Troperville
Help us survive. All donations are anonymous on the wiki and unacknowledged, as we don't wish to create a hierarchy among Tropers.
Editing
Tools
Toys
|
I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.
Now, now, boys. No pushing, no shoving —single file is the polite way to attack the hero.
The life of the mook is a humble one, in which the poor cannon-fodder must look like everyone else, act like everyone else, and get their butt kicked by the hero like everyone else.
But becoming a mook is much harder than it looks. On TV (and in video games), humility is only the first step in a fighting code of mooks's honor, as complex and rigid as that of the medieval knight or the samurai. This is why most mooks fare about as well as a bunch of knights or samurai would when faced with a modern army. The principles of the code are:
- Ganging up is unsporting and dishonorable. Mooks must always attack the hero one at a time; to gang up would be to destroy the principle of war.
- A Mighty Man Fights Alone. Even if some common mooks disobey the rule above and attack in twos or threes occasionally, any Giant Mook present must always attack the hero one-on-one, preferably after all lesser mooks are down so that the Giant Mook can't call on them for help. A really big Giant Mook (e.g. the Cave Troll from Lord of the Rings) may attack a whole group of heroes alone, he's just that tough!
- And if the dragon or the big bad joins the fight, any remaining mooks must simply stand by and watch. Forming a circle around the fight is encouraged.
- Taking cover is for cowards. A true mook must charge straight forward; victory is meaningless if it is achieved by surprise. It is acceptable to attack the hero from different directions at once, as long as each attacker reaches the hero at a different moment (thus being neither surprise nor ganging up).
- Masters may overcome any terrain. As a corollary to the previous two principles, tactics must be the same in all places and times, no matter what the terrain is. A mass rush works just as well in the open field as it does in a cramped cave where only one warrior at a time can physically get to the hero.
- Not that any true mook would ever get involved in a mass rush (see above).
- The true warrior cares not what his enemies know. Minions must shout commands to each other where the hero can hear them, or communicate by radio when the hero can intercept. Who cares if the enemy knows all your plans? A true plan succeeds whether the enemy knows it or not.
- Let the enemy know who is going to face him. Like the knights and samurai, mooks must shout out a formal challenge when the battle begins. Each group of cannon fodder has their own challenge — it might be shouting out their names, or baring claws and roaring, or just saying "you will die!" True, the pause does let the hero sucker-punch them. But victory is hollow if the defeated foe does not know who beat them...if the foe is ever defeated, which will surely happen someday. As a result, they may sneak With Catlike Tread, but the attack is nowhere near sneaky.
- Retreats are a sign of defeatism. Finally, preparing for a retreat is disgraceful. It does not matter how many of you the hero has beaten — keep rushing. If fifteen out of sixteen orcs are down, the sixteenth orc must charge exactly like the first fifteen. Unfortunately, this principle is not as adhered to as the others — many mooks have decided to retreat. Fortunately, they are never defeatist enough to prepare for a retreat, so they always wind up making suicide charges or panicked routs.
Strangely enough, an army of ninja — despite being dishonorable sneaks — will follow Mook Chivalry as if they were samurai. Due to Conservation Of Ninjitsu, a small group of ninja will behave dishonorably, and actually attack from cover, retreat, and so on, large ninja forces will be made up of Highly Visible Ninja.
See also No Sneak Attacks. If it suddenly comes into play with a pack of enemies who previously were winning because they attacked together, see also Lowered Monster Difficulty.
Examples:
To be sorted...
Video Games
- The 21st-century Ace Combat games (04, 5, Zero, and 6) seem to avert this; this troper has been chased by an entire five-plane group at once in 04.
- Breached by the demons of Devil May Cry, who have no qualms about coordinated attacks (even the large ones), sliding offscreen while readying a ranged attack or doing so unannounced. Some specific examples: the Marionettes from the first game are known to have one paralyze Dante with a scream while another strikes, and the Arachne from the third game use the same tactic with their webbing ability. The Enigmas from the third love the retreat-and-fire tactic. In Devil May Cry 4 the Bianco Angelo and Alto Angelo enemies are not only adept at fighting in groups, but even gain new special attacks when doing so.
- Although in Devil May Cry 4 the mooks won't attack as aggressively if they're off screen, which this troper feels is a bit of a cop out solution to the ever present but partially solved bad camera problem. Devil May Cry enemies may have been weak in comparison to the player character, but they sure as hell didn't hold back no matter the situation.
- Performed masterfully in Metal Gear Solid, where four invisible mooks that are on the elevator with Snake, literally close enough to reach out and touch him from the moment he steps on, must sit and wait for our hero to riddle out what's going on in an absurd fashion over the radio despite the fact that all four of them have machine guns. Conforming to the mook code even further, one of the mooks announces their presence after the hero has already figured out what's going on with a hearty, "Too late, Snake. Now you die!" Of course no, no he doesn't. This is almost a direct reference to the previous game Metal Gear 2, where four assassins announce their presence before attacking Snake in an elevator, and then only attack two at a time. How they managed to stay in business boggles the mind.
- And used again with the mass-produced RAYs in the sequel, which only attack three at a time for no reason whatsoever.
- Looked to this troper like there was only room in the fighting area for three of them at once, which does by itself avert the one-on-one aspect of the trope.
- Averted in Fable, where multiple enemies can and will often gang up on you. However, it will be featured (intentionally) in
the upcoming Fable 2, because developer Peter Molyneux says he wants the game to feel "cinematic".
- In Harpoon this troper had to deal with a bunch of A-37 Dragonfly attack aircraft that just came one after the other. Tried to drop a bomb, were declared hostile (he wasn't going to fire until he was sure) and were easy blown out of the sky by AAA. Earlier, it had been done with Su-22 "Fitter" aircraft.
- It is not uncommon for a ship or base to be attacked by a "conga line of missiles". These are quite a bit more threatening, being harder to hit.
- In most Roguelike games, the most effective strategy against multiple enemies is to back up into a corridor one space wide, forcing them to fight you one at a time. Some games try to combat this by allowing enemies with ranged weapons to fire over the heads of other enemies, but that just revises the player's strategy to incorporate corners where the archers can't get a line of sight.
- The AI in many older strategy games act this way, sending units as they are created on suicidal attacks, rather than forming a solid army to attack the enemy with. This is counterattacked by the AI being a cheater, so most of them don't run out of resources this way.
- In Puzzle Quest, it's actually impossible to have a fight with more than one person, so larger encounters are usually either consecutive fights or a single fight against a slightly more powerful enemy. However, this goes both ways, your companions only provide a specific bonus against some enemies rather than fighting alongside of you, even though some of them are capable fighters on their own.
- Some minibosses in The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time that are fought in pairs act like this, with the second one waiting in the background. However, the Iron Knuckles fought in the final dungeon don't follow the rule, but it's possible to lure one of them away from the other. Same applies to the similiar Darknuts in Twilight Princess, except for the Bonus Dungeon, where 3 of them wait on the final floor with no means of separating them.
- Those three are some bad, bad mofos.
- Well it makes sense with the stalfos miniboss since they are undead knights and if this weren't the case it'd be very difficult to deal with them.
- Subverted in the Rockstar game Manhunt; the antagonist hunters, out for the protagonist's blood, will move in groups and call others over for backup upon hearing a noise or finding the corpse of a previously-slaughtered comrade. As this troper found out the hard way, the ravening whackjobs have no problem swarming and hacking you to bits with various and sundry sharp objects.
- In Gears Of War, when a player or computer player is chainsawing someone, your character must patiently wait with his chainsaw revved until the animation finishes, where you can subsequently avenge your fallen ally.
- Partially justified in the game of The Bourne Conspiracy. In the hand-to-hand combat segments, when you are fighting multiple mooks, when one of them tries to attack you from behind while you are preoccupied with his comrade. Bourne will hit him with a "Wait your turn" Offhand Backhand.
- Completely averted by The Mana Series (Seiken Densetsu III in particular) where, every chance they get, mooks will gang up on you , jump out from the shadows, and wade in with both barrels blazing.
- Averted in Berserk, where mooks usually attack Guts in groups of four or five at a time. For all the good it does them.
- God Hand's Mooks follow this... but only at Level 1 of its Dynamic Difficulty curve. At Level 2 or higher, they can and will attack you even if they're not on-camera. At the highest difficulty level, Level DIE, they will gleefully attack you from the other side of the fighting arena without warning.
- Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja and its sequel spit on this trope. Actually, most old-school-styled Roguelikes do. If you don't head off to a tunnel or there are none available, expect three or more enemies on you at once, all attacking you at once.
- In Assassins Creed this trope is taken to the extreme except for not running away. when in a swordfight with enemies, they will literally circle around you and attack one at a time, also waiting between 5 and 10 seconds before each attack, thus allowing for easily timed counters. Something to point out, while they do shout their orders to each other, they will, fortunately for them, shout them in different languages.
- They may, however, flee in terror if you've slaughtered the rest of their group.
- In the game Luminous Arc 2, even when the enemies outnumber you, they seem to perfer to rush you in waves - some of the mooks (and almost always the boss untis) in the back will not even advance to attack you until either you've killed a number of mook units, or if you step in their attack range. This allows you to simply stay where you are and pick off the enemy with ease.
- Throughly ignored in Ninja Gaiden/Ninja Gaiden Black/Ninja Gaiden Sigma and Ninja Gaiden II, as the enemies have no qualms in leaping at you when you are comboing one of their teammates. An exceptional example are the Black Spider Ninjas, who always come in packs, carry an infinite supply of explosive shurikens each, and are happy to throw said explosive shurikens into your back, from off-camera, while you are attacking another ninja and cannot block.
- Averted slightly in Final Fantasy XII: Renevant Wings, in which if any of your party goes near a group of mooks, they'll all go and attack you. Even if you retreat, all the mooks will follow, continually attacking until either (a) everyone within their range is dead, (b) they're dead, or (c) you manage to escape. Oh, and often if you stray into the range of some other mooks, they'll join the battle too. Due to the fact that your Espers have the occasional fault of going after an enemy if they've just defeated one and there are none near them, this happens a bit more than you would think.
- Gothic 3. Oh God, Gothic 3. The most blatant, shameless example of this trope this Troper has ever seen. Much of the gameplay involves liberating cities from whichever faction (orcs or humans) you side against. While you likely have a few AI allies, you'll do much of the fighting on your own. Cue the Nameless Hero being surrounded by twenty orcs... who form a neat circle and keep their distance while engaging him one at a time. Could also be considered a Subverted Trope, however, considering that falling for this tends to lead to you being peppered with arrows and quickly killed.
- In Jade Empire, the mooks try to gang up on you... but the AI is really, really bad at it, so you might as well be fighting only one enemy at a time.
Reality
- Arguably seen in history as the events of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, and Sixth battles of Thermopylae, if only because the narrow pass limited the number of troops that could physically attack at any given time. You could apply overcoming terrain (see said mountain pass and the First and Fourth battles) and no-defeatist-retreats to the area; First Thermopylae arguably defined that trope in its entirety while Fourth Thermopylae showed why you don't retreat. Sometimes Mook Chivalry has its historical backgrounds...
|
|
