Basic Trope: Chivalrous man defends women from men who hit them.
- Straight: When Bob hits Alice, Charles steps in to defend her.
- Exaggerated:
- When Bob hits Alice, Charles inflicts Cold-Blooded Torture on him.
- Charles is a Serial Killer who targets wife beaters.
- When Bob, a scrawny little boy, kicks Action Girl Alice in the shin, Charlie gruesomely murders Bob.
- Downplayed: When Bob hits Alice, Charles asks him What the Hell, Hero?.
- Justified:
- Charles is The Fettered following a code of honor and chivalry.
- Charles is Alice's older brother. Woe betide the man who messes with Alice.
- Charles grew up seeing his father beat and abuse his mother, and vowed to never become that kind of man.
- Alternatively, Charles grew up seeing his father beat and abuse his mother multiple times before his older brother beat their father to death after one particular bad incident. Charles therefore thinks beating up the perpetrator is the best way to solve the issue.
- Inverted: When Bob hits Alice, Charles steps in to cheer for him... Or even join "the fun"!
- Gender Inverted:
- When Alice hits Bob, Charles steps in to defend him.
- When Charles hits Bob, Dan steps in to defend him.
- When Alice hits Bob, Claire steps in to defend him.
- When Bob hits Alice, Diana steps in to defend her.
- When Claire hits Alice, Bob steps in to defend her.
- Subverted: Bob hits Alice. We see Charles Hulking Out, raising his fist... and then joining Bob in beating Alice.
- Double Subverted: He pretends to hit Alice. He's actually setting up for Ass Kicks You.
- Parodied:
- Charles beats up people for wearing wife-beaters. (aka. sleeveless shirts)
- Charles relentlessly beats up Bob after he pokes Alice in the arm to get her attention.
- Bob swats a female mosquito on his arm that is sucking up his blood. Charles gives him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown for this.
- Bob beats Alice at tabletop football, so Charles beats him at the game.
- Zig Zagged: Alice and Bob are fighting, and Charles joins in the fight, first hitting Bob, then hitting Alice, and then trying to break it up.
- Averted:
- Bob does not hit Alice.
- Bob hits Alice, but nobody defends her.
- Bob hits Alice, and she defends herself.
- Enforced: Used to show that Charles respects women so that the female audience will like him.
- Lampshaded: "Hitting a woman in front of me? Bad idea."
- Invoked: Alice makes friends with some strong men who can protect her from people who try to hit her.
- Exploited:
- Alice goads Bob into abusing her in front of Charles, so that Bob will finally suffer repercussions for his mistreatment of her.
- Alice freely abuses Bob knowing he can’t fight back for fear of Charles’s wrath.
- Defied: Bob only abuses Alice when the two of them are alone.
- Discussed: “Alice, I don’t want your little boyfriend coming to hit me, so I’ll just take us somewhere else, okay?”
- Conversed: “It seems like some people get so defensive when a woman is hit.”
- Deconstructed:
- Alice is fully aware of this trope's existence and uses it as a crutch for her Karma Houdini.
- Charles sees Bob pull Alice over his knee and spank her, so he jumps in and hits Bob... before the distraught Alice can explain that what was really going on was a Safe, Sane, and Consensual SM scene.
- Charles sees Bob and Alice brawling, and jumps in to defend Alice... but it turns out, Alice is both a black belt in taekwondo, and was the one abusing Bob, who was just trying to get away.
- Turns out one beating won't stop an abuser- after Charles leaves, Bob simply continues, maybe even worse due to the humiliation of being attacked.
- Reconstructed:
- The Husband Exploiter Basher, Claire, bashes Alice for exploiting her husband.
- Charles understands the difference between BDSM and abuse, and only goes after Doms who don't play Safe, Sane, and Consensual.
- Charles decides that he will defend victims from abusers, no matter the gender.
- Charles cripples Bob. That's it, no more abusing from him anymore. (Of course, this opens up a whole other plethora of problems, but we shouldn't be worrying about THAT now, should we?)
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob calls Alice a rude name and Charles steps in to defend her.
- Charles, who is 100 pounds of skin and bone, steps in to protect Alice, who is 200 pounds of sheer muscle and a hand-to-hand combat expert to boot.
- Played For Drama: Charles is much weaker or less well-armed than Bob, and if he helps Alice, his childhood friend, he risks getting beat up by Bob too.
What!? You hit your own damn wife!? Why, YOU!!
