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Underestimating Badassery

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Underestimating Badassery (trope)

Col. Bagley: They have no rifles; they're savages with bows and arrows!
Cpt. Algren: Whose sole occupation for the last thousand years has been war.

We, the audience, know just how awesome the badass is, whether they look the part or not. Unfortunately, not everyone else in the story does, even when the former is the case.

So maybe our hero walks into a bar, where some of the regulars don't take too kindly to him. Or maybe a couple of thugs accost him on the street. Sure, he might look dangerous, but he's outnumbered and outgunned, so he shouldn't be a problem, right?

The viewers watch with bated breath for the moment that these guys find out that they've woefully underestimated the level of badassery involved. Let the curb stomping begin.

Compare Beware the Nice Ones, Good Is Not Soft, The So-Called Coward, Mugging the Monster, You Wouldn't Shoot Me, Dude, Where's My Respect?, Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass. Underestimating Intelligence is the intellectual version. One of the worst times to do this is when offering someone One Free Hit, since the last thing you want is to foolishly offer someone strong enough to KO or kill you with one blow a chance to hit you with their best shot. For villainous examples, see Not-So-Harmless Villain and Do Not Taunt Cthulhu. For the video game version see Suicidal Overconfidence. Contrast Bullying a Dragon (where the perpetrator antagonizes someone despite knowing full and well how Badass they are and without any perceived advantage), Badass on Paper (for cases of Overestimating Badassery) and Mistaken for Badass (same).

No Real Life Examples, Please! noreallife


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Films — Animation 
  • Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker has a lot of this going on:
    • When Terry McGinnis as Batman interrupts the Jokerz' attempted robbery, he seriously underestimates them, with the result that he gets beaten up pretty badly. It's not a curb-stomp — he gives almost as good as he gets, and stops the robbery to boot — but he pays for it.
    • When Terry/Batman comes after the gang's hideout, the Jokerz think they can take him down like they did in the beginning of the film, but he casually curb-stomps all five of them.
    • The Joker also drastically underestimates Terry, contemptuously dismissing him as a "Bat-fake" before their final confrontation. While the Joker knows Bruce, Terry makes it a point to let Joker know that he doesn't know much about himself while kneeing Joker with a Groin Attack.
      Joker: You're out of your league, McGinnis. I know every trick the original Batman and Robin knew at their peak.
      Terry: Maybe. But you don't know a thing about me.
      Joker: You?! What's to know?! You're a punk! A rank amateur! A costumed errand boy taking orders from a senile old man!
    • Terry, for his part, inverts the trope: at first, he seriously over-estimates the Joker, seeing him as the monster out of Batman's old files, the psychopathic genius who nearly beat Batman multiple times and left permanent scars on the entire Bat-family. However, during their final showdown, Bruce's description of the Joker gives Terry a flash of inspiration: use the Joker's own tactics against him! He does it with a vengeance, describing the clown as just a stupid manchild who always failed to break the Bat and has nothing to offer but corny, lame jokes and a ridiculous motive for his villainy. It drives the Joker into a spectacular Villainous Breakdown. Ironically, Joker isn't entirely wrong when he furiously shouts that Terry isn't Batman — Terry is his own Batman.
  • In The Book of Life, Manolo gets this treatment from Xibalba, when the god arrogantly believes that Manolo can't warn La Muerte about his cheating or pass his final test. He's proven wrong both times.
  • KPop Demon Hunters: Jinu is completely blindsided by Rumi's willingness to return to the fight after her friends and fame have been stripped away. Either he forgot or never knew that a Hunter who is young and cute and nice is still a Hunter.
  • Po Ping of the Kung Fu Panda franchise tends to get this a lot due to being, well... a panda. The underestimating isn't limited to the bad guys, either, as even his own allies tend to be surprised by what he can actually pull off.
    • Tai Lung in particular really underestimates Po in the first movie. About a minute later, Po actually does sit on him, on the stairs.
      Tai Lung: [to Shifu] Him? He's a panda! [to Po] You're a panda! What are you going to do, big guy? Sit on me?
      Po: Don't tempt me.
      • Also, Vachir really thinks the defenses of his prison can hold Tai Lung in. To cut a long story short, they don't.
    • The sequel has Lord Shen do this as well, despite him literally being destined to lose to Po. Although Shen does kill a far more well-known kung fu master at the beginning of the film, so he can at least be forgiven.
    • Kung Fu Panda 3 has General Kai, who interestingly enough, doesn't really underestimate Po much. He knows how powerful Po is, but just arrogantly believes that he is more powerful.
  • The Lion King:
    • The Lion King (1994): When Simba and his best friend Nala get into an argument over who deserves credit for their plan to ditch Zazu, Simba attempts to win by pouncing on Nala and forcing her to admit he deserves the credit, expecting it to be easy thanks to his earlier pouncing lessons from his dad. To his surprise and shock though, Nala easily flips him over and pins him down instead in one fluid motion. Simba shoves her off him in embarassment, and shortly afterwards when she turns her back on him and he sees she is distracted, he tries to get revenge by pouncing on her again from behind. But he accidentally sends them both rolling down a nearby hill and while he struggles to stay on top of her, she is just laughing the whole way down. Upon reaching the bottom she once again ends up flipping and pinning him down, smugly rubbing her victory in his face.
    • The Lion King (2019): One of the thousand reasons Scar's coup would fail, as implied in the prequel, is that he perceived the non-royal subjects of the Pride Lands as glorified furniture who would respect and obey any king. In actuality, they were experienced survivors who had already defeated one tyrant and only had a king to begin with because they wanted one. When Scar proves himself utterly unworthy of the throne, they do what they did with Kiros; pull up stakes and leave.
  • Monsters University, seemingly the majority predicted, including dean herself, that team Oozma Kappa would have no chance of winning the "Scare Games". And to be fair, the team initially did lack developed skills with its members and shown poor teaming namely from front-runners Mike and Sully (only luckily winning the first round due to one of the other teams' disqualification). However, the team gradually got better and improved as the games went on, eventually coming in second place to Roar Omega Roar.
  • A villainous variant happens in Osmosis Jones, when Thrax walks into a "sauna" in Frank's armpit that's occupied by a group of germ gangsters. Their leader Scabies threatens him, telling him to "take your little hustle someplace else". Thrax then proceeds to utterly annihilate him.
  • The Prince of Egypt shows Rameses and his priests initially viewing the Hebrew God with careless contempt. Then the Plagues start.
  • The Secret Life of Pets 2: Snowball expects Little Sergei not to be a match for him and pays dearly for that mistake. He knows better during their next fight and wins.
  • Spider-Man: Spider-Verse:
  • The Super Mario Bros. Movie: Occurs when Mario and Donkey Kong are going head-to-head, and Mario gets his hands on the Cat Suit. Donkey Kong just laughs because his foe "got the Cat Box" (seeing the suit as comical and childish), but with the Cat Suit, Mario proves just how powerful he is now with Super-Speed and quick reflexes in addition to the other powers gained with the suit.

    Music 
  • Kenny Rogers's "Coward of the County" — a man who took an oath to never resort to violence, comes home and discovers that three men had gang-raped his wife. He tracks them down to the bar they were drinking at. One goes to confront him and he turns right around and, as they laugh, walks back to the front door. Then he locks it so they won't be able to run away from the aggression he's been bottling up for 20 years. When he's done, not one of them is still standing.
    • He then stands there and apologises to the soul of his dead father for not being strong enough to walk away from this one.

    Pro Wrestling 
  • Pretty much anyone who picks a fight with a pro wrestler thinking it's going to be easy because wrestling isn't real. First of all, even though the finishes are decided beforehand, the levels of strength and toughness required to be a pro wrestler are immense. Second, although pro wrestling has been predetermined and show biz for about a century, catch-wrestling techniques form the base of pro wrestling, and catch-wrestling is absolutely a real style of fighting. There are far too many stories of wrestlers winning bar fights against football players and boxers and other assorted hooligans to recount here individually — the point is, don't start trouble with a wrestler unless you want to get dropped on your head.
  • The only Canadian Wrestling Revolution women's champion, Sara Del Rey, had reason to be confident in her abilities, but not enough to call a match against The Super hardcore Anime (aka, LuFisto) easy, much less a title defense. LuFisto was in earshot and immediately interrupted Del Rey's promo to call her out.
  • Gregory Helms, aka The Hurricane, is a Lethal Joke Character so this is to be expected... But his match against The Rock takes this to its zenith point. The first part of the match is a very uphill battle for Hurricane with Rock and the announcers treating the match as little more than a joke. Every time the Rock assumes that Hurricane is finished he manages to shoot back to life and fight back with some damn fine wrestling, but even then the Rock seems more surprised than actually hurt. But near the end of the match, Hurricane EXPLODES out of a near-minute-long chokehold and proceeds to spend the next five minutes pounding the ever-loving crap out of the Rock and making him look like an amateur. Rock manages to survive the three count only by the slimmest of milliseconds. Stone Cold makes an appearance a little later and Hurricane uses the distraction to once again spring to life and land a schoolboy on the Rock for the win.
  • In NWA Ring Warriors, Sienna Duvall relished at the chance to beat Su Yung, whom she viewed as a "diva" due to training in the WWE revived FCW. La Rosa Negra, who was already in a prolonged feud with Duvall, had little to say about Yung, just told Duvall to remember she was not a diva. After La Rosa initially brushed Yung aside though Su ended up becoming the top contender to her title and one of her most respected adversaries (though Yung's big moment was slightly spoiled by the champ actually being hospitalized from it)
  • Cheerleader Melissa did not think much of Ivelisse Vélez, whom she had to defend her women's title against when Pro Wrestling Revolution sent her to Puerto Rico to get them more exposure with the World Wrestling League and made this feeling clear by beating her all around the ring and even canceling what would have been a successful pin to slap her around some more. Vélez rallied and ended up pinning Melissa for the title belt. Her reign lasted only three weeks but in that time she successfully retained against Melissa again before she finally learned to take Vélez more seriously. Ironically, Melissa had to face Sarah Stock, whom she had previously underestimated in SHIMMER to get back into title contention.
  • This became the death knell for Bart Gunn's career (At least in WWE). While there are reports that the WWE Brawl for All was being used as a vehicle for "Dr. Death" Steve Williams that would eventually lead to a feud with Steve Austin, Gunn, who himself had a background of being a toughman, noticed this and suggested to hold off the match between them until the end, but was condescendingly told that they believed in Williams's ability to win. This mockery likely fueled his drive to win as, after Williams tore his hamstring in the match, Gunn managed to win via knockout. After winning the Brawl for All Gunn was sent home, having heat with management for ruining their plans for Williams, as he would only be brought back at Wrestlemania 15 to be fed to Butterbean in a Brawl for All match as a punishment before being fired afterward.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech: Has the Battle of Tukayyid as an example, then the Clans, a ridiculously militaristic society of warriors born from hundred years of eugenics programs were challenged by semi-religious interstellar telecommunications company ComStar in a desperate attempt to save Earth from conquest. The Clans recklessly underbid their forces, barely caring about even studying the tactics of their opposing commander, Anastasius Focht, treating the battle more like an inevitable formality rather than a serious campaign. In their eyes, Focht was a paper general only and his army were merely inexperienced bureaucrats playing at war. As a result, when the Clans landed on Tukayyid, they did not anticipate that actual preparations had been taken against them. Focht led his relatively green but very well trained ComGuard forces in absolutely mauling the Clan forces through well-planned tactics and heavily prepared defences—as it turned out, far from a bureaucrat, he was actually Frederick Steiner, a lifelong Frontline General and one of the Inner Sphere's finest battlefield commanders at that. Tukayyid would collectively cost the Clans over a third of their stockpiled war materiel, and almost as many warriors, including two Khans killed-in-action. It also forced the live-fast-die-young culture of the Clans to endure a fifteen-year truce that not only sapped Clan morale (as most warriors would now expect to go their entire active career without the hope of seeing conquest) but also laid the groundwork for the eventual Inner Sphere counter-invasion and later, the fratricidal Clan civil war known as the Wars of Reaving. In the words of an insightful Fandom VIP:
    Tex of the Black Pants Legion: The Clanners made the worst mistake possible you could make when looking at an opponent. They dismissed him as a joke and failed to respect him, and for that, he fucking broke them.
  • Chronicles of Darkness:
  • During Magic: The Gathering's Alara block, Nicol Bolas is an eons-old Elder Dragon Planeswalker (there is only one other Planeswalker older than him in the entire series). Ajani Goldmane is a newly Ignited Leonin Planeswalker. Bolas taunts Ajani with a badass boast about how old he is, and Ajani responds by using his soul magic to create the one foe Bolas would never be able to ignore: a copy of Bolas himself.
  • In Traveller one of the main reasons the Terran Confederation defeated the Vilani Imperium was that the Vilani, at first didn't think much of Terra and effectively thought of themselves as trying to "arrest" it rather than trying to "conquer" it. They found out that Terrans were warriors.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade: A common meta example — often, many fights are between the player characters and human gangbangers who don't know that the people in front of them can, among other things, punch through walls, take a shotgun blast to the face, outrun a high-speed train or swing a longsword with one hand. And how the players love it.
    • In-Universe The Nosferatu get this. They're hideously ugly and spend most of their time in the sewers, so they're easy to ignore. The thing is, they're also impossibly good at information collection, and are masters of Obfuscate, which lets them change their appearances and outright disappear at will. They know more about you than any other sapient creature on the planet, and there's nothing you can do to stop them learning it. Never piss off the people who can hand the people who want you dead an itemized list of your weaknesses... There's also the fact that one of their Disciplines gives them Super-Strength, making them fully capable of dealing with people who provoke them on their own.
    • Clan Toreador gets this a lot. The Clan of the Rose are generally dismissed as artsy hipsters more interested in wallowing in mortal pleasures and whiling away the nights with art of all kinds than being predators of the night. These people forget that every Toreador possesses Super-Speed and Super-Senses, meaning that they can all be above-average brawlers and gunslingers in a pinch. Furthermore, the Toreador inclination towards social pursuits makes them excellent interrogators, which, coupled with Super-Senses, makes them capable of investigating things no others can. A disproportionately high number of Sheriffs (including The Dreaded Qadir al-Asmai, Sheriff of New York) are Toreador. Then there are those Toreador who are martial artists... let's just say that everyone minds their manners around them, and those that don't die horribly.
    • The Ventrue tend to be thought of as just doing nothing but accumulating money and trading favors, but this has granted the Clan of Kings countless allies to use against their enemies. It has been emphasized that you never fight against a Venture, you fight against a Ventrue and everyone they have working for them, even people who simply made eye contact with them considering the Ventrue also have access to the Dominate and Presence Disciplines. Even then, they are far from helpless in a direct fight as they also have Fortitude which allows them to shrug off attacks that would be fatal to other Kindred.
  • Warhammer:
    • Many opponents think that the young troopers of Ricco's Republican Guard are more interested in looking good and parading through the streets than in fighting. When they get into battle, however, the Republican Guard prove that they are an elite and highly skilled unit of pikemen who, in game terms, have a higher Weapon Skill characteristic than regular basic infantry.
    • Most people tend to have a hard time believing that Lumpin Croop's Fighting Cocks, a band of rotund halflings in jaunty clothes, can possibly be all that dangerous. The Fighting Cocks are, in fact, that dangerous, being expert trackers, skilled fighters, and nearly fearless, and have won their fair share of battles against foes that underestimated them.
  • Warhammer 40,000: This happens absurdly often, to the point where one wonders how these individuals have managed to survive for so long considering they tend to die horribly after severely underestimating their opponent. Examples include but are definitely not limited to Imperial Guard thinking that Orks are mindless brutes, Orks thinking Imperial Guard are just squishy wimps, Space Marines thinking filthy Eldar are no match for their zeal, Eldar thinking Space Marines are foolish primitives, everyone else thinking Necrons are just machines, Necrons thinking everyone else is just defenseless vermin... it happens a lot, is the point.
    • The most ironic example is Ciaphas Cain, who honestly believes he's an abject coward. Except events and his own better nature keep conspiring to make him a hero. Despite his claims, he is genuinely brave on more than one occasion. At one point, he tries desperately to get back to an isolated friend who's about to be overrun and blames it on some sort of head injury.
    • One time, a squad of Orks and their gigantic Warboss see an unarmed Space Marine with broken armour digging his way out of a pile of rubble. Thinking this is going to be an easy skull on his boss pole, the Warboss and his boyz attack. Rather than being a quick kill, the Space Marine instead charges into the fray and starts killing Orks with his bare hands. It finally ends when the Space Marine hoists the Warboss up and yanks out his heart. This is the first appearance of Mephiston, the Blood Angels' Lord of Death.
    • The planet Nocturne was a frequent target of Dark Eldar raids until the superhuman primarch Vulkan came along and decided to fight back. Inspiring the natives humans, ordinary people who up until then had given up fighting in favor of hiding to give their super-advanced, nigh immortal and better-equipped tormentors such a beating that they never came back.
    • The T'au and the Imperium were both hit by this when T'au expansion ran into imperial space. The Imperium though the T'au were a tiny, insignificant Xenos empire they could just roll over like they have many times before; meanwhile the T'au though the Imperium were a decrepit, dying civillisation on the brink of collapse that they could bring down with a lightning strike. To a certain extent they were both right, the T'au are tiny but far more competent that the Imperium gave them credit for; meanwhile the Imperium is rotting from within but can still field armies larger than anything the T'au could dream of. They ended up fighting each other to a bloody stalemate and settling into a state of Space Cold War.

    Webcomics 
  • In El Goonish Shive, Voltaire knew Tara was dangerous. It just never crossed his mind that she would be dangerous to HIM.
  • Erfworld: As the quote on the quotes page indicates, Parson Gotti is subjected to this a lot, mainly because, coming from Earth to, well, Erf, he doesn't know anything the "perfect warlord" should know. They get enlightened. Forcibly. Apparently, Rules Lawyering is the greatest ability a warlord on Erf can possess.
  • Girl Genius: This happens with a significant number of characters.
    • Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Check yourself. Incidentally, this also happens to be his Berserk Button, making it an even bigger mistake than it usually is.
    • Gilgamesh had that trope reversed on him later on, not realizing that Vole was holding back to avoid seriously hurting the Baron's son. However, he is no longer worried about that. The end of this fight also makes him one of the very few people who managed to scare a Jäger.
    • Later, Tarvek happens upon a crying woman cradling the bodies of two dead animals that she failed to save. They are attacked again. This happens. He apparently didn't learn though as five minutes later he needs to be reminded.
    • How dangerous could Gil's valet be? First Bangladesh DuPree and then Boris Dolokov find out.
    • Zola makes the mistake of stabbing someone the apparently ordinary Airman Higgs was just starting to like, prompting a truly EPIC beatdown.
    • And of course, who would ever think a fluffy white cat was an evil mastermind?
    • Even the title character frequently gets underestimated, though she also has almost as many problems with people OVERestimating her and reacting accordingly.
  • In Gosu this typically happens to those that face Gang Ryong without knowing who he is, sometimes even after finding out. This is mainly due to the fact that he is a chubby young man whose day job is a dumpling delivery boy.
  • Magick Chicks: Faith counts as both an In-Universe and meta example.
  • In Nixvir, everyone in the World Oak is complicit of this in some form or another. Because they've been isolated from the multiverse for a thousand years, snowmen don't exactly have a good reputation for heroics in the eyes of everyone else, being reduced to either "comic buffoons" or "companions for ice queens" (which is a jab at the many pieces of children's fiction in real-life which have marginalised snowmen like this). In addition, similarly to J.R.R. Tolkien's Hobbits, everyone assumes them, prior to Ragnar escaping the snow world, to be nothing more than mere nursery folklore. As a result, everyone in the world underestimates Erik, from the Faerie Redmane to the Wicked Witch of the North Pole to even the local army. When Erik proves his mettle in the Battle of Conevstall, everyone's attitude changes, and Erik begins to be treated with respect as a war hero.
  • The Order of the Stick:
    • Tsukiko assumes she can threaten Redcloak to his face, figuring he is the spineless wimp Xykon always treated him as. Further boosting her confidence is her belief that Xykon would side with her over Redcloak (he probably would too, if only to cheese off Redcloak, but he doesn't have any emotional investment beyond that), as well as several other advantages ranging from her ghoul entourage, her massive spell selection, and her comparative advantage in terms of teleport spells. Instead, Redcloak proceeds to take control of her wights, counter all her spells, block her teleportation, give her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and have the wights kill her.
    • Xykon runs into this a lot. Most people who meet or see him for the first time assume that, as a "walking villainy cliché", he must be very easy to get rid of. And while Xykon is in no hurry to prove them wrong, he's incredibly powerful and devious. Both Roy and Vaarsuvius thought they could take on the lich single-handedly, and nearly paid the price. Roy died in his second attempt, but got better. So far, the only real threat to his existence was the ghost-martyr of Soon Kim.
    • During his occupation of Durkon's body, the High Priest of Hel dismissed him as a threat to his plans, constantly belittled him, and said he was powerless to stop him. Through a combination of strong will and inviolate morality, Durkon managed to overwhelm the vampire spirit and gave Belkar an opening to finish him off.
  • Schlock Mercenary: When General Tagon comes at the crime boss Damico with a knife-wielding remote-controlled headless cybernetic monkey, she is a bit nonplussed, but resolves not to underestimate it, so she orders a sergeant (wearing full Powered Armor) to handle it. The sergeant notes that he doesn't want to be known as the guy who died because he underestimated a monkey, so he orders his best marksman to shoot it. Then a robot cuts everyone's hands off while they're distracted by the guy about to shoot a monkey.
  • In Spying with Lana, Lana's opponents tend to do this to her. They usually get a physical (or verbal) smackdown in return. Sometimes, they get both.
  • Survival Story of a Sword King in a Fantasy World: Protagonist Ryu Han-Bin is a walking, talking, shirtless dude carrying a BFS as long as he's tall and built like a brick Shithouse. Despite this, people continuously underestimate his combat prows because he has a faulty guideline that says he's level 5, in a world where the average adventurer is supposed to be level 20 starting off. This leads many people to assume his intimidating appearance is just for show, and his actual strength is pitiful, based on his low level. Whilst it's true that Hanbin's level is low, his stats are actually astronomically high for a 'beginner', basically making him the World's Strongest Man when he's pushed into combat situations, which he handles with comical nonchalance whilst his enemies realise that his looks really do match his danger level, and they've walked into a fight they can't win.
  • Tales of the Questor: Quentyn gets this a lot when he first starts out. Chances are it'll happen again; he does, after all, look like an animate plush toy...
  • TwoKinds: A group of hooded, alleged Templars attacking a village gathering spot the approach of the village's guardian, the dragoness Reni. One of the "Templars" tries to calm the rest, saying that Reni's only a juvenile and that their magic shields will stand up to even a dragon's fire. Cue Reni swatting one of them (and a chunk of the wall he was standing on) to the ground with her claws.note 
    Templar: ...We've played our part. [teleports out]
  • In Weak Hero, even those who are aware of Gray's fearsome reputation often find themselves underestimating the skinny, pale kid when they meet him in the flesh. They always, without question, come to regret it.
  • In The Weekly Roll, Becket is at one point shown arguing with Trevor over whether or not to help out a mailman being robbed. Midway through this, the mailman walks by them, leaving the bandits dead and Becket utterly baffled. We later get an entire spinoff comic about the order of Pos'Thal, the single most dangerous and underestimated group of monks in all the land.
    Trevor: Yeah, don't fuck with the postal order.
  • We Live In An MMO?!, a group of players insult and look down on the main party due to the "2nd tier equipment", believing them to be beneath them. When they finally step over the line, they're subject to a merciless beat-down by Rando, the party's warrior.
  • Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic: "You know what we pirates do with naked tied-up women, don't you?" SMACK. "Underestimate them, apparently."

    Web Original 
  • Cobra Kai: About halfway through Season 1, Yasmine tries her "mean girl"-routine on Aisha. Since Aisha out-bulks Yasmine by six inches and fifty pounds, this is borderline "Too Dumb to Live" to begin with, but Aisha has at that point been through Cobra Kai's Training from Hell, is counted as the dojo's second-best student, and managed to impress the intensely sexist Johnny Lawrence with her capacity for swift, uncompromising brutality to the point that he called her "... a natural cobra.". Aisha proceeds to deadlift Yasmine off the ground, one-handed, by her panties, and leave her in a fetal ball of pain and failure on the ground.
  • Epithet Erased: The Banzai Jennifers assume that pointing guns, which are canonically pretty low-impact in EE, will allow them to make everyone hold still, including Howie Honeydew, who's busy with construction work and just ignores them. When one fires a shot at the clock he's installing into a building facade, Howie - a Badass Normal whose stats are the second-best in the animated episodes, outdone only by Zora - bends a wrench into a boomerang with his bare hands, knocks down all three with it in one throw, catches it, and straightens it out again.
  • Helluva Boss: In "Exes and Oohs", Moxxie's father Crimson grows increasingly frustrated that his henchmen cannot kill a rampaging Millie, who effortlessly tears through the lot of them in a matter of minutes right in front of him as he repeatedly cries out that she's "just a broad". By the end of it all of Crimson's mooks are reduced to sushi, forcing him to let Moxxie go if only to save his own skin.
  • Red vs. Blue: During the first PSA video showcasing the then-recent Halo 3: ODST title, seeing as the ever-limelighted Master Chief won't be in said action, they scoff, laugh/jeer and think of their "competition" regarding these "ODST" guys they've heard about is just some "regular soldiers" like them. Boy, are they EVER wrong... As they don't realize that ODSTs are the UNSC's hand-picked best-of-the-best troops right behind the legendary Spartans. Needless to say, as they watch the showcase they exchange nervous looks toward eachother as they realize that they're witnessing non-Spartan-based badassery that they clearly weren't expecting whatsoever, after the showcase film ends they are reduced to wondering if they really got the right tape regarding these so-called "regular soldiers" while silently pissing their pants afterward.
  • This is a recurring problem with members of the Atlasian Elite in RWBY:
    • General James Ironwood, for all his paranoia, frequently underestimates just how cunning and capable his enemies are. His obsession with strength-based tactics consistently leads him to be flat-footed by more covert methods. For example, when he brings a massive army to safeguard Vale during Volumes 2-3, he boasts that the intimidation factor alone will dissuade the villains from attacking. Qrow bitterly laughs, "You think she's scared of your little ships?" and during the Fall of Beacon Torchwick uses a computer virus to turn the Atlas robots against the people.
    • In "With Friends Like These", Team RWBY's disgust with Ironwood's heartless methods results in a fight against the Ace-Ops, Ironwood's premier agents. Despite working and training with them throughout the Volume, Harriet scoffs at the idea of some "kids" beating the best Huntsmen in Atlas...only for Team RWBY's better teamwork to systematically take down every one of them. And on interesting note, when Clover chooses to pursue his orders to arrest Qrow as opposed to re-capturing Tyrian, Word of God says it's because he thinks Qrow is the more dangerous of the two, as he knows Qrow is a veteran Huntsman but knows nothing of Tyrian, despite Tyrian killing numerous Huntsmen in Mistral. Clover ends up being killed by Tyrian's hand by the end of the episode.
    • Cinder Fall gets hit after Volume 4, as she's a master manipulator, planner, and improviser, but was traumatized during the Fall of Beacon and is a definite case of Sanity Has Advantages. Arthur Watts in particular seems fond of dismissing her as Dumb Muscle and mocking her intelligence, and even when she's dangling him off a rooftop decides to give her a "The Reason You Suck" Speech about all the ways she's failed thus far. Said speech winds up being the Sanity Strengthening she needed, and she proceeds to play him like a fiddle, making him do all the work for her by playing to his ego and spite before tricking him into staying aboard a burning Atlas, only for him to realize too late that she's locked him in. In Neo's case it's much less justified as she has personal experience with how dangerous Cinder can be, but in the same volume she tries to blackmail her into giving her what she wants. Cinder plays along until Neo outlives her usefulness, and then tosses her into a void.
      • In Volume 5, Cinder clearly thinks she can bully and intimidate Raven Branwen like she did with Torchwick and Adam during the Beacon Saga. During the Battle of Haven, Cinder mocks Raven, claiming that the stories about how strong and clever the bandit was were clearly wrong. As it turns out, Raven was actually the Spring Maiden, but instead of displaying her gifts openly, she had one of her bandits pose as the Maiden as a decoy, which Cinder completely fell for. The ensuing battle shows Raven utterly schooling Cinder, and ends with the Fall Maiden being frozen solid and left for dead.
    • In "Amity", Neo pulls Maria Calavera out of a mech, grinning smugly at the cane-using, elderly woman. What she doesn't know is that Maria is the retired Grimm Reaper, her cane is a collapsible kama, she possesses Spider-Sense, and age has not dulled her skills. Neo, who is difficult for even talented fighters to handle, finds herself being tossed around by a laughing Maria.
  • In Tales Out of Tallis, Rutger tries to manipulate the situation to get his brother Lammert executed, only to learn Lammert had outplayed him before Rutger even got started.
  • "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny" ends with Mister Rogers as the ultimate victor. It also features Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Chan being taken out by a Care-Bear Stare.
  • Jade Sinclair (Generator) of the Whateley Universe gets this a lot, because she's a petite, pretty teenager who looks like a 10-year-old Japanese girl. When she is attacked by Bloodwolf and Maggot and Killstench simultaneously, she knocks two out (breaking one's jaw) and takes out the unstoppable Bloodwolf (who can heal from any injury) by nailing him to a tree. With railroad spikes.
    • Don Sebastiano, at one point, attempts to blackmail Hekate's Master. The incomprehensibly powerful wizard who serves as the main Greater-Scope Villain for Sebastiano himself. With nothing but knowledge of his real identity. As you can imagine, Hekate's Master finds the whole thing hilarious.

    Web Videos 
  • In the Cell Games videos for Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Cell considers Kenshiro to be a crazy homeless person... Up until the point where Kenshiro makes Cell explode. Twice.
    Kenshiro: (uses Hokuto Hyakuretsu Ken on Cell)
    Cell: My god, how did you know I was deathly allergic to tickling? (starts laughing)
    Kenshiro: You are already dead.
    Cell: Ha ha ha ha ha— AAAGH!!! (explodes)
  • Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] Abridged: Shirou Emiya assumes that Rin Tohsaka would logically be a Squishy Wizard and that all he'd have to do to win is close the distance. He's shocked when she reveals herself to be a Kung-Fu Wizard capable of Le Parkour.
  • In Final Fantasy II In A Nutshell, Emperor Palamecia is this for round one with Firion's party.
    Emperor: I'm a pretty bad man. I've killed a lot of people.
    Dark Knight: Firion has killed dragons, giants, chimeras, ghouls, half of our soldiers and elites. What the hell are you thinking, man? You can't take this guy.
    Emperor: Naw, man. I got this. (Later... Firion is stabbing the Emperor to death) Aaah, oh god this sucks! Why didn't you let them directly take them on!? (and he dies)
  • Jreg: In Centricide, Nazi and Commie think the Horseshoe Centrist poses no threat to them, especially since they have him outnumbered 2-to-1, with Nazi even mocking the idea that Horseshoe Centrist could pose a threat to them... right before he pulls out his horseshoe, steals Nazi's gun and begins throwing Commie into the walls.

    Western Animation 
  • Amphibia:
    • In "All In", King Andrias admits to Anne that he had underestimated her when they first meet. But after fusing herself with the Calamity Box's magic, he also says that it made her a worthy component... but only when she activates her powers.
    • The Core does this as well in "The Hardest Thing". When they mockingly asks Anne if she could defeat them with Amphibia's "greatest treasures", the human responds that family and friends are the greatest treasure!
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • At the beginning, Commander Zhao regards Prince Zuko as a weak, bratty teenage punk. They get into an argument, and Zuko challenges him to a duel, which Zhao fully expects to win. Not only does Zuko soundly beat him, but he spares his life as well.
    • Zhao does it again against Aang in a later episode; when warned by his former master that he is not ready to fight the Avatar, Zhao arrogantly replies "I think I can handle a child." The result? Aang makes him look like a fool by tricking him into destroying his own fleet, thus defeating him without landing a blow. Obviously, Zhao never learns.
    • On the surface, Zuko's Uncle Iroh looks like a quirky old man who'd rather do little else besides sleep and drink tea. Of course, he's exactly that, but he's also the Dragon of the West and will kick your ass six ways from Sunday if you give him a reason to. There's more than a few of his foes who don't seem to get that.
    • Long Feng saw Princess Azula as a smart and potentially dangerous teenager who was still in way over her head, believing that she would be easy to manipulate and betray. Unfortunately for him, she was actually a full-fledged Magnificent Bastard beyond even his level, who only played along with that idea before turning his own men against him with her cunning and ruthlessness.
  • Avengers Assemble: During the "Civil War" arc, the Mighty Avengers get the regular Avengers to surrender, save for Black Widow, who'd split when she realized one way or another they couldn't win the fight. Captain Marvel dismisses this, complete with a "what can she do". In the next episode, Nat's infiltrated the super-secret prison the Avengers have been stashed in and freed them in the first five minutes.
  • The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes:
    • When Captain America escapes imprisonment inside the Skrulls' ship, the Skrull commander immediately assumes there is no need to bother because "This man isn't a threat. There is nothing special about him." A few minutes later, Cap has freed all prisoners on board, convinces all of them (some of them being villains) to team up, and leads them to a ship which they use to escape. The Super-Skrull even lampshades his commander's stupidity and tries to kill Captain America, declaring him too dangerous to be left alive.
    • Similarly, in The Deadliest Man Alive, Red Hulk pulled out a plan to forcibly make the Hulk act even more violent than he usually does in order to get rid of him, be accepted as a replacement for him amongst the Avengers, and gradually take control of the team. When his act is revealed after a failed attempt to frame Captain America, he arrogantly mocks the Avengers, calling them a joke and gloating about how he could have easily taken over had he not been discovered... then Iron Man reveals he never trusted him in the first place and put a failsafe in his ID card to neutralize him should he be a traitor. Next second, Red Hulk is immobilized by the failsafe and forcibly turned back into his human alter ego, General Ross.
  • Batman: Caped Crusader:
    • Both Batman and Harvey Dent underestimate Rupert Thorne’s capabilities and the reach he has in Gotham, where they dismiss the threat Thorne poses. This backfires on both Batman and Dent, where Thorne has the latter disfigured and killed and eventually succeeds in getting everything he wants, which causes Batman to no longer underestimate Thorne, instead making stopping Thorne his top priority.
    • In "The Killer Inside Me", Thorne finds himself on the other side of this trope. Despite being warned that the recently disfigured Dent is now on the warpath against him, he dismisses him as no threat as he couldn't touch him back when he was DA. Thorne begins to wise up to his mistake, after learning Dent had managed to track down his safehouse, and kill his right hand and his bodyguards, by calling in more muscle but still makes the mistake of refusing to leave his home arguing it's a "fortress" and believing his guards will be more than capable of protecting him. Sure enough, Dent manages to successfully break in, kill all his enforcers and if it wasn't for the arrival of Batman would have killed both Thorne and his beloved son.
  • Ben 10:
    • The title protagonist tends to get this a lot, especially in the original show, because he is 1) a human in a universe where his species is considered primitive and 2) a kid who happened to end up accidentally in charge of the most powerful weapon in the universe which he barely understands. However, he turns out to be quite good at using it and only gets better with time. Eventually, the villains who already clashed with him before are smart enough to warn their minions about not underestimating him (Ghostfreak once beat up his Dragon Dr Vicktor for believing Ben was not worth killing). In the sequels, however, Ben's multiple exploits ended up making him a Living Legend, and most villains are careful about not underestimating him.
    • One of the most noticeable cases of this trope is Simian, an Arachnichimp Con Man who wrongly assumes he could easily fool Ben into doing his job for him by making up a sad story to gain his sympathy. Ben goes along with it, but, by the end of the episode, we find out he actually had started to figure out the truth about midway through the episode, and already Out-Gambitted Simian. The poor alien con man ends up finding out about that far too late, when he is already in the presence of his very pissed-off employer...
    • Ben himself severely underestimated Vilgax's lackey Psyphon twice, seeing as Vilgax is basically The Juggernaut, while Psyphon would almost never fight and just built tech for his master or advised him. Due to this, Ben assumed he wouldn't be much of a threat once his master was absent. The first time they fight, Psyphon actually proves a challenge to Ultimate Spider-Monkey; the second time, he messes with his nerves, forcing him to go back to human form in order to not hurt anyone. Both times, Ben survived mostly thanks to an interruption of the fight.
    • Ironically, Psyphon himself underestimates Rook during their first fight:
      Rook: The Body Armor is not for sale, Psyphon!
      Psyphon: [shooting at him] Oooo, I don't want to buy it! I will pry it from your lifeless body. How green are you?
      [Rook dodges his Eye Beams and tricks him into causing the whole place to collapse on him]
      Rook: Not so green that I let a tunnel collapse on me.
    • In a moment of Bond Villain Stupidity, Dr. Psychobos assumes Ben isn't a threat to the Faction's plan... even though at this point, Ben has pretty much already become a Living Legend who saved the Universe several times. Malware even calls him out for it.
  • Castlevania (2017):
    • Alucard upon meeting Trevor Belmont says the latter has nothing but insults, at which Trevor holy whips his Dyampir ass across the room.
    • Carmilla in Season 2 being The Starscream assumes she and her army can just take down Dracula by force. Considering the heroes got utterly trounced by Dracula in combat and only "won" thanks to his Heel Realization, Carmilla may have overestimated her chances a bit.
    • The Corrupt Church is the biggest offender, as they ignored Dracula's threats that he would rain hell upon them for killing his wife in two years if they didn't repent. When the time came and the church celebrated instead, claiming "the devil lied" they only had themselves to blame when The Legions of Hell showed up.
    • While trying to get to the harbor Isaac is accosted by a group of Tunisian guards that want him to leave the city immediately and threaten him with weapons. While he is surrounded by a large group of vicious monsters. The guards don't last long when they press the issue. Happens again with the guards in Genoa with pretty much the same result.
  • DC Animated Universe:
    • Batman: The Animated Series: Batman once does this when first dealing with the bespectacled and nerdy efficiency expert Temple Fugate in "The Clock King". Rather than hitting fast and hard, he announces his entry and declares that he's going to "clean [Fugate's] clock". After a brief bit of boasting, Fugate says "en garde" and proceeds to visibly shock Batman by giving him an impressive fight. As it turns out, Fugate had prepared for this by studying news footage of Batman's fights. He practically chases Batman around the clock tower, only "losing" because Batman manages to get the guy's own sword stuck in the clockwork mechanisms, making the clock tower collapse. The next time Fugate appears in "Time Out of Joint", Batman has learned from his prior mistake, setting up a trap to blind Fugate and then tranquilize him. It still doesn't work, partially because Fugate Offhand Backhands him away when he tries to grab him from behind, but points for trying.
    • Superman: The Animated Series:
      • This is one of the primary themes behind "World's Finest", which brings Batman and the Joker into the picture. Both Superman and Lex Luthor see both the Joker and Batman as non-superpowered beings not worth their time and energy. By the end, Batman has scared the crap out of Luthor (something even Superman never even managed) by breaking into his penthouse, and the Joker comes closer to killing Superman than just about any other villain had previously, almost kills Luthor, takes over the mob, and almost levels a good portion of Metropolis to the ground.
      • "A Fish Story", which introduces Aquaman, has him attacking Luthor's assets for endangering seal life by testing explosives in international waters. While Luthor doesn't question Aquaman's powers, he does sees him as nothing but an eco-terrorist who should just be taken care of and is a nuisance at best. Cue The Reveal that Aquaman is the king of Atlantis, his army showing up to wreck a ship in a matter of seconds, and Luthor realizing he just almost started a war with an entire nation whose technology is more than capable of slaughtering humanity.
    • Justice League:
      • In his first appearance, Grodd dismisses the Flash as a mere inconvenience, though partially justified in that he was able to fall for his mind control twice along with foolishly revealing himself and Green Lantern while in the middle of a crowd of Brainwashed and Crazy civilians. When Flash starts wearing a headband that nullifies the effects of his helmet, Grodd decides to just pummel him. But he forgets that Flash isn’t an ordinary human, and ends up with suffering some Amusing Injuries before getting his mind fried by his own helmet after the speedster sabotages it at super speed. This defeat leaves Grodd bitter enough that he refuses to do an Enemy Mine with the Flash in a future episode.
      • Batman sometimes this too, just like in the comics — notably from Dr. Destiny in "Only a Dream":
        Dr. Destiny: But you're different. You don't have any special powers.
        Batman: Oh, I have one, Johnny: I never give up.
      • There's also Batman's attempt to intimidate Amanda Waller in "Ultimatum". He expects her to crumble like most supervillains do, and she effortlessly shuts him right up:
        Waller: We know more than you think... rich boy.
      • Batman gets one back later on Waller in "The Doomsday Sanction" when he reveals that if his identity is outed, he'll drag Waller's secrets out into the public as well, and which one of them is going to look worse? Bonus points for telling this to Waller while they're standing in her bathroom, where she's just emerged from the shower in her supposedly secret and secure home to find the "rich boy" standing there.
      • In "Divided We Fall", Lex Luthor has just taken out the founding members of the Justice League and is smirking at the Flash. Cue one of the greatest awesome moments of the whole show.
        Luthor/Brainiac: Are you going to fight me, boy?
      • Killer Frost and Toyman in "Alive!". She's a stone-cold killer with ice powers, and he's a dwarfish man with toys. It's an easy win, right? She doesn't even get a single hit in.
    • Elderly Bruce Wayne does this all the frickin' time on Batman Beyond. Proof? Go to the Batman Beyond CMOA page and find all of the Old Bruce Entries. 99.9% of those are this, the other .1% is ass-kicking resulting from this.
      Jokerz Leader: Who do you think you're talking to, old man? We're the Jokerz!
      Bruce Wayne: [dryly] Sure you are.

      Payback: You're a mean old man, you know that?
      Bruce: Mm-hmm. And what are you?
      Payback: I'm your worst nightmare!
      Bruce: You have no idea what my nightmares are like.
  • Hazbin Hotel: Possibly invoked and definitely played for tragedy in Masquerade. Angel Dust angrily drives Charlie out of the porn studio he works in largely out of fear of what his abusive pimp would do to the embarrassingly misplaced Princess Classic otherwise. However, his deep-seated terror of Valentino prevented him from recognizing that his intervention was the only thing between the third most powerful being in all of Hell and the low-level Overlord that managed to push her past her Rage Breaking Point.
  • In Invader Zim, Dib's sister Gaz was the only other person besides him who knew Zim was an alien. However, she felt that he was not a real threat since he was so terrible at being an invader. In Enter The Florpus, she learns just how threatening Zim could be when he tried.
  • Kim Possible: Ron Stoppable is constantly considered a fool and harmless by villains...at least until he causes their lairs to blow up. The ones who really underestimated him and paid the price were the Alien Invaders that attacked the Earth in the Grand Finale, who planned to make Kim into a trophy. Big mistake.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • While Yakone wasn't exactly a poor villain (he was a dangerously skilled Bloodbender and a Crime Lord), he did underestimate Aang according to the flashbacks, mocking him and telling him he dealt with people like him before and would do it again. Apparently, he forgot Aang was the Avatar, meaning a guy connected to the Spirit World and controlling all elements. So it's not that much of a surprise when, during their confrontation, Aang just went Avatar State to brute-force his way out of Yakone's uncanny bloodbending, immobilized him, and took away his bending. To be fair, it was clear Yakone didn't expect to beat Aang in a fight (see: his retreat after he bloodbends the entire courtroom), just paralyze him with bloodbending long enough to escape.
    • Similarly, Yakone's son Tarrlok severely underestimated Amon when confronted by him and ended up with the same fate. Though later scenes make it clear that if he'd known who - and what - Amon really wasnote , he probably would have never confronted him.
    • Also from Legend of Korra, Vaatu disregards Wan, saying that a mere human is no match for an immortal spirit like him. He's right, until Wan fuses with Vaatu's Arch-Enemy Raava and becomes the First Avatar.
    • The Season 3 Episode "Long Live The Queen" has two; first, the Earth Kingdom soldiers do everything they can to restrain Korra, but only chain Asami to a loose pipe, from which she proceeds to break free with ease. The second example involves Earth Queen Hou-Ting and Zaheer's gang, whom she thinks are nothing more than common bounty hunters she can push around. They kill her.
    • The Red Lotus planned to end the Avatar cycle by suspending Korra in platinum chains and poisoning her with mercury. The idea was that the Avatar State would activate to try and save her, but ultimately fail. They didn't count on Korra being able to rip the chains from the rock, fly after and subdue Zaheer, and survive the poison altogether thanks to Suyin's metalbending.
  • A unique case of someone underestimating the potential of one of their own creations appeared in Lilo & Stitch: The Series where Mad Scientist Jumba believed Experiment 523 aka Slushy wasn't very dangerous and could only make things cold and snowy, until he discovered that Slushy was capable of taking the entire island into the next ice age.
    Jumba: It's very evil after all! Hahahahaha!
  • A recurring occurrence in Miraculous Ladybug is that Lila Rossi is continuously underestimated by everyone who may have to fight her:
    • In her debut, Ladybug, angry at her falsely claiming to be her friend to get closer to her crush Adrien, humiliated her in front of the latter, and when Lila gets Akumatized into the illusion-powered villain Volpina, she dismisses her as having the power of making her lies visible. This is right after Volpina almost bluffed her into giving up her Miraculous and only being foiled by bad luck. Needless to say, Volpina does it again later and is only foiled by choosing an illusion Chat Noir knew was fake (namely taking hostage Adrien, Chat Noir's Secret Identity).
    • In "Chameleon", Lila gets Akumatized again, this time with the ability to turn into anyone she kisses, and when she fights Ladybug as Chat Noir, the heroine thinks she has won once she destroyed her staff. Turns out Lila knows kickboxing and just beats Ladybug up, coming this close to win.
    • In "Onichan", Hawk Moth gets angry at Lila's latest lie, and Akumatizes Kagami into the titular villain and sicks her on Lila. To Hawk Moth's surprise, Lila talks Onichan into going after Ladybug, pushing Hawk Moth into deciding to use Lila's services in his secret identity to have her push people into Akumatization.
    • In "Chameleon," Lila had threatened Marinette to ruin her social life and turn all her friends against her if she didn't leave her alone and stop trying to expose her lies, and Marinette dared her to. Come the episode "Ladybug", and Lila, prodded by Gabriel, not only does that but also gets her expelled, and it takes Adrien appealing to her pragmatic side and offering her the one thing she was after to have Marinette's reputation restored and expulsion rescinded. This is also when Lila apparently figures that Gabriel is Hawk Moth due the timing of Marinette and most of the school getting angry and/or sad enough to be Akumatized and a swarm of Akuma showing up.
  • The Owl House has Emperor Belos doing this to Luz Noceda. From the start of the series, Luz started off as an optimistic, but naïve, teenager who dreamed of being a witch. However, reality hits Luz hard when she comes to realize that the Boiling Isles is not like the fantasy world in her favorite franchise. But as time went on, she, along with her newfound friends and surrogate family, soon adapts to the Demon Realm's customs and learns magic in her own way. In the series' finale, Belos tries to trick Luz one last time, but the human decides to leave him to his demise in the Boiling Rain as she now knows that, after everything he has done to her and her friends throughout the entire series, he is not worth saving.
  • This ends up being the entire plot of The Powerpuff Girls (1998) episode, "Bubblevicious". Given she's usually shown as the cute, ditzy one who is easily scared and the most Prone to Tears, nearly everyone, including Blossom, Buttercup and even Professor Utonium, underestimates how tough Bubbles can actually be, something that starts to irk at her as she continually insists that she can be "hardcore". Things come to a head when she's kidnapped by Mojo Jojo, who plans to blast her with a laser until she cries, summoning her sisters to come save her and luring them into his trap. Things don't go according to plan, as he just ends up angering her to the point that she proceeds to break free and beat the snot out of him all on her own. It's pretty telling that in a later promo for when the movie came out, it's not so subtly hinted that out of the Girls, the one Mojo now fears the most is Bubbles.
  • ReBoot: At the end of Season 3, Megabyte encounters Enzo Matrix, now an adult. Still thinking he'll be the same weak boy he was before, even as Matrix draws his gun and is preparing to shoot, Megabyte goads him into discarding the gun and fighting like a "real Sprite." Matrix obliges, and promptly punches Megabyte across the room, bashing a dent in his chest in the process. Megabyte promptly goes Oh, Crap! when he realizes that Matrix didn't toss his gun aside out of bravado; he tossed it aside because he doesn't need it.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks:
    • "Where Pleasant Fountains Lie": Mariner doesn't believe that Boimler's three months on the USS Titan prove that he's ready to handle dangerous missions, and asked Ransom to reassign him to a safer mission. After Agimus reveals what Mariner did, he gets into a physical fight with her, which completely catches her off-guard. When Boimler aims his phaser at her, she thinks that he doesn't have to guts to shoot her, but he does and she gets stunned. She's later impressed when Boimler reveals that it was all a trick to gain Agimus' trust and have him power a ship to send a distress signal without his knowledge.
    • "I Have No Bones, Yet I Must Flee": A team from Cerritos visits a menagerie where one of the exhibits is a cute, pink, marshmallow-like creature called a moopsy. Nobody understands why the curator is terrified to see it outside its cage — until it reveals itself to be a Killer Rabbit when it jumps onto a much larger and fiercer-looking Pyrithian swamp gobbler and sucks out its bones.
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: In "Lair of Grievous", despite just viewing Grievous' creepy trophy room filled with things taken from Jedi he's killed, the clone commander says they could take him "easy" since he doesn't know they're there. Kit disagrees and reminds them not to underestimate Grievous, but given that they cannot leave without alerting Grievous to their presence and Nahdar is right to say it would be a major blow to the Separatists to lose Grievous, Kit tries to come up with a plan to ambush Grievous that uses everything they have to their advantage. While they have the upper hand for a few seconds, Grievous quickly turns things around.


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Not a cosplayer

One of Nakao's boys threaten Yuriko after she changes into her Tackle costume and assumes she's a cosplayer. Well, he will regret that.

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5 (8 votes)

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Main / UnderestimatingBadassery

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