Basic Trope: A hero who never wins.
- Straight: Bob never wins any fights he's in.
- Exaggerated: Bob's efforts not only always end in failure, they always disastrously aid his enemies' goals.
- Downplayed: Bob is capable of victories, including several minor ones. However, his ultimate goals rarely get resolved, and if they are, he needs help, because he is not strong enough on his own.
- Justified:
- Bob is completely incompetent.
- Bob is fighting an Invincible Villain and is thus punching way above his weight class.
- Bob is unknowingly being sabotaged by a False Friend.
- Inverted:
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain
- Invincible Hero.
- Alternatively, Bob is a Harmless Villain
- Subverted: Bob finally manages to score a victory.
- Double Subverted: Bob's "victory" played right into his enemies' hands.
- Parodied: Bob's a Boisterous Weakling, who cannot comprehend he's nowhere near as strong as he talks himself up to be.
- Zig Zagged: Bob's ability to accomplish things varies from season to season; sometimes he's got a decent shot at stopping the villains, and sometimes he is constantly getting fed his own teeth.
- Averted: Bob is actually a decent fighter with his fair share of wins and losses.
- Enforced: The writers want to make Bob's ally Alice look better by giving her an incompetent foil.
- Lampshaded: "Why does he even bother fighting? He's just going to get his ass kicked!"
- Invoked: Bob's Sabotutor screws up his training so he can get his ass kicked, helping the villains.
- Exploited: Bob's ally Alice starts planning around his failures, figuring he's going to screw it up anyway.
- Defied:
- Bob undergoes extreme training to ensure he is capable of opposing the villains.
- Chuck roundhouse kicks Bob away and takes over his hero role.
- Bob throws in the towel and lets more competent heroes take over.
- Discussed: "Why do you let Bob fight? You know he's just gonna get his ass kicked!"
- Conversed: "You ever wonder why these writers never let the hero win?"
- Implied: We don't see the fight onscreen, but only Bob slinking back dejected and wounded, while Alice just nurses her forehead in her hands and says "Again?"
- Deconstructed:
- Bob calls it quits as a result of his lack of success.
- Bob snaps and throws away the things he perceives to be making him such a failure: things like empathy and restraint. The result is a cold-blooded Sociopathic Hero willing to cross any line to get what he wants.
- Reconstructed:
- Bob may be a failure of a hero, but he's also a Determinator who will never stop trying to do the right thing.
- Bob learns from his past failures and eventually wins!
- Plotted A Good Waste: Bob constantly loses every fight he's in to the point where he's seen as useless and not a threat in order for his enemies to lower their guard around him, giving him the perfect opportunity to go all out on his enemies at their most vulnerable.
- Played For Drama: Bob never wins any fight and contributes absolutely nothing to help make a community safer or better, leading to everyone including himself looking down on and disrespecting him as an utter failure — and he hates himself for it so much that he snaps.
- Played For Laughs:
- Bob is a delusional dumbass who thinks he's the hero when he's really no better than a common muggle. The main characters eat popcorn and watch as he gets wiped out.
- Bob becomes so fed up with being a loser that he becomes The Unfettered, willing to do anything to achieve success, including becoming evil… and he still sucks.
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