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alt title(s): Worf Effect 
The master at work.
"If those things took down Wolverine in less than two minutes, what chance do we have?"
"I have never seen The Undertaker manhandled like that!"
"He's the guy who's here to act tough so new characters can wreck him when they're introduced thus proving to the rest of us how amazing they are! Like Wolverine or Worf."
When the Monster-of-the-Week or the Big Bad shows up, it invariably picks up the toughest character among the heroes and hurls him across the room (or otherwise takes him out in one blow) in order to demonstrate just how Big and Bad it really is.
Named for the tendency in Star Trek The Next Generation and
Star Trek Deep Space Nine for hostile creatures to do that very thing to Worf.
When this sort of thing keeps happening to the same allegedly "bad-ass" character in episode after episode, to the point that more of their fights end with them in a crumbled heap than not, it deflates their reputation for badassery. Especially if, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, the series still presents the character as a credible opponent, rendering things downright farcical. However, the Worf in question usually builds up his reputation again by mowing down countless armies of Red Shirts and Mooks.
Also known as " jobbing" in certain circles, although jobbing usually refers to a character who loses many fights in order to make the hero appear stronger by contrast (See: Renji Abarai, Vegeta, or the Washington Generals). It usually affects whatever team member is brash and headstrong.
When this gets done too many times on an Action Girl, the result is often a Faux Action Girl.
When done by an already known villain, it may be used to try to counter-act Villain Decay and/or cause You Look Pretty Stupid To Me.
See also Worf Had The Flu, The Worf Barrage, and Hero Killer who exists solely to invoke this trope at all times.
Compare Curb Stomp Battle, Deus Exit Machina, Badass In Distress and Red Shirt. Rarely ever happens to the Crouching Scholar Hidden Badass.
Examples
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- Naruto has a lot of Worf clones to the point where you might as well call this trope "The Naruto". There aren't many characters you can name that haven't lost a fight just to show how badass someone is. Recently the entire village of Konoha bent over, dropped their trousers and took one for the team in order to showcase how powerful Pain really is.
- Even the Big Bad, Man Behind the Man Madara Uchiha has been victim of this trope not once, but twice. Offscreen. Though at least both the people that beat him are already dead.
- Sasuke seems to suffer from this all the time as well, pre and post time skip, when he's not invoking it.
- Poor Mamoru. On top of being the show's designated Distressed Dude, he also had the distinction of being a strange candidate for this trope because all he had going for him as Tuxedo Mask were his physical strength and agility, a cane, and roses that rarely had any magical properties. Needless to say, it wasn't terribly threatening when you saw the powerless guy in a suit get his butt kicked to try and show the bad guys were a real threat compared to... the main characters who all have super powers.
- This even happened to his Literal Split Personality counterpart Moonlight Knight, who was effortlessly beaten down by the villain at the end of the story arc he appeared in for the sake of establishing how dire things had gotten. Needless to say, it wasn't that surprising considering just who he was split off from. At least Moonlight Knight had a sword.
- Just being the title character doesn't earn Inuyasha an exemption from Worf duties. Generally any fight against a major opponent has to open with the same ritual: Inuyasha unsheathes his BFS; headlong running charge into opponent; sword gets blocked (either directly or by some magic force field), and sparks fly for several seconds; then Inuyasha gets thrown back to the practical horizon. (Note that in this case, the big tough character often does prove capable of beating the opponent handily — but still has to give them the chance to toss him. Perhaps it's etiquette?)
- Bleach arguably has just as many Worfs as Naruto. Name a character and odds are they've either fallen victim to this trope or exploited it at least once each.
- Chad is probably the best example in terms of how much his strength is hyped up compared to how easily he is taken down to hype up the opposition; Ichigo suggests that he is undefeatable in the Soul Society arc, and then Kyoraku defeats him without even releasing his zanpakuto.
- It seems that Chad's main purpose in any given arc is to run around a corner in the first ten chapters and meet one of the most powerful beings in the universe, then spend the next few days facedown on the ground, bleeding.
- Renji is also prone to The Worf Effect. He is a lieutenant who has achieved his sword's Bankai and can take down a bunch of Elite Mooks, but he loses at the hands of more powerful enemies.
- Vegeta is doomed to this role for most of the series, after his Heel Face Turn. He eventually realizes this and turns to The Dark Side again. But he gets better. (Or worse, depending on how you look at it.)
- Yamcha seemed to be the caretaker of this role long before Vegeta showed up, especially in the tournaments, where he was always paired up in the first round against a then-unknown opponent whom everyone expected would be dispatched easily but would end up either winning the tournament (Jackie Chun, Tenshinhan) or being, well, God. Every instance ended with the other main characters in shock that someone like Yamcha was beaten. Unfortunately, this happened so often without giving him enough chance to win fights that, by the time the Z-era began, he had long since lost all credibility.
- Kid Goku is also notable as this during the original series, especially during his first two fights against Mercenary Tao and Demon King Piccolo.
- Piccolo, Gotenks, and Gohan all suffer this at the hands of Super Buu as well, getting absorbed by him.
- In fact, it can be argued that Piccolo suffers just as much from this trope as Vegeta does. Throughout the series, he's been beaten up by Raditz, blasted to crap by Nappa, laser-bitchslapped by Freeza, nearly eaten by Cell, turned to stone by Dabura, and actually eaten by Buu. And at least two of these occurrences have happened almost immediately after a major boost in his Power Level.
- Ultimate Muscle is another one of those series where every good guy except the main character seems doomed to lose every fight they get in. Dik Dik van Dik and Wally Tusket get a lot of Lampshade Hanging about their repetitive losses, but there's also Jaeger, whose ability is lauded far and wide...and who loses every single match he gets into. (Well, OK, he wins one, but that was where he was fighting on a team.)
- Replace wrestling with card games and you have Yu Gi Oh's Mai.
- Meanwhile, its predecessor Kinnikuman was also notorious for Worfing guys... not to mention Worfing guys who had Worfed other guys (Warsman over Ramenman, Buffaloman over Warsman, Akuma Shogun or the Hell's Missionaries over Buffaloman...)
- In Cardcaptor Sakura, Kerberos finally returns to his awesomely Badass-looking true form... and gets hammered every. Single. Time. Often, it's explained by having Kero's creator be the one to send the threat to test our heroes, but not always. It'd be nice to have Kerberos' true form prove non-useless once in a while.
- Somewhat lampshaded in the manga, near the end of the first arc, when they acknowledge Kerberos' vicinity makes The Earthy stronger, and Kero comments to himself "My true form isn't helping at all."
- Happens to Asuka Langley Sohryu quite often in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Throughout the series, her achievements as a human and a pilot are often noted, however, she is never once shown defeating an opponent by herself. By the end of the series, she is Mind Raped by an Angel, and subsequently becomes so bad at piloting she suffers a nervous breakdown.
- Happens in Fate Stay Night, especially on Servant Berserker. His Master makes no secret of his true identity as Hercules. He's called The Strongest Servant, with his Class enhancing his already insane power, attacks below 'A'-rank barely scratch him, and he revives 12 times before he can be Killed Off For Real. You'd think he's a shoe-in to win the Grail War. However, he is always eliminated half-way through any scenario, all to show how impressive some other character is or has become. Taking from a modified text above... "If those things took down Berserker in less than two minutes, what chance do we have?" Isn't it sad, Bahsahkah?
- To be completely fair, in the Fate arc, he took out Archer and nearly killed Shirou and Rin and he went out in a blaze of glory in Unlimited Blade Works tanking Gate of Babylon after Gate of Babylon to shield Ilya cementing how badass he actually is.
- If I recall correctly, he's the most powerful Servant, not necessarily the best fighter. His insanity tends to work against him.
- Then of course, almost all of the Servants take the Worf Effect head-on in Heaven's Feel, as True Assassin and the Shadow between them kill all of the other servants except Rider, in most cases insultingly quickly, just to show off how dangerous they are (of course, True Assassin turns out to be pretty pathetic when the Shadow isn't there to distract and slow down his opponent at the same time).
- Saint Seiya's Big Guy Taurus Aldebaran devolved into this after his first fight, serving only to establish that the new antagonists could defeat a Gold Saint and were thus worthy of their place on the Algorithm. He ended up being killed offscreen in the last arc of the manga. At least he got a Tear Jerker and a delayed-effect Crowning Moment Of Awesome out of it.
- Even more ignominious: Shiryu's Dragon Shield, purportedly one of the strongest ever due to being submerged for millennia at the bottom of the holy Rozan waterfalls, is usually the first thing that cracks, splits, or outright shatters when he faces a new class of enemy.
- Some sections of the fandom have made it a drinking game: if it's a movie or an OAV, drink every time Seiya faces the brand new Olympian Of The Week only to be swatted aside by the villain's top lieutenant with no effort whatsoever.
- Need a quick way to show a mage's power in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha? Have them shatter Nanoha's Deflector Shields, which are amongst the strongest in the series and the reason why Nanoha can invoke The Worf Barrage often.
- Meanwhile, after her first battle, poor Vita has often found herself on the receiving end of this. May it be a powered-up Nanoha forcing her to the defensive, or Nanoha giving her an Oh Crap moment with one attack alone, or Zest smacking her out of her Unison form, it's like she's receiving karmic backlash from her initial beatdown of the main character.
- In Episodes 16 and 17 of Striker S, virtually every protagonist who went out to fight got hit with this.
- In Vi Vid, apparent Big Bad Hegemon Ingvalt, who has attacked and injured several masters of martial arts, shows off her power by defeating Nove, a combat cyborg who was previously a villain .
- Or did she? The next chapter revealed that not only did Nove's attack leave the apparent Big Bad even worse off, but she made sure to stick a Tracking Device on her so she can track her down. Fastest capturing of a Big Bad ever.
- Sanosuke Sagara from the Rurouni Kenshin anime. In the manga he was a much more formidable opponent.
- The AD Police in Bubblegum Crisis. Despite having high-yeld firearms, railguns, powered suits and combat helicopters they often cannot stop rogue Boomers, although to be fair the cases depicted usually involve very out of the ordinary boomers going rogue. Their K11s did stop a BU-12B Combat boomer (both getting destroyed in the process, sadly, although the second one was pure jinx on the AD Police side) in "Blow Up", though. Leon sniped Largo before he could pulverize the Knight Sabers in an orbital beam of death, too.
- The Fatal Fury OVA had big tough wrestler Raiden give Joe Higashi a very hard time, with Joe just barely attaining victory after finally using his Hurricane Upper. Later on, in Fatal Fury The Motion Picture, Big Bear is taken out in one hit by a brainwashed Cheng Sin Zan.
- Speaking of Joe, in the second OVA he himself is subjected to the Worf Effect, throwing everything, including his Screw Upper at Krauser, only to be taken out by Krauser's basic projectile attack.
- And then almost everyone from the OVAs who made an appearance in the Motion Picture, save Terry, was Worfed either by the Big Bad (Joe, Andy, and Mai) or the Big Bad's henchmen (Lawrence, Cheng). Geese, Billy, and Duck did not appear in a fighting capacity, and as such were spared similar fates.
- Despite not being one of the top tier characters on One Piece, Franky is commonly Worfed by the Big Bad after he joins the crew. Perhaps it's because he's the only member of the cast who is literally Made Of Iron, while for the other crew members it's more figurative.
- While Usopp's informed strength is questionable (he's the weakest crew member, but often wins fights), he often loses easily against stronger enemies that other members of the crew go on to defeat, such as Kuro, Mr. 2, the Franky Family and Jyabura.
- The Big Bad of the arc often does this to Luffy's crewmates before Luffy goes to fight him (Buggy did it to Zoro, Arlong did it to Zoro and Sanji, Eneru did it to Sanji, Robin, Zoro and Wiper, and Moria and Oz did it to the entire crew), typically to establish that he's too strong for anyone except Luffy to defeat. The villains often do it to minor characters to reveal just how strong they are, sometimes offscreen (for example, Mr. 3 supposedly captured a criminal worth 42 million, and this is revealed back when Luffy's bounty was 30 million).
- In the Sabaody Archipelago, nine pirates with bounties of over 100 million berries are introduced to show what kind of competition the Straw Hats face for searching for the One Piece, and are hyped up as strong enough to get that far in the Grand Line. Four of them end up getting Worfed fairly easily by Marine Admiral Kizaru and one of the Pacifista cyborgs- which, while an inferior copy of Kuma, requires the entire Straw Hat crew to defeat.
- To be fair, Kizaru pretty much won the super power lottery when it comes to special abilities, and it took the First mate of Gol D. Rogers to even hold him off
- The Sea Kings often fall prey to this, as the first one introduced manages to eat Higuma and bite off Shanks' arm (although back then, he seemed like an ordinary pirate), and are presented as fearsome creatures. Now, quite a few characters are able to defeat them fairly easily, including giants, marine vice admirals, and Blue Gorillas in order to establish their strength.
- CP9's Blueno provides a villainous example. He's established as middle-tier in power (Fourth out of seven) and fights Luffy evenly for the first half of their fight. Then Luffy uses Gear Second for the first time and it quickly becomes a Curb Stomp Battle, establishing just how much more powerful Gear Second makes Luffy and showing that he can defeat Rob Lucchi, whose Power Level was roughly five times Blueno's.
- Most recently the Whitebeard Pirates got to show off some power by blocking with relative ease attacks from Dracule Mihawk and admirals Aokiji and Kizaru. Three people who utterly curb stomped the Straw Hats when they met each one. On the other side of the battle, three of the Shichibukai in almost no time defeated a descendant of a monster it took all nine Straw Hats a long time to finally defeat.
- Part of the reason why the Straw Hats had trouble with the monster was that one of the said Shichibukai was helping him out.
- The Skypiea Arc often had characters do this to show their power compared to others; Enforcers Worfed Shandian Red Shirts, Shandian Mauve Shirts Worfed Enforcers, the Priests and Straw Hats Worfed Shandian Mauve Shirts and each other, and Eneru Worfed everyone except Luffy.
- Smoker too. Does anyone remember seeing him successfully taking someone down?
- Yes. His problem is that something lucky always happens to allow whoever he took down to slink away anyway.
- Also, Smoker actually BENEFITS from this in hindsight. Except for Boa Hancock, the only other person to beat him was DRAGON D. MONKEY, the WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS CRIMINAL. Hell he even fought Ace to a standstill. Considering he always comes out on top over Luffy and the World Government thought it would be an easy cover up to just claim Smoker defeated Crocodile, instead of Luffy, he only gotten the increased meat to his claim as one of the strongest Marines added to his very limited screen time.
- Subverted in Fist Of The North Star. When Jyuza battles Raoh for the first time, he easily manhandles him and humiliates him and his entire army. Unfortunately, while he was kicking the crap out of Raoh it's revealed after the battle that Jyuza fell victim to a Game Breaking Injury that sets up his tragic demise.
- In the Fullmetal Alchemist anime, Basque Grand, a powerful State Alchemist, easily loses to Scar in order to show how strong he is (the battle is mentioned but never shown in the manga). Greed's loss against Wrath in the manga serves a similar purpose.
- Word Of God states that in the manga Scar killed Basque Grand in a sneak attack.
- Eyeshield 21 is based around this principle. Any team which proves themselves to be strong against the Devil Bats (including teams that actually beat them) are never more than fodder for the next team- indeed, the Hashiratani Deers were introduced solely for this purpose, to show off the power of the underdog Kyoushin Poseidons. This also applies to individual players, most egrariously the heavyweight linemen — considering how easily Gaou crushed Banba and the Pyramid Line (previously the standard for strength, tying with the Devil Bats' own center Kurita), Mr. Don (who can smack down Gaou with ease) should be strong enough to split an anvil by coughing at it!
- This trope is essentially highlighted with Hashiratani Deers ace player Onihei being established as famously talented and powerful, but whose only role in the story after the loss to Kyoshin is as a spectator whose analysis of the current game is notoriously off the mark; we never actually see him being the badass he was made out to be.
- Mahou Sensei Negima had the Big Bad of the Kyoto arc releasing a demon god. This demon god seems to exist solely for Evangeline to show off how Bad Ass she is by utterly obliterating it without even trying. Then she tops it by forcing Fate to retreat.
- Kotaro worfed to Albireo Imma during the Tournament Arc.
- Kaede worfs not to Albireo, but arguably to herself: In fighting Al to a standstill (loses by concession), she proves her own skill and shows that she's capable of training Kotaro.
- Another example is the group of Bounty Hunters, who seem to exist only to demonstrate how powerful Negi just became.
- Then, later on, Negi worfs to Kurt Godel, getting taking down in one hit to establish that Kurt is genuinely powerful. Whether or not he's actually an enemy remains to be seen.
- Any dragon that shows up in Negima will inevitably be defeated by someone in an awesome manner. Alberio has a dragon acting as his guard dog, Kaede took out a dragon while blindfolded, Yue defeated a griffin dragon to prove she Took A Level In Badass, and Jack Rakan is said to have fought the Sacred Guardian Beast of the Empire, the Ancient Dragon Vrixis Nagasha on even footing.
 It's one of the most powerful beings in existence, and it still worfed.
- The Kazekoshi team in Saki, which is the school to go to for Mahjong that boasts a massive lineup and a history of championships that was only broken last year by the Mahjong Demon called Koromo. They started the Finals with a massive lead over the opposition after Mihoko crushed everyone else in the first match without losing her gentle smile... then spent the rest of the finals bleeding away said lead as they proceeded to be every other school's punching bag, to the point where their representative in the last match spent most of her time there watching in horror as she gets stomped into the ground by everyone else. You know things are bad when their biggest moral victory during that period was that they managed to hold their lead against a complete beginner.
- Team Fudoumine from Prince Of Tennis. The first rival team introduced, they were given an angsty backstory and were supposed to be serious competition. They wound up being this trope instead (first against Rikkaidai, then against Shittenhouji).
- In the semifinals of Yu Yu Hakusho, the other three members of Team Toguro (Elder Toguro, Karasu and Bui) effortlessly dispatch the five-man Team Gorenja while Toguro demonstrates his strength by killing Genkai at 80 percent power. Yomi shows his skill in battle by easily defeating his son Shura, and Yusuke notes that he's closer to Shura's strength than to Yomi's.
- Ash's Charizard from the Pokemon anime is regarded as one of, if not the, strongest mon amongst all the main characters'. So powerful, in fact, that he can stand toe to toe against Legendary Pokemon, and even win. However, he has also been a victim of this trope at least three times. Against a:
- Dragonite in the "tournament" of the Orange Island arc (granted, Charizard was already weakened earlier by an Electabuzz);
- Blaziken in the semifinal round of the Johto League. This battle also cost Ash his chance at the championship.
- Dusclops in the last Battle Frontier battle.
- Paul is used for this twice too. Wanna prove that Cynthia is untouchably strong? Watch her One Hit KO Paul's Pokemon one by one. Has Brandon been getting stronger? How about a 6-0 victory using only three Pokemon?
- Kirie Kojima in Girls Bravo...she's established as a tough fighter, but she's wiped out with ease by Fukuyama's fighting maid Lilica.
- Runaways: Molly, who had yet to be in a battle that really tested her strength, came out to show just how powerful she was by quickly dispatching Wolverine (the Marvel Universe's resident Bad Ass) and throwing him through a set of church doors.
- To an end, despite (or perhaps because of) his badassery, a good half of the numerous, seemingly omnipresent cameos Wolverine makes in various issues involve him being beaten within an inch of his life and thrown through something. Fortunately, his Healing Factor fixes him up in a split, allowing him to move to the next. They're being serious when the Bad Ass in question kills Wolverine, but given how much he's come back from, that will probably never happen.
- Until his recent death Captain America was another popular go-to guy to get the beat-down in a new or relaunched title; to a lesser extent the rest of his fellow Avengers, too.
- In a few Cross Overs, The X-Men villain Juggernaut was used in this manner, to show that even an "unstoppable" character is no match for Onslaught. (or, in the cartoon series, Gladiator).
- This trope might as well be called the Vision Effect, since this always happens to The Avengers' Vision.
- In the Justice League of America comic-book series, Prometheus's Bad Ass credentials came when he defeated Batman in unarmed combat. For that matter, given their stature in the DC Universe, if any of the Justice League are taken down with unusal ease in their field of strength, it's a kind of The Worf Effect. (The nature of comic-book storytelling means this happens quite often.) This was pulled on all of them in Grant Morrison's first arc with the rebooted JLA... except Batman, since it was part of the point of the arc to explain why he was on a team with Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, et al.
- Upon Red Hulk's introduction, one of the first things he did was kill a Wendigo and Hulk's longtime foe Abomination. Then he tears a SHIELD helicarrier a new one, forcing it to crash, smacking around Iron Man and She-Hulk while he was up there. Then he heads to the base where Bruce Banner is being held, and effortlessly clears the defenses around Bruce. He beats up Bruce's sidekick Rick Jones in his Abomination form, and the Hulk himself. He's interrupted by Thor and beats him, too — with his own hammer, no less (despite it being literally impossible for anyone evil, or even the vast majority of good people, to lift Thor's hammer)— and causes an earthquake in San Francisco before being stopped by Thor and Hulk. The entire Red Hulk storyline was basically him beating up powerful, established characters.
- However, Rulk is not alone in the trope. Hulk classic has had his fair share of fights against people he really shouldn't be able to face. Perhaps the most notable one was Doctor Strange during World War Hulk. Doc Strange is the Sorcerer Supreme, most powerful magic user in the universe and immediately prior to the fight, he talked at length about just how easily he could turn Hulk to dust, which is an entirely accurate assessment, given his powers, and even Ironic Echoes Hulk. He proceeds to engage Hulk in a fist fight and loses quite spectacularly when Hulk crushes his hands. Strange Smash indeed.
- This frequently happens to the Martian Manhunter who is regularly rendered comatose by scanning the mind of any Big Bad. You'd think that after seeing "the greatest evil in the universe" some dozen times he would at least learn to stop looking into people's minds.
- Eventually, he was killed off, again via the Worf Effect — stabbed through the heart in Final Crisis by Libra, in order to demonstrate how much better a leader of supervillains he was.
- The Sentry of Marvel Comics. He was based on the Silver-Age Superman, more powerful than every-frickin-body, so mighty that he made the comics universe and the real world forget he had ever existed (which he had to do because he was so almighty that the mere memory of him would risk destroying the world). Now he's getting lunched by everybody. Including the Golden-Age Human Torch.
- Taken to a ridiculous point in Dark Avengers - during first 10 issues Sentry was killed THREE TIMES. Once by Morgana le Fay, onca by his wife with his teammate gun, and once by Molecule Man. He keeps getting better.
- Happens to items in Ultimate Marvel. New threats will repeatedly be confined in something described as "strong enough to contain the Hulk." Any time something like this is brought in, it's going to be shattered almost immediately to show how powerful this new threat is. You'd think they'd start using one of these threats as the new standard.
- Squirrel Girl has the power to temporarily inflict the Worf Effect on her opponents. Hence her defeats of Deadpool, Thanos,
a Doombot Dr Doom...
- Doom occasionally suffers this, whether from Dazzler and other new heroes, or to show how tough a new villain is (I.E. Miller's promise of a "Master of Doom"). Thank Kirby for Doombots, eh?
- X-23 and Rockslide in New X-Men (and other appearances after the series end) they get stuck with this as they are the strongest and scariest team members... who are practically immortal. Rockslide has been blown up twice BEFORE his power became not dying to physical harm. And X-23 is just like Wolverine.
- Incidentally, during New X-Men, the original X-Men cast ALL SUCK. If the Students are around every move and strategy and power of the older cast instantly is wrong. In Quest for Magik the X-Men are all captured and held in an energy field unable to help and during Messiah Comple X the X-Men have to hand over the fight to the Students due to it being something Sinister's mooks didn't plan on.
- In the same vein as above, in Uncanny X-Men, Empath dispatched all the X-men with his powers making them feel every pain in their lives unable to attack him. Until Pixie stabbed him in the head. For a moment every character of importance got jobbed.
- ...Uncanny did this AGAIN a few issues later when the Sisterhood came for Jean's genetic material. The entire X-Men cast but Armor, X-23, and Pixie (relative newbies) got defeated in SECONDS. ...Until Pixie stabbed Empath in the head for a second time.
- Before the Next Generation series was even created, DC Comics had a Klingon member of the Enterprise crew (Konom) & in one issue he was nearly killed by the issue's villain (Redjac) to which a member of security remarked, "What kind of thing can toss a Klingon around like he was a rag doll?"
- In Star Trek: Countdown, the prequel comic to the 2009 movie, we see Worf again, 10 years after Nemesis and now a Klingon general. He gets impaled through the chest by Nero, but fortunately he was Only Mostly Dead.
- The supervillain team Zodiac (based on the signs) were killed by a new Badass Normal Zodiac (based on the Killer) because he liked their name
- In the latest Thunderbolts series, Headsman's tendency to get beaten up or otherwise neutralized even though he's the largest and most intimidating member of the team is, rather refreshingly, noticed by the rest of the team. He's constantly razzed by teammates Paladin and Ant-Man, employer Norman Osborn regards him only with barely repressed disdain... once he suggested he get on his flying disc to deal with an airborne threat, only to be shot down with "Please, I've never seen you on that thing for more than 30 seconds."
- And both Scourge and Mr. X fell to this when up against Iron Fist and Luke Cage.
- Galactus sometimes gets this when the writers want to show how tough a new cosmic menace is. He got smacked down by the Beyonder in Secret Wars and Krona in JLA/Avengers.
- General purpose Marvel Universe villains The Wrecking Crew now exist entirely for this purpose. They have an ounce of credibility from being old Thor villains with incredible strength and mystically powered construction weapons, but adamantly yelling that you've fought Thor doesn't mean much when you can be taken down by low-power heroes like Spider-Woman. Spider-Man once joked that everyone seems to beat them up sooner or later; Subsequent encounters with the Runaways and the Punisher of all people have showed he's probably right.
- When DC Comics introduced the new villain Neron as part of their Underworld Unleashed Miniseries it seemed he was supposed to be DC's answer to Marvel's Mephisto. He took souls and in exchange provided supervillains with substantial power boosts. But when Intergalactic Despot and supervillain Mongul (who conveniently had an identical son to carry his legacy) threatens Neron after being slighted the Lord of Lies shows that he's much more down and dirty (and frightening) than Mephisto by effortlessly beating Mongul to death and taking his soul anyway while the other terrified villains look on. He even lampshades it somewhat by listing all of Mongul's accomplishments as the former is tossing the latter around like a ragdoll.
- In The Lord Of The Rings, the Balrog smiting Gandalf; as well as Lurtz, the explosives at Helm's Deep, and the large armored troll at the Black Gate smiting Aragorn. From the extended editions, you can add Saruman's fireball.
- Don't forget the Lord of the Nazgul (or Witch-king, if you prefer) gratuitously breaking Gandalf's staff in The Return of the King (extended edition), just to show how tough he was.
- The Gandalf and Balrog incident here can't really be included. The Balrog lost the first exchange and only managed to salvage a semi-success by bringing Gandalf with him. To extend matters, the Balrog then lost the REST of the battle. The only thing it has to say for itself is that it managed to temporarily kill Gandalf, who only came back stronger. If anything, the BALROG suffered the Worf Effect here.
- Is the audience meant to think Gandalf is a badass at this point? I can't recall anything he's done in terms of epic combat prior to the balrog fight- besides intimidating Bilbo, and fighting Saruman. Who won.
- In Jurassic Park III, the T. rex (which had been the biggest, scariest dinosaur up until then) is killed by the larger Spinosaurus, which is actually a fish eater, not the unstoppable Big Bad the film made it out to be. Of course, some fans believe that didn't happen.
- Orca, released in the wake of Jaws, opens with a killer whale pwning a great white shark.
- That is amusingly true to Real Life. In one recorded instance, a mommy Orca killed an adult great white shark and fed it to its babies.
- Jaws II fired a salvo back at them with an Orca shown washed up on the beach with enormous shark bites taken out of its body.
- And then in Jaws 3-D the shark gets pwned by trained SeaWorld dolphins.
- Brawl is, by far the most heavily armed Decepticon... and he gets pwned by Bumblebee, who is the weakest of the Autobots.
- To a similar extent, Blackout, who had wiped out an entire military base single-handedly at the start of the film, gets killed by a single air strike in the final battle.
- Oddly enough, for a guy with a name like that, Bumblebee in the movie series is actually pretty Bad Ass, what with taking out Brawl, beating Barricade in single combat, being willing to break cover and be captured in order to save Sam and Mikaela, personally accompanying Optimus Prime to save them in the sequel and then killing both Rampage and Ravage (who tried sneaking up on him) by himself, the dude is surprisingly tougher than you'd think.
- The video-game for the sequel increases this factor, especially this trailer [1] which shows him fighting Devastator alone.
- Morpheus in the first Matrix film, when he faces Agent Smith for the first time.
- Frozone's only fight in The Incredibles, and he gets knocked down in fifteen seconds.
- Bear in mind that, unlike the Incredibles themselves, Frozone wasn't drawn into Syndrome's plot until this exact point, so it had been several years since he had done any actual superheroing. Plus, he got back up pretty quickly and became invaluable to the fight from that point on.
- Feral of Soon I Will Be Invincible is a rare literary example of The Worf Effect. A ferocious tiger-man who's ended the entire careers of supervillains, and his entire plot importance consists of being beaten up by a baseline human, being blown away by a mad scientist, being knocked out by a mad scientist, being beaten up by mecha-insect aliens in a flashback, and being beaten up by a mad scientist again.
- In the final installment of The Dark Tower series, Stephen King takes Randall Flagg — semi-immortal wizard, Physical God, Big Bad of several King novels, Dragon to Satan himself — and promptly has him killed and eaten by Roland's half-demon bastard child who's less than a day old at the time.
- In defense, he was not in top condition IIRC, and he kept a man/spider demonic hybrid very close to him.
- The effect was still the same—to show that Mordred was powerful by having him take on Stephen King's most infamous villain.
- In the later novels of Alan Dean Foster's Flinx and Pip series, Pip suffers from this trope. Any time a serious threat to Flinx presents itself, the very first thing it does is restrain or otherwise deal with his minidrag.
- Harry Dresden is often his own Worf. His meeting with Ferrovax at Bianca's party, for example, resulted in him being completely immobilized at Ferro's use of only half his name.
- The Star Wars Expanded Universe has the Nohgri, silent-stalking little commando people who are very good fighters. The same trilogy which introduces them has them accept Leia as the Mal'ary'ush, the Lady Vader, so some of them become her bodyguards. Very nearly every work set after that has them either inexplicably not present or getting tricked, out-tracked, and out-fought by everyone. Shada Du'kal even wonders if their reputation is exaggerated, although she at least is a Mistryl shadow guard, only had to get past one of them, and had a very novel way of tricking him. This is taken to ridiculous depths in the New Jedi Order.
- For Karen Traviss, the Jedi are hateful incompetent death-deserving people fit only to puff up her Mandalorians; hence they either convert, sit quietly and accept really pathetic Hannibal Lectures while being very impressed, or are curb-stomped. Every. Time. A connection to The Force which binds all things, shaves reaction times, oxygenates blood more efficiently, provides telekinetic abilities, enhances strength, and gives battle precognition sufficient to deflect blaster bolts into enemies with the narrow blade of a lightsaber is no match at all for the perfect people with their colorful beskar'gam armor!
- This troper wouldn't say that the Mandalorians are a bunch of Stus...they just have a better grip on reality than the Jedi, and that's probably what Traviss was getting at. The Jedi see a definite line between good and evil, one that doesn't really exist outside of the Jedi/Sith conflict. Emotionally, the Mandalorians are better than the Jedi. Skirata even admitted that a Jedi using the Force impressed him when Jusik was able to rip a garage door out of its housing.
- Played straight in Warrior Cats. In The Darkest Hour, you have the Big Bad and the Hero facing each other ready for a fight to the death, when Scourge walks up to Tigerstar and fells one blow on your ultimate enemy, and Tigerstar keels over and loses all nine of his lives.
- In the Star Trek Shatnerverse novel The Return, Worf is pwned by, of all people, the risen Kirk, using a Klingon's best weapon. Of course, consider who these novels are written by...supposedly.
- In Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, Harry talks about D.A.'s progress, and says that Neville managed to disarm Hermione.
- What's the best way to show how strong villain is Star Wars Expanded Universe? Make him toss some Jedi around the room with his eyes closed and one hand behind his back. What's the best way to show how serius is situation? Kill few Jedi. In books, games and comics if Jedi isn't a protagonist, he's fucked. Especially if he happens to meet Sith, Mandalorians, Grievius, Cad Bane or lame designed aliens.
Live Action TV
Professional Wrestling
- In WWE, The Undertaker is often the victim of this (as opposed to more conventional jobbing), as illustrated by the quote at the top of the page, which causes most viewers who have been watching Smackdown! for more than a few months to conclude that Michael Cole has a very short memory.
- WWE has always had a "Big Man Who Loses" for new people to demonstrate their ability over. Until his recent title reign, it was Kane. But this contributor remembers the fan backlash that came when Big Show went from being the Big Man Who Loses to the man who broke Brock Lesnar's — the man who slaughtered Hulk Hogan — winning streak (with a little outside interference) literally overnight.
- Hacksaw Jim Duggan practically made a career out of setting up the Big Invincible Monster for Hulk Hogan.
- How about when Brock Lesnar debuted? Within a week he was throwing the 350lb Rikishi around like a ragdoll. Within a month he was doing the same to the near-400lb Mark Henry. Within a year he was throwing the 500lb Big Show around with suplexes. You tell me you saw all that and weren't wowed and I'll tell you that you're a liar.
- Wrestlers who specialize in this sort of thing are sometimes known as "jobbers to the stars". Their role is to beat just enough real jobbers and lower-midcarders to still look credible enough to make the upcoming new superstar or monster Heel look really good after beating them in a Squash Match.
- In a very unusual setup, WCW had Goldberg and Meng Worf Effect for each other. Meng would batter Goldberg all over the ring for roughly three quarters of the match, when Goldberg usually tossed opponents around effortlessly. Then at the point where Meng would usually apply the Tongan Death Grip and win the match, Goldberg would rally back, spear, jackhammer, pinfall. The two of them had surprisingly good chemistry in the ring together, and despite Goldberg winning every single battle between them, the fights were popular enough that Pizza Hut shot a commercial with Goldberg and Meng putting aside their differences over a pizza.
- Goldberg, Arn Anderson, The Barbarian and Hulk Hogan have all said at one point or another that Meng was legitimately the toughest man they'd ever met.
- Professional wrestling actually has different jargon for different ways of implementing The Worf Effect.
- If the wrestler wins a bunch, then loses to a star at a championship match or PPV, that's {{jobbing.}}
- If the wrestler is a star with a belt, and then the script calls for him to job at the next PPV, that's "dropping the belt."
- If the wrestler receiving the jobs from established wrestlers is built up as some unstoppable force, only to lose at a big event, that's called "a push."
- If the wrestler, during the match, is shrugging off the other person's attacks, that's the No Sell.
- If the wrestler is not pulling their punches and actually hitting the other person full force, that's called "stiffness" or a "stiff worker."
Close Professional Wrestling
Tabletop Games
- Used regularly in Warhammer 40000 fluff and books. Anytime an army or faction is shown in a Codex or article not about them, you better believe they're getting their asses kicked by whoever it is featuring.
Video Games
- In another dinosaur example, the one-eyed T. rex in Dino Crisis 2 (Who was nigh invulnerable to your weapons, as well as taking on a tank and surviving gets ripped apart in seconds by a Giganotosaurus. This one is even more grievous than the Spinosaurus example above, as the Giganotosaur is depicted as so huge it can pick up the Tyrannosaur in its mouth and toss it around like a rag doll. A real-life matchup would be much more evenly weighted, as the real Giganotosaurus is only marginally bigger than T. rex, posesses a more gracile build, and lacks the Tyrant Reptile's bone-crushing bite strength.
- Opalneria Rain from Grim Grimoire is a powerful necromancer and a respected teacher at the school, yet in every single repetition of the Groundhog Day Loop she is either killed or rendered unconscious, often by the main character (Three times and counting). You begin to wonder towards the end if she's offended some great cosmic force or something…
- Halo 3: As the only competent human still alive besides the player character, Sargeant Johnson falling victim to this trope was inevitable. A Pelican gets shot down? Johnson was on it. Enemies storm the base? Johnson gets pushed back and you have to finish the job for him. Need a third team leader for a crucial operation? The normal human takes the riskiest spot, while the Super Soldier and the Proud Warrior Race Guy get targets that are not directly connected to the nearby enemy stronghold. It gets to the point where our Badass Normal becomes a Distressed Damsel of sorts — and a rescue attempt is mounted by the person whom you'd expect to fill the role.
- Ridley's introduction in The Subspace Emissary of Super Smash Bros Brawl has him brutally wailing on Samus Aran, his classic arch-enemy from Metroid. Considering that Samus is basically pure Bad Assitude in the Nintendo universe, this is a big deal, considering that he gets the bejeezus shocked out of him by Pikachu, of all people.
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Ridley flies; Pikachu had type advantage. Nope. Flying/Dragon is neutral vs Electric. This scene is Pikachu's CMOA in SSE given that Ridley's main enemy is the poster girl for Miss Badass Monthly, Samus Aran.
- Tabuu causes Worf Effect on 3 instances, two of them in a row. First we see Ganondorf notice his 'Master' Hand is nothing but a stringed up puppet and goes to attack the source of these strings... and is instantly defeated. Good job Ganondorf. But he frees Master Hand, and be ready for an EPIC FIGHT of two villains and... no, nevermind, goodbye Master Hand. Then the heroes arrive, we're at the final boss fi- what the heck is this? All but 10 characters got Worfed in the SAME INSTANT.
- Metroid Prime 3: Corruption: Shortly after you defeat your first Berserker Lord, Ghor comes along and smashes one through a wall, and guess what? you get to fight him later.
- Actually that was a Berserker Knight Ghor killed, not a Berserker Lord. Berserker Lords have a Phazon canister attached to their backs, plus some other subtle differences.
- Metroid Hatchers from the same game. Annoying buggers that spawn additional Metroids for you to fight, an attack that was extremely hard to dodge, and could only be damaged after you blasted all its tentacles into hiding, shot it in the mouth enough times to stun it afterword, then repeat the entire thing with one less tentacle to worry about. Que getting the Nova Beam and X-Ray Visor, thus being able to one-shot them, skipping an annoying boss fight.
- The aforementioned Beserker Knights could be one-shoted this way as well.
- Gears Of War 2: Skorges first act in the game is to leap onto the battlefield and immediately saws a tank in half. He then begins to solo both The Big Guy and a Mauve Shirt while the player character(s) can do nothing but watch. Granted, the exact ending of the conflict was never shown and The Big Guy wasn't actually killed, but still. His predecessor, RAAM, proved that he was Serious Business by killing your Lt effortlessly, though the Lt only really showed his Bad Ass-ness in the same cutscene he was killed.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni: So, Kyrie and Rudolf have just beaten two of the Seven Sisters of Purgatory, Beatrice's strongest furniture. Eva-Beatrice uses this opportunity to summon her own familiars, the Siesta Sisters, who kill the pair in seconds.
- Both in-game and out, the Heavy is the biggest, toughest character in the game, able to soak up rockets like a sponge and kill multiple people in a second. ("He punched out all my blood!") Over the course of the seven Meet the Teams currently released, he has been gibbed three times, shot to death by a level one sentry, headshotted by the Sniper, and beaten to death in three hits by a baseball bat. He is killed more often than anyone else, and commonly by things he could easily tank, in fact — which has given rise to the idea that all the Heavies who suffer this are imposters, and the real Heavy is the one in his own ''Meet the Team''.
- Worse; TF2wiki.net currently rates the other eight classes as somewhere between 'Highly Dangerous' and 'Extremely Dangerous' to the Heavy. He reclaimed his throne as in-game resident badass after Valve increased his damage and tightened his firing cone; a week later, they released the Scout update - including a weapon whose sole purpose seems to be rendering the Heavy comatose with relative ease.
- In gameplay, you may encounter Spy players who show just how good they are by stalking and killing Pyros, the class meant to counter theirs.
- The player characters seem to fit that role in the later Metal Gear games. I've heard of a drinking game where you take a shot every time Snake gets beaten up by the Boss or Volgin in a cutscene in Metal Gear Solid 3 (You'll end up TANKED...).
- Inverted in Persona 4, Yukiko laughs at nearly anything even slightly funny, the fact that she fails to laugh at Teddie's jokes shows off just how bad they are.
- In Chrono Trigger, Magus falls victim to this when he tries attacking Lavos, but gets dispatched almost as quickly as the heroes were.
- In Castlevania: Circle of The Moon, the player fights with Adrammelech after it gains the upper hand against Hugh and knocks him out of the room.
- In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Dario proves easily able to defeat Julius as a way of showing how much more powerful he's become sinec the last time (Julius also got Worfed by Soma himself in the previous game). Later on, Dmitri defeats Arikado/Alucard, albeit by using Celia's sacrifice to cause him to lose control of his dark powers.
- In Tekken, ever since returning Back From The Dead, Kazuya Mishima has been suffering this a lot. He's beaten down by Heihachi, and then Jin consecutively. And if the newer bio of Tekken 6 is to be trusted again, someone beats him in the middle of the tournament (presumably Jin. AGAIN), opting him to leave the tournament to deal with the G Corporation. Then one of the leaked screenshots for Tekken 6's new Scenario Campaign had him being kicked in the ass by Heihachi. Was coming Back From The Dead really worth it?
Web Comics
- As this strip explains, Black Mage of 8-Bit Theater functions as both the Worf and the Butt Monkey. Probably from how he almost always uses one spell, that while powerful, can only be used once a day.
- In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, Glon the half-orc and Clover Firelight the halfling are pretty much the series whipping boy and girl, respectively, despite being exceptional fighters. (This also works verbally.)
- In Sluggy Freelance, Bun-Bun found himself used like this during "Dangerous Days Ahead". Getting his butt kicked by the monstrous CEO form of clone!Aylee was a major plot point because in the past, Aylee was not strong enough to win a fight with him.
- Their first battle ended in a draw as they both collapsed from exhaustion, although Bun-Bun managed to slice off Aylee's arm before the end (it regenerated). The fact that "Aylee" was a clone whose evolution was controlled to make her stronger helps.
- Oasis sometimes falls victim to this, as while she is a deadly assassin, she also loses against Clone!Aylee, and previously lost to demon-possessed Gwynn.
- Finally, in June 2009 Bun-Bun and Oasis faced each other in a full-out fight. Who would be the Worf this time? Bun-Bun. It was likely decided by the fact that the storyline at the time was all about Oasis and it would have been cut anticlimactically short if she'd been the one to lose.
- Bun-bun had taken the advantage when it was solely about conventional means of fighting, but when Oasis' pyrokinetic powers are shown, the fight goes the other way.
- The Order of the Stick arguably uses this one when the previously comic relief Monster in the Darkness puts a world of hurt on Miko barely even trying (literally). This is amplified by the fact that Miko has previously defeated the entire Order singlehandedly.
- The Order, however, has never fought the Monster in the Darkness, so it's a bad comparison. The bad guys keep him in shadow "until needed", and so far they haven't needed him. Since he can fling a person miles away by gently poking them, and create earthquakes by stomping lightly, they probably see him as being too overkill to use at relatively minor foes when they've also got a hobgoblin army. Also, Miko was soundly beaten by Roy once he got his sword back, as a storm was on during their earlier battle. Durkon (the healer), did not participate, Haley could not fire her bow straight in the wind, and Vaarsuvius' magic was disrupted by a combination of rain and other distractions. Finally, Roy was only carrying a wooden club and Belkar was quickly knocked out.
- In the second Order vs Miko fight, she did defeat the entire order, save Durkon who (presumably) wouldn't participate. Roy chalked the loss up to Railroading.
- Author Rich Burlew actually described how the fight would've gone on the forums, and practically none of the Oot S members were in top shape for most of the fight. Durkon, as you predicted, did not participate (aside from a failed Diplomacy action and some heals, and even late in the fight, he only healed downed members to keep them from dying), Roy was still wielding the aforementioned club, Haley's bow was very quickly sundered by Windstriker (you can see the snapped string in the above comic), Vaarsuvius was targetted first and taken out by Miko in round one (s/he was later healed by Durkon back into fighting shape, but was unable to cast an effective spell before being taken down again), Elan's few actions (attempting to heal V with a potion and trick Miko with an illusion) failed, and Belkar was kept stunned by Miko the entire fight (the little guy just could NOT make a Will Save; blame his piss-poor Wisdom). In fact, Roy actually had a chance to finish Miko off, but decided against it (since if he DID fail, Miko would have likely killed all of them), instead opting to surrender in exchange for his allies' safety.
- In Roy's one on one with Miko, she had just lost most of her powers as well as her magical items, which only work on Paladins in good standing (according to the commentary in War and [XPs]).
- A more typical example occurs in one of the prequel books. The Order is about to face a guard monster, only to have it hit Roy with a roll of 2. Upon realizing that it can nail the party member with the probable highest Armor Class with such a low roll, they flee.
- Sara and the other Time Monks from Errant Story. The author directly invokes the trope in a commentary comic.
Web Animation
- This particular effect happens to Yellow in Super Mario Bros Z. Supposedly the toughest of the Axem Rangers X, not only does he get his first strike turned into a dud, he's also the first one of the group to be killed off when Mecha Sonic comes calling, followed quickly by the other four. Also, this effect happens earlier with the Koopa Bros. A couple episodes earlier, their Chaos Emerald fueled special attack decimated the heroes. Mecha Sonic blew through them like they were wet rice paper.
Western Animation
- Also used in the Justice League cartoon, with all the times Superman gets beaten up, particularly in the first season. The writers admitted to doing it when called on, and toned it down.
- It's worth noting that even in his Crowning Moment Of Awesome — you know the one — he was interrupted by The Worf Effect.
- The most egregious example was when the entire League was caught in an electrified room with a strong enough current to knock out everyone in the room except Hawkgirl whose mace somehow protected her. A voltage powerful enough to knockout Superman should have killed most of the others and left the rest in critical condition. Also, Hawkgirl should have been the second person to go down, not the last.
- Similarly, in the first season of Justice League, J'onn J'onnz seemed to be the love child of Worf and Deanna Troi. He only got to show off his telepathy when the writers wanted to show what utterly impressive mental abilities the Guest Villain of the Week had. Like Commander Troi, the erstwhile Martian Manhunter spent much of his time dropping to his knees clutching his temples. When he finally got to show off his shape-shifting abilities against Metamorpho (who, after his Heelface Turn, by contrast is allowed to use his ridiculously overpowered version of Voluntary Shapeshifting creatively), he got his ass handed to him again, just to show that This Week's Guest Star Was Tougher. He got much cooler as time went on and the writers figured out ways to challenge him and allow him to use his powers without being unstoppable.
- In the Grand Finale of the Legion Of Super Heroes animated series, the Thanagarians, Hawkgirl's fellow Proud Warrior Race Guys, take on Brainiac en masse. They get digitized in under ten seconds. (And that's after he brutally slaughtered the Big Bad of the whole season in a serious "Whoa! And I thought this was a kids show!" moment.)
- In Justice League The New Frontier — Superman gives a Heroic Speech to get everyone to unite to fight the Eldritch Abomination common enemy, goes off to recon the target... and gets taken out in 5 seconds (this troper counted).
- In Batman The Animated Series, Bane's debut was beating Killer Croc, formerly the strongest and most physically intimidating of Batman's rogues gallery, so badly he was seen in traction.
- Known to happen with Prince Zuko on Avatar The Last Airbender. He is the front row victim when Aang first taps into his Avatar State, he's taken down by the deadly Yu Yan archers with one single hit, and during the season one finale, he struggles to a victory in combat with Katara, whose abilities had risen to master levels offscreen. Later on that night, during their rematch under a full moon (which augments a Waterbender's power) Katara is able to abruptly neutralize Zuko's attack and KO him in a single stride. In the season two premiere, Zuko takes on his newly introduced sister, but is unable to land a single hit on her and has to be saved from certain death by his uncle.
- Of course, especially in the first season, Prince Zuko was not supposed to be exceptionally powerful. He had a lot of potential, but was not disciplined enough to use it effectively. On the other hand, Azula was nothing if not disciplined and was always more powerful than him. This is quite the opposite of the Worf Effect — instead of trying to make everyone on the show look better, it simply showed that Zuko was not so powerful.
- This is actually more of an aversion, as Zuko always seems to be quite powerful when not taking on the main cast; he's especially effective at prison breaks, for some reason, and basically slaps around his own father, the Firelord during the Eclipse, as well as Admiral Zhou in a duel of honor (where the latter cheats). And in fairness, pretty much the entire cast seemed incapable of taking out Azula in that episode. Possibly because they were getting in each other's way, or because she's just that damned good. Zuko's more of a textbook case of Strong As He Needs To Be.
- Zuko actually became more proficient in Firebending over the three seasons - at the start of season 2 he was utterly outmatched by Azula, but towards the end of season 3 (for example, in "The Southern Raiders") he was able to match her blow for blow. Ozai never used anything but lightning on Zuko during the eclipse, and couldn't be expected to know that Zuko could redirect it.
- This was arguably the point of Long Feng — for several episodes he was built up as a Magnificent Bastard who was ruling Ba Sing Se from behind the scenes, but even he fell to the schemes of The Chessmaster Azula.
- The Kyoshi Warriors have elements of this too, easily defeated by Zuko in the first season, then by Azula and her Quirky Miniboss Squad.
- The Boulder was established as this awesome Earth Bender. And Toph is introduced and takes him out in under 10 seconds.
- Transformers Animated lays it out with this dialogue from "Sari, No One's Home":
Bulkhead: He always shoots at me first! Blitzwing: Let's see how tough you are without your big bolt-brained bruiser! (fires a blast that knocks Bulkhead over) Bulkhead: Called it...
- The Worf Effect is applied in a layering effect in Animated. There is a special tier of villains Bumblebee can take out by himself (the human villains, sad as that sounds), then a higher tier for the Robot Ninja Prowl and The Big Guy Bulkhead (The Brutes, Sixth Column and random Cons), then a tier that only Optimus has a chance against with the below serving as mere decoys. Starscream and Megatron cement their status as a tier by themselves by Starscream fatally wounding Optimus in the pilot and beating Optimus' superior with one shot... and then Megatron beating Screamer with one shot. Despite this very clear hierarchy, Bumblebee has charged head first at Starscream and Megatron by himself several times. They usually pick him up by the neck and fling him.
- By themselves, the Dinobots have been beaten by Optimus' team, Meltdown and now Jetstorm and Jetfire.
- It's a miracle Kevin Levin survived his Heel Face Turn. That's all I'm saying.
- Splinter from the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon was portrayed as a master of ninjitsu, but he got himself captured on a regular basis and had to be rescued by the Turtles as often as April O'Neil herself.
- If the Gargoyles are fighting as a group, expect this to happen to Goliath. He usually recovers in time to get the final blow in on the antagonist, though.
- X-Men the Animated Series had a rare 3x combo in "The Phoenix Saga Part 2" (parts of which would later gain Memetic Mutation fame as "The Juggernaut Bitch"): First, Wolverine plays his typical role by getting easily taken out by the Juggernaut. Then Juggernaut is easily tossed away by Gladiator (with the "what chance do we have?" line delivered by Jubilee). Finally, Phoenix shows up and Curb Stomps Gladiator.
- Magneto gets it from Apocalypse in X Men Evolution. He uses his powers to seize control of and hurl army vehicles, weapon emplacements, and even drags satellites down from orbit to throw at his opponent. Apocalypse shrugs it off like its nothing and (apparently) vaporizes Magneto before the X-men's horrified eyes. And it was awesome.
- In The Powerpuff Girls, when Princess is rejected by the Powerpuff Girls, she comes back as a villain using equipment bought with her dad's money. She procedes to immediately take out Buttercup, who is widely accepted to be the most brutal Powerpuff Girl. While not as much of a threath as Him, she certainly established herself as a Not So Harmless villain, despite having no superpowers and being only 5/6 years old.
- This was pretty typical in Transformers: Beast Wars on both factions. Typically, when a new character would show up they would whoop some serious ass and be portrayed as an unstoppable forc. This is notable in "Feral Scream", where first Dinobot gets cloned and made into a new Transmetal II Predacon and schools everything, then in the same episode Cheetor gets an upgrade and takes out the new Dinobot. In the next episode Cheetor resumed his typical, post-upgrade role and Dinobot's status was lowered to a more typical enemy.
Real Life
- Though there may not be any concrete examples to name, it is supposedly the common tactic of new inmates in prison to pick out the toughest prisoner they can find and beat him up to prove how much tougher they are.
- Early WWII British armed forces could be called this. Particularly when it comes to the Royal Navy.
- The HMS Prince of Wales and Repulse, sent to Singapore to deter the Japanese, were sunk with relative ease by Japanese air power heralding the dominance of aircraft over naval battles.
- The quick loss of Singapore, British stronghold in the Pacific, to the Japanese heralded the fact that the Japanese were not screwing around.
- The Bismarck not just sinking but blowing up the HMS Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, in ten minutes of battle sent a bit of a shock through British naval superiority. This follows the Worf Effect in particular because the Hood, while well regarded, was obsolescent with a known critical design flaw in her armor.
- The post-1942 German army of southern and western Europe. Having been drained of men and material to garrison their conquests and fight in the vastly larger scale eastern front; their maneuver hampered by Allied air power; and Hitler interfering with military decisions, it was a shell of its former power and mobility. They did little but hold ground and retreat from Tunisia to Germany. Their only counter-offensive, the Battle of the Bulge, was impressive but a failure. The Allied armies performance are always held against the German army of the west.
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