History CurbStompBattle / Literature

** Michael in ''Small Favor'' vs several hundred hobs (evil Winter fae), some of which are armoured and some the size of Mountain Gorilla's. Michael barely breaks a sweat. Of course, wielding freaking Excalibur helps.

* DianeDuane's ''StarTrek'' novel ''My Enemy, My Ally'' features the ''ChR Battlequeen'', a Romulan-operated D7-class cruiser, going against the ''USS Inaieu'', that is practically the refitted ''Enterprise'' ten times bigger and with four nacelles. ''Battlequeen'' was disintegrated faster than it takes to read the phrase from the book "''Battlequeen'' is destroyed".

* In TheOregonFiles book ''Corsair,'' the crew of the ''[[WhatAPieceOfJunk Oregon]]'' must go up against a fully armed Libyan destroyer to rescue the American Secretary of Defense being held hostage on it. After using a massive oil tanker to hide their approach, the ''Oregon'' pulls broadside, takes a couple rounds, then proceeds to blow the living crap out of the destroyer as the ''Oregon's'' captain rescues the Secretary from the besieged vessel. The only thing that prevented the ''Oregon'' from sinking the destroyer was that it would have caused a (further) international incident. Still, that didn't stop the ''Oregon'' from disabling it.

* The [[TomClancy Tom Clancy]] book ''[[Literature/JackRyan Executive Orders]]'' features the operational strategy that proper warfare is taking organised and technically advanced armed forces and arranging them skillfully with the express purpose of Curbstomping. The UIR tank corps gets this treatment rather forcefully toward the end of the book.
* The ''{{Malazan Book of the Fallen}}'' series is inordinately fond of this trope, especially with regards to resident badasses Quick Ben and Karsa Orlong. It tends to lead to as many anticlimaxes, when battles are foreshadowed for most of a book, then are finished within a couple of pages.

* Happens several times in the ''{{Axis of Time}}'' trilogy. It's to be expected however, considering that the basis for the trilogy involves mismatching World War II technology against a military force from 2021...
* In ''{{The Wheel of Time}}'' series, {{Muggles}} generally don't stand much of a chance against [[WitchSpecies channelers]], who just have too damn many awesome [[FunctionalMagic powers]], but the Asha'man in particular ''really'' rub this in, as they undergo TrainingFromHell for the express purpose of becoming [[PersonOfMassDestruction living weapons]]. When ''they'' show up, people tend to [[YourHeadAsplode explode]]. Messily. For their first battle, they teleport into the middle of an enemy camp and proceed to turn the surrounding army of elite desert warriors into chunks of gore while ''they'' chill behind their force fields.

* In JohnCWright's ''Literature/{{War of the Dreaming}}'' second book, two of these happen within a short span: [[spoiler: Acheron's advance guard vs the US Pacific Carrier group, where the round goes to the humans]] and [[spoiler: Morningstar vs the fighter jet air strike group.]] Unusual in the instance that it's TheCavalry that gets stomped.

*** He ''is'' an android built by [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens sufficiently advanced humans]], after all. With an ultra-high tech [[AbsurdlySharpBlade absurdly sharp]] [[KatanasAreJustBetter katana]]. And an even sharper Japanese-style short sword to go with it.

* In Mikhail Akhmanov's novel ''Invasion'' (the first of the ''{{Arrivals from the Dark}}'' series), humanity's finest get their asses handed to them by a massive alien starship. The so-called Battle at Martian Orbit is decidedly one-sided. The alien ship is surrounded by a dozen Earth cruisers, armed with nukes, swarms (a {{Magnetic Weapon|s}} that fires a fast-moving icicle spread), and scores of fighters. The alien ship launches "combat modules" armed with {{Antimatter}} weapons that make short work of the fighters and the cruisers in a matter of minutes, while losing only several of these modules in the process. Before going out in a blaze of glory, the cruisers manage to launch a MacrossMissileMassacre nuclear barrage at the starship with a combined force of 400 ''gigaton''. The alien ship's DeflectorShields easily absorb the destructive energy without the crew even feeling it. The aliens then send a video-recording of the battle to world leaders as a demonstration of their power.

* [[spoiler:Kelsier]]'s final battle against [[spoiler:the Lord Ruler]] in ''[[{{Mistborn}} The Final Empire]]'' is pretty much this. It's immediately after one of the single most awesome fight scenes in the book, wherein [[spoiler:Kell kills an Inquisitor]], making it all the more shocking when [[spoiler:the Lord Ruler basically just ''rips his face off'']] without breaking stride.

* Jesus Christ versus the Global Community Unity Army in the LeftBehind book ''Glorious Appearing'' is such a battle, since not only is Jesus and His heavenly army unkillable (the Dramatic Audio presentation of the book had missiles fired at Him with no success), but also Jesus is armed with the OneHitPolyKill weapon which is [[TheBible The Word of God]], which the enemy has no defense against.

* In TheOregonFiles book ''Corsair,'' the crew of the ''[[WhatAPieceOfJunk Oregon]]'' must go up against a fully armed Libyan destroyer to rescue the American Secretary of Defense being held hostage on it. After using a massive oil tanker to hide their approach, the ''Oregon'' pulls broadside, takes a couple rounds, then proceeds to blow the living crap out of the destroyer as the ''Oregon's'' captain rescues the Secretary from the besieged vessel. The only thing that prevented the ''Oregon'' from sinking the destroyer was that it would have caused a (further) international incident. Still, that didn't stop the ''Oregon'' from disabling it.

* In TheOregonFiles book '''Corsair,'' the crew of the [[WhatAPieceOfJunk ''Oregon'']] must go up against a fully armed Libyan destroyer to rescue the American Secretary of Defense being held hostage on it. After using a massive oil tanker to hide their approach, the ''Oregon'' pulls broadside, takes a couple rounds, then proceeds to blow the living crap out of the destroyer as the ''Oregon's'' captain rescues the Secretary from the besieged vessel. The only thing that prevented the ''Oregon'' from sinking the destroyer was that it would have caused a (further) international incident. Still, that didn't stop the ''Oregon'' from disabling it.

** Also, the scene in the first book that pits Harry and [[MagnificentBastard Marcone]] against [[spoiler: a traitorous gangster.]] [[ThisIsSparta Not. Even. A. Page.]]

* The [[TomClancy Tom Clancy]] book ''Executive Orders'' features the operational strategy that proper warfare is taking organised and technically advanced armed forces and arranging them skillfully with the express purpose of Curbstomping. The UIR tank corps gets this treatment rather forcefully toward the end of the book.

* ''WarriorCats'': [[spoiler:Tigerstar]] vs. [[spoiler:Scourge]], mostly because of TheWorfEffect.

** Michael in ''Small Favor'' vs several hundred hobs (evil Winter fae), some of which are armoured and some the size of Mountain Gorilla's. Michael barely breaks a sweet. Of course, wielding freaking Excalibur helps.

* Both Wizarding Wars in ''Harry Potter'' went mostly this way with the bad guys delivering. It is implied that in the second one they didn't suffer even a single man dead or captive. [[spoiler:Until the FinalBattle, where the good wizards kicked the ass of the Death Eaters.]]

* In The Silmarillion the Battle of the Sudden Flame is probaly the greatest curb stomp in the book. The fortress of Angband is surrounded by the combined armies of the high elf lords of the Noldor and friendly tribes of men. Melkor, [[spoiler: the original bad guy of Middle Earth and Sauron's master,]] starts off by covering the fields where the elves are with fire, then lets loose an army he's been spending years building. Led by the Glaurung, the father of all dragons, an awesome tide of orcs spews forth to crush the armies of the elves. [[spoiler:The elves are so crushed by this battle that they never regain the momentum. Kingdom after kingdom falls to the hand of Melkor. The only way to save Middle Earth is to get the gods come and save them.]]

* In Halo: Fall of Reach. The space around Reach falls, hard.

* In JohnCWright's ''War of the Dreaming'' second book, two of these happen within a short span: [[spoiler: Acheron's advance guard vs the US Pacific Carrier group, where the round goes to the humans]] and [[spoiler: Morningstar vs the fighter jet air strike group.]] Unusual in the instance that it's TheCavalry that gets stomped.

* In ''SienkiewiczTrilogy'' Michał Wołodyjowski is this trope. In first two books he is just a minor character, which doesn't stop him from almost killing main antagonist of the first, subverting IAmNotLeftHanded in the process, and utterly humilating main character of the second, all without breaking a sweat.

* The first book of the ''{{Safehold}}'' series pits the island kingdom of Charis against every other naval power in the world. Contrary to what ''everyone'' in the book expected, the fact that Charis's was the only proper Navy combined with the [[GivingRadioToTheRomans technological innovations provided by Merlin Athrawes]] allowed Charis to decimate its foes so completely that two books later they're ''still'' racing to recover.

*** He ''is'' an android built by [[SufficientlyAdvancedAliens sufficiently advanced humans]], after all.

* In the last PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians book, ''The Last Olympian'', there is the fight between the Minotaur, fully armoured and leading a legion of demigods and monsters, vs Percy Jackson. [[spoiler: Percy wins. Oh, not just against the Minotaur, but against the ''whole legion'', due to him having the Curse of Achilles]].

* [[spoiler:Keslier]]'s final battle against [[spoiler:The Lord Ruler]] in ''[[{{Mistborn}} The Final Empire]]'' is pretty much this. Which came at the climax of one of the single most awesome fight scenes in the book. The winner is ''not'' who you expect, initially.
** One of these is deliberately engineered by [[spoiler:Vin]] in the final book.
** [[spoiler: Vin and Zane]] team up for one battle in ''Well Of Ascension'', going up against a heavy force of soldiers and Hazekillers. They kill 3-4 hundred people in under ten minutes.

* Partially subverted in ''{{Redwall}}''. Villains can sometimes be killed by accident or after a really long fight scene. Villains that are experienced fighters (Ungatt Trunn, Cluny the Scourge, Feragho the Assassin) can put up a real fight and sometimes even ''kill'' the protagonist, causing their opponent to invoke TakingYouWithMe. Other creatures that are reputed to be great fighters (Princess Kurda in ''Triss'') will normally be killed either by accident or when their skills are actually called upon to be tested. And some, like Gabool the Wild and Mokkan the Marlfox, die by an accident or when they're in a position to not fight back.

** Also, the scene in the first book that pits [[BadassAbnormal Harry]] and [[MagnificentBastard Marcone]] against [[spoiler: a traitorous gangster.]] [[ThisIsSparta Not. Even. A. Page.]]