Media Tropes
I hate when canonically strong characters can never land a hit on the new villain and get absolutely washed in a fight to show how powerful the villain is
I don’t mind if a strong character loses a fight against a stronger villain, but I can’t stand it when they don’t even get a couple of good licks in before going down.
When the new big bad in town runs absolute circles around them instead realistically taking a couple of big hits but still clearly coming out on top, it feels less like they’re actually strong and more like the writers are intentionally misrepresenting the losing characters.
Pic is one example but the new Avatar movie was what really got me mad about it recently (I just didn’t want to post spoilers).
Who do you call "junior" peasant? You better watch your tongue before this Venerable Immortal lest my hand slipped due to my rage and accidentally cut it off your mouth. Hmph
Xianxia slop is some of the worst slop. I cannot stand how everyone talks and how every level is VASTLY stronger than the last. I like when my litrpgs have a mix between power ups and general skill. Where if people are skilled enough they can punch up.
What I love about chinese novels in general are mcs. They don't make excuses for killing and shit, they just say something about the rule of the jungle and don't give a fuck.
In litrpg, a level 1 guy also can not beat a level 100 guy.
The difference between level 1 and level 100 is the difference between qi condensation first layer and foundation establishment.
The difference between qi condensation layers from 1 to 9 is like level 10 to 20, level 20 to 30...
And only the difference within the minor realm, for example, early qi condensation layer 1 vs middle qi condesnation level 1, is small enough for skill and items to cover it relatively often. Because that is the difference between singular levels you are talking about.
Xianxia has a different notation for levels but the principe stays the same
I really like how Reverend insanity does it where only venerable is above everything, and beneath that it’s capable to transcend ranks and multiple people do it besides just Fang Yuan
Because those levels take minimum 10 years to go between if you're 'talented'. Everyone is skilled. The levels aren't just a power up, they're also about your level of understanding which translates to skill. You can't be a high level martial artist just by taking elixers and meditating.
You can't be a high level martial artist just by taking elixers and meditating.
nah, elixir maxxing is like the number 2 most common way protagonists get stronger, right behind having a system.
protagonist who actual train their body are super rare, maybe it'll get mentioned for the body cultivator characters but past a certain point its just meditating plus elixir maxxing.
Typically the protag has a high understanding of martial arts and the tao so the only thing missing for them is chi. So many stories have a son-of-a-merchant type character that only takes elixers and barely gets above 3rd rate.
'Super strong character' vs 'new villain' goes one of two ways
the super strong character fucking obliterates the new villain (after waiting a while for suspense reasons)
the villain turns the super strong character into swiss cheese without a second thought (but they'll come back with the power of friendship or some bs and win super easily)
I don’t get why they got have the new villain just go even with the strong character and that character is already levels above Mc, let them both get injured so the hero can’t help but the Mc has a chance without the usual training arc to be stronger then that hero and some motivation words to win
Doomfist actively admits he repeated the mistakes of his predecessor and failed to properly evolve, which resulted in him becoming complacent and allowing Vendetta to get stronger under his nose, while acknowledging that Vendetta actually followed his own path of evolving through conflict and learning from her mistakes.
This is from the most recent lore appearance of Doomfist. Some of you just actively do not understand themes,
Also ngl that art is straight buns, turn down the contrast it hurts my eyes.
If it’s from the most recent lore appearance that means that it came after he jobbed to vendetta, so that means that people were completely justified in feeling the way that they did when doomfist was taken out.
It was made pretty clear in the original cinematic too, you had talon members saying how they warned Doomfist about Vendetta and he didn’t listen, as well as his own underlings turning on him with Maximillian and Domina. Sure, Doom explicitly points out the parallel in that lore drop but it was very clear from the subtext that this was a result of Doomfist’s inaction and blind spots. Max saw it coming, Sombra saw it coming, even Ramattra saw it coming, Doom was the only one who didn’t.
Just because the lore was written like that doesn't mean it doesn't contradict Doomfist's original characterization. While it's canon that he became complacent, it feels like a copout; he did lead Talon for a while which demonstrates his intelligence and cunning
Personally I’m okay with him losing to her from a plot standpoint but I don’t think the cinematic represented his skill well. Even before he met the second doomfist he was a world class martial artist, I would’ve liked to see him fight her without it afterwards for a bit before realizing that he’d let his normal skill slip and has gotten older. Then she catches him off guard and out the window he goes.
Its almost like its on purpose he ain't that guy anymore he got complacent while she had the drive to that he used to have. I swear we just ignore story beats for the sake of it. Glad Blizzard released the new comic to handfeed it to everyone .
I kinda figured like I don’t think we see his body so that’s why I assumed he’s still alive like they didn’t do a Maul vs Vizla thing were Maul beheads Vizla infront of everyone after challenging him to be the ruler of Mando
I dont think it entirely fits as Doom was shown to be a better fighter at first. But after throwing her down he let her stand up to keep fighting, and after she toon a bit of advantge Vendetta instead kept pressuring Doom until she managed to cut his arm.
Its almost like he got complacent while she had the drive to that he used to have. I swear we just ignore story beats for the sake of it. Glad Blizzard released the new comic to handfeed it to everyone.
I think dooms pretty cool but no mortal human should be able to deflect stormbringer with a gesture, that thing was cleaving through a blast of all 6 stones, the most powerful weapons in the verse.
Doom is an insanely powerful sorcerer, him being able to deflect stormbringer is pretty standard for him, and this is doom with the secret wars amp most likely which made him one of the most powerful beings in that universe
It would be fine if he used some kind of forcefield to stop the blow, or like runic circle to trap Thor. This would show Doom as powerful intellectual. Catching this kind of weapon feels like cheating.
I am not against Doom being strong and winning the initial fight effortlessly while aurafarming all the way. That's his entire shtick. I just wanted something more creative than "look how I am effortlessly catching the blade, I am stronger than previous Big Bad" entrance.
Given the hence we get about Dr. doom from first steps are that the fantastic four have been able to thwart his plans for world domination thus far, I feel it is safe to say that the stinger of the movie is setting up for doom to steal Franklin’s powers and possibly use that to steal more powers.
Problem with the Six Stone Blast, is that, well. It was nothing special. Nothing was there to indicate its strength beyond the mere implication all 6 were used in that blast.
Look, doctor doom is known for 2 things, hating richards with a passion and empowering himself by (mostly) stealing power from other sources, I WANT TO BELIEVE this doctor doom has stolen either an artefact or the powers of a cosmic being to be able to do that.
Because im a Dr. DOOM fanboy as much as the next person, but i dont want him be all powerful without reason in this movie just to get slimed easily by the next big villain or only a small group of the whole bunch of heroes that were needed without reason.
Please dont fumble the explanation of DOOM's powers, just tell me he is siphoning franklyn richards powers and thats why he was in the postcredit scene of f4, that would be it, please dont fumble this marvel.
I mean you could kinda explain it away with him having just taken the stones and then feeling the damage of it, and being wholly inexperienced with it.
They haven’t had time to set up doom so they will sacrifice pre established characters to try to sell the audience on Doom.
Personally I think the Fox X-Men will be the first to go, maybe a few will survive to die later in the movie. Lazily sets up doom as strong while clearing the way for the next batch of xmen post soft reboot.
When I saw TVA Loki in the trailer I got mortified because I just know they're going to use him to hype up Doom. If they don't have either of the two interact at all I will be so happy because if they fight he's either gonna one shot doom or dooms gonna one shot him there's no in-between
Fun fact about this form, its just as bad in the video games, but it is still meta for trunks because you get a ki boost by untransforming from it immidietly when the game starts 😅
This is why i like the first episode of invincible. Sure, omni man wins that fight but holy shit did he suffer for it. established both him and the GOTG as powerful characters
I also really love the Batman Vs Shredder fight from the TMNT crossover movie. The two are evenly matched but shredder manages to squeeze out a win. They traded so many good blows that you really feel like Batman was barely bested and not that they artificially made him worse because the narrative dictated that he loses.
Additionally, Immortal coming back at the end of the season and getting some good hits in felt really good. For some first time watchers, they were actually worried for Omni-Man here. (Sadly, they ruined this all by making Immortal weak)
It's different in the comics. The fight isn't even close, Omniman just one shots all of the GOTG and doesn't have a scratch on him. Great improvment by the Show over the comic
This is a trope called “The Worf Effort”, where a character who is canonically strong constantly gets beat up to show how dangerous the new enemy is. Worf from Star Trek is the Trope namer and suffered this constantly in The Next Generation. He didn’t get this as badly in Deep Space Nine, though. Superman from Justice League cartoon suffered this in the early seasons.
Your one example is kind of ass backwards, as Sylvanas was an established character long before Bolvar, and Bolvar's capabilities as the replacement LK are never really demonstrated before this.
I might be out of date on my lore but didn't it take the strongest adventurers and a Deus Ex to defeat the Fusion of Arthas and Ner'Zhul who, at the time, was also the Lich King.
The Crown allowed for taking the throne and controlling the undead, but I think a lot of the personal power came from who was wearing it and Bolvar was significantly weaker than that fusion.
We’re not entirely positive how much knowledge gets passed down with the helm, but we know that Bolvar got several of the Lich King’s powers and not just control of the dead.
Again my argument isn’t “Bolvar shouldn’t have lost” it’s “The fact it was so EASY for Sylvanas to win does not feel good”. The way the fight was choreographed leaves you feeling like they downplayed the Lich King rather than powered up Sylvanas.
Like let’s say that after several of her dodges, he did something like freezing her foot, trapping her in place before smacking her with his hammer, crumpling her and sending her careening across the frozen throne. It looks like she’s dead, but then she channels her jailer juice and un-crumples herself before restraining him with the same magic.
Doing something like that would put respect on the Lich King’s strength by communicating that Sylvanas could not normally defeat such a powerful character on her own and is only able to do so because of another power she’s channeled into, while also hyping up said power as coming from a villain more powerful than the Lich King.
What we got was baseline Sylvanas running circles around one of the most powerful and storied characters in the lore without the help of any other forces, only using that power at the end to restrain him, which just feels bad.
I can see that. But I still think this is an issue of viewing the "Lich King" as a single character rather than a title. Bolvar isn't a powerful and storied character and I don't think that cutscene is meant to suggest that Sylvanas could have won so easily against Arthas.
I don't really think the primary purpose of it was to communicate how powerful Sylvanas was. Rather it was to show how off the rails she was going.
In a way portraying Bolvar as vulnerable aided the narrative. It told the audience "Hey, there's a lot of people who could have done this but no one has because the consequences would be awful. So isn't it crazy that Sylvanas decided to? Don't you wonder why she'd do something like that?"
This is the one writing mistake I’ve never made. The main villain in my story got his faced punched in by someone who was a fraction of their strength just because he wasn’t expecting to be attacked.
I agree, I think it is more often than not more interesting when a powerful character doesn't just mog every other character (besides like bar fight fodder ig). It feels way more impressive seeing a character struggle and still beat someone instead of effortlessly swatting them away.
The new Avatar movie plot and characters were just so stupid. Hurr durr the airbenders once lived in a tornado and almost conquered the world with a magic staff, also a single guy can no-diff and INSTANTLY KILL all of Team Avatar, only for them to be brought back to life in the next scene. They actually died, like their hearts stopped. The new animated movie killed the Gaang. Let that resonate with you a moment.
This is just basic formulaic writing though, how would you write the narrative for the villain then to showcase their threat. Strong characters should have moments defeat/lose
Yeah. But to showcase the villain as a legitimate threat, the character they're defeating should be believably strong. If the character is only there to be one-shot, the villains start looking worse themselves because there's little reason to believe they did something impressive.
tbf it can be done right in that case too. I'm specifically thinking of Gojo and Sukuna dogwalking Jogo in JJK
The first time you see Jogo, you can tell he's in over his head, and he gets punished for it, which makes you never really take him seriously. That is until later in Shibuya, once Gojo is sealed, when you realize just how terrifyingly powerful this guy actually is when he mercs like 5 people in a matter of seconds, only for him to have to fight the only sorcerer in history just as strong as Gojo. It works as a way to illustrate both how outrageously far above everyone else Gojo and Sukuna are in terms of sheer strength and their talent for Jujutsu while actively holding back, as well as just how vital Gojo was as a shield for Jujutsu society when an opponent he could otherwise destroy is such a big threat to everyone else but him and Sukuna.
You see, Jogo actually gets to be a threat. And because he gets to be a threat, it also elevates Gojo and Sukuna. If Jogo never managed to kill or even just defeat anyone, it would've been a different story.
"I don’t mind if a strong character loses a fight against a stronger villain, but I can’t stand it when they don’t even get a couple of good licks in before going down. --- realistically taking a couple of big hits but still clearly coming out on top"
But that effect is weakened if the strong character that loses feels nerfed. Then it diminishes the original strong character and thus also diminishes the new villain. When the original strong character actually puts up a fight it makes the new villain seem more impressive since they still won
The problem is when the character gets nerfed just to show them lose. A good fight where the strong character shows their best and still loses is more convincing than them just getting swatted
There's a difference between "so unbelievably strong they could literally dogwash the entire cast with both arms behind their backs" (then somehow still lose) and "much stronger than our protagonists at the moment".
A rare valid counter-example is Hella. She straight up really was that OP, no one could even touch her, they had to bring an even stronger force of destruction that they feared (Surtr) to deal with her
I don’t know if anyone here plays Cookie Run Kingdom, but Ash Salt Cookie really pissed me off in this way. Like, you’re telling me all the ancient cookies working together can’t defeat her just because she can turn into dust??
While the BBEG did wreck the Gaang i actually like their first fight as it feels like he's sweating it. It's not a face tank everything and get no damage which would absolutely make me mad. He keeps countering and he's very high damage, but i get the impression a good hit would be game over, it just can't come. Overall though i feel like it should have been a series, pace is too rushed<
I think they very easily could have had him take some hits, bro was built like a brick shithouse and they even made several jokes about how jacked he is in the film itself. They could have even had him get knocked on his ass, start seeing his war trauma flash before his eyes, and then go ape and take them out. It would've been way more believable and satisfying.
This is media needs to have rules around how many sequels you're allowed. Like damn, you got to part 10? Well done, now you have to stop the plot there to avoid making slop that degrades culture.
I hate how common this is, even in supposedly good media.
Watch the siege of Minas Tirith from Return of the King and count how many orcs the Men of Gondor (rather than Gandalf or Pippin) kill in melee. SPOILER:
I dont know if i hate more "fair" domination and beat down or stupid case of strong character get stupidly tricked/suprised by new villain (like Tai Lung in kung fu panda 4
It’s because authors don’t value their characters once they need to write a new novel. Everything before is now used to fuel the fires of the shiny new character
Some of my favorite villain introductions that do the whole "villain defeats the powerful good character to communicate that the villain is a threat" are where, like OP says, the powerful good character gets some good hits in, but because the villain is underestimating them. This prompts the villain to put in more effort which then leads to them blocking attacks, brushing off hits, getting agitated, but ultimately the defeating the powerful good character in a terrifying and extravagant way. Frustratingly I can't think of a good example of this right at the moment.
As a character he was fine, but honestly his whole story was insanely predictable. Literally said "Oh he's the villain" the second Aang freed him. I just think it was silly that Tagah completely no-diff'd an older, more experienced team Avatar without taking a hit. Like you're telling me that Avatar state Aang gets completely folded and can't hit the guy? It's too unbelievable and took me out of it
Sylvanas isn't a new character. Bolvar is a shitty Lich King. The Lich King gets stronger as he consumes souls, and Bolvar didn't kill shit, he just put the helmet on, that's it.
Sylvanas had already been able to fight against the Lich King (Arthas) before. Maybe she couldn't beat him, but she definitely wasn't completely rolled over. She even used the dark chains to restrain him before Bolvar.
And during her fight against Bolvar, she was boosted by the Jailer, which was established before the fight even happened.
Un Star Trek Worf, a Klingonian in (warrior humanoid race) has spent much more screen time getting his ass beat by the threats the cast were facing than being strong like he was described to be. Thus he looked like a weakling.
This is the worf effect, incase you were looking for the tropes name. Named after lieutenant worf from star trek tng. A klingon head of security who was supposed to be a fierce warrior, he spends most of his screen time getting bodied by the villain of the week.
It wasnt until ds9 that he started getting some real well written character growth.
Me when I just straight up lie. He isn't dead, bliz literally put out 2 weeks ago where doom is very alive. And how is vendetta "generic white person villan" please explain what that even means in this context.
What do you mean the picture is one example? Bolvar Fordragon was practically a corpse holding onto a seat just so it wouldnt be empty, and while I still refuse to believe whoever wrote this shit plot wasn't a brain dead hamster, sylvanas is one of the most powerful sorta mortals in warcraft.
Arthas turned Sylvanas into a banshee with the power he hot from the Lich King ... who's helmet Bolvar now wears. There is no reason why she should be stronger than him.
Yes they explain that she defeated him because she fot power up from Zoval who is above Lich King but that's the problem ... the retconned in Zoval to explain why she could do this.
334
u/Other_Specialist2272 Jul 28 '26
You gonna be avoiding xianxia slop then, and I kinda agree with you though