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If You Ever Do Anything To Hurt Her
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Mrs. Possible: "We're just tickled pink about you and Kimmie."
Ron: "You are?"
Mr. Possible: "But not too pink. Time for a fam-to-Ron talk."
Ron: "It is?"
Mrs. Possible: "We want Kim to be happy."
Ron: "We do."
Mr. Possible: "If not, it's a one-way ticket on a deep-space probe."
Ron: *gulp* "How...deep?"
Mr. Possible: "Black hole deep, Ronald."
Ron: "Um...Okay..."
"I've never seen my sister this happy, Ian. If you hurt her, I'll kill you and make it look like an accident."
-Nick Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding
The one true manly way to concede defeat for the girl's heart is to tell the winner that, if he ever screws up, he should expect an ass-kicking of epic proportions. Usually uttered by (or sometimes to) The Lancer or The Rival.
This establishes that the loser:
- Realizes he has lost.
- Does not give up his role as male protector or lose face for losing
- Is decent enough to just want the girl to be happy, only expressed in a guy way.
- Is holding the winner to a very high standard.
The manly and gracious thing for the winner to do is to accept this statement. "I would be disappointed if you didn't." This is not (usually) an insult or a threat, but an agreement between men who both want the same girl to be happy.
This can also be said by a parent or older brother of the girl, who is relinquishing their previous role as "main male protector."
And yes, an asskicking of epic proportions will follow should any betrayal occur.
As can be inferred from the examples below, this trope has invoked Rule #153 on the Evil Overlord List: "...keep in mind the increasing number of non-traditional gender roles."
Examples
Male Warning Male
Female Warning Male
- The pilot episode of Dharma and Greg: Dharma's friend, upon meeting Greg for the first time, warns him that "she'll bring him pain he can't even imagine" if he hurts Dharma.
- Avatar The Last Airbender has a frankly scary (non-romantic... hopefully) warning from Katara to Zuko, soon after he joins the Gaang: "Let me tell you something right now. You make one step backward, one slip up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny any more. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends. Right then and there. PERMANENTLY." Considering she can and probably WOULD carry out the threat... Zounds!
- Her motivations were partly out of love for Aang and partly because she held an enormous grudge against Zuko. The fact she was the only one to really hold this grudge made her look like a total bitch. Well, that and this super-freaky speech. Geez, Katara, calm down!
- In Kodomo No Jikan, Schoolgirl Lesbian Kagami says to her teacher "If you ever do anything to hurt her, I'm going straight to the board of education," when he finally returns Rin's affection. (Since Rin is a little bit underage.)
- Willow to Riley in BTVS: "And remember, if you hurt her, I will beat you to death with a shovel. *at his startled look* A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend. Have fun!"
- Zeetha to Gil in Girl Genius. Complicated further by the fact that he's still not sure she doesn't need hurting.
- In the Dragaera novel Yendi, Vlad gets that warning from his wife's erstwhile assassin partner. Lampshaded in that he sees it coming and tries to head it off (but gets it anyway).
- In Death Note, the Shinigami Rem who seems to be female threatens to kill Light if his schemes do anything to hurt Misa.
- Light being Light, he manipulates Rem into carrying this threat out on someone else. Just as planned.
- Tokyo Babylon: Hokuto, Subaru's sister, threatens Seishiro to kill him if he'll ever make her brother cry, and goes as far as threatening him with a kitchen knife when Subaru isn't there.
- Drake from Drake And Josh had to deal with this from his Sadist Teacher Mrs. Hayfer as he was dating her daughter, threatening that "If you break her heart, I'll break you." Though getting sick of his date's bad laughing habit, he struggles throughout the whole episode figuring out a way to break up with her without invoking Mrs. Hayfer's wrath.
- In Kimagure Orange Road, Madoka often warns Kyosuke to not make his sort-of girlfriend Hikaru cry. Problem is, Kyousuke cares for Hikaru yet is in love with Madoka... and Madoka also falls for him, despite her efforts to aid Hikaru and her own reluctance to admit it. In the anime, it didn't end well. This also applies to the local Chew Toy, Yuusaku, who loves Hikaru despite her rejecting him often and constantly warns Kyosuke to not hurt either her or Madoka.
- Sarine Elle of Errant Story delivered such a speech to former Ambassador Rarune regarding his own half-elf daughter.
"If something happens to her, whether or not it was your fault, I'll come back and kill you."
- Indirectly delivered in Card Captor Sakura; after confessing her love to Yukito and being turned down, Sakura wishes him luck with her older brother Touya, and tells Yukito that if Touya ever hurts him, she'll beat him up for Yukito.
- Inverted in Bruno
◊.
- Shortly after Takayuki and Haruka hook up in the first episode of Rumbling Hearts, Haruka's best friend Mitsuki warns him not to string Haruka along, or she'll make him regret it...violently, if necessary.
- Happens in a short and funny scene in Jerry Maguire when Jerry has "The Talk" with his new sister-in-law. After multiple characters have warned him about the talk, Jerry braces himself, goes in, and has "The Talk", which consists of:
Sister-in-Law: If you screw this up I'll fucking kill you.
Jerry: ... I'm glad we had this talk...
Male Warning Female
- The movie Clerks, when the otherwise childish and adolescent Randal Graves seriously warns "Oh, hey Caitlin. Break his heart again this time, and I'll kill ya. Nothing personal."
- Spaced: Mike, who is intensely jealous of Tim's new girlfriend Sophie, warns her that "You hurt him, I'll kill you." Sophie, shocked, asks Tim if he was serious... to which Tim chuckles good-naturedly and replies, with complete, genial sincerity, "Yep."
- House: Wilson warns both Cameron and Stacey not to get House's hopes up only to hurt him later (he's a lot nicer about it with Cameron).
- On Due South, Ray Vecchio gives this warning to Frasier's Femme Fatale girlfriend. It doesn't help.
Female Warning Female
- This
Arthur, King of Time and Space strip.
- This
Questionable Content strip.
- In Chuck, Sarah, who has feelings for Chuck, gives essentially this threat to his new girlfriend.
- Once on Ben 10, Gwen chews out Ben's crush Kai for insulting him: "He's a person, not a pet! You can't talk to my cousin like that! Only I can talk to my cousin like that]]!" Entirely non-romantic in context, but this is Ben and Gwen we're talking about.
- The song "Seven" by Vagiant has a variation where a girl warns her ex that she will beat up any girl who hurts him (which isn't really a fair warning, but whatever).
And I'm gonna protect you till I die
I won't let nobody hurt you again
I'll fuck up your next girlfriend if she breaks your heart
- Lynnette to The teacher who's boinking her son in Desperate Housewives.
- Watts to Amanda Jones in Some Kind of Wonderful: "You break his heart, I break your face." In the end, Amanda realizes that Watts's feelings are more genuine than hers and graciously concedes.
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