Basic Trope: A character has accomplished badass feats, but they themselves are rather pathetic.
- Straight: Legends say that Richard stopped a bank heist and saved the hostages. While it is true, he's actually a fairly weak person.
- Exaggerated: Legends say that Richard stopped the end of The Multiverse. However, Richard can't so much as lift a pencil without putting strain on himself.
- Downplayed: Richard did stop a bank heist and he is fairly strong, but people tend to exaggerate his strength a bit.
- Justified:
- Richard's feat was a case of Achievements in Ignorance, whatever his feat may be, he did it on accident.
- Richard is Weak, but Skilled, he earned his badass moment.
- It's been 50 years! You're lucky he's still alive… okay, so he's senile.
- Richard is only licensed to use his bad-ass abilities when the situation gets dire, so most of the time he is forced to walk around as his meeker alter-ego.
- Inverted: On paper, Richard is perhaps the worst fighter in the series, as in he's so weak that even a mild breeze from someone just a power level above him could knock him down. But in action, Richard is a Badass Normal who is Made of Iron.
- Subverted: Richard looks like he has a plan to stop the heist, but when it's set into motion, he's promptly shot by the criminals.
- Double Subverted: It turns out that was a Thanatos Gambit, allowing them to be distracted long enough to be tackled by the police, Richard is taken to the hospital and he's even more badass on paper.
- Parodied: There are posters up with Richard being portrayed as a big, strong, muscular man with a strong jawline. Then the real Richard walks next to it, and he's relatively small, extremely skinny and his jawline is effeminate.
- Zig Zagged: On paper, he's capable of Confusion Fu.
- Averted:
- Bob is badass on paper, then you find Bob and he really is a badass, in real life.
- Enforced:
- Rule of Funny.
- The Aesop Of the day: Don't judge a book (or Badass Bookworm in this case) by its cover.
- Lampshaded: "Wait, you're Richard? I was always told you had big muscles and you carry five guns in your hands." "The last part is true, but don't believe everything you read in the paper."
- Invoked: Richard wanted to impress his Love Interest by accomplishing a badass feat. Too bad he didn't get any muscles out of it.
- Exploited:
- Bob tries his best to seem like a meek, mild-mannered man in his daily life, to separate it from the danger of his heroic adventures.
- Defied: Richard started working out so that he could also look the part.
- Discussed:
- "That's Bob!? How? He looks so ordinary! I thought he was a bad-ass?"
- Conversed:
- Bob explains to Alice that he never wanted to be a famous hero, so he has to hide his bad-ass skill in his daily life.
- Deconstructed: Richard was a below average conscript who destroyed a whole tank column with one rocket by weakening the bridge they were on enough that it collapses under the combined weight. He only fired it off to dodge accusations of cowardice that could get him executed - retreating due to lack of supplies to damage the target is always an acceptable excuse and the weight was slowing him down. He winds up a high priority target because of his past successes and being unequipped to stand against the might.
- Reconstructed: Richard's death only places him in a bigger and tougher pedestal, Warts and All, for everybody else on his side to rally around. Oops.
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