Discussion Characters / TheIncredibles

He may not technically be 'god-like', but his powers are pretty damn awesome. Sometimes I see edits that I don't fully agree with, but if I can kind of see why, I let it go.

I agree that Jack Jack's powers are indeed awesome. The animators had a lot of fun coming up with unique ways to express his polymorph ability. He shows off even more powers in the short where Aunty Edna babysits Jack Jack for the night.

But here's the thing. There's always a tension while editing here at tvtropes between Tropes Are Flexible and the "letting it go" that leads to Trope Decay.

In this case the trope is pretty distinctly talking about a child with an immense power set at a cosmic level being able to reshape reality, defeat any foe, or even cause the end the world.

What we see with Jack Jack, just isn't at that level. It's impressive but not god-like. I don't find the gap between these power levels close enough to just "let it go".

But then again I'm a "stickler" so what do you expect. ;-)

<removed by rva98014. duplicate posting>

It's a minor thing compared to say, being kidnapped. The reaction is not in proportion to the trigger. I have approval from a highly regarded troper, so I know it's valid.

Hmm, you could be right.

I would vote to remove it. I always took that trope to mean a grown-up character that has a tantrum when the same minor trigger is pressed.

But Jack Jack is a toddler, tantrums are common at his age-level especially when being denied a treat. There's a reason they call it the "terrible twos". So I don't see it as him having a berserk button (yet).

He's just being a baby. Unfortunately, he's a baby that can turn into a demon imp when having a tantrum. But I've been with friends that have toddlers and watched one cry, stomp, yell, and throw things when told to get ready for a bath. Believe me, that child gave Demon Imp Jack Jack a run for his money.

So I would say "The reaction is not in proportion to the trigger" is par for the course for young children not proof of a berserk button.

I brought this up on the Berserk Button cleanup thread.

Coming from Ask the Tropers and to me it's pretty straightforward: Syndrome is a supervillain in a superhero setting. He's not especially vile or outrageous by that standard as I can't think of anything he did that stands out as especially vile in your standard superhero setting.

It seems the majority of tropers has agreed that this is not a valid example. I'll remove it and leave a link to this discussion.

I don't think it needs it's owm page.

First off, the trope itself, I believe, is in misunderstanding here. Glass Cannon isn't simply "low durability". It's "Low durability relatively to offensive strength".

For example, just taking the first example out of Comic Books, Cyclops is by no means "Fragile" compared to most men. But his eye beams are far more powerful than his otherwise merely human body. Similarly, Captain America can be seen as a Stone Wall, because his Vibranium shield and his skill in interposing it between him and any attack means that his defenses far outstrip his offense, even though him swinging the edge of that shield at you can do some serious damage. It's just not serious enough relative to both the shield's capability and the power level he operates at.

Using this relative formula, we can definitely see that Brick, while strong and tough, isn't used to getting hit, which is why Mr. Incredible, after being held off for a bit by the former's superior reach and leverage, is given an opening by Elastigirl, and lands two quick hooks, which are enough to briefly knock her out (note that it didn't knock her down by the sheer force of the blow, which she was doing to him repeatedly throughout the fight... evidence Bob was pulling his punches since he was fighting someone who he didn't want to either kill or give a severe and possibly permanently damaging concussion, she took those hits and literally couldn't stay on her feet any longer). She barely recovers enough to look at him by the time he walks over to land one more hit and break the goggles.

This is a common enough thing you see in a gym. Some big lifter hotshot, who while admittedly strong, and probably bigger than the guys in the ring giving eachother brain damage, and would be a terror to grapple against, takes a good hook to the kisser and reconsiders thinking "I can take em".

Mr. Incredible didn't just overcome her Super-Toughness via applying harder hits. If he did, they'd definitely have more of an impact and be louder than what we saw.

On the other hand, the possibility that she can't take the hits she can deal, which is generally grounds for being classed as a Glass Cannon. Everything is relative. For a "Brick/Bruiser" type Super, Brick (the character) is definitely not capable of taking hits on her "level".

Come to think of it, on a rewatch it's not entirely clearly whether or not Screech was knocked out by Dash, or just had the goggles knocked off his face while he was dizzy trying to keep up with the kid.

The definition for a glass cannon is a person "characterized by insane attack power coupled with pathetic defensive ability." It's the wide gap between offense and defense that highlights the trope.

As you say, everything is relative, and I don't think we have a fair situation for evaluating Brick given that she's going against Mr. Incredible, the strongest hero in this universe who has decades of fighting experience and considerable tactical knowledge.

There really wasn't a way for a rookie like Brick to put up a meaningful fight but I don't think her losing to Mr. Incredible after he delivers several strategic punches is an adequate example of there being a wide gap between Brick's offensive and defensive power.

Admittedly we're limited by the sheer lack of screen time Brick receives. There simply isn't enough scenes of her in action to fully evaluate her level of defensive durability.

That said, in rewatching the scene where the hypnotized DEVTech supers storm the bridge, Brick engages and holds her own against Mr. Incredible for the entire duration of all the other heroes dealing with their respective "villains" ending with Elastigirl distracting Brick which allows Mr. Incredible to launch two focused and controlled punches at Brick intended to knock her down and then a third to knock her goggles off while not taking her head off.

It's worth noting that Brick is shown to be conscious in the very next scene (when Evelyn is taking off in the escape plane) so it's doubtful that she was knocked out, just stunned.

Given that the writers paired her against Mr. Incredible it really feels like they were implying she was the one with the durability to stand up to him. Again, upon rewatch, I see that Brick was overwhelmed by a superior opponent with decades of experience. But I don't see her going down as a solid example of a wide gap between her offensive and defensive capacity and thus I still don't feel she qualifies as a glass cannon.

We're working with way too little context to really definitively say that her defensive capabilities are truly poor. It's more than likely that her defensive capabilities are greater than 99% of the world but she is going against Mr. Incredible. Freight trains are fragile compared to him.

Like I pointed out before, Mr. Incredible wasn't hitting as hard as he necessarily could in that fight. Compare his punch to Brick's face to the one he used when he ambushed the first Omnidroid. He sent the big thing flying, and that was while he was relatively out of shape.

So justifying it as Brick simply being overwhelmed by superior force when it's clear Mr. Incredible simply isn't using overwhelming force in that fight.

It's her reach and ability to hit him hard enough before he gets in range to knock him around that let her hold him off. He doesn't get a solid hit in until she's distracted.

Makes sense too, if you think about it. With fists that size blocking would still send you flying away and parrying a hamfist that large is like him "parrying" a truck. Bob's only option really, was to answer strength with strength, which he couldn't without risking permanent damage either to his mind-controlled opponent or the boat.

The point of the trope is to evaluate whether Brick has incredible offensive power but pathetic defensive ability.

It feels like that point is getting muddled because she's fighting Mr. Incredible and he is definitely pulling his punches so as not to kill or severely damage her. The point I'm trying to make is that just because Brick is stunned by Mr. Incredible's less than 100% punches doesn't mean she's a Glass Cannon.

I don't think there'd be any Glass Cannon consideration if say Brick were fighting Violet. I don't think the majority of the audience would be thinking "Aw, poor Brick. Her punches aren't going to do much against Violet's force-fields and once Violet slams a force-field into Brick, she's going to collapse like a rag doll."

Again, I concede that we don't have enough context to fully analyze Brick's power levels and unfortunately there's not a set of official and canon NSA charts out there on the DEVTech supers to set this issue to rest (there are some fan made charts out there but they don't count).

That said, I do feel there's enough reasonable doubt to question whether the gap between Brick's offensive and defensive capabilities is wide enough to have her qualify as a Glass Cannon with complete certainty.

So, lets just get this out of the way. We agree that there is a gap between Brick's offensive and defensive capabilities, correct?

On the subject of a hypothetical Violet/Brick fight, the audience wouldn't be thinking that Brick is the underdog, since at no point in the Glass Cannon trope would it imply a lack of offensive capability. Brick would likely bash against Violet's shield, straining it and slowly beating her back to the edge of the ship, where the former would wind up for a big hit that would threaten to knock her off...and into the ocean before something trips her up and leaves her open to pounded, at which point the same poor recovery from hits and slow reaction speeds in general would allow Violet to take the upper hand and bash her with a barrage of attacks.

Either way, at this point it's purely a matter of applicability since we agree there is a gap of some degree. I'm willing to compromise and put it down as a Downplayed example if you are, since it is pretty evident she doesn't go down as easily as some of the other DEVTECH supers.

No. Sorry. I don't agree that there's an obvious gap present.

We seem to keep talking past each other and getting tied up in technical details about the Brick/Mr. Incredible fight or the hypothetical Brick/Violet fight.

The trope is about a character that has incredible offensive power but pathetic defensive power (and the defensive ability is tied to their power set, not their skill level).

From what little we see in the movie, there is no gap that's obvious for Brick. She's strong enough to knock Mr. Incredible across the room and slam him into the bulkhead hard enough to buckle the metal.

She's able to take several direct punches from Mr. Incredible that leave her stunned but not unconscious.

While we agree that Mr. Incredible is very likely pulling his punches to avoid severely damaging her, we don't know how much he's pulling his punches so nor do we have any objective listing of Brick's power level.

As I said before, I don't feel that the movie has shown a huge gap between Brick's offensive and defensive capabilities to have her qualify as a Glass Cannon with complete certainty.

I need you to present a clear example of Brick's defensive power level (not her lack of fighting skill) being significantly less than her offensive power.

The other option is to take the issue up to "Ask the Tropers" where it will be open to the entire trope community to comment on the issue. The challenge with that approach is sometimes you get a lot of unhelpful opinions offered and it can take time before a clear consensus emerges or sometimes no consensus emerges at all.

Again, the issue is relative, not extremist.

She didn't take "several" she took all of two hooks to the jaw and went down. We also know that Mr. Incredible can hit much harder than that, given that he sent the Omnidroid flying, and it weighs more than she does by an order of magnitude. By comparing the likely weights of both characters, I think mathematically it's clear that the amount of "punch" being pulled is significant enough to warrant it.

You keep saying huge gap and pathetic defensive power, but neither of these things are required. As I've said before, everything is relative. You keep making an effort to add extra qualifiers, but as is shown in her limited time on screen, she makes a good showing in her only fight scene but ultimately goes down very quickly to a few hits from someone holding back.

Furthermore, you add another qualifier that skill and experience not just don't matter, they, apparently in your opinion, can't matter. However, it is due to that very same lack of skill and experience that she, and likely the other DEVTECH Supers, are so vulnerable.

Dude, the tvtropes definition of Glass Cannon is "The Glass Cannon is characterized by insane attack power coupled with pathetic defensive ability". The significant gap is right there in the definition... insane vs pathetic.

Regardless, I've grown weary of the discussion here as we seem to just keep talking past each other.

I've opened a discussion up on "Ask the Tropers" and presented what I believe to be the gist of the argument.

Please offer any further discussion over at https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?parent_id=87435&type=att

Mr. Incredible is the strongest hero in the Incredibles universe and given the effects we've seen his punches having on the Omnidroid, and I concurred with DarthWalrus that he is definitely pulling his punches in his fight with Brick to avoid taking her head off.

For the sake of discussion. Lets say Mr Incredible's power level is offense = 20 / defense = 20 (and by defense I mean their innate durability/invulnerability). Let's say Brick's offense level is 12 and her defense is still TBD. If she's strong and durable it would be defense = 12, but if she's a Glass Cannon it would be something embarrassingly low like 6.

During their fight, Brick (under hypnotic control) is not holding back and unleashing a full 12 power level, allowing her to throw Mr. Incredible around the room while he is having to take time to evaluate a super-strong opponent he has never fought before to determine how much strength he can unleash to subdue without killing her.

When Mr. Incredible finally lands his punches, he has the ability to overpower Brick's durability even as he pulls his punches. The question is whether he is pulling them down to 13 so that he is just overpowering Brick's 12 durability or is he lowering them to 7 to deliver a love-tap to Brick's 6 durability?

I content that there isn't enough information provided in the fight scene to say exactly how much Mr. Incredible is pulling his punches and thus we can't definitively say that Brick is a Glass Cannon.

Noting that the Is this an example? thread has ruled Brick not an example of Glass Cannon.

Noted. Removing the example and citing "Ask The Tropers" and "Is This an Example" discussions for reference.

Yeah. He's not a bruiser by any stretch.

Granted, the Boisterous Bruiser page doesn't really... define bruiser much but c'mon. Words have meaning.

In his defense Dash is a bruiser as a bruiser may have the societal outlook of being a big meathead or having collassal amounts of strength but that is untrue for the most part as I've seen many boisterous bruisers who could fight but aren't big and couldn't lift up heavier objects but they were still strong. I don't think one should be identified through feats of strength unless that's what the trope encompasses, this one is more personality based and Dash may be a nine year old kid he's but he's not in anyway weak and fits the trope perfectly in my eyes. Do not let the bruiser part confuse you to think someone is suppose to always have the fighting style of the Hulk or a user in brute strength. Dash fits this perfectly as he is able to knock back a man twice his size not with brute strength but with his rotational strength as the immense speed he produces allows for him to maximizing his damage output that is dealt with the momentum at how fast in which he's moving

So, first off, you added to the discussion which is greatly appreciated. However, you added your input, decided it was sufficient and then added the trope back onto the page without waiting for any type of response to that input or seeking consensus from the other tropers that have participated in this discussion.

For the moment, I am removing the entry pending a consensus that Boisterous Bruiser does apply to Dash. Please don't add it back until the other tropers have weighed in on the matter.

Remember, that whether a character is a Bruiser is not dependent on your personal feelings of what a bruiser is, but how the Bruiser trope is used consistently here on tvtropes.

To repeat what I said before. When you look over the tvtrope variations of the Bruisier (ie Lightning Bruiser, Genius Bruiser, Cute Bruiser, Girly Bruiser, etc) the one aspect they all have in common is that they deal with a character whose fighting style is very physical and unleashes considerable damage on their opponent. In essence, they do "have the fighting style of the Hulk or a user in brute strength". It's how tvtropes has currently decided to define a Bruiser. And notice the Bruiser trope doesn't require the character be physically big (see Girly Bruiser), just that they are they are a "pound them til they drop" melee style fighter.

So far in the two films, Dash just hasn't been shown to be that type of fighter. Yes, he can utilize his speed to generate considerable force (ie Force = mass * acceleration) but as has been pointed out before, once the initial speed impact knocks the Mook to the ground, Dash jumps on him and starts pelting him with his fists to very little effect and the Mook is able to send Dash sprawling with a single punch.

Looking over the proposed entry, it does nicely capture his personality as being boisterous and I don't disagree with that. But nothing about the entry provides an example of how he is a Bruiser.

• Boisterous Bruiser: Dash is a very cocky and impulsive boy that is very competitive and is always eager for a challenge just like his father.

Also, Dash currently has the Fragile Speedster trope applied to him. I don't feel that a character can be a Fragile Speedster and a Boisterous Bruiser at the same time.

I would also support it as an unmarked spoiler page, given Syndrome is a Walking Spoiler character.

thanks gjjones, lets leave this open for a bit. I've invited a few others to comment on this proposal. I don't think there'll be any objections but a major change like this should at least try to collect a consensus.

After making a good faith effort to solicit more feedback on this topic, none of those whom I invited to participate in this discussion have taken the opportunity to do so.

Spoiler tag free character pages are not unusual at tvtropes especially when there's a Walking Spoiler character that forces certain examples to be almost entirely buried in spoiler tags.

Since there has been some positive response for this change from those who are actively editing "The Incredibles" at this time, I'm going to remove spoiler tags from all the examples and put a warning up at the time that this page contains unmarked spoilers.

I didn't reply in time because the discussion page didn't pop up on my watchlist, so I didn't realize a new topic had been made. Now the changes have been made, but anyhow, I fully support them. The Incredibles is getting old enough that the major spoilers are starting to suffer from the It Was His Sled effect.

If the second movie turns out to have major plot twists, we might want to reconsider our spoiler tagging, though, since those who haven't had the opportunity to watch the second movie might still want to read examples from the first movie without getting spoiled. But I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

I would bring this up again. The Main villain on in the sequel has more than half his/her entry covered in white boxes. Many of them are evil-referenced tropes.

This page should just have a warning of no spoiler tags being in effect and we clean it all up.

^I've always seen a no-spoiler warning as something of a last resort — spoiler text should be minimized, of course, but we also don't want to ruin the experience for people who haven't seen the film. What if we move all of the obvious spoilery main villain tropes to the Screenslaver folder (since there is already a spoiler warning on it), leaving the real identity folder cleaned up?

That would be reasonable.

In watching the tropes being added, I feel that we're eventually going to find ourselves painted into a corner regarding spoilage.

There are already tropes added to The Screenslaver section that, by just the trope name, are starting to spoil that there's some kind of decoy in play (ie Actually a Doombot, Anti-Climax Boss, Brainwashed and Crazy)

And Evelyn has Even Evil Has Loved Ones, False Friend, Lack of Empathy, Psychopathic Manchild, Villainous Breakdown. All of which strongly suggest she's the villain. She also has 9 tropes that are completely enclosed in spoiler tags which is generally frowned upon.

Eventually because of the Walking Spoiler plot twists, we may find it best to just make the characters page unmarked spoilers for both films.

Sounds fair.

Yeah, that's stretching it.

Thirded. That trope does not apply to Voyd in regards to Syndrome. Furthermore, Voyd appears to just an awkward fangirl at Elastigirl, she hasn't shown any signs of annoying Elastigirl by indulging childhood fantasies of being her sidekick.