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Crouching Moron Hidden Badass
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You can only push a nerd so far.
"And that's what happens when you back a brilliant scientist into a corner!!" — Rodney McKay, after beating up two soldiers. ( Stargate Atlantis)
He’d had only himself to play with, so his clones all fought like they had imaginary playmates – only theirs were real. If he’d been doing that for this long, no wonder he was kicking my ass. It was both admiral and pathetic at the same time.
— Out of the Darkness: A Jinchuuriki's Tale on Naruto
At first glance, he's The Fool. She's The Ditz. And no, it's not Obfuscating Stupidity — they're really like that.
Most of the time.
If you push the right button at the right time, things will suddenly change. The goofy smile disappears. Their eyes start glowing. An aura of energy surrounds them. Little pieces of rock start floating up from the ground. Alternately, they may simply display a sudden leap in speed, strength, martial skill and weapon use.
After the dust settles, however, they're right back to smiling goofily, tripping over their own feet, and just generally acting like the Plucky Comic Relief — while their teammates are rubbing their eyes, and trying to figure out what just happened. Often, the character doesn't actually know himself.
Basically, the individual has access to superpowers of some sort — could be psionics, could be Functional Magic or Applied Phlebotinum, could be Nanomachines — and they either don't know they have the power, or don't know how to control it. Occassionally they have a Power Limiter that they are unaware of that will seal their strength until needed.
Common triggers include a friend or loved one in danger (see Mama Bear and Papa Bear), a Million To One Chance scenario, or just a "worthy cause." Sometimes, just getting 'em really, really pissed off will do the trick — although their easy-going personalities make that a rare occurrence.
The main point, however, is not the powers, but the radical change in personality that comes with them. The character may ordinarily be harmless, maybe even a Technical Pacifist, but when in Bad Ass mode, there's no mercy.
Sometimes, this can end up as a full-blown Superpowered Evil Side or Jekyll And Hyde scenario, if the Bad Ass side refuses to revert. In those cases, it might turn out that the individual was once aware of his powers and abilities, but somehow 'sealed' them — consciously or otherwise — because he knew that With Great Power Comes Great Insanity.
In most other cases, the character will gradually learn to control his power — although he'll usually still need to Freak Out a bit to use his full power — and may evolve into an Idiot Hero, or more rarely, a straight-up Messiah.
In a few cases, things will go bad. The Bad Ass powers are required too often, and they gradually take their toll on a previously cheerful individual. Usually results in an Emo or, in the case of females, an Emotionless Girl. Invariably results in her friends wondering if Saving The World was really worth the price.
The Japanese term for this is "dame elite" ("dame" meaning no good).
If intentional, then it is a case of Obfuscating Stupidity.
Compare with Heroic Resolve. Lets Get Dangerous refers to a specific variant of this trope. See also Minored In Ass Kicking, where the character acts like The Smart Guy instead of The Fool.
Contrast Weak But Skilled and Mistaken For Badass.
Check out the index for sub-types of this trope.
Examples:
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- Redwall: King Bull Sparra does this really well. Maybe a little too well...
- The character of Alfred from The Death Gate Cycle, written by Weis & Hickman, is an over the top example of this trope. He first appears as a stumbling, clumsy butler, but in dire circumstances, at times off-screen, he is the pinnacle of his wizarding tradition and can perform miracles in Functional Magic up to and including resurrecting the dead, the right way, whereas other mages can do so only by draining the life of another being of the same race, somewhere in the multiverse. Of course, a lot of people want to get hold of Alfred for his magical prowess. Problem is, he doesn't remember how he pulls his magic off, pulling a complete black-out, more than often enough accompanied by an undignified fainting. It eventually turns out that he originally just used Obfuscating Stupidity to avoid revealing his powers to the world — but over time, it became so in-grown that he practically forgot how to use his powers at all.
- In the same series, a character named Zifnab appears to be a senile old man who can't remember the color of his own robe. He is later discovered to be one of the oldest living beings in the universe. Although he is afflicted with Alzheimer's, he is questionably the most powerful magician in the series, complete with his own pet dragon.
- I always thought it was less Alzheimer's and more way too many bad memories from when the world as we knew it was broken asunder and billions died. You go around with that mucking up your head and you would be daffy yourself.
- Then of course there's the absent-minded, bumbling elderly mage Fizban, from Weis & Hickman's Dragonlance series. Though occasionally his spells prove useful, this is mostly by accident. Later you learn the truth: he's actually the God the protagonists are fighting to bring back...
- From Maskerade of the Discworld series, there's Walter Plinge, who pulls a double Homage to Michael Crawford by being a bumbling Frank Spencer clone who badasses into the suave Opera Ghost by putting a mask on.
- Another Discworld example comes from Lords And Ladies. When Lancre is under siege by elves, perpetual milquetoast Magrat gets her Hidden Badass moment after she dons the war armor of Queen Ynci the Short-Tempered. She then proceeds to kick elvish ass (including shooting a crossbow through a keyhole) and ride off for a showdown with the Queen of the Elves. Near the end of the novel, we learn that Queen Ynci was a fictional creation of a former Lancre monarch.
- And another in Men At Arms - Detritus, a particularly dumb troll, becomes temporarily hyper-intelligent when he's locked in a cold room and his silicon brain starts super-conducting.
- Eddie Dean in The Dark Tower is a washed-up cynical junkie loser when he first falls into Midworld, and seemingly dependent upon the Last Gunslinger for basic survival. He reveals himself to be a talented gunfighter when provoked.
- The wizard Schmendrick of The Last Unicorn is, at times, capable of awe-inspiring magic... the trouble is, he can hardly ever get it to work, and usually it doesn't do what he expected. But he gets it under control in the end.
- In George Macdonald Frasier's McAuslan stories, Private McGlinchy is, in a football game, either completely useless or completely amazing, depending on factors that other characters are trying to figure out.
- In Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Cycle, a gibbering, mindless beggar barely capable of feeding himself is later revealed to be the mortal shell of Macros the Black, the most powerful sorcerer in the world. His mind was not in his body, until suddenly it was imperative for him to be present to fight the darkness and chaos.
- And then there's Nakor, a wandering con man and chronic goof-off who just happens to know more about magic, the nature of the multiverse, and beating down evil than anyone else in the series, with the possible exception of Pug.
- Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series has JonTom Merryweather, the spellsinger of the title. A modern human in an alternate, medieval-equivalent universe filled with Talking Animals, who is pretty much useless in a fight, at least in the first few books... except for his spellsinging, which is the ultimate wild card and capable of doing anything he can sing about. The only trouble is that 1.) he has to know the right song, 2.) sometimes nothing happens, and 3.) even he's not sure what's going to happen when he starts. It's done everything from switching the entire party's genders, to changing a wizard's apprentice into a phoenix, to summoning a god.
- While this editor isn't sure how much this is true of the character in actual mythology, some stories of Ganesha present the jolly Big Eater god as equal in power to his fearsome father Shiva, capable of stopping the sun and destroying the world, but luckily too nice to do so.
- The novel Armor by John Steakley follows two storylines set about five years apart, with the earlier one framed by the discovery of the powered armor used by the earlier protagonist on a distant, non-wartorn colony in a crashed escape pod. The armor's owner, Felix, is quite literally an unstoppable killing machine: in a war where no one has survived more than ten major missions, armor notwithstanding, Felix makes it through over twenty before being killed by another human soldier. Meanwhile, in the present-day, a rebellion is brewing right underneath the nose of the colony's drunken, dimwitted owner, Lewis, causing great consternation to the present-day protagonist... especially when it breaks into open war and a nearby space pirate decides to capitalize on the situation. With a military grade dreadnought. Fortunately, Lewis is Felix, lying low and enjoying life. At least, until he decides to save his colony by putting his armor back on, slaughtering an army's worth of pirates, and then takes down the dreadnought with his bare damn hands.
- Neville Longbottom of Harry Potter, although he worked hard to achieve the Badass designation from the Moron.
- Notable in that his badassery level only rises with every challenge; it doesn't revert. Ever.
- Culminates in a Crowning Moment Of Awesome. Consider also that the prophesy nominating Harry as "the chosen one" easily applied to Neville as well.
- This series also gives us Vincent Crabbe, who is revealed in the final book to be by far the most competent and most evil of the Slytherin trio.
- In the books Operation: Red Jericho and Operation: Typhoon Shore, Posh Charlie has a very minor role and is known for his constant stuttering and nervousness. Put him in a combat situation and he becomes a confident soldier, immediately dropping the stutter. This may possibly be Obfuscating Stupidity due to the knowledge in the latter book that he is actually a very competent researcher.
- Lovable the raven, from the Firekeeper series, is described as a "bubble head" and has a love for anything shiny. This is in stark contrast to her far more serious mate, Bitter. However, in the fifth book, Wolf Hunting, when Bitter and Lovable are ensnared by magic vines that can kill their victims, Lovable forgoes her shot at escape to stay and keep the vines from getting Bitter completely. She manages this for quite some time until help arrives and is the only reason that help wasn't too late for Bitter.
- Ceallio, in Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series, is a mute simpleton when he is discovered by the protagonists working in an inn in the marsh town of Kwanitupul. However, it turns out that he's really the famous knight Camaris, who suffered a Heroic BSOD and attempted suicide many years ago. When sorely provoked, he displays incredible strength and fighting skill, first beating up a group of thugs and then defeating a Nabbanai nobleman in a swordfight, but remains in a childlike daze. It is not until he's brought to Prince Josua that he finally recovers his wits.
- Orbek Black Knife from Blade of Tyshalle. The above quote comes right after Orbek's Crowning Moment Of Awesome. The irony lies in that Caine originally targeted Orbek first when breaking up Orbek's old gang because he thought the young ogrillo was the gang's weakest point.
- The Belgariad and Malloreon have several of these and several subversions. Played straight with Silk who normally plays the thief/rogue member of the cast, but in The Malloreon when Bethra is murdered, he tortures the killer into revealing who hired him and then proceeds to assassinate half the family before being stopped by his companions. Later, when the Dagashi assassin Brill pisses him off at Rak Cthol, he beats the hell out of him and kicks him off the mountain. He then coolly informs Belgarath that Brill was learning how to fly, and not all that successfully. These were, of course, Crowning Moments of Awesome. Also in the same series, when Belgarath gets pissed he has been known to destroy entire mountains and also buries Zedar, who betrayed him and his master, alive for And I Must Scream. He likes to let the world think he is a Dirty Old Man, and he likes to make remarks of his time with the fully female Dryad race and of the very open-minded Marag women. He also tends to become badass when his family is threatened.
- Tyrion's squire Podrick Payne in A Song Of Ice And Fire. He's tongue-tied and incompetent most of the time to the extent that Tyrion suspects the boy was inflicted on him as a joke, but when Tyrion is caught on a bridge of wrecked ships on a burning river with Ser Mandon Moore, one of the elite Kingsguard, trying to kill him, Pod somehow manages to kill Mandon and drag the unconscious Tyrion to safety.
- Lord Of The Rings: Tom Bombadil.
- From L.J. Smith's Night World series, Iliana Dominick spends most of the story as The Load and The Ditz, but when her friends and bodyguards are threatened at the end of the book, she finally unleashes the magic in her blood that she's been denying her entire life.
- The Codex Alera series gives us the slave Fade. He's not just a moron, he's obviously severely brain-damaged, and is generally not much good for anything but some minor blacksmithing. Except that he's actually a legendary swordsman believed dead by the rest of the country, and he will miss you up bad if given a reason to do so. He's also much, much smarter than he acts, and the only reason he's acting as a slave is to keep an eye on Tavi.
- Fishlegs from the How To Train Your Dragon series. He's described as looking like a 'stick-insect with asthma, eczema, and the face of a fish', and doesn't really like adventuring. However.....Fishlegs happens to be a Berserk, one of the wildest and most respected types of Viking.
- The Culture is normally regarded as being hedonistic and extremely eccentric by most members of the galactic community. This doesn't just include the biological citizens, but the godlike AI's with 6 figure IQ's, and almost every single one of their starships are like this too. Most non-Culture sentients consider it strange that the Minds can be bothered to care about beings so intellectually below them. Similarily, a lot of starships give themselves silly / ironic names, and are often fully developed personalites. Despite this apparently goofy, peaceful image, if you threaten the lives of the Culture's citizens, pray that they only declare war on you. You WILL lose, but are most likely to be killed in a swift and conventional way. If not, then you can look forward to being killed in the most obscenely painful manner possible.
- "Do Not Fuck With The Culture".
- Dana Scully of The X Files is another borderline case. While she mainly portrayed the buttoned-down, intellectual non-action oriented FBI agent, in one notable episode with a VR Game coming to life and killing the players, someone had to rescue Mulder and the Lone Gunmen. Her sudden evolution into Action Girl in a Big Damn Heroes moment left Mulder and company totally speechless. Until they realized how completely cool her Rambette performance had been, like good fanboys.
- Not really- Scully was ridiculously gun happy and prone to feats of awesome right from the start of the series (check out her rescue of Mulder in "Deep Throat", which is only the second episode).
- Played with in Disney's The Suite Life: Apparently London Tipton is quite the athlete (notably in volleyball), but only when she's mad.
- In Get Smart, Maxwell Smart may be a bumbling idiot most of the time, but when he realizes the situation is becoming make-or-break, then he buckles down and becomes nearly unstoppable.
- R.J., Trickster Mentor of Power Rangers Jungle Fury, seems at first to be nothing more than an overly-mellow pizza restauranteur. Then he steps out of the kitchen and reveals himself by taking down a sqaud of Mooks without breaking stride, and suddenly the guy who seemed like bumbling comic relief a few seconds ago takes on a whole new light. He barely changes at all, busting out the crazy martial arts skills while remaining as calm and carefree as ever.
- River from Firefly is a Crouching Crazy Hidden Badass. Most of the time, she tends to be a Cloud Cuckoo Lander with some endearingly whimsical moments mixed in with seriously disturbing fits and a few Ax Crazy moments. But mess with her brother Simon or her friend Kaylee, and she will take you down, whether by gunning down three men with her eyes closed or orchestrating an impressive Batman Gambit. And that's even before the Big Damn Movie.
- Drusilla from Buffy The Vampire Slayer exhibits only the loosest connection to reality, and spends most of the time behaving like an idiot child (e.g. cooing over her pet bird, which died because she left it in the cage and forgot to feed it). But when she does fight, she's extremely dangerous, and capable of killing a Slayer with a slash of her fingernail.
- From Stargate SG-1: Colonel Jack O'Neill. Probably more a case of Obfuscating Stupidity, he acts Book Dumb in everything remotely scientific. He never reads Carter's reports, he refuses to listen to Daniel explain some ancient piece of writing or technology, and acts as if nothing matters except The Simpsons. But... when some dumb Goa'uld or other bad guy threatens his team or the Earth, he gets very serious, and reminds you just why he's leading this team.
- Somewhat subverted in the season 5 episode "Rite of Passage", when Cassandra observes that Jack is smarter than he pretends to be.
- How did this trope list get this far without mentioning the original Crouching Moron Hidden Badass... HM "Howling Mad" Murdock from the A-Team? Seemed like just another comic relief moron, right? Wrong. If it's got wings, he's flown it; if it's got wheels, he's driven it. And he worked for the CIA!
- Adrian Monk: Socially inept, obsessive-compulsive and afraid of everything. But he manages to solve the most baffling crimes and he can hold his own in a fight — he was a cop once, remember. And if you even so much as insult Trudy, he will hand you your ass.
- Otoya Kurenai from Kamen Rider Kiva, who at first blush seems to be nothing more than a foolishly self-absorbed Casanova who doesn't have a serious bone in his body. But then he starts pulling Batman Gambit after Batman Gambit, demonstrating an incredible degree of character judgement, and kicking monster butt with an experimental Powered Armor — typically stolen from its intended user as part of said Batman Gambit. It's no wonder that near the end of the series, the Fangire Queen, normally tasked with killing "race traitors" who fall in love with humans, has herself fallen for Otoya and would go on to bear their child, the show's protagonist Wataru.
- Jackie Burkhart serves as both The Ditz and The Pesci on That 70s Show.
- Brendan "Hot Dog" Costanza of Battlestar Galactica fits the trope quite well. Most of the time, he's just screwing around and too busy having random rashes. But in the cockpit, he's second only to Starbuck.
- Merlin may be bumbling, clumsy and at times, naive, but I dare you to get on his bad side. He can certainly kick anyone's butt with the use of his powerful and dangerous magic. Especially if you hurt his loved ones.
- The 1991 series "Step By Step" had Sasha Mitchell Cody Lambert as the beach bum slacker brother of Patrick Duffy's Frank Lambert. Though normally a clueless "Valley Dude," in one episode when braced by a group of bikers in a bar, Cody showed why he's played by the man who made two "Kickboxer" films. After clearing the bar of bikers, he reverted to goofy flake with the following dialog;
- Jason Stackhouse spends most of "True Blood" constantly doing absolutely stupid shit, because he's dumb as a stump, and is often led about by just about anyone. Threaten his sister Sookie, however, and he will not just step up; he'll absolutely take you down and make the audience's jaws drop. But he's still dumb as a stump for the most part.
Carol: "Cody, I didn't know you knew karate!"
Cody: "Cha, me neither! I'm gonna have to go back and re-read some of my old diaries!"
Newspaper Comics
- In an early Bloom County strip, Opus serves as the bouncer at a New Years Eve party. Seems pretty stupid, until he drags a particularly large, menacing looking guy down under the bar, then asks for some rope.
- Typically, the Crocodiles in Pearls Before Swine are Too Dumb To Live (oftentimes literally so). But on one occassion, Rat, in a variation of the Pied Piper, used music to lead stupid people to a lake to drown them. When he attempted to do this to the Crocs, he gloated about this, and in an uncharacteristically angry (but characteristically badly-pronounced) reply, one croc mentioned "We can sweem."
- This could be Dis Continuity (which Stephan Pastis is infamous for), because an earlier strip had one of the crocs drown in a kiddie pool because he couldn't swim.
Pro Wrestling
- WWE worker Festus has this as his entire gimmick. Most of the time, he was little short of catatonic, staring blankly into space with his tongue hanging out as his tag team partner Jesse dragged him around. However, when the ring bell rang, he would wake up and destroy all of his opponents, and would not let up until the bell sounded the end of the match.
- Unfortunately for Festus, several of his opponents (notably Miz and Morrison) have shown themselves to be fairly Genre Savvy in using this against him.
- Doink the clown (when he started out) was an evil version of this trope.
- Pro Wrestling has a long-standing tradition of mental retardation as a gimmick. Interestingly, they always "mark" these wrestlers through behavior or attire.
- The most famous would be turnbuckle eating. George "The Animal" Steele would use this gimmick to show he was crazy, however, he copied it from earlier wrestlers, like Antonio Pugliese.
- Nick "Eugene" Dinsmore would act like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rain Man, as well as wear two large foam hands.
- The Autistic Psychic Savant class in Palladium's Beyond The Supernatural game pretty much has to be this trope. Most of the time, they can barely communicate, but in the presence of supernatural evil they prove to be smarter and more powerful than anyone else.
- Leaf Coneybear from The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is an airhead until he is asked to spell a word, at which point he turns into a scary blinking robot and gives the right answer.
- In Disgaea 2, Rozalin shows off a particularly fearsome variant of this. Having spent her entire, pampered life in a palace, surrounded by servants waiting on her every whim, she's a complete novice when it comes to fighting (thus giving the hero, Adell, an excellent opportunity to explain the combat-system to her...) It's up to the player how much he wants to level her, but she'll probably still only be around level 50 when you first encounter, and are soundly defeated by, a level 1200 Overlord. At which point a seal is broken, and she suddenly jumps to level 1700, learns a world-destroying special move, and kicks seven different shades of ass. Afterwards, when she snaps out of it, she's got no idea what happened.
- King Of Fighters has a game play example in Hotaru Futuba. Sure she looks harmless and is usually so personality wise, but in the hands of a competent player, she's an utter monster.
- Arado Balanga of Super Robot Wars Original Generations is exactly like this. He's normally a reckless idiot who gets shot down more than not, but if his partner Seolla (who he was trained to work as a perfect partner to) is threatened with death, he'll be there to take it and go down in flames or utterly kick ass.
- Demyx from Kingdom Hearts II is the villainous embodiment of this trope. His clumsy, cowardly, scatterbrained personality was stressed so much that even Jiminy's Journal called him "a poor fighter". He isn't. It should be noted, however, that because he is a philosophical zombie
 , technically any personality he takes on is fabricated.
- In Metal Gear Solid 4, we are introduced once more to Johnny Sasaki, who had spent a majority of the earlier games on the toilet. This time around, however, his cowardice proves to be a hidden strength, as his fear of needles leaves him without nanomachines, making him immune to the Big Bad's trump card. Along with The Power Of Love, this leads him to develop amazing Gun Fu and sniping skills.
- And turned right back around for comedic effect in multiplayer, where Johnny's lack of nanomachines robs him of SOP-linking and the benefits it provides; if you try to link while standing still, he does an anime pose, and if you try while running, he does a Rainbow Six-esque hand signal. He also can't do CQC and will flail hilariously if you try. His diarrhea, however, turns him into a walking gas grenade as it will incapacitate anyone he runs by.
- A less specific example would be RPG characters with a Limit Break. Your reg'lar everyday Designated Hero suddenly wipes the floor with every single one of those Goddamned Bats. The one that springs to mind is Selphie Tilmitt in Final Fantasy VIII, who is essentially a young blonde airhead, but can pull an attack that instantly defeats anything. Yes, anything. Armoured Slimes, Goddamned Bats, That One Boss, the Big Bad of the entire game — you name it, The End kills it. Suddenly Selphie doesn't seem so innocent...
- What's more is that the attack (like her personality) seems pretty innocent. How you say? It's a beautiful field of flowers that appears on screen, that's it.
- In Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time/Darkness, Wigglytuff seems to be nothing more than a simple, Perfect Apple-loving, uber-happy goof of a Pokemon. But if he gets upset, you'll find out exactly why Chatot seems to fear his temper.
- The additional side stories for Wigglytuff (as a child Igglybuff) and for Team Charm from Explorers of Sky further explains this. Wigglytuff has a tremendous talent for solving puzzles and getting through traps, almost accidentally, hidden beneath the overtly cheerful demeanor. No wonder he's a Guildmaster despite seeming totally clueless.
- King Trode from Dragon Quest VIII would be a great example. He spends most of the game just sitting in the wagon and generally complaining about various things like his curse or how you haven't found Dhoulmagus yet. But in the ending? He can be seen beating up several Argonian guards. His weapon of choice? A twig. You heard me. He beats up men twice his size, who are reportedly tough enough to kill Argon lizards, and he does it with a 2-inch piece of tree wood.
- The latest generation of Pokemon games has this (in a manner of speaking) with Bibarel. The evolution of that generation's version of Goddamned Bats — rendered slightly more annoying due to its higher HP stat, when toyed around with one will find that they can get an ability called "Simple" that DOUBLES the effects of any stat-changing skills used on it. Couple that with the most famous Buffer of the previous generation (Ninjask), a few turns of Swords Dance (and Ninjask's accompanying Speed Boost ability), and a Baton Pass to Bibarel and you have a complete and utter monster that your opponent will be in a BIG hurry to kill.
- Unfortunately, this strategy is generally performed better by Marowak who has a much better typing when it comes to attacks and doesn't become completely useless if someone uses haze. Additionally, Bibarel is actually very fragile; more so than even Rampardos.
- Grit from Advance Wars is a top-notch distance weapons specialist, but he hardly ever shows it due to his incredibly laid-back, agreeable demeanor.
- Touhou Project is positively brimming with examples of this trope. Shall we start with Yukari Yakumo herself, wielder of powers far beyond godly who nonetheless prefers to spend her time goofing around, bothering Reimu, and generally acting like a little trickster imp? Or Yuyuko Saigyouji, who is genuinely amiable and nice and enjoys a good meal and sake under the cherry blossoms far more than anything else in the world, but who has been heavily implied by the author to know a lot more than she lets on, being able to keep up with aforementioned Yukari? (Not to mention her power is to cause the death in anything that can die.) Maybe Komachi Onozuka, who is a God of Death and the Ferryman of the Dead — and also a complete slacker who runs low on her quota of souls ferried because she prefers to lay down near the Styx and catch a shuteye or twenty? Or Suika Ibuki, a little girl who looks like a perpetually-tanked seven year old with horns and an unquenchable thirst for parties — and can also bench-press a mountain? All in all, when you're in Gensokyo it certainly pays to not underestimate whatever little girls you may find.
- Conversely, Rumia, the youkai of Darkness. She consistantly walks into trees (the powers of Darkness rendering her blind), is nearly harmless, and is sought out by people hoping to evade the sun on hot summer days.
- Also, Flandre Scarlet, an eternal (literally) Cheerful Child who loves to play with the humans who
invade visit her home, and has absolutely no control over her ridonkulous levels of magical power. Even Marisa, who has faced all of those mentioned above and then some, makes it a point to avoid ever meeting Flandre whenever she goes to the Scarlet Mansion to steal books, not-so-subtly implying that she scares the crap out of her.
- The Black Baron of Mad World. An Uncle Tomfoolery who is constantly killed by his own deathtraps and girlfriend, it's hard to believe he poses any real threat, even when he turns out to be the final boss. Most players saw an easy fight... and then he goes Super Saiyan, kicks at you with lightning and punches you with a black hole. Sadly, when he meets his final end, he's reverted back to his moron stage.
- In one instance of Lord Of The Rings Online, Radagast the Brown walks through a wight-infested swamp talking to little animals while the players have to fight all around him. In the end, he incapacitates who seems to be the endboss with a single hit, saving the players.
- Emil Castagnier from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World might qualify, as he becomes much stronger in battle. At least, in the beginning. As the game progresses, this 'Ratatosk Mode' seems to appear more often, usually when Marta is in trouble.
- How can eponymous Ottsel from Jak and Daxter not be on this list? He usually avoids violent confrontations like the plague, at least when he's directly in the line of fire. But when push comes to shove, he'll put his life on the line to do what needs to be done (especially in Jak 3), his racing skills and marksmanship rival Jak's (when Jak's riding a Zoomer, Daxter wields the gun), and hell, he's got his own game.
- Princess Peach from Super Mario Bros, when she decides to fight. Especially her Super Smash Bros Brawl incarnation.
- Dan Hibiki... sort of. In canon, he's a horrible fighter who's way too full of himself for his own good. In-game, however, he's a Lethal Joke Character (or, in the case of Street Fighter IV, just plain lethal.)
- He's not really a horrible fighter. Much like Hercule, he's actually miles above most fighters in the world, it's just that the rest of the SF cast is miles above HIM, So Yeah.
- UDON played with this in the Street Fighter Legends comic, where Dan briefly managed to tap into the Dark Hadou, only to trip and fall on his face before he could attack.
- The Vortigaunts in the Half Life series are an entire species of this trope. In Half-Life and its expansions they're a relatively weak mid-level enemy slaughtered by the dozens and used as manual labourers by the more powerful members of the Nihilanth's army. By Half-Life 2 they are freed from their enforced servitude and join Earth's La Resistance against the Combine, providing Gordon with cryptic statements and the occasional charge for his HEV suit. At the beginning of Episode One however they render the nigh-unstoppable GMan completely powerless, saving Gordon and Alyx in the process, and when three of them are faced with an army of Antlions in Episode Two they proceed to slaughter every last one, then use what is essentially Antlion feces to raise Alyx from the dead. Given that they were at the time also hunting and presumably killing the horrifically powerful Combine Advisors, hopefully they will return for the expected battle/s with them in Episode Three.
- Gabe, from Penny Arcade while occasionally homicidal on his own, ups this to eleven when in possession of a certain cardboard tube.
- Ray from Achewood happens to be the son of Ramses Luther Smuckles, an all-around badass and one of the most celebrated brawlers in American history. He enters the Great Outdoor Fight with essentially no training but manages to destroy a number of stronger men when his best friend Roast Beef is apparently in danger and his latent fighting instincts are aroused.
- Zap Vexler from Zap! is a prime example. Huge Psychic Powers are usually triggered by threats towards his crush, Reona. The first example is here. Don't make fun of his hair, either. Recently revealed to suffer from Amnesiac Dissonance, with his former self being a powerful psychic out to Take Over The World.
- Trace from TwoKinds is basically the same, only substituting Functional Magic for Psychic Powers. His powers mostly makes an appearance when he needs to protect Flora, his Cat Girl girlfriend. Had a full-blown Amnesiac Dissonance meets Superpowered Evil Side episode, but is currently tending towards The Messiah.
- Arguably Liquid Snake of The Last Days Of Foxhound also applies, considering it's been implied that despite his borderline idiotic behavior he is in reality a killing machine, but has lost the majority of his skills due to an accident caused by his overly aggressive behavior. He gets more intelligent as the comic moves closer to the events of the Shadow Moses rebellion of Metal Gear Solid.
- Vashiel from Misfile is an interesting variant. He's not so much stupid as a complete innocent, to the point where he's physically incapable of lying and gets a Nosebleed if he as much as has an impure thought. However, when his brother or Ash are threatened, you're suddenly reminded that his job description reads "Avenging Angel". Also a prime example of instantly snapping back to his ordinary, chivalrous personality afterwards.
- Rumisiel, Vashiel's pot smoking brother, is also one of these. Normally a slacker to the point where his goal in life is to sit on a couch drinking beer all day, as soon as someone's life is on the line, he suddenly becomes competent and, due to limiters placed on his brother, the stronger of the two when it comes to dealing with the supernatural. And as this comic shows, it is important to remember that ALL angels in this series are ancient supernatural beings.
- Both Joyce and Walky from It's Walky! fall under this. Joyce in particular is ordinarily a complete innocent, with a passion for puppies, stuffed animals, and all things pink and frilly. However, if you push her just far enough... whoops, maybe that was a bit too far.
Big Boss: How's Joyce doing? Why has she made no progress?
Professor Doc: Big Boss, we can't afford to fix her! Do you know how many times she's saved the world's collective ass with her psychotic outbursts?
Big Boss: Three.
Professor Doc: Well, I'm holding out for five.
- Walky meanwhile is an excellent example that the trigger doesn't have to involve an immediate threat to yourself or your loved ones. This, for example, is what happens if you mess with his favorite snack food.
- Ping from Megatokyo is a dating-sim accessory who is just a regular Ridiculously Human Robot girl... whose way of dealing with rejection involves throwing buses and uprooting telephone poles to use as clubs (Largo once used this to save the city of Tokyo from a drunken, rampaging, giant turtle).
- Grace from El Goonish Shive can best be described as a bubbly, naive girl, which would almost make you forget she's a genetically engineered Super Soldier who, the one time she actually got angry, proceeded to toss megalomaniac arch-villain Damien around like a rag doll, only to turn around at the last moment and ask him to forgive her.
- Mega Man in Bob and George. Ordinarily he's a complete buffoon. But when he goes into battle, particularly against the Robot Masters, he becomes Badass, often coming up with clever ways to defeat them. The fans figured out a reason for this, and the author said "Sure Why Not": In one of the early comics, the punchline is that Mega Man was accidentally programmed first to defeat evil robots, and second to be an idiot. He later retconned that this was the reason Mega Man was a default moron whenever there wasn't evil around, but when a bad guy shows up, he becomes an instant badass for the duration of the crisis.
- Lemmy in F@nboy$. Normally he's a timid, goofy Nintendo fanatic. However, should anyone ever accuse Nintendo of being "kiddy" within his vicinity, he literally phases out into a trance and turns into a rampaging lunatic, with little to no memory of what he has done afterwards. This may also be triggered by getting hit in the head, or more precisely, accidentally hitting other things with his face.
- Fighter of 8-Bit Theater is a childish dimwit who is blind to the obvious (for the most part at least) but is also a highly proficient swordmaster who can wield the Sword-Chucks (yo!) with enough proficiency to fight a six-armed demon of fire. Oh and if you're an enemy, watch yourself if you kill Black Mage...
Fighter: Cool. Because friends look out for one another and we're friends, but Black Mage is my best friend. Also, I can block any attack and kill anything that bleeds. Hint.
- He once used his swords as chainsaws to destroy an entire flight of unstoppable dragons just because Red Mage convinced him that he could.
- Not to mention he once survived a fall of several thousand feet by blocking the planet before it hit him. Seriously.
- Smoke from WTF Comics, starting as a little pocket Monk with seemingly no real battle capabilities besides dodging things, until Nikisha stabs Anna in front of him, and make him go "all out" in rage with annihilating an entire bridge of Mooks along with the bridge itself under them, nearly killing her too in the process.
- Oh, and did we mention that he can also teleport, modify his own perception of time, resurrect the dead, and see the very fabric of the Timespace around him?
- In a couple of Ctrl Alt Del comics starring the "players" (homicidal gamers with the tendency to carry out in-game vendettas in real life), Player 3 makes an appearance. He's normally laid-back and "normal", but can turn homicidal if threatened...
- While lacking the Crouching Moron element, Lilah is notable for having insanely good game playing skills whenever she's really angry with Ethan.
- The Order of the Stick. Xykon's Monster in the Darkness is this trope, acting childish all the time, but when he does show his power (often completely accidentally), he causes massive destruction.
- Xykon HIMSELF. He's funny and a fan of what one might call "Leeroy Tactics". However, if you challenge his reputation, he'll smash the whole ceiling on you. And Gods help you if you lose his Phylactery...
- Also, Elan. He may have literally taken a level in badass, but he's still The Ditz most of the time.
- In The KAMics, Gertrude and Brunhilda are normally comic bumblers, but when their sister was in trouble, glowing eyes and dead Mooks followed.
- Torg from Sluggy Freelance, despite taking a few levels in badass over the years, is still mostly just a goofy, not-to-bright guy that everyone treats as pretty harmless. Probably best exemplified in this strip:
Riff: Dude! When did you learn to kick ass?
Torg: I've been taking an Internet college correspondence course in kickass.
Riff: You have not.
Torg: But I so want to teach one!
- Daniel "Dan" Ti'Fiona of Dan and Mabs Furry Adventures is technically a hero — graduated from Adventuring School and with titles to match. His friends, however, doesn't really take it seriously, what with him usually being bungling, lazy, caught up in romantic mishaps, and getting transformed into a woman. However, when faced with old enemies, he'll usually loose his shirt, narrow his eyes, and demonstrate that he IS, in fact, worthy of those titles. With the later addition of Cubi powers, this transformation has reached the level of 'make a demon piss her pants and run like hell'.
- Subverted in The Adventures of Dr. McNinja as he is more of a Crouching Badass Hidden Moron.
- Hod from Brat-halla is one of these after he Took A Level In Badass. His brothers have a thing for it as well tough. And his father. And his mother. And his back-up dad...
- Stanley the Tool from Erfworld, who on first appearance seems more concerned with the fact his MacGuffin turns walnuts into pigeons when cracked than the impending destruction of his forces. Then he decks Chief Warlord Caeser in one hit.
- Ordog from Out At Home is a tiny, frail, senile old man who doesn't know where he is half the time. But he will kick your ass.
- Diva Beelze from Evil Diva is kind of a little... silly but she's pretty bad ass in the latest chapter in that she beats the crap out of the devil thugs without hardly doing anything. She has the super special wand but... so did Sailor Moon!
- Sir Muir, a scarred old Darsai knight from the webcomic Harkovast appears to be a prattling, senile goofball when nothing exciting is happening. However he proves that he's quite a competent (though distractable) fighter when the situation calls for it.
- Kharla'ggen from Drow Tales plays with rubber duckies and rarely, if ever, utters a complete sentence. Her guards barely care about their job. But she's the leader of one of the major clans in the setting and her laissez-faire rule is undisputed because she also likes to play with dolls. Her power is such that in a side-story she was able to 'play' with a greater demon, made of a composite of lesser demons, who collectively barely escaped with their lives.
- Buwaro from Slightly Damned is like this without his star pendent.
- Hanna is usually adorably ditzy, but you'd better be careful because he will fuck you up something fierce
Web Original
- Doctor Horrible.
- Subverted with Arthur Williams in Survival of the Fittest, who shoves aside his shyness and fear, charging an armed player in order to save a hostage, and gets shot in the face for his trouble. Paul Smith, also from Survival of the Fittest is usually a Chivalrous Pervert, pretty goofy and laid back — very much a comic relief character. However, from time to time, he almost seems to "switch on" and become one hell of a lot more dangerous. And try lethally dangerous.
- Essentially the entire core cast of Mega64, but special mention should go to Sean and Horatio. Do not make them mad.
- In Red Vs Blue Caboose is usually a complete idiot who loads his gun with crayons and keeps killing his teammates, however in episode 40 Caboose thought about everything that made him angry (spiky kittens, Red bull and Babies) and was able to kill every single one of the flag obsessed zealots in about 10 seconds.
- This also happens to Tucker. He's as useless as anybody else until he gets his sword and, even then, he only shows brief moments of competence. However, in the final few episodes of the Blood Gulch Chronicles, he manages to defeat Wyoming and Gamma, quickly becomes a master sniper, and actually proves to be a pretty good leader for the blue team (a job which he was too lazy to accept previously). By the time he reappears in Recreation, he's mastered his sword as well and is able to destroy C.T.'s Warthog with one well-timed swipe. At this point, he's one of the most competent non-freelancer characters in the series.
- Homestar Runner is one of the most idiotic characters to hit the internet. In "The Strongest Man in the World", he bicycle kicks the Cheat, while upside down, into the far horizon
- In 4 Branches, it's mentioned that Homestar's stupidity occasionally reaches such heights that it "flips back to start", and shows him answering the calculation "2 + 2" by defining Coulomb's law. When this is pointed out, he reverts to normal, revising his answer as "22".
- Popeye.
- The Flash, in Justice League Unlimited appears to fall into this catagory. For the most part he's a goofy dope who doesn't take much seriously and is always the one to crack a joke at the expense of drama and badass-ism. However his role is not to be underestimated (in one universe his death motivated the League to turn into a totalitariam dictatorship). Many people found it surprising to discover he's a forensic scientist in his normal identity. His big transforming moment, however, came during his Crowning Moment Of Awesome in the episode "Divided We Fall" where he taps into the Speed Force and circumnavigates the entire globe several times in a matter of seconds in order to defeat Luthor-Brainiac when the rest of the League had failed. All of a sudden he went from comic relief to downright dangerous.
- Back in Justice League, when the team split up for an episode, Flash is attempting to interrogate a mook who insults his technique — "You're no Batman." Flash drops him off a building, races down and catches him at the bottom. He got the info.
- Let's not forget what happened when Lex Luthor got ahold of his powers once. He almost took out the entire Watchtower single-handidly effectively proving that Flash is far more powerful than most people realise.
- Maggie from The Simpsons has her moments. She has shot people on two occasions — the first appeared to be an accident, but the second portrays her as a full-blown sniper.
- She also saved Homer from drowning in one episode.
- Or Homer himself; normally and idiot an a jerkass, he will frequently slip into a state of hypercompetency to solve the situation at hand.
- Marge Simpson also has her moments. Like when she, um, rescued Lisa from an erupting volcano.
- Marge was also a supercop who only quit because of the corruption on the police force, plus she beat up EVERYBODY in Moe's Tavern while she was a 'roided-up bodybuilder. Do NOT underestimate her, especially when you hit the Mama Bear's Berserk Button.
- The entire Simspson family, and most of the secondary characters, have this trait. It's the Rule Of Funny.
- Droopy falls under this in several of his animated shorts. Repeatedly humiliated by his adversary, he never reacts... until it looks like he's about to lose "The Dame". Then he responds, in the same monotone as always, "You know what? That makes me mad." and can suddenly fling his enemy across the room with ease.
- Ron from Kim Possible seems useless much of the time. His primary contribution to most missions appears to be serving as a distraction, and even after he's exposed to the Mystical Monkey Power, he admits that his skill at monkey kung fu "comes and goes." But when necessary (i.e. when Kim is busy, incapacitated, or not present), Ron displays extraordinary skill in both martial arts and general resourcefulness.
- Darkwing Duck. The change from incompetence to determination was usually signified by the Catch Phrase "Let's Get Dangerous!"
- From the same show, Comet Guy also fits this trope. With as much power as Superman and fewer brain cells than Bizarro, this bumbling, moronic superhero manages to get his act together when Steelbeak threatens St-Canard with his remote controlled rubber wrecking ball.
- Aang from Avatar The Last Airbender was an example of this trope in the first episodes whenever he tapped into the Avatar State. Character Development, a showcase of the fact that he is a master airbender, and the realization of how scary he is in the Avatar State contributes to the lessening of this carefree nature.
- Iroh also didn't start as much more than a tea loving old man. That changed VERY quickly.
- Made even funnier in that Iroh uses this trope as a disguise in Season Three.
- Inspector Gadget, of all people, occasionally demonstrated this. When Penny and Brain were in real danger from Dr. Claw's traps in one or two episodes, the normally Too Dumb To Live Inspector would skilfully use his gadgets to save them.
- On South Park, Pip becomes a super dodgeball player after being repeatedly insulted.
- Captain Fanzone of Transformers Animated is often portrayed as the bumbling, technologically inept Comic Relief — although he's hardly Plucky. However... when it comes down to it, he shows remarkable resourcefulness and fairly good combat skills — in the episode "Survival of the Fittest", he manages to knock a monster twice his size to the floor with one punch.
- And in "This Is Why I Hate Machines" he proves himself to be a damn fine cop, using the Autobots on Cybertron's apparent fear of organics to get information, as well as [spoil] easily realizing he and Ratchet were being tailed by Jazz, and that he was on their side.[/spoil]
- Dean Venture snaps and beats the crap out of Dermot, a kid twice his size, after Dermot insults Triana.
- Odd Della Robia in Code Lyoko is often shown to be an impatient slacker, far more interested in his various dates and lunch than studying for classes or saving the world. His crappy grades and his many, many failed plans showcase just how stupid he appears to be, and he isn't faking this: he is pretty Book Dumb. However, his slacker attitude hides his rather impressive abilities, both physical and mental. He has no combat-related "powers" on Lyoko, but he doesn't need them to do well.
- Brittany Taylor in Daria is ditzy, airheaded, shallow, dimwitted and basically incapable of doing anything right. It's probably not unfair to presume that inside her skull there are a handful of neurons that swim around aimlessly in the otherwise empty void, never coming across each other. And yet, if she is put in a combat situation, she suddenly becomes a gifted tactician and charismatic infantry commander.
- Harold in Total Drama Island is real dork but he does have a hidden badass somewhere.
- Bubbles in The Powerpuff Girls. While technically the whole concept and style of the show has echoes of Grotesque Cute, Bubbles is the cute and ditzy "sugar" in "sugar, spice [Buttercup] and everything nice [Blossom]" and occasionally gets to go berzerk.
- The Fairly OddParents gave Cosmo this role in an episode when Timmy ended up in a best-of-three contest with another child, with the loser forfeting their fairy godparents. Cosmo wins the first contest by accident when the bananas he conjures distract the giant gorilla he needed to rescue Timmy from, and in the final round his teasing causes the opposing fairy to mess up and zap Timmy instead of his own godchild, causing Timmy to win the contest.
- In one episode of GI Joe, three Cobra Mooks dogpile on the simpleton Bazooka, which causes him to exclaim, "Darn it, swallowed my gum!" and knock them all out with one punch each.
- Beast Boy in Teen Titans is usually portrayed as, while not an actual moron, certainly far less combat-effective than Robin, Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire, primarily due to his habit of choosing an Awesome But Impractical T-rex form that falls through weak surfaces, gets stuck under low bridges, and generally achieves very little. However, when sufficiently riled up, he turns (metaphorically) into an unstoppable engine of destruction, capable of annihilating pretty much whatever takes his fancy.
- GIR of Invader Zim is even more inept than Zim himself. His brain is literally made of chewing gum, coins and a paper clip and he seems to have both feet firmly planted in space and his mind on waffles or tacos. However, when issued a command, his eyes occasionally turn from a bright blue to a glowing red and he acknowledges the order like a perfect Irken SIR unit. He ususally forgets the order or becomes distracted by something else within seconds, but when Zim locks GIR into this "duty mode" after one-too-many failures that weren't due to him, the little robot becomes scarily competent and almost kills Zim after, correctly, determining he is the greatest threat to "the mission".
- Duck Dodgers himself has moments such as these. Even despite being incompetent 95% of the time with his successes mostly due to his Cadet, he can manage some pretty amazing feats, such as saving the entire Green Lantern Corps after Sinestro captures them all single-handedly.
- Or single-handedly defeating the Martian Queen in order to save The Cadet, with a Star Trek II homage, to boot. While played as if he really didn't know what he was doing, some of his tricks (most of the ones involving the Evaporator, for example) were actually quite cunning.
- Chester. Spike's yappy little sidekick from Looney Tunes. Much, MUCH stronger than he looks.
- Michaelango in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles displays this several times throughout the series. While normally he is the most irresponsible, laid back, undiciplined turtle, on occasion when fighting enemies that have incapicated or captured his brothers, he displays ninjitsu prowess, agility, and technique rivaling that of Leonardo, who trains constantly, whupping hordes of monsters (or single big bads) that had previously defeated his other 3 brothers. Displayed most prominently in the episode "Grudge Match." However, this seems to be somewhat random: while there are times when Mike steps up when the team's back is to the wall, there are other times when he just gets knocked out cold with the rest of them, so I guess it depends on the needs of the story.
- Family Guy actually has a few. Glenn Quagmeyer is a sexual predator, but an absolutely ace pilot (it's "Hidden Badass" because it's so rarely we actually get to see him do his piloting job). Plus, it turns out Adam West was a KGB sleeper agent who managed to single-handedly beat the crap out of Brian, Stewie, Dan Aykroyd AND Chevy Chase all at once when accidentally activated.
- Jack Fenton in Danny Phantom. Granted he's an eccentric inventor, a bumbling ghost fighter, and an embarrassing parent. But when his family is in danger, he'll show everyone just how competent he can be, then proceed to kick the opposer's ass. Vlad (his old college friend turned supervillan) learned this the hard way. Twice.
Jack: An old friend? No. You? Yes.
- The eponymous character from Martin Mystery. Normally he's a lazy goofball who Diana has to kick into line. Mess with Diana, Java, or the Center (something that happens nearly every episode), and he WILL make you regret it.
- As of the 3rd November 2009, Boris Johnson. Normally poked fun at for always saying and doing the wrong things, the London mayor took a level in badass when he saw a woman on the street under attack by a gang of teenage girls; charging in to intervene, he picked up an iron bar one of the girls had dropped and chased them down the street on his bike.
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