at some point so you didn't have to face all of them), that was all that you could expect from the top leagues, the rest comprised minor teams from Apoel Nicosia (Cyprus) to Rosenborg (Norway). And so for decades it was definitely possible to see teams from less competitive countries like Yugoslavia, Romania, Portugal or [[UsefulNotes/ScottishPremiership Scotland]] reach the finals and even win the trophy sometimes. After the reform of the 90s, a team like Steaua Bucharest had to face not only Juventus, Liverpool or Real Madrid, but also Milan, Inter, Manchester United, Arsenal, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona, Valencia and so on, through two group stages with double matches before direct knockouts. Competition became much more difficult and the Champions League started to be a practical monologue of teams from the most powerful and rich leagues: Italy, Spain, Germany and England (with the only exception being Porto in 2004). Even Dutch Ajax, which was a prestigious team with several wins in the competition's European Cup era, became an average team and never scored any significant result after 1999. It also became common to see two teams from the same country in the final: 3 times for Spain (2000, 2014, 2016) and England (2008, 2019, 2021) each, 1 time for Italy (2003) and Germany (2013), simply because an outsider from these countries was much more competitive than the champions of other nations. |
| 235 | * In international tournaments such as UsefulNotes/{{the World Cup}}, even national teams that qualified because they won the Africa Cup or the Asia Cup can struggle to pass the group stage and access to the round of 16, since European and South American teams are much more competitive. Teams from other continents have only rarely made to the Round of 8 during the entire history of the World Cup, and only three times in 90 years they reached the semi-finals: USA in the distant 1930, the first edition of the World Cup with only 13 teams and many bigs missing; South Korea in 2002, although it was controversial because of referee mistakes in their favor with alleged corruption; and Morocco in 2022 with a lot of surprise. |
| 236 | ** Players from less competitive countries might even play in top European leagues where they are regarded as decent-to-ultimately good but minor footballers (although superstars compared to their comrades in their home country), with just a few great champions (that make the above mentioned "superstars" pale). Although it's not uncommon to see great players from e.g. Africa as a whole playing in European teams, usually single nations won't field 11 players all as good as Didier Drogba from Côte d'Ivoire, Samuel Eto'o from Cameroon or George Weah from Liberia, to name three of the best African footballers of all times. |
| 237 | *** Jari Litmanen is regarded as one of the best Finnish football players of all times if not the GOAT, but during his time in the 90s playing for Ajax and Barcelona he was "only" a good player among a lot of other good players and several superstars (notably Rivaldo who took his role in Barcelona). The Finnish team as a whole failed to qualify for any international competition until the 2020 European Championship, and Finnish clubs never left any sign in the Champions League. |
| 238 | ** Sometimes players from minor national teams can even play in minor leagues of more competitive countries, for example in 2022 Þórir Jóhann Helgason from Iceland[[note]]first name usually rendered outside the country as "Thorir"[[/note]] played in Serie B, the Italian 2nd division, for Lecce. So did Augustus Kargbo from Sierra Leone who played for Crotone (a team that at season's end was relegated to Serie C!). |
| 239 | * An interesting cross-sport and trans-oceanic example is Mason Cox. He attended Oklahoma State University as an engineering major, but was noticed by the school's men's basketball coach and eventually joined the team, but didn't get much playing time (he scored just seven points in his entire college basketball career). But because of his height (6 feet, 11 inches[=/=]211 cm), Cox was invited to a combine for American basketball centers to be evaluated as potential ruckmen for UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball, since both positions require tall, physical players (a ruckman's main duty is to compete for the centre bounce, a rough equivalent to a jump ball in basketball, which occurs at the start of a quarter or after a goal). Cox, who had zero familiarity with the sport and learned everything about it from scratch, eventually joined the Australian Football League's Collingwood Magpies in 2015 and proved to not only be a good ruckman, but also skilled as a goal scorer. He scored 5 goals in the 2018 edition of the Queen's Birthday Match (the annual holiday game between Collingwood and the Melbourne Demons that's one of the league's highest-profile matchups). He's become one of Collingwood's most popular players (a "cult hero" for the team according to the Australian media), and the Texas native even became an Australian citizen in 2022. Cox made some clutch contributions in Collingwood's win in the 2023 Grand Final (the AFL's equivalent to the Super Bowl). |
| 240 | * Alex Zanardi[[note]]given name Alessandro, but even the Italian Wikipedia calls him Alex[[/note]] was an average driver in Formula 1 from 1991 to 1994, but when he passed to the less sophisticated American CART Championship he won two titles in 1997 and 1998 thanks to his aggressive style that was more fitting for that context. In 1999 he returned to Formula 1 for Williams, but didn't score a single point due to a combination of mechanical failures, low morale and failure to adapt to the driving style (particularly he wasn't comfortable with how F1 carbon brakes reached exercise temperature later compared to CART steel brakes). Meanwhile, his team mate Ralf Schumacher alone brought the team to the fifth place in the championship with 35 points, only one from Stewart (which took advantage of an unexpected win in Nurburgring when most of the other drivers retired and Schumacher himself unluckily saw his right rear tyre punctured while leading the race). Had Zanardi scored at least as many points as Ralf Schumacher, who was talented but less experienced (he entered F1 in 1997), Williams would have ended in third place before Jordan with 61, confirming its status as the main constructor behind the title contenders Ferrari and [=McLaren=] just like the previous year (and the following). |
| 241 | [[/folder]] |
| 242 | |
| 243 | [[folder:Tabletop Games]] |
| 244 | * ''TabletopGame/BattleTech'': |
| 245 | ** The Taurian Concordat, and to a lesser extent the Magistracy of Canopus. They're major powers compared to the other Periphery systems, but neither can hold a candle to the five Great Houses of the Inner Sphere. The Taurians in particular spend a goodly chunk of the setting's extensive history in a state of SpaceColdWar with the Federated Suns that only lasts as long as it does because while conquering the Concordat is eminently possible for the Feddies, they'd have to invest too much resources, making them vulnerable to their Great House enemies, while being all but guaranteed to get [[WonTheWarLostThePeace nothing useful out of it in return]]. This is masterfully illustrated in the [[VideoGame/BattleTech2018 2018 computer game]] in which the Taurians getting involved in the main campaign's SuccessionCrisis in the Periphery realm of Auriga is treated as a massive OhCrap moment despite their marginal status in the main tabletop game. |
| 246 | ** Wolf's Dragoons. Intended as a vanguard intelligence gathering unit by the Clans, the Dragoons were a fake mercenary company made out of washed-out warrior caste failures, freebirths and volunteers who were given 200-years-out-of-date military training and machinery that would serve as a plausible cover story as some backwater yokels who accidentally stumbled upon an SLDF weapons cache. To the war-torn Inner Sphere, which had long since devolved into AfterTheEnd neo-feudalism and backstabbing, the Dragoons were five regiments' worth of highly professional and drilled mercenaries with their own logistics corps, using pristine battlemechs models that had in many cases been extinct for over a century. Taken out of a Clan context the Dragoons were the equals of the PraetorianGuard of any of the Successor States and instantly found themselves under intense scrutiny by anyone with two brain cells to rub together. |
| 247 | ** Clan Goliath Scorpion. In the beginning they start out as one of the weaker Clans that can barely hold their own against another in an all out war. When they leave Clan Space they went out and easily conquered the Periphery nation of Nueva Castile with relative ease, as their technology is quite primitive even by Periphery standards. After several decades they then set their sights on the Hanseatic League which rivals the Clan Homeworlds in size of territory, but possess technology only comparable to the Inner Sphere Pre-Clan Invasion. Within two years the Scorpions were successful in conquering the League establishing themselves as one of the most powerful groups in the Deep Periphery. |
| 248 | ** This is the logic behind the "Banshee kings" and "Charger kings" in the Periphery. The stock [[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Banshee_(BattleMech) Banshee]] and [[https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Charger Charger]] Battlemechs are considered {{Joke Character}}s, assault 'Mechs with far too much weight in their engines and pathetic armament (especially the Charger, whose weak, short-ranged firepower makes it nearly useless in a firefight). However, in the Periphery, there are very few things that can stand up to 'Mechs at all, and the Banshee and Charger are still assault 'Mechs with all the weight, durability, and raw ''physical'' power that implies. When all you can muster are tanks, jeeps, helicopters, and the occasional light or medium 'Mech, the threat of a Banshee or Charger ''[[GrievousHarmWithABody picking up one of your friends and beating you to death with them]]'' is very real. |
| 249 | * ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'': This trope usually applies with sixth and seventh generation vampires; by vampire standards they are only middle class and are not really special in the grand scheme of things, but since lower generation vampires tend to be incredibly rare even to the point of being considered legends, sixth and seventh generation vampires are usually the strongest and most influential vampires that most people can come across. |
| 250 | * ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'': ''Monstrous Arcanum'': Warpfire dragons are terrifying, monstrous behemoths that are deeply feared and carefully avoided by most other beings. Some scholars, however, theorize that they ones known are actually the juveniles and runts of their species, primarily because few to no specimens have been encountered that seem to match the full-grown, "emperor" stages of the dragon life cycle. Warpfire dragons are thus believed to be native to the Southern Chaos Wastes, a nightmare land ruled by daemons, twisted monsters, and presumably the actually fully-grown warpfire dragons, which forces the weaker members of the species to migrate north to lands home to weaker beings. |
| 251 | * ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' features this as part of its generally LowFantasy setting. Your characters go on relatively low-scale adventures and start out as nobodies; and due to the way combat works, even after a good amount of progress, they will never be ''that'' much more powerful than a common soldier. Thus, what would normally be an {{Elite Mook|s}} in the war game (which is meant to model battles involving hundreds or thousands of troops)[[note]]The appendices labeled "Scale and Measurement" in the 5e and 6e core rulebooks states that 1 inch = 10 yards, 1 model = 10-20 men, and 1 turn = 1 hour.[[/note]] is often a dangerous boss fight to your party. |
| 252 | * ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000''-based media can invoke this easily, considering that the setting includes rules for everything from [[TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}} gang warfare]] to [[TabletopGame/BattlefleetGothic city-sized starships]]. |
| 253 | ** An Imperial Guardsman's basic equipment is derided as a "flashlight and T-shirt" by the fanbase because of how it stands up to other armies' line infantry. After all, in a game of ''40k'' a lasgun has no armor-penetrating power whatsoever and at best has a 50-50 chance of wounding even a weak enemy, and [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]] are pretty lackluster compared to a Space Marine's [[{{BFG}} bolter]], which fires bursts of rocket-propelled, armor-piercing, explosive rounds. Likewise, a Guardsman's flak armor is functionally useless against the weapons carried by the majority of their opponents. But in games like ''TabletopGame/{{Necromunda}}'', whose gangers are scrabbling for any weapons and armor they can find, or ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'', where some characters are former civilians roped into Inquisitorial service, lasguns and flak armor are rare and top-tier equipment. |
| 254 | ** Similarly, a "standard" Space Marine is a basic infantry unit in a normal game of ''40k'', and a given battle involving them will see Astartes dying by the dozen. In a game of ''TabletopGame/{{Inquisitor}}'', concerning exceptional humans and their retinues of specialists and oddballs squaring off against each other, a single Space Marine is PurposelyOverpowered, able to shrug off most attacks, outperform everything else on the table, and annihilate anything he fights. |
| 255 | ** Any technology used in the 41st Millennium is this compared to when most of it was developed, during the lost Dark Age of Technology. A Baneblade superheavy tank is a rolling bunker bristling with heavy weaponry that can annihilate whole squads of vehicles and infantry, and is rare enough that many Guardsmen will never see one during their lifetime of service. According to its blueprints, which predate the Imperium by millennia, the Baneblade is listed as a ''light'' battle tank. |
| 256 | ** It's often commented that the Tau went from having little or no advanced technology to be a space-faring race with HumongousMecha in "only" six-thousand years, reaching a point where they can hold their own in a battle with humanity or the Craftworlds, both of which have tens-of-thousands of years behind them. What people often forget is that most of the races in the Warhammer galaxy are technologically ''stagnant'' and have been for some time; the Imperium of Man literally considers the very idea of developing new technology, instead of maintaining their millennia-old "holy relics", to be a form of heresy punishable by death. While they aren't as extreme about it, neither the Aeldari nor the Necrons seem very interested in advancing their already hyper-advanced ancient tech. So of course the Tau's progress looks impressive in this setting: they're the only ones ''trying!'' |
| 257 | [[/folder]] |
| 258 | |
| 259 | [[folder:Video Games]] |
| 260 | * In ''VideoGame/{{Albion}}'', there is the pistol from the prologue which is just an ordinary sidearm on the human spaceship it's found on that's only remarkable because of the circumstances it's found in, but on the titular primitive planet it's a TooAwesomeToUse DiscOneNuke that's deadlier than the InfinityPlusOneSword. A downplayed example would be the stimdrinks also found in the prologue which are considered potent but still ultimately unremarkable painkillers in space, but are [[ClosestThingWeGot serviceable substitutes]] for expensive magical healing potions planetside. |
| 261 | * ''VideoGame/BattleTech'': |
| 262 | ** By the standards of the larger setting, the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat are second-string powers. The Magistracy has maintained its independence mostly on the back of its skilled diplomats, and the only reason the Federated Suns haven't stomped the Concordat flat is that a full attack would divert resources away from its real enemies, most notably the Draconis Combine. By the standards of this game's Periphery-focused setting, the Magistracy and Concordat are major powerhouses, and their respective involvements in the Aurigan Reach conflict are major OhCrap moments. |
| 263 | ** Related, Samuel Ostergaard's ''Fortress''-class [=DropShip=] ''Iberia'' is, by Inner Sphere standards, a significant but not particularly remarkable projection of military power. By the standards of the Aurigan Reach, its heavy armor, huge artillery armament and the combined arms battalion it carries make ''Iberia'' an "I win"-button in any conflict Ostergaard cares to intervene in. |
| 264 | * In the ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta}}'' series, Affinities are the lowest rank of [[LightIsNotGood angelic]] soldiers, and the titular protagonist tears them apart by the dozens. However, when they show up in ''VideoGame/BayonettaOriginsCerezaAndTheLostDemon'', [[spoiler:King Puca uses them as EliteMooks, and they're on par with some of the higher ranking fairies]]. |
| 265 | * Frank Fontaine in ''VideoGame/BioShock'' was just some lowly racketeer/conman back in the United States, but emerges as the [[TheDreaded terrifying]] DiabolicalMastermind of Rapture, in no small part to the lack of competition and exploiting the citizens' gullibility/desperation, allowing him to scam his way into becoming one of the most powerful figures in the underwater city. At the end of the day, he is nothing more than an opportunistic crook that lucked out due to being in a city of suckers with no other options. |
| 266 | * ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'': The Basilisk armored hover-transport the Aldecaldos steal from Militech. By the standards of actual military hardware, the Basilisk is an obsolete light cargo hauler, with just enough cargo capacity to be useful, but woefully underarmored and undergunned, and only really good for sale to third-tier militaries who can't afford better. By the standards of Badlands nomads, the Basilisk (especially after being repaired and upgraded by Aldecaldos mechanics, a few of whom are Militech tank division veterans themselves) is an unstoppable LightningBruiser, which can tear through anything the [[EvilCounterpart Raffen Shiv]] can field like a fat kid through cake, sail effortlessly across any minefields corporations and governments set up to make life difficult for smugglers, and carry huge amounts of goods. |
| 267 | * Certain powerful enemies in ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' and ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'' like the Red Eye Knights from the latter and Silver Knights in the former are just the regular {{Mooks}} of their day. Well they were, until the ApocalypseHow took out most of the stronger beings, leaving the various Knights as strong contenders wherever they are. |
| 268 | ** Lord Gwyn's war with the dragons has left most of their descendants a pale shadow of their previous strength. While the wyvern in the undead burg and the Gaping dragon are powerful enemies in the early game, Seath the Scaleless eclipses them in strength many times over and the one scaled dragon you can find is so untouchably powerful that attacking it for its tail weapon doesn't cause it to register damage and merely regenerates the lost tail cause that little inconvenience is all you can do to it. |
| 269 | * This trope is used as a plot point in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 5|AllianceofVengeance}}''. [[spoiler:Demon General Bloodis, aka Goldion, was believed to have died at the Rebel Army's hands before they do battle with Void Dark. However, the ''Attack of the Carnage Dimension'' postgame arc reveals that he was saved from death by several of these Carnage Demons, whom began training him once he was able. Originally, Goldion was the one whom took down Tyrant Overlord Killidia with ease in Killia's backstory. As Bloodis, he was able to fend off multiple Overlord-class demons with little issue. In the [[BrutalBonusLevel Carnage Dimension?]] Little more than a lowly grunt whom had to fight for his life every day in order to survive. Further driven home with the final battle against him, where he is easily ''hundreds'' of times stronger than he was in the campaign. Once he's been recruited, a skit opens up where he shares some of his experiences within the Carnage Dimension.]] |
| 270 | * ''Franchise/{{Doom}}'': |
| 271 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'': The Barons of Hell. In later episodes, rockets, the Plasma Gun and the BFG can trivialize them. However, in the final level of the first episode (Phobos Anomaly), you will have no plasma cells and five rockets at best, so two Barons become fearsome bosses. |
| 272 | ** ''VideoGame/DoomII'': The Wolfenstein SS are this. They were fearsome in ''Wolfenstein 3D'', where you had just bullets, but when you get shotgun shells and rocket launchers they become pushovers. |
| 273 | * ''VideoGame/EldenRing'': |
| 274 | ** Virtually every boss in the first area of Limgrave. While impressive enemies at that point in the game, later on seeing them as common enemies shows how far from the thick of the conflict they are. Pointedly the Leonine Misbegotten that you get the last legendary armament from actually uses it against you while the first didn't, likely because it couldn't handle the weapon's massive strength requirements. |
| 275 | ** The Fire Giant is one of the last bosses faced, with power so great that Alexander considers it to be nearly the same as a god's. Do note that Alexander helped face General Radahn, a colossal demi-god that a small army of some of the greatest warriors around had to take down. Yet looking around at the rest of the bodies you can see that most of the Giants were the same size, and there is a massive corpse embedded into the mountain that would make the Fire Giant look as small as you in comparison. |
| 276 | ** This becomes something of a problem with Ironfist Alexander. Despite being a decent warrior jar in his own right, seeing the power of Radahn gives him a dose of reality where his abilities stand. After he takes step after step to become stronger to become a stronger vessel. At the end of it all he decides the final step is for him to take your remains inside himself and faces you in combat. Despite all his training the battle is little more difficult than every battle in Faram Azula. He dies content despite knowing that all his actions did not make him much stronger and likely hurt himself without any improvement gained. |
| 277 | * Someone with rudimentary explosives training can awe the citizens of Megaton in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' by defusing a bomb. |
| 278 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'': |
| 279 | ** Cloud is leagues stronger then the regular mooks and easily impresses the local members of Avalanche with his strength and talk of being a First-Class SOLDIER. Yet further in the game, it is not hard to notice that he isn't terribly impressive when put up against even the Third Class SOLDIER mooks. In story, he needs help just to fight one of the Turks and is caught with ease by a couple of them. [[spoiler:It turns out that he didn't make SOLDIER at all and his strength largely comes from being one of Hojo's science experiments with Sephiroth's cells to replicate his Reunion theory.]] Later in the game, he averts this and is considered one of the strongest people on the planet and the only hope to defeat Sephiroth. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'' averts this. As part of the AdaptationalBadass upgrades to the story, the party defeats more impressive enemies and bosses than those which appeared in the same parts in the original game. In the same vein, the boss of chapter 4 in ''Remake'' is Roche, a 3rd class SOLDIER implied to be stationed well bellow his actual abilities; and Reno, who is fought earlier and in the boss battle corresponding to the one in the original game has Rude for backup, still nearly gets beaten. |
| 280 | ** Don Corneo talks a big game as the top man in Wall Market, but in the grand scheme of things is just a guy that Shinra tolerates to keep the people down in the slums appeased. When he proves to be more trouble then he is worth, he is quickly forced to flee with the few stooges who are still loyal to him. And when he is finally found in Wutai, the Turks easily take him down even after the NewMeat Elena gets herself captured. |
| 281 | * ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has Blanstyr in the Armorer storyline, who's such a perfectionist in the smithing world that he drives out most potential recruits and is constantly at odds with guildmaster H'naanza over it. It isn't until the player character comes along that he realizes he actually has a ways to go to call himself the best armorer in Eorzea. The other expansions serve to show that while he might be the best armorer in Limsa Lominsa, he's considered a small fry to the rest of the armorer world. |
| 282 | * ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'': Ena's dragon Transformation astounds the troops around her and attempting to fight her in melee is a bad idea. Despite her great physical strength, among dragons she is actually completely ordinary, even stating that the berserk dragons in the penultimate chapter are far stronger than her. |
| 283 | * This is how Sothe's CrutchCharacter status works in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn''. As a veteran of [[VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance the previous war]], his skill and strength far exceed the local inexperienced freedom fighters and the weak soldiers Begnion bothered to occupy Daein with, which manifests in gameplay as him starting out as an already [[PrestigeClass promoted unit]] with high base stats while he is fighting amongst a bunch of unpromoted units with comparatively weak stats. His class line of a thief, though, means that he is rather weak compared to trained soldiers, and as such his class has substantially worse stat caps and combat abilities than other class lines, which has him fall off significantly later on in the game when fighting against elite armies in all-out war and goddess-powered enemies. He even lampshades that he doesn't really belong when fighting the endgame bosses. |
| 284 | * ''VideoGame/FireEmblemFates'' has gameplay-only examples with Silas and Kaze. |
| 285 | ** On the ''Conquest'' route, Silas, while a perfectly serviceable unit, will ultimately be overshadowed by other cavalry units (including the PurposelyOverpowered Xander) or more specialized units. However, on the ''Birthright'' route, he is one of the few mounted characters available, and unlike Subaki, Hinoka, Reina, or Scarlet, he is not a flying unit, meaning he is not vulnerable to arrows. Additionally, if made into a Great Knight, he becomes one of the few tanky units and a rare axe-user. |
| 286 | ** Meanwhile, on the ''Birthright'' route, Kaze, while fast, suffers from middling strength and being overshadowed by Saizo and Kagero, who, while slower than him, are still fast enough to double all but the fastest of enemies on the lower-power route, and are stronger than him. [[spoiler: It doesn't help that Kaze can ''die'' if you did not obtain his A support with Corrin.]] However, on the ''Conquest'' route, he becomes essentially the only offense-oriented hidden weapon user, and his high speed allows him to safely double attack enemies such as Swordmasters, in addition to being able to use the debuffing abilities of hidden weapons alongside Poison Strike to weaken the stronger enemies on the route. |
| 287 | * ''VideoGame/GodOfWar'': |
| 288 | ** Kratos is infamous for killing gods and titans from the Greek pantheon on regular basis. When he is thrown into Norse mythology in [[VideoGame/GodOfWarPS4 the 2018 PS4 game]], his [[ArchEnemy primary rival]] is [[spoiler:Baldur]] who pushes the Spartan warrior to his limit and puts up a fight almost as savage as Zeus, the FinalBoss from the previous game. Keep in mind that he is a relatively lesser god known for being a tracker rather than being a warrior. Imagine how much more powerful the likes of Odin and Thor are like... |
| 289 | ** It should be noted, however, that [[spoiler:Baldur is BlessedWithSuck in such a way that he has been rendered impervious to all forms of harm until the final boss fight where he has been rendered vulnerable by mistletoe, regardless of whether Kratos still has the god-killing power of previous games. Kratos fights and snaps his neck several times in the story to no avail. Magni and Modi on the other hand put up far less of a fight, though]]. It's also implied that it's more that Kratos is [[BagOfSpilling out of practice from centuries of quiet living]] and the events of the games help get him back into the swing of things. |
| 290 | * ''VideoGame/IAmAlive'' brings this into play with the rare and difficult to obtain... bullet. Just your WeaponForIntimidation is enough to make you a major threat to any [=NPCs=] you encounter. |
| 291 | * Many zombie games (such as ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' or a few of the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' titles) invoke this as well. The player might be an average person but they're the only one still smart enough to use firearms, be stealthy, or use tactics other than "stumble forwards". |
| 292 | * ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'': |
| 293 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap'': Two of the bosses, Big Green Chuchu and Big Octorok, are apparent {{Giant Mook}}s. However, despite their names, they're actually not any stronger than normal — it's Link that's [[IncredibleShrinkingMan shrunk down]], and at that size these perfectly normal [[TheGoomba Goombas]] are boss-level threats. |
| 294 | ** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'': The people you invite to the newly established Tarrey Town mostly weren't very notable in their original homes but are indispensable in their small yet booming new town. This is most explicit with Greyson, who states that he wanted to leave his old job at the Goron Mines for Tarrey Town because he felt more appreciated for his mining skills in the latter than the former. |
| 295 | * In ''VideoGame/MagiaRecordPuellaMagiMadokaMagicaSideStory'', Mami Tomoe stands out for being a veteran magical girl with quite a level of experience and power in fighting witches, to the point that she's even a bit of a topic of discussion when she first comes to Kamihama. And while she's certainly impressive to the magical girls because she manages to fight the strong witches of Kamihama ''without'' having had the Coordinator strengthen her magic (because Mami is just that strong already), she does still somewhat pale in the bigger picture. Kamihama's large collection of magical girls means that there are some that have been fighting witches as long, and even longer, than Mami has and several of them are on-par with her, or even stronger, albeit they usually have had their magic strengthened. Mami is still an impressive combatant and considered an asset to any group she lends her strength to, she's just not as big of a deal as she was when compared to the original series. |
| 296 | * Sovereign in ''Franchise/MassEffect'', as revealed in the third game, was basically [[spoiler:a single unremarkable military android]] to the civilization that created him. To the civilizations of Citadel Space, on the other hand, he's a mysterious and nigh-unstoppable [[FasterThanLightTravel space-faring]] [[MechanicalAbomination techno]]-[[AmbiguousRobots organic]] EldritchAbomination who can subjugate planets casually, bulldoze entire fleets of high-tech warships (sometimes [[RammingAlwaysWorks literally]]), and is [[NighInvulnerability Nigh-Invulnerable]] on top of [[BrownNote causing insanity with his mere presence]]. Oh, and by the standards of Citadel Space's science, he's also a physics-defying PerpetualMotionMachine. [[spoiler:This is further proven in the third game; when an entire armada of "Sovereigns" (tens of thousands of them) descend on the galaxy, [[CurbStompBattle all of galactic civilization falls in less than three months]], necessitating a DeusExMachina super weapon for the protagonists to have a chance.]] |
| 297 | * ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' has ''villainous'' examples: |
| 298 | ** The first game has when the [[GoldfishPoopGang Bonne Family]] roll up to Kattelox Island to plunder their ruins for the Mother Lode. They have no problem subjugating the island with their humongous mechas and airships since the island has only conventional weapons like handguns and police cars. When a ''real'' threat like Mega Man shows up, however, they get stomped. This continues in the sequel as well, when they conquer the vaguely Arabian-themed island no problem until, again, Mega Man shows up and gives them what-for. |
| 299 | ** The sequel introduced the Glyde Pirates, who again have no problem subjugating an ''uninhabited'' island (save for a lady and her two adoptive children) or an island with non-functional defense systems, but again once Mega Man shows up or those defense systems become operational again they get curb-stomped in pretty short order. |
| 300 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterHunterWorld'': the two crossover monsters, the Behemoth from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasy'' and the Leshen from ''Franchise/TheWitcher'', both qualify. In their home universes, they're considered powerful, but not overly so; upper-mid-tier foes, perhaps. In ''Monster Hunter'', they're treated as top-level threats that require multiple elite hunters to deal with, largely because the hunters have no magical abilities and have no experience fighting beings that can command magic. |
| 301 | ** The Behemoth is a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] case; although the use of magic is foreign to what the hunters are familiar with, what it ''does'' with the magic isn't exceptionally new. Existing monsters have generated tornadoes, lightning, and eruptions, so the authorities are comfortable giving it the "Elder Dragon" classification and setting their hunters after it. |
| 302 | ** The Leshen is a far straighter example; it's stated that the ''Monster Hunter'' world has a far greater amount of LifeEnergy, meaning the Leshen, as a nature spirit, is much more powerful there than it is in its home universe. Whatever brought the Leshen over also brought over Geralt of Riva, and the authorities decide to leave it to ''him''. |
| 303 | ** The Rathalos also provides a matching InvertedTrope for its partner appearance in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''. While it's definitely dangerous and the complete lack of magical presence makes it hard to predict by local standards ([[GameplayAndStoryIntegration communicated]] by the bossfight lacking attack tells), for a party of experience adventurers the threat it presents is downright mundane. |
| 304 | * ''VideoGame/MSSagaANewDawn'': The Dark Alliance in the early game wrecks the world through use of their mobile suit army. However, looking at what they are fielding shows that they are not able to use particularly powerful suits and are only as dangerous as they are because nobody has armies or suits. An entire invading army is taken out by the original Gundam [[spoiler:while the true BigBad, the Neo-Zarth, fields multiple Gundams that all eclipse that one in strength several times over]]. |
| 305 | * ''VideoGame/{{MUGEN}}'' has many platformer characters (both players and bosses) with their original mechanics intact. They tend to have MercyInvincibility, nullifying combos, and have unblockable attacks that conventional fighters cannot dodge as well as platformer player characters can. A good example of a boss would be the [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2 Stupid Little Drill Tank]] (Egg Mobile-D) -- in its source game, it's a very easy WarmUpBoss with an incredibly easy-to-avoid drill. In MUGEN, its constant movement, [[ImmuneToFlinching Hyper Armor]] and UnblockableAttack [[AIBreaker confuses most AI-controlled characters]], who get hit for huge damage as they try to flinch the Drill Tank and/or guard against its drill instead of jumping over. |
| 306 | * In the early parts of ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2'' you keep hearing about two legendary men from your home town who both outgrew the place and moved on to bigger things when your character was a child. You run into both later on, and while both achieved some measure of success it's more "middle management" level than the greatness everyone expected. |
| 307 | * ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime'': In Adventure mode, Dr. Zomboss' Zombots are challenging partly due to the fact specific plants are given semi-randomly via a conveyor belt. In Arena and Penny's Pursuit modes, they're far easier to disrupt as the player is allowed to bring their own plants and pre-plant a few of them before the battle ala Last Stand. |
| 308 | * ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'': |
| 309 | ** In ''VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon'', the extra-dimensional Ultra Beasts are considered a serious threat to both people and normal Pokémon (Celesteela, for example, is capable of ''burning down entire forests''), but in their home dimension, each type is quite common and they're one of the few OlympusMons to explicitly avert SingleSpecimenSpecies. Some, such as Poipole, are even explicitly said to be ''starter Pokémon'' for beginning Trainers. |
| 310 | ** Throughout the series, many single stage Pokémon have gained evolved forms in later titles. Most of these had fairly unremarkable stats and abilities standalone, but as pre-evolved forms came off as rather powerful {{Crutch Character}}s. Sneasel and Murkrow for example were fairly weak single stage Pokémon, but after Gen IV introduced Weavile and Honchkrow respectively, they became pre-evolutions with incredible speed and attack stats. Although the fact they can now use eviolite as well doesn't hurt. |
| 311 | ** Gym Leaders' signature Pokémon, especially for early game bosses, tend to be major roadblocks that you have never seen before. Later, you will find the same specimens at much higher levels. For a classic example, [[VideoGame/PokemonRedAndBlue Brock's Onix]] is the toughest mon you will have faced up to that point. After you get to the Rock Tunnel, though, Onix are common, and they're all higher level than Brock's. |
| 312 | *** Later games and other media suggest that WillfullyWeak is likely in play. ''[[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver HeartGold and SoulSilver]]'', for example, allow players to rematch all of the Johto and Kanto Gym Leaders, who use stronger teams with levels comparable to the Elite Four. Likewise, ''VideoGame/PokemonSwordAndShield'' has the Gym Leaders ranked in order of performance with the better Leaders showing up later in the Gym Challenge with higher-level Pokemon, but for the final competition and the Galarian Star Tournament, their levels are all elevated into at least the 50's. ''Anime/PokemonOrigins'', while not canon to the games, shows Brock selecting his usual ''Red/Blue'' team when he learns Red has no Badges, implying the Gym Leaders are playing down to their competition for the sake of fairness. Likewise, when Red challenges Giovanni but acknowledges him only as the leader of Team Rocket and not the Viridian City Gym Leader, Giovanni decides to use only his strongest two Pokémon and proceeds to [[CurbStompBattle steamroll most of Red's team in the process]]. |
| 313 | ** ''VideoGame/PokemonLegendsArceus'' has you playing as a child from the modern Pokémon world who is transported to the past and finds themselves in a time and place where partnerships between humans and Pokémon are still uncommon and the average person still fears Pokémon greatly (not without reason, as the Pokémon do seem to be more aggressive in this time, possibly due to unfamiliarity with humans). It quickly becomes clear that in this scenario, a person who can not only approach Pokémon without fear but can also defeat or capture them with a reasonable success rate is an invaluable asset. |
| 314 | ** Little Cup, a format where all Pokémon are level 5 and only unevolved Pokémon are legal[[note]]originally from the ''VideoGame/PokemonStadium'' games, but currently held only in fan-made competitive settings due to the absence of ''Stadium'' games beyond Generation IV[[/note]] frequently has problems with this when new evolutions mean that once otherwise unremarkable mons can sweep the tier. In fact many Pokémon are quick-banned, like Scyther or Duraludon, because they already were as strong as fully evolved Pokémon. |
| 315 | *** Dunsparce, introduced in [[VideoGame/PokemonGoldAndSilver Gen II]] was for many years known as one of the worst Pokémon of all time, with a mediocre pure-Normal typing, abysmal stats, and a barely passable move pool. However, in ''VideoGame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' Dunsparce got an evolution, Dudunsparce. Dunsparce was quickly banned from Little Cup, since while it was one of the worst ''fully evolved'' Pokémon of all time, it's actually terrifying when its only competition right now is a bunch of unevolved weaklings. |
| 316 | *** Girafarig, also introduced in the same Gen II, quickly became a terror in the tier. Before Farigiraf was introduced, its only real notable advantage was its Normal typing allowed for Ghost type immunity. In Little Cup, its varied move pool, strong all around stats for an unevolved Pokémon, and Normal typing leaving less counters let it score many wins. Many agree the only reason it wasn't banned so fast was because Dunsparce was taking the flack first. |
| 317 | * In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'', the Tyrant is the Spencer Mansion's darkest secret in its deepest depths and is so inhumanly strong and durable nothing the characters have can kill it, requiring Brad to drop off the EleventhHourSuperpower rocket launcher to defeat it. When these things, even their finished T-103 model forms, go up against a properly armed army unit they get slaughtered as evidenced by the ''numerous'' Tyrant corpses littering the Dead Factory in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil3Nemesis''. Later entries in [[Franchise/ResidentEvil the series]] like ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil4 4]]'', ''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvil5 5]]'', [[spoiler:''[[VideoGame/ResidentEvilVillage Village]]'']], etc. reveal that even stronger monsters existed at the time of the original game, and even ''before'' it as revealed by ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil0''; we just lucked out that those things weren't what was trying to kill us at the time. |
| 318 | * In ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth'', since the game is a LARP, all weapons are repurposed household objects. The Sweet Katana is the only real weapon in the game and thus it serves as the game's InfinityPlusOneSword. |
| 319 | * ''VideoGame/StarWarsJediFallenOrder'': Cal Kestis can be a formidable warrior on his own, but as a Jedi he has a lot to learn. This is demonstrated by the fact that Inquisitors are considered very serious threats, [[spoiler:a fallen Jedi Master]] would have killed him were it not for outside help and [[spoiler:a Sith Lord is considered unstoppable]]. ''VideoGame/StarWarsJediSurvivor'' shows that Cal is starting to subvert this and be a master in his own right. The previous ClimaxBoss, the Ninth Sister, is the StarterVillain of the prologue and the ClimaxBoss of this game Rayvis was a notorious Jedi killer. [[spoiler:Dagan proves too much for Cal alone, but he was one of the best during the High Republic, showing that while Cal might not be at the level of Obi-Wan, Darth Vader and Yoda, he would still be a great Jedi.]] |
| 320 | * ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'': This happens whenever a space civilization invades a primitive planet. You might even be one of the weakest empires in the galaxy, bullied by everyone, but you need just a couple of gene-modded armies to occupy some primitives with muskeets or bows! |
| 321 | * A cross-game example from the ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' series: in ''[[VideoGame/NapoleonTotalWar Napoleon]]'', the civilian Merchantmen is the weakest ship in the game, with a mere 12 guns compared to the 18 borne by the Sloop, the most basic dedicated combat vessel. A downgraded version of the Merchantmen (with only ''10'' guns) appears in ''[[VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2 Shogun 2]]'' as the "Nanban Trade Ship," available only to Japanese clans that have Christianized and built top-tier port infrastructure... and since that game is set in the UsefulNotes/SengokuPeriod, where naval warfare consists of wallowing ''bune'' loaded with archers or boarding parties, those simple foreign merchant ships dominate sea battles. And the Black Ship, a rare Western trading vessel with a full 20 guns that occasionally appears on the world map, is practically TheDreadedDreadnought able to sink entire fleets by itself. |
| 322 | * ''Franchise/TouhouProject'': |
| 323 | ** Sanae Kochiya is [[DivineParentage descended from a goddess]], and her power to create miracles led her to be recognized as a DeityOfHumanOrigin in her own right in the outside world. Then she moved with her goddesses to [[FantasticNaturePreserve Gensokyo]], where deities are a dime a dozen, just about EveryoneIsASuper, and most of the locals are much more powerful than her. |
| 324 | ** Cirno boasts of being [[WorldsStrongestMan the strongest fairy]], but [[OverlyNarrowSuperlative unfortunately]] fairies are essentially CannonFodder in Gensokyo. [[TookALevelInBadass That said]], Cirno also has a habit of [[DavidVersusGoliath winning fights she has no right to]], or using her ice powers in unexpected ways, to the point that one character has warned that Cirno is getting ''too'' powerful and becoming something other than a fairy. |
| 325 | ** The Earth soldiers sent to the moon in the Apollo 11 incident were able to inflict severe losses on the technologically advanced Lunarians' army by virtue of having actual combat experience as well as the passive condition that any prolonged contact with them risked dispelling the latter's immortality. The latter point is later used again by the fairies in Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom, propelling them from being {{Red Shirt}}s from the heroines' perspective to effectively stalling the entire lunar military. |
| 326 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'': |
| 327 | ** [[spoiler:As they are beings literally composed of magic, monsters are extremely vulnerable to KillingIntent from other monsters and especially humans. Because of this, even a small human child with enough [[FunWithAcronyms EXP and LOVE]] (i.e. the willingness to inflict violence) can slaughter hordes of monsters.]] |
| 328 | ** Because of this, most weapons in the game are either usually harmless items (Toy Knife) or household items that are dangerous yet would be relatively ineffective (Burnt Pan, Worn Dagger). [[spoiler:At the end of the Genocide Run, you find the "Real Knife", which being an actual weapon, serves as the InfinityPlusOneSword due to it amplifying the protagonist's homicidal intent.]] |
| 329 | * ''VideoGame/Warhammer40000SpaceMarine'' has Chaos Space Marines (Devastator, Tactical, what have you) serving as high-level mooks with lots of health and heavy weapons. While not weak at all in the [[AllThereInTheManual Fluff]], they're a standard Troops choice for a number of factions in the tabletop wargame to the point Marine Equivalent is a unit of measure for how effective a unit is (in terms of how many Marine Equivalents it can shred before going down). Of course, your own character is also a marine... |
| 330 | * Downers in ''VideoGame/WeHappyFew'' aren't inebriated on Joy like Wellies or driven insane by it like Wastrels, effectively turning them into OneManArmy {{manipulative|Bastard}} {{Stealth Expert}}s by comparison. One character even jokingly asks if Arthur is a Downer after witnessing him figure out how to fix a machine that had an entire engineering team baffled by it. It's not that they're particularly clever or skilled, but when faced with forgetful citizens obsessed with self-delusion or rambling paranoid schizophrenics pretty much anyone could fight and sneak their way through the dystopian Wellington Wells. [[spoiler:Even minor character Prudence Holmes, whose corpse is found literally ''minutes'' away from the end of Arthur's campaign having expired in the Motilene Mines.]] |
| 331 | * ''Videogame/WeWhoAreAboutToDie:'' The GladiatorGames are mostly stuffed with down-on-their-luck, desperate schmucks just trying to survive, LeeroyJenkins extraordinaires and utterly rusty veterans. As a result, some of the most formidable foes you can face in the game are ''actual, professional soldiers'' that would be utterly unremarkable in the army and are just trying this as a side-gig with their work uniform on. Simple ''conscripts'' might kick your ass six ways from Sunday by simple dint of having some actual training and actual equipment. |
| 332 | * ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' gives us N'zoth the [[EldritchAbomination Old God]]. On the relative scale of power it's stated outright that N'zoth is the weakest of the old gods compared to the others, but he's still an insanity-causing extradimensional monster, one who makes up for his lack of strength by being ''smart''. At the end of Battle for Azeroth his manipulations result in him being set free entirely, meaning that "weakest" becomes just a matter of pedantics, as being unsealed and at his full power means he's far more lethal and dangerous than C'thun (half-dead and still recovering when players finish him) and Yogg-Saron (still bound in his prison, if only just, and fought with the aid of four demigods who were made specifically to seal and - if necessary - destroy him). It's considered nothing less than a miracle that the players emerge victorious, and beating him required a KillSat that was originally intended to ''sterilize a planet'' directly on top of him to destroy his physical form. |
| 333 | * ''VideoGame/XenobladeChroniclesX'' has the Ganglion. They were one of the two factions that destroyed Earth and continue to aggressively hound human refugees on Mira. Fighting them off is a struggle and they're easily winning a war of attrition for most of the game. It's later revealed that the Ganglion are actually a criminal syndicate -- and not even a major one, they're the space equivalent of thugs the real players use as hired muscle. That's just what happens when a HigherTechSpecies decide to pick on a race still figuring out spaceflight. |
| 334 | [[/folder]] |
| 335 | |
| 336 | [[folder:Web Animation]] |
| 337 | * ''WebAnimation/DeathBattle'': |
| 338 | ** "[[Franchise/DragonBall Hercule Satan]] [[Recap/DeathBattleS02E28HerculeSatanVsDanHibiki vs.]] [[Franchise/StreetFighter Dan Hibiki]]": [[spoiler:This is the reason Hercule wins. They're both a joke compared to everyone around them in their home franchises, but "everyone around them" is a vastly different spectrum for Hercule than it is for Dan. Dan is a bad martial artist; Hercule a ''good'' martial artist in a world with guys who can casually blow up planets]]. |
| 339 | ** "WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse [[Recap/DeathBattleS08E07StevenUniverseVsStarButterfly vs.]] [[WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil Star Butterfly]]": [[spoiler:While Steven is the single strongest being in his home series, Star proves ''that'' much more powerful than him that he couldn't win. [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture At full power]], he struggles to adjust to a peaceful world where there's nothing left for him to fight and ultimately ''becomes'' his own show's FinalBoss. This puts Steven at a disadvantage against Star, who has always had something to fight until the final credits of her own show]]. |
| 340 | ** "[[ComicBook/{{Invincible}} Omni-Man]] [[Recap/DeathBattleS09E05OmniManVSHomelander vs.]] [[ComicBook/TheBoys Homelander]]" manages to show exactly how ''outclassed'' [[spoiler:Homelander really is against Omni-Man as a result of this trope. Homelander is from a setting [[LikeRealityUnlessNoted that is somewhat like the real world]]; aside from the occasional Supe, Homelander only had to fight against [[{{Muggles}} powerless humans]] armed with just guns and explosives, and as such [[UnskilledButStrong he didn't have any real reason to train or better himself]]. Omni-Man however, comes from a more [[StandardSuperheroSetting classical superhero setting]] [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture that has slightly-higher tech available]] and is filled with plenty of {{Mad Scientist}}s, {{Alien Inva|sion}}ders, {{Kaiju}}, and [[EldritchAbomination Ancient Horrors]] in it for the superheroes of his setting to fight against; along with the fact that Omni-Man himself is a [[HadToBeSharp Vil]][[ProudWarriorRaceGuy trum]][[TheSocialDarwinist ite]]: A member of a galaxy-spanning empire that is [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld well over a thousand years old]], [[TaughtByExperience and saw plenty of fights that had really tested his mettle]]: enough that Omni-Man saw no other choice [[StrongAndSkilled but to hone his skills to stay on top and survive]]]]. |
| 341 | ** "[[WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty Rick Sanchez]] [[Recap/DeathBattleS10E14RickSanchezVSTheDoctor vs.]] [[Series/DoctorWho The Doctor]]" notes that [[spoiler:Rick rarely has to actually compete with someone his intellectual equal or superior, due to the Council of Ricks' Central Finite Curve preventing Rick from going to a universe where he's ''not'' the smartest person, and tends to fare poorly when he ''does''. This puts Rick at a disadvantage against the Doctor, who is not only smarter but has several millennia of experience over him and the tools needed to counter his tech]]. |
| 342 | ** "ComicBook/{{Galactus}} [[Recap/DeathBattleS10E16GalactusVSUnicron vs.]] [[Franchise/{{Transformers}} Unicron]]": [[spoiler: This trope is one of the decisive factors in Galactus' victory. In the Marvel multiverse, Galactus has serious competition and has fought several {{Reality Warper}}s capable of as much destruction as he is. Unicron, on the other hand, is ''the'' biggest threat in his home multiverse and has very little in the way of competition. Furthermore, Galactus has technically ''never'' been defeated; his "losses" are mostly the heroes tricking him or pushing him back to where he willingly leaves them alone. Unicron, on the other hand, has been defeated on numerous occasions due to both trickery and the Transformers using ThePowerOfFriendship, which Wiz states is Unicron's anathema. Adding to this is the fact the Transformers multiverse itself simply can't compare to the sheer scale of the Marvel multiverse, which contains an infinite number of infinite multiverses.]] |
| 343 | * ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'': |
| 344 | ** Agent Washington is a complete badass compared to the regular Blood Gulch crew. However, among the Freelancers, he was only the sixth best, and the leadership board therefore considered him the "weakest" member of their group. This is primarily because each of the top five had exceptional specialist abilities they were known for, while Washington didn't. Instead, he was [[JackOfAllTrades a solid all-rounder and generalist]], able to play back-up to anyone, but unlikely to ever lead. In fact, his first taste of leadership comes when he joins the Blues as their leader, and has to learn as he goes how to do it. |
| 345 | ** Freelancers and similar elite fighters may be a OneManArmy against regular soldiers, especially the regular soldiers seen throughout the series who are heavily implied to be mostly rear echelon troops, but WordOfGod states that they would be utterly curb-stomped by an actual [=SPARTAN=]. |
| 346 | * ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': |
| 347 | ** With intensive training, people can use [[KiManipulation Aura]], [[OnePersonOnePower Semblances]] and [[GreenRocks Dust]] to produce powerful, [[MagicAIsMagicA magic-like effects]]. However, certain characters have the ability to circumvent these rules and wield true magic. Despite that, this is but a fraction of their powers' origin. [[spoiler:The Four Maidens wield [[WrongContextMagic true magic]], making them much more powerful compared to modern humans. And before the time of the Four Maidens: ''all'' of Humanity could wield true magic until stripped of it by the gods and subsequently wiped out. Tasked with redeeming Humanity, [[BigGood Ozma]] was reincarnated and retained his magic, and was easily mistaken for a god by modern humans. He sacrificed much of his power to create the Four Maidens, de-powering himself in the process. Each Maiden is therefore only wielding a fraction of his original might. The BigBad, Salem, is another survivor of original humanity, and she still has access to all her magic powers. Her CompleteImmortality aside, she's suggested to have been only of average ability among old Humanity, but in the current world she's essentially a PhysicalGod.]] |
| 348 | ** The Jabberwalker is the most feared denizen of the Ever After due to being the only thing able to permanently kill Afterans. However, it doesn't pose much of a threat to trained Huntsmen like RWBY, [[KnowWhenToFoldEm being far more inclined to run away from danger when it feels outmatched.]] [[spoiler: It's only after it's been killed by Neo, who turns it into an illusory army does it begin to pose a true threat [[TheUnfettered due to no longer being held back by its skittish nature.]] Additionally, Jaune manages to hold it off for years in the Ever After (and being hailed as a hero called the Rusted Knight, a fairy tale back at home), due to being a trained and qualified Huntsman from Remnant, but he is consistently considered one of the weakest combatants out of the heroes due to mostly being a support fighter.]] |
| 349 | [[/folder]] |
| 350 | |
| 351 | [[folder:Webcomics]] |
| 352 | * In ''Webcomic/BobAndGeorge'', the title characters are originally from a Superhero-esque webcomic universe, however, once they enter to the Mega Man Universe, they are considered Sue Tier (Bob even lampshades this on one occasion). Also, since time and interuniversal travel are common topics here, we've only seen one "native" (from the Mega Man Universe) big bad invasion [[spoiler: (two if you count the whole "X going rogue" incident)]] and on top of that, he was [[spoiler: the local version of a previous big bad who attacked first]]. |
| 353 | * At one point in ''Webcomic/CaptainSNES'', [[VideoGame/ChronoTrigger Crono]] is transported to a ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' airship. Where FF's battles start with a FightWoosh, CT's battles take place on the overworld, meaning he can attack them with total impunity. |
| 354 | * In ''Webcomic/DragonBallMultiverse'', this is suggested to be the case for the sole fighter of Universe 15; the unborn fighter [[PunctuationShaker I'k'l.]] He comes from Cell's original timeline... a time where all the Z-Warriors are dead, Trunks is dead, the Androids are deactivated, all the major antagonists have been killed, the Earth is now a smoldering ruin, and Cell himself time-traveled to the main timeline years ago. It's suggested that he's the strongest person in his universe not because he's insanely powerful, but because there simply isn't anyone left in his universe with any kind of significant power. |
| 355 | * In a side story of ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'' the Highland Raiders overhear several humans talking about "The Dark Knight" a drow who terrorizes local villages, kidnapping women and bringing dread with him. The Raiders immediately realize that it's a guy they refer to as "Val'Doomed" and speak of derisively since he ran off to the surface and started a harem of human women (something the drow consider akin to bestiality) and whom they beat up whenever they get the chance, since due to being on the surface he suffers from rapid aging due to mana deprivation and is pathetically easy to knock over. |
| 356 | * In ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}},'' Karkat was the weakest of the protagonists by far, neither reaching the [[PhysicalGod God Tiers]] like the human players nor possessing the super strength or psychic powers of his fellow trolls. However, in ''Literature/TheHomestuckEpilogues'' and ''Webcomic/HomestuckBeyondCanon'', the fact that he managed to win a session of Sburb as well as being one of the few trolls on Earth-C to actually grow up on [[DeathWorld Alternia]] makes him one of the planet's most seasoned fighters, [[spoiler:with his Candy self acting as the BigGood in the war against Crockercorp]]. |
| 357 | * ''Webcomic/KidRadd'': |
| 358 | ** Radd is a [[OneHitPointWonder Four Hit Point Wonder]] from an 8-bit game, but when he visits a fighter-game universe, it's noted that he gets MercyInvincibility when injured. And since the fighter-game characters rely on combo moves... |
| 359 | ** Radd's exactly four hit points actually make him incredibly resilient. He can withstand four attacks before dying, but he registers all forms of physical harm, from a punch to the face to a world-destroying explosion, as equal. In his home game, this made him a GlassCannon, but in other games he can absorb an opponent's most powerful attacks without significant injury. |
| 360 | ** His girlfriend is an NPC (at least initially) meaning that she doesn't have a health bar to be taken away from, so she is effectively invulnerable to any attacks. She takes a job with the Moderators in which she evacuates sprites from video games, and her ability enables her to avoid coming to harm if they attack her by mistake, regardless of how dangerous their attacks are meant to be. |
| 361 | ** Also, Radd has a ChargedAttack that's only limited by the word size of the system he's in. In his original 8-bit game, he is able to do a max of [[UsefulNotes/PowersOfTwoMinusOne 255 damage]], a 16-bit video game allows him to do 65,535 damage, and in the 32-bit Internet he's able to cause [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt The End of the (Digital) World as We Know It]] if he spends enough time charging; not only does charging longer increase the damage and area of effect of his attack, but at a certain level, it destroys code. [[HarsherInHindsight Mercifully, 64-bit systems weren't yet widespread when the comic had its run...]] |
| 362 | * In the ''Webcomic/LoveAndCapes'' webcomic, Amazonia is this. She's one of 12 sisters in a dimension where everybody has powers like hers, and she likes the fact that on Earth, she's something special. |
| 363 | * [[http://magellanverse.com/?p=669 Discussed]] in ''Webcomic/{{Magellan}}'' during a support group for extra-terrestrial and extra-dimensional students. |
| 364 | * ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'': |
| 365 | ** In "Kesandru's Well", the main characters all get transported into a hellish alternative dimension called the Never. While they don't exactly have fun there, they discover that being material in a place where spirits are as good as material makes them stronger than the inhabitants because they're sort of double real or something. Torg thinks for a moment that he's developed superpowers (and dons a cape) when easily fighting the god-hounds. Unfortunately, there are also some inhabitants that are powerful way beyond the advantage given by materiality. |
| 366 | ** One story features [[ThoseTwoGuys Blinky and Clyde]] transported to fantasy stereotype alternative dimension. They are a pair of bumbling idiots in their own world, two faceless expendable footsoldiers for Hereti-Corp. But in this world...well, they're still a pair of bumbling idiots, but they're a pair of bumbling idiots with a fully-armed War Mech in a world where Dakka does not exist. |
| 367 | * {{Creator/Tailsteak}} [[http://tailsteak.com/archive.php?num=370 illustrates]] the well-known example of Superman. |
| 368 | * ''Webcomic/ThreePanelSoul'' points out this trope (and its use in the SuperHero genre) in the comic [[http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comic/on-remote-tasting "On Remote Tasting,"]] going one step farther and suggesting that humanity ''sense of smell'' could be considered a superpower in a society of aliens that lacked it. |
| 369 | * ''Webcomic/UnOrdinary'': When researching Waldo Isen and Remi note that while in any other district his rampage wouldn't last a week, in a low-tier area like Brandish, he's essentially undefeatable. |
| 370 | [[/folder]] |
| 371 | |
| 372 | [[folder:Web Original]] |
| 373 | * ''WebOriginal/TheDeathOfBasketball'' focuses on a basketball game being forced to simulate a few decades of its drafts being flooded with "doomsday players"--players with bottom-ranked stats in every conceivable skill, meaning they're short, weak, clumsy, stupid, half-blind, and barely know the rules. As a result, after about twenty years, the best players remaining active are coming up on forty and would be considered aging liabilities on any modern NBA team. Next to the doomsday players, though, they might as well be superhuman. |
| 374 | -->''[recapping the in-game 2032--33 season] "Anthony Davis is in pursuit of his third ring. He is 40 years old, and his overall rating of 72 is a far cry from the 95 rating he enjoyed a decade ago. He remains a god among men."'' |
| 375 | * ''[[Website/TheHardTimes Hard Drive]]'' has a satirical article about the tragic fate of [[https://hard-drive.net/heartbreaking-man-too-good-at-fighting-game-to-enjoy-playing-against-friends-but-not-good-enough-to-play-competitively/ a fighting game enthusiast who can't hack it against other competitive players,]] and never gets beyond preliminaries in the fighting game tournaments--but he's still far better than any of his normal friends, to the point that he can't enjoy playing against them casually, either. |
| 376 | [[/folder]] |
| 377 | |
| 378 | [[folder:Western Animation]] |
| 379 | * ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'': Steve is a nerd who's constantly bullied by every JerkJock at his school, alongside his friends, but within their group, he's generally shown as the leader and the one person who has anything resembling social skills and charisma. When a plan to cheer up Snot after Hayley firmly rejects him leads to him seemingly losing his virginity (actually faked by Roger under one of his personas, "Jenny Fromdablock"), he's elevated to the new leader of the group, and Steve quickly sabotages him. Roger accuses Steve of this trope, claiming that he did it just because he likes being the "king of the nerds". |
| 380 | * ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' has Megatron, the BigBad himself. On Cybertron, he was just a renegade with delusions of grandeur, but on prehistoric Earth, he's the biggest threat to Optimus Primal and his Maximal crew, thanks to getting his hands on the Golden Disk. |
| 381 | |
| 382 | * ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead'' has Smart Beavis and Smart Butt-Head, two alternate universe counterparts to the duo who first made their appearance in ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHeadDoTheUniverse''. In B&B's world, they're intelligent on a cosmic scale compared to most people and come from an advanced civilization that far surpasses the normal Earth. But by the standards of their own world, they're still pretty incompetent and not too smart, as evidenced by how they can't properly pilot their ship and get easily fooled by scammers into buying "beachfront property" on the moon. By the time of "Abduction", it's fully shown that the two are so incompetent in their own world that their Supreme Leaders want to put them to death for their stupidity, and even when they're trying to get their sentence commuted by experimenting on Tom Anderson, they still end up bungling things up, with Smart Butt-Head shooting Smart Beavis on accident, both of them needing the less advanced Anderson to fix their machine, both of them accidentally wiping their own memories instead of Anderson's, and Smart Beavis getting trapped in the anal probing device, which allows Anderson to simply walk away. |
| 383 | * ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'': Blukic and Driba are [[TheGreys Galvans]], which makes them technologically savvy enough to get by as {{Bungling Inventor}}s on Earth, but by standards of their own planet they're complete idiots. |
| 384 | * ''WesternAnimation/BigMouth'': Jessi is portrayed as one of the top students at Bridgeton Middle School (the actual top spot goes to Missy), but when her mother relocates the two of them to New York City itself, she's transferred to Darlington Pierce, an all-girls private school that turns out to be light years ahead of Bridgeton, to the point that Jessi can't even answer any of the questions. This is one of several factors that ends up plunging her into a depression. |
| 385 | * In his episode of ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'', Robot Randy is an outcast among his peers due to his relative weakness, lack of interest in conquering worlds and fixation on carving wooden reindeer. That said, when he arrives in Nowhere with intent to conquer, he is still a sapient HumongousMecha with laser weaponry. |
| 386 | * Played with in ''WesternAnimation/DarkwingDuck'' in the episode "Planet of the Capes." Darkwing Duck is taken to a world where he must use the standard-issue Earthling super-power of... not having super-powers. [[EveryoneIsASuper The entire planet is populated by superheroes]], and their society will fall apart without a powerless "normal guy" they can save. |
| 387 | * At the end of the second season of ''WesternAnimation/TheDragonPrince'', a red dragon attacks a city in human territory. Several soldiers armed with balists can hardly cause her any harm. Even Claudia's dark magic only weakened her. The third season shows that this dragon is a joke against Sol Regem and Azimondias. She was almost unstoppable in the human kingdoms, but in Xadia she is way below the other dragons. |
| 388 | * ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': |
| 389 | ** In "Dr. C and the Women", Meg (who is HollywoodHomely at the least but treated like an abomination at worst in their world) gets a job at the TSA where most of the people are very fat (with no necks or wrists) and she is regarded as the hottest girl working there. |
| 390 | --->'''Male TSA Employee #1''': Wow look at the new girl, she's so hot!\ |
| 391 | '''Male TSA Employee #2''': Yeah her breasts and her stomach are different parts of her body!\ |
| 392 | '''[[ClingyJealousGirl Female TSA Employee]]''': I think she looks weird. How come she's not shaped like a potato? That's part of the interview and everything. |
| 393 | ** [[Characters/FamilyGuyBrianGriffin Brian Griffin]] is smarter and more cultured than the rest of the Griffin family (except Stewie) and Peter's circle of friends, who are all crass idiots. However, he is shown to be thoroughly mediocre and lacking in talent when it comes to actual intellectual undertakings; any time he encounters a genuinely smart person or attempts to pursue writing at a professional level, he is humiliated. |
| 394 | * ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': |
| 395 | ** The episode "The Duh Vinci Code" reveals that [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy Leonardo Da Vinci was actually an alien]]. Amongst [[ProudScholarRace his own race]] he was considered to be a dunce, but amongst humans he was one of the most intelligent people ever to live. |
| 396 | ** The episode "Why Must I Be A Crustacean In Love?" focuses on [[Characters/FuturamaPhilipJFry Philip J. Fry]] trying to mentor Zoidberg to woo his old flame Edna. Fry is a very long way from TheCasanova, and nobody bar Zoidberg is expecting this to work. As it turns out, though, the Decapodians are a race with no real concept of romance (their mating ritual is based on who can do a silly-looking display the best), and so Fry's advice like "tell her she looks thin" and "pretend to listen when she talks about her day" is enough to make Edna go mad with love. |
| 397 | *** "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" has something similar with Fry, where he's revealed to be the only one immune to the Brainspawn's intellect-draining (it's a unique genetic abnormality caused by the fact that Fry [[MyOwnGrampa became his own grandfather]] during a time travel adventure in the 1940's). Fry is quite dim, but compared to the drooling simpletons of the rest of humanity, he's the only one who can save the world. |
| 398 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheGalaxyTrio'': In "Cavemen of Primevia", a gang of criminals from Vapor Man's home planet conquer a planet and boast that their powers make them seem godlike to the natives. Vapor Man scornfully notes that they are about average in power for a member of his race and defeats them with ease. |
| 399 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' episode "Scary-oke," Soos is turned into a zombie, but it turns out that since he was already a {{Cloudcuckoolander}} he actually maintains his intelligence and [[TranshumanTreachery merely changes loyalties]]. This presents a problem when he uses his handyman skills to dismantle the Pines twins' barricades, even boasting that compared to the other zombies he's a genius. |
| 400 | --> '''Zombie Soos''': By the way, I taught the zombies how to get into the fuse box. Among these guys I'm like a genius, heh! |
| 401 | * ''WesternAnimation/HazbinHotel'': The Overlords are Sinners who control the Pride Ring of Hell through industries like the media and weapons dealing. While powerful in their own respective rights to varying degrees, they are vastly outclassed by the Royal Family, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Goetic Demons, and ([[spoiler:before finding a way to actually kill them]]) the Exorcists. Special mention goes to Alastor, who is one of the strongest Overlords in the setting and often peacocks that fact to everyone around him, but ends up only being able to last a few minutes at most against the Exorcists' commander Adam [[KnowWhenToFoldEm before he's overwhelmed and wounded enough to pull a tactical retreat lest he be killed]]. |
| 402 | * ''WesternAnimation/InsideJob2021'': Brett is TheGenericGuy among his super genius, alien and mutated peers in Cognito. That still means he is fairly smart and often [[OnlySaneMan the most mentally adjusted in the group]]. Also, {{played for laughs}} in ''Buzzkill'', where when fighting the rogues on the moon Brett is a {{heavyworlder}} in comparison and sends them flying easily. |
| 403 | * ''WesternAnimation/Invincible2021'': |
| 404 | ** The titular Invincible is among the most powerful beings on the planet, able to have a game of catch with his dad throwing the ball across the planet. Unfortunately by the standards of Viltrumites he is an untrained teenager and far below his father. Brutally showcased when he fights Omni-Man when he realizes his true mission on Earth. Mark is hit hard enough to cause natural disasters and at one point forced into the way of an incoming train. He is as powerless to escape his father's grasp as the bystanders are to get bloodily gibbed by his inhuman durability. |
| 405 | ** Season 2 shows that many Viltrumites don't advance their skills and strengths past what they naturally have after they purged themselves of half their population. Invincible is nearly able to win a fight with one and Omni-Man is nearly able to kill three even after Invincible's slipups result in him taking a few hits covering for him. Considering that nothing other than another Viltrumite is able to hold their own against them they don't see the need to improve any further. |
| 406 | * In ''WesternAnimation/MegaManRubySpears'', there was an episode where [[ContinuityCameo Mega Man X]] chases Vile and Spark Mandrill back in time. Though being relatively equal in strength to each other, just as Mega Man is to his own adversaries, all three are from the future and thus vastly more powerful than anyone in the present; Mega Man's shots simply bounce off their armor, and X makes giant explosions with each shot. |
| 407 | * ''WesternAnimation/Primal2019'': Spear is a powerful and experienced caveman whereas Fang is a small but capable Tyrannosaur. They live in a savage world of kill or be killed and, as powerful as they are, they're frequently shown to still be overpowered by stronger foes, usually winning due to quick thinking on Spear's part. Season 2 sees a massive change when [[spoiler:they leave their home and arrive in the outside world, which is set during the age of Vikings. The two are shown to be far more dangerous and capable against their foes as, despite their own training and experience, the Vikings lack Spear's greater strength and Fang's greater size and endurance]]. |
| 408 | * In the ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'' episode "[[Recap/RickAndMortyS1E10CloseRickCountersOfTheRickKind Close Rick-Counters Of The Rick Kind]]", we're introduced to the Council Of Ricks, an organization consisting exclusively of alternate reality versions of Rick and their respective Morties. We're also introduced to "Doofus Rick" (actual title: Rick [=J19Z7=]), a version of Rick that's constantly mocked and bullied by the rest of the Ricks for being relatively dumber than them (and because, allegedly, he comes from a reality where people literally ''[[{{Squick}} eat their own shit]]''), and it's implied he's THE dumbest Rick in the whole Council. However, [[GeniusDitz this being Rick]] we're talking about, he is still a genius scientist with intelligence far above that of the human average. This is best shown when he shows Jerry, a character whose intelligence is average at the very best, how to make instant, oven-less brownies. |
| 409 | ** However, it turns out the Ricks are kinda wrong, as shown [[ComicBook/RickAndMortyOni in the comics]]. [=J19Z7=] Rick does not come from a "doofus" universe, but some sort of opposite universe, hence why "Doofus Rick" is the only nice and non self-loathing Rick. Compare this with [=J19Z7=] ''Jerry''. This being the mirror verse, this Jerry is a ruthless, ambitious, intelligent and powerful man who is the richest of the world, practically controlling it, and upon discovering the multiverse, proceeds to beat Ricky and Morty multiple times and ''takes over'' the Council of Ricks with the intent of multiversal conquest. As a Rick puts it, in that verse, Rick was the prey and the predator is Jerry. |
| 410 | ** The season 5 finale "[[Recap/RickAndMortyS5E10RickamuraiJack Rickmurai Jack]]" reveals that ''all'' Ricks are ultimately this. In an infinite multiverse of infinite variations, isn't it strange that every single one of those universes has a Rick who is the smartest person in that universe? [[spoiler:The Citadel has artificially walled off a small segment of the multiverse known as the Central Finite Curve. The only thing these universes have in common is that Rick is the smartest guy in each of them, meaning that nothing (save another Rick) can challenge the Citadel's power and authority. For all we know, there are just as infinite universes where ''Jerry'' discovered multiversal travel, but the Citadel members don't want to face the fact that they are not all that special in the grand scheme of things, or face the reality that there are external universes where Rick can be as smart as expected, but still lose out to someone else. Ironically, the entire purpose of the Central Finite Curve is soundly defeated by the emergence of Evil Morty, who outsmarts virtually every Rick in the curve, the only exceptions being "our" Rick and Rick Prime]]. |
| 411 | * According to ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'', E.T. is actually a "retard" when compared to his people (who intentionally dumped him on Earth to get rid of him); he has a stunted body, can't speak properly (the others use proper English) and "only has one glowing finger". |
| 412 | * This seems to be the case for "Da Samurai" from the fourth season of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''. While TheReveal at the end of the episode is that he's actually a scrawny guy with a beer gut wearing a muscle suit to look stronger than he is, he ''is'' still strong enough to take out a pair of robots with relative ease. His problem is that he's completely full of himself; since he's the strongest person in the area he lives in, he let his ego soar to the point he believed he's the strongest in the world. His first inkling that this isn't the case is when he challenges Jack, who is so much stronger that, even simply using a bamboo stick in their duel, he still completely outclasses Da Samurai in, effectively, just [[CurbStompBattle two moves]]. |
| 413 | * ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': |
| 414 | ** [[Characters/TheSimpsonsLisaSimpson Lisa Simpson]] is a smart kid, certainly, but she's only brilliant by comparison with Springfield's stupid children and [[SuckySchool horrible school system]]. When she gets the opportunity to study at Waverly Hills, an elementary school with actual ''standards and quality'', Lisa is traumatized to learn that she's really only a B student, as opposed to the straight A's she got at Springfield Elementary. In another episode, she gets to skip to the third grade early but finds it difficult. Further demoralizing her was Bart getting demoted ''back'' to the third grade alongside her as a punishment and proceeding to effortlessly score top marks in everything since he could memorize the answers the teachers were too lazy to change. Lisa eventually decides she prefers being the smartest student in a class that's too easy over being an average student in a class that's at her level. |
| 415 | --->'''Principal Skinner:''' Lisa, you have a choice: you may continue to be challenged in third grade or return to second grade and be merely a big fish in a small pond.\ |
| 416 | '''Lisa:''' [[StatusQuoIsGod Big fish! Big fish!]] |
| 417 | ** {{Invoked|Trope}} and PlayedForLaughs in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS16E21TheFatherTheSonAndTheHolyGuestStar The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star]]": [[Characters/TheSimpsonsBartSimpson Bart Simpson]] is expelled from school. While seeking for another one, Marge proposes the Oakwood Academy. Bart protests that it's a school for blind people, and his mother replies that he would start advantaged. |
| 418 | * The original premise of ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels'' was that it was following a single rebel cell on the backwater planet Lothal, to show a microcosm of how the rebellion against the Empire is playing out at the local level. Season 1 takes place about five years before ''A New Hope'', so there is no formal "Rebel Alliance" yet. The group we follow is really just four or five people on one ship... one of whom was a former Jedi Padawan who managed to escape Order 66 by luck. Given that this is just a backwater planet, however, the local Imperial garrison doesn't really have that much to throw at them: it's considered significant when a ''light escort cruiser'' attacks them, and it's a season finale cliffhanger when an Imperial-class Star Destroyer shows up. This element of the show was gradually lost as each season advanced, though justified in that the war was escalating: by the final season they were having full scale fleet battles. |
| 419 | * ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': |
| 420 | ** On Earth, [[Characters/StevenUniverseCrystalGems The Crystal Gems]] are nigh-immortal alien warriors with [[MagiTek advanced technology and magical artifacts]], all of which is completely standard for their society... at least, it ''was'' standard thousands of years ago. All their technology is now [[TechnologyMarchesOn wildly obsolete]] by the standards of modern Gems. The Crystal Gems are also on the weak side of average when it comes to physical power (as the only remaining members consist of a [[BeautifulSlaveGirl glorified servant]], a defective, runt-sized warrior, and a [[FusionDance fusion]] whose component parts are an average {{Mook|s}} and {{Seer|s}}), compared to proper warriors from the Homeworld. |
| 421 | ** [[Characters/StevenUniverseGarnet Garnet]] in particular, despite being more powerful and well-adjusted than the others, is only this precisely ''because'' she's a fusion. Compared to other two-gem fusions, such as Opal or especially Malachite, Garnet comes out as rather unimpressive and is probably one of the weakest fusions in the show. As for being more emotionally well-adjusted, that's also purely because she's the fusion of a romantic relationship; her component parts spend most of the series so co-dependent that it takes until the [[WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture sequel series]] for them to spend more than five minutes apart without becoming emotional wrecks. |
| 422 | ** The source of [[Characters/StevenUniverseRoseQuartz Rose Quartz's]] [[SuperpowerLottery extensive list of powers]] is eventually revealed to be because [[spoiler:she's actually [[Characters/StevenUniversePinkDiamond Pink Diamond]], the weakest member of the most powerful class of Gems]]. [[BigBad White Diamond]] specifically calls her (or rather, Steven) out on this as part of her HannibalLecture, deconstructing Rose/Steven's usual BeYourself moral: |
| 423 | --->''There you go again. Do you understand why you defend their flaws? I know why, [[spoiler:Pink]]. You like surrounding yourself with inferior Gems. You enable their [[DysfunctionJunction terrible behavior]] so you can be the best of the worst.'' |
| 424 | * ''WesternAnimation/StormHawks'' member Junko is a Wallop, a species known for being big and strong. However, Junko himself is actually weaker than your average Wallop, being a nerd to his peers. All told, he's still stronger than most humans, being able to take down [[TheBrute Snipe]] when sufficiently incensed. |
| 425 | * ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'': Donatello gets hit with this during the space arc in the fourth season. While on Earth, Donnie's a GadgeteerGenius and OmnidisciplinaryScientist, he soon finds himself overshadowed by Professor Honeycutt, discovering that Earth is about 3000 years behind the standard transdimensional concepts of physics and he's effectively a "galactic idiot" in comparison. |
| 426 | * ''WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated'': |
| 427 | ** A running theme around the series is that the Decepticons are the only Cybertronians built for combat and thus far more powerful than the RagtagBunchOfMisfits that the Autobots are. Single Decepticons can overpower the entire crew and Megatron's simple act of returning is enough to be a world threat that they have no easy way out of. Later on as the Autobots skills improve and getting their hands on stasis cuffs to handle them better the Decepticons become somewhat less of a threat. |
| 428 | ** This element plays out strongly during the earlier episodes for the Autobots in Detroit. Because they're sentient robots with powerful weapons and human level intellect, they manage to be more than a match for a number of the criminal and technological elements of the city, and are quickly seen as the heroes of Detroit as a result. The opinions amongst the bots vary heavily on this, with Optimus initially finding this very unfulfilling, as he doesn't particularly feel like he's actually done anything to earn the title of hero for something he can do very easily, while the very weak Bumblebee relishes the praise from being finally able to be seen as worthwhile after a lifetime of failure and disappointment. This begins to lessen somewhat, as the criminal elements like [[KnightOfCerebus Meltdown]] and Headmaster prove to be capable of giving even the stronger Autobots a run for their money. |
| 429 | ** Among the team Optimus and Prowl seem to be the most skilled and level headed, likely due to being the only ones who actually excelled at their studies in their respective groups ([[TheAce Optimus was an academy bot on the fast track to becoming Magnus]], while Prowl learned in the cyberninja dojo after being drafted for the war). While neither completed their studies due to extenuating circumstances, it still makes them the most capable in their team. |
| 430 | [[/folder]] |
| 431 | |
| 432 | [[folder:Real Life]] |
| 433 | * In a sense, UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire was this in terms of civilization after they had successfully conquered all land around the Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean Sea was a cradle of countless civilizations prior to Classical Antiquity and by extension the Middle Ages. However, when compared with the vastness of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, it simply isn't as valuable an economic hub on a global scale. So in essence, the Mediterranean sea was the Tiny Pond compared to the Atlantic and Pacific's Normal Pond. |
| 434 | * Ecologically, this trope occurs a lot with invasive species. When an organism is suddenly placed in an environment similar to its native range, but without any of the natural predators, competitors, and illnesses that normally kept it in check, it will end up ''dominating'' the new region, generally at the expense of many native organisms which have never encountered this species before and therefore have no defences against it. This is particularly common on island ecosystems, where regular animals like cats, toads, goats, or ants can become incredibly destructive. See IntroducedSpeciesCalamity for some specific examples. |
| 435 | * Small numbers of soldiers from advanced civilizations, forces that wouldn't really be considered relevant in wars against peer adversaries back home, can easily end up conquering entire states of less advanced civilizations despite numerical inferiority thanks to their superior technology and organization. A prime example is the Portuguese wars in India. At the [[https://books.google.com/books?id=kNzCDgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=warfare+and+armed+conflicts+a+statistical+encyclopedia+of+casualty&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK9qiH4cjnAhWpFjQIHVgsDrAQ6AEwAHoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=goa&f=false 1511 conquest of Goa]], for instance, a Portuguese force of 23 ships (mostly converted civilian vessels) carried a ground force of 1,500 Portuguese soldiers to assault the heavily fortified city, defended by 40,000 troops of the Bijapur Sultanate. The Portuguese took it with only 50 deaths; the Bijapur had lost over 6,000 men. |
| 436 | ** In the same year, another Portuguese force of 19 ships and 1,400 troops basically destroyed the Sultanate of Malacca (in modern Malaysia) by routing a Malaccan army of 30,000. This only cost them 28 men killed in battle. |
| 437 | ** A couple years before either of these incidents, there was [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Diu the Battle of Diu]] in 1509. A [[TheAlliance combined fleet]] of the Indian Gujarat Sultanate and the Kingdom of Calicut, supported by Egypt and Venice, gathered in an attempt to halt Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean. The Indians had 46 ships, ~120 warboats, and ~5,000 marines, and cornered a Portuguese force of 18 ships and 800 marines... only to get utterly annihilated. The Portuguese lost 32 marines dead and no ships; the Indians lost 1,700 marines dead and nearly all of their ships and crews. Each Portuguese ship had far more firepower than its Indian equivalent owing to its superior guns, they could engage well beyond the Indians' effective range, and even in boarding actions that you'd figure would be favorable to the Indians, the Portuguese dished out a [[CurbStompBattle curb-stomp]] as the Gujaratis had absolutely no answer to the plate armor, arquebuses, and hand grenades of the Portuguese marines. |
| 438 | ** The Spanish pretty much conquered the entire modern Philippines (bar the Sulu Sultanate) with a few hundred men and a handful of ships, despite also being actively harried by Portuguese and Japanese raiders. Keep in mind that A. the Filipinos had gunpowder and steel (unlike the Aztecs or Incas), and B. the Spanish army as a whole exceeded 150,000 in the 1570s, when most of the conquest happened. |
| 439 | ** The conquest of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish conquistadores led by UsefulNotes/HernanCortez is one of the most popular examples of this, but it had actually some degree of subversion: Cortés and his men were too few for the task, they were helped by thousands of native rebels who joined them against their Aztec overlords, plus a deadly smallpox outbreak in Tenochtitlan (then the capital of the empire) that weakened its defenses. Historians agree that had the conquistadores been alone, even with their guns, horses and steel, they would not have been able to conquer the entirety of the empire. |
| 440 | *** Similarly, UsefulNotes/FranciscoPizarro's expedition (less than 200 men) in the Andes resulted in the conquest of the Inca Empire also thanks to the fact that it was scarred by civil war. The conquistadores kept wary of the infighting royal brothers trying to win the support of both, in part to exploit any weaknesses resulting from their conflict, in part to avoid being overrun while in hostile lands. When Atahualpa emerged as the sole ruler, Pizarro cleverly tricked and abducted him in the city of Cajamarca, leaving his personal 30,000-man army scattered in disarray without orders near the city. The conquistadores relied on a trick because they were fully aware that in a real battle they would have been easily crushed by the hugely outnumbering Inca army, and that during their travel to the city they were completely vulnerable - they were not ambushed just because Atahualpa was confident in the numbers of his massive army. |
| 441 | ** Italy, despite being considered the ButtMonkey of the Great Powers and having to push its resources to the limit to defeat minor European states like Greece, was able to conquer [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Italo-Ethiopian_War Ethiopia]] in about six months with a relatively small force of 100,000 men (mostly askaris). The best Ethiopian formations had [=WW1-era=] artillery, machine guns, and rifles; the vast majority of them didn't even have that.[[note]]To wit, they had 234 antiquated field guns and 1,150 [=WW1-era=] machine guns for the ''whole army'', plus a few [=WW1-era=] tanks. On paper they had an army of 500,000, but by Italian estimates, 75% of those men were armed with spears, bows, or black powder weapons. So, effectively, they really only had 125,000; their stock of "modern-ish" rifles combined with the aforementioned machine guns and artillery were ''barely'' enough to equip these ~125,000 to [=WW1=] standards.[[/note]] The Italians had then-modern tanks, airplanes, artillery, and poison gas. The Italians lost under 10,000 dead compared to over 275,000 for the Ethiopians, and the country only lasted as long as it did thanks to the ramshackle state of Italian logistics preventing faster advances. |
| 442 | *** It should be noted that Ethiopia itself could be considered an example for Africa itself, as it is considered by some to be one of two African nations to avoid being colonized by Europeans, and the only one not to have been colonized at all,[[note]]Liberia was colonized by African Americans, not Europeans.[[/note]] and managing to hold off a prior invasion by Italy in the Scramble for Africa and the relatively brief period of about 6 years of Italian rule not being considered enough to be full colonization. |
| 443 | * The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Opium_War Opium War]] of 1839-1842 is another great example. 12,000 British soldiers and sepoys, supported and ferried by a force of 25 warships (mostly light sloops) and 12 other ships, themselves crewed by some 7,000 sailors and marines, took on local Qing Chinese forces numbering around 200,000. Despite none of these troops being considered great by European standards, and the force itself being tiny by those standards,[[note]][[UsefulNotes/TheNapoleonicWars The Battle of Leipzig]] alone, a little under 26 years prior, involved ''600,000'' troops. Even the British invasion of the United States during the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812, considered a sideshow at the time, had the Americans repulse a force of 48,000 troops and 105 ships.[[/note]] they won handily. While Chinese disunity and superior British planning played a big part in the [[CurbStompBattle crushing victory]] they obtained, an equally important factor was their technological advantage. To give the long and short of it: |
| 444 | ** First and foremost, only 30-40% of the Chinese troops had guns- the rest being equipped with spears, swords, halberds, and bows. This would have been fine in the ''16th century'', but was untenable in the 19th given how accurate and deadly firearms had become.[[note]]Mao, Haijian. ''The Qing Empire and the Opium War: the collapse of the Heavenly Dynasty.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Part of the Cambridge China Library. Page 29.[[/note]] |
| 445 | ** Second, the Chinese troops that '''did''' have guns had drastically inferior ones. The most common Chinese firearm was the “bing-ding” matchlock musket (and their soldiers used no types of firearms other than matchlocks in general), which fired a 12-gram ball with a maximum effective range of 100 meters (330 feet), at a rate of 1-2 rounds a minute. This already would have been considered deficient in the Europe of 300 years prior, where matchlock arquebuses and half-muskets generally fired ~40 gram balls (10-12 balls to a pound) at the same velocity (full-sized muskets fired bigger ones), and were complemented by wheellock/flintlock firearms for elites. By the mid 19th century it was an outright joke. The standard British firearm was the Brunswick rifle, a percussion cap weapon that fired a 53 gram ball with a maximum effective range of 300 meters, at a rate of 4 rounds a minute. In other words, not only were the British weapons much deadlier (several times the kinetic energy and momentum per shot), but British troops could engage the Chinese far outside of their effective range (100m v 300m) and put out two to four times as many shots to boot.[[note]]Ibid, p. 28.[[/note]] |
| 446 | ** Third, the disparity was even worse when it came to artillery. Not only did British cannons fire larger shot than Chinese cannons ''and'' have thrice the range, but they were also lighter and easier to maneuver. Any artillery duel therefore turned into a one-sided massacre.[[note]]Ibid, p. 30.[[/note]] |
| 447 | ** Fourth, to an even greater degree than their land forces, China's navy was terribly outmatched. Most of their ships were junks with only a few of the aforementioned inferior cannons each, which posed no threat to the Royal Navy. A British ''frigate'' was effectively a [[OneManArmy One Ship Navy]] by Chinese standards... and the British brought dozens of them.[[note]]At Chuenpi, for instance, the British frigate ''HMS Volage'' took on 16 Chinese warships. The ''Volage'' was undamaged bar some holes in her sails; the Chinese lost four junks and sustained serious damage to several others before sauntering off. They were so nonthreatening that the British captain, Henry Smith, allowed Admiral Guan Tianpei's flagship to escape despite easily having the ability to destroy her after she stayed back to fire on them, simply because he thought it was [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife unnecessary]] to further engage. Did we mention that the admiral's war junk had 12 cannons, each inferior to the average British piece, while the ''Volage'' had 50?[[/note]] Predictably Brits had total naval superiority nearly from day one, giving them free rein to bombard Chinese cities and forts (from beyond their effective range, of course) and transport and disembark their troops anywhere they wanted using both the coast and the river network. |
| 448 | ** Combine all of the above and you get: the British holding the initiative in every engagement allowing them to destroy the Chinese piecemeal, and being able to shred most Chinese formations in pitched battles before they could even get close enough to engage. Now remember one other thing: Qing China was probably the most ''advanced'' of the non-European powers. With that in mind it's no wonder that most of the world was subjugated by the Great Powers of Europe for hundreds of years. |
| 449 | * UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: |
| 450 | ** The entire ''Atlantic Ocean'' became this, with the most notable event being the sinking of the ''Bismarck'', an undergunned fast battleship who earned her legend by sinking the legendary but outdated battlecruiser ''Hood'' and was in turn brought down by torpedoes launched from biplanes and 14-inch shells from unreliable quadruple mount guns, while in the Pacific, American and Japanese fleets dueled with the deadliest naval bombers in history (respectively the Douglas [=SBD=] Dauntless Dive Bomber and Nakajima [=B5N=] "Kate" Torpedo Bomber), fleets of aircraft carriers backed by battleships armed with proper 16-inch triple turrets and vast fleets of supporting ships. This can be explained by the fact that the German navy of the ''Kriegsmarine'' was simply [[DavidVersusGoliath utterly outnumbered and outgunned]] by the British Royal Navy, hence their focus on harassing and destroying the merchant fleet sending supplies to the Allied European powers rather than directly engaging the British navy in a fight they couldn't win. |
| 451 | ** American dive bombers in the Pacific theater of World War II, such as the SBD Dauntless, the [=SB2C=] Helldiver or the [=TBF=] Avenger, earned their reputation for the victories scored against the Japanese. However, the Americans (and neither the British) almost never used them in Europe, bar some very limited missions against minor objectives of Vichy France or Italian garrisons. The reason is that they were much more vulnerable against Wehrmacht anti-air artillery, which was more advanced and numerous compared to Japanese ships. German aircraft were also more dangerous in that context for a variety of reason. The popular [=SBD=] Dauntless was initially converted by the army into the A-24 Banshee, but it was so slow that it was practically a sitting duck and the Allied preferred to use fast fighter-bombers such as the P-47, the Typhoon or the Mosquito for strike attacks; although less accurate, they could carry enough payload to disrupt enemy ground units and effectively defend themselves from interceptors. |
| 452 | ** Similarly, American naval fighters such as the glorious [=F4F=], [=F6F=] or [=F4U=] were less than optimal in the European theater and they saw very limited use by the British who used them in the Mediterranean and the North Sea, enjoying some success mainly in the later stages of the war against less experienced German pilots. |
| 453 | ** The P-39 Airacobra was deemed average at best in the Pacific theater against the more maneuverable [=A6M=] Zero, mediocre if not useless in the Western theater because of its lack of performance at higher altitudes (where German bombers and fighters were)... but the Soviets really loved it in the Eastern front (where it excelled at the low altitudes of local dogfights and was enough sturdy for the harsh environment, particularly compared to the majority of local aircraft which were initially obsolete). The P-39 also found a second life under the Soviets as a ground attack aircraft thanks to its heavy cannon armament and stable firing platform, and they loved it so much that when it got a replacement (the P-63 Kingcobra), nearly two thirds of all planes manufactured went to Russia. |
| 454 | ** In general, many of the numerous German aces of the Soviet front inflated their kill count thanks to the huge amount of ill-equipped, poorly-trained pilots on board of usually obsolete planes, particularly in the first stages of the invasion before the USSR started to deploy better aircraft with better pilots. This can become controversial when top aces such as Erich Hartmann, the best scoring Axis pilot with 352 kills mostly on the Eastern front, are compared to other aces such as Hans-Joachim Marseille, who was regarded as the best marksman in the Luftwaffe and an outstanding acrobat, but prematurely died in an accident in North Africa in 1942 with a much inferior record after facing better aircraft with better trained pilots. |
| 455 | *** This is also the case of many Allied aces both in [=WW1=] and [=WW2=] who got their status in the later stages of the wars, when they faced mostly inexperienced German or Japanese pilots, sometimes even improvised pilots without the necessary training. This was particularly evident during the 1944 Battle of the Philippines Sea, which was nicknamed "the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot" by American aviators for the severely disproportional loss ratio inflicted upon Japanese aircraft by American pilots and anti-aircraft gunners; by that point Japan was suffering from the lack of pilots, expert crews and up-to-date aircraft, almost all of its veteran airmen died previously and there was virtually no serious threat for the USA. |
| 456 | * This is basically the point of weight classes in combat sports like boxing, wrestling, and MMA. For example, since MusclesAreMeaningful, even a less skilled 6'0", 200-pound boxer could destroy the best 5'7", 140-pound boxers. So sanctioning bodies declare that fighters can only have matches against opponents with sizes relatively close to their own, ensuring everyone ''within'' those classes has to be StrongAndSkilled. |
| 457 | ** Professional boxing is a strange exception in that the major sanctioning bodies have no rule specifically against fighting above your weight class. Unlike amateur boxing, where a minimum weight is required to fight in a particular weight class, professional boxing only regulates the upper limit of each weight class. For instance, Roy Jones Jr. challenged for the heavyweight title while weighing less than most cruiserweights. |
| 458 | *** In addition, the heavyweight division has sometimes had fights with massive weight differences. This was especially true before the cruiserweight class was established in the 1980s; the historic lower limit for heavyweight was a mere 175 lb (80 kg). Jack Dempsey fought Jess Willard with a 25 kg weight disadvantage, with Dempsey winning by technical knockout in the third round. Joe Louis fought against Primo Carnera with a 30 kg weight disadvantage, winning by knockout. In the modern era, David Haye and an old Evander Holyfield both fought against Nikolai Valuev with a 45 kg weight disadvantage (note also that Valuev was a legitimate ''7-footer''); Haye won and Holyfield lost, both by decision. |
| 459 | * This is the experience of many high school students, especially smaller schools in rural areas, and realizing this is a substantial part of the college experience. A fairly bright student finds herself valedictorian of her small high school, just to go to college and find herself struggling to make Bs in competitive majors like engineering. Similarly, almost every communications major was previously the editor-in-chief of his high school newspaper, a star of the debate team, or the like. Almost every college football player used to be the star of his high school football team. Much the same applies in graduate degree programs, especially in professional programs such as law, medicine, or dentistry. Pretty much everyone who gets into such programs was among the brightest at their colleges, but now they're surrounded by people at least as bright, if not more so. |
| 460 | * Elephants, rhinos, hippos, bison, giraffes, bears and others are only considered big now because the numerous larger mammal species are now extinct. If these animals had survived, elephants and the others would still be big in relation to humans, but they would fall under ''small'' when compared to other mammals. And this is without comparing them to the dinosaurs, many of whom were capable of reaching utterly gargantuan proportions that land mammals simply aren't able to match thanks to differences in anatomy. Animals like elephants and rhinos are viewed as special due to their size exceeding most other animals but such sizes were fairly standard for herbivorous dinosaurs with sauropods being the largest land animals to ever exist. It's also notable with the predatory dinos. The biggest mammalian land predator in modern times is the polar bear with the largest individuals reaching around one and-a-half tons in weight, this would put them about on par with theropods like ''Utahraptor'' which would have been considered ''mid-sized'' at most. |
| 461 | * The cougar, which weighs 100 to 200 lb, is considered one of the most powerful and feared predators across the Americas in modern times, but just 10,000 years ago, it was a mere kitten compared to the much larger felines that populated the New World, which included giant jaguars twice as big as those alive today (jaguars downsized after the megafauna they preyed on disappeared), lion-sized saber-toothed cats like ''Smilodon fatalis'' and ''Homotherium serum'', and two of the largest cats (if not the largest) ever to have lived, ''Panthera atrox'' (the American lion) and the sabretooth ''Smilodon populator'', both of which could have tipped the scale at 900 lb. Comparing it to today’s Africa and South Asia, which still house a diverse number of felids, the cougar would have been on par with lightweights like the clouded leopard and serval. |
| 462 | * The largest living crocodiles such as the saltwater and Nile crocodile can reach lengths of 20 feet and weigh up to a ton, making them larger than any mammalian carnivores on land, like bears and big cats, and capable of preying on huge game like buffalo. But throughout Earth’s history, crocodylomorphs reached far greater sizes, up to 30-40 feet. Examples include ''Deinosuchus'' and ''Sarcosuchus'' from the Cretaceous but also far more recent ones, like the giant caiman ''Purrusaurus'', which lived during the Late Miocene. The former would have been capable of hunting dinosaurs, while the latter feasted on car-sized freshwater turtles and 2.5-foot piranhas. If such animals were alive today, they would have no issue attacking adult elephants (the largest land mammals), which no living croc can do. |
| 463 | * Michael "Film/EddieTheEagle" Edwards became the British Olympic competitor for ski jumping in 1988 despite having no competitive training and only starting ski jumping two years prior. How? At the time, countries were guaranteed spots in each Olympic event, and he realized there were no competitive British ski jumpers. So he was the ''only'' fish in the British competitive ski jumping pond, making him possibly the ultimate example of this trope. He of course placed last in the actual Olympic competition, but managed to get some celebrity out of the whole thing. |
| 464 | ** The IOC (Olympic organising body) then instituted a series of [[ObviousRulePatch rule changes]] regarding Olympic qualifications. Nowadays countries are not guaranteed spots in the Olympic events, but must earn them through athletic success in other international competitions. Additionally, all athletes must be [[https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/General/EN-Olympic-Charter.pdf#page=80 "adequately prepared for high level international competition"]] as evaluated by the IOC, which reserves the right to reject any entrant at will. So it is unlikely we will ever see another of Eddie's ilk. |
| 465 | * ''Compsognathus'' was likely an almost literal example. It was a very small dinosaur, only weighing about eight pounds at most. However, since no other dinosaur remains have been found in association with it, these little dinosaurs may very well have been the top land predators of the islands they called home. |
| 466 | [[/folder]] |
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