Foe-Tossing Charge: Difference between revisions

Could be used in conjunction with a [[Dynamic Entry]].

 

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* ''[[Bleach]]''

** Near the end of the Soul Society Arc, three lieutenants try to block Ichigo's path; Ichigo takes all three down in two seconds and keeps going. This doubles as a [[Look What I Can Do Now]] moment (especially given that a single lieutenant gave him trouble several episodes back - though, to be fair, said lieutenant was abnormally powerful for his rank). Even more awesome because he did it with his ''bare hands'', even smashing one of the lieutenant's weapons with his fist ''after'' they powered up!

* ''[[Samurai Champloo]]'' once had Mugen being denied sex he paid for from a female [[Ninja]] posing as a prostitute. When she needs help later, she whispers something in his ear, and says she'll do it if he helps. Thus we have Mugen beating the shit out of a bunch of guard while ''unarmed and half-naked''.

* Shannon Casull in ''[[Scrapped Princess]]'' gets his [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], when he enters a room full of enemies and notices his little sister Pacifica handcuffed and surrounded on the other side of it. Let's just say it takes a [[Physical God]] to stop his charge.

* Junpei from ''[[Those Who Hunt Elves]]'' does this every time they encounter multiple enemies. Sometimes he does this to the women he's stripping. [[It Makes Sense in Context]]...

* Guts from [[Berserk]] lives this trope, is made of this trope, and will mow down anyone in the way of this trope. In the early days of the Band of the Hawk Griffith gave Guts his own cavalry unit, the whole point of which was to smash through enemy lines and scatter them for the rest of the army. Later on, when confronting an especially powerful [[Elite Mook]] named Gen. Bascon, Guts and the general perform a foe tossing charge ''at each other!'' When they meet, soldiers on both sides keep well clear for fear of being caught in the middle of the two monsters. Eventually when he upgrades to an even bigger BFS, he does this to ''real'' monsters, and with the Berserker armor, even to full-fledged ''Apostles!''

* Played for laughs in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'' when [[Tsundere|Yoko]] does a Foe Tossing Charge... to punch Kamina in the face. Reason? He got so [[Distracted By the Sexy]] his opponents ''jacked his [[Humongous Mecha]] from him''.

 

== Film ==

* A variant: In ''[[Spider-Man (Film)|Spider-Man]] 2'', a train-car of people stand united to keep Doc Ock from getting to Spidey...to no avail, as he shoves them all aside with ease.

* A staple of [[Wire Fu]] movies, notably ''[[Kung Fu Hustle]]''.

* In the film version of ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]: The Fellowship of the Ring'', Sam, Merry, and Pippin get tossed aside when they attempt to protect Frodo from the Ringwraiths on Weathertop. (In the book, Frodo is a bit more proactive, and attacks the Ringwraiths himself.)

** Subverted when {{spoiler|Gandalf and the Three Hunters arrive at the Golden Hall: Gandalf strides forwards unstoppably to confront Saruman/Theoden, while in the background Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli do the foe-tossing.}}

** Near the end of the Helms Deep battle the few remaining Rohirrim pressed in the inner sanctum of the keep decide to go with a boom and charge into the Uruk-Hai army in a suicide attack trampling and tossing aside everybody in their way. {{spoiler|The attack turns out not to be so suicidal after all}}.

* ''[[Blood Diamond]]'' has an interesting take in which the man doing the charge is actually trying to ''save'' the guy he's after, but the other think he's going to kill him and keeps fleeing.

* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZsMDgRhWsg Zhang Fei] in ''[[Red Cliff]]''.

* In the [[Chronicles of Narnia]]: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe film (2005), after Peter witnesses the White Witch {{spoiler|fatally stab his brother Edmund}}, he charges her, smacking a minotaur aside in the process with one wild swing of his sword. Just before he began his Foe Tossing Charge, he had been fighting another minotaur (and had considerable trouble killing it), so this could also count as a [[Let's Get Dangerous]] moment.

** A bit previous to this, the centaur general Oreius and a ''talking rhino'' charge the White Witch's polar-bear-drawn chariot, mowing down her right-hand minotaur in the process, in order to protect Peter. And it's awesome.

* In ''[[Airplane!]]!'', Robert Stack's Captain Rex Kramer refuses to be delayed on his way to the control tower by a gauntlet of evangelists and political activists.

** One must go back to the time when ''[[Airplane!]]!!'' was released. At that time it was very common to be approached in that manner in airports. Most people were more than a little annoyed, making that scene a one which prompted much cheering and applause.

 

 

== Literature ==

* Happens twice in the Battle of Five Armies near the end of ''[[The Hobbit]]''. First when Thorin and company (of 12) fight their way as far as Bolg's bodyguard. Second (and more effective) is when Beorn fights his way to Bolg himself.

* Vimes in ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Night Watch|Night Watch]]'' uses one of these to reach [[Psycho for Hire|Carcer]] so he can bring him back to their own time.

** In ''Thud'' {{spoiler|under the influence of the Summoning Dark, in the famous [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|THAT IS NOT MY COW! scene]]}} [[The Berserker|Vimes]] wades through a significant number of [[Elite Mooks]] to reach the leaders of his enemies.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files|Proven Guilty]]'', Morgan is said to have cut his way through a Red Court army, coming within feet of the Red King himself.

* In ''[[Safehold|Off Armageddon Reef]]'', by [[David Weber]], [[Badass|Merlin]] engaged in one of these near the end of the book. Merlin is an incredibly advanced android with strength, speed, and reflexes far above human capacity; he is equipped with nanoengineered nigh-unbreakable incredibly sharp [[Katanas Are Just Better|katanas]]. (Well, technically, a katana and a wakizashi.) [[Curb Stomp Battle|His foes are sailors equipped with metal armor, swords, spears, axes, and primitive muskets]]. To quote the book: "he went through his enemies like an avalanche, more hampered by their corpses than by their weapons."

** In "The Wish", Buffy and the Master each fling aside several vampires as they charge across the room to fight each other

* Simon Tam did this in the ''[[Firefly (TV)|Firefly]]'' episode "Safe". It didn't work but it was impressive. It worked well enough to make sure three townsfolk had a sore jaw.

* Played for laughs in ''[[Power Rangers Wild Force]]''. Whenever the normally shy and gentle Black Ranger gets inspired by his love interest, he turns this [[Up to Eleven]], mowing down every Mook in sight and the [[Monster of the Week]], including enemies the other Rangers were in the process of taking out - leading to some comical swing-and-a-miss shots.

* In the season 2 finale of [[Carnivale]], {{spoiler|[[Big Bad|Justin Crowe]] hacks his way through a crowd of ''[[Kick the Dog|his own]]'' followers with a sickle, to reach [[The Hero|Ben Hawkins]]}}

* In ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' 3.5, if a fighter has the "Supreme Cleave" ability, then each time he slays an enemy he gets to immediately move one square and take another attack. As long as each attack kills an enemy, he can keep repeating the trick, carving a long path of carnage before anyone gets a chance to strike back.

** There's also the ''Zeal'' spell, which lets you move through enemies and gives you some protection from their attacks of opportunity as long as you keep moving towards a designated target.

* It's not only possible but thoroughly encouraged in [[Iron Kingdoms|Warmachine]] to slam your enemies about the battlefield. More than one unwary player has found their key units disable by a well-timed slam attack and it forms the basis of one of the most simple assassination strategies.

* In ''[[Exalted]]'', this is possible and encouraged. Then again, if you weren't capable of charging through crowds of mooks and send them flying into the stratosphere, it wouldn't be ''Exalted'', would it?

* ''[[Nethack]]'' gets very much like this later in the game, with many of the more nastier enemies summoning monsters at the player, and killing them just gives the summoner time to summon more. Then there's the big room full of monsters before facing the Wizard of Yendor, Yendor himself calling a bunch of nasties (or even a clone of himself), another such room full of undead, and after that some demons and a bunch of [[Goddamn Bats|bug-summoning]] priests, right before the amulet-carrying High Priest of Moloch, and as the ultimate example, the Astral Plane with more priests summoning annoying little insects, angels and other astral beings, a gang of former heroes, and three Riders of the Apocalypse ganging up against the player. In all of these examples, beating all of your enemies would be quite crazy, when all you need to do is to get through them - and sometimes back again.

* ''[[Bloodline Champions]]'' has a few examples of charges in the game, though it's less tossing enemies aside and more causing anything hit to be temporarily incapable of defending themselves from the force.

* In ''[[Devil May Cry]] 4'', Nero performs one of these when trying to reach {{spoiler|Sanctus in his order armor before he escapes, carrying Kyrie with him}}. At first, he gets battered by enemies as his attention is diverted {{spoiler|to the aforementioned spoiler}}, but quickly proceeds to start throwing the enemies, before finally bursting through a group of them.

* ''[[Dynasty Warriors]]'' is probably the video game poster child for this trope... worse yet, some incarnations of characters in 'Warriors' franchise games (for example, Lu Bu, or some ''[[Samurai Warriors]] 2'' characters) can toss their foes... and worse yet, it's usually unblockable!

** Sanada Yukimura is known for this, in any games he appeared, especially [[Samurai Warriors]]. In fact, he did that in Real Life, obviously his [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]], tossing and plowing through the Tokugawa soldiers with only some trusted men, or himself alone, until he reached Ieyasu face to face, only to declare that he has ran out of energy and died afterwards. No wonder Ieyasu was so impressed and dubbed him ''Japan's Number One Soldier''

** In ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 6'', Zhao Yun and all the other characters with the True Speed ability do exactly this (once it's activated). And Zhao Yun himself did this in Romance of the Three Kingdoms to save Liu Bei's son in the battle of Chang Ban. (And ''[[Dynasty Warriors]] 6'''s intro...)

**** Gan Ning is also infamous for this as his default Musou attack. Once you hit the button, he just charges and DOES NOT STOP until the bar is empty.

***** Koei has changed the way musou attacks work. Prior to [[DW 7]], a musou was a warrior attack swinging their weapon or using a power until the bar ran out. Now that it is a single-button-press action with huge variations between characters, many characters now have musous involving forward movement, slicing, smacking or otherwise blowing away '''dozens of enemies at a time''' while charging through them.

* In ''[[Dead Rising]]'' there are several ways to do this. Just grab a nearby skateboard, shopping cart, parasol or any other handy melee weapon and off you go.

* The Tank from ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' does this in the opening cinematic, either knocking aside, crushing or ripping apart any zombie unlucky enough to be between him and the survivors he's trying to kill, even though the other zombies are trying to do the exact same thing.

* Wario has this as one of his trademark attacks in the ''[[Wario Land (Video Game)|Wario Land]]'' series, as well as ''[[Wario World (Video Game)|Wario World]]''.

* In [[Fire Emblem Elibe|Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword]], a few turns after your arrival to the Dread Isle you'll meet up with the Pegasus Knight Fiora, who in her pain after having lost her wingmates, tries to perform one of these. If you don't send out her sister Florina to convince her to stop and join the crew, she'll fight your enemies until either she dies or the stage is done.

* In ''[[Mario and Luigi Bowsers Inside Story]]'', Bowser sorta gets one of these. When he touches a smaller foe, they simply get knocked aside (and them poof into a coin).

** Get's a real one in the final boss battle. His opponent knocks him back and summons dark versions of all of Bowser's minions and the big guy has to march all the way back, beating aside [[Mooks]] like they were mosquitoes.

* How to use [[War Elephants]] in ''Medieval II: [[Total War]]'' - select your pachyderms, double-click the ground behind the enemy lines to order them to charge-move, and watch your enemy scatter like bowling pins.

* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'': This is practically [[Beauty and The Beast (Disney)|The Beast's]] signature move. If you hear him yell "ASIDE!", don't get too attached to whatever's standing in front of him.

 

 

 

== Real Life ==

* Cyrus the Younger tried to pull this during the Battle of Cunaxa, charging into the Persian emperor's bodyguard of 6000 horsemen with his own escort one-tenth that size. His charge came as a complete surprise and scattered his opponents, but his foe tossing was cruelly interrupted by enemy javelin tossing, with fatal effect.

* Pelopidas of Thebes attempted this during the First Battle of Cynoscephalae to get to his hated enemy, the tyrant Alexander of Pherae. He did not have superhuman strength, though, and fought on foot, and his enemy's bodyguards were not so amused by his attempts to toss them aside. Once they had disposed of him, they discovered to their dismay that his death was a [[Berserk Button|cause for renewed enthusiasm]] on the part of his army, which proceeded to utterly wipe them out.

* The Ancient Near East knew a type of cavalry which the Greeks called Kataphraktoi ("the armored ones"). They were custom-built for this trope; both horse and rider were completely covered in scaled armour and chainmail. Their moment of glory was the Battle of Carrhae, in which a mere few hundred of them completely steamrolled a Roman army that had been previously weakened by arrow fire.

* Richard III tried this at Bosworth Field in 1485. He came very close to killing his enemy, Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII) with his own hands, but was prevented by the heavy cavalry contingent of a 6000 man force with Thomas Stanley, one of Englands most powerful magnates, at its head. Against just 800 embroiled Yorkist cavalry. With the infantry following the cavalry. [[Oh Crap]].

* At Arras in May 1940, shortly before the fall of France, a posse of British tanks charged the Germans, who quickly found out that their 37mm anti-tank guns were useless against the thick-skinned Matildas<ref>despite the silly name</ref> and their Panzers IIs and IIIs couldn't even dent them. It was only many miles later that Rommel managed to patch up a defensive line of 88s and 105s, neither of them actually intended as anti-tank weapons. Only two battalions took part in the attack, but the Germans thought they'd been hit by five ''divisions''.

** Very few people seem to realise that the British and French together were stronger in tanks (and arguably with better tanks) than the Germans. Where they fell down was in the command and control area. There were other factors too: French Generals who'd e.g. been Captains and Majors at Verdun in 1916 were so traumatised by the 1940 German invasion of France that British officers had to pick them up and physically ''shake'' them to make them come up with a battle plan. Ironically, the impulsive and over-eager generals of the First World War might have performed ''better'' under the circumstances and with the same technology.