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Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu
"He's a god; it'll take more than one shot."
Lady Eboshi, Princess Mononoke

"Let's show this prehistoric bitch how we do things downtown!"
Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters

So, along comes the Eldritch Abomination: incomprehensible, insanity-inducing gods; alien beings that don't even notice humanity, let alone care; technological beings whose thoughts encompass the universe. You know the type. Eternal, infinite, impossible to even understand, let alone oppose...

And then along come a couple of plucky heroes, who didn't get told that the Abomination is impossible to beat (and even if they were told, they wouldn't care). Through some combination of skill, brains, courage and occasionally raw world-shattering power, maybe some kind of incredibly circuitous strategy and/or trap, or hey, When All You Have Is A Hammer they go to work and... they beat the abomination.

In short, you just killed a God. Not a mook, not an Elite Mook, not The Dragon... a GOD!

This appears in quite a few videogames (especially RPG's), where the Final Boss is inevitibly some kind of Ultimate Evil unleashed upon the world, or the Big Bad has ascended to godhood and gone One Winged Angel... only to be defeated by the heroes by whittling down its health points. Particularly jarring if the Horror in question is allegedly so powerful that the Precursors were only able to seal it away, or if the heroes claim it was defeated via The Power Of Friendship (when it's obvious they won via the Power Of BFS, More Dakka and Nuke-Level Summon Magic).

A common Hand Wave in video games (RPG's in particular) is to have something happen that relates to the story and limits the Big Bad's power and/or brings the heroes up to its level... They then pummel it with BFSes and Nuke-level magic.

Maybe the heroes may have found some rules that the power in question has limits or a Necessary Drawback, and then proceed to exploit it ruthlessly. Maybe Cthulu Had The Flu. A Projected Avatar is often used if what they defeated was just part of the being in our reality at the time, in which case reducing its Hit Points to 0 just temporarily banishes it.

This is generally the result of whenever you put an Eldritch Abomination in the same room as a Super Hero, or anyone or anything else capable of hitting For Massive Damage. Do not expect this trope to appear in any Cosmic Horror Story worth its salt, except perhaps as a Hope Spot and a prelude to having Broken Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu.

Compare Power Creep Power Seep, Strong As They Need To Be, New Powers As The Plot Demands, Gods Hands Are Tied, Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?

Contrast Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu, Did We Just Have Tea With Cthulhu, Punch Punch Punch Uh Oh.

Also see Do Not Taunt Cthulhu.

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