[[SamAndFuzzy http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/motivator867335ey4.jpg]]

->''"Anyway, fighting off a dozen ninjas is easy. It's when you run into one ninja that you know you're in trouble."''
-->-- '''Diana Peacock''', ''[[http://www.starharbornights.com/index.php Star Harbor Nights]]''

->''"Wow! Do we really suck, or is this guy really THAT DAMN GOOD!?"''
-->-- '''Hertz''', ''ShootEmUp'', right after Smith outperforms his entire army of {{mooks}}.

There's strength in numbers, right? WRONG! It's the ''opposite'' in fiction, i.e. superior numbers ''weaken'' an army immensely, since it makes the other side even more the ''underdog.''

''In any martial arts fight, there is only a finite amount of'' '''''ninjutsu''''' ''available to each side in a given encounter. As a result, one {{Ninja}} is a deadly threat, but an army of them are [[{{Mooks}} cannon fodder]].''

This is also known as [[http://www.netjak.com/review.php/1199 The Law of Inverse Ninja Strength]]: ''Threat = 1/N,'' where N = number of Ninjas or other "Elite Adversaries".

The reason for this is simple: Twenty-plus Ninjas are ultimately {{Mooks}} and, narratively speaking, will be treated as such. A single Ninja is probably a main character or {{The Dragon}}, and as such is more important to the story and [[RuleOfEmpathy more likely to be someone the audience identifies with]].

Put another way, there's no [[EmotionalTorque Dramatic Tension]] in seeing a lot of guys beat up one hero or a small group of heroes; if there are many antagonists, then they have to be weak. But a "fair" fight against equal numbers of opponents can seriously test the characters. It's the same reason boxing matches are one-on-one; saying you punched out Mike Tyson wouldn't be impressive if you were one of eight boxers beating on him.

Likewise, there's also anonymity in numbers-- particularly if they're wearing masks and/or identical uniforms; and so the audience will consider them expendible, against all logic In contrast, the audience ''knows'' the hero, and can identify and sympathize-- and wants the hero(es) to ''win.'' Therefore, enemies will be handwaved ''regardless'' of number.

This can apply to EliteMooks other than ninjas. Vampires, for example, are particularly susceptible to ConservationOfNinjutsu, as are werewolves, alien monsters, [[RedshirtArmy Special Forces commandos]], and SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids.

The effects of this trope are more severe on [[CosmopolitanCouncil less individualized groups]] of ninjas; three of essentially the same guy has an adjusted ''ninjutsu'' of about 4:1.

Extra points if, when presented with their multiple adversaries, one character [[LampshadeHanging notes]] that, "We barely were able to handle one, how on earth are we going to handle this many?" right before successfully doing just that.

After ninjas, zombies seem most susceptible to this effect. Invariably, at the beginning of a ZombieApocalypse, when the living still overwhelmingly outnumber the dead, zombiism spreads like wildfire; it is usually depicted as taking only ''days'' for 99% of the population to be killed or converted. But after the first wave, zombies become markedly less dangerous. Stories try to play this down or [[DefiedTrope contradict it]], but the fact remains: in the first scene, a small number of zombies will wipe out most of humanity. Once the dust has settled, the half-dozen human survivors around whom the story focuses will each personally kill dozens, sometimes hundreds, of zombies, and be picked off only one-by-one. In this case, given the comparative weakness of individual zombies, it may be that ''normal humans'' are benefiting from conservation of Ninja.

AKA. Inverse Ninja Law. See also StrongAsTheyNeedToBe, TheWorfEffect. Compare ConservationOfCompetence and WhatMeasureIsANonUnique. A reason the ZergRush fails. See also DistributionOfNinjutsu.

----
!!Examples
NOTE:

Many of these examples seem to confuse this issue, citing "elite forces" which, while fewer in number, are capable of winning by being simply ''better'' than the average 1000-mook division. That's ''not'' what this trope is about-- i.e. NUMBERS = SUCK. In this trope, ''nothing'' changes except the numbers;, increased numbers simply cause an enemy to ''become'' mooks, because it ratchets up the tenstion... and the increased danger ''lowers'' the suspension of disbelief. PERIOD.

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* ''{{Naruto}}'' takes it to new heights. Not only do minions and other extras actively exhibit the trope, but the titular character himself possesses the ability to make a good 1000+ clones of himself. To that point, if he creates 1-5, they're usually the key to his victory, but almost any time he goes over 10 or so (which turns out to be his most common [[IdiotHero strategy]]), they turn into cannon fodder, as their main weakness is that they usually go poof with just one hit.
** The "Uzumaki Barrage" attack seems to avoid this trope since it relies more on the simple physical weight of the clones rather than their martial arts skill. It still fails more often than not, though.
*** Also because [[ThemeSongReveal the theme song was playing at the time]] so it was to be expected that he was about to kick a lot of ass.
** Post-TimeSkip, after his CharacterDevelopment frees him from being an IdiotHero, this blind multi-clone rush becomes a viable strategy, as [[spoiler: Naruto realizes that he learns everything his clones learn. So, he charges an enemy with five or so clones, learns their strategies, and formulates his own plan.]]
** Ironically, the Shadow Clone jutsu itself seems to be a skill possessed by only a few, extremely badass ninja (everyone else uses non-physical clones or element based clones). Thus, the most effective way to personally apply the Law of Ninjitsu Conservation is itself conserved.
** The show makes note of this trope: The standard squad is made up of four ninja. Kakashi says that any more an the team starts getting slow, clunky, and disorganized. A bigger team is worse at completing missions than a smaller one. Plus, any ninja that stands alone is pretty much {{Bad Ass}} enough to beat an entire squad.
** Sasuke seems to be GenreSavvy to this: after his FaceHeelTurn he almost always fights alone and thus would die if he failed. However, PlotArmor prevents his death, and thus he almost always wins, contrast before when he was starting to fall to TheWorfEffect.
** Naruto's clones being weaker is {{justified}} to some extent because he has to split his chakra among his different bodies, making them all weaker than he is alone. Additionally, it's harder to coordinate a plan of attack with hundreds of clones, since when he has a few clones, each has a unique purpose, but when there are hundreds, he typically either surrounds the enemy and attacks one or a few at a time, or just charges in, which makes having 100 clones not result in a hundred-fold increase in effectiveness. Additionally, some opponents (especially those who have seen him using Shadow Clones before, like Sasuke), know how to fight them effectively, or can use techniques to cover a wide area and strike many clones at once.
*** Additionally, Naruto seems to have grown out of this. He hasn't used the mass clone technique for combat since the timeskip.
** Recently in the second Shippuden movie, this Trope was slightly inverted where the large Konoha Ninja Forces were almost completely decimated by Enemy Sky Ninja, yet it only takes 4 Konoha Ninja to later in the film ''completely destroy the entire enemy fleet''.
*** The sky ninja had the element of surprise and unusual tactics (they were thought to be wiped out a generation ago, very few knew of their fighting style). However, resident genius Shikamaru quickly deconstructed their strategy and attacked every weakness and won with only 4 ninjas. He's just that awesome.
** Akatsuki has apparently gotten wise to this; in a nice show of Genre Savy, they only work in two man teams.To give you an idea of how effective this is, each team is usually on equal standing with an ENTIRE VILLAGE.
* ''NinjaScroll'': Jubei eliminates ninja after ninja flunky with prototypical displays of gushing HighPressureBlood. Only the Eight Devils of Kimon can give him a challenge; all others die with pathetic ease.
** The same goes for ''{{Basilisk}}''.
* Played with in ''NininGaShinobuden'', where Shinobu's fellow ninjas are faceless mooks who can't do anything right. Miyabi can defeat the whole clan easily, and she's [[{{Lolicon}} like twelve]].
** That may have at least as much to do with the fact that, in spite of being "trained" by NorioWakamoto, they never actually do anything but look at or talk about porn, and are completely [[CurbStompBattle curb stomped]] by ''other'' nameless ninja mooks when they visit the kunoichi camp.
* Anyone in ''{{Dragonball}}'' who possessed the ability to duplicate themselves usually followed a similar rule.
** The creator of the Division technique actually gets criticized by his rival for creating a move with such a debilitating flaw.
* {{Hellsing}} does use this. The Hellsing Organisation's operatives mop the floor with masses of enemy ghouls but find more trouble in dealing with lone strong vampires. However, there is also a lot of subversion. Seras assisted Alucard against the lone Tubalcain Alhambra and helped her side win instead of making the odds worse, as the Inverse Ninja Law would have. Similarly, when Alexander makes his one-man charge towards Alucard and a newly-summoned army of familiars in a later part of the story, he finds that the numbers actually are to Alucard's advantage and it takes reinforcements to save him.
* Played straight before being subverted in ''ZoneOfTheEnders: Idolo''. The titular [[HumongousMecha Orbital Frame]] is highly effective against small groups of [=LEV=]s, but is eventually taken down by concentrated fire from an overwhelming number of the same.
* ''{{Bleach}}'' employs this trope constantly, but perhaps the most glaring example occurs in the Soul Society arc. Ichigo, after barely surviving a duel with Squad 6 lieutenant Renji Abarai, defeats ''three'' other lieutenants in a matter of seconds ''without using his sword'' just a few episodes later (granted, he has just been through some intense [[TrainingFromHell training]] and one of the lieutenants is from the medical 4th Squad). Subverted by [[spoiler:Aizen]], who is pretty much untouchable regardless of how few or many people he's up against.
** Somewhat justified in that case, however, as Renji is portrayed as far stronger than an average lieutenant, to the point of having a Bankai.
*** Renji achieves Bankai after his duel with Ichigo.
**** Thing is, though, he was still strong enough to be ready to achieve Bankai just after recovering from his fight with Ichigo, which puts him at pretty much the top of the Lieutenants.
** It was in fact 23 episodes later, which hardly qualifies as "just a few".
*** [[LongRunner It does in Bleach.]]
** Also, in a particularly boring episode, Ichigo barely scrapes by fighting his first gillian, but is later seen destroying dozens of them at a stroke.
* [[spoiler:Subverted]] in [[NeonGenesisEvangelion End of Evangelion.]] Asuka fights nine mass-produced [[HumongousMecha Eva]] units, each with weapons that can cleave straight through her nigh-impenetrable [[BeehiveBarrier AT Field]]. Asuka's Eva, meanwhile, has only a Progressive Knife and three minutes of battery power. In that timespan, Asuka disables or destroys ''every last one''. [[spoiler:Only to find out that they were OnlyMostlyDead, and promptly get her [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown ass kicked]] [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel horrifically]]. Whoops.]]
** [[spoiler: Not that much a subversion, since she fights of all of them and only loses because a) they revive and b) she runs out of energy. That's rather unfair.]]
** Or not. [[spoiler:WordofGod says that the Harpies apparent regeneration was an animation mistake. So it only looked like Asuka won the fight, her enemies were never really beaten.]]
* MahouSenseiNegima has two resident [[HighlyVisibleNinja Obvious Ninjas]], one plays this straight the other subverts it slightly. Inugami Kotaro can't create Shadow Clones of equal power to himself (and his cap was seven in the Tournament sub-arc). However BoobsOfSteel Kaede with her Sixteen Shadow Clones CAN... but not at full count. When she has four shadow clones they are all equal to her alone. Proving with Training at least in Negima you can bypass this trope.
** Later in the series [[spoiler: the main lead's father Nagi and his team the Ala Rubra were fighting in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon against the absolute BigBad. A single sneak attack from him was enough to wipe out the entire party. Then, after being [[HealingHands healed]], Nagi managed to single-handedly take out the BlackCloak wearing UltimateEvil. Hammering the point home, each individual member of the Ala Rubra were more than capable on their own against their [[EigenPlot Eigen stylized]] [[PsycoRangers PsycoRanger]] opponents they'd faced previous]].
** A textbook example occurs in chapter 254. Negi takes down a small army of Governor Godel's elite [[BlatantLies "private bodyguards"]] in a matter of seconds, but when [[spoiler: he fights Godel one-on-one, the Govenor takes his legs out before he can react, then nails him with a barrier peircing attack whilst he was unable to dodge.]] Negi was on the floor before he knew what hit him.
* In ''{{Berserk}}'', Apostles were a major threat early in the series, with Guts needing to fight with everything he had to kill one, and Guts probably would have died fighting the Count if the Count's daughter hadn't conveniently burst into the room for Guts to use as a hostage. Now that all the Apostles in the world are serving Griffith, they've been demoted to [[EliteMook Elite Mooks]]. Justified, since Guts has the [[DeadlyUpgrade Berserker's Armor]], which makes him much stronger and brings out his SuperpoweredEvilSide.
** Further justified in the current ark, where Griffith's army [[spoiler: fights an equally powerful army of equally messed up demons.]]
* ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh GX}}'' sometimes shows a character (usually Manjoume/Chazz) defeat several duelists at once offscreen. In Manjoume's case, apparently it's his coattails of doom that makes him elite enough to do this.
** Manjoume actually does defeat four opponents at once during a match, they all get two monsters each on their first turn, and using their effects render Manjoume unable to attack, he beats them with ''three cards''.
* The Type-3 [[{{Mecha-mooks}} Gadget Drones]] in ''MagicalGirlLyricalNanoha'' StrikerS, which slapped Elio around for most of the fight when there was only one of them during the first mission, but gets taken out by the Forwards in seconds when they come in groups in later missions. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] since said Forwards were going through Nanoha's TrainingFromHell every single day.
* Used interestingly at the end of the Enies Lobby arc in OnePiece. The Straw Hats are attacked by a horde of [[SuperpoweredMooks Captain-ranked Marines]]. Each one displays unique powers, fighting skills, or weapons. Each one a few chapters ago would have been a boss, or at least a major enemy. Now, they were dangerous only because of their sheer numbers.
**Morgan was also a captain, and Luffy defeated him without taking a single hit. T-Bone was an EliteMook, and while he presented a threat to the Rocketman, Zoro defeated him in one hit, so the strength of Captain-ranked Marines is not that significant at this point in the story.
** ''One Piece'' does this to the point of ridiculousness. During the Assault on Enies Lobby, Luffy single-handedly defeats an army of 2000 Marines without receiving even a scratch. Immediately afterwards, he fights one-on-one against Blueno, who gives him significantly more trouble. However, given that Blueno was an elite agent and the Marines were just foot soldiers, it's somewhat justified.
* ''AfroSamurai'' is ''made'' of this trope. Afro will triumph over any number of foes attacking in numbers, but have trouble one-on-one.
* ''YakitateJapan !'' inverts this by having Kageto Kinoshita's only endearing trait be his ability to clone himself. He is full of so much suck that his power alone is zero anyway, so making clones can't hurt.
*One of the manga of Ah, Megami-sama!, shows Urd demonstrating her copying ability, in an omake, and explaining, as she gets into the hundreds or so of copies, they start to become, well... jelly...
* ''RoninWarriors'' is almost absurdly blatant about this. In the first episode, they face a single one of Talpa's samurai {{Mooks}}. It takes the entire episode and the Hero summoning his armor and using his FinishingMove to take him out. Any subsequent attacks by them can generally be handled ''without'' transforming, and in the second arc, ''two'' of the heroes can take on hundreds of them.
** The first episode itself could be a subversion. That mook was using Anubis's weapon.
* Watch an episode of SailorMoon and you'll have the basic formula: Sailor Senshi weaken monster, Sailor Moon finishes it off. Now watch one of the movies, where there can be dozens to hundreds of monsters at once, and EVERYONE will be able to pick them off with an attack or two.
* All throughout ''{{Claymore}}'', Awakened Beings are shown to be extremely formidable, requiring several Claymores banding together to outnumber them in order to defeat them, and even then only barely and requiring multiple episodes dedicated to the fight. In the final arc of the anime when the Awakened Beings attack en masse, they don't take near as much effort to kill as previously.
** Though this is only as a result of the anime's GeckoEnding. In the manga, despite gathering half of the Organizations warriors, they only manage to kill eight Awakened Beings before being wiped out. The Awakened Ones' field commander actually notes that this was an exemplary result for the Warriors.
* In ''{{Noir}}'', any time the two assassin lolis are badly outnumbered, every bullet of theirs seems to kill two enemies, while every enemy bullet misses its mark. When they face Chloe however, they meet their match.
* Any nameless mook in ''{{Utawarerumono}}'' is canon fodder and will die in the dozens per sword slash from a general or important character. The large scale battles are really battles between named characters. The mooks on either side are just window dressing and will not get any kills in.
*Who can forget Hibari From ''{{Katekyo Hitman Reborn}}'' taking on an entire army of Millefiore soldiers and coming out fine [[spoiler: only to get beaten when he goes one on one against Genkishi]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Occurs whenever multiple villains team up to crush the hero. Despite how fearsome there are individually, especially during their debut, they are taken down by the hero in a fraction of the time and effort it originally took. Prime example being the Sinister Six of early ''Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}}''.
** [[{{JustifiedTrope}} Justified]] when Spidey is baiting the Vulture in the ''Secret of the Sinister Six'' novel, claiming that's because he can't afford to ''hold back'' when he's facing all six of them.
** [[{{JustifiedTrope}} Also]], it's demonstrated in every event that Spidey uses his enemies' abilities against each other. He tends to have much easier fights against the Six as a whole because their signature trait is a total lack of coordination, meaning Spidey can hop all over the place and watch them run into each other.
*** Such as using Shocker's vibro-shock devices to keep Sandman from changing back to human form.
** Subverted in the Secret Wars. She-Hulk faces off against several villains (including Titania, Doc Ock, the Absorbing Man, and one member of the Wrecking Crew) and is very nearly beaten to death.
*The Hand, a group of elite ninja in Marvel comic books, is almost nothing but cannon fodder. The willingness to die seems to be more important in membership consideration than skill, considering how many hundreds (perhaps thousands) of these guys characters like Wolverine and Elektra have waded through. These were, at least in part, the inspiration for the Foot Clan, above.
* {{Justified}} by the Wolverine comic "...[the {{mooks}}] have to be careful they don't chop one of their own by mistake. While I can hit anyone I please."
* {{The Punisher}} - 'nuff said.
* One ''{{Flash}}'' storyline had a Speed Force enhanced bunch of Ninja going up against various Flashes and other speedsters. They realized almost too late that the more ninja they took out of the action, the faster the others were getting...
* Played with in a recent ''{{Runaways}}'' comic where Kingpin faces the heroes with an army of ninjas (more Nnnjas then usual, according to one kid). During the fight, Molly (a superstrong girl who was very upset about punching Punisher, who had no powers to protect him, and had sworn off fighting anyone without powers) asks if ninjas had powers so she could fight them. She is given the answer, that, because they were ninjas, they counted as double, the implication being that heroes in the Marvel universe cut loose when fighting ninjas.
* {{Watchmen}} subverts this, as Rorschach attempts to fight through an army of policemen and fails.
**However, it's said earlier in the story that he held down the entire East Side during the police strike of '77, so it seems to be implied that Rorschach could've won if he hadn't been ambushed.
***Entirely believable given the [[ImprovisedWeaponUser damage]] he manages to do having had only about 30 seconds warning.
* Theres a GhostRider storyline that justifies this. Basically [[{{Satan}} Lucifer]] splits himself into 666 different bodies when one body dies the remaining ones gain more power until only one remains with all of the devils hellish force.
* In ''{{The Negation}}'' #11, Obregon Kaine reminisces on a lesson from his training days as he watches hundreds of superpowered Australians thoroughly fail to defeat General Murquade: "It doesn't matter if you're fighting ten enemies or a hundred...just worry about the one you're killing now!"
* Some supervillains have discovered, to their misfortune, that this cuts both ways. Juggernaut vs an entire team of {{X-Men}}? A city-wrecking battle in which the individual X-Men are injured, trains are derailed and buildings fall down. Juggernaut '''and''' Black Tom vs Cyclops? Cyclops runs rings around them while his internal monologue digresses about military history. Total property damage: One exploding pickup truck.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:{{Film}}]]
* In the new ''[[StarTrekXI Star Trek]]'' movie, any time a group of ships appear, be it Klingon or Federation, count on them getting wrecked. A single ship, especially if it's named ''Enterprise'', is going to kick ass. This is hilariously evident in the series even moreso (see TV examples).
** In StarTrekTheNextGeneration episode "Best of Both Worlds, Part II," the Borg blows away the entire Federation Starfleet, without even a fight. However the Enterprise-D is able to go it alone against the Borg cube, and escape with only minor damage.
* ''BatmanBegins'' skirts the edge of this trope. Bruce Wayne only fights one member of the League of Shadows during his escape (all the others were too busy dodging explosions); still, [[FridgeLogic one might wonder]] how Bruce was the only ninja to escape the exploding dojo. (The answer: [[spoiler:he wasn't]].) When he takes up the Batman mantle officially, he is able hold his own against four ninjas at once (and larger numbers of Falcone's gangsters, for that matter, but they're hardly "elite").
** It should be considered, though, that Batman does have the best body armor and equipment that money can buy, which should give him an extra edge.
* In the ''{{Matrix}}'' trilogy, in the famous Burly Brawl scene from Matrix Reloaded, Neo is able to manhandle (though not without some difficulty) dozens, if not [[BeyondTheImpossible hundreds]], of Smith copies, yet in Matrix Revolutions, which takes place chronologically perhaps a day or so later, he is completely beaten by just a single Smith. And this little segment of dialogue, taken in the context of this trope, shows Smith to be quite [[GenreSavvy Genre Savvy]] when the need calls for it.
-->'''Neo:''' It ends tonight.\\
'''Smith:''' I know it does; I've seen it. I know how it ends. That's why the rest of me are gonna sit back and enjoy the show, because we already know that [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou I'm the one that beats you.]]
**Let's not forget that it's said in the movie that [[spoiler:Smith and Neo are linked in a way that they are always as powerful as the other. So all the Smiths involved in the fight are automatically as powerful as Neo combined, even if it's one. Making this a literal application of this rule in the canon.]]
***The fact that the Smith that is fighting Neo is [[spoiler:The Smith that had been created from the Oracle]] is one possibility of why he is so much more powerful than the others, since [[spoiler:When Neo flies away from the other Smiths in the Burly Brawl, none of them attempt to give chase, which they could have done if all of them could fly. It's possible that only "Oracle Smith" could do so]].
* The list just wouldn't be complete without robots. In ''I, Robot'', Will Smith's character Spooner is able to survive and utterly destroy two massive truckloads worth of corrupted robots during the highway sequence, but the scene gets really serious when he realizes that there is one (albeit handicapped) robot leftover.
** Though it should be noted, those two truckloads of robots were dispatched with a combination of gunplay and fancy vehicular maneuvers. For the last one, he was unarmed and his car flipped on its side.
* No ninjas or robots, but still. How can this trope ''not'' bring ''ThePrincessBride'' to mind?
-->'''Fezzik:''' I just figured out why you would give me so much trouble.\\
'''Man in Black:''' Why is that, do you think?\\
'''Fezzik:''' Well, I haven't fought just one person for so long... I've been specializing in groups, fighting gangs for local charities... that kind of thing.\\
'''Man in Black:''' Why should that make such a difference?\\
'''Fezzik:''' You see, you use different moves when you're fighting half a dozen people than when you only have to worry about one.
**Actually, this seems like a misapplication of the trope. This trope deals with the universal fact that a gang of {{Mooks}} are all individually less powerful than [[BigBad a single opponent.]] The scene in The Princess Bride applies in the inverse: an individual hero must adapt his fighting style between sets of opponents in order to compensate for their number, regardless of the power level of the opponent(s).
**"Rest well, and dream of large women."
* Probably the only time in ''StarWars'' that the Imperial Stormtroopers were at all capable was when fighting a [[RedshirtArmy large number of rebel troops]] - both in the opening scene of "A New Hope", and in the invasion of Hoth in "The Empire Strikes Back". After that, when they were just fighting Luke, Han, Chewie, and Leia, they became the [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy infamously poor marksmen]] they are remembered as. Ewoks count as heroes in this example.
** The one time the Jedi are killed by non-Sith and non-betrayal by own troops in the films is the Battle of Geonosis of ''Attack of the Clones'', because there are 215 Jedi (179 die). Though the one shot by [[{{Badass}} Jango Fett]] doesn't count.
*** It is stated however, that the majority of these Jedi were users of a saber style that is, in fact, terrible against blasters. However, you'd think that that kind of style wouldn't be so widespread.
*** This trope turns even Jedi into a RedShirtArmy.
****The form is called Niman, or "The Moderation Form." It was basically the JackOfAllTrades form, meaning it was not strong in any particular area. It was popular because of its ease of learning, and [[TheMario relative balance]], as opposed to other forms that might focus on either defense or offense. It was regarded as the diplomat's form, and by the time of the Clone Wars was considered the standard Jedi form due to it's balance. However, it should be noted while all practitioners of Niman died on Geonosis, not every Jedi who died practiced Niman.
** Also, take the scene in ''Revenge of the Sith'' where Mace Windu and 3 other Jedi are attempting to arrest Palpatine. Palpatine instantly kills the first Jedi, then kills the second right after. The third Jedi survives for maybe 5 more seconds before also getting killed. Now that there is one more Jedi left, Mace manages to overpower Palpatine after a epic battle.
*** Who was, after all, played by SamuelLJackson.
***Possible subversion. A popular theory is that he could have taken them all out quickly with the element of surprise, but knew that together for an extended battle, they would be too much. So he took out the first three quickly then just battled with Mace Windu long enough to get Anakin upstairs, then put himself in a position where he appears to be overpowered. That way Anakin's sympathies would be with him and he could force Anakin to "save" him. This forced Anakin to strike against the Jedi so he was backed into a corner with no one but Palpatine. This leads to the final part of the mind games that turns Anakin to the Dark Side and makes him into Darth Vader. It's a XanatosRoulette, but it's Palpatine, SoYeah.
** Mace Windu was also the best non-Sith swordfighter in the galaxy; it's just puzzling why he didn't approach Palpatine ''first,'' with his saber ignited and ready.
** There's also [=TIE=] Fighters, though this is more easily justified. The ExpandedUniverse explicitly references one of the common justifications on this page--that a large number of starfighters have to be more careful when fighting a smaller number of starfighters--and then justifies it further by Rebel X-wings having shields and [=TIEs=] ''not'' (which itself tends to lead to higher survivability for the Rebel pilots, who thereby learn from their mistakes).
* Averted in the ''Film/{{Alien}}'' quadrilogy; the xenomorphs are simple to kill from medium-long range, and with some weapons they can be defeated from close range. This does not vary based on number. It appears to be a straight application, however, as generally when there's only one in the area the characters nearby are totally unprepared to deal with it.
** This editor doesn't consider that an aversion so much as it is a [[JustifiedTrope justification]].
** Also, look at the [[DisContinuity fourth film]], there's more than one alien, but still a small enough number to be countable, putting them in between the previous films. As such, the aliens are not mowed down like CannonFodder, but aren't totally unkillable, either.
*** In fact, this editor considers the ''Alien'' films to be one of the ''[[TropeMaker trope makers]]'' of this trope.
*** Except it's not the aliens that vary in capabilities according to their numbers, it's the humans who vary in capability according to the number of aliens. The more aliens, the more badass weaponry the humans have.
** Not just weaponry, but also the humans themselves. In ''Alien,'' the humans are just a small science-team that doesn't know what they're up against, and is armed with makeshift weapons; likewise, they've got an evil robot-spy working against them. In contrast, in ''Aliens,'' the humans are a fully-armed military team, trained in fighting alien-lifeforms, and which has been sent preared and ready with some advanced warning of what they're facing; and likewise, the robot is on ''their'' side.

* In ''KillBill Volume 1'', Black Mamba is able to slice through the numerous Crazy 88 members like butter with her superior katana, but displayed trouble whenever the General poked his bald head in at various points during the scuffle. Then again, he was easier to defeat than Gogo was.
** AuthorityEqualsAsskicking. It also helped that he had an interesting weapon that he could dual-wield (with which he managed to take the Bride by surprise at one point).
**Then at the end was the fight with TheDragon, a little school GirlWithPsychoWeapon wielding that morning star. She not only got a few good hits on Black Mamba, but nearly killed her.
* In ''{{Scarface}}'', Tony Montana can gun down hordes of thugs, but a lone chainsaw-user proves a great threat and a single shotgun-toting assassin finally kills him.
** Uh, a single shotgun-toting assassin who sneaks up on him from behind ''while he's fighting'' the hordes of thugs... and IIRC the chainsaw scene was much earlier in his career, wasn't it?
*** Yup, and both he and Angel were held at gunpoint by the chainsaw guys goons, too. [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Bad news for poor Angel]].
* In ''{{Starship Troopers}}'' the bugs are incredibly strong when there's just one or two of them in the screen. When the troopers are defending the fortress, they can just spray down hordes of the same bugs with the same rifles that didn't work before.
** During the propaganda videos, that are played throughout the movie, it's explained that as the war continues, the Federation learns more about the bugs. These includes handy facts like "Where you should shoot in order to kill them".
* In ''The One'', it is quite literally a law of the multiverse that "power" is spread between the different incarnations of a person across universes, and criminal abuse of this has naturally ensued. The BigBad and sort-of EvilTwin to the hero partakes in killing off their "other selves", such that by the final fight both are superhumanly capable.
** Sounds a lot like ''{{Highlander}}'' when put that way. Which fits the trope, naturally.
* Very averted in the first ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' movie. Raphael fights a horde of mooks alone... and is ''savagely'' beaten, thrown through a skylight (averting the soft glass trope), and spends the next quarter of the movie recovering. However, the aversion is fairly justified by the fact that TMNT has, is, and most likely will always be a show about [[ThePowerOfFriendship the power of friendship]] and teamwork. His brothers weren't there, and he was emotionally unstable. Hence, the turtle with a cracked shell.
** But then played straight at the end: twice. The Turtles kick butt against the horde of Foot soldiers, but then get their butts kicked by Shredder... who is then defeated when he angrily charges at Splinter (who at the time, seemed to be unarmed). But then, that was [[RetiredBadass Splinter]].
* In ''{{Raiders of the Lost Ark}}'', Indy fairly easily takes out half a dozen Nazis on the truck transporting the Ark. But he nearly gets killed when there's just one Nazi left.
** Yeah, but it's clear that that one tough guy left is the badass squad leader, who has sent his underlings forward and finally realizes that if you need something done you have to do it yourself.
** Not to mention that Indy is able to take out lots of armed nomads; but he has to be a pussy that needs a GUN, against the ''one'' remaining.
*** [[RiffTrax Mike Nelson]] hilariously posited that the last mook was the Nazi's own version of Indy: '''[[EvilCounterpart Düsseldorf Strauss!]]'''
** Meanwhile, when Indy faces multiple mooks in ''Temple of Doom'', he knocks each of them out in quick succession, but when a single mook tries to garrote him earlier in the film, it leads to a not-so-quick struggle.
* Averted in ''BigTroubleInLittleChina'. The three sorcerer-ninja henchmen of the sorcerer-ninja BigBad are almost exactly as tough together as each is separately.
* Let's not forget this was pretty much the whole plot of the ''American Ninja'' series
* In {{V for Vendetta}}, the main character takes down half a dozen or more guys twice, but the most badass one occurs after he's been gunned down and is practically at death's door.
* Both played straight and averted in ''IpMan'', where both the titular hero and General Miura can throw down with multiple opponents with ease but Master Liu, who had been winning at the one-on-one Japanese-staged matches, tries to take on three at once and gets his ass handed to him.
* The very premise behind ''[[ThreeHundred 300]]''. Three hundred warriors against tens of thousands of warriors and NightmareFuel bloodthirsty beasts - guess how the movie ends? [[spoiler: You guessed wrong. In the ending, there's actually 10,000 Spartans and 30,000 Greeks, ready to face the Persians. If this trope applies to both sides, those 10,000 Spartans would actually turn out to be worthless against the now (lots) smaller number of Persians. It's still a CrowningMomentOfAwesome]].
**[[spoiler: The trope still stands. The last lines are "The enemy outnumber us a paltry three to one, good odds for any Greek". Historical Spartans were badasses among badasses. They weren't called the best soldiers in Greece for nothing.]]
** To be fair, they were also among the -only- soldiers at the time. As Leonidas points out in the movie, he and his men are soldiers. Their profession is that of a combatant. Everyone else (and this includes the Persians) were, for the most part, civilians that were given basic training and a weapon.
* The formula is played straight ''and'' averted in ''{{Equilibrium}}''. In the final fight scenes, Preston is surrounded by six elite mooks and takes them down in about five seconds flat. There follows a duel with TheDragon ... well, kind of, since, averting the trope, TheDragon is taken down with ''one'' swipe.
* The trope is played straight in any of ''TheKarateKid'' movies whenever Mr Miyagi gets involved in a fight. Three, four guys, one big Caucasian guy ... doesn't matter. Old guy always wins.
* ''American Ninja'': The hero is a lone ninja in the US Army. The villain has an army of ninja, and you can guess how effective they are.
* Aragorn in ''LordOfTheRings'' displays this trope at Amon Hen (Fellowship) and Helm's Deep (Two Towers). First, Aragorn faces down what looks like several platoons of orcs. ''Alone.'' And ''survives''. Then, at Helm's Deep, with Gimli, ''he holds the gate into Helm's Deep against the entire uruk-hai army''. "Gondor needs no king?" Needs no army, either. It's got Aragorn.
** Yet when he faces the lone Uruk-Hai that arrowed Boromir to death, he has a tougher time of it than when he kills off dozens of them later.
***However, that Uruk-Hai is Lurtz, [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking leader of the Uruk-Hai sent to that battle.]]
**** But Helm's Deep is attacked by ''thousands'' of orcs ''identical'' to Lurz-- so the InverseNinjaRule stands.
** Additionally, one of the supplementary guide books (which incoporates the main elements of both the films and books) upholds the other side of the trope and indicates that in a one-on-one fight, an Uruk-Hai's size and strength would always let it beat a Rohan soldier.
* In ''DieHard 2'', John [=McClane=] manages to take out an entire squad of trained ex-commandos in a relatively short gun fight. And then, when he faces one alone, he ends up in a struggle that ultimately ends with a well placed icicle.
** [[JustifiedTrope Gun fight vs. knife fight]].
* When Optimus Prime fights Megatron in ''{{Transformers}}'', he gets his ass beat. When he fights Megatron and several other Decepticons at the same time in ''Revenge of the Fallen'', he holds up pretty well and even manages to kill a few of them in the process.
** It's implied that Optimus held back since there were bystanders, whereas he could cut loose in the sequel, proven in the forest battle where Optimus revealed he has ''two'' swords. In a real world justification, ILM wasn't too sure about the CG effects in the first film, so they kept the robots in the background. They went into the sequel knowing the CG was viable.
* Ash only fights one deadite at a time in the first two ''EvilDead'' films. He ends up getting thrown into a lot of shelves when facing a single one. But once he has to fight a whole army of deadites in ''Army of Darkness'', he conveniently gets a sword and starts slashing them up left and right.
* Averted in the 2005 remake of ''KingKong''. Kong fights off three ''T. Rexes'' (or ''V. Rexes'', if you're really nerdy) at once, and when he gets down to the last one, he breaks its jaw with relative ease.
* In ''{{Commando}}'', when [[ArnoldSchwarzenegger Ahnold]] comes across Arius after mowing down countless soldiers simply by [[MoreDakka pointing his gun in their general direction and firing]], his aim suddenly deteriorates into [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy that of the countless soldiers]] he just killed. Luckily for him, Arius's aim is just as bad, and after a few moments of the two firing at each other and missing while ''twenty feet from each other'', Arnie kills Arius.
* In ''DawnOfTheDead'', Roger and Peter frequently punch out and knock back zombies with ease when facing them all at once. And then a lone zombie "disguised" as a mannequin catches Roger off guard and has to be dispatched without any ease at all.
* In ''Face/Off'' it seems that all FBI agents, cops, security staff, and special agents are inept at facing off against Castor Troy. Troy kills them by the dozens single handedly in the beginning until Sean Archer has a chance to face him one on one (for some reason the dozens of other agents stay out of the action). Troy reduces these agents to mere [[RedShirtArmy red shirts]] all throughout the film, when in reality they would be much better trained.
* In ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean: At World's End'', toward the end when the pirates find themselves outnumbered and outgunned and standing off against the East India Company's hundreds strong fleet it turns out that the EIC only bothered to send one ship into combat -- Beckett's ship. The rest stood back and didn't bother joining in the battle.
* Any Bruce Lee movie, where he's outnumbered 80:1; and when they use weapons, he whips out his numbchucks to do things the ''lazy'' way. Same for Jet Li.


[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]
* Used a lot in the ''{{Discworld}}'' books, thanks to the TheoryOfNarrativeCausality. LampshadeHanging in ''The Last Hero'', when Carrot Ironfoundersson confronts the Silver Horde by himself. The Silver Horde, all experienced, GenreSavvy barbarian heroes, start to worry a bit when they realize they're facing a righteous hero while he's outnumbered:
--> "The Code was quite clear. One brave man against seven ... won. They knew it was true. In the past, they'd all relied on it. The higher the odds, the greater the victory. That was the Code."
**Also played with a lot in ''Discworld/InterestingTimes'' (with the Silver Horde on the opposite side of the equation), where Rincewind thinks "If it was seven against seventy everyone would ''know'' who would lose. Just because it's seven against seven hundred thousand, everyone's not so sure." Cohen, meanwhile, comes up with a [[JustifiedTrope logical reason]] why being outnumbered actually favours them (it boils down to "Always choose a bigger enemy, 'cause it makes him easier to hit"). (Although in the end, they're saved by an army of {{Magitek}} {{Mecha-Mooks}}.)
***Cohen also offers a rather original justification. It is pointed out to him that even if he and his horde manage to kill a couple thousand soldiers, they will be tired and the enemy will have fresh troops. Cohen explains that the soldiers will be tired as well because by that point ''they will be running uphill.''
** And then there's ''Discworld/{{Thief of Time}}'''s Rule One: "Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men". Lu-Tze is even momentarily surprised at one point that a group of bandits would try to mug him. Paraphrasing: "You're a group of armed thugs attacking a lone, wizened old man who's ''smiling'', and don't run for your lives?!"
***Their guides, who DO know Rule One, were already hauling ass.
** ''[[Discworld/GuardsGuards Guards! Guards!]]'' is dedicated to the men who make this trope possible. And completely averts it when [[spoiler:Vimes is arrested]]. The guards look at him suspiciously, ask if he's going to pull a one-man can of whoopass out on them, and when he admits, "Wouldn't know where to start," they take him into custody without a fight. [[CharacterizationMarchesOn Quite in contrast to his]] [[TookALevelInBadass later persona]], but there you go.
* In the ''Chronicles of Prydain'' novels by LloydAlexander, the Huntsmen of Annuvin (Annuvin is the area the huntsmen come from, their leader is the Big Bad, Arawn) explicitly have this as their special power, each individual member of a group growing stronger as their numbers are decreased. The power is so feared that the usual answer is to run, and curse oneself if forced to kill one; as this made your chances of survival less.
** To the point where one character says that he's as afraid of them as he is the [[ImplacableMan unkillable Cauldron-born]].
*** [[spoiler:Not that that does the Huntsmen any good when the whole lot of them make camp in a canyon below a frozen waterfall that empties a frozen lake; the good guys build a massive bonfire on the lake, flash-start it with a lot of lamp oil, and drown the Huntsmen en masse.]]
* Inverted in the ChroniclesOfThomasCovenant where ur-viles and related creatures have magic to combine their individual power into one, making their danger level scale with the number of them in a group.
* DoubleSubversion in RobertJordan's WheelOfTime {{Prequel}} novel ''New Spring'', Lan is surrounded by seven men, [[LampshadeHanging noting glumly to himself]] that only in stories do men fight seven armed skilled opponents and win. Then he wins.
* Deconstructed the one occasion it actually happens in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}: [[GauntsGhosts Gaunt's Ghosts]]'', where the tacticians going over the reports have the battle in question written out of the archives, because they simply couldn't comprehend how so few could beat so many. Other times, the Ghosts work in coordination with other Imperial Guard units and rarely take out superior numbers on their own.
* CiaphasCain, '''Hero of the Imperium''', has an inverse example in ''Caves of Ice'': The stormtrooper squad has literally grown up together in one of the [[TheSpartanWay Imperium's orphanages]]. They've been trained to fight together up to the point where the intuitive rapport of the squad borders on telepathy. The downside is that they don't play too well with others and rotating in new soldiers for casualties makes no sense as they'd remain outsiders to the team. Thus, with more and more members dying, the squad becomes irrevocably weaker. The team accompanying Cain is almost at the point where they'll fall below the efficiency of a normal squad. [[spoiler: It's kind of a moot point - the Necrons kill them all.]]
* Used in MalazanBookOfTheFallen. Any time Kalam goes up against other assassins, they seem to fall victim to this trope. Slightly justified by Kalam being a match for the man who would become the patron god of assassins.
* Indirectly used in the ''{{Chronicles of Amber}}'' by RogerZelazny during the war with the Courts of Chaos. There are, at max, only 15 Princes and Princesses of Amber, versus countless hordes of nobles from the Courts that are not only the same age or older than the Amberites, but theoretically almost as powerful. Not only do the Courts get thrashed defending their home turf, but they really only managed to kill one Amberite during the entire war - and the evidence actually points to the fact that he actually died of causes other than his wounds. All other Amberite deaths were actually caused by infighting. Oh, and this ''also'' doesn't include the fact that the two most powerful members of Amber, Oberon and Dworkin, didn't participate in the battle at all.
** This defeat causes an underground semi-religion venerating individual Amberites to spring up at the Courts after the war.
* ''TheDresdenFiles'': One Denarian is a psychotic nightmare that nearly kills Harry even with all three Knights of the Cross beating on it. Seventeen Denarians are just glorified {{mooks}}.
** Seventeen Denarians versus Harry Dresden (the most powerful wizard of an age, if not the most skilled), Murphy (BadassNormal), two Knights of the Cross in their prime (who do this sort of thing for a living), Kincaid ([[strike:heavily implied]] outright told to be some sort of supernatural killing machine), Ivy (who knows everything Mankind has ever known, including ''every single thing there is to know about magic use and magical technique''), and ''the covert help of [[spoiler:the Archangel Uriel]]'' is hardly a fair fight.
*** The main thing is that Harry caused the aquarium to flood where they were fighting, which allowed Michael and Sanya to finish off alot of the dazed and drowning Denarians. Michael repeatedly said that otherwise the knights prefer ganging up on a Denarian then fighting them one on one, which can be fatal.
* In the [[StarTrekDeepSpaceNine Deep Space Nine]] novelizations, when the Dominion and Cardassians are attacking the station, Dukat notes that Sisko works much better when he has fewer ships. It certainly seems to be true, as the station and two ships account for dozens of attackers during the battle.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
* ''StarTrek'' is all over this trope. In fact this could be the very basis of their famous {{Redshirt}}s. You see groups of {{Redshirt}}s get vaporized, but Scotty survives into the 24th century! Even if the future, multiple Starfleet personnel get wasted during the course of TNG, but Worf makes it, inspite of TheWorfEffect. Likewise, while whole armadas of ships get pummeled, single starships win the day. This even applies to the bad guys. A single Borg cube can cause so much havoc, yet every time we seen a bunch of Borg cubes, they're usually destroyed immediately after.
** At least for the main factions (Federation/Klingons/Romulans/Cardassians/Dominion) this seems to be largely due to their insane fleet tactics. They bunch up so tight that fleets can basically fire into the other bunch randomly and have a guaranteed hit (and every ship seems to go down in one hit, despite the effectiveness of shields any other time). Compare to one-on-one engagements, where victory is determined by careful maneuver.
* [[BuffyTheVampireSlayer Buffyverse]] [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] were particularly subject to this trope. Individual [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] could be fairly respectable opponents, though they still had a bad track record of getting one-stab killed after Season 1. Whenever [[OurVampiresAreDifferent vampires]] gathered in groups, they were cannon fodder. One just hopes they don't have problems with splinters.

:: In the final season the first Turok-Han 'uber-vamp' was a nearly unstoppable force very narrowly beaten by the Slayer after several victories. In the finale, however, the Scoobies went up against an army of them, and Xander, Anya, and the slayers-still-in-training were taking hundreds of them down easily. In the DVD commentary, Joss Whedon points out that this was a conscious decision, claiming that "they couldn't all be as hard to beat as the first one," since that would make the last fight unwinnable. No in-universe explanation is given, simply the remark that storytelling is more important than an internally-consistent canon. Nothing else left to do but recite the Mantra and shrug it off.

* In ''DoctorWho'', the amount of danger presented by the Daleks seems to always be inversely proportional to the number of Daleks present. When the Doctor and company are only facing one, as in "Dalek", it's a potential end-of-the-world scenario. When he faces ''millions'' as in "The Parting of the Ways" and "Doomsday", all it takes is a quick DeusExMachina to save the day. When he's back to three in "Evolution of the Daleks," [[spoiler:it takes a betrayal of their enslaved army to take them down, and one still gets away. You can be sure that last one is once again going to be a serious threat when it reappears.]]
** Referenced in "Doomsday", before Daleks and Cybermen declared hostilities:
---> '''Cyberman''': We have five million Cybermen. How many are you?\\
'''Dalek''': Four!\\
'''Cyberman''': You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks?\\
'''Dalek''': We would destroy the Cybermen with ''one'' Dalek!
** Perhaps referenced again with Rose's taunt "Five million Cybermen? Easy. One Doctor? ''Now'' you're scared."
** Averted in the season 4 finale, where they fought the largest Dalek army ever and it succeeded in crippling the earth's army and the nearly defeated the Doctor. [[spoiler: It took a betrayal from the elder dalek, Torchwood, Sarah Jane, dimension-hopping gun-toting Rose Tyler, and three Doctors to actually beat them]]
* In ''SuperSentai'' and ''PowerRangers'' there are many instances of a monster beating up an entire team of Rangers, only to be defeated by a single Ranger in a [[ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself sufficiently climactic battle]].
** The [[{{Mooks}} enemy grunts]] are an exception, though. They are pushovers in small or moderate numbers, but huge hordes of them occasionally manage to overpower the Rangers (happens especially in season finales).
** Also, early seasons would sometimes feature battles with multiple resurrected monsters, who would usually go down with just one or two hits. Eventually subverted in the third season premiere where a villain and four resurrected monsters, all giant sized, tear the Megazord to pieces.
*In ''KamenRiderDragonKnight,'' the {{Mooks}} suffer from an ''extreme'' case of this. A group of them are nothing but cannon fodder for an ''unmorphed'' Len to kick around. ''One,'' on the other hand, once required ''two'' Riders to use some of their strongest attacks.
* ''{{Babylon 5}}'' presents a rare good-guy example of this: when there's only one White Star, it's unstoppable. Once there's a fleet, they start getting taken down by mid-level enemies, often with no Vorlon or Shadow support.
** This is especially bad since the White Stars are meant to be able to learn from each hit it takes, so that the armour gets stronger after every battle. Even as late as the fourth series, the White Stars continued to get weaker: in Series 3, it takes 3 White Stars to destroy a Shadow warship([[spoiler: after a telepath has jammed it]]), but by the battle of Proxima 3, 4 White Stars are needed to deal with a single Earth destroyer, an incredibly simpler ship with far less firepower (albeit with the ability to manoeuvre ), which Sheridan stated was weaker than The White Star.
**Quite possibly, at Proxima 3, the White Star fleet was not all-out after the EA destroyer, instead trying to cripple it and force a surrender. Thus seemingly less powerful.
** This also seems to apply to the Shadows and Vorlons - Shadow battlecrabs were notoriously difficult to kill and Vorlons were pretty much invincible. Until the Battle of Coriana, when they started blowing up left and right. (Though in fairness, the coalition force arrayed against them was pretty huge too.)
*** The casualties were massively slanted against the allied fleet.
** Don't forget the time Marcus Cole explained to a group of thugs why they should tell him what he wanted to know: "Because if you don't, then in five minutes I'll be the only person at this table still standing. Five minutes after that, I'll be the only person in this room still standing. So, who's in?" After he makes good on this threat, he laments that, "Now I have to wait for someone to wake up."
* ''[[KamenRiderDenO Kamen Rider Den-O]]'': The hordes of ninja in the movie ''Ore Tanjou'' suffer so badly from this that even the [[YouSuck ridiculously inept protagonist]] Ryoutarou can hold his own against one.
* StargateSG1 and StargateAtlantis played it quite straight with the Jaffa and the Wraith respectively.
* Hilariously lampshaded in an Adam Sandler-era SNL skit, where the group of ninjas sit and lick their wounds after another failed attack. "How did we agree to attack the good guy?" "All at once!" "And how did we end up attacking?" "One at a time, one at a time." Sandler's hooded ninja speaks up about the use of throwing stars, noting that they are not a good idea in a large group, then pulling back his hood to reveal one stuck in his forehead. The gang ends up deciding to get their confidence back by beating up the next person they meet in the lobby - who of course turns out to be Bruce Lee.
* Burn Notice averts often. The protagonists always treat anyone that equals or betters them in numbers as a credible threat and they're usually right. However, being spies and not playing fair at all as well as trying to stay under the radar, they're usually not trying to kill the bad guys anyway.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Professional Wrestling ]]

* The WWE has taken advantage of this trope on several occasions. The most ludicrous, perhaps, was John Cena and Randy Orton vs. the entire Raw roster, in 2008. Cena and Orton generally win their matches, or put on a good showing, but they generally take 15-25 minutes against one, maybe two opponents. This match took seven minutes. Their opponents? Snitsky, Santino Marella, Trevor Murdoch, Lance Cade, Umaga, Super Crazy, JBL (who has been involved in several of those 15-25 minute matches with Cena and Orton, as has Umaga), Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Cody Rhodes, Paul Burchill, Val Venis, Bob Holly, Carlito, DH Smith, Brian Kendrick, Robbie and Rory McAllister, Charlie Haas, and possibly a couple others. Then, after that was over, HHH stole the lack of numbers advantage from the two of them, beating them both down.
** Not to mention at least two of their PPV's (Survivor Series, Royal Rumble) are built around this trope.
*** Particularly egrerious is the Survivor Series, where the best chance of one team to win is when they only have one wrestler left, particularly if they are the Face team.
*** In the Royal Rumble, each successive elimination takes longer and is much more difficult than the previous one, and the final two wrestlers might be fighting for as long or longer than the previous 30+ combined.
* Also supported in tag teams by the RickyMorton Rule, where after one partner gets beaten, the fresh partner jumps in and takes on both of the other two wrestlers.
* Subverted by the presense of a manager. A manager who is prone to interfere with the match does increase the chances of winning, even though they outnumber the other wrestler.
** However, this is supported by run-ins, where quite often this will result in a DQ (and thus the outnumbered wrestler technically wins the match, at the cost of a beatdown.)
* Subverted by [[{{Jobber}} jobbing.]] An army of jobbers or 1 jobber will have the same amount of success: none.
** Parodied by the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOB_Squad Job Squad.]]

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

*{{Brickwars}} invokes this trope for its [[http://www.brikwars.com/downloads/cards/ninja_scum.jpg Ninja Scum]] card invokes the trope hilariously, resulting in a unit that gets lower rolls the more there are (and you must have at least three).The flavor text says it all.
*''[=~Don't Rest Your Head~=]'' has a Ninja madness power that lets you summon endless numbers of ninja mooks from every impossible hiding place. Their only ability is a reckless Zerg Rush. OR you call an elite Ninja, ColourCodedForYourConvenience. Don't mess with him. He's badass.
*{{Dungeons And Dragons}} uses "minion" class enemies to invoke this trope in 4th Edition. They each have one hit point and are designed to fall in droves. Then there are elite and solo enemies, equal to two and five normal monsters respectively. If you see a group of 20 orcs, they are probably mostly minions, and one fireball will leave you with a target or two left; if you see two orcs, they are probably elite brutes, each of which has 194 hit points, a much nastier fight.
** The 3rd edition of D&D shows a different form of this trope, in that the Encounter Level (difficulty) of a fight is calculated not by counting the enemies, but by adding 2 to the Encounter Level for each ''doubling'' of the number of enemies. Thusly, one gnoll is EL 1, but sixteen gnolls are only EL 9. By the time you get up to 32, it's not even worth raising the EL, as characters above 9th level have enough mass-effect spells to easily handle that many weak enemies.
* The NinjaBurger Employee's Handbook specifically recommends against this trope.
* A particularly nasty version of this occurs in Runequest; due to the CriticalFumble rules, armies take the most damage from ''their own side''. Thus, a larger army is actually less of a threat.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''Bad Dudes Versus Dragon Ninja''. Armies of brightly dressed {{Highly Visible Ninja}} rush at the one (or two) good guys in broad daylight then each one falls down (and vanishes) after being struck a single blow (in fact in the case of the chi punch several ninja can be killed by the same blow).
* A noted problem with ''MetalGearSolid 2'': fighting thirty Metal Gears is significantly ''less'' dramatic than the usual finale of fighting ''one'', because of the greatly reduced significance of each foe; in fact, Metal Gear RAY's require only a handful of missiles to destroy, while their REX predecessor (Which they were designed specifically to be able to defeat) required some 20-30 of those missiles and a lone ninja (himself taking full advantage of this very trope) to perform a HeroicSacrifice. This may be [[JustifiedTrope justified]], as was well established that the Metal Gears involved in that fight were designed to be cheap, mass-produced, and be piloted by an AI.
**But the subsequent cutscene subverts the trope by showing the visible strain of fighting thirty metal gears. Then its back to played straight when the BigBad of the game blasts several Rays with a ''machine gun''. Or is that just AuthorityEqualsAsskicking?
* No ninjas or robots either and applying to main characters, but still: In ''DevilMayCry 3'', Dante or Vergil alone can use their full powers in the first phase of the fight against Arkham. When the second phase rolls in, bringing Vergil or Dante (respectively according to character used) with it, the player loses his Style-based moves and Devil Trigger transformation, while the interloper also cannot fight at full power.
* In the not yet released 2009 Terminator video game the player kills tons of terminator robots with grenades, M16, shotguns, pistols and even by punching them. This is in contrast to the movies where bullets/RPGs/exploding gas tankers/ firetrucks did nothing.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Spider-Man}}: The Game of TheMovie'', one level relies heavily on stealth, and if you are spotted or trip an alarm it brings out a couple Super Soldiers, giant robots that are extremely formidable opponents. Even one is a handful, and if you run into more than one, your only hope is to run and hide. A couple levels later you have to fight your way through dozens of Super Soldiers, which are notably easier to get past.
* Game example with robots: in ''MegaMan'', the mass-produced Joes are basically ArmCannon fodder. Only the unique Robot Masters are a challenge.
** Gemini Man (MegaMan 3) himself follows this trope. He starts the battle by doubling himself, and only attacks with a weak blaster (in response to your fire) and by CollisionDamage. Only when you destroy the clone does he break out the [[{{SignatureMove}} Gemini Laser]].
* Played very straight in ''SuperSmashBros. '' and sequels. Any level with "Team [==]" or the Fighting Alloys lets you fling them off the screen with one solid hit. Even heavy characters like Bowser [[{{ATwinkleInTheSky}} blast off]] when part of a team. Meanwhile, some stages can give you hell with just 1-3 opponents and even with the very occasional ally.
** But brutally, BRUTALLY subverted in the well-named Cruel Melee/Cruel Brawl.
* A mission in the single player ''StarWars Battlefront 2'' has you as a single clone trooper among many going up against a horde of Jedi. This is some kind of cosmic and cruel irony.
* Another ''StarWars'' example, in Republic Commando, when Delta Squad (essentially the ninjas of the Clone Wars) splits up to take down the Core Ship on Geonosis, Delta-38 (the player's character) [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this trope, [[strike:almost]] making it into a CrowningMomentOfAwesome:
---> '''Delta 38''': Alone against all these droids? Heh, ''they'' don't stand a chance.
* Lampshaded with dark hilarity at the end of ''MaxPayne''. As he continues to gun down the Big Bad's Killer Suits in her penthouse suite, the PA system crackles to life:
---> '''Big Bad''': What do you mean 'he's unstoppable'? You are superior to him in every way that counts. You are better trained, better equipped, and you outnumber him at least twenty-to-one. Do. Your. Job.
** ''{{Half-Life}} 2'' has a similar scene, where the BigBad expresses his shock to his FacelessGoons that they, "the best humanity has to offer", are unable to stop or apprehend Gordon Freeman, a [[BadassBookworm theoretical physicist]].
* ''NinjaGaiden'': Ryu, a lone ninja, can take on a seemingly endless horde of ninjas, demons, and fiends of all sizes and colors - and the endless hordes of ninja that come after him can barely touch him. Granted, higher difficulties on the Xbox game require that the player [[NintendoHard EARN]] every iota of their ninjutsu.
* ''MassEffect'' actually averts this in the backstory. The neural network of the robotic Geth is made in such a way that they are actually more powerful when fighting in groups. In game, this is shown by having the EliteMooks boost the stats of their nearby allies.
* ''CityOfHeroes'' actually has this as a player's power. The more enemies that are nearby (Capped at 10 to balance things a little), the stronger a character possessing such a power will be in battle against all of the enemies. Also carries over to a few of the optional powers accessible to anyone, which can improve offense, defense or other stats across a whole team.
** To be specific, the powers that do this come in two types. Toggle powers that can be kept on for entire battles like "Invincibility" (increases your defense and accuracy for each foe within melee range), "Rise to the Challenge" (increases your health regeneration rate for each foe within melee range and decreases their accuracy). Then there are click powers that give a temporary buff with it's strength based on how many enemies it hits at the time it is fired like "Eclipse" (Resistance), "Energy Absorption" (Defense), "Power Sink"/"Energy Drain"/"Consume"/"Dark Consumption" (Endurance Refill), "Dark Regeneration" (Health Refill), and "Soul Drain"/"Sunless Mire" (Accuracy and Damage buff). This all comes together for the "Fulcrum Shift" power, which (take a breath) reduces an enemy's damage, then reduces the damage of every enemy around that enemy, then increases the damage of every ally around every one of those enemies, repeating that buff for each enemy debuffed, and throws another damage boost around the caster just for fun.
* The second PSP installment of the ''RatchetAndClank'' series, ''Secret Agent Clank'', has a skill point challenge that references this trope. Titled "Inverse Ninja Law", it requires you to defeat 99 ninja mooks during a boss fight where they spawn endlessly, far, ''far'' more than you need to defeat to beat the level.
*Somewhat averted in PSP's FF Tactics-esque Jeanne d'Arc, where game mechanic called chain-defence would mean, the more people in your direct vicinity, or in chain, there would be, the better your defence would be.
*In ''{{Kingdom Hearts}} II'' small groups of Heartless or Nobodies can usually pose a significant threat to Sora and his party, but during the aptly-named ''[[TheWarSequence Battle of the 1000 Heartless]]'', Sora is able to [[OneManArmy steamroll right over a group of 1000 Armored Knights and Surveillance Robots without any support from Donald and Goofy]]. Helped along by the [[ActionCommands reaction commands]] for said enemies, both of which are wide-area attacks capable of hitting large numbers of targets at once.
** Their unique abilities aided their enemy in combat! No wonder they could be brought in bulk...
* An early mission in ''Crisis Core: FinalFantasyVII'' boiled down to "Storm the enemy base alone. Have fun." Of course, it should be noted that your character is explicitly a SuperSoldier.
*One of the stages in {{Disgaea}} has you fighting a giant enemy who divides himself into ten seprate enemies. [[LoveFreak Love Freak]] Flonne [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this by saying its [[PowerofLove love is divided by ten.]] However, noted by the Prinny commentary on the DS version after you lose, [[HopelessBossFight love is not a battle stat.]]
*'' WorldOfWarcraft'' includes one zone, Lake Wintergrasp, dedicated to world (i.e. not instanced) PvP. In an effort to make it more fun on servers where one faction or the other is underpopulated, it features a mechanic called Tenacity that buffs whichever side has fewer people - the greater the disparity, the stronger the buff.
** Even without Tenacity, Inverse Ninja Law is easily provokable in Arenas, such as [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgrPQIsieEs in this video.]] Bear in mind this isn't staged.
* In ''TheWitcher'', witchers have multiple swordplay styles for one-on-one and facing groups. Given equal skill developed in all styles it's still easier to wipe out a horde of creatures that would be hard-fought singly. Having trouble fighting that cemetaur with Strong Style? Dive into a crowd of them and let loose with Group style!
** And by hard fought singly it doesn't mean a separate encounter, it means that if you lure one away from the group and use a single style, you do ''less'' damage than fighting all of them with a group style.
* Extremely brutally subverted in the Dynamis type zones in [[FinalFantasyXI Final Fantasy XI]], awakening too many of the [[EliteMooks Vanguard]] will annihilate you. God help you if you're over run with Hydra Corps. (Elite Mooks +1?) There is no conservation, you will simply die if you don't have movement enhancement.
* In TalesofVesperia, Raven [[LampshadeHanging hangs a lampshade]] on this trope in one of his battle quotes: "The bigger the bunch, the weaker the monster!"
* The fight against the first boss in ''DukeNukem 3D'' was well... a boss fight. And then those same exact bosses show up as EliteMooks to be killed like EliteMooks.
* The regular antlions in ''HalfLife 2'' attack Gordon Freeman in groups. The much stronger antlion guard attacks Gordon Freeman alone. In the original ''Half-Life 2'', at least.
** Also, the [[EliteMooks Combine Elites]] attack Gordon in squads out on the streets of City 17. Once he gets the [[EleventhHourSuperpower powered up Gravity Gun]], though, they attack him as an ''army''. And proceed to all get killed.
*Done interestingly in Left4Dead : while a single zombie is able to surprise you, they get noisy when there is a horde of them, thus giving you the time to find shelter and dig yourself in.
**And of course, the tank comes in groups of one. So does the witch.
*** Except when you're about to get rescued and the A.I. Director decides you need to die. Three tanks are '''not''' weaker than a single one.
*Horribly and viciously averted in ''[[FirstEncounterAssaultRecon F.E.A.R.]]'' - the Replica are ''vastly'' more dangerous in full squads than they are on their own, and the EliteMooks are usually accompanied by weaker Replica soldiers who invariably make the fight ten times harder.
** There's also the occasional Assassins, literal {{NINJA}} {{mooks}}, who attack in groups and will tear you to shreds.
* In ''{{Lugaru}}'', your enemies won't stand in a line and wait for you to beat your current opponent. They will gang up on you and beat you up! Trope averted.
* Both used and averted in ''AceCombat'' games. While your characters invariably splash large numbers of mook pilots and the occasional lone ace, when ace squadrons (probably more accurately termed "flights", but that's just being [[YouKeepUsingThatWord pedantic]]) show up, the [[DawnOfWar multiple, simultaneous and devastating]][[strike: Deep Strikes]] lockon warnings and near-continuous missile alerts that ensue will quickly make most players wish they had competent backup.
* Averted and played straight in ''{{Prototype}}''. Killing one Infected, Marine or Blackwatch soldier is utterly trivial. Multiple squads of those same soldiers toting rocket and grenade launchers while calling in helicopter strike teams? Now ''that's'' trouble. Hunters and Super Soldiers are also [[DemonicSpiders deadly]] if they come in groups (and Super Soldiers ''always'' come in groups). Played straight since the OneManArmy protagonist wins anyway, and aforementioned EliteMooks come by less often than the standard ones.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

* ''TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' has applied this trope to every fight the title character's been in, except against the Raptor Bandits.
** ''[[http://www.drmcninja.com Dr. McNinja]]'' '''explicitly''' referenced this trope on [[http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=18&issue=8 Wednesday, 16 May 2007]].
* Coincidentally, [[http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0453.html in the strip for the same day]], ''TheOrderOfTheStick'' does, as well.
* The page image comes from a scene from ''SamAndFuzzy'', where Mr. Blank takes on the [[FacelessGoons mook legions]] of Mr. Black. Blank and Black are both [[BadAss blankfaces]], elite ninja assassins, while the mooks are... well, they're mooks. As Mister Blank puts it about two minutes later: "Looks like I might have to change my name to Mr. Red!"

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Episode 2 of GIJoe Resolute features [[{{WolverinePublicity}} Snake Eyes]] vs. 20 or so Cobra troopers. You can probably guess how this ends. Later on, Snake Eyes fights [[{{TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou}} Storm Shadow]] by himself. The fight is much tougher.
* While ''TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles'' would make use of this trope when it needed to, it was also averted a fair number of times as well in the most recent series--while the turtles could defeat almost any individual ninja, their most definitive defeats came at times when they were overpowered by sheer numbers. Conversely, the Shredder, proved considerably easier to defeat when he was alone, and did not have his mooks to cover his flanks.
* ''JusticeLeague'' made active use of the trope in its early seasons. The first instance was against the robotic Manhunters and goes as follows: [[spoiler: Three Manhunters vs. Justice League. Ends in a tie, but the Manhunters were winning. One of them was not damaged a bit after being hit directly with Hawkgirl's [[{{DeusExMachina}} mace]] Second encounter: One Thousand Manhunters vs. Justice League. The Justice League tear them apart. Hawkgirl's mace tore throuh them, as did a green lantern ring. Third Encounter: One Manhunter vs. Green Lantern. The Manhunter overpowered the lantern ring and won]]
**This was solved to a point when the series switched over to ''Unlimited'' and the League was given its own personal army. The new team then proceeded to take on fearsome tasks that required multiple individuals, such as when they faced the Dark Heart, a [[{{Nanomachines}} nanotechnology]] being that could multiply itself exponentially.
** This trope is all but referred to by name at one point during the Thanagarian invasion. When she, Superman and Green Lantern are outnumbered by a margin of several hundred, WonderWoman notes that the final battle features "Pretty bad odds." Superman's reply? "Yeah, they don't stand a chance."
* ''TeenTitans'' is possibly the crowned king of this trope, providing an on point illustration of it about every other episode using a wide variety of monsters and MechaMooks. Standard example: the villain of the week summons a monster or robot or something. With much struggle and an elongated fight sequence, the Titans are either just barly able to deat the adversary or make their retreat. Later on in the episode, the villain tries the same trick again, but decides to spice it up a bit by either making the goon 20 times larger or replicating it to form a small army. Despite the blatantly increased odds, the Titans are still able to defeat the both the goons and the VillainOfTheWeek with half the sweat.
** Averted by Billy Numerous and Trigon's fire demons. Billy's a formidable opponent (for a VillainOfTheWeek anyway) ''because'' of his ability to make hundreds of copies that also have surprisingly good coordination. When Slade leads an army of fire demons to retrieve Raven from Titans Tower, her teammates, despite holding ''nothing'' back (Cyborg going so far as to ''hook himself up to the Tower defense systems to fire dual Sonic BFGs''), are overwhelmed by their foes' sheer numbers and Slade's own formidable powers.
* In an episode of ''LiloAndStitchTheSeries'', the MonsterOfTheWeek was able to duplicate anything. However, the qualities of anything it duplicated were divided accordingly (i.e. it could duplicate a 100-watt lightbulb to produce 2 50-watt bulbs). Near the end of the episode, Lilo tricks Gantu into making 100 of each of his combat experiments, making them so weak they're easily defeated.
* In ''XiaolinShowdown'', one of the Shen Gong Wu, the Ring of Nine Dragons, can make duplicates of the user, but the duplicates get less competent the more are made.
** Also subverted to great amusement in that Jack Spicer, universal {{Butt Monkey}} and self proclaimed 'boy genius,' is actually able to use the ring to great effect, not because he is strong enough that even when divided into nine pieces he is still a formidable opponent, but rather because he's so bad already that the clones couldn't possibly get any worse.
* On ''JackieChanAdventures'', whether Jackie had to fight five of the Shadowkhan or five hundred, they would always take exactly the same amount of effort to dispatch.
* In the CGI cartoon ''Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles'', after establishing a base on the jungle world of Tesca Nemerosa, the Roughnecks encounter a 'prototype' Spider Bug that proceeds to kidnap the entire squad one by one with consummate ease, until eventually only two remain uncaptured. When they finally confront it in a suitably epic battle, it takes a barrage of automatic rifle fire and a plummet onto stalagmites to defeat it. Next episode, they're fighting Spider Bugs by the dozens, in combination with the more conventional Bugs, and having little trouble holding their own.
* Subverted in ''{{The Spectacular Spider-Man}}'' episode "Group Therapy". The Sinister Six beat the crap out of Spiderman at first and the only reason he beat them was because he had the Symbiode suit on.
** It be more accurate to say the Symbiote suit had Spidy on.
* Parodied somewhat in the FairlyOddParents movie Wishology, in which baby fairy Poof dresses as a ninja and takes out a gang of Eliminators.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Truth In Television ]]

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_warfare Guerilla Warfare]].
*When you think about it, this trope sort of makes sense when taken literally. Ninjas were assassins, not infantrymen. Their biggest asset was stealth, not strength (that would be a Samurai, the ninja's biggest rival). One ninja in a good hiding spot ''would'' be much deadlier than 10 or so in an open field where they could be shot down in droves by a few trained marksmen who knew where to aim.
** They'd ''still'' be stronger in numbers-- ninjas aren't going to abanon stealth and march down an open field, just because there's 10 of them.
** Far from being rivals, actually, most major daimyo had forces of both ninja (or similar) and samurai at their disposal, and most ninja "officers" had bushi status (they ''were'' samurai, legally). They performed different roles; ninja were special forces, samurai were elite conventional troops—Navy [=SEALs=] vs Marines. There might be a certain ''friendly'' rivalry, but they serve the same masters. The former, by the way, usually operate with [[ConservationOfNinjutsu much lower numbers than the latter]].
* Chesty's wisdom (see top) seems to imply that the smaller force has the advantage by simply having many more targets, while the opposing side would have to take care not to inflict casualties upon themselves.
-->'''Chesty''': We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.
*Considering the logistics and the leadership requirements of a larger force, a smaller one can be more efficient, and defeat the larger one. Tactics matter, too. During the Finnish Winter War, many a wave of poorly led, freezing soviet conscripts was repelled by few, couple, or indeed [[OneManArmy one man]], armed with [[ColdSniper bolt action rifle]] and sheer determination.
** The best tactic being: make sure they remain poorly-led and freezing by killing their officers and destroying supplies, rather than dealing directly with overwhelming numbers.
** That one guy you're talking about stayed hidden as a 'farmer'. Not to mention his badassery in being able to pick off tons of people WITHOUT a scope, but running around with an SMG and mowing down just as many.
*IsraeliswithInfraredMissiles
*In the English Civil War, Parliamentarian armies often outnumbered royalist armies by quite large amounts, but the war was still stalemated for several years (Though the side with more forces did win in the end, unlike what would usually be expected from this trope.)
* Sun Tzu's ''Art of War'' argues that a force's source of strength is unity, not size.
** The REAL lesson, however, is that what matters is your effective strength, not your actual size or numbers. If you have only a thousand men, and them ten thousand, if you can force them to spread out so you can attack them 500 at a time, you have the advantage; likewise, you can attack with fire, creating a "force" which kills men without actually investing nearly as much manpower. As such, a small army can take out a large one, provided they never allow the large one to bring their power to bear on the small one all at once.
*** Some of the most dramatic victories in history were where a smaller, more organized force managed to flank and ''surround'' a larger force. Hannibal pulled this one a few times.
**** As did Samson, when his small army slew 1000 Philistines with the "Jawbone of an Ass--" i.e. a flanking-maneuver formation that resembles a donkey's mandible.
* There are countless examples in the real world of small units of elite warriors totally outclassing much larger armies that this makes this trope, ultimately, truthful. However, to be sure, said warriors would never bullheadedly take on the large army in a static head-on fight - they would strike hit-and-run, melting into the shadows to strike again later; or hitting the weak point of a much larger enemy force with more mobility so that the enemy force couldn't respond. In the Falklands, there were cases of SAS troops outnumbered 8 to 1 defeating their Argentine foes. TE Lawrence claimed that four mobile, lightly-armed Arabs - Bedouins with rifles who had grown up together hunting in the desert - were more lethal than a full squad of 12 hapless, bogged down Turks hundreds of miles from home. All over WW2 North Africa, roaming bands of British special forces wrought havoc on German formations, striking at times and places of their choosing. In WW2 Midway, a few squadrons of US aviators swarmed in on a far larger Japanese force and decimated it through sheer determination and almost suicidal bravery. Mushashi, the samurai, wrote explicit instructions how to fight outnumbered. During the Soviet-German battle in WW2, there many examples of small groups of elite and mobile Germans holding off assaults from larger but inflexible and bull-headed wave-like formations of Soviets. The list goes on and on. Only bean-counters think that what really counts in war is numbers. The problem is, when soldiers outnumber the other side, they start to count on their sheer numbers to do the job - which makes them fall apart when they meet real determined resistance; then their numbers turn against them because they panic and descend into a blindly fleeing mob.
** Again, that's using BETTER forces-- this trope only applies to FEWER forces, with no other changes.
** Sun Tzu addresses this too. He recommends never fully surrounding a fleeing army (or at least, always provide them with an escape route) because, with no escape available to them, they'll not only be panicking and fleeing but desperate too. While one could still kill them, the cost would be much greater it oneself with little extra benefit. On the other hand, he also suggests that if one -does- want to kill everyone, allow an escape route and simply set up an ambush (or what have you) further along the escape route.
** Also, archers can strafe fleeing forces and hit them in their unprotected rear, while they can't shoot back-- meanwhile if they turn and fight, then they can shoot back, block incoming arrows, AND charge.
* This often happened to Asian pirates during the Mid-1800s. Unlike western pirates (Blackbeard, Captin Kidd, etc.) who would command one or two ships, Asian pirates commanded ''fleets'' of junks that were powerful enough to extort whole coastal villages, let alone attack merchant ships. When the Europeans arrived, however, they would attack these pirate fleets at 1-to-20 odds and still came out on top. One good example would be the pirate lord, Shap-'ng Tsai who commanded a fleet of at least 70 junks. In 1849, the British Navy sent ''three'' ships after Tsai and when the three ships encountered the pirate fleet, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome they sent 58 of the pirate ships to the bottom of the sea after a two-day battle.]]
** This could have something to do with the fact that British ships had ''cannons,'' while the term "junk" comes from the boat of the same name.
* Mirbat, Oman, 1972 - 8 men from an SAS detachment were attacked by 250 Soviet-armed rebels. They held out for six hours before the British reinforced them and won the day.
* [[http://www.cracked.com/article_17019_5-real-life-soldiers-who-make-rambo-look-like-pussy.html Five real life examples]] of this trope. Audie Murphy runs on this so much that he lands in {{Refuge In Audacity}} territory.
* USMC Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, called the Father of Modern Shooting, was in love with this trope. His magazine columns ''constantly'' brought up examples where small groups, trained with their weapons and the use of cover, wipe out much larger, [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy less-trained]] groups, and often seem to imply that [[ConservationOfNinjutsu numbers are a weakness in and of themselves]].
* Conventional theories of communication state that there are optimal numbers for the size of a discussion group; get too many people in a “small group”, and it’s not small enough anymore, as the opportunity for [[AllYourPowersCombined people to synergistically contribute their individual talents or views to the group’s whole]] is diluted by not enough opportunity to contribute per individual. Depending on the specifics of the group and the pet theories you endorse, this number is generally around four to twelve people.
[[/folder]]

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