Basic Trope: A fallacy where a character "proves" they're correct by threatening another.
- Straight: Bob constantly proves his point by bullying Alvin into agreeing with him.
- Exaggerated: Anytime Alvin voices the slightest disagreement with Bob, Bob starts kicking his ass left and right.
- Downplayed: Bob threatens to poke Alvin into agreement over a minor dispute.
- Justified:
- The meek Alvin is easily intimidated, and the large, muscular Bob knows this.
- Bob is strong, but he is not particularly smart nor charismatic. His physical prowess is pretty much the only reliable way he can make other people do as he say.
- Bob is short on time and doesn't have time to convince Alvin to cooperate.
- Bob is The Social Darwinist, and he believes that as long as he's strong enough, everyone has to agree with him.
- Bob is justifiably angry with Alvin, and in no mood to negotiate.
- Bob works in law enforcement and is trying to get Alvin to comply with the law. Obviously, if he doesn't Bob has the authority to arrest him.
- Bob knows Alvin will literally do and say anything to avoid being shot.
- Inverted:
- The man-mountain known as Bob is constantly swayed by Alvin's passionate, non-forceful arguments.
- "The pen is mightier than the sword."
- Subverted:
- Bob beats up Alvin, but the latter refuses to take the former's side.
- Bob beats up Alvin, but Alvin is Too Kinky to Torture.
- When Alvin disagrees with Bob, he shuffles over, muscles clearly on display...and delivers a very articulate and rational explanation that convinces Alvin to agree.
- Double Subverted: ...Until he gets beaten up again.
- Parodied:
- Bob goes to the Congress to defend some noble cause, and he gives a passionate speech about the human condition to support his argument, but when that fail to touch the hearts of the legislators, he simply whips out a massive minigun out of Hammerspace and starts killing everyone until the last person standing totally agrees with him out of sheer terror.
- In the middle of an argument, Bob gets the munchies and pulls out a sandwich. Alvin mistakes it for a weapon and immediately goes all "I agree, just don't hurt me!"
- Zig-Zagged: The effectiveness of Bob's method varies from person to person. Some end up complying thanks to the use of fear, some need some "sense beat into them" before they do, some particularly clever ones manage to stand (unharmed) in their point just using good rhetoric, some refuse to budge (at the very best they may just meet Bob halfway) even after losing half of their teeth and some manage to turn the tables into Bob by using their own brand of superior force.
- Averted: Bob refuses to use force.
- Enforced: The producer: "What if we get that big guy to beat up the rebellious hero for disagreeing with him? Then the rebellious hero agrees with him just to get him to stop. Think of the drama!"
- Lampshaded:Charlie: Isn't it interesting how everyone who Bob beats up ends up agreeing with him afterwards? I wonder why no one just tells him that it doesn't really win an argument." [Shrugs, and continues.]
- Invoked: No one listens to Bob regularly, so he starts throwing his weight around.
- Implied: Alvin says he's not going to do something Bob is asking him to do. Gilligan Cut to Alvin doing whatever Bob asked him to do while nursing a massive pair of black eyes, swollen cheeks, and limping that suggests he got kneed in the balls.
- Exploited:
- Bill points at Alvin and says "He just disagreed with you, Bob!"
- Alvin waits until Bob explains his persuasion, and then reveals a gang of thugs to turn the tables on him. He then points out that by Bob's own rules Alvin has the upper hand.
- Defied:
- "You know, I don't think that threatening people is the best way to get my point across."
- No amount of force will ever make Alvin change his mind about a subject, not even lethal.
- Alvin makes sure to manipulate things so Bob cannot screw him over even if he allegedly has the superior force on his side (he gets more guns, he gets more men, he gets hostages, he monopolizes something that Bob direly needs and won't get access to unless he plays nice, he obtains evidence of Bob's violence for blackmailing purposes, a combination of the above, etc.).
- It's made perfectly clear from the very first to the very last scene of the work that Bob always had and will always have the advantage of force on his side and Alvin will never be able to match it, so Alvin only can seek a clever, not a forceful, solution.
- Discussed:
- Alvin and Charlie talk about the latest in Bob's bullying tactics.
- "Oh crap, don't let Bob hear you say you don't like his favorite football team. The consequences will be dire."
- Conversed: "You see that guy on the right? The one who just said 'No, Bob, I don't agree with you' to that other guy? He's going to get his ass kicked and then he'll be asked again and he'll say 'Yes, Bob, I totally agree with you.'"
- Implied: Alvin tries to join the team, but when he realizes Bob is a part of it, he decides against it. Bob, for his part, just throws a glare his way but says nothing.
- Deconstructed:
- Bob's constant harassment of Alvin leads him to Take a Level in Badass, bulking up and deciding to get revenge by beating Bob up and pushing him around. The tormentor is now the victim.
- Alvin decides to take Bob's punishment in the name of standing behind his argument.
- Bob's mistreatment of Alvin leads Alice to gather a group to defeat Bob.
- Alvin ends up calling Bob's bluff and fights back, and it reveals that despite all the constant threats, Bob is really in no position to actually act on them. When it's revealed he can't back up his threats, his potential for intimidation completely evaporates.
- Reconstructed:
- However, Alvin only did this so Bob could experience firsthand what it felt like to be the victim of such bullying. Once Bob got a taste of his own medicine, he came around and apologized, rehabilitating his relationship with Alvin.
- Alvin getting the strength to stand up to Bob means that now he has the attention of Willoughby, a more maniacal bully who can easily overpower Bob at his current level. Bob has the option to try to become stronger to overpower Willoughby (somehow), but he will be under the bully's heel until then and there is the risk of attracting the attention of Max.
- Unfortunately for Alvin, Bob figured out that he was not going to bend the knee, so he decides to turn him into an example for everybody else to see what happens when they don't agree with Bob. Now that he has supplied proof that his threats are not bluffs, they surrender.
- Alvin has the guts to stand up to Bob's argument. But Alvin's friend Jim doesn't. Or Alvin's wife Alice. Or Alvin's daughter Gina. They will either capitulate to Bob's demands on Alvin's behalf, or more dire yet, Bob will threaten to hurt them, and with that dangling over his head, Alvin bends the knee.
- Alice gathering fifty people to try to fight off Bob gives Bob a target-rich environment to demonstrate his might and fifty more people to intimidate, and of those at least ten will accept ganging up on Alvin alongside Bob next time he refuses anything. Oops.
- Played for Laughs: Alvin and Bob have massive knock-down drag-out fights to determine who's right about anything at all. "Alright, Alvin, you won. We'll get hot fudge on our sundaes instead of caramel."
- Played for Drama:
- Bob's beliefs are racist, sexist, homophobic, classist, or otherwise immoral, and he expects Alvin not merely to agree when asked, but also to act on them. Alvin does so because he's afraid of what Bob will do to him otherwise.
- Bob is trying to threaten Alvin into denying a Cassandra Truth. Alvin is the only one telling this truth, and if it is denied, many innocent lives may be lost.
- Played for Horror: Bob enforces his say-so by bloody torture and impromptu maiming.
If you don't click that link back to Appeal to Force, I'll bash your face in.
