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  • Agatha H. and the Voice of the Castle (a Girl Genius novel): Once Othar is convinced that Agatha might really be the Other, Klaus is extremely disturbed to find that his goofy Large Ham persona flips off like a switch.
  • All American Pups series: In Camp Barkalot, Fritz puts his fear aside and uses his strength to rescue the other pups (and their new friend Bella) from drowning.
  • Let's consider the Animorphs. Sure, Rachel develops into a walking pile of RAEG and Jake is clearly no one to mess with, with an air of Determinator-ness and devoted leadership. But their support? A wise-cracking comic book geek, an introverted, pacifistic animal nut, and the middle-school bully magnet (and Ax); not exactly the biggest badasses around. That is, until they transform into wolves and gorillas. Tobias's hawk might not be the scariest thing around (though he's damn good with it), but he also knows rhino. And, if worst comes to worst, they all have the set of polar bears, just in case...
    • Because Marco was the narrator for the adventure, we don't actually get to see what happened, but Erek the Chee (a race of Androids that are hard coded to be pacifists) has his pacifist codes removed right as Marco loses consciousness in a desperate fight surrounded by overwhelming enemy odds. When he wakes up, the enemy forces are all lying dead on the ground by Erek's doing. Marco later learned that from the time he passed out to the time the enemy threat was neutralized is a period of time measured in seconds, but he realizes that Rachel was conscious for the whole incident and was on the verge of tears at the carnage she saw Erik unleash.
    • Both the Andalites and Yeerks see humans as weak and useless species that should by all rights have gone extinct by this point in their own biome. Although the Yeerks do come to recognize that humans are actually the perfect species to infest and would grant them a great advantage in deployment of troops, both sides of the war come to realize that humans are more than a match for either side... according to the Yeerks, humans are the only species that have ever been able to resist the infestation to the point of regaining limited control. We also learn that the Andalite that gave the heroes the ability to morph actually believed they would use the ability to hide from the invasion. He never suspected humans would weaponize the morphing power.
  • The Belgariad
    • Belgarath pretty much lives and breathes this trope. Normally he could easily be mistaken for a drunken, lazy, bumbling, vagabound, with a fairly weak grasp of personal property and a rather sloppy taste in attire. People who know him often call him this and worse, since he can't seem to be bothered take most things seriously. But when things get serious, or you piss him off... you'll see WHY he was chosen as first disciple of the god Aldur, and just what the most powerful sorcerer on the planet, with over 7000 years of experience, is capable. note 
    • His daughter Polgara is only slightly less so. She may look pretty innocuous at times, but she takes a lot after her father in the sheer power department (in an early book, she turned the Empress of Nyissa into an eternal snake). She's lived several millennia herself and has been everything from a Nadrak slave-woman to the Duchess of Erat, so she carries her own arsenal of magical and non-magical skills.
  • In theBuffy the Vampire Slayer book Spike & Dru: Pretty Maids All in a Row, The Watchers Council leadership starts out seeming like the same bunch of stuffy Armchair Military types they are during the main series, but when Spike and Dru start killing Potentials, they send operatives after the duo (with little success) and fortify their headquarters to protect the Potentials.
    Sir Trevor Kensington: They're hunting our girls and slaughtering the Watchers assigned to them. That is not what the Council of Watchers is used to. We are the hunters. The tables must be turned on these damned leeches straight away.
  • In Ursula Vernon's novel, Castle Hangnail, the minions do this when they're pushed too far. Even a goldfish who's a hypochondriac becomes a badass to save a friend.
  • No-one really pays that much attention to Agatha Christie's Jane Marple because she's just a little old lady — an impression Marple's only too happy to have them maintain. But she's not as harmless as she pretends to be.
  • While everyone else thinks of Ciaphas Cain as a full-time hero, his own first-person narration makes out his every adventure to go something like "I'd been making excuses to avoid the action and make myself as comfortable as possible all along, but then I had terrible luck and just had to go lead a dangerous mission to save everyone, and duel that über-monster myself." He goes on about how he's a Dirty Coward until any time he's forced to do something, at which point he's proven hypercompetent (or sometimes just really lucky), whether it's at leadership or fighting.
  • In Lois McMaster Bujold's A Civil Campaign, Olivia Koudelka, an unarmed young woman in a party dress, on Barrayar, a very sexist world, is not considered a threat to the villain's mooks. However, she's the daughter of the Emperor's former bodyguard...and doesn't stay unarmed long.
  • In Jim Butcher's other work, Codex Alera, damn near everyone with a name who isn't primarily known for being a badass has these moments.
    • Doroga, when he stops being laid back and actually fights, is a force to be reckoned with.
    • Ehren is a bookworm... who's also a chessmaster able to manipulate people into doing whatever he wants.
    • Fade is an odd, quiet little man, who as it turns out is the greatest swordsman alive.
    • A weird one is the entire First Aleran legion. They're a "dog-and-pony" legion made up of new recruits and are intended for show, not war. Then the Canim invade...
  • The Death Gate Cycle: Alfred faints when confronted with danger. In truth he is a Serpent Mage, one of the most powerful beings in the universe.
    • It's more like he's consciously taking a level in wimp by focusing his mind on not hurting anyone to the point of literal mental illness. He just naturally collapses back to being a Physical God when someone finally manages to shake his concentration by inadvertently bringing up the things that made him take up the quest for harmlessness to begin with.
  • In the Demon child series, R'shiel may look and act like a spoilt brat. However she has enough power to destroy a God. And she has a short temper when it comes to people interfering in her plans.
  • Mátyás, Liam's uncle-mentor introduced in King Kelson's Bride, proves to be adept and ruthless at intrigue and a powerful mage in thwarting his brothers' attempted coup d'etat against Liam.
  • In the Discworld novels:
    • The broom-sweeping elder monk/janitor Lu Tze from Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time spends most of the book bluffing and letting other people do the work for him, repeatedly saying that people should be cautious around wizened little men (i.e. himself). Only in the last few pages of the book does he show that his reputation is perfectly justified, as he is a legendary martial arts master capable of taking down the Incarnation of Time in single combat. He's their best secret agent and the finest unarmed combat expert alive.
    • Otto Chriek from The Truth also qualifies. As a vampire who's sworn off biting the living, he's portrayed throughout the book as a silly but sympathetic figure. And then his employer is threatened, and the resulting fight scene borrows heavily from the then-recent The Matrix film. In Thud!, he explains that he works hard to appear silly and pathetic, because if he didn't he'd be creepy and genuinely frightening. There's a couple of hints now and then that he might be a Retired Monster.
    • Magrat of Lords and Ladies, who until that book had been the Granola Girl. She practically embodies this trope the whole way through. As the book says, "The thing about small, furry creatures is that some of them are mongooses."
      The elf looked down at the crossbow. "I won't beg," it said.
      "Good," said Magrat, and fired.
    • And later on...
      The Queen attacked again, exploding into her uncertainty like a nova. She was nothing. She was insignificant. She was so worthless and unimportant that even something completely worthless and exhaustively unimportant would consider her beneath contempt. In laying hands upon the Queen she truly deserved an eternity of pain. She had no control over her body. She did not deserve any. She did not deserve a thing.
      The disdain sleeted over her, tearing the planetary body of Magrat Garlick to pieces. She'd never be any good. She'd never be beautiful or intelligent, or strong. She'd never be anything at all. Self-confidence? Confidence in what?
      The eyes of the Queen were all she could see. All she wanted to do was lose herself in them, and the ablation of Magrat Garlick roared on, tearing at the strata of her soul... exposing the core.
      She bunched up her fist and hit the Queen between the eyes.
    • Then there's Stanley in Going Postal. A preternaturally neurotic postal worker (he was raised by peas. That is not a typo), he's usually just very polite and obsessive about certain topics — unless you push him too far, in which case he has a Little Moment and hits you very hard in the face with something unpleasant. And he's so wound up that it doesn't take much to put him over the edge.
    • The Archchancellor and most of the wizards at Unseen University count. They're a group of stumbling idiots who spend most of their time eating large meals and sleeping... but don't piss them off. In fact, the whole reason the university exists is to ensure that wizards do not use magic. Transforming someone into a frog is not hard; it's hard to not do it despite knowing how easy it is. Before the university, the general behaviour of wizards was... a bit different. How so? Well, the group word for "wizard" is "war." Take that any way you wish.
    • Also, Susan, Death's grand-daughter technically counts (particularly by Thief of Time). She may be a teacher and may spend most of her time looking after six year olds, but if you make her angry she can and will bend time and space (more like time and space don't mean anything to her) ... oh and she's technically Death's successor. (And anyone want to take a bet what Death will do to you if you mess with his grand-daughter?) And the scene in the same book about her abilities as a teacher. She inspired one of her students, who had until then been terrified of the monster under the bed, not only to face her fear, but to go after it with her father's sword. When confronted with parental worries that she'd been introducing children to the occult, Susan replied that she had, "so it won't come as a shock".
    • Death himself. He's this relaxed, philosophical figure, quite uncharacteristic of the normal image people have of the Grim Reaper... until you mess with the Balance of Life and Death. Then he gets on a fucking motorcycle. That's all there really is to say on the matter. In Reaper Man, Death spends most of the novel in retirement, bumbling through the life of a human with the improbable name of Bill Door. Then, when his replacement comes for him Death becomes truly angry, seeing that the new Death is not a reaper and shepherd but a ruler, and sharpens an ordinary scythe with the power of his own fury and takes back his job.
    • Mr. Bent from Making Money, a top-class accountant for most of his life, he nevertheless manages to kill two thugs near the end of the book, at least one of whom had trained at the Assassins Guild.
    • The Nac Mac Feegle were comic relief through the first three Tiffany Aching books, but in I Shall Wear Midnight — don't go mucking around their mounds with a shovel. Just don't.
    • Misstress Esmerelda Weatherwax is a subversion, as she usually bluffs her way through things. More than one opponent has concluded that her glory days are behind her and she's just relying on misdirection and trickery. Upon being accused of this, she almost invariably becomes a timid, harmless, possibly slightly senile, little old lady who says things like "Oh deary me" and "lawks" ... at which you can start counting the seconds until things go Very Badly Indeed for said opponent.
    • If Rincewind takes off one of his socks and puts a half a brick in it, it means he's decided to stop running and fight. He doesn't always win when he does this in subsequent books, but it always marks a moment where he's suddenly quit being a Coward and decided to be a badass instead.
      • The first time it happens, he winds up beating off an entire army of Eldritch Abominations by himself.
      • In Unseen Academicals, when he quietly starts pulling his sock off another mage notices and immediately brings the impending riot to a stop before Rincewind has to act.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Harry Dresden generally looks like a very tall and lanky scarecrow with black and quirky dress sense. People who piss him off and hurt those he cares also find out why beings of up to immortal Physical God status are terrified of him. If you hear the word 'Fuego', you're generally about to die a painful death. Moreso if its immediately preceded by "Pyro".
      • Wizards in general are not usually classed according to the amount of energy they can output, but their ability to control that output. Most of them have some aspect of natural talent that they normally have to mechanically tone down using a tool, or abstain from using entirely. Harry has three separate tools designed to limit the amount of fire he instinctively conjures, so when he starts it up without his shield bracelet or a rod or staff pointed at you, you're not in danger of being set aflame so much as the entire city block on which you're standing.
    • To put this in context, when Harry Dresden goes to war, Vampire Lords, Faerie Queens, Fallen Angels, and whole supernatural species die.
    • In Aftermath, Murphy described the moment that Harry becomes this trope — he suddenly stops being a goofy, irreverent nerd and starts being a commanding, primeval force of nature. She's terrified of it and she's the one watching his back.
    • In the long run, he threatened a Black Court Vampire that if she ever so much as thought about hurting his friends, he'd go necromatic-god mode on her. She never came back until Harry was distracted by a full-scale invasion of the city.
    • Sometimes Harry forgets that Thomas can go super-powered vampire at any time. Sometimes he doesn't.
    • When Molly first breaks out her "DJ Molly" magical light show at Chichen Itza.
    • The Senior Council is this in general. They're the most senior Wizards in the world by definition, so they tend not to look all that threatening at a few hundred years old each. That being said, in a setting where knowledge is literally power, a few hundred years to learn stuff tends to end up making you very dangerous.
      • You'd think that a known badass couldn't have these moments, but when Ebenezer McCoy pulls the Blackstaff out of a pocket dimension, Elite Mooks start ceasing to exist en masse.
      • When Listens-To-Wind (generally the councils chief healer) has a shapeshifting brawl with an Eldritch Abomination that has been more or less unstoppable for the entire book. When it points out that he can't actually banish it, he says he doesn't intended to try, just to "kick your ass up between your ears." Which he does.
      • Arthur Langtry, The Merlin of the White Council, is, for most of the series, portrayed as primarily a politician and behind-the-scenes mover-and-shaker. But you don't end up The Merlin with having the magical muscle to back it up.
      • He manages to create an on the fly ward which holds the entire Red Court of vampires (the strongest of which is a Physical God and whose lieutenants are only marginally weaker) without a Threshold, in a fraction of a minute.
      • At one point, a non-corporeal malicious entity attacks a White Council meeting. The Merlin manages to contain it, formulate a battle plan and telepathically communicate said plan to about 200 people (complete with 3D visual aids) in less than three minutes. Without losing his cool for a second.
    • The first time Murphy fully used one of the Swords of the Cross, she cut through Red Court Vampires like chaff and the eldest Red Court Vampires like silk.
  • From Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (and an overall theme of Hunter S. Thompson's entire career): "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
  • The final battle in Good Omens:
  • A prime example of this is the last battle in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The professors and faculty of Hogwarts, upon being confronted with an attacking Death Eater army, finally demonstrate why they are teaching their subjects. They are joined by the other formerly comedic secondary characters in a battle against the otherwise lethal terrorists.
    • Including, among other things: Molly Weasley kills Bellatrix Lestrange. Singlehandedly, while Bellatrix was shown to singlehandedly fight three members of Dumbledore's Army to a standstill at once! Don't mess with her kids.
      • More specifically, don't mess with the only daughter of a woman who's raised 6 boys simultaneously. Especially when one of those sons was just killed.
      • In the film version, she is laughing when Molly shows up, and after her first attack, goes straight into an Oh, Crap! while Molly delivers her declaration. Then she actually starts to take her seriously as a combatant, but stops to cackle at her, at which point Molly starts driving her back, then breaks her into little pieces.
    • Hey, don't forget Professor Trelawney! Something has to be said about the woman who drives off a werewolf using crystal balls as projectiles. It's easy to forget, with her Phony Psychic tendencies, that she's a real witch, which she demonstrates to great effect in that passage.
    • It's Professor McGonagall (who is effectively the Big Good until the Order Of The Phoenix arrive in force and Kingsley Shacklebolt assumes the role) who invokes this first by warning Slughorn that if he and the Slytherin students try to sabotage their resistance or fight against them, she'll kill them.
    • Not to mention Horace Slughorn, the overweight and decadent Slytherin who likes to cultivate powerful connections among his students not only returns to the final battle bringing badly needed reinforcements, but also joins McGonagall and Shacklebolt in personally dueling Voldemort.
    • Also in the final battle, the thestrals and the House Elves (led by KREACHER, of all people) take part in the battle, greatly assisting the heroes. Also Buckbeak the Hippogriff who is noted to claw out the eyes of Voldemort's legion of giants! In the case of the House Elves, rather than using their own magic, these normally placid and subservient creatures are taking on the Death Eaters with meat cleavers and carving knives!
    • Although it doesn't really come across in terms of his actions, Ron declares that he wants to kill Death Eaters after Fred dies.
    • When Mcgonagall first rallies the teachers to start defending the castle, Professor Sprout starts listing off a number of plants she can use including Venomous Tentacula and Devil's Snare, and as the siege begins, Neville is seen leading a group of fighters wearing ear protection to drop Mandrakes over the battlements. Those familiar with the first two books will know that Devil's Snare is a cluster of vines that kills by strangulation, and that the cry of a full grown Mandrake can kill.
    • Dobby in Book 2, and then later in Book 7, where he completely owns Bellatrix and the Malfoys and ends up pulling both a Big Damn Heroes and a Heroic Sacrifice.
    • Neville Longbottom, who, after being everyone's favorite loser for 6 years, steps up to the Carrows, leads an underground resistance group and single handedly decapitates Voldemort's beloved snake and Horcrux Nagini after being paralyzed and lit on fire.
      • The special-release Neville Longbottom Chocolate Frog Card states plainly that he is one of only three individuals ever to single-handedly duel Voldemort and survive (the other two being Harry Potter and Dumbledore). The phrase "Took a Level in Badass" just doesn't seem adequate, somehow.
    • Molly Weasley decided to do this as soon as Voldemort came back, revealed in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to have joined the organization in which both of her brothers died fighting Voldemort in the last war and turning Death Eaters to stone when they threaten her family.
  • Honor Harrington:
    • Victor Cachat is this is his first appearance in From the Highlands. He's the new guy, never done any real fieldwork. His new mentor calls him "wonderboy" and mocks him (good-naturedly) at every opportunity. His idealism and naivete is a constant source of amusement to the other characters, even though the former the only reason any of them would consider talking to him. His uncertainty is quite frankly, adorable and endearing. Then you get to the end bit where he's supposed to fire one burst to scatter the scrags and get out of the way for the Ballroom, and...yeah, not so much. They screwed with his nation and his principles, and he will make them pay, personally. Officer of the Revolution. Sneer and be damned. (He's much less of an example thereafter, since it becomes common knowledge in the military/espionage community — meaning all the main characters — that however cute and sweet he may occasionally appear, only the deeply suicidal get in the way of his principles. He is THAT good.)
    • Another example is his mentor Kevin Usher, who deliberately built a reputation as a politically oblivious drunk to hide the fact that he's a major player in the Havenite resistance.
    • Another example from the same series is Shannon "Oops!" Foraker. She's the quintessential techno-nerd and Genius Ditz, apparently a wizard at tactical problems with no particular care for the real world. But once she marks the Havenite State Sec as an enemy, the organization's days are numbered, culminating with an entire main battle fleet's fusion plants being blown by a computer virus.
  • The protagonist of Rob Grant's novel Incompetence spends most of it wishing lurid death on the idiots he has to deal with during his investigation while getting bruised and insulted by a culture of incompetence (he's hanging on to the outside of a speeding train and gets the attention of a guard; the guard holds up a handwritten note to the window telling him he's supposed to be inside). But when he's taken prisoner and is taken to the Big Bad's lair, simply killing his guard almost doesn't rate a mention.
  • In Jurassic Park, Muldoon says to Gennaro when they're about to drive off to bring down the Tyrannosaurus in a jeep, "Are you ready to live dangerously?"
  • The Kingkiller Chronicle teaches us important things, like for the love of Tehlu, do not break Kvothe's lute. Or kill his family. Or threaten innocents. He will call lightning and annihilate you, he will stab you from afar with voodoo, and he will call the Name of the Wind, and rend you in its power.
  • The Cassiline Brotherhood of Kushiel's Legacy are sworn only to get their swords out to kill (normally, they use daggers and vambraces). You'd better believe that when they do, things are going to get VERY dangerous. Especially if it's Joscelin, and doubly especially if Phedre is in peril...
  • The Last Dragon Chronicles: When attempting to fight Gwilanna, Galen tries to make his human host grow wings. It doesn't end well. It ends with a lot of bloody, gory muscles on show.
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • The most powerful Ringwraith, the Witch-King, was killed by Merry and Éowyn — characters not previously recognized for their fighting prowess. Merry even joked later: "Sometimes it's good to be overlooked..."
    • There was also Pippin, who in the books took down a whole troll, and not just any troll, but one of those ones bred for fighting.
    • By the time the third book has happened, Merry is already noted to have hacked the limbs off of several of the URUK-HAI that tried to capture him and Pippin. The Rohirrim weren't leaving him behind because they still felt he was unfit for war: they were leaving him behind because they didn't have a horse that could carry him and their cavalry would be arriving weeks before their infantry.
    • Speaking of Hobbits, one chapter fits this trope perfectly: 'The Scouring of the Shire'.
    • Gandalf himself gets a little of this. He comes across a little bumbling in the first book, a tad of the archetypal distracted wizard. Then, facing the Balrog of Moria, he reveals both his power and his identity, fights the demon for three days and annihilates it — at the cost of his own life.
    • Samwise deserves a mention too, progressing from 'run for help' as his first thought through killing his first orc in Moria, and culminating in taking on Shelob — an entity that entire armies of orcs refuse to engage. The movie sequence where he's killing orcs with a frying pan in Moria is priceless.
    Samwise: You've hurt my master, you filth. We're going on now, but we'll settle with you before we go.
    • In the film version, Strider is only hinted at being powerful upon first meeting. He has a sword, is very Ringwraith-savvy, and manages to lead them through the wilderness, but still doesn't really show his awesome side. Then Weathertop rolled around, and a nation of geeks realized the amount of damage you could do with a torch. Later still, it turns out that 'Strider' is just his relaxed and carefree side, and Aragorn son of Arathorn does some things that make Sauron very, very nervous.
    • Treebeard and the Ents: so slow and ponderous: it takes them hours just to get through "hello". Too indecisive to, well, do anything. Until they realize what Saruman is up to...
    Merry (describing the destruction of Isengard): I thought I had seen them roused before. I was wrong. It was staggering.
  • In Noob, only one faction leader out of three, Keynn Lucans, has yet to be seen fighting. However, when the subject of who would win if he fought one of the other faction leaders comes up, Arthéon suspects that Keynn may have a better chance than one may first think. After all, the guy is an Emperor Scientist benefitting from Bio-Augmentation.
  • The Pendragon Adventure: Spader says this almost every five minutes. He even gets Bobby saying it.
  • In The Phantom Tollbooth, the demons are pursuing the escaping heroes and princesses when the heroes reach the assembled armies of Wisdom, all the goofy Anthropomorphic Personifications that Milo met his journey.
  • The mice in Prince Caspian. They spend the entire book getting laughed off for their apparent tough-guy acts, and then in the final battle of the book, they're out there in the thick of things, crippling enemy legs and finishing them off when they collapse.
  • Speaking of David Eddings, in The Redemption of Althalus, you have Emmy. She looks like a sweet cat and will purr and love you to pieces... However she is God (well, Goddess), and the entire fate of reality is revolving around a family feud she's having with her two brothers. Piss her off and she can and will eradicate you from existence. Also, Athalus himself probably counts to the rest of the group. He may be a thief and he may joke around with the forces of existence, but you threaten anyone he loves and he will show you why he is Dweia's boyfriend.
  • Drusas Achamian in Second Apocalypse is a Mandate sorcerer. He's a bit of a put-upon schlub who occasionally rails internally about how he could smite someone to cinders if he so chose, but it seems like impotent rage. Then he's faced by seven rival sorcerers of the Scarlet Spire and cuts loose with his war cants. Despite the overwhelming odds, he manages to slay one of them before going down. After getting taken captive, he manages to escapes his bindings, slaughter all of his captors, beat the shit out of a demon summoned to fight him, and blow up their compound.
  • Septimus from Septimus Heap does this against the Toll-Man when trying to get to the House of Foryx in Queste.
  • Towards the end of the tournament in Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out So I Teamed Up With A Mythical Sorceress! Nadine, a level 3 Healer who was so unusually weak that no one other than Lilium wanted her in their party, has to face Katherine, a surprisingly talented mage. It looks like it might turn into a curbstomp match, but instead Nadine finally shows her true colors as a former Assassin. She easily dodges all of Katherine's spells and is able to freeze her in terror just with her aura. Eventually she grabs Katherine with a knife at her throat and coldly tells her she can either forfeit or die, terrifying her enough to make her lose control of her bowels.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • Doran Martell is frequently criticized for being an overly cautious ruler too scared to risk entering the Game of Thrones, but he's actually been carefully planning the whole time to overthrow the nobility.
    • The morbidly obese Lord Wyman Manderly is pretty much a punchline at court, but he gets back at the Freys for their treachery by feeding them their own family members, mocking them to their faces, and surviving an assassination attempt.
  • In Space Beasts, Jim Buckwheat the Squirrel Boy is pretty mellow and laid back, until you hurt his friends. You definitely don't want to be around him when he's wielding his Flaming Sword.
  • In Spelljammer novel The Cloakmaster Cycle a very young Giff joins the protagonist and considers him his superior. This green "trooper Gomja" is more of a burden, since he only looks at Teldin's mouth and waits for an order. Then in a fit of inspiration and pique, Teldin "promotes" the lad to sergeant — despite currently not having any rank at all and being only a mule skinner before retirement. But this forced Gomja to take responsibility and woke up his tactical mind. Now, not only even a young Giff is still a humanoid hippo bigger and stronger than most men can hope to be, with the hide tougher than studded leather armor, but all adult Giff are mercenary Space Marines and even kids live in preparation for the same, waiting to be enlisted. Hilarity Ensues in short order. Lots of it.
  • Most of the main characters in the Sword of Truth have some cue when the situation gets dark. Kahlan slips on her "Confessor's Face", Richard begins using the term "bringer of death" generously, and Nicci slips into her persona of "Death's Mistress."
  • In The Tomorrow Series, Ellie and her friends are perfectly normal, everyday Australian rural and small-town teenagers. Then, after they find out that Australia has been invaded and occupied and they're among the very few Australians who're still at liberty they decide to get serious.
  • Lissa Dragomir from Vampire Academy is usually not the fighting type. However she manages to knock out an attacking Reed Lazar with a single punch, and later faces Dimitri the Strigoi in a fight and manages to stake him, getting severe burns in the process.
  • The Wheel of Time has a world full of these. Most notably:
    • Rand al'Thor, Dragon Reborn, Aes Sedai, the man who can stare down a thundering Trolloc army and simply kill them all. After nearly being captured by a Forsaken, he gained some measure of control over the pattern itself and nearly annihilated someone just by willing it. Only later in the series does he start looking like that all the time, spending the rest of the time as a farmer wearing fancy coats because someone told him to.
    • Matrim bloody Cauthon. The cleverest mind alive, backed by hundreds of years of tactical memory, nearly unbeatable combat skills, an anti-magic amulet, perfect luck as a superpower, cannons and repeater crossbows in a medieval setting, all contained in a drinking, carousing, gambling, swearing little well-intentioned man.
    • Just don't take Perrin's wife away. Just don't. Unless you want him to suddenly martial every force that could hypothetically work together for a combined assault against you. And win with laughably inferior numbers. With him leading the charge.
      • Don't fuck with wolves in the World of Dreams, either, or he'll learn to teleport in the real world and chase you across continents with an indestructible hammer that can burn evil.
    • Try and destroy Egwene Sedai's Tower. Just try. She will unmake you. But other than that she's quite pleasant. Except if you try and manipulate her, because she'll then publicly out-maneuver you in front of your peers. She's only recently out of her teens.
    • In the final books, the whole human race (with some non-human allies) has a collective moment of this. As the Last Battle approaches, we see more and more regular people realizing that they have no choice but to fight and taking up arms to help ward off the Dark One's minions. Rand ultimately realizes that humanity's capacity to do this is what ensures that the Dark One will never win.
    • The Ogier have this as a racial trait. Most of them are Actual Pacifist tree-huggers, and "To anger an Ogier and pull a mountain over your head" is a figure of speech meaning something utterly impossible. If you do manage to rile one up, however, an Ogier is a terrifying engine of destruction. Later in the series, it is mentioned that the aforementioned figure of speech originally was "To anger an Ogier is to pull a mountain over your head".
  • White Jenna: Skada. As a dark sister, she is supposed to fill a supporting role, but in the climatic battle she kills her first man and saves Jenna's life.


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