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"Put the army in the face of death where there is no escape and they will not flee or be afraid - there is nothing they cannot achieve"
The "Cornered Rattlesnake" is when a character or a faction is pressured to the breaking point. Another group or a villian will bully or threaten the weaker 'rattlesnake' until the weaker person fights back. Sometimes the 'weaker' group is actually surprisingly powerful, but the bully underestimated their abilities. Having the rattlesnake 'bite back' is something the villain normally didn't intend or anticipate, and so he will face the consequences.
Sometimes a Cornered Rattlesnake will be given assistance from the enemies of the villains, and so will begin to be able to defend itself. The villain's cruel actions could actually make their allies turn towards the 'rattlesnake's' side.
The phrase refers to the real life scenario of if a person were to corner a rattlesnake. The human can easily choose to retreat, but instead tries to kill the rattlesnake. Cornered, the rattlesnake would defend itself. This trope doesn't require the rattlesnake to win, as it is possible to kill the snake, but being bitten is highly likely.
Sometimes this is a response to a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, Hopeless Boss Fight or Curb-Stomp Battle. See also Beware the Nice Ones.
This isn't Bullying a Dragon, as the cornered rattlesnake appears, at first, to be physically weaker or a huge coward and only reacts in self defense. Compare Mugging the Monster, where the would-be victim just shows no outward sign of the threat they pose.
Examples:
Anime and Manga
- A common situation of the cornered rattlesnakes is that the hero is forced to use a risky move or a Heroic Sacrifice to defeat his enemy.
Film - Animated
- In Toy Story, Sid's toys have been brutalized by Sid, who sadistically enjoys destroying, damaging and disfiguring his toys. The toys risk being exposed as living creatures, but are able to scare Sid into respecting his toys.
- In The Iron Giant, The Giant is attacked by the US military. This leads the robot to engage into a 'battle mode' where he uses giant alien weapons to destroy almost everything in sight. The military itself becomes the Cornered Rattlesnake now and arms a nuclear missile to destroy The Giant, even at the risk of killing everyone in town.
Film - Live-Action
- In The Dark Knight, the gangs of Gotham are forced to hire the Joker as the police and Batman are overwhelming their gangs. This leads to Joker blowing up many buildings and threatening or massacring dozens of people.
Literature
- David from Animorphs is this, both figuratively and literally. In The Solution he actually morphs a rattlesnake, and as for the figurative part? The end-of-book blurb for The Solution speaks for itself:
- Don Quixote and the Knight of the Grove are going to fight, and the squire of the Knight of the Grove bullies Sancho Panza, Don Quixote’s squire, into a fight. Sancho continuously denies this, until the squire of the Knight of the Grove menaces to give Sancho some buffets, so Sancho invokes this trope trying to defy it:
"To match that plan," said Sancho, "I have another that is not a whit behind it; I will take a cudgel, and before your worship comes near enough to waken my anger I will send yours so sound to sleep with whacks, that it won't waken unless it be in the other world, where it is known that I am not a man to let my face be handled by anyone; let each look out for the arrow—though the surer way would be to let everyone's anger sleep, for nobody knows the heart of anyone, and a man may come for wool and go back shorn; God gave his blessing to peace and his curse to quarrels; if a hunted cat, surrounded and hard pressed, turns into a lion, God knows what I, who am a man, may turn into..."
- In The Art of War, Sun Tzu warns the reader from putting an opposing army in this position: Always leave your opponent an escape route or you'll unnecessarily lose men to the ensuing Last Stand, no matter how much stronger your army is.
Tabletop Games
- Exalted: Ebon Dragon has this theme as one of his (very few) admirable quality. The harder you gang-up on him (or one of his chosen), the harder he/they fight back— usually in a way that is completely unexpected. For example, Cornered Titan Desperation charm allows you to use ranged attack charm in point blank range if you're, well, cornered. Screw momentum, he has to survive!
Video Games
- Painwheel from Skull Girls has been experimented on, brainwashed and mutilated by Valentine's labs. Her scarred and deformed body makes it impossible to live a normal life, even her family cannot recognize her and mistake her as a murderous monster. Painwheel was once a normal girly teenager, but now is a feral and violent fighter. Valentine's greatest weapon is now her biggest threat.
- Chell, from Portal, is forced to destroy GLaDOS, who is forcing Chell to go through dangerous test chambers and even attempted to kill Chell by dragging her into a fire. Otherwise Chell is just a normal person, while GLaDOS is a giant robot that can fire rockets, summon turrets and poison rooms with neurotoxin.
- This trope is why it's a very bad idea to surround enemy troops on an open battlefield in the Total War games. If you completely surround an army they will battle to the death, knowing there is no other option. However if they are simply outflanked and overpowered, some will want to rout and retreat to save themselves. This is also why sieges almost always devolve into a final bloody meatgrinder in the city/castle square. Once the defenders fall back there, they know they've got nowhere else to retreat to, so they stand and fight to the last man. The only way to prevent this is to somehow break the entire enemy army before any of them can retreat to the city center.
Western Animation
- In the first episode of Batman Beyond, Bruce's Batman is too old to fight against the goons. One of them is about to beat Batman with a pipe, forcing Batman to use a gun to win. Batman, who hates guns, decides he needs to retire in his old age so he wouldn't be in this situation again.
- MLP:FIM. Fluttershy protects her friends by staring down a cockatrice and defends them from a giant dragon, which normally she is terrified of.
- Tom once bought a book titled "How to Catch a Mouse". At some point, Jerry was cornered and Tom read from a chapter that "a cornered mouse never fights". The book was proven wrong.
Real Life
- Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
- Many revolutions were formed by militias of citizens, who were too pressured by their governments to survive without rebelling.
- Unfortunately, there are many examples of people who are driven to suicide, murder or murder-suicide from bullying, threats and other things.
- Carpenter ants can self-destruct, spreading their poisonous guts over their enemies.
- Rattlesnakes, duh. They're usually content to ignore and be ignored, but will strike if they feel threatened.
- Almost all venomous snakes, for that matter. They actually prefer running away over biting if they can run away. Mambas are an exception, being quick to anger (and not at all subtle) but usually if you see a venomous snake at all you're more likely to be bitten by trying to kill it than by just backing away.
- In one form or another, many venomous snakes give you a courtesy warning: "Piss off or get bitten." Rattlesnakes with their rattles and cobras with their hoods are, of course, the most recognizable examples of this. Bottom line, if you're so foolhardy as to not heed those warnings, you WILL get bitten.
- Skunks are normally peaceful creatures, but will spray predators with a smelly liquid if threatened.
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