Misused: One Hit Kill

I feel that One-Hit Kill, in a few places, has been suffering from Trope Decay. There are many examples which just come down to "really powerful attack" or even "really powerful character".

Though One-Hit Kill isn't limited to games, it has a very distinct criterion in games - an attack which will kill you regardless of your current health or defensive stats. At least from what I've looked through on my phone, there are several examples which don't actually meet this - they're just very powerful attacks that will kill you under typical circumstances but can be survived by being tanky enough, or otherwise avoiding or partially blocking some of the damage and surviving the remainder. On that note, attacks that simply deal more damage than anything currently in the game can survive (unless it's something like 999,999 flat damage in a game where characters have 5k hitpoints at most) should not qualify in a game which can reasonably expect to be updated, as new, better characters or equipment, or higher level/stat caps, can end up making those attacks survivable without introducing any new mechanics.

As for non-game examples - it becomes much more murky. I would personally prefer this trope either not apply to games, or has some criterion other than just "a really powerful attack." Again, I'm on my phone, so precisely listing the examples I found will be hard until I can get to my computer, but I've seen the following in the anime/manga examples:

• An attack which is canonically very powerful, but ends up being The Worf Barrage.
• An attack which is very powerful, but the target survives.
• A character powerful enough to effortlessly cut down soldiers.

These are a few examples, and I will try to get to listing them when I am done with a trope launch tonight when I get home.

If we're going to make this a trope beyond gameplay, I feel we should have clear criteria for it. Perhaps, for example, requiring it be an attack that is canonically noted to be unsurvivable. Not just "no one has ever survived it", but "this absolutely will kill you." This gives it a clear meaning besides just being a very powerful attack, and will disqualify the examples that are just [1]s or a hero effortlessly taking down mooks. However, that might be a bit stringent - I can try to come up with something better.

Well, those are my thoughts. I feel the trope is being used broadly, to the point of losing much of its significance, and think it should be addressed.

EDIT: So I'm finally back on my PC. Here are some examples of what I'm referring to.

In the Anime & Manga page, we have these examples:

• In Assassination Classroom, Lovro's "secret killing technique" is designed to turn the tide of a battle between a skilled combatant and an assassin to the latter's favor. It's extremely effective, but only works under very specific conditions. He teaches it to Nagisa, who eventually uses it to defeat Takaoka during their rematch at the climax of the Assassination Island arc. And when the "Reaper" demonstrates his advanced version of the technique, it's revealed that pulling it off at just the right moment will paralyze the opponent for a few minutes. It's appropriately dubbed the "clap stunner".

Extremely vague as to how this actually represents the trope, half of it is spoilered, and the spoilered indicates that the technique doesn't actually outright kill the opponent.

• Berserk:
  • Most swings with Gut's Dragonslayer will instantly kill a man... and the horse he was sitting on and anyone standing too close by. Most Apostles can't handle◊ the full swing of this hunk of steel though stronger Apostles can usually tank it or have a Healing Factor. Guts can also kill a man instantly with his metal arm either by punching them or using the hidden cannon. Of course, this is not a matter of technique; when so much steel gets in so much motion, the laws of physics will have no choice but to let you die.
  • Griffith's first victory of Guts, was a single stab to the shoulder blade to the awe of the Band of Hawk.
  • Most Apostles can effortlessly kill humans with simplest movements, e.g Wyald crushed a man's skull by pinching it. Zodd in his beast form took Guts down with a single back hand when he first transformed in the series.
  • The Skull Knight, Berserk's resident Big Good, has the Sword of Actuation with which he can split dimensions with a single swing; it could've killed Femto had the latter not redirected it at the last moment.

The first bullet point is a guy who's strong enough to kill people with a single blow - and those are a dime a dozen in fiction. How does it fit the idea of One-Hit Kill specifically? The third bullet point notes superpowered humans can kill humans easily - but how does that fit the idea of One-Hit Kill specifically? Should a character be listed here just by virtue of being superpowered?

• In D.Gray-Man, several of the Noahs can do this. Tyki Mikk can stick his hand in your chest and remove your heart, or easily sever limbs. Wisely can make your brain explode just by looking at you. The Millennium Earl can devour your soul if he pierces you with one of his tendrils.

Is having a power that can kill people really appropriate here? This is about as useful as listing a spaceship as being a One-Hit Kill because it has cannons which can kill people in one hit.

Those are among just the first few examples I found scrolling through the page. In contrast, the page also has several examples which clearly define something as being canonically a One-Hit Kill.

Some include:

• Shigekuni Yamamoto-Genryusai's Bankai Zanka no Tachi has at least two attacks that can assure an opponent's demise in one strike: "Rising Sun Edge", which concentrates the flames of the sword upon the edge of his blade, burning to death anyone who gets cut by it, and "Tenchi Kaijin" (Heaven and Earth Reduced to Ashes", or something like that), which sends a concentrated flame/heat slash to incinerate the target immediately (more "kill outright" than "ensure demise"). In both cases, the flames are quite literally as hot as the sun, guaranteeing that nobody could No-Sell a hit from them.

It's clearly mentioned here that the technique guarantees that it'll kill whoever it hits, and that it's impossible for anyone to resist it.

• In A Certain Magical Index, Fiamma of the Right has "The strike that ends everything it touches", which annihilates anything it hits without any destructive force, meaning it cannot be blocked, and "The strike that reaches everything when swung", which reaches the target without any speed, meaning it cannot be dodged.

This example notes that the relevant... technique, I'm guessing (that should probably be better defined for people unfamiliar with the work) will just straight-up annihilate whatever it hits without being resistible.

Those are a few examples. The crux of the matter is that One-Hit Kill is used so broadly as to lose its significance - it's become just another trope to shoehorn any powerful character ever into. If the trope is used outside of video games, it should have a narrower scope, since we don't have the luxury of something like Game Mechanics to draw a line with.

Edited by AGuy on Jan 11th 2021 at 2:48:18 PM

Sorry, but I don't think we can work a TRS thread where only anecdotal examples of misuse are shown. An Wick Check would be needed, or a breakdown of on-page examples that shows a pattern of misuse. So declining this one.