An index of tropes that are about a character's weakness, people being characterized as weaklings, or things seen as a weakness.
See also Fear Tropes, Allergic to Indexes, Indexitis, and Power at a Price. Contrast Power Tropes, Overpowered Tropes and Strength Index.
Physical weakness
- Achilles' Heel: A character or being is vulnerable to one specific thing.
- Adaptational Achilles Heel
- Armored But Frail: Their defenses/armor are very high, but once the defenses are gone, they go down easily.
- Assimilation Backfire: A character assimilates something only to find that they have gained its weakness.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Being is vulnerable at a specific and obvious part of their body.
- Attack the Injury: In this case, the weak point was created, either before or during the fight.
- Boss-Altering Consequence: The boss has a weakness to a specific item or ability that is either more effective than normal or has a unique effect if you choose to use it.
- Can't Catch Up: Secondary characters don't get stronger like the hero does.
- Can't Use Stairs: Character can't go up or down stairs, either due to not being designed to do so, or through being paraplegic.
- Clipped-Wing Angel: A being's true/final/ultimate form has flaws that render it impractical or easily defeated.
- Cold Iron: The classic weakness of The Fair Folk.
- Convenient Weakness Placement: A villain's weakness is conveniently placed near them for no logical reason.
- Decapitation Required: The only way to kill them permanently is by removing the head.
- Depleted Phlebotinum Shells: Weaponizing the substance that they are weak against.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: A method to give some sort of weakness to a character who normally doesn't have one.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: One element is strong towards another and weak towards yet another.
- Fantastic Fragility: An in-built weakness to boost power.
- Fire Keeps It Dead: Burning corpses prevents them from becoming zombies.
- Hobbling the Giant: Want to bring down a giant-sized target easily? Go for the legs!
- Kill It with Fire: Being is vulnerable to fire.
- Kill It with Ice: Vulnerability to ice.
- Kill It with Water: Vulnerability to water.
- Kryptonite Factor: A weakness to something that has little or no effect on other characters.
- Kryptonite Is Everywhere: The character's weakness is so commonplace that it's a wonder they haven't been killed yet.
- Limited Window of Vulnerability: A character has a time period of vulnerability before turning/returning to being invulnerable.
- Logical Weakness: The weakness is a logical consequence of whatever makes the character powerful.
- Man of Kryptonite: A villain whose power is that they're equipped with or made of the hero's weakness.
- Monstrosity Equals Weakness: Being in a monstrous form actually makes someone or something weaker.
- One Hero, Hold the Weaksauce: A character who has superpowers without any of the drawbacks normally associated with them.
- Pathetically Weak: No one should be that weak.
- Precautionary Corpse Disposal: Anyone who dies will become a monster, or otherwise dangerous, so dead bodies must be disposed of immediately.
- Remote, Yet Vulnerable: An individual distances their mind or spirit away from their main body to engage in some endeavor, but the main body ends up in danger.
- Removed Achilles' Heel: A character missing a weakness or limitation that they should have.
- Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: They will shrug off everything except attacks that cause brain trauma or decapitation/destruction of the head.
- Revive Kills Zombie: Healing/revival magic is harmful to the undead.
- Sensory Overload: Overwhelming a particular sense.
- Silver Bullet: Silver as a Supernatural Repellent.
- Sniping the Cockpit: Neutralizing a vehicle by killing its operator(s) instead of trying to tear the entire thing to pieces.
- Supernatural Repellent: Weaknesses that ward off supernatural creatures.
- Taser Tag Weakness: Powerful enemies are nevertheless vulnerable to electricity.
- Transforming Conforming: A shapeshifter or other transforming character shares the weaknesses of their chosen form.
- Untouchable Until Tagged: A nigh-invincible character receives damage once. The story will later use this to orchestrate their total defeat.
- Vampires Hate Garlic: Garlic is the ideal repellent against vampires.
- Villain-Beating Artifact: The villain is invincible to everything but this artifact.
- Weak to Fire: Fire as a weakness.
- Weak to Magic: Vulnerability to magic.
- Weakened by the Light: Supernatural creatures perish when exposed to sunlight.
- Weaker in the Real World: A being who exists in a dream-like realm loses their powers when in the real world.
- Weaksauce Weakness: A character is vulnerable to a substance that is ridiculously easy to obtain.
- Weapon of X-Slaying: A weapon specifically designed to harm certain things, better than a normal weapon would.
- Willfully Weak: A character deliberately limits how much of their powers they use for everyone else's safety.
Emotional or psychological weakness
- Decapitated Army: Take out the leader and the army will have no reason to keep fighting.
- Fatal Flaw: A psychological weakness, not a physical vulnerability (suitable for Flaw Exploitation).
- Sanity Has Advantages: Being insane is an exploitable weakness.
- Verbal Weakness: A usually harmless word or phrase that just so happens to hurt a particular character.
- Weak-Willed: Character is incapable of standing up for themselves.
- Weakness Turns Her On: A female character is aroused by men who are perceived as weak.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Character has a crippling fear of something.
Things or concepts considered to be weak or cause weakness
- Love Is a Weakness: It is believed that falling in love makes you weak.
- Meekness is Weakness
- Magic Must Defeat Magic: The biggest danger to a spellcaster is another spellcaster.
- Takes One to Kill One: An entity's only weakness is a similar entity.
- Virtue Is Weakness: Having a sense of morality is seen as weak and stupid.
- Womanliness as Pathos: Women inherently cause drama or intense feelings.
- Women Are Delicate: The belief that women by nature are very vulnerable.
Character types
- The Ditherer: A character who waffles or cannot make clear decisions, often because they lack the will to deal with the fall out or repercussions from those decisions
- Faux Action Girl: A female character who is built up as an effective Action Girl, but proves to be too weak to fight real battles.
- Fragile Flyer: Flying beings depicted as weaker or less durable than non-flying ones.
- Fragile Speedster: Quick on their feet, but too weak to defend against attacks.
- Glass Cannon: Effective attacker who is too weak to defend themselves.
- Joke Character: A playable character in a video game who is deliberately programmed to be weak and insanely difficult to play the game as.
- Lawful Pushover: A person in authority who is too weak and spineless to actually exercise that authority.
- Master of None: Poor at everything, without being overwhelmingly weak in any particular stat.
- Mighty Glacier: They're physically strong, but speed and mobility prove to be their Kryptonite.
- Non-Action Guy: Male character who is too weak to fight.
- Non-Action Protagonist: A protagonist who shows no combat ability, but overcomes obstacles through non-action means.
- Paper Tiger: A character who may look fierce, but is actually quite a pushover.
- Squishy Wizard: Can use powerful magic but is too weak to fight physically.
- Stone Wall: Has powerful defense, but is too weak to fight back.
- Weak, but Skilled: What they lack in strength, they make up for it with their cunning.
