If You Ever Do Anything To Hurt Her - Television Tropes & Idioms

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..."

—Kim Possible

"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

Sibyl's brother to Dorian in The Picture of Dorian Gray
Uttered by Gunn to Wesley regarding Winifred (Fred) in Angel.
Subverted in Friends: Ross tells Chandler before his wedding to Monica that if he hurt her, he would "hunt him down, and kick his ass"... to Chandler's great amusement and laughter. Which is interesting, considering that, in a later episode, the others find it laughable that Chandler could beat Ross up.
The film Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl has a more subtle example, when Commodore Norrington, after learning that his fiancée really loves the smith Will Turner, tells Will that he expects him "to show the same care and devotion in every aspect of his life" as he does in his work; in the context of the conversation, it is obvious which aspect of Will's life he's particularly referring to.
In the film Shanghai Knights, after initially objecting to the idea of a relationship between his sister Lin and Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson), Chon Wang (Jackie Chan) accepts it, but adds, "Break her heart, I break your legs," to which Owen replies, "That's fair."
At the start of The Godfather, Connie Corleone (Talia Shire), sister of Sonny Corleone (James Caan), marries Carlo Rizzi (Gianni Russo). When Sonny finds out that Carlo has hit Connie, a rather lengthy beating takes place. (This was so severe that Caan actually broke two of Russo's ribs and chipped his elbow.) Later on in the film, Sonny's temper and protective nature are used against him. Carlo beats Connie, who phones Sonny in tears. While Sonny is en route to kill Carlo, he is ambushed by several men with machine guns who shoot up his car and kill him.
How about a male-warning-gay (well, bi) male example? Hiro, Shuichi's best friend, warns Yuki against making Shuichi cry any more than he already does in Gravitation.
A non-romantic version occurs in an episode of Scrubs: J.D's feckless and goofy older brother, acknowledging that his brother will never look up to him but admires Dr. Cox intensely, warns Cox in perfect seriousness to take his responsibility as J.D's mentor more seriously, "or you'll have me to answer to."
Spoofed in Futurama, when Zapp Brannigan tells Fry (who is pretending to be Leela's boyfriend) that if he screws up or hurts Leela in any way, Zapp will dive in to take his place "...like a fly on a particularly seductive piece of manure."
Used in The Office, (US Version) in "Phillis gets Married", where Michael Scott says to Bob Vance: "If you touch her, I'll kill you." Bob Vance replies with, "And if you touch her, I'll kill you."
This phrase is often repeated by Ryoga in Ranma 1/2. Odd thing is that he actually backs up this claim more than once, and often when it just looks like he did something. Also unusual in that Ryoga hasn't really given Akane up yet, nor has he really been beaten.
As the quote indicates: Kim Possible, when, thanks to some encouragement from the Moodulator, Kim and Ron start dating (keep in mind Kim's dad is a rocket scientist).
Similarly in Danny Phantom where Paulina's father declares to her date, Danny, that should he hurt his daughter in any way, the two of them will have a very angry talk.
Tag-team variant: in the comic Excalibur, Brian and Kurt (Captain Britain and Nightcrawler) warn teammate Pete Wisdom that if he hurts Kitty (fellow teammate Shadowcat) in anyway, they'd rip his head off, desecrate it with graffiti, and drop it in the middle of the English Channel.
One Piece: Genzo, Nami's father-figure, to Luffy at the end of the Arlong Arc.
- Apparently, this was supposed to be non-romantic. Not everybody saw it as such.
Wolverine performs the brotherly version in the X-Men comics, after Gambit returns to the team following the blowup about his past misdeeds, warning Gambit that if he hurts Rogue again, he and Logan are going to have some sharp, pointy, adamantium words.
- An early '80s X-Men comic has Wolverine intending to beat some sense into Colossus after the latter breaks up with Kitty Pryde, but Wolvie settles for getting Colossus involved in a Bar Brawl... with The Juggernaut.
In the film Sydney White, the protagonist scores a date with the current Big Man On Campus, Tyler Prince. Tyler is informed by the seven nerdy boys who share their house with Sydney that there will be severe punishment for any funny business. Of course, being nerds, this is their definition of severe punishment:
Gurkin: If you try any funny stuff, I will unleash the power of the internet on you. I will register you as a sex offender in all 50 states... and Canada.
- Although, frankly, that's a very effective threat.
Since parental threats are allowed, we can't forget (president) Jed Bartlet's on The West Wing:
President Josiah Bartlet: Just remember these two things: she's nineteen years old, and the 82nd Airborne works for me.
- And he likes Charlie!
Rodney Atkins "Cleaning This Gun (Come On In Boy)" recalls meeting his future wife's father for the first time. The chorus contains the line, "I'll be up all night/cleaning this gun".
Sir Kehydius to Sir Tristram in this Arthur King Of Time And Space strip.
Although there's no spoken dialogue, it's probably safe to infer that this happens in some form in There She Is, from Il-ho to Nabi. Even without the words there, the emotional context is definitely present. He carries through with the threat part in Step 4, attacking Nabi for breaking up with Doki and breaking her heart, then they begrudgingly come to terms in Step 5 when Il-ho gives Nabi the second ticket to Paradise so that he can follow Doki, but Nabi rips it up, indicating he's done running from his problems. The Jjintta then help him race to the airport.
Queer As Folk features one (gay) man warning his (idealistic) close friend's new love interest: "If you break his heart, I will break your face. Now if you'll excuse me, they're playing my song."
In The Mentalist episode "Bloodshot", Rigsby delivers this warning to Grace's new boyfriend, who takes it gracefully and assures Rigsby he'll treat her well. Immediately subverted when he kicks Rigsby to the ground and beats him unconscious—turns out he's the episode's bad guy, who's been using Grace to get access.
In Shin Chan Georgie gets this warning from Shin, even though Hima is too young for him to be interested.
The Redemption Of Althalus sees Deiwos warning Althalus in this way. Considering Deiwos is a god, Althalus has good reason to never think about slipping up...
The Drew Carey Show:
Lewis: (to Drew) If you hurt my sister, they will never find any piece of you. Not even your glasses. Remember: I'm a janitor. I know how to dispose of things.
An unusual example in Wolf of the Plains: Temujin threatens the father of his wife-to-be with massacre of his entire clan if he beats Borte again. Note that Temujin grows up to become Genghis Khan.
One of the titular Eight Simple Rules is the father warning the boyfriend, "You make her cry, I make you cry."
In Adachi Mitsuru's H2, Miyoshi says this to Hiro about Koga. However, Miyoshi is just trying to throw Hiro off, so that he can make a move on Koga.
In Fallout 3, you can use this on the Overseer, saying that Amata (his daughter, your best friend) trusts you, and you could, and would, harm her if he messed with you again.

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.