Basic Trope: A competent man becomes weaker when he's around his Action Girlfriend.
- Straight: Lance is very effective at fighting and winning battles. However, when his girlfriend Lady Bracknell is involved in the plot, Lance often struggles with battles he would otherwise be able to handle fine.
- Exaggerated: Lance is a master at combat who curb-stomps all his enemies. As soon as Bracknell is by his side, he loses pathetically.
- Downplayed: Lance is doing slightly worse when he fights with Bracknell, but not enough to the point that it makes him outright incompetent or weak.
- Justified:
- Love Makes You Dumb; Lance simply performs worse around Lady Bracknell.
- The main purpose of the battle is so Lance can see how well Bracknell fights. He stands by, but most of it's up to her.
- Bracknell is critical of Lance using violence, so he tones it down when she's around.
- Inverted:
- When Lance and Bracknell team up, they're a force to be reckoned with!
- Lady Bracknell is a good fighter, but performs worse when she's around her boyfriend Lance.
- Lance is usually a pretty bad fighter, but he can use The Power of Love to crush his enemies when he's with Bracknell.
- Subverted: It turned out that Lance was just intentionally fighting worse. She asks him not to let up and to use his full potential.
- Double Subverted: Lance tries his hardest, and he's still worse than he usually is.
- Parodied:
- Lance is an amazing warrior. The instant he even thinks about Bracknell, he collapses to the floor and starts pleading for mercy against his opponent.
- Lance and Bracknell regularly stop fighting to profess their love for each other... and they're such Sickeningly Sweethearts that their enemies get grossed out and leave.
- Lance is kicking ass all around. The moment Bracknell shows up, he drops dead.
- Zig-Zagged: Lance and Bracknell go through varying sorts of Character Development, and whether or not they're better or worse together is Depending on the Writer.
- Averted: Lance is just as competent with or without Bracknell at his side.
- Enforced: "Viewers like when Bracknell gets some action scenes. Let's have Lance in a situation where she ends up winning the battle for him."
- Lampshaded: Lance tells Bracknell that he feels his performance isn't as good when they have to fight together.
- Invoked: Lance knows that he outmatches Bracknell normally. He fights worse so she can get some hits in and put her skills to use.
- Exploited: Jealous Damien convinces Lance to dump Bracknell because she just weighs him down.
- Defied:
- Lance only goes on solo expeditions and doesn't let Bracknell come with him.
- Lance and Bracknell don't let their love for each other get in the way of their battles.
- Discussed: Bracknell, during a fight, says that she hopes she isn't slowing Lance down.
- Conversed: "Why does having Bracknell around make Lance lose all knowledge of combat? These episodes feel pretty forced."
- Implied: Traveling buddy Marie notes that Lance wasn't doing his best this time around. Meaningfully, this is the only expedition where he's brought Bracknell along.
- Deconstructed: This becomes a problem, and so Lance tries to distance himself from Bracknell so he can keep his combat skills sharp.
- Reconstructed: Lance and Bracknell begin doing practice battles together, spending time together while not harming any serious expeditions.
- Played for Laughs: Lance becomes an absolute lovestruck idiot and does incredibly silly stuff because Bracknell shows up.
- Played for Drama: Lance feels like Bracknell is weighing him down. They break up.
- Played for Horror: Bracknell is a succubus who weakens Lance with her presence.
You go, girl! You might not even need your Useless Boyfriend anymore!
