Fragile Speedster - Television Tropes & Idioms

Sena from Eyeshield 21, at least in the beginning. He toughens up a bit over the course of the series, though just enough to play defense as well as offense.
Hikaru, Athena, and most of the Angels in Angelic Layer; it's never explained why so many people choose to construct Angels this way, but possibly it's to emulate The Champion Athena.
- Also possible is the fact that every heavyweight angel except for Shirahime looks absolutely hideous and unnatural. Case in point: Vasquez.
Fate from Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha whenever she uses her Sonic Form. It allows her to move at Super Speed at all times, but at the cost of defense. Her opponents always note that, in that form, one hit is all it'll take to kill her.
- Not that the astute observation does them any good whatsoever.
In The Prince Of Tennis, Fudomine player Akira Kamio is known among players as an extremely fast runner. His stamina is variable; in the anime he's able to more-or-less follow and keep up with a guy on a bicycle, but in an actual doubles game he and his partner almost collapse out of exhaustation. It doesn't help that one of his opponents was Kenya Oshitari, an even faster runner without stamina problems.
Negi Springfield of Mahou Sensei Negima, in the author's love of gaming references, fights this way in his standard form, along with wind and lightning (speed:4800, attack:1800, defense:800). His other form (which he can seemlessly switch to) is a Mighty Glacier who fights wth darkness and Mana Drain (attack:3800, defense:2200, speed:1200).
Subverted to its logical extreme with Sloth from Fullmetal Alchemist. Not only is he one of the most resilient homonculi, when he really gets down to business he's the fastest, moving too fast to control himself. This is all bundled in with his Mighty Glacier physique.
Sagara Sousuke from Full Metal Panic. Especially in relation to all of his muscled, bruiser opponents. This also applies when he's fighting in his AS. In the first season's finale, he manages to win the fight between him and Gauron by attacking Gauron so rapidly and repeatedly that Gauron is unable to concentrate on using the lambda driver (at least, for an extended period). And in the physical fistfight with a muscled terrorist, he managed to beat the guy by speedily kneeing him and tasering him.

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If we're talking superhero speedsters, there's of course the Flash (DC Comics) in his various incarnations, Dash from The Incredibles, Quicksilver (Pietro Maximoff) from X-Men and X-Men Evolution, and the list goes on. They may be able to break the sound barrier or deliver punches at the speed of light, but if a Tank does manage to land a hit, they're usually out and down. This begs the question of how they can land a punch that fast and not break an arm or... everything. The Flash gets a technobabble-ish Hand Wave with the "Speed Force", which allows speedsters in DC to run at supersonic speeds without harming themselves, etc. Quicksilver's mutation seems to have worked its way around this as well, ensuring his safety at high speeds and such.
- As Barry Allen discovered, each Flash is also surrounded by an invisible energy-absorbing aura. This was the writers' solution to some obvious physics problems. Barry's aura was what protected him from air friction and soaked up most of the damage when he slammed into something at high speed; by the same token, it meant that his supersonic punches did no more damage than normal. Just one problem: the writers sometimes forgot this rule and had a Flash run across the country to build up energy for a super-punch. The Speed Force, being basically magic, is a more versatile get-out-of-physics-free card.

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In Rob Roy, Archibald Cunningham, the fop with the deadly blade. In his very first scene, the Scots mock Archie's skinny arms, and he is manhandled by Rob several times throughout the film. Although he is deadly fast with a rapier, he is ultimately killed when Rob grabs hold of his sword, using his raw strength to immobilize Archie for a killing blow.

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Scrambler, Quickie, Accelerator, and - what the heck, most of the speedsters at Whateley Academy in the Whateley Universe. Hyper actually broke a couple of his own fingers punching a 'brick' in the eye as he ran past at about a hundred miles an hour.

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Cruiserweights are usually a fair bit smaller than heavyweights and capable of many faster and more acrobatic stunts and moves. However, most of them will be beaten with just a couple of power moves by a big guy.
- Subverted (mostly) by Rey Mysterio, who is the smallest and arguably quickest member of the main eventers, and Jeff Hardy, who does a lot of running and flying around. Both are able to absorb horrific amounts of abuse from larger opponents and keep fighting on...more or less playing real life Cherry Tappers.

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Speedsters are one of the major build types in the HERO System-one of the sourcebooks was even called The Ultimate Speedster. They can be very powerful-a high speed stat is very powerful in the game, and certain builds can give them damage outputs that even dwarf that of the Mighty Glacier, though they tend to be Glass Cannons.
Elves in Dungeons And Dragons. High Dexterity - meaning they move faster and dodge more easily - is countered by reduced Constitution, which renders them far less resilient than a human of the same class and level.
- In Dungeons And Dragons, many classes emphasize Dexterity (speed) over Strength or Constitution (toughness), though their sneak attack or skirmish abilities often allow them to do huge amounts of damage. Due to the limitations of ability modifiers, any character who emphasizes one particular role tends to suck at the others, leaving an offense-focused rogue, ninja, scout, monk or swordsage rather fragile and speedy. Amusingly enough, a defensive-keyed monk is both fast and damn near impossible to kill due to high AC, speed and immunities... But their offensive power is subpar to put it mildly.

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Most of the Speed class cars in Burnout Paradise qualify, but no car plays this trope straighter than the Krieger Racing WTR. The Champ Car lookalike, the last car that you unlock in the game through the "find it in Paradise City and run it into the wall" method, is easily the fastest car in the game, but if you're stupid enough to use it in a Marked Man or Road Rage event, it'll take exactly two wrecks before you lose. Compare that to the Mighty Glaciers, like the Carson Inferno Van, that can take up to a dozen hits before losing, but are slow as hell.
- Actually, an achievement can be earned by winning a Marked Man with the Krieger Racing WTR, so every player is probably going to try this at least once.
- The recently-released Carson Extreme Hot Rod is deceiving. It has a Strength rating of 8 (out of 10), but all that means is that it can shunt stuff around and take a few crashes before being deemed as Totalled. But when you're using the Boost... You'd better not even nudge a car, otherwise you wind up Going Airborne with little pieces of your car flying everywhere, including your wheels. Doesn't help that the car introduces Locked Boost, and the ridiculous speeds let you FLY ACROSS A WHOLE EXPRESSWAY BRIDGE IN ONE JUMP, something that other cars can't do with 3 jumps.
- It gets better. Said Locked Boost gives the Extreme Hot Rod infinite Boost until the car crashes or is slowed to a crawl. This Troper's built-in HSQ was broken. Repeatedly.
Chun-Li from Street Fighter. Cammy joins in here too, although the epitome of speed ~~and beauty~~ remains Vega (Balrog in Japan), and Guy is also a strong contender. The latter two are both male.
- Rolento arguably counts as well.
- Earlier versions of Chun-Li (from the orginal Street Fighter II, for example) actually lean more towards Lightning Bruiser. This troper remembers losing nearly a quarter of the health bar to her hard punch two-hitter after a mistimed hadoken. She gets noticeably faster (and weaker) in the later games.
The entire female line-up from Tekken since the beginning of the series
- This troper would argue that while Tekken upholds the trope for the most part, a few females vary slightly, with Christie being more of a Glass Cannon, while Julia is a little more balanced than most females. Additionally, males aren't exempt from this trope, most notably Lee Chaolan.
- Well, there is one female who doesn't go for ultimate speed. Then again, how fast are giant pandas anyway?
Chipp Zanuff, Jam Kuradoberi and Millia Rage from Guilty Gear
Pikachu and Fox in Super Smash Bros, and Falco, Marth, Pichu, and Sheik (who can also turn into a Mighty Glacier) as well in Super Smash Bros Melee. Mewtwo and Peach hover near here - they aren't exactly speedy, but generally more maneouvrable...and ejectable. Sonic is so fast that he's Too Fast To Stop.
- This troper will note that it depends on the game. Fox and Falco have average weight, and are the among the hardest characters to kill vertically in Melee. Marth and Peach also have substantial horizontal recovery and Sheik's weight is respectable (again, Melee). Of course, they are all speedy.
- It can also be noted, judging from the examples, that this series severely inverts the female bias of this trope. Prior to Zero Suit Samus, the only time a female character had above average footspeed was when she was disguised as a man.
The Final Fantasy series offer us the Thief and Ninja classes, which embody this trope. Character examples include Yuffie, Zidane (interesting, as he is the main character), Rikku, Tifa,and others .
- It must, however, be noted that Zidane's Hit Points are second only to Steiner's for most of the game, making his Fragile Speedster status somewhat suspicious.
Katt and Rei in the Breath Of Fire series.
The Light class was one of the four classes in Gladius (along with Medium, Heavy and Animal) and fits the Fragile Speedster definition to a tee, even though its members can be male or female. They had a rock-paper-scissors advantage over Heavies.
Killer7's Con Smith fits this trope to a T. He dual wields fully automatic pistols, can burn blood to run extremely fast, and has the least health of any member of the Smith Syndicate.
Grant Danasty from Castlevania III fits this category fairly well; he's fast and can cling to surfaces, but also has a very weak weapon and takes more damage from enemy attacks than the main character.
- Richter Belmont in Symphony of the Night has special moves that allow him to move extremely fast and Sequence Break like a mofo; a dextrous Richter player can beat the game in less than ten minutes, and this is without glitches. However, he has as much health and defense as a classical Castlevania character (i.e. Simon, Trevor, and his Rondo of Blood self).
- Similarly, Maria Renard, also from Rondo. She moves faster than the pimp-walking Richter, has a slide attack that allows her to tear right through the bridge part of Stage 7, but she has even less defense than Richter, both in Rondo and Symphony.
Several Pokemon can be put into this kind of classification, the most extreme example would be Ninjask. Having one of the highest speed ratings in the game, plus an ability to go even faster. Not surprising, has a very low defense and HP rating. It's also partly based on a ninja, surprise surprise.
The Scout Class in Team Fortress 2 is the archtype example of this trope. Most people however treat it as a flag-catcher rather than a hit-and-run fighter, which actually works to their advantage; many players don't priority target scouts, allowing a good scout to nip in with their shotgun, blast a few shots, and get out of there to attack from another angle. Good scouts can wreck an enemy team, or at the very least take out a few key targets like medics healing.
- The Pyro is somewhat fragile, pretty fast, and can kill even the toughest of classes in seconds with his flamethrower.
- The Medic Class in also has some elements of the Fragile Speedster as well. Though he is fragile by nature, he is the second fastest class in the game. In addition to his healing Medigun, the Medic also carries a rather weak Flechette Launcher and a Bonesaw, which actually has twice the Critical Hit rate of all other melee weapons. So while he shouldn't be in the heat of battle as he folds rather easily, if you're forced into a really bad situation you can actually still manage to do some serious damage by Bonesawing the crap out of everyone in sight.
Rodan, M.O.G.U.E.R.A., and Megaguirus in Godzilla: Save the Earth. Baragon and Gigan are an aversion of the usual Fragile Speedster rules - only the aforementioned daikaiju are faster, but they're quite damaging and reasonably durable; they instead sacrifice in other areas.
Pai from Virtua Fighter
- Aoi, Eileen, and, for a male equivalent, Lion, in the sequels.
In Fire Emblem games, the Thief has low hit points and low defense. His attack is mediocre and there's a good chance of seeing "No Damage" against an armored opponent. However, his crit hit chance is high, and he'll dodge more shots than he'll take.
- The Myrmadon is a lesser version of this, focusing more on an insanely high crit hit chance and decent attack rate, and less on dodging (still one of the least hit characters)
  - Pegasus Knights, and certain types of Magic Users also apply this trope.
In the Monster Rancher games, the Rabbit and Fairie characters are extremely high dodge and quick movement. However they have low defense. Often fights against heavy defense enemies (like golems and knights) will run time out as the heavy can't hit the speedster, and the speedster can only deal minimal damage. This means the speedster is more likely to win, but it's a gamble, as chances are one hit will completely KO her.
The Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres in the Dune saga fall into this category, with their defeats being brutally quick and, if length is an indication of "epicness", anticlimactic.
Averted in the MMORPG City Of Heroes and City Of Villains as any archetype, including the tough as nails Brutes and Tankers, can get superspeed powers if they wish.
In the second Knights Of The Old Republic game, Mira fit this trope perfectly- in fact, her opposite number was also a prime example of the Mighty Glacier.
How you tell the difference between Real Robots and Super Robots in Super Robot Wars, apart from the obvious stylistic traits and attacks. A Real Robot type (especially ones from Macross) will have circa 3000 HP and almost never get hit, taking their damage in the four digits when they actually take a shot, while Super Robots will top six or seven thousand and take their triple-digit shots like, if you'll excuse the expression, Real Men.
- Exception: The Cybuster is considered one of the fastest mecha in Super Robot Wars, and if it's a Real Robot, this editor will eat his hat.
  - No one said the rule was absolute. Tekkaman Blade is outrageously fast, although in fairness, he's roughly human-sized. In any case, there are a lot more insanely fast Supers than tanktastic Reals, and not very many of either.
  - Also, the Cybuster is, while classified as a Super Robot, is more or less a mix of both Real and Super robot class specs, which is why some dub is as "the robot that doesn't know what it wants to be".
- Pretty much any Small or Extra Small unit in Super Robot Wars falls under this trope - however, they also tend to be frighteningly powerful.
- Getter Robo also is a fragile speedster. In comparison with other Supers, its armor is a bit lacking in most games. This liability is worked around with the Open Get and Getter Vision abilities.
- The biggest exception is probably the Ausenseiter, which is standard Super Robot size (roughly fifty meters tall, with most Reals and fast Supers being twenty to twenty-five) and practically untouchable. Of course, it was custom built for Ratsel Feinschmecker, who this editor has literally never seen take a hit in the Real Robots he frequently uses (Elzam Branstein has taken some hits, but he is not Ratsel), so it's to be expected.
Given the prevalence of female characters in fighting games following this trope, King from King Of Fighters (a Muay Thai kickboxer), Blue Mary (a tough grappler), and Hinako (a powerful sumo wrestler) are notable aversions.
- Another interesting example is Choi Bounge, who is the fastest character in the series and also an adult (if small) male character.
- Sie Kensou and Bao of the Psycho Soldier team also qualify. Both are male.
- And Chris, of the New Faces Team, as well as Benimaru Nikado. Again, male.
- Possibly the quickest and most fragile is Malin, however.
Just like Street Fighter II has Chun-Li, Fatal Fury has Mai Shiranui, who is even a ninja; but as new characters were introduced, male children characters (like the Jin brothers and Hokutomaru) became the best examples.
In Art Of Fighting 2 Yuri Sakazaki was arguably the fastest character in the game with good power, however she can be easily defeated. Mickey Rogers is another example because his quick punch attacks make him sightly cheap and him being a button masher's dream come true, though he's pretty weak too.
The Eldar of Warhammer 40000 are fast and fragile, but more specialised than weak: their unit are extremely effective in the right place. The Dark Eldar take the "jets-equipped glass cannon" idea even further than their less evil cousins - even faster, even more fragile and occasionally even more powerful. Both overlap strongly with Glass Cannon.
For some characters in the Last Blade series, it's a matter of whwther you choose "speed" or "power". Several characters were just built for speed, however, including Old Master Okina, Genki Girl Akari (whose brother Juzoh is a Mighty Glacier), Mysterious Waif Hibiki, Troubled But Cute Bishounen Moriya, Stoic Ninja Zantetsu, and Half Identical Twin Kojiroh.
Star Control likes this trope. Most of the smallest ships (and generally least expensive, though there are exceptions) can run circles around their larger counterparts, dodging incoming projectiles with impunity and generally falling apart after half a second of actually getting hit. Subverted with the Spathi Eluder; though one of the fastest things in known space period, it can take an impressive beating. Pays for it by only being able to do decent damage while running away. It also makes fighting every Slylandro probe you encounter worth the effort, since it's one of the few ships that can match its speed. Not to mention that if you position a Pkunk Fury at just the right distance from a Thraddash Torch, you can blow up the Torch in one hit without taking any damage.
Skate/Sammy from Streets of Rage/Bare Knuckles*
Lightweights in Mario Kart were more or less like this. They could accelerate quickly, and were excellent off-road, but are really easily knocked around by the heavier classes. If the player slows down for even a second (Red/Spiny Shells, anyone?), expect someone from behind to drive into them, sending them careening off a ledge.
- Lightweights in any racing game are like this.
Nakoruru, Rimururu and Rera from Samurai Shodown. They are faster than the actual ninjas of the series.
Faith of Mirror's Edge is a prime example. She can't take too much in the way of subautomatic fire. Good thing she can cross a hallway, shimmy up the wall, and scoot down an airvent in the time it takes some of the enemies to turn and get a bead on her.
Talon, the Deinonychus from Primal Rage.
Sasha from Rondo of Swords is a typical example. Great movement, terrible defense.
Ace, the Carnotaurus from Dinosaur King. He isn't so fragile (he is a dinosaur, after all), but he is the fastest of the D-Team's dinosaurs.
Nikki in Mana Khemia: Alchemists of Al-Revis is an aversion. She's very fast, but also quite a heavy hitter and reasonably sturdy. Her flaws are an extremely low max SP that her weapons don't improve, and her core skills requiring special items that she needs to defeat enemies with another of her skills to get.
The Manta from the Unreal Tournament series. Very fast, decently armed, and a great choice for Car Fu against enemies on foot. On the downside, it has the lowest HP of any vehicle, gets taken out by a single anti-vehicle rocket, and is easily knocked around.
In Super Mario 64 DS, Luigi is the Fragile Speedster out of the four (Wario is the Mighty Glacier, Mario is, well, The Mario, and Yoshi does his own thing). His speed and high jumps more than make up for the fact that he always takes one more point of damage than normal, and he's often considered the best character in the game.
Lilica of Arcana Heart, who not only uses the Arcana of Wind as her default, but fights in roller blades as well.
The Hunter infected in Left 4 Dead have insane parkour skills allowing them to move in a blur and strike like a bolt of bad-smelling lightning. Unfortunately, they still get sent ragdolling with a single well-aimed shotgun blast.
Rider of Fate Stay Night has poor endurance as well as having neither terribly powerful attacks nor the ability to take a hit, but she's incredibly agile and very fast, making her very difficult to hit, and can fight in conditions that other Servants would have problems with, such as while speeding up the side of a skyscraper (as Saber discovers to her dismay).
In Freedom Force, Flash expy Bullet is a textbook example. His upgrades give him super-healing and better defenses to make him less fragile. There's also Liberty Lad and Sea Urchin, who have high agility stats but also can't take a hit.
The Morrigi from Sword Of The Stars, who tactically can outrun the speed-focused ships of most of the other races, but have the second-worst armament ability after the Liir... And, of course, their ships are bloody expensive. Strategically, the Morrigi's FTL system make their fleets faster the larger they are — and the biggest Morrigi fleets can move about twice as fast as the fastest anyone else can do (though, if you are able to build fleets that size, you've already won).
In The Battle For Wesnoth, there are two kinds of fragile speedster: scouts, and elusive units. Scouts are strategically fast units that excel at capturing and threatening villages with their fast movement, but are not as tough or hard-hitting as main-line infantry. There are some exceptions, like Knalgan Gryphon Riders, which have fearsome mobility and impressive striking power, but compensate by having a matching price tag. The other kind of fragile speedster, the elusive units, rely heavily on their dodging ability to survive in combat. Their low hitpoints and poor resistances make them especially vulnerable to magical attacks and poison, though on the flipside, they can also race back to villages and heal quickly. This category includes the poison-wielding Orcish Assassin, the skirmishing Fencer and Saurian Skirmisher, the life-draining Ghost, the backstabbing Thief, and the simply irritating Footpad.
Ivan and Sheba, both of Golden Sun, are very much fragile speedsters, lacking in health but having a high speed. Since that only affects turn order, which doesn't amount to much, they're also blessed with a high amount of Psynergy Points, meaning they can both rain down their spells with impunity.
No More Heroes actually has a Fragile Speedster as a Boss: Jeane has remarkably low health for a boss, but can counter your grabs, dodge pretty much all of your attacks, and moves incredibly fast.

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Webcomic example: Robin, from It's Walky! and Shortpacked!, could probably create a sonic boom if she felt like it. She's only physically fragile compared to super-strong people like Sal or Beef, though, but her main vulnerability is her emotional and mental stability... Hence, still fragile, just in a different way.

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Cheetara of Thundercats fame.
Justice League Unlimited: The Flash in this continuity, though The creators once said that Flash should be unbeatable and that writing action scenes for him were very tricky as a result.
- We see a glimpse of this when the Flash and Lex Luthor switch bodies for an episode. The JLU are unable to contain Lex-in-Flash, and have to trick him into knocking himself out by playing with the gravity settings on the Watchtower. This episode made it clear that Flash, if he were just a bit smarter, would be unstoppable.
Mas y Menos of Teen Titans.
Bumblebee and Blurr of Transformers Animated. Blurr, in fact, seems to have no other weapons. There's also the recently-introduced flying, acrobatic twins, Jetfire and Jetstorm. (They're actually reminiscent of Mas y Menos, which may come of having largely the same creative team.) Transfomers being the oft-rebooted series it is, all four characters have had multiple previous incarnations, but they weren't Fragile Speedsters.
- Sari moves into this role from Team Pet in season 3, once she gets in touch with her heritage.

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A magazine (named Shimbun) for This Troper's karate club once ran an article on different types of sparring individuals and how each one is likely to behave during kumite (that's a fighting match, for those not in the know). These catagories included stone types -heavy, strong, but slow- the Bruce Lee typic "water type" -fast and adaptable (many people think this is one of the best sparring types, though this is purely subjective) and the air type -extremely quick, landing multiple light punches at high speed. Many younger sparrers are of this type - and they're murder to spar against because they never stay still for so much as a second. The problem with air type kumite is of course, just as has been stated above - just a few exact punches is all it takes for them to be beaten (to their advantage they can move quickly, and it's a question of getting your punches in). People, to their credit, are a lot less destructible than videogame characters (which is also kind of a rare example of this trope being right).
- In this troper's experience, there are sparring styles that equate to all of the character archetypes on the Competitive Balance page (Yes, that includes Joke Characters).
Admiral Sir John Fisher is famous for saying "speed is armour," and was a proponent of the battlecruisers, ships with large (battleship-size) guns that traded armor for speed. To see how well this worked out, look up the HMS Hood. Or the Battle of Jutland.
Cheetahs. They're the weakest of the big cats and they have to eat quickly because of their inability to defend their kills from other carnivores, but they're the fastest land animal alive. In fact, they use their speed itself is a weapon: they actually bring down gazelles by tripping them while they're running at top speed, causing their legs to break.
Humans may well also qualify: we're not particularly fast — although not particularly slow, either — but our running endurance is one of our few natural advantages and surpasses almost any other animal's, leading to styles of hunting that involve simply chasing an animal until it gets exhausted and collapses, at which point it might be dispatched at leisure.
Most super fast cars (Excluding NASCAR ones, but that's cause they're professional). Fast, yes, but be wary if you crash.
- Any road-legal car going faster than about 80 mph is subject to this trope; no crumple zone or airbag could possible dissipate that amount of energy, and weight considerations (which is why trucks are safer) aren't quite as relevant when you're hitting a solid object, which is usually what happens. Race cars use a different method of safety that involves a heavy steel cage that the driver is harnessed to, which can bounce around to dissipate energy while not jostling the driver too badly.
Boffer LARP players usually know at least one Skinny Fast Kid. They're usually male, between the age of 16 and 25, and a new enough player that they can't deal or take much damage. Even a low level NPC could take them out, if they could just catch them. If a Skinny Fast Kid decides to play a NPC, beware.

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