12th Feb: A new policy is being put in place for TRS threads: Make your case that the name/page is broken in the Opening Post, or the thread will be nuked immediately. See Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Names for what "Make your case" means.
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here
Basic Trope: A female character is easily subdued and captured if her upper arm is grabbed by a mook or other villain.
Straight: Alice is kicking ass, until Emperor Evulz comes up from behind and grabs her arm. She starts screaming for Bob to save her.
Exaggerated: Evulz just pinches Alice's forearm and she goes down.
Justified: Alice had a horrible case of carpal tunnel syndrome as a child and never fully recovered from it, so squeezing her arm is a kind of Kryptonite Factor.
Alternatively, the arm-grabber in question has a nasty bladed gauntlet (chainsaw attachment optional) expressly for this purpose, and pretty much pulverizes Alice's arm, leaving her incapacitated.
Alternately again: He doesn't just grab her arm — he puts her in a painful hammerlock.
Or deliberately went for a pressure point.
Alternatively, AGAIN, the mook just has a really really strong grip.
Alternatively, AGAIN again, the mook is an energy stealer, and drains Alice's energy by gripping her arm, thus subduing her.
Alternatively yet again, this is Alice's first outing. When Emperor Evulz grabs her, she panics
Alternatively, YET AGAIN, picking a fight with the opponent isn't the best option in this case, and the grab makes Alice realize that she almost lost her temper when she shouldn't have
Inverted: Alice grabs Evulz's arm, and he goes down in agony.
Evulz grabs Bob's arm, and causes him to go down in agony.
A Mook grabs Alice's wrist roughly, breaking the Power Limiter bracelet she was wearing. Oh Crap.
Emperor Evulz comes up from behind and grabs Alice arm. Since she is wearing an electric taser glove, Evulz ened up getting electricuted and falls.
Genderflipped: Bob is kicking ass, until Emperor Evulz comes up from behind and grabs his arm. He starts screaming for Alice's help.
Lampshaded: Alice is grabbed and complains of how she can never fight when that happens.
Subverted: As Evulz grabs Alice's arm, she judo flips him over. When he's on the ground, she stomps his groin and says, "You really thought that would work?"
Double Subverted: After Alice judo flips Evulz, he grabs the other arm and flips her over, pulling himself up at the same time. "Yes."
Parodied: All women have this weakness, and so they wear armor on their upper arms.
Deconstructed: Due to this, women are not allowed to fight unattended or without a male escort no matter how tough they are.
Reconstructed: In the world the protagonists live in, 90% of the ostensibly female population are RobotGirls who have a disabling switch on their arms.
Zig Zagged: Emperor Evulz grabs Alice's upper arm and she becomes helpless. But as he starts dragging her to his helicopter, she knees him the groin and is able to make a mad dash for the battle field again. THEN, a Mook grabs both her arms and she is rendered helpless again.
Averted: Nobody ever tries to grab Alice by the arm.
Whenever someone grabs Alice by the arm, she easily pulls away.
Invoked: As Alice and Evulz face off in a rather impressive fight scene, a Mook calls out "Grab her arm!"... and it works. Bob to the rescue!
Defied: She took up Judo for just such an occasion.
"Why are you wearing spiked armbands?"
Discussed: "AH! Bob! Help me!" "What? You can fight a dozen ninjas with your hands tied, but you can't shake off a man who's grabbing your arm? Sheesh..."
Conversed: "Odd. Most villains would grab her by the arm rather than kicking her in the groin."
