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Underestimating Badassery / Fan Works

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People Underestimating Badassery in fanfiction.

Crossover
  • A Lamb In Hell (Cult of the Lamb & the Hellaverse) often has this Played for Laughs, a constant source of comedy is the inhabitants of Hell assuming The Lamb is an ordinary Sinner only for him to say or do something to disprove this false image. Even after the Lamb's true nature is revealed to all of Hell, some of the more arrogant inhabitants still try to one up the Lambert and are just as successful as those prior (in other words, not at all).
  • All For Luz (The Owl House & My Hero Academia): Kennedy honestly thought he and his entire team could take down Luz even when she revealed herself to have a Power Parasite Quirk that has been Gaining the Will to Kill before her enemies arrived to confront her. The result was Curb-Stomp Battle as Luz DePowers them one at a time while killing them and ends in a near Total Party Kill with him not being the Sole Survivor.
    • Same thing happens at the supermarket battle when the 2 hitmen, 2 superhumans, and the witch hired by Tyler Wittebane and the squad of cops led by the Dirty Cop sheriff of Gravesfield thought they could eliminate the second All For One user. Instead, both assassins are assassinated, they are down one superhuman and the police squad are turned to Ludicrous Gibs. The witch and last enemy superhuman are forced to pull Screw This, I'm Outta Here before they become Luz's next victims in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
  • Anything Goes Game Changer (Ranma ½ & Sekirei): A Running Gag comes from everyone in the Sekirei Game to assume the various members of the Nerima Wrecking Crew are Sekirei, only to be beaten effortlessly when they try to either attack them or worse, wing them. Ranma helps a Sekirei in a four-on-one battle and win handily, while Kodachi not only beats two of Hayato's Sekirei, she also spanks him for his "dishonorable actions".
  • In Avenger Knight, witnessing Poison Ivy in action during the Battle of Gotham prompts Nick Fury to reflect that he underestimated the villain in question, although concedes that her use of alien plants may be tipping the scales.
  • In Avenger Goddess, this is a good description of Stane's attempt to eliminate Tony; while his plan would have worked in canon, in this version of events Tony has received training in hand-to-hand combat from Diana to help him be an effective fighter even without his armour, allowing him to throw Stane into a wall with his bare hands.
  • Avengers: Infinite Wars (Marvel Cinematic Universe & Star Wars):
    • Ventress does this to both Captain America and Falcon in their first fight on Naboo, as she initially believes that they won't be much of a threat due to her own combat skills and Force abilities.
    • Later, Cad Bane is outmanoeuvred in a fight with Spider-Man when trying to capture him as part of a contract from Sidious.
  • Boldores and Boomsticks (Pokémon & RWBY): This happens all the time between both sides of the crossover, as the worlds of RWBY and Pokemon are mutual Outside Context Problems. Team RWBY don't realize what Pokémon are capable of, and everybody from Earth is shocked when they show off their combat prowess.
  • The Boys: Real Justice (The Boys (2019) & The DCU): When circumstances force the Justice League to ally with Vought during a dimensional incursion, some of their villains also follow the League through to this world, and swiftly prove to be more than the other Earth's "heroes" can handle;
    • When the Joker delivers a public broadcast calling out Homelander, Homelander assumes that a man dressed as a clown won't be a threat, only for the Joker to publicly expose some of Homelander's more embarrassing secrets, such as him drinking Stillwell's bottled breast milk.
    • When A-Train tries to go after the Rogues, Captain Cold makes it clear that the Flash is more of a challenge and A-Train shouldn't assume they're easy just because they mostly use weapons rather than powers.
    • Billy Butcher, as lampshaded by Hugo Strange, seriously underestimated both Batman and his Rogues Gallery due to being blind by both his bias towards superheroes and his pride. He tries to take on Batman's foes and gets repeatedly outwitted or beaten before he's finally captured by the Dark Knight.
      • The Boys' attempt to go after Penguin and Two-Face's drug deal gets them caught by said villains, who remark that it was easy to track them down. Butcher's attempt to trick the Penguin also fails because the Penguin recognized him from the news and simply feigned ignorance to lure him into a false sense of security.
      • When The Boys attempt to go after the Scarecrow, Butcher thinks they can take him on since he has no powers and likely doesn't know how to fight, thinks he's stupid if he has no guards at the entrance, and thinks they can avoid the fear gas by holding their breath. The Scarecrow quickly outsmarts them all with a hidden trap sprung on MM, gasses Starlight when she confronts him and causes her to fight off Kimiko when she tries to calm her down (leading Kimiko to be knocked out by an ambush from Scarecrow's men while she's exhausted), has his men fire a dart with fear toxin at Hughie and knock out Butcher with a blow to the head while he's distracted by Hughie.
      • When The Boys try to sneak up on Mr. Freeze, he quickly catches them and freezes Kimiko, forcing Butcher and Hughie to retreat. When confronted by Deathstroke, Butcher tries to fight him under the logic that a Badass Normal like Batman being able to beat him means he can too (overlooking the fact that Batman has years of combat training and experience that Butcher cannot hope to match) and while his dirty fighting does allow him to last for a few minutes, he is still quickly outmatched and almost killed for his arrogance. It's because the GCPD arrive in time that Butcher survives at all, and it's because of Hughie's quick thinking that he and Kimiko are able to escape with Butcher.
      • The Boys' luck finally runs out when Batman arrives to deal with them and brings along Ace the Bat-Hound to help him apprehend them. All members of The Boys are easily apprehended by the two and they are taken to Arkham Asylum. Butcher tries to reveal Batman as Bruce Wayne to the public out of sheer spite, only for Batman to be one step ahead of him by having Martian Manhunter take on Bruce Wayne's appearance to disprove it.
    • Homelander attempts to re-assemble the Seven and "prove" their superiority by killing the next villain from the other Earth they face. However, when they confront the Legion of Doom- Grodd, Bizarro, Cheetah, Clayface, Black Manta, Giganta and Doctor Polaris- the Seven are no match for their opponents, with Bizarro breaking Homelander's arm, Black Manta torturing the Deep and Grodd almost biting off A-Train's head.
  • Child of the Storm:
    • While no one exactly doubted he was capable of being dangerous, no one imagined that Lucius Malfoy would be capable of fusing HYDRA and the Death Eaters under his command, much less using the result to briefly conquer the world.
    • Malfoy and HYDRA both underestimate the Winter Soldier for a long time, not really understanding that he can actually think. By the time they figure it out, it's too late.
    • And until the end of the first book, everyone underestimates Doctor Strange. Quirky, mysteriously knowledgeable, and no doubt deadly in combat... but not the person that everyone focuses on. That very quickly changes when it becomes clear that he's been orchestrating the entire thing - and, indeed, most of the history of the universe. By the sequel, no one underestimates him, and instead defaults to assuming his omniscience - which is also a mistake.
    • The Red Room and Sinister horribly underestimated Gambit, in terms of his conscience, resourcefulness, and sheer determination. Despite the fact that they are respectively the spy organisation that makes HYDRA wet itself and produced the Winter Soldier and the Black Widows, and a powerful immortal telepath who had spent a lifetime evading Strange himself and knew that Gambit had bent orders for his conscience before, he played them like a fiddle, pulling the Avengers into his scheme. Only Maddie knew even part of what he was up to, and she's jointly the strongest psychic in Earth's history. Carol later directly cites this as to why she thinks he's both decent and absolutely terrifying.
    • Regarding Maddie, both Sinister and the Red Room thought they had her completely under their thumb through a lifetime of dehumanising conditioning to be a Human Weapon and trigger words. Even given a few warning signs, some quite notable, they think they have her under control. Granted, Mjolnir unblocking a few memories was an unexpected factor, but they still horribly underestimated her independence and imagination - which proved to be their downfall.
    • A lot of people, even a number of his friends and allies, tend to look at Harry's Hot-Blooded nature, impulsiveness, and tendency to wing it and not look much further. As Jean-Paul remarks in chapter 40 of the sequel, these factors make it easy to forget that he's actually very, very clever. He's a highly accomplished practitioner of Xanatos Speed Chess by this point, and he's excellent at deduction - in the incident Jean-Paul's referring to, Harry's figured out who and (mostly) what Clark Kent is, based solely on Jean-Paul unexpectedly being in Kansas and the oddness around Smallville.
      • More than one person has assumed that Harry's default, in the sequel, is to overwhelming pyrokinetic and telekinetic power (not entirely untrue). They also assume that this is all he's capable of. This is a very, very big mistake.
  • Dangerous Tenant (Doctor Who & Resident Evil): Wesker not only repeatedly underestimates his enemies, but in the final confrontation he underestimates the Doctor’s skill at viral genetics, as Wesker's attempt to re-mutate himself causes his body to collapse due to the Doctor’s anti-virus clashing with Wesker’s new virus and destroying him on the cellular level.
  • Demented Verse (Harry Potter & Supernatural): The wizards underestimate the demons and vice-versa, allowing the demons to infiltrate the American Ministry of Magic while the Winchesters drive them out afterwards after Harry brought them in.
  • Equilibrium (Doctor Who & Teen Titans): Both the Doctor and the Slitheen initially underestimate the Teen Titans when they travel to the Titans' universe, but the Doctor soon learns to amend his views on the team after seeing them in action.
  • During Chapter 6 of God of War: Chains of the Heart, Thrúd comments that Sora seems like too much of a nice, comical goofball to be such a massive threat to the realms. Even when told of him severing two of the Eight Realms from the World Tree, she dismisses it as more the Keyblade than Sora himself. This comes back to bite her in Chapter 35, where during the tournament, she decides she doesn't even need Mjölnir to fight him. The end result is Sora kicking her ass without much issue, even after she decides to whip out the hammer.
  • Growth through Chaos: This is something Zeff tries to warn Kakashi against during their stay on the Baratie, but Kakashi dismisses this, feeling that Gin exaggerated the details of his encounter with Dracule Mihawk. It's only when he witnesses the latter's power firsthand that it truly sinks in to the Jōnin, admitting he badly underestimated how dangerous the world of One Piece is.
  • Heroic Myth (Fate/Grand Order & Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?): Several characters underestimate the Servants because they are considered Level 1 (the Level system doesn't consider past skills and experience, and everybody who joins a Familia starts at Level 1).
  • Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: The entire Apex sees nothing special in Chloe Cerise except she's a princess playing pretend with her little pipe, her puppy and paper prince partners. She's going to stop the Apex? HA! They'll end her first! While she doesn't technically end them, her death by Simon's hands is what causes Grace to realize that there are severe consequences to her actions and her lies. In the sequel, Grace even glumly admits that she was more focused on the Pokémon Trainers she met before than Chloe (who is also from the Pokémon world) and thought so little about her.)
  • Due to the way The Infinite Loops work, only certain characters can be aware of the time loops and as such, are aware of the massive amounts of power and knowledge everyone now has. As such, villains or other characters will write a seemingly unassuming character off, only to be quickly stomped into the ground.
  • Infinity Crisis:
    • In Powers and Marvels, the Rangers fall into this, figuring a normal human like the Mandarin can never stand up to them. Between his rings and his martial arts skills, the Mandarin easily takes them down. The Rangers later lampshade how they were holding back and made the mistake of underestimating him.
    • Arguably applies in Sins, Sirens and Strife when Batman and the Flash are incapacitated by Mister Mind, although to be fair to them they were unaware of Mind's existence and had no reason to expect a caterpillar to be a threat.
  • Justice League: The Spider (DC Animated Universe & Ultimate Marvel): Despite her skills, Amanda Waller underestimates just how dangerous Doctor Octopus was, resulting in him taking control of Cadmus’s cloned heroes and later blowing Waller’s head off.
  • Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!:
    • Izuku's scrawny frame combined with his mousy personality tends to make people underestimate him when they first meet. Kendo Rappa brazenly challenges Izuku to an arm wrestle, Itsuka calls him arrogant for declaring that none of the robots at the U.A. Entrance Exam could hurt him, and Shouto wonders why Endeavor warned him to be wary of a kid who didn't look like he would last five seconds against Kite Man. They quickly revise their opinions after seeing him in action with his Kryptonian powerset.
    • Due to being overshadowed by Izuku for much of his life, Bakugou tends to be treated as a joke by his peers. But even with his debilitating injuries, he manages to outscore both of the recommended students in 1-A on the Quirk Apprehension Test and scored more Villain Points than anyone else on the entrance exam. Come the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, he defeats Shouto Todoroki, who had previously talked down to him, in single combat, albeit when the former wouldn't use his fire.
  • Origin Story (Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Marvel Universe & Power Girl): Captain America notes that Spider-Man's main battle advantage is that, despite all his well-known abilities and feats that make him one of the toughest street-level heroes, he's still consistently underestimated by friend and foe alike. This gives Peter a great edge in most fights, as he proves in a Curb-Stomp Battle against the U.S. Agent.
    • People constantly underestimate Alex. Initially it's due to her holding back when being tested on her powers; afterwards, no one generally assumes that since she hasn't killed anyone (besides the Thunderbolts), she must not be holding back. It doesn't help that unlike most supers, Alex is continuously growing stronger due to feeding on solar radiation.
    • Alex in turn underestimates the Wrecking Crew since they're hardly A List villains. Because they use magical weapons, the group nearly kills her when she tries to tank their attacks.
  • Return of the Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe & Tolkien's Legendarium): Lotho Sackville-Baggins tells Natasha that they should have sent the Hulk to try and interrogate him rather than 'some quim'; Natasha counters that he'll wish Aragorn had sent the Hulk once she's done with him, and Lotho apparently spent the better part of an hour sobbing before he clearly told her anything. Later in the fic, Saruman's spirit attempts to possess the Hulk, but he is driven out with Galadriel only providing the Hulk with some assistance rather than defending him all on her own.
  • In The Slayer Prophecy, the just-resurrected Monk- a vampire enemy Batman killed early in his career- takes advantage of the fact that he has never been seen as a fighter, observing as he fights with Spike that he tends to kill everyone he actually fights so his true skill level has never been revealed.
  • In The Ultimate Big Brother, Monokuma badly underestimates Charlotte Katakuri, simply seeing him as a defiant student he needs to control: he denigrates him, tries to threaten him with a Gatling gun, and even attempts to make him the Sacrificial Lion for the students to cater to his whims and follow his rules. However, this is a more justifiable example, as Katakuri has outright supernatural powers thanks to Haki and his Mochi-Mochi Fruit, while the other members of the class are simply superhuman.
  • The Vampire of Steel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Supergirl): Supergirl tries to dissuade the Scooby Gang from engaging a Kryptonian vampire on grounds of being powerless to fight someone who can disintegrate them in a split-second. Nonetheless, the Gang proves to be crucial to defeat Zol-Am.
  • When Worlds Collide (NCIS & Supernatural): McGee in particular falls victim to this, dismissing Bobby Singer as an ill-educated trucker until he sees Bobby’s salvaged collection of books and constantly assuming that the Winchesters just got lucky in their previous encounters with law enforcement. At one point, he even tries to arrest Sam when he catches Sam in a cafe, only for Sam to use McGee’s own badge and handcuffs to cuff McGee to a bench while introducing himself as a federal agent, leaving McGee forced to call his teammates while a newly-downloaded app on his phone makes him sound like everything from Donald Duck to Darth Vader.
  • Wizard Runemaster (Harry Potter & World of Warcraft): The Veela leader tells Onyxia her people are "far more than [the] mere parlor trick" that is their Allure. In response, Harry tells Onyxia to "undo her parlor trick", transforming back into a massive dragon.
  • 10 times the Aliens, 10 times the Chaos (Invader Zim, Ben 10): Zim sees the superweapon he was supposed to gather, the Omnitrix, and disgustedly throws it away, thinking of it as a pathetic watch.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

  • Salvage: Both Pakku and Katara greatly underestimate Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. The former insists they're just little girls and two aren't even benders, only to later almost be killed when fighting Azula (with Iroh's help) because her offense burned right through his defense and his shoulder in an instant. Katara remarks that Azula is only fourteen and asks how strong a bender she could possibly be. The narration helpfully points out that Katara, who is a recognized bending master who has beaten several other masters multiple times, is the exact same age as Azula.

Battlestar Galactica

  • Did I Make the Most of Loving You?: Particularly applies to Helena Cain, as she initially assumes that Adama and Roslin are just a tired old admiral with political connections and a weak politician who got lucky. However, Cain soon sees proof that Adama is still a skilled military tactician, and Roslin makes it clear that she will use her authority as Commander-in-Chief to have Cain stripped of rank if she feels Cain has acted inappropriately.

A Certain Magical Index

  • A Certain Droll Hivemind: The clones are constantly evaluating everyone around them on the assumption that anyone might try to murder them at any moment. Misaka-11111 is alarmed when Abe Eiko suddenly spawns two Dark Matter knives and reveals that she knows about the gun Yui carries around with her. The Network ratchets their threat assessment of her up by quite a bit. Eiko also lampshades that Yui has no way of confirming that she's actually just a Level 1.

The DCU

  • Almost everyone in But Doctor, I Am Pagliacci underestimates Jack, though to be fair they think they're dealing with an alternate timeline version who was quite a bit wimpier. Unfortunately for them, they're dealing with a version of the canon Supervillains' Bogeyman Joker who is absolutely sane and much more dangerous for it. The only one to never fall into this trap is Booster Gold.
  • Funeral for a Flash: Col. Karshov and his men believe the newest Flash will be easier to deal with than the original. It doesn't end well for them.
    "Karshov was right," she said in Russian. "This Flash is so much easier than the other one."
    A yellow boot kicked her in the chest and she went spinning backwards, and didn't stop until she bashed into Molotov.
    The Flash dragged himself to his feet. "I don't know any Russian," he said, "but I don't care for your tone of voice, lady."
  • Discussed in Supergirl fanfiction Hellsister Trilogy. Berserker thinks he can just gut Orion, and Darkseid warns him that underestimating their enemies is downright foolish.
    Berserker: I would like to meet him, in Armagetto or any other place. I would take his Astro-Force and force it into his guts, before I ripped his body asunder.
    Darkseid: Underestimating my first son’s power would be like unto underestimating my own. All too many battles are lost thru one’s own arrogance, and thru underestimation of the enemy. This will not be done. Agreed?

Dragon Age

  • All This Sh*t is Twice as Weird: Invoked, when Varric recounts an incident back in Kirkwall. He and Bethany had been cornered by some gang members in Hightown, and their leader brazenly announced that once they had disposed of the crossbow-wielding dwarf who appeared to be shielding her, they'd have some fun with the pretty human. Somehow, they neglected to notice the mage staff she was carrying.
    Varric: I said, "What makes you think that I'm the one you have to worry about?"

The Familiar of Zero

  • Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji: Saito gets extremely underestimated by the students at the academy for a bit as they don't know/realize that he's actually a fully accredited mage. Once he has an exhibition duel with Colbert, this quickly stops, especially after he's made a professor at the academy (teaching "Magical Morals").

Firefly

  • In Forward, this happens multiple times. The bad guys repeatedly underestimate the crew in general and River and Jayne in particular, assuming the former is just a small teenage girl and the latter is just dumb muscle. In the "Last Man" story, the Six Rifles especially underestimate just how resourceful a young Jayne Cobb is when they take a contract to kill the robbery crew he was on.
    • In the Wrath arc, the Academy agents who defeated, captured, and interrogated River eventually conclude that she is a psychological wreck who underestimated their capabilities simply because she's a very dangerous psychic assassin. Then River reveals that she planned the whole thing and then cuts the power to the building while still tied to a chair.

Fusion Fic

  • Hero Academia D×D (High School Dx D & My Hero Academia): Riser makes the mistake of thinking Rias' Peerage will be unable to defeat him, being particularly insulting towards Izuku. During the Rating Game, Rias' Peerage wipes the floor with Riser's (the only two that remain unhurt being Isabella - who retires - and Ravel - who chooses not to interfere), and Izuku destroys Riser in a fistfight, finishing him with the Dragon Smash.
  • My Huntsman Academia (My Hero Academia& RWBY): Izuku's shortness, crybaby tendencies, and mousy demeanor tends to get people to underestimate just how fearsome and determined he is in a fight. Crooks who write him off as "just a kid" are taken aback when his Super-Strength gets them Punched Across the Room. More humorously, the people he tries to help in the sidestory "Charitable Disadvantage" can't believe that he's a Huntsman-in-Training. When he declares this fact to cheer up a young Faunus boy named Noir, the kid doesn't buy it for a second, neatly popping the larger-than-life personality Izuku was trying to project.
    Izuku: [after Noir was told he couldn't become a Huntsman] Noir, the people who told you that were wrong. I promise.
    Noir: How would you know?
    Izuku: [straightens up and juts his chin out] Cause I’m a Huntsman-in-Training myself, in fact, I was on my way back to Beacon when I saw you, and guess what? Some of my best friends and classmates are Faunus.
    Noir: [dubiously] You're a Huntsman?
    Izuku: [deflating] Ouch.
  • Remnant's Bizarre Adventure
    • Defied by Bruno Bucciarati, whose battle philosophy is to treat every opponent as if they are the gravest threat to his life.
    • Played straight by Emerald, who thinks Whitesnake’s warnings about how dangerous Jotaro is are unfounded. She is very painfully proven wrong.

Girl Genius

  • Raised by Jägers: Ducky might be a minor Spark who is such a shameless minion that she is outranked by quite a few people who don't even have the Spark, but she is still a Spark. She proves to be an excellent Escape Artist, is able to compensate for her missing eye simply by practicing with a coin for a bit, kills one of the most dangerous Sparks alive, and turns a fake rescue into a real one because she memorized the layout of the castle while drugged and figured out the local politics.

Godzilla / King Kong / MonsterVerse

  • Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Rodan is a little more confident than he should be that he can best the half-Ghidorah Monster X in a fight when he's only just met the chimera and hasn't yet seen what they're capable of. The fight doesn't go quite as Rodan expected, and Rodan later admits to himself that Monster X, despite being a newborn Titan, is capable of incredible brutality, and the thought of Ghidorah getting it back is a daunting one.

Harry Potter

  • In Empire, the Sorting Hat puts Harry in Hufflepuff so that he can have the advantage of everyone underestimating him.
  • In The Jaded Eyes Series aspiring Evil Overlord Tristan Winter (a.k.a. Harry Potter) tells Voldemort that he may permit him to rule along side him.. At first Voldemort thought he was joking. Then Tristan proceeds to demonstrate just how very powerful and well-connected he and his minions are.
  • The Odds Were Never In My Favour: During the second task of the Triwizard Tournament, Neville spends a while commenting about the weak, scrawny, and bookish appearance of Giovanni Ruspoli and thinks that he "didn't look like he was very dangerous."
    ''Five seconds later, the Venetian teenager conjured a bridge of solid flames, and Neville realized the proverb 'Thou shall not judge a book by its cover' applied here."
  • The Very Secret Diary: Tom doesn't think much of Ginny's intelligence or bravery, to the extent that all his lies are so transparent, Ginny only had to fact-check one or two things for the whole thing to come apart at the seams. After all, Tom thinks, there's no way this talkative, annoying little girl could stand between him and his massacre on Muggle-borns... right? Yeah, about that...

Homestuck

  • Just the Facts: You can forgive the Jerk Jocks for thinking Dave Strider would be an easy target between his Geek Physique, eccentric personality, and penchant for spouting off seeming non-sequiturs. They couldn't have known that he was actually a Time Master and Master Swordsman, who'd spent three years in a Sburb session and had been deposited back into his pre-Sburb life. Naturally, they stop picking on him after he handily kicks their asses and shows off his Super-Reflexes during a game of dodgeball.

The Hunger Games

  • Cheating Death: Those That Lived:
    • One year, the careers are tormenting the weaker tributes as usual and zeroed in on a pudgy fourteen-year-old from District 10 by the name of Lammy Phyronix — constantly belittling her, repeatedly likening her to a "fat pig" both before and during the Games, and writing her off as a non-threat that they could easily kill. This proves to be a big mistake: said fourteen-year-old happens to be the daughter of a famous trapper, and has all the skills she needs to live off the arena and rig up lethal traps, letting her slowly pick off the entire Career pack — all without having seen another tribute after first launching into the arena.
    • Another year, District 10's female tribute was from a family known for being incredibly kooky, causing her to be dismissed as just a crazy hillbilly. Pasture Gallows would go on to live up to her surname, killing a record-breaking 12 tributes by walloping them with a shoe.
    • Rhyder Overwhill was reaped at fourteen for a Games with the odds rigged against him. While he had plenty of sponsors due to his parents Baron and Runa (both being Victors, and the first two Victors of District 2 to boot), all of his gifts were delayed, and the Gamemakers targeted him with their traps while ignoring the other tributes. While President Snow and Elias Overwhill anticipated Rhyder's parents training him in case he was rigged into taking part in the Games, they thought Rhyder's young age, their meddling, and his earning the enmity of practically every other tribute due to his father being the original Career would be enough to ensure his death. Unfortunately for the two, they underestimated Rhyder's capabilities (especially his skill at climbing), ingenuity, and tenacity. Rhyder becomes one of the youngest Victors in the history of the Hunger Games, with Snow failing to use his death to send his intended message to both Baron and Runa. Elias is written out of history before being unceremoniously executed.

Kim Possible

  • In "Dark Legacy", Zorpox ultimately falls victim to this on two levels when he tries to use the Attitudinator to turn Kim evil; firstly he didn’t consider that Kim’s evil identity (Sheela of the Leopard People) wouldn’t be content to be his sidekick, and secondly he didn’t consider that Kim would have anticipated this particular scheme and devised a means of protecting herself from the morality switch, with the result that she was faking being evil until she could turn Ron back to normal.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

  • If I Could Start Again: Ebony Maw severely underestimates both Thor and the Grandmaster. The former utterly obliterates Cull Obsidian once he stops playing around and the latter reacts with annoyance when Maw impulsively impales him with several spears. In the Grandmaster's case, it occurs to Ebony Maw that he should have considered that Thanos is willing to do business with the man and give in to his demands rather than simply conquer Sakaar.
  • In The Other Side (memoriaeterna), Quentin Beck assumes that Peter is a naïve teenager who is genuinely overwhelmed by his responsibilities and would be eager to pass on his role as the hero to someone else. As a result, Beck is unprepared to realise that everyone working in Avengers Tower genuinely follows Peter’s plans to undo the Snap, to say nothing of the idea that Peter could see through his plan and take him by surprise.
  • The Third Life of Steve Rogers: In 1991 Frank Rumlow and a four-man Hydra team attempt to capture a doctor and her family who they had determined were involved in the death of a Hydra agent and the theft of various notes on the super-soldier-serum. Unfortunately for them, Doctor Sarah Capecci is the daughter of Peggy Carter and Steve Rogers, and while she doesn't like to fight, she inherited enough of her father's super-soldier physiology that she manages to take down the entire team basically by herself.

Marvel Comics

  • Ultimate Sleepwalker: The New Dreams: Features Psycho for Hire Bullseye, who brags about being an A-list supervillain and mocks the supposedly C-list 8-Ball when they end up fighting during a Mob War. The ensuing fight ends with 8-Ball using his jet-propelled cue stick to flick Bullseye's detached head into a garbage can.

My Little Pony

  • To Dethrone a Princess: A group of rebels use an artifact to cut off Princess Celestia from the sun and thus most of her magic, reducing her magical power to a bit above a rather powerful unicorn. Then General Iron Hammer learns that not only is Celestia far, far older than a mere thousand years but that she was an Earth Pony before becoming an alicorn. Lastly, she asks him a simple question:
    Celestia: What was the ancient Romane word for "brawler"?
    General Iron Hammer: Brawler, brawler... let's see... Started with a "K"... no, "C". Calasta? No... cel... celastiar? Yes, celastiar! ...Oh, no...
    Celestia: That's right, General. They named it after me.
  • A Diplomatic Visit: Chapter 8 of the sequel Diplomat at Large has a three-way conversation between Thorax, Pharynx, and Luna, during which Luna expects that Tempest would think Princess Cadance would be too soft to really understand her. Pharynx points out that it would be an example of this, and that they'd need to remedy that by telling her of Cadance's history facing Chrysalis, Sombra, and Prismia.
  • Pony POV Series: One of Queen Chrysalis' biggest flaws is constantly dismissing "background characters" as unimportant and not taking them into consideration when forming her plans.
  • The Two Sides of Daring Do: A clone of Daring Do severely underestimates Ahuizotl because her memories are of the Daring Do books, where Ahuizotl is a complete joke of a villain. The real one is much smarter, has Super-Strength, and is an Omnicidal Maniac. He ends up giving her and AK Yearling a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.

Naruto

  • War of the Biju: Many of the Edo Tensei underestimate the younger, alive shinobi they're forced to fight. Unlike most examples, however, they're nominally happy when they're proven wrong, because the people they're fighting are their comrades, even if they're dead. This attitude is due to lack of foreknowledge and an extension of their summoner, Kabuto's, will, who has made this mistake constantly even though he should know better by now.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

  • A Crown of Stars: Although he was paranoid, Jinnai never took Shinji and Asuka — the only people who could pilot an Evangelion and the reason he had been capable of overthrowing his predecessor — seriously. He thought he would have an alternative that would render them obsolete very soon and that they were only two broken kids who could not threaten him. He was very, very wrong.
  • Advice and Trust: Gendo thinks that his pilots are easily manipulable tools with no real power -so that he fires Shinji and Asuka without second thoughts-. Yet those kids were helping Rei to become her own person (without his knowledge), were slowly discovering the secret of the Evas together (again, without his knowledge), and when the dummy plug system failed they returned on their own and defeated the enemy.
  • Doing It Right This Time: When Rei sorties to fight Sachiel, Misato informs her of the location of the nearest weaponry building. Rei, though, answers she would prefer to solve that situation with her bare hands. Misato thinks that Rei is underestimating her enemy and about to get beaten... until Rei starts destroying Sachiel in spectacular fashion.
    Misato: Rei, there's a weapon locker a hundred metres to the north of your position.
    Rei: Thank you for the thought, Captain, but that will not be necessary. [...] I would prefer to solve this problem in a more... hands-on fashion.
    Misato: Rei, I really don't think that's a good idea!
    Rei: Excuse me, Captain, I have an Angel to kill.
    Misato: This is not going to end... Holy shit.
    Ritsuko: I'm not wild about her methods, [...] but I can't argue with her results. I wonder if they even have reproductive organs there?
  • HERZ: SEELE is utterly convinced that nothing can stop them and the Children are not an obstacle. When the Final Battle started Shinji, Asuka, and Rei working together ruined SEELE's plan forever. And they only took five minutes!
  • Role-Playing (Evangelion): The pilots get to reenact several scenes of Nerv's history, unaware that they are being watched by the commanders. After several spying sessions, Gendo and Fuyutuski wonder how Asuka managed to obtain the records of everything that has transpired in the command center. They are forced to conclude the kids are more resourceful than they believed.
    Fuyutsuki: That's exactly it. The records of...
    Gendo: Everything that's gone on in the command center up to this point. They've obtained them and have studied them quite carefully.
    Fuyutsuki: But... how? The security...
    Gendo: They are more resourceful than we had anticipated. Be thankful they are working for us, and not for SEELE.
  • The Second Try: Gendo thought that Asuka wasn't in a position to make threats after being arrested and handcuffed. He taunted her, and she nearly killed him.

RWBY

  • Children of Remnant: When Weiss has her Freak Out, Pyrrha blows through her guards in a second, taking special care not to kill anyone but still breaking Clover's hand in the process. After, Qrow (who was present) notes that while he was taken by surprise, now that he's got her measure he thinks he can take her in a fair fight. Later, Pyrrha has her own Freak Out, where she jumps in the Emerald Forest, kills half the Grimm there, and then gets into a fistfight with Emerald. Qrow and the others realize that no, a normal Huntsman cannot take Pyrrha in a fair fight. She's the World's Best Warrior; she could probably kill most of their army by herself, and if she was serious she'd have an army of Grimm backing her up. Oh, and everyone assumed that Emerald was a Fragile Speedster since she's the family assassin, and then they watched her survive one of Pyrrha's punches.

Stargate

  • "Ending Before We Begin" features a variation of Ba'al's plan in Stargate: Continuum; this time one of Ba'al's clones goes back just over a decade, and manages to abduct Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, and Sam Carter before Daniel's even been brought into the Stargate program, intending to use his knowledge of the future to basically stop the Stargate program in its infancy. Unfortunately for Ba'al, just because these three aren't yet part of SG-1 doesn't mean they can't still kick ass; the trio manage to kill Hathor (who Ba'al had intended to place in Sam) before Jack sacrifices himself to let Sam and Daniel escape, and while Ba'al attempts to use the resurrected Charlie O'Neill as a hostage, Jack nevertheless manages to abandon Ba'al somewhere in Antarctica before returning home.
  • What You Already Know: While several people obviously underestimate what Daniel Jackson can do before they learn about his new psychic abilities, various characters make it clear that they admire Daniel's natural intelligence, compassion, and courage, as well as his ability to make leaps of logic even when dealing with unfamiliar concepts. When Doctor McKay dismisses Daniel as 'just' an archaeologist, Sam counters that Daniel achieved three different doctorates at a remarkable age and has such a great natural intellect that she's certain he would have made McKay look like an idiot if Daniel had pursued a career in any of the sciences that McKay specialises in.

Supernatural

  • Already Dead: Mixes this with Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance; during Gadreel's time using Sam as a vessel, he contacts the angel Damael about the possibility of Damael joining Metatron's forces, but when Damael learns that Gadreel has taken Sam as a vessel and left Dean alive, Damael concludes that Bartholomew at least has a better chance of surviving the next week after Gadreel and Metatron have pissed off Dean Winchester without killing him.

Transformers

  • Things We Don't Tell Humans: Jolt does this to Bumblebee. In the flashbacks, most of Terratron's other students do this to Prowl when they first meet, and Megatron does this to Optimus Prime when they have their first "argument" as rulers. Starscream severely underestimates Faust, too.

Unsorted

  • In Power Girl fanfic A Force of Four, the trio of Kryptonian criminals are initially reluctant to take part in Badra's plan... until she tells them Superman is dead and his female cousin is the world’s guardian now. They think they can take on Power Girl easily. Big mistake.
    Mala's eyes went wide with pain and surprise. He'd expected this job to be a walk. Two of them against a girl? No problem. Three of them had taken down the great Superman.
    Now, the pain in his abdomen and his lack of breath were forcing him to reconsider matters.
  • In Blood Man Luffy, Smoker severely underestimates Luffy due to thinking Luffy ate a paramecia devil fruit when he'd actually eaten a logia. Though to be fair to Smoker, virtually all information on the particular fruit had been erased from existence by the World Government before he became a marine.
  • In Chasing Dragons, the Lords Resolute (the leaders of the Upper Mander Rebellion) are convinced that Stannis' various military victories are circumstantial flukes, and that he'll fail against their righteous cause. Needless to say, he's soon curb-stomping their forces.
  • Evangelion 303: Asuka thought that she could deal with a rookie any day of the week. It turned out that rookie –Shinji- was just as good as her and won their friendly duel.
  • Dungeon Keeper Ami:
    • Keeper Mercury was a nobody at best and an infamous deviant keeper with a losing streak at worst. Many underworlders and heroes underestimated her because of that, and often faced her expecting an easy win only to be unpleasantly surprised by her many tricks and consequentially beaten by her.
    • The troll leader Marda could qualify as well. Nobody would expect a troll, one of the weakest creatures in the setting, to be an effective guerrilla tactician and a combatant capable of keeping up with Nero's reaper and scaring Zarekos' dragon on her own.
  • In The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World, the four are simultaneously recognized as four of the most powerful people in the world and underestimated because of their (apparent) age and pacifism. Part of the problem for observers is that they cannot extrapolate exactly what any of the four can do because A) the four won't show them; B) nobody is used to people with that depth of power, which gives them considerable versatility that no-one can predict; and C) nobody is used to people who primarily use their power to avoid conflict. In particular, Ringo and George are completely underestimated, because George's ring does not radiate much magic at all, and because Ringo spends most of the story magically crippled. Though to be fair, the Guardians figured out how useful he could be if they could teach him to penetrate masks... to the point where they were willing to mind control him (and the others) to keep him when it was obvious the others wanted to leave. On the other hand, they had no idea of the true extent of his telekinesis, since even at his most vulnerable he couldn't bring himself to tell them.
  • Friendship Is Magic: The Adventures of Spike: According to Spitfire, ponies tend to do this about the Wonderbolts,note often forgetting that despite being most well known for stunt shows, they are part of the military. And they show it during the changeling invasion. Though this admittedly isn't saying much, considering how easy it is to beat a changeling.
  • A common theme with the newly human Biju in Eroninja is to underestimate everyone else. This includes Nel/Sanbi who was turned into a child, Urd who was born from a fragment of the Hachibi, and human opponents as well. They quickly learn that despite their appearance and origin respectively, Nel and Urd are Biju and that some humans can hold their own against a Biju, even if they can't win.
  • In Pokémon: The Series fanfic Symbiosis Poison Lance, a Weedle, tells off the Houndooms chasing after Ash and Mareep, saying that if they turn away he will spare their lives. The Houndooms laugh in his face, which turns out to be a big mistake.
  • In the Stardust sequel Mente Materia, recovered documents reveal that Vide doesn't consider the changelings, griffons or minotaurs a threat to their operations, to the point of not even including details on their capabilities or recommended countermeasures.
  • Four Deadly Secrets:
    • People are constantly surprised by just how dangerous Ruby is. Weiss exploits this when Venus and India are trying to provoke her into challenging them.
    • India, despite being flattened by Ruby in a single attack, is still shocked when Pyrrha points out he's only alive because Ruby had no intention of killing him, and that she herself is a little nervous about facing her.
      India: You know, suddenly she doesn't seem nearly so adorable.
  • In Zero Interface one of the professors challenges Kirche to use her strongest attack so he can demonstrate why wind is the strongest element. Unfortunately for the man, Kirche recently upgraded from a triangle mage to a square mage, and his attempt to use wind magic to rip apart her fireball results in destroying nearly everything in the room and burning him rather badly.
  • In the Naruto fanfiction Catch Your Breath where one special moment of Badassery will remain in the memory of readers for a while — mostly because it's when one stops and thinks about what happened that the epicness of the moment hits them in the face: When the poor, poor idiots sealed the Three Tailed Beast into Kei, the story's protagonist, and implanted the Mind Control seal into her, it was with the "foolproof" assumption that she would be helpless to both. However, they were very, very wrong, as absolutely no one counted on Kei having split personalities and successfully holding back the Three Tails, fighting the compulsion seal AND fighting the Kiri ANBU simultaneously.
    • Kei tends to be underestimated by her more murderous opponents rather often, due to a combination of having a plain appearance and a generally passive, mild-mannered Deadpan Snarker personality. On top of that, she doesn't gain true notoriety as an out-and-proud jinchuriki until her late teens, after which point the Naruto characters start to take her seriously from the outset if they've heard of the Tidal Blade. At that point, the only people who assume the unassuming stranger is exactly as advertised are the ones who've never heard of her; this happens mainly in the Crossover side-stories with the My Hero Academia, One Piece, and Critical Role casts.
  • Sort of Running Gag in the Robotech/Babylon 5 crossover The Battle of Narn:
  • God Slaying Blade Works: Luo Hao has a bad habit of not taking non-divine magic and weapons seriously, as she believes a Campione's natural Anti-Magic will prevent them from harming her. Unfortunately for her, certain things like Shirou's Traced weapons can harm her despite being non-divine.
  • The Night Unfurls: A common occasion. Take a shot for every time someone thinks they can either best or kill The Good Hunter, especially at the beginning of the story (or the whole remastered version).
  • Quicken: Gang members always underestimate Emma when they run into her because they think she's only a helpless teenager. Then they find out that she's a power-stealing berserker with regenerative skills.
  • Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act III: During the big fight against Kuyou in chapter 41, the gang is smacking him around, leading to Rason stating the fight isn't so hard and Ahakon outright calling him a joke. However, Kurumu and Moka, who have faced Kuyou before, quickly inform them that the only reason they've been doing so well in the fight is because Kuyou hasn't actually been trying, and right on cue, Kuyou goes One-Winged Angel and turns the tables on them in mere seconds.
  • Janine in The Sanctuary Telepath is often underestimated besides her more openly badass friends/family (the founder of the Sanctuary Network, the vampire Nikola Tesla, the real-life Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper, respectively), but she had a century to develop and weaponize her telepathic abilities and she's not afraid to use them. Adam Worth learns this the hard way.
    Janine: I haven't spent a century mentally linked to a teleporter to be defeated by one!
  • Kiba severely underestimates Naruto in Swapping the Cage because he remembers Naruto as the "dead last" and doesn't have the security clearance to know this Naruto is from an Alternate Universe and even in his new weakened body is well above Chuunin level. Once Naruto kicks his ass to prove he's capable of training him, Kiba easily accepts Naruto's much stronger than he thought.
  • The Tainted Grimoire: After Luso failed the mission he gave him, several months later, Baron Popple doesn't think he could win against Suzuka. He was wrong.
  • In Thousand Shinji:
    • Gendo utterly underestimated his son and all remaining pilots, believing neither of them could ruin his plans. He was very, very wrong.
    • Kaworu also completely underestimated Shinji, believing he could defeat him easily.
  • One of Naruto's complaints in God of War is that everyone he fights thinks they're "worth the axe". Naruto is a physical clone of Angron, Primarch of the World Eaters and wields his axe Gorefather, making him superhuman even without chakra. Furthermore, unlike his classmates, Naruto spends the entire Time Skip fighting in a war to get a handle on his abilities. When Naruto spars against his classmates upon his return, they're all frustrated by how he doesn't take them seriously, not realizing how much Naruto has to hold back to avoid accidentally killing one of them.
  • Due to her refusal to believe Sakura could have gotten stronger than her in Black Flames Dance in the Wind: Rise of Naruto, Ino severely underestimates the other girl. By contrast, because she's used to being inferior to Ino and always comparing herself to Naruto and Sasuke, Sakura massively overestimates Ino and what she thought was Ino taking her lightly was actually Ino fighting all out. Sakura realizes this after she knocks Ino out (along with fracturing several bones) with a single jab.
  • The Watcher's Council severely underestimates Buffy in Severing Ties after the latter is turned into Supergirl, believing that since she no longer has her old resistance to magic, Kendra can defeat her with magical weapons. Even though both have superhuman strength, speed, and durability, Kendra is functionally a Super-Soldier while Buffy is at worst just below Physical God. Buffy simply flies above Kendra then uses heat vision to turn her magical weapons red hot, badly burning the Slayer in the process. Worse for the Council is they almost completely ignore Xander and Willow.
  • The four, who mostly look normal and wimpy, take advantage of being underestimated whenever possible in With Strings Attached. In fact, they win the day because the skahs (and Jeft, for that matter) cannot conceive of them being competent, especially after George and Ringo are depowered.
  • In Juxtapose, Shouto spends his Sports Festival match slowly whittling away at Hitoshi with ice when he could have ended the fight in an instant just to spite Endeavor. It proves his undoing when Hitoshi reveals that he's learned to activate his Quirk based on body language, costing Shouto the match.
  • In Lessons from the Mountain, Maedhros admits he underestimated Morgoth because an elf-maiden was able to slip past his defenses. It never occurred to him that Luthien achieved her deed through sheer cleverness and resourcefulness.
  • A Gem in the Rough has Garnet and Pearl thinking they could fight An Ice Person Admiral Aokiji and have any shot at winning. For those uninformed about One Piece, Aokiji's powers make him an Elemental Shapeshifter to anyone without Armament Haki, so neither of them even had a way to actually hurt him in the first place.
  • In Kara of Rokyn, Superman gets shocked when he finds out his cousin has managed to beat Faora Hu-Ul, one of the deadliest and most dangerous criminals of their race.
  • Dekiru: The Fusion Hero!
    • Shoto underestimates Momo and Izuku during the Heroes vs. Villains exercise, and bites him in the ass when their fusion Moku defeats him and Tenya. Tenya actually warned him about this, but Shoto refused to listen.
    • The League of Villains during the USJ incident. Their failure to account for the students and their Quirks backfires on them when Izuku's Human Fusion proves powerful enough to hold off Nomu even without All Might. The rest of the students then begin decimating their forces, because most of them are Mooks even they can handle. The plan ultimately fails so badly that Shigaraki straight up Rage Quits and leaves.
  • The Red Dragon's Saber: Raynare and her Fallen Angel comrades completely underestimate Artoria Pendragon both because of their arrogance in assuming they are perfect beings with no equal and because she doesn't use holy nor demonic power. In the ensuing fight, they fail to land a single blow on Artoria, then she beats them into the ground and chops off their wings.
  • In Unlimited, Todoroki doesn't believe in the so-called Anomalies and is certain he's stronger than both Bakugo and Izuku. By the end of their technically three-way spar (Bakugo and Izuku were basically ignoring Todoroki), it becomes apparent that Bakugo is far stronger than he used to be and Izuku is further beyond Bakugo than Bakugo is beyond the others*. In particular, what Todoroki thought was Izuku using an erasing Quirk to negate his attacks was actually Izuku casually dispersing his attacks as they formed.
  • In Shazam! fanfiction Here There Be Monsters, several members of the Squadron of Justice did not take their former enemies of the Monster Society seriously until they found out the hard way their foes' physical abilities had been augmented.
    Bulletman and Bulletgirl hurtled themselves towards the Black Rat, their old enemy, who wore his familiar rat costume. Both were empowered by the gravity helmets they wore, and the sera that coursed through their bodies. The Black Rat only had his clawlike finger extensions to rely on.
    At least, that was what the heroes thought before they bounced off his body like rubber balls.
  • And Hell Followed With Them: Lancer underestimates Rider because when they met in life, Queen Medb always sent flunkies to fight Cu Chulainn instead of fighting him herself, making him think she is a coward who can't fight. She promptly demonstrates that she can fight by giving him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Acutus in The Zero Context Series is a draconic brute capable of pulverizing continents and packing some decent magical firepower. By comparison, Callista isn't that much stronger than the average human and has no magic to speak of. Acutus quickly learns that lacking those attributes is not a sign of weakness before the comparative waif proceeds to leave her defenseless in the face of a Kill Sat.
  • With This Ring: Lantern Zartok pounces on a newcomer to his training area and challenges him to a spar, only to later discover that the stranger is the Illustres of the Orange Lantern Corps, Host of the Ophidian, the only known Lantern with orange enlightenment. On the bright side, since the Illustres is responsible for training, Zartok picks up some helpful tips in the process of getting his rear handed to him.
  • Rocketship Voyager: Seska tries to goad Chakotay into taking command of Voyager for himself, claiming that a fighter like him should have no problem taking down a scientist like Janeway. Chakotay counters, somewhat acerbically, that he thought the exact same thing the last time he crossed swords with Janeway... right up until the point where she turned his ship into scrap.
  • An example that was played for laughs. In Legends of the Gravesfield Witch, Jacob Hobkins sneaks through a portal to the Boiling Isles. Luz knew this but didn't do anything at first because she was sure he'd die in five minutes. Instead he manages to survive on his own for a while and becomes an (annoying) menace to the local witches before they properly devote time to grabbing him.

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