Sub Trope of
Defeat Means Friendship.
In a normal
Defeat Means Friendship scenario, someone formerly opposed to the hero joins their side or at least becomes more affable towards them shortly after being defeated by them. In this trope, the defeat is the sole reason for their
Heel Face Turn. The defeated character effectively says, "Okay, now that I know you're stronger, I'm gonna join up with you now. " The reasons for this varies:
- They're a Proud Warrior Race Guy, Blood Knight, or other character type that admires strength. Since you proved to be stronger than them, they respect you enough to want to help you.
- They're an opportunistic Reliable Traitor who feels that his/her interests would be better served on the hero's side.
- They wanted to join the hero's side all along. They just wanted to test the hero's power first
- They're a Dirty Coward who doesn't want the hero to finish them off.
Examples:
- King Bulbin from The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the Trope Namer. Of course, he doesn't actually help you after he says it (beyond giving you a key), but he does stop harassing you.
- Grobyc from Chrono Cross is this.
- Stratos 4:
Mikaze: Whose side are you on?
Karin: *pause* The winning side.
- In Farscape there is a human alien named Vreena
that betrays her people because of this.
"Peacekeepers, scarrans, what does it matter who rules? I'll never be in charge. I'm just doing what i have to to survive."
- Warcraft 3 has Varimathras, a Dreadlord who repeatedly switches sides, and who even has "I'm always on the winning side" as one of his responses.
- In Destiny of an Emperor, Lu Bu decides to serve Yuan Shao upon seeing how big and powerful his army is.
- Blazing Saddles. After Sheriff Bart has defeated Mongo:
Mongo: Mongo stay with Sheriff Bart. Sheriff first man ever whip Mongo. Mongo impressed, have deep feelings for Sheriff Bart.
- Kenpachi Zaraki in Bleach eventually does a Heel Face Turn (sort of, its complicated) and decides to help out Ichigo and his Nakama, on the basis that if Ichigo survives, Zaraki will get to fight him again.
- In Kill Zone, ISA gets a good deal of traitors amongst them throughout the invasion of Vekta, Adams shut down the defense line that allowed the invasion to happen and the Colonel allowed nuclear weapons to fall into enemy hands.
- Fidelias in Codex Alera.
- Older Than Feudalism with the story of St Christopher; a warrior that went out to search for the strongest lord to follow. He found the strongest living man in the world but also learnt that he was afraid of the devil. Then he learnt that the devil was scared of God and went on a search to find him. After an eventful river-crossing he found Jesus and learnt the weight that rests on his shoulders and forever served him...before being killed by Roman Emperor Decius
- In his earliest appearances in Superman comics, Bibbo Bibbowski was like this - He broke his hand punching Superman, and from then on Superman was his "fav'rit" because he was tough. When he saw the Man of Steel getting beaten up by Lobo, his reaction was "Yer even tougher than Superman. Yer my new fav'rit". In later appearances he respected Superman for always doing the right thing.
