Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy

Hawkeye and Mockingbird.

A character that specializes in close-range attacks is often contrasted to a character that specializes in attacking from a distance. This especially happens in video games, as part of ensuring that the characters are balanced decently.

However, there has to be some sort of connection between the two characters. You can't simply point out that this work just happens to have an orc with a sword and an elf with a bow and arrow in it. There must be a link, the more personal the better.

If a character that Doesn't Like Guns is set up so they contrast with another, more Trigger-Happy character (which they usually are), there's a good chance the duo qualify for this trope. Similarly, The Rival is often set up to prefer the other range spread to the other character in question.

See Weapon Specialization. Compare Guys Smash, Girls Shoot and Sword and Sorcerer.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Bleach: Tite Kubo has designed Ichigo and his Aloof Ally Uryuu to be mirrors and contrast each other. Ichigo is headstrong and rushes into battle with minimal planning, whereas Uryuu is cool-headed and is renowned for strategising to the point of over-analysis. As a substitute Shinigami, Ichigo's battle uniform is black kimono overlaying white under-garments. Uryuu's battle uniform is white Western-style clothing, overlaying black inner layers. The author has also stated that Uryuu is left-handed to contrast the right-handed Ichigo. Although Ichigo has one long-ranged attack, he prefers to fight as a swordsman, up close and personal. While Uryuu does have the ability to fight at close-range like a swordsman when forced to, he is a Quincy archer, and almost always fights from a long range. Even the way they use those moves reflect their respective core fighting styles; Ichigo's "long-range" Getsuga Tenshou is used to greatest effect at point-black range, and Uryuu's "swords" are actually arrows that he can shoot from his bow. Uryuu once states that Quincies prefer archery precisely because Shinigami prefer swordsmanship.
• In LBX: Little Battlers eXperience, Ban and Kazu are still best friends and yet are perfect foils. Ban and Achilles use close range combat with lances and occasionally swords while Kazu uses two handed rifles and occasionally guns.
• The Okumura twins from Blue Exorcist. The Hot-Blooded Anti Anti Christ Rin uses a katana, while his calmer brother Yukio prefers guns. Subverted as they rarely, if ever, work together as Yukio refuses to let Rin help out, despite Rin's dream right now is to be a "demon-slaying brother team."
• In Hajime no Ippo, Ippo is exclusively an in-fighter, as opposed to his chief rival Miyata Ichirou, who is primarily an out-fighter.
• Bullet and Francesca, the legendary assassins from trash.. Bullet uses a handgun modified to fire specially crafted bullets that carries a lot of firepower despite their size. In contrast, Francesca uses a pair of folding axes in addition to her body modifications, all the better to engage her enemies in melee.
• Kirito and Sinon from Sword Art Online, with Kirito being the short-range Laser Blade wielder, while Sinon is the long-range Cold Sniper.
• LLENN and either M or Fukaziroh from Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online. LLENN is the short-range sub-machine gunner, M is a long-range sniper, and Fukaziroh is a long-range grenadier.
• Lyrical Nanoha:
  • Nanoha and Fate fit this dynamic in later season. While both of them are capable of fighting at both long and close range, Nanoha prefers long range blasts and guided projectiles while Fate is a Multi-Melee Master.
  • Even more well defined by Subaru and Teana who fit the stereotypes of their respective magic styles. Subaru is a Neo-Belkan fighter who uses a pair of rollerblades to get in her opponents' faces and smash them with her Power Fist while Teana is a Mid-childan mage who dual wields pistols and shoots down her enemies from a distance.
  • Graham's twin Catgirl familiars, Lieselotte and Liesearia are this trope to a T. Lotte is a Kick Chick who seems to fight exclusively with martial arts, while Aria uses long-range spells.

Comic Books

• Hawkeye and Mockingbird provide a romantic example (and the page image) — he's a master archer who specialises in making the impossible shot; she's a martial arts master capable of beating up a dozen men at once with her staves.
• X-Men frequently teams up Cyclops (Powers: Long-range Eye Beams, tactical genius) and Wolverine (Powers: Stabbing stuff, surviving getting stabbed back) in this manner. Them being romantic and ideological rivals adds to the depth of their relationship.
• Secret Six had a similar pairing in Deadshot, the fatalistic master sniper, and Catman, the knife-wielding master tracker. They spend almost as much time bickering as they do killing people.
• Power Company: In her solo issue story, Witchfire accidentally summons the demon Nekkron. Fortunately, Wonder Woman is nearby. The two combine forces with Diana hammering away at Nekkron with her godly strength while Witchfire attacks with a barrage of Instant Runes and they ultimately drive him back to where he came from.
• Power Girl and Terra III fight this way in Power Girl's book by Conner and Palmioti. Usually Karen fights at the forefront while Terra handles group control and attacks from afar with her geokinesis. Note that Karen does have long-ranged options with her Eye Beams while Atlee has some degree of super strength and durability but for the most part they still fit this trope.

Fanworks

• Comic Book SNAFU teams up archer Hawkeye and martial artist Batman.

Films — Live-Action

• In Rogue One, Chirrut wields a staff while Baze hauls a repeating cannon strapped to his back.

Literature

• This pairing describes Gimli the dwarf and Legolas the elf from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Gimli's preferred weapon is the short broadaxe, while Legolas prefers the longbow. During their battles against the forces of Sauron, Gimli and Legolas sustain a running contest as to which has felled more enemies.
• The Iliad: Ajax the Greater and his younger half-brother Teucer form this team. Many times it's described that Teucer, the Achaeans' best archer, will take cover behind his brother's massive shield and pick off many Trojans. For his part, Ajax is The Big Guy who specializes in holding the line using his immense size and strength in close quarters.
• The Reckoners Trilogy has David, a sharpshooter who prefers to fight at long range with a rifle (when not improvising wildly), and his frequent partner (and crush) Megan, who prefers handguns and close range. At one point, they debate the relative merits.
• Six of Crows: Kaz uses a specially-weighted walking cane for brutal Cane Fu, which puts him as the Short Range Guy in contrast to either of his top lieutenants, as Jesper duel-wields pistols and Inej prefers to throw her knives.
• The title characters of Wax and Wayne. Wax is a coinshot, who can push on metal using magic. He uses his power to fly around attacking people from range with his guns or - in a pinch - by pushing coins and bits of metal at his enemies. Wayne can small create bubbles of fast time, has impressive healing abilities, and Doesn't Like Guns, so he traps his enemies in time bubbles with him and fights them with his swords.

Tabletop Games

• Apply this trope to a faction and you get the Tau and Kroot from Warhammer 40,000. The Tau have awesome guns but are pathetic in close combat, the Kroot are barbarians who live for close combat but don't wear armor. It illustrates their "Greater Good" philosophy, where the weaknesses of one are compensated by the strengths of the other.
  • This is also a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation, as it is most certainly true in the fluff, but the Kroot started as mediocre close combat troops with surprisingly cheap firepower and infiltration back in third edition, and this trend just keeps becoming more and more pronounced over time. In sixth and seventh editions, the kroot are incredibly cheap infiltrating snipers who will crumble like tissue paper before any real assault troops.

Video Games

• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Platinum and Kirogane. They work together as two thirds of the PMEC team: Platinum favouring long-ranged shoulder cannons that she builds herself, and demon-hunter ninja Kurogane opting for close-range sword slashes.
• The Spy and The Sniper from Team Fortress 2 in-universe are fierce enemies, partly because Snipers are a prime target for quick Spy kills. The Spy's weapon is a knife used for instant-kill backstabs, while The Sniper specialises in long-distance headshots.
• Two of the central characters of Street Fighter, Ryu and Ken, have identical special moves. However, Ryu is geared towards the projectile Hadoken attack while Ken is geared towards the Shoryuken uppercut. Their Super Combos are tailored towards these moves to highlight their preference. Ironically, it's Ryu and not Ken who famously gave Sagat his iconic chest scar via a Shoryuken, but then that was before the Divergent Character Evolution kicked in and gave them their current specializations.
• Lucian and Aaron from Lunar Knights have this arrangement - Aaron has a solar-energy charged gun while Lucian has a sword that gets more powerful at night.
• The Pokémon series has two types named Fighting and Psychic, and Psychic-type attacks are super-effective to Fighting type Pokemon. Fighting-type attacks are usually physical (eg. Karate Chop, Brick Break), while Psychic-type attacks are so universally special moves that moves like Psycho Cut are highlighted in-game as dealing physical damage. Usually physical moves make contact while special moves don't.
• Chariot and Justice from Persona 3 are Dual Boss that can revive each other. Chariot is a giant tank that mainly uses Strike attacks, while Justice is a small turret that uses Pierce attacks.
• Cress from Tales of Phantasia takes on enemies at close range with swords, while his close buddy Chester takes on them with bows and arrows.
• Max and Grit in Advance Wars. Max's direct attacking units have more power than normal, but his indirect attacking units are weak. Grit is the exact opposite. In the story, they used to be best friends (and romantic rivals for Nell) before Grit defected to the Blue Moon army.
• Fire Emblem
  • Path of Radiance has Heterosexual Life-Partners Shinon and Gatrie. The first mission you use them they introduce their "Thunder and Lightning" tactics; Gatrie smashes into them like thunder, Shinon rains arrows down like lightning.
  • In Fates, both crown princes from Hoshido and Nohr, Ryoma and Xander are both swordsmen, when their respective younger brothers Takumi and Leo are long-range fighters. Specifically, Takumi is an archer, while Leo is a mage. Supporting the brothers reveals that both younger princes once wielded swords too, but gave up because of an inferiority complex that they will never surpass their respective older brothers. Subverted in Leo's case that in his class he still can wield a sword. Takumi however, has been said to completely give up swordplay, as he cannot use swords in his base class.
  • Engage has Diamant and Alcryst, the princes of Brodia. Diamant is a bold, fiery fighter who specializes in swords, while his brother Alcryst is timid and prefers to attack from a distance with bows.
• Final Fantasy
  • Final Fantasy IV has Cecil, the swordmaster, and his girlfriend Rosa, who specializes in the bow and arrow.
  • Final Fantasy VII has a cold and calculating Cloud and a rough-and-gruff Barret, who are at odds with each other at first before becoming Fire-Forged Friends. Cloud uses a two-handed broadsword while Barret does damage using a gun-arm.
  • Final Fantasy VIII has Squall's two male allies: Zell and Irvine.
  • Final Fantasy X has Tidus use swords as expected of The Hero, while his fellow pro Blitzball player Wakka fights by throwing a blitzball.
  • Final Fantasy XIII has Snow (who uses fists and ice magic) and Sazh (who uses guns and fire magic).
• While both Dante and Vergil from Devil May Cry have an impressive set of sword skills, Dante is happy to mix in some firearms usage as well while Vergil explicitly Doesn't Like Guns.
• The Borderlands series likes this trope.
  • The first game has Mordecai, who is designed around sniping as a primarily long-range character, as is the mostly defensively-oriented Roland. They are contrasted by Lilith, a close-range SMG specialist, and Brick, a titan of a man and melee powerhouse.
  • Zer0 from Borderlands 2 is BOTH of these, depending on how he's specced. One branch of his tech tree focuses on sniping skills, while another focuses on melee. While it's technically possible to put points into both branches, it's not advisable, meaning most Zero players will only be one or the other at any given time.
    • In a somewhat more general sense, Zer0 is this to Salvador out of the original team of four. Where Zer0 has lots of skills that buff his ability to snipe, Salvador gets a lot of abilities that enhance his ability to simply tank damage at point-blank range, usually while vaporizing enemies with Guns Akimbo. The same is true of Gaige and Krieg, who are definitely better in melee and have skills that favor shotguns.
  • Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! is all over the place with this. You have Wilhelm and Aurelia as primarily long ranged classes (the latter being a very literal Cold Sniper) because their powers are best at range, while Athena primarily fights in melee with her shield and Claptrap is a random bundle of nonsense with proximity-powered abilities. Nisha and "Jack" are a more mixed bag, with the former favoring both pistols and rifles while the latter has holograms to do the dirty work for him.
• League of Legends:
  • You have Cold Sniper Caitlyn and Lightning Bruiser Vi, Piltover's finest law-enforcement duo.
  • From Bilgewater you have the card-slinging Squishy Wizard Twisted Fate and his shotgun-toting bruiser of a partner Graves.
• The Mega Man X series has The Hero X who uses an Arm Cannon to shoot foes from afar, and The Lancer Zero who wields a Laser Blade to deal heavy close-range damage.
• In Code Geass: Lost Colors, if he joins the Brittanian Experimental Unit protagonist Rai gets his own version of canon character Suzaku Kururugi's Lancelot. While Suzaku's Lancelot is geared towards moving quickly into close quarters range, Rai's Lancelot Club is equipped with a variable rifle that can switch between sniper mode and assault rifle mode. Both Lancelots have roughly equal speed, but Rai's Club is designed more towards quickly moving to suitable sniping positions while Suzaku goes in close.
• Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: Komaru and her Hacking Gun is the long-range fighter. Genocide Jack, using her scissors, is the short-range fighter.
• Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number: Ash and Alex are a Brother–Sister Team who are controlled as one character. Ash can pick up and fire guns, and Alex has a chainsaw on her at all times.
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has Daruk and Revali of the Champions. Daruk is a friendly and boisterous wielder of club-like greatswords who acts as a Big Brother Mentor to Link, while Revali is a smug and egotistical archer who never lets Link forget his disdain for him. Link himself splits the difference, being skilled with both melee weapons and bows.
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown has the Sniper class and the Assault classes, at least on a tactical level. Sniper deal massive damage from afar, but lack the ability to shoot on the move, making large open area their personal kill zones, while Assaults get several abilities to get up close and personal and shoot on the move.
  • Ditto for XCOM2 with the Sharpshooter and the Ranger (who now wields both a Short-Range Shotgun and a machete), and with the War of the Chosen expansion pack, they can even develop Bonds.
• Terraria has the Twins, a pair of floating eyes fought in early Hardmode. Retinazer, who stays above the player, utilizes Beam Spam in all parts of the fight, while Spazmatism, who stays parallel to the player, uses a fire-based Breath Weapon.
• Illager patrols and raids in Minecraft primarily consist of two types of Illagers: The axe-wielding Vindicators that attack exclusively with melee, and the crossbow-toting Pillagers who fight at a distance.
• Rabi-Ribi has protagonist Erina, who lacks any magical abilities by herself but has the Piko Hammer and Carrot Bombs to use for close-range attacks, and her Fairy Companion Ribbon, who specializes in ranged magical attacks. Combined this gives players access to both, but notably if you use Ribbon's Boost attacks (which causes her to fly off to perform a Limit Break,) the player loses control of her for the duration and can't fire any normal projectiles.
• Defied in the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers game for the SNES. Despite Kimberly's weapon being a bow, there are no ranged options in the game, so she just beats enemies to death with her weapon in melee like everyone else.
• Kratos in God of War (2018) fights primarily at close range with his Leviathan Ax (though he does have a few ranged attacks, such as throwing it), while his son Atreus uses a bow to lay down suppressing fire on command.

Web Animation

• In the machinima series Red vs. Blue Sarge (leader of the Red Team) wields a shotgun almost everywhere while Church (leader of the Blue Team) uses a sniper rifle, although he has a terrible aim with it.
• The Mecha Spies from STBlackST's videos; the brother with the Summer Hat uses a baseball bat while the brother without dual wields revolvers.

Web Videos

• The first campaign of Critical Role has the twins Vex and Vax - Vex is a Ranger who uses a longbow or delegates to her bear companion, rarely getting into the thick of combat, while Vax is a Rogue who favours Devious Daggers in melee.

Western Animation

• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Azula's companions Mai and Ty Lee. Mai fights from afar with throwing knives; Ty Lee fights up close with acrobatic martial arts.
• Harley Quinn (2019): Harley Quinn has this dynamic with Poison Ivy, with Harley using her bat and acrobatics for close-range combat while Ivy uses her plant powers from a distance.

Real Life

• A common arrangement in armies is to have military units that specialize in close range work and units that specialize in long range. Usually there is a mobile arm as well leading to the famous "horse, foot, and guns" triad of the eighteenth century. Another example is musketeers and pikemen in armies before bayonets.

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